"You Have To Be A Calculator"

Hello  

I just love figures, spreadsheets, calculator and numbers. They’ve always fascinated me from my earliest years.

Even in school...

My favourite lesson was Maths and my first job was working in a bank counting money, dealing with figures and racing my fellow young colleagues as to who could be the fastest to balance their till.

And so perhaps...

It’s not surprising I ended up starting and operating a leasing company where the standard issue calculator I gave to every member of the team (65 in all) was a Hewlett Packard HP12. This is the one without an equals key. I still have mine in my desk some 20 years later.

Any way...

To the point of all this mathematical stuff:

I was carrying out a repetitive multiplication (just for fun) when suddenly realised something – I thought was mind-blowing.

You see...

I’d started by entering 1000 and then I multiplied it by 1.15 (in other words I added 15%)

Now I had the answer 1150

And so...

I repeated the equation (adding 15% or multiplying by 1.15) 4 more times and here’s the list of the answers:

Stage 1:

1000 plus 15% = 1150

Stage 2:

1150 plus 15% = 1,322.50

Stage 3:

1,332.50 plus 15% = 1,520.88

Stage 4:

1,520.88 plus 15% = 1,749.01

Stage 5:

1,749.01 plus 15% = 2,011.36

Woooooooooooow!!!!!

Yes – in just 5 steps of adding 15% each time we can double, in fact more than double what we started with- good stuff!

Now this doesn’t just...

Apply to money – Oh No! It applies to all sorts of things.

Let’s look...

If you and I could increase our speed of typing by just 15% over say a concentrated 4 week period (do you think that’s possible? – I do) then if we repeated the same exercise for another 4 lots of 4 weeks – there a chance; a darned good chance; we’d be twice as fast by the end of the whole 20 weeks period.

If over a 5 year period we increased the repayment on our mortgage (if you have one) by say 15% - then in 5 years time you’d be paying off twice as much each month from that mortgage

If we aimed to run just 15% faster down any road of achievement and continued to do whatever it took to add 15% more speed each and every period of measurement – we’d be twice as fast after 5 periods – wouldn’t we?

Can you think...

Of places or people or situations where you can use this idea?

I’m certain you can:

Go on then...

Peter Thomson

Editor and by 15% to The Stars Publisher

tgiMondays
 

PS: Feedback and comments to: peter@tgimondays.com