Growing Up With Support Through Challenge & Adversity To Become a Young Man – Jack Comer

by Jai Singh | Feb 22, 2023 | Testimonials

Why I am Writing a Personal Testimony

I want to use my personal testimony to explain why being mentored for the last 6 years at Lighthouse Global has helped me to make a prolific change in my life, working through literally life and death situations. It is something I would definitely do again despite the ups and downs, although when I first started mentorship I had no clue about my life as I knew it would completely change for the better when I decided to reach out for help from Lighthouse. Given those who I have around me now to support me, I am able to stand up to the abuse and abusers in my own life and family. Paul Waugh, Chris Nash and Jai Singh have helped me develop security and confidence in myself that I never had before. It’s so important to have people in our lives who are there supporting us no matter what, but also to point out where we can improve and look at reality, to support our essential growth.

“Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness.” -2 Corinthians 9:10

“Growing Up”

Growing up I heard my parents say I was loved but their actions did not match those words. My mother was depressed and my father was dating another woman, so my twin sister and I were left to our own devices. I was bullied by both my sister, who took on a domineering role to have control over me, as well as my father (when he decided to visit). I was therefore always seeking attention because I felt abandoned and hurt, feeling so small. It was the same throughout school, where I felt that I didn’t have anyone to talk to. I didn’t want to be challenged or bullied and kept a very small circle of friends.

I learned to put on this big show of bravado, trying to numb the pain of not having a role model and not being taught how to properly function in social situations. I was bullied badly at school because I didn’t fit in with the football or rugby teams, I was sort of a lone wolf so to speak. Only last year I found out my sister had told my mum I was being bullied all those years ago. I tried to get away with the bare minimum because frankly I was so fearful of risk and taking responsibility beneath the bravado, and I didn’t know how to handle confrontation in being scared of the pain of challenges. This confused me and blurred the direction I felt I needed to take in my life. I realise now this is because of never having a true, healthy growing, adult role model.

Because of this, I started reading self-help books trying to find answers to my problems in life. What I was actually searching for was someone I could trust and confide in and no book was going to do that for me. At the age of 22, I met Chris Nash, he became a crucial example, guide and mentor, asking me questions such as “what do you want for your life?” which no one had ever asked me before, they just assumed I knew what I wanted. He was able to challenge me in areas that I was having trouble and difficulty with, regarding my job and especially in my romantic relationship at the time. This all involved me developing the courage to speak up and confront what I was having trouble with, especially with my colleagues and bosses. Through Chris’ empathy, guidance and support he helped me grow in those areas over time, but it hasn’t been by any means easy.

Becoming a Lighthouse Global Associate Partner

Warren Buffet says “the best investment you can make is in yourself” and I believe that to be true. I spent 2 years and £4,000 on becoming a qualified plumber, although I did qualify I was always going to hit a glass ceiling because I didn’t have the discipline and ability to solve the major problems in my life outside my job. I could fix leaks in pipework and people’s houses but I couldn’t fix big holes in my relationships and life. The more I pursued a path of actually fulfilling my potential, my sister once said “Jack you could have been a great plumber”, which shows that she and many more who I associated with at the time have no idea what we as human beings are capable of. There is nothing wrong with plumbing, it’s essential, but my point is when someone wants to make the very most of their life, very few people around us will understand and be able to give us sound advice – even if they’re family. Most people find it strange to invest in themselves because they don’t see themselves as the human asset capable of producing significant value in their lives, they invest in properties and bricks and mortar. 

Like many people, I developed a scarcity mindset from my dad that debt is to be feared and never gotten into, EVER. In 2019 Chris presented an opportunity for me to become an Associate Elect Partner of Lighthouse Global. It was a scary time for me to substantially invest in myself but Chris encouraged me through the process to invest in myself for the right reasons. I never felt pressured or coerced as some have accused Lighthouse of doing. Investment in anything is a risk, there are no guarantees, but when that investment doesn’t work out, you have to take responsibility for your choices and that’s what our predatory trolls have not done. So for those who want to invest in themselves to grow and develop, I would recommend doing it, but with caution… the reason I say this is because speaking from experience you will be standing in a room with those who you consider friends and feel like an outsider. Torn between the life you used to have and the one you have now, why? Because if people aren’t growing with you they are moving away from you. I have been spat on, screamed at, bargained and pleaded not to continue my work developing myself. I have only been able to continue for two reasons; first, because God will never give me a challenge that I cannot handle in any area of life, no matter how difficult it is – Christ is the way, the truth and the life and knows the best way for me to go and what trials I can and cannot bear. And second, because I have listened to and used the immense support from Paul Waugh and Chris Nash to grow especially when it got hard. You know that feeling, right? When situations become so unbearable that you think you’re in a living hell? I have had that many times, from my ex-girlfriend cheating on me (in essence because I started growing so she found a replacement for the unhealthy person I used to be). To help me move away from my mum’s house at the age of 25, which kept me infantilised, a mummy’s boy. To Jai Singh and others offering myself and Ed Zapp a place to stay when I really needed it! 

