DEDICATION and ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

DEDICATION

To my home Country I Love ~ The United States of America ~ and to the World I care a great deal about. I wrote this book in anticipation that many of my fellowmen and women will eventually read, study, apply, and otherwise benefit from this material, which has so profoundly informed and dramatically transformed my own life, career, and being.

SAL and SERENDIPITY have changed my life, made my life, and saved me from endless pitfalls that would have otherwise ensnared, enslaved, or even destroyed me.

Thanks to SAL and SERENDIPITY, I am truly free.

If you would like to begin enjoying this same FREEDOM, I invite you to embrace SAL and SERENDIPITY by reading this book, studying it carefully, and completing the SAL Master Challenge. Anyone who commit to doing so and then follows through to the end will come to enjoy the same kind of benefits and blessings in their life and career as I have. 

Of this I am certain.

          Why am I so certain of this?

Because there is nothing inherently special about me. But everything is special about the principles and practices outlined and explicated in this Life Leadership textbook. Thus, they can potentially work as well for you as they have for me if you will commit yourself to them as eagerly, earnestly, consistently, persistently, and enduringly as I have.  

-Dr. JJ
Palm Beach Gardens, Florida
March 13, 2026

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

What would I do and
where would I be
without Lina?

LINA M. JENSEN:  To my beloved wife, best friend, and closest confidant—for her interest in and willingness to take a lifelong (and eternal) chance on me. Winston Churchill once said the greatest speech he ever gave was the one in which he asked his beloved "Clemmie" (Clementine Hozier) to marry him. I share Sir Winston's experience and sentiment in this regard, although in my case they were my greatest speeches (plural). Suffice it to say, good things and great achievements can materialize from the right mix of patience and persistence—a principle deeply rooted in SAL Philosophy.  

Thank you, my only sweetheart, for your steady support and undeviating love. Thank you also for all you have done to build your own successful career, which has made mine—including the publication of this textbook—possible. I further acknowledge your considerable intellect, diligent efforts, and practical insights as an editor of an earlier iteration of this textbook and for working by my side as a co-creator of various entrepreneurial initiatives over the years with Freedom Focused. Lastly, as interim CFO and financial backer of Freedom Focused the past 17 years, I thank you for putting our money where your mouth is when it comes to always believing in me and my visions, dreams, and goals—even, and especially—when it hasn't been easy to do so.    

JEANNA BINI:  To my Primary Editor—for effectively applying her considerable intellect, broad knowledge base, and professional writing skills by taking a "fine-toothed comb" through the entirety of this work not once, but twice on previous editions. Jeanna's diligent and focused efforts and eye-for-detail significantly enhanced the clarity, readability, and tonal quality of the final draft. She also provided organizational input and helped me tailor the message for an international audience. Thank YOU, Jeanna, for your expertise, insights, precision, and your enthusiastic and wholehearted commitment to making this project a success. Your caring and compositional touch can be found on nearly every page of this comprehensive work.  

STIRLING D. PACK, JR., PH.D.:  A wise and valued mentor and friend, Stirling's insightful perspectives influenced the present shape of this work more than any other reviewer who provided feedback on earlier editions. Thank you, Stirling, for your incredibly helpful—and Providentially-timed—assistance with this ongoing project.  

Felicia Cockrell
With her son & daughter

NATHANIEL J. WILLIAMS, FELICIA COCKRELL, PETE FROMETA, JASON MINER, the late CHARLIE & MURIEL PIERSON, and the late FRED & MARLENE HAWRYLUK:  For their friendship, time, examples, character, and permission to share their inspirational SAL stories with the world.  

KEHL ARNSON, LYNNDA CROWDER-EAGLE, and the late THRESA BROOKS:  For so effectively promoting pedagogies of personal leadership in the real-world laboratory of the classroom and schoolhouse, and for allowing me to share their enlightening, exemplary, and inspiring stories with the world.

LINDSEY LAW:  To Lina's and my good friend and Ace Babysitter who made it possible for me—a stay-at-home dad—to secure the working hours I needed during the day to complete previous manuscripts of this Life Leadership textbook. You were like a second mama to our three kids and we'll forever be grateful for the help and friendship you afforded us at vital stages of our family's growth during the time we spent in the great Lone Star State of Texas.  

MY ENDORSERS:  To the wonderful men and women who took time out of their busy schedules to review and provide endorsement quotes praising the SAL Textbook. Your considerable personal character and extensive professional achievements have lent an enormous aura of credibility and gravitas to this work. Thank you for your enthusiastic willingness to attach your honorable names and prestigious titles to the SAL material and movement.   

