The Jordan Harbinger Show - 220: The Right Way to Cultivate Abundance | Deep Dive

Episode Date: July 4, 2019

Gabriel Mizrahi (@GabeMizrahi) joins us for this deep dive into what it takes to cultivate the mindset of abundance that seemingly makes generosity possible, and how to overcome the evolutionary blips in our programming that make it so counterintuitive. "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make." -Paul McCartney What We Discuss with Gabriel Mizrahi: Why the mindset of scarcity is your survival mode default that urges you to see the world as a zero sum game and hoard your resources accordingly. What you can do to reconcile this scarcity mindset with one of abundance that seemingly permits you to give generously without remorse. How you can begin practicing the behavior of generosity even before you've fully sold yourself on the belief of abundance. The many ways that tiny repetitions of generosity act to strengthen the muscles of abundance with giant gains. A smattering of good advice for cultivating abundance, and (we hope) an abundance of even better advice for making generosity second nature. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://jordanharbinger.com/220 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Have you ever had a moment where you think, man, someone should really do something about this? Then you realize, maybe that someone is you. Well, with the help of GoFundMe, you can change someone's life. You could start a GoFund me to help a friend pay for school, fund that new community space, or help a local kid finally get to that national competition. I've seen this myself. Last year, a friend of mine launched a GoFund me to help with medical bills after an unexpected surgery. It was incredible how fast the support rolled in.

People want to help. They just need a way to do it. And GoFundMe makes it easy. So do you have a dream, a person, or a cause in your life that could use some support? Don't wait for someone else to bring change. You can be the one who makes a difference. GoFundMe is the world's number one fundraising platform, trusted by over 200 million people. Start your GoFundMe today at gofundme.com. That's gofundme.com. Gofundme.com. Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with my producer, Jason DeFilippo. A lot of you have written in after hearing me discuss the idea of giving value first, making mutually beneficial introductions, et cetera. And a huge number of you have used our negotiation stuff to get raises, networked to get new jobs, and launch new businesses and launch new careers.

However, a bunch of you have also told me that you're having trouble executing on some of this stuff. You know you're supposed to be generous. You know you're supposed to help others, but you're also looking out for yourself as you should, and you're feeling a little bit competitive, which is only natural. If you want to learn why we do this, and here's a hint, it's totally natural or wired for it, as well as how to beat that wiring so that you can develop even more solid connections in your personal and professional life, then you'll really dig this deep dive today here with Gabriel Mizrahi and I. This is a fun and more importantly extremely useful conversation, so I'm glad you're with us here today. By the way, some of the basics and advanced networking stuff

that I've been teaching some of the special forces and intelligence agencies. A lot of you have asked about that. That's all at six-minute networking. You can find that at Jordanharbinger.com slash course. I've been teaching that to a lot of three-letter agencies. I made a version of it there for you. Again, Jordanharbinger.com slash course, and it is free. So I hope you enjoy that.

And I hope you enjoy this deep dive with Gabriel Mizrahi. Gabriel Mizrahi back in the house talking about abundance. And I want to, first of all, I hate the word abundance, because it's, it's, been, I don't blame you at all. It's been commandeered by like everyone who does co-opted by movement. Yeah. And they're like, oh, manifest this or what it's not what we're talking about at all. Yeah, it's like gratitude, right? Like such a good, important concept and then you hear somebody, leave somebody's mouth and you're like, oh, this guy. Yeah, they make an app with it and then it's screwed. So abundance is not like this belief system that you have everything plentiful because

the universe provides it. It's just like not being so effing stingy. Let's look at it that way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that. Very down to earth. Yes. Thank you about abundance. Not being so effing stingy. And not financially, but like a generous, generosity of spirit. And by the way, this is a deep dive episode. And what this means is we take a deep dive on a specific topic.

Gabe and I are always the ones that do it. If you're watching us on YouTube, there are a ton more deep dives, but they're audio only in the podcast feed. We have a lot more content in the podcast feed than we do on YouTube. So if you like our YouTube and you've spent the last six weeks downstop watching us, there's even more in the audio feed. what's going on with the abundance thing here, Gabe? Because for me, I've always struggled with this concept personally, the idea that you can be generous with other people.

As an only child, I think that was quite foreign to me. And of course, I always kind of kept that under wraps because you don't want to be like, oh, well, I can be stingy. I get stingy impulses. Everybody wants to look generous. And we get these notes in our Feedback Friday inbox as well where people say things like, I want to do this. I want to be generous. I want to be giving. But I just feel like I need it. I'm, I'm trying to compete for work with other people or I want to get ahead versus other people. I know that I'm supposed to be generous, but I just kind of like can't get my, I just can't make myself do it. So what's going on here? Why is this so difficult for people?

Well, the reasons why are actually very simple. I think it's because the human brain is basically, wire to not feel abundant. I think our natural impulse is to obsess about what we don't have, because knowing what we don't have probably aided our survival more than knowing what we do have in celebrating that. So being wired for lack, right, because if I have three pieces of firewood and one dead squirrel roasting over that fire... In the Game of Thrones version of survival, yeah.

Right, yeah. Is that the Brianne plotline? Maybe, yeah, good point. I didn't even think about that. No, but if you have that, your mind will probably want to fixate on the fact that in two or three days, you won't have firewood and in eight hours you won't have food. Right. That would propel you to go out into the forest and go find some more firewood and go find some more squirrels. Right.

But if you sat back and you're like, aren't we so lucky to have three pieces of firewood and a squirrel? Well, that might be nice. It might make you feel grateful. It might make you feel connected. It might put you at ease. But it will also lead you into trouble if you're not like, oh, but that's going to run out. I better go find some more. Yeah.

So without delving into all the nitty-gritty of evolutionary psychology, I think those are the broad strokes. Broad strokes are that the abundance mindset is not hard-coded into the human DNA. Yeah. Into the human mind. The scarcity, the lack, that's hard-term. The scarcity is hard-coded, yeah. And it creates a catch-22, right?

