2012 By the Numbers – a Year in an Impact Investing Startup | Part 2

Numbers enable us to count and compare. They are a quick way of communicating something. They sometimes form evidence on which to base our decisions. Numbers make us feel good. From my numbers of 2012, did I have a good year or a bad year? Do I keep going or do I do something else? On the one hand, it was an awesome year compared to years previous, when I had done none of these things and had no blog traffic (the two websites are new this year!) Compared to my investment banking salary, the results are markedly different. What’s missing from these numbers is how I felt this year and the impact I had on the people with whom I interacted. Research by Antonio Damasio shows that emotions actually guide decision-making. Stories are important too. Words and phrases can be poetic, descriptive, and dynamic, such that they spark an emotional response within us. But numbers and words alone are not sufficient for us to make decisions. Experience (of things of the past and present) and vision (about things of the future) are vital in decision-making. The most fun “number” I like to speak of is this: I spend 95% of my time doing things that I enjoy – working with amazing women investors, having intriguing conversations about impact investing and investing with a gender lens, and connecting people in fun, social environments. That number is completely approximate – it could be even higher. The point is, most of the time I am doing things I enjoy with people whose company I enjoy. No other statistic nor metric could top that.

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