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

SAL Book: The Age of Authenticism

The world has enough Fiction, 

                                        Facade,
                                           Farce,

                                              Fraud, &

                                                 Facsimile.

The world needs more integrity and truth. It needs more authenticity, and it needs it badly.

Life is real. It is not a dream or mirage. It is not some ethereal hallucination we merely imagine is occurring. It is an authentic experience that is as real as you and I.

“I think, therefore I am.”

– Réne Descartes

(1596-1650)

There are a lot of philosophies and ideologies out there willing to fill your mind with fiction and fear. My job in writing this book is to fill your mind with facts and faith—faith in True Principles, and conviction in your capacity to understand and abide by them.

As human beings, our experiences are shaped, and ultimately defined, by the choices we make. Regulated by the passage of time, right choices will result in success, happiness, prosperity, and most importantly—FREEDOM; wrong choices will result in failure, misery, penury, and bondage in all aspects of life.

Human beings have a remarkable capacity for creativity when it comes to making excuses for why things didn’t, or aren’t, turning out quite right in their lives. From genetic predispositions and chemical imbalances to structural inequities and bad luck, a wide swath of humanity is convinced they are not to blame when their state of mind or life is undesirable. While the adversities listed above are real and challenging, they don’t have to define your life’s story unless you let them.

Things typically turn out badly for those who harbor a victim’s mentality, and it is always the fault of someone or something else. Such is the flawed belief system of those inhabiting the bubble world of blame. In the real world, however, the results you get in the long run are determined (with quasi-mathematical precision) by the choices you make.

There are, of course, legitimate exceptions to this overarching generalization, something I’ll discuss in greater detail in Chapter 16. Nevertheless, the principle of, “As ye sow, so shall ye reap,” remains an irrevocable truism that can never be wished away by the whimsy of mankind’s sometimes flimsy intellect. The time has come to stop making excuses for our personal problems, inadequacies, and failures, and take personal responsibility for everything in our lives.

Making right choices is not always easy, but the formula to achieving lasting success in any life arena is that simple. True principles exist, govern absolutely, and provide a sure way to happiness, success, and freedom; they are also relatively easy to understand.

I recognize this is a very black & white way of looking at a world ever colored in a spectrum of situational grays. Such circumstantial cloudiness can create profound ambiguity about the way things really are in the world and Universe. In the midst of such mortal mystifications—which we all must pass through—dark delusions often seem like horrifying realities. The only escape from the ashen lenses through which we must all peer lies in right thinking, speaking, and doing. There is no other way. The principle is that simple, and the application is that difficult.

THE NEED FOR UNSOPHISTICATED TRUISMS

I am aware how naïve and provincial such statements must sound to many in our postmodern world; and that is precisely what makes them so beautiful, profound, and desperately needed in our troubled society. The world has enough sophistication and rationalization; it needs more common sense and integrity. It has enough selfishness and hedonism; it needs more self-restraint and honor. It has enough sarcasm and greed; it needs more sincerity and goodness. It has enough derision and deception; it needs more encouragement and truth telling. The world has enough fake; it needs more real. The world has enough authoritative caricature; it needs more authentic character. In short, the world needs more self-action leaders.

A CRITIQUE OF POSTMODERNISM

Postmodernism is a term assigned to an intellectual movement that has increasingly dominated academic, cultural, and political circles since World War II. Postmodernism essentially posits that nothing really exists except that which is constructed through language, or that which is decreed by postmodern potentates to be true.

Principles of postmodernism promote a convenient credo of moral relativism, thus affording human beings with pretended power to redefine moral principles to suit their own capricious conceptions of right and wrong. However well intentioned its acolytes may be, the fruits of foraying into the practices of postmodernism have been frighteningly foul in recent generations, and portend a fearful foreboding for the future.

Wittingly or not, postmodernists seek to elevate human beings into godlike figures with the power to determine what is and what isn’t real on the contradictory premise that nothing really is at all, except that which is constructed by language and the pompous proclamations of postmodern demigod critics. And speaking of critics, postmodernism is full of them since the movement was largely rooted in literary criticism. The problem with critics is that they are almost always “Big talkers, and Little doers.”[1] The cultural produce of postmodernism consists largely of selfishness, hedonism, confusion, nihilism, and hopelessness.

