Self-Action Leadership: the Key to Personal & Professional Freedom: A Comprehensive Personal Leadership Training Resource for Civic Leaders, Businesses, Schools, Homes, & Individuals

By Jordan R. Jensen

Self-Action Leadership: The Key to Personal & Professional Freedom is a groundbreaking personal leadership manual that introduces a metaphysical (or self-help) Theory of Everything. In the book, Dr. Jensen interweaves nearly three decades of personal experiences, literature reviews, and action research into an original Theory and Model of personal leadership called Self-Action Leadership. In the narrative sections of his book, Dr. Jensen describes the life and career challenges he has faced and overcame while struggling to manage obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and depression. Self-Action Leadership is the most comprehensive personal leadership handbook to hit the market since Dr. Stephen R. Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504933117

Jordan R. Jensen

Dr. Jordan R. Jensen is the Founder, CEO, and Master Facilitator of Freedom Focused. He has published four books and hundreds of news and other articles on a variety of soft-skill topics. A prolific public speaker, Dr. Jensen has addressed 20,000 people in 600 audiences throughout 44 States, 5 Provinces, and 9 Counties throughout the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. He lives in Conroe, Texas (Houston) with his wife and two children.

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© 2015 Jordan R. Jensen, Ed.D. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse      09/24/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-3312-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-3311-7 (e)

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

This Book’s Intended Audiences

Freedom Focused Training & Consulting

Acknowledgments

Dedication

Authors Note

Special Tributes

Foreword

About Dr. Chris Neck

Preface

Key Terms & Acronyms

Book The First: In Pursuit Of Freedom ~ An Introduction To Sal

Chapter 1 What Sets This Book Apart From Other Self-Help Reads?

Chapter 2 The Importance & Power Of Language

Chapter 3 The Freedom To Change & Grow

Chapter 4 The Price Of Change

Chapter 5 It’s Not Only About You

Chapter 6 Conscience & The Sal Moral Imperative

Chapter 7 The Age Of Authenticism

Chapter 8 The Cause Of Freedom

Chapter 9 Freedom Focused

Chapter 10 Ask Not

Chapter 11 The Last Best Hope Of Earth

Chapter 12 The Essential Role Of Education

Chapter 13 Things That Enslave

Chapter 14 Emancipation Through Self-Action Leadership

Chapter 15 The Challenge & Quest To Become

Chapter 16 The Power Of Personal Experience

Chapter 17 Sal Variables

Book The Second: The Sal Theory

Chapter 1 A Metaphysical Theory Of Everything

Chapter 2 A Theory Of Existential Space Travel

Chapter 3 Absolute Truth

Chapter 4 Right & Wrong Are Real

Chapter 5 Truth, Or The Way Things Really Are

Chapter 6 The Power Of Beliefs & Experiences

Chapter 7 Making A Commitment To Reality

Chapter 8 Truth’s Greatest Mysteries

Chapter 9 Your World

Chapter 10 You Are Free To Choose

Chapter 11 Changing Your World From The Inside Out

Chapter 12 The Power Of Real-Life Stories

Chapter 13 My Story

Chapter 14 The Jordan Jensen Story, Part 1

Chapter 15 The Jordan Jensen Story, Part 2

Chapter 16 The Jordan Jensen Story, Part 3

Chapter 17 From Orphan To Executive

Chapter 18 Creating Your Own Career

Chapter 19 A First Generation American Goes To West Point

Chapter 20 From South Side To Six Figures

Chapter 21 Paying The Price Over A Lifetime, Part 1

Chapter 22 Paying The Price Over A Lifetime, Part 2

Chapter 23 Famous Stories Of Self-Action Leadership

Chapter 24 Existential Gravity

Chapter 25 An Atmospheric Metaphor Of Existential Growth

Chapter 26 Universal Laws Set The Price

Chapter 27 Humility Precedes Existential Growth

Chapter 28 A Sal Formula For Expanding Your Personal Influence

Chapter 29 Real Life Applications Of The Sal Theory

Chapter 30 Finding Purpose And Meaning In Your Life

Chapter 31 Declaring War On The Enemy Within

Book The Third: The Sal Model

Chapter 1 The Builders

Chapter 2 The Seeds Of Self-Help

Chapter 3 A Construction Metaphor

Chapter 4 Sal Model Stage 1

Chapter 5 Drafting Existential Blueprints

Chapter 6 Sal Model Stage 2

Chapter 7 Sal Model Stage 3

Chapter 8 Sal Model Stage 4

Chapter 9 Tips For Implementing The Sal Model In Your Life

Book The Fourth: A Pedagogy Of Personal Leadership

Chapter 1 The Great Education Gap Of Our Time

Chapter 2 Personal Leadership In The Classroom:

Chapter 3 Personal Leadership In The Classroom, Part Ii

Chapter 4 Personal Leadership In The Classroom, Part Iii:

Chapter 5 Personal Leadership In The Classroom, Part Iv:

Chapter 6 Personal Leadership In The Classroom: Real Life Example 5

Chapter 7 Pedagogies Of Personal Leadership: A General Template

Book The Last: You Are Sovereign

Chapter 1 Now What?

Chapter 2 Opening Yourself Up To Serendipity

Chapter 3 Dream Big

Chapter 4 You Are Sovereign

Chapter 5 The Art Of Being Alive

Chapter 6 The Freedom And Power Of The Individual

Chapter 7 A Key To Everything

End Notes

Afterword

About The Author

Freedom Focused

Training & Consulting

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C

26848.png Praise for Self-Action Leadership 26850.png

In Self Action Leadership, Jordan Jensen has assembled a leadership masterpiece anchored steadfastly in true principles of philosophy and human behavior. In wonderfully written prose, Jordan reminds us of who we are and what it takes to live and lead with honor. Moreover, he challenges us to live up to the high calling of being human beings with a special mission on this Earth. To accomplish our mission, we must do two major things: grow in our sense of personal responsibility, and in turn, care for others and help them to do the same. I grappled with these two areas in a primal way during more than five years as a POW in Vietnam. Now I’m thrilled to see how Jordan has laid out SAL by using the vehicle of story to illuminate his own, unique journey of transcending adversity. In so doing, he has inspired us all to become who we are capable of becoming. Bravo!

Colonel Lee Ellis

U.S. Air Force Retired, Vietnam POW survivor (Hanoi Hilton), President & Founder of Leadership Freedom® LLC and FreedomStar Media™ and author of Leading With Honor: Leadership Lessons from the Hanoi Hilton

There is no more important contributor to your own effectiveness than how you lead yourself. If you want to learn a great deal about the latest thinking on self-leadership, read this book.

