The Six Human Needs | The Better Than Rich Show Ep. 35

What Matters Most

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What Matters Most 〰️

The Six Human Needs

Like it or not, our basic human needs are responsible for shaping our lives and the lives of those around us.

When needs go unmet the resulting dilemma can inspire us to take action.

From our most basic physiological needs to the more complex aspirational needs, we can create the life we want by analyzing how to fulfill these needs in positive ways.

But catering to a particular need can also be dangerous.

Let’s take our most basic need for certainty. We humans naturally crave predictability when it comes to shelter and sustenance.

That makes perfect sense. We need to know that we are safe and will be fed in order to handle the other, more complex needs.

But certainty can also be a trap. Creating certainty in ALL aspects of life can often lead to complacency like staying in a relationship that doesn’t serve you or continuing to work at a crappy job. Both situations can be characterized as stable, but neither contribute to your growth and evolution as a person.

Where in your life are you being complacent? Where is there room for growth and where should you dial back? Understanding the Six Human Needs will help you figure out a way to strike a healthy balance.

This week, we break down each of the Six Human Needs penned by Tony Robbins and touch on famed psychologist Abraham Maslow’s take on the matter too. You’ll not only have a concrete understanding of what these needs mean to you but you’ll be armed with the information you need to make shifts that will help you see real results.

Doing the work to understand your needs and make changes will cause discomfort, but as you might have heard Tony say before, "Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change".

Mike Abramowitz 00:00
See, this is a fine line where if someone says I want to grow so that way I can gain status. That's that's not satisfying growth, that satisfying significance. So the idea of growth is I'm growing because I'm capable of it. It's what I do in private, the idea of what I'm doing in private when no one's watching me. That's real growth, emotional growth, emotional discipline, intellectual discipline, physical discipline. It's the things that I'm doing when no one's watching. That's the real spiritual sense of growth of strengthening who I am with me, strengthened. I'll say that one more time strengthening who I am with me when no one else is watching that's broke. Welcome to the better than rich show with your hosts Andrew Biggs and Mike Abramowitz. The better than rich show helps ambitious leaders who are on a mission to leave the world better than they found it. change their perspective on what's important, increase their income and impact and systemize your life and business. If you've ever struggled with finding your purpose have felt disconnected or distracted or found yourself going through the motions. This show will remind you that what you do matters and will re inspire you to chase your highest dreams. It's time for you to become better than rich.
Andrew Biggs 01:16
Hello, everyone and welcome to the better the rich. I'm your host Andrew Biggs and I'm here with my co host, Mike Abramowitz. Mike, you gotta Aircast
Mike Abramowitz 01:24
I finally got a haircut.
Andrew Biggs 01:26
I did, right. All right, as a as a female, you lost about 10 pounds on your hair there.
Mike Abramowitz 01:32
You know, I weighed myself this morning, I'm down a pound, one pound and eight ounces this morning.
Andrew Biggs 01:39
That's funny. Well, you've always mentioned the Jew fro so the Jew fro is is no more at least it's diminished. Just for now at least. Okay, fair enough. Well, hey, today, we are so excited for you to be with us to go on this journey with us, we're gonna be talking about the human needs, right. And we're gonna be breaking down kind of like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs talking about the the more modern adapted version that Tony Robbins has brought to Mother consciousness and understanding the human needs is so important. And the reason why is because if you understand what your needs really are, you can understand where they're being that and where they're not. And then you can actually course correct your life to be able to meet those needs. And sometimes we're unhappy, sometimes we're lost, sometimes run fulfilled. And we don't really know why. And this is a really good model to be able to point back to to say, Okay, well, are my needs actually being met? And if not, maybe that's why I'm unhappy. And you could work work to correct that. So maybe if he cuts off here, when you think about the human needs just kind of big picture before we get one by one, like why do you see this is important for someone to really understand?
Mike Abramowitz 02:42
Well, the first time I got introduced to it was at my first Tony Robbins event 2012 2013. And it was interesting when we're in a group of 8000 people. And after learning the six human needs, he asked to raise your hand, what is your most dominant need an out of 6000 people who said their dominant need, there's probably 80 to 90% Strangers in the room that said two of the six needs were their dominant needs. So the context of this was, wow, our brain is actually wired to satisfy two of these needs more so than the others, because that's how we're wired where the other four human needs take a little bit of extra intentionality. And I thought that was really interesting, because it was like, Wow, I'm not alone on this journey. A lot of other people have this same paradigm as me and strangers from all across the world, that you know, different languages, everything. Even 90% said, those are my two top two human needs. So I'm interested listener, if you can pinpoint which of those two needs as we go through this, I think it'd be fun.
