The Decision-Making Principles That Made America Different

What makes America truly exceptional, and what can today's leaders learn from the principles that shaped a nation?

In this thought-provoking episode of Commander's Intent, retired Air Force Colonel Derek Oaks and Rob explore the origins of American Exceptionalism and why its foundational ideas remain essential for effective leadership and decision-making. From the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to individual liberty, limited government, personal responsibility, and the rule of law, they examine the timeless principles that have driven innovation, prosperity, and organizational success for nearly 250 years.

Whether you're leading a business, a team, or your own life, you'll discover why great leadership begins with empowering individuals, protecting freedom, embracing accountability, and creating organizations built on trust, purpose, and shared values. This conversation offers practical leadership insights rooted in history while challenging leaders to think beyond politics and focus on the enduring principles that produce exceptional results.

If you're ready to strengthen your leadership, make better decisions, and better understand the ideas that continue to influence organizations and nations around the world, this episode is one you won't want to miss.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Have you ever frozen in the key moment of making a critical decision? Whether it's in business or in life, it can cost you everything. Commander's Intent will teach and inspire you how to lead with clarity, courage, and purpose. So here's your host, retired Air Force Colonel, fighter pilot, and your leadership mentor, Derek Oak.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Mission success always begins with an understanding of Commander's intent, of the organizational intent. That's true for individuals, it's true for companies, it's true for military organizations, and nations are no different. America wasn't built on bloodline or geography. It was built around an idea, and that's really what has made it so different from the very beginning. So today we're going to go back to those founding ideas and ask what made them so revolutionary? We're going to talk about the term American exceptionalism and really what that means, what I think it means, what Rob thinks it means, and help everybody understand, and hopefully you'll give us your comments about why American exceptionalism still matters today and what is so different about it. So let's imagine that we're back in 1776. Every single major nation on earth thinks that the sovereign matters the most, that power belongs at the top. You've got kings, you've got monarchs, you've got ruling elites. And every nation, I think without exception, believed that they had a God-given right to rule. And everybody else served or existed at their pleasure. And then a small group of colonists, they proposed a set of ideas that was almost unimaginable at that time. And that was that the government exists to serve the individual, not the other way around. And that idea really changed history. And it didn't come just from Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin and eventually George Washington and some of the other bigger thinkers. It came from Rousseau and it came from Locke and Thomas Paine and some mainly European writers who had been putting forth some ideas over the last century, half century about the rights of an individual and the value of an individual. And those ideas kind of came together in the Declaration of Independence initially and later on in the Constitution. They were codified in the Constitution. So we're going to talk about that and how that changed history and how American exceptionalism really is about that idea that the individual matters the most. I'm going to let Rob give his right now a little bit, and then we're going to talk about a couple of key components of American exceptionalism and why American exceptionalism really matters.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

I love that we're talking about this on this podcast on Commander's Intent because you talked to me out yet that commander's intent is one of the most important hallmarks in every organization, nation's notwithstanding. That's why I personally love the preamble of the Constitution of the United States, because that to me is the commander's intent. It's that thing that you're referencing that makes the American experience exception. It's that idea that come out of what they were trying to do. Even in my military service, when we had raised our hand and support, we would pledge to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. I never forgot that before all the rules and regulations and all those things that came into it, what came first in the Constitution is the preamble, is that vision statement, that commander's intent. What did we intend, or what did the founders intend for the American experience to look like? And how is that different than what had come before? I think that really speaks at the heart of the matter of what creates in my mind and probably in yours, what creates what we would reference as American exceptionalism is those the bedrock ideals, philosophies, and ideas that form the commanders intent or the founding fathers for this nation.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

