SAL Hierarchy Case Studies

 

Chapter 21

SAL Hierarchy Case Studies 

To illustrate how one's Existential Growth develops over time from the Education Stage (Level 1) on up to the Creation Stage (Level 9), consider the following THREE (3) theoretical case studies that follow the career trajectories of a Doctor, a School Teacher, and a Stay-at-Home parent. 

As you review these case studies, keep in mind that these examples represent relatively generic and IDEAL existential scenarios. As such, they by no means capture or represent the extraordinary diversity of background, circumstance, and experience of persons throughout a massive planet of eight billion souls, each of whom carries a unique SAL Variables Quotient and otherwise treads a singular pathway through life. 

While we at Freedom Focused are firm believers in the theoretical potential of ALL human beings to rise to the highest levels of Existential Growth as described in the SAL Hierarchy, we also recognize and acknowledge that practically speaking, not everyone will have access to all of the necessary opportunities and resources required to complete this climb during their lifetime. 

In light of this reality, we encourage SAL practitioner's everywhere to avoid comparing themselves to others and focus instead on their own unique journey. SAL is not an interpersonal competition. Rather, it is an intrapersonal toolkit for individual development, growth, happiness, success, and inner peace.   

Maria's Story: A Doctor

As a little girl, Maria learns of her potential to someday become a doctor (Education Stage).

As a child and adolescent, she throws herself into her studies to lay the foundation for her college and medical school pursuits (Beginner's Stage). 

After graduating from high school, she enrolls in a pre-med undergraduate program at a local university (Practitioner's Stage).

After college, Maria prepares and applies for, and then attends medical (graduate) school. She also "pays her dues" by completing her internship and residency.

Along the way, she faces and overcomes a series of unexpected challenges standing in the way of her ambitious aspirations. These challenges include: dealing with difficult teachers and colleagues, having to retake several courses she did not pass the first time, and issues with social and test-taking anxiety (Refiner's Stage).

She also faces a variety of personal and familial obstacles that make this pathway even more difficult. For example, a crushing romantic breakup, a death in the family, and the loss of a scholarship all serve to make her road even more difficult. These (and other) fiery blasts test and try her during the time she spends in the Refiner's Stage. 

After overcoming every obstacle placed in her pathway by the rough retinue of her refining crucibles, Maria finally lands her first official job as a board-certified DOCTOR. Here she enters the Polishing Stage, where she begins to enjoy the fruit of her many years of diligent study and underpaid labor. It is also where she begins to fine tune and hone her credibility and reputation—and begins paying back her massive student loans!

Years after her crushing romantic letdown, she finds love again, and gets married. Her spouse brings two children to their union, and they decide to add a third through adoption and a fourth through natural birth. The grounding of her personal and familial life adds strength and vitality to her successful professional career, despite taking maternal time off to have her baby.  

After a decade-or-so has passed, Maria is personally successful, professionally respected, debt-free, and making a handsome salary. As a noted physician who has helped thousands of people with their health and well-being, she has fulfilled the core of her personal, career, and family goals to enter the SAL Actualization Stage. 

As Maria's career progresses, she increasingly secures roles as a coach, leader, mentor, and teacher of others on their own medical journey. She provides further guidance, love, and leadership to her four children—and later on, to her grandchildren as well (Leadership Stage). 

Later in life, having earned plenty of money, acquired much recognition and many awards, and helped all the people she has set out to help, she realizes she has truly become the doctor of her dreams (Self-Transcendence). 

With nothing left to achieve at the hospital, Maria decides to partially retire and invest her surplus time, effort, and resources in doing field research in areas she is most passionate about. Along the way, she co-authors several influential papers in medical journals with respected colleagues. Some of their findings influence positive contributions in practical settings within the broader medical field (Creation Stage).

She also begins engaging in philanthropic work, and aims to spend the rest of her life gradually gifting away generous chunks of her ample retirement portfolio to worthy causes she believes in and is passionate about (Creation Stage).

Maria is excited about her capacity to build and give back and is confident she can contribute meaningfully by lending her expertise to creative pursuits aimed at serving others and promoting higher causes.

