My Obsession With Numbers

Like most eight-year-olds, I spent as much time as possible outside climbing trees, playing with a ball, or having adventures with my mates. You can imagine how frustrated I was when my father sat me down and forced me to learn my times tables.?

He never really gave a reason; he just looked sternly at me and asked the following question: what's four times eight?

My Dad was a teenager in the late 1930s, with Australia still in the grip of the impact of the Great Depression. My Pop had his aim shot off in the Gallipoli Campaign (WWI), and things were tight for my family. I never asked, and Dad never said, but I was sure he was driven to ensure that my sister Kim and I got every opportunity to get a better start in life.

The times tables sessions lasted for a few years; by the end, I could go through thirty minutes of rapid-fire questions without an error.

One day, the sessions just stopped: no congratulations or rewards.

In the summer of 1974-75, The West Indies played Australia in a famous test series. It was my first summer of watching cricket and understanding what was going on, and I started a lifelong love affair with the game. Watching players like Lillee, Thompson, The Chappell Brothers, Viv Richards, Clive Lloyd and my all-time favourite, Rod Marsh, was exciting.

I started calculating the game maths. How many overs are left, and how many runs are needed? Nowadays, the calculations appear at the bottom of the screen, but back then, if you wanted to know, you had to work it out yourself. I didn't think twice about it and just did the maths on the fly between balls.

It brought a deeper understanding of what the players had to do and an increased passion for the game.

I still do the maths today before checking onscreen.

This preoccupation with cricket statistics was amplified when I realised my close mate Philip did the same thing. We'd spend hours trying to outdo each other during boring classes by reciting player stats.

Looking back, I realised it was pretty nerdy, but we loved it.?

As a teenager, my mother, who was no slouch with numbers, gave me a yellow metal storage container with plastic dividers. She would give me pocket money each week and teach me to split it into sections.

My fixation with budgeting began.

Nearly fifty years on, I use Excel and check it weekly. And yes, I kept the tatted old yellow box as a reminder of its importance.

My first serious job was in the Marketing Department of McWilliams Wines. In 1985, they turned over forty million dollars a year, which seemed like a fortune to me. I was responsible for reviewing the daily sales and compiling a summary for my boss.

Within a few weeks, patterns emerged.

I remember getting to work each morning with an acceptable range of numbers in my head. The average was around $160,000 per day, and if it was lower or higher, I wanted to know why. The company had a vast range of products, and it usually took me a few minutes to discover the reason.

I'd report it to my boss, and within weeks, he came to rely on my daily notation. It was the most enjoyable task of the day.

I've also used my love of numbers for mischief.

I have a party trick that confounds my friends. I ask for the bill when we go to a restaurant with a group (say eight to twelve people). When it arrives, I open it quickly and then shut it again within a second. I'm just looking at the amount to pay. Let's say it's $504 for nine people.

I'll look around and declare its $56 each.

Nearly all my friends, including doctors, dentists, and financial executives, are more intelligent than me. They hate it because they can't do the trick. I won't lie; I get a head start. When the menu first comes out, I calculate the average of the two courses and the number of people, which gives me an accurate baseline.

It’s?nerdy, but seeing my friends' faces is fun.

Numbers have been a constant in my business life. I've relied on them to make sense of my work.

The discipline my parents gave me has lasted a lifetime in business.

When COVID-19 hit with the fury of a year-long cyclone, it decimated our Tourism Business.

Like many other Australian Businesses, we found ourselves clinging to life support. We owed the NAB millions of dollars. The prospect was that Deanne and I would lose everything in our late fifties. A senior bank manager from Brisbane contacted me and asked for a future cash flow plan.

I gave him my numbers.

A week later, he sent me his summary. He then spent the next nine months helping us through the pandemic.

I learned more in those sessions about the true value of business numbers and the rigour required to own your numbers.?

Thanks for listening to my story. I want to explain briefly why I now run a program called?Business M+ths.?

It's not an accounting program, although it doesn't rely on live numbers and accurate recording of a business's inflow and outflow of money.

Business M+ths is about turning numbers into stories, something I've been doing my whole life.

Those stories then become actionable insights that drive further decisions and growth.

Perhaps it's a gift or the result of hard work.?