Anyone who knows me probably knows that math isn’t my strongest ability. Actually I tend to think of math as a language of its very own, and like any other language except english I have almost no serviceable ability to use it without some sort of technological assistance. Maybe its the way my mind is wired or the way I learned as a child, but something goes wrong when I try to think in anything other than english.

If you ask me the rules for how to execute a certain procedure I can tell them to you very easily, but when you plug the numbers in and ask me to actually complete that procedure my mind blanks. It was the same thing when I tried to learn German or Spanish or French, I could tell you the rules for conjugating the verbs and all that stuff, but I couldn’t actually do it.

I tend to think in concepts, maybe that has something to do with it. When I read a book or something is explained to me I immediately start having this inner dialogue with myself where I hash out the way I might use it, or what I think it means, or what it might look like, or how I would explain it to someone else. I develop scenarios, I plot strategy, I build my own narrative. I prefer the “executive summary”, as opposed to the footnotes. I am, obviously not a details guy.

Why this is coming up right now is because I came to a realization yesterday (or the day before?): the way I make my living is entirely dependent on math. Furthermore, several of my passionate interests also depend on math. Its a strange thing, to realize that your major strength is totally dependent upon your greatest weakness. Let me explain, just a little.

I make my living with my investments and with entrepreneurial endeavors, but mostly the investments lately. The market can go up, it can go down, whatever and I still somehow manage to make a living. Obviously math is important when you’re dealing with money, and stock prices, and earnings per share and all that, and yet, somehow I don’t go there. I don’t know how I do it but I can somehow figure out the right move by looking at the big picture and ignoring the smaller details. In fact, if I try to drill down into the details and too many of the numbers my mind locks up and I’m like a retarded monkey just staring at the screen.

I look for movement, I look at graphs, charts, the news from a company’s sector, and the competition it has, but don’t put the giant spreadsheet with all the numbers and formulas in front of me or I won’t know what the heck I’m doing. Somehow this has worked for me for a many years. I keep a running list of all the bad calls I’ve made over the years and its pretty short. Actually I’m much more likely to make a bad investment in a business of my own than I am in the stock market.

As another example, take politics. Politics is something I’m passionate about. What the day before christmas is to a small child, the days leading up to an election every four years are to me (yeah, that sentence didn’t make much sense, but its the best I can do). Anyway, elections are all about math. You have delegates in the primaries, you have the fundraising numbers, you have poll numbers, you have the electoral college, and some other numbers. Even people I know who are math wizards get driven insane by the whole mess, but somehow I just “get it”.

Again, I ignore the raw numbers and look for the trends, look for movement. The difference between Obama and Clinton’s, numbers means nothing to me, until I see the previous week’s results alongside them. I ignore the numbers and just look to see how the thing is changing. I can’t look at a static snapshot and understand what’s going on, but if I see the thing unfold over time I’ve got it pegged. Like the T-Rex in Jurassic Park, if they hold still they don’t register with me, but when they move against the backdrop I’m locked on to it instantly. If I were to keep track of the predictions my instincts have lead me to over the years, I’m sure I’d be right about 80 percent of the time (unfortunately even when I wanted, desperately to be wrong, like in 2004).

Long story short: Glance at a number and make an instant, instinctive judgement = good. Try to work with a number and get an exact result = not so good.

Bonus info: Audiobooks are lost on me, I don’t retain anything from them, but if I read the actual book instead I’ve got it nailed. People talking on the phone are the same thing, I won’t retain the info, but if I look them in the face I’ve got everything they said (seriously, talk to me on the phone or with my back turned to you and I won’t remember much of it after 10 minutes or so, talk to my face and I’ll remember every word for years). Maybe I need some sort of visual cue to organize info, like an arm movement coinciding with someone’s speech, or whatever, but either way, if I’m not using my eyes for whatever it is I’m trying to absorb I don’t retain it. This is one reason I prefer email over phone calls (much to a few people’s chagrin), when I read the text I retain its meaning, when I hear the disembodied voice I don’t.

It doesn’t matter how interesting or important it is, my attention level doesn’t change, I’m paying attention, my mind isn’t wandering, I am focusing on what’s being said, but unless I can see something I don’t grab on to it mentally. Obviously when I learn with my eyes, and I think with dialogue, and act with instinct I’m successful, when I try to swim against that tide, I’m not.

Double Bonus info: While listening to music, the lyrics tend not to register with me, its all the rhythm, tone and instruments. Unless I’ve heard a song several dozen times I won’t know what its about, I’ll just know it sounds good. This is probably why I’m not big on rap or hip-hop or whatever its called now, too vocal, and it may also be why I seem to be drawn to modern remakes of older songs from my youth, because I’ve already heard them repeated enough that I understand the lyrics without trying. (Chris Cornell’s version of “Billie Jean” is 100 times better than Michael Jackson’s original, as is whatever band’s version of “Beat It” I just heard a few days ago, oh and on an older note the “S&M” album where Metallica remade their own songs with an orchestra in the background is their best album, it has a depth that makes all the original songs on their original albums sound flat and uninteresting). By the way, Spoon’s “The Underdog” might be the best-sounding song ever, especially if they ever release a version without the lyrics, the music behind that song is unbelievable.