What is Life Math™?
Life Math™ is concept math, with no calculator required. It counts the non-monetary costs of the lives we live: time, energy, relationships and health, with money as only one of the currencies. When the trade-off isn't worth it, this math doesn't math. We need new math.
Created by Jennifer Flynn.
LIFE MATH™Uncommunicated Expectations = Premeditated Resentments
WHERE IT CAME FROM
It started with friends, talking about return on experience. We kept noticing that a yes always cost something, and not always money. A yes could cost you time and peace and earn you a fresh batch of resentment. So every choice became a net loss, net neutral or net positive... and a net neutral is probably still a no, because that's effort for no reward. Things needed to add to life or, even better, multiply.
For the record, I notoriously hate math. (I probably owe my old math teacher a sorry letter.) This math, I measure everything with.
SAY IT WITH ME
Uncommunicated Expectations = Premeditated Resentments
If they were never given the standard, they didn't fail it. You'll still be mad about it later.
No Response = A Response
Silence is an answer. Usually the one you were afraid of.
Output > Input = Burnout
You can't keep giving more than you take in and call it a strategy.
Responsibility – Authority = Burnout
Carrying the outcome without the power to change it is a terrible deal.
Cash Flow – Capacity = Chaos
Money coming in faster than you can carry it feels a lot less like freedom than you'd think.
Effort = Interest
People make time for what they care about. So do you. (Check your calendar.)
That's a little Life Math™ for you.
THE VOCABULARY
Founder Capacity
What a founder can actually carry.
Return on Energy™
What it costs you to earn what you earn.
Invisible Exhaustion
The burnout that looks like excellence.
TRY IT THIS WEEK
Got a decision on your plate? Run it through the math before you say yes.
Get the Decision FilterTAKE IT FURTHER
Life Math™ is also a keynote, and the first book in the Gateway Series. Work is not life. This is the math that keeps it that way.