The Beauty of an Abundance Mindset
and its utility for building your skillsets one step at a time.
I watched ‘Oppenheimer’ last weekend and it set me on a path of reading and learning more about the mega-successful director ‘Christopher Nolan’ (referred to as Christopher from hereon). Wikipedia and Founders Podcast on him were my principal sources for the same. What struck me as fascinating is that Christopher began making movies at the age of seven, using his father’s camera. Wow !!! I didn’t know the difference between ankles and knees at that age.
This very thought got me thinking about the long winding road it has been for him from his obsession with Ridley Scott and Star Wars in his school days, all the way to the worldwide acclaim of ‘Oppenheimer’, ‘Inception’ and many other blockbusters. His first movie ‘Following’ was shot over two years on weekends only while he was busy in his 9-5 role on weekdays. These employment years were spent on accumulating enough money for his tools and investing enough time into learning the craft and building relationships.
Just think about the mindset Christopher would be having for spending his weekends working on his craft and pursuing his passion. Was he thinking about the Oscars? Was he comparing himself with others or the Joneses in town? Was he worried about missing out on the latest news or fad in town?
Nope.
He was clear about what he wanted to do and what excited him and went all in with his free time and money, whatever little of it he had. The only way one can think on these lines is when he is not rushed, when he isn’t hungry to get fame and riches tomorrow morning, when he doesn’t care about what others have to say about his choices - in short, when someone is having an abundance mindset instead of one that is induced by scarcity.
You may blame me for being biased by picking an example of someone who succeeded at his craft and ignoring thousands of other aspiring directors who failed at it. So let me give you a counterargument - Every aspiring director had to go through this path to have a shot at the pot of gold in Hollywood, and kudos to their courage to do so. But there is no pot of gold to have a shot at, if you don’t go down this path.
So, YES. I am being selective, but aren’t we all when we talk about or look up to our heroes in various industries or domains that we follow closely on a daily basis? And the least you and I can do is to draw lessons from these success stories and implement them in our lives in our own unique ways and avoid the mistakes that our heroes made and have shared openly in many forums.
And Abundance Mindset is what kept coming up when I went through Founders episodes on Christopher, James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and everyone else that David Senra has covered so beautifully in his shows. The same keeps coming up in the autobiographies of Elon Musk, Jackie Chan, Warren Buffet, and other visionaries.
What is this Abundance Mindset exactly?
An abundance mindset, at its core, refers to one’s ability to see the limitless potential in life. This, in turn, drives you toward creating the life you want, eventually. While the journey may throw enough spanner in the works, you are mentally strong to embrace it, deal with it, work around it, find solutions, take your losses, and move on nonetheless.
Let's take Arnold Schwarzenegger for e.g. Arnold left Austria to take on the body-building world in the USA and excelled at it, and created records that stand unbroken to date. He was laughed at for his physique and stiff body language, but he still persisted in Hollywood to give us fantastic movies like Terminator and True Lies. He even was ridiculed for his intentions to enter politics, but he didn’t care about people’s opinions. He went ahead with all guns blazing and became the Governor of California from 2003 - 2011.
I guess that’s why Arnold has titled his new book ‘Be Useful’. That’s what Abundance Mindset looks like, that’s what it can accomplish in our own special ways, in its own time. A few characteristics that are on display in this kind of personality are as follows -
Dreaming big ass dreams
They deal with change gracefully
They are the opposite of the ‘Know-it-all’ types
They are in action mode instead of stopping at planning and daydreaming
They plan ahead and hence seem prepared for the good, the bad, or the ugly
They leverage their strengths and are open to working on their weaknesses.
Knowing in your heart that you can improve one step at a time and reach your goals
You celebrate other people's victories instead of secretly envying others or wishing for their downfall
That’s what an abundance mindset can accomplish. In fact, it’s very difficult for someone driven by a scarcity mindset to be useful in any way. This person’s entire time and attention will be driven towards survival and he will always be in fight or flight mode, just like our ancestors hunting for food in the savannah jungles centuries ago.
A scarcity mindset also shows up in behaviors like - hoarding, avoiding difficult conversations or hard stuff, choosing the easy path, pleasing others, feeling stuck, following blindly, lacking independence, and not committing to anything as there is always something new to focus upon. It’s this response that stems out of fear of getting hurt or being left behind. It’s implanted in our psyche from our ancestral days in the Savannah and hasn’t left our being in spite of centuries of our existence in modern civilization.
