Doorstep Letters and Free Books: What I Learned

Short answer: the letter campaign I ran from December 2025 into March 2026 did not bring in clients, and I no longer lead with it. I now believe a promotional letter left in a stranger's door rarely gets a reply, but a real book can make a reader want more of me. That shift is the arc of this page.

If you are searching this to find out whether dropping letters or free books on doorsteps is worth the money, my own numbers are the honest answer. Below is what I tried, what it cost, and what I still don't know.

The idea started on my first day divorced, December 18, 2025. I was weighing three ways to make money, including ghostwriting books for other people at around $3,400 a month per client, and I decided the cheapest way to find those clients was a letter in every door in my neighborhood. My First Day Free and the Letter to a Thousand Doors lays that out. Two days later I spent $780 on envelopes, paper and 1,000 stamps, all on a 0 percent credit card (A Thousand Stamps and a Heavy Heart). I walked the neighborhood checking for empty houses, found about ten out of more than 100, and decided that waste was not worth slowing down for.

On December 30 a three-hour conversation with ChatGPT convinced me to drop books as well as letters, and printing cost me four or five dollars a copy, so I ran the numbers on a thousand in Drop a Book on a Thousand Doorsteps. On December 31 I printed a Hey New Neighbor letter into about 150 copies of my book I Was Famous on the Internet and signed each one with my phone number. Giving My Books to the Whole Neighborhood covers that day.

The pace picked up in March. On March 2 I wrote a two-page letter, the one in The Two-Page Letter That Slaps, and printed 250 of them in about two hours. On March 5 I paid a friend from my recovery group $300 for 250 envelopes, then decided to deliver them myself, timed 40 of them, and found the whole job came to under an hour, about a minute a letter. Ten Thousand Letters, One Door at a Time is where I wrote the goal down: 100 letters a day for 100 days. On March 12 I put 180 letters on doorsteps in one day, and 180 Letters, Still Empty is how I felt at the end of it.

By March 14 I had to say the uncomfortable part out loud: I had given out a great many letters and nobody had called. Give Them My Real Writing is where I worked out why. A promotional letter is the wrong offer for what I do best, which is long, honest writing that people actually read. So the plan became small booklets handed out in person, with everyone who reads one sent to the full library on my website.

The last post on this page, Booklets, Calls, and a Plan, is where I land for now. I set a $75 option for a 30-minute phone call that anyone reading my work can book, and I can take those calls while I fold laundry. I still believe a book in a stranger's hands beats a sales letter, but I do not know yet whether the calls will fill, and I would rather say that than pretend.

The posts below run newest first, back to August 2025, bad days included. I Chant, I Cry, I Give Away Books is the November kirtan where I handed out books, and I Handed Them My Truth and Wept is about a letter I delivered to a family member. If you want the wider context of that year, Divorce: How It Ended and What Came After covers the marriage, and Writing Books covers the work I kept doing alongside all of this.

Booklets, Calls, and a Plan (March 15, 2026)
Give Them My Real Writing (March 14, 2026)
180 Letters, Still Empty (March 12, 2026)
Doorstep Letters and Free Books: What I Learned (March 5, 2026)
The Two-Page Letter That Slaps (March 2, 2026)
Giving My Books to the Whole Neighborhood (December 31, 2025)
Drop a Book on a Thousand Doorsteps (December 30, 2025)
One Hundred Letters and a Free Oak Table (December 21, 2025)
A Thousand Stamps and a Heavy Heart (December 20, 2025)
My First Day Free and the Letter to a Thousand Doors (December 18, 2025)
I Stopped Hoarding and Started Giving (November 12, 2025)
I Chant, I Cry, I Give Away Books (November 7, 2025)
I Handed Them My Truth and Wept (August 2, 2025)

Booklets, Calls, and a Plan

Originally published March 15, 2026.

This is my journal entry from March 15, 2026 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.

I'm up today and looking for a yoga class I can hit this morning. I still have my week at a local studio, so I book a 10.30am power flow at the local studio this morning. Meanwhile, I'm feeling today is the day to get the book I've been finishing published and submitted. I have named it Divorce Day, and I get everything else I need together to submit it to KDP with Amazon. And I'm really excited because this book is three months old at this point. And this book is the longest book I've written in 150,000 words. And it's time to offload it. I feel great relief getting this book submitted right before I go to yoga class. I go to the yoga class and I'm so glad the woman from the recovery meeting is not there. I have a nice relaxing flow with my shirt on for once. Then I walk downstairs and hold the door for a girl that's attractive and actually friendly. I have a nice conversation with her in the parking lot. She tells me there's a couple of places her husband, and of course she has a husband, but I'm so happy she's friendly and attractive and tells me that her husband plays Ultimate Frisbee at a couple of places in St. Pete. And I note those on my calendar because I've been looking to play and I'm excited to have that as an option. There's two different games on Sundays that are available.

I head back home and my ex-wife brings the kids over for a little bit. The main topic I'm thinking about with them is, do I want to buy a PlayStation 5? I've been thinking it'd be really fun to have some games to play. And I'm so tired of being at home and lonely. Thankfully, I feel a bit better after going to the meeting last night. But still, I feel like there's nothing exciting in my life. I'm listening to recovery literature about the addiction to excitement that we adult children of alcoholics have. And I'm like, I do. And maybe what would help would be to just put a predictable excitement and fear into my life with video games like I've done for most of my life. My ex-wife surprised me by noting that I have played video games in moderation at various times, often throughout the time she was with me. And she thinks that would be a reasonable option given I don't do like anything else like watch TV. However, or at least, you know, anything like just for me. I'm out playing tennis with other people. I'm going to yoga, which supports the studio and helps my body. But I don't have any kind of useless activity like watching TV in my life right now.

Thus, I am looking up after my ex-wife and the kids come over. I'm looking up Call of Duty Black Ops 7. And the new zombies, they have the old characters like Nikolai, Richtofen, Takio, and Tank Dempsey. Like, man, that'd be kind of cool to play with them again. The new blackout mode, or as they've renamed it, is much more like blackout now. And that you don't have these loadouts. And the loadouts is what really sucks for trying to play Call of Duty Warzone casually. Having to go in against sweats that have all the perfect perks and stuff equipped. Makes it a lot more about getting your loadout and makes getting a loadout overly important and kind of ruins the rest of Warzone. Blackout was so good for not having those loadouts. That said, when I used to have my loadouts, it really did help me win a lot of games and dominate the players who weren't as good. So for playing casually, I'm like, you know what? I could go for that. But I'm going to think about it. I'm not buying a PlayStation today. And we're going to move forward without that.

After my ex-wife and the kids leave, I work on coming up with a better business plan because what I'm doing is not working. This week has made that clear. But I do have an insight that what I need to do is give out booklets and I should be giving out booklets that have specific problems. I talked to my friend and he helps me see that what I need to do is I need to have some intermediate offer. I can't just cold drop somebody a booklet on their doorstep and expect them to want to pay me $300 immediately for a session. Ideally, since I already have books, they can buy books for just a few dollars, but there should be something for maybe $100 ideally to step it up. I am sold after talking to ChatGPT and thinking about it and reflecting on my past that having a $75 phone call option will be a really nice way to monetize booklets. I'm thinking that what I'll do is give out a whole bunch of little mini booklets on all different kinds of subjects, like a book on weight loss, sobriety, and I can even write fiction books. And then I'll pass all those booklets out and all those booklets will then send people to jerrybanfield.com where they have access to my books. And then where everybody reading anything from me can pay the same $75 for a 30-minute phone call. The 30-minute phone calls are nice because I can do stuff around the house while I'm on one of those calls. Anything that doesn't require me to be actively paying attention, I can fold laundry. I can be cleaning around the house and things like that. So it's really nice. Phone calls are nice for that. And it's also something that could be done not necessarily in person either, like somebody traveling that I handed one of my booklets to in person could find, you know, could call me and schedule coaching. Somebody who's lonely could schedule a phone call every single day with me if they wanted. And that would just one person scheduling a call with me every day would be about enough to cover the rent. Thus, I'm really excited now with this phone call option and all the different booklets. I think we've stumbled onto a really nice path going forward. If you're trying to shape your own offer and figure out how to get people in the door, schedule a one-on-one call with me and we'll think it through together.

I head off to my recovery meeting with this in mind. I chair the meeting and have a nice conversation with the people there. We don't spend as much time talking afterwards tonight, but my one friend does tell me he's marketed his business really hard, which I didn't even know about, which he got me thinking because he did so much marketing. He said he dropped thousands of business cards and only got a few calls. Now, business cards are pretty low touch, low commitment things. But it got me thinking, like, I really need to take my marketing to the maximum level somehow and figure out, you know, a better strategy than just cold dropping a sales letter. The booklets seem like a way to get some depth. The phone calls seem like an easy enough way to get some money in the door. And if I have a bunch of booklets, that'll really work well. I head home and take a walk around Crescent Lake and am in bed early.

If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.

Give Them My Real Writing

Originally published March 14, 2026.

This is my journal entry from March 14, 2026 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.

I wake up at a little after 6 a.m. today, and I decided I might as well get my morning started and go the 7-15 flow at my yoga studio. After all, I haven't done yoga in over a week, and I'm starting to feel a little stiff. I head over to the class there, and I'm shocked at how stiff my pigeon pose is after just a week of not doing yoga. Plus a few days of delivering letters and lots of tennis in the last week. I come home and I'm just, even though I often feel better after yoga class, I'm still just mired in sadness, feeling like there's nothing to be excited about today. Even though I talked to my ex-wife and the kids are going to come over soon, I'm in despair about my business. I'm like, I just am not seeing the business model and what I'm going to do to make money and how it all goes together. I gave out so many letters. Nobody's called. My ex-wife and the kids get here, and I'm grateful for their hugs and attention. My ex-wife sets up with the kids help my aero garden in the living room, and they tell me about their plans for the day. I give them lots of hugs, tell them I'm feeling sad, and they head out soon. Now I'm left at home wondering what the hell I'm going to do for the rest of the day. A tennis partner texts me and says she'll be ready to play some tennis in a little while, and I am very grateful for that. I actually was in bed when my ex-wife called to bring the kids over. I ended up laying down for an hour, feeling so tired and overwhelmed, which is unusual for me, but my mind just feels like nothing's working.

After my ex-wife and the kids leave, I'm preparing to go play tennis with my tennis partner. She's ready at 1.45, so I go to meet her at Crescent Lake. We hit back and forth. There's somebody else on the court next to us. We hit and play a set for about an hour. She actually asked me some questions about myself, like, are you doing anything fun this weekend? And I tell her, I'm just going to a couple recovery meetings. What about you? She says she's taking her dog to the dog park. I walk her back to her car because it's the same direction as my house. I'm thinking, you know, do I want to ask her to do anything? And I just feel so defeated with women. I'm like, I'm not even trying to make anything happen with any woman until this whole dating service matchmaking, all those dates are done. Until all those dates are done, I'm making no effort at all with women. I'm not going to ask anyone to do anything or to go anywhere or to meet up. Nothing friendly. None of it. I'm so utterly defeated and tired of, you know, being constantly rejected and then feeling like shit when I go places and these girls who used to be excited about me, you know, are now distant and I'm hurt and it's so stupid. So forget it. If a woman wants me, she can pursue me and I'll just take these dates because I've already got 11 more guaranteed dates coming. So that's enough, right? I remember from the best of my online dating efforts, I'd often be happy to get a date or a couple dates with different women a month. So this matchmaking service takes care of it.

I talked to my sponsor and he shares his experience in that area. And I put together an entertainment center in the corner of my house, which looks nice. And then I have my recovery meeting later that I'm going to go to. I'm trying to figure out what the hell to do with myself. And I'm running some of my ideas by ChatGPT again. And I'm still feeling so down and lonely. I'm just consumed with the idea of buying a PlayStation 5 again. My fourth one. I'm like, man, you know, I'm tired of coming home to this house alone at night. Nothing to look forward to. Nothing exciting. And then I go out with girls and I get so excited that, you know, then I blow it because I'm overly excited. I need some excitement in my life again. I could really play video games properly, live in here by myself with, you know, long stretches of time where I could play like six hours of zombies at once. But then where would I get the time to do that? I barely have time to do my work and, you know, do all the other stuff I want to. And I'm thinking, maybe I'll just get a PlayStation until I have a girlfriend. Then I can have a reason why I'm not interested in dating women. But then I start to think, well, that didn't work out too well with my ex-wife. Because when I moved in with my ex-wife, I tried to cut the video games when I moved in with my ex-wife. And I wrote a book about video game addiction, and that didn't work either. I told my ex-wife and the kids about this this morning. But I'm thinking I could just go to Best Buy and grab a PlayStation and it'd be fine. And my life would be okay. If you recognize that restless loneliness, coming home to an empty house and itching for something to make life feel exciting again, you can schedule a one-on-one call with me and we'll talk it through on our call.

As I eat dinner and head over to the recovery meeting, feeling like I haven't even hardly done anything useful. Yes, I put this entertainment center together, saw my ex-wife and the kids, played tennis, went to yoga and cleaned my house. So I guess I didn't just like fucking beat off all day or something. But I still I didn't even hardly do anything on my business because I couldn't even figure what to do. I did start thinking a little breakthrough came that what I want to do is give out full length booklets to people. And maybe I could have events or that would get people to want to work with me privately. I thought, OK, instead of putting an envelope with something promotional, I want to give people a real book that's like twelve thousand words, a short little booklet front and back. And I print out a test copy on the printer and throw 10 of my old letters in an envelope. And it all fits in there and it's nice and it has depth and weight to it. I'm like, okay, this is what I want to be giving out. Not some shallow promotional letter, but something really serious that introduces people to my writing.

I head to the recovery meeting and I see my friend there. Her dad's there and her sponsee's there. And she gives me the attention and validation that I crave from women especially. But also, you know, I appreciate the time with men. And these days I mostly hang out and talk with men. We go through the meeting and the beginners share, which inspires me to share too. I don't want to share. But I talk about how miserable and lonely I am. How even this week going to recovery meetings, it doesn't feel like I've often even hit that critical threshold of feeling better. I talk about how my mind's coming up with these dire predictions about my money if I can't figure it out in the next few months, and how heavy that financial fear sits on me. And then I feel guilty and sad, and then I think about my kids, and then I fear trip, and I get myself all excited. I was listening to the recovery literature, and man, I was identifying with that hard. And noting how it says, you know, one thing is we're addicted to excitement. And I'm like, yes, I am. I want some excitement. My life's so fucking boring right now. I can't stand it. But I'm so proud that I'm not engaging in any coping mechanisms or distractions. And I'm out there with real people. I'm doing real things. And yet, then I think maybe I should buy a PlayStation 5 so I could add a little excitement and, you know, predictable contained fear. Back into my life, play some Warzone, drop some fear and adrenaline, excitement. It's like, oh, then it feels good. Then I can relax for the rest of my life. But I'm not buying a PS5 today.

After the meeting, I talk with people for 30 minutes afterwards who are really supportive, including my friend that's there and her dad. Dude, this woman has me laughing after the meeting because this friend's dad, I think, is in his 50s, sits there. And this other woman that looks like she's in her 50s who was talking about like being divorced and stuff during the meeting. She says that this friend's dad is just beautiful while we're going to do when we're about to do the prayer. That's as hard as I've laughed all day. I'm like, it's so honest and beautiful and just vulnerable and raw and childlike. But it's also like so inappropriate. Like, can you imagine? Me looking over at some woman that's, you know, like in her 30s, I'm like, gosh, she's so beautiful. You know, imagine like one of these women brought her daughter to the meeting and I'm over there like, oh, man, you know, your daughter is so beautiful. Like it just feels like it'd be totally inappropriate for me to say something like that. And yet, you know, wouldn't somebody, I don't know, I guess a woman from my yoga class was not very happy to be on the receiving end of that at yoga, but wouldn't somebody be happy to hear that they're beautiful? What's funny, the dad didn't even hear the comment himself.

Then there's a guy who talks to me. There's three guys actually that come up and talk to me after the meeting also, really appreciating my share, trying to help me. The only problem is I feel like they're trying to fix me. and they're overly concerned with me it's like yes i'm having a bit of a struggle but all right guys like my my life and my shit is definitely together relative to yours like you know like somebody who's got you know a thousand dollars in the bank trying to tell a millionaire about you know why they should be grateful for the money they have or how they can be more grateful for their money. And yes, it's absolutely appropriate and it makes sense, but it also leaves me feeling like, oh, I went from feeling lonely and not being noticed to now I'm being seen and people are trying to help me a little too much. There's not much of a middle ground, but I do feel I get one guy's phone number. I have nice talks. I get to know three different guys a little bit better. They share their experience with me. I give the woman I'm there a hug and tell her I love her, which the first time I'm always doing that, as I noted throughout my books, the first time I did that like eight months ago, she said, thanks. And it was so funny. But it was nice because I just feel like I want to give her that validation. And, you know, that's just how I feel. And it's nice to express it. And she says she loves me back and that feels good. But then I'm still depressed going home thinking, you know, is that too much? She has a boyfriend. But she's known me long enough. I don't think it'd be taken the wrong way. Although I probably would date this woman if she was single.

