Abundance mentality comes natural for me, even when I was a broke law student, living on student loans. Let's get the definitions out of the way real fast:

  • Abundance Mentality: To be bare-bones, if you believe you have options, you have abundance. This applies to finances, time, relationships, sex, etc.

  • Humility: Having a right perception of who you are before God and man.


Discerning Humility

I do not have an abundance of Ferraris in my garage, nor do I have the option to to have an abundance of them. I might be able to have one if I took out a loan. I am humble about the fact that I'm not a Ferrari-owner.

I do have an abundance of racquetball skills. I can play pretty much anyone I want and know I'm probably going to win. I am also humble about this. In all due humility, I can look a man in the eyes with a straight face and tell him, "I am probably the best racquetball player you know." Why? Because it's true. Now, if I go on and on about my skills, I have shifted to bragging, which usually relates to pride. Humility doesn't mean downplaying yourself; but it does involve downplaying how much you talk about yourself. Confidence or cocky/funny techniques do not defy humility, if they are delivered appropriately and revert to basic rules of being a good conversationalist: listen more than you talk.

Jesus could say point blank, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6), essentially declaring himself to be the single most important person in all of human history - and yet he has not lost his humility in such a bold claim because he is speaking accurately of himself. Moreover, we see Jesus engaging with other people on their own terms far more often than we see him bragging about his status as a divine savior. You'd think this would be something Jesus would be shouting from the rooftops: "I am your savior! Come follow me!" Instead, he's constantly running from the crowds, rarely ever looking for them, occasionally even saying things that cause people to walk away from him (more on that in 300-level stuff to come).


Contentment: The Path to Abundance Mentality

RP spends a lot of time deconditioning people from the social agenda of the Western World. One such agenda should be the American Dream. "If you try hard enough, you can have a great job, lots of money, a hot spouse, beautiful house, etc." There's nothing wrong with wanting to improve your life circumstances. But the fact of the matter is that not everyone is going to be a millionaire. The American dream is impossible for everyone. Even if it you can get it done, there's an important step along the way: contentment.

Paul says in Philippians 4, "I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation ... whether living in plenty [abundance] or in want [scarcity] ... I can do all things through him who gives me strength." That oft quoted 4:13 verse doesn't mean you can faith yourself some wings and fly! It means that no matter how hard things get, you can do it because Jesus empowers you. Paul concludes the book: "And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus." See Matthew 6:33 (and the passage before) for more affirmation from Jesus' own mouth.

When we are content, we are only one step away from experiencing abundance mentality. I say "mentality" because "abundance" itself is a very nebulous concept. Just this morning I saw a comment on TRP saying, "Nobody can be red pill if you only make $40,000/yr." This is idiotic. I've known millionaires who did not feel like they were living in abundance. If a person perceives himself to have options, he will feel like he's living in abundance and will radiate abundance, even if he is not in relative abundance with respect to those around him. To people in third world countries, an impoverished American citizen lives in abundance, but that American doesn't usually experience an abundance mentality - he experiences a scarcity mentality.


Scarcity: The Path Away from Abundance Mentality

I see post after post on TRP/MRP saying things like, "How do you guys do it? Where do you find the time? How do you get the money? Find the friends?" All of this stems from a lack of contentment. "If only I had a little more ___ ..." is the mantra. When we think this way about our lives, abundance is impossible. We're desperately trying to increase one resource, but exhausting two others to get it. Eventually people just feel broken. The eat-work-sleep cycle gives a defeatist attitude. I shouldn't have to spell this out, but it's worth being clear: If we think we don't have enough, then we are slaves to our scarcity and can't live like we have options.

