It's January 6, 2025. This is my 4,970th day on YouTube. I'm going to try something different with this one, both on YouTube and on X. I'm just going to talk and see what comes out, and I'm not going to plan a title beforehand. Then, instead of slapping the same title on everything over and over, I'm going to try pulling the most catchy line from the whole thing and using that. I even made a little image for the background with an infinity symbol coin and yoga mats, generated by DALL-E, which I think is cool.
Today I filmed about two hours of Internet Computer videos. There's a huge need for that. People always want to know where the price is going short term. I've collaborated with someone to build a group that costs $100 a month, and we split the earnings 50/50: I promote it and he delivers the value. It's a great arrangement. There are 12 or 13 members who have joined, and counting me and him that's 14 people in the channel in just the first few weeks, which is awesome. I think this new video will bring in some new members, and I hope the members get great value from being there.
Feeling like I'm in the zone
I love when my business is doing well and I feel like I'm in the zone as a content creator. On so many of the thousands of days I've spent on YouTube, I felt like it wasn't enough, like I was grinding uphill and not going anywhere, and nothing was ever good enough. So I treasure the days like today where I feel like everything not only is good enough, but that if there's an issue, it's because there's too much. There are so many messages on Open Chat today.
Today a YouTuber I used to watch, named InvestAnswers, put up a video that actually featured me in it for a minute or two, in the context of talking about the Internet Computer Protocol. I used to watch him before I realized he was being deceptive when it came to ICP. Most of the rest of his information was pretty straightforward, but fortunately I've got a built-in lie detector. In my experience, I can feel it when somebody is deceiving me, even just watching a video, and it's very powerful in person. I can feel when I'm being lied to.
It works most strongly when it's something emotional or important. It's not as relevant with little things; my kids tell little silly lies, and sometimes I catch those too. But especially when it's something major with a lot of feeling behind it, I've been able since I was a kid to empathically read people that way, and it comes in really handy. It can be confusing, though, when I think someone should be telling me the truth and they're lying to me at the same time. It often registers as confusion, because the truth is usually easy to understand, while a lie creates that fog of confusion.
Detecting the lie about ICP
So with the InvestAnswers videos, I detected that he was lying about ICP. I researched it and looked into it, and I realized this guy is blatantly lying about this project. What he's saying is provably false, and easily so. You can go look up the data yourself and see that he isn't presenting accurate data, because the accurate data makes everything he's saying look wrong. I used to be a member of his Patreon and I used to watch his videos consistently. So it was disappointing to realize that this person you've been watching is a liar. But I'm glad I can detect that kind of thing today. I've set the intention to make sure that I'm presenting honestly and clearly, and that I'm not triggering people's lie detectors with what I'm saying, because I certainly did in the past.
From what people told me, he talked about me as kind of a goofy guy who couldn't be taken seriously. I didn't actually watch the video, though, because I'm not interested in hearing anything he says, whether it's about me or about ICP. People told me enough about it. There was a lot of good talk on X about it, and some people made some great threads. In the past, that kind of thing would have bothered me, because I wanted everybody to like me. I wanted to be the guy who was respected and liked, the one nobody talked badly about.
Now I feel like, if people talk about me, that's great. I don't care what they say anymore. Sure, I'd prefer that people have a positive opinion and like what I'm saying and recognize that I'm telling the truth. But people have told so many lies and twisted the things I've said, sometimes saying the exact opposite of what I meant and then claiming that's what I said. At this point, I'm just happy to be in the spotlight. Feel free to talk about me. How nice of you to talk about me.
I actually felt like it was such a compliment that he put me in his video. I realized people are discovering me right now because of it. They're curious when they hear that this goofy guy is talking about ICP. Some of them are going to watch my videos today, and in a week or a month they'll be telling me, "I first saw you in InvestAnswers' video, and I went to go look you up." I kept thinking of Tupac's song today, "All Eyez on Me." All eyes on me. I was really feeling that one. There have been moments like this in the past that were such negative experiences, but today I'm like, all eyes on me, I'm happy. I'm happy to bring the attention on. I clearly like it, because I'm here and this is what I'm doing. I'm the one putting videos out every day.
