Would you read my story to discover how we began this journey together on Steem? Will you share your story with us here in the comments to help us get to know you?
If you read fast like me, I will summarize in this first paragraph starting with the picture of the invitation I got to Steem.
@robertgenito said "You'll thank me later" and WOW he was RIGHT! Of course I waited a month to take action after initially looking @robertgenito's profile and thinking "oh great another social network." A few weeks after that text, I sold my dash masternode and was looking for a new cryptocurrency to invest in. All of a sudden I realized I already knew which one to invest in because not only had @robertgenito had recommended I join Steem but he was responsible for me investing in Dash when it was $10 and in Bitcoin when it was as low as $170. When I started researching Steem, I was absolutely shocked at how amazing this community is with thousands of active users every day as seen at https://steemd.com/distribution. Within hours of remembering Robert's referral and researching Steem, I bought 10 BTC worth of Steem on Bittrex and started filming an online course showing why Steem might be my best investment ever. Today I am writing this post as the beginning of reorganizing my entire business online based on sending everyone from the links below over to Steem to create helpful posts for me as a follower, read my newest blog posts by following me, interact with me via comments, and even collaborate with me on new projects. My hope is to help our community grow here to be the top social network in the world! Personally I am hoping Steem will give me one place to focus my time reading new posts, replying to comments, and sharing the newest of what I create while allowing me to eliminate email, Facebook groups, discussions in courses, and reading comments anywhere outside of Steem. Thank you for making this journey with me and I appreciate you reading the BEGINNING of this introduction!
Here are the links you might find useful to match with my other social media accounts referenced above.
https://www.facebook.com/jbanfield/
https://www.youtube.com/jerrybanfield
https://twitter.com/JerryBanfield
http://jerrybanfield.com/
http://u.jerrybanfield.com/
Will you try reading more because now I am about to share the really interesting stuff?
My name is Jerry Banfield and I am an alcoholic. Every day I say that at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and I share that here with you because it is up to me to carry the message and AA is a huge part of my life. If you would like to hear the speaker meeting of my life including the worst of my sex problems, alcoholism, gambling/money addiction, compulsive video game playing adding up to about 20,000 hours, overeating so much I was 50+ pounds overweight most of my life, suicidal depression with panic attacks, and finally my journey into recovery, would you read the summary here below or take the complete video course for free on my website at https://jerrybanfield.com/freecourses/ which is named "Speaker Meeting 2017"?
We are here together today because something in this universe decided to help me. Maybe it was my mother in law who encouraged my wife to keep loving me even when I could not love myself. Maybe it was my desperate outreach to God for help. Maybe it was the prayers of my parents. Maybe it was the thousands of men and women who listed to me share at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and loved me until I could love myself. Maybe it was because Brene Brown had the courage to create The Power of Vulnerability which I was able to listen to in bed with hangovers. What I am sure of is that for at least 10 years prior to age 29 I was doing everything I could to rebel and leave this planet before something intervened and showed me a way out into love and service each day. Today I am extremely grateful to have a chance to have a wonderful life and to share that with you.
Thankfully I have remembered the reason I came to earth to begin with which was to learn how to love and be of service to you today. Now I have a life worth living and as I write this my goal is to write what is most helpful to you. Obviously I would rather keep all of my limitations a secret and act like I am the great whoever today that will lead you to salvation. The truth is I am lucky to get through most days without having a breakdown into crying. Yesterday changing a diaper left me in tears for an hour because my daughter wanted to play while I wanted to get a fresh diaper on her. I was afraid of yelling at her and afraid of treating her how I was treated at her age which for my parents was a huge improvement over how they were raised. Here we are together for Easter in 2017.
At the same time, I spend about 95% of my time awake in amazing happiness. In Publix the other day a young man that might or might not have had Down Syndrome was bagging my groceries. Since about 13 years old this was a cue for me to feel sorry for him and think things like "that's really too bad" or "he doesn't even know what he's missing" as I would judge that clearly my intellect and ability to be UNHAPPY made me superior. Instead, I looked at him and thought "WOW he is as HAPPY AS I AM" and I felt incredibly blessed.
If you are not up for watching a 12 hour video course right this moment, I will continue to share the basics here and start from further back! I am grateful I have an amazing family today living in Saint Petersburg, Florida (Tampa metro area in the south east USA) including a wife, nearly two year old daughter, and two rescue labs.
