I was working with a small group of leaders on a retreat. During the afternoon session, I asked a general question. “Okay, so you’re a leader. What do you need most?”
It was silent for thirty seconds, and then the answers started coming. I began writing them on the whiteboard behind me.
“Alignment of vision.”
“A great product.”
“Innovation.”
“Market penetration.”
“Healthy culture.”
“Resources.”
When the answers died down, I said, “These are all great. But there’s a missing ingredient—the most important ingredient, the one that will make all the difference. It will change everything, not only in your leadership but in your life.” Then I wrote in larger letters:
You Need to Need
One attendee said, “We just told you what we needed, so why are you repeating yourself?”
I said, “Sorry to be confusing. I hope this will become clearer. There are two kinds of needs all humans have. The first is what I would call functional needs. Functional needs are the task requirements we all have to get things done. Most of the answers you gave on this board are functional needs. If we had been talking about your personal and family lives, we might have listed things like financial resources, food, shelter, good health, and a fulfilling career. This is the stuff that makes life work.
“But there is a second set of needs which are at least as important and are often neglected. They are our relational needs. Relational needs aren’t about our tasks and our doing but are about what we receive from and supply to others. My experience of most people, whether it be in business or in the personal arena, is that they tend to do pretty well in getting their functional needs met but are deficient in getting their relational needs met. And unfortunately, these things we give and receive are indispensable. You cannot be all you need to be without them.”
Another attendee spoke up. “Sounds a bit selfish to me, like ‘me-ism’—it’s all about my needs.”
I said, “Sure, nobody should make life ‘all about me,’ and yes, that is selfish. But think about this for a second. How many of you listened to, supported, encouraged, or guided someone in the past seven days?”
Everyone raised their hands. “That’s right,” I said. “You guys do this all the time, because you care about the people in your lives and your organizations. And how many of you, in the last seven days, sat down and asked someone to provide for you the help that you provided for them?”
A couple of people raised their hands. “So why are most of you providing,” I said, “that which you are not receiving?”
That question took us through the next two days at the retreat. It is also the premise of this book. The idea is simple: we need to need each other. People are the fuel for us to grow, be healthy, and prosper. God created a system in which we are to need not only him but also one another. That means we need to know what we need, recognize who can supply it, and have the skills to get it. And that will make a significant difference in life. More than significant—crucial. This is not an add-on or a luxury. The things we provide each other are a basic necessity. Let’s get out of the thinking that goes like this: Oh yes, asking others to support and help me. Great idea. I’ll pencil that in for next month. For this to work, it will need to be more frequent and more regular. You don’t put off meals for a month, nor should you put off God’s fuel.
And not only that, but to be the best person possible, you need the highest quality fuel possible. You want your car to have the highest-rated gasoline so it can perform at the highest level. You want to eat right and limit junk food. You want to experience inspiring books and videos and stay away from content that is a waste of time. So you also want to be around and learn from the best people available.
Let’s begin with the idea of needs, because I think most of us have no idea of the benefits of having needs, and how life changes when we are engaged in our needs and the needs of others in the right way.
THE WHY OF NEED
What is a need? It is the requirement of a person or a machine or an organization for something essential. If the need is unmet, we experience trouble or damage. Without oxygen, we asphyxiate. Without food, we starve. And without shelter, we freeze or burn. People with strong constitutions can last without these for longer periods than others, but ultimately the need wins out and must be met.
God built a needs-meeting system into the universe as a critical aspect of how it runs. There are all sorts of needs.
1. In the marketplace, we transfer services and products we need to one another via the exchange of currency. We connect and have relationships built on commerce.
2. In the medical world, the systems in our body are interdependent. The heart needs the oxygen which the lungs supply. The lungs need blood for their survival. The brain needs the heart, and all the systems need the brain to tell them how to operate.
3. Artists and musicians need environments and relationships which are rich in experiences to create and express emotions and beauty. They are deeply moved by how they feel in their context and with the people in their lives.
4. Children are dependent on parents to protect, nurture, and develop them and are strongly tied to them emotionally.
The more we enter the world of need, whether functional or relational, the better life works.
The Bible is full of examples of how God interacts with us in the area of needs.
• At the creation, he provided food for people and animals (Gen. 1:29).
• He gave the people of Israel manna to sustain them on their journey through the wilderness (Ex. 16:31).
• Jesus said that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled (Matt. 5:6).
• Jesus fed the five thousand (John 6:1–12).
• Paul wrote that God will meet all our needs in Christ Jesus (Phil. 4:19).