Rex Buckley Jensen
Dr. JJ's Father

DENNY GEE:  To my talented graphic designer for designing the Self-Action Leadership Theory and Model graphics in conjunction with several other key images that appear in this textbook.  

REX BUCKLEY JENSEN:  To my dad—a true renaissance man—for always being such an enthusiastic supporter and cheerleader of my dreams and goals in life. Also, for instilling in me a love of language, good conversation, and great books. I love you, Dad, and appreciate the many genetic and mimetic gifts I inherited from you. 

Pauline Smith Jensen
Dr. JJ's Mother

PAULINE SMITH JENSEN:  To my mama, who was also the chief financial backer of Freedom Focused in its earliest years. Thanks, Mama, for bearing me, raising me, loving me, and—like Dad—always believing in me and passing along such an extensive cornucopia of genetic and mimetic gifts, which I have been able to use so positively and productively throughout my life—and especially so in the creation of this mammoth and monumental work.  

FRANK MCLANE, JR.:  To my "Texas Dad," my history and battle reenacting buddy, and my dear friend. Thank you for further illuminating for me the importance of patriotism in conjunction with helping me clarify my thoughts about the difference between liberty and FREEDOM—and the important and synergistic relationships between the two.   

L-to-R: Hyrum Mack Smith (1872-1918)

Joseph Fielding Smith (1899-1964)

Joseph F. Smith (1838-1918)

My great-grandfather, grandfather, and

2nd great grandfather; Circa 1900

MY MANY MENTAL HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS:  

To the six (6) psychiatrists (or prescribing equivalents), eight (8) professional counselors, multiple ecclesiastical leaders, my parents and older siblings (i.e. Mom, Dad, Joe Jensen, and Jody Church), and more recently my wife, Lina, who have, over the course of the past three decades, provided me with the means to procure the palliative pharmacotherapy and/or focused psychotherapy I needed to work through my many emotional, psychological, relational, and spiritual demons.

Dr. STEVE and IDA ANDERSON and the late RUTH SILVER, LAVERDA JENSEN, and IDA SMITH:  For their generous financial contributions or loans and other support in Freedom Focused's earliest years. 

The late RUTH PINGREE SMITH (1907-1992) and LAVERDA BARTON JENSEN (1919-2006):  

To my dear grandmothers, whose combined classroom teaching experience spans more than half-a-century (50 years). I hope this educational work makes you proud because I consider your commendation to be a high honor. I love and admire you both and eagerly anticipate our joyful reunion someday in another realm.  

The late NED ADAMS JENSEN (1918-2004), JOSEPH FIELDING SMITH (1899-1964), HYRUM MACK SMITH (1872-1918), GEORGE ALBERT ADAMS (1864-1935), and MARY FIELDING SMITH (1801-1852), and other progenitors on both sides of my family:  

I express my sincere gratitude for the formidable genetic gifts and powerful personal examples and mimetic legacies you passed on to me. I am deeply thankful for these gifts and influences and further acknowledge the sense I have sometimes had that you were watching over and helping me to complete this work and otherwise wend my way successfully through the very challenging "vale of sorrow and tears" that this mortal experience often is.  

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, RALPH WALDO EMERSON, HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, GEORGE WASHINGTON, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, SAM HOUSTON, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE, IMMANUEL KANT, WINSTON CHURCHILL, MOHANDAS GANDHI, C.S. LEWIS, MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., VIKTOR FRANKL and others like them:  

To my rich cornucopia of existential, academic, literary, philosophical, and historical mentors, I thank you for your examples of vision, effort, and excellence that have so deeply inspired me to undertake and pursue ambitious visions and difficult missions in my life and career. My liberal citing of your collective works throughout this text is indicative of my admiration for both your personal genius and your positive and productive contributions to American, British, Western, and World history, literature, and culture.    

MY SAL ADVISORY BOARD (SALAB):  For more information on what a "SALAB" is, see BOOK the FIFTH, Chapter 13. 

To the 31 current members of my personal SALAB, I acknowledge your individual and collective contributions to mankind, as well as the superlative and supernal spark of divinity which you have so capably cultivated within the human race. You have both individually and unitedly inspired me to become who I am today, and your lingering legacy will continue to inspire me (and countless others) to the end of my (and their) days—and beyond.

SERENDIPITY:  The SAL Textbook talks a lot about the concept, occurrence, presence, and reality of Serendipity in our lives and careers. I do not believe, as many do, that Serendipity is a synonym for coincidence, caprice, or good luck. Nor do I believe that its positive and productive effects are brought about by chance alignments of certain biorhythms in our physical bodies or random astro-occurrences throughout the Universe.

