What’s stopping you from building for future? — Lack of Abundance Thinking
I came across this concept of Abundance Thinking very recently while chatting with Vamshi (co-founder of Bear.tax) about my past ventures and how I perceived fundraising, building a team and general hustling while building the product.
And he went ahead and told, how we are wired to think from scarcity POV and how important it is to move ahead and leave behind this generational thinking behind so that we can build for the future.
This small reminder put a lot of things in perspective.
We are taught since a very young age, Hard Work = Success and if you don’t succeed in getting good marks, winning medals, winning titles we are automatically perceived to be less hard working.
This has led a lot of people in believing “Hustling is cool”.
Sometimes, it’s important to step back and think if we are even in the right race. If yes, then what’re my key strengths? How am I hedging my growth? Am I even enjoying this process and journey? If we go with the above philosophy, you’re never going to get time to sit down and talk to yourself.
This scarce thinking has led many people into not believing in themselves enough. Each rejection becomes personal. They don’t think, maybe it wasn’t meant to happen. They blame themselves for it. It’s almost self-diminishing attitude. Which takes a toll over time.
This thinking is very similar to a poor kid’s aspiration to get educated. How much ever they try and have all the right intentions to learn, they can’t because their basic necessities is still a question mark. Hence the mid-day meal program was started by the government.
It takes generations to come out of this thinking. Even today, my parents would never pay extra for “convenience”. Because they still believe it’s a luxury and they feel great of saving a few extra bucks. And if we look at India as a whole as a market, it’s still in a similar mentality.
It’s easier to sell in $$ than ₹₹. The money is still scarce. You can only make money when you’re building for the top 5% of the population, if not, be prepared to have big investors and $$ in your pocket to burn away to change the user’s behaviour. (It has taken over half a decade, policy changes and burning away crores of rupees to get to where we are today with digital payment in India).
I have been a victim of a similar mindset. And as soon as I realised this, I had to put this in words to concrete my understandings so that I can come to an acceptance and try changing it, to build something for next generation of users.
It’s really sad when someone labels someone that they are burning away their parent's money.
But first of all, who are we to judge?
And secondly, if it’s helping individual garner more experiences in life, meet more people, build more relations and adding to more individualistic growth and giving them breathing space and time to experiment, then why not?
Why is it so bad and something to shame about? We need to grow over this.
Because every set of generation comes with some set of problems which they need to fight and they need to build things which solve for the future. If the present generation is still thinking from the same spectacle of the past, how is it adding to the growth of the future?
We would be fighting the same problems then.
Thanks for reading. All the above information is my personal opinion and introspection, feel free to differ from it. I would be interested in knowing your side as well.
Feel free to connect with me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sourav_bz
