On December 30, 2024, I sat down at the end of the day to record my little diary entry. I'm Jerry Banfield, a full-time crypto YouTuber, and this is the kind of day where the money stuff and the marriage stuff and the sobriety stuff all show up in the same evening.
Locking up $9,000 in ICP so it can't burn a hole in my pocket
One of the main things I did today was buy an internet identity with a thousand ICP in it, and it only cost me 920 ICP to buy. So that was about nine thousand dollars I locked up today, and that feels really good, because the ICP has been burning a hole in my pocket. I have all these temptations. Temptations got me uptown — I know some of that Tupac, Temptations, a little bit. So I've been looking at all these things, and I'm like, I need to just have my money locked up. And I did.
I'm glad I locked this up. I'm getting my interest rate on it. I made a video about that which I'll put out on the 3rd of January. I keep these kinds of conversations going in my ICP Crypto playlist if you want to follow how I actually handle the coin day to day.
An hour-long call about not missing the long-term gains
I did an over-an-hour call with a guy today who's got a lot more ICP than I do — almost 10 times as much, I think — and he's wondering what I think he should do with it. I told him, the main thing in life is you want to make sure you don't miss out on those long-term gains. A lot of times it's too easy to see the short-term, immediate, quick-money profits — the quick hookups, the quick gratification, whatever it is in life. What can be harder is that a lot of the most satisfying areas of life — having a really satisfying marriage, having a really well-maintained home, a consistently maintained business — none of those are short-term things. I have all those things now, and they all take a lot of work. And I want my money to be the same way. I want to be set up for long-term success, not instant gratification right now.
This is almost the exact conversation I had the day my friend almost sold 10,000 ICP, and then we talked — the hardest part is sitting still long enough to let the long-term play out.
I'm going to Legoland with the family on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, so I'm getting all my videos done for my crypto channel through the 5th, which feels great.
The romance I'd quietly stopped working on
The main thing I'm thinking about right now — I'm filming this around 8:20 at night, I just had a nighttime massage with my friend — is that the thing I've gotten the most upset about this week was Laura and I's relationship. I shared about that a couple of days ago, I think on the 27th or the 28th. That was a really raw vlog.
The key takeaway I had came from talking with my friend. We talked for an hour and a half. She's got a husband she's been with for quite a while, and they don't have kids yet. The main takeaway is that there are opportunities for me to be looking for more romance with my wife. I was all over the romance when we were first together, before we had kids. I was constantly looking for places to go out to, taking my wife to lunch, to dinner, to brunch, to breakfast, to movies, to Disney, on trips. It was easy when we didn't have kids. I was always thinking about what the two of us could do together, and that really filled the romance for us. We were always hanging out, going and doing fun stuff together.
But romance when you're married with two kids, and you both work at home — my wife has a full-time job and takes care of the kids. I'm a YouTuber. I go to Alcoholics Anonymous five days a week, I do yoga three or four days a week, I'm there with the kids, I do my share of the housework, and I see my mom most days. We've got a lot different life than when we were married, and I honestly am not sure what to do with the romance as much. I've also noticed that I haven't even been thinking about it. Since we've had kids, I've gotten more busy with my own stuff, thinking about my work especially. I've even gotten distracted with crushes. I've been more focused on girls at AA and yoga, more focused on making friends, than I have been on just keeping the romance alive and well with my wife.
Adding "what am I doing to turn my wife on today?" to my daily list
What I realized is that every day I think about: what can I do with my crypto videos? What am I going to say for my diary? What am I going to do at my AA meeting today? What am I going to do with my yoga and my physical fitness, and what am I going to do with my music? Most days I'm not thinking, what am I going to do for my romance? I've actually been just kind of taking it for granted that we have sex every other day, and I haven't been thinking much about romance or about trying to have my wife turned on. That's humbling. I'm glad I've noticed it, and now every day I want to add to the things I think about: what am I doing to turn my wife on today?
I've very much thought about what I'm doing to be helpful with my wife. Can I clean up my house? Can I clean up my kitchen? Some of that certainly turns her on as romantic — washing the dishes, doing the laundry, taking care of the kids, thinking about her, helping her have time for self-care. She's training for a marathon, so that is definitely helpful. But the romance aspect of it is a little different. What is the next date I'm planning? What little things can I do here and there to turn her on? And what can I stop doing — like, maybe farting around her all the time.
I used to say in my videos years ago that I tried to keep my wife turned on all the time. My wife makes jokes about that now, because I clearly don't try to keep her turned on all the time anymore. At one point I definitely did. I was obsessed with keeping her turned on all the time, and that's not the case anymore. I want her to be turned on, because I love how she is when she's turned on. It's like I need to do the work for that, and I'm not doing the work for that. I don't think it's a huge amount of work, but there are some adjustments I can make, and it starts more than likely with just thinking about her. What can I do to turn her on today? More thinking about her.
Looking at my wife like she's a stranger
It's kind of cool, because I'm realizing that, looking at my wife, she's a stranger to some degree. I know her, but I'm not sure exactly what I could do to turn her on. That's really humbling. It's like she's this person I don't fully know. I'm sure I know things I could do to help out around the house and take care of the kids. But romantically, what little action do I take? I know she's not big on the T-shirts and athletic shorts — that's my normal dress, athletic shorts and T-shirts — so I know that's a little thing I could change to turn her on.
