It's the Church of Jerry, August 8th, 2026, my vlog. Today's message is that you have got to forget about failure and go after what you want as hard as you possibly can. That's exactly what I have been doing for the last 24 hours. I dug up an old phone number off a business card I had with a woman I met last year and haven't seen in something like nine months. I said to myself, we're throwing a Hail Mary this morning. We're just going to throw it out there and see what happens. I have been way too sensitive to "oh, I might get rejected," or "oh, that might not work." I don't care anymore. I'm going for what I want. I want a woman and I want money online. So we're going for that with no reservations, using whatever the most effective and considerate strategies are.
I might as well try. Maybe this woman is interested in hearing from me. I know a guy right now who has gotten a woman pregnant and they're getting married, and they seem really happy. He met her five years earlier and threw out a Hail Mary on Instagram one day, and all of a sudden she came around. I have been way too sensitive about what happens if I get a negative answer. I had a tennis match scheduled with a woman, I saw her last night, I texted her, and she didn't respond back. So what? I go after what I want as hard as possible, and I take no excuses. There is no failure. There's only the effort I'm making.
I'll Take Whatever Help I Can Get
It's the same with my YouTube videos. I will take whatever help I need. I'm grateful to the people who are on these podcasts. They put out a video, and I don't even look at these videos myself. People send them to me. If you want to send me things like that, I'd love for you to join the Jerry Banfield Family and share them with me directly.
The thumbnail on this one says this is my worst business model ever. Well, I've made a little over $300 in the last week, maybe $400, and I am grateful for that. I've got something like $500 to $600 a month in recurring revenue right now on the Jerry Banfield Family, which I just started. So I'm happy with that. And I'm thinking we could grow that to a lot more, because the hardest time to get people to join is when something is brand new. There are 25 people in there now. I'll keep adding more people and posting more. I've already got 42 Secrets, an influence course that's in there, which is one of the best courses I ever filmed, from nine years ago. It's amazing. And I'm going to keep putting more and more in there.
I am so proud of myself today. Something has been happening. The experience with the queen was me at my worst. That's a version of me I never want to be again. I feel bad that she even met that version of me when there is this version of me too. And I'm grateful that I can just change as soon as I need to.
Tennis, a Tiebreaker, and Talking to Everybody
Last night I went out and walked around all the bars. I didn't go inside any of them, but I walked around, and I went out last night for the first time in maybe forever. Before that, though, I played tennis, which it did not look like was going to happen with the weather. It rained hard at my house and somehow didn't rain at the St. Pete tennis center, and then it rained further south of that. So we got to play. I played with a guy who got there a little late from work, probably 20 years older than me. He started off beating me, but then I took him to the tiebreaker and I won that tiebreaker 14 to 12. I felt really good about that. Really good. He left early after that, and then I played the next guy, and he won the tiebreaker against me.
Then I went to an AA meeting, and I'm telling you, I am talking to every woman. Wherever I am, I'm talking to every woman. As soon as I get a "no thanks, nice to meet you," a dismissal, I'm out. But I'm trying to talk to every woman everywhere I go. I don't care. Rejection means nothing to me. The worst thing is when you fail to make an effort in the direction you want to go. That's the worst thing. Even if you get told no a hundred times, at least you tried. How pathetic is it to sit at home and feel sorry for yourself when you didn't even try?
I remember the last night I got laid, November of last year. I started out that morning saying, you know what, I want to get laid today. I texted 11 women in my phone, and I had one over at the end of the night, and I haven't seen her again. It's funny, because I told her I didn't want to communicate with her anymore. But it's funny that eight or nine months later, if she texted me, I probably would let her come over. I wonder how many people out there that I think don't like me would actually like to hear from me again. There are probably some. Most of them might not, so it's a minority. But you never know when somebody's feelings have changed about you. I'm not reaching out to the queen, though. She seemed pretty clearly done with me. She saw the most pathetic side of me. Although at the same time, somebody should love that version too.
Leveling Up and Going All In
It's funny that I'm really leveling up and feeling like I did in my twenties, very manly, very masculine. I'm going to go absolutely after what I want with no reservations, no hesitations, all in. For example, on YouTube, I found this woman through one of her YouTube coaching videos. Her name is Alexa Saranoja. I literally just looked through all of her videos and generated from that. I'm going to copy about 10 of her titles, and I generated about 10 thumbnail backgrounds. All of her best performing videos, I'm going to film my own versions of on my channels. I'll just use her titles, the ones that work best for her, and I'm going to film all of them on my YouTube coach channel. Then I'm going to send people to my Skool community, which costs a small fraction of what hers costs every month. If you want it, you had better go and get it.
