Abhijit (John) Singh

Things I wish I would have learnt in school.

A question that has been on the forefront of my thoughts lately is the effectiveness of our current educational system when it comes to preparing us for the journey of real life.

My two cent’s worth is that, in time, we realise that most of the things that life teaches us has not been learnt in school. I feel that we learn most things by dealing with other people and understanding our own underlying personalities; observing how we naturally react in various situations as we follow our passions driven by the desire for gain or fear of loss. Our collective reactions to various situations over time form our experiences which define our habits and values. Therefore in order for us to achieve anything in life, we first need to take a deep look at our own self to understand, accept and plan accordingly.

I often like to argue that the entire educational system needs to be revised. A new way of teaching needs to evolve, one which focuses on the practicalities of life. A new learning process needs to evolve from our collective experience and wisdom, which focuses on the valuable things and one which is more personalised to suit our individual self. A new way which prepares us by sharpening our saw based on our inherent strengths and weaknesses; so that we can all learn to survive in this semi organised and chaotic jungle we call LIFE. 

This question was recently asked by members of TED (a non-profit devoted to ideas worth spreading). Following were some of the responses:

Adam Burk -  I wish I had been given more opportunities to learn about myself and what I am passionate about through experiential, interpersonal, and reflective processes. Then the support to go deeper into those passions. I wish I had been given real chances to create work that mattered--to me, to my community, to the planet.

Fernando Del Valle - I wish then as I wish now, that the education system was more about asking questions than answering them. We have created a system of checking the blocks and moving students on that have no idea of how to ask questions, how to be inquisitive. That has created a society that is bored and unimaginative, it has no skills, it does know how to be innovative. The education system here in the US has become one of molding mediocre minds and not big thinkers; as long as students can check the correct block, it has become unimportant how they got to the conclusion or right answer.

Devon Proudfoot - How to think critically and understand the importance of an event or a piece of writing. After being in college for a year I realized that up until that point I was taught to just memorize facts and dates rather than knowing the importance of them.

John Michael Rice - Critical and Lateral Thinking. Let me explain. We learn how to regurgitate information, but we rarely get taught techniques for applying this knowledge in new and creative ways. Stepping outside of ourselves and seeing the situation for what it is when we are not a part of it. Archimedes talked about levers when he said: "I can move the moon, I just need a place to stand". The process of seeking and finding such a place to stand should be taught in schools.

Laurel Smith - I also wish that I and everyone else had learned how to communicate honestly and with courage directly to those in authority whether peers or teachers in emotionally charged situations. It would have been great if there'd been role playing exercises throughout primary and secondary school that focused on emotional intelligence in the context of hierarchies. Basic financial planning and budgeting would have been great as well.

Tony Gruber -  I wish I had learned better communication skills earlier in my life - both written and verbal.  It's taken some time to realize this on my own: Intelligence and academic knowledge do not ensure success. Effective communication is what separates the geeks from the millionaires,the bookkeepers from the CFOs, the great thinkers from the famous thinkers. Good communication skills can almost guarantee success, no matter what field you choose.

When anyone asks my greatest strength and my greatest weakness, I site my communication skills in both categories. It's the one thing that's helped me get this far, and it's the one thing I need to improve upon the most.

Nivin Thundiyil -  I wish they did many things. For instance, I wish they taught me how not to get left behind and manage stress, how we should question everything and actually allow us to do it, how science can be wrong, about our government and their lies and how we should not sabotage other people's hard work for our success but I guess that's opposite to what the history science taught us to do. I guess if I had to say one important thing that I wish our schools did that would be to learn how to be an individual. The education system wants us to be like everyone, so that it is easier for each individual to be replaced in the society, and so it fails to see what is capable of each student. I feel like I never understood myself and I feel forced into these paths or career choices I have. So yeah, I wish it taught us how not to be ashamed of being an individual and how to actually run with it.

Dennis Hitzeman -  I wish I had learned that it is ok to fail, even in a dramatic and catastrophic fashion. I think we focus too much on succeeding and so we fail to take risks that seem like they might impede success. As a result, our lives become more and more mundane. Sure, we don't fail, but I also think we don't learn and we don't advance. If I could change modern education in any way, it would be to let kids explore, experiment, fail, learn from failure, and grow because of all of it.

Alex Talbot - How to learn by yourself / be autonomous. How to be creative, How to know yourself, How to become a leader, At your own pace, How to deal with the fact that most of it is useless in life.

Janet Pal - Mindfulness and meditation

Timothy Hudson - The 'everyone deserves a trophy' mindset in the modern public school systems is a great detriment to this accord. Excellence should be distinguished from failure, and one promoted while the latter admonished. The fragility of a child's momentary emotion is not as valuable as the long term damage of the 'A for effort' mentality. Of course tact and discretion should be applied accordingly, but a blue ribbon for participation is quite confusing to me.

Martine Rossignol-Winner - That technical knowledge is not terribly important and can be acquired if needed. What's important is to have a clear, orderly mind with enough general knowledge to be able to use concept to reach your goal. But what's REALLY important is to have the willpower to implement it and the skills to communicate on it. The best theories in the world remain only theories if people don't actually put them into practice and manage to win people's support for them. 
Most Schools don't never try to put people in situations where they will have to implement an idea; teaching the art of persuasion has all but disappeared from most programs. We emphasize too much acquiring technical knowledge, and we forget entirely about nurturing natural inclinations, intuition, passion, and effective communication. We create technical clones that can be easily sized up by companies and ignore what individuals less constrained by the "mold" would bring to the mix. In doing so, we deprive ourselves of a wealth of action and innovation. And we hold back the vast majority of the population. What a waste...

Geoff Hart-Jones - The art of positive thinking, why money isn't everything and how image doesn't mean anything - no matter how much the high street wants you to believe otherwise. However these probably aren't practical subjects.

James McFadden - How to be an entrepreneur. Being able to take your ideas and make money and a living would remove our dependance on getting a job. How to manage finances- college is a mine field full of credit card companies trying to sign you up for a credit card without explaining the consequences of using it. I think I got my first credit card because they were offering a free shirt for signing up. It was laundry day, a clean shirt is worth a lot more on Laundry day...

Sabin Muntean -  I think the lesson I wish we all had learned is something on the lines of "really achieving your childhood dreams" as Randy Pausch put it or "how to live before you die" by Steve Jobs. I see a lot of my old colleagues unsatisfied with what they are doing and what they are studying because they made their choice based on what rankings and the economy and their friends and parents and teachers and the media said and forgot to listen to the most important actor of all - themselves. So all in all, the lesson I wish everyone learns and understands before leaving highschool is "do what you love to do".

Kenneth Bell - School is far too focused on learning, with not nearly enough doing

Corvida Raven -  I really wish I'd learned more about finances in school. Math is great, but it's irrelevant to my immediate life in a tangible way for me. Finances are relevant to everyone no matter what's going on in life. I know a lot of people that lack financial literary and I think it contributes to our current economic status, and widening its gaps at an accelerated pace that could be on track to being irreversible. Soo...I wish my school had taught me more about financial literacy.

Feras Almasri -  I hoped if i learned some of physiology since what is talking about Social Intelligence.

Lee Borocz-Johnson - The public education system NEEDS to involve philosophy. I also believe that compulsory four year physical education is needed, and I don't mean gym classes that involve little more than dodgeball and floor hockey.

Yoo Dekker-Lee - I wish I had learned a musical instrument (piano & guitar) and a bunch of foreign languages (German and Chinese).

Cale Sears - I wish I would have learned how our perception of the world is almost as important as the reality, and it often comes our reality. They don't teach you that in school. They don't teach you how much your own thoughts play a part in determining the outcomes of your endeavors.

Carla MM - Personally, I wish I'd learned more about cultivating and nourishing creativity. So much of what's taught is based on traditional, narrow views of what success and making it look like. Teaching children to listen to their creative energies and teaching them how valuable their creativity is in all aspects of life, both personally and professionally, I think would make for happier adults.

David Kris - I wish I would have learned more about how to think critically. I never really had any of my beliefs challenged or learned how to intellectually defend myself until college. This is an important skill that everyone needs to be able to use. One of the intents of education is to make people capable of being a civic person, and the only way this can happen is if students are taught how to think rationally and logically.

Dave Persaud - I wish I had learned more about life and the things to come. How life would take you on a wild an unexpected journey. When it gets too tough, you realize its not the end. If someone reaches rock bottom there is no where to go but up. If they taught this in early high school, it could possibly help reduce suicides, addiction and depression...

Katrin Saage - How to communicate and perform.

Janet Morgan - I wish I had been taught to do everything with a lot of passion and gusto, and to ask for what you want..

Nora Jameson - A lot of what I "learned" in school were facts- read the books, memorize it, recapitulate it. What wasn't taught very often (though I was lucky to have a few exceptional teachers), was how to question the "facts" that are shoved at us, down to questioning the very textbook and pictures we were using. How do we interpret what we know? How do we critically think about and make distinctions between objective claims and bias feelings? How do we proceed with the facts we have and the questions we want to answer? Critical thinking, problem solving, analysis, objectivity, this is what needs to be taught more in schools, at all levels.

Catherine Corbett -  I wish I had learned how to generate knowledge and think critically, not just had knowledge transfered from the teacher to me.

Lindsay Duff -  I would have liked to have learned entrepreneurial skills.. How a person can start their own business, the processes that some have followed, what amount of dedication and work it takes, the freedom and hardships that come with being your own boss, what kind of attitude is needed, what kind of funding is out there, how to research it, how to pull together a team, and all other kinds of leadership skills they seem to leave out in school. Currently working on starting a few things up, I find it important to always encourage my children to do their own thing.. "If they don't teach it in school, Google it, you might want to learn more about it and I will be more than willing to offer all the knowledge I have if you just ask," and "Don't dream of working for someone...dream of starting your own company and work WITH people" These are things I tell my 6 and 8 year old on a daily basis. I want to help them to find their passion and develop it as I wish someone had done with me at a much younger age. While I'm learning now, what an amazing gift we can give to our kids by starting them out young!

Yoana Nenova - How to cope with failure ...

Alice de Carli Enrico -  I wish they taught me not just to repeat the lessons as they wanted me to, but to think on my own accord. The faster you learn it, the better you can face every little challenge of everyday life and be fine.

