real estate, exist in infinite quantities in space. Hotels and research facilities on the moon and transport toMars are all future realities, according to Diamandis. “We shouldn’t look at our space programs as experiments that simply develop solutions for life on Earth, but rather as an expansion of humans into the cosmos.” Near-Earth asteroids are another opportunity for obtaining rawmaterials without the need for exploiting Earth’s finite supply of natural resources. Some of these asteroids are worth trillions of dollars, according to Diamandis, and include some surprising elements, such as oxygen. “Every ounce of fuel ever used in space — to move satellites around and explore space — has come from the Earth’s surface at a cost of $10,000 per kilogram,” he says. “Imagine if we could get access to fuel in space, for use in space? That’s highly valuable.” Going to space for the benefit of Earth is great for political fanfare, but Diamandis thinks we are going to space because it’s part of the human spirit to explore. The early Hominids did not migrate between continents to benefit fromwhat they had left behind. Neither did early American settlers land in America to benefit the European countries they had left behind. “Humans have always needed frontiers for growth, and space exploration will be about benefiting our species,” he says. Creating the Right Mindset His big thinking is not only confined to space. Closer to home, Diamandis coaches 360 business leaders, investors, and CEOs each year in an executive coaching program called Abundance360. For the past few years, he’s been focused on nurturing specific mindsets that will create transformational leadership. “What made ElonMusk, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, or evenMahatma Gandhi successful?” asks Diamandis. “It wasn’t money or personality that made them successful, but rather, their mindset. If ever they lost their wealth or other worldly assets, their mindset would still exist to put them back on course. Unfortunately, few individuals stop to ask themselves what mindsets they want or how to improve them.” Mindsets are typically formed through exposure to family, friends, belief systems, and work colleagues, but identifying the key mindsets critical for tackling our current period of massive exponential growth is vital, according to Diamandis. COVER STORY SUMMER 2022 / REAL-LEADERS.COM 41 Create a Mindset of Abundance Technology is a force that takes whatever is scarce and makes it abundant. We used to kill whales in our oceans to get whale oil, then we ravagedmountains to get coal and drilledmiles underground to find oil. Today, technology is liberating solar, where we have 8,000 times more power available to us than what we could consume as a planet. We’re on the verge of fusion energy becoming a reality in the next few years. We’re headed toward energy being very expensive and scarce, to a squanderable abundance of energy, where the poorest countries of the world, which are often the sunniest countries in the world, have abundant power supplies. Many people would consider a 6- or 8-carat diamond a scarcity, but what if these became abundant? Technology has now advanced to where machine-made diamonds are a reality. Methane, water, and electricity go into one side of a machine, and perfect gems emerge from the other. The question is now, “How large would you like your diamond? Twenty carats? No problem.” Pandora, the world’s largest jeweler, has already announced it will stop selling scarce, social-conflict diamonds in favor of manufactured gems. Access to communications and information is another example of technology turning scarcity into abundance. Building your business on a scarcity model will eventually fail because someone will create a version of your business around an abundance model. There has also been a massive rise in the abundance of capital. Access to global capital has grown year over year. The beginning of 2020 saw the largest venture capital and private equity deals ever invested. 2021 saw that amount double, exceeding $1 trillion. This abundance of capital should excite business leaders enough to create an abundance mindset. If you have a pie and the number of people invited to your dinner party suddenly doubles, you should bake more pies — not cut the existing one into thinner slices. View your business the same way. HOW WILL YOU LEVERAGE FOR SUCCESS? The Crowd Economy: Crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, leveraged assets, and staff-on-demand—essentially, all the developments that leverage the billions of people already online and the billions coming online. Example: Airbnb has become the largest “hotel chain” in the world, yet it doesn’t own a single hotel room. Instead, it leverages (that is, rents out) the assets (spare bedrooms) of the crowd, with more than 5 million rooms, flats, and houses in over 100,000 cities across the globe.
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