Human Needs

Let’s start with the first part of the model: Human Needs. Now, understand this fact: you have four powerful, driving needs. Whether you think you’ve got them or not, you’ve got them. Psychologists have done all kinds of studies, and many agree that we have at least these four needs:

1. The need to live.

2. The need to love and be loved.

3. The need to feel important, to have value and significance.

4. The need to have variety in our lives.

The most interesting one to me, by the way, is the fact that we all have a need for variety. That’s why you have a closet full of different kinds of clothes, you go on vacations, and you pay for cable or satellite TV to watch a wide range of shows and productions. We have a very strong need for variety.

We represent the first piece of our model with a wheel because this is the piece that drives the model. You may even label this wheel with the word engine because this is where the model gets its power.