Andrew Biggs 03:50
All right, that's called an open loop. For those of you that in the days, he just learned that life is given an open loop that we can close a little bit later. Well, I'm excited to break down these these needs just to give like a little bit of history with with Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you know, Maslow kind of was the initial pioneer of this concept. And, you know, he's a psychologist and did a bunch of research. And what he found was, you have a model that had five human needs, and if you look it up, we've probably even learned about it and health class or something like that. If you haven't, you know, go ahead and look it up and Google it. But basically, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs starts at the bottom. And his concept was you got to make sure you take care of your physiological needs. And then you can move into like safety needs things like shelter things like you know, having some protection where you can be at ease and at rest, and then that moves into like love and belonging, connection and like actual social needs, which then moved into a steam like seeing myself as somebody who has status in the society somebody who has a little bit of power or a little bit of He's respected in the society. And then lastly, it's the self actualization. You've heard that term. That's the highest human need according to Maslow's hierarchy. So there's five needs physiological safety, love and belonging. esteem and self actualization. You know, sometimes those terms get switched around. So if you're, you know, looking at something, you might look a little different, but mostly, that's what that is. And self actualization is about growth and really becoming who you're supposed to become and fulfilling your destiny and going on and that sort of journey. Now, the reason I just kind of preface that is because it is kind of the basis for Tony's model. But the reality is, I think Tony does, you know, did a better job, right. And even though he might not have all the letters after his name, he's probably, you know, the premier psychologists in the world, you know, in terms of actually understanding how the human mind and human behavior works. And so I really like his model. So we're gonna walk you through his model here today, one by one, it's slightly different, but it starts at the bottom with certainty, right. And certainty is one of those needs that we feel like we all need, right. And the reason we need certainty is, if we don't, our brains gonna start freaking out, right? In part, there are those physiological needs, we need to know where our next meal is coming from, we know that we, you know, have food on the table that we're taking care of that we can be at rest and take, you know, actually get well well rested and sleep and such that there's relative predictability in our lives, right? If you think about any moment where the rug got pulled out from underneath you in life, let's say, a tragic event, the death of a loved one, or the loss of a job, or all of a sudden, you know, a relationship, either divorced or something like that. And something really radically changes, what's happened to you psychologically, is a lot of the certainty was removed from your life. And that leaves us in a place of kind of like feeling chaotic and lost and, and needing that certainty. But we because we need to feel like we can have some sort of predictability. Otherwise, we kind of go into fight or flight. So like, what's coming up for you around certainty?
Mike Abramowitz 06:49
Yes, certainty is, is how we survived as a species. I mean, that's our place for protection. That's, that's our safety zone. Or the challenge, though, the challenge with the certainty is that people try to search and get certainty and sometimes unhealthy ways. So because there's such this desire and this need to know, and I know you and I Biggs had this conversation at one point around death and around around life. And it's like, if we, if you could probably remember how you said it, because you said it. To me, it was like if an angel came from, you know, the heavens and and told you how everything ends, and what happens at the end of life, would you want to know? And if you did, no, how would that change how you approached your life? It was an interesting questions like, without much with that much certainty. And knowing it almost, I don't know if I would want to know all of that. And if and if I didn't know all of that, how would my life become better? It was an interesting question. It was an interesting question for me to think back to I don't know, it's probably four years ago, he asked me that question, I still remember it. Because this desire to know is sometimes not not very healthy. This desire to this is where a lot of addictions live, a lot of addictions live in certainty. It's like, I know, if I, if I get drunk, I know if I get drunk, I feel different. I know, if I overeat, I'm going to feel a little different. I know that if I fill in the blank, some control, a lot of control happens in certainty. So it's a beautiful thing, because it allows us to survive. But when we stay there too long, or we crave it too much, there is those potential negative consequences that happen.