I'm going to film as many shorts as I can. I'm going to rip on as many cryptos as I can. I filmed 16 videos yesterday. I filmed 25 videos the day before. I am going all out. One verse and then ball. I'm going all out, going for it.
I was so stimulated last night. After I went to the AA meeting, at the end of it I sat right behind this woman. I found the most attractive woman in the meeting and sat behind her. Then I was actually talking to a newcomer guy who sat next to me, and she butted in and demanded his attention. So I walked off and talked to my friend. Then I saw she was done with him, so I went over to talk to her, and she was so friendly. She's like, "Hi, nice to meet you." I had shared in the meeting and had people laughing, as usual, and she was repeating things back to me from my share. I'm thinking, how does she know this about me? Then I realized, oh, I shared that. She was listening to me share better than I was. I had already forgotten what I said. She was so nice. She gave me a hug, and then she said she'd love to see me again at another meeting. I'm like, wow, that was a positive reception. But I was also flirting with her. I was making jokes, making her laugh. I know how to do that.
Believe it or not, some of you send me messages thinking that I'm on the spectrum or something. I don't think I'm on a spectrum. I've never been tested, and therefore there's no evidence for that. Believe it or not, I communicate very effectively with people in person, and when I approach a woman I tend to have a lot of confidence. I went to yoga yesterday, and I think I made a video since then, so we don't need to rehash that.
Then I talked to one of my friends, and he said, "Yeah, I think she only dates women." I said, nah, I don't think so. And then he tells me a story she told about how she was with several dudes at once. I'm like, see, I think she's playing for both teams, so to speak. And I'm going to go see her again next week. Somebody from that meeting said something about it, and I gave somebody from that meeting my YouTube channel. Whatever. Nobody is personally identifiable very easily anyway. And you know what? It's not like I'm saying anything bad about anybody. And if I am, what? Why don't you make a channel and talk some trash about me? You can just join in with everybody else.
Love and Light Is Not Always the Right Strategy
It was funny at the AA meeting. Somebody was saying, "Yeah, I've got this resentment and I'm trying not to hate." And I'm thinking, forget them. Look, I'm going to try to love everybody by default. But if you're out here doing evil, I'm coming for you. I'm going after you. All these crypto coins launching all these garbage projects, they know full well they're ripping people off. I'm coming for you. If you're doing evil and screwing people over in this world, I'm coming for you.
We have what I would call toxic positivity. It's all love and light. No, I can't stand that it's all love and light. Because the people who are powerful understand there's love and light, and then there's heavy and dark. There's love and light, and then there's hate and darkness. If you really want your full power, you need to be able to handle the full spectrum and apply it based on the situation. If somebody breaks into your house at three in the morning, I don't think love and light is going to be the way to go. Although sometimes even that can work. You have to pick the best strategy for each situation.
And when somebody is screwing everybody else over, love and light is not the solution. The solution is to show everybody what they're doing and to make them stop. That's why we have so much nonsense in this world, because so few people get out here and are willing to stop somebody else from taking advantage of all the other people. So few are willing to stand up and say, this is wrong, I'm not going along with it, and I'm going to tell everybody what you're doing. It's hard to do that. But I'm the kind of person who does that. My dad was the kind of person who did that. My mom was the kind of person who did that. I'm proud to come from a family who are willing to stand up and say what's right, even when it cost my mom her career in the military, even when it put my dad's life in danger in the military.
Those are hard, hard situations, to stand up and say, look, what you all are doing is wrong, and I'm going to tell everybody about it.
Fun Should Be the First Priority
Now, after I went to this AA meeting, I actually went out to dinner afterwards for once. And I had so much fun. We were talking so much trash. One of my friends is there and he says, "Yeah, I hung out with this girl last night, but I don't know if I should see her tonight." I'm like, man, if I had a girl who actually wanted to see me, I sure as heck wouldn't be sitting at home in my house. Why would I do that to myself? Or maybe I would. What do I know? Maybe I would. But I told him, call her, see if she wants to see you. He says, "I've got to get up for work." Forget work. This guy is a decade younger than me. Get out there and go have fun. Fun should be the first priority, all the time. Not survival. Fun. Because if you're not enjoying your life, what is the point of doing all this? What is the point of doing all of it?
I'm a dad. I've got kids. Survival is important, but survival should not be number one. If life isn't worth living, then you just end up being one of the walking dead, going through the motions of life. "I'll do anything to survive." Forget that. I remember in my twenties it was all about fun. To me, once you realize you've got a limited amount of time here no matter what you do, that changes everything. It's not like you could have eternal life if you just focused on survival.
