Chapter 26
Expanding YOUR INFLUENCE through SAL
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Plutarch
A.D. 46-119 |
"What you achieve inwardly changes your outer reality."
—Plutarch and Otto Rank
If you've been paying close attention and/or keeping track, this is the third time the above quote has appeared in this Life Leadership textbook; and it won't be the last time I use it.
Why the repetition?
The answer is that REPETITION is the key to RECEPTION, especially when the information doesn't come attached to any compelling personal, political, or emotional stimulus.
Bottom line: Rote Learning is an essential pedagogical process in many educational contexts.
If I had to pick just one quote to serve as the slogan for SAL, I would probably pick this quote by Plutarch and Rank. The idea and paradigm that I can alter my external reality by working on my internal, metaphysical world has been one of the most illuminating and empowering mindsets I've ever come across in all my life's education and experience.
This principle of internal personal power has served as a rallying cry of hope and a harbinger of my potential in all my efforts and endeavors at self-improvement and personal change. It tersely encapsulates the driving ideology undergirding all of my personal and professional success—as well as the composition of this Life Leadership textbook.
Thus, it has morphed into its own SAL Mantra, as follows:
SAL Mantra
What you become inwardly changes your outer reality.
When you consider your lack of control over so many of life's external events and realities, it can be a bit disappointing, disillusioning, depressing, and even discouraging.
Disillusionment can be an especially frustrating mental state; but it is also a vital part of your SAL journey.
Why?
Because you'll never be able to fully picture your future potential until you can comprehend your current limitations. Similarly, you'll never know how much you can achieve with the help of SAL, Serendipity, and other people until you recognize, acknowledge, and accept how much you cannot achieve all by yourself.
This great truth beckons us toward another SAL Mantra, as follows: Recognizing your limitations is part of discovering your possibilities.
SAL Mantra
Recognizing your limitations is part of comprehending your possibilities.
Thus, part of discovering what and who you are is concurrently discerning what and who you aren't. And your saving grace is found in the recognition that the majority of the results you achieve externally in life is contingent on what goes on internally within your metaphysical world.
As the famous Christian Pastor, Chuck Swindoll, puts it: I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.
"I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it."
—Charles R. Swindoll
As you begin to experience the remarkable existential transformation attainable through SAL and Serendipity, you begin to see the world differently—and more accurately. This change in perspective creates a fundamental paradigm shift, which, in-turn, unleashes an ocean of unbounded potential and power.
Thus, as Dr. Wayne W. Dyer so succinctly syllogizes: When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
"When you change the way you look at things,
the things you look at change."
—Wayne W. Dyer
As you grow, develop, and evolve as a self-action leader and come to see life and the truth more clearly—as they really are—you increasingly sense, discern, and recognize the internal changes you must make in order to positively and productively alter your external reality.
The more sensitive you become to these mental, emotional, and conscience-rooted visceral promptings, the more empowered you will become to make necessary changes over time. As you do so, you will begin to observe your circumstances beginning to similarly improve over time.
If, on the other hand, you choose to reject these promptings, then your external realities will either remain static, or gradually atrophy into deepening decline over time.
The Miracle of SAL and Serendipity is that you don't have to change others to make the world—and YOUR world—a better place. You only have to change yourself and then be a good example—to let your light so shine as the Good Book says—for others to observe and potentially emulate.
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Florence Nightingale
1820-1910 |
For someone who used to feel an unhealthy responsibility for the entire world—and everyone in it—this knowledge has come as a huge relief to me and forever improved my quality of mind and life.
Indeed, it is perpetually refreshing to remind myself that I don't have to change other people
I simply need to continually work on improving myself.
By so doing, I naturally and organically increase my opportunities to influence others who, in-turn, may choose to change themselves by virtue of my influence.
This is the same basic recognition that changed the lives of Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Florence Nightingale, Mohandas Gandhi, Oprah Winfrey, and many other inspirational and powerful self-action leaders throughout history. Private victories of personal dedication to self-discipline and True Principles always precede public victories of societal influence and structural change. (1)
It always begins with the ONE—with you and with me.
