Dr. JJ's Rule #7: Accentuate the Positive & Eliminate the Negative*

In a previous article, Dr. JJ's 13 Rules for Living were shared.

Click HERE to access JJ's 13 Rules.

This week's blog post addresses Dr. JJ's RULE #7, which states:

A Freedom Focused Knight imbued by SAL. 

Be wise as a scholar, but avoid sophistry and selfishness. Be strong and brave as an elite warrior, but do not profane or be vicious. Be clever as a fox and shrewd as a Hollywood actor or corporate lawyer, but never engage in deceit or manipulation. Be as skilled and precise as a world-class surgeon, but eschew ego. Be eloquent as a polished politician, but let my words ever speak the Truth in the sincere service of all human beings. Be ambitious and successful like the famous, but flee hedonism, concupiscence, and substance abuse. Fight, endure, and win like a world-champion athlete, but never mistakenly view myself a demigod. Use my God-given talents like a proactive and productive genius, but never dismiss, nor forget, the Source from whence they sprang. 

Abraham Lincoln
(1809-1865)
One of many HEROES I have striven
to pattern my life after. 

Throughout my life, I have spent a great deal of time carefully observing other people. Such observations are rarely random or arbitrary. Rather, I specifically and intentionally observe the kinds of people I respect, admire, and want to be like. Doing so is one of the best ways to become all you are capable of becoming.  

Sometimes I observe and study living leaders and others I have the opportunity to see in action in real time. And sometimes I observe and study the lives and legacies of deceased persons I have learned about in history books, biopics, and documentaries.  

This is one of the most important and beneficial SAL exercises in which I have consciously engaged myself over the years. Inestimable value exists in the high-quality activity of conscious emulation. After all, do not all of us "tend to turn into the thing [we] are pretending to be"?**

An important part of Self-Action Leadership is discovering your TRUE VOICE. As such, a self-action leader's ultimate goal is not merely to imitate someone else. The main objective is to become your own, unique, best self. However, the process of observing and learning from others is an integral part of figuring out who you really are, and otherwise becoming your own best self over time.  

Along the circuitous pathways of my own difficult SAL journey, I have taken especial interest in those who are the very best in their fields. From Socrates and Aristotle in philosophical antiquity to George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in American history; From Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King Jr. in oratory to Michael Jordan and Roger Federer in professional athletics and Tom Cruise and Daniel Day-Lewis in the cinema (and countless others), I always make an effort to learn from the very best through observation, study, and emulation.  

And...

   

     So...

          Should...

               YOU!

There is perhaps no better educational tool than closely and diligently observing other people. And the best part about it is that the tuition for such education is FREE!  

Wise self-action leaders figure out who they are and what they want to become in part by watching others in action. Once they find someone they respect and admire, they begin to observe more carefully and study more closely as a preface to emulation. They then keep at it until they themselves become what they most want to be. 

This is precisely what I have done in my life and career, and in conjunction with a LOT of reading, study, and practice, it has worked wonders!  

Hyrum W. Smith
1943-2019
Co-Founder of FranklinCovey Company

To illustrate specifically how this has worked in my life and career, consider the following example...

I attended my first professional seminar—a FranklinCovey Company time management seminar—in 1987 or '88 when I was only seven or eight years old. 

Watching my Uncle, Hyrum W. Smith—a gifted presenter—ply his trade fascinated me and planted an important seed in my young mind and heart. Since that time, I have watched countless presenters speak and teach. Moreover, I have also spent over 4,000 hours presenting professionally myself. The results of that kind of diligence, passion, time commitment, and focused emulation have been GOLDEN and turned me into the polished, professional presenter I am today. And you can bet that I'll be even better 5, 10, 15, 20, or 30 years from now than I am today.     

Thus, the journey of education, observance, and emulation continues... and will do so forever into my future. 

Along the way, it is vital to not only notice and focus on the positive aspects of a person's character, career, and life, but to carefully observe a person's errors, follies, and sins as well.  

One of the saddest yet surprisingly common things I have observed about those I have admired most is that said persons sometimes have a dark side that contrasts with their brilliance and/or virtue. In other words, their closets are sometimes filled with skeletons which invariably get discovered over time. 

The truth is that no one is perfect. I'm certainly not. All of us have things in our past that we'd prefer not to have broadcast on a BIG SCREEN for everyone to see. Sadly, and sometimes necessarily, a persons sins end up being televised for everyone to view. For better or for worse, such occurrences provide self-action leaders with a variety of CAUTIONARY TALES that, if they are wise, they will learn from in order to avoid making similar errors in their own lives and careers.  

