Abundance Engineering: Fun, Energy, and the Paper Audit
Deliberately manufacture an abundant mindset by reframing for fun, scheduling for energy, and journaling the triggers.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 90%
Gupta's system for staying in an abundant rather than scarcity mindset through genuinely hard periods. Three mechanisms: reframe the hard thing by hunting for what you can learn and injecting humor into the room; architect your day around your energy curve rather than your calendar's; and journal negative thoughts onto paper to separate the irrational (let go) from the actionable (what's in my control, who do I need to talk to).
Origin
Anneka Gupta, prompted by advice she received while facing a period where she had to replace all of her direct reports in very short order. The journaling practice comes from journaling daily from age 13 to 23; she describes it as doing cognitive behavioral therapy on yourself.
Core principles
- 01Under pressure the default is scarcity — every hurdle looks unachievable. Abundance must be manufactured.
- 02Emotional and mental energy, not hours, is the real constraint on solving a hard problem.
- 03As a leader your mindset is contagious — it's not just about you, it's about what you transfer to the room.
- 04Rumination is abstract; on paper it becomes decomposable.
- 05Some negative feelings are irrational and should be released; others reveal an action within your control.
How to run it
- 1
Ask what you can learn from the hard thing
Facing a daunting situation, deliberately ask what you can learn from it and what positive outcome you can get out of it, even while it is incredibly challenging.
- 2
Bring humor into the room
Start difficult meetings on a light note. It lifts your own mood and approach, and it transfers that mindset to the people working with and for you.
Pro tip As a leader this is a leverage move, not a personal coping move — the room takes its emotional temperature from you.
- 3
Map your energy curve and schedule against it
Identify your worst hours (Gupta's is 5-6pm) and refuse to put your hardest meeting or your strategy-deck writing there. Protect the basics — eat lunch, don't substitute a protein bar because you're busy.
Pro tip Schedule your time for your energy, not just for availability — the calendar will happily fill your worst hour with your hardest task.
Watch out Skipping lunch to save time reliably costs more energy than the time it buys.
- 4
Dump the negative thoughts onto paper
When thoughts are looping, write them all down — paper or phone. Then interrogate: why am I feeling this way, why am I getting triggered, what about this situation is making me feel so strongly?
Pro tip The act of externalising takes something abstract you're ruminating on and makes it possible to break down.
- 5
Sort into let-go vs act-on
For each item ask: is the why behind this a little irrational? Then let it go. Or: what's within my control, what do I need to do differently, and who do I need to go talk to and ask to do something differently?
Pro tip This is effectively cognitive behavioral therapy on yourself — you're asking the same questions a CBT session would.
In the wild
Gupta faced having to change out all of her direct reports in very short order. She was initially scared by the scale of change ahead of her and didn't know how she would manage. On receiving the have-fun advice, she reframed: what can I learn, what positive outcome exists here, how do I bring humor into these rooms.
→ She got through the period and described it as opening her mind to many more opportunities — and now applies the reframe to every super-challenging situation she meets.
Knowing that 5-6pm is her worst time of day, Gupta refuses to schedule her most difficult meeting or a strategy-deck writing block into it, because she knows it will not be her best work and will actually make the work harder.
→ Managing energy levels and scheduling time for energy is what lets her hold an abundant mindset across situations, rather than operating from scarcity.
Common mistakes
Treating mindset as a private matter
As a leader, your scarcity mindset propagates into every meeting you run. The reframe isn't self-care — it's a transfer mechanism to the people around you.
Optimizing the calendar for time instead of energy
Filling every slot, skipping lunch, and putting hard work in your worst hour maximizes hours available and minimizes the emotional and mental energy that actually solves the problem.
Ruminating instead of writing
Thoughts kept in your head stay abstract and unbreakable. Only once written down can you separate the irrational from the actionable.
Is it for you?
Best for
Leaders going through a genuinely hard stretch — restructures, layoffs, failed launches — who need to stay effective and keep their team's energy intact.
Not ideal for
Clinical anxiety or depression, where self-administered CBT-style journaling is not a substitute for professional support.
From the transcript
“what can I learn from this situation what can I get out of this that's a positive outcome”
“figuring out how to bring humor into the meeting and just starting it on a light note”
“how can I architect my day and time to maximize my energy”
“5: to 6: p.m is my worst time of day and I know that about myself so I'm not going to schedule in my most…”
“being able to kind of manage my my energy levels and figuring out how to schedule my time for my energy”
“when I have a lot of thoughts going through my head especially negative thoughts just putting them all down on a piece of paper writing…”
“what's within my control and what is it maybe I need to go talk to someone about”
From the episode
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Anneka Gupta (Chief Product Officer at Rubrik)