With the perpetual production of such unsavory harvests, one must wonder why Western society has – for the past half-century or more – embraced the mores of their husbandry with such an ironically evangelical zeal. Technological advancements, the Information Age, and the end of widespread agrarianism were bound to create a clamor for a contrast to previous intellectual efforts. But sadly, their vacuously inauthentic intellectual product—bereft of any basis in reality—was destined to bear bitter fruit; and its tree has liberally delivered just that.

The aim of Self-Action Leadership is not to create critics, but to develop doers. It seeks to teach and train those whose desires lie not outside the stadium in the cirque du critique, but inside the arena on the platforms of performance. In the words of President Teddy Roosevelt:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." [2]

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

– Bryant S. Hinckley

(1867-1961)

While postmodernist thought originated largely among the literary intelligentsia, its insidious message of unreality soon spread to infect entire cultures and governments throughout the Occident and beyond with the popular, albeit erroneous, notion that there really isn’t any absolute truth. The result? Legions were sucked into an infernal black hole of intellectualism as its cryptic message crept into—and eventually cloaked—the balance of society and culture in the philosophy of anything goes. The collateral damage of this ideology to the moral pulse and existential progress of an entire planet has been, in many ways, calamitous—and in some cases even fatal.

Postmodernism has even sought to rewrite history, or at least cast a negative shadow on some of its greatest acts, actors, and achievements. Not all such aims have been bad. In some cases, history needed to be rewritten for greater accuracy and holism, and to have the scales and shadows removed from some of its darker secrets. In many cases, however, in an attempt to achieve social justice and absolute equality, history has too often been deconstructed and recast to make the good guys – who were certainly not perfect – out to be devils, while re-diagnosing some of the genuine devils as being merely misguided, mentally ill, or mismanaged, rather than as the evil fiends they actually were.

This book has been written as a response to the negative cultural consequences of postmodernism. It seeks to resurrect the reality of absolute truth along with its precious virtues of self-discipline, self-restraint, self-reliance, individual liberty, personal freedom, and realism upon which all of history’s lasting success stories were, and are, built. It further seeks to champion these virtues in nations, governments, states, communities, organizations, schools, families, relationships, and most importantly—individual lives.

I love my Country too much to stand idly by and watch it perish in the pages of postmodern philology. It will take several decades and much work to reverse the deep damage that has already been done, but the challenge is not insurmountable. Indeed, I believe America’s – and the World’s – best days lie before us, not behind us.

The time has come for the candor and actuality of authenticity to eclipse the pernicious perjury of postmodernism. It is time for something real. The dawning of a new age—an Age of Authenticism—answers this clarion call of the cynical, sarcastic, synthetic, and even sinful era in which we live. While I cannot take credit for coining this new term, I agree with its originator—the British novelist Edward Docx—that “Postmodernism is Dead,”[3] or at very least, is beginning to die.

Freedom Focused commends Docx for his insightful prescience, and his incisive selection of such an apt term to describe a whole new era that will mark the present generation and beyond, which history will eventually classify as transcending postmodernism and replacing it with something as new as it is old, and that remains perennially and effervescently vital--namely, goodness and truth. Freedom Focused is dedicated to promoting and championing this new Age of Authenticism throughout the world. We invite you to add your voice to the choir.

The Self-Action Leadership theory and model is designed to serve as an intellectual exponent of this new movement that is rejecting “postmodernism with all its detachment and deconstruction,”[4] and entering a nobler place where “some things are pure and some things are right.”[5] Postmodernism is the business of critics. Reality, truth, and authenticity are the business of self-action leaders and principled poets. In the words of G.K. Chesterton:

There is at the back of all our lives an abyss of light, more blinding and unfathomable than any abyss of darkness; and it is the abyss of actuality, of existence, of the fact that things truly are, and that we ourselves are incredibly and sometimes almost incredulously real. It is the fundamental fact of being, as against not being; it is unthinkable, yet we cannot unthink it, though we may sometimes be unthinking about it; unthinking and especially unthanking. For he who has realized this reality knows that it does outweigh, literally to infinity, all lesser regrets or arguments for negation, and that under all our grumblings there is a subconscious substance of gratitude. That light of the positive is the business of the poets. [6]

If you seek greater authenticity in your life and relationships, as well as in our nation and world, I invite you to join us in a new and fresh movement of education and action that spawns real HOPE, and leads to real CHANGE. This place of light, of reality, of authenticity, is a glorious place to work and reside. It is the promised land of hope and the real address of change. Most importantly, it is the gateway to individual liberty and personal freedom.

