Abhijit (John) Singh

They make it look so easy...

Most people that we admire; may it be sportsmen, business leaders, writers, artists, entrepreneurs, lovers or a happily married couple, they all make it look so easy to be good at what they do. If it was so easy, the question that often lingers in my mind is, why most of us end up so average and only a few are able to reach the heights of remarkable. (My definition of ‘remarkable’ is something inspiring which is worthy of a remark or something worth talking about to our friends, colleagues or family).

I have tried to study the science of being remarkable over the last few years as I have been in the transition period of improving all areas of my own life from average to something more close to where my potential lies. Over the last few days I have been trying to understand the science that forms the foundations of a successful marriage. (I was going to write ‘a happy marriage’, but I believe happiness is sometimes overrated as its foolish to believe that a marriage or any areas of our life for that matter is going to sustain the emotion of happiness all the time. What’s more important is that it sustains longevity and an overall positive experience filled with growth and prosperity. Happiness is a by-product of the shared experiences shard in good spirit).

Following is the summary of a recent book I read which helped me better understand what it takes to sustain a successful marriage:

1. It’s important to build a life of meaning, purpose, mission, legacy, culture and values.

As a friend reminded me lately (on a comment of facebook) that honeymoon periods end sooner or later. I have always believed that a marriage has the strength to last an eternity if it’s built on a strong foundation of a deeper purpose, mission, legacy, culture or values which both partners are willing to devote their life it. May it be the purpose, mission or values to make a ton of money, to contribute the community, or to help the helpless, or to share a common passion of an art such as music, or to be focused on gifting the world with the treasure of good and capable children, etc. A more meaningful marriage can always guarantee longevity and success.

2.  Be very gentle with one another. Take responsibility for even a small part of the problem instead of pointing fingers at the partner and diagnosing the partner’s personality defects.

Don’t be defensive. When a feedback is given, take it as a constructive feedback and listen to find out more so you can understand the issue and think what you can do to improve yourself. Often most conversations turn sour when any one of the partner looses respect for the other. Its very easy to find excuses and faults in others. Its very difficult to have the courage to keep your cool and understand the situation deep enough to see your part and responsibility in the problem. Often in good marriages, partners know how to be gentle with one another and instead of blaming each other, they both take responsibility for their part in it and move on with the conviction that they will learn from the experience.

3.  Have the ability to Repair. Say I’m sorry and do what is needed to improve.

It’s not too hard to accept your fault and do what’s needed to amend the situation and move on, but not many people do it. I believe that the sooner we learn to overcome our egos, the better its for us and our relationships.

4. Look for what’s going right and appreciate that. Build a culture of appreciation, respect and affection on a moment to moment basis.

As human beings we often have our antennas up to detect things that seem out of the ordinary. As its very easy to point out a person who is naked on the street or a big mole on a person’s face, it’s very easy to find defects in the person and use them to fuel our insecurity or inferiority complex. Good couples keep their antennas up for the positives in their relationship and focus on them to further their relationship from pillar to post. Appreciation and admiration releases the juices in the brain which makes the partner feel loved, its the constant release of the love juices though the days, weeks, months and years which is at the core of any happy and successful relationship.

5. Keep asking, ‘What are your dreams?’, ‘What do you want?’, ‘What do you hope for?’, ‘What do you wish for?’

If there is a genuine love and care for your partner, this will come very naturally. If it doesn’t come naturally, stop lying to yourself, save your breath and just walk away.

6. Just purely Love.

When I look at my partner, sometimes my soul feels totally naked in front of her as I feel that I have surrendered myself totally to her. I have been very transparent to her about myself, my past and my genuine dedication to sustain a healthy relationship in the future for as long as I’m alive.

No path is easy and just like any other journey, in the journey of life with your parther you are bound to come across many mountains to cross, rivers to swim, deserts to travel and the sunny days to sail. The only way a couple can get through all of it is they share a life of common purpose and values, be perpetually gentle with each other, have the ability to repair, appreciate the good, have a genuine interest in the other’s progression and don’t allow any emotion other than pure love to enter the thought about the other.

Sana, thank you for giving me the gift of an amazing relationship which I can hold, learn from, maintain, grow and cherish over the duration of my life.

Kissaholic...

So much passion, so much pride,
So much compassion, so full of life.

So much humility, so much beauty,
So much love, so full of smiles.

So many aspirations, so much inspiration,
So much grace, so dam wise.

So much care, so much admiration
So much respect, so not shy.  

So many cravings, so much hunger,
So many dreams, so much drive.

So much adoration, so much devotion,
So much knowledge, so much shine.

So much integrity, so much loyalty.
So many ambitions, such calm eyes.

So much affection, so much joy,
So many kisses, such blissful life.

(Written by me on 9th Feb 2011 at 2.30pm for that special someone who has taught me how to dream again and given me the inspiration to be my best.)

The theory of relativity, rethought.

I have always believed that its only when a person becomes aware of his own thoughts, his mind is ready to understand things for what they truly are. The relativity theory which was made popular by Albert Einstein, primarily dealt with Physics and Astronomy. I am no Einstein, but in my humble opinion, I believe that the relationship between our inner-self and the outer-self is perhaps the most important theory of relativity that exits which everyone should be aware of. Without understanding the content of your own thoughts, a person is simply a mirror who keeps reacting to the external world without any dept or real understanding of source.

Earlier in my life I believed that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Time has taught me that, that is not always the case; there is such a thing of having a perfect balance and timing so that good things get invited to our lives but weather we accept it and make good use of it is another story. Having been through so much in life, I am the last person to believe what I see and I rarely get excited about anything without ignoring the reality that silently simmers underneath all the excitement. The accumulation of past experiences that makes you the person you are also withers away the purity and innocence that you once had. At the end, time is the biggest teacher of all, but it also ends up killing us.

