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Enormous power exists in principles, practices, policies, procedures, laws, and by-laws that are built atop a firm foundation of a written CONSTITUTION that is clear, fair, just, firm, and principle-centered. |
Have you ever wondered why corporations, schools, churches, miscellaneous organizations—and (ironically) even local, state, and federal governments—fail to tap more fully into the philosophical and practical wisdom contained in the United States'
Declaration of Independence and
Constitution?
In fact, we are sorta fixated on this question—and in searching out every relevant answer thereto.
After all, these two documents have probably influenced and improved our world more than any other two documents in the history of our planet.
Knowing, however, that we cannot control other people or organizations—we can only control ourselves—we spend most of our time striving to "be the change we wish to see in the world" (Gandhi).
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| Gandhi and his Wife, Kasturba |
"YOU must be the change you wish to see in the world."
—Mohandas Gandhi
As such, it is our unique opportunity to perform in the present that which so many others have failed to see or do in the past.
Rest assured, we will not squander this incredible opportunity, but will make the very most of it to our dying day—for our own blessing and the everlasting benefit of others who will eventually follow in our (and the founding Fathers) footsteps.
Having completed our
22-article series of
"LIFE RULES," today's post begins a new series of Self-Action Leadership (SAL) themed articles.
This new series introduces the Freedom Focused Declaration of Independence, which, like the United States' Declaration of Independence, is a single document and will be presented in TODAY'S post.
Following this post, the next dozen-or-so posts will introduce the Freedom Focused Constitution, which is also inspired by the United States' Constitution. The Freedom Focused Constitution has 13 separate articles that range from our organizational values and standards to our corporate rules and by-laws.
These groundbreaking corporate documents contain the Policies and Procedures of
Freedom Focused as an organization. But instead of a boring, dry, and commonplace P&P manual—which you are apt to find in most corporate human resource departments and can drone on for hundreds of insipid pages
—the founders of Freedom Focused have put forth something much more interesting and scintillating by incorporating thematic templates inspired by (arguably) the two most significant political and governing documents that have ever graced Planet Earth; namely,
The United States' Declaration of Independence and
Constitution.
These forthcoming blog posts, including today's article, will be some of the most important blog posts we ever publish at
Freedom Focused.
Why?
Because they outline and articulate very specifically what we are all about at
Freedom Focused. After carefully reviewing the articles in this series, YOU will have a pretty clear idea of
who we are,
what we value and aim to accomplish, and
how we intend to go about it.
Throughout the annals of American history, TWO (2) documents stand majestic, preeminent, and supreme above all others:
The United States Declaration of Independence and
Constitution.
These two remarkable and awe-inspiring works changed the course not only of American history, but world history as well.
From their immediate influence on revolutions throughout Europe and South America in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century—a period of time that has since become known as the AGE of REVOLUTION—to its longer-term impact on the entire world—to wit: in the year 2022, you can count on one hand the number of nations who do not have written constitutions—the legacy of these two extraordinary works is incomparable in the annals of world history.
Most people, regardless of their ideological persuasion or political affiliation, tend to agree that much good has arisen and much progress has been made because of these two documents. The combined liberty, freedom, power, prosperity, and moral influence of the United States has been almost unprecedented in world history, and it can all be traced back to the governing principles and championed philosophies and practices articulated and enumerated in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution.
Simply stated, democratic-republicanism as outlined and promoted in these two documents WORKS—in spite of the clearly mortal and woefully fallen world in which we presently find ourselves.
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Winston Churchill
as a young Politician |
It does not work perfectly, of course, but that is more a product of the flaws of individual men and women than it is due to any imperfection in the documents. As a Prime Minister of Great Britain, Winston Churchill, so cogently put it: "
Democracy is the worst form of government on Earth, except all those other forms that have been tried from time-to-time."
"Democracy is the worst form of government on Earth,
except all those other forms that have been tried from time-to-time."
