The Jerry Banfield Show

See how I handle another painful failure as an entrepreneur online I experienced yesterday in being rejected by the Dash community budget proposal. What I am learning is that every seeming failure is guidance in the right direction and motivation to use a different approach. While doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result is insane, making some slight adjustments and trying again is the path of growth. At 16 months, my daughter is walking everywhere after hundreds of painful falls. Imagine if after she feel the first or second time she was unwilling to try again. She would not walk again for years if she approached walking the way I first approached working online. After getting scammed into a survey program in my first effort to work online and getting sucked into a pyramid scheme right after that, I vowed not to fail again by just getting real job after real job. Finally working in the world of real jobs became so painful for me, I was willing to take the less painful alternative of failing again online.

In the Dash masternode community, each month 10% of the dash mined is voted on by users with 1,000 dash allocated to a masternode. Dash has a huge need for some better marketing and the existing proposals I saw offered a small amount of value at a small cost. I got excited because I could see an opportunity for a great partnership between what I do online and the Dash community. I made a proposal with everything I imagined I could do and the first 15 or so votes were mostly yes. Then all the critics and haters came in leaving the votes yesterday at around 30 yes and 60 no. Now today the votes are 5 yes with one of them being me and 230+ no votes. After being excited to make a proposal to collaborate with the Dash community, I experienced a lot of pain at the rejection not just from the no votes but especially from the comments which indicated I basically made every aspect of the proposal unlikeable. Some of my first thoughts were to just leave the community behind and say that they do not deserve my help. Good thing I did not approach dating like that or I would not have met my wife. I believe in the Dash community and while it is hard sometimes to absorb feedback, I see that all the comments suggest ways I can make a better proposal in the future which has a good chance of getting accepted.

I hope as you read what goes on in my life it is helpful for you in your life today. My exercise is to work on a new way of handling rejection and messages from life that I am not good enough because I know the truth is everyone and everything is created perfectly just as it is. If you are looking to do some of the things I do online, I hope me sharing my honest experience with the ups and downs of them is helpful for you. Thank you for reading this and I hope you enjoy this episode of Happier People podcast available on iTunes and as a Vlog on YouTube and Facebook!

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Hear how I work through the fear of rejection by focusing on the joy of my offer being accepted. Today I am making another proposal that I am really excited about which might get rejected or might be approved. No matter how many times I lose the game of asking and receiving, I am motivated to keep trying today by seeing how much fun it is to ask for something I really want and to get it. With my mind being programmed to avoid pain and seek pleasure, the fear of rejection is often sneaky in that my brain devises clever games to avoid situations where I might get told NO without me even being consciously aware it is doing it. For example, with jobs for years I only would apply to jobs in the criminal justice field because that is where I got my bachelor’s degree. I figured my odds of getting rejected were less at those jobs instead of focusing on how much I might actually enjoy doing a job. In serving clients, this has led me to make offers to clients at prices where they were unlikely to make a rejection because I was basically giving my time away free. Then when the chance came to do the work, I would prioritize everything else besides working for the client because “why work for free?” Recently I discovered this was a sneaky fear of rejection practice that was greatly holding me back. Seeing this motivated me to change to charging $10,000 a month for a maximum of one client because this is an amount I am willing to do great work for and make top priority. I say no to offers less than this which I do not seek. The offer I am currently applying to is for a dash budget sponsorship for around $6,000 paid in one month to make dash cryptocurrency a part of my YouTube channel, Facebook page, and online courses. My goal is to reach over a million people and convert tens of thousands to making a new dash wallet and purchasing a few dash while inspiring one to ten people to get their own masternode for 1,000 dash. I am really excited to apply to this opportunity and I am willing to face the pain of rejection in exchange for a chance to work on a project I love at a pay rate I am willing to make top priority. Using this system for facing the pain of rejection based on the great pleasure of acceptance, I now consistently have the courage to ask for what I want and endure the pain of getting rejected again. Every rejection like getting my KickStarter project rejected last year hurts and I am happy I am willing to keep enduring the hurts to build up a life full of work I love doing! My exercise for today is to consciously walk into the opportunity for the pain of rejection with an expectation of acceptance for the right things in my life. Thank you for reading this and I hope you enjoy this episode of Happier People podcast!

