Chapter 9
Know Thyself
More than two millennia ago, ancient Greece's most famous philosophical martyr—SOCRATES—uttered one of the shortest quotes of all time. It's brevity, however, did not prevent it from becoming one of the most well known and thought-provoking statements of all time.
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| Socrates 470-399 BC |
—Socrates
Know thyself... it's a paradoxical principle in that it is both incredibly simple and incredibly complicated all at the same time!
At Freedom Focused, we are passionate about this little two word injunction; and we are not alone in our enthusiasm. Hamilton College—a liberal arts college in Clinton, New York—is so passionate about this little two-word philosophical gem that they have inscribed it (in Greek) atop their campus seal.
According to their website:
"Socrates believed the first step to true wisdom is to 'know thyself' because only then can one appreciate what one understands and what remains to be learned. Hamilton's founders agreed. ... Today, more than 200 years later, that motto — Know Thyself — remains a guiding principle as Hamilton prepares students to become critical thinkers in order to address our world's most pressing problems. For only after gaining a full appreciation of your strengths, skills, and interests can you make valuable contributions to society and achieve the professional success and personal satisfaction you seek." (1)
At Freedom Focused, we wholeheartedly concur. It is crucial that self-action leaders come to truly Know Themselves—not only from a philosophical and theoretical standpoint, but from a practical, day-to-day perspective as well.
At first glance, it sounds simple enough. How hard can it be to get to know yourself? You do, after all, spend an awful lot of time with yourself. In fact, you spend all of your time with yourself! In theory, this fact alone should guarantee that all of us come to know ourselves very well over time.
Why then can it be so difficult to come to truly know yourself?
The answer is because human beings are deep and complicated beings with many different layers of needs—as Abraham Maslow so clearly and cogently elucidated in his theory of Hierarchical Needs introduced way back in 1943. I know this because after 44 years of diligently searching my own mind, heart, and soul, I am still coming to terms with and discovering new insights into my own relationship with self. The paradoxical quality of this simple statement of complex meaning reminds me of the savvy words of Oliver Wendell Holmes: I wouldn't give a fig for the simplicity on the near side of complexity; but I would give my right arm for the simplicity on the far side of complexity. (2)
"I wouldn't give a fig for the simplicity on the near side of complexity; but I would give my right arm for the simplicity on the far side of complexity!"
—Oliver Wendell Holmes
It has taken me 44 years of education and trial-and-error-laden experience, but I am finally coming to get a taste of what the land of "simplicity on the far side of complexity" looks and feels like. I still have a long way to go before I become a full-time inhabitant of this wonderful locale; but even a taste of it makes me earnestly want more and motivates me to keep traveling deeper into this wondrous land that can only be accessed by traveling through the crucible-laden pathways that lead thereto.
There is no other way.
Coming to truly know yourself and then effectively utilizing that valuable insight borne of hard-wrought introspection is a big part of what Self-Action Leadership is all about. At Freedom Focused, it is our sincere hope that you might come to better know yourself as you read this textbook and complete the SAL Master Challenge homework exercises. As you seek to tackle this lifelong challenge, opportunity, and struggle, consider the following list as a "food for thought" guide or map along your way:
- What are my strengths?
- What are my weaknesses?
- What is the nature of my genetic makeup (the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful)?
- What is the nature of my mimetic makeup (my background and the influence of my ancestry, parents, siblings, extended family, friends, teachers, coaches, mentors, and other associates).
- What do I believe?
- What do I value?
- What do I seek to accomplish and become in my life and career?
- What do I want to avoid in my life and career?
- What do I need to overcome to realize my personal and professional vision, mission, and goals?
- What are my deepest fears, inadequacies, and insecurities?
- What is holding me back from accomplishing and becoming all of which I am capable?
- How committed am I to personal and professional change and growth?
- How much am I willing to battle and sacrifice for what I believe in and value?
- Is there anything I would be willing to lay down my life for? If so, what (or who)?
Productivity & Self-Esteem
When I was a teenager, I read a book written by my uncle, Hyrum W. Smith, who cofounded FranklinCovey Company with Stephen R. Covey. The name of the book was: The 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management. I highly recommend this self-help guide to you. It is an excellent book that significantly influenced my life and my thinking about my life at a young age. Perhaps the single most important lesson I learned from that book is that "there is a causal relationship between self-worth and productivity." (3)
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| Hyrum W. Smith 1943-2019 |
"There is a causal relationship between self-worth and productivity."
