This is my journal entry from January 5, 2026 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.
I woke up thinking I should take the kids to school, even though my ex-wife said she would. Then she called me at the last minute, wondering if she was taking the kids to school. Like sometimes when you feel like you really want to do something, you should just do it and not think too much about it. I then went to my yoga studio for class with the intention that I'm going to put out as much loving energy as I can towards these girls, and see who takes notice. One girl said hi to me at the end of class and I shook her hand and I realized like I need to have something better for this situation. I feel like I'm missing an opportunity here because I don't want to like get her phone number at this point, but I should have something and a book is too much right now, so we need to figure something out.
I went straight home from my yoga studio and made myself a nice big salad for lunch, then went to my Alcoholics Anonymous meeting after taking a shower, and I actually got there like 10 minutes early. I had lots of time to chat with people and sat down for the meeting. One of my friends brought the topic up, and when I got called on, I tried to go back and mention something from what everybody shared, which was a little challenging since I got called on at around 40 minutes into the meeting. I remembered something from what most people said, but I forgot a couple of people and what they said, and it ended up being funny, and I felt a whole lot of energy from sharing like that. I tied it into saying, you know, it's important to listen in these meetings, and the more you can listen and connect with people, it helps.
I then drove straight to my massage with my massage therapist. We had a great conversation. I told her about everything in my life in the last two weeks, which you're well informed about at this point. And it's amazing how it felt like so much has happened in just two weeks. It left me feeling like things are moving really fast in my life, which is great. Because sometimes on a day-to-day basis, I feel like they're not moving that fast. But when I talked to her about the five different dates I went out on since I've seen her in two weeks, like, yeah, that moved really fast. You know, several of them were not on the radar at all. Actually, most of them were not on the radar at all when I talked to her last time. Plus, I've got the keys to my new house and things are looking great going forward.
I had time to come back home and prepare the kids a huge bowl of fruit for when I pick them up because they're often hungry after school. And when I have fruit for them, they're happy with that. I called my ex-wife when I got home to talk to her about my mom and setting boundaries with her, because in talking to my massage therapist I realized that when I told my mom I didn't want to hang out with her at her house anymore, that I wanted to do stuff outside her house, then she sends me a message like okay let me know when you want to do something, then she starts texting my ex-wife a whole bunch of stuff trying to plan things with her. And I talk to my ex-wife, I'm like, I don't think that's appropriate. Like my mom should be planning stuff with me, especially when I have my overnights during the week. You know, I'm the person my mom should be talking to about planning stuff to do with the kids, not my ex-wife, because my ex-wife has her family. My mom thinks in terms of chain of command, so my mom is in my chain of command when it comes to the kids, and my ex-wife's family is in her chain of command. And she should be following the chain of command and talking to me about seeing my kids and not talking to my ex-wife when I am available. Even though my ex-wife does live close by, it's much easier for me to interact with my mom. I had a great conversation with my ex-wife about that, and I'm glad I called her because sometimes I've tried to just talk to her while the kids are around. And right after school and the kids at first got home, it's a tough time to talk to my ex-wife, because the kids want her attention too, and we constantly get interrupted. So I'm glad we're learning to use the phone now since we don't live together anymore.
I texted my mom after seeing my massage therapist too and asked my mom if she wanted to go visit the new house with me and the kids. And my mom replied right about when I got home from school with the kids that she said yes, she could go and she was available. My daughter had a boy from school she wanted to see. So she didn't want to go, and she wanted to get stuff done and have some time to unwind at home. But my son was very enthusiastic to go. So my mom comes over to my house, to my ex-wife's house rather, and then I get the drone. My mom gets in my car, and my son does too. Then we drive to my new house where I have the drone and the car that my son likes to drive.
Then we walked from my house to Crescent Lake Park, flew the drone on both of its batteries. So we had a good 40 minutes or so flying the drone, which was fun. And my mom really enjoyed hanging out by the lake, looking at all the birds flying around, all the people and their dogs. And I told her during this time, I tried to communicate with my mom as delicately as possible to say to her, look, you know, to just communicate exactly the calls to action via text. Like I sent her a text saying that, you know, I wanted to see her outside of her house from now on. And then in person, she had some questions about that. So I said, look, at your house, there's all kinds of junk food, there's screens, there's all the stuff you have all over the place. And then there's your pill bottles that are all over. And she said, well, she does other stuff with the kids and that I could tell them they can't have all the sugary treats in her fridge, but that she likes them to watch the screens because she doesn't want them bouncing around her house.
And I said, mom, that's exactly why we need to get outside your house. The kids have energy and their natural state is to be bouncing around. The thing to do is not to try and force them to calm down with screens and junk food and get them to sit still because that works for you. But the thing is to meet them where they're at, like my son running around the park, following the drone, you know, very active, lots of space to move. Like you can come sit at the park just fine, but we need a chance to be active and move and that your house is not a place to do that. So ironically, it seemed like explaining this to her, she actually did come to understand like, yeah, it would be better to get out of my house because my house is not a place that is welcoming for children. It is a place where kids that are, you know, distracted with TV and stuffing their faces with junk food can sit still for a little while, but it's not a place that the kids are thriving and, you know, really getting to be their authentic selves. They already have enough time where they have to sit in school and be quiet and listen and do what they're told. And I feel really good that I navigated this boundary with my mom, that talking to my massage therapist helped me with it, and that my conversation with my ex-wife helped me see how to execute this in practice. What got me through that was leaning on the people around me, and if you'd like that kind of support as you grow, I'd love for you to come grow with us in the Jerry Banfield Family.
