Love, Labor and Little Ones

It's the pattern for greatness.

Do you know how true, sustainable excellence is achieved? 

I believe bringing a child into the world—its purpose, process, and product—is a great example.

Its purpose: to lovingly procreate and usher in a new generation; to faithfully perpetuate the human race with hopes for a greater future.

The process: 2 people fall in love, developing an intimate, trustful relationship; they intimately, passionately, ecstatically become one; 9 months of discomfort, sickness, and anticipation. And it culminates with increasing pain that can last for hours, lots of hours.

The product: 5 to 9 pounds (on average) of cuteness and joy; totally dependent, vulnerable person with lots of needs.

With the birth of a child, we can get an idea of what is involved in creating something uniquely amazing—patience, courage, perseverance, compassion, humility, gratitude, joy, faith, and of course love. To be successful in this complex endeavor, we need to grow how we see ourselves, others, and what life is about. We must foster the things that help us thrive and protect against those that threaten, to overcome the hidden things that get in the way of true, long-term fulfillment and satisfaction. Things that are precious and new are usually weak and needy and they need to be loved, protected, cherished, and developed. 

But if we haven't been liberated from fearful, anxious, and worrisome ways, if we haven't healed deep emotional wounds from the past, we will most likely be operating with an organizing principle of superficial securities and affinities that tend to focus on productivity, efficiency and short-term fixes.

What's wrong with this? 

It's a beast. And it will eat little babies of inspiration, originality, non-status-quo aspirations, and seeds of innovation. Our ideology will be impotent against the invisible forces that steal our joy, erode our hope, and oppress our love. We would do well to wisely steer away from beast-run organizing.

Here's God's template for divine success: 

Inspiration and passion of love
>>> growing deep trust
>>> decisions and actions to effectively create and collaborate
>>> birth of something new that is vulnerable and needy
>>> intentional, dynamic protection of the new
>>> authentic learning through trial and error
>>> ongoing development and revolution towards maturity.

Needed ingredients: love, humility, wisdom, joy, courage, perseverance, patience, forgiveness, faith, hope—to effectively deal with anything that causes fear to find the best possible solutions to the myriad of problems encountered at home and work.

This is the what and how of God's work. Too often, divine activity has been relegated to conventional ministry, evangelism, etc. But when anyone does things that incorporate healthy culture building principles, they are partnering with supernatural benevolence. Ed Catmull is doing it at Pixar and we too can do it in our pursuit of sustainable excellence.

I also see this with the Golden State Warriors, 2017 NBA champs! What a great example of what can happen when leadership prioritizes, embraces, collaborates, exemplifies and develops attitudes and culture that value every person on the team and the organization. The depth of their bench is a strong indicator; seeing how unselfish the top players are, even in tight situations is another. It's quite evident that the things needed to thrive as a team are core, and not simply given lip service. It's the very thing that drew Kevin Durant to sign on:

"...I am also at a point in my life where it is of equal importance to find an opportunity that encourages my evolution as a man: moving out of my comfort zone to a new city and community which offers the greatest potential for my contribution and personal growth. With this in mind, I have decided that I am going to join the Golden State Warriors."
~ K.Durant, July 2016   

Achieving true, sustainable excellence is what a growth-centered family is all about. Healthy parenting is what healthy leaders do in healthy organizations (whether a family, corporation, or nonprofit). When we engage it, surrender to it, we experience its power. But without faithful commitment to embrace and overcome all that is involved, we will miss out on the greatest blessings and outcomes of genuine love and inspiration.

When we are in this spiritual, relational, transformative process, we can move beyond a life controlled by insecurities, freed from unhealthy ties to culture and family of origin. Our heads become more and more one with our hearts. We find deeper and more meaningful collaboration with others at home and work. We're on our way to fulfill our highest purpose in the world. 

Cost-saving, efficiency, productivity all have their place. But they must never be allowed to trump the baby; the tangible, easily observable never make anything truly great. It's only what comes through inspiration and lovingly dealing with the uncomfortable, messy part of the creative process. This means not always trying to eliminate errors but rather willingness to embrace failure, making space and time to effectively learn and change from it.