Life has taught me that wisdom comes from experience, knowledge and self awareness. If I am placed into a situation, I can only be confident that my decision is the right decision if I have had past experience in dealing with similar situation and remember the consequences of my choices or I have been educated on the topic with examples of other’s experiences and consequences and I have a very strong self awareness about my reaction and subsequent potential reactions which may lead to a certain outcome. If I have a good balance of the three, I can be confident to make a good decision fairly quickly.

The reality is that it’s impossible to have the experience, knowledge and self awareness we need to make good decision in all aspects of life, which is why we either end up making the wrong decision and suffer its consequences or we take a longer time to make a right decision as we go through the process of attaining the knowledge, experience and better self awareness that is needed to get the confident push to commit.

As my friend reminded me recently, decision making when it comes to valuable things is often more daunting and therefore it takes more time as the data of experience, knowledge and self understanding is being accumulated and processed. Fortunately or unfortunately human beings are emotional creatures, some more than others. Often the process of decision making can be counterproductive because by the time the results are in, it’s too late to take corrective action due to the amount of emotional investment that has already been made in the process. Marketers cheekily know that people always make decision based on emotions and later justify them with logic. Good companies and good people believe that it’s their responsibility to ensure that their customers and friends make the right decision, but good companies and good people are very rare and equally valuable.

To understand our own self, I believe that there are 5 things that needs to be deeply assessed; our values, our emotional needs, our intellectual needs, our inherent personality and our aspirations. I believe that if our choices have alignment in all 5 of these factors, chances are that the decision will be a good decision.

What I have observed is that our outer life is often a reflection of our inner life. We arrange and manage our house, choose our profession, maintain relationships, decide how to spend our leisure time, have various beliefs, maintain certain hobbies, etc. based on our inner values, emotional & intellectual need, our aspiration and personality.

To understand the world, we need to first understand ourselves and be totally aware of how we react to the world. Once we have understood our selves, the world appears to be a piece of cake... or does it?

Abhijit.

2011 - The Road Ahead.

I want to firstly THANK everyone that has graced me with their support and acquaintance in 2010. Thank you to all my family, friends, staff, partners, customers, well wishers and adversaries. I am truly grateful and humbled for all your support and lessons. For your thoughtfulness and generosity, from you I have learned much of life's philosophy - Thank you sincerely.

2010 was a very special year for me personally as I found closure in some of my most difficult adversities which I have been battling through over the last few years. I feel very relieved to have gone though it and come out ok at the other end. As the year ended and the New Year has begun, I feel very strong, motivated, focused and excited about the hope that 2011 brings personally and professionally.

Last few weeks in New Zealand has been simply bliss. It has given me the opportunity to recover from the tiredness of a tough and long year. I feel mentally prepared to work extremely hard and smart in 2011 and achieve all the things I plan to achieve.

My primary focus in 2011 will be focusing on the growth of Macquarie IT. I will be launching a new client acquisation product called xYzed which I have spent the last 4 years planning and building in my lab. I will focus a vast majority of my time in registering new businesses with Macquarie IT and building relationships with them as we continue to help them become profitable. 

At a personal level I will be more focused on my health by eating well, exercising at the gym 4 days a week, practicing yoga 1 day a week, reaching new heights in fitness and dedicating one day a week entirely to leisure & relaxation. I will focus on improving on my current friendships and form new ones as I expand my social network. I will also focus on improving my knowledge by spending a minimum of 1 hour a day on continuous education and 1 hour a day on my writing endeavours (private and blog).

Above all, in 2011 I hope to maintain a well rounded balance in all things and achieve my highest potential in all areas of my life.

I’m very excited by the promise of 2011; the new challenges I will face, the new relationships I will form, the new innovation I will deliver, the goals I will achieve, the fun I will have and most importantly the people I will deliver happiness to.

Regards,
John Singh.

Love Hypothesis

From what raw material can a tie evolve between a man and a woman which did not exist before? Evolution cannot design anything from scratch. Evolution is a process in which bones and hormones and behavioural patterns that were already coded for by the genes are changed slightly (by random mutation of those genes) and then selected if they confer an advantage on an individual.

Take one ancient attachment system, mix with an equal measure of care giving system, throw in a modified mating system and Walla! That’s romantic love... I seem to have lost something here; romantic love is so much more than the sum of its parts. It is an extraordinary psychological state that launched the Trojan War, inspired much of the world’s best (and worst) music and literature and gave many of us the most perfect days of our lives. But I think that romantic love is widely misunderstood and looking at its psychological sub components can clear up some puzzles and guide the way around love’s pitfalls.

In some books you will read that romantic love is a social construction invented by the French troubadours of the 12^th century with their stories of chivalry, idealisation of women and the uplifting ache of desire. It’s certainly true that cultures create their own understanding of psychological phenomena, but many of those phenomena will occur regardless of what people think about them.

A recent survey of over 100 human cultures found clear evidence of romantic love in 88% of them, for the rest the collected records were too little to be sure either way. What the troubadours did give us is a particular myth of true love; the idea that real love burns brightly and passionately and then it just keeps on burning until death and then it just keeps on burning after death as the lovers are reunited in heaven. This myth seems to have grown and defused in modern times into a set of interrelated ideas about love and marriage.

As I see it, the modern myth of true love involves these beliefs; true love is passionate love that never fades and if you are in true love you should marry that person. If love ends, you should leave that person because it was not true love and if you can find the right person, you will have true love forever. You might not believe this myth yourself, particularly if you are older than 30, but many young people in western nations are raised on it and it acts as an ideal which they unconsciously carry with them, even if they mock it. It’s not just Hollywood that perpetrates the myth, but Bollywood is even more romanticised.

But if true love is defined as eternal passion, it is biologically impossible. To see and to save the dignity of Love, you have to understand the difference between two kinds of love; passionate love and companionate love.

