Chapter 5
Career Crucibles
One of the most important and valuable life lessons I ever learned was taught me by my maternal uncle—Hyrum W. Smith—an originator of the Franklin Day Planning system in the early 1980s and a co-founder (with Stephen R. Covey) of FranklinCovey company in 1997.
 |
Hyrum W. Smith
Originator of the Franklin Day Planning system
Co-founder of FranklinCovey
1943-2019 |
When I was still just a teenager, Uncle Hyrum taught me the great truth that:
As a human being, my self-worth is directly connected to my personal productivity.
"Your self-worth is directly connected to your personal productivity."
—Hyrum W. Smith
In other words, the way I feel about myself is closely tied to personal accomplishment, which includes:
- Completing tasks (getting things done)
- Achieving goals
- Honing talents
- Obtaining knowledge
- Acquiring skills
- Relationship building, nurturing, strengthening, and troubleshooting
- Improving, changing, and growing (Existential Growth)
- Developing character and integrity
- Accomplishing missions
- Realizing visions
- Et cetera
 |
WORK spells the difference
between productivity and idleness. |
When YOU set and accomplish meaningful objectives of any kind in your life and/or career, you feel better about yourself than you do when you are listless or idle.
BOTTOM LINE: Productivity promotes good self-esteem, high self-worth, personal confidence and happiness, and inner peace.
In order to be productive, YOU must WORK.
There is no way around it!
It has been said that: Work never killed a person. But, it sure scared a lot of them!
I pride myself on being a hard worker. On the other hand, I confess that I, myself, have often been scared of it.
Fortunately, there is an antidote to the fear of work, and the cure is found in FAITH.
Faith is a principle of ACTION. (1)
In fact, without faith, there is no action. Thus, the best way to conquer a fear of work is to ACT by taking a step forward—however small—in the direction of accomplishment.
While action alone may not entirely eradicate fear in every instance or undertaking, it is certain to diminish it over time as you continue to courageously and consistently ACT in faith.
 |
A wee young JJ after building a fort
out of makeshift materials in my
maternal grandmother's sandpile.
Centerville, Utah
Circa 1984
Age 4-5 |
In light of this great truth, one of the most wonderful things that any of us can ever discover in life is the joy, satisfaction, and value of hard WORK.
From a very young age, I learned to appreciate the immense satisfaction, fulfillment, and accomplishment that comes from hard work and a job well done.
I love to WORK.
Throughout my life, I have worked very hard doing a wide variety of different tasks.
Work is what has made me who I am today.
This chapter chronicles my unorthodox career trajectory, which, like my adventures in romance, has been filled with endless ups and downs, thrills and chills, misses and blisses, and perhaps an unusual amount of frustration, stress, suspense, and uncertainty in conjunction with a commensurate—or perhaps an even greater—measure of pleasure, joy, fulfillment, and freedom.
 |
Preaching at the Funeral of a dead bird.
Monticello, Utah
Circa 1985
Age 6 |
In short, my career has been a PARADOX—ponderous and problematic on the one hand, yet scintillating and sublime on the other.
Moreover, because I have consistently been very productive—not to be confused with outwardly successful—I have always maintained relatively good self-esteem and a high sense of self-worth throughout my life.
Uncle Hyrum was absolutely correct...
The way we feel about ourselves is directly connected—if not directly proportional—to our productivity.
Therefore, YOU can likewise acquire and then maintain good self-esteem and high self-worth as you productively engage in work and other activities that are aligned with your deepest held values.
REMEMBER: There is nothing inherently special about me. But everything is special about SAL principles and practices. As you consistently and persistently implement these SAL P&Ps over time, YOU will find similar benefits to the ones I have enjoyed throughout my life and career.
These benefits include productivity, achievement, happiness, success, and inner peace.
 |
Removing a willow tree with my dad
and siblings. JJ is lil guy on the left.
Monticello, Utah
Circa 1984
Age 4-5 |
Along the circuitous pathways of my unusually eclectic and unorthodox career journey, I had to perform many tasks in a lot of different jobs I did
not always enjoy. But, it was all worth it because it led me down a pathway to a career that I love and cherish with all my heart, mind, and soul.
It has been said that: if you can find a way to do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life.
While this statement may be hyperbolic, there is a considerable kernel of truth imbedded therein. I know this from my own rich and extended experiences pursuing a career path that I have enjoyed immensely and from which I have derived enormous satisfaction, fulfillment, and joy due to the cornucopia of opportunities I have been blessed with to contribute positively and productively to the lives and careers of other people.
Because I was willing to do
whatever it took to get onto the career track I most wanted to travel, I eventually
got there. Moreover, because I pursued
that pathway with immense passion, dogged determination, and indomitable persistence, I actually arrived there relatively quickly.
Even more importantly, I have been on that track for the vast majority of my 20-plus year career. In other words, I did not merely arrive at my initially desired destination—the FREEDOM to pursue work that I love—I managed to stay on this pathway for the better part of my entire career, which is now well into its third decade.
This is not to say that I have always achieved every goal I have set out for myself professionally.
I have not.
But that is not only okay; it is also exciting.
Why?
Because I get to spend the rest of my career—the next couple of decades—continuing the work I love while constantly aiming to reach ever higher goals in support of serving other people.
And what exactly is it I love to do?
ANSWER: Write, speak, teach, organize, lead, and travel.
And guess what?
I've spent the majority of the past 22 years writing, speaking, teaching, organizing, leading, and traveling.
I'm not gonna lie...
It's been a pretty sweet deal!
With that said, please don't misunderstand. Just because I have been able to largely pursue work that I love doesn't mean that my pathway was unobstructed or that my journey was easy. Quite to the contrary—as this chapter will amply evince—my career journey has been as hard as the next persons; and in some ways, much harder.
But that is okay, because that was the price I had to pay to get what I wanted out of my career; and I was—as you will come to plainly see—amply willing to pay that high and heavy price.
Moreover, I'll be perfectly transparent in saying that I've never made much money doing what I love...
At least not yet.
This is also okay because I learned a long time ago that making money was nowhere near the top of my list of life and career priorities. Truth be told, I don't really care that much about money unless I don't have enough.
As this chapter will dramatically demonstrate, there was a period of my life and career when I did not have enough money, and it was a miserable experience. Through SAL and Serendipity, however, I was blessed to transcend my financial troubles a long time ago. Thus, at this point in time, money no longer concerns me. If it someday comes my way in great quantities as a by-product of doing what I love, then great!
 |
No matter how glorious the destination, don't
forget to enjoy the journey that takes you there. |
If it does
not, then that's okay too.
Why is it okay?
Because I have sufficient for my needs, security, and future; and I do not do what I do for money. I do what I do because I love it and because my work has the potential to contribute meaningfully to the lives and careers of others.
I am a firm believer that in the end, your JOURNEY through life is far more important than your destination in life—not because the destination isn't important; it is very important! But because the journey is what takes up the vast majority of your time—like 99% of the time. Moreover, the nature of your journey will absolutely determine your destination; the two are directly related to each other. As such, self-action leaders would do well to focus as much of their energy and time on enjoying and mastering the journey as they do on progressing to the destination.
By balancing these two crucial foci, YOU can become not only accomplished and successful, but content, happy, and at peace with yourself and the world along the way.
Most of this blog will, of course, focus on my JOURNEY.
But you are bound to find something in these stories that relates to your journey. When that happens, I hope you will be able to identify some insights and inspiration to help you through a present jam, or on to greater achievement and success in your own career and life.
Before launching headlong into the tale of my Career Crucibles, it bears clarifying up front exactly what my overarching vision, mission, and goals are. In other words, it will be helpful if readers are crystal clear on what my desired destination is.
FIRST: I seek the FREEDOM to be my own boss, determine my own schedule, and spend the majority of my time in work I inherently enjoy and am good at that concurrently helps other people.
SECOND: I seek to create a comprehensive Life Leadership textbook that is applicable and relevant to a universal audience (i.e. all human beings who seek Existential Growth).
THIRD: I seek to rise in my own Existential Growth to eventually inhabit the highest level of the SAL Hierarchy (Creation Stage) in order to positively and productively influence as many people as possible through my personal example in conjunction with my work as a writer, speaker, teacher, organizer, and leader.
Let's now dive a little deeper into these three life goals, or, more accurately stated, these three life MISSIONS.
MISSION #1: Personal & Career FREEDOM
From the earliest days of my formal education, I have always preferred "independent" work to "group" work. I do
not like being told
what to do or
how to do it—at least not in a micromanaging way. Indeed, one of my life's greatest motivators and driving passions has been to
go where I want to go,
do what I want to do, and
be what I most want to
be—all within a framework of fierce fealty to Universal Laws and the constant commands of my Conscience.
Don't get the wrong idea here...
I am a big believer in teamwork, mentoring, coaching, and collaboration. I further pride myself on my ability to both positively receive and productively implement instruction and coaching when relevant and necessary.
However, I am also a big believer in the principles and practices of Self-Action Leadership (of course!) as well as the theory of
Self-Directed Work Teams, both of which aim to maximize the self-reliance, autonomy, and creativity of individuals, thus empowering them to accomplish their personal work tasks and projects as independently as possible.
Rest assured, I clearly understand the importance of being able to effectively receive feedback with a positive attitude in conjunction with proactively following instructions from a leader, coach, manager, mentor, parent, supervisor, teacher, constituency, audience, et cetera.
I further pride myself on my ability and willingness to be an effective and proactive follower. Truth be told, I am actually much better at being a follower than I am at being a manager (not to be confused with being a leader). I have no problem following someone else's managerial lead—especially when that "someone else" is a servant leader or manager that is empathetic, honest, kind, and praiseworthy.
After all, it is no secret that the best leaders and managers typically start out as the best followers.
Why is this?
Because effective followership is a precursor to productive leadership in the same way that effectively leading yourself is a prerequisite to productively leading others. (2)
Moreover, I do not feel the need to be a (or the) leader at all times and in all instances.
Most of the time, I am happy to let someone else lead.
In fact, in most situations, my natural default position is to defer to the leadership—and more especially the management—of others rather than vying to be the leader or manager myself.
But, when it comes to my own work—and the ways in which I accomplish that work—I am fiercely independent and visionary and seek earnestly for pathways that afford me as much autonomy and leverage as possible to accomplish my work in a self-directed manner.
The career pathway I have trodden thus far has provided me with many and varied opportunities to fulfill this passionate desire to spend most of my time in independent work that I inherently love to do and in which I am highly talented and skilled.
For this primal and preeminent reason, I view my career pathway to have been extremely successful.
Any external validation or tangible remuneration along the way is merely icing on the cake.
But, the "cake" itself is
not the destination or reward, but the joyful journey of getting to actually
do work I love that leaves me feeling challenged, satisfied, fulfilled—and accessing continual
FLOW (3) states—while further basking in the reassuring knowledge that I have had a positive and productive influence on the lives of others in the process.
MISSION #2: Create a Comprehensive Life Leadership Textbook
I have always loved books, and more especially textbooks.
I know, I know... most folks look at me a little askance when I express this unorthodox love and lifelong passion of mine. But that's okay, because I have never been unduly concerned about what most other people think about me.
We all have our various passions in life.
TEXTBOOKS are simply one of the things I have always really loved!
Thus, I have spent a lot of time in them over the years.
 |
With my four older brothers.
Provo, Utah
Summer 1989
Age 9-10 |
You should see my home and office library; there are over a thousand (1,000) books
and textbooks—much to the chagrin and dismay of my modern, tech-savvy, and simplicity-loving wife! To
her credit, however, Lina lovingly allows me to have and enjoy my old-fashioned home office library.
When I was a little boy, I idolized my four (4) elder and avuncular brothers. Ranging from 8-12 years my senior, this quartet of siblings were more like uncles than brothers.
As a wee lad as young as seven (7)—first grade—and eight (8)—second grade—one of my cherished pastimes was to borrow my older brothers' high school—and later college—textbooks and then peruse them, read them, copy out of them, and otherwise pretend I was in high school or college myself.
 |
Doing "Trigonometry"
as part of my Pretend School.
Mesa, Arizona
Circa 1987-88
Age 7-8 |
For several years, I ran various versions of my own "Pretend School" using books borrowed from my older brothers, my dad, or my grandmothers.
I absolutely loved doing this!
Pretend school was my happy place, and I spent many wonderfully satisfying and fulfilling hours engaged therein. I loved to study and pretend to study. Additionally, I adored the peace, solitude, and tranquility required to properly pursue both activities.
Around this same time, I discovered my deep love for BOOKS in general. Throughout my lifetime, I have spent a lot of time in libraries—including public libraries, school libraries, home libraries, and extended family members' home libraries.
My maternal grandparents were particularly fond of the written word. My grandfather—a London-educated (4) American professor of speech and drama—had passed away 15 years before I was born, but he left approximately 5,000 books behind in a home library that filled an entire room of his and my grandmother's house in northern Utah, with two (2) of the walls stacked with books seven (7) feet high—literally from the floor to the ceiling.
 |
In Grandma Smith's home library with my
new shoes, boots, and flattop haircut.
Centerville, Utah
Circa 1988
Age 8-9 |
It was magnificent!
Indeed, this treasure trove of tomes and other volumes was a veritable wonderland for a book worm like me, and I spent many hours perusing its jewels in the summertime—and then "checking-out" my favorites to take home with me to Mesa, Arizona, where my family lived during my elementary school years (1986-1993).
When my maternal grandmother passed away in 1992, I took the liberty to "annex" all of the books I had already checked out—and a handful more for good measure—into my ever-expanding home library, which had grown to include some 500 volumes by the time I graduated from high school in 1998.
In time, it became increasingly evident to me that I wanted to do much more than merely read and study books; I wanted to write them—just like
Dale Carnegie,
Norman Vincent Peale, my Uncle Hyrum, and others like them.
As I grew more skilled as a writer over the years and decades, this vision of authoring self-help and personal development literature mingled with my love of textbooks to eventually crystallize into a very specific GOAL.
I wanted to write ONE, single, comprehensive, super-sized, granddaddy Life Leadership textbook that synthesized the totality of my thinking and inspiration on the subject of human betterment, Existential Growth, personal change, and Serendipity.
Simply stated, I sought to compose a secular Bible—for lack of a better analogy—which would incorporate the complete cannon of my four (4) decades of focused—and even obsessive—experimentation, investigation, research, and results on the topics of intuition, personal leadership, and self-help.
I have been preparing for this undertaking for nearly 40 years.
And I have been working on this project for the past 24 years.
Over the course of those two dozen trips around the Sun, the SAL textbook itself has undergone SEVEN (7) complete iterations / editions, published in 2006, 2007 (unpublished manuscript), 2013a (Doctoral dissertation), 2013b, 2015, 2019, and now 2027.
 |
I've always been inspired by the
Immortal Bard and the Good Book. |
In all that time, the ultimate MISSION and VISION of this work has
never changed; it has only been clarified, fortified, simplified, and unified.
This chapter is just one, small slice of a much larger book that is one of EIGHT (8) volumes that make up this massive tome, which, when it is complete, will carry a total word count that will fall somewhere in between the
Old Testament and the
Complete Works of Shakespeare—two of my all-time favorite tomes!
I do not make these comparisons to impress you or to brag.
Rather, I draw upon them to impress upon you the nature of this work, the seriousness of its subject matter, and its ultimate potential to reach anyone and everyone—including YOU—who desires to make the most of their life, live with fewer regrets, and truly become all that you are capable of becoming in this world—and perhaps beyond as well.
MISSION #3: Positively & Productively Influence as Many People as Possible
My Uncle Hyrum often spoke of the driving passion he felt throughout his life to make a difference in the world and, more specifically, in the lives of other people.
 |
Hyrum Wayne Smith and Rex Buckley Jensen
My Uncle and Dad together as young missionaries.
London, England
1964 |
From a young age, he wanted to make his mark on the world. Nay, that is too weak; he wanted to make as big of a splash as he was able during the time he spent here on Planet Earth, and not merely for the sake of his own adventure and benefit, but more importantly, for the sake of blessing the lives of as many other people as he possibly could.
As a young missionary serving in England in the mid-1960s, Hyrum had the unique opportunity to hear an aged
Winston Churchill speak before he passed away in January 1965. In his address, Sir Winston reminisced on the driving desire he had felt all of his life to
make a difference.
Hyrum possessed this same "fire-in-the-belly" Churchillian desire to make a difference.
Sometimes he (Hyrum) even referred to his yearning as an "obsession." (6)
 |
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill
1874-1965 |
As a lifelong admirer and student of both Winston Churchill and Hyrum W. Smith—and so many others like them—I share this driving inner passion and self-fueled motivation to do everything in my power to
influence and impact other people in positive and productive ways; in short, to
make a difference for good.
I can remember as far back as high school spending time on my knees at night before bed pleading with the Almighty repeatedly and sincerely for help and opportunities to be a positive influence in the lives of others, including my peers.
I cannot empirically or scientifically prove that God answered my prayer.
But there is no question I have received many such opportunities.
And there is no doubt I will yet receive many more.
Like Hyrum, this desire has unquestionably been an ongoing, lifelong obsession of mine—and one in which my "OCD has not been all bad" (7) for me; although, as a previous chapter so punctiliously detailed, it has taken a lot of time and effort to work out the kinks in its clinical components.
It is difficult to quantify the full extent of the influence that Winston Churchill, Hyrum Smith, and others like them have had on my life and career. Suffice it to say, I have spent a great deal of time thinking about and pondering upon the unique lives and careers of such leaders, and how I might make some significant literary, oratorical, and other contributions similar to those made by such awe-inspiring souls.
And now...
Let's dive into the balance of this chapter, which carefully chronicles my circuitous, difficult, frustrating, time-consuming, unorthodox, and often disappointing—yet ultimately very satisfying, successful, and rewarding—career journey and trajectory, which has led to the serial composition of this comprehensive Life Leadership textbook.
Like me, my father also had an unorthodox professional journey.
Dad had two college degrees: a bachelor's in English and a master's in communications. While he was primarily a secondary educator (English teacher) at the middle and high school levels, he dabbled in and excelled at a variety of fields and trades over the course of his eclectic career.
 |
A lil' JJ next to Dad's Chainsaw helping
Papa and the brothers get wood for the winter.
Blue Mountains; Monticello, Utah
Circa 1983-84
Ages 4-5 |
From a general contractor, grocer, land developer, and landlord, to a professional photographer, salesman, journalist, and property manager, there was little that dad couldn't or hadn't tried.
He was an authentic rural renaissance man.
Whatever Dad's employ—or entrepreneurial pursuits—he was consistently ambitious, hard-working, and visionary. Through his own example and the work he provided to us, he taught his seven (7) children to be proactive, productive, and excel at whatever we undertook.
My mother was not a whit behind Dad in her talents and work ethic.
While her primary focus as a homemaker was always raising us seven (7) kids, she was also a credentialed interior decorator, certified teacher, published author and illustrator, and successful saleswoman.
 |
With Mama in Mesa, Arizona
First Grade
1986-87
Age 7-8 |
As an
Avon Lady, she earned the coveted and prestigious
President's Club award an impressive seven (7) times (years). As a saleswoman, she further dabbled in the sales of pajamas and homemade bread and fudge. At one point in her career, she even opened up her own fully stocked variety store in my hometown of
Monticello, Utah.
Mama's first name is Pauline.
She named her store: Polly's Parlor.
Mom worked very hard in the home, kitchen, and yard. Perhaps most importantly for my brothers and sisters and me, she was always home when we returned from school—a blessing for which I will always be eternally grateful.
In addition to her household responsibilities, Mama held service and leadership positions at church and in the community. She was also a college graduate. While she originally dropped out of school in the late 1960s to bear and raise her seven (7) children, she proactively returned to school during the late 1980s and early 1990s to attend summer sessions and complete the requirements for her 4-year degree. After five (5) straight summers of focus, determination, and hard work, she graduated with her bachelor's degree in elementary education in August 1992.
Suffice it to say, I was taught from a very young age by both parents through their precepts and examples to be hard working, ambitious, industrious, and continually aim for excellence in everything that I did.
Between Dad's work as a general contractor and growing up in a remote, rural area of the country, I had many opportunities to learn about and work in a variety of blue-collar, manual labor jobs.
 |
Lil' JJ with his first paycheck
August 1985
Age 6 |
I earned my first paycheck after a summer's work helping my dad and older brothers build a cabin on land that Dad owned. Just shy of my sixth birthday, my 5-year-old position title was "Fetch-it," because
my job was to
fetch tools and other building supply items for Dad and my older brothers.
I took enormous satisfaction in my first job and was deeply proud of that first paycheck. Dad paid me $40 dollars for my summer labors, $20 dollars of which went into savings for my missionary fund.
I was blessed with an eclectic array of different blue-collar work opportunities throughout my childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. These work activities instilled within me not only a strong work ethic and physical stamina and resiliency; they also imbued within me a love of nature, rocks, plants, soil, trees, grass, mountains, rivers, lakes, and our beautiful planet full of diverse climate zones, ecosystems, and habitats.
It further taught me the immense personal satisfaction and fulfillment that accompanied strenuous physical labor in pursuit of a job well done and punctually completed.
In time, I would also be blessed with some savory introductions to white-collar work as well, which I came to ultimately prefer. Thus, by the time I got married in my late 20s, I had gained experience—sometimes extensively so—in the following work arenas:
BLUE—COLLAR WORK EXPERIENCES
 |
Cabin building on Dad's land
with Papa and my brothers.
Monticello, Utah
Summer 1985
Age 5-6 |
- Construction
- Concrete
- Framing
- Gypsum board (sheet rocking)
- Insulation
- Roofing
- Sanding
- Painting and staining
- Shelf-building
- Soil compaction
- Miscellaneous odd jobs
 |
Gardening with my maternal grandmother
Centerville, Utah
Circa 1984-85
Age 5-6 |
Gardening, Groundskeeping, and Landscaping- Ploughing
- Fertilizing
- Planting
- Watering
- Weeding
- Harvesting
- Pruning
- Trimming
- Grooming
- Edging
- Mowing
- Mulching
- Hoeing
- Raking
- Extracting
- Transplanting
 |
JJ on a Ranch in
Southeastern Utah
Circa 1985
Age 5-6 |
Burning- Trash collection
- Equipment maintenance and troubleshooting
- Farming
- Tractor operation (plowing & weeding)
- Driving truck (wheat transport)
- Auger operation (wheat storage)
- Machinery maintenance
- Weeding (rye extraction)
- Varmint extermination
- Ranching
- Cattle branding
- Cattle driving
- Hay loading
- Pipe laying
- Fence building
- Tree clearing, de-limbing, loading, and hauling
- Post-hole digging
- Cinder and mulch spreading
- Rock and debris removal (landslide cleanup)
- Miscellaneous tree clearing, delimbing, loading, and hauling
 |
Teenage JJ standing (flexing)
next to our family woodpile.
Monticello, Utah
Circa 1995-96
Age 16-17
|
Woodcutting and Wood-Burning Stove Operation- Tree felling
- Chainsawing logs
- Wood splitting, hauling, transporting, and stacking
- Fire starting and maintenance
- Fireplace cleaning (ash removal)
- Interior House Work and Cleaning
- Cooking
- Cleaning
- Dishwashing and drying
- Dusting
- Ironing
- Laundry
- Organizing
- Sweeping
- Wiping baseboards, counters, mirrors, stoves, etc.
 |
Teaching my two sons to
scrub the toilet.
Carlsbad, New Mexico
2020 |
Vacuuming- Deep cleaning
- Scrubbing toilets, showers, sinks, and floors
- Eighteen (18) Wheeler Truck Wreck Cleanup
- Flier Distribution
- Ballpark Concession Stands
- Professional Catering
- Temporary Work (through Temp Agencies)
- Restaurant Table Serving and Dishwashing
- Car Drying for a Mobile Car Wash Service
- Nannying
- Street Corner Costume Advertising
WHITE—COLLAR WORK EXPERIENCES
 |
Program cover for the play
I wrote and co-directed.
Monticello, Utah
Fall 1999 |
- Newswriting & Photography
- Playwriting & Directing
- Film Work (as an Extra)
- Assistant to the Director of a College Leadership Center
- Substitute Teaching
Suffice it to say, nearly all of my chores and the vast majority of my employment opportunities growing up and throughout my early-mid 20s involved manual labor, which is one of the reasons I was so excited when I landed a job as a newswriter and photographer as a sophomore in high school.
Although I had wanted to be a blue-collar worker as a young child (e.g. in construction, like my general contractor Dad), I knew by age eight (8) that I wanted to be a white-collar worker when I "grew-up."
My first ever white-collar employer was the Blue Mountain Panorama, a small-town weekly newspaper operated out of the Editor's home in Blanding, Utah, a community twice the size of Monticello located 20 miles to the south.
As much as I enjoyed the outdoors and others aspects of manual labor, the fact that I could get paid for doing something I really enjoyed—and that didn't require me to physically strain, sweat, or get too hot or cold—was a novel notion and a beautiful thing to me.
Receiving a byline for the 150-or-so articles over the course of the year-and-a-half I worked for the paper between 1995-1997 was also enormously satisfying and further fueled my desire to be an author.
A similarly sweet experience was being hired as an Assistant to the Director of The Center for the Advancement of Leadership at my alma mater (Utah Valley University) the year after I graduated from college. Not only was I doing white-collar work for pay, but I had my own private office with desk, computer, filing cabinet, phone, lock, and key to boot! My office did not have a window and the pay was paltry; but, in my mind, it remained a thrilling start to my post-collegiate career.
This is not to say I didn't enjoy manual labor.
I did enjoy aspects of it.
In fact, I still do.
I just didn't want to do it for my career.
 |
JJ standing next to some Jensen
Brothers' shelves he helped build.
Circa 2002-03
Age 23-24 |
Neverthless, I am incredibly grateful for the many and varied blue-collar work experiences I have been blessed with over the years. Those jobs taught me to work hard, endure physical, mental, and emotional strain, and experience and appreciate the feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction that can only come from a job well done.
In college, my blue-collar roots helped me make ends meet financially by working alongside my older brothers in their shelving business.
My dad had built shelves in people's garages to supplement his modest high school teacher's salary when we lived in Mesa, Arizona from 1986-1993. Later, my older brothers—who learned the trade from Dad—continued the family business in northern Utah, eventually incorporating the company as
JB Shelving, "JB" being short for
Jensen Brothers.
JB Shelving still operates today. Headquartered in American Fork, Utah, it is managed by one of my older brothers, who continues to employ members of his immediate and extended family to run the business.
I also did a lot of pro bono babysitting for my older siblings when I was in college. This brought me closer to and strengthened my relationships with my older siblings. It also helped me prepare for my future as a professional nanny and stay-at-home dad—two jobs I never imagined would become such a significant part of my future career.
No matter where I lived or what kind of work I did, I was always able to glean vital SAL lessons from each and every experience. Most importantly, I learned how to work hard, endure to the end of a task, class, or project, and finish whatever I started—even if the job was boring, difficult, dirty, smelly, tedious, or otherwise unpleasant.
Missionary Service
 |
"CANADA Man"
On my mission.
Edmonton, Alberta
1999-2000
Age 19-20 |
All of my work experiences growing up prepared me for the unusually difficult, tiring, and often thankless volunteer work involved in full-time missionary service.
For two (2) long years, I would arise each morning at 6:30 a.m. (or earlier if I exercised), study for two hours, work for 12 hours during the day (with an hour break for lunch and dinner), and then retire to bed at 10:30 p.m. before waking up and doing it all over again.
No dating.
No secular movies or music.
No hobbying.
No holidays.
No vacationing.
We did have one day off—sort of.
Our "Preparation" or "P-day" wasn't really a day-off in the traditional sense because we spent much of our time doing laundry, shopping, running errands, writing letters, and attending meetings. We were also required to work three hours after dinner in the evening. Moreover, recreational activities were almost always scheduled with a group of fellow missionaries, so we had limited personal choice in what we did for fun on our "P-day."
My mission was an enormously challenging experience filled with endless rejection and the occasional spat of verbal mockery and persecution. For a non-morning person who cherishes solitude, thrives on independence, and suffered with OCD, the anxieties, pressures, and stresses of continually adhering to a long list of military-esque rules and scheduling while living and working with another missionary around the clock was, without question, the most difficult thing I have ever done.
This probably sounds awful, and sometimes it genuinely was.
 |
Apartment IRONY in the Snow... My dreams
of paradise began long before I moved to Florida.
On my Mission in Edmonton, Alberta, Cananda
Winter of 1999 |
On the flip side, however, my missionary service was concurrently an incredible SAL-oriented spiritual feast and religious service opportunity that, when willingly embraced, fostered immense personal change, growth, and maturation.
It was additionally a source of great satisfaction, fulfillment, and joy both personally and on behalf of others who chose to embrace our invitations to make positive and productive changes in their beliefs, behavior, habits, and lifestyles.
It has often been said in Latter-Day Saint culture that a full-time mission makes a proverbial "Man" or "Woman" out of any boy or girl courageous enough to embark on its arduous, trying, and refining adventure and experience.
There is no question that it reinforced my character, strengthened my spirituality, and empowered me with a remarkable capacity for courage, focus, endurance, and resilience.
It was not only incredibly educational from a religious standpoint, but in a mental, emotional, social, cultural, and environmental sense as well. During the time I lived and served in western Canada (Alberta), I met people from all over the world and had the opportunity to learn about and mingle with a potpourri of different languages, cultures, races, ethnicities, backgrounds, and occupations.
 |
My missionary plaque, which hung on the wall of
my local congregation during the two years I served.
Monticello, Utah
1999-2001 |
Perhaps the greatest lesson I learned about myself on my mission was the extent to which I could do hard things and endure difficult challenges for long periods of time—even (and especially) when I did
not inherently enjoy
what I was doing.
These experiences bolstered my self-confidence and further prepared me to embrace and transcend additional challenges and crucibles I would face throughout the rest of my life and career.
Most importantly of all, my mission provided me with endless opportunities to serve other people. For this particular time of life—late teens and early twenties—which culturally in the Western World tends to be a very self-centered (and often selfish) period of one's life, it is hard to conjure up a more worthwhile endeavor than to dedicate one's time and energy to an extended service project that gets you outside of yourself and benefits society-at-large by blessing the lives of individuals and families.
Such was the eclectic array of opportunities, difficulties, and blessings of my full-time, 2-year, voluntary missionary service.
Undergraduate Studies
I returned home to Utah from my mission in Alberta in March 2001.
A few months later in May 2001, I enrolled at
Brigham Young University (BYU) as a
visiting student for the spring and summer terms.
I had been rejected as a full-time student at BYU for fall and winter semesters because of average grades and test scores in high school. I was hoping my missionary service and above-average essay writing skills would compensate for my lackluster prep performance; but alas, I was disappointed on this point—and it absolutely served me right.
Simply stated, I was not a very effective self-action leader academically speaking before my mission. My dad had explicitly warned me of the consequences of my subpar academic effort and results. He had told me that one day I would pay the price for my decisions.
Dad was right!
I regret these SAL lapses as a teenage student
But, I cannot do anything to change the past.
Fortunately, Serendipity very much had my back and I discovered in time that attending
Utah Valley State College (UVSC)—now
Utah Valley University—instead of BYU turned out to be a blessing in disguise because of opportunities I received at UVU that I either would not have pursued at BYU, or that would have been too competitive at the "Y."
These opportunities included performing in a Shakespearean play on campus—
The Taming of the Shrew—my first year and competing on the varsity cross-country and track teams my second year.
 |
Leading the pack in a collegiate 800-meter race.
Weber State University
Ogden, Utah
April 2003
Age 23 |
I even earned a half-tuition scholarship after the 2002 cross-country season, which I was able to use the semester of my 2003 track season.
That never would have happened at BYU; I simply wasn't fast enough.
But it
did happen at UVU. My talents were simply better suited for the Junior College level (
NJCAA) than they were for the Division 1 collegiate level (
NCAA).
Thus, things really do happen for a reason. Sometimes that reason is because YOU are irresponsible and make bad decisions. Sometimes that reason is because YOU are responsible and make good decisions. And sometimes that reason is that Serendipity has your back and is positioning YOU in places where you are best suited to succeed and thrive.
When I returned from my mission, I felt very "behind" academically due to my 3-year hiatus from formal schooling (one year of work and two years of missionary service). This sense was made even more poignant and salient when I learned that one of my former classmates—a girl and crush from my 6th grade class in Arizona—had graduated with her bachelor's degree a few days before I started my first freshman class.
 |
Graduation from Utah Valley State College
now Utah Valley University
Orem, Utah
May 2003
|
Suffice it to say, I was extremely eager to progress as quickly as possible through my undergraduate studies and try and "catch-up" to some of my peers who were
seemingly way ahead of me academically and professionally.
My expanded ambition, directed focus, and well-cultivated work ethic—honed over the course of my 2-year missionary service—paid off handsomely in college, and I was able to complete my 4-year bachelor's degree in English in just a little over two (2) years' time (27 months).
I accomplished this feat by attending school year-round—10 consecutive terms or semesters—not accruing any unnecessary course credits, (7) and taking full—and sometimes more than full—course loads. (8)
My grades also improved in college.
I finished high school with a 2.9 GPA (grade point average).
I finished college with a 3.2 GPA.
Later, in Doctoral school, I would earn a better-than perfect 4.049 GPA.
It's safe to say I was a late bloomer—in more ways than one!
I could have performed much better in my undergraduate program if A-grades had been a high priority for me; but, my focus in college was not on getting perfect grades.
I had a good enough sense of my eventual career path to know that the important thing was not getting straight A's, but completing my degree in an efficient and timely manner while concurrently obtaining as much extracurricular knowledge and experience about life, family, dating, athletics, the theater, employment, oratory, culture, politics, the world, current events, and my own mental health, et cetera as possible.
In the words of
Mark Twain, I was
never one to
let my schooling get in the way of my education.
"I have never let schooling get in the way of my education."
—Mark Twain
This holistic paradigm and practical approach to my collegiate education was beautifully punctuated when the legendary
Larry King—of
Larry King Live fame—gave an unusually entertaining and
unacademic commencement address at my graduation.
First Move to Georgia and a Stint in Retail Sales
The day after I completed my undergraduate degree in July 2003, I loaded all of my essential earthly possessions into my car and headed east with my dad.
After a wonderful and memorable two-week road trip—just Dad and me—to New York, Washington D.C., and then south to Atlanta, I moved in with a first cousin and her family, consisting of her husband and two sons, in
Roswell, an Atlanta suburb.
