Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

One of the things we are guaranteed by statistics is that everyone is average in most things; it’s determining the things you’re exceptional at that’s difficult. Using statistical terms, the spread of all people on any general item is called a distribution; most things follow a standard distribution, meaning there are as many people above the median, the center line, as below. By definition, 95% of everyone is within two deviations of that median, which includes you. Even the number of things that make you unique enough to fall outside the deviation are on a distribution, which means almost everything you do, say, and think, are what everybody else does, says, and thinks. Another way of stating that reality is that there are only 5% of things, 1 in 20, where you are special. You can use this mathematical fact to make informed guess; for example, if your spouse seems to be treating you badly, chances are that’s how all spouses act, so you can find advice on how to deal with it. The predictions can be even more personal: if you’re dissatisfied with your job, you can bet almost everyone else is too. Generalizations like this are unfashionable because everyone wants to believe they are special & unique; that they have free will, and are unpredictable; yeah, 5% of the time they are, but all the rest of the time, they’re little more than automatons. Perhaps only 5% of you understand this, but odds are everyone does.