Extroverts and Corporate Finance

I'm an extrovert. I don't think before I talk, I prefer going out every night of the week instead of staying home, curled up on the couch with A River Runs Through It, and I drink tons of water (hoping that I'll have to pee more often throughout the day, inevitably resulting in shorter stints of solitude in my office).

Luckily, us loud-mouth, dominant types are rewarded in the workplace for our ostensibly faulty behaviors. Architects design office space now, completely built around the idea that everyone should have to collaborate all day long with every breathing thing in the company - also known as the open office concept.  Meetings are often biased towards the extravert's ability to think on his/her feet, instead of the introvert's aptitude to actually think about problems and reason through solutions - and then talk. Premiums are paid more for presentations than for substance and critical thinking.

In the UF MBA program, I'm always happy to see that class participation counts towards/against your final grade, and I can imagine that 1/3 of the class is not so happy to see this addition in most syllabuses. Whelp, in Corporate Finance with Professor Dudley, I became an introvert for the first time in my life. Discussions about CAPM and WACC and Cost of Capital and Risk-Free-Rates and Debt and Equity and Risk Aversion and Puts and Calls and Bonds and Stocks and the Black-Scholes Model shut me right up. I was at a loss for words, and every time I opened my mouth to achieve that 10% participation allotment, a sudden sweat would hit my palms, my voice cracked, and my pretend confidence was shattered.

Corporate Finance was difficult for me. My brain just doesn't operate like TJ, a sell-side hardline retail broker in Tampa, who probably could have taught Corporate Finance with his eyes closed. I guess I could be complimentary compared to Modigliani and Miller, who said with Nobel Prize Winning authority that finance is a crock of #$^@. Maybe I'm exaggerating their study, or maybe I just like to make myself feel better about not being overly financially inclined - either way, my ignorance in Corporate Finance made me feel naked and vulnerable (don't picture that - otherwise, a hairy back and belly and everything might haunt you forever).

It's funny, I took a few classes in Corporate Finance in my undergraduate business program, but after six years or so, when you have no need to calculate the present value of future cash flows of anything -because you don't have anything - you forget which buttons to press on the financial calculator.

After all is said and done, Corporate Finance was a great class, and the "hotness" rated Dudley was a good professor. He knew his stuff, presented it in a way that kind of made sense (it's me you're talking about), and encouraged thought that went beyond the numbers.  It was like learning a new language to me, where before, all I really knew how to do was conjugate verbs. And I suck at conjugating verbs.

I now know that managers are more scared of debt than equity, I know that Beta is an important yard stick, and I know that the cost of capital is the same exact thing as the required rate of return. I know that MS Excel is responsible for smart-looking people's smartness. I know that forecasting is somewhat of a guessing game with more assumptions than facts, and therefore, reason must accompany numbers. I now know that Dudley's quizzes are easy, and his finals are difficult.

I ended up really appreciating Corporate Finance and getting a B+ for the class. And now, with confidence, I can step away from my computer every hour and tell every living soul on my way to the bathroom how much I know about complex financial forecasting. My poor office-mates.