Important Numbers and What They Have to Do with Gronk

Everywhere we turn, there they are, it seems like we can never get away from them. I am talking about important numbers.  And in particular, how important numbers play a huge role in our lives.  A few examples of important numbers are:

  3.14 also known as Pi and arguably the most famous mathematical constant there is.

  1 which is the universal representation of kicking ass! As in ‘she is number 1!’ Also, as in there is 1 God.

  0 which is the absence of anything. It also represents the notion of infinitely small.

  Need a little luck? Try lucky number 7, which is also known to denote the number of days in the week, and the number of deadly sins (i.e. gluttony – yours truly at lunch) amongst others.

Some of us are even infatuated by important numbers.  For example, New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski, affectionately known as ‘Gronk’ by Pats fans, is obsessed with the number 69.

Some examples of his obsession include:

  Him missing a free throw in a high school basketball game so that the score would remain at 69.

  Being unable to contain his excitement after catching his 69^th touchdown pass.

  The time the Patriots wore practice jerseys without numbers on them but Gronk decided to grab some tape and add #69 to his.

We will try to get to the bottom of the ‘why’ behind Gronk’s obsession with the number 69 a bit later.  However, seeing as how this is a self-improvement blog, Gronk has inspired me to look at various important numbers related to self-improvement.

So, without further ado, we are now going to look at…

Some Important Numbers Related to Self-Improvement

Hopefully, some of these resonate with you enough that you can use them to improve your life…

½   as in ½ your plate

Which should consist of vegetables and fruit! So, instead of counting every damn calorie, dieticians recommend you allocate proportions instead.  They say ¼ should be protein such as fish, poultry etc. and the last ¼ should be some type of whole grain such as brown rice or quinoa.

1  Hand

Is all former major league pitcher Jim Abbott had and yet he was able to carve out a successful 10-year major league baseball career as a pitcher. His career included 87 wins, 888 strikeouts, 2 hits, and a no-hitter! So, let me ask you, “what’s your excuse?” (a quick thank you to my friend Dave S. for reminding me of this fantastic example of persistence).

 1 Thing at a time is what you should be focusing on

Multi-tasking has been proven again and again to be an ineffective way to get things done. Studies have shown it to reduce productivity by up to 40%. Bouncing from task to task always requires you to get re-focused, which a UC-Irvine study showed takes almost 25 minutes. Instead of multi-tasking, focus on doing one thing at a time!

3 out of 10 people

Are encouraged to pursue personal development by someone at work, that’s it. That according to Gallup’s latest State of the American Workplace Report  Which means that in all likelihood, you are going to have to take the initiative to learn and improve on your own and take responsibility for your own personal development. One totally unbiased suggestion is to read entertaining and actionable blogs like Prime Your Pump!

4 Minutes of Exercise

Is all you need for the intense ‘Tabata’ type of workout.  So, if you are pressed for time but still want to get your exercise in you may want to try it. This method alternates 20 seconds of high-intensity intervals with 10 second rest periods repeated 8 times.  It is the ultimate workout for those needing a quick workout.

5 goals at a time

You should only be working on 5 goals at a time according to Warren Buffett. Buffett recommends writing down the list of your top 25 goals.  Next, circle your top 5. Finally, eliminate the other 20 and focus only on the top 5. Do not even look at the other 20 until you have accomplished your top 5. The lesson is that you need to say no to the other 20! That way you will have 5 completed projects instead of 20 half-completed projects.

5 Random acts of kindness

Were performed by some employees at Coca-Cola towards their coworkers over a month. This included little things like being encouraging, buying them coffee or sending them a nice note.  Those who participated in the experiment reported higher job and life satisfaction, less depression and increased happiness. Giving makes others happier and it makes you happier, talk about a win-win!

7 Habits of Highly Effective People

By Stephen Covey is one of the most famous and best-selling self-improvement books of all time, with over 25 million copies sold. If you haven’t read it, it’s a timeless classic and a great read.  Each chapter covers a habit, a quick summary is below:

#1: Be proactive – The importance of being proactive, instead of being reactive.

#2: Begin with the end in mind – Figure out what you want and then create a plan to get there. This dovetails nicely with my post on reverse engineering.

#3: Put first things first – This one focuses on prioritization in terms of what is urgent/not-urgent and important/not important. I wrote a previous post on the Eisenhower matrix which covers this topic in more detail.

#4: Think win-win – Why it is critical to come up with mutually beneficial solutions rather than ones where only one person has their way.

#5: Seek first to understand, then to be understood – Using empathy to genuinely understand what the other person is saying with the thought that they will reciprocate and be open-minded to being influenced by you. Recall Howie’s video on OPV – Other Person’s Viewpoint.

#6: Synergize – “None of us is as smart as all of us” is a phrase a previous boss of mine used to use, and Covey means something similar in that you need to use different people’s strengths to come up with the best solution via teamwork.

