Klemmer and Associates gives back to the world in multiple ways. Professionally, the firm offers transformative leadership trainings based on the insights and best-selling books of late founder Brian Klemmer. And philanthropically, it gives through the Mustard Seed Scholarship Fund.
The fund assists people who have a tremendous desire for personal growth, yet who are undergoing financial hardship that makes participation in professional trainings unaffordable. Through this seed of giving, Klemmer continues adding to its diverse community of leaders and changemakers, people who value their own development and that of those around them. To paraphrase the ideas expressed numerous times by Brian Klemmer and his team: when we give, we get.
Abundance is where you look for it
The phrase “abundance” is getting a lot of buzz these days. It means different things to different people. But basically, they all focus on the same idea: There is more than enough success, money, love, security, and other good things to go around. And just because one person “wins,” it doesn’t mean that others have to “lose.”
For many of us, it can be hard to see this universal truth. Don’t we hear doom-filled news commentators every day making the case that there are dwindling resources in this world of ours?
It’s important to look behind the headlines, and perhaps step back to take in the larger horizon. While we all face numerous challenges and there are always serious human problems to solve, a mindset based on scarcity will never get us to where we want to be. In order to be successful in any endeavor—from achieving financial security to creating fulfilling personal relationships, and from developing our individual skills to resolving global issues—only a mindset big enough to admit the idea of abundance will produce lasting results.
Recalibrate your mindset
One of Brian Klemmer’s key insights was that abundance is all around us. We may become so mired in our unfortunate circumstances that we can’t see past our own problems, but the abundance is there just the same.
Klemmer workshops, like the intensive six-day Heart of the Samurai course, allow students to cut through the mental and emotional debris they’ve accumulated over a lifetime, confronting and discarding unproductive myths about who they really are and what they can achieve. This clears the way for them to focus on expanding their skills, including empathy, compassion, strength, courage, and accountability. They will learn to recognize how they can draw on the abundance of resources that have been there all along.
You know how your social media feeds are always showing posts that align with what you’ve demonstrated an interest in? Life is its own kind of algorithm in that way, in that what you’ve trained yourself to expect is what you tend to get. If you’re not attuned to new possibilities for becoming successful and new opportunities for growth, how are you supposed to recognize them?
Emphasize possibilities over problems
A number of people, both from inside and outside of the Klemmer programs, have written about how turning their mindset toward abundance changed their lives for the better. These success stories should have also made the headlines, because they are as real—and even more valuable—than those of scarcity, fear, and loss.
When you develop an abundance mindset, you emphasize possibilities over problems. It’s not that you pretend that the problems aren’t real. It’s that you change your attitude toward them, and this makes all the difference. By changing your perspective, you realize that you really are able to solve the problems.
Billionaire investor and philanthropist Warren Buffett is like most other financially successful people in that he operates with a classic abundance mindset. He has spent a big part of everyday reading and learning, a mark of someone with a growth mindset. He is also legendary for maintaining a high level of optimism, unconnected with any current set of circumstances. An officer of the Gates Foundation once noted that Buffett’s optimism didn’t derive from his success, but rather the other way around.
And instead of closely guarding all of his resources, Buffett has given freely of his money, time, and energy to help others, and not only through his philanthropic endeavors. He has famously mentored and advised entrepreneurs and investors like Bill Gates, and has also shared his wisdom with students in everyday college classrooms.
In conclusion
So, as Brian Klemmer emphasized, we should be giving of the things that are most important to us. Giving is genuinely fun. For most of us, it makes us happy to share what we have with others, knowing we’ve contributed to their growth as well as our own. Giving is also a way of securing our place—and our legacy—in the world.
But giving is also part of a naturally recurring cycle that is as predictable as the gravitational pull of the moon on the tides. It’s a cycle in which the good things we give away return to us, often multiplied beyond our wildest dreams.