For many years I had been nurturing romantic notions about the American South. It was the
only major region of my country to which I had not yet traveled. I loved warmer climates in addition to everything I had heard about southern hospitality and warmth. I also loved history—especially
Civil War history—and the South was brimming full of that history.
And considering how thoroughly and repeatedly I had struck out romantically in Utah, I thought perhaps I might have better fortune finding love in Georgia.
It was a terrible decision financially.
With the exception of a mutual fund that had grown to approximately $3,500—money I had earned working for a wheat farmer in my hometown before my mission—I had little cash and no immediate prospects for work in the midst of the post-9/11 economic recession.
Despite these practical realities, it felt like the right decision.
I also had the blessing; nay, the enthusiastic cheerleading of both my parents, who thought it was a fine idea for me to launch forth into a new domain and seek my fortunes therein.
Once in Georgia, I was offered a job at a cement mixing company through a connection at church, and very briefly took on a commission-only based direct sales position. However, I turned down the former offer and quit the latter job after the first day.
 |
At my Desk in 2nd Grade with my
Franklin Day Planner
I sometimes wore a shirt and tie to school.
I was a weird kid.
Mesa, Arizona
1987-88 |
Instead, I pursued work as a part-time employee in my cousin and her husband's home-based software company and got a job working for a couple of
FranklinCovey retail stores in local malls.
I had been using FranklinCovey products off and on since I was seven (7) years old, and was passionate about their products and services. It was, after all, my Uncle Hyrum's Franklin Day Planner seminar that had first helped to launch me onto the personal leadership and seminar facilitating "train" as a kid.
Despite this fact, I disliked retail sales; not quite as much as I detested direct sales, but I quickly discovered it was not going to be a good long-term fit for me. Being cooped up in those relatively small storefront mall spaces felt like a prison sentence—and the end of each of my shifts felt like cashing in a get-out-of-jail-free card.
First Shot at Teaching Seminars
Around this same time, I began to think seriously about becoming an entrepreneurial writer and public speaker on personal leadership and other, related topics. Punching in-and-out of work at the FranklinCovey stores further fueled the fire of my discontent and desire to escape the shackles of retail prison and pursue work that inspired and motivated me.
In my heart and mind's eye, I was already conscious of and clear-eyed about my heart's yearning to ultimately progress to the place my Uncle and his colleague—Stephen R. Covey—occupied.
I did not want to sell bestselling books.
I wanted to write, publish, promote, and teach them!
My realization of the gap that existed between where I was and where I wanted to be was sobering, but motivating. It was sobering because I knew it would not be easy. Yet, it was motivating because I was confident that I possessed the talent, work ethic, fire-in-the-belly, endurance, and resilience to make my dreams come true over time.
I had already been interested in public speaking for many years and my full-time missionary service had provided me with many teaching and speaking opportunities, which further bolstered my interest in and passion for the art and science of oratory and influence.
Knowing that entrepreneurs must be
willing to start projects, businesses, and movements from scratch, I began at the very beginning by developing my own training seminar on personal leadership for high school students. Through a church acquaintance, I contacted an administrator at a local high school (
Lassiter) in Marietta, Georgia—a northern Atlanta suburb next door to Roswell where I lived. This Assistant Principal gave me an opportunity to deliver my new seminar for the first time in the fall of 2003 to a couple of student leadership groups.
The Administrator explained to me that they would consider hiring me for additional trainings if they liked what they saw. It was a positive and necessary first step for me in the thousand-mile journey that was to become my lifelong work with Freedom Focused.
They did not hire me for any additional business.
"The Journey of a Thousand Miles
Begins with a Single Step."
A few months later, I auditioned for a position as a speaker with an organization affiliated with my Church. I prepared for the audition, recruited audience members to come support me, and gave it my best shot. But, the observer (judge) suggested that I try again in five (5) years.
These were bitter pills to swallow—failure usually is difficult to stomach—and there was a lot more of it to come.
Fortunately, I have always been a native and eternal optimist—a vital SAL quality—so I chalked these rejections up to worthwhile learning experiences, believing that no good-faith effort is ever wasted in the end, and pushed forward undaunted.
 |
Many of my heroes — like Abraham Lincoln — also experienced much disappointment, failure,
and rejection before they came unto their own. |
As similar failures and rejections piled up one after the other in coming days, weeks, months, years, and decades, I had to continually remind myself that each disappointment was an important stepping stone to my long-term achievements, contributions, influence, and success.
I had studied the lives of many successful people throughout history, and all of their journeys included disappointment, failure, rejection, and usually the passage of many years and/or decades of time. Thus, it always made sense to me that in the aggregate, my story would ultimately mirror theirs.
BOTTOM LINE: I had to be prepared and willing to resiliently absorb my share of heartbreak, loss, and sorrow along the way. After all, failure and rejection were simply the other side of the coin I was chasing after.
I always knew that if I was going to "reach for the brass ring," I had better be prepared to slip up and fall on my face a few (or a lot of) times before I eventually rose high enough to eventually grasp it.
I confess that at the time, I had no idea just how long it would eventually take me to reach my "brass ring." On the other hand, I also had no idea just how much Serendipity had in store for me along the way.
Nevertheless, come what may, I was determined to never give up.
Broke, Heart Broken, and Back to Utah
After six (6) months in Georgia, I was financially broke and just getting by. Retrieving what little savings I had left in my mutual fund, I loaded my belongings in my car and made the westward trek back to Utah. My intention in doing so was motivated in large part by my pursuit of a nascent romance that had flowered with a woman via email and phone conversation.
She lived in Utah.
I lived in Georgia.
Things had gone really well emailing each other and talking on the phone and we both wanted to see if there was any in-person chemistry.
There was not!
This was especially the case on her part.
I was devastated, not because I was convinced she was the gal for me; but, because her immediate rejection—after our first date following my return to Utah—poured a poignant portion of salt and vinegar into the deep insecurities and vulnerabilities I was already facing personally and professionally.
Desperate to try and make the relationship work, I initially came on a little too strong.
Doing so predictably repelled her and she understandably recoiled.
It was yet another cringeworthy moment for me in the realms of romance—an unspeakably humiliating experience that I can only look back on with dismay, regret, and self-disappointment.
Adding to this misfortune, my OCD relapsed terribly as I began to uncontrollably ruminate over the woman who had rejected me and endlessly obsess over what a fool I had made of myself.
I was completely crestfallen, deeply downtrodden, and profoundly pained.
Wordsmith thought I may be, I find words are incapable of fully capturing the horrifying smart and emotional gravitas of this and other, similar circumstances I experienced mentally, socially, and emotionally during my young adult years. The weight of this particular round of "despised love" drove me back into psychotherapy at the BYU Comprehensive Clinic, where I began a gradual recovery.
Financial Desperation and Temp Work
Completely broke financially and desperate for work, I was prepared to jump at
any employment opportunity I could cobble together.
Shortly after signing on with a temporary work agency, I received a two-day position at the
NuSkin distribution plant in downtown Provo, Utah, where I packaged orders on an assembly line.
As I bitterly boxed up lotions, shampoos, vitamins, and other NuSkin products for hours on end, I anxiously commiserated on my pathetic plight. Here I was, a college graduate, All-American athlete, and gifted communicator and what was I doing? Packaging product on an assembly line deep in the bowels of a dimly-lit industrial warehouse earning minimum wage for my efforts.
In hindsight, this—and other events like it—proved to be a proverbial "blessing in disguise." Life was humbling and teaching me, which is precisely what I needed. Arrogance does not win friends, influence people, or get you ahead in the long-run.
Deep down, I knew that what I needed to do was humble myself and go to work on my own foibles and flaws to thereby extricate myself from the menacing personal and career morass into which I was mired.
A Turn at Table Serving
I soon discovered that temp jobs did not always provide consistent work schedules, so I began searching for additional employment. A cousin of mine, who worked as a server in a Mexican restaurant, helped me land the same job at the same place. My wage as a table server was a little over two dollars per hour, plus tips. I was also allowed to eat all the rice, beans, fresh tortillas, and soda I could eat and drink—for free.
At the conclusion of my third day on the job, I had earned approximately $100 in tips, all of which went to an impound yard to retrieve my car, which had been towed while I was visiting with a woman I wanted to ask out on a date.
It was an agonizing discovery and bitter comeuppance.
Moments like this in my life—and there have been many—remind me of something Abraham Lincoln supposedly said after losing a close Senate race to his rival, Stephen A. Douglas, in 1858.
Said Lincoln: I feel like the boy that stubbed his toe. It hurt too bad to laugh, but he was too big to cry. (10)
"I feel like the boy that stubbed his toe.
It hurt too bad to laugh, but he was too big to cry."
—Abraham Lincoln
That's the way I felt that dark and painful night.
It was a rough start to a tough job.
I was, at best, an average server and quickly came to realize what a multitasking monstrosity table serving is. Indeed, I came to appreciate and respect effective servers for their capacity to keep it all straight—and have felt a greater sense of gratitude to all food service professionals
ever since.
Whether it was a forgotten straw, a mixed-up order, or a dropped plate of food, I consistently made more errors than any of my colleagues.
It was embarrassing!
I have always been good at focusing on a task or project and seeing it through to completion. But, I am not a very good multitasker, and handling the manifold minutia of such a detail-oriented job felt overwhelming at times.
It was humbling to observe fellow servers who were much better at their job than me, and I recognized the irony that exists when a white-collar worker looks down on a blue-collar worker. Such condescension would rapidly disappear if a white-collar worker spent a few hours tending the shift of a blue-collar employee!
My experience with this seemingly simple, yet actually rather difficult work helped me to better see and appreciate the unique abilities, brainpower, energy, experience, and talents required for all kinds of different labor. It further burned into my heart the foundational SAL truth of Existential Equality—that all human beings have equal, intrinsic worth—and that each one of us is blessed with a singular combination of gifts and a unique and important purpose in life.
Despite the difficulty and frustration of this time period—and many others like it—I always took solace in my growing realization that every experience in my life was valuable and worth having because of what I was learning and becoming through the process.
I also recognized—even at the time—that each new experience was further enriching my capacity to teach and influence others as a speaker, writer, and teacher. This recognition gave otherwise menial, tedious, and other unpleasant tasks—such as washing dishes at a restaurant—more meaning and helped me maintain a positive attitude and an optimistic and hopeful outlook on the future.
Thus, I would often affirm the following statements to myself.
"This is an important part of my story,"
"In the end, it's going to be a great story."
"And I can use that story to help others who face similar difficulties in the future."
Despite this positive spin I strived to put on my table serving job, I lasted less than two months before giving my boss my two-weeks' notice, and I am confident he was as relieved to receive my resignation as I was eager to tender it.
Indeed...
I do not think he missed having JJ on his staff!
And I do not blame him.
To this day, I hold table servers in high regard—especially the really good ones—and like to give generous tips whenever someone demonstrates superior service.
The Center for the Advancement of Leadership
 |
Bruce H. Jackson, Ph.D.
Around the time I workd for him
at the Leadership Center. |
About three (3) weeks after I got my table serving position, I landed another job at my alma mater,
Utah Valley University (Utah Valley State College at the time) where I became an assistant to the Director of
The Center for the Advancement of Leadership—also known as "The CAL."
This job was much more up my alley!
The Director of the Leadership Center was
Dr. Bruce Jackson, a Ph.D. in a personal leadership and human development field of study.
I already knew Bruce.
My brothers and I had built shelves in his garage and basement a few years earlier. I admired his extensive and decorated education, dynamic personality, and professional interests. He was an unusually driven, energetic, and visionary human being.
The moment I heard what Bruce was doing with The CAL, I knew I wanted to work for him. Donning my best suit, I proactively solicited an opportunity to meet with Dr. Jackson in his office on campus.
 |
In my best suit around the time I worked for Dr. Jackson at the CAL.
Jordan Commons, Salt Lake Valley
Circa 2004-05 |
After querying and then listening to learn more about his work and vision at The CAL, I confidently proceeded to "sell" him on how I could serve him, make his job easier, and
help him to accomplish
his goals.
As it turned out, Bruce was already considering hiring an assistant at the time I visited him, and my personal visit and sales pitch provided him impetus to accelerate the process. After completing the required job posting and interviewing process, Bruce liked me and another fellow (Ryan Coombs) enough to hire
both of us as co-assistants to the Director.
Ryan's and my remuneration at The CAL was meager—$7.72 per hour with a cap of 30 hours per week—hardly what I was worth as a college graduate.
Why did I choose to take the job despite this pathetically paltry pay?
Because I knew the experience would be worth its weight in gold.
And it was!
Working as one of Dr. Jackson's assistants was one of the most positive, productive, valuable, and educational professional experiences, opportunities, and adventures of my life.
Bruce did his preaching mainly through his example.
He was an exceptional boss, mentor, and human being.
I'll never forget one day when Ryan and I were walking briskly (Bruce's pace) down a hallway near UVSC's physical education facilities when Bruce stopped walking and proclaimed: "Fellas, I need to sweat."
He then immediately entered the locker room, changed into workout clothes, hopped onto a treadmill, and then continued to teach and mentor the two of us and me as we passively flanked him on either side of the machine.
That's the kind of guy Bruce was.
My experiences at The Center for the Advancement of Leadership further laid a foundation for my career as a professional writer, speaker, entrepreneur, and thought leader.
Aside from the chance to carefully observe a remarkable leader like Bruce in action every day, I also had opportunities to meet several high profile persons, including:
Jon Huntsman, Jr. (future Governor of Utah, U.S. Presidential Candidate, and Ambassador to China),
Sharlene Wells Hawkes (former Miss America, 1985),
Thurl Bailey (former professional basketball player), and William Sederburg (President of UVSC at the time).
Despite these truly wonderful career opportunities, I remained perpetually desperate for cash because my work hours were limited and my wages were so low. Thus, I continued to seek out other ways to get by and make ends meet.
I returned to
Jensen Brothers' Shelving—my older brothers' business—where I assisted them in building shelves in people's garages and basements for $10 per hour.
I also got another $10 per hour job hauling rocks and doing yard work for Dr. Jackson and his wife at their beautiful home in an upscale neighborhood. All the while, I continued to dream about what I really wanted to do, where I really wanted to go, and who I wanted to become in the future.
In the meantime, there was nothing else to do but continue to "labor and to wait." (11)
Throughout my life, I have always been willing to labor. It's the waiting part of the equation that has been extra challenging and trying for me.
Over time, I came to appreciate the incredibly important SAL lesson that guides all successful farmers; namely, that patience is as important as the work itself. Working extra long and hard may increase your harvest, but it cannot truncate the time it takes a crop to grow.
That is just the way things are.
The working part is in my hands.
The waiting part is governed by Universal Laws.
While I am always at liberty to respect or flout the laws, I am not free to arbitrarily select the consequences of my decisions.
That is the purview of the LAWS.
Entrepreneurial Return to My Roots
The temporary yard work I did for Bruce and Marta Jackson gave me an idea.
Why not make and distribute fliers advertising my services as an independent yard-working contractor—just as my older brothers and I did with Jensen Brothers' Shelving?
With no good reason not to try, I designed, printed, and then delivered several hundred of these homespun fliers. Bereft of my own yard tools or a truck to haul them in, my marketing slogan was: Your Tools, My Muscles.
 |
Where are the muscles? And what's with the suit?
|
Despite distributing these fliers to approximately 400 homes in local neighborhoods, I received only
one job. Actually, I got two jobs, but one customer was a family member who needed some yard chores done and no doubt felt sorry for me.
After completing both jobs, I determined the "numbers game" (one job per 400 fliers) was not suggestive of a sustainable business model under my present circumstances. I therefore abandoned my nascent business to pursue other avenues of employment in addition to the jobs I already had.
In August 2004, I got a job as a "stringer" (reporter / newswriter) covering high school and some college sports for the
Daily Herald, the hometown newspaper of Provo, Utah. It was a fun job because I like sports and I love to write; but, like the other jobs I had been getting, it did
not pay well.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed attending sporting events for free with my Press Pass, interviewing athletes and coaches, and receiving bylines with my name next to articles I had written. Working for the Herald was a step up from the weekly Blue Mountain Panorama—my first newswriting job in high school—in terms of circulation, scope, and publication regularity.
I continued in this job until I began working full-time as an entrepreneur building Freedom Focused the following spring (2005).
Sowing the Seeds of SAL Seminars
Earlier that year (2004), I resumed work creating my personal leadership seminars, which I had first begun developing in late November 2002 and then continued working on in Georgia in 2003.
I found this work to be incredibly engaging, exciting, and satisfying. Whenever I spent time developing seminar material or designing the accompanying PowerPoint slides, I would become completely absorbed in the effort. Such envelopment would propel me into powerfully energizing FLOW states (12), which made the work feel effortless and caused the time to seemingly fly by.
I perceived it to be the kind of work I was born to do.
It was positively intoxicating!
More than 20 years later, as I sit at my office desk typing these very words, I continue to enter these same FLOW states (13) on a regular basis whenever I am fully engaged in writing, speaking, teaching, organizing, or leading on issues I am passionate about.
The opportunity to pursue work activities I love so much is one of the greatest gifts of my life!
And it will be one of the greatest gifts of YOUR life as well, if you are willing to persist until you succeed in work you truly cherish.
Despite the immense joy, pleasure, and satisfaction I derived from such work, the lack of financial remuneration for my efforts remained a pressing and perpetual problem. Nevertheless, I persisted, and by the end of the year I had taught 13 pro bono personal leadership seminars to teenage audiences at five (5) different locations in Utah.
The feedback from student seminar attendees was excellent and it confirmed that my youthful audiences found my message of personal leadership to be interesting on its face and valuable to their educations and lives.
But I was still not making any money for my efforts.
Network Marketing and Direct Sales
Despite my failure as a Cutco Cutlery salesman one summer during high school, a single day in phone service sales in Atlanta, Georgia (before quitting), my dislike of retail sales with FranklinCovey, my aversion to door-to-door canvassing on my church mission, my detestation of school and scouting sales' projects as a kid and teenager, and my lifelong disdain for sales of all kinds—I somehow still possessed the temerity, naïvete, and jejune enthusiasm to pursue a direct sales opportunity around this same period of time (2004-05) when I became involved with a network marketing company.
The name of the company was:
Pre-Paid Legal (now
LegalShield). They provided legal services on-demand for a low, monthly subscription.
You would think I would have learned my lesson about myself and sales by now, but I remained stubbornly and masochistically convinced that I must "pay my dues" by willingly doing difficult and unpleasant things in order to realize my dreams and earn lasting success.
In theory, it was a noble paradigm and intention rooted in SAL positivity and natural law. After all, we all have to do a measure of work in life that we do not enjoy, and paying one's dues is a real phenomenon that cannot be whimsically wished away.
In practice, however, it was yet another disastrous verse to the same self-flagellating song I had been singing throughout my entire life to date.
Predictably, I failed again in yet another misguided attempt to succeed at doing something for which I was poorly suited and deeply disliked. No matter how many times I tried sales, I never gained any lasting love for or traction in the pursuit.
Despite all the time and effort I invested in my Pre-Paid Legal business over the course of the eight (8) months I worked it part-time, I only earned about $500 dollars—a drastically disproportionate ratio of effort and time to remuneration.
Like every other sales position I had ever pursued, it was a disappointing waste of time and money.
Fortunately—like so many other areas of work I was pursuing in my life—this particular opportunity was filled with collateral benefits in regards to business building, entrepreneurialism, and life-skill education. I also learned a
lot about myself, the world around me, and the principles of personal and organizational success.
In other words, it was helping prepare me to go full-time with Freedom Focused.
This experience reinforced my strong belief and conviction that the financial remuneration of a job or career is not always commensurate with its educational, practical, or miscellaneous value, and at this period of my life and career, I was very willing to prioritize my education and experience above petty cash, which was all I was earning from my efforts.
On the one hand, my adventures as a Pre-Paid Legal associate was yet another terrible financial decision and investment. On the other hand, it proved to be another marvelous stepping stone to getting where I most wanted to be in the end.
In the long-run, that education and those experiences would pay off many times over in my life and career down the road.
Seminar Seedlings Begin to Sprout
By mid-late spring 2005, I had quit working for The CAL, the Daily Herald, and Pre-Paid Legal and decided to dedicate myself completely to building Freedom Focused by redoubling my efforts to succeed as an entrepreneurial public speaker on personal leadership to high school and college-aged students.
 |
Presenting to my dad's 8th grade
classes in Blanding, Utah
Albert R. Lyman Middle School
|
Through information retrieved from a database at the Leadership Center, I had been able to contact nearly every high school in the State of Utah and offer my personal leadership training seminar on a pro bono basis. I made
this offer as a means of ginning up as much "practice training time" as possible in order to bolster my resume and credibility as a paid public speaker.
This FREE offering generated a positive response from many schools, and I was able to schedule 38 seminar dates at 22 different schools or other locations all over the State of Utah during the first half of 2005.
I absolutely loved traveling around the State delivering these personal leadership seminars. As a public speaker and trainer, I was able to consistently access the same FLOW states (14) I enjoyed when I was writing or developing seminar content.
It was wonderful!
Even more encouraging was the positive feedback I was getting from students who attended my seminars, as the following examples (15) illustrate.
- "Jordan is a very good speaker. His seminar was lively, and actually kept me awake."
- "I enjoyed listening to Jordan; he has given me a lot to think about."
- "Jordan spoke well; he knows how to talk to teens."
While these glowing comments were always nice to hear, what really grabbed my attention were the goals students were setting after attending one of my seminars.
- "I am going to study at least 30 minutes five times a week."
- "I will not skip chemistry."
- "I am going to break up with my boyfriend."
- "I am going to write a personal constitution and organize my priorities in the order of importance."
- "I will exercise regularly instead of throwing up."
In addition to collecting feedback and goals from students who attended my seminars, I also began acquiring endorsement quotes from credible professionals and VIP's who knew me and/or accepted an invitation to review my work or attend one of my seminars. Between all the platform practice I was getting, all the positive feedback I was receiving, and my growing list of professional endorsement quotes, I felt confident I was moving in the right direction to becoming a paid, professional public speaker, seminar facilitator, author, and personal leadership expert.
It was an exhilarating and thrilling journey!
Second Move to Georgia... aka
Risking it All on One Turn of Pitch-and-Toss
All the positive feedback, student goal setting, and accumulating endorsements from credible sources reinforced my confidence and bolstered my credibility. It also encouraged me personally and strengthened the ever-burning conviction inside of me that my personal leadership message needed to be shared on a large scale.
With these ideas and visions in tow, I felt myself quickly outgrowing my position at the Leadership Center and deeply desired to go "all-in" and attempt to build a viable business model out of my services.
Nevertheless, my perpetual penury persisted.
My combined income from all of my part-time jobs was barely enough to just scrape by.
And I had quit all of my jobs!
..................................................
AUTHOR'S WARNING to all would-be entrepreneur's:
Do NOT quit your day job until your part-time entrepreneurial venture is making enough money to consistently replace your full-time income.
In other words, never quit your day job unless your side gig is making enough money to replace your primary source of income for a period of 3-6 consecutive months (or more).
I recognize that many may lack patience and choose to disregard this advice. How do I know this? Because I lacked patience and disregarded similar advice myself! However, I paid a painful price for my decisions in the matter, as the rest of this narrative will poignantly relate.
Just don't ever say I didn't warn YOU!
..................................................
Possessing an inordinate amount of belief in myself and my dream—and an over-zealous lack of patience—I set forth to do what many a novice entrepreneur has done before me: I began to furiously seek out financial backers among my immediate and extended family members.
Simply put, I was ready to conquer the world, needed money to do so, and knew that banks wouldn't touch someone like me with a 39-and-a-half-foot pole. So, I turned to those I knew would be more open to my proposals.
Some family members turned down my requests, but for the most part my solicitations bore fruit and I was able to secure personal loans of approximately $45,000 to get started.
Unfortunately, frugality and money management have never been strong suits of mine. If I had a buck for every check I've ever bounced, I would have enough money to take myself out to dinner!
Nevertheless, I dove in head first in an "all-chips-in" gamble on my fledgling enterprise.
As spring turned into summer, I was in full swing building my new business. In the process, I accomplished the following initial objectives:
- Named and legally incorporated my company as an LLC.
- Had a professional business website developed.
- Wrote, directed, and hired the production of a 15-minute professional marketing DVD and several hundred copies of the finished product.
- Wrote and hired the production of 5,000 marketing brochures, marketing letters, envelopes, and business cards.
- Mailed nearly all 5,000 brochures to high school principals in all 50 U.S. States.
- Began writing a full-length book—the FIRST Edition of the SAL Textbook
.jpg) |
Outside of my seminar brochure. |
.jpg) |
Inside of my seminar brochure. |
In addition to these foundational endeavors, I also took several extended road trips during 2005 to visit high schools and pitch principals and other administrators on my personal leadership seminars. In total, I visited approximately 30 different high schools in the following States:
- Utah
- Arizona (Phoenix)
- Texas (San Antonio & Houston)
- Georgia (Atlanta area)
- Indiana (Bloomington)
- Illinois (Chicago area)
- Alabama
While this flurry of activity was adventurous, engaging, exciting, invigorating, and fun, it bore little financial fruit.
In hindsight—which is proverbially 20/20—this fact is unsurprising; but at the time, I simply did not know what to expect. I was treading through uncharted entrepreneurial waters fueled on faith, hope, good intentions, and borrowed money—but very little experience or willingness to seek out expert advice and pace myself.
I was determined to do it
my way and according to
my schedule; and I would eventually fail, eat crow, and suffer acutely for an extended period of time because of my determination to follow this course.
It was a huge roll of the proverbial "dice" to say the very least.
And in the short-run, I would lose my gamble.
By the end of the year, and with the kind assistance of a few willing family members and friends, I had mailed out 4,800 marketing letters and brochures and finished the first draft of my book. To my credit, I did work very hard on my new business and was initially very optimistic of its potential success.
Unfortunately, out of the nearly 5,000 mailers I sent all over the United States, which cost thousands of dollars to print and months to prepare and send out, I only got four-or-five calls back from high school administrators; and out of those 4-5 calls, I booked only two (2) paid seminars—one in Colorado and one in California.
This put my success ratio at 0.04%.
If I had been blessed with more capital and could have printed 100,000 or a million mailers, I might have been able to generate enough momentum to build a successful seminar and speaking business model. But things being what they were, I was already starting to run out of money—and further requests for additional backing were unfruitful.
It was exciting to land my first PAID gigs in Colorado and California; but, this initial excitement was muted by the realization that my limited marketing strategy had failed to launch my business into profitability.
My First Seminar Paycheck
Pine Creek High School
Colorado Springs, CO
October 12, 2005
Realizing the local market for my services would be small if I stayed in Utah, and feeling another metaphysical tug to the South as before, I decided to move back to Atlanta, where I would again seek my fortunes—this time as an entrepreneur.
Late in December 2005, while recovering from a broken collarbone sustained in a mountain biking accident, I packed my car with all of my essential earthly possessions and remaining marketing materials.
It was winter in Utah, and the weather had turned snowy and cold. My little, light gray, 2003 Honda Civic LX sedan was stuffed full with an array of personal belongings and professional paraphernalia. In my mind's eye, I can still vividly see a couple of loose seminar brochures sliding off my pile of stuff and down onto the cold, snowy, black asphalt.
Chagrined, and a little embarrassed by the pathetic sight before me—but still believing in myself and determined to succeed—I stooped down, picked up the brochures and tossed them back atop the disordered and billowing heap of hastily packed luggage and supplies then quickly slammed the door shut before they could slide down onto the ground again.
It was in
this state that I began my cross-country journey east the day after Christmas 2005—
alone—and teetering precariously off of a precipice of impending insolvency.
It was a long, but pleasant, three-day drive back to Atlanta—as I have always enjoyed road-tripping. As I entered the city after dark on the third day, I stopped to eat supper at a
Waffle House off the I-20 freeway east of Douglasville.
I was officially back in the South facing a "do-or-die" scenario as an upstart entrepreneur. In my journal for Wednesday, December 28, 2005, I recorded the following:
"It feels really good to be here [in Atlanta]. I feel as though I am home, strange as that may seem to people in my family or other folks. I feel very good and [am] at peace about my decision to move back here."
Looking back, I find it extraordinary that I felt this way, given my truly precarious financial situation at the time. Indeed, as I sit here in my comfortable office in my beautiful home enjoying my wonderful family and relatively peaceful and easy life in 2025, I shudder inside every time I relive these painful moments of my past.
But, they were my choices, and I had to live with the consequences of them and find my own way up and out.
While I had some sense then of the ponderously difficult journey that lay before me, only the passage of time would unveil the full crucible I would have to pass through before making it to my wedding day safely, sanely, and solvent (sort-of); and it would take another four (4) years after that for Lina and me to pay off all the debts we incurred from building Freedom Focused and attending Georgia Tech.
With the exception of one, final $3,000 loan from my dear mother—Freedom Focused's biggest financial backer by far—I had used up all the money I had raised from family members to build my business.
My poor money sense, shoddy accounting practices, and fairytale faith led to my foolishly signing an apartment contract I could not afford. At the time, I remained convinced that Serendipity had my back and my business could still take off. Thus, I was ready and willing to roll the dice one last time. I felt certain that come what may, my actions would eventually be vindicated as part of a great success story.
While there is a measure of truth in this paradigm, the manner in which I pursued it and the extent of my risk-taking remains reckless, feckless, foolish, and naïve—something I would never, not in a million years ever do again. Nevertheless, it was one of those life situations where I simply had to learn the hard way—through the gauntlet of real world experience.
In the end, Serendipity would indeed "have my back," but not before allowing me to learn some very painful life lessons. Serendipity does ultimately "have your back" also as a self-action leader—as long as you remain committed to giving it your all, learning from your mistakes, and making necessary course corrections and adjustments along the way.
Serendipity, however, does not take away the natural consequences of your own shortsighted and unwise decisions. Nor will it always bring you what you think you deserve when you think it should arrive.
Nonetheless, come what may, I remained determined to pursue my leap of faith to the end, whether that end was bitter or sweet. Without any doubt, I was: "Risking it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss." (15)
With the aid of 20 years of hindsight, my gamble ultimately paid off handsomely—in the long-run.
There is no question about that.
However, if I had to do it over again, I would never repeat the same steps I took the first time around—the consequences were far too painful.
With that said, I will also say that I do not regret taking these steps. After all, it's hard to see how I would have met Lina—my best friend, wife, and love of my life—had I been unwilling to go all-in on my gamble, which included returning to Atlanta for a second time, in spite of the huge financial risks of doing so.
Lina was in GEORGIA, not Utah.
I did not know this at the time.
What I did know is that I was faithfully following the metaphysical urgings of my heart and soul.
Thus, while this story's end has ultimately turned out to be very sweet indeed, I am not going to sugarcoat the bitterness of the pills I had to swallow and digest due to the difficulty of the circumstances in which I chose to mire myself along the way.
My failures and mistakes are as important to my SAL story as are its happier, more successful elements.
And, so it will be with YOU.
Failure and Success are two different sides of the same coin.
Precariously ensconced in my new apartment in
Woodstock, Georgia (a northern suburb of Atlanta), I had no furniture save a worktable and folding chair. I started off sleeping on a cheap air mattress I purchased at
Wal-Mart, but it soon developed a hole, so I ended up sleeping on the floor for the first few months until I was able to salvage a surprisingly clean, soft, and relatively new queen-sized mattress someone had taken out and leaned up against my apartment building's dumpster corral.
Serendipity often works in small and simple, yet very sweet and significant ways!
One's person's trash truly is another person's treasure...
And you can bet I did not let that treasure go to waste! In fact, it was the mattress I slept on for the next two-and-a-half years, until I got married.
Alone in my apartment, I went to work and finished my book:
I Am Sovereign: The Power of Personal Leadership—a 303-page book that would serve as the FIRST Edition of the SAL Textbook—and submitted it to a self-publisher I had made arrangements with to print the first several hundred copies.
I then began writing emails to dozens of literary agencies in an effort to secure an agent who could help me sell my book to a real publishing house.
I concurrently began writing to many famous individuals I did
not personally know, including First Lady
Laura Bush and Senator
Hillary Clinton in conjunction with Governors, Congressional members, two prestigious college football coaches I admired, and even two female movie stars I had "Hollywood Crushes" on at the time.
Of all my business building initiatives, writing these letters to famous folks was perhaps the most salient indicator of the naïve faith and "pie in the sky" hopefulness that marked many of my efforts during that particular period of time. Indeed, it all seems a little silly to me now. But, at the time, I had plenty of time on my hands and was determined to use it in a multi-pronged approach to get my name out there and market my work.
After a while—to the great credit of those persons (or more likely their staff) who bothered to respond back—I began receiving polite rejections. I've included a few of the more memorable ones below.
Rejection Letter from First Lady Laura Bush's Office
Letter from U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton
Letter from Utah Governor Jon M. Huntsman, Jr.
Rejection Letter from The Firm Literary Agency
Letter from Georgia Bulldog's Head Coach, Mark Richt
Letter from Florida Gators Head Coach, Urban Meyer
I more of less expected these rejections—and others like them—and therefore handled them in stride.
An exception to this pattern arrived one day from the office of Dr. Stephen R. Covey: one of my greatest HEROES. I all but worshipped Dr. Covey's work, and by extension, Stephen R. himself. I had been enormously influenced by his writing and thinking and knew the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People model and material frontwards-and-back. I had always seen myself as following in his footsteps and standing on his shoulders to build my own superstructure upon the firm foundation of principle-centered leadership and personal leadership that he and my Uncle Hyrum had laid with their own stellar contributions to the fields of time management, human development, and leadership.
Rejection Letter from Stephen R. Covey's Personal Assistant
It was incredibly dejecting and depressing to discover that my book did not even make it past Covey's screening committee. In other words, Covey himself never even saw my book.
 |
FIRST Edition of the SAL Textbook
Self-Published in 2006 |
Receiving this letter from his personal assistant made me feel as though Stephen Covey
himself was scowling down at me through the mail with a stern and steely rebuke as follows: "Jordan, you are neither ready nor worthy of my commendation and endorsement."
In hindsight, I completely get it.
The FIRST Edition of the SAL Textbook was the self-published work of an amateur, plain and simple. The truth was that I was
not yet ready nor worthy of Covey's attention, time, or endorsement. Nor would I ever get it during his lifetime (1932-2012).
But...
I never stopped working for and earning it, and something tells me he'd sign off on the SEVENTH Edition of the SAL Textbook were he here in the flesh to do so.
