The Six Human Needs That Unconsciously Drive Your Life

Well, hey, good looking. Look. It's a podcast.

It's a podcast and it's called Freedom Fast Lane. Hey, for those of you who listen to the show regularly, I have some really exciting news. There was recently some interesting research that came out of Cambridge University that showed that reviewing for Freedom Fast Lane on itunes prevents baldness constipation and actually increases your attractiveness to the opposite sex.

So if you want to feel better, look better, and live longer, I'd really appreciate it if you go over to itunes and review Freedom Fast Lane. You know, sometimes I say that on the show. Let me explain to you why I do this. You see, Freedom Fast Lane is rocketing up the itunes charts and I'm competing against some big guns. And in order to stay there, people need to keep listening, which hopefully we'll do today. And we need reviews over at itunes, which helps us rank higher on the itunes store. There's. I'll kick things off with that shameless plug. Today I'm going to be stealing some really good stuff from somebody else and I feel compelled to talk about today's topic. We're going to be talking about the six human needs and how they affect us as people, how they affect us in business. And the reason I'm talking about this is because I've had these conversations, come up with people on a regular basis, and they've come up from me lately of if you forget these things that we're going to be talking about today, your life goes into an out of control autopilot where we're not really in control of our lives. We really have no freedom. If we don't get what's driving us beyond what we say is driving us, because there is a reason behind everything that we do, either consciously or unconsciously. And if we're living unconsciously, then we're usually living according to someone else's rules and we're living according to what the world gives us rather than what really drives us or what makes us feel alive. And Freedom Fast Lane is all about inspiring, educating, and empowering people to live extraordinary lives. And if you want to do that, then we need to really understand what drives us. This comes up a lot. Some of you know my story where two and a half years ish ago, maybe a little bit longer, maybe like three, three and a half years ago, I went through a really, really dark place where I felt like I lost my purpose, my direction, the girl I thought I was gonna marry, and about 25 pounds of weight that I should not have lost. If you see Me, I don't really have £25 to lose. And as a result of that, as a result of that dark time, I became very self aware and did a lot of personal growth, which I now am very, very thankful for that opportunity, for that opportunity to grow. And because of that, when you go through a dark time, you either don't make it or you become self aware. So if you're going through a rough time, congratulations, you're going through a rite of passage. You can either ignore it or you can improve massively as a result of it. And since you're listening to Freedom Fastlane, I think you're in the latter category. So I'm stealing these six human needs directly from Tony Robbins. These are not mine. These were at least popularized by Anthony Robbins, somebody that I follow pretty closely. And I'm gonna be communicating these to you with my spin on them, with my perspective on them, and also talking about how they affect those of you I know. Listen to Freedom Fast Lane. So first, let's define what these six human needs are. And everything that we do, everything that we're doing is in some way.

An attempt to meet one of these needs. And they are certainty, which is the idea that you know what is going to happen.

The second is uncertainty. That is in a better word for it might be variety, the feeling that things are different and they are new. The third is significance. That is a feeling of uniqueness or importance. The fourth is love or connection, which is a sense of belonging and connectedness to other beings. The fifth is growth, an improvement over a previous measurement. And the sixth and final is contribution, improving something outside of yourself. So I'm going to list them again. There's certainty, variety or uncertainty. Significance, love and connection, growth and contribution. These are our drivers. Everything that we're doing is some way an attempt to meet one of these needs. If you are driving right now, while you're listening to this, what is the reason that you are driving? You might be driving to work. Why do you go to work? Well, because you want certainty, right? For some of you, it's significance. You get your significance from work. Or some of you, some lucky few of you, it's contribution. You're going to work because you want to get a sense of contribution from what you do. But for most people, most people, it's certainty. In fact, certainty is what drives.

Most of our behavior unconsciously. Because we have this part of our brain that is well evolved from reptiles. And it's the part that makes us want to stay safe.