—Hyrum W. Smith
For whatever reason(s), this principle really rang true to me at the time—and has continued to resonate deeply and powerfully within my mind, heart, and spirit in all the years since I first read it. I believe the reason for its deep and powerful resonance is because after putting the principle into practice on countless occasions along a spectrum of different circumstances spread across four decades of my life, I know the principle is sound and true. My self-worth really is connected to my level of productivity. In other words, when I accomplish things, start projects—and more importantly finish them—and otherwise get stuff done, I feel better about myself than when I am listless and idle.
In a sense, life really is that simple!
Any ACTION you take as a human being that leads to positive and productive results will produce positive feelings and combat anxiety, depression, and insecurity.
Let me say that again: any ACTION you take as a human being which leads to positive and productive results will produce positive feelings and combat anxiety, depression, and insecurity.
Knowing that this is true, the next time you feel anxious, depressed, or insecure, try taking ACTION—any action—that is bound to lead to positive and productive results. It doesn't have to be something grand, dramatic, or otherwise showy. Simply getting off the couch (or out of bed) and taking a walk in the sunshine or opening up a good book (like the SAL textbook) is an action that is virtually certain to positively affect your mood and make you feel better about yourself. And since positive action tends to build momentum, you are more likely to feel more motivated to take additional positive actions after you have taken that first step—which is usually the hardest step to take! As my good friend, Dr. Chris Neck, has said: If you don't feel like exercising, commit to exercising for just five minutes. If you do, chances are good you'll end up exercising for a lot longer than five minutes.
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| Dr. Chris Neck |
"If you don't feel like exercising, commit to exercising for just five minutes. If you do, chances are good you'll end up exercising for a lot longer than five minutes."
—Christopher P. Neck, Ph.D.
I promise you unequivocally that no matter who you are or what your background, culture, gender, race, personality, or occupation may be, this same principle will be as true for YOU as it is for me. If you are a human being, then you will feel better about yourself when you are productive than when you are idle.
As such, it behooves all of us to be conscious and intentional about planning our lives and careers in ways that maximize our opportunities to act, accomplish, achieve, contribute, and produce. And this textbook is filled-to-overflowing with examples, exercises, and other opportunities to do just that. If you will embrace it, endure it, and exhaust its possibilities, you will find that your own self-worth and esteem will go through the roof.
The Power of the Present
Far too many of us spend far too much time in the past or the future. We live in the past whenever we muse about, mull over, and otherwise focus on either reminiscing about or regretting what happened in the past. We live in the future whenever we worry about what may be coming down the line in our lives. We also live in the future when we unduly waste time daydreaming of what could be.
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| The most important time of all is NOW |
Likewise, we should all plan for our future. And from time-to-time we should all fuel hope for the future by virtue of productive envisioning exercises. But we should not live our lives in the future.
In practical terms, the past and future are not accessible to us and in that sense don't really exist. The only thing that is truly REAL for us in this world is the PRESENT. As such, the present is where all self-action leaders live. The present is where we all must live if we are to minimize the baggage of our past and maximize the potential of our future.
There is great POWER in the PRESENT.
One author (Eckhart Tolle) felt so powerfully about this fact and reality that he wrote an entire book entitled The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment. (4)
As a self-action leader, you must focus your energies on and otherwise live in the PRESENT. It is the present where you will make restitution for past mistakes and forge ahead courageously into a new and brighter future. It is the present where you will, by degrees, become something and someone better and greater and holier than you were before embarking upon your SAL journey. And it is in the present where you will someday look back joyfully to reflect upon how far you have come.
Living in Day-Tight Compartments
One of the best ways to live in the present is to focus on living your life ONE-day-at-a-time; or better yet, one hour at-a-time; or best-of-all, one moment at-a-time. Dale Carnegie referred to this approach to life as living in "day-tight compartments." He learned this phrase from Sir William Osler, a founding physician and professor of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.
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| Thomas Carlyle 1795-1881 |
—Thomas Carlyle
More than four decades later, in 1912, near the end of a highly successful career, Osler was invited to speak to a group of students at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. His advice to them was as follows:
"Shut off the past! Let the dead past bury its dead. ... Shut out the yesterdays which have lighted fools the way to dusty death. ... The load of tomorrow, added to that of yesterday, carried today, makes the strongest falter. Shut off the future as tightly as the past. ... The future is today. ... there is no tomorrow. The day of man's salvation is now. Waste of energy, mental distress, nervous worries dog the steps of a man who is anxious about the future. ... Shut close, then, the [past and future] ... and ... cultivate the habit of a life of 'day-tight compartments." (6)
—Jesus
If we, as self-action leaders, are to live productively and have high self-worth, we must practice the art of living in "day-tight compartments."
