It is likely that in any leadership class you take in business school or even in the school of life that Maslow’s hierarchy of needs will come up. At the top of this hierarchy of needs is self actualization, a characteristic of almost all highly successful people. Once you’ve reached the point of self actualization, I’m told it is quite liberating and your ability to create anything you want successfully starts to snowball out of control in a good way. A few weeks back I was listening to an audio book Manifest Your Destiny by Wayne Dyer and he talked about the three characteristics of self actualizing people based on his own interview with Abraham Maslow:
1. Be independent of the good opinion of other people
This might be ironic advice for the business world, but this is somewhat counter intuitive. Ironically when you become independent of the good opinion of other people, those people will have a good opinion of you. Why is that? When you are concerned with the good opinion of other people, you essentially are putting on a facade, because you are acting in a way that you hope makes them like you. Obviously, this doesn’t mean you go out and act like a complete jackass. But, when you stop concerning yourself with how favorably somebody views you, the most real, most natural you comes out. That charisma draws people like a magnet, because most people are terrified of what other people think about them, and they aspire to be independent of the good opinion of other people. You hear the phrase all the time “who cares what they think?” But most of the time you do. I’ve been guilty of it myself time and time again. But, letting go of it puts you in a place of peace which leads you to massive success.
2. Be detached from all outcomes
If we could master this, the abundance that would flow into our lives would be hard to keep up with. I can’t say I’ve certainly mastered this, but it is something I work on daily. I don’t concern myself with how my interactions with people will turn out, I’ve been trying not to concern myself with how my job search will turn out and I definitely have become completely detached from what my grades will end up being. I finally enjoy learning for the sake of learning, and my grades believe it or not seem to be getting better when I don’t stress about them or concern myself with them. I work hard, but I don’t really care what my grades are. In fact, I rarely check to see what my grades are and probably will never look at my transcripts from graduate school unless an employer requests them.
3. Let go of the desire to have power over other people
If anything seems like counter intuitive advice to somebody in business school this is it. At first glance wouldn’t you think that rising in ranks of management is almost defined by power over other people. But, when you are coming from a place of wanting to have power over other people, then you are doomed to fail. One of the best pieces of advice I received from a manager once was that his goal was to help me get his job. By doing that you’re giving. When you come from a place of power over other people, they will work for you out of fear. When they work for you out of fear, they will do enough to meet your standard, but never go beyond that and reach their full potential. This takes me to another point. They say the best leaders actually surround themselves with people smarter than they are because they are smart enough to know that they don’t know everything.
Tags: Maslow, self-actualization, hierachy of needs, personal development, enlightenment
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