Today I’m going to give you a brief, brief introduction to the six human needs, or the driving force of human nature. Now this is something that I learned in a course I took a long time ago called Date with Destiny, and I still use it today. It’s also something we do a very deep dive into The Author of Your Own Story University, but for this episode, what I want to do is just cover the basics for you, just so you can get an introduction to something that you can use right away.
The way it goes is there are six human needs that we all have. There are six primary driving forces. Now the difference between you and I is how we order these six, and how we actually live our lives. Now, the way that we order them also affects our lives. The way that we view the outcomes of our lives. Now it should also be noted before I give you the six that these six can be changeable. What I mean by that is you can change the order that you have your need to achieve these six human needs.
What are they? All right. The first one is certainty. This one means you feel the need to be certain. You need that certainty. Certainty where you’re going to live, certainty about your job. You don’t like a lot of change, so certainty is a huge human need. This is one that if you were to do a stereotype, stereotypically on a bell-shaped curve, most women tend to lead with first, is that idea of certainty. Is my relationship stable? Is my job stable? Is my home life stable? So you have certainty. Of course, as with everything in life, there are two sides to every coin. The second human need is uncertainty. This is why some people go sky diving, bungee jumping. They go from job to job. They love to travel, adventure. They need that variety is the spice of life type of idea. So the first one’s certainty and the second one is uncertainty.
Then we have the third, which is significance. How important am I? When I go to a family gathering is everybody talking to me? Am I the center of attention? For me, it used to be when I went to a business event, does everybody know who I am already? When I speak, is the audience packed to hear me talk about because I’m so significant? This is one I used to lead with, and actually, one that most men, especially business owners and alpha men tend to lead with. I’ll talk about this in a minute.
Of course, there’s the opposite, which is connection and love. Connection and love is just what it sounds about. You live to connect with people, and to love and to give love and to receive love in you. Now the thing is, is almost all of us have these. When I look at certainty, why do I want to be certain? It’s because I want to be loved. Why do I want uncertainty? Because I want connection. Or why do I want significance? Why do I care if everybody knows who I am and I’m so significant? It’s because I want connection and love. So connection and love, although being one of the four of the primary six, a lot of people don’t lead with that. That’s very interesting and I’ll come back to that later in this episode real quickly. But those four human needs are called primal human needs. Those are the four that you kind of just needs to survive.
Then the next two of the six are a little bit deeper. They’re more spiritual. That’s when those four are kind of met that you can go into the other two. One of them is growth, and growth is pretty obvious. If you’re not growing, you’re dying. If you’re watching me right now, or listening to me in your ear buds, then obviously growth is important to you. And so growth is pretty self-explanatory. Then we also have contribution. This is giving back. This is giving and not expecting to receive, so this is philanthropy, this is just giving advice to somebody, putting your value out to the world, etc. What was talked about is if you can meet three of these human needs, just three of these, so for example if I can meet variety, significance, and growth, you can form an addiction. These human needs become addictive on how you do them. We don’t have time to go into that, but that’s actually a fascinating topic, and I encourage you to dive deeper into that subject matter.
For this, we look at what is your hierarchy of human needs? As I said, for me it used to be significance was number one, uncertainty was number two, and then three was growth, and then I went on through the other ones. Now, of course, you sound horrible if love and connection aren’t number one, right? It is for me now, but it wasn’t at the time if I’m being honest. Significance was number one. I had to be the best athlete. I had to be the best speaker. I had to be the best businessman. I had to be this. I had to have everybody know who I was. And even though I was an introvert, still am, I still wanted that so much. The problem with significance leading is, if I wasn’t number one, I was crushed. I wasn’t getting my fill. My love and connection. I wasn’t getting all that I desired and I wasn’t happy because that was my highest value.
