75. The Journey to Abundance: Overcoming Scarcity Mindsets

In this episode, host Laura Sexton discusses the contrast between scarcity and abundance mindsets, emphasizing the importance of shifting from a mentality of financial scarcity to one of financial abundance. Laura shares personal anecdotes, practical advice, and motivational insights to help listeners take control of their financial futures and live abundantly.

In this episode we’ll discuss:

.     Scarcity Vs. Abundance Mindset

.     Practical steps to overcome financial scarcity

.     Cultivating an abundance mindset

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Transcript

Laura: 0:46

Hello and welcome to the Accelerate Your Legacy podcast. I'm Laura Sexton, your trusted financial coach and money mindset specialist. Join me as we explore the world of money and money mindset while also paving the way for a lasting legacy that extends far beyond money. Together we'll eliminate stress, amplify freedom, and ensure you stop paying for your past so you can start saving for your future. If you're seeking peace in your finances, more margin in your budget, and a legacy that inspires generations to come, you're in the right place. Hey, accelerators! I wanted to talk to you today about scarcity versus abundance. Now, this is a topic that can sometimes come across a little, a little woo woo, and that is not my intention. In fact, that is not how I operate at all, so I hope that you can stick this one out with me. There are a lot of people in our society that believe in financial scarcity. They believe that the little man can't get ahead. They believe they will never overcome their station. They believe that living paycheck to paycheck is just the way that things have to be. And I don't believe that. I don't believe that's a thing. I don't believe that we were put on this earth to live small. I don't believe that we were put on this earth to struggle. I believe that Jesus came to give us life and to give us life abundantly. I believe that we are supposed to live small. Big, we're supposed to live bigger than ever. The government is not out to save us. We have to learn to save ourselves. And I think as a society, we could be set up so much better if everybody believes that. I think it's interesting. 97 percent of millionaires in America say that they believe they control their future. 97 percent of millionaires, do you want to be a millionaire? Do you want to be part of that statistic? I would love for you to be part of that statistic. And I don't know if it's correlation or causation, but if you will come with me on this journey, and you will start to say, I believe I control my future. I believe I control my finances. Then you are 1 step closer to becoming a millionaire, my friend. You are in charge of your financial destiny, and that doesn't start years in the future. It starts today. It starts with your choices, your habits. It starts with your income. It starts with controlling the person in the mirror. There are many different ways to say this to you, but what I'm going to say to you right now is I want you to let go of scarcity and create abundance. I was very blessed the way that I grew up. I grew up going to a private Christian school. It was the school had just started. It was really, really small. And I, I got to go to this school. I was on a scholarship. Yes. And very blessed because the education component was so rigorous. And I just was a child that if I wasn't challenged, I wasn't going to try. I can be that way now, sometimes. I never lacked anything. I was never without food. I was never without clothing, but I never got designer clothing. I never got new clothing. A lot of times, I was wearing hand me down uniforms. And to be completely honest, my kids are too now. Because I now realize that, you know, That it's not that important whether or not they're brand new, but at the time I saw everyone around me and I just said, yep, they're all getting brand new stuff and I'm getting hand me downs. And so there's a part of my psyche that is stuck in this. I only deserve hand me downs mentality, but that's really not the case. I don't have to walk around in jeans with holes in them. I have money. I can go buy new ones. But this is a mindset that I have to actively work to overcome because it is ingrained in my body. It's cool because there's a book called the body keeps the score. And what it tells you is your body will put a pin in a negative emotion. And anytime you are in a situation that resembles that negative situation, your body will go right back into that fight or flight mentality that you had at that time. So, when it comes to buying my kids uniforms for their private school. I can tend to feel really, really bad about getting. The hand me downs from friends. And when I think about it logically, there's no reason to feel bad about that. It's a wonderful blessing that somebody cares about me enough to say, hey, before I donate these clothes to the school, can I give them to your kids? Yes, please. And thank you. What a blessing it is to have people that love us enough to offer us these blessings. But you see, my body keeps the score and I feel That scarcity coming in, like, oh, I'll never have enough money to buy them everything they ever wanted. And no, I hope that I never have the money to get them anything they ever wanted because I want them to have to work for things too. I started out with a scarcity mentality. I still to this day, cannot use an entire sticker book. This