Money and Scarcity Mindset

One of the best things that I’ve done in the last 5 years is changing the way that I view money.

I used to be extremely frugal… a bonafide penny pincher. I would rarely do anything that involved spending money and would overwork myself to increase my net worth. I personally think that this stemmed from society assessing the value of a male by how much money he makes, but that is a topic for another time.

The point is, I was working my ass off to make money. Putting in long hours, sacrificing time with friends, literally just to not spend it. Then someone opened my eyes to the idea that if you are afraid to give it away (spend it), you will not receive it. This is also known as a Scarcity Mindset: believing there are limited resources in this world so if someone else has something, it means there is less of that resource for you!

In other words, if you view money as difficult to earn and hold on to it tightly because it is hard to obtain.. then it will be hard to obtain. However if you change your view on money to it being easy to acquire, there’s lots to go around and that you don’t have to hold onto it for dear life, then it will flow to you effortlessly.

Life is short, and you can’t take money with you when you die. This doesn’t mean that I'm recommending being fiscally irresponsible and living outside of your means, but it also doesn’t mean being cheap and frugal. A recurring theme at Virtu is Balance and it applies to money too!

I used to refrain from doing fun things and enjoying life because I didn’t want to spend the money. I can tell you for sure that I’ve never regretted spending money on something that brought me joy, but I’ve definitely regretted choosing to not spend the money and subsequently missing out on a great opportunity or experience.

Live Virtuously,

AB