But I get home and suddenly, after I go for a walk around Crescent Lake, I wash my dishes and suddenly inspiration strikes. One thing that got me down this morning, I had an idea that I'd do more of an aggressive book title called something like, you know, the Let's Talk Sex, money, health, and all that stuff right on the front cover of a little booklet. And ChatGBT just shits on that idea. And then I realized, yeah, I can't, you know, door drop something that says, let's talk about sex on it. And then somebody's kids end up picking that up and reading it. And I'm like, shit, that's not going to work. So I was all excited for a brief moment this morning. ChatGBT crushed my dreams with its perfectly reasonable feedback. And tonight, I've got a new inspiration. Tonight, somehow, after a day of struggle, this guy that I exchange phone numbers with sends me a voice memo because I told him I used to be a YouTuber. And then I start thinking while I'm washing the dishes after listening to his voice memo, he said something about being creatively stifled. And I'm like, yeah, that's what I feel like. I feel like I'm creatively stifled, like I'm not really getting my full creativity out there. So I first think about making a new, my 17th YouTube channel and making it just local, just, you know, not trying to do the world or anything, then trying to promote it with Google ads and get people in person stuff. And ChatGPT initially agrees that, yeah, you'd probably get a bigger reach that way and more discoverability, but I give it more context. And I'm like, well, I started a channel in July, 2025 to be a local podcast. I made two episodes, felt like shit and deleted it within a week. And it's like, well, it's clear that's not going to work for you. So you got to commit to the books going forward.

And then suddenly everything comes together in my mind as I'm taking a walk around Crescent Lake. I'm like, holy shit, I've been putting too much pressure on these booklets and these giveaways. What I need to be thinking of is that I just want to get my writing into the hands of people who will read it. What I do really well is just dictating and cranking out quantity of writing off the top of my head. But I've been pressuring myself to drop my writing, like to give it to people in person or to drop it on doorsteps. I've been doing the opposite of what I do best. I've been trying so hard to write more perfectly and editing. I've spent so many hours editing all these letters that I mostly haven't even dropped or I've only done limited amounts of them that I've actually given other people. I've basically put a ton of time and energy over the last three months into writing letters that hardly anyone has read and are not available in a book. But this morning, this evening, I somehow get the insight. I'm like, holy shit, I see what I need to do. What I need to do is just keep creating the books like I've been creating them, especially these little short books. But then what I can do is some of the short books, I can turn those into a booklet and drop those. For example, I have an idea for a book about weight loss. Maybe it'll be called Unfat Yourself. And then that's a book I could give out in person to fat people. And then I could write a book on loneliness and drop that on people's doorsteps to people who might be lonely. I could write my Friday Yoga Crush book comes back. It's like I could just write a short one-hour version of that. And then when a yoga class lets out somewhere like my yoga studio, where there's tons of people there, I could just be standing on the sidewalk passing out 10 or 20 of those after class. Like, hey, I wrote a book about, you know, a little yoga crush romance fiction book. Here's a free, here it is. And I could pass out like maybe 10, 20, 30 of those after some of the most popular classes at my yoga studio. If you've been grinding at the polished version of your work instead of the thing you actually do best, and you want help turning it into something people will read, you can book a private call with me and we'll map it out together on our call.

And I finally, it all comes together. I'm like, holy shit. What I'm really trying to do is just get people to read my writing. And I need to keep my writing as authentic and real and straightforward as possible. And I need to do that by just continuing to write and publish these books on Amazon and on audiobook and Kindle print. I need to keep doing what I've been doing with the books, but then print out booklet versions and give those out for additional reach. And then the more books I keep writing, the more booklets, the booklets that I give out, the print little cheaply printed off a laser printer booklets I give out will introduce people to my writing. And then from there, when they go to my website, they'll have a bunch more books they can buy. And from there, they can schedule a private session with me, or maybe I can have events. That starts to sound like the perfect business system. I get the booklets in people's hands locally, but for the, let's say I give somebody one booklet and they really like it. Well, all the other booklets, because I was thinking, all right, if I give out a book on loneliness, for example, you know, I want people to be able to have access to the other booklets they didn't receive. Like, well, they need to be actual books on my website. Picture dropping a booklet about loneliness on somebody's doorstep. And then they go to my website and then they find my book on weight loss. Then they get into my daily autobiography books. And then they read some of my fiction books. Like I could door drop one booklet to someone, give them a huge amount of value, and then they might read five or 10 more books from there and or book a private session.

I'm like, holy shit, I've got it. What I've done wrong or what I've learned is don't just try and give out promotional letters that get people to spend money directly. Give someone real value. Give someone my real long format writing. And then from there, they'll. Some people receiving my real long format writing will want more writing from me. They'll come buy more books and some of them will want private sessions. And once I have enough private sessions and readers, then I'll be able to host some events if I want to. I go to bed with some hope, which feels so nice because this has been a week of trying so hard and struggling and feeling hopeless about my business. But now it feels like I've got everything lined up again.

If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.

180 Letters, Still Empty

Originally published March 12, 2026.

This is my journal entry from March 12, 2026 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.

I drop the kids off at school, and then I go play tennis with a tennis partner that I met on the local tennis center Team Reach app. He was the one who was supposed to play with my tennis partner yesterday. He is about old enough to be my dad, and he whips my ass in a match. I win a few games, but he wins easily, and yet I had fun. I got a good workout. I went to a local park to play with him, and I enjoyed talking with him and the conversation with him. I also realized that I don't want to use the SwingVision app anymore, so I canceled that, which is a nice point of clarity to have. My tennis partner's kind enough to message me in the morning and say that she'd love to play on Saturday, but let's arrange it on Saturday based on the weather and such. So I say, have a nice Thursday and Friday. Talk to you Saturday.

After I play tennis with him, the whole day stretches out in front of me with just a recovery meeting before I've got the rest of the time to myself. I come home from tennis. I don't feel too defeated or anything. I'm just glad I could get out and work out and play tennis. And I was studying the game as much as I could. I shower and then I head to the recovery meeting. One of the women there that I exchanged numbers with, the prettiest one who used to be really friendly and always wave and be enthusiastic to see me. She's there and my entire mood just goes down the shitter. Like I'm not even looking at her except if she shares and someone calls on her so she shares. But I don't acknowledge her in any way other than that. I feel bad just being there. I'm like, I don't know what happened. Like what happened with the enthusiasm, you know, and the happy to see each other. I asked her to go do something, and it's like all of a sudden, it's just, where'd that good energy go? What the hell is this here now? She talks about how she's struggling in her life and disappointing people, and I'm like, well, yep, you sure disappointed me. But maybe I shouldn't have had expectations that she should respond to my text messages. Maybe I shouldn't have got her phone number in the first place, and this wouldn't have happened. I don't know, man. I'm so confused. I just, I don't know. I don't even know what's right and what's wrong, what's up and what's down anymore. I hear, you know, people telling me that they got numbers of girls at meetings and they're dating them and that's going well. And then I just feel like shit.

I go home hoping that work can help me feel better. Today, I have so much time. I'm bound and determined I'm going to deliver as many letters as possible. So it's time to get to it. Over the next several hours, I deliver 180 letters door to door, dropping them on doorsteps, going finishing south of my neighborhood. And then I go over to some really nice houses, dropping letters. Absolutely. Just do an entire long, you know, mile long blocks doing the whole all of the houses there. It's a lot of stimulation dropping these letters. And I keep thinking, is this the best thing I could be offering or dropping? Like, is there any better offer I could have? In the middle of the day as it rains and I drop about 120 letters and I take a break while it rains to stuff some more letters and eat, I ask ChatGPT for a reality check. And it can't think of anything better I could do with myself than this. So I go out and drop more letters at night. And by the end of the day, I've worked so hard, but I don't feel like I've accomplished anything. I feel utterly defeated. And I hope things will be better tomorrow.

If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.

Doorstep Letters and Free Books: What I Learned

Originally published March 5, 2026.

Booklets, Calls, and a Plan

Originally published March 15, 2026.

This is my journal entry from March 15, 2026 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.

If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.

Give Them My Real Writing

Originally published March 14, 2026.

This is my journal entry from March 14, 2026 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.

If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.

180 Letters, Still Empty

Originally published March 12, 2026.

This is my journal entry from March 12, 2026 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.

If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.

The Two-Page Letter That Slaps

Originally published March 2, 2026.

This is my journal entry from March 2, 2026 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.

I was supposed to have a date this morning, but the girl didn't respond at all yesterday to the message I sent. And now she sends me a message first thing in the morning saying that she's not feeling the chemistry and wants to cancel. I completely agree. I'm relieved. I'm like, good. I wasn't planning on going to Sarasota today. And I send her a message back saying, agreed, you know, thanks for your time and good luck. And I'm amazed how nice that feels to just acknowledge. I knew as soon as I met her it wasn't aligned, but I just wanted to try and ride things out anyway, and we've done that now. With that time freed up, I'm looking at going to my recovery meeting instead of missing it today, and then I'll have the kids this afternoon and do basketball practice.

With a sudden stroke of inspiration, I realize I need to get this letter done today. For my business. And it needs to be no more than a front and back page. And it's time to get it done. So I go through. I ask ChatGPT after putting in the like 16 page version. I ask it what are the most important concepts. And to draft a shorter version. ChatGPT drafts a couple of shorter versions. And it just doesn't quite have it the way I'd like it. But I use the versions it drafts to then dictate my own two page letter that hits real hard and to the point. And this one feels awesome. It starts off talking about imagining the power of your book. It goes into writing a book as a legacy and preserving your stories for your family. It talks about how sharing your story with someone is incredibly transformational to break things like addictions and patterns in your life. And it talks about how in an age of loneliness, it's a great opportunity to connect, to have someone listen to your full life story. I put all that in there and then just have people go to jerrybanfield.com to schedule the first appointment with me, which is awesome. No fooling around on the phone with people like, hey, if you want to work with me, schedule that appointment, pay that $300. I don't say the price in there. I do leave my phone number and this feels good. I'm so grateful. Like I just cranked the whole letter out before I'm going to the recovery meeting in about two hours. Then again, there's a lot of background it took to like prepare for that and generate all the material and get the idea. But I'm like, now this feels just right. If you are trying to boil a big idea down into one short, punchy letter or offer that actually lands, that is one of my favorite things to help with — book a one-on-one call with me and we will sharpen yours.

After I get the letter done, I head to my recovery meeting and it's turned into a different format. It's a big book discussion now, which fucking sucks. I'm tired of these stupid ass reading a book like it's a Bible meeting and then everybody giving their own interpretation of it. So I share that. I'm not happy they changed the meeting to this format, and I will not be coming back to the meeting at this time anymore, because the way I did it, I read the book at home, and then when I had questions, I asked people in and after meetings. I called my sponsor. I read the book when I wasn't at meetings. To me, reading the book is just a waste of time in a fucking meeting. But I also acknowledge that I realize other people feel differently, that some people like reading the book together in a group. And that kicks off a series of emotional shares. Some people double dip and, you know, one guy talks about sniper sharing and somebody else sounds like they're sniper sharing, saying it'd be arrogant to reinvent this thing and the book's so valuable. The show was interesting. I'm like, well, I feel something, so that's good. One of the guys shares that he voted against it at the business meeting, but that he's here to support it because that's what the group decided on. The girl next to me is there trying to make all this work, and I hear she's just broke up with her boyfriend. I then end up finishing the meeting up and my sponsor is there. He ends up walking out early along with several other people who are tired of the big book discussion format as well.

I head from the meeting. I've got more time and I decide I'm going to take a bit of a rest day today. Like I'm not going to go super hard and just, you know, go crazy working out. I'm going to take a day off today. All right. You know, just maybe play some basketball tonight. So I go back to my house. And I grind out printing out hundreds of letters to see how long it'll take. And I'm really impressed. I've got 250 letters done in two hours. That's so much faster than the last ones were. I end up printing all the envelopes. I print those on the front and manually inserting each of those to a couple of paper jams. Then I print out all the letters front and back using up collectively over 700 pages from my print queue with my printer, and I've got rollover pages. Let's get into them, baby. I text the guy from my recovery group saying that I've got the letters ready, and he says he should be able to start delivering them tomorrow, which is nice when you get to testing this.

My ex-wife's picking up the kids from school today, so I've got plenty of time to get all these letters ready. She comes over and drops them off, and the kids are eager to play Settlers of Catan again. So we crank out another Settlers of Catan game right away and they have fun. And I'm so grateful the kids love playing this so much. We also go to a health food store to have a smoothie and get a whole bunch of shit for like $130. The organic strawberries are $7 a package there. I'm like, ah, fuck it. You know, I'm made of money, right? Go all out. Yeah, throw that on a credit card. Let's go. We get the Settlers of Catan played real quick. And then we go to a gym where I get to shoot around while the kids play basketball. I hit 42 three-pointers, and that's with only being able to shoot at probably less than 50% capacity, where I'm taking time to watch the kids. I'm not shooting probably half as much as I would if I had the court to myself. But there's two groups of kids with coaches on either side. And I'm trying to use this rim in the middle of them. I'm like, this is so incredible that I can hit 42 three-pointers in an hour while kids are playing basketball all around me. I'm also entertaining my son. My mother shows up as well and I stop by and say hi. I'm like, this is amazing. My elbow hurts a little bit and I'm like, well, let's try not to overextend it or anything, but I'm grateful it functions.

My mother comes home with us, after stopping at the vending machine for like 10 minutes to buy shit. But my mother pays for it and the kids have a little money, something like whatever. We get home and I get a shower and I got a nice workout and broke a nice sweat shooting all these baskets too. So I finally end up with my mother there and taking pictures with the kids and stuff. We finally end up getting in bed at like 10 o'clock. But it's just a regular school day. We don't have to like be in early or anything tomorrow. But maybe we will have a little bit earlier bedtime tomorrow. I lay in bed and I'm grateful for the chance to, you know, have so much time to sleep. And then to me, this is my best quality meditation time is laying in bed between sleep or first thing in the morning or before I fall asleep. That's quality meditation time. And I'm grateful I've got that today. I'm so grateful to have the kids back after four nights being here by myself. It's really nice to have them here. And they're in there winning the poo jammies for my mother.

If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.

Giving My Books to the Whole Neighborhood

Originally published December 31, 2025.

This is my journal entry from December 31, 2025 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.

Wrapping this year up strong with now four straight months, right? September, October, November, December. Four straight months. Actually, August too. Five straight months of diary entries every single day. The most consistent I've ever been on this. Long enough to form an effective habit. I'm really grateful to conclude the year this way with my work. Really proud of where I'm at now.

I woke up this morning and tried something new. Well, not that new. I used to do the same kind of thing in college, but I went to a hot yoga class today at 8 a.m. without eating anything beforehand. And man, I thought, oh, I might be tired. I didn't get up till like 7.45 and then rolled in there at like 7.55. And I'm like, oh, I might not have much energy. I got so frustrated during this yoga class. Now the instructor had a gorgeous body and I was really enjoying looking at that. But she had us do so many goddamn sun salutations. Jesus Christ. How many sun salutations can you do? Like, I mean, it is effective. Up, down, up, down. Then I'm like, well. You did show up here, didn't you? Like, yeah, but can't we just make this shit a little more interesting than doing 80,000 fucking Sun A's and Sun B's and Warrior One and Chaturanga, Up Dog, Down Dog. Get more bark for your buck. Oh, Jesus. But it was a good workout. I really am glad I went to the class. I got to sweating my ass off. There was one attractive girl in there. I guess she doesn't want me to talk to her. The instructor was nice and pretty. And goddamn, how many times are you going to say that?

After I got home, I took a shower and had some Larabars. I ordered some in the mail. I was going to do no Larabars, but I'm like, fuck, I love Larabars. So I had two Larabars and a banana. And I took a shower and I laid in bed because I remember thinking during the class, like I'm getting back in fucking bed when I get home. This is why I live by myself. So I can get back in bed if I feel like it at 930, which I did. And it was great. And I laid there and I kind of meditated to make it sound fancy. But I laid there and was like kind of half asleep, half awake. And I'm thinking, what the fuck am I going to do with my day today? Like I have the whole day wide open. Yes, I'm going to see the kids. And yes, I'm going to go to the 7 p.m. AA meeting. But please let me do some effective work today and not waste my time.

