Abhijit (John) Singh

xYzed - My humble contribution to an over choice paralysis.

I almost had a paralysis attack again this morning. On my way to work, I stopped at the local Woolworths to buy some milk and snacks to stack up the office kitchen and before I knew it, I was staring at an entire isle of choices.

For companies such as Smiths, who makes potato chips, these are mementos times. I remember when growing up, this humble snack came in just a couple of flavours; salted, salt and vinegar & chicken. Today the choice is tongue-tingling: Thai sweet chilli, balsamic vinegar, caramelised onion, Thai sheet chilli, chicken, onion chutney, mozzarella and herb, to name a few. Venture into the milk section and you feel overwhelmed with the number of options once again.

After researching the topic of 'choice' extensively over the last few months, it turns out that an average supermarket now carries approximately 40,000 items, according to the Food and Marketing institute, which is 5 times more than about a decade ago. Some supermarkets stock almost 100 different types of shampoos, toothpastes and household cleaners. It’s no wonder, I dread going to supermarkets as I often get confused with which one to choose and even if I do make a decision, I often get into an internal debate as to why I had made the choice, or have I simply 'picked' one to satisfy that task.

Choice seduces the modern consumer at every turn. Lattes come tall, short, skinny, decaf, flavoured, iced, spiced or frappe. Jeans come flared, bootlegged, skinny, cropped, straight, low-rise, bleach-rinsed, dark-washed or distressed. Moisturiser nourishes lifts, smooths, revitalises, conditions, firms, refreshes and rejuvenates.

Thanks to the mix of modern medicine, technology and social change, choice has expanded from the grocery shelf to areas that once had few or none. Faces, noses, wrinkles, breasts and bellies can be remodelled, plumped or tucked. Movies can be viewed, recorded, downloaded or streamed on all manner of screens or devices. The internet has handed huge power to the consumer to research options, whether of medical procedures, or holiday breaks. Even the choice-comparison sites that I have relied on to market some of my products are expanding and no longer giving the seeker a peace of mind.

Many of these options have improved life immeasurably in the rich world, and to a lesser extent in poorer parts. They are testimony to human ingenuity and innovation. Free choice is the basis on which markets work, driving competition and generating economic growth. It is the cornerstone of liberal democracy. The 20th century bears the scars of too many failed experiments in which people had no choice. But amid all the dizzying possibilities, a nagging question lurks: is so much extra choice a good thing?

Over the past decade psychologists have come up with some intriguing insights. In one landmark experiment, conducted in an upmarket grocery store, researchers set up a sampling table with a display of jams. In the first test they offered a tempting array of 24 different jams to taste; on a different day they displayed just six. Shoppers who took part in the sampling were rewarded with a discount voucher to buy any jam of the same brand in the store. It turned out that more shoppers stopped at the display when there were 24 jams. But when it came to buying afterwards, fully 30% of those who stopped at the six-jam table went on to purchase a pot, against merely 3% of those who were faced with the selection of 24.

The psychologist came to the conclusion that too much choice is demotivating and I couldn’t agree with them more. I have been advising my clients over the years to keep things simple and keep their product ranges to as few as possible despite the general trend of giving the customers more and more choices, which has now proven my theory to be right but, I have often felt defeated as I have not been able to influence enough of them. It took some time to realise that the choices in all things are not going to reduce and I will not achieve anything by trying to fight the system which is inevitably growing. Instead, over the last few years I have decided to embrace the system and I have been working on a new venture called xYzed, which will be launching early this year, which will help us make better choice when it comes to choosing goods and service merchants. I hope xYzed to be my humble contribution to us which will help us make better choices when it comes to buying decisions.

As options multiply, there may be a point at which the effort required to obtain enough information to be able to distinguish sensibly between alternatives outweighs the benefit to the consumer of the extra choice. Barry Schwartz in “The Paradox of Choice”, writes “choice no longer liberates, but debilitates. It might even be said to tyrannise.” In other words, as Mr Schwartz puts it, “the fact that some choice is good doesn’t necessarily mean that more choice is better.” Daniel McFadden, an economist says that consumers find too many options troubling because of the “risk of misperception and miscalculation, of misunderstanding the available alternatives, of misreading one’s own tastes, of yielding to a moment’s whim and regretting it afterwards”, combined with “the stress of information acquisition”. Indeed, the expectation of indecision can prompt panic and a failure to choose at all. Too many options mean too much effort to make a sensible decision: better to bury your head under a pillow, or have somebody else pick it for you. The vast majority of shoppers in the grocery store faced with 24 jam varieties simply chose not to buy any. The more expensive an item such as a car, the more daunting the decision.