Join me on this journey to authentic living—a land where all people possess opportunities that are both real and endless. There can be no greater opportunity—individually or collectively.

And speaking of opportunity, every human being has so very much of it that it saddens me to see grievance trumpeted while opportunity is but whispered in corners of society where opportunity is scarce and hope is most vulnerable. It bereaves me to see the best that is in a human being squandered on the worst that has happened in the past—either to oneself or one’s ancestors.

The time has come to spend a little less time talking about how oppressed some people are, and spend a little more time proclaiming the potential of those same, remarkable people. Instead of crying out about limitations, let’s shout upon the rooftops how innately creative, talented, and intelligent ALL human beings are. Let’s spend less time telling people how hard they have it and invest more effort in telling them how capable they are of succeeding—even in the face of great external difficulties—if they are given a chance to learn, and if they are willing to apply the knowledge they acquire.

I am not suggesting we ignore persisting structural inequities. We must continue to fight racism, bigotry, and evil of all kinds wherever it festers. What I am suggesting is the promotion of a pedagogy of possibility as an alternative to the derailing dogma of grievance.

Join with me in a movement to unite ALL Americans—and eventually ALL human beings—in a vision of each individual’s unlimited potential for achievement and Existential Growth, as well as our still unreached potential as a Nation and Planet. There can be no greater national or global quest. And remember: it all beings with the one—with you, and with me.

I WANT YOU…

To realize your limitless potential through the power of

Authenticity
&
Self-Action Leadership

---

[1] From Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack. 

[2] Excerpt from T. Roosevelt’s Citizenship in a Republic speech delivered at the Sorbonne in Paris, France, on April 23, 1910. 

[3] The term, “Age of Authenticism” was first coined by the British novelist Edward Docx in his article Postmodernism is deadin Prospect Magazine on July 20, 2011.  Article URL: http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/postmodernisms-is-dead-va-exhibition-age-of-authenticism/#.U3LCSe29LCQ

[4] Quoted words of blogger (Pastabagel) on blog entitled: Partial Objects.  August 19, 2011.  URL: http://partialobjects.com/2011/08/what-comes-after-postmodernism/

[5] Lyrical line from the song, Month of May, performed by the rock band Arcade Fire.  Written by: Win Butler, Regine Chassagne, William Butler, Tim Kingsbury, Richard R. Parry, Jeremy Gara. 

[6] Chesterton, G.K. (2008). Geoffrey Chaucer. Cornwall, UK: House of Stratus. (Chapter 1, Page 15).

- BB cream Kiko -

Salut Sweeties !!!

Je voulais absolument aller à la boutique Kiko depuis quelques semaines pour m'acheter leurs BB cream et du coup avec leurs promo, vu sur FB, j'en ai carrément profité pour me commander de nouveau sugar mat et mirror en plus de la crème. J'ai pris la teinte n°1 Light, et j'avais peur que d'une seule chose en commandant, que la teinte de la BB cream ne soit pas bonne. Mais il n'en est rien elle est parfaite !
Je sais qu'il y a déjà pleins de revues, mais j'avais envie de vous faire la mienne et bien sur j'ai attendu quelques jours pour bien la tester et publier mon article.

 
En bref, qu'est-ce qu'une BB cream:
Initiale de "Blemish balm cream" ou en français "baume anti-imperfections".
On ne va pas revenir sur les origines de cette crème, certains disent que c'est Allemand, d'autres Coréen.
Mais il faut savoir que les BB cream sont à la base des soins maquillage pour les femmes qui se font de petites opérations, pour pouvoir camoufler les petits bleu/marques rouge sur le visage.

