87: Scarcity Mindset in Business
Scarcity mindset is more nuanced than feeling like there’s not enough. And in business, any problem seemed to be blamed on a “scarcity mindset.” Instead of scarcity vs. abundance, I’m going to talk about what’s usually underneath “scarcity.” And that, my friends? Is usually fear. I’ll cover five common fears that keep people from investing financially or energetically in their businesses.
Scarcity Mindset In Business
Scarcity mindset in business is often portrayed as the bogeyman: the idea that there isn’t enough to go around. Reportedly, a scarcity mindset leaves business owners feeling depleted, negative, and overwhelmed. It can sound like, “there’s already a business that focuses on a similar niche in my area, there’s no point in opening up my business,” or “there’s no one out there who could afford the fee I need to charge to sustain my business.”
Abundance Mindset in Business
An abundance mindset in business is often portrayed as the antidote to scarcity: the idea that there is more than enough to go around. Reportedly, an “abundance mindset,” can help business owners feel expansive, positive, and eager to implement their ideas. It can sound like, “I’m confident when I raise my fee, aligned clients will be able to invest in working with me,” or “even though there’s another business like mine, there’s plenty of room for both of us.”
To be clear, I’m not against using positive affirmations, or believing in the idea of “enoughness.” My issue with scarcity vs abundance mindset in business owners is that too many coaches lean on this idea as the end-all-be-all to failure vs success in business. When coaches, or business owners, believe that the key to success is having an abundance mindset, it leads them to blame themselves for not “manifesting enough” when things don’t go according to plan. Thus, they spiritually bypass and gaslight themselves in the process.
Spiritual bypassing is using spiritual ideas or practices to not validate the very real failures of capitalism, emotional or psychological pain, or other real-life barriers. Spiritual bypassing in business sounds like, “If you would have manifested harder, your business would have succeeded,” or “If you really put your faith in [God, the universe, a higher power] then things would have gone your way.” I’m not into using an abundance mindset to blame people for their failures.
Fears of Starting a Business
A more accurate definition of scarcity vs abundance mindset in business is digging into what’s underneath the things that are lumped into “scarcity mindset.” Usually, it’s fear. And those fears could be very real, or they could be things that could be tweaked with healthy mindset work. Fear of starting a business is a more appropriate way to approach this dichotomy.
In my work with service-based small business owners like therapists, psychiatrists, coaches, dieticians, and acupuncturists, there are five common fears of starting a business that I see. I’ll share what they are, and steps to take to combat them.
Fear of Being Seen
A fear of being seen as a business owner is a huge problem. This type of vulnerability can come from imposter syndrome, or it can come from the vulnerability of saying, “this is who I am and what I do.” This leads to business owners not telling others about their work, not marketing themselves, or hiding behind their credentials instead of talking about who they are and who they can help. In my mind, private practice marketing isn’t a logo or brand colors (though those can be the fun parts of marketing) marketing is helping others who are in pain know that there is someone out there who can help. Marketing ethically is a form of community service. Marketing can be a validation to those who are struggling; they see you and your work and see that they aren’t alone and that solutions are available to them. I love marketing with a beautiful and hardworking website. My website is via the amazing Monica at Hold Space Creative. I recommend her pre-designed websites to all therapists and coaches who want something that will represent them and their work well.
Fear of Setting and Charging Fees
Fear of setting a fee and adhering to it is a barrier to having a successful business. This very real fear is complex. Often it’s the business owner’s money story that’s getting in the way of setting a sustainable fee. Sometimes it’s their projection of the cost of the fee to potential clients. Instead of picking a fee based on what others in your industry are charging, I recommend that small business owners first figure out how much money they need to thrive and sustain their lives and their business. Once they have that number, they can reverse-engineer a fee that works for them. I talk about this in-depth in my post How To Set Fees in a Therapy Private Practice.
Fear of Others Opinions
The fear of others' opinions is a fear that keeps so many people from sharing the work they do and from starting the work they desire. A popular phrase in recovery circles is, “others opinions of you are none of your business.” While I think that phrase is overly simplistic, there is some wisdom buried in it. The way I interpret is, “there are a few people in the world whose opinions of you matter. Focus on those and let the rest fall by the wayside.”
