SAL Book: Self-Action Leadership Model Step 1 is Self-Education

Self-Action Leadership Model 

Stage 1: Pre-Construction  ~  Planning & Preparation

STEP 1: SELF-EDUCATION

In today's post, we begin the process of taking readers through the first Stage of the Self-Action Leadership Model (pre-construction).  Stage one of the SAL Model involves seven steps, all of which are metaphorical analogues to the first seven stages of building a skyscraper.  

“Formal education makes you a living; self-education makes you a legend.”

– Habeeb Akande

Just as a building company must have the necessary information, knowledge, and skills to properly build a skyscraper, education is a key component for effective life construction. This process of education is called self-education, because you are responsible for its attainment.

Successful self-action leaders don’t wait for the right teacher to come and teach them; they proactively seek out knowledge on their own, sometimes going to great lengths to find it.
 

One of the best self-educators in history was Abraham Lincoln. Born and raised in humble circumstances in the dense, rural backwoods of Kentucky and Indiana, Lincoln was not blessed with a quality formal education, so he created his own. He was known to travel many miles on foot to borrow a single book to read. Hungry for knowledge, young Abraham devoured all the knowledge he could possibly access. This homespun prairie lawyer and politician eventually educated himself right up into the highest echelon of public office.

Two other prominent examples of proactive self-education from the nineteenth century include Sequoyah, a Cherokee Indian responsible for creating a written alphabet for his people, and Frederick Douglass, who was a leading voice in the nineteenth century abolitionist movement, and the first Black man to be invited as a guest to the White House by a sitting U.S. President. I highly encourage studying the lives of these three remarkable men. I would start by reading Frederick Douglass’s famous personal narrative and then shopping around for credible biographies of Abraham Lincoln and Sequoyah.

Proactive self-action leaders spend a good portion of their time reading, writing, studying, listening to, and viewing, educational media. They ask questions, carefully observe their surroundings, and seek out information in whatever ways they can. In my case, there is no way to calculate the value of self-education in my life and career, but it has been an indispensable variable thereto, and has shaped every major success I’ve ever achieved.

Because you are responsible for the quality of your education, where you learn is secondary to what, why, and how well you learn. Whether you have opportunities to attend a top-rated university, a community college, or no college at all, you can choose to take responsibility for your own learning. With the presence of public libraries and the Internet, there is no need to make excuses about your lack of educational opportunities. No matter how hard it is for you to acquire knowledge in your current circumstances, chances are you still have far more access to information of all kinds than Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, or Sequoyah. As such, there is no need to make excuses about your lack of opportunities.

LEARNING TO LEARN

There are several different components of self-learning that you must focus on; education goes beyond the mere mental storage of facts. Understanding how you learn best (e.g., visual, auditory, kinesthetic), [1] where to go for information, how to access it, and the importance of your attitude, work ethic, discipline, and commitment are key components of acquiring an outstanding education.

REPETITION AND ROTE-LEARNING

When I was young, someone taught me the great truism that, “repetition is the key to reception.” If you want to commit anything to your long-term memory, you must utilize rote learning. Like it or not, memorization is an important part of a good education, and despite how postmodern educators may try and spin it, there is a lot of material that must be deeply internalized through repetition and memorization in order to become a skilled critical thinker who is also culturally literate. For example, you may need to look up certain words in the dictionary several times before you truly own it in your long-term vocabulary. Moreover, even the presence of high-powered calculators on your phone can’t replace the value of knowing your multiplication table backwards and front. I am also a big believer that some books are worth reading more than once. I’ve read one book nearly 23 times cover-to-cover in my life, and I’m a smarter, wiser, and better person for having done so.

The purposeful memorization of important facts, quotes, and poems empowers you to draw strength and inspiration from others. It also strengthens your memory muscles and bolsters your credibility in situations where you must demonstrate your knowledge to, or teach, others.

Repetition and rote learning is a vital component of a quality education. Engaging these practices require discipline and hard work. As such, it is often what separates top tier learners and performers from average ones.

