The "mathematics" mentioned here is not an academic theory like calculus, but a very straightforward "numerical analysis". In other words, you have to try to quantify your ideas and give numbers. When some people see this, they will think: "Yes! I have the data!" Taking the proposal to do a podcast as an example, the student who asked the question may prepare some survey data to show how many people are doing podcasts now. Programs, how many people listen, etc.,
And even the ratio of male to female and age are clearly listed. I'd say it's a number, but it's not really. In my own experience as a boss, most "normal" employees can do this, but it's far from enough. Because the external market may be huge and photo retouching others may be very successful, but from the perspective of the boss, it is still difficult for people to determine what this has to do with "me" and "our company". After listening to it, the boss may still think: "Whether there are a hundred or tens of millions of potential listeners, it has nothing to do with me.
Will everyone listen to me if I do it? Besides, why do I have to start a podcast? What do you want to do? Everyone does it, do I have to do it too?" More question marks emerged from this. I think to break through this situation, instead of reporting those high-altitude numbers to your boss, you should take the time to break down your ideas into more specifics and provide numbers that are really closely related to him. In other words, you should turn this information into something that the boss can immediately understand, which is to answer two questions with numbers: How much to invest? How much will it pay back?