Andrew Biggs 08:32
Correct. And that's why it's at the bottom of the pyramid, it's kind of a necessary thing that we need, but a relative amount of, but if we put it at the top, right, if we make it the idol of our lives certainty, I'm gonna make all my decisions based upon certainty. Well, you know, think about that strategy for 15 minutes, and you'll find out it's a pretty terrible strategy. And also just recognize that we want these things into your to the point that that the question that I asked you, it's like, being human is actually about kind of grappling with these questions. It's about the journey, it's about the story. Right? That's, that's what being human is about. Like, if you were, every single time that you play the pool, you took the shot, and instantly every single ball went in, and then the eight ball went in last, and you couldn't miss when pool will be a fun sport for you. You'd have certainty be really, really good. But would it be entertaining? Would it be interesting? No, we want to grapple we want to grow. We want to enjoy the struggle, if you will, and be tested. And so if we're only focused on the certainty, we're not happy, right? Or just think you're bored, right? And you're ultimately you feel trapped, right? Because it's like, you know, some someone really might be listening right now who's like, Man, I really would love to start a business. You know, man, I don't know if I'm happy in this relationship. You know, you know, I was thinking about putting down the bottle and quitting alcohol. But I don't know, it's tough. You know, I'm certain that I get a paycheck at this job, I'm certain that when I come home at the end of the day, that person, even though I'm not super happy in this relationship, even though our values don't align, I'm certain that they're still going to be there, even though you know, I know, it's not good for my health, and I know that I'm giving up my potential when I drink, you know, I'm certain that I'm going to feel a little bit of relaxation, you know, every time I drink, and so I'm going to keep going back to it. And it's like, well, you know, what you're doing is you're just repeating the same cycles, and that's what happens, and you wake up 20 3040 years later, and you go, what was my life even about? You know, what did I stand for? What did I do? What did I accomplish? Did I ever follow that dream diver take a risk? And if the answer is no, I think you're gonna be, you know, you're gonna be in for a rude awakening. So if you're listening to this, and you're in that boat, or you've made too many decisions based on certainty, I want to encourage you to keep listening and keep quiet, you know, really start to question, have you made an idol out of certainty? Anything you want to say on that mic before we move to the next topic?
Mike Abramowitz 11:01
Not on that one. But this is why it's so confusing life, life becomes confusing because of the second human need. Awesome. We have the first human need, which is a need for certainty. And it's very confusing, because we also have the second human need, which is uncertainty
Andrew Biggs 11:19
certainty. Do you want me to say it or you want to
Mike Abramowitz 11:24
go with that, that's why life becomes so confusing for a lot of people, because we have this need for security and knowing, but we also have this need for variety and adventure. So this is where in times people get stuck or confused. Because it's like, which 1am I supposed to want in this moment. And you have this one desire to travel or desire to do extreme sports or, you know, this desire to do different forms of like exercise or spontaneous date nights, and, you know, all these cool things that you want to experience. And this kind of is like the fruit of life and, and it gives you that dose of excitement to help you feel really alive. And some of it requires a little risk, which is the opposite of feeling safe. So we have this desire for uncertainty, but this is that's the fun of life. Right? So that's the second human.
Andrew Biggs 12:13
Yeah, a lot of times these two are in a dynamic tension, right? Obviously, certainty, uncertainty. So basically, the opposites. And again, what I think is what we need is a little dose of of all of these, right? And we want to kind of check right now, have I been too certain, and I actually need to mix things up a little bit, or have I been mixing things up a ton, and like having a lot of fun. And all of a sudden, I'm experiencing too much chaos. This is kind of like the Jordan Peterson model, if you listen to some of his work, but he talks about, you know, the world is foundationally made up of order and chaos, right? And so it's like order, certainty, chaos, uncertainty. And so these two are kind of the building blocks. And that's why it's not surprising that they're at the bottom of the pyramid of the six human needs. But the question is, you know, are you getting enough? Variety? Right? Are you mixing it up a little bit? Are you are you stuck in a rut? Well, maybe mix it up, do something spontaneous, do something interesting, try something new, go to a new workout class, right? Try something spontaneous, go on a hike to a place you've never been before can stretch, you know, ghosts, like do something adventurous or fun or dynamic or something that's, that's interesting to you pick up a new book, meet a new friend go somewhere that you don't feel completely comfortable. And so it's like, the certainty is your comfort zone. Uncertainty is stretching your comfort zone, by definition. And like we need to, we need a healthy dose of both. I also see some people, especially young people, I know I used to do this quite a bit where it's almost like, I was addicted to variety, right? Like, I love variety, like so much. It was like, every day must be novel and interesting. And everybody who goes to work every single day, and you know, wow, that's boring. And it's too predictable. And I need everything to be crazy and interesting. And not surprisingly, that's why I moved to India, it's like, you know, talking about unpredictability of the streets every day, when I was gonna see it was just like, prime prime people watching opportunities nonstop all the time. If you're the people watching, like, go to India, you will not be disappointed. But just like, you know, you never knew what was going to happen, right? Like, every single day wasn't surprised. And that was fun for a while, until, you know, you're like, Okay, I have children and I need to protect them. And I need to worry about certainty. So I guess what I'm saying is sometimes we can make an item out of uncertainty too. And it's like, I'm just an adventurous spirit. Okay, fair enough. But are you grounded enough to actually, you know, put that into use and be of use in the society to like, actually help people out or you're an adventurous spirit, but and you're always doing interesting things. But underneath your finances or on mass, right or your your relationships are a mess or whatever, because you haven't actually built a foundation that's worth anything. So These are just some some pitfalls that I see with variety and uncertainty. Anything you want to say on that like,
Mike Abramowitz 15:05
yeah, a lot of times people when they're bored, they go to this extreme. And if they're like, you see the midlife crisis where you see someone, like get the Corvette, it's funny I was I was driving them out with a couple of people, a couple friends, and they're like, this guy pulls up with a brand new Corvette, and you can't you couldn't see who was in it. But someone in the car was like, I guarantee he's like, a white male. That's probably like in his 60s that's driving that car right now. It's like the midlife crisis car that needed a little bit of variety in his life. So it's just, that's good. There's also, you know, what is also variety? What is also uncertainty, danger, violence, you know, these, you know, these these unhealthy addictions, drug abuse, pornography, you know, like some of these unhealthy addiction show up, because it's like, Oh, I wonder what's gonna happen next, or what? What can transpire from this, so one thing you'll learn, and one thing I learned is that as you're going through the human needs, anytime you can satisfy three human needs out of the six, it becomes an addiction. So if it's, as you listen, as US listener listens to each of these, that's why violence and some of these addictions are always going to be here, because they will satisfy more, they'll satisfy three or more of the human needs, which is very fascinating. So that's why some things are just always going to be in the world. Because of this.