Sadly, some of my biggest heroes have fallen from grace after rising to great heights. And while I personally believe that grace is always available to all of us—no matter what we may have said or done—the reality is that consequences for bad behavior always materialize eventually. Moreover, this world can be very unforgiving—and it never seems to forget. Said consequences may not always come right away, but it has been my observation that they do always come, eventually.

This fact scares the hello-dolly out of me as a self-action leader. It also humbles me to the dust because I realize that I am just human like all of my heroes. As such, I am privy to temptation and vulnerable to fall from grace as they too-often have. Nevertheless, I believe I can increase my potential to imitate their virtues while avoiding their foolish missteps through continual observation, study, focus, discipline, determination, and selective emulation. 

Avoiding such missteps is one of the Primary quests of my life and career.   

Rule #7 is designed to keep me continually watchful in an effort to reproduce the positive and eliminate the negative in my own life and career. It is a constant reminder to remain laser focused and duly determined to do whatever it takes to reach my potential and avoid preventable follies along the way.  

In an effort to maximize successes and minimize preventable failures, Freedom Focused has developed the concept of a "SAL Advisory Board," or a SALAB for short. 

Several of my SALAB members were influential leaders from the past.

A SALAB is a group (list) of individuals (living or deceased) that you respect, admire, and wish to emulate in your own life and career. It is not a literal board that you meet up with in person; after all, it would be tough to get Abraham Lincoln to attend my meetings. Rather, it is a group of individuals you meet with in your imagination to derive strength, courage, insight, guidance, and inspiration. It is a collection of people with whom you would IDEALLY like to associate with on a personal and/or professional basis were it possible to consult with whomever you chose whenever you liked. 

Your imagination is, of course, a source of endless creativity, inspiration, and power if you are willing to more fully tap into it. By creating a SALAB of different people you would like to learn from and emulate in your own life and career, you can put to use the enormous power inherent in positive mental imagery. This exercise has been very powerful in my life.  I encourage YOU to begin putting it to use in yours as well.  

As you compile your SALAB, include each person's name in conjunction with WHY you included him or her on your list. Then, rank your list in priority to further clarify who you admire most and why. To illustrate how this works, I list Abraham Lincoln as #13 on my SALAB. Next to his name, I note that I include him for his "leadership, resoluteness, patience, and compassion."

My SALAB currently has thirty-three (33) members. Yours does not need to have that many—unless you want it to. I would suggest starting off with five (5) or ten (10) members and then growing from there as you desire and see fit.

My SALAB is personal, so I usually do not publish it openly for others to see. However, for the sake of ideation in your own efforts, some other members of my SALAB include deceased ancestors, additional historical figures (like Lincoln), and living persons from a variety of different fields whom I greatly respect, admire, and seek to become more like. Such persons do not need to be personal associates of yours. You can select individuals you do not personally know, but that you have come to admire from a distance for the goodness, achievements, and contributions of their lives. 

For more information on creating your own, personal SALAB, see the Self-Action Leadership textbook, Volume II, pages 84-86. 

Click HERE to buy the SAL Textbook, Volume II. 

NOTE: This article is the 9th in a series of 22 articles on the subject of LIFE RULES.

Click HERE to access quick links to the other 21 articles.   

-Dr. JJ

November 17, 2021

Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, USA

Author's Note: This is the 239th Blog Post Published by Freedom Focused LLC since November 2013. 

Click HERE for a compete listing of the other 238 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.  

Click HERE to learn more about Freedom Focused

Click HERE to learn more about Dr. Jordan Jensen

Click HERE to buy the SAL Textbooks

Notes:

*  Lyrics from a song by the same title written by Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen.

**  Lewis, C.S. 1995. The Screwtape Letters. New York, NY: Bantam. Page 29. 

God Save the Queen

Queen Elizabeth II
of the United Kingdom

For my holiday message this year, I would like to share a special address from Elizabeth II, Queen of England.

This may surprise some of my readers, who, like me, are enthusiastic American-born patriots of the USA. Such readers may even view the British Monarchy as a bit of an unnecessary accoutrement of a bygone era—and a particular oddity in the twenty-first century.

Although it is no secret that my personal loyalties will always lie first-and-foremost with American democratic-republicanism, I must confess that I am, secondarily speaking, something of a British Anglophile, and with good reason.  