A PHONE CALL FROM DR. STEPHEN R. COVEY

On Christmas Eve, 2003, I received one of the most memorable phone calls of my life. The call was from Dr. Stephen R. Covey. He had kindly carved out a few minutes from his busy schedule in response to a letter I had sent him earlier that year. On that phone call, which lasted about 15 minutes, Dr. Covey encouraged me to read for at least two hours every day. He also encouraged me to read deeply and widely, including outside of my own interests. While I can’t claim to have read for two hours every day of my life, I have read a lot. Doing so has gotten me to where I am today. I am a rich man because of the treasures I have mined from books and stored in my mind and heart. Reading will always play a role in my ongoing self-education and personal training and development as a self-action leader.

Ongoing self-and other training refers to education beyond the classroom. Examples include online courses, live classes, workshops, mentorships, personal reading, research, educational media, thinking/pondering, making observations, asking questions, and traveling. Self-education and other trainings are not one-time pursuits; they are habits to cultivate throughout your life. Based on my own experience, I highly recommend Dr. Covey’s advice. If you can’t squeeze in two hours of reading a day, commit to one hour. If you can’t squeeze in one hour, commit to half-an-hour. In this day and age, so much knowledge is available to all of us through the miracles of public libraries and the Internet. Don’t be lazy. Don’t let these precious resources go unused.


[1] Visit www.howtolearn.com to take a FREE Learning Style Survey and discover what your primary learning style is (visual, auditory, or kinesthetic).

SAL Book: Structural Change vs. Individual Change

A thousand years from now, when historians and philosophers speak of the early twenty-first century in America, it is possible that the primary discussion will not will be about the brutal ideological battles that took place between liberals, conservatives, and moderates; nor will they be heralding the epic political struggles between democrats, republicans, and libertarians.


No. The real struggle of our age is not ultimately a political or ideological struggle; it is rather a tale of misplaced priorities—all of which are undergirded by the dreadfully mistaken notion that there really isn’t any real right or wrong outside of the mercurially unsteady inclinations of the individual.

While there are THREE basic kinds of people in our nation today, it is erroneous to merely categorize the three groups under simple monikers wrought from ponds of political parlance or the inclinations of ideological idiom. Rather, the three categories can be labeled thus:

1. Those who believe real, lasting societal change begins with purifying the minds and hearts of individuals.
2. Those who believe real, lasting societal change begins with purifying structures, systems, and organizations.
3. Those who are fundamentally selfish and therefore don’t care about anything that doesn’t directly impact themselves.

Those in the first group believe that a structure, system, or organization is nothing more than a synergized conglomeration of the individuals that make it up. Therefore, if you purify bad individuals (or purge them from the group) the group itself can begin to heal by virtue of good leadership, morally or otherwise.  The goal of this group is to change individuals, who are then empowered to bring about real and lasting changes in structures, systems, and organizations.  Their view is that if you change the individual, you empower change within the structures.

Those in the second group believe that the structure, system, or organization itself is where the real problem lies, and that if you could only get the larger entity right, then individual purification would naturally follow.  The goal of group two is to perfect systems, which, they believe, will then open up opportunities for individuals to purify themselves.  Their view is that if you change the systems, you empower the individual to change.  

Those residing in the third group don’t really believe in anything except that they themselves are more important than others, and that their desires and inclinations ought to be satiated at any cost. The good news is that in civilized societies, such parasites are usually in the minority. The bad news is that they are always a menacing nuisance to larger groups of which they are part. They produce untold sorrow in the hearts and minds of virtually everyone whose paths they cross. The worse news is that their numbers have been gradually multiplying throughout America since the end of World War II—when America reached its apex of selflessness at the conclusion of an epic war where Americans quite literally rescued the rest of the world from the throes of evil.

There are good people to be found in groups one and two, but only group one possesses the correct mindset for bringing about real, lasting change.  This is because structures, systems, and organizations are made up of individuals, not the other way around.  Macro systemic change without is therefore an outgrowth of micro individual changes within.  You cannot create real or lasting change within a macro system without first reforming its micro constituents--it's impossible; anyone who says otherwise is simply parroting the ideological, and I might add--quite popular--but ultimately erroneous rhetoric of group two.  This rhetoric is popular because it is easier.  Yes, it is much easier to look for and try to solve problems that are "out there" than it is to look for problems inside your own self, family, community, group, culture, etc.  

