The Abundance Mindset
July 26th, 2007 by Steve Pavlina
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Here’s a follow-up to yesterday’s Quality and Contribution post.
Just to quickly review: The “outrage script” is the mindset that balks at seeing someone spend $10,000 for a hotel room stay. It’s the mindset that would label this an extravagant or wasteful purchase. I believe this mindset is a huge mistake.
If the $10K hotel room seems like an extravagant expense, it means you’re out of alignment with the mindset that’s capable of producing $10K of value very quickly. It’s not the expensive room itself that helps you contribute. What helps you contribute is thinking about what it would take to become the kind of person who could afford to stay in a $10K hotel room without thinking twice about it — because that’s a person who’s capable of generating massive value very efficiently.
At an average level of income in the USA, there’s not much difference between a dime and a penny, right? It’s a small amount either way and not particularly significant. Would you fret over a price difference of 9 cents? Hopefully not. But for some people on this planet, 9 cents is a fair amount, and to pay a dime instead of a penny for something would be regarded as extravagant and wasteful.
Similarly, at higher levels of income (and value creation), $10K is nothing. It’s just a penny. It’s insignificant. It’s pocket change. There’s virtually no difference between a $10K hotel room and a $100 hotel room — the price difference is meaningless, so why not pay that extra “9 cents” for a nicer setup?
The point of the original article is that if you harbor the outrage mindset towards “extravagant” purchases, you’re keeping yourself out of alignment with becoming the kind of person who could generate that much value easily. Hence, you’re severely limiting yourself…. and very unnecessarily.
If you want to look at it from the opposite angle, start applying the outrage script whenever you see people overpaying a few pennies for a purchase: “Are you insane? You could have bought that apple for 5 cents less at the store down the street! You must have money to burn!” They’ll think you’ve lost your mind. Similarly, this is how very wealthy people think about the price difference between a $10,000 vs. a $100 hotel room. If you were to complain that they should stay in a cheaper room to save $9900, they might look at you like you’re nuts.
Fretting over pennies probably seems foolish to you. Similarly, to those who are capable of generating massive value (and being paid accordingly), fretting over $10K is equally foolish. People who can spend $10K on a hotel room know that $10K is not a lot of money.
I believe the outrage script is a big mistake. It holds people back more than they know, and my intention was to try to shed some light on that. If you think any amount of money is “a lot” or “too much” or “extravagant,” you’re resonating with scarcity, not abundance, and you’re preventing yourself from becoming the kind of person who can generate that level of value. Why do this to yourself? Why hold back if you’re capable of contributing so much more?
It was this realization that helped me increase my own income several times over during the past year alone, as I described in Podcast 18, and I didn’t have to work harder or longer to do it. I realized that if I think of some arbitrary amount of money as huge or extravagant, whether it’s $10K or $10 million, then I’m out of alignment with being able to earn that much money, which means I’m out of alignment with being able to generate that much value for others.
Remember that money is social debt. The size of your bank account is a measure of how much society owes you for the value you’ve already contributed. If you think $10K is a large sum, it means you probably aren’t in a position to generate $10K of value for others very easily. If you can dump that unhealthy mindset, you can open yourself to generating far more value in much less time. When I started thinking of $10K as a small sum, I soon found it very easy to earn $10K. Earning $10K is about as difficult as making a sandwich.
Start where you are, and stretch yourself to let go of those limiting beliefs that hold you back. If you think it’s fairly easy to earn $10 or 100, try to open your mind to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, it could be equally easy (maybe even easier) to earn $500 in the same amount of time or less. One you’ve reached that point, push on to $1,000, and keep going from there. When you think that a certain amount of money is “no big whoop,” you’ll find a way to earn that much, and that means you’ll be contributing more value to others. The money you receive as compensation is your receipt.
