I Burned Out, Broke Down, and Started Over. This Is the Life I’m Building Now.

From breakdown to brand—how failure, honesty, and creativity saved my life.

I used to think burning out was the end.

Turns out, it was the beginning.

Quite a few years ago, I hit the wall so hard it nearly killed me. I’m not being dramatic when I say that. I lost my job. I lost my health. I lost myself. The things I’d built my identity on—career, productivity, even physical strength—crumbled almost overnight. There’s no graceful way to fall apart, but mine was ugly and loud. I spiraled into depression. I attempted suicide. I had a heart attack. And then, somehow, I was still here. Still breathing. Still waking up.

So I moved across the world. I left everything familiar behind—my routines, my city, my assumptions—and went to the Philippines. For love, yes. But also for something I couldn’t name at the time. Space? Clarity? A reset button?

That was the breakdown.

Now I’m building the second act.

Not a comeback story. Not some rags-to-riches narrative with a course waiting at the end. Just me, every day, trying to build something honest. Something useful. Something that feels like mine.

A Life Without a Lane

I’ve never been one to stay in a lane. I’ve worn a thousand different hats—writer, designer, consultant, marketer, teacher, dropout, comeback kid. I don’t say that to impress you. I say it because I used to think all that pivoting meant I was flaky, lost, or broken. Turns out, I’m just a multipotentialite. A scanner. A survivor of my own restlessness.

But here’s what stayed the same through all of it: I wrote.

Through depression, I wrote. Through divorce and grief and financial collapse, I wrote. Through insomnia and uncertainty and sitting in a foreign country wondering what the hell I was doing with my life, I kept writing.

Not for likes. Not for SEO. For survival. Because if I didn’t write, I didn’t exist. That’s how I processed everything. That’s how I stayed tethered to the truth.

Eventually, that writing became something more than just a coping mechanism. It became my blueprint. My business. My message.

What Doesn’t Work (and What Does)

I’ve lived long enough to know what doesn’t work. Faking it doesn’t work. Hustling yourself into the hospital doesn’t work. Swallowing your voice to be more “professional” doesn’t work.

What works is honesty.

What works is bleeding on the page.

What works is showing up with all the rough edges, all the contradictions, and refusing to be less human just to fit in.

People tell you to niche down. I say, screw that. You’re not a brand archetype. You’re not a content funnel. You’re a living, evolving person with stories, scars, and things you haven’t even discovered yet. Your complexity is the niche.

The world doesn’t need more polished avatars. It needs more truth. And truth is messy.

Why I Teach AI (and What It Can’t Do)

Somewhere along the way, I started teaching people how to train AI to write like them. Not to replace them. Not to mass-produce soulless content. But to support the work they were already doing—creatively, personally, emotionally. I showed them how to use prompts to preserve their voice, not dilute it. I helped them build systems that sounded like them, thought like them, and gave them time back without sacrificing the heart of the message.

But here’s the thing. None of that matters if you don’t know who you are.

That’s why I created what I call the Brand Bible. It’s not a branding exercise, it’s a survival document. It’s the truth about what I stand for, what I refuse to tolerate, and what I know deep in my bones because I’ve lived it.

What I Stand For (and What I Refuse)

I stand for late bloomers. For second-chancers. For people rebuilding after everything fell apart. I stand for creators who’ve stopped chasing trends and started chasing meaning. I stand for real writing, even in a world obsessed with shortcuts.

And I stand against fake gurus, toxic hustle culture, and the robotic sludge AI churns out when no one teaches it how to sound human.

Because we are writers and creators. And if we stop writing, if we hand everything over to machines, we lose the very thing that makes us who we are.

I believe you can use AI without losing your voice.

I believe you can build a brand without selling out.

I believe that even if you’ve screwed everything up, you can still start again.

I know this because I’ve done it. I’m still doing it.

The Work I’m Doing Now

So what am I building now?

I’m building essays like this, honest, longform reflections that don’t pander to the algorithm. I’m consulting with businesses and creators who want their tools to sound like people, not templates. I’m running a Skool community for folks like me, people who’ve lived, lost, rebuilt, and still want to make something that matters.

I don’t have a million followers. I don’t have a “7-figure system.”

But I have a voice. A life. A path I carved out of rubble.

If you’ve ever burned out and wondered if you could come back from it, this is proof that you can.

And this time, you get to do it your way.

Just the Truth

No niche required.
No filter applied.
No apology necessary.

Just the truth.

And that’s more than enough.