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A Trial Trifecta ~ Self-Action Leadership ³ Dr. Jordan R. Jensen ³ © 2015 Freedom Focused LLC

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A Trial Trifecta ª

THE JORDAN JENSEN STORY

A Personal Narrative in Three Parts

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CHAPTER 1: OCD IS HELL ª

CHAPTER 2: MY ROCKY ROAD OF ROMANCE ª

CHAPTER 3: CAREER CRUCIBLES


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CHAPTER 1


PART I ª

OCD IS HELL

“In the quiet heart is hidden Sorrow that the eye can’t see.”

– Susan Evans McCloud

(1945-Present)

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) affects approximately 2 percent of the population. This harrowing affliction touches lives in every corner of society. Many high profile persons from a variety of societal sectors have suffered, or were believed to have suffered, from OCD. These individuals come from a wide range of fields, including art (Michelangelo), the armed forces (Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson), science (Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein), music (Ludwig Van Beethoven), business (Donald Trump), athletics (David Beckham), and entertainment (Justin Timberlake, Katy Perry, Harrison Ford, Penélope Cruz, and others).

OCD symptoms include obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors. For persons suffering with OCD, obsessive thoughts are unwanted and often turn into agonizing ruminations that cause great mental anguish. Compulsive behaviors are then undertaken to reduce the anxiety produced by the obsessive thoughts – often evolving into irrational rituals. While everyone may experience some obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors, a person with clinical OCD often experiences symptoms that consume significant amounts of time and interfere with normal, daily functioning.

CAUSES OF OCD

It is hard to identify exactly what causes OCD, but a combination of genetic, social, chemical, and environmental variables are typically involved in its onset and exacerbation. It is sometimes referred to as “the doubting disease,” and common obsessions include intrusive doubting, sexual thoughts, religious blasphemy, incurring harm to self and others, order, symmetry, cleanliness, and fear of germs. Typical compulsions include washing, checking, ordering, and repeating words and prayers. Compulsions can be accompanied by involuntary body, facial, and verbal tics. Trichotillomania (hair plucking and skin picking) may also accompany an OCD diagnosis. Personally, I have struggled with trichotillomania in the form of skin pulling for much of my life.

OCD’S INSIDIOUS CYCLE

OCD manifests itself in a three-step, cyclical process. The first step involves intrusive, unwanted, obsessive thoughts that trigger anxiety. The second step involves ritualistic, compulsive behaviors performed in hopes of alleviating the anxiety. The third step involves the experience of relief. The pattern


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Obsession

Compulsion

Relief

ANXIETY

then painfully repeats itself until a combination of time and/or therapy, medication, and personal growth can break the cycle.

Figure 14.1 OCD’s Insidious Cycle

One of my mental health counselors explained it this way: All people have a variety of would-be thoughts waiting to enter their minds at any given moment. However, human brains have a screen-like filtering process that filters out most OCD-oriented thoughts. For those with OCD, however, the “holes” in the brain’s screen become enlarged, allowing a host of thoughts to pass into the mind that would typically not rise to the level of conscious thought. It is believed that certain medications (i.e., selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs) may decrease the size of these holes and thereby prevent obsessive thoughts from slipping past the mind’s filter. Symptom alleviation for many patients, including my own, serve to corroborate this medicinal hypothesis.

THE IMPACT OF OCD ON LOVED ONES Having OCD can produce negative effects on family members and friends. A substantial percentage of those with OCD do not marry. Those who do wed tend to marry later in life and have trouble sustaining healthy marital relationships.1 Negative effects can impact other family members as well. In more serious cases, these effects can include “serious disruption of family functioning and overt conflict.”2

While serving my LDS mission, my mission president suggested that my OCD would influence my role as a husband and father. I chose to interpret his observation as an important caveat for my future. Desperately desiring to avoid the dangers and damages to family life I knew OCD could create, and hyper aware of the negative influence my father’s bipolar disorder had on my parent’s marriage, this forewarning was a trigger that motivated me to “attack” my OCD with exceptional vigor. This cautionary advice, in concert with a pathological romantic letdown that occurred shortly after returning home from my mission, led me to seek out regular therapy. I yearned for emancipation from my OCD.

1 De Silva, P. (2003). The Phenomenology of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. In R. G. Menzies & P. de Silva (Eds.), Obsessive-2 Ibid. 6.


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occurred on the final day of my two-year service. To preface this sad story, I should note that LDS missionaries are not allowed to listen to secular

music while on their missions. But on one final mission occasion, while we were on our way to the airport, our driver (also a missionary) popped in a cassette with music designed to rouse our enthusiasm and patriotism as we returned to the U.S. (e.g. Neil Diamond’s Coming to America was the opening track). Any sane person would have recognized the appropriateness of this special moment at the end of our missionary service. Completely blinded to the humanness of this unique circumstance, I could see nothing beyond the fact that these missionaries were staining my last day in the mission field by choosing to play unauthorized mission music.

Burning with frustration inside, I opted to “courageously” speak out and express how unfortunate I thought it was that we would “blow it” with the rules our very last day in the field. In my shameful, and I would add, selfish, failure to “see the forest for the trees,” I utterly ruined a moment that should have been very memorable and special for all of us. Oblivious to the spirit-of-the-law in the matter, I rigidly rained on everyone else’s parade, and after two years of diligent, unpaid, voluntary service, everyone in that van rightly deserved a little patriotic parading.

Other missionaries in the van responded with awkward silence, not sure how to react to such unexpected and vociferous self-righteousness over such a ridiculous matter. One missionary, however, had had enough, and he let me have it! Vehemently confronting me, he angrily bellowed, “Shut up Elder Jensen! Just shut up! You aren’t going to ruin this moment for all of us.” But sadly, the moment had already been ruined—I had ruined it—and there was nothing any of us could do to restore what might have been. The music continued to play, but the joy and camaraderie was gone; it had been stolen, and I had been the thief. Perhaps this poor missionary (or maybe someone from that van that day) will have an opportunity someday to read this narrative. If they do, I would like to apologize for my myopic dampening of your spirits that cold, March day as we drove along from Sherwood Park to the Edmonton, Alberta airport to fly home to our families. I was a real jerk, and I am sorry. Please know that my selfish, unkind, and unnecessary reaction was rooted in Jordan Jensen’s OCD, not in Elder Jensen himself. WEIGHT OF THE WORLD ON MY SHOULDERS As I struggled with OCD, I eventually fell prey to all ten of Dr. David Burns’ cognitive distortions. The amalgamation of these distortions gave me unrealistic expectations for perfection, and resulted in the enormous pressure of maintaining a spot-free conscience at all times. Generally speaking, we can all benefit from striving to live with a clear conscience. The problem with my OCD was that my cognitive distortions created sins that were not really sins at all. These distortions not only created unrealistic expectations regarding my own behavior, but they also induced a sense of unnecessary responsibility for others that was often presumptuous. This resulted in getting me entangled inappropriately in other people’s business.

The sum result of this madness was a self-imposed punishment that saw me morph into a mentally ill Atlas archetype burdened by the self-imposed responsibility for perfection not only in my own conduct, but also for the moral actions of other people—and not just one or two persons, but essentially the entire planet, or at least anyone with which I came into contact. It was an utterly infeasible task, and placed an indescribably heavy existential burden upon my shoulders. This obsessive sense of faux responsibility traveled with me everywhere I went, and obnoxiously stuck its head into virtually every situation in which I found myself.

It also conjured up many situations and circumstances that did not exist except in my own troubled mind. As a result, I often felt a sense of panicked-urgency to take action when none was required – action that often did more harm than good. In the process, I annoyed, and likely bewildered, many a family member, friend, acquaintance, and even stranger. To this day, I still shudder when I recall some of the ridiculous things I said and did because of this neurotic moral responsibility I believed was mine to shoulder. Moreover, such an anxious and discontented spirit made it difficult to develop normal, functioning, and mutually satisfying friendships or relationships with my male peers, much less girls. Amazingly, I held myself hostage to these self-imposed and unrealistically high standards for an ungodly number of years. How I avoided a nervous breakdown is a wonder to me. The sense that I was teetering on the edge of insanity (for a variety of different reasons) prevailed for many years, and created a tremendous sense of existential insecurity and vulnerability. Fortunately, I was always able to somehow


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hold my ground, but there were times when insanity might have proved a welcome reprieve from the ever-conscious conundrum of such a consistently agitated neurosis.

It was not until I began seriously attending therapy after my mission that I finally started to relinquish this unrelenting burden. Even then, my achievement of mental hygiene was accomplished incrementally over a long period spanning many years. In the ensuing years, and through much cognitive-behavioral treatment (professional, homespun, and self-help) I have become much better at recognizing the difference between real and imagined responsibilities. Nevertheless, to this day, I admit to avoiding some social and other situations altogether in an effort to keep my life as simple as possible and prevent old obsessions and compulsions from rearing their ugly head once again. As such, I avoid gossip, and otherwise becoming unnecessarily entangled in other people’s business, like the plague.

As I continue my journey through life, my mantra has become to simplify anywhere and everywhere I can. This on-going process of simplification and the processes of mental and physical re-organization that accompany them have taken great amounts of time. After beginning serious psychotherapy in 2001, it took me until 2008 (7 long years) to achieve the level of mental and personal simplification that I sought, and my journey to simplification has by no means ended. As each year passes, I get a little bit better, although I also experience some backward steps from time-to-time. It’s taken a long time and a lot of effort to shrink my perceived responsibilities down to their actual size, but it has been well worth the effort. With help from God and my amazing support network of family and friends, this effort has initiated enormous healing, and allowed me to finally secure a significant measure of happiness and peace of mind. SOCIAL DIFFIDENCE AND UNEASE In elementary school, I was charismatic, cheerful, and extroverted. I had many friends, was popular with my peers, and was well liked by my teachers. In first grade, I was voted class president. In third, fourth, and fifth grade, I was voted by my classmates to represent them in the student council. In fifth grade, I was cast as the lead male role in the school play. A talented and respected athlete among my peers, I was routinely one of the first players picked during our playground process of selecting of teams on the basketball court or football field. I was well liked by both my male peers and my female counterparts. In fifth grade, I even had three different girls vying for my affection. One girl in particular I especially liked, and turned down her invitation to “go out” only because my church taught me not to date until age 16. Inspired by my older brothers’ obedient examples, it was important to me to follow in their footsteps by living true to this tenet of my faith. This youthful popularity and social success came to a dramatic halt in seventh grade following my graduation from elementary school. The onset of my mental disorder was exacerbated by the external challenges and realities of being thrust out of an extremely innocent elementary school world and into a junior high environment that, by comparison, seemed like a swirling cesspool of puerile prurience. It took me nearly two decades to recover completely from the social repercussions of OCD that began taking root in seventh grade. My high school and college years were particularly negatively affected, especially as it related to romance—which I will describe in great detail in the next chapter.

DEPRESSION JOINS THE MIX

Over the years, I developed comorbid depression alongside my OCD. For every ten days I’ve spent under the yoke of OCD, five or six of them have been further tainted by depression. Depression has also morphed into its own unique manifestation of obsessive thinking. This has been one of the most nefarious influences in my life, as it seeks to stamp out joy whenever and wherever it attempts to blossom. My obsessive depression has made it difficult to experience and enjoy those blessed moments of spontaneous joy that crop up in life from time-to-time. This joy-killing process plays out like this: I feel joy for a few short seconds and then, almost as soon as the joyful feelings or thoughts have passed, they are immediately sabotaged by awful feelings of despair, self-loathing, and a barrage of other painful obsessions. It’s as if my condition condescendingly screams at me to say:

“Listen here dumb ass: don’t you know that joy is unacceptable around here. Here’s something really


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unpleasant to think about; now ruminate on it till all your damn joy is smothered! Arrrrrrgghhhh! Oh, and by the way, I hate you and wish nothing more than for you to experience continuous misery every day of your life. Blank you, you blanking piece of blank!”

This permutation of obsessive depression has been omnipresent throughout all other obsessions I’ve experienced. Indeed, it seems to be the very essence of my OCD itself. It is a fiendish monster eternally committed to the corruption and annihilation of as much peace, happiness, and joy as possible. PHILOSOPHICAL & EXISTENTIAL OCD As an adult, most strains of OCD I suffered with in high school and college have either diminished significantly or virtually vanished. Nonetheless, for the past decade or so, perhaps the most perplexing strain of all has replaced other strains to produce tremendous anxiety and obsessions surrounding unanswerable existential questions about life and eternity. While I am a person of faith, religion does not answer all questions, and my OCD-inflicted brain has proved itself quite adept over the years at finding unanswerable queries to obsess about. One OCD expert, Fred Penzel, Ph.D., recently wrote about this “flavor”15 of OCD in a recent issue of the International OCD Foundation’s “OCD Newsletter.”16

Many people in the general public and the media have a very stereotypical image of what OCD is all about. Individuals with OCD are seen as people who either wash their hands too frequently, or who are super organized and perfectionists. Thus, it can be difficult to recognize the types of OCD that don’t resemble these common stereotypes. The reality is, there are many forms that OCD can take. The types and topics of your obsessions and compulsions are limited only by your brain’s ability to imagine. OCD is insidious, as it seems to have a way of finding out what will bother someone the most. In concert with the mental malaise and general depression produced by this existential strain of

OCD, I also experience panic attacks where I feel existentially trapped, imprisoned, and psychologically strained to a near breaking point. These panic attacks are accompanied by a frenzied sense of nihilistic dread that sweeps over me like a cold, wet blanket. These attacks make me wish I could escape from my body and mind, both of which seem like shackles and instruments of existential torture. The only certain escape from such moments is to completely immerse myself in an activity that places a substantial cognitive load on my brain, thus successfully distracting me from the obsessions. There are several activities that provide this complete mental immersion (e.g., writing, speaking, engaging conversation, eating a delicious meal, watching an interesting movie or documentary, downhill mountain biking, detailed yard work, playing video games or fantasy baseball, and sex with my wife). I am deeply grateful to God that such activities exist as a healthy reprieve from such ponderous mental and emotional burdens.

As described in the sonnet below, these panic attacks give me great grief. They cause a deep dislike and fear of life, and instill a desire for death, non-existence, or at least a divine reprieve from the suffering of life. Such moments also provide a vivid appreciation of, and empathy for, the madness that drives some to suicide. SONNET 21 The Passage of Time Thanks be to God for the passage of time, That marches life on to a welcomed grave, Where at last we may hasten the sublime Status of being in a new enclave Outside of TIME—that fleeting enemy— Which serveth death to each blessed moment We fain would prolong through eternity,

15 For a great article that outlines a dozen different “flavors” of OCD, see Weg, A.H. (2011). Living with OCD: Strategies and Treatments for Anxiety Disorders and Compulsive Behaviors. Psychology Today (Online). Published July 16, 2011. URL: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/living-ocd/201107/the-many-flavors-ocd 16 Penzel, F. (2013). To Be or Not to Be, That is the Obsession: Existential and Philosophical OCD. Newsletter of the International OCD Foundation (IOCDF). Volume 27, Number 4 (Fall/Winter 2013). Boston, MA. Page 15.