July 27th, 2007 at 1:06 am
[...] In the Abundance Mindset, Steve Pavlina talks about the “outrage script” – which essentially is the mindset where you judge others for spending what you might consider to be “outrageous” sums of money on “extravagances” (such as a $10,000 hotel room). He goes on to talk about how this script limits us in terms of our financial situation, essentially assuring us that we will be out of resonance with having the kind of money that would enable US to spend 10k on a hotel room without giving it a second thought. It got me to thinking how, in general, a negative mindset in the way that you view others, yourself, and your dog will be way less productive than a positive one, and, believe it or not, this has a major influence on your dog training progress as well. [...]
July 27th, 2007 at 4:03 am
[...] One of the blogs I like to read is Stevepavlina.com and over the past couple days he’s written some very good posts revolving about mindset. The posts brought up the concept of mindset or frame of mind, which often gets overlooked. Normally most people don’t think about their attitude or thinking towards something mostly because its routine and nothing special. The whole idea that you can’t and don’t make money coupled with the nagging knowledge of debt can put you into a very negative place mentally about your finances, I know I’m there now and thinking about making more money is hard. It’s an attitude and perception. [...]
July 27th, 2007 at 9:30 am
[...] Steve Pavlina is a cool blogger. He has a personal development blog with some spiritual leanings (okay alot of leaning..). He posted up a great bit on mindset today. Essentially his point was that the way we think affects the experiences we have in life. Our attitudes and beliefs determine the things and experiences we align ourselves with. [...]
July 27th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
[...] Steve Pavlina, a blog I’ve been reading for quite some time gives his take on Quality and Contribution and The Abundance Mindset. Well written and though provoking as always. [...]
October 3rd, 2007 at 3:01 pm
[...] I find myself caught between two ideologies at times. The simple living idea often walks hand in hand with frugality. It is that aspect of simple living that gives me pause at times. It isn’t that I want to be frivolous. But to me, frugality often implies scarcity. I strive for an abundance mentality. I think the two can work together, but at times it is difficult to get my head around it. For example, I believe that wanting prosperity goes hand in hand with being able to save money, as opposed to spending every dime that comes your way. But I think there needs to be balance. If you focus all your energy on cutting costs, you are focusing on the scarcity side of things. If you think that five bucks is a lot of money, then you’re probably not ever going to have five million. Perhaps the key lies in where you focus that mental energy. If you focus on growing your wealth, watching the balance of your savings account climb, then you are focused on the positive. I often find myself going over our finances in my head thinking, “where can I cut costs?” Maybe I need to start focusing on ways to increase income instead. When I think, “oh, my we really spent a lot eating out last month,” am I sabotaging our finances with negativity? Am I giving that relatively small amount of money unnecessary weight? Am I mentally telling myself that $200 is a lot of money? What would happen if I decided that $200 was not a lot of money, just change? It is really an interesting concept. There is a blog here about just that. It is definitely worth the read. [...]
October 8th, 2007 at 4:36 am
[...] In the Abundance Mindset, Steve Pavlina talks about the “outrage script” – which essentially is the mindset where you judge others for spending what you might consider to be “outrageous” sums of money on “extravagances” (such as a $10,000 hotel room). He goes on to talk about how this script limits us in terms of our financial situation, essentially assuring us that we will be out of resonance with having the kind of money that would enable US to spend 10k on a hotel room without giving it a second thought. It got me to thinking how, in general, a negative mindset in the way that you view others, yourself, and your dog will be way less productive than a positive one, and, believe it or not, this has a major influence on your dog training progress as well. [...]
June 2nd, 2008 at 9:09 am
[...] Steve Pavlina has written of the abundance mindset and shows how it’s often our perceptions that limit our ability to have whatever we want in our lives. The opposite of the abundance mindset is the scarcity mindset, in which we limit ourselves because of our thoughts, actions or beliefs. “At an average level of income in the USA, there’s not much difference between a dime and a penny, right? It’s a small amount either way and not particularly significant. Would you fret over a price difference of 9 cents? Hopefully not. But for some people on this planet, 9 cents is a fair amount, and to pay a dime instead of a penny for something would be regarded as extravagant and wasteful.” [...]