I Already Have Eternal Life
If you pray to Jesus you can get eternal life, I guess, but I already have eternal life, so I don't have to pray to anyone. I already have eternal life, and I really hate it sometimes. That's my experience of it. Eternal life is one of the most horrible things you could possibly imagine. There's nothing that will make me scream more at night than thinking that I am immortal. That's the most horrible idea in the world to me. I am immortal. I can't be killed. I'll just end up in another body. Or I'll be a rock. Or I'll be a sun. Or I'll be another one of these. Or I'll be an ant. Over and over. I can't stop. All I do is live and create life again and again. It's like the ultimate prison. You are alive forever, you can't leave, you can't die, and all you do is live and reincarnate over and over again. It's horrible. You can picture me up in front of the pulpit with that message.
So where was I going with all of that? When you look at it that way, when eternal life is guaranteed, then to me the thing that is not negotiable is having fun and really enjoying your life. Now, that doesn't mean having fun should be destroying yourself or poisoning yourself. Drinking alcohol is not fun to me. That's poisoning my body.
A Late Tea and a Dead Coffee Bar
With that in mind, I went out to Grassroots last night, which is a kava coffee and tea bar. I just felt like going out. I wanted to see what it was like. I just wanted to go out. I hadn't left the house to go out. I got home around 10 from the meeting and dinner, and then I thought, you know what, I want to go out to Grassroots tonight. Somebody said that was cool. I'm going to go out there and grab a tea. I messed up when I got there and got a green tea with caffeine in it. I don't usually have any caffeine except first thing in the morning, when I'll have some matcha tea. So I'm wired for sound. I really messed up having a tea at 11 o'clock at night.
And then Grassroots was dead. There were like four guys sitting upstairs. I sat on a balcony. There were a few people hanging around down at the bottom. So I figured, let me just drive by downtown. I had talked to one of my friends who has had some issues with sex addiction, and I asked him, hey, if I wanted to find a woman to hook up with tonight, where would I go? And he says, "Why would I know?" I'm like, of course you would know. Out of everybody here, I'm asking you because you know. He says, "Well, I'd probably go on dating apps." I told him no, dating apps are terrible for me. I'm not optimized for dating apps. I'm just not. I'm optimized for in person. I look good in person. I could pass for mid-thirties, if not younger, in person. I've got a nice face, and I've got a strong energy in person. Dating apps, I'm not optimized for that. And if I'm going to be on a device, I'm going to be making money on it, not swiping and spending.
Walking Downtown St. Pete Past Midnight
So he says, "Well, I'd go downtown then." All right. So I got in my car and rode around the block downtown in St. Pete. There's this one block that is just bumping, like Central, and between Third and Second it is just going off. The police are out everywhere. I'm like, I miss this. I miss being one of those police officers, out there at midnight with your gun and your badge and your colleagues, just making sure that if something goes down you're right on top of it. I miss that. I love that. I love being out on the streets at four in the morning looking for a drunk driver, responding to calls. I love it. I don't want to work night shifts anymore, but that was so much fun.
So I pulled a couple of blocks over and parked. I thought, you know what, I'm just going to walk around down there. I'm not going to go in anywhere, but I'm going to walk around and be in the scene and see what it feels like. Maybe I'll meet someone. Maybe I won't. But I haven't been out like that in 12 to 15 years. Let me just walk around. I'm a grown man with my own place. I can go do whatever I want to do, and this would be fun.
So I took a couple of laps around the block, and it was fun. There were so many beautiful girls out. So many. I was like, this is so much better than Columbia, South Carolina, 20 years ago. You'd go out there and it'd be three guys to every girl. Every bar, everything was a sausage fest. And I'm out in downtown St. Pete thinking, there are so many gorgeous women out here, and there are about the same number of women as men. I enjoyed seeing everybody out, having fun, laughing. I picked up some of that energy.
I actually walked by some throw up on the sidewalk. I'm like, I haven't walked past any throw up on the street in a long time. I haven't been out past midnight, especially by myself, in a long time. I walked around and looked at all the different clubs, and this one club had a really long line. Then there was another line with a sign that said $20 to skip the line. Why are people so cheap? If I wanted to go into that club, I would take the $20 skip-the-line in a heartbeat. I wouldn't mess around with that long line. Look at all these broke people who don't value their time, just standing in this line.