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Yet elongates obsessive moments sent, Perpetuating all with interest Into the rusted trappings of the mind Wherein we may perpetually invest: In joy that ne’er dies, or pain that e’er grinds To piece and powder all my use of time. I pray that I might yet summit the climb. In one of his poetic masterpieces, the late British poet (Wordsworth) once lamented the woeful state of the world when he exclaimed in his immortal sonnet: The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers. Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! The sea that bares her bosom to the moon, The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are upgathered now like sleeping flowers— For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn, So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn, Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.17

My obsessive ruminations about the otherworldly and the endlessness of existence cause me to wish I could be more present in the ‘here and now,’ as others seem to do so effectively. Such drowning in existential anxiety profoundly inhibits my ability to be an emotional participant in my own life, causing me to miss out on many smaller moments of happiness others might routinely experience. Such experiences influenced my penning of the following sonnet. SONNET 17 The World is Not Enough with Me The world is not enough with me—NOW, Too much time spent thinking and forecasting, Trying too hard to see it all—blasting The feelings of peace—I fail to allow Real emotions, the wonder—the WOW! The satisfied sense of sweat on my brow; The pure joy—spontaneous in my youth— That unsullied acquisition of truth, It moves me not! Great God, I’d rather be A zealot, willing to fight and to die For any just cause that might make me free, Unshackle my brain from perplexing whys, What e’er it may take, or how I must cloy To gain the God-granted privilege of joy.

SEEKING HELP M. Scott Peck, M.D. suggests that rather than classifying the human race into a simplistic dichotomy consisting of persons who are either mentally healthy or mentally ill, it is more accurate to view mankind as existing along a spectrum of mental health.

17 Wordsworth, W. in Rolfe, W. J., editor (1889). Select Poems of William Wordsworth (Google Books version). New York, NY: Harper & Brothers. Pages 120-121.


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[The] tendency to avoid problems and the emotional suffering inherent in them is the primary basis of all human mental illness. Since most of us have this tendency to a greater or lesser degree, most of us are … lacking complete mental health. Some of us will go to quite extraordinary lengths to avoid our problems and the suffering they cause, proceeding far afield from all that is clearly good and sensible in order to try to find an easy way out, building the most elaborate fantasies in which to live, sometimes to the total exclusion of reality. In the succinctly elegant words of Carl Jung, “Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering.”18 According to Peck, “All psychological disorders are basically disorders of consciousness.”19 This

paradigm breaks with Freudian concepts that mental illness is rooted in the unconscious. Frankl and Peck’s paradigm that neurosis is rooted in consciousness grants more choice and control to the patient, but it likewise creates personal accountability since neurosis is ultimately a result of “a conscious mind that refuses to think and is unwilling to deal with certain issues, bear certain feelings, or tolerate pain.”20 According to Peck, “therapy’s purpose is to help people become more aware so that they can think more clearly and live their lives more effectively and efficiently.”21

To accomplish these goals of increased consciousness, effectiveness, and efficiency in a patient’s life, a patient must be willing to proactively exercise Self-Action Leadership. This is because no therapist (no matter how effective), and no pill (no matter how efficacious) can fix the problems (internal or external) of an individual who lacks the desire and will to change.

Peck further emphasizes that if psychotherapeutic processes are to be successful, the onus for progress falls primarily on the patient, not on the shoulders of the health care professional. Achieving good mental hygiene requires a heightened “awareness of [one’s] own feelings and imperfections,”22 a “willingness to think in broader ways or to handle different situations creatively,”23 a willingness to “tolerate pain,”24 “great internal strength,”25 and “self-control.”26 Peck equates “a high degree of consciousness” and “self-control” with “psychological competence,”27—which is the goal of therapy. Hence, victims of mental illness, especially neurotic (as opposed to psychotic)28 illnesses are, in the final analysis, only victims if they choose to be.

All my mental health related study, Self-Action Research,29 and experiences corroborate Peck’s paradigm of personal responsibility in effectively treating non-psychotic mental illness. There are many things that can palliate symptoms of neurosis; but the choice to grow and eventually be healed must ultimately be made by the individual.

My motivation to get help came in part from observing my dad’s experiences with bipolar disorder. It also came from a deep desire to transcend my neurosis in order to accomplish important life goals—especially as they related to marriage, family, schooling, and my career. Over time, I gradually came to know that if I did not take full responsibility for my OCD and depression, I would relinquish control of my life and fail to obtain the life and future I so desperately wanted. In high school, while I was still just learning about OCD, I completed a research paper on the subject. One particularly powerful article by Mark Simblist, an Australian homeopathic doctor, resonated deeply with me. In his article, Simblist writes:

Our aim should be to raise a victim’s awareness to the level where they know they have a choice – a choice to think what they want to think and a choice not to be victims of intrusive thoughts or compulsions any more.

18 Peck, M. S. (1978). The Road Less Traveled. New York, NY: Touchstone. Page 16-17. 19 Peck, M. S. (1997). The Road Less Traveled and Beyond: Spiritual Growth in an Age of Anxiety. New York, NY: Touchstone. Page 75. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid. Page 78. 22 Ibid. Page 79. 23 Ibid. Page 77. 24 Ibid. Page 75. 25 Ibid. Page 85. 26 Ibid. Page 81. 27 Ibid. Page 81. 28 When mental illness advances beyond the stages of neurosis, to more advanced stages of psychosis, there is a point when an otherwise autonomous individual capable of growing through their mental illness may no longer be reasonably accountable for their mental state and/or physical actions. The diagnosis and assessment of neurosis and/or psychosis is the business of licensed mental health care professionals, and should not involve casual guesswork. 29 Self-Action Research, or SAR, is defined and explicated further in BOOK the THIRD, Chapter 3.


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This naturally involves healing very negative thought patterns built up over years and releasing bottled up emotions. … In general I think patients will need to take responsibility for their condition and work quite intensely with a number of different healing methods, particularly some form of therapy, and be prepared to make changes to their lifestyle. … Most of all, patients must realise that compulsive behaviour began with a choice at some level, and conscious choice is the key to breaking it.30 It was in the spirit of Simblist’s words that I proactively pursued professional help in connection

with self-help strategies to confront my illness. I felt empowered and emboldened by the concept that choice plays a key role in defeating mental illness, including OCD. Every time I visited a professional, even as a minor, I did so willingly. I do not say this to impress you, but to impress upon you that the operative word in, and the key variable to, holistic healing is always your will to get better. While healthcare professionals can facilitate the healing process, and while medication may mitigate symptoms along the way, a patient’s will to be honest with oneself and work very hard (in conjunction with opening oneself up to the gifts of Serendipity) is the only lasting key to success.

From ages 13-17, I did not know I had OCD. I just thought I was “different” and “weird.” As an adolescent, I hid my obsessions and compulsions from others as best I could. Even when I was not hiding my symptoms from those seeking to help me, such as my parents, I did not have a sufficient knowledge of abnormal psychology to understand what was really going on. While my parents were supportive and loving through this difficult period, they were also quite ignorant of what was actually wrong with me, as well as how they could specifically help me. My dad’s struggle with bipolar disorder was instrumental in helping me discover my OCD. As I observed the deep distress he faced, which nearly led to his suicide in 1996, the thought occurred to me that maybe I also had something wrong with my mind, albeit something with a different name. I started out by reviewing literature in the small library of my rural high school. I first found a book with information on agoraphobia. Some of the symptoms looked familiar, but did not mirror my issues precisely. My next step involved browsing the Internet, which had just recently come to our community. Before long, I came across some information about OCD. The more I read, the more certain I became that I had made a correct self-diagnosis. This was a glorious occasion because it helped dispel the idea that I was “just weird.” It also produced hope for help and healing.

Several months later, in January 1997, I visited a psychiatrist for the first time. He officially diagnosed me with OCD and wrote me a prescription for Luvox (fluvoxamine). Thus began an extended, albeit sporadic, journey of medicinal treatment for OCD that would continue intermittently up until the present day (2015). I recall feeling much better after going on medication the first time, but felt frustrated by my inability to precisely identify how much of my improvement was caused by improving external circumstances versus any direct impacts of the medication. In hindsight, I think it was a combination of both.

I do not remember exactly when I stopped taking Luvox, but I moved to Spokane, Washington in August 1997 (six months or so after I began taking medication) and I do not recall taking any medication while Spokane. It is possible this played a minor role in the overall difficulty of my senior year in Washington, which proved to be the second most unpleasant school year of my life; only 7th grade was worse.

While in Spokane, I met with a counselor at LDS Social Services31 a couple of times in 1998. That fall, I had a couple more sessions with a different counselor in Denver, Colorado. The purpose of meeting with the counselor in Colorado was to obtain clearance to serve my LDS mission.

On my mission, I met with my mission president every four to six weeks for a personal, ecclesiastical interview. Over time, it became increasingly evident to him that I needed counseling beyond what he was able to provide. He referred me to LDS Social Services where I attended four or five professional counseling sessions, which proved to be both illuminating and encouraging. I have been incredibly blessed over the years to be paired with the right counselor at the right time. God’s tender mercies have ever smiled upon me in this regard, and I feel privileged to have been able to work with a wide array of wonderful professional who have successfully assisted me along my extended journey.

Several months after returning from my mission, I experienced a profoundly difficult and disappointing romantic letdown. The emotional fallout and subsequent exacerbation of my OCD symptoms 30 Simblist, M. (1998). Homeopathy and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. The Journal of Australian Homeopathic Association Inc.

Volume 11, Issue 2, p. 18-21. Page 19. 31 Presently known as LDS Family Services – the professional counseling arm of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.


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were so severe that I again sought out professional counseling. This was the first time I had done so without suggestions from my parents or ecclesiastical leaders.

As a poor college student, I was concerned about how I would pay for professional counseling. Fortunately, I discovered the Comprehensive Clinic at Brigham Young University (BYU) – a counseling center where graduate students in training provided counseling services to students at a reduced rate. I could get the therapy I needed for only $15 per session.32

Taking advantage of this affordable opportunity, I pursued regular, ongoing therapy for the first

time in my life. I started out meeting with my counselor at least once a week, and then tapered off to once every other week, et cetera, throughout the entire period I spent in therapy. I continued to meet with my counselor until she completed her term at the Comprehensive Clinic—a period of about 10 months. The following journal entries shed some light on my experiences with, and attitudes toward therapy and my counselor.

Thursday, October 11, 2001

I had a psychological evaluation done today. Met w/ a fellow named ——— who got a background idea of my struggle with obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression. I took a personality test as part of it, which was 240 questions long.

I then met w/ my therapist ——— for the second time. Was productive insofar as she helped me identify one of the symptoms of which I had not thought of much before. That is a mind that has thoughts which race and race. She pointed out that even my way of presenting info to her comes out quickly, and jumps from here to there. It was very eye-opening. Thursday, October 18, 2001

Today I spent four hours at the Comprehensive Clinic. Took a 500+ question evaluation/test, by far the longest I have taken. It included a true/false and personality test. It was easy to take and went quickly, but the sheer quantity of questions was a bit intimidating. Then I took another 90- question test, then waited for my session of therapy w/ ——— which went very well. I learned a lot. Thursday, October 25, 2001

Had a therapy session w/ ———. It went well. She taught me a relaxing exercise that should be beneficial. I also did some more testing, including an ink-blot test where he would show me some abstract ink blotches, symmetrical in form, and would ask me what I saw in them. My mind obsessively saw sexual images before

32 While I was always able to pay the $15 fee, I should note that the Comprehensive Clinic would generously waive this reduced fee if a patient could not afford to pay. I have always been impressed by the utility and charity of this wonderful program that so mightily blessed my life. Thank you, Brigham Young University, for providing this wonderful service to your community.


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it saw anything else because that is the most embarrassing thing to see—and then have to say. He recorded everything I said. Afterward I took another true-false personality test of 170 questions or so.

Tues. Oct. 30, 2001

Had an excellent therapy session with ———. I am feeling more comfortable w/ her as our sessions go on. Today’s session was very productive, and I came away with some concrete items to work on.

Sun. November 11, 2001

I think I was very mature tonight. Spent some time w/ a girl named ——— tonight. She is a cute girl. I was proud of myself to be able to talk w/ her and strive to get closer to someone as my psycho-therapist ——— has asked me to strive to do—to just try and get closer to people. In fact she even assigned me a few weeks ago to try to have an emotionally based conversation w/ a female.

Tuesday, November 27, 2001

I went to a therapy session today w/ my therapist ———. She is great. Had a great session and made some progress. Her emphasis of solution is based on really pounding the exposure-response treatment, in ways I haven’t so much done.

Thursday, December 6, 2001

Today I had a review w/ ——— at the clinic of how my psychological assessment went—that was all those tests I took about six weeks ago. Today I had the chance to hear at point blank range, and in plain words of biting sharpness 45 pointed weaknesses or areas of neurosis and cognitive distortions that became evident by the results of the tests.

At the time, I had a hard time holding in the laughter, because it just seemed funny to me. Tonight it doesn’t seem so funny to me anymore. What I see is a re-affirmation of the reality and severity of my neurosis, and an uphill battle yet to fight.

The results of my combined psychometric testing, as described in the entries above, revealed the

following data about my psychological state of being.

Extreme insecurity Demanding of self Heightened anger Demanding of others Extreme anxiety Skepticism and cynicism Health problems Overemphasize rationality Apprehensiveness Self-critical Plagued by self-doubt Distortion of problems Lack poise in social situations Over-react to stress Depression Blunt with others Blunt with good motives Order centered Need to achieve Unwanted disturbing thoughts Tendency to brood/ruminate Strange thoughts Feeling unreal Difficulty processing feelings Hard on self Lack of energy to cope See myself as weak Ambivalence/vacillation Untrusting of others Hyper alert about environment Trouble warming up to others Yet actively seek social life Internally focused Persistent fear response Arrogant Feel some isolation w/ male counterparts because of certain inherent feminine interests Might possibly like to participate in child rearing and housekeeping Appreciate feeling wrought out in artful endeavors and [have] aesthetic inclinations Difficulty incorporating values in my own schema. Perceive others’ actions as disingenuous Trouble tolerating discomfort—inability to delay gratification for extended period of time Lack of family understanding of what I am going through Problems with losing control of thought (losing mind) Daily activities are boring, unrewarding Marked discomfort during interpersonal interactions.


