Gift Giving

When you’re in a mindset of giving and receiving gifts, it changes everything.

Musicians do best in this mindset. We naturally create something that anyone can enjoy (you can’t completely control who hears the sounds you make). Like songbirds, we mostly give and receive all musical ideas we hear and make.

This has only changed in the last 100 years, where money got involved in a big way. That’s not a bad thing necessarily, but threatens to kill the mindset where most people thrive: an abundance mindset. If there’s a never ending series of gifts coming in from all directions, it’s hard to feel like you don’t have enough.

Measuring, gatekeeping, restricting, and all forms of territorialism naturally arrives when money, shareholders and competition for status happens. It tempts us to abandon gift giving and receiving to compete.

Don’t give in. Not because you should be broke (money’s necessary) but because your joy, happiness and soul won’t survive in a mindset of scarcity and win/lose competition for long.

The only way to stay in the mindset of giving and receiving is to practice it. Pay the bills, but remember the reason you’re able to do it isn’t because you beat the other guy. It’s because you received a gift. Act accordingly.