Aside from being an English major (bachelor's degree) and lover of Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Lewis, etc., as well as Arthurian and Robin Hood legends, most of my progenitors (on both sides of my family) hail from the British Isles. Indeed, I am, ancestrally speaking, about 85-90% British. 

Perhaps this explains my tolerance of the British Monarchy, a position I hold not for the sake of any sordid tabloid curiosity, but rather for the potentially positive symbols of strength, solidarity, tradition, and service that its members seek to personify and represent throughout the Commonwealth and world.  

Great Britain is a remarkable place with an extraordinary history. From the Magna Carta in the early thirteenth century (1215) to the Elizabethan rise to global hegemony in the late sixteenth century (1588); from Wellington stopping Napoleon in the early nineteenth century to Churchill's rescue of the Western World 80 years ago. And who can possibly match the matchless works of the Immortal Bard? Suffice it to say, there is an awful lot to admire throughout English history, culture, and literature—at least as viewed through my biased eyes.  

The United Kingdom of 
Great Britain and Northern Ireland

No country is perfect, of course, and Britain is certainly not without its sins. But on the whole, and viewed through a lens of what they have done right rather than what they have done wrong (at Freedom Focused, our aim is to focus primarily on a person or nation's virtues and victories rather than their vices and defeats), Britain has for centuries been an example to the rest of the world of excellence, productivity, possibility, courage, and resolve. The seedbed of the Industrial Revolution in the late eighteenth century, that little Island—roughly the size of the State of Alabama—has probably produced a higher number (per capita) of noted men and women of science, literature, philosophy, art, medicine, and technology than any other nation in all of human history.  

Although Britain remains but a shadow of its former empire—upon which the sun never set for three centuries—the United Kingdom remains a respected and influential member of the G7 in the twenty-first century; a shining beacon of relative peace and stability in a world increasingly bereft of both. Moreover, their early abolition of the Slave Trade in conjunction with their own voluntary diminution of their overseas colonial holdings further evinces the positive core values that serve as their collective ideological foundation stones.

Queen Elizabeth on
Australian Currency in 1966

In contemporary times, I have come to admire Queen Elizabeth II—the longest serving monarch in English history, even longer than the famous Queen Victoria, who ruled the mightiest empire in all human history (up to her time) for an incredible 64 years! This is no small feat considering their were 60 monarchs who preceded her for a total of nearly 1,200 years. The longevity of that heritage puts into perspective the relative nascence of the United States and its more recent rise to global supremacy.

Over time, I've also grown to admire Prince William (heir to the throne) and his lovely wife, Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge. I do not personally know these people (yet), but I have been impressed from a distance at the ways in which they conduct themselves and represent their nation.  

The future King of England is just three years younger than I am. He got married three years after me, and at the exact same age (28). He and Kate subsequently brought a boy, girl, and then another boy into the world the precise years (2013, 2015, & 2018) and within a few short months of Lina's and my boy, girl, and another boy. With such a striking familial trajectory, it has been hard not to notice the unfolding life story of this budding English monarch and his elegant bride, both of whom are about my age.  

King George V
of the United Kingdom

For the past 88 years, the reigning English King (or Queen) has delivered a special message to the Commonwealth on Christmas Day. The first of such messages was delivered on December 15, 1932 by King George V, Queen Elizabeth II's grandfather. The speech was written by Britain's 1907 Nobel Prize winning poet, Rudyard Kipling (author of "IF" — a standard classic SAL poem at Freedom Focused). 

King George the Fifth's inaugural Christmas Day address was delivered on the radio, a popular new form of mass communication (at the time) that Winston Churchill would so masterfully employ a few years later during the Second World War.  

Twenty (20) years after King George the Fifth's first Christmas Day speech, his granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II, delivered the FIRST Christmas Address of her reign in 1952. Five years after that, Elizabeth delivered the first Royal Christmas message to be broadcast on television. An extraordinary 62 years later, the same Queen gave her most recent (68th) Christmas address on December 25, 2019, now available to the entire world on YouTube.  

I recently came across this speech while helping my second-grade son, Tucker, with a homework assignment about England. 

I hope you appreciate and enjoy this message as much as I did. It is delivered by a truly remarkable human being who has been a pillar of strength, resolve, and consistency over the course of her nearly 95 years on the Planet. You will be impressed with how prescient her words were, so much so, in fact, that last year's address feels more like a message that was meant to be given this year.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!

Click HERE to watch the Queen's Christmas Message.

.........................

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.    

Click HERE to learn more about Freedom Focused

Click HERE to buy the SAL Textbook, Volume I

Click HERE to buy the SAL Textbook, Volume II