#1577 - 6 Questions That Will Help You Understand Yourself So Much Better

One of the first TED talks I ever watched , I believe , was a recommendation by the one , alan Lazarus , and he said hey brother , might be one of the best TED talks of all time . Yeah , I don't know why I went Hulk Hogan there for a minute .

So what are the six basic human needs and why do they matter ? Also again ,

these are not ours , these are Tony Robbins .

Anyone who's a foodie most likely likes variety . They crave variety and , yeah , variety pretty self-explanatory . Next would be significance . So , statistically speaking , young men Kevin and I were both young American men growing up in in America and we craved significance , the American dream and wealth and all that kind of stuff .

So , significance tends to be what young boys are looking for . They want to be good at sports and they want to be , you know , wealthy one day , and they want to drive a nice car . So , significance , and again , women are crave significance as well . But in Tony's words he says men will do a lot for significance .

Women will tend to do a lot for the fourth need , which is love . And again , this is changing actually , which is really good . I think that women are craving significance more , men are craving love more . I think it's a really good thing that the masculine and feminine are sort of Balancing out , so to speak , but anyways , so . So the first one certainty .

Second , one variety . Third , one significance . Fourth one love . Okay , the fifth and the sixth needs are what he calls the needs of the spirit . The first four needs are what he calls the needs of the human . So everyone finds a way to meet the first four Certainty , variety , significance , love .

The fifth and sixth are the ones that this podcast is focused on , which is growth and contribution , and so the point of this episode .

To my understanding , kevin , we've done many episodes about these needs because they're so important , but what I tried to bring to the table on this one I told Kevin this in advance is I'm going to try to help everyone understand what their number one is . So Tony essentially says this in the TED Talk . I do highly recommend you watch the TED Talk .

It is the best TED Talk I've ever watched , and I've watched hundreds , if not thousands , of TED Talks , probably hundreds , probably hundreds and it's by far the most important TED Talk in my opinion . That said ,

tony says that we all have all six needs . All of us find a way to meet at least the first four , the needs of the human . Very few of us ever focus on growth and contribution , which he believes is where fulfillment comes from .

He says this , but that's what I have to do , and so I've been really focused on fulfillment and these needs and trying to understand how to meet them and how to sustain them . More importantly , which one's the most important for you ? So that's what this episode , I think , will be about , which is what is the quote unquote paradigm that you live in ?

And a paradigm is just a fancy word for your deepest belief about what the meaning of life is .

And for me , my paradigm shifted from significance as a young American male to growth after my car accident at 26 , which was sort of like my midlife crisis , and Kevin had a similar midlife crisis life or death situation with suicidal ideation , and he shifted his paradigm from certainty to growth , even though certainty is still , I think , maybe number one .

I left my job and I started doing this quote unquote full time , I had a lot more time on my hands . Obviously because there's nothing going on , because we were just two podcasters doing our thing .

I went back on my calendar all the way back to 2017 . Dude , our calendars back then were empty .

So when I was one of the most on point times in my life , I felt like I was crushing it . But I was getting up early , I would have a little pre-workout meal , I would have my pre-workout shake , I would do 30 minutes of mobility while listening to a book , audio book , watching a physical therapy YouTube video , whatever it is , and I would journal .

That was my morning routine every day . And when I would journal , one of the things I would do and this is after I had determined my most important thing was certainty .

The thing that would make or break my day , that would make or break my mood , that affected my mental health , that affected everything my ability to look into the future not predict the future , but look , imagine that I'm still gonna be doing this in a few years was certainty .

I would wake up and when I was journaling , one of the questions I would ask myself is , on a scale of one to 10 , how much certainty do you have ? And if it was below five , it was noticeably different in my mood , in my inspiration , in my motivation , all of that just in my belief of how successful we were or were not going to be .

I would say that the six questions that will help you understand yourself so much better , technically probably seven questions which one is the most important to you and Alan , I'm sure you can freestyle off of that but then ask yourself , on a scale of one to 10 , how much certainty do I have , how much variety do I have ? How much growth do I have ?

