The Element of Numbers and Its Hope For Getting the Math In Our Lives Right

Graphic based on Acoustic Guitar by Petr Kratochvil

I am into numbers.

Sort of.

I know the world population is over 7 billion and the US population is over 300M.

I know the population of San Jose is 1M.

I know the percentage of the worldwide population with a college degree. It is 6.7%. Are you one of them? Congrats.

Of the 93% who don’t have a college degree, many are getting along just fine - whatever the reason they do not have a degree.

Some may not have had the opportunity.

Others may have dropped out. Deliberately. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg are among them.

Yet others may have gotten side-tracked along the way.

I was sidetracked by a guitar.

Wondering which country has the highest percentage of college-educated people in the world? I can tell you that too.  It happens to be Russia. 53.5% of Russians have a college degree.

Numbers are important.

One of the reasons President Obama was voted into power was because of a number.

15% of the US population had no health insurance when Obama was voted President.

Obamacare is the President fulfilling his promise to the people who voted him into power.

Numbers open our eyes to problems.

How many of us were happy-go-lucky about our health until a routine physical changed that?

We were told our blood pressure was too high and we were at risk for heart attacks and strokes.

We were made aware that a blood pressure reading higher than 80/120 was unhealthy – 80 was the upper limit for diastolic and 120 was the upper limit for systolic.

Some of us (and if we are Asian American, there’s a good chance) may have been delivered the news we were pre-diabetic.

A blood sugar number higher than 70-99 mg/dl put us in that category.

Our doctors cautioned us about diabetes and the associated risks - nerve damage, blindness, heart attacks.

Cholesterol is another biggie.  We were told our total cholesterol should be under 200 mg/dl and our HDL should be above 60 mg/dl.

Yes, when it comes to health, numbers tell the story.

It starts with a few simple numbers early in life – the fact that we all need 8 hours of sleep and normal human temperature is 98.4 degrees.

Then it expands from there.

From health to education to many areas of our lives, numbers tell the story.

We aim for an A on a test, but we get a B.

“But I studied so hard,” we think to ourselves.

But we got a B. It means we got between 80 and 89% of the questions right. If we had gotten 90-100% we would have gotten that A. Clearly, we didn’t study nearly well enough. We should call a spade a spade.

We ask kids “What’s your GPA?” and “how much did you score on the SAT?” because during high school and college, numbers are the only way to tell how someone is doing.

When we first enter the working world, all we want is a foot in the door. So we might even work for free, if it were legal.

But once we have gained experience and credentials, numbers start playing into our decisions.

We evaluate every potential job based on how much we are going to get paid. 

We are interested in the total package - salary, vacation and benefits.

It’s only as we move further in our careers, we begin to care about other things– challenge, flexibility, convenience, cachet, prestige, meaning.

We stop looking purely at numbers.

If people go from strength to strength professionally, or manage to hold on to their jobs in tough times, we applaud them.

We also start admiring stick-to-itiveness.

I changed jobs frequently, especially in my first career as a copywriter. Today I think back and wonder.  Would I have achieved as much, if not more, had I avoided those frequent changes.

Of course, I do not regret starting my creative shop Purple Patch. It was a blast.

Depending on the kind of work we do, and where we live in the world, we may find ourselves involved in a fight over numbers.

Currently, fast food workers in the US are fighting for an increase in their wages.

American women fought for equal pay for decades until the Equal Pay Act was passed in 1963.

One of the reasons I have become interested in numbers is because my work involves numbers.

I am currently a Sales Performance Management Consultant. My job involves crunching loads of numbers of spreadsheets every month and then loading data into Xactly or Varicent, which are popularly used software programs used for sales commissions.  I also help companies with their Xactly and Varicent implementations and their UAT testing.

I have also had to think about numbers in my personal life. Some of these numbers are real exciting.

For instance, I can't begin to tell you how exciting it was to write the 100^th post on Minoo Jha Life Strategies. 

I did a series of posts to commemorate that milestone.  Reaching 100 – Part 1, Reaching 100 – Part 2, Reaching 100 – Part 3, Reaching 100 – Part 4.

Today, it’s hard to believe I am on my 229th post and counting.

I am also interested in numbers as it concerns money management, because I know we can make some big personal money management blunders if we don’t know the numbers.

We can buy too much insurance, or buy too little.

We can withhold too much tax (and get a big refund) or withhold too little.

We can pay through the nose to buy something on credit, or be smart and pay as little as possible.

We can be smart about debt and use it strategically, or be foolish about debt and get into messes and try to borrow from Peter to pay Paul.

