This is my journal entry from January 16, 2026 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.
The kids got up a little late today, but we managed to get out the door for school by 8. They decided they wanted to eat their breakfast in my bed, so that was fine. I guess I always change the sheets when there's burrito and fruit spilled all over. But I love having them here in the morning. I love getting to be a dad. It's so nice. And after dropping them off to school, I went straight to yoga at my yoga studio. There was a beautiful woman in front of me and I'll admit I was distracted by the view. I was putting out all the I love you and you're so perfect and I'll worship you vibes, seeing if I could get her to have a crush on me. And I didn't say anything to her, though. She didn't try and make eye contact, smile or anything. I'm like, oh, just put out the vibes and see who picks up on them. And the class was intense today. This instructor had me fucked up, standing on one leg so much. I was like, shit. But this is why I came. I sweated all over the place, too. And then it was actually cold today. Walk outside with all that sweat, and it's like, fuck, it's like 50 out. It's like Michigan, but not nearly as much as Michigan.
I drove home and threw down a big salad. Then a friend comes over to work on his book and he talked to me a little bit about my letter, and he said that he thought I could put more emotion into it, which I'll see if I can do. I don't know if that means I need to not use the AI, or tailor the AI a bit differently so it doesn't water down my emotion. We'll see about getting more emotion into the letter. He records some of his book and shares something deeply personal and moving, which was very moving and nice to hear, finally after knowing him so long. Then he heads out and I come in to get to work on reframing the letter and getting it ready to write.
And then I head out to meet a friend for lunch. We meet at a restaurant. He's the guy a week ago I threw the football with and walked around with last Saturday. He buys me lunch for $39, which I sure appreciate. It was good. I encourage him to pay four extra dollars for the steak, which he really enjoys.
After the restaurant, I thought that was going to be it, and I was going to get to go home and work on my letter, which I've realized should be rebranded to a help letter, not a thank you letter, because a friend who I've mentioned a few times said that the letter didn't really read like a thank you letter. There was just a little bit of gratitude in the beginning, and then it was just all about you after that. And I'm like, OK, yeah, I was thinking maybe I need to rebrand the letter. The original idea I had was just to write help on the outside of it, with the thought that somebody praying for help will find this letter and be like, God literally dropped off the help I was praying for on my doorstep. That's the wavelength I'm trying to hit. Someone who's struggling with all the things I've been through, like alcoholism, weight gain, sickness, divorce, money, ups and downs, building your own business, work, meaning of life, relationships, then I would just drop this letter on the door. It'd have a lot of help in it for somebody, new ideas, inspiration, and then it'd have me to follow up with.
So before lunch with my friend, I went through and put his feedback into practice and rebranded to a help letter. It shouldn't be a thank you letter. People are going to open a thank you letter expecting a quick one, like they're going to open it thinking it's probably from someone they know thanking them for something specific they did. But when they see it's a generic thank you letter, they're probably going to be like, what the fuck, and toss it. Whereas if it says help on it, then that's going to be just pure curiosity. And then the goal of the letter will be to help them in the letter based on my experience.
After talking with my friend, he at lunch points out, after I've got my event page all polished, he says, Jerry, I just don't see girls you don't know just coming over to your house for an event at night on Friday or Saturday. I don't see that happening. And I'm like, yeah, ChatGPT didn't like that either, but just for everybody. And then I don't like not being able to put my address. So I tell him about my business plan, but this starts to unravel a little bit. We go to the park by my house at Crescent Lake and we throw the football some more. It's funny because a week ago, both of us were really throwing and catching amazing. Like I was amazed how good I was throwing and catching. And he was too. For some reason, both of us are kind of not doing as well today. His throws are wobbly and inaccurate, and my right arm starts to hurt from my throws. So he says he needs to change out of his boots and his pants so he can throw properly, which does help him throw better. Meanwhile, I end up, by the end of it, kicking the ball, and then we just end up talking a lot. I ended up hanging out with him from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. today, which was great to talk to him. I don't know if I'll ever see him again, but how cool is that to just run into somebody and make a friend that easily? Maybe I'll run into a new girlfriend that easily. Second wife will just come into my life that easily. Wouldn't that be cool?
