My friends, I told myself I was rich until it came true. I want you to know how I did this too, because I'm tired of living next to broke people who are then jealous of what I've got, who can't afford to buy your stuff, who go to jobs you hate and slave away and complain about life. I want you to have a strong, empowered life like I do, to have everything you want, so that you're empowered to go out there and help somebody else.
What is my biggest secret? My biggest secret is that I know I am the creator, and that which I desire will come to me. In the present moment, I say I am rich. Let me tell you a story.
2019: the worst financial position of my life
In 2019, after a lot of success online, after making millions of dollars and being a huge deal, I decided to go into this broke mindset, because I felt I deserved it and because it was going to make my life interesting. At the time, I was trying to build an online startup as a full-time YouTuber and a teacher of online courses. Long story short, I put myself in the worst financial position I've ever been in when my business ideas did not work out.
I was borrowing money on credit cards with cash advances just to pay the minimum payments. I tore through all of my wife's savings. She had to sell a Tesla that she bought in like 2016, just to help bail me out. I went to a bankruptcy lawyer, and she suggested I should declare bankruptcy, but it was only going to get rid of $50,000 of debt when I had over $600,000 including all the debt for my family, student loans, the house, and everything else. My net worth at the end of 2019 was minus hundreds of thousands of dollars.
At this time, I realized that I still was filthy rich, and I began thinking of myself as a wealthy person. I realized that I was going to create my life story. I would create my way out of this, and not only that, but I could determine how the story of my life would be told in the future. Did I want the story of my life to be told that I declared bankruptcy and just gave up on the debts I had promised to pay? Or did I want the story of my life to be told that he literally just decided that money would come to him, felt fantastically wealthy, and paid all that debt off straight up, no bankruptcy?
I remember walking out of the bankruptcy attorney's office thinking, this is what I feared and this is what I wanted, and now I'm going to crush this situation. I'm going to get money to come to me like it's never come to me before, and I knew this is what would happen. I went home to my wife and I said, look, it's time for us to manifest money. We've got ourselves in this situation, and I took the lead on it.
One hundred percent responsibility for my own life
My biggest secret is taking absolute, 100 percent responsibility for my life situation. Nobody else made me broke. Yes, other people came to my website and didn't buy my courses. Yes, I was banned from Udemy in 2016, and in some ways of looking at it, they unfairly took away a bunch of my income. My crypto investments got rug pulled. Yes, sure, other people did what they did, but I put myself in those positions. In my experience, I am the creator of my reality.
What worked for me was to completely own my reality and say, I am the one who put me here, I'm the one who decided to be where I'm at today, and therefore I decide where I'm going to go also. But you also need to enlist everybody else in your life to help you. And if you want to be wealthy, I've come to believe you need to feel wealthy right now and realize how much you've got right now, because that's what I did when I was at the top of the world.
At my lowest point in my whole life financially, five years ago, I realized two things. One, I did this to myself. I had every opportunity in the world and I made myself broke. Two, because I did this to myself, I can do this. I can get out of this also, simply starting with my own decision, saying I am rich now, and seeing how wealthy I am now. Doing affirmations like: I am healthy, I am wealthy, I am wise, I am safe, I am love, I am God. Doing those over and over and programming my entire being.
There are many ways to be rich
When you read Think and Grow Rich, there are many ways to be rich. If you really want to be rich, it's not just about having money. Money is one way to be rich. Time is another way to be rich. Do you have free time? Can you afford to just play video games? Can you afford to just waste time? Because if you don't have that kind of time, if you are always busy, you are poor when it comes to time.
The way I see it, to really be rich, like I'm rich, I have my health. I have free time. I have wealth financially. My wife and I were just talking, and we have around $100,000 in cash liquid assets. We have hundreds of thousands in equity in our home. We have every material want satisfied, and we have plenty of financial security. Our net worth has gone up hundreds of thousands of dollars since we decided to manifest wealth. And here's the thing: not once did I show up and take a job. I didn't want to work. I kept doing work I love. I made over $100,000 in 2021 playing video games on Facebook. That, in my experience, is how you manifest wealth.
