The Jerry Banfield Show

The Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu says I alone am nothing which at first of course offended me. I wanted to say I AM TOO SOMETHING ALONE but the more I thought about it, the more I saw that it is impossible to even define ME without having others. As a husband, father, friend, family member, video producer, teacher, and whatever else you want to call me, I see each of these roles requires others to be defined. If you take away everyone else, I alone am nothing. Why is this so helpful for me to remember in everyday life? When I think about WHAT I WANT I am essentially completely wasting my time. In others, I can see my purpose but trying to seek what I alone want has guided me so often into unhappiness. Happy human beings seem to consistently focus on their connections and service with others while those unhappy usually seem to feel without belonging. Today I am grateful to feel I do belong because my life’s purpose becomes clear in being of service to you. My exercise for today is to notice wherever I am thinking about just me without consideration to how what I do is impacting others. Thank you for reading about day 149 of Happier People podcast and I hope you enjoy it!

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What helps me to be the most productive and least stressed? In planning and choosing what I will do especially in my work as an entrepreneur online, I aim to make everything a guaranteed win meaning I do not have to rely on the result. For example, watch this Facebook ads tutorial I made today at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIJ9klXnHBg. Even if the Facebook ads do not work, I got an amazing two hour tutorial out of it! If the tutorial is not received well, I still produced a new Skillshare class people are watching. Regardless of how the reviews come in on the Skillshare class, I enjoyed the two hours today I spent making each of these and have more confidence to repeat the process. The benefit of this strategy is that I enjoyed the “work” I did and I am not conditioning my happiness on performance. While I hope that the Facebook ads promote the Skillshare class effectively and that the tutorial does the same, I have everything I need to repeat the process with Google AdWords and YouTube ads. Given I have everything I need to do more, the odds of great results continue to grow to a point where now most anything I do has a guaranteed win built into it where none of my time and energy is truly wasted while the time I spend worrying about results in minimal. After doing the opposite for most of my business, I am very grateful to have this to share with you today and hope it is useful! My exercise for today is to continue to see the guaranteed wins in the rest of my life. Thank you for reading about day 148 of Happier People podcast and I hope to see you again soon!

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Let me tell you a few stories about how I used to trust the supplements, medications, and prescription pills I was given to help me improve my health and feel better. What I consistently got was worse and thankfully I avoided going to any doctors to get even more pills for all my mental challenges. Instead, I self-medicated with alcohol and I got the same result. Relief finally came by ending everything. No more alcohol, pills, supplements, or medications except for perhaps a short time of emergency. When I injured my back in the line of duty making an arrest as a state law enforcement officer, I ran into the same trap. I was in pain and took the pills they gave me without question. After a week, I realized not only was I becoming used to all of what they gave me quickly so much that I now had to take the pills just to feel normal but also that my back was improving much more slowly than if I had not taken the medication. I stopped the meds immediately upon realizing this and quickly was back to work before the doctor projected I would be ready. Two years later when I injured my back again playing racquetball, I forgot the lesson and learned it over again. After weeks of taking medication and prescribed pills (the ones from before), I was again not improving. In fact, it seemed I was getting worse after every night of sleep. Again when I stopped taking the pills, my body quickly fixed itself. In the people around me, I seem to see the same tendency. While some medication immediately after a traumatic event may prove helpful for a few hours, no one I know has benefited from taking any pills over a consistent amount of time. All of the people I know that take the most medication are also in the worst mental and physical health although perhaps just a few DAYS away from feeling the best they have felt in years without the medication. I know how tempting it is to have a drink or take a pill to feel better without thinking about the long term cycle not just of addiction but of dependence in sayings like “I have to take my medicine.” If you search, you will find more medication horror stories than you would believe and see the death count is unbelievable. At the same time, this is so profitable for everyone involved except the patient that who would take the time to tell you about it? TV channels would lose their advertisers if they spent too much time sharing this with you. Doctors and hospitals would give up gigantic bonuses, commissions, and repeat visits by sick patients if they suggested all natural treatments. Fortunately a few doctors have been speaking out and I am grateful I found their books and recommendations in my own life.

