Transcription
If you're like my clients, you might be wondering, why do so many hardworking professionals hit a ceiling? But if you're like my successful clients, you're going to realize you're asking the wrong question because that question, if you're asking that question, you're prioritizing effort over strategy. And transitioning from hard worker into a CEO and visionary strategist is not about working harder. It's about rewiring your current habits and shifting your current habits into visionary abundance focused strategies. And in this video, I'm going to show you how to make that shift.
The first step to making that shift is to understand the root problem. The root problem is that a scarcity driven mindset produces scarcity driven habits. So what are scarcity driven mindsets? It is any belief that resources, opportunities and success are limited like slices of a pie. So if you think about a pie, if I were to have a slice of that pie and I eat my slice of the pie, that means that there's only so much left over and what's left over is less than what we began with. So imagine if there was a belief that resources are limited, like slices of a pie. Imagine if there was a belief that opportunities are limited. Imagine if there was a belief that success is limited. What ends up happening as a result of this root cause, the root problem is that there is a subsequent belief that in order for you to win, in order for you to make progress and move forward, someone else has to lose. And the flip side is also true, that when other people are making progress, when other people are successful, when other people are in momentum, that means that you have to lose out, that you have to miss out as well. And what ends up happening is that when we have these scarcity driven mindsets, it causes us to be in a very unhealthy and stressful competition. It causes us to experience a tremendous amount of anxiety because the fear of losing the things we already have, because if the belief, there's a belief that resources are limited, then everything will always be fearful. Everything will always be anxious. Decisions will be that much harder because if resources are limited, I don't want to lose what I already have. I don't want to lose what I've worked so hard to build. I don't want to really lose what I'd saved up so much. I don't want to lose any of that. So that's what happens. And then you can see the habits follow suit.
So now let's talk about when you have scarcity driven habits, how do you know that this has been your pattern? Because a lot of this is subconscious. You may not even realize it, and maybe you're listening to it and sometimes you can be offended. And it's like insulting my intelligence if I'm here talking about scarcity driven mindsets, but a lot of these things happen without your awareness. So when it comes to scarcity driven mindsets, there are some common symptoms and this is how you know you have it. And by the way, there's no judgment because until you see the root problem, then that's the first step to making the shift.
So the first common symptom of scarcity driven habits is this constant over-evaluation of busyness. So here's what that looks like. Busyness means that I need to work harder at proving myself. I need to work harder and do more so that I can be more productive. So that's like overvaluing busyness, productivity, momentum, to -do lists, doing more in a shorter and shorter period of time. So that's the first symptom of scarcity driven mindset.
The second symptom is this whole thing about hoarding control. So here's what that looks like. It means the thought process goes like this. It means nobody can do this better than me. It also means if I want this done right, I got to do it myself. So there's hoarding control and as a result of it, you get busier. There's a greater anxiety and there's this environment where no one can support me because I can't find good help around here. So that's the second symptom of scarcity driven mindset.
The third common symptom of scarcity driven habits and mindset is this whole focus on short -term outcomes, right? In terms of, I need to get these things done. I need to get them done today. And there's an overemphasis on short-term outcomes and not enough awareness or focus on longer term impacts. So that's the third symptom.
And the fourth one. Now here's the fourth symptom of scarcity driven habits. It is the belief that money is scarce. And this is a really common one. If you have a scarcity driven mindset around money, everything will appear too expensive. Everything will feel like you can't afford it. It will be difficult for you to invest in your health. It will be difficult for you to invest in your skill sets and professional development. It'll be difficult for you to hire people to support you. It'll be difficult for you to make these decisions in order to get you to the next level, because it will appear that you can't afford it. And that's what happens when we have a scarcity driven mindset. And it can be in so many different areas of your life. If you believe that if you have a scarcity driven mindset around money, then you make decisions accordingly as though they were scarce. And then everything will appear too expensive because you don't want to lose out. You don't want to lose the money you worked so hard to gain. And then you're holding onto it. And that's very difficult because if you desire to get to the next level, sometimes that does require investing. It does require an investment in yourself. If you have a scarcity driven mindset around resources, then you're going to be hoarding control. I got to do everything myself because I can't depend on it. We see how this works. So scarcity driven mindsets can appear in any area of life. It's important to be aware of the root problem. That's the first step in making that shift.
