Self-Action Leadership for Civic Leaders and Other High Profile Role Models

Civility and Good Ideas Rooted in True Principles

Last week, Congressman Paul Ryan—the current Speaker of the House of Representatives and third in line to the Presidency were something to happen to President Obama and Vice President Biden—gave a groundbreaking speech on the state of American politics.

Without naming any names or peddling in partisan politicking, Ryan put forth a vision of civility in American political discourse and leadership.  In doing so, he exemplified a demeanor of hope and optimism that he himself has come to personify as a rising star on Capitol Hill.  

Click HERE to watch Speaker Ryan's Speech

Click HERE to read a transcript of Speaker Ryan's Speech

U.S. Capitol Building where Congressman Paul Ryan serves
as Speaker of the House of Representatives

In his speech, Ryan reminded us that we can disagree with each other's ideas without impugning each other's motives.  According to Ryan, the key to long-term political success lies in "Good Ideas" that are "passionately promoted and put to the test."

In his own words:

"America is the only nation founded on an idea—not an identity. That idea is the notion that the condition of your birth does not determine the outcome of your life. Our rights are natural. They come from God, not government. 

"While it was a beautiful idea, it had never been tried before. Early on, as our founders struggled to establish a suitable order, they decided that we would not maintain this idea by force. In the first Federalist paper, Alexander Hamilton wrote that 'in politics,' it is 'absurd to aim at making' converts 'by fire and sword.' Instead, we would govern ourselves, with the people’s consent. ... There was no manual for how to do this. That’s why they call it the American experiment."

The Supreme Court of the United States

A concern of Ryan's that led him to deliver this groundbreaking speech is the loss of faith and trust that many Americans have in institutions, and especially in government—and for good reason.  Said Ryan:

"Our political discourse—both the kind we see on TV and the kind we experience among each other—did not use to be this bad and it does not have to be this way. Now, a little skepticism is healthy. But when people distrust politics, they come to distrust institutions. They lose faith in their government, and the future too. We can acknowledge this. But we don’t have to accept it. And we cannot enable it either.

"My dad used to say, if you’re not a part of the solution, you’re a part of the problem. So I have made it a mission of my Speakership to raise our gaze and aim for a brighter horizon. Instead of talking about what politics is today, I want to talk about what politics can be. I want to talk about what our country can be…about what our Founders envisioned it to be."

Freedom Focused does not endorse political figures or candidates.  It does, however, endorse the United State of America as the greatest nation in the world—a nation that, as Abraham Lincoln once put it, is "The last best hope of Earth."  As such, we enthusiastically endorse Speaker Ryan's non-partisan speech on political civility given last week in the chambers of the House Ways and Means Committee in the National Capitol in Washington D.C.

We endorse this speech because the principles set forth therein harmonize with our own comprehensive EDUCATIONAL vision of what America can be when INDIVIDUALS reign in their behavior with the bridle of self-discipline, self-restraint, and self-regulation rooted in the Universal Laws and True Principles that govern all human behavioral pursuits.  These laws and principles are outlined in the Self-Action Leadership Theory & Model.

Click HERE to learn about the SAL Theory & Model. 

President Theodore Roosevelt served our Country as Commander-in-Chief for seven years, from 1901-1910.  At 42, he was the youngest president in our nation's history.  He ascended the office unexpectedly when President William McKinley was shot dead by an assassins bullet just six months into his second term.  Despite his youth and relative inexperience, President Roosevelt is almost universally recognized as one of our nation's greatest Presidents.  In fact, he is the only President who lived past the year 1865 to have his image engraved upon Mount Rushmore.  

In 1910, Roosevelt traveled to Paris, France, where he addressed students and faculty at a world famous University—The Sorbonne.  What would later become known as his "Citizenship in a Republic" speech, Roosevelt proclaimed that in a republic,"The quality of the Individual Citizen is Supreme."  He went on to say:

"Under other forms of government, under the rule of one man or very few men, the quality of the leaders is all-important. ... But with ... us the case is different.  With ... us ... in the long run, success or failure will be conditioned upon the way in which the average man, the average woman, does his or her duty, first in the ordinary, every-day affairs of life, and next in those great occasional cries which call for heroic virtues.  The average citizen must be a good citizen if our republics are to succeed.  The stream will not permanently rise higher than the main source; and the main source of national power and national greatness is found in the average citizenship of the nation.  Therefore it behooves us to do our best to see that the standard of the average citizen is kept high; and the average cannot be kept high unless the standard of the leaders is very much higher." 

