Breaking Free From the Scarcity Mindset: How to Pursue What You're Passionate About with Randy Gage
When you think of pursuing your life's true calling, what comes to mind? Does it excite you, or do you feel anxious, uncertain, or overwhelmed? Perhaps you know deep down that you're destined for greatness, but you're not sure what that is or how it can be achieved. Our upbringing and media may have shaped our fear-based mindset.
Now if you are like most people, you've probably heard of the term scarcity mindset, but don't really know what it means. Don't worry, in this episode, we are breaking down what scarcity is and how you can build an abundant mindset.
In This Episode, You Will Learn About:
Source of a scarcity mindset
Poverty vs prosperity consciousness
Steps to create a new and better you
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About our guest:
Randy Gage is a thought-provoking critical thinker who will make you approach your business — and your life — in a whole new way. Randy is the author of 14 books translated into 25 languages, including his recent worldwide best seller, Radical Rebirth.
He has spoken to more than 2 million people across more than 50 countries and is a member of both the Speakers Hall of Fame and the Direct Selling Hall of Fame. When he is not prowling the podium or locked in his lonely writer’s garret, you’ll probably find him playing 3rd base for a softball team somewhere.
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The Scarcity Mindset
We hear about a scarcity mindset. Not all of us really know what that means and how it affects our everyday lives and the achieving of goals that we wanna accomplish. Will you share with us a little bit about what a scarcity mindset is?
Yeah. The term I would use is poverty consciousness versus prosperity consciousness. So when you're operating your life from prosperity consciousness, you're going toward positive things. When you're living in poverty consciousness, probably, fear-based, you're running away from negative things. Poverty consciousness is people who wanna quibble and negotiate and bargain on everything they buy. They make every decision at the lowest possible cost. They don't ever splurge themselves. So if you have prosperity consciousness, you'd say, “Hey, I'm gonna give myself a spa day for doing this great accomplishment.” If you have prosperity consciousness, you'd say, “Hey, I should get a massage once a week.” Because if everybody in the world got a massage once a week, there would be no war.
Poverty consciousness is a lot of it got worse during the Great Depression. That generation passed it on to our grandparents who passed it on to our parents who passed it on to us. If you say, “Hey, let's order a pizza.” The first thing they're gonna say is, “Okay, let me check the coupon drawer and see where I have the best coupon.” It would never occur to them what pizza you like the most. What's the one you wanna order?
The idea of flying first class or business class, their heads would explode. Some people, just can't ever justify paying more for anything. Scarcity mindset is defining that part of the consciousness that is always thinking that prosperity is finite, that it's limited, and that if we give some to Mary it has to come from Becky.
And that's just a bad premise. Because all the true elements of prosperity, money, love, happiness, hugs, whatever—they're infinite. The more you give out, the more you give back. So the scarcity mindset is the one that thinks, “Well, no, it's limited. I made this money, I gotta hang onto it with a death grip.”
And for those of us who grew up in similar environments—I also grew up where we didn't have a lot of money, I often heard this. We don't have money. We don't have money. We would make family vacations and cancel them at the last minute because we were scared that we weren't gonna have enough money. I can only imagine how that affects us in the long term when it comes to whether or not we take risks in life, or also how we reward ourselves for some of our accomplishments. I know individuals who have the money and the resources. To buy the boat that they want, to buy the house that they want, to splurge on items, but they don't because they constantly live in this fear of, “Well, what if I lose my job tomorrow?” Or “What if the market crashes and we don't have money?” They're constantly living in that fear.
Advice to Those Who Fear to Live Without Money
This is the essence of my work for 30 years—coaching people through that. And for some people, including me, it was a really arduous process. Because I just got the same programming my family has. It's like you get it from your mother when you're being breastfed. It's so pervasive and so if you asked me to, “Hey, let's go to dinner.” Well, “No, it's downtown. We're not gonna find anywhere to park. You know what, it's probably gonna be crowded.” Whatever you would propose, my negative, instinctive, knee-jerk reaction was why that really shouldn't work, couldn't work, won't work. You know, don't do it. Stay the course, whatever.
It's brainwashing. There's no other way to say it. It's complete and total brainwashing. And you were brainwashed for decades. For decades. We were talking before we hit record about my book, Radical Rebirth, which I suggested you read. In there I lay out what I think are the six main areas for life.
