Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
By now, you have realized that we are spending a lot of time discussing how you think and the traits of those who achieve success and live their best lives. Do you believe you can achieve the success you want? I do! Read on for more!
One of the things that is very important to me and a primary reason I developed Afterburner Success Partners and the associated course is that I believe anyone, regardless of their background or current situation, can achieve, enjoy success, and live their best life. While I will more formally define success later, I want to ensure I have not lost you and you believe you can have these things. Remember what we say, “We take you where you are.” That means that no matter where you are in life, no matter what has happened to you, and no matter your background, we believe you have the potential to achieve and succeed beyond your wildest imagination. Yes, I personally believe this with all my heart.
That’s why I’m focusing so much effort on teaching you the value of how you think and going over principles used by successful people who achieve much and live their best lives. It would be best if you simply believed you can or you will never get out of the starting gate and relinquish yourself to staying where you are today. To say that you will remain where you are today is not even true because unless you are moving forward and advancing, you are falling behind. Because you have been reading these posts or perhaps have already taken the course, you may understand what this means.
You are either moving forward or falling behind
Let me explain the concept of if you are not advancing you are falling behind. In the “World According to Dave,” you see. Nothing in life is static; that is unchanging. It’s been said the only constant in life is change and that’s undoubtedly true. For our purposes today, I am talking about the consequences of not advancing learning new things, and acting in different ways. At a minimum, if you do nothing different, others will begin to outpace you. You will find that inflation will start to eat away at your spending power. Compound the lack of change and advancement over many years, and you can see that even in the best world, 2% annual inflation will take a significant toll on you and your family. Not upgrading your skills or the methods in which you work will soon make you obsolete.
Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about. Because I live in Tulsa, Oklahoma, there is a lot of activity related to energy exploration and extraction. I’m not an oil and gas guy, but several friends and neighbors are, and I’m constantly amazed to talk to them about this business. Many years ago, scientists were exploring the concept of horizontal drilling for oil and gas. Horizontal drilling essentially means that a drill rig is located in one place, and instead of going straight down, vertically, to find oil, the drill shaft curves from vertical to horizontal to find oil and gas deposits, often many miles away, that either could not be found in conventional ways or was not economical to extract. As you can imagine, to be successful, geologists must be able to locate the oil or gas accurately, and scientists, engineers, or mathematicians figure out a path for the drill to take and then ensure it hits the reserve. All of this takes a lot of math to do. Yes, this is the same math that I hated in school. It was not so much that I hated math, it’s just that I did not understand what it was used for and why I needed to know it. I was in college before I finally learned the purpose of a hyperbole. One purpose is the design of suspension bridges. Ah, who knew?
OK, back to the story. In the days when personal computers were not widely available, my neighbor, who worked for an energy research firm, developed a calculation to tell his company how to accurately drill a horizontal hole to find oil or gas. If you are of a certain age, you may remember writing computer code, running the calculation, waiting to see if it worked, and fixing anything that was broken in the code. This is essentially what he did. He would work on the code during the week, and on Friday, before he went home, he would hit “enter” and run the calculation. He had to do this because there was limited computing power available at that time. Throughout the weekend, he would go back and forth to work to ensure the calculation was running correctly. As I tell you this story, you are probably chuckling because that same calculation can be run on an affordable supercomputer or perhaps even on a desktop with the right software in minutes or seconds. In the same manner, the smartphone you have next to you right now has more computing power than scientists had when they developed the Apollo program that put men on the moon.
I’m guessing you see my point. By staying the same, that is, not learning new things and doing new things in different ways, you are not staying the same “because I like it like this”; you are falling behind. And that, my friends, is why I’m spending so much time teaching you about the learning process and how training your mind to work will help you. OK, let’s move on.
We all have the exact same basic needs
You may have heard of Abraham Maslow if you have taken a college-level course in psychology. Maslow was an American psychologist who developed a hierarchy of needs to explain human motivation. He layered these needs, five in total, in a pyramid form to indicate the most critical needs were the foundation of the pyramid and that to advance socially and emotionally and to reach self-actualization, that is, to be the best you can be, you must satisfy the lowest level needs first. Here is a summary of those needs, with the most important listed first, which represent the lower levels of the pyramid:
Psychological Needs: air, food, water, shelter, sleep, clothing, reproduction.
Safety Needs: personal security, employment, resources, health, property.
Love and Belonging: friendship, intimacy, family, sense of connection.
Esteem: respect, self-esteem, status, recognition, strength, freedom.
Self-actualization: desire to become the most one can be.
The first three needs are basic human needs that must be satisfied before the higher-level needs of esteem and self-actualization can be pursued or even attained. You can learn more about Maslow by clicking on the link in Note 1. I want to give you an excellent example of self-actualization. Unless you are at least 60 years old or so, you will only have heard about this event in school. I was a young boy when I watched, on a black and white television, President John F. Kennedy explain to the country how we were going to the moon and when. He did not know how they would do it, but he decided they would, and they would find a way. This is what I want for you. Figure out your personal moon landing project and focus all your efforts on it until you succeed. You don’t need to know everything now; you will learn along the way, just as we did when we landed men on the moon. (Note 2).
As you know, I will end each post with a section entitled “What’s in it for me?” The purpose of that section is to appeal to your basic human instinct of looking after yourself first. If you ask yourself why I am spending so much time leading up to and explaining Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the answer can be summarized as follows.
Unless and until you satisfy the first three levels of the pyramid, you cannot advance to be all you can be. You will remain as you are for the rest of your life. As we just learned a few minutes ago, you will not actually stay where you are; you will see a decrease in your lifestyle, if nothing else, from inflation. Let me give you an example to make the point. I listen to a lot of Christian radio because my faith is important to me, and I like to fill my mind with encouraging and positive messages. Christians are charged by their faith to “seek and save the lost,” that is, those who do not know Jesus Christ as their personal savior. Most organizations who engage in these activities know before they attempt to evangelize, they must satisfy the most basic needs listed as levels one, two, and three above. You see, successful evangelists know that before you can save a soul, you must first fill a stomach, warm a cold body, and be a friend to a stranger.
So, in summary, as much as I want you to be all you can be, reach self-actualization, achieve your dreams, and live your best life, I know you will not, indeed, cannot, do those things until you satisfy the basic three needs identified by Abraham Maslow. Your homework for this week is to ask yourself if you have satisfied those needs and are ready to move on to levels four and five. If the answer is no, then your charge is to figure out what you need to do to satisfy those basic needs. You may need help, and if so, don’t be shy about asking for it.
What’s in it for Me
To achieve your dreams and live your best life, you must know how to do it. Understanding Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is another tool for your toolbox that helps you understand what building blocks you need in place before you can achieve all you want to do.
Call to Action
Study Maslow’s needs pyramid. Before you can achieve levels four and five, you must satisfy levels one through three. Have you satisfied those levels yet? If not, figure out what you need to do and do it!
Recommended Resources
Buy and read the book The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale (Note 3).
Up Next
Your emotional levels.
Notes
Please note that as an Amazon Affiliate, I may earn a small commission on the sale of any of these recommended resources.
Abraham Maslow: https://positivepsychology.com/abraham-maslow/
President John F. Kennedy’s speech: https://youtu.be/kwFvJog2dMw
The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale: https://amzn.to/3A4HrG8