"The upward course of a nation's history is due in the long run to the soundness of heart of its average men and women."

~ Queen Elizabeth II 

One of the reasons we at Freedom Focused believe America is the greatest nation on Earth is because we have been blessed with a high concentration of the highest quality citizens and leaders throughout our 229 year history.

If the twenty-first century is to become a new American Century, leaders and citizens alike are going to have to elevate their game intellectually, morally, and practically speaking.

In order to focus firmly on the future, we must hearken back to the leadership examples of men and women like George Washington, Abigail Adams, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Jr., Barbara Bush, and Paul Ryan.  Likewise, we must more firmly follow in the footsteps of citizens like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Harriet Tubman, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Clara Barton, George Washington Carver, Amelia Earhart, and Rosa Parks.    

Leaders and other high-profile role models have a duty to use the
"Bully-Pulpit" to speak up and out about the importance of leadership &
character development.  More importantly, they have a responsibility to
exemplify sterling character and honest leadership themselves. 

Self-Action Leadership is a message that serves as a concrete tool for the development of QUALITY citizens and leaders.  It is also aimed at urging leaders in business, politics, education, religion, the media, and pop culture to think more seriously about the impact their words and actions (and lack thereof) are having on those whom they lead and influence.  Lastly, it is designed to serve as an invitation to these same leaders and high profile role models to creatively and strategically utilize their various bully pulpits to promote thoughts, speech, actions, and policies that contribute to the development of quality citizens and leaders.  

Too often leaders and other high profile role models behave in ways that encourage their followers to speak and act in ways that prove detrimental—and even dangerous—to themselves and others.  No amount of money, stardom, fame, or even charity or philanthropy can compensate for the damage caused by leaders, role models, or so-called "Stars" who influence bad behavior in others by their own narcissistic or hedonistic speech, actions, or so-called art.  Theodore Roosevelt, in his speech at the Sorbonne, put it this way:

"It is a sign of marked political weakness in any commonwealth if the people tend to be carried away by mere oratory, if they tend to value words in and for themselves, as divorced from the deeds for which they are supposed to stand. The phrase-maker, the phrase-monger, the ready talker, however great his power, whose speech does not make for courage, sobriety, and right understanding, is simply a noxious element in the body politic, and it speaks ill for the public if he [or she] has power over them."

Eliciting a resurgence of American greatness can only occur as individual citizens—and the leaders that govern them—commit to self-purification.  Our nation's outer image and standard can only be purified as individual citizens rise to the challenge of becoming quality people in what we each think about, say, do, and contribute.

Speaker Ryan's father was right, each individual citizen—by virtue of his or her thoughts, speech, and actions—is either part of the problem or part of the solution to any given challenge or dilemma.  It is time for us to individually commit to leading ourselves in such a way that ensures we will be part of solutions rather than problems.

At Freedom Focused, we believe that America is a special country—a nation among nations.  This belief does not spring from an arrogant notion that we are existentially superior to citizens of others nations.  We are not!  Our belief in merely an outgrowth of our recognition of the vital role we play as the current World Superpower endowed with the privileges of a singular geography, access to abundant natural resources, and a populace that ranks among the most diverse and educated on the planet.  It has been said that where much is given, much is expected and required.  In the United States, we have been given much!  Our superior blessings necessitate we attend to our duty to lead morally and serve diligently.

In the history of the world, there has never been another superpower as benevolent and generous as the United States has been since our ascension to superpower status following World War II.  Nor has any erstwhile superpower shown more imperial restraint than the U.S.A. has since defeating the Axis power with her allies in 1945.

We are not perfect—no nation is—but the future peace, opportunity, and prosperity of the rest of the world rests largely on the shoulders of the leaders and citizens of the United States.  As we go, so goes the rest of the world.  It therefore behooves us ALL to square our shoulders to the duties and responsibilities we have to rise to the stature of our calling as examples and leaders to the rest of the world.

At Freedom Focused, we believe the founding of America, including the irrevocable truths contained in our founding documents—The Declaration of Independence & Constitution—are divinely inspired.  Moreover, we believe that individuals who construct their own lives according to similar principles of liberty, self-governance, and the rule of [natural] law, will be much more successful in the long-run than those who do not.

For this reason, we have established the SAL Theory & Model, which elucidate the comprehensive principles of personal leadership that every individual can study, internalize, and then apply in their lives to obtain predictably positive results in their lives, homes, careers, neighborhoods, and beyond.  We also teach the value of drafting one's own Self-Declaration of Independence and Constitution to serve as guiding blueprints to the life construction you can intentionally engage—if only you will.

