I once was a chief nursing officer with a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars so I'm embarrassed to tell you this story. As a chief nursing officer, I knew what financial terms meant as they applied to capital and operational budgets. I later started a small business with my husband and made a big monetary mistake.  Even though I knew how to read a balance sheet, I made the mistake because I didn't know how to apply some basic financial terms to my new role as a small business owner. Read more.