May Shi - Goal setting, time management and emotional intelligence!

Patricia Canellis - I would have loved to have classes of how to behave in society, how to be a mama later (not to complicated things - the basics), how to be a good friend, all the things that we really need in this world. instead we have learned a lot of very unnecessary figures, facts! I believe in giving confidence to the child, in giving him the chance to realize his potentials, whichever they are.

Nancy Jacobs - A course geared towards credit would be fantastic. I feel that if people knew more about credit, how it's earned, how ratings are derived and what they mean - the world wouldn't be in as much of a financial mess as it is.

Carolina Ortega - acting, I'm not an actor but acting classes have helped me relax, listen and communicate better. Yoga and meditation for focus and to fight anxiety. Playing an instrument.

Janka Belanova - We had subjects as you mention - math, scinence, humanities - to make best of ourselves in this fast-developing-growing workspace - no-one has ever showed me how to slow down and relax, and enjoy the moments.

Jason Foster - Emotional intelligence.

Christie Peters - That the academic decisions you make in High School can have a profound influence on the rest of your life.

Lucy George - Public speaking. It's true that so much more can be taught to kids about life, health, the world, managing their finances, getting a job - but the thing that can be the biggest shock when you start a job is that you're expected to speak in front of groups. Even piping up in front of a 5 person meeting of semi-strangers can cause real distress. I'm sure you could get more experience and insight while at school that could help.

Maria Piret - I wish I learned that change is constant in our lives and how to deal with changes. Not that this is a big issue in my life but I think this is one thing that would save humans a lot of grief.

Zachary Zimbler - That school doesn't matter. One assignment or exam doesn't mean anything - it's how you accumulate and understand things in a larger sense. You can always go look up what planck's constant is, but remembering what you use it for is the most important part.

Steven Szydlowski - I wish I had been taught to live with the planet rather than how to exploit it.

Hope you learned as much as I did from other’s insight and experiences on what they value most.

John Singh.

Opportunity comes once in a life time...

If I had, one shot, or one opportunity to seize everything I ever wanted, would I capture it and live my dream, or just let it slip and loose the opportunity forever and live a life of regrets...?

Its amazing how we find inspiration in the oddest places. Thank you Eminem for inspiring me toady.

drip.. drip.. drip..

When I was young I was taught that tiny drops of water have the power to fill an entire ocean but at that time I never really understood what this meant and the power it has.

Having thought about this over some time now, I am starting to realise that long term success is indeed made up of consistent short term habits. Tiny drops indeed start at the top of the mountain which form a small stream which eventually becomes a big waterfall that falls into a river and flows exponentially into the sea filling the ocean.

When I reflect back on the last 10 years or the last 5 years or the last 3 years or even the last 1 year, I often try to see how much I have progressed in life. Often I feel disappointed if I realise that so much time has passed and I should have done a lot more than what I have done or I should be in a better place personally or professionally than what I am. But as the old saying goes, the best time to start was yesterday but the second best time is today. I have thought about the 20 things I should tick off every day which will assure me a better long term future and hopefully less regrets in life.

1. Sleep for 8 hours.
2. Do the dishes in the morning. Remind myself that yesterday’s dirties needs to be cleaned in order to start a fresh day today.
3. Exercise 1 hour, may it be gym workout or a jog.
4. Eat at least 1 serve of fruit and vegetable.
5. Wake up by 6am every day.
6. Dress for success. Make myself presentable every morning.
7. Eat a big breakfast.
8. Review my monthly, weekly and daily goals and stay focused in achiving them.
9. Do the most difficult task first. For example, Make 30 sales calls before midday.
10. Drink at least 3 litres of water.
11. Spend half an hour in planning the next day’s tasks.
12. Spend at least half an hour doing admin/accounts work.
13. Read the day’s news from 3 very different newspapers.
14. Read industry magazine to stay on top of the current trends.
15. Maintain my daily diary.
16. Spend quality time with my wife and love her lots.
17. Slow down. Take the time to look at the sky or smell the flowers.
18. Look forward to something.
19. Do a random act of kindness.
20. Smile and love a little more.

I often remind myself that consistency is the key to long term success. I hope that this will help me become a better person one drip at a time.

John Singh.

Crazy Ones

Here's to the crazy ones:

The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can quote them.
Disagree with them
Glorify or vilify them…
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They invent things.
They imagine.
They heal.
They explore.
They create.
They inspire.
They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are usually the ones who do."

 

Thank You Apple for this remarkable video.


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.

The addiction factor.

Last night before going to bed one thought would not leave me alone. I kept thinking that if I go out of business will I be missed? Will my customers miss me for my goods of services that I contribute or will they simply go to the next supplier and be equally happy using them without feeling the pinch of me no longer being available for them to call upon.

As simple this thought seems to be, it is indeed quite an important one in my humble opinion. Important enough to distinguish between a successful and sustainable business to a one that is a losing battle and a waste of space and energy. We all see too many businesses trying to succeed and often they simply don’t have this key ingredient of success; the addiction factor.

Some questions you can ask yourself as a business owner to know how addictive you are:

- Do your customers line up in front of your store every time you launch a new product or do they not notice or care about you at all?

- Do your customers talk and rave about your brand to all their friends or do they feel sorry that they did business with you in the first place?

- Do your customers call upon you at least once a month or do they only come to you only once and never again once they experience the average product or service you are offering?

- Is your business’s products, service and experience leaps and bounds ahead of the next alternative?

- Do your customers come to you because you have built a deep bond with them over the years you have been servicing them or do they simply come to you because they happened to just stumble upon you or have been attracted by your heavy marketing investments  and most likely won’t even remember your name one year down the track?

- Does your business make passionate love to your costumers in your every interaction with them? Do you make your customers feel very special by providing them am amazing product experience or service?

I feel that one of the secret to success in business in today’s day and age is to have enough gap in the value you provide to your customers, that they simply cannot live without a dose of you once in a while.

Some examples of remarkable vs average businesses in some popular industries:

Apple -  Every time Apple has a product launch, customers line up in front of their store from the day before and stay up all night in the excitement of being one of the first to purchase and experience the new product. Samsung just launched 7 new categories of laptops, I bet you didn’t hear about that or simply don’t care.

Google or Facebook – Just imagine Google or Facebook shuts down over night. You can’t, can you? Do you think they will be missed?

Mercedes-Benz – Is there really an alternative to a Mercedes Benz? Many have tried and keep trying, but there is simply no alternative to perfection. 86% of Mercedes Benz owners never go back to any other car once experienced it, now that’s addiction.

Disney – Imagine if Disney shuts down, will all the kids of the world miss them? Cry for them? Want them back?

Coke – Walking through the food court yesterday afternoon, I saw at least 20% of the people sipping on coke. My guess is that they have been sipping on it for many many years and they will continue to do so for many more years. With over 500 choices in soft drinks available, it’s amazing to see Coke still being the market leader.

I believe that the Addiction Factor doesn’t only apply for big businesses, but even small businesses. May it be your local take away store, coffee shop, grocery shop, tailor, bank, broker, car dealer, taxi driver, bakery, doctor, personal trainer, gardener, computer shop, jeweller or juice shop.

Today, I am going to think about my business and plan all the necessary changes so that I too can be proud of building a business which customers are totally addicted to, can’t live without and talk about me to all their friends; and I encourage you to do the same.

John Singh.

 

Too many questions...

Looking around me all I see is beauty, am I a praiser I ask myself.

Looking around me all I see is challenges,  am I a challenger I ask myself.

Looking around me all I see is my duty, am I here just to serve I ask myself.

Looking around me all I see is goals, am I an achiever I ask myself.

Looking around me all I see is promises, am I the fulfiller I ask myself.

Looking around me all I see are opportunities, am I an opportunist I ask myself.

Looking around me all I see is mysteries, am I an investigator I ask myself.

Looking around me all I see is gifts, am I worthy of them I ask myself.

Looking around me all I hear is the sound of music, am I a musician I ask myself

Looking around me all I see is struggles, am I a fighter I ask myself.

Looking around me all I see is sorrows, am I misfortunate I ask myself.

Looking around me all I see is puzzles, am I a solver I ask myself.

Looking around me all I see is games, am I an athlete I ask myself.

Looking around me all I see is adventures, am I a darer I ask myself.

Looking around me all I see is a journey, am I a traveller I ask myself.

Looking around me all I see is love, am I a foolish lover I ask myself.


(Above is a summary of my dreams last night and therefore had to capture it first thing this morning).

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.

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. 

A to Zed of Life.

Avoid negative sources, people, places, things and habits.
Believe in yourself and succeed.
Consider things from every angle.
Don’t give up and don’t give in.
Enjoy life today, yesterday is gone and tomorrow may never come.
Friends and family are hidden treasures, seek them and enjoy their riches.
Give more than you planned to.
Have fun.
Ignore those who try to discourage you.
Just do it.
Keep trying no matter how hard it seems, it will get easier.
Love yourself first and most.
Make it happen.
Never lie, cheat or steal, always strike a fair deal.
Open your eyes and see things as they really are.
Practice makes perfect.
Quitters never win and winners never quit.
Read study and learn about everything important in your life.
Stop procrastinating.
Take control of your own destiny.
Understand yourself in order to better understand others.
Visualize it and focus.
Want it more than anything.
Xcellerate your efforts.
You are unique, nothing can replace you.
Zero in on your target and go for it. 

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!

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.

Who is the world's worst boss?

Want to know who the worst boss in the world is? Take a walk up to the mirror, there's a good chance you'll be looking at him/her.

Even if you're not self-employed, your boss is you. You manage your career, your day, your responses. You manage how you sell your services and your education and the way you talk to yourself and the odds are, you're doing it poorly.

If you had a manager that talked to you the way you talked to yourself, you'd quit. If you had a boss that wasted as much as your time as you do, they'd fire her. If an organisation developed its employees as poorly as you are developing yourself, it would soon go under.

I'm amazed at how often people choose to fail when they go out on their own or when they end up in one of those rare jobs that encourages one to set an agenda and manage themselves. Faced with the freedom to excel, they falter and hesitate and stall and ultimately punt.

