It is August 9th, 2026. I am Jerry Banfield, full-time YouTuber, and this is my vlog, a day in my life. I am going to try filming it outside the studio today, and I am going to try filming some more shorts out of the studio too. It gives it a little different feel, makes it more real and raw and human and authentic. I got a great night of sleep last night, which was really nice after I did not sleep at all the night before.
Is this really my worst business system yet?
What I am thinking about this morning is my business system. I know some podcast said something like, Jerry Banfield's worst business system yet. Like, is it really? I do YouTube videos. I get ad revenue from YouTube. I am grateful all my channels are growing. And then I send people to my website to join the community, where you can direct message me, you can comment, and you can post.
I have just put it in there today that I do these videos and I only put them on YouTube, because I used to put them on all the other platforms and it just feels like such a waste of time for me to be sitting there uploading videos to Instagram, to TikTok, to Facebook. I do not even put most of my videos on X. So I am going to make my videos available on Google Drive. If you want to upload my videos, I have thousands of videos. You can upload them to Instagram. You can edit them. You can put them on TikTok. I have never filed a copyright strike against anyone in 15 years.
So I am setting up my Skool so that you can make money off my content. You could put a video up on Instagram and then put your affiliate link to my Skool in that post's caption. Any of the sales you make, any of the followers you get, any of the ad revenue or anything else you get, you get to keep all of it. And you get 40% lifetime if anyone joins my Skool through you. I think that is a pretty good business system.
I know some people like Andrew Tate used a similar system to blow themselves up huge online. Now he has got all these pictures of fancy cars and his lifestyle and all that, and I do not have that. But I do have content that, if you enjoy watching it, you could post it and make money off it.
And then within my Skool, people are able to schedule one-on-one calls with me and ask me for a video request, like to make a video about something. I think that is a pretty good business system. But if anyone knows something better, join my Skool and message me or post what you think I could do better. Because I am not sure what else I could do better at this point. I am really good at making videos. I know how to do this. I have a system to upload all these videos.
Talking the whole saga out with Angela
I was talking with my friend last night. I went to Angela's house and I brought her some dinner. We played a little tennis and talked about dating. I told her about the whole saga with the queen. She asked and wanted to know everything. I showed her some of the messages. I played the last voice memo I sent. And then she said, how do you feel after telling me all this? I said, I feel pretty bad. I felt better before I told you about all this. She said, why?
I said I guess it is probably, first off, re-experiencing all of it. The first week with the queen was so fun and so amazing and so euphoric. And then it is just so sad after that. We had such a strong connection in person and it just fell apart over the phone, which sucks. To me, that is a good lesson. Minimize time on the phone going forward. Minimize time on the phone. Minimize texting, phone calls, voice memos, FaceTime. Especially in the beginning, minimize all of that, and spend real time with the real person instead. It is too easy early on for something new to fall apart over the phone. So that was a good learning opportunity.
But I also told her that I think the worst part is the narratives I have been telling. The narratives that it is sad, and that I do not know how long it will take to find another connection like that. I said, I guess if I told a story of, thank you, that was awesome, that was the most fun I have had dating all year, it gave me a glimpse into what is possible, that would be a different story entirely.
I showed Angela a picture. She said, wow, she is hot. I said, yeah, she is. She said, another woman like that will come along too. And I said yes, I do believe that. Then she asked, did you recognize the scarcity mindset in your voice memo, telling her, oh, I do not want to have to go find and do all the work to find another woman? And it is like, well, why not do it?
I asked her, after the last message she sent, do you think this means I should leave her alone? Angela said yeah. She said she seems clear, and if she ever changes her mind, that is up to her to reach out. Just leave her alone. She made it pretty clear at this point that she is not interested. Okay, I said, I will do that. And it was so nice talking all of that stuff out with her.
The call to action I have been leaving out of my shorts
Then we talked about a bunch of business stuff, and I talked about her and her business. She does fantastic locally, and she gets all these views on Instagram, but they do not hardly make any money directly. Occasionally there is a sponsorship or something, but she said, I feel like I am missing all the opportunities here. So I encouraged her, yeah, you want to have a call set up. You should have a paid one-on-one call with somebody who watches your video, and there should be a call to action in the video pointing to it.
