How to “Get Action” Like Theodore Roosevelt: Start With Motion Instead of Emotion
In 1912 on an autumn evening in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, crowds flooded the streets. An open-carriage pulled through the masses, carrying the most eminent politician in America, perhaps the world.
In the midst of a campaign during which thirty speeches in a day was common, the buggy came to a stop and the candidate stood for remarks. In the cacophony of shouting and confusion, a gunshot burst out.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the man announced to the crowd, “I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot . . .” As authorities apprehended the deranged would-be assassin, the victim calmed the audience by presenting his mangled steel eyeglasses-case through which the bullet penetrated en route to his chest.
One can imagine what would have happened next to any man just shot in the chest. He was rushed out of the crowd to the nearest doctor for immediate medical care.
This, however, was no ordinary man. Instead, after demanding of the authorities to protect his attacker from physical harm, he went on to deliver his intended speech. Not just a short whistle-stop speech — he finished his ninety-minute speech before departing for medical attention, all the while bleeding from the open wound.
Brilliantly walking the tightrope between objectivity and emotion, he rose above the natural panic which must flood a person whom was just struck by a bullet. Triaging the situation in front of the crowd, he coolly determined the severity of the wound then decided to proceed with his speech.
Twelve years prior this same man wrote:
“A sentiment that is easy and natural is far better than one which has to be artificially stimulated. But the artificial stimulus is better than none, and with fellow-feeling, as with all other emotions, what is started artificially may become quite natural in its continuance. With most men courage is largely an acquired habit, and on the first occasions when it is called for it necessitates the exercise of willpower and self-control; but by exercise it gradually becomes almost automatic.”
This man — also a world-renowned author, war-hero, and the first American in history to win the Nobel Peace Prize (to keep the list short) — was the 26th president of the United States: Theodore Roosevelt.
Roosevelt instinctively knew what scientific research has shown since his time: actions bring about emotions. Most people focus on their feelings at any time and allow them to inform their actions. Roosevelt’s story — a great American story of overcoming hardships through sheer willpower and grit to become one of history’s most accomplished and influential figures — illuminates this focus on activity over mentality.
This scene is told in the wonderful PBS docu-series The Roosevelts: An Intimate History directed by Ken Burns. Although born to a wealthy, quasi-aristocratic New York City family, his early life was fraught with obstacles both physical and mental. According to Geoffrey C. Ward, historian and writer of the series, as a small boy Roosevelt was frail and battled “frequent colds, fevers, headaches, cramps, and he often gasped for breath.” His parents feared for what they thought would be his short life.
Featured in the series, David McCullough, fellow historian and two-time Pulitzer Prize winning author of Truman and John Adams, paints the fearful picture of Roosevelt’s childhood asthma: “It’s as close to feeling that you’re being strangled to death as is possible. And with an acute asthmatic, it is — you are being strangled to death. And with a child, of course, it is utterly terrifying.” According to McCullough, Roosevelt was afraid even to leave their house unless accompanied by his younger brother.
A boy with crippling illnesses and exuberant family wealth, he could have deferred easily to a life of leisure. A mental state of a young boy, who had overheard his parents say he wouldn’t live long, must have been overwhelmed with depressed thoughts and sorrow, and likely low self-esteem. Roosevelt however instinctively knew as a child what he articulated into words decades later — actions inform feelings.
As he grew up, “unable to win through size and strength his rightful place in his loving but fiercely competitive family,” Ward writes, “he learned the power of words and charm and book learning . . .” Perhaps he knew waiting for a state of healthful confidence to come before taking actions to improve himself was doomed for failure. He took it upon himself, per one of his favorite mottoes, to “get action.”
While he first focused on one thing he was physically able to as a child — improving the mind — in his early teens he turned toward the body. According to Ward, Roosevelt lifted weights, took boxing-lessons, hunted, rode horseback, and wrestled. By the time he was fifteen, his self-grown strength allowed him to “spend day after day in the saddle, shooting some 200 birds for his collection” during a family trip to Africa, travelling for several months along the Nile River. Although he lived with asthma for almost all of his life, he refused to let anything other than his own beliefs and values be a controlling force.
Roosevelt resolved to be a man of action, and would become notorious for his boundless energy and tireless pursuit of his interests and goals, which are explored in The Roosevelts: An Intimate History. He had published a seminal study of the United States Navy’s impact in the War of 1812, the ideas from which helped shape the modern US Navy, and established him as a historian and scholar — at the young age of just twenty-three, in his free time, while pursuing studies at Harvard.
He was a New York State Assemblyman before leaving public life for two years to live in North Dakota as a rancher and frontiersman, during which time authoring three more books. Returning to public life in the East, he became New York State Police Commissioner. Later on, stepping onto the national political stage, he became Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Upon the onset of the Spanish-American War, he resigned his post to form a volunteer cavalry unit, the infamous Rough Riders, of which he was known as “The Colonel.” He went on to be elected as Governor of New York, then Vice President of the United States — all before he became the youngest American President in history at the age of forty-two.