We are surprised when someone self-directed arrives on the scene. Someone who figures out a way to work from home and then turns that into a two-year journey, laptop in hand, as they explore the world while doing their job as they continue to make a couple of hundred thousands of dollars every year. We are shocked that someone uses evenings and weekends to get a second education or start a useful new side business. And we're envious when we encounter someone who has managed to bootstrap themselves into happiness, as if that's rare or even uncalled for.

There are few good books on being a good manager. Fewer still on managing yourself. It's hard to think of a more essential thing to learn.

I'm currently reading 'Harvard Business Review on Managing Yourself' which states that before you can effectively manage others, managers have to be adept at managing themselves. That requires truly understanding their own passions, motivations, strengths and weaknesses. The book offers sage advice from business greats, including Peter Drucker and John Kotter, on how managers can improve personal performance and productivity and, in the process, become better managers for those they lead.

I want to recommend this book to all my blog readers. You can grab it here from Amazon. If you dont have the time or not convinced if it can help you, let me know and I'll buy you one for Christmas.

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 IT consulting firm in Sydney called Macquarie IT (expanding to Melbourne and Brisbane next year) which I have single handedly dreamt, planned, implemented and successfully lead. I am also currently working on launching an online marketing product 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 any 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. To- date, I seek a simple and pure hearted girl with grounded values coupled with intellectual proclivity so that I can enjoy blissful conversations in our journey together, if I am ever lucky enough to have one.

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.

What is the measure of your surrender?

I always enjoy my early morning drive to work though the lush green suburbs that I have to cross to come from West Pennant Hills to Macquarie Park. This morning I woke up thinking about the topic of creativity as I was asked by a friend last weekend, what inspires my creativity. I have of course written about it at some length in the past and will certainly elaborate on it more down the track, but it was just one thought that I kept pondering throughout my drive which I want to capture today:

Everything that we see around us, apart from nature is the product of our thought. There is no creativity without imagination. Everything that exists apart from nature has been first thought of in some one’s mind and then implemented by our desire to act.

The space between our imagination and our attainment can only be traversed by our longing for gain or fear of loss and the difference between the dream and the reality lies in the measure of our surrender.

As I work through the day today, I am going to be subconsciously thinking about what will be the measure of my surrender as I plan for a productive 2011.

Abhijit.

Building a remarkable organisation, but how?

People often ask me what my biggest lessons have been over the last 8 years I have been in business. I’ve been subconsciously thinking about this over the last few days and this evening I decided to stay back in my office to write down my thoughts on the topic.

I made a conscious choice to go into business in my very early twenties without any experience, support or guidance which most people think was a very foolish move. But the way I look at it, I didn’t choose it, it choose me. I was a natural fit for it; foolish, passionate and full of energy and believed that I can make a difference. I believe that either you are the type to live by other’s rules and there's nothing wrong with that OR all you is know is how to make your own, I am naturally the later and I don’t think anyone can or should try to fight nature.

Going down the path of business was a choice which lead me to quite a lot extreme life experiences; many of which I don’t think many people can ever comprehend or will ever believe me when I tell them the stories of how I survived the first 5 years. The experience did leave a lot of scars or one may call them lessons mostly about people and their behaviour, about choices and its consequences, about managing failures and extreme hardship, about the joy in achieving triumphs and most importantly about the importance of having strong core values and never compromising them.

Reflecting back on the rise, fall and again rise of a few companies I have been involved in building, for me personally it has been quite a character building experience. If I was to imagine ten years ago, I will be the way I am today, I would simply have a laugh at myself. If I was to know the hardship I would have to go through by choose an unconventional path, I’m sure I would think twice about it.

The experiences that I have gained can simply not be learnt from any top business schools or employment. Having said that, if I was to guide someone else wanting to choose a path I did, I would summarise my wisdom gained into 10 different lessons and assure them that if they follow them, the ride would be a lot easier (I just wish someone was there to teach them to me when I really needed it):

1) Play to your Strengths

If you are a hunter, don’t stay on the farm all day it will just frustrate the hell out of you. You need to be out hunting. If you are a farmer, dont try to do a hunter/gather’s job, stay on your farm and work your magic. Most people spend a large portion on their life in understanding what they are naturally good at. It’s like anything else, the answers to most of our problems are obvious, we simply need to cut down the noise and learn ourself first before we embark on understanding the world. We need to see things for what they are and if needed we must be humble enough to ask for help.

2) Build your core values and never compromise on them.

You cannot play a game without knowing the rules and often most people don’t challenge the rules and instead blindly follow them only to later find out that the rules were fundamentally flawed. The WHAT’s are important but before you agree to the WHAT you need to understand and agree to the WHY and shape the WHAT based on the WHY. You cannot live a life or run a business without knowing the deep meaning behind why you want to do what you want to do. Spend time to understanding your purpose behind your contribution and finetune that first and create your core values which you wish to play your game on and never compromise on them.

 For example, earlier on in business my foremost core values was ‘Maintain Profitable Relationships’. I was hell bend it making sure that I maintain relationships with businesses and people who had the highest potential for profits. Very quickly over time and experience I understood that there was a fundamental flaw in that approach and I have changed my business’s foremost core value to ‘Deliver Happiness’ and I’ve modified our business model so that the product that we sell is actually happiness. We make sure that we offer a pleasing experience to all our customers and finetune all our internal processes to ensure that we deliver on this at every stage. This modified approach has proven to be more profitable and fulfilling so far and I’m sure I will write more about this in a few years when I have a substantial amount of proven results which I do feel that I will.

3) Think long term.

Experience has taught everyone that nothing happens overnight and those who run after overnight success also only last overnight. 90% of small businesses fail in the first 3 years and one of the primary reasons for that is that they are based on short term business models. The only good thing that can happen overnight is an inspiration or an idea but it takes perspiration to turn an idea into a reality and make an sustained impact. I’ve learnt to work on 3 year plans and do things today with the hope to reap its rewards 1000 days from today. The 1000 day habit is one of the secrets of success, which I will elaborate on some other day in a standalone article, but for now all I can say is that make a 3 year plan and role up your sleeves and get ready to sweat.

4) Invest your efforts in ideas that have durable competitive advantages.

Dont start a business selling things which many others are already selling on ebay, that’s a recipe for failure. Even if you are a world class manager, the law of technological advancement and competition will eat you out unless if you have a lot of buying power and the ability to rapidly change business models.

Either you are a specialist or you are an opportunist. If you are a specialist, be the best at what you do by continuously sharpening your saw, you don’t succeed in today’s market by simply being average. If you are an opportunist, kill out all the noise in your life and learn to look at structures, systems, the market place or the economy with a clean set of lenses and a child like wonder. There are always ways to improve the system or reinvent the marketplace; eBay did it by connecting merchants in new type of market place. Google did it by better organising the world’s information and keeping the most complex things simple. Apple has done it by showing the world the products of love and passion. Toms has done it by donating the same pair of shoes to the poor that it sells to the rich. Doing things that many others do will only frustrate you, if you can’t do something different which will offer an enormous value by improving the current ways of life, just don’t bother doing it and spend that time thinking and drifting instead, but as soon as you grab a valuable drift, go for it and secure it for yourself.

It’s late and I’m too tied to finish this off today so I will go home now and continue this post at a later date.

Still to come..

5) Keep innovating and never settle for average.

6) Build a strong team of people with a well balanced and complementary skills set.

7) Celebrate small wins

8) Never fight nature.

9) Commit yourself to delivering happiness.

10) Repeat


Yours Sincerely,
John Singh.

 

Don’t insult my intelligence!

Why is it that you crave routine and never want to leave the safe harbour of the known which you are very unhappy with in the first place?

Why is it that you are always reacting to events and not being proactive in creating events in the first place?

 Why is it that you are not trying new cuisines or reading a new magazine and travelling new places for a change?

 Why is it that you are going to your manager for instructions rather than going to him for forgiveness if your initiative has not worked despite your passionate input?

Why do you keep hold of your rotten relationships and fall in love with the idea of someone rather than that someone?

Why is it that you are spending hours every day on Facebook eavesdropping on other people’s lives instead of creating enough exciting events around your own life?

Why is it that you are accepting the life defined by others rather than innovating a remarkable life on your own terms?

Why are you sitting dumfounded reading this rather than having someone read your contribution and insight for a dam change?

Why are you accepting your substandard reality rather than working towards exceeding your own highest expectations?

Why did you look forward to Friday and felt happy that the weekend was coming?

Why isn’t everything that you speak poetry, everything you write literature and everything you do your level best?

Why do you keep insulting your own intelligence?


John Singh. 

10 Types of Thinkers

The next time you have an idea, grab a piece of paper and sketch it out. Now take a look.  How did you translate it from your brain to the page?  Did you write a paragraph? Draw a picture? Make a diagram?  Now ask a coworker to sketch the same idea – chances are, their page will look very different from yours.

There are many different kinds of thinkers. More often than not, we wind up working with people who understand the world in vastly different ways from ourselves. It’s what we mean when we say, “great ideas can come from anywhere.”  Sometimes, what’s obvious in one mode of thinking is remarkably complex in another. By putting different kinds of thinkers on a problem, we can compose a greater range of creative solutions.

I’ve compiled a list of the ten most prevalent types of thinking you’re likely to encounter from my experience working at Macquarie IT. I don’t mean to say that every individual falls into one category or another. Most people can think across several modes, depending on the situation, but everyone tends to have a few styles they’re most comfortable in… no one is equally adept at them all. Great agencies build diverse teams that can approach a problem from several angles.

Without further ado, the ten types of thinking you’re likely to encounter based on my experience.

Storytellers like to think in narratives. Ideas are usually linear and have distinct beginnings, middles and ends.   Most traditional creative copywriters tend to think this way, excellent for narrative media like TV but can be a bit of a struggle in less narrative-based digital media.

A picture is worth a thousand words.  Visual thinkers are adept at conveying a larger idea through carefully chosen visuals.  It’s no surprise they make great art directors and designers.

System thinkers fuss over the relationships between things.  Instead of developing a big narrative, they try to map out and understand how all the moving parts fit together.  They love flowcharts and diagrams.

This type of thinking is readily apparent in the platform strategies of digital brands like Apple, Adobe and Google.  The true value of each company is predicated not just on their individual products, but how all their products work together seamlessly.  Planning and understanding that connection is where system thinker’s shine.

