Taking inventory and finding the right work
I'm Jerry Banfield, it's November 2nd, 2026, and this is my daily vlog. In yesterday's video, called "I Made 5,018 Videos, 1,518 Videos in 8 Months, Why Am I Still Struggling?", the goal was to take inventory of my skills and figure out some new things I could offer, which I have done. What I hope I can share here that will be helpful is the idea that if you will open your thinking up and see what's possible for you, there could be some incredible things that come your way. That's exactly what I'm doing right now. And there are only 15 likes on that video for some reason.
What I've been thinking about a lot today is: what is the right work for me to be doing? A lot of us are locked into this employee mindset, even business owners like me, that says as long as I'm grinding, as long as I'm doing something, I must be accomplishing something and going in the right direction. But especially for me, I can work all day and not hardly create any value or make any money out of it. So what I've been really locked in on in the last 24 hours is this: I need to think about what the right work is for me to do. I need to put myself in a position where I really stand out and offer things that almost nobody offers, things people might not even realize are something I would be able to do. And then I need to publish those things and make them available as soon as possible.
A five-day immersion program in St. Pete
So I went back and forth with Gemini and with Claude yesterday, and they gave me some awesome ideas. The first one I'm going to offer is a five-day immersion program where you can come stay with me Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday night in St. Pete, Florida. It's all inclusive: you come stay with me, meals included, and then we work on whatever you need to work on that I can help with. For example, if you want to build an entire business out like I have at jerrybanfield.com, we could get that done in the time you stay with me. I know how to do all of this already. All of it could be built out in a few days. Maybe you want your own platform with your own products, like all the ones I have built out, including this game, Jerry Banfield 3D, that I've been grinding on and that keeps getting better and better. My Jerry Banfield Games has it up: you want a game made with AI, we get you a working prototype done.
Do you want a business and life reset? I'm ultra healthy. I'm 12 and a half years sober. I eat a whole plant-based diet. I don't drink, don't smoke, and don't hardly do anything besides raise my kids, do things like yoga, running, massage and tennis, and get full nights of sleep. I went deeper on how I stay well in Mind-Body Health: Why I Stay Well and How I Heal. So for some of you who want a living example of what it's like to live an ultra healthy life, staying with me for five days and four nights could be: here is exactly what it looks like. You get full immersion into my world. I've got this up on my website now at jerrybanfield.com/in.
What I'm looking at is: what is the easiest thing for me to do to just put something out where there's huge potential? If you look at your life that way, you're constantly putting the equivalent of lottery tickets out into the world. All right, let me see if this works. Let me see if that works. And what's so nice with my business at jerrybanfield.com is that I'm going to just keep building this store deeper and deeper. At the same time, I have AI working on building print-on-demand shirts.
Six Founding 50 shirts sold and what's next for the store
Right now I'm grateful six orders have come in so far for the Jerry Banfield 2026 Comeback Tour Founding 50 shirt. Six people have bought these already and there are 44 spots left before the end of November. What you get by buying one is a shirt plus your name on the shirt. Barry Janfield was the first purchase. Zenith got the first founder's one and is also on the front. Oily Trash Movies, who I talked to on Zoom yesterday or today, which was awesome, is on the front of the shirt also. Then Timothy Monsters and my friend Lindsay Dorio round out the first six names on there. This is something I was able to quickly and easily build out and test on my website, and then we've got some nice actual sales on it. You can see the comeback tour shirts have already sold $714 on my website. Somebody bought a one-on-one call, and those are now up to $745. If you want something like this built for yourself and your business, this is something we could do and have everything built in five days. You'd probably want to bring your laptop, and we'd get Claude Code installed directly on the computer, build all of that out, and you'd go home and just talk to the AI to maintain it and upgrade it.
I'm also using Claude right now to build out the next thing, because I realize not all of you want to pay $79 for a shirt. Those are special shirts that you can have your name on. What I'm going to do in the future is have a bunch of cheaper shirts on my website. I'm going to put all my different shirt ideas on there. I'm going to have cups. I'm going to have all kinds of merchandise, and I'll have all of it in the store. Then I'll be able to show off each of those different shirts, list all of them for sale, and just test that out. I've also realized I could start an AI web design agency if I wanted to.
I'm much more than a YouTuber, and income is the metric
But the goal with my thinking, and I've been taking a lot of time to think, is this: I want to make serious money with what I do. Step one is to stop looking at my identity as a YouTuber. I'm much more than a YouTuber. One thing I do is YouTube, but I also research crypto. I'm having a call on dating tomorrow. I've written 35 books. I've made 350 songs. I'm making an AI game right now, and I'll do a new version of that. I've done stand-up comedy. I'm a teacher; I've taught all kinds of people all over the world. I'm an entrepreneur; I build businesses. I'm a single dad. I play tennis. I play video games. I do yoga. I have a master's in criminology. I'm a guy who is not just one-dimensional, and it's time to give myself the chance to make money in a way that's not just one-dimensional either. Because the YouTube path is get bigger and more all the time. I want where I'm at today to be enough, so that I could just keep doing videos like this every day and have the potential to make serious money on sales.