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Hyrum W. Smith
1943-2019 |
Since I was just a little boy, I have always had a deep and compelling desire to influence other people in palpable, positive, and productive ways. This powerful yearning and aspiration mirrored my Uncle Hyrum W. Smith's "obsession" that he was supposed to "make a difference" in the world by the way he lived his life. (2)
As a teenager and younger man with great and honest intentions, but limited experience, insight, resources, and wisdom, I sometimes made the mistake of trying to influence other people by offering up unsolicited advice. As you can imagine, these well-intentioned but ill-advised, presumptuous, and obsessive-compulsive efforts did not help me win any friends, nor did it empower me to influence anyone.
Over time, however, I gained more experience, insight, and wisdom into life and human nature, honed my empathic and people skills, learned to bridle my OCD, and gradually became more polished in my approach. Most importantly, I learned the ALL-IMPORTANT lesson that the best way to influence others to change was to focus first and foremost on changing and improving myself.
Thus, the best way to influence others to change is to change yourself.
SAL Mantra
The best way to influence others to change is to change yourself.
Thomas J. Watson—Chairman and CEO of IBM in the early 20th century—taught this great leadership truth when he said: Nothing so conclusively proves a man's ability to lead others as what he does from day-to-day to lead himself."
"Nothing so conclusively proves a man's ability to lead others
as what he does from day-to-day to lead himself."
—Thomas J. Watson
To illustrate this great truth, consider the following example from a personal experience I had many years ago. I had traveled to Richmond, Virginia to visit one of my best friends—France Nielson—who was in Dental School at Virginia Commonwealth University.
During my visit, France and I and a few of France's roommates decided to take a sightseeing trip to Washington D.C. During the road trip north to D.C., one of France's roommates
—I'll call him Fred—rode in the same car as France and me. During the course of the drive, Fred had a lot to say. He was a charismatic, opinionated, and talkative fellow.
I could relate with Fred in this regard because for much of my life I had been similarly loquacious. But at this particular juncture of my SAL journey, I was specifically working on talking less and listening more in social situations.
Such was my game plan that day.
Thus, I sat back and actively listened to everything Fred had to say, while saying almost nothing myself.
About three-quarters of the way to Washington D.C., we reached a lull in the conversation when Fred jumped in to fill the silence with a personal question to me that I was not expecting.
Said he: "What are your thoughts about this subject, Jordan? You know, YOU seem like a really wise person and I'm curious to know what you think."
I was shocked to hear this come out of Fred's mouth and nearly laughed out loud in response.
"I'm a really wise person?" I thought to myself. "Heck, I've mostly just sat here in the back seat with my mouth shut!"
I have no memory of what I said in response to Fred's unexpected query. But I will never forget the impact of my efforts at Active Listening.
If I had tried to compete with or shout Fred down with my own loud-mouthed opinions, he most likely would have disrespected me and resented my combativeness. By simply listening carefully and actively to what Fred had to say, I actually opened him up to hear what I might have to offer in return.
This experience provided me with a remarkable life lesson on the ways in which effective listening increases our influence with others. If we want other people to listen to us, we must first be willing to listen to them.
As Stephen R. Covey so famously taught in his Habit #5 of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: "If you really want to be heard, then you must 'seek first to understand, then to be understood.'" (3)
All are Free
As a self-action leader, YOU always maintain a degree of freedom and choice even in the direst of circumstances.
I learned this great truth from Viktor Frankl's timeless book, Man's Search for Meaning.
Viktor was a victim of Nazi terror, abuse, and imprisonment during World War II. He labored as a prisoner of war (POW) at some of the Nazi's most infamous camps, including Auschwitz, Kaufering, and Türkheim.
A psychiatrist by education and training, Frankl pondered his experiences as a POW after the war in an ongoing effort to mine life lessons and psychotherapeutic principles out of the odious ore of his horrendous experiences.
From his many observations, Frankl discerned that while the Nazis could strip him of his liberty and material possessions, they could never purloin his freedom to choose his attitude and responses to his situation and circumstances—not even at gunpoint.
In his own inspiring words:
"The experiences of camp life show that man does have a choice of action. There were enough examples, often of a heroic nature, which proved apathy could be overcome, irritability suppressed. Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress.
"We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but thy offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's own attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
"And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate." (4)
My personal experiences with internal changes altering my external reality are many and varied.
