Finding a puzzle piece. Looking for a fit.

A few weeks ago, I came across a wealth pyramid on social media.

It was a diagram that defines different levels of wealth and comments on the typical financial perspective households sitting on each level faces. At the bottom sits the homeless and extremely poor. Above them are the those surviving on government assistance. Next come the middle class burdened by debt, followed by the upper middle class, with millionaires sitting at the top.

There was nothing particularly remarkable about the diagram itself. In fact, if you spend any time on social media, you might have seen similar graphics, used to make some point about inequality, class, privilege or success.

Yet, when I saw this diagram, I immediately felt challenged by it. I just couldn’t immediately explain why.

After spending the last few years thinking about money through the lens of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and developing the Hierarchy of Money framework, I have developed something of a weakness for pyramids. Whenever I see one, my brain immediately starts looking for patterns and relationships. I guess the influence of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy on my thinking is hardly a secret at this point.

My immediate reaction was not to decide whether the diagram was right or wrong.

Rather, I found myself asking a different question.

Does this relate to the Hierarchy of Money? And if so, how?

At first glance, it felt like it should. Or rather, I felt that this is the type of information which people are interested in, so I should try and make the connection.

Both frameworks are attempting to tell us something about the relationship between money and the human experience.

The challenge was figuring out exactly what that relationship might be.

The Pieces Didn’t Match.

My first instinct was to look for a direct mapping between the different wealth levels and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

After all, both frameworks are structured as hierarchies.

At the bottom of the wealth pyramid sits homelessness and extreme poverty. That certainly feels consistent with someone struggling to satisfy physiological needs and safety needs.

Food.

Shelter.

Security.

That part appears straightforward enough.

From there, it is tempting to continue the exercise.

Perhaps the poor focus primarily on safety needs.

Perhaps the middle class focus on belonging and esteem.

Perhaps the wealthy have largely solved these concerns and can focus on self-actualization.

Perhaps the pyramid can show us a progression up through Maslow’s hierarchy, with wealth acting as the mechanism that enables movement from one level to the next.

Two pyramids.

Five layers.

Everything apparently lining up perfectly. Could it be that simple? Perhaps the wealth strata in the pyramid that I saw would not line up, but by adjusting the wealth levels, could we make a match?

The problem however was, the more I thought about it, the less convincing it became.

A millionaire may still struggle with meaning and purpose.

A schoolteacher on an ordinary income may enjoy deep relationships, a strong sense of community and meaningful work.

A retiree of modest means may feel fulfilled and content.

Conversely, somebody with substantial wealth may still be searching for identity, belonging or direction.

The wealth levels don’t matter really, no matter how hard you try shifting them around.

This was hardly a revelation.

It was one of the central conclusions of the Hierarchy of Money.

Money matters enormously, particularly when it comes to satisfying lower-level needs. However, its influence becomes progressively weaker as we move towards growth needs and flourishing.

The problem was not that money doesn’t matter.

The problem was that wealth and need satisfaction are not the same thing.

At that point the neat mapping began to unravel.

So, if the wealth pyramid was not describing progress through Maslow’s hierarchy, then what exactly was it describing?

Finding a Common Edge.

For a while, I found myself stuck.

The original theory clearly wasn’t working, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling that the pyramid was connected to the Hierarchy of Money in some way.

The breakthrough came when I stopped looking at what separated the different layers and started looking at what they had in common.

Up until this point I had been asking a very Maslow-shaped question:

Which need does each wealth group correspond to?

It turned out that this was probably the wrong question.

A better question was:

What problem is each wealth group trying to solve?

The answer became clearer once I ignored the extremes and focused on the large middle section of the pyramid.

The poor receiving government assistance.

The indebted middle class.

The upper middle class.

The millionaire.

At first glance these groups appear to have very little in common.

Their incomes are different.

Their lifestyles are different.

Their opportunities are different.

Their concerns appear different.

Yet when viewed through the lens of finance, they are all attempting to achieve a version of the same thing.

Financial security.

Or perhaps more precisely:

Financial safety.

The poor individual is trying to make it safely through the coming weeks.

The indebted household is trying to make it safely through the coming months.

The upper-middle-class family is trying to make it safely through retirement.

The millionaire may be trying to ensure that wealth survives a comfortable retirement and supports the next generation as well.

The circumstances are different.

The numbers are different.

But the underlying objective is surprisingly similar.

The more I thought about it, the less the diagram looked like a hierarchy of wealth.

Instead, it started looking like a hierarchy of financial safety concerns.

Rotating the Puzzle Piece.

This was the point where everything finally started to make sense.

What if the different levels in the pyramid were not describing different needs at all?

What if they were describing different time horizons over which the same need was being managed?

For somebody experiencing homelessness or extreme poverty, safety may be measured in days.

Sometimes hours.

For somebody living on government assistance, safety may be measured in weeks.

For somebody living pay cheque to pay cheque, perhaps months.

For somebody building retirement savings, decades.

For somebody thinking about inheritance, estate planning and future generations, perhaps longer still.

The further we move up the pyramid, the further into the future people are attempting to create security and certainty.

The horizon expands.

Importantly, this does not necessarily mean that people higher up the pyramid have moved beyond safety concerns.

In many cases they are still focused on safety.

The difference is that the risks they are trying to manage exist much further into the future.

Suddenly the diagram looked very different.

It was no longer a hierarchy of needs.

It was not even primarily a hierarchy of wealth.

It was a hierarchy of safety horizons.

The need remains broadly the same.

What changes is the time horizon.

Seeing the Bigger Picture.

Up until this point, I had identified what appeared to be a useful pattern.

Different wealth levels seemed associated with different financial safety horizons.

The question was whether that observation had any use.

Why should the length of somebody’s financial safety horizon matter?

Crucially, what does it have to do with the Hierarchy of Money?

To answer that question, we need to revisit the original framework.

The central argument of the Hierarchy of Money was that money matters enormously at the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy but progressively less as we move upwards through the growth needs associated with flourishing.

