Extracts from A Speech Delivered by Eric Kimani to the Kenya Institute of Bankers, Mombasa Chapter on 1st December 2006.

The Abundance Versus the Scarcity Mentality in Professional Development and Growth

• Abundance mentality is a deep belief that there is enough for all – Enough work, enough jobs, enough resources. • It is living with favour minded attitude. One can define it also as optimism. Seeing the glass half full rather than half empty. Thinking big and expecting big.

• By contrast the scarcity mentality is a belief that your success will imply someone else’s failure; that there are scarce resources and if you get them you must deny someone else; that there is scarcity of jobs; that the cake is not enough and I must grab my share.

• The barriers are in our minds and we will not go beyond the barriers in our minds. The difference between successful people and the less successful is largely their mentality of abundance or of scarcity.

• People with an abundance mentality have an internal security based on a principled centered living. Their value system is self-anchored. They are not too worried of saying/doing the wrong thing because they ordinarily talk from a point of truth. This frees their mind to bigger/better thoughts because they have nothing to cover. What they said yesterday is what they will repeat today without contradiction. This internal security enhances their humility. It allows them to enjoy professional freedom. They can choose what they want to do. By contrast people with a scarcity mentality seek their validation from groups. They will rarely want to take action on their own. The group must validate what they do.

• People with an abundance mentality let those below them grow and hence give themselves the opportunity to grow even faster and higher. I keep saying to people that if you are good at what you do the only place those who want your job can push you is upwards. They work with the best minds. They seek out those who are better than them! A scarcity mentality tells you it is dangerous to let your junior became as good or better than you nothing could be further from the reality!

• People with an abundance mentality understand and respect the law of the Farm or the law of the harvest. They know how/when to forego immediate gratification in favor of delayed and long term satisfaction. They appreciate that you will reap what you planted! They understand the need to prepare the ground, plant, weed, water and tend before you can harvest. They are not moved by peer pressure.

• Professional with an abundance mentality treat whatever they take on as a project. A project to be executed so well that it guarantees extension or another project.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. “Marianne Williamson.