A few million years ago, One or two before we existed, actually. Let's look at this a different way. A reptile in its current state right now does not think critically. It does not think about the future. It thinks about survival. Right? That's all it knows how to think about. So we have that part of our brain, too. And because of that, we make a lot of our decisions for survival or certainty. I was having an interesting conversation with one of my workout buddies just this morning, and he said, you know, people who teach how to make money, they're not really in the teaching money business. They're in the certainty business. They're in the business of letting people feel certain about an outcome that is. That is the primary driver behind why people want to make more money, because they want to feel certain. And then there is a secondary to that. They want to feel significant. They want to feel important. And why do they want to feel important? Because they want to be desired and loved by the opposite sex or by people that they grew up with or by their family or their dad who they're trying to please or whatever it is. So there are unconscious reasons for all of our behavior. Why am I recording a podcast right now? 1. It makes me feel important because. Why did I ask you to leave a review on itunes? Because by getting more reviews than my competitors, I feel important and significant. By having a top 10 podcast on iTunes, I feel important and significant. That is why I'm recording this right now. Because I want to feel significant. That's why I want you to go review itunes or review Freedom Fast Lane on itunes so that I rank higher, so that I feel more important than Susie Orman or Dave Ramsey. I want to. I want to rank higher than them so that I feel more important. I also get growth out of this, right? By seeing myself rise in the itunes chart. I say, hey, this is growth. This is momentum. I'm improving over a previous measurement. And there is also a level of contribution in me recording this right now, because people tell me all the time that my podcast either keeps them on the right path, got them on the right path, or changed their life. And that makes me feel significant, and it makes me feel a sense of contribution as well. Now, I'm belaboring this point, but it's important to note that there are healthy and unhealthy ways to meet all of these needs. There are healthy ways to meet certainty and unhealthy ways to meet certainty. There are healthy ways to get significance and unhealthy ways to get significance. Let's take significance as an Example, can you get significance by sleeping with a bunch of people of the opposite sex? For a lot of men that's the case for a lot of men. And it's completely ego driven. They desire to sleep with a bunch of women in order basically to prove to themselves that they are significant. It has nothing to do with the, the moment or in enjoying the process. What they're really enjoying is the feeling of significance that they get from conquering some new territory. That would be an unhealthy way to get significance, a healthy way to get significance. Can you run into a burning building and, and save a puppy and would you do do that for significance? Yes. A lot of people ran into the towers on 911 in order to save other people. And what drives that behavior? A sense of wanting, significance and contribution. That's a very healthy, positive way to get those primary needs. Whereas unhealthy ways that basically are proving to yourself that you're significant, they tend to drain us, they tend to empty us. Now I'm hitting on two in particular, the certainty and significance. Because most people, unless they are very conscious about the decisions that they're making, they are unconsciously letting those two things drive them. Certainty and significance. And it's usually in that order. We do most of the things that we do in order to satisfy certainty and significance. And this is interesting. Look at the things that you're doing or the things that are unhappy in your life. The things that you're, that aren't necessarily serving you, a relationship that you're in, job that you don't like, living in a city that you're not really happy with. The reason why most people don't take action is because they would have to give up their primary driver, which is certainty, a knowing of what would happen next. For most people, they would rather be certain.

Than they would be happy. Because we have a part of our brain that tells us that we need to be safe and we need to survive. Most people would rather be certain than be loved, which is why a lot of people stay out of relationships. Because one is certain you know what is going to happen, or you're in a relationship where you know what's going to happen versus feeling real love or connection to somebody else. It's scary to give up certainty to get something else. Because we have this part of our brain that wants to survive and needs to be certain.

This is interesting because when you pursue certainty, you rarely find it. When you pursue security or certainty, it eludes you because there is no level of certainty that is enough There is no level in which you finally have made it and you don't need to worry about anything that does not exist. And yet we have this belief that if we make a certain amount of money or we meet the right person, or if something outside of ourselves happens, then we will feel safe and certain, or set for life. This is the feeling I had, and I still talk with many entrepreneurs about this, where they think that if they make a certain amount of money, then they will be safe, then they will be secure. Well, that's bs. It doesn't exist. All that happens is when you say, I have a million dollars in the bank now. Okay, well, I guess I'm safe, but I'm not that safe. I'll feel really safe If I have $5 million in the bank. Well, I guess that's not that safe because I want to invest some money and I want to buy a house. I guess I need $10 million. So certainty eludes us when we seek it, but when we pursue its antithesis on the surface, Uncertainty or variety, we tend to get both. Uncertainty or variety is the feeling that things are different, that things are changing. And Tony Robbins would say, this is a direct quote, that your quality of life is in direct proportion to the amount of uncertainty that you can comfortably live with. Four years ago, I had a very strong need for certainty. And four years ago, I decided to start practicing building the muscle of uncertainty by doing things like approaching a girl in the grocery store or jumping out of a plane or investing money into a business without clinging to the need for it to make me feel safe or meeting new people or traveling to new places. And what's interesting is when you get comfortable with uncertainty, you suddenly have certainty. Why do most people never start a business? Why do most people never invest money into their business to get them to grow?

