I'm a big fan of the phrase: "you can measure someone by what they measure". In other words, you can make an assessment of someone based off what's important to them. This is doubly true, especially coming back to the Midwest from San Francisco.
I stumbled across a Wikipedia page on the ancient measure of cubits - it's based on the length from your elbow to the tip of your middle finger. I thought to myself: "but everyone has slightly different arms - there's no immovable standard there!"
Then I thought to myself: for my purposes, that measure is largely irrelevant. What is relevant to me are certain measures like number of users for my products, the number of hours I sleep and spend with good company, etcetera. Everyone has different measures.
Usually, when I strike up a conversation with someone, one of the very first things I'm on the lookout for is what they measure and how - not entirely to scrutinize the measure, but to understand the dynamics of their world. This usually manifests as: what do they see as the biggest problems in their world right now?
When I think of my first measure, it's time. It might seem pedantic, but 15 minutes is 1% of your day. It's a general sane constant that allows me to figure out: where am I spending too much time, or too little? It's a very useful proxy for where I need to put effort. After all, both Bezos and I have the same time.
The next thing I do is measure whom I speak with and what kind of energy I ingest. It may seem benign, but you are subconsciously shaped by your environment and your peers more than you could ever fathom; I'm adamant about nurturing, managing, and pruning these energy sources carefully.
TL;DR - improve what you measure and why. Your evolution depends on it.
Be well,
Michael Kirsanov