And I realized my shorts ought to have a call to action in them too. I have been getting thousands of views a day on the shorts I have been uploading, but they do not have calls to action, because I have just been cranking out the shorts. So my shorts should end with something like, thanks for watching, go to my website and join the Family and you can direct message me. That is a very clear call to action, and I have just been leaving it off.
Then I left, I came home, I called my mom, and she was happy to hear from me. I was so tired, and I went to sleep. I laid in bed for like an hour.
This morning I am asking, is there any better business system? Because Angela was telling me about opportunities I could have locally. She said, you could host an event. I said, I already hosted an event. I already hosted an entire show locally six years ago. And I do not think that is what I do best. Being able to crank out videos like I do, and then having the community online, and having one-on-one calls with people, I am already specialized and really good at that. I would really need some serious help to be able to do local events and stuff, because often when we try to do things outside of what we usually do, it seems irrationally difficult, because you do not know what you do not know.
So after all the thought I put into it, I cannot see a better business system right now. If someone else can see a better business system for me, join the Jerry Banfield Family, DM me, and tell me what it is. I am very open.
At this point, to me, it just seems like patience. I have made a business system that I started from scratch on YouTube, and in four months I have got over $1,000 a month in recurring revenue, about half from YouTube ads and half from the Skool. I only started that in the last month, and I am grateful for all of you in there. That is over $500 a month in recurring revenue already. Although I did get a message from one member saying, how do I cancel? And I was like, oh, sad. But everyone is not going to want to stay a member forever, and that is fine.
There will be people who stay, and at this point it is just persistence. Just keep going. Just keep sharing. Just keep building the community. I am grateful that there are so many of you already in there, and I am grateful the Skool gives me a place to focus. Every comment, every post, every message, I read all of it in there. And then I feel free from any obligation to read any of the YouTube comments. The way I look at it, if you are not in the Skool, you do not care that much about me seeing your YouTube comment, which is fine. You can say whatever you want on YouTube, but there is no obligation on my end to look at that.
Showing up where she is likely to show up
I am also thinking with dating that I need to be showing up as often as possible at the places where my queen is likely to show up. Yoga is a great example. I met the queen at yoga, and maybe I am going to need a different nickname for her someday, but that already happened once there.
And literally the week before I met her, there was a woman who was just beautiful, who actually started talking with me first and was very enthusiastic to talk to me. I like to tease and be playful and flirt, and sometimes it is like sparring with somebody in the gym where I do not realize when I hit too hard. She told me about her job and I made a comment that I think hurt her feelings about it. I guess I tease and flirt a little rough, and maybe I could take the edge off. She told me what she did and I think I said something like, I am sorry to hear that. And then she looked a little sad. I thought, okay, I guess that was too hard for the teasing.
I did not ask for her number either, even though when we were in the parking lot she said, oh, do you come to this class often? At the time I was thinking, I am not asking for phone numbers, I am not doing any of that. But I realize now that with that question she was really asking, when am I going to see you again? And I said, no, I do not come to this class that often. See you later. And I just walked off. At that time I had put this dating video up about not asking women out, and that was right before I met the queen. That was just a beautiful woman who started talking to me first.
I am really grateful for what has happened this year. And sometimes I get afraid. I think, dude, what if this does not work out financially? What if you do not meet someone ever again? The thing is, lots of times in life you cannot see the great opportunities that are coming, but you can see the disasters that could potentially manifest. It is kind of easy to picture what if everything does not work out. It is actually a little harder to picture, what if you are going to go to yoga today at noon and meet an amazing woman there today? I went to yoga yesterday and thought, well, I did not meet anyone today. But just show up. You got a great workout. Just keep showing up.
The queen, I had seen her in class once before I ever talked to her. And with some of the women I have talked to over time, I saw them in class five or six times first. Then when we finally talked, for some of them there was already a lot of energy and excitement before we even spoke, because we had seen each other but nobody had said anything yet.
