Tag Archives: money

Economics, Philosophic

Scarcity vs Abundance Quiz

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How do you think about money? Read each question and pick the answer that most closely resembles the way that you think.

1) My friend lands a new job that pays a lot more than money than my job does, and it has amazing benefits, including 4 weeks of vacation.

  1. I feel very excited for my friend and congratulate them.
  2. I feel jealous, angry, and wonder how they get all the luck.

2) There is enough money in the world for everyone to be fabulously rich.

  1. True
  2. False

3) I just bought a new couch. Now the Boy Scouts are knocking at my door for $25 to help them get to summer camp.

  1. I will give because I have plenty and I admire these Scouts for putting forth the effort to build character through fund raising.
  2. I can barely feed my kids and that new couch was purchased on credit so I am now under a mountain of debt.

4) The news reports that the economy is in a recession, unemployment is at an all time high, and property values are down.

  1. I thank God for the blessings I enjoy and look for opportunities to create value for others.
  2. I feel scared, worry that I might lose my job and my house, and I stop spending money however possible.

5) I am poor. I barely have enough to make ends meet.

  1. False
  2. True

6) I am very richly blessed and wealthy.

  1. True
  2. False

7) I have thousands of dollars of debt.

  1. Some of those debts were good investments and know there is a way for me to take responsibility of my bad choices and get out of debt.
  2. I have nothing to show for all of my spending and I have no hope of ever getting out of debt. Bankruptcy looks very appealing.

8 ) I am eating a bag of my favorite snacks. My child comes into the room, sees what I am eating and asks for some.

  1. Sure you can have some. I love to share my snacks with you.
  2. No! These are mine snacks.

9) I am driving on the highway. Someone turns on their blinker indicating a desire to move in front of me.

  1. I wave them in, thinking, “there is plenty of road for everyone”.
  2. I speed up and give them a dirty look. My road! Mine!
In case you did not already figure it out, all the “A” answers indicate a mentality of “abundance” and all of the “B” answers indicate a mentality of “scarcity”.

We are what we think.

Scarcity is the mentality of a child. Many of us do not grow out of it, for many number of reasons. Most often we learn to stay in the scarcity mindset by example.

How do I fix a mentality of scarcity?

Scarcity is an addiction. We handle this addiction in much the same way that we handle any other addiction. The first steps are:
1 – Recognize that you have a scarcity mentality.
2 – Admit to yourself that you have a scarcity mentality.
3 – Admit to you spouse or someone significant in your life who can help to hold you accountable.

Which mentality do you have? And why?

Education, Financial, Reviews

Killing Sacred Cows

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I just started reading this book and already I have found it to be amazing. I am only in chapter two, but if that is all I read of the book it would still be amazing and worth the price. I would suggest this book to everyone. It will change your thoughts about money, wealth, abundance, and prosperity is a very positive way.

The book is “Killing Sacred Cows” by Garrett Gunderson.

You can learn more about it on the Live on Purpose Radio podcasts:

Thanks to Dr. Paul, Leslie Householder and Garrett Gunderson for introducing it to me.

Financial, Political

The Federal Bail-out is a Bad Idea

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I should not need to remind anyone, but the following is my own opinion.

You mess with nature, you reap the storm. Survival of the fittest. If a company is going down, they need to go down. Bailing them out will not teach them anything. If we give our kids everything, they will not learn to earn it on their own. How many more cliches need I quote? Bailing out private companies just sounds like a bad idea all around.

My wife pointed me to the site of our good friend Dave Ramsey who says it all a lot better than I ever could.

Years of bad decisions and stupid mistakes have created an economic nightmare in this country, but $700 billion in new debt is not the answer. As a tax-paying American citizen, I will not support any congressperson who votes to implement such a policy. Instead, I submit the following three step Common Sense Plan.

Check out the Dave Ramsey Common Sense Plan.

Philosophic

Money is NOT a Goal

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I just had what I consider to be a profound thought. I like using analogies in my life. They seem to help myself as well as other people around me. Analogies are a way of helping people see life from another perspective.

Money is NOT a “goal”. Although it can be and often is a goal that people make, so let me clarify. The accumulation of money is not a GOOD “goal” to set. Let me further clarify “good”. The goal “accumulate money” is not a effective goal. It is actually a rather absurd goal, by itself.

GOAL: “It is my goal to accumulate a million dollars.”

We know that money is just a tool. Therefore, let us change the word “dollars” to “hammers”.

GOAL: “It is my goal to accumulate a million hammers.”

That goal does not make sense.

Unless it is a supplementary goal attached as part of a shopping list to a larger and more philanthropic goal.

The goal to accumulate a tool does not make sense by itself. This is because a goal to accumulate a tool invariably requires you to ask the question, “What am I going to do with that tool?”.

If my only purpose and goal in life were to accumulate a million hammers, I would say that my life was in fact pointless.

However, combine that “shopping list” goal with a more philanthropic goal and everything starts to change.

GOAL: “It is my goal to help one million people each build their own dream home.”

Each of those million people are going to need some tools to build their home, including a hammer. In that case, accumulating hammers actually makes sense. It makes sense because the hammers are not the end goal. They are merely supplementary to the main goal.

The moral of this blog post is this: Don’t set goals for tools, unless those tools supplement a philanthropic goal. Before you set a goal for money, make sure you know what you are going to do with that money. The possession of money is in itself useless. The spending of money without a purpose wasteful.

If you need help making good goals, I would suggest to you the book, Drawing on the Powers of Heaven.