Rachel & Shane Krider’s third episode of their personal development podcast teaches of finding happiness and identifying your purpose. Below is a snippet of the podcast where Shane applies Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to finding our happiness.

Abraham Maslow, the 19th/20th century philosopher talks about the hierarchy of needs. The pursuit of success is also the pursuit of happiness. The pursuit of survival is also the pursuit of happiness because when we’re surviving really well in a way that suits us we tend to be a bit more happy than when we feel like everything’s falling apart around us.

So at the very bottom of the hierarchy of needs, the first thing that we have to to really focus on as human beings is our physical needs: food, water, oxygen, shelter, you know things of this nature. If we don’t have these things in place, then it’s very difficult for us to have any other desire. When you’re starving to death or when you have no water or no oxygen you don’t really care so much about the other things.

Once you get that in place, the next thing that you really want is belonging. You want to be a part of a group. Have you ever seen kids that become part of groups that really don’t hold the same values? You yourself, have you ever been a part of a job or a group that really doesn’t have the same values as you do? They don’t have the same beliefs, they don’t have the same thinking. But it’s a hell of a lot better than being alone, right? Right.

As you start to climb this ladder, you start to get a little bit more finicky. It isn’t enough just to survive, and it isn’t enough just to belong to the group. Now you want to start to discover yourself. You want to start to understand yourself and your own values and your own purpose.

If you’re listening to this (or reading it on my website!), you’re probably at least at that point, so big congratulations for that! Once we get to that next step where we start to understand ourselves, which is essentially building our own self-esteem, we want to feel better about ourselves. Sometimes that means that the groups that were a part of, or some of the ways that we’re going about fulfilling our physical needs, might not really be in alignment with who we want to be. The version of us that we’re going to feel the best about.

For me, it’s like, I got to change what I do for a living. I also got to change some of the relationships that I have or at least create some new relationships that are going to support me on this new journey that I’m on. One step forward, two steps back can be the name of the game as you start to go through this. It can seem like it can rob you of your happiness. So if you want to find happiness, once you start to see the vision and especially once you start to meet some other people that resonate with you on that vision, on that mission, your happiness is no longer tied to a lot of the things that it was and it starts to become more tied to the journey of where you’re going and what’s happening to you right now.

Shane Krider is a successful personal development life coach, producer, speaker, author, and entrepreneur. Along with his wife, Shane is the co-host of Born to Prosper’s Mind Power, which is a self-help podcast which challenges its listeners to delve deep into their minds to find success. In addition, Shane travels the world in luxury to speak to aspiring entrepreneurs at conferences and workshops to inspire them to find their own pathways to success. Shane Krider is part of The Prosperity of Life Network, a United States-based personal development business with a presence in 52+ countries.