Because I know that being generous requires this abundance mindset. So I'm trying to get to the abundance mindset, but it also seems like the only way to get to that abundance mindset is, I guess if you're not really sure, it's either to have so much stuff that you're overflowing, but then we're still wired for lack. So the guy or gal who has like $10 billion is probably going, but I don't have $14 billion, and Eric Schmidt does,

and that makes me feel a little less than today. Well, yeah, there will never be, you will never run out of reasons to feel that lack. Right. Because in a society like ours where people are always self-comparing, where other people's assets are very visible and again where the human mind always wants to compare because that's also something that it's designed to do yeah you're always going to probably find a way to feel a lack

even if you're doing pretty well but the catch 22 you're describing is really simple and it's also really difficult to get out of it's the one that I think we hear from listeners about a lot which is I understand objectively that I need to be generous to be connected, to have great relationships, to be fulfilled, to create opportunities for myself, I get that. But I can't seem to be generous if I don't feel abundant. Like, how am I supposed to

give if I don't feel like I have stuff to give? And then the solution that you read on people's Instagram is like, oh, if you just feel gratitude, then you'll do it. Or if you just start the process of doing, of being abundant in your life or whatever sort of woo-woo meme, then it will naturally reinforce itself. And it's like, cool, that's like keeping an engine running. Somebody's got to have the pull starter. Yeah, which way does it go? And how do you cultivate it? Well, everybody is saying, okay, well, if I need to be generous, then the way to be generous is to be abundant, then I better start working on the abundance first. Yeah. And then I can be generous. Which makes sense. Which does make sense because it's the most, yeah, it's the most immediate and natural way to solve that

problem. But the thing is, then you're back in the KETS 22 because you're like, wait, hang on. So in order to feel like I have something to give, I have to give. But in order to give, I have to feel like I have something to give. Right. So I think a lot of people get stuck in that KX-22 and it gets very difficult to work your way out of it because either you're trying to convince yourself of this idea, this idea in your mind that you have a ton to give abundance. Or you commit to like trying to be generous and then it ends up feeling empty or it doesn't last very long because it's not backed up by this feeling that you do have a lot to give. Exactly. And I think if people are, are sort of confused right now. Just think about the time someone asked you to donate to a charity. And if you make $400,000 a year, many of you don't, I certainly understand that. But let's say someone makes $400,000. How much do you think they could afford? It's a trick question, right?

Because people have different levels of debt and things like that. But how much could they afford to give to like a charity for the medical expenses of sick children? probably a significant amount, right? Let's say this person just has their mortgage and car payment. They could give 30 grand, and it would not affect, and that's in a single year, it wouldn't affect their lifestyle at all, but then somebody who makes like 30 grand a year, they can't afford to give that much,

and both of them feel exactly the same way about being asked to donate. I can't really afford to do that. That's the first thing I think of when someone's like, hey, can you donate some money? And it's taken me years to be like, you know what, I'm just going to, I'll make the donation from the business, and it'll be a medium, small amount. And then I have to kind of go to my wife and go, what can we afford to donate to, like, our friend Justin's Water Charity? And she's like, and the number she names is like 20 times what I was thinking, you know. And I'm just like, I am a stingy bastard, but I'm not.

I want to give and I can do it. I just don't think I have enough. So the solution that naturally would come to mind is, we just need to earn more money, stupid. Look, you can donate when you have $10 million. That's what every single person is thinking. And then there are people that make $8.75 an hour, and they're giving money to homeless people

and they're donating money to their friend's Kickstarter. And then they got their GoFundMe friends, and they feel like they have enough. So it's a mindset thing. It's not an asset thing. So how do we get out of this catch-22? Right. So we've established that abundance almost seems like a luxury,

like something that you can get to in the future. Once I have this amount of money, then I can give some of it away. Once I have a ton of friends and fancy connections, then I can start introducing people. That's that scarcity, lack mentality that we just talked about that's hardwired. The good news about this, though,

is that you can override that wiring. It's designed to be overridden. Now, that doesn't mean that scarcity and lack go away completely. They still have their function, right? We still need to make sure that we get jobs that can cover our expenses, that we take care of ourselves, we make sure we have shelter and food, and all that stuff, like, that still fulfills an important function.

But to feel the deeper abundance that sometimes can be a little bit trickier for a lot of us, including me, including you, there is a way to cultivate that mentality, but it's not usually the way people think. Most people intellectually understand the value of abundance, right? They get that, if they've heard the show or they've heard similar concepts, right, they know that they need to do this because this is how you build great relationships and good opportunities. Oh, I want to actually, you know what, this is, sorry for the aside here. we're not just talking about cash because I think it's easy for people to go, oh, financial abundance, my job, this. That was an analogy. A lot of people won't make introductions to other people because they feel like, well, I need to use those or offer time to somebody on the phone because they're like, I'm so busy. I can't possibly talk you through your breakup right now. Like, I have children or whatever, you know. Exactly. And sometimes that's very true. Totally. Very fair. And we actually are going to touch on that in a future deep dive. But there are so many forms of generosity. And in some ways, like financial capital is that.

the least of it. It really, yeah, financial is almost always the least because if you have a bunch of money and you go, all right, here's $100. It's like, well, okay, I appreciate that. But somebody who spends an hour talking with you, there's something on the phone, that person who donated that money is not interested in doing that. They're like, look, I've already turned my effort and energy into cash, and I'm just going to hand it to you because I don't really want to be involved more than that. Right. That's a different story. Totally. I mean, I would take the phone call with that person over the money for sure. Any day. You see people who are really charitable in a lot of ways, they'll take a position at the nonprofit and like work or run an event.

