Thread by @NeckarValue

I wrote about the struggle to cultivate an abundance mindset.

“The quest to be the best turns into you not wanting anyone else to be the best. Even if you reach the pinnacle, there is no joy.” @bhorowitz

Thanks to @supermugatu for clarifying a metaphor I was struggling to grasp in my piece:

Abundance is like tending a garden. You want everyone in your environment to have good soil, water, and sunlight to blossom.

Scarcity is like mining a resource. Like drilling for oil. Everyone taps one pool.

I get more, you get less.

“My straw reaches acroooss the room and starts to drink your milkshake. I drink your milkshake. I drink it up!”

A framework @pmje73 shared with @patrick_oshag

“Certain things that don't have to be zero-sum are framed as zero-sum."

“I decided that I want to live more in the quadrant where everything is about growing and every situation is not meant to be at someone else's expense.”

I don’t have a silver bullet. I often find myself in scarcity thinking and have to make an effort to change.

My hope is that if we keep scarcity thinking contained to specific situations (specific games), abundance will surface in the rest of our lives.

This is embarrassing: many years ago I was in a bad place. I struggled to see Twitter as a positive sum game.

I unfollowed some great accounts b/c I couldn’t handle their success (including @supermugatu!).

Yikes! At least I eventually realized how stupid and petty I had been.

Even when we want to see the world as abundant, our emotions and environment can conspire to pull us back into the scarcity box.

I’m talking fear, jealousy, incentives at work, the mindset of those around us, the resource constraints of the games we play.

How to push back on scarcity thinking?
-Awareness.
-Changing your emotional state.
-Practicing kindness and acceptance – including towards yourself.
-Examining your ecosystem.

You can’t change what you’re not aware of.

Read @Grahamduncan:
“Imagine your conscious mind as the rider and your unconscious drives as the elephant— powerful and willful and inclined to take the rider where the elephant wants to go most of the time.”

grahamduncan.blog/whats-going-on…

Being in a bad emotional state will prevent you from seeing abundance. You risk what @supermugatu calls the ‘doom loop.’

Get up. Get out. Move.

As a friend keeps telling me: "It's not that working out is good for you. Not working out is a depressant."

https://twitter.com/SuperMugatu/status/1390068049391280128

I like the ‘gratitude flow’ as a fast and effective tool to take me out of a shitty moment.

https://twitter.com/NeckarValue/status/1381338281158307845

Be kind to yourself.

How can you believe in abundance, and truly be happy for others, if you don't embrace and accept your (flawed) self?

Personally, I found Internal Family Systems helpful to engage with and understand my inner critic.

tim.blog/2021/01/14/ric…

What about your professional environment? We talk about game selection in terms of the competition you face.

Bezos wrote “the universe wants you to be typical.” Similarly, the ecosystem shapes the players unless they “actively work to prevent it.”

Makes a big difference whether your game is popular and growing. Or whether you find yourself in a knife fight over a shrinking pie.

Probably easier to think in terms of abundance if you can join a game with tailwinds, expanding TAM.

What kind of jungle are you in? Is it unexplored territory, rich in food, resources, and places to settle?

Or does death lurk behind every tree? Do you have to fight others for a safe place to spend the night?

What kind of tribe thrives in this jungle of yours?

Timely: compare VC/crypto to distressed debt.

Timeless: compare the mindsets of Julian Robertson and Carl Icahn.

Robertson closed up shop at the top of the dotcom bubble. Still, he saw abundant opportunity. He helped his analysts build their own firms at a young age.

He reinvested his financial and social capital into his tribe.

https://twitter.com/NeckarValue/status/1382422211995299843

Icahn is a formidable investor. But I would argue that his mindset – raider, activist, value investor – is more geared to zero-sum fights. His early analyst had to look out for himself.

“If you want a friend on Wall Street, get a dog.”

https://twitter.com/NeckarValue/status/1376985547558825988

You can’t always pick your professional game. But you can make an effort to leave the scarcity mindset on the court of the zero-sum game.

Freeing you to play infinite games in the rest of your life.

You can read the rest of my thoughts here:

neckar.substack.com/p/the-scarcity…