Working Towards Our Purpose

Hello and welcome to episode 61 of Working

towards our purpose. In today's episode, we're going to talk about

the abundance mindset versus the scarcity mindset

topic that I'm excited about. I was looking back through the episodes

and I couldn't believe that I didn't do an episode on this already.

So, yeah, lots of thoughts on it, but before we get into that, going

to slow down a little bit and check in with ourselves, see where we're at

today. Check in with yourself, as I do the same for me.

Yeah. And for me, I'm feeling.

I'm feeling abundant. I'm feeling like I have a lot

of ideas and lots of thoughts,

which is all good. It could leave me a little sort of

scattered. So I'm really trying to slow down for this episode

because there's a lot that I want to cover. But yeah, overall, feeling good, feeling

grateful, feeling.

Feeling like I have some good people in my life that

can reflect things back to me in a way that's super helpful to

me. So feeling really grateful for that. And

yeah, so. So let's get into today's

episode about abundance versus scarcity.

So first off, I just want to sort of define, like, what scarcity is,

what it means to me, and what abundance is and what it means to me.

And then we'll sort of get into a

couple different stories that I want to talk about and then a

couple different steps to be able to move you towards an abundance

mindset versus a scarcity. Um, so. So, yeah, what is.

What is a scarcity mindset? It's

thinking small. It's. For me, a lot

of times, it's thinking out of fear. If you project

yourself into the future, you could, you know, be afraid.

I won't have enough money. I won't have a job. I won't have

a person in my life, like, thinking. Thinking, like, things

are gonna go away or.

I think the biggest, like, when you look up scarcity versus abundance on the Internet,

a lot of, like, money conversations come up. So a lot of

people will tell you, you know, if you have an abundance mindset of money, it

will keep you richer versus poorer. And a

scarcity mindset is sort of like a poor mentality

by. By thinking that there's never enough money, you kind of

always attract that sort of energy and you attract

that sort of, you know, financial into your life to always

think of a poor mindset of a scarcity mindset.

So a lot of it, like, talks around money. And I think, like, the first

time that I started Reading about this concept of

abundance versus scarcity was in a money book, in a financial book.

But that's not going to limit our conversation to just that. I think it could

be applied to any area of your life really. So, yeah,

scarcity, just being like sort of living out of

fear and expecting the worst to

happen, that sort of thing. And I think

for me growing up, that's kind of how I

was taught to think about things. And

some of that comes from parental stuff, some of that comes from other family systems,

some of that comes from schooling and our educational systems.

So, you know, it's, it's not surprising, I guess, that

I had that sort of mindset growing up. I

remember this one story that my dad used to tell us as

kids that I think relates to this is he used to say that

his grandfather, I think it was, or maybe it was his father.

No, it was his grandfather. Not important. But, but he used

to put like his savings in a freezer and

wrap them in tinfoil and write fish on it and like leave whatever

extra money he had in a freezer because he was, you

know, maybe didn't trust banks or just afraid somebody was going to take

it or steal it maybe. So, yeah, that's just sort of an

interesting mentality. And of course, like,

you know, I know where it comes from. It comes from not, not having and

from perhaps living through. I, I think that time period was

about the depression area. Um, so, like, living through that and like

being scarred by past experiences. Um, so it's like

I can understand how you would get to that scarcity

mindset. Um, but it's a, it's a limiting

mindset and it hinders you and it keeps you held

back. And so,

yeah, let's get, let's get into what an abundance mindset is. Abundance mindset is, is

the opposite of that. It's thinking that things will.

Thinking of things in a positive way. I guess if you were to use

the half glass, the glass of water of being half full or

half empty, an abundance mindset would be, oh, it's half full and scarcity

would be half empty. So,

yeah, thinking about abundance is like, things are,

it's sort of for me, like a trusting, a trusting that things will work out,

trusting that you will find what you need

and sort of

thinking that there's always more and instead of thinking there's

always less. And so to me, it's the opposite of fear.

It's not living in fear, but living with a sense of

trust and a sense of

like, somebody has your Back, there's something out there that has your back, and

you'll figure it out eventually. And, you know, I think if we

look around us, a lot of us can say that. A lot of us

can say that we have supportive friends and family.