Associative thinkers look at the patterns between things.  They have a tendency to express themselves through metaphor and proxy.  They often lay out ideas in a chaotic fashion and are extremely prone to digressions. My thinking seems to follow this path. From experience, I can tell you that we sympathize quite deeply with the famous “digression” scene from Catcher in the Rye.

[Mr. Vinson] could drive you crazy sometimes, him and the goddam class. I mean he’d keep telling you to unify and simplify all the time. Some things you just can’t do that to…. It’s nice when somebody tells you about their uncle. Especially when they start out telling you about their father’s farm and then all of a sudden get more interested in their uncle. I mean it’s dirty to keep yelling ‘Digression!’ at him when he’s all nice and excited. I don’t know. It’s hard to explain.

See what I mean?

Logical thinkers break problems down into a series of choices.  They focus heavily on the structure of decision-making, often establishing rubrics, filters and other tools that can not only institutionalize knowledge, but be used to teach computers how to automate tasks.  Not only are they great programmers, but they also make some mean spreadsheets.

Have you ever met someone who had a knack for simplifying complex lists into simple categories?  They probably fall here.  Organizers are excellent and grouping and bucketing ideas, personnel, files… you name it.  They have a habit of breaking things down by function, which makes them excellent programmers, but also excellent project and account managers as well.

They tend to have the most amazing file cabinets and binders, which make me unspeakably jealous.

This mode of thinking is very similar to that of the organisers, but instead of grouping by function, they arrange in terms of hierarchy.  Traditionally, this is called Information Architecture and produces the kind of tree layout shown above.

Like a sculptor, intuitives often start with a rough idea of what they’re trying to create.  As they gradually mould their creation, it begins to take form, often in unexpected (and wonderful) ways.  They know they’re done when it “feels right.”

They are known to cause panic attacks in more structured thinkers who prefer to have a concrete sense of where they’re going.

Leaders are goal-oriented individuals. Another category, I can directly relate to. They lay out the objectives and the timeline and lead the troops into the breach. They may not have charted a course, but they have a clear-eyed understanding of where the team is now and where it needs to go.

In films, montage-time helps bridge the gap between the inspirational speech and ultimate success.  In the real world, they rely on the dedication of their team to get to the finish.

Similar to leaders, but far less grounded, visionaries imagine how things could be without regard for feasibility.  Often, their ideas inspire more grounded thinkers to take bold, innovative steps.

It’s good to take note of the different kinds of thinkers around you.  Pay attention to how your coworkers diagram their thoughts and keep it in mind when assigning tasks to teams of individuals.  Instead of pushing likeminded individuals together (i.e. a brainstorm of programmers) try deliberately forming differently minded teams.

Interesting things happen when you pair two or three very different types of minds together.  Sometimes, all greatness needs is a little perspective.

Yours Sincerely,
Abhijit.

 

Success in 1 day or .... was it 25 Years?

Apple reports that on the first day they sold more than $150,000,000 worth of iPads. I can't think of a product or movie or any other launch that has ever come close to generating that much direct revenue.

Are their tactics are reserved for giant consumer fads? I don't think so. In fact, they work even better for smaller gigs and more focused markets.

1. Earn a permission asset. Over 25 years, Apple has earned the privilege of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to their tribe. They can get the word out about a new product without a lot of money because one by one, they've signed people up. They didn't sell 300,000 iPads in one day, they sold them over a few decades.
2. Don't try to please everyone. There are countless people who don't want one, haven't heard of one or actively hate it. So what? (Please don't gloss over this one just because it's short. In fact, it's the biggest challenge on this list).
3. Make a product worth talking about. Sounds obvious. If it's so obvious, then why don't the other big companies ship stuff like this? Most of them are paralyzed going to meetings where they sand off the rough edges.
4. Make it easy for people to talk about you. Steve doesn't have a blog. He doesn't tweet and you can't friend him on Facebook. That's okay. The tribe loves to talk, and the iPad gave them something to talk about.
5. Build a platform for others to play in. Not just your users, but for people who want to reach your users.
6. Create a culture of wonder. Microsoft certainly has the engineers, the developers and the money to launch this. So why did they do the Zune instead? Because they never did the hard cultural work of creating the internal expectation that shipping products like this is possible and important.
7. Be willing to fail. Bold bets succeed--and sometimes they don't. Is that okay with you? Launching the iPad had to be even more frightening than launching a book...
8. Give the tribe a badge. The cool thing about marketing the iPad is that it's a visible symbol, a uniform. If you have one in the office on Monday, you were announcing your membership. And if it says, "sent from my iPad" on the bottom of your emails...
9. Don't give up so easy. Apple clearly faced a technical dip in creating this product... they worked on it for more than a dozen years. Most people would have given up long ago.
10. Don't worry so much about conventional wisdom. The iPad is a closed system (not like the web) because so many Apple users like closed systems.

And the one thing I'd caution you about:

1. Don't worry so much about having a big launch day. It looks good in the newspaper, but almost every successful brand or product (Nike, JetBlue, Starbucks, IBM...) didn't start that way.

A few things that will make it work even better going forward:

1. Create a product that works better when your friends have one too. Some things (like a Costco membership or even email) fit into that category, because if more people join, the prices will go down or access will go up. Others (like the unlisted number to a great hot restaurant) don't.
2. Make it cheap enough or powerful enough that organisations buy a lot at a time. To give away. To use as a tool.
3. Change the home screen so I can see more than twenty apps at a time (sorry, that was just me.)

Taking Responsibility and Learning from Failures.

If my products or services are not liked by my customers, I am at fault for not being able to deliver something that is remarkable and not being able to satisfy them with my efforts.

If I make a sales presentation and my customer doesn't buy from me it is because of my lack of passion or connection with the customer or my inability to understand their needs and satisfy those needs or simply because my product or service is not as good as it should be.

If my girlfriend fails to understand me and ends the relationship even after many years of my genuine investment into the relationship, again I am at fault for not assessing the compatibility challenges and difference in our vision and values at the start of the relationship rather than jumping into it to satisfy short term emotional and other needs.

If my child lies to me, again it’s my fault because I must have done something wrong for her not to feel comfortable enough to tell me the truth even if she has made a mistake or done something wrong.

If I start a project which I have left unfinished because of my lack of budget to complete it, I am at fault because I didn’t scope it well at the start and study the entire requirements in detail and spend the required time in doing my feasibility studies and working out the exact cost of completion to begin with.

All too often we end up in situations where we are required to take responsibility of our doings and in most cases we end up in these situations when we haven’t spend time thinking and planning and understanding the full implications of our actions before taking the decision.

Leadership is about taking responsibility for all our actions and accepting our mistakes and understanding the reasons of our failures and then stepping up and taking the difficult decision to put the journey on the right path.

Good leaders take time to think and plan the correct actions so they can enjoy its regret free journey with pride and see it through to completion and take their lives or businesses to a better place rather than backwards.

I challenge you today to think about what are some of the decisions which you have made which could have been made differently if you knew of its consequences which you know now. And I challenge you to accept responsibility for those decisions and stand up and do the right thing now.

I also challenge you to think about what are some of the new decisions you are about to make which will have an impact to your personal or professional life in the future and I want you to delay making that decision for a few days or a few weeks and spend that time to think about all its implications and fully understand the implications before taking action.

Signing off,
John Singh.

Live > Love > Dream > Think > Do > Be

How I plan to live the best year of my life

Welcome 2010, I have waited 30 years for this. As I walk into the 30th year of my life, my goal this year is to live the best year of my life so far.

Following are the 8 things I will do this year to make sure that 2010 the best year of my life so far:

1.       Live every day with passion and purpose and up to my highest potential.

2.       Maintain a super fit Health by exercising daily.

3.       Spoil my family and loved ones every day.

4.       Grow Macquarie IT by 1000 new registered customers.

5.       Maintain Adventure Sundays with activities such as Long Drives, Sailing, playing polo, flying, cooking, dining etc..

7.      Fall Deeply in Love with the right women and embark on a sacred journey together.

8.       Maintain my journal - ‘Seeking Remarkable’.

John Singh1/01/10 

Mission 2010: To live my best year so far!!

JohnSingh is about to Expire - Renew Today.

I got this email today and it made me think...

Life always gives us warnings regarding what is to come and its often kind enough to gives us ample time to fix the things that are wrong.

Its time for you and me to think upon what is wrong in your our life or business which will cause an expiration to take place and its time to do something about it.

One friend I was talking to last week admitted to the fact that his terribe dietary habits will definitely cause him to have diabetes and other diseases within the next 10 years and he had accepted that fact and had decided not to do anything about it. Not deciding is also a form of a decision. Recognizing and not acting to improve is sheer laziness and foolishness but the most important thing is to 1st recognize what is wrong and then take active steps to improve it and fix it and leave yourself better than ever before.

We have an obligation towards continues improvement not deterioration, may it be our personal lives, our professional lives our the relationships that we maintain. 

Not living a life to your best ability is a sin and the only person that gets punished is you and you always have a choice. 

Go ahead and make your decision and choose between average or remarkable, the choice is yours and the consequences are also yours. 

Regards,
John Singh.

Passion, Music and Leadership = Life.

Do you offer Loyalty Card ?

I was ordering my daily dose of iced mocha at the much celebrated Lint cafe next to our office in Martin Place Sydney when the waiter serving asked me if I had a loyalty card. He mentioned that he sees me visit their cafe religiously every morning before work and he was surprised that I didn’t yet have a loyalty card which would entitled me to a free macarons (a biscuit) after every 5 cups of coffee. I thought about it for a second and I realised something....

I realised that I was visiting the Lint cafe daily because their products were remarkable; simply the best in the chocolate cafe industry and my daily dose was giving me the perfect start to my day. I didn’t need a loyalty card to keep coming back to their store. I tried to explain my theory to the waiter that only average cafes need loyalty Cards which is used as bait to try and have repeat business from their customers; remarkable businesses use the quality of their products and services as bait and hence don’t need to participate in cheap marketing schemes like loyalty cards. The waiter offcourse was speechless and I’m sure he would have thought about it when I had left.

