by Ndubuisi Ekekwe

Pythagoras gave the world the Pythagoras theorem, that one your sports teacher used to determine the 90-degree edge of the football field, in the village school which did not have a formal measurement tool. In the Great Debate, he made a really strong point: the world is nothing but numbers.

Pythagoras is still speaking. His “numbers” are now called data. If the world is made up of numbers, it does mean that if you cannot measure anything, you are wasting your time on it. Your business is numbers, and you must measure it in order to make progress.

From the Great Library of Alexandria to the The House of Wisdom (Grand Library of Baghdad), the ancient world was ruled by those who could make sense of numbers. The Great Al-Khwarizmi, the Father of Algebra, and the man whose name is “algorithm”, preached the message of numbers. As the director of the House of Wisdom, he pioneered algebra and went to Mecca to shape commerce. He
told men- unless you can make sense of numbers, you cannot be a good merchant.

As we move into the years ahead, invest to understand the numbers in your business and your career.