Money buys food.

Money buys shelter.

Money helps to buy security.

Money can help facilitate relationships, learning and self-development.

But it becomes increasingly difficult to purchase meaning, purpose, wisdom, creativity and self-actualization directly.

What the original framework did not fully explain is why people often appear focused on very different parts of the hierarchy despite living in the same society.

The wealth pyramid may provide part of the answer.

Imagine that your financial safety horizon stretches only a few days into the future.

Can I pay rent?

Can I pay the electricity bill?

Can I afford groceries?

What happens if I lose my job?

These are entirely rational concerns.

When immediate financial threats occupy a large portion of your mental bandwidth, it becomes difficult to devote the same amount of energy to longer-term pursuits.

Not impossible. Just more difficult.

But imagine a different situation.

Your housing is stable.

Your emergency fund is secure.

Your retirement prospects appear reasonable.

You are no longer spending significant mental energy worrying about next week, next month or even next year.

Once immediate concerns become less dominant, your attention becomes available for other questions.

Questions about growth.

Questions about learning.

Questions about relationships.

Questions about contribution.

Questions about meaning and purpose.

You wonder what you are doing with your life!

The wealth pyramid is not telling us which Maslow needs have been satisfied.

It appears to be describing how far into the future a person is financially secure enough to think.

Seeing How the Pieces Fit.

Once I reached that conclusion, another connection emerged.

In the Hierarchy of Money article I described wellbeing as existing across a spectrum from hedonia to eudaimonia.

Hedonic experiences are associated with pleasure, comfort and the reduction of discomfort.

Eudaimonic experiences are associated with growth, meaning, purpose and flourishing.

When your financial safety horizon is short, your attention naturally gravitates towards immediate outcomes.

Immediate relief.

Immediate comfort.

Immediate certainty.

Release from immediate pressure and stress.

The future beyond a certain point becomes difficult to prioritize because the present constantly demands attention first.

As the safety horizon expands, the range of things it becomes possible to focus upon expands with it.

Long-term learning.

Building expertise.

Building deep relationships.

Creative projects.

Contribution to community.

A sense of purpose.

The kinds of pursuits that often underpin eudaimonic wellbeing.

At this point it is important not to overstate the argument.

I am not suggesting that poor people cannot pursue meaning.

Nor am I suggesting that wealthy people automatically become self-actualised.

Reality is far more complicated than that.

Throughout history, people with very modest means have lived lives rich in meaning and contribution.

Likewise, many wealthy people have devoted their lives primarily to the pursuit of short-term pleasures.

The relationship is not deterministic.

Wealth does not determine flourishing.

However, wealth appears to influence the length of a person’s financial safety horizon.

And the length of that horizon appears to influence how much attention can be directed beyond immediate concerns and towards longer-term forms of wellbeing.

Connecting the Pieces.

Looking back, I guess the reason the diagram caught my attention was because it felt like a puzzle piece.

At first glance, it looks as though it could fit somewhere within the Hierarchy of Money framework. The challenge was to figure out where and how.

My first instinct had been to try and align wealth levels directly against Maslow’s hierarchy. That piece however, simply refused to fit.

It was only after turning the problem around and looking at it from a different angle did the connection become clearer.

The diagram was not primarily describing levels of happiness.

Nor levels of fulfilment.

Nor even levels of need satisfaction.

Instead, it appeared to be describing different financial safety horizons.

The poor person attempting to make it safely through the month and the millionaire attempting to preserve wealth for future generations are dealing with very different circumstances.

Yet both are engaged in the same broad activity.

They are trying to make the future safer than the present.

That observation revealed something I had not previously articulated in the Hierarchy of Money.

The missing piece was not wealth itself. But rather the missing piece is the financial safety horizon that sits between wealth and flourishing.

The wealth pyramid and the Hierarchy of Money are not pieces from different puzzles.

Rather, they need a connecting piece which turned out to be the concept of financial safety horizons.

The Completed Picture.

And that brings me back to the wealth pyramid that started this whole line of thinking.

Like many good diagrams, its value wasn’t in the message it was trying to communicate.

Its value was in the questions it prompted me to ask.

The wealth pyramid does not tell us which Maslow needs somebody has satisfied.

It does not tell us how happy they are.

It does not tell us whether they are flourishing.

What it may tell us is how far into the future they are financially secure enough to think.

And that insight creates a useful connection back to the Hierarchy of Money.

Because if money’s influence diminishes as we move towards growth needs, then understanding a person’s financial safety horizon may help explain why their attention is focused where it is.

Ultimately, the purpose of financial safety is not merely to create more financial safety.

At least, I don’t think it is.

The purpose of financial safety is to create the opportunity to live well.

Which leaves us with a question that feels far more interesting than the wealth pyramid ever intended to ask:

If financial safety gives us the opportunity to pursue growth, meaning and flourishing, are we actually using that opportunity wisely?

Who Will Buy America’s Growing Debt?

Finding willing buyers may become the defining financial challenge of the decade.

The Price of Borrowing

If you live in the US or follow financial markets, you will probably be familiar with three related market concerns:

1) The US government runs a budget deficit. So far in 2026, it has spent $2 trillion more than it has collected in tax revenue.

2) The US government borrows by issuing Treasury securities. When it runs a deficit, it must issue additional debt; total federal debt has recently reached $40 trillion.

3) US Treasury yields—the returns investors demand on government debt—have risen to levels not seen for many years. Despite the Treasury’s efforts to manage its borrowing, yields remain under upward pressure.

Rising Treasury yields an immediate concern as they affect far more than financial markets. They ultimately influence mortgage rates, business investment, government finances and the cost of borrowing throughout the economy

Much of the commentary about high government borrowing costs—which also influence borrowing costs for companies and individuals—focuses on how the Federal Reserve will set the federal funds rate. If the Fed keeps that rate high, or raises it because inflation remains persistent, markets may expect further upward pressure on Treasury yields. Existing bond yields rise when their market prices fall, while newly issued bonds must offer higher coupon rates when investor demand is weak.