—Winston Churchill
Despite the obvious difficulties and flaws of democracy, it is indeed the best alternative in a fallen world full of men and women who are all-too-often motivated by selfishness, ego, chicanery, and greed—rather than selflessness, service, transparency, and virtue. Thus it is that another Prime Minister of Great Britain once proclaimed: "The American Constitution is the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man."
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William Ewart Gladstone
(1809-1898)
Four-time Prime Minister of Great Britain |
"The American Constitution is the most wonderful work everstruck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man."
—William Gladstone
Coming from a leader of the most powerful nation on Earth (at the time), and directed towards a people and land that once belonged to his own country's Crown, it's hard to overestimate what an extraordinary compliment this is.
Is it any wonder, then, that many throughout Christendom (including myself) will even go a step further than Gladstone to credit the hand of Providence Itself as playing an integral role in the inception, composition, and perpetuation of these two formidable works?
Given the unprecedented peace, prosperity, and success spawned by these two august documents, it is a matter of surpassing wonder to me that private (and, ironically, public) organizations around the nation and world have failed to more fully tap into the power, potential, and genius contained in these mighty works.
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The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen
United States of America—approved July 4, 1776. |
Freedom Focused aims to rectify this glaring organizational omission. We do so by not only incorporating principles, philosophies, and practices of these works into our own corporate policies, procedures, and culture, but by crafting and composing OUR OWN Declaration of Independence and Constitution that serve as the organization's ultimate authority, from which all power and influence are ultimately derived
—including mine as Founder and CEO.Today's post shares the Freedom Focused Declaration of Independence.
As a preface thereto, it also provides a brief back-history to the United States Declaration of Independence, including how that original document serves as a thematic template and philosophical guide to our own.
The United States' Declaration of Independence was commissioned by the Second Continental Congress representing the British-held Thirteen Colonies in June of 1776—14 months after the American Revolution was triggered by the famous "Shot heard round the world" at the Battle of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. Conflict had been brewing between England and her North American Colonies for over a decade before this first battle exploded across the Massachusetts countryside. The source of the Colonist's discontent was rooted in taxes and other measures levied by the British Parliament against the will of the Colonies—and by the Crown's refusal to allow official colonial representation in London, a state of affairs that birthed the famous phrase, no taxation without representation, throughout the Colonies.
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Continental Congress's "Committee of Five"
working on the Declaration of Independence |
On June 11, 1776, a Committee of Five members of Congress was selected to outline and draft the Declaration of Independence. The members of this committee included:
- John Adams of Massachusetts
- Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania
- Thomas Jefferson of Virginia
- Robert Livingston of New York
- Roger Sherman of Connecticut.
This committee tapped Thomas Jefferson—known for his skill as a writer—to compose the initial draft. Adams, Franklin, Livingston and Sherman then worked together with Jefferson to polish and prepare a Final Draft to present to the full Congress.
On July 4, 1776—a date that has become synonymous with American Independence—Congress approved the final draft. It was then published throughout the Colonies and sent abroad to King George III and Parliament in Great Britain.
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| Signers of the Declaration of Independence |
Fifty-six (56) statesmen, ranging in age from 26 (Edward Rutledge) to 70 (Benjamin Franklin), representing all 13 original Colonies (from New Hampshire in the North to Georgia in the South) signed the document. These brave men showed enormous courage in affixing their names thereto. They understood that failure in the war of Independence would likely lead to each one of them dangling from the end of an English hangman's noose.
The document itself was indicative of the depth and height of intelligence, skill, talent, and vision possessed by the fledgling nation's intrepid leaders. Much more than a mere profession of political separation, Jefferson and his colleagues worked carefully and methodically to ensure the document contained a thoughtful, compelling, articulate, spirited, and BOLD case for the logic and rectitude of their extraordinary undertaking. And their endeavor was indeed audacious! They were, in essence, thrusting a gargantuan stick in the eye of the most powerful nation on Earth (at the time). Such a move required a bottomless container of courage—and had to be backed up with an unswerving resolve to subsequently engage in a messy and bloody guerrilla war of attrition against the most powerful Army and Navy in the world (at the time).