Charles C. Manz, Ph.D.

Nirenberg Chaired Professor of Business Leadership at The University of Massachusetts, co-author of Mastering Self-Leadership: Empowering Yourself for Personal Excellence, and father of the self-leadership field in the academe

"Jordan Jensen has accomplished a task that is very difficult for any author to achieve, and that is to produce a single text that is highly relevant to multiple audiences at the same time. Because of the universal applicability of basic self-leadership principles, his message is germane not only to persons struggling with OCD, depression, or other forms of mental illness, but to civic leaders, business professionals and workers of all kinds, educators, students, parents, and children—in short, to everyone. Indeed, I do believe that virtually anyone who reads this book will be able to take something away from it that will improve his or her life in a significant way."

Christopher P. Neck, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Management & University Master Teacher, Arizona State University, and co-author of Self-Leadership: Empowering Yourself for Personal Excellence

"Reading this book may be the most worthwhile thing you do this year. I hope the message of Self-Action Leadership 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.

David G. Anthony, Ed.D.

CEO of Raise Your Hand Texas and former Superintendent of the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District – Houston, TX.

"While a number of books and articles have been written on the topic of self-leadership, Jordan Jensen’s Self-Action Leadership goes deep below the surface level of basic self-leading strategies and accompanying examples to provide an in-depth examination of how self-leadership processes can be woven effectively into the fabric of one’s life. A deeply personal and richly emotive narrative, Self-Action Leadership takes the reader on a journey of self-discovery, providing one of the most detailed and applied treatments of self-leadership concepts currently available."

Jeffery D. Houghton, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Management and leading self-leadership scholar, West Virginia University

Jordan Jensen has written a thorough, intense, and illuminating autobiographical volume about how to lead self. His story, compounded by OCD and a determination to improve, will help others reflect on how they might best lead themselves – given whatever genetic endowment or mimetic inheritance they may have received. Jordan’s depth of analysis and self-insight will inspire others to take a similarly in-depth review of who they are who they want to be—at least once before they die—a journey well worth the effort.

James G.S. Clawson, Ph.D.

Professor at The Darden Graduate School, The University of Virginia (retired), and author of Level 3 Leadership: Getting Below the Surface

Most of us have challenges that we seek to explain through our genetic pre-dispositions. It is the select few who consider their internal resources and make the choice to master those challenges. Dr. Jensen, through his own experiences and research, has taken the latter path—the road less traveled. Anyone who seeks greater insight into their inner struggles, and desires the tools to overcome those struggles—to master self—will find this book a must read!

Bruce H. Jackson, Ed.M., MBA, MA, Ph.D., MPA

Founder and CEO of The Institute of Applied Human Excellence, and author of Finding Your Flow: How to Identify Your Flow Assets and Liabilities—The Keys to Peak Performance Every Day

Jensen’s autoethnographic study is a comprehensive and detailed account of his personal journey in managing obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), and the steps he took to fulfill his personal and professional goals. He intimately chronicles his struggle with the challenges of OCD and outlines a comprehensive self-leadership system for successfully managing it. This book offers hope for those with OCD and serves as a helpful guide for anyone who wants to unlock their own self-leadership potential.

Rodney J. Beaulieu, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, California State University at San Marcos

Any student would benefit from the principles of Self-Action Leadership that Jordan Jensen teaches. Unfortunately, too many young people today don’t learn these principles in their homes. If they don’t pick them up somewhere, they are at a disadvantage in life.

Joseph N. Jensen, M.A.

Principal, Orem Junior High School, Orem, Utah

Dr. Jensen shares insightful stories and powerful principles to create an incredibly solid foundation of self-leadership knowledge, but he doesn’t stop there. The reader is also guided through the same process of self-discovery Dr. Jensen himself went through to become an effective self-action-leader. The combination of sound philosophy and guided self-exploration make this book a truly unique and powerful tool in creating principle-centered self-leaders.

Josh Rohatinsky, MPA

NCAA Division I Cross-Country Champion (2006), former professional distance runner (Nike), and current Project Manager for Intermountain Healthcare.

As a high school English teacher who also facilitates a Student Leadership class, I was thrilled to learn about this insightful guide to self-leadership that can be used as a resource in classes just like mine. Thank you Jordan! As an educator, it is encouraging to know there are people out there like Dr. Jensen who are working hard to support administrators, teachers, parents, and students alike. I am confident the message of Self-Action Leadership will help to provide the guidance our youth so desperately need to become effective self-leaders and productive members of society.

Shannon Lindholm

High School Teacher, Magnolia, Texas

Dr. Jensen, through his experience teaching, brings to light the importance of teaching leadership and character inside the classroom. Teachers will feel empowered to impact youth outside of prescribed curriculum through an understanding of Self-Action Leadership.

James Fraser

High School Teacher; Conroe, Texas

If you find yourself in Hell, you might be lucky enough to come across this book. Psychotherapists, such as myself, can show you a pathway to healing, but Jordan outlines individual footsteps you can follow to personal freedom. Jordan approached his OCD and depression with unusual determination and proactivity. His story offers an inspiring model of a patient’s full acceptance of responsibility for one’s own treatment, which is paramount to a successful treatment outcome. His Self-Action Leadership Theory and Model – the result of keen self-awareness, reflection, and study – offer hope for those who struggle with mental illness and other life challenges. He has demonstrated the courage required to take the first steps, as well as the commitment to keep going.

Irene Tobis, Ph.D.

Professional Counselor & former President of OCD Texas, an affiliate of the International Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Foundation (IOCDF)

Dr. Jensen’s narrative of his battle with OCD is brutally honest. He takes the reader inside the mind of a young man struggling to understand himself, to be accepted by his peers, and eventually how to overcome great odds and succeed. If you have OCD, know someone who has OCD, or counsel people with this devastating personality disorder, this book is a must read.

Lieutenant Colonel Stephen L. Jensen

U.S. Air Force Fighter Pilot (F-15 Eagle), Retired

Jordan Jensen’s empowering book shares candid personal insights into the challenges of living with OCD and the broadly applicable process he has been using to continually overcome it. We have read about several different mental health challenges, but never as a firsthand account written in such a detailed and self-disclosing fashion. The compelling narrative chapters make this self-help guide read like a page-turner novel that is coupled with a powerful process of improving one’s ability to self-lead. Jordan’s explanation of Self-Action Leadership is applicable to all. Thanks Jordan!