That's more valuable than them going, you know what, I'll donate 20 grand and you can hire someone to run this event. Exactly. That's right. Yeah, so yeah, it's a good point. Abundance is not really just about money. Money is oftentimes the least interesting or meaningful form of abundance. Yes. There's so many ways to be generous and we are talking about all of them. at this point to get out of that catch 22 most standard advice would go something like this it would say sit down for 10 minutes a day and be grateful yeah think about every great thing you have in your life picture it in your mind take a moment and take stock of how you are journal it visualize it all of that write down all the reasons you're grateful you know catch yourself obsessing about the things you don't have in the moment and notice how much more you worry about what you don't have than what you'd like notice the light the wired for lack thing exactly and this isn't really bad advice no i know i was literally you totally predict you read my mind is what i should say yeah yeah it's it's fair i i think

a lot of people right now are like wait is this is this are you giving us this advice and it's like well kind of but not really that advice you'll find all over blogs and in self-help books that are written by folks that are like really just needed to write a book and honestly if that helps you cultivate abundance great right and i'm not saying that's not part of it it could be a very important part of it I love to take a moment and be like, I'm so lucky to have this best friend. I'm so lucky to have my friend, Jordan. I'm so lucky to, you know, have this job or whatever it is, we should do that. The problem, though, or I should say the limitation to that approach, the limitation is

that you will usually temporarily make yourself feel abundant because that's just another thought that you're creating. Exactly. Right? You're like, okay, I've convinced myself for the moment that I do have a lot to give. Okay, cool, now I can go give it. But what's going to happen tomorrow? Or what's going to happen next week?

or what happens when circumstances change a little bit, and you don't have that job or you don't have that person or you don't have that opportunity anymore, and now you can't meditate upon it long enough to make yourself feel like you have this, you know, this great asset to give. Right. Or like someone says, hey, can you help me with something? And you're like, crap, I've got to go journal, meditate,

go for a long walk and reflect. Damn it, I can't right now. I can't be abundant. I have a whole day planned of feeling abundant. Right. Yeah. It's getting in the way now. So, because, all right.

So the reason this doesn't work, right, all the time, or at least not for long, is because we're trying to rewrite this intellectual belief that we, or actually quite a visceral belief that we don't have enough. That's right. With an intellectual idea that, like, yes, we do. And if you just stand on one foot in tree pose

and chant long enough that you have everything and the universe provides or whatever, that you'll just feel differently enough to go and do it. But those are always, those two thoughts battle, right? Your natural wired for lack where you go, I don't have enough, that's constantly subconsciously, instinctively almost, or maybe not almost, instinctively fighting with your logical mind. And we know that any sort of base desire that comes from that limbic lizard brain, if you will, will always win in the end,

because it doesn't tire, it doesn't wear out. It doesn't require you to keep pumping air into its ideas. It's like, nope, we don't have enough, don't give anybody else squat. Yep. And then you, you know, there's not enough tree pose in the world to get you to override that permanently and make a shift. Maybe some psychedelics or something, but short of that, you're not getting there. in there. It's like you work your way out of the catch-22, only to work yourself back into this other problem where these two impulses are battling each other. So even if you do manage to convince yourself of your abundance, it doesn't really usually get you closer to the end game, which is acting abundantly. You might feel it. You might feel it, but are you actually being more generous

in your life? So if the intellectual approach doesn't work, then again, how do we resolve the catch 22. Well, the answer is that you actually don't need to feel abundant in order to be generous. And that's where the catch 22 actually breaks down. It's a false catch 22. It feels like we need to be in touch with those feelings of abundance in order to be generous with the people in our lives. But we don't. It feels like we do because we like to have those feelings and it does in some cases make it a little bit easier. But it's not required. It's not necessary. So when you're trying to figure out. Well, do I feel abundant to act generously or do I be generous to feel abundant? Which one comes for? I don't know. The simple solution to this, the way to cut through all of it, is to just

commit to the generous behavior and to not worry about resolving the abundance mindset before you get to do that. You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Gabriel Mizrahi. We'll be right back. Thanks for listening and supporting the show. And to learn more and get links to all the great discounts from our amazing sponsors that help keep this show going, visit jordan harbinger.com slash deals. Don't forget we have a worksheet for today's episode so you can make sure you solidify your understanding of the key takeaways from jordan and gabriel here on our deep dive. That link is in the show notes at jordan harbinger.com slash podcast. If you'd like some tips on how to subscribe to the show, just go to jordanharbinger.com

slash subscribe. Subscribing to the show is absolutely free. It just means you get all of the latest episodes in your podcast player as they're released so you don't miss a single thing. And now back to our show with Jordan and Gabriel Mizrahi. Right, because let's consider the facts. We know that generous people are more successful in life. If you haven't learned that from this show, then go back and listen to a few more episodes, maybe.

Because everybody who is really successful, at least the people that we've profiled here are generous in some way. Even if they're not like super friendly or nice when you meet them or they don't donate all their money to charity, they're doing something where they're usually giving back. usually. We have had just some real scumbags as well. But you know, sorry. I mean, you asked me in today. Can't win them all. But people who invest in their relationships, they make introductions, they share their knowledge, they are generous of spirit, they show up to their friends events or they show up for their friends on some other way. They're often choosing to behave generously even when they don't feel like it. And that's what we need to do too. So yes, you don't

feel abundant. Yes, you don't want to give. Yes, you're wired for lack. I'm just saying do it anyway. Be generous anyway. And you can make introductions to people, even if you don't have this giant network. You can donate money to charity if you're going to go with the financial angle. Even if you make $875 an hour, you can donate $5 to a charity. They still appreciate that stuff. You can be emotionally there for your friends or family.

You can spend time on the phone helping someone through the breakup or empathizing with a problem or helping craft a solution. an hour of your time on the weekend in an animal shelter. I mean, you're probably just a pain because then you get trained and you leave. But, you know, you get my drift here. You can rake the elderly neighbor's lawn for them so that they don't have to do it. You can do all of that without feeling like you have all of this stuff to give because you're just doing it. In other words, you can be generous without feeling abundant.