She spends the rest of her life thus engaged while splitting time with her spouse, children, grandchildren, friends, and colleagues in service, hobbies, and other pursuits she enjoys (Creation Stage).

Jason's Story: A School Teacher

While attending grade school, a young lad named Jason learns about his potential to someday become a school teacher (Education Stage). 

Throughout his formal education, Jason takes his schooling seriously and closely watches his many teachers and professors to glean ideas for his own future leading a classroom (Beginner's Stage).

After completing his undergraduate coursework, he completes his "Student Teaching" and lands his first job as a high school instructor teaching his favorite subject: MATH (Practitioner's Stage).

Like most first-year teachers, his first nine months turn out to be incredibly challenging. 12-15-hour workdays are common throughout his first semester, and there are days when he questions whether he chose the right career field (Refining Stage).

Jason has a great mentor, but also a very demanding principal. His many miscues and stumbles prove embarrassing and painful; but he persists and doesn't give up. By the end of the school year, he starts to get the hang of things, makes significant improvements, and regains the trust of his supervisors, including his principal. Over time, he begins to gradually glean more joy and satisfaction from his job (Refining Stage).

In his personal life, Jason fell in love and got married very young, while still in college. Things went okay at first. However, incompatibility issues conspired with financial stresses and other issues that ultimately led to a divorce after a couple of years (Refining Stage).

After graduating from college and beginning his teaching career, he gets remarried after he has gotten on top of his finances and matured as an individual and partner. He and his spouse have two children and adopt one more over the years. Family is important to both of them and they work together to ensure that their family relationships remain a top priority in their lives (Polishing Stage). 

Professionally, Jason spends the next ten years focusing on becoming an outstanding classroom teacher and gets a little better with each year that passes. His confidence grows and his enjoyment of the students and subject matter mature along with it. His salary is modest and always will be compared to many other career fields; nevertheless, he does receive marginal raises with each year that passes. He also goes back to school and earns a masters, then a doctorate degree, thus expanding his knowledge, skills, expertise, and salary—albeit again, only marginally (Polishing Stage). 

After fifteen years, he is named Head of the Math Department at his school. Things have really started to come together for him as an educator and he is genuinely enjoying his career. He's not getting rich, but he and his wife and family are financially secure, and are patiently and proactively preparing for a modestly comfortable retirement (SAL Actualization Stage).

After twenty years in the classroom, he is offered a new job at the District Office that involves training other math teachers at schools throughout the district, then the region, and eventually the State. He ends up publishing a book as a resource accompanying his training; the book becomes a modest best-seller in his field throughout the State and Nation. The extra income from modest royalty payments is most welcome (Leadership Stage). 

After 15 years of success in his District Training and Consultant's job, he decides to retire—to great acclaim and praise—after 35 years as a professional educator (Self-Transcendence).

Still a relatively young man in his mid-50s, he spends the rest of his life as a part-time traveling speaker and consultant around his State, Nation, and even the world further promoting the same material that he made popular in his district training job. He never becomes "famous" or "rich" in a traditional sense, but he does become well known and respected in his field and wisely guards his allocated resources to retire comfortably in due time (Creation Stage).

Just as importantly and meaningfully, Jason remained similarly devoted to his marriage and family relationships. As a result, he found success there as well. This afforded him great joy and satisfaction as a husband and father throughout his career, thus setting him up pleasantly and rewardingly to spend his retirement spending quality time with his spouse, grandchildren, friends, colleagues, and church community where he was involved regularly in productive service opportunities. As an old man, Jason looks back with pride and satisfaction on all he accomplished and the countless lives he positively influenced through his teaching, speaking, writing, and example (Creation Stage).  

Jack's Story: A Business Builder and Stay-at-Home Parent

Growing up, a boy named Jack had wanted to follow in his father's footsteps of being a Construction Foreman and General Contractor (Education Stage).

When he wasn't in school, Jack often watched and/or worked with his father in the construction industry. Later on, in junior high, high school, and college, he worked as a salaried laborer on his father's construction crew (Beginner's Stage). 

After graduation, he enrolled at a local state college to study 

Construction Management. He earned his degree and then got a job as a foreman of a small framing crew in his hometown (Practitioner's Stage).