The secret, though, is knowing this. First, it is my responsibility where I'm at. Second, it's my responsibility where I'm going. Third, I will need other people to help me. Fourth, other people want to help me have what I want. And how will they do that? I have to help them get what they want. If I help you be rich, you will make sure I have enough to keep helping you. When I set out to build a world full of wealthy people, I am naturally taken care of.
Life is magical. It is magical. It is not reasonable or rational. It is not scientific or religious. It is magic. If you've watched Harry Potter, the only difference is we don't have wands and we don't usually shoot stuff out of our hands, although I've read stories of people who do. You think something, you take action based on the thinking, and you listen for the response.
How rich I was even at my most broke
Let me explain in detail how I got out of the worst financial situation of my life. It's because I knew how rich I was, that even when I was borrowing money off of credit cards to pay for cash advances, I didn't miss one meal. I didn't even miss getting a massage. I get a full-body, licensed-massage-therapist, professional massage, just to relax, and so y'all don't think it's something different. That was one of the first things I tried sober that helped get rid of the obsession to drink and get me back in my body. Not once did I miss getting a massage.
I mean, how wealthy are you when you're $650,000 in debt, struggling to make the minimum payments? My wife and kids, we all had enough to eat. We had a place to live. We had comforts like video games and TV. I had time to get massages. My wife had time and money to get the stuff she wanted. The kids had fun activities to do all the time. When I was the worst financially I've ever been in my life, I also realized, ironically, how rich I truly was. Yes, five years ago I had made my finances scarce, but I still had health. I had time. I had relationships.
Relationships are a huge form of wealth. It's no good being a millionaire if you're stuck in a house all alone and you don't have anybody you love. To me, that's poverty. Having people that love you is rich. Having your health is rich. Having free time is rich. Having a passion and a desire for living is rich. Having a clean, sober, very healthy, fully operating mind is rich. Having places you love going and activities you love doing is rich.
When I was the most broke in my life, I wouldn't say I was actually in as bad of a financial situation in terms of all the debt and the payments. When I was in college, I felt a lot more broke, even though financially I was in a much better situation. And many of you are in a much easier financial situation than I was in a few years ago. All you need to do, in my experience, is see how rich you are now. See all the wealth you have in your life. Because if you're used to focusing on what you don't have, and what's wrong, and who's wrong, and who's got more than you, then you're not focusing on that which you do have. I keep returning to this idea, and I went deeper on it when I asked myself, now that I'm already rich, so what do I do all day?
Even if you've got zero money, and your account's overdrawn, and you don't have any money and you don't have a job, I hope you've got time. You may be experiencing the time equivalent of winning the lottery. You've got all kinds of time to do whatever you want. That is a huge form of wealth that many people don't have. Are you healthy? I eat healthy. I eat mostly whole plant foods off the book How Not to Die. Having your health is a massive form of wealth. There are so many people with huge amounts of money who'd give anything to have good health. I've seen it in myself: my body and mind were very sick, and I've got them to be very healthy.
No matter where you're at today, if you can see the wealth you already have in your life, you can say, I am rich, I am rich. Even if you've only got one aspect of your life that you're rich in, you can say, I am rich in health. I am rich in free time. I am rich in friends. I am rich in a desire to give and serve others.
How I got out: a non-linear path
So I got out by having that mindset, because I'd read a whole bunch of books, and because I chose to have that mindset and think that way. And what did I do from there? I did whatever I could think of, whatever I was excited about every day, to try and help somebody else. And I followed a very non-linear path.
At the time, I had mainly been making money in crypto and creating online courses. In 2020, at the beginning of the year, crypto and online courses were both dead for me. I had almost no income coming in. I tried to do online courses and I got nothing. I got frustrated. I started an in-person show, which is what I was really excited to do. Often, magic flows from doing things where you feel joy, passion, and enthusiasm, like there's nothing you'd rather do. True wealth, in my experience, never comes to you from showing up grinding and being bored and sitting at an office wishing you were somewhere else.
That, to me, is a form of poverty, proof of poverty: that you don't value your time enough, that you don't think you're worthy enough to do something you care about, so you'll just show up somewhere and trade your valuable time for money. To me that shows a broke mindset. And this world is created with people who love doing all different things. You might think, well, Jerry, nobody loves to clean teeth. Wrong. Wrong. I've had a few teeth cleaners who are like, I just love being in people's mouths cleaning teeth. I'm like, thank God for you, because I need my teeth cleaned, and I'm glad there's somebody who loves doing it.