Click HERE and scroll toward the bottom of article to read more about writing your own Self-Declaration of Independence & Constitution.

Click HERE to watch a video of Dr. Jordan Jensen explaining the principle of writing a Self-Declaration of Independence & Constitution.

Click HERE to buy Dr. Jordan Jensen's book — SELF-ACTION LEADERSHIP — to learn more about these exciting principles that made a great nation, and can, in-turn, make a great YOU.

Note: This article is one of SIX articles in a special series dedicated to different AUDIENCES that Freedom Focused specifically targets with Self-Action Leadership training. We invite leaders and managers of these different audiences to click on links below to read the articles pertaining to your field or constituency.

Click HERE to access article for  BUSINESS PROFESSIONALS (Leaders, Managers, & Workers)

Click HERE to access article for  EDUCATORS  (Administrators, Teachers, & Staff)

Click HERE to access article for  STUDENTS & INDIVIDUALS

Click HERE to access article for PARENTS & FAMILIES

Click HERE to access article for ELECTED OFFICIALS, LEADERS, & ROLE MODELS

Click HERE to access article for PERSONS dealing with MENTAL ILLNESS

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SELF-ACTION LEADERSHIP is the key catalyst for initiating transformational leadership that lasts in any organization. The truth of the matter really is that simple; and the transformation of organizations through the holistic development of individuals really is that difficult—yet altogether possible for anyone willing to invest the time, effort, and sacrifice required to achieve authentic, transformational results.

Unlike any training program that has ever preceded it, Self-Action Leadership provides a single vehicle wherewith individual self-leaders can discover—and then act—upon the great truth that HOLISTIC personal development and growth spanning the mental, moral, spiritual, physical, emotional, and social elements of our individual natures is within the grasp of each one of us.

Note: Freedom Focused is a non-partisan, for-profit, educational corporation. As such, we do not endorse or embrace political figures. We do, however, comment from time-to-time on historical or political events that provide pedagogical backdrops to illuminating principles contained in the SAL Theory & Model.

Click HERE to learn more about the SAL Theory & Model.

To receive weekly articles from Freedom Focused & Dr. Jordan R. Jensen, sign up with your e-mail address in the white box on the right side of this page where it says "Follow by E-mail."

Click HERE to buy a copy of Dr. Jordan Jensen's new book, Self-Action Leadership: The Key to Personal, Professional, & Global Freedom.

Click HERE to read more about Dr. Jensen's book, Self-Action Leadership, and to review what experts in the leadership field are saying about this groundbreaking new personal development handbook.

Click HERE to learn more about Dr. Jordan R. Jensen. Click HERE to visit the Freedom Focused website.

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

Today, I am honored and grateful to share some special tributes to THREE authors and thinkers whose work proved FOUNDATIONAL to the 13-year development of the Self-Action Leadership Theory & Model.

John Donne

The English poet John Donne (1572-1631) once wrote, "No man is an island, entire of itself, every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main."

So it is with you, and so it has been with me. No one is an island. Despite any talents or abilities I may possess, the development of the SAL Theory & Model would have been impossible without the aid of countless other men and women who have profoundly influenced my personal journey. From Shakespeare & Chaucer to Abraham Lincoln & Martin Luther King, Jr.; from Emerson & Longfellow to C.S. Lewis & M. Scott Peck; from Abigail Adams & Florence Nightingale to Confucius & Jesus Christ; from brothers, sisters, and parents to uncles, aunts, cousins, and ancestors, my journey has been touched on every side by men, women, and Divine Beings, whose examples became a "lamp unto my feet." (Psalm 119:105).

Sir Isaac Newton

One of the first things I share in my book, Self-Action Leadership, are three tributes to individuals whose life's journey and work has been particularly important and foundational to mine. These individuals are: Hyrum W. Smith, Stephen R. Covey, and Charles C. Manz.

“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

– Isaac Newton

Tribute #1

Hyrum W. Smith

Co-Founder of FranklinCovey Company & Author of: What Matters Most

Hyrum W. Smith is a Co-Founder of FranklinCovey Company and an originator of the world famous Franklin Day Planning System. Brilliant in business, sales, and public speaking, Smith is one of the World’s premier authorities on time management and personal development.

If it weren’t for Hyrum Smith, I may not be here today – literally. To explain why, let’s turn back the clock more than a half-century.

