Ten Days That Changed Everything
It's July 23rd, 2026 with me, Jerry Banfield, full-time YouTuber and content creator, here to lead by example with living an authentic life. What I'm really in the middle of right now: I just met a woman ten days ago who has totally changed my life, and I've been processing all of that. My recent stories have looked at it. I had an amazing experience for the first time where I felt like I got a clear answer praying to Jesus, after a lifetime of feeling like that wasn't working. I had some struggles integrating this amazing new woman into my life. After a week of euphoria, I had fear. First it was, "Oh, I finally found her, yes!" And then a couple of days later it was, "Well, what if this doesn't work? What if it's all wrong? What if I lose her?" My sponsor fired me. And this has just been a beautiful week in my life. I'm so grateful, and I'm glad I've been documenting all of it.
So today, you all will be relieved: I'm feeling integrated with everything. I had a conversation yesterday that was exactly what I needed, and this is why it's so important to maintain friendships over time. The people you meet and develop a connection with are so special, and you never know when you might need them.
An 18-Year Friendship That Started in Uniform
I have this friend, and I talked with him for an hour yesterday. We met when we were police officers back in 2008. He was the community officer at an apartment complex, and I randomly stopped in at an event on my way to work — I stopped in uniform, and he was there. We ended up talking, exchanged numbers, and then played a whole lot of Call of Duty Zombies together. We've been friends now for 18 years — one of the longest friendships in my life.
Back then I was very much in the middle of my agnostic days, and I noticed this guy had something I didn't. He had this stability, this faith — something that would keep him from getting too far out of line. He could have fun, but his life just felt kind of together, whereas mine felt dangerous and out of control. A few years later I identified it: oh, it's his faith. He's a very devout Christian, and that's the stabilizing force in his life. He met his wife, and they're both very devout Christians who went through what I think of as a Christian dating process — not just jumping into bed like a lot of people do today. They really took time to be friends, get to know each other, and took it really slow.
Yesterday I realized I needed to call him, because out of everybody I know, he has some of the best experience related to the exact situation I'm in. I also realized some of the reasons I'd been struggling over the last few days, and I'm grateful for all of you who reached out. Me crying in my videos — that's some serious character building I've been doing. That's the equivalent of going to the gym and hitting the weights so hard you just can't lift anymore. That's what I've been doing spiritually, emotionally, and mentally. I've been hitting life. This has been so intense in a great way, but it also broke a lot of my old ideas down.
I've found myself changing without having to make any changes. I don't make an effort to change — I'm just changing. The music I'm listening to is mostly Christian singing now, and I've listened to every single song she sent me. The last one I listened to was a live version called "What a God" — "so in awe of you, oh, how worthy." I'm listening to all kinds of Christian music, and I'm surprised at how much I've enjoyed it, because I never resonated with that music before. What just changed in me? I don't know — it's meeting this woman and seeing how important her faith is. Automatically, my whole mind and body is saying: this is your faith now, too. Enjoy it.
Anxiety From Old Programming
So yesterday I reached out to her first thing in the morning saying, "Hey, do you want to see me before your trip?" And I started to feel anxiety again — maybe she'd un-liked me, she's not going to want to see me, she's not that into me — all these thoughts over and over again. And then just a feeling of being in danger, an anxiety I'm not used to having anymore. I asked myself, what is going on? Oh — I've emotionally invested so much, and my brain has maybe never emotionally invested that much in a relationship, ever. At least not before getting laid. I didn't invest emotionally that much before; I just performed and did whatever I needed to do to get in bed with the woman as soon as possible, and then maybe I'd feel like I was in danger and feel some emotions after that.
My brain was all confused: what are you doing? You've emotionally invested, but there's no security. I had interpreted getting laid as security — okay, if she's doing that with me, then she's not just going to leave right away. So my mind interpreted this emotional investing as very dangerous: you've invested, and by my mind's old programming and calculations, there's no validation the way it thinks. And I told myself, you need to think differently.