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Fictional artistic rendering of Congress approving the Declaration of
Independence as shown on the back of the US $2 dollar bill |
In the Declaration's opening paragraphs, Jefferson and his colleagues make a case for the rectitude of their intentions by appealing to the self-evident certitude of Natural Law. This power play audaciously implied that the workings of the Universe itself were in harmony with the Colonist's intentions. They further affirmed the absolute existential equality of human beings everywhere. While they themselves were not yet fully committed to this lofty tenet (evinced by the lingering practice of slavery), their statement of this FACT planted an important seed in the minds of Americans everywhere—a seed that future generations would continue to cultivate in an effort to increasingly animate and personify, as illustrated by the Union victory in the Civil War and other victories in battles for civil rights in the twentieth century and beyond.
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Thomas Jefferson was only 33 years old
when he wrote the Declaration of Independence |
The main body of the Declaration of Independence is dedicated to enumerating specific grievances the Colonies held against the British crown and its parliamentary body. This list of grievances articulated the "WHY" behind the Colonist's desire and drive for independence.
The document then eloquently concludes with a steely statement of immovable resolve whereby the signers offer up their whole souls—including their "lives, fortunes, and sacred honor"—upon the altar of independence to which they voluntarily affixed themselves.
This Declaration accomplished much more than sever political and governing ties with the Mother Country. It further served as a vision and mission statement for not only the war that would follow, but for generations yet unborn who would carry the work onward into the nineteenth, twentieth, and eventually the twenty-first century. It was unlike any document that had ever preceded it, and because its signers possessed the character, grit, and resolve required to see their vision through to completion, the world was never the same because of its composition and publication.
At Freedom Focused, we have a similar goal in mind in drafting our own Declaration of Independence. We seek not merely to free ourselves from the mediocrity and unscrupulousness that has so often plagued organizations in the present and past. In a larger sense, we seek to change the very culture of organizations themselves—and by extension, culture itself—throughout the United States and World.
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Freedom Focused is founded on and inspired by the legacy of the
Founding Fathers and Mothers of the United States of America |
Like the founding Fathers and Mothers of the United States, our aim is to change the culture of our nation and world, PERIOD. And we are prepared to unapologetically give our all in backing up our aim with concrete, consistent, and unrelenting action.
In doing so, we recognize the audacity of our intentions. We would be hard pressed to get any more ambitious than to attempt to qualitatively alter the culture of an entire continent and planet. Nevertheless, that is our single-minded, ultimate goal. As long as we are permitted to live in this world, we will enthusiastically and proactively pursue this grand, overriding objective.
To all of America—and the rest of the world—we therefore proclaim our intentions boldly, nobly, and independently, as follows...
Freedom Focused Corporate
Declaration of Independence
Established in the Year of our Lord, Two Thousand and Five
When in the course of corporate events, it becomes necessary for an organization to rise above the mediocre, the mean, and even the monumental, in order to form a new company that rises to superior and unprecedented heights within and beyond a designated industry. Not for the purpose of self-promotion or organizational aggrandizement, and not even primarily for profit; but because the moral foundation and functional effectuality of educational institutions, the well-being and prosperity of society, and the preservation of authentic, virtuous, compassionate, and just cultures depends upon it—and because its builders possess the liberty, knowledge, desire, power, freedom, and will to construct it.
In the spirit of the freedom focused Founding Fathers and Mothers of
The United States of America, we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created with an innate existential worth, value, and equality. We further declare that all human beings are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, privileges, and potential powers, and that among these are life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, growth, and the potential acquisition of limitless personal, relational, and professional achievements, contributions, satisfactions, fulfillments, and FREEDOMS attainable through disciplined hard work when undertaken on the altar of principle-centered pursuits that are synergized with the graceful mercies, enabling powers, and serendipitous grace of Providence.
