Tag Archives: Money

The Dangers Of The Wrong Mindset – And How To Overcome Them

Scarcity or Abundance – Which One Are You?

There has been much written, spoken about, and talked about regarding the difference between a scarcity mindset and an abundance mindset. These two seemingly ubiquitous concepts can change your perception of reality itself. But do we really understand what they mean?

I can understand the mechanics and philosophy and process of baking a batch of chocolate chip cookies. I can even study material, research methods and techniques, and even publish books on how to make chocolate chip cookies, but until I smell and eat them, I really have no idea what I’m talking about.

The funny thing is that the language I use, the illustrations I use in my descriptions of making and eating cookies will be the same whether I have experienced the or not.

It’s easy to think you understand he concepts of scarcity and abundance, but until you experience them firsthand, they are two completely different worlds. One objective, looked at from the outside with only an academic understanding, and the other subjective, from the inside, from an experiential feeling of what it’s really like.

One quick test to see if you really have an abundance mindset or a scarcity mindset with regards to money. How do you feel about salespeople? Car salesmen, door-to-door salesmen, time share salesmen? Do you love them or hate them?

If you truly have an abundance mindset towards money, that is if you really feel deep in your bones that money is plentiful, and you will always have an avalanche of money, then you will never feel threatened or put off by salespeople. You will welcome them. You will enjoy talking with them and seeing what they have to offer.

What good is money if you never spend it? If you truly believe that there is an unlimited amount of money in the universe, then you will never feel a lack. And when the salesman comes knocking you will never fear that he or she will con you out of something. You will never feel as if you are getting a raw deal on anything.

Take air for example. Most everybody naturally has a deep, unconscious belief that there is plenty of air in the world. Enough for everybody. We don’t even thinking about worrying about getting enough air to breath when we wake up in the morning. We don’t get into fights with our loved ones over how we are going to be spending our precious air.

If somebody we don’t know walks into the coffee shop we are passing the time in, we don’t suddenly get worried that they will take our precious oxygen. (Of course if they are smoking that is something different altogether).

Likewise with money. Very few people have a true sense of abundance when it comes to money. Sure we all like to proclaim to each other that we have an abundance mindset. We believe in the Law of Attraction. We put down others when they exhibit what we judgingly call “scarcity thinking.”

But when the salesman comes knocking, or we walk into a car dealership, if we are the least bit nervous, or put off, or fearful of our pocketbook, then we are living, breathing and feeling scarcity.

Most people think that once they get plenty of money, then they will stop their scarcity thinking. That is backwards. That is like saying you want to go on a diet, but you are going to lose weight first, then you’ll start to diet and exercise.

That is the great paradox of human nature and how we perceive reality. We spend our childhoods learn the have-do-be mindset. We have something, then we are motivated by our possessions and then it shapes our personality. We are born completely blank, and we have to be given thoughts, ideas, and behaviors, as we grow older. We absorb who we are, how we behave, what we get from the adults around us.

But when we become adults, we must make a shift from the have-do-be mindset to the be-do-have mindset. When we are children we are because of what we have. As adults, we must learn that what we have is a result of what and who we are.

As we grow up, our personalities and behaviors reflect our environment. But as we grow older, we must learn that our environment becomes a reflection of who we are.

The simples test to who you really are on the inside, beneath all the posturing and affirmations and efforts and appearances is to simply look around you. What does your house or apartment look like? Your friends? Your relationships? Your bank account? They won’t change, unless you do.

Change yourself first and your environment will follow. It may take some time, but it will change. Don’t give up.

It’s easy to blame the world. But that is the reaction and thinking style of a child. Children blame the world. Adults take responsibility and change themselves, knowing the environment will change accordingly.

No, it’s not easy. And yes, it can take a lifetime. But what else are we here for except to shape our own reality?

How To Build A Successful Business

The other day I was driving down the freeway, listening to the radio. Suddenly a song came on that I hadn’t heard in a long, one that reminded me of my university days. My friend that was riding with me was eating some bread that he had just picked up from a new bakery that was down the street from his apartment. It was one of those places that is trying really hard to establish itself, giving out free samples, trying to get as many customers as possible. He hadn’t planned on buying the bread, but couldn’t help it when he was drawn in by the aroma as he walked past.

The lady that runs the shop is particularly interesting. I think this was her fourth or fifth business that she has set up. All of her previous businesses were very profitable. What she does is she has an interesting way of identifying food-based niches in small neighborhoods. She figures out what kind of restaurant or food shop would likely be successful based on what other shops are already in the neighborhood, and have already been successful. Then she sets up a shop, generates a lot of loyal customers, and the turns the shop over to one of her assistants in kind of a franchise deal. Her assistant makes half the profits, and she takes half the profits.

She then goes to another neighborhood, and does the same thing. Other that go around and set up businesses based on what they like don’t do as well. For example if somebody only wanted to open up a hamburger shop, sometimes they’d be successful, other times they wouldn’t. Some neighborhoods have a real need for a hamburger shop, while others don’t. Because she is very flexible in her approach, and provides what the market demands, she always seems to make a lot of money.

I remember when I first moved into the dorms in college. We had a party, and snuck a keg of beer into the room. While we were drinking, a friend of mine started telling me about his philosophy professor. He was saying that those that are the most successful in life are the ones that figure out what they want, and then figure out how to mold reality around t heir desires. He said the most important thing is to look underneath want you want to find the underlying desires. Most things that people think they want are really based on an underlying desire, which can be applied to most anything. The mistake many make is trying to fit their surface wants into society, without focusing on their underlying desire.