It is easy to be grateful because I nearly drank myself to death and almost took my own life a lot of times. When I went to the University of South Carolina at age 18, I had done nothing more illegal than speed in traffic and nothing more hurtful than scream "I wish I had never been born" at my parents a few times when they would not let me play as many video games as I wanted. From 18 to 22 I became a total delinquent committing over half of the "undetected crimes" listed on the law enforcement officer application I would later fill out at 23 years old. From age 22 to 30 I was anywhere from fat to morbidly obese but I would rationalize it at the gym by thinking "I am muscular" and "these Body Mass Indicator or BMI charts are full of shit." Torturing my body to death while trying to impress everyone else was my way of life. Here is a good example from my wedding day where I nearly ruined the wedding from getting drunk.
The craziest years of my life were 2008 and 2009 as a state law enforcement officer in South Carolina where I would be doing the same things like drunk driving off duty that I was arresting people for at work. Naturally I did not start doing this on my own but with the help of my coworkers who introduced me to drinking all night at bars and strip clubs just after getting out of field training. I never once remember anyone mentioning a designated driver. The hypocrisy of my life got to me a lot where often at 3 am my service weapon would wind up pointed at my head after I got too drunk to have a positive kill death ratio at Call of Duty: World at War. Thankfully a fling with a coworker which I then told everyone about led to so much drama they asked me to leave which I was happy to do despite having planned to murder them all a hundred times if they ever did it. I called my parents and moved home and thought everything was fixed. When I was graduating from the policy academy as shown below, this was pretty far from the ending I imagined!
My family loved me so much that for a while life was a lot better and I met my wife in 2011. She is an absolute angel and saved me from a certain miserable end. I pulled a great bait and switch with her by looking the best I had in years when we started dating and then proceeding to get as fat as ever within a few years. See this picture with my wife at 30 years old for reference.
Somehow my wife loved me through what I thought was mostly normal behavior of drinking all day while she was at work and all night when she tried to sleep as well as being crazy stressed out and working on my business online nearly every waking moment I was sober. My dad dying finally put me over the edge and I realized even though I had so many people that loved me in my life that I was getting close to taking my own life over feeling like such a disgusting person. I also realized I could not do anything about it because I had already tried so many times and failed that I was certain it was hopeless. This led to a desperate prayer to God for help. I said "Please God I will do ANYTHING to stop drinking." After that I thought "Maybe going to one of those AA meetings would be part of 'anything'." While this was a frequent prayer habit, the people at AA helped me to remember this prayer I made as I wanted to drink so bad I felt like I would suffocate to death over the next three months.
Then, some kind of miracle happened. I started taking the suggestions they gave me such as reading the book, praying when agitating, slowing down, getting a massage to relieve stress, and calling a sponsor or another alcoholic to help everyday. My wife then pointed out that what I was learning in AA probably applied to her family as well. In July 2014, the idea of who I was died and left in its place room for someone new to be born. If I had to guess, you are probably here for the someone new rather than the crazy alcoholic that I have been most of my life.
While I did not even notice right away, as soon as I did I embraced the full experience of my life. I started sharing my spiritual awakening with everyone and became willing to look at all the worst parts of my life. At the same time, my business was nearly bankrupt and it feels like divine intervention struck to save it. My wife and I were at about $500,000 in debt in 2014 with me having ran up about $70,000 of credit card debt to avoid going out of business and taking about $50,000 more in loans combined with owning a house and massive student loan debt. Objectively it looked hopeless.
In December 2014, I took a leap of faith in teaching full time online which appeared to offer little short term income but might provide massive potential. In just a few months, I was making $20,000+ a month selling my courses online with Udemy. An amazing ego trip followed for the next year with June 2016 showing over $600,000 in income from Udemy since December 2014 from 170,000+ students taking my courses online. I used the money to pay my friends $100,000+ to help and to pay off all my credit cards plus personal loans and to give my wife some to save as well as pay most all of our bills and buy us a new Toyota RAV4 Limited Hybrid to drive our daughter around in.
On June 10, 2016 Udemy sent me an email banning me from their website for policy violations which appeared to just be an excuse to get rid of me which was reasonable given that even though I was not technically violating any policy at all, I was dominating their website with every single loophole I could find.
