When I was in college I remember hearing about a book titled, “Looking Out for Number One.” I never read the book, mostly because I didn’t like the first book I had read by the author, “Winning Through Intimidation” but, the title has always stuck with me; I think it was because the title turned me off. I hadn’t been taught to be so selfish that I should be focused on only me. I figured I needed to be helping others and, along the way, I would also be helping myself. Now, I realize I should have at least considered learning more about looking out for number one.
In our society we are taught the golden rule, “do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” We are also taught that we need to “love our neighbors as ourselves.” Both of these statements, as important as they are, are very ironic. As I’ve worked with people I’ve realized that if they treated others the way they treat themselves, nobody would be happy; if you haven’t yet figured out how to love and appreciate yourself, you are more likely to mistreat those closest to you. I’ve attended many customer service training sessions where the only advice is to treat the customer the way you want to be treated. I’ve found it next to impossible to train customer service people with this philosophy because most of them don’t know how they want to be treated. What a dilemma.
When I was younger and just beginning to build my business I had a lot more time for myself and my family. As I began to meet more people and get involved in more groups and associations, thinking I was benefiting my business, I had less and less time for the things that were most important to me. Before I knew it, I was too busy for my family because I was over committed in many areas outside my business. Because I was overcommitted in many areas I didn’t have the ability to make decisions about my time. By default I let others make decisions for me.
Over 30 years after seeing the book about looking out for number one I’m realizing number one, me, is the person I should be concerned about first. Jeffrey Gitomer asks the question, “who is the most important person in the world?” Most people answer, the customer. He then asks, if there were only two people left in the world, the customer and you, who would you want to survive? Now the answer is me.
It makes sense that if we can’t help ourselves first, we will never be prepared to help others. We all need to learn to control our lives and make the best decisions for ourselves. That will put us in a position to help others in the future. But many of us are slow to understand this.
Without thinking about it, many of us allow the world around us to make decisions of how we will spend our time, and some decisions are made by chance. There are those people that really take control of their lives and decide on their own where their lives will lead. This doesn’t happen often enough. I’m reminded of a quote from the book “Atlas Shrugged”, “happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires only rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing but rational actions.” None of us are completely rational but, happiness can be found by all of us if we really want it. To find real happiness we need to be a little self focused and allow our needs to be met. Our needs influence our behavior and attitudes; if we don’t recognize these needs we can become very frustrated with our lives.
It has been said that happiness will bring success, but success doesn’t always bring happiness. We all want to be happy and successful. For some of us we can be very happy when our basic needs are met and our family is safe. Others will strive for high levels of success thinking that will bring happiness. I’m sure we can think of an individual who is very successful, according to the world’s standards, but they don’t appear to be happy at all. This is because they have been so busy working for somebody else’s goals that they haven’t considered their own needs.
Most of us are probably familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow explained that there are basic needs that all of us must fulfill such as food, shelter and water. Almost as basic is the need for safety and the need to take care of our families. These first two levels are a must for all of us. Going up the pyramid we next encounter the need for belonging. We all want to belong but we don’t always let ourselves have that luxury. This is where some of our frustrations begin. The last two levels of esteem needs and self-actualization needs can really seem selfish, and many people never take the time to fulfill these needs.
For us all to find the happiness we desire we need to take time to evaluate where we are headed in life. In the book, “Leverage Your Best, Ditch the Rest” the author suggests taking a needs ‘Mini-Scrubdown.’ This process can shed some light on your beliefs and thought patterns. A few of the questions you might ask yourself are: (1) how do I see myself? (2) how do others see me? (3) how do I want to be seen? Give yourself some time to think about these questions. Do your answers match your beliefs and actions? After asking these questions we need to decide if how we want to be seen matches how we see ourselves and how others see us. Do we really care about how others see us or have we not allowed certain needs to be met because we have been so concerned about outward appearances? It is time to decide if we should change.
One of the first things we all need to do is honestly think about what it is we want from our lives; what is really important to us? Some needs that we might consider fulfilling are: responsibility, increasing knowledge, being trustworthy, spirituality, balance in life, discipline, exercise, being accepted, respected, caring for family, serving others and the list can go on and on. All of us will have different needs and different reasons for wanting to fulfill those needs. For all of us we will find more happiness in life when we have our needs fulfilled. People around us should be happier because we find less frustration in our lives. This will also lead to greater happiness. We all need to take the time to map out what is important and how much time we want to allocate to those areas of our lives.
Even though I believe we all need to look out for number one, we need to improve ourselves so we can be prepared to help others. As we try to fulfill our needs and make our lives better it should be with this goal in mind: to understand how to treat others with respect and help them improve their lives. Very soon you won’t think about the fact that you are the most important person in the world; you will have found greater happiness in life. You will find yourself looking out for others, just because you want to.