is a, it's a very silly thing. I love to buy stickers. I have a thing for office supplies. I absolutely love office supplies, but if I get really low down on number of post it notes, I start to get anxious. Why? I can go buy more post it notes, but for whatever reason, I feel like I'm going to run out and never be able to get more. There may be something in your life that you can compare with this. Maybe you have had a situation where you didn't have enough money coming in and every time you get a paycheck and you have to pay your bills, you get really anxious inside. That's financial scarcity. A broad definition of financial scarcity is having too much month at the end of the money. Now, this can manifest in your life in many different ways. It can be that I get paid on the 1st, I pay my bills on the 1st, and now I don't have any money. Possibly be true. It could possibly be wrong. It could possibly be just a feeling that you have that you okay. I pay my bills. I don't have any more money or it could be a self fulfilling prophecy that you're giving to yourself. If you get paid on the 1st, do all of your bills come out on the 1st? Maybe. But if they do, it might be time to change that. If you only get paid once a month, great, all your bills come out on the 1st, and you have the rest of your money until the end of the month. But if you get paid twice a month on 15th, or however that works out for you, if it's every Friday, every Tuesday, whatever it is, change your bills around so they don't all come out of that 1st check. Or, you'd better have a lot of self discipline with that 2nd check, because that 2nd check is going to pay for all of your groceries for the month. You don't have to live. With too much month at the end of the money, because there are ways to get around that. Let's talk about some contributing factors to financial scarcity. 1 of them is low income. If you're not making a whole lot of money, guess what? Right now is the time to go out and get job number 2 and job number 3. Right now is a great time. The economy is real weird right now, my friends. It's really weird. A lot of people are hiring, they may not be that beautiful job, that dream job, that thing that you always wanted, but I promise you, they will pay you money at the end of the week. They will pay you for the work that you have done. You may have to become a dishwasher. You may have to become a store clerk. Shelf stocker, I don't know what it is. I don't know what you're going to do, but right now it's the time to go out and get a job and get a 2nd job and get a 3rd job. If you need it. If your income is not enough to cover your basic living expenses, let's talk about that for a 2nd, basic living expenses is having a roof over your head. It is not being a solo person living in a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment. And living out your best life. It is not living in a condo where all of the amenities are included in your rent, so you're paying for the spa and the workout room and all of the things, like, you don't need to pay for all those things. If your income is so low that it doesn't cover your living expenses, maybe the city you're in is not the city for you. I think this is really interesting. I live in Southern California and people talk about the homeless problem all the time. They talk about how people just don't have the money to live in this city. Okay, great. Then you need to move to another city that you can afford. I know that sounds a little discompassionate, but it's not. It's reality. And sometimes we have to actually look at reality and choose what is real instead of choose what we would like to be real. Because your fantasy doesn't put food on the table. Your fantasy doesn't get you away from that scarcity, fearful feeling. Reality can help you overcome that feeling. The opposite of low income, of course, is high expenses. What are you paying out every month? We talked about the rent. If your rent is too high, you need to move. But what if you also have credit card bills, and you have car payment, and you have student loans, and you have medical bills, and you have all of the things that are happening? It's time to sell your car. It's time to move down in your luxury lifestyle. I have a hard time saying this to you right now, because what just happened to me was I just had this horrible flashback to the chase credit card company. I hate chase with. Burning passion of a thousand suns, like I cannot stand Chase Bank and here's why I had a situation where I was having a hard time making all of my payments. I was coming up to a month where I was like, I don't know how I'm going to be able to pay for everything and eat. Part of that was because I had my priorities backwards. I was trying to pay everything and then eat. If you were in this situation, eat 1st pay things later and I called and I said, I, I don't know that I'm going to be able to make my payment next month. I'm trying to make everything work out. And I'm just, I'm really afraid that I'm not going to be able to make it happen. The person on the other end of the phone starts telling me how horrible I am and how I live beyond my means and how I should just live off of Top Ramen and eggs, and I need to get a roommate and I need to sell my car. And he was saying all these horrible things about me and I was like, I'm doing the best I can. I really am. Maybe my rent was too high. I was paying$800 a month, but I was only making$3,200 a month as a third of my income was. Paying my