My Friend's Advice: Slow Down and Just Be Friends
So I called my friend and poured my heart out to him — told him everything for about 30 minutes straight. He just listened and asked questions, and then he processed all of it. He said, "It seems like you're having a similar experience to what I did when I met my wife." They took a long time, months, just being friends. He said, "With my wife, we were just friends for at least a month, maybe two months. There was no talk or even thought of dating. She was texting me all the time, we were talking all the time — it was just a friendship." Then at one point he realized, this is taking up too much of my time and attention to be just a friendship. So he pulled back a bit, and when she asked what was going on, he said, "Look, if we're going to put this much time into each other, I want this to be a relationship — dating — not just a friendship." And she was on board with that. But they took things so slow and so patiently, and he was hesitant to even get into a relationship.
Then he told me: "You are in a position where it seems like you two are very much on the same page. She definitely really likes you. You just need to be comfortable that everything is working just fine. Everything you've described — everything is working great with her. You just need to understand that it's going well, even though the things you usually look for to define that it's going well are not there. Everything is going great. Just relax and enjoy getting to know her. If anything, try to just hang out with her in public — don't even invite her to come over to your house again. Focus on developing that friendship with her, and she'll decide when she wants more than that. Let her push those boundaries with you. I think you've done great with everything so far. Just calm down and slow down and relax."
Because I'd had a hard time relaxing. My brain was going, "Oh my God, she must not like me that much." This is a new scenario, so all the old programming is not effective. And I realized: I'm not in danger. Emotionally investing — this is beautiful. What I'm doing is beautiful, and this is amazing, and I'm safe. Everything is fine. Everything looks great.
She ended up having such a busy day that she didn't have time to even talk on the phone, and after talking to my friend, I just relaxed about it. He'd said, "You should not hang out with her again before your trip. You need to let her miss you a little bit. You already spent a ton of time with her this week. She's clearly very into you. Relax, and let her have some space to miss you, to get to know you, and to feel more and more comfortable." It was amazing — after I talked to him, I relaxed. I still felt a bit of anxiety, but then we exchanged a couple of voice memos at night, and I felt so happy when I went to bed. She sent such a sweet voice memo, a couple of minutes long. And I re-recorded mine several times — I usually don't re-record voice memos — but finally on the last one I said, this came out great, and I've got to get to bed. I just needed to change how my mind was calculating everything: I'm safe, everything's going great, relax and enjoy the process. God willing, we'll never be doing this again — so relax, have fun, and know that this is going fantastic.
Seven Messages Before I Could Even Reply
So I went to bed last night and got a great night's sleep. I woke up this morning and she had sent me a few messages while she was at the airport. And I didn't get to talk about this yet: yesterday, she texted me first — first thing in the morning. She sent me seven text messages before I had a chance to reply, over about a 20-minute period. She shared Bible verses. She shared songs she was listening to. And I cried reading the Bible verses. For as anxious as I was, and as much as my mind was going nuts saying she's not that into you, she's just about ready to leave, she doesn't like you — it's so funny, I prayed, "God, please let me think true thoughts. This is ridiculous. I don't believe this."
Her reaching out and texting first — I got up a little late, and she'd sent me seven messages before I got to reply. I just said to myself: dude, she's into you. She's thinking about you first thing in the morning. She's got Bible verses, she's got songs, she's really excited about you. Relax. Take in these data points, these clear confirmations. Yes, you've invested emotionally — but she's here too. Trust her process, and trust the process you're making together.
Thoughtfulness Is the Tell
I sent her a handwritten note on one of the notes she's doing for her project, and based on her response, it seemed like she really appreciated it. I felt so good. She said, "I love how thoughtful you are," and I thought, I have so many more thoughtful things to offer. It's easy to be thoughtful when I'm thinking about her all the time. And I reflected on how there was a consistent lack of thoughtfulness in most of the rest of my dating. I love the man I am — that I am being this thoughtful. You're with the right person when the way you're acting is a way you're really proud of. And you know you're not with the right person when how you two end up acting with each other is a way you're not proud of — and when you can deal with each other's challenges successfully, too.