I did a video about him that was extremely critical about a year ago, when I figured out that he was being dishonest about ICP. That's a big thing to do to a crypto audience, to be dishonest about the best technology in crypto and to try to minimize it. I deleted that video since then. People are telling me, "You should make a response video." I'll tell you what my response is: thanks for shouting me out. I'll talk about you in my vlog, because that's what I was thinking about. But I'm not doing another crypto video about this guy, that's for sure. I'm doing videos about ICP.
Playing my part
I feel like sometimes I'm just an opportunist. I have these powers to see where things are going and where the future is heading, and I use them to put myself in position to capitalize on them. It's really nice to not go around trying to think of yourself as a good or bad person. Instead I ask, am I acting my part? Am I enjoying the part I'm playing? Yes, I'm absolutely enjoying the part I'm playing. I realize that to some audience members I'd be considered a villain, and others would see me as a hero. But the truth is, I'm just playing this part and enjoying it, and everybody's idea of it is subjective. That really goes for all of us, no matter who you are.
I went to the power yoga flow this morning. There was a teacher subbing in and he did a great class, and I'm glad I could enjoy his power flow. There was a girl I've seen there a few times. She didn't remember my name, which was kind of cool, because a lot of people do remember and know my name, many more than I know. So it's actually nice to be on the other side of it, to not be that memorable to someone else but to have them make the effort anyway. Usually I'm the one going, "Oh, Jerry," to someone who's like, "Who are you?" and I have to ask their name over and over again if I want to remember it, which I do.
She was very chatty with me, and I love how friendly people can be. Sometimes people are a little too friendly and there's no need to read the room, but I try to be the person who reads it. I try to see who wants me to talk to them versus who wants to be left alone. I have these empathic powers to read people, and I often just ignored them in the past, so I try to actually use them today.
The lesson James taught me
At the lowest point of my financial life, I paid a life coach, a guy in his 20s, $100 an hour to run around the park and teach me this lesson. This was around 2020. I walked up to him to give him a hug, and he said, "Bro, read my body language. Don't just come up and try to hug me. Read my body language. Do I want a hug? If I do, then go for it. But read my body language." I'd read body language for so long, as a police officer and in other ways, but for some reason I hadn't put together that I should act based on what I'd read, instead of just doing what I thought I should do. It's so subtle. I still think of him today. James, I miss James. If you go back through my old live streams, he was the guy I did the GoldenEye live stream with on Facebook that got almost a million views. He had such a good vibe for the GoldenEye stream. I think of him, and it feels like I'm finally really applying some of the things he taught me.
At the end of yoga class, the girl asked me to be her accountability buddy. She asked, "Are you going tomorrow?" I said, "No, I'm not going tomorrow, but I'm going on Wednesday. You want to meet me here on Wednesday?" She said, "Yeah, I'll see you on Wednesday." I love that. I love when people are so blatantly friendly like that. I really appreciate it, and it's curious to me when I'm not, because I'm pretty friendly like that too. I love when people pay attention to me, and I wouldn't have thought to ask to be somebody's accountability buddy. That's cool. That's nice.
So I did yoga today, and then the kids were back to school after winter break, so I just worked on ICP stuff for hours. I also got in a music video, just a 10-minute music video, and that leaves me feeling like I had some fun. I told the kids that almost all day while they were gone, what did I do? I worked. Yoga, to me, is kind of like physical education, PE for grownups. I went to yoga and I worked, and I had a few minutes of just fun playing my music. That's so joyful. I'm really enjoying the process of just making music in my studio. To me, that's got to be the bottom line with these vlogs.
It looks like somebody just paid to have a call with me. I was just thinking at my AA meeting tonight that I want to give out some free coupons to people I'd really like to have calls with myself. It's amazing, the opportunities that show up when you weren't even looking for them.
Calls, tutorials, and the people I want to talk with
Most of the people in the ICP community would love to come do a video with me, and honestly, any of them that I want to bring on, I can. I already sent some coupon codes over to DFINITY, and there are several other people I'd like to have on and talk with as well. I had a call with Mike, and that went great. I also recorded a tutorial that people had been asking me for, and that went great too. It feels good to knock those things out and see them land well.