rent, so it's just a little over what I would recommend there, but I had student loans and I had credit cards and I was just trying to make everything work because I had my priorities backwards. I was trying to pay them 1st and me 2nd. So I felt like. I wasn't going to have enough. I wasn't going to be able to eat and it's scary to not be able to eat. It's scary to not be able to do the things that you think you should be able to do. That is a lack of financial literacy that I had in my life. I didn't know that the important thing was to pay for me and then pay them. I was trying to pay them first. I was not using my resources wisely. Anytime I got a paycheck, I was either going out to eat with my friends or going to a bar with my friends. I wasn't really smart at this point in my life. In many, many different aspects, not just finances. I wasn't smart with my time. I wasn't smart with my energy. I wasn't smart with my relationships. You grow up a lot in your 20s. So it's hard for me to come on here and tell you that you need to sell your car. It's hard for me to come on here and tell you that you're living above your means because I don't know you. Oh, but I would love to know you. I would love the chance to get to know you, to get to have a conversation with you, to get to tell you that I'm right there with you. I've been where you are. I've been scared with money and I've come out on the other side and yes, I still have stuff I have to work on and I'm so thankful that I get to work on that and I get to share with you the story of my journey. Thank you so much for coming along with me. I know what it's like to be scared. I know what it's like to have too much month at the end of the money and I know what it's like to come out on the other side and be abundantly blessed. Sometimes what we have to do in order to get to that place is we have to identify the root causes of our scarcity. What is the underlying factor that is contributing to your scarcity mindset? I told you that some of mine comes from how I grew up. Some of yours may be the same, but it could be other things. It could be an overspending problem. I know plenty of people that overspend because it feels good to spend. This was me yesterday. I went on Amazon because I have a friend that just released a children's book and I got very excited and it's called Where I Go Night Night by Diana Tyler. She just released this book and I was like, I have to go buy it. I have to go buy this for my kids because one, I want to support my friend and two, it's a cute little book. And so I went on Amazon, I put it in my cart and guess what? Amazon's like, we were thinking about you. We think that you would really love these new things. They know how to get to you, they know how to push your emotional buttons and you can very easily overspend. And sometimes that's just because it's convenient. If I need something in the moment, I don't have to wait and go out shopping. I don't have to drive to the store and purchase it there and hand over cash. I can just click a button and it's here in 2 hours. They have removed the friction and it's very easy to overspend because I'm not paying attention. Speaking of paying attention, you know how you pay attention? You make a budget. You decide how much you're going to spend ahead of time instead of just going with the flow and doing whatever. A common root cause of financial scarcity is an inadequate income. We talked about that earlier. The other one is the debt. If you are way down in debt, we need to have a conversation. I need to help you get out of that because debt is stealing from your future and I hate it. I hate it for you and I hate it for anybody else that is dealing with that. If you or anyone you know is suffering with any of these, if you were feeling this financial scarcity, if you were scared because you have too much month at the end of the money, please reach out to me. Send this to a friend that you know is struggling because I want to help them, and I want to be there with them, and I want to walk them through how we go from scarcity to abundance. And we're going to talk about that right here. Practical steps, my friends, to overcoming scarcity. The 1st, it's a budget. I don't know what to tell you other than you have to tell your money where to go. You have to be proactive. You have to be the 1 that decides what happens with your money. You have to create the budget. It's the 1st thing you do. If you've never made a budget before, y'all. The budget is not the hard part. The budget is actually the easy part. It's the sticking with the budget that's hard. Okay. So, if you are having trouble creating the budget, I have an amazing resource called the better budget boot camp. It is 27 dollars. And it will help you, I promise you, it will help you. Create a budget that fits with your family, your priorities and the things that are most important to you. When you create a prioritized budget, it is not in charge of you until you tell it what to do. You're putting the parameters on you. The budget is not restricting you. It's giving you permission to spend your money on the things that you want to spend your money on. Not just what's convenient at the moment. If you need help sticking to the budget, if the person in your mirror is not cooperating, that's when you need to bring in a 2nd person, like a coach, help hold you accountable to the things that you want most, not just what you want in the moment. Creating and sticking to a budget includes tracking your