Gotta share this awesome insight from Tony Robbins.

Tony Robbins listening to Shallow Hal.

It not only helps with inner-game, it helps with relating with anyone, including… hot chicks. The idea: every human person has six basic human needs.

The Six Human Needs: Certainty-Uncertainty; Importance-Connection; Giving-Growing

Now, before I dig into these, I’ve gotta share the story how Tony came up with the idea with you. ‘Cause it’s kinda cool.

How Tony Discovered This Idea

Tony had everything: riches, beautiful wife, world-leaders and world-class athletes seeking his help.

Tony was on top of the world but still felt despair.

But one day, before he was to board a plane to help another millionaire through some issues he was having, Tony felt like complete shit. He was like, “how am I gonna  help another when I’m having issues of my own?”

Oh, you’re asking why he was feeling like shit? Just discovered he had a tumor in his brain. Yeah, that’ll dampen your mood. All of a sudden, all the success in the world meant nothing. Because he wasn’t certain he was even going to live.

So, before he left for the airport, he went into the shower trying to figure out how he could shake off this funk he was in. He thought about what was really going on that was paralyzing him. Then he started thinking about what made all the people he met and helped who felt sad across the world from diverse cultures. A pattern emerged.

And he had an aha moment.

Then he had an aha moment.

He realized everyone, no matter who they are, have six basic needs in common. And if these needs aren’t met, a person won’t feel happy. He could have everything in the world. If one of these are missing, he still won’t feel fulfilled.

Not all the needs were created equally, though. The last two needs are the most important. The first four have to do with ego-needs. The last two have to do with spiritual-needs.

Different people prefer the first four in different orders and in different combinations. They make the ego happy. But it’s the last two we need to be fulfilled (according to this idea at least).

Here they are:

First Two Needs: Certainty and Uncertainty

First, we need security…

The symbol of security. We all need it.

…and we also need insecurity.

Chaos. We all need a little unpredictability, too.

Security has to do with knowing you have shelter, food on the table, health. You need basic, survival needs to be met. It’s almost like the first level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The need for security/insecurity seem to correspond to Maslow’s “Basic Needs.”

At the same time, if we have too much security or certainty or predictability, things get boring. So, we also need insecurity as well.

We need variety and surprise to keep us awake, alert, adventurous.

We need both. We need both uncertainty and certainty.

Second Two Needs: Significance and Connection

Second, we need to feel important

The Anchor Man feeling pretty damn significant. But it’s a need we all have: to feel important.

…and we also need to feel a sense of connection.

But there’s so much significance and individuation we can take. We also need a sense of connection, too.

The way philosopher William James put it: the deepest principle in human nature is to feel important.

The needs for importance/connection (or love) seems to correspond to something philosopher William James once observed about human nature: all of us have a need to be appreciated.

Some examples: Look at us puas. A lot of us who got into pickup wanted to feel important. Tell me if you can relate. Part of us wanted to learn how to attract any woman we want because really we want to feel loved, or even important or appreciated.

Other examples: People who want to be famous want to feel important. People who want to win and get awards want to feel important. Achilles in Homer’s Illiad who chose a short life over a long life wanting glory over an anonymous life as a farmer wanted to be important. Celebrities, millionaires, people with high status, politicians and so forth who have distinguished themselves in some way were probably driven by this need for esteem.

Still more examples: Guys who get into gangs and threaten some poor victim at gun point. Gives them a rush of power. And importance.

Here’re some others: People who brag. People who put down others.

And even people who say please and thank-you and show kindness to each other. They’re all ways to make others or one’s self feel important.

We all need appreciation, acknowledgment, respect, praise, to feel important. Without it, we feel insignificant, like we don’t matter, like we have no value.

However, if we feel TOO important and feel TOO distinguished and TOO individuated, problems also arise.

For example, you’ll hear celebrities talk about how lonely they feel. They can’t even go out into a grocery store without being adulated. They lose a sense of connection.

Michael Jackson in disguise. He had so much significance and individuation he felt separated from the world. He’d express feeling loneliness and a longing for connection.

Or a person might be so filled with self-importance, he acts like a prick and treats everyone like garbage. Again, those who murder another for attention and power take this need too far.

Basically, when we feel the distinctiveness of our individual self too much, we lose connection with other human beings. We become separate selves, and that takes us away from love and empathy.

So, that’s the fourth human need. We need love, that feeling of human connection, of empathy, of relationship. This balances out our need to feel important.

Conversely, if we’ve lost too much of ourselves in a relationship and we feel like we have no voice or identity, we need to feel important or a sense of individuation or identity to balance this fourth need out, too.

Again, the first four needs are more like ego or personality needs. They feel good. Different people prefer one of these four needs more than others. One might want to feel important the most. Another might want security the most.

Either way, let’s say we get everything our ego wishes for. Well, according to Tony, we still won’t feel a deeper fulfillment. We could still feel a darkness. And that’s where the last two needs come in.

They’re primary essential. They’re needs of the spirit. They’re what bring fulfillment. Even if we fill the first four needs and have accomplished a shit load, if we don’t meet these last two needs, we’ll still feel lost, unfulfilled, even depressed.