Most people waste their potential in life by hoping the barriers in their way will somehow disappear, selling out to a mediocre, seemingly comfortable life. Paul Waugh, Chris Nash and others have stood by me through what most people wouldn’t dare to go through because they truly do care for my well-being, my health and peace of mind. Predatory trolls say Paul Waugh is a con man, he categorically is not. There have been times when I have wanted to ride on the coattails of Paul’s success and he hasn’t let that happen, Paul has encouraged me to take big leaps in my life. For example, when I held my sister accountable for bullying me throughout my life, Paul helped me make it clear to her that she ought to take more responsibility for her life, to consider and apologise for her actions and to see where she was causing damage to not only me, but herself and others. Paul has been supporting me to look at the reality of where I can grow, not to shy away from challenges but to embrace them to grow, like the example I’ve used with my sister here. Con is short for convince, to be a convincing person, well Paul Waugh has convinced me of one thing, that I actually have potential as a human being – and he’s backed it up by suffering through the challenges with me. Contrary to what my dad says “one day you will be somebody,” I know I am somebody through this work of mine through improving and now building my life and foundation on the rock that is Christ with constant support. Christ knew I was someone when I was fighting for my life in an incubator for the first 3 months of my life. Christ knew the man I am becoming through the help of those at Lighthouse. 

Lighthouse shutting down would cost so many people the support that I and we provide at Lighthouse to help build a solid foundation in people’s lives, giving them the support they don’t receive elsewhere. I feel with what I have gone through I am now a big brother to many people (both older and younger than me) because I’m able to guide them through difficult life experiences like dealing with death, losing a job, losing a partner… To have that ripped away from others because I can’t be supported would mean people who are in dire straits would not get the life-saving help and support they need. For once in my life I bring healthy, constructive, upbuilding meaning to other people’s lives, fighting in their corner as Paul, Chris, Jai and others have done for me for so many years.

“It’s Cancer”

Probably the most important help from Paul, Chris and Lighthouse came recently. When I heard the words “it’s cancer” come out of my mother’s mouth I felt my whole world collapse around me. This really is the hardest situation I have ever had to face in my life, which I was totally unprepared for. The first person I called was Chris, asking for his guidance and support, to which he came out of a meeting to speak to me. He said, “Jack this is an opportunity to honour your mum and your life, to help others with the challenges they are facing through helping people and loved ones with a terminal illness”. It has been difficult admitting that my mum will pass physically. I was stuck in the repetitive thought pattern of her losing her physical life, being petrified and frozen by what I will lose, a mother, so selfishly, rather than looking at the life I can appreciate with her in it, that whatever happens I can and will support her. Paul Waugh kindly extended himself by investing in healthy, organic, good food for my mum to support her health whilst she was struggling through her cancer treatment. Paul has spent the last 3 years, giving at least 5 hours on the phone to me and my Lighthouse Partners every single day to help with different challenges we are going through. If he was charging £100 per hour (which he isn’t) that would equate to over £500,000. Paul works tirelessly to the bone to be able to support me and my partners to grow our characters and others. He has offered me to come to visit him and his family, taking time out of his day to see how I am doing with everything going on with my mum and family. He doesn’t have to do it but he does because he cares more than any other human being I have ever met in my life. 

Paul Waugh, Chris Nash, Victoria Bytel, Jai Singh and Asif Valiji have helped me and continue to help me find strength in helping my mum specifically with her appreciation for life and how she can accept her treatments, to not reject them but through them come closer to Christ for her strength. I’m trying to help her have a perspective on her eternal life, rather than what she is currently suffering through her journey with cancer. When mum was diagnosed with cancer, Victoria Bytel and Asif Valiji reached out to me given their experience with fighting cancer (here’s a link to Victoria’s article on cancer healing). I felt understood when speaking with them. It was a breath of fresh air. It hasn’t been easy. There have been times when I’ve been sobbing with my head in my hands and the first people I called were Victoria and Asif. They’ve opened their home up to me on countless occasions, saying “Jack, anytime you want you can stay with us, even if you want somewhere to have some peace through what you are going through.” Now tell me we are a cult, predatory trolls? Tell me how people who at the time barely knew me would do such a thing, to open their home and hearts volitionally to someone, me, who was going through a living hell? That isn’t a cult, it’s a family, the family I never had. I get so frustrated at my birth family members going “Jack, don’t worry, your mum will be okay, she’s strong” when she is clearly suffering. All this time I’m thinking “is no one going to face the elephant in the room here or is it just me?”. I’ve lost sleep over what is happening to my mum, but not anymore, why? Paul Waugh and Chris Nash said to me when I’m feeling rubbish about mum’s situation that I need to appreciate the life we have together, the time we share here while she is alive. Real families face reality together. Cults deny reality and ignore problems. 