In an unrelenting quest to acquire the growth, freedom, prosperity, and inner peace we believe our Creator desires and intends for us to individually and collectively attain, and with an undeviating reliance on our own Providence-suffused efforts and merits, we hereby declare our independence from the polluted ideologies of pre-structuralist and post-structuralist (postmodernist) philosophical extremes that stifle human liberty, shackle the spirit, mind, and heart of humankind, and relegate the reality of right and wrong to the foolhardy files of philological fiction.
In words of humility and soberness, we declare that Truth—with a capital 'T'—exists as an omnipotent and omnipresent reality and force throughout our shared physical world as well as our unique, individual metaphysical "worlds" (i.e.
our lives and experiences). This force is irrevocably independent of the natural inclinations, arbitrary desires, ever-changing and cycling styles and fashions, and whimsical caprice of mercurial man. As corollary to this great verity, we acknowledge the eternal existence and clear divisibility of a real right and wrong and the veracious moral principles that articulate this distinct dichotomy. We further acknowledge that absolute consequences—determined by Universal Laws of physics and metaphysics—always accompany human thoughts, speech, and actions, and that the full weight of their preeminent power lies beyond any assumed authority of men or women to arbitrarily adjudicate or despotically determine.
As Agents of Freedom Focused, we declare our inexhaustible intention to seek after Truth and then do what is right to the best of our imperfect knowledge and flawed capacities with a clear recognition that human pride, selfishness, and vice left unchecked brings about the predictable downfall and ruin of individual lives, relationships of all kinds, organizational entities, and collective populaces that constitute the body politic.
We further declare our independence from the enslaving pride, greed, corruption, and lust that has so marred individual leaders and organizational cultures throughout our nation and world's public and private sectors in recent generations—and throughout the history of our singularly remarkable, yet perennially troubled planet. In evincing the particulars of this widespread contemporary and historical malaise, let the following citations of individual and corporate unscrupulousness be candidly enumerated to a morally inebriated world:
- Lust for, and coveting of, authority, power, material possessions—or anything else rightfully belonging to another.
- Arrogant pride and rapacity, which leads to:
- Overinflated executive egos, salaries, and lack of respect for subordinates
- Mid-level managerial egos and unnecessary inter-organizational politicking
- Employee egos, one-upsmanship, and lack of respect for supervisors
- Underinflated salaries of non-executive and non-managerial positions
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Freedom Focused Declares its Independence from all kinds
of Dishonest, Manipulative, and Unscrupulous Behavior |
Idleness, laziness, apathy, bad attitudes, and mediocrity
- Deceit, manipulation, and untrustworthiness in all their venomous manifestations
- Inconstancy, disloyalty, and lack of organizational, community, and national patriotism
- Negativity, gossip, backbiting, and revenge
- The formation of faction cliques and the jejune juvenility and damage engendered thereby
- Blame, reactivity, and victimhood
- Excessive/unnecessary bureaucracy, politicking, and litigation
- The inefficient and ineffective use and waste of time, energy, and resources
- Low standards, dim vision, and lackluster results
- The dearth of meritocracy, including the formation and perpetuation of unjustified positions of tenure at all levels of the organization
Freedom Focused has arisen in an age of illusion, deception, and disillusionment for the purpose of transcending these aforementioned organizational ills that have become culturally endemic in the Western World and beyond. As token of our declared independence from these crippling vanities and destructive vices, we hereby hoist the flag of personal and professional goodness, responsibility, honor, and will atop the flagpole of truth, conscience, order, discipline, duty, and beauty in a never-ending quest after personal and professional growth and freedom.
As admittedly flawed human beings, we acknowledge that even our best intentions and efforts will ultimately fall short of perfectly personifying the stirringly high virtues, standards, and ideals set forth in this declaration—as well as those championed in the Freedom Focused Corporate Constitution (FFCC). Despite this humbling recognition, we enthusiastically assert that our potential for improvement, growth, and freedom is inhibited to whatever degree we aim for anything less than perfection. To truly progress, one must aim—however imperfectly—at perfect IDEALS. Thus, we hereby establish the ideals set forth in this Declaration and its concomitant Constitution, which are as perfect as we can presently ascertain.
