This is my journal entry from November 16, 2025, part of my daily autobiography Divorce Day — my real, unedited days, published in order.
I think I finally found a real answer to what keeps showing up as my biggest problem, or maybe more accurately, my biggest opportunity. It’s masterminds. I know I’ve circled around this idea before, but it clicked in a much clearer way today. With dating, especially after doing speed-dating events, I’ve noticed something obvious in hindsight. Most of the people I met said it was their first speed-dating event, and after experiencing it, I can easily see why it might also be their last. It’s awkward, rushed, and doesn’t really help anyone improve at dating. What would be far more useful is a group of single people coming together intentionally to work on dating together. Not necessarily to date each other, but to share what’s actually working, what isn’t, what they’re learning, how they’re thinking, and where they’re stuck. People of different ages, body types, genders, races, and orientations could all sit in the same room and compare notes. I’m confident everyone’s dating life would improve just from that kind of honest exchange.
As soon as I thought this through, the business side of my brain lit up too. I could easily charge at least $30 per person, get ten people together at my house, and run a few of these every weekend. That’s real money. That’s potentially a full-time income. On top of that, it creates a built-in audience for my books, referrals, word-of-mouth, and genuine community. All of it reinforces itself. This idea came out of a conversation with my mom tonight, and once it landed, it felt obvious. This is what we need. This is what I need. For dating, for money, for life in general, I need to be part of an in-person mastermind at least once a week where we actually work on this stuff. Instead of going to speed dating, I should be going to a dating mastermind. And if it doesn’t exist, it’s on me to create it.
The logistics feel almost too easy. I can set it up on Eventbrite and host it at my house to start, which means no overhead. Even if only one or two people show up, it could still be valuable. If nobody shows up, nothing is lost. I can just schedule more. I could host two dating masterminds a week, a couple of money masterminds, maybe one for health or content creation. I could put a whole slate of masterminds and events out there and simply see which ones people respond to. Even one person showing up means I made a connection and earned something. From there, I can invite friends from AA, yoga, and other parts of my life. It all starts to stack in a way that makes sense.
To really understand why this felt so clear, it helps to rewind to how the day actually started. I got up and went to tennis in the morning, which was genuinely fun. I played with my tennis coach and another guy, got some good movement in, and felt present. After that, I took the kids to International Mall to do some shopping. We decided to eat at a steakhouse there, one of the fancy places called The Capital Grille. The waitress looked impressed when we asked for the dinner menu at lunch because my son wanted scallops. He ended up ordering scallops for $68. My daughter ordered her own filet mignon off the kids’ lunch menu, which was $19. I ordered a Caesar salad for $14. Somehow, the whole bill came out to right around $100. She didn’t even charge us for the lemonades, which were listed at $10 each. I gave her a $40 cash tip on the $100 bill, and it felt great to do it.
Walking out of there, I felt genuinely grateful. We had just had a fancy steak lunch with my kids for about $140 total, and it honestly felt like I’d gotten away with something. That’s abundance. That’s the thing I need to be teaching and embodying. I’m out with my kids, dropping $140 on a meal, completely relaxed about it. I’m not worried about money. I know I have money now, and I know I’ll have money coming in the future. Because of that, we can enjoy today. We can live well today. We can make memories today. That feeling of ease and confidence threaded straight into the mastermind idea, and by the end of the day, it didn’t feel like a theory anymore. It felt like a direction.
After that, we went to Dick’s Sporting Goods. I always used to make dumb, crude jokes about the store’s name back in college, and they still pop into my head. Either way, we were there today. I tried on and bought five pairs of athletic shorts, around $40 each. What sold me on them was that they all had built-in liners, which means no underwear. My underwear usually ends up completely soaked and gross when I’m playing tennis for hours, and it’s easily the worst part of the whole situation. These shorts felt like a real upgrade. I tried them on in the fitting room and checked the fit properly.
While I was doing that, the kids started to spiral a bit. My son was actually fine—he stood there looking at a soccer ball, calmly debating whether he should get it or not. I remember thinking that purchases like that should be a hell yes or a no. Around that time, an attractive woman walked up by herself and started looking at soccer balls too. I noticed her, clocked that she was attractive, and then immediately thought, I’m not going to try to pick her up right now. I didn’t feel any pull to do it. I’m increasingly convinced there has to be a better way to meet women than constantly trying to strike something up everywhere I go.
We moved on and went to H&M to look for shirts for me. After scanning through maybe ten of them, I was done. Everything felt bland and boring. I want more flashy shit. I also realized I probably need slim-fit shirts at this point. Instead of forcing it there, I decided I’d just order some slim-fit shirts on Amazon, see how they fit, and then buy more once I know what works. Sometimes it really is that simple—just buy the damn shirts and move on.