In this day 147 of Happier People podcast, I challenge you to see the world today by asking this what if question and seeing how the world would look if it was true. The way I see it, nothing would change. In fact, assuming that pills cause more problems with side effects than they solve with whatever their primary purpose is makes the most sense in a health care system that just wants to survive and grow in capitalism as any other business. Where most of us suffer is the fact that sick people are profitable for doctors, hospitals, therapists, supplement companies, and anyone else that makes a profit when we go seek treatment or a product to help us feel better. Healthy people are challenging to make money off of because what need is there to go to the doctor more than for an occasional physical? Who that feels great about their health is vulnerable to being sold an expensive medication or invasive surgery or an overnight stay in the hospital? The titles of good and bad or good and evil are unnecessary because of the ability for good hardworking people to show up at work doing their best and still causing great injury to others because of not seeing the entire system they are a part of. For each of us, the solution seems to be our own willingness to learn what is best fo

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Skillshare hosts video classes which I find helpful for learning new skills and to earn income teaching! Skillshare also offers a $10 per sign up bounty for each free trial user referred! Would you started by signing up for a free trial yourself using my link at https://www.skillshare.com/r/user/jerrybanfield because then you will know you can repeat the process with others? As a premium member on Skillshare, I am able to share a link to any class on Twitter, Facebook, email, or with a direct link. I earn $10 if anyone clicking the link signs up for a free trial of Skillshare Premium the same as if you use any of my links at https://jerrybanfield.com/freecourses/.

Why consider this? As a student on Skillshare watching video classes from other instructors, I think it is the best value I have ever seen in online education! Over 15,000 paid classes are available for one month for free and then $96 a year which is $8 a month or $12 a month with no commitment? I wish this was available when I signed up to borrow thousands to go to college which taught me mostly useless skills which I often hating learning! The affiliate marketing opportunity as a student is to just naturally share which classes you love like I do and then when friends ask, explain why you enjoy being a Skillshare premium member. Each month I am now earning thousands of dollars through Skillshare referrals to mostly my own classes and to those of my partners at https://jerrybanfield.com/partners/.

Who can teach on Skillshare? Teaching on Skillshare is open to anyone because there are no requirements in terms of having a degree or proven expertise! While most people are tempted to teach what they know best, I often enjoy learning from instructors that know just a little more than I do about a subject and teach some of my classes the same way.

When is a great time to start? Today! Watching video classes and learning new skills for me has consistently been one of those things I “would like to do if I had more time” that consistently used to not happen because I would put working and earning money today always as a high priority. What I have learned is that self-improvement is the best investment I can make especially when it comes to learning new skills. What gives me the ability today to charge AND have people actually pay me $200+ an hour is a function of how many different skills I have learned AND how I can put them all together into amazing projects and help that almost no one else can match worldwide. Skillshare helped me just today with learning more about making music as I watched a class by Tomas George at http://skl.sh/2oc3tiF.

Without these Skillshare classes, I doubt I would have had the courage to try making music which I think has the highest happiness, impact, and income potential out of anything I have ever done. Today I make watching video classes and learning new skills a priority because I love the process of developing new skills and I love the result in increased abilities. If there is any day ever to start, it is today because today is also all there is. Taking a leap of faith in spending time to learn and grow takes courage. I am doing it each day and invite you to join me while opening up an opportunity to also earn what I hope is good income for you as an affiliate just by sharing classes you enjoy! Thank you for reading this and I hope it is helpful as the subject of my tip #4 video!