Thanks. The idea of American exceptionalism, that the United States is distinct from other nations. And back in the 1700s and early 1800s, what made it so different wasn't because Americans felt inherently superior, and it wasn't because of bloodlines. It was because of those foundational principles, the institutions, and the historical experience of our government. American exceptionalism, it's not at the expense of other nations. I think that's really important to remember. We're not better than the Brits. We're not better than the Germans because of American exceptionalism. American exceptionalism is an invitation. It's an invitation to enjoy individual liberties. And we would love for, and as I've traveled all around the world, I wished that people in Haiti and people in Afghanistan and the Dominican Republic and every other nation I've been to could experience the rights that I have as an American. And that doesn't mean by coming to America, there's not room for everybody here. You want people to be able to experience those individual rights and blessings with their own flavor wherever it is that they live, so that they can have Costa Rican exceptionalism and they can have Dominican Republic exceptionalism. I think that's part of the idea of American exceptionalism. It sees the world as win-win. It's not me at the expense of you. And we want to exist beyond our own borders. There are a number of, as I've kind of thought about this topic, and you and I have talked about it quite a bit. I think there are a couple of key areas that I would like to talk about. And we'll go back and forth on your ideas and my ideas on what's most important in them. But the first one I think is founding principles. What are the founding principles that make American exceptionalism what it is?

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Well, the first one that come to mind really right off the top of my head is that all people are created equal and that, you know, we're here to protect individual liberties, primarily in the original format of life, liberty, and property, restated by Thomas Jefferson as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But I think those are kind of the bedrock foundational principles that the government should recognize that everyone is equal and that the government should protect those inalienable rights of life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

I love that. All people are created equal, they've got inalienable rights. Governments derive their powers from the governed, not the other way around.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

And that's a revolutionary idea. But very much. I mean, you can go into that in a lot more detail, but yeah, that's a huge piece. That this was the first government that that actually did derive its powers from the people. And the idea of we the people building the government is what was the foundation of the declaration and the constitution.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

I think it was so revolutionary that even today it's not understood. People look at the Bill of Rights, the first ten uh amendments to the Constitution, and so many people see that as the government outlining what people could do when it was exactly the opposite. It was these are the handcuffs we're putting on the federal government. These are the things, the lines that the federal government shall not cross. And people they don't understand that. Like, yeah, well, religious freedom is nice, except no, it's an inalienable right. The right to bear arms is nice, except. Well, no. Unlawful search and seizure. Well, yeah, unless I'm worried about that individual. No, that's not what it says. You have to have due process of law to be able to take somebody's life, liberty, or property, and all those things encapsulated in those first ten amendments and then the rest of the constitution, they're there to protect things that are inalienable that the individual already owned, not granting them to the individual.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Yeah, I think that's the key piece is you have to remember that the founding fathers had been used to living under a monarchy and that the king could essentially do and say take whatever he wanted. And the kind of philosophical underpinning was no, we the people who create this government are going to set up the government so that it has it is limited in its scope and what it can do to me, the individual. And so that's kind of, I think, that philosophical center point of this government being set up to protect the rights of the individual, not the rights of the government or the monarchy.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

I remember, I can't remember which movie it was, but it was one of the three musketeer movies where the friend or girlfriend of one of the three musketeers, she ends up in a relationship with the king, with the French king. And the French king said, The difference between you and me is that you're going to hell, and I can do whatever I want because I'm appointed by God.

SPEAKER_03 8:43

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

And that's such an affront to our system. And us personally, we listen to that and go, how rude can he be? And yet that was the mindset. That was the mindset of their rights are God given at the elite level, and they can do whatever they want, and everything they did was above reproach. And then the peasants existed for them. Right. And we've turned that American exceptionalism, turns that on its head. Watch the movie. Every time you listen to it, it's like a slap in the face. He can't really believe that. And yet that was what they believed. That was what they thought, and that was what they thought societally top to bottom. The peasants existed for the monarchs.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