It’s this psychic imprint that makes our minds not exactly designed for sustained happiness. It’s designed purely for survival. It constantly looks for stuff that could be harmful, and once it has zeroed in on something, it then magnifies the bad. This concoction of feelings and emotions gathers enough storm within and turns into fear and anxiety, making people act irrationally or make stupid choices.
Some acts of stupidity that I get to witness almost daily -
Some people build their lifestyles with borrowed money because showcasing success today is more important than reaping the fruits sometime down the line (Brand new Audi today, maxed out credit card later)
Indulging in lies and deception to score brownie points with people that can move the needle in one’s career or society. This brings in Incentives and Promotions today, only to increase the odds of reputational damage down the line.
Decisions made to benefit in the short term, with disastrous consequences in the long term e.g. giving into a sweet tooth today, only to deal with the ills of obesity later.
Scrolling for hours on social media today and seeking validation from strangers, only to regret not having spent time in your youth or your prime on building skillsets or durable relationships.
Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffet’s interaction sums up this tendency perfectly -
In a meeting with Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos once asked America’s most prolific investor “Your investment thesis is so simple. You’re the second richest guy in the world, and it’s so simple. Why doesn’t everyone just copy you?”
Warren Buffett responded to Jeff by saying, “Because nobody wants to get rich slowly.”
An abundance mindset is at peace with growing slowly, taking time, and lagging behind others for some time. But he is relentlessly practicing his craft, building the skills and mindset required, becoming aware of one’s own strengths and weaknesses, developing relationships and communication effectiveness, and a lot more. In short, he is a learning machine. And that specific hunger to learn and build one’s own life one step at a time eventually compounds into something phenomenal e.g. Christopher’s Oppenheimer and its box office numbers.
It’s exactly like a compounding table as shown below -
In the short term, the results don’t look great e.g. your investment of USD 10,000 earning 12% p.a. doesn’t look like much in 10 years from now (USD 31,100). But the same amount turns into USD 96,500 by year 20 and USD 299,600 by year 30.
In case you are wondering about who has 30 years to wait? Then let me share my own timeline. I am 43 years old and I still feel like I graduated yesterday. I still have very vivid memories of my 1st day at work post-MBA, my very first shopping in CR2 Mall in Mumbai, my very first trip abroad (Dxb), my very first smartphone (Nokia Communicator), and my very first car purchase (White Pajero). It all happened almost 20 years back but these years have just zipped by.
20 years or 40 years may look too long, but it’ll pass in a blink of an eye. And hence it would pay you huge dividends if you have an abundance mindset and believe that serendipity will work its magic on your life too. Till that happens, you remain open to working on your craft relentlessly, dedicating a few hours daily, assessing your process monthly/quarterly, and measuring your progress annually.
Bill Gates refers to the abundance mindset very eloquently “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”
Building this mindset holds the key to many adversities you are currently dealing with or will deal with in times to come. It’s inevitable.
My invitation to you is to explore the path of building an abundance mindset and chipping off the scarcity mindset, one step at a time. Your loved ones will thank you for it because your future will afford your loved ones the best that life has to offer. And there are many ways you can start doing it -
Learn from the lives of the greatest via reading autobiographies or listening to podcasts e.g. Founders Podcast by David Senra.
Spend time with people more successful than you and who are willing to teach you or guide you in the direction.
Cut off people or activities that have become a drag on your energy, unless they are family and you just can’t. In that case, learn to manage these relationships without getting sucked into the negativity.
Try out meditation (any will do, to begin with) and see if that works for you. Give it 30 days on stretch to figure out its effect on you. Anything less than 30 days isn’t going to work.
Try regular workouts or any activity that’s physical in nature (tennis, cricket, football, etc.) These activities on a regular basis have been proven to make you mentally strong and capable to deal with negativity or temptations.
Try out journaling on a daily basis. You can pick up Brendon Burchards’s Planner and maybe start with that. Even Tiny Change has a fantastic journal to instill this habit.
Irrespective of what you try, what will matter is your resolve to build yourself first, mentally. It’s only a matter of time before the universe starts responding to your goals and desires. Call it serendipity. Call it Magic. But every single successful story is laced with so many random instances or coincidences that changed their life forever.
It’s happened a million times before, maybe a billion times before. You too could be on your way to get your due share.
Keep Walking. Keep Dreaming. Keep Working.
Wishing you all a fantastic weekend ahead.
Sending you loads of love and luck🧿
Manish