Commentators also point to the rapidly rising federal debt, now around $40 trillion, and to continuing budget deficits that add to the borrowing requirement. The government must issue bonds both to refinance maturing debt and to fund new deficits. It therefore needs existing lenders to reinvest while also attracting additional capital.

Everything about this sounds bad, and I was curious to find out how bad it really is.

Of these two issues, the Federal Reserve’s policy rate is set primarily to control inflation. Because this is part of its normal mandate across the economic cycle, monetary policy alone should not create an extraordinary long-term effect on Treasury yields.

But the government debt? That’s more interesting and potentially presents a systemic shift.

For much of the past quarter-century—the period covered by my professional memory—US debt has been rising. During that time, the possibility of a US default has often been debated and, rightly, dismissed. Even with debt near $40 trillion and a debt-to-GDP ratio of 125%, I see little immediate risk that the government will fail to meet its obligations. The more plausible problem is one of price: the government may find too few investors willing to buy the volume of bonds it needs to issue, forcing it to offer higher coupons.

The real question: Who will keep buying?

So who owns the roughly $40 trillion of outstanding Treasury debt today? Are these investors likely to maintain their holdings? More importantly, will they increase them in line with further government borrowing?

Of the roughly $40 trillion in federal debt, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation estimates that about 80% ($32 trillion) is held by the public, while about 20% ($8 trillion) consists of intragovernmental holdings.

Intra-government bodies include the Social Security Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and the Federal Employees Retirement Fund and are effectively an internal IOU within the government.

A breakdown of the $32 trillion of external debt is shown below:

The key issue in this breakdown is not simply the size of each category, but whether its holdings are likely to grow fast enough to absorb future Treasury issuance.

Can domestic investors absorb more debt?

Among the smaller categories—insurance companies, pension funds, banks and other depository institutions—I would not expect holdings to fall sharply, but neither would I expect them to grow much faster than the economy. On that assumption, these groups would provide limited support for debt increasing at roughly $3 trillion a year. State and local governments are also likely to hold federal debt partly against their own pension liabilities, which generally change more slowly.

The Federal Reserve System holding of $4.5 trillion is comprised primarily of the government’s quantitative easing efforts from the pandemic and the global financial crisis. It’s securities portfolio peaked at around $9 trillion in 2022. As these were extraordinary measures, I would expect holdings to fall, rather than rise over time.

Mutual funds holdings of $5.2 trillion, much of it as long-term investments in pension portfolios. Here, we might see two effects. Firstly, an increase in bond mutual fund holdings as baby boomers and Generation X move towards and reach retirement, and shift the amount of their pension assets into fixed income assets. Second, a continued trend of reduction in bond mutual fund holdings as the traditional 60:40 equity-bond portfolio is losing favour among younger investors.

The largest category of holders is foreign investors, including foreign official institutions. As of June 2026, the US Treasury Department reported the following foreign holdings of Treasury securities.

Why foreign demand depends on trade

These holdings partly reflect dollar reserves accumulated through international trade and capital flows. When a US company buys goods or services from a foreign company, payment may be made in dollars or in the seller’s local currency. If the exporter receives dollars, it may exchange them through its commercial bank; if the US importer buys foreign currency, a bank stands on the other side of that transaction. Depending on the country’s exchange-rate arrangements and financial flows, some of those dollars may ultimately be acquired by its central bank and added to foreign-exchange reserves.

If trade and financial flows between two countries broadly offset each other, neither central bank necessarily accumulates large balances of the other’s currency. When the US runs a trade deficit, however, dollars accumulate abroad. Foreign private holders or central banks may keep those dollars, exchange them for other currencies, or invest them in dollar-denominated assets such as US Treasury securities.

World Population Review lists the following countries as those with which the US recorded its largest trade deficits in 2025.

The total US trade deficit in 2025 was $902 billion, fractionally below the $904 billion recorded in 2024. This was despite tariffs introduced in April 2025 as part of the government’s effort to reduce the deficit.

The US trade deficit means that roughly $1 trillion continues to flow abroad each year, creating a pool of dollars that could be invested in Treasury securities. Yet some large holders are diversifying their reserves. China, for example, held around $1 trillion in US government debt in 2021 but has since reduced that figure to about $0.6 trillion.

The explanation took longer than I expected, but it leads to a simple conclusion: the US government’s challenge is not merely issuing an ever-growing volume of bonds, but finding investors willing to absorb them at acceptable yields.

Among the investor groups considered here, mutual funds could provide some of the demand needed to absorb additional supply. For that to happen, bonds must again offer a compelling combination of yield and diversification within portfolios such as the traditional 60:40 equity-bond mix. Foreign demand presents a different problem: reducing trade deficits and pursuing trade conflicts may leave foreign economies with fewer dollars to recycle into US assets, even as the still-large global trade deficit continues to place substantial dollar balances in overseas hands.

The demand question therefore has two parts: whether investors will absorb the additional supply and what yield they will require to do so. The first appears manageable for now, but the second may keep borrowing costs elevated.

A return to normal yields?

My final question is whether, assuming the government can continue to find buyers for its bonds, coupons and yields must keep rising to attract them—or whether today’s market simply marks a return to historically normal yields rather than the beginning of an extreme-rate era.

A 10-year Treasury yield above 5% looks unusual by the standards of the past 15 years. Yet that period—remarkably long though it was—was itself exceptional, shaped by unusually low policy rates and large-scale central-bank asset purchases.

About Finance & Society

Finance and Society is where I explore the economic, financial and demographic forces shaping our world, a subject that has been both my profession and my passion for decades.

If you’re interested in a different perspective on money, you may also enjoy my Actualize This series, which explores the relationship between money, wellbeing and human flourishing. Those articles focus less on markets and economics, and more on how money influences the lives we want to build.

Introduction

There are three things that you need to know about me before you read any further.