So it is harder in life to see the good things that might happen. The dark scenarios, the bad ones, are actually easier to picture, because they are more predictable. But if you had told me a month ago, when I was all frustrated with dating, that I was going to meet a woman who would shake up my life that much because I would be so excited about her that it would be a little hard to handle, I would not have believed it. And what if that is about to happen again? What if within the next week, two weeks, a month, I meet another woman who is actually more compatible with me than the queen?
What kind of teammate is she?
Because I realized with the queen I weighed too heavily in favor of the logical stuff. Oh, she plays tennis. She wants kids. She is beautiful. She likes yoga. I weighed too heavily in favor of those things. And the question I skipped is, okay, well, what kind of a teammate is she? When I talked to Angela, she said that her not having had any long-term relationship before is a big red flag, that it is an area of probable incompatibility. And yeah, I need to be with somebody who is going to be a good teammate.
That requires something on my end too. I remember when I started dating my ex-wife, I realized I was going to have to let go of so much of myself to be a part of that relationship. I was not going to be able to sit at home drinking and playing Call of Duty zombies all night and listening to the same music I had been listening to. Unfortunately it took a couple of years. I hoped when I moved in with her it would happen faster, but it actually took like three years. Now that I know, it will happen faster.
If you want to make a great partnership with someone, you have to give up parts of yourself to make that happen. And they are not permanent parts of yourself. They are temporary things you have been doing to be single, like watching some different TV shows or playing fewer video games, things like that. It seemed like a big deal to me at the time. I felt like I was dying. I thought, oh my God, I am not going to be able to sit around with the boys and play hardcore search and destroy for 12 hours. And it is like, that is fine, because you are going to be hanging out with your woman instead, and that is going to be a lot more fun. Or maybe it is going to be just as fun as playing with the boys on Xbox. It is going to be different for sure. It was more fun. But I still missed playing hardcore search and destroy with the boys. I missed being up until four or five in the morning dominating lobbies. I missed that. So everything in life is kind of a trade-off.
You do the videos anyway
I am grateful today. I did not feel like recording videos either. I woke up and I sat on the couch and I was really enjoying being quiet. But if you are a YouTuber and that is what you do full-time, it does not matter how you feel about doing videos. You do videos. Just like if I were a professional piano player or a musician, it does not matter how you feel that morning about doing music. You get up and play the piano. You get up and play the drums. You go to your venue and you play. It does not matter how you feel. You do it. And I am grateful for all of you watching. The last video came out a few days ago, because I put these a few days behind in case I need to censor them for being too whiny.
A woman has to earn the anchor position
I also realized that I learned so much from dating the queen, even in just a short time. I understand now that I invested way too much in her, because I grew up in a family where the only world I could depend on was my mom, my dad, and my brother. So to me, three people were my anchor. And I realize I have still been operating with basically a three or four person anchor, maybe five. Just a handful of people in my life who are my anchors. And I kind of threw her into the anchor position way too soon. There needs to be some more research before doing that. Yes, in the long term my queen will be an anchor, a key part of my life, along with my kids, my mom, my siblings, and my guys in AA. But a woman needs to earn that place in my life.
It is just like when my daughter was born. I remember thinking, I do not even know you. I remember thinking there should be all this immediate feeling of love and connection and joy, but it kind of felt like a first date. I just met you. I do not know anything about you yet. I do not really have enough data to really love you. I loved that you were in my wife's belly at the time and that we had wanted you so much. But at the same time it was unexpected. It felt like, I have just met you for the first time, and this is where our relationship begins, and we both need to get to know each other. Now I have been a dad to my daughter for almost 11 years, and now we have that depth in the relationship.
A new woman does not get to go into that key place in my life right away. It takes time. Having a kid is one thing, because you logically know that is going to be there a long time. But when you are dating someone, you can generally assume they are not going to be a part of your life for that long, most of the time. That is the general rule. The general rule for me on a first date is that I am probably never going to see her again. Even on a second, third, or fourth date, the odds are still against her being a big deal in my entire life story.
Dating in 2026 has never been easier in some ways
So I am grateful that dating in 2026 has been fantastic character building for me. And I see some things about dating in 2026 that have never been easier. I feel like dating was so much harder 15 years ago, because it seemed like every hot woman had a boyfriend. And yet today there are so many beautiful women going around single.