So the next thing I think is a key to talk about is the political system. When I think of our political system and what makes our political system so different, you've got separation of powers. That was so unique of an idea that you didn't have a separation of powers and checks and balances where if the monarch did something wrong, somebody else was going to correct them. The only way they were corrected is through an overthrow, a rebellion, and overthrow, where then you'd get another king who would be just as bad. We have established, codified checks and balances in our system where the legislative, the judiciary, and the executive branch, there's a constant tug between all three of them. And we get worried when they're all three run by the same party, because even if we like the ideas of that party, they may get off the rails real quickly because now they've got the power to do everything and they can do whatever they want. And that becomes a dangerous situation because today they may be doing what we want them to do. Tomorrow that may be completely different.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Well, and that's what made our system. That's what made our political system so unique. Well, the checks and balances, there were send checks and balances on a monarchy. England, I mean, the Magna Carta is a perfect example of how the you know the ruling class had come up and basically made the king sign away some of his rights and clarify them in in a treaty, essentially. But what made ours so different was it was set up as that was the bedrock. That these are the way that the system is put together with checks and balances to limit the amount of power that any one individual or any one piece of the government can hold because they just didn't want to consolidate power. They wanted the chance for the consolidation of power to be nil.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

Yeah, that's a good point. That it was a foundational principle with regard to the organization of our government, how it was set up. Federalism, you and I were talking about this earlier. The word federalism has been kind of destroyed or misrepresented and misused, I would say, especially in the last 50 years, what federalism really means. You want to explain what federalism at the outset really meant?

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Well, yeah, federalism at its core is that a number of sovereign and self-ruling entities get together and decide we want to work together and we want to create a more permanent union amongst ourselves. You know, the United States of America is called the United States of America because the states were the preeminent sovereign entity that was giving up a little bit of their power to a federal top level. And we know from history that the first attempt at this in the Articles of Confederation completely went off the rails because they had effectively neutered the federal government to the point of being useless and incapable of doing even the most minor of tasks that it was given. They couldn't tax, they couldn't force, they couldn't, there was nothing. And so the founding fathers in the you know, in the summer, as they wrote the constitution, realized that it didn't work, but they maintained the aspects of federalism that they started with. That the from the outset, the 13 states, 13 colonies that became states were going to maintain the majority of the authority and the and their sovereignty, and that they would give up just a small piece of it to a federal government that would be able to handle, and if you go back and read the constitution, it's only three things the federal government is supposed to do. You know, number one, it's regulate trade and commerce. Number two, it's to do diplomacy. And number three, it's to prepare for and fight wars. Those are the only three things that the federal system was supposed to do. The reason why they set it up this way, again, was about that separation of powers. They did not want to consolidate a lot of rulemaking and authoritarian tendencies into one federal government because, you know, this is really the only place in the world where if I don't like the laws that Florida writes, I can move to Georgia. And all it takes is me to move up there, establish residency, and go and sign up. And now I'm a resident of Georgia. There is nowhere else in the world that I can do that. If I don't like the rules that are being made in Switzerland, I can't just move to Germany or France or Greece or Cambodi, right? Like it just doesn't work that way. And so I think that was a strength by fracturing the power in the political system through federalism. That, unfortunately, according well, to me and to others, that started to come unraveled for good reasons post-Civil War. But I think we might have swung the pendulum a little bit far at this point, and we've lost the idea of the separation of powers between the states and the federal government.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

