Seeds of Self-Help

 

 Chapter 2

Seeds of Self-Help 

This chapter tells the story of my introductions to and experiences with the self-help and personal development fields. It chronicles a journey that began when I was just a boy and would eventually lead to the development of the SAL Theory and Model and the creation of this Life Leadership textbook.  

I was 14 years old when Warner Books published my Uncle Hyrum's book, The 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management, which would eventually sell over a million copies and complement the massive success Hyrum was already enjoying with the Franklin Day Planning system.

During the summer of that same year (1994), I worked as a lowly field hand on Hyrum and Gail's sprawling ranch in Gunlock, Utah, and environs. 

A ranch hand's work is physically strenuous and low-paying. I earned $4.25 per hour for my labors that summer, which was the minimum wage in 1994. Summer days in southwestern Utah were hot, dry, dusty, and long. Temperatures often exceeding 100-degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) and rain was rare. Our daily commute usually included a ride in the back of a white Ford pickup truck. 

One week, we were assigned to build a fence up in the mountains, many miles away from the bunkhouse where we ate and slept. Facing a long, bumpy ride to work each day that week, I decided to take along a book to read. I had brought several books from home to read and study that summer. The book I chose on this particular occasion was: The Magic of Thinking Big, by David J. Schwartz.

Once I started reading, it was hard to stop, and not just because I enjoyed reading more than digging post holes in the rocky desert soil; but because the seeds of hope, possibility, and vision that the book planted in my mind and heart. I enjoyed that book so much that I would sometimes read at lunchtime and after work was over. I kept reading until I had read, marked, and annotated the entire volume. 

As I read, studied, and pondered Schwartz's hopeful and positive message, his words sunk deep into my soul, spawning rich daydreams about my personal and professional potential. I grew increasingly motivated by the realization that I didn't have to be a ranch hand for the rest of my life. I was further inspired by the idea that I could actually design my life largely according to my own desires if I was willing to pay the price. 

When I read the words: when you believe, your mind finds ways to do, (1) I was inspired by the personal power and capacity I possessed to accomplish difficult and meaningful achievements in my life and career despite any obstacles that might stand in the way. 

This was the point in my life when a nascent conceptualization of the SAL philosophy gradually began to form in my mind and heart. 

Over the next several years—throughout my teenage and young adult life—I increasingly took advantage of opportunities to read and study books and listen to audio tapes and CDs in the self-help and personal development fields.

Hyrum W. Smith
1943-2019

The books and/or authors from whom I supped included:

• Dale Carnegie
• Norman Vincent Peale
• Napoleon Hill
• Og Mandino
• M. Scott Peck, M.D. 
• Hyrum W. Smith
• Stephen R. Covey
• Anthony Robbins
• Brian Tracy
• Zig Ziglar
• Et al. 

I'll always cherish my dad's personal copy of Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. He had purchased the book in England in the mid-1960s while serving as a young missionary and it had that wonderful "old book" smell. 

When I was in eighth grade, my mom started buying Gary Smalley's relationship videos. Smalley's trainings focused on family relationships, and more particularly on marital unions. Though it would be years before I would start looking seriously at exclusive dating or marriage myself, I enjoyed watching these programs with my mom and learned a great deal about personality differences, communication skills, and successfully cultivating healthy and successful relationships.  

When I was a junior in high school, my oldest brother, Paul—a successful salesman and manager who shared my passion for personal development and self-help—sent me a videotape training by Jim Rohn, a famous business philosopher of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century.

Rohn had some GREAT stuff! 

A half-decade later, as a direct salesman myself, I was reintroduced to Rohn's work. While I ultimately found little aptitude for or interest in sales and marketing, Rohn's timeless talk on CD, entitled: Building Your Network Marketing Company, was filled with general truisms about long-term success that enormously influenced my thought processes as I set out to build Freedom Focused, develop the SAL Theory and Model, and compose iterations of this Life Leadership textbook.

To this day, I hear Rohn's voice in my head more than most others because of the concision, effectiveness, and memorableness of his personality and teaching style.    

In high school, I attended a couple of Peter Lowe-organized day-long success seminars, where I had the chance to hear an impressive collection of high-profile speakers address personal development topics related to self-improvement, health and wellness, and success.

These speakers included:

• President Gerald Ford
• General Colin Powell
• Zig Ziglar
• Karl Malone
• Et al. 

My personal copy of The 7 Habits
Annexed from my parent's home library

Shortly after graduating from high school, I read my Uncle Hyrum's book, The 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management, wherein I made a commitment to be more conscious about planning my days moving forward. 

Later on, in college, I took a course in leadership from Brigham Young University (BYU) as a visiting student and a course in organizational behavior from Utah Valley University (UVU). 