I feel like 20 years ago guys approached a lot. If you were a hot woman, you were getting hit on, whistled at, approached, picked up, and asked for your phone number everywhere. You could not go to the gym 20 years ago as a hot woman without me walking up to you and saying, hey, can you give me your number? That is what I did. Everywhere I went, I approached and asked girls for their numbers all the time. And I got turned down. I got fake phone numbers. I got awkward phone calls when they did not remember who I was.
But now, this beautiful woman I dated, the queen, is around guys all the time. She is out. She is social. And she had not been on a date in months. And she is on dating apps. This is the kind of woman you would usually have to pay to even get noticed by on a dating app, or have some superficial signaling top profile that the algorithm is feeding. And she had not even been on a date in months. She had not had a relationship at all in years, as in seriously dated someone. There have never been this many beautiful women in that scenario that I have ever seen. There are so many beautiful women who really do want somebody, and guys are not even trying for them anymore.
So I am out there trying. I am starting conversations with everyone I can. I am not just going to ask for phone numbers straight away, though. I am listening. I am better at picking up subtle things now. Next time, if a woman asks, oh, do you usually come to this class, I will say no, but how about you give me your phone number and we can pick a class to meet up at. That is a simple ask right there. Harmless. Easy to say no to, and easy to say yes to. Yeah, sure, let us meet up in another class and see each other again. If I could redo that conversation before the queen with that other woman, that is what I would do. No, I do not usually come to this class, but give me your phone number and we can meet up again, and I will let you know what the next class I am going to is.
It comes down to the stories you are telling
And it really comes down, like the big theme of today, it really comes down to the stories you are telling. I realize the story I was telling about the queen was, oh, I am such a loser, I played the dating game so bad. And it is like, no, she did her part. If anything, she kind of started pulling away and sabotaging all of it first. I learned a lot, I had fun, and I built character, and all of that was awesome. I would do all of it again. I just would not do it the same way.
But I am going to go to yoga today, and I am going to be looking around every yoga class. And I am going to go to more tennis things too, because I would love a woman who plays tennis or does yoga. So if I want to meet that kind of woman, that is where I need to be. I watched a video on YouTube yesterday that was great. The guy said, I struggled so long with dating, and this is a really good looking guy. He said one of the things he realized he needed to do was show up at the kind of stuff where his woman would also show up. If you want your woman to be into meditation, maybe you need to be on a meditation retreat, because there will be women there who are into meditation just the same as you. And he said, I met this woman who I have so much in common with, and I met her because I went and did things in person that I wanted the kind of woman I want to be doing. So I went and did that stuff, and then I ran into her.
I think deleting dating apps really helped too, because dating apps give you the illusion that you can sit at home and be doing something. I was so tired last night.
I am not going out to nightclubs and stuff, because it is very unlikely I am going to meet a woman out at the club or out at night who is going to be into my lifestyle. The queen that I met, her lifestyle and mine overlap a bunch. She is at yoga. She also plays a lot of pickleball, and I do not know about that one. I could play pickleball too. I like playing pickleball. It is just that I do not like playing stuff where it is not as much of a workout. But maybe I will try going to play some more pickleball, because my ideal woman might play pickleball. I would still rather be out there on a tennis court looking, because this woman also plays tennis, although she plays a lot more pickleball. Maybe that should have been a warning sign.
Show up where she is going to be
But yeah, today's big theme is that I need to show up where my queen is likely to show up. That is going to be workout classes. That is going to be tennis. And maybe I find a third area or another space, like cold plunges, or other stuff that I like to go to. That part is really important. I find places I like to go to whether I meet women there or not. I do things I like to do, like tennis and yoga, whether I meet a woman or not. And then I just stay on the lookout, listening, paying attention, not being in my own head. Because it is up to me as a man to initiate.
All right, this vlog has gotten long enough. I really appreciate you watching all of it. I would love to get to know you in the Jerry Banfield Family. Get in there and tell me what you think about my business system.
And if you want to follow the rest of this dating story as it keeps unfolding, day by day, it is all going into my Dating playlist, where I share what actually happens instead of the version where everything goes perfectly.