Scarcity and Abundance “Scarcity sells.” These two words flew from the lips of a director of a senior sales team from a major corporation who gathered from coast-to-coast in Toronto, and with whom I had the privilege of investing two fabulous days of training in the disciplines of negotiation and lead generation. In reflecting on this statement, I was reminded of its reality, and of the implications and impact of its truth. Later this summer I will travel to Vancouver for a short presentation with another senior sales team of a global organization, who are gathering from California, the Pacific northwest and western Canada, where I will again address the topic of negotiation. In planning for my trip, I have been trying to book a rental car for a few days…during what turns out for some reason to be a very busy time for car rental agencies in Vancouver. Daily rental costs have soared to nearly $100, when in slower seasons I could easily find a car for less than $50 a day. I abhor the fact that when the market demand exceeds the supply, vendors can charge and get exorbitant and obscene prices for their products or services. Yes, indeed, “scarcity sells.” Scarcity invokes the fear factor, a primary motivator in all human behavior. The fear that there won’t be enough to go around compels the vendor to raise the price, extol the uniqueness of the product or service, and appeal to human fear of being left out, excluded, or denied access… the fear of losing. While these are the observed behaviors at the surface, there are more subtle and potentially insidious factors that play out when a mentality of scarcity pervades our thinking. While at dinner with the group mentioned in my opening paragraph, I found occasion to illustrate one of the principles that works beneath the surface of scarcity thinking. The principle is simply this: “A scarcity mentality leads to comparative thinking and competitive behavior.” Since we were a group of a dozen or so, and I was seated at the end of the table, I could only engage in meaningful conversation with a few people. Appetizers had been ordered, but hadn’t yet arrived. We were hungry. The basket of bread that had been placed for the four of us at the end had two remaining buns. I commented to my fellow diners that if I subscribed to a mentality of scarcity, I might assume that there was no more bread available for us. Therefore, if I want one of those buns, I must prepare and present a case to justify why I am more worthy of receiving it than my fellow diners. In so doing, I engage in comparative thinking and competitive behavior. In “building myself up” to be the more worthy candidate, I must by the same token, “strip you down” as a less worthy candidate. My scarcity mentality drives me to comparative and completive thinking. To extrapolate that principle into everyday behavior is to recognize that a scarcity mentality compels us to compare and compete with others at every level of relationships and interactions. If there is not enough love to meet both of our needs, then I will make myself more worthy of love than you. So I will “belittle” you in some way to justify why my needs should be met at the expense of neglecting yours. This same principle is at the core of arguments as to who is right and who is wrong. Since there’s not enough “rightness” to go around, I subscribe to “absolutism” and am forced to prove you wrong in order for me to be right. Whether the appetite or need is for attention, affirmation, acceptance, appreciation, accuracy, expression, or recognition, etc., the scarcity mentality compels me to compare and compete, and to position myself as the more worthy candidate. This “fixed-pie” approach to life is stifling, and ultimately suffocating. It drives me to gather and garner for myself, and to hold close to my chest all that I’ve harvested. I will operate from the dreadful fear that there is not “enough” to go around, and that fear will compel me to keep pursuing the unsatisfying gratification of more, more, more and never enough. In negotiation (which, by the way, we engage in in ALL of life: every relationship is an ongoing negotiation), I will operate from a win-lose modus operandi. My prevailing belief is that if you get your needs met, I can’t get my needs met. I will compete. And in competing, I will invariably first compare: myself to you, and why I’m “better” than you, in some way more worthy than you, and thus will succumb to the need to put you down so that I can emerge above you. So, if this is true, how does one rise above it? ONLY through adopting and practicing a mentality of abundance. When I operate from abundance, I believe that there truly is more than enough. There is more than enough work for every independent consultant, so if you get the assignment, it doesn’t mean that I’m going to starve. There is more than enough love to go around, so therefore I can freely love (not talking about free love here, my beloved religious friends), truly love by giving of myself to others with no fear that there is love is somehow in short supply. I can push my needs aside to focus on yours, and make every effort to help you get your needs met, knowing that there is more than enough for me. I can let you be right, because I know that “rightness” is seldom absolute, and that it’s okay for me to give that up. A mentality of abundance frees me from the comparative, competitive drive that fuels greed and avarice. It empowers me to practice true love, which places your needs above my own. It enables me to release my prejudices and judgments of others, to practice unconditional acceptance of others, to surrender the presumed prerogative of evaluating, labeling, accepting, rejecting, approving or disapproving. Granted, this is not easily achieved. Being raised in a religious regimen that ranked the relative “rightness” of other belief systems (ours was of course at the top), this has required a quantum leap in my thinking. For those of you who might wonder if I’ve abandoned my core beliefs in getting there, let me assure you that I have not. As a caveat, I must address a stark reality embedded in the principle and practice of abundance. And that reality is that there is no guarantee of reciprocity. From my personal experience, where I’ve sought to practice this in relationships, I initially presumed naively (or at least hoped), that there would be a reciprocal and mutual response when I sought to put the other’s needs first. And more than once, I have found that it doesn’t necessarily work that way. But in those experiences, I discovered another principle. One may not always reap where you’ve sown, but you will inevitably reap what you’ve sown. Therefore, I no longer look to “where” I’ve planted seeds for a harvest. But I’ve lived long enough to experience the reality of the “law of the harvest”: that invariably, one will reap based on what you’ve planted. (I’ve experienced this in both its positive and negative implications). Do I always consistently live by the principle and practice of abundance? Admittedly, and unfortunately, the answer is a resounding “No.” Do I still hold it as an ideal, and a goal to which I am aspiring? Yes. Scarcity sells. Abundance gives.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 18:03:37 +0000
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