Remarkable businesses don’t need cheap strategies such as ‘Loyalty Cards’ to have repeat customers, the customers choose to be loyal because they offer remarkable product, service and experience. The fact that they are remarkable makes people come back over and over again and they go and tell their friends who also get addicted to the experience and tell their friends and the success of the business spreads like a virus, I call this the remarkable virus and in my 10 years experience in studying successful businesses, this is the common DNA that all successful business share; they are simply remarkable.

The same is true for online businesses. Successful online businesses know their business is not for everyone but it is for someone. The most successful online businesses very brilliantly bring together a community of people with shared interest and give them something that they want; they don’t try and be all things to everyone. Deals Direct did it well by gathering a community of bargain hunters when they were only trading on ebay and switched that community to their ecommerce shop and continued to grow by providing discounted products to their community, who spread their word to other likeminded people and their community grew big enough to make deals direct one of the most successful ecommerce businesses in Australia. Zazz did the same thing, they were remarkable because they had a unique business model (just 1 product offered at a heavily discounted price per day) and they very successfully gathered a community who because raving fans and spread the word of Zazz and made them successful. Facebook is another perfect example of this and so is Gumtree or UniqueCarSales.

The secret to success offline or online today is simple but not necessarily easy:

Step 1:  Don’t try to be all things to everybody but rather be remarkable to somebody. Only focus on what you can do best and be the best at that.

Step 2: Gather a community around your product and service. If your product or service is remarkable, people will find you and they will get addicted to you and they will talk to their friends about you who will also find you and get addicted to you and your business will grow like a virus.

Step 3: Repeat.

Talk to Macquarie IT today and ask us how your business can become remarkable, I am certain it has the potential to be a lot better than what it is night now. All that is missing is your initiative and our partnership.

Kind Regards
John Singh.

Thank God its Monday...

If you do what you love, you really look forward to your Mondays. I don’t mean to say that my weekends are not enjoyable, nothing makes me happier than spending quality time with the family, cooking our Sunday lunch or enjoying a good bottle of red wine and connecting with friends, but come Sunday evening when I sit down at my desk at home to prepare my coming week, I always get butterflies in my stomach. It happens every single time, just like it did the night before my 1^st date or the morning before our first school excursion. I do become a child that I once was and perhaps still am and I am sure that the child that I once was would be proud of the man that I have become today.

People often ask me what my secret is. Why do I love to work so much and how do I maintain the level of passion and enthusiasm for my work. My answer is simple; I really do love what I do. I really love to work hard and see my customers succeed online and I really love to lead all my projects and clients in a direction which only could have been dreamt of, I do believe in living a life where your dreams come to a reality and every week I work passionately to make my dreams and my team’s dreams and my client’s dreams and my organisation’s dreams come to a living and breathing reality.

I always ask myself the question, “Who do I have to be to create the change I need to lead and make my goals and dreams a reality”, and I always work on improving myself first and growing into that person that I have to be to become remarkable. I always work on improving things around me and incrementally, day by day, week by week, month by month work towards those dreams and goals and see them come to reality. Working hard and seeing the results (triumphs or failures) and learning and growing from them gives me the motivation and inspiration that you see in me in my every interaction with you and I feel in my every interaction with the world. Success is not an accident, it’s a choice and so is being remarkable and my belief is that you are either average or you are remarkable and quite frankly, average is for losers. We are all hard wired to play our best game and give it our best in everything that we do and so we should.

Today, I challenge you to have a dream and live a life filled with inspiration and passion. I challenge you to learn from your failures and lead with courage and give it your 100% at everything you do every day and I promise that I and my organisation will do so too.

Thank you for being so beautiful and thank you life for inspiring me to always be my best.

Regards

John Singh.

The R Word is making me angry

The ‘R’ Word is making me angry.

Reading the newspaper this morning and the media is talking about the ‘R’ word again and its worrying every one I talk to these days and it’s making me angry...

Right NOW, TODAY, these are the most opportune times to be an entrepreneur, a LEADER.

Now, I can hear you say this guy must be crazy. Financial institutions melting down, corporations failing, the ‘R’ecession.....  This is because I know who I’m talking to. Now if you are CEO of a major corporation or a major share holder of a hedge fund, yea there have been better days. If you are a factory worker who is just looking for the next secure job, you might be a little nervous today. But if you are a reader of our newsletter, a leader of your industry or a passionate heretic (someone who believes in changing the status quo for the better), then good chances are that you are an ambitions minded entrepreneur. The stars couldn’t be better aligned up then they are today.

Our financial and economical pool is like a pyramid with companies and institutes and people at the TOP are who control most of the wealth. That top piece is what’s broken, thats what’s cracked off and the deck is being reshuffled and its making room for a new regime of leading companies and entrepreneur in which to rise. You can be part of that new regime. Now is the time for great entrepreneurship, the world is begging to be changes and all that’s missing is your ideas and your drive and your passion and your leadership and our partnership.

The history is witnessed the start of some of today’s leading organisation in recession times. Microsoft started in the recession on the 1970’s, CNN and MTV started in the recession in the 80’s. Infact 16 of the 30 companies that make up the DOW Industrial average started in the recession or depression; including Procter and Gamble, Disney, Alcoa, McDonalds, GE, Johnson & Johnson...... These were once a start up and today are giants and leaders of their industries and that is happening all over again.

So when you hear the news of the day with all its doom and gloom of financial institution, recession this and companies failing there, there in infact also the other side of the sword where there is more and more room opening up for new entrepreneurial emerging businesses and YOU can be a part of that too. I love the quote by the world’s greater investor Warren Buffett, “When others are greedy, I am fearful and when others are fearful, I am greedy.” Folks, these are the times for you to be greedy, to be bold and seize the moment...

Sam Walton (one of the greatest business entrepreneur) back in 1991 during the recession of that time was asked what he thought about the recession, he said, “I’ve thought about it but I’ve chosen not to participate.” Back in 1991, Walmart was in a dead heat with their biggest competitors Sears. Whilst Sears decided to pull back on the investments from the market place and turn it down for the next couple of years, Sam Walton on the other hand went aggressive and started investing in Advertising and Marketing and Innovation and in 2 years the Walmart stock tripled that of Sears whilst Sears stocks remained flat. That’s a perfect example of taking advantage of opportune times and YES opportune times can be in recessive markets.

There is a redistribution of wealth taking place right now which is going to be seized by gutsy and bold entrepreneurs like you. Now is not the time to keep a low profile and quiet down, Now is the time to be Bold and move forward and Make Change... The world is waiting for you and I know you want to. The only thing that’s lacking is your courage and your drive and your passion and good partnership.

Macquarie IT is a leading webservices firm situated in Sydney, Australia with a goal to make our customers profitable online. We are on a mission to help and partner up with people and businesses and ideas that will shape our tomorrow. We eagerly look forward to your partnership and your leadership and we hope to be a part of your change.

Yours Truly,

John Singh

What Leads to Success...

Hi Guys

7 years and 500 interviews later, one leading expert on the topic success shares what really leads to success, I have summarised them here:

1. PASSION (Successful people do it for LOVE not Money).

2. HARD WORK (Successful people have FUN in what they do and therefore do a lot of it).

3. BE GOOD (To be successful at something you need to be GOOD at it).

4. PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE .

5.FOCUS (Successful people put all their focus on ONE thing and get dam good at it).

6. PUSH (Successful people push themselves mentally and physically).

7. SERVE (Successful people devote their life to Serving others things of value ).

8.IDEAS (Successful people have great IDEAS and know how to listen and observe, they are curious, they ask questions, they make connections and they make their Ideas come to Reality

John Singh

Becoming Remarkable - We all want to, but....

Throughout the life a person is pushed by the society to fit in any specific category, you are either STAND OUT or BORING, REMARKABLE or INVISIBLE.

Lots of preaching is showered on you for your betterment from your parents, your gurus or teachers, from your well wishers, from your partners, from your managers. Altogether, you get tired of it, here, is 10 easy step-to-step guides to make a change get noticed and become remarkable:

1. Remember, half-knowledge is dangerous. It takes you no where! At times, it may be beneficial but in a long run it will always prove to be disastrous. So, first tip is – be hundred percent committed towards your goal.

2. Becoming remarkable doesn’t mean what you feel about yourself. In fact, what others feel about you? If people are not passing comments, it means you are an average, and average is for losers.

3. There is a wide gap between being noticed and remarkable. An individual can get noticed by wearing hunky funky dresses; loud earring etc., but it won’t make him/her remarkable. 

4. Radicalism in the quest of becoming remarkable is not a crime. In fact, “passion for success” is intrinsic, world has several examples of “odd man out” people – only those individuals succeed or becomes remarkable who has zeal to be “face of the crowd” and not the crowd itself. Celebrities have fans, not because of their good look, but they are masterpiece. 

5. “When going gets tough, the tough gets going”, means remarkability lies in the character of a person. Those who are brave-hearted, determined, indomitable….they never give-up their mission incomplete, be whatsoever the consequences. In contrary, they spring into action against the challenges. 

6. Remember! Change is resisted by the society. Don’t get stuck by others behavior, even Copernicus was penalised for uttering unconventional concept on the solar system. It is inherent tendency of the people to accept changes, but after some time-gap. Nobody in this world can please everybody, so just get focused to your goal. Achievement is the only route that makes you remarkable.

7. Ever wondered! What actually remarkability mean? There were and are some great people who were pioneer of certain things, they were remarkable. They were pioneers of their field. Millions of people later on followed them, some even faired better. Becoming remarkable means - to be best in one’s field, set examples for others, create new milestones.
  
8. “There is always a silver lining even in a dark cloud”. Victory and defeat are two aspects of the same coin. In fact, the person who wins the battle of nerves is remarkable and self-controlled. Such people are not afraid of anything as they are more focused about their passion and dreams rather than problems. 

9. When you achieve the status of a remarkable person. Your life changes! People throng around you. Wants to know about you! Get affected by your opinion! But remember, they are short-lived, don’t let the wine soar-up to your head. It’s good to have a handful of devotees than large mild supporters.   

10. Incessant change is the law of nature, fame and fad passes with the time. So, don’t brood over the spilt milk, strive to achieve another. Constant achievement is the only way to maintain one’s status of being remarkable. Hit harder, all the time!             

Hey! Are you ready to become remarkable? What? Not ready yet!