And if that sounds simple, if that sounds deceptively, it's not deceptively simple. It's just is simple. It's so simple that the mind can't figure it out because it's like, no, no, wait. You're saying that I can do things without feeling like I can do them? Yes, absolutely. And that's what we're talking about today. Yeah. I find that incredibly liberating because, first of all, it cuts out a whole stage of this process

that some of us end up spending weeks, months, years of our lives. Like, I've been trying to cultivate the abundance mindset. I still can't do it. But once I crack it, boy, will I be generous. Like, what a relief to know that you don't have to do all that. But more importantly than that, to know that the way you actually begin, to feel abundant is to act abundantly. And so what we're really talking about is that abundance is a belief. It's a thought. But generosity is an action. And as it happens, actions are a lot more

important than beliefs. They're more important because they're easier to do and they matter more because the beliefs follow the actions. The actions that you choose to do reinforce the beliefs that you have. I'm not saying that you can't decide one day to be like, I'm an abundant person. Now I will behave this way. Yes, you can. Will it be a little bit manufactured? Probably. That's fine. If it gets you there, great. But you can cut that stage out and just say, I'm going to introduce two people this week. I don't care how I feel. If I feel like I have a lot of people to introduce, or I don't feel like I have a lot of people to introduce, I'm just going to introduce those two people. And what happens at the end of that action, and just that one simple thing is that I would be shocked

if you didn't feel like, oh, I actually do have two people to introduce. And that is, the simplest definition of abundance. Yeah, exactly. It's you getting, it's you forcing yourself to realize this in a way by creating the belief through the action. So if you believe certain things, you act a certain way. So beliefs creating actions, no news to anybody who's read like any sort of, I guess,

self-help-y type book or listen to the show for a while. It's, that's a very common refrain is that beliefs create actions. But actions also create beliefs. And if you don't believe me, look at anybody who got hooked on something psychologically. and they usually did that because they tried it because their friends were doing it and then them doing it to like fit in created that addiction.

Yeah, they didn't stop and think, I really want to be an addict. Right. Now I'm going to go be a good addict. Right. You just... I believe that I'm an addict, so I need to smoke more cigarette.

You smoke cigarettes and then suddenly you're an addict. So it's actually a strange but very useful metaphor or similar... I don't know what that was. It was a comparison. One of those comparisons. One of those comparisons. I do need...

I need like a post. that shows metaphor, simile, analogy, because I'm like, I remember learning. That's what it was. Yeah, I was definitely going for the word analogy and just to say every single other possible synonym. That's how it works with generosity. Even if you don't have an abundance mindset, you are still free to behave generously. I'm not saying it will be the easiest thing in the world at first. I'm not saying that it will immediately make you happy or fulfilled. But if you know that being generous is the key to all of these other experiences in life, right? The great relationships, the sense of fulfillment, the ability to connect with people and to help people and to offer value to your

companies and to your family and to your friends. If you know that, then there's really nothing in your way to behaving generously. So why, like, why even go through the middleman, right? I got an interesting note. This was a while ago and I didn't really slot it in here before, but it's more relevant than ever. Someone said, look, I'm actually a really selfish person and I think I'm probably narcissistic in some ways. And they were really, like, shockingly candid about this. So they're like, I really don't need or want to network or anything because I'm only looking at what's in it for me. I'm trying to outgrow this, but I just can't. They were in their young 20s. And they knew that they felt bad about this. Yeah, I love the self-awareness. It was awesome because I just thought like, he's like, yeah, I've cheated on relationships.

And I don't feel bad, but I feel bad, that I didn't feel bad, if that makes sense. Like, I feel guilty about not. feeling guilty and I was like, oh, you need to go see a therapist. Sure, yeah, that sounds like, you got some layers. Yeah, there's some layers. But what I explained to them was that actually, even if you're like a complete sociopath and you have no feelings and you just think the world is at my disposal and everyone is a toy for me to abuse,

the networking and abundance mindset is still actually the most functional highest leverage skill set you can have to accomplish those nefarious goals. And I'm not trying to be like, here's so you manipulate people. But I think a lot of people go, well, I'm not nice enough. And I'm fine with that. This is like raw material to generate influence, power. You think politicians are really like, I want to change the world. Some are. But the most nefarious sort of dastardly ones, they're still super well networked. They introduce people to one another.

This is what power brokering even is, is connecting other people and creating webs of alliances around you that are really strong and that are sort of loyal to you. And this is how those people do it. Some of the most dangerous self-interested people in the world, they're just really good at the abundance thing. They don't feel, I just want everyone to share in my joy. They're like, no, I want to create tools that I can use and manipulate. This is still the most effective way to do it. So when I get letters from people that are like, well, I'm not really in a position to do this because I have to be more self-interested right now. Doing this is the height of self-interest. in a way. Or it can be very generous and selfless, depending on your motivation. But the actions,

they still look pretty much exactly the same. And that's a big realization, because that means that even if you're a ruthless bastard investment banker, you know who you are. I used to work with you guys. But even if you're one of those ruthless sort of like Gordon Gecko types, this is still the way to do it. And if you are the next mother, Teresa, Gandhi hybrid who just wants to be selfless and wear rags in is doing Hare-Khrusha stuff all over. This is still the best way to accomplish that goal, too, is to be generous of spirit and share things with other people and create those networks even if you don't feel it.

You also make a really good point, which is that when you commit to generosity and action, you're not just reminding yourself of all the things that you do have to give. If you're not just cultivating abundance based on the assets that you already had, that you didn't feel that you had, you're also creating new ones. Right. So you introduce two people, they hit it off, they started a company, now you had a hand in that. Right. Then they create all this wealth, or they create all these jobs, you had a hand in that, they help you out, they send you somebody.