At the time, it was an agonizingly painful and embarrassing truth to recognize, acknowledge, and stomach the gap that existed between where I was and where I wanted to go. In the heat of the moment, it is almost impossible to fully align oneself with a reality so painful—even though the only way to truly transcend such a moment is to so orient oneself. I admit I was not quite ready to do so at the time.
In the meantime, I refused to be discouraged and forced myself to allow the smart of the situation to motivate me forward and continually persist until I did eventually succeed in a consummate manner.
While most of the literary agencies also sent me polite rejection letters, I did eventually receive an offer—and signed with the willing agent right away.
Success at long last!
Or so I thought at the time.
My new agent seemed legitimate, and from all accounts he and his partner really did make a good-faith effort to pitch my book to major New York publishing houses. They were very kind to me and we spent a lot of time working together. In all they ended up investing 75 hours on my project—all of which was unpaid because agents do not get paid unless they secure a book deal.
To their credit, they continued to communicate with and otherwise work with me for many months after our initial round of rejections. His partner even came up with the title for the SECOND Edition of the SAL Textbook: Leaders for Life: The Complete Step-by-Step Guide to Personal Leadership.
Eventually, however, this agent understandably lost patience with the lack of success surrounding my book and dropped me.
As the days and weeks passed, I predictably began to run extremely low on money—a common refrain in what had become the soap opera of my doomed entrepreneurial saga. Between family loans and credit card debt, I had dug myself into a "Red" hole that now measured a staggering $70,000 dollars.
On the flip side, I earned a total income of less than $3,000 dollars during the entire year of 2005. It is safe to say I was nearing rock bottom.
Indeed, the whole affair had turned into a ponderous mess that would remain a millstone around my neck (and later Lina's and my neck) for the next seven (7) years, until, in 2012 we finally remitted our last debt payment.
Meanwhile, it was only a matter of weeks before I was completely broke.
Desperately scrambling to regain solvency, I applied for a job at the retail giant,
Target.
They never called me back.
I searched for employment opportunities online.
Nothing came of my searches.
Next, I designed fliers advertising my services as an English and history tutor and hand-delivered over a thousand (1,000) of them in upscale neighborhoods and schools and colleges in suburban Atlanta.
I'll never forget one evening when I was out delivering fliers and got lost. Between the fliers I ran that night and a frantic search for my car, I ended up walking and running some 30 miles before I finally discovered where I had parked my vehicle.
Nothing came of this effort, either, or at least not immediately when I so desperately needed the money. (17)
Homemade Flier Advertising My Services as a Tutor
With no job and no additional seminars scheduled, I began to inwardly panic as threats of eviction and car repossession began to mount.
I was also beginning to run out of food.
Lessons Learned and Serendipitous Grace
In the midst of an increasingly desperate situation, I was far too embarrassed and prideful to crawl back to my family in Utah or ask anyone in my immediate family for financial assistance ever again.
While I had not entirely given up hope yet, I was also increasingly self-aware of the fact that my "faith" was looking more like foolishness every day that passed. I felt ashamed and humiliated by my lack of results and the situation I had gotten myself into.
In a last-ditch effort of absolute desperation, I petitioned my local ecclesiastical leader for temporary assistance with food and rent. I did not end up needing much help—just a few months' rent, a connection with a roommate who could subsidize my rent payment moving forward, and an order or two of food from the Bishop's Storehouse.
Resorting to this worst-case scenario was mortifying; but, I will forever be grateful to God and my Church for assisting me in this, my hour of great personal need.
I had given much by way of service to my Church as a full-time missionary, lifelong full-tithe payer, and active member throughout my life, and it was most gratifying and reassuring to know that they had my back for a few necessities when my back was up against the wall.
These modest, but incredibly important offerings helped me make it through the messiest and most frustrating and agonizing period of my entire life. It also powerfully reinforced the fact and reality that even my best efforts as a self-action leader are sometimes insufficient to carry the day. Indeed, there are times and seasons in all of our lives when each of us need a helping hand—financially or otherwise—due to either circumstances beyond our control and/or consequences of our own unwise decisions.
I was deeply humbled by the fact that I had to learn this lesson through actual experience.
Reflecting back on this inexplicably painful period of my life, and knowing what I know now, I would never ever repeat these same steps again. Even today—two decades after the fact—it is horrifying for me to go back and mentally relive this period of time. Even researching and recounting this dark period of my life fills me with a wretched and sickening feeling—a ghastly twisting and turning pit in my heart, mind, and stomach.
Reviewing old letters wherein I requested (zealously implored) money from immediate and extended family members is particularly excruciating to me now. At the time, I was simply doing what I felt I had to do, which was everything in my power to succeed.
"I must not give up trying," I would continually affirm to myself.
But, in reality, I was operating off of flawed assumptions and distorted paradigms that were driven as much by delusions and OCD as they were by practical, rational, and reasonable entrepreneurship and faith initiatives.
Nevertheless, as unwise and impractical as some of my decisions clearly were—and as painful as the consequences were that accompanied my choices—there remained a significant silver lining to these efforts.
In the process of this pathway, I needed to prove to myself that I had the audacity, courage, and indomitable willingness to take an unbounded leap of FAITH for something I really believed in and hold nothing back in the process—even at the peril of personal embarrassment and debt, temporary failure, and immense anxiety and stress.
Without any doubt, I did prove that to myself, and—like my full-time 2-year missionary service—this accomplishment has served as a foundation and bulwark of my confidence, identity, and self-worth ever since.
In the long-run, it was okay that I failed to launch Freedom Focused on my first try.
Nobody accomplishes great things on their first go-round.
Though I unquestionably paid a heavy price because of my failures and debt of 2005-06, I also became something bigger and stronger through the refining heat of this entrepreneurial crucible. More importantly, I demonstrated the wisdom and willingness to shift my strategy and tactics to conform more fully to realities on the ground once it became clear that I was headed in the wrong direction. Most importantly, I unwittingly positioned myself in precisely the right place to receive one of the greatest gifts Serendipity would ever bestow upon me; namely, meeting, courting, and marrying Lina.
I experienced strong metaphysical tugs and pulls directing me to Atlanta, Georgia in both 2003 and 2005.
I'm really glad I heeded them.
For this reason alone, I would not change the past—even if I had the power to do so.
I learned a lot about myself—both negative and positive—during this trying period; and, in the aggregate, this season of my life will forever serve as an anchor to my self-confidence, personal resolve, strength of will, and determination of spirit.
It was an unquestionably flawed journey.
But, it was my journey; and it was worth taking—negative consequences and pain notwithstanding.
I learned from it all and avoided making the same mistakes in the future.
And it has undoubtedly served as a vital building block in making me who I am today.
Rock Botton and Substitute Teaching
In the midst of my panic and penury, I continued to work diligently on building Freedom Focused while harboring largely unrealistic hopes that my business would take off and rescue me from drowning in debt.
I finished the FIRST Edition of the SAL Textbook: I Am Sovereign: The Power of Personal Leadership—a 300-plus page book on personal leadership aimed at a teenage and young adult audience.
On April 6, 2006, I received the first 565 copies packaged in 12 cardboard boxes at my apartment in Woodstock, Georgia. My new roommate—who was helping me with my rent payments—helped me carry all the boxes of books up to our third-floor apartment.
The FIRST Edition of the SAL Textbook
Self-Published in 2006
I feverishly got to work sending out copies of my newly published book to school administrators and others, hoping to sell my message, draw attention to the work, and obtain additional paid seminars. In all, I mailed out nearly a hundred (100) marketing copies of my book and accompanying marketing DVD, but received very few interested "bites" in return. Recognizing my "ship" wasn't likely to come in any time soon, I continued seeking out employment opportunities to acquire some desperately needed income.
I finally found success in my application to become a substitute teacher in Cobb County School District of suburban Atlanta. I began substitute teaching in February 2006 and continued picking up substitute positions at schools throughout the district for the remainder of the school year.
 |
A Sampling of some of the 43 Cobb County Schools
where I substitute taught in between 2006-2009. |
Between my roommate, limited and temporary assistance from my Church, an extremely modest income as a substitute teacher, a little unsolicited help from my dear father back in Utah, and a windfall seminar gig and book sales contract from a high school in Lexington, Virginia, I was able to make ends meet until the end of June 2006.
By this time, however, I had begun to receive letters and calls initiating the process for both apartment eviction and car repossession.
Having foolishly maxed out every credit card I owned—five different cards for a total of $13,000—in an "all-chips-in" gamble on my fledgling business, I began to be hounded by a slew of creditors. I had also gotten braces on my teeth 18 months earlier and had to pay for a necessary, but expensive, oral surgery (gum graft) before moving back to Georgia.
My payments for these medical and orthodontic procedures were perpetually late.
The stress and strain of my financial duress permeated every area of my life. A journal entry from this period of time captures the essence of the pressure I felt:
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Tonight I went to a lavish feast at the M——'s house in Alpharetta as part of a church activity. They live in a palatial residence in a posh neighborhood and it was good to fill my gut to the gills. I have this fascinating, almost nagging feeling inside that nudges me to stuff myself as much as possible when I'm presented with free food—as if the more I shovel in, the longer I will be able to go without eating again—just in case I don't have anything to eat in a few days.
To be clear, I have never been legitimately food insecure or gone without basic sustenance. I do not share this journal entry to hyperbolize the reality of my situation But, the FEAR of becoming food insecure was enough to engender the psychological and emotive states described above.
Pressing On, Some Modest Successes,
and my Dear Dad and Grandma
Around this same time, I badly sprained my ankle playing basketball and was on crutches for a couple of weeks. For my entire life leading up to November 2005, I had never broken a bone or experienced a serious injury. Then, in the course of four (4) months' time, I broke my collarbone and badly sprained my ankle.
As the old saying goes: When it rains, it pours!
Through any and all such adversity, I continued to diligently build my business.
For example, I:
- Sought out and obtained endorsement quotes for my book and seminars.
- Wrote and published online newsletters.
- Signed up educators for my online newsletter—over 30,000 of them in all—a project requiring a mammoth investment of time over the course of many months.
- Mailed out scores of book copies to targeted individuals for review.
- Developed email marketing materials.
- Prepared a book proposal under the direction of my literary agent.
Though I had hit rock bottom, I was still a long way from giving up. I was also starting to receive feedback on my newly published book, which, like my seminar feedback, was very positive and encouraging.
In March 2006, I was blessed with a paid speaking gig at Monticello High School in my hometown in Utah. Several years previously, I had attended MHS from 8th through the 11th grade (1993-1997). Now I was back to address the entire student body in a 30-minute personal leadership-oriented motivational speech in the school auditorium.
It was well received.
I also taught a personal leadership seminar to the student council leaders.
I had offered my former school a 75% discount to book me, so my wages ($200) for the day were meager—not enough to recoup the costs of airfare from Georgia to Utah and back—but, every little bit helped!
 |
With my dear old DAD
Monticello, Utah
Circa 1982
Age 3 |
Speaking of every little bit helping: before I left town, my dear father pulled me aside and handed me a sealed envelope and instructed me to wait until I was on the road to open it. After boarding a shuttle van back to Salt Lake City, I opened up the envelope and found—to my great thanks and relief—$200 cash enclosed along with a priceless personal letter to me.
Dad's sweet, tender, and glowing letter buoyed my spirits and his generous and timely cash gift helped me get back to Georgia safely and eased some of my clear and present financial angst.
In those early days, I understandably had more critics and judges than cheerleaders. However, my mother and father—to their great credit and despite having divorced in 2004—remained remarkably united as my two greatest cheerleaders throughout these difficult years.
My sweet and precious mother was the biggest financial backer (by far) of Freedom Focused in its early days (Lina and I eventually paid her back in full), and my beloved DAD wrote the following to me in his letter dated March 13, 2006, following my 30-minute motivational speech at Monticello High School.
Dear Jordan,
Watching your presentation in that auditorium yesterday morning was one of the biggest thrills of my life. I sincerely mean that. YOU WERE SENSATIONAL! I had to leave shortly after the Gandhi segment in order to get to school on time, but I saw enough! Man, the passion, the polish, and the professionalism all combined to make little tears run down your daddy's cheeks and huge chills down his back. Might as well have been Zig Ziglar up there.
I can see you have picked up some fine points from some of the excellent Baptist Preachers in the South. I was sitting in the back, and I can tell you, you had that group in the palm of your hand, and anyone who can do that with teenagers can do anything in this world. Teenagers are the toughest audience there is.
Thanks for being such an example for me. I admire so many of the great qualities you possess. I cannot figure out how I ever got lucky enough to be your Dad. I can promise you that if you ever have a child perform on the level you performed today, especially one who has had to deal with and overcome what you have, it will be one of the crowning experiences of your life. You are going to make a huge difference in the lives of, well, only time will tell.
Please let me know if you get in a bind. I would love to own stock in Jordan R. Jensen INC. I am not very flush with cash right now, but I hope this little amount of money will help in the tough transition. I truly believe the day is not far off, when this will just be pocket change to you.
I love you so much.
Your old "papa"
Dad
The $200 dollars cash Dad included in this precious letter helped me make it back to Atlanta and avoid sinking completely into insolvency. Later that year, Dad also helped me with a few car payments, without which my car would have been repossessed.
 |
JJ's Papa
Rex Buckley Jensen
Circa 1979 |
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, his was a voice of reason and rebuke later in 2006 that helped me realize I must
stop asking people for money and take full responsibility for my clear and present financial situation.
This chastisement from my father stung terribly and filled my mind, heart, soul, and stomach with a horrifying sense of embarrassment and shame. But, this was a good thing and proved very helpful in getting me to shift my focus and reorient my strategy moving forward.
I had been so obsessively determined to "make my business work" at any honest cost that I needed some voices from the outside that I deeply respected to indicate when it was time to alter my focus and redirect my financial strategy to align more fully with principles of provident living and self-reliance. My father, Uncle Hyrum, and Aunt Gail's voices were key catalysts that triggered this much needed mental change and short-term strategic shift.
My father had his shortcomings and weaknesses, as we all do.
Indeed, Dad was not perfect.
Yet, somehow, he often managed to be perfect for me.
I mean this with all my heart, and credit Serendipity for the privilege of being his son.
In addition to being one of the key examples, mentors, and teachers that fueled my interests in communication, current events, history, language, literature, politics, and vocabulary, Dad was by far one of the greatest cheerleaders of my life and work—and it has always meant a lot to me.
One of the things that has impressed me the most about Dad is that I never ever sensed the slightest hint of jealousy on his part. His desires and hopes for my successes were always authentic, sincere, and untainted by any wish to outshine me. Indeed, it seems clear to me that Dad's greatest wish was for me to outshine him. And between SAL and Serendipity, I have unquestionably lived a very lavish version of the American Dream.
That kind of humility and penitence is rare among human beings; but, my papa possessed both virtues.
Dad's first name is REX, which, in Latin, means "King."
Of his five (5) sons, I was the youngest and received the distinct honor of receiving his name (REX) as my middle name. I am proud to be the son of a KING—who all throughout my life has treated me and otherwise made me feel like a Prince.
I also recognize that my given name, Jordan, signifies FREEDOM by virtue of the ancient Israelites' need to pass over the River Jordan to obtain their freedom in the Promised Land.
I take the subject of personal, professional, and existential freedom very seriously—as this book attests. I further recognize and embrace the duty and responsibility I have to teach, exemplify, and champion personal responsibility, Self-Action Leadership, Serendipity, and freedom everywhere I go and to everyone whom I meet or associate with in my life and career right up through to my very last breath in this world.
It is my duty.
It is my privilege.
It is my honor and JOY.
Dad loved me—his son—as only a father could, and he always thrilled at my own successes as much—if not more so—than I myself did. Moreover, he never pushed or prodded me to do anything because he wanted me to do it. He had enormous respect for my own liberty and freedom and how I chose to use that agency. His parenting style was simply to set an example of hard work, productivity, and excellence in his own life and career and then cheer me on in whatever I decided to pursue.
And oh! How he thrilled at my accomplishments!
I LOVE you, Dad.
Thank YOU for being the perfect father for me and my unique life and unorthodox career.
And now, back to business...
While my income as a substitute teacher was insufficient to cover all my expenses, it was certainly better than nothing. Unfortunately, the school year was ending soon, which meant there would be no more subbing jobs until the next school year began approximately 10 weeks later.
I would have to find another source of income, and soon.
Thankfully, two (2) very bright rays of sunshine shone my way in 2006 in the form of my first two seminar gigs plus book sales in the States of Virginia and Indiana.
The Virginia gig came courtesy of Principal Andy Bryan at Rockbridge County High School in Lexington, who paid for me to come and train his student leaders in April 2006. He also purchased 220 copies of my new and freshly published book. This single booking was worth over $4,000 dollars in income and did wonders for my spirits and morale. Moreover, it was a splendid and joyful adventure to drive up to Virginia for the weekend event.
 |
Young Abe Lincoln reads a
book in the Indiana Woods. |
Four (4) months later, I booked a similar gig at
Heritage Hills High School in Lincoln City, Indiana, where Principal Dan Scherry purchased six (6) one hour seminars and 190 copies of my book.
Like the trip to Virginia, my visit to Indiana was a memorable and magnificent adventure, in part because it was located smack dab in the middle of "Abraham Lincoln country," where the 16th President of the United States lived from ages 7-21 (1816-1830). For someone who has spent a lot of time reading, studying, and reflecting on Lincoln's life and legacy, it was very special for me to walk the hallowed property where "Honest Abe" once walked, chopped wood, split rails, build fences, told stories, and read books.
Between Principals Bryan and Scherry, I managed to sell 410 of my original shipment of 565 books. It was always very important to me to use up whatever product or marketing supplies I paid to produce. If I was going to fail, I was going to "go down swinging" and not leave any proverbial "gas in the tank." While my money sense was not always sterling, I was good at productively putting to use whatever product and supplies I paid to procure. Whether it was brochures, marketing DVDs, or published books, in the end, I always used up the vast majority of whatever materials I purchased—a point in which I take pride.
Sadly, en route to Lincoln City, Indiana for my training gig there, I received news that my beloved paternal grandmother—LaVerda Barton Jensen—Dad's mom, had passed away at the age of 87.
It was not a convenient time to sink $700 into a last-minute plane ticket back to Utah (I had no knowledge of bereavement offers at the time), but I would not have missed my precious grandmother's funeral for anything.
 |
LaVerda Barton Jensen
1919 - 2006 |
I had dearly loved her and was deeply beloved by her in return.
I had lost more than just a grandma.
I had lost a close friend.
We had spent countless hours together over the years and she had been so good and kind and generous to me in so many different ways over the years. When I was a little boy, she often cut my hair. Throughout my life she gave the best birthday and Christmas presents—which almost always included either cash or a check—and on countless occasions fed me some of the most delicious home cooking of my life.
During the years I lived in southeastern Utah, her home was just a mile away. During the time we had spent in Mesa, Arizona (1986-1993), her and Grandpa Jensen spent two (2) winters being "Snowbirds" in Mesa so they could live closer to us. I'll never forget the trips to Wendy's for dinner and a "Frosty," compliments of Grandma and Grandpa Jensen.
Grandma not only made me a $3,500 loan to help start Freedom Focused, but she also changed its status from a "loan" to a "gift," thus easing some of my financial stress early on. I would miss our long chats together in her snug and cozy home in Monticello.
She had been more than just a grandmother to me.
She had been like a second mother.
I will cherish our relationship for eternity.
Despite the financial strain of returning for the funeral, it was wonderful to travel to my hometown and be with family and honor her memory and legacy.
In my journal that day I recorded the following:
Thurs. Aug. 31, 2006
The funeral was amazing. One of the choice experiences of my life. Very spiritual and very emotional. My emotion was not from being sad though. It was from feeling the joy and the Spirit as I contemplate my blessed association with my precious Grandmother Jensen, one that will continue on throughout eternity. ... A memorable men's quartet of Each Life that Touches Ours For Good was sung at her graveside service. Ever after, this song would prove special to me—and serve as a tender reminder of my Grandma Jensen. (18)
I did not know it at the time, but Lina's grandmother—Vada Johnson Hansen—also passed away in August 2006. Little did Lina and I know at the time of our grandmother's funerals that we were only a few weeks away from meeting each other.
But perhaps LaVerda and Vada knew and teamed up to throw their support our way.
I can't prove it.
But I certainly like the idea of that thought.
Losing and Starting Again at My Beginnings
Despite the enormously encouraging business I had managed to gin up in Virginia and Indiana, I still could not stay in front of—or on top of—my bills.
It was simply too many bills and too few book sales and seminar bookings.
But, there was still hope for a book deal.
Having recently finished my book proposal, my literary agents began pitching my book to major New York Publishing Houses. It seemed that my big breakthrough hinged on securing a book deal. I earnestly hoped and desperately prayed that something significant would materialize, but alas, it never did.
Every Publishing House that reviewed my manuscript proposal rejected it.
It was a complete bust!
The deeper I got into the year 2006, the clearer it became that I had "risk[ed] it all on one turn of pitch and toss" (19)—and lost.
Now it was up to me to "start again at [my] beginnings, and never breathe a word about [my] loss" (20)—except, of course, for educational and inspirational purposes, such as this present narrative.
By this point in time, the full weight of reality had crashed in all around me. It was time to wake up from my dreams of a fantastical rise and storybook ascent into literary fame and financial success through a mighty cultural contribution. The harshness of real life had crushed my dreams of quickly becoming a Stephen Covey or Tony Robbins figure to a teenage and young adult population.
Meanwhile, I was confronted with only one legitimate option. I had to begin again. I had to stoop down, pick up the pieces of my broken life and career and start anew. To further paraphrase Kipling, having watched the things I gave my life to broken, it was time to stoop and build 'em up again with worn-out tools. (21)
And in the words of the Poet, Frank L. Stanton, I had to Keep a-Goin.
Keep a-Goin'
If you strike a thorn or rose, Keep a-goin!
If it hails or if it snows,
Keep a-goin!
'Taint no use to sit an' whine
When the fish ain't on your line;
Bait your hook an' keep a-tryin;—
Keep a-goin!
When the weather kills your crop,
Keep a-goin!
Though 'tis work to reach the top,
Keep a-goin!
S'pose you're out o' ev'ry dime,
Gittin' broke ain't any crime;
Tell the world you're feelin' prime—
Keep a-goin!
When it looks like all is up, Keep a-goin!
Drain the sweetness from the cup,
Keep a-goin!
See the wild birds on the wing,
Hear the bells that sweetly ring,
When you feel like singin', sing—
Keep a-goin! (22)
—Frank L. Stanton
My Saving Grace
A second eviction notice signaled I was losing my battle with the clock and my creditors.
Wholly unable to make another month's rent payment, I turned to the last source of help I still dared turn to: my dear cousin Ida Joy Anderson and her then husband, Steve—the same cousins I had lived with for six months back in 2003-04, during my first pilgrimage to Atlanta.
Ida had already offered me a place to stay when she heard I was moving back to Georgia in late 2005, but, deeply desiring to establish habitation autonomy and otherwise "make it on my own," I had gratefully declined her offer the second time around.
I no longer had the luxury of choice in the matter.
If I wanted to stay in Georgia and avoid a disgraced return to my family in Utah, I felt as though I had only two viable options left. I could move back in with my cousins, or live in my car.
Ida and Steve generously offered me free room and board while I got back on my feet. They also lent me $2,000 (which I eventually paid back in full) so I could pay off my apartment rental bills, keep my car, and avoid bankruptcy—which I seriously considered at one point.
In addition to a roof over my head and food to eat, they provided me with a summer job tending their two young sons during the day while the two of them were at work. Thus, I worked full-time as a nanny throughout the summer and part-time in the fall (after the boys got out of school each day), while I continued to build Freedom Focused—now on a part-time basis.
Little did I know at the time the ways in which this nannying experience was preparing me to someday be a stay-at-home dad! (more on this subject in a later section of this chapter).
The money I earned from nannying enabled me to make my car payments. It also allowed me to continue making minimum payments on my credit card debt, which I had downsized into one monthly payment through a debt-consolidation company. My non-interest-bearing debts to family members would have to wait until I could afford to start paying those off as well.
It was during this time that I met with a bankruptcy lawyer in Atlanta to learn about my options for starting over completely financially. After this meeting, I chose to avoid bankruptcy for three different reasons.
FIRST: The idea of bankruptcy was anathema to my sense of personal integrity and honor. Every penny I had borrowed rightfully belonged to someone else. As such, I felt duty-bound to pay every cent back, including with interest where required.
SECOND: My unwise financial decisions had already badly damaged my credit score, and I did not want to risk incurring additional damage by declaring bankruptcy. Even without going bankrupt, my hamstrung credit score carried the negative consequences of my poor financial decisions for many years thereafter. I am pleased to report that today, my credit score consistently hovers around the 800 point mark. But it took a long time—and a lot of help from Lina—to erase the terrible dings my credit incurred during this disastrous period of my financial journey.
THIRD: From a purely practical standpoint, I did not have enough cash to pay the attorney's fees to formally file for bankruptcy even if I had wanted to.
I was too poor to declare bankruptcy!
How ironic and pathetic is that?
My Long Walk Through the Desert Continues
Due to my book's total failure in the New York publishing house market, I had to rely solely on my self-published version. Thankfully, towards the end of the year, I found a smaller publisher all on my own. He agreed to publish a revised edition of my book, which would become the SECOND Edition of the SAL Textbook and be titled: Leaders for Life: The Complete Step-by-Step Guide to Personal Leadership.
The credit for this new title goes to the partner of my literary agent.
Encouraged by this new development and opportunity, I diligently revised my entire working manuscript and then turned it over to the publisher. Then, without any adequate explanation, the publisher dishonestly reneged on our signed contract, thus hanging me out to dry.
I was furious!
Legally, I could have sued him for damages and lost time.
However, I am not the suing type and did not have the resources to hire a lawyer even if I had wanted to.
I learned a good lesson from this experience: Never go into business with that guy again.
In September 2006, Lina and I met—signalling the beginning of our friendship and eventual courtship and marriage. This was a wonderful personal development amidst all the pain and stress of my professional failures. On the other hand, it also increased my personal anxiety as the previous chapter so intricately detailed.
New Year and New Beginnings
Beginning in January 2007, I went back to substitute teaching, picking up jobs at every opportunity. Over the course of the four years I served as a substitute teacher, I had the chance to work in over 40 different schools throughout the Cobb County School District. Most of the schools I worked in were middle and high schools. In the aggregate, this was a rich and educational experience for a budding educator like me.
On the professional speaking front, my marketing efforts from the previous year resulted in my booking several additional gigs—some paid and some pro bono—in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, and California. Accruing new business was always exciting and encouraging, even if it was too sporadic to make ends meet.
In November 2007, Lina accompanied me to Birmingham, Alabama, where I had landed a 25-minute keynote gig to my largest audience to date in my career: 1,200 students! It was thrilling to speak to a crowd that big on a subject I felt so strongly about and knew could so powerfully influence others in positive ways.
Despite this and other bright spots along the way, I remained "broke as a joke."
During the summer months, I was once again bereft of substitute teaching jobs and desperate to find more work. Through a mutual friend of Lina's and mine at church, I found a part-time job drying cars for a small, privately-owned car washing business. The work began in the dark, predawn hours and continued on into the heat and humidity of Atlanta's sweltering summer days. Armed with nothing but a chamois cloth and my own elbow grease and stickie-ta-tudy, (23) the work was physically taxing and terribly tedious; but, it did provide me with a few extra bucks to pay my most pressing bills.
I also signed up with another temp agency and filled a shift in a packaging plant, similar to the NuSkin temp job I had gotten back in Utah in 2005.
Fortunately, and gratefully, these two temporary positions were both short-lived because I learned about a job posting for a groundskeeper at my Church's Temple in Sandy Springs (Atlanta) right next to the chapel where Lina and I attended church together on Sundays.
I applied for the job and got it.
It paid $11 dollars per hour and offered a 40-hour work week.
I worked this job throughout the summer and early fall of 2007. It was the first time in over eight (8) years that I actually had a full-time job. For this, I felt profoundly thankful.
On the other hand, I confess it was also a trial to my pride—it being difficult to stomach the fact that I had been a college graduate for four (4) years and was still doing manual labor jobs and making only a little more than minimum wage for my efforts. It was extra frustrating when I considered the fact that I already had several high-paying seminar gigs and book sales under my belt as a professional author and trainer.
I could earn as much in a few hours speaking or training as I could in a few weeks as a full-time day laborer.
I admit that this bothered me.
It agitated my ego and pinpricked my pride.
But, that was actually a good thing in the long-run, and I knew it—even at the time. I therefore did my best to live in the moment and try and enjoy the unfolding adventure of my unorthodox career path so filled with fits and starts.
Full-time groundskeeping was not easy work.
It involved almost exclusively outdoor manual labor in temperatures that would get oppressive in the summertime in Atlanta, Georgia. As it happened, the summer of 2007 was one of the hottest summers on record in "The ATL," with midday and afternoon temperatures rising uncharacteristically above 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
These torrid temps conspired with the enervating humidity of the Southeastern U.S. to beat down torturously upon us as we weeded, pruned, groomed, mowed, de-rooted, swept, and removed litter from the Temple grounds.
I particularly remember one morning when I was tasked with digging out the trunk and root system that had once belonged to a large tree on the property. With only a pick-axe, shovel, and my own strength, grit, and endurance, I set to work.
Bulging beads of salty sweat poured down my forehead and face, trickling downward profusely until the rest of my clothes and body were completely soaked. Such incredibly taxing work caused my heart to race, my muscles to ache with fatigue, and my pores to profusely pour out perspiration.
Fortunately, I was no stranger to vigorous and strenuous physical labor, and the many past experiences of my youth empowered me when confronting such an unusually difficult and onerous physical challenge.
When I finally succeeded in extricating that large tree trunk and its roots, I stood back and gazed in awe at my own impressive achievement. It was one of many such experiences in my life where I had the pleasure and satisfaction of standing back and seeing the fruits of my own vigorous labor.
There are few things more rewarding in life than sticking to and then satisfactorily completing a really difficult challenge or tasks. It is enormously fulfilling to stand back, peer down upon such an accomplishment and be able to say: I did that.
So much of self-action leadership is spelled W-O-R-K!
While I wasn't earning much money—what else was new—I was building character, developing patience, and cultivating gratitude and humility in my life and career, which was worth far more than the few dollars I was earning along the way.
The Temple site was also an exceedingly picturesque and peaceful place to be a groundskeeper. I've often joked that it was the holiest yard work I ever undertook.
But, it really isn't a joke.
And considering how much yard work I've done over the years, it is quite the compliment!
Indeed, this job provided me with many quiet moments of soulful solitude, spiritual reflection, and humble prayer—all of which was a huge blessing in my life during a time of great stress in my career and much anxiety in my deepening romantic relationship with Lina.
As challenging as the work was and as stuck as I sometimes felt in my career, I still cherish the time I spent at this special job. I am grateful to God and my Church for the bridge it provided to a more fruitful income in the future.
Light at the End of the Tunnel
Around the same time I landed my Temple groundskeeping job (June 2007), I attended an employment meeting at my church. I met a fellow there named Val Markos who, after learning of my talents, experiences, and career ambitions, asked me if I had ever heard of "Contract Training."
I told him I had not.
He then explained to me that contract training was a way that independent speakers like me could find work. Intrigued by the concept, I began researching the industry online as soon as I got home that evening.
In my online search, I was able to immediately identify a couple of companies that specialized in contract training. Impressed by what I saw on their web pages, I submitted an application and resumé to both companies.
One of them, SkillPath Seminars, rejected me immediately, citing insufficient experience.
The other one, Fred Pryor Seminars, offered me a chance to audition—first over the phone.
Thanks in part to my inside-out knowledge of Stephen R. Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People model, which I was able to spontaneously demonstrate, my phone audition was successful and I was invited to a live audition at Fred Pryor's headquarters in Overland Park, Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri.
I attended this live audition en route to Utah for a family reunion in July 2007.
My live audition was similarly successful and I was invited back to attend their 3-day train-the-trainer event about seven weeks later.
Taking a week off work at the Temple, I hit the road back to Kansas City in late August 2007.
It was a challenging trip. I had no money for hotel fare and had to sleep in my car at rest stops alongside the Interstate freeways. Once in Kansas City, I was able to make contact with a leader in a local congregation of my Church who connected me with some young single fellas who let me sleep on the floor of their apartment (I had brought a sleeping bag with me) during my stay in the area.
The training was interesting and I successfully passed to become a Fred Pryor seminar facilitator.
However, the three days did not pass without some self-inflicted drama on my part.
The second day of the training I locked my keys in my car and had to be picked up (late) by one of my fellow trainers who was also enrolled in the training. This careless error was embarrassing and made me look irresponsible.
Later that same day, my supervisors declined my request to teach a course on leadership and tasked me instead with starting off by teaching a course on grammar and proofreading. I faulted my resumé for this unanticipated ask. I had a bachelor's degree in English and despite my growing theoretical knowledge about leadership and management, had relatively little experience as a manager or leader in real world settings.
It made perfect sense for them to assign me this seminar to teach.
Nevertheless, after all the effort I had invested in studying leadership, not to mention creating my own original material on personal leadership, it felt insulting to be asked to teach a course on grammar and proofreading. At the time, it sounded to me like just about the last soft skills course I actually wanted to teach.
I felt so frustrated by this move on their part that I considered giving up and driving home before the training had ended. Fortunately, I had enough common sense to recognize that my options were limited at this point in my life and career.
Indeed, in August 2007, I was a beggar, not a chooser, and failing to complete the course after all the time, effort, and money I had already invested in the process would have been an epically foolish and profoundly prideful move—and I knew it.
I therefore had no legitimate option but to humble myself, suck it up, become a team player, and graciously accept their offer to teach the grammar and proofreading course. The following day, I apologized to one of my supervisors for my initial complaint and expressed my gratitude for and willingness to teach the grammar and proofreading course.
Ironically, I ended up not only excelling at teaching the grammar and proofreading course, but it became one of my favorite seminars to teach—
by far.
I had initially feared it would be dry and boring like a college-level class on the subject. But my worries were unmerited as the class was designed for a lay professional audience and had a lot of fun elements interwoven therein.
Teaching this particular seminar—and others like it, such as business writing, technical writing, and email etiquette—proved to be hugely valuable to me personally because of the way in which they took my writing and communication skills to higher and higher levels. I learned so many things teaching those courses that fine-tuned my own skills in these areas that I now see that Serendipity was even more interested in what I was learning by teaching the courses than it was in what my audience members were learning by taking the courses from me.
Moreover, because I taught these seminars over-and-over again, these lessons were deeply imbedded into my consciousness and long-term memory. Thus, they became a permanent addition to my professional toolbox of skills and talents and I would never forget them.