The resource-swap game is the pit that people with a scarcity mentality get stuck in. We're slaves to the next "need" on our list of scarce things in life. Sometimes that means you're so exhausted that you withdraw from your savings [money] to afford a couple days off work [time]. Other times it means reading sidebar for a few hours instead of mowing your lawn [time] so you can figure out how to impress been pining over [relationship]. Or it could dropping frame [relationship] to vent those feels that have been killing you [emotional]. Whatever it is - stop playing the resource-swap game. If you're constantly putting one resource in debt to pay the debt on another resource, you'll never get out and you'll never be satisfied.


Acquiring Abundance Mentality

If you're not living in an abundance mentality, here are a few steps I've coached men through that can really help:

Step 1: Identify your scarcity mentality - all the ways you feel pressured to do something to get something (i.e. the resource swap game). Throw that crap out the window. How? Read Philippians 4 - pray about it, meditate on it, and memorize the whole chapter. Heck, memorize the whole book. Philippians is the most RP book of the Bible I know. It's 104 verses. At 2 verses/wk you'll have the whole book memorized in exactly a year. No excuses. Do it.

Step 2: Start with money. This is where most people feel like they're lacking abundance - because more is never enough. Develop a skeletal budget - something you know is beneath your capabilities. Live on that budget for 3 months and put everything else into a separate bank account.

  • No eating out. No buying name-brand stuff. No junk food. No new clothes. Replace your own break pads - watch a YouTube video (it's not hard). Ditch the 3-bedroom apartment for a 2-bedroom if you're really that tight on your budget. Don't live beyond your means. This will help you really learn to OYS, while giving you some extra bank as well. Just don't cheat. If you really can't fathom how this will work, go hang out with hispanic immigrants for a week - learn from them. They really have this low-budget/abundance mentality thing figured out.

  • Your real purpose in this phase is to learn to be content with little to nothing. Paul goes on and on about how his life was made and how great things were before Christ, then concludes: "But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish." Where was that? Oh yeah, Philippians 3 - the whole book ... memorize it.

Step 3: Time. When you learn to be content with nothing, you'll start to realize your financial excess. Once you have a financial abundance mentality (which, again, is all relative - if you're making $20k/yr you're in financial abundance relative to 90%+ of the world), start utilizing that financial excess for things that free up other resources that are harder to self-generate, like time.

  • Hire someone to clean your house for $100/mo, or mow your yard for $20 every couple weeks. Pay the $5 fee to have someone do your grocery shopping for you and have it delivered to your door. These seem like luxuries, but you're really buying your time back. Your scarcity of time is going away and you'll have an abundance of it. 9 times out of 10, once you've figured out that budget, the excess finances are better served buying harder-to-acquire resources [time, relationship, etc.] rather than more stuff. Always start with time. This is the easiest non-producible resource to buy. At this point, go ahead and pay the mechanic to change your break pads - if you think the cost/time ratio for that investment is better than for another investment.

  • Note: This is different from the "resource swap game" because instead of going in the negative on one to get out of the negative on another, you're spending excess of one for more of another. Huge difference there.

Step 4: Once you have an abundance of time, you'll have more opportunity to head to the gym, read sidebar, practice game, etc. What you're doing here is spending your newly acquired abundance of time to improve yourself and acquire an abundance in your relational life, whether with your spouse or, if you're single, trying to find a date. Incidentally, this self-improvement will almost certainly improve your confidence and dominance in your vocation, helping you shift upward, earning more money, giving more abundance to buy more time to spend on more self-improvement, to get/keep that girl on fire for you - and a positive feedback loop is formed.


Humility Revisited

Notice that in all of this I never said, "Go flaunting how much abundance you have." That's for chumps. Betas try to impress people. Alphas are impressive people - not because of objective abundance (which doesn't exist), but because of an abundance mentality. They don't flaunt it; they just have to be it. When you feel like you have the option to decide what to do with your time, how to spend your money, what to do with your wife, which girl to ask out, etc. ... you're not cultivating pride, you're cultivating freedom. Jesus came to set us free (John 8:36). Know what that freedom leads to? You knew I couldn't write this post without this reference: "I came that they may have life and have it abundantly" (John 10:10).