Maslow Changed His Mind. So Should You.

"I need to be My Best Self"  — Is that True?

Mazlow's update

Here's something I notice in every workshop I lead — whether it's surgeons, executives, or military officers. Most high-performers are running on the same fuel: Am I being my best self?

It sounds like a great question. But it's quietly making us worse. When "be your best" is the engine, life becomes a performance review. You measure, compare, fall short, try harder. The drive to optimize yourself becomes its own quiet prison.

There's another way.

Most people don't know this, but Abraham Maslow actually revised his hierarchy at the end of his life. He placed something above self-actualization: self-transcendence.

Self-actualization asks: Am I living up to my potential? Self-transcendence asks: How do I serve something beyond me?

One is about fulfilling the self. The other is about releasing it.

Viktor Frankl took this even further — he argued that self-actualization is actually a byproduct of self-transcendence. You become your best self precisely by orienting toward meaning beyond yourself.