During college, Jack met, dated, fell in love with, and decided to marry a young architect named Lisa. She was unusually intelligent, talented, and performed at the top of her class. While he attended a local State College, she was enrolled in a neighboring university that was ranked in the top #5 in the nation in architecture.

Jack's dream was to start his own construction company. After Lisa graduated and got a job with a big-name firm in a distant city, he quit his job and began to pursue his dream of starting his own construction company in the same city where his wife worked.

Accomplishing his dream, however, proved to be much more complicated and difficult than he had anticipated. In the meantime, he and his Lisa had a couple of kids while she continued to work full-time (part-time for six months-to-a-year following each maternity leave). 

After a couple more years of struggle and toil trying to get his construction company off the ground, Jack and Lisa decided that it would be best—for the time being—if he set aside his entrepreneurial dreams and focused on being a stay-at-home parent to their two kids. After going back to work full-time, Lisa's salary alone was sufficient to support the family and the two of them determined together that having at least one of them raise their children up-close-and-personally was more important to them than having two incomes or starting a business right now (Refining Stage).

At first, raising two small children proved even more difficult than trying to start a new construction company from the ground-up. Then, to make matters even more challenging, Lisa had another couple of babies, again working part-time for six months-to-a-year following each maternal leave. With these added family responsibilities, they decided he would continue to be a full-time stay-at-home dad for the foreseeable future (Refining Stage).

Over time, Jack gradually got better at being a stay-at-home dad by building a routine and finding a groove in his process, which continued for the next decade until all the kids were in school. The more experienced he became, the more he enjoyed his work at home, and the less he missed his past business building endeavors (Polishing Stage). 

However, he still wanted to pursue his professional dream. Once all the kids were in school, there was enough time and money for him to go back and begin building his own construction company. After five years of diligent ground work, preparation, and sweat equity, he and his crew were finally up-and-running and turning a profit (SAL Actualization Stage). 

After 10 years of successfully leading his construction crew, his last child graduated from high school, at which point he and his wife decided to start an organization together that incorporated both architecture and construction elements and services (Leadership Stage). 

After five years of this additional business building, the couple had risen to the point where they no longer had to be intimately involved in the day-to-day operations and decided to appoint a leadership team to take over while still retaining ownership (Self-Transcendence).

With an empty nest and plenty of time and money on their hands, they decided to spend the rest of their lives devoted to their colleagues, friends, and most importantly—their growing family of grandchildren and later great-grandchildren. They remained loosely involved at the top of their organization, but eventually sold it completely, while still doing the odd business consult and/or teaching/training from time-to-time. 

In later retirement, they enjoyed traveling the world together, often accompanied by one or more of their adult children and their families. They also served three missions for their Church, including in two international destinations and one domestic location (Creation Stage). 

Don't Despair if You Aren't the IDEAL

Do not despair if your life does not resemble any of the fictional case studies from the previous section. 

     Indeed, don't panic if you aren't the IDEAL. 

          After all, the vast majority of human beings, including myself, aren't. 

These three fictional "Case Studies" in several ways represent IDEAL circumstances and scenarios. 

Obviously, "Life Happens" and not everyone will be fortunate enough to "Have it all" as these three individuals seemingly do by the end of their lives. 

Colonel Theodore Roosevelt
Commander of the First U.S. Volunteer
Cavalry Regiment (Aka: The Rough Riders)
Spanish American War, 1898

That's OKAY!  

It is not necessary to check every single IDEAL "Box" in order to progress in your own Existential Growth. A host of life difficulties and challenges reminiscent of the "Refining Stage" can (and often will) arise across a spectrum of life stages to make life messier than you'd like and otherwise throw "Curve Balls" that complicate, interrupt, and disrupt well laid-out dreams and hopes and plans. When that happens, as it assuredly will for all of us in various ways, don't despair!

Just keep going and remain ever committed to doing the best you can with what you have where you are.   

"Do the best you can with what you have where you are."  

—Theodore Roosevelt

IDEAL case studies are presented here not to make you feel undo pressure, stress, or to unduly influence you to compare yourself with others, but simply because IDEALS serve as loadstars to which we can principally and collectively hitch our wagons. 

