Metrics

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Many of us fixate on numbers. We are concerned about our weight, net worth, credit card balance, retirement income, sales goals, cost of tuition, departure time for a plane etc. 

Listed below are some personal metrics that don’t merit any national or scholarly attention but amuses me:

43: Number of years that my wife and I have been married. It certainly has been an accomplishment to have been married this long. It is reported that 50% of all U.S. marriages end in a divorce or separation. To those who ask about the secrets to marital longevity, my only answer is to choose the right partner and I certainly did. She deserves 99.5% of the credit as she has had to endure my many moods and temperaments as I navigated the rapids of life.

46: This number represents my resting heart rate. It is a relatively low heart rate especially for someone of my age. However, I have always had a low heart rate. I have been test periodically to ensure that there are no issues. I can attribute much of my low heart rate to being active, particularly when I was younger when I played a lot of basketball and jogged.

1: This is the number of times that I have played golf on an 18 hole course. I did this when I was in my early 30s. I don’t remember what my score was. I do remember trying to hit onto a green that had a water hazard in front of it.

12: This was the approximate number of golf balls that I lost in the water hazard trying to hit onto the green.

1: This represents the number of times that I may have been impaired or even drunk from alcohol. This happened in 1994 when my wife and I were vacationing at a resort in Saint Thomas. I remember playing tennis for a little over an hour with the club pro on a very hot and sunny afternoon. ( I remember the tennis pro had gone to Penn and thought I was crazy to play at 3:00 p.m.) After playing tennis, my wife and I headed over to the resort bar. I was very thirsty…

4+: The number of pina coladas that I drank at the resort bar that may have slightly impaired my balance. Good thing that I did not have to drive. The drinks and the order of poppers (the food, not the drug) made me very mellow.

0: The number of times that I have dunked a basketball on a regulation 10 foot high basket. Besides being handicapped with an inability to jump very high, I also could not palm a basketball. This was a desired athletic fantasy that I was unable to complete.

13: The number of states that I have lived in, drove through or visited. With the exception of Tennessee which I may have been driving through for a half hour on the way to Asheville N.C., all states were on the East coast.

10/0 Ten represents the number of companies and small businesses that I worked for as an employee. Zero represents the number of companies that are still in existence. Now my involvement did not kill off these companies, There were one or two that I tried desperately to save. All died from either obsolescence, poor management or as a victim of a natural business cycle.