Curious about Number and Numbers: Number Affects Us in a Plethora of Ways. How and What Numbers Are Important to You?

Definition of Number: That which admits of being counted or reckoned; a unit, or an aggregate of units; a numerable aggregate or collection of individuals; an assemblage made up of distinct things expressible by figures. A collection of many individuals; quantity, regarded as made up of an aggregate of separate things. To give or apply a number or numbers to; to assign the place of in a series by order of number; to designate the place of by a number or numeral; as, to number the houses in a street, or the apartments in a building. To amount; to equal in number; to contain; to consist of.

“Small is the number of people who see with their eyes and think with their minds.” – Albert Einstein, German physicist

Numbers have always held an important place in my life. Early on – actually in kindergarten – my parents let me know that I would be majoring in mathematics. I had been tested and had shown that I had natural ability for numbers. And yes, I did major in math and admit that I always enjoyed it.

I picked number for this week’s theme, because I realized the plethora of areas where number affects my outcomes, strategies, and plans in my life, careers, and businesses. Let me share a few:

1. My Portfolio Career – having a number of different careers at the same time.
2. Presentations – an effective speech is one with a dominant theme broken into three areas that address that theme.
3. Writing – we are urged to share numbers in our headlines - Three Secrets, or Seven Steps, I even have a Special Report that pinpoints 125 Ways to Develop STYLE.
4. Selling on the Internet – prices that end with a 7 do better than those that end with a 5. $9.97 is more popular than $9.95.
5. Storytelling – three is the magic number for most stories – three characters, three parts, three challenges. Seven is also a number that pops up, but not as often as three.
6. Social Networking on the Internet – many question how important it is to have a large number of friends on Facebook, Followers on Twitter, and Contact Connections on LinkedIn. I have been working on all three. The marketer that got me started feels that the more, the better for credibility and visibility.
7. Group Fitness Classes – I love the reaction when I tell people that I teach 12 classes every week. And most of those classes are filled with between 15 and 35 participants.

Yes, as you can see, numbers do play a big part in my life. Now, I want to share some of the variety I found in the numerous quotations:

• “A tremendous number of people in America work very hard at something that bores them. Even a rich man thinks he has to go down to the office everyday. Not because he likes it but because he can't think of anything else to do.” - W. H. Auden, English poet
• “In America everything's about who's number one today.” - Bruce Springsteen, American musician
• “There are things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind.” - Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russian novelist
• “I've always felt that a person's intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting points of view he can entertain simultaneously on the same topic.” - Abigail Adams, American First Lady
• “I am not judged by the number of times I fail, but by the number of times I succeed; and the number of times I succeed is in direct proportion to the number of times I can fail and keep on trying.” - Tom Hopkins, American businessman
• “For one who reads, there is no limit to the number of lives that may be lived, for fiction, biography, and history offer an inexhaustible number of lives in many parts of the world, in all periods of time.” - Louis L'Amour, American author
• “Number is different from quantity.” - Gregory Bateson, British scientist

And, several more:

• “It has always been my belief that a man should do his best, regardless of how much he receives for his services, or the number of people he may be serving or the class of people served.” - Napoleon Hill, American writer
• “It's easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you're a winner, when you're number one. What you got to have is faith and discipline when you're not a winner.” – Vince Lombardi, American coach
• “When we turn to one another for counsel we reduce the number of our enemies.” – Kahlil Gibran, Lebanese-American author
• “It is not once nor twice but times without number that the same ideas make their appearance in the world.” – Aristotle, Greek philosopher
• “In Vegas, I got into a long argument with the man at the roulette wheel over what I considered to be an odd number.” - Steven Wright, American comedian
• “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.” –
  Henry David Thoreau, American author
• “The value of a principle is the number of things it will explain.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet

How about you? How important are numbers and number to you. I would love to hear from you.