What's gonna determine if you have a healthy, happy, prosperous life? So you've got money and success, a job and career, marriage and relationships, health and wellness, right? So I take each of those six and break down just how insidious the negative programming is in each one of those areas. And in each one of those areas, I can show you that you probably were indoctrinated before you were eight years old. Because you know, you were mentioning, they say, “Well, we don't have money. Hey, money doesn't grow on trees.” We were talking about my podcast where I'm talking about the movies, right? And the very first Spider-Man movie, which started the whole superhero blockbuster genre. There's a scene where Peter Parker is talking to his aunt. And his uncle says, “We may not be rich, but at least we're honest.” Well, think about that for a minute. What does that mean? What do you know? Translate that. That means rich people are evil. Poor people are noble. You should be happy that you're poor.
So you bought some popcorn and some milk duds and you think you're enjoying a little escape in this movie? No, you're still being brainwashed with the same crap you learned as a child. You know, that. And it's just reinforced, reinforce, reinforce. So, for me, to this day I still do daily self-development time.
But that was the kind of the way out for me. I counter-programmed all of those limiting beliefs with positive programming, and it took me a couple of years, really assiduously work, really deeply in this area. And then I still find myself now and then backsliding and having those negative thoughts. But there's a tipping point when you get up to 51% of positive thoughts, then the snowball's going down the hill instead of up. So 51 will turn into 53 and 53 will turn into 55, and you'll keep building on. But until you get to that 51%, one of the things I used to do was I used to carry a rubber band and I kept it on my wrist. And every time I had a negative thought, a limiting belief like that, I'd snap the rubber band just to change my state and remind myself, “Okay, no, no, no, that belief doesn't serve me.”
I spent a lot of time also at that moment trying to overcome these limiting beliefs, and one of my friends said something that resonated that I've also practiced today in helping me overcome those limiting beliefs, which is, looking at my bank account and some of the accomplishments that I've had throughout the years and saying–cause I would live in this moment of going— “Well, I don't wanna spend money,” or “I don't have enough money.” That belief was taught at such a young age, but what was it doing? It was preventing me from living my life, traveling, and going on vacation. So it's checking myself and saying, “Well, in all reality, if everything hit the fan tomorrow and I lost. I didn't have a job. It wasn't making it. I could financially support myself for quite a while.” And so is it worth living in that scarcity mindset or the poverty mindset and not enjoying life to its fulfillment? Because we can't promise tomorrow; why are we holding back and not enjoying our life today?
If you're a woman who's five foot four inches and you weigh 80 pounds, great, and you wanna fly economy on an airplane because you're saving some money and you're gonna use it to buy your grandchildren Christmas toys. All right if that's your thing. But if you're the average person, that seat gets smaller every couple of years. It's made for people who are 5, 10, maximum, 160 pounds. The average person now is like 230 pounds. Even 16-year-old kids and 17-year-old kids are seven feet tall. Because of genetics and steroids and, you know, good stuff and bad stuff. Nutrition and hormones and steroids and stuff. People are just bigger and our diet is horrific so people are overweight. I know people who are very wealthy, who probably have a net worth of 15 million, and they always fly economy cuz they say, “Come on, the economy is $300, first class is $1,500. That's such a waste of $1,200.” Well, I think you need to work on your self-esteem.
There's a guy, he's a prosperity guru. He writes books on prosperity. I was listening to him. He was on a podcast with Tim Ferris and I like the guy. Good stuff. I read his book. It's a good book, but he was like saying how, if the flight was more than four hours, then he would fly business class. And I'm like, come on, you're supposed to be a prosperity guy. You should be in a position in your life now where you can do that. And like I say, if you're 80 pounds maybe it's not a big deal to you. But it's just the whole service, the whole cattle car mentality in the back. And don't get me wrong—when I started my business, I was a flying coach. I was sitting in role 38 in the middle seat across from the lab doing what I had to do to grow my business, right? You do what you gotta do. But every time I got on a plane and walked by those first-class seats, I told myself, “I'm going to get to the point where I can fly in first class.” And I used it to drive me, you know? And then I just got to the point. So, I called my travel agent and I said, “Okay, don't ever book me an economy again.”
I've made the jump from here on, and it's like the first few trips after that, she would say, “Okay. I know you wanna fly first class, but just want you to know that you know the ticket's $2,000 and if you flew economy, it'd be 650”.
“Isabel, don't send me those numbers. I don't wanna see 'em. It's a self-esteem issue for me.” You know, I'm six foot two. I'm a big guy. Those planes, they're not made for me. It's not about status or signaling. It's about comfort. In my case, I'm flying all over the world. So I need to get on a flight where I can sleep, and have a lay flatbed. I can have a good meal. I can have entertainment. I got room, I can pull up my laptop, I can plug it in and work, and I can arrive at my event fresh cause I had a productive flight, rested, well-fed, and have done my best job. If you're flying the 15-hour flight from LA to Sydney and you're doing that in the economy, what kind of shape are you gonna be in by the time you land?
