Maslow is the Modern West-World's dellusion

Deon Newbronner
Jun 05, 2025By Deon Newbronner

Rethinking Maslow’s hierarchy in a financially secure western world

There’s a moment I’ve never forgotten. 

I was 14. School uniform still on, I came home, let myself in, opened the fridge, and stared at a packet of cardboard-tasting mini pizzas and a carton of powdered milk. That was it.

My mum worked every hour god sent, to keep things afloat for me and my brother. 

And I swore to myself that day: 

One day I’ll have enough. 

One day I’ll have choice. 

One day I’ll have freedom. 

One day my fridge would alway be stocked.

That moment shaped everything that came next. My drive, my ambition, my obsession with building something that gave me and those around me options. 

Now, decades later, I find myself working with founders, executives, and investors who have made it. Who have the safety. Who have the choice. 

But when I ask about freedom? There’s often a long pause.

Maslow needs an update

One of the models most of us learned growing up was Maslow’s hierarchy; which tells us we start with survival, then move up through connection, esteem, and finally self-actualisation. 

But here’s the problem: It doesn’t reflect how safety shows up today. 

In Maslow’s time, safety meant food, shelter, physical protection. Today, for most of the senior leaders I work with, safety is financial. 

Not wealth. 

Safety. 

The feeling that you’re covered. 

That your options aren’t limited by fear. That you’re free to make meaningful choices. 

Which is why I believe we need to modernise the model. And reframe the path to success.

Money = Safety → Choice → Freedom → Self-Actualisation

In the modern Western world, money has become the first layer of the hierarchy. Not because of greed or ego (albeit this is prevelant in some situations), but because of what it makes possible. 

Here’s how I see it: Money = Safety. 

It provides the psychological baseline. The ability to breathe, to rest, to stop operating from fear. Without that, even the best opportunities feel like risks.

Safety creates Choice. 

When you're no longer trapped in survival mode, you start to see options. You can choose where to go, how to respond, when to say yes. And, more importantly, when to say no.

Choice makes Freedom possible. Not theoretical freedom. Real, lived freedom. 

The freedom to take space. To make things. To stop. To build. To shape your time, your voice, your impact.

And Freedom unlocks Self-Actualisation. 

Because once you have freedom, you're no longer reacting. You're deciding. You’re able to ask the harder questions: 

What matters? 

What legacy am I building? 

What kind of leader or human do I want to be? 

This isn’t about glorifying money. It’s about understanding its role in our psychological infrastructure. 

It’s not the goal. It’s the ground.

Why this matters

Many of the people I coach have already passed the safety line. They’ve built successful careers, run companies, landed exits, earned more than they once thought possible. 

They’re not scrambling anymore. At least not financially. 

But here’s the paradox: They still don’t feel free. 

Because somewhere along the way, they got stuck in the pursuit long after the fear was gone. They’re still grinding, still over-optimising, still chasing something. Even if they can’t quite name what. 

And often, what they’ve lost isn’t strategy. It’s perspective. 

You can have the safety. You can have the choice. 

But if you never pause long enough to recognise that, or act on it, you stay in a loop designed for a past version of yourself. A version that had to keep going. A version that couldn’t afford to stop. 

A version that opened a fridge and swore: never again. 

But you’re not that version anymore.

What are you holding onto?

So here’s the question I often ask senior leaders: If you’re no longer at risk, why are you still operating like you are? 

What story about success are you still playing out?

Maybe it’s the need to prove something. 

Maybe it’s guilt around wanting space.

Maybe it’s habit. An operating system you never paused long enough to update. 

Whatever the reason, the pattern is the same: People keep pushing toward outcomes they don’t actually need. 

Why? Because they’ve forgotten what the outcomes were meant to unlock in the first place. Not status. Not applause. Not more hours on the calendar. 

But space. 

Agency. 

Freedom.

It was never about the fridge

When I opened that fridge as a teenager and saw that packet of mini pizzas and powdered milk, I made myself a promise: I’ll build something different. I’ll create freedom. 

And I have. But I’ve also learned this: The fear that shaped us will keep running the show if we don’t stop and name it. 

If we don’t pause and notice that we’re no longer in that moment. That we made it through. We stay stuck in survival long after we’re safe. 

So I’m asking you: Where are you still chasing safety you already have? 

And what might become possible if you started choosing freedom instead? 

Money = Safety. Safety = Choice. Choice = Freedom. 

Freedom = Self-Actualisation. 

It’s not about earning more. It’s about remembering what you earned it for.