The real tragedy of our era is not that there isn't enough opportunities. In fact, there are more opportunities today than there were last year. There are consistently more opportunities being added in your industry, in your domain. It's not for the lack of opportunity. The real tragedy is that there are so many brilliant minds, capable people who are not living up to their full potential, who are not able to adapt any of these opportunities to achieve any of them because of outdated beliefs, because of anxiety driven fears and because of these scarcity driven mindsets.
The second step into making that shift is understanding, well, where are we rewiring our brains towards? So this is going from the root problem to the transformative solution. That's the direction in which we are rewiring our brain. So the transformative solution sounds like this. An abundance driven mindset creates abundance driven habits. So then what constitutes an abundance driven mindset? This is a belief that sharing, investing and using resources creates more for everyone. And when more is created for everyone, that's when all of a sudden we no longer have to fear the loss of the things that we've used. We no longer have to be anxious over investing the resources that we have gained, we have obtained. And everything changes. Your habits change when you have this belief, this abundance belief. And this is important because if you think about the economy of resources, resources could be money, it could be time, it could be personnel, it could be skill sets. Like these are all resources. There could be opportunities. If you think about it, the analogy is like a garden. You have a garden with trees, you have plants, you have flowering and budding plants as well and fruiting plants as well. And there are consumers of these trees. People come in, they harvest the fruit and they are sent off to consumers who consume these fruit. You've got to be able to see and trace that consumption creates more because when one apple from the apple tree gets consumed, what happens? You couldn't see it. A scarcity driven mindset would be, well, they're eating all the fruit and there's not enough apples left over. Well, you know, that's not true because inside the apple, there are at least eight more seeds. And what happens is when animals and people consume those seeds, the seeds gets dispersed somewhere and eventually those seeds get planted and they become apple trees and there are hundreds more apple and thousands more seeds and it goes on and on. So consumption creates more. So if you understand that perspective and you see opportunities and resources from that perspective, your habits change. Your habits change. You see strategic CEOs are never competing for a bigger slice of the pie. Instead, what they're doing is they're creating opportunities that would not have existed without their imagination. So this is the mindset shift and you cannot create opportunities if you do not adapt the belief that there is an abundance. If you have scarcity in that, then you will not invest your resources and everything will appear too expensive. But CEOs understand that in order for opportunities to create opportunities for everyone, they are constantly investing their resources, using their resources and sharing their resources. So that creates more for everyone.
Right? Before I became a content creator, I had that mindset, the scarcity driven mindset. And there was a fear about losing everything because I worked so hard to gain my income. I worked so hard to get my intellect. I worked so hard to have the knowledge and experience I had. And you know, at that time I adopted the scarcity driven mindset. I was scared to share that with people. I was scared to reinvest my money in myself because I had the belief that once I let it go, once I share it, once I use it, well then that's it. There's less of it left for me and it's not going to come back and then I'll have less. And that prevented me from having the influence I wanted to have. I made that shift. And the first shift that I made was I borrowed money to invest in my education. Yes, I am talking about college, but subsequent after college, I borrowed money to invest in myself. Like I wasn't born a great communicator. I had to invest in that skillset. I wasn't born a great leader. I wasn't born a creative and I had to invest in those skillsets and invest to learn that. I had to learn how to build businesses. I had to learn how to lead people. I had to learn everything that I teach on YouTube and in my coaching programs. And I am consistently learning because the world is always changing. I desire to offer my highest level of insights to all the clients I serve. So it is a must for me to consistently be investing in myself and to use my resources. And the name of the game has changed as a result of that. And so has the fulfillment and the level of impact I have in my life. And I wouldn't be able to do that if I continue to hold on to that scarcity, that if I, once I let that go, it won't come back to me. And you see, as a result of that, I can stand here, I can sit here right now, every single week sharing videos out of abundance, sharing my insights, my intellect, and I am not concerned. I am not anxious. I am not afraid because I have that abundance mindset. And as I said before, strategic CEOs do not compete for a bigger slice of the pie. What they do is they use their resources to create more for everyone and they use their resources and they share their resources to create better opportunities that did not yet exist before.
So just like in scarcity driven mindsets, there are also four common symptoms to know that you have an abundance mindset and therefore abundance habits. So the four common symptoms, number one, it's valuing impact over busyness, impact over busyness. So this is not about your personal productivity. This is not about how much more you can get done in shorter periods of time, but it is about how do I leverage my impact? You see, a lot of higher level of professionals, educated, experienced professionals, have great skills. They have college level skills or skill sets as a result of 20 years in the domain, but they're under leveraged in their impact. Strategic CEOs, through an abundance mindset and through abundance habits, they focus more on impact than they do on busyness. That's the first symptom.