I agree with that. You look at what the initial federal government did versus what the federal government does now, what it funds, what it collects taxes for, it's become a monster. And I don't know how you get it back. But even as such, a state still has quite a bit of power. When you compare it to a lot of other nations, a state still has quite a bit of power. And then the individual has significantly more power here in the United States than anywhere else in the world. That's still true today. And that really gets into, again, the first 10 amendments to the bill of the Bill of Rights, where you've got protection of speech, religion, protection of property. And then you go to the 10th Amendment where it says anything not outlined here belongs to the state or belongs to the individual. And we ask ourselves with the Constitution, with our system, it's not who should rule, it's how do we keep anyone from getting too much power? And Democrats or Republicans, they're always asking that. They don't want the other side to have too much power. They don't mind it when they are their side has too much power, but they don't want the other side to have too much power. And that that's kind of a it's a frustrating friction sometimes, but it's a healthy friction to keep anyone's side from crushing the rights of that individual. One of the things I think about when I think about our political system is the independent judiciary. Now, I know that President Trump gets crazy frustrated when you have some district judge in Los Angeles who says you can't impose tariffs on other nations. And that judge, that one judge, even though you could probably argue that they're out of bounds and they have no jurisdiction in the rulings that they're making, we don't ignore those rulings. We don't have a president that says, that guy's an idiot. I'm not going to listen to that and just go about his way. His legal team then fights that and has to fight that ruling. And that ruling will get appealed and it'll go up to the appeals courts and go all the way to the Supreme Court, regardless of what it is. And that is a very independent judiciary. And sometimes if you're the executive, that's really frustrating. If you're the legislative branch, that can be really frustrating. When you make a law that you think is so good and it's watertight, it's airtight, and then some judge says that's unconstitutional, you know, that's got to spin them through the roof. And yet there's a value in that. And again, it's designed to protect the individual and to protect too much movement on the side of the legislative branch and the executive branch, which can crush the rights of the individual. So that's the structure. And I think the next thing that is worth talking about is cultural individualism. When I think of the values or the rights that are encapsulated in the Constitution, it puts the onus back on the individual, more so than you're going to get in any other nation, and definitely more so than you got in any other nation back in 1787. The individual is given the opportunity to be more of an entrepreneur, to have greater innovation, greater religious freedom, voluntary associations. We were talking about this before. The number of voluntary organizations and associations in the United States, it dwarfs the rest of the world combined. And some of those are for political reasons, some of those are just like-mindedness, some of those are for charitable organizations. The amount of money that comes out of the United States from charitable organizations, people just voluntarily getting together and saying, hey, we want to affect hunger in the Sudan, it's astronomical when you compare it to the rest of the world. And that comes from those founding principles and that culture of individualism. What that culture of individualism also does is it creates a sense of upward mobility. That yes, you can be born into wealth. We talk about generational wealth, but if you look at the list of billionaires right now, the large majority of billionaires in the United States started out blue-collar, working class, went to college and had an idea and ran with that idea. Next thing you know, they're not next thing you know, but they were successful at it to where now they're multimillionaires and they're billionaires. That doesn't exist in other parts of the world. You definitely go to Europe and you have generational wealth. You go to China or not so much China, maybe, then you have governmental wealth. You go to Malaysia and other parts of the world and you have generational wealth. And if you have upward mobility, it's because other nations to a lesser extent have taken on the ideas of American exceptionalism.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

Yeah, I think it's interesting when you talk about that because you talked at the outset about two things that I find pretty interesting. Number one, the ideas of the philosophers that we're talking about here, Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, Montesquieu, you know, you name it, they were not American philosophers. They were European philosophers. But the strong aristocracy and hereditary money and all of this stuff that existed in Europe created breaks and barriers to that sort of cultural upward mobility that you're talking about. And the United States, you know, the American experiment provided a pure sandbox for them to be able to actually play out what happens when we allow people to have this upward mobility, this individual entrepreneurial spirit in innovation. And what if we allow them to profit from the things that they come up with? And so that's what you've seen kind of drive the engine of innovation and uh economic kind of prosperity has been driven through these ideas of individual exceptionalism. The second piece that I find interesting, you mentioned earlier that you know, we don't consider ourselves the American not exceptional because we're not exceptional people. It's pretty interesting. I go back in my own history, and if I remember correctly, in my genealogy, one of my ancestors came over because they were on the losing side of the War of the Roses in England and basically got told, hey, you can go to prison or you can go over to the colonies. And so it's not like you got the best and brightest at everybody from Europe coming over to the United States. It was kind of the opposite of like, hey, you can go to prison or you can go over there. And so this individual culture that was part of the fabric and the entire soul of this continent as it was going through its first days, was kind of there from the beginning. It's just part and parcel of it. And one of the other things that I wanted to bring out at this portion, when you're talking about culture of the individual, the colonists from the get-go, I mean, the May Tower Compact in 1620, the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1619, the colonists that were here were sandboxing these ideas and writing their own constitutions and writing all these ideas and learning how to self-govern themselves through this, you know, individual ideas from the get-go. So they had 150 years of learning how to rule themselves. That's why they chaped so hard in the late 1700s when England tried to re-exhort some authority and control over them. They'd already been going through this ruling themselves. And, you know, you know as well as I do, especially when you start seeing kids when your kids get old enough to go out and start to live their own lives, man, they do not want to come back into your house and live under yours. Really hard to do that. And you see that the American ideal of individuals running their own lives and running their own companies and running their own fortunes and running their own government, that was inherent in the ideas that grew from the early 1600s all the way up through the creation of the Constitution.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