These classes reintroduced me to Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People and led me to carefully study Stephen R. Covey's bestselling book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I voraciously consumed Covey's classic work, which planted a potent and plentiful patch of additional SAL seeds in in my mind, heart, and soul. More than any other personal leadership-oriented or self-help book I had ever read, The 7 Habits left a deep and lasting impression on me. After reading the book, I obtained the same material on CD—taught by Covey himself—and listened intently to the entire program. The more familiar I became with the material, the more convinced I became that I didn't want to just practice what Stephen Covey had taught me; I wanted to become the Stephen R. Covey of my generation. 

My personal copy of Og Mandino's
The Greatest Secret in the World

In addition to carefully studying Covey's work during my college years, I also read books by Og Mandino. In particular, I carefully studied and completed Mandino's 45-week challenge outlined in his book: The Greatest Secret in the World, which invites a reader to not just read the Success Scrolls from his classic: The Greatest Salesman in the World, but challenges him or her to apply those scrolls in a concrete, dedicated, and systematic manner over the course of nearly a full year. 

This particular self-help exercise was, by far, the most ambitious and and labor/time intensive personal development project I had ever undertaken—before or since. Og himself stated in his book that the probability of someone actually completing his ambitious challenge was about one-in-75. (2) I was absolutely determined to prove to myself—and others, including Og, even though he died nearly a decade before I undertook his challenge—that I would be one of the 1.3 percent of people who would actually finish the entire program. 

Forty-five (45) weeks after I started, I succeeded in this, my objective—an accomplishment that provides me with a residual source of personal confidence, esteem, and inner security to this day. 

William James
1842-1910

Suffice it to say, over an extended process of association, the nascent seeds of SAL were planted deeply in my mind, heart, and soul. Over time, as I continued to cultivate, fertilize, water, and otherwise nurture those seeds, they began to grow up in the form of the SAL Philosophy.  

"Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit;

sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny."

—William James

Thus, over a long period of time, I gradually developed and refined my own thoughts and ideas about personal leadership—notions that would, in-time, develop and evolve into the SAL Theory and Model. I recorded many of these thoughts in little black-and-white, pocket-sized "Marble Memo" notebooks.

During my early-mid twenties, I filled over 20 of these books with ideas and inspiration—as it came, piecemeal, one entry at a time. My mind was exploding with ideas during this time and it was not uncommon for me to have an idea strike my brain at all times of the day, including when going to sleep at night or driving my car. At such times I was conscientious about getting out of bed, turning on the light, pulling out the little Marble Memo notebook I was filling at the time, and recording the thought—or, if I was driving, I would pull my car over to the side of the road and record the inspiration in my little notebook before proceeding on my journey.

Over a long period of time—20-plus years and counting now—I gradually developed, refined, and revised all my thoughts and ideas that would become the SAL Philosophy.

At age 25, I began constructing the SAL Theory and Model. At age 26, I self-published my first book: I Am Sovereign: The Power of Personal Leadership. It was a personal leadership guide for teenagers and contained the first version of the SAL Model, as well as early vestiges of the SAL Theory.

It was my first attempt at writing a book and contained many markings of an amateur. 

But it was a solid initial effort that would eventually go through SIX additional iterations over the course of the following two decades.

The third of these seven iterations came in the form of my doctoral research, where I further honed the SAL Model and introduced a full version of the SAL Theory for the first time. The Life Leadership textbook you now hold in your hands is four (4) iterations removed from my dissertation, published in 2013. It is the result of 40 years of informal research, 24 years of formal research, organizing, writing, editing, revising, and continually polishing. 

It is a project literally tens of thousands of hours in the making.

It is my magnum opus as a thinker, writer, organizer, and leader. 

Indeed, I do not foresee, nor do I intend, to write or create anything more important or significant in my lifetime than this single, comprehensive work. Suffice it to say, it has been an incredible adventure and an exhilarating journey—a journey that is, in many ways, still just beginning.  

In Your Journal

• Prior to being introduced to SAL, what self-help media (books, tapes, podcasts, etc.) positively influenced your life, actions, and Existential Growth? 

• Which of these tools did you enjoy the most?  

• Which of these tools did you find to be the most inspiring and/or helpful?

• Which of these tools would you most highly recommend to others?

• Which of these tools most closely resembles the message contained in the SAL Philosophy? 

—Dr. JJ

Wednesday, January 15, 2025

Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, USA

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Chapter 2 Notes

1.  Schwartz, D. J. (1995). The Magic of Thinking Big. London, UK: Pocket Books. Page 122.

2.  Mandino, O. (1972). The Greatest Secret in the World. New York, NY: Bantam Books. Page 2.