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Thursday May 23, 2002

I had an appointment with ——— today. The coolest thing was that I was able to tell her that there really wasn’t a lot to talk about, because I am doing so well as far as working situations through on my own. It was a lovely visit. She asked about how I was doing with the ——— situation and I said okay—and explained that having met ——— was a big help. I took the opportunity to express a heartfelt thanks to her for all she has done. I expressed that she has changed my life, and she in truth has had a critical influence on my life. I am so grateful that I took the initiative to begin this intensive period of therapy, and the results have been astoundingly successful.

Wednesday August 14, 2002

I had my last visit with ——— this morning. She is not going to be doing therapy at the comprehensive clinic anymore. It was a good visit, and I focused mostly on giving her a travel log of my romantic woes I have experienced since I last met with her. It wasn’t the wisest way to go about it, and it led me to feel a bit poorly most of the day, as it induced me to obsess about it all.

During my counseling at the Comprehensive Clinic, I also saw a psychiatrist in order to obtain and regulate medicinal prescriptions to further combat my symptoms. Viewing my journey of psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy as an ongoing Self-Action Research (SAR) project,33 I expressed interest to my psychiatrist in trying something other than Luvox—the drug I had previously taken during the second half of my junior year of high school. He suggested I try the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) Celexa (Citalopram). My journal records are spotty regarding my medicinal treatments, but I do know that I began taking medication in late February 2002, and was still on it eight months later, as the following entry recounts:

Tuesday October 1, 2002

Had an appointment this morning with my psychiatrist, Dr. ———. We decided to try a larger dose of medicine. Things are really looking better, but I am eager to try anything that will help even more. He suggested I definitely stay on the medicine, at least at 20 mgs/day. For now, we are going to bump it up to 40 mgs and see what happens. I really like my doctor. He is a good man.

The most important counsel he offered was that I seek for spiritual help in filling the existential vacuum that I have found myself in so much. He was very impressed at the depth of my understanding of the cognitive end of things, but noticed that I am not as effective at my emotional, feeling side of things.

Fortunately, I was able to remain on my parents’ insurance during this time, which kept the cost of

medication to a nominal co-pay fee. I don’t remember when I went off medication, but I was no longer taking it when I moved to Georgia in August 2003. Some time after I returned to Utah in February 2004, I experienced another melodramatic romantic rejection and crisis. I again found myself in the grasp of severe OCD symptoms, prompting me to return to therapy and medication. This time, the psychiatrist prescribed me Lexapro (Escitalopram). Lexapro is chemically analogous to Celexa, but purports to having lesser side effects.

The following journal entries describe some of my experiences with this next round of therapy with a new counselor who, like my former counselor, was also female. I experienced more ups-and-downs with this counselor, who, despite her sincerity, was not as well suited for me as my previous counselor had been. I liked her a lot personally; I just didn’t achieve as many breakthroughs with my OCD and depression as I had with my previous counselor. This experience taught me the reality that some counselors, and some counseling sessions, will be more helpful than others.

May 10-16, 2004

This week was hard. I have been quite depressed. Getting out of bed has been difficult. I have mostly wanted to lay flat on my back. I did run several times and am in the process of getting in shape for the Utah Games.

[My waiter job] is wearing on me. As soon as I can quit that job I will. Joe suggested perhaps a job at a Motel

33 Self-Action Research, or SAR, is defined and explicated further in BOOK the THIRD, Chapter 3.


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in the evening where I could have time to just read. That appeals.

Had my second counseling appointment this Wednesday. It was good. I really like ———, my counselor. I am extremely disillusioned right now. Don’t know when I will really come out of it. Mon-Thurs. May 17-20, 2004

Hellish first couple of days. Hard to get out of bed. Very frustrated. Very miserable. Felt like dying—or had desires along the lines of wanting to cease to exist.

Had a good therapy session on Thursday night. I like ———. She is a good therapist, but I think that my situation is stumping her to some degree. It is frustrating and I don’t know how much good is coming of it. Sun May 23, 2004

Nice day. Had a few minutes to spend with ———, which was nice. The last several days—ever since I had the counseling session with ———, things have really looked up. As frustrating as the counseling session itself was (in the sense that I didn’t feel like we were getting anywhere) it has coincided with a timing that has me going in the right direction mentally and psychologically in a big way.

I feel healthier and less uptight and filled with a heart that is open and forgiving and mature and seeing things again as they really are to an extent that I think the Sun is truly coming out again in my life. It is so fascinating to me how nothing really changes, but when I change internally, my world changes with it, and motivation and love and compassion, and all kinds of wonderful things begin to return.

October 3, 2004

Experienced a lot of anxiety today over ———. This is one of the worst days for that. It will only get better from here—I hope.

October 4, 2004

Was hard to do, but I knew it was the only road I could take—that I wanted to take—to pick myself up once again and keep moving forward. To keep trying—that is the highest of actions.

I resolve to humble myself regarding where I am at with relationships and the obsessive element in that part of my life. I am resolved and committed to going forward and resting not until God enables me through His grace and the fruit of my own efforts to conquer this maddening weakness and struggle just like I have conquered so many challenges in the past.

As I said to ——— my therapist tonight … “this weakness will bow to me.”

Fri. Oct. 15, 2004

Another tough day physically and emotionally. Better emotionally though.

I had a therapy session with ——— this morning. I didn’t feel like I got much out of it. I am thinking about either terminating therapy soon, or else getting a different counselor. Bless ———‘s heart, but I don’t think that I am getting much from her anymore. I am doubtful whether she is a good fit for my needs. She does love and care about me though as a client and I appreciate that. It is nice to think that someone out there really does love and care about me and even thinks about me and how I am doing once in a while—not that my family isn’t a great support—because they are, but, at this point in my life, that is still different for me.

The last journal entry I can find that mentions this round of therapy was April 12, 2005. During this same time, my psychiatrist decided to change my medication from Lexapro to Effexor (Venlaxafine). Despite terminating this round of therapy, I would continue with my medication until 2006, when I weaned myself off it gradually before terminating it in April of that year.

In conjunction with formal counseling, I also engaged my brother Joe as a lay therapist for the first four years following my mission. Joe was one of my heroes growing up. I had great respect for him, and just as importantly, viewed him as a sterling example of mental hygiene. When comparing Joe’s counseling “services” to the professional (and semi-professional) therapy I have received to date, I can honestly say


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that Joe held his own, and his billing system was far kinder to my wallet. Particularly in 2001 and 2002, I regularly went to Joe either by phone or in person to talk through a given situation or scenario with which I was struggling. A skilled and patient listener, he was generous with his time and incisive with his counsel. I will always be grateful for the guidance and support he so liberally offered during those difficult years. His presence in my life was a gift from God. My sister Jody also served as a lay therapist for me between 2001 and 2003, especially in relation to my troubles with dating and women. She and her husband and young daughter were a great strength to me socially and emotionally during these troubled years.

After terminating therapy and medication in 2005-06, I avoided taking medication for five years. It would be nice to be able to say that I did so because my OCD had been cured, but that was not the case. Beginning in 2007, I began experiencing symptoms that once again needed professional help, and in 2008-09, these symptoms worsened.

The most prominent strain of OCD at this period involved existential frustration and depression—sometimes to the point of wishing for non-existence. I would arise in the morning quite depressed, and it would often take many hours (sometimes well into the afternoon) before I was able to snap out of my funk. I was working as a professional seminar trainer and part-time substitute teacher at the time. My symptoms were usually the worst on days when I substitute taught. I believe this was the case because the work was farther removed from my life’s ultimate purpose. It was also because substitute teaching failed to fully engage my mind, thereby leaving extra space for obsessions to fester. I avoided seeking help this time around, mostly out of a fear that my new wife would worry unnecessarily.

There were, however, moments where it was hard to hide my symptoms from her. Whenever I felt caught up in the “existential vacuum,”34 I would become subdued, un-talkative, and stare off blindly into space. Such moments concerned her, and her concerns filled my heart with fear and dread that my OCD might destroy the most amazing and important human relationship I’d ever enjoyed.

Fortunately, things worked out with us, but getting married did not signal an end to my struggles. Even though I had been upfront with her about having OCD before we had even started to officially date, the idea of her husband going to professional counseling for mental problems was difficult for her to bear at first. Her concerned tears over the issue pained me, and influenced me to avoid seeking further help.

Things improved in 2009-2010. This was due in large part to my full-time employment as a high school teacher. While my year of in-classroom teaching was the most professionally challenging of my entire career (it became clear long ago that I was never destined to work primarily with teenagers), it did have the beneficial effect of being sufficiently demanding so as to keep my OCD-mind effectively distracted most of the time. I also grew to enjoy many aspects of being a classroom teacher, which helped stave off depression.

In 2011, in the midst of my doctoral sabbatical in St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada, I lacked the kind of externally enforced, rigid schedule I had been blessed with as a full-time teacher the previous year. Moreover, I was bearing through a Newfoundland winter that was cold, dark, wet, and snowy. Existential frustrations and other challenges returned—and abounded amidst this challenging period. This disquieting combination caused me to finally return to therapy and medication for the first time in years.

Due to an industry shortage of psychiatrists in the St. John’s area at the time, it was about four months before I could get an appointment and begin medication. In the meantime, I began psychotherapy with a professional psychologist (Ph.D.), and attended approximately eight to ten sessions with her, which I found beneficial. When I finally met with my psychiatrist, he started me off on Anafranil (Clomipramine) and then later switched me to Celexa (Citalopram). The switch to Celexa was made after experiencing meager results – with noticeable side effects – while taking Anafranil. The psychiatrist was optimistic in making the switch to Celexa when he learned several of my siblings had experienced positive results with Celexa. This is because family members typically respond similarly to the same drug. I had also found success with Celexa in the past.

Going back to therapy in Canada proved to be a blessing in disguise for my wife because experiencing the process second hand helped her to better understand the nature of therapy, and the hope and healing that can come from it. This experience assisted her in overcoming her fear of the unknown, and helped her recognize that it was “okay” for her husband to be in therapy. Over time, my wife became increasingly educated about OCD, depression, and mental illness in general. In the summer of 2013, we attended our first OCD conference together in Houston. It was hosted by OCD Texas, a state affiliate of the International OCD Foundation (IOCDF). This further expanded her familiarity with mental illness and

34 Frankl, V. E. (2006). Man's Search for Meaning. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Page 106.


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increased her comfort level in talking about and dealing with its challenges. As a result, we ended up serving as presenters at future OCD conferences hosted by OCD Texas in San Antonio in the fall of 2013, as well as the IOCDF’s annual conference in Los Angeles during the summer of 2014. Sharing our story of dealing with OCD together in our marriage provided useful information and hope to others who were facing similar struggles.

When we returned to Houston from Canada in 2012, I was taking 30 milligrams of Celexa in the morning and 20 milligrams in the evening. I considered the possibility of going off the medication at this time, but ultimately decided to remain on it until reaching a place of greater homeostasis in my life and career. Furthermore, my symptoms are never as severe when I am on mediation, so I figure: “Why go off it?”

As the severity of my symptoms has cycled over the years, the question naturally arises: how do I know when I need to re-enter therapy and/or return to medication? M. Scott Peck has a good answer that I have used as a personal litmus test over the years.

There’s no need for therapy when you’re clearly growing well without it. But when [you]’re not growing, when [you]’re stuck and spinning [y]our wheels, [you]’re obviously in a condition of inefficiency. And whenever there’s a lack of efficiency there is a potentially unnecessary lack of competence.35

THE TWO-EDGED SWORD OF OCD

At the conclusion of my missionary service in 2001, my mission president interviewed me one last time. In the course of my final interview, he made a comment I’ll never forget. As a compliment to my capacity for hard work and obedience, he said, “OCD has not been all bad for you Elder Jensen.” Far from lionizing the disorder, my beloved Mission President, Richard Andrus, was teaching me an important life lesson about the opportunity to turn a “disorder” into a tool of tremendous productivity and achievement by properly bridling its innate energy. His remark also underscored for me the freedom I possessed to choose my own destiny regardless of my challenges.

The more I have reflected on his words, the more I have realized that my greatest strengths are – like a two-sided coin, or a two-edged sword – often the other side of my greatness weaknesses. The same mental capacities that spiral into agonizing obsessions and dreadful melancholy can also be sources of tremendous agility, capacity, energy, focus, and productivity—both physical and mental. These qualities empower me to assimilate, organize, synthesize, and communicate large amounts of information in a compelling and articulate manner. Thus, in the end, it has become quite clear that whether the disorder overtakes me, or whether I choose to direct its energy and capacity toward positive production and achievements, is a choice I can freely make. It may not always be easy, but it will always be possible.

The ever-looming question then becomes, what will I choose? Which side of this two-edged sword will I decide to keep sharp, and which side will I work to dull over time? Thank God for the liberty and self-sovereignty to make my own decisions and thereby increase my freedom each day in the matter. As I have exercised SAL, and otherwise sought to overcome my psychological challenges, I have been blessed with the positive feelings of satisfaction and fulfillment that result from overcoming difficulties, setting and accomplishing goals, and achieving Existential Growth. This has done wonders for my self-esteem and confidence. A TWO-EDGED SWORD OCD: What has it done for me? Is it my friend? Or my enemy? The answer, You see, Though I’ve

35 Peck, M. S. (1997). The Road Less Traveled and Beyond: Spiritual Growth in an Age of Anxiety. New York, NY: Touchstone.

Page 76.


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Oft been its slave— Pathological knave!— Made me crave for the grave, Yet somehow, Someway, As I’ve labored Each Day, I’ve now been set free Through the efforts of me Plus Serendipity. Yes it does rather seem That my nightmare extreme, Sometimes guised as a dream— And a good one forsooth! For in truth, I behold That for brain hygiene’s gold, I must work hard to mine, Spending mountains of time, Sweating tears as I pine, Many years ere I find, That the cure for my mind— So oft plagued by the grind— Is just like that gold, Mixed betwixt all the old, Common, cheap, rocky ore, Whose plentiful store Hides all worth Worth pursuing, Investing, Accruing, There’s no need for Stewing, For Freedom’s Now Mine, And ever can be Into eternity If I’ll never Forget That the price Involves sweat and Avoiding regret, And that I’m only set When I see I’m not yet, And then rightly perceive That in time I’ll receive A most pleasant reprieve That’s as grand, I believe, As it badly began, As if Alchemy’s claim Held water—not sand. So I’ll keep on the fight, Through each day, And each night, With a calm, tranquil might, That affirms I’m all right. And ne’er e’er forgetting, The puzzling piece Of the pie


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Peck36 calls Grace— So truly AMAZING— To see its pow’r Razing My mind’s ills— Erasing. Yes, there’s help from my pills, My shrink – and SAL to boot, But shoot! What a pathetic hoot! I would be On my own, All though I’m now full grown, And have carefully sown Seeds of thoughtful decision, Crafting nobly a vision: Important! Yes all, But lest I should fall, I will never Forget The Source That doth heal, With salve that is real— As real as You— And me, And OCD, And the help, And the cure—or The management— Here, and Now, As I await its ultimate Eradication THEN . . . By Him: As long as I Do My Part NOW.