And I thought about it. Yesterday, I came up with this plan that I'm going to give all these books away. And I started writing a book in the evening. I was working with ChatGPT to call it How I Finally Got Healthy. But that shit is a boring-ass title. I think I'm going to rip off Mark Manson's title of Unfuck Yourself. But I don't want to have an asterisk in my title, and I'm going to rip off Deadmau5's FN Pig song. So I think I'm going to call mine Un-FN Myself. Or as you would read it, it'd be Un-FN Myself. And that's going to be like an autobiography story of getting sober, losing weight, getting what some people might think of as mentally healthy. Not everybody by any means would think of me as mentally healthy, but I think I'm very mentally healthy and I'm a role model.

Oh, yes, clearly very mentally healthy, throwing around offensive language here in the book. I'm not trying to offend anybody. I'm just having fun. You know, I love my brothers and sisters on this planet of all colors, all races and genders. I love everybody up on this bitch. And it's funny to talk and not take something so goddamn seriously. And you know what? All this political correctness shit is taking life way too seriously. I'm not out in the street yelling slurs at anybody. No, I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that. I'm just talking shit to myself in a book that nobody might fucking read. So there.

So I'm back in bed, laying there, meditating. And I'm thinking, what am I going to do today? It's like, okay, I've come up with this plan to write this book on effing myself. And I'd love to give this book away. I'm thinking I got a fat ass credit card. Like I could print like 10,000 of these fucking books on credit and just drop them all over St. Petersburg, Florida and see if anything happens. But I realized I need a test. I need to test whether book giveaways make anything happen. I need a smaller level test. And I realized I've got 150 or so copies that I Was Famous on the Internet in three boxes just sitting in the house. And I'm like, hello, perfect test. And the perfect little test for this will be to put a letter to my neighbors and frame this book as a welcome gift. Hey, I'm moving into the neighborhood. I'm your new neighbor. Let me give you a copy of my book. So I wrote a letter out today that I'm going to read right now, that I worked on after I had this realization. I'm like, this is what I need to do today. I need to write these Hey New Neighbor letters, stuff all the books with them, prepare all the books to give away, and then as soon as I can, I'm going to go drop these books off in my new neighborhood and plant seeds. This way I can test if these books get any kind of response, then I'll know if I might want to scale this up. Otherwise, I don't want to order a thousand fucking books for four or five thousand dollars and try and scale something up that doesn't work with a hundred or so people. So here's the letter. I worked on this with ChatGPT for like an hour. I dictated it first and then had ChatGPT make tweaks and went back and forth and had it pretend it was a neighbor and analyze it and all that shit. So it starts off saying, hey, new neighbor.

I'm moving into a house within walking distance of you here in the Crescent Lake neighborhood next week, and I wanted to introduce myself by leaving you this gift. My name is Jerry Banfield. I'm a local author, speaker, and coach. This book, I Was Famous on the Internet, tells the story of how I got over a billion views online, amassed millions of followers, and then deleted everything in June 2025. You'll enjoy this book if you want to see what it's really like to be an influencer, if you simply love a good story, or if you'd like to get to know one of your new neighbors a little better. If you have teenage kids, this might actually be a book they'll read. If they've been sold the dream of becoming an influencer, this book shows what that life is actually like and why it isn't all it's hyped up to be. I also write and narrate a series named Daily Autobiography. It's basically a real-time diary of my life told honestly without cutting the parts that make me look bad. The first book is named Author in St. Petersburg. Some readers have called it the most honest diary they've ever read and said they've never laughed that hard while reading a book. Others have been horrified that I dare talk about subjects they think should be private, like sex, and said their wife would divorce them if they wrote a book like that. Mine did, so the next book is named The Kind Divorce.

I dropped this book off at your house because I've had these books sitting in my closet for a couple of months, and after getting frustrated trying to sell them, I decided I might as well just give them away. Most of us seem to be running on autopilot, and it takes something genuinely unexpected to interrupt that trance. By leaving a book on your doorstep, I'm hoping I've introduced something surprising into your day, something that makes you wonder what else life might have to offer that could simply show up unannounced. If you've ever thought about writing your own book, it's surprisingly easy. You don't need to be able to type or know anything about Amazon. I coach people to use their own voice, dictating voice memos, and then polish those transcripts into written form. That's the same process I use myself, and I'm currently helping three people do this right now. Personally, I'm ready for a truck to back up and drop a million dollars on my doorstep, followed by meeting a beautiful woman who lives a sober, active lifestyle, wants children, and would love to be my second wife. Maybe if I leave enough of these books around the neighborhood, that kind of surprise will eventually show up in my life. If you'd like to meet, I often walk around Crescent Lake Park, and I'd be happy to talk with you about the book, your life, or anything else that might give me material for my next book. Warmly, Jerry Banfield. Right? That's a fucking badass letter. If you'd like to be one of those good surprises and rebuild alongside someone in your corner, you can book a private one-on-one call with me.

ChatGPT analyzed it, and it liked it. I asked it to pretend like it's a neighbor and go through, analyze it, and tell me its feedback. And I like it. It says its initial reaction. A book on the doorstep is surprising, and its first thought is, huh, that's different. I'm immediately curious enough to open it instead of tossing it aside like a flyer. ChatGPT says, the opening paragraphs come off as confident and straightforward without being salesy. The billion views, deleted everything hook works instantly. I don't question it. I want to know why someone would do that. The teenage kids make me smile. And then it says, when I talk about the daily autobiography, this is the emotional core. ChatGPT says, it laughs at the never laughed that hard line. It paused at the mention of sex. It says out loud, mine did, so the next book is a kind divorce. It says that's a moment where you become unmistakably human. It's disarming. I may not agree with everything, but I trust you. I believe you're telling the truth. It says my writing my own book paragraph is helpful, not pushy. It says the autopilot trance paragraph lands quietly, but deeply. That's a win. Then the second wife paragraph is a strong reaction here, and that's not a bad thing. A surprised laugh, a raised eyebrow, and then either this guy is very self-aware or very bold. Probably both. The wording would love to be my second wife softens it just enough to feel humorous rather than crude. It warns me some neighbors will bristle. Others will appreciate the honesty. Nobody will forget you after this paragraph. That's what we're going for. And it says my invitation to close it is strong. So I feel really good about that. That's the main thing I did today is get this letter done.

And then it takes me a couple hours to print like 150 copies of it out, stuff it in all my I Was Famous on the Internet books that I have in my house, bring all them out to my car. I also sign every book since the letter that I'm putting inside could fall out or if the first person opens it and takes the letter out, it could get lost. So I sign every book saying, for my neighbor, Jerry Banfield with my phone number in the book. That way if the book gets passed to somebody else, they can still contact me and see that the book was originally for a neighbor. That feels really good, and after I get all that ready, the kids come down to visit me at 2.15 right after I finish packing up the books.

Meanwhile, I've been listening to Tucker Max's book, which is just so damn funny and really encourages me. The shit Tucker Max puts in his book is funny, even the stuff people would call offensive. Don't fucking call that racist. It's funny. Obviously, he loves black people just like I love black people. You know, it encourages me to loosen up and say outrageous things without worrying, oh, Jerry said that. You know, it's like, relax. I'm reading Tucker Max's book called Hilarity Ensues. This shit is funny as hell, and there's tons of things that people can be offended about. But if I offended you, good, because I still don't give a fuck. I'm going to write these books. I already got divorced after writing a book that was intended to just be honest and try not to offend people. I got fucking divorced over it. Like, don't fucking Jimmy me, Jules, okay? I don't want to get fucking divorced. And that's what I'm talking about. Like, I already got divorced by starting writing these books. So I'm all in, right? Like, I'm all in. I already got divorced. I lost my marriage, which is one of the most precious things that I had in my life. Lost my house. You know, I'm moving into a new one. You know, I got to hang on to the relationship with my kids. Like, fuck it.

I'm saying whatever the fuck I want to in this book and all my books, because if I can't say whatever the fuck I want to in my books, then free speech is dead. And if it's not clear in the context of a book that I love everybody, then I'm not saying it right. I love everybody. And I want to make people laugh and be real. You know, and if I can't be this honest and just talk how I want to talk in my own goddamn book, then fuck this whole reality, right? Like, what am I even doing here? I mean, I get you can't go out saying the crude shit I say on YouTube. And in my experience there are all kinds of alternative approaches to health I've come to believe in, like fasting. Yeah, I can't put shit like that on YouTube, but I'm sticking it in my goddamn book. All right? And that feels good. That means I need to distribute these books directly to people who can read them. I'm like, I need to get them in people's hands. So I'm really proud today I did the work to make that happen.

The kids come over at like 2.15. And we're all laughing, having fun. My son's driving his monster truck around, kicking the shit out of it. It's like a $150 monster truck he got for Christmas a year ago. And at one point, he kicks the shit out of it, and the fucking drive wheel comes off. It's like a one-wheel drive truck, and he breaks it off, the wheel that drives it. This thing's now sitting on three wheels and broken, can't drive anymore. And he starts to get upset and talk about gluing it. You know, I told him, I'm like, I told you, like I fucking told you I would take it easy on that thing. I'll take it easy on kicking that truck unless you're okay breaking it. And maybe I wasn't that helpful by reminding him of that shit. And he starts talking about, he wants to glue it back together. And I'm like, that's not going to glue together. It's a tiny ass piece of plastic. The force, the friction is not, the sheer force is not going to fucking work. You're not going to be able to glue that shit back together, at least with any ordinary-ass glue I know of, and keep it together for any length of time. This shit was made as one solid piece of fucking plastic, and it's broken. You fucked it up. So I told him, I'm like, we need to throw this out.

And he loses his shit. He starts throwing things at me. He throws a truck at me, at which point I'm like, I'm throwing it the fuck out right now. I rip the wheel that is falling off. He's holding the wheel off. He throws the wheel at me, so I throw that away, too. He tips over the trash can. My daughter helps him get it back out. Shit went crazy. And I'm like, look, let me deal with this. You know, you can take your space, walk the dog, whatever, as long as it's not, like, down the street or something. But my son goes nuts. And I'm laughing at him, too, and trying to defend myself. He smacks me with the gentle leader, just the part you put over the dog's nose. He smacks me with that inside. I'm like, that's it. Your truck's staying in the fucking trash, and it's getting thrown out. You want to act like that? Good, because I'm throwing that broke-ass truck out, and you can learn from this. He goes nuts. He climbs under the bed and sobs, and then gets back out under the bed. He begs for the truck. He tells me to glue it together. The funniest shit he did, he gets out. There's the recycling bin, the blue recycling bin, and there's the black trash can. My son gets the recycling bin and starts pulling it back and rolling it on its wheels and then like doing like crash. He starts crashing the recycling bin into the trash can, which is actually funny as shit. I'm laughing at him. I'm laughing with him. I'm proud of him. And I'm not letting him get that fucking truck out of the trash can either. That shit is dead and gone. That shit is dead and gone. You fucked up, breaking his truck. You did not tell me. I'm like, I did tell you, whether you listened or gave a shit about what I said. That's different. But I mean, it should be obvious that kicking the shit out of his truck, it could break.

So we went through that shit for a while. My ex-wife calls, like, right in the middle of it, and he's breaking down. And I think part of my ex-wife's happy to, like, see that that happens with Dad, too, because a lot of times the kids give Dad better behavior than not today. I asked my daughter, I'm like, what did you guys eat before this? She's like, we had some cookies. I'm like, doesn't surprise me. Like, his brain's fucked up with sugar, and he's getting out his emotions, too, at the same time. It's fine. So my son eventually gets in the house. It's difficult because I have to push him away from me. I push him down a couple of times because he's hitting me and shit. So I just push him hard enough so that he falls down in the grass and gets off of me and will give me some space. It's difficult handling this as a parent, but I feel like I'm doing pretty good. I would not have gotten to act like this with my late father. My late father would have whooped my ass for acting like that. But my son, I feel like I allow him space to be himself and have his emotions. But at the same time, like, look, you're not just going to fucking whack me with something or do whatever you want to. I'm the one in charge in here. All right. That's me. Not you. Let's get this straight. If you're navigating hard moments with your own kids, I'd be honored to think it through with you on a private one-on-one call.

And then we get back in the house and I tell him, look, since as a divorce present I gave them each a hundred dollars that they could spend to get some toys that are dedicated for dad's house. I'm like, why don't we shop on Amazon right now? You can buy yourself another goddamn truck. All right. Like it's not that big of a deal. I gave you each a hundred dollars. You can put your money together. You can buy a drone and a fucking truck and you're going to have more than you had before. So he's crying, but he starts, this was after he got under the bed again, started kicking it and shit. And I just let him do that until he wore himself out. And finally get them over to look at the cars and the drones. Find a nice-ass drone that's like $150 on Amazon. It has auto stabilization, which is what you really need. If the drone does not auto stabilize, then it has a hard time. You know, like the last drone he got was so cheap, it didn't auto stabilize. It just blew away in the wind and then it got stuck in a tree eventually. So this one is a GPS drone with EIS. I don't know what the fuck that means. 4K camera, auto return, two batteries for 45 minute flight time, circle fly and follow me mode. Nice. So I got him this. It's gonna arrive Saturday. It had like a 54 off coupon so it's like 135. And then we bought him a 1 to 12 scale monster truck RC car, amphibious remote control car with four-wheel drive, all-terrain, waterproof for lake. So that way one of them can fly the drone, one of them can drive the car, and then I can drive both of them when they're not there. How about that? So I bought them that.

And my daughter got Harry Potter Monopoly and we played that. And I made him a big-ass thing of popcorn. My son was having fun throwing the dice all over. And I'm glad. I feel like reading Tucker Max's book and listening to stand-up comedy has helped me laugh more and helped me loosen up. But on the downside of that, then I catch myself saying crude, offensive things. God damn it. How many times am I going to say that in this fucking book? See, I feel much more free to loosen up and express myself. And I've been laughing a lot more. And I think laughing is one of the most healthiest things you can do. So I'm laughing my ass off. My son's just throwing Monopoly dice all over the fucking place. One of them goes under the stove. He gets a knife to like get it out of there, a butter knife, not a sharp knife. And we're all having a great time. And my daughter finally gets her revenge on Harry Potter Monopoly because my son and I have been fucking her up lately at Harry Potter Monopoly. But my daughter goes ham and gets all the orange properties and gets both the Harry Potter equivalents of the utilities, the Lumos and Augmenti. She gets both of those, and she's just draining my son and I. And I'm happy for her. I'm like, good, I'm glad you're finally winning because you've been on a losing streak and you had a great attitude last time.

So we had a good time, wrapped it up. So I had the kids for about three hours today, walked them back to my ex-wife's house on their scooters. And I got there, my ex-wife's making scallops and potatoes and shit. I hang out there for like 10 minutes and then my ex-wife very clearly tells me it's, you know, say goodbye to daddy. And I was a little resentful for a minute. I'm like, that's fucked up, you know, kind of be nice to hang out a little bit. But nope, she wasn't interested. And, you know, that's the thing. We're divorced, her house now. And she gave me 10 minutes to hang out. I was looking to eat some of the potatoes and shit for dinner, but I guess she wasn't interested in that. So I checked out. I walked back down the street. I felt kind of sad. But I realized, like, work on your fucking book. Like, you haven't narrated anything. So I worked on narrating Un-FN Myself. I narrated the chapter. Yesterday I dictated the childhood chapter and the college chapter. Today I dictated the adulthood chapter of 2006 to 2011, which ends up being like 40 minutes. So I've got about two and a half hours of this book dictated already. And it's only the first three substantial chapters, not counting the introduction. And there's going to be maybe 10 chapters. So it's fine. I'm going to make this fucker as long as it needs to be. It's going to be a nice autobiography of my life. And I'm going to pass this shit out, assuming the I Was Famous on the Internet book test gives me some results.

But I'm going to get this book done before I move. Because my landlord texted me today that I should be able to move in. She'll give me the keys on Sunday, be ready to move in Monday. I'm going to get the internet installed Tuesday, see if I can get my beds and furniture and shit moved in like Thursday. So I want to get this book knocked out because it's going to take time to move all this shit, get my studio set back up again. I'm going to have a bunch of moving stuff I want to do. So ideally, if I could get this book done, get a copy of the proof, then I could start the process of being able to order author copies. So we need to get the book dictated first. That's step one. So I'm working on that. I already got it outlined and I'm really enjoying it. I also felt good dictating the book.

And I went to my AA meeting, my home group tonight. And I'm glad there was a nice crowd there. We had a nice meeting, good conversation. And we stayed talking after the meeting for just a little under an hour. And it was cold in there too, like Jesus. It was like 50 outside. Fortunately, I wore my late father's old gray members only jacket, you know, that he liked to wear before he died. I was just feeling that tonight. I haven't been talking to my mother much the last few days. I need some space to make sure I can set some new boundaries with her, reconsider the relationship with her. And the clarity I've got is, you know, I want to see my mother outside her house. I'm tired of going over to her house, hanging out there with all the junk food and the screens. You know what I'm saying? And I don't want to fuck around and talk on the phone a bunch with her either. Like, let's get out of the house and hang out in person. Let's do something more active, like take a walk around Crescent Lake Park, which apparently nobody wants to do with me. So I'm kind of missing my late father, you know. I'm starting to miss my mother enough that I'll probably call her tomorrow or something.