I used to buy her flowers all the time. We always had fresh flowers in the house. Now she says she didn't want me to buy flowers anymore. But sometimes it's like she's testing me. I feel like she says things sometimes just to test my resolve, and sometimes she doesn't even mean it — she wants to see how much I want to do something.
I'm really grateful to her for that, and really grateful to be able to talk to other guys' wives to get some perspective on my own wife. I can have very intimate conversations with other guys' wives, and that takes a lot of trust on both sides — trust from the other guy, who I don't even know that well, that I can be friends with his wife and talk about my relationship and their relationship. The other week I was talking with my friend a lot and kind of coaching her on a lot of the stuff she could do in her life. This week it was like, it's your turn — she needs to help me figure out and coach me on the stuff I could do better with my wife. I felt really vulnerable talking to her about all this today, and I'm really grateful for that experience. I feel so much better. If you want my full take on relationships, I dig into a lot more of it in my Dating playlist. Honest conversations like this are exactly what I keep going every day with the people inside the Jerry Banfield Family.
Getting a little toxic at the AA meeting about the hurricane
At the AA meeting today, I guess some people might have thought I was a little toxic. I shared that some of the people around here got their houses flooded like me, but I only got a few inches of water, and some people got a foot or more. And yes, a few inches makes a big difference. Three inches was enough to cause lots of damage, but it wasn't enough to really ruin everything. Other people lost a lot more in their houses than we did.
That said, other people have been really wallowing and stressing. And I'm like, come on — this hurricane, compared to getting sober, compared to dealing with hard relationship stuff, is not that hard, especially if you have money. Some of the people in the meetings have been so stressed out over ordinary stuff. So I shared: I was annoyed for an hour when my house was flooding, when the water was coming in the door. I was mostly annoyed because I hadn't prepared properly, and I was annoyed it was happening. But after that, I just got into action. I cleaned the house up. I got a little annoyed here and there with the insurance and the mortgage company, but most of the time it's been like, cool — I've actually been enjoying the adventure of this.
We avoid the deliberate manufacture of misery
From some of the other people, I guess it could have sounded like I was being pretty arrogant — look how easy it is, and y'all are just making your own misery. But that's actually what we were talking about today. There's a part of the book that says, we avoid the deliberate manufacture of misery. What I was trying to help people see is that y'all are deliberately manufacturing your misery. This hurricane stuff doesn't have to be that difficult, and people are manufacturing huge amounts of misery around it.
But it's nice — a little bit of suffering, a little bit of misery, can go a long way. I had a few hours of mild misery in my relationship during the last week, and you know what, that was very productive. It got me thinking, how can I be more romantic in my relationship with my wife? I love too that she's so responsive. A lot of times, if I just change, she'll change with me. It's like we're dancing together, and if I change how I'm dancing, she'll adjust and dance with me. I'm the one that's done the hypnotherapy and the counseling and Alcoholics Anonymous and massage and yoga. I've done all these things and read all these books, and a lot of times when I change, she'll just change right with me. That's why it's so important to pick a romantic partner the dance is actually with — one who will grow with you, and when you grow, they'll grow too. I'm really grateful for my marriage today. I had a dream last night that I was telling my wife I just wanted to keep having more of the life we're having. I want to keep having time with the kids. I want to keep having our time together. I really love the life I have today.
Why I keep getting massages
If you don't get massages on a regular basis, I'd encourage you to try them, despite whatever story you have in your head. Massages have been so good for me — so good for relaxing my body and opening my mind up. It provides kind of the same effect that having a drink or two used to have, but with none of the side effects, and it helps someone else.
It's not like being alone playing zombies in my room on Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, trying to get to round 70 on Origins. That's how I used to drink — with 12 Diet Dr. Thunder cans, 22-plus shots a can, 24-plus, drinking all night. God, that sucked. And yet that was the best I knew how to do at the time to try to feel better and enjoy my life. But you can argue that the way things have been lately is just the best I've been knowing how to do in my marriage. And if there's a pain point, that's an opportunity — maybe there's something I could do to level up my best.
I told Laura the other night that I think there's untapped potential she has. And today, talking to my friend, I'm like, there's untapped potential I have. I have not been doing much for the romance in my relationship. I imagine that if I step up my romance, my wife will step up the sex. That's how great she is — if I step up what I'm giving, she'll step up what she's giving. That's the kind of honest, level-up thinking I bring to the people I work with most closely too.
Slipping some ambient music back in
I've also been listening to my music. I skipped doing a music session yesterday, thinking I was going to start this whole new workflow, but I listened back to my ambient music on my original channel. Listening to that, I'm like, man, the ambient music stuff you make is cool. It's just free-flow playing around. It's not like anything else you've ever heard. Yeah, it's just button mashing — sure it is — but it's cool sounds. Some of it sounds great, and some of it is chalkboard-screechy. But that's what's fun. You never know what you're going to get. So I'm going to see if I can slip some of that back in.
Then I'll walk the dog, take a shower, get to bed at a reasonable time, and talk to Laura tonight. Another great day today, man — really grateful for my life, and I hope sharing this is useful for yours. If you enjoyed this diary, you can watch my newest videos in my Life playlist. And if you don't have somebody to talk to about what's going on, find a person who'll be supportive. I'm sure most of you have somebody like me in your life, if you just look around for them.