Brad & Elizabeth Chappell

Father, mother, financial advisor, & writer

The Self-Action Leadership Theory

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The Self-Action Leadership Model

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This Book’s Intended Audiences

How to Use the Book in Personal & Organizational Settings

All human beings are self-action leaders – whether they know it, like it, or care about it or not. This book has therefore been written with a universal audience in mind; that is, anyone and everyone interested in personal change, self-improvement, and Existential Growth. There are, however, SEVEN (7) specific audiences for which the book may have particular appeal.

AUDIENCE 1: Elected officials & other high profile Leaders & Role Models

AUDIENCE 2: Business Professionals, including Leaders, Managers, & Workers

AUDIENCE 3: Educators, including Administrators, Teachers & Support Staff

AUDIENCE 4: Students of all ages

AUDIENCE 5: Parents & Families

AUDIENCE 6: Individuals

AUDIENCE 7: Persons dealing with mental illness

This book has been designed as a comprehensive toolbox that these, and other, audiences can flexibly utilize as a resource to facilitate educational initiatives aimed at the self-improvement, character building, and personal growth of individuals and organizations. The sections below provide suggestions on how the material might best serve the SEVEN (7) audiences listed above.

AUDIENCE 1: Elected officials & other high profile Leaders & Role Models

Read this book to discover how you can utilize the SAL Theory & Model to inform your own personal and professional growth as a leader and role model. Doing so will inspire and assist you as you seek to achieve personal transcendence, serve your constituents and audiences, and leave a lasting legacy of world-changing contributions.

Ideas for Using This Material in the Public Arena

• Read the book and compose a Self-Declaration of Independence (S-DoI) & Self-Constitution (S-C).

• Encourage your subordinates to read the book and compose their own S-DoI & S-C.

• Incorporate SAL principles into leadership trainings, lunch & learns, interpersonal interactions, and team cultures.

• Use the bully pulpit to promote Pedagogies of Personal Leadership (See BOOK the FOURTH).

• Practice what you preach.

• Visit us at: www.freedomfocused.com to learn how we can bring SAL training, keynote addresses, or consulting services to your office, community, state, or nation.

• As needed, re-read the book whenever you need a refresher on the principles, or to gain added inspiration and motivation from its message.

AUDIENCE 2: Business Professionals, including Leaders, Managers, & Workers

The SAL Theory & Model is highly applicable to business leaders, professionals, and other workers from both a personal and professional standpoint. Professionally, the model’s construction metaphor provides a vivid analogue to Principles of Project Management, whereby individual men and women become the project, and personal and professional growth become the objective.

This comprehensive, Self-Action Leadership developmental approach focuses on the whole person in order to avoid atrophy or failure in any one area. To reiterate the words of Gandhi: [You] cannot do right in one department of life whilst … doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole.¹ SAL training empowers business professionals with the holistic self-development required to become effective servant leaders who are courageous, confident, and committed to their organization.

Professional training in the SAL Theory and Model equips business leaders and professionals with the principles and practices needed to integrate their personal and professional lives in a way that guarantees long-term success in both.

Ideas for Using This Material in Professional Settings

• Read the book and compose a Self-Declaration of Independence (S-DoI) & Self-Constitution (S-C).

• Encourage your colleagues and subordinates to read the book and draft their own S-DoI and S-C.

• Hold a Corporate Constitutional Convention whereby as many members of your organization as possible participate in creating (or revising) a Corporate Declaration of Independence & Constitution.

• Conduct lunch & learn sessions to discuss SAL Theory & Model principles.

• Flexibly incorporate the material into monthly, weekly, or even daily leadership trainings and other organizational communications.

• Flexibly incorporate SAL principles into group, team, department, company, and organizational cultures.

• Display SAL mantras in prominent and visible office locales (See Appendix B for a list of mantras).

• Practice what you preach by exemplifying SAL principles in your own personal and professional life.

• Visit us online at www.freedomfocused.com to learn how we can bring SAL training, keynote addresses, and consulting services to your company.

• As needed, re-read the book whenever you need a refresher on the principles, or to gain added inspiration and motivation from its message.

AUDIENCE 3: Educators, including Administrators, Teachers & Support Staff

BOOK the FOURTH provides a template curriculum for implementing leadership, character, and life-skill education into public and private schools. Regardless of institutional curriculum demands and testing standards placed on twenty-first century teachers and administrators, creative educators can find ways to incorporate the weightier matters of education into schools and classrooms. This book can help. It can be used as a primary textbook for training both educators and students in the SAL Theory & Model, or as a supplementary text in more general courses on self-leadership, leadership, and personal development.

Ideas for Using This Material in Professional Education Settings & Schools:

• Read the book, complete the SAL Master Challenge, and compose a Self-Declaration of Independence (S-DoI) & Self-Constitution (S-C).

• Encourage your colleagues and subordinates to read the book and draft a S-DoI and S-C.

• Hold a State, District, School, Department, or Team Constitutional Convention whereby as many members of your organization as possible are invited to participate in creating (or revising) a Group Declaration of Independence & Constitution.

• Conduct lunch & learn discussions on SAL Theory & Model and other personal leadership, leadership, and personal development principles.

• Incorporate the material into monthly, weekly, or even daily leadership trainings and other organization communications.

• Display SAL Mantras in prominent and visible locales in your offices and schools (See Appendix B for a list of mantras).

• Establish and support the introduction of Self-Action Leadership, leadership, and personal development oriented courses in your schools, utilizing this book as a primary or supplementary text.

• Integrate SAL principles into the curriculum wherever relevant through classroom discussions and application-based assignments.

• Teach and repeat SAL mantras to colleagues and students (See Appendix B for a list of mantras).

• When communicating with parents and the community, teach and promote concepts of SAL, character, conscience, integrity, self-discipline, etc.

• Practice what you preach by exemplifying SAL principles in your own personal and professional life.

• Visit us online at www.freedomfocused.com to learn more about how we can bring SAL training, keynote addresses, or consulting services to your district, school, community, or classrooms.

• As needed, re-read the book whenever you need a refresher on the principles, or to gain added inspiration and motivation from its message.

AUDIENCE 4: Students of all ages

Perhaps no one is in greater need of an education in Self-Action Leadership than students of all ages. From Pre-K, elementary, and junior high school students, to high school, college, graduate-level students, and beyond, the SAL Theory and Model can help students everywhere to succeed in creating an individual vision, setting personal goals, seizing worthy opportunities, and realizing their potential. We encourage students to use this book as a personal handbook for their holistic growth and development.