I have found that Life and Serendipity are often ironic—and prescient—in such ways.
They seem to know exactly what we need and when we need it—far more clearly and precisely than we do. If we will put our trust in them, they will always have our backs.
At least that has been my remarkably consistent experience.
After the self-inflicted drama of my certification had blown over, I was immensely relieved to sign an official contract as a Fred Pryor contract trainer / seminar facilitator.
As a contractor, I went without many of the benefits of a salaried employee. For example, I did not receive any medical or dental benefits. I also did not receive a base salary or any bonuses. Lastly, there were no opportunities for positional advancements or titular promotions.
I did receive a modest seminar speaker's fee ($200 per public seminar and $300 per on-site seminar). I also received sales' commissions on a graduated remunerative scale. In other words, the more product I sold, the more commission I made.
Since I was never very good at sales—despite a lot of sales' training and experience over the years—I never made much money on commission. Consequently, my income from Fred Pryor was never as appealing as the work itself, which involved a lot of travel and opportunities to influence others as a teacher, speaker, and professional coach.
Nevertheless, like so many of my previous work experiences, the value I received in non-financial benefits, such as education, experience, travel, and skill- and resumé-building was, again, worth its weight in gold and produced many wonderful memories I will always cherish.
One of the requirements of contracting with Fred Pryor was to have an active credit card with a $2,500 minimum line of credit. With my decimated credit score, procuring a new card in my own name was not an option at this point in time. Fortunately, I was able to persuade my mother to let me take a card out in her name with the promise I would only use it for Fred Pryor business expenses and I would pay it off on time every month.
Without exception, I kept this promise.
A month after certification, Fred Pryor booked me for my first "Seminar Run" consiting of four all-day grammar and proofreading courses in Texas. The first of these four courses was in College Station, home of Texas A&M University, Kyle Field (Home of the 12th Man), and the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library.
When I arrived in Houston en route to this first seminar in College Station, I had nary a cent to my name besides one credit card in my mom's name. Upon attempting to purchase my first meal, the card was declined.
I momentarily panicked!
How was I going to make it four days without any food when I did not have any cash and my lone credit card did not work?
Fortunately, a quick call to the credit card company resolved what turned out to be a minor issue and I was able to eat that evening—and for the rest of my first trip.
PHEW!
That first seminar run went well and included additional stops to teach the same grammar and proofreading all-day course in Beaumont, Galveston, and Houston, Texas, before I flew home to Atlanta.
It had taken me over four (4) long years after graduating from college, but I was finally receiving my first professional level wages on a consistent basis. Despite this hopeful progress, my financial troubles had not abated much. I remained consistently one or two payments behind on my car. Somehow, by the grace of Serendipity and the charity of my dad and cousin, I avoided repossession until I eventually paid my vehicle off.
Turning Point
By early 2008, I had received several additional paid seminar bookings at high schools and colleges in North Carolina and Georgia, but it was not enough to get my ever-fledgling business off the ground. Along the way, I remained under terrible stress about my financial future.
What if I couldn't make ends meet?
Was Freedom Focused ever going to take off?
And then there was my breakup with Lina in late October 2007—a mere month after I had begun contract training.
 |
Dressed up in my roomates Captain's uniform.
Atlanta, Georgia
Halloween 2007 |
Such collective anxiety led me to consider a career opportunity in the military. I had previously looked into this option back in Utah in 2004, but learned I was ineligible because I was taking medication for depression—a categorical disqualifier at the time.
I was no longer on medication in 2007.
One of my roommates at the time was a Captain in the U.S. Army and had recently returned home from a combat tour in Iraq. As a college graduate, I could join the Army and quickly become an officer. Such a move would guarantee a consistent stream of professional income for the first time in my adult life.
I had always admired those who served in the military and considered it to be an honorable profession. However, while it would provide me with some income stability, it would also be an enormous deviation from my desired career path.
I was concurrently concerned about the future of my relationship with Lina. She was a budding—and brilliant—mechanical engineer who would be able to write her own ticket in the business world after she graduated. How might pursuing a military career impact my chances with her?
What if we ended up breaking up... for good?
Despite my gradually improving circumstances and newly acquired contract training position, such questions lingered and produced plenty of angst in my mind and heart.
It would certainly have been an honor to serve my Country in uniform. However, I also knew that I was poorly suited for military service because of my history of mental illness, as well as possessing the same personality traits that had made my full-time missionary service so challenging.
Fortunately, I was able to forego my consideration of this alternative, military route once my work with Fred Pryor started to take off and once Lina and I had gotten back together.
Prior to signing my contract with Fred Pryor, I had received a little help again from my Church to make a couple of additional rent payments in 2007. I was also blessed with a compassionate and understanding roommate who was very forgiving of me making late payments. (24)
Suffice it to say, Serendipity was smiling on me from a variety of different angles in my life and career, thus magnifying my imperfect, but best SAL efforts.
To my joy and immense gratitude, Fred Pryor kept my work schedule pretty full throughout the rest of 2007 and 2008. These bookings provided me with opportunities to travel all over the eastern, central, and southern United States. I have always loved to travel, so it was a marvelous adventure and an enriching opportunity and resume building goldmine. It also provided me with invaluable platform experience as a professional speaker and seminar facilitator.
Before long, I was making enough money to punctually pay my bills for the first time in a long time. Even better, I was no longer bouncing checks!
I was also able to begin making token payments on the non-interest-bearing debts I owed my immediate and extended family members.
In February 2008, Lina accepted my proposal of marriage. We had been talking about marriage since May 2007, but I had to be patient in the relationship as Lina was not as comfortable with pulling the marriage trigger as I was. However, in hindsight, I clearly understand the value and wisdom of waiting for the sake of my own progress and maturation personally, professionally, and financially.
"My darling—my darling—my life and my bride." (25)
For whatever reasons, Lina always had a lot of faith in me, and was ultimately willing to take the marital plunge in spite of my debt and OCD.
 |
Getting Engaged
Atlanta, Georgia
March 22, 2008 |
Marriage is always a leap of faith on one level or another—no matter how propitious a couple's circumstances and prospects. But my prospects and circumstances were not particularly glowing in 2008, at least not to the naked eye of a close observer. Knowing, in hindsight, how conscious Lina is about finances—and how effective she is at managing money—it amazes me that my debt in 2008 did not bother her more than it did. The fact that she was
willing to proceed with marrying me is a miracle I must chalk up to Lina's faith and the grace and mercy of Serendipity.
Lina was obviously biased toward me because we were so deeply in love. Nevertheless, I had been honest about my challenges with mental illness and fully transparent about the amount of debt I had incurred building Freedom Focused. So, she was at least marginally aware of what she was getting herself into by tying the knot with me.
Suffice it to say, I will forever be grateful to Lina—and any Serendipitous forces at play—for their immense faith in me despite the infelicitous career path I had trodden up to that point in time. My journey had been akin to scaling a treacherous, rocky, and incredibly steep mountain face; yet, she willingly chose to continue the struggle right there alongside me.
Her undaunted courage, determination, and resilience in our relationship was just like her famous ascent up an indoor rock-climbing wall, the story of which can be found online at the
Freedom Focused blog, entitled:
SAL is Attractive.
Indeed, once committed, Lina never wavered in her love and support for me. Whether it was $70,000 of debt or a dwindling food supply; she was always there for me through thick and thin.
For example, one Sunday evening in mid-2007 during a particularly tight financial spot before I had begun my training work with Fred Pryor, Lina lovingly—and almost unthinkingly—filled a box of food for me out of her own, modest college student pantry so I would have enough to eat that week.
Truth be told, it was an embarrassing moment for me.
But it simultaneously filled my mind, heart, and soul with joy and gratitude—and made me feel incredibly cared for and unconditionally loved.
What a woman!
It was truly remarkable to me that someone as gifted, talented, intelligent, and beautiful as Lina could see beyond my present position and penury and perceive my long-term potential.
Or, maybe she was just truly blinded by our being so in-LOVE with each other!
I suppose it was ultimately a combination of both.
Whatever the final case or equation may have been, I'll forever be grateful to her for sticking by and with me even—and especially—when my bank account was empty and my prospects appeared dim and lowly.
On August 8, 2008 (8/8/8)—a very propitious date, we were married in the Salt Lake Temple of our Church.
Lina's and my Wedding Day
Salt Lake City, Utah
8/8/08
After our wedding, we honeymooned for a week in a Marriott hotel time-share in the Phoenix, Arizona area that my dad and step-mom had gifted us as a wedding present. At week's end, we boarded separate planes at Sky Harbor International Airport to fly back East—Lina to Atlanta, and me to Orlando.
It was sad to not be on the plane with my beautiful, precious, and amazing new wife, but Lina had to get ready for her senior year at Georgia Tech and I was on my way to teach four all-day seminars in Florida—a tangible sign of my growing self-reliance and career success.
I continued teaching seminars throughout the Fall, and was being booked with increasing regularity.
In October 2008, I had my biggest month-to-date: 15 all-day seminars in 15 different cities. I made almost twice as much money in one month as I had during the entire year of 2005. Moreover, I was no longer just teaching grammar and proofreading courses. As I began to prove myself, Fred Pryor started allowing me to teach a variety of different soft skill courses on writing and communication—and eventually on management and leadership as well. It was an incredible turnaround for me, and it felt enormously satisfying to be entirely earning my own keep and paying my bills on time.
Taking a Break from Business Building
The more time I spent as a traveling contract trainer for Fred Pryor, the less interested I became in building Freedom Focused. I had been significantly sobered by the massive amounts of failure, disappointment, disillusionment, and debt I had experienced as an upstart entrepreneur between 2005 and 2008.
I felt like a badly beaten boxer who had finally tapped out—and had no appetite to take any more licks.
Though I had rebounded nicely with Fred Pryor, I was still up to my eyeballs in debt and felt like a miserable failure as an entrepreneur. Healing from these devastating wounds would take time.
In hindsight, it is almost comically ironic that I set out to become a Covey or Robbins to a teenage audience. I did not particularly like or relate to teenagers when I was in my 20s. In fact, I did not particularly like or relate to teenagers when I was a teenager myself.
It has never been an audience I was truly excited to work with.
So, why did I pursue this pathway so passionately?
My decision in the matter was largely a matter of perceived personal expedience. In other words, I thought I had no other choice because of my age.
From 2003 to the present day, my ultimate goal has never really changed much. I have always wanted to follow in the footsteps of Stephen R. Covey and my Uncle Hyrum as an author, speaker, thought leader, and training CEO—and primarily for adults.
It was a very simple goal in theory.
In actual practice, however, I was far too young and inexperienced to accomplish such a grandiose and ambitious goal as quickly as I wanted.
This fact and reality has been an enormous thorn in my side and a perpetual frustration for me throughout my life and career. Nevertheless, as I have come to discover painfully and repeatedly over the years, there really isn't any authentic or legitimate way around the "age problem."
Other adults simply do not take someone in their 20s or 30s as seriously as they take someone in their 40s or 50s (or older), not because a 20-something or 30-something is lacking in formal education or talent; but because they are lacking in experiential, on-the-job, real-life wisdom.
This is not to say that you have to be old to be wise.
You don't necessarily.
It simply means that sometimes you have to be older to possess the necessary personal authenticity and professional credibility to be taken seriously by a professional audience of adults.
Not only was I younger than most adult professionals, I had the added drawback of looking a lot younger than I actually was. To wit: I am eight (8) years older than Lina and turned 29 thirteen days after our wedding. But, if you take a look at a picture of us when we were dating, we both could have passed for being teenagers.
Lina and me in May 2007
Ages 19 and 27, respectively.
Mid-career professionals and their supervisors simply would not have given me a significant chance teaching management or leadership at that point in my career.
They knew it.
And I knew it.
As such, it made sense to me that my best bet would be to target teenage and young adult audiences, with whom I would have some credibility. The problem is that despite any and all knowledge and talent I may have brought to the table, my heart was never fully into this audience, and that fact hurt my own internal enthusiasm and external credibility.
Moreover, if there is one key lesson I have learned about public speaking, it is that you cannot fool your audience. In other words, they can sense how you feel about them; and they will detect a phony in a heartbeat.
The reason I failed in my original intention is because my original intention was fatally flawed.
You will never be supremely successful at anything unless your mind, heart, and soul are fully invested.
My mind, heart, and soul were never fully invested in the adolescent audience. Nor was I ever fully invested in the sales, marketing, or operations aspect of being an entrepreneur and business builder.
In my heart-of-hearts, I am, have been, and always will be a teacher, speaker, poet, philosopher, and LEADER, not a manager, marketer, salesperson, operator, or financier.
In other words, I failed in part because I was an imposter!
I was trying to succeed at something for which I was poorly suited.
I also failed because of my lack of desire to succeed in the sales and marketing aspect of the game.
Again, I was trying to succeed at something for which I was poorly suited.
A good friend of mine who is also a sales expert teaches that: Anyone with a desire can thrive and succeed in sales if they receive and implement the proper training. (26)
I believe him. It is, after all, the same thing countless other sales trainers have told me over the years: anyone can do it with desire and the right training.
I have had lots of sales training over the years; but, I've never had any authentic desire to be a salesman!
As Hamlet would say...
Ay, there's the rub! (27)
I also failed because in my impatient zeal to become successful quickly, I tried to do and be everything to everyone—at least until I could afford to hire others to take on those roles for which I was more poorly suited. As a result, I stretched myself too thinly and burned out from a practical standpoint; and I got distracted in my focus from an existential and authenticity standpoint.
Moving forward, I would gradually abandon my misdirected focus on youthful audiences and pursue the long, slow slog required to do and become what was authentically in my mind, heart, and soul all along.
Little did I know at the time just how long, slow, and gradual that painfully pleasurable SLOG would turn out to be.
But in the end, it would all be worth it.
Or, at least I continued to HOPE and exercise FAITH that it would be.
And when you are an eternal optimist, as I am, FAITH and HOPE spring Eternal.
Our Fortunes Flourish as Wall Street Crashes
That fall—2008—the infamous housing crisis and Wall Street financial meltdown signaled the beginning of the worst recession since the Great Depression.
As the nation's money woes were just beginning, mine were ironically coming to an end.
I continued teaching seminars while Lina—now a senior in college—dedicated a growing portion of her time each week to attending career fairs and applying for entry-level jobs at major corporations around the country.
Like the fall of 2003, following my own graduation from college, the fall of 2008 was not an ideal time to be looking for work, generally speaking. However, Lina's impressive resumé, the added mystique of Georgia Tech's engineering prestige, and her tireless personal efforts on the job trail more than compensated for the macroecomonic challenges of the time.
Her diligent and focused efforts—in between managing a full load of classes and her new marriage to me—paid off. That fall, she traveled to four or five different states to interview with multiple Fortune 500 companies, most of whom made her a lucrative job offer.
In December 2008, she accepted an offer with a Fortune 100 corporation in Houston, Texas, making a starting salary that was flirting with six figures.
We both reeled with excitement at the good news.
I was very proud of her accomplishment and showered her with hugs, kisses, and confetti when she arrived home from school that evening.
She was only 21 years old when she graduated from college in May 2009 with a near-perfect grade-point average (GPA). She had also gained three (3) semesters of full-time work experience with an Atlanta-based engineering firm as part of Georgia Tech's cooperative work program.
This obscure, middle-class girl had risen from modest beginnings in Homestead, Florida to earn a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from one of the top public universities in America—and the world. She had then followed it up by landing a job with the largest and most profitable public energy company in the United States.
And this obscure, middle-class boy had risen from modest beginnings in rural southeastern Utah to meet, court, marry, and begin building a life with that Sweet Lass from Homestead.
We were both young, healthy, resilient, strong, motivated, and crazy in-love with each other.
The world was our oyster.
Hand-in-hand, we marched into our future gratefully, enthusiastically, and full of optimism.
Time to Celebrate
 |
Sailing away from the Port of Miami
Our First Cruise Together
May 2009 |
Following Lina's graduation in May 2009, her new employer paid to have our belongings professionally moved to our new apartment in Houston. Such treatment was a very fancy perk to which we were unaccustomed at that point in our lives.
We then used a small portion of Lina's signing bonus to go on a weeklong cruise to the Western Caribbean to celebrate Lina's graduation from college and landing her first post-collegiate job.
Neither of us had ever been on a cruise before, and as we sailed away—hand-in-hand—from the Port of Miami that perfectly picturesque spring afternoon, I tried my best to soak in the grandeur and majesty of the moment—which represented the culmination of so much hard work and struggle over the course of many years on both of our parts.
Our opportunity to enjoy such a luxury evinced that our lives were changing in significant and positive ways. We now had money to do things we could only dream of just a few months previously. More importantly, we had the financial power to pay our bills, shrink our debts, and begin saving for the future.
It took us several years, but in the spring of 2012, we made our last debt payment. Every single cent that either of us had ever been loaned—to build Freedom Focused or attend Georgia Tech—had been paid back in full (28)
Changing Course amid the Great Recession
As 2009 dawned, the economic recession that had been strangling the American and global economies took aim at the contract training industry, causing most of my business with Fred Pryor to dry up.
In a few short months, I went from getting 10-15 seminar bookings per month to a mere one or two. It was frustrating to see my progress stunted by forces beyond my control. I had only been a contract trainer for 18 months when the bottom fell out.
And I had been making such progress!
Nevertheless, as a self-action leader, I knew I must remain focused on what I could control and, in the words of the Poet, Keep a-goin! (29)
With my professional opportunities drastically limited yet again, I decided to turn my attention toward increasing my formal education. That spring, I was accepted into Fielding Graduate University's Doctoral program in education. I learned about FGU from Dr. Bruce Jackson, my old boss at The Center for the Advancement of Leadership, who had earned a couple of advanced degrees from Fielding.
Fielding's Doctor of education program appealed to me because of the independent pedagogical approach they employed, which granted me the leverage I sought to direct my own educational journey and call my own shots in the design and creation of my dissertation. This paved the way for me to continue to develop, refine, and polish the work I had already undertaken in the FIRST and SECOND Editions of the SAL textbook.
Despite weathering another seeming career delay, I welcomed the opportunity to pursue a terminal degree and acquire the added credibility and status that would accompany credentialed letters after my name. And the most magical part of the whole deal is that thanks to Lina's new job, I would be able to attend school debt-free!
I was fortunate and blessed in so many different ways to be Lina's husband that on some days it was hard to believe it was even real. Such is the miracle and majesty of SAL working hand-in-hand with the favor, grace, and mercy of Serendipity! Ever since, I have always striven my imperfect best to never take this extraordinary blessing and privilege for granted.
I began my Doctoral studies in June 2009. Thanks to this advancement in my education, I became familiar with the scholarly fields of self-leadership, action research, and autoethnography—all of which would play pivotal roles in my dissertation research and writing, and hugely influence later editions of the SAL Textbook.
My Doctoral studies—in conjunction with all of the professional communication and other seminars I had been teaching—elevated me to higher and more sophisticated levels as a thinker, teacher, speaker, and writer. I also searched out creative ways to productively build upon the work I had already begun in the first two editions of the SAL Textbook.
I fleshed out and then inked these new ideas in my Doctoral dissertation, which became the de facto THIRD Edition of the SAL Textbook, published in 2013.
JJ's 4-Volume, 1,149-page Doctoral Dissertation
Published in 2013
My Year Teaching High School
By the spring of 2009, my seminar work with Fred Pryor had almost entirely disappeared due to the shrinking training market caused by the Great Recession of 2008. When times are tough financially, the first things to get slashed in a company's budget are non-essential items, including Quadrant II (30) oriented soft-skills training.
All of the soft skill seminars I taught for Fred Pryor fell into this category.
This disappointing reality led me to seek out alternative employment as a full-time classroom teacher.
Knowing we would be moving soon to Houston, Texas, for Lina's new job following her college graduation in April, I began the process of becoming certified to teach in the State of Texas several months before we left Georgia. Fortunately, I was granted access to an online program that allowed me to complete the process virtually.
After moving to Houston, I completed online applications with five (5) different school districts in the greater Houston area. I also emailed virtual resumes to schools that were advertising open positions online.
This online job search bore little fruit and secured zero interviews.
Then, an experienced local educator advised me to personally visit schools to drop off resumés and make face-to-face contacts with school administrators. I explained to her that many schools explicitly requested that applicants not make personal visits.
She replied matter-of-factly: "If you want a teaching job, you need to go out and make personal contacts."
Intuitively, I knew she was right, but had been hesitant to leave my comfort zone and begin making personal visits. It was so much easier to just keep filling out applications and clicking "send" from the comfort of my home computer. Nevertheless, as a self-action leader, I recognized that if I really wanted a job, it was incumbent upon me to take The Road Less Traveled, (31) and engage the harder (yet smarter) work head-on.
Donning my best suit and armed with copies of my resumé, published book for teens, and my marketing DVD, I visited nearly every high school in the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District (also known as Cy-Fair ISD), the closest school district to the apartment where Lina and I lived.
In hindsight, I didn't really need to take all my Freedom Focused paraphernalia. Schools were more interested in whether or not I would be an effective teacher than whether I had experience as a youth motivational speaker and personal leadership trainer. Indeed, one of the most important lessons I learned that year was the importance of framing and nuance when it comes to messaging and otherwise "knowing your audience."
This was another of Serendipity's "blessings in disguise."
 |
Cypress Ridge High School
Houston, Texas
2009 |
Despite this fact, focusing on my experience as a substitute teacher
and teen leadership trainer enabled me to land three (3) interviews at three different schools. I was offered—and accepted—a full-time position teaching 9th grade English at
Cypress Ridge High School after my
first interview, so there was no need to attend the other two interviews at the other two schools.
While I remained frustrated at having to put my long-term career ambitions on hold once again, I was very grateful to have secured full-time employment in the midst of a troubled economy. Indeed, some areas of the Country—including the school district in Georgia where I had been a part-time substitute teacher the previous four (4) years—had invoked a hiring freeze, eliminating all opportunities for would-be teachers like me.
Thankfully, the recession had not hit the Great State of Texas with the same ferocity as other States, thereby opening up a golden opportunity for me.
Modest though my teacher's salary was in comparison to Lina's flush corporate gig, I was nevertheless making a consistent, professional salary (with benefits) (32) for the first time in my life.
It felt great!
Even if it had taken me six (6) years after graduating from college and 11 years after graduating from high school to accomplish this feat.
I was not accustomed to this kind of financial predictability, security, and stability.
It was really nice...
But, I would soon discover that I would pay a heavy price for my modest, first-year teacher's salary.
Why?
Because it turned out to be the single most difficult professional challenge I had
ever encountered. Teaching high school freshman in a demographically and socioeconomically diverse public school was extraordinarily challenging!
At Cy-Ridge, I was not only a rookie, but a minority as well. (33)
Twelve (12) hours days were routine the first half of the year as I struggled to find my footing and figure things out as a first-year teacher. I was also working through lingering OCD issues that further slowed my progress and impeded my success as a teacher.
Not gonna lie...
It was a rough start!
In fact, I ended up in the Principal's office after the first six weeks' grading period because my classroom failure rate was the highest in the entire school, and there were nearly 3,000 students enrolled at Cy-Ridge!
My Principal was an experienced educator and effective leader. He was nice about it, but he also let me know that such a high failure rate was not acceptable at his school. My initial impulse and temptation was to blame the students. After all, weren't they the ones who were underperforming in my class?
Principal Garcia helped me to understand that as a teacher, it was my job to help my students be successful. I understood his point and recognized it aligned with the personal leadership principles I had been teaching to others. I therefore had no other viable option but to go to work to help my students be more successful in my class.
After Thanksgiving, however, I was called into the Principal's office again for some other issues that had cropped up in my classroom. This time, he was not as congenial or patient as he had been the first time. He even went so far as to suggest I take some time out over the holidays to reassess if high school teaching was a good fit for me.
I was offended by his suggestion that I consider quitting mid-year.
I was a self-action leader; not a quitter!
I was further piqued by his implication that perhaps he preferred to no longer have me on his faculty.
Principal Claudio Garcia was a good man, an experienced and effective educator, a successful Principal, and a strong leader. I, on the other hand, was a struggling rookie teacher. I will forever be grateful that he had the leadership confidence to "call me on the" proverbial "carpet." I was even more grateful that I had enough common sense, humility, and integrity to choose to learn from him and not give up.
Teaching 130 ninth grade public school students (each semester) could be difficult for experienced veterans. For a first-year classroom teacher who was a fish out of water on multiple fronts, it was a daunting—and nearly overwhelming—challenge.
The students in my classes faced all kinds of academic, behavioral, cultural, familial, and social problems that were not of my making and beyond my realm of personal expertise and experiences. Nevertheless, it was my job to navigate the challenges with professionalism and aplomb in a way that helped the students to learn, grow, and progress both academically and personally.
It was a tall order!
But, it was what I had signed up for when I applied for the position, got the job, and signed the contract.
If I wasn't willing to take full responsibility for my classroom, I would continue to flounder as a teacher. Respectfully, but firmly, Principal Garcia helped me to see that he had given me an opportunity to join his staff to solve problems and make the school (and world) a better place. If I could not, or would not, embrace and rise to the challenges of solving those problems, he would find someone else who could and would.
This drastic dose of reality cut me to the core and pushed me to a vital decision point.
Would I continue to blame my circumstances on forces beyond my control and give up, or would I practice what I had been preaching all over the country as a personal leadership speaker and choose to take complete responsibility for my challenges and results and go to work on what I could control?
The solutions to my classroom problems were difficult, but not impossible.
I was stuck, and the only way to get unstuck was to go to work on myself as a self-action leader—a SAL project that would begin by changing my attitude.
I should note here that practically speaking, quitting this job mid-year actually was a viable option for me. With my wife's handsome corporate salary, which more than doubled my teacher's pay, we could make do just find if I opted to focus full-time on my doctoral studies, which would not only have saved money on tuition, (34) but would have accelerated my doctoral program progress, at least in the short-run.
Despite these compelling arguments in favor of throwing in the towel, my character, integrity, and sense of dignity and self-respect as a self-action leader completely negated this option. I knew in my mind and heart that giving up would harm both my inner confidence and my external credibility.
Simply giving up because it was the easier thing to do and I was at liberty to do so was tantamount to cowardice and failure. Taking that path of least resistance would have been a stain on my character and integrity and negatively impacted my FREEDOM in the long-run.
Who was I to pursue a Doctorate in education if I lacked the guts, grit, and mettle to make it through a full-year of real-life classroom teaching?
I had made a commitment—and signed a contract—for a full-year of service, and come what may, I would keep that commitment. As far as I was concerned, it was the only legitimate course of action if I was to remain authentic and true to the tenets of Self-Action Leadership and the metaphysical urgings of my own Conscience.
With all these thoughts in mind, I soldiered into the second semester determined to turn things around in my classroom. I stopped making excuses (mostly) and threw myself into the trying tasks before me. I sincerely strove to improve the relationships I had with my students, something that Mr. Garcia and his administrative team had consistently emphasized as essential for classroom teaching success.
They were right!
As my relationships with the students improved and grew more mutually respectful, classroom behavior and academic performance began to concurrently improve.
I also developed and implemented a system for rewarding positive behavior, punctuality, good grades, and academic improvement that resonated positively with most of my students. I had always appreciated being acknowledged and rewarded for my own achievements as a student and was convinced a system of rewards would similarly motivate many of my students also.
As expected, my new system of rewards was more motivating to some students than to others as high-achievers naturally took to the system more enthusiastically than those who were less motivated. However, because my system rewarded improved performances in addition to top performers, students who were used to turning in average (or below average) work began to up-their game once they discovered that they too could be positively recognized without having to be a top performer.
This multi-tiered reward approach contributed much to both the individual and collective success of my students that second semester. The same principle applies to any group, team, or organization. If you only reward the top performers, the majority of your team or organization are not going to be motivated by your system of rewards.
As a leader, manager, teacher, or parent, you obviously do not want to reward underperformance. Thus, there may always be some individuals who miss out on a reward due to their own laziness and inertia. But, if you reward improvement as well as top performances, you will be able to recognize far more individuals, thus strengthening your team or organization by a factor of all those who are additionally recognized.
Moreover, while you may not be explicitly or tangibly rewarding bottom-level performers, you can still find creative ways to verbally acknowledge, recognize, and otherwise praise EVERYONE for something somewhere along the line. By so doing, you can consistently perpetuate the process of coaching, encouraging, mentoring, praising, and otherwise building-up everyone that you lead, manage or teach.
Taking this holistic approach with my students ensured that "no child was left behind" without at least a vestige of encouragement and a glimmer of hope for the future.
In concert with focusing on SAL principles and practices myself as a teacher, I also increasingly focused on teaching SAL principles—both explicitly and implicitly—to my students. I accomplished this in THREE (3) different ways.
FIRST: I would sometimes share with them a SAL-oriented quote, poem, story, et cetera and then assign them to write about it in their classroom journal notebooks. Journaling was a regular part of their grade, so this approach killed two birds with one stone.
SECOND: I would take advantage of opportunities to teach SAL-oriented life lessons from the literature I was teaching as part of the core curriculum. Literature is full of examples of both negative and positive attitudes, behaviors, intentions, and motives. It therefore became easy to creatively interweave SAL philosophy, principles, and practices into whatever poem, story, novel, or play we were reading and studying at the time.
THIRD: I would mine SAL principles and practices out of random, everyday classroom experiences and occurrences. Years later, this "teach SAL as-you-go" method was easily transferred to my role as a stay-at-home parent to my three children—who will attest that they receive no shortage of character, faith, and life-oriented insights and lessons from their dad, most of which are taught spontaneously in moments of relevant instruction, as opposed to formally in a rigid or scheduled manner.
Over a period of several months, I began to see massive improvements in both my student's behavior and their academic performance. Before the end of the year, I had lowered my overall classroom failure rate from a staggering 38% the first grading period to a significantly lower 11% the fifth and penultimate grading period. NOTE: Cy-Ridge's school calendar was divided into six 6-week grading periods.
The year I spent as a full-time high school classroom teacher was a humbling—yet hugely educational and rewarding—experience for me, and hopefully for many of my students as well. Aside from gaining greater respect for the hard work of full-time teachers and the many difficulties and dilemmas they face in a diverse, modern, urban, and large public school environment, I was able to concurrently corroborate the real-world benefits of SAL principles and practices and connect it directly to the improved performances of both my students and myself as their teacher.
It provided me with a golden opportunity to tangibly apply SAL to a series of real-life problems and then watch those problems give way before the enormous power of SAL synergized with Serendipity.
I don't think it is an understatement to call this transformation of my classroom a MIRACLE.
And I have SAL and Serendipity to thank for it.
At the end of the year, Principal Garcia—the same man who had implied I consider giving up—personally commended me for my hard work and dramatic improvement. He also gave me a positive professional review I could use in future job interviews.
What a turnaround it was!
And how enormously satisfying it felt to never give up trying and changing and persisting until both I and my students were successful.
I was still far from being a perfect teacher, or even an experienced teacher for that matter.
Nevertheless, through a combination of teaching SAL to my students, diligently applying it myself, and leaving my classroom wide open to the grace and mercies of Serendipity, the year ended very differently than it had begun.
SAL Poem I wrote, taught to my students, and displayed in my classroom the second semester.
Poem inspired by Kehl Arnson (Campbell High School in Smyrna, Georgia) and
Thresa Brooks (Tapp Middle School in Powder Springs, Georgia)
See BOOK the SEVENTH for more information about Arnson and Brook's inspiring stories.
Three (3) years later, in June 2013, Lina and I were blessed to attend the graduation ceremony for the students I had taught as freshman during the 2009-10 school year. It was a joyous occasion to reunite with a score or so of the 130 students I worked with at Cypress-Ridge High School.
 |
With Keldrick Winslow, one of the students in my advanced 9th grade English class. High School Graduation The Berry Center Cypress, Texas June 2013 |
Adventures in Newfoundland
Midway through my year of teaching high school, Lina was offered a new professional opportunity that required us to relocate to St. John's, Newfoundland in eastern Canada. She wanted to take advantage of the opportunity and I supported her 100%.
Lina left Texas for Newfoundland in March 2010 to begin her new position.
Determined to honor my contract and finish my year of teaching school, I stayed behind in Houston and then joined her in St. John's in mid-June after the school year had ended.
During the interim months that we were living apart, we were blessed to enjoy three (3) incredibly adventurous and romantic rendezvous in Boston, Chicago, and Toronto—all on her company's dime. We planned these trips to occur every 3-4 weeks while we were apart. We learned and experienced much on these fabulously adventurous weekend getaways, and created many magnificent memories together along the way.
We lived in St. John's for two years. This quasi-foreign foray to the "Great White North," or, more accurately stated, the far east of the North American Continent, provided me with a Heaven-sent sabbatical wherewith I could reflect on my year teaching school while I worked exclusively on my Doctoral studies without any other professional interruptions.
However, in February 2011, I began teaching Fred Pryor seminars again, this time in Canada instead of the U.S.
Fred Pryor had recovered from the Great Recession of 2008 by the time I decided to rejoin their contract ranks in early 2011. The main reason I jumped back on the contract training wagon was because I had been struggling with my mental health and needed something else to do in conjunction with my independent-study Doctoral program.
Going back to work at something I was good at, enjoyed, and provided me with regular travel opportunities was the best possible medicine for my struggles at this point in time, and I made a lot of positive progress in my mental health as a result.
I also returned to psychotherapy and went back on medication for the first time in five (5) years and for the first time since I had been together with Lina (dating or married). The difficulties that led to my relapse and the process of re-entering psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy were challenging for Lina. It was not something we had a lot of experience with together. It was, however, a huge blessing in disguise because it further acquainted my wife with my illness and its processes and variables, which afforded her experience and knowledge that would prove helpful to us both as individuals—and in our marriage—in the future.
 |
On a hike with Lina and friends
near the ocean in Newfoundland.
Summer 2010 |
I taught 70 all-day seminars in five (5) different Canadian Provinces for
Fred Pryor over the next 13 months. I really enjoyed the opportunities I had to travel to new places and work with audiences from a different country.
It was the second time I had lived north of the 49th parallel for an approximately two-year stint, and we are so glad we went.
Canadians are wonderful people!
When I wasn't teaching seminars, I spent my days completing my Doctoral coursework and writing my dissertation. I would also spend time on my graduate studies while I was traveling en route to seminars in other Provinces. In the process, I ended up getting some very important work done in hotels, airports, and on airplanes.
This pattern of professional writing on-the-side would continue on up through the end of my career as a contract trainer in January 2016—and beyond.
