How to apply an abundance mentality to your work
In 2025, New York Times columnist Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson from The Atlantic released a book called Abundance, which posited that America had developed a culture of scarcity. Overregulation and overall risk aversion from the government, the authors argued, were stifling the development of infrastructure and housing in the country. To remedy this, they proposed an “abundance agenda,” one that focused on a growth mindset among elected officials that would help foster long-term prosperity. Although the provocation has its challenges, it got me thinking: What if we applied the idea of abundance to our work?
For over a decade, I’ve occupied two worlds simultaneously—one foot in the world of practice as an advertising executive and one foot in the world of academia as a marketing professor. On an average week, I’d work at the ad agency from 9 to 5 and then teach a night or two at the university from 6 to 8. This duality made me better at both jobs. I taught what I practiced, which made course concepts more applicable for students, and I applied what I studied, which made my practice more rigorous. I didn’t have the language for it then. I just thought, Why do I have to choose?
Essentially, I had adopted an abundance agenda for my career. I removed the confines that restricted my career to a “one-job-at-a-time” approach to navigating corporate America. I was going to do both—not a side hustle, not a moonlighting gig, not a hobby, but a portfolio career that prioritized my development in both arenas. Before long, I found myself in a university class, but this time as a student studying consumer culture theory and pursuing a doctorate. In doing so, my career has prospered. But what if we applied an abundance agenda to our organizational culture? Apparently, Bing Chen, the cofounder and CEO of Gold House and managing director of AU Holdings, was one step ahead of me.
As YouTube’s global head of creator development and management from 2010 to 2014, Chen helped build the platform’s multibillion-dollar creator economy. In 2018, he launched Gold House, a nonprofit that embraces an abundance mentality and is dedicated to accelerating the socioeconomic equity of Asians and Pacific Islanders. While experiencing all the accolades and praise from his many achievements at Google, he wanted something more. In fact, during our interview with Chen for the latest episode of the From the Culture podcast, he revealed that his very first word as an infant was “more.” And this idea of “more” resonates throughout the organization and Chen’s leadership style.
If Gold House was going to succeed at supporting Asians and Pacific Islanders, it first had to succeed at supporting itself—its people. But that doesn’t mean merely supporting their work, safety, and well-being; that’s just table stakes for Chen. Instead, at Gold House, this means supporting your dreams. So, the first question Chen and his team ask candidates when they interview for a job centers squarely on getting to know the candidate’s dreams. Not their skill set. Not their experience. But their dream.
Chen contextualizes the questions with a scenario: “If I gave you $10 billion and the world’s biggest Rolodex, where the person on the other end of the line will say yes to whatever you ask, what would you do?” According to Chen, if the job the candidate has applied for is not related to or accelerates that dream, he will end the interview right there. Why? Because he wants to support the long-term ambitions of his team members, just as he does his clients and his constituents.
The lesson for leaders that Chen realized when he adopted an abundance agenda for Gold House was that the organization will get more out of its employees when the organization understands its employees’ greater ambitions and helps advance their trajectory to achieving them. This shift toward a culture of abundance has paid off handsomely for Chen because this approach has enabled the Gold House company to prosper.
Not only is the organization behind paradigm-bending shifts to cultural narratives about the Asian Pacific community through its successful marketing campaigns and strategies for movies like Crazy Rich Asians and Everything Everywhere All at Once and the Netflix series Beef, but it has also accelerated the dreams of over 100 Asian Pacific founders with the $30 million Gold House Venture Fund. For Chen, this is the power of thinking audaciously enough to desire more and commit ourselves to it. It’s not a skill so much as it is a mindset; one that we all can adopt.
Check out our full conversation with Bing Chen and how he developed an abundance mindset on our latest episode of the From the Culture podcast.