Despite the self-evident truism that individual change must precede lasting structural change, group two has grown to become both multitudinous and powerful throughout the United States in recent generations. In defense of group two, it is true that many of their leaders and acolytes are decent people who make legitimate points about changes that do indeed need to be made in structures, systems and organizations--most of which are rooted in regrettable past grievances.

The fundamental problem of our age, however, is that such a large sector of society really does believe the untenable myth that structural change prefaces individual change, which, in actuality, is a mathematical and scientific impossibility. You cannot change a structure or system without changing the individuals who make them up; nor can you cleanse a toxic environment without removing the poison that polluted it in the first place.  A box of apples that has begun to rot is not fixed by replacing the box; it is remedied by extricating the bad apples and replacing them with good ones.  It also involves washing off the residue of rot that has begun to rub off onto what good ones remain.

Over two thousand years ago, a man who claimed to be divine, and who dedicated His life to personal sanctification and purification—and then to teaching others to follow His example—both warned of and condemned those whom he called out as, “whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.” [1]

I am no divine teacher. I am, however, a teacher. I therefore raise my voice in warning about the dangers of putting the proverbial "cart before the horse" by attempting to sanctify structures without first focusing on purifying—and when necessary purging an organization of—those individuals that form the base ingredient of all false, foul, and fiendish structures presently polluting our nation’s organizational systems, both public and private.

Iwo Jima monument

If America is to regain the national unity, honor, and influence it once held after leading the liberation of an entire Planet from a devil incarnate 70 years ago, the time has come to stop spending so much time complaining and crying about the filth of the outer vessel and begin directing our attention inwardly toward the errors engrossed in our own minds, hearts, attitudes, and behaviors.  It is the only pathway that will return us to greatness.

I do not disagree with nor disparage the good intentions of those seeking to change structures and systems when real problems persist therein.  Many structures and systems are flawed, and need to be revisited, revitalized, and reformed. I simply make an earnest appeal to common sense and natural law, which has, does, and always will demand individual change as the prefacing price of real and lasting organizational purification and change.  After all, won't we as change agents be able to better see what actually needs to change systemically once we are more structurally sound ourselves?  I would argue YES!

Let us therefore stop blaming structures, others, and the past for our problems—both individually and collectively. Let us begin instead to seize upon the power of the present and look deeply within ourselves to see where inner purification is needed. Again, in the words of the master teacher, who upbraided the "whited sepulchres" (who sought to stone the adulteress) with the most poignant of all possible rebukes: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”[2]

Personal Change is often both difficult & painful

The process of personal purification can prove ponderously and perplexingly painful and problematic—and that is why we are all apt to avoid it so vociferously. It is so much easier to find something wrong with someone or something else than it is to humbly confess, "Yep, I'm part of the problem too."  An even more difficult admission is: "It's my responsibility to change." There are many highly intelligent people throughout our nation who have dedicated decorated careers to pointing out, calling out, and openly condemning the sins of others while completely ignoring their own.

Just the other evening I saw a famed professor from an even more famous University make this very mistake while speaking with the host of a well-known op-ed news program. The host was arguing for changing individuals and families while the professor countered with, “No, structures must be changed first.” With all due respect to the very smart professor; he is dead wrong, and the cultural malaise he seeks to remedy will only get worse until intelligent professors and leaders all over the nation STOP putting the cart before the horse and START teaching their folds that real change always, Always, ALWAYS begins within—not without.
 

I love my country. I am concerned about her present and future. After nearly three decades of careful research, observation, and experience, I have come to know both intellectually and viscerally that the best way to make America great again is to change myself—and then teach and influence others to do the same. We will never change systems and structures—must less societies and cultures—until we first change ourselves and shepherd our various flocks to do the same. 

Jordan R. Jensen, Ed.D.

I have dedicated my life and career to changing myself—and then teaching others to do likewise. If you’d like more information on how you can start this journey of self-change -- and of influencing those you lead to follow your example -- and thereby begin the difficult, but oh-so-rewarding process of bringing about real self-change that can, in-turn, improve your family, community, state, nation, and world by a factor of the only being you can actually control—YOURSELF—I invite you to subscribe to this blog and visit our website at...  www.freedomfocused.com 

Click HERE to read about Dr. Jordan Jensen's scholarly work, as well as his OWN painful journey toward self-purification and individual change, click HERE.    

