Tony Robbins' Human Needs: Contribution

The final need in our Tony Robbins' human needs series is the need for contribution.

We need to have the feeling that we are giving, donating, leaving our mark, contributing to others and basically leaving the world in a better place than we found it.

The All Blacks are the New Zealand national rugby team. The whole aura of the team is the black jersey and that is the whole reason New Zealand people play rugby to represent the country and wear that black jersey. Richie McCaw the legendary captain said the thinking of the team is that they don't own the jersey they are just borrowing it and they want to leave the jersey in a better place than they found it.

Another important factor in the need for contribution is giving to charity. I got this terribly wrong a few years ago. I read in a book that you should give to charity so I just found the first charity I could find and started giving. I think that you have to have some kind of interest in the charity then it becomes a bit more real. I just threw a dart at a board and decided that would be the charity and it turned out to be a not a good thing at all.

We can also volunteer our time. There are many organisations out there that are looking for people to come along and help out but then again do it because you want to and you feel a sense of passion towards that cause not because you have to.

When I first came to Japan, some of the schools in the area in which I was living would have a activity called ボランティア活動 or volunteering. Unfortunately I could never see the point of it because there seemed to be no volunteering at all because the school said do it and the students did it. I believe if they volunteered themselves then they would have got a lot more out of it.

What other ways can you contribute?

Well, you can mentor someone in need. There are always people around who need your help and your experience, helping them get to where they want to get to is a great way to show your abilities to the world.

Another way to contribute is to make contact with someone you haven't seen or even interacted with for many weeks or months. I must admit there are a few people I can think of straight off the bat. I'm sure you have a list of people too that you can think of. Don't delay, start talking to them I'm sure that they will be ever so happy to hear from you.

Believe it or not there is a negative side to the contribution need.

People might fulfil their contribution need by kicking others down. An example of this might be someone deliberately hurting an ex because they broke up with them.

Another example would be an employee getting another employee fired because they didn't like them. I'm sorry that is nasty and if that happened to me I would wish that the other person burns in the fires of hell for all eternity.

They say that the need for contribution is the most important of all the needs so how are you going to make your contribution? That is a good question to ponder.