Abundance or Scarcity Mentality--how do you think?

“Abundance is not something I acquire, it's something I tune into."

--Wayne Dyer

My favorite leadership law is the Law of Magnetism.  Who I am is who I attract. Thoughts are things, and they attract to me what I think about. When I worked for a non-profit, my experience was that there was one mindset that held many non-profits back from explosive funding. That was (and maybe still is) the scarcity mindset.  I used to think that way, too.

I remember the cure…I fought hard for a speaker for our fund-raiser whose fee was $10,000. Gulp, we’d never paid that before. But I was sure…my intuition and his track record told me that  he would bring great results. I’d read his books and I knew how much faith he had.  He believed and expected to achieve the absolute impossible. If he could, we could.  AND WE DID. We raised more than we ever did that night--in fact, he set a record. That speaker was a magnet for great things. It also set higher standards from that time on for our financial partners.  He changed our thinking!

That experience cemented abundance thinking in my mind.  Today, nine years later, my life, business
and relationships have changed to reflect that.

The Scarcity Mentality is the zero-sum paradigm of life. People with a Scarcity Mentality have a very difficult time sharing recognition, credit, power and/or profit—even with those who help in the production. They also have a hard time being genuinely happy for the success of other people. These are the people who never have enough time, money, energy or resources to achieve their goals. They frame their challenges around what they lack.  Preservation rather than expansion is the lens they look through. They like familiar-- “we’ve never done THAT before,” rather than risk. They set goals based on what they were able to achieve, rather than what may be possible. In a culture of perceived lack, people become nervous and afraid to make a mistake and creative thinking suffers.

The Abundance Mentality, on the other hand, flows out of a deep inner sense of personal worth or security. It is the paradigm that there is plenty out there and enough to spare for everybody. It results in the sharing of prestige, recognition, profits and decision-making. It opens possibilities, options, alternatives and creativity.  A person with the abundance mindset doesn’t settle with “we can’t afford it,” they ask “how can we afford it?” That kind of thinking opens up myriads of possibilities! A person with an abundance mindset thinks about what they want and expects that there is a way to get it. Abundant mindset people are optimistic and choose to see obstacles as opportunities. They see the glass half full rather than half empty.

Leaders create the culture of our workplaces or homes, and mindsets are awfully contagious. Which mindset do you want to operate out of?  Which mindset do you want your team  or your family to run on?  What/Who do you want to attract into  your life? We, as leaders, need to model the behavior that we want to see in our people.

Steven Covey, author of “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” says, “There is enough pie to go around, so break that nasty habit of comparing yourself to others. Repeat after me: There is plenty for everyone. Say the sentence often enough, and it’ll become second nature.”

Begin to think abundance...because you deserve it.
 
Thinking differently,

www.johncmaxwellgroup.com/janmcdonald