Exactly. And then before you know it, you've, you know, multiplied several times over that initial form of value that you didn't feel like you had in the beginning. That's a good point. So actually, in the beginning we sort of were talking about this as a way to just feel a little bit more connected to what you already have. what you're talking about is not just feeling connected to what you already have, it's being generous so that you can amplify it. And that is abundance. That is the definition of abundance. That's a good point. And you know, most top performers that I've met are profiled on the show. They don't walk around with this sense of limitless value. They're cultivating that sense of value by offering it deliberately to other people. And that's what I do. I don't walk around being like, I am so abundant. I have limitless. I face this sort of, conundrum or this, this, I'm swimming upstream on this every day. If you ask me to donate money to your charity, it's always going to be tough for me. Even like close friends, I'm like, yeah, I, okay,

I should, I need to, I will. And then I have, I go, Jen, write the check and I just don't want to, I just, I don't want to think about it anymore because it's making me go like, but I could use that money and do this, other things, whatever, you know, I could reinvest it in the business. The, the rationalization that I have with that is strong. Or even just, we'll go out to dinner and I'll be like, we should treat these people. And Jen's like, yeah, and I'm just like, oh, it's going to be expensive. And then I just have to not think about it because I'm fighting this urge to be more selfish every day. But I just create things like this show where I could easily just be like, yeah, let's put 17 ads in each episode. But then it's like, no, I'm an advocate for the

listener. I care about the listener. But it's very, I have to deliberately do this. I am not naturally really giving and generous. I have to listen to that little voice in my head that's like, Don't take the call from that person. Don't write a response to this person on Feedback Friday because it's going to take you longer. Choose the easier question, even though this one's more urgent. And then I go, no, I got to deliberately go down. Go against what every cell in my body is screaming. Don't do it.

Be self-interested. I have to ignore that and go in the other direction. And it's not easy. So if you're feeling that too, when you're trying this and you're like, God, my body and mine do not want to do this. I must be bad or not able to do this or it's hard. Nope. You are completely normal. I find that to be a huge relief because I actually, I mean, you are one of the most

generous people I know. So I always sort of assume that you were just like, oh, I have this innate feeling that I have some, but like, that's actually great. But more importantly, I think it's even more evidence of the fact that behaving matters more than believing. Yes. So you can have whatever thoughts you have and you're free to wrestle with those for as long as you want.

but at some point, the end game has to be to change your behavior. It is. It has to be. Why not just commit to the behavior and then discover that you can change the belief? Yeah. And tell you, look, it feels good to be generous, but I even still catch myself afterwards with thoughts I wish I didn't have. Like, well, I just gave a bunch of money to my friend's charity.

So if I ever need anything from him, I can always, oh, my God, I'm such a scumbag. What do you stop thinking about what's in it for you? It's just caveman brain, though. It is. It's just ancient wiring is all it is. but to your point, we can override that. It might creep up again, but you can behave differently. Or you can say, okay, thank you, brain, I got you.

I understand, needs to take care of myself. Am I taking care of myself? Yes, cool. Now I can go help someone. Now I can do this. Am I homeless? No. Am I going to be able to buy groceries?

Yep. All right, here's a check. And then just stop. Thanks for the input. Yeah, let me just behave generously. So the real question is to get a little bit more practical, how do you actually begin that process of acting toward abundance? So we've been talking about a lot of philosophy, but I want to get a little bit more specific.

You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Gabriel Mizrahi. We'll be right back after this. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers is what keeps us on the air. To learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard so you can check out our amazing sponsors, visit jordanharbinger.com slash deals. And don't forget the worksheet for today's episode. That link is in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com slash podcast. And if you're listening to us on the Overcast player, please click that little star next to the

episode. It really helps us out. And now for the conclusion of our deep dive with Gabriel Mizrahi. Cultivating abundance begins with committing to a handful of really, really small acts of generosity in your everyday life. And I'm sure you would agree with me on this because I think we've talked about it a bunch, the smaller those acts are in the beginning, the better. Because if you feel like you need to cultivate abundance and start being more generous and you're not, or you're doing it inconsistently and you feel like you need to get on top of that, It can be very daunting to be like, okay, I need to like overnight. I need to turn the ship around and become the most generous person.

Right. I guess I should drive my friend to the airport. That's one thing. And all my friends. Write a $2,000 check to a charity. Yeah, it's just like, ooh, you've got to really work up to that. It's like if you have a gym in your basement, theoretically you can get there more easily. I mean, we all know that we'll come up with a reason not to.

But you can get there more easily than you can if you've got to drive across town. So the answer is do some pushups in your freaking pajamas or something if you're just starting off. Don't say like, oh, got to go across town to the NFL gym and hire a personal trainer. That's not the way that you start any sort of habit. So this is exactly the same thing. We're talking like while you're laying in bed, you can text a friend or a colleague or family member. I mean, this is Netflix time. Like while you're waiting for the thing to buffer.

Exactly. Text a friend, family member, a colleague, ask how they're doing. That seems like, wait, what? That's BS. That's not abundance. This is a good start for somebody, depending on how self-interested, you find yourself. And I think for the vast majority of us,

I mean, I have to, I have a freaking calendar appointment that says, text people and ask how they're doing, because I am so naturally not that person that I need reminders. And other people will go, I'm not going to set a reminder. And in six-minute network, I'm like,

trust me, set the reminder, because you might be a better man the nine and go, I will naturally think of other people. But if you're anything like me, you're going, I'm busy. I have stuff I got to do. I'm not thinking about, I need an alarm to pop up and go, oh yeah, I have this 15-minute block where I ask people I love how they are once a month. And it's like, it makes you feel a little crappy to have to do that. But that's how you begin this. But if it helps systematize it. If that's what it takes, great. It's what it takes for me. But more importantly, to make each of those individual acts of service really small and easy in the beginning.

And ultimately, look, even if you were the most generous version of yourself, if you were writing all the checks and driving all the friends to the airport and introducing everybody you know, each of those commitments would be made up of these really small things anyway. I mean, at the end of the day, you're talking about an email, a car ride, a check. I mean, these are small acts. The number on the check might be bigger. But that's a different thing. Depends on the number of the check. But yeah, like send one email every week to somebody in your life telling them how you help them. That's like one of my favorite emails to write is you like surprise someone who you haven't seen in like two and a half years.

