Numbers don't lie. Period.
Look, I know this might sound obvious coming from someone who's spent their career as a marketing analyst, but hear me out. There's a difference between working with data professionally and finding genuine comfort in it. And for me, that shift happened after 9/11. Data became my anchor.
I remember standing in my living room the next day, watching the towers fall on repeat—because that's what we did back then, right? We just... watched. Over and over. The fear was suffocating. Everything felt unpredictable, dangerous, like the world had tilted off its axis. But then, somewhere in the chaos of those following weeks, I found myself returning to this book I'd read earlier—Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos. Suddenly, his arguments hit different.
Game changer? Absolutely.
Paulos breaks down how mathematical illiteracy—innumeracy—makes us vulnerable to panic, manipulation, and frankly, really poor decision-making. (I actually wrote about this book a few months back if you want to dig deeper into his arguments.) When you can't parse the actual numbers behind scary headlines, everything becomes a threat. But when you understand probability, when you can read data properly... well, it's like having X-ray vision through the fear-mongering.
Take flying after 9/11. Everyone was terrified (understandably so). The media kept showing those planes hitting the buildings. But the data? Your odds of dying in a plane crash remained something like 1 in 11 million. You were statistically more likely to die driving to the airport than on the plane itself. Did that make the attacks less horrific? Of course not. But it did help me get on planes again without my hands shaking.
This same principle carried me through COVID—though I realize saying that might make me sound cold-hearted. Trust me, I wasn't cavalier about it. I masked up religiously, got vaccinated the second I could, avoided crowds religiously. But while my neighbors were hoarding toilet paper and convinced they'd die if they stepped outside, I was crunching infection rates, hospitalization data, mortality statistics by age group and comorbidities.
The numbers told a story. A serious story, don't get me wrong—COVID was (and still is) dangerous. But for someone my age, with my health profile, taking proper precautions... the data helped me navigate between reckless abandonment and paralyzing terror. It gave me a framework for measured caution instead of pure panic.
Here's what I've learned: data is comfort because data is truth. Not opinion, not speculation, not some talking head's hot take—just facts. Cold, hard, beautiful facts. When politicians spin statistics or news outlets cherry-pick numbers to fit their narrative, numeracy becomes your BS detector.
Now, inevitably, someone's gonna jump in here with "But data can be manipulated!" And you know what? They're absolutely right. Data can be twisted, cherry-picked, presented out of context, or flat-out misrepresented. I see it constantly in my work—clients wanting me to massage the numbers to tell the story they prefer rather than the story that actually exists.
But here's the thing: the pure data—the raw, unfiltered, complete dataset—doesn't lie. It's the interpretation, the selective reporting, the convenient omissions that create the deception. When you know how to dig into the actual numbers, when you understand methodology and sample sizes and confidence intervals, you can spot the manipulation from a mile away. The data itself remains honest; it's the humans presenting it who sometimes aren't.
And nowhere do I see this more clearly than in my day job analyzing marketing campaigns. Oh boy, the number of times I've sat across from creative teams who are absolutely convinced their latest campaign is pure genius because it gives people "the feels." You know the drill—beautiful cinematography, emotional music, a slogan that hits you right in the soul. "Just do it." "Think different." "Because you're worth it."
But here's the million-dollar question I always have to ask: do they actually work? Not just in terms of brand awareness or warm fuzzy feelings, but in cold, hard sales numbers? Conversion rates? Customer lifetime value? Return on ad spend?
I've been in countless meetings where marketers get misty-eyed over their "breakthrough creative concept" while completely glossing over the performance metrics. Sure, it won awards at Cannes. Sure, it got people talking on social media. But did it move the needle where it actually counts? Often... not so much.
The campaigns that really excite me (professionally speaking) are the ones that nail both sides of the equation. They make you feel something AND they deliver results you can track, measure, and bank on. Because at the end of the day, feelings don't pay the bills—conversions do. And trust me, after analyzing hundreds of campaigns over the years, the correlation between "creative genius" and actual business results is... well, let's just say it's not as strong as the creative teams would like to believe.
Does this make me emotionally detached? My wife might argue yes (she still teases me about my "spreadsheet approach to life"). But I'd counter that understanding probability and statistics actually makes me more empathetic, not less. There's this moment in Star Trek: The Motion Picture where Spock realizes that pure logic—without emotion—is essentially worthless. He'd been chasing this ideal of perfect rationality, but it left him hollow, incomplete.
I think about that scene a lot, actually. But here's my twist on it: emotion without data can be just as hollow. When I see real numbers about poverty rates, educational disparities, or healthcare outcomes, those statistics don't diminish my emotional response—they inform it, ground it, give it direction. The data doesn't replace empathy; it provides a foundation for effective compassion. You can care deeply AND think clearly. In fact, you should.
Raw emotion might make you want to help, but data tells you how to help effectively. It's the difference between throwing money at a problem that makes you feel good versus actually solving something measurable.
Maybe it's because I'm getting older, but I've grown tired of fear-based thinking. Whether it's terrorism, pandemics, economic crashes, or whatever crisis du jour the media serves up—data helps me separate signal from noise. It doesn't eliminate worry (I'm human, after all), but it channels that energy into rational preparation instead of useless anxiety.
Numbers don't lie. They don't have agendas or emotions or political affiliations. They just... are. And honestly? In our current world of alternative facts and manufactured outrage, that consistency feels like a warm hug.