Just Some Numbers

Today as I was leaving the UPS Store, I had quite a lovely exchange with a woman who was entering the store. It was very short, genuine, and extremely polite. She was not offended that I greeted her and thanked her, nor was I offended that she held the door open for me and waited while I exited. Neither of us saw any ulterior or nefarious motive for the behavior of the other. We were each just going about our business.

I suspect for most of us that’s how our days go. We have stuff to do each day: work, rest, play, eating, breathing, what have you. You will not read about us anywhere, not on a news site, not on social media, probably not even in a letter from your child at camp. We will not be interviewed on CNN, Fox News, ESPN, or Telemundo. In fact, we are extraordinary people living ordinary lives.

The UPS Store exchange caused me to wonder just exactly who is getting all the attention. So I did a little thinking about who I most often see or hear each day that I don’t have a personal relationship with. Some I hear from directly because they are interviewed, some I hear about because of something they have done that is deemed newsworthy. There are some broad categories: actors/actresses, professional athletes, elected officials, CEOs, musicians, and occasionally criminals. I realize that isn’t all encompassing but it’s the bulk of what shows up around here.

So then I wondered just exactly how many people is that. Now let me just establish that this is NOT a scientific survey or was any research of any depth done here. I’m a scientist so I do understand all of the qualifiers and caveats that belong with what I’m going to tell you. At its very best this is back of the envelope, bar napkin stuff. But I think it is interesting.

My best Google research says that in the United States there are:

CEOs – 195,530

Elected officials – 519,682

Musicians – ~90,000

Actors/actresses – 47,430

Professional athletes – ~5,000

Criminals (incarcerated) – ~2,200,000

Now there is overlap here, especially at the intersection of criminals and everyone else. And the counts are at best approximations in many categories. But let’s assume there is some level of validity if not accuracy. This is a pretty comprehensive group of people who show up in the news or other media each day. Most of them, quite frankly, never get a mention. For example, I’m the CEO of our consulting firm and no one EVER interviews me about anything. But just for sake of illustration let’s say everyone in the categories above has at least one major appearance in news or other media in a given year. Some we know will have multiple if not daily appearances, Lord help us. So minimum of 3,057,642 “influencers”.

Total population of the United States is ~327,200,000.

Do the math here folks. 99.9% of us are minding our own business being productive members of society or at least not doing something newsworthy which generally means outrageously obnoxious. You could pull out all those under 18 except at least some of them make the news.

Even if you accounted for some kind of error or missed category – let’s just double that number – then 98% of us are living ordinary lives.

So in the United States today we are giving our attention to a very few and an even fewer number of those even deserve our attention.

Be present. Those who matter most and should matter most deserve our best attention and our best “yes”.