Take, for example, Pixar's attempt to streamline the production of "Finding Nemo". They had taken 5 years to make "Monsters Inc." Wanting to save on costs and time, they attempted to finalize the script before production. Didn't happen. They ran into all kinds of unforeseen problems and ended up making just as many adjustments as any other film. But the end result was a film they were entirely proud of that was 2nd highest grossing 2003 movie and the highest grossing animated film ever at that time. That's what can happen when the baby is protected from the beast.

Are you living, leading and working with a mindset aligned with the divine template? Yes, no or somewhere in between let's chat to explore what a greater culture of growth and development could do for your family and work.

Creativity vs. Blindness

Opposites?

Are you searching for better ways to see?

I recently listened to the audio version of Ed Catmull's book, Creativity Inc. and am totally stoked by the culture he and Pixar leadership have created to uncover hidden forces that get in the way of true inspiration.

Ed's thesis was this: 
"...there are many blocks to creativity, but there are active steps we can take to protect the creative process
...the most compelling mechanisms.
..are those that deal with uncertainty, instability, lack of candor, and the things we cannot see
...the best managers acknowledge and make room for what they do not know—not just because humility is a virtue but because until one adopts that mindset, the most striking breakthroughs cannot occur
...managers must loosen the controls, not tighten them. They must accept risk; they must trust the people they work with and strive to clear the path for them; and always, they must pay attention to and engage with anything that creates fear.

Moreover, successful leaders embrace the reality that their models may be wrong or incomplete. Only when we admit what we don't know can we ever hope to learn it."

What Ed has described is the wisdom and courage needed for true collaboration. The environment creates lots of space for failure, learning, and improvement. It protects new ideas and originality from the demands of productivity (Ed calls it the beast). This is an awesome foundation on which to raise a family.

Why?

Because ultimately, creativity is not drawing and artistic expression. It's engagement with complex problems (of which we'll never have a shortage) and effectively seeing to find solutions. The best ones help meet people's needs and result in them moving forward to be and do their very best. And isn't this exactly what our loved ones need to grow and become mature? Raising children is a profound act of creation and it requires high levels of creativity.

What happens when people don't find better ways to see?

Here are some extreme examples from the past:

• The Third Reich

• Enron Scandal

• Vermiculite Disaster of Libby, Montana

• BP Fire in Texas City, Texas

• Roman Catholic Sexual Child Abuse Scandal in Ireland

• 2008 Subprime Mortgage Crisis

• 1950-70’s use of X-rays on pregnant women, causing cancer in their children

In each of these, there were people, in some instances lots of people, who knew something was wrong but chose to be blind. In her book Wilful Blindness, Margaret Heffernan traced several profound factors that contributed to groups of people evolving to horrific levels of neglect. She began with the default behavior of seeking out those similar to us. In addition, there is a lack of healthy conflict resolution skills; without a safe place for candor, status quo and conformity takes over. Now mix in financial incentives for 'just doing your job', high levels of stress, and chronic exhaustion from workaholism (and the bravado of sacrificing yourself), and you have the makings of a perfect storm where a lot of people will get hurt and possibly devastated.

Equation for Disaster:
Affinity driven by insecurity
+ Conflict Aversion
+ Homogeneity of Unhealthy, Extreme Views
+ Siloed Operations  
+ Blind Organizational Structures
= Communities of Conformity
= Willful Blindness

How's your vision? What kind of culture are you creating in your family? Your organization?

What's a family for anyway?

Well, what else will positively sustain the human race?

The role of the family is to...

• Build a strong foundation of faith, hope, love, and peace.
• Prepare the next generation to love, lead, manage, and collaborate.

Bam, that's it. 

How?

• Provide support: Don't try to prevent mistakes, failure, rejection, disappointment and other emotional injuries. Instead, comfort them with your presence of unconditional love, acceptance, and encouragement. They will grow and become stronger for future struggles.

• Have fun: Value laughter. Plan special family times. Clear schedules. Get food. Cook. Watch something together. Protect these times. This brings refreshment and balance.

• Be a moral compass: Model healthy (physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, relational), helpful, responsible behavior. This includes work life balance; not letting the beast of productivity devour the soul.

