This is my icebreaker speech at St. Petersburg Toastmasters, Club 2284, in March 2020. The Toastmaster of the evening introduced me like this: our speaker this evening is completing his icebreaker speech. He has made his living online and intends to organize inspired entrepreneurs in building businesses that raise human consciousness. He discovered Toastmasters via John Hunter and is grateful for the chance to introduce himself this evening. Please help me welcome Jerry Banfield.
Thinking about somebody else
Thank you all for being here tonight. What a pleasure to have so many of you looking at me and paying attention to me. Man, I've been fantasizing about that since the first time I sat down in these chairs. I'm like, I'm going to get up there and speak one day. And today I kept thinking about it. At one point I was making a salad and I thought, I've been thinking all day about my speech. When I'm here, I'm going to say... And then: how many times have I thought about what somebody else might want to hear, or what somebody else is going to say? Damn, there goes that selfishness again. Every time I kept thinking about myself: all right, think about somebody else, think about somebody else.
The shadow side
I love that you made the topic the shadow side tonight, because I'm very comfortable with my shadow side. I'm a little too comfortable with my shadow side. Sometimes I'll whip out the worst of me and just put it in a book and publish it, and then bring it to my AA meetings and have a whole bunch of great gossip going around. That was a good time. The dark side of me is destruction. There's a part of me that loves destruction and pain. My strengths are creativity and healing. Those are what I do really well, and that balances out perfectly. I love creating. That's why I've made so many videos. I try to help people live a better life, and I have the experience to do that because of all the pain and suffering and destruction I've put myself through.
Criminal justice, corrections, and the police
I'll give you an example. In college, I decided I would be a criminal justice major. I was thinking, I want to understand what's wrong with me, and maybe if I figure out what's wrong with everybody else who's messed up, then I can kind of secretly figure myself out. I made it difficult. In my last year of college, I smoked marijuana right before I wanted to apply to be a police officer, and naturally that didn't go well on applications. Fortunately, corrections was happy to have me as a corrections officer. They didn't even ask about that. In fact, I never even got in trouble for coming into work drinking there, and I got into the dark side real good from there.
I became a police officer after that. Somehow I passed a polygraph. By 2009, I was drinking very heavily off duty and doing many of the same things off duty that I was arresting people for on duty, and it was splitting my soul. I got to the point where I could hardly arrest somebody. I pulled a lady over one night for drunk driving, and I could hardly arrest her, because it made me furious that she gets to go to jail, but me, I just don't get caught for stuff. I can go do the same thing and I'm not going to get pulled over. I had to be told, you need to arrest her and take her to jail, and I almost cried. I'm like, this is just stupid. It's not fair.
My hand would not obey orders
When I got to be a police officer, my dark side kicked in, and several times when I was drunk I tried to shoot myself. Fortunately, my hand would not obey orders. It would not follow directions. I said pull the trigger, and it's like, nope, I'm not doing that. Thank God, I reached out and I asked for help. I told somebody where I was. I told my father, and the most pain I've heard in my life from my family is when I told my dad. I called him up and said, Dad, I tried to kill myself the other night, and I still feel the same way, and I'm going to get it right one of these nights. And man, the pain just came out of him. He came to try to rescue me for my 25th birthday, and shortly after that, I quit slash lost my job and moved home.
The darkness would not stop
I thought I was all better. I just needed a little bit of love, needed to get back in a good place, meet a good woman, get a better education. And I did all that. I met my wife shortly after that, got a master's degree shortly after that, got myself in a good place, and I thought, all right, my life's fixed. And the darkness just would not stop. I kept drinking, and I found myself in 2014 realizing: if you drink again, this is what's going to happen. You're going to kill yourself, and that's certain. And you can't stop, whether you want to or not. That scared me, because I knew I would change my mind and the darkness would come out. And again, I prayed to God for help. I said, please, God, I'll do anything to stay sober. One of the thoughts that came through my head was, well, going to one of those AA meetings might be a part of the anything you just offered. And I thought, well, that doesn't sound too bad. I think I can do that.
Comfortable with my darkness
That's where I got comfortable with my darkness. Going to Alcoholics Anonymous, I've gone every day for six years now. I'm very comfortable with my darkness, and that allows me to fully express my light and to love myself. I have a miraculous life now. I have two children. I make videos on YouTube and teach courses. I do whatever I want. That's not true. I help out other people all day, every day. I help my wife out. I help my kids out. I try to be of service and do something useful every day.
I've thought a lot about what I can say when I speak that will really make a difference for you. I prayed before this: God, please let me say something that will be useful to each person here who's listening tonight. Let me be an instrument of your peace and your service. I've been as excited about this speech as some of you might have been in my head. I don't know what I'm going to say, but I realize what could possibly come out, and I'm pretty happy with it. I'm grateful to be here with you tonight. Thanks for listening to me.
Come see me speak
Thank you very much for reading all of my first speech at Toastmasters. As you can tell, I love getting up and performing, and I would love to come speak for you at your event. I would also love to see you in person at one of the events and live classes I hold in St. Petersburg, Florida. If you'd like to join me, you can get instant access to text message or WhatsApp me. If you'd like me to speak, just message me right away after you join and let me know about your event. If you'd like to come see me in person, message me and ask when the next event near you is.
This speech is one of the earliest moments in my Daily Vlogs playlist, and it's where a lot of what I talk about today started.