I've got a new slogan for everyone who says, "Oh, everyone's just doing their best." No. Everyone is doing their worst. They're being the meanest, nastiest, most self-centered, insane, craziest person that they can get away with being. And you can see that. Look at the people higher up in power and look how insane they are and the worst that they do.
The slogan: everyone is doing their worst
I love the toxic positivity where anytime you want to start criticizing somebody, or expressing some frustration, then somebody else says, "Well, everyone's doing their best." I'm like, nope. Everyone is doing their worst.
Now, to me, saying "everyone is doing their best" and "everyone is doing their worst" are equally valid. So if you want to tell me, "Well, I'll give them a break, everybody's doing their best," I'm like, no — I should cut them less slack, because everyone's doing their worst. Everyone's being the biggest jerk they can possibly get away with being. Everyone is being as toxic and as much of a disaster as they can survive.
Now, obviously, both of these extremes aren't true, right? Obviously, everyone's not trying to destroy the world. But some people definitely are. And in their mind, they're doing their best. They're trying to make the world a better place.
The dictators who thought they were doing their best
Most of the craziest people in history — the dictators that led to just the worst tragedies in history — those people often thought they were doing their best, and that they were doing good for the world.
I love this slogan of "everyone's doing their worst" because it also encourages you to stop judging people. Rather, this is just someone's best or someone's worst. And sometimes you can just acknowledge, "OK, this is this person's worst driving. Like, right now, this is this person's worst driving." I get a massage from this one therapist — this is a bad day for her, and this is one of her worst massages.
Online you only see the best or the worst
It also helps to realize, on a day where you see someone doing their best — like, wow — especially when you see people online who look like they're successful in one way or another, rather than some ripped dude, the judge, or some woman that's showing how much money she's made and what a great life she has. Online, you will often see people doing either their best or their worst, but you won't see the gigantic, normal, medium range in between.
That's why I don't use Facebook or Instagram anymore — because I'm tired of seeing people try and post when they're at their best, and then the algorithm showing me everyone when they're at their worst. What I notice in real life is that I tend to get more of a balanced experience, where you see people at their best and you see people at their worst.
Am I at my worst, or my best, right now?
And it's subjective. Some people would say that I'm at my worst right now — where I'm, in my experience, at a negative $200,000 net worth, borrowing money to pay my bills, and so on. Some people say I'm at my worst right now, and that my glory days were 10 years behind me, when I was dominating on Udemy and making huge amounts of money.
Other people would say I'm at my best right now — that this is the best version of me they've ever seen. I actually wear a collared shirt and crank out, if I can, 12 videos a day. You see, from one person's point of view, I'm a total loser. And from another person's point of view, I'm a total winner.
This is hard for people to get through with black-and-white thinking, where it's neither and it's both. I'm not at my best and I'm not at my worst. But we need the worst to balance out the best. Because I can't stand the toxic positivity that will just give everyone a break — "They're at their work, they're doing their best." I'm like, no — I need to cut everyone less slack and assume they're doing their worst right now. And be honest: if this is this person doing their worst, do I want to keep surrounding myself with it?
It sounds like, lots of times when people say, "Oh, you know, everyone's just doing their best." Like, really? This is somebody's best? If this is somebody's best, I never want to see them again. Like, if this is it. And if I can go around and say, "Look, everyone's doing their worst, and maybe they're capable of more" — that actually gets me a little hopeful.
Which assumption is more hopeful?
When I look around and see the state of the world, is it more hopeful to assume everybody's doing their best? Or does that make you just want to quit trying and just do your worst? Like, I look around, and I'm like, if this is everybody doing their best, this is hopeless. This is not going a good direction.
Now, ironically, I look around — if I think everybody's doing their worst, then great. Maybe there's room for improvement. Maybe people can't get much worse than this.
I love this idea because I've never heard anyone say this before. And I feel the best I can do is get out there and put an idea out you've never heard before. So I want to start hearing people going around saying, "Everyone's just doing their worst." I think we can empathize with that a lot more, because when you see someone driving, it's like, "Well, everybody's doing their worst. You know, if I could get away with driving like that, I would too."
The two women who nearly ran me over
This woman nearly ran me and my friend over. I don't know how great of a friend she is — but you can look at my dating channel for more on that kind of story.
This woman — this car — I was in a run club. We were running across the street down by the pier. And this car, there's one car sitting there, and then there's another car behind that car. And the car in the back was starting to get pissed with all these runners crossing the street. So they start to try and pull around the car in the front. So the car in the front is like, "Fuck you, bitch" — and, you know, they're both women — "You fucking bitch, what are you doing?" And so the woman in the front starts cutting off the woman in the back and trying to drive forward. But in doing so, she's getting dangerously close to running my dumb ass over as I run across the street with my friend — that hasn't texted me back. And there's no point in texting her, because I don't have her phone number, because I deleted it, because she'll like me better if I'm apathetic, as I talk about in my last dating video.
When I look at those two women, I'm like, yeah, y'all are both doing your worst right now. If I could get away with acting like that and feeling like I was doing my best — shit, I probably would. If I could get away with behaving like that and just be like, "Well, I'm doing my best, fuck it, you know? Move, bitch."
Maybe this is Jerry doing his worst
But I'm essentially acting the worst I feel like I can get away with. Some days I wish I could act worse. I wish I could just community farm and make as much money online as possible — say anything in order to get paid and get myself as much as possible without regard to anybody else.
So you could argue this is me doing my worst. Like, this is the least scummy, the least integrity I can stand to get through the day with — which is, I'm trying to help somebody else, I'm trying to communicate ideas that will provide value to your life. But you still could argue, "This is me doing the worst I think I could get away with right now." Would I just play video games all day, every day, if I could get away with it? If I didn't need to get out here and hustle and share what I'm building over with the Jerry Banfield family? Probably.
So let me wrap this video up, because if it takes any longer, I'll definitely be doing my worst. But maybe I'm doing my best. I hope I've just kind of shattered something in your mind, where you're like, "You know what? I don't know how anybody's even doing anymore. I don't know how I could throw the first stone, when I can't even tell if somebody's at their best or their worst right now."
If you want to build a lifestyle you don't have to escape — where you're proud of yourself, where you're healthy, wealthy, and wise, where you're comfortable talking about dating, where you want a mentor that can be there through all parts of your life, who's there at the trending areas of tech, like YouTube, like AI, content creation, and crypto, and is there to support you in real life — that's what I'm building with the Jerry Banfield family. So thanks for watching this. And if this is me doing my worst, selling you out maybe on something at the end of the video — or maybe it's me doing my best. Who knows?