I've never had a clean answer
when someone asks what I do.

I grew up in Florida. Not the beaches-and-theme-parks Florida — the real one. The kind that teaches you early that life is weirder and more interesting than anyone tells you it's going to be.

I was the kid who couldn't sit still in one interest for too long. Not because I was scattered, but because everything was interesting. Sports, music, performance, business — I kept finding things I wanted to understand and then running toward them.

I also spent years in hospitality and sales before any of the creative stuff took hold professionally. I worked hotel lobbies. I had conversations with strangers for hours. I learned how to read a room, how to hold someone's attention, how to make people feel something — skills I still use every day on set.

I taught myself to play guitar. I want to be clear about what that means: it means I failed constantly, in private, for a long time, until I didn't anymore. No teacher. No structure. Just me, an instrument, and YouTube at 2am.

That experience changed something in how I approach everything. It taught me that you don't need permission to start. You don't need to be ready. You just need to pick up the thing and try. The skill comes from the trying, not the other way around.

Music is still the most private part of my creative life. Songs start as voice memos at midnight. They get better slowly. I still write things nobody's heard. I like it that way.

Acting didn't feel like a choice. It felt like something I couldn't not do — which I think is usually the tell that you've found the right direction.

There's a vulnerability to performance that I didn't expect to love. You have to show up fully present and let people see you — not your prepared version of yourself, but the actual thing underneath. That's also what makes it terrifying. And worth it.

I moved to Los Angeles because the work required it. I drove across the country with everything that mattered loaded in the back of a car and a lot of confidence I wasn't sure I'd earned.

LA is interesting. It has no patience for people who are pretending. It strips things down fast. You figure out pretty quickly who you actually are when there's nothing comfortable left to hide behind.

I've learned more from this city than I expected to. Most of it didn't come from the industry. It came from the coffee shops, the late-night conversations, the failed ideas, the long drives up the 101 when I needed to think.

At some point I started noticing things that could exist but didn't. And then I started building them instead of waiting for someone else to.

Goldfish Cash is the most recent version of that impulse. The coffee brand idea is next. After that, something else. I don't have a five-year plan. I have a directional instinct and a high tolerance for uncertainty. That's been enough so far.