We look at these as a value chart. Where these values that you have of these six human needs. What I want you to do is grab your journal, and if you’re driving do this mentally, but definitely grab your journal, because this is a worthwhile exercise. Again, I’m just really touching the surface. In the AYSU University, Author of Your Own Story University, we’re going to go over this in a lot more detail. It’s a fascinating subject and the psychology and sociology behind all this. So what are your needs in order, if you’re being honest with yourself. What are they right now? Again, for me it was significance, variety, going through growth, then contribution, and then certainty being the last of them for me. I really liked variety, which caused me to jump from relationship to relationship, business idea to business idea. I just really liked the spice of things coming through. Really I was doing all that to get towards love and connection. What are yours? What are you leading with? What are your, definitely your top three that you’re going with?
As you look down that list, I want you to do step number two. You’ve already been raw, real, and honest with yourself. Because it’s really important, don’t put what you want to be, just put what you really have been doing. Step two is put what do you want to be at the top of your list? Do you want love and connection to be number one? I know I do, and I try to lead with that every day. I do remind myself because it’s not like a switch. You know, it’s been years that I’ve gone through this, it wasn’t a switch for me to change. I’ve had all these years of just significance being my number one. But love and connection are number one for me now. Number two is growth, and number three is contribution. Those are my top three now. Then I go into variety, and then I still have some significance, and certainty still remains towards the bottom. But I’ve reordered that.
So what does that mean for me? I’ll just talk about, if I’m in a situation where I’m in an argument, and I’m arguing with somebody who’s telling me that they’re right, I’m wrong, and they’re better, or whatever it is. Now in the past, it would’ve really set me off. I’d have been pissed. It could have turned into a fight. Whether it be a verbal fight, maybe even potentially, in my younger years, a physical confrontation of some sort, because if I would have been triggered and offended, and significance being so high on my list, it could have turned into an altercation of some sort.
Now, even though I’m more mature, now with growth being at the top three for me, if somebody comes at me, I really go, “Hmm. What can I learn from this? How can I grow, and how can I connect with this individual?” When I lead with love and connection, and growth, and variety in these particular situations, I’m now able to fill my cup, fill my soul, even when somebody is being antagonistic towards me. Now, it doesn’t work all the time. This is a practice for me as well, again I’ve practiced for years. But I can tell you how much better my life is. I’m so much happier. When I’m in a variety of situations, when I’m in situations where things aren’t going well for me, and I’m human and things happen. If I lead with these, and now it’s just a natural state for me, but if I lead with love and connection, and if I can’t be in a state of love and connection, I love and connect with myself.
But what can I learn from this? What can I learn from this particular situation? Did I not prepare well? What is this person teaching me? What are the lessons here? Can I contribute? Can I give back to them? Maybe it’s just giving back to them by listening. Maybe it’s just the person just needs to vent because, you know, at home earlier their spouse yelled at them, and everything else is going wrong. I don’t know. I don’t know their story. And the variety, okay, cool, this is different. What’s happened for me is by changing this hierarchy of needs, there are very specific ways you can do this, tools and techniques. We don’t have time to go into that right now, but by changing these orders and rearranging your levels, your six human needs, and what the hierarchy of these driving forces are for you, you actually are able to change the outlook of your whole entire life. Moment by moment, change the way you are and therefore allow you to be the author of your own story.
Here’s what I want you to do. Grab your journal. Write out those two columns. What you’re really doing, and where you want to be that allows you to be the author of your own story. You don’t have to copy mine, I’m just using it as an example of what works for me. My wife is slightly different, and yours might be slightly different too. But that’s something that you can start striving for. And why? Why do you want to change? Why do you want these things? Where do you see the value in them? And again, I’m just barely, barely, barely, barely scratching the surface of this topic. It’s an amazing one.
Then the second thing I’m going to ask you to do is to share this with three people. Three people you think can get value from this conversation. This level of big talk. This level of growth. This is my way of contributing to the world. My way of giving you growth, and if you value growth and you value love and connection, then I want you to build your tribe. Build your personal tribe by having these conversations with people that matter. Share this with three people right now, and go out and be the author of your own story.
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