expenses, and it's not going to be for a lifetime. You are not going to have to pay attention to every penny for your entire life, but you do want to pay attention to Now, while you were fixing your scarcity and heading to abundance, you also need to prioritize your needs over your wants. The things that you want most, the things that are most important. Those needs need to be covered first. That's your four walls, your food, your shelter, your utilities, and your transportation. Those are four things that have to be covered first. You pay to feed yourself and clothe yourself and house yourself before you ever pay Chase Bank. Okay? Needs come first, then the wants. And you want to make sure that whatever goal you were setting for yourself is realistic. I'm not going to be a millionaire at the end of the month. I don't know, maybe a whole bunch of you are going to sign up for my Legacy Builders community, and I'm going to have 900 people sign up. That would definitely cover some of my bills. That would be helpful. But 900 of you are not going to sign up. I'm not going to be a millionaire overnight. That's not going to happen. So my goals have to be realistic. Part of that, my friends is managing our debt and making sure that it's no longer stealing from our futures. I say it all the time. Stop paying for your past. Stop it. And part of that is paying the debt down. Part of it is not beating yourself up anymore for the mistakes that you've made. If you want help tackling the debt, we talk about that in many of my other episodes. Check out any of them that talk about the debt snowball. You just type debt snowball into the search and my podcast will show up many different podcasts about the debt snowball, about debt payoff. This is my favorite thing. I call myself a debt elimination specialist because I helped so many people not only pay their debt off, but they stopped beating themselves up for the bad choices they made and they start celebrating themselves for the savings for their future. We're overcoming scarcity, we're managing our budget, we're managing our debt, dumping it completely would be ideal, but we're also going to increase our income. Right now, while we're trying to get out of the scarcity and the fear, that could be Negotiating a raise, it could be getting a 2nd job or taking on a side project. It could be learning how to invest and getting some passive income coming in. It could be investing in yourself and developing new skills. I don't know what it is for you, but increasing your income. Your income is your greatest wealth building tool. If you can manage yourself and your income keeps going up, more of your money can go into savings for things that you really want most in life. So once we manage our money and we're able to end our scarcity mindset. We can't just allow a void to be there. We can't just go, okay, not scared of the past anymore. We have to shift our perspective and begin cultivating an abundance mindset. It's going to be hard. It's not easy to go from my entire life. I felt scarcity and now I feel abundance. No, it's, it's not an overnight thing. I'm, I'm certain if you prayed about it, and God saw fit that he could help change you overnight in the blink of an eye, because that is definitely within his prerogative. But for most of us, we're going to have to work to reframe our minds. I'm going to give you three really amazing tools to help you cultivate this abundance mindset. The first of which is gratitude. You cannot feel fear and gratitude at the same time. You cannot worry and be grateful at the same time. The receptors in your brain will not allow it. It's amazing how science and faith work together in this. You see, if you are grateful and you are focused on all of your blessings and all of the things that are coming to you, this is the abundance mindset part, you were focused on being grateful for everything that's in your life right now. You don't have time to worry about making your payments. You don't have time to worry about what you don't have because you're focused on what you do have and how blessed you are to have those things. I don't care what it is you're being grateful for. It could be big things. It could be your family. It could be your children. It could be small things. I'm obsessed with friction erasable pens and they make me happy every time I use them. I'm very grateful for them. I don't know who created them, but they make me happy. You need to learn contentment. Contentment is not easy, but it comes often when we stop comparing ourselves with others. We are focused on our gratitude. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for this house that I am living in. If I compare myself to my friends, one of my friends just bought a beautiful home and it's double the budget that I have for my new house and I'm so grateful for her. I'm so grateful that she's my friend. I'm so proud of her and her family and what they've accomplished. I remember we went out to dinner for a friend of mine's birthday, and she was like, Laura, I'm debt free. She's so proud. And I got to experience the joy of that moment with her. I'm grateful for her and I'm not comparing my home with hers because if I did. Boy, would I be discontent. There are times, yeah, her kids get to run around the backyard. I'm a little jealous of that. I'm not even going to pretend, but she'll let me come over and let my kids run around her backyard, too. I'm content with where I'm at. I'm happy that I have a roof over my head. I have a