For the next year, I struggled to find what to do next. I narrated audio books, tried teaching on other websites, played video games full time for a few months, and started trading cryptocurrencies. Meanwhile, my friend @robertgenito hired my friend @aarellanes to do his marketing and advertising online. @aarellanes was so excited about the new ability to buy Dash directly with cash at Robert's website Wall of Coins at https://wallofcoins.com/ that he motivated me to research more about Dash. When I discovered Dash had a masternode which allowed for weekly payments and the ability to vote on budget proposals, I put $11,000 into buying one. This seemed insane at the time given I had about $20,000 in total cash with about $3,000 a month in net income after taxes on $7,000 a month in bills with about half being debt payments mostly on student loans and most of the rest from health insurance for my family and the grocery bill. My most extravagant personal expense is a massage at Massage Luxe once a week which costs about $40 plus gratuity. A family member started asking me again as they had in 2014 at what point I would need to give up on my business and declare bankruptcy.
The dash masternode investment led me into budget proposals which got me into promoting Dash all over on my YouTube channel and Facebook page reaching about a million people within three months mostly with Facebook ads on my complete Dash masternode investing video. The price of Dash meanwhile was one of the first to rocket up going from $10 when I started buying to over $140 yesterday.
As I tried to get more involved in the Dash community after making more than 10 new videos which received overwhelming positive feedback except for one which I refilmed within a week, I was shocked to see the feedback I was getting. Even though there were no competing proposals and the budget money was literally being burned, many masternode owners found reasons to lay down harsh criticism and vote no on my proposals. The last proposal asked for the exact same amount as another proposal while offering to use half of the budget for advertising and the other half to make videos full time. Reading the comments and seeing the no votes roll in as masternode owners literally voted to burn up the money instead of give it to me was so infuriating that I ended up seeing that I did not belong as a member of the Dash community.
Two weeks ago I sold my Dash masternode very gratefully at $87,000 which after fees, taxes, and the initial investment left me with about $50,000 in profit most of which I put in the bank. The question then became what next? As the current cryptocurrency bubble began to explode, I looked for a good place to invest and started asking questions like "Where can I add the most value?" and "Which community would be most grateful to have me as a member?" and "Which cryptocurrency market is still the most undervalued?"
Initially I bought PIVX and the more I researched, the more I could see that I would have all the same problems I had with Dash using the budget proposals. Then I remembered @robertgenito's text message and I realized that the Universe already had shown me EXACTLY where to invest. Almost immediately I sold my PIVX which I had already managed to lose 1 BTC in within a few days and bought 10 Bitcoin of Steem while I researched it.
Within 24 hours, I powered all my Steem up and started filming a video class on The University of Jerry Banfield at http://u.jerrybanfield.com/courses/allincrypto which featured the benefits and risks as I saw them of investing in Steem. Yesterday I just cashed out everything else I had on Poloniex and Bitfinex into Steem for another 1+ Bitcoin investment. I am both happy to see the price is up today to $1.24 and sad that I had the common sense to not fool around trying to buy several more thousand in Steem last night right before bed. I think Steem is going to hit $10+ within the next three years and maybe be $100+ someday.
I am going to buy all the Steem I can on each month and continue investing here because I see that this is the community I have been looking for. Today I am hoping to buy at least $1000 more in Steem before the price goes up higher. While I realize everything has its benefits and limitations, the benefits are just right for me on Steem and so are the limitations. Before I have even made a post here, the feedback has been amazingly kind and I am extremely grateful for that. We have a chance here to make a top 10 website in the world and I am honored to have this chance to begin that journey with you here today!
If you enjoyed this post, will you please upvote it to help us collaborate and build our community here together?
Thank you very much for reading this and I hope you have a wonderful day today! I will be thinking of you throughout the day and do my best to read and respond to each comment!
Love,
Jerry
Hello Jerry! Saw you brilliant video on youtube couple of days ago. I have to thank you so much for introducing me to Steemit, love it! Looking forward to read more from you here on Steemit. '
/leahcim1
GREAT :)
I'm excited to see and promote your steemit tutorial videos, you are very good at teaching, and your production quality is superb
Craig thank you very much for commenting here and sharing your excitement with us because your Steem posts have been useful to me as well!
Jerry I saw you had a course on selling t shirts on your website. You should DEFINITELY check out merch by amazon. It's an INSANE opportunity along with steemit which you turned me onto. Thank you!
How do I add an image to the post cover? It looks blank and I thought when I made it that one would be selected automatically. I am Googling and every guide so far tells me the same things without referencing how to make an image the main one for the post?
that glitch is a weird one, only way i know how to fix it is change the picture to something totally different, test different images until you find one that works
Steemit picks the first image to be your cover/thumbnail, but it will be blank if the URL of the image has parenthesis ( ) in it. It's a known bug and may be fixed eventually, but for now, don't choose an image that has parenthesis in its URL.
