Eat, Sleep, and Sex Your Way to Success

How can you eat, sleep, and have sex to reach success (legally)?

As entrepreneurs, when we think and speak of success, we often define that success by what we accomplish in business. When really, the business is just the vehicle by which we get to where we ultimately want to go, which is self-fulfillment — reaching our full potential.

Self-fulfillment is the vision or final destination. It’s the state of being we dream of in order to keep going when things get so difficult that we consider giving up. 

To reach the level of self-fulfillment we seek, maybe it helps to understand what naturally motivates us at the most basic levels. Understanding basic human behavior may help us on our journey.

Enter, Abraham Maslow. 

Way back in 1943, a psychologist named Abraham Maslow theorized that human needs are ordered in a hierarchy of importance. As you progress through the levels of the hierarchy, you get closer to the highest level, which is self-actualization or what we would refer to today as “living your best life”.

According to Maslow, our needs at the bottom of the hierarchy must be mostly satisfied before we’re able to seek the next level of needs. 

At the bottom of the hierarchy are the most basic human needs like food, sleep, and sex.

At the safety level, we seek what is required for our physical survival — security, shelter, and health. 

Once we have that, we’re able to share ourselves with others, so we seek love (friendship, family, and intimacy). 

At the fourth level — esteem and recognition — we feel satisfaction in what we’ve accomplished in life. This is the level at which many of us envision success, but that would be incorrect. 

Real success is at the top of the hierarchy — in the self-actualization state. Here, we understand what’s important in life. We are deliberate, true to self, and our goal is to operate at our highest frequency. We seek to become the best people we can possibly be. 

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs can teach us a thing or two about entrepreneurship and being fulfilled. 

We are all in pursuit of the same things. Our basic human behavior requires that we have certain needs met, and as those needs are met, we ascend the hierarchy to achieve a more fulfilling state of being. As entrepreneurs, if we keep Maslow’s Hierarchy structure in mind, we understand our behavior more and can begin to trust the process. 

Making money (employment) is a basic need we all have, but it is not the level at which we reach self-actualization. And self-actualization is possible only after all other basic human needs are met.

So as you continue on your journey of achieving your full potential, trust that as you step through each level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, you are closer to being the best version of yourself that you can be. Eat, sleep, have sex, stay healthy, spend time with your loved ones, and build your self-esteem until you reach the top (of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs)!