Consider the following two (2) examples...
FIRST, I am a professional public speaker. Since 2001, I have addressed over 20,000 people all over the English-speaking world. I actually
enjoy public speaking!
However, this was not always the case. Nearly 40 years ago, as a 9-year-old boy in 1989, I was given an assignment to speak in my local church congregation of approximately 350 people.
I was terrified!
After white-knuckling it through my brief remarks, I was incredibly relieved and thought to myself: "I hope it's years before I have to do that again!"
Today, I not only get paid to speak, but I love it. There are, in fact, few things I would rather do than get up in front of a group of people and flap my gums for as long as they'll listen.
What changed over the past four decades?
Did public speaking change? Has the art of oratory qualitatively evolved during my lifetime? Have the fundamental dynamics of an audience somehow been altered in the new century?
The answer is: of course not!
What, then, did change?
The answer is simple: I changed.
Despite the fears I've faced and the inadequacies I've felt, I continued to speak. I did it again, and again, and again, and again—no matter how nervous I may have felt.
I faced my fears.
I stood up to the butterflies in my stomach and let those fickle insecurities and flitting inadequacies know who was in charge.
Doing so wasn't always easy, but several thousand public speaking opportunities later, this inner evolution has not only changed my outer reality, it has come to define and shape my entire career and life.
Emerson once said: He who is not every day conquering some fear has not discovered the secret of life.
"He who is not every day conquering some fear has not discovered the secret of life."
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Similarly, John Wayne has remarked that:
Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway.
Courage is being scared to death
and saddling up anyway."
—John Wayne
We cherish these quotes at Freedom Focused, and enthusiastically commend them to YOU.
After all, you cannot rise to higher levels of Existential Growth without COURAGE and will.
A SECOND example of how making internal improvements has led to positive changes in my external reality involves a most unpleasant experience I had with a middle school bully.
I was bullied in eighth grade by several boys. One fellow in particular—James was his name—was the worst of the group.
Most human beings experienced bullying at one time or another throughout their lives. It is not fun. It can, in fact, be a most terrifying and hellacious experience.
I eventually solved my bullying problem by notifying my parents who, in-turn, got school administrators involved. As a result, my bully showed up at my home one day to apologize and verbally commit to no longer torment me. But for many months previous to this resolution, I was not a happy camper at school.
About seven (7) years later, after I had finished my 2-year Church Mission and was attending college, I ran into my bully in a convenience store one day on a road trip to my hometown. It was a most unexpected meeting; I had not seen James since high school.
At first, I felt a twinge of fear, probably resulting from my old cellular memories of all those years ago. But after quickly reflecting on our present ages and the passage of time, I determined that this was a fickle fear that I needed to face.
So, I strolled confidently up to James, put out my hand, and asked with a smile: "Hey James, how are you doing? Do you remember me?"
James did recognize me.
He smiled, shook my hand back and returned my "Hello."
It was as if we'd been old friends!
As I looked at James that day, it didn't seem like a whole lot had changed about him. His physical appearance suggested that his habits and station in life hadn't changed much since high school.
I, on the other hand, had changed a lot.
I had moved away from my hometown to a much larger city in a different State where I spent my senior year of high school. I had lived outside my country and learned and grown as a volunteer full-time missionary for my church. I had a couple years' of university studies under my belt.
In short, I had grown, progressed, and matured a great deal since my difficult days as a scrawny and diffident eighth grader. I was not only much more confident in and sure of myself, but I was now physically taller than James as well.
Rather than looking up in fear to my erstwhile bully, I was now looking slightly down on him!
These internal changes over the years significantly altered my external reality as I shook hands that day with my ex-bully. It was my own precious and long-awaited "Biff Tannen now works for George McFly" moment! (5)
Several years later, I was surprised when James invited me to be his friend on social media. I accepted his invitation! He eventually became a father and made some positive changes in his life. He even emailed me at one point to express his growing interest in Life Leadership literature. Knowing of my expertise and knowledge on the subject, he asked me to recommend some books on the subject.
I was surprised, but happy that he made this request of me, and was thrilled to learn of his growing interest in pursuing personal education and growth. I gladly gave him some reading recommendations, including my own book!
