Eat Your Banana: Shifting Your Mindset to Abundance Thinking
Yesterday I was in the kitchen, tidying up and getting ready for lunch, when I noticed a bunch of bananas in my basket. My first thought was, “I’d better eat those before they go bad.” That thought took me straight back to a lesson I learned in 2021.
The Bananas I Was Saving
Back then, I was reading through the book of Proverbs, and I had a real craving for a banana. I don’t usually buy them because I’m the only one in my house who eats them. When I do, I look for the greenest bunch so they’ll last a little longer and I can catch them at just the right moment: ripe, but not too ripe.
I did exactly that. I watched them turn, and one day they were perfect. I remember thinking, I really want to eat this banana. But another voice in my head answered, No, I’m saving that for lunch. I need it for my lunch pail. I can’t waste it.
I had three or four bananas, and I was rationing them as if they’d never come again.
“Do You Think I Can’t Give You More?”
Then I felt something speak to me deep in my soul. I’ll share it as it happened, and if faith isn’t part of your story, I hope you’ll stay with me anyway. What I heard was, Do you think I can’t give you more bananas?
I started to answer, “Well, no, not necessarily...” but the message was already clear. You’re still living in a scarcity mindset. There are plenty of bananas in the world. I gave you those bananas so you would eat them, not stare at them. Your bananas go bad because you’re afraid to eat them.
That stopped me in my tracks, because it took me back to my childhood. I love my parents, and they were wonderful, but I grew up hearing, “Don’t eat the lunch meat, that’s for your school lunch,” and “Don’t eat the bananas, those are for your cereal in the morning.” Without anyone intending it, I learned to wait, save and hold back. Decades later, that lesson was still running quietly in the background, even over something as small as a banana.
Scarcity Shows Up in Business, Too
The smallest moments in our lives can reveal a lot about our upbringing, our outlook and our mindset. Scarcity thinking doesn’t stay in the kitchen. It follows us into our work.
I see it often in legal nurse consulting. Some consultants won’t refer a case to a colleague because they’re afraid that person will take all their business. Others hold back what they know because someone else might become more successful than they are. Underneath it all is the same fear: there won’t be enough customers, enough cases or enough bananas.
But here is what abundance thinking offers instead. When we share resources and insights, we widen our circle. The colleague you referred one case to may someday send ten back to you because of the expertise you possess. The more we give, the more comes back to us, and the more we hoard, the more it rots.
Why Things Go Bad
I’ve come to believe that our ideas, products, expertise and dreams go stale for the same reason bananas do: we don’t use them while they’re ripe. Fear tells us there won’t be more, so we hold on tight, and the very thing we were protecting spoils.
Yes, someone may imitate you. Someone may try to take a bit of your market share. But if you have the best bananas, share them freely and trust that you can always get more. Bananas are made to be eaten, not hoarded. Your gifts will make room for you as you share them with others.
Your Turn: Eat the Banana
I’ll be honest: I still struggle with this sometimes. This is my season of letting go of old mindsets, old habits and, quite frankly, a lot of clutter in my house. And I’m choosing abundance. If I want a banana, I’m going to eat the banana. If I want to secure a new case, I will secure a new case. I share these lessons and insights as I learn them because I believe that if it encourages one person, that encouragement will compound creating a wave of goodwill outward. That’s abundance in action and in real time.
So here is my challenge to you. What is your banana? Maybe it’s launching the product you’ve been polishing, sharing your expertise with a wider audience, or referring that case to a colleague. Whatever it is, stop saving it for a “someday” that may never come.
Ready to stop hoarding and start sharing? Join us at The Nurse Shark Academy. It’s a community built on abundance, where we share what we know, lift each other up and grow together. Come eat your banana with us. There’s more out there.
Join today: https://www.thenursesharkacademy.biz/
Tina Baxter, The Nurse Shark
Nursing News You Can Use
In a recent article by The Guardian, a nurse has been arrested helping a patient escape from ICE agents. Federal prosecutors have charged Chloe Renae Freeman, a 33-year-old Michigan nurse, with "instigating or assisting escape," a federal misdemeanor. Court records unsealed this week accuse her of helping an undocumented Mexican patient leave an Ann Arbor hospital in May while he was in ICE custody. He had been arrested by Customs and Border Protection agents about two hours earlier.
According to an FBI agent's declaration, Freeman told hospital investigators she disagreed with federal officials "separating people from their families" and that she "was going to set him free." The man had still not been found when she was charged in August.
Freeman surrendered voluntarily, had her first federal court hearing on Tuesday, and was released on a $10,000 bond. Her attorneys declined to comment to the Guardian.
This article has sparked debate in the nursing community over the role of the nurse as a patient advocate with that of legal and ethical boundaries. For more information, read the original article here: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/30/michigan-nurse-charged-helping-man-escape-ice
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