Life is a Game: Social Engineer Your Lifeway

🎮  Welcome to the Game

Life is a game we didn't choose, but we can learn to play it our way. This is the story of how I discovered that truth - from the suburbs to Hollywood and beyond.

Some folks play it safe, stick to the tutorial zone, and follow the main quest. Me? I’ve always been the one who wanders off, finds the weird side quest nobody talks about, and learns everything the hard way.

I never saw life as something you just live through—I’ve always felt like it’s something you navigate, something you can design.

This is my story so far, told through three key levels of the game:

High School, Hollywood, and The World. Each one gave me hard-earned XP, and each one shaped how I play today.

🧩 Act I – High School: The Fog of War
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I didn’t know I was the oddball.

Not at first. I had moved from a rough part of town to the lower middle-class suburbs — a jump that gave me a better shot at life but came at a cost. My mom wanted to keep me away from certain environments, and I love her for that. But being isolated early on stunted my social intelligence in a way that I wouldn’t grasp till years later.

When I showed up in the suburbs, I was the new kid. Hormones raging, no real map of how things worked, and no clue what I was doing wrong socially — I just felt like I was too caught up in my own world. I didn’t care much about fitting in; I was more focused on my video games and playing guitar.

In fact, the only reason I applied to a music school out in Hollywood was that I knew it would be easy to get in. My desire to see a bigger world outweighed my apprehensions. I thought that stepping into the vibrant chaos of L.A. would be my ticket to personal growth—a chance to break free from my isolated upbringing. Little did I know that this decision would set me on a path filled with incredible opportunities as well as tough lessons in the art of building connections and navigating a complex social landscape.

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🏙️ Act II – Hollywood: XP Comes From Failing

Hollywood was when I first started to see life as a strategy game.

At the time, I was obsessed with games like Command & Conquer and League of Legends (still a League Player) — systems where you collect resources, build your squad, and time your moves. That mindset changed how I approached real life.

With some help from my family, I moved into a penthouse on Hollywood Blvd with a few roommates. I was working at Guitar Center, which gave me access to gear — and that’s when the party era started.

But these weren’t just parties. I treated them like simulations.

Hollywood is full of vocational schools — actors, filmmakers, musicians, chefs — and during my time there, I got to know many families living in the same complex.

Each year, during pilot season, families from all over the world flocked to Hollywood, enrolling their children in acting classes to prepare for auditions. The complex buzzed with young talent and hopeful dreams, and I made it a point to engage with these families.

Their parents would introduce me to their kids, and that’s where I made some of my first friends. I’d throw events for these aspiring actors, observe the talented ones who stood out, and pull them into my circle.

That’s how I learned to build community.

But I also learned what happens when you don’t know how to lead one.

I was a horrible manager. I switched missions mid-game, chased fantasies, and eventually moved to Russia for a girl I met on Omegele. That was a mistake that shattered everything I built.

When I came back, I lost the penthouse.

I lost the team.

I hurt people who had trusted me.

I ended up bringing that woman back to L.A., hoping to start over. In some ways, it felt worth it to tie the knot, even as we embarked on a journey that made life significantly harder. We were married for four years, and during that time, I struggled to learn how to be a partner and develop the skills necessary to support both of us. Ultimately, we ended up getting divorced.

But that divorce didn’t come without its own turmoil. It followed what can only be described as the worst week of my life. In rapid succession, I lost all the money I had saved up, got evicted, discovered that I was adopted, and then faced the shattering reality of divorce.

That was my lowest save point.

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✈️ Act III – Travel: Unlocking the World Map

I spiraled. Depressed. Alone. Back in Buffalo, in my family home.

I had to restart everything.

It was during that reset that I realized I only had one stat fully leveled up — networking. I could connect people. I could create community. But when it came to actually building something myself, I was underleveled.

So, a friend recommended diving into web design and development and introduced me to Webflow. At that point, I literally had nothing to do, and with a blank slate ahead of me, I decided to throw myself into it. I immersed myself in tutorials, communities, and resources, determined to learn everything I could. It was like stepping into a new game with fresh mechanics, and I was ready to master them.

Out of heartbreak and necessity, I learned what code could actuall do, how to design, and how to build. I studied like a man possessed. Eventually, I landed my first client. Then another.

The first one I landed on my own hit different.

It was validation.

Not just that I could survive — but that I could create value that was mine.

That skill gave me something I’d never had before:

Freedom.

I started traveling — Switzerland, Portugal, Thailand, New York — and working along the way. That season of my life opened up a worldview I didn’t even know was possible.

I saw how small and limited our “maps” can feel when you grow up under pressure, poverty, or pain. I saw how easy it is to internalize a version of life that’s just about surviving — when in reality, there’s a whole world out there that feels so much more alive.

And now I’m back in Buffalo.

Older. Sharper. With a new mission.

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🌍 Epilogue: Designing the Lifeway

I’m building something bigger than myself now.

Two projects anchor everything I’m doing:

• Nupixl, an AI platform designed to help people and teams build with more focus and intention
• Hometown Nomad, a storytelling and entrepreneurship platform to help people grow where they’re from — and feel free doing it

I want to help people unlock that feeling — the one I had when I realized I could live off my ideas, not just my labor.

Life is a game. And while there’s always some randomness in the system…

You can learn the patterns.

You can level up.

You can design your own questline.

If you’re still figuring out how to play — or trying to start again — I see you.

Keep going. Keep building. And don’t forget to enjoy the journey.

We're all just players, trying to level up and design our own path.