The second symptom, how you know you have it, how you know you have an abundance habit is there is a focus on delegating success. So this is not about hoarding control. It's the opposite. It's about how can I empower other people and how can I delegate success to them? You notice I use the word very carefully. I said delegating success, not delegating tasks. That's completely different. So that's the second symptom is that you're delegating success, not just delegating tasks or activities or projects, but it holds the outcomes to individuals that you have nurtured, that you have empowered.
The third symptom, how do you know that you have abundance driven habits is that you value your time more than you value your money. You understand that time is infinitely more valuable than money. So what does that mean? It means that if time is infinitely more valuable than money and money is a resource that I can use and invest to buy back more of my time, then I'm going to do it. So in other words, take back my personal example. I realized I wanted to have more influence. I realized I wanted to change lives to have fulfillment in my career, to make a difference in this world. And in order for me to do so, there's two ways I can do it. I can figure it out myself. How do I communicate better? How do I build a business? How do I lead people? How do I empower people? How do I develop all these different types of communication skills? I can read 10,000 books, 10,000 hours of videos. I can do all of that myself, but how much longer will it take me? But time is an infinitely more valuable money. So I would rather invest my money to buy back my time and shortcut the outcomes. That's strategic CEO thinking in terms of abundance driven habits.
The fourth symptom is focusing on long-term outcomes over short-term success. And these, as you notice, these four symptoms are the opposite of the symptoms of scarcity driven habits. A scarcity driven mindset limits you to what is, but an abundance driven mindset empowers you to create what could be, which is the essence of strategic leadership.
So now we talked about the first step, which is understanding the root problem. Then we talked about the second step to rewiring your brain, which is knowing where in which direction you were wiring it to, which is the transformative solution. Now let's talk about the stuff in between. What is the shift? How do you make that shift? And the way to make that shift is to apply abundance driven principles that will rewire your habits and your actions towards growth and towards leadership. So let's talk about what these growth driven principles are and how to apply each one.
The first abundance driven principle is what I call organized thought. And this is really important because if you have ever experienced moments where you know exactly what you mean, but you just have trouble saying it, or you know exactly what you mean. You've tried to say it, but your audience members still can't quite understand you or don't fully really understand your meaning. Then that's an issue of organized thought. And this is really important because until such point as when you become really good at what you do and you have an intuitive knowledge of everything that you have gained, the intellect that you have gained, it becomes that much more difficult to say it because it's intuitive because it is ingrained. It's just become who you are. And it's really difficult to share that resource, share that insight or to really share what you mean in a way that it's just as clear to you as it is to them. That's the tough part. And this requires organized thought. So organized thought, the key word is thought. The root verb is thinking. You got to be able to shift yourself to a space where thinking is your new doing. So it's not about being busy anymore. It's not about focusing on your personal productivity. It is about focused attention towards thinking as your new doing, critical thinking, strategic thinking. That's exactly what organizes your thoughts and you have to be able to move from it. Just an intuitive knowledge of everything you want to share to a conscious, deliberated, well thought through understanding of your insights. That's a completely different, that's a complete journey. So in order for you to be able to free up that bandwidth, to be on this journey where thinking is the new doing, it's important to build a system around you where you are systemizing decision making. Because chances are inside your role right now in your company that you do have a lot of busy work and it's inevitable, right? You have projects to do, people, your higher ups are giving you activities, you're being measured on certain KPIs and there is a lot of busy work, but the movement, the shift towards strategic leadership away from busy, hardworking activities towards strategic leadership requires a structured process on moving yourself to that level of strategy, which means that you have to have a system around making decisions so that you are offloading the things that are too tactical for you right now. And that's why I've created the career growth codex. It is a systemized approach on how you can install that into your career growth so that you can be in this process of moving away from tactical hard work to into strategic leadership. But you're going to have something like that in place so that you can participate in organized thought.
Scarcity driven mindsets keep you stuck in a role that undervalues your potential. If you are realizing that you are in a position where you know you could do more, you know you could achieve more and you know you desire to achieve your potential, then I invite you to work with me. Every single week I have a mastermind, a coaching mentorship where I teach individuals on how to reach their potential, on how to expand their vision and how to have clarity in the path going forward and giving them the direction, the roadmap on how to get there. So if you desire that level of mentorship, it's high touch mentorship with myself and my coaching team, then click the link below this video and book a call to speak to one of my trusted career advisors. On this call we're just going to explore what are the challenges that you're having right now? What does that ceiling look like? What is your situational context look like and where do you want to be? Even if you don't have clarity, just share with us what do you think it is right now where you want to head to and if we're the right fit to work with each other and if I can truly help you to get to where you want to be and my team really understands and believes that what you're experiencing right now, we can help you to overcome it. Then you're going to be invited into my mentorship and you're going to meet those clients that I talk about, the successful clients and you're going to learn from each other as well through collective wisdom on how to expand into an abundance mindset to achieve your greatest potential.
