So I really do not like financial matters. Do not get me wrong, I can balance a check book, I now my way around a profit and loss statement, balance sheet and all the requirements of my job. However, I get little to now enjoyment at the activity of “crunching numbers.” Now some people do, they have a satisfaction about a ledger sheet that shows 0 at the end. The get wonderful little dopamine hits every time they pay a bill or issue an invoice. Not me. Drudgery. So I have to do a fair amount of this in my job, so when I am at home, or doing personal time, I am not keen on doing any personal finances. I definitely live on the left hand side of the decimal. The term basis point gives me the shivers. It is no surprise that I have just always lived my life where financially things are good, not because I am a frugal person, but because I never want to deal with tracking expenses. Ugh. There have been times where I will just pay for a legit business expense, just because I want to avoid dealing with the process of accounting for the reimbursement. Bill Pay for me was one of the greatest inventions of last century!
So having said that, I am looking at that pile of tax documents in the corner of my office. Yep, definitely filing an extension this year. Why work on financial matters when I can push them off until October, right!? I say that now, until I see the interest charges for my laziness. Ouch. Anyway, personal financial matters is not the only thing in my life that I loathe to do or like to do but have difficult with it. The problem is very simple. I HAVE to do these things. I cannot get around it. I cannot hire someone to do my finances, and even if I found a bookkeeper, I would still have to be involved. So how do I cope with this? How do I shift from Guy the Dad, Guy the Husband, to Guy the Business Leader, to Guy the Banker, to Guy the Household Repair man, to Guy the Ultra Marathon Super Star. Ok that last one was a bit of creative license. Hey, this is my blog!
I think I have a good answer. I need to be schizophrenic. Who says this is a serious mental disorder!? Perhaps it can be a tool! I will call it intentional Schizophrenia as opposed to involuntary. John Nash, Darrell Hammond are involuntary, scary condition to be taken very seriously. However, intentional split personalities – that is the solution for my challenge! You see I need to develop a new personality. Guy the Banker. Hmm.. I will give him a name. Edmond. That is right his name will be Edmond. He loves numbers, he gets excited about the opportunity to relax in an office chair, pull out the 10-key and start adding numbers together. Submitting receipts, collecting them, tracking every expense. This is some exciting stuff! He can save $37 dollars on my phone bill by switching new plans, yeah that is right! He determined that we can save more money by heating our spa at 2am as opposed to 10am, because the cost of electricity is cheaper then. Edmond thinks of stuff like this! He is passionate about finding money. He actually keeps those CVS Extra Savings dollar coupons in the console of the car, because when he goes again, he can save $1!
Now Edmond only gets to come out once and a while. Lets say once a day, toward the end of the day. Then once a month for a longer session. That is all Edmond gets. Now he might get to come out on special occasions, like when calculating the amount of tip that I should give to that nasty rude waitress that refused to give me a refill on my water glass. I need to develop Edmund into a fully fledged personality, capable of handling the mundane, skull and soul crushing numbers work that I need to do sometimes.
Now that I am thinking this through, maybe I need to really work on Tyler. He is the ultra marathon runner personality. I introduced him many blogs ago. He was my alter ego many moons ago when I needed to run 30 miles one Saturday. Tyler does not take wimpy lame excuses for not performing well while running. When I created Tyler, I did not know what a cool invention I came up with. Now I am really thinking of some other personalities that I can develop, or perhaps already have?
Guy Reams