On my Jerry Banfield channel I've made a little over $1,000 in ad revenue on YouTube. What's so cool is that now, with my business dashboard, I can look at exactly how much money I've made in the last month too. If you go back to October 2nd, you can see I made $2,500 on my website. That's a little over $3,500 with YouTube at $1,400, so close to $4,000 in October, the month I documented in Jerry Banfield October 2026 Vlogs: Debt, Dating and Reviews, plus some other sources of income like crypto sponsorships that don't go through there. That's a long way from the first order I celebrated in My Website's First Sale After 15 Years of Middlemen. So I'm grateful. I'm feeling very positive about my finances, but it feels weird. It's felt weird today because I've taken a lot of time to think. I actually played Detroit: Become Human, the game sitting there on my PS5. I took a yoga class. I took a walk. Today what I needed to do was think properly. Today I needed to be the CEO of the company and ask: what should Jerry Banfield be doing? Where are Jerry Banfield's highest offerings?
What's kind of sad or stupid with YouTube is that if you're just looking at being a YouTuber, then I always need more and more views all the time, and I judge my success by my analytics and whether enough people are watching. But a lot of the views on YouTube are worthless. If my last video is any indication, how is it that there are 16 likes on a video with a thousand views and 126 comments? Think about who's watching that video, with an 11-minute average watch time. Certainly some people are fans who are watching, but what is the intention of a lot of the people watching? Are a lot of the views potential buyers, or are these people just looking for some drama? Why are people watching? When I gave YouTube 74 days to make $30,000 in Everyone Told Me to Get a Job. I Gave YouTube 74 Days to Make $30,000., I was still measuring myself by views. For me, my bottom-line metric needs to be income. What is actually making money? If that's the bottom-line metric, then I can optimize from there.
What I've been doing, thinking of myself as a YouTuber, is: whatever's getting views, it doesn't matter if people like it. There are 126 comments and I've read zero of them. I have the AI summarize them and ask it to remove the critical feedback. So I asked Studio to summarize. When you're looking at things purely from the point of view of getting views and watch time, you have to ask: do I need watch time from people who are never going to buy anything from me? No. That doesn't matter. The watch time that matters is whether there is one high-net-worth individual watching who loves what I do, wants what I have, and is willing to pay for it. What's cool is I've put all this effort into doing all these videos in the last month, which is awesome, and I've got $2,500 in sales on my website. But one person who stays with me for five days puts that up to $10,000. Yes, during those five days I can't hardly do anything else besides hang out with them. But then the other 25 days of the month, that's full-time income.
So right now I'm just obsessing over what I need to do to crank my income up. Cranking the income up is not just about me making money either. It's about offering someone an experience that could dramatically change their whole life. That's worth $7,500. Coming to stay with me for five days and four nights could dramatically change somebody's life. For example, picture somebody who's had an idea for a book their entire life and never written it. They decide, okay, I'm going to drop this $7,500 with Jerry Banfield and finish that entire book from start to finish while I'm there with him.
One person a month could change everything
That's priceless. I know at least one guy locally who could afford to pay for that, but he's dragging his feet on getting started. Many, many people have interesting life stories and plenty of money and drag their feet on getting started because they don't know how to do the whole process or aren't sure how to go about all of it. Even if I had one person a month come stay with me, that would work. I had a friend come stay with me a few years ago. And you don't have to stay with me either; you can get an Airbnb or a hotel room. This friend actually got an Airbnb a couple of blocks from my house, and we filmed an entire video course from start to finish. In just five days we filmed 40-plus videos. I'd just show up and we'd knock out 10 or 15 videos at once, then go have lunch or go to the beach. We went to the beach and shot photos. So for people who are very busy and have things they want to accomplish but feel like they don't make the time, which is exactly what I wrote about in Never Say You're Busy Again, I've got a container for that now.
What's cool is my videos and my authenticity put me in a position where it can feel like: okay, I know this guy well enough that I want to go stay with him. I see he's got 35 books published, so he knows how to do this. He did 1,519 videos in 2026, so it's obvious he can film a video. And it can be customized. If you're thinking about this, you could just schedule a one-on-one call to discuss your ideas. If you wanted to come do a five-day live streaming marathon and do a bunch of live streams with me on my different channels, that's something we could do too. Or if you wanted to make an AI game from scratch and then be able to continue developing it yourself or sell it, I can make a whole game with you in five days. Right now I've got six or seven games on my website.