1. I am a pedant.

2. I’ve worked in finance all my life before pivoting to writing.

3. I grew up within a culture that holds clever analogies, subtly placed social and cultural references, plays on words and groan-inducing cheesy puns in high regard. I shall conspire to provide a high frequency stream of all these writing tools in my posts.

My pivot into writing, also came with a change in, or more precisely an additional, area of interest. See my post here which describes the impetus for this change. Since that time, I have been learning more about psychological and philosophical thinking on human wellbeing and happiness. My focus has been on trying to understand how the two areas interact and to build a bridge between the two, wellbeing and happiness with money and finance.

After exploring the subjects in depth, I found that Maslow’s hierarchy of needs framework with some interpretation and updates could provide the foundations for this bridge of understanding. The Hierarchy of Money is my attempt to use Maslow’s framework to gain a more nuanced understanding of how money affects our happiness.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs began as an attempt to organize what he saw as the many motives that drive human behavior into a coherent, usable framework. He first presented the idea in 1943 in a paper titled A Theory of Human Motivation and then elaborated it in the book Motivation and Personality in 1954. The model grew out of a practical question: why do people pursue some goals with urgency while other aims remain less in focus? Maslow answered this by distinguishing needs that arise from deficiency apart from needs that arise from growth, and by proposing a general ordering in which more basic requirements tend to take precedence over higher aspirations.

Development of the theory of human motivation

Maslow trained in an era when behaviorism and psychoanalysis dominated American psychology. Behaviorism emphasized observable responses to environmental contingencies, while psychoanalysis emphasized unconscious conflict and early experience. Maslow found both approaches useful but incomplete. He wanted a psychology that could account for the positive side of human life: creativity, moral insight, and the pursuit of meaning. His early empirical work on dominance and social behavior in primates provided a methodological grounding, but his intellectual shift came from studying healthy, functioning people as well as clinical cases.

The 1943 paper introduced the idea of needs arranged by relative prepotency. The idea of prepotency is that certain needs are more urgent and therefore more likely to motivate behavior until they are reasonably satisfied. Over the following decade he refined the scheme and began to describe the psychological qualities of people who had realized higher needs. By the 1960s his work had become central to what came to be called humanist psychology, a movement that emphasized human potential and the study of flourishing.

Why needs drive motivation

We are all motivated to satisfy our needs and at the heart of Maslow’s treatise is a distinction between two kinds of needs. Firstly, deficiency needs which arise from deprivation. When such needs are unmet they create a state of tension that we seek to reduce. By contrast, growth needs arise not from deficiency but rather from a desire to develop, to know, to create and to become more fully oneself. Deficiency needs produce corrective behavior and if they continuously remain unmet may lead to mental ill-health. The lowest layers of deficiency needs, physiological needs and safety needs, which are not met can lead to physical ill-health. Growth needs on the other hand produce exploratory and expressive behavior. However if growth needs remain unmet they do not produce corrective behavior or lead to pathology.

Maslow emphasized that needs are probabilistic drivers rather than deterministic laws. A person may pursue a growth project while some deficiency needs remain partially unmet. Context, culture and personality all shape how needs are prioritized. Nevertheless, the distinction between deficiency and growth needs remains a useful organizing principle for understanding why certain aims dominate behavior at particular times.

The hierarchy and its levels

Maslow’s original presentation is commonly summarized as five ascending levels. Later he discussed additional needs and refinements, but the five-level scheme is what we are still familiar with today.

Physiological needs - These are the most basic biological requirements for human survival. Examples include food, water, sleep, warmth, breathing. In practical terms, a person who is hungry, exhausted or ill will typically prioritize obtaining food, rest or medical attention before pursuing other aims. Physiological needs are deficiency needs. Their absence produces urgent, corrective behavior. Though not considered by Maslow, in the context of a lifetime, good-health is an important physiological need.

Safety needs - Once physiological needs are reasonably met, concerns about safety and stability become salient. Examples include secure housing, predictable income, physical safety, access to health services, and protection from violence or environmental hazards. Employment that provides a steady wage, a tenancy agreement that guarantees housing for a period, or a neighborhood with low crime are all instances of safety needs being satisfied. Safety needs are deficiency needs. When safety is threatened, people often withdraw from exploratory or creative pursuits and focus on restoring security.

The need for love and the sense of belonging - This level covers social connection and affiliation. Examples include close friendships, intimate partnerships, family bonds, membership of social groups, and a sense of acceptance at work or in the community. A person who lacks meaningful relationships may experience loneliness and will often prioritise forming attachments. Love and belonging are deficiency needs in Maslow’s account because their absence creates a felt lack that people seek to remedy.

Esteem needs - Esteem needs concern self-respect and recognition from others. They include feelings of competence, achievement, status and the respect of peers. Examples are professional recognition, promotions, awards and the internal sense of efficacy that comes from competence. Esteem needs are classed as deficiency needs when they take the form of seeking external validation to avoid feelings of inferiority. They can also shade into growth needs when the pursuit of mastery becomes an end in itself rather than a means to shore up self-worth.

The need for self-actualization - At the top of the original five level scheme is self-actualization, the realisation of one’s capacities, to become everything that one is capable of becoming. Examples include a scientist devoted to discovery, an artist committed to a lifetime of work, a teacher who continually refines their craft, or a community leader who pursues social justice. Self-actualization is a growth need. It does not arise from lack but from an impulse to develop, to express, and to become more fully oneself. Maslow described self-actualization as a process rather than a fixed state. It involves authenticity, creativity, autonomy and a sense of purpose.

Later additions: Cognitive and aesthetic needs, and self-transcendence. Maslow later identified additional cognitive and aesthetic needs that he did not definitively position within the hierarchy, but arguably sit between esteem and self-actualization. Cognitive needs refer to the desire to know, to understand and to make sense of the world. Examples include intellectual curiosity, scientific inquiry and philosophical reflection. Aesthetic needs concern the appreciation of beauty, balance and form, as when a person seeks art, music or harmonious environments. Both cognitive and aesthetic needs are growth orientated.

