SELF-ACTUALIZATION IS NOT ABOUT YOU!

Of all the misunderstandings about self-actualization, the fact that because self-actualization begins with the preface “self,” has triggered some people to jump to the false conclusion that it must refer to or mean self-focus, self-absorption, and self-centeredness. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is that self-actualization is not about you; it is through you.

Now therapy is about you. Consulting is about you, so is training, hypnosis, and the beginning of coaching. But effective coaching quickly moves beyond a focus on the self as it moves into self-actualization. And when it does that, it is no longer about you. It is beyond you to what you can actualize—what you make real in the world that contributes to others, that makes a difference.

The other helping professions is about you precisely because it addresses your inadequacies, deficiencies, lack, and what you need in order to solve your problems. We go to therapy for healing from the past, the development of ego-strength, and the reordering of personality powers that have been distorted. We go for training, consulting, etc. in order to learn what we need to learn to get on with our lives. And for the same purpose we begin coaching.

But if and when we self-actualize, we get beyond ourselves. Maslow defined the self-actualizing life as “transcending self,” as having “peak experience” moments when we sense the larger world, and the world of meaning. He said it requires a social context. Individual self- actualization is always and inevitably social. It always involves other people.

The higher needs requires others. This stands in contrast to the lower needs in the hierarchy of needs. Once you know how to cope with the lowers needs, you can survive by attaining the food and water you need, sleeping, etc. You can ensure your own safety and security by learning how to protect yourself and keep yourself safe. The exception, of course, is the social needs and yet even with the need for love and affection, while you need others to provide that, it is about you— it is about you being loved, being connected to other people, you being a part of a community.

Deficiency speaks about what you need and so the lower needs are all about you. Abundance is the difference that creates the different motivational nature of the higher needs. Unlike the lower needs where gratification makes the need disappear, the drive does not go away with the gratification of the higher needs. It grows. It becomes stronger. The more beauty you create, the more beauty you can create and need to create. So also with music, meaning, justice, etc. The drive grows stronger and more compelling. That’s because when you actualize your highest values and meanings and your best skills and competencies, it is not about you, it is your

contribution and gift to others— a contribution that comes through you.

Now you know why there are no self-actualizing hermits. The hermit life is about the self. Yet as a social creature we first need others to become human, to enter into the human community, and to learn how to meet our needs. As social creatures also, when we move to the highest human needs—the self-actualization needs—we also need others. But with a difference. We need them not to gratify our drives, we need them to be the receivers of our gifts. We need them to love, to enrich, to contribute to, to offer the gifts of the being-values (justice, order, goodness, wholeness, aliveness, playfulness, contribution, excellence, etc.).

This is where inter-dependency enters. For human beings to accomplish great things inevitably requires inter-dependent actions. And that means it requires a community and that explains why we can have self-actualizing families, companies, groups, corporations, and even nations. So self-actualizing leaders and managers are self-actualizing to the extent that they are not self- absorbed or self-serving. If a person is a self-actualizing leader, it is not about him or her— it is about the vision that the leader is rallying a group of people to and the journey where the leader is taking them.

I wish we had a better term in English for self-actualization, a term that would indicate the complete realizing and making real of a person’s full potentials for being the best version of him or her. Until we find or create such a term, we will have to keep clarifying what self- actualization meant for Maslow who introduced the term as the highest motivation drive— making your highest values and best performances real.

The transcendence inherent in a self-actualizing life means that you discover a purpose for your life beyond mere self-serving materialism. And that’s also why a self-actualizing leader and manager in a self-actualizing company is not a self-serving person but a person serving the larger good.

Hey, someone ought to write a book about Self-Actualizing Leaders and Companies! Oh, yes, I did – and yes, the book will be available August 25. Unleashing Leadership: Self-Actualizing Leaders and Companies Volume VI — Meta-Coaching — $25 plus shipping