And even if you don't have, you know, family, supportive family,

there's probably somebody in your life who's supportive of you and who cares about you

and who can offer support and doesn't have to, like,

let. Let you go through life alone. And. And I think that's kind of,

for me, what scarcity is, is like going through life very alone and

isolated, thinking only about yourself and sort

of like hurting everything, huddling everything, gathering resources

because you're afraid that they're going to be gone. Whereas

abundance is much more communal and much more

living together with people and accepting help and offering help.

And to me, I would much rather live with an abundance mindset than a

scarcity. You know, ideally, I definitely float back

between the two. Um, and. And yeah, so. So what. Where this episode

kind of came from was last week. I was,

I don't know, sort of just doubting a lot of things, letting

the. Letting the imposter syndrome creep in, thinking

about, like, episodes, and I was thinking, like, oh,

man, I'm up to episode 60 now and like, am I going to run out

of ideas? Like, I was kind of. I don't know, I guess I was sort

of tapped out on ideas last week and I

sorted. Sort of started thinking like, okay, I'm making a little bit of

traction in YouTube. I'm getting some subscribers now. This is great. And then

I started being like, oh, I have to actually continue to do this,

otherwise it's not going to work out. And for some reason, yeah, that

triggered, like, my scarcity mindset. And.

And at some point I remembered abundance versus

scarcity, and I was like, oh, yeah, you can decide and you can

choose to think about this in an abundant mindset instead of a scarcity

mindset. So in just doing that, it gave me the idea for this

episode. So, I mean, that's kind of like a small little

example of proof right there that when I start thinking

that things are finite and lacking, then,

you know, that's kind of just what you see. But when you can open up

your mind and open up your vision to

abundance, you can see more things that are right in front of you.

Um, and a couple things I want to say

to like, further illustrate this, if I haven't already,

but there was. There was one time I got an email

from my friend Barb. I was on her email list. I am on her email

list. And she sent an email about something like

it was about abundance, and it was a moment when I needed to hear it.

And Barb was also a guest on this podcast, so if you haven't listened to

the episode, go back and listen to it. But

she sent an email saying, like, how abundant the

universe is. And the universe is, you know, scientifically

literally expanding as we speak. Like, that's, that's how.

I'm not like, huge into science of the

universe, but the theory is that, you know, from the Big Bang, the universe

has expanded and it's continually expanding and continually getting bigger.

And like, if that's not an example of abundance,

that's like, I don't know. So the way that she said it was like,

that is the universe and that is just

pure abundance. And everything kind of like you can trace everything kind

of back to that. I'm doing a really bad job of articulating what she said,

but when I read it, I was like, wow, that's so correct. Everything

is abundant. And if you could think of the universe as being abundant, as

growing in every minute, then we could think of ourselves

like that too. So that one may be a little more abstract

and probably I should have read. Reread that email

before I tried to reread it, restate it to

you. But the other one, I was reading

a Native American book about the moon

cycles. And I really like reading

about native culture and religion, spirituality.

I think that there's a lot of things that I resonate with and a lot

of wisdom that, that I find. And

there was this one story about a beaver in this book, and

the beaver wanted to build a bigger dam, a bigger

home for its like, growing family. And it, you know, it

wanted to build like this dream home. And it was

talking to like an elder or something and saying like, this problem that this

beaver had that it was collecting all this wood, but

then it would like, it would get taken away or it'd get stolen,

and they could never accumulate all the wood that they needed in order to build

this dream home. And the elders wisdom to them was,

you don't need to accumulate all of the wood right

now. Start with what you have, and the rest will come

when you need it. And so the beaver left

and it took that advice and it started building with what it had. And then

two weeks later, it came back and was like, wow, you were right. I started

building. I only had enough for one room. And then once I Was

finished with that one. I was able to get the wood that I needed. It

came into. Into my life. I found it. It was easier to find, and

we were able to complete the dream home. And, you know, the moral of the

story being, like, start with what you have and what

you need will come into your life. It's. It's abundant. And

yeah, I just really like that story of also another just

great reminder of, like, you can start where you're at. Like, you don't need. You

don't need to have everything. You don't need to have all the resources right now.