Learn from the past; yes!
Plan and prepare for the future; of course!
But for Heaven's sake (and your own sake); LIVE in the PRESENT!
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| Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain 1835-1910 |
There is perhaps no greater cure for anxiety than so simply throw yourself unstintingly into whatever must be done at any given moment. In the pithy parlance of the great humorist and writer, Mark Twain: I am an old man and have suffered a great many misfortunes, most of which never happened.
—Mark Twain
Another version of this quote is as follows: I have suffered a great many calamities in my life; 97% of them never happened!
Oh, the unnecessary suffering we heap upon ourselves by failing to live in the PRESENT moment!
Did you know that the human mind can only think about ONE thing-at-a-time. We are smart beings, who can think many thoughts in rapid succession one-after-the-other. But even the smartest among us cannot think about TWO things at the exact same moment in time. Human brains simply aren't wired to do that. Once you realize the truth of this fact, you can begin to channel your thoughts into more productive avenues of action and achievement. By living in "day-tight compartments," you can better harness the POWER of the PRESENT.
Back in 2006, I lived in Marietta, Georgia—a suburb of Atlanta. One Sunday after church, I drove to a local high school (Pope) and sat down all by myself in the bleachers of the school's track complex. A random hobby of mine is to visit different track complexes around the world and then add to a growing journal list of tracks I've visited. This is likely what prompted my solitary and otherwise random visit to Pope High School that early Sunday afternoon. As I sat there pondering all by myself in the bleachers looking out at the racing track before me, my Muse inspired me to write the following poem:
The Power of the Present
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Dr. JJ, before he was a doctor, leads the pack 600 meters into an 800 meter race at Weber State University in the spring of 2003. Running and racing has been an important part of his life and identity. |
but to do what lies clearly at hand.
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| In the best shape of my life while running track in college. Spring 2003. |
At Freedom Focused, we sincerely hope that your journey through this textbook—and your commitment to embark upon and complete the SAL Master Challenge—will be the beginning of a special journey that will endow you with much self-understanding. We know that this self-understanding can lead to endless growth and positive change the likes of which can absolutely transform your life in the most wonderful of ways.
How do we know this?
Because that is what SAL has done for us in our own lives and careers!
This is the end of BOOK the FIRST. Having clearly and boldly laid out our educational vision and the priority we place on communication skills, cultural literacy, and living in the present, it is now time to move on to BOOK the SECOND, where we will shift our focus to a discussion about the most powerful freedom we possess as human beings: the freedom to change and grow.
1. What are some of the things you worry about that are highly unlikely to ever actually happen?
2. What is something you could do today to better live your life in the present and practice living in "Day-tight compartments?"
3. What activities make you feel the most alive and productive?
4. What is something you could do today to be a more productive person in your life or career?
—Dr. JJ
Author's Note: This is the 366th Blog Post Published by Freedom Focused LLC since November 2013 and the 178th consecutive weekly blog published since August 31, 2020.
Click HERE for a compete listing of the other 365 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
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Tune in NEXT Wednesday for another article on a Self-Action Leadership related topic.
Click HERE to buy the SAL Textbooks
Chapter 9 Notes
1). Hamilton College website. See URL: https://www.hamilton.edu/about/know-thyself#:~:text=Socrates%20believed%20the%20first%20step,top%20of%20the%20College%20seal.
2). This quote appears in various syntactical forms online and elsewhere and has been attributed to both Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Both father and son were accomplished intellectuals, so either one could have reasonably authored this thought-provoking quote. Dr. JJ selected the syntax as quoted in Covey, S.R. (2008). The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness. New York, NY: FreePress. Page 103. In this location, neither Senior nor Junior is affixed to the name, suggesting that Covey and his researchers were also unable to determine exactly which Holmes originally came up with this particular quote.
3). Smith, H.W. (1994). The 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management: Proven Srategies for Increasing Productivity and Inner Peace. New York, NY: Warner Books. Page 210.
4). Tolle, E. (1999). The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment. Novato, California: New World Library and Vancouver, BC: Namaste Publishing.
5). Carnegie, D. (1948). How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster. Page 1.
6). Ibid. Page 2.
7). Matthew 6:34 (New Testament).
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