Years ago, I head this explanation of the story of Jesus and the loaves and fishes that changed my mindset about lack and abundance.
For those of you who aren’t up on New Testament stories, the gist is that there is a large crowd hanging out with Jesus. They’ve been there a long time and the disciples suggest they send the crowd away so they can go eat. Jesus says, “nah, we’ll share.” He gives the disciples five loaves and two fish and instructs them to give them to the crowd to eat. Now, most recountings put the crowd at 5,000, a lot more than can be feed by such a small amount. But, I guess the disciples have gotten used to Jesus doing things a bit different, so they shrug and begin to pass the food around. By the end, everyone has eaten and there’s actually food left over.
For a long time, I thought this story was about how Jesus made food appear out of nowhere. Poof. Magic. But then someone told me that probably the story is about abundance mindset. See, custom dictated that if you took out food to eat, you had to share with everyone around you. A number of people in that crowd had brought food with them, but were afraid to take it out because they would have to share and they didn’t want to find themselves without enough to eat. So Jesus set the example and shared the little he had, and then everyone else saw it was okay. It wasn’t that Jesus made things appear out of nowhere, he made things appear out of where people had them hidden.
For a year or two now, I’ve worked very hard to have an abundance mindset instead of a lack mindset. (Jen Sincero has a good explanation of this in her books. It was her explanation that really brought it together for me.) But in this time of crisis and uncertainty, I’ve been thinking about it even more. Especially professionally.
In addition to other things, I’m serve as an ED of a small nonprofit that had to cancel programming indefinitely. We are inordinately lucky, because of how grant payments have timed out and our funders willingness to shift those monies from program to operations. We are able to pay everyone their contracted amount in full for the canceled program.
But I’ve also been looking for fish and loaves that might be hidden. (Only metaphorically, of course, actually forgetting about hidden food gets smelly.) We are hiring some of our contractors who are usually public facing to create digital content. We are working with some of behind the scenes contractors to help us create proposals for capital improvements that we can implement later. So many of the people we work with suddenly have more time than they ever had before, so we are tackling those projects that we never seem to get to. And we are compensating them as we are able.
I’ve seen so many people do the same. People who are unable to work offering to provide childcare or tutoring. People who are unable to work offering to go grocery shopping for seniors. One of my friends who is a comedic actor is offering on demand jokes. You call him or message him and he tells you a joke–I think you can even pick the topic.
Storybook Foundry, my nonprofit consulting agency, is also handing out some fish and loaves. Until further notice, all the individual templates that you can use to organize your organization or small business’s communication pieces are FREE. We figure you have time to work on these types of projects right now, but not the money to invest. We hope you take advantage of the offer, we want to help how we can.
I also encourage you to think about what you might have hidden you can offer up, both professionally and personally. I’m not talking about things we’ve been intentionally holding back (though if you’ve been doing that, please consider letting go!) Instead I’m talking about things that we could give away that we might not realize we’ve been holding on to. Can you call and read a book over FaceTime to your niece or nephew so your brother can have 5 minutes to take a shower? Can you create a cool YouTube video about how you’ve organized your kitchen drawers in your tiny, tiny apartment? If you are an organization or a business, can you hire people to make deliveries who are unable to tend bar? Can you offer your customers the option to shop by video?
Instead of focusing on what we are all missing these days, and I’ll admit it’s a lot, ask yourself: Where is my abundance?
**note–I am not suggesting you share things you don’t actually have. Don’t contract someone to paint your house exterior if you have just been laid off. This isn’t about seeing things that aren’t there. It’s about seeing things that are there differently.
Version from Ara
Years ago, I head this explanation of the story of Jesus and the loaves and fishes that changed my mindset about lack and abundance.
For those of you who aren’t up on New Testament stories, the gist is that there is a large crowd hanging out with Jesus. They’ve been there a long time and the disciples suggest they send the crowd away so they can go eat. Jesus says, “nah, we’ll share.” He gives the disciples five loaves and two fish and instructs them to give them to the crowd to eat. Now, most recountings put the crowd at 5,000, a lot more than can be feed by such a small amount. But, I guess the disciples have gotten used to Jesus doing things a bit different, so they shrug and begin to pass the food around. By the end, everyone has eaten and there’s actually food left over.
For a long time, I thought this story was about how Jesus made food appear out of nowhere. Poof. Magic. But then someone told me that probably the story is about abundance mindset. See, custom dictated that if you took out food to eat, you had to share with everyone around you. A number of people in that crowd had brought food with them, but were afraid to take it out because they would have to share and they didn’t want to find themselves without enough to eat. So Jesus set the example and shared the little he had, and then everyone else saw it was okay. It wasn’t that Jesus made things appear out of nowhere, he made things appear out of where people had them hidden.
For a year or two now, I’ve worked very hard to have an abundance mindset instead of a lack mindset. (Jen Sincero has a good explanation of this in her books. It was her explanation that really brought it together for me.) But in this time of crisis and uncertainty, I’ve been thinking about it even more. Especially professionally.
In addition to other things, I’m serve as an ED of a small nonprofit that had to cancel programming indefinitely. We are inordinately lucky, because of how grant payments have timed out and our funders willingness to shift those monies from program to operations. We are able to pay everyone their contracted amount in full for the canceled program.
But I’ve also been looking for fish and loaves that might be hidden. (Only metaphorically, of course, actually forgetting about hidden food gets smelly.) We are hiring some of our contractors who are usually public facing to create digital content. We are working with some of behind the scenes contractors to help us create proposals for capital improvements that we can implement later. So many of the people we work with suddenly have more time than they ever had before, so we are tackling those projects that we never seem to get to. And we are compensating them as we are able.
I’ve seen so many people do the same. People who are unable to work offering to provide childcare or tutoring. People who are unable to work offering to go grocery shopping for seniors. One of my friends who is a comedic actor is offering on demand jokes. You call him or message him and he tells you a joke–I think you can even pick the topic.
Storybook Foundry, my nonprofit consulting agency, is also handing out some fish and loaves. Until further notice, all the individual templates that you can use to organize your organization or small business’s communication pieces are FREE. We figure you have time to work on these types of projects right now, but not the money to invest. We hope you take advantage of the offer, we want to help how we can.
I also encourage you to think about what you might have hidden you can offer up, both professionally and personally. I’m not talking about things we’ve been intentionally holding back (though if you’ve been doing that, please consider letting go!) Instead I’m talking about things that we could give away that we might not realize we’ve been holding on to. Can you call and read a book over FaceTime to your niece or nephew so your brother can have 5 minutes to take a shower? Can you create a cool YouTube video about how you’ve organized your kitchen drawers in your tiny, tiny apartment? If you are an organization or a business, can you hire people to make deliveries who are unable to tend bar? Can you offer your customers the option to shop by video?
Instead of focusing on what we are all missing these days, and I’ll admit it’s a lot, ask yourself: Where is my abundance?
**note–I am not suggesting you share things you don’t actually have. Don’t contract someone to paint your house exterior if you have just been laid off. This isn’t about seeing things that aren’t there. It’s about seeing things that are there differently.