In his presidency, he became champion of the common-folk, helping pass pieces of legislation to improve the standard of living for the lower classes of society, including those that broke up monopolies, regulated railroad rates to strengthen commerce, improved the standard and accurate representation of the quality of food and drugs, created five National Parks, eighteen National Monuments, fifty-one bird reserves, four game preserves, and 150 National Forests, ultimately placing under public protection around 230 million acres of land.
He was the first president to help settle a labor dispute, which resulted in higher wages for the workers. For his efforts brokering a peace treaty that ended the Russo-Japanese war in 1905, he was the first statesmen, American President, and American to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
After his two-term presidency, he went on to author several more books, was an avid hunter, traveled to South America on an expedition to explore the Rio da Duvida — almost bringing him to his death — which was later renamed Roosevelt River in his honor.
Roosevelt’s staggering list of accomplishments, only a fraction of which is described here, proves his deep-seated, and perhaps leading, belief in his life, many of which can be found in a collection of his essays and speeches called The Strenuous Life:
“Get action. Do things; be sane; don’t fritter away your time; create, act, take a place wherever you are and be somebody; get action.”
Notice how he places “do things” before “be sane.” In consonance with his view that courage can be brought about by practicing courageous acts, he almost always took action first, letting the desired feelings manifest as a result rather than using desired feelings as a springboard for action.
In 1959, a half-century after Roosevelt’s death, Dr. David J. Schwartz published The Magic of Thinking Big, which Forbes magazine considers one of the greatest self-help books. He writes about how psychologists have shown that motions influence emotions, not just the other way around:
“The great psychologist Dr. George W. Crane said in his famous book Applied Psychology, ‘Remember, motions are precursors of emotions. You can’t control the latter directly but only through your choice of motions or actions . . . To avoid this all too common tragedy (marital difficulties or misunderstandings) become aware of the true psychological facts. Go through the proper motions each day and you’ll soon begin to feel the corresponding emotions! Just be sure you and your mate go through those motions of dates and kisses, the phrasing of sincere daily compliments, plus the many other little courtesies, and you need not worry about the emotion of love.’”
Dr. Schwartz adds that “we can change our attitudes by changing our physical actions. For example, you actually feel more like smiling if you make yourself smile. You feel more superior when you make yourself stand tall than when you slouch.” Over half a century after the publication of The Magic of Thinking Big, research aimed at exploring these concepts was conducted at Harvard, Roosevelt’s Alma mater.
In her TED Talk boasting over fifty-one million views, Harvard social psychologist Amy Cuddy talks about how changing your posture — physical action — can impact your psychology. “. . . we smile when we feel happy, but also, when we’re forced to smile by holding a pen in our teeth like this, it makes us feel happy. So it goes both ways. When it comes to power, it also goes both ways. So when you feel powerful, you’re more likely to do this, but it’s also possible that when you pretend to be powerful, you are more likely to actually feel powerful.” The video is definitely worth the twenty-one minutes it takes to watch, especially to see her demonstrate the various postures which can help you feel more confident and powerful in situations.
In a nutshell, the bigger you make yourself, the better. Stand or sit tall, straighten your back, chin up, shoulders back. You can even stand tall, feet shoulder-width apart, with your hands on your hips, which Cuddy says the media has dubbed the “Wonder Woman.” Don’t hunch over, cross arms or legs. This can be done to instill confidence before job interviews, presentations or speeches, even first dates — any event that requires your performance really.
A century before Cuddy spoke at TED about the scientific research suggesting physical actions can influence emotions, Roosevelt was already making a practice of this concept as a young boy. He used action to conquer his emotions time and time again.
When both his wife and mother died on the same day, just two days after the birth of his first daughter, Roosevelt moved to the frontier of North Dakota to combat depression and sadness with exhausting manual labor. For two years he toiled as a rancher and cattleman, personifying the concept of the “strenuous life,” the benefits of which he often preached. He would stay vigorously active for the rest of his life.
The writings and sayings of Roosevelt can catalyze each of us to take action instead of waiting around for when the feeling is right. True, being a person of action naturally includes more opportunities for failure. Roosevelt can also comfort us at the prospect of and help us overcome the fear of potential failure:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Get out there today and get action. Don’t sit idly by. And if you fail, so what? Would you rather side with the courageous or the “cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat”?
This article was originally published at thoughtmedley.com.
If you enjoyed this piece, couple it with Jerry Seinfeld’s philosophy on handling emotion. Once you’ve conquered your emotions by becoming a person of action like Theodore Roosevelt, learn techniques used by Leonardo da Vinci to infuse your pursuits with an unending flow of creativity.
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