The heroes you love & the stories you remember, tell you what your deepest motivations are.

Your unique needs that drive you work harder than anyone else and succeed. If you’re working on the right things, the ones meant for you.

To get clear on what work you would be better at than anyone else, Pick which of these 6 heroes is your favorite? Who is your guide?

• Maverick - Top Gun
• Dominic Toretto - Fast & Furious
• Neo - Matrix
• Schindler's List’s - Oskar Schindler
• Billy Beane - Moneyball 
• Indiana Jones - Raiders of the Last Ark 

Who is it? What does he teach you about the work you can do better than anyone else? And how to get the things that matter to you?

Each one is a master of one of the 6 Fundamental Human Needs. Understanding these are key to obtaining the things you want in life. I’m going to tell you about the value & need your chosen guide has mastered, and what careers that satisfy that need. Careers that you’d push harder than your competition, enjoy the fight, and achieve greatness.

6 Human Needs

The 6 human needs are the fundamental desires that motivate all people, everywhere, no matter who they are. They were made famous by Tony Robbins decades ago, and man I wish I had taken the time to learn about them sooner. Last couple years I’ve been recommended more and more strongly by people I respect to look into it. Holy crap this has made so many things work better.

The 6 needs are: Certainty, Variety, Significance, Connection, Growth & Contribution.

We talk about a lot of other values, which makes it seem like we’re all looking for completely different things, but any value you find can be broken down into these fundamental 6.

Like my favorite is Freedom. Charlie Houpert, the guy I learned about the 6 from, has it tattooed on his chest. But Freedom can be broken down into Certainty & Variety.

Since these are the root need & motivation of everyone, understanding them makes you vastly better at understanding other people. My friendships have gotten much better since learning them. Our conversations far more interesting & fun.

Strangers have gotten more interesting too. None are boring anymore. Because seeing their root values, I always find one or two that are my values.

You also become significantly better at marketing & sales, key skills in business.

But today we’re talking how knowing your fundamental values will help your career

• By identifying what you’ll most enjoy doing
• And also actually happy when you actually get it. Celeb example here
• And be motivated to work harder than any other career, becoming the best at it.

Every fraction of clarity more you get on these, makes you a more successful. Let’s get into it.

Significance

Maverick - Top Gun

Our first one: Its big, its loud, we’ve all seen and know it. Its Significance.

Maverick, Top Gun. His need, his value, his motivation was significance. If you picked him, that’s your value too.

He wanted to be the best. But not anonymously, or by himself. He wanted to do it in front. Where everyone could see. He wanted to compete face to face and win. He wanted everyone to know he was the best.

Significance is the desire to feel important. Feel you matter. Often feeling above others.

Usually this is pretty public. Fame is a powerful form of significance. Status works too, being the best gardener doesn’t have much fame but everyone that knows, still knows your the best.

Less commonly you may desire significance with yourself. That’s huge with me personally. I care about always doing what would make me proud of myself.

When I became a music student in college, no one else knew, no one else cared, no one was impressed. But I felt freaking awesome.

Career

If you’re the Maverick, Significance type person, work that brings a lot of significance will energize you, giving you a major edge, and feel good at the same time. So what careers give significance?

We all know these, shouted at us most our lives.

You have High status jobs - Finance, law, surgeon. The ones that are written as glamorous on TV. If your parents pressured you into a career I guarantee it’s one of these. The exact pick is different in different cultures. But you know what they are.

Another route are the high morality jobs. Working for a charity work, a Non profit, or even clergyman in a religion. That route might call to you too.

Connection

Dominic Toretto - Fast & Furious

What is this man all about? He is not keeping it a secret. He cares about family. He cares about connection. And if he’s you’re favorite, that’s probably your core value too.

Connection isn’t only about relatives though. Most of Dom’s family were friends he met. Hell he turned half the people trying to kill him into family too. Ya know, connection isn’t my top value, but talking about Mr. Toretto I get all pumped about it.

Connection doesn’t have to be directly with people, or with people at all. It can be with your pets or nature. With the god or the universe. You know what it feels like.

Personally I really like indirect connection. Plenty of super busy people out there that Ill never get to meet, who are working on great ideas, putting their work into the world. When I work on the things that matter to me, knowing these other people are working on it to gives me a strong feeling of connection.

Career

So what kind of careers does a Connection type person crush at?

Teacher is obvious. Therapist is another obvious one, but probably more appealing can be a coach. Athletic Coach even Business coach.

On the more traditional route, you have event planning, negotiator for law enforcement or for businesses. Or high end sales, always about building relationships.

Duality of Values

We've looked at the first two values, and you might be saying:

“What the heck, Significance and Connection are opposites aren't they?"

And Id say, “Well darn aren't you a clever one”

You’re right. They are in fact complete opposites. Being significant is pretty isolating. We hear celebs complain about it all the time.

All of the 6 needs, come in pairs of opposites.

The kicker is you might be really high in two things that are opposites. This is super important to be aware that this is possible. This normal and pretty common. Get comfortable with it. And not just for this topic but for many other things in life.

It’s flat out a scam, that we’re raised to think we have to be one thing or the other. Be smart or strong. It’s cuts you off from most of your potential and its just not true. So keep your eyes open that you might be really strong in both sides of any of these opposites.

Growth

Neo - Matrix

Speaking of unlimited potential, the next need is growth.

