One of my favorite quotes is, “The mind is everything, what you think, you become.” It is so true. Mindset is a critical component of success in business, sports and life in general. There is also quantitative research to back this up. Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck examined mindsets among young students. She found that children who have a growth mindset that intelligence can be developed are better able to overcome academic challenges than those who have a fixed mindset that intelligence is predetermined. Another study on middle-aged adults, completed by researchers at Yale and Miami, revealed that those with more positive beliefs around aging lived 7.5 years longer than those with less positive self-perceptions of aging. So basically, your mindset can prolong your life!

Most people, particularly in the corporate world, have been conditioned to have a scarcity mentality. It's no wonder when promotions and raises are scarce, resources are limited, managers hoard information, micromanagement abounds, and generally, short-term thinking is the norm. A scarcity mentality is what keeps many of us from achieving our goals. An abundance mindset refers to the paradigm that there is plenty out there for everybody.

The next question is, how can we make the shift from a scarcity to an abundance mindset?