In striving to effectively manage OCD in my life, a key to my success has been recognizing that the goal is not necessarily perfection, but steady P«R«O«G«R«E«S«S.

PROGRESS Alas, my inmost heart breaks free, From all that has been stopping me; And I exult in all that will, Break forth into my life yet still. There is still so much more to learn, Things to achieve and things to earn, Folks to meet—my heart doth burn— As for it all I greatly yearn!

36 A reference to M. Scott Peck, M.D.


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This anxious state amidst it all, Oft seems to be my life’s true call, Yet spite the pain and petty pelf, I’ll still claim victory over self. And meantime I’ll enjoy the ride, And bask in the abundance here, My life will be serene inside, And outside I’ll be filled with cheer.

THE POWER OF A PURPOSE

Knowing I have a choice in managing my mental illness empowered me to seek out help and achieve the mental hygiene I so desperately needed—and sought. Along the way, I learned there is much more to mental health than psychotherapy and medication. The most important variable of all is to have a meaningful purpose for living that both utilizes one’s talents and strengths and provides opportunities to serve others through the effective exercise of those same strengths and talents.

As such, Victor Frankl’s brand of psychotherapy, referred to as Logotherapy, which “focuses on the meaning of human existence as well as on man’s search for such a meaning” stands among the most important and valuable forms of long-term therapy available today.37 The success of logotherapy hinges, however, on the courage and willingness of a patient to be fully transparent with one’s counselor and oneself with regards to how one’s actions are contributing to one’s neurosis. Doing so is much more difficult than merely attending therapy or swallowing a pill once or twice a day.

In contrasting the difference between logotherapy and traditional Freudian psychoanalysis, Frankl described a conversation he once had with an American doctor, who asked him to simply define what logotherapy is. The dialogue went like this:

“Can you tell me in one sentence what is meant by logotherapy?” he asked. “At least, what is the difference between psychoanalysis and logotherapy?” “Yes,” I said, “but in the first place, can you tell me in one sentence what you think the essence of psychoanalysis is?” This was his answer: “During psychoanalysis, the patient must lie down on a couch and tell you thing which sometimes are very disagreeable to tell.” Whereupon I immediately retorted with the following improvisation: “Now, in logotherapy the patient may remain sitting erect but he must hear things which sometimes are very disagreeable to hear.” … Logotherapy focuses … on the meanings to be fulfilled by the patient in his future. … In logotherapy the patient is actually confronted with and reoriented toward the meaning of his life. And to make him aware of this meaning can contribute much to his ability to overcome his neurosis.” Psychotherapy and medication can be important, even essential, steps to gaining self-awareness

and managing symptoms along the way. However, relying solely on medication and therapy without any ultimate aim to grow and progress as an individual in an effort to discover deep, long-term meaning in your life and, in-turn, serve others and contribute meaningfully to their, defeats the ultimate purpose of both.

To contrast these variables in healing, consider an analogue to the treatment of a physical ailment such as a broken bone. If I break my leg, having the bones reset and cast is akin to receiving psychotherapy. Receiving pain medication is analogous to pharmacotherapy (e.g., taking an SSRI) to ease symptoms. But amidst these important steps, can anything be more powerful and healing than possessing a driving desire to once again use my leg for some grand purpose (e.g., working to provide for my family, providing a valuable service to others, or perhaps running a marathon)? Moreover, after a set period of restful healing is over, the time comes for the cast to be removed. At that point in time, can anything be more important than rehabilitating my atrophied leg muscles through actual use? I believe most, if not all, physical healings judged to be miraculous result from patients whose desire and will to heal and live was influenced by some meaningful purpose beyond the mere healing of their leg. Whether it is a parent striving to live for his children, an employee needing to get back to work to contribute meaningfully to her company, or an elite athlete dedicated to one’s sport, the power of a purpose far exceeds the power of therapy sessions and

37 Frank, V. (2006). Man’s Search for Meaning. Boston, MA: Beacon. Pages 98-99.


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medication—even though therapy and meds may serve as a vital part of the healing process. The healthiest periods of my life were not always the times I was in therapy or on medication, but

when I was fully engaged in work I enjoyed, found meaningful, provided opportunities to serve others, and best utilized my talents and gifts. For example, despite the enormous challenges involved in teaching high school, I was considerably healthier mentally during this period than I was the following year when I had fewer responsibilities, more leverage over my personal schedule, and less opportunity to interact with other people in meaningful ways on a regular basis. An old maxim states, “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop.” An analogue to this in the world of mental health might read, “An underutilized mind is an incubator for neurosis.”

When my wife and I had our first child, we were asked about the adjustment involved in meeting the difficulties and demands of our new responsibility. As I reflected on the question, it occurred to me that despite any difficulties, irritations, or inconveniences involved in being a new parent, I felt grateful to God for the enormous purpose that I have found in raising my son (and now our daughter) as well as in nurturing my relationship with my wife. This vital work transcends virtually all other purposes in my life. As a result, having children has actually improved my mental hygiene.

I do not say this to encourage anyone to go out and have a child in an effort to battle mental illness. If you are already dealing with psychosis or severe neurosis, such a decision would be unfair and unjust to the child, and perhaps even personally disastrous to yourself and others—including the child. Remember that I had been working on my mental health for over a decade in preparation for fatherhood. But when you are healthy enough, and if you are in a positive and healthy relationship with your co-care giver, child rearing (or other meaningful human service) can actually bolster your mental hygiene because of the profound purpose it provides.

One of the greatest contributors to my mental health in the last decade has been the writing of this book. Not only does it fully engage my talents and skills, but every word I type carries the hope that it might one day be of service to others. Such a work has therefore provided enormous meaning to my life, and in turn, dramatically benefitted my mental hygiene.

If you do not presently have a driving purpose in your life, I encourage you to seek earnestly to find one. If you had a purpose, but lost it, I encourage you to strive energetically to regain it. If you don’t feel like working to find a purpose, I suggest willing yourself to the task until you do feel like it—and seek out help from others along the way. If you persist, I promise you will eventually find or regain your life’s true purpose. If you fail, you will be more apt to give up on life. But remember, the only true failure is quitting. If you refuse to quit, then come what may, you will always succeed eventually.

MY QUEST TO BECOME EASY-GOING

Another piece of advice my mission president gave me at the end of my mission was to be good to myself. People with OCD are typically not those in danger of committing high crimes and misdemeanors, although personal gaffes and other minor mistakes can often feel that serious to someone with OCD. Coming from a spiritual leader I greatly respected, this advice has benefitted me enormously in my battle with OCD and depression. OCD influences me to be an uptight, intense, and austere person. These characteristics were not lost on others. For example, one of my missionary companions nicknamed me, “Stress-Bomb.” My mission president himself once remarked that I would never be an easy-going person. Instead of viewing my mission president’s prediction as a foregone conclusion, I received it as a challenge to change.

I take great pride in the fact that I have become more relaxed and easy-going over the years. I still take important things seriously; doing so is one of my greatest strengths. But I don’t sweat the small stuff like I used to, and I am much more relaxed socially than I was before my diagnosis. In fact, I take great pride whenever I catch myself being easy-going.

GOOD AT OCD

My second counselor at the BYU Comprehensive Clinic once said to me, “Jordan, you are really good at OCD!” I was unsure exactly what she meant at first, but she went on to explain that I am really good at becoming self-aware of my own mental status, identifying where I need to improve, and then doing


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something about it. This has turned out to be one of the more memorable and meaningful compliments of my life. I like the idea that I can be “good at OCD.” It means I have chosen to not be a victim, and that I can break free of my psychological shackles. It also demonstrates that I possess a measure of power over whatever challenges I face in my life. Finally, it promotes the potential I have to accentuate the positive side of the two-edged monster-genius of OCD and depression. I firmly believe that others who are struggling with mental illness possess this same power. If you are willing to exercise that power, you can eventually succeed— just like me.

THE WAR GOES ON

I wish I could say today that I am fully “cured” of my OCD. Unfortunately, despite the significant

progress I have made, I am not cured, although I have learned to effectively manage my disorder and its symptoms.

In truth, the battle goes on most days of my life, and it is doubtful I will ever transcend it entirely in this life, and that is okay. The trick I’ve discovered is not to live on false hope for complete healing, but to reasonably, practically, and faithfully work toward adequate management and ongoing improvement.38 Consider the following journal entry from a decade ago.

Sat. Jun. 8, 2002

Neurosis is not something that is usually overcome completely. In the words of Dr. ———, and I paraphrase—“the [goal] with OCD is to work with is so that it becomes a faint hum in the background of your mind and life, instead of a blaring horn in the forefront of your conscious experience.”

I have been in and out of therapy many times since 1997, the most recent being just last year. At present, I also take medication daily (20 milligrams of Lexapro [Escitalopram]), and am grateful for the way in which it takes the “edge” off of my symptoms. Chances are good I will need to continue medication and therapy to varying degrees throughout my life. I am okay with this fact, and stand ready to do whatever is necessary to ensure I control my OCD and depression indefinitely into the future.

Many battles have been won, but the war goes on, and will likely continue until the day I die. My hope lies in recognizing the enormous progress I have made, seizing opportunities for further progress, and exercising my potential to provide help and hope to others who face similar struggles in their lives. I have come a long way so far in my journey toward mental hygiene. The price of this rise includes nearly three decades of time, countless hours of hard work, exercising the humility to seek help from others as needed, and the successful endurance of much heartache and pain. It has been extremely difficult, and my progress did not always come quickly. But looking back from where I stand now, I can say with confidence it has all been incredibly worth it.

This is not to say my journey is over; I still have plenty of “promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep,” but the more I comprehend the worth of the prize, the more determined I become to achieve it, and the more I learn to appreciate and enjoy the journey that leads thereto.39 In the next chapter, I share my experiences with failure and success as it relates to romance. I do this to illustrate the tremendous amount of time that is often required to grow socially to realize some of life’s most important achievements and milestones.

38 In this sentence, the word “faithfully” refers to faith in God, faith in others who can help me, faith in helpful available information, and most importantly, faith in my own capacity, power, and will to act. 39 Line from Robert Frost’s poem, Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.


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CHAPTER 2


PART II

ª ª

MY ROCKY ROAD OF ROMANCE SOMETIMES WITH ONE I LOVE Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage for fear I effuse unreturn’d love, But now I think there is no unrerturn’d love, the pay is certain one way or another, (I loved a certain person ardently and my love was not return’d, Yet out of that I have written these songs.)40 – Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

Growing up, my father taught me that nothing in life worth having comes fast or easy. He was right! The following story recounts my journey in search of two of my life’s most important goals: romantic success and marriage. This story is actually more about failure than it is about romance or success. It is about my failures with romance, with one vital success at the end.

“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost more than 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot – and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

– Michael Jordan

(1963-Present)

All failure is temporary—unless you quit. If you keep trying and never give up, temporary failures become the building blocks of lasting successes. This is good news, because temporary failure is an inevitable part of life; no one is exempt from its painful clutches. In the words of self-leadership scholars, Alan Boss & Henry Sims, Jr.,

To live is to experience failure. There appears to be no way around it. Sooner or later, everyone fails. Some failures are small and private … other failures are larger and more public…. All of us experience failure many times in our lives. Some fail miserably and get over it quickly, while others let it completely take over their lives. However, failure is not a permanent state, and there are actions that can facilitate recovery. In particular, individuals who are adept at emotion regulation and self-leadership create their own opportunity to emerge from failure and return to a state of recovery.41 In more ways than one, I am no Casanova. This chapter details the ways in which repeated failure

40 Whitman, W. (1892). Leaves of Grass: Comprising all the Poems by Walt Whitman Following the Edition of 1891-92. New York, NY: Modern Library. (Google Books version). Page 106. 41 Boss, A. D., & Sims, H. P. J. (2008). Everyone Fails! Using Emotion Regulation and Self-Leadership for Recovery. Journal of

Managerial Psychology, Volume 23, Issue 2, p. 135-150. DOI:10.1108/02683940810850781. Pages 135 & 146.


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in romance often exacerbated my obsessive-compulsive pathology, leading to some of the most profound psychological and emotional adversity and pain of my life. On the plus side, this pain promoted some of the most focused, ambitious, and committed Self-Action Leadership I’ve ever undertaken. In fact I believe I owe a sizable portion of my overall success in life to the lessons I learned and the growth I experienced vis-à-vis romantic failure and disappointment. Thank you, Ladies!

Correspondingly, I explain how these failures and disappointments, in concert with my efforts to transcend them, produced the all-important seed of success that grew into courting and marrying my wife, which I view as the single greatest achievement of my life.

FALLING HARD

I am a romantic. My mother and father were both romantics, so I suppose I got a double dose of the romance gene. I was also mimetically influenced to value romance. For example, as a thirteen-year-old boy, I recall observing my father’s giddy anticipation as he prepared a romantic atmosphere in a posh hotel suite for his and my mother’s 25th wedding anniversary. His actions left an indelible impression on my young mind that would positively influence the rest of my life’s romantic relationships.

Since kindergarten, I cannot remember a time when I was not romantically interested in – if not obsessed with – some girl or woman. Romance has always been a HUGE interest, and to varying degrees, an obsessive focus of mine. My first crush came at age four or five. The subject of my attraction was a girl I believed I would someday marry.

From a tender age, my daydreams were many and varied regarding romance. Furthermore, my OCD-influenced thought processes made it almost impossible for me to like any girl or woman without viewing her obsessively as my future wife. Later, as a young man, I even composed dozens of letters – some of them handwritten – to my “future wife.” Throughout junior high, high school, college, and beyond, I cannot remember a school year without having at least one captivating crush. I was always falling in love, and the falling usually occurred rapidly – sometimes at first sight. Thus it is that I once penned:

SHE WAS She was . . . An angelic figure of embryonic divinity, A guileless goddess of perfect pristinity, My unmatched match throughout all infinity. . . This girl that I met just today.

I was so prone to falling in love easily that one time I became infatuated with a girl I had never

even seen or met! I found her attractive simply by what other’s had said about her in conjunction with one, lone phone conversation where I found her voice to be enchanting. Being thus aurally enamored, I penned:

THE BEAUTY OF HER VOICE Although I’ve never seen her face, Her voice is sweet as honey, It speaks refinement and pure grace, That can’t be bought with money. ’Tis ’mazing how her tone enchants My soul and heart and mind, The lovely sound for me implants Hope that my eyes might find… Her face and form and outer light And with that meet and mingle; And listen to her voice so bright, My ear for her is single!


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Yes hope and words and inner spirit, All proclaim her golden worth, And when her sweet voice I hear it, My ardent heart is filled with mirth!