Sadly, James died several years ago, when he was still a relatively young man. I am glad we were able to reconcile and start anew in such a positive and productive way before he passed.
With the exception of James' seemingly untimely death, I love how this story evolved so positively and productively over the years. It is a living testament to the possibility of and potential for anyone and everyone to choose to make positive changes at any point in their lives.
My gradually growing influence on James and others didn't occur because I tried to change other people. It has come about because of my ongoing commitment to change myself. The concept that intrapersonal growth and progress lead to interpersonal influence lies at the very heart of the SAL Theory.
It is, in fact, the theory's CAPSTONE—as you will soon see.
Your Growing Sphere of Influence
The full extent of your potential for personal influence is determined by a number of personal, environmental, circumstantial, and timing variables (all of which differ from person-to-person).
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Frederick Douglass
1818-1895 |
Generally speaking, however, your sphere of influence expands gradually at first and then exponentially over time as you rise to higher levels of Existential Growth.
As the lives of Frederick Douglass, Florence Nightingale, Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa, and others like them so demonstrably illustrates, Existential Growth produces moral authority that influences others—even, and perhaps especially—in the absence of formal authority.
Such self-action leaders are respected for their integrity, humanity, humility, grace, goodness, and honorable dealings with others.
Self-Action Leadership—and the Existential Growth it spawns—is very attractive to others because it encompasses all the noblest human virtues and behaviors.
Thus, self-action leaders who inhabit the higher levels of the SAL Hierarchy become members of what Thomas Jefferson referred to as a "Natural Aristocracy." Unlike an artificial, man-made aristocracy, which is rooted in arbitrary attainments based on birth and inherited wealth and/or status, a "Natural Aristocracy" is fundamentally meritocratic and otherwise established by the action oriented virtue and nobility of its naturally qualified members. (6)
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Mohandas Gandhi
1869-1948 |
Gandhi is a classic example of someone who
earned his place in the
Natural Aristocracy of not only his nation, but the world-at-large. Due to the consistent courage of his conscience-rooted convictions, his moral authority evolved into an enormously compelling and catalytic force in Indian culture and politics to the point where India eventually won its independence from colonial Great Britain.
To Indians, Gandhi is the Father of their country—much like George Washington is the father of the United States.
A key difference between Gandhi and Washington, however, is that Mohandas never enjoyed the same level of formal authority as George did, yet he managed to realize his momentous objective without it!
The fact that Gandhi was never a monarch, political leader, military general, or business tycoon makes Mohandas an unusually remarkable and notable historical figure, leader, and outlier. Perhaps more than anyone else in history (religious founders excepting), Mohandas Gandhi's life illustrates the authentic power of SAL to dramatically expand the public influence of an otherwise obscure and ordinary citizen self-action leader.
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George Washington
1732-1799 |
Although he did possess formal authority as a military General, George Washington is also a good example of the noble exercise of moral authority.
For example, he had a gift for inspiring his soldiers to re-enlist in the Colonial Army after their legal obligations to serve had expired. As a result, many men fought on with Washington despite abject circumstances, limited or nonexistent remuneration, and dim hopes for victory—not because Washington possessed the formal authority to coerce their reenlistments (he didn't), but because they grew to love, trust, and believe in the cause he was championing as their General-in-Chief.
With these examples as a backdrop, the time has come to introduce the FINAL LAW in the Self-Action Leadership Theory, which states that: Your potential to influence others expands or contracts relative to your Existential Standing.
LAW 13
Your potential to influence others expands or contracts relative to your Existential Standing.
This final law illuminates a great truth, as follows: Individual self-action leaders with the most significant and lasting influence for good on others have typically reached the highest levels of Existential Growth themselves. And the higher level that YOU attain, the more people you are likely to influence.
While it should not be automatically assumed that the number of people you influence is directly proportional to your Existential Standing, it is true that reaching high levels of Existential Growth increases the likelihood that you will, in time, influence larger numbers of people.
There have, of course, been some remarkable self-action leaders throughout history who reached the highest levels of Existential Growth, but their geographical isolation and/or technological constraints greatly limited the scope of their broader social influence.
Such leaders are typically not known to the history books.
However, historical visibility alone does not handicap a self-action leader's Existential Potential, nor is it automatically commensurate to an individual's earned Existential Standing.
