It's October 2nd, 2026. I'm Jerry Banfield. All I do is content creation full time. I have a few hundred thousand dollars in debt. I'm a single dad, 42 years old, looking for my second wife. And this is my real, raw, authentic human experience, which I hope you'll enjoy if you feel like you're a little different and you wish somebody would just tell the truth.
I've got an idea today. I've got an idea for a product I can sell that might single-handedly pay off the debt. Because nobody's bought a call. I've been selling, or trying to sell, these calls, and nobody's bought a call, and it's been depressing. But you know what? That's okay. Because I always have another idea. I don't give up. I will not give up. I will not give in. I'm going to keep borrowing money, whatever I've got to do to keep this house, with its front wall holding the 25 or 30 books I've written and all the YouTube videos. Whatever I've got to do to keep this house, to keep this way of life, and to show you by example.
I got into this debt on purpose
Actually, the coolest thought I had today was that I got into this $220,000 in debt on purpose. That's right. You heard that correctly. On some level, I got into this debt on purpose. Because I'm going to show you from the inside, in real time, I'm going to document how I get out of it. And that will be the best way I can help. Because I'm not that interested in somebody who's got a whole bunch of money and who's just telling me how to get out of debt. Like, were you ever in debt? Do you really understand my experience? Or are you just making money selling me stuff?
I know that sounds crazy to some of you, but I could say the same thing about alcoholism. I'm sober 12 and a half years in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'm fully sober: no alcohol, no drugs, no marijuana, no medications. I don't even take any supplements. My body is fantastically healthy. I'm so grateful I got into alcoholism so I could spend the rest of my life showing people how I got out by being sober in Alcoholics Anonymous. But I'm not just a drone that goes along like some of the people in AA do. I love AA, but at the same time, it can get a little culty and a little bit "just do what your sponsor says." Your sponsor's gone? No, I don't play that. So I'm so happy I got into alcoholism, and I have the same feeling about my debt, because the best way to teach is to get in the position yourself and show the way out, which I'm going to do in brilliant fashion with debt.
Now, how many of you who had $90,000 in credit card debt would think the same way? Well, what I want to teach is to share my thinking, because it's the thinking, it's the feeling, the emotions, the beliefs, the skills, and putting all of that together. That's what makes amazing things possible. I've been in debt since I was 18. It's ranged between student loans and car payments and houses and, most recently, business loans and credit cards. When I'm out of debt, I'm going to be so happy to show how I did it, how I never missed a payment in 24 years, and then lead by example, the same way I've shown this is how I got sober and I've helped so many people get sober.
I have been where you've been
I also used to be a big fat ass. I used to be a big fat ass. And now I show people what I did to get out of that. Number one, I stopped drinking and poisoning my body. That's the first thing I did. Then the next thing: I took inventory of everything I was eating and realized I was eating a bunch of junk. Step three, I stopped eating junk and started eating the absolute healthiest, most nutritional foods I could, and I crushed any opposition. I crushed any stories. I don't care if my mind says I like steak. Screw you. I don't care if my mind says I like steak. You don't like steak anymore. I love cheese? You don't like cheese anymore. I reprogrammed myself.
So when I see someone who's an alcoholic, who's overweight, I can say, I have been where you've been and this is where I am now. And if you want what I have now, I can tell you what I did and what I still do. You'd think there'd be some overweight alcoholic out there who'd schedule a call with me. Or just go to an AA meeting and read the book How Not to Die by Dr. Michael Greger. You read the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and How Not to Die. I followed the instructions in both of those and, in my experience, it worked for both things.
So for getting out of debt, I am excited to make a spectacular story of how I got out of debt. And therefore, I say thank you for $220,000 in debt. I applied to Caleb Hammer's Financial Audit yesterday. And who knows, that could give me a chance single-handedly right there. Or maybe I've got a product that I'm working on that will be awesome, something I've never seen anybody do quite like this.
Coming down after VidSummit
Now, here's what's interesting, though. You might notice that I'm very up right now, right? I felt so bad earlier today. I was on the plane flying back from Dallas. I was at VidSummit 2026. In my last couple of vlogs, I said, one, I spent $2,000 to be lonely at VidSummit. I talked about that and how I was feeling, and I said, I'm not going to be lonely. I was in such a down mood. And then I met Mark Manson the next day and went to a bunch of great talks. Jordan Matter, is that the dude's name? I saw a bunch of great talks at VidSummit and got all hyped up. And then I kind of went into dysphoria today. I'm like, damn it. Do I need to start another YouTube channel? Do I need to change my YouTube strategy? Is there something better I could be doing?