I struggle a lot with coming to Christ to ask for His help. How in the world does someone deal with coming to terms with the nearing death of a loved one? Growing up Catholic, Jesus was a man in the clouds to me and therefore I didn’t really think he was real. When I was on my hands and knees in pain when mum told me the words “it’s cancer” I knew Christ was real, I had nowhere else to turn to. I need truth, not just fluffy stories of “your mum’s going to be okay” because what most people don’t add to that is “she is an eternal being and infinite”. I’ve started to build my understanding and relationship with Christ, which is something I thought I would never say.

My Challenges Against Loving Saboteurs

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” – James 1:2-4

The vast majority of my family members and friends have tried to deter me from my work here at Lighthouse because they see the progress I’m making in standing up for myself in difficult situations, as threatening. They know I will not tolerate my own or their lies. One of my cousins screamed with rage at me down the phone because I wouldn’t listen to his advice of moving back into my parents’ home, saying “I’m going to knock your door down and grab you by the scruff of your neck and take you home.” Sounds like something you’d hear in a cult… I see now that this is because the people who I used to call family and associate with don’t want to understand and appreciate that I am building my character and competence. They would rather me pretend I am doing okay while dying inside having no meaning and purpose to my life. Because they don’t see an immediate financial return they think “Paul Waugh and Lighthouse are taking your money” when that isn’t true! If someone goes to university and pays for a course do they see financial return instantly? No, so it’s the same thing here which I’ve tried to explain countless times. My family and so-called friends feel a change in my character and strength I’ve never had. Because they are intimidated by that, not wanting to look into the crucial and vital areas of truth in their own lives, and not wanting to take responsibility for their wrongs they attempt to push me down and stop me from doing this meaningful work. But in their attempts to try to see me fail I have held them all accountable for their actions, helping them recognise what they are doing is actually very cruel and I won’t stand for that behaviour, not in them or myself.

The Predatory Trolling of 2.5 Years Has Helped Me Grow More Than I Ever Thought Possible

What‘s helped me to grow massively (which might seem like a surprise) is the predatory trolling we have experienced these past 2 and a half years because I have learned that despite what people write, I know what is true and what isn’t.

The main predatory trolls are:

Jo Holmes|Richard Thomas |Jon Breen|Rani Singh|Dawn Ingram (girlfriend of Jeffrey Leigh-Jones)|Jeffrey Leigh-Jones|Anthony Church|Miss X

Given these attacks, I’m recognising that no matter what someone does, or tries, in order to break me down I can stand for reality and truth, even if they refuse and can’t see it themselves. I can also help others through challenges, and to not run away like the coward I used to be. On one occasion in 2022 I was supporting my brothers in Christ, Jai and Sukh Singh to hold their abusive mother to account for spreading lies about them and us in the media. As I posted on Twitter about my support for them both, Jon Breen, a convicted cyber stalker tried to break my terminally ill mother down by saying “Jack, why aren’t you supporting your terminally ill mother”. When I heard about this I held him firmly accountable.

There is nothing that these trolls won’t do to try and inflict damage onto us here at Lighthouse including our birth families. Lurking in the shadows, waiting for an opportunity to attempt to cause significant damage to others. 

M. Scott Peck once said “Evil is that which kills spirit. …It is possible to kill or attempt to kill one of these attributes without actually destroying the body. Thus we may “break” a horse or even a child without harming a hair on its head.” 

These predatory trolls are anonymous murderers. Despite the experiences I have had with these predatory trolls, I pray they heal, to love my enemies as God commanded Christians to do (although I find it extremely hard sometimes). I think “if I hate those who persecute me I’m just as bad as they are trying to destroy me and my life!”