That's a great point. Yeah, the toughest kids to raise or toughest kids to give advice to are 20-somethings because they've been out on their own, they've been making decisions, and all of a sudden you're trying to give them ideas and they chafe at that. And you're trying to put string, I would say, restrictions on them in any way, that's not going to work. It's never gonna work. I don't care how good the kids are, it's not gonna work. And it's not really supposed to work. They've got to figure it out themselves. And you, as a parent, have to figure out how I can give them advice without telling them what to do. That's it's a different topic altogether, but I think there's something to be said about that. So when you look at the culture of individualism, that really leads to I mean, America. Is a very wealthy nation. And I would say at the base level, you know, the per capita income, it dwarfs just about every other nation out there. And I don't compare the United States with Denmark or something like that, because Denmark is a tiny little microcosm of a society, not to knock Denmark, but it's a very different setup and size compared to the United States with the diversity and everything that we have here. It's very, very different. But American economic exceptionalism comes from the rule of law. It comes from strong property rights, the allowing us to have competitive markets. I mean, I know this, you know, I lived in Spain for a couple of years, and unemployment was like 25. Starting a business or getting into a career, the amount of testing you had to take before you were certified to get into that career. I'm like, that is painful. And we have plenty of that here in the United States, but not nearly the level that you have in the other countries of what you're allowed to do. Access to capital, I mean, you think of the number of billionaires and multimillionaires in the United States now that pitched an idea that had nothing. They were penniless. They pitched an idea to the right person. That person said, sure, I'll do that. That didn't exist. Nobody was going to take a surf from the countryside who walked into his castle and said, Hey, your lordship, I have an idea. I think if we start farming this way and I can run it, then I think we'll make more money. If you just put me in charge, put me as the CEO of that, and I'll make more money. They would have kicked him out. They would have taken his ideas, they would have kicked him out, and then they either would have ignored them completely or they would have run it themselves. That's not what happens now. The number of individuals who showed up with nothing, pitched an idea, and kept a large portion of ownership of their idea and were able to make money beyond their wildest dreams is it's really pretty amazing. And that's the access to capital that we have. And then it doesn't hurt that we have a large internal market. I don't have to sell to the United Kingdom to be successful here in the United States. I don't have to sell to China to be successful here in the United States. I can be very successful, live a very comfortable life, and in whatever business that I'm in, just selling here in the United States. I can sell just in the state of Utah or you in the state of Florida if I have an idea. And I can be very successful at that because of the size of it. But I think the underlying one of economic exceptionalism is the rule of law. And there are hundreds and thousands of examples of how the courts tipped under certain direction, how somebody was backed, like small town cronyism, where the judge knew the owner of a company, and all of a sudden that owner of the company gets preferential treatment in the town, and it makes it really hard for other people to crack into the market. That's going to exist. But by and large, the United States is pretty amazing in how the rules apply to everybody, and everybody can have a shot at success in the United States.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