You can start with whatever you have. So. So that was a really

cool story too. I think that sort of showed abundance and more so, like, the

trust of abundance. Like. Like, you don't need to have everything collected

and tucked away to build something. You

could build with what you have and then

trust that what you need will come to you. And. Yeah,

and I just. I've noticed that in my own life, the more that you trust,

the more whatever it is that you need will come into your life.

And, yeah, thinking of so

many different other stories that also resonate with this, I'm trying to. Trying to think

about, like, not overwhelming you with the story of saying the same thing,

but I think one more quick story that I want to say is when

I was leaving corporate America, I remember having a conversation

with this person that I sort of looked up to as a

mentor, unofficial mentor, and she was an entrepreneur. And I worked on her

podcast, and I remember telling her I was leaving

or I was thinking about leaving, but I was, like, scared. And

she said something to the effect of, like, it feels like you're making a big

jump off of a cliff, but make the jump even if you don't

know where you're going to land, because something will catch you. And

I remember, like, trusting her in those words and being

like, okay, she's done it before. She's speaking from experience.

I should trust her. And then looking

back, like, when I. When I did decide to make that change, it was like,

yeah, I was fine. Like, did my business work out the way that I wanted

it to? No, but. But it led to other things that I would

have never found and never done. This podcast, for example, I would have never

found this podcast if I didn't do that. And,

yeah, I think that's an example

of just believing and hoping

and putting trust and faith in something that will catch you after making a big

jump or a big move. And, yeah, I mean, I could say now

that it's like, it's definitely worked out for me. I would never, I would never

intentionally go back to the corporate world. Yeah, I can never

see myself going back there. I never want to say never, you know, you never

know what happens in your life. But. But yeah, so much, so

much has changed since I made that decision for the better. And,

and yeah, so, okay, so that's enough about abundance.

I think the last thing I want to say is like, even just noticing,

like, my real world right now. Last week I was living

in a scarcity mindset. I was not

having ideas. I was sad, I was like,

nervous, scared, all these negative emotions. This week,

after thinking about abundance and talking about it, I'm

much more invigorated and I have ideas that I want to do.

I have new things that I thought of this week that are like, oh, this

is a great idea. I'm going to try to focus on this now and

just like, yeah, completely different mentality

and excitement for like, what I'm doing. And

yeah, it's like such a good example of like,

how you can live if you decide to do, you know, to live in

a scarcity mindset or how you can live if you live in an abundance

mindset. And, and you know, it's all a practice

and you know, nothing is, is perfect. I mean, I found myself,

you know, again, going back between these two different states of being

and you can't always be perfect. Um, but how do you get more

towards abundance? How do you practice more

abundance? And like, this was a hard one for me. I was deciding like, whether

or not to like, come up with steps for this one because it is hard.

It's like, that's why I think I spent so long describing what it is

because I think like, it's more so just kind of

thinking about it then, like, you can't. Like, there's not too

many things you could do to like, practice it. But, but I challenge myself to

come up with steps and to come up with like, real things that, that help

me so that hopefully they can help you. So. So let's get

into the steps of how you can switch from a

scarcity mindset to an abundance or live more in an abundance mindset.

So the step, first step, step one is to

surround yourself with people who do have an

abundance mindset or do have the ability to be in an abundance mindset.

Just like my example of my entrepreneur mentor,

she was showing me an example of an abundance mindset and I was

able to trust her and then sort of like live

what's that word? Living through someone. I forget what

the word's called, but like, living through her and being like, okay, well, she trusts.

So then I can trust her because I trust her. So surrounding yourself

with people who have an abundance mindset, I think is the,

is the most important thing that you can do, especially if

you are living mostly with a scarcity mindset. I think for me,

you know, an example of surrounding yourself with, with good

examples is reading. And like, I read a lot and I, and I read

about this topic and I was like, okay, this is new to me, but now

I'm introducing these ideas into my life. And it was really helpful

for me in that time to keep seeing this idea of scarcity

versus abundance pop up and to believe

it to be true. Another thing that happens when you

surround yourself with people, you can have conversations

about it and to talk about a scarcity versus

abundance. And I think that talking about it helps you

embody it and helps you believe it and helps you see ways of

trying to be more abundant. So. So, yeah, and then the

second thing would be to give yourself examples. So, you know, if you don't have

maybe people in your life or maybe you're shy or maybe you.