• Prioritize work on growing healthy relationships: Regularly express unconditional love. This fosters security, significance, and self-worth. They will develop greater trust, purpose, and meaning throughout their lives. Consistently learn and work hard at the relationship with your spouse / the other parent. Kids need to see and learn what intimacy looks like; how else will they develop the confidence and passion for pursuing their lifelong soul mate? Teach, mentor, coach, and counsel them to work on their relationships with their siblings. You're likely the only person to teach them this.

• Be intentional about long term goals: James Hansberger (30+ years as a professional wealth manager and advisor) observed that most of those near the end of their lives valued most the 5 F's, [Faith, Family, Friends, Fitness, Finances] in that order. Make sure you're doing something regularly to achieve these.

How are you doing in each of these?

What do you want to improve?

What makes a family healthy?

Parents who organize themselves in ways that empower them and their kids.

So how do we do that? Work harder? Work smarter? Work longer?

I chose this picture of the Avengers because even superheroes need to prioritize what it takes to effectively collaborate to overcome their challenges. "Civil War" was all about this.

United we stand; divided we fall. And there's no way we or our family members can be and do our best when we're divided. This is a profound, primary human challenge.

That which causes disintegration is brilliantly insidious. It commonly goes on right beneath our noses. Those who are naive and simple, think it's an external problem. "If people could just get it together, make the right choices..."

But the dilemma is not solved by blaming and judging others. It's mostly about dealing with the ongoing chatter in our heads and subterranean feelings in our hearts. Together they either dismantle our unity or liberate us to bond deeply. 

Working at our jobs will not empower us in this area.

Financial success and material wealth won't either.

It's what you pay most attention to.
It's what you feel most often.
It's what you do with your time to grow integration.

What we know and how it makes us feel determine decisions and actions. The thoughts, feelings, and actions that fill up our time profoundly affect our relationships and our souls. This is what creates cultures and cultures sustain conditions that impact and shape long-term growth and wellness for everyone in it. 

Because of all this, we need to develop and mature our organizing principle (o.p.). Whatever it is, it will determine how we manage these highly significant areas of life which result in the cultures we create.

What kind of culture has your organizing principle produced? Abdication? Over-protection? Domination? Or does it liberate everyone in your family to be and do their best?

Does your o.p. foster inspiration, creativity, innovation, intimacy, rest, recreation, meaningful collaboration? These are essential to solving the toughest problems that disintegrate our families and organizations.

Is your o.p. even your own? Maybe you simply adopted whatever was given you by your culture or family of origin. It's not uncommon to have downloaded it in your youth and never have even realized it's been running things. I've never found these to produce thriving results. More often than not, they are root sources of dysfunction. As such, they definitely don't do much empowering.

If your o.p. is binding you to fear, leaving you with anxiety and insecurity, causing you chronic stress, giving you an unhealthy body, and compromising your will, maybe it's time to ditch it.

Have you gone to Galilee?

It's away from the 'temple'; it's where Gentiles lived; it's where the 'less devout Jews' lived; it's where Jesus called home.

‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see Him.’

As I did some Easter reading this past weekend, the mentions of Galilee in Matthew and Mark's gospels caught my attention.

Why Galilee? I hadn't really thought about it much before. Then it hit me. It's where Jesus did most of His ministry - preaching, teaching, and healing. It was a place looked down upon by the powerful and wealthy of that time. Nobody who was anybody ever saw anything significant about this region. It was just plain, ole common.

A huge lake was associated with Galilee and it was known for its fishing trade. This body of water was also known for massive, turbulent waves when storms arose. And there were several miracles that happened on this lake during substantial storms, ie. Jesus walking on it and helping His disciple Peter step out of a boat to stand on the water as well. 

But what might be a relevant understanding of this place for us?

Galilee reveals His heart and purposes. It provides a powerful element for our ideologies to help us see life with a transcendent perspective of hope and love. This region aptly reflects the thoughts expressed in this passage from Psalm 33:

10 The Lord foils the plans of the nations;
    he thwarts the purposes of the peoples.
11 But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever,
    the purposes of his heart through all generations.

12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,
    the people he chose for his inheritance.
13 From heaven the Lord looks down
    and sees all mankind;
14 from his dwelling place he watches
    all who live on earth—
15 he who forms the hearts of all,
    who considers everything they do.

16 No king is saved by the size of his army;
    no warrior escapes by his great strength.
17 A horse is a vain hope for deliverance;
    despite all its great strength it cannot save.
18 But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him,
    on those whose hope is in his unfailing love,
19 to deliver them from death
    and keep them alive in famine.