Andrew Biggs 16:29
Absolutely. And yeah, this is, this is really interesting. And I mean, you're bringing up a side point, but I think it's important where people want to eradicate violence, they want to eradicate this, that the other, it's like, even if you eradicated violence, like, the next day, there'd be violence, or at least next month, or whatever, like, there's just, there's always going to be certain, certain things like that. And maybe that's maybe that's, you know, a pessimistic view, and you don't want to subscribe to it, you know, and also, at least in this evolution of our species, and what's driving our behavior, it's the correct point of view, in my opinion. And so it's just an interesting side point for us to riff on there for a second. But the the third human need as we're, as we're climbing up the pyramid up the ladder is, is significance. And significance, we kind of alluded to it a Maslow side, but it's like this need to be somebody in the society to have some respect to have some sort of power prestige to have some status read. And so why do we have this human need, it kind of goes back to tribal times, and we think about how we, how we evolved, we're involved in these these structures that are that are societally set up. And that's really important, right? Because if we don't have any status, that actually threatens some of the needs below it, right certainty and uncertainty, because we don't know if we're going to be fed, if we don't have status, we might get excommunicated, we might get exiled. And if we're exiled Barak our home in the wilderness against a very rough wilderness, that that's not going to be so so kind to us, whether it's nature itself, or its other tribes who are definitely not going to be coming. So thinking about that we really need significance and status in the society. And that became something that we evolved to need. And we got to ask ourselves, what's a healthy relationship to that look like to read it? Certainly, if you have zero status, and you're like, blow man or low woman on the totem pole here, in our, in our current reality, you know, you should probably work on that, like, you should actually work to be seen as somebody who is respected in the society and sometimes again, I see people shun this, this need and they're like, I'm too good for that. I'm too cool for that. I don't need that. And it's like, no, you actually do you actually do need some respect and some trust and you need people in your life who care about you who want to be there for you otherwise you're alone at the bottom. And also sometimes people make an idol out of this one too. So Mike, what's coming up for you add significance?
Mike Abramowitz 18:55
Yeah, significance the need to feel important this need to feel like a worthiness I'm important I have I have some value to add to the world. And when we're born, I mean, we start realizing even as babies like I'm seeing this with James James Lindsay told me this morning I walk I walk into the room and he grabs one of his toys and he starts waving around as to she's like, as soon as you walked in the room, he starts waving around his toy and that's his way of saying Look at me Look at me, I want to be significant. So sometimes someone wants to be significant by bringing humor sometimes they want to bring you know feel significant because they are like high academics are like an overachiever who helps feel insignificant showing demonstrating their talents to being on good behavior. These are ways for someone to like demonstrate their look how good I am, which is good because then we have standards we have standards to kind of constantly achieve and be better and be more and and that's that's where we want to like provide for our family or do meaningful work for our society or create like some sort of wealth for ourselves in some sort of legacy and everything that goes behind that which is great. A lot of athletes, you know this this success, their version of success might be winning the number one or being the best and sales. And all of that is fantastic. It's so good for us. And at the same time. On the flip side, well, what does it mean to feel insignificant? What does it feel to be have low self esteem to not feel worthy to have low self confidence and be hyper focus? If someone is so hyper focused to be liked, or received or feel feel like they're needed? And then if they're not? Well, sometimes they might, what's the saying, it's like, I could have the large, tallest building in the city by doing two things, I could build my tallest building, I could destruct and knock down everybody else's. But this need for significance comes from working really hard to build it or working really hard to knock everyone else's down, because they really need to feel like they're the best. And if that's the case, well, well, that's where relationships start to crumble a little bit, that's where you know, the likability factor starts going down, you know, they have a negative relationship with failing pride starts taking over, you might see it in a kid, if they have a negative relationship with significance, they start like taking the toys from somebody else. It's like, No, those are mine, you know, they don't know how to share. So that's, that's what shows up for me, this, this desire, and the desire to feel needed, the desire to feel significant, and important, is great. And, like everything else, if it becomes the center of everything, the nucleolus there's some there's some downsides to it.