Surely, knowing that lots of choice is out there still feels good? But not, according to psychologists, if more choice raises expectations too high, which may make even a good decision feel bad. The potential for regret about the options not taken seems to be greater in the face of multiple choices.

Expectations have been inflated to such an extent that people think the perfect choice exists. Consider relationships. Bookshops are crowded with self-help guides and self-improvement manuals with titles such as “How to Choose & Keep Your Partner” or “Love is a Choice”. Internet dating sites promise to find the perfect match with just a few clicks of the mouse. This nourishes the hope of making the ideal choice, as well as the fanciful idea that there are quick, rational solutions to the complicated questions.

Confusion, indecision, panic, regret, anxiety: choice seems to come at a price. In one episode of “The Simpsons”, Marge takes Apu shopping in a new supermarket, Monstromart, whose cheery advertising slogan is “where shopping is a baffling ordeal”.

It could be that today’s children, growing up in a world of abundant choice, will find decisions even harder to take when they grow up. Their lives may be packed with instant choices as they zap from one site to another while texting a friend and listening to music on YouTube. But much of this is reflexive activity. The digital generation is “picking”, not “choosing”, with a world of choices rushing by like a music video, all a picker can do is grab this or that and hope for the best. But they have never learned to make a choice and run with it. In adult life, they aren’t equipped to cope.

When Levis began to stitch denim jeans, brand managers have made it their business to offer shoppers an easier life. Brands simplify choices. They are a guarantee of quality or consistency in a confusing market, and a badge of trust. Companies spend heavily on marketing and legal advice to protect or reinvent their brands and keep customers loyal, exploiting customers’ aversion to choice. The more that options multiply, the more important brands become. Today, when paralysed by choice, a consumer will often turn to a brand that is cleverly marketed to appear to be one that others trust.

Some businesses have begun to wake up to the perils of excess choice. Some firms employ “choice architects” to help guide consumers’ decision-making. When Procter & Gamble thinned its range of Head & Shoulders shampoos from 26 to 15 their sales increased by 10%. The fine art of limiting yourself to the essential in business and in life suggest practical ideas for cutting down on the effort of decision-making.

Those in the business of helping people choose offer various tips. The key is taking a decision. The truth is that it doesn't matter what we choose, only that we do choose. Stick to the choices that matter and eliminate the rest. When you approach simple living, sometimes the decision is clear-cut. Sometimes it’s not. The trouble with simplifying your life these days, it turns out, is that it involves too many choices. LOL

Over the last few years I have been researching and studying the science of decision making to understand what makes people choose the products and service providers that they end up choosing. In the world of increasing choices, I hope to launch my new venture xYzed this year as an organisation which (with the help of people, technology & businesses) will create a system that gives us the best choices based on algorithm created using past experiences of people and various filtration factors, which will make decision making easy for us all in a world which is giving us a over choice paralysis every time we have to choose.

Lets face it, the end result of all choices is either disappointment or happiness. My vision with xYzed is to deliver HAPPINESS to everyone that helps me build and use this system. I hope to share a lot more insight on this topic as I launch this business and I would like to humbly invite you to support me in my quest. 

What would the child I once was think of the adult I’ve become?

Having been asked this question over lunch a few weeks back by a friend, it got me thinking...

That is a difficult question, not only for me but I’m sure it’s difficult for you too. I will however try and brainstorm my thoughts here and hopefully I can find the answer to this question.

Walking up the hill next to our house in Bombay on our regular Sunday Morning climbs with dad in 1987 I remember my dad asking me, “son what do you want to be when you grow up”. It is my first memory of the question being asked to me and I vaguely remember being puzzled with the question for a little while. My first reaction to him was that, “dad, I never want to grow up. I’m quite happy the way i am”. I kept walking up the hill huffing and puffing and after thinking about it for some time; I told him that I wanted to be just like him by the time I get to his age in the sense that I would love to be talking my son for a long hill walks every Sunday morning. I remember dad asking me what I wanted to do for a living when I grew up. After him giving me one of his very serious looks, I did think about it for some time and then finally told him that either I wanted to have my own chain of restaurants in every city of the world (so I can eat yummy food and travel the world) or I wanted to become an air force pilot. I remember my dad being very angry at me as he disapproved of both those professions and he ended up giving me a lecture on how I should concentrate on my studies so I can be an engineer just like him. I was 7 years old and my dad was 31.