20 We wait in hope for the Lord;
    he is our help and our shield.
21 In him our hearts rejoice,
    for we trust in his holy name.
22 May your unfailing love be with us, Lord,
    even as we put our hope in you.

It's promises like this that help our souls be open to learning and taking actions to move forward, especially when we feel powerless, rejected, impoverished, unsupported, marginalized, persecuted, abandoned, forgotten.

Galilee represents the often overlooked place of deep needs. The resurrected Christ meets us there and invites us to make our home there with Him, ie. to find what really matters most. For it is there with Him that we can be vulnerable and unafraid of what others think; unafraid of mistakes and failures; we can be free to love and be loved; we will grow in the mastery of our stories and be empowered to act according to our most positive core values.

Outside of this abode, there are roles we take on in the world to provide services and products. If we become 'Galileans', I believe we will find greater success and fulfillment as transformative, redemptive agents who find the creative, innovative solutions to live lives which prioritize what matters most. This includes the moral choices to prevent harmful corruptive actions which we have seen many times throughout history up to the present.

When we experience this kind of transformation, things take on new meaning and our existence makes real sense. We will find our responses and behaviors much more in line with what helps our souls and relationships thrive. 

And this brings me to an underlying purpose to going to Galilee to see Jesus. Not going to church. Not becoming religious. Not any of the stereotypic things associated with following Christ.

Going to Galilee to make our home with the risen Son of God is forsaking all other voices and influences (culture, family of origin, our own reactive perceptions) in order to have true love become our ultimate resolve, the courage to choose life and not death, even when we feel like we have nothing left.

This is the vulnerability that empowers our mindset to have an insatiable desire to learn and a biased determination to act in order to redeem and improve whatever is dealt us, and not just for ourselves but for the blessing and betterment of others.

The place we call home and the spirit of that home is what fosters insatiable hunger for learning and bias towards powerful, positive action. These two things are required for success that is fulfilling and worth celebrating.

You are your story.

Does your story open your future to greater possibilities? Or is it limiting your love and leadership?

And the most potent parts of your story are the hardest parts. Pain, rejection, betrayal, trauma, disappointment, failures, loss, abuse - profoundly shape you; and how you've incorporated them (or not) into your story is how you got to where you're at today.

How you continue to manage your challenges and difficulties will determine your next chapters.

So is it generating love that produces authentic leadership? That is, are you becoming more and more of a loving person who leads others from a place of genuine courage and compassion?

"[True life-giving] leadership is love personified." Shayna Hammond (bracketed insertion is mine).

As spouses and parents, we can claim to have unfailing love but are we truly steadfast, humble, faithful leaders?

And what does it take to lead our families in this way?

Redemption.

When we are living the process of personal redemption, we are empowered with new capacities, abilities, priorities from a new mindset, a new spirit. This process radically changes our core beliefs and values to align with true love. This love will help us become life-giving leaders who generate and foster greater leadership in future generations.

Redemption is a process that releases us from outdated, limiting beliefs and rules and transforms our souls with liberating truth as we see and understand with a big picture of greater, unfettered perception.

This is how we make life not about us but about those we love, in long term sustainable ways rather than dysfunctional, debilitating ways like over-scheduling, over-protecting, spoiling, or doing everything for them.

What does it take to survive the redemptive process?

Humility and grit.

Not smarts. Not talent. Not money. Just courageous accurate assessment and facing of emotionally tough stuff and long term staying power. Abiding in a place of truthful perceptions about self, others, and God to develop a story that embraces joy and pain, love and fear, suffering and shame but also resilience, renewal, transformation and learning. 

When we experience this level of change, our courage and compassion are validated and our love-based beliefs are vindicated. 

As parents, we cannot afford to not regularly, consistently work on our stories. If we don't, we will fall into the pits of irrelevance and irrationality. Moreover, we miss the mark of leaving a legacy to benefit our children and their children and beyond. 

It begins with vulnerability...

...the root of fundamental change.

(From Brene Brown) It's the birthplace of joy, belonging, creativity, authenticity, love, laughter, joy, play; the origin for innovation, adaptability, accountability, and visionary leadership - essentials for effective parenting.