Passionate love is a wildly emotional state in which tender and sexual feelings, ecstasy and pain, anxiety and relief, altruism and jealousy coexists in a confusion of feelings. Passionate love is the love you fall into, it is what happens when cupid’s golden arrow hits your heart and in an instant the world around you is transformed. You crave union with your beloved; you want somehow to crawl into each other.

This is the urge Plato captured in the symposium in which Aristophanes toast to love. Aristophanes says people originally had four legs, four arms and two faces. But one day the Gods felt threatened by the power and arrogance of human beings and decided to cut them in half. Ever since that day, people have wondered the world searching for their other halves. Some people originally had two male faces, some two female and the rest a male and a female, thereby explaining the diversity of sexual orientation. As proof, Aristophanes asks us to imagine that Hephaestus, the God of fire were to come upon two lovers as they lay together in embrace and say to them, “What is it you human beings really want from each other? Is this your heart’s desire for the two of you to be parts of the same whole as near as can be and never to separate day or night? Because if that’s your desire, I would like to weld you together and join you into something that is naturally whole so that the two of you are made into one, then the two of you would share one life as long as you lived because you would be one being. Look at your love and see if this is what you desire”. Aristophanes says that no lovers would turn down such an offer.

I define companionate love in contrast as the affection we feel with those with whom our lives are deeply intertwined. Companionate love grows over the years as lovers apply their attachment and care giving systems to each other, and as they begin to rely upon, care for and trust each other. If the metaphor for passionate love is fire, then the metaphor for companionate love is vines growing, intertwining and gradually binding two people together. The contrast of wild and calm forms of love has occurred to many people in many cultures. As one women put it; “When two people come together, their hearts are on fire and their passion is very great. After a while the fire cools and that’s how it stays”.

Passionate love is a drug, its symptoms overlap with those of heroin, euphoric wellbeing sometimes described in sexual terms and cocaine, euphoria combined with giddiness and energy. It’s no wonder that passionate love alters the activity of several parts of the brain, including parts that are involved in the release of dopamine. Any experience that feels intensely good releases dopamine and the dopamine link is crucial here because drugs that artificially raise dopamine levels as do heroin and cocaine, puts you at risk of addiction. If you take cocaine once a month you won’t get addicted, but if you take it every day you will; no drug can keep you continuously high. The brain reacts to a chronic surplus of dopamine, develops neurochemical reactions that oppose it and restores its own equilibrium. At that point tolerance has set in and when the drug is withdrawn the brain is unbalanced in the opposite direction. Pain, lethargy and despair follow withdraw from cocaine or passionate love.

So if passionate love is a drug, literally a drug, it has to wear off eventually. Nobody can stay high for ever. Although if you find passionate love in a long distance relationship, it’s like taking cocaine once a month; the drug can retain its potencies because of your suffering between doses.

If passionate love is allowed to run its joys course, there must come a day when it weakens. One of the lovers usually feels the change first; it’s like waking up from a shared dream to see your sleeping partner drooling. In those moments of returning sanity, the love may see flaws and defects to which she was blind before. The beloved falls off the pedestal and because our minds are so sensitive to changes, her change in feelings can take on exaggerated importance. “Oh my God”, she thinks. “The magic has worn off, I’m not in Love with him anymore”. If she subscribes to the myth of true love, she might even consider breaking up with him, after all if the magic ended, it can’t be true love. But if she does end the relationship, she might be making a mistake.

Passionate love does not turn into companionate love. Passionate love and companionate love are two separate processes and they have different time courses. The diverging paths produce two danger points, two places where many people make serious mistakes. Passionate love ignites, it burns and it can reach its maximum temperature within days. During its weeks and months of madness, lovers can’t help but think about marriage and often they talk about it too. Sometimes they even accept Hephaestus’s offer and even commit to marriage. This is often a big mistake as nobody can think straight when high on passionate love. People are not allowed to sign contracts when they are drunk and I sometimes wish we should prevent people from proposing marriage when they are high on passionate love. The drug is likely to wear off at some point during the stressful wedding planning phase and many of these couples will walk down the aisle with doubts in their hearts and divorce in their future. The other danger point is the day the drug weakens the grip, passionate love doesn’t end on that day but the crazy and exceptional high period does. The mind regains its senses and sometimes assess where they have taken themselves, breakups often happen at this point and for many couples that is a good thing. Cupid is usually portrayed as an impish fellow because he is so fond of joining together the most inappropriate couples. But sometimes breakups are premature because if the lovers had stuck it out and given companionate love a chance to grow, they might have found true love. True love exists I believe, but it is not and cannot be passion that lasts forever.

True love that holds together strong marriage is simple strong companionate love with some added passion between two people who are firmly committed to each other. Companionate love can never retain the intensity of passionate love but if we change the timescale from six months to sixty years, it is passionate love that seems trivial while companionate love can last a lifetime. When we admire a couple still in love on their 50^th anniversary, it is this blend of loves but mostly companionate love that we are admiring.

If you are in passionate love and want to celebrate your passion, read poetry. If your passion has calmed and you want to understand and strengthen your evolving relationship, read psychology. But, If you have just ended a relationship and would like to believe that you are better off without love; read philosophy. Oh, there is plenty of work extolling the virtues of love, but when you look closely, you will find deep ambivalence. Love of God, love of neighbour, love of beauty – all of these are urged upon us. But the passionate, erotic love of a real person, Heavens no!

Inspired from Jonathan Haidt's book The Happiness Hypothesis.

Lost in thoughts..

The New Year always begins with reflections of memories accumulated from the past and the hope and promise of the future.

The real measure of your wealth.

The answer to one question will tell me how rich you really are.

HOW MANY PEOPLE DID YOU SEND CHIRSTMAS CARDS TO THIS YEAR?

