Most people who struggle financially are not short on intelligence, discipline, or hard work. They are short on one thing: a belief that there is enough.
Not enough money. Not enough opportunity. Not enough for them.
This is called a scarcity mindset — and the reason so many people carry it is not a character flaw. It is programming. Deep, early, well-intentioned programming that was passed down from the people who loved us most.
It Was Never Your Fault
Think about how your parents talked about money when you were growing up.
For most of us, the message — spoken or unspoken — was some version of: money is hard to earn, easy to lose, and you need to protect every euro of it. Our parents worked long hours, sacrificed their health and their time, and came home tired. They saved carefully. They worried about unexpected expenses. They taught us, through their example, that financial security is fragile and that the responsible thing to do is hold on tightly to what you have.
It didn’t matter whether your family was wealthy or not. I grew up moving between two very different worlds. As a young child in Bolivia, I lived in a mid-class apartment building with my mother, who ran her own business and worked incredibly hard. We had enough — but unexpected expenses were stressful, and I could feel that tension in the house.
Then I moved to Mexico to live with my father, who had a very good job and a house in an expensive neighbourhood. Suddenly we were travelling, attending a school full of wealthy families, driving a nice car. By any objective measure, our life was comfortable.
But our house was the smallest in the entire neighbourhood. Our neighbours had homes three or four times larger, multiple cars, a level of wealth that made ours look modest by comparison. And I remember feeling — genuinely, viscerally — poor.
Here is what that experience taught me, though I didn’t understand it until much later: the feeling of scarcity has almost nothing to do with how much money you actually have. It is a state of mind. A lens. And if you don’t consciously choose to change that lens, it will follow you regardless of how much you earn, save, or accumulate.
The Tipping Test
One of the most practical ways I have found to check your own money mindset is what I call the tipping test.
The next time you are at a restaurant and the bill arrives, pay attention to how you feel when you leave a tip. Not what you decide to leave — how you feel about it. Is it easy and natural? Do you give it with a sense of genuine appreciation for the service? Or does it feel like a small loss — something slightly uncomfortable, something you’d rather not have to do?
Now try the same awareness at the supermarket checkout. When the total comes up — maybe a hundred euros, maybe more — do you hand over the money feeling grateful that you can afford good food for your family? Or does a quiet voice in your head say that’s a lot, followed by a low-level anxiety that takes a moment to pass?
These small moments are windows into your relationship with money. They reveal whether you are operating from a place of flow and trust, or from a place of fear and contraction.
And here is the one that really exposes the scarcity mindset: the unexpected expense. A parking fine. A car repair. A bill you weren’t expecting. Does it ruin your day? Does it sit in your mind for hours, maybe days, creating a background hum of stress and frustration?
If it does, that is not a financial problem. That is a mindset problem. And it is one that can be changed.
What Abundance Actually Feels Like
An abundance mindset is not about pretending you have unlimited money. It is not about being reckless or ignoring reality. It is about the feeling underneath your financial decisions.
When you operate from abundance, you trust that money flows. You believe — not just intellectually, but in your body — that when you give money, it will return. That when you invest, you are putting energy into motion. That when you pay for something, you are participating in an exchange of value, not losing something precious and irreplaceable.
This shift changes everything. Not because it magically creates more money, but because it changes the decisions you make. Someone operating from scarcity hoards cash in a low-interest account because losing it feels catastrophic. Someone operating from abundance puts that same cash to work — in investments, in education, in opportunities — because they trust the process of growth.
The saving itself is not the problem. Saving is wise and necessary. The question is: why are you saving, and how does it feel? If you are saving from fear — because you are convinced there will never be enough, because you don’t trust that more is possible — then saving becomes a trap rather than a tool.
How to Start Rewiring
The most important step is awareness. You cannot change a belief you haven’t noticed.
Start by paying attention to the small moments — the tips, the grocery bills, the unexpected expenses. Notice the feeling that arises. Don’t judge it. Just observe it. That observation alone begins to loosen the grip of the old programming.
The next step is proximity. Surround yourself with people who have a healthy, expansive relationship with money. Not people who are reckless with it — people who are calm about it. People for whom money is a tool, not a source of anxiety. That environment will recalibrate your nervous system faster than any book or course.
And finally, take action — even small action. Open an investment account. Make a small investment in something you believe in. Give a generous tip and notice how it feels. These acts, repeated over time, build a new neural pathway. They teach your brain, through direct experience, that money flows and returns.
The scarcity mindset was installed in you before you had any say in the matter. But you are not stuck with it. The rewiring is available to you — and it starts with a single moment of awareness.
If you want a structured environment to support that shift, the Modern Wealthy programme is one of the resources I recommend most. It is built around exactly this kind of inner and outer transformation — from scarcity to abundance, from fear to flow.
And if you want to explore more of the mindset shifts that shaped my own journey, the Start Here section of this site is a good place to begin.
The money you want is not the problem. The story you tell yourself about money is.
To your freedom,
Patrick