The second abundance driven principle is leverage over labor. Most professionals who are educated, and I mentioned this before, they have high income skills and they have valuable skills, but they're under leveraged in their impact. And if you're under leveraged in your impact, then you have no choice but to focus on labor. So what's labor? It's hard work. It's the busyness all over again. It's the do more in less and less time. It's the do more and more in less and less time. And that is very difficult to leverage your impact if there is a focus on labor. So leverage has very little to do with effort and has more to do with understanding leverage. Archimedes said it. So what's leverage? Archimedes said it very well. He said that if you give me a lever long enough, I'll fulcrum strong enough to lay that lever upon and ground to stand on, I can move the world. I can use that to move the world. That's exactly what leverage is. Leverage is minimum input, maximum output. How can you put that in place to be able to leverage, to be leveraged so that you could have more impact?
The third abundance driven principle is this. Time is infinitely more important and more valuable than money. And I mentioned before, that's an abundance driven mindset. When you understand and you can see how time is your most valuable asset, you're going to utilize your money to buy back your time and use the time that you bought back to invest in visionary thinking, to participate in thought processes, to organize your thoughts and develop your insights and to develop your skills that they do not teach you in school so that you can leverage your impact.
The next abundance driven principle is this one. It's opportunity in obstacle. This is where it's important to train yourself. It is a skill to be able to see the opportunities and every obstacle, to be able to see the abundance in the lack, to be able to see the somethingness in the nothingness. When everybody else sees chaos and nightmare and quitting, you see the opportunities, you see the abundance, you see the persistence. And this is a skill that is worthy of training because it is the essence of being in strategy. It is the essence of being able to guide your team strategically when there are challenges, when there are crises, when there are pivotal moments where you are making important, more and more important decisions with less and less information available to you. It's important to see opportunity in every obstacle.
And the fifth abundance driven principle is this identity before property. It's easy to say that you want certain things and we all have these goals. Maybe you have a vision board? Maybe you have a list of things you want to achieve in your life. Those are things that you want to have and what you want to have is property. There's certain property you want to obtain. It could be recognition. It could be the corner office. It could be the house by the lake. It could be the dream car, right? That's the things that you want to achieve as property. But identity always comes before property. And here's what I mean by that. Wouldn't you agree that whatever you desire to achieve in your life, either for yourself or the people you care about, whatever you desire to achieve as property in your life, that you need to do some things to be able to achieve it. Like I'm not talking about winning it or inheriting it, right? Because most people aren't lucky enough to have that inheritance or aren't lucky enough to win the things they desire and it just drops on their lap. Or I'm not talking about being born with a silver spoon. But so wouldn't you agree that if there are certain things that you truly desire to obtain in your life, there's got to be a series of things that you do over time consistently and persistently in order to earn it, in order to obtain it. Yes. But wouldn't you agree that the greater those property are, the more meaningful they are. It could be the CEO title, like for example, or it could be the dream home, right? Those are significant properties. The more significant and profound those properties are, the more difficult the activity is to obtain them and the more resilience and persistence that you have to have in the journey to consistently doing those activities to obtain them. Wouldn't you agree? That's a fact of life. But here's the thing that most people don't see. Most people don't see why it is so difficult to do those activities that are necessary to obtain the things I want to obtain. Why is it so difficult? And I can answer that in one sentence. The reason why it's so difficult is because you haven't become someone who can do that. In order for you to obtain any property you desire in life for yourself or for your loved ones, you need to become one who does that. That's your identity and identity always comes before property. Your journey to your next level of your career, to the next level of your personal and professional growth. Your journey is one of the most important personal development journeys of your life because identity always becomes before property.
In essence, an abundance driven mindset that creates abundance driven habits is exactly how you rewire your brain to move from a hard worker to a strategic CEO. And the reason why that's the case is because when you have abundance driven habits, you develop the resilience, you develop the right level of risk taking, you develop the right level of strategy. And these are the most essential qualities of a strategic leader.