Less than 10:      You poor pauper
11 to 25:               Below average wealth
26 to 50:              Average wealth
50 to 100:           Rich
100 to 200:        Admirably wealthy
200 plus:             WOW

I believe that the real measure of wealth of a person is often misunderstood by his/her financial worth. Money is only one form of wealth and there is something that is more important than that which is relational wealth.

The real wealth of a person is measured by the width and depth of a person’s relationships.

So, how wealthy are you? If not enough, then I challenge you to test your wealth again next Christmas and see a significant improvement.

Regards,
John.

Who are you?

Is that an important question? If you tell me who you are, will it really matter? Will reading a menu of a restaurant really satisfy my hunger? Will I truly understand you just by you in a few words telling me some of your characteristics, beliefs, values, etc. or will I have to experience it for myself clean heartedly and without any expectations?

When understanding who we are, don’t you think we need to dig deep and ask ourselves; are we not the result of a lot of imitations, guided by our aspirations and insecurities and crippled by conformity? Therefore, are we not limited to understanding others by our own barriers and limitations? So how do I expect to really know who you are?

When we really think about it, do we really know what will make us rise above the societal trap that we have fallen into? Do you know what will make us grow the awareness and courage to rise from it and then make it our duty to progressively add value to the same society that has corrupted us in the first place, without any expectation of recognition for it?

Are we not obliged to give it our best in everything that we do with a sole focus to improve the lives of others around us and beyond? Or are we inherently selfish? If so, then what will make us change that? Can it change?

Do we not understand that the love that we keep running after all our life is only gifted to us when we give a lot of love without any expectations of receiving it back?

Are we limited by our experiences, knowledge, personality and hence ability? Or are we powerful enough to be a light to ourselves in a world that is constantly becoming dark?

Are we capable of giving and receiving unconditional love? Are we capable of never bringing conflict into one’s life? So is it not important to see that things like jealousy, antagonism, conflict and all the pain of relationships has no place in love and life? Can we be free of all that? Not tomorrow, NOW?

Are you ready to really know who you are? 

Think about it.

John Singh.

How deep are your thoughts?

You are either a thinker or a talker, if you are a deep thinker then there’s a good chance you don’t know how to communicate your thoughts as effectively as you should due to your lack of passion, which intern is a waste of your talent. If you are a talker, then there’s a good chance that you recycle other’s thoughts, punch drunk on passion and miss the point in every conversation or you are subconsciously more focused on the attention rather than making sense.

The most remarkable people are the rare breed who are a combination of all three, they spend a lot of time in solitude allowing their thoughts to materialise and build a passion for their interests so when they come to the public arena, they are bursting with valuable insights which carry a lot of substance, weight and an honest thought provoking dose of reality.

I’m currently reading ‘Conversations with Myself’ which is an intuitively organised compilation excerpts from diaries that Nelson Mendela had kept while he was imprisoned for 27 years. Its no wonder great men like him have the magical balance and gift of deep insights, ability to communicate their thoughts with clarity in their values, with the help of the most important ingredient PASSION which is built over time spent in deep thoughts.

I would like to share one of his letters to his wife Winnie Mandela that he had written in Prison on 1^st Feb 1975:

The cell is an ideal place to learn to know yourself, to set realistically and regularly the process of your own mind and feelings. 

In judging our progress as individuals we tend to concentrate on external factors such as one’s social position, influence and popularity, wealth and standard of education. These are offcourse important in measuring one’s success in material matters and it is perfectly understandable if many people exert mainly to achieve all these. But, internal factors may be even more crucial in assessing one’s development as a human being. Honesty, sincerity, simplicity, humility, pure generosity, absence of vanity, readiness to serve others; qualities which are within every soul at the foundation of one’s spiritual life. 

Development in matters of this nature is inconceivable without serious introspection. Without knowing yourself, your weaknesses and your mistakes, at least if for nothing else, the cell gives you the opportunity to look daily into your entire conduct to overcome the bad and develop whatever is good in you. 

Regular mediation, say about 15 mins a day before you turn in, can be very fruitful in this regard. You may find it difficult to pinpoint the negative features in your life, but the 10^th attempt may yield rich rewards. 

Never forget that a saint is a sinner that keeps on trying.


Regards,
John Singh.

Understanding Loyalty

Ok, so I have a confession to make. I am by nature extremely loyal, which sometimes can be perceived as a contradiction as I also have an experimental personality and never seem to settle for average. Over the many years, I feel quite content with the amount of seeking I’ve done on my quest. I feel a little surprised to be writing that over the last couple of years things have been a little different;  I seemed to have settled for many things which I have grown extremely loyal to, for example:

- I find it hard to make new friends as I feel quite connected to my old ones. (Another reason could be that I very rarely come across genuine and sincere people who don’t have any hidden agendas).

- I sometimes sneak out of the office at lunch times and drive to the city, park the cark at Hilton and run to the Lint Chocolate Cafe for a hit of their amazing iced chocolates and macarons, because they are the best in the world, in my humble opinion.

- I always travel Singapore Airlines when travelling overseas because I like the consistently good service I receive.

- I have been visiting the same doctor for the last 20 years as he’s the nicest man I know, I trust him and I feel like I’ve built a personal bond with him.

- My friends and I very often drive all the way to Auburn to a dingy little Turkish kebab joint because their dishes are totally fresh, extremely nutritious (especially after a gym workout) and very satisfying.

- I travel to Melbourne from Sydney every month for a haircut as I totally love the care I get at Man what a fuss ever since the 1^st day I visited them in October 2005. (eccentric, but true)

- I drive a Volvo as I love what they stand for and I’m totally in support of their mission to build a Crash- proof car by 2020.

- I shop at Kathmandu every month, as the clothes are made of the finest and the most comfortable material. My favourite is the Marino Wool.

