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Let me tell you about the day I lost my job.  

It was Mother’s Day and the person that let me go was also my best friend.  

He let me go because he had hired me to do a job that I wasn't qualified for and I didn't provide him any real value other than he liked having me around.  

Now his company was going through a rough patch and I needed to go, since I was the least useful person on his staff making the most money.  

It was a relief.  

The truth was, I had been moving away from working with him for a few months.  I was not just there to provide value, I was there to babysit my friend who wasn’t very self motivated.  

Don’t get me wrong, he had a good income and a great life and that is why he could and did hire me. 

But he also needed someone to sit next to him while he was on the computer and watch his screen so he wouldn’t look at pornography while he tried to work.  

Once I made the mistake of working on my computer, facing the same direction as he was, arm’s length apart from him but looking at my own computer and not his.  He was at a standing desk, I was sitting.  

I was working merrily along, trying to build us a new company.  

He walked out of the room, I assumed to go to the bathroom or talk to his kids (we worked at his home office).  

Suddenly his wife came storming in and said, “you need to put your computer up on his desk so you can see his monitor at all times, because he can’t be trusted.”

My friend, sheepishly, came back to his desk, right next to mine, an armlength away from me and started typing while his wife stood there with her head practically in flames.  

He had been looking at pornography right next to me.  He had been flicking back and forth from what he was doing for work and what he was doing to feel arousal.  

That moment was one of the last times I actually worked side by side with my friend.  It was probably the beginning of a rough patch in our friendship and certainly the beginning of the end of our business dealings.  

You see he had been using me, as he had been using so many other people and things in his life, to keep him “safe”.  

Once he no longer felt that I was able to keep him safe while he worked, we only worked together maybe two more times in the next 3 months.  

I had watched and studied my friend for years at this point and I knew a few things about him.  

Part of the reason I believe he had hired me was that I had been open with my struggle to overcome pornography use in my life and he desperately wanted to stop using pornography himself.  

There are a lot of reasons he probably never will. He has, by his own estimate and his wife’s, had an episode a week on average for fifteen years with little change.  

But that moment, the moment he viewed pornography while I was sitting next to him made me think of a moment in my own past that I feel so ashamed to admit. 

Until now, I’ve never told anyone, not even my wife.  

I had done the same thing years earlier, on a sleepy road, in a little duplex, sitting on my couch with my friends in the room, facing me, while I was on my laptop.  I looked at pornography while I was chatting with my friends in my living room.  

Until this moment, no one else but me knew it.  My friends, whom I love dearly and still keep in contact with have no idea.  

In writing this, I feel empathy for my friend more than anything.  

I am disappointed for my friend, not in him. 

I am sorry that he is dealing with this, not angry that he did this. 

I am sad for his family, not mad at his choices that may have jeopardized my own progress. 

I am sympathetic to his wife who doesn’t know what else to do and loves him, not upset that she yelled at me for not being a good enough babysitter.  

The struggle is so tangible for so many.  Some of you have done something similar.  Some of you have done something that you consider way worse.  

My own version of this story has a happy ending.  

That episode where I was viewing pornography on my laptop in my living room while my friends sat opposite was not some great turning point.  It wasn’t even really a blip on the radar in my overall usage.  

It is a moment that I can look back on and see the man I once was with poignant clarity.  

It is an opportunity for me to see myself in the actions of others.  

In some small way, it is, I believe, a way to understand the role of the Savior Jesus Christ in my own process of healing and repentance.  

The man I worked with is someone who provided for my family for about a year when dark clouds were hanging over us. 

He is not a caricature of that one moment. 

As none of us are.  

Each of us are complex people, capable of greatness.  We are all just as capable of making mistakes that sit with us for the rest of our lives. 

Those mistakes don’t define us.  What we do with them does. 

The moment I was let go I was relieved.  I was free to pursue my own path rather than build something that my friend wanted. 

I stopped wavering about becoming a coach.  

I set my whole future focus on becoming the number one LDS men’s coach in the world. 

I wanted nothing more than to create a system, a process, a path that other men could walk in order to finally and forever leave pornography behind.  

I went to Jody Moore’s Be Bold Masters and found a vocabulary and an understanding for the process that I went through to become free of my pornography usage.  

I had never really put into words what I did to become free of my addictive behavior.  I just did it.  Every once in a while, my wife would ask me, “what are you doing to stop?” and I would describe a piece of what I was doing, but not as in depth as what I found with Jody.  

That is why I became a coach.  I could be doing anything.  I had a successful career at a major insurance company, had been an entrepreneur for some time as well.  I have an advanced degree and love working with people.  But being a coach for men and women who struggle with pornography use is an opportunity to change people’s lives in a way that they themselves are unaware is possible.  

I see a way to change the lives of those around me.  If you are struggling with addictive behaviors, pornography, overeating, excessive video game usage let me help you.  Sign up for a free mini session and let this process change your life for the better. 

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