After all, the purported value of IDEALS is a fundamental hallmark of this entire Life Leadership textbook. Thus, I invite you to derive inspiration and motivation therefrom.  

It is also important to remember that while failure to realize an IDEAL may sometimes be the result of bad luck or unfortunate birthing or other unfavorable life circumstances beyond your control, sometimes the exact opposite is the case. In other words, sometimes you fail to realize an IDEAL because of a very real moral failure or other preventable blunder for which YOU must ultimately take complete personal responsibility.

In the case of the former scenario, do your best with what you have and make peace with your imperfect reality—while always striving to improve that reality in the direction of an IDEAL. In the case of the latter scenario, take complete responsibility for your own unwise past decisions and then do the best you can to make the best of your present and future.

In all situations, you cannot change the PAST. As such, your best will always involve moving forward with determination, persistence, and positivity toward a brighter FUTURE.    

In Your Journal

• What pathway (career / lifestyle) lies in your mind, heart, and soul? 

• What pathway (personal / family) lies in your mind, heart, and soul?

• If you make it to the Creation Stage, what would you like to contribute and/or create?

—Dr. JJ

Wednesday, October 16, 2024

Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, USA

Author's Note: This is the 412th Blog Post Published by Freedom Focused LLC since November 2013 and the 221st consecutive weekly blog published since August 31, 2020.   

Click HERE for a compete listing of the other 411 FF Blog Articles 

Click HERE for a complete listing of Freedom Focused SAL QUOTES  

Click HERE for a complete listing of Freedom Focused SAL POEMS   

Click HERE to access the FULL TEXT of Dr. JJ's Psalms of Life: A Poetry Collection

Click HERE for a complete listing of Self-Action Leadership Articles

Click HERE for a complete listing of Fitness, Heath, & Wellness Articles

Click HERE for a complete listing of Biographical & Historical Articles

Click HERE for a complete listing of Current Events, Cultural, Philosophical, & Miscellaneous Articles

Click HERE for a complete listing of Dr. JJ's Autobiographical Articles

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Chapter 21 Notes

The Role of Proactivity in Self-Action Leadership

The Self-Action Leadership Theory, Model, and Textbooks are now officially published and available in print form.

Now that leaders, educators, and parents around the United States and world can review the material, how can they determine whether it is worthy or wanting in terms of its potential value in their organizations, schools, and homes? 

The answer to this question will differ from reviewer to reviewer. After all, different people view the world in different ways. But it will also depend on how PROACTIVE each reviewer is.

This is because proactivity is the essence of Self-Action Leadership (SAL). It is also because SAL does not provide quick or simple solutions to deep problems.

Why?

Because quick or simple solutions to serious problems usually don’t exist—no matter how badly we may wish for or hope that they would. More often, deep problems require deep solutions, which in-turn require extensive amounts of focus, discipline, dedication, consistence, and persistence (in other words, PROACTIVITY) to access and animate in real life.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you snake oil.  

As such, those who are unwilling to carefully and seriously review the SAL material probably won’t recognize its true potential. Instead, they’ll just see two long textbooks capable of collecting a lot of dust.

Dr. David G. Anthony, an incredibly accomplished professional educator—who wrote the Afterword to the SAL Textbooks—initially felt the same reactive pull of unwillingness that you may feel as you are confronted with two, long, print textbooks.

In Anthony’s own words:

“When Jordan originally invited me to review an 802-page manuscript of this book, I balked a bit, wondering when I would possibly have time to review such a tome. It is interesting to note how some of life’s most important, rewarding, and ultimately enjoyable tasks initially appear so uninviting. In the end, I opted to set myself to the task, and I am so glad that I did. 

…

“I thank Jordan for inviting me to read this work. He has earned my endorsement. Reading the Self-Action Leadership textbooks may be the most worthwhile thing you do this year. I hope the message of SAL makes its way into the minds and hearts of students, parents, and business professionals everywhere. Its presence in the literature is a service to our country—and world.”