My Dating Record

Unfortunately, my passion for romance eventually conspired with my OCD to make it virtually impossible to win the heart of any of my crushes. This is not to say I didn’t try. I went on my first date at age 16. According to my personal dating journal, between my 16th birthday and the day I got married – a span of 13 years – I went on 746 dates with 134 different women, 526 of which (71%) were with Lina—my wife-to-be. During this same span, I was rejected 130 times by 80 different women.42 The numbers don't equal each other because some women rejected me more than once. Two women in particular rejected me nearly 20 times between the two of them. One of them never even threw me a bone of a first date, and neither of them ever became my girlfriend. I was not always very good at accepting a hint.

DATING WOES & PATHOLOGICAL HEARTBREAK

OCD-related social awkwardness and a pathological inability to deal effectively with rejection were typically what poisoned the waters of any lasting successes with romance. Whether it was coming on too strong, not listening, taking things too seriously, blowing things out of proportion, pride, arrogance, impatience, being overeager or too intense, the refusal to take a hint, or simply trying too hard, I failed again and again in my efforts to get a girlfriend.

I was a 24-year old college graduate before getting my first kiss. I was like the Mormon version of the “40-Year-old Virgin!” At age 24, my first “official” girlfriend dumped me after only one week of going out. It was a wonderful week, but getting dumped was horrible! Before reaching these encouraging, albeit fleeting, “benchmarks” in my progress, I had suffered through several extended periods of pathological heartbreak over several different women with whom I had never even been in a relationship! Two such occasions were sufficiently severe and agonizing to drive me back into therapy and back on medication.

These extended episodes of “despised love” triggered some of the most severe and clinical OCD episodes of my life. For months at a time, I would become obsessively consumed with the excruciating ruminations of heartbreak over women who were never even my girlfriend. It was terribly unhealthy, and excruciatingly painful. Nevertheless, I continued on with my studies and life as best I could while suffering unrelentingly inside. While I went about my business with a semblance of stasis and normalcy on the outside, the storms taking place in my mind and heart and soul were inexplicably agonizing.

Ironically, I would often act as confident on the outside as I was insecure on the inside. Sometimes, this external bravado would pave the way for temporary success, only to evolve into embarrassing failure down the road. I was also extremely egotistical in the way I viewed myself. I often harbored a narcissistic fantasy that I was somehow God’s gift to women and that all of them really should adore me, if not at first sight, then certainly after a little lively repartee. In my crazed mind, if a woman didn’t like me, it was basically because she was clueless, or because I was doing something wrong.

While I often was doing something wrong, my neurotic, egotistical, overinflated view of myself was a classic symptom of cognitively distorting reality into “all-or-nothing” dichotomies.43 One minute I’d feel on top of the world, assuming that any woman who didn’t want me must be crazy! The next minute, I’d feel like the most awkward, dorkiest loser in the world that no respectable woman would like. Neither extreme was an accurate perception of reality.

My arrogance was such that I’d allow my pride to be unnecessarily bruised even when I knew a girl wasn’t right for me, and had little intention of pursuing a relationship with her (even if she were to agree to date). I behaved as if my only pathway to success lay in convincing every woman on the planet to

42 “Rejected” refers to a woman’s declination to go on a first date, or, as was more commonly the case, a lack of interest in pursuing a second, third, fourth, et cetera, date. 43 Burns, D. (2009). Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy (Revised and Updated Edition). New York, NY: Harper Health. Pages 42-43.


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instantly fall in love with and want to marry me. Aside from being neurotic, it was absurdly conceited. Having made an enormous amount of progress in this life arena, I can only look back and shake my head in embarrassment at how immature and narrow minded my thought processes often were.

As I struggled along, I often committed pathetic social blunders that are painful to reflect upon even today. I was a bridge burner who foolishly focused on objectives rather than processes. My older brother Joe once brought this point to my attention by sarcastically asking me a serious question. His query: “Jordan, why don’t you focus on developing friendships instead of leaving a wide swath of destruction in your path?”

It was a good question, and the answer was that I lacked the proper perspective on dating relationships, not to mention the internal security, maturity, and patience to cultivate friendships or healthy romances with women. It is hard to stomach that I behaved and thought this way, but it was the truth, and I had to face up to reality if I ever hoped to improve my chances with women. It was not the job of the women, my external circumstances, or my luck to change; it was my job to change myself to become a desirable partner. I needed to exercise SAL to develop the social growth I so terribly lacked.

DREAMS OF REJECTION

With or without mental illness, romantic rejection is capable of dealing out some of life’s most poignant pain. My OCD, compounded by the regularity of my romantic rejections, further exacerbated this age-old human experience. One painful symptom of my struggles involved having recurring dreams of romantic rejection. Leading up to meeting and then marrying my wife, Lina, I often struggled with such nightmares. After I began dating Lina, the dreams shifted to Lina rejecting me. To this day, after seven years of marriage, I still have dreams that Lina and I are dating and she breaks up with me. In those dreams, she usually never calls me back, and sometimes months or even years pass before I wake up. I virtually always wake up before a resolution is reached, and feel grateful to regain consciousness to realize Lina is there, and still loves me.

MY QUEST FOR MRS. RIGHT

Looking back, there are three key improvements I made that paved the way for success in my

relationship with Lina. First, I was more patient, casual, and relaxed; in short, I learned to act normally around girls. Second, I learned how to respond more maturely to rejection. Third, I progressed in my career in an attractive manner.

ADVICE FROM GRANDMA JENSEN

As my family members observed my issues with romance, they began to worry about me. I remember my oldest brother suggesting maybe there was a reason I was not finding more success. His painfully obvious implication was that I was doing something wrong. He was right; I often was doing something wrong. I had some real social, mental, and SAL issues I needed to address and overcome if I was going to find success with romance. These issues included personal proclivities toward impatience, poor listening, insecurity, and a stalled career, among other issues.

Once during a visit with my grandmother Jensen (with whom I was close), the conversation turned to romance and dating. As we chatted, she cleverly cloaked her concern for me in a compliment. She said, “Jordan, you’ve just got to not let the girls know how smart you are.” She then added a somewhat flippant comment about how girls are often silly and just want to have fun. Far from casting aspersions on all young women, what Grandma was really doing was sensitively exposing a glaring personal weakness I had with regards to dating; and she accomplished her design by adroitly presenting her feedback in a package full of praise.

What she was really trying to tell me is that I needed to relax, be more easy-going, and act more “normal” in my social interactions with women. The lesson was not lost on me, although it would be a while before it would sink in sufficiently to start bringing me success. This advice from Grandma changed my life, and started preparing me to meet and successfully court Lina. Even after Lina and I had spent a lot


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of time together, one of her biggest concerns about my personality was that I was “too formal.” Nevertheless, by following the advice of Grandma Jensen and others, as well as carefully monitoring my own social actions and their consequences, I made steady progress in tempering my disposition in an attractive manner. The results increased my likeability among the ladies and further prepared me for exclusive dating and eventual marriage.

LINA

I met Lina when she was a sophomore in college. She was studying mechanical engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) in Atlanta. I found her interesting, intelligent, and attractive from the start, and—true to form—fell in love within the week. If it had been up to me, we would have been dating within the month, engaged within six, and married within a year.

In actuality, six weeks passed before our first date. Another three-and-a-half months went by before she officially became my girlfriend. During this three-month period I suffered terrible symptoms of anxiety, insecurity, and fear of failure. Intense and pervasive, these symptoms took a toll on my body as well as my mind and heart. That fall, I was 6’2” and weighed 165 pounds—not exactly a portly figure of masculinity. Moreover, anyone who knows me well is keenly aware of how healthy my appetite is under normal circumstances. However, by the end of that year (2006), I was down to only 152 pounds. Haunted by all of the romantic failure and rejection of the past, I was terrified that Lina would eventually reject me too, and the ensuing anxiety caused an uncharacteristic loss of appetite.

One day, I shared my thoughts, feelings, and concerns with a church leader in a private meeting. Sensing the depth of my mental and emotional turmoil in the matter, he thoughtfully directed me to Joaquin Miller’s inspiring poem, Columbus, which tells of the great explorer’s legendary courage and determination in the midst of an unpredictably perilous journey.

Not knowing beforehand of my passion for poetry, my church leader had been inspired in his method of assuaging my pain. In the meantime, my mind, heart, and spirit were, like Columbus and his men, being stretched to their limits. Internally, it was exhausting. It also impacted my physical vigor and energy. During this period of time, I did little exercise and found running – one of my life’s cherished hobbies and passions – to be a ponderous chore.

Soon after my first date with Lina in late October of 2006, I decided to make my feelings known. I gave her a poem and a note to read over Thanksgiving break that shared my feelings and clarified my intentions. A few days later, she wrote me back and said, “I'm not sure what your intentions are, but I just wanted to make sure we are on the same page. I'm glad that we're friends, and I'm not really looking for anything more.”

These words sliced into my heart with a poignancy that had grown exasperatingly familiar over the years. Old habits tempted me to respond immaturely and burn yet another bridge. After all, I was not interested in hanging around and wasting my time if she had no intention in pursuing a relationship.

Aside from my injured pride, which was already black and blue from previous beatings (would to God that everyone's pride could be so thrashed; Lord knows we all need it), I was also sincerely disappointed because I had found I was increasingly caring for this woman. Nevertheless, she had communicated clearly where she was at, so it was up to me to decide whether I was going to burn another bridge, or finally choose to take the high road. Fortunately, and somewhat uncharacteristically, this time I made a mature choice.

My congenial email response was, “Thank you for communicating your desire to just be friends. I am glad to know that we are both on the same page about that.” While I was not being 100% honest, I was being 100% appropriate (an ironic indicator of progress with my OCD on both counts). I surprised myself by how well I responded to my disappointment, and by actually backing up my words with uncharacteristic inaction. Moving forward, I did not push the matter any further. In fact, I stopped sending her e-mails just to demonstrate by deed that my words had been sincere.

Six days later, to my surprise, Lina e-mailed me back. In her opening sentence she wrote, “It seems like I haven't talked to you in a while. How's it going?” While I was making some ground in my development of patience, I still knew I wanted to date Lina. I did not want to act like a close friend when I was really looking for something more. Doing so would have been disingenuous, insincere, and inauthentic. So, in my e-mail back, I aimed for a casual, friendly tone throughout, but added an invitation to go to a Christmas concert at the end of my missive. To my great shock, she accepted.


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From that point on, I refused to give up. But this time, the gal was tip-toeing towards me instead of running away from me. I was in unchartered territory, and it was unspeakably wonderful!

It took four months from our first date, but by February 2007, Lina and I shared our first kiss and began to date exclusively. I was on cloud nine!

Before we began dating, I told Lina about my OCD. Fearing that such news might end my chances with her, I was surprised and epically relieved when she didn’t budge over the news. Phew! And when I say phew, I’m talking PHEW!

Since my teen years I had held on in faith that someday I would find a great woman, be able to date her exclusively, and then marry her. “Your day will come,” I would remind myself (and be reassured by others) over and over again. I often felt as Jacob from the Bible, who had to work for seven years to earn his precious Rachel, only to be tricked by his father-in-law, Laban, into working an extra seven years before receiving her hand in marriage. I had been preparing myself for marriage – and struggling with OCD – for over 14 years by the time I began dating Lina, but I can say without equivocation that winning Lina’s hand and heart made it all worth it. As Jacob put it after his first seven years of labor: “they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her.”44

A key to success in getting a relationship to work with Lina was learning to be patient with the timing of things. I had a real patience problem in other potential dating opportunities. One of my closest friends once remarked to me: “You know, Jordan, it seems like when you like a girl, you are ready to schedule three or four dates right off the bat.” This friend, kind and discerning like my Grandma, had a way of wisely offering constructive feedback implicitly, while giving the impression he was actually complimenting me. In one sense, his comment could be interpreted as praise for my decisiveness, clarity of objective, and personal drive. Upon further reflection, however, I realized that what he was really trying to tell me was, “You know, Jordan, you might find more success if you didn’t approach dating like you would approach a hill you were trying to conquer in a race.”

I was still a long ways from convincing Lina to take an eternal chance on me, and I still had a lot of progress to make in my career before I could seriously consider marriage. In the meantime, however, Lina seemed to really enjoy kissing me, and the feeling was mutual. Then, after six months of blissful dating, things took an unexpected turn for the worse.

A PANIC-RIDDEN BREAK-UP

Two weeks before Halloween, Lina broke up with me after eight wonderful months together. Although our relationship had generally been going very well, she remained unsure of her readiness to commit to marriage. With a little forewarning that the break-up was pending, I panicked. Not knowing what else to do, I decided to officially propose marriage. It was a terrible idea, and a pathetic proposal—I did not even have a ring. Rather than magically change Lina’s mind, which I somehow thought was possible, Lina just cried to have such pressure put on her when she needed to take a step back. I felt terrible to have made her feel even worse. Though the break-up was already inevitable, my foolish move officially sealed the deal. I drove home in the dark with my spirit subdued, my hopes dashed, and my heart broken.

A HARBINGER OF HOPE

As I was suffering through this heartbreak, a memorable incident took place one day at work. I was working as a full-time groundskeeper at the time. It was late autumn, and all the flowers at our worksite had been removed for the season. One day, I was working near one of the property’s more prominent flowerbeds when I overheard a visitor talking with one of my coworkers who was cultivating soil in the flowerbed opposite mine. Disappointed to see the bed bereft of its typical multi-colored flora, she exclaimed disappointedly: “Oh, all the beautiful flowers are gone!” Then, simply, and with a tone of comforting eloquence, my colleague replied simply: “Don’t worry, it will be beautiful again.”

Though obsessed with and dismally distressed by my recent breakup, I was sufficiently cognizant to overhear this simple, brief exchange. The symbolism of my colleagues’ words was not lost on me, and I wondered, and even dared to hope, that it was a foreshadowing of things to come, if not with Lina, then

44 Genesis 29:20 (Old Testament).


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certainly with someone else. Only the passage of time would answer such musings. In the meantime, I continued to suffer at having lost “My Girl.”

BEAUTIFUL AGAIN

Soon after, fall flowers were planted, and true to my colleagues’ words, the flowerbeds were beautiful again. As for the flowerbed of my life, it turned out that Lina had been suffering over the break-up as much as I had been, and after one frightful fortnight apart, she accepted my offer to get back together. I had not dared to hope for such a quick reunion, but as had been the case throughout my relationship with Lina, this time, things were different. I was overjoyed. She was happy about it too. Things were beautiful again with us, and it had all happened more quickly than I had anticipated.

Painfully, we broke up once more the following January (2008). This time our separation lasted only one week. We could not seem to stay apart, and I am eternally glad of it! Well aware of my long-held desires and long-term intentions in the relationship, Lina finally felt ready to reciprocate in February 2008. I officially proposed on March 22, 2008 at a romantic dinner at the base of the King & Queen Towers in the Sandy Springs area of Atlanta. We had a six-month engagement, four of which we spent apart due to my work and Lina’s studying abroad in Shanghai, China, before tying the knot on August 8, 2008.