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Will you hear the crazy story of how I started making music and nearly quit the day before I gave it a try for the first time live online with FL Studio 12? Listen to all my songs free on SoundCloud at https://soundcloud.com/jbanfield. The story begins in sixth grade music class where I decided I hated music after flicking my music teacher off. From that day forward I was sure that I had no talent or interest in doing anything musical while attempting to put down most who were willing to try. I was into Pink Floyd and AC/DC followed soon by Eminem, Tupac, and Kesha. This was the soundtrack of my life from almost twenty years. When I was 30, I started to notice that the music I was listening to was often negatively impacting my mood. Getting to the car to drive somewhere, I would often be in a good mood and then getting out of the car twenty minutes later, I would feel like a victim or ashamed of myself or mad at the world. The modification to my mood I experienced from music finally became conscious and I started thinking about crafting my music listening according to what I wanted to feel like. In a shocking realization, I saw that nearly all of the music I thought I loved assisted most effectively in keeping me in disconnected and selfish mood. With no alternative, I stopped listening to nearly all music for over a year with nearly the only exception being a swim in the pool to listen to Kesha which after moving out of a house with a pool I gave up also for the last nine months. Dropping all the music I listened to for hours daily left a huge void in my mind and a desire out of no where to create music again. First, I ordered a Yamaha electronic keyboard and played that one night. Most nights it sat in my closet until I started to ask what my life would look like without video games. When I gave up my 20+ hours a week playing Call of Duty and League of Legends, I suddenly got the urge to create music in that space. FL Studio 12 was the digital audio workstation I bought to help me do that. Having no preexisting memory of anything musical, I started just playing around with the synthesizers and my new MIDI. After a couple of months and releasing two videos with me just banging on the keys using a synthesizer, I was ready to give up. I was considering returning my Mac Pro which allows me to live stream simultaneously on Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, Twitter with Periscope, Hitbox, and Beam which is owned by Microsoft. Just when I was ready to give up my idea of making music as another bad idea, I got just the insight I needed to give it a try the next day and most every day since then! The inspiration came from seeing that what I perceived was a huge weakness in my near complete ignorance of anything musical was really a huge asset for teaching how to make music live. If I would just start from the beginning myself, I could make a complete journey from not knowing anything to having songs I love and enjoy listening to! Thank you for being a part of this story and reading about it during day 146 of Happier People podcast! My exercise for today was to do another live music creation video right after recording this which I did! Every day it takes a bit of courage to step up and try again which I hope to share with you today!

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Would you try listening to my eighth song named "Dirty Organ" in the car because it has epic bass drops in it that I love! Thank you to Tomas George for suggesting the name because this track begins and ends with the KBD Organ NUC from the Morphine Additive Synthesizer! For the other chords, I used 4 other Morphine Additive Synthesizer variations in FL Studio 12 including LED Fat MC, KBD Linda MC, KBD Plastic Dream MC, and KBD Sine Piano NUC with a channel pitch automation. For the kick drum, I used Fruit Kick at C3, C4, and C5 alternating between verses the order. The bass drop is from the Bass Drum8_LONG sample available in the all samples bundle on FL Studio 12's website along with A6NDRM.C4 for the sound at the end of the bass drop. The guitar samples I used where 00114_C4, 00126_C5, and 00102_C3. My hope for this song was to make a beat for listening to in my Toyota RAV4 Hybrid which emphasizes bass sounds even with the default settings. Thank you for reading about Dirty Organ and I hope this description was helpful for you!

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Thank you for helping me get paid to do what I love every month with Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/jerrybanfield. Would you like to learn how to get started and grow your Patreon following the way I have? Patreon provides the easiest method I know of to make recurring monthly income online in exchange for doing what we love. The trick with Patreon is to get those very first patrons to participate which is the point most new creators never get past. Who wants to pledge to a page with no one else giving it support? While our friends and family often make the best people to ask for help, many of us are programmed that money is evil and therefore asking family and friends to do what we love is shameful. Strangers then become suckers for money that we have to either trick, beg, or barter using work to get them to give us as much money as possible. Patreon makes asking friends and family for money much easier because using the rewards system allows providing a concrete benefit in exchange for becoming a patron. With the initial support of friends and family, extending into a great community online such as Facebook friends and YouTube viewers starts to become easier. My hope is to be the #1 patron on Patreon by being the top supporter of all creators collectively. Would you help me work on this goal by doing pledge for pledge with me? With the challenge in getting the very first person to sign up blocking most artists from ever using Patreon, you can be guaranteed at least me giving to your page if you give back to mine. You can see hundreds of people have already done this before you at http://www.patreon.com/jerrybanfield and if you want to get started, become my patron at the exact level you want back. When you get your confirmation, send me a message saying you are hoping to do pledge for pledge with me. If you would please be patient with me, you can depend on a response sometimes in a few hours and other times it might take a week or so. To date I have done pledge for pledge with everyone who has asked and hope this is useful to help you make a more effective pitch to your mom to be your second patron! Thank you for reading the description of tip #3 today and I hope you found it useful!

