# Why explaining a slow month never brings the number back up [Home](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en) › [Study](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/study) › [Articles](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/study/articles) author: [Axel Jedlitschka](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/about) published: 2026-10-08 updated: 2026-10-08 language: en reading time: 5 min topic: Organization source booklet: [It Was a Slow Month](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/shop/introduction/statistics-conditions) Explaining why a number went down does not bring it up. Prevention and quick action do. Explaining why a number fell does not bring it back up. The explanation only fills the space where an action should have been, and that makes the explanation itself a sign of the problem. ## The habit has a name The source gives this habit a name: **rationalizing a statistic**. In plain words, finding excuses for a number that went down. A statistic, by the way, is a number compared with the same number from an earlier period, such as this month's sales next to last month's. The source doesn't treat the excuse as neutral. It calls the term derogatory and puts the problem in a few words: “Finding excuses or reasons why a stat is down does NOT bring it up” At best, according to the source, the excuse is a harsh comment on whoever is in charge of the area: they didn't see the drop coming, and they didn't take initiative when it started. So the issue isn't that the explanation fails to help. The explanation is evidence against you. ## What you want instead If not an explanation, then what? The source answers with two things: prevent the drop before it happens, and act quickly to bring the number up once it has fallen. Suppose a business owner explains every weak month by saying August is always like this. The following August, he explains it again, in the same words. The explanation may even be true, but nothing changed because of it. In the opposite example, the same man draws a different conclusion from the same fact. If August is always weak, then July has to be unusually full. That is no longer an explanation. It is an action, and it happens before the number has dropped at all. The difference between the two isn't knowledge. Both know exactly the same thing about August. The difference is what they do with it. For the first, it ends the conversation. For the second, it starts a plan. ## When the excuse becomes a method The source lists a handful of excuses people repeat, such as the idea that life is like that, or that it was worse last year. Each one sounds reasonable when you say it. But the list isn't the important part. What matters is what they all share. According to the source, some people have a fixed method for handling a falling number, a fixed idea they reach for in every down situation in their lives. The word method matters. The excuse isn't accidental and it isn't spontaneous. It is the same sentence every time, and that is exactly why you can spot it. Suppose a tradesman answers every talk about numbers with the same line about how tough the market is. He says it for three years straight, even in the year that went well. Or a designer realises that her line about always trying her best comes out only when the number drops. When it rises, she never says it. In both cases the sentence doesn't describe reality. It describes the person's fixed way of dealing with it. ## The extreme sentence, and the graph that decides The source goes further. It says the only reason numbers ever go down is that somebody didn't push them up, and that every other reason is false. That sentence is extreme on purpose. Read it the way it was intended. It doesn't claim that seasons and markets aren't real. It hands the steering wheel back to you. A cause that sits outside leaves you nothing to do. A cause that sits inside gives you something. The source closes the point by saying numbers can always be made to go up, through hard work, foresight and initiative. Suppose a business owner asks of every fall what she herself didn't do, instead of asking what happened. Those are two completely different questions, and only one leads to action. On the other side, an owner spends six months analysing his market. The analysis is correct, and it changes nothing. This leads to the last part of the chapter, which explains why you rely on numbers at all. According to the source, all actions are taken only on statistics, never on rumor or opinion. The trend over a longer period is what decides. The number protects you from your own mood. In a good week it is easy to be too generous, and in a bad week it is easy to panic. The graph is not affected by either. Suppose a consultant feels her business is dying. When she looks at her numbers, all three are slightly up. It felt like an emergency, and the business was in a perfectly normal state. A feeling tells you something about your mood. A graph tells you something about your business. ## What the booklet has on this In the statistics and conditions booklet, this chapter ends with a practice section of two exercises: identify, and replace. The chapters before it cover what makes a number trustworthy, how to read a trend, and the conditions a trend points to. A number that went down isn't waiting for an explanation. It is waiting for someone to do something. - [It Was a Slow Month](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/shop/introduction/statistics-conditions): Three numbers, a table that turns a slant into a condition, and seven formulas. --- [עברית](https://theonlyaxelj.com/he/study/articles/an-explanation-instead-of-a-number) · [Español](https://theonlyaxelj.com/es/study/articles/an-explanation-instead-of-a-number)