The Significance of Being Significant

May 9, 2016

The Significance of Being Significant

Previously I talked about two of the basic needs of humanity: the needs of certainty and uncertainty. I wanted to jump into a third need: the need of significance. And this is a big one and I think there’s always this drive. And I wouldn’t say I’m anywhere near proficient at this conversation, there’s more people that are much more versed in this and I’m maybe misstating things but in a sense, I think we all as human beings try to find our place in this world whether it’s in our class, in our classroom at school or it’s in our community or it’s at work or it’s somewhere else. We all kinda strive to have a level of importance because it makes us feel like we’re contributing and it makes us feel that we’re doing something good with ourselves. So pursuing significance is also important. Now it’s not, some people needs a ton to make them feel significant, I think we can all agree with that.

I heard a statement the other day which was huge for me, and please don’t take this the wrong way, but the statement was people over 40 make statements just to hear themselves speak and people under 40 ask questions. I don’t think that’s absolutely true but the principle is true, right? You get to a point in your life where you have learned a lot and have ton of experiences and you may think you’ve arrived at a certain point and now it’s not necessarily about growth but it’s about significance. It’s about having a position, having a say, being a thought leader. And I’m not saying that that’s good or bad but it’s just acknowledging the fact that that is what’s going to drive us.

I would say if that’s not how you feel about your life and your world right now and what you’re doing then as I said about growth, it’s going to. If you don’t acknowledge it and you don’t figure out a way to really analyze it and look at how you can reach some level of significance and level of feeling important and being perceived as important whether it’s in your business or whether it’s in your community, in your church, and in your family. There’s a lot of ways in which you can change things and change behavior to meet that.

But what I would say is the significance side of things is compelling to people because in the end, we’re humans and I think wanting to separate ourselves and wanting to be different is a huge driving influence. I always feel it. My biggest drive is really trying to create value and I feel that I’ve learned things and I want to share them. I wanna provide and hopefully spur motivation or spur interest or spur people to actually do something that will create change, whether it’s financial change or other changes. That’s where I’m at right now, I try to do it through this podcast. I just love having conversations with people and building that energy and building that value.

We had our biggest download month last month which was amazing, it’s like thank you for listening, it means a lot. I don’t like really hearing myself speak sometimes and it’s hard for me to speak in public but I like doing this. I like sharing what I think and frame what I believe and sometimes I’m wrong and sometimes I’m right. I love doing it because it energizes me and it makes me feel like I am creating some element of value.

But again, the idea of significance is so profound and I think once you analyze that and once you say wow, I’m driven by that and it’s okay, it’s not an ego thing, right? It’s something where you wanna take your talent, you wanna take what’s unique about you which is in case with everybody on planet earth, everybody is unique, everybody has something different that they can bring to the table as far as value so I would say what is that? What can I bring? How can I be important? How can I create value for somebody? Because that’s gonna fulfill a need of significance.

This blog was created based on our podcast with Patrick Donohoe. Click here to listen to it now!