Many years went by and over the years I grew up becoming quite the humanitarian; always putting people first and helping them at every chance I got. I also ended up becoming very creative and entrepreneurial. Growing up, I found some aspects of school very easy whilst I struggled at other aspects. I was very experimental and artistic but a lot of that was suppressed by Dad’s strict single dimensional point of views and rules which despite all my efforts of holding myself back and trying my level best to please him; at times my natural self would take over and subsequently rebel.

Today, I run an web consulting firm in Sydney. I am also currently working on launching an online portal which I have invested my every bit over the last 4 years and I hope it to be my life’s legacy as I wholeheartedly  believe that it will change the game of the web industry and lead us all to a better future; if I am lucky enough to execute it in a way I have planned to over the next couple of years.

Over the last few years, my only regret has been that I found my feet in where I belong too late in my life. I very strongly believe that I could have achived a lot more both personally and professionally if I had the alignment of my natural strengths with my professional and personal endeavors earlier in life, instead of having to battle though it at every stage and learn life the hard way.

Over the last few years, one topic which has been of great interest to me is the topic of Parenting. I have grown to believe that it is a sin for parents not to educate themselves on how to best raise their children to give the children the best possible future. Its saddens me that most parents stunt the child’s natural potential to flourish and often cause a lot of damage by raising them based on their own aspirations rather than the child’s natural strengths and aspirations.

If the child from that day I was walking up the hill with Dad was to come and visit me today, I believe that he would have at least 5 things to say to me:

1) I hope you never lose the child like sense of wonder and the courage to experiment and seek until you have found.

2) I hope you’ve learnt by now that you can’t catch butterflies and keep them in your briefcase as you did when you were young and always wondered why they didn’t live for too long. Butterflies belong in the gardens and it’s about time you build your own garden.

3) I’m happy to see that you have kept your free spirit in all that you do and I’m happy that you have learnt to make your own decisions in life where you feel it to be right without being obligated to follow other’s rules which you believe to be obsolete.

4) I am sad to see that you have not yet started a family as you’ve always aspired to. I hope that you will soon think about this very seriously and find that perfect butterfly glowing from her inner beauty, that you've always been looking for.

5) You didn’t end up in the Air force and you don’t have your own chain of restaurants. I hope that once you feel settled and satisfied with your contribution and service to your IT endeavours, in the next few years, you will follow your heart and invest in a boutique restaurant just the way you’ve always wanted to. Call me a 7 year old foolish kid, but I know that it will bring you a lot of satisfaction and happiness as it was always your childhood dream.

I believe that the child that I once was would have mixed feelings about the adult that I have become and he would encourage me to follow my heart and have the courage to do things that would make me happy, as foolish as it may sound or be...

Abhijit.

Right Brain Domination.

Read this sentence. You just used the left hemisphere of your brain. That’s because our brains are contralateral, which means the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body and vice-versa. In case you are still trying to figure that out, in the West, we read left to right.

Left-brain thinking has traditionally been associated with traits like order, analysis, and logic and jobs in accounting, engineering, and the medical field. But the future, according to Daniel Pink, is in right-brain thinking or at least in it playing a much more significant role.

Pink’s A Whole New Mind provides a compelling argument for the impending transition of society’s influencers to be right-brain thinkers. These thinkers are aesthetic, contextual, and metaphorical and typically have been artists, inventors, or storytellers. In Pink’s future, many left-brain jobs, products, and activities will be outsourced, automated, or less valued due to globalization and incredible efficiencies created by none other than left-brain thinkers (in particular Pink’s three agents of change are Abundance, Asia, and Automation).

The conclusion is simple: whip your right-brain into shape. Start exercising those right-brain muscles. Pink outlines the “whole new mind” he believes is critical in this coming era, indicating the need to complement function with design, argument with story, focus with symphony, logic with empathy, seriousness with play, and accumulation with meaning. The whole new mind is not the absence of the first; it is the inclusion of the second.

Should Pink truly be prophetic, his conclusions would have significant implications on how businesses and organizations interact and communicate with clients, customers, and constituents on the web (you saw this coming, didn’t you?). Perhaps elements of his whole new mind are already here.