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Would you like to hear the story of how I got freedom from compromising on pay and consistently end up at jobs I complained about? The exit came in taking a leap of faith to do what I loved while giving up the demand that I make money right away. From 2001 to 2011 I stuck to working whatever job I could get accepting whatever pay was offered and never refusing a job I applied to because of pay. In sticking with that job while sending out applications to others, I thought I was being smart in jumping from one low paying job I did not enjoy to another. With culture telling me the best escape was to get an education at any cost, I started graduate school with the hope of breaking the cycle only to discover I was actually guaranteeing there would be no escape for a long time by borrowing more money with student loans. When I started my business in 2011, I hoped that it would give me freedom from the cycle of compromising my values and what I wanted to do in exchange for a small paycheck which would barely allow me to pay my bills. 3 years later as I was about to go out of business, I reflected how crazy it was that nearly all of the work I had done was similar to working jobs with the boss being clients instead of a manager and without any of the health insurance, benefits, or security a job provides. In 2014 I made the crazy leap of faith to just start doing what I loved because my financial situation was so hopeless I kept thinking about how would be the best way to go out of business. I realized that if I knew it would all fail, I might as well start teaching everyone what I learned for free which is what I did. I created classes on Udemy and gave tons of free coupons away after a year of struggling to get anything to work online to make anything close to “passive income.” Three months after taking that leap of faith, I made over $10,000 in revenue in one month and over $20,000 the next month. Over the next 2 years I made $600,000 more which allowed me to pay off hundreds of thousands in debt I had ran up to keep from going out of business. Today I still face the same choice as everyone else does and have more opportunities to ever to compromise on income because so many clients would have me work for them. A viewer asked me the other day why with still so much student loan debt in my family I would not just accept any work I could get from clients? This video is my answer because I set my hourly rate at what I think is fair based on what value I offer and I do not accept offers lower than that or outside of the system I make available to work. Thank you for reading this tip and I hope it is useful for you in your life today!

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Would you like to meet me live? Become a patron on Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/jerrybanfield to get exclusive access to any events that I host! After months of feeling like you want me to be available to meet you live, I have been struggling to find a way to plan the details. How much do I charge? Where do I travel do? How big of a space do I rent? Which methods do I use to promote it? Finally last night I received a clear answer. Keep my business system within Patreon. Be available for the people paying to keep me in business every month. Only schedule events that are of interest to people on Patreon. Avoid charging any additional fees by requiring a $10 or more a month contribution to see the posts. Keep the dates and times secret from the public to promote small gathers AND to minimize the urge to promote the event on my end. After thinking this thought, I made the video today to announce that I am about to schedule my first event which I believe is near enough to patrons I would like to me! To see any details about any of my events, would you please become a patron at http://www.patreon.com/jerrybanfield for at least $10 a month? Then when I make posts about new events you will be able to discuss them there with me including requests to be available near you and letting me know when you are in town. All events then will be able to be free from any fees by me! Thank you for learning about my new system for creating live events and I hope to have the chance to meet you in person!

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Would you like to hear my seventh song produced which might be the best so far featuring three different bell sounds, two 808 beats, and 4 Morphine Additive Synthesizer chords created in FL Studio 12?

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