Ideas for Using This Material in Professional Educational Settings & Schools:

• Read this book, complete the SAL Master Challenge, and compose a Self-Declaration of Independence (S-DoI) & Self-Constitution (S-C).

• Exemplify SAL principles in your life.

• Encourage friends and family members to read the book and complete the SAL Master Challenge.

• For inspiration and reminders, place SAL-oriented pictures, quotes, and mantras in places where you’ll see them often.

• As needed, re-read the book whenever you need a refresher on the principles, or to gain added inspiration and motivation from its message.

AUDIENCE 5: Parents & Families

If individuals are the building blocks of society, families are the mortar that solidifies them. At Freedom Focused, we believe there are no greater leadership or management positions than that of Father and Mother. And there is no greater honor than that of bearing or raising another human being. Unfortunately, poor parenting is a pandemic throughout the USA and world that has resulted in weakened organizations and individual failure and despair. Self-Action Leadership was developed as an antidote to this troubling societal issue.

Governments and other organizations will never be able to effectively legislate good parenting, but good parenting can be taught and modeled. The SAL Theory and Model is a worthy resource for this worthiest of causes. There are few things parents and families can do that will more positively affect their home lives than to learn, practice, and teach Self-Action Leadership. I invite parents everywhere to read this book, teach the principles to their children, and incorporate the tenets of Self-Action Leadership into their family relationships and planning.

Ideas for Using This Material in Homes:

• Read this book, complete the SAL Master Challenge, and compose a Self-Declaration of Independence (S-DoI) & Self-Constitution (S-C).

• Periodically gather for a Family Day or Family Night to discuss SAL principles and their relation to successful living and happy family relationships. Plan projects that allow family members to apply SAL principles and provide service to others. Include good food/treats and fun recreational activities as part of your Family Day or Family Night.

• Compose a Family Declaration of Independence and a Family Constitution.

• Plan and conduct a family service project. Repeat regularly (e.g., semi-annually, quarterly, or even monthly).

• Share this book with, and teach the principles to, other families. Periodically get together with other families to share in a combined Family Day or Family Night.

• Exemplify SAL principles in family life.

• As needed, re-read the book whenever you need a refresher on the principles, or to gain added inspiration and motivation from its message.

AUDIENCE 6: Individuals

No matter what relationships and organizations you may be a part of during your life here on Earth, you always were, and always will remain, an individual first. As such, regardless what group or organization may have originally introduced this book to you, the book remains ultimately a self-help guide for you as an individual who seeks personal growth and development.

Individuals form the building blocks of marriages, families, companies, communities, churches, states, nations, and ultimately the entire world; therefore, the individual is where all problems and solutions originate. This book is a field guide to solving the perplexing problems that all human beings eventually face throughout their mortal journey.

Ideas for Using This Material as an Individual:

• Read this book, complete the SAL Master Challenge, and compose a Self-Declaration of Independence (S-DoI) & Self-Constitution (S-C).

• Exemplify SAL principles in your life.

• Encourage friends and family members to also read the book, complete the SAL Master Challenge, and compose their own S-DoI and S-C.

• For inspiration and reminders, decorate your personal space with SAL-oriented pictures, quotes, mantras, and other visual memorabilia.

• As needed, re-read the book whenever you need a refresher on the principles, or to gain added inspiration and motivation from its message.

• Seek for education and opportunities that will provide you with the power to further exemplify and teach SAL to a widening sphere of influence as you grow and develop personally & professionally.

AUDIENCE 7: Persons dealing with mental illness

Having struggled with mental illness myself, this audience is near and dear to my heart. One of the aims of this book is to provide aid and comfort to those dealing with mental illness of any kind.

Self-Action Leadership provides a resource that encourages both hope and healing for anyone struggling with mental hygiene, which, if we are really honest with ourselves, is all of us to varying degrees. This book can serve as a helpful handbook as you strive to overcome cognitive distortions and otherwise work towards the honorable – and attainable – goal of good mental hygiene.

• Read this book, complete the SAL Master Challenge, and compose a Self-Declaration of Independence (S-DoI) and Self-Constitution (S-C).

• Acknowledge to yourself and trusted loved ones that you may be struggling with your mental hygiene. Seek out professional help as needed.

• Discuss with your counselor and/or trusted loved ones how SAL principles can complement other psychotherapeutic methods you are currently engaging as part of your treatment plan.

• As needed, re-read the book whenever you need a refresher on the principles, or to gain added inspiration and motivation from its message.

Freedom Focused

Training & Consulting

Educate         Engage         Inspire

At Freedom Focused, we develop professionals in three different ways. First, we provide EDUCATION through interactive training (seminar) sessions. Second, we ENGAGE professionals and leaders through group consultations and one-on-one coaching sessions. Third, we INSPIRE by providing cutting-edge literature, keynote oratory, and motivational speaking.

Freedom Focused has provided training or consulting for a variety of Fortune 500 and other corporations such as: British Petroleum (BP), Phillips 66, ConocoPhillips, Subsea 7, Enbridge Energy, DuPont, and Olympus.

Freedom Focused has also provided training and consulting for the U.S. and Canadian governments, all five branches of the U.S. military, and Atlanta & Houston public school districts.

EDUCATE

Our unique three-step education process focuses on three critical areas of development:

STEP ONE: Self-Action Leadership Proficiency

STEP TWO: Communication & Interpersonal Excellence

STEP THREE: Leadership & Management Success

Freedom Focused provides seminar training that is jammed packed with essential content for each of these steps. But we do not stop there. Our training provides interactive experiences to foster individual commitment to improvement.

Because these three educational steps naturally build upon one another, the course materials should ideally be undertaken in order. However, we provide individual courses in any order to clients on an as-needed basis.

Below you will find the specific training options for these primary areas of personal and professional development. All courses are 1-day seminars that last 6-8 hours, but may be tailored to meet your timing needs.

STEP ONE: Self-Action Leadership Proficiency

™* An Introduction to SAL (half-day)

™* Self-Action Leadership (1-2 days)

   The Key to Personal & Professional Freedom

™* Self-Action Leadership (3-4 days)

   The Key to Personal & Professional Freedom

STEP TWO: Communication & Interpersonal Excellence

™* Business Communication Essentials

   The Keys to Successful Listening and Speaking at Work

™* Managing Your Emotions

   The Art & Science of Emotional Intelligence at Work

™* Results Focused Business Writing

   The Fundamentals of Professional Written Communication

™* Grammar Made Fun for Professionals

   An Essential Refresher on English Grammar and Proofreading

™* E-mail Professionalism and Etiquette

   The Keys to Effective Electronic Communication

™* Delivering Powerful Presentations

   The Art of Public Speaking and Persuasion

STEP THREE: Leadership & Management Success

™* Leadership & Management 101

   Principles for Leading Teams to Get Results

™* The Time-Life Balance

   The Miracle of Melding Time-Management with Life Leadership

ENGAGE

Empower employees to turn knowledge into success.