• We are to receive mercy and grace in our time of need (Heb. 4:16).
• If we don’t ask God for what we need, we won’t have it (James 4:2).
I believe that the purpose behind this needs-meeting system is simple: God designed needs in order to foster relationship. When there is a lack on this side of the room and a provider for that lack on the other side, the two connect. They are now related. And that is a good thing. The one who lacks is made whole. The one who provides feels useful. And the two feel connected.
God didn’t have to do it this way. He doesn’t need the universe or us. He is self-sufficient. He desires and loves us, but we are not essential to him. He could have made it so that we were also self-sustaining little systems, spinning around in our lives without having to reach out for sustenance, support, resources, or love. But he didn’t. He intertwined needs into the way things go.
God is, at his essence, about love: “We know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them” (1 John 4:16). And since love requires relationship, God is highly invested in relationships. He wants relationship with us, and he wants us to have relationships with each other.
Needs bring us together, into relationship. Think about the opposite situation, a person living in a self-sufficient and isolated manner, say, someone who lives away from others in the wilderness, surviving on his own without a supportive community, a loner who insists on not being dependent on anything or anyone. While we might admire his strength, we don’t tend to make him a model for the whole and successful life.
At the same time, we have a loner part of ourselves as well, which has difficulty feeling and expressing our needs. I call it the sourcer-sourcee conflict.
SOURCER VERSUS SOURCEE
Recently, Austin, a friend of mine, called and asked to go to lunch. I wanted to meet with him, but my schedule was tight. So I said, “What’s the agenda?” so I could determine whether it was an urgent matter. “Oh,” he said, “just catching up. I wanted to see how you’ve been.” It sounded casual, but I did want to see Austin, so I rearranged some meetings and we grabbed lunch.
To my surprise and dismay, he told me that his marriage with his wife, Heather, was in serious trouble and that he needed help in the worst way. The lunch quickly became an intense time of listening, finding out what the issues were, and coming up with a plan.
Fortunately, over time, things got better. We met again. I had identified some possible key issues and solutions and referred the couple to a great marital therapist. They stabilized and were on their way, though it took a lot of work. During a later coffee, when things had settled down, I asked Austin, “Do you remember our first meeting about your and Heather’s conflict?”
“Sure I do,” he said.
“I’m glad things worked out,” I said, “but when I asked you what our agenda was, you said you wanted to catch up. Why didn’t you tell me that you guys were in trouble?”
Austin looked embarrassed. “I didn’t want you to think I was high maintenance.”
“But you actually were high maintenance, right, at least at that time?”
“Yes, but I just hated thinking I was such a needy friend.”
I thought about it a bit and asked, “So what if I had called you with a marriage problem and just flat out said I needed to meet with you quick because we were in trouble? Would you have thought of me as your high-maintenance, needy friend?”
“Of course not,” he said. “We’re friends, and that’s what friends do—oh yeah . . .” And the lights came on for Austin. He realized that he was infinitely more comfortable meeting the needs of someone else than asking for his own to be met. He realized the disconnect in his thinking.
We all do this, to some extent. We feel much more comfortable in the role of sourcer than in the role of sourcee. The sourcer is the one providing for, helping, assisting, and supporting another—being the need meeter. The sourcee is the one who needs the help. Like Austin, we shy away from asking, while we are happy to give. Why is this? There are many obstacles to seeking help. Here are the predominant ones, and some suggestions for how to deal with them.
OBSTACLES TO ASKING
Feeling weak. For some people, saying, “I need something from you” doesn’t make them feel strong and stable. Instead they feel weak, helpless, incomplete. My response: Weakness is a normal and good part of life. We all go through weak times, sometimes several times a day. There is nothing wrong with that, if the need is getting met and it’s strengthening you to face the demands of reality. Feeling bad about weakness makes about as much sense as feeling bad about taking golf lessons because your swing is weak.
Feeling selfish. At times people feel that asking for something is making a self-centered move. They should be more giving, so they don’t ask at all. My response: Certainly we aren’t to be self-centered. But putting gas in your tank isn’t selfish. It’s a way to make yourself useful and productive.
Trust issues. Some people, unfortunately, have had painful relationships in which they learned that trusting and being vulnerable to someone important caused them hurt and rejection. Their response is to either isolate from others or become a consummate giver, because that prevents them from ever having to be vulnerable again. My response: Don’t let the actions of one hurtful person keep you from all the great relationships God has for you. You will need to work through the hurt and stop projecting that person’s qualities onto humanity in general. My book Beyond Boundaries is a resource that can help you rebuild trust.