Well, Derek, this goes back to those founding principles we talked about in the get-go. Thomas Jefferson softened it by saying life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. John Locke stated him pretty pretty brutally upfront life, liberty, and property, because he recognized that the philosophy that will allow people to grow themselves and their businesses is you have to protect those property rights. We as the United States understood that. I worked on General Petraeus' strategic assessment team when he was taking over at Central Command. And one of the groups that we had looking at, the entire Middle East, was a group we call the rule of law. How do we create a stronger rule of law in these countries so that the individuals could unlock their full potential? And that's really where that economic exceptionalism, the engine of that, is driven by strong property rights, you know, the rule of law, and the fact that everybody knows that if I work hard, I'll get to keep the rewards that I'm due, rather than somebody being able to take and strip me of my property and keep me from profiting from what I've done.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Yeah, no, I love that. And it is, it's a unique idea here in the United States. Yeah. One other one that I wanted to talk about, one changing to the next, I want to call it principle, but element of American exceptionalism, I think is kind of new, and that is military and global leadership. Because you go prior to World War I, and prior to World War I, definitely, and even after World War War I, leading up to World War II, you had a lot of isolationists. You had a lot of people that said, let them do what they want to do, let them live the way they want to live. We just want to focus on our own communities and what we're doing here. And then World War II happens and there's a serious power vacuum. I mean, the world is destitute. The world has been largely destroyed, except for the United States. And the world needs leadership. The world needs some deterrent capability. And so out of that emerged our military and our global leadership. And some people are very uncomfortable with that. I think that is a responsibility that can't be taken lightly. And it can't be assumed that we should always be doing that. We always have to be asking ourselves, what does that look like? And how are we forwarding and furthering American exceptionalism and individual rights around the world, not by force, not by us imposing it, but how are we using our leadership and our military might to not go back to being the tyrant of the world, but to further those individual rights across the world?

SPEAKER_01 27:28

I think, Derek, I think it's interesting because I think it's about protecting the ideas and the philosophies and the principles that this nation was founded on. You know, you referenced that pre-World War I, World War II, the American United States was extremely, extremely not interested in taking part in the wars that were happening in Europe and other parts of the world. We were kind of lucky. There's a geographical component of American exceptionalism because number one, well, we didn't have to fight other major nations to gain more territory. Obviously, the American Indians, notwithstanding, kind of wore the brunt of that, but we didn't have to fight Germany or Spain or Portugal as we're working our way to gain this foothold in the Americas. And at the same time, we were protected by two major oceans that made it very difficult for other nations to come infringe upon the experiment that we were undertaking in the 17 and 1800s. You know, obviously the world has shrunk quite a bit since then. And I think that the United States, in its philosophy, has understood that after World War II, one, there was the vacuum of leadership in the world, but also that the world itself had shrunk with the advent of jet aircraft and large tanker ships and cargo ships those two oceans no longer meant that we could stiff arm everybody else. I think there was an understanding that for us to be able to maintain the advantages that we had been given as a country, that we have to be more involved in helping to shape the rest of the world in our ideals and principles so that the rule of law, the freedom of navigation, the democratic ideals that we had based our own growth on, we thought would be best for the rest of the world. And I think that's where it comes from.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

I like everything you said about our democratic ideals. I go back to what you said about how the Constitution is kind of our business statement. You know, the preamble to the constitution is our business statement. I would say that using that global leadership and military strength, we've too often deviated from that preamble to the Constitution. What are we trying to do with American exceptionalism? What are we trying to establish here? Whether it's, you know, helping the wrong dictator or was it FDR once said, talking about a South American dictator, he said, Well, he's an SOB, but he's our SOB.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