Here are some symptoms of invulnerability: 

• Always trying to prove, please, perfect, perform
• Trying to ward off disappointment with a shield of cynicism
• Trying to disarm shame by numbing ourselves
• Trying to circumvent grief by shutting off our willingness to love
• Being judgmental, perfectionistic, always comparing self to other people, ranking everything, very little play, too much work
• Paying a high price for trying to live up to expectations. Sacrificing our greatest potential (of being great spouses and parents) for unexamined goals, rules and beliefs

If you seek change at this level, you'll open yourself to experiences that will bring greater purpose and meaning to your life. You'll lose your fear of being wrong and be freed to work on the hard things.

Wake up everyday and resolve that no matter what gets done, how much, or how things get done, think and act as one worthy of love and belonging. You don’t need to earn it. Yes, be responsible and strive for excellence but don't be driven by an instinct of not being enough.

This is actually what the Gospel of Jesus Christ was intended to communicate, that in God's perspective and all reality, we are enough, enough for Him to send His Son as propitiation for our sins.

Be open about heartbreak, betrayal and shame – engage the fear of not being worthy for real connection by courageously choosing compassion (especially for oneself) to connect rather than running away or putting on the armor of invulnerability.

Don't be afraid of broken heartedness. “I’m here and I’m going to love you fully and if you disappoint, hurt, betray, or cheat on me you’re going to devastate me and break my heart, but I’m not holding back because this is short.” 

Be willing to commit to the slow process of building real connection.

Being vulnerable is, in truth, our most accurate measure of courage.

If you grow in this way, what results can you expect?

Generation of a growth mindset

• Embracing challenges
• Persisting in arduous struggles
• Seeing effort as the path to mastery
• Learning from criticism
• Getting inspired by the success of others
• Reaching higher levels of achievement and fulfillment

If we want to create environments where everyone can learn, improve, develop, and find real solutions (especially to those parenting problems that have moms and dads flabbergasted and frustrated), we will need to foster freedom to make mistakes by eliminating insecurities, needs for approval, and other patterns driven by fixed mindesets and fear. 

When we can recognize mistakes, failures, and challenges (such as those that humiliate and shame us) as things to learn from rather than avoid, we will find the great value in them.

Positively understanding difficulties helps us initiate without fear of rejection, risk without fear of loss, move forward without need for total certainty, allowing ourselves to be deeply seen and known - flaws and all.

This requires us to exercise vulnerability by courageously believing we are worthy of love and belonging totally apart from what we do - this is absolutely necessary to being truly alive, passionate, whole hearted.

This frees us from settling for what has always been done, what is safe, or just bread crumbs of love, joy, and peace. We can approach those seemingly impossible relationship problems in our family with a different mindset than what brought about the problem. We can boldly explore where love and desire want to lead us!

Become better spouses, parents, and leaders who serve and develop future generations to do greater things with increased freedom, compassion and justice. 

What's challenging your sustainability?

What's keeping you out of the black?

• Quick fix mentality?
• Lack of energy to deal with deeper problems?
• Limited cognitive map of your challenge?
• Outdated perception 

When we're young, it's about survival and success. We work hard, we do what we can to make a living. But how we move from our 20's to our 30's and 40's will determine how we do in our 50's, and beyond. 

To truly last, we can't rely on mindsets running on quick fixes compelled by impatience and scarcity - not enough time, not enough energy, not enough heart. All this does is drive us towards conformity to fit in, to not rock the boat, to be like everyone else.

So what does it take?

Liberated leaders.

They're key. Freed from insecurity, obsession with control, and the limiting beliefs and outdated rules from our cultures and families of origin.

Change is a constant. If you have a family, each member is not the same person they were a year ago; sometimes it's obvious, sometimes not. Regardless, it's happening.

And not just your family, but society is changing with the multiplicative growth of technology. The markets and how business is done are also transitioning to greater sustainability, especially with regards to the emphasis and valuing of social capital - the often overlooked soft skills that build great relationships which result in cultures that grow organizations and companies by 10X and more.

With all that change going on, how well and effectively are you adapting? 

How do we get good at it?

Center on growth. Do this with thoughts and actions based on what all people need to become what they can and understanding the stages of development through the human lifespan.