- I come home early every evening to spend time with the family as they totally complete me.

- This year I signed off over $300,000 to Google, as the value and the return on investment received was totally worth it.

And the list just keeps going on....

This year I have been thinking about what it really means to be loyal and why we are more loyal towards some things as supposed to others. Why is it that we see some friends that are very happy with their long term partners whilst others are jumping from one to another like monkeys on trees. Why is it that businesses that serve basic necessities just as hairdressing and groceries, are always so focused on pitching to new customers instead of putting more focus on retaining the ones that they already serve.

As a business I believe its more valuable to offer the best quality products and services to win people’s long-term loyalty rather than spend continuous energy on pitching to new customers only to lose them to your competition once they see your substandard approach.

To understand loyalty, one also needs to understand how different types of people behave under different circumstances. A few years back I studied the works of William Marston (PHD in Psychology from Harvard University) who developed the four quadrant human behaviour model (he also invented the lie detector test). Marston’s theory is that to understand human behaviour, there are 4 areas of a person’s observable behaviour that needs to be measured; Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Conscientious. His system of dimensions of observable behaviour has become known as the universal language of behaviour. Research has found that characteristics of behaviour can be grouped into these four major "personality styles" and they tend to exhibit specific characteristics common to that particular style. All individuals possess all four, but what differs from one to another is the extent of each. The level each people measure in these core personality styles are measured by different internal reactions that take place in various external environments which causes people to behave in certain ways.

People that are low in Steadiness and/or conscientiousness are inherently disloyal and often jumping from one fad to another as they find it naturally easy to change and adapt.

People that are high in Steadiness and/or conscientiousness are inherently the slow adapters and they tend to do a lot of research before giving anything new a shot but once they are used to something, they find it extremely difficult to change their habits and hence appear to be more loyal over the long term.

My brief conclusion on the topic of loyalty is that firstly, I believe that people always see the world as they are, rather than the way the world is. We are prisoners of our own personalities and often guided by our own limitations, strengths, insecurities and inspirations. Secondly, I believe that people are more loyal to things that provide a higher long term value, security, dept and an overall enjoyable experience.

Personally, I am always on the lookout for good things and I continually look at improving myself and my world around me, but once I have found a good thing, I tend to stick to it and grow a progressive relationship with it which is deep and long term.

You are an athlete, you just don't know it yet.

Recently I was talking to a friend of mine who inspired me to write this article. Sitting on a bench one beautiful Saturday afternoon, she was very passionately explaining to me how she and her team of physicians at the St Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne were working hard towards creating a new industry benchmark in health care by simply being the best they could be on a day to day basis and giving the utmost service and care to their every patient, day in and day out. As she spoke, she was pouring out qualities of an athlete, she just didn't know it.

I remember reading a Nike advertisement on a billboard a few years back which has always stayed with me. It read in big writing, “Our Goal is to make the athletes of the word perform better” and underneath it in smaller writing, it said, “Everyone’s an athlete”. What Nike was trying to say is that if you have a body you are an athlete. I would like to push that message a little further by saying that you don’t need to be a sportsman/women to be an athlete; you can be it in any of your endeavours if you want to be truly excellent at it.

I have been passionate about keeping fit for almost two decades now. I love to hit the gym in the mornings or evenings a few times a week and think I’m in OK shape, but far from many of my peers at the gym. Over the last couple of weeks a friend of mine has been trying to wake me up to reality and boost my self-esteem (which I must admit has had a beating over the years and pushed me right back into my shell). Over the last few weeks I have found the motivation to get into a decent weight training program and I have started to see some improvements already. I have gotten progressively stronger and I’ve had a number of rapturous moments during which I’ve worked out like an athlete should. Prior to this, I was maintaining my gym routine at a very casual rate as I never wished to improve my physique as I was quite content with myself and was only focused on maintaining a decent level of fitness. Truth be told, I always believed that to have a cutting edge athletic physique as the top athletes, I would have needed to be born with special talents and gifts and that the potential to truly excel in any given pursuit is largely determined by our genetic inheritance.

Recently I have also been reading some good books which has powerfully challenged my assumptions and very nicely laid out a guide, grounded in the science of high performance, to systematically build capacity physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

In my business life, I have found from my interactions with leaders of various businesses and organisation, that its quite possible to improve any given skills in the same way we do a muscle: by pushing it past our comfort zones and then resting. Aristotle very correctly said, “We are what we repeatedly do”. By relying on highly aimed routine practices, I have seen business leaders improve their skills ranging from specialist talent, to empathy, to focus, to creativity.

Recently I have been studying the works of Anders Ericsson, arguably the world’s leading researcher into high performance. For more than two decades, Ericsson has been making the case that it's not inherited talent which determines how good we become at something, but rather how hard we're willing to work — something he calls "deliberate practice." Numerous researchers (such as Malcolm Gladwell the author of ‘Outliers’) agree that 10,000 hours of such practice as the minimum necessary to achieve expertise in any complex domain.

Coming from extremely humble beginnings in all areas of my life, I find all of this to be very empowering. A ton of research and science backed up with a ton of real life example, suggests that we have remarkable capabilities to influence our own outcomes. I also feel daunted because what I feel is that practice is not only the most important ingredient in achieving excellence, it is also the most difficult and can least enjoyable.

If you are going to be really good at something, it's going to involve relentlessly pushing past your comfort zone, along with frustration, struggle, setbacks and failures. That's true as long as you want to continue to improve, or even maintain a high level of excellence. The reward is that being really good at something you've earned through your own hard work can be immensely satisfying.

After having though about this for some time, observing the results in people and picking up on some points which often get repeated by leading thinkers and researchers in the field, I would like to summarised 6 keys to achieving your edge in whatever you may wish to achieve in life, may it be sports, business or your personal endeavours:

1. Pursue what you love. Passion is an incredible motivator. It fuels focus, resilience, and perseverance. It is the ONLY way you can sustain your efforts over the long haul and become a leading athlete in your field.