Right outside H&M, my daughter spotted a Build-A-Bear Workshop. She immediately said she wanted a bear, a stuffy. I shut it down fast. I told her she already has way too many stuffies at home, a bunch she doesn’t even use, and that she absolutely did not need another one. That did not go well. She spiraled, didn’t want to leave, didn’t want to go anywhere, and sank into that full sulky mode. My son and I ended up stopping at Great American Cookie on the way out. I was a little rude in hindsight when my daughter asked if she could get a soda while my son and I were getting a cookie. She said she was thirsty, and I told her she wasn’t that thirsty and reminded her there was water in the car, which she didn’t want. I basically shut it down. Looking back, if I had a do-over, I’d probably just let her get the soda since my son and I were getting a cookie anyway. But whatever. My son didn’t even like the cookie, so I ended up eating most of one of those giant cookie sandwiches myself. Not three bites this time. I ate the whole thing and enjoyed it.
We drove home with everyone in a bit of a fuss. At the same time, I felt this undercurrent of gratitude. I’m thankful for my kids. I’m thankful that we get to have these honest, emotional journeys together, even when they’re messy. I love them. This is the same kind of stuff that happened with my ex-wife, and it’s the same kind of stuff that happened when I was a kid. It’s all part of it. Parenting isn’t clean or calm most of the time. The best thing to do is enjoy each other’s company as much as possible and try to stay cooperative. I figured I’d talk to my ex-wife when we got home and see if there was anything we could do differently together. Later, she told me that my son spiraled for two hours after we got back and had a big fuss at home anyway. So what are you going to do? That’s just parenting.
I went home afterward and paid the water bill. I’d been wondering when it was going to show up, and it finally arrived about a month and a half after I moved in. I paid it and thought, yeah, I guess that tracks. That’s how these things go. Then I started getting ready to go to the 7:00 p.m. meeting, which used to be my home group. As the time got closer, I felt a resentment building. It started to feel like a waste of time. I’m already running my own meeting five days a week, and part of me didn’t see the point. Still, my sponsee wanted to go, so I went with him, and my sponsor was there too. That made it worthwhile. It was good to see both of them.
When I got there, I immediately noticed there were some very attractive women in the room. I caught myself thinking, shit, this is why I used to like coming to this meeting, even when I was married. Now it hit differently. I was like, damn, there are all kinds of hot girls here. At the same time, my mood was pretty toxic. I was internally trashing the whole thing. Fuck this dumb meeting. Some guy is basically grandstanding at the front of the room while sharing about the Big Book. Everyone is sitting facing forward so you can’t even see who’s sharing unless you’re right there. It felt like pure ego gratification, just a parade of look-how-great-I-am performances.
To my credit, I did push myself to find counterarguments instead of staying stuck in that spiral. I reminded myself that this meeting is actually great for networking. There are tons of people there, and it gives people a real chance to meet each other. If you show up early or stay late and actually talk to people, it can be a very social, connective experience. I could see that. I had been planning to do some big dramatic share about how toxic the meeting felt, unloading all that negativity, but then something shifted.
Looking around the room and seeing all those attractive women reminded me of something that’s happened multiple times over the years. I’ve seen hot women get straight-up euphoric listening to me share. My shares are ultra-positive, and I make sobriety sound genuinely amazing. I remembered one woman in particular, about four years ago, absolutely gorgeous. She heard me share at this very meeting on a Wednesday night. I sat next to her, shared, and she made sure to talk to me immediately afterward. I got her phone number that same night. Looking back now, there’s a part of me that thinks I should have just divorced my ex-wife and married her. But how the hell are you supposed to know that at the time? Back then, staying married and being faithful seemed like the right thing to do. You make the best choice you can with what you know in the moment.
Standing there that night, I made a decision. I looked around the room and thought, all right, we’re doing this again. Forget the toxic drama. Forget the internal bitching. Just blow these people away. Show them how amazing sobriety is. Show them how good life can be. There weren’t enough chairs, so I was standing in the back of the room, which actually worked out fine. In that setup, you just jump in when you’re ready to share. I waited until my energy peaked and my heart rate was up. Some guy shared right before me, and it wasn’t landing at all. The room felt flat. As soon as he finished, I jumped in.
I walked up to the front, said, “My name’s Jerry, and I’m an alcoholic,” and then I just went off for about three minutes. The topic was Step Eleven—prayer and meditation—and I kept it simple and honest. I talked about how my main prayer is thank you. Thank you for this. Thank you for this meeting. Thank you for being healthy. Thank you for being sober. Gratitude is my prayer. And my main meditation is listening. I mentioned how that shows up for me in practices like yoga, lying in Savasana, or just laying in my bed and listening inwardly. I didn’t go into every detail, but I could feel the room shift as I spoke. The energy changed. That familiar current kicked in, the one that reminds me why I ever came to these meetings in the first place.
What I said next was very intentional, because I know exactly what hits that euphoric trigger. I shared that the morning after my ex-wife and I decided to get divorced, I woke up saying thank you. Thank you for this divorce. Thank you for this new life. This is going to be fun. This is going to be an adventure. Thank you. I know how that lands. I know that kind of share lights something up in certain women in the room. That moment where someone thinks, oh shit, who is this guy? There’s something alive here. There’s freedom here. There’s confidence here.