But at the end of the meeting, there's this woman who said she's getting divorced and she's just at the beginning of her separation. She's living by herself. She's a little lonely. And she ends up asking me right after, as I'm walking back to my car and everyone's broke up. She's like, so you're going back to work on your books now? And I hear what she really says, that she's lonely and looking for connection. And honestly, part of me was tempted, even though I wasn't really attracted to her. But I'm not going down that road, because hooking up with someone I don't actually want, like I did with the woman from massage school, just becomes a pain to deal with afterward. And one of the guys from the meeting calls me later to talk, and I have a little revelation talking to him. I never again want to have a woman over that I'm just looking forward to leaving afterward. I want to be really excited to snuggle the shit out of a woman, really enjoy our time together. I want both of us to be heartbroken when she has to leave for one reason or another. I never want that feeling of just wanting someone gone the moment we're done. I never want to do that again.

I've been there before, like a hookup I wrote about in more detail in Officer Banfield, where the moment it was over I just wanted her gone. Same with the woman from massage school. As soon as it was done, I was sad she was even there. And I don't ever want to be that guy again. That sucks for everybody. I don't want to be that guy for a woman either. Like, I was thinking today, oh, I should just go to a bar. It's New Year's Eve. There's all these people out at the bar tonight. But I don't want to go home with somebody and be that guy for her, where she's some young woman who wakes up just wanting this older guy out of her apartment. I don't want to do that. You know, what I really want is someone who wants me and loves that I have that mature, wise energy about me. And that's all I want. I want a woman I'm just in love with, like my ex-wife. With my ex-wife, I never wanted her to leave. I always wanted every minute I could with her. That's why I moved in with her. I want to date a woman I want to move in with. And if someone's not up to that standard, then there's somebody else for her. There's somebody else that's just right for her. If you're getting clear on what you really want in love, you're welcome to schedule a one-on-one call with me to talk it through.

After the meeting, I was driving home and I just had a thought that if I went to Crescent Lake, something interesting might happen. So I walk around Crescent Lake. There's this guy there that I holler at because he runs by me once and then he comes to run by me again. We're walking opposite directions. I'm like, damn, you're moving a lot faster than I am. He's like, I'm running 20 miles. I'm like, God damn, bro. Much respect right there for running 20 miles on a cold ass night like this. Much love. I love you, brother. Thank you. So I'm almost done walking around the lake, and I'm like, okay, nothing interesting's happened. Then I run into a guy I knew. I hadn't seen him in a few weeks. I'd given him a ride home a few times, gotten to know him. He had told me I was one of the people he was grateful for. Sure enough, this guy is out here with a woman and two children, and he says, this is my lady. I'm like, I don't remember you having a lady, I got to say. Last time I saw you, I was pretty sure you were single. So I say hi to him. It's good to see him. And I shake the hand of the lady and the two kids. They're having fun looking at somebody shooting off big ass fireworks in Crescent Lake. It's a nice firework show. It scared the shit out of me one time. So I was like, okay, cool. That intuition somehow knew that he was out there. It didn't give me the exact details of who it was, but that intuition was powerful. Now, I swear to God, that intuition better be working on a hot wife that wants me, that lives a sober lifestyle, and wants at least two more children. All right? That intuition that can tell that your boy's out at the lake. Don't fucking jimmy me, Jules, okay? And it is. I'm sure it is. And maybe that's why I'm going to give these books away because who knows what kind of cool shit's going to happen.

So I get back in my car. I'm like, that was cool. That was satisfying. I'd rather be alone at night than have a hookup I don't even want and then be trying to get her out the door afterward. And I think, oh, man, it might be nice to not be so superficial and shit. Maybe it'd be nice if you could walk through the open doors, as Dr. Robert Glover says. I'm like, I'm going to slam that door the fuck shut. I was thinking about working. I'm like, you know, I don't take jobs working at $20 or $30 an hour because that's not worth my fucking time. Like that is below me. I don't work $20 or $30 an hour jobs unless it's something I'd love to do for free. I would not get a job. I'd rather just borrow money and get creative financially and play lottery or some stupid shit, wait for somebody to die. I'm not just going to go to some $20 or $30 job I'm not passionate about. I'm looking at it the same way with women. I would rather be alone than have someone over here that I'm not respecting. It's not just about her. It's about me. If I can't fully respect and adore a woman, and if we're not both genuinely excited to be there, then she shouldn't be over here. I'd rather have nothing than have something I don't really want.

If I can't have it awesome, I'd rather have nothing. If I can't do work I love, I would rather be poor and fucking panhandle than do work as some corporate slave like so many people on this planet are. And if that's your path, then that's you. But me, no, I'm not here to be somebody's fucking slave. I'm not here to be somebody's slave. And I'm not here to make somebody else my slave either. I want an equal. And somebody at the meeting said to me tonight, it's like, well, you haven't found a girl that deserves you yet. I'm like, you know, that's right. I've been idolizing some of these women because they're hot. But just because they're hot doesn't mean they deserve me. I'm going to get a woman that's hot and fills me up the rest of the way too. And I'd rather sit here and talk shit by myself in my apartment than have someone over here that I'm just going to want gone afterward.

I wonder what my kids are going to think of this. If they'll ever listen to it in like 10 or 20 years, they might be like, God damn, my dad was fucking awesome. Or they might be like, oh my God, my dad. Like, you look at people in their eighties today that are confused about racism. They're like, we didn't have that when we were kids. It was just that white people were the best, and that's all there was. We had no idea there was another way to look at it. I'm having fun doing this now, and I feel like if you're having fun doing it now, that's what counts. One of the guys from a meeting, I talked to him for 40 minutes. It was a great conversation. I'm like, you know what? That's probably a better conversation than any hookup would have been, I'll tell you that. To keep this shit real.

All right, I got to make these shorter. The main reason to keep these shorter is so I don't have to edit so much to get these goddamn books out. So it's 11.05. It's New Year's. I'm dipping out before it turns midnight because I don't give a fuck what time it is. I'm a mortal god. All of reality is now. I'm an eternal being. I don't give a fuck what day or what year, what time it is. Shit.

If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.

Drop a Book on a Thousand Doorsteps

Originally published December 30, 2025.

This is my journal entry from December 30, 2025 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.

I woke up at like two in the morning, which is not surprising given I went to bed at 8:40. And I start thinking like, what the fuck am I going to do for money and with my business and shit? Like I need to do something drastic. I need to do something that's going to help people. I need to figure this shit out. Like it's time to stop fucking around and really go for it and come up with the best shit I can think of. So I start talking with ChatGPT. I mean, you know, I keep whipping my phone out, thinking about it, putting it down, thinking about it. And this is quite a conversation we have. It ends up being like a three hour conversation. And let me tell you what I started off with. So my initial prompt is that I'm wondering what to do to sell my books. I've been, you know, should I do all this shit on a blog and then sell Zoom calls? But with AI and shit, blogs are dead, but I could get a search history, I've got a domain, et cetera. So I ask it, basically, is it worth setting up a website and doing a blog? Which I fucking know the answer to, all right? 2025 is two decades late to start a blog. Gotta tell you, damn near three. ChatGPT agrees. It says a traditional SEO-driven blog is not worth betting your livelihood in 2025. I have to go with the no shit on that.

And yes, you know, I could just put shit on there, but that's not gonna work. So then I talk about, what about publishing on Medium? And then it says Medium's worth using, but not as a home. Like, fuck, yeah, I already know that. I wrote shit on Medium. It did nothing, all right? So then ChatGPT cranks a whole bunch of shit out. It says, you know, start building a writing-powered relationship machine. I'm like, okay. And I tell it, all right, well, I don't need money for several months. So I need to set up a distribution system for books or coaching or some fucking thing. And it says, you're asking the right question at the right time, which is the main shit it says when I talk to it. And it says, the blog's not a good idea and traffic can grow over time. It says, why don't you do a website and post on Medium? I'm like, all right, I don't think you're really getting my question. I said, what am I doing now that would be most valuable? I mean, I can just sell a book. I can sell 10 books a day or some shit. Can't I do something to sell fucking books?

So then ChatGPT says, you're asking the right meta question now. What action creates both cash now and compounding upside later? It says you're strong in in-person trust, books as physical objects, and your presence and story. And it says you should try and sell books in person while capturing contact info. Well, I'm not sure how to fucking do that very easily because I don't really know where to do that or how to do that very well right now. So then it says, you know, maybe I should publish some shit online, sell books in person, write books. And I'm like, okay, so what do I need to do to sell more books in person? So it gives me a whole bunch of shit that's a fucking turd on a page about QR codes and signups and books. Just fucking go walk around with a book, all right? There you go.

And it says — I'm like, all right, it shouldn't be that hard to sell 10 or 20 books a day. And then it says, why don't you sell your books in a fucking coffee shop or on a park or a waterfront or at a farmer's market? Like, fuck you. Like, that's dumb shit. That's not going to work. And then next I said, I'm willing to go door to door to sell some books, but nobody answers their goddamn door. And it says, well, don't knock. Just don't knock. I'm like, okay. So just — do what does it say? It says leave a handwritten note and a book offer at the door. Like, okay, well, fuck, I was already thinking about doing that. But then I told it I'm going to send a bunch of letters to my neighbors. But that shit didn't work at all in my last neighborhood. And ChatGPT says never ask neighbors to contact you directly, see you in person, do a local meetup — like that's not going to fucking work.

I said, all right, so here's where the conversation has turned. You're like, God damn, thank you, after four fucking minutes, let's get to the point. I said, as expensive as sending these letters has become, I'm thinking I might as well drop fucking books on people's doorsteps. ChatGPT says, you're directionally right, but there's a smart version and a wasteful version. And it says you can waste inventory, annoy readers, et cetera. So it encourages me to just do the letters, and, you know, do a hybrid approach — do letters and book drops near free libraries and shit, don't drop books randomly, et cetera. So I told it, fuck, I could use all the stamps and send the letters to my neighbors, or yeah, I could drop the envelopes of the letter to my neighbors at the doorstep. Now ChatGPT likes this idea. It says, yeah, just drop the letters at your doorstep.

So I go back and forth with it about the details of how to do it. But the details just don't work out. It's like, well, shit, people don't open letters, they're just going to throw them away, then they're going to have to buy a book or ask me for a book. I tell them I could put a thing in to text people. And so I go back and forth about the letters and the details and how I'm going to drop it, where I'm going to fucking stick the letter on their door crack and the workflow for that. And I could print it up. And then it's like, fuck, I could just print a booklet up and put that in an envelope and throw that bitch on the ground. But then that's going to start costing time and money and a dollar. And I could offer multiple books in one letter. ChatGPT says, well, don't do it with multiple books, just promote one book. Like, fuck me.

So we keep going back and forth. And then I get to, well, my bottom line is I want people to read my books. The problem is people are lazy. Even if someone does read and wants one of my books, the likelihood they'll actually take me up on a cold letter and text me to ask for a fucking book is damn near zero. Just because people are lazy. You know, you drop a book on somebody's door — I mean, I'm at my gym giving people a fucking book and they won't even take it. Literally all they have to do is pick the fucker up. So I'm like, shit, ChatGPT's like, you're right that people are lazy. I'm like, no shit.

So I go back and forth and I finally wrap it up with, you know, I will come up with book ideas and shit. I'm like, you know what? I should just drop fucking books on people's doorstep. I should just write a book specifically to drop on people's doorsteps. And there. So I go back and forth about what book to drop. I want to drop a book named Unfat Yourself, which is just what it sounds like. ChatGPT's like, no, that's too offensive, don't do that. I'm like, well, how about from fat, broken, single to some, you know, opposite of that? It's like, no, that's too offensive. So I go back and forth on more ideas and it's finally like, okay, how about you call it How I Finally Got Healthy? I'm like, okay, I think — like if you're going to drop a book on people's fucking doorsteps, you need to have something that is going to have general appeal. That almost anyone could relate to.

And health is an issue almost everybody thinks about or cares about. Or even if they aren't that into health, they might be interested to read somebody else's story and somebody else's journey. So I'm like, because health is something we all share. Especially, you know, I want to drop it in affluent neighborhoods where people have money to like pay for coaching or pay for a book or something. So I want to write it in a way that could be really helpful to anyone and that could change someone's lives. Like, bottom line, I want to drop something off on somebody's doorstep that could change their life. Just sending letters in the mail, promoting my book services is clearly not doing anything. And dropping off a letter promoting my books is obviously not going to do anything. Dropping off a little tiny pamphlet is really not enough to change somebody's life and it looks cheap. So I'm like, you know what? Books end up costing four or five dollars each to print. It's like for four or five thousand, I could drop off a thousand of my books.

Like the main problem I have at this point is distribution. I have books, I need to get them in the hands of people, and if you drop something on somebody's doorstep they're kind of stuck with it. Yeah, you might get people who throw it out or recycle it, but some people, you know, having this book right here that's been given to them might actually really appreciate it and it could really change their life. And it's something that's much higher quality. Like anybody can do some shitty flyer or put a letter in the mail with a stamp on it, or staple together a couple of pages they printed at home. But I've never in my fucking life got a book dropped off on my doorstep. Like that'd be the first time that's ever happened to somebody. And then that would make an impression, especially if it's on a subject that's really important. If you want to grow and get healthier with someone in your corner, book a private one-on-one call with me.

And I'm just imagining, like, even if 10% — let's say I dropped off a thousand books, spent four or $5,000 on these books and drop them off at a thousand houses. Let's say 90% of people don't give a shit about the book. They throw it out. They're totally fucking closed-minded. They think they're healthy. They don't want to hear anything I have to say. That's a bit pessimistic, but imagine if a hundred people actually read it and it makes a difference and they give it to a friend and maybe somebody reaches out and says, hey, I'd like you to coach me, or hey, I see you wrote a book, can you help me write a book? Like there could be huge returns. They could ask me, hey, can you come speak at my church? Like all kinds of good shit could get going and it's scalable. If I drop this off at a thousand houses, I just Amazon print all the books — all I have to do is walk around and drop them on somebody's doorstep. I could, if let's say I get a coaching client or I get some nice money back, I could then print a thousand more of them and drop a thousand more of those on people's doorsteps. I need to get my damn books out there.

And what's nice is, a book like this could then promote a whole bunch of other books where I can mention Author in St. Petersburg, I Was Famous on the Internet. I can mention other diary books. I can mention future books like, hey, I'm going to do a book just on sobriety. Like this is a book I could give away at AA, give away at yoga, sell at my gym. This is a book I could be sitting in Crescent Lake Park with working on my books and give it to people as they're walking by. Like this, to me, I need a book that is like my — like, How, Excuses Be Gone? No, that's not it. Your Erroneous Zones was Wayne Dyer. I need some foundational book that I get written, and then I hustle and get that book in the hands of real people. And right now, everything I'm doing is taking too long to get the book in real people's hands. Like people are just — I feel like when people walk into their house, they're in a space where if they saw a book on the doorstep, they probably just pick it up and take it in and put it down on the table and then think about it.

Where I could actually get the book into somebody's house. Everything else I'm trying is coming up with so much resistance. And I feel like health is the broadest subject because a lot of people, you know, money is a subject that is going to be harder to just drop on somebody's doorstep. But, you know, I could do that someday. So I'm really excited and I'm really grateful that I did this exact workflow, that I went to bed early last night and then I woke up in the middle of the night. Where Wayne Dyer likes to say, you know, three in the morning is where inspiration comes — like inspiration came last night in the middle of the night. Like I know exactly what I need to do.

So I'm glad I know what I need to do. And I've got enough credit where I can just fucking put shit on a credit card, or, you know, a 0% interest credit card, get this book done, fucking throw $4,000 or $5,000 on a 0% interest credit card, just print that shit, distribute all the books, and then hopefully let the cash roll in, baby. I mean, if you put this on the right person's doorstep, they might end up paying me thousands of dollars in coaching or giving me a speaking opportunity worth thousands of dollars, or people might buy a bunch more of my books off of this. Like there's so many — I've got to get these damn books in people's hands. And I'll put a letter in the beginning of the book to give them my phone number and to, you know, explain the context. Like, hey, I wrote this book, I hope it helps you, that's why I put it at your front door, I hope this changes your life, you know, this is my gift to you.