Andrew Biggs 21:35
Right? And if we look at what you know, happens to people who do get who have very low status, but who have very low significance in the culture, you know, we think about every single school shooter, right, every single match shooter, who's ever, you know, done, done those sorts of atrocities, right, that are unspeakable, the, as soon as it happens, I can instantly picture, you know, not exactly like what this person looks like, but I have a profile in my mind of who this person is. And so do you. Right? It's like someone who was discarded somebody that no status, somebody who had very little friends, right, very little support group probably didn't have both parents and, you know, probably had drugs and alcohol in their family or something like that, or within themselves probably had some mental health issues that didn't get, you know, warning sign warning signs, warning signs, warning signs, warning signs, warning sign code, right. It's it's pretty predictable, right? Unfortunately, at this point, but what happens is, I don't have any significance. But guess what, I'm going to be significant. But I'm going to show you how significant I can be dominant change, every single person in America is going to be talking about me today. That's what they're thinking. Right. And that's a way of them fulfilling the need of significance. But because they, they didn't have it anywhere else. And they had to, they had to find it somehow, that's, you know, the absolute worst way you could possibly try to do that. But that's what's going on psychologically. Right? So I just bring that up. Because it's like, we need to pay attention to that we need to pay attention to who in your life feels discarded when you've pulled your life, and you kind of come alongside I'm not saying they're the next school shooter, but what I am saying is, they they need you, they need you to step up and come into their lives. And if you're that person reach out to us, like we love having conversations with people who feel that they need support,
Mike Abramowitz 23:23
and that that ties into the fourth human need. Correct.
Andrew Biggs 23:26
Now, do I say one more thing about significance is like, we even we can even turn this into an idol in a bad way, and still be doing good, if you will. But it's like, you know, the person who's just like, all about their looks, are all about their material wealth, are all about like, the best the best achievement that they had, and how much weight they lifted at the gym, and like how great they are, um, you know, whatever. It's just like, one up this first one. Yeah, it's just like, Oh, cool. You made like $6 million last year, Mike, like, you know, I remember that, you know, 10 years ago when I did that, to let me tell you about the time I backpacked through Thailand, and it's just like, can you just shut up like, you know, nobody likes you? Right? And so it's like these people who their entire world is built on sex, right? And so they're constantly trying to, to raise their status by telling you how great they are. So I guess I just want to bring that up, because it's like, Don't be that guy or that girl. Nobody likes that. What that is, is just actually it's a deep seated insecurity that you're not enough and so you have to show everybody that you aren't out there constantly talk about talking about it and then constantly show yourself with the new car or the new house or the new life or the new whatever that you want. It's kind of show off so if you don't have you know, significance at all, it's really dangerous. And if you make an idol out of significance, even though you look good on paper, you're stalking me satisfied we're only halfway up the pyramid. This is not the pinnacle of life people but so please, please please do not find yourself in that position either. So Mike, you were gonna tee up the the next few minutes you go ahead and tee it up.
Mike Abramowitz 24:58
Yeah, I mean, if you have This if this person's usually coming back to the school, shorter shooter example, I'm just like, what do they need, you know, they feel they have this need for significance of feeling important what they really are craving, and deep down in need is this love and connection, this, this feeling of that I am connected to something that's beyond just what is right now to me, that may be a connection to a religion that might be a connection to another human being, it could be a connection to a pet connection to an act of service, joining a club, a community of sorts like this, this connection this true like I Andrew, you talked about the tribe, the hierarchy of the tribe, but then there's like the connection inside the tribe. And that's that tribe could be the family, that tribe could be the community and being a part of something that is beyond just me, where significance is all about me, connection and love is beyond just me, I'm a part of something. So that's that's how we can potentially offset that's why those are a little bit opposite as well, the significance in the love and connection. So we're aware of the six human needs. And when you see someone that's trying to satisfy one and an unhealthy way, we can come in with the alternative, which is what we're alluding to.