What I've noticed is that if you want to make real change, you often need to go through the dysphoria, the dark night of the soul. It doesn't have to be that dark. It can just be, everything's screwed. I thought about titling this "I'm 42 and I've lost everything," but maybe we'll save that for a later vlog, because I haven't lost everything. I've got my health. I've got relationships. I've got my kids. I have a bright future. Most futures ahead of me are fantastically bright, and I'm really excited about that.
Because the last thing, the very last thing, is getting rid of this debt. As soon as this debt's gone, I've officially conquered life. I've conquered life. I've conquered addiction, being overweight. I've had a family. I've been through divorce. Once I start printing money, that's all I need to do: print money. And my mind tends to do really well when I'm obsessed super hard about one thing that I can actually do something about. I can't do much about dating directly. I can take indirect approaches, or I could just go start talking to women, but I realized, let's knock out the cash flow first. Then once the cash flow is handled, I can put more time, if I want to, into talking to women and dating. But for now, we're going to forget about dating. Just get that money in there. And maybe my YouTube will just attract a woman directly.
"I just suck at YouTube"
But I was down earlier, and I tried to just think and be present and go through the thoughts. And I was like, man, I just suck at YouTube. I suck. It doesn't matter what I do. I've had several videos with a million views, but my mind's like, it doesn't matter what I do on YouTube, I'm never going to get another video with a million views. I might as well just grind out whatever, because I know no matter how hard I try, I'm not going to make a banger. All my videos are just going to get a couple thousand views and that's going to be it. So just grind out as many as you can. That's kind of how I was thinking on the plane.
And yet I had a really nice morning this morning. Oh, and I filmed a vlog about the Netflix party, so I don't have to tell you about it here. Watch that one. In it I also talk about applying to be on Caleb Hammer's Financial Audit. That Netflix party was so awesome. That was the most lit thing I've been to in my life. That was the type of thing you just have to experience. I don't think I said "type shit" correctly, but it was so fun. And maybe I was coming down from that.
Salad Station in Dallas
I went to this place today for food. You want food? I went to this place that was so good today. What was it called? I'll make sure to get it right. It was called Salad Station, off North MacArthur Boulevard in Dallas, and it was so good. It was just a big restaurant salad bar, a whole restaurant dedicated to a salad bar. How awesome is that? That's just perfect. I went in there and they chopped the salad up and tossed it too. I haven't had my salad tossed in a minute. And it was so nice. It was all chopped up. I was like, damn, this is nice. I don't have big pieces of lettuce falling out of my mouth. The chewing's basically been done. I put all kinds of plant foods in there: beans, garlic, multiple types of beans. I did get the chipotle ranch dressing. That stuff was so good.
Then I took a nice leisurely drive to the airport. Since I got an electric car, I only used half the charge the whole week, and that was awesome. So I didn't have to even plug it in. They just charge it for you. I went to the Dallas airport and there was this woman complaining like, oh, this airport's always like this, it's terrible. I'm like, lady, what is wrong with this airport? The planes are landing and taking off. There's food to eat. You're safe. What do you expect? It's an airport. The planes land. It's amazing. You're missing it. Who thought to put all this together, and it all works pretty well most of the time, most days? All these people coming from all over the world in here, landing and taking off. It's great people watching. Ashley Cummings reminded me of that in a voice memo she sent. There's people watching. There's people from all over the world. And I'm like, why do you have to complain? This is an amazing thing, this airport.
That's what some of us need. We just need to be able to see our lives with a fresh perspective again. Like, damn, this is so cool. All these planes from all over the world land and take off and they hardly ever crash, and people are all just here, and somehow it all works together. And somebody actually thought of this. Somebody is actually in charge of making sure it all runs. Wow. You should be awestruck going to the airport. You should be awestruck. I can barely comprehend how all this works. All the food comes in, all the people come to work and slave away for probably not that great a wage to make sure that when I'm hungry, I have something to eat while I'm locked in past security.
I like the security people, the TSA people who are doing extra on their job. This one dude, I should have said something, but when I was in Tampa on Monday, this guy was on top of his job. I've never seen somebody running the security screening who had it together like this dude. He was on it. He's like, all right, one at a time in here, push the barrier. He's telling everyone exactly what to do. It was so organized, it all made sense. I was like, damn, somebody needs to promote this guy and make him a manager. It was awesome. So it was funny, this woman complaining helped me see all the magic in the airport. I'm like, damn, this is so cool. To look at the airport as if you were a kid.