I enjoyed seeing all the guys out. I love seeing all the black dudes out with the chains and the glitter shirts and all that. I love it. And all the beautiful women dressed up in dresses, and all the guys with beers out, and everybody working hard at having a good time, and all the police officers, so many police officers, just standing there. It was so much fun. I just walked around and there was so much stimulation. So many people doing so many things, saying so many things, so many new faces, just waves of new people and new faces.
I went home and I felt less lonely. It was kind of nice to calm down and relax at my house without all that chaos, but it was nice to feel everybody's energy of being excited, being out, it's Friday night, we're partying, we're having fun. Now I'm kind of thinking that if I go down there again, I might need to go into one of these nightclubs. Before I drank, when I was 18, I used to love going into the nightclubs. When I was sober, I could pay attention. I'd look for the girls who wanted to dance and I could spot them very easily because I wasn't messed up. I'd go dance with them and have so much fun. A lot of these girls in there now are in their early twenties, beautiful. And I'm sober, so I can pay very close attention and see who's feeling me, see who might want to dance, and see when I need to duck out and watch my back. It's so much fun.
Now I'm a little nervous about it, though. For a guy who has spent 12 years sober, that might not be the best environment for me to be hanging out in. And I'd like to have a wingman, somebody I could go with who could watch my back. At the same time, I'm pretty good. I've got myself. I used to be a police officer. I'm pretty good at checking my surroundings and pretty good at feeling out the vibe.
Feeling My Full Power
I came home last night and I was so stimulated I couldn't sleep at all, which is weird, because I usually sleep so well. What's crazy is how fired up and stimulated I still am right now. I hardly slept last night. And it's not just caffeine. It's being around all those people and taking that energy in. But it's also tapping into myself, and feeling my full power feels so good.
Man, I am so grateful for where I'm at today. So grateful for all of you watching the Jerry Banfield show. The @JerryBanfieldVlogs channel is doing awesome. I love seeing all of you watching. I've been cranking shorts out and I'm up to 551 subscribers now, which is awesome. The average watch time on the last video was about eight minutes. I love that. That video was titled "I might not have to move in with my mom," although I guess that one was a shorter vlog, so it was a five minute and 42 second watch time. And the dating game one had an average watch time of seven minutes. I love that. We've got people coming through from all over the place, and I really appreciate it.
So I hope you get the message out of this. Go for what you want. You only have a fixed amount of time. Even though you are immortal, you only have a fixed amount of time in this particular run. This is a relatively limited time offer on this existence. Go for what you want. To me, the worst thing would be to get to my death bed and think, damn, I wish I'd lived the life I really wanted.
I wish I'd just tried for everything I wanted, as hard as I could. Even though I'm borrowing money so that I can afford to have this nice house, which costs over $3,000 a month, that I live in by myself, and where I have my kids three nights a week, in what I think is one of the best neighborhoods in St. Pete, near Crescent Lake. I mean it. I'm going for it. And you know what? If it doesn't work, so be it. Because at least I tried.
I'm taking that same approach with women now. I'm going for every woman I think I might be interested in. I'm pulling back if she's putting up a red flag, and then I'm going to get up out of there. That's the problem with going out, too. It's unlikely I'm going to meet a woman in a bar who is actually going to be a good woman. But who says I need a good woman? Maybe I need a bad woman. I don't know, but I'm going for it.
I've got a few women I'm going to text first thing this morning. It's probably a little early, it's not even eight yet, but we're going to text and just see. And if they're not interested, if anybody tells me to stop, then all right. But nobody has told me to stop messaging them. Nobody has told me to stop following up and asking them. Nobody has said no. They've said they're not interested and then I let them go, but there's nothing wrong with checking back later. People change their minds sometimes, and how somebody feels today versus six months from now could be completely different.
Tap Into Your Full Power
I hope this has encouraged you. Tap into your full power, get excited about your life, and go for what you want. Don't let anybody stop you or hold you back with some nonsense. Obviously, always be respectful of other people. Listen to other people. Be cooperative. Don't screw other people over. But a lot of the time I've gotten in my own way way more than I've caused trouble for anybody else. I hold myself back. I tell myself all these made-up names and narratives, and it seems like most of us are actually more considerate of others than we are of ourselves, and we screw ourselves over just like that.
I appreciate you supporting the Jerry Banfield show. And if you want to be something more than a number in my life, join the Family so I can get to know you.
Tell me your story. If you have videos, share your videos with me. One guy sends me so much that I hardly have time to go through it all, but I try. I try to go through it. So get in there and join us, and keep coming along for the ride with me in my Daily Vlogs playlist.