Before I begin to express my opinions, I would say that these views are based on my outlook and experiences based on the life that I have seen through my lens.
As a management student, we all have studied Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs having 5 stages:
- First, we seek the basics to survive food, water, air, sleep, excretion etc. Which in today’s world is not a piece of cake.
- Next, comes the safety where we tend to secure our body, employment, health, morality, and property. A stage above survival; most of us spend our half of the life in this stage.
- Once we surpass that web, looks for love, belonging, family and intimacy. Our safety net we knit with passions to fall back on. The sense of being loved and possessed the myth we spend the rest of our lives in.
- Those who outstrip that we strive for self-esteem, confidence, and respect. Where people get baffled between confidence and ego, hence end up living in a bubble of being defensive.
- Assuming the success to this point, we then hit the top of the Maslow’s pyramid where we discover a more profound need, justification of our very existence, fulfillment of one’s potential called Self Actualization.
But the question here is what’s next to “Self Actualization” or what is the significant element on the journey to Self-actualization we all overlook? Do we all even make it to the top level? Or some of us reach the top level before being intertwined to all the steps in the ladder. And what happens to those who once reach the top tier and think its oblivion?
All respect to the theory which explains human behavior and needs based on the psychological musts of the human breed. But as per my experience, there is an essential ingredient that is required at each stage based on the kind of need to reach the top of the pyramid. An element that can work as a catapult to reach the top tier sooner than expected. That is “UNIVERSAL DEPOSIT” in mankind.
Let’s analyze this as per management principles. Being a Manager also means that you are an on-staff psychologist for the team whose future depends on you. Where you break their mental blocks to achieve goals aligned to their bigger picture, that is a universal deposit. So, your paycheck is not going to help you reach the self-actualization but your universal deposits without a desire to take back will help you climb up the ladder in the pyramid.
The more you give the more comes your way. Altruism is not all about lending bags of money to poor in underdeveloped countries. It’s also about investing time, mind, energies and heart into the well-being of people to help them achieve their milestones in the hierarchy as per Maslow’s theory. It’s all about giving when you have more, be it monetary stuff, positive energy, humble attitude or knowledge. It’s about listening more without an urge to reply. It’s about being there to make people feel safe. It’s about a little motivation if someone slips on the way to accomplish dreams. People are proponents of change; right tools are effective to achieve desired results. Be the “Universal depositor” to give them the desired tools.
And for those who fail to make such contributions might reach to the top level but will be flummoxed to comprehend what is next in their journey making their way to impatience and nihility.
While you are reading this take a moment… PAUSE and see where you stand right now? Are you making the “Universal Deposits” in other people life?