Andrew Biggs 26:16
Right. And so it's like loving connection, we need to we actually need that. And I remember, you know, even identifying a little bit, it's like a lone wolf, right? I don't know, like, if you could ever relate to that, but like, kind of enjoying that identity. Like, I don't need anybody, right? Like, I'm good on my own, you know, leave me alone. And, and also it's like, this, some of the truth, right? You actually do like you actually do have a need to feel loved you connected. And you know, ironically, it's like I feel I'm a lonewolf I'm gonna push everyone away, and then I go, Okay, why, why am I so long? So you push everyone away? So what exactly did you expect? And then I had to relearn, like, how to lean in, how to actually have friendships, how to have relationships like that, of course, how to open up in a romantic way, in an intimate way. There's so many people that I talked to, especially young people in the dating world, they just feel like, man, I've been hurt before. And I can't open up or I can't up and up because I'm afraid to get hurt in the first place. And so it's like, or they have, you know, this sort of thing like, Yeah, well, it'll never last or they have some sort of story. There's, there's always someone, you know, too many fish in the sea, they have FOMO. But like, the idea behind loving connection is we need it, right? I mean, it's we're starting to near these higher level needs, right? This is fourth out of six. And this is like something we need if we really want to be fulfilled, right? We don't need it if we want to survive, but we need it if we want to be happy. Right? And that's why like finding communities, right? And places where you can be yourself is super important. You know, I post on church family, you know, business communities, like the better the rich community. You know, Mike, you've you've really spearheaded something that you and I are part of, you know, called the Healthy CEO, Dad tribe, right, where we're having conversations over whatsapp on a regular basis. We're meeting once a month on Zoom. And it's like, a place for us all to come together. And nobody's telling each other, you know, anything, nobody has any sort of ulterior agenda. Everyone just comes in and just, you know, says, Hey, what do you guys need? How can I be there for you, even just to be seen, heard, respected, have some camaraderie, we're hitting together in November to hang out again, but like, Mike, why don't you speak to like, why did you even create that, and what what need is that fulfilling for you and for for the men in this job?
Mike Abramowitz 28:32
Well, came from the very low place where I felt like I was at Lone Wolf, I remember I was in an argument with myself and projecting that into others in my life, and I got a hotel room for a night I was like, I just got to get away. And that was the birthplace that through my journaling, I was like, I need to, I need to have like minded people around me that could empathize and understand. So I made a list of other men in my life that and I put the categories of what I wanted that tribe to look like. And at that point, it was called the caring kings of caring kings is what I was going to call it. And I made the list of the criteria they had to be in this age range to be family, Man they wanted, they needed to be business savvy, they needed to have certain goals to be change agents in the world make a positive difference. And, you know, just me I made this list. And then I made a list of people that I was connected to. And I said, I'd like to strengthen a brotherhood with these individuals. Like what might that look like? Why do I want this brotherhood? Well, it was also inspired because I saw a Facebook post from Hal Elrod, John Froman, Justin Donald and the Les McDaniel, and I saw this post for that. It's like they're in their mid 40s At this point, and I'm in my mid 30s. And these guys are just crushing it. The net worth average between all of them is probably like $80 million, or something like that. And they're hanging out with their friends and having a meal and doing a little toast or whatever. And, you know, their families travel their kids hang out, they you know, they play volleyball once a week on set Saturday morning. And I'm just like, that's what I want. I want that in 10 years from now. So if I want that in 10 years from now, I got to start now I got to start fostering these relationships. Now I got to start, you know, can that make creating strong connection now. So it's almost like a 10 year vision that was birthed at the end of 2019. And now we're a couple years in of just like, fostering some some of that brotherhood, because I've had these connections. But now it's fun to see some of these men foster friendships and connections with each other. And it's, it's growing, you know, we don't have the I don't think the average net worth is at 80 million right now, in our mid 30s. You know, just yeah, we got here, we got another eight years, we got another eight years, and then it's gonna be fun to see how it unfolds. So
Andrew Biggs 30:43
sure. And I think I think that's the beautiful thing about like, what does it mean to be like minded? And why do we need like minded relationships? It's like, well, you know, we want to have something in common, and we want to have something we can relate to these individuals. And I think sometimes people feel like, especially if you're in this, like, personal growth world, you know, you might feel like you're the only person in your city or, you know, or, but you're not, right, that's the reality, you know, we, you're not alone, there's so many people who are, are clued into this, if you just have, you know, start to attune yourself to that. And even if you can't find the locally having you find them across the country, and around the world, and like, you know, to power the internet, you can be connected in a moment's notice. So just keep that in mind. You know, it's also one of the reasons why we go to church, obviously, and, you know, it's one of those things that we're, we've gotten back into the last three years. And what we found is that it's really helpful to have people in your life who can ask interesting questions, you know, we have a small group here in town that we're a part of, and we've built friendships, right friendships that we can go out and hang out, like locally to and, and just, you know, grab, like to eat or hang out, or if we need something I remember, like, game was being born and then we had to rush on him to the hospital, we were doing a home birth, and you know, we call the friend was like, Hey, can you can you watch Eli right now, like, you know, we got to rush to the hospital. And it's just like, so many advantages to actually having friendships and community, like a lot of that was formulated through, you know, our small group and such. So, you know, sometimes people are turned off by religion and, and whatever. But there's so much good that can come from it, right? Even if there's some some, like an underbelly to it. It's like, of course, there's an underbelly to religion, because it's a church made up of human beings and human beings all have, you know, their dark side, right. And they all have their problems. So don't expect them to be perfect. And you'll probably just a fact. So I just share that, because I think it's an important side. Yeah,
Mike Abramowitz 32:31
so it sounds sounds like love and connection is just, you know, perfect. That's where everyone wants to live. So I just at least want to bring out the possible downsides of Bitcoin. Because ultimately, when we become dependent on the community or dependent on other people, that's where this learned helplessness comes into play. And there's craving for attention, this craving for, you know, physical touch, or, you know, I don't get my way, then you know, you can fill in the blank, this is where some depression can settle in, this is where emotional eating can settle in, you know, this, this type of just rebellious behavior, it's like, you know, I'm just going to seek attention from the people I love most by being negligent or by, you know, causing ruckus inside the community just because I want that attention. So there are some, there are some downsides to the loving connection, if that's the desire that if that's the need that we're chasing after the most, and we're trying to get it so much, and we can get it, that we almost try to deviate and do the opposite by craving it in an unhealthy way.
Andrew Biggs 33:40
Yeah, that's a really good point. Mike, I really, I'm really glad you brought that up all the four, you know, kind of needs that we've covered so far. Tony would consider the ego needs, right, they were gonna meet your ego, yeah, we're gonna switch to the spirit needs. But like, you know, we're still kind of Yeah, we moved on, like the physiological and psychological uncertainty into more of this social dynamic that we need. But the reality is that we're still kind of playing at this sort of ego level, and we need to graduate. So love and connection also shouldn't be an idol either, right? Because especially if it's like a romantic relationship, you put that person at the center of your life, we all have that friend, right? Who it's like, they're super cool, and they don't have a girlfriend or whatever. And then they get a girlfriend, they disappear. And then they break up with their girlfriend, they're devastated, they come back to hang out. So it's like, don't be that don't be that person, like have a well rounded understanding of your life and don't become dependent on others. So I do want to switch into the top two, we got about 10 minutes to dive in here. The spiritual means the first one is growth, okay. And this is where things start to get really really fun, right? You've satisfied your first four let's get to the you know, where things get really really fine. And we have this need for growth right we have this need for expansion this need to kind of push the envelope to become more to to test our capacity against something and then to to strive for a goal right To set a goal and then to try to accomplish it. And so, you know, this is hardwired again, in terms of like, okay, well, I need to set a goal for, you know, security for my family, or I need to set a goal for how many members I'm going to kill this month, or whenever you know that we trace that back. It's like, how many clients? Are we gonna sign? Like, What's my goal? And physically? What's my goal with my health? What's my goal with my finances? What's my goal, my relationship? So we need to set goals and then achieve them is the way I look at growth. And if you're not doing that on a consistent basis, again, what exactly are you expecting your life to look like? It's going to be pretty dull and pretty boring. And there's a lot of people out there wandering through life without any goals without any vision, or maybe they wrote it down on January 1, but you know, you're listening to this. And it's August, like, get it together, like you cannot just set goals and not actually try to try to actually achieve them. So Mike, what's coming up for you?
Mike Abramowitz 35:51
See, this is a fine line, where if someone says I want to grow, so that way I can gain status. That's, that's not satisfying growth, that satisfying significance. So the idea of growth is I'm growing because I'm capable of it. It's what I do in private, the idea of what I'm doing in private when no one's watching me, that's real growth, emotional growth, emotional discipline, intellectual discipline, physical discipline, it's the things that I'm doing when no one's watching. That's the real spiritual sense of growth of strengthening who I am with me, strengthened, I'll say that one more time strengthening who I am with me when no one else is watching. That's growth. And that's what we're talking about. It's the goals that Andrew you're talking about is like, the goals that are important to me, not to gain status, but just know that I have potential, and I want to unlock more of that potential that I've been gifted with. That's what that's what it means. That's what growth means to me, growth in life, both in marriage growth in health, growth and career growth, in character, growth, in generosity. And by me growing as a human, by me growing into the best version of me, it allows me to have the capacity for my six human need, which is I grow in order for me to give, the more I grow, the more I can give, and I can contribute. And hence, that's the sixth human need is that become more of me, I fill up my cup so high, that it overflows, and it overflows to offer more to the world, which is the 60 minute of contribution, and that the contribution is the act of beyond me.