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Hear how I am learning to ask better questions to get out of moods where I am asking “Why am I feeling this way” or “What made me feel like this” or “Who did what that caused me to be like this?” Being depressed, angry, annoyed, resentful, frustrated, anxious, afraid, fearful, condemning, judgmental, and any other toxic bad mood usually includes my mind asking questions which SEEM to be asked in an effort to fix the bad mood but really they work to KEEP IT IN PLACE. For example, today I was feeling and thinking along with many of the words I just listed and my mind was acting helpful by trying to identify the source of the problem. With most problems in life, this is a helpful approach. Today as I was designing merchandise on Cafepress, I asked “Why is this website SO SLOW” and the answer “I do not know but maybe I should look for a different website to use” encouraged me to search for alternatives. Our minds are setup to solve simple problems very effectively like this by asking questions and seeking answers. The problem is that when the mind itself IS THE PROBLEM, the questions it asks simply reinforce the problem rather than fixing it. In a state of depression, the problem exists only in my mind. As I learn to ask better questions out of the mind, I gain the power to help the mind fix itself. Asking questions like “Why am I feeling this way” actually produces answers that then make reasons for the original problem to existing. What is the original problem? The original problem as I see it is the mind becoming separated from the whole and trying to work on its own without reference to its position of service in the collective. Separation produces a feeling of being alone with the follow up being fear. To solve this problem, the mind starts asking why this happened but then only reinforces the original condition by finding reasons that the now negative state is there. I am not able to remember a time when my mind asked “Why am I feeling like this” and it actually got back an answer of “because you are alone and scared operating on your own willpower without the support of the whole.” An answer like that would motivate an immediate return to prayer and the end of the problem. Instead, answers come back like “Well this person did this” or “This awful event happened” or “because this is wrong” or one of a million more answers that then actually make whatever the original feeling was even bigger. What starts as a moment of disconnection or annoyance quickly turns into full blown anger, resentment, frustration, depression, or any other feeling I do not like even with just one or two answers to an ineffective question. Today my exercise is to notice when my mind asks an ineffective question and to instead ask a more effective question in its place instead of searching for the answer to the ineffective question. This strategy is how I am able generally to avoid having a slight discomfort turn into a full blown problem and I am grateful for the chance to learn this with you today! Thank you for reading this and I hope you enjoy this episode of Happier People podcast!

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Hear the story of how I quit eating popcorn at the movie theater and apply the same strategies I use to help with any change you are working on in your life today! After 20+ years of being programmed that no movie going experience was complete without having my popcorn and a Coke, I am amazed today to see the level of discomfort I felt at stepping outside of that conditioning. During a date with my wife today, we went to see the movie La La Land and it was the second time I have been to the movies as an adult where I consciously chose not to get any movie theater popcorn based on my past experiences rather than simply having had a huge dinner beforehand. Even with changing my diet to a foundation in whole plant foods, breaking the bond of having popcorn at the movies has provided a challenge. While for seven months I avoided any animal products in my food after reading How Not To Die and now Whole also, I selectively did not consider or have an interest in finding out whether there were animal products in movie theater popcorn. I figured I was not going to give up having my Coke and popcorn at the movies. The last time I ate my annual bucket full, I felt sick to my stomach afterwards after eating enough popcorn on an empty stomach to feel full. This was far from the first time this had happened and I would guess that I have eaten to feeling nauseous at the movies at least 20 if not 50 times in my life. The short term pleasure of having the popcorn and often candy plus a soda always won over the future pain of feeling like a glutton. Today I went into the movies with a full stomach and the conscious memory of my last unpleasant popcorn eating experience. Even with that much preparation and already managing to not eat popcorn on my previous trip to the movies, I found it very uncomfortable to step outside my programming again today. Last time my mind said was just a fluke. This time today not having popcorn showed that I meant business which was just crazy. It took me about an hour watching the movie to feel more at ease as my mind resisted the idea of giving up my conditioning in favor of the facts of my own experience eating. I share this with you today with the hope that if you are quitting something more difficult than just popcorn at the movies, you will see the same forces at work. Thankfully getting sober prepared me for a trial like this at the movies today because this same process went into my alcoholism and it felt like dying to give that up! Thank you for reading this and I hope you enjoy this episode of Happier People podcast!

