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You know that nagging feeling: everyone else seems to have more time, more money, more experience, more... everything? That's not just envy; it's scarcity, lurking in your wallet, calendar, and even your dating apps.
You’re living life short-stacked, and it’s time to play your way out.
The Scarcity Setup
When we move through the world assuming everyone else is operating with a full house, it’s easy to get caught in not having “enough”.
Picture it: a friend’s summering at some White Lotus resort while we’re chained to our desks. The parking lot at work is bursting with luxury rides while we’re still making car payments. Add in recession chatter, rising costs, and a shaky job market, and it’s no wonder we’re mentally in the red.
If the current vibe has you sidestepping any long-term planning or fearing spending a dime, even on necessities, congratulations: you’re experiencing a scarcity mindset.
But the concept of scarcity isn’t just for economists and finance types. It can attach itself to any resource we crave but feel short on – real or perceived. Think: food, time, passive income, genuine connection, or career opportunities.
But here’s the rub: your brilliant brain struggles to distinguish between what’s genuinely scarce and what it just thinks is in short supply.
The Deal: An Unfair Ante for Women
So, why does this short-stack feeling seem to impact women more than men? Take your pick from the deck of challenges: we earn 85% of what men do on average, face more discrimination and fierce competition for promotions, or are often unpaid primary caregivers. Plus, we frequently manage the household and shoulder the bulk of the social responsibilities in our partnerships and community.
Psychotherapist Daryl Appleton tells Business Insider this isn’t just anecdotal; women naturally do more emotional labor in life and partnerships. She also notes this extra burden often leaves many feeling stuck in survival mode, kicking in their natural instinct to brace for the worst.
The Flop: Scarcity's Flimsy Playbook
All this very real sense of lacking starts messing with our brains. And when scarcity takes over, it shows up in unexpected ways. That familiar sense of depletion often puts us in a state akin to 'tilt,' where panic overrides strategy and compounds the problem with a string of poor decisions. We might get tunnel-vision, seeing only what we lack, obsessing in ways that mess with our ability to plan ahead or even resist temptation. As it devours our mental resources, we can even see dips in our IQ and overall well-being, no matter how much money we have bankrolled.
Studies also confirm that everyone in scarcity mode acts similarly, regardless of their financial status. For example, that ongoing stress might make you hoard cash in savings, fearing you’ll lose money on investments. Or, conversely, you might spend money impulsively, like giving in to that pricey Uber Eats delivery after a jam-packed day.
This is bandwidth tax at play. Imagine your brain as an internet browser. When it's swamped with too many open “tabs” (e.g.: making ends meet in a tight month, finding time for lunch between meetings, getting too few ‘new matches’ on your hinge profile) there’s very little gas in the tank left left for planning your financial future.
As Scarcity Author and Professor of Economics, Sendhil Mullainathan, puts it, "The challenges of sticking to a plan, the inability to resist a new leather jacket or a new project, the forgetfulness... and the cognitive slips... all happen because of a shortage of bandwidth. There is one particularly important consequence: it further perpetuates scarcity.... Scarcity creates its own trap."
The Poker Table Playground: Life Lessons in Scarcity From The World’s Greatest Mind Sport
So, where do you truly learn to play your short stack without letting scarcity run your game? The poker table (naturally). It’s a low-stakes lab for high-stakes life lessons.
Here, you’ll feel the pressure when the clock ticks down between plays, or when you’re watching your stack dwindle. These moments can make you lose your edge, causing you to play small or make impulsive moves. Because poker forces you to recognize when scarcity is creeping in, it also gives you a choice. Do you let it dictate your next move, or do you make a conscious decision to use it as fuel?
Much like Anne Marie Chaker's new book, Lift: How Women Can Reclaim Their Physical Power and Transform Their Lives, shows that challenging our physical limits builds true power and confidence, poker teaches you to find strength and strategic clarity – especially when resources feel scarce.
The Turn: Reshuffling Your Resources and Leveraging Your Power Play
Ready to flip the script on scarcity off the felt? It starts with a strategic shuffle, so you can make the most of a limited run.
First, reflect on what truly feels scarce. Then, ask yourself if it’s an in-the-moment shortage or the sneaky lie of a scarcity mindset.
For real financial scarcity, lean into "tunneling" to meet immediate basic needs. Once mental bandwidth frees up, creative solutions can flow more easily.
Try:
Inventorying Your Wins: Celebrate your personal financial, career, and relationship successes instead of constantly looking for everyone else’s.
Identify Your Real Priorities: This is all about strategic resource allocation. Hyperfocus on what genuinely matters to you and allocate limited resources (time, money, energy) like a pro.
Creating Some Mental Space: Build financial, emotional, and time reserves. Even a small emergency fund or blocking an hour a week for that thing that lights you up can drastically reduce the feeling of being short-stacked.
Just like in poker, when it comes to your finances, you want to maximize value with limited options, getting the most out of every unfavorable situation.
Here’s where patience and disciplined action make every chip count.
Do:
Track your spending in a spreadsheet or budgeting app like Empower for at least three months to pinpoint where you want to trim.
Set up automatic transfers from your paycheck to your savings and investment accounts, particularly if you’re an impulse spender.
Plan how you’ll spend or invest any extra monthly income on something meaningful to you, especially if you’re an oversaver.
DON'T:
Obsessively follow stock prices or market fluctuations in your long-term investments.
Fall prey to risky ‘get-rich-quick’ investments.
Constantly monitor the news for every economic tremor.
The Showdown: Reclaiming Your Mental Bandwidth
It genuinely doesn't matter who you are, where you began, or the size of your financial “pot”. If something feels scarce to you, you will feel the impacts of scarcity psychology. Period.
The real power move? A Strategic Fold. Knowing when to gracefully exit situations or commitments that drain your limited resources is a boss move to protect your stack, not a sign of defeat.
Take a risk, speak up! Share with our community one strategic move you're making to play your short stack powerfully this week. What's your #ShortStackStrategy?