Because they want certainty of outcome. So most people never really grow their business. They'll be much happier buying an info product than investing money into a business. Well, why is that? Because they're looking for certainty of outcome. When you buy an info product or you buy a book, you are basically buying into the promises of someone else, which sounds certain. But when it comes time for you to invest money into a business or for you to do something that you deem risky, all of a sudden it looks uncertain.

Well, what's interesting is when we get comfortable with uncertainty, all of a sudden we feel certain, because now we're comfortable with things being out of our control, and we're certain in that. So the quality of your life is in direct proportion to the amount of uncertainty that you can comfortably live with. So are there things in your life that you're doing to get certainty? And then is there another way that you can get that certainty? Can you get certainty outside of the unconscious behaviors that are keeping you stuck? For me, I found that I had a lot of blockages around money a few years ago, and I found that I never really felt safe or secure, no matter how much money was in the bank account. And there was a lot. And what got me out of this was really defining what certainty meant for me. It really meant knowing that if it all went away, that I would be okay. That's what certainty is for me. So how can I set it up for that so that I don't need to worry about money or keep a bunch of money in the bank and worry about losing it? How can I get my certainty without it keeping me stuck? Because that's exactly what was happening. And personally, what I did, my action plan for myself, was that I would keep six months expenses in the bank because I knew that if everything went away, I could get back on my feet and figure something out in six months. And I started investing the cash that I'd just been sitting on into other passive income streams and developing skills where I knew that, you know, I could always make money no matter what was going on in the economy. That's a much healthier way of getting certainty than trying to chase every dollar and put it in the bank. Because everyone makes you feel a little bit safe, but yet it eludes you. So we never really feel certain. So most people are having their lives run by certainty. The fix for that, the fix to most people's problems is being comfortable and uncertainty, which is a muscle that we have to develop.

It's very difficult. It's nice to say at a personal development conference or a Tony Robbins event that we can simply choose to be wired for uncertainty or variety over certainty. I found that it doesn't really happen like that. What really happens is that it's a muscle that we have to build and we never really overcome the reptile in our brain, but that we can build a muscle of uncertainty which increases our quality of life because it frees us from the shackles of needing to be safe all of the time. I belabored certainty and uncertainty enough. Let's move on to the next two, which are significance and love and connection. Significance is in many cases the secondary driver for most people. Most people desire to be certain, then significant for most people. This is not the Case in everyone, but most people will put significance as their secondary driver, their second primary driver, I should say. And this is the feeling of wanting to be unique, wanting to be important.

Why is there violence in the world? Why do people take a gun into a school?

It's because it gives them instant significance.

What's funny is Tony Robbins will say that if you get three things, if you get three of these primary drivers from any activity, it becomes an addiction. Violence is the fastest way to get a lot of them. Do you feel certain with a weapon in your hand? Do people listen to you? Can you make them do things? Yeah. Does that make you feel significant? You feel pretty significant when everybody is doing exactly what you ask them to because you have a weapon, does it create some level of uncertainty? Variety? We'll see what happens. Yeah. That's why there's violence in the world, because people are looking to meet these exact drivers. So most people's secondary is significance, which can be a real pain in the rear. Because significance, like certainty, eludes us when we try to manufacture it. When. When we are seeking significance, it also eludes us as a. A primary driver. Why do you. Why do you lash out at someone else when they're ignoring you or when they are disrespectful to you? Because they have taken away your significance. They have violated your rules for significance. And most people's rule on significance, meaning the things that have to be in place in order to feel significant, are very high. For example, someone who is physically attractive, who is used to being treated a certain way because of their physical attractiveness, will often feel bad about themselves if one person is not attracted to them. Because we have these rules in our brain that define how we meet these criteria. The things that have to be in place in order for us to feel these things. And sometimes we set the game up to lose, but you are the person controlling the game. This game only exists in other people's or in your brain. It doesn't exist in other people's brains. So what are the rules that need to be in place in order for you to feel important? Do you need to be the center of attention, or do you just need to be contributing to one person's life that plays a complete difference in someone's total happiness? Because some people, in order to feel significant, have to be the only center of attention, or they have to be the richest person in the room, or they have to be the most attractive person on the block. And these are unfair rules because you're just playing a comparison game in Your brain now, or as other people will say, I feel significant because I'm alive. And the chances of my parents meeting each other being healthy and attractive enough through generations in order to meet each other create me. And for me to be self aware of myself. I'm like. I'm like a freak of nature. And that makes me feel significant.