Contribution , significance , love , how much of those do I have in my life ? Then , when it gets to the point where you understand the one that's most important to you , maybe you'll know why you feel a certain . I am somebody who I'm still very certainty driven , less than ever , I would say , but still I do like certainty .

My chair , I know my chair just did it . I try to play it off . Look , I don't know what's going on with my chair because I fixed it . Quote , unquote , but it's still Jeff and me . I'm gonna have to flip it over and unscrew it and stuff . I don't know what the issue is .

But to Kevin's point , we all have one really really , really big one and honestly I'm not convinced you can really shift it without a lot of pain and trauma . So my car accident was a really really negative , challenging experience .

Obviously I physically was okay , but mentally , emotionally and spiritually it really messed me up and I remember the next few years were very , very , very challenging . Kept , getting pulled over , driving was hard for me . All my relationships , all kind of stuff had to shift .

Quit drinking kept failing , kept drinking , quit drinking , kept failing the whole nine and it made me really talk back . My problems hit me . Through all of that challenge , I think that I was able to shift from significance to growth and now I think that all of us should identify what the number one is .

So , kev , zero to ten , which one is your ten On those certainty ? Okay , so Kev's is ten out of ten , certainty . He's ten out of ten , certain that it's certainty . I am certain that it's growth , and I would say a close second for me would be love .

Now , when Emilia and I are not good , I don't care about growth anymore at all , as a matter of fact , and I think in some ways I tie my growth to her growth and that kind of thing . But so for the listeners , which one's your big one , which one's your ten out of ten , the most important ?

And then the next question is and this is a deeper layer what is the thing that is most tied to it ? So I'm going to give an example . We have a listener and team member listener long ago and team

member now who I think her number one . And this is what I'm doing in coaching I'm trying to figure out what's the number one motivator , what's the number one need , what matters to this person most ? So , for example , kevin's number one love language is money , aka certainty .

So Kevin's biggest source of uncertainty is money , and so when we make more money he has more certainty and then he can think longer term and his needs are met . So I use that as a motivator , not use it in a negative way , but to lead Kev as long as he's certain that we're going to be making more money and abundant .

Now he is more likely to stay motivated , if that makes sense . Okay , so this other person who I coach her number one is love . She's very family oriented , she's got two children , she's been married for 13 years . It's very clear to me that love is number one . Growth is a very close number two , which is good , but love is number one .

So what I had to figure out , though , is what does she correlate her self-esteem to ? Because self-love is also important , and her self-esteem is very tied to physical fitness ,

and so if we could dial in physical fitness , she would have more self-love , and then her family would prosper , and she would prosper , and then she would grow and contribute , and so , essentially , what we want to do on this episode for every listener is number one what's the number one of the six ? What's the most important ?

And then number two what's the most important leverage point or lever to pull in order to get that need met ? In other words , this person , when she's physically fit , she overcomes body shame , she is becoming more attractive , and she associates that with self-love and being loved by her husband and her family , and then everything proliferates from there .

Everything gets better , she grows , and so that's kind of what I'm doing in coaching is I figure out what's the number one love language , what's the number one bottleneck to whether or not this person's needs are being met ? And I'll use Emilia as an example too Her number one is growth , by far .

So last night we were doing finances it's Sunday night and we're both in front of spreadsheets and you would think she was in Disneyland . Man , it was unbelievable . I was like this is it ? She's like this is 10 out of 10 for me . I'm like okay , we can do this all the time . That's totally fine , right ? She just didn't know .

It's not a normal love language , right ? If you want to be in spreadsheets , we can rock and roll . I'm in spreadsheets all the time . But now I'm starting to understand . If you want to motivate and lead people , you have to understand these needs and you have to understand the love languages that co-with them .

But if you want to lead yourself which is what this episode's about you have to understand yourself , and that's really what we're doing .