2. Do the hardest work first. We all move instinctively toward pleasure and away from pain. Most great performers are a fond of delay gratification. They like to take on the difficult work of practice in the mornings, before they do anything else. That's when most of us have the most energy and the fewest distractions.

3. Practice intensely, without interruption for short periods of no longer than 90 minutes and then take a break. Ninety minutes appears to be the maximum amount of time that we can bring the highest level of focus to any given activity. The evidence is equally strong that great performers practice no more than 4 hours a day.

4. Seek expert feedback, in regular doses. The simpler and more precise the feedback, the more equipped you are to make adjustments. Too much feedback, too continuously, however, can create mental overload, increase anxiety, and interfere with learning.

5. Take regular renewal breaks. Relaxing after intense effort not only provides an opportunity to rejuvenate, but also to metabolize and helps with the learning process. It's also during rest that the right brain becomes more dominant, which can lead to creative breakthroughs.

6. Ritualise practice. Will and discipline are wildly overrated. Its human nature and common sense that we don’t have much of it. The best way to insure you'll take on difficult tasks is to ritualise them — build specific, inviolable times at which you do them, so that over time you do them without having to waste energy thinking about them.

I have been weight training consistently over the years, but never for the several hours a day required to achieve a truly high level of excellence. What's changed is that I don't criticise myself any longer for falling short. I know exactly what it would take to get to that level.

I've got too many other higher priorities than building a perfect physique that needs attention right now. But I find it incredibly exciting to know that I'm still capable of having a perfect athletic body and fitness level — or at anything else — and so are you.

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.

Chocolates, Wrappers and the Sad Death of Innocence.

I have a small problem; actually it’s quite a big problem. I have been a victim of too wide an exposure in the short 30 years I have been alive because of which I am compelled to challenge the truth in everything I do or see. I am an absolute compulsive seeker of the truth (quite scary sometimes) and I just can’t seem to settle my mind until I seek it in my every quest. In my search I have falling deeply in love with purity that lies in simplicity and with every day moving forward, I have reorganised my thinking and life so that I try and maintain purity in all that I think, do and am.

When I was young, life was rather simple. In India our family was quite poor and my parents had me when they were still students. My dad landed his 1^st job in a different state to where the parents were settled and he decided to take my mother and me with him. His wages was equivalent to $15/month which was barely enough to feed me milk, one meal a day for the family and rent in a small studio apartment. Some evenings the meals were skipped for obvious reasons. I remember when I was around 5, once a month my dad would take me to the local markets to buy me chocolates, it was one the most exciting and anticipated events of my month, in fact the only thing I looked forward to. Chocolate was like gold to us kids, I used to talk to my friends about it in excitement the whole month and bring back the wrappers to show off to them otherwise they simply would not believe me. In those days, chocolate meant Cadbury 5star (which was a small chocolate bar). That was it, that was the only ‘Chocolate’ we knew of as it was the only chocolate on the market.

As dad progressed in his job, with his tremendous dedication and hard work, things slowly started to improve. By the time I was around 8, we could afford non-vegetarian food once a week. Every Monday, I remember running home from school knowing that dad would take me to the markets to buy chicken. Every Monday we took a trip to the chicken shop and buy 2 pieces of drumstick, one for me and one my parents would share. Some weeks, we could only buy one piece which we would all share and often the parents would give me the excuse that they didn’t feel like meat and preferred just the potatoes which was cooked with the drumstick curry so that I could eat the whole drumstick all my myself. I still remember the taste of the drumstick curry that mum made every Monday evenings and haven’t tasted anything as good for a very long time, I don’t know why?

A year later, dad decided to buy a television for the house. He had tricked us by telling us that he had to go to the office one Sunday and sent us to Juhu beach for a day out, when he secretly   stayed back to buy a 9 inch black and white TV. I still remember the excitement I went felt on my return. I remember running around the neighbourhood collecting all my friends and bringing them back home to watch a show of ‘Chitrahar’ (equivalent to an hour of MTV). Once a month, we rented a video cassette player and the latest bollywood blockbuster and gathered up a whole heap of people and sit on the floor and enjoy the movie on our new TV. My memory of those days are of very happy days as we really did enjoy the simple life, giving value to all things and maintaining a very deep relationship with everyone around.

We were only allowed to watch TV on the weekends and the condition for that was that we had to study two hours every evening and do well at school. Dad was very highly educated, topping his school in his state and receiving scholarship into IIT which is still recognised as one of the best universities in the world and then receiving further scholarship to complete his masters in Engineering at the Asian Institute of Technology - Thailand before returning back to India to land his first job where he took us with him to start his journey. Dad’s thinking was always that in a country like India, if you came from a poor background without any support from the parents, it was only though education a man could rise and succeed to a level where he could provide a high living standard for his family; his journey has been a perfect example of his theory.

A year later, dad broke the news to us that he was made assistant manager of the IT department of India’s leading motorcycle manufacturing company ‘Bajaj’ which also meant that along with the position came a driver, but we didn’t have a car. After much convincing from my mom and myself, dad finally decided to buy a car. In those days there were just 2 options, either a Fiat Premier which was the common man’s car or an Ambassador which was often used by government officials. My dad was not a fan of Indian politics, so the choice was quite obvious. I remember shopping around with dad and finding the perfect car which was light green in colour. I remember the whole neighbourhood joining us in the prayer of the new car after which we cranked up the loud music and had a small party around the new car. I still remember one of the songs we had played were the latest hit from the movie Dil; “Humne ghar choda hai, sapne ko tora hai”. The only problem was that none of my parents knew how to drive and the new driver was given the task to teach them and often he secretly taught me also. Mum was the quickest to learn how to drive the manual car, I remember dad taking a few months to get comfortable with it.