Maslow also proposed self-transcendence as an additional growth need. Self-transcendence involves moving beyond personal fulfilment toward concern for others, for causes, or for a sense of unity with something larger than the self. Examples include deep religious or spiritual commitment, altruistic service, or creative work that aims to benefit humanity. Self-transcendence is a growth need that reorientates motivation from the self to the broader world.

How do we reach a definition of happiness from Maslow?

Before setting out our hierarchy of money, we first turn to the question: What is happiness? Here we find that the answer is that happiness, or alternatively wellbeing (being the more contemporary synonymous term), comes in two flavors; hedonia and eudaimonia.

Hedonia, from the Greek concept hêdonê (meaning pleasure). Hedonia is a happiness we derive from the way that we feel. Feeling good (pleasure), but also from not feeling bad (discomfort). It is short lived sensory experience and fades quickly. Psychologists usually discuss hedonia in terms of experiences, focusing on fulfilling desires and seeking pleasure, and having the presence of positive affects (feelings) and the absence of negative ones.

Eudaimonia, from the Greek words eû (meaning good/well) and daímōn (meaning spirit/deity). Not being a word being commonly adopted into English use (like hedonia/hedonism), eudaimonia, literally translated as good spirit, is also commonly known as flourishing. Maslow’s growth needs (cognitive and aesthetic needs, self-actualization, and self-transcendence) feed into eudaimonia. In a state of eudaimonia, a person has meaning, long-term personal growth and moral excellence. A person satisfying Maslow’s growth needs is likely to be flourishing.

Hedonia is derived from the way that we feel, whereas eudaimonia is more derived from who we are when we are flourishing.

Both flavors, as their names indicate are concepts which have been around for millennia, being at least as old as the Greek philosophers Epicurious and Aristotle who discussed them in their work.

The study of wellbeing has not reached an agreement on how hedonia and eudaimonia work in providing us or depriving us of happiness. However psychologists do agree that both hedonia and eudaimonia are important components of the human condition that are required to promote wellbeing.

How do we incorporate money into the framework?

Money as a means, not an end.

“Money is the purest example of the tool... It is an institution in which the individual thing or enterprise completely loses its own significance and finds it only in the transition to something else.” Georg Simmel (The Philosophy of Money)

Ask someone what they would wish for if they encountered a genie who granted them one wish, and there is a reasonable chance that they would wish for riches, a billion dollars or a swimming pool filled with gold coins that they would jump into, in homage a well-known fictional miserly duck. Ask them why they would make such a wish, and they will tell you that their newfound wealth would help them realize what they actually desired. Perhaps it would buy them their dream house, allow them to quit their job, buy a luxury yacht, or simply buy them happiness.

What about in real life?

If you tell someone that you are going to give them $1,000,000 and ask what they would do with it, perhaps they will tell you that they would pay off the mortgage on their house, take a round-the-world cruise, give money to charity, give gifts to their family.

If you tell someone you are going to give them $10,000 and ask they would do with it,
perhaps they will tell you that they will pay off their auto-loan, put it towards their children’s college tuition fund, or take a dream holiday.

If you tell someone you are going to give them $100 and ask what they would do with it,
perhaps they will say they will spend it on a nice meal or place a bet on a horse.

We are all familiar with these questions (and answers), as we have all seen them being asked and answered. Among all quiz shows and gameshows, asking contestants what they will do with the money that they might win on the show is the most common question in history.

What is common among all these situations is that no matter how much money is being considered, we are not wishing for the money itself. We don’t say that we will just hold on to the money purely for our love of it. We all have a use for it, what we can buy with it, or what utility it can bring us. Even if we don’t have an immediate use for it, we would say that we are saving it, for a rainy day, for retirement, for our heirs to inherit.

Although some may say that they desire money for money’s sake, it is not borne out by general experience and academics have not proposed money to be a direct human need. Money is a means to an end. It is a tool that we use to satisfy our desires and our needs.

Therefore, we do not add money as a need within the hierarchy, however we might consider that financial safety be added as a safety need. Instead, we recognise that money can be used to purchase commodities which will help us in our pursuit to satisfy needs within hierarchy.

The hierarchy of money

The hierarchy of money comprises three rules about the hierarchy of needs, the types of happiness, and money’s influences on the two.

In deriving these rules, we make use of the following arguments related to the hierarchy of needs and the discussion about hedonia and eudaimonia and the role of money in satisfying our desires.

• In General, we will satisfy lower-level needs on the hierarchy (deficiency needs), before having the motivation to satisfy higher level needs (growth needs).

• Satisfying growth needs are linked to eudaimonia / flourishing.

• Hedonic experience not required / less likely to occur when engaged with satisfying growth needs.

• Hedonic experience can be integrated into / more likely to occur when engaged with satisfying deficiency needs.

• In a modern society, money is needed to satisfy lower-level needs and very likely to be able to buy commodities to satisfy deficiency needs.

• Money is less essential to satisfy higher-level needs and unlikely to be able to buy commodities to satisfy growth needs.

Rule 1. The hierarchy of needs reflects a spectrum of hedonic-eudaimonic experience

Rule 1 does not say that when satisfying low-level needs, hedonia is experienced as a consequence; or that when satisfying high-level needs, eudaimonia is experienced as a consequence. Rather we are saying that satisfying higher-level growth needs is indicative of someone experiencing eudaimonia.

At the other end of the spectrum, we are saying that, if a person is engaging in hedonia inducing activities (pleasurable ones), they are more likely to be activities that are satisfying deficiency needs. When we think of hedonia and pleasurable activities, we think of physical pleasures like eating good food, being safely tucked up under a warm blanket when it is cold outside, or having fun with friends and loved ones. These activities are not required to satisfy the relevant needs, but in general, we observe that hedonic, pleasurable activities are linked to the lower-level needs.