Education is exponentially more effective with coaching and immediate application. Freedom Focused provides coaching and consultation services for every topic we cover to ensure application after initial training delivery. This can be accomplished on a group or one-on-one level.

Our services range from facilitating strategic leadership discussions and serving as a communication intermediary to providing one-on-one editing coaching sessions and professional proofreading services.

INSPIRE

We’re all inspired by the words - Jim Rohn, World Renowned Business Philosopher

From time-to-time, everyone needs to be inspired. Encouraging words rooted in true principles and delivered with passion and energy can provide a critical boost at the beginning of a major project or when morale is low. You may need someone to come in and communicate a particular message that needs reinforcing. Whether you need to recharge your organization’s batteries or communicate a specific message, Dr. Jordan Jensen, or one of our other professionals, is the right choice to deliver a powerful message as a keynote or motivational speaker.

www.freedomfocused.com

Or Call: 832-613-7247

Acknowledgments

• Lina Jensen: My wife – for her interest and willingness to take an Eternal chance on me. Winston Churchill once said the greatest speech he ever gave was the one in which he asked his Clementine to marry him. I share Sir Winston’s sentiment, although in my case, they were my greatest speeches (plural). Thank you, my only sweetheart, for your steady support and undeviating love. I also credit your considerable intellect, diligent efforts, and practical insights as an editor of various iterations of this manuscript. Lastly, as CFO and interim CTO of Freedom Focused, Lina’s broad range of skills have tremendously complimented my narrower niche of expertise when it comes to building a business from the ground-up.

• Jeanna Bini: My professional editor – for effectively applying her considerable intellect and broad knowledge base by taking a fine-toothed comb through this book’s manuscript. Jeanna’s diligent efforts enhanced both the readability and tonal quality of the final draft. Thank you, Jeanna, for your expertise, insights, precision, and for your commitment to making this project a success. Your compositional touch can be found on nearly every page of this book.

• Rodney Beaulieu, Ph.D. My doctoral mentor and dissertation committee chair – whose dedicated review of my academic work helped me to refine my literary capacities and philosophical thought processes. I must also extend an extra special acknowledgement to this, my generous and intelligent teacher, mentor, and friend, for being the first to coin the term, Self-Action Leadership.

• Christopher P. Neck, Ph.D. (Arizona State University) A leading scholar in the self-leadership field, a member of my dissertation committee, and a valued personal mentor and friend. Thank you, Chris, for your boundless generosity, including writing the foreword to this book. You are a true friend.

• Stirling D. Pack, Jr., Ph.D. (Former Senior Vice President of a Fortune 500 Company) A valued mentor and friend, Stirling’s insightful perspectives influenced the present shape of this work more than anyone else who provided feedback on earlier drafts. Thank you, Stirling, for your incredibly helpful—and providentially timed—assistance.

• Nathaniel J. Williams, Ed.D., MHS, MPA, MBA, Felicia Cockrell, Pete Frometa, Jason Miner, Charlie & Muriel Pierson, and Fred & Marlene Hawryluk: For their time, and permission to share their phenomenal Self-Action Leadership stories with the world.

• Frank McLane, Jr. My Texas battle re-enacting buddy and dear friend. Thank you for further inspiring my love of Texas and America, and for helping me clarify my thoughts about the important relationship that liberty has to freedom.

• Kehl Arnson, Lynnda Crowder-Eagle, and the late Thresa Brooks: For their tremendous contributions to promoting Pedagogies of Personal Leadership in the real-world laboratory of the classroom and school house, and for allowing me to share their incredible stories with the world.

• Denny Gee: Thank you to my talented graphic designer for designing the Self-Action Leadership Theory & Model graphics found in BOOKS the SECOND and THIRD.

• Rex Buckley Jensen: For always being such an enthusiastic supporter, cheerleader, and encourager of my dreams and goals, and for instilling in me a love of language, good conversation, and great books. I love you, Dad.

• Pauline Smith Jensen: My angel mother. Also the chief financial backer of Freedom Focused in its earliest years. Thanks, Mama, for always believing in me.

• My Psychotherapists & Psychiatrists: To the five psychiatrists, seven professional counselors, multiple ecclesiastical leaders, and my older siblings – Joe and Jody – who have, over the course of the past 18 years, provided me with the palliative pharmacotherapy or vital psychotherapy I needed to work through my many psychological demons.

• Ruth S. Silver, Ida Anderson, and the late LaVerda Jensen and Ida Smith: For their generous financial contributions or loans in Freedom Focused’s earliest years.

• The late Ruth Pingree Smith (1907-1992), and LaVerda Barton Jensen (1919-2006): My dear grandmothers, whose combined teaching experience spans more than seventy years. I hope this educational work makes you proud, because I consider your commendation among the highest of honors I could ever receive. I love and admire you both, and can hardly wait to see you again someday.

• The late Ned Adams Jensen (1918-2004), Joseph Fielding Smith (1899-1964), Hyrum Mack Smith (1872-1918), George Albert Adams (1864-1935), and Mary Fielding Smith (1801-1852): To these, and other progenitors, I express my gratitude for the powerful genetic and mimetic influences you passed on to me. I am deeply thankful for these gifts, as well as the sense I have sometimes felt that you were watching over and helping me. I hope this work makes you proud, both from an existential, as well as a literary standpoint.

• William Shakespeare, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Abraham Lincoln, C.S. Lewis, Winston Churchill,Victor Frankl, and M. Scott Peck: My existential, academic, and literary mentors. Thank you for your examples of excellence that have so deeply inspired me to undertake and pursue difficult and ambitious endeavors. My liberal citing of your collective works is indicative of my admiration for your combined literary and historical contributions.

• My SAL Advisory Board (SALAB): For a complete listing of my SALAB, refer to Volume 3 of my Doctoral Dissertation, available for free downloading at the Freedom Focused website at URL: www.freedomfocused.com (click on the link entitled, Books & Free Content).

