The Incredible Power of Comparisons - New Book Helps Us Make Better Choices

Author Robert Prior-Wandesforde argues that luck and psychological biases play a far bigger role in our decisions than we would like to believe. This is true of the judgements we reach about ourselves, other people and, indeed, just about everything. To improve our decision making, the answer is not to obtain every scrap of information: even if we had the time, our brains couldn’t cope. Rather, he suggests, we need to achieve a better understanding of the possible pitfalls of our existing comparisons and learn to adjust them in certain situations. The book shows us how.

Synopsis of ‘The Incredible Power of Comparisons’:

The comparisons we make are crucial to the decisions we take as well as the judgements we reach in everyday life. For the sake of our well-being and wallets, they deserve far more attention than we give them.

Lacking the time, inclination and insight to make the best possible comparisons, we take shortcuts, ensuring that our 'comparison set' is often determined more by convenience than relevance. Then, when choosing between these options, a number of psychological biases come into play: it's no wonder that costly errors and regret occur all too frequently.

It needn't be this way, however. By gaining a better understanding of the potential pitfalls of our comparisons and tinkering with them occasionally, we can dramatically reduce mistakes. Brimming with valuable suggestions and fascinating observations, the book will give you a comparative advantage in many important aspects of your life. These include…

Self-Judgement: The combination of our innate desire to make comparisons with others and our need for speed often leads us to compare ourselves with the wrong people. This can pose powerful and life-long challenges to our mental health. The book suggests how we can turn social comparisons to our advantage: something that is more important than ever in this, the social media age.
Day-to-Day living: Changing our comparisons can help us achieve our weight-related aims, while also helping us understand and avoid driving mistakes. Meanwhile the popularity of online dating apps has stimulated comparisons in an area of our lives where they didn’t exist before. The book explores how this is influencing the partners we choose and the success of our relationships.
Shopping: Retailers use a variety of tactics to influence the comparisons we make when determining what to buy. Although we like to think that we are in control of what we buy and how much we are prepared to pay for it, this is more the exception than the rule. The good news is that it’s possible to gain greater sway.
Working: The use of appropriate comparisons can be very powerful when it comes to influencing colleagues and clients. At the same time, we frequently misuse comparisons when making key personnel decisions in the workplace. The book considers what we can do in response and whether Artificial Intelligence systems will help or hinder.
Sporting & Betting: Comparisons in competitive games and sport have the ability to improve or reduce our chances of winning. They are also important to those of us watching on from the sidelines, often leading to misjudgements. We can learn to avoid common mistakes and use comparisons to our competitive and financial advantage.
Investing: Comparisons lead us into all sorts of trouble when it comes to investing our savings. Watching others ‘get rich’, pressurises us to buy when we shouldn’t; we postpone investment decisions, wrongly expecting the future to offer greater clarity and assess the quality of our past investments inappropriately. By adjusting our comparisons it’s easy to significantly improve the quality of our investment decisions.

About the author:

Robert Prior-Wandesforde was a professional Economist for more than 20 years, working in London and Singapore. Returning to the UK in 2014, he completed a number of psychology courses, gaining a Certificate of Higher Education and a Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. He is a registered CBT therapist. He also has a BSc and MA in Economics from the University of Warwick. Robert’s previous self-help book ‘The Constructive Solution: A Sufferer's Guide to Beating Depression & Anxiety’ topped Amazon's 'best seller' list for mental health. He has written an award-winning children's book ‘Kevin & Colin's Tales of Mischief and Mayhem.’ Robert is a volunteer reading helper at a local primary school and lives in Kent with his wife and two sons.

‘The Incredible Power of Comparisons’ is available on Amazon in paperback, price £5.99,and in Kindle at £2.49.