As Agents and Executives of
Freedom Focused Corporation, and appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, we do, in the name of Truth and Universal Law, and by the authority of the good people of this corporation, solemnly publish and declare our commitment to strive endlessly to overcome any and all conquerable individual and corporate deficiencies that both damage or dam the long-term success, vitality, and potential of individuals and organizations everywhere.
With all the knowledge, power, creativity, and will of our minds, hearts, and spirits, we seek after this freedom, which is not a right, but an earned privilege to those willing to pay the price in time, effort, and self-sacrifice in obedience to True Principles rooted in Universal Laws. In support of this declaration, and with a firm reliance on both the assistance and grace of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our past experiences, present careers, and future visions and loyalties—laying it all up willingly on the altar of our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
Like John Hancock before me, I've positioned my signature front, center, large, and BOLD—so that King George III (aka: whoever reads this document) "will be able to clearly see it without having to get their reading glasses" (such was the reasoning Hancock gave for signing his name in such a large, elegant, and grandiose fashion on the U.S. Declaration).
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John Hancock's Famous Signature atop
the U.S. Declaration of Independence |
At present, this Declaration of Independence has only one signature: the autograph of Dr. JJ. That will change over time as others join me in the great work we are undertaking at
Freedom Focused.
In the future, every AGENT (executive, manager, trainer, or builder) ever employed by Freedom Focused on a full-time basis, will have the opportunity to affix their own signature to an online Declaration of Independence database of signatories.
In addition, all future Executive Officers will have the opportunity of personally signing (by hand) the official document which will be drawn up by a professional calligrapher when the time comes for the second signatory to autograph the document.
Although I presently am alone—at least officially speaking—in the great work of Self-Action Leadership and Freedom, the day will come when the FF Declaration of Independence will have 56 (or more) official executive signatures—just like the U.S. Declaration of Independence. More importantly, it will have thousands, tens of thousands, and perhaps even hundreds of thousands of additional AGENT signatures on its online database. Of this fact I am confident—if not certain—and humbly supplicate and implore the eternal Hand and omnipotent aid of Providence in our ongoing efforts to make this dream a reality.
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Next week we will begin sharing
the Freedom Focused Constitution |
Lastly, I express my appreciation to the current subscribers to the
Freedom Focused Blog. At Freedom Focused, we consider blog subscribers to be "HONORARY SIGNERS" of our corporate Declaration of Independence and Constitution. We currently have 192 subscribers (honorary signers).
Someday, we will have millions... and you'll be able to tell your friends, kids, and grandkids that YOU were one of the first 200!
If YOU like what you've been reading in these blog articles and would like to contribute to the cause of Self-Action Leadership and Freedom, the best contribution you can make is to encourage your family, friends, neighbors, and colleagues to sign up to receive these weekly emails.
If you currently know someone who would like to subscribe, just have them email us at freedomfocused@gmail.com and type the word "SUBSCRIBE" in the subject line or email body.
A thousand thanks for the interest and support of YOU, my ever-valued READERS!
God bless you and yours—now and always.
—Dr. JJ
May 11, 2022
Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, USA
Author's Note: This is the 265th Blog Post Published by Freedom Focused LLC since November 2013.
Click HERE for a compete listing of the other 264 FF Blog Articles.
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Tune in NEXT Wednesday for another article on a Self-Action Leadership related topic.
And if you liked this blog post, please share it with your family, friends, colleagues, and students—and encourage them to sign up to receive future articles for FREE every Wednesday.
To sign up, please email freedomfocused@gmail.com and say SUBSCRIBE, or just YES, and we will ensure you receive a link to each new blog article every Wednesday.
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