And you're like, hey, do you remember that time? You crack that joke in that really awkward moment. Thank you for doing that because that made that night. So, I mean, it could be that small. And I've written that email and I've always gotten an awesome response. And it's always reminded me that I do have this friend there and that I do have this great memory. And 30 seconds later, I feel more connected than I did at the beginning. You can ask one random person you meet, like, how they're doing, give them a high five.

Be like, what's up? Like, it's the barista or the security guard or the person who sits in the cubicle in that other department. You don't actually have to talk to. I mean, these are such small acts of service, but they are great stepping stones to becoming a little bit more generous. And they don't cost much at all. Right. And I think part of the, this is a logical fallacy. And I wish I, it's right on the tip of my tongue.

But it's kind of like this all or nothing situation where some people will listen to this and go, Well, I really want to be generous, though. I'm not going to just text people and ask how they're doing. I'm not just going to say hello to my barista and really listen to them and empathize or strike up a conversation. I'm not really going to send an email to somebody about an anecdote because these are too small. I need to do something that's really, but here's the problem. If you're not going to do that, it's going to be a lot harder to go and do something that's even more generous. And to systemize that or to turn that into a habit.

It's kind of like saying, you know, I'm not going to go to the gym and lift really lightweight, even though I'm out of shape, because I need to be like really pushing that iron. I need to be able to deadlift all this weight because my friends are all really strong, but I don't want to lift this lightweight. Nobody would go to the gym and go, yeah, I'm just going to throw 400 on the bar. I haven't been here in six years, but I need to throw 400 on the bar. And if people do that, you're just going, this is a bad injury waiting to happen. Most of us have to work our way up.

The problem is if we go, well, that's not enough, so I'm not going to do it. And then you don't do anything. That's a problem. That's the problem with the all or nothing mentality. is that it keeps you stuck in place because it's so tempting to think, well, if I know I need to change, then I really need to change change.

Right. But in reality, like, there's absolutely no way you're going to go overnight from struggling with abundance to feeling 150%. It just doesn't work that way. But the small acts of abundance can feel, there can be some resistance around acting in those small ways because, well, you're actually doing the work.

And the mind doesn't want to believe like, oh, man, I lost my excuse. I can't duck my way out of this because I actually have to do the small things. My mind wanted to believe that I could do the big thing, which I can't. But that was really sometimes an excuse in disguise for not actually having to be more generous. Agree. And honestly, candid aside, I think that the small things are more important than the big things. I agree with you, yeah. I think there's a lot of people out there that will write their yearly $2,000 check to the charity of their choice on Chris. or whatever, and the rest of the year, they've got this, you know what moral licensing is?

No. It's where people will do something that is considered in their world very, like, kind, moral, or giving. And then they do all this crappy stuff because they're like, well, I bought a Prius, so that's good for the environment, so I can drive like a dick. I mean, that's just. I donated to the pediatric ward, so I can be an asshole to everybody. Right.

Like, I can snap at people because I'm a good person. Look, I donated two grand last year to the, yeah, to the children's hospital. And it's not a conscious process for most of us. Like, we don't slam the door in someone's face because they're being too slow or like, we don't say, come on, I'm in a hurry to the barista. And then go, I'm a good person, though. Look at that check I donated. It's just sort of lives in the back of our head somewhere where people, like the people

who smile when they tell you to go F yourself or they fire you, right? They're like, but I was friendly. I'm a nice person because of this. Well, didn't you know three weeks ago? and now she's screwed, can't get that other job. It's like, yeah, but I'm nice to kids because I read to them at the library. So if I'm an a-hole at work, it's all good. I'm still a good person.

It's like we anchor our identity to like these one action, this big action. So the small stuff of actually being generous and kind every day is far more important because that's kind of the element of what makes you a good person. It's what you're doing in these tiny things that you're doing 80% of the time, not the one thing you did 1% of your year, and then the rest of the time you're infrecken sufferable. So moral licensing is that it's easy to fall into that trap. It's, I think, a logical fallacy or a cognitive bias, one of those.

And so the reason I'm highlighting this is because choosing one minor active kindness every day, like letting someone merge in traffic and smiling, instead of being like, ah, I'm going to passive aggressively accelerate ahead and not look at you so that you think I didn't see you. Like just not doing that kind of stuff. pressing the elevator button, where's everybody going and handling that in the way to work, running a package to the mailroom, proofreading something for a friend because you know that they need that and they're embarrassed to ask, offering.

These little things are the ingredients of a good person. It's not the person who has $10 million and then sets up a fund. That's a good person too, maybe, but you can be equally good and or better as far as your impact is concerned by doing something every day that's small. And I think that's important to note. Otherwise, you're sitting, the college graduates, you know, first year out are going, I can never do this. I just don't have, I don't have the checkbook. I don't have the network.

We addressed that earlier, but I think it's important to note that you can literally be homeless and still be able to offer this level of kindness. And we saw that in the, have you seen the kindness diaries? We interviewed this host, Leon Logothetus on the show. He travels around the world. And if you haven't heard that episode, go back and listen to it. it's recent, Leon Logothetus, The Kindness Diaries is his show on Netflix.

He travels around the world and he doesn't have any money. And he just meets people and he's like, can I stay at your house? Can I get some food? And, you know, they're filming it so that probably helps to have a camera. But he made it around the world twice, north-south and I think west-east. And one of the early episodes of season one,

he's talking with this guy and he's like, so I need a favor, can I stay at your house? It turns out the guy's homeless. And he's like, you can stay with me and I have a blanket for you and I have like cardboard and a doorway and I'll protect you at night, but I don't have a house.

