Gov. Spencer Cox, while speaking to Utah business leaders and others invested in building the state, shared Utah's latest triumph.
During his keynote address at the One Utah Summit in Cedar City on Tuesday, Cox emphasized the state earning the top ranking from Mike Pence's Independence Index through his organization Advancing American Freedom.
The One Utah Summit started Tuesday and ends on Thursday. Taking place at Southern Utah University, the event brings together state, business and community leaders to discuss rural economic development and other Utah issues.
The governor shared that Pence called to tell him about Utah topping the Independence Index.
"His message to me was that the rest of the country needed to be more like Utah if we're going to continue to be the greatest country in the history of the world," Cox said.
"If we invest in people, steward the places that make Utah special, and create opportunity that reaches every community, we won't just remain the best state in America. We'll continue to show the rest of the country what One Utah really means," Cox said.
The ranking doesn't just focus on freedom but also on responsibility. Cox said that Pence said responsibility is the idea behind the pursuit of happiness: It's not just about a better life for ourselves, but making life better for those around us. It measures how each state is doing on these things, "just to see how we were doing as a country," Cox said.
The Independence Index ranks states under three categories, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, using 29 different metrics. The metrics include data such as life expectancy, suicide rate, total fertility rate, individual income tax, educational freedom, home affordability, job growth, marriage rate and volunteerism.
Along with being No. 1 overall, Utah also topped a number of individual categories, including volunteerism, job growth, marriage rates and the pursuit of happiness.
Cox said Utah is "No. 1 overall for the type of independence that our nation was founded on."
While Cox acknowledged that Utah receiving high rankings for different measured data is fantastic, he said that Utah is great because of all the small quiet things that can't be measured.
"It's the quiet things, the things that happen every single day, the decisions that we make as human beings, the character of us, who we are at our souls when nobody else is watching and when no one else is counting," Cox said.
The governor also said that he can't take credit for Utah's independence ranking, because it isn't a ranking of public policy; it is a ranking of who Utahns are as human beings.
Cox also referenced G.K. Chesterton, who said there were three types of people: the optimist, the pessimist and the improver. While optimists and pessimists don't make much change in the world because they either don't see a need for change or they don't think things can be improved, it's the improvers who make the world better.
"They're optimistic in that they love this place and would give their lives for it," Cox said. "They're a little bit pessimistic because they see — they don't just see what's right, but they see what's broken in the world. But then they sacrifice to make it better."
The governor said what Utah needs and what makes Utah so great are these improvers, or, as he called them, builders.
"I'm convinced that we have something to share with the nation because there is nothing so broken in this country that can't be fixed by what's right in Utah. And you're what's right in Utah," Cox said.