The HIDDEN Influence of NUMBERS | LIFE | Episode 105

The HIDDEN Influence of NUMBERS | LIFE | Episode 105
What would life be without numbers? They govern our perceptions, influence our behaviors, and even catalyze our judgments. Think about it - from the grades we get in school to the scores on a sports field, numbers are integral to our daily lives. And that's precisely what we're exploring in today's episode. We'll take a deep look at how these mathematical values cast their shadow over our lives and how maintaining a healthy financial balance isn't a matter of comparison, but more a journey of self-improvement and discipline. 

Ready for a revelation? We'll also uncover how the competitive world of fundraising taps into our inherent number-crunching mindset. The episode reveals how the pressure of numerical comparisons impacts organizations and individuals alike. But it's not all about the numbers - we'll also discuss the importance of recognizing people as individuals, not just statistics on our spreadsheets. Excitingly, we also have some good news to share about our organization, 'Voices for Voices'. We've received a grant from the Akron Community Foundation for Project Purple, an initiative shining a light on the opioid epidemic. It's a number-heavy conversation, but one that will leave you with a new perspective on how you navigate the world of numbers.

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Transcript

Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: 0:00

Numbers, numbers are all around us, just started to observe more deeply how ingrain everything we do really is about a number. So what do I mean by that? If you are in a class and there are 20 students and your grade is an A, you may be number one in the class for that particular period of time, that term, that semester. If there is an exam and all 20 students take the exam, you are the third person, third student, to turn that exam in. That's number three. The grade the grade is typically about a percent out of 100. So if there's one question you got the one question correct, that'd be 100%. There was one question and you got zero correct, that'd be a zero percent. If there were 100 points on a particular assignment and you earned 95, I mean 95% and you earned 95 points. Grade point average, otherwise referred to as a GPA, usually the top end of the scale is four. So, like myself, I was closer to in high school, closer to a 2.5 to 3.0 out of a 4.0 scale, and if there were, let's say, 120 students in my particular class, I was closer to the 120 than I was to the one, because my GPA, my scores, were lower than many of the students, and that's okay. The temperature outside, whether in Celsius or Fahrenheit, the temperature is 35 degrees Celsius. The temperature is 35 degrees Fahrenheit.

Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: 2:55

You watch a football game. There are four quarters, so four is a number. After the first quarter, one quarter out of the four, or 25%, has been completed. Another number the first play for a team on offense is first down, then second down, then third down, then fourth down. The line of gain without penalties is 10 yards. So one play could earn 5 yards. The second could earn 2 yards. So 5 plus 2 is 7, you need 10 yards, so 10 minus 7 is 3. You need to get 3 yards on third down, the score of the game, a field goal. So we're talking about American football. A field goal, a made field goal, is 3 points. A safety is 2 points plus 2 points plus 3 points.

Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: 4:25

I say that because golf is the reverse. You want to have a low score. So if 0 is the even score, you want to have minus 1, minus 2, minus 3, and those would be the scores. So at the end of a tournament you would want to have the lowest score, which means if you're playing golf, it's a par 3, you get the ball from the tee to the green in the hole in 3 shots, that's even, or 0, or E. If you get that ball in 2, 2 is less than 3, so that'd be a minus 1 score. So numbers are all around us everywhere we go, everywhere we look. So nobody can argue. In school, in university, in college, any type of school, numbers are going to be following us really and to infinity.

Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: 5:45

We look at a paycheck. Say we earn $100. 100 is a number and depending on how many dollars you had in a checking account prior so let's say you had $0 prior to that first paycheck you earn $100, so $100 goes into your checking account. So that's a plus 100. The goal with money and assets is to have a higher Number, a higher positive number. If you have $100, you spend 20, 100 minus 20, you now have $80.

Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: 6:31

So why am I going so in depth in so many different areas about numbers, especially with an organization, as voices for voices is One is we as an organization. We tend to do a lot of judging of our organization, of ourselves, of our projects, of our goals. We, we benchmark, or we look at leaders in an industry, in the nonprofit sector, in the mental health, recovery, job field, industry, and we constantly I'm speaking from experience we constantly judge and look, look at those competitors. Whether we want to or not, we we do, and what I'm finding is it's very hard not to judge in these instances. So what do I mean by that? What's an example?

Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: 7:43

Some example would be Donations or a giving season. So let's say you have a one month, another number, say there's 30 days in a month, another number, and in those 30 days and that one month, an organization was able to raise $100 for their, their nonprofit, their, their charity. On the other hand, let's say an organization like voices for voices, to play devil's advocate, and that same 30 days, in that same one month, we earn $50 donations. We would look at ourselves Versus a competitor of we were able to raise donations of half. So one 100 divided by 50 is to one half 50 out of a hundred. And we would look at ourselves, say, oh, we were half as good or half as good of an organization we do half of half as good of work Versus this particular competitor in this space.

Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: 9:05

And that's the the big Challenge we have as an organization and as an individual who's constantly looking at ways To help as many people as possible to do as many good things as we can Be on my my history is not secret, with recovery and you know, alcohol, abuse and relationships and all along along the the line. So now I'm at the point in life of wanting to Kind of right as many wrongs as I as I can, and that's a huge part of where voices for voices comes in. So in this instance, in this case, this example, this hypothetical Of voices, where voices earning $50 and at 30 day Period of one month versus a competitor raises 100, I Look at that in that hypothetical sense and then in the real sense of what those numbers are and say again I Is the work we're doing matter? Are we reaching the right people? What are we doing? What are we doing right? What things can we learn and grow?

Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: 10:45

And one big thing that I've had to learn hard way is nobody is gonna be as passionate about an organization or a thing as you, in this case me and so trying to rally people people are good, they're good nature, good intention Trying to rally people behind the organizations, mission and vision, the goals, the programs, the ideas, is super hard and I take it really hard and I think that's where some of the extra mental health stress comes in Because, like it or not, I am again comparing myself, comparing not just me, but comparing organization towards organizations that again, are done, what, on paper, looks to be fantastic. And I'm looking at that and again judging and saying, man, what is it gonna take for us to get over the hump? What's it gonna take to have people be as passionate about the organization and what we're doing, what the ideas and the thoughts and strategies, what's it gonna take? And one of those hard things looking at judging is some of these organizations that we're judging against or we're comparing against or benchmarking against, have been around, have been in business for 10, 20, 30, 100, 150 years, and so there's gonna be so many more things that an organization that has that experience, that standing in the community, that brand recognition, versus our organization, where we, for all intents and purposes, just earned our 501c3 in May May 25th of 2022. And so we're really a year plus year and a half and a little bit longer, as when Voices for Voices came about and founded through the first, a brand new day event and has just holding the third a brand new day event in October.

Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: 13:34

And so I'm judging and our board and stakeholders and people deciding whether, not even whether, they wanna donate. You know why should I attend your event, your gala, versus the other 100 galas and fundraisers that are out there? And we all know schedules are restrictive and there's only so much time in the day, and trying to take more time for ourselves away from screens, away from things that could potentially add some stress, and for me and some people, being around large groups creates a huge amount of stress, and so that's really the struggle and the numbers so I had to go through so many numbers, so many examples at the outset of this episode is because us as organizations, us as individuals, us as society, us as institutions credit scores. What goes into a credit score? Well, we wanna have the highest credit score possible. That's a number. So we go to purchase, lease a vehicle, purchase lease, rent a house, a condo, an apartment. We wanna be looked at favorably, and there are numbers that go into that. So let me just conclude with let's try to treat people less like numbers and more like individuals, as people, as human beings.

Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: 15:31

Lastly, I just wanna say thank you to the Akron Community Foundation, where we, as an organization, applied for a grant for what we call Project Purple, which this is a piece of it healing the community around the opioid epidemic and just bringing fresh, raw stories, experiences, education to the Summit County community, northeast Ohio, the nation and the world. And so we were grateful that we were able to earn our first grant through the Akron Community Foundation for Project Purple. So we wanna say thank you to the board, the committee that voted and made this happen, and we look forward to providing sharing as much content as much expertise through guests, through future shows. So until next time. I am Justin Alan Hayes, founder and executive director of Voices for Voices, and please be a voice for you or somebody in need.