Ted Cruz and His Israel Position

Nadene Goldfoot                                              

The question that begs asking is how strong would Ted Cruz be in supporting Israel in a time of crisis?  What has his record been as that of a US Senator and as a man?

His whole name is Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz, and he is an American politician and the junior US Senator from Texas since 2012. He's a Baptist.   Now he's a candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the USA in 2016.  He's only 45 years old,  and has been a Senator for 3 years since 2013, having been born December 22, 1970, but in Calgary, Alberta, Canada in the Foothills General Hospital. His parents had been living in Calgary for 3 years and were working in the oil business as owners of a data processing firm for oil drilling.  They were both mathematicians and computer programmers.  When Ted was 4 years old, his father left his mother and moved to Texas.  Later that year they reconciled and relocated in Houston.

 How can he run for president when the requirements are that he must be a native USA citizen first?  The answer is that his mother was a USA citizen.  She is Eleanor Elizabeth Wilson Cruz nee Darragh, a lady of 3/4 Irish and 1/4 Italian heritage who had married Rafael Bienvenido Cruz.  She originally was from Wilmington, Delaware.  "The only requirements of a president is that he must be 35 years old,  a resident "within the United States" for 14 years, and a "natural born Citizen," a term not defined in the Constitution.  He left Calgary at age 4 and has lived in the USA ever since, but didn't realize he still held Canadian citizenship even though he had left the country.  So he held dual citizenhip: USA and Canada because he was born there.  Evidently his parents had ignored this fact.  He has renounced his citizenship and has received this from Canada:  
"This is to certify that the person named above has formally renounced Canadian citizenshp and pursuant to the Citizenship Act will cease to be a citizen on" May 14, 2014, " the letter read.

His mother also attended college and has an undergraduate degree in mathematics from Rice University in Houston, Texas in the 1950s where she met Rafael.

Rafael was born and raised in Cuba and his father was from the Canary Islands in Spain.  Ted's father left Cuba in 1957 after being tortured  and imprisoned in Cuba.  He immigrated to the USA to attend the University of Texas in 1957  in Austin and stayed using  political asylum which he received after his 4 year student visa had expired.  Then he started a small business in the oil and gas industry.  After moving to Canada,  Rafael then earned Canadian citizenship in 1973, then returned to the USA  and became a naturalized US citizen in 2005.    Then they divorced in 1997.  Today Ted's father is a pastor in Dallas.

Since Ted was hoping he would win over the Evangelicals, it may be that he is familiar with Pastor John Hagee, the founder and senior pastor of Cornerstone Church, a nondenominational evangelical church with an active membership of over 19,000 people in San Antonio, Texas.  Pastor Hagee is a very strong supporter of Israel and has written the book, "IN DEFENSE OF ISRAEL", the Bible's  mandate for supporting the Jewish State.  Hagee had made friends with Rabbi Aryeh Scheinberg and learned about the Jewish history with his help.

Ted  married Heidi  in 2001 and they have 2 daughters, Caroline and Catherine.  He has attended  Princeton for his undergraduate BA degree where he became an award-winning debater, the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 1992 and then attended Harvard Law School in 1995 and is a lawyer from Texas.  He became the Solicitor General for the State of Texas.  He's done things like having defended the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms and defended the 10 Commandments monument at the Texas State Capitol, and also the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.  Ted says he's been a tireless fighter for liberty his entire life because his family knows what it is like to lose it.

He's been against Obama's work, like Obamacare, and works against giving  amnesty to illegal immigrants.  Ted is for the 1st and 2nd Amendments and our Bill of rights.  He's promised to tell the truth, yet his competitors charge him with telling lies.

Ted arrived in Washington 4 years ago, and has been Israel's most avid defender in the Senate.  In July 2014, Cruz used his authority as a member of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee to get the administration to end the ban on US flights to Israel's Ben-Gurion airport!  This was during Operation Protective Edge.  Ted said he would put a hold on all State Department appointments until the administration justified the flight ban, which evidently they couldn't, so they restored the flights after 36 hours.  

Cruz has led the opposition to the nuclear deal with Iran.  He brought activists by the thousands to the Capitol to be in a rally he organized calling for Congress to vote down the deal.  He invited Donald Trump to join him at the rally, which he did, and his participation ensured that the event was covered by the press.

He feels, as he stated in an interview,  that America's alliance with Israel is in our national security interest with sharing the same democratic values.  Israel is an important ally in a very troubled region of the world.  The military assistance the USA provides Israel with gives security benefits to America.  He believes that the the single greatest national security threat facing America is the threat of a nuclear Iran, so he has that in common with Netanyahu's thoughts.

Ted has publicly called for John Kerry's resignation as secretary of state and is the 2nd time he has done this.  The 1st time he called for it, John had suggested that Israel could become an apartheid state, which is slander.  Terrorists say this.  Recently John accused Israel of terrorism, which is a blatant lie.  Ted tells the difference between Palestinian terrorist antics murdering innocent women and children in response to the relentless incitement from Hamas and the PA. He explained that there's a QUALITATIVE difference between that and the IDF defending the safety and security of Israel.  John Kerry didn't see that difference with his suggestion that they are morally equivalent.  This is wrong, harmful and deeply offensive.

If Ted were president, he would not dictate the terms of a peace settlement like Kerry has been doing.  When Israel chooses to negotiate (not now as the situation is not the time) and reach a settlement with the PA, it is Israel's  right to do this, and he could help provide a fair forum for negotiations.  He said it is not the role of the American government to attempt to lecture the Israeli people or dictate terms of peace.  He knows that no one has a greater incentive to seek peace than the people of Israel who have lived with the daily threat of rocket attacks or knifings or terrorist bombs.  He knows the history of the Palestinians turning down every reasonable offer of peace, and America should stand with Israel.

The USA should reconsider funding the PA and has been giving them about $550 million annually.  Taxpayers are giving money to a government in unity with terrorists and makes no sense.  We should not be funding people who want to kill us.  This is in direct contrary to the USA national interests.

Obama-Clinton-Kerry foreign policy is deeply misguided in asking Israel to stop building beyond the 1949 armistice lines or that it is causing terrorism.  The USA can't dictate where Israelis should live, and if they choose to live in Judea and Samaria is not reason for terrorism or murder.  This is false moral equivalency.
                                                                         

Thomas Sowell has endorsed Ted Cruz.  

Thomas Sowell, born in 1930 in North Carolina,  grew up in Harlem, New York ; a Conservative intellectual and economist  and has endorsed Ted Cruz for president.  He's afraid that Hillary will beat Trump if Trump is the lead contender of the Republicans.   

Has Cruz been lying about his support for Israel?  His actions in Congress for this brief 3 or 4 year period shows he is not lying.  He believes that Israel is deserving of the USA support.  I don't know about his Christianity allowing  political lying to gain favor in the polls, but I know that evangelicals as a rule are very supportive  of Israel thanks to Pastor Hagee.  

"January 21, Pastor Mike Bickle, another evangelical preacher who has used the same Hitler hunting the Jews were under during the Holocaust, endorsed Texas Senator Ted Cruz's bid for the White House." and evidently Cruz was happy with his endorsement.   I must mention that before Pastor Hagee had run into Rabbi Aryeh Scheinberg, he had been much like Bickle.  Bickle today has denounced Gays and Jewish people.  Oy, Cruz.  You need votes, and are accepting them from questionable people with Bickle, unless you are planning on handing him over to your wife for some re-education.  
Update on Bickle: http://forward.com/opinion/333993/why-ted-cruzs-preacher-sidekick-is-no-friend-of-the-jews-or-israel/  bad news for Jews-wants us to accept Jesus.  For Cruz, evidently is taking all the endorsements he can get no matter what.  

Resource: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Ted-Cruz-A-fresh-approach-to-American-foreign-policy-and-US-Israel-relations-429752
http://www.biography.com/people/ted-cruz
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Cruz
https://www.tedcruz.org/about/
http://www.politifact.com/ohio/article/2013/may/09/ted-cruz-eligible-under-constitution-become-presid/
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-01-13/ted-cruz-has-a-real-birther-problem
http://dailycaller.com/2016/02/16/thomas-sowell-endorses-sen-ted-cruz/
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/02/11/3748743/ted-cruz-defends-endorsement-from-pastor-who-believes-hitler-was-hunter-sent-by-god/
http://www.jta.org/2016/02/11/news-opinion/politics/cruz-campaign-stands-behind-pastor-accused-of-intolerance-toward-jews

SAL Case Study: The Fred & Marlene Hawryluk Story

Quiet Self-Action Leadership from the Silent Generation

Part 2 

The Story of Fred & Marlene Hawryluk

I grew up in an age of unprecedented prosperity that was markedly different from the world my parents and grandparents inhabited (born 1943 & 1946 and 1899 & 1907 respectively). By the time I was born in the latter-end of the 1970s, the scarcity of the Depression and World War II eras—and to a certain extent the virtues they engendered—were becoming distant memories.

I was fortunate, however, to be close to persons who lived through those difficult times. Through their example, I was able to and observe some powerful lessons. In the memorable verse of Edgar A. Guest:

I’d rather see a sermon
Than hear one any day;
I’d rather one should walk with me
Than merely tell the way…

For I might misunderstand you
And the high advice you give,
But there’s no misunderstanding
How you act and how you live.

Once, as a young lad of 10 or 11, I went out to eat at a Chinese restaurant with my maternal grandmother, Ruth (1907-1992). I recall watching her take a single napkin from the dispenser, tear it in half, put one half in her purse for later use, and proceed to use only the other half throughout her entire meal. For a kid in the 1980s and 1990s, accustomed to taking as many napkins as I wished—and then inefficiently using and discarding them—I was surprised, and impressed, by this act. While I often heard my progenitors speak of leaner times, and their accompanying habits, practices, and mantras, they were never as real for me as they were for my parents and grandparents. Nevertheless, I always greatly respected family members and others born in the first half of the 20th century for the noble virtues they exemplified, and viewed their approval and praise as the consummate compliment of circumspect citizenship. While all generations have their faults, I recognized a deep well of wisdom within my predecessors from which I could receive upright moral instruction and glean life lessons. These models of modesty, fidelity, frugality, simplicity, and silent courage became my mentors, not because they forced their ideology on me, but because I admired them. I was motivated, therefore, to act in ways that would garner the approbation of my elders.

Fred, a part-time cobbler by trade, in his workshop (garage)

There is elegance in simplicity, and Fred and Marlene Hawryluk personify this statement better than anyone I’ve known. This chapter shares the common, yet compelling, story of their lives.

When I met the Hawryluks over a decade ago, they had been in their small and modest home for approximately 40 years. Despite its size, I have rarely—if ever—seen a home so clean and tidy, or one that possessed a more peaceful and pleasant atmosphere.

Fred’s father, John, immigrated to Canada from the Ukraine in 1912. At the time, 160-acre plots of free land were available to anyone willing to work it. But upon arriving, John was arrested. At the time, the United Kingdom (including Canada) was waging war against the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which encompassed present-day Ukraine. Fears of cultural and political subversion from disloyal sympathizers resulted in the arrests of many immigrants at the time, not all of which were justified. After his release, he returned to the same neighborhood he had tried to start a new life in and bought up all the land he could. He was not rich, but he was industrious, and had an eye for opportunity. He worked hard and avoided debt.

His son, Fred, grew up during the Great Depression. Fred went to school in a four-room schoolhouse that included two outhouses and a stable for the student’s horses.

When Fred and Marlene got married, John gifted a small plot of land to his son. Fred bought a small adjacent lot of land for $285 and began building a home. Like the Piersons, the Hawryluks started out with very little. However, they were hard working, self-reliant, and frugal. Determined to remain debt-free, they patiently built their home as they could afford it over a period of two years. As a result, they never had a mortgage. They invested sweat, tears, and even blood (from minor accidents) into the construction of a modest, but very comfortable and tidy home. Fifty years later, they still live there. The Hawryluks also have a large, well-kept, and productive flower and vegetable garden. Growing their own fresh fruits and vegetables has saved them countless dollars over the course of their adult lives.

Canadian winters are cold (often dipping into sub-zero temperatures), and for the first winter they lived in only one room and used an outhouse. Fred wired the house himself after proactively seeking out lessons on the skill. Throughout the construction process, he would often walk to where another home was being constructed and observe how the builders were proceeding. He learned a lot from these observations, and managed to progress with his own home’s construction by working a step or two behind another home’s construction crew. Marlene helped Fred with much of the manual labor, including sawing boards.

Like Charlie and Muriel, Fred and Marlene have a large family that includes five children, 23 grandchildren, and 14 great-grandchildren. They taught their children the same life lessons that brought them success, and their children and grandchildren are, in turn, teaching those lessons to their children.

Fred & Marlene aren’t famous or rich—unless you consider wonderful family members, fresh and delicious fruits & vegetables, and zero debt as assets in their “portfolio,” in which case they are wealthy indeed. But the Hawryluk’s are happy, and you can’t put a price on happiness. In fact, they refer to their little heaven on Earth as the “Happy Hawruluk House,” or the “Hawryluk Haven.” Now in the twilight of their lives, they can look back on their long lives with satisfaction, contentment, and most importantly—inner peace. I’ve met a lot of monetarily rich folks who can’t do that. I’ll bet you have too.

Marlene at work out back of the "Happy Hawryluk House"
in her and Fred's productive vegetable and flower gardens.

SAL Case Study: The Charlie & Muriel Pierson Story

Quiet Self-Action Leadership from the Silent Generation

Part 1

It is one thing to exercise effective SAL for a day-or-two, or a couple of weeks—or even a few months or years. Practicing it for the better part of an entire lifetime, however, is another matter! This chapter’s case study highlights the life story of two remarkable people who accomplished the difficult feat of enduring to the end of a long life while practicing effective SAL along much of the way.

Charlie and Muriel Pierson, of Alberta, Canada, are excellent examples of what Joseph Badaracco, Jr. describes as quiet leaders.

These men and women aren’t high-profile champions of causes, and don’t want to be. They don’t spearhead ethical crusades. They move patiently, carefully, and incrementally. They do what is right—for their organizations, for the people around them, and for themselves—inconspicuously and without casualties. I have come to call these people quiet leaders because their modesty and restraint are in large measure responsible for their impressive achievements. And since many big problems can only be resolved by a long series of small efforts, quiet leadership, despite its seemingly slow pace, often turns out to be the quickest way to make an organization—and the world—a better place. [1]

LAW 8:

Existential Growth cannot be given, traded for, or bought; it must be earned.

If you have enough money, you can buy any product or service. But, all the money and technology in the world won’t buy knowledge, skills, integrity, courage, compassion, patience, happiness, real friendship, or Existential Growth. Developing character and shaping your existence always has a price tag in time and effort, and the price can sometimes prove steep—even steeper than many are willing to pay.

This case study illustrates what diligent planning, focused effort, disciplined practice, self-sacrifice, and patience over a lifetime created for a Western Canadian couple from the Silent Generation. Members of the Silent Generation include persons born between 1925 and 1942. [2] This is the story of two exemplary self-action leaders who were born in the late 1920s at the very beginning of the Silent Generation. Since then, they have quietly gone about their business for nearly 90 years—with little fanfare, but much to show for their efforts. Throughout their lives, Charlie and Muriel Pierson have not only exercised effective quiet leadership, but outstanding Self-Action Leadership as well.

Charlie Pierson was born in Alberta, Canada, in the late 1920s. He was the youngest of 11 children. When he was 18 months old, his father died, and then later, at 14, Charlie lost his mother. Shortly before his mother’s death, while in the eighth grade, he quit his formal schooling for good. None of his older siblings were willing to take him in, leaving him alone with his grief and without shelter or opportunities for higher education.

Desperate for work, the 14-year-old homeless orphan saw an ad in the window of a lumber company. Pierson inquired about the job. The manager replied: “Kid, we need a man, not a boy.” Charlie tells what happened next:

"I told him I needed the job really bad as I had lost my mother and had nowhere to go; if he would just try me out, I would work all day for nothing. If he found I couldn’t stand up to the job, then he could let me go, but if I could do the work, then he would hire me. He consented and told me to be in to work at 8:00 the next morning. When I got to work the next morning, I found I was to work with the truck driver hauling cement on a flatbed truck which held 200 bags of cement from the railway cars at -------, Alberta to the sheds at ---------- Lumber Yard.

"Now, when we were loading the truck from the freight car, the truck driver gave me a real trial. He would carry one bag of cement (100 pounds) out to the truck from the freight car, go back in, pick up two bags, and carry them out. For me to prove I could do the job, I had to carry, bag for bag, with him. We did this all day from 8 in the morning until 5 that night. Boy, was I tired!! I went in to the manager and asked him if I had the job, and he said that he had to talk to the truck driver first and to wait around. The truck driver went in and talked to him. He then called me back in and told me I had a job because the driver told him he’d never worked with anyone better than I was."

With hard labor came challenges; his circumstances sometimes necessitated his working outside in temperatures as low as -50˚ below zero Fahrenheit. Charlie slept in a room with no heat, with a single buffalo robe to stay warm. During this difficult time in his life, he slowly succumbed to alcoholism, and developed smoking and gambling habits as well.

Charlie Pierson’s birth year kept him from being one of the youngest members of the World War II Generation, sometimes called the “G.I. Generation,” [3] or the “Greatest Generation” [4] by a few years, but he was just old enough to don a military uniform before the end of the War. After a failed attempt to enlist as an underage soldier (due to a failed health exam), he eventually enlisted in the Canadian Army at 17 in 1944. Charlie was discharged in 1946, without traveling abroad or seeing any action. He does not describe himself as an honorable soldier or person during this time in his life.

"During my time in the services, I was not the type of person that I am proud to write about… I had been drinking pretty heavily when I enlisted in the army, so it continued on, night after night."

Around this time, Charlie began to engage in serious self-examination [5] that led to some important adjustments in his life. One of the primary catalysts of these changes was Muriel Hawryluk—“the milk girl”—whom he met in 1946. Muriel caught his eye and inspired him to make positive changes in his behavior that would last a lifetime. According to Charlie, “Everybody was against us” getting married but “we didn’t care what other people said. We knew we loved each other and that was what mattered.” The two were wed on April 10, 1948.

"How I enjoyed being Charlie’s wife! I can’t forget the joy I experienced to be with Charlie 24 hours of the day. It was so important to me to marry the one I loved, but it was even more important to love the one I married. This made up for any inconvenience that came our way. We had no fridge, no cupboards, no utilities, and only a wood stove to cook on. We carried our water from Clifford’s well. We enjoyed it all."

Following their wedding, Charlie and Muriel got serious about what was important to them and what they wanted from life. Charlie decided to rekindle his religious faith and Muriel decided to join his church. While Charlie was not an alcoholic or gambling addict, he made the decision to put tobacco, alcohol, and gambling behind him for good after marrying Muriel. He and Muriel remained faithful to their church, their employment, their community, their family, and to each other for the rest of their lives. Along the way, they became models of self-sufficiency, selflessness, and good citizenship. They were not perfect—no self-action leader is—but amidst whatever mistakes they made along the way, they effectively personified what it means to be a successful self-action leader.

According to Charlie, “We had to work hard for what we got,” but, he adds, “I’m glad of it.” Life was not easy after they got married. Their accommodations, at best, were modest. He describes their first home in Alberta as a “two room house that wasn’t much to take a young beautiful girl to, but that’s all we had.” He recounts, “that year there were crickets by the billions. They would come through the cracks in the floor; they’d drop off the ceiling onto our bed at night; they were everywhere.”

From there, they moved to a larger city where they rented a couple of rooms from another family and shared a communal bathroom. Later, they lived with Muriel’s mother for a short period of time. Not wishing to make it a long-term arrangement, Charlie sold their car to build his family their own home.

With $1,075 from the sale of their car, they began work on their home. Charlie did most of the work himself, including digging out their basement. They continued to pursue their dream of having a place to call their own, despite Charlie breaking his nose with a hammer, and a blizzard flooding their house with snow. Although they struggled to keep warm that first winter, they continued to grow in their love and devotion to one another, and were surprisingly content in their difficult circumstances. Finally, after a herculean effort, and the near fatal birth of one of their daughter, the house was done.

Over the next 10 years, Charlie pursued a career in law enforcement, and he and Muriel had four more children. During this period of their life, Charlie and Muriel became increasingly dedicated to their faith, and Charlie remained firm in his decision to rid his life of tobacco, alcohol, and gambling.

One of the greatest indicators of Charlie and Muriel’s Self-Action Leadership was their desire to be self-reliant. This desire fueled Charlie’s ambition to build his wife and family a home.

The House that Charlie built in 1960 (top) and 2000 (bottom)

"Early in 1958, I saw a picture in the paper of the Home of the Week. I loved the home, brought it home, and said to Muriel, ‘Here’s your new home. What do you think of it?’ She just laughed at me. I said, ‘I am really serious. This will be your new home.’ I contacted her dad and bought a 50-foot lot south of our property for $600. On buying the lot, I proceeded to tear down the fence and dig up the rhubarb, and Muriel said, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ I stated, ‘This is where you new home’s going to be, the one I showed you.’ I think now she’s taking me seriously. I got the building permit, hired the basement dug, and had the basement walls poured, and the sub-floor on. And from there I built the rest of the house by myself with limited help from different people."

When Charlie and Muriel built their first, there were only about seven houses visible in the surrounding vicinity. Over time, a large community sprung up that was eventually annexed by an even larger city. Fifty-five years after first starting their dream home, Charlie and Muriel are still living there.

Over the course of those five decades, they accomplished many things. Charlie served in law enforcement for 30 years before retiring in 1982.

In what little spare time he had, Charlie took up the hobby of rebuilding old cars. His achievements as a hobbyist culminated with his building two different recreational vehicles (RVs) he could use for family vacations. He had no formal training in auto mechanics, but doggedly pursued self-education on the subject. He persisted through whatever problems or obstacles that arose. Sometimes while working on an automotive project, he would go to bed without any idea how to proceed. When this would occur, he would pray for help and the inspiration would come—sometimes in the middle of the night—often leading him to get up and work until daybreak pursuing whatever ideas came, according to Charlie, as an answer to his prayers. Below is a series of pictures of a car that Charlie restored from start to finish.

Starting out...

All finished!

Charlie and Muriel’s self-reliance was made possible in part by their frugality. As newlyweds, Charlie told Muriel that, “two could live as cheap as one,” and he still believes it. If something needed mending or repairing, they usually managed to fix it themselves, thus saving the cost of hiring a repairman.

Rather than living lives primarily aimed at self-promotion or aggrandizement, the Piersons’ lives have been consistently aimed at contributing meaningfully to the well being of their marriage, family (they raised five children to adulthood), church, and community. Additionally, Charlie and Muriel donated a sizable portion of their personal time, effort, and money to their church.

Extended Pierson Family in 1998.

Presently, the Pierson’s have five children, 24 grandchildren, and nearly 60 great-grandchildren. The following picture was taken of their posterity at their 50th wedding anniversary.

Charlie’s journey through life has not always been easy—even after he transcended his difficult years after being orphaned. He dealt with many health problems over the course of his lifetime: repeated bouts with kidney stones, varicose veins, blood clots, glaucoma, hypoglycemia, and prostate issues—to name a few.