What I actually eat
The kids came home and I had an entire container of hummus again. The hot honey hummus. Man, that's good. I ate the whole thing yesterday for dinner, and then had the whole thing again. Some of you have asked me to elaborate on my diet, so here it is: hummus, salads, and the peanut butter chocolate Larabars. Those are staples in my eating. I had the whole container of hummus today with probably four sticks of celery, a handful of baby carrots, and some Triscuits. Man, that was filling, and it was good for me.
Then tonight my wife cooked some scallops for dinner for the kids, and she made some Brussels sprouts, which are great. So I had Brussels sprouts as the main thing I ate for dinner. Now I'm a bit hungry again, which is great. I love to go to bed hungry and then wake up and get right to eating.
Sobriety, and why I don't want to poison my body
After eating with the kids and doing a bunch of dishes, I went to my Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. When I got there, there were people struggling today, struggling with wanting to drink. Some meetings, it's all people like me, where life is great and we can barely remember how we even got to AA in the first place. My life is so good today that drinking feels like a distant memory.
I've eliminated drinking, and not just from my own life. I've cut everybody who drinks too much out of my life as well. I might occasionally talk to an old friend or a family member who still drinks, but I'm not around people who drink. I avoid going to places like bars where people drink. At this point it seems genuinely weird to me that I used to drink at all.
I was sharing this in the meeting today: the place I'm at now, I feel as good as I was trying to feel when I was drinking more than a decade ago. Back then I was drinking to try to feel this good, and now I just feel that good normally. So why would I want to poison my body? I love how my body works when I don't poison it, and I want to help as many other people stop poisoning their bodies too. If you're going to be here, enjoy yourself and enjoy your body.
And if you want to rebel, here's something I've come to believe. A lot of us drank to rebel against the system, to protest. But if you really want to protest, get sober and protest intelligently. Learn the system and hit its weak points. Drinking is a sloppy, half-hearted rebellion. If you really want to protest, work to understand the system and then go after its weak points, like I've done in the past. Find a weak point, poke the whole thing, go viral, and maybe get canceled. It's all good, because it was fun. I wouldn't take anything I've done back since I got sober, although there's definitely some stuff I wouldn't do again. It's been a bumpy ride, but if you're an alcoholic, you like a bumpy ride. You like the ups and downs, the roller coaster that goes up and down.
Privacy, door-to-door sales, and getting people rich
I got back from my meeting tonight and put the kids to bed. Laura's reading Harry Potter 5 to them, and they're almost to the end of it. This weekend we're going to head out to a restaurant and have a nice meal together. I'm really excited to do that. I'll keep the exact spot to myself, because at this point enough people watch me that I probably shouldn't broadcast exactly where I'm going. These days you don't even have privacy anymore. People come to my house and they already know my name, even when they're doing door-to-door sales.
That reminds me of this one guy I forgot to mention. A guy came to my house to do door-to-door sales, and he leaves the conversation saying he's going to go buy some Internet Computer. I told him I'm not buying solar panels, that's for sure. When you've done marketing for a long time and you see somebody coming to sell you something, you think, "I'm going to sell this guy something." We'll see who gets sold something here. I want people to be rich. I want people to multiply their wealth, and I'm doing the same thing for myself. If you want to go deeper on how I think about all of this, you can dig into my ICP Crypto playlist.
What a wonderful life it is today. I'm so glad I made it to where I'm at, and I hope to help as many other people make it to wherever you want to get to. Life can keep getting better and more amazing.
What I'm reading
I'm almost done with Elantris 2, and I just downloaded Brandon Sanderson's new book, The Way of Kings. This thing is 45 hours long. Good thing I listen on double speed, but even then it's still about 23 hours. And that's only book one of a five-book series, so that's what I'm getting into now.
I appreciate you spending this time with me. I value your time, which is part of why I talk for so long. I said it at the meeting tonight: I feel really powerful over everything in my life, except when I start talking. It's hard to stop sometimes.