Shame. Shame is the feeling that a part of us is so defective that we cannot be accepted or loved. It is that mistake, attitude, behavior, failure, or difficult season in the past that we judge ourselves for. We are convinced that if others knew about it, they would judge or leave us. It is a very painful feeling and can keep us from expressing our needs. My response: Find a few proven and safe people and slowly let them know this part of you. You will be amazed at the grace and relief you will feel from their warmth and acceptance.
Not feeling deserving. Some people refrain from asking because they think they are not deserving of or have not earned the privilege of asking. My response: How would you feel if a close friend told you that they avoided asking you for help because they didn’t deserve it? You would probably feel sad that an opportunity was missed. The reality is that we were not designed to work to deserve love, support, a listening ear, or help. That is a transactional viewpoint of relationships, and it will destroy them. Life is not about being nice to people who have earned our love by mowing our lawn and washing our car. It’s about loving those around us because they have needs. So change the equation: “No, I don’t deserve support and help. But I need it. And that’s enough.”
Concern about burdening others. As in Austin’s situation, people refrain from asking because they don’t want others to expend a great amount of time and effort on their behalf. My response: Certainly we shouldn’t demand that others give up too much for us. But that is a case of fragilizing others. We fragilize by not taking into account that other people are resilient and strong and can determine their own boundaries and how they choose to spend their time and energy. Let them decide for themselves; it’s a sign that you respect them.
Confusing the functional and the relational. Sometimes we do ask and do provide, but we are out of balance. We lean toward the functional side—favors, errands, advice, and wisdom—when sometimes we just need to make a connection with another safe human and that’s enough. In so many relationships, learning to be emotionally present is often the solution. But we tend to go overboard on advice and guidance, most of the time because we don’t have the right skills, feel anxious, and are trying to do something helpful. This book will provide you with the right balance, helping you determine when advice is the way to go and when there are other solutions.
“I need,” in the relational realm, tends to be a cringeworthy statement, and “need” a cringey word in particular. It’s acceptable to say, “I need some advice on finances” or “I need some parenting tips,” as these statements are more functional. But it’s not as easy to say, “I need to get lunch with you because life is challenging and I just need to talk.” We feel weak or ashamed, as though something were wrong with us.
There is a funny YouTube video called “It’s Not About the Nail” which makes this point. It is a scenario involving a couple in which the woman just wants to be heard and understood and the man wants to solve the problem. It illustrates how far apart we are sometimes in this area.
This may get worse. Some people are concerned that if they uncork a few needs, there may be a flood of other and deeper needs, and it’s just better not to go there in the first place. My response: Yes, it can get worse, especially if you have a long-term pattern of not asking for needs to be met. So take it slowly and gradually. Just ask for a few things. If you find your emotions becoming intense and painful, see a competent therapist. They have studied this and know the answers and the process.
Access problems. Some people don’t ask because they simply experience very few needs. They rarely, if ever, feel a need for being accepted or comforted or helped. They are even sometimes puzzled by all the needs of people around them. My response: There are people who have had so many healthy experiences of being loved, helped, and accepted that their own need states are not as frequent or intense. But for the majority of people, those who don’t feel these needs do have them, but they can’t experience them. They don’t have emotional access to their needs. This falls into the category of attachment issues. If this is your situation, this book will help a great deal, as the more we practice dealing with needs, the more we will be able to feel what is there inside.
The leader’s dilemma. Leaders especially hesitate to ask for their needs and prefer to be on the giving end. This is understandable because they want to be good models for success and maturity and instill confidence in their people that the organization is being led well. My response: I work with some extremely successful and high-performing leaders. And the solution is that while they certainly want to keep colleagues’ confidence in them high, they privately have relationships, away from the boardroom, in which they let down their hair and get their needs met.
Misunderstanding of the Bible. Many people neglect to bring their needs to others, because they feel that they should ask only God to supply their needs. They believe that to ask others means that they don’t trust God. My response to this is a story, followed by a Bible lesson, then application.
Before I attended grad school to earn a degree in psychology, I attended Dallas Theological Seminary to learn the Bible. One of my mentors was Dr. Howard Hendricks, who taught me a great deal about life and leadership. His kindness, interest, and wisdom were a great help to me in my formative years.
I was in chapel one morning, and Dr. Hendricks was speaking. During his talk, he made the point, “When you graduate from here and go into your ministry or career, it’s a good idea that you not have a best friend.”