We can save and invest too conservatively, barely keeping up with inflation, or we can take on too much risk and lose a lot, even lose it all.

Whether we invest in real estate, commodities, stocks or bonds, or save our money in bank accounts and CDs, there are numbers involved and we have to be wise to them.

Every year, we will need to make decisions based on the opportunities available, the risks involved, future projections and our own personal situation - and we can only make wise decisions if we understand the numbers.

We have to look at the risks, returns, tax and legal implications of any investment or expense we are considering on the basis of what the numbers are telling us.

Yes, it is important to get the numbers in our life right.

I have written several posts on financial lessons learned, including 4 Lessons Learned From Spinning in the Rain and 4 Lessons I Didn't Learn From a Certified Financial Planner and A Retirement Planning Formula You Won't Find On Oprah.

Now when it comes to life questions such as “Is it worth spending x amount of hours every week to do Y (spending 8 hours a week to write a blog post, for instance)?” or “Should I marry this person?” or “How much does working from home equate in money?” numbers may not be a useful guidepost for us.

Not everything can be bought.

Not everything has a price.

We ourselves, cannot be bought on certain things.

For instance, we may have family heirlooms or personal treasures which mean so much to us, we will not part with them for any price.

We may give them away as an act of love (think of the 1972 Gran Torino owned by Walt Kowalski), but we will not allow anyone to name a price for them. 

They are priceless.

Likewise, many people will not be bought on their religious beliefs and observances.

In one of the best books of the last few years, How Will You Measure Your Life, Clay Christensen tells us how he risked losing his place on a sports team and upsetting his teammates by refusing to play any games on Sunday. It went against observing the Sabbath so Clay refused to do that.

Clay could not be bought on that.

I am very grateful to my friend Julia for helping me realize that some things are priceless.  You can read what I found out was priceless from this United States of Friendship post.

Each one of us benefits from examining what we are willing to be bought on and what we are not willing to be bought on.

Because when we look back on our lives, we will be proudest of the things we refused to be bought on.

Everything is not about money in life.

Love isn’t about money.

Steve Jobs met his wife Laurene after noticing her in the front row at one of his speeches at Stanford University. He asked her out to dinner that night.

Here’s what he had to say about that day:

"I was in the parking lot with the key in the car, and I thought to myself, 'If this is my last night on earth, would I rather spend it at a business meeting or with this woman?' I ran across the parking lot, asked her if she'd have dinner with me. She said yes, we walked into town and we've been together ever since."

When it comes to successful marriages and successful partnerships, one plus one does not equal two, but an infinite amount more.

The underpinnings of many great human achievements lie in great partnerships.

In things big and small, having the right team-mate, or coach, or spouse, or mentor can change our lives.

We should not underestimate the impact of the people in our lives.

When I joined Toastmasters, I was mentored by a Toastmaster whose name was Lorraine. She was a fantastic mentor and sounding board.

If not for her feedback and input, I might not have completed my CTM in a year. I also might not have been able to step us to the podium and deliver between 10 and 15 speeches so confidently.

Lorraine played a big part in my success as a Toastmaster.

So before I completed my CTM, I wrote and delivered a speech to thank her.  It was called When One Plus One Does Not Equal Two.

Who do you have to thank for where you’ve got in life?

Who have been the co-passengers who have helped you move forward and had your back when you needed it?

Who has helped you focus on your strengths and not let your weaknesses hold you back?

Would you have been able to spread your wings if not for the presence of these people in your life?

If meeting the right person at the right time changed your life forever, you must never forget it.

Take time to express thanks for them and to them often.

And even when they are not in your lives anymore, say a silent thanks to them and celebrate the day you met them.

Some of us will want to graduate from being helped to becoming helpers.

There's a book for that.

One recommendation is The Mentor's Guide by Louis J Zachary.

However, before we can even think of becoming a mentor, if some of our behaviors are sucking the confidence out of the people around us and damaging their self-esteem, we need to work on getting over that first.

Ultimately, we want to create positive experiences for the people around us and leave a legacy of positive memories.

It’s something each one of us needs to think about and then ask ourselves, “which are the areas in which I need to change?”

Read my posts Path to Change and How to Become a Low Maintenance Person for ideas and inspiration.

Clearly, we need to get the areas of our life in which the numbers matter right and the areas in our life where the numbers don’t matter right as well.

We should pick one area in each sphere to work on and start with that.

One good thing will lead to another.

That's for sure.

As always, thanks for reading and have a great day and week……M…..a Pearl Seeker like you. P.S. Thanks to Ajay, Ananda, Badri, Jacinta, Patty, Rosie, Subhakar and others who commented on my last post.  Much appreciated!