Stairway to Success: The Complete Blueprint for Personal and Professional Achievement

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GET READY SOCIALLY

We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.

—GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

Humans were not made to live and work alone. They were designed for the companionship of other humans. No individual ever built a civilization. Every society has been built upon the cooperative efforts of many individuals. It follows, then, that individuals succeed by working with other individuals. You will be unable to execute your action plans alone. You will need the help of others, and you will have to build upon the foundations of many others.

American philosopher Abraham Maslow developed a pyramid to illustrate the basic human needs. At the base of that pyramid are the bare essentials for human existence: food, clothing, and shelter, which he calls “physiological needs.” These are the fundamental needs humans strive to meet. Once we have satisfied these basic needs, we move up to the next level of the pyramid: safety needs. These represent the things we need to secure ourselves against threats to our existence. Once we have achieved security, we begin working on the next level of human needs: the need to belong to a social group. The fourth level is the achievement of ego satisfaction, or self-esteem. The final level is “self-actualization”—becoming all that we can be.

Notice that social needs are near the foundation of the pyramid, just above food, clothing, and shelter, and the need for safety. You can satisfy them by focusing your attention on these areas: