Self-Action Leadership Training for Individuals

What if You Could Squeeze Nearly THREE Decades of Knowledge, Experience, Study, and Research into ONE Comprehensive Self-Help Book and Personal Leadership Guide?

Self-Action Leadership by Dr. Jordan Jensen

ANSWER: You'd have in YOUR hands a copy of SELF-ACTION LEADERSHIP, the Premier Self-Help Guide of the 21st Century.  

This week's post introduces Self-Action Leadership training for individuals.  I am extra excited about this week's article, because writing it has taken me on a pleasantly nostalgic trip down memory lane to some of the greatest joys of my childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood.

I have always loved the printed page.  I was blessed to be born into a family that valued books—especially my father.  This love was fueled no doubt by whatever children's books my parents or older siblings read to me as a little boy.

But it seemed to me to go beyond that.  It seemed to be innate—as if my love of reading and writing and studying had been developed spiritually before I was even born—and that these proclivities had naturally accompanied me on my journey into this world as well.

As such, I felt unusually drawn to books and other written material from before I could even read.  For example, I remember a childhood neighbor friend coming over to my house one day. I was in kindergarten at the time and could not yet read myself.  She, however, was a big first grader and could read.  Enamored by her special skill I had not yet accrued myself, I admiringly directed her into our little playhouse under the stairs in our home, sat her down, took out a report of some sort that looked extra important and sophisticated (which I had retrieved from my Dad's office waste basket—my office supply shop for playing "office") and admiringly asked her to read it to me.  I don't remember what she read off of whatever it was I handed her (chances are good she couldn't read much of it) but I do remember being impressed!  I could hardly wait until the day arrived when I could finally read on my own.

Later, after I had learned to read and write myself, my perspective opened up to the wonderful world of books.  This introduction and discovery opened up a veritable Heaven on Earth to me.

First, there was my own growing collection of books (by the age of 23, I had amassed a library of over 500 volumes).  Then there was the scattered collection of books throughout my home, the mother load of which was ensconced in my Dad's personal office library, which he kindly allowed me to peruse at my leisure (including permission to read his personal journals).  Beyond that, I was introduced to school and public libraries, and the expansive University library at BYU where my Mother attended school during summer terms to finish her Bachelor's degree in between the years 1988 and 1992.

The grandest private library I had access to was in my maternal Grandmother's home.  Grandma and Grandpa Smith's library dwarfed my own father's sizable collection, and I spent some of the most cherished hours of my childhood there—alone—in the midst of those thousands of books, many of which were older and emanated that pleasant "old-book smell."  Grandma kindly allowed me to search her stacks to my heart's content.  In addition, she generously allowed me to borrow those I found to be most wonderful of all.

Upon her passing, there seemed to be a lack of clarity about how the books were going to be apportioned.  Worried that this ambiguity might stretch on for some time, I wisely secured a stack of my favorites before the moving truck arrived.  In hindsight, I should have taken more than I did.  I never saw the rest of those books again.  I heard that they initially went to a storage unit.  I do not know where they are today.

Jensen Family in 1989
I am the little boy on the bottom right

I come from a large family.  Of my six siblings, I am the youngest of five boys.  My four older brothers are all at least 8 years older than me.  Because of this salient separation in our ages, my brothers were, in many way, more like uncles or surrogate fathers to me than brothers.  This was not a bad thing because they treated me kindly and with a lot of respect, especially in light of how many typical older brothers treat their kid brother.  This tender regard for me only strengthened the near-worshipful veneration I admiringly bestowed upon my brothers.  The pedestal upon which my young eyes placed them caused me to want to know and do everything they knew and did.  This translated into many different hobbies and behaviors, the foremost of which was to take interest in the sports my brothers competed in and the books they were studying at school and church.

"Doing" my trigonometry homework in
our backyard on a warm, sunny,
Arizona afternoon.

One of my most beloved childhood practices was to borrow my brothers' textbooks to look through and then copy out of—pretending I was doing the same advanced high school homework they were.  As such, I became acquainted (at least in name) to calculus, chemistry, physics, English and American literature, trigonometry, economics, theology, etc.

One of the most satisfying single moments of my entire boyhood occurred one Friday evening after returning from a high school football game to find the books Hamlet and Othello sitting on my desk in my bedroom.  I had been begging my brothers to get them for me from their high school library (which I could not personally access).  They kindly acquiesced, and forever after viewed their lending of those two books to me (which I could hardly read and not in the least bit understand as a second grade) as a precious token of brotherly love and affection.

As I matured in both age and reading ability, I began to actually study books more seriously.  As I grew into my teen years, I discovered that I especially liked books related to personal development and self-leadership.  The seeds of this passion were sunned and watered by my reading of Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People and Dr. David J. Schwartz's The Magic of Thinking Big—both outstanding self-help books of antiquity from deep into the last century, and both of which I found on the bookshelves in my own home.  This was followed by my introduction to the work of my uncle, Hyrum W. Smith as well as Stephen R. Covey, Anthony Robbins, Norman Vincent Peale, and others.  I was hooked!

Teaching action shot of Dr. Jordan Jensen from 2012

While serving a 2-year mission for my Church, I discovered that I loved to teach as much, if not more, than I loved to read and write and study.  This natural blend of pre-sown personal proclivities, wonderful opportunities to nurture those seeds, and my growing chance to apply what I was learning led me, in time, to choose a career in education, and more specifically in the fields of self-help and personal development.

Along the way, I devoured additional self-help books and found that my interest was always piqued when my coursework included literature that possessed literary self-help or philosophical value (for example, as an English major, I made the fortuitous acquaintance of writers like Donne, Franklin, Emerson, Thoreau, Frost, etc.).  My passion for such literature was borne not just out of the joy and satisfaction that study itself brought to me, but because I needed the wisdom and help these authors afforded in my quest to overcome my own weaknesses, build upon my strengths, and work through perplexing life challenges I was facing—like my battle with OCD.

Click HERE to read about Dr. Jordan Jensen's battle with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Click HERE to read Part II

One book in particular—The Greatest Secret in the World by Og Mandino—I used on a daily basis for 45 straight weeks in a religious effort to work through my OCD and other challenges I was facing at the time.  To this day, that book—filled with all of my notes of progression, setbacks, and insights along the way—serves as a sacred reminder to me the value of investing great time, energy, passion, effort, and the will to do whatever is necessary to overcome oneself to reach greater heights and states of being in the future.

Within a few years of my Mandino experiment, I had figured out that one of my missions in life was to write my own book that could help other people in a similar way that all of these other books I had read had helped, inspired, and lifted me in my own life's journey and helped me to transcend or manage my own life's obstacles.  Recognizing I had already amassed a great deal of knowledge and insight on the subject, I set to work.  In 2005, I published my first book—I Am Sovereign: The Power of Personal Leadership.  It was directed to a teenage and young adult audience.  It was not commercially successful, but it was a building block in my early career that bolstered my confidence and opened up doorways of additional professional opportunity.

Back cover of Dr. Jordan Jensen's book, Self-Action Leadership

Ten years and a lot of reading, studying, research, and life experience later, I published what I intend to be my seminal work on the subject of personal leadership.  I call the book Self-Action Leadership: The Key to Personal, Professional, & Global Freedom.  No matter how old I live to be, and no matter how many books I write during the course of my career, I hope that this one book remains my seminal work—and is never surpassed in its eventual commercial success.

Why?

Because this ONE book provides a synergistic accumulation and unique presentation of everything I have ever learned that has benefitted me in the field of personal development and self-help over the course of the last three decades; and because I believe that this one book will be more helpful to a broader swath of society than any other book I will ever write.  Any additional books I write in the future will merely be an appendage to this seminal text.

The past several weeks I have written about how Self-Action Leadership training (along with the book) can benefit corporate and business audiences as well as educational groups (i.e. schools and classrooms).  In weeks to come, I will write about how civic leaders, parents, and persons dealing with or treating mental illness can benefit from studying the material, as well as sharing the information and providing training for their constituents, dependents, and patients.  But in the last analysis, Self-Action Leadership is, was designed to be, and I hope always will be, used primarily as a personal manual—an all-in-one comprehensive self-help guide and workbook that can bless the lives of those who read it, study it, and do the homework assignments contained therein.

Speaking of the homework assignments contained therein, one of the unique and most beneficial features of the text is a personal leadership challenge that we at Freedom Focused call The Self-Action Leadership (or SAL) Master Challenge.

This challenge consists of 25 concrete exercises that invites YOU—the reader—to do more than just read the book.  It encourages you to study the material, learn new vocabulary words, begin a personal journal and complete other relevant writing assignments, set goals, engage in activities of self-discipline, and eventually to write your own Self-Declaration of Independence & Constitution where you will begin to identify your life and career vision, mission, values, standards, goals, etc.

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.

Those who undertake and complete the SAL Master Challenge will receive a special diploma (non-accredited) and medal to commemorate their achievement.  Their names will also be recorded on the Freedom Focused website where they will remain as long as Freedom Focused stands as The Center for Self-Action Leadership.

The SAL Challenge is NOT an easy challenge.  You will not be able to complete it quickly—and that is the point!  After nearly 30 years of studying the subject of personal development and self-help, and more importantly, after nearly THREE decades of working tirelessly to improve myself in the process, I have acquired the expertise necessary to create a comprehensive guide that will provide you—in one volume—with all of the essential principles, practices, and other elements contingent in the process of human existential growth and development.  And the good news is you don't have to spend nearly 30 years figuring it all out because I've already done it for you.  All you have to do is get the book, read it, complete the SAL Challenge, and then forever benefit from the blessings that come from the acquisition of vital knowledge in concert with the dedicated pursuit of self-work, self-sacrifice, goal setting, and personal discipline.

Click HERE to buy Dr. Jordan Jensen's book — SELF-ACTION LEADERSHIP

After you have finished reading the book and have completed the SAL Master Challenge, I invite you to email me to tell me about what you are learning and share your experiences.  I look forward to hearing from you!  You can reach me personally at jordan.jensen@freedomfocused.com

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

Self-Action Leadership  ~  The Book

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.

Back Cover of Self-Action Leadership, the Book

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.







  

A 21st Century 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

A 12-Year Project Completed

It is not often that one completes a 12-year project.  This month, I have had the chance to do just that by  publishing a groundbreaking new book.  It is called, Self-Action Leadership: The Key to Personal, Professional, & Global Freedom.  

The result is the much anticipated release of a 21st Century analogue to Stephen R. Covey's famous 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

This Generation Next "Personal Leadership Handbook" is as different from the original 7 Habits as it is similar.  While it's tone, format, length, and anecdotally rich content strikingly diverges from Covey's 1990s work, its commitment to teaching, modeling, and championing correct principles that promote "Powerful Lessons in Personal Change" is just as effervescent and vibrant.

I first read Covey's timeless classic in 2001 to fulfill a requirement in a college leadership course.  Simply stated, the book changed my life.  To this day, with the exception of sacred religious texts that are near and dear to my heart, it has influenced my life more than any other book.  By 2003, I had a pretty clear vision of my life's professional purpose -- to write an analogue to the 7 Habits and start a company that might serve a new generation as ably as Stephen R. Covey and Hyrum W. Smith's contributions and companies served the last.

My son, Tucker, with
my well-worn copy
of the 7 Habits

The difficulty of this ambitious and audacious undertaking has been perennially perplexing and persistently painful, yet inexplicably rewarding and profoundly fulfilling.  Fraught with seemingly endless challenges, rejections, and failure over the course of the past decade, the journey also brought countless moments of satisfaction, success, and even elation.  More importantly, it bore much fruit in my own life, and is now beginning to bear fruit in the lives of others.

I can say without any reservations that the principles Covey and Smith taught in their masterful books over the years are as veracious as they are beneficial.  I know because I have thoroughly tested them in the laboratory of my own life.  Moreover, my careful study and application of them helped pave the way to the production of Self-Action Leadership, which I earnestly desire will help those in the 21st Century as ably as Covey's 7 Habits and Smith's 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time & Life Management assisted those in the 20th Century and beyond.  As I mention in my "Special Tribute" to both FranklinCovey Co-Founders in my book, "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." (Isaac Newton).

Click HERE to read my personal tributes to Hyrum W. Smith, Stephen R. Covey, & Charles C. Manz, whose work proved foundational to my own.

Self-Action Leadership presents an original THEORY and MODEL of self-leadership.  This new scholarship has been diligently hewn out of the ore of my own life's crucibles. It is further rooted in doctoral level action research and carefully corroborated by a cornucopia of wisdom literature spanning several millennia.

This insightful guide to freedom, success, and most importantly--personal change--signals a new era in self-help literature and the science of personal development.  It also aims to usher in a whole new cultural era in the Occident, namely, an AGE of AUTHENTICISM -- marked by character, integrity, hard work, and personal reliance -- which is destined to replace the perilous, perjurious, prurient, and pernicious era of POSTMODERNISM that has increasingly dominated Western Culture in the last 50 years.

Click HERE to learn more about the Self-Action Leadership THEORY

CLICK HERE to learn more about the Self-Action Leadership MODEL

Ranging far beyond the home, classroom, schoolhouse, or corporation, SAL aims to lead a resurgence of American Greatness and Leadership on the World Stage by influencing a renaissance of character and integrity by providing an education in True Principles based on Universal Laws of Natural Acquisition.

I love my Country.  I am proud to be an American, and have been saddened to observe the salient decline of our great nation.  Despite the perplexing problems that presently persist throughout our 50 States and other territories, I remain optimistic about her future.  I wrote Self-Action Leadership -- a non-partisan, secular, educational based personal development manual for my Country.  It is my way of saying THANK YOU to this great land, as well as all those who have made it the greatest nation in the world and the "Last best hope of Earth." (Lincoln)

I am who I am, and have accomplished what I have in large part because of the liberty, hope, opportunity, and inspiration I have derived from living in this blessed and magnanimous land of promise.

It is PAYBACK time!

By capitalizing on the tremendous liberty my Country has afforded me, I have been able to pursue and achieve personal freedom in a wonderfully remarkable manner.  It is my earnest hope that this manual will serve my Country in coming years by helping to preserve our liberty and expand the freedoms of others to ensure that our best day's are ahead of us -- not behind us.

Click HERE to watch Dr. Jensen's vision of restoring American Greatness through Education

Self-Action Leadership is written on the premise that organizational, national, and even international change is predicated on personal change; it all starts with the individual.  As individual units of an entity develop character, capacity, and competence, organizational conglomerates improve by a factor of those individual changes, and the accompanying synergistic infusion of efficiency, effectiveness, and prosperity can be staggering.

All lasting SUCCESS begins with EDUCATION

Talk to just about anyone and they'll offer up plenty of blame and point a plethora of fingers at other people and entities as they didactically diagnose the panoply of problems we presently face.  What is unfortunately rare is to find someone willing to look in the mirror, admit the presence of one's own bag full of blemishes, and then begin the process of fixing the only thing any of us has any real control over -- our own thoughts, speech, actions, attitudes, biases, and beliefs.

Our goal at Freedom Focused, and the aim of Self-Action Leadership, is to reverse this depressing trend, and return power to the people as one-by-one, individuals embrace a lifelong commitment to personal change and excellence.

Whatever your political persuasion, sexual orientation, race, culture, gender, or personality, I believe we can all unite in a pursuit of personal purification through self-awareness, personal discipline, and an accession of Universal Laws that govern both the physical world and the metaphysical results we garner by virtue of our thoughts, speech, and actions.

We invite you to join us in this movement aimed at restoring American Greatness and promoting World Peace through a dedication to individual excellence and integrity.  There can be no greater contemporary, national quest.  The impending perils of the future demand that we prepare now to tackle the trials we inevitably face down the road.  Let us prepare now lest we be swallowed up when the fiery heat of the refining fires of the future blast forth to test our mettle and see what we are really made of.

You can begin this preparatory stage now, by reading this new groundbreaking book.

CLICK on one of the links below to buy your own copy of SELF-ACTION LEADERSHIP: The Key to Personal, Professional, & Global Freedom.

Buy a HARD COPY version of Self-Action Leadership

Buy an e-Copy version of Self-Action Leadership

Buy an e-version of SAL at AMAZON.COM

* Best Deal * Buy hard-copy and e-version copies of SAL at BARNES & NOBLE.COM  * Best Deal *

Click HERE to read what the EXPERTS are saying about Dr. Jordan R. Jensen and Self-Action Leadership

Click HERE to read about the AGE of AUTHENTICISM that Freedom Focused is Championing in an effort to prod POSTMODERNISM into the pages of history

Click HERE to read the Book's Foreword, written by Christopher P. Neck, Ph.D., University Master Teacher, Arizona State University; and the Book's Afterword, written by David G. Anthony, Ed.D., CEO of Raise Your Hand Texas

Click HERE to read the Author's Preface

Click HERE to watch Dr. Jensen's Full Speech on Restoring American Greatness through Education

Click HERE to watch Dr. Jensen's Introductory Seminar on Self-Action Leadership

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: 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.

SAL Seminar: Dr. Jensen & Self-Leadership

Today's post shares the next two sections of the SAL seminar video.  Section 3 provides biographical information about Dr. Jensen.  Section 4 provides an overview of self-leadership -- not to be confused with Self-Action Leadership, which will be covered later this week.  SAL has deep roots in the self-leadership field, so it is appropriate to cover self-leadership in some depth before providing more information about SAL.


Also...  I have noticed that links to the video clips don't show up in the e-mailed versions of the blog.  If you are receiving this post via e-mail and the video links do not show up, just click on the blue title link at the top of the page and you will be redirected to the actual blog post where you can access the videos.

About Dr. Jordan R. Jensen

Self-Leadership: the precursor to SAL

An Era Shifting Speech on Education (II)

PART 2: Dr Jensen's Self-Action Leadership Transformation

I am not a salesman here to sell you snake oil. I am here to share with you what really works when it comes to authentic problem solving.


The bad news is that what really works is usually HARD and requires huge investments of time, effort, and to varying degrees, pain. I know because I’ve suffered greatly along the pathways of my own SAL journey.

The good news is that if you are willing to invest the time & effort, and if you are not afraid to courageously confront pain when necessary, SAL could change your life, and the lives of those you teach, mentor, and lead.

Such changes will lead to extraordinary increases in the productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness of everyone touched by the principles. I know this because SAL has led to all these things in my own life; simply stated, SAL is why I stand before you today.

To illustrate… let me share a few examples from my own life.

EXAMPLE 1: Mental Illness ~ OCD & Depression

I have battled obsessive-compulsive disorder – “OCD” – & depression for over two decades. The hellish symptoms I’ve suffered induced incalculable amounts of anxiety, guilt, stress, and anguish of body, mind, & spirit.

My symptoms led to serious issues that negatively impacted my academic performance, my social & romantic relationships, my religious practice, and every other area of my life.

Through Self-Action Leadership, I have been able to effectively manage my OCD and depression to accomplish every major academic, social, romantic, and spiritual goal I have set for myself to date.

EXAMPLE 2: Academic Struggles

Because of OCD and other issues, I often struggled academically growing up. For example, I took algebra I three years in a row. I know, it was kind of embarrassing. I failed to break a 3.0 GPA in high school, scored very average on my college entrance exam, and was rejected by the University to which I applied.

Through Self-Action Leadership, I improved my performance in college and went on to earn a doctoral degree in Education, and thanks to a couple of A-plusses, finished with a better-than-perfect 4.049 GPA.

To make up for my algebra deficiencies, I married an attractive mechanical engineer who received a perfect score on the math portion of her SAT, and whose favorite high school course was, I kid you not, algebra 1! At least now our kids will have a genetic chance when it comes to Math; and the best part is, I won’t have to help them with their algebra homework!

EXAMPLE 3: Romantic Failure

OCD and depression also negatively impacted my social life and romantic interests. Over the course of my dating experiences, I was rejected 130 times by 80 different women.

 

Now I recognize these disjointed numbers make me sound even worse at math than previously eluded, but there is an explanation… You see, some of the women rejected more than once. A couple of woman rejected me nearly 20 times between the two of them, and despite my persistence, I never convinced either of them to be my girlfriend. My OCD-influenced dating persistence was indefatigable, and my ability to take a hint was sorely lacking.

Through Self-Action Leadership, I am now married to a woman I can rightfully describe as “better than the woman of my dreams.” I say “better” because God prepared her with many wonderful attributes that even I was unable to anticipate on my own short-sighted “list” of desirable qualities in an eternal companion.

EXAMPLE 4: Fear of Public Speaking

Nearly three decades ago, I gave my first public address in front of an adult audience. Early on in my life, I sometimes found such experiences to be dreadful. I recall after one of my first public speeches at age 10 being greatly relieved it would be some time before I’d have to do that again.

Through Self-Action Leadership, I have not only conquered my fears of public speaking, but have made a career out of it—a career I LOVE—that has taken me to 44 U.S. States, 5 Provinces of Canada, 9 Shires or Counties of Great Britain, as well as Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

I do not share this biographical information to impress you, but to impress upon you that Self-Action Leadership has changed my life in dramatically positive ways; and SAL can do the same for you—if change is what you seek.

Self-Action Leadership holds the power to transform entire cultures, restoring the virtues of hard work, integrity, self-reliance, and trained capacity into the American workforce, American schools, American communities, American homes, and ultimately, into the mind of every American who is willing to cultivate a desire to work, plan, strive, and exercise self-discipline. 

 

PART 3: What is Self-Action Leadership?

Self-Action Leadership theory is a morally informed version of self-leadership theory. Self-leadership refers to the cognitive & behavioral strategies human beings apply to lead themselves to get results.

Whether you know it or not, and whether you like it or not, you are a self-leader. All human beings are self-leaders; however, not everyone is effective at leading themselves.

Self-leadership theory has been bandied about the academy for over three decades now. The Father of the Field – Dr. Charles C. Manz of the University of Massachussetts – first published the term along with his theory of self-leadership in 1983.

Many scholars were hesitant at first to embrace an idea that seemed so self-evident and relatively unimportant.

However, as Dr. Manz and his colleagues continued to publish new papers on the subject, self-leadership theory began to receive greater attention and respect in academic circles and beyond, especially as it began informing practical professional leadership models and constructs such as self-directed work teams, also known as self-managed work teams.

Over time, this once marginalized sector of the academy has increasingly garnered the attention of major players in the leadership field. Perhaps it was the Darden Business School’s James G.S. Clawson, who said it best when, in 2008, he wrote:

I remember when Manz first came out with his work on self-leadership. At the time it seemed odd to me. I will admit I am a slow learner on some things. [because] I have come to believe that one of the biggest leadership issues [throughout the World today] is the inability of people – even and especially managers and executives – to lead themselves. [1]

Thus it is that from the Board Room to the Classroom; from the Executive Suite to the entry-level cubicle; and from the Oval office to the 18-year-old voter, self-leadership is a universal concept—applicable to all.

Self-Action Leadership theory, or just SAL theory, mirrors self-leadership theory in many ways. For example, we agree with Dr. Manz that:

Effective self-leadership can be learned and thus is not restricted to people we describe as "self-starters," "self-directed," "self-motivated," etc. The ideas provided by self-leadership … are [therefore] relevant to … anyone who works. [2]

SAL also builds upon self-leadership theory in two KEY ways.

First, the SAL theory & model is independent of, and dramatically expands upon, Manz’s existing self-leadership theory through the original use of atmospheric and construction metaphors.

Second, SAL adds to existing self-leadership theory by providing a moral imperative to both its instruction & application.

The inner compass of Conscience

Self-leadership theory alone lacks this moral imperative, and thus may inadvertently empower evil as well as good. For example, Adolf Hitler—that unprecedented fiend of the failed Third Reich—was a rather remarkable self-leader in many ways. To use one of Stephen R. Covey’s models, Hitler possessed ample self-leadership skills in the areas of vision, passion, and discipline. What he lacked, of course, was a conscience. [3]

Conscience: The Light Within

If vision, passion, discipline, and conscience represent four wheels of a car, it is readily recognizable what happens to its drivability if one of the wheels is absent. Self-Action Leadership adds the vital fourth wheel of conscience to the automobile of your life.

Any thought, word, or action that leads to negative or destructive long-term results for any human being impacted (including yourself) cannot qualify as SAL. All SAL-influenced thoughts, words, and deeds will contribute to positive and constructive long-term ends of any human being impacted thereby; if they do not, they cannot qualify as SAL actions.

Thus Self-Action Leadership draws a moral line in the sand by making explicit what so often is not clearly, much less overtly, stated in businesses, schools, communities, neighborhoods, and homes—that there really is a real wrong and a real right, and as human beings who live interconnected lives, we have an existential duty to try our best to do what is right and to avoid what is wrong—and to teach others to do the same.

Self-Action Leadership is a model for self-renewal that I believe almost anyone from any gender, culture, religion, political party, or sexual orientation can embrace. In a nation of extraordinary diversity and difference of thought, opinion, and ideology, it may be the only way to restore American Unity & Greatness.

My vision of Self-Action Leadership is to teach the theory & model to everyone in America who is willing to listen—and then, after the message has been thoroughly proliferated here at home, my colleagues and I aim to take it to the rest of the world.

SAL training is needed everywhere because, as Dr. Clawson so piercingly pointed out, it isn’t just kindergartners and college students who struggle with personal leadership issues; otherwise polished managers and executives often struggle right alongside the rest of us.

From Board rooms and corporate settings to blue collar establishments; from universities to elementary schools; from community centers to living rooms, and from the bookshelves of executives to the popular blogs of stay-at-home moms, there is no corner of society where SAL training is not needed—and needed badly.

Self-Action Leadership training is not reserved for privileged populations. In fact, underprivileged populations need SAL education as badly as anyone. Fortunately, there is no secular message that will more powerfully empower the presently powerless than the message SAL has to offer.


[1] Clawson, J. G. S. (2008). Leadership As Managing Energy. International Journal of Organizational Analysis. Volume 16, Issue 3. p. 174-181. DOI:10.1108/19348830810937943. Page 175.
[2] Manz, C. C. (1983). Improving Performance Through Self-leadership. National Productivity Review (pre-1986). Volume 2, Issue 3, p. 288-297. Page 289.
[3] Covey, S.R. (2004). The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness. New York, NY: Free Press. Page 85.

SAL Book: Self-Action Leadership Variables

Have you ever faced a debilitating challenge only to hear someone say: “You just need to think positively, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and make it happen!” Over-simplifying human problems can be as problematic as over-complicating or ignoring them altogether. Self-Action Leadership does not translate into human omnipotence. Other variables, both internal and external, exist to produce a variety of human difficulties and problems, as well as opportunities and potential. There are at least 16 variables that produce limitations and benefits to your human potential. The life experiences of every human being are uniquely impacted by one’s own singular blend of these 16 variables.

1. Forces of Nature
2. Congenital Physical Variables
3. Congenital Familial Environment
4. Genetic & Mimetic Inclinations
5. Initial Opportunities for Education
6. Congenital Social Environment
7. Choices of Others
8. Time
9. Structural Inequality
10. Geopolitics & Macroeconomics
11. Good & Bad Luck
12. Supra-rational Intervention
13. Hierarchy of Needs
14. Self-leadership Intelligence and Talent
15. Self-leadership Desire
16. Self-leadership Will

In explaining these 16 variables, I should note that "limitations" and "benefits" should be interpreted primarily as potential limitations and benefits. Just because a person has a circumstantial limitation or benefit at birth, does not mean it will always exist. You have probably met someone who has, over time, either transcended a limitation or squandered a benefit with which they were born.

1. Forces of Nature

Limitations: Natural disasters of all kinds, heat, cold, etc.

Benefits: Some geographic locations have a more conducive climate to living and working than other areas. 

2. Congenital Physical Variables

Limitations: Congenital defects, disorders, and illnesses. Height, weight, natural physical appearance, lack of athletic ability, and other physical talents.

Benefits: Height, weight, natural physical appearance, athletic ability, and other physical talents.

3. Congenital Familial Environment

Limitations: Poverty, abuse, neglect, broken homes, single-parent families, no parents, etc.

Benefits: Abundance, two-parent families, love, support, safety, encouragement, guidance.

4. Genetic & Mimetic Inclinations

Limitations: Bad habits and inclinations, or learned practices (including laziness, irresponsibility, dishonesty, disrespectfulness, cowardice, bad tempered, etc).

Benefits: Good habits and inclinations, or learned practices (including discipline, focus, hard work, honesty, integrity, love, compassion, emotional control, etc.).

5. Initial Opportunities for Education

Limitations: Limited educational opportunities, uneducated or undereducated parents/guardians/role models, limited educational reinforcement at home.

Benefits: Opportunities for private schooling, tutoring, and/or extra-curricular education, strong educational reinforcement at home, well-educated parents/guardians, role models.

6. Congenital Social Environment

Limitations: Growing up amongst people who predominantly demonstrate examples of anger, hatred, bitterness, abuse, revenge, unfairness, deception, substance abuse, sexual impropriety, etc.

Benefits: Growing up amongst those who predominantly demonstrate examples of respect, empathy, compassion, forgiveness, generosity, fairness, love, emotional intelligence, good communication, conflict management & resolution skills, etc.

7. Choices of Others

Limitations: Abuse, neglect, abandonment, isolation, wasted resources, etc.

Benefits: Love, support, positive role models, well-invested resources, etc.

8. Time

Limitations: Short, poor quality lifespan.

Benefits: Long, high quality lifespan.

9. Structural Inequality

Limitations: Stifled opportunities due to race, culture, religion, or other group affiliation.

Benefits: Expanded opportunities due to race, culture, religion, or other group affiliation.

10. Geopolitics & Macroeconomics

Limitations: Residence in a war-torn or otherwise conflicted area; political/social/economic strife; economic recession; resource dependent economy.

Benefits: Residence in a stable and secure area; relative peace and prosperity; strong diversified economy.

11. Good & Bad Luck

Limitations: Unfavorable circumstances or situations (not of your making) to overcome.

Benefits: Unexpectedly favorable opportunities for action.

12. Supra-rational Intervention

Limitations: Lack of aid from a Higher Power—a Lack of Serendipity. (Open to perception and interpretation).

Benefits: Aid from a Higher Power—the Presence of Serendipity. (Open to perception and interpretation.

13. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs [1]

Limitations: Circumstances that require you to focus on more basic levels of fulfillment (survival, safety, love).

Benefits: Circumstances that enable you to address higher levels of fulfillment (esteem, actualization).

14. Intelligence and Talent

Limitations: Little natural intelligence & talent in a given area(s).

Benefits: Lots of natural intelligence & talent in a given area(s).

15. Desire

Limitations: Little or no natural desire for Existential Growth.

Benefits: Lots of natural desire for Existential Growth.

16. Will

Limitations: An unwillingness to expend effort when you don't feel like it.

Benefits: A willingness to expend effort regardless of how you feel.

As you review this list, you will notice that some limitations and benefits are congenital, meaning a person is born with them. Others depend on what you do after you are born. These 16 variables can therefore be divided into three basic categories.

Category 1: Variables you cannot control:

• Forces of Nature
• Congenital Physical Variables
• Congenital Familial Environment
• Initial Opportunities for Education
• Congenital Social Environment
• Good & Bad Luck
• Intelligence & Talent

Category 2: Variables you may have some influence over:

• Genetic & Mimetic Inclinations
• Choices of Others
• Time
• Structural Inequality
• Geopolitics & Macroeconomics
• Supra-rational Intervention
• Hierarchy of Needs
• Desire

Category 3: Variable fully under your control:

• Will

In reviewing this list, I’m sure you noticed that of all 16 of these variables, you only have full control over one of them. At first glance, it might be disappointing to realize just how much you can't control in your life. Our inability to fully control the other 15 variables explains why bad things sometimes happen to good people. While negative events sometimes occur in life because you are at fault, it is also true that bad things sometimes happen as a result of the actions of other people, events triggered by the omnipotence of Mother Nature, or other forces beyond our control. This is the bad news.

Dealing with disabilities, bad luck, mistreatment, or structural inequality is undoubtedly difficult. Such obstacles can be so huge as to overwhelm and disillusion the best of us. But these things are largely outside of your immediate control and influence, especially with regards to the tasks of daily living. Oftentimes, all you can do is strive to make the best of what you have, and maybe improve the variables to some degree for the next generation.

In many cases, your control over other people and things is either non-existent or drastically limited. Your control over your own thoughts, speech, and actions, however, provides a perpetual opportunity for achievement and Existential Growth. This opportunity may dramatically improve your external circumstances over time, if you take advantage of it. The good news is that you can control the most important variable of all, and the one that matters most in the end--your individual will. How you choose to exercise your will often makes all the difference in the long run. It is also the primary catalyst that determines what you become in the end. Your will is the greatest power you possess for the simple reason that is the only thing you can really control; it is the one variable force that is entirely of your own making. No one else is responsible for it. For as long as you live, you must ultimately call the shots.

FAULTS VS. PROBLEMS

As a high school classroom teacher, when things would get difficult for us teachers, and especially when it came to dealing with issues that were not of our making (i.e., poor parenting, broken homes, negative peer and culturally influenced bad behavior, etc.), administrators had a mantra they would repeat to us as teachers. It went like this:

It may not be your fault, but it is YOUR problem! 

This is one of the best SAL reminders of reality I’ve ever heard. Translation: I didn’t make all of the problems in my classroom, but if the problems are in my classroom, it is my responsibility to work to try and solve them. The same principle applies to you, me, and everyone else in the world. All of your problems may not be your fault, but they are your problems. Life, therefore, is a series of recurring questions that ask the following: What are you going to do about the problems life has presented you with? You can't change who you are, where you started from, or what you had (or did not have) when you came into this world. But we at Freedom Focused enthusiastically affirm that you always have the freedom to do something about it. When the final chapter of your life is written through your actions, will your story be one of victory or victimization?

“Highly proactive people … do not blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice, based on values, rather than a product of their conditions, based on feeling … [For proactive persons, their] honor becomes greater than [their] moods.”[2]

– Stephen R. Covey
(1932-2012)

We live in a nation and world of victimization and blame. It seems that people everywhere are eager to find a scapegoat for any and every problem life presents them with. Such people would have you believe that their problems are everyone and everything else’s fault, but never their own. It’s their parent’s fault, their spouses’ fault, their families’ fault, their neighborhood’s fault, their boss’s fault, their coworkers fault, the fault of generations gone by, their communities’ fault, their States’ fault, their Nation’s fault, the world’s fault, the government’s fault, the Republican’s fault, the Democrat’s fault, the Libertarian’s fault, the Stars’ fault, God’s fault, the weather’s fault, their DNA’s fault, the lottery’s fault, etc.

“Henry Thoreau made, last night, the fine remark that, as long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way, governments, society, and even the sun and moon and stars, as astrology may testify.”[3]

– Ralph Waldo Emerson
(1803-1882)

Please don’t misunderstand; I am not saying that external forces do not play a role, sometimes a significant role, in the events and circumstances in our lives. Of course they do. Making this point explicit is the primary purpose of this chapter; that’s why I introduced the SAL variables. It is a truism that bad things happen to good people beyond their control. However, even when bad things happen to good people, good people have the freedom to choose what they are going to do next, meaning how they are going to respond to whatever bad things happen to them outside of their control.

One of my favorite high-profile examples of SAL in action over time comes from the media mogul Oprah Winfrey. Oprah is the first African American woman to become a billionaire. She has influenced hundreds of millions of persons as an actress, talk-show host, and philanthropist. Most, if not all, educated adults in the world know who Oprah Winfrey is. She is one of the most influential women on Earth.

What some do not know about Oprah is that she was born into poverty in one of the poorest states in the U.S. (Mississippi) at a time (mid-1950s) when segregation and prejudice against Blacks was still institutionalized. Oprah’s childhood in Mississippi and adolescence in inner city Milwaukee was marked by troubles of all kinds, including sexual abuse. Oprah’s start in life didn’t portend the kind of greatness she would eventually achieve. But give a determined self-action leader like Oprah a few decades of time and the freedom to direct her own thoughts, speech, and actions, and what you get is a beautiful miracle.

The key is effective Self-Action Leadership and time—usually a lot of it. In the meantime, you—like Oprah—must remain persistent, consistent, and determined. In the words of Napoleon Hill, “when defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and most logical thing to do is to quit, [and] that is exactly what the majority of [people] do.”[4] If someone has the opportunity to learn about Self-Action Leadership and the cognizance and health to exercise it, yet ends up in the same place—or worse—at the end of their life, they ultimately have themselves to blame.

“We are responsible for our own effectiveness, our own happiness, and ultimately, I would say, for most of our circumstances.”[5]

– Dr. Stephen R. Covey

(1932-2012)

Notice that Covey says “most of our circumstances.” Not all, but most. It is true that you can’t change where you started out in life. You can’t always avoid every bad thing from happening to you against your will or desires. Life often isn’t fair, especially in the short run, and that’s just the way it is. There is nothing you can do to change your life's beginning—where you started out in life, and with whom. But there is much you can do to shape your life's ending.

Two choices remain after birth for you, me, and every other self-action leader on the Planet. You can do nothing and complain about your lot in life and blame others for your misfortune, or you can choose to take advantage of any and every opportunity you have to learn, and then act on your newfound knowledge.

I eagerly encourage you to take the latter route, even if you have been unjustly treated by individuals, groups, or society-at-large in the past. Oprah didn’t transcend poverty and abuse by merely cursing her abusers and condemning the injustices of American society; nor did Gandhi secure freedom for the Indian people by cursing and condemning King George the 5th and 6th and the rest of the British Raj and Empire. While both could have easily felt justified in doing so, they both were also smart enough to realize that treading the pathway of the complainer would not lead to a better life. The pathway to a better life was in education, personal growth and development, and the cultivation of their unique skills, talents, and leadership capacities. They both chose to work extremely hard, avoid making excuses, and never, ever, ever gave up. The result? They both changed the world in positive ways and left indelible impacts on society that generations to come will admire and learn from.

“Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”

– Sir Winston Churchill

(1874-1965)

“But,” you may say, “Oprah is an outlier. You, Jordan, are simply cherry-picking an unrealistic example to try and make your point. Oprah has ten times the natural talent and ability of most people!” You are right that Oprah is indeed an outlier, and you are also correct in recognizing that Oprah was born with an unusually gifted talent and skill-set. You must consider, however, two essential facts. The first is that, existentially speaking, Oprah is no better than you or me. As such, you have as much freedom to direct your own thoughts, speech, and actions as Oprah. Second—and this is good news—Existential Growth does not mean you are competing against Oprah. You are only competing against your own potential for growth, which (like Oprah's potential) is limitless. This idea of competing with your own potential instead of against other people is called "intrapersonal competition," and will be addressed in greater detail in BOOK THE THIRD.

“Before success comes in any man’s life, he is sure to meet with much temporary defeat, and, perhaps some failure…. Remember that all who succeed in life get off to a bad start, and pass through many heartbreaking struggles before they ‘arrive’”[6]

– Napoleon Hill

(1883-1970)

THE GREATEST OPPORTUNITY IN THE WORLD

Next to life itself, the greatest opportunity each of us possesses is the freedom to direct that life.[7] There is no more important information than the knowledge that empowers you to effectively lead your own life. It is wonderful beyond comprehension to have such liberty and potential for freedom. But as is usually the case, freedom come with a price—a price that must be paid for in taking responsibility for your thoughts, speech, and actions. Whether you like it or not, or know it or not, natural consequence will flow from each thought, word, and deed you ever think, speak, or act out. And regardless where you start out in life, or what happens to you along the way, you are ultimately sovereign over your individual choices along the way. This means, therefore, that…

Nothing goes until you go;
       Nothing works until you work;
            Nothing happens until you start happening.

What will you choose to do with this, the greatest opportunity that Life has endowed you with? I invite you to go to work by reading this book and applying its principles and practices in your life. If you will do that, you life will start to happen in ways you never, or only, dreamed possible in the past. So, with the introduction to Self-Action Leadership now completed, let’s dive together head first into BOOK the SECOND where you may being a serious study of the SAL theory.

SAL Mantra

Nothing goes until you go;

Nothing works until you work;

Nothing happens until you start happening.

Notes:

[1] Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs refers to a model of human progress developed in the early 1940s by the American psychologist, Abraham Maslow (1908-1970). Maslow’s famous theory states that all human beings are motivated by a hierarchy of needs, and that lower needs must be met before higher needs will motivate. His hierarchy is often presented visually as a triangle model with basic human needs forming the base and higher human needs forming the point. His five basic needs include Survival needs (Level One), Safety needs (Level Two), Love needs (Level Three), Esteem needs (Level Four), and Actualization needs (Level Five).
[2] Covey, S. R. (1989). The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change. New York, NY: Fireside. Pages 71 & 92.
[3] From his personal journal, October 1842. Ibid
[4] Hill, N. (1960). Think & Grow Rich. New York, NY: Fawcett Crest. Page 23.
[5] Covey, S. R. (1989). The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change. New York, NY: Fireside. Page 93.
[6] Hill, N. (1960). Think & Grow Rich. New York, NY: Fawcett Crest. Pages 23 & 39

[7] This principle was taught in a spiritual context by the religious leader David O. McKay, who, in an April 1950 address entitled, Free Agency … A Divine Gift, said: “Next to the bestowal of life itself, the right to direct that life is God’s greatest gift to man.”