This is my journal entry from January 28, 2026 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.
We're all up early this morning to get my daughter to an early club at school, which she needs to be there earlier than usual. So we get up at the same time anyway, but we move fast. The kids made all their lunches and everything last night. Everybody's ready to go. We're in the car and we're there perfectly on time, which feels great. I also have lots of extra snuggles with my son. Over 20 minutes in the back of the car, where he's very snuggly and playful and we're having a good conversation. I'm super grateful for that.
I head back to my house immediately to get ready to go to my gym and play tennis. I put on my nice clothes, stuff the table in my car and grab the laptop. And I realized that my son left his blankets at my house. So I grabbed the compost and his blankets, go by my ex-wife's house, drop the compost and the blankets off and then go over to my gym. I set my table up there by the bathroom because they have construction and it's crowded in the front. So I don't have much room in the front and I figure I'd rather be in the back anyway. This way, if the woman who works at my gym actually walks by at some point, I could maybe ask for her number. I set up the books there and I work on canceling my gym membership. And I need to wait to have a guy help me with that.
I start going through and thinking, like, I need to set up a nice, clean business model. Clearly, just giving people my phone number and telling them to send me a message is not working. With the business coach, I think about yesterday how she spent 30 minutes on the phone with me for free, and she's prepared to see me for a sales call on Friday or a meetup in person to probably sell me on coaching. The thing is, though, that I don't want to spend 30 minutes on the phone with somebody for free because I already have books that they should have read. Now, it makes sense because I don't know her that I would end up talking with her on the phone for free. But I, having people inbound to me, would rather them go straight and schedule a call. I also reflect that almost everybody who's ever scheduled a call with me did not text me first. I see that I need to have a business system in place to give people all that stuff in one spot.
I swear to God, this must be the seventh or eighth time I sign up for Acuity scheduling and first pay the $23 a month before giving ChatGPT my landing page and it tells me I'm a cheap fuck because it has powered by acuity scheduling on the bottom. So I pay another upgrade to the $39 a month plan. Now on jerrybanfield.com, I update the website while I'm sitting at my gym and nobody's taking any of my fucking books. My website now has this big schedule time with me button. And when you go there, it lands on my acuity scheduling. Now on the page, there's a one-on-one call option, 30 minutes for $77.77, a quiet focused conversation by phone. Use this time to talk about whatever's most alive for you. I realized that I need to have phone calls for people that are not local. And I'm happy to talk with somebody on the phone for $77, especially on this new business line so I can talk straight on my iPhone. We don't need Zoom anymore. Then I do need something more intensive for somebody who's here in person. So I offer a two-hour in-person session for $222.22 because I like the repeating numbers. That way for my people who are local who want something serious, they can get the two-hour session instead of the 30-minute call. Then I also want to have an event at the same time. And for that, I put my Deeper Connections event on there for $33.33. And that is a class. I'm going to just throw it on Saturday night right now.
That to me feels like a nice business system where, if you just want a quick call with me, that's accessible. If you want to meet in person and work on a book or hang out and have a deeper experience, that's accessible. And then for events, all of it's on the exact same page. So with one call to action to schedule your time with me, then anyone can go straight to my website and have all those options there. I'm thinking that should give me, if I combine that with distributing thousands of books, I should get calls. I should get in-person meetups and scheduled for a few hundred dollars. And I should get people that want to come hang out with me and others in person. I figure I won't even do anything to promote the event until somebody actually buys it. And then I'll start trying to invite other people I know to come join the event at my house.
And this feels good. This feels like a business system that could crank out some cash every month and all I need to do is get people on my website scheduling calls with me and I can do that by handing out books and my books online could even bring some phone calls in or my old followers might occasionally come in and schedule a call. I've got a nice system set up to deal with people locally at a distance and to have events all in one spot. I sure hope this works because I just am not interested in doing anything else at this point. The more I talk with people about it, the more certain I am that we're going all out. As Tupac says in one of his songs, you go all out. That's what I'm doing.
And as I'm laying in bed reflecting on this later, I think, I can't believe it's been 41 years since this body was born already. Like where did the time go? Like my 20s and 30s are gone. I've already had enough time to have like a 20 year career and be retired. It's time to get serious. Like there's no time to waste surviving. It's thriving or what? My mom says I should have a backup plan yesterday, but I'm like, I have no backup plan. This is going to fucking work or we're just going to crash and burn. All right. So I'm determined to get it to work. And I want to have a great story about it.
The woman who works at my gym walks by like 50 times while I'm at this table by myself in the back. I also have a few guys like a reader I met there who bought seven books. He comes by to chat. A few other people chat a little bit. She comes by finally. And I asked for her phone number. She's talking about going to a yoga class with me. I exchanged numbers with her. And then my trainer comes by to ask how that all went. And I said, I ended up exchanging numbers. And he said, good luck. Keep me posted. I'm interested to know what happens.