Right. And I think that's I think that's one of the things that I've seen. Well, you and I have seen that in our military career, right? We've seen that in our study in history, our military career, that oftentimes, because of the political system that was created, the separation of powers, the checks and balances, the two-party system as it's evolved and where we are, the Americans sometimes can seem very we change our minds quite a bit, right? Like every four years, we vote in new folks, and it's like we're whipsawing our allies and friends around the globe, because instead of being wedded to our principles and our aspirations, we've been thinking about short-term ideas and short-term goals. And I think that we would do much better to return to our philosophy and principles and ideals that we set up in the beginning. And that's why I always consider that the preamble of the constitution is the best commander's intent, the best vision statement, the best strategic intent. Because you know, if we were to take our military and global leadership, and I think this is the way it might have started, maybe I would like to think so in the best of scenarios, but to establish justice in the international community, right? So that other nations weren't preying on each other, to ensure tranquility, so that we didn't have wars constantly ripping apart our world, provide for the common defense, to keep the age-old idea, right, from the Athenians is the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must. We didn't want that to be the rule in the world, right? Because there are a lot of smaller nations that we didn't want to see subsumed by the nation with larger force. You know, promote the general welfare. We do that by providing freedom of navigation, by providing some of these trade routes and other things. We're trying to provide for the general promote the general welfare of the nations and the world as a whole, and then secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. I think that was our goal. Probably, I can't say that we always were great at it, but we didn't always pull off those things, but I think maybe the intent was there to use our military and global leadership to establish those things that we secured for ourselves as a nation through our own constitution.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

Yeah, like I said at the very beginning, American exceptionalism is a win-win concept, and we forget that sometimes. And that means that I want Europe to be awesome. I want Sudan to be awesome, you know, stalking specific countries. I want individuals to be able to lift where they're planted, to have a great life where they live, because they are also experiencing the same kind of principles and the same kind of foundational structure that we have here in the United States. And so that if they come to America, it's because for whatever reason, they're not fleeing a crappy location. They're not fleeing a bad setting. They're coming here because they have other personal individual goals that make them want to come to the United States. We are allowing other nations and we're helping other nations to focus on individual liberties and to have a rule of law to where people can live effectively and successfully and happily in their own nations. And that really leads us to, I think, what is the last point to make, and that is moral aspiration. We said at the very beginning that the preamble of the Constitution is it is a vision statement. It's aspirational in nature. We fall short all the time. We're going to make mistakes all the time. But that's not an indictment on the system. That's not an indictment on the ability of our nation to get better. We make mistakes, we correct, and we're able to move forward. Individuals, you know, individual life, I don't care who you are, how good you are, it can be messy and you're going to make mistakes. As much as I would like to think that I'm always great to my wife, I'm not. I say the wrong thing sometimes. You know, I give the wrong compliment that she doesn't take as a compliment, or I don't help her in the way that I should. That doesn't mean that I'm trying to be a crappy husband, or overall, I'm a crappy husband. It means that I've still got a ways to go. And hopefully in my family, we are set up and we have an environment to where we can both continually grow and get better. And that's what the aspiration of America is, of the United States is. And that's what that constitution, that preamble is asking us to do and inspiring us to do. It's not a claim that we're always going to have exceptional behavior in America. It's not a claim that we're better than anybody else, but the ideas are exceptional ideas that are revolutionary and allow us to be better as a nation and grow as a nation. So to kind of summarize here, I think why American exceptionalism matters for individual decision making, for organizational decision making, there are a couple key points that we've hit on them throughout this. Number one, individuals matter. If the individual doesn't matter, the individual doesn't take personal responsibility. He's just doing what he's told to do or what she's told to do. If you have freedoms and an elevated level of freedoms, it enables better decisions. You're going to make some dumb decisions. I mean, anybody who's been around teenage boys knows that you give more freedom and there's more chaos and violence involved, but you also give them the opportunity and the ability to make great decisions and to grow beyond expectations. I think the next thing is character. Character is foundational. If you don't have character, if you don't have core moral principles, then none of this works. It just becomes words on paper because if you don't have that the foundational character or a character as foundational for both the individual and the organization, none of it's going to work. And we may as well give up right now. Next thing is that government exists to serve the people and it's not the other way around. And I think the last thing that we've discussed here that I think is really important is that self-correction is a strength. If you don't start out perfect, that's okay because it's unrealistic to expect people to start out perfect. It's kind of like, you know, the first time you swing a bat, if you strike out, you're like, well, you're a terrible baseball player. Well, yeah, because that was my first try. But if I want to be, if I'm aspiring to be a great baseball player, I'm going to stand in that botter's box and I'm going to swing and swing and swing until I start seeing the patterns of the ball and start seeing the best way and looking at the best stands. The only exception for me is golf. I don't think I'll ever be a good golfer. I don't care how many times I stand up to the ball. It's just not going to work. So I let other people be a good golf. That's my own personal decision to step away from golf and let somebody else be good golfers. So all those principles, I think, are what make great leadership, what make great decision making, and what defines American exceptionalism. So I'm going to give you a couple of minutes here to have any parting shots, Rob, if there's anything you want to add to what I just said.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