As Doctor Anthony—and all other highly proactive self-action leaders—understands, “You get out of something what you are willing to put into it.” Over time, that is just a mathematical reality. In other words, what goes around comes around, and you absolutely reap what you sow in the long-run.

Given these realities, I have been pondering lately on the power of PROACTIVITY in both our personal and professional lives.

It was disciplined and focused proactivity (on my part) over the past 17 years that led to the creation and publication of the SAL Theory, Model, and Textbooks. Similarly, it will be proactivity (on your part) that leads to the effective and productive utilization of this new, cutting-edge, and groundbreaking personal leadership material.

The question is: “To what extent are you willing to do whatever it takes to realize your goals and help your students, athletes, staff members, colleagues, and subordinates to realize theirs?” In other words, how PROACTIVE are you willing to be when it comes to investigating SAL and then ensuring that your students carefully study and apply it as well?

I have been passionate about the concept of proactivity ever since I learned about it from Dr. Stephen Covey back in 2001. Probably more than anyone else in the world, Dr. Covey deserves credit for making the term “PROACTIVE” commonplace in modern English usage. After all, you won’t even find the word in most twentieth century dictionaries. Yet today it is one of the more commonly used words in educational, business, and a variety of other societal lexicons.

In Dr. Covey’s famous book—The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People—he selected “Proactivity” as the FIRST habit in his famous model.

Why?

Because proactivity is the mindset and habit that makes all other positive actions and achievements possible. Proactivity is like the fuel that makes an airplane fly or an automobile drive. Similarly, it is proactivity that makes Self-Action Leadership (SAL) productively operative in our lives and careers.

Proactive people inspire me because they consist of those relatively few individuals in our communities, organizations, and society-at-large who consistently exercise initiative, work hard, pull their weight (and usually much more), solve problems, and build worthwhile things that last. Everything a proactive person touches tends to accelerate and improve over time. Everything positive, productive, useful, and helpful around us exists because of PROACTIVE PEOPLE.

REACTIVITY is the opposite of PROACTIVITY. Unfortunately, there are usually a lot more reactive people than there are proactive people in any given organization or community.  

Reactive people do not respond to situations productively, rationally, or even sanely. Rather, they react based on their moods, feelings, impulses, environmental conditions, prejudices, misinformation (and false information), and social pressures. Proactive people, on the other hand, respond to situations intelligently and empathetically based on values, standards, laws, order, courtesy, empathy, love, and their own internal consciences, which are continually governed by a principle-centered compass that consistently points to principled ideals Covey describes as “True North.”

In Covey’s words, “Response-ability” [is] the ability to choose your response [regardless of internal or external stimuli or pressure]. Highly proactive persons recognize that responsibility. They 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 feelings” (See “Be Proactive” Chapter of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People).

According to Covey, “The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person” (Ibid.). In summing up the essence of proactivity, Covey explains that, “We are responsible for our own effectiveness, for our own happiness, and ultimately, I would say, for most of our circumstances” (Ibid.).

That last statement can be tough medicine to take when life gets difficult or seems unfair. And since life is often difficult and seems unfair, we must take a great many doses of this medicine if we are to transcend our difficulties and rise to higher planes on the powerful wings of proactivity. The good news is that the difficulty and the seeming unfairness of life does not negate the power of proactivity in our lives—as long as we are given an opportunity to learn about and practice it.

Perhaps you are wondering why I use the word “seeming” before the word “unfair” in the preceding paragraph. After all, aren’t things often unfair—plain and simple—in life? Furthermore, is it not obvious that things are much more unfair for some people than others? While a one-dimensional or superficial answer to this question would obviously be “YES”, the reality is often deeper and more complicated.

To illustrate my point, consider the fact that historically speaking, some of the greatest and most accomplished persons to ever live in this world were dealt extremely difficult hands at various junctures of their lives. Was it fair that Theodore Roosevelt had to deal with breathtaking asthma growing up, or that Franklin Roosevelt was dealt a devastating blow of polio that put him in a wheelchair in middle life? Was it fair that Abraham Lincoln lacked the money and opportunity to receive a quality formal education? Was it fair that Frederick Douglass was born into slavery or that Helen Keller entered this world deaf and blind? Was it fair that the genius Stephen Hawking became a physical invalid relatively early on in life, or that Christopher Reeve (aka Superman) broke his neck in an equestrian accident in his physical and professional prime? Or what about the profound prejudices and other oppressive forces that Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela had to face? Or the deep and onerous social, cultural, and personal challenges that Oprah Winfrey overcame to become the billionaire media mogul she is today?