So he ends up going like, all right, and he sleeps on the streets of Philly with this homeless guy. And it was just like, wow, this guy has nothing. And he's still, all these other people were like, not staying in my house, you can't stay with me. Get away from me. Don't talk to me. And this guy's like, yeah, I don't have a house though.

So you don't have to have a lot. In fact, one of the themes of the show that I noticed was a lot of the kindest people were the people that had the least stuff. Sure, there were wealthy benefactors and things like that that were really nice. But, I mean, these gas station attendants were like, you could sleep in my place, but you're going to have a cat on your chest, you know, and a dog next to you and a baby yelling in the next room. And my wife and I stepping over you to go to the bathroom. But yeah, you could stay here. That was a theme I noticed of that show. So don't rationalize.

Don't use the idea that you don't have enough to rationalize not doing this. I think that's key. I'm beating that dead horse so we can move on. Yeah. And when you do those acts of service, the next step is to just notice what effect they have on you. So how do you feel before you did it? How do you feel afterwards? I would be shocked if you told me that you didn't feel more connected, more fulfilled, more able to help.

It's really difficult to be generous and not feel like you want to be more generous, to not feel more abundant. it's almost impossible. It's like if you go to the gym and you lift weights and you do that enough for enough time, you're going to get stronger. Right. It's not like, you don't need to go to the gym and be like, I believe in the concept of strength. Right. Yeah. And therefore my muscles are going to grow. But for some reason when it comes to abundance, we think that that's what we need to do. We need to believe it. But you don't. And you go to the gym and you do the work, even if it's, it doesn't even have to be an hour and a half or two hours. It can just be a little bit of work at the gym consistently. and you will get in better shape.

And it's the same thing with this topic. It's the same thing with generosity. There's no difference at all. But the key is to check in with yourself and just be like, how is this changing my perception of the world? Do I look at things a little bit differently? Do I feel like I have more to offer?

Do I feel more connected to the people I'm helping? The answer is always going to be yes. Yeah, that's a good point. I think you're right. A lot of people will go, oh, well, I have to be consciously thinking of this. And it's like, no, just like the gym, you're right. It just happens because you go there.

Like you, when you get to the gym, you have to do nothing or try it or be such a wimpsky with the amount of weight you're lifting or like use the machines and you're like reading Cosmo at the same time. Yeah, like check the gram or something. Yeah. Yeah. And even then, you're going to be like, oh, okay, I still got kind of a workout. You burn more calories than you normally would sitting on your couch. So you really can't avoid the positive effect of this when you're doing it. So if you think, oh, it's always going to be really hard, it'll always, you'll always have that wire for lack.

but it gets a lot easier because you start to go, oh, okay, well, last time I sat down and made a bunch of introductions for people and I didn't really see what the benefit would be for me, a year later I ended up getting this and this and this and this and this and these people are close friends of mine now and that would never have happened otherwise and da-da-da. You'll just start to see the benefits and then you go,

oh, okay, so it's put a quarter in the machine and then 50 cents comes out. It just takes a while. So it still hurts to put the quarter in because you go, am I going to see this again? Am I going to see this again? Yeah. And then later on it keeps coming out.

So you just have to keep reminding yourself that this is working and that this is good for you. Yeah, and I'm really glad you brought that up because I'm not, I don't think we're saying that the whole world is going to shift as soon as you start sending one email a week. No. And it shouldn't. We're not here to tell you that like suddenly you have a rosy color glasses and like everything is amazing and all your problems go away. And you suddenly have like all of this time and energy and resources to give to it. It doesn't work like that. And it shouldn't.

But it will get you a little bit. bit closer, and that matters more. You don't need to change your entire life or your entire world view in one act of service. That's realistically impossible, but also, you just don't, the world does not need to shift that quickly. But you do these little acts of service, you do them for a year. I promise you your life is going to be different in a year. I think people will notice even within the first few days. I think they will notice it too. Especially. I just mean that like your life might not, the external appearance of your life might not change overnight. And if it doesn't, that doesn't mean it's not working. It's just about incrementally working your way towards

generosity. That makes sense. Yeah. So take stock of how people respond to your interactions, how being in touch with people makes you feel. I think that's important because it's, it makes you feel closer to them and better about yourself. And you kind of made a note on that earlier. Have you made new connections? Has anything come about from that? Maybe not yet. But how is your mood, how's your outlook in life? Are you feeling like you have, more people have your back as a result of doing that? Did helping those people make you want to be more generous in the future? Probably. So you have to kind of sit down and take notice of that. You don't have to meditate on it for 45 minutes. Just when you're done with that, that action in the morning, and then you get those

responses back, do you feel like, oh, that's kind of cool? Sit there and enjoy that for like 10 seconds. Exactly. Yeah. Just to sort of, it's so funny. Because at the top of this episode, we were talking about how those usual approaches to abundance don't work. And one of them, was sit there and think about all the things you have and meditate upon that. But what's interesting is that that practice actually becomes a lot more valuable here. After the act. After you've done all the act of generosity, because then it's concrete. Then it's happening in your life.

It's not like this abstract notion. You're actually putting it into practice. Right. It's not, the universe has a lot to offer. It's like, no, I sent five texts and four people were like, oh my gosh, good to hear from you. I miss you. That's what you're supposed to feel good about. It's very concrete when you have results in front of you.

Exactly. And the last step, and it's very simple, is just to work your way up, from the small acts of service to larger acts of generosity. That will look different depending on your life and your life situation and who you are and all that. But after you commit to the small acts, it gets a lot easier to scale up the generosity. So that could look like so many different things. It could mean you do two introductions instead of one. It could mean you have a two-minute conversation instead of a 30-second conversation.

And that could grow into a standing phone call once a week or once a month with somebody on your team or somebody in your life or you check in with your parents more often. I mean, literally, it could be anything that relates to you and your needs at the moment and the needs of the people in your life. But to scale up from the small acts is a lot easier than going from nothing to the small acts. So you just keep doing it and you keep doing it more and more and more. And you discover, you find out which ones are the ones that actually have the most impact. What do people need? Which ones give me the most fulfillment? Which ones can I offer the most?