Right now, it doesn't seem like a good idea to like, go and

like, try to find people. Maybe that seems out of reach. The

thing you could do is give yourself examples. Like I said, like

a book. Go, go pick up a book. You could. And,

and if you're not a reader, there's so many resources on YouTube.

One specific one, there's really good videos on Alan

Watts. He's, I guess, sort of a philosopher,

but he was a really good speaker. And there's all these, like, videos on YouTube.

They're very encouraging, very inspiring. There is one on abundance. So that's

one thing you can go do right now is like, go search that Alan Watts

video on abundance. And you could also do

meditations. There's meditations out there, meditations on abundance.

So giving yourself the influence of an abundance mindset

from somebody who's maybe created a resource podcast, another great

example. So the third step to live more in

abundance is,

and this is something that you can do for yourself is like an

actual practice, is you can write down where in your life

you're feeling abundance. And it's sort of like,

like a gratitude list. That's a common one that, that

people sort of journal down. It's like, what am I grateful for? Well, in this

example, to cultivate more abundance, we're going to Write down

the things that we feel abundant in. And,

and I know I hear the like, challenges of like, oh, well, I'm not abundant

in anything. Well, you're abundant in something. And

you know, I challenge you to push past that thought process. And

like, if you can't think of anything that you're abundant in, I mean,

one thing is like, oxygen, right? We're never

like, lacking of oxygen. Hopefully if we,

you know, continue to treat the world and earth poorly, maybe we

will be. But right now, hopefully, you know,

we have enough oxygen to not have to think about it.

So that's an abundance. There's an abundance of oxygen. So. But where,

where else in your life, you know, do you have good friends? Do you have

maybe, I mean, I mean, even if you're, let's take it like a negative example,

maybe maybe you're unemployed right now and you have an abundance of time,

you have an abundance of time to like, either find a job or create a

job or work on something. And yeah, there's always something

that you can think of to be abundant in. And,

and I think trying to do that and to think

about where the abundance is is really helpful. And that leads me

into the fourth step is creating that vision in

your head is envisioning abundance. And

maybe you want to be abundant in money, maybe something that you're not abundant in

currently, you can sit down, you can envision

yourself and you can meditate and think about what it feels

to not worry about money and to be abundant in

money. And I think this is a really helpful thing

that I've done in the past and has been good for me

is to, is to really just sit down, like, give yourself 10 minutes, get

a timer out, do five minutes if you can't do 10, and

to just think about envisioning more abundance or

calling in more abundance into your life and

just sit with it, like, see what it feels like. Let yourself

feel the joy of like, not worrying, not

living into fear, to live in abundance. And

I think the more that we can do this, the more that we create new

neural pathways in our head. We create new

sort of thought patterns that we can then go back to. Like,

for me, it was easier to last week

realize I was in scarcity and to switch back to abundance

because I've done it before and I'm familiar with it and

it's this framework and terminology that I'm very familiar with. And

being able to think about it in that way has just been really helpful to

help pull me out of the scarcity mindset and back into the abundance.

So, yeah, I feel like this is a good

ending point.

There was one quote that I heard recently

and I don't have it on me, so I can't say it, but I'm

thinking about wanting to get. Maybe, maybe I'll. Maybe I'll

put that in the show notes and the comments of the YouTube, the description of

the YouTube, there's a formula out there that I was just made

aware of yesterday and it had to do with abundance. So I'll put that in

the show notes so you can. Maybe it'll ring something true to

you. But yeah, so that's all I got for you

today. Hopefully this was a

helpful episode. And, um. And yeah, so

more. More working towards our purpose. You could find me on Instagram at

workingtowardsourpurpose subsec and

workingtowardsapurpose.com for our feedback

form is up there. So you can send me a note or you can tell

me what you're thinking or question, whatever. And you could also find

working towards our purpose merch. And yeah, that's

all I got for you today. So thank you for listening. Thank you for being

here as always, and I will see you on another episode real

soon. Thanks.