• My Heavenly Parents, the Holy Spirit, and my Savior, Jesus Christ: For your inexhaustible kindnesses, companionship, patience, and perfect love. For teaching me that Existential Growth is worth more than anything else in life. For loving me enough to permit the pain of refinement, and for providing tender mercies and healing salves all along the way. Your guiding Hearts and Hands in the midst of the refining fires of my often agonizing mortal journey have made far more of my life than I could have ever done on my own. Your tender mercies and perfect love provide perpetual proof of your omnipotent Presences and Purposes in my life and throughout the world and universe. I love you more than words can express, and eagerly anticipate returning home in due time. My deepest desire is to live my life in such a way that will bring You joy and pave the way for an unsullied reunion at my appointed hour. With tender regard and unswerving loyalty, I am, as I ever hope to be, Your humble son & younger brother.

Dedication

To Lina, Tucker, & Kara

Authors Note

This book is an abridged revision of the author’s doctoral dissertation, and other papers he wrote as a graduate student. To review Dr. Jensen’s full dissertation— including additional narrative detail and scholarly literature reviews of self-leadership, autoethnography, action research, and obsessive-compulsive disorder—visit our website at www.freedomfocused.com where you can download the full text for FREE.

Throughout the book the acronym SAL and the term SAL Philosophy are used to refer to Self-Action Leadership (SAL) and its accompanying philosophical underpinnings.

SAL

Shorthand acronym for Self-Action Leadership.

SAL-PHILOSOPHY

The philosophical premises undergirding the Self-Action Leadership Theory & Model.

HOW THIS BOOK IS ORGANIZED

This book is divided into FIVE sections, or books.

• BOOK the FIRST sets the stage by providing an introduction to Self-Action Leadership.

• BOOK theSECOND contains the SAL Theory.

• BOOK the THIRD contains the SAL Model.

• BOOK the FOURTH is dedicated to educators and introduces a Pedagogy of Personal Leadership for curricular use in literal and virtual classrooms everywhere.

• BOOK the LAST makes concluding remarks on SAL Philosophy and provides content designed to inspire readers to live a life imbued by SAL.

Special Tributes

If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.

- Sir Isaac Newton

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Hyrum W. Smith

Hyrum W. Smith is a co-founder of FranklinCovey Company and an originator of the world famous Franklin Day Planning System. Brilliant in business, sales, and public speaking, Smith is one of the world’s premier authorities on time management and personal development.

If it weren’t for Hyrum Smith, I may not be here today—literally. To explain why, I must turn back the clock more than a half-century.

In 1962, Smith crossed the Atlantic to serve a two-year, full-time, voluntary mission in the British Isles for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. About a year later, my father, unknown to Smith at the time, traveled to England for the same purpose. During their concurrent service in England, Hyrum Wayne Smith and Rex Buckley Jensen served together as missionary companions on three different occasions in three different locations during three different calendar years. Meant to be? Coincidence? Either way, when my father returned home to attend Brigham Young University in 1965, Hyrum introduced him to his little sister Pauline. The two were married in 1966. Fourteen years later, I was born – the sixth of seven children.

I was eight years old when I first attended one of Uncle Wayne’s time management seminars and obtained my first Franklin Planner. It was a pivotal event in my young life, and planted early seeds that would eventually spring forth into my personal development and choice of profession.

Hyrum is a magnanimous man whose personal generosity has reached down to bless my life on many occasions. He also has a good sense of when to say no. For example, he wisely declined my request for financial backing when I first incorporated my business over a decade ago. Knowing his own achievements were earned through self-reliance and successfully passing through the School of Hard Knocks, he knew giving me money would do more harm than good in the long run. How right he was!

It was a bitter pill to swallow at a time in my life when I was being rejected at nearly every turn and everything seemed to be going wrong. This was good because life prescribes a brimming bottle of bitter pills to everyone. Those who seek to grow must choose to humbly consume, dutifully digest, and honorably withstand the poignant pungency of each dose. It does no good to kick against the pricks.

Hyrum’s discretion, borne of experience-based wisdom, trumped my well intentioned, but ultimately naïve zealotry borne of youthful inexperience. And now I am glad of it. In the famous words of country legend Garth Brooks: Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.

Instead of money, Hyrum gave me endorsement quotes and good advice. He even invited me down to his ranch for a weekend so I could pick his brain. He gave me everything I really needed, while wisely withholding what would only benefit me in the short run.

Hyrum’s decision provided a golden opportunity to further apply the very principles and practices I ardently yearn to share with the world. Rather than retard my long-term progress, his wise declination actually accelerated it, lending greater credibility to the message of Self-Action Leadership, and further bolstering my ethos as its messenger.

Looking back, I am grateful for his judicious response to my shortsighted request. It was a key course I had to take and pass in my own existential education, where I paid the price to earn a degree in SAL from the university of adversity. I am a better man for having been schooled in this manner. I am grateful to Hyrum for loving me enough to hurt me in the short run in order to help me in the long run.

Hyrum’s life has blessed and inspired my own journey in countless ways. From my earliest memories of him, I always had a deep sense that he was a great man; and indeed he is. Thank you, Uncle Hyrum, for everything you have given and taught me—knowingly or unknowingly. Your life’s example has played a vital role in shaping my own life’s narrative.

I am grateful for an uncle and a father – whose friendship was a seedling of my mortal existence – who chose to teach me correct principles and then let me govern myself. Such liberty and opportunity, empowered by the lessons gleaned from their respective precepts and examples, is something I will always cherish. It is one of the many proofs of the purview of Providence that has shone upon this project from inception to completion.

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Stephen R. Covey

While Hyrum and I are blood relations, I may actually have more in common with Franklin Covey’s other co-founder—Dr. Stephen R. Covey. This is because my native skill set – like Covey’s – is rooted more in philosophy, teaching, administration, and composition, than it is in sales, marketing, business, or profit. While I begrudgingly accept my duties in the latter, I welcome and embrace my opportunities in the former. In my heart of hearts, I am – and always will be – a philosopher, pedagogue, and poet before I am a businessman and entrepreneur.

Many capable self-help authorities helped to pioneer the modern self-help movement (i.e. Dale Carnegie, Norman Vincent Peale, Napoleon Hill, et al.). What place does Covey take in the pantheon of self-help gurus? The answer is subject to history and opinion. In my opinion, Carnegie is the father, and Covey its more recent godfather.

I first read, listened to, and studied Dr. Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People when I was a freshman in college in 2001. I read the book to fulfill a requirement in a summer leadership course while attending Brigham Young University as a visiting student. Doing so profoundly impacted my life.

