Marketing tool number 1 these days, seems to be to use a number in the heading of the subject one writes about.

A simple internet search easily provided me with:

2 Ways to Make Money From Stocks.
3 Ways to Get Clients
4 Unshakable Beliefs of Every Great Leader
5 Most Important Molecules in Your Body
6 Ways to Tie a Scarf and
7 Stages of Grief

Funny things is though that while we often know exactly what the guidelines represent; only few of us can actually name the rules,
even with numbers as intertwined in our culture as for instance the 10 commandments. We know of them but can we list them by heart? What do they represent for us personally?
It much resembles the learning of events in history class.
1066: Batttle of Hastings. But who fought it? And why? And where is Hastings?

So what is it with numbered lists of solutions? What is their appeal to our psyche? Why are they considered top of the pops marketing tools these days?

Personally I’ve have become impatient with the ‘3 foods that help me loose weight’ or ‘6 Ways to meet Mr. Right.’
Why? Because I very much believe in the individual properties of each and every one of us and am convinced that my ways to find love are as individual as my fingerprint and differ from 7 billion other people who live on our earth.
If it wasn’t, I’d have 7 billion like-minded friends.

Equipped with our very own Insights, Gifts and Tools, tailor-made to our lifestyle and what we represent, we all meet our very own Challenges in life.
These Challenges are not mass produced and in my opinion cannot be met with standardized solutions.
“Here’s your 3 choices” it seems to ordain, “this is what you have to work with”, while Freedom of Choice is the birthright and irrevocable liberty of all human beings.

In the Game of Tarot (and therewith also in the Nan Yar – Who Am I personal development game) numbers are not used to list guidelines but represent an energy of their own, hiding a wealth of interpretations, with each number governing a world of its own.

Number 1 for instance is seen as the number of all potential.
2, the number of diversity
3, the number of creation
4, the number of balance
5, the number of heart of the matter
6, the number of communication
while the number 7 represent the conditions we need to progress in our physical lives.

8, 9 and 10, as my mentor Cees van der Kroef always says are Mozart, Rembrandt and Spinoza.
8, 9 and 10 are the added values, the extra’s we can create by ourselves and for ourselves in life.

Now how about sitting yourself down and making your own list of numbers; writing down what the numbers 1-7 represent for you and how you would fill in 8, 9 and 10.