Mindset Over Matter
Have you heard the one about the two shoe salesmen sent to a foreign country to assess the market? It is, perhaps, the most famous story on the motivational circuit and it goes a little something like this…
Salesman One scouts around and then telegraphs his company: “Total disaster. Nobody here wears shoes.” Salesman Two does the same research but sends a different message: “Glorious opportunity! Nobody here wears shoes.”
The point: our perspective influences our behavior. And it’s tied to scarcity thinking vs. abundance thinking. A scarcity mindset feels you cannot change a situation. An abundance mindset sees the world as a place full of opportunities.
Believe me, I’ve lived several years of my life in the scarcity mindset. Some of us come by it naturally or were raised in an environment that reinforced this thinking. But during the past couple of decades, I have purposely shifted my outlook. I now base my life on believing there’s opportunity everywhere!
When we have a consciousness of expecting positive outcomes, we generally get them. We’ll meet the right people, we’ll move in the right circles, we’ll find the right solutions.
It all starts with having the right mindset.
I recently facilitated an annual planning session with a major non-profit organization. Their noble work changes the trajectory and lives of the people they touch. This was the third such charitable organization I’ve been referred to during my career of coaching and advising executive teams. It’s always a pleasure.
Unfortunately, I was starting to see a trend.
The challenges that most non-profits face are fundamentally the same as my for-profit clients — except there tends to be a greater scarcity mindset. That’s a huge drawback. In many non-profit groups there seems to be at least one team member who dwells on the resources they don’t have instead of the amazing opportunities that lie before them! This individual is definitely a glass-half-empty kind of person. By contrast, I like to look at life from a glass-half-full perspective.
In my book, Replace Retirement: Living Your Legacy in the Exponential Age, I encourage my readers to make two commitments: First, Be Inspired. Second, Manage Your Energy. For me, “managing my energy” includes being very selective about the type of work I do and the relationships I engage in.
Why? Because negativity zaps my energy — whether it’s my own negativity or what I pick up from others. I counteract negative thinking in two ways: First, I intentionally invest time every morning in activities (spiritual, mental, and physical) designed to increase my energy, focus, gratitude, and sense of well-being. Second, I try to purposefully avoid people or situations that suck energy.
If you look up “Dan Sullivan – scarcity vs. abundance thinking,” you’ll find a terrific explanation of the two mindsets. Dan refers to them as “neighborhoods,” and encourages us to avoid the scarcity neighborhood because it will drain our energy and enthusiasm. Sullivan has defined his own “neighborhood” by choosing who he wants to work with (successful entrepreneurs) and the qualities that must characterize their thinking — gratitude, creativity, cooperation, etc.
Unfortunately, the leader I worked with in the recent planning session lives in the scarcity neighborhood. He’s always looking at what’s missing and what’s broken. He is half-expecting to fail.
That’s not to say I never complain about what isn’t working in my life; I do. And that’s not to say I’ve never spent time in the scarcity neighborhood; I have.
But the difference for me now is that I quickly realize when I’ve slipped into the wrong mindset and correct it! I’m confident that only by believing in abundance and acting with abundance can I keep away from the scarcity mindset.
Let’s see life as a glass half full — and just waiting to be filled to the top!