THE SOVEREIGN DROP 044 — On Your Two Core Needs
Not a newsletter, but a ritual. One drop each week. Distilled wisdom for the whole man.
Field Note: On Your Two Core Needs
All humans have needs. Even you.
I’m going to give you a list of the six core social needs of humans. Two will be front runners for you. The fun and the work today is deciphering which two are wired into you.
CORE SOCIAL NEEDS:
Significance
Acceptance
Approval
Intelligence
Pity
Power
Maybe you know by the word. If not, here are some additional bits for each one that might help you identify yourself even if you feel a sense of dread welling up.
Significance - Need to feel important, valuable, above average, impactful. This person tends to frame stories around achievement or influence.
Acceptance - Need to belong to a group or tribe to feel included. This person uses heavy “we” language.
Approval - Need to be liked and positively evaluated. This person tends to tune into faces for reactions that approve or disapprove.
Intelligence - Need to be seen as smart, competent, informed. This person tends to explain, analyze, and correct.
Pity - Need to be understood, sympathized with, emotionally validated. (Not out of weakness, but rather a drive for emotional acknowledgment). This person tends to share stories that center around hardship or struggle.
Power - Need to be seen as capable, strong, authoritative. This person can tend to come across as domineering.
Which two most represent you?
I’m sure you’d rather not have any of the aforementioned, but take a solid look at yourself and allow the awareness of who you truly are to surface.
We’re going to use these 6 core social needs over the next couple of weeks because I want you to be intimately familiar with your own needs, triggers, and fears around them. These needs are responsible for a lot of unconscious thinking and actions over the course of the decades you’ve had here and we need to graduate from that.
If you’re having a hard time seeing yourself in anything above, it will get clearer next week when I shed light on the associated fears and triggers of each. Stay tuned.
Question
Which of the 6 core social needs seem strongest for you?
Integration
Based on your identified core needs, reflect back on the last month and identify where these core needs were driving your thoughts and behavior.
Benediction
There's no shame in having needs. Only in being run by the ones you refuse to see. Also, naming your needs isn't a confession of weakness. The man who knows what drives him gets to choose. It’s the first move toward no longer being governed by them.
I believe in what you are becoming.
— Amy
If you know a man who would benefit from reading this, feel free to forward it to him. One drop each week. Distilled wisdom for the whole man
