ABOUT MOI...

I’ve racked up 2,000+ weeks on this planet, changed majors more times than I care to admit, and tried to “build passive income” with more failed projects than success stories.

Turns out, life’s a fuck‑ton harder and weirder than the brochure promised.

I did the hustle‑porn thing for a while. The optimization hacks. The “wake up at 6am, 80/20 the shit out of everything, grind 16‑hour days so I can relax in an oversized mansion someday” routine.

I ENDED UP HATING IT.

What I know now:

• I’m only satisfied by work that takes a long‑ass time to make
• I don’t actually want a perfectly optimized, frictionless life
• I want something absurd, romantic, explorative, occasionally hyper‑inefficient, and fully mine

So I stopped trying to niche myself into tiny boxes and decided to go all‑in on what I love most: life design, comedy, indie music, and societal conundrums.

This is the short version. Here’s how I got here.

Wake Up Call #Uno

Long before I was writing kids’ songs or roasting religion (publicly), I was doing what you’re “supposed” to do. You know, grown up important shit like:

• Studying business and political science at university
• Working in finance
• Trying to build a fitness business I should have never started in the first place
• Checking all the “good American guy doing all the right things” boxes

I spoke Portuguese from living in Brazil, Spanish from working as a church volunteer leader. I earned a master's degree from a top 250 global university. I was loaded with plenty of evidence that I was “on track" for a kick-ass dream life.

Then, out of nowhere, I got cancer in my early 30's.

I found myself staring off and thinking, “If I died tomorrow, would I be ecstatic about the life I lived and the legacy I left?”

The answer was un-fucking-comfortable!

That crisis didn’t turn me into a bio‑hacking monk or an indie rock god (though I did occasionally consider both those options). It did something far more annoying and useful: IT WOKE ME THE FUCK UP FROM AN AUTOPILOT, HIGHLY CONTROLLED LIFE.

My First Legit Media Biz

After that, I stopped trying to force the wrong businesses and built something I fully owned and could take 100% responsibility for:

A kids’ educational media brand that didn't completely suck (I thought most of them did).

I built the brand as a one‑man studio:

• I recorded the voice-overs
• Wrote and produced the music
• Animated the videos
• Managed the whole thing from scratch

Over 7 years, that little experiment grew to:

• 250,000+ subscribers

• 80 million+ views

I grew out of that choice. So I sold most of it.

On paper, that’s the “dream” story: build something from nothing, exit, receive a big-ass congrats, big fucking deal...

But here’s the catch: that brand wasn’t the art and expression I’d wanted to make since I was a teenager. It was the thing I did instead of going all‑in on my actual dreams.

The Art I Kept Avoiding

Since adolescence I’d wanted to make:

• Raw, personal music
• Comedy (in all its glory)
• Dark & absurd shit about how bizarre life and society really are

But every time I got close, life intervened:

• College
• Friends
• Dating
• Religion
• Money
• The shitty “real world”
• Everyone’s opinions on what was “smart” and “responsible”

I let it pull me away from art and creativity, over and over.

After I sold the kids’ channel, I finally launched my personal brand the way I’d always wanted: social commentary, comedy songs, the stuff that actually felt like me.

Then I did what a lot of people do (and what I promised I'd never do):

I got extremely BURNT OUT and LONELY AS FUCK.

I stopped creating. I never built a sustainable long‑term strategy around it. I learned the harshest fucking lesson of all with media content creation: Regardless of the topic, the tone, the posting schedule, dream job or not:

IT'S PRETTY MUCH ALL THE SAME PAIN IN THE ASS, BRUTAL-AS-FUCK GRIND!

Leaving the Script (Again & Again)

In parallel with all of this, I was:

• Working towards escaping a life-long religion that was controlling me rather than building me up
• Learning languages, traveling to 20 plus countries
• Leaving the US for Germany with my family to chase a life that actually felt like mine
• Building and maintaining a strong, healthy physique over ~15 years of consistent effort

Surprisingly, I escaped one “correct” script (career + religion + geography)
only to accidentally build another one (only this time I had full ownership over it):

The low‑leverage, high‑effort, algorithm‑dependent content treadmill (that left virtually no time for actual living)!

I was working absurd hours as a solopreneur, releasing music and comedy into platforms that paid peanuts (or worse).

Not surprisingly, it wasn't sustainable. Again. With more health problems (this time a series of unfortunate concussions). Recovery took a solid year plus.

Wake Up Call #Zwei: Art vs. Leverage

That recovery time forced me to admit some things I didn’t want to look at:

• Pure entertainment, for me, was incredibly low‑leverage

• My path to financial freedom was a shit-show

• I was trapped in the “feed the algorithm” machine with almost no real monetization levers

• I’d never actually learned how to sell my brain and experience with the same intensity I’d learned to create music and content

• I sucked ass at outsourcing (to buy back my time)

Having way the fuck too much time to stew turned my brain into an "always strategizing, never executing" mess.

The Ai media landscape sure as hell didn't help either. That existential crisis required some serious research, meditation, acceptance, and a strategic overhaul.

I’d escaped most of the old traps and somehow managed to trap myself again in indecision and half‑built projects.

That’s the “wake-up call” you’re catching me in now.

What I’m Doing Differently this Time

This CAREER is me finally committing to me, myself, and I:

• I create the art and commentary I actually want to make
• I accept that high‑leverage isn't "selling out" and even if it is, I don't give a fuck what others think, right?!
• I build a business that supports my life, instead of consuming it
• I do it in 20-25 hours a week, not 70, so I can still live, travel, lift, learn languages, and chill with my family

A WORK IN PROGRESS

I'm going for entertainment without the crazy hours, without the shitty content treadmill, and with no apologies for high ticket, high leverage services and products.

It will either work beautifully, live in the mushy middle somewhere, or it will fail spectacularly, but I'm sure as fuck going all-in on a more balanced existence regardless.

Life's really fucking short and I don't want to live with regrets. Paying down my regret tax one week at a time - at the core, that's still my current season of life. I'm just taking a new angle and it feels pretty fucking great so far!