I then go back to sleep at like 6 a.m. and wake up like 8:30. I get up and have some hummus and a carrot and a banana for breakfast, then get over to my gym, get my table and shit set up, get my computer set up. I don't sell any books, but something really cool happens. The woman who works the front desk has seen me a bunch of times there. And she comes over and crouches down next to me and asks me if I have anybody I can refer to the gym to help her out. But she also says, you know, we all just love you here. I'm like, thanks, what do you mean? She's like, well, we have your book in the break room and, you know, we just love you. I was like, oh, that's really fucking sweet. Like, I mean, she's attractive too. I definitely would — she's attractive enough to be like wife material. And I'm like, see, now this is what needs to be happening. Like, I just need to be doing my thing in places where, like, here's a woman that's attractive coming up and being really nice to me. If you're weighing a bold move in your own work or business like this, I'd be glad to think it through with you on a private one-on-one call.

And I couldn't even remember her name — I was trying to look at her name tag, but she had a jacket on. So I finally had to ask for it, but she's in my head now. If she's been keeping her eye on me, she's in my head now. I'm like, she was not on my radar before, but she's on my radar now. And you know, that's my ideal relationship would be something like that, where we're just hanging out in the same place. And, you know, she sees me, I see her. She definitely built a spark within me for her. I'm like, damn, I definitely want to go out with her now. But I also don't want to rush anything either. Like I didn't immediately ask her out. And I figure if something is going to happen, maybe she'll just be walking out of work one day. Like I don't know anything about her yet. I don't know if she's single. Don't know if she has kids. Like I don't know anything. But I do know that what happened today, that was really nice. I love that. And that's how I want to meet my future wife, in some scenario like that.

After — I didn't sell any books, but I did give a few out. I had some nice conversations with people and I did a little workout. I did my own kind of like weightlifting HIT workout. Then head home, listen to more of Tucker Max's book, have a nice big salad. And I got my outline ready for this book. So I'm going to get to work dictating it.

If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.

One Hundred Letters and a Free Oak Table

Originally published December 21, 2025.

This is my journal entry from December 21, 2025 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.

I went nuts doing the letters today. I spent hours and hours hand-addressing 100 letters to my neighbors today. I pulled up Google Maps on my laptop, went all the way down the street I'm on, and filled out 100 letters. Fuck! I'm like, this felt like it was taking forever. It does really make me appreciate my hustle and grind, though. Like, this is amazing I've got this much dedication. And the uncertainty is part of what makes it hard. Like, if I was absolutely certain that for every one of these letters I addressed, on average, I'm going to make at least $10. If I thought about it that way, like, hey, you're spending a few minutes plus, like, a dollar on every one of these letters, and you should get back $10 or more in return. I'm going to think of it that way going forward.

I did listen to the rest of Leslie Jones' stand-up comedy special and all of Bill Burr's Live at Red Rocks comedy special as well, which was good for some laughs. I did go to tennis today with a tennis partner and my tennis coach. I told them I'd be leaving the tennis club. And it feels right. Let somebody else get in there. Sometimes it's hard to leave, even when it's like you can see my life's going to be better when I'm not at the tennis club or in that space. I want to put something new in that space. So I'm looking forward to that.

I also committed today to not fucking overeating. I know I read that book before about, you know, trying to eat fewer meals. But when I eat only three meals a day, like plant based, I cram so much shit at once into three meals, eating to the point of being bloated and low energy. And I just hate that, which means I need to eat smaller amounts. So my digestive system doesn't overload. And at the same time, I feel like the intermittent fasting is a good way to go about that. Like if I just kind of consistently eat like today, I had a couple of Larabars, which I'm going to try doing some fruit instead of Larabars in the morning after I run out of these Larabars. But I had a nice Larabar and banana for breakfast, a couple of them. Then after tennis, I had some hummus and carrots. Then I had a little salad later. And then I had some popcorn I made for the kids at my mother's house. And it was nice. At no point did I feel like super tired and bloated because I ate so much. Except after the salad, I did feel like I was in a little rest and digest.

But I feel so accomplished today that I got 100 out of 1,000 letters done. 900 more to go. But I just do a few letters a day. Even if it's only 10, 20, 30, 50 letters, I don't have to do 100 every day. But if I just keep writing out some letters every day, keep progressing on it, I feel like I should make at least 10 plus grand back. And I love the idea of having some income coming in now. I love helping people with their books. And it's time to do the outreach and start doing some free consultations. It'll be a great way to meet people in my neighborhood too. I keep wondering all the unknowns. Are 10% of people going to respond? 1%? Is anybody going to be a client? But that's what's fun. I'm so curious to see how this turns out. If building something meaningful like this speaks to you, you can book a one-on-one call with me and we'll talk it through on our call.

The kids came over at about 4 today, which is great. Because I was feeling kind of lonely. I was in my house just a lot. I cleaned the shit out of the house today. And right before the kids came over, my ex-wife called and said, hey, there's a dining room table available nearby. I immediately got in my car, drove over, figuring I might need to take some of the table home with me. And I got there to find that, yes, there's a nice oak dining room table there. And it comes with four chairs. It's an antique. And it was only $75. I gave her $100 and she gave me a $20. And her husband delivered the table in his pickup truck right into my fucking house. I'm like, let's go. $80 for a kitchen table. But then I talked to the owner next door and she said she's going to keep the couch, which is fine. This couch doesn't have recliners. I really prefer a couch with recliners. So a dining room table, I'm really happy to have one of those.

The kids came over and we played the Harry Potter Monopoly again. My daughter cleaned me up. She just barely won out at the end. We all did trades to try and make it a little more interesting, and I'm proud of how much fun we had and that there was no fussing. We just played and had a good time. Then we went down the street to my mother's house to watch A Christmas Story, and I made popcorn here at my house. I used the silver bowl my mother had, used the air popper down here. According to my son, I put too much salt and not enough olive oil, and I sprayed the shit out of the fucking olive oil. On the popcorn, I mean, I must have put four or five plus tablespoons of olive oil, but it was a big-ass full air popper load. Oh, shit, full load.

I woke up this morning thinking about my own relationship with sex. It reminds me of Dr. Robert Glover's dating book, about taking some time to really be playful, to not just always do the same shit and go straight to orgasm. I'm like, yeah. I do need to explore my own sexuality more and see more of what's playful and fun, and not obsess over women doing it so much, but really enjoy what I've got with less compulsive masturbation and fantasy.

I was listening to his dating FAQ book for an hour today. I also listened to an entire book today about building your personal history business, which is essentially what I'm doing with writing books for other people. I'm essentially building them a personal history business. I enjoyed her insights. The book was on Kindle. I listened to it via audio, and I skipped through a lot of the parts that I didn't need to hear, like your website. Your boy doesn't need to hear how to make a website these days. Got that?

When we went to watch A Christmas Story, it's funny to watch that now. That movie just fit in so well and I loved it. But now I look at it and I'm like, okay, so we're learning just go ahead and lie. Basically every situation calls for lying. Shot yourself in the fucking face with your BB gun? Lie and say it was an icicle. Broke your husband's lamp? Oh, I was trying to water your plant. Just go ahead and lie. Dad says fuck 10 times a day and the kid gets his mouth washed off with soap for saying it once. Sure, just lie and say it was your friend Swartz and his mom will beat him. And then you get pissed off, fucking punch somebody. Get a kid's tongue stuck to a pole. Like, that's so funny to watch this now versus how normal it used to seem versus now it's like, this is kind of sad, yeah, lie, hit people, beat that kid up, yeah. I mean, I see the underside of it. I know watching it is not looking at it like this. It was so interesting to see this point of view. I haven't seen that movie, I don't think, in a year or two at least, which makes sense.

After having the kids at my mother's house for a little less than two hours, I had the kids for about three hours today, which was really nice. Dropped them off at my ex-wife's house. And then I started feeling kind of sad and lonely again. I went to my AA meeting and all my peeps were there. And I shared, it was on anger. And I was like, I'm fucking angry to be sharing right now when I feel so toxic and ungrateful. I feel like I should just sit here and not be outing myself for how fucked up I am. And then I shared how I got upset with a woman for getting up right when I shared. And then we had the business meeting. My share got some laughs and people liked it and found it relatable. And I feel like I share so euphoric sometimes. You got to balance it out. So we had the business meeting, which the guy leading it did a great job keeping it not too long. We went through everything. Then after the meeting, I ended up talking. And so the one guy I talked to was actually texting her about me. And in the course of talking about other stuff, she ended up saying that she hoped I wasn't mad that she got up during my share. And I was like, that's so crazy. Like, what are the odds of that? He's like, oh, you know, you called her a bitch in your share.

And I'm like, the way I use words like that, the cussing and the crude names, they're really terms of endearment to me. You know, that we're all in this together, that from a certain point of view, somebody is looking at us all like we're worthless, like we're nothing better than slaves, trying to run our lives like that. And we're all in this kind of common human struggle together to be respected and loved and joyful. From a certain way of looking at it, like stand-up comedy being funny, those crude names are actually terms of endearment. Like how friends greet each other, hey, what's up. These are terms that, yes, can be used to put people down. But when I'm using them, I'm not trying to put anybody down with my books either. I'm just being real, saying what's on the top of my mind. But I hope it's understood that underneath all that is a love and a joy and a mutual shared experience of being human. And yes, sometimes I fucking hate it and hate everything, and it's nothing personal in that case.

After the conversation about me, and I reflect too, it's like, man, sometimes I feel bad that I get so fucking flipped at people so easily. It's like people do the smallest goddamn thing, like get up and go to the bathroom, and I share, I'm like, what the fuck are you doing? I can't believe this shit. I'm not talking to you. Fuck it. It's like, all right. And I guess I'm the other way though. Sometimes your girl can do the littlest shit. I'm like, oh my God, I love you. I want to marry you. So I guess that's just normal human shit, right? I had a great talk after a meeting with the guys tonight. And tonight was something, it's 11.28 PM when I'm recording this, which is a little late. Well, what I really appreciate is, you know, this is something that back before when I was married, I just didn't do. Like I didn't stay out until 10.40 PM talking to the guys after the meeting. It was really good.

There was a really attractive woman fairly new to sobriety at the meeting tonight, too. And she was greeting people, and I was not in the fucking mood when I walked up. And I walked up and said hi to a few people. She's like, oh, hi, all flowery and cheery and shit. And I'm like, hi, thanks. Just, like, walked in, shook her hand. Like, oh, hi, what's your name? All right, bye. And then I made sure to be a little more cheery with her after the meeting. Just, you know. She's really attractive. But at the same time, like, you know, you got to reverse psychology it sometimes. Every guy is like, duh. And I'm like, all right, sometimes I'm going to be the guy that gets right in there and gets a phone number. Other times I'll keep some distance. I'm rooting for her sobriety, but at the same time, I'd like to see more sobriety from her first. And especially now that I'm divorced, your boy's not safe anymore. Your boy's not this safe married guy anymore. I'm single now.

All right, so that was really good talking to the guys after the meeting, and they all wanted one of my books. It was so nice. I gave out four copies of my books. I didn't even have enough Author in St. Petersburg anymore in my damn car, so I gave a couple of I Was Famous on the Internet, and that was really nice to feel understood. They talked about how I changed my race, too. Like, you're black? They didn't all know that. We had a great conversation about it. It's like, look, I didn't ever change my race in a normal fucking situation locally. It was some sensational shit to do online. Do I feel black inside? Absolutely. I'm like the opposite of an Oreo. Black on the inside and white on the outside. That's how I feel. I feel like I got an inner black guy that's a big dominant figure in my inner world. I love that part of me. That's my boy right there.

I'm black so I don't have to worry about being racist, right? Or is that not how it works? Because now I hear black comedians saying stuff like that too. You know, if we can all come together and realize we're on one fucking planet and we're all cells in a body of this planet, then I think we can chill about offending each other. And we can appreciate, hey, I love your blackness. I love blackness. Blackness is so beautiful to me. But I find a lot of other shit beautiful, too. Whiteness is beautiful. I had a friend sitting next to me who's half Asian, half white. You know, I love her. We started a meeting together. She's beautiful just as she is.

You know, I think I could date her. She says she's thinking about breaking up with her boyfriend. I'm like, I could. He's probably thinking about breaking up with her, too. But I'm like, you know, I could date her. I probably could date her. Dr. Robert Glover was giving it to me in the book today, though. He was talking about not being so superficial and how you don't have to have a super hot fucking woman all the time. That's some ego trip bullshit. And you shouldn't be settling for these girls with terrible personalities just because they're hot. It's like, you know, looks fade, but a lazy, mean personality is forever. Now, I know people have personality changes too, but looks change much easier than personality, I would say, and much more guaranteed. Like, you might be stuck with a personality a lot longer than looks. If you're working through a decision like this in your own life, I'd be glad to talk it over with you when you schedule a private call with me and bring it to our call.

So I'm intending to open my mind a bit and realizing, look, let me figure out, do I really like a girl for her looks and her ego and what it means when guys see me out with her? Or do I really like a girl for who she is as a person? I would like to be more open, though I know I have my preferences and I want a partner who takes care of herself. But what can I deal with? That's what I'm interested to find out. What can I deal with? What I can deal with right now is wrapping up and going to bed. Hope my date goes well tomorrow. We shall see. You'll be the first to fucking know. Actually, you'll be like the last to know because who knows how long it'll be until this book's published and you even fucking read it. But yeah, I also worked on my audio book today too. It was a day where I felt like I had a motherfucking job in this bitch today. I must have worked four or five hours. I'm like, shit.

If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.

A Thousand Stamps and a Heavy Heart

Originally published December 20, 2025.

This is my journal entry from December 20, 2025 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.

I'm kind of sad and depressed recording this. It's been a lingering mood all day. Got up this morning to chair a morning recovery meeting, where I asked a woman there if she wanted to date a week ago, and she said she didn't date guys in AA. Just another long line of not getting things to go. But today I came bringing the topic about being prepared. Often when sobriety is going good, we don't think about being prepared. It's like, oh yeah, let the good times roll. But to me, those are the times to make sure you prepare to handle shit. And I'm real grateful that I prepared well enough to handle my divorce and my career change and moving all at the same time. And I'm preparing for a future where I'm doing everything I can to set up a joyful life.

But I can imagine people saying, well, God's time. It's God's time. Fuck that. It's ridiculous. What am I supposed to do? Sit on my ass and do nothing? Just figure God's going to do everything? That shit's not going to happen. Like, everything in my life that comes to me comes because of the positions I put myself in, the work I do. But yeah, then all I can do is do the best I can, do the work I can, ask for help, and then the results, all the stuff that comes to me, I got to just open up and receive.

I'm doing that. After I went to the meeting this morning, I talked to a few people a little bit. And then I'm like, you know what? Today's the day to really get to work on the business system. Today's the work to see if we can progress on the business system. So what I did was I talked to ChatGPT. And I'm like, I think I need to send letters. I tried to stick a letter or like a piece of paper on my door crack and it didn't work. I'm like, I don't think letters and door cracks can be the thing to do. And I was looking at the houses on the way back from the meeting. I'm like, I need to get into the mailbox, especially for like the rich and fancy ass houses. That's the only access you can get is the mailbox. I'm not going up some nice ass house from fucking 50 yard driveway and trying to stick a letter in the crack. Nah. Plus the letter in the crack seems cheap. I'm looking.

I figure my average customer for writing a book or coaching should be like average customer value of maybe 10 grand. You know, some might be 30. Some might be a few thousand. So I'm looking to do something that's high quality service for people with money. That means probably a letter in the mail. So I worked it all out with ChatGPT. This is a business plan, all right? So I bought six by nine envelopes. I bought like 300 of those today at an office supply store. I bought 1,000 sheets of 28-pound paper. I bought 1,000 fucking stamps. 1,000 stamps. $780. Threw it all on a 0% interest credit card. And let's go, baby. Brought it all home. Got my letter ready to go. My ex-wife read the letter yesterday. Said it was good. ChatGPT analyzed it. Said it's good. Looks good to me. So.

Now, I just go on Google Maps. But I start thinking, you know, there's houses that are empty and for sale and knocked down. It's like I probably should go, you know, canvas the neighborhood first and try and weed out all the houses where my letters are going to be wasted. But before that, my ex-wife calls and said the kids would like to come visit, which is a great highlight of my day. The kids come over a little after 1. My daughter and my son really want to play the Harry Potter deck building game, where there's seven different levels of the game you can play. And we're playing game six right now. You build your deck. You pick characters, four characters. You build your deck, and you try and defeat all the dark wizards, all the Death Eaters. And we ended up, right after my ex-wife got here, we ended up taking down Voldemort, and we won. I made the kids popcorn while they were here. My son had an apple also. We had such a nice time. It was the best part of my day. They left the game on the floor. We played on the floor because I don't have a proper dining room table and chairs in this house. There's no point in getting one now. I'll get it after I move. If you're rebuilding your life around what matters most too, you can set up a call with me and we'll work through it together.