The other fear of others’ opinions is often a deeper fear–it’s self-doubt. The worry that you won’t succeed or can’t do something is often hiding behind the fear of what others think of you. Let’s talk logistics for a second. The very real truth is that there is an incredible number of people who are in pain and are hungry for a solution. So many people struggle with mental, physical, and emotional troubles and there simply aren’t enough care providers to help. No matter who you serve, your help is needed.
Fear of Career Change
Becoming a small business owner means you are about to make a huge career change. Even if your clinical work stays the same, for example, seeing families in family therapy, becoming a small business owner involves a ton of changes. Not only do you have to stay on top of your clinical work, but you also become the CEO, CFO, COO, and CMO. Phew! That’s a lot of C-suited to suddenly occupy when you move out on your own. My opinion is that it’s helpful to have a sense of what each of those roles entails, and as soon as it’s financially feasible, to outsource some of those tasks and responsibilities to others. For me, that meant hiring someone to help me with email marketing and social media management, using an EHR to help with scheduling and billing, and signing on with an accounting firm that specializes in working with therapists.
The other fear of a career change can be intertwined with the fear of others’ opinions, or your own identity. Moving from a career in academia or healthcare to private practice can stir up a lot of identity worries. Working with a coach or therapist who specializes in identity changes of business owners can help. Another option is joining a group of others who are also going through this stress. I facilitate a small group coaching program for service-based small businesses that spends lots of time on money mindset, fee-setting, niching, and self-care. You can learn more about this group, Grow A Profitable Practice From the Inside Out, here.
Fear of Starting a Business
The fear of starting a business is so much more intricate than having a scarcity mentality. There’s the very real fear of the business side of private practice. Thinking about the legalities of having a business, accounting and bookkeeping, finding a place to rent and paying it, setting and upholding boundaries, taking paid time off, and covering health insurance are enough to make anyone have some anxiety!
First, I recommend that if you are having these fears you remind yourself of all of the things you’ve accomplished that felt overwhelming at some point. Likely, it was overwhelming to start college, sit for exams, and finish an internship or practicum. You have so much capacity to learn and do hard things and are capable of understanding the ins and outs of running a small business.
As I mentioned, I use Heard Accounting for my monthly bookkeeping, quarterly tax estimates, take-home allocations, and to file my annual taxes and can’t recommend them highly enough if you are a therapist. If you use my referral link for Heard Accounting, you’ll get a $100 gift card after using them for a month!
For my electronic health record, Simple Practice is the platform that I use and love. They provide scheduling, electronic forms, HIPAA-compliant clinician-to-client communication, and billing services that are easy to use with great customer service. If you use my referral link for Simple Practice, you’ll get $100 toward your first month of their service!
Starting Your Own Counseling Practice
Starting your own counseling practice, or similar service-based care business, is overwhelming. It’s also a great option for so many people. It allows you to see aligned clients, take time off when needed or desired, and to be in charge of your work-life balance. Even though it’s a great option, it doesn’t come without fears or challenges. However, I believe that practicing a healthy version of an abundance mindset, plus working on the fears outlined above, can be a beautiful solution for so many people.
Support and Accountability
if you are a service-based small business owner and are struggling with any of the five fears shared above, you might want to consider joining me in my small group coaching program Grow a Profitable practice From the Inside Out. I run this program throughout the year and past participants have shared that it “was more than worth it for the self-growth, business growth, and mindset.” If you are ready to have loving support and accountability as you sustainably grow your practice, read through the program details and consider applying.
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Today's podcast episode on scarcity versus abundance is one that I really didn't want to record. If I'm being really honest, I think that this is an overly simplified thing that gets thrown around in so many folks lives, but particularly for folks in business, but after last week's podcast on the value of spending money, I got a lot of feedback about people saying, Yes, thank you for addressing scarcity mindset. And I thought it was so interesting because I don't think I talked about it. But at any rate, there was a lot of hubbub in my DMs. So I figured I might as well tackle this because this is something you have been asking for. What are you going to talk about scarcity mindset? When are you going to talk about abundance mindset? So today, we're going to do that, but with a whole lot of nuance.
