Ordering Your Way To Success

By Farai Nyabadza

Have you ever imagined how numbers on the number line can unlock potential and release the success you long for? This book is the first in the Mathmotiv8 book series, crafted to distil the hidden success principles, characterised by the numbers we know.

Life is about numbers and the number line is simply an array of ordered numbers. It is about understanding how to order thoughts, steps, priorities and choices that lead to success. Success can be learnt from anything that you see, experience and do. This book is not about Mathematics, but about success learnt by simply looking at the number line. The numbers on the number line are ordered, and success in life is not a random process. This book presents a unique way of looking at life through the lens of the number line. It is written in simple, easy to read and understandable language. It is captivating, and includes the life experience of the author as a mathematician. It is a masterpiece that unambiguously brings to the fore what anyone interested in being successful in life needs to succeed, by simply looking at how numbers are arrayed on the number line.

Who would ever think that the number line speaks to our uniqueness, how we relate to one another, and shows us how to increase our capacity to handle success in life, set goals and even manage relationships? This book is a must-read for anyone, even those who think that numbers are not for them.

About the Author

Professor Farai Nyabadza is the author of the MathMotiv8 book series, a speaker and an academic mentor with growing academic mentorship and followership. He is passionate about Mathematics as a subject, and motivated to a great extent by giving meaning to the numbers that he so loves for a life full of success.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Farai Nyabadza
• Release date: May 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463174944

Book preview

Ordering your way to

success

Lessons from the number line

Farai Nyabadza

Copyright © 2020 Farai Nyabadza

Published by Farai Nyabadza Publishing at Smashwords

First edition 2020

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without permission from the copyright holder.

The Author has made every effort to trace and acknowledge sources/resources/individuals. In the event that any images/information have been incorrectly attributed or credited, the Author will be pleased to rectify these omissions at the earliest opportunity.

Published by Farai Nyabadza using Reach Publishers’ services,

Edited by Tyler Dupont for Reach Publishers

Cover designed by Reach Publishers

P O Box 1384, Wandsbeck, South Africa, 3631

Website: www.reachpublishers.org

E-mail: [e-mail]

Foreword

I am excited to write this foreword not only because Professor Farai Nyabadza has been a friend and companion for more than 20 years, but also because I have the pleasure of sharing the journey that led him writing this book. This book is the first in the Maths Motiva8 series and it offers a different perspective of looking at success through the lenses of mathematics in general and the number line in particular.

Inspired by some of Professor Farai Nyabadza’s life experiences and how they shaped the use of mathematics to inform success principle, the book uses the number line to analyse principles of success. Moreover, it takes us inside his thinking about how the number line depicts order in life. The book helps us to understand that as human beings we are connected by relationships and every individual is not only unique but of value.

Another lesson in the book is that everything has opposites as depicted by the negative and positive sides of the number line. Each individual is responsible for how they progress in life. Reading this book, you will grasp the link between the number line, life stages and goal setting.

I hope this book will become a primer in motivational books and assist in motivating you to know that you are unique, valuable and your success is determined by the mindset that takes you to your desired goal/destiny, YOUR SUCCESS!

Munyaradzi Christine Nyabadza

Table of Contents

Foreword

Introduction

1. The Number Line

2. The Number Zero

3. The Number Line and Managing Self

5. The Number Line and Capacity

6. The Number Line, Life Stages and Goals

7. The Number Line and People

8. The Number Line and Managing Relationships

9. The Number Line and the Ten D’s

Introduction

Social media has brought old foes and friends alike together. I met a cousin brother of mine at the airport, who apparently had attended the same school as I did during his high school years, two decades later, I guess. We started discussing how the alumni of the school are doing across the globe. His immediate reaction was that there was a social media group for the ‘Bulls’, as the boys from that school are affectionately known. My immediate reaction was to ask who the group administrator was so that I could be added to the group. By the end of the day I was already part of this vibrant group that discussed the politics and the highlights of the high school years, including the famous ‘Bulls’ who were expelled from school and those that borrowed clothes to impress visiting girls from non-coeducational girls’ schools during special events, such as debating and dance club meetings.

There is this one conversation that drew the attention of many. The biggest question being ‘Was the mathematics that we did necessary at all, looking at where we all ended up?’ Those that ended up as language teachers lambasted the ‘Pythagoras theorem’, while the engineers found the idea very important in dealing with angles. Others questioned why they had to do a topic such as indices and sets, for that matter, as they never saw anything like that since they left school. I guess we all ask the very same questions when it comes to the education we went through, from primary school, high school, college, or university. Two interesting questions drew the debate to nearly 2 hours long: ‘Do you always have to see and apply everything that you learnt in school later in life? What is the purpose of education?’

The debate about the purposes of education has been raging on for several years globally. To some, students become educated for the sole purpose of preparing them for the workplace while, to some, the purpose of education is to engrave students’ social, academic, cultural, and intellectual development so that they become engaged citizens in the future. The general agreement was that education should prepare students for work, life, and engaged citizenry.

One of the most interesting discussions was on science and engineering. One interesting contribution was that the purpose of science was to question how the natural world works, while engineering was designed to develop solutions to global human problems. At the bottom of it all was the use of mathematics in science and engineering, and life in general. To some, there were arguments that there is no need for mathematics for some scholars and it should be left to only those interested.

I remembered my engagement with a student at Stellenbosch University, where I taught mathematics for nearly eleven years. One of the female students raised an interesting view on how she was motivated by the way I delivered the subject. She went on to nominate me for an award the following year as a lecturer who had changed the way she viewed mathematics. The same was not so with my daughter at a nearby high school. She would complain every day about mathematics as a subject. Her teacher delivered mathematics lessons pre-prepared on PowerPoint slides while not entertaining questions during her lessons. She would refer those that asked her questions to a few brighter students who probably took extra mathematics classes during the weekend. Every time anyone would ask a question, she would ask the brighter students in class what they would say. At times the slides would be repeated and unclear, much to her disgust. I guess anyone could have gone through similar experiences in their academic careers. However, the scenarios represented how the perception around a subject is formed.

Back to my engagements with my former school’s alumni, I found the interactions fascinating. As a Mathematician in the group, my contributions would be mathematical. I would always want anyone I engaged with to have a good understanding that mathematics should instil in anyone an unending sense of awe at the overpowering way in which life displays order, patterns, and relations. In particular, the artistry displayed by many women that sold wares along the roadsides in tourists resorts showed the undisputable mathematics embodied in life and nature in general. The use of mathematics to inform success principles is particularly intriguing and unparalleled and is the subject of this book.

Johannes Kepler, a seventeenth-century German physicist, best known for his work on planetary motion, once said:

The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order and harmony which has been imposed on it by God and which He revealed to us in the language of mathematics.… Just as the eye was made to see colour and the ear to hear sounds, so the human mind was made to understand quantity. The statement can be further amplified to mean that the human mind was made to understand mathematics.

In my view, as it is with many, mathematics has always been there since the beginnings of time, and it clearly resonates in almost every area of human life; think of buying, the mixing of food ingredients, packaging, finance and investments, telecommunications, games and puzzles, the scheduling of jobs, measurements, sports, elections, etc. The list is endless. Some philosophers have labelled it the language of science. One can also argue that it is also the language of business, engineering, music, fashion design, astronautics, astrology, and agriculture.

Mathematical problems have questions that often involve the words simplify, evaluate, find, factorise, etc. These words induce learning and thinking in mathematical terms, logically and rationally. The process of dealing with a