Crying in the Atlanta airport
I'll share this memory I had from the Atlanta airport. It's amazing how we forget how we used to think. And we get this dumb idea that we're just fixed personalities. Like, well, this is just how I am. No. At one point you didn't suck. At one point you were awesome. And I hope you still are. That capacity's in there.
When I was a kid, we went to lots of airports because my mom was in the military. So we ended up flying around the world and living around the world. In 2022 I went to the Atlanta airport to help my mom move. I flew from Tampa to Atlanta and Atlanta to the little airport near where my mom lives. And I was on the underground train they have at the Atlanta airport that moves you around among all the terminals. I had this flashback to being, what, six years old or something like that? I had this flashback to my dad and my mom, how as a kid all I had to do was follow them. I didn't have to figure out what gate it was and make sure I made the plane on time. All I had to do was follow them. And I remembered that feeling, that feeling that everything is taken care of, that feeling that my dad and my mom have everything figured out and all I have to do is do what they tell me to do. My God, I started crying in the middle of the Atlanta airport, remembering that feeling of just being totally taken care of. It nearly made me speechless. That feeling really is still there. Some people attribute that feeling now to God or a specific religious figure, but really the truth is we're still totally taken care of. It's just a lot more people doing the taking care of.
Jumping into the crowd
With my debt, I realize that you all are capable of totally taking care of me, that I could have zero debt and it's completely up to you. It's up to you. Whether this works out or not, I'm taking the risk, but it's up to you whether it works out. I'm metaphorically jumping into the crowd, and we'll see if I fall on the floor and you all want me to take the hard path, or whether y'all are going to catch me. I imagine that y'all are going to catch me, and I'm going to do whatever it takes to encourage you to catch me. And what's nice is it doesn't matter how many people don't participate. It only matters how many people do show up, in whatever way. And I'll do what it takes for that. My intention is that this mindset and this thinking will rub off on you.
Oh, you haven't rubbed off on anybody lately, have you? Ow. No. And perhaps one day that will change. Some amazing woman will just come into my life and really want to be with me. My matchmaker said she submitted another match for planning. I haven't gotten anything yet, but I'm interested to see how that next date goes. My approach is just, look, I'm going to show up and hang out with this woman. Probably we're never going to see each other again. And it's completely on her if she wants to see me again. I'm not going to do anything. If you want to see me again, that's up to you. She can ask for my number. She can text me. She can ask me on another date. I'm done. I'm done chasing. I'm done leading. I'm done trying to push a horse into the water so that it'll drink.
If a woman wants me, you're going to have to do everything. You're going to have to take the lead. Because today, with dating, me trying to take the lead has not worked once. The kind of woman who does want me to chase her, I don't want. I don't want the kind of woman who thinks that I should be leading the effort in this day and age, with what I have to offer. Women have been so empowered by our society to the point where some would argue, like Owen Cook, that it's a matriarchy now, and women want to choose the guys they want to be with. So I'm always encouraging ladies. Most of the relationships I know were started by women. Most of the guys I know in relationships, the woman started their relationship: the woman asked for the relationship, the woman made the initial move on the man, the woman came up and approached him and gave him her phone number, sometimes literally chasing a dude down, or just deciding "I want a boyfriend," walking up to a guy in the bar, instant boyfriend. To me, as dudes, we just need to try and put ourselves in a position to be chosen today. Peacocking or whatever.
Reading Darrel's book and feeling like an idiot
So I was in a bad mood for a good bit of the day. I was reading Derral Eves' book. A lot of times reading about YouTube and learning makes me feel like an idiot, which someone, I'm sure, would be happy to affirm. "Yeah, he's finally listening to me. I told you you're an idiot. Told you." Because Darrel lays it out in his book, and it's so simple. All you have to do is package your stuff properly: thumbnail, title, and retention. It's just so easy. And I've got all these plaques for all these channels, and I feel like a dummy if I can't do what he's doing. "Just pay for Channel Jumpstart if you're not getting the results you want."
And then my mind goes, survivorship bias. Darrel's always talking about all these people who have graduated his Channel Jumpstart program and went on to be so amazing, and I believe that, but it's also survivorship bias. Darrel, tell me about all those YouTubers who paid for your program and went nowhere. I want to know how many of those there are. How many people spent thousands of dollars on Channel Jumpstart and don't do YouTube at all anymore? Probably there's way more of them. And Darrel's a great guy. I love the VidSummit conference. I'm not trying to talk trash about Darrel. I'm just saying I read something like that and it makes me feel dumb. I'm like, I don't even know how to do YouTube, man. How do I not know how to do YouTube after I've done 10,000 videos? And then it puts my mind into dysphoria and it starts circling the drain. Maybe I should just quit again. Maybe there's something else I should do. I suck. A couple thousand views a video. Maybe if I was in Darrel's program I could get tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of views per video, with a bunch of people who don't even want to buy anything from me, a bunch of crypto people who won't buy my meme coin, a bunch of people watching on the internet who don't want to pay for calls.