In general, when we talk about abundance, mindset versus scarcity, the basic way that I can boil it down is the idea that abundance really means there's more than enough, there's plenty. And scarcity is the opposite. There isn't enough, there is less than enough for me, but like many Pinterest adjacent quotes, quote, have an abundance mindset, unquote, isn't nuanced. And it certainly doesn't include things about spiritual bypassing. I think so many people in the entrepreneurial space love to shame people for having this "scarcity mindset" when the reality is, it makes sense to have fears. So there's a lot of noise out there about an abundance mindset being a choice. And the abundance mindset is about positivity and turning weaknesses into opportunities and turning negative thoughts into positive ones. But I don't think it's that simple. And I certainly think there's a lot of gaslighting that can happen with abundance versus scarcity mindset. So I know I said, I was like, Oh, I don't really want to do this podcast. But I think a more helpful thing, instead of saying, Oh, you have a scarcity mindset, you have to click your heels and think happy thoughts, is to actually go what's underneath this thing that is being marketed as scarcity mindset. And I really think it's something bigger. And that's fear. It's not about having unhappy thoughts or negative thoughts. Because both of those things are normal and important in everyday life, we're not always going to be happy, we're not always going to have great days. But at the end of the day, what we want to have is more neutral or good days than bad. And when it comes to this idea of abundance versus scarcity, what I think deserves talking about is where are these fears coming from? And are those fears things you can do something about? And what are the fears really rooted in? Some of them are rooted in very real problems with our system, with our work, with the society in which we live. And some of them you may have more choice over. But it is not all about having an abundance mindset, which makes you happy and motivated and eager. And having a scarcity mindset that makes you sad and depressed and overwhelmed. Like that is just so so ridiculous. So I'm actually going to talk about the fear of a lot of things in business, particularly in private practice for care providers, since that's what I do. So while I'm going to be talking about scarcity mindset in business, I'm actually going to be talking about five specific fears that are mindset related, that have to do with things that keep private practice providers from trusting themselves and from doing what I know they're often capable of in their businesses.
So the five fears that I see come up, that are often lumped into scarcity mindset are a fear of marketing, fear of charging for services, fear of others opinions, fear of change or risk, and finally, the fear of starting a business. So let's start with the first one, a fear of marketing or a fear of being seen. So many care providers say to me, Lindsay, I'm not comfortable on Instagram. I don't want to be on Facebook. I don't want to be on TikTok. I don't even want to put my picture on my website. There is so much indoctrination and caregiving fields, where we feel like we have to hide behind jargon heavy language, or the certificates or the letters behind are behind our names. We don't want to come across as bragging or as brash or as God forbid sales-y so we hide. And what I often work with my clients on is marketing is actually a gift when it is done well and when it is done right, it is about helping other people who need you who are struggling, who are looking for guidance, to say, hey, there's somebody out there who gets people like me and knows how to help people like me. So if we can reframe marketing from being salesy and icky, into being a space of showing up and being known for folks that you can help, that makes a huge difference. And the other piece of this fear of marketing is this fear of being seen. And when I think about that, I really think that's the fear of vulnerability. And I think this is often tied into things like imposter syndrome. Am I good enough? Am I smart enough? Am I capable enough clinician, am I--this is where I think so many people in therapy and adjacent fields get caught up in chasing down more certifications and chasing down more continuing education courses, because they don't trust themselves. They think that they need to read another book, they need to attend another training, they need to do all of these things, because they don't trust the capacity of healing and growth and change that they already are gifted with or already have. So there's this fear of saying, Yes, I'm a mindfulness based practitioner, and then wondering, but Am I really that mindful? I didn't meditate today. I didn't, you know, take five deep breaths when I took my sip of tea today, and all of this imposter syndrome and judgment that can certainly come along with it. So that is a huge thing, this fear of marketing and this fear of being seen. And I would invite you if you're finding yourself in that space to address both pieces, this piece of really actually going out there and having your name and face be heard. And then also the vulnerability piece. Am I good enough? Am I smart enough? Am I capable enough? And addressing both of those either in journaling in therapy, or doing a little bit of exposure therapy for yourself, just putting yourself out there and seeing what happens? So that's the first big mindset fear I see come up in private practice providers is this fear of marketing. And the other thing I'll say, for folks who are saying, Wait, but you didn't talk about this idea of not wanting to be on Facebook or Tik Tok, or, you know, whatever the social media trend of the day is, and I will tell you, you don't need all of them, you need one or two really good ways for people to find you. Most people use Google--think of the last thing you purchased. And tell me you didn't type it into Google first, seriously. Most people turn to Google, they type in things like struggling with body image, or they type in things like eating disorder therapist near me. And that's where having a beautiful and hard working website can do some of that heavy lifting for you. And it doesn't require the day to day maintenance and reactivity that so many social media platforms do. So if you're like, I don't want to be on Facebook. Good news, you don't have to be I've been on Facebook since February of 2021. And it hasn't been a problem. In 2021, I took two and a half months off of Instagram deleted, the app, wasn't in my DMs wasn't posting. My business grew and I have a waitlist of 60-something clients at the time of this recording. So yes, it's definitely possible. Alright, I digress.
