What Entrepreneurs Know About Abundance

Do you want to create abundance in your life? The single best strategy to do that is to become an entrepreneur. Why? Because the mindset and actions of entrepreneurs are the same mindset and actions that produce abundance.

“Entrepreneur” is one of those umbrella terms that can cover a range of meanings. In essence, an entrepreneur wants more out of life and is willing to do what it takes to have it. An entrepreneur is a dreamer, but dreamers are not always entrepreneurs. The primary skill of the entrepreneur is to imagine what doesn’t now exist, and to take actions to create it.

It’s true. Entrepreneurs are always “up to something.” Talk with an entrepreneur and you will hear some big plan, some bold idea, some powerful dream to create something that doesn’t currently exist.

Compare someone who buys lotto tickets each week with the hope of striking it rich with the entrepreneur who sets out to create a profitable business. One hopes for an outcome. The other takes action to create an outcome.

Of the two choices, acting to create wealth has vastly greater probability of success than hoping to win a jackpot. Certainly, people do win jackpots, but the odds are miniscule. And the sad result is that many lotto winners end up worse off than they were before winning because they have no idea how to handle the money.

Years ago, there was a TV show called “The Millionaire.” Each week, a rich man sent his assistant out to give a million dollar cashier’s check to someone. The point of the show was to see how the money changed the recipient. It was usually not for the better.

When my adult son first watched the movie, “The Secret,” he objected to one dramatic episode. A boy wants a bicycle. He hopes and dreams for the bicycle and spends time gazing excitedly at a picture of the exact bike he wants. And then he sees the bike in the window of the bicycle shop with a “SOLD” sign on it. The boy becomes upset and gives up hope for the bicycle. After a period of despair, he again focuses his hopes and dreams upon receiving the bicycle. Throughout the entire episode, he does nothing but dream. The episode ends when the child opens the door to find his grandfather with the coveted bike as a present. We last see the boy riding off happily on his new bicycle.

The episode is meant to demonstrate that happy and excited thoughts focused on a desired outcome will result in getting what you want. In the language of “The Secret,” the boy “manifested” his bicycle as a result of his concentrated positive thoughts and feelings.

My son contrasted this story with his own experience. When he was in middle school, he wanted a Go-Kart. We said he could have one if he earned the money for it. So he went out and offered to work for people in the area. He raked leaves, swept driveways, and did other odd jobs. In a short period of time, he earned enough money to buy his Go-Kart. He manifested his Go-Kart as the result of concentrated intention and hard work. He has commented more than once in the years since that we did him a great favor by encouraging him to work to buy his Go-Kart rather than to buy it for him. It taught him that he could have what he wanted by taking focused action to get it.

I don’t mean to dispute the possibility that people can manifest what they want to have by concentrated thought. In a world of quantum possibilities, the mind is a powerful creator. I do mean to make the point that entrepreneurs are much more likely to get what they want than dreamers are, because dreamers merely dream, hoping for an outcome. Entrepreneurs act upon their dreams.

So many of the stories addressed to children use magic as a means of manifestation. Fairy godmothers wave magic wands, genies grant wishes, boy wizards recite magic incantations. Children also learn about Santa Claus with his flying reindeer as the great wish fulfiller, a giant rabbit who brings colored eggs and candy, and tooth fairies who exchange baby teeth for cold, hard cash. As a child, I even learned to wish upon the first star I saw at night. I had no similar instruction in how to turn my wishes into reality by creating an action plan.

During elementary school, as a child growing up on Cape Cod, I was involved in a summer children’s theater. I had some small acting roles and did some behind-the-scenes work. During the production of “Peter Pan,” I sat in a theater box to the upper left of the stage and did sound effects. One sound effect was to jingle little bells for Tinkerbell.

In the story, Tinkerbell drinks poison and is dying. Peter Pan calls out to children everywhere to save her life by believing. Peter addresses the audience directly and claims that if there aren’t enough children who believe in fairies, little Tinkerbell will die. At that point, the audience gets involves and wishes Tinkerbell back to life. My part in the dramatic moment was to jingle the bells louder to show that Tinkerbell had been restored by the fervent wishes of the children.

Now, many years after my brief career in theatrical sound effects, I look back on Peter Pan as one more way that the adult world teaches children magical thinking. Maybe it is all part of the wonder of childhood and maybe it is all harmless stuff. But I am not convinced. The common denominator in all of these fantasies is to instill in children the idea that if you only find the right magic spell, the right genie, the right wizard, the right fairy godmother, do the right things to please Santa, then you can have what you want.

Such magical thinking does not end with childhood. When we get older, we can substitute hope in winning the lotto, hitting the jackpot, or buying into the latest biz-op as the way to get rich without doing anything beyond hoping.

In contrast, successful entrepreneurs do what my son did. When they want something, they do something about it. As a result, entrepreneurs are more likely to create wealth than any other group of people.

What is the connection between creating abundance and being an entrepreneur? Both require a similar mindset. At the heart of both is the desire to have more. Abundance is also the direct result of a creative process. Abundance requires focused action toward your dreams rather than a passive hope that someone will leave abundance on your doorstep.

For Your Abundant Success,
Kalinda Rose Stevenson

PS. For the difference between “money limits” and “no money limits,” see my book, No Money Limits For Real Estate Investors.