Muriel has faced her challenges as well, including her original family’s vehement disagreement with her decision to join Charlie’s church, the painful divorce of one of her sons, and the subsequent estrangement of several of her grandchildren. Through it all, they have managed to live long, and live well.

In their later years, they invested a great deal of love and time in making woodworking projects for all of their grandchildren.

They are tremendous models of “extraordinary ordinary people.” [6] Charlie and Muriel have remained devoted to their family in word and deed, and to each other as well. Rarely, if ever, have I observed a couple—especially of their age—who are more caring and devoted to each other. [7]


Next Blog Post: Friday, February 6, 2015 ~ SAL Case Study: The Fred & Marlene Hawryluk Story


[1] Badaracco, J.L., Jr. (2002) Leading Quietly: An Unorthodox Guide to Doing the Right Thing. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Pages 1-2.
[2] Strauss, W. & Howe, N. (1991). Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584 to 2069. New York: Quill, Page 279.
[3] Ibid. Page 261.
[4] Brokaw, T. (1998). The Greatest Generation. New York, NY: Delta.
[5] Neck, C. P., & Manz, C. C. (2010). Mastering Self-Leadership: Empowering Yourself
for Personal Excellence (Fifth ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. See page 19.
[6] The title of Condoleezza Rice’s recent memoir about her growing up years with her parents. Rice, C. (2010) Extraordinary, Ordinary people: A Memoir of Family. New York, NY: Crown.
[7] Once scene in particular illustrates the sincerity of the love they still share, 65 years later. While visiting them recently in their Canadian home, I noticed how close the couple chose to sit next to each other. Charlie rested his left hand tenderly on Muriel’s right leg. Muriel rested her left hand gently on his arm. After 63 years of marital fidelity and devotion, it seemed they adored each other as much as ever.

SAL Book: Emancipation through Self-Action Leadership

Self-Action Leadership is an emancipator. It is the key that can release you from the ten shackles described in the previous chapter.

This chapter introduces a real-life story to illustrate the extent of SAL’s capacity to liberate you from whatever shackles are presently binding you down either personally or professionally. This story is not about fame, fortune, fabulously good luck, or overnight success, yet it is a success story. This story is about an imperfect, common human being who accomplished uncommon things through the conscious exercise of diligent, disciplined, and dedicated SAL over a period of nearly three decades.
This is the story of a man in his mid-thirties. He was born in 1979 in a tiny, rural, farming and ranching community in the Four Corners area of the western United States. This man’s beginnings were marked by many of the commonalities of life in middle-class America, and that is where the story begins its twists and turns. Since 1979, he has visited 49 of 50 U.S. States, eight Canadian Provinces, and several foreign countries. He has lived at 41 different addresses in five different time zones. His life has been full of variety, adventure, challenge, opportunity, personal growth, failure, and success.

In his life, this man has learned to effectively manage clinical obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and depression after suffering for two decades from their insidious symptoms. He earned a Doctoral degree with a 4.0 grade-point average after scoring a 3.2 GPA in college, a lackluster 2.9 GPA in high school, getting rejected by the University he applied to, and taking Algebra 1 three years in a row.

This man convinced an intelligent, talented, and attractive young woman to marry him after a horrible string of romantic failures influenced by his OCD-related social awkwardness. He was a 24-year old college graduate before getting his first girlfriend or kiss, but now he is happily married to a woman he describes as “better than the woman of his dreams.” This man is now the father of two healthy, happy children (a son and a daughter) who are the joy of his days.

This man and his wife have gone from being $80,000 in debt in 2008 to being completely debt-free, paying cash for his graduate education, enjoying a comfortable lifestyle, and establishing a growing nest egg for the future.

After being placed in the average reading group in first grade and being frightened to speak in public, this man has since published four books and spoken publicly to 20,000 people throughout North America and the United Kingdom. This man, who once desperately needed help with his own Self-Action Leadership, has since helped thousands of people with theirs all over the English-speaking world.

If you have not already guessed it, this is the story of my own life; it is the story of how SAL transformed my life and my character. I do not share these things to impress you, or to brag. I share them to impress upon you my deep personal conviction—born of 27 years of real life experience and deep personal study and observation—of the power of the principles championed in this book. SAL works—my own life is testament to the fact.

