Pie

The worst possible scenario when it comes to eating pie is fighting over the last piece. Everyone wants it. Only one person gets it. Even worse: We apply this scarcity mentality to life / work / play all the time.

There’s only one piece of pie left, so you’d better fight, claw, and lie to get it. 

But that’s not true at all.

My favorite pie story is when I was sharing with a group at church that I chose to forgo a piece of pie because we were getting so close to paying off all our debt following Dave Ramsey’s baby steps. The end was in sight and it was an act of discipline. We gave up the piece of pie… for a time.

Laster that day, a couple from that group showed up to our doorstep with a freshly-baked whole peanut butter pie (my favorite).

I gave up the last piece (for a time) and later a whole pie appeared.

Now that’s a little more like the “creation economy” we live in now, isn’t it? Instead of 100 people scrambling for the same last piece of pie, what if each of of them put in the time on Khan Academy or with a local baker, learning how to make a pie? Then, instead of 100 people fighting over one piece of pie, you’d have 100 people with pies of their own to share.

Of course, this doesn’t happen overnight. It requires tough decisions and discipline and creativity and sweat and lots of burnt pies (failure).

But in the end, it’s more yum for everyone. Get baking.