God Is THE Source of Happiness & Joy

What strikes me most is where I was before joining Lighthouse and where I am now. I was living for the weekend, being so desperate to subconsciously escape reality and fit in I would get consumed in loud music and narcotics, and many people would see that as normal, which is terrifying as to the reality of people seeking pleasure to avoid suffering which leads to obedience. I was seeking pleasure and fulfilment in everything but God, who is the true source of happiness and joy. I still struggle with wanting to go and have a good time, partying hard with alcohol because of the gratification that bought me back then. I’m learning that to have a truly good time actually starts from inside myself, not an external source. It’s hard every single day to not go back to what is easy, but through my trials and tribulations, I’ve grown huge strength with Christ to be responsible to look after my mum and family whilst my mum is going through a terminal illness, mainly in the areas of looking at what is painful to face. I was sitting with some of my family members at a restaurant speaking about mum and thinking “we can’t just skim over and ignore the fact that she will pass soon”. So I brought up the question “what are we going to all do about mum when she does pass over?” My cousin replied “isn’t that a bit deep?” to which I turned around and said “It’s not deep, it’s real. If your mum was dying wouldn’t you want to know how we could all come together to support her? It’s the same situation here. If you don’t like being a part of this conversation you can remove yourself from the table and let us all speak about this.” I could never have asked that question without the support of Christ present, with all of my family members sitting around the table there.

Over the last 3 years, I have financially invested a substantial amount in myself, in my mentoring, in our research and in the community here. The process of me growing to be able to take on and learn through challenging situations and hardships has taken longer than I initially thought. But I never realised how much I desperately needed a healthy solid and stable foundation of fortitude and courage to work through seemingly insurmountable challenges and the crucial and vital essentials of a healthy upbringing that I never received in my childhood. Only through the support of everyone at Lighthouse am I able to grasp what a healthy upbringing is. An upbringing to me is a volitional extension of oneself to help someone become an adult problem solver. Someone who welcomes problems, not someone who runs away from them, which is the example I had growing up. If I had to do everything again I would do it, for the experience, the life lessons, the peaks and troughs, everything!

Lighthouse’s Extension For My Growth Into Becoming a Young Man

Chris Nash has invested in me prolifically, along with Jai Singh and Victoria Bytel investing thousands of pounds into me and my development when I couldn’t afford to invest in myself. Lighthouse Global is by no means a scam, and by that, I mean what the predatory trolls think, that Lighthouse and Paul Waugh take money without helping someone build their lives when that isn’t true! Those who have left weren’t willing to face the reality of their inadequacy in dealing with challenges in their own lives despite the help and guidance they received. Lighthouse Global is a community of people who are willing to challenge me and anyone else on their perceived reality and others don’t understand that, I wish they would, quite frankly it would make my life a lot easier. But people are willing to be and stay ignorant if that doesn’t fit their perceived “reality”, it’s easier to believe the lie that “we are okay” rather than look at the suffering inherent in growth, pointing out where we make mistakes and have some perceptions that are outright flawed, much like many of mine are and were which is changing.

Through Lighthouse I have majorly improved my life. With the daily support of Jai Singh and Chris Nash, I am developing a deeper and richer character and competence than I ever thought possible. I’m so thankful to be on this journey with my partners who I consider family, more so than the seemingly loving but actually destructive family who has tried to deter me from getting the essential upbringing I have truly needed to find true joy and peace. I now have the integrity to help others improve their lives, with Christ guiding me to be a role model to others. 

Although being an Associate Partner is no walk in the park, I research and learn about people, myself, and my potential and am encouraged to work towards success. By “success” I mean understanding and growing my levels of self-awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination to help others and myself create value in my life every single day, with and for others as well as myself to get to a place of never having to say no to a child where I ought to say yes, both the child in me and those children out there in the world who are suffering an unimaginable reality. For those children who are dying of toxic water, screaming out in pain for their lives, alone, without shelter, food and proper sanitation, receiving no education with their family members in the same damning hell-like situation, God bless them. 

Through everything that I have been through, the struggles, the late nights, the frustration, the ups and downs I am now in a position where I am supporting others through their loss and grievances, drug addiction, alcoholism, building healthy relationships and helping them take responsibility in their lives. There is no way 3 years ago I thought I would have gone through this much, let alone be in a position to be responsible for other people’s lives. I have gone from wanting to receive validation from my dad through building, in a job I started to hate into a growing young man with meaning and purpose, helping people out of situations similar to what I was in. I cannot put a price on the support and love I have received from all of those at Lighthouse, who I consider my brothers and sisters. What I and we do can’t be fit into a box, nor written out in a job description, because it’s the essence of our characters and our life experience that shines through, where we help and have been helped. 

This is my personal testimony and I would be happy to answer any questions you may have about what I have written.

Signed

Jack Comer