[1] Matthew 23:27 (New Testament)
[2] John 8:7 (New Testament)

SAL Book: The Model - A Construction Metaphor

I have always been fascinated by construction. When I was growing up, my Dad was, among many other things, a general contractor. From ages three to seven, I was the ultimate “Daddy’s Boy,” and eagerly followed Dad around wherever he went, especially when our excursions involved trucks, heavy equipment, power tools, lumber, and concrete or mortar. My interest in construction principles and processes remains alive and well to this day.

 

Beautiful Houston, TX skyline

I have also always been enamored with skyscrapers and big-city skylines. Growing up in a rural community in the middle of the sparsely inhabited mountainous deserts of the Four Corners area of the United States, skyscrapers were nowhere to be found (unless you consider mammoth rock formations to be skyscrapers). Perhaps this geographic isolation fueled my fervor to eventually visit these elusive cityscapes—an ambition I have vigorously pursued.

Over the years, I have had the extraordinary opportunity to visit nearly every major metropolitan area in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. From the matchless dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London to the cavernous crevices of Lower and Midtown Manhattan; from the unique urban spreads of Chicago and Toronto to the endless beach towers of Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties; from the spectacular Southern skylines of Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston, to the breathtaking West Coast construction of L.A., San Francisco, Seattle, and Vancouver, I have been continually entranced with and inspired by these magnificent urban centers. I have also been privileged to speak and teach in many of these cities, including inside some of their skyscrapers. Along my many journeys all over the English-speaking world, I have marveled at the architectural achievements of the Occident, and the ambition, courage, innovation, prosperity, and greatness they represent.

Bank of
America Plaza
Atlanta, GA

This lifelong interest in construction and skyscrapers led me to design the SAL model using a skyscraper construction metaphor. While I admire many of the buildings I have had the chance to see or visit, my all-time favorite is the Bank of America tower in downtown Atlanta, Georgia. I therefore asked my graphic artist to design the SAL Model’s image to resemble this paragon of Peachtree Street.

Just as there are certain laws, principles, and practices of engineering and architecture that apply to the sound construction of physical structures, there are likewise certain Universal Laws, True Principles, and sound practices that govern successful long-term living.

Over 100 years ago, the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow taught us that we are “all are architects of Fate.” Self-Action Leadership provides you with the incredible opportunity to both design and construct your own life. What could be more exciting and engaging than developing and directing your own destiny?

SELF-ACTION RESEARCH

The purpose of the SAL Model is to organize disciplines and create habits that empower the successful undertaking of Self-Action Research, or SAR. Self-Action Research is, simply stated, action research applied to the self. Action Research (AR) is a four-step cyclical process of successfully identifying and strategically solving organizational problems. AR involves “four core processes.” [1]

Process 1: Planning:  Deciding how to deal with a problem

Process 2: Acting:  Implementing your plan

Process 3: Reflecting: Paying attention and recording what is happening

Process 4: Observing: Analyzing outcomes and revising plans for another cycle of acting [2]

Self-Action Research, therefore, is action research applied by, to, and for the self to gain self-awareness, aid self-improvement, solve personal problems, and earn Existential Growth.

The purpose of Self-Action Research is to strategically apply SAL principles in an effort to achieve specific, targeted objectives related to your own personal development. In this sense, life itself is, or ought to be, one, grand SAR project filled with many smaller SAR initiatives aimed at earning Existential Growth. [3]

The SAL Model incorporates the “four core processes” of action research by providing four analogous steps to take, or habits to develop, to earn Existential Growth. In addition to these four umbrella stages or habits, 21 sub-steps are also presented.

Image of the four stages of construction (and their 21 sub-steps) and the four processes of SAL (and their 21 sub-disciplines) can be viewed below, respectively.