I would imagine the same applies to a car. For those of you out there that are listening, that aren't traveling as much as maybe you and I are, even the car, when you think about if you're commuting each day an hour and back to work hour there, an hour back, you're spending two hours a day in your car. So yes, could a car get you from point A to point B? But the comfort in sitting in a luxurious car, that's more comfortable. Better sound system. Has a sunroof. Has little air support, and lumber support in your back. I remember people would always question me, “Why do you buy luxury cars?” It's the comfort. I spend the majority of my time in my car. I want to be comfortable.
The point A to point B, I'm always talking about that. It's the perfect example of poverty consciousness. If you've ever been in a Bentley Continental GT and you've been in a Chevy Metro or Geo or something, you cannot say they're the same. You're just going from point A to point B. You can't tell me, “Okay. When you turn off the light, the hotel room is the same anyway.” No, it's not. You can have a suite on the ocean with a view, a good mattress, with space to breathe and be harmonious, and have luxuries, like soundproofing in the walls. As opposed to staying at a road star eight or whatever, and you can hear the conversation in each room beside you. You hear the ice machine crashing all night long every time the elevators come; the mattress is cheap. It's should have been replaced five years ago. The carpet is ratty, it's dirty.
And I wanna emphasize too: you are not somebody that came from a wealthy family. Your first car, if I remember correctly, was it a 200 or $600 mail truck?
That wasn't my first car, but that was one of my cars. I bought a mail car at the auction from the post office. I paid $200 for it and it didn't have a passenger seat cuz that's where they kept the mail trays. It was made for delivery. The floorboards were rusted out. It was like the Flintstones; I could put my feet through the floor of the car. Yeah, I came from a very poor upbringing. So I'm not some trust fund baby, who's like, “Come on, why's the big deal? Why doesn't everybody fly first class?” No, I'm saying be prudent, but believe in yourself, invest in yourself. Find the things that are important to you. So I'm a car guy. I love luxury cars. I love exotic cars, and sports cars. I spent millions of dollars on cars. You can't justify it from an investment standpoint, right? And a lot of people try. It's like, “Well, you know, my Lamborghini's good.” No, it's a terrible investment.
Well, if you drive a car like that out of the showroom, you lose hundred grand in the blue book value as soon as you get out of the drive. But if you love cars as I do, then I don't care because I spend millions of dollars on cars, but I had the millions of dollars to do it. I don't finance them. I pay cash for them.
I earned the money and I pay cash. So a lot of you watching or listening. Maybe cars aren't your thing. Maybe for you, it's a ski lodge and Aspen. Maybe it's a bungalow down in Costa Rica. Maybe it's Harley, you know, whatever. But you gotta think about the things in your life that really matter to you and that really would enhance your health, happiness, and prosperity. And those are the ones. Don't skimp on 'em. Don't go the poverty consciousness route.
For Those Who Want to Take the Leap
So when it comes, I know that in your book, and I'm so excited to read your book, you go into all aspects of our life, whether it's our marriage or relationships, but let's hone in a little bit on career, whether it's how poverty mindset or conscious mindset plays into our career, or also whether we're starting a business. Cause I have a lot of listeners out there who are like, “I wanna get a new job,” but they're in a toxic work environment and they're scared to make the leap because they might think of that negative mindset. They think that maybe that's gonna be the next job as well. Can't get any better than where they're at. Or maybe they thought about starting in business, but then their thought process goes in is, “Well, what if I don't make money and how am I gonna provide for my family?” What advice do you have for those listeners?
Toxic job, man. Life is way, way, way too short to work in a toxic environment. And life is way, way, way too short to live in a toxic marriage or relationship. If you look at the percentage of your life that you spend at work, that you spend with your significant other, you cannot stay in a toxic, dysfunctional scenario like that. It's just the drum beat, the steady drum beat of capitulation.
Your life becomes so rote and meaningless and arduous. You just gotta get out of toxic relationships of any kind as quickly as you can. Be prudent. There are safety and security issues sometimes with relationships with jobs. You don't wanna just drop and not have something to go, but you can be putting out feelers, updating your resume, putting a post on Indeed or LinkedIn or something. There are better opportunities. The business thing—not everybody's cut out to be an entrepreneur. It took me a while to really recognize that because I just feel like everybody should be their own boss. It's like we need people to work at McDonald's and Taco Bell and the supermarket and the convenience store and whatever, but those should be entry-level jobs and grow through them, and then work your way up to the highest possible version of yourself.