No, I think you hit it all on the head. I think the important things to take away from all of this is American exceptionalism is only exceptional because they were given the right combination of philosophies and geography. And it's not exceptional in that nobody else can replicate. It's not exceptional in that you, as a decision maker, can't use these things to help make yourself and your decision making and your way that you run your company, your business, your life better using some of these principles. I'm still a big, big fan of you know principle-centered leadership. And when we do that, you unlock the fullest potential of everybody in your organization. And we've seen that at work over the last 250 years in this nation, where the rules, the principles, and the ideas that have been put into motion, codified in the constitution and worked and needed and you know, whatever over the last 250 years, they have unlocked the full potential of millions and millions of men over those years to create a nation that I personally believe is second to none for a lot of reasons. And it's been interesting to me to watch the World Cup and a lot of the stuff on the side where we see a lot of Europeans coming to America for the first time and starting to realize that a lot of what they thought they knew about the United States was wrong or was just stereotypes that they didn't completely understand. It's amazing to watch all these YouTube videos and influencers from Europe come over and just be amazed at how wonderful the United States is. And I'm not saying that just a two-dor on a horn, but I truly believe that. There are other places in the world that I love and that I think are beautiful and have, you know, great things for me to see and do and be part of. But at the end of the day, I like coming home to the United States because of all of these things that we talked about, the principles, the philosophy, and the ideology that this nation has been built on has allowed us to continue to get better and to unlock every individual's personal true potential.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

Thank you. What is American exceptionalism? It is individual liberty, it is limited government, and it's self-governance. The individual is responsible, and we expect them to be responsible. We expect them to want to live that better life. And that is the key is saying that right there, those three things are the surest path to human flourishing. It's not going to be without bumps. We're all going to make mistakes, but it's the surest path to human flourishing, both individually, communally, and at the national level. That is American exceptionalism. I am proud to be an American, but I hope that a German is proud to be a German. I hope that a Spaniard is proud to be a Spaniard, and not for all the wrong reasons, but because they have a vested interest in Spain or Germany or whatever nation being a better nation, and they feel like they have a stake in it and they feel like they can make a change and like they can make it better, even in a small incremental way. So thanks for joining us for Commander's Intent as we've talked about American exceptionalism and how it relates to decision making, how it relates to making better decisions, how it relates to overall success. If you want to reach out to us and take this conversation offline, then reach out to me at asterisknow.com and we'll have that direct conversation. If you want us to expand on any particular portion of this topic for an upcoming show, then we'd be happy to have that conversation. Like, subscribe, and please comment and keep joining us so that we all can become better decision makers for better results. Thanks.

SPEAKER_02 40:35

So that's it for today's episode of Commander's Intend Podcast. Head on over to Apple Podcasts iTunes or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week that posts a review on Apple Podcasts or iTunes will be entered in a grand prize drawing to win a $25,000 private exclusive leadership coaching package with Derek Oaks himself. So head on over to Commanders and Temp Podcast.com and pick up a free copy of Derek's Leadership Guide and join us on the next episode.