 

The 4 Stages of Constructing a Skyscraper

[1] Kuhne, G. W., & Quigley, B. A. (1997). Understanding and Using Action Research in Practice Settings. In A. B. Quigley & G. W. Kuhne (Eds.), Creating Practical Knowledge Through Action Research: Posing problems, Solving Problems, and Improving Daily Practice (Vol. 73, pp. 23-40). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Page 25.
[2] Ibid.
[3] An outstanding example of a venerable self-action leader who dedicated his life to Self-Action Research is Mohandas Gandhi. He wrote about his many SAR projects, or his “Experiments with Truth,” in an autobiography—a book I highly recommend to all self-action leaders.

SAL Book: How I Came to Develop Self-Action Leadership

The Seeds of Self-Help

This chapter tells the story of my background with self-help literature and chronicles the journey that led to the development of the SAL Theory & Model.

Hyrum W. Smith,  FranklinCovey Co-founder

In 1994, Warner Books published my Uncle Hyrum’s, The 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management, which eventually sold over a million copies. The summer of that year, I worked on Hyrum’s ranch in Southwestern Utah. I was 14 years old.


The work of a ranch hand was tedious, dusty, and physically strenuous. Summer days were dry and hot, with temperatures often exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit. For most of us, our daily commute included a ride in the back of an old, white Ford pickup truck. One week, we were scheduled to build a fence up in the mountains many miles away from our bunkhouse. Facing a long, bumpy road ahead of me on the way to work each day for a week or so, I decided to take a book along to read. The books title was, The Magic of Thinking Big, by David J. Schwartz, Ph.D.

Once I started reading, it was hard to stop, and not just because I enjoyed reading more than digging post holes in the desert. I enjoyed the book so much that I would sometimes read at lunchtime, and after work was over. I kept reading until I had read, marked, and annotated the entire book. The words of Schwartz’s message sunk deep into my mind and heart, spawning rich daydreams about my potential. I was motivated by the fact that I didn’t have to be a ranch hand for the rest of my life. I was further inspired by the idea that I could ultimately design my life largely according to my own desires if I was willing to pay the price over time. When I read the words, “When you believe, your mind finds ways to do,” [1] I was inspired by the personal power and capacity I possessed to accomplish difficult tasks and achieve meaningful accomplishments.
 

At this point in my life, I already had a nascent conceptualization of SAL, and took interest in other self-help books and audio and visual programs. This material included Tony Robbins’ Unlimited Power, and his world-famous audiocassettes, Personal Power. [2] There was also Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking for Young People. And I’ll always cherish reading my Dad’s personal copy of Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. He had purchased his copy in the mid-1960s as a young missionary in England, and it had that wonderful “old book” smell. At this time, I was also introduced to material from Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy, and others.

When I was in eighth grade, my mom started collecting Gary Smalley’s relationship videos. [3] Though it would be years before I would start looking seriously at exclusive dating or marriage, I enjoyed watching these programs with my Mom, and learned a great deal about personality differences and successfully cultivating intimate relationships.

My oldest brother Paul—a successful salesman—shared my passion for personal development material and sent me a videotape of the famous business philosopher, Jim Rohn. Later, as a direct salesman, I was re-introduced to Rohn. While I ultimately failed as a direct salesman and network marketer, his address on Building Your Network Marketing Company has enormously influenced my thought processes about the price of success generally speaking.

In high school, I also attended a couple of Peter Lowe’s day-long-success seminars where I had the chance to hear high profile speakers such as President Gerald Ford, General Colin Powell, Zig Ziglar, Karl Malone, and others speak and teach on subjects related to personal development, self-improvement, and success. Shortly after graduating from high school, I also read my uncle’s book, The 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management. Through this extended process of association, the seeds of SAL were deeply implanted in my mind, heart, and soul.

“Sow a thought, reap an action; Sow an action, reap a habit;

Sow a habit, reap a character; Sow a character, reap a destiny.”

– William James (1842-1910)

 

My son, Tucker, with my 7 Habits book

Later on in college, I voraciously consumed Stephen R. Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, which planted powerful seeds of knowledge in my mind that produced deep desires to begin constructing my own model of self-leadership. I also diligently practiced and completed Og Mandino’s 45-week challenge outlined in his book, The Greatest Secret in the World. Over a long period of time, I gradually developed and refined my own thoughts on self-leadership that would eventually evolve into the SAL Theory and Model.