FINDING VALUE IN REJECTION

In hindsight, I owe much of the Existential Growth I achieved during my twenties to the many opportunities I had to learn, grow, stretch, and suffer at the hands of romantic rejections I encountered or caused. Being rejected was never fun, but it provided me with many chances for close examination of my many foibles and flaws. This empowered me to better identify where I was a part of the problem, and provided many occasions to exercise SAL to improve myself.

It took a while for me to become worthy of a woman as remarkable as Lina, but over time, I was able to exercise SAL to successfully transcend my former self to win the heart of an incredible person I deeply admire, respect, and love. Earning success with Lina made all the frustration, disappointment, hurt, and wait incredibly worth it.

Our Wedding Day: 8/8/08

Photo by: Wendi K. Coombs; Used with Permission of Mrs. Coombs


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CHAPTER 3


PART III

ª ª ª

CAREER CRUCIBLES

BLUE-COLLAR BEGINNINGS Growing up in the rural Four Corners area of the United States afforded me with many opportunities to learn and work in a variety of manual labor, blue-collar jobs. My dad dabbled in—and often excelled—at a variety of different trades over the course of his eclectic career. As a grocer, teacher, general contractor, developer, photographer, salesman, landlord and property manager, local historian, and journalist, there was little he could not do, or had not tried professionally. Whatever his employ, he was always hard working, visionary, and ambitious. His example—and the work opportunities he provided his sons with—taught us Jensen boys to be proactive and productive, especially when it came to sweat labor. Before the age of 20, I had been engaged in the following modes of pro bono labor or employment:

• Gardening • Grounds keeping • Landscaping • Farming • Ranching • Construction • Catering • Flyer distribution • 18-wheeler truck wreckage cleanup • Ball-park concession sales • Newswriting & photography • Playwriting & directing • Film work (as an extra)

Nearly all of my employment growing up involved manual labor. In college, my blue-collar roots

helped me make ends meet as I worked alongside my older brothers building shelves in people’s garages and basements. I also did a lot of pro bono babysitting for older siblings. No matter what I did, I was able to glean vital SAL lessons from every experience. Most importantly, I learned how to work hard, and to stick with a job until it was done—no matter how unpleasant.

A STINT IN RETAIL SALES

The day after I completed my undergraduate degree in July 2003, I moved from Utah to Georgia. With the exception of a mutual fund that had grown to approximately $3,500, I had little money and no immediate prospects for work in the midst of the post 9/11 recession. Moving in with my cousins, I worked part-time in their home-run software business, and then eventually found work as a retail salesperson at a FranklinCovey store in a local mall. I despised retail sales—not quite as much as I abhorred direct sales—but it was definitely not a good long-term fit for me. The job felt like a prison sentence, and the end of each


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shift felt like cashing in a get-out-of-jail-free card.

FIRST SHOT AT TEACHING SEMINARS

Around this same time, I began seriously flirting with the idea of becoming an entrepreneurial writer and public speaker on personal leadership and other related subjects. I had been interested in public speaking for many years already, and my missionary service had provided many teaching and speaking opportunities, which further fueled my interest in and passion for the art. Knowing that entrepreneurs must be willing to start projects, businesses, and movements from scratch, I decided to begin developing my own seminar on personal leadership for high school students. Through an acquaintance, I found an opportunity to deliver my nascent seminar for the first time at Lassiter High School in Marietta, Georgia, in the fall of 2003. One of the school’s administrators was kind enough to give me a couple of trial runs with small student groups, with the potential to hire me if they liked what they saw. It was a great experience, but they didn’t hire me.

A few months later, I tried out for a position as a speaker with an organization affiliated with my church. I gave it my all, but the observer suggested I “try again in five years.” It was a bitter pill to swallow – failure usually is – but I harbored a belief that no good faith effort to succeed was ever wasted—even if it led to temporary failure. I knew that my future success would be an outgrowth of transcending each failure I experienced in the present. “This is just another step toward becoming very successful,” I would remind myself after each failure. I had learned from my study of history – and the lives of successful people – that it was absolutely essential to cultivate the SAL mindset that the only real failure comes when you quit.

BROKE AND HEART BROKEN

After six months, I was broke. Retrieving what little savings I had from my mutual fund, I made the trek west back to Utah, largely to pursue a fledgling romance that had flowered via e-mail correspondence and phone conversations. It took one date for the woman to determine that the conversational chemistry we had enjoyed on the phone did not carry over in person. I was devastated, more because the rejection was a profound reminder of my insecurities and vulnerabilities than because I was convinced the woman was “the one” for me. Desperate for validation, I tried to make it work and she predictably recoiled. It was a humiliating experience.

By this time I was destitute, heartbroken, ego-crushed, and had no immediate prospects for employment. Adding to my external misfortunes, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) caused me to obsess relentlessly about the woman who rejected me, and what a fool I had made of myself. I was profoundly discouraged and downtrodden. The sum of it all drove me back into therapy and onto medication. The memory alone serves as permanent reminder of a time in my life I would never wish to revisit.

DESPERATION, AND TEMP WORK

Desperate for work, I was ready to jump at any employment I could find. Shortly after signing up

with a temp agency, I received a two-day position at the NuSkin distribution plant in downtown Provo, Utah, where I packaged orders on an assembly line. Arrogance, exacerbated by failure, coursed through my veins as I angrily boxed up lotions, shampoos, vitamins, and gels for hours on end. Here I was, a college graduate, filling boxes on an assembly line. In hindsight, this—and other events like it—was a proverbial blessing in disguise. Life was humbling me, and that was precisely what I needed. Arrogance doesn’t impress people or aid in teaching important life lessons to others. I would find much more success helping others if I was a humble teacher.

A TURN AT TABLE SERVING

Temp-jobs were relatively rare, so I began proactively searching for other employment. A cousin


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helped me land a job as a server in a Mexican restaurant. I was paid a little over two dollars per hour, plus tips. After my third day on the job, I had earned approximately $100, all of which went to retrieving my car, which got towed for being illegally parked when I went to visit a woman I was considering asking out. It was a rough start to a rough job.

I was, at best, an average server. I came to realize what a multi-tasking monstrosity food serving was, and I learned to respect above average or stellar servers for their capacity to keep it all straight.

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. I was excellent at focusing on a task or project. I was also good at working hard and sticking with a task until I finished it. I was not as effective at handling the multi-tasking minutiae of such a detailed-oriented job. I lasted less than two months before offering up my two-weeks’ notice. I’m confident my manager breathed a sigh of relief at my resignation.

During this work experience, I associated with individuals who were much better at table serving than me. It was humbling to see how relatively inefficient and ineffective I was at a skill that some may look down upon as being easy, simplistic, or uneducated labor. The multi-tasking leviathan that table serving was for me helped me to appreciate the unique talents, abilities, and/or brainpower that are required for all kinds of labor. The essential SAL lesson that all human beings have equal, intrinsic value, and that everyone is blessed with unique talents and abilities was further burned into my mind and heart through this experience. To this day, I hold table servers (especially good ones) in high regard.

THE LEADERSHIP CENTER

About three weeks after taking the Mexican restaurant job, I landed another job as an assistant to the Director of The Center for the Advancement of Leadership at Utah Valley State College (now Utah Valley University – my alma mater). I learned about the Leadership Center while proactively seeking for employment at the college’s employment center. The Director of the Leadership Center was Dr. Bruce Jackson.

It just so happened that I knew Bruce; my brothers and I built shelves for him in his garage and basement a few years earlier. I admired his education, personality, and professional interest in human and organizational development. He was energetic, driven, and visionary. The moment I heard what Bruce was doing, I knew I wanted to work for him.

Donning my best suit, I solicited an opportunity to meet with Dr. Jackson in his office. After learning more about his work at the Leadership Center, I confidently proceeded to “sell” him on what I could do for him were he to hire me. I painted a vision of how I could make his job easier and help him to achieve his goals. As it turned out, Dr. Jackson had been considering opening up an assistant position anyway; my personal pitch gave him a reason to accelerate the process.

My pay was pathetic—$7.72 per hour with a cap of 30 hours per week—hardly what I felt I was worth with a college education. I took the job because I knew the experience would be worth its weight in gold. I was right. Working with Dr. Jackson was one of the greatest professional experiences, opportunities, and adventures of my life. Bruce did his preaching through example; he was an exceptional boss and mentor.

My experiences at the Leadership Center further build a foundation for my becoming a professional writer, speaker, and entrepreneur. Aside from the chance to observe a remarkable self-action leader like Bruce every day, I also gained opportunities to meet several high profile persons, such as Jon Huntsman Jr. (future governor of Utah and U.S. Ambassador to China), Thurl Bailey (former NBA Basketball player), Sharlene Wells Hawkes (former Miss America), and the President of UVU at that time (William A. Sederburg).

Because my wages and work hours were limited at the Leadership Center, I remained desperate for cash, and continued to seek out other ways to make ends meet. I returned to helping my brothers build shelves in people’s garages and basements throughout the community. I also got a few extra bucks laboring at $10 an hour hauling rocks and performing other landscaping chores for Dr. Jackson and his wife. All the while, I dreamed about where I wanted to be, and what I wanted to do in the future. In the meantime, all I could do was continue to “labor and to wait.”45 I was always willing to labor, but the waiting part has always been extra difficult for me. Over time, I learned the incredibly important SAL lesson that guides

45 A line from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, A Psalm of Life.


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successful farmers and ranchers; namely, that patience is as important as the work itself. Working extra hard cannot shorten the time it takes a crop or animal to grow and develop into mature flora and fauna that can fetch a worthy price.

ENTREPRENEURIAL RETURN TO MY ROOTS

The temporary work I did for the Jacksons gave me an idea. Why not advertise my services as a

yard worker like my brothers and I did for Jensen Brothers’ Shelving? With no good reason not to try, I designed, printed, and then delivered several hundred of my own flyers. Bereft of my own yard tools, or a truck to haul them in, I employed the slogan, Your Tools, My Muscles.

What’s with the suit? And where are the muscles?

Despite distributing several hundred of these flyers in local neighborhoods, I received only one job. Actually, I got two jobs, but one was from a family member who needed some yard work done and no doubt felt sorry for me.

SOWING THE SEEDS OF MY SEMINARS

Earlier that year (2004), I resumed work on my personal leadership seminars. I found the work

incredibly engaging and exciting. Whenever I spent time developing material or designing the accompanying slide shows, I entered into powerful FLOW states that would completely absorb me, making the time fly by.46 It felt like work I was born to do. However, the lack of financial remuneration for my efforts remained a pressing problem. Nevertheless, I persisted, and by the end of the year, I had taught 13 more pro bono personal leadership seminars at five locations around Utah. The feedback from seminar attendees was excellent and vindicated the value of, and general interest in, my message.

NETWORK MARKETING & DIRECT SALES

Despite my failure as a Cutco Cutlery salesman in high school, a single day in a “rah-rah” phone service sales position in Atlanta, my distasteful experiences in retail, and my lifelong aversion to sales in

46 FLOW refers to a state of optimal performance that carries with it many positive emotions, a sense of personal fulfillment, and can lead to high levels of productivity and achievement. For more information on the art and science of FLOW, see Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990) Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York, NY: HarperPerennial. See also: 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.


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general, I pursued a direct sales opportunity as a representative of Pre-Paid Legal (now Legal Shield). You’d think I would have learned my lesson about sales by this time, but I remained convinced that I must “pay my dues” by willingly doing difficult and unpleasant things in order to earn true success.47

Predictably, I failed again in another naïve attempt to succeed at doing something I despised. For all the time and effort I invested in my Pre-Paid Legal business over the course of several months, I only earned about $500 cash. Like every other sales position I had ever pursued, it was mostly a waste of time financially. But, also like other sales positions—and any other position I had enthusiastically pursued—I also learned a lot about the world around me, the principles of personal success, and most importantly, about myself. It reinforced the principle that valuable life and career lessons can be learned through a variety of work experiences regardless how much you are, or are not, paid for your work. On the one hand, it was yet another terrible financial decision and investment. On the other hand, it was another marvelous educational investment, the interest of which would, in due time, pay rich financial and other dividends.

SEMINAR SEEDLINGS BEGIN TO SPROUT

In 2005, I redoubled my efforts to succeed as an entrepreneurial public speaker by sharing my message of personal leadership to high school and college-aged students. Through resources at the Leadership Center, I was able to contact nearly every high school in the State of Utah and offer my motivational speaking services for free. This generated a positive response from many schools, and I successfully scheduled 38 additional seminars at 22 locations all over the state of Utah during the first half of 2005. Feedback from students continued to be very positive.48

• 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 such comments were 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 5 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 rather than throwing up.

RISKING IT ALL ON ONE TURN OF “PITCH-AND-TOSS”

All the positive feedback, endorsements, and student goal-setting built my confidence and bolstered my credibility. It also encouraged me personally, and strengthened my belief that my passionate message of personal leadership needed to be shared on a large scale.

I was quickly outgrowing my position at the Leadership Center. Nevertheless, my perpetual problem of being broke persisted. My combined income from all of my part-time jobs was barely enough 47 No matter what personal goal or career objective you pursue, you will have to work hard and do difficult things to become successful. However, it is also true that you are more likely to be successful if you pursue opportunities that harmonize with your natural desires and talents. Despite my continued attempts at sales jobs, I never gained the desire to really study it and pay the price to succeed. While I may be gifted in both the science of language and the art of persuasion, I never possessed any natural propensity for sales in and of itself. As someone who prides himself on being an entrepreneur, it took me a long time and a lot of unnecessary self-loathing to figure this out. 48 Some student feedback was constructive, and some was apathetic, but there was very little negativity.


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to make ends meet. As Stephen R. Covey has remarked: “no margin, no mission.”49 I had no margin, but by this point in time, I was definitely on a mission. Determined to continue building my business, I did what many a neophyte entrepreneur has done: I started seeking out financial backers from among my immediate and extended family members. Initially, I was successful in doing so, and was ultimately able to obtain loans of approximately $45,000.

By the middle of the year (2005), I began working full-time on my new venture. I named and incorporated my company, had a professional website developed, wrote, directed, and produced a 15-minute professional marketing DVD, hired the production and printing of 5,000 advertising brochures, marketing letters, envelopes, and business cards, and began work on a full-length book. While this flurry of activity was engaging and invigorating, it bore little financial fruit.

