Mod. 6.1 - Abundance is Enough

In working together towards better futures for all, the notion of abundance tends to come up a lot. But what, precisely, do we mean by abundance? Does better futures for all mean more for everyone? How do we square that with life on a planet with finite resources?

Watch Designing for Generosity a TED-x Talk by Nipun Mehta.

Reflect on your personal approaches/strategies to creating abundance for yourself and those around you. Do the ways and principles of "Giftivism" appeal to you? How are the 4 mindset (mental-model/worldview) shifts that Nipun talks about -- 1. Consumption to Contribution, 2. Transaction to Trust, 3. Isolation to Community, 4. Scarcity to Abundance -- playing out in your life and work?

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I’ve seen the practice of “Consumption to Contribution” employed by many parents and teachers in a way that was recently exemplified in an episode of Abbott Elementary. The teachers share what they have available to them with their students and never make them feel that they don't have enough or that they are missing any resources in their lives. As a result, the students believe they have everything they need in order to be successful and don't develop a sense of lacking from the resources they do have available to them, regardless of their limitations. In fact, what often results is that the students find imaginative and new ways of using their resources.

This example also dovetails with the practice of moving from Transaction to Trust because the teachers are all trying to provide for their students while competing with each other for limited resources determined by the School District. Rather than comply with the transactional nature in which they receive the funds they need, they learn to trust one another and share supplies and find creative solutions to meet their students’ needs.

Similarly, the feeling of isolation and “every man for himself” that can permeate through individuals working within a system designed to make coworkers view each other as competitors, they flip the script and create community with one another. This shift also supports their individual and collective capacity to move away from a mindset of scarcity to one of abundance. Abundance, not in terms of resources, but in terms of valuing the resources that are available.

In my own work I’ve been working at the balancing act of learning to value the people, places and resources already in place within the company and culture, and not simply presume that additional or different resources I’m aware of, and know would be greatly beneficial, provide sufficient cause for charging forward.