At age 25, I began harvesting my ideas on the subject; the construction of the SAL Theory and Model had begun. At age 26, I published my first book, I Am Sovereign: The Power of Personal Leadership, a self-leadership guide for teenagers, which contained my first version of the SAL Model. I developed the SAL Theory later on as a part of my doctoral research. This book is several iterations removed from this original work. It has been an exhilarating journey to observe its gradual evolution into the book you now hold in your hands.

Notes:

[1] Schwartz, D. J. (1995). The Magic of Thinking Big. London, UK: Pocket Books. Page 122.
[2] Years later when I moved to Georgia for the first time, I went through many of Robbins’ Unlimited Power II tapes.
[3] These programs focused on family relationships, especially between husband and wife.

Two New Publications Now Available for FREE Download

I am pleased to announce the availability of two new publications, both of which are now available as FREE downloadable PDF's at our website.

The first publication is a scholarly journal article introducing the Self-Action Leadership Theory.  It was recently published in the Journal of Leadership & Management.  This article was co-authored by Dr. Christopher P. Neck, University Master Teacher at Arizona State University and Dr. Rodney J. Beaulieu, Assistant Professor at California State University San Marcos.

Click HERE to access the Freedom Focused website and download the article (SAL Theory Publication).

The second publication contains three chapters from Part 2 of my upcoming book ~ Self-Action Leadership: The Key to Personal & Professional Freedom ~ which will be available at Amazon.com in coming months.

These three chapters highlight my own Self-Action Leadership journey whereby I was able to successfully apply SAL principles to overcome serious challenges I faced involving mental illness, romantic relationships, and failures in my early professional work.  This personal narrative contains the following three chapters:

Chapter 1: OCD is Hell

Chapter 2: My Rocky Road of Romance

Chapter 3: Career Crucibles

Click HERE to access the Freedom Focused website and download my personal narrative.  The link to the PDF download is entitled "Jordan's Self-Leadership Journey," and can be accessed by scrolling slightly down the page under the section "Jordan Jensen, Ed.D., CEO & Founder."

I wrote and included these chapters in my new book not only to demonstrate the power that Self-Action Leadership can have in a person's life, but also because I desire to provide help and hope to others who may deal with similar struggles.  As such, feel free to share this narrative with family, friends, or others you believe may benefit.

SAL Book: The Builders

The Self-Action Leadership Model

Dedicated to:
The builders … past, present, and future

Chapter 1: The Builders

Skyscraper construction site

I have always admired builders. My Dad was a builder. One of his and my favorite hobbies was to visit a new earthen dam that was being constructed, drive up as close to the action as possible, and just sit back and watch the builders do their wonderful work.

To this day, one of my hobbies is to visit construction sites and watch skilled experts busy at work building homes, buildings, bridges, and skyscrapers. I especially admire master masons and watch in awe as they mix and then maneuver mortar to their precise bidding in the beautiful outlay of brick or stone. To me, one of the most glorious things in the world is to watch someone who is really skilled build something that is both useful and attractive. 

Fortunately, I live in the greater Houston, Texas area—one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the United States—where there is no shortage of building projects to observe. And while it may seem strange to some to see a Doctor of Education and learned man of letters standing alongside a work site paying rapt attention to, and deeply venerating the skilled artistry of, an uneducated immigrant at his work, such is my wonder and regard for Existential Equality and skilled labor wherever I find it—and no matter how lowly such labor may be in the narrow eyes of some. Such work is marvelous in my eyes, in large part because I lack the knowledge and skills to replicate it on my own—as the crooked brick garden box I built in my own backyard will attest.

BOOK the THIRD is dedicated to “The Builders”: Builders of homes, buildings, bridges, offices, schools, skyscrapers, woodwork, machines, tools, needful products of all kinds, pedagogical texts and curriculums, governments, nations, states, organizations, communities, and most importantly, families, marriages, and individual lives. Anyone can be a critic or a cynic, and sadly, our world is full of both. It doesn’t require much creativity, education, talent, or planning to tear someone or something down. But it takes a real man or woman to build something up that possesses practical utility, works well, and is beautiful to look at.