I believe Serendipity is a secular term for an external, personal, and tangible God, in whose image YOU, I, and all other human beings were created. I believe this God to be a thinking, feeling, seeing, hearing, loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful God. 

I believe that They spiritually begat me—and everyone else in the world, including you—in a premortal realm prior to our physical birth here in mortality.

I believe that God's only begotten Son—the Lord Jesus Christ—condescended to come to Earth in the meridian of time to tread the earthly pathway of God's other children and thereby experience for Himself the pains, sorrows, and vicissitudes of mortality as a human being. In the final days of Christ's life, He atoned for the sadness, sicknesses, and sins of every man, woman, boy, and girl who would ever live upon the Earth. He willingly shouldered this indescribably heavy and infinitely expansive load out of pure Love for the human race. 

I believe that on the third day following His crucifixion, Jesus Christ employed his Godly power to raise Himself from the dead, thus becoming the firstfruits of them that slept (1 Corinthians 15:20), and thereby opening up the doorway for all of us to follow suit at our own appointed time in eternity. I believe in the certainty of my own eventual resurrection, salvation, and potential exaltation through this exalted God who overcame all things by drinking the dregs of that bitterest of cups until it was everlastingly empty.   

It is my firm and undeviating conviction that These heavenly and exalted Beings love me, YOU, and everyone else (their spirit children) with a perfect, omniscient, atoning, redeeming, and sanctifying love. I further believe that God, like any loving parent, seeks continuously to promote the welfare, happiness, prosperity, and most importantly—the Existential Growth—of His and Her spirit children, of which I am but one. 

I cannot, of course, prove that these, my spiritual and religious beliefs, are TRUE—at least not in an absolute empirical or purely scientific sense. Nor is it my explicit intent to try and persuade you to view Serendipity as I do. After all, part of being "Freedom Focused" is possessing, enjoying, and embracing the opportunity, right, and privilege to freely choose what you will (or will not) believe. 

However, I have seen, read, heard, felt, experienced, and otherwise discerned sufficient rational, scriptural, spiritual, visceral, and anecdotal evidence of this, my belief, that I would bet my life upon its veracity. Indeed, you might well say I have already done so, although the jury is still out such that the verdict will never be entirely revealed in this life; hence, my need for continued FAITH until the end of my appointed time in this world. 

Nevertheless, it remains my unequivocal belief and unassailable perception that this Source has assisted me so often and so thoroughly throughout the multi-decade creation of this work that I would be both intellectually dishonest and personally ungrateful if I did not frankly and openly acknowledge that continuous assistance—and express my sincere and loving gratitude therefor.  

—Dr. JJ

Wednesday, September 27, 2023  (Revised March 6, 2026)

Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, USA

Author's Note: This is the 349th Blog Post Published by Freedom Focused LLC since November 2013 and the 166th consecutive weekly blog published since August 31, 2020.   

Click HERE for a compete listing of the other 348 FF Blog Articles 

Click HERE for a complete listing of Freedom Focused SAL QUOTES  

Click HERE for a complete listing of Freedom Focused SAL POEMS   

Click HERE to access the FULL TEXT of Dr. JJ's Psalms of Life: A Poetry Collection

Click HERE for a complete listing of Self-Action Leadership Articles

Click HERE for a complete listing of Fitness, Heath, & Wellness Articles

Click HERE for a complete listing of Biographical & Historical Articles

Click HERE for a complete listing of Current Events, Cultural, Philosophical, & Miscellaneous Articles

Click HERE for a complete listing of Dr. JJ's Autobiographical Articles

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The Wonderful World of Books

Part of my new office library in Florida

"The [person] who will not read is no better than the [person] who cannot read."

— Mark Twain 

I have always LOVED books.

It is, therefore, with an unusual sense of gratification and pleasure that I pen today's post from my brand new desk in my new home office where I am nearly completely surrounded by the beautiful sight of my personal library.  

My family and I recently fulfilled a long-held dream of ours to relocate to South Florida. Moving is an exciting time in one's life; it can also be stressful. My experiences with moving have been unusually many and varied—even by our highly mobile twenty-first century standards.

To wit, I am only 41 years old, yet have moved 45 times to 42 different addresses in two countries, five different time zones, seven different states, and two provinces of Canada. 

It's been exciting... and exhausting! 

Suffice it to say, with a little luck, we won't be moving again anytime soon. And with a little more luck, the balance of our lives will not include many more moves.