Believe it or not! But it’s true. Almost everybody wants to make it big in life, but in reality few posses the guts to sail in the boat of constant fuss. If you want to achieve the pinnacle ….don‘t look for scapegoats…. Walk when others are tired. Just toil when other sleeps! Very few people have such indomitable features and that’s what makes them successful.

Think the best, leave the rest! Why is there a fear factor of failure in your mind? Muster all your energy and go for it. Mull on your areas of interest, work out a strategy and endeavor towards it. If you succeed its good, and if not - don’t worry, still there are people around you who will appreciate your efforts.

Now! Don’t wait for the time. Just get started, not today… but the moment you finish reading this article. Remember, procrastination is the biggest hurdle in becoming remarkable.

Tomorrow never comes.

Signing out.

John Singh.

Secret to Success-80/20 rule

Ever wondered what success is? I think Success is the culmination of a long cherished dream. It is not at all easy to define success in one line, there is no formula of success, had it been there everybody would have been successful. There are plenty of factors involved in success. There are some who are born in such an environment that nurtures success, some have the strong desire to achieve success, they turn the tide in their favor by their deeds.

It’s unbelievable but true! Warren Buffet works for only three hours a day, but he is among the wealthiest men on this planet.

Another dynamic and very successful personality is uncrowned king, Bill Gates.  He doesn’t possess any engineering or other higher degrees from any prestigious college like Cambridge or Oxford, but went on to establish one of the most prosperous corporate companies in the world, Microsoft.

Ronald Reagan was never interested in toiling hard but he was the man credited for the down fall of Communism.

Mother Teresa was an ordinary lady but she carved her name in the annals of world history by her pious deeds.  

Now question arises, what was the mantra of success for these iconic figures?   

There are several factors which have contributed to their success. Crystal clear objective, focused approach and determination to make it big in life are some of the major factors which are very crucial in success.   

Although humanity has progressed in leap and bounds but still it is plagued with enormous difficulties. There are plenty of works to be done and challenges to be meet.

You may wish you had few extra hours in your hand to fulfill your tight schedule and demands. Though, contemporary science has made a miraculous progress but still lots to be done. Just by clicking at the mouse one can straight away browse any subject on the net. Mobile cell in your hand keeps you in touch with your friends but who will find the solutions for other grievances. Probably we should start working hard, fast and more. Is this the solution? No! This can not be a solution.

Let’s discuss about a very popular theory which is as old as nature, but very much practical even today. It is an amasing theory which is not absolutely used pragmatically. We are talking about 80/20 Principle of success. This theory has been proved time and again through scientific research as well. Its importance can be seen in several corporate as well as social situations.      

According to this theory 80% of results, productivity or rewards are spawned by 20% of efforts. To be more precise, only few certain things are important for getting desired results others are just secondary. This 80/20 Principle is very popular among corporate philosophers and management gurus, reason being that it is straight away relevant to different corporate circumstances.

Perhaps, you have heard that 80% of profit of any concern generates from 20% of its customers, we can elaborate this sentence in another manner as well that 20% of staff of any concern spawns 80% of its productivity. Let’s understand this through following examples:                        

• 80% of the crimes are committed by 20% of thieves.
• 80% of car accidents are committed by 20% of drivers.
• 80% of resources are used by 20% of population of any community.

 If we consider our own personal lives, then we will find: 

• 20% of the time we spend in our office work relates to 80% of what we achieve.
• 20% of our clothes are worn 80% of the time.
• 20% of our home’s carpet gets 80% of the wear.   

 Above mentioned interesting statistics reveal the essence of this 80/20 Principle. This theory can bring dramatic change in our day-to-day lives as well, provided we are goal oriented and sincere in our approach. We should use most prolific 20% of our potential in every situation of our lives.  

Introspect yourself and recognise the things which are most vital to you and your life. Focus most of your potential and energy to such things. When you will understand this theory in totality then you will realise significant changes in your life; lesser time will bring more and qualitative results for you.  

At times people wonder, if it is so much effective, then why it is not used worldwide, to accomplish success and meet challenges of the society. One of the reasons is that it is against the traditional norms of the society; moreover, we are deep rooted in 50/50 philosophy. We think that hard work will bring definite results for us.   

80/20 Principle is completely against this approach. According to this theory hard work is not always rewarded. There are some who have not worked hard at all, but went on to become very affluent multimillionaire. We have been brought up in an environment where we are supposed to put in around 8 hours in a day even when our most productive results are spawned in 2 hours or so.    

So, what is the bottom line? By identifying our goal and strengths and focusing on them, we can achieve success and bring diverse modifications in our lives.  

In modern life we are confronted with several demands and difficulties, by meticulously using 80/20 Principle we can find amicable solutions to all these problems.  

John Singh

Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.

You have superpowers - it is absolutely true!

You have the power to do things so far beyond what you can even imagine right now. In fact, you are capable of things that you would probably consider bizarre or even maybe supernatural. Your mind is a vast, largely unexplained source of energy and power. In fact, your thoughts even have the power to alter reality.

Unfortunately, because we don’t understand how these powers work, most people dismiss them. In so doing, we limit ourselves and our success in life. I will reveal here how you can tap into these superpowers and take advantage of them to make drastic improvements in your life.

Stay with me here. I know the tendency of many will be to immediately dismiss this as just a bunch of nutty ideas. But let me submit to you that many very successful people have believed in these powers and used them to create incredible fortunes and success. Also, if you just look at the facts, it is easy to conclude that there must be some truth to this. Where there is smoke, there is usually fire. These powers have been written about for centuries. They have been researched and acknowledged by very notable people. They are mentioned in most of the classic wisdom literature. They exist whether you are willing to admit it and use it to your benefit or not. If you don’t, then you are missing out on getting the very most out of your life.

Examples of Extreme Mental Power

There are so many powers of the mind that are not fully explained or understood. Things like telepathy, psychokinesis, and extrasensory perception (ESP) fall into this category. J.B. Rhine, a researcher at Duke University back in the 1930s, did extensive and rigorous lab tests on subjects to evaluate the existence of ESP. He concluded that many people did seem to have powers beyond the five senses to detect the thoughts and feelings of others. His research led to the coining of the term parapsychology and the founding of a research center at Duke to explore this further. Of course, there are numerous critics and skeptics of Rhine’s conclusions and the results have never been repeated since. However, Rhine was not the only researcher that came to these conclusions and many people think ESP is the sixth sense. This is just one area that suggests the mind has power and emanates energy beyond our current understanding.

There are also numerous people that believe in the miracle of faith healing. Faith healing is the belief that people can be cured of diseases and abnormalities through prayer and divine or supernatural intervention. Of course, when you look objectively at prayer, it is focused thought or meditation which is directed outside ourselves to summon supernatural power to achieve an end we desire. If you plug “faith healing testimonies” into any popular Internet search engine, you will find countless stories of people that have been miraculously cured of things like cancer. It usually involves situations where no further hope was offered by medical science. The person had to believe. If they didn’t, then they had to accept the fate of their medical diagnosis.

I mention ESP and faith healing to stretch your thinking. If you are still reading (I’m sure many have probably given up by now because they are just incapable or unwilling to consider that our minds have power beyond our current understanding), then you are ready to grasp and use the superpowers of your mind. You are ready to tap into the source of energy that has propelled people like Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, and Oprah Winfrey to levels of extraordinary success. You can also reach these levels. No matter how you define success or what it is that you desire. You can achieve it!

Unleash Your Superpowers

So, what is it that will unleash the superpowers of your mind? It is belief. You have to believe without doubt in the deepest recesses of your heart and mind that you can and will fulfill your desires. You have to believe so deeply that it creates a level of intensity in your thinking so that your desire becomes a burning obsession. You have to be able to visualize it and emotionalize it vividly. It has to consume you. You have to believe at the level where you know that you can overcome any obstacles that may arise. That you will pay any price. You will give and do whatever it takes to achieve your goal. When you believe like this, you invoke the superpowers of your mind and you will alter reality.

Your intense thoughts and belief when focused in this manner will create in the physical world exactly what you desire. This concept is well documented and absolutely true. It is confirmed in every classic success book that I have read. It is the secret or magic that these writers speak of so frequently. This philosophy is thoroughly discussed in Chapters 13 and 14 of Think and Grow Rich, a very well-known success manual written by Napoleon Hill. In Chapter 14, Hill states the following:

“This much the author does know - that there is a power, or a First Cause, or an Intelligence, which permeates every atom of matter, and embraces every unit of energy perceptible to man…This Intelligence may, through the principles of this philosophy, be induced to aid in transmuting DESIRES into concrete, or material form. The author has this knowledge, because he has experimented with it - and has EXPERIENCED IT.”

Another confirmation that these powers exist is from As a Man Thinketh written by James Allen. Allen states:

“Nature helps every man to the gratification of the thoughts which he most encourages, and opportunities are presented which will most speedily bring to the surface both the good and evil thoughts.”

In other words, these authors confirm that whatever it is we most deeply believe will come to be in our lives and that outside super forces, in these instances called Intelligence and Nature, will assist us. Of course, as the quote above alludes to this principle works in both directions of thought. We must therefore focus our thoughts on the positive to move in the direction we want. We must eliminate all negative thinking and fear. These thoughts dilute the effectiveness of our superpowers and may even take us in the opposite direction. Use your powers for good and not evil!

I think W. Clement Stone says it most succinctly. He states:

“Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”

Jesus even confirms this in the Bible when in Matthew 17:20, he states:

“I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

As you can see, this philosophy of belief is well documented. These men were not easily deceived. Napoleon Hill spent 20 years of his life researching the material in his book. These men knew the superpowers of the mind exist and they tried to document it so that others could use them too. Are you ready to believe? I could go on and on with more examples from many more books, but there is not room here to do so. You, however, can research this for yourself if you would like or you can take the leap of faith now and start benefiting immediately.

Believe and Succeed or Doubt and Do Without

I know that some will be reluctant to accept these truths. To the skeptics and critics, I say that I hope they are happy in their circumstances. No matter how hard they work or how much effort they put forth without utilizing the principle of belief they will always be severely limited in their accomplishments. If you look further into this, you fill find that every person with a track record of super success has fully and whole-heartedly embraced this philosophy. Our minds do have superpowers that we can utilize to our benefit if we believe. The only question that remains is, will you believe?