I realized yesterday spiraled again, mostly out of dating. Like, I don't think I've had one spiral that didn't involve dating. And I talked a lot about girls and dating with my friend. After talking to him, I changed the laundry and go to my son's soccer game. And I felt like I couldn't talk to my ex-wife about dating. She asked not to have details. But I talked to her more general. I'm like, you know, dating's really been frustrating. And the times I've spiraled, it's been dating related. And I told her how sad I was yesterday, inviting these two girls, the one from AA and a woman I had been seeing, and neither of them even responded. It's still, now it's like 30 hours later, neither of them even sent a response. And just totally feeling frustrated. Like what the fuck is happening? Like I'm just totally out of sync. I'm inviting girls to do stuff with me that don't want to do anything. Then like a woman I dated briefly, I got involved with her and got her all into me, and then I don't want her. I'm attracting attention at AA meetings that I'm not interested in. And then I'm just getting blown off and rejected in shocking proportions.
Meanwhile, my ex-wife has not been dating at all, not been concerned with it at all, enjoying her space and her time to herself, which makes sense after being in a marriage for almost 15 years. And she'd like some time off. Like, I wasn't really looking to take any time off, certainly wasn't on my mind when I was telling my ex-wife we needed more intimacy or I was going to want a divorce. Wasn't thinking that might mean a serious dry spell for me, too. Anyway, I realized that, you know what? I either need to go to one extreme or another with my dating. Either I need to be on dating apps, and I tested little bits of this, as you may have noticed over the last few months if you read these. I tested little bits of going all in on dating, swiping my ass off on dating apps, trying to pick every girl up everywhere I go, getting phone numbers. The one day that I documented in the book Nine Hours Later, the last day of it, I had gone all in, even texting a bunch of women in one morning trying to make something happen, and my conversion rate was just under 10%, so I'll take it. And, you know, that didn't work out well. Sure, something happened with a woman I dated briefly, but it was a performance. I didn't feel like I was really being myself with her. I was tired of it, even walking around my neighborhood with her hoping nobody I knew would see us. That's not a good feeling. That's not how it should be. It should be somebody I'm really excited about, and they're really excited about me.
And either I need to go all in and just try super hard at dating, which made sense when I had time for that, when I didn't have kids, when I was in grad school, and my life consisted of porn, drinking, video games, football, including watching football, drinking beer during football and fantasy football, and then doing my grad school stuff. Yeah, I had time to put a shitload of effort into online dating back then because look at the rest of my life. But I don't now. I have a lot of shit to do now that I care about. And, you know, I like the idea of just fucking my life away on video games again, but I have things I want to do. I don't have time to do that anymore. And I don't have time to swipe dating apps.
So I realized talking to my ex-wife, I need to go to one extreme or another. Right now, I've been in this middle ground where I'm trying at dating but I'm not really going all out. And the way I've been approaching it, you need to go either all out or just stop. So starting today, I swear I've said this before, but starting today for real on January 16th, 2026, I'm giving up on trying to date, at least with my head and with my mind. I do leave my heart open and just keep an eye out and keep putting out, you know, like that woman in yoga this morning, just lasering her with I love you, the feeling that we'd have a great life together. And you wonder why a woman at a yoga studio once complained she didn't feel comfortable with me behind her in class. I think she was drawn to me and didn't like that she was, because she was married. But it makes sense. I'm going to keep putting those vibes out because a lot of the girls at my yoga studio seem single and they need those vibes. And one time, somewhere, somehow, it's going to fucking work. But at the same time, I'm not going to try and date anymore. I'm not going to try and get phone numbers and try and ask girls to do shit unless it's just so much tension, like with a woman I had a crush on. With her, there was so much emotional tension there. It was so hard not to ask her to give me her phone number and go out on a date. There was a crazy amount of tension there. And I want to build that kind of emotional tension again because I reflected that my fear is, if I don't make something happen, nothing's going to happen.
And I see now, I didn't try and make anything happen with her at the yoga studio. I was just putting out these loving vibes, but I saw her six to ten times before we ever made eye contact or spoke to each other. Maybe we made eye contact briefly once walking by each other, but I saw her a bunch of times, we had our mats next to each other several times, we built an insane amount of tension, and then there was so much tension that she actually spoke to me first. And then there was so much tension going forward that I was obsessed with her and I was afraid of cheating with her, and I ended up having to be the first one to break it off, to be like, I can't keep coming to this yoga class. And then she broke the other class off.