Fear number two, fear of charging for services. This is a big one. It's tied into money mindset. It's tied into guilt. And I think oftentimes, it's tied into survivor guilt for folks who are care providers. Because we often feel like if we are doing okay, financially, then we feel bad about it because we realize that the system is fucked and that we live in a capitalistic society where things are not divided up in a way that allows every single human to thrive. And we feel bad about that. And so to compensate for that, we slide our scale, we don't charge plate cancellation fees. We don't charge no show fees. And we generally try and fix the system by ourselves by wringing ourselves dry in the process financially speaking, and that is not okay. We have to charge money for the work that we do and there is a way to do it that is not exploitative and that is not harmful. I don't think the answer is go out there and five extra prices unless you're charging $20 an hour then maybe you do need to find extra prices. I don't think the answer is get off of everything single insurance panel, I don't think the answer is get certified or get licensed in a state that reimburses more. I think the answer is, because this is what I've done since I started my private practice on my own and what I help people inside my group coaching program do, I think the answer is figure out how much money you need to thrive--how much money you need to be generating, so that you can take care of your business, cover your life's expenses, and have a generous amount of overflow, to pour into your community to pour into causes that matter to you. And to pour into dreams. There's nothing wrong with saying, Oh, instead of taking, you know, a long weekend, I actually want to take two months off, I want to take a really luxurious sabbatical and getting comfortable doing them. Charging money for services is different than bringing people out through exploitative capitalism. When we think about ethically charging people for the work that we provide, I want you to think about, Am I doing something that I'm good at? Am I doing something that is serving others? And am I doing something that pays me well? The intersection of those three is the way that you can ethically charge a substantial and sustainable fee, substantial and sustainable is going to be different for me than it is for you. Certain people are charging upwards of $300 for services, and not feel sustainable for them. Because they know their numbers. For other people, they might not need to be charging that much. So this fear is that you won't be able to charge that much. And this fear is that there aren't enough clients out there to pay the price needed in order for you to be able to be a good therapist. And being a good therapist means practicing financial self care, excuse me. Because when you practice financial self care, you can take care of yourself emotionally, spiritually, physically, mentally, and when you do all of those things, you can show up much more resourced and grounded, to provide quality treatment to and with your clients. So this, this idea that there aren't enough people out there just simply isn't true when we look at the numbers of how many people live in our state or in our counties, and so many of us are doing remote work now. And we think about how many of them need help. And we know the reality is over the past two years, the need for mental health care and allied services has gone through the roof, doubly so for marginalized groups, particularly people who are in global majorities racially, are in religious minorities, are disabled, or neurodivergent, those are people who definitely need additional help. And it is so important that if you know how to do that, and if you know how to treat people in those areas, goes back to that fear of marketing and fear of being seen, then you can absolutely charge a sustainable rate. And there are many creative ways outside of sliding your scale and doing pro bono work to give back and to be accessible in your work. But that's another big scarcity thing that comes up.
