Live Ready Introduces Maslow's Missing Rung Model for Personal Security

Live Ready, a personal security training firm founded by Sam Rosenberg, has introduced a new model that addresses a gap in the hierarchy of needs proposed by psychologist Abraham Maslow in 1943. The model, called Maslow's Missing Rung, highlights a safety need that successful business owners and executives often overlook despite meeting other levels of Maslow's hierarchy.

Rosenberg, a former bodyguard who has worked with high-profile clients such as Warren Buffett and Tom Cruise, explains that many of his clients, despite living in safe neighborhoods and having strong relationships, still seek personal security training. Rosenberg believes that this gap in self-protection skills can be likened to a missing rung on the ladder of human needs.

According to Rosenberg, the missing rung is particularly significant for leaders. He argues that a leader who has never prepared to handle a true emergency carries that uncertainty into every other crisis.

Rosenberg's model draws on the hierarchy of needs that Maslow published in 1943, which ranks human needs from food and shelter up through safety, belonging and esteem to self-actualization. Rosenberg notes that many of the most successful people he has worked with appear to have met nearly every level of the hierarchy. However, they still seek out training because they worry that everything they have built could be taken from them. Rosenberg believes that the missing rung is a safety need that wealth and outside protection do not fully meet.

The model also helps explain why many adults, particularly men, are enrolling in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and other hands-on training. Rosenberg argues that the soft skills of reading people and situations matter more than physical technique. He notes that many problems begin when someone misreads a person, misreads a situation, or mismanages it.

Live Ready, founded by Rosenberg in 2003 after entering close protection in 1996, provides preparedness, protective intelligence, and threat assessment services for individuals, families, and organizations. Through online courses, private instruction, executive retreats, and corporate workshops, the firm teaches business owners, executives, and parents how to recognize danger, avoid it, and make sound decisions under pressure. Live Ready works with clients across North America, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies.

The firm's executive programs cover personal, family, home, and travel security, as well as workplace safety training for organizations. Rosenberg recommends a set sequence for closing Maslow's Missing Rung. Students start with his book, move to online training that reinforces it, and then pursue hands-on instruction with his team or another qualified instructor, a progression he says helps them separate effective training from programs that create false confidence.

Live Ready's mission is to help individuals and organizations prepare for and manage crises, ensuring that they can handle themselves in any situation.