Man, I feel so relieved today. It made sense: I had a week of straight euphoria since I met her — seven days of just being naturally high all day, every day. Then a few days of coming back down, integrating, and changing. And now I've settled into a new reality. We're doing this. We're both invested in this, and I'm safe to relax and trust everything that's happening. That has felt really good.
Praying for Inspiration in My Work
I dove into my work yesterday thinking I really want to get something going locally. I've been praying for help and inspiration with my work more than ever, because just grinding out endless content and having people schedule calls — that's working well enough for now. But I know that in the future I don't want all of my income coming just from calls, and I want more deep relationships with people in person. I want to do deeper work than talking with someone on Zoom. Now, I'm happy to talk with any of you on Zoom — you can schedule a one-on-one call with me — but I want to do the deepest, most helpful work I can do.
Right now, there are two basic things I see and offer that do that. The first is YouTube coaching. I have as much expertise as you could want on YouTube as a coach — I've been on YouTube 15 years. Yesterday I finally got my Google ads submitted for my YouTube coach landing page, and those go straight to scheduling calls off a long-form sales page.
Helping You Preserve Your Life Story
Then I looked through all my ideas, and I asked my friend — the one I was on the phone with — about the thing I'd been trying to do locally. I had this idea that I want to help people share and preserve their life stories: a legacy project, a personal history. I'd go to people who want to write a book, and I'd help them do it. And now I see I have all the tools. If you're a person with a story that you want your kids, your grandkids, your community, and anybody in the world to know, I'm the person who can make that real for you, however you want it. If you can hardly touch a keyboard, all you need to do is schedule a one-on-one call with me and talk to me, and I can have your story out in whatever formats you want: videos, a podcast, a written book, an audiobook, a digital Kindle book, out there for free for everybody on a blog, with pictures — however you want it, I can do it. I told my friend, and he said, "That's your best idea. That's something that really means a lot to people, and that's something people can afford to pay for — and they will pay a lot for it."
So I built it out. I used ChatGPT Pro, dictated a long prompt, then put that into Claude: "Turn your life story into something your family can keep." What's nice is it goes to the exact same call-to-action calendar that all my other stuff goes to — one single calendar, but with different reasons to go. This whole landing page is amazing. It talks about what all this is and why you'd want to do it, and I think it's my best idea too. I want to work with more people locally, and I imagine there are people who would be happy to pay well to spend hours and hours with me turning their entire life story into something that preserves their legacy — something they can share with family and friends as a book, videos, whatever format. And the beautiful thing is that often the people who would most benefit from this can also afford it, especially down in Sarasota and here in St. Pete and Tampa. You've got a lot of people with an amazing story to share who have been 60, 70, 80, 90 years on this planet. One of the most meaningful ways they could spend their money would be to take their story — their human knowledge and experience — and put it together into a format that could last indefinitely. And I'm the person set up to do that.
Stories I've Already Helped Preserve
I've done some of this already. I helped my friend Lindsay with her book, The Queendom Quest. She has really inspired my journey over the last few weeks — and this whole year — to look for a queen instead of just a woman to get with. Don't pay any attention to anyone else. Just look for your queen and keep your space open. Don't be distracted. And when you find your queen, you'll know it — then choose her, lock in on her, and don't be distracted. Lindsay is in her mid-30s, a massage therapist I've worked with for a year and a half. She came into my studio and recorded the book off the top of her head, and it's been helping her — she's been having amazing connections because of it. That's a story she wanted to preserve that she'll have for the rest of her life.
How amazing would it be if your mom and dad had recorded an audiobook — and had it as a physical book — right after they met each other, in the first year or so? So you had the exact story down. Man, I wish I had that for my parents. They tell the stories now, but a lot of details are lost, and some things may not even sync up with what actually happened, because it's been so long — and every time you access memories, you tend to change them a bit. I also have a friend who came over and dictated five or ten hours of his life story, and now I can dump all the dictation into AI and it can put the whole book together. It's incredible. So I've helped a couple of people already with this, and I know I love doing this kind of work, because it matters. In a world of AI and technology and infinite creation, the most precious thing is real human connection and real human stories.