From a leadership perspective , it's important to understand what's the need in the love languages , usually meeting that need . Okay , but I complicated it right now let's talk about self leadership instead . Of .

Fitness is a love language for you , for sure , but that also makes you certain when you're not working out , man , you're definitely less certain . I've noticed that for sure .

This was early in business , there was no money going on , I was struggling , I was riding the struggle bus , I was terrified and I connected the worst . I feel . Usually there was a direct correlation to the level of longterm certainty I had , even short term , not even longterm , but that allowed me at least to understand it wasn't . Why do I feel so terrible ?

Why do I not want to do anything ? Why do I feel ? Why is the weight so heavy today on my shoulders and life ? Why do I feel so hopeless ? It was the fact that I was super , super uncertain . Now even we had a conversation today about money and certainty .

We would never have been able to have that conversation if that wasn't a practice that was going on six years ago . So that would be my next level nugget , if you could add this to a journaling morning routine nighttime routine thing . Or you ask yourself , on a scale of one to 10 , how much do I have of the one thing I value the most ?

Because if you don't have any of the thing you value the most , you're most likely gonna be riding the struggle bus and it's just a good thing to be aware

of . So then you can put the things in place to overcome that or sure up that weakness .

Again , to recap certainty , variety , significance , love , growth and contribution . And so , for the listeners , if growth is high for you , this podcast probably is something you really really adore and you don't like to miss . You need that fix . You need that fix of growth every day , because otherwise you just don't feel fulfilled .

So I think that ultimately , underneath all this is fulfillment .

One last little example is Emilia craves variety a lot more than I do , and so if we aren't so during the winter months , when we're traveling less and we're playing less sports and we're outside in nature less and we do less adventures , it really is less fulfilling for her , Whereas I'm pretty much the same . It doesn't . Winter doesn't bother me .

If anything , I kind of like it because I like being inside , but I know that that's unfulfilling for her and I know that will resonate with a lot of our listeners . So just try to understand if variety is your number one , you gotta focus on it , Thank you . If growth is your number one , you got to focus on it .

If certainty is your number one and money's tied to that , you got to make sure money's coming in , and that's just really important . It's great self-awareness , yeah .

Love is on here , love you might not think of . Well , facebook group is going to bring me love , but it's you fitting in with people who actually value what you value and you can be yourself . You can be authentically you . It is community . We all want a deeper community and that is exactly why we created Next Level Nation . Link will be in the show notes .

We would love to have you there if you are .

The in person will be $97 per ticket . We do not have the landing page done or completely done yet , but keep that in mind . March 23rd it is not going to be starting super early . So we've done this how many times now ?

Kevin and I are going to be there and meeting other listeners in person . It will be an unforgettable experience . And then again there's the virtual component . So if you do want to be a part of this , you need to email me now , please , alan , at nextleveluniversecom .

I'm going to put you on a list and we're going to make sure that you're the first to get your tickets . We are literally not selling more than 30 in person tickets , so please reach out to me now , as soon as possible . And is there anything I'm missing ? Yeah , it's small and intimate .

We're just not exactly sure on the exact location yet , but more info to come , but I don't think you missed anything .

We hope you come meet the community , meet the team , join us and have an unforgettable experience . We only do this once a year , so please do not miss out on this . We only do this once per year .

If you're local or you want to travel , it's a great excuse to travel to come see your NLU family Tomorrow for episode number 1,578, . Do you actually just trust people too much ? I remember this is something we used to get often when we would .

I know we used to do episodes on DMs that we got from listeners and I remember one of the episodes we did was based on someone saying yeah , you know , I just trust people too much , and I wanted to approach that with a different perspective for tomorrow's episode .

So if you resonate with that , if you feel like maybe you trust people too much or you just don't trust people at all , tune in for tomorrow's episode , because I'm sure there will be a lesson in it for all of us . As always , we love you , we appreciate you , grateful for each and every one of you , and at NLU we do not have fans , we have family .

We will talk to you all tomorrow .