Blogs have created a more conversational tone than the traditional corporate web site. Simply having a web site is no longer a competitive advantage; successful sites have great design. Good sites don’t just have copy that sells people, they tell a story.

Pink’s vision of the future, while still untested, doesn’t seem unrealistic. We definitely see the need for a “whole new web site” with many of our clients and more generally, in our industry. Web agencies or web groups within organizations won’t succeed with left-brainers alone. They’ll need right-brain thinkers to help integrate and synthesize web presence (”symphony”) , to craft narrative content (”story”), and create meaningful web experiences (”empathy,” “design,” and “meaning”).

Get ready for a whole new web site.

John Singh

p.s. - We’re actually already pretty good at those.

The Power of Clarity.

Clarity accounts for probably 80% of success and happiness. Lack of clarity is probably more responsible for frustration and underachievement than any other single factor. That's why we say that "Success is goals, and all else is commentary." People with clear, written goals, accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than people without them could ever imagine. This is true everywhere and under all circumstances. The Three Keys to High Achievement You could even say that the three keys to high achievement are, "Clarity, Clarity, Clarity," with regard to your goals. Your success in life will be largely determined by how clear you are about what it is you really, really want. Write and Rewrite Your Goals The more you write and rewrite your goals and the more you think about them, the clearer you will become about them. The clearer you are about what you want, the more likely you are to do more and more of the things that are consistent with achieving them. Meanwhile, you will do fewer and fewer of the things that don't help to get the things you really want. The Seven Step Process for Achieving Goals Here, once more, is the simple, seven-step process that you can use to achieve your goals faster and easier than ever before. First, decide exactly what you want in each area of your life. Be specific! Second, write it down, clearly and in detail; Third, set a specific deadline. If it is a large goal, break it down into sub-deadlines and write them down in order; Fourth, make a list of everything you can think of that you are going to have to do to achieve your goal. As you think of new items, add them to your list; Fifth, organize the items on your list into a plan by placing them in the proper sequence and priority; Sixth, take action immediately on the most important thing you can do on your plan. This is very important! Seventh, do something every day that moves you toward the attainment of one or more of your important goals. Maintain the momentum! Join the Top 3% Fewer than three percent of adults have written goals and plans that they work on every single day. When you sit down and write out your goals, you move yourself into the top 3% of people in our society. And you will soon start to get the same results that they do. Review Your Goals Daily Study and review your goals every day to be sure they are still your most important goals. You will find yourself adding goals to your list as time passes. You will also find yourself deleting goals that are no longer as important as you once thought. Whatever your goals are, plan them out thoroughly, on paper, and work on them every single day. This is the key to peak performance and maximum achievement. Action Exercises Here is how you can apply this law immediately: First, make a list of ten goals that you would like to achieve in the coming year. Write them down in the present tense, as though a year has passed and you have already accomplished them. Second, from your list of ten goals, ask yourself, "What one goal, if I were to accomplish it, would have the greatest positive impact on my life?" Whatever it is, put a circle around this goal and move it to a separate sheet of paper. Third, practice the seven-step method described above on this goal. Set a deadline, make a plan, and put it into action and work on it every day. Make this goal your major definite purpose for the weeks and months ahead. Get ready for some amazing changes in your life. John Singh

Financial Independece

More than eighty percent of self-made millionaires began with nothing or in many cases, less than nothing.