Great intro and follow up article on $10 steem! Followed. Best wishes!
Kenny thank you for helping me figure out how to avoid the bug for the thumbnail not showing!
Interesting and informative
Welcome Jerry! Great to read about your journey...
Inspiring story, thanks for sharing!
Welcome to steemit! Sounds like you know the ropes and have no problem getting the swing of things. I appreciate your openness about your life and your willingness to speak honestly of even the lows.
Dang Jerry so many things I never knew about you! Well welcome to Steemit again, you will do wonderful here, you have the work ethic of a mexican horse my friend! Good vlogging career you've built there. Looking forward to you sharing those secrets with us :D
Hi Jerry,
Very inspiring story. I bought your videos from mashable about cryptocurrency. I am not much of a techie, but I am willing to learn. I am keen on becoming a witness and would really appreciate if you could point me out to some blog posts for a non-tech person on witnessing. (Sorry, there just so much content here and I am unfamiliar navigating it)
Also, I am open to sharing knowledge and experiences with anyone who is keen on film making or video work. I have spent a big part of my life working on TV series. I will be most happy to put up a few lectures here.
I am also located in South East Asia at the moment and will be most delighted to give anyone information. Depending on time, I might be able to write some guides on various places. Let me know if any of you are keen on a particular place, do make your requests.
Looking forward to catching up with the rest of the good folks here on your content. I will upvote you and hopefully get things right pushing you up on the witness board. Hopefully, you could do the same.
cheers,
Ken-chan
GREAT as always. Following and supporting @jerrybanfield . Please follow me.
1 By 1.
You are a GOOD man Brother Jerry! @jerrybanfield So inspiring to read your story. I was never as fortunate in life as you to meet my 'Angel' (might have gotten me over life's hump!) - but I am happy one of us did & it couldn't have happened to a better guy! Cheers & STEEM On my friemd.
Welcome! Great introductory post!
hi jerry welcome to steemit
Hey Jerry! I feel like i know you my bro. I feel blessed to be connected to you and to all of these amazing people through Steemit...
You have an amazing talent , and it is a talent I myself have been trying to harness within myself. Thank you so much for sharing your story, your ideas and giving us insight on to what motivates you and where you have come from. What you have gone through.. Depression, addiction, i feel you bro. We have to stick together and put more emphasis on the value of community and remain understanding and loving creatures.
Im Josue, a music producer/artist from western massachusetts and Id love to talk more with you about how I could get more involved in any way I can help! Thats to you and anyone reading this !! Much love my friend!
Thank you again...
@jerrybanfield what a lifestory with a lot of ups and downs. I hope you have finally found a way to get yourself stayed out of the misery you have been facing. I am glad i can try to be a part of that. Thanks for sharing your story
Welcome jerry :) look forward to all the new traffic you're destined to rack in!! Check out my blog if you're up for it
Hi Jerry, I've joined up to steem based on your recommendation. You are the first person I've followed here. Good luck!
Follow me toooo! :) i like kites..
Thank you @kiteflyer I just followed you back!
Jerry, thank you so much for mentoring me and helping me get involved in this wonderful and EXCITING community!
Looking forward to what the future may hold.
Kind Regards
Steem on,
Craig
Craig thank you very much for subscribing with me at The University of Jerry Banfield and joining me on Steem after watching the #1 Cryptocurrency Investment Opportunity May 21, 2017 course! I am buying another $1,200 of Steem today and after this intro post, I am even more sold than before. Steem is going to hit $10 within the next 3 years I think and I am honored we are beginning on the journey here together!
YES! STEEM is the future. As more and more developers build upon the STEEM platform this thing is really going to kick off! We are only getting started. Happy to have you on board @jerrybanfield!
thanks for the great post Jerry
So great story . We all belive in the future of steem
:) BELIEF IS WHAT DRIVES US!!!
So great to see you here Jerry. It is going to be a fun ride
loved ur post again.. uprooted.. here is an article of mine you might like https://steemit.com/steemit/@danlupi/3tgpth-steemit-simple-article-to-understand-this-amazing-coin
Thank you I just upvoted!
Wow, we could make a blockbuster movie out of that, i'm younger than you are but i daresay I'm proud of you, welcome to steemit and wishing you the best
That was a great story, Jerry.
As an Internet Marketer, I have been making my living from the Internet since 2008.
I've also made several courses, but I usually create them for others who then sell them as their own products.
I never tried Udemy, but from what you wrote it seems highly lucrative.