The lesser-known subtitle of Covey’s classic is: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change. As I hungrily consumed the 7 Habits, I became enthralled by a growing realization of the power I possessed to personally change and develop habits that would enrich my life and lead to personal and professional success. This broadening recognition of my potential to consciously design and direct my own life’s journey resonated deeply in my mind, heart, and soul. I took particular interest in habits one, two, and three, which focus on personal leadership, at a time in my life when I desperately needed to lead myself through a series of deep and difficult personal obstacles involving romantic relationships and mental hygiene.

Covey’s words illuminated the personal inadequacies and character deficiencies that had been plaguing my life and were thwarting my success in key life arenas. At the same time, it created a vision of my possibilities, and enlivened my desire to overcome my weaknesses, achieve personal growth, and then teach others to do the same. Quite simply, his work changed my life, and led directly to writing this book. I found my life’s calling, and knew that my mission was to produce a personal leadership handbook that would serve my generation as ably as The 7 Habits had served his.

It was an audacious ambition and an incredibly difficult undertaking that has been fraught with failure, rejection, anxiety, disappointment, and frustration. Nevertheless, it has also proven to be an unspeakably rewarding goal, as well as a duty from which I dared not shrink.

Once I had been touched by the power and profundity of Covey’s principles, I became completely consumed with the meaningfulness and importance of promoting a Pedagogy of Personal Leadership throughout the world. There was no going back. I have been on an almost obsessive mission ever since (you see, OCD has not been all bad for me).

Aided by Covey’s words, the inspiration of the ages, and the driving—albeit sometimes naïve—ambitions of youth, I zealously went to work. This tremendously challenging journey, which is now in its thirteenth year (or its 28th year, depending how you measure it), has produced an existential cornucopia of blessings, insights, elation, and most importantly—personal growth—that has flooded my life and made me a very wealthy man—speaking existentially and not financially.

This multi-decade project is now finished – or perhaps begun, depending how you look at it. Were Stephen alive to review this present manuscript, I hope he would find it to his satisfaction, and choose to endorse it this time around.

After more than a decade of putting Stephen’s teachings to work in my life on a daily basis, I continue to vouch unequivocally for their clarity, concision, cogency, and veracity. As I have worked with tens of thousands of business professionals in hundreds of audiences throughout the English speaking world, I have quoted him and taught his material more than any other author or teacher. Few audience members leave one of my seminars, regardless of the topic, without a clear understanding of my passion for the work of Stephen R. Covey, or at least learning something from The 7 Habits.

Dr. Covey passed away in 2012. In the years since I first studied the 7 Habits, I have sometimes wished I could have spent more time with him personally. Despite two chance meetings – neither of which he would likely recall – and a generous phone call on Christmas Eve, 2003, in response to a letter I had written to my hero desiring to meet and learn from him, I did not know him personally beyond second-degree familial connections. Nevertheless, the ripples of his work have penetrated—and continue to reverberate powerfully throughout—the depths of my mind, heart, and soul in ways that proved providentially foundational to this work. For providing me with this essential stepping-stone in my personal life and career, I say from the bottom of my heart, Thank you, Stephen.

Another vital professor in my existential education, Stephen—like Hyrum—also taught me some invaluable, albeit just as painful, life lessons by saying No. I share the experience of his rejection later in this book. Like the hard knock lesson I learned from Hyrum, I would not change anything even if I had the power to do so. I am even more thankful for what Hyrum and Stephen didn’t give me than I am for what they did give me.

Such experiences taught me that many of life’s greatest blessings arise not from tangible assistance, but from the inspiration derived from the simple, but powerful, moral force of one’s example, teachings, and legacy. Instead of giving me a few fish I would have quickly consumed, Hyrum and Stephen both – and mostly without knowing it – taught me how to fish. This book displays the results of my catches thus far. Whatever its weaknesses, I am proud of the harvest, and grateful to my teachers. I hope they will be proud of it also.

I am, and always will be, profoundly grateful to Stephen for providing a vital substructure (theoretically & culturally speaking) to the SAL theory and model. I publicly acknowledge the import and impact of his life’s example on my own, as well as the profundity of his life’s work – a work I believe he continues in another realm. It is my explicit intention for Self-Action Leadership to serve the world in coming decades as capably as the 7 Habits did throughout the turn of the last century.

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Charles C. Manz

Dr. Charles C. Manz is the father of the self-leadership field in the academe. His pioneering academic publications on the subject date back to 1983, when I was just four years old. I find it interesting that it took until the mid-1980s for universities to begin addressing this vital subject as a topic of legitimate scholarly inquiry. The credit for this academic legitimization – as well as for much of its subsequent proliferation – goes to Dr. Manz. Addressing self-leadership at the doctoral level would have been much more difficult without the pioneering efforts of Chuck and his capable colleagues around the country (i.e. Chris Neck, Arizona State University, Hank Sims, Jr., University of Maryland [retired], and Jeff Houghton, West Virginia University, et al.).

The work of these scholars has provided a vital academic substructure to the superstructure of new ideas I put forth with the SAL Theory & Model. Charles Manz is a highly accomplished, distinguished, and capable scholar and educator. He is also a man of integrity and a generous human being. I will forever be indebted to him for his foundational academic work in the field of self-leadership. I appreciate so very much all he has accomplished, and am deeply honored he chose to endorse this work.

Foreword

By: Christopher P. Neck, Ph.D.

University Master Teacher, Arizona State University

David McCullough – that famous historian and author of our time – once remarked: The only way to teach history, to write history, to bring people into the magic of transforming yourself into other times, is through the vehicle of the story. It isn’t just a chronology. It’s about people. History is human.

With these words in mind, Jordan Jensen’s comprehensive work on self-leadership, built on the foundation of his own, unique self-leadership history, is truly an exceptional work for two distinct reasons.

First, Self-Action Leadership applies the method of teaching outlined by McCullough. There are many good definitions and explanations of self-leadership out there, but Jordan’s work stands apart because he teaches us the concept through the vehicle of storytelling. And the wonderment of the story is that it is his own. In the pages that follow, Jensen articulately chronicles his own self-leadership successes. In doing so, he does not withhold the painful details surrounding his countless struggles and failures preceding those successes. With unusual honesty and courageous self-disclosure, he opens our eyes to our own imperfect, yet determined, humanity by providing a fascinating look into his own. In the process, he inspires us to transcend whatever adversity comes our way to eventually realize the full extent of our own life’s potential. But he does not stop at sharing his story. He goes on to utilize his narrative as a foundation for expanding self-leadership theory by introducing his own, original theory and model—the Self-Action Leadership Theory & Model.