Andrew Biggs 37:32
It's like for growth, are you setting goals and achieving them? Are you becoming more? And are you working on your character? Right? Are you building up this sort of character or logical strength? If you have weaknesses, you know, are you addressing them. And because we all have weaknesses, right? We all have like character defects. And so you know, you need to recognize what those character defects are. That's why it's also helpful to have loving connections, so they can point those out to you and reflect them to you. And so in a loving way, and so then you can actually grow and once we grow, then we want to ultimately make an impact. Because once you realize that you are becoming more the natural impulse is to want to give it to somebody else. So want to go out and actually tribute right to the world in some meaningful way. And you all have you all have gifts to get if you're listening to this and you're like, I don't know how to contribute, I don't know what gift I have. Like you have superpowers you have unique things that you have, whether it's a trait, or it's a skill, or maybe you have a special experience that you've gone through, you've gone through something that very few people have gone through or given you overcome something that that's really difficult to overcome. And that becomes something that you can serve other people with a similar problem. So I don't know what it is that you're here to do your impact. But we believe that every single person listening to this is here for a unique purpose. You have a destiny and it's your your duty, it's your responsibility to go out and to seek that destiny and to make it a reality. And that's the hero's journey. That's the journey where a lot the hero doesn't go on the journey for themselves right? The hero doesn't go on the journey just so they can enjoy you know the gold the dragon was hiding, right and protecting they go on the journey to slay the dragon right and and save the town right and to feed the village with with the remains of the Dragon that's really the the essence of the hero's journey broken down and so it's it's we want to make an impact and that's when we feel most alive if you think about any moment your life when you felt at your best and fully alive. It probably had to do it actually giving back so what else do you want to add about impact? Mike, I know it's an important part of your life. You obviously run PB and J for the unit and obviously the local chapter pb&j For Tampa Bay you've had so many you know homeless people in the city and around the country. So why don't you speak to this a little bit and we can start to start to wrap up.
Mike Abramowitz 39:49
Yeah, I you know, you reach the point where you want to get off self and on purpose. And most of us get to that point when we are spending a lot of time in growth and I suppose A lot of time in learning. So that's why I went to write books, I spent a lot of time in, in earnings. So I want to spend, I wanted to give back. So it's just like anything else, if you fill yourself up with something, you're eventually going to want to teach that or provide that or offer that to other people. And that's essentially what happened. I mean, I spent a lot of hours teaching and speaking, I spend a lot of hours coaching and earning in the business, like, what could What can I do to just like, something small to give back, something small to give back was making a couple of sandwiches, you know, seven years later, 100,000 Sandwiches later, and hundreds and hundreds of volunteers later, it just started to become a movement, because that's how many people want to give back. They just sometimes don't know how. And it takes one person to just follow through on the growth and say, All right, I'm committed to this. And then other people will follow. And it creates a movement. So to Andrew's point, what is your interest? What is your passion? What is your skill? What is your ability? What is your desire? How can you grow inside of that even more, so then you can offer that to others. So coming back full circle to the closed with the open loop. When you see the six human needs certainty, uncertainty, significance, connection, growth and contribution, Tony Robbins asked a group of 8000 people said, which is your dominant need your primary need that you've been filling, during the last, you know, pass in the past 80 to 90% of the room certainty and significance, those are the two that need to survive, and the need to feel important. If I feel important, and I know what's happening in my life, those are the two basic needs that the average human is trying to satisfy on the regular basis. So ending this episode, I would invite you to think what if you replace those needs with to have two other ones? Hypothetically, what would the lens of life look like? And it might sound something like this if certainty and significance was the need to survive and be right? Well, I want to I want to go to work so I can provide for my family and feel good. Now if you say I want to I want to switch it to significance, or I want to switch a certainty with growth and significance with love. Cool, I'm gonna go to work so I can learn how to become a better person and a business person. So that way I can show up and spend more time with my loved ones and be more present and establish more connection with the people that are important in my life. Same exact work, different paradigm shift, different lens, different intentionality. So if we approach the six human needs with intention of who we want to become, and that's the lens in which we operate, and which ones we want to satisfy. That's where real fulfillment could start taking place. And we could have a whole episode on how to take the six human needs and how to have paradigm shifts with those human needs, on how you can attract more fulfillment into your life.
Andrew Biggs 42:55
Well, that's beautiful, and I 100% agree with everything that you were saying there. So thank you so much for that powerful close. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as we enjoyed making it. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for sticking with us to the end and remember until next week to leave today.
Mike Abramowitz 43:10
We'll see you thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the show, please share it with others post about it on social media or leave a rating and review. To catch all the latest from us. You can follow us on Instagram at better than underscore rich and join our Facebook group at the better than rich show. Thanks again for listening. We look forward to seeing you next time and remember, leave today better than you found it
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