Flipping the switch is what I call shifting your point of view. The two points of view that I am currently choosing between are scarcity thinking and prosperity thinking—the old glass half-empty or half full. The mind creates whatever thoughts we focus on. If I focus on what I don’t have instead of what I do have, I am in scarcity mode.

One of my favorite teachers for the prosperity thinking is Catherine Ponder. She was a Unity Church minister who wrote in 1958 a great book, The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity. The book was written via a series of sermons during a recession. She established her belief in prosperity being available to everyone by teaching that the Bible teaching of “not serving God and Mammon” was right. This teaching meant not worshiping wealth but to always recognize who the Giver is.

She was the first I knew who recognized that the brain works by the mental images we produce. She also believed in projected positive images to others so that they can prosper also. With prosperity thinking, you focus on what is and what can be added to the wealth you already possess. I think of it as pyramid. At the base of the pyramid, I have the love of the God of my understanding, my health, my husband, my dog, my loved ones, my business, my home, my computers, the Internet, my spiritual program, my experiences, my plants, the canals, etc.

She also taught one of the spiritual laws I believe—giving away surplus to make room for new. When my cup is full, I have to empty it to get more. So it is with possessions, love, experiences, etc. I have to make room for the new.

Other points of view about this topic:

From Douglas Cartwright: “How to get Unstuck in Life: Fixed Versus a Growth Mindset”:

“What is a key difference between those who dust themselves off and keep ‘moving forward’ after one of life’s ‘hits’ and those who drop like a stone?”

From Art Markman:  “Is There a Formula for Smart Thinking?”:

“Prob­lem solv­ing can be stress­ful in part because you have a lot of men­tal habits that you have gen­er­ated through years of prac­tice think­ing. Unfor­tu­nately, not all of those men­tal habits are con­ducive to smart thinking.”

“The think­ing habits you have are not part of some fixed men­tal toolkit that you were born with. Those habits were cre­ated by going to school for years and then they were rein­forced by all of the think­ing you have done since then. Smarter think­ing requires devel­op­ing new habits to com­ple­ment the ones that have already brought you suc­cess. It also requires chang­ing habits that are get­ting in the way of smart think­ing. When you reach an impasse, you need to have habits that allow you to do for your­self what I helped my son to do. You have to develop habits to cre­ate high qual­ity knowl­edge and habits to help you find it when you need it.”

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