Truth Bomb Tuesday: When abundance goes bad, you disconnect from the most powerful growth engine there is.
Let me riff a little more on the dangers of a mis-calibrated abundance mentality.
Last week I showed you how to get your thinking straight around the abundance mentality.
An abundance mentality is something that all successful people possess, but a lot of people misunderstand what we’re talking about.
In particular, I said people get caught up on stuff. They think that abundance refers to “things”.
It doesn’t. It refers to strategy.
It is not the belief that there is an infinite amount of the things that make you happy. It is the belief that there are an infinite number of ways to be happy.
This distinction might seem subtle, and might even be hard to grasp for people who’ve grown up completely soaked in our materialist culture, but it’s important.
And one of the reasons it’s important is because you don’t want to look like a selfish nob.
You don’t want to be out there watering your lawn in the middle of Stage 5 water restrictions because you’ve convinced yourself that there’s an abundance of everything, including water.
But that’s what I see people trying to do. I see them trying to force their minds into the belief that the universe is like some sort of magic hat, out of which an endless number of shiny things can be pulled.
Not only is this wrong, in my experience, I think it actually disconnects you from the most powerful growth engine there is – gratitude.
Because what happens if you do convince yourself that there is an infinite number of shiny things to be had?
If you do that, why would you be thankful for anything you had? You get some money, but why be grateful? There’s infinite money in the universe. It’s nothing special.
Or you get a nice car. No need to be thankful. It’s not unusual. There’s an endless number of cars to be had.
Or you inherit some nice jewellery, bedazzled with diamonds. “So what? Diamonds are as cheap and as common as grains of sand, in this strange universe I’ve convinced myself I live in.”
So there’s no reason to be grateful.
Not only that, if you are grateful, it contradicts your belief that there is an infinite amount of everything, on tap, all the time. It creates a cognitive dissonance that has to crack somewhere. You either have to give up gratitude or give up your idea of abundance.
But as I’ve said many times, gratitude is probably the single most powerful tool you have. Gratitude is your interface with the entirety of experience. Gratitude is a big, “I’d like more of that, thanks.”
So the danger is that if we convince ourselves that there is an infinite amount of things on offer, we become selfish and entitled, and disconnected from the gratitude that could really transform our life into the beautiful and the awesome.
That’s a real danger.
So look out for it. Cultivate an abundance mentality, but remember we’re talking about strategies, not about things.
If you can keep this in your mind, you won’t go too far wrong.
DB