It is upon reflection of these past experiences that I sit here at my computer in my new Palm Beach Gardens home office and take a literal and figurative sigh of relief to think that we are finally settled at least semi-permanently. And it is with a sense of joy and pleasure that I do so in my newly arranged personal library. After all, one of my favorite things to do every time we move is to rearrange my BELOVED BOOKS.  

Next to the sight of my beautiful wife and children and the picturesque aqua-blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South Florida, there are few sights on Earth as pleasurable and soul-satisfying as a vista of literary volumes—especially if said tomes represent my favorite genres of history, philosophy, theology, poetry, and leadership.

My love of books goes back to before I could even read.

As a six-year-old, I recall the day my neighbor—a gal named Emily Anderson—stopped by our house with her mother, Suzanne. Emily was a "Big First-Grader" and knew how to read; I was still in kindergarten and had not yet learned. Deeply attracted to her budding competency, I invited Emily into my personal office (playhouse under the stairs), handed her some paperwork I had retrieved from my Dad's office trash, and asked earnestly and hopefully if she would do me the honor of reading to me. She obliged; and I was both impressed and entranced by such skill.

How I yearned to follow in her footsteps!

With my Mama, as a First Grader

Soon thereafter, my family moved—one of my first moves in life—and I began first grade, which is where I learned how to read. I wasn't very good at first. My instruction at home had not included explicit details on phonics and my kindergarten experience had focused on pre-reading activities. In addition, I was an August birthday and on the oldest end of my class. As such, I was seven years old before I formally learned how to read. But I was motivated, so it didn't take long for me to get rolling. Part of my drive can be credited with the fact that I initially tested into the "middle" or average of three reading groups in my class. My best friend—Eric Driggs—tested into the top or above average group and I wasn't about to be left behind. It wasn't long before I advanced into Eric's group. 

Despite my slow start to formal reading, I was blessed to have been born into a family that loved books as much as I did. My maternal grandfather (1899-1964)—a professor of speech and drama and one of the top-flight oral readers in the United States in his time—built a personal library of thousands of books over the course of his life and career. And while he died 14 years before I was born, his books stayed behind in my grandmother's home where I was able to discover, relish, devour, borrow, and eventually annex some of them into my own library. In addition to Grandmother Smith's sizable personal library, my father—a career English teacher—also owned an impressive number of books for a middle-class man of the 1980s. Consequently, my childhood home—and in time, my own bedroom—was filled with books.

Copying trigonometry equations
from my older brothers' math
textbook as a first grader in
sunny Mesa, Arizona

Many of my choicest childhood hours were spent in blissful solitude surrounded by wonderful stacks of books in my grandmother's home, my own home, or any other library (public or private) I could find. And the beauty of it all was that no one ever pressured me to like or read books; I freely discovered the passion all on my own by the simple fact and virtue that piles of books were made readily available to me by my parents and grandparents. It is, in part, for this very reason that I have now accumulated a one-thousand book personal library of my own—because I want to provide the same opportunity to my own children.

Perhaps avid readers of the Freedom Focused blog have asked themselves: How does Jordan keep coming up with different topics to write about week-after-week-after-week? Well, now you have an answer. When you have traveled as much and read as widely as I have, the well is deep and the memories are thick and rich!

And the cool part is that there is nothing inherently special about me; but everything is special about BOOKS! As such, there is nothing stopping you from diving in more deeply and widely yourself... beginning TODAY! Perhaps reading this article will inspire you to do a little more reading in your own personal and professional life.

I highly recommend it!  

Of the one thousand books I currently own, there is one that is dedicated in particular to this subject. I found it as a young boy scanning the shelves of my Grandmother Smith's home library in Centerville, Utah.

The book is called The Wonderful World of Books, edited by Alfred Stefferud. On its front cover, it reads: This book can change your life and the lives of those around you. With its help you can win greater success and happiness, benefit from the treasuries of the world's wisdom and knowledge, explore fascinating realms of adventure and entertainment and make valued new friends... all through the magic of reading. 

This book of short essays incorporates the wisdom of nearly seventy (70) different authors who expound upon why books can be among our greatest friends, provide us with enormous personal and professional pleasure, help us become better people and citizens, and learn to read more effectively. It is a wonderful reminder of the diamond mine of information contained in the world's greatest books. I do hope that introducing this unique book's title and contents might spur your own thinking about how you might further tap into the riches available to you through the written word. 

Too many people, upon completing their formal education, stop reading seriously. And in the age of the Internet, too many people spend most of their reading time online consuming virtual print that has little authentic educational value and does not edify the mind or uplift the heart or soul.

