business & rofessional
"Happy 70th! To The
Detroit Jewish News"
I Don't Care About
Your Golf Game!
I
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Six locations to serve you
74 dune 14 2012
Southfield
Royal Oak
28845 Telegraph Rd.
Southfield, 48034
Phone: (248) 353-4700
27054 Woodward Ave.
Royal Oak, 48067
Phone: (248) 547-3450
Birmingham
Troy
34745 Woodward Ave.
Birmingham, 48009
Phone: (248) 646-5533
2835 W. Maple Rd.
Troy, 48084
Phone: (248) 280-0490
Rochester
West Bloomfield
2728 S. Rochester Rd.
Rochester, 48307
Phone: (248) 852-7715
6620 Orchard Lake Rd.
West Bloomfield, 48322
Phone: (248) 851-9780
don't care. Trust me. I don't
care, and aside from you, no one
cares! Do you have a clue what
I'm talking about?
Anyone who knows a golfer — even
if they themselves golf — utters these
words in their mind when
a compulsive force over-
comes their friend to reveal
every detail of their 18-hole
journey. Why would anyone
think the person they are
chatting with cares about
the shot hit out of the trap
on No. 13?
Why do we devote a
substantial amount of
time to talking about
trivial matters? What is
trivial? Well, health issues,
our children and our parents are
certainly not trivial. Vacations, the
weather, food, traffic and, of course,
gossip — these are trivial.
Some things that are not trivial
but that we avoid discussing with
almost everybody are money issues.
This is, of course, not the same
as gossiping about other people
who are having problems. ("Shhh,
did you hear so-and-so lost their
home?")
There seems to be some perverse
compulsion to talk about the plight
of others, but banish
the thought that you
are at dinner with a
friend and you say,
"There is no way I
can come up with the
money to pay my
kid's tuition. I don't
know what to do."
For one reason
or another, we
don't trust our
friends to respect
our need for privacy and
resist that gossip compul-
sion. Our need to maintain
appearances overrides
our desire to seek help
and share the anxiety we
sometimes face.
This is true in areas
other than our finances,
such as personal emo-
tional trauma in domestic
matters and substance
abuse. Can we change this?
Well, we shouldn't start
blurting our most personal
issues out to everyone we
meet and not worry if
they spread like wildfire through the
community, but keeping tight-lipped
is not the solution.
We must find the right person to
confide in to help us with issues for
which we lack the fortitude or ability
to address. A close friend
or a professional is the
answer. People often forget
that the professional —
the doctor, the attorney or
the CPA — is profession-
ally bound to help you and
maintain your confidence.
From my perspective,
I know people make too
big a deal of maintaining
appearances and compro-
mise their financial future
by refusing to address tax
and financial problems that have
clear-cut solutions.
Just two weeks ago, the IRS
announced a change in its Offer in
Compromise program that, for the
first time ever, truly provides great
opportunity for some (not all) to
obtain great tax relief. One thing is
certain, the IRS is not going to call
you and arrange a meeting to see if
you qualify.
I wonder how many people will
just pass up this opportunity to
improve their plight in life out of a
desire to keep up appear-
ances. If someone reads
,(1 f
this column and it
encourages him to
seek a solution to
whatever issue
he faces, I'll be
happy.
For what it's
worth, I don't care about
your golf game, but if
you have a problem, I,
like most profession-
als, want to know
what is wrong and am
committed to helping
you find a solution.
So, do you want to
hear about my almost-
hole-in-one on No. 13
at Baypointe?
Ken Gross is an attorney
with Thav Gross and host
of the Financial Crisis Talk
Center, a radio program
that airs weekly at 10 a.m.
Saturdays on Talk Radio 1270
WXYT AM.