It’s hard to live a life without numbers, but today that’s what I want to focus on. I don’t want to consider “how many” clients, students, members, etc. I just want to focus in the ONE I’m with.
I remember how I used to spend the first fifteen minutes of the school day standing in my doorway talking to a myriad of children and adults alike. Next to me there would be a child standing waiting patiently for my attention, without repeating my name or touching me, like they they were taught to do. For them, it was usually worth the wait because when I did turn to them it was like they were the only child in the room. I wouldn’t even let other students interrupt our interaction. When I was listening to the oh so important thing that was on that child’s mind, I was not thinking of the number of children that would go to first grade reading or the number of children that would do well on some future testing. I only cared, in that moment, about what that child was asking me or telling me.
Days without numbers. As I go to my current job today, it’s not about how many people I can sign up at the fit club. It’s about the person who looks at me, after we do their strength test and says, “You mean there’s hope for me?” That’s when the adrenaline courses through my body and I look back at them and say, “Of course there’s hope for you! We will start small. Make small changes in your life that will, in time, add up to huge health benefits. We will change your life one workout at a time.”
And they smile, and look back at me, thinking, for the first time someone really has faith in them that they can do this. And my faith in them is real, just as it was in that child standing next to me. They are not a number. They are not a conquest. They are a person who just needs to be shown a small step that they can navigate in a world that’s scary and foreign to them.
I want to think I can live my days days in a world without numbers. It’s a challenge, I know, because business and money depend on numbers. But maybe, just maybe, by focusing wholly on the individual we are conversing with, the numbers will take care of themselves.
And so, as another day goes by, I approach it by asking my God, “Who is it you would have me touch for you today?” and …I have written.
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