After the kids left, I went to work canvassing the neighborhood to test out how long it'd take to see how many houses were empty. Walked like 20, 30 minutes, and I only found like 10 or so houses out of over 100, which means the empty or knockdown house rate's probably less than 10%, which means if you calculate the time it takes to do that versus the amount of money and time saved sending letters, you might as well just roll the dice and send the letters even when the houses are potentially unoccupied. It's not worth the time to slow the workflow down. So I ended up hearing what I thought might have been my ex-wife's dogs barking. I was going to go over there, but it's my ex-wife's fucking house and her dogs at this point. But my mom's across the street, so I ended up hanging out with my mom for like 30 minutes. And that was good.

Still feeling kind of down and sad. I was thinking about a woman I'd been talking to from last night. I'm like, man, sure would be nice if she was available and we could hang out. We have so much fun. Enjoy talking with her. She smiles and laughs so much with me. I'm like, what's she doing right now? Like, a woman I went out with is on her trip. Like, man, shouldn't I? And I listen to the rest of Elizabeth Gilbert's book talking about her celibacy for five years and love and sex addiction. I'm like, fuck, haven't I done enough time celibate in my life already? I mean, from the year 2000, when I was 16 years old, to the year 2011, I was celibate most of the time. And it's because I either wouldn't lower my standards enough or things kept not working out.

I had a girlfriend about a year and a half in the middle of that. She cheated on me because I was being an asshole. I left her in a movie theater one night. I was just sitting in the parking lot, but she wanted to watch the credits. I was like, fuck that. We're getting up and going. She's like, no, I'm going to stay and watch the credits. I'm like, I'm leaving. So I walked out. She cried, and she tried to move her shit out that night, but I begged her to stay, and then she stayed a few weeks longer, and it was bad, and then she cheated, and then she did pack all her shit up. And I'm glad she did at the time. It was so hard. But, man, I dated some really great women after her. And I had a great wife and a couple of kids. Now I'm fucking divorced again. Sitting in my house recording this shit at 9:34 at night.

After hanging out with my mom, I thought it'd be nice to get a little workout today. I had a big salad for lunch. And then I got the blender out that Amazon sent me, a new Ninja blender. This shit looked like it had been returned. There was a fucking long woman's hair in there. Half the shit was out of the plastic bags. There was dishwasher spots on it, soap spots. One of the things had been scraped. This shit was supposed to be brand new. What the fuck is this? So I messaged Amazon. They're like, you can just return it. I'm like, yeah, I want a blender though. Somebody else can get stuck with a shitty blender. It's like, I already got it at the house. At this point, I don't want to fuck with a return and then buy another one and have it sent. It seems, let me, can I just get a partial refund? They're like, how about $18? I'm like, fuck, all right. The blender is like 160, so I guess that's more than 10% back on it. I'm like, shit. You know, that's a free pack of Larabars, whatever. Sure, I'll take it. Like, I was prepared to not take anything because it's really not that big of a deal. It's more about the principle, and I'm not going to argue the principle on a $160 product.

Then I listened to a whole comedy special today, too. I've been trying to cheer myself the fuck up, you know? I've been trying to cheer myself up. I've been doing what I can. I watched, I think it was Jimmy Carr. I watched Jimmy Carr's whole comedy special. Yeah, he was funny as shit. Now, if it wasn't fucking Jimmy Carr, it was another Australian guy. I wish Amazon, Netflix made it easier to see who you just liked. But I had a nice one. I laughed listening to all his shit. And yet, I don't know. It's just like I'm still down. But it's okay. I'll feel better tomorrow probably. Y'all heard how I was doing the day before. I'm like, I'm not making this diary so fucking long. Jesus Christ. Like, it's too long. It's way too long.

But I went to my gym for a little workout tonight. And I did the Stairmaster. It was Jim Jeffries. There he goes. Jim Jeffries. I watched his special. It was funny. It was one of his newer ones. And I went to the gym. Didn't even wear my headphones. But then I went to do boxing. I got my boxing gloves on. And I fucking hurt my arm a little bit. Yeah, I listened to Jim Jeffries' Two Limb Policy. That shit was good. And I was punching a bag and shit, and I fucked up some little outside muscle attachment or something on top of my arm, like if you turn the steering wheel to the right and left. But you know what I love about this body? It'll fix that shit up soon enough. It'll fix that shit up. It's fine. It'll fix it up. In no time, have it all back together. Doesn't hurt that bad.

Then I get back from the gym. I'm still fucking depressed. I clean up the kids' Harry Potter deck-building game, and I left in the middle while I did laundry and shit, washed dishes, got the blender washed, made fucking hummus. I cried a little bit, missing the kids, feeling like I fucked my life all up. I used to have Saturday nights with my family, but I wasn't doing shit with them last time. Really, being divorced is not a hell of a lot different than how we were living, except we were in the same house. It's funny now that I was complaining about our sex life back then, when it's been a month and a half and I've been on my own since the divorce. And honestly, with a woman I had been seeing, I kept trying to rationalize that it should be good enough. Like, it's fucking not good enough. All right? It's not. I was only into it when I was desperate, and I don't want to settle like that. But even when I was married, it wasn't good enough for me either, was it? Fuck! If you're in a heavy, lonely stretch like this, you can book a one-on-one call with me and I'll be glad to talk it through with you on our call.

So I'm sitting around thinking how lonely I am and shit. I'm like, God damn it. Let me get out to a fucking AA meeting again tonight. Even though I already chaired a meeting this morning. Maybe some of my friends will be there and shit. So I drive out to this meeting like 20 minutes away. And a few of my boys that were there a couple weeks ago weren't there. Not many girls there tonight either. I'm like, fuck. I'll just actually listen to this meeting. But it was nice. I enjoyed hearing a couple of guys spoke. Got me out of myself for a few minutes. Surrounded myself with some people, which felt good.

And I drove back home listening to Leslie Jones' stand-up called Time Machine. It's on Netflix. She's talking about, you know, the differences between your 20s, 30s, 40s. I'm like, you know what? I mean, I see she's trying to be funny, but some of this is garbage-ass programming, too, because, you know, when I hung out with my teenage cousin or my teenage nephew, shit, I didn't feel that much different than him. He lifted some more weights than I did. He was talking a little harder than I was. I'm like, it's not that different, all right? I feel like a lot of that negative shit based on age actually does make things real in the body. I think these bodies with the proper mindset and care could live like 1,000 or 2,000 years. I believe that shit from the Bible. I think these bodies could live that long. What the fuck do I know?

I was thinking it'd be nice if somebody like a woman I'd been talking to just texted me tonight. Like, hey, I would love to hang out with you. I was thinking about you. Why don't we do something? Goddamn, wouldn't that be nice? But you know what? I'm not texting. All right? Because, you know, if she's trying to keep me at arm's length, I'm going to stay at arm's length. I'm not going to be trying to constantly blow her phone up and getting turned down over and over again. Now I'm good. I know some girls like a guy to pursue them. Constantly be all over him and shit. But I'm not. That doesn't feel right to me. That feels stalker-ish. So there you go.

It's like, oh, fuck. I don't want to record a diary tonight. Fucking depressed and shit. But you know, it's all good. I'll probably feel great tomorrow. I'll probably. Here's how shit will probably go. I'll start feeling pretty good tomorrow and have a fucking great date with a woman I went out with and be on top of the world. And then I'll just stay on top of this the rest of the time I'm here until I pass. How about that? I would love to have a great time with her on Monday. You know, that would be nice. I realize I don't know what's going to happen. It could be good. It could be all right. It could not go very well. Usually stuff goes well in my life, except dating girls and this work lately has been like, fuck.

But I'm hungry. I'm hungry for that real connection with a woman. Don't you ever try to fuck me, my sponsor. And I don't care if Elizabeth Gilbert wants to call it love and sex addiction. I get high as shit off these women, and I love it. I fucking love it. There's nothing like it. I mean, why wouldn't you want that? It's awesome. So I'm going to wrap this shit up.

If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.

My First Day Free and the Letter to a Thousand Doors

Originally published December 18, 2025.

This is my journal entry from December 18, 2025 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.

This is my first day being divorced. We got it done yesterday and finalized yesterday. So this is the first day, like, I've woke up. I'm starting my new life. Formerly divorced, fully on my own, fully separated, not entangled, no wife, only an ex-wife. The last book is close to 150,000 words, and I'm really proud of it. I ended it really strong and hardcore, standing in honesty and playfulness and courage. Today, I've been wondering where to go forward. I've been seeing kind of three basic paths in my life I could take right now with my work, where I could focus just on writing books on Kindle and Amazon, print, audio, just grinding out books. The problem with that is, doesn't look like there's a whole lot of sales to be made. And it could take me quite a while to get some decent royalties and I'd have to write books on certain subjects where there's demand. That doesn't seem like it's going to be very satisfying and I could easily be two months down the road earning almost nothing. After all, all the books I've published now, my royalties are pretty tiny. I don't even generally check them because it's fucking depressing.

But when I do, even though I've got my videos promoted on channels, my royalties are damn near non-existent. So, you know, holy shit, like it actually looks like I've earned $23 in royalties this month, which is impressive. But at the same time, I did get, you know, thousands of views on videos that people put out and I've earned $23. You know, that's not looking like it's going to be a sustainable business model, then I am happy. You know, that's cool. I get some royalties. Great. Last month and the month before, I think in the last several months, I earned about $100 total. So not much happening right now there.

Second possible path is I could go into other people's books. Like the main thing I would do is get other people to pay me to write their books. And this morning, I was thinking, you know, that would be really nice because I could make $10,000 or $20,000 a month. Even if I just got one client to pay $3,400 a month to go write their book, just literally one client could pay my rent. Like, it's that easy. And I'm sure if I, my plan to market for that would be to hustle a letter into the door crack of everybody's house in the neighborhood and, you know, end up eventually getting thousands of houses, and put a letter in the door and have a free consultation with people, then also reach out to places and see if I could go speak places about having your book and pay my nephew a few hundred bucks to reach out to bookstores and stuff to get that going. That looks really promising. The thing with that is, though, we're facing the unknown. Can I actually get clients for several thousand a month? But if I had like five, six ghostwriting clients, I mean, I could be making like 20 grand a month. And especially at the last couple, I could charge more because like, hey, I'm full. I can't take any more, but I'll take you for $4,500 a month. You know, in the last one, like, all right, I'm absolute max capacity, $5,600 a month for you. There's a big leap of faith there, though, because it's like, I don't, you know, yes, I know people have that kind of money in this area. I see the cars people are driving, and my demographic is people who have money and need meaning in their life. Nice combination. 60s, 70s, 80s, and they've got money. I mean, there's people filthy rich around here. They could pay me a few thousand a month and not miss it at all. So that's the second option. There's a lot of unknown in that option, though, but that seems to be the highest potential. And in that option, I could still write my own books too, but I don't have to depend on my books for any sales.

Third option I can see would be to get a job. Especially today, I have a call with a startup at 2:30, and something like that could be a great job. Now, they'd have to pay me at least $120,000 a year to make it worth it, but that would be guaranteed income. I take the kids to school today and then come back to my house, record the entry a little late for yesterday, then send a friend her audio files and get ready for a friend to come over. He comes over at 10, and instead of recording his book, we get to talking, and I ask him about my situation. Based on his 78 years of experience on Earth, having a bunch of different jobs, making a lot of money, etc., he recommends that I take the job. He said I could have a financial situation come up if I don't start making some money soon. Now, my ex-wife sent me some money yesterday, with more coming from her from the divorce. After she sends the rest of the money, I'll sign over the car and the house to her.

I also asked Discover if they would give me a $12,000 advance, and then I can balance transfer that for a 3% for like 21 months. It's crazy. So you're looking at I could have as much as like $20,000 in cash. That said, $2,700 a month rent, that could go out pretty quick for not making income. It says my transfer with Discover is processing, so there's no transfer fee on that. I've got two credit cards that I have $20,000 in 0% for like a year and a half. So I've got, that's like 30,000 almost. So I've got runway, but at the same time, you know, you're looking at that's five, six months of runway where I don't have to make any money where I start borrowing money. But at that point after that, we need to have some shit working. You know what I'm saying? So the job, even whether it's a job with that startup or somewhere else, like it's a template. Like I have experience where I could get a really nice chief marketing officer job somewhere.

However, after talking with my friend, we have a great conversation. Then I go to a yoga studio I used to go to. I haven't been there in a while. I have a class with the studio owner. She's gorgeous. I actually bought the yoga mat I've used for four years there, and I'm happy to bring it back. It's a hot class, but it's not really heated. It's just sweaty in that bitch. Like, Jesus. It's sweaty. There's just no air conditioning in a room with a bunch of people doing yoga. But I really enjoyed it. Also happy to not be at my other yoga studio, to have all new people, I didn't know anybody in there, although the one dude looked familiar, and I might have seen the studio owner before, but I enjoyed the yoga class, fuck me, there were a lot of chaturangas, so many goddamn chaturangas, up, mountain pose, chaturanga, up, mountain pose, chaturanga, warrior one, chaturanga, I'm like, if this instructor tells me to chaturanga one more motherfucking time, I'm not gonna do anything about it, I'm just gonna keep doing it, and appreciate the arm workout.

It was a nice flow, though. It was a different flow, and I really enjoyed her voice. And the studio owner came over at one point, and she asked us if we'd be open to having her assist us. She just put her hands on my hands while I was in Downward Dog. I'm like, that's nice. It just felt sweet and really nice. Like, mm, that feels good. Thanks a lot. After the class there, I bought a $50 unlimited, so I got a month of yoga. I'm going to be up there a lot of days. There's a woman there I remember from like four years ago. She was friendly to me and I'm hoping to see her again. She said she had a fiancé. Like, I hope I see her there again. Odds she'd read this anyway.

I've been thinking I might need a new strategy with my books. Just don't even market them. Like, you know what? It's better if people don't read this. Like, let's wait five, ten years till people read this. Right? Then it doesn't matter what the fuck I said. Wait till there's like 50 or 100 of these books. Millions of words. Tens of millions of words piled up about my life. That shit will be epic. My mom was talking about how Tolkien took like 14 years to write Lord of the Rings. I'm like, let me have 14 years to write a daily autobiography. Maybe I shouldn't even tell anybody about these books. Then I can just say whatever the fuck I want. And then, you know, maybe someday it'll get read. But it's good for me to do these.

After yoga, and I didn't want to tell you all the part about that woman I remembered, but that's honest. And I ended the last book, I'm like, I'm tired of being a fucking liar. Tired of it. Tired of always censoring the shit that should really be said. I'm not doing that anymore. I'm saying it. You're thinking it. Just fucking say it. Because this body's going to die one day, all right? It's not going to be here. And to me, too many of us live too afraid. To me, the main thing you should be afraid of is what if you don't go all out in this life? What if you live like a whiny little cowardly bitch or motherfucker or whatever? What if you live that way and die being like, damn it, I should have went for it? Some of the dumbest shit at the time, like the relationship with the dispatcher I describe in Officer Banfield instead of, you know, pursuing my career in law enforcement, I'm so glad I did that. It looked like a really stupid idea at the time, but god damn that was fun. That was so fun. Go for fun. If you're done playing it small and you're ready to go all out in your own life, I'd love for you to schedule a private call with me.

So after the yoga class I stuff a big ass salad down. And then I hop on a call with the team from the startup, which I'm grateful they got the founder. Another member of their team is also there. And, you know, of course, I'm watching the founder's body language, too. Like, he's crossing his arms. He's a little defensive. I'm like, I'm going in. That's what is nice. You know, you got to tell people the fucking truth. Because if you set up a relationship based on lying and telling people what they want to hear, then you deserve that relationship. But if you set up a relationship based on telling people the truth, you can't handle the truth. If you set up a relationship on lying, then you deserve lying. If you set it up on the truth, you're in a position to be honest. And I'm thinking that's what's really important.

So on the call, the founder and CEO, who I imagine by a lot of standards is very successful, a guy people would be intimidated to talk to and want to cow down to and try and get their approval. So he starts going on and telling me about the company, and I listened for like a minute or two. I'm like, all right, I need to interrupt right now, because I already know all this shit. He's wasting our fucking time. I respect this guy's time. So in respect of his time, I'm going to go ahead and cut him off right now. Because I asked him a question about what's the growth market, and he starts going all over the place. That's not the kind of answer I need, the kind of answer you should have. If I'm asking you what's your growth niche, what is the thing you're going to do? You're making an Amazon competitor, right? What is the thing you're going to do that is going to get you that traction? And he's giving me paragraphs of an answer. I'm like, it shouldn't be paragraphs. It should be like one fucking sentence. And I didn't swear much with them on there, but I'm like, let me stop you right there. The answer I'm looking for should be like one sentence. It should be simple. It should be obvious. And the other guy stood up for me because, you know, I guess the founder of the company is probably not used to being interrupted that much. And I'm like, the answer should be one sentence. Like you should tell me like Amazon, what did Amazon start out doing?