The last 2 years we spent in India, were quite a ball. Our living standard had slightly improved and we could afford to go shopping to our general bazaar for clothes one a month. Our non veg shopping increased to a whole chicken once a week and a trip to the fish market once a month for fresh fish. I was given 2 Rupees pocket money every week which I used to buy a cricket ball every week. I was a fan of playing cricket and I always managed to lose my ball hitting sixes over the factory compound wall which we had no access to. It was hard to hold myself back from hitting sixes whenever I saw the opportunity, even if my ball was only one day old. I always knew that I would have to forgo my turn in batting for the whole week if I was to lose the ball. But that never seem to stop me, as the excitement I got in hitting the perfect shot was well worth it.

It was a simple life and it consists of some of my best memories. We really did enjoy the value in the little things and appreciating everything that came our way. Everything was a novelty as we truly came from humble beginnings and personally I found a lot of happiness in the simplicity life had to offer us growing up.

When dad broke the news that his application for skilled migration visa to Australia was approved, we were ecstatic. It was our first taste of success and real progression in our life and I simply cannot do justice to the excitement we felt by describing it here in a few words. Little did we know that with success often comes the death of innocence, and we most definitely were not ready for the dynamic change we were inviting into our lives.

Despite the trouble we had adjusting here in Australia, the experience started to open our eyes to a much diverse life than we were used to or had imagined. I personally had a lot of trouble adjusting to the change in culture, going from a place where everyone knows everyone, to a place where we don’t even know our neighbours despite years of living next door to them. What I had most difficulty with was the level of choices that was offered in everything. Even to this date, I get extremely dizzy going to the supermarket to buy groceries. Walking through the aisles trying to select simple items such as breakfast cereal is quite a challenge for me. I still miss running to the grocery shop in India and telling ‘Mittal’ the shop keeper or his son (who was a school friend of mine) that our cereal had finished and he would hand me a box and as I would leave I would shout at him, “don’t forget to add it to our bill”. I never even realised the brand of cereal it was. All I remember is the very pure corn taste that I used to enjoy when eating it with milk every morning. 

Over the years here in Australia we slowly started to merge into the foreign lifestyle to the extent that after ten years had gone passed we never ever felt that we were anything other than Australians. Our family was quite well balanced with mum maintaining strong Indian traditions and dad a complete foreigner who never looked back to his Indian roots as he continued to rise the heights of his professional endeavours.

 Being a very simple person at heart, I was quite confused for many years and found it quite difficult to adjust to all the noise and choices and change that I was going though. I often found peace in my dreams thinking about living on the farmhouse back in India where everyone knew everyone; I still have those dreams sometimes.  I found myself drifting for years without being well grounded to anything.  At school I slowly grew up from being extremely quiet to being quite the popular kid, the kind other kids would come to for help for other than academic reasons.  Being dyslectic, I struggled through school although I managed to pass with reasonably ok grades, mostly with my very hard work and some creative persuasions with my teachers. 

Ever since my teenage years I was always very popular attracting girls, although I never had much interest in them. I found it very hard to deal with most of them as I could clearly see the shallowness in most of them. Over the years, I didn’t end up dating girls primarily because most girls that I was attracting were the typical very beautiful model types who lacked depth, substance and purity which I have always been attracted to and ironically enough the real girls seemed intimidated by me. Being a compulsive seeker of purity, I just could never show any interest in any of them, often to my friend’s disappointment. Lately I'm very lucky to have found a lady who has become my best fried as she shares the same background, vision and values. We married last year and hope to live a life of happiness as we both sail together towards our endeavours; living one day at a time, overcoming one obstacle at a time, moving forward into the unknow with the pride of having each other's love and support.

Studies finished and instead of taking the conventional root of working my way though the corporate ladder, I decided to follow my heart and natural strengths and go into business. It took me 9 years of successes and failures in business to understand and learn what a business really is and how businesses feed our economy and what is needed to run a successful business. I admit I have always been a slow learner but always quite persistent. I took a natural liking in marketing, psychology and the Internet and self educated myself though to a level where I can call myself a qualified consultant in some niche areas of business consulting. I have spent the last 9 years understanding myself at great length and injecting a whole range of experiences with dealing with people from all walks of life. I have been through some of the most adverse and extremes of situations and I have met the best of people and some of the worst of people. One thing experience has taught me is that to truly experience life, our experiences need to be very diverse. My personal experience in all walks of my life has also taught me that it is only when we have been through the deepest valleys; we know how magnificent it is standing on the highest mountains. My dad often tells me that I have lived more of a life in experience in the last 30 years than he has lived in the last 50 years.

I have made a lot of money at times and I have lost a lot of money at times. Over the years, what has kept me going is my constant quest of self improvement, one step at a time, one day at a time especially knowing the humble beginnings I have come from and my own intellectual and other shortcomings. Nothings has ever come easy to me and I have accepted to view all things with a clean set of lens and if I am convinced of it, I work very hard in learning it and persistently achieving it. I have learnt to take one topic every year and try and study it to the best of my ability. I have self taught everything I know by very closely observing every fabric of life and relationships. Over the years I have learned to have a very good relationship with myself and others around. I recently came to a realisation that I will never be an expert in all things, but if I can focus on being an expert in the only thing that really matters which is PEOPLE and understand the very dept of people, I can have a very realistic outlook in life and it can help me find the truth that I seek. I am deeply connected to nature and appreciate every aspect of it. I also believe that everything apart from nature is the product of our though and I have made it my personal interest in understanding the man behind the thought which shapes our world.

