If you want to influence or empower any person or group, there is no better place than to understand and meet their fundamental human needs. They are also the only way to successfully influence people. Understanding them empowers you to become the greatest person that you can be. I think that fundamental human needs are the keys to success in life. Why should you bother to know about the 7 Fundamental Human Needs? They drive us to pursue individual and community survival and growth as a species because our own individual survival depends on the survival of others as well.

Though the world is a different place today, fundamental human needs still serve the same role. Strong individuals made strong communities but strong communities also enhanced individual strength. The strength of the individual was intertwined with the strength of the community. Think of the time when we lived in small village communities. Just like hunger reminds us to eat physical food so that we can nourish our bodies and survive, these needs are inner longings of every human soul that push us to contribute to our own upkeep and that of our group because as a species, we do better as individuals when our entire group does well. These inborn needs have been responsible for our individual and group survival as a species and continue to play a significant role in the evolution of human society. The way they are satisfied also differs from person to person and across cultures and ages. However, the expression of these needs in different people may take on different phenotypes and so look different. Every human being, in every culture, over every generation, on every continent has these 7 categories of needs. We are endowed with 7 categories of needs (see below) that are called fundamental human needs. Evolutionary Role of the Fundamental Human Needs These needs are not “wants” but “needs” that we all have by just being human–they are ontological (stemming from the condition of being human). That is, humans are motivated to do things by a desire to meet their intrinsic needs. Keen observation, research, and centuries of history show us that we are motivated by a desire to meet certain fundamental human needs.

Have you ever thought about what motivates people to do what they do? Is it obtaining money, power, and sex as some people think? The answer is deeper than that. What are our social determinants of health? How do great leaders lead people so that people passionately follow them? What motivates people to do what they do? It’s only the unsatisfied need that motivates.” Stephen Covey

Stephen covey we are not human beings