LOSING, AND STARTING AGAIN AT MY BEGINNINGS

By the end of the year, I had mailed out thousands of marketing brochures and letters and finished the first few drafts of my book. I worked hard on my new venture, and was optimistic about its prospects of success. But out of my 4,800 mailings, which cost thousands of dollars and took months to prepare and send out, I got only four or five calls and booked only two seminars—one in Colorado and one in California. It was exciting to get my first paid gigs as a professional public speaker, but it did not alter the fact that my marketing strategy had been an abysmal failure. Realizing the local market for my services would be small if I stayed in Utah, I decided to move back to Atlanta, where I would seek my fortunes for a second time.

Late in December 2005, while recovering from a broken collarbone incurred in a mountain biking accident, I packed up my car with my necessary earthly possessions and remaining marketing materials. It was December in Utah and the weather had turned cold and snowy. My little Honda Civic LX was stuffed to its gills with most of my earthly possessions. Recognizing how pathetic such a scene must have looked, I forced myself to consider it from the perspective of a difficult step leading toward a great future. But in all honesty, things were much bleaker than my positive attitude implied.

The day after Christmas in 2005, I began my journey east—alone. Upon arriving in Georgia, I foolishly entered into an apartment contract I could not afford, thinking I would be able to make good as I continued to develop my business. I was determined to pursue my leap of faith to the end, be it bitter or sweet. I had no furniture save a worktable and a folding chair. I started out sleeping on an air mattress, but as it soon developed a hole, I ended up sleeping on the floor until later that spring when I was able to salvage a clean, albeit used, queen-sized mattress someone had taken out and leaned against my apartments dumpster room.

Alone in my apartment, I went to work and finished my book. I then began writing e-mails to scores of literary agencies in an effort to secure an agent. I wrote many more e-mails seeking out endorsements from high-profile leaders. I naively wrote to many famous individuals I did not personally know including Governors, Senators, U.S. Representatives, two college football coaches I admired, two female movie stars I had screen crushes on, and even First Lady Laura Bush. After a while, and to the credit of those who bothered to make the effort (or whose staff bothered to make the effort) I began receiving polite rejections from some of them. I have included photocopies of a few of my favorites below.

49 Covey, S. R. (2004). The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness. New York, NY: Free Press. Page 225.


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The most painful rejection came from the office of Stephen R. Covey. I all but worshipped Dr. Covey’s work, and by extension, Dr. Covey himself. I had been greatly influenced by his writing and speaking, and felt in many ways that I was following in his footsteps and building upon a foundation of his work and legacy with my own fledgling message and model of personal leadership.


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Depressingly, my book didn’t even make it past Covey’s screening committee. It was as though

Stephen Covey was scowling at me and saying sternly: “Jordan, you are neither ready nor worthy of my commendation and endorsement.” The letter stung, filling my heart and soul with the acrid bitterness of failure.

While most of the literary agencies also sent rejection letters, I eventually received an offer—and signed with the agent right away. Success at last! Or so I thought.

The money I had borrowed from family members in 2005 dried up in 2006. Multiple requests for new loans were rightfully refused by both immediate and extended family members. It was terribly embarrassing. I was glad I lived in Georgia where I wouldn’t have to face any of them in person. I was now approximately $70,000 in debt, about $13,000 of which was on credit cards. During the year 2005, my total income had been less than $3,000. My rent payment was $700 a month, and I had zero income. It was a matter of weeks before I would be completely out of money.

I began desperately scrambling to regain financial solvency. I applied for a job at Target. They never contacted me. I searched for employment opportunities online. I designed flyers advertising my services as a tutor and hand-delivered over a thousand of them. Nothing came of it.50 I had no job and no more seminars scheduled. On the verge of eviction and auto repossession, I was also beginning to run out of food.

SAVING GRACE & LESSONS LEARNED

In the midst of this pathetically desperate situation, I was far too embarrassed and prideful to crawl back to my family in Utah, or to ask anyone in my family for financial assistance ever again. While I had not entirely given up hope, I realized that my faith was starting to look like foolishness, and I felt utterly humiliated.

I resorted to petitioning a local ecclesiastical leader in my church for assistance with food and rent. 50 I eventually serviced one client as an English tutor, but the job didn’t come until long after I had delivered my fliers.


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To my everlasting gratitude, those gracious church offerings helped me get through a deeply trying time in my life, and helped reinforce the fact that even with my best efforts as a self-action leader, I sometimes needed the help of others to make it in life—financially or otherwise.

Reflecting back on this difficult period, and knowing what I know now, I would never repeat these same steps again. Yet foolish and impractical as they were, these steps also carried the benefit of proving to myself that I had the courage to take a leap of faith for something I really believed in—and hold nothing back in the process. I learned a lot of important things about myself during this time period that will forever serve as an anchor to my personal confidence and self-image. Moreover, in time, extraordinary blessings from these risks began to enter my life, the timing of which would not be of my choosing.

ROCK BOTTOM, AND SUBSTITUTE TEACHING

I continued to work diligently on my business while harboring largely unrealistic hopes that my

business would somehow take off and rescue me from drowning in debt. I finished my book and received the first 565 copies at my apartment on April 6, 2006. My roommate helped me carry them up to our third-floor apartment. I feverishly went to work sending out copies to school administrators and others, hoping to sell my message and begin drawing attention to my work and garnering additional paid seminars. While I mailed out nearly 100 copies of my book and DVD, I received very few “bites.”

Recognizing my ship was not likely to come in anytime soon, I continued putting in applications for work to acquire some regular income. I contacted a local newspaper to offer my experience as a reporter and writer – something I had previous experience with – but had no luck. I did online research in an attempt to discover opportunities that fit my education and skill sets, but gained no leads. I finally found success with an application to become a substitute teacher in a suburban Atlanta school district (Cobb County).

I began substitute teaching in February and continued the rest of the school year. My ecclesiastical leader also connected me with a roommate who was able to help me subsidize my oppressive rent-payment for a period of time. With help from my church, additional rent money from my new roommate, an extremely modest income as a substitute teacher, a little unsolicited help from my dear father, a couple of speaking gigs, and one handsome book sales contract in Virginia, I was able to make ends meet until the end of June. By this time, however, I had begun to receive letters and calls initiating the process for eviction from my apartment and the repossession of my car.

Having unwisely maxed out every credit card I had (five different cards for a total of about $13,000) in an “all-chips-in” gamble on my fledgling business, I began to be hounded by my creditors. I had also gotten braces on my teeth 18 months earlier and had to foot the bill for a mandatory and expensive oral operation (gum graft)—that had become necessary because of the way my braces were causing my teeth to shift—before moving back to Georgia. My payments were perpetually late.

The stress and strain of my financial duress permeated almost every area of my life. A March 26, 2006 journal entry reads thusly:

Tonight I went to a lavish feast at the ———’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.

Pressing On

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 been seriously injured. Then in the course of four months I broke my collarbone and badly sprained my ankle. As the old saying goes, “when it rains, it pours!”

Through it all, I continued to diligently build my business. I sought out endorsement quotes, wrote and published online newsletters, signed up educators for my newsletter (over 30,000 in all—a project requiring a mammoth investment of time), mailed out scores of book copies, developed email marketing materials, and worked on my book proposal with my literary agent. I was still a long ways from giving up. I


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was also starting to get feedback on my book, which, like the feedback from my seminars, was very encouraging.

I was also blessed to book a paid speaking gig in March at Monticello High School in my hometown. Before leaving town, my Dad sent me off with an envelope, which he instructed not to open until I was on my way. To my great thanks and relief, it held $200 cash. It helped me get back to Georgia and eased my extreme financial angst a bit.

While my income as a substitute teacher was insufficient, it was certainly better than nothing. But school would be ending soon, which meant no more subbing jobs for 10 weeks. Having recently finished my official book proposal, my literary agent and his girlfriend began pitching my book to major publishers. My big breakthrough hinged on securing a book deal. I earnestly hoped and desperately prayed, but the book deal never materialized. Every publishing house that reviewed my proposal rejected it. It was a complete bust, and my agent—who, along with his girlfriend, had invested 75 hours in the project—regretted taking a chance on me and later severed all communication relating to my business. He didn’t want anything to do with me. I could hardly blame him.

A TEMPORARY TERMINUS

I had made one heap of all my winnings, risked it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss—and lost.51 Now it was up to me to prove that I was capable of starting again at my beginnings and never breathe a word about my loss. It was time to wake up from my dreams of a storybook ascent into literary and financial fame and glory. The harshness of reality crushed my fantasies of becoming a Stephen Covey/Tony Robbins figure with the teenage crowd. This disappointment and temporary failure led to a period of several years where I lost almost all interest in building my business. Up to my eyeballs in debt, I felt like a miserable failure. Healing from this devastation would take over five years.

MY SAVING GRACE

A second eviction notice signaled I was losing my battle with my creditors and the clock. Unable

to make it another month, I turned to the last source of help I still dared turn to: my dear cousin Ida and her then husband. These were the same cousins I had lived with back in 2003. Ida had already offered me a place to stay when she heard I was moving back to Georgia in 2006, but deeply desiring to establish living autonomy and otherwise “make it on my own,” I had declined her offer the second time around. I no longer had the luxury of doing so. If I wanted to stay in Georgia, I basically had two choices: move back in with my cousins, or live in my car.52

Ida and her husband generously offered me free room and board while I got back on my feet. They also lent me over two thousand dollars so I could avoid eviction, car repossession, and bankruptcy. In addition to a roof over my head and food to eat, they also gave me a summer job tending their two sons. I worked full-time as a nanny through the summer, and part-time in the fall (after the boys got out of school) while I continued to build my business. The money I earned allowed me to keep my car and continue making minimum payments on my interest incurring debts.

I eventually met with a bankruptcy lawyer in Atlanta to learn about my options for starting over completely. I chose to avoid bankruptcy for three reasons. First, the idea was anathema to my sense of personal integrity—I rightfully owed every penny I had borrowed, and felt duty-bound to pay it all back. Second, I did not want to risk damaging my credit score any more than I already had (it took until the year 2014 for my credit score to rebound sufficiently to be able to take out another credit card in my own name). Third, from a purely practical standpoint, I did not have the cash necessary to pay the attorney fees it would cost to file. I was too poor to declare bankruptcy!

51 Line from Rudyard Kipling’s poem, If. 52 If it had really come down to living in my car, I could have gained additional help from my Church, but I was loathe to ask for any more help than I absolutely needed. As such, an offer to stay with my cousins was something I could not, at that point, refuse.


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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 ended up finding a smaller market publisher all on my own. He agreed to publish an edited and revised iteration of my book. After diligently completing the revised manuscript and turning it over to him, he dishonestly reneged on the contract, and that was the end of that. I learned a good lesson from the experience: never again try to do business with that guy! Beginning in January 2007, I went back to substitute teaching, picking up jobs at every opportunity.

My marketing efforts from the year before resulted in several more speaking gigs (some paid, some not) in Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, North Carolina, and California. That November my girlfriend, Lina, attended the Alabama seminar, a keynote address in Birmingham where I spoke to my largest audience to date—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 benefit young people and older people alike.

Despite this and other bright spots along the way, I was still broke as a joke financially. When school ended in May 2007, I was again desperate to find more work since I would be without teaching income during the summer. I found a part-time job helping to dry cars for a car washing business. The work started very early in the darkness of pre-dawn and continued into the heat and humidity of Atlanta’s hot summer days. Armed with nothing more than a chamois cloth and my own elbow grease, the work was tedious and physically taxing, but it did provide me with a few extra bucks.

Fortunately, I soon found a full-time job as a groundskeeper making $11 per hour. I worked on that crew throughout the summer and into the late fall. For the first time in over eight years, I actually had a full-time job that offered 40 hours per week. For this, I felt profoundly grateful, although it was often difficult to stomach the fact that I had been a college graduate for four years and was still making only a little more than minimum wage—especially when I already had several high-paying seminar invoices under my belt as a professional presenter.

Being a groundskeeper was not easy. It involved almost exclusively outdoor, manual labor. It required hard work in the hot and humid summer weather of Atlanta, Georgia. As it happened, the summer of 2007 turned out to be one of the hottest summers on record in Atlanta, with temperatures rising uncharacteristically above 100 degrees on multiple days during the month of August. Such temperatures would beat down relentlessly on us as we weeded, pruned, planted, trimmed, de-rooted, swept, and de-littered the property where we worked. While I wasn’t earning much money, I was developing patience, character, and gratitude; which was worth far more than the few dollars I earned along the way.

THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL FINALLY APPEARS (SORT OF)

Around the same time I got the landscaping job, I attended an employment meeting at my church. I met a man there who, after learning of my talents, experiences, and career ambitions, asked me if I had heard about contract training, which was a way for independent speakers like myself to find work. I was unfamiliar with the industry, but immediately intrigued by the concept.

Soon after the meeting, I researched the industry online and was able to identify a couple of companies that specialized in contract training. I prepared and submitted an application and resumé to both companies. One of them rejected me, citing insufficient experience. The other one, Fred Pryor, was willing to give me a chance to audition.

My live audition was successful. A few months later, I took a week off work to drive to Kansas City for the three-day training program. It was a challenging trip. I could not afford motel rooms and had to sleep in my car at rest stops alongside the Interstate.

Once at the training, the company declined my request to teach a course on leadership and asked me to teach a grammar course instead. Grammar was about the last course I wanted to teach. During the training, I felt like giving up and driving home; but at this point in my life, my options were limited. I was a beggar, not a chooser, and not completing the course would have been epically foolish. I had to suck it up and see the thing through. After putting up an initial fight about the grammar course, I decided I better humble myself if I wanted to have any work at all. Ironically, I eventually excelled in teaching the grammar course, and to this day, it is one of my favorite subjects to teach.

To my great relief and satisfaction, I successfully completed the training and signed an official


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contract. As a contractor, I would not have benefits like I would as a direct-hire employee, but the company would book my seminars, pay for my travel expenses, and remit my speaker’s fees and commissions.

One of the requirements of contracting with Fred Pryor was to have a standing credit card with at least a $2,500 limit. With my poor credit score, procuring such was not an option, so I persuaded my mom to let me take out a card in her name, promising I would regularly pay off any travel expenses I incurred on the card—a promise I kept.

A month after certification, the company booked me for my first seminar “run” in Texas whereby I taught four grammar and proofreading seminars in four consecutive days. My first seminar was in College Station, Texas. When I arrived in Houston prior to my College Station seminar, I recall having nary a cent to my name besides the one credit card in my Mom’s name.

The seminar run went well. Though I had been out of college for over four years, I finally received my first paycheck making professional wages. I had a long ways to go, but this opportunity provided a welcomed pinprick of light at the end of a very long and dark tunnel.

Meanwhile, my financial troubles that had climaxed in early 2006 had not abated much. I remained consistently one to two payments behind on my car. My father had helped me purchase the vehicle new back in 2003 for a very low interest rate (0.9%). The problem was that no down payment was made on the vehicle, so I was saddled for years with a $315 monthly payment—a large sum for a 2003 Honda Civic LX. My dad kindly bailed me out back in 2006 when I otherwise would have lost the car. In the meantime, I had made payments whenever I possibly could. Somehow, by the grace of God and the charity of my father and cousin, I avoided repossession.

