I love listening to the BlogcastFM podcast hosted by Srinivas Rao. If you haven’t caught it yet, I highly recommend it. The most recent episode with Meg Worden is epic.

I was listening the other day and one of Srini’s guests (a guy by the name of Andy Drish) mentioned something that really resonated with me. He said that his online business never began to really take off until he began to approach it not from a position of scarcity, but one of abundance.

Very interesting. I have written before in this blog about the “scarcity mentality.” In many ways it is at the heart of our capitalistic system. A system that presupposes two sides to every “trade”…a winning side and a losing side. The idea that there is an endless supply of suckers and business ideas to take advantage of them. A zero-sum game where the outcome is enrichment of the few at the expense of the many.

These days abundant scarcity exists throughout the online business world. There is always a sense of desperation behind a scarcity approach. It is a little like the high pressure used car salesman whose next meal is riding on you buying that lemon and him getting his coveted commission. I know all about it. I was a lawyer and later a business broker for years. In the online world it is evident in the tons of spam we all receive that attempt to make us think the world is riding on us taking advantage of their offer.

To be honest, it is damn hard to approach business from the standpoint of abundance. What does that even mean exactly? That you have something with value and you are willing to give it away? And if someone out there is so kind as to be willing to pay you, well then, how nice! But you don’t expect it and you certainly don’t demand it. Is that a feasible way to run a business in this tit for tat world of ours?

Not really. Customers generally aren’t altruistic enough to support that level of an abundant approach. But I believe an abundant approach has more to do with the mindset you bring to the table than it does with whether or not you actually expect to get paid at some point.

I believe an abundant approach has more to do with the mindset you bring to the table than it does with whether or not you actually expect to get paid at some point.

A mindset of abundance means above all that you genuinely care. You give a shit as I have previously posted. You give a shit that whatever it is you’re peddling actually produces the intended life or world enhancement. And for that to be the case, of course you must believe deeply in what you are doing. If it is hustling puffed up penny stocks or 30-day ab routines, then it gets kinda hard to approach things from the standpoint of abundance.

It also requires that you, the seller, focus more on the customer than you do on yourself. And that’s not easy. Especially when you are measuring your success against everyone else’s. If all you are doing is aspiring…if your success is the end and your business is simply a means to get there, then your approach is not an abundant one.

If your success is the end and your business is simply a means to get there, then your approach is not an abundant one.

I used to believe exactly the opposite. That you first had to have abundance before you could deliver it. I even had a life’s mission statement that supported the idea. But abundance does not flow from abundance…neither from scarcity. It flows from the heart. If you really care it shows. People respond. Abundance flows in all directions.

But you have to be patient. An abundant approach is a patient approach. If you are impatient to receive results, then you are in scarcity mode. Believe me, I’ve been there far too long.

The scarcity approach is the easy one. It is the one taught in business school. It is the one that generally prevails on main street. It is the approach that prevailed throughout the industrial age. So, it is no coincidence that it is the one we are most likely to attempt. And it has worked for a long time. Many are rich as a result. Hey, if you are a good enough salesman you really can sell a ton of ice to a shitload of Eskimos…today!

I guess it comes down to what it is you really want…what it is you are actually about. What is the no-bullshit version of yourself, as Srinivas is fond of saying.

If what you are about is material success…then by all means take the scarcity approach. The world will be no better off for it…but you might be. But if making the world a better place is your measure of success…and the size of your bank account is irrelevant…

then the abundant approach just might work for you.