That's a pretty easy rule to meet because all you have to do is wake up in the morning and you have now met your rule of feeling significance. So we all have different rules in our brains of how we are going to meet these criteria. I mentioned love and connection in combination with significance. Because just like certainty and uncertainty, significance and love and connection are. They are, they seem like opposites and yet they are connected. Because when we seek significance, we tend to lose both. But when we seek connection, we tend to find them both. Because what really makes us feel good, what really makes us feel important, is a sense of belonging to other beings. And you can get this again in healthy or unhealthy ways. Some of the healthy ways can be as simple as a faith or some sort of spirituality or being in nature. Or they can be a feeling of connectedness to your friends or your social circle. Or it can be through animals. It can be through any being or a sense of belonging outside of yourself.

This seems different than significance. Yet when we pursue this, we tend to get significance with it because it makes us a sense of belonging. A sense of connectedness is really what makes us feel unique or important or significant.

Now, Tony adds two additional. He calls them the needs of the spirit. And they are growth and contribution. Growth meaning an improvement over a previous measurement. You know, our brains, all they know how to do is compare. And if we want to feel happy, growth is basically in our brains. How we get that, because we want to compare where we are now and compare that to where we were before. And that is how we measure progress. That's how we measure success. So we all want to feel growth in some way. And we do that by comparing where we are now to where we were previously. That is a need of the spirit. And the last one being contribution, meaning improving another person's life. And he would argue that making these primary is rarely a bad idea. It can happen. For example, for me, I am addicted to growth and sometimes I need to unwire myself, meaning not focus on growth so much because I do it some unhealthy ways. For example, growth I put as such a high priority for me that I will often sacrifice love and connection or variety in favor of growth. And yet it doesn't make me feel happy because I have neglected the other parts. And if I neglect any one of these, then I start to feel drained, I start to feel sad, I start to feel depressed. And there are things in our life that can happen outside of our control that will take some of these needs away from us. If a relationship ends, you've lost your certainty. You've lost some connection. You may have even lost some contribution or a sense of variety. What am I going to do Friday night for fun? Or if you have an injury and you pride yourself based on your athletic performance, you lose a lot of these too. You lose your certainty of knowing that you can play a sport or walk around. You feel. You lose the significance that comes from. I am. I am an athlete and that is how I define myself. You lose the connection of the team that you were just with. You lose the growth from. I'm getting better as an athlete or a performer or whatever it is. So there are things that can happen outside of ourselves that can make us feel like we have lost these things. And that is why we get depressed. That is why we get sad. But there are other ways to meet these. These are tanks. And we can fill them up with a variety of different things. Most people get stuck in patterns and paths of where they know they're going to get those methods. I know that I can feel a certain way by fill in the blank. And yet we never take the time to analyze the fact that we're doing it because we want that primary need. And there are other ways that we can get them met. What a lot of us will do when we're faced with a situation in which we have lost a lot of these primary needs, we resort to unhealthy ways of getting them because they're quick. You know, we're going through a hard time. We're depressed because we've lost some element of these. So we turn to things like alcohol. Why do we drink alcohol? Well, alcohol, when we drink it, we know we're gonna feel a certain way. That's certainty. We know that things are gonna be a little bit fun and we don't know what's gonna happen. So they're uncertain. Some people feel really significant when they drink alcohol and some people really connect, if you want to call it that, in a way, when they drink alcohol. This would be a unhealthy way of getting these needs met, of taking some sort of state altering substance. Why are we so addicted to Facebook? Why do we check Facebook 900 times? A day. Why do we check? Just to see if there's a red new notification or message? Well, someone sent us a message. I'm important, I'm significant. I'm sort of connected, even though I'm not really connected to these. These other people's posts. And when I go there, I know what's going to be there. But yet at the same time, I get variety because I get to scroll through the news feed to see what's different. That's why we're addicted to