The third scarcity mindset or fear is the fear of other people's opinions. I think a lot of it comes down to the fear of failure in business. This idea that if you tell other people you're starting your own private practice, how true is it that you'll be able to keep it up? What happens if other people think that I'm taking the easy way out? It's just so so sad that we have these thoughts. But it happens a lot the fear of other people's opinions, especially if we are moving from a societally prestigious jobs such as like being a professor of psychology at a prestigious academic institution, that can feel really scary to going for being a professor and having a professorship into private practice. It can be really scary to go from being a manager to large healthcare system or to large agency and moving into private practice, because other people's opinions might be clouding your judgment that you know what you need to take care of yourself. And this is where I'll say that practicing some self generosity can be really, really beneficial. Which is to say, to be overly simplistic, it's to say, other people's opinions of you really don't matter. I mean, there are a handful of people whose opinions of you you should care about, right? Some of your chosen family, partners, things like that. Those people's opinions obviously matter, but like Sue across the street, no offense, her opinion of whether you work for yourself or whether you work in an academic research institution is really irrelevant. Okay?
The fourth fear that often gets tied up in this idea of scarcity mindset is the fear of change or the fear of risk. And I think this, this really has some true roots. In reality, I mentioned at the top of this episode that scarcity mindset is more than just happy thoughts, like happy thoughts versus sad thoughts. It's also the reality that we live, where I am recording from on occupied land of the Meskwaki, Peoria, Wyandotte, and Anishinaabe people's aka currently known as Michigan, our health care is tied to whether or not we have a job, oftentimes, our retirement is tied to whether or not we have a job. We literally cannot take care of ourselves mentally, physically, health wise if we don't have health insurance in other parts of the world. They have global or state provided health care that doesn't exist here. So it's expensive to cover your insurance. And then there's a very real change in a very real risk. And I think when you figure out how much it costs to purchase insurance, and to cover yourself, that you can build into that fear number two of how do I charge for services, and make sure that when you are including a fee, that you are also including the ability to pay for your health care coverage. There's just a general fear of change too that I think comes up. And I think over the past two years, we've really been subjected to so many changes. And our capacity to be nimble and dynamic is really worn down to like nothing right now. So it also makes sense if you're like, I don't know if I can do a career change? But I also think shoot, if you're burned out at an agency at a hospital at a school, now's the time really to go into private practice, or if you have a private practice on the side, to really lean into it. Because there--I get, I get email offers, I get letters in the mail all the time, I get LinkedIn notifications all the time of people saying, Don't you want to come back and work at this inpatient setting? Don't you want to come here and work in this outpatient setting, we're giving you a $500 bonus or a $1,000 bonus. And it's like that $500, or $1,000 is not worth the price of my piece. Okay. And that's why I'm in private practice, among many, many, many other things. But that I could see if that fear of risk was so high when I was in private practice. And I was getting all of these mailings that are saying we're desperate for good, competent social workers, please come back into a traditional career, I could see how that would sound really enticing. But for me where I'm at, it's so much better. To be in control of my schedule to be in control of who I see, how long I see them for, making sure that I'm seeing aligned clients, getting to use the creative side of my brain by way of things like this my podcast, my writing, that feels so much better than having a caseload of like 85 people and working 60 hours a week, and getting unpaid time off and having to earn time off just feels exhausting that my body; I know it's on a podcast, you can't see any me but my body's literally collapsing as I think about it. So this this fear of change is very, very real. But I also want you to think about if you're fearing, leaning into investing more in your private practice, what about this fear? What about the fear of shit stayin the exact same? can you tolerate your current job if it does not change? And that might help you to lean a little bit more into the trusting of yourself, to bet on yourself, and to invest in yourself and to invest in your business energetically, financially, whatever it means for you.