By contrast, when we are seeking eudaimonia, the types of activities we are engaged with are not necessarily pleasurable, but rather engaging or challenging. The flow-state that we reach when fully locked-in to a task is associated with neutral affect and is considered eudaimonia enhancing.

We suggest that there is a spectrum of hedonic-eudaimonic experience as scientists treat the two as compatible and interconnected. The fulfillment of eudaimonic functioning (like achieving a meaningful goal or personal growth) inherently feeds back into hedonic experiences (joy, positive affect, and life satisfaction). Conversely, hedonic replenishment (comfort, emotional stability) provides the psychological safety net and energy required to pursue eudaimonic challenges. Certain deficiency needs will be satisfied by engaging in actions that are eudaimonic. For example we might gain esteem from having mastered a craft or skill, but at the same time personal mastery is an indicator for eudaimonia. Relatedness is another eudaimonia indicator which, if achieved, would go towards satisfying the need for love and belonging.

Rule 2. Money has a stronger influence on satisfying lower-level needs than higher-level needs

Rule 2 says that money can buy you what you need to have a meal to eat, get a night’s sleep, have a warm and safe shelter. It is important in supporting efforts to maintain friendships and family relationships and raising a family. It is even likely to buy items; clothing, car, holidays which may support your esteem needs. However in satisfying growth needs, money is not an important contributory factor and is unlikely to influence efforts to find meaning and mastery which are elements that psychologists find necessary to achieve eudaimonia.

This relationship was commented on by C. McDermind, the first to publish a visualization of the hierarchy in a layered pyramid, in an article in Business Horizons journal in 1960. In his article, How Money Motivates Men, he writes:

“Obviously, the first meaning of money lies in its power to buy satisfaction of the basic physiological needs-food, clothing, and shelter…

…Next in the hierarchy of needs is the category termed safety, a major expression of which, in today’s culture, is the need for financial security. Here money represents insurance against physiological deprivation and against the financial hazards of poor health…

…Money can also facilitate satisfaction of the social needs, the third level in the hierarchy, but only indirectly. Thus one can purchase membership in a country club, but the actual exchange of friendship and love does not necessarily result…

…The situation is different in the ease of the esteem needs..

…What about self-realization at the peak on the need pyramid? Money is of little importance in gaining fulfillment at this level; it can do no more than remove obstacles to self-realization.”

Rule 3. Money has a decreasing influence along the spectrum of hedonic-eudaimonic experience

Rule 3 says that money is perfectly able to buy us the small pleasures in life, and the large ones too. However it has very little ability, if any, to directly buy us self-actualization, or meaning in our lives, or commodities which we will use to achieve a state of eudaimonia.

Rule 3 is implied by rules 1 and 2 and all three rules are implied by a combination of the other two. So I only need to convince you of any two, and the third follows!

So the upshot of these three rules is that we can consolidate our hierarchy of money framework into a single visual representation.

The hierarchy of money provides us with a single framework that integrates a need hierarchy (capturing both physical and psychological needs), the place of hedonic and eudaimonic experience and the influence of money.

If you are still with me, then well done. This post was intentionally long as this hierarchy of money concept is something that I feel is very useful to set out how we can think about the ‘balance of money and happiness,’ for the want of a better phrase, in a structured framework.

What this framework and the ideas that we have discussed above would say is: “Yes, money does buy happiness, but only if you are willing to be satisfied with hedonia centered happiness.” It’s commonly said that “money can’t buy you true happiness,” perhaps we can think of that as meaning that money can buy you all the pleasures that you could wish for, but it would not provide you with a fulfilled life of flourishing.

In the above case, we are considering that money is in limitless supply. In the real world, where many of us are struggling earn enough money to meet even our basic needs, how should we be allocating our scarce resources? Future posts will discuss topics like these. This hierarchy of money framework provides a scaffolding around our discussion.

Abraham Harold Maslow was an American psychologist who, in the mid twentieth century, developed a new way of thinking about what humans need to function well. This approach to psychological study, which had previously been focused on poor-functioning (when things go wrong), became known as Humanist Psychology. His famous conceptual contribution is his human motivation theory. He posed the questions: What makes us motivated as humans? What drives us in our actions to live, second-to-second, day-to-day, year-to-year in our lifetimes? His hierarchy of needs framework sets out the idea that we are motivated to satisfy different needs and, such needs sit within a loosely prioritized hierarchy. Self-actualization is his term for the highest-level need within the initial framing of the hierarchy. When the need for self-actualization is satisfied, as a human we have reached our full potential. In his words, to be self-actualized is to be all that one can be.

Say the words self-actualization to the average person on the street and a significant, non-zero, percentage of them will react. Something will trigger in the back of their mind about psychology, something about being perfect or ideal. I would expect that most of you who have actively clicked through to this post are already familiar with Maslow and his hierarchy of needs framework, your memory was more than just jogged by the accompanying pyramid diagram above that depicts the hierarchy. Psychologists, academically however, have moved on from Maslow. The modern study of wellbeing (often synonymous with happiness) has turned away from Maslow. The criticisms of Maslow’s ideas are primarily that self-actualization is not well defined or measurable, and empirically the priority of needs (the hierarchy) is not demonstrable. In this post, I would like to make the case for Maslow and his ideas, in the context of their importance in the current discourse of wellbeing and happiness.

Maslow’s work is foundational. He is seen as the father of humanist psychology and his work provides a link between philosophical discourse and modern psychology. Maslow appreciated (in discussion and interviews) that his framework and humanistic psychology was a work in progress and would need to be tested and developed by himself and others. He refined it over time and introduced additional levels beyond the original five, including cognitive needs, aesthetic needs and the need for self-transcendence. These additions broadened the scope of the hierarchy and made it more consistent with the full range of human motivation. They also bring Maslow closer to a much older tradition of thinking about human flourishing. The question of what it means to live well is not new. It has been central to philosophy for more than two thousand years, and in the Western tradition it is most closely associated with Aristotle. Maslow’s ideas offer a modern psychological vocabulary for the themes that Aristotle explored through ethics, virtue and the idea of eudaimonia.