I was a bit confused by that statement, as I had several close friends and I thought they made my life better. Dr. Hendricks said that we should put all our trust in God and that best friends could lead us astray and even get in the way of living a life of faith. I remember thinking, Well, if Moses said it, it’s just true. I really did look up to him!
A couple of years later, after I graduated, a seminary friend and I were talking and he said, “Did you hear about Dr. Hendricks’ chapel message a few weeks ago?” I said no, and he said, “It was really interesting. He said, ‘You may have heard me speak here a couple of years ago and say that it wasn’t a good idea to have a best friend. I was wrong. You’d better have a best friend.’”
Now I was really confused. It’s not often that one of your personal rock stars does a one-eighty in his teaching. As it happened, though, by this time I was in the habit of having coffee with Dr. Hendricks when I was in Dallas visiting friends. So at our next meeting, I asked him, “Tell me about your recanting what you said in chapel about best friends.” And he told me the story.
The seminary had a policy of helping graduates who had a major struggle after they left the school. This could involve burnout, a church split, a moral failure, or a serious depression. Pastors are under enormous pressure, 24/7. And the way the seminary helped them was to have Dr. Hendricks meet with them to understand their situations and help them heal and rebuild their lives.
He found out that during these times, the great majority of the struggling graduates had one thing in common: they had no close friends. They were without deep, safe confidants with whom they could say anything and receive support and acceptance.
So Dr. Hendricks went back to his Bible and researched the issue. And that was how he concluded that God designed us for deep and trusting relationships. Dr. Hendricks saw that best friends were necessary for a healthy life. Being the person of character that he was, he had no trouble saying, “I was wrong” in public. He was interested only in what was true and real.
Around this time, I was working on my doctorate in psychology and was studying the human condition. I too began looking at what the Bible says about these matters. And I was amazed at how many passages talk about how people are meant to supply each other’s needs. Here are a few of the ones that spoke to me.
• Genesis 2:18. “It is not good for the man to be alone.” This is not a verse about marriage. It is about relationship, the fact that in a perfect universe, where there was perfect connection with God, there was a “not good” situation, because Adam had no other human being to connect with.
• Ecclesiastes 4:9–10. “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: if either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.” This passage is not about God meeting our need; it’s about a person doing it.
• Matthew 26:38. “Then [Jesus] said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” Jesus asks Peter, James, and John to be with him while he is in prayer to God, in deep torment. This is a picture of even Jesus asking for support from people.
• 2 Corinthians 7:6. “God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus.” During Paul’s trials, God could have comforted him with an angel, a Bible passage, visitation by the Holy Spirit, or a miracle, all of which God does. But in this instance, he sent a person.
• 1 Peter 4:10. “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” This passage says that people are the delivery system of God’s grace.
This all means that God meets our needs from two directions: “vertically,” through prayer, the Bible, the Holy Spirit, the spiritual disciplines, and surrender; and “horizontally,” through people. We need both sources. In some way we do not fully understand, God set up a system in which he alone (the vertical) is not enough. That system without the horizontal is, according to the Bible, “not good” (Gen. 2:18). Henry Cloud and I write about this in our book How People Grow.
So when I mention a misunderstanding of the Bible as another reason we don’t ask others to meet our needs, you can see it’s a big deal. We have to get our theological hats on straight and realize that God uses people, all the time, to help us survive, grow, heal, and succeed.
“GOD, MY SPOUSE, AND MAX” SYNDROME
Sometimes an individual will be partly beyond just vertically bonded. They do get some nutrients besides prayer and the Bible, but it’s still pretty limited. I call it the “God, my spouse, and Max” syndrome. During a break at one of my seminars, I was talking with a businessman about our need for others. He said, “I really understand this concept you’re talking about. We need more than prayer and Bible study. And I don’t go it alone in my life. I do get my needs met. I have God, my wife, and my dog Max. God provides his love and guidance. My wife knows all my fears and failures and listens to me. Max accepts me no matter what. So I’m set.”
I said, “Yes, there are a lot of positives to getting your needs met by these three supportive sources. It’s also a positive for you that there is at least one human being in the mix. A supportive and loving marriage is a great thing. But if the only human you are truly vulnerable with is your wife, you are in relational deficit.”
He was a bit puzzled. “She’s really all I need. We trust each other implicitly and share everything. I have lots of friends, but she is the one I share my deepest concerns and fears with.”
“That is great, and congratulations on having a deep and solid marriage. But what if you don’t know what you don’t know?”