In every example listed above, the individuals named were able to achieve success not only in spite of their challenges, but in part because of them. In other words, take away their challenges—the seeming unfairness—and it is possible they would not have risen nearly as high as they did in their lives and careers. That is why, in hindsight, highly successful people often refer to their past by saying: “I wouldn’t change a thing—even if I could.” Such people recognize that their difficulties and challenges were just as important to their overall success as their advantages and benefits—and sometimes even more so—because of what they became due to the extraordinary growth they achieved by overcoming deep and painful obstacles.

This does not mean, of course, that all unfairness is good or desirable. Some unfairness is, in fact, rooted in human error, prejudice, and evil—something that proactive persons of conscience are quick to identify, condemn, and seek to extinguish wherever they find it festering. What it does mean is that seeming unfairness in life almost always contains seeds of opportunity that proactive persons can use to learn, grow, progress, and achieve. As such, the next time you find yourself saying: “It’s not fair,” consider what the other side of the coin might produce over time through personal proactivity. After all, hindsight often demonstrates the tremendous value to be found on the other side of significant life difficulties and challenges. In the words of Garth Brooks’ famous Country Music song: “Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.” 

For the proactive, there is something magical about adversity. It actually makes a person far stronger and more accomplished than they would have been under easier circumstances. Athletes become stronger by lifting heavy weights and persistently pushing through pain, bad weather, injuries, and other adversity—not by coasting downhill with a brisk tailwind at their backs. Why would it be different for human beings in general, either personally or professionally?

For the reactive, however, adversity can be mind-numbing and completely draining; the challenges stop them cold in their tracks. Seemingly unable to go any further, the reactive are then quick to complain about how unfair life is. And from their own limited perspectives, they are right!

How different the world would be if everyone had an equal opportunity to learn about and then practice PROACTIVITY from their youth on up! Unfortunately, far too many individuals throughout our country and world have learned for far too long—from bad examples and poor pedagogy—to confront their personal and professional problems and the seeming unfairness of life reactively rather than proactively.

I personally am no stranger to adversity. From being dealt a devastating case of mental illness (OCD and depression) in my adolescence to confronting significant personal, relational, and professional challenges in young adulthood, my life has not been easy. I imagine yours hasn’t been either. But that doesn’t mean life is irreversibly unfair, or that you are doomed to failure and penury—no matter where you may have started out, or how significant your trials may presently be. I can tell you with certainty that I wouldn't be where I am now in my life or career without the growth and progress obtainable only through successfully surmounting the manifold challenges with which life has dealt me. My trials and crucibles were not fun. They were excruciating. But they have absolutely made me who and what I am today. For that, I wouldn't go back and eradicate them—even if I could.  

There is so much hope for overcoming whatever adversity may come your way in life, especially when you understand the principles and practices of Self-Action Leadership and are willing to be PROACTIVE in your pursuit thereof.

Fortunately, I read Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People when I was a freshman in college. It changed my life and led to my own diligent pursuit of a similar career. What is the purpose of that career To help educate and inspire others to become highly proactive persons who build things and initiate positive, productive, and meaningful change as opposed to reactive people who blame, shame, complain, and call people names.

One of the most proactive things that any individual can undertake—especially in this day-and-age of short attention spans—is to dedicate time, effort, and energy to deep reading and study about the most important things in life. In other words, to simply sit quietly for substantial periods of time in thoughtful, reflective, and diligent reading and study of high-quality wisdom literature.

I know the value of this activity because of my own life-changing experience reading Covey’s 7 Habits—and other life-changing literature throughout the past three decades of my life. As a result, I spent the last 17 years creating a NEXT-GEN 7 Habits-esque comprehensive personal leadership textbook that leaders, educators, coaches, and parents can use to begin to turn the tide against the pandemic of reactivity we see all around us. But instead of a primarily popular read designed for a corporate environment and the literature of the layman, SAL is a bona fide educational textbook that proactive educators, schools, and even scholars can legitimately embrace—to the benefit of themselves, their staff members, and most importantly—their students.