Maslow’s framework is holistic. The reason why Maslow still matters is not only historical. The hierarchy is grounded on physiological needs, moves up through safety and psychological stability, top out in the higher needs associated with growth, meaning and purpose. Many modern wellbeing theories focus primarily on psychological factors. Maslow’s hierarchy spans the physical, psycho-physical, psychological, psycho-social and existential. It also feels intuitive. We recognize that basic needs must be met before higher aims can be pursued. We understand that growth requires stability, and that meaning becomes possible when life is not dominated by deprivation. The hierarchy mirrors the way people often describe their own lives.

Modern wellbeing research has moved in new directions. Frameworks such as Ryan and Deci’s Self Determination Theory and Ryff’s model of psychological wellbeing offer alternative ways of describing what humans need in order to function well. Positive psychology has introduced distinctions between hedonia and eudaimonia, between pleasure and purpose. Yet still, Maslow’s hierarchy remains relevant because it allows for integration of these themes into a single structure. It acknowledges that wellbeing involves both the reduction of deficiency and the pursuit of growth. It recognises that human motivation is layered, and that flourishing requires attention to the satisfaction of both basic conditions and higher aspirations.

Maslow’s framework is catchy. If you’ve learned about his hierarchy framework in a psych’ class in its pure format, or related subject study where the framework has been applied, then it tends to strike the imagination and is immediately memorable. A significant reason why the hierarchy is memorable is due to self-actualization. It has always been, and remains, somewhat of a mystical concept. What is self-actualization? How do you achieve it? Maslow was kind enough to generally describe it and to identify that Abraham Lincoln and Albert Eisnstein, among an exulted group, definitely had it. Put on pedestals as targets for personal growth, giving these two as self-actualized exemplars definitely added to the level of mysticism around self-actualization, but in a good way.

Maslow is the OG. Over the years his ideas have developed a cultural identity not least in part because of the way they were presented. ‘The pyramid’ was not Maslow’s invention. It was introduced in 1960 by Charles D McDermid in a business journal. The visual simplicity of the pyramid made the hierarchy easy to teach and easy to remember. It entered business schools, management training, marketing, education and healthcare. It became part of the vocabulary of leadership, motivation and personal development. Even today, the hierarchy appears in discussions of workplace culture, coaching, sports science and wellbeing. It has become a cultural reference point that extends far beyond academic psychology.

Maslow’s secret advantage is that his framework resonates with our lived experience. It feels right. It makes sense. It tells us that some needs are essential and urgent, while others might be aspirational and developmental. It acknowledges that the highest forms of human fulfilment are not easy to define or achieve, and not always possible to sustain. It reflects the reality that life involves different priorities and needs are not always met within the hierarchy. It also preserves a sense of mystery. Self-actualization is not prescriptive and invites personal interpretation. It encourages people to consider what it means to be fully themselves. That openness is part of its appeal.

The details of the hierarchy can be debated, and psychologists rightly point out its limitations. But the framework has remained relevant for more than seventy years because it captures something important about human life. It reads like a guide rather than a rule book. It helps us think about what we need in order to be well functioning, fulfilled and happy. It reminds us that flourishing is not only about feeling good but about living well. It is this combination of intuition, breadth and aspiration that explains why Maslow still matters, and why his ideas continue to shape the conversation about wellbeing today.

Maslow is still everywhere. I freely admit that my attention is heightened to any references that I might encounter, but I leave you with two examples of my recent experience.

1) In my social media feed, a GQ article popped up entitled “The best T-Shirts for men, Period” dated August 25, 2026. The tag line which was printed at the top of the post was “In menswear’s hierarchy of needs, the T-Shirt lies at the base of the pyramid.” The article, which I did not click through to, appeared to be a generic article about T-Shirts. Unsurprisingly, my immediate reaction was a double take. Was this an example of Meta stalking me with targeted posts? Then I wondered whether I was being AI spearfished. Could the tag line have been automatically generated by AI (monitoring my internet traffic) with the intention of catching my attention? But no, clicking through to the GQ post on its own profile page, I confirm the same tag line to be attached to the post for all readers, not just for me.

2) I am a fan of the HBO-BBC show, Industry, a financial thriller drama. It is an often decadent, sometimes debaucherous, exploration of the exploits of a pair of young fresh college graduates who we first see joining the London branch of a bulge bracket Wall Street bank. Now in its fourth season, we have followed the two heroines through countless trials and tribulations. They have been on journeys of discovery to find their fortunes and their place in a cutthroat world of financial markets, politics and corporate finance. Their paths have been on continuously intertwined, despite taking completely different directions after leaving their first banking jobs. Over time, they have been passionate friends and fierce adversaries in equal measure.

Aside from the compelling storylines, the show is a great watch for those who want to see a sensationalized and exaggerated view of the corporate finance industry. That said, at the end of the penultimate episode of this latest season our two heroines, Harper and Yasmin, meet after both narrowly avoiding personal and professional disaster by joining forces. They are sat in a quiet bar, ruminating on the ups and downs they have experienced in their lives and how well they have been able live up to life’s expectations.

Yasmin: I mean seriously, how the Fuck did we get here?

Harper: Fucked if I know.

Harper: What drives anyone anywhere?

Harper: Lack, and need…?

This extract of dialogue exchanged between the two characters doesn’t do the dramatization of the production any justice, and likely washed over most viewers, but to me they demonstrate that Maslow is not passe. He is very much of the present, front of mind of the young professionals sitting at that bar (and the young writers sitting behind them). Maslow matters.

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Rethinking Success in a Changing World

Welcome to Actualize This

In recent years, I have become preoccupied with a question about money that I couldn’t seem to answer.

The fact that I could not answer it made no sense to me. My background is in finance, and I spent much of my career working in banking and financial markets, helping clients think through important decisions and complicated problems. As a parent, I assumed that if there was one area of life where I ought to have something useful to teach my children, it would be money.