I was just wondering if you would be willing to elaborate a little further on the reasons Udemy decided to shut down your account? That would be very helpful information for me.
Thanks for your time and again, great post.
Sure I did in this video
OK I'll watch this all the way through. Thanks!
Jerry, I've watched the video in its entirety, and I still don't see how you broke rule number three. They seem to allow collaboration with other instructors, and all you did was create an element of her course. How did you "share" each other's student base by doing that? And even if you did, I don't see why they have a problem with instructors marketing to each other's students. Don't they get paid whenever someone purchases a course? Why would they care so much about this?
@contentking grateful you watched the video and asked about Udemy's breakup with me! It felt like when a partner makes an excuse to leave and even if the excuse is not very valid on the surface, the end result is still the same. It seems they wanted me and the other instructor with a similar profile as me gone because he left just a month before I did mysteriously "closing his account" which was giving him $20,000+ a month on autopilot based on some principle.
I have to say I don't agree with what they did to you. I don't think you did anything wrong. It's almost as if they were pissed at you because you thought of a viable marketing tactic before they did.
This is the problem with relying on big companies when you use the Internet to make your living. I learned early on that in order to succeed online you need to have several income streams and you can never put all your eggs in one basket, so to speak.
At any rate, you seem like a very intelligent and motivated person, so I have no doubt that you will not only recover from this, you will excel.
Great job, nice to know you.
Follow me @yuslindwi
Welcome and great post! Steemit is an amazing platform and its great to have you here! If you are ever hungry... dont go to my page! hahah :P Alla x
Welcome, Jerry, what an amazing story. Now following you!
WOOT! Happy to see you finally made your OFFICIAL post on Steem :D
Welcome Jerry!
Thank you @aarellanes for getting me involved in Dash and sharing your advice for me about how to do a successful introduction post here on Steem! Seeing this in the first 30 minutes has sold me even more if that is possible!
Of course @jerrybanfield! I am happy that we are able to share insight with one another! Great to have you as a friend for almost 10 years now :D
welcome Jerry!
I love your post what an amazing story..
love you and keep up the great work.
Tia Michelle Knight
Wow! That was an interesting read. Hoping to see more from you! Cheers! :D
Great post @jerrybanfield You have an inspirational story, thanks for sharing.
UV'd and following
@sighmanjestah
SDG
a very good and beautiful story
@jerrybanfield I liked the fact that you were very open and were willing to share your story with the Steemit community. You will no doubt be a tremendous value here at Steemit.
Would you please upload your videos, like the todays "income report" on steemit too? I would love to give them a upvote here :)
Thank you very much for suggesting this I will start doing that!
You're welcome! I think i speak for the whole steem community when i say that we would all appreciate that move :)
Welcome to Steemit! Looking forward to reading your posts :)
Congratulations @jerrybanfield!
Your post was mentioned in my hit parade in the following category:
Welcome Jerry !
Thank you very much @timmyit!
Welcome to Steemit Jerry!
Wow, investing in btc when it was at $170.. that's awesome. Now you've found steem at about $1 and who knows where it will go soon ;)
Great and very in-depth introduction post!
wow! what an inspiring and honest introduction post!
i'm curious to see your content here!
Welcome in the Steem community ;)
Welcome to the steemit community! Have fun here swimming
For Best Results: Re Steem,Follow,Upvote and Comment!
Great story! Glad to have you on board! Looking forward to your future content here on steemit. Awesome investments! Cheers!
Welcome to Steemit Land Jerry, following you now!
Welcome aboard!
Wow, what a life thus far Jerry! I'm so very fortunate that you survived it all through grace and never giving up. I'm sure many can relate to the pitfalls that shape us all to our better selves.
I'm soaking up all of your classes and wanted to thank you for putting yourself out there so raw.
I'm glad to be a part of it all and sharing this time of excitement and look forward to watching you rock this Steemit. Thanks for the inspiration.
Jerry,
Please confirm my thoughts..... I suppose you load all your work from over the years and that becomes a tremendous machine on here, my goodness that's HUGE! Then, if you chose to see if those trading bots work (I had only glanced at an advertisement and know nothing about them), then you have an infinite amount of resources? Wow What an amazing story Thanks
Welcome! lI'm looking forward to your posts!
Welcome to Steemit! Nice first post!
Good to have you here on steemit! @jerrybanfield
@someonewhoisme thank you very much for the warm welcome last month and voting my new post up today! I just followed you!
I can't read that much man
I understand and appreciate you taking the time to comment!
Welcome Jerry !