Opportunity Paralysis — What Lions, Costco, and your Dreams Have in Common
Consider the following scenario.
A herd of gazelles stride in tandem through the great plains of eastern Tanzania. Only a few feet away in the switchgrass, a lioness crouches in wait, her rippling muscles completely obscured by the shadow of the reeds before her. She whips her head to watch the first gazelle pass, and then the second. And then the third. She begins to ping-pong her head between the gazelle that has passed, and the gazelle that’s about to cross her field of vision, considering. Over and over, she sits, waiting, for the ‘perfect’ opportunity. Frozen, in wait, except for the rapid twitching of her head.
All of a sudden, a patch of grass rustles slightly and unleashes a different lioness out of stealth. With one bite from her powerful jaws, she takes down one of the gazelles and lets loose a roar over the still body of her prey. This lioness did not stop to consider. This lioness did not whip her head back and forth, waiting for the perfect opportunity. The lioness just….struck.
A college grad sits in a room, waiting for the ‘perfect’ opportunity to begin their career.
An aspiring entrepreneur waits for the ‘perfect’ moment of inspiration before going off on their own.
A young professional, in a dead end job, waits for the ‘perfect’ moment to leave on a new journey.
An investor waits for the ‘perfect’ company to scale 100x and deliver a massive return for his company.
An artist waits for the ‘perfect’ burst of inspiration to begin working on their masterpiece.
‘Perfect’ situations don’t exist. Opportunity Paralysis, however, does.
Let’s break it down. There’s two elements at play — availability of excess choice and comparative opportunity.
Part 1: Building Real-World Context
The average basket value of a checkout at Costco is approximately $103.37, occurring every 28.4 days on average. Have you ever stopped to wonder how your shopping cart at a Costco, or a Sam’s Club, or any wholesale-structured retailer manages to pile up so quickly? What originally was going to be a quick grocery trip quickly morphs into a hurried game of “how much can I fit in my cart?” because it’s specifically designed that way by Costco executives.
As with all things, human psychology is to blame. When you pass an “amazing deal” of 360 Advil for just $18.99, you begin to compare that opportunity to every other instance of a similar deal that you’ve seen in recent memory. You say, “Well, I was at a CVS and saw a bottle of 200 Advil for a higher price, and I even saw the name brand of 200 Ibuprofen for a higher price too!”
The bottle of Advil makes it into the cart.
The pattern naturally repeats with that batch of Granny Smith apples, a box of Keurig K-cups, and [enter your choice of product here]. So on and so forth.
We recognize that the bottle of Advil is priced at an incredible rate, without realizing that there are no other bottles of ibuprofen present to give our decision-making process pause. There are no substitutes, no alternatives, and no other inputs to consider. Alas, the Costco effect is one of simplistic decisions — of only one choice to make, to buy or to move on.
Part 2: So What?
It is the artificially created lack of choice at your local Costco that makes those knee-jerk cart additions so simple to justify and so instantaneous on the part of the consumer (much to the delight of the Costco C-suite).
Now, let’s completely flip the script and create a situation that presents availability of excess choice.
Take the same shelf space in the CVS medicine aisle, which features the original 360 count of Advil, alongside 14 different alternatives from different suppliers, at different prices per unit, and at different available quantities.
How does your decision-making process change from our original “buy or move on” statement at Costco?
We’ve gone from one bottle on a shelf, with an objectively “good” price attached to it, to 15 different variations of Ibuprofin. Your mind starts racing — which do I buy? Which is the best rated? Is my choice FDA approved? Is the best price the CVS name brand ibuprofen because I’m shopping IN a CVS? Or is it the Advil 50-count? Wait, how many capsules do I really need? All of a sudden, the whole purchasing decision slows further and further down until…
Paralysis. Too many available options results in a complete interruption of your decision process, leading to a lack of meaningful progress made.
Part 3: The Fools’ Gold Behind the Best Deal on the Table
Take the same example from Costco — and the same 360-count bottle of Advil for $18.99 on the shelf standing alone. You’ve even done the math behind the price — at just 6 cents a capsule, it’s the best deal you’ve seen anywhere from CVS to Walgreens, and you just have to take it.
What we ignore in the pursuit of the best deal available, naturally, is the ensuing build-up of excess. Never mind the fact that you have two half-empty bottles of Advil already lying in the bottom of your medicine cabinet at home. But it was such a good deal, you say!
By living in a world of comparative opportunity, you’re constantly looking around at other prices, observing changing values, and tracking varying markets to inform your decision-making process. It’s great for Costco — not so great for the consumer and an excessive shopping cart.
Comparative opportunity leads us into the second element of opportunity paralysis as we become blindingly cognizant of “the best available deal on the table”. This leads us into an unhealthy thought structure in several key situations because comparative context inevitably dilutes the value of what we have RIGHT NOW. See the following:
My Roth IRA is generating returns at 4% YOY…but my friend Andrew just bragged about his 2000% return on Bitcoin! RESPONSE: “Why didn’t I invest?”, you say.
I just got bumped up to a $75,000 salary at my stable marketing job…but my classmate from school just sold his start-up business for $20MM after just a few years! RESPONSE: “Why didn’t I start a company?”, you say.
I have a mid-sized apartment in a major city…but my rival is traveling the world without a care in the world! RESPONSE: “Why am I not traveling the world?”, you say.
You’ve got stability, a roof over your head, and an investment portfolio generating consistent, safe returns. So what’s the problem?
Our social structure, in most cases, breeds situational discontent as we look at what our high-performing peers have instead of us, which conveniently ignores factors of risk, varying skillset, and timing. It’s the Costco effect magnified against our livelihoods and the future potential of our careers because everything becomes contextualized by what we consider to be “the best deal on the table.” Comparative Opportunity, therefore, can quickly become the driving force behind an inability to be content in any situation.
Part 4: Going Full Circle
The Paralysis of Opportunity exists in all aspects of our lives in the 21st century.
Millennials are changing jobs at never before seen rates, holding four different positions by the time they’re 32 years old. They’re paralyzed when faced with opportunities, and withdraw further and further inwards while asking the same impossible questions: Is this the right opportunity? Is this the right team? Is this the right location? Is this what I want? Is this…and on and on the cycle goes in perpetuity. In a state of paralysis.
Availability of excess opportunity establishes the ‘what’ behind a seemingly infinite amount of paths that we could potentially take with our lives, a calculation that is impossible for any human to process all at once. Figuratively, we exist in an aisle at CVS with far more than just 15 options to choose from.
Comparative opportunity establishes ‘how’ we consider each potential path that our lives could go, as informed by a now massive network of peers that spans the world via the social web. Oh, the allure of excess…Thanks Zuckerberg!
How many would-be entrepreneurs didn’t start a business because they kept waiting for that ‘perfect’ opportunity?
How many relationships failed because the grass was always greener on the other side?
How many career moves weren’t made by young professionals, costing them their dreams and the pursuit of happiness in the process?
How many investors missed the five companies that were 10x investments in the pursuit of that one elusive 100x unicorn?
How many generational artists were dissuaded from beginning their masterpiece because they weren’t ready?
Realize that there are no ‘perfect’ situations. Exit the vast, innumerable world of theoretical paths, and instead choose what is real. Narrow down your real opportunities and hold yourself to seeing things through. Calculate the expected values of your remaining opportunities, and be bold enough to make a single decision. More importantly, have the mental fortitude to trust the path you’re on.
