What does it take to really master Finance?
You study. You read. You crunch numbers. Day and night on your desk. Endless meetings. Countless Finance webinars, and templates and Cheatsheets. So many formulas. So many analysis... And the charts? The Charts are so busy. So complex.
"What question am I actually trying to answer? Ah yes, the impact... Impact on what? Impact from what?"
You try harder, your analysis are getting beautiful (you copied them from the great thought leaders online). Your charts (wow!). You seem to be on top of it all. You practice storytelling to present data (nowadays, almost a religion).
Yet, you still struggle.
You struggle to answer that question during the meeting. The impact. "I need to go back to my desk to analyse, to find what the great gurus would say, to check my cheatsheets. The answer must be there... somewhere."
But it's not.
Why?
You lack one thing: Business Acumen.
What in fact is Business Acumen? And more importantly, how do I acquire it?
Some will say it takes time.
Some will say it requires experience.
Others will say you need to fail to succeed.
All true.
The same way that to be a good pilot you need hours of flight, in different conditions, with different aircrafts, to have business acumen you also need an extensive and diverse experience. And that can take time.