Today's post is brought to you by the magic numbers 3 and 1.
The number three is given importance in a number of places. In Christianity's Holy Trinity, for instance. The Three Jewels of Buddhism. 3 is a lucky number in China, and in Vietnam it is considered unlucky to take a picture with exactly three people in it. Three on a match? Don't do it! But. . . third time's a charm.
We have 3 strikes in baseball, a 3-point shot in basketball, the three-success hat trick in hockey. And when a team wins a championship three times in a row, it's a threepeat.
We lower ourselves onto stools that support us best with three legs. We blast off with the short countdown of "three two one." The most engaging stories have three parts – a beginning, a middle and an end.
And in nearly every self-help and personal development program of any sort, you're advised to boil your goals, or your most important themes, or whatever you're making a list of down to the top three items.
Three is bite-sized. Three is manageable. Three is a list of things you can handle. We're used to most living things on our world having two sides, or two pairs or eyes, arms, legs. But we find three comforting. Or disturbing. Somehow magical, at any rate.
I often work with my clients to set lists of three. The three most important steps to take to amplify their marketing results, for instance. Sometimes, we even set three lists of three – because if you just had two lists, that feels funny. And one list of 9 items is too hard, and too odd.
But once you have that magical list written out (and it is very important to actually write it out – not just make a list in your head), another magical number comes into play. That number is "one."
One is a power number; a power-full and therefor powerful number. Each of us is an individual, and very quickly after our birth we realize that we stand alone.
One is the power number. You have a list of three things you wish to accomplish, but the important question is, "What's the one thing I can do right now to get going?" One is the start. "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step," it's been said. You have to "eat a whale one bite at a time," but there has to be a first bite! We celebrate our child's first step, their first word, their first tooth. One is magical because it is the start.
And here's the take-away. The single most important point. "One" is "action." You can write all the lists you want. You can examine your navel for hours, days, weeks, or years. But until you take that first step, until you perform that first action, nothing happens. Zero, nada, zilch. And while "zero" is an important concept, "nothing" is just. . . nothing.
