Right Brain, Left Brain, Right Foot, Left Foot
When I was a kid, I didn’t understand when kids in school would mistakenly put on their shoes on the wrong foot. It seemed silly to me because the right shoe on the left foot or vice versa was so uncomfortable.
Like shoes and feet, the way people think is often slotted into two categories, right brained or left brained. If you are “right brained”, you are considered to be more creative and intuitive. Conversely, if you are “left brained”, then are more analytical and objective. It’s an over-simplification of how people think, but what often people pick a side of the brain and stick with it.
When I was in grade school, I exhibited right brain tendencies. I wrote poems and stories. I took dance and acting. However, I did well in science. Sans the catastrophe of calculus, I was always good at math. Back then, it was something I did well; but not something I really liked. One thing I have learned from adulthood is that you can be happy with doing something well even if it not your favorite thing to do. The feeling of a job well done can be intoxicating.
While in college deciding on a major, I was choosing between being a marketing major and an accounting. Plus, accounting seemed like a career that would mean steady employment.
Because of the internet, I tapped into my inner right brain creative in 2004. I started a blog about cupcakes. The next year, I quit my job as a risk management consultant and started accounting for entrepreneurs. Most of the entrepreneurs I initially worked women I met through Ladies Who Launch, an organization for creative women starting businesses. My first clients were jewelry designers, personal coaches, food truck owners, and writers. I helped them navigate the perils of invoicing, accounts receivable and bank reconciliations while also understanding and appreciating their creative spirit.
My early clients helped me to love accounting because I can see the immediate results of making deposits, paying vendors and entering invoices. Instead of focusing of income statements and balance sheets, I was empowering my clients by simply doing their books.
Because of “the right brain construct”, many of my clients were afraid of bookkeeping because it was in another language that they were convinced they could never understand. However, accounting is not a chore because it helps them to see how their business is doing quickly.
If you love to read, but you’re not a fan of accounting, change your perspective. Think of the chart of accounts is like the table of contents of a book. The income and expenses are like the forks in the road of a choose your own adventure book. Your bank account is your protagonist and your other current assets are its friends. Conversely, the all the payable are potential threats. The taxes and the loans are especially menacing. Making the right decisions can yield a happy ending to the story. Then you do it all over next year. The goal is to be a prolific as George R.R. Martin without the blood and gore.
The right brain, left brain dichotomy is a construct. If you own your business, you need both. Two sides of the brain are better than one.
