Physicians famously don’t treat themselves or those close to them. In fact, they can’t—in Canada, and many other countries, it’s against the law.

There are several reasons for this, but a big one is that it’s hard to retain professional objectivity when making decisions about how to take care of someone near and dear to you.

This isn’t just true of physicians, of course. People working in many high skill careers can benefit from having an outside expert help them with personal issues that would typically fall within their wheelhouse.

This includes accountants and CPAs. So why do we perpetuate the myth that it’s somehow lazy or wrong to bring in someone else to help manage our wealth?

You know what you’re doing; you’re also busy

As financial professionals, we’re trained to see the full picture: how wealth is built, structured, protected, and ultimately transferred. We understand when to take risk and when to preserve capital; how to plan across tax, retirement, and estate; how to align decisions with long-term outcomes for both clients and their families.

In short, we know what it takes to steward meaningful wealth. But when it comes to our own financial lives—our legacy, our family, our future—are we applying that same level of intention?

I’ve actually been talking about this recently to several CPAs that I know. If I had to describe these people in one word, it would be “busy”. Very successful people usually are. Often they’re so busy that they struggle to make time for their own needs.

The reality is that, like any other successful person, many accountants would benefit from a financial quarterback: one person who owns the coordination, runs the process, and keeps decisions moving.

One CPA that I work with said it well. She’s one of the smartest accountants that I know, and she still wanted help because she recognized that her success had left her time-poor. She recognized the need for an objective external partner to manage the full picture.

But she told me she wasn’t interested in building her own family office either. It gets expensive, convoluted, and you end up with too many disconnected players, she said.

Her advice? Find the right person to coordinate everything properly.

A special kind of financial planner

When I speak with accountants about the kind of financial professional they value, many tell me they’re looking for more than just someone who manages investments. They want a true wealth manager: someone who understands the bigger picture and how all the pieces fit together.

What does that mean?

In a true wealth advisory model, there’s an internal team and a lead planner who coordinates everything: portfolio management, tax planning, corporate and personal integration, and legacy considerations, as well as the human side of wealth (by which I mean blended families, succession, a child stepping into the business, and other dynamics that shape decisions).

Experts deserve experts

As financial professionals, the CPAs that I know are looking for someone who manages a portfolio more like they do. They want someone who coordinates the whole file with constant oversight, integrates the moving parts, and connects planning to real-life decisions.

Most of all, they want the kind of tangible, applied value that we offer to all of our clients: real examples of planning decisions that have prevented mistakes, improved outcomes, and created clarity for clients.

Every financial consultant will tell you that they do full-service planning. The difference is that we’re ready to back that assertion up with evidence.

One thing that I love about working with CPAs is the challenge of earning their trust and the satisfaction I feel once we’ve done so. Accountants have an understandably high threshold for who they’ll allow to handle their money, and proving to them that we’re the right team to do so is one of my favourite parts of my job.

Let yourself come first, for once

Like many high-performing professionals, accountants often put themselves last. It serves their clients well, but it can leave little time or energy to give their own wealth the same level of attention and care.

Does that mean that their own wealth management should suffer? Of course it doesn’t.

More accountants and financial planners should behave the way physicians do; when it comes to our own care, we should readily seek an outside opinion. Not because we aren’t experts, but because we’re savvy enough to know that sometimes an objective eye is the best path forward.

We want our clients to have the best when it comes to their money. We should want the same for ourselves.