Bren Ryder

It’s the one year anniversary of Good Dyke Porn being online, I paid myself for the first time and I’ll be continuing to pay myself every month from now on. Getting fired from my day job forced my hand. Previously, I would use any “extra” money to pay for music or graphic design or equipment or supplies or you name it and we need it. But I gotta eat, so I’m forced to put my own income at the top of the budget priority list. I’m not making a lot right now, but it’s about the same as if I were on the dole. That level of income isn’t easy that’s for sure, but working full-time on creating these scenes and making the website great while actually having time to do my accounting is absolutely brilliant. I work a lot on the business - too much sometimes - but it’ll take a couple of months to get into a productive and abundant mindset. My mindset is key the my future success. Let me explain.

As I see it, there are two paths my mind can take right now. The first (and most common) is the scarcity/worry mindset. The second is abundance/success mindset. Let’s look at the scarcity/worry mindset because while living on $1000/month in one of the most expensive cities in Canada my mind tends to automatically adopt this mindset.

At this moment the money is low and worry is close to the surface. Thoughts like: What if the money doesn’t increase? What if I’m stuck at this level of income and I can’t pay all my bills and pay down my debt. It is here where the idea of a thousand members or more seems nearly impossible, only a fantastical dream. I hope for it, but, I don’t expect it. It’s natural to feel worried about these things bu the problem is that the more I focus on the lack of income the comfortable I will feel in a reality that doesn’t have enough money for me. It’s where I’ve been most of my life. Some people might think that a lack of money would make me feel uncomfortable and thus more motivated to increase my income but because I’ve spent most of my life feeling normal at near poverty then that is where I will stay no matter how badly I want that to change. Unless I change my mindset.

The second, abundance mindset is where I need to be. I’ve always wanted more money and less debt - who hasn’t? But the mindset isn’t about what I want, it’s about what I feel comfortable with - about what’s normal. I feel normal having $20 - $30 in my wallet and $100 - $200 on hand in the bank. If I lost a dollar I wouldn’t be upset about it. But, if I lost $100 I would truly miss it. I might even experience an intense emotional reaction to such a loss. My goal is to make $100 feel like $1.

Since I’ve been in the scarcity mindset for so long, it’s going to take some delibrate focus to change to the abundance mindset. This may sound a bit funny: make money by changing your mind, but it’s important. Not only to get that money flowing to you but to keep that abundance once it arrives. If you’ve ever had a time in your life when you made more money you might have noticed that you didn’t actually have much “extra” money. Why is that? Obviously because you spent more, but more importantly because that level of income felt normal to you. It didn’t feel especially “abundant”, it was just your current reality. So, while working towards an increase in income the mind needs to go to where you will be when you have it and instead of getting excited about it simply feel normal and comfortable with it.

For some people, my financial reality is way above them, but I never have any trouble maintaining it. I’ve lived paycheque to paycheque, job to job and always managed to pay my bills and take care of myself with very little outside help. A roof over my head, food in my fridge and fun events and activities with my friends are all normal for me. Now I need to change my normal. The status quo needs an upgrade. Not long from now $100 will feel like $1.

An exercise I’m trying to achieve this change in mindset is to take a dollar and keep it in my pocket and focus on it as it if’s $100. I think about all the things that $100 would buy, but I don’t label it $100 I think “this” (the dollar) would buy “that” (whatever I see that day that costs $100) and then after doing this multiple times throughout the day I give away the dollar to a beggar or purposely leave it behind somewhere. I’ll keep you updated on my progress. Try it yourself and let me know how it works for changing your mindset.