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Developing an Abundance Mindset

By Brian Pauley

The Stepping Stone, March 2025

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“Let your mindset be your greatest asset. Because for most people, it’s their greatest liability.”

-John C. Maxwell

There are many things that hold us back in our lives and leadership. One of them is having a scarcity mindset.

To illustrate this, imagine that you have a pie. With a scarcity mindset, you cling to your pie for fear of losing it. Letting go means less for you. Those with an abundance mindset understand that by giving away pie pieces, they will get a return on their generosity, and ultimately, receive more than they gave. So, their focus is on baking more pies. Abundance flows through them.

A closed fist cannot receive. This is the irony of a scarcity mindset.

History has examples of the power of an abundance mindset:

  • The printing press was invented when not enough people were trained to scribe books, thus creating the opportunity to produce billions of books to read.
  • The desire to overcome the limited production of human hands and horses led to the discovery of the power of electricity and steam which unleashed the power to produce.

So, what can we do to develop an abundance mindset?

  1. Believe and know that you are worthy
    If we want to make any change in our lives, the first step is to start with ourselves. Remember that we cannot give what we do not have. Thus, the first thing we must do to have an abundance mindset is to believe and know that we are worthy. Abundance or scarcity, our mindset moves from what is inside ourselves to what is outside ourselves. When we view ourselves as worthy, that flows outside us to see others as worthy.

    Jamie Kerm Lima, co-founder of IT Cosmetics, wrote a book called Worthy: How to Believe You Are Enough and Transform Your Life. She writes, “In life you don’t rise to what you believe is possible. You fall or rise to what you are worthy of.”

    My friend and mentor, Mark Cole, the CEO of Maxwell Leadership Certified Team, always says, “Be a person of value adding value to people of value.” The first part is the belief that you are a person of value. Belief always precedes mindset.
     
  2. Start creating your own success
    After we create a mindset of self-worth, we are ready to develop the mindset that we are worthy of success. Achieving that success does not happen automatically. Success requires both action and consistency. Success is important, for it leads to our ability to give more—you can mentor more, you can think more, you can learn more, you can give away more, etc. All because you took consistent action. This feeds an abundance mindset. And, when you combine success with an abundance mindset, you create significance.

    I want to briefly mention the importance of this being your OWN success. When you are simply different—it sets you apart from others but CAN be duplicated. When you are distinctive—it sets you apart from others but CANNOT be duplicated.
     
  3. Embrace that life happens FOR you
    As one embarks on a path of living with an abundance mindset, it is easy for life to get in the way and take us off track. Having an abundance mindset requires us to stay the course no matter what. Both good and bad things will happen. Having a positive life stance will allow us to harvest the best we can out of them both. I call the below the Abundance Attitude:

    1. Life is filled with good and bad.
    2. Some of the good and bad I can’t control…its life.
    3. Some of the good and some of the bad will find me.
    4. If I have a positive life stance the good and bad will become better.
    5. If I have a negative life stance the good and bad will become worse.

    We can’t be generous when only good things happen if we expect to enjoy all that comes with an abundance mindset.

  4. Realize that personal growth evolves into abundance
    “Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.” -Gandhi

    What is a false position? It is a place where you try to cling to your old views in order to appear consistent, while you realize that within yourself you have outgrown them and they no longer represent who you are.

    Evolving from a scarcity to an abundance mindset is a personal growth journey. You will be outgrowing old thinking and embracing new thinking. Since most people have a scarcity mindset, you will be thinking and living in ways much different than them.

    Over time the fabric of your being will be that of Abundance DNA, where:

    • You see “more and before”
    • You give “more and before”
    • You receive “more and before”

    Here is what this means. With an abundance mindset, there is always more out there. You see, give, and thus, receive more. Leaders and people of influence have the big picture, so you see, give, and receive before. Leaders with an abundance mindset, end up with Abundance DNA.

Those are the choices and actions we can make to move from a scarcity mindset into an abundance mindset. Always give more than you receive. Abundance will flow through you, and you will have more than you ever imagined.

Statements of fact and opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors and are not necessarily those of the Society of Actuaries, the newsletter editors, or the respective authors’ employers.

Brian Pauley, FSA, MAAA, is vice president, marketing at Canada Life Reinsurance, is a certified leadership speaker and coach with the Maxwell Leadership Certified Team, and is on the SOA Leadership and Develop Section Council. He can be reached at brian.pauley@canadalifere.com or via LinkedIn.