If you can figure out what your base desire is, you’ll be surprised when you find that almost anything can satisfy it. Which is why we had the party in the first place. And as it turned out, my friend actually did have some left over bread that he could share with me, until we finally go to our destination.

I even remembered what that song was, so I could down load it from iTunes when I got home. I like it when stuff like that happens, don’t you?

Three Undisputable Powers of Humanity

Have you ever sat down and thought about what is really important in life? Really important to you? What kinds of things do you usually come up with? Love, Respect, Communication? Being recognized for a job well done? Freedom to create and express your life to others?

How about in your family? Have you ever sat down as a family and discussed what was important to you as a group? Or maybe your Mom or Dad ‘laid down the law’ so to speak. What was important then? Kids doing their homework? Coming home before curfew? A good education?

What about at work? I’m sure you’ve heard or read about or have been involved with creating a ‘mission statement’ for a company at one time or another.

“Our company shall strive to provide real time solutions to emerging problems in a timely manner with respect for the environment and the community.”

“Company XYZ envisions a future where everybody uses XYZ products for the enlightenment of man and the realization of life’s purpose.”

How about this one: “McDonald’s vision is to be the world’s best quick service restaurant experience. Being the best means providing outstanding quality, service, cleanliness and value, so that we make every customer in every restaurant smile.” No kidding.

What about the mission statement for the leaders of your country?

What do you think the three most important values of the entire human race are? Well, let’s have a look, shall we?

One way to look at what’s important is what are the most widely spoken languages in the world today. Perhaps they can give us a clue.

The most spoken language today is Mandarin Chinese, with about a billion speakers. That’s a lot of people. How’d they get so numerous? Well, most of them live in China, so they didn’t invade surrounding countries to spread their language. So one conclusion is that they got to be number one in terms of language spoken by sheer reproductive success and effectiveness. So the most spoken language in the world is spoken by the people that made the most people.

How about the second most spoken language in the world? English. And how did English get to be so popular? Maybe it might have something to do with the fact that up until a couple hundred years ago, “the sun never set on the English empire.” So English, then, was spread around the world because the English themselves spread it around the world. For what purpose? Namely trade. Business. So the second most spoken language in the world was spread because of worldwide interest in commerce.

How about the third most spoken language in the world? Spanish. And who spread the Spanish language? Spain of course. And what was the underlying motivation for Spanish people in the old days roaming the planet and spreading their language? Religion. Generally speaking, first the priests would come, and then the conquistadors.

So there you have it. A quick study in how different languages were spread around the world yields a quick and dirty look into the three most important things that have generally been important to the human race over the last thousand years or so.

Sex.

Money.

God. 

 

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Economic Meltdown?

Or reality meltdown? What exactly is the “Economy” anyways? I suspect that definition number two(c) from dictionary.com is most appropriate: “The system or range of economic activity in a country, region, or community.” Of course that doesn’t help much, since it is using a variant of one word to define another. The “Economy” is the range of “Economic Activity.”  But since it is the best one presented, lets go with that. What is economic activity? I suggest that anytime money is spent, we can call that “economic activity.” So “The Economy” with respect to any community, region, or country, would seem to be all the money spent for all purposes by all people in that particular group. Who spends money? Who doesn’t, right?  People that have money spend money.  People that don’t have money spend money. Money is an interesting concept when you really take time to think about it. 

Where does money come from? Think of the last ten or twenty dollars you spent.  Where did you get it? Before your wallet, or the ATM. From your job? Where did they get it? From the person that bought whatever it is that your job makes? And where did it come from before that, from THAT person’s job.  And on and on.

From the smallest trinket you buy without the slightest thought to the billion dollar contracts won by huge defense companies, all the money comes from the same place.

YOU.

Your friends, your neighbors, people just like you, make up the economy. It is not something “out there” a danger that you must hide from like a rampaging elephant at a circus gone wrong.  You are part of it. Your spending habits, for better or for worse, contribute to it. If everyone gives in to fear, and doesn’t go out and spend money, guess what will happen? I’m sure that you can understand.  People don’t buy new cars, and car companies don’t make as much money as they planned, so they have to lay people off. And those people don’t spend their money. And with less people working, the government gets less taxes, which means it will be more difficult for them to help people out.

So what’s the answer? Run out spending money like a madman when everybody is wisely being more frugal? No. While that might feel good for a short time, it wouldn’t likely be an effective long term strategy to make things better. Of course we need to be sensible. We need to make sure we protect ourselvesfirst and foremost.  But just as it would be foolish to spend money like there is no tomorrow, many experts believe that it would be equally as foolish to expect some external organization (like the government) to fix something that we erroneously perceive as “out there.”  Because you can easily understand this, you can realize that as we are part of the economy, we are part of the problem, but more importantly, we are all part of the solution.  And the simplest step you can take is to take responsibility.  We got into this mess by buying things that we couldn’t afford. All of us. That doesn’t mean you should be afraid to spend money. If you can afford something, and you want it or need it, by all means. Buy it. Enjoy it. Share it with others.  Don’t let some imaginary evil monster “out there” scare you. You are smarter than that. You are more experienced than that. 

The biggest danger in thinking there is something “out there” that can be fixed by people “out there” is that you give all your power away.   Don’t let them take it. Keep it for yourself. Because when you realize that you have everything you need, and that money is just a reflection of your skills and ability to contribute, you can’t help but to succeed.

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