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Hear the story of what I learned by first reacting to suggestions I should turn my ads off and then telling my subscribers that on YouTube only to discover 100 times as many viewers preferred for me to leave the ads on.

I am grateful for so many kind comments about my work and for helping me see that what I thought might be an annoyance actually makes a way for you to give back to me by watching the ads without spending any money yourself.

What I hope is helpful for watching this is to see how I am willing to listen to feedback, make changes in my life, and then ask for additional feedback about those changes. My goal each day is to make a 1% improvement in my life, my sobriety, my relationships, and my business because this is achievable every day. 1% might not seem like much but done repeatedly adds up to over 365% a year or 100%+ even with some days where there is a 1% step back with something such as disabling monetization on my YouTube channel!

I appreciate you reading this and hope you enjoy this episode of Happier People podcast available on YouTube, Facebook, and iTunes!

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Hear the story of why I quit playing my favorite video games like Call of Duty, League of Legends, Battlefield 1, and all other PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 games after 25+ years with 20,000+ hours of total gaming! I hope this is is useful for you to understand why I gave up my life as a gamer and am switching to music production instead!

What motivated me to change was seeing how much pain gaming was causing in my life and how very little pleasure it was bringing not only me but also my friends. Often it was easier playing with my friend to see how annoyed they would be playing a game than to notice it myself. When I talk on the phone with my friends, they are usually upbeat and full of life. During many of our games, we would not have any good conversation because of my live stream and the pain of losing a game.

The reason I told myself I was continuing to play video games was to play with my friends and finally I saw that there was a better way I could spend time with my friends besides gaming. Without using my friends as a reason to game, I see no reason left to play video games instead of doing something more productive. It takes a lot of courage to give up a big part of who you are to be something new and I appreciate you making this change with me! Thank you for watching or listening to Day 56 of my vlog and podcast episode of Happier People today!

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Hear how I transform failure stories into the foundation of success today by using the pain from making mistakes to give me motivation to learn a better way of living. With a better way of living, miracles, success, and happiness become automatic. The idea of a successful person often looks like someone who has been willing to push through a lot of pain to get somewhere but in my experience it seems more that what most of us think of as a successful person usually reflects a willingness to use life's challenges as inspiration to find a better way to live.

The key seems to be about how the story of the failure is told. For example, in dating if you get dumped and blame the other person for it, there often is no opportunity to learn. If the truth is you believe you got broken up with or cannot get a date because you are too fat, using the pain of getting rejected to motivate you to start eating healthy and exercising more can lead to success finding the partner of your dreams.

For my business online, I got banned from Udemy in 2016 which was making me $20,000 to $90,000 a month on $50,000 to $250,000+ in sales a month. Out of nowhere they banned me and then I started telling a story of how I could not make as much money in 2017 without Udemy. In planning my expenses, I remember telling my friend Albert how I could pay him more in 2016 because I would have less income in 2017. Then I saw HOW CRAZY THAT WAS! Without knowing anything about 2017, I started acting like I did. As soon as I saw this failure story was disrupting my life, then I changed it to believing now that I will make more money in 2017 than in 2016. This new empowering story is likely to come true because I am telling it every day.

Today I am motivated to be an unconditionally loving husband that is healthy because of all the painful failures I suffered through dating. If instead I had made a story up of how awful women were because they would not go out with an obese man that lied on his dating profile and said he was athletic, I would probably still be single today. Without having the awful pain of perhaps my 1,000th hangover, I would not have found motivation to go to any length to stay sober.

Each story we tell is an opportunity to live or die. The positive stories we tell give us the chance to experience the pleasure of doing better and to get through the pain today of making a change for the better. Toxic stories we tell allow us to experience a minor pleasure today in being lazy while continuing to experience the same painful failures again and again. My exercise today is to look deeply at the stories I am telling and ask if each is helping me or hurting me.

Thank you very much for reading this and I hope you enjoy this episode of Happier People podcast!

