The abundance mindset

Find Your Superpower newsletter 017

Read time: 4 minutes

Topics covered: Law of abundance, competition, scarcity mindset, zero-sum game

On Sunday, I wrote my very first post on LinkedIn about the law of abundance, and its evil counterpart—the law of scarcity.

I’ve been reading about the abundance mindset for a few years, and I have done my best to practice it in my life and work, but I have never written about it on LinkedIn because I thought it was too “far out there” and “spiritual” for a professional community on LinkedIn.

I was completely wrong.

In three days the post hit some kind of LinkedIn nerve:

• 200K impressions (and counting)
• 1,500+ likes
• 200+ comments
• Lots and lots of DMs
• The biggest compliment was probably seeing nearly identical posts pop up about the abundance-scarcity mindset axis

There were essentially two kinds of comments:

Those who really enjoyed it:

And those who had heard about this concept for the first time:

Overall, it was overwhelmingly positive, and I was amazed by how many people were searching for a new way of living and thinking.

There is another way to live

I first learnt about the law of abundance from two of my mentors who taught me elements of it.

First, my former executive coach Mary Barrett taught me about manifesting my desires. Given that I am a trained scientist and at that point in my career I was still an assistant professor at a medical school, you can forgive me for being extremely skeptical about this.

Mary taught me to be very clear about what I need, and in doing so, I would be able to find it more easily. For example, instead of merely saying, “I need to hire a writer,” I would write down somewhere, “I am looking to hire a science writer who is emotionally intelligent, a strong team player, and who has empathy for the scientists he or she writes about.”

Has it helped me in work and life? Absolutely, and I would need a whole other essay for that.

Second, I learnt how to let go from my long-time mentor Virginia Cha, whom many entrepreneurs look up to for her wisdom and generosity.

Virginia is a vegetarian and abides by Buddhist philosophy. In one such example, she taught me that if someone has hurt you badly, you can just walk away peacefully and let the universe take care of them.

Practically speaking, I found Virginia’s advice to be very hard to implement, but thanks to her encouragement, I now at least have a chance.

So what is the law of abundance?

According to the internet, the law of abundance is a belief that there is an unlimited source of whatever we need available to us at all times.

If you use the analogy of a pie, it suggests that the pie is not only big enough for all of us, it is even possible to enlarge the pie by working with others and choosing collaboration over competition.

The day I learnt about the abundance mindset, I was released from a lifetime of scarcity.  I was released from the limiting belief that I am part of some cruel, zero-sum game of life. Instead:

🧧If you lose a job, you believe a better job is waiting for you out there

🧧If you lose a client or an employee, you believe a better one awaits

🧧If you are disappointed by someone, you move on in peace

Time and time again, I have been challenged by circumstance to revert to a scarcity mindset, where you believe resources are finite and someone else winning means you are losing.

But a scarcity mindset means that you have to anxiously look left, right and behind to see if your competitor is catching up, instead of looking forward to bright blue skies ahead.

A scarcity mindset also means that when your friends or colleagues find love, have kids or win promotions and raises, you can never truly be happy for them, because you now feel inadequate and less successful.

Entrepreneurship requires abundance thinking

I would definitely not recommend entrepreneurship to anyone who has a scarcity mindset. Because every single day will be filled with insecurity and self-doubt.

In my five-year journey as an entrepreneur, I’ve seen many companies come and go. Every time a startup is born, I am excited for their founders. Every time a startup dies, I am sad for their founders. Even if they are competing with me directly or indirectly, or operating in a manner detrimental to me. It doesn’t matter.

Why? It is because I believe that there are plenty of clients and talented people out there to work with. I believe that the world is abundant and full of goodness.

On that note, I encourage everyone to reject the scarcity mindset. It is not a life worth living.

Join me on a lifelong path of abundance thinking!

Thanks for reading issue 017 of my weekly Find Your Superpower newsletter. See you next week. 

PS: my newsletter has been on hiatus for the month of June due to travel and school vacation, but I am now baaaack!

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