Athlete & Halo Addict; Anesthesia Tech to Marketing Professional (Life Isn’t Linear)

It’s November 2001. Diablo II: Lord of Destruction (iykyk) is in full swing and we’re all grinding to find the perfect Paladin build. Do we go “Blessed Hammer” or “Fist of the Heavens”? (The correct answer is Blessed Hammer, by the way.) Then the alarm goes off, and gamer mode shuts down in more ways than one as athlete mode kicks in full throttle.

That was my life for as long as I can remember — juggling whatever I loved with whatever needed to get done. Somehow, that turned into one of the biggest lessons I’ve carried into adulthood and my career.

Life and careers aren’t a ladder. They’re just like Diablo II: there’s a main storyline, sure, but also detours, respawns, and side quests you don’t realize matter until much later.

The Early Identity: Athlete and Competitor

Anyone who knows me even a little knows I’m a massive sports fan. Flyers, 49ers, THE Ohio State athletics, Phillies (or the Orioles — baseball isn’t really my thing), Sixers — take your pick.

But more than watching sports, I loved being part of them. Playing, coaching, being around the energy. That’s where I learned some of my harshest lessons about discipline. Anyone who’s ever messed up the snap count on a football field knows exactly what I mean.

Sports taught me how to win, how to lose, and how to manage a schedule that had no business being manageable. School, work, grades, responsibilities — plus carving out just enough space for the stuff I genuinely enjoyed.

The Halo Era: Strategy, Reflexes, and Creative Problem-Solving

When I wasn’t hitting someone on the field, you’d find me playing Halo, Diablo II, or at our weekly Super Smash Bros. nights. Yes, I was the athlete. Yes, I was the gamer. And somehow, both identities coexisted just fine.

Hard to believe, but it mattered — more than most people think.

I wasn’t pro-level by any stretch, but I could hold my own against some of the higher-ranked players online. All that “nerding out” built real skills: systems thinking, resource management, fast learning loops, reflexes, pattern recognition — the kind of stuff that ended up being way more useful than I realized at the time. (See a pattern yet?)

Those moments, those little “side quests,” came with me into the bigger storyline — graduating high school, finishing college, building a career, building a family. All of it.

Every bit of being a “gamer nerd” and a “high school athlete” pushed me along my path. And sometimes that path made absolutely no sense in the moment. Case in point: did I mention I was an anesthesia tech for a short stint?

Becoming an Anesthesia Tech (I Was Basically a Doctor)

Yes, you’re reading this correctly. The guy with a Journalism and Mass Comm degree spent just under a year as an anesthesia technician. Also, yes, I know I was nowhere near the level a doctor was at—I'm not that naive. ANYWAY—why a tech? Great question.

I had just graduated, my wife and I had recently gotten married, and the 45-minute drive to Chick-fil-A for $14/hr wasn’t exactly the dream (well… it was, but that dream took a different route). Her uncle worked as an anesthesia tech and helped me land a job five minutes from home. I had absolutely no idea what I was stepping into. The details of that job? Entirely different story for another day.

Nothing prepares you for life — or professionalism — quite like working in the operating room. I talked about this on Things My Friends Say I Shouldn’t Be Doing, but here’s the short version: it’s stressful, it’s intense, and it’s incredibly sad at times. Nothing compares to the emotional weight and the chaos.

One small misstep can literally mean life or death. Sure, most days it’s routine procedures — but when it’s not, it’s all or nothing. Nurses, doctors, techs… everyone moving fast, shouting over each other, all focused on one goal: saving a life.

Marketing has its stressful moments, but nothing I’ll ever do in this field will come close to the level of precision that job demanded. In marketing, the worst-case scenario is a broken link or a wrong name in an email. In the OR, a mistake alters the trajectory of someone’s entire life.

Even though my time there was short, the skills stuck with me. Staying calm under pressure. Listening through noise. Respecting human life — and the stories people have lived or get to keep living because of what happened in those moments. Those lessons don’t fade.

The Pivot to Marketing

Believe it or not, the chaos of a hospital wasn’t for me. As meaningful as that job was, I was ready to move on. I jumped into a non-profit sales role which was… fine. I learned a lot. And honestly, everyone should understand sales, even if you’re not “good” at it (hi — that’s me). It’s one of those universal skills.

After enough cold-calling to last a lifetime, I finally landed my first marketing gig. And OMG — why did no one tell me about this sooner?! It’s basically LEGO for nerds who weren’t good enough at math to be engineers.

I’d always loved sociology but couldn’t figure out what to do with it. Marketing handed me the answer. I got to study people — how they think, how they react, how messages connect (or don’t). I was hooked.

And the best part? Every “side quest” I’d taken started paying off. The discipline from sports. The systems thinking from gaming. The calm-under-pressure from the OR. All of it came together and made me a more effective marketer than I would’ve been on a traditional path.

The Real Lesson: Nothing Is Wasted

Not to be cliché, but every job, every win, every disaster, every bizarre twist you can’t explain at the time — it all stacks. Every path I’ve taken has fed into the main one in ways I couldn’t see until much later. The small, random skills you pick up along the way? They become your biggest assets if you pay attention.

Non-linear paths don’t mean someone’s lost. They mean they’re learning. They mean they’re resilient. They mean they’re building a toolkit that’s harder to teach and impossible to fake.

The more time you spend reflecting on how you got here — what shaped you, what strengthened you — the better you’ll be both as a person and as a professional. Sometimes the path only makes sense in reverse.

And if yours doesn’t make sense yet? Give it time. It will.