Living and studying in Newfoundland was a wonderful adventure that produced many cherished memories and relationships for Lina and me. We did not yet have kids and took many opportunities to enjoy the peaceful and picturesque hiking and other outdoor opportunities available to us on that beautiful island—the "Ireland of North America."
We were also blessed with many opportunities to serve and contribute to our church community—where we made many wonderful friends—during the time we spent living on "The Rock."
Back to Houston
 |
With Lina and Baby Tucker
Houston, Texas
March 12, 2013
|
In April 2012, Lina got a new professional assignment and her company transferred us back to Houston.
About a year later, in March 2013, Lina gave birth to our first child—Tucker Joseph Jensen—a fair-skinned, red-headed, bouncing baby boy. We named him after Lina's maiden name.
That same month, I participated in my Final Oral Review—in lieu of a traditional dissertation defense—the capstone requirement for earning my Doctroal degree in education from Fielding Graduate University.
After nearly four (4) long years, I was finally "Dr. JJ."
In a span of three (3) weeks, I became a dad, a doctor, and a new (and first time) homeowner.
Life was busy... but GOOD!
 |
With my Doctoral degree diploma
And "Tucker Tracks" baby spit-up
Conroe (Houston) Texas
June 2013 |
On the other hand, my career path was still shrouded in mystery and uncertainty. All along the way, my ultimate objectives—to be a writer, speaker, teacher, and C-level executive entrepreneur—remained relatively unchanged. Nevertheless, the perennially perpetual question remained:
how do I get there?
I did not yet have a clear answer to this question; but, I continued to forge ahead in faith, trusting that Serendipity would continue to guide me and open up necessary doors when the time was right—as long as I continued to be the best self-action leader I could be while concurrently exercising patience.
During the year 2012, I undertook a side project to complete and self-publish my first collection of poems. I titled this work: Psalms of Life: A Poetry Collection. It included over a hundred original poems I had composed over the previous two decades. While I did not expect it to be an immediate success or significant source of income, I felt a strong desire—almost a compulsion akin to my journal writing habit—to collect and codify my best work as a poet and begin branding myself as a producer of verse as well as prose.
I greatly enjoyed this work and it was immensely satisfying to complete the project and see my book in print, even though the self-published edition had many production hallmarks of an amateur and it made almost no money—much like the FIRST, SECOND, and THIRD Editions of the SAL Textbook.
Nevertheless, seeing this project through to completion felt like an important step in the right direction of my ultimate dreams and goals as a poet and philosopher. I therefore felt enormous satisfaction, gratification, and fulfillment upon completing this existentially-enriching and personally rewarding side project.
.jpg) |
Psalms of Life
My First Poetry Collection
Self-Published in 2012 |
Hiking the Inca Trail
In August 2012, I went on a week-long leadership trek along the Inca Trail in the Andes Mountains of Peru. The trip was organized by Dr. Bruce Jackson, my former boss and mentor at The Center for the Advancement of Leadership at Utah Valley University, my alma mater.
It was a wonderful trip filled with many unforgettable memories.
 |
Standing at over 15,000 feet in elevation
Inca Trail, Andes Mountains
August 2012
Peru |
In addition to some glorious hiking and spectacular mountain vistas, we also visited Cuzco, Lima, and Machu Picchu. We spent most of our days hiking the Inca Trail and would then discuss leadership principles and practices in the evening.
The glorious and gargantuan Andes peaks were breathtaking. Hailing from the Intermountain West in the United States, I grew up near the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and thought I understood what big mountains were.
As such, I was surprised—and a little gobsmacked—when I got to Peru and discovered mountains on an entirely different scale than I had been accustomed to in the United States.
And to think that the Himalayas are even bigger!
One of the most memorable things about this remarkable trip and adventure was how unlike the pictures Machu Picchu is in real life. The pictures of the site are impressive, of course. But they do not do justice to the picturesque and panoramic wonder of the actual site.
It was a great reminder to me that there are some places you simply have to see and experience in-person to appreciate their full beauty, glory, majesty, and wonder.
Step-up to SkillPath
Following our return to Houston from Canada, I taught 61 more all-day seminars for Fred Pryor in the United States in 2012 and 2013.
In 2013, I also decided to leave Fred Pryor Seminars and sign a contract with their competitor, SkillPath Seminars, which was headquartered in Mission, Kansas, another suburb of Kansas City, just down the street from Fred Pyor headquarters in Overland Park.
SkillPth followed the same basic business model as Fred Pryor. In fact, it was founded and built by folks who had started out at Fred Pryor. Over the years, they had built up and burnished SkillPath's brand to the point that it carried a little more professional prestige than Fred Pryor did. SkillPath also offered perks that Pryor lacked, including higher seminar payouts, which was appealing to me.
SkillPath was the same company that had rejected my application back in 2007, citing insufficient experience. Now that I had extensive experience with Fred Pryor, they welcomed me into their fold. It was satisfying to feel as though I had finally made the "Varsity" team, so to speak.
I taught 50 seminars for SkillPath in 2013.
%20copy.jpeg) |
Lil' Tuck in the Cannon's Mouth
Edinburgh Castle
September 2013
Scotland |
Unlike
Fred Pryor, which had only booked me in the United States and Canada,
SkillPath gave me opportunities to travel abroad to the United Kingdom, where I taught 11 eight-hour seminars in nine (9) different Counties of England and Scotland in September 2013. It was the first time in my life I had flown "across the pond," and the first time I had ever been outside of North, Central, or South America.
Lina—on maternity leave—and little six-month old Tucker accompanied me on this trip to Great Britain, which made for an exhausting, but magnificent and highly memorable family trip. Most of my ancestral progenitors hail from the British Isles. I was also an English major in college and an admirer of Winston Churchill and the Robin Hood and King Arthur legends. As such, it was pretty special for me to finally set foot in merry old England.
Three highlights of the trip for me were visiting Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral, and the Churchill War Rooms—all in London. I also enjoyed visiting a World War I museum in Scotland.
I was 34 years old when I first visited the "Mother Country." My son was not yet a year old when he first peered down at a picturesque panorama of London from atop St. Paul's regal dome.
Talk about living the American Dream!
 |
On the Big Island of Hawaii with Lina and Tuck
2014 |
In 2014, SkillPath booked me to teach in Hawaii—twice. Like our trip to Engliand, it was a dream come true for me to finally visit the island paradise and 50th State I had heard so much about and where my mother had been raised.
Lina and Tucker came along for one of these trips and we had some marvelous family adventures on both the Big Island of Hawaii and Oahu. One such adventure involved swimming at the world famous and iconic Waikiki Beach in Honolulu, where I accidentally swam right into the Waikiki Wall—also known as Kapahulu Groin. I still have a scar on my nose from this painful, bloody, and embarrassing visitor's miscue.
A few years later, in 2017, Lina and I went on a summer cruise in Alaska. In doing so, I finally completed my domestic travel map and could say that I had "visited ALL 50 U.S. States." I have always loved my country. Traveling to all 50 of her States only increased this admiration, love, patriotism, and respect.
Despite her imperfections, what a beautiful, glorious, and mighty nation she is!
 |
My Mama standing next to the beach where her
father used to take her to swim each week.
Honolulu, Hawaii
2014 |
My mother joined me for the second trip to Hawaii, and we enjoyed a very special walk down memory lane by retracing the steps of her cherished Hawaiian childhood—where she lived from age two until her high school graduation in 1964, not counting her 8th and 11th grade years, which were spent on Long Island in New York.
My mother had often spoken about her sweet memories growing up in the Manoa Valley in Honolulu. It was magical to finally get to see the home where she grew up, the beach where her father would take her to swim, the church building where she attended services on Sunday, and our Church College (BYU-Hawaii) and Temple in Laie.
In 2013, I taught 50 seminars for SkillPath.
In 2014, I taught 128 seminars for SkillPath.
In 2015, I taught 78 additional SkillPath seminars.
The positive customer feedback I had always received teaching Fred Pryor seminars continued unabated with SkillPath and my skill and talent as a trainer became increasingly refined and polished the more experience I gained.
Retiring from Contract Training
For the most part, being a contract trainer for SkillPath had been a wonderful experience. I taught many different courses on many different soft-skill topics ranging from leadership, management, and time management, to grammar, business writing, and email etiquette.
Life Fred Pryor, I traveled to many different places and had many wonderful travel adventures in the process. I also taught in many additional states, including several in the Western U.S. Along the way, I garnered mostly positive—and often outstanding—customer reviews.
Here is a sampling of some of the best:
- "Jordan has an exceptional way of delivering his message."
- "The best class I've ever attended. Excellent teacher. I came away with many nuggets."
- "Great workshop! I love it when the instructor uses personal examples. It makes them seem more down to Earth. Good job Jordan!"
- "I was recently promoted to Supervisor. I knew there were gaps in my leadership knowledge but I could not recognize what they were. I feel like I have gained a whole different viewpoint on leading and managing my team. Thanks so much!"
- "Jordan utilized all materials, and he took time to answer questions. Mostly I was impressed with the technique he used on a talkative and disruptive attendee. Good Job — So professional!"
- "I have attended previous seminars on management but none that were this informative or well organized."
- "One of the best seminars I've attended. The time went by like lightning."
- "It was almost perfect in all aspects: Jordan is a very talented speaker and there is an integrity that shows through in his examples and his general presentation of the material."
- "Jordan was professional and personable. One of the best seminars I've attended in quite some time."
- "Jordan told us a great deal about his own journey of self-leadership, which was very authentic and credible."
- "Jordan is an exceptional speaker. I would come to any seminar of his."
- "Jordan was excellent!!! Thank you for delivering the materials in such a clear, concise manner coupled with great stories."
- "Best class ever. Jordan Jensen really knows his stuff. I have learned a lot. Very happy! Didn't want the class to end. The information I have received is very valuable."
Because I consistently garnered positive seminar evaluations like those above, I became a reliable source of training dependability, consistency, and versatility for both Fred Pryor and SkillPath, which is why they booked me to train so often—even though I never sold much product, much to my supervisors' chagrin.
Despite these mostly positive experiences, an incident occurred in late 2015 that helped tip the scales toward retirement from contract training. In the midst of an unusually hectic and demanding 5-day seminar run in the upper Midwest, one of my flights got cancelled due to poor weather. As a result, I was required to rent a car and undertake an all-night drive of nearly 400 miles from Chicago, Illinois to Lexington, Kentucky for the next days' seminar.
My journey began just before midnight and I was beside myself with fatigue. I had already taught three consecutive all-day seminars in Bloomington, Minnesota; Madison, Wisconsin; and Milwuakee, Wisconsin—followed by a short flight to Chicago.
I was furious that SkillPath expected me to now drive all night and then teach another all-day seminar on essentially no sleep. More importantly, I did not feel safe driving through the night all the way to Lexington by myself as tired as I already was.
After making it 60 or 70 miles southeast of Chicago and into the State of Indiana, I cried "Uncle," exited the freeway, and rented a hotel for the night. I called SkillPath after hours and left a message stating my case and appealing to their sense of reason and mercy.
I might have felt more internal pressure to push on through the night had the next day's seminar in Lexington been a packed house; but, there were only six or seven attendees signed up for the Lexington class, so rebooking and/or refunding the money of such a small handful of customers seemed highly reasonable under the circumstances.
I was wrong in my calculation that my supervisor would feel compassion for my plight. The next morning, I caught hell over the phone for what they perceived to be a dereliction of duty.
No matter that I had taught hundreds of courses without a miss over the past three years.
No matter that I was in the middle of a challenging and hectic 5-day seminar run.
No matter that the flight had been cancelled because of weather beyond my control.
No matter that I was exhausted and facing an all-night drive, followed by a fourth consecutive all-day seminar, followed by another flight to Mobile, Alabama, followed by a fifth consecutive all-day seminar before finally returning home to Houston.
Despite it all, I simply was not afforded any compassion or mercy in the matter.
I was deeply hurt by my supervisor's unreasonable response in the situation. It seemed to me unmerited, unfair, unjust, unwise, and myopic on multiple fronts on their part. After successfully teaching hundreds of seminars without a miss—and given the unique circumstances and small audience involved—I rightly deserved a mulligan.
I was not afforded this mulligan.
It was an extremely negative experience that I will never forget.
As I have so often done in the past throughout my life and career, I vowed that day to treat my own trainers differently if and/or when I ever found myself in a supervisory role with Freedom Focused in the future.
This incident left a really sour taste in my mouth and made my decision to retire from contract training a few months later a lot easier than it would have been.
It was not, however, the main reason that I chose to hang up my hat.
The main reasons had to do with my long-term career vision with Freedom Focused and the health and well-being of my wife, children, and family relationships.
FIRST: My long-term career vision with Freedom Focused.
After teaching some 600 all-day courses for Fred Pryor and SkillPath Seminars from 2007-2016, I had reached the point where I had pretty well maxed out my growth potential as a contract trainer. I had traveled all over North America and Great Britain and, in the process, had tremendously honed my platform skills as a speaker and seminar facilitator. By late 2015, I simply wasn't growing anymore in the work. It had become predictable, repetitive, and bereft of any new opportunities for advancement, higher pay, fresh challenges, or personal growth.
While I theoretically could have made progress as a salesman and thereby made more money on commission, I recognized that practically speaking, I had no desire to pursue that pathway and would therefore make no real headway without an authentic desire to do so.
As such, it made sense from a career standpoint to let go of something that had begun to feel like time spent on a hamster wheel and return to further developing Freedom Focused.
SECOND: The health and well-being of my wife, children, and family relationships.
Lina and I had both grown up in traditional Latter-Day Saint households where our dads worked outside the home to support our families financially and our moms stayed at home as the primary homemakers and caregivers for the children. In theory, we had both assumed we would eventually take our places in these traditional family roles. However, we also understood that other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation. (35)
In actual practice, my income as a contract trainer was not enough to support our family, whereas Lina's income as a rising star in the corporate firmament was more than enough to make ends meet and continue progressing in our savings and investment goals.
In addition to this significant income gap, Lina's job had medical, dental, and other benefits. My contractual work with SkillPath had zero benefits aside from covering my work travel expenses and providing a modest per diem stipend for food on days I conducted trainings.
Teaching seminars also required a ton of work travel, while Lina spent most of her time at her company's corporate campus near our home in the Houston area. There were some months where I would be on the road for 15-20 days out of the month. While this travel did not necessarily put a strain on our family relationships, the reality is that I was not nearly as close to Lina or the kids as I would be after becoming a stay-at-home dad.
For all of these reasons, we decided to inform SkillPath to stop booking me for future seminar dates and I would become a full-time stay-at-home dad—and continue to build Freedom Focused on the side—beginning in mid-January 2016.
Despite the frustrating and negative incident that helped to trigger this important life decision and departure from SkillPath, my overall experience as a contact trainer for both Fred Pryor and SkillPath was overwhelmingly positive, productive, worthwhile, educational, and enriching. It did wonders for my confidence and resumé and provided me with a plethora of professional platform experience that took my speaking, teaching, training, facilitating, and leadership skills to increasingly higher levels of competence and excellence. Moreover, it was gratifying to contribute meaningfully and productively to two great training companies that provided a valuable service and had, on the whole, been good to me.
I will always be especially grateful to Fred Pryor for giving me a chance at the tender age of only 28 to do a job that was mostly performed by persons in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. As far as I knew, I was the youngest trainer with whom Fred Pryor contracted at the time, and I did not know of anyone younger than me at SkillPath either. Most contract trainers are older professionals who already have several decades of life and work experience under their belts.
I was unique—and an outlier—in this regard.
Speaking of which...
I'll never forget the "look" I often received from seminar attendees when they would sign-in for one of my all-day seminars in the morning before the class had begun. Because I both looked and was much younger than the average trainer, many persons would begin the day skeptical of my abilities, knowledge, experience, and credibility.
It was easy to read the nonverbal signs from such persons, whom I could tell were thinking to themselves: Who is this kid and what does he think he is going to teach me?
As such, I took great satisfaction in beginning the seminar and then observing that skepticism begin to melt away once attendees realized that I very much knew what I was talking about and could go all day without skipping a beat.
There was, however, an occasional exception to this positive pattern of proving myself.
For example, once in early 2008, just a few months into my contract training career, Fred Pryor called upon me to fill-in for an older and more experienced trainer who was unable to make his or her three-day seminar run that week.
At a moment's notice, I was off to the airport and on my way to the Northeast to teach three all-day classes entitled: Managing Emotions Under Pressure. The first day of the seminar run was in East Hartford, Connecticut, and my audience was packed with nearly 100 persons—the largest I would ever address during my contract training career. (36)
Despite any self-confidence I brought to bear at the time, it remained intimidating to facilitate an all-day course to so many people—most of whom were a lot older than I was—when I was so relatively new. I had only taught this particular course twice before and was still learning the material myself.
I gave it my best shot, of course, and managed to get through the day okay. But, I'll never forget reading through the seminar evaluations at the end of the day after everyone had left. One of the attendees wrote: "The trainer used the quote: Fake it til you make it, and it looked like he was."
OUCH!
Fortunately, that evaluation was an outlier rather than a consensus. Nevertheless, I knew exactly what the person who had written that evaluation was talking about. The truth was that to a certain extent, I was faking it til I made it in that particular seminar on that particular day.
There are, of course, times, seasons, and certainly many moments throughout everyone's life and/or career when you and I—as self-action leaders—have no other choice but to fake it til we make it.
As time went on in my contract training career, I did not have to fake it as much because I was becoming the real deal on stage through all the practice I was receiving—and it felt great!
Given my youth and relative inexperience, Fred Pryor had taken a gamble on me. Fortunately, it ended up paying off for both parties. For personal, professional, and financial reasons, I desperately needed the opportunity that Fred Pryor gave me and I will forever be grateful to them for winking at my youth and resumé and being willing to give me a shot.
That opportunity was truly life- and career-changing for me in all the best ways.
I will also always be grateful to SkillPath for the additional, unique, and special opportunities they provided me with to go places and do things beyond what Fred Pryor had afforded. These opportunities included my first trip to England and Scotland and my first trips to Hawaii—two popular and glamorous global destinations I had always dreamed of visiting.
I have many unique and wonderful memories of my travel adventures as a contract trainer. Although my free-time was limited according to my training schedule, I did my best to take advantage of opportunities that arose to play the role of tourist wherever I went.
From an unforgettably brisk and refreshing swim in Lake Erie in late October (brrrrrr!) to cruising down Florida freeways and Texas highways in rented muscle cars; and from hitting picturesque sandy beaches, site-seeing, and jogging at locations across North America, to enjoying eleveated panoramic vistas from high-rise hotel rooms and training in skyscrapers in Charlotte, Houston, Memphis, Miami, midtown Manhattan, and other city centers.
Suffice it to say, I got to see and do a lot of really cool stuff as a contract trainer.
Most importantly, I genuinely loved the work.
Teaching, speaking, and writing always serve as enjoyable and enriching FLOW (37) experiences for me, and it never ceases to amaze me how quickly the time passes when I am in front of a room facilitating a seminar or otherwise speaking publicly.
It often felt as though the 6-hour trainings passed by like a few snaps of my fingers.
This was one of the biggest and best indicators that I was in the right career field.
I truly cherish these choice and priceless opportunities with which I was so richly blessed.
Between these two training companies, I accrued approximately 3,000 hours of professional platform training experience. This gave me over 4,000 hours of experience as a professional speaker. If you count my 2-year full-time mission and year teaching school, this number rises to some 7,000 hours of teaching and training experience. That kind and extent of career training was invaluable—and precisely what I needed to further bolster my confidence and credibility as a C-level leadership executive entrepreneur and founder of Freedom Focused.
Neither Fred Pryor nor SkillPath paid me much for my services; but, the overall experience—and the richness it added to my resume—was truly worth its weight in gold and diamonds.
Looking back, I have zero regrets—and I am so grateful—that I was willing to value and prioritize education and experience above financial remuneration. Money comes and goes; but education, experience, and Existential Growth last forever.
I had always believed that money would eventually follow in great abundance if I was willing to pay my dues and otherwise be willing to properly build, prepare, refine, and polish my resumé, skills, and talents first.
This paradigm has gradually been vindicated in every conceivable way in both my life and career.
And I have a sneaking feeling that the best is still yet to come!
In addition to facilitating seminars in 44 U.S. States, 9 Counties of Great Britain, 5 Provinces of Canada, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, I was given opportunities to teach 50 different courses spanning a dozen different general soft-skill topics. These subjects included: grammar and proofreading, business writing, email etiquette, emotional intelligence, management, leadership, self-directed work teams, time management, goal setting, Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics, et cetera.
These training opportunities brought me face-to-face with Fortune 500 companies, all five (5) branches of the U.S. Military, the U.S. and Canadian governments, public school districts, several branches and levels of state and municipal governments, a variety of large, medium, and small businesses and other organizations, and thousands of individual professionals who attended my public seminars in hotels across the Continent.
By the time I retired, there was little I had not seen or done in the professional training world. It prepared me well to eventually lead Freedom Focused as its Founder, CEO, and Master Facilitator.
Teaching Online Webinars
Prior to retiring from SkillPath, I signed a contract with a company called LORMAN—a virtual training company that specializes in offering online webinars to attendees around the nation and world.
I developed two (2) one-hour webinars for LORMAN on the topics of Grammar and Proofreading and Electronic Communication Etiquette.
I facilitated my first professional webinar from the comfort of my home office in Conroe (Houston) Texas in December 2015.
LORMAN liked my work and continued to contract with me to teach these same two webinars from time-to-time on an as-needed basis up through 2019, when I retired from webinar facilitation.
Life Fred Pryor and SkillPath, LORMAN's pay was paltry; but it did provide me with some engaging side work while I continued to build Freedom Focused and navigate the uncertainty surrounding its ultimate growth trajectory.
Serendipitous SAL-oriented Side Projects
 |
Christopher P. Neck, Ph.D.
Professor of Management
W.P. Carey School of Business
Arizona State University |
In addition to my work with
LORMAN, I also received opportunities to participate in several academic writing and editing projects. Most of this work materialized through a collegial relationship with my close colleague and dear friend, Dr. Christopher P. Neck, an Associate Professor of Management (later a Full Professor) at the W.P. Carey School of Business at
Arizona State University (ASU) in Tempe.
I first came across Chris's scholarly work in 2001 when I was introduced to the 2nd Edition of his and Dr. Charles C. Manz's pioneering textbook on self-leadership as part of a leadership class I enrolled in as a visiting student at Brigham Young University (BYU).
I loved that textbook, kept it in my library for future reference (instead of selling it back for petty cash at the end of the term), and filed the authors' names away in the back of my mind for future reference.
I was re-introduced to Manz and Neck's work on self-leadership in 2010 while in Doctoral school. By then, their seminal textbook on self-leadership was in its 5th Edition and I was citing it extensively in my Doctoral work and dissertation.
My first personal outreach to Dr. Chris Neck came in January 2011, via email.
We quickly became good friends and have communicated prolifically ever since.
Chris served on my dissertation committee as an external examiner and was one of the Ph.D.'s that signed off on my "Big D" as he liked to call it.
In later years, I helped Chris—a prolific academic author—with a couple of college textbook projects (38) related to self-leadership, business management, and entrepreneurship. I also co-authored several peer reviewed academic papers with him. Four (4) of these papers were on Self-Action Leadership (39) and one of them was on Time Management (40).
Lastly, I was acknowledged for providing "helpful input" toward a newly published edition of the seminal textbook on self-leadership, which Chris co-authored with Charles C. Manz of the
University of Massachusetts and Jeffery D. Houghton of
West Virginia University in 2017. (41) This was an honor for me considering a much earlier version of this text (42) had been my initial introduction to the self-leadership field back in 2001, and a later version of the same text (43) had been foundational to my dissertation work and everything that would follow in the FOURTH through the SEVENTH Editions of the SAL Textbooks.
These wonderful and timely opportunities honed my critical thinking and writing skills in addition to
further expanding and enriching my resumé. The ongoing and seemingly random materialization of these valuable and unsolicited career opportunities evinced the role that Serendipity was continually playing in my SAL-directed and focused life.
While Freedom Focused was still not taking off as quickly, smoothly, or seamlessly as I would have liked or envisioned, some short- or mid-range project was always popping up to provide me with meaningful work to further develop, refine, and polish my growing skills and talents in preparation for the future and move me ever closer to the realization of my long-term mission, vision, and goals.
SAL Textbook Editions FOUR and FIVE
Immediately after I graduated with my Doctoral degree in the spring of 2013, I began turning my dissertation manuscript into the FOURTH Edition of the SAL Textbook.
I spent the summer of 2013—while Lina was on maternity leave with our new son, Tucker—working on this extensive project.
Dissertation writing employs academic prose, which is littered with in-text citations that are distracting for lay readers. So, I removed all of the citations, replaced them with endnotes, and translated the scholarly prose into a more colloquial and readable format.
I then self-published the 800-page work under the title—Self-Action Leadership: The Key to Everything.
 |
FOURTH Edition of the SAL Textbook
Self-Published 2013
|
It was a special summer at home together with Lina and our new baby boy.
Later that year, Lina returned to work on a part-time basis. She followed this same pattern after the birth of our second child, Kara, in March 2015. A similar arrangement was made following Tyler's birth in August 2018.
Following the self-publication of the FOURTH Edition of the SAL Textbook, and excited about what we believed the potential was for this more accessible version of my Doctoral research, Lina and I decided to invest $6,000 in a marketing campaign through the same company that self-published my work.
This investment and undertaking was a complete failure, leaving us to feel as though we had just flushed 60 hundred dollar bills down the toilet.
It was very frustrating!
It further evinced that the SAL Textbook's timing had not yet arrived.
Once again, I returned to the drawing board.
Using the FOURTH Edition as a review manuscript, I went to work securing a slew of academic and professional endorsement quotes to bolster the work's marketing potential. I also solicited feedback from an array of intelligent friends, family members, and colleagues. I then applied their feedback and my new endorsement quotes to yet another comprehensive revision of the manuscript.
It took me two (2) years, working whenever I could within a framework of my contract training schedule, busy family life, and church service to complete this next iteration of the complete work.
This FIFTH Edition of the SAL Textbook was self-published in the fall of 2015. It contained 721 pages and was titled—Self-Action Leadership: The Key to Personal, Professional, & Global Freedom.
%20copy.jpg) |
FIFTH Edition of the SAL Textbook
Self-Published 2013 |
Given the helpful feedback I had received on the FOURTH Edition in conjunction with a growing collection of glowing endorsement quotes, I felt confident that
this new, improved, revised, and updated FIFTH Edition was going to be my golden ticket that would
finally propel Freedom Focused into viability and profitability as a training organization.
Little did I know at the time that I was still more than a decade away from any such takeoff.
I am glad I did not realize this all at once at the time, or it would have been profoundly discouraging. Instead, I learned the truth of this painful and deeply frustrating reality bit-by-bit in piecemeal fashion gradually over the course of the next few years.
Despite various homespun, grassroots marketing strategies and efforts, including sending out approximately 40 copies of the work to relevant parties who I felt would be willing and able to help me promote it via word-of-mouth, this work's failure to catch on with a broader audience was as complete as its 2013 predecessor.
I would occasionally get a meager royalty check in the mail for a few token book sales, but the payments were comically small—rarely amounting to more than a few dollars and cents.
As I received each one of these pathetically puny remittances, I could only shake my head and offer a wry smile of quiet exasperation and chucklesome annoyance.
Try, Fail, Adjust, Repeat...
 |
With my Precious baby daughter, Kara
Conroe (Houston) Texas
March 2015 |
The year 2015 was special because Kara—our daughter and second child—was born in March.
It was also a very busy business building year.
Lina and I organized content for a complete overhaul of the Freedom Focused website and paid to have it professionally designed and developed. We also wrote, directed, and produced a series of professional videos, including a live seminar. We then uploaded all the videos to YouTube and began marketing individual video clips on social media platforms and the Freedom Focused blog.
In addition to these technological upgrades, we also began developing nine (9) Freedom Focused seminars on topics ranging from grammar, business writing, and email etiquette, to time-life management and Self-Action Leadership. After creating advertisements for each seminar, we marketed them on our newly renovated and relaunched Freedom Focused website.
I also experimented with a variety of different marketing strategies on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter (now X). For a time, I was especially diligent on Twitter, but after sending out over 12,000 tweets and getting virtually nothing out of it, concluded it was not a productive strategy for what I was trying to accomplish.
One of the most time-consuming projects of all involved the publication of the Freedom Focused blog, started in November 2013.
Between 2014 and 2018, I wrote and published 164 blog articles filled with SAL content, information about my book and seminars, and marketing links to YouTube clips and my website. Despite over 50,000 blog views, nothing tangible arose from these extensive blogging efforts.
Perhaps the most disappointing and frustrating element of these failures was my inability to enter the broader, socio-cultural conversation in any meaningful, significant, or visible way. I deeply desired to use my skills, talents, and education to introduce common-sense solutions to the messy—yet preventable—pitfalls and snafus I could see piling up all around me in the news media. I had dedicated my entire career to this noble end; but, no matter how hard I tried, my message continually failed to hook or resonate with a broader audience.
My rejection by the American media apparatus and general public felt complete, total, and unrelenting. It was as though an armada of ships were sinking offshore from me and my beach shed full of viable life preservers. Despite my frantically waving these flotation devices so that all could see, the drowning victims couldn't—or wouldn't—pay any attention to my energetic and repeated appeals.
I was completely ignored and continued to feel utterly invisible.
It was wild how unrelentingly I was either ignored or rejected from every conceivable angle, and I confess that it felt unspeakably frustrating at times.
After all I had accomplished and sacrificed over the preceding decade, I thought for sure I was nearing a major breakthrough in my efforts to finally get Freedom Focused off the ground and begin helping real people with real problems.
I was wrong.
With the exception of my wonderful and faithful blog readers—who were few and far between, numerically speaking—I simply was not having much of an impact.
Moreover, little did I realize at the time how many more years would still be required to realize my ultimate objectives as an author, teacher, thought leader, and business builder.
My heart yearned to share the message of SAL to a world that so desperately needed to hear it. These pinings were so deep and impassioned that it sometimes hurt—both emotionally and physically. It felt a little like the heartbreak I had suffered so often with so many different gals in the arena of romance, as the previous chapter chronicled in great detail.
There were moments at night where I would like awake in bed in the dark—my heart aching over my deep desire to be fully utilizing my knowledge, skills, and talents to share a life- and career-changing message, yet with very little opportunity to do so.
Almost no one wanted to hear about Self-Action Leadership, integrity, and personal responsibility. It seemed virtually everyone was more interested in mindlessly scrolling on social media platforms, increasingly addicted to drama, gossip, political bickering and culture wars, provocative images, and everything else under the sun except that which they most needed to hear and internalize.
The rejections and ignorings were so painfully consistent and so doggedly unrelenting that it honestly seemed too complete to be real. In other words, the ongoing verdict seemed far too absolute and predictable to accurately account for such a drastically disproportionate rate of effort-to-results.
It was as if I was in my own version of the Truman Show, and the cast of thousands all around me had received specific instructions from the Director to ignore and reject JJ and his message of SAL.
My work remained so continually invisible and impermeable by the outside world, despite my own diligent, focused, and unrelenting efforts, it really did seem as though a Higher Power was purposely holding me back for Serendipitous reasons I could not fully access or comprehend, and there was nothing I could do but continue to patiently labour and to wait. (44)
The good news is that I had a lot of experience with rejection and heartbreak, so my skin has grown thick. Thus, my experience helped me to weather the perpetual anti-storm of no business and almost zero outside interest.
But, I still often felt as Lincoln sometimes did—like the boy who stubbed his toe: it hurt too bad to laugh; but he was too big to cry. (45)
Despite these unrelenting failures, ignorings, and rejections, I continued to enjoy the work I was blessed to do and Serendipity continued to pave the way for me to continue that work through Lina's increasingly successful corporate career.
Thus, the more time that passed, the more I grew to implicitly trust the completely unpredictable and seemingly volatile and sporadic, but ultimately divine movements of Serendipity and its remarkable timing.
In other words, I was steadily improving at taking action on variables I could control while concurrently making peace with everything I could not control—a crucial and foundational SAL principle and practice that would, in the end, pave the way for Serendipity and timing to have its way with both me and Freedom Focused.
I also began to recognize the similarities between the adversity I had faced leading up to marrying Lina and the obstacles that stood in my way of moving forward as I envisioned with Freedom Focused.
In other words, it dawned on me that just as I had to wade through a lot of failure and rejection to prove worthy of a best friend and wife as amazing as Lina, I was likewise being given an opportunity to wade through even more failure and rejection as a preparatory course to ultimately leading Freedom Focused to its destined place in the corporate firmament and legacy of service organizations dedicated to the betterment of humanity.
The opportunity and challenge was an ongoing process of finding that elusive balance between chasing after my dreams and patiently allowing my dreams to chase after me. I refer to this paradoxical concept (46) as the SAL / Serendipity BALANCE.
SAL / Serendipity BALANCE
Accessing the paradoxical equilibrium—or sweet spot—between chasing
after your dreams and patiently allowing them to chase after you.
Around Halloween in 2015, I received my first shipment of my newly self-published book—the FIFTH Edition of the SAL Textbook.
 |
FIFTH Edition of the SAL Textbook
Self-Published 2015
|
I enthusiastically set to work mailing off approximately 40 copies of the book in an effort to generate some "buzz" around its publication. I was convinced that
this fifth iteration would be my good luck charm and provide me with that elusive breakthrough that had so maddeningly eluded me in the past.
But, it simply was not to be.
To my exasperated chagrin, and despite any and all of my tireless sales and marketing efforts, nothing of substance materialized over the next several months leading into the year 2016. Once again, my return on investment (ROI) was profoundly and pathetically paltry compared to the exorbitant amounts of energy, money, passion, time, and hard work I was continually investing into the project.
As the new year (2016) dawned, it became increasingly clear that this newest iteration of the SAL Textbook and its accompanying marketing efforts were going to be the fifth verse of the same old sad and sorry song.
This same period of time coincided with my decision to retire from contract training and ply my trade at stay-at-home parenting for a time—for the reasons described in a previous section. In my mind, there was never any intention back in 2016 to be a stay-at-home dad for an extended period of time. All I knew for sure was that I was ready to move on from contract training and carefully consider what my next career moves would be.
Testing the Waters of Higher Education
In mid-January of 2016, within a week of my last seminar run as a contract trainer for SkillPath Seminars, I received an email from Hank Sims, Jr., Ph.D., an academic colleague of mine at the University of Maryland, with information about an open faculty position in the management department of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.