In 1962, Smith crossed the Atlantic to serve a two-year, full-time, voluntary mission in the British Isles for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. About a year later, my Father, unknown to Smith at the time, traveled to England for the same purpose. During their concurrent service in England, Hyrum Wayne Smith and Rex Buckley Jensen served together as missionary companions on three different occasions in three different locations during three different calendar years. Meant to be? Coincidence? Either way, when my father returned home to attend Brigham Young University in 1965, Hyrum introduced him to his little sister, Pauline. The two were married in 1966. Fourteen years later, I was born – the sixth of seven children.

I was eight years old when I first attended one of “Uncle Wayne’s” time management seminars and obtained my first Franklin Planner. It was a pivotal event in my young life, and planted early seeds that would eventually spring forth into my choice of profession.

Hyrum is a magnanimous man whose personal generosity has reached down to bless my life on many occasions. He also has a good sense of when to say no. For example, he wisely declined my request for financial backing when I first incorporated my company over a decade ago. Knowing his own achievements were earned through self-reliance and successfully passing through the “School of hard knocks,” he knew giving me money would do more harm than good in the long run. How right he was!

It was a bitter pill to swallow at a time in my life when I was being rejected at every turn and everything seemed to be going wrong. This was good, too, because Life prescribes a brimming bottle of “Bitter pills” to everyone, and those who seek to grow must choose to humbly consume, dutifully digest, and honorably transcend each one. It does no good to kick against the pricks.

Hyrum’s discretion, borne of experience-based wisdom, trumped my well intentioned, but ultimately naïve zealotry borne of youthful inexperience. And now I am glad of it. In the words of Garth Brooks: “Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.”

Instead of money, Hyrum gave me endorsement quotes and good advice. He even invited me down to his Ranch for a weekend so I could pick his brain. He gave me everything I really needed while wisely withholding what he knew would provide only short-term benefits—and might even harm me in the long run.

Hyrum’s decision provided a golden opportunity to further apply the very principles and practices I ardently yearned to share with the world. Rather than retard my long-term progress, his wise declination actually accelerated it by lending greater credibility to the message of Self-Action Leadership, and bolstering my ethos as its messenger. Looking back, I am grateful for his judicious response to my shortsighted request. It was a key “course” I had to take and pass in my own education in Self-Action Leadership and adversity. I am a better man for having taken that course, and am grateful to my professor for loving me enough to hurt me in the short run in order to help me in the long run.

Hyrum’s life has blessed and inspired my own journey in countless ways. From my earliest memories of him, I always had a deep sense that he was a great man; and indeed he is. Thank you, Uncle Hyrum, for everything you have given and taught me—knowingly or unknowingly. Your life’s example has helped to shape my life’s story.

I am grateful for an uncle and father – whose friendship was a seedling of my mortal existence – who chose to teach me correct principles and then let me govern myself. Such liberty and opportunity, empowered by the lessons gleaned from their respective precepts and examples, is something I will always cherish. It is, for me, a proof of the purview of Providence upon this project from inception to completion.

Tribute #2

Stephen R. Covey

Co-Founder of FranklinCovey Company & Author of the World-Famous: 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

While Hyrum and I share a blood relation, I may actually have more in common with FranklinCovey’s other Co-Founder—Dr. Stephen R. Covey. This is because my native skill set – like Covey’s – is rooted more in philosophy, pedagogy, administration, and composition, than in sales, marketing, business, or profit. While I begrudgingly accept my duties in the latter, I welcome and embrace my opportunities in the former. In my heart of hearts, I am – and always will be – a pedagogue, philosopher, and poet before I am a businessman or entrepreneur.

Many capable self-help authorities helped to pioneer the modern self-help movement (i.e. Dale Carnegie, Norman Vincent Peale, Napoleon Hill, et al.). What will Covey’s place be in the pantheon of self-help gurus? The answer is subject to history and opinion. In my view, Carnegie is its father, and Covey its more recent godfather.

I first read, listened to, and studied Dr. Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People in 2001 as a college freshman. I read the book to fulfill a requirement in a summer leadership course at Brigham Young University. It profoundly impacted my life.

The lesser-known subtitle of Covey’s classic is: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change. As I hungrily consumed the 7 Habits material, a growing realization of the personal power I possessed to change, as well as to consciously design and direct my own life, resonated deeply in my mind, heart, and spirit. I took particular interest in Habits One, Two, and Three, which focus on personal leadership, at a time in my life when I desperately needed to lead myself through a series of deep and difficult personal obstacles involving romantic relationships and mental illness.