John Singh

Intelligent Management - The power of leverage

"Bernard of Chartres used to say that we are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any sharpness of sight on our part, or any physical distinction, but because we are carried high and raised up by their giant size."

Be a Low Pressure Persuader
Management can be defined as "getting things done through others." To be a manager you must be an expert at persuading and influencing others to work in a common direction. This is why all excellent managers are also excellent low-pressure salespeople. They do not order people to do things; instead, they persuade them to accept certain responsibilities, with specific deadlines and agreed-upon standards of performance. When a person has been persuaded that he or she has a vested interest in doing a job well, he or she accepts ownership of the job and the result. Once a person accepts ownership and responsibility, the manager can step aside confidently, knowing the job will be done on schedule.

You Have Two Choices
In every part of your life, you have a choice of either doing it yourself or delegating it to others. Your ability to get someone else to take on the job with the same enthusiasm that you would have is an exercise in personal persuasion. It may seem to take a little longer at the beginning, but it saves you an enormous amount of time in the completion of the task.

Motivating people properly will bring out their best
Since you have built self-esteem and self-confidence in your employees, sales and output have been on the rise. When I started unlocking the full potential in all of my employees, performance and output have increased.

The Best Form of Leverage
A key form of leverage that you must develop for success in today’s information rich world is other people's knowledge. You must be able to tap into the brain power of many other people if you want to accomplish worthwhile goals. Successful people are not those who know everything needed to accomplish a particular task, but more often than not, they are people who know how to find the knowledge they need.

What Knowledge Do You Need?
What is the knowledge that you need to achieve your most important goals? Of the knowledge required, what knowledge must you have personally in order to control your situation, and what knowledge can you borrow, buy, or rent from others?

Two Calls Away
It has been said that, in our information-based society, you are never more than one book or two phone calls away from any piece of knowledge in the world. With on-line computer services that access huge databases all over the world, you can usually get the precise information you require in a few minutes by using a personal computer. Whenever you need information and expertise from another person in order to achieve your goals, the very best way to persuade them to help you is to ask them for their assistance.

Don't Be Afraid to Ask
Almost everyone who is knowledgeable in a particular area is proud of their accomplishments. By asking a person for their expert advice, you compliment them and motivate them to want to help you. So don't be afraid to ask, even if you don't know the individual personally.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, multiply your output and rewards by persuading other people to do the job for you and do it well. Delegation is the key to personal leverage.

Second, identify the most important knowledge you need to do an excellent job and then concentrate on finding and using that knowledge.

The person who can find the knowledge in others is often more valuable than the person who possesses it.

Regards
John Singh

Personal Mission Statement

"Better three hours too soon, than one minute too late." 
— William Shakespeare: 16th-17th century English poet and playwright

When do many people start exercising? Immediately after their doctor tells them their health is in danger. Too late. When do many people start saving for retirement? When retirement looms just a few years away. Too late. When do people truly appreciate their marriage, their children, or their own lives? When they think they might lose them. Too late. Now you can do something to ensure that you aren’t one minute too late in 2008. Create your own personal Mission Statement. And start living for today.

Can a simple statement have the power to push you closer and closer to your goals with each passing day? It can if it’s your personalized Mission Statement. Change your life’s direction now by embarking on a 5-minute journey that begins with you defining your goals and ends with you achieving the success, wealth, and life fulfillment you’ve always wanted. Start creating your unique Mission Statement now...

 

"People with goals succeed because they know
where they are going. It's as simple as that."
- Earl Nightingale 

Success or failure as a human being is not a matter of luck, circumstances, fate, or any of the other tiresome old clichés. Those are only excuses. The power to achieve the life of your dreams is in your hands—and the first step toward activating it is identifying the specific goals that will make your dreams real. After all, it’s much easier to get what you want out of life when you know where you’re going.

A mission statement is only a paragraph long, but it has specific, measurable outcomes and a deadline for accomplishing that outcome. It’s truly the best way to start your journey to success.

Jim Rohn said, “You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.” Creating a mission statement will help you change your direction. In just five minutes from now, you will have made the shift from an ordinary existence to an extraordinary existence.

 

 

 

 

My Mission Statement:

My purpose is to succeed in life and business by having clarity about my goals, clear understanding of my strengths and weaknesses, have a commitment to ongoing self development, add outrageous value to everything I do and every one I deal with, be positive and passionate, work hard, never stop innovating, become a masterful time manager, have strong relationships with people, be devoted to excellence, lead my business towards sustained long-term success...

 

 

John Singh

Marketing Illusions - Is perception really a Reality?

A few months ago as I came outside the Four Seasons Hotel on George Street in Sydney, a hair-dressing saloon caught my eye as it had the words TRUMP written over the saloon. It was a nicely decorated saloon on George Street next to the hotel and was filled with men and women getting their hair done. One interesting observation I made was that there were hundreds of hair saloons on and around George Street but this saloon was defiantly the most vibrant and filled with people at any given time.

Obviously the name TRUMP rang a few bells and automatically I started believing that this business was part of the empire of the celebrity billionaire Donald Trump whom I have admired for many years, as I’m sure you have too.

I couldn’t help myself and I went straight into the saloon where I was greeted with professionalism and despite my efforts of booking an appointment I was told that the saloon was booked for another 3 days so I made an appointment for a hair cut in a week’s time and I was handed a slick business card with the details of the appointment. A week later I did attend my hair appointment where I felt treated like royalty and the hair stylist gave me one of the best haircuts I have ever received (no exaggerations).

Over the last 4 months I have visited the TRUMPS hair saloon once a month and it was only yesterday when I found out that this saloon was not part of Donald Trump’s empire and infact it is owned and managed by a local Sydney lady who had simply leveraged off an already established brand name to achieve a level of success with her saloon. With the exceptional level of customer service and an already established brand name, the TRUMPS Hair Saloon has become one of Sydney’s most succesful  small businesses winning various awards including the 2005 City of Sydney Business Award and the Small Business Champions award.

The success of TRUMPS made me think of other such small to medium businesses that have levered of the names of already established brand names and reached a level of success. I started researching companies from many different industries and was quite amazed to find that there were at least a handful businesses in various industries I had researched who were leveraging off the already established names of successful companies and many of these small business were reasonably successful. I even had the opportunity to talk to a lawyer friend of mine who happens to specialize in Trademark Law who confirmed to me that this was a common practice of small businesses and the law has many loopholes and majority of such businesses were covered by law as they were operating under independent registered businesses and approved trademarks.

Most people take perception to be the reality and get fooled by the intelligent marketers and get persuaded into illusions and rarely come to know the truth. Some may say that truth itself is an illusion whilst others may be happy and satisfied with believing illusions to be the truth. I think a person must be aware of everything so that they can make better choices in life but sometimes your awareness can fool you as it did in my case and other times your awareness can work in your benefit as it did it the saloon owner’s case.

John Singh

Transform your company from Mediocre to GREAT

You don't have to be great to get started, but you do have to get started to be great. Where do you start to transform your business from mediocre to great?

Below are your top 7 essential ingredients for cultivating greatness within your own business:

1. Know What Your Business Stands For And Live Those Values.

More than ever, today, customers don't just ask "what products do you offer?" They also ask "what values do you stand for?" What values does your business stand for? What practices have you developed to live those values daily?

2. Know Your Compelling "Why."

Success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue ... as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself. For what "transcendent" purpose does your business exist? How does your business make a difference in your customers' lives?

3. Always Seek The Edge.

In 1954, Roger Bannister did the seemingly "impossible" and ran the first 4 minute mile. When asked how he did it, he said "It's the ability to take more out of yourself than you've got.'" How can you "take more out of yourself than you've got" to achieve the seemingly impossible in your business?

4. Dare To Be Different.

Contrarians are the change agents in the business world. These wealth-building businesses are not simply "executing better" – they're radically changing the rules of the success game in their field or industry. Where in your business can you break the rules? How can you set yourself apart from the crowd in your industry?

5. Find Models Of Greatness.

Within every industry, every geography, every career path, there are examples of greatness everywhere. Find those people, those businesses that inspire you the most. What is it about them you would like to emulate? What changes can you make today to be like them?

6. Know The End In Mind.

Great businesses **decide** their future. They are not dictated by it. They know exactly where they want to be, by when, how, and then persist in getting there. What decisions have you made about your business future? What do you need to decide differently in order to have a great outcome?

7. Commit To Personal Greatness.

Your business is a direct reflection of where you are at. It only grows as quickly as you do. To build a great business, you must commit to your own personal greatness. How do you define personal greatness for yourself? What changes can you make to unleash your own greatness?

Learn and Live.. .Live and Learn.

John Singh

Driving your life.

I woke up this morning with an interesting thought, “We drive our cars the way we live our lives”.

After I finished work yesterday a friend of mine picked me up from Parramatta station in his new car. Ali runs a paining business and has recently purchased a new Toyota Van and was very excited to show it to off to me so he offered to pick me from the station to take me for a drive before dropping be to my house. I wasn’t too keen on it as I knew what was to follow, but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings so I accepted his offer.

As I waited on the street for him to arrive, I heard a screeching sound of a car coming towards me around the corner and I knew that was going to be him. I’ve known Ali for the last 15 years out of which his drivers license has been suspended for 6 years for various reckless driving offences. As I hopped in his new van, I could smell the freshness of the new car mixed with hint of tobacco and I leaned to the dash to look at the milage, the speedometer read 215 kilometers… Yep it sure was brand spanking new.

I knew to quickly fasten my seatbelt as I knew Ali well and the ride was doing to be very scary to say the least. Throughout the ride, Ali managed to never maintain the speed limit, failed to stop at some red lights and often forgot the fact that he was driving a van not a rally car on the race tracks. One hour later, I thanked God that I had reached home safely as my heartbeat was resting close to 120 beats per minute. (the average being 72).

Ali’s life has been very extreme from a very young age. Although a very kind and humble person ever since the school days he had a rebellious reputation as he always struggled to find a way to channel his energy constructively. He has always struggled to maintain a balanced life with many broken relationships, inconsistent work, lack of direction and discipline and ill health. Observing the way he drives one can make a clear correlation to the way he manages and drives his life.