I also shared how I do my own thing for work. I have an employer that’s all-powerful. I don’t need to go get a job. Just a couple days ago, a guy at another meeting asked if he could offer me some advice. I said sure, and he told me to get a fucking job. I was like, no, I’m not getting a fucking job. I worked hard for this. This is my job right now—just blowing hot air into this microphone. I said it jokingly, but I meant it. I’ve built a life where I don’t have to answer to some boss, and I’m not going to apologize for that.
What’s interesting is that after I shared all of that, I went home, said goodnight to the kids, sat with my mom, and that’s when the mastermind idea really crystallized. It suddenly felt obvious. I’m not some scared little fucklet trying to survive alone inside this money system. I serve the collective. The collective has the money, and I’m here to serve it. If I do something that’s genuinely useful—like creating spaces where people actually grow—then people will make sure I get paid. The latest idea the collective seems to have handed me is these masterminds.
There was also a moment in the meeting that absolutely destroyed me with laughter. One guy shared, and he was already funny, swearing throughout his share, but toward the end he used a crude bit of slang for his own mouth that caught me completely off guard. It took my brain a moment to even process it. I lost it. I was laughing harder than anyone else in the room. The guy next to me didn’t even get it, and I had to explain the joke to him. Nobody else seemed to really catch it, but it hit me perfectly.
At this meeting, they read How It Works, and I used to shout out, “What an order! I can’t go through with it!” I stopped doing that toward the end of my run there because a few people got pissy and whiny about it. But tonight, I decided we were going full peacock mode. I was standing in the back of the room, hollering it again. I heard someone mutter something about some asshole afterward, but I didn’t care. My attitude was basically the defiant kiss-off of that CeeLo Green song—unbothered and all in.
I had fun at that meeting. It felt good. What I’m not totally sure about is why my mood shifted the way it did. Was it choosing to be positive and intentionally triggering that euphoric energy? Or was it just the vibe of the room changing? I honestly don’t know. Maybe it was both. What I do know is that I left feeling good. And if my sponsor and my sponsee like going to that meeting, I’m fine going too. I’m genuinely excited right now. I want to talk to ChatGPT more about these mastermind ideas. If I can throw a few of them up on Eventbrite, have random people show up, and promote them around my neighborhood, that feels like the next real move.
After taking the kids to the mall and relaxing at home for a bit, I told them I’d pay them to go door to door with my books. That idea didn’t quite unfold the way I imagined, though it wasn’t a total failure either. I went over to my landlord and gave her another book. She’d already bought one, so this time I gave her The Kind Divorce. From there, we ended up handing out three or four books to other neighbors. The strange part was that the only people who answered the door were people who already knew us. Several houses were clearly occupied—it was Sunday afternoon, dogs were barking, people were visible through windows—and yet they still wouldn’t open the door. Even seeing a guy standing there with his kids, holding books, wasn’t enough. It felt like people just weren’t available for anything outside their bubble.
That left me thinking hard about how I actually want to connect with my neighbors. I want real contact, real engagement. I looked into it, and the best suggestion I found was to put letters directly into people’s doors, tucked into the frame at eye level. So that’s what I’m going to do. I’ll go around, drop letters, and see who responds—who texts me, who wants a book, who wants to talk. Maybe it’ll annoy some people, but fuck them. It reminds me of that magnet on my mom’s fridge: Some people say I have a bad attitude. I say fuck them. Look at what people are doing with their time anyway. If I want connection, it’s on me to make the effort, to get out there, to peacock properly. Maybe one of these women sees that and wants some of it.
After the meeting that night, my sponsee talked with me for about ten minutes. When we were getting ready to leave, he asked, “You’re not going to go talk to those girls?” I told him no, absolutely not. Not after how directly I’d just shared exactly where I’m at, including the fact that I’m single. I’m not going to walk up afterward and pretend I want something polite and surface-level. I’m not interested in anything that isn’t real—what I want is a phone number, sex, a relationship, kids, all of it. I wasn’t going to fake anything. Tonight was about planting seeds. I shared, I put it out there, and then I walked out with him. I wanted to leave them with that to think about.
I’ve done this before. There was a woman—very pretty—where I did the exact same thing. I shared honestly at a meeting, didn’t talk to her afterward at all, and said nothing directly to her. That share was about the hurricane and how my house had flooded, and how my response was still, thank you. Thank you for this. This will be fun. This will be a great adventure. Weeks later, the next time she saw me, she came straight up to me and said she’d thought about me every day since that share. She told me she wanted to be like me, wanted that level of joy in her life. Now she has over a year sober and seems to be doing really well. That’s the power of planting seeds.
That’s what tonight was. I want one of these women walking around thinking about me every day, feeling something light up, wanting that energy, that life, that connection. Wanting me. That’s what I’m doing here. That’s the play. I’m planting seeds and letting them grow. Thanks for listening. I’ll see you tomorrow.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.