Covey’s words opened my mind to my own personal deficiencies and inadequacies while simultaneously illuminating my potential and enlivening my desire to overcome them, and then teach others to do the same. Quite simply, his work changed my life, and led directly to the writing of this book. Before I had even finished the book, I began sensing that one of my life’s primary callings was to write a comprehensive analogue to the 7 Habits that could serve future generations as ably as Covey’s work had served previous ones.

It was an audacious ambition, and an incredibly rewarding goal. Once my mind and heart had been touched by the power and profundity of the principles Covey organized, and his unique capacity to articulate them, I became completely consumed with the meaningfulness and importance of promoting a Pedagogy of Personal Leadership throughout the world. There was no going back. I have been on an almost obsessive mission ever since (OCD has not been all bad for me).

Aided by Covey’s words, the Inspiration of the Ages, and the driving, and sometimes naïve, ambitions of youth, I zealously went to work. Though fraught with disappointment, failure, rejection, financial duress, and disillusionment all along the way, this difficult journey – now in its 13th year – has simultaneously produced countless blessings, insights, moments of euphoria, and extraordinary personal growth.

This 13-year effort is now finished – or perhaps begun, depending how you look at it. Were Stephen alive to review this present manuscript, I hope he would find it to his satisfaction, and choose to endorse it this time around.

After more than a decade of putting Stephen’s teachings to work in my life on a daily basis, I continue to vouch unequivocally for their clarity, concision, cogency, and veracity. As I have worked with thousands of business professionals in hundreds of audiences throughout the English Speaking World, I have quoted him and taught his material more than any other author or teacher. My seminar attendees rarely leave one of my seminars, regardless of the topic, without a clear understanding of my passion for the work of Stephen R. Covey, and a growing understanding of his work.

Dr. Covey passed away in 2012. In the years since I first studied the 7 Habits, I have sometimes wished I could have spent more time with him personally. Despite two chance meetings – neither of which he would likely recall – and a generous phone call on Christmas Eve, 2003, in response to a letter I had written to my hero desiring to meet him, I did not know him personally beyond second-degree familial connections. Nevertheless, the ripples of his work have penetrated—and continue to reverberate powerfully throughout—the depths of my mind, heart, and soul in ways that proved providentially foundational to this work.

Another vital professor in my existential education, Stephen—like Hyrum—also taught me some invaluable, albeit just as painful, life lessons by saying “No.” I share the experience of one such rejection in this book. Like the lessons Hyrum taught me, I would not, in hindsight, change anything even if I had the power to do so. I am even more thankful for what Hyrum and Stephen didn’t give me as I am for what they did give me.

Such experiences taught me that many of life’s greatest blessings arise not from tangible assistance, but from intangible inspiration derived from the simple, but powerful, moral force of one’s example, teachings, and legacy. Instead of giving me a few fish I would have quickly consumed, Hyrum and Stephen both – and mostly without knowing it – taught me how to fish. This book displays the results of my “catches” thus far. Whatever its weaknesses, I am proud of the harvest, and grateful to my teachers. I hope they will be proud of it also.

I am, and always will be, profoundly grateful to Stephen for providing a vital substructure (theoretically and culturally speaking) to the SAL theory and model. I publicly acknowledge the impact of his life’s example on mine as well as the profundity of his life’s work – a work I believe he continues in another realm. It is my explicit intention for Self-Action Leadership to serve the World in coming decades as capably as the 7 Habits did throughout the turn of the last century.

Tribute #3

Charles C. Manz

Father of the Self-Leadership field in the Academe, and Professor at the University of Massachusetts

Dr. Charles C. Manz is the Father of the self-leadership field in the Academe. His pioneering academic publications on the subject date back to 1983, when I was just 4-years old.

It is interesting to me that it took until the mid 1980s for universities to begin addressing this vital subject as a topic of legitimate scholarly inquiry. The credit for this worthy legitimization – as well as for much of its subsequent proliferation – goes to Dr. Manz.

Addressing self-leadership at the doctoral level would have been much more difficult without the pioneering efforts of “Chuck” and his capable colleagues around the country (i.e. Chris Neck, Arizona State University, Hank Sims, Jr., University of Maryland, and Jeff Houghton, West Virginia University).

The work of these scholars has provided a vital academic foundation to the superstructure of new ideas I put forth with the SAL Theory & Model. Charles Manz is a highly accomplished, distinguished, and capable scholar and educator. He is also a man of integrity and a generous human being. I will forever be indebted to him for his foundational academic work in the field of self-leadership. I appreciate so very much all he has accomplished, and am deeply honored he chose to endorse this work.