Third Two Needs: Giving and Growing

The last two needs is the need to give…

Giving: we all have a need to contribute. Here Robin Williams is giving to a community by building homes with Habitat For Humanity.

and the need to grow.

And we have a need to grow.

Growing means: learning, improving, becoming more and more aware. Aware of yourself as in the old Socratic saying “know thyself,” sifting away the clouds of ignorance. Awareness is probably the real goal of all spiritualities, religions, sciences, philosophies. If these don’t help us to grow in awareness, they’re useless.

Giving means: showing love, kindness, respect to all life, to your friends, to your enemies. Contributing. Helping others. Serving a greater good than yourself.

There’s an old story about Michael J. Fox. Before he learned he had Parkinsons, he had the fanciest car, the nicest house, money, status, fame. But he said he was unhappy. It wasn’t until he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s and began contributing to a cause larger than himself that he snapped out of his unhappiness, and felt like his life had meaning.

Michael J. Fox once said he didn’t feel a sense of fulfillment until he was making a contribution to society. He said he didn’t get that sense of fulfillment from fame and fortune alone.

There’s something about contributing and loving that breaks us out of the shell of the ego. The shell that the Buddha once said causes all of suffering. Serving a purpose higher than ourselves breaks us from these shackles. That’s one reason why as a pua it’s so important to give back and to always leave a woman better off than your found her, you know treat everyone you come across with love and respect.

But Tony doesn’t stop there. He takes all this a step further. He says you can divide all human experience into four classes…

The Four Classes of Experience: Despair To Happiness

The first class, fulfillment and happiness, is when you meet all six needs. The second class isn’t bad. It’s when you’re feeling pain, but you’re about to make a breakthrough in life, or a transformation. It’s kind of like growing pains. Being in a cocoon before bursting free. But the third and fourth classes is where unhappiness lie.

Here they are:

First Class Experience: you do things that feel good, that are good for you, serves others, and serves the greater good.

The First Class of Experience: feeling good and serving a greater good. Robin Williams’s character from “Dead Poets” society loved teaching and it also served a greater good.

Second Class Experience: you do things that feel bad, but are good for you, serves others, and serves the greater good.

Second Class Experience: painful lessons, growing pains, and doing the right thing even though you don’t want to. Here, Abu from Disney’s Aladdin didn’t want to give his bread away, but he did anyway.

Third Class Experience: you do things that feel good, but they’re not good for you, they don’t serve others, and they don’t serve the greater good.

Third Class Experience: doing what feels good, but not serving a greater good.

Fourth Class Experience: you do things that feel bad, and they’re not good for you, don’t serve others, and don’t serve the greater good.

Fourth Class Experience: Doing stuff that doesn’t really feel good and doesn’t serve a greater good either.

Okay, okay, you’re saying. What the hell does this have to do with attracting and succeeding with women? Like I said at the beginning of this, this not only helps with inner-game but also in how to have kick-ass relations with anyone, including women.

How This All Relates To Attracting Women

‘Cause the ultimate attractive man doesn’t sit on the couch munching Doritos and playing video games all day. He makes giving and and growing his priority. He does things that put him into the first and second class of experience.

Yes, this is here for eye candy. But the words are relevant, too. Right?

And here’s the cool thing. If you feel good from within, you naturally emit good feeling, and you can give “feeling good” to others. When she feels “feeling good” around you, she feels pleasure and links pleasurable feelings with you. And we’re all attracted to pleasure, right? You might even say attracting women really starts from within, from getting your inner-game together.

The other four needs teaches us about outer-game. That is, if you were to consciously meet her first four “ego” needs, you’d draw her to the pleasurable feelings she’s feeling around you.

For example, make her feel important (appreciate her) AND honestly connect with her. Give her a sense of safety, security, protection AND unpredictability, like surprising her, sweeping her off her feet, making her laugh.

What about meeting her two “spiritual” needs?

Well, she can only walk through that door herself. That’s something only we ourselves can do.

Conclusion

Anyway, those are the six human needs. Again, the last two needs can strengthen our inner game. The first four human needs can help us look beyond a women’s physical beauty, and connect to the human being inside her.

If you want to learn more about the spiritual (or “inner-game”) needs of growing and giving I’d recommend these two phenomenal books: “Awareness & The Way To Love,” by Jesuit priest Anthony DeMello, and “How To Want What You Have,” by psychologist Timothy Miller.

As for how to meet a woman’s first four needs, that’s what game is all about.

Flirt and play-fight to meet her need for unpredictability. Build comfort and BE (not just demo) the DHV switch of a protector and survivor to meet her need for security or survival.

Qualify and appreciate her to meet her need to feel acknowledged. Create an emotional connection with her to meet her need for connection.

And let me ask you with these last three questions:

• What’s something you love to do that helps your growth and serves a greater good?
• How can you start giving and showing more love to others, rather than just serving the ego?
• What’s something you hate to do but helps your growth and serves a greater good?
• What’s something you love to do that doesn’t help your growth or serve a greater good?

Together, you and I, if we can weed out what’s not serving our growth and what’s not serving others… and if we can do more of what serves the greater good… we’ll be on the path towards that first-class kind of experience Tony was talking about.

Then maybe we can share the light we feel inside with any beautiful women we meet might along our way.

Here’s a Ted Talk where Tony talks about these needs. Check it out (about 22 min):