“Go on.”
“What if there are available to you more sources for acceptance, support, wisdom, and encouragement than your wife? Is it possible that because you don’t experience a need for more, you assume that you don’t need more? The Bible says much more about how we are all to relate to each other in general than it does about marriage. Just search in your Bible app for ‘one another,’ and see the many passages that regard how we are to treat each other and meet each other’s needs. That doesn’t take anything away from marriage; it’s one of God’s greatest gifts. It does mean, however, that we are designed to engage in healthy, deep, and meaningful relationships in addition to our marriages.”
Whenever I mention the “God, my spouse, and Max” syndrome to an audience of couples, several wives will come up to me afterward and say, “I love him and we are very close, but I do get a bit burned out on being the only person he can be open with. I wish he had other guys to really relate to.” (Lately, a number of husbands have made a similar comment about their wives.)
And that is one of the reasons I wrote this book, to provide a clear and practical way to experience much more of what God has for us all. I was doing a life evaluation of a coaching client and identified him as having the syndrome: close to God, great marriage, and a great dog (not named Max). One of my conclusions was that he was in relational deficit.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
“It’s similar to having an iron deficit or a calcium deficit in your bloodstream,” I said. “You may not be aware of the impact of the deficit, but it’s there somewhere.”
He didn’t like getting the news, because it meant doing some work finding and implementing the right sorts of relationships, and he was a busy person. But he wanted to receive all that God had for him and realize his full potential. He entered the process I will describe in this book. Within a few months, he told me, “I had no idea that things could be better in so many areas of my life. My joy, energy, creativity, career, family relationships, and even my marriage, are all better.”
Sometimes we don’t know what we don’t know.
So we are fuel for each other, great and necessary fuel. And our fueling comes through relationship, specifically through “relational nutrients,” a term I will describe in the book.
THE GENDER DIFFERENCE
I mentioned earlier that more women tell me their husbands need to branch out relationally than the converse. I think it’s just true that women have an edge on men in being wired for relationship, and men are more wired for activity. But it’s just an edge; we’re not talking about two different universes. I don’t believe in gender theories that state how totally different men and women are. The reality is that we are more alike than we are different. The genders have much more in common with each other than we have distinctions. We all are created in God’s image. We all need to be attached deeply. We all need to have our own identities and boundaries. We all need to accept our flaws and those of others. We all need to find our purpose in life and express our talents to accomplish that purpose. Women and men share all of this, and this encompasses the majority of life. If we put the genders in two circles on a Venn diagram, most of the space would be intersected space, and the minority of the space would be solely male and solely female.
The implications are that both genders need to work on this. Most men have to work harder on this than most women do. But all of us need to make sure we are getting our needs met, and providing those needs to others, in the best way.
OUT OF BALANCE
It is just as true that our relational needs are no less critical than our functional needs. Longitudinal studies have proven over and over that without significant supportive relationships, we have more psychological dysfunctions, we have more health problems, and we die sooner.1
As I mentioned in the story of the retreat, most of us are much more comfortable talking about our functional needs than our relational needs. You can make statements like “I need a job in which I can express my passions and skills” or “I need to lose weight” or “I need a break today” without angst or shame. There is no worry someone might think less of us.
When we move from the functional realm into the relational realm, we tend to be pretty comfortable as long as it’s the other person’s need. There is little insecurity in saying, “I’m meeting with Samantha for lunch; she needs to talk about some issues with her and her mom.” We are glad to help with that person’s need. Most of us feel compassion and want to provide in some way.
But when the relational need is our own, the conflict arises. It’s harder to be Samantha or Sam, the one calling for support. We shy away from feeling that way or expressing ourselves like that. But we need to push past this and learn that asking doesn’t diminish us. It provides others an opportunity to express their support for us. And that in turn brings them toward us and improves both parties.
So in summary, to set up what we’ll cover in the rest of the book:
• God created a need-meeting system that is part of how the universe works.
• The things we need are indispensable to life working right, and not a luxury.
• We were designed to get needs met and provide for others’ needs.
• God meets our needs vertically (directly) and horizontally (through people).
• Needs can be functional or relational.
• Our relational needs are a significant predictor of emotional, relational, and medical health as well as success.
• We tend to be more comfortable meeting others’ needs than asking for our own.
• We tend to be more comfortable in the functional (advice and help) arena than in the relational arena.
From this point, we need to look at how this works in our personal growth. In the next chapter, you’ll see a simple model of how relationships are key in becoming a mature and complete person.