Books, one fucking word, books. That's how Amazon started. They started off selling books and then they expanded from there. Facebook, you post fucking pictures. You post pictures and then text on a page. You know, and that shit is simple. Like that's what you do. It should be simple, easy to understand. He seemed to appreciate that because I lasered in on, what is your thing that people are going to go to your website and buy because it's better to buy on your website than it is on Amazon. That's what you need to have figured out. And that is an important thing to figure out if you're trying to scale a company and use venture capital funding and get an IPO. Like, you need to have your thing. You should be able to tell me. And by the end of the call, he's like, well, on Amazon, selling things like ammo is, you know, a real pain in the ass. You can't do it. I'm like, see, there you go. If you can sell ammo on your website, you need something that a certain group of people are going to come buy on your website, like ammunition, for example, that you can't sell on Amazon. So people can't buy it on Amazon. Therefore, there's an opening there. Because if I can buy that, I told him I shopped for a blender on their website and I'm like, I fucking bought a blender on Amazon because you had a shitty selection of blenders and the blender I wanted was on fucking Amazon. So I bought it on Amazon. And it came to my house today. That's why I bought it on Amazon because it was fast.

So I went through that with them and I talked to them about their content strategy. And I was kind of wishy-washy on like a job. I'm like, what you need is someone like me. You need someone who can create video content for you, education, edutainment, explain the shit you do, explain why your website is worth using. You need your niche product lined up that is your growth angle. You need to hire somebody that can ideally do all that stuff for you and have a great social media presence and get you stuff that way. Then the guy texts me afterwards, thank you, appreciate any of your advice. I'm like, just read it, hire somebody. Hire somebody to do that stuff, it's important. Then I thought, do I want a job? I don't want a fucking job. Do you think I'm going to be able to talk to the founder and CEO that way if I work for him? Do you think I'm going to be able to interrupt him when he starts going off on a rant? You see, I'm not the kind of motherfucker that wants to be in a situation where I need to bow down and be somebody's bitch. Somebody signs my paychecks and has power over me. You see, if I got clients, shit, I can dump a client. I can dump a fucking client. We can drop them if they're being a pain in the ass. But if you got a boss and you're looking at being all in on one place.

So after that call, I'm like, I just, I don't see that me working in a corporate environment is going to work. Because anybody can do that. There's, you know, tens of thousands of content creators they could hire. They'd be happy to have a fucking job that could go do that. How many people in St. Pete are going to start a business like ghostwriting books and stuff? Like that's really specific. And if I don't do it, probably nobody's going to do it. I like to think about how am I serving earth? What can I do to help earth? And to me, helping the people around you is often the best you can do to help earth. So after that call, I don't think a job is going to work for me. You know, it's cool. But I mean, they'd have to offer me at least one hundred and twenty thousand a year to even consider it.

And ChatGPT, I asked it about the three things. And it's like, I think you should be doing your book ghostwriting. Like that's where you're going to make the most money. That's where you're going to be the most happy. So afterwards, I'm like, okay, I downloaded this tool for kindle keywords. It's called KD Spy. And what it does is KD Spy helps you look at the keywords and do research to, you know, be a kindle direct publishing author, which is what I'm doing now. And I spent an hour or two fucking with KD Spy, and I read a book yesterday evening that was talking about that. And after a couple hours messing with it, like, you know what? I don't think I want to be researching niche keywords and then having to pay somebody to ghostwrite a book for me on a subject I don't know about. And I'm publishing that book because I already did that shit with courses. It seems there's too many people already doing that, too. Like, I want to add value. And based on what I saw, there's not that many sales to fight over in a lot of areas.

I want to build legacy with my books. I want my books to be a legacy that 10, 20 years from now, you're like, look at this crazy fucker. Like this guy has 200 books, fat ass books, most of them too. You know, where you could spend hundreds and hundreds of hours listening to this shit. And I'd rather say, thank you, I'm sorry, I tricked you into listening to this shit. But I mean, this could get listened to indefinitely too, which is amazing. Books should be my legacy, not something I'm out here trying to hustle and trying to get sales off of. And I know what that's like on you to me, trying to always make shit for sales. I want to do stuff that really transforms people's lives in a big way. And I think one of the best ways to do that could probably be helping my neighbors write books and really giving them that. That could be life-changing to do that. It could really transform somebody's life and transform other people's lives. And I'll have time to write my stories. If you feel pulled to build something that actually lasts, you can schedule a one-on-one call with me and we'll figure out how to build it together on our call.

So after, thankfully, even though I kind of felt shitty while I was using KD Spy, it was a good activity. It's like, okay, I know I don't want to be doing this kind of keyword research all the time. I don't want to be sitting here scrolling keywords, finding books and being like, fuck, I don't know about that. Now I need to pay somebody. I don't want that to be my life. I've known a couple of guys that have been big on Amazon Kindle and one of them got banned, because he made book summaries that people were reading more than the books themselves, and the publishers pressured Amazon to take his books down and to literally create a policy to get rid of his books. Another guy, you know, was having people ghostwrite all these fiction books and shit, and he was always stressed out and trying to make more sales and live in his mom's house and shit. I'm like, yeah, I don't think that's for me.

Right at the same time, a woman I went out with messaged me. She said, hey there, I had a last-minute work trip come up last night, and I'm truly disappointed to miss it, but I won't be flying back till Saturday evening. And she says, I truly value your presence, so I hope we can reschedule and connect another time with some emojis. Heart emoji, prayers, little stars. And I've been taking a minimalist texting approach lately because there's less to fuck up with a minimalist texting approach. You know what I'm saying? And I was too excited with these women that I met before, like a woman I'd been interested in and another woman I'd met, you know, sending off this exciting message with exclamation points and all these words indicating I'm so excited. I'm like, fuck that. We're going to be minimalist from now on. You know, I don't need to be flirting on text message all the time, you know? I messaged her. I'm like, how about rescheduling on a Sunday morning or Monday afternoon? She's like, Monday afternoon works great. I'm like, great. I moved the event on my calendar and hope you enjoy your trip. She said, thank you. And then after that, I'm like, I need more options, man. I'm too focused on her. I'm like fantasizing about her and shit. And I'm like, man, I need more people to be focusing on. The two girls from AA didn't text me back yesterday. It's cool. Whatever. Maybe I'll try them another day. Maybe they'll text me one day. Who knows? Maybe it's better not to mess with them.

After all that stuff, I went to tennis. I got a couple of text messages from the guys. I went to the tennis clinic tonight being like, hey guys, I'm dropping. This will be my last one. The guys said they were going to miss me. At the same time, the tennis club I don't think is a good environment. I mean, it's nice in lots of ways. But the tennis club's not the environment I want to keep being in going forward because I always want to keep up in my game. It's an environment where there's a lot of good players where often I don't feel like I'm good enough, and they don't feel like they're good enough either, and everybody's taking tennis lessons, and there's mostly doubles at the tennis club anyway, which I mostly want to play singles, and there's people they play with that don't want to play with me, lots of them, because I'm not good enough to play with them. And then the tennis clinics, you got all these dudes on one side that, you know, are pretty good. They don't want to play with us beginners most of the time. And it just leaves a nasty taste in my mouth.

So I went to the tennis clinic, talked to some of my friends, hit with one of the guys afterwards. He showed me an app on your phone where it'll keep score of the game for you. It'll call line faults and shit. I'm like, wow, that's pretty cool. And then he headed out. I went and had dinner at the restaurant at the tennis club, and they had this delicious-ass sandwich that they made for the charity event a couple of months ago. Turns out that fucker's not on the menu anymore. Like, God damn it. I came here for one thing. I smelled all the delicious food. I wanted that one sandwich that I had five of. I think it was a couple books ago. It was a month or two ago. It was on my ex-wife's birthday. And they're like, well, why don't you just get this burger and stick some cauliflower in that bitch instead of a meat patty? I'm like, all right, fine. Fuck it. Let me get this cauliflower burger for $25 fucking dollars. It's okay. I got it. Fucking Tourette's. I don't actually have Tourette's, but it just seems like I do sometimes. I'm just blurting off the top of my head, though. So I sat and ate dinner by my goddamn self, like that Ying Yang Twins song back in the day, by myself. I sat and ate dinner there and asked ChatGPT about my plan for my life and work.

And it, you know, then it's like the books, man. And I got a letter written out today. Let me read this shit to you, because I might as well. I got you here right now. Fuck it, right? Already going on 25 minutes narrating this.

It says: Hi, neighbor. My name is Jerry Banfield. I live nearby and I'm a local author who helps people turn their life stories into real published books. I focus especially on legacy books, projects for parents, grandparents, and thoughtful adults who want to preserve what they've lived, learned, and experienced so it doesn't disappear with time. I want to share a short story that explains why this matters to me. A friend of mine, 78 years old, for six years tried to write a book on his own. He bought software, attended a writing conference, and collected a few thousand words in a document, but no finished book. And yet his life story is incredible. Like many people, he kept thinking, I'll get to it someday. When some health issues came up, he began talking about dying. I finally told him something most of us don't like to think about. When you die, your stories go with you unless you've captured them. Your children, your grandchildren will never hear most of them. The wisdom, the mistakes, the lessons, the context of your life, often lost. So I invited him into my home here in the neighborhood. I gave him a microphone and asked him to simply talk. I listened and handled everything else, organizing, writing, editing, and publishing. Soon, a real book under his own name, available in print, digital, and audio formats. His children and grandchildren will be able to read his life story long after he's gone, and even better, he gets to share it with them while he's still here. To me, that's real legacy.

I'm a parent myself. I have a 10-year-old daughter and a 7-year-old son. My own father died when I was 29, and if I could have anything back, it would be his story, written for me as an adult, and eventually for my children to know him as well. I have many pictures and videos of my father, yet I rarely look at them. They mostly make me miss him, and many were recorded so long ago they're now pixelated or tucked away in albums. Meanwhile, there's so much of his life I never knew. If he had written a book during the thousands of hours he spent at home in the later years of his life, I would have something I truly treasure today, and we could have talked about it while I still had the chance. That's why I write an ongoing series called Daily Autobiography, beginning with Author in St. Petersburg. I write about my life in honest detail so that years from now my children can understand who I really was, what I was thinking, and what their childhood looked like through my eyes. It helps me to process my life now, and it gives them something meaningful later.

I've also seen how sharing books like this can deepen real relationships by giving people a safer way to move beyond surface-level conversations. Not everyone needs to write daily. Not everyone needs their entire life public. But almost everyone has a story worth preserving. Some people choose to share their book publicly, while others create a book meant only for family and friends. Just having one book instead of none can make a lasting difference. How would it feel to have your life story captured in a book, something you could give to the people closest to you or leave behind as a way to be truly known? If you're thinking, I couldn't do that or I wouldn't know where to start, that's exactly who I help. You don't need to be a writer. You don't need to be organized. You just need to talk. I take care of turning your stories into something real. If you'd like help writing your book or helping someone you love preserve theirs, I invite you to text me to schedule a free initial conversation. We can talk about your story, get to know each other, and see whether working together would feel like a good fit. You can text me anytime. Warmly, Jerry Banfield.

That's the letter. I dictated what I wanted the letter to be, and I grinded back and forth with ChatGPT to get that letter into a shape that fits nicely on one page in 11 font, Times New Roman, narrow margins, in Microsoft Word. I can print it out, stick it in people's doors, and if I hit 1,000 houses, I'll be reaching thousands of people. Should be at least 10 that want a free consultation and it should be a handful that are willing to drop some money either on coaching for like maybe $1,200 a month or ghostwriting the full package starting at $3,400 a month. Literally one ghostwriting client rent paid, two ghostwriting clients all my bills paid, three ghostwriting clients we're saving money and paying down debt and maybe we got a little bit to give to my ex-wife also. Three people. And if I grind a few thousand houses handing out letters, which should take 20, 30, 40, maybe 50 hours to do, shit, there you go. That's the business right there.

So I talked and I did KDP spy and got that letter written out. I was thinking like, man, it's kind of a leap of faith to think I'm going to get clients just passing a fucking letter out, isn't it? I thought about sending it in the mail, but people throw shit out in the mail. What I'm really good at doing is thinking of every detail of a system and then executing it. And I'm excited. I would love to be making 10 grand a month helping three people write their books. That would be good shit. I could easily keep publishing my books, have my overnights with the kids. And then I got into thinking about dating apps. I walked to this AA meeting from the racket club, which I walked there. And the AA meeting wasn't happening tonight. So I walked back, talked to my mom. If you're staring down a leap of faith like this one, I'd be glad to think it through with you on a private one-on-one call.

And, you know, thinking that, shit, I got to wait a whole like two more days to see her. So I start talking to my mom, and we have this great conversation. I'm telling her, look, you know, I'm reading Elizabeth Gilbert's book, All the Way to the River. And she's talking about taking care of her friend Rhea, that's just in the middle of drug addiction, dying of cancer. And I'm like, look, I'm not a caretaker. Like, that much is clear. If you need caretaking, that's not me. And my mom's like, well, what if you're in a relationship with somebody who does? I'm like, I'm going to leave that relationship. I'll go find one that's healthy. She's like, what if it's you? She mentions she's dealt with health struggles much of her life. But I'm like, I have no intention of living and taking care of somebody or being taken care of myself. I'm never going back to being a baby again. To me, I'm here because I choose to be here. And yet I'm so excited in full life, like to me that's non-negotiable.

I realized talking with my mom, like the only two non-negotiables for me are a woman who's attractive, and a woman that's healthy. I'm not dating some hot girl that's, you know, not well. If you're not mentally and physically healthy, I don't think we're a match. Those are the only two things I really, really care about. I want a girl that when I'm out at the beach, I feel like, damn, I'm so happy to be here with her, because she's so beautiful and because she's so healthy and there for me. I'd rather be alone than be with someone who's not taking care of themselves. You know, maybe that's a character defect. But in a world of options, why wouldn't I want a partner I'm genuinely attracted to and who's healthy, right? I think that makes perfect sense. Yes, beauty's in the eye of the beholder. I love a thin blonde girl, just like my mom when I was born, you know what I'm saying?

Dude, I heard a joke the other day. Somebody was like, all right, listen to this. Something you've never thought about with Sigmund Freud. How hot was his mom? Like, how hot was Sigmund Freud's mom that he comes up with this theory that every boy basically wants to get rid of their father and be with their mother, and when he presents this theory, other people are like, oh yeah, that makes sense. They look at Sigmund Freud and his mom and they're like, yeah, I can see that. Oh shit, I'm glad I'm laughing. It's good to laugh.

All right, so I was thinking about getting on the dating apps again. I know, ChatGPT fucking roasted me over that. I know I sound like my teenage nephew talking like this, but you know what? It feels better to talk like this than to be a whiny little bitch or to try and censor myself and be so appropriate. Let me tell you this prompt I sent to ChatGPT today. I'd put it in a long dating thread, talking about all kinds of dating profiles. Here's what I said: I've been pretty toxic on dating apps and I've got a date with a girl on Monday. But it's got me thinking about what I really care about, which is if a girl is attractive and very healthy, but I especially mean sober. No alcohol, no drugs, marijuana. I deleted the dating apps a bunch of times, but I'm wondering if I set the criteria very narrow, it wouldn't take much time to use them, and I could occasionally find a girl that's hot and sober without being a big distraction. Does this seem reasonable, or am I being a bit delusional? Because, see, ChatGPT will often rationalize the shit you ask it to, but if you ask it straight, as soon as I saw its first few words here, it says, I'm going to be very straight with you. I'm like, all right, it's going to tell me some shit I don't want to hear right now. It says, you asked an honest question. You're already seeing the pattern. This is mostly delusional. A small kernel of truth that still doesn't make it worth it.

ChatGPT says, the kernel of truth: yes, in theory, if you set your criteria extremely narrow, like hot, athletic, sober, you might occasionally surface a compatible woman on the app. Why it doesn't work for you in practice: your nervous system does not use apps occasionally. Yep, I'm not the motherfucker to just scroll on an app occasionally and look. Nope. ChatGPT says, you don't casually browse. You invest creative energy, rewrite messages, track outcomes, ruminate, feel rejected or distracted. Even when you say, I'll just check it briefly, it costs you willpower and mood. You've said this repeatedly. Goddamn, you actually listen to me, ChatGPT. What a great little AI you are. And it says number two: sober and attractive and female equals usually not on apps. That's true. And the hottest sober girl I've ever met before, I met her at a meeting, got her phone number the first time I met her. And if I had to do it over again, I'd divorce my wife if that girl would have me. And your boy would be living in Tennessee today.