Here's an excerpt from my book A Growth Centered Family (due to come out later this year) on liberated leaders:
 

"[Trust, autonomy, initiative, industry, identity, intimacy, generativity, and integrity]

A growth-centered family is a team led by leaders who cultivate these 8 qualities. In so doing, they liberate themselves and their children from cultural and family of origin dysfunctions. They’re protected from unhealthy conformities and pressures from those whose souls are based on scarcity rather than sufficiency.

Margaret Heffernan gives powerful,  historical examples of unhealthy conformities and pressures in her book, Willful Blindness. She cites devastating tragedies from the following: child abuse of Catholic diocese in Ireland of the late 20th century, the subprime mortgage fallout of the 2000’s under Alan Greenspan, the connection between x-raying pregnant women and children with cancer in the mid 20th century, the Enron scandal, the March 2005, BP refinery explosion  in Texas City, Texas, as well as the effects of exhaustion and drive for financial gain.

Essentially, liberating leadership is about growing ongoing maturation of our intrapersonal capacities which empower us to live and work successfully, healthfully, and sustainably with others. The psychosocial stages really help us see the significance of emotional and relational health. When needs (Maslow) are effectively met, the conflicts of each life stage (Erikson) are positively overcome, peace and strength are gained to move onto the next stage. When needs are not met, we’re exposed to the negative outcomes of each stage which get compounded in subsequent stages, contributing to willful blindness and large scale devastation.

Successful execution in these areas depends on how we lead ourselves. Are we leading ourselves towards integration or disintegration? "

Integration? Becoming whole. Whole hearted. Soulful. Transforming our mindset from scarcity to sufficiency. Start by improving how we meet our needs (Maslow's hierarchy), all of them; growing a perspective with courage, patience, kindness, respect, honesty; without envy, arrogance, pettiness, rudeness, keeping score and holding grudges. This is the Bible's definition of real love.

Living this way generates the mindset necessary to be free to lead oneself and others effectively and sustainably. Whether it's parenting problems or work related, pursue growing yourself to be a leader with sights and methods inline with the most desirable, longest term outcomes.

What will really help us scale up the business of raising our families?

Excerpt from my book, Growth-Centered Family:

What achieves more of the most meaningful ROI's (return on investments ) of deeper, heart-felt bonds, developing world-changing character and legacy level success?

Life. 

Not just making a living or having a life, but being alive!

What qualifies something as alive?

Movement: ‘Living organisms are distinguished from non living entities by the fact that they move; they are animated.’ Bruce Lipton, Biology of Belief

What does this mean for us on a practical, meaningful, everyday level?

Moving through stages of development - physically, emotionally, vocationally, relationally, professionally, spiritually, etc.

In other words, growth. If we’re not moving in this manner, it's likely we're stagnant and we're just ‘going through the motions’. Can anyone say, "Zombie"?

Looking at the figure, the bookends of trusting and being trustful are filled with movement; moving from trust to autonomy, initiative, industry, identity, intimacy, generativity, and integrity

Nature has plenty of ‘life movement’ examples; look at a tree. It starts off as a nut, which doesn't look like much (zero resemblance to a tree) but it has the entire plan inside. If it lands in a life-conducive environment, it will become animated and grow roots to establish pre-conditions to support the eventual, above ground growth.

When the tree starts looking like a tree, it will be implementing an incredible scaling up process of becoming something that gives us oxygen, possibly delicious fruit, shelter to other organisms and even multiply itself many times over.

All of this starts with its underground development. Nothing visible to the world; yet although unseen, the pre-conditions are absolutely essential and critical for the scaling up that will occur above the surface. If we want a healthy, long living tree, we don’t want to confine or contaminate the soil in which the roots are immersed. A vibrant, healthy root system is what makes it possible for the tree to continually grow season after season by keeping it firmly planted in life sustaining relationship with the earth.

Bringing this back to our dynamic, complex families, we need to cultivate healthy preconditions to develop the unseen 'root system' of every member. Just like the interaction between roots and soil, the environment and relationships we cultivate at home establish the pre-conditions for scaling up; without which, healthy, sustainable growth will not occur.

Being truly alive is growth and movement through the stages of life. It is achieved when we center on growth, functioning and behaving in ways that effectively meet the needs of our loved ones so they can grow too. This occurs mostly out of sight to the world. But when our homes are healthy with empowering preconditions, we’ll be blessed with experiencing the manifestations and expressions of each person's maturation. 

