Progress is Possible, or, How I came to love numbers.

My last post on potential got some pretty solid traction; everyone loved reading about what was, for all intents and purposes, an epiphany.

Except for one of my best friends. The message I received from him was “Stop writing blog posts, go back to do doing math!”

My friend knew that my New Year’s Resolution was to stop being afraid of math, specifically data. I came up with this particular promise because I finally realized, after more or less a lifetime of running from them, that numbers were and are an essential part of being in advertising, or in marketing, or in running a start-up. These are all things I hope to do.

I could keep running. Or I could stand and fight.

For a while, I was somewhere in-between. Reading and writing about math isn’t the same as doing it. The only one you fool in the end is yourself.

I started using math in real life. The most meaningful example of this came when I was riding the bus with a friend in the morning and she couldn’t decide whether to get off to get a coffee. 

See, the bus driver always got off at a particular stop for a break, but sometimes he only went to the washroom. If she went to get a coffee while he went to the bathroom, there’s a high chance she’d be late for school. Then again, if she didn’t get a coffee, she’d get to school on time but she wouldn’t be as productive. 

The best option can be calculated using something called a Decision Tree, which you can find below:

$25,000 is approximately the tuition we pay. The cost of time is calculated as the length of a class; if you are late to class, it is highly unlikely you will get marks for participation, which I have taken here to be lost productivity. If you're curious, the textbook on the right is about operations, and is completely unrelated.

The idea is that you multiply the probability of something occurring by the benefit you’re expected to gain or the loss you’re expected to incur. Based on this concept, which is called “expected value”, I figured out that my friend should get a coffee.

It took me 15 minutes to do this, and I did it because I was bored in another class. Phrased differently, you might even say that I did math for fun.

It’s important to not exaggerate the progress this represents. This mostly comes down to simple multiplication and organizing options logically.

And yet, the impact was tremendous. We just had an exam with plenty of numbers, and for the first time, I didn’t shy away from them; I produced three or four pages of numbers that I was confident in. When the professor later revealed that most of the rest of the course would be qualitatively focused, I was sad. This from the guy whose pulse used to be regulated every time a prof said “qualitative is just as important”.

Now, I’m excited to do numbers. Numbers imbue a type of certainty to things, a way to know their feasibility. Of course, it’s important to remember that this type of certainty is contextual, and it’s important to remember that some things are simply not quantifiable. Sometimes, we should take risks despite the numbers, and other times, we should ignore opportunities that seem like numerical certainties.

Progress is possible if you apply lessons in ways that are relevant to you. For the first time, it seems like I’m close to understanding numbers. The value of this is probably quantifiable, but is priceless in my eyes. 

Editor’s Note: Yes, I am uncannily lucky in finding inspiration on public transit. If you have a topic idea, I’d love to hear from you! Suggestions can be made in the comments section or on Twitter @JeremyDeMello.