So after ChatGPT roasted me a bit more, and I needed a bit more roasting, I'm like, okay, I almost fucking downloaded Hinge today and I'm so glad I didn't. So glad I didn't. You know what? It's designed to be deleted. I deleted that bitch. And we never need to install it again. And you know what? There's enough dudes on that app that I don't think the women are exactly in scarcity on there. There's a lot of dudes. There's no shortage of dudes on that app. I'm not missing anything. Where there's a shortage is often dudes in person. Like that local spiritual community event I went to a week ago, there were two or three times as many girls there as dudes. And probably most of the dudes already had girls lined up. Fuck me. 38 minutes of dictating again. I'm hypnotized. If you're trying to untangle a pattern like this in your own life, I'd be glad to book a private call and talk it through with you.

All right, last random shit before we tie this up. So this morning, I was thinking about Tupac for some reason. And I looked his Wikipedia up. And I'm like, how many times does Tupac go to jail? He went to jail a lot of times. There's always some arrests, getting pulled over and shit. And one of the most fucked up things, there was a six-year-old boy riding his bike that got shot and killed outside one of his concerts. How fucked up is that? And then there were the sexual assault charges he faced. I mean, you're hanging out with rappers in the 90s, I guess that seems like it's part of the territory. And now there's criminal charges, there's some dude in jail for Tupac's murder right now. How fucking late is that? Shit, it's almost 30 years. It's too late. Why don't you just put somebody in prison for Kennedy's murder at this point? Oh, because we already got the dude that did that. Uh-huh. Bullshit. You didn't get the rest of them motherfuckers that were shooting. There were probably three or four motherfuckers out there shooting at him. One shooter? Dumbass idea. All right, I spent 40 minutes on day one of this. We need to wrap it up.

If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.

I Stopped Hoarding and Started Giving

Originally published November 12, 2025.

This is my journal entry from November 12, 2025, part of my daily autobiography Divorce Day — my real, unedited days, published in order.

It looks like I survived November 11, which feels like a good sign. This morning I got up, took the kids to school, and then went straight to Crunch Fitness from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. to give away my books. I set up a full table stacked with more than fifty copies, and the whole thing felt strangely like going to work—in a good way. I ended up giving away around fifteen to twenty books to a wide range of people coming in and out of the gym, including several very attractive women, several guys I had genuinely interesting conversations with, and everyone in between.

The four hours flew by. I had a great conversation with the guy sitting at the table next to me. He told me he’s an author too and is working on his first two books. His workflow is basically the opposite of mine. He loves editing. He enjoys taking a paragraph and obsessively finding just the right two words or the perfect sentence to convey the same idea more cleanly. My process is the inverse. I treat words like they’re infinite and dump them all over the page. I create straight from the top of my head, which makes my process incredibly easy and fast, even if it sometimes comes out a bit messy or dense. That’s fine. We all have different workflows and different audiences, and I really enjoyed connecting with him over that contrast.

After Crunch, I went to Office Depot and bought plastic sign holders so I could put up signs that clearly said “Free Books” on my table. It was funny to notice that some people still weren’t interested, even when they realized the books were free. That didn’t bother me. Each book costs about $2 to $4 to print, and I don’t need to give them away to people who don’t actually want them. My phone number is inside every copy, which means unexpected and interesting opportunities can come from the right hands receiving them. Today I really felt like I was living in the magic of life—curious, open, and genuinely excited about not knowing what’s going to happen next.

Right after packing up at Crunch, I went to play tennis with a friend. He beat me 6–4, 6–1, but it was a relaxed, enjoyable match. I felt consistent on my forehand, and he was hitting great shots to finish points cleanly. After that, I went home, made a quick salad for lunch, and then headed to my AA meeting. We had a record turnout—twelve people—and the energy was great. I talked with a friend afterward, and then, out of nowhere, I got a message from my landlord saying I’ll need to move out in two months. I had thought I’d have three or four months based on how the lease was explained, but it is what it is.

I took it as an opportunity rather than a problem. I got on Zillow and started looking around, and it felt like a good excuse to spend more time with my ex-wife and the kids. My ex-wife had gone to Orlando earlier that day to have lunch with a coworker who was in town. When she got back, I talked with her about the move and asked if she had any thoughts or recommendations. Her intuition is almost always spot-on. I took the kids over to my mom’s house, then my ex-wife and I walked the dogs around the block and looked at Zillow together.

She found a house that’s about 336 square feet, close by and perfectly positioned in the direction of everything I do—Crunch Fitness, my AA meetings, the tennis club. The location is ideal. The rent is affordable, and it looks like water and garbage are included, which knocks even more off the cost. On top of that, it’s small and has mini-split air conditioners, which likely means my electricity bill would be $50 to $100 less per month than where I’m living now. All of that makes it extremely attractive as a highly efficient place to live.

I could easily pay first and last month’s rent, especially since my ex-wife has already helped me out financially since we decided on the divorce and plans to send more. It’s a good deal for both of us. I’m happy to have the cash now, and she’s happy to keep the equity in the house entirely for herself as I move on. Looking at it all laid out like this, the timing feels right, even when it’s unexpected.

Some people would say I’m getting screwed in this divorce. Other people point out that I’m not paying alimony or child support and that things are actually going really well for me. From where I’m standing, my ex-wife’s happy, I’m happy, and that’s what really counts. Everything else is just commentary.

I sent a message on Zillow about the small house my ex-wife found, and it looks like I was the first person to reach out about it. I also called and left a voicemail to see if I could get a tour the next day. The place had been listed higher a week ago, then dropped in price a couple of days ago, which feels like a good sign that they’re motivated to rent it quickly. I had reached out about another house earlier, but when I walked by it today, it already looked rented. Another place I had been watching was gone too. What feels good is knowing that I’m clear on what I want—a place I’m actually excited to live in—and trusting that the right option will show up. Today I felt deeply tapped in and genuinely trusting that things are lining up the way they’re supposed to. If you know a big change is coming but can’t yet say clearly what you actually want on the other side of it, you can set up a call with me and we’ll get you clear on it.

I also noticed myself feeling surrounded by the presence of potential women in my life, almost like I was walking around with an invisible posse of beautiful women deciding which one of them might get to be with me and share life with me. It was playful and fun, and I didn’t feel desperate or grasping. On top of that, I connected directly with people who had read my books and saw a couple of familiar faces at Crunch. It was one of those days where everything just flowed.

After putting the kids to bed, I stopped by my mom’s place again, said hi, shared the rest of a bag of popcorn with her, and brought her bowl back. Then I walked over to check out the house in person. Damn, it’s small. I’d be lucky if my king-size bed—which is seven feet by seven feet, about forty-nine square feet—fits in the bedroom at all. It felt tiny. I don’t know if I’ll end up getting it, but I’m excited to find out either way.

I walked back home and spent the evening to myself without any porn. Porn is very stimulating, just like movies, TV, and music are stimulating, but for me it’s better to use my imagination. I let my mind wander through memories of the experiences and people in my life. Sitting with that, I felt grateful for having lived a life full enough to remember and imagine in the first place.

I took a shower with the new shower head I bought at Ace about a week ago and finally installed last night. It’s a great one because it comes with three different washers depending on water pressure. By law, you can’t sell a shower head that puts out more than two gallons per minute at eighty PSI, but they include different washers in case your water pressure is lower. I pulled out the eighty-PSI washer and put in the forty-PSI one, which effectively gives me closer to four gallons a minute instead of two. The result is incredible. It feels like someone is dumping a full bucket of water over my head nonstop. My ex-wife would complain about the extra water usage, but fuck it. It’s an infinite universe, and if I can have a shower that just absolutely drenches me, I’m going to enjoy it. It felt amazing. I cleaned up, brushed my teeth, and then got to work.

I submitted one of my books, Is Bitcoin One Big Lie?, as a virtual voice audiobook through Audible. After that, I processed my new dating book, which I think will be called It’s Not You, It’s the Dating Apps. I ran the dictated audio through ChatGPT to clean it up. An hour and a half of dictation turned into about twelve thousand words in Microsoft Word. If everything goes smoothly, I should be able to submit that book tomorrow.

What really stood out to me today, especially after giving books away in person, was how varied people’s interests are. Several people—including one very attractive woman—chose The Kind Divorce. Others picked 28 Guided Meditations for Continuous Self Improvement. While people grabbed I Was Famous on the Internet, I also gave away one copy of ChatGPT for President and one Is Bitcoin One Bit Lie? One guy gave me particularly positive feedback about the short Bitcoin book. He told me he loved how brief it was and that it felt approachable—something he could actually read in a few minutes before bed. The longer books, he said, felt more intimidating and more like something he’d tackle after warming up with a shorter one. That feedback made me feel really good about these short books I’ve been creating. They feel perfect for audio, Kindle, and handing out as paperbacks.

I felt genuinely grateful all day, like I was putting out good energy and getting it right back. I also had a conversation with a friend who connected me with one of her friends, and I ended up talking with her for about thirty minutes about my work, my business, and my current life situation. She was incredibly supportive. It felt surprisingly good to have a meaningful call with someone I’d never met before. What made it even cooler was that she knew someone I had met years ago during my crypto days, and she encouraged me to reach out to him again. That same friend also gave me the phone number of another woman I know from AA who’s a real estate agent, and I want to connect with her as well. If you have been trying to push a business or a big life change forward all on your own, it can help to talk it out loud with someone who has been there, and you can book a one-on-one call with me to do exactly that.

I’m really aware tonight of how much help is available to me—and that I’m actually asking for it and accepting it. As I’m wrapping this up, it’s 10:56 p.m., and I’m genuinely excited to get to bed at a reasonable time. Today I worked, gave away books, exercised, spent time with my family, and maybe even found a new place to live. It feels like a full, complete day—about as good as I could have hoped for.

If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.

I Chant, I Cry, I Give Away Books

Originally published November 7, 2025.

This is my journal entry from November 7, 2025, part of my daily autobiography Divorce Day — my real, unedited days, published in order.

A tennis partner and I played two and a half hours of singles tennis today at the tennis club, and it was one of the best workouts I’ve ever had. He took the first set from me 6–3 without much trouble. Then something shifted. I warmed up, settled in, and he started to spiral. I jumped out to a 5–1 lead in the second set, feeling confident and loose. He clawed his way all the way back to 6–5, and I managed to hold to force a tiebreaker, which I won by the narrowest margin. He asked whether we should play another tiebreaker to finish it or go for a full third set. He said he could handle a third, so I said let’s do it. We traded games evenly until it was 4–4, and then he took the final two. Even with the loss, I played some of the best tennis of my life, and I felt genuinely proud of how far I’ve progressed. A few lessons and a small mindset shift have completely changed how much fun I’m having on the court.

After tennis, I went home and then headed to yoga for a deep stretch, which felt perfect after that kind of physical effort. From there, it was straight to pick up the kids from school and then off to my meeting as usual. I wrote afterward and then headed to the a local spiritual community kirtan ceremony. They’d done a little kirtan at the Halloween party, but this was a full event. I brought my table and a wide spread of books—ChatGPT for President, Is Bitcoin One Big Lie?, The Kind Divorce, Sober Through Separation, and several older titles too. The table looked impressive, not even all my books, but enough to tell a story. Almost immediately, people started coming up to talk. I gave away several copies, mostly I Was Famous on the Internet, but I was surprised to see people picking up older books I published nine years ago, like 28 Strategies to Have More Peace and Love in Your Life. It reinforced something I already suspected: the more books I have, the more entry points people find into my work.

The kirtan itself involved a lot of chanting—short mantras repeated again and again. I tried singing a bit, but mostly I wanted to sit and rest. I let the sound and energy wash over me, and during the third chanting session, I had a good cry. For dinner, I had pumpkin bites from one of the vendors. I felt like a high roller dropping $40 on hot cocoa, a juice, and eight pumpkin bites, plus a $10 tip. I love how cheap life can feel when you don’t stress about small amounts of money. You can live richly without much effort. I had several good conversations throughout the night, ending with one woman who was very pretty but didn’t seem especially interested in talking to me.

I’ve been back on the dating apps today too, still trying to find a formula that brings the right kind of matches without endless, pointless swiping. I called my mom on the way home. When I finally got back, after all the stimulation of the day, I felt the pull to wind down in my own way and close out the night quietly. Everything feels a bit all over the place right now, but I can tell I’m in a period of exploration, and for now, I’m letting that be what it is.

If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.

I Handed Them My Truth and Wept

Originally published August 2, 2025.

This is my journal entry from August 2, 2025, part of my daily autobiography Author in St. Petersburg — my real, unedited days, published in order.

Today was a wild ride—an emotional roller coaster from start to finish. I woke up still unsettled from last night after an argument with my ex-wife. The conflict was about how she handles her feelings when I’m struggling. She told me that when I’m having a hard time, she feels like she must shrink, like her feelings and her life suddenly don’t matter. I told her the exact opposite is what needs to happen. I need her to expand, to take up space, to bring her full energy into the room. When I’m low, I don’t want everyone sitting around asking, “What’s wrong? What’s going on?” I want them to keep living, to have fun, to show me joy so I can join them there.

At 8:30 this morning, I met a friend for tennis. I won the first two games, which is rare. Out of all the times we’ve played—maybe ten matches—I’ve only beaten him once, and that was the day he was hungover. Today, my consistency was better than ever. He hadn’t played in a week, while I’ve been on the court almost daily. Despite my early lead, he adjusted and took six of the next eight games. I was proud of him for making those adjustments and for pushing back so hard. The rallies were intense, and it was rewarding to see how much my game has improved since last year. He told me he had argued with his wife last night, and I laughed—apparently, the air was charged with tension for both of us.

After the match, I rushed home, took a quick five-minute shower, changed clothes, and drove straight to my Alcoholics Anonymous meeting to check in and be there for my sponsee. The topic was honesty. About forty minutes in, someone called on me to share, and within moments, I had the whole room laughing uncontrollably. I started with, “You want to talk about honesty? I’m grateful to be sober, and most of the time I’m having a great day—but today I’m in the shitter.” That line set the tone. The laughter came in waves, so much so that I could barely get a full sentence out before they erupted again.

As one woman told me once, “You say the things we’re all thinking, but we know not to say.” That’s exactly why I speak so openly. It’s what I need to hear, and getting it out of my head is how I stay honest. Leaving that meeting, I thought about how much potential I have for stand-up comedy. The challenge is that my best material comes when I’m struggling. People connect to me when I’m in pain. When I’m happy, it’s harder for them to relate, and fewer things I say come across as funny.

Right after AA, I went to a power yoga class. I’m deeply grateful that my body can handle two hours of intense tennis in the morning followed by a challenging yoga flow. Yesterday my sponsor joked, “With all the stuff you do, you must have the body of a god.” I had never thought of it that way, but I liked hearing it.

By the afternoon, my mind was spinning about the letters I want to write—especially the one to a particular family member. I had been feeling mentally stuck on it, overthinking whether to follow through. Eventually, I told myself that my feelings didn’t matter in this decision. I had been excited about it before, and I needed to honor that commitment. I had asked for signs, and they had been showing up. Around four o’clock, I got a strong inner push: finish the letter now.

I opened the dictated version, read the entire thing, made edits, and ran it through ChatGPT for polish. Then I set up the new printer I bought last night, printed the pages, and asked my ex-wife for a stapler. I drove to the family member’s house to deliver it in person. They weren’t home the first time, so I returned forty minutes later and handed it over.

The moment after I delivered it and walked out, I felt incredibly vulnerable. Tears came, unplanned and heavy. I had just placed my love and my truth directly in their hands. The letter expressed my desire for a better relationship, my struggles within the connection, and the ways I’ve hurt them. Once it was out there, it was no longer in my control. That surrender felt both terrifying and liberating. If you're sitting on a hard truth you've been afraid to put into someone's hands, you're welcome to schedule a one-on-one call with me, where we talk through this kind of honest, vulnerable work together on our call.

The rest of the evening felt lighter. I walked the dogs, spent time with my mom, and reflected on the day. Positive changes often require moving through discomfort. That negative emotional reaction I felt earlier wasn’t a sign to stop—it was simply the toll you pay to reach the other side.

If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.

Doorstep Letters and Free Books: What I Learned

On this page

Booklets, Calls, and a Plan

Give Them My Real Writing

180 Letters, Still Empty

Doorstep Letters and Free Books: What I Learned

On this page

Booklets, Calls, and a Plan

Give Them My Real Writing

180 Letters, Still Empty

The Two-Page Letter That Slaps

Giving My Books to the Whole Neighborhood

Drop a Book on a Thousand Doorsteps

One Hundred Letters and a Free Oak Table

A Thousand Stamps and a Heavy Heart

My First Day Free and the Letter to a Thousand Doors

I Stopped Hoarding and Started Giving

I Chant, I Cry, I Give Away Books

I Handed Them My Truth and Wept

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