This is sad.

          It is also preventable.

Hyrum W. Smith
Co-Founder of FranklinCovey
Originator of the Franklin Day Planner
1943-2019

My late uncle, Hyrum W. Smith, co-founded FranklinCovey with Dr. Stephen R. Covey. A few years ago, I interviewed my Uncle Hyrum for an entrepreneurship textbook project I was working on. The final question I asked in the interview was: "What advice would you give to young college students interested in becoming entrepreneurs?" Assuming his answer would have something to do with motivation, hard work, persistence, or handling rejection, his answer surprised me.

He said:

When I was just a boy, my father had me memorize a statement that said, "You cannot think any deeper than your vocabulary will allow you to think." If you really examine anyone who has been authentically successful as an entrepreneur—or in any other field—you will discover they have a large vocabulary. As I reflect back over my career, I attribute much of my success to a love of the English language and my commitment to read deeply and widely, and to study speech and language. Anyone who wants to be successful in this world has got to read books, and lots of them. This requires a willingness to set aside electronic devices, social media, video games, and other distractions, and the discipline to stick to the task of reading—even when it seems boring. In order to learn independently of others and expand your vocabulary, you must pay the price to spend time with good books, including the dictionary. There is no other way. The size of your vocabulary will, to a large extent, determine how much success you enjoy—or don't enjoy—in your life. 

        —Hyrum W. Smith

Suffice it to say, I have learned the spot-on truth of my uncle's words throughout my own life and career, and they ring ever truer as the years go by. 

My college "Vocabulary Journal"

When I was in college, one of the most important work tasks I ever undertook (by far) was to diligently keep a vocabulary journal. 

When I would come across a word I didn't know in a textbook or elsewhere, I would write it down in my vocabulary journal. I would then look up the word in the dictionary and copy down the definition and other relevant information about the word. Sometimes I would also include a "practice sentence" using the word in my own way.  

This particular task was NOT an official assignment. It was simply something I knew in my own mind and heart would be a very smart thing to do. And you won't be surprised to hear that this activity has been far more valuable to me in my life and career than 99.9% of the official assignments my professors required me to complete.

Side work that a student proactively pursues on his or her own often ends up being of far greater value than anything a professor formally assigns one to do. Thus it is that the "quality" of a person's formal education is usually determined more by one's own passionate pursuit of learning than the quality or reputation of one's professors—or the supposed prestige of a particular school.

To illustrate this point, consider the following example...

Both of my degrees (a bachelor's in English and a Doctorate in Education) are from obscure, non-prestigious schools. Nevertheless, I'd wager that the quality of my own personal education can beat most (if not all) Ivy Leaguers (or culturally equivalent) in my field. Why? Because the quality of my education was not determined by the schools I attended or the professors I had; it was determined by a conscious choice backed up by concrete, consistent, determined, focused, and persistent (extra) effort on my part.

That's the MAGIC and POWER of SELF-ACTION LEADERSHIP!  

I'm not here to tell you what books to read. That's up to YOU to decide. However, just for starters, it couldn't hurt to provide a few of my favorites—just as examples of some of the books that have impacted my life the most, and that could likely bless your life as well, if you are willing to discipline yourself to begin seriously reading one (or more) of them.   

Happy Reading!  

Thirteen (13) Books that Have Influenced Dr. Jordan Jensen's Life the Most

1. The Road Less Traveled.........................by M. Scott Peck, M.D.

2. Further Along the Road Less Traveled.........................by: M. Scott Peck, M.D.

3. The Road Less Traveled and Beyond..........................by: M. Scott Peck, M.D.

4. How to Stop Worrying and Start Living.........................by: Dale Carnegie

5. How to Win Friends and Influence People.........................by: Dale Carnegie

6. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.........................by: Stephen R. Covey

7. The Lessons of History.........................by:Will & Ariel Durant

8. The Greatest Secret in the World.........................by: Og Mandino

9. Hamlet.........................by: William Shakespeare

10. 101 Famous Poems with a Prose Supplement.........................Edited by: Roy J. Cook 

11. Man's Search for Meaning.........................by: Viktor Frankl

12.  Self-Leadership: The Definitive Guide to Personal Excellence.........................by: Christopher P. Neck, Charles C. Manz, and Jeffery D. Houghton

13. The Holy Bible

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Tune in NEXT Wednesday for another article on a Self-Action Leadership related topic.  

And if you liked this blog post, please share it with your family, friends, colleagues, and students—and encourage them to sign up to receive future articles for FREE every Wednesday.

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