#7: Sharpen the Saw – Keep renewing your resources through exercise, health, prayer, meditation. In other words, Prime Your Pump!

7 Seconds

Is all it takes to make a first impression, so make sure you make it a good one!

7 to 8 hours of sleep

Is recommended to combat poor judgment, bad moods, and a less sharp mind. Not enough sleep has also been linked to heart disease, Type 2 Diabetes, and obesity. So, get your sleep on!

11.5 cups of water

According to the Mayo Clinic, women need 11.5 cups of water and men need 15.5 cups per day to stay hydrated. Of course, that is just a guideline and it may be different in individual cases.  The point is that you need to stay hydrated.  Seeing as how our brain is 73% water if you aren’t hydrating you probably aren’t functioning as well as you could be mentally.

15 minutes of happy thoughts

Did you know there is a ‘World’s Happiest Man’? Yup, his name is Matthieu Ricard and he is a Buddhist monk who lives in the Himalayan region of Asia. According to Ricard, the key to happiness is to think happy thoughts for only 15 minutes per day.

25 minutes of focused work

Want to be more productive in your day-to-day life?  Having a hard time staying focused and on task?  If so, you may want to explore my previous post on the Pomodoro technique, which alternates 25 minutes of focused work with 5-minute breaks. You repeat this process 4 times and then take a longer break. I covered it in a previous post and it has increased my writing productivity exponentially.

52 years old

Is the age up until which Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald’s, sold paper cups and milkshake makers.  If you are into biographies, you may want to check out ‘Grinding it Out: The Making of McDonald’s’. Talk about another person who persisted and found their success later in life.

60% is the

Volume at which you should keep your volume under when listening to headphones to prevent permanent ear damage!

66 days to form a habit

A study by Lally et al¹ showed that on average it takes 66 days to form a habit. Their study showed that some people are able to do it in as little as 18 days, while it takes some as long as 254 days.  The idea is to keep doing whatever it is you need to do for at least 66 days or until it becomes automatic.

80-20 rule

Apply the Pareto Principle to your life by figuring out which of the 20% of your actions are responsible for 80% of your outcomes – then focus on those actions.

100% chance

The % chance of you failing if you don’t even try is 100%! So, get that bat off your shoulder and start swinging for the fences!

150 minutes

Is the minimum number of minutes of physical activity that is recommended per week, spread through the week in increments of 10 minutes or more.

2,000 words

Is the number of words that novelist Stephen King writes per day and it is what he credits for his success which includes over $350 million in book sales. This is along the same lines as the 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to achieve true greatness in a given field that Malcolm Gladwell outlines in his famous book ‘Outliers’. While 10,000 hours may not be the exact threshold to achieve mastery or writing 2,000 hours a day may not make you the next Stephen King, the point is deliberate practice is necessary to become really good at your craft.

9,000 shots missed

By NBA great Michael Jordan who is famously quoted as saying, “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

So that’s it for our look at some important numbers related to self-improvement. But before we go…

Back to Gronk…

I would be remiss if I didn’t close the loop on the reason as to why one of the most important numbers in Gronk’s life is the number 69.

I’ve been wondering why he is so infatuated with it, so I decided to do a bit of research to see if I could solve the mystery.

Here some of the reasons I found that ‘may’ be responsible for his fascination with the number 69:

  Perhaps Gronk is an aspiring mathematician and the fact that the number 69 is the product of two prime numbers is fascinating to him.

  Or maybe he is into astronomy and the Messier object M69 which “is a globular cluster in the constellation Sagittarius” ² – whatever that means…

  It may be that Gronk is studying Chinese philosophy and in particular, the Taijitu symbol which represents the monist and dualist aspects of the Taiji (the “great pole”) – basically the ying and the yang.

  Or, he is a big fan of Bill and Ted’s excellent adventure and loved the part where number 69 was the number they were thinking about when conversing with their future selves.

The Verdict:  I suppose I am going to have to go with the last one.  I’m not saying that Gronk isn’t an aspiring intellectual, but it seems to me that he is more of a Bill and Ted kinda dude.

Wait!  Stop the press!

Our crackerjack research team here at Prime Your Pump has just come to me with some late-breaking research that may solve the Gronk 69 mystery once and for all.

They have reminded me that there is a sex-position which is often represented by the euphemistic French numerical form “soixante-neuf” or…69. It is called that because the two people involved are positioned in an inverted fashion like the numbers 6 and 9.

Hmmm, while I appreciate the effort put forth by our research team, I am going to have to dismiss this as simply not possible.

You see, Gronk is from Buffalo, New York and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t speak French!

Until next time, au revoir mes amis and as always PYMFP!

–Rick

P.S. Gronk – if you are reading this, ‘au revoir mes amis’ means ‘goodbye my friends!’

When to Use These Important Numbers

  Depending on your situation, you can use the various lessons contained in the important numbers above in many areas of your life.

What Do You Think?

  Thoughts on this post? Any important numbers you would like to see added to the list? Please share in the comments below!

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