That highest version of yourself may not be an entrepreneur going into your own business. It's definitely a different mindset. Elon Musk, I'm paraphrasing him, but basically, he equated entrepreneurship with staring into the galaxy, chewing glass—it's tough.
That's abrasive. I mean, I've been making payroll for 40 years, so I've made it work, but there were times it was touch and go. For me, at this point in my life, I'm psychologically unemployable if I work for somebody. One of us is gonna be dead, and I don't know which one, but it'll be one of us. So it's better I don't work for anybody. But not everybody's that way. That entrepreneurial gene isn't there for everyone. So, you can have a very lucrative career working for other people. You know, there are very good high-paying, rewarding, fulfilling jobs out there. But I'm a big, big believer in side cakes.
You know, I've done direct selling my whole life. I think that's a wonderful way for people to experiment. Now, you know, Uber, Uber Eats, Lyft, delivering pizzas, or working a couple of days a week at Starbucks as a barista or whatever. Selling stuff on eBay, opening, and creating a store on Alibaba, and social media influencing. I mean, there are a lot of options today for how someone can make money as an entrepreneur and not have to quit their job. So that would be my advice for someone who's not sure about this, go on and do a side gig thing and see how you take to the entrepreneurial life.
I'm working with a lot of women right now who are in corporate, however, they have a calling inside. They have this voice inside that they wanna do more, but they don't necessarily know what it is. And so they're starting to explore that side hustle and having the financials of their corporate job and, and the freedom to hire some support while they. While they launch this new business, and then they get to explore whether they're gonna keep it as a side hustle or whether this is gonna be the next chapter in their life and in their career. But it's extraordinary to see their journey and being part of that process is very fulfilling.
I love to hear that. That's what I love to do. What people should do is find out, like we have this crazy belief in our society that you should know what you wanna do. By the time you're 22, you don't even know who you are. Your brain just barely finished developing. Go out, take a year off, travel the world, go on a sabbatical, go do a foreign exchange program. Try different things out. It amazes me how many 25 and 30-year-old people are just beating themselves up because they haven't found their calling in life.
And you know, that's going to evolve over time. And for me, I felt like life began when I turned 50. That's when you know who you are. You've made all the dumb, stupid major mistakes that you need to make you learn. You got some money now, you got some freedom. Now you got equity in all kinds of relationships and situations and whatever. And for me, that was the real, when I felt like now I'm really living. So, I think people gotta put less pressure on themselves.
That is excellent advice. There are a lot of people out there that do put that pressure on themselves. I hear this often— “I should have everything figured out by this point. I should know what I want to do.” And the reality is we change over time. What we did yesterday may not be what we want to do tomorrow. My husband was a very successful entrepreneur, owned his own business, graduated with his MBA, and after graduating, closed his business and joined the Army at 32 years old.
Talk about a radical shift in what he was doing, but he was searching for something with purpose and fulfillment, and that's why he made that change. And I left corporate at 37 and started my own business. I thoroughly enjoy the journey and look at what the future brings, and it may even change five years from now, who knows?
But it's never too late to explore whether you're working for a company and exploring a different industry, a different role, or whether you're, whether you're thinking about starting that side hustle or branching out entirely on your own, it is never too late to pursue your dreams.
Yeah, I was like 30; I was running a restaurant with a partner. We opened it. We didn't really have the money. We were trying to bootstrap it. We couldn't pay the taxes. The IRS came and seized the restaurant. And I thought that was the most horrific day of my life. And now I look back on it and say that is the greatest blessing that ever happened to me.
Because that's where I started out. You know, I was expelled from school at 15-16. So I didn't go to college. I didn't have any of that stuff. I started as a minimum-wage dishwasher. I worked my way up, became a cook, and a manager trainee, and then a manager, and then I open a restaurant cause that seemed to be a great career path.I was working 80, 90, or hundred hours a week, every week, no days off, no vacations. I mean, just crazy. A vacation would be two and a half days. A day off often means I would go in, do my schedule, do the orders, take the inventory, and if everybody showed up for the shift, then I could take the rest of the day off and go to dinner or something. But it's all I knew. It's all I knew. I didn't know what else was out there. And by them seizing the restaurant, it forced me to rethink my life at 30 years old and put me on the path to my career where I am now. So, you know, and my friends like to joke, you know? Is Randy on his fourth midlife crisis or is this his fifth midlife crisis?
I'm not sure. Because I'm always reinventing myself cuz I don't wanna be stagnant. I don't wanna—seven years, I kind of run. If you believe in numerology and some of that kind of formulations, there's something to be said for like seven-year cycles in life. And after seven years, it's might be time to shake some things up.