I'm willing to change that. I'm willing to change. Let's get rid of that cough right now. I'm willing to change because I love y'all, and maybe I shouldn't have been talking that trash, but I'm doing comedy. I'm trying to entertain you and make things fun, and I love each of you. That's the kind of guy I am.
A product to heal my own debt
I'll put my strip club outfit up on the wall. I'll put up the "the queen is now" shirt, the one I wore when I met the queen, and also the VidSummit shirt, so we might have to move things up even higher. I'm going to just put all of it up there. And I know some of you have a bunch of money and you'd love to support me, but you're not going to pay for a call. I've got that by now. You would buy something that you could have physically, that would be like a souvenir you could hang up in your house, or that you could look at and be like, look, I got that shirt he wore to meet the queen.
So I'm thinking of a product that I'm going to launch. Physician, heal thyself. I'm not a physician, but I'm in debt, so I'm going to make a product that I'm going to use on myself to heal my debt, and then I'm going to sell it. I'm going to put together the product for me, and this is going to be the perfect thing. I'm going to sell the best get-out-of-debt product, or comeback kit, or something like that. I'm going to make a nice product that's for myself first.
It'll be perfect for you, or not all of you, but those of you who can identify with me. I'm also wondering who watches this channel, because Darrel's talking in his book about how you've got to know your audience. I really don't know y'all. I could look in the analytics and look at my audience, and I can see there's 96 percent dudes watching up in here. Y'all gonna make me lose my mind up in here. Y'all gonna make me go all out up in here. Y'all gonna make me act a fool up in here. Y'all gonna make me lose my cool up in here. Now I wonder how that'll do on my retention graph.
Who actually watches this channel
It says 74 percent of my audience is from the United States. I wonder if Darrel could have guessed that correctly. 5.7 percent from Canada, 4.9 percent from the United Kingdom, 1.8 percent from Australia. If I look at individual videos, that gives me a further breakdown, with a little more or a little less from the U.S. And if you look at age and gender, it's 96 percent dudes, 3.8 percent women, so same as usual. I've got all dudes watching, and most of the dudes are 35 to 44 years old, which I guess makes sense because you're watching somebody in your demographic. There are some dudes watching who are a little younger, but there are more dudes who are older. I guess y'all are just fine with me swearing more. And although I love the women who swear, I can swear more.
And if I'm talking to guys, I know I should be challenging you, because in my experience men often need to be challenged, and women often need to be supported more. Which is why sometimes when I go to AA meetings and challenge people and it's just men, the dudes don't get upset. But if I challenge the meeting and there are women in there, the guys are ready to fight. You might even find an alcoholic or two. So if most of y'all are dudes, then I should be challenging you all. I should be challenging your beliefs, challenging the things you think, confronting you, talking trash, being as ridiculous as possible. And if there are a lot of women, I might need to speak differently.
Please hit me again
So I was reading Darrel's book and I was feeling like a dummy. I'm like, I'm an idiot. Why have I done this for so long? And I'm just like Tyler Durden in Fight Club. "Please hit me again. Let us use the place, Lou." And Lou's just beating the hell out of him, and he's like, "I'm still not getting it. I got it. Ah, I lost it." That's what I feel like. I got it. Ah, I lost it. I'm on the plane like, man, I'm screwed. This is not going to work, man.
So I was thinking, oh, don't distract yourself. But sometimes you should distract yourself when you're in a bad mood. So I put on YouTube. What did I watch? I watched Owen Cook, one of his videos about business and making money. And I listened to one of Bobby O's videos about ICP. I'm like, eh. When I was drinking the ICP Kool-Aid and I was in the ICP cult, I wasn't being as critical. Now I'm like, eh, half the time you're right, half the time you're wrong. There are a lot of assumptions in there that break down pretty easily. But then I watched Owen Cook's video and I'm like, all right, now I'm feeling something. And because I'm feeling something, I feel a little better. And then I start getting ideas, like, you just need a product to sell. You just need some cash flow. You just need to make some money. And I'm like, you're right, Owen. I do need to make some money. I need to get some cash flow in here.
I'm so sick and tired of this. I've got a few thousand coming in right now. I had zero cash flow in March, and now I've got several thousand a month coming in: about a thousand a month from YouTube and about a thousand a month from MaxFi. And if y'all schedule some calls with me, then there'll be more coming in. But you know what? I'm going to put a bunch of stuff up there. I was selling more when I had more things to sell. The calls experiment has been a flop again, the second time I've done this this year. So don't let me do it a third time.