Celles que l'ont trouve sur le marché ne sont pas forcément de "vraies" BB cream comme elles l'ont été inventées au départ. J'avais lu un article intéressant la dessus. ((je vous laisse aller voir si ça vous intéresse se sera plus simple pour moi que de tout réexpliquer. ))
Mais se sont quand même des crèmes multifonctions pour unifier, corriger et donner de l’éclat à votre peau.

Pourquoi je voulais une BB cream et pourquoi celle de Kiko:
En fait ça fait quelques mois que je ne mets mon fdt que sur mes pommettes qui sont un peu rosées, et sur mon nez qui a quelques taches de rousseurs, histoire d'unifier le tout. Et sincèrement utiliser mon fdt Clarins "juste pour ça"  c'est un peu du "gâchis" en plus avec l'été qui arrive enfin pour le moment c'est pas sur lol je veux quelque chose de léger sur ma peau. Donc pourquoi pas une BB cream.
Et j'ai choisi celle de Kiko pour une simple raison: ils proposent une teinte bien claire !
J'ai déjà essayé d'autres BB celles de L'oreal et une autre je ne sais plus laquelle, peut-être Gemey, mais étaient toujours vraiment trop foncées voir oranges pour moi alors que c'était quand même des teintes claires. J'ai toujours été déçue jusque là, j'avais même laissé tomber l'idée de m'acheter une BB cream. Jusqu'à ce que je tombe par hasard sur celle de Kiko....

Ce qu'en dit Kiko:
"Soin teinté avec des ingrédients actifs hydratants et un indice de protection moyen.
Émulsion « transformatrice » qui surprend dès le premier geste : blanche comme une crème, elle contient des pigments spéciaux micro-encapsulés qui réagissent de manière chromatique dès l’application pour prendre le teint naturel. Les mouvements effectués lors de son application causent une « rupture » de la couche des pigments, ce qui révèle une nuance de fond de teint capable de s’adapter parfaitement à chaque teint.

Une fusion absolue avec la peau : la texture douce et évanescente de BB Cream SPF 15 devient comme une seconde peau et procure un pouvoir couvrant léger et un éclat naturel et sain. L’effet flouté diffuse la lumière naturellement sur tout le visage et camoufle les imperfections et les signes de fatigue.

Grâce à la diffusion d’énergie du complexe novateur K², BB Cream SPF 15 prend soin de la peau comme un véritable traitement : les ingrédients actifs neutralisent la déshydratation et luttent en même temps contre les dommages cutanés causés par la pollution en renforçant la résistance de la peau contre le stress environnemental.

Pratique et facile à appliquer, BB Cream SPF 15 est aussi enrichie en écrans solaires pour protéger le visage contre le vieillissement cutané photo-induit.
Hypoallergénique, non comédogène, sans parabènes."

Ce que moi j'en dis:
Enfin une teinte qui me convient !!! La crème sent bon ((là chacun ses goûts lol)) et elle est agréable à mettre.
Comme d'autres, c'est une crème "grise" avec de petit points ((les pigments)) qui reste grise/blanche quand on commence à l'étaler et qui se teinte petit à petit.

Elle laisse la peau douce, un peu comme si on avait un voile de cire, et unifie assez bien sans démarcation.
Ma peau ne brille pas, d'ailleurs la crème ne laisse pas la peau grasse et on voit nettement moins mes pores.
La couvrance est légère donc si vous avez d'énormes rougeurs/boutons on les verra toujours, il faut donc se munir d'un correcteur en plus.
Pour ce qui est de la tenue, je la trouve pas mal du tout ! Pour dire, même après le sport elle est toujours bien là.

Ici je l'ai mise sur le dos de ma main et je ne l'ai pas bien étalée volontairement pour que vous voyez la couleur.

On voit bien que les pores sont moins visible et vous pouvez même constater que ma petite cicatrice disparait quasiment avec la BB cream.

Zoom sur...
Points positifs: le prix 8€90 pour 30ml, le bec qui fait que ça reste toujours propre, la légèreté de la matière
Points négatifs: j'aurai aimé un plus gros tube lol , pour certaines la couvrance ne sera pas suffisante

Je vous ferai une autre photo avec un maquillage complet et évidemment la BB cream pour le teint.

Voilà voilà !! Je crois que c'est la première fois que je fais un article si long, j'espère que vous ne vous êtes pas endormie xD