It takes a LOT of proactivity to spend some of your hard-earned money to buy a long, detailed textbook and then invest the time and effort to read, study, apply its principles, and teach it to others. For those willing to be proactive, I promise you will be empowered with a greater desire and ability to become a solution to the problems you face at home and work—as well as to the challenges presently perplexing our communities, nation, and world. Additionally, you will find yourself gradually and steadily rising to higher levels of growth, success, achievement, happiness, and inner peace.

I have dedicated nearly half my life to creating an educational solution to the preventable and solvable difficulties we see all over America and throughout the world. I plead with persons in positions of power and influence to investigate how this proposed solution can begin to make a palpable difference in the lives of students, workers, and human beings everywhere.

According to Stephen Covey, “Your most important work is always ahead of you, never behind you.” How might Self-Action Leadership empower and further the vital work that lies in your future?

There’s only ONE way to find out.

In Summary, PROACTIVE Persons (aka Self-Action Leaders):

· Take the initiative
· Focus on solutions
· Build things

They Are:

· Self-disciplined and focused
· Results oriented
· Willing to try new things and even fail in order to learn. And when they do fail, they immediately pick themselves up, study out a new and better approach, and then try again.


REACTIVE persons, on the other hand:

· Wait for others to take the initiative
· Focus on problems
· Tear people (and things) down

They are:

· Undisciplined and focus on

     o Blaming,
     o Shaming,
     o Complaining, and
     o Name calling


What kind of a person do you want to become?

     What kind of people do you want your students, staff members, or subordinates to become?

          What are you willing to do to realize your desires and objectives?


Freedom Focused is here to help reactive people become Proactive People and proactive people to realize their full potential. We accomplish these objectives in three simple (but not necessarily easy) steps.


1. Read and study the SAL Theory, Model, and Textbooks

2. Enliven and expand upon the material with LIVE TRAINING by myself (Dr. Jordan Jensen) or another Freedom Focused Facilitator.

3. Reiterate and repeat steps one and two with ongoing training, coaching, mentoring, and consulting on a strategically planned or as-needed basis.

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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

A Class in Life

Imagine for a second that it is the year 2030.

One of your children (or grandchildren) is about to begin middle or high school.  After she has completed registering for her classes, you survey your daughter's (or son's) academic course load for the upcoming school year, and it looks something like this...

1st Period:  Algebra
2nd Period: English
3rd period:  Biology
4th period:  Technology & computing
5th period:  Art
6th Period:  Physical education
7th Period:  Life LCLS 101

As you review the schedule, you notice that the first six classes resemble your own prep school schedule back in the 80s, 90s, or early 2000s.  But then you get to seventh period and are a little confused.  So you ask your child, "What the heck is Life LCLS 101?"

Without thinking, your child blurts out, "Oh, that's just life class; it's where we study leadership, character, and life-skills; you know, the stuff we need to know to be successful in REAL life. Everyone is required to take at least one life course every semester; it's required for graduation. Our principal and teachers are always telling us it's the most important class we attend each day."

"Oh," you reply.  "Cool."  Pause...

"I wish they had had that when I was a student."

Purveyors of Education in
Leadership, Character, & Life Skills

If Freedom Focused has anything to say about it, this mostly theoretical scenario in today's educational world will be standard operating procedure for an increasing number of elementary, middle, and high schools—as well as colleges and universities—by the 2030s.  

How will it happen?  Slowly.  Gradually.  Incrementally, but surely.  Freedom Focused exists for the express purpose to ensure that it does.  

As the Founder and CEO of Freedom Focused, I have always envisioned our organization as being something akin to a 21st century version of FranklinCovey.  But what exactly would a contemporary version of that famous turn-of-the-century day planner company look like?

