Quote:
Originally Posted by badgoodDeb
I'd much rather stick with understanding tech, and not being able to grasp finance.
|
I have some understanding of both. I know more about tech, but I know enough about finance to normally understand what's being said.
My point was simply the issue of defining
yourself as being unable to do something.
I got a basic grounding in finance in the 80s, when I found myself working for a bank. One of the roles I wound up filling was end-user support for bank systems users in my area dealt with. It was the days before Lotus 1,2,3 was on a PC on every desktop, and my area of the bank used a mainframe based financial modeling package to generate reports for senior management. I became the resident expert on it. I needed to understand what the numbers meant and how they were calculated, because I wrote (or rewrote) a number of the report programs. I reached a point of printing out a master copy for Xeroxing and distribution, saying "That number is
wrong! There is no way it can be what the report says!", whiting out the number on the master, writing in what it should be, distributing the report, then going back in and correcting the bad data.
It was the responsibility of financial analysts in the areas to input the underlying data. I got asked by a manager to sit down with and train an analyst in his area who was consistently failing to do it right. When I tried to explain things to her, her first response was "I'll never understand that!" I finally said "Joanne, your boss asked me to sit down with you because doing this is part of your job. You have three choices - sit down with your boss and see about getting your job restructured so you don't have to do it, work with me to learn how to do it, or continue to do it badly and lose your job. If your choice is number two, you have to stop saying "I'll never understand that!" whenever I open my mouth." She wasn't stupid, but had defined herself as being unable to grasp certain things her job required her to do.
I you don't believe you can do something, you won't be able to do it, and won't even try. I see way too much of that. A comment I made to the woman in my earlier post was "We step on our own toes, trip over out own feet, and get in our own way. We spend too much time listening the the little voices whispering in our ear saying "You can't! You shouldn't! You mustn't! You aren't supposed to! You aren't able to! You don't deserve to!", and we don't even try. (And too often, if we listen carefully, those voices sound like mom and dad...)" Another older woman in the topic said I was so right, because she had gone through the same things, and my friend should listen to me.
I can't undo a lifetime of negative conditioning with a pointed comment, but I can at least try to chip away at it and give folks the notion that if they tried, good things might happen, but nothing would happen if they didn't try.
Sure, the game is fixed. But you can't win if you don't play. I encourage people to play.
______
Dennis