A Decade of Work, By The Numbers (And the One Number That Actually Matters)

A few weeks ago I left Epsilon, the company where I have worked for over a decade. Such an occasion is cause for introspection. And for a closet analytics geek who somewhat obsessively maintains calendar archives, introspection means doing some math.

Here are a few highlights of my ten years, and what I learned:

• 19,189 meetings — Shorter is better. Your time is literally your life, spend it wisely. But that doesn’t mean spend it selfishly. Time and attention are perhaps the greatest gift one person can give another.
• 605 meetings with clients — I wish I had done even more of these. Direct feedback from clients is the antidote for group think and the fuel for growth.
• 515 flights — Get comfortable being uncomfortable. And remember there is always someone on the flight more uncomfortable than you. Also, good noise cancelling headphones are worth every penny.
• 765 hotel nights — Always try and do one interesting non-work thing in each city. A park, a museum, a game, even a walk in an unfamiliar neighborhood. Take a couple of hours to feed your soul instead of doing work email while watching hotel room TV.
• 142 white board markers — Okay, this is an estimate. But I was gifted a couple of huge boxes of markers by my teams over the years, and they are almost all used up. Nothing clarifies what you truly understand and what you are still figuring out quite like being face to face with a blank whiteboard.

Of course, these are all input metrics. Even if they were great activities, it is not a given these actions drove positive impact for others or myself. I did some additional math that showed my teams generated just over $200 million in new revenue over my time at Epsilon. But the value of financial success vaporizes as soon as the calendar rolls to the next fiscal year, so at this point those are just numbers.

Ultimately, the metric that probably best reflects the work of the past decade is this: 1,157 new relationships. This is the number of new personal connections I have made, as measured by LinkedIn. This includes casual acquaintances with whom I may have only shared a single conversation, people who have become close friends, and everything in between.

When I look back on the past ten years, it is these people I remember far more than the work. And, as I work with excitement on my next chapter, it is the prospect of spending more time with these people, and getting to know even more, that makes tomorrow even more exciting than yesterday.