I was watching a podcast earlier, and their thumbnail said "Jerry's got a gun." I'm like, all right, that's pretty good. They must be talking about me going to Texas Gun Experience. I was enjoying watching that for a while, and I appreciate them shouting me out. Barry Janfield's video also just came out, and the title is "Banfield versus Hammer: Jerry Banfield applied for Caleb Hammer's Financial Audit." I can tell he wants Jerry to push up on it, and I'm all in on it.
Getting in the shitter to find inspiration
I started watching Owen and I started to feel better. And this is what I try to be: someone you can watch and feel better, because if you feel better, then you're going to think better. But at the same time, sometimes you need to get in the shitter mentally to get some inspiration. Because when I got in the shitter, I started to open my mind. I'm like, all right, forget it. I surrender. What do I need to do? Okay, just tell me what to do. What do I need to sell? What do I need to offer? Just give me that money. I want several hundred thousand to pay off all my debt, where I could afford to go to Mons Venus and get a lap dance every day if I felt like it.
So I got out of the airport and I was like, Mons Venus is, I'm in Tampa, I looked at the GPS, 15 minutes with traffic. I'm like, what? I don't want a lap dance that much right now. I just want some dinner. All right. I just want some dinner. I don't need a lap dance right now. So I drove home, ate some Larabars, honey and almond, almond butter, and chocolate with cocoa nibs, and I'm like, all right, let's get back here and film this video.
I'm going to not make these so long now that I'm back at home, because I can film some videos on my other channel. And maybe if I just keep doing what I'm doing, everything's going to go fine. Because sometimes everything is in position and you just need to keep going. I think this channel's in a good position right now. Right now it's at 8,700 watch hours, 54 percent more than in the previous 28 days, and the watch hours are heading toward all-time highs, with $982 in revenue, mostly from super chats. Maybe I'll get out and live stream again. I need to figure out the right workflow, because I get distracted as hell doing live streams. Maybe I should just do hour-long Q&As and limit them. The vlogs tend to be more focused. The live streams really get all over the place, but live streams are nice to build community and get feedback and talk to people in real time. So I'm going to work on it.
The get-out-of-debt kit
I've got to get a product set up for myself and test it on myself. I'll probably put an email list out so you can keep up with new products. And then it'll land in the Gmail promotions folder and you won't find it. But I'll do the work to get you on my email list, so then it's in the promotions folder and you don't see it. That's great, isn't it?
I also started reading Seth Godin's Purple Cow book, because Owen Cook was mentioning it. I'm like, I just blew $10 on this. Not a big deal, but I'm learning, I'm building, I'm growing, and I'm excited to see what happens. I'm so curious, because there are just so many balls in the air. Now I'm jumping. There are two more balls in the air. There are so many things that could happen in my life, so many cool opportunities. Some millionaire could die and leave instructions: "In my last will and testament, I want Jerry Banfield to get out of debt, so I'm going to leave Jerry Banfield a quarter million." Some millionaire could die and leave me a quarter million. That's possible. I don't know how likely that is, but it's possible.
If you want to have an amazing life, you've got to be able to see more possibilities. That's what my content is about: seeing more possibilities. And that'll probably be a part of my debt kit. Something like, I want you to write down a hundred different ways your debt could be paid off, to start spawning these possibilities. I'm thinking the get-out-of-debt kit could be the best money you'd ever spend if you're in debt. And then I'd get out of debt off selling my get-out-of-debt kit. But even if 10 percent of people actually got out of debt from my debt kit, imagine how much good that would do.
All right. I think I'm good. That's enough. I think there's a sweet spot with these. An hour is kind of too long. Ten or twenty minutes is a little too short. Maybe 30 to 40 minutes is the sweet spot, right? I don't need to go on about my day for longer than that, especially when I'm home. So I'll see y'all tomorrow. Watch all the other vlogs in my Daily Vlogs playlist. Say it with some enthusiasm. Get on all my channels. Watch all my stuff. Just leave your computer and have this on as background. Put me on the TV. Put the Jerry Banfield playlist on your TV and just roll through all of them. Just have me in the background. "Now, Jerry, I can't have people over while you're playing, talking like this." Well, it depends on what kind of people. You could have some cool people over with me talking like this. Maybe you couldn't have some people with sticks up their asses over with me talking like this. No, I understand. All right. That's it. See y'all tomorrow. Hopefully. Maybe. Probably not. Ah, forget it.