Along with the awareness, knowledge and experience business life has given me; it has also exposed me to brutal realities which are often hidden from everyday people. As an expert in marketing, it took away my innocence to learn that in today’s day and age the wrapper was more valued than the chocolate inside it. It deeply hurts me that we often judge people by the way they look or dress. It puzzled me for a very long time me why people are attracted towards very expensive cars, when a simple car did the job equally well.  And it totally confuses me to see the choices we have in everything ranging from cars to shoes. I miss the days where we valued people for their thinking and purity rather than their bicep or breast size and I totally miss the day we had a choice of just 1 chocolate and 2 cars rather than the choice of 4000 new models of cars that were released this year.

It saddens me to see people so brainwashed with the challenges of the modern day life and I often crave inspiration that I receive when I see a person who have an objective outlook on life and its values and hasn’t been affected by the insecurity our modern life instils. I always find myself walking left when people are walking right, not because I crave to be different, but because I often see though the flaws in things that attract the masses. I don’t get attracted to extremely beautiful women who try to be overly fashionable and trendy because I see the shallowness in their personalities and quite clearly understand what they are tying to hide, which makes me genuinely feel sad to see them infected with the insecurities which are eating their purity. I have always been very attracted to pure and passionate women that glow from the inside, not oil paintings as I have always been attracted to athletes or movie starts who focus on their game as supposed to attracting feel good attention.

There are many ways to live life and I do feel happy to see that in recent years, marketers have jumped on the health and wisdom bandwagon and made it a trendy thing. Fashion influences us far more than many things and I hope to see fashion leaders taking the responsibility of leading us all in a direction that we need to be taken, rather than the direction they have been leading us so far. I have always tried to maintain a reasonably healthy lifestyle every since my early teenage years with regular weekly visits to the gym and other sports. I have over time learned to place value in working towards the core body strengths as supposed to the show pony exercises that we often see people do at the gym. I have also over time learnt to see the value in building core strength in all areas of my life, may it be my business or personal relationships.

I believe that every person despite their title is a leader and we all need to take the responsibility as leaders to seek the reality underneath all the noise and understand and improve our selves and the world around us. We all need to find our passions in life and surrender ourselves completely to it by giving it our best. We all need to understand our family and friends better and grow deep rooted unconditional relationships with each other and help each other become better people. We all have the responsibility to help and guide the ones in need so that our society can collectively prosper and we all need to dig a little deeper within ourselves with the help of peaceful surroundings. 

One of my most favourite things in the last 3 years has been stillness. I have been in love with peace and quiet as it has helped me understand the content of my own mind which I have untangled through and learnt to bring it to complete stillness so I can see the clarity in all things. It is my humble suggestion that we all take a little break, rejuvenate and reset and start the next chapter of our lives moving a step closer towards purity leading towards fulfilment and sustained happiness.

Abhijit.

Time to check your alignment.. No, not your wheel alignment silly.

Yesterday evening my Bikram Yoga teacher got me thinking when he was explaining how important ‘Alignment’ is when practicing yoga. The reason he was giving was that the circulation of vital force, blood, lymph & cerebrospinal fluid is improved when the body is well aligned when carrying out the yoga poses with perfection. He was explaining that on the other hand, if our postures were not carried out properly by the poses not being aligned correctly, it will increases the chances of strain and damage. He was trying to explain that the strain is not only not beneficial but also unsustainable and quite harmful in the long run.

I spent the drive home after my class and pretty much all night thinking about how important Alignment is in all areas of our lives. This morning I thought I would try and clarifying my thoughts on the topic.

Being a very family oriented person, I have always felt that every family member needs to be well aligned with each other in our understanding and supporting. When we feel that someone needs help or a little push, we should not be asked for it, we should make it our responsibility to sense it and offer it. When we see that someone is going down the wrong track, we should not react but have the inner balance to respond in a way that would make the other person wholeheartedly understand the realities in prospective so they can themselves make an informed decision (Even if we need to step our of our comfort zone to do so). In family life as in any other relationship, the biggest alignment needs to be in the honesty and purity in the threads that bind the relationship together without allowing emotions of insecurity or other inhibitions to creep flaws in the relationship.

In our work life, in order for us to reach our highest potential in our chosen field of endeavour, it is important that our natural strengths are aligned with the work that we spend doing the bulk of our time. At our workplace, it is important that we are all in sync with each other working towards a common goal. It is important that our relationships with our customers, partners and stakeholders are well aligned and subsequently progressive and successful.

Majority of people keep jobs that they don’t like all their lives and unfortunately suffer its repercussions such as stress leading to all kinds of diseases. Traditionally, society has pressured people into conformity; however it’s very pleasing to see that this pressure towards conformity is lessened as we grow the awareness in the strength of diversity and natural alignments.

The law of attraction states that our thoughts become our reality, meaning, we become what we think about most of the time. I have also come to believe that our thoughts subconsciously and subconsciously dictate the reality of our lives and it’s extremely important that our thoughts are constantly aligned with our desired outcomes. This strategy is best used by athletes. If you are a golfer, you are trained to think about the perfect swing through out your day. A boxer is trained to perform mental rounds with his opponent, a cricketer is asked to think about his perfect shorts. I remember as I was training for competition twelve years ago, my trainer constantly asked me to spend hours performing mental kata and kumate rounds, which I can speak from first hand experience that it definitely helped me sharpen my technique which subsequently helped me rise up to national championship victories.

I think it’s also important that we have the ability to acknowledge, study, grow, understand and course correct towards natural alignment at every stage in order for us to achieve sustained happiness in our lives.

Abraham Hicks once summarised the power of alignment very nicely when he said:

“Someone who takes the time to understand their relationship with source, who actively seeks alignment with their broader perspective, who deliberately seeks and finds alignment with who-they-really-are, is more charismatic, more attractive, more effective, and more powerful than a group of millions who have not achieved this alignment.”  Touché

John Singh.