I could even help someone who wanted a custom AI model with their entire million-word life story in it, so you could talk to them through AI — literally an AI that would talk to you as if it were that person, based on training enough data into it. I need to add that to the life story page, or maybe that should be a separate landing page or offering. This is the kind of work I need to be doing. I knew this before, but once I got into YouTube, I got a bit distracted into just doing the same things I'd done to build up viewers.
Making My Work Sustainable
After meeting this woman ten days ago — and especially after some of the acute suffering of integrating this and dealing with all the fear — it showed me I need to be doing some deeper connection work. Having Zoom calls with people online who follow me is nice, and getting views and numbers on a screen is nice and useful, and I'm not going to stop doing that ever again. But part of my work also needs to be deep, real human connection in person. My work should be about 50/50: half online, using the technology, creating and sharing with the world; the other half in person, offline, taking my technology and really helping someone else share their story.
I love that I've had this breakthrough in my work, because right now, just taking calls in their present form — at least while the crypto market is down — is not very sustainable. If ICP blows up, I could have $300 to $400 a day in calls all of a sudden. But I know from before that I don't want hours and hours every day of the exact same ICP conversation over and over. I literally quit taking $300-an-hour calls before — I deleted my calendar and refused to accept them, because I got so tired of one, two, three people every single day asking, "Jerry, how do you help me put my ICP in my wallet?" Now, I'm happy to help you with that today, and I'm here for you — schedule a one-on-one call with me and I can do that a few times a week. But every single day, for hours a day, doing the same basic thing — I know that's not going to work. So I'm grateful, because my work needs to be sustainable.
This morning I worked on how to set the Google ads up, and I'm going to get them running. I'm taking the kids to Michigan tomorrow, and I'll do some vlogs on the road — that should be awesome. I know some of you were worried, but this is how you have big breakthroughs in life: when you are willing to experience feelings honestly and really hurt, to experience the fear and consciously choose suffering in favor of character building, instead of hiding from it, numbing it, rationalizing it away, fighting, or getting angry. I suffered honestly the last few days, and I feel like I've had a huge breakthrough — in what kind of relationship I'm capable of having, what kind of man I am, and now the work I want to do as a part of that. I really appreciate you being here on this journey. And I played tennis this morning — man, it can feel like the devil is waiting at my crossroads, but staying together within myself is the way through.
A Tennis Comeback Ten Days in the Making
Just a week and a half ago, I played tennis feeling so emotionally defeated after that Sacred City event. There was a woman I'd been on a few dates with there — actually, there were two women I'd been on dates with, and one literally invited the other. I just felt horrible afterwards. That's when I told you about calling out to my queen and yelling that there's no higher power. I played tennis the next day and felt so drained I wanted to forfeit, but instead I just lost, 6-2.
Today, I was out on the court feeling full of life and energy. I lost the first set 7-5, won the second set 6-4, and then won the tiebreaker 7-4 — against a friend who has beaten me in at least 90 percent of the sets and matches we've played over the last two years. I felt really grateful.
And I am so excited that the woman I'm dating plays tennis. I can't wait to play tennis with her — she seems to be pretty good, and I really want to see her on the tennis court. This is what I've been praying for, wishing for, thinking about repeatedly over the last two years. I got my ex-wife out on the tennis court a little bit, but she didn't like it, and I remember thinking, man, I would really love to have a woman I could play tennis with. It would be something so fun we could do together — to me, playing tennis would be the perfect date. And then I meet this woman who plays tennis, on top of all the other compatibility. I'm like, all right, God, I see you. I can't miss this one. Thank you. This is so obvious.
So I'm super grateful, and I hope these vlogs on my Life playlist inspire you. Look — it's okay to have feelings and emotions. You're going to grow, and you're going to come back to yourself. Thank you, I appreciate you being here, and I look forward to seeing you again soon.