How do you know if you're really getting your needs met?

We all have needs.

Needs are must-have’s for life; neglecting a need is never good and results in dysfunction, decline, and death. When something's a need, we are instinctually motivated to fill it. Certainty and effectiveness in meeting the need increase when we are aware of it as well.

Maslow gave us a model to understand the progress of need emergence; it helps us see how to keep moving forward to fulfill our highest needs to really be all that we are and can become.

To effectively meet these needs, we've got to grow our understanding of them and how to meet them. When the deficiency needs are effectively met, we will experience the following:

• I have a wide range of emotions and express them appropriately.
• It is easy for me to ask for help and receive from others when I have needs.
• I can say “no” to others even when I know it will upset them.
• I’m adventuresome and I know how to play and have fun.
• I know I’m not perfect, and I give my loved ones room to disagree.

As the growth needs (top 4 of triangle) emerge, the following outcomes (from Barrett Values; bracketed family applications are mine; also second person referencing) can be experienced:

• In the face of turbulence and change [ie. the adolescent years], you prioritize culture and values  to become the major source of continuity and coherence, of renewal and sustainability.
• You imbue the organization [your family] with meaning that inspires today and endures tomorrow.
• You find an underlying purpose and a strong set of values that serve as a basis for longer-term decisions even in the midst of volatility [all the emotional highs and lows, uncertainty of transitions and direction choices].
• You find the common purpose and universal values that unite highly diverse people [members of your family] while still permitting individual identities to be expressed and enhanced.
• Emphasizing purpose and values helps you support and facilitate [your family] into a self-organizing network that can respond quickly to change because members share an understanding of the right thing to do. 

Why center on growth and bring out highest level needs?

Sustained generational life.

The human race will only improve and perpetuate continually when people have their transcendent needs met.

Could this be why Jesus' Beatitudes begin with "Blessed are the poor in spirit"? That the greatest joy and wellness begins with being aware of our highest need - spirit!

Without this awareness, we remain enslaved by distrust, fear, insecurities, addictions, hostility, and dissolutions.

Meeting physiological, safety, belonging, and esteem needs serves the purpose of manifesting our truest and best selves. But why do we (collectively) get stuck spending and being spent pursuing lower levels? I believe the enemy here is pragmatism birthed from mindsets of scarcity.

Huh?

It's what happens when people become parents who have not experienced a deep shift in their mindsets from scarcity to sufficiency. (Check out this video, especially 5:55 and on.) And most toxic are the unquestioned answers given to unsuspecting minds of young children and youth.

Unexamined, unconscious assumptions that drive unethical, unkind behaviors and cultures. Saw this clearly in a movie I recently watched, "Hidden Figures". 3 African-American women working for NASA in the 60's, who struggled and overcame the cultural challenges of unexamined, unconscious answers, ie. "That's the way it is." The grace with which they overcame was powerful and inspirational. 

It has robbed bazillions of people of their potential wisdom, success, spirituality, courage, compassion, freedom, and transcendence, which in turn has caused the deaths of quadbillions more; not trying to be dramatic but history is wrought with this reality. 

It is a grave error not to prioritize growth towards highest level need fulfillment, for others and ourselves. The growth needs of cognition, aesthetics, self actualization and transcendence are not nice-to-have’s but they are essential to our redemption and maturation, as individuals and as a race. “What a man can be, he must be.”

How common and relevant is this issue of not fulfilling highest needs? Let’s just consider the most common problem that families encounter: relational breakdown - husband and wife, parents and kids, siblings with each other, and of course the big one, parents and teens. Why do these occur? Parents prioritize and pursue career and income to provide for the lowest level needs. In the process of working 50-80 hour weeks, they marginalize and even sacrifice the needs for belonging, love, and esteem - their kids and their own. Attempts are made to make things work but often they fall flat because to solve their dilemmas, they’re using the same scarcity mindset / consciousness  that created the problem. Albert Einstein put it this way, “The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.”

Centering on growth increases intention, attention, and repetition of thoughts and actions to break free from the neglect and ineffective meeting of essential needs (all levels) so that the highest ones will surface and motivate us to be what we can and what we must.