The 2 Sides of Scarcity. Use it or Lose it?
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Lately, I’ve been thinking about scarcity and how it shows up in our lives.
I was prompted when the host on this podcast asked me why many high-level female leaders are reluctant to help other women rise the corporate ladder. My response was that these leaders have a Scarcity Mindset, which is the belief that success in any arena of life is a zero-sum game.
This is the belief that for me to win, someone has to lose, or if I have a fabulous boyfriend, that’s one less person in the dating pool for you to choose from. If I were the CEO, you would need to be kept down so you wouldn’t jeopardize my rare position. The Scarcity Mindset also applies to things. Just look at how masterfully luxury brands such as Hermes and Chanel leverage this rampant mindset to create the belief in the buyer that they better get their hands on that handbag before someone else does!
Three decades of experience in the luxury space helped me understand that these brands are not selling handbags; they are selling temporary relief from the pain of the Scarcity Mindset. And I say temporary because the pain returns as soon as the next object of desire surfaces.
Let me be clear: I’m not judging anyone. I was that person for more years than I’d like to confess. If I’m honest, when I accepted a position at Hermes in my early thirties, getting my hands on my very own Birkin bag had an embarrassingly significant impact on my decision to take the job!
My invitation to you is to let go of the Scarcity Mindset. It is life-changing and can be accomplished with deliberate work.
Abandoning this mindset feels like we’ve simultaneously been unshackled on many fronts. We stop hustling to achieve and instead focus on goals with personal meaning. We stop being manipulated by outside forces, be it fashion companies or whatever the newest “in” place is, and decide where and on what we will spend our precious resources. We stop worrying about others taking our piece of the pie and instead focus on baking a bigger pie. We stop spending our precious energy on holding on to things—money, people, old stories, emotions—and instead release them and, with it, our creative energy.
More impact. More relationships. More generosity.
More goodness.
Doing the deep work to release ourselves from the shackles of the Scarcity Mindset is always work worth doing.
But there is another way to think about scarcity that serves rather than harms us.
This other mindset makes life more conscious, deliberate, and meaningful.
I’ll call it the Scarcity Effect, and it’s born from an authentic and seemingly inevitable acknowledgment of our numbered days. If time is the currency of life, then every measure of our days—whether hours, days, or years—is indeed limited.
Actual scarcity (a truth rather than what we believe is true) results from limitation.
And we can all agree that time is the most limited of our resources.
While the Scarcity Mindset causes an artificial sense of hurry—because it makes us believe that we must constantly be in hustle mode to get to a resource first—the Scarcity Effect slows us down to become present for the things we have limited time to enjoy.
Our work then becomes to let go of one mindset while we adopt and live by another truth.
In no particular order, here is a list of skills I help my clients (and myself) develop to leverage the Scarcity Effect:
- Devote deep attention to one-on-one conversations. We never know if we will have the privilege of a quality exchange with this person again, and sometimes a meaningful conversation, even a brief one, can have a transformative effect for the rest of someone’s life. People remember what you said and how you made them feel—for life.
- Master the Gracious No—so you can be a Hell Yes to what matters most. This one is pure mathematics. Saying “yes” to everything will make you wonder where the time went and regret not being more selective.
- Create, follow, and regularly update your To-Not-Do list—people, activities, and behaviors that drain you—so you can focus on the energizers in your lives. This list changes with the seasons, sometimes the months, of our lives and must be updated regularly. What energized us last year may feel like a drain this year.
- Honor your wants without having to justify them to others. Knowing our wants is the first and most critical step to achieving them.
- Stop explaining. Many people disagree with me on this one, especially in these divisive times. I continue to believe it’s a waste of time unless your explanation is in service of deepening the relationship with someone you genuinely care about.
- Normalize talk of death with loved ones and remind yourself regularly that every day is a gift and tomorrow is in no way guaranteed. I use an app called Final Countdown for this practice.
- Give things away now—not after you’re gone. Generosity brings as much joy to the giver as to the receiver. Why deny ourselves that gift while we are alive?
- Abandon the goal of having it all in favor of the goal of having what matters most. Less but better is a difficult-to-execute but profoundly impactful heuristic to live by.
- Leave white space in your calendar and your life. Space is where miracles happen.
The most valuable result of the Scarcity Effect is that it encourages us to choose our legacy. If having your name on buildings is the legacy you want to create, then get going and contribute to your organization of choice.
If you consider your children your legacy, question how much of your most valuable resources, time, and attention they receive from you TODAY.
If you want to create a legacy of service and influence, become a Professional Coach, devoted mentor, or trusted advisor. Then, serve powerfully.
You won’t regret it.