Then I pack my table up, change in the locker room for tennis, and I go play tennis with a friend. We get out there, and it's in the 50s today, which actually is really nice weather to play tennis. A slight breeze. We do a warm-up, catch-up, and the first set starts with each of us winning a game, and then he just rips the rest of the set up, winning 6-2. The next set, I make a hard start, winning four out of five games. I'm up 4-1. He comes roaring back, taking us to five all, and then he wins the next two games. He says I'm emoting a lot today because I'm swearing, shouting, and I'm having fun. I feel like I'm in the zone. My elbow's a little sore, though, and it reminds me that I'm still adjusting to being single and on my own again after over a decade of marriage.
I come home after tennis and have a nice big salad, probably too big, take a shower. And I think about the woman from my gym, hoping maybe something good will happen there. Then I woke up early this morning, like four in the morning, again, thinking about my business. And that's how I got to taking the action I did today. And I confirmed that, no, I don't want to write letters. Books signal authority. Books signal seriousness. Books give people depth. And then from depth, we can convert to in-person discussions, phone calls, and events. I take a little rest in my bed after refilling and resting and digesting.
Then I get a call from my sponsee and a doorbell rings at the same time while I'm still naked. I'm like, the fuck's going on here? I think the doorbell rang because my daughter's friends from across the street wanted to see if she was here. And then my sponsee called. It's his anniversary today. So I called him back and we had a quick chat. I thought I'd wait to text the woman from my gym till after five. So I message her asking if she'd like to meet up for a class at a yoga studio. Here's the exact text I sent. Hey, let's do a class together this Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. When would be good for you? And it's an hour later while I'm recording this. Do you think I've got a response? No. As a matter of fact, she got notification silence. I'm like, you know what? At some point, somebody is going to surprise me. That's what's going to happen. At some point, somebody's going to surprise me, and that's going to be great.
I talked to a friend catching up today, and he told me about someone he knows who chases women and pays for sex constantly, which just isn't the life I want. I'm like, all right, could I go like halfway between where he's at and where I'm at? Maybe I'm not on a losing streak, but we're getting some like forced celibacy here. Not that forced, because I could take an easier route or pay for it whenever I wanted to. But no to both of those. No, no thanks to either of those. I confirm the woman who's doing the lead tonight, who's in her early 20s and sober already for a couple of years, is still coming, even though it's cold as can be out, which is going to be 48 in about 30 minutes. So she says, yes, she's still coming. I let the home group know. I'm like, hey, got someone special there for the lead tonight. We'll see if anybody actually shows up. Although it'd be pretty cute if it was just like her and me and it turned into a date. But what are the odds of that happening? Who knows?
I start reading a book after finishing Mob Boss. I start a new book that my friend recommended called I Forgot to Die. It's pretty good so far. And I'm enjoying hearing his stories. I am also really grateful to be writing my stories today. After this meeting tonight, I plan on cranking out another chapter in Un-effin' Myself, and I'm gonna fucking write, all right? I realize the mistake I made with these letters is I essentially dictated enough material for these letters to have completed an entire book. I don't need to do long-ass books. I can do short books, and I can always do a longer book after that, right? So we need more books to give out, and the smaller the book is, the cheaper it is to print, and easier it is to give away. Books, books, books. My mind just is ruthless, though, attacking. It's like, books are not gonna work in 2026, my boy. You're gonna fucking lose. I'm like, you know what? We're going all out, baby. I'm all in. I'm all in. We're gonna go all in on this book shit and see what happens.
One pleasant surprise that comes this evening is a woman I'd been talking to sent me a message back. She actually sent me several messages back. Yesterday, I had this playful, fun idea of messaging her. The last message I had sent her asked how she was doing with her screen time on January 13th. She didn't respond. So yesterday I sent her a text saying, my new favorite bad habit is thinking about you every day and then not sending you a message. I thought that'd be super fun and playful to send her. I was thinking of it after yoga and wondering, I'm like, what is that? She actually responded, had a conversation like, what is that? I didn't get a response for 30 hours, but then during the AA meeting tonight, she said, aw, Jerry, have you started any events yet? Isn't that sweet to hear? Your kids make any activity fun? My screen time? How did boxing go? So I sent her a few replies to her messages and asked if she's got anything fun she's doing this weekend. A little bit fishing, see what she's up to.
Also, at the same time, like, hey, maybe she's got a boyfriend she's going out with. Maybe she's got some time free that she could come spend with me. I'm thinking like she is about the highest quality girl I've ran into in terms of she got her career. She's beautiful. She's 29. She wants kids. She's not into drinking. And she's interested in me to some degree, at least so. I guess we'll see where that goes. The meeting was nice. There were only four of us there. We all got a chance to share. Wrapped up quick because we were cold.
I came home, folded the kids' laundry, listened to a little dead mouse, and I took a walk around Crescent Lake. Now, I hollered at this guy running. I'm like, he's running with a headlight and it's dark. I'm like, nice headlight. He didn't say anything. I'm like, all right, whatever. He ran by me twice more and still didn't say anything. I'll record some more of un-effing myself and go to bed.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.