I started playing baseball when I was six years old, and I loved it from the first day.
Something was in me from the beginning that I still can't fully explain. I didn't want to be okay at baseball. I wanted to be the best at it, or at least know I'd given it everything I had. Nobody put that in me. It was just there.
I grew up as one of the better players in my area. I made varsity as a freshman as a pitcher, but I barely got to hit that year, and hitting was what I loved. I wanted to hit home runs. So before my sophomore year I found a hitting coach and took lessons. For the first time I actually understood the mechanics of a swing instead of just swinging hard.
That sophomore year I was one of the top home run leaders in all of San Diego County.
Then my junior year came, and everything got harder.
The edge I didn't know I was losing
My freshman and sophomore years I lived a clean life. I grew up LDS. I went to church, and I went to early-morning seminary before school. Honestly, I didn't love church, and I didn't feel like I had real friends there. Most of the guys I knew were partying, and I felt lonely, like I was missing out on life.
So my junior year I started drinking with friends. Sometimes I smoked marijuana. I did it to fit in, and to finally feel like I belonged somewhere.
It felt off. But it also felt alive. Going out was fun. What I didn't notice were the subtle changes happening inside me.
I quit seminary. Church was still there, but it got hard to walk in the door, because I was lying to people about what I was doing. I was afraid of disappointing them, so I hid the truth. I was also sexually active with girlfriends, which went against the commitment I'd made to save that for marriage. Looking back, that was a big part of how I drifted from God. Little by little I was doing what I wanted instead of what He'd told me would be good for me.
I can see now that those small commitments I didn't even like, getting up early for seminary and showing up at church, were protecting me. God was blessing me for the little I was giving Him. When I stopped giving it, something went with it.
On the field, I could feel it. There was an edge I'd lost, and I couldn't name what it was.
Three bombs and a no-no
I kept living the same way into my senior year in 1995. It was a better year than my junior year. Not what it could have been, but okay.
And then came one game against Carlsbad.
I was on the mound, and I threw the first no-hitter of my life. In four at-bats that same game, I hit three home runs.
I call it my miracle game: three bombs and a no-no.
When the dream didn't pan out
I'd love to tell you that game launched a big career. It didn't.
I went to BYU to play baseball, but I hadn't prepared the way I should have, and I had an injured shoulder. I spent that first year as a redshirt. After that year, I quit.
It was devastating. The thing I'd poured myself into since I was six was just gone. And I kept drinking, kept smoking, and felt like my life wasn't going anywhere.
The night everything changed
When I was 21, I finally had enough. I decided to tell the truth.
I told my bishop. I told my parents. I went to the people I'd lied to and told them I was wrong and I was sorry. And the most important thing I did was go to God and beg Him to forgive me.
Living a new commitment was a big change. I stopped drinking. I stopped hanging out with the friends I partied with. I stayed home, worked, and lived quietly with my family. I started praying and reading scripture, and I dug into the Book of Mormon in a way I never had before.
Near the end of that book, in Moroni 10:3–5, there's a promise. If a man reads with a real desire to know God, ponders what he reads, and asks the Father in the name of Christ whether it's true, God will show him the truth by the power of the Holy Ghost.
"And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things."Moroni 10:5
A few months into that new life, there was one night when that promise came true for me. Something happened inside me that I can only call a miracle. I knew. I knew the book was true, and I knew that God and Jesus Christ live.
I became a new man that night. I wanted to tell the whole world.
What came after
From that point on, the future got clear. From 1998 to 2000 I served a two-year mission in New York City, learned Cantonese, and shared the gospel of Jesus Christ with the Chinese people of New York. In 2002, at 25, I married my high school sweetheart, Lisa. We had four kids between 2004 and 2011. In 2005 I started my pool business.
And those years were hard. Starting a business while raising a young family was stressful in a way I wasn't ready for. I doubted myself every single day and wondered whether I could actually do it.
The three things I stood on
Somewhere between 2005 and 2009, I started focusing on three things. Together they changed the trajectory of my life and my business.
- God was there, and I didn't need to worry. I worried all the time anyway. But I practiced faith on purpose, the way I used to practice my swing.
- I remembered that one game against Carlsbad. Not to live in the past, or to glory in what I used to be. I stood on it. It was proof that hard work pays off and that miracles can happen on any given day. And if one day like that could happen, I had every reason to believe more of them were ahead of me.
- I chose to be the best man I could be, now and always, to honor God. He gave me the gift of knowing Him. I never wanted to let Him down by forgetting it.
That foundation has carried me ever since. Remember Jesus. Remember His goodness and His love. Know that with Him, you can do anything.
Why this is the foundation of BILD
Everything I teach in BILD grows out of this story. The Pursuit of U is about what a man can become with God: committing to be better than he was yesterday, and through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, finding his true destiny, why he's here, and where he's going after this life.
Here's what it comes down to, man to man:
- Tell the truth. My life didn't turn until I stopped hiding. Neither will yours.
- Have faith. Practice it before you feel it.
- Work hard on yourself. On your profession, and on the relationships that matter most: your wife, your kids, and the people you love.
- Ignite yourself. Nobody can start this path for you. But when Jesus is part of the plan, the miracles come.
- Let the old patterns go. A new life emerges when you overcome the beliefs and habits of the old one. Jesus Christ is the only sure way I know to conquer the habits that no longer serve us.
I won't pretend I've arrived. I still struggle every day with my own actions and beliefs, and I've accepted that this is a lifelong commitment.
But I've seen what one day can do. I've seen what one honest confession and one night of prayer can do. And I believe the best days are still ahead.
What's the day you can stand on? And what truth do you need to tell to have more of them?
— Jeff