THE TURNING POINT

By early 2008, I was receiving seminar bookings with increasing regularity. While I was confident in my ability as a seminar presenter, I was both surprised and encouraged by this atypical career success. Nevertheless, I remained under terrible stress about my financial future. What if this new training gig did not pan out? What if I did not receive sufficient bookings to make ends meet? Was my business ever going to take off? My anxiety led me to begin inquiring about career opportunities in the military. One of my roommates at the time was a captain in the U.S. Army. As a college graduate, I could join the army and quickly become an officer. Such a move would guarantee a consistent stream of income for the first time in my adult life.

While military service is an honorable profession in my view, joining the Army would have been an enormous deviation from the career path I had embarked upon thus far. Furthermore, how would such a decision affect my chances with my girlfriend Lina, a budding—and brilliant—mechanical engineer who would be able to write her own ticket in the business world after graduation? What if Lina dumped me? Such questions produced plenty of angst in my mind and heart, despite my improving circumstances. I was fortunate at this time to have a compassionate roommate who afforded me some grace time to make late payments on my rent. I also received a little help again from my church to make a couple of additional rental payments.

Thankfully, Fred Pryor booked steady work for me the rest of that year and throughout the next (2008). This work provided me with opportunities to travel all over the Eastern and Central United States and provided me with invaluable experience as a professional seminar facilitator. Before long, I was making enough money to punctually pay my bills for the first time in a long time. I was also able to start making small, token payments on the non-interest bearing debts I owed my family members.

In February 2008, Lina accepted my proposal of marriage in spite of my lingering debt—which I was completely transparent about. I will forever be grateful for her faith.

On August 8, 2008, we were married. After our wedding, we honeymooned for a week in a time-share hotel my Dad and step-mom had given us as a wedding present. At week’s end, we boarded separate planes to fly back to Atlanta. While I was sad to not be on the same plane with my new wife, I was grateful to be on my way to Florida to teach four all-day professional seminars—tangible evidence of my growing self-reliance and career success.

I continued teaching seminars through the fall. In October 2008, I had my biggest month to date—15 seminars! I made more money in one month than I had in the entire year of 2005. It was an incredible turnaround for me, and felt satisfying to finally be earning my own keep.


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OUR FORTUNES FLOURISH AS WALL STREET CRASHES

That fall, the infamous financial meltdowns on Wall Street and the bursting of the housing bubble marked the beginning of the worst recession since the Great Depression. As the nation’s financial woes were just beginning, ours were ironically beginning to end. I was teaching seminars and continued my substitute teaching on days when I was not teaching seminars. Lina, a senior in college, dedicated a sizable portion of her time each week to attending career fairs and applying for jobs. The fall of 2008 was not an ideal time to be looking for work, but Lina’s impressive resume and hard work more than compensated for the challenges.

Her diligent efforts—in between managing a full-load of classes—paid off. That fall, she accepted a job in Houston, Texas with a Fortune 100 corporation making a starting salary that was flirting with six figures. We reeled with astonishment and excitement at the welcomed news. It was an unprecedented and most welcomed development. I was very proud of her for earning such a significant achievement. She had worked hard her four years in college and completed her undergraduate degree with a 3.97 GPA. She had also spent three semesters working full time as a co-op employee for an engineering firm where she had been very successful and was offered a job upon graduation. Finally, she had been proactive in her efforts to secure employment at a time when the economy was entering its worst recession since the 1930s. This middle class girl, who started her education in the public schools of Homestead, Florida, now had a Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from one of the top five engineering schools in America, and one of the best programs in the world.

Following her graduation in May 2009, Lina’s new company packed up our things and moved them to our new apartment in Houston, where we would live for the next year. We were not accustomed to having someone move for us; it was very nice! We looked forward to our new adventure in Houston, but first, it was…

TIME TO CELEBRATE

After Lina’s graduation, we went on a weeklong cruise to the Western Caribbean to celebrate. Neither of us had ever been on a cruise before. As we sailed away—hand-in-hand—from the Port of Miami that beautiful spring afternoon, I tried my best to just soak in the moment, which represented the culmination of so much hard work and struggle. The opportunity to enjoy such a luxury was an indicator that our lives were changing in a big way, and for the better. We now had money to do things we could only dream of just a few months previously. More importantly, we had the power to pay our bills, shrink our debts, and begin saving for the future. It took several years, but we made our last debt payment in the spring of 2012. Since then, we have continued our earning and saving habits, and today, we have a growing nest egg that provides an enormous sense of independence, security, and confidence.

CHANGING COURSE AMIDST THE GREAT RECESSION

As 2009 dawned, the economic recession that had been strangling the American and global economies dried up most of my training business with Fred Pryor. I went from getting 10-15 seminar bookings a month to a mere one or two. It was frustrating to see my progress stunted due to external realities beyond my control, but as a self-action leader, I knew I must remain focused on what I could control and proactively seek out new opportunities.

Recognizing that my career opportunities had been blunted yet again, I began to consider my options for increasing my education. I eventually decided to pursue a Doctoral degree in education, and was accepted to a program in educational leadership and change at Fielding Graduate University out of Santa Barbara, California—the same school where my mentor, Dr. Bruce Jackson, had earned his Ph.D. Despite the delay to my career advancement, I welcomed the opportunity to enhance my education, and felt greatly blessed that Lina’s new job would make it possible for me to go to school without incurring any more debt. As I worked through my doctoral studies, I found ways to build upon the work I had begun with my business and first book, I Am Sovereign: The Power of Personal Leadership. In my dissertation, I was able to further flesh out the model of personal leadership I had put forth in my original book, as well as develop an additional theory of Self-Action Leadership—both of which are contained in this book. I also


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worked diligently to cultivate key relationships within a growing network of highly capable and caring people.

MY YEAR TEACHING HIGH SCHOOL

My seminar work had almost entirely dried up by the spring of 2009, so I set to work finding alternative employment as a classroom teacher. Several months before we left Georgia, I began the process of getting certified to teach in Texas.

After moving to Houston, I completed multiple online applications with five different school districts in the greater Houston area. I also sent résumés out to schools advertising open positions. My online job search bore little fruit, and secured zero interviews. Then, an educator advised me to personally visit schools to drop off résumés and make face-to-face contacts with administrators. I explained to her that many schools had explicitly requested that applicants not make personal visits. Her simple reply was, “If you want a job, you need to go out and make personal contacts.” Intuitively, I knew she was right, and decided to leave my comfort zone and begin making personal visits. Donning my best suit, and armed with copies of my resume, published book, and marketing DVD, I visited every high school in the Cypress-Fairbanks (Cy-Fair) Independent School District. Doing so enabled me to secure three interviews. On my first interview, with Cypress-Ridge High School, I was offered a job before I even had time to get to the other two interviews.

Thus began the single most difficult professional challenge I have ever undertaken. As a result, I learned and grew a lot. For the first time in my life, I was making a college-educated annual salary. At Cypress-Ridge, I was a minority, and a rookie to boot.53 Moreover, I was still working through certain OCD issues that slowed my success as a teacher. Indeed, I was not always successful. In fact, my rough start landed me in the principal’s office after only six weeks on the job 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—an outstanding leader—was nice about it, but he let me know that such a rate was not acceptable.

After Thanksgiving, I was called into the Principal’s office again. This time, he was not as congenial as the first time. He even suggested I take some time out over the holidays to reassess if I wanted to continue teaching. I was offended by his implication that I consider quitting mid-year; I was no quitter. Moreover, it was hurtful knowing he would rather not have me on his staff.

Principal Claudio Garcia was a good man, a fine leader, and a successful principal. I was a struggling first-year teacher. Fortunately, I had enough good sense and humility to choose to learn from him. Teaching 130 ninth-graders proved extremely challenging work. The students in my classes faced all sorts of familial, cultural, behavioral, and academic problems that were not of my making, yet posed serious problems in the classroom. If I was not willing to square my shoulders to the challenges at hand and take full responsibility for the difficulties I faced, I would continue to flounder as a classroom manager and fail too many of my students. With a respectful firmness, Mr. Garcia helped me to see that he had hired me to solve problems, and that if I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, solve those problems, he would find someone else who would. The lesson was not lost on me. This bitter dose of reality cut me to the core and produced a vital decisions point in my career. Would I choose to blame difficult circumstances beyond my control and quit, or would I take full responsibility for my results and go to work on what I could control? The solutions to my problems were difficult, but possible. I was stuck, and the only way to get unstuck was to go work on myself—a project that would begin by changing my attitude.

Practically speaking, quitting was a viable option. With my wife’s salary, we were not going to starve if I opted to focus full time on my doctoral studies. Furthermore, doing so would actually accelerate my academic progress. My work as a first-year teacher was so demanding and time-intensive (12-hour days were not uncommon my first semester) that I had very little time to work on my studies.

Nevertheless, my sense of self-respect and dignity precluded this option. Furthermore, I knew that giving up would ultimately harm my internal, and perhaps my external, credibility in the long run. Who was I to pursue a doctorate in education if I was going to quit midway through a real-life position in education? Quitting would be commensurate with failure, and would be a stain on my character and integrity. I had made a commitment to Cy-Ridge for the full-year, and I would keep that commitment.

During the second semester, I stopped complaining and making excuses (mostly) and threw

53 I was a racial minority among the student body, not the faculty.


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myself into the task before me. I worked to improve the relationships I had with my students, something that Mr. Garcia and his administrative team consistently emphasized as a key to teacher success. I also further developed a system I had begun for rewarding positive behavior, punctuality, good grades, and academic improvement. It caught on with the students and helped things go even better.

In concert with focusing on living SAL principles myself, I also focused more on teaching SAL principles to my students.54 Over time, I began to see individual and collective improvement among my students. Before the year ended, I had lowered my overall classroom failure rate from 38% the first grading period to as low as 11% the fifth grading period. At the end of the year, Principal Garcia commended me for my hard work and improvement. He also gave me a positive review. I was still far from being a perfect teacher, or even an experienced teacher for that matter. But through a combination of teaching SAL to my students and practicing it myself, the year ended very differently than it had started. It was a humbling and rewarding experience for me. I gained a greater respect for the hard work of full-time teachers and the difficult challenges they are up against in a contemporary public schooling environment. Most importantly, I had another golden opportunity to successfully apply SAL to a series of poignant problems and then watch those problems begin to give way before the enormous power of the principles.

OUR MOVE TO NEWFOUNDLAND

Midway through my year of teaching, my wife was offered a new assignment with her company that required us to relocate to St. John’s, Newfoundland in Canada. She desired to take advantage of the opportunity, and I supported her 100%. Lina left Texas for Newfoundland in March 2010. Determined to finish out my teaching contract, I stayed behind in Houston and then joined her in mid-June.

We lived in St. John’s for two years. This provided me with a heaven-sent sabbatical with which I could work more exclusively on my doctoral studies. In February 2011, I also began teaching Fred Pryor seminars again, this time exclusively in Canada, where I taught 70 all-day classes during a 13-month period in between working on my course studies and beginning my dissertation writing.

BACK TO HOUSTON In April 2012, Lina was transferred back to Houston. In March 2013, our first child – Tucker

Joseph Jensen – was born. That same month, I had my final oral review for my doctoral studies. We also moved out of our last apartment and into our first home. In a span of three weeks, I became a dad, a doctor, and a homeowner. Life was good.

During 2013 and 2014, I taught seminars extensively for a new contract-training company—SkillPath—the same company that had rejected my application back in 2007, citing insufficient experience. It was rewarding to be accepted this time around. From Hawaii and Great Britain to South Dakota and Puerto Rico, SkillPath flew me to many locations throughout the English-speaking world to teach their seminars. The positive feedback I had always received as a professional trainer continued unabated, and my platform skills as a trainer grew more polished with every course I taught. By the beginning of 2015, I had taught nearly 600 seminars spanning over 40 different all-day courses on about a dozen different subjects. Step-by-step and bit-by-bit, my commitment to learn about and proactively exercise Self-Action Leadership in my life and work had developed to the point of producing much fruit both personally and professionally. I had effectively demonstrated over an extended period of time both the veracity and legitimacy of SAL principles in the ongoing experiments of my own life’s laboratory. Just as importantly, I was gaining increased opportunities to share the results of my massive Self-Action Research55 project with the world in hopes of similarly blessing the lives of others.

54 I provide details of how I taught SAL to my students in BOOK the FOURTH, Chapter 6. 55 Self-Action Research, or SAR, is defined and explicated further in BOOK the THIRD, Chapter 3.


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A POSITIVE AMERICAN SUCCESS STORY

A lot has happened educationally and professionally over the past several years. My personal and career crucibles of 2003-2010 have turned into my educational and professional successes of 2007-2015. Since 2001, I have addressed over 20,000 people in over 600 audiences in three countries, 44 U.S. States, 5 Provinces of Canada, 9 Shires of Great Britain, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. After failing to break a 3.0 grade point average (2.94) in high school, and barely breaking a 3.0 in college (3.2), I finished my doctoral degree with a better than perfect 4.049 GPA (thanks to some A-plusses on two papers).

Between 2008 and the end of 2012, we went from being approximately $80,000 in debt to being debt free, living comfortably, and acquiring a growing nest egg for retirement. We were also able to pay cash for my doctoral tuition, books, travel, etc. In the spring of 2010, we made our last interest-bearing debt payment to public creditors; in the spring of 2012, we made our last non-interest bearing debt payment to family members. Such a trajectory did not occur over night, but given several years of dedicated hard work, focus, and patience, fortune has fabulously favored our mutual commitment to SAL.

After all the ups and downs, debt and angst, faith and doubt, and toil and hope, I am proud to say that I have lived what can rightly be called a positive American success story. My parents raised me to believe that America is a land of unbounded potential where I could be and do just about anything I set out my mind toward if I was willing to pay the price. They taught me that if I was willing to work hard, follow the rules, and never give up in the land of the free and the home of the brave, that I could eventually be successful in whatever I set out to accomplish, regardless of the challenges that came my way. They were right!

The fruitful realities of this promise took many years to materialize; but now, looking back over more than two decades of “plow[ing] in hope,” I am grateful I decided to put my hand to the plow.56 And the best part is that our journey is, in many ways, just beginning.

By effectively exercising SAL, I was able to take complete responsibility for my professional situation and ultimately transcend whatever challenges that life—and my own decisions—allotted to me. I do not share these stories to try and convince you that I am awesome. I share them to empathize with the very real difficulties you either have or will yet face in your own career, and to encourage you to keep going until you eventually transcend them—because with the fuel of SAL and the aid of Serendipity, that is precisely what YOU are capable of doing.

56 1 Corinthians 9:10 (New Testament)

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