Facebook. Well, let's look at some other ways that we can meet these needs. Things like exercise, working out with a workout buddy. Specifically, do you feel a level of significance when you work out? Yeah, it feels good to take your shirt off in the mirror and be like, yeah, those abs are mine. Do we get a sense of connection when we go spend time with someone else doing an activity? Yeah, of course. So especially in the mornings when I wake up and I go see my workout buddies in the gym, I definitely get a sense of connection from that. Is there growth that comes from exercise? Absolutely, because you're measuring yourself against a previous measurement. And hopefully if we're working out, we're improving. Is there a level of contribution? For me, I've been really blessed to have people come to me and be like, hey, can you help me with certain aspects of my fitness? Which makes me feel good because I get to fill up my contribution bucket. So I am addicted to exercise because it meets at least three of my primary drivers. I can't not work out now because I am now wired to get my primary needs from exercise. And I would consider that an unhealthy. I'm sorry. A healthy way to meet these needs. Now, do some people take it to an unhealthy level? Yeah. You see people who are absolutely obsessed with their bodies and then they take a selfie, put it on Facebook, Everybody rolls their eyes, but they got a couple of likes, which makes them feel significant and it makes them feel connected and they're getting their growth because they're comparing it to a previous selfie. If you wonder why girls post annoying pictures, annoying selfies on Facebook, you now have your answer. Because they are meeting certain primary needs. I once called someone out on this. I called a girl out for posting an annoying selfie and told her I was getting my significance by calling this person out. And I got blocked by this person on Facebook. Why? Violated her rules for significance. I took away a way that she was meeting one of her primary needs. So when you are negotiating, when you Are connecting with people. When you are analyzing changes you want to make in your life, remember that you're making all of them in order to meet certain psychological needs. And there are healthy ways to get them, and there are unhealthy ways to get them. Spend your time meeting them in healthy ways and your life will be completely different. So here's a little exercise. Write down how you are meeting your needs in each of these areas. How are you getting certainty, variety, significance, love, growth and contribution? And be honest with yourself. Why do you go to church? Why do you spend time with your partner? Why do you go to work? Why do you run a business? And why do you drink? Why do you check Facebook? Why do you. Whatever. Identify exactly how you are meeting these areas of your life and then identify the two that are currently driving you the most. For most people, it's certainty and significance. And then ask yourself, okay, what can I do differently in order to meet these needs in more healthy ways? And what will my life look like if I were able to focus on two new areas of improvement or two new areas of that are drivers for me? What would it look like if your life was run by love instead of certainty and significance? How would your life be different if your primary driver was that you wanted to be connected to people rather than feeling important around people? Would you treat people better? What would your life be look like if you were pursuing variety rather than certainty? Would you be more likely to get into a relationship? Would you be more likely to start a business? Would you be more likely to have fun and simply write these out? For some people, I mean, there's nothing wrong with certainty and significance. Somebody called me out lately and they said that in my personal life, my significance is empty. It was interesting to hear this person analyze me. And they were like, you don't get significance in your personal life. You get it all through work. So what are you doing in order to get significance from your personal life? And I had to admit that he had a point.

So our lives are being run by these human needs. We're all meeting them in some way 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And when we don't get them, we are in a dangerous place because we can resort to unhealthy activity activities, unhealthy behaviors that not only make us feel worse, but they make it harder for us to meet these in the first place. They actually take them away in the long term. So if you are unconscious about the reason you are doing things, then your life is not free. If you want to be free. Master. Master. The ways that you are meeting these needs.

Your life will be completely different. My name is Ryan Daniel moran. This is freedom fastlane. Hey, what drivers are right now primari in your life? Let me know@freedomfastlane.com and as I said at the beginning of the show, if you like, today, do me a favor and head over to itunes and leave us a review. Thanks so much for listening to freedom fastlane, and I'll see you on the next show.