I was recently listening to Harley Finkelstein, the president of the entrepreneurial revolution Shopify, and he said something that completely changed my worldview.
He said that most people in the business world obsess over the market size (I’m talking about the TAM for all you business-savvy ones) because they think that they need to get a piece of the pie. But according to him, what Shopify did differently to become the 100 billion dollar giant, was to think in terms of expanding the pie itself. They weren’t going to fight for a meager piece of the pie because they were going to make sure there was enough for everyone in their market.
And that my friends, is a prime example of the abundance mindset at work.
Today, I want to drill down the importance of an abundance mindset vs a scarcity mindset into your beautiful, brilliant heads.
In 2006, American psychologist Carol Dweck carried out an experiment involving students and found that about70% of the students that were taught about an abundance mindset performed better academically. Another study investigating the health outcomes of gratitude in Swiss adults found positive correlation between the abundance mindset and self-reported physical health and engagement in healthy activities.
And I can quote a hundred other studies here to show you the proof behind why you need to start cultivating an abundance or growth mindset for yourself. Research right now is telling you that with an abundance mindset, you will have better academic performance, more creativity to innovate, better long-term financial planning, a healthier body and mind, and most importantly, a 25% increase in life satisfaction. If this still doesn’t convince you to drop your scarcity mindset, and start working on your gratitude, you are going to miss out on just how great your life can be.
I don’t want you to just read through this and not start practicing the mindset shifts I am about to share with you, so I am only going to list out my top three today so you can focus and conquer these first before we dive into the rest in future newsletters. You’re obviously free to read up on them on your own, but I would strongly suggest not cluttering your brain with ten different shifts right now and really mastering these three fundamental ones first.
But before we dive into that, let me define for you what an abundance and scarcity mindset is.
An article by the California Center for Functional Medicine laid it out best for me. Simply, an abundance mindset is when you focus on what you already have. In contrast, a scarcity mindset is when you choose to focus on everything you don’t have.
A scarcity mindset further dives into the perception that there are limited resources and opportunities in this world, and that if someone else gets good things, that means less good things left for me. It is a constant fear of not being, having enough. An abundance mindset frees you from this invisible and irrational cage.
According to someone with an abundance mindset, there is enough for everyone. The more someone else gets means the more that I can get. It is knowing that every single person on the planet can be 100% happy and satisfied with their lives at the same time. One person’s success doesn’t mean the other’s failure. It is about appreciating your blessings over always cribbing about things you think you deserve. Because I can bet you there was at least one moment in your life where you wanted something that you didn’t get only to be gifted by something even better later on. We don’t always know what we want and accepting that means knowing that whatever you do, what you get will be the best. It is detachment from results, and focusing on your own input and work.
So, finally, time for the three mindset shifts that are going to turn you into a healthier, wealthier, and more abundant person in every aspect of your life.
Mindset Shift # 1 – You already have everything you need and are ready to recognize and grasp opportunities to level up your own life and that of others even more.
Mindset Shift # 2 – You need to surrounded yourself by people that practice the skill of an abundance mindset because the fear-based ideas of scarcity-focused people are not your problem and will never have the power to hold you back.
Mindset Shift # 3 – Everybody can win. You will make it a mission to create win-win situations in every interaction of your life.
I will dive into each of these in detail next week along with practical steps you can take to incorporate each of these into your life, but for this week, I want you to just reiterate these to yourself and find out how these show up in your own life.
Bask in their power to free you from fears that were never yours to fear in the first place.
That’s it for this week, my abundant, unstoppable friends.
Just remember,
“Most people are deeply scripted in what I call the Scarcity Mentality. They see life as having only so much, as though there were only one pie out there. And if someone were to get a big piece of the pie it would mean less for everybody else… Instead, I have an Abundance Mentality: when people are genuinely happy at the successes of others, the pie gets larger.”
-Stephen Covey