Monday is sprint day for Claude
But it feels weird. I feel like I'm not doing anything, because what have I done today? I got up, took a walk, thought a lot, talked to the AI a little bit, and had Claude running. I have three different Claude instances running on my computer right now, and two of them just finished. On Claude you have these weekly usage resets, so Monday is the sprint day for Claude. Whatever you want to build out, go super hard on that. I've used 77 percent of my Fable usage, and it resets in about three hours. So let's grind. We're going to grind Fable hard on everything before the usage reset.
I've got a bunch of other ideas too, things I can offer or other things I can do. I've gotten very open-minded in the last few days. If I could find some remote job that wasn't too hard, I'd do that. I'm going to do what it takes to make some money and just relax. But the top level of thinking is the primary thing. So I went to yoga and I thought. I came home and had a nice big lunch and listened to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Then I had a call, and I actually played some Detroit: Become Human for a while. Then I sat around, talked to the AI, thought some more, and then got to work and launched this entire landing page on my website. It's a different rhythm from the one I showed in A Day in My Life: Yoga, Tennis, AA Meetings and ICP Crypto, because today the thinking was the work.
A lot of us go through our lives so fast and grind so hard that we don't stop to think about what we should be working on. To me that's one of the hardest parts of doing what I'm doing: I don't know what to do. I need to take some time to just think about the big picture and stop doing grunt work.
This is what's so amazing. I talked this through with the AI and thought about it, and I built this entire thing. I'm a genius with AI at this point. The things I can do, like building my own game and building my own entire business out. I built this entire page, well, the AI did, but I thought about it, I researched it, I went back and forth, and this entire landing page is built out. In the worst-case scenario nobody buys it. So what? This took me an hour. It took me an hour to think about it, set it all up and put it out there. This is just a lottery ticket at this point. If nobody buys it, so what? I'm already setting up more and more. I've already got more plans down the road. Maybe I can sell a bunch of cheaper shirts. I'm going to have several more services coming right after this that I'll put on my website too.
So I'm grateful. I don't know exactly how all of this is going to work out financially, but I feel this massive power at my fingertips. You have the brain to process this. You have the AI tools to process it, to do the research, and to execute the details. And you have the space. I have months where I don't have to make any more money, where I'm already making enough. I have the space to set myself up for success, and for that I'm very grateful.
The woman in South Africa and a seven-hour time difference
I was supposed to talk with a woman from South Africa today, but I don't know if she fell asleep or something. It's kind of sad, because we were supposed to have a call. She's seven hours ahead of me now, so for most of the day we can't talk because one or the other of us is sleeping. She did send me a nice picture today and a few pictures of what she did, and we exchanged some messages, and I'm really grateful for being able to talk to her. I also want to build a business where I could afford to go spend time anywhere in the world and still do my work from anywhere. I'm grateful I've thrown away the local business idea. We don't need to do that. My superpowers are doing stuff online, but I do want to have things in person that people can enjoy.
I'm also really lasered in today on this: it doesn't matter what any critics or trolls think. Everybody's opinion who is not here, that's not my business. If you're spending money on my website, if you're paying to talk to me, I care what you think. I'm interested to get to know you. You're invested in my success. I care what you think. I'm grateful for the people who are watching and helping get more views on my YouTube videos. But if anyone who is not supporting doesn't agree, anything anybody has to say or react, it's none of my business. I don't care. If anything, the people who are the most noisy are helping me get discovered more. And what's funny is that sometimes somebody who thinks I'm crazy will attract someone who thinks I'm brilliant, because there's a very small line between genius and insanity, and I'm definitely walking it. I realize that. But how cool would it be if someone found me on some hater's channel, started watching my videos, and then dropped $7,500 for five days with me and got an entire book or video course or AI platform built out? Or just wanted to see what an ultra healthy sober life looks like? Or watched enough of my videos to say, okay, I want to see what this guy's deal is for real, in person. I'm so interested to see what works out at this point.
Wearing the world like a loose garment
Last week was pretty tough emotionally; I was feeling kind of hopeless. Now I have this kind of apathy toward it: if it doesn't work out, so what? I'll just keep trying. I'll do my best with where I'm at. I'd like to stay in the house I'm in, and if I can't, that's fine; I'll stay somewhere else. I'd like to meet the woman in South Africa, and I might go see her in two or three weeks or so, depending on how the elections go there. I'd love for that to happen. But if it doesn't work out, I'll have other plans after that. I'll open my dating back up, and I'm just going to keep making an effort. Wearing the world like a loose garment feels better today, the same way it did in Ten Days After Meeting Her: Slowing Down, Trusting God, and Coming Back to Life. I'm not so attached. I am very much aiming to make things go the way I'm interested in them going. I'd like to make $15,000 to $20,000 a month doing work that's extremely valuable for people in exchange for that money, and then have the money to keep this house and go travel for half the year if I felt like it.