In some regards, Freedom Focused will look a lot like FranklinCovey.  For example, we will initially build our business on book sales, seminar receipts, and consultation fees.  Later, as we grow and earn greater leverage, we will add additional products and services aimed at promoting personal, professional, and global freedom through Self-Action Leadership—our trademark training philosophy, theory, and model

Like FranklinCovey, we may someday have retail stores that sell books, training materials, and other related products.  Moreover, professional training and consulting services will always form part of the core bedrock of our business model.  This, however, is where the convergence ends and the divergence begins.

How then, will Freedom Focused be different?  How will we distinguish ourselves from FranklinCovey and other professional training companies like it?

At Freedom Focused, our primary concern is
transforming what happens in classrooms across America

The answer to this question lies in our focus.

Instead of aiming primarily at corporate audiences, our fundamental focus will involve the Educational World of communities, schools, homes, and individual lives.  This means that if we had our choice between securing business with every Fortune 1000 Company in the nation, or signing educational contracts with every public school district in the U.S., we would choose the educational contracts over the corporate deals.  This is not to say that we will neglect corporate interests; far from it; nevertheless our primary, long-term objective is to make inroads into traditional classrooms and other educational-based venues.  

Why would we do this when there is far more money to be made in Corporate America?  The answer is simple: our vision at Freedom Focused transcends making money.  It is also larger than merely helping individuals and organizations to be more effective.  Our vision is to influence a widespread shift in the culture itself, bringing about an end to philosophical postmodernism (moral relativism) and leading the onset of philosophical authenticism (moral absolutism).

Changing a culture is not an easy endeavor; it does not happen quickly.  The only way to generate authentic cultural shifts that last is to infiltrate educational systems beginning at the lowest levels (pre-k and elementary), then on to the middle levels (secondary and collegiate), and finally up to the highest levels (graduate and professional).

Our preeminent vision at Freedom Focused is to change Western society and culture by successfully entering educational systems everywhere as advocates, purveyors, and providers of physical (scientific) and metaphysical (moral) Truths.  To get the ball rolling in this direction, we have developed the world's first ever comprehensive, secular, textbook for life that introduces students to philosophical fundamentals that, if learned and consistently applied, will lead any student-practitioner to long-term growth, success, and happiness.

This TEXTBOOK is called, Self-Action Leadership, Volumes I & II.

Far from being a typical self-help book, Self-Action Leadership is a philosophically-oriented academic text rooted in careful and conscientious doctoral research.  It is specifically designed to serve as a seminal, secular text on self-leadership and character education that can be used in classroom settings and beyond.

As the author of this text, I spent 13 years of my life carefully researching, observing, and revising to ensure this text delivers on its promise to influence quantum cultural changes that will signal a new era of peace and hope marked by a resurgence of collective character through personal integrity in the United States and beyond.

The best way to begin accomplishing this mammoth undertaking is to first popularize a message—and text—that can serve as an example and model of what leadership and character education in our schools should look like. And what should it look like?  It should be secular, non-partisan, non-ideological, and rooted in academic research and experiential common sense.

This text has now been written.

We invite you to buy a copy today and read it—with your eye single to the LOVE you have for your children, grandchildren, and someday, your great-grandchildren, as well as the HOPE you hold for their future.

Click HERE to buy a copy of Self-Action Leadership.

Down the road a ways, Freedom Focused will continue to diverge from FranklinCovey's original business model by offering full-service, holistic health gyms, comprehensive mental health centers, a leadership, character, and life-skill focused accredited university—Freedom Focused University—outreaches to the homeless, poverty-stricken, and mentally ill, and an artistic, theatrical and motion picture company that produces art, music, stage, and cinematic productions in harmony with our vision of proliferating personal, professional, and global freedom by developing integrity in pursuit of authentic, holistic, personal growth.

Such marvelous dreams can yet become reality; but they must follow on the heels of other, more fundamental developments.  For now, our task is to put first things first, and our FIRST task is to proliferate and popularize the philosophy and message of Self-Action Leadership.  For that to happen, the message has to be read and then shared.  We invite you to help us get the ball rolling in the direction of Freedom by buying our book, signing up to receive our blog articles, and visiting our website at www.freedomfocused.com

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, social, and financial elements of our individual natures is within the grasp of each one of us.

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.


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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.