Is Math Trauma Hurting Your Business?

Math trauma can persist well after grade school and it prevents even the smartest business owners from engaging with their finances in ways that harm both their businesses and personal lives.

No subject terrorizes the young (and their parents) more than math. All those crazy formulas and theorems to memorize, the brain-numbing crush of math test anxiety, and the constantly looming struggle to find that one correct answer. It sticks with you.

And if you are in the 17% of Americans who suffer "math trauma," a condition in which the very idea of looking at the numbers causes true fear and distress, these memories can have lasting repercussions that can paralyze your business and derail your success.

Math trauma impacts your numerical acumen in two ways: by causing you to avoid or ignore all things math-related or dependent, and by impairing your ability to examine and respond to the true business story your numbers are telling.

Math anxiety is a major source for the onerous reputation of all things finance related, despite math's critical role in business success. Indeed, some business owners find math so terrifying, they can’t bring themselves to calculate the profitability of the products and services they sell, never mind work out the percentages in their taxes.

But math trauma doesn't just interfere with increasing your sales, managing your cashflow and being able to pay yourself well (and regularly) for your hard work on your business, it also severely limits your ability to market and scale effectively and build the strategic relationships needed to succeed.

So the question isn't how you can get better at business math, but rather how you can enjoy it enough to practice it responsibly without all the drama and anguish associated with it.

If you see yourself as a survivor of math trauma, take heart. You are not alone and there are ways to heal. It starts with understanding that math is part of doing business and you don’t have to struggle with it. There are people and tools available to help you with all that.

The first step to business success, whether or not you suffer from math trauma, is to begin working on your business with a true finance professional, like Christina Sjahli owner of ChristinaSjahli.com, sooner rather than later.

Putting the right financial foundation in place for your business is key to achieving success. As a professionally credentialed accountant and business advisor, Christina’s a CPA licensed in both the USA and Canada, she can help you start strong and finish even stronger.

It’s a small investment that yields big dividends for you and your business consistently over time as you build your business.

Once you have grown your business to mid-six figures, you’ll need to be far more strategic and pro-active in your business planning and cashflow management.

But there’s no need to struggle with complicated modelling and forecasting formulas either.

That is when you would engage a professional like Christina as your fractional CFO, providing you with the more sophisticated financial services required to support your business growth journey, but without the expense of finding, hiring and training a full-time Chief Financial Officer.

Why learn all your business lessons the hard way? Wouldn’t you rather know the numbers support your business decisions and reduce your risk of failure?

How much stress and anxiety could you let go of if knew what to look at and when? If you could see the impact of making small changes before you staked your family’s future on it?

How much money are you cheating yourself out of right now because you’re not harnessing the power of numbers in your business? Or have put your entire future into the hands of a part-time bookkeeper you are hoping knows what to do and is doing it properly.

(I don’t know, but Christina Sjahli can tell you! And it costs you nothing to reach out and explore the possibilities with her.)

You are one decision away from bringing home more bacon! Remember, it isn’t about how much money you make, it’s about how much money you keep in your business that’s then available to you to use as you wish. Your call.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Linda M. Lopeke, Founder of SMARTSTART, helps entrepreneurs, experts and professional services providers make competition irrelevant and join the 1% who succeed in business online.

She leads a $50M philanthropy program that helps digital business owners build their dreams with access to subsidized expert professional guidance made possible through corporate sponsorship. Don't let your business dreams die. Learn more about this innovative program and apply here.