If there is sufficient motivation, will I fly to South Africa to get laid? Absolutely. My matchmaking, the night at Mons Venus and all the money I spent on dating apps have made it very clear that I'm willing to do what it takes to find a woman who's really into me and who I'm really into. That is very special. And I accept that I'm a bit of an anomaly. I'm not like most guys. I truly am pretty different. While that is going to put off a lot of women, there's a very small number of women who will have to have me, which is the whole point of You Can Be Terrible at Dating and Still Find Love. Out of those women, I'm sad about the woman from South Africa. I don't know if she fell asleep tonight or something, but it is a bit of a concern. You said you'd be available in an hour and then disappeared. What happened? That's a little bit of a concern. I was a little sad for a while, but then I stepped up and did my work. These bills aren't going to pay themselves.
And I'm glad I didn't just grind out YouTube videos today. At this point I've concluded it's pointless for me to try to grind out six YouTube videos a day. It doesn't matter how many videos I make each day. I need to make the right videos, and the right videos need to make money. It doesn't matter how many views I get, especially from reactions or trolls or haters. I don't understand why people watch videos they don't think are really helping them.
Only listening to what helps or entertains
All I want to do is make money, and even that isn't quite it, because I don't want to just make money. All I listen to are things that are really helping me or that are very entertaining, like stand-up comedy or a good book. Maybe I am very entertaining for some of you. For those of you, imagine having the full experience for five days and four nights. Boy, am I looking forward to getting that notification. And there are meme coin discounts if you pay with JBBJ, although the price could go up so much that it might get a little prohibitive. There is somebody holding $29,000 worth of JBBJ, which they probably bought for a few hundred dollars, so they could essentially come get a five-night trip with me for free. That's obviously not financial advice.
I'm grateful I got to work and did my work today. Often when I'm a little sad, like about not hearing from the woman from South Africa, it's: all right, you've got an hour until your kids get here, film your video and get your landing page set up. The one thing these vlogs motivate me to do is think about what I'm going to have to say in them. I wanted to have a brand new landing page and this brand new offer set up just in case somebody buys it, which is the same accountability I described in Life in St. Pete: Daily Vlogs With Jerry Banfield. This is certainly very reactable as well: now Jerry thinks somebody is going to pay $7,500 to stay with him. Just wait. I've got so many lottery tickets out there. I'm just excited to see what hits at this point.
Why I think the lottery is rigged and $150,000 is enough
I don't believe in playing the actual lottery, because I figure it's rigged. They probably pass out the winning scratch-offs to their friends, and all the dummies who buy them at the gas station or the grocery store are getting ripped off while the people close to the scratch-offs pass the winners out to their friends. Maybe not all of them, but I imagine there's some corruption that goes on with that. Then there are probably psychics looking at Powerball numbers, or quantum computers, or something. I even think things like Powerball are rigged. Obviously I have no proof of that, but my feeling is it's probably rigged. And even if you did win, that's too much money. The ideal amount of money to be happy, according to the happiness statistics, is about $100,000 to $150,000 a year. After that you tend to experience more stress and no additional happiness. So that's all I'm looking for: to make about $150,000 a year. I don't need any more than that, and as I argued in You're Richer Than You Think, most of us already have more than we count. I just want to pay all my bills, have a nice place to live, be flexible, and be able to be there for my kids.
My woman first, my kids second, and why
And yes, I saw the video about my kids. My kids are the second priority in my life. My woman is my top priority, because that's the main avenue. I'm like Neo in The Matrix: my woman is the main avenue through which I exchange love, and the key to making my next family. My two kids are the number one priority to my ex, and she is very reliable. If she wasn't, my kids would be my number one priority, but she is very reliable, so my kids are number two. That's the unfortunate reality of being a divorced dad: I'm the number two parent, which I explained in Single Dad: How I Co-Parent and Tell My Kids the Truth. But the freedom in it is that I want a relationship where my woman actually sticks around no matter what, and where I do my best to be the best I can for her every day. I'm sure I'm moving in that direction, and we'll see where this all ends up.
Complete and total annihilation, so YOLO
We know where this is all going eventually, right? Complete and total annihilation. The one thing that can help you relax in life is to realize the end destination for all of this is complete and total annihilation, so completely gone that it's as if none of this ever existed. As evidence, just tell me what you were doing a hundred years ago. I can remember a little bit, but how about a thousand years ago? Whatever you were doing then, you were very much still alive, but whatever you were doing is so far gone and annihilated that you have no memory of it. It's like it never happened. So am I even really here saying this right now? Yes. But at some point in the future, this will seem so far away that it will be like it never happened. So YOLO, right? I'm going to go for the life of my dreams and we'll see how that works out. If you want to let me know you're watching because you love and support these videos and find them inspiring, follow along on my Daily Vlogs playlist, and I can't wait to see who books the all-inclusive stay with me.