Speaker and leadership strategist Brian Hilliard joins Randy Crabtree on Episode 256 of The Unique CPA to make a case that burnout in the accounting profession isn't a character flaw, it's "good qualities gone out of bounds." The work ethic and integrity that make CPAs excellent at their jobs are the same traits that, left unchecked, drive them straight into the ground, and to illustrate, Brian draws on his own early experience of getting sick three times in two years before recognizing that his body was simply taking the vacation he refused to schedule. The conversation gets practical quickly: managing energy rather than time, clustering deadlines to reduce background anxiety, and rethinking the to-do list with a whiteboard, a four-by-six note card, and a Sharpie. None of the fixes Brian proposes are dramatic, which is exactly the point: You can do them starting today.

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Randy Crabtree sits down with Mark Gallegos, partner at Porte Brown and one of the more broadly active figures in the accounting profession, on Episode 255 of The Unique CPA. Together, they work through what HR-1 actually means for tax practitioners right now in practical terms. Mark has a knack for staying relentlessly neutral on legislation while still finding the angles that benefit clients, and that discipline runs through the whole conversation as they get into the advisory mindset shift that tax reform demands, the uncomfortable truth that most CPAs are undercharging for work that clients genuinely value, and what AI will actually compress versus what it can never replace. Mark also shares how Porte Brown operationalizes delegation as a leadership strategy, not just a talking point; a wide-ranging conversation that manages to be both technically grounded and surprisingly candid about the profession's blind spots.

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Randy didn't expect to ever sit through an entire conference session, but Elliott Bastien Morin's "narrative archeology" workshop changed that pattern. What started as curiosity about excavating stories became a months-long collaboration that transformed Randy's keynote from five scattered narratives into a single arc that earned a standing ovation, and plenty of Kleenex. On Episode 254 of The Unique CPA, Elliott, the co-founder of 3Motion, explains how he's spent 15 years interviewing thousands of people to uncover authentic stories, and that he treats storytelling like an archeological dig: finding fragments, piecing them together, and polishing them until they captivate. For accountants who've always worked for their clients instead of on their selves and their stories, this framework offers something urgent, and as AI handles more compliance work, the human connection becomes the differentiating factor. The profession is moving from reporting to interpretation, and that shift demands something accountants haven't always prioritized: a cohesive story that unites teams and resonates with clients in an oversaturated world.

Get the full show notes and more resources at RandyCrabtree.com