Alright, the fifth and final fear that I see that is often lumped into this idea of scarcity mindset, is the fear of the the starting a business part, the fear of the business side of private practice, this often sounds like, do I have to get a lawyer? Do I have to get an accountant? How am I going to pay my rent? When am I going to set my schedule? How am I going to take time off? How am I going to afford health insurance, all of the logistics side of starting a business come up. And if that part of your brain that is wired in fear and is setting off alarm bells is going off? It's going to say this is too dangerous, go back to traditional work, where you have some of these things built in. And what I would say if you are really serious about being a full time care provider or growing your care provider business, Is that to get where you are, which is likely 12-16 -18, 16 to 18 years of education, probably two to four years of an internship, externship practicum, residency, many, many, many hours of tests, of reading, of continuing education, you have the capacity to understand how to run a business. And even if you don't know, the intricacies of everything, you have the capacity to hire somebody whom it is their specialty, aka, I'm not a lawyer. So I hired a lawyer to make sure that my paperwork was good to go when I started my private practice. I'm not an accountant. As much as I love talking about money and the ins and outs of money. I'm not a CPA, I don't know tax laws and tax codes. I have layman's understandings of that. So I use Heard Accounting, you've probably talked heard me talk about them on the podcast before I had Andrew Reisen on this time last year to talk about tax deductions, and to talk about what Heard Accounting is. Those are things that you can get additional help on. And I talked about this too, allow the robots to do the heavy lifting. This is why I have automatic scheduling. If you want to have a phone call with me, I'm going to send you a link instead of emailing you back 1000 times, if a client needs to cancel, they don't have to worry about texting me or calling me they can just go into the client portal and cancel. When it comes to submitting claims to insurance, I have everything is built into Simple Practice, which is the electronic health record that I use. PS, I will put a $100 discount code in the show notes of this episode, if you are thinking about switching to simple practice, I have used them since I went out on my own in April of 2020. LOL, timing, and I love the simplicity of them, I love the customer service of them, etc, etc. I will link that there. And they have so many built in robots, I can't tell you how much I love it. I like billing takes me literally 20 minutes a month that used to take me two to four hours a week before I use them exhausting. So anyway, the fears of starting a business, all that to say you have the capacity to understand the ins and outs of business. And you also have the capacity to know what is within your wheelhouse and what you probably need guidance on if it is outside of your scope of practice.
So again, the biggest fears that I see often lumped under this scarcity mindset is the fear of marketing or the fear of being seen, fear of charging for services, fear of others opinions, fear of change or risk, and the fears of the logistics side of starting a business. So I hope that going over this today helps you to see that some of those fears are very real. Some of those fears can be tweaked using some logic using some mindset work, but it is not about saying if I want a seven figure practice, all I have to do is sit on a meditation cushion and think about it really hard. And if I don't think hard enough, then it's my own fault that I didn't get a seven figure business--no. Abundance versus scarcity isn't a little Pinterest quote that is not nuanced and deserves more of a nuanced approach. Yes, it's important to say there's more than enough to go around. And it's also important to acknowledge the very real systemic things and the very real fears that may be going on that make it difficult for you to trust yourself in private practice or in your business. And if you are a private practice provider, and that includes allied health care professionals, acupuncturist, Reiki healer, energy worker, massage therapist and you are like Yes, Lindsay, those are the things I'm scared of in my business, I need help I need guidance. I would invite you to take a look at my five month small group coaching program Grow a profitable Practice From the Inside Out. It is cohort based meaning that 12 People will be in it alongside you. Everything is taught by me except for three guest experts who are going to come in and help us with niching SEO and resourcing yourself and taking care of yourself. It's five spacious months; this program started out as an eight or nine week program and has since been extended to five months because what I've learned is that we need time to implement information Information Information can be really overwhelming, really scary, and almost kind of put us in this fight, flight, or freeze thing where we are frozen and can't actually take sustained action. So by spacing it out and offering more spaciousness, I found that the participants are better able to implement what we are talking about. In the five months together, we will dig into your money story stuff, we will make sure that you have a fee that is generous to you and to your community. We will make sure you know how to uphold your boundaries so that that fee actually does continue to work for you. We'll figure out the foundations of marketing, something that is sustainable, something that feels good for you, and learn about niching and search engine optimization from two of my guest experts. And we will cap it all off with a lot of time and space for connection, support, questions and answers and co-creation, you are not going to be dropped into a sea of hundreds of 1000s of people or 10s or hundreds of video modules and be swimming around lost, every single thing is going to be live. And if you can't make it live, it is recorded and available for you later. I learned better live I found a lot of people learn better live, and I also know that people live busy lives and can't make every single thing live which is why everything is recorded and available for participants indefinitely. If that small group coaching program sounds good to you, head to my website, MindMoneyBalance.com/ProfitablePractice. It has everything you need to know about the program including the investment, including the payment plan options, including a bonus if you apply before January 21st of 2022. There's so much stuff in this program! You probably heard it a few episodes ago and I did a read through of that web page. But if you haven't, you can check that out. Thanks so much for being here. See you next week.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai