TRANSCENDING THE BASICS

Original Post - 11/8/2016
According to Maslow's original Hierarchy of Needs theory of motivation there are 5 stages in our personal development that motivate us as demonstrated in his classic pyramid.

I started thinking that you can look at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (HON) and relate it to the motivational stages that a small business owner goes through as well. So let's have a little fun as I take you through my interpretation of Maslow's HON for small business owners.

Physiological - The primary motivation is to meet your own and often your family's basic physiological need to have food on the table and have a roof over your head while you chase this wild wonderful dream of business ownership. This may go on for years while you feverishly dream of creating the latest must have service or product.

Safety -  You've got this great business idea, service or product nailed down and now you're putting loads of energy/and "some" money into developing it within certain "safety" parameters. Maybe you're still on someone's payroll doing something you hate until you can get your small business off the ground. Many of us get stuck here forever but understand that it is a choice.  Fear and the need for safety are great motivators and can seriously keep you locked in to your comfort/safety zone. However, it does seriously impede personal growth.

Love/belonging -  Here's where you've made it to the part where you've finally manifested some type of business and your passion has sparked a new source and level of recognition/acceptance from your tribe - your new customers, family, and friends. Think Facebook! As a first step in "getting the love", you've created your Facebook business page and you're off and running. That's a wonderful feeling but you may still be hampered by a lack of confidence when it comes to perceiving the real value of your business and getting your unique selling proposition to come across in your marketing efforts.

Esteem - At this stage, you've had a few successes in delivering your product or service and have started to get some positive feedback and nice accolades from your customers. Sure it's a great feeling at first to get this new found respect from others but if the need for status, recognition, fame, prestige, and attention are all you want then your business and possibly your important relationships may suffer along the way. For those willing to go further still, there is a higher level of need that results in the kind of self-respect that comes only when your sense of inner competence and self-esteem is based on your own experience. That comes from knowing you're doing the very best you can for all the right reasons.

Self-Actualization - Basically this means that you've arrived at the full realization of your true business potential. You've tweaked, improved and revamped your business when needed to get to a level that fully utilizes all your skills and reflects your best quality of service. 

But wait there's more! Much later in life Maslow added another stage to his motivational model of psychology and that was self-transcendence. By then he had come to understand that the self only becomes truly actualized when it achieves a level of self-transcendence - in giving itself to some higher goal outside oneself, in altruism and spirituality. 

All of this was my way of entertaining myself with an idea this morning and if I have somehow tapped into something that sounds familiar to you and that you can relate to that's great.

This rather lengthy blog article was my way of saying that if you've visited my website lately, you may have noticed that it is in a state of flux. There's a good reason for that. It is in A State Of Flux! 

But for me that's a good thing. My state of flux indicates I'm busily revamping my business to be more in line with my highest interests and where I perceive I can offer the best service to my clients. 

Many small business owners have a wonderful product or service which is the mainstay of their business but may lack the supportive systems in place to keep growing their business. This is a state I can relate to as a small business owner and is the reason I'm intrigued by the process of developing systems and offerings to my customers that are effective and relatively easy to implement.

Why does it have to be easy? Because if it's not easy and proven to be effective it won't get used. 

So stick with me as I redesign my website to more accurately reflect what my service is all about including some brand new free pdfs that you'll be able to download to help you in your business. 

​So keep a look out for this sign that we're back and ready to assist you in your small business.

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