And thinking about before bed last night and then talking to my ex-wife, it's like, I need to stop trying to date. And what I need to go all in on, what I am going all in on, is my business. My business. The main thing with dating is I don't have that time to give dating. I need my time for my business. If I'm going to dump my time into something, it's my business. And ideally, in the course of dumping my time into my business and AA meetings and yoga, I'm going to meet my second wife. And I'm going to have beautiful kids and be with a great woman before you know it. And it'll have happened naturally. That's what I'd really like to happen, for things to happen where my heart kind of leads the way instead of my mind trying to run strategies and game and asking for numbers. All right, so you all heard what I just said, right? Now, that was the intention I left soccer with. I watched my son play soccer, and he played goalie and kicked a goal out, which was nice, but then the other team kicked a goal in, and he said he wanted to be a good goalie. I'm like, buddy, you stopped that one ball from coming in. That was great. Just because they scored a goal doesn't mean you're a bad goalie.
And as we're walking out, my ex-wife and I ended up having a great talk. I'm glad I opened up to her. And she said, you know, no one is more invested in your success, especially with dating, than I am. I would love to see something work out for you. And I'm like, my God, what an ex-wife. That's a dream come true for an ex-wife. An ex-wife that's given me some money, which is all gone, by the way, or almost all gone. And then I got the like 12,000 or so from my Discover card sitting in there. But considering the credit, yeah, it's basically all gone already. And we're moving into credit. So if there's going to be all in on something, my business is the number one candidate, because I'll be fine even if I stay single for the next year. But if my business goes nowhere in the next year, shit could get uncomfortable. Your boy might not be in a nice ass house like this if my fucking business doesn't make some money. So I'm going all in on my business.
And after soccer, I drive home, eat the rest of the noodles with a little mushroom gravy on them. Then I drive out to this meeting, which I'm like, God damn, I'm not trying to break the anonymity every fucking meeting I go to. So I go out to this meeting. It's a young people meeting. I guess I just need to state that because the rest of this will make sense. And I'm like, damn, there's a good amount of hot young girls at this meeting. Like, shit, I'm going to have to start being a regular here. But the time for it conflicts with the deeper connections event I had set up. I'm like, shit, I'm not going to be able to make this meeting. A 2Pac song popped into my head right here, but I won't quote it.
Anyway, I'm at this meeting. There's a lot of hot young girls there, and as the girl saying it, I sit in the front row. And there's a girl two chairs over, one between us, and I'm like, she looks familiar, and I realized I'd seen her at the meeting I'm chairing on Wednesdays. And I'm like, damn, it's nice to see her again. And of course, last time I saw her, I was married. This time, this girl is so fine. She's getting all my I love you vibes for the whole meeting, just lasering in on her. So I'm sitting there and she keeps looking over in my direction so many times. Like, what is she looking at? There's no clock back there or anything. But she doesn't make eye contact with me until after. And when she gets up to go hold hands, she goes off in a different direction. But then after the meeting, I go up and talk to her. I'm like, hey, are you who I think you are? And she says, yeah, I'm sober a couple of years now. I'm like, awesome. That's awesome. And she's in her early 20s and she's already sober a couple of years.
And of course, my mind's already spun a plan up. Remember what I just said like five minutes or less ago. But my mind's like, you know what you should do? She got a couple of years sober now. You should have her do the lead at the meeting you're chairing. And you probably should get her phone number just to confirm that. I'm like, yeah, damn it. So I ask her, she said she was just thinking about that meeting that she used to go to that I'm chairing. And I'm like, hey, I'd love to have you speak at it. I'm chairing it this month. There's two openings. Are you available either? She's like, I'm not available, I'm traveling next week, but the week after that I'm available. I'm like, great, I'll put you down. And then, so I could be smooth and not like I have to have her phone number, I said, would you like to just show up there and I'll count on you? Or do you want me to give you my phone number in case you can't make it or something? She's like, oh, I'll definitely be able to make it, but yeah, I'll give you my phone number. I'm like, good, because I played fast and loose with the last person who was doing the topic and they came late, I had a backup chair and it was a little nerve wracking, so thank you. So she sends me a text. I message back with my name confirming the time, so if she forgets, it's there, when and where she's doing. And I leave thinking, all right, yeah, I'm definitely not trying to date, but let me get this girl in her early 20s' phone number who's sober. I'm thinking of my massage therapist talking about how she was 25 and her first boyfriend was like 50. And I'm like, yeah, I'm like 20 years older than this girl, but definitely that could work, couldn't it? I was watching her body language out of my peripheral vision when the guy doing the topic was talking about kids, and I got the sense she might want kids someday, and my mind ran ahead imagining a future with her after only just meeting her again.