Dr. Sims' email intrigued me and interrupted my pattern of thinking at the time.
I loved my Country and had always been a patriotic citizen interested in its history, governance, and military.
I was also continuously aware that Serendipity might signal any variety of deviations from my intended designs or plans for my future. I therefore took this West Point opportunity as a Serendipitous sign that perhaps I should put my business building efforts on hold and spend a few years gaining experience as a teacher in higher education.
Working under the guidance of a couple of close friends, colleagues, and mentors—Drs. Chris Neck and Jeffery Houghton—who were already members of esteemed management faculties at Arizona State University (ASU) and West Virginia University (WVU), respectively, I invested a portion of my time over the next nine (9) months applying for 100 different teaching and researching positions at 70 different colleges and universities all over the world.
To the extraordinary credit of my wonderful and successful wife, Lina, she pledged her interest in and willingness to quit her own job and temporarily suspend her successful career to follow me wherever I might find employment as a teacher and researcher in Higher Education. Such an arrangement would allow her an opportunity to be a stay-at-home mom, which had always been a desire of her heart.
I enjoyed the adventure of this new aim, focus, and project, although the application process itself was repetitive and tedious. My heart and mind rested most fervently in the West Point opportunity; but, I understood the wisdom of not placing all of my proverbial "eggs in one basket," hence the plethora of applications I filled out and submitted.
I completed my application to the U.S. Military Academy in January and heard back from them in March, when they wrote the following to me in response to my application:
"Your candidacy was seriously considered, unfortunately, we are unable to offer this position. Please know that there were more than sixty [60] very strong applicants, and the competition (and the final decision) was really tough."
This was much more authentic and encouraging language than most of the other rejection letters I had begun receiving. An additional silver lining came when West Point invited me to apply for another, very similar position to the one for which I had already applied. I hopefully took their advice; however, the second position was also given to another applicant about two months later, thus ending my hoped-ed for opportunity to serve my Country and gain experience in higher education.
I was, of course, disappointed by these two rejections—much more so than by all the others. It would have been another wonderful adventure to relocate from southeastern Texas to northeastern New York State and make an educational and personal leadership contribution to the Nation of whose accomplishments, history, and progress I had always been very patriotic and proud.
Nevertheless, the verdict was in, and I had no choice but to keep applying to other schools.
I continued applying for faculty positions in higher education until October 2016, when a cascading cache of rejection letters (or ignorings) led me to terminate my search. Over time, I discovered that my lack of success in this particular job hunt was due to three main factors.
FIRST: I was an external applicant with no personal connections at any of the universities where I applied. I therefore had to compete against internal applicants who often would have had a leg-up on me because they were already known entities among hiring committees.
SECOND: I did not have any prior teaching experience in higher education.
THIRD: Though I did have a Doctoral degree, it was in the wrong field. I was applying to business and management schools, yet my Doctorate was in education. Knowing this, I tried to highlight my wealth of practical experience teaching management and leadership seminars for Fred Pryor and SkillPath, but in the end, corporate and public training experience simply was not what the hiring committees were primarily looking for.
Once again, my failure was complete and total.
By September 2016, I started to feel desperate enough to put out a few feelers for high school teaching jobs. Given my year of teaching experience during the 2010-2011 school year, I figured I would have better luck trying to land a teaching position in a high school near our home in suburban Houston than I would applying to far-off universities.
I did, in fact, manage to secure two (2) interviews at two different high schools in the area.
Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on how you look at it—neither school hired me. I inadvertently bombed one interview by letting the proverbial "cat out of the bag" to one Principal by admitting I was a stay-at-home dad in search of an exit strategy. We both had a light-hearted chuckle over my confession, although it took me a while longer to realize he was laughing at me more than he was laughing with me—at least when it came to his intention of bringing me onto his faculty.
Lina and I later had a healthy belly laugh together over this incident when it finally dawned on my why I was not hired.
Fortunately, I had reached a point where I could authentically laugh at myself and how pathetic my situation had become.
It had become too funny to be embarrassing or frustrating any more.
I could laugh, of course, only because of Lina's successful career. None of these positions were literally do-or-die scenarios, a fact I always recognized and felt very grateful for. Suffice it to say, after this avalanche of failed applications, it seemed clear that Serendipity's plan for me and my family involved the ongoing progression and support of Lina's career—which I supported 100%—while continuing to gradually build Freedom Focused on the side.
After all, I would have been a fool not to support the success of such a wonderful person—even my best friend whom I greatly admired, loved, and respected—especially when I was an equal recipient in the blessings.
In the end, I recognized that my heart was not fully in a return to a formal classroom setting, even if it had been on the university level. This fact greatly mitigated the disappointment I felt in not being hired by any of the schools to which I had applied, including and especially West Point.
While it had seemed like the obvious and prudent pathway at the time—given the context clues accompanying Freedom Focused's ongoing inertia and Dr. Sims' email message about the opportunity at the U.S. Military Academy—in the end it was clear to us that Lina's career needed to continue to come first—and I looked forward to watching how it would progress and unfold in coming years.
Sometimes Life and Serendipity place you into a temporary—or extended—holding pattern.
My futile foray into the elusive realms of higher education turned out to be just such a place for me.
More Failed Business Building Efforts
In late 2016, after I had thrown in the towel on higher education jobs, I re-oriented my focus back to building Freedom Focused on the side—while focusing full-time on my new assignment as a stay-at-home dad.
One of Lina's and my first moves was to purchase a lower-tier executive promotional package at our local Chamber of Commerce (The Woodlands, Texas). As part of our package deal, we held an official ribbon-cutting ceremony commemorating the launch of Freedom Focused on January 13, 2017. In reality, Freedom Focused had already been incorporated since the summer of 2005—nearly 12 years earlier. Thus, this Chamber-sponsored ribbon cutting was little more than a promotional stunt designed to jump-start new life into my ever-fledgling educational enterprise.
Only two (2) people showed up to our ribbon cutting. In our friends' and colleagues' defense, the ribbon-cutting took place during a weekday when most folks were busy with work or family responsibilities. Fortunately, there were enough Chamber-affiliated members to make it look like we had a modicum of support—enough to look okay in the photo-op anyway!
 |
Freedom Focused Corporate Ribbon Cutting
The Woodland, Texas Chamber of Commerce
January 13, 2017 |
Appearances can be deceiving, that is for sure!
Throughout 2017, I attended various Chamber of Commerce events to advertise and promote the FIFTH Edition of the SAL Textbook and the Freedom Focused seminars Lina and I had begun to develop, but nothing of substance arose from any of these efforts.
We renewed our membership in 2018 at a much lower price-tier and then terminated it entirely in 2019 after nothing materialized.
An additional rejection came from ExxonMobil—the company Lina had been employed with since 2009.
As one of the largest and most profitable Fortune 100 Companies, ExxonMobil was an ideal potential candidate for booking a large amount of training business. After all, I already had experience teaching all-day seminars for large companies—including oil giants BP, Conoco Phillips, and Phillips 66—through my contract work with Fred Pryor and SkillPath.
We began investigating this opportunity by scheduling a meeting with one of my wife's former supervisors, who tried to secure us an audience with a key contact in their training department.
That effort failed.
Then, Lina was able to get two (2) copies of my book into the hands of a couple of corporate Vice Presidents with whom she was familiar. She even landed us a face-to-face lunch meeting with one of them. But, the results were additional verses of the same old songs of "No," or "Not now."
I worked on many other, smaller marketing strategies as opportunities arose.
But, like everything else I had tried, nothing worked!
I had some minor success in driving traffic to my blog articles through social media and text message marketing; but never generated any tangible business there from.
One, rather random opportunity arose while attending an academic conference in Fargo, North Dakota. While touring Microsoft's corporate campus there, I was able to meet with an executive with connections to the training department. She initially sounded sincerely interested in learning more about me and the seminar services I provided; but, when I contacted her later and shared additional information about how I might contribute, her interest had vanished.
In addition to the failures described above, all of my seminar and book marketing efforts also fell perpetually flat. For example, I compiled an email list of 500 high school administrators throughout the greater Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio areas and sent them information advertising my SAL seminars and textbook via email.
The result?
I did not get a single response that led to booking any business.
I also emailed 66 former clients I had worked with at Fred Pryor and SkillPath—after my contractual non-compete period had ended; but only heard back from a couple of them, with zero seminars materializing from either contact.
These failures were scarred by such abysmal marketing "number games" that I had no appetite to pursue them any further.
It is no secret that sales and marketing had never been a personal passion of mine; nor were these skills my strong suit as an entrepreneur. While I enjoyed aspects of this work, I ultimately considered these activities to be "necessary evils" to producing opportunities to do what I really wanted to do, which was to write, speak, teach, organize, and lead.
From the beginning, I had always intended on delegating the sales, marketing, operation, and management aspects of the business to others who enjoyed such roles and were better suited for them.
With this long-term objective in mind, I even started an email group that I referred to as the PELT, which stood for: Prospective Executive Leadership Team. Beginning in 2014, I began inviting persons who had demonstrated high levels of excellence, integrity, and success in their lives and careers to join my newly established PELT in preparation for that time in which I would be able to begin hiring executives in position to which I was ill suited to fill, such as a Chief Operating Officer (COO), Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Chief Sales and Marketing Officer (CSMO), Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Chief Education Officer (CEdO), Chief Legal Officer (CLO), et cetera.
I would email this group from time-to-time to provide updates on my ongoing progress in promoting my writing and otherwise building Freedom Focused.
By 2021, I had a dozen different persons passively assembled on this "PELT." Part of my experiment in assembling this group was to gauge interest and proactivity. In other words, I wanted to see if anyone in the group would respond to my progress updates with tangible ideas of how to best proceed and/or demonstrate personal passion and proactivity for aiding me in the cause of Freedom Focused.
Somewhat to my surprise, only ONE of the baker's dozen-or-so members of the PELT ever demonstrated the kind of energy, enthusiasm, passion, and proactivity I was looking for. That particular person's executive position at Freedom Focused is all but assured when the time comes.
As for everyone else—the more passive portion of the PELT—I eventually disbanded the group in November 2021 once it had become clear that things remained in a prolonged holding pattern and that in seven years, only ONE individual had demonstrated sufficient interest, passion, and will to secure a long-term position by my side.
Thus, I remained ever at the mercy of Serendipity and its mysterious timing, which, while inexplicably exasperating at times, was, in the end, a huge blessing in disguise—as it almost always is.
Why is this?
Because despite the inordinate amount of unending failure, ignorings, and rejections, the fact always remained that I was perpetually FREE to continue pursuing the writing projects I loved so much without having to worry about making ends meet—thanks to Lina's SAL-imbued and Serendipitously successful career.
In other words, Serendipity and its concomitant timing was continually affording me the time freedom and opportunity to pursue the work I was most passionate about—writing, speaking, teaching, organizing, and leading. I may not have been achieving the external rewards and recognition I craved, but in the end, that is a small price to pay for the unspeakable blessing of keeping my life and career simple while I continued to refine and polish my professional prose on the Freedom Focused blog and additional iterations / editions of the SAL Textbook, which continued to get better and better each time I released a new, revised, and updated version of the comprehensive and holistic work.
The more time that passed, the more mature and percipient I became in recognizing the reality of these blessings, favors, and opportunities—and the super human wisdom of Serendipity.
Additional Rejection from Academia
Despite these growing—and comforting—realizations, the repeated failures and rejections continued to hurt and try my patience.
For example, additional publishing failures arose from The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) in the mainstream media and the prestigious Academy of Management Review (AMR) in academia.
The WSJ's Opinion Editorial department rejected a piece I wrote that offered a SAL-based, educational solution to the troubling "Me Too" movement, which had exploded onto the national and international scene in 2017.
The AMR, on the other hand, was a highly regarded and prestigious academic journal in the field of business management. My colleagues, Chris Neck and Rodney Beaulieu—one of my Doctoral professors and my Dissertation Chair—and I submitted a paper that postured SAL as a character education construct. The Editor-in-Chief of the AMR at the time was a successful management professor and member of my Church.
I was hoping this fact might help our cause.
It did not.
Fortunately, we were able to get this same paper published elsewhere. (47)
Two of the most painful failures of all came when I sent copies of my book—the FIFTH Edition of the SAL Textbook—to a couple of high-profile academics who were also members of my Church and whose personal and professional backgrounds and interests mirrored mine—asking them to review my work and provide me with an endorsement quote.
One of these persons never even bothered to write me back to say "Thank You" for the book, much less provide an endorsement quote. The other person rejected my invitation second-hand through his administrative assistant.
I later took the advice of a mentor to send the latter person a tee-shirt from his alma mater and ask again on the wings of this personalized gift. I figured I had nothing to lose to try, except for the $50 bucks I spent on the quality tee-shirt and postage. This second time around I was just completely ignored—by the scholar and his assistant.
Such experiences could be truly maddening at times.
Over time, I did develop a thick skin for dealing with failure and rejection. However, my skin was never as thick for being ignored. When someone rejects YOU—or your message, product, or service—at least they are giving you their time and attention, however momentarily.
Being ignored, on the other hand, always felt like the ultimate slap-in-the-face.
I recognized intellectually that those who ignored me almost certainly bore me no malice. They were most likely just busy people who lacked the energy and/or time and/or will to pay attention to some unknown upstart making a request of them when they had so many other, more pressing and proximate issues and tasks on their plate.
I also recognized the possibility that neither scholar ever even saw my letter, book, or tee-shirt. It's possible that their assistants simply filtered such requests from strangers so as to simplify their own boss's lives and workloads.
However rational and reasonable such though-processes were, this intellectual assent could never entirely assuage the smart and angst of being ignored, and I confess that I often took it personally.
Fortunately, I never let the bitterness rancor too excessively.
Rather, I used it as fuel—motivation—to continue to persist until I eventually succeeded in a consummate way.
There were times, however, when it took me a while to recover from a given disappointment or slight (perceived or real). For various reasons, being rejected by the two scholars who were members of my Church got under my skin more than usual and, for a time, infected my heart and soul with an acrimonious bile fomenting deep resentment within.
As a result, I suffered from a metaphorical ulcer of the heart and spirit—born of anger and bitterness—that festered for many months thereafter.
It obviously was not very SAL-savvy of me to respond to these rejections or ignorings in such an immature, ineffective, and unproductive manner. Nevertheless, I am only human after all, and it is incumbent upon me to be honest about how I really felt and the challenges I really faced as I tirelessly and repeatedly engaged a host of different initiatives aimed at building Freedom Focused.
Facts are more important—and must ultimately trump—feelings; that is simply a SAL truism that will never change.
However, this does not mean that feelings don't matter.
Feelings do matter... a lot!
Self-action leaders understand the importance of recognizing, acknowledging, and productively working through feelings. You cannot just ignore or bury them and hope they will disappear on their own. At the same time, you must likewise develop strategies for managing your emotions so they do not get out of control and trigger regrettable actions.
In the august and alliterative advice of Jim Rohn—that great 20th century business philosopher—self-action leaders must learn to: Discipline their Disappointment.
SAL Mantra
As a self-action leader, YOU must learn to Discipline your Disappointment.
There never seemed to be any shortage of disappointment in both the dating game and my business building efforts. Thus have I been cursed—or blessed, depending on how you look at it—with plenty of practice at disciplining my own disappointment.
Over time, I became very good at it—not at ignoring or burying my feelings; but, at productively working through negative feelings while concurrently disciplining my disappointment and remaining determined to persist until I eventually succeeded.
Over time, Serendipity—working in conjunction with my own devoted SAL efforts—helped me to work through my feelings and thereby release the negative energy that had taken a temporary stranglehold upon my mind, heart, and spirit. Part of the solution to my acrimonious angst was found in my growing recognition of the importance of timing in the ultimate success of SAL and Freedom Focused.
Another part of the solution arose in my accepting the reality that neither scholar who rejected and/or ignored me did so out of any ill will or malice; and even if they had done so, that would have been all the more reason to forgive them and move on. As the legendary Latter-Day Saint pioneer leader, Brigham Young, once put it: He who takes offense when offense is not intended is a fool. And he who takes offense when offense is intended is a greater fool.
"He who takes offense when offense is not intended is a fool.
And he who takes offense when offense is intended is a greater fool."
—Brigham Young
I also found myself feeling better as my own inner security grew. The more comfortable and confident I became in who I was and what I aimed to accomplish in the long-run, the less concerned I became with the approbation, approval, or recognition of external voices.
In other words, I got to a point where I stopped worrying so much about whether my work was being accepted by external arbiters and came to put my faith and trust more fully in the metaphysical timing and workings of Serendipity, which, I have come to discover over a lifetime of experiences, is far more dependable—in the long-run—than any human individual, team, organization, or other flawed, human entity.
Such experiences also reminded me of my lifelong commitment and determination to treat others better in the future than I myself had been treated in the past.
If I fail to do that, then I am no better than those who treated me poorly in the first place.
I can always accomplish this objective by paying more attention to, listening better, and empathizing more with others if and/or when our roles are ever reversed. Then, if and/or when it becomes necessary to reject them or their work, I can choose to do so with greater empathy, kindness, regard, and respect.
This experience—and others like them—have prompted a great deal of thought over the years about how I will do things differently when I find myself with the proverbial shoe on the other foot.
 |
Mohandas Gandhi
1867-1948 |
I hope, pray, and trust that I will demonstrate my commitment to consistently
be the change I wish to see in the world.
"YOU must be the change
you wish to see in the world."
—Mohandas Gandhi
In a larger sense, this desire to right past wrongs by treating others better than they treated me has always been one of my most basic and primal motivations driving the design and construction of Freedom Focused itself.
Western society—and the world at-large—is filled-to-overflowing with examples of individual, group, and organizational flaws, inequities, and sins that need to be remedied.
Many of these solutions are cosmetic, functional, and competency-based.
I am convinced, however, that the majority of these changes are character- and integrity-based solutions rooted in how individuals communicate with and treat each other, including their colleagues, clients, customers, subordinates, superiors, friends, family members—and even opponents and enemies.
It is worth noting here, however, that self-action leaders do everything in their power to avoid having enemies in the first place.
Indeed, one of the most salient hallmarks of an authentic self-action leader is that he or she strives to always be a peacemaker, wherever he or she goes and whatever he or she does.
As I have observed humanity through the lens of a lifetime of diverse and eclectic experiences, I have grown increasingly disappointed, frustrated, and disillusioned by the incompetence, laziness, cowardice, division, disrespect, incivility, infidelity, and lack of integrity I have continually witnessed all around me.
On the other hand, I have also been privy to witness many examples of the opposite, including remarkable personifications of competence, dedication, diligence, hard work, fidelity, courage, unity, respect, civility, and integrity.
It dawned on me early in my life that I had a duty and obligation to continually seek out, identify, and accentuate the positive, minimize or eliminate the negative, and then focus on doing things in the right way, for the right reason, at the right time.
This driving desire and purpose has led to an obsessive focus that continually fuels my efforts to build, teach, and lead Freedom Focused—not merely as a for-profit training organization, but also as a widespread movement for deep, integrated, and lasting cultural change in the Western world—and beyond.
 |
| 1803-1882 |
I believe I was placed here on this planet to lead the way to a better way of living, working, and coexisting together amidst an incredibly diverse, dynamic, and increasingly embattled world population.
As Ralph Waldo Emerson once put it: a healthy discontent is good.
"A healthy discontent is good."
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
For the better part of my life and career, I have been obsessively fixated on how to make this widespread cultural shift happen. Freedom Focused is my work-in-progress vehicle for bringing about this positive, productive, and highly desirable individual, organizational, and cultural change—which can only occur ONE self-action leader at a time.
It all begins with YOU and with me.
I have been doing my imperfect part since 1987.
I am confident that in time, many others will join me, formally speaking.
And together we will truly change the world.
Stay-at-Home Daddying
 |
Picking Tucker up from School
with Kara and Tyler-in-tow.
Spring (Houston) Texas
2018-2019 School Year
|
I became a full-time stay-at-home dad after I taught my last
SkillPath seminar on January 14, 2016.
In theory, I welcomed the opportunity to be home with my children and raise them up-close and personally on a temporary basis. After all, I had been on the road traveling extensively for the previous eight (8) years and felt I could use a break from travel.
In actual practice, however, I was poorly suited and ill-prepared to make such a significant career transition. The difference between life on the road as a traveling seminar facilitator and raising a three (3) year old (Tucker) and a one (1) year old (Kara), neither of whom were yet potty trained, was stark, vast, and pattern-interrupting—to say the very least!
I am not going to sugarcoat it: that first year just about killed me.
Second only to my 2-year, full-time missionary service, it was the hardest thing I have ever done
This difficulty was exacerbated by my call to teach an early morning religious course for high school students at my church. I have never been a "morning person," and I have rarely worked naturally and well with teenagers. Between the two of these nemeses, I felt like a zombie for much of that year.
 |
Kara
Circa 2017
Age 2 |
To add injury to difficulty, I had a wart surgically removed from my foot and was on crutches for a time in the fall—near the beginning of the school year.
Quite honestly, it felt like life was fiendishly, gratuitously, and relentlessly dumping on me.
At the end of the school year, my wife suggested I ask to be released from the early morning church calling. She did not have to make this suggestion twice! Lina pointed out to me that our church leaders would likely not have called a young stay-at-home MOM with small children to teach an early morning scripture class; so, why would they call a young, stay-at-home DAD with small children at home to do the same thing?
To their credit, our church leaders were indeed very understanding and immediately granted me an honorable release. I did insist, however, that I complete the final two weeks of the school year with the dozen-or-so students I had grown to love and respect during our time together in the pre-dawn hours of school days.
 |
Kara and Tucker around the time I first
became a stay-at-home Dad.
Conroe (Houston) Texas
Circa 2016 |
Though this year of teaching the
New Testament to 15- and 16-year-olds was a worthwhile experience for which I am grateful, I was also enormously relieved to have the burden removed from off my shoulders.
When I first began my foray into stay-at-home parenting, I assumed it would be a short-term gig. After all, I had just recently published the FIFTH Edition of the SAL Textbook—by far the best version of my work to-date—which I had been working on for more than a decade.
As far as I was concerned, it was only a matter of weeks or perhaps months before success swooped in and rescued me from this new, jarring, and highly unanticipated domestic arrangement.
But, as is often the case in life, weeks turned into months, which then evolved into years, which eventually morphed into an entire decade-and-counting!
As the Beatles so ironically, yet tellingly croon:
"Life is what happens to you while
you are busy making other plans."
—John Lennon
I openly confess that this incredibly unexpected and significant career shift in the prime of my personal and professional life began as a ponderous burden—a veritable ball and chain.
In time, it would gradually—and I mean very gradually—evolve into one of the greatest and most joyous and profound blessings of my entire life.
But in the beginning, it was so challenging and proved to be such a dramatically jarring transition from what I had been doing as a traveling contract trainer that there were moments when I felt like I was teetering on the edge of sanity. This feeling was not, in and of itself, unique given my lifelong proclivities toward mental illness. Indeed, there have been many moments in a variety of different life circumstances over a period of many years and decades where I have felt this way.
It is not a pleasant place to find oneself!
 |
I was never a big fan of the zoo myself; but
once I became a stay-at-home dad, I quickly
becamse a big fan of the zoo!
Houston Zoo
2016 |
Stay-at-home parenting exacerbated this feeling in the extreme, especially in the beginning.
On the plus side, these parenting adversities were co-mingled with many satisfying and joyful moments, the combination of which paved the way for enormous personal growth, maturation, and familial closeness and unity. It also provided me with all the time I would need on the side to continue honing my skills, talents, and publications as a writer.
In the past three (3) chapters, I have written in great detail about my personal and professional "failures." And indeed, I have experienced my share—and perhaps much more than my share—of temporary failure.
But, the operative word in this context is "temporary."
 |
Enjoying a mini horse and wagon ride
with Tucker and Kara soon after
bcoming a stay-at-home dad.
Spring, Texas
2016 |
As my outlook has matured with the onward march of time, I have come to realize with increasing clarity that what I often termed to be "failures," were, in reality, important "stepping stones" to success. In other words, they weren't so much failures as they were disguised successes...
Much like two different sides of the exact same coin.
Moreover, the confluence of these many seeming failures created a brand new opportunity in my life that has since become one of the greatest blessings and most cherished successes of all, and that is the chance I have had to be a stay-at-home dad and raise my three precious children up-close and personally.
After all, the success of my marriage and family is—and always will be—more important to me than any professional successes I might enjoy now... or in the future.
As one author put it more than a century ago: No other success can compensate for failure in the home. (48)
"No other success can compensate for failure in the home."
—James Edward McCulloch
 |
Lina with newborn baby, Kara Marie
Houston, Texas area
Spring 2015 |
As with so many other good things in my life—including the time and opportunity I have had to build Freedom Focused—I owe much to my wife, Lina, and the SAL and Serendipity that has made her successful career possible. Simply stated, I
never could have succeeded in the same way without
her.
My life would be infinitely poorer—literally and metaphorically—without Lina in it.
Despite taking three (3) maternity leaves and several years of part-time positions (and pay) to bear and raise our children, Lina has continually thrived in her corporate career—and her salary and bonuses have continued to rise right along with her outstanding and highly-rated work performances. It is hard to overestimate the importance of this enormous blessing in my life and career. It has been a cornerstone of everything good in my life (and our lives) since Lina's first day on the job in May 2009.
 |
Teaching a genealogy course at Lone Star
College with Kara and Tyler in-tow.
The Woodlands, Texas
Circa 2018-2019 |
When I think about the role Lina has played in my life and career, I am reminded of a quote I have heard Country Music legend Garth Brooks repeat on multiple occasions on the radio. Said he:
Grace is when God gives you something that you don't deserve, and mercy is when God doesn't give you something that you do deserve.
"Grace is when God gives you
something that you don't deserve,
and mercy is when God doesn't
give you something that you do deserve."
—Anonymous quote oft repeated by: Garth Brooks
As I have reflected on this quote, I have been struck by how much and how often my life has been touched by both grace and mercy (Serendipity).
To wit: GRACE has blessed me with an incredible life full of health, vitality, vigor, drive, energy, and vision. It has also blessed me with a wife whose career—that I have had virtually nothing to do with—has completely supported our family for much of our marriage and given me the opportunity to continually pursue my own career dream while raising our three kids as a stay-at-home dad.
On the other hand, MERCY has mercifully delayed my own career breakthrough until the time is right and I am truly ready to handle and lead it. While such "mercy" has sometimes felt terribly frustrating—more akin to a curse than a blessing—it has ultimately saved me from myself and my own worst impulses and paved the way for a higher and better way to succeed in the long-run that will help far more people in the end.
MERCY has further rescued me from the throes of financial disaster and other pits of mental illness and despair in which I have sometimes found myself mired over the years.
 |
Soon after moving to Florida, Kara discovered she had a talent for catching wild lizards. Here she is with four (4) of them at once. Palm Beach Gardens, Florida
Circa 2022-23 |
Suffice it to say, the mysterious metaphysical forces of Serendipity have been an omnipresent, omniscient, and ultimately an omnipotent power and presence in my life and career. These forces have served as my personal and professional salvation on multiple occasions throughout my life and have consistently synergized with my own best efforts (SAL) to bring about the best possible outcomes in the long-run.
As hard as stay-at-home parenting was at first, things got better over time.
There were two (2) reasons for this.
FIRST: No matter how hard things were, I stuck with my parental responsibilities and refused to give up. As a result, I became better at my job and grew more confident in my role over time.
As Emerson once eloquently put it: That which we persist in doing becomes easier—not that the nature of the task itself has changed, but our power to do it has increased.
"That which we persist in doing becomes easier over time—not that the
nature of the task itself has changed, but our power to do it has increased.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
 |
With my newborn baby and namesake:
Tyler "Jordan" in my home office.
Conroe (Houston) Texas
Fall 2018 |
SECOND: As my children grew older, they became more independent and easier to tend.
This was true until August 27, 2018, when Tyler—our third child and second son—was born.
Then things got hard again!
But after several more years, things gradually started to get easier leading up to August 2023 when, for the first time in my stay-at-home parenting career, all three (3) of my kids were attending school full-time.
I thought I had died and gone to heaven for all the extra time I had in the middle of the day to get things done around the house, exercise, take naps, take myself out to lunch, and work on the SAL blog and SAL Textbook.
 |
Kara and Tucker with a couple of "Power Tales"
biographies I love sharing with them.
Carlsbad, New Mexico
2020 |
During the more challenging years when I still had kids at home during the school year—and during the summer months when all three kids were home for a 10-week summer break—I developed a productive schedule that worked for the kids and me and was based more on spontaneity and a prioritized balance of activities as opposed to a rigid routine and schedule.
As an adult, I have rarely been a fan of routine.
My personality thrives on variety, productivity, spontaneity, and time freedom.
Knowing this about myself, I consciously eschew running the "Good Ship Jensen" on a strict routine and disallow the clock from becoming a tyrant in our schedules or life. Instead of focusing on time slots and deadlines, I focus on values and priorities, which include the following:
- Faith, Prayer, and Scripture Instruction
- Character and Life Lessons
- Personal Liberty and Freedom
- Education
- Talent and Skill Development
- Variety and Balance
- Outdoor Play and Exploration
- Indoor Play and Exploration
- Household chores and responsibilities (teaching and modeling hard work)
- Screen Time on a limited—but not an austere—basis
- Road Tripping and Outdoor Adventuring
- Yummy Edibles, including sugary treats and drinks in moderation
- Health, Fitness, and Nutrition
 |
Wading in a stream (Pecos River)
Carlsbad, New Mexico
Summer 2020 |
Instead of enforcing a predictable schedule and strict routine, I make sure that every day is different and unique at the Jensen home based on things the kids actually
want to do.
I operate this paradigm within a framework of key scheduled events such as: school hours, church worship and activities, designated family time, and formal extracurricular activities. This philosophy allows the kids and I to enjoy plenty of variety, spontaneity, freedom, and fun while still ensuring everything we do is aligned with our core values and priorities.
We then make adjustments based on pressing deadlines and responsibilities (e.g. grocery shopping, doctor and dentist appointments, et cetera) in conjunction with the visceral communications of our Conscience, which I have found consistently provides me with inner promptings or warnings that signal when we may be spending too much time on screens (or something else) or too little time together or on more productive activities, thus necessitating an intentional shift in our focus to another priority or value.
 |
Another "Daddy Fun Week" enroute to
our home in southeast Texas.
Durango, Colorado
Circa 2018 |
These techniques may not be ideal for all parents at all stages of parenting. For example, some parent and child personalities will be better suited to stricter schedules and routines. Nevertheless, I have found this approach to be very effective for us in the aggregate of our busy lives.
In addition to allotting ample focus and time to our core values and priorities, this approach further favors us with a lot of liberty and autonomy to make our own decisions about what we do, how we do it, and when we do it, which has the potential to be an enlarging, empowering, and motivating experience—for kids and their parents.
Giving my kids a lot of time freedom within the well-defined boundaries and parameters of our family values and priorities has enabled them to be more courageous, creative, independent, productive, self-reliant, self-directing, and self-managing than they would be had I applied more of a strict, micromanaging, or otherwise heavy-handed approach.
This philosophy has invited and encouraged our children to become self-action leaders without boring them with constant speeches about and otherwise drilling them on the subject. They still get their share of SAL and character instruction and practice, of course; it just occurs more spontaneously as opposed to being delivered in a rigidly scheduled manner.
Along the way, I have striven to provide them with plenty of opportunity and latitude to explore the world around them—both
inside and
outside |
Visiting a Stonehenge replica on a
"Daddy Fun Weekend."
Odessa, TX
Fall 2020 |
of our home—in order to discover their own natural aptitudes, interests, skills, and talents.
Then, rather than corral them into doing the exact same things I enjoyed or excelled at when I was their age, I carefully observe what they naturally enjoy doing and the activities in which they demonstrate an inherent ability, interest, and/or talent.
For example: I was very athletic as a kid. I was especially good at basketball and running. My son, Tucker, however, has never demonstrated the same ability, interest, or propensities towards sports. So, while we signed him up to play basketball for one season to learn the sport and have a new experience, we did not sign him up for subsequent seasons because it wasn't something he had any interest in or passion to pursue any further.
But you should see the fluidity of that kid's fingers with a Rubix Cube, the ease with which he aces his algebra tests, or hear him play the piano—three (3) different skills with which I was mostly "all thumbs"!
I also take advantage of opportunities to let my children experience and take part in activities that I never tried myself.
 |
Tucker and Kara in their Taekwondo "doboks"
Carlsbad, New Mexico
Winter 2020-2021 |
To wit: Neither Lina nor I ever participated in any kind of formal martial arts. Yet, we enrolled our two older kids in a Taekwondo class when we lived in New Mexico. More recently, my youngest child—Tyler—has been pursuing the Filipino martial art, Eskrima, even more seriously than his older siblings pursued Taekwondo because he has shown a lot of interest in and passion for the sport. We also recently signed Tyler up to play soccer—a sport I never played formally growing up.
Another example of this philosophy involves my daughter, Kara, who loves—and has demonstrated much talent in—the visual arts. Neither Lina nor I have any talent or interest in the visual arts ourselves. But it is clear that Kara does. We are therefore doing everything we can to provide her with the tools, coaching, and educational opportunities she desires to embrace in developing her talent—but without applying undo pressure to excel.
In other words, we encourage, support, and praise, but do
not push—a wonderful lesson I learned from my own parents' parenting examples.
 |
Kara's portrait of her little brother, Tyler
Fall 2025 |
Kara has thrived in this low-pressure, yet highly supportive environment.
Most importantly, she has been able to maintain—and accelerate—the immense personal satisfaction and joy she continually experiences from her potpourri of artistic pursuits.
Some of our OUTDOOR adventures and exploring include: going out to eat and visiting libraries, historical monuments, museums, stores, arcades, bowling alleys, zoos, and parks.
Oh, my... we have visited so many parks!
 |
States visited on one particularly long,
ambitious, and eventful "Daddy Fun Week."
In all, it involved 3-4 weeks.
Summer of 2017 |
We are also enthusiastic and ambitious road trippers, having hit the highways for many a "Daddy Fun Day," "Daddy Fun Overnight," "Daddy Fun Weekend," and in some summer instances, an entire "Daddy Fun Week."
Early on, the kids came to appreciate and share in my love of road trips, including staying in hotels. Many such journeys, in fact, involved just the kids and me. Lina was often unable to join us because of her work schedule. For longer, summer trips, Lina's work schedule would require her to fly to-and-from our destination, while the kids and I would take our time driving there-and-back.