Second, Jensen has accomplished a task that is very difficult for any author to achieve, and that is to produce a single text that is highly relevant to multiple audiences at the same time. Because of the universal applicability of basic self-leadership principles, his message is germane not only to persons struggling with OCD, depression, or other forms of mental illness, but to civic leaders, business professionals and workers of all kinds, educators, students, parents, and children—in short, to everyone. Indeed, I do believe that virtually anyone who reads this book will be able to take something away from it that will improve his or her life in a significant way. As an author myself, I am amazed at Jordan’s achievement in writing one book that carries the potential to reach such a wide variety of people—and that is the beauty of it.

This book will do much more than just teach you about Self-Action Leadership. It will cause you to think deeply about how you are currently leading your own life, and how you could lead it more effectively. More importantly, Jensen’s compelling story and courageous personal example, combined with his percipient ability to effectively teach the corresponding self-leadership principles, will inspire and motivate you to actually do something about what you will learn. In the process, it might even touch emotions in your heart that will move you to joy and tears. It takes a talented writer to do all of these things so I know you’ll enjoy reading this book. More importantly, I know you’ll come away a wiser person with an increased motivation to get moving to realize your own Self-Action Leadership potential, an opportunity we can all take full advantage of, if only we will.

About Dr. Chris Neck

Christopher P. Neck, Ph.D. is one of the world’s most prolific and prestigious scholars in the academic field of self-leadership. He is the lead co-author (with Dr. Charles C. Manz) of Mastering Self-Leadership: Empowering Yourself for Personal Excellence (2nd-7th Editions) – the seminal textbook on self-leadership used at colleges and universities throughout the nation. This book served as Dr. Jordan Jensen’s introduction to Neck’s work, and of the academic field of self-leadership, during his college days.

Dr. Neck earned a Bachelor’s degree and MBA from Louisiana State University and a Ph.D. in Management from Arizona State University, where he is currently an Associate Professor of Management. At ASU, he also holds the distinctive and singular title of University Master Teacher.

Before ASU, Neck taught at Virginia Polytechnic University (Virginia Tech), where he was awarded the prestigious Students’ Choice Teacher of the Year Award an amazing NINE times between 1996 and 2008. The Students’ Choice award is a student-voted accolade honoring the teacher of the year within the entire University.

Dr. Neck has published nearly 100 scholarly works in the form of books, book chapters, and peer reviewed articles. His research specialties include: leadership, self-leadership, employee/executive fitness, self- managing teams, and group decision making processes.

Dr. Neck has facilitated training seminars for the U.S. Army as well as major corporations such as GE/Toshiba, America West Airlines, Dillard’s, Prudential Life Insurance, Busch Gardens, Clark Construction, Crestar, American Family Insurance, Sales and Marketing Executives International, American Electric Power, and W.L. Gore & Associates. His writing has been cited in major news publications including: The Houston Chronicle, The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal.

Neck is the lead author of a forthcoming textbook called Self-Leadership: The Definitive Guide for Developing Your Personal Excellence (Neck, Manz, & Houghton, 2016). He is also the lead author of Management—a seminal textbook for introductory collegiate courses on the subject (Neck, Lattimer, Houghton, Wiley 2014). Other books Neck has authored or co-authored include Entrepreneuring (2015), Mastering Self-Leadership (2015, 2012, 2010, 2007, 2004, 1999), Medicine for The Mind: Healing Words to Help You Soar (2007), Fit to Lead: The Proven 8-Week Solution for Shaping up Your Body, Your Mind, and Your Career (2004), The Wisdom of Solomon at Work (2001), and For Team Members Only: Making Your Workplace Team Productive and Hassle-Free (1997).

Chris is a husband and proud father of a son and daughter. An avid runner, he has also completed 12 marathons, including the New York, San Diego, and elite Boston. To-date, his longest continuous run is 40 miles.

For more information about Dr. Neck’s work and consulting services, or to contact him personally, please visit his website at www.chrisneck.com.

Preface

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.²

We lived in wonderfully troubled times—wonderful as they are troubled, and troubled as they are wonderful. In the midst of unprecedented medical, technological, communication, and creative wonderment, deep relationship and character problems abound all around us. The biggest problem of all, however, is not the problems themselves, but our collective misunderstanding of what the problems really are, and where real solutions lie. Ever searching for short-term, externally based solutions to human challenges and dilemmas, we, as a collective society, continuously invest our energies hacking at the leaves of problems rather than focusing and recognizing their roots—which almost always originate on some level inside ourselves.

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.³

This book champions an inside-out approach. It recognizes that macro organizational problems can only be addressed by confronting the micro issues plaguing individuals—namely you, me, and everyone else on the planet. It focuses your concentration on the only things you actually can control—your own thoughts, speech, and actions. The message of Self-Action Leadership is that simple; it is also that difficult.

One of the most challenging phrases for many people to utter is: I have a problem. An even more difficult admission is: "It is my responsibility to fix my problem by changing the way I think, speak, and act." The practice of blaming external forces and other people for personal and professional problems is pandemic throughout the world. This trend must stop if we are to get a handle on the menacing menagerie of problems we face both individually and collectively. It is time to end the blame game. It is time for all of us to take complete personal responsibility for everything in our lives whether our present circumstances are our fault or not. It is time to stop abdicating our self-sovereignty to the whims of fickle fads and fashions as well as the mercurial desires of our innate carnality. It is time to start reigning nobly as the ruling monarch of our own lives and destinies.

Throughout the ages, individuals have always been part of solutions or part of problems. So it is today. No one is perfect, but ultimately, we each end up either starting and compounding problems, or creating and contributing solutions to personal problems, family problems, organizational problems, community problems, national problems, and global problems.

This book has been written to educate and inspire individuals to develop the self- awareness and will power to become part of the solution to the many, varied, and deeply entrenched problems we all face individually or collectively in the United States of America and throughout the world.

A quarter of a century ago, Dr. Stephen R. Covey introduced his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. His first three habits focused on personal leadership—the theme of this book. His message called for the abandonment of the Personality Ethic in favor of the Character Ethic. Knowing that techniques alone don’t create lasting success, he effectively communicated the timeless truth that real, lasting successes are always predicated upon focused hard work and integrity practiced consistently over extended periods of time. He taught us the Law of the Farm to emphasize that principles cannot be cheated; they must be respected and obeyed. He taught us that Private Victories precede Public Victories, and he reminded us that there are no quick fixes to authentic success—and that in the end, it must always be earned.

When Covey published his 7 Habits in 1989, I was only 10-years old. My self-leadership journey had begun a few years earlier when I attended a time management seminar taught by