So I head home and I take some peace and quiet after spending earlier in the day listening to more of the guest and Dr. Michael Salla and the three admirals and the nature of reality and all that shit. It is good because I like that the guest encourages you to go within and discern, which I think is about the healthiest thing you can do. Anytime you're telling people that they need a savior, that they need to look outside, it's like, yeah, you do need to consult outside, but first and foremost, let's go within. And I went within tonight on the way home, and I kind of talked to my future second wife, and I could imagine her saying, yes, this is what I'm talking about. Just be where you are and don't try and date. I will make myself very known and very available to you. You're not going to have to hunt for me or swipe for me or guess. I will make it very clear to you that I want you, and you'll pick up on it. So I'm like, all right, cool.
I get home, and I ask ChatGPT. I start thinking. I'm like, you know, I think I need to cancel this event. Fuck, after all this time I put in this event, and literally, what is this, the 50th event I've canceled on Eventbrite or some shit in the last few months? It's okay. It's like, I do not need an event. I do my best work one-on-one and public speaking, and it'd be better to meet people, to go speak somewhere else that already has an audience. So I started to put all this together, like, well, what is this feedback? I'm like, I need to cancel the event. So I came home, I deleted the event. And I'm like, this help letter needs to promote all of me. It needs to promote that I'm an author. Here are my books. I mean, first and foremost is to help people. But then if I'm going to talk about myself, it needs to show off my books. It needs to talk about my speaking. Like this letter, if I'm going to give a letter to thousands of people, one outcome I'd love is if people invite me to speak places, speak at AA meetings, churches, schools, companies, charities. I'd even go speak to people who are incarcerated. I want to get public speaking opportunities because I said I'm an author, speaker, and a coach.
This letter should be promoting my author, speaking, and coaching. Having an event is not like being a public speaker. That's like a workshop host. I can host a workshop, but based on the AA meeting I led, I can hold space, but I'm nothing special as a workshop host. Like if I already had people I was coaching or that had my number from speaking, that'd be one thing to invite them. But just starting an event cold and trying to get people to come, I don't think that's going to work. So I realized talking to ChatGPT, I need to cancel the event and my letters should be promoting my writing, my speaking, and my coaching, my public speaking on any of the topics in the letter. So the purpose of having this long letter, people will have a very good idea of what I could talk about and what me speaking would look like. And then the letter is a good example where I could do consulting for a company on marketing because clearly, if I'm getting that kind of attention, both online and offline, I can do marketing. And the coaching, anyone who wanted one-on-one coaching could be getting coaching on anything I talk about throughout the letter. Like the letter is a perfect vehicle to promote me, author, speaker, coach. And therefore an event doesn't fit into author, speaker, coach. And I'm really excited. This help letter now feels like I've got the full formula that I've been kind of fumbling for and trying to get out there. The letter should be positioned as help, and it should promote author, speaker, coach, and just allow for any kind of thing to happen.
And in the process of distributing this letter, I may have a great opportunity. Imagine I go to some church and I speak there, and my speaking lots of times is absolute euphoria for people. I could speak at somewhere like that, like a church, and a girl will come up afterwards and give me her phone number and want to go out with me right after that. Shit like that could happen. That's what we want to go for. And I need all my time to do this letter. And now I'm thinking, maybe I just need this one master help letter. And I just literally sit at a table at my gym with just that letter. I don't try and sell my books in person. I give the help letter out as my lead magnet. And then the letter sells my books, my speaking, and my coaching. The letter is the gateway. And then I give that one letter out everywhere. I give that letter out at AA meetings. And that letter given out at AA meetings could get me invited to speak at other AA meetings. And it could potentially get me coaching clients. And that's even something I'd have my phone number in it. Also, if somebody wanted to date, that'd be a way of just giving my phone number out more organically. And then I could give that out at yoga. If I meet someone, I'm like, hey, I have a letter I give out to everybody. And then if I talk to anybody and there's any friendliness, I could be like, hey, I have a letter I give out to everybody, would you like to have one? It covers, I think it'll be really helpful for you. That could turn one of these girls that's beautiful into reading the letter and being like, damn, I've got to get to know this guy, way better than any kind of regular conversation could.
It also could mean I have to change yoga studios. But this letter will not have all the graphic sexual descriptions. I didn't think they were that graphic. It's not like I was going into that much detail. You can read Author in St. Petersburg if you haven't already, which I'm not sure how you got here. But I don't see what people are losing their goddamn mind over that I talked about in Author in St. Petersburg. I mean, I talked about semen retention with my massage therapist. I talked about wanting more intimacy in my marriage. Maybe it was my tone. Do you think it was something I could have said? And with that, I'm calling it a night.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.