Abundance vs. Scarcity - the mindset shift that will change your life

Back in the early days of my career, I was a young kid fresh out of school and took the advice of any grey-haired man in a suit way too seriously.

I assumed that age = genius and a suit = success.

Boy was I wrong...

One of the things I pride myself on today as a professional is not being afraid to give away everything I know when it comes to serving clients, my team or the people who read my blog or even watch my videos on YouTube.

In fact, I often get feedback after giving a lecture or talk that what the audience appreciates is how I don’t hold back much... I give away the sauce.

But early in my career, I got a Linkedin message from a senior marketing exec who told me that I was giving away too much in my content. He explained that if I give away all the information through my blog — what will they hire you for?!

See...

On the surface; that’s a fair question and comment. But it comes from a place commonly described as having a scarcity mindset.

This is a mindset that ruins careers. It’s a mindset that ruins companies. And it’s a mindset that ruins relationships...

Someone with a scarcity mindset would assume there’s no benefit to giving all that info away.

They believe that by giving away this information everyone will execute on the ideas themselves and there is no value transfer happening for me as the person who helped them learn.

But the reality is quite different:

Sure some people will take my advice and act on it in their own life without me - PERFECT!

I want them to do that...

But some people will (and have) reached out asking for help and became a client.

“But Ross, aren’t you scared you’ll run out of secrets and things to talk about?!”

Not in the slightest.

This is also your scarcity mindset flaring up.

There are tons of things to talk about!

And if I ever run out of things to talk about it’s likely because I stopped innovating, experimenting and taking risks.

So if this is a REAL fear — you’re falling victim to a scarcity mindset. I mean seriously...

There are billions of people online.

And there are trillions of ideas that these people have shared via status updates, tweets, periscopes, snaps, blogs, stories and videos as a whole. I highly doubt that someone somewhere hasn’t already published content about a topic that you’re keeping secret.

But this mindset goes beyond information.

The scarcity mindset is also found in people who think very transactional about their teams and overlook the importance of real relationships.

People with the scarcity mindset often think that they need to win and someone else needs to lose.

People with the scarcity mindset often think very short term instead of long term.

People with the scarcity mindset get jealous and always wonder what’s in it for them...

On the flip side, you have people who have the abundance mindset. And these are the people who you want to surround yourself with long term and create both your career and life with...

People with an abundance mindset wear it all on their sleeve. People with an abundance mindset see the value in collaboration with others. People with an abundance mindset see the value in growing with “competitors” to raise all ships. People with an abundance mindset share info frequently and celebrate the success of others.

Remember:

There’s a lot of people in this world.

Embrace the abundance mindset in everything you do and realize that your focus should be to surround yourself with people who wanna see you win... People who want to celebrate your success. People who don’t view you as competition... And people whwo are always interested in giving more to those around them than they take.

Have an abundant week!

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