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Hear today how I am trying the three to thrive morning routine similar to what Tony Robbins does each day to see if I get the same results in my life in the form of enhanced productivity and less stress! What I normally do is have five, ten, or even twenty things I want to get done in my business online. As an entrepreneur working full time online at home, I feel a huge pressure to take my business to the next level and the problem is I often overschedule. With a to do list in my mind that covers the whole day, I usually get at least half of it done but still feel like I did not do enough at the end of the day. While I would never work at a job where a boss expected this much of me, I routinely tolerate it from the boss in my head. The worst part is that I often make fear based decisions based on avoiding the pain that day and bringing the most pleasure. For bringing the greatest pleasure, I often associate making videos. In creating the greatest pain, I often think of boring business tasks like sending payments. Where I have a problem is when I choose based on fear that I will not have enough time to make videos later to make a bunch of videos in the morning. By the time afternoon comes and it is time to quit working, all the other tasks I have to do like maybe getting a book submitted for publication on Audible are not done. My rationalization is that I will always have more time later but the problem is that rarely do I have time to relax. Seven days a week I start work at around 8 or 9 in the morning with many nights finishing 10 or 12 hours later with an average of 3 to 5 hours of breaks in between. Weeks will often pass where I think about having to do the same task and not getting it done. This triggers my shame of not being good enough and finally I do something I have been putting off to the last minute which only reinforces the pain for that initial activity. Today I am trying Tony Robbin's three to thrive system he uses to pick three things he really wants to accomplish that day. My hope is that by 10 or 11 in the morning I will have finished the three things and be free for the rest of my day to do whatever. This will likely give me motivation to want to accomplish tasks today that might otherwise be in tomorrow's three to thrive. My exercise for today is to try this and report back to you on how it goes! Thank you for reading this description and I hope you enjoy the episode of Happier People podcast!

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Hear how today I was inspired to make a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation about suicide prevention and to plan on advertising it to the world with Google AdWords for video and Facebook ads after sharing it live on YouTube and Facebook later today! If you are looking for more ways to give back and do charitable work in your life today, I hope listening to my story here will help you see unique service opportunities available for you because the world needs your help just as much as it needs mine! When you are uncertain of how to volunteer more or donate your time and money, you might receive inspiration by understanding how I use prayer and meditation to ask the universe to give me the insights I need and the willingness to act on those inspirations. After spending years in my life skeptical about the value of giving back and now with seeing so much evidence in my own life of the power of serving others, you might find motivation to try one new activity today that will put you in a position to give back. For being happier people, fitting in, making more money, and feeling good about life, nothing is as powerful in my experience as living with the sole purpose of helping others. Thank you for reading this description of Day 53 of Happier People podcast and I hope you enjoy the episode!

Sincerely,

Jerry Banfield

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Would you like to actually achieve your next goal instead of making progress on it and giving up? How would you feel if your New Year's resolution for 2017 and beyond was not only accomplished but you smashed through your initial goal? For most of the last 15 years, I set goals and made New Year's resolutions but rarely ever lived up to them. For example, I would set goals of losing 10 pounds, quitting drinking, or making more money. Next I would focus only on how to achieve the goal rather than why I made it to start with. In a few days, weeks, or months, I would either have completed the goal or given up on the New Year's resolution. Either way, the purpose I originally set was never finished. If I wanted to lose weight, even when I did it I soon put the weight back on. If I was trying to stay sober for my physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health, I figured a few days, weeks, or months proved "I was not that bad, I can drink again" and the original goal of being healthier was totally lost. With business goals, this led me to achieve new income goals only to spend my money more foolishly than ever and end up back in debt worse than when I started.

Do any of the stories about sound familiar to you? If so you might enjoy listening to how today I am able to focus first on the WHY behind the goal I am setting, then move into what I can CUT or ELIMINATE to make room for the extra work to accomplish the goal, and finally I look at what I can improve in the life I already have to achieve the goal. I hope listening to these three steps will help you see that you already have enough motivation and inspiration to reach any goal you have set. Using that energy, I hope you are inspired to cut the least productive area of your life and use that empty space to do more in the life you already have and accept help with sticking to your New Year's resolution and making your goal something that stays accomplished. My exercise for today is to look at how I am applying these steps in my own life today to my business and personal life. Thank you for reading about this episode of Happier People podcast and I hope you enjoy it!

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