Indeed, noble personal histories and inspiring SAL narratives may, can, and do exist in great isolation among families, teams, organizations, neighborhoods, communities, et cetera, all around the world and throughout human history.
The following figures illustrate the general correlation between Existential Growth and interpersonal influence.
On lower levels of Existential Growth, your influence on other people
contracts, thus excluding them from your sphere of influence.
On higher levels of Existential Growth, your influence on others expands,
bringing those same people gradually into your sphere of influence.
Over time, this gradual expansion of influence has the potential to grow exponentially.
For example, like most human beings, including myself, Gandhi started out in life with very little influence over those around him. Over time, however, as he developed, refined, and polished his own SAL, he gradually came to influence the entire world. In the process, he was able to literally change the world, and it all started when he decided to start changing himself.
Thus, a once obscure and seemingly insignificant Indian boy eventually grew into a man of such enormous moral authority, power, and influence as to lead his entire country to earn its independence—and he did it all without any formal positions, titles, or wealth. His extraordinary influence was a direct outgrowth of his own gradual and progressive Existential Growth over the course of his lifetime. (7)
One of the greatest historical misnomers about LEADERSHIP is that you must have an official title or position to be a leader.
Not so!
While positions, titles, and other elements of formal authority can certainly be helpful, such formal accoutrements of power will never be as influential as moral authority borne of authentic Existential Growth—at least not in the long-run. This is why the historical legacy of most presidents and monarchs can scarcely begin to compare or compete with the lasting legacy left to us by a Socrates, a Dante, a Jesus, a Shakespeare, a Nightingale, a Gandhi, or an MLK, Jr.
Whether you know it or not, and whether you like it or not, you already are a leader. The question is: What kind of a leader are you; and is anyone following your example?
Truly great leaders are never just born. They are made, and becoming a principle-centered leader of influence who makes a positive difference in the world around them is a choice that lies within the grasp of us all.
In Your Journal
Who is currently inside your sphere of influence?
Who would you like to someday be inside your sphere of influence?
Why would you like these persons to be inside your sphere of influence?
What will you have to accomplish to expand your sphere of influence to your liking?
SAL Master Challenge
Exercise #5
Self-action leaders are SELF-AWARE
List three things, people, situations, or circumstances that currently annoy, frighten, or intimidate you.
What can you begin doing today to change internally in order to begin altering your outer reality?
REMEMBER: The only things you can truly control in your life are your own thoughts, speech, actions, attitudes, and beliefs; therein lies your power to change both your internal and external realities.
I have completed the SAL Master Challenge, EXERCISE #5
Your initials:__________ AP initials:__________
—Dr. JJ
Wednesday, December 11, 2024
Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, USA
Author's Note: This is the 420th Blog Post Published by Freedom Focused LLC since November 2013 and the 229th consecutive weekly blog published since August 31, 2020.
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Chapter 26 Notes
1. Covey, S.R. (1989). The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons
in Personal Change. New York, NY: Fireside. Page 186.
2. Smith, H. W. (1994). The 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life
Management: Proven Strategies for Increased Productivity and Inner Peace. New
York, NY: Warner Books. Page 4.
3. Covey, S. R. (1989). The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons
in Personal Change. New York, NY: Fireside. Page 235.
4. Frankl, V. (1984) Man’s Search for Meaning. New York, NY: Washington
Square Press. Pages 86-87.
5. This is a reference to the 1985 Hollywood movie, Back to the Future, starring Michael
J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Thomas F. Wilson, and Crispin Glover.
Biff Tannen (Wilson) bullied George McFly (Glover) in High School, but George eventually stands up
to him by knocking (punching) him out after he tried to take advantage of the girl (Thompson) George would
eventually marry. Later, Biff ended up working for George, a successful author, and
his wife as a menial laborer and handyman.
6. Skousen, W. C. (2006). The 5000 Year Leap: The 28 Great Ideas that Changed
the World. National Center for Constitutional Studies. Pages 60-61.
7. To learn more about Gandhi’s incredible “Experiments with Truth” and his
journey toward Existential Growth, see the reference to his autobiography in
Appendix A. Then buy the book and read it yourself.