One of the kids' and my longer trips together involved a road trip from Texas to Utah and then back home to Texas—taking a different return route than we had taken initially so we could see new sights and experience new adventures.
 |
Sampling of the kids and my most
creative perler bead creations. |
We visited a total of nine (9) different States over the course of our extended journey!
Some of our INDOOR adventures involve art, books, LEGOs, puzzles, screen time, toys, trains, and perler beads—oh, my, did we assemble some creative perler bead projects together!
Another solution to the various "Daddying Dilemmas" I faced came in the form of gym daycare.
During the years we lived in the Houston, Texas area, I discovered that the local YMCA gym had a daycare where I could take my kids for a couple of hours each day while I worked out. Aside from being hugely healthy for me physically, mentally, and emotionally, it was concurrently fun for the kids to have a change of scenery and spend time with other kids.
After we moved to Florida, I practiced this habit again at local gyms near our home in the Sunshine State.
During the time we spent in Carlsbad, New Mexico from March 2020 to January 2021, I did not have access to the same kind of gym benefits, and even if I had, the COVID-19 pandemic would have eliminated those options.
 |
Wreath-laying with the Cub Scouts
South Florida National Cemetery
Lake Worth, Florida
2022 |
Nevertheless, even in the midst of this unusually trying set of circumstances, Serendipity provided a way for me to continue to sneak in a daily workout. This blessing came in the form of meeting a nice family that had a couple of daughters who we paid to babysit our kids for three (3) hours each weekday so I could go swim, bike, and/or run in preparation for a
half IRONMAN (70.3-mile) triathlon I was training for.
The triathlon ended up getting cancelled because of the pandemic, which was disappointing.
But I'll forever cherish the blessed hours I spent swimming in Lakes Avalon, Brantley, and Carlsbad, as well as the precious time I spent biking across the dry and dusty, yet sunny and picturesque panorama of the Land of Enchantment's (49) highways and byways.
Our faith, prayer, scripture study, and character and life lessons are also not something I strictly schedule. Rather, I attend to it at regular intervals, much of which occurs spontaneously in conjunction with relevant situations taking place in the daily interplay of our real lives. Thus, while I am not strict—nor am I a stickler—when it comes to formal SAL or religious lessons and instruction, it is fair to say I am continually incorporating it spontaneously into our daily lives through literature, multimedia, prayer, and most importantly, my own example and precept as a dad.
 |
Lotsa sugary treats and lotsa LOVE...
'tis the simplified mantra of my parenting style.
All things considered, it's worked out pretty well! |
I'm a big believer that
most people are primarily
visual learners. I think this is especially true of kids. As such, I am a big fan of color content and video presentations. I have found
YouTube—and the Internet in general—to be a nonpareil resource for educational aides of all kinds on any subject imaginable. For this reason, I feel enormously fortunate to be a parent in the Age of Information and feel my kids are similarly blessed to have their early education so richly endowed with a cornucopia of diverse educational tools at my / their fingertips. For this reason, I have largely given my kids free reign of such resources—while keeping an eye out to make sure they are avoiding garbage sites, of course.
And it never ceases to amaze me how naturally inclined they are to watching inherently educational content all on their own—unprompted by me.
 |
Jordan Rex and Tyler Jordan
out to lunch together
Jupiter, Florida
Circa 2022-23 |
One of the best parts about being a stay-at-home dad was that it has given me time to continue my professional writing with Freedom Focused.
At times when I had a significant project at hand, such as the SIXTH Edition of the SAL Textbook, Lina and I were able to pay a close and trusted friend to tend the kids for blocks of time when I needed to work.
Thank YOU, Lindsey Law!
Later, when I completed the SEVENTH Edition of the SAL Textbook in between September 2023 and May 2026, I was able to complete the work without hiring any babysitters, since the kids were all in school by that point in time.
The deeper I got into my full-time job as a stay-at-home dad, the more I appreciated and enjoyed it, the more fulfilling the work became, and the closer my kids and I grew in our relationships. After all, is there any work worthier than loving, educating, and nurturing one's own children? For me, aside from continually cultivating a positive relationship with my wife, the answer to this question is a resounding no!
Don't get the wrong idea here...
 |
Tyler, Kara, and Tucker enjoying nature's wonders
in the Great Sunshine State.
Palm Beach Gardens, Florida
Circa 2022 |
This doesn't mean there weren't times when I was pining for Freedom Focused to finally take off so I could forge full steam ahead into my chosen career path. Indeed, there were moments virtually every day—and especially so for the first five (5) years—when I desperately wished for
that to happen.
Nevertheless, despite feeling frustrated and restless in many such instances, I continually reminded myself how fortunate I was to be a stay-at-home parent—and how blessed our entire family was because of Lina's successful career.
During the second five (5) years—from 2021-2026—I gradually felt less of a need for Freedom Focused to take off and got better at recognizing that the proverbial "grass" is not always "greener" on the other side of the fence. In other words, I became better at enjoying the journey without being unduly fixated on the destination. I also came to understand more clearly the extent of the price in time, effort, growth, and maturation that would be required to arrive at a destination as lofty as I had in mind.
 |
Tyler putting up his dukes shortly
after beginning Eskrima classes.
Palm Beach Gardens, Florida
2025 |
Most importantly, it was during this time that I developed close, fulfilling, and joyful relationships with my children and wife. Back when I had been traveling all the time as a contract trainer, I had become a little smug about the ease of being a father.
Of course fathering is easy when you aren't around to father!
Staying at home full-time with my kids was a deeply humbling, yet healthy dose of reality.
Nevertheless, the benefits and joy ultimately outweighed the exertion and sacrifice.
Growing up, I never anticipated how much cleaning, diaper changing, dishwashing, food preparation and procurement, laundering, potty-training, taxiing, tidying, and wiping I would end up doing around my own home.
But that is okay.
Nobody's life turns out exactly the way they initially assume or plan.
In the final analysis, and with the benefit of a lot of hindsight, I would not significantly change anything about the way my life has unfolded—even if I had the power to do so. Somehow, Serendipity has always seemed to know what was best for me all along the way. Moreover, it seems as though things always end up playing out according to the direction of its invisible, yet continually guiding hand in direct proportion to my willingness to consistently and faithfully exercise SAL to the best of my imperfect ability.
And in the end, that makes for a deal that tips liberally in MY and YOUR favor as self-action leaders.
What of Freedom Focused?
Lina's and my decision for me to become a full-time stay-at-home dad did not end my intention to or efforts at building Freedom Focused. It simply put it on the back-burner and turned it into a side gig or part-time project, which, in reality, it always had been since June 2006.
So, what happened with these ongoing efforts from 2016 to 2026?
The next two (2) sections provide a comprehensive answer to this question.
In December 2016, a landmark event occurred when I had the chance to teach Freedom Focused's first all-day seminar.
After my non-compete contracts expired with Fred Pryor, an old client asked me if I would teach one of my own courses on grammar and e-communication etiquette to two different groups over the course of two consecutive days.
I spent several months writing these two original courses, which I was paid handsomely to deliver.
I taught these two courses in the same city—College Station, Texas—where Fred Pryor had booked me to teach my very first all-day professional seminar more than nine (9) years earlier.
You might say I had come full circle there in Aggieland—deep in the Heart of Texas.
This locational coincidence felt like a good omen and I thought perhaps we were finally on to something. I therefore pursued various avenues in an effort to market and sell additional bookings on the same course. Unfortunately, as was so often the case, sales and marketing were never my strong suit, and I was unsuccessful in my effort to book other gigs.
Nevertheless, it remained an encouraging start.
Once my two (2) oldest children had started kindergarten and preschool, I had more time to work on Freedom Focused, particularly on key writing projects, including the SIXTH Edition of the SAL Textbook. It was during this period of time when I received opportunities to co-author and publish my first five (5) peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles.
Four (4) of these articles were published in the Journal of Leadership and Management (JLM), out of Marie Curie Sklodowska University in Lublin, Poland. The JLM was a nascent upstart that lacked prestige in elite academic circles, which was perfect for me and Freedom Focused because it meant they were willing to pay attention to my obscure work and give it a platform. Though it was not a highly visible platform, it was certainly better than nothing.
I felt honored to be included!
Two (2) of these papers were later published in a couple of anthologies on the subject of leadership and management. (50)
The fifth of these academic papers was published in the Journal of Management, Spirituality, and Religion and shared the story of my Uncle Hyrum W. Smith's journey in building FranklinCovey with Stephen R. Covey. It further analyzed the influence of religion and spirituality on the lives and careers of both Smith and Covey. (51)
SIXTH Edition of the SAL Textbook
In late 2017, Freedom Focused was favored with its first Publishing House success when Cambridge Scholars Publishing out of Newcastle upon Tyne in the United Kingdom reached out to me with an interest in publishing the SIXTH Edition of the SAL Textbook.
This was a landmark event in my career because all previous editions of the SAL Textbook had either been self-published or gone unpublished. Finally, after 12 years of trying to attract a traditional Publishing House to print my work, I landed a "REAL" publishing deal.
Soon after signing the contract, I began work on a comprehensive revision of the FIFTH Edition, thereby turning it into a 2-volume, SIXTH Edition. My decision to reformat the work into two (2) volumes was a matter of necessity—the publisher had length limits on their books and the word count of the SAL Textbook at this point in time significantly surpassed that limit.
It was not hard to determine where to make the volume split because the complete work was already naturally divided into the SAL Theory and SAL Model sections. When I would ultimately reunite the two sections into a single, complete volume for the SEVENTH Edition—the format I always felt it ultimately belonged—the divided SIXTH Edition was helpful to me as an author as it enabled me to further conceptualize the entire project within a context of its constituent parts.
 |
SIXTH Edition of the SAL Textbook
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Published in 2019 |
Thus, the ONE-volume work is divided into two (2) major sections, eight (8) smaller books, and approximately one hundred (100) chapters, each of which are then further subdivided into chapter sub-sections.
Like all previous iterations of the SAL Textbook, the SIXTH Edition did not bear the fruit I had hoped it would, despite my ongoing marketing efforts (see next section, College Football Fail). But that was okay. By this stage of the game, I was thoroughly convinced that my job was not to ensure its success as a marketer and salesman. My job was to continue perfecting the text and trust in Serendipity's timing.
It was a reiterative reminder of what I had known deep down all along; namely, that I was more of a leader, philosopher, poet, organizer, thinker, and writer than I was a businessman, entrepreneur, manager, marketer, or salesman. This evolving perspective empowered me to focus more exclusively on producing high quality original content rather than trying to build a corporate training company from the ground up.
It was a powerful reminder—much to my relief, I might add—that my individual VOICE (52) and career destiny lay primarily in teaching, writing, speaking, organizing, and leading, with entrepreneurialism, business building, marketing, sales, and management being secondary or tertiary functions, the details of which would, in-time, be delegated almost entirely to others.
This period of evolution and self-discovery further clarified for me that Freedom Focused's destiny lies as much in the academic world and schools as it does in the business world and homes. In truth, I had always had one foot in academe and one foot in business—and always would.
Freedom Focused exists at the nexus of these two arenas—and every other arena for that matter.
Indeed, in a larger sense, Freedom Focused is even more expansive than academia and business. It is equally relevant and applicable to individuals, homes, and all other individuals and organizations.
The SAL Philosophy, Theory, and Model are universal constructs with an all-encompassing audience in mind. In other words, the entire human race—or at least those members of the human race interested in becoming learners, practitioners, and recipients of Existential Growth and expanded FREEDOM.
In short, to become...
Self Action Leaders!
Ironically, this simple truth had been relatively evident to me going back to Freedom Focused's earliest days in 2003. Nevertheless, it took me more than two decades (and counting) of difficult, painful, educational, refining, and exhilaratingly adventurous years before I would fully understand it.
Moreover, it took that long to create and refine the work into the polished product it is today, now in its landmark SEVENTH Edition. And there will be, no doubt, additional iterations and editions that will be even better in coming years and decades.
Thus, I learned in the lobotomous laboratory and painful production plant of REAL LIFE the stirring truisms spoken by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., and T.S. Eliot.
 |
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
1809-1894 |
"I wouldn't give a fig for the simplicity on this
side of complexity. But I would give my right arm
for the simplicity on the far side of complexity."
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time." (52)
—T.S. Eliot
Throughout my career, I have often felt as though I am a round peg trying to fit into a life and world full of square holes. My older brother, Joe, replied to this remark by suggesting perhaps I was an octagonal peg and I needed to find an octagonal hole in which to fit.
As I have pondered this metaphor in intervening years, I have come to the inescapable conclusion that—for better or for worse—I am an octagonal peg, Freedom Focused is my "octagonal hole," and I must not shrink from my duty and responsibility to see it through to completion, whatever that ends up looking like.
There simply isn't any other place for me to go or any other thing for me to do, or be.
I am the SAL and FREEDOM guy.
And it is my destiny to write the SAL Textbook and found and lead Freedom Focused.
 |
JJ as a middle-distance cross-country
and track runner for UVSC (now UVU).
Weber State University Track
Ogden, Utah
Spring 2003 |
College Football Fail
The last big marketing and sales initiative I attempted—before hanging my hat up for good in those areas where I was less skilled and motivated—targeted collegiate athletics.
I have always been interested in college sports.
I was a college athlete myself. (54)
I have taken espeical interest over the years in college football.
I grew up cheering for Brigham Young University (BYU), the alma mater of my parents and most of my siblings. As an elementary school student in 1989-1991, I all but worshipped quarterback Ty Detmer, who went on to win the Heisman Trophy—awarded each year to the best player in college football—in 1990. My older brothers were students at BYU at the time and managed to snag me a bag full of swag—including a couple of Ty Detmer autographs, which I proudly displayed in my bedroom.
Once, while on campus with my older brother, we ran into Derwin Gray (55)—one of Ty Detmer's teammates—at the Cougareat (56), where I met and secured another autograph from one of my football-playing heroes.
 |
I never played formally played on a
tackle football team. But I loved the sport
and played a lot of it otherwise. Here
I am dressed in full football gear for
Halloween in Mesa, Arizona.
Circa 1989 |
Growing up, I also attended an occasional college football game. Two of the more memorable ones included the 1989
Holiday Bowl against Penn State at
Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego and a regular season game against UCLA in the
Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena in September 1992. My dad was a season ticket holder for decades, so I also attended several home games over the years as well.
My enthusiasm as a BYU fan waned significantly after I failed to gain full-time admission as a student, and I began to "Bleed Green" upon enrolling at Utah Valley State College (now Utah Valley University) in the fall of 2001. This loyalty to the Wolverines over the Cougars was further bolstered by competing for UVSC's varsity cross-country and track & field teams during the 2002-03 school year.
UVSC did not, however, have a football team. Thus, after moving to Georgia and becoming acquainted with the college football Mecca that exists in the Southeastern Conference (SEC), I was free to pick a new team to cheer for.
I'll never forget one Saturday evening in early November 2005. I was on a long drive home to Utah after completing a Freedom Focused marketing trip to visit high schools in Illinois, Indiana, and Georgia. As I headed east on Interstate 20 from Atlanta, I just happened to pass through Tuscaloosa during the annual Alabama vs. LSU football game.
There was very little traffic in Tuscaloosa that day.
Indeed, the town seemed quiet—almost dead.
 |
Convenience store in Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Day of the LSU vs. Alabama game, 2005 |
But the closer I came to
Bryant Denny Stadium, the louder and more boisterous the atmosphere grew. I did not have a ticket to the game and never got super close to the stadium itself, but I did run into the tailgaters—layer-upon-layer of fully equipped diehard fans camped outside the stadium cooking, eating, socializing, and watching the game on technology.
It was unlike anything I had ever seen before.
Nick Saban was not even 'Bama's coach yet.
And I thought BYU vs. Utah was a big deal in football!
This unforgettable moment in time was just one more experience that prepared me to switch my loyalties from BYU and the Mountain West Conference to a new team in the mighty SEC.
Growing up in the 1980s and 90s, the achievements of Florida, Florida State, and Miami were not lost on me. As a BYU fan, the Cougars' upset of #1 ranked Miami in September 1990 was a huge deal and an EPIC accomplishment in the eyes of Cougar fans and many others.
In high school, I bought and often wore a University of Florida hat during the height of Steve Spurrier's reign as the Gators' head coach.
With these seeds already planted in my mind and heart, and impressed by what Urban Meyer had achieved during his brief, two-year stint as head coach of the University of Utah (BYU's traditional arch rival) before landing an even bigger gig in Gainesville coaching the tradition-rich Gators, I began to consider becoming a Florida Gators fan.
Then there was Meyer's personal card (on Gator stationery) that he kindly sent to me in response to my sending him a copy of the FIRST Edition of the SAL Textbook and requesting an endorsement quote.
Lastly, there was the night I met my wife, Lina. It was Saturday, September 16, 2006. That unforgettable evening, a college football game was playing on television at the house party where Lina and I met. The matchup pitted the Florida Gators against the Tennessee Volunteers in historic and raucous Neyland Stadium in Knoxville.
Urban's Gators eked out a thrilling, one-point (21-20) victory against the Volunteers that night.
The question of which SEC team would gain my loyalties had been answered.
I was officially a Florida Gators fan.
I did not know at the time that my future wife's best friend was attending school at UF in Gainesville, or that my future father-in-law was a Gator with two (2) degrees from the University of Florida.
It was EPIC timing to become a Gator fan and I was well rewarded for my decision as the Gators proceeded to win all but one of their games during the 2006 season en route to upsetting the Ohio State Buckeyes (42-14) in the BCS National Championship game in early January 2007 in Phoenix.
It was the first time that "my team" had ever won a National Championship. BYU had won it all in 1984, but I was only five years old at the time and would not officially become a fan until 1989.
I was rewarded further a couple of years later during Tim Tebow's legendary junior season, which proceeded in a fashion strikingly similar to 2006, where the Gators completed another one-loss season capped by another BCS National Championship victory—this time over the Oklahoma Sooners in January 2009 in Miami.
 |
| I spent seven (7) seasons as a loyal Buckeye fan. |
I remained an active Florida Gators fan until Urban Meyer retired after the 2010 season. It was clear to me at this point that I was more of an Urban Meyer fan than I was a Florida Gators fan. It was, therefore, no surprise when I switched my loyalties to the Ohio State Buckeyes when Urban Meyer was hired as head coach in Columbus in 2012.
Meyer turned around the Buckeyes' struggling program immediately in his first season at the helm—even more quickly than he had returned the Gators program to greatness in 2005. After an undefeated regular season his first year coaching in 2012, he led the Buckeyes to a National Championship victory over the Oregon Ducks (42-20) in January 2015—in his third season.
Three "Nattys" in nine (9) years!
It was about as good a run as most fans could ever hope for or dream of.
I continued to cheer for Ohio State through the 2019 season—a year after Meyer's retirement—and then switched my loyalties back to the Florida Gators when we moved to the Sunshine State in 2021.
My alma mater, Utah Valley University, still does not have a football program, leaving me no choice but to cheer on an alternative team in football, and for the time being, I remain a loyal GATORS fan.
 |
Moving to the Sunshine State reinvigorated
my fan loyalty to the Florida GATORS.
Florida State Line
February 2021 |
I share this background about my college football (and sport) fanship as a backdrop with which to frame my decision to begin marketing the SAL Textbooks and seminars to college athletic teams and departments beginning in 2020.
Between my lifelong love of college sports—and my experience as a college athlete myself—it just made sense to try my luck pitching my product and services to an audience to whom I could readily relate.
I took the following steps in a couple years' long effort to gain a toehold in the college athletics market.
STEP ONE: Compiled an email list of university Athletic Directors, Head Coaches, Assistant Coaches, and other athletic department personnel. This list included approximately 6,000 persons from 135 different NCAA Division-1 universities.
STEP TWO: Sent out regular mass emails to all 6,000 athletic department personnel on my email marketing list.
STEP THREE: Sent complimentary hard copies of my newly published, 2-volume, SIXTH Edition of the SAL Textbook to coaches, athletic directors, et cetera who proactively responsed back to my marketing emails. My publisher—Cambridge Scholars Publishing—provided me with a dozen-or-so free copies of the work for use in these kinds of marketing and sales purposes, and I took advantage of this offer by distributing the books on a "first come, first serve" basis in conjunction with my email marketing campaign.
Individuals who showed this proactive interest in my material and received free review copies of both volumes of the SIXTH Edition of the SAL Textbooks were employed by the following universities:
- University of Arizona
- University of Oregon
- University of Washington
- Louisiana Tech University
- Virginia Polytechnic University (Virginia Tech)
- Clemson University
- Utah Tech University
- Florida Atlantic University
- Memphis University
- Middle Tennessee State University
- Tulane University
- The Ohio State University
Persons showing interest in SAL products and services at these universities included:
- Two (2) Head football coaches
- Head cross-country coach
- Head women's basketball coach
- Head women's golf coach
- Head women's tennis coach
- Director of Operations for men's soccer team
- Senior Associate Athletics Director
- Executive Director, Major Gifts
- Football Academic Advisor / Director of Player Development
- Assistant Athletic Director for Student Athlete Development
- Associate Athletic Director for Student-Athlete Welfare
- Associate Athletic Director for Development
- Director of Learning Resources / Student Athlete Academic Services
- Associate Athletic Director / Sports Psychologist / Leadership Institute Member
- Academic Advisor
STEP FOUR: Continued to email all 6,000 contacts on a weekly basis with additional information, marketing and sales pitches, and links to my blog for months-on-end.
STEP THREE: Continued to cultivate key relationships with those who had proactively expressed interest in and received hard copies of my 2-volume textbook.
Despite all of these marketing and relationship-building efforts over a 2-year period, I did not book a single seminar; nor did I sell any addittional copies of the SIXTH Edition of the SAL Textbook.
I did, however, generate some added interest from a Senior Associate Athletics Director at the University of Florida, who took time out to schedule two (2) different virtual meetings to further investigate my product and services. The head Athletic Director at UF at the time also sent me a complimentary Gator hat as a way of saying "Thank You" for sending him and his colleague copies of my books.
I appreciated these tokens of consideration and respect and will never forget these gentleman for their kindness. I wore my Gator hat with pride, and even though I never booked any actual business with UF, I felt a certain kinship with the university because it was in my home state, I cheered for their football team, and they were the ones who demonstrated the greatest and most proactive outreach to Freedom Focused.
I felt a similar kinship and affection for Ed Orgeron, former head football coach at Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge because, like Urban Meyer and Mark Richt before him, he personally answered my outreach and thanked me for sending him a copy of my book.
I recognize the possibility that Coach O never even saw my work and that this card was produced by one of his administrative staff members. But, until proven otherwise, I choose to give him the benefit of the doubt.
After experiencing such wholesale rejection and/or being completely ignored by nearly everyone I ever reached out to, I found myself feeling sincerely grateful to those extraordinarily few who—while they may not have bought any books or booked any semianrs—still demonstrated the courtesy to take a few moments out of their busy schedule to acknowledge me as a human being as say "Thank You" for reaching out and making the offer. To me, this was always a strong indication of character, integrity, courtesy, and human goodness, and I'll never forget those who demonstrated these positive personal and professional traits in their interactions with me.
One of the things that made Coach Orgeron's note extra special was the fact that it was sent just weeks after his team won the 2019 National Championship by fielding one of the greatest college football teams in history, led by the legendary, record-breaking, and Heisman Trophy winning Joe Burrow—or, as they affectionately spell his name in Cajun Country: Jeaux Burreaux!
Geaux Tigers!
Note: I cheer for LSU whenever they are not playing Florida.
Another thing that made Coach Orgeron's outreach special was its contrast with something else that occurred as part of my college athletics outreach.
During the years 2020 and 2021, I had made concerted, focused, and continual outreaches to TWO (2) head college football coaches in particular. I sent these two coaches multiple traditional "snail mail" letters and packages—13 of them in all to one of the two coaches—in conjunction with many emails in a detertmined and relentless effort to grab their attention and garner an opportunity to come and teach SAL principles and practices to their players and staff.
In my mind's eye, I often envisioned myself being hired by one of these two teams, whereby I might teach seminars, provide individual SAL-coaching, and then pace the sidelines during fall games—ever mentoring and motivating the players to do, be, and play their very best.
But it simply was not to be.
Despite my dogged persistence, they (and/or their staff members) proved even more determined to ingore me than I was determined to reach them—until I eventually decided I no longer wanted the opportunity badly enough and ceased my efforts.
Two Final Job Applications
During the year 2023, TWO (2) different job opportunities crossed my desk that were intriguing enough to investigate and pursue.
The first job was an internal training position with NextEra Energy Resources—the corporation that has employed my wife, Lina, since February 2021.
The second job was Head of a Character Education program at Wake Forest University.
Both positions were sufficiently "up my alley" that it seemed worth it to at least apply. NextEra even went so far as to grant me a virtual interview.
That is as far as things progressed.
Both positions were awarded to someone else.
I was mildy annoyed by these additional employment "misses." However, by this point in the game, these kind of rejections had mostly become "Old Hat" as they say. Moreover, it only took me about a week to clearly recognize that at this later stage of my career, I would much rather continue to blog and raise my kids than go and work for someone else.
We also had very little interest in moving to North Carolina had the Wake Forest job panned out. After all our moves and uprootings over the years, Lina and I were both ready to settle down and establish more permanent roots in our new community in South Florida.
Furthermore, I am probably sufficiently set in my ways at this point in my life and career that I probably wouldn't make a very good fit working for anyone other than Freedom Focused.
From this point onward, I never looked back. My plan was simple: keep blogging and publishing new and improved editions of the SAL Textbook until it finally takes off. From there, a whole new set of adventures will begin, leading me to various bridges I will cross when I come to them.
And if Serendipity has something else in store for me, I'll board that bus when it stops to pick me up.
The Challenge of Enduring Unending Uncertainty
There have been many perks to my unorthodox career trajectory. Among the most salient are the consistent time and activity freedom I have enjoyed in conjunction with the opportunity to be a stay-at-home dad.
However, there have also been some significant drawbacks as well. One of the negatives is having to deal with the unending uncertainty over what the future holds.
For my entire career, I have rarely been able to look more than a year or two into the future with any kind of predictable certainty about what is coming down the pike. While this ambiguity has added to the adventure of the journey, it has also been a source of continual anxiety, stress, and even dread.
In 2020, shortly after I began making pitches to college athletics' departments, the angst of this uncertainty hit a boiling point where my dread became so great that it started to negatively affect me physically, as in the case of psychosomatic illness.
Unpleasant physical symptoms, including mild vertigo and limb quivering accompanied this deeply unsettling feeling of uncertainty.
What had led me to feel so much uncertainty?
The previous summer, Lina and I had traveled to Brisbane, Australia together on a "house hunting" trip. Lina had accepted a position in Brisbane with ExxonMobil and we were planning to move "Down Under." We spent a week in Brisbane, picked out schools for the kids, and otherwise prepared to relocate to the other side of the world.
But then, political instability in Papau New Guinea—the country of origin for the work to which Lina was assigned—threw the project into flux, leading to multiple extended delays. For the next seven (7) months, Lina traveled from Houston to Brisbane, Melbourne, or Sydney on a two-weeks on, two-weeks off rotating schedule. During the two weeks of the month that she was in Australia, I was a stay-at-home single parent to all three of our kids, ages six (6), four (4), and one (1) at the time.
This was an incredibly challenging time in our lives. The more Lina crisscrossed the globe, the more she began to experience fatigue and dizziness. And the more time I spent as a single stay-at-home dad, the more I appreciated having the help of a spouse—and the more empathy I gained for single parents.
This schedule began in late July 2019 and finally ended in February of 2020. The final six (6) weeks or so I felt frazzled and distressed by the seemingly unending uncertainty. For what seemed like an eternity, we simply did not know what was going to happen or when.
It was awful.
For seven (7) long months, we did not know when Lina would be able to stop traveling to-and-from Australia. We did not know when (or even if) we would be able to move to Australia as planned. And we did not know if anything would come of my outreaches to college athletics departments.
Everything seemed to be up in the air and in a state of perpetual uncertainty.
It was a deeply unsettling experience mentally, emotionally, and to a lesser extent, physically as well.
 |
License plates from States (and a Province)
where we have lived over the years. |
Finally, in mid-February 2021, Lina's company informed her that we would
not be moving to Australia. We were disappointed to have that opportunity foiled, but were so relieved to finally regain some certainty about our future.
However, Lina's job in Houston was gone, so they offered her a new position in Carlsbad, New Mexico instead.
Not entirely thrilled about the prospect of moving to the rural deserts of the Southwest, but greatly relieved to have gained some semblance of certainty again in our lives, she accepted the position in New Mexico and we prepared to move for the 10th time in the past 12 years. (57)
While we ultimately had a grand adventure and very positive experience in New Mexico, our move there further extended our uncertainty because we did not know exactly how long we would be there.
Eight (8) months later, when we finally got word of Lina's new position with NextEra Energy Resources in South Florida, I will never forget hearing the news. I was in the bathroom when I received Lina's text message about her new job and I literally collapsed to the floor as a physical response to the joy and relief I felt. While thus prostrated, I gave thanks to God that finally—finally—we had some certainty about our lives and living arrangement for the foreseeable future.
Moving to New Mexico and then, 10 months later, to our dream locale of South Florida—where Lina was born and raised and where her parents and several other family members resided—instead of moving to Brisbane, Australia turned out to be a huge blessing in disguise because of the COVID-10 pandemic, which would have dramatically complicated our move and experiences "Down Under."
Relocating to the Sunshine State—essentially the "Gold Coast of the Northern Hemisphere" latitudinally and otherwise speaking—was a "best of both worlds" dream come true scenario for both of us and it is fair to say that we have been proverbially living "happily ever after" ever since.
As great as moving to Florida was, it did not, of course, terminate all of our problems and end the uncertainty surrounding Freedom Focused. No matter where I have lived, there has always been a price to pay for passionately pursuing the unique professional pathway of my own choosing.
Sometimes, that price seemed unfairly high.
Other times, that price was serendipitously low.
As the old saying goes: you've gotta take the good with the bad.
But come what may, I have never seriously questioned my decision to pursue my career dream vigorously to its destined end, come what may.
Why?
Because despite any and/or all difficulties along the way, it has absolutely been worth it to gain the time freedom and personal leverage over my work activities with which I have been so richly blessed. In the end, time freedom and personal leverage over my work activities rank among my very highest work values. I care about both far more than I care about money or external success.
It's hard to put a price tag on the opportunity and privilege to consistently do what you love.
As for my desire to influence, help, and lift other people with my work, I have never doubted that Serendipity already has that part of the equation figured out. My job is not to comprehend the end from the beginning right now. My job is to simply be the best JJ I can be and then trust that Serendipity will take care of the rest.
Thoreau inspiringly suggested that: if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. (58)
 |
A Young JJ at the cabin site of Henry David Thoreau
near Walden Pond and Concord, Massachusetts.
August 2003 |
"If you advance confidently in the direction of your dreams, and endeavor to live the
life you have imagined, you will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."
—Henry David Thoreau
Just as Lina turned out to be even "better than the woman of my dreams," my career has evolved similarly serendipitously over time.
And it has been a glorious experience!
Navigating the Absence of External Feedback,
Advancement, and Recognition
Another challenge and drawback to my unorthodox career trajectory has been the ongoing absence of formal external advancements, recognition, salary raises and bonuses, and sociality that one typically receives within the confines of a more traditional career pathway.
As an entrepreneur, I have always been my own boss. This means that for the majority of my career—of which I am now 25 years into—I have not received many of the same kind of experiences that are usually available when you do have a traditional employer and boss.
I have always desperately wanted to be my own boss, of course, so I am not complaining because the time freedom and work activity independence I have enjoyed—which are my highest career values in terms of my workplace satisfaction—far outweigh any of the drawbacks I have experienced.
Nevertheless, in the concurrent absence of any significant financial or hiring breakthroughs, I have had to go for long periods of time bereft of formal feedback, advancement opportunities, and recognition. To compensate for the lack of these things, I have had to consciously and consistently believe in myself and continue pressing forward while concurrently acting as my own boss, coach, and mentor.
In short, it has been a huge and ongoing leap of FAITH out into the dimly lit and sometimes fearsome unknown.
Earlier on in my career, I received a lot of feedback in part because I proactively sought it out and in part because I was less refined and polished and would therefore inevitably bump up against others in my efforts. Thankfully these experiences provided me with much vital feedback, including an occasional pointed and necessary rebuke.
The more time that has passed, the less I receive this feedback, partly because I have less of a need to seek it out and partly because I have become more refined as a communicator and more polished as a professional messenger.
Another challenge arises in gauging exactly where I stand in relation to my peers in other industries and in regards to my own personal and professional potential. Yes, I am my own boss, and yes, I have been consistently productive over the course of many years and even decades. Nevertheless, bereft of traditional external feedback from supervisors, it can be tricky knowing exactly where I stand professionally because my position, title, and responsibilities have never really changed. Moreover, some of my greatest professional achievements in terms of productivity and goals reached have come and gone with very little external achievement, recognition, or remuneration and zero positional or titular advancements.
This necessitates that I be both highly conscious of and proactive in personally gauging the nature and extent of my progress when I am not receiving any external feedback.
In other words, I have to consistently be my own teacher, mentor, coach, cheerleader—and just as importantly, my own source of both positive and constructive criticism.
That is a tall order!
But, it is an essential task that cannot be delegated, relegated, or neglected if I am to avoid personal and professional entropy and stagnation.
In truth, this reality exists for all self-action leaders, regardless of your function, industry, position, or title. It is, however, extra important for those serving in executive and/or entrepreneurial positions where regular feedback, and formal advancement and recognition are not naturally forthcoming.
This fact adds to the uncertainty and fear of the unknown I must continually face as a business builder and entrepreneur.
It also makes it incumbent upon me to proactively seek out external feedback and advice whenever I need it, which I sometimes do—and at times extensively so—as with the case of editing, revising, and polishing various editions of the SAL Textbook over the years.
Indeed, while I take full responsibility for every last letter and punctuation mark in this textbook, it is what it is because of enormous amounts of helpful feedback and insights I have received from many others over the years and decades, to whom I express my sincere gratitude in the ACKNOWLEDGMENTS section of this comprehensive work.
As I have struggled through this perpetual lack of feedback, recognition, and advancement, I have striven to always keep in the forefront of my mind a foundational paradigm about Self-Action Leadership, which is worth elevating to the status of a mantra, as follows: No positive and productive action undertaken in good-faith is ever wasted.
SAL Mantra
No positive and productive action undertaken in good faith is ever wasted.
When one reflects back on the unusual cornucopia of failure and rejection I have experienced over the course of my unorthodox career trajectory, it might be tempting to write much of my effort off as a waste of time.
