On Christmas Eve I was in the garage with my kids grabbing some leftovers from our outside refrigerator to take next door to my mother in law’s to eat after Christmas Eve mass. Caroline, my seven year old, went to grab Darby’s (age 10) basketball. He had his hands full helping me but stopped what he was doing to pull the basketball from her hands, hurting her in the process. It was Christmas Eve, the literal day before Santa comes and they started fighting. The most appalling part was that they were fighting about a basketball he wasn’t even actively using. His excuse was that he didn’t want her to mess it up. I found the whole ordeal enraging. At that moment I had an epiphany, a moment a clarity. I realized that when my kids fight it is typically driven by a scarcity mentality. In this situation he was worried about “his” basketball. Yet it is a basketball. What can you really do to a basketball to mess it up? Pop it? How is your seven year old sister going to pop your basketball? The reality is she can’t hurt it. And even if she did somehow hurt it would we not just replace it for him? What was I doing wrong that my kids viewed everything so possessively? How did I change this mindset?
The first thing I did was yell at them because that is my default. As I calmed down and these thoughts processed, I tried the best I could to explain to them what I was seeing. I tried to get them to understand there is no reason to not share with one another. I asked him what is the worst thing she can do to your basketball. He couldn’t give a real answer. I then took it a step further and said if she did somehow ruin your basketball, say she left it in the driveway and someone ran it over, what would happen next? At this point he saw where things were going and clammed up, embarrassed. I explained that worst case we’d get him a new basketball. It became clear to me then that my kids need an abundance mindset. If they can see that life is good and full of abundance, they might be able to be kinder and more giving to one another, bringing peace into our home.
Mindset is a powerful thing. It subconsciously controls a lot of your behavior. Many people believe that putting something into the universe, saying it is going to happen or writing it down, is critical to making it happen. It turns it into a subconscious thought and it becomes something you work toward without realizing it. I didn’t really have the knowledge or words for this when I started my business but over time I’ve come to learn that my natural abundance mindset was key to my success in business. Early on when I was trying to decide if I was going to buy my business, I can remember talking to my mom and she said something that changed my whole mindset. She said, “what’s the worst that can happen? You lose your money? You can always earn more money.” That changed everything for me. It allowed me to take the necessary risks that over time all came together to become a successful business. It was likely not the beginning of my abundance mindset but it was definitely a pivotal and formative point.
In my garage on Christmas Eve I felt called to help my children know this sooner and with intention. There in that moment our 2025 family intention was born. For us 2025 is a year of abundance and it is my goal to create an abundance mindset in our family.
I wasn’t sure how to do this so I turned to Amazon looking for resources and came up short. It turns out the abundance mindset isn’t really being taught to kids. Instead I bought several different resources and I’m going to read them to find the words to express what God has laid on my heart to my family. As I read through these books and find ways to create an abundance mindset in our family, I’ll share it on my blog.
The first resource we started using is Deep Roots by Laura Godfrey. A friend of mine posted it on Facebook, thanks Candice Zachary! It is 52 weeks of weekly family devotionals with a memory verse. The first one was so well timed for our family it could only be ordained from God. I am reading the devotional on Sunday mornings before church and keeping the accompanying card in my car so we can talk about it and recite it when we are in the car. We are one week in and the whole family is enjoying it.
I’ve purchased a variety of resources. The Abundance Mindset by Joel Osteen is a Christian take on abundance. I’ve not always seen him as the most authentic of people but I’m hoping to find some nuggets of wisdom. In the first chapter he talks about God being a God of abundance. “He is an overflow God.” He is not a God of barely enough or just getting by. I too have seen this in my life. God gives to us freely but He also expects us to give in return. We can’t take from Him in abundance and hoard in scarcity. This doesn’t just have to do with money or possessions. It applies to kindness and love. Whatever you give freely will come back multiplied. I want my children to see and experience this at a young age so they can always give love and kindness freely but also live the benefit of knowing that love and kindness multiplied.
I want them to see it with financial riches too. I shared with them a story that was pivotal in my marriage. I was raised in a household that tithed by the book. It was instilled from a young age. Every week we received an allowance but the last week of the month half your allowance went to savings and the other half to the church. It was not optional. When I started working I carried that mindset forward. It was never an issue in our marriage until I received my first substantial bonus check. The bonus was 10% of my annual income in one check and when I got it I wrote a 10% check to the church right off the top. It was more than we’d ever given in a single tithe and Ross was not happy about it. It caused a pretty big fight. That likely had to do with my attitude that it was my money and I’d do what I wanted with it which was probably not the best approach to swaying Ross to see it my way. However God used that to change both my heart and his. We were living in Midtown Memphis at the time and Ross had purchased a car for a traveling sales rep job. His truck he had gotten when he was 16 just sat in our narrow driveway visible on the street. It had a massive dent in the passenger side of the bed and had started to grow a garden of weeds in some leftover mulch that didn’t get fully cleaned out of it after being spread in our yard. All this to say it was a hunk of junk. Within a few days of the great tithe fight, after I’d already made the tithe against his will, a man rang our doorbell and made Ross an unsolicited cash offer for the truck. The offer was exactly 4x the tithe I made a few days before. Needless to say, we both learned a valuable lesson about an abundance mindset. We were not wealthy by any means. I was pregnant with Darby. We were trying to sell our house and build a new one. We were young and had student loans and could have used that money for a lot of things. However I’m a firm believer that all things come from God and all things should go back to Him. Tithing is non negotiable for me. And after that it’s a non negotiable for Ross too. ☺️
This story is one of my favorite examples because it’s so clear but I’ve seen time and time again in my life that living with an abundance mindset is always preferable to one of lack or scarcity. Even in our business I’ve made decisions from an abundance mindset that have paid back ten fold. In the tithe situation I had the money to give. In my business sometimes we just made the leap in faith hoping that it would all work out.
I look forward to sharing this journey with my family and through writing with all of you. Here is to an abundant 2025!