very comfortable bed. It's nice and warm and I get to sleep in it every night. My kids get their own beds. They're not sharing. I'm very content with that and I'm very grateful. You can choose to be content or you can choose to be jealous, and if you have a jealousy issue, stop scrolling social media. Just stop. Today's not the day for that. The third thing that will help you shift From scarcity to abundance is just being resourceful use your resources wisely. This is 1 of 1 of the 10 Girl Scout laws says we will use our resources wisely be resourceful. What do you have in your home that can help you make some more money? What do you have in your home that can bless other people? Maybe you don't even need to make money. Maybe you just need to go out and be a blessing and share. You know, I read an article this week and oh, goodness. I wish I could remember where it was. But it said that people that are giving people actually make more money on average. In fact, people that have a pattern of generosity tend to give a dollar and make a dollar 60. Whoa. Can you imagine you give away 100 dollars, you get 160 dollars back. That's a great increase. Yes, please. I'll sign up for that. Thank you. I'll take a 60 percent return on my money. You're not going to get that kind of return in the stock market, but you can get that kind of return with your generosity. The tighter you hold on to your money, the less room there is for anything to get in. But if you can hold your money loosely, give a little bit of it away, more of it will come back to you. We're going to go from scarcity to abundance. You have to have an abundant mindset to be generous and people love working with generous people. People love being around generous people. We're going to get you to abundance and let me tell you. As we are moving from scarcity to abundance, I want to celebrate with you celebrate the small things celebrate the big things. Celebrate! I had a meeting with my clients this week, and they were just saying, I just wish there's more progress. I just wish there's more progress. And I said, okay, great. Pay off your credit card right now. What? Well, we're going to no, no, no, no, sit down, pay off your credit card. We're doing it right now on the call. I'm not going to say another word. I'm not going to coach you anymore until you pay it off. And so they did. And man, they felt a huge relief, and it wasn't a big amount. It's not like they were paying off 60, 000 of their debt. They have a large number. They're going to be working for a while, but they paid off nearly 5, 000 of debt in that single moment. You could see the weight melt off their shoulders, and they just felt so good, partly because they had made a dent in their debt and partly because they'd made progress. And so their homework for this week is to sit down and celebrate: to find a time to crack open a couple of cold beers and just say cheers to you We've made the next step, I promise you celebrating your progress, creating small celebrations along the way is going to be a wonderful, wonderful part of your process of your progress and going from scarcity to abundance. We can talk in another episode about building generational wealth and the long term benefits of adopting abundance mindset and how it will have an impact not only on you, but on your future generations. We'll talk about that in another episode. This one's getting a little long. But my friends, I want to encourage you, you can go from scarcity to abundance and all you have to do. All you have to do is pay attention. If I brought anything up at all today, and you're like this psychological toll of this is too much, I feel financially strapped. I'm just stressed out all the time. I have anxiety. All of my relationships are strained. If you are fighting in your marriage because of money, call me, please. Don't wait. The most common reason for divorce in America is money fights and money problems. Don't allow that to be a situation for you. We don't have to live in a perpetual state of financial anxiety. You don't have to. I used to. I did until I decided one day that I wasn't going to live that way anymore. And that is the day that I changed my life. Not when I finished paying off the 372, 347 in debt. No, I changed my life the day that I decided I wasn't going to live that way anymore. You can change your life today if you make the decision. You decide today, you're not going to live that way anymore. My friends, please reach out to me. You can find me on Instagram at accelerate your legacy, or you can send me an email. Laura at accelerate your legacy. com. If you have a friend who is stressed about money, send this to them, please. I would love to be there in their ears every week to encourage them and show them what it's like to live in financial peace, to live abundantly free. That's it for this week, Accelerators. Go out and make a difference. Thank you for investing your time with us today on the Accelerate Your Legacy podcast. Remember, your legacy isn't just measured in dollars and cents, but in the tools, habits, mindset, and reputation you leave behind. Don't just listen to the show, but take action on what you've learned. Share this wisdom with a friend who can benefit and help us spread the word by rating and reviewing the podcast. For questions or encouragement, reach out to me on Instagram at Accelerate Your Legacy or explore the resources listed in the show notes. I will be back with you next week. Until then, build your legacy with intention.