Although Ali is a very extreme example, I challenge you to think about the people that you know and look at the way they drive their car and reflect that to the way they live their lives. Another example is my father, a person that has never had a driving offence in the 25 years he has been driving; he always follows every rule and is extra careful in the way he drives. He always plans his trips, he always gives way to people, he always wears his seat belt and is highly thoughtful and compliant. His life is very much the same. Infact in every aspect of his life he follows every rule and is another excellent example of this theory.

The way we live our lives, the way we do things, the way we handle challenges, they all reflects the kind of person we are. Not giving way to others shows that we are selfish. Not following the laws on the road means we are disobedient. Driving also exposes one’s heart. If a person always swears, he is sure to do it on the road which reminds me of the old saying, “the chains of bad habits are too thin to be noticed, until they are too strong to be broken.”

There are some aspects of our behavior that are inherent and are difficult to modify or change and my biggest advice to anyone would be to dig deep into yourself and understand all aspects of yourself and then based on the facts of who you are, manage your life accordingly to achieve optimum success. I am the best example of this, A few years ago I decided to stop driving as I too was a little like my friend Ali. Although I am a very good driver, at times I allowed the excitement and adrenalin take control of my driving and cause determent to myself. So the best decision for me was to stop driving and I haven’t regretted my decision the slightest bit. Infact a whole new world opened to my as I found more time to read books and think freely without the stress of traffic and road rage and I’ve fallen in love with Sydney’s public transport and have never really had the need to drive or own a car and I’ve never looked back on my decision.

So I challenge you to take some time to think about who you are and I encourage you to manage your life in a way that is most beneficial to you.

John Singh

Catching up to the Speed of Thought.

The world is changing in ways that the common man can not comprehend. The speed of technological revolution has been no less than mind-boggling. Yesterday I said to my friend "I've seen the future and we're not in it".

Most adults are fairly oblivious to most of the technological changes that the world is experiencing and they feel very comfortable in their safe harbor of the known and are too scared or lazy to sail the high sees and explore the uncharted waters.

Never before in the history of time, children have such strong control and influence over the future. They live in a world that is very different to the adult world, I call it 'the world of imaginations' and in this world of imaginations, you are only limited by your imaginations and today the technology exists to transform your imaginations into reality faster than ever before. Children do come to us much more highly evolved than adults to teach us the lessons that we need to learn, with their ability to imagine without boundaries or limitations and their innocence and their perpetual curiosity they seem to forever keep extending their imaginations and they seem to be the real beneficiaries of our new technologies.

Last Saturday I went to a barbeque gathering at a friend's house at North Curl Curl beach. On this perfectly sunny day as most of the adults were enjoying their food and beer, lying back on the chairs chatting away and getting a tan. After a few beers, nature called and I had to break the ice and be the first one to visit the toilet to drain the many liters of beer that I had consumed over the last few hours. As I walked into the house heading to the loo, I made a very interesting observation. Most of the children in the party were indoors on the computer choosing the songs to play on itune and youtube. Simultaneously they had six dialogue boxes opened on MSN instant messenger, conversing and connecting with people on the other side of the town, country and even the world. I walked back out to the backyard and went straight to the cooler to get another beer (Pure Blond off course, as I was too trying to keep up with the technology and change and Pure Blond happened to be the most advanced beer in the market with its extremely low carbohydrates), I went back to my chair. As I reached my chair a young girl sitting next to me caught my eye by her assertiveness, as she demanded to her mother to get her a laptop with Internet connection, as she was not interested in listening to the boring adult conversations. Luckily Tracy who was one of the hosts of the BBQ had a laptop with iburst (wireless connection) and was kind enough to bring it out for the young girl. As it happened I was sitting right next to her and passionately observing her as she worked that laptop. She was chatting on MSN messenger with her school friends, had her Facebook account opened, googling from time to time to search for information and listening to music at the same time. From time to time I would see her chat to her friends about school, teachers, upcoming concerts and movies, celebrities, new product release, new website discoveries and much much more. Every time I made an attempt to talk to her, I received nothing more than a cold shoulder followed with the words, "you are shouting in my ears, I am busy now:. After my numerous attempts of talking to her, I simply asker her one question, the answer to which shut me up for good. I asker her how old she was... her reply... NINE.

I turned 27 in April this year (2007) and I think of myself of being quite technologically savvy, but I tell you one thing, when I was 9, I hadn't even seen a computer and I could barely talk a few words of good English and my idea of having fun at a barbeque party was playing Hide 'n' Seek around the block in Bombay.

The children today are different, they are born and live in an information rich society and on some levels they have matured far more than I have at 27 and definitely they are more technologically savvy than most adults. I have observed and I'm sure you have too, in today's day and age it is the adults that ask the kids how to do things, I remember growing up, it was me that my father used to ask to set up the VCR to the TV or the new computer or the stereo system. More than ever before, the children today have control of the steering wheel driving us towards the future. The future is only limited by their imaginations, and the world today is more conducive towards making any dreams and imaginations a reality than ever before, and the children of today are busy changing the world at a speed that the world had never experienced or even imagined before and finally the speed of change and growth is catching up to the speed of thought.

John Singh

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Please send me your feedback and post your comments or mail me at mail@johnsingh.com

22nd November 2007 - UPDATE

Thank you for all your wonderful feedback and support. I am proud to inform you all that this article has been accepted by a few magazines to be published and also by Ezine and can be viewed here http://EzineArticles.com/?id=843835

I look forward to providing more such articles as I uncover my thoughts over the months and years to come.

John Singh

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.

Thinking about our Thoughts.

As human beings we always think, but do we ever realize why is it that we have given such extraordinary significance to thought?

Is it because it is the only thing we have, even though it is activated through senses?

Is it because thought has been able to dominate nature, dominate its surroundings, has brought about some physical security?

Is it because it is the greatest instrument through which man operates, lives and benefits?

Is it because thought has made the gods, the saviors, the super- consciousness, forgetting the anxiety, the fear, the sorrow, the envy, the guilt?

Is it because it holds people together as a nation, as a group, as a sect?

Is it because it offers hope to a dark life?

Is it because it gives an opening to escape from the daily boring ways of our life?

Is it because not knowing what the future is, it offers the security of the past, its arrogance, its insistence on experience?

Is it because in knowledge there is stability, the avoidance of fear in the certainty of the known?

Is it because thought in itself has assumed an invulnerable position, taken a stand against the unknown?

Is it because love is unaccountable, not measurable, while thought is measured and resists the changeless movement of love?

We have never questioned the very nature of thought. We have accepted thought as inevitable, as our eyes and legs. We have never probed to the very depth of thought: and because we have never questioned it, it has assumed preeminence. It is the tyrant of our life and tyrants are rarely challenged.

John Singh

In Search for Peace.

Every where we look, every where we go, in every city that we live, in all the times that we have lived regardless of it being the 21^st Century or the 1000BC, human beings have been surrounded by noise, mind-boggling noise. But is the noise outside of us or is it really within us. If everything in this world apart from nature is the product of thought then all the noise outside of us is the product of the lack of peace within us. So is not the mind itself a source of disturbance? If you really think about it the mind can only gather, accumulate, deny, assert, remember and pursue.

Is peace - which is so essential because without peace you cannot live, you cannot create - something to be realised through the struggles, through the denials, through the sacrifices of the mind? Do you understand what I am talking about? As we grow older, unless we are very wise and watchful, though we may be discontented while we are young, that discontent will be canalised into some form of peaceful resignation to life.

The mind is everlastingly seeking somewhere to create a secluded habit, belief, desire, in which it can live and be peaceful with the world. But the mind cannot find peace, because the mind can only think in terms of time - as the past, the present and the future, what it has been, what it is, and what it will be - condemning, judging, weighing, pursuing its own vanities, habits, beliefs.

The mind can never be peaceful though it can delude itself into some kind of peace, but that is not peace. It can mesmerise itself with words by the repetition of phrases by merely following somebody, by knowledge; but such a mind is not a peaceful mind, because the mind is itself the centre of attraction; the mind is by its very nature the essence of time.

So, the mind with which you think, with which you calculate, with which you engineer, with which you compare, such a mind is incapable of finding peace.

Think about it.

John Singh.

Truth is a Pathless Land.

I have spent the last few hours reading ‘Truth is a pathless land’ and I wanted to summerise some very interesting points that Krishnamurti makes and I’m certain if you too read this with seriousness it will challenge you to think at levels that you may never have thought before.

Man cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any philosophic knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection. Man has built in himself images as a fence of security — religious, political, personal. These manifest as symbols, ideas, beliefs. The burden of these images dominates man's thinking, his relationships and his daily life. These images are the causes of our problems for they divide man from man. His perception of life is shaped by the concepts already established in his mind. The content of his consciousness is his entire existence. This content is common to all humanity. The individuality is the name, the form and superficial culture he acquires from tradition and environment. The uniqueness of man does not lie in the superficial but in complete freedom from the content of his consciousness, which is common to all mankind. So he is not an individual.

Freedom is not a reaction; freedom is not a choice. It is man's pretence that because he has choice he is free. Freedom is pure observation without direction, without fear of punishment and reward. Freedom is without motive; freedom is not at the end of the evolution of man but lies in the first step of his existence. In observation one begins to discover the lack of freedom. Freedom is found in the choiceless awareness of our daily existence and activity. Thought is time. Thought is born of experience and knowledge which are inseparable from time and the past. Time is the psychological enemy of man. Our action is based on knowledge and therefore time, so man is always a slave to the past. Thought is ever-limited and so we live in constant conflict and struggle. There is no psychological evolution.

When man becomes aware of the movement of his own thoughts he will see the division between the thinker and thought, the observer and the observed, the experiencer and the experience. He will discover that this division is an illusion. Then only is there pure observation which is insight without any shadow of the past or of time. This timeless insight brings about a deep radical mutation in the mind.

Total negation is the essence of the positive. When there is negation of all those things that thought has brought about psychologically, only then is there love, which is compassion and intelligence.

Awareness is observation without condemnation. Awareness brings understanding because there is no condemnation or identification but silent observation. If I want to understand something, I must observe, I must not criticize, I must not condemn, I must not pursue it as pleasure or avoid it as non-pleasure. There must merely be the silent observation of a fact.

You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing and dance, and write poems and suffer and understand, for all that is life…

Do take some time and think about the above… there is a lot of wisdom in those words.

John Singh