And you just keep building up from there. Side note, the other reason we do the small acts is because they take, no time. This is like time you'd spend on Instagram sending a couple quick texts. But if it's like, oh, you need to start volunteering at the animal shelter. It's, oh, God, when am I going to do that? I got two kids and I got two dogs and my car is in the shop. I can't possible. I was going to do that in six months. All right, I'll do that in six months. Start sending text now. Like you're at a red light. Don't text and drive. You're parked your car at work. You can send those four texts now. And it's like, I want to be alive so you can actually have the abundance. Right. Ideally, you don't get a ticket. Do it when you're

parked, yeah. Or die, yes. So in closing here, the goal of this exercise is to cultivate the abundance mindset. And I, again, every time I say that, I just want to punch myself in the face. But embrace that generous behavior. Just do those small things. You don't have to worry about creating the abundance mindset because you're going through the motions. You don't have to believe anything. You just have to go through the actions. You just have to mimic the actions of people who are generous and see the benefits. And that will create the generosity later on. And what's interesting is that all of those virtues that we want to cultivate in our life, all those feelings that we're trying so hard to get, empathy, kindness, patience, hope, all of those things, they work the same way. You don't sit in lotus position for 30 minutes every day and say, I'm going to cultivate the idea of hope today and therefore I will be hopeful. You act the way a hopeful person would act. You look at a situation at work that's really difficult and you say, if I had hope that we could solve this, here are the things I would do. And you do those things. And then at the end of it, at the end of the day, again, I would be shocked if you didn't feel a little bit more hopeful because you're actually putting it into

practice. And the same thing with empathy, the same thing with kindness, right? You don't have to say, I'm going to cultivate an idea of empathy. You meet somebody, it's a tough situation, and you say, I'm going to take a moment and try to understand where they're coming from. Empathy as a concept doesn't even have to figure into it. You just have to be empathetic in practice. It's funny because a lot of people, when they try to handle these types of things, they use new age concepts like affirmations and things like that. But nobody would go, hey, you know what? You don't have to go to the gym. Just stare at yourself in the mirror

and say these things out loud and you'll get fit. I deserve to be strong. Nobody would do that. But yet when it comes to all these other... I guess what I'm trying to say is this generosity, this is a physical skill before it is like some sort of belief system that you take on.

It's a physical... Right, it's an act which made up of discrete physical skills. Texting people, calling people, showing empathy. Like these can be broken down to just like shark level. lizard brain physical skills. Exactly. And just like those other qualities we just talked about,

you don't have to feel them in order to do them. I'm not saying it's not easier when you feel them. I get that. I get that we want to feel a certain way to do a certain. But that's the same thing with work, right? You're like, it would be easier to go to work if I woke up excited to go to work. Sure. But you will be a lot more excited to go to work if you go to work and do a good job.

Right. Just do the good job. Good analogy. So we can do the work whether we feel like it or not. And that's the beauty. And that's, to me, it's so liberated. to know that you don't have to go through the middleman. You can just commit to the behavior.

And that's the bottom line of this exercise. It's just behave generously. Yep, behave generously, and it'll get easier over time, but it'll probably, well, I shouldn't say probably, there's a chance it will never become completely automated and automatic and shift your entire worldview. If you're anything like me, you'll fight it for a long time. And that's okay. It doesn't mean that it's not working.

It doesn't mean you're not a good person. It just means you've got to do more of the manual process to get it done. and they both work equally well. They both work equally well. And the truth is, when you think about it like that, it actually makes abundance a lot more meaningful. Yes. If it were this natural, easy, built-in thing

where we just were able to feel it all the time and act on it easily, that would be wonderful. I think we'd all prefer that we didn't have to work for something. But because we have to work to cultivate it, in my mind anyway, that makes it more meaningful. Well said. And to go back to the gym analogy,

you don't go to the gym, get in shape, and then go, well, I'm done. I'm in shape now so I can stop coming, right? It's just hitting it over and over and over. And the results start to speak for themselves. Again, just like going to the gym, you look in the mirror and you can see it. With this, you sort of look in the life mirror and you go, wow, look at all these new connections and friends that I have and these opportunities I've got as a result of doing this. You no longer have to sell yourself on it.

It's self-evident why this is important. Gabriel, thank you very much, man. Of course. Yeah, happy to be here. I hope that was helpful for everyone. I know that a lot of people struggle with this, and I'm so glad that we got a chance to clarify this subject. Take a little bit of the sting slash shame out of it and help people with strategies on how to overcome that, because it really is that long game that we're playing here.

And when you play that long game, you will win long term. The results come slower, but they are stronger and they are unstoppable. It really is a game changer. And if you put a little bit of faith in yourself to execute on this stuff for six minutes a day or just a few minutes per day, you will start to realize that you can dewire or rewire yourself in a way that's more beneficial. And if you want all of that in a practical way, go to six-minute networking. That's our free course that'll help you with the actions required to put this stuff into play. Jordan Harbinger.com slash course is where that's at.

Again, it's free. It will change the game for you. And it will be the step by step that you need that we discussed here today to do the action so that you can start to, quote, unquote, feel abundant after the fact. Again, you can find all that at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. Speaking of building relationships, tell me your number one takeaway here from Gabriel Mizrahi and I on this deep dive. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram.

There's a video of this interview on our YouTube channel at Jordan Harbinger.com slash YouTube. A lot of you haven't seen Gabriel on camera before. Now's your chance, I suppose. This show is produced in association with Podcast One. This episode was co-produced by Jason Deep Dive to Philippo and Jen Harbinger. Show Notes and Worksheets by Robert Fogarty. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Remember, we rise by lifting others,

and the fee for this show is that you share it with friends when you find something useful, which should be in every episode. So please share the show with those you love, and even those you don't. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen, and we'll see you next time. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast.

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