If you really want to change your life, I believe it starts from in here, but you're going to need everybody else's help. And when you start thinking, how do I help other people get what they want, you'll be amazed what other people can do for you. Sometimes it won't make any logical, rational sense until you look back on all of it.
I started an in-person show in June 2020. Now, you're going to say that seems like a really bad time to start an in-person show. And it was. It completely flopped. But it led me somewhere. People showed up for the first few, but financially it was a loss, and my wife was extremely tolerant. At the same time, when I barely had any money I could even get my hands on, I paid a guy who was living in a place called the Peace House a hundred dollars for an hour to coach me on expanding my mindset. My wife did really hate on that one. She was pissed that, as broke as I was, after I took all her money just to bail me out, because being married we're in this together, I then paid this guy a hundred dollars. And what did we do? We sat in a park and meditated and ran around and yelled, I'm free. But you know what? It worked. It worked. I felt free, and I started acting free.
Then I ended up quitting my online show, and I felt excited to get into Facebook gaming. And then I made a hundred thousand dollars the next year on Facebook gaming. Before the end of 2020, I made almost nothing and just lost money on Facebook gaming. Then in 2022, Facebook gaming blew up for me for multiple reasons, and then it was going downhill, and I got demonetized on that.
On my way to crypto millionaire
So I got into crypto, and I started saying, I'll be a crypto millionaire soon. I had a portfolio with $0 when I started. I started thinking I'm going to be a crypto millionaire when I had $0 in my portfolio, and I started buying what I could at the time, which was $50 a day. I also drastically cut all my expenses. A lot of you think, well, I'm going to be rich and then I'm going to spend all this money. To me, that's poverty.
I'm already thinking that, as soon as I get more money, I just want to give and give and give and help other people out. If you see a homeless person, give them $20. If you're wealthy, the least you can do is give somebody $20. If you've got $20 in your wallet and you're not going to do anything with it today, and you see someone that's that desperate for help, give them $20. Act like you're wealthy. As soon as I get more money, I immediately start trying to figure out how I can help others, how I can give more of this away. I don't need all this.
I've made about $10,000 a month so far this year on crypto and on my YouTube videos, and I'm on my way to being a crypto millionaire. I have about $50,000 in crypto today, and I bought less than $10,000 to get that $50,000. At this rate, in my own estimation, I'm going to be a crypto millionaire in a year or so. That, for me, is how you do it.
And I want you to do it, because wealthy people have time to serve others. Wealthy people can take care of themselves. Wealthy people have time to think about things that really matter. Wealthy people are not just servants who do what they're told. Wealthy people are strong people who think with their own mind. Although some wealthy people are scared people clutching onto their pearls and acting insane, and that's just sad. Don't be that kind of wealthy. Be the kind of wealthy where you've got enough to give to others. This is part of why I now try to focus on larger amounts of money rather than the scarcity I used to feel.
I did this same thing in 2014
So this is how I told myself I was rich until it came true. I did this same process in 2014, and then over the next five years, that's how I made millions of dollars online. I told myself. I remember sitting in my office in 2014, when I had been struggling to make money online, when I hadn't had a real job in years, and I remember looking at my office thinking, this is where I'm going to make my first million dollars. Most people would have seen no logical, reasonable, or rational way that should happen, but I set that as my destination.
I've now made well into the millions, multi-millions of dollars online. I've made as much as a quarter million in profit in a single year before, and my wife and I are on our way to having our highest-earning year ever this year. I'm so grateful, and I'm constantly giving as much as I can back to everybody else while paying down my debts, doing what I love, taking time to just have fun every day, being with my family, and taking care of my body, so I can enjoy every different form of wealth that I have. This affirmation practice runs through a lot of what I do now, the same as the affirmations and guided meditations I'm practicing in other areas of my life.
If this way of looking at wealth resonates with you, I keep these conversations going every day with the Jerry Banfield Family, and I share more of how I think and live in my Life playlist. I hope you can see how rich you already are, and I hope to see you again soon.