We then went to a little waterfront park because my son wanted to show my mom how he could drive the four-wheel car into the water from the canal and then drive it in and out along the beach. And my mom was very interested to see this as well. My son had a great time showing it to her. And another example of, you know, I'm like, this is what I want to do. I don't want to be in my mom's house having the kids watch Winnie the Pooh and eat ice cream sandwiches and popsicles. Like, I want my son to be driving his car, you know, in and out of the water, running around. This is perfect. I took my son and my mom back home, dropped my mom off at her house, and she seemed like she had a real good time. It was good for her to get out of her house. She needs to get out of her house. She's in it almost all day.
And then I went over to my ex-wife's house with my son. My daughter was still there. So I took some time to help my ex-wife get cleaned up. Like she just built these two dressers since I'm moving them out. So she just bought these two dressers online, built them herself. And then the worst part for her is cleaning up all the boxes and crap. For some reason, going to the trash is difficult for her or something she didn't like to do. So I figured I could be helpful while I was there, help clean up some of the trash from the dressers. Had a little bit of the food she made, and then moved some of my stuff out of the shed that I hadn't taken to my house that I rented right after I moved out because I figured I'd just take that to the next house. I loaded up a car. I ended up spending a little over an hour at my ex-wife's house loading stuff, moving things, hanging out and talking.
And then it felt like it was about time to go and get to my house. I got to my new house. I'm renting about seven, unloaded all my stuff here. And then I went back home to, well, I stopped at the grocery store first because I didn't eat any beans. So I loaded up on hummus. They had a hummus that's one of my favorites. They had two for $7, which is a couple dollars each off. So I loaded up on like eight of those. Then went home, had half of one of the hummus containers with carrot, celery, and a cucumber. After that, I took a shower to wash off all the massage oil. And then it was a little after 8 o'clock, and I just started feeling like, you know what? I could just go to sleep right now. So I did. I just went to sleep at like 8 o'clock.
But then I woke up at like 11 thinking I'd slept a full night already. And then I started thinking more about my work. I've been thinking about doing these letters that I could put to people saying help on their doorsteps. But the problem with that is they're just generic. And I started thinking, you know what I need? I need a bunch of specific letters. I need letters on things like divorce and relationships, dating, parenting, money, weight, body, fitness, death, grief, addiction. I need letters that I can give out to people. Like that girl I met earlier at yoga today. What I should have for her is say, oh, you're being friendly? Okay, can I give you this letter about body and health or something like that, which most people at yoga are very interested in. If she asks what I do or something, I could say, well, I write letters, I write books, I host events, I coach people. What subjects are you really interested in or struggling with right now? Let's say it's dating. I could give her a love and relationships letter that gives my philosophy on dating along with an invitation to an event at my house. I'm building an entire business system that really addresses everything.
What I need is a gateway. I need my writing. I want my writing to help people. But the help needs to be specific and consensual. Like, okay, I see someone at an AA meeting. I give them a letter on sobriety and freedom. And then I need to have some kind of call to action too. I gave out a bunch of books and I didn't have a clear call to action other than to just text me with feedback, which lots of people don't have any feedback to give. So I'm looking at a whole business system now where if I have letters, I can give out, the letters are my lead magnets, my deepening of relationships, and then the letters invite people to come to an event at my house Friday and Saturday night. With an event at my house Friday and Saturday night from 7 to 8.30 p.m., I'm replacing what I liked about a local spiritual community during the most lonely time for me. When someone needs help that's specific to exactly what they're facing, nothing beats a real conversation, so if that's you, I'd be glad to meet one-on-one on a private Zoom call.
And this house has enough room for probably 24 people in this living room that I'm sitting in right now as I'm dictating this. If I charge $25 as the early bird ticket for the first, let's say, eight tickets, then the next eight tickets were $30, then the next eight tickets were $35, I could be making like $5,000 plus a month from having an event in my house Friday and Saturday night, and the letters would cost me 20 cents each to print off on a laser printer, then I give those out at AA meetings. I give those out after yoga classes. I could give those out to parents on the playground, parents at my kid's school. I could set up a table at my gym and have letters instead of books, and the letters are extremely relevant. You know, lots of people seem like they need help with money, but I don't have a book on money and it takes too damn long to write a book on money, whereas right now I can immediately write letters. I mean, within a week, I could probably have a letter about money and work, sobriety and freedom, dating and relationships, etc. I could have nine different letters written out on all the major topics in life. At my gym, I could have all the letters set up and just try and hand as many of those letters out as possible.
Then I invite everybody I know to the events at my house Friday and Saturday night. Then from there, I've got the chance to do private coaching with people. I make connections with people. People refer their friends. The friends discover my books, my letters, my coaching. And from there, I've got a complete business system that has very low expenses and that offers a ton of real value to people. I imagine there's a lot of people that come Friday and Saturday night are kind of lonely and would like to get out, but the places they go don't really promote connection and they're filtered by things like alcohol or music. I want somewhere that... AA meetings are kind of disappointing Friday and Saturday nights that I go to lots of times because people are looking for something social, but a lot of the connection at AA is not quality. You're just listening to one person talk. People use their egos to jockey for position. The AA meetings are free, but if you've been to five meetings earlier that week, they're repetitive. It's like I would love to have something Friday and Saturday night at my house that makes money, that feels really good, that helps people not feel lonely, that helps people meet each other, that helps people learn and level up their life. And I feel really good in the middle of the night thinking like the letters are the vehicle to get the event filled. And getting the event filled gets the books and the coaching out there, gets more letters out there. It just fuels the whole thing. So I'm really grateful for going to bed early and putting all this together. And then I fall asleep again about one o'clock.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.