Neo starts of as Mr. Anderson, a mundane office worker doing.. not much of anything. And boy does he feel this is wrong, in every fiber of his being. He knows there's more, not just in the world, but in himself. Growth is Neo’s prime need that drives him as he starts even lower in the real world, struggling to move his eyelids, to mastering Kungfu, leaping over buildings, becoming faster & stronger than the agents, then stronger than the matrix itself.

Neo is driven to learn more, get stronger, and reach the extreme limits of his capabilities. But unlike Maverick, driven by Significance, Neo doesn’t do things for the competitive win. He does them to be able to do it. Does it because wants it to be done.

If you haven't guessed, Growth is by far my #1 need and motivator. And if Neo was your favorite, it’s probably yours too.

Career

Some careers that could make you thrive if your a Growth type person:

• STEM - Researcher & Engineer - Got me hard. There's a lot of learning that increases your abilities, and more than most careers that continues after leaving university and work in your career. Especially software. So much new happening so fast there.
• Artistic work also gives a strong feeling of growth. It can be slower growth depending on the type, this is why I never felt satisfied as a musician, but that growing noticeably continues for life.
• Another super high growth path is Entrepreneur - So many different skills need to be learned and assembled. Makes sense why I'm so taken by Artist Entrepreneur now 🙂

Contribution

Schindler's List - Oskar Schindler

Now time for the opposite of the ‘me’ focused Growth is Contribution.

Schindler's list is a dour movie and Mr. Schindler wasn't laughing and smiling much in it. Contribution is often pretty hard. It’s usually a life of sacrifice. So not surprisingly people with the need to contribute are pretty rare.

But it’s a very clear and easy to understand value. Oskar Schindler is clearly a hero, who risked and sacrificed much of himself, and greatly helped others. If he is the hero you most resonate with, you’ll both benefit from work and hobbies that contribute to others, and excel highly at them.

Career

For careers that satisfy the need to contribute, these are the hardest ones to find. And they’re the ones that usually require a lot of sacrifice.

As I explained in another article, changing to a different career that suits your values better usually will increase your income because you’ll be such a superior performer. But switching to a contribution career is usually a sacrifice. This effect when changing to a contribution based career is so famous it actually what gives all types of ‘meaningful work’ that reputation.

Some options that you will excel at and feel happy doing:

• Teacher, legal Public defender, and working in charity. Non profits.
• A different route that doesn’t require sacrificing money or status is being a doctor. But no mistake this is a hard job that requires sacrifices in many other ways in your life. It truly is hard to contribute without sacrificing in some way.

Thank you to all who do so.

Don’t waste your strengths doing things anyone else could do.

There's so few like you.

Certainty

Billy Beane - Moneyball

Starting the last pair we have Certainty.

Certainty is hardest value to explain, and even harder to find examples of in movies. Brad Pitts character in Moneyball is about building guaranteed success. Wealth, peace & comfort he can count on. He has some risky moves, because on its a movie, but his motivations drive him to use probability to pick the players most likely to score runs for his team. Not look exciting, not make his peers or fans love or admire him. Only what works and what will work most often.

The need for Certainty is a drive to have dependable guaranteed good results. No chance of losing your home. Dependable relationships. Knowing the good things will always be there gives it a special quality all its own.

It's hard to make this need sound glamorous but I relate to this value a lot too. If you’re a certainty type person, first of all Id love to hear what your favorite movies are. This was hard to find a single example!

Also you probably get a more joy out of things like TV, hiking, and concerts than average. And peace of insurance might actually be worth it for you, when others say its a bad money move.

Career

Now for certainty career options, it’s pretty much everything we were told to do growing up. There's almost too many to name, and are the jobs our education system naturally shuttles you into.

• Go to college
• Get 9-5
• Funny how that’s so rare in movies but so common in work. What were pushed to is opposite what most people yearn for
• Some examples of jobs with extra high certainty are:
• Government Job
• Tenured professor
• Medical - infinite demand
• Military

Variety

Indiana Jones - Raiders of the Last Ark

Now our final value, the opposite of the need for Certainty is Variety

What is Indiana doing in an booby trapped temple? Fighting a nazi on a biplane? Indiana has a tenured job as a professor. He doesn’t have to do any of these crazy things. He WANTS to.

If you identify with Indiana Jones, you likely have a high craving for Variety. This doesn’t have to be dangerous thrill seeking, but you have a strong need for new & different, experiences, ideas and adventures.

Career

Careers that a Variety type person will be a natural at succeeding at include:

• Marketing
• Journalism
• Art
• Entrepreneurship

Now many of these careers are pretty risky, and some people cant take such risks.

Maybe have a family.

One option that works great to safely get a career that satisfies your need for variety is to switch to working as a contractor in your current field.

Being a contractor, routinely switching from project to project and company to company gives you a lot more variety in what you're working on, who you're working with and what new skills you need polished sharp to get the job done.

Now you should have a real good idea which of the fundamental 6 needs drive you.

If that’s not getting satisfied by what you’re working on now, you will be happier, work harder and be way more successful on work that does. We’re a mix of all 6 so there’s a good chance you connected strongly with a 2nd or 3rd as well. If you apply yourself to things that meet 2 or 3 of your top motivators, you’ll be formidable and significantly out compete other people.

You can do a lot with this rough overview. The more clarity you have the more they help you. Some of these movies were simply made better than others, so not a perfectly fair comparison. In the next articles I go into detail on each value one at a time, so you can get really clear on how much you connect with them. Even pursuing the same ones, having more clarity gives you more intensity, making them even more powerful.

Let me know if I missed your favorite example, or if you have any question about which might be your top value. I personally want to get better at helping people find theirs, so I’d love to answer any questions you have.

Thanks!