I am no better than you are. There is nothing special about me. But everything is special about SAL principles, which will beget goodness and success in your life and career if you are willing to learn them, believe in them, and live by them. For this to occur, you must both want, and be willing to, change—just as I did.

"For things to change, you must change."
– Jim Rohn
(1930-2009)

 

The reason my story turned out the way it has is not because other people, things, or external circumstances changed, or because I got lucky. Many people waste much of their lives waiting around for circumstances, luck, and other people to change; I know because for many years, I was one of them.

Do you live your life among this vast multitude that lounges on the beaches of life waiting for your ship to come in? I’ve been guilty of frequenting this crowd. I’ve also thrown my share of pity-parties over the years. Often convinced my problems were a result of circumstances or the people around me, I eagerly embraced opportunities I had to physically move so my life could improve. Naively hoping a change in my outer surroundings would improve my internal experiences and magically make me happy led me to feel predictably and perpetually disappointed. Over time, I discovered the great truth that no matter where I was, or who and what was around me, nothing would ever really change until I changed—and that is when the magic—and hard work—began.

“What you become inwardly changes your outer reality.”
– Plutarch & Otto Rank

Once I began to change myself, my circumstances began to improve as well. The harder I worked on myself, the more pleasant, prosperous, and desirable my circumstances became. It took enormous amounts of time and effort, but it was all worth it. Over time, I learned—not merely through principle, but through actual experience—that other people, things, and circumstances do not determine my destiny. For better or for worse, I determine my own destiny—today, tomorrow, and always.

SAL IS A LIGHT

Life is filled with problems. No one gets out of life without facing significant adversity. If you think someone doesn’t have problems, you just don’t know them very well. Personal problems and challenges come in many different sizes and packaging. Something that is easy for you may be excruciatingly difficult for me, and vice versa.

In writing this book, I do not presume to understand the substance and depth of the personal and professional problems you face. Nor do I claim to have the answers to solve them. What I do know is that you can eventually find specific answers to your individual problems if you are willing to submit your will to the general laws of Self-Action Leadership.

SAL is not a bandage for covering up your problems; nor is it a mystical elixir to make them magically disappear. SAL is merely a light. I say mere, but there is nothing weak or small about light. For light—if you are willing to open your eyes to, and utilize its penetrating guidance—has the power not only to uncover what your problems really are, it can also illuminate the correct pathways to solving them.

If you are trying to hide from your problems or veil them from others, then light, of course, seems a terrible nuisance whose blinding effects will be quite painful. But if you seek to know what your problems really are, and possess a real intent to solve them, light is a great liberator; indeed, it is the only liberator. I should warn you, however, that light can initially be painful whether you seek it out or not.

In life, everyone is exposed to varying intensities of this metaphorical light. And in the end, there are really only two kinds of people in the world—those who hold on to their blindfolds to ease the pain, and those who cast away their blindfold to face the pain. Those who keep their blindfolds feel less pain in the short run. Those who discard their blindfold feel less pain in the long run. If you are willing to persist in seeing light, your initial pain will be swallowed up in lasting pleasure and peace. What kind of person do you want to be?

Light is useless for hiding and pretending. It’s only functionality is for seeing and doing and going. What do want in your life? Do you seek to hide and pretend and cover-up, or do you yearn to see, and do, and go and become? If you desire the latter, this book will be quite helpful to you. If you desire the former, read no further.

Consider an additional caveat about light. While light can illuminate the pathway you should take, it cannot travel it for you. Do not, therefore, expect a nicely paved, divided highway all the way to the top of your personal mountain. Real solutions do await you at the mountaintops of real problem solving; but be ready to face bumps, steep grades, hot (or cold) weather, and no shortage of obstacles along the way. Light doesn’t remove obstacles from your path; it merely helps you see them better.


Next Blog Post: Wednesday, December 17, 2014, Chapter 14: The Challenge & Quest to Become