More than eighty percent of self-made millionaires began with nothing or in many cases, less than nothing. I can certainly relate to that because when I was growing up and right into my early 30s, I never had any extra money with which to start a fortune. It seemed to me that there was always enough, if not more than enough bills, to absorb every penny I earned. I was always in debt. Be Ready for Your Opportunity And even if a great business opportunity did come along, I wouldn't have been able to do anything with it. As I began studying financial success and self-made millionaires, I noticed that almost everyone around me was in pretty much the same boat. The idea of becoming really wealthy was a distant dream with very little possibility of coming true. You may be in the same situation, with more bills than money or assets. Look at the Numbers The statistics are a little scary. Of 100 people who reach retirement age, according to insurance industry statistics, only one will be wealthy. Four out of the hundred will be financially independent; fifteen will have some savings put aside. And the other 80 will be dependent on pensions, still working or broke - this after a lifetime of well-paid work in the most affluent society in human history. Now why does this happen? Why People Retire Poor There are two main reasons why people retire poor. First, they never decide to retire rich. They wish and hope and pray, but they never make a firm, unequivocal decision that they're going to do it. Second, even if they do decide to retire rich, they procrastinate until it's too late. They always have some good reason for putting it off. Start With Desire and Decision If you sincerely want to beat the odds, to achieve financial independence and retire wealthy, there are four critical steps that you must take, all starting with the letter D. The first step is desire. You must want it badly enough to make an unshakable commitment and to be willing to make sacrifices. The second D is decision. You must make a decision right now to do whatever is necessary, to be willing to pay any price, go any distance, to achieve your goal. Practice Determination and Discipline The third D is determination, which is to keep at it until you succeed in spite of all the problems and obstacles you will experience. And the fourth D is discipline - the discipline to master yourself to develop the habits necessary for achieving financial independence. Those are the four Ds. Desire, Decision, Determination and Discipline. And you can measure how successful you're going to be in the future by measuring how well you&'re doing in each of those on a scale of one to ten. Action Exercises Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action: First, make a decision, right now, that you are going to be financially independent, no matter what obstacles you face in the short term. Then write it down, make a plan and start to work on it every single day. Second, resolve in advance that you will persist in the face of every setback or obstacle you face. You will never give up. You will keep on moving forward until you finally achieve your goal. John Singh

Relax & Recharge

Regular relaxation is essential for a long life and personal effectiveness.

Regular relaxation is essential for a long life and personal effectiveness. Here are some techniques for relaxing physically that are used by the most successful and highest paid people in America. Take Time Off Every Week First of all, work only five or six days per week, and rest completely on the seventh day. Every single study in this area shows that you will be far more productive in the five or six days that you work if you take one or two days off completely than you ever would be if you worked straight through for seven days. Get Your Mind Busy Elsewhere During this time off, do not catch up on reports, organize your desk, prepare proposals, or do anything else that requires mental effort. Simply let your mind relax completely, and get busy doing things with your family and friends. Maybe work around the house, go for a walk, engage in physical exercise, watch television, go to a movie, or play with your children. Whatever you do, discipline yourself to shut your mental gears off completely for at least one 24-hour period every seven days. Get Away on Mini-Vacations Second, take one three-day vacation every three months, and during that time, refrain from doing any work. Do not attempt to catch up on even a few small things. If you do, you keep your mental gears in motion, and you end up neither resting nor properly doing work of any quality. Take Big Chunks of Down Time Third, take at least two full weeks off each year during which you do nothing that is work-related. You can either work or relax; you cannot do both. If you attempt to do a little work while you are on vacation, you never give your mental and emotional batteries a chance to recharge. You'll come back from your vacation just as tired as you were when you left. Give Yourself a Break Today If you are involved in a difficult relationship, or situation at work that is emotionally draining, discipline yourself to take a complete break from it at least one day per week. Put the concern out of your mind. Refuse to think about it. Don't continually discuss it, make telephone calls about it or mull it over in your mind. You cannot perform at your best mentally if you are emotionally preoccupied with a person or situation. You have to give yourself a break. Go For a Walk in Nature Since a change is as good as a rest, going for a nice long walk is a wonderful way to relax emotionally and mentally. As you put your physical body into motion, your thoughts and feelings seem to relax all by themselves. Eat Lighter Foods Also, remember that the process of digestion consumes an enormous amount of physical energy. Therefore, if you eat lighter foods, you will feel better and more refreshed afterward. If you eat more fruits, vegetables, and whole-grain products, your digestive system will require far less energy to process them. Be Good to Yourself Since your diet has such an impact on your level of physical energy, and through it your levels of mental and emotional energy, the more fastidious you are about what you put into your mouth, the better you will feel and the more productive you will be. We know now that foods high in fat, sugar, or salt are not good for your body. The lighter the foods you eat, the more energy you have. Action Exercises Here are three things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action: First, plan your weeks in advance and build in at least one day when you will relax from work completely. Discipline yourself to keep this date. Second, reserve, book and pay for your three day vacations several months in advance. Once you've paid the money, you are much more likely to go rather than put it off. Third, decide that you will not work at all during your vacations. When you work, work. And when you rest, rest 100% of the time. This is very important.

Brian Tracy Interview.

Download TracyInterview.pdf   

Please feel free to download the PDF file which contains the very inspirational interview with Brian Tracy.

Enjoy, John Singh