The Abundance Advantage: How High Performers Maintain Clarity Under Pressure

Abundance isn’t about wanting more — it’s a disciplined mindset, a skill rooted in clarity, belief and consistent action under pressure.

Between economic uncertainty, career insecurity and the comparison trap, it’s easy to fall into a sense of scarcity. As we tick into March, much of that New Year’s optimism can start to dim as your more everyday realities set in. 

If you find yourself doubting your capabilities and efficacy for the year ahead, a focus on an abundance might be just what your self-doubt needs. Because, 100+ years on, science has caught up to what the book Think and Grow Rich knew. 

1. Wealth begins in the mind

Think and Grow Rich proposed that achievements and earned riches have their beginnings in an idea. It’s the idea that creates the riches. More than a novel or unfounded idea, Napoleon Hill’s book, published in 1908, was grounded in 20+ years of research. 

Steel magnate Andrew Carnegie challenged Hill to interview the most successful people of the era and distil their common philosophy for success. The 500+ interviews that would ensue were conducted over 20 years. Hill interviewed some of the most significant high-achievers of the time, including Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, John D. Rockefeller and Theodore Roosevelt. The result wasn’t a biography - it was pattern recognition. 

The book was written during the Great Depression, when jobs were scarce, wealth felt unattainable, and confidence was collapsing.  Yet, some still succeeded even with the odds stacked against them.

Goal-setting Theory in psychology tells us that specific challenging goals lead to higher performance than vague or easy goals - when people are committed to them. 

What we know now about the brain’s reticular activating system is that the brain filters information based on its relevance. It’s attentional bias at its best. It keeps our brain focused on what’s most important. 

2. A ‘Burning Desire’

The book proposes riches begin with a ‘Burning Desire’:

“When a man really desires a thing so deeply that he is willing to stake his entire future on a single turn of the wheel in order to get it, he is sure to win.” 

It’s knowing what you want and the determination to stand by that desire until it’s realised:

“There is a difference between wishing for a thing and being ready to receive it. No one is ready for a thing, until he believes he can acquire it.” 

‘Burning Desire’ aligns neatly with what psychologists describe as Expectancy Theory. It says that motivation depends on three essential elements: 

• Expectancy – “If I put in effort, will I perform well?”

• Instrumentality – “If I perform well, will I get the outcome?”

• Valence – “Do I actually value the outcome?”

Hill’s ‘Burning Desire’ involves having: 

• A clear, emotionally charged goal

• A deep internal commitment to achieving it

• Something strong enough to override fear, doubt, and fatigue

Hill’s focus on a ‘Burning Desire’ is essentially extreme valence - it adds heavy emotional weight to the outcome. While the more modern Expectancy Theory sharpens the idea further with its focus on expectancy and instrumentality. It explains why even highly motivated people can disengage if their efforts feel futile. Abundance isn’t simply wanting something badly; it’s believing your efforts toward that thing have a return. 

3. Abundant self talk 

Auto-suggestion or self-suggestion is one of Hill’s key focuses in Think and Grow Rich. Through popular tools in psychology, we now understand this as priming, self-talk and cognitive rehearsal. 

This is to convince the subconscious mind of your ‘Burning Desire’. Because if you don’t help direct your subconscious mind, it will find its own path.

Your desire should also be mixed with the emotion of Faith:

“Riches begin in the form of THOUGHT! The amount is limited only by the person in whose mind the THOUGHT is put into motion. FAITH removes limitations.” 

Speaking your ‘Burning Desire’ aloud is not enough. You must have a clear visual in your mind’s eye of what obtaining the achievement you want will look like.

The combination of auto-suggestion and visualisation should then form a part of your daily routine. 

Priming, self-talk, and cognitive rehearsal aren’t about toxic positivity. They’re about conditioning — using cognitive and behavioural tools to train your mind to respond with familiarity rather than fear. Because, as the top performers, from elite athletes to executives, understand, your internal dialogue influences your behaviour. What you repeatedly tell yourself becomes your default posture, especially under pressure. 

4. Knowledge is only potential power

Your mindset alone isn’t enough. As Hill acknowledges, simply wishing is not enough:

“Wishing will not bring riches. But desiring riches with a state of mind that becomes an obsession, then planning definite ways and means to acquire riches, and backing those plans with persistence which does not recognise failure, will bring riches.”

Hill advocates for specialised over general knowledge. Universities can, for example, focus on teaching knowledge but don’t specialise in the organisation or use of knowledge:

“KNOWLEDGE will not attract money, unless it is organised, and intelligently directed, through practical PLANS OF ACTION.”

“Knowledge is only potential power.”

Knowledge becomes power when it is organised into action and directed to a definite end. The missing link in the education system is the failure to teach students how to organise and use knowledge after they acquire it. 

5. Abudance in action

To put abudance into practice, try these techniques:

• Journal, using the future self scripting technique, acting ‘As If’ - fully embody what it feels like to have already achieved that thing. Try incorporating this into a 'Morning Pages' routine.

• Practice gratitude in advance. For more on this, see my earlier blog.

• Set specific and vividly detailed goals (or, as I now prefer, conduct 'Tiny Experiments').

• Create a vision board to support your mental rehearsal.

• Find and save an abundance mindset playlist on Spotify to fall back on during high-stress periods or times of self-doubt.

• Put your goals into ChatGPT and ask it to create a brief daily affirmations script for you to practise saying aloud.  

Abundance isn’t optimism. It’s composure, clarity and deliberate action. 

An abundance mindset is quiet confidence to move forward, even when outcomes are uncertain. It shows up in the decisions you make, the goals you set and the internal dialogue you maintain. Abundance is not a feeling you hope for; it’s a discipline you practise daily.