i’m nick

Curiosity is probably the most consistent thing about me.

I bought a camera when I was young, reached out to twenty businesses, and one of them said yes. For whatever reason, that was enough evidence for me. Since then I’ve spent most of my adult life somewhere between creativity and business: making videos, building brands, running ads, studying design, growing audiences, working with companies, starting things, abandoning things, and occasionally realizing that the thing I thought I wanted was really just a stepping stone toward something else.

I’ve helped generate millions of dollars for businesses and created work that has been seen tens of millions of times. Those numbers used to feel like the story. Now they mostly feel like receipts from different chapters.

The more interesting story is that I still don’t completely know what I’m building.

I work in product design. I run businesses on the side. I make films and marketing campaigns. I think constantly about leverage, freedom, ownership, and how to construct a life where my income isn’t permanently attached to the number of hours I’m willing to sell. Part of me wants to build a large company. Part of me wants to disappear with a camera and make documentaries about ordinary people. I don’t think those two impulses are as contradictory as they sound.

I like making things feel intentional.

A room. A brand. A photograph. A sentence. A business model. A life.

I’m drawn to simplicity, although my brain rarely participates in it. I can overthink almost anything. I’ll research a $200 golf club like I’m acquiring a company, then make a major life decision because something about it simply feels right. I’m simultaneously analytical and instinctive, which is either a useful combination or the reason I have forty browser tabs open.

I care a lot about becoming capable. Physically, creatively, financially, intellectually. I lift weights. I play golf badly. I’ve taught myself cameras, marketing, design, advertising, and whatever else became necessary for the next thing I wanted to do. I was 27 years old when I decided I probably won’t make it to the NBA. I dropped out of college once and later decided to finish my degree. I’ve run an agency, worked corporate jobs, turned down opportunities, chased other ones, made some good decisions, and made enough questionable ones to keep life interesting.

I’m also increasingly aware that achievement is a game with no natural ending.

There is always another income number, another house, another business, another skill, another version of yourself waiting slightly farther down the road. I’m ambitious enough that I’ll probably keep chasing some of those things anyway. I just don’t want to accidentally spend my entire life preparing to eventually enjoy it.

So I’m trying to pay attention.

To my family getting older. To the people I love. To my dog. To my girlfriend. To ordinary conversations. To the weird little eras of life that seem permanent while you’re living them and nostalgic five years later.

I think that’s partly why I love cameras.

They force you to notice.

Ultimately, I don’t really want to be known as a marketer, product designer, entrepreneur, filmmaker, or any of the other labels I’ve accumulated. They’re useful descriptions, but they feel temporary.

I’d rather be someone who remained curious.

Someone who made interesting things. Not for spectacle, but for my own interest.

Someone who took a few unconventional paths because they seemed worth exploring.

Someone who built enough freedom to choose what mattered (even though we are all born with it).

And someone who, when all of this is over, can say he was actually there for his own life.