But when I started asking the question what I wanted them to understand about money, how they should build their own relationship with money, I ran into an unexpected problem. The more I reflected on the subject, the less convinced I became myself that money was really the thing I was trying to understand.

Of course, money matters. It affects where we live, what opportunities are available to us, how secure we feel, and many of the choices we can make throughout our lives. Yet when I looked back on my own life, and when I looked around at the lives of others, I noticed something that didn’t quite fit with the conventional wisdom.

Some people seemed to have very little money and yet lived deeply satisfying lives.

Others appeared to have achieved financial success and still felt uncertain, unfulfilled, or money became the cause of their downfall.

That observation sent me down a path of personal discovery that I had not anticipated.

What began as a question about personal finance gradually expanded into an exploration of happiness, well-being, purpose, human flourishing, and ultimately the question of what it means to live a successful life. Over the last few years, that journey led me through psychology, philosophy, behavioral science, well-being research. I’ve been down more rabbit holes that I care to remember and have dived headfirst into a multitude of books and academic papers. The journey and what I learned along the way eventually gave me the foundation of a book project that I am currently working on.

This publication is a place to share that journey, explore those ideas, and continue searching for better answers.

The Question That Started It All

Many of us inherited a relatively clear blueprint for life.

Study hard.

Get a good job.

Build a career.

Buy a home.

Raise a family.

Save for retirement.

If we followed the plan and worked hard at our daily grind, prosperity, happiness, and life satisfaction were supposed to follow.

For a long time, that blueprint worked reasonably well for the many.

Today, however, things feel rather different.

Housing has become less affordable. Careers paths less predictable. Student debt burdens are larger. Retirement feels less certain and even for some an attainable goal. Family and relationship structures are changing. Many of us feel anxious not only about our financial futures, but also about what we should be aiming for in our lives.

At the same time, people who are financially comfortable are questioning whether the old blueprint is delivering the life satisfaction they expected. Others are struggling simply to stay afloat and wondering whether they will ever get the opportunity to build the life they want.

These groups may seem quite different, but they often end up facing the same questions.

What does success in life actually mean?

• What should I prioritize?

• What makes a life satisfying?

• How important is money?

• And if money is important, where does it fit among everything else that matters?

These are the questions that inspired Actualize This!.

Redefining the Blueprint

At its heart, this publication explores a simple question:

How do we make the most of our lives in a world where the old definitions of success no longer feel relevant?

To investigate that question, we’ll draw on ideas from:

• Psychology

• Philosophy

• Behavioral science

• Well-being research

• Personal finance

• Economics

• History

• Personal experience

As the name implies, this publication has been inspired by Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, ideas about human flourishing stretching back to Aristotle, and modern psychological research into well-being. Together, they offer fascinating perspectives on what makes a life go well and where money fits into the picture.

One of the ideas I keep returning to is that we struggle to identify how to separate money from happiness.

Money clearly matters. A lack of economic resources can create stress, insecurity, discomfort, and genuine hardship. Financial stability improves our lives in profound ways. But the more I explored ideas surrounding well-being, the more convinced I became that money plays different roles in different aspects of a good life.

Money can certainly buy comfort.

Money can buy experiences.

Money can buy convenience.

Money can often buy pleasure.

What it cannot reliably buy is a flourishing life.

The distinction between those two ideas is one of the central themes that I hope to explore here.

Who This Conversation Is For

This publication is for anyone trying to make sense of how to live well.

Some readers may be financially comfortable and wondering why success feels less satisfying than they expected.

Others may be dealing with rising living costs, career uncertainty, debt, family pressures, or simply trying to get ahead.

Some may be at the beginning of their careers.

Others may be considering a career change, preparing for retirement, raising children, or rebuilding after a setback.

The common thread is curiosity, not wealth, age, profession, or circumstance.

A curiosity to consider more deeply questions such as:

• What is a good life?

• How should we define success?

• What should we optimize for?

• How should we think about money?

• What role do relationships, learning, health, purpose, and meaning play?

• What investments in ourselves are likely to pay the greatest dividends over a lifetime?

I am particularly interested explore the idea that flourishing is not only available to those who are financially stable.

The ability to learn, develop skills, cultivate relationships, pursue meaningful goals, help others, exercise creativity, and grow as a person is not reserved for those at the top of the wealth distribution.

Economic resources matter, but human flourishing appears to have deeper foundations than wealth alone.

That is a hopeful idea. It suggests that while financial success can enhance our lives, it does not monopolize the paths to living well.

What You’ll Find Here

Initially, I’ll be publishing essays that explore ideas from the book and the research behind it.

Topics will include:

• Money and happiness

• The psychology of well-being

• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

• Flourishing and eudaimonia

• Work, purpose, and meaning

• Career decisions and life transitions

• Raising children and developing life skills

• Personal finance and life satisfaction

• Practical ways to think about better life decisions

My aim is to publish one or two posts each week.

Free subscribers will receive:

• Regular posts

• Book development updates

• Selected excerpts from the manuscript

• Reflections on new research and ideas

I don’t have a plan to produce future paid subscriber benefits, but it that turns out to be the case then you can expect:

• Early access to book chapters

• Extended essays and research notes

• Subscriber discussions and Q&A sessions

So, if you have got this far into the post, please subscribe!

A Different Kind of Investment

We spend a large amount of our lives thinking about money.

We worry about earning it, saving it, investing it, passing it down to our heirs, and making sure we have enough of it. Those concerns are entirely rational. Money affects almost every aspect of our lives.

Yet there is another question that receives far less attention.

Once our basic needs are reasonably met, what should we do with the lives that money helps us create?

That question ultimately led me away from a narrow interest in money and towards psychology, philosophy, well-being, and the study of what it means to flourish as a human being.

It also led me to start writing a book.

And now it has led me here.

I hope you’ll join me as we explore the question together.

Welcome to Actualize This!