This book has been written in hopes that YOU might become a builder of whatever it is your talents, skills, and education equip you to build. More importantly, it has been written to help you in the construction of the most important building project of all—YOUR OWN CHARACTER & LIFE.     
  

Become a Builder

The world has too many critics; it needs more creators;

The world has too many theorists; it needs more implementers;

The world has too much deconstruction; it needs more construction;

The world has too many planners; it needs more producers.

The world is full of good ideas, noble dreams, and worthy visions; it needs more men & women who make them real.

I therefore salute the builders;

And call upon every man, woman, and child in this world

Who is not yet a builder, to become one. 

Join me;

     And together

          We’ll make something

               Magnificent of your life

And in the process,

     Imagine,

          Create,

               And build

Things that will leave the world

     A better

          Place than

               You

                    Found

                         It.

Making YOU one of the

     Honored

          & venerated

               Crew known simply as…

The BUILDERS.

The Builders [1]

By: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

ALL are architects of Fate,

   Working in these walls of Time;

Some with massive deeds and great,

   Some with ornaments of rhyme.

Nothing useless is, or low;

   Each thing in its place is best;

And what seems but idle show

   Strengthens and supports the rest.

For the structure that we raise,

   Time is with materials filled;

Our to-days and yesterdays

   Are the blocks with which we build.

Truly shape and fashion these;

   Leave no yawning gaps between;

Think not, because no man sees,

   Such things will remain unseen.

In the elder days of Art,

   Builders wrought with greatest care

Each minute and unseen part;

   For the Gods see everywhere.

Let us do our work as well,

   Both the unseen and the seen;

Make the house, where Gods may dwell,

   Beautiful, entire, and clean.

Else our lives are incomplete,

   Standing in these walls of Time,

Broken stairways, where the feet

   Stumble as they seek to climb.

Build to-day, then, strong and sure,

   With a firm and ample base;

And ascending and secure

   Shall to-morrow find its place.

Thus alone can we attain

   To those turrets, where the eye

Sees the world as one vast plain,

   And one boundless reach of sky.

“Cynics do not contribute, skeptics do not create, [and] doubters do not achieve.”

~ Bryan Hinckley

FROM THEODORE ROOSEVELT'S FAMOUS SPEECH:

CITIZENSHIP IN A REPUBLIC

Delivered April 23, 1910 at the Sorbonne in Paris, France.

The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer. There are many men who feel a kind of twister pride in cynicism; there are many who confine themselves to criticism of the way others do what they themselves dare not even attempt. There is no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, than he who either really holds, or feigns to hold, an attitude of sneering disbelief toward all that is great and lofty, whether in achievement or in that noble effort which, even if it fails, comes to second achievement. A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities - all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. They mark the men unfit to bear their part painfully in the stern strife of living, who seek, in the affection of contempt for the achievements of others, to hide from others and from themselves in their own weakness. The role is easy; there is none easier, save only the role of the man who sneers alike at both criticism and performance.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Shame on the man of cultivated taste who permits refinement to develop into fastidiousness that unfits him for doing the rough work of a workaday world. Among the free peoples who govern themselves there is but a small field of usefulness open for the men of cloistered life who shrink from contact with their fellows. Still less room is there for those who deride of slight what is done by those who actually bear the brunt of the day; nor yet for those others who always profess that they would like to take action, if only the conditions of life were not exactly what they actually are. The man who does nothing cuts the same sordid figure in the pages of history, whether he be a cynic, or fop, or voluptuary. There is little use for the being whose tepid soul knows nothing of great and generous emotion, of the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm, of the men who quell the storm and ride the thunder. Well for these men if they succeed; well also, though not so well, if they fail, given only that they have nobly ventured, and have put forth all their heart and strength. It is war-worn Hotspur, spent with hard fighting, he of the many errors and valiant end, over whose memory we love to linger, not over the memory of the young lord who “but for the vile guns would have been a valiant soldier.”

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[1] Longfellow, H.W. The Day is Done, reprinted from The Poetical Works of Longfellow (1912). Henry Frowde, Oxford University    Press. Page 186.