To do so would be, of course, incredibly inaccurate and myopic as it would fail to take into account all that I had learned and become through the process of those many experiences. Just as importantly, it would fail to take into account any future success that might arise through the many seeds that were planted in the past.
Both of these errors would fail to acknowledge another great truth I learned from my Uncle Hyrum; namely, that "Results take time to measure," (59) and sometimes a lot of it.
As a self-action leader, YOUR goal is to ultimately become your own best leader and teacher and provide your own helpful feedback-loops—not as a matter of negating or replacing other people; there will always be a need for other people (and your Conscience) in providing feedback and compensating for your blind spots. Nevertheless, as you continually rise to higher levels of Existential Growth, you will increasingly become more experienced, skilled, and effective in the art and science of self-awareness, self-feedback, and self-correction, and will therefore be able to increasingly apply these vital SAL elements to and for your own benefit.
Parable of the Rock Pusher
The quote above—
no good-faith action is ever wasted—reminds me of a story of an employee whose Boss assigned her to go and push against a giant rock near the seashore.
After a month of diligent, focused, and relentless pushing, the employee returned discouraged, fatigued, and dismayed, and reported to her Boss that she had failed to move the rock a single inch, to which the Boss replied:
"I never asked you to move the rock. Our company has heavy equipment that can accomplish that quickly at any time. I simply asked YOU to push. Because you were willing to do as I asked, look how strong your muscles have become, and see the determination and persistence you have developed because you were willing to follow my directions and put in the required work.
"Well done, my good and faithful employee!
"For your efforts, you have earned a promotion, a raise, and will receive a new, more challenging and enjoyable assignment next month." (60)
It is no secret that I have spent most of my career pushing against rocks rather than moving them. The question remains: has it been worth my time and effort to do so?
Obviously, I have already amply answered this SAL question throughout this chapter. It is now time for YOU, dear reader, to contemplate and ponder this same SAL question as it relates to YOUR own life and career.
My Quest to Simplify
In January 2017, I foolishly allowed myself to become virtually embroiled in an online verbal spat with a fellow I did not even know very well. The guy with whom I chose to spar had been criticizing something peripherally connected to my church and faith. Instead of choosing to ignore him or lovingly engaged, I took up the position of literary pugilist and put up my dukes—eager, I suppose, for a knockout blow using reason and logic.
When it comes to physical combat, I've always been more of a
flighter than a
fighter.
But when it comes to verbal sparring—a natural strength of mine—I have historically had a bad habit of flinging myself enthusiastically into the ring and vigorously "going the rounds" in defense of my faith, family, history, logic, political views and persuasions, or any other subject I felt passionate about.
Predictably, our textual joust accomplished nothing of substance. Instead, it left us both feeling unnecessarily agitated and wounded—thus souring whatever tenuous relationship we had, and reminding me for the umpteenth time in my life of the great verity that arguing rarely (if ever) changes anybody's mind, heart, or perspective.
The next time I saw this fellow in person, I apologized for my combativeness and attempted to sincerely smooth things over. We parted on good terms.
Blessedly, something really unusual and wonderful happened
inside of me at this singular juncture of my life's history. Something inside of my mind, heart, and soul snapped and broke—and I have ever after been grateful that it did.
The thing that began to break down that day was the internal need I had often felt in the past to win an argument over issues involving politics, religion, or anything else for that matter (aside from a clear and present physical emergency or other career-, life-, or soul-threatening exigency).
Once that rotten, unnecessary, and seemingly important, but ultimately egotistical need had snapped and broken, something inside of me changed forever. In the process, my heart was softened, my soul was subdued, and I began to lose my lust for winning an argument.
In conjunction with this change of mind and heart, I also found it incredibly freeing to recognize that the time, effort, and emotional energy I often spent on macro subjects—such as presidential politics, for example—was nowhere near commensurate to the miniscule amount of power and influence I possessed to actually impact such matters.
Given the SIZE of this mismatch, why then did I choose to invest so much time, effort, and emotional energy into such things?
Ultimately, the answer for me to this question and others like it was: I do NOT need to do so.
In fact, for the most part it was a huge waste of my time to do so—not because subjects like politics, religion, and current events are unimportant; such subject are very important! However, it was incredibly liberating when it finally dawned on me that I was taking far too much assumed responsibility over many a macro issue over which, in reality, I had virtually no control or influence over.
However well-intentioned I may have been in spending time and energy in these areas, the fact remained that my actual influence was both hugely limited and almost entirely negligible in real terms.
Furthermore—and even more importantly—engaging such issues tended to negatively impact my relationships.
As these incredibly enlightening insights began to crystalize in my mind, heart, and soul, I purposely and proactively took a huge step backwards and began the process of dramatically altering my paradigmatic patterns of thinking about and approaching said subjects in thought and speech. I also began to create new, better habits of engagement—including, more often than not, a lack of engagement—with such subjects.
This was a great turning point in my life and I have the aforementioned social media tussle trigger to thank for it.
From that day onward, I have felt a deep, sincere, continual, and ever-present desire—and have been on a veritable quest—to SIMPLIFY my life, career, and relationships in every way possible. This quest has proven to be one of the wisest, noblest, and most productive and rewarding quests I have ever undertaken.
As a tangible TOKEN of this great change of mind, heart, and spirit, I decided to delete my Facebook account shortly after engaging in the previously described online battle.
I do not share this to suggest that YOU should go and do likewise. I have nothing inherently against social media platforms, including Facebook. In fact, I consider them to be useful and powerful communication tools when used properly and in a disciplined and focused manner. Moreover, I still have a business Facebook account for Freedom Focused.
I simply share this as an example of something I chose to do that has been very beneficial to me as a self-action leader in both my life and career.
Given how active I had been on Facebook for years previously, this was a pretty big and significant step for me to take; yet, I found it to be a remarkably easy action after experiencing this mighty change of heart. Moreover, I took this step with remarkable spontaneity within a few hours of the virtual brawl that had triggered my change of heart.
And
I
Never
Looked
Back.
From that day to this, nearly a decade ago now, I have been on one, continual unstinting and uninterrupted journey to simplify my life and career and relationships in every way possible—without being derelict in any of my career, existential, faith, or familial duties in the process—and it has been WONDERFUL.
I should note here that while I was quick to delete my
Facebook account and resolve to make a mighty change in my life, it was still a gradual journey whereby I simplified by degrees, one, small, step-at-a-time over the course of many years. Everything did
not change overnight just because I deleted my
Facebook account. However,
this decision proved to be a catalytic turning point and trigger that opened the floodgates for a cascading cornucopia of additional positive change and growth in both my personal and professional life.
And I live a life that is so much happier, simpler, and more peaceful as a result.
Given the remarkable results of this powerful personal project, I enthusiastically invite and encourage YOU to consider today how you might further S I M P L I F Y your own life and career as well.
I promise YOU will not regret it!
SAL Mantra
S I M P L I F Y
Refining My Blogger's Focus
The more I simplified my efforts with Freedom Focused, the more I was led to focus on the Freedom Focused SAL Blog and place other efforts on the proverbial back burner.
I began blogging in November 2013 and published blogs sporadically on the side as a complement to whatever sales and/or marketing strategy I was employing at any given point in time.
Most of the first 175 articles were written between 2013 and 2016. Then, from January 2017 to May 2020—a period of more than three (3) years—I only published five (5) additional blog articles.
I began blogging more regularly again in 2020 when I was at home with my kids in Carlsbad, New Mexico during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Then, in September of 2020, I discovered that I had begun publishing a blog approximately once-a-week for about a month. This realization gave me an idea: why not start blogging every single week and establish the practice as a consistent and predictable routine?
And why not make Wednesday (61) morning at 6:30 a.m. the day and time of my weekly blog publications?
This would give me a full week to think about, compose, revise, edit, and proofread each new article in preparation for publication. It would also ensure that I had Monday and Tuesday available to refine and polish new articles. That way, I would not feel unduly pressured over the weekend to have a article prepared and ready to publish at the beginning of the week. Lastly, it would provide readers with a mid-week jolt of education, inspiration, and motivation in their lives and jobs—right at the point in time where a lot of folks start pining for the weekend—thereby helping them get over the proverbial hump of the week.
By early October, I was convinced I was on to something important, powerful, and influential to my future as a professional writer and speaker in addition to the future of Freedom Focused. Thus, on Saturday, October 3, 2020, I published a blog article announcing my new weekly publication plan. Four (4) days later, on Wednesday, October 7, 2020, I published the first official "weekly" publication of the Freedom Focused blog.
From that point on, I was amazed at how I never ran out of things to write about. Without fail, the right ideas would come to me at just the right time for just the right article—or series of articles—including full books published serially on the blog (just like this SAL Textbook)—to ensure I continued faithful in my weekly publication practice.
What amazed me even more was how I would sometimes find myself getting several weeks ahead of schedule, thus easing the constant pressure of having to compose a new article every single week, while still publishing a new blog article each and every Wednesday morning at 6:30 a.m.
Once, during the summer of 2025, I managed to get more than a dozen blogs ahead of myself, making my deadlines increasingly low-pressure and non-stressful.
It was great!
The best part of all was how much I enjoy blogging. I have been so much happer blogging than I ever was trying to gin up seminar gigs or book sales.
Plus, as a stay-at-home dad, there were so many moments throughout each day and week when I could spend time here-and there on my blog without neglecting my duties as a parent. Whether it was waiting in a car line to pick up my kids from school, waiting during gymnastics or swimming practice, or just time immediately after school when the kids were enjoying a much-needed break from their busy school day and were watching television or otherwise engaged in "free-time," I regularly found intervals where I could get in quality chunks of productive writing time.
Then, in August 2023, my youngest began kindergarten. With all three kids in school for 6-7 hours each day during the school year, I had even more time to pursue personal and professional work projects.
 |
Wearing my three (3)
IRONMAN finisher medals.
The third event was a 70.3 in
St. George, Utah in 2019. |
This was a boon for my blog.
It also provided me with opportunities to train for and compete in two IRONMAN triathlon events (one 70.3-mile and one 140.6-mile races), attend my Church's local Temple on a near-weekly basis, and serve in an exciting and rewarding leadership position in my Church in the region where I lived.
As I delved deeper into blogging on a regular basis, I even began to stop caring so much about how many reading "hits" I was getting for each blog. While every one of my blogs are intended to help interested and willing self-action leaders change, grow, and improve, I stopped worrying about the size of my audience and just focused in on the joy of writing and the satisfaction of each new weekly publication.
It was—and continues to be—so wonderful!
In time, I even stopped emailing links to friends, family, colleagues, college athletics personnel, and/or anyone else—with certain occasional and specifically targeted exceptions (like the SAL autobiographical & biographical chapters).
I also took down Freedom Focused's professional website, which I had been building and maintaining for almost 20 years. Recognizing that it was no longer necessary to continue my work as a writer, I finally came to the conclusion that it would be best to take it down.
What a beautiful breath of relieving fresh air that was for me!
I did make the mistake of paying a web designer a thousand bucks to help me switch my blogging platform over to a more current and popular blogging site. While it may have been a savvy long-term move in theory, in actual practice I am no good at the tech side of business anyway, so why in the world would I want to put myself through the agony of learning an entirely new system when I lacked a tech expert on staff and already knew how to operate my present platform all on my own?
The answer to this question was: I wouldn't.
Thus, I opted to cut my losses and just stick with what I was already familiar with and was already working so well—allowing me to keep things simple and continue plowing ahead in joy and hope.
And now you know why you are reading this article on Google Blogger instead of WordPress or Substack!
In early October 2025, I hit the 5-year mark of publishing a new blog every Wednesday morning at 6:30 a.m. without a miss. In early 2026, I hit the 500-blog article publication milestone. By mid-year 2026, I will have completed the revised, updated, and serially published online version of the SEVENTH Edition of the SAL Textbook. By early 2027, this new version, which you now hold in your hands (or are currently reading on a technological device), will be published in a hard copy textbook format.
I do not yet know how long I will continue this unbroken string of published blog articles.
What I do know is that I love what I am doing, and that means I am truly living the DREAM!
Waiting
So, where does Freedom Focused's ultimate destiny lay in the future.
I do not know the specific answers to this question... yet.
What I do know is that I am ready and prepared—but no longer overly eager or zealous—to take whatever next steps Serendipity may have in store for me as a writer, speaker, teacher, thinker, organizer, leader, and business executive. And the best part is that I no longer worry about heading up sales, marketing, technology, human resources, or any other aspect of a full-fledged educational and training company.
You cannot imagine how wonderful that is for me!
I love to write, speak, teach, organize, and lead. And I will continue to do everything in my power to proclaim the message of Self-Action Leadership and personal and professional FREEDOM wherever I go and to whomever I associate for the remainder of my time in this world.
Despite any and all naysayers, I continue to believe in the power and potential of the SAL Life Leadership Textbook in its complete and unabashedly unabridged format, now available ONLINE and in its landmark, single-volume, SEVENTH Edition.
Thus, I will continue to labor diligently and to wait patiently (62) on Serendipity to see how the later acts of the Boss's Play will play out for me and Freedom Focused.
 |
John Burroughs
1837-1921 |
A few years before I met Lina, and right near the beginning of my mammoth journey to write the SAL Textbook and build Freedom Focused, I came across an especially insightful and inspiring poem.
The poem is entitled: Waiting.
It was written by the naturalist and poet, John Burroughs (1837-1921).
As I have struggled through decades of unrelenting failure, rejection, and being ignored, I have taken continual solace, inspiration, and HOPE from the truth and eloquence of Burrough's timeless message, which, like life itself, continually teaches, coaches, and mentors me in the importance and value of PATIENCE in the process of creating anything of lasting meaning and value.
I have always been a Man of ACTION.
Persistence has never been a problem for me.
Patience, on the other hand, is a virtue that has been much slower in coming. But, like anyone else on planet Earth who has ever earned authentic and lasting success in anything of meaning or value, it has been an absolutely indispensable virtue for which I had no choice but to carefully cultivate over long periods of time.
I therefore commend this timeless message of wisdom to YOU...
Waiting
Serene, I fold my hands and wait,
Nor care for wind nor tide nor sea;
I rave no more 'gainst time or fate,
For lo! My own shall come to me.
I stay my haste, I make delays—
For what avails this eager pace?
I stand amid the eternal ways
And what is mine shall know my face.
Asleep, awake, by night or day,
The friends I seek are seeking me,
No wind can drive my bark astray
Nor change the tide of destiny.
What matter if I stand alone?
I wait with joy the coming years;
My heart shall reap where it has sown,
And garner up its fruit of tears.
The waters know their own, and draw
The brook that springs in yonder height;
So flows the good with equal law
Unto the soul of pure delight.
The stars come nightly to the sky;
The tidal wave unto the sea;
Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,
Can keep my own away from me. (63)
Around the same time that I came across this poem, I was also serendipitously directed to a related verse of scripture in the New Testament that reads: In your patience possess ye your souls. (64)
This statement has become equally meaningful to me in intervening years. As I keep this scripture in the forefront of my mind, it perpetually points my attention to the reality that life's greatest accomplishments—the truly meaningful achievements that demand the most out of me and serve other people most effectively in the long-run—simply aren't created in a day, a week, a month, a year, or in some cases, even in a decade or two, or three.
Nay...
Such achievements are multi-year, multi-decade, or even an entire lifetime in the making. That's why they are sometimes referred to as Lifetime Achievements.
That is just the way things are.
This fact doesn't mean you can't experience important and highly satisfying wins in a single moment, hour, day, week, month, or year.
Of course you can!
I have accomplished many such achievements over the course of my life and career.
It just means that your life and/or career's greatest possibilities and potentialities require a lot of time to fully flower—no matter how gifted, intelligent, skilled, or talented you may be.
Thus, to paraphrase Adlai E. Stevenson's great quote about patriotism: Existential Growth is not achieved by short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but by the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime. (65)
An Authentic SAL Success Story
 |
Dr. JJ
Circa 2018 |
A lot has happened in my life and career the past quarter century. Over the course of that extended period of time, an array of personal, relational, and career crucibles have accompanied my very slow and gradual journey to personal and professional satisfaction, security, fulfillment, prosperity, success, and inner peace.
And the best is still yet to come.
Nevertheless, let the following facts be submitted to a candid world, that all may judge for themselves the veracity and authenticity of a SAL-embraced and Serendipipty-imbued pathway of living, working, and most importantly—being.
- After letting go of my life's dream to become a high school, college, and professional basketball player, I switched my focus to cross-country and track & field, where I became a 5-time region champion and state champion (individually and as a team) in high school and an All-American in junior college. Later, I completed 13 marathons, dozens of half-marathons, scores of other distance road and track races, two half IRONMAN 70.3-mile triathlons, and one full IRONMAN 140.6-mile triathlon.
- After being terrified to speak in public as a boy, I have addressed over 25,000 people in over 800 audiences in 3 countries, 44 U.S. States, 9 Counties of the Great Britain, 5 Provinces of Canada, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
- After failing to break a 3.0 grade-point average (GPA) in high school and scoring a 3.2 GPA in college (undergraduate studies), I finished my Doctoral degree with a better-than-perfect 4.049 GPA and produced a 1,149-page dissertation that served as an earlier edition of this SEVENTH Edition of the SAL Life Leadership Textbook.
- After being plagued for years and decades by clinical OCD symptoms and its accompanying anxiety and depression, I have steadily learned how to effectively manage the disorder to live a full and complete life, including being happily married and father to three children.
- After being rejected 130 times by 80 different women, I married Lina—who is even better than the "woman of my dreams." Lina and I are approaching 20 imperfect, but still very happy and successful years of marriage together, with many more still to come.
- After being $80,000 in debt in 2008, Lina and I have been completely debt-free since 2012. We paid cash for my 4-year private university Doctoral studies, have paid off both of our cars, live comfortably and securely well within our means in the paradise of South Florida, and have an ever-expanding retirement nest egg portfolio of investments and savings.
- After experiencing a seemingly endless barrage of professional failure for more than 20 years, I find myself sitting in the proverbial Catbird Seat as the Founder, CEO, and Master Facilitator of Freedom Focused and as the author of SEVEN (7) complete iterations / editions of the SAL Life Leadership Textbook, an original poetry anthology of more than 100 poems, over 500 published blog articles, and hundreds of additional articles spanning the mediums of newspapers, academic journals, and other publications.
Suffice it to say, after all the ups and downs, agnst and debt, faith and doubt, and sweat, toil, tears, and HOPE, I am proud to say that I have truly lived my life and career to the very fullest of what can fairly be judged to be a positive and productive SAL SUCCESS STORY—an outgrowth of a still vibrant American Dream.
My parents raised me to believe that I could be and do just about anything—and go just about anywhere—I set my mind to if I was willing to pay the price.
They taught me that if I was willing to work hard, play by the rules, and never give up, I could eventually be consummately successful in whatever I set out to accomplish, regardless of the challengs that crossed my path along the way.
I believed them.
And Mom and Dad were right!
The fruitful realities of this promise took many years—and even decades—to materialize; and they will continue to further flesh themselves out for many years and decades to come. Nevertheless, I'm grateful I chose to put my hand to the plow, and then continued ever onward to "plow in hope." (66)
And the best part is that Lina's and my journey is still, in many ways, just beginning.
By consistently and effectively following SAL principles and applying SAL practices over extended periods of time, Serendipity has empowered me to take full responsibility for my personal and professional circumstances and overcome any and all adversity to become a very happy, successful, and fulfilled human being in possession of an enviable portion of inner peace.
Like me, YOU will also face ponderous difficulties and profound difficulties in your life and career. While the adversity you face will be unique to your individual circumstances and personality, YOU can utilize many of the same strategies that I—and countless other self-action leaders—have used throughout history to effectively confront, manage, or even transcend and triumph over whatever crosses you are called upon to bear and whatever crucibles you are enlisted to confront and battle.
I encourage YOU to keep going until you eventually summit the peaks of your own personal and/or professional potential—and beyond—because with the fuel of SAL and the aid, grace, and mercy of Serendipity, that is precisely what you are capable of doing.
And speaking of Serendipity...
One of the most powerful realizations I experienced over-and-over again throughout the course of my entire life and career to date is that Serendipity had the power to take my life in any number of different directions than it did. Even more importantly, Serendipity had the power to ensure my success from the very beginning.
Of this I have no doubt.
Why then did I have to experience so much temporary failure and such seeming endless delays in external progress and recognition for such a long period of time?
Instead of attempting to explicitly answer this question, I will simply ask another question, as follows: would any other potential pathways that "could have been" actually have been the right route to maximize my contributions, influence, and potential in the long-run?
No matter how badly I may have wanted a certain kind or scope of success all along the way, the honest answer to this question has always reverberated throughout my heart, mind, and soul with the exact same refrain, and the answer is clearly, simply, and unequivocally: "NO, they would not have been."
Believing that this is in fact the TRUTH of the whole matter, can any of my prior attempts truly be judged as "failures"?
And can I not rightfully assume that the best possible endgame is still very much in play?
I will let you—Dear Reader—consider and ponder upon these questions rhetorically as they relate to me, and more importantly... to yourself.
Yours very sincerely in SAL and FREEDOM, forevermore.
—Dr. JJ
Saturday, October 11, 2025
Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, USA
Like this article?
Click HERE to read more about Dr. JJ's challenging, but rewarding SAL Journey in:
Author's Note: This is the 483rd Blog Post Published by Freedom Focused LLC since November 2013 and the 273rd consecutive weekly blog published since August 31, 2020.
.........................
Tune in NEXT Wednesday for another article on a Self-Action Leadership related topic.
If you liked this blog post, please share it with your family, friends, colleagues, and students—and encourage them to bookmark this blog to access a new FREE article every Wednesday.
Chapter 5 Notes
1. Talmage, J.E. (1984). Articles of Faith. Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book Company. Chapter 5.
2. Neck, C.P. and Manz, C.C. (2010). Mastering Self-Leadership: Empowering Yourself for Personal Excellence. Fifth Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Page 1. "If we ever hope to be effective leaders of others, we need first to be able to lead ourselves effectively."
3. FLOW refers to a state of optimal performance accompanied by positive emotions and a deep sense of personal satisfaction and fulfillment. It can lead to high levels of productivity and achievement. For more information on FLOW, see the following resources:
- Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York, NY: HarperPerennial.
- Jackson, B.H. (2011). Finding Your Flow: How to Identify Your Flow Assets and Liabilities—the Keys to Peak Performance Every Day. College Station, TX. Virtualbookworm.com Publishing.
4. King's College, London, England.
5. A reference to Disney's Beauty and the Beast movies.
6. Smith, H.W. (1994). The 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management: Proven Strategies for Increased Productivity and Inner Peace. New York, NY: Warner Books. Page 4.
7. A comment that Richard M. Andrus, my Mission President, made to me near the completion of my 2-year, full-time missionary service to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada from February 1999 - March 2001.
8. To graduate, I needed 120 credit hours. When I graduated, I had completed exactly 120 credit hours. No more and no less. I have always been very proud of this fact, and would often shake my head in dismay when I'd see or hear of students accruing far more credits than were required to graduate and otherwise stay in school much longer than necessary. To each their own, of course; but I was in a hurry to be done!
9. Permission was required to take more than 18 credit hours per semester. I obtained this permission more than once in order to take upwards of 22 credit hours per semester.
10. Rasmussen, D.M. and Colonna, P. (1981). The Power of Trying Again: Featuring the Story of Abraham Lincoln. (PowerTales). Antioch, CA: Eagle Systems International. Page 59.
11. Phrase from the last line of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's legendary poem, A Psalm of Life.
12. FLOW refers to a state of optimal performance accompanied by positive emotions and a deep sense of personal satisfaction and fulfillment. It can lead to high levels of productivity and achievement. For more information on FLOW, see the following resources:
- Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York, NY: HarperPerennial.
- Jackson, B.H. (2011). Finding Your Flow: How to Identify Your Flow Assets and Liabilities—the Keys to Peak Performance Every Day. College Station, TX. Virtualbookworm.com Publishing.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Some student feedback was constructive and some was apathetic, but there was very little negative feedback.
16. Rudyard Kipling's famous poem, If. Stanza 3. Lines 1-2.
17. Ironically, I eventually did service one client as an English tutor; however, the job did not materialize until about 15 months after I had delivered my fliers. By that time, I had already begun to rebound financially.
18. The last sentence of this journal entry was added years later.
19. Rudyard Kipling's famous poem, If. Stanza 3. Lines 1-2.
20. Rudyard Kipling's famous poem, If. Stanza 3. Line 3.
21. Rudyard Kipling's famous poem, If. Stanza 2. Lines 7-8.
22. Stanton, F.L. (1922). One Hundred and One Famous Poems. Cook, R.J. (Ed.). Chicago, IL: The Cable Company. Google Books version. Page 135.
23. A made-up word coined by the LDS Pioneer, Jens Nielson (1821-1906) used to describe the act of sticking to a task until it is complete.
24. I had lived with my cousins, Steve and Ida Anderson, for 11 months—from June 2006 - May 2007—while I got back on my feet. I then moved out into an apartment with a friend from my church. I made my own rent payments from then on.
25. Edgar Allan Poe's timeless love poem, Annabel Lee. Stanza 6. Line 6.
26. Kelly, D. (2022). Sell it Like a Mango: A New Seller's Guide to Closing More Deals. Shippensburg, PA: Sound Wisdom. Page 10.
27. Shakespeare, W. Hamlet. Act III. Scene I. Line 73.
28. There were two exceptions to this. FIRST, a sum of $3,500 that my paternal grandmother (LaVerda Jensen) loaned me to start Freedom Focused, but then later re-designated as a gift. SECOND, my wonderful and ever-generous maternal Aunt (Ruth S. Silver), who had paid for much of my college tuition, kindly forgave a loan of approximately $7,500 a couple of months after I started making token repayments in 2008. My largest personal debt of $33,000 had been loaned me by my mother. This—and all other debts, both public and private—were paid off in full by the spring of 2012.
29. Keep a-Goin is a poem written by Frank L. Stanton (1857-1927) and reprinted earlier on in this chapter.
30. Quadrant II refers to Stephen R. Covey's four quadrants of time management and productivity.
- Quadrant I refers to activities that are URGENT and IMPORTANT
- Quadrant of Management and putting out fires
- Quadrant II activities are IMPORTANT but not URGENT
- Quadrant of Leadership, Planning, and Prevention
- Quadrant III activities are URGENT but not IMPORTANT
- Quadrant IV activities are neither URGENT nor IMPORTANT
Covey, S.R. (1989). The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
31. Peck, MN.S. (1978). The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth. New York, NY: Touchstone.
32. Cy-Fair ISD provided standard benefits as part of their teacher's compensation package; however, we did not end up using them because we were already covered through Lina's new job.
33. I was a minority among the student body, not the faculty.
34. Quitting my job at Cy-Ridge would have saved money on tuition because we were paying for tuition throughout the school year even though I had almost zero time to spend on my studies.
35. The Family: A Proclamation to the World. The First Presidency and Council of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Paragraph 7. Last sentence.
36. My average course size as a contract trainer was 25-30 attendees. Occasionally I would have much larger audiences of 50, 60, or 70. Other times, I would have much smaller audiences of 5, 10, or 15. The smallest audience I ever had was a single individual in Houma, Louisiana. My largest audience was 94 attendees in East Hartford, Connecticut in 2008.
37. FLOW refers to a state of optimal performance accompanied by positive emotions and a deep sense of personal satisfaction and fulfillment. It can lead to high levels of productivity and achievement. For more information on FLOW, see the following resources:
- Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York, NY: HarperPerennial.
- Jackson, B.H. (2011). Finding Your Flow: How to Identify Your Flow Assets and Liabilities—the Keys to Peak Performance Every Day. College Station, TX. Virtualbookworm.com Publishing.
38. Neck, H., Neck, C.P., and Murray, E.L. (2017). ENTREPRENEURSHIP: The Practice and Mindset. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.
NOTE: Dr. JJ wrote 15 mini biographies of successful entrepreneurs to accompany the chapters in this textbook and a series of digital resources in the form of reflective questions for use by professors.
Neck, C.P., Houghton, J.D., Murray, E.L., and Lattimer, C.L. (2018). Management (2nd Edition). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
NOTE: Dr. JJ is featured as a "Voice of Management" on page 171 and as an "Experienced Public Speaker" on page 272.
39. Jensen, J.R., Neck, C.P., and Beaulieu, R.J. (2015). "Self-Action Leadership: A Qualitative, Nomological Expansion of Self-Leadership Theory Rooted in Atmospheric and Astronomical Metaphor." Journal of Leadership and Management. Issue 3. Pages 67-78.
Jensen J.R., Beaulieu, R.J., and Neck, C.P. (2018). "The Self-Action Leadership Model: A Qualitative, Nomological Expansion of Self-Leadership Theory Rooted in Action Research. Journal of Leadership and Management. Issue 11. Pages 10-30.
Jensen, J.R., Neck, C.P., and Beaulieu, R.J. (2018). "The Self-Action Leadership Philosophy: Introducing a Post-Postmodern Pedagogy of Personal Leadership and Character Development." Journal of Leadership and Management. Issue 13. Pages 167-184.
Jensen, J.R., Neck, C.P. (2021). "Introducing a Self-Leadership-Driven, Action Research-Informed, and Character Education-Based Theoretical Framework for Educational, Ideological, and Administrative Balance in the 21st Century." Journal of Leadership and Management. Issue 18. Pages 1-24.
40. Jensen, J.R., and Neck, C.P. (2017). "The Relation of Religion and Spirituality to Time Management: Examining the Lives and Careers of FranklinCovey Co-Founders — Hyrum W. Smith & Stephen R. Covey." Journal of Management, Spirituality, & Religion. Volume 14. Issue 4. Pages 281-294.
41. Neck, C.P., Manz, C.C., and Houghton, J.D. (2017). Self-Leadership: The Definitive Guide to Personal Excellence. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.
42. Manz, C.C. and Neck, C.P. (1999). Mastering Self-Leadership: Empowering Yourself for Personal Excellence. (Second Edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
43. Neck, C.P. and Manz, C.C. (2010). Mastering Self-Leadership: Empowering Yourself for Personal Excellence. (Fifth Edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
44. Last line of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's legendary poem: A Psalm of Life.
45. Rasmussen, D.M. and Colonna, P. (1981). The Power of Trying Again: Featuring the Story of Abraham Lincoln. (Power Tales Series). Antioch, CA: Eagle Systems International. Page 59.
46. The concept of balancing the chasing down of my dreams with letting my dreams chase me down was first introduced to me by my older brother, Joe (eight years my senior) when I was still in my early-mid 20s.
47. Jensen, J.R. Neck, C.P., and Beaulieu, R.J. (2018). "The Self-Action Leadership Philosophy: Introducing a Post-Postmodern Pedagogy of Personal Leadership and Character Development." Journal of Leadership and Management. Issue 13. Pages 167-184.
48. McCulloch, J.E. (1924). Home: The Savior of Civilization. Washington D.C.: The Southern Co-operative League. Google Books Edition. Page 42.
49. The "Land of Enchantment" is the nickname of the U.S. State of New Mexico.
50. Szpaderski, A. and Urick, M.J. (Editors). (2018). Diversity and Performance: Multidisciplinary and Nontraditional Styles of Leadership and Management in Action. HPL Publications, Inc.
Szpaderski, A. and Urick, M.J. (Editors). (2018). Essential Principles for Managers: Innovated Approaches to Examining Foundational Theories of Management and Leadership. HPL Publications, Inc.
51. Jensen, J.R., and Neck, C.P. (2017). "The Relation of Religion and Spirituality to Time Management: Examining the Lives and Careers of FranklinCovey Co-Founders — Hyrum W. Smith & Stephen R. Covey." Journal of Management, Spirituality, & Religion. Volume 14. Issue 4. Pages 281-294.
52. Covey, S.R. (2004). The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness. New York, NY: FreePress. Page 37.
53. Eliot, T.S. Little Gidding (poem). Last of his "Four Quartets" poems. Part V. Paragraph 3, Lines 1-4.
54. I competed for Utah Valley State College (now Utah Valley University) in cross-country and track and field during the 2002-2003 school year. UVSC was a member of the National Junior Collegiat Athletics Association (NJCAA) at the time. UVSC entered a 7-year provisional period in 2002 (during my time as a student athlete) in preparation to join the NCAA. UVU was officially welcomed into the NCAA in 2009 as a Division-1 school. It is currently a member of the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) and is slated to join the Big West Confrence in 2026.
55. Derwin Gray played as a a defensive back for BYU's football team from 1989-1992. He is now a published author, Doctor of Ministry, and serves as Lead Pastor at Transformation Church in Indian Land, South Carolina (greater Charlotte area).
56. The Cougareat is the name of the dining service area of BYU's bookstore, also known as the Wilkinson Center, named after Ernest L. Wilkinson, who served as President of BYU from 1951-1971.
57. Six of these moves were to different locations within the same metropolitan area (e.g. from one house or apartment to another within greater Houston, Texas and St. John's, Newfoundland areas). Four of these moves were to completely different geographical locations (e.g. Atlanta to Houston to St. John's, back to Houston, and then to Carlsbad).
58. Thoreau, H.D. (2001). Walden and Other Writings. New York, NY: MetroBooks. Page 267
59. Smith, H.W. (1994). The 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management: Proved Strategies for Increased Productivity and Inner Peace. New York, NY: Warner Books. Page 145.
60. I first heard this story-parable from a congregational leader (Bishop) named Peter Kennett in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, in early 2000. He shared the story with my missionary companion and me in reference to our service as full-time missionaries.
61. I was further influenced to select Wednesday as my weekly blog article publication day because that was the day the weekly newspaper of my hometown (Monticello, Utah)—The San Juan Record—was published. The Blue Mountain Panorama, the weekly newspaper of Blanding, Utah, that I wrote for from 1995-1997 was similarly published during the week, albeit on Tuesdays. I loved the idea of publishing my blog in the middle of the week, just like my home county newspapers.
62. Last line of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's legendary poem: A Pslam of Life
63. Burroughs, J. (1922). In Cook, R.J. (Editors) One Hundred-and-One Famous Poems, with a Prose Supplement. Chicago, IL: The Cable Company. Page 76. Google Books version.
64. Luke 21:19. New Testament.
65. Adlai E. Stevenson was the Democratic candidate for President of the United States during the 1952 and 1956 elections. He has been quoted as saying: "Patriotism is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime."
66. 1 Corinthians 9:10. New Testament.
%20copy.jpeg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
%20copy.jpeg)
%20copy.jpg)
