From Digital Cocaine to Real-World Clarity
How uncovering the hidden lessons in obsessive gaming led to a framework for building a deeply aligned, regret-free life
I can still remember that moment. I was sitting at a table at a birthday party, pretending to listen, pretending to smile, pretending to be a functioning human. But something felt... off. My heart was beating like way too fast. I couldn’t sit still. I couldn’t focus. My palms were sweating. I felt uncomfortable. Nervous. I didn’t want to be there.
This wasn't social anxiety. This wasn't introversion. This was something else entirely. I checked my watch again. I was getting even more nervous. Each minute made me more uncomfortable being there. By now I should be somewhere else. Somewhere specific. Somewhere that was waiting for me with increasing urgency.
After what felt like a “socially acceptable” amount of time (whatever that means), I bolted. Actually, I Usain Bolted out of there. I lived only about a 15 minute walk away, but it felt like an eternity. I couldn’t waste another second.
Welcome to Azeroth
When I finally made it home, I slammed the apartment door behind me, I barely paused to kick off my shoes before rushing to my room. The chaotic noise and forced smiles of the party evaporated, replaced by the familiar, comforting hum of my computer booting up. As the login screen flared to life, the frantic energy from before didn't disappear, but it focused. The anxiety melted into anticipation. This felt right. This was where I needed to be.
Tonight was important. Dozens of us coordinating strategy, pushing our limits against a powerful boss. We were meeting on TeamSpeak to coordinate. My lateness wasn't just letting myself down. It was potentially holding back the team.
If none of that makes sense to you, don’t worry. The world I had just escaped to was World of Warcraft and it basically has its own language.
To give a quick heads-up: World of Warcraft (or WoW, how we called it) is an online fantasy game where you create a character (think elf, orc, or something with glowing eyes), run around a giant digital world, and do your best to not die. You kill monsters, complete quests, earn gear, and level up so you can kill even bigger monsters and earn even shinier gear.
But the real magic, the sticky part, wasn't just the monsters or the gear. It was the other players. Real humans logging in from all over the world. Sometimes weird humans, often deeply committed ones. You form alliances called "guilds," team up for those complex challenges called "raids," argue over strategy, celebrate victories, and forge genuine bonds.
And if you haven’t figured it out by now, this shit is highly addictive. And if you’re a 14-year-old trying to figure out who the hell you are and where you fit in the world this is digital cocaine made from zeros and ones.
Finding Purpose in Pixels
World of Warcraft gave me something I hadn’t felt before. A place to focus my energy and reason to get better at something. That might not sound like a big deal, but for me, it was. Up to that point, I had never felt truly motivated, interested, or energized enough to get good at anything. Maybe track and field, but that was about it.
WoW changed that. The reward system, the constant progress, the cooperative nature. It was a match made in heaven. I couldn’t stop. And apparently, I wasn’t alone.
In this new world, I found a community of likeminded people who, by society's conventional standards, might have been considered as "lost" or „weird“ as I was.
But in that world, I finally felt like I mattered. I had a guild. A purpose. An upgrade path. People needed me. I mean they actually needed me to slay digital monsters and not die in lava pits.
Suddenly, I had reasons to wake up excited. Not for the complexities of real life, but for the promise of epic loot drops, the camaraderie of late-night voice chats dissecting raid strategies, and the simple, satisfying feeling of getting better.
This incident at my friends birthday should have been a wakeup call. But it wasn’t. After all I was not addicted. I could stop playing whenever I wanted. (A classic line from the Denial 101 handbook.)
Boredom Was My Breakthrough
In the end, what saved me wasn’t a rock bottom or an intervention or some grand realization. My rescue came in a different form: boredom.
One day I was playing the game after school, as pretty much every day since about 2 years. I didn’t spent time with friends unless they wanted to watch me playing the game (must have been a pretty popular dude). Going outside was just a distraction. I still remember that disgusting microwaved Currywurst. I’m not even sure if what was in there actually qualified as sausage. Maybe pigeon. Or sadness. (Fucking weirdo Germans.)
Anyway, where were we? Ah, yeah. Boredom. The promised land. At least for me. I was sitting at my computer and was thinking. What should I do? Another quest? Lame. Another dungeon? I have been in almost all of them and besides the great raids where only in the evening when the more mature players came from work. Although I’m not sure if we should call them mature.
So I was bored. And in all seriousness I went away from the game of course the computer still running if I changed my mind (gotta keep those options open). I was looking in my room and there it was. A pair of dumbbells my mum had to buy me for some reasons. Well I’m glad they were there because this moment really changed my whole life. I took them and made some stupid exercises. FYI, they were about 2.5 kg each — which, for those not using the metric system, is roughly the emotional weight of a motivational quote. But who cares. I didn’t even know what I was doing.
Next day? Exact same thing. Started to play, got bored, picked up the dumbbells. Then — and I’m still not exactly sure how it happened — I just stopped playing. Instead I found myself on YouTube (which was just becoming a thing) watching some videos on how to work out at home.
Soon after that, I bought some real dumbbells and weights. Probably spent like 200 or 300 bucks on all the equipment. I was hooked. Again. (Classic addition transfer).
I found this one dude showing how to build your own home gym with minimal gear. He was in his 50s (maybe 60s) but looked like a machine. Not the roided-up gym-bro type. Just natural like an actual human being that is really fit.
I inhaled all his videos. I started to change my diet. Radically. No more pizza and McDonald’s every day. I started to eat salad and lots of chicken. In came also supplements and protein shakes of course. I think at some point, my body was running exclusively on protein.
Warning: don’t try this. Especially if you have a girlfriend around. Or any living organism, really.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but World of Warcraft had actually triggered a lot of positive things in me. It just channeled all that energy into the wrong direction. Leveling up, unlocking skills, getting better gear? That’s just essentially a gamified form of personal growth. Being part of a guild? That’s basically community and shared purpose.Trading in the auction house? Welcome to entrepreneurship.
And here’s the kicker: I loved the auction house. As the game itself started to get boring, I found myself hanging out there more and more. Watching the market. Noticing patterns. Tracking item prices. Some items were priced differently at different times. Some surged when supply dried up. Others dropped when demand disappeared. I started collecting items I knew would go up in value. I would stockpile them, wait until demand peaked, and flip them for a profit.
Then I got bolder. I started buying underpriced items on purpose, knowing I could resell them later. Congratulations, past me: you’ve just discovered arbitrage. Buying low, selling high, capitalizing on inefficiencies in a market. And that’s what I leveraged in my first business.
When Business Problems Aren't About Business
Am I suggesting you should start a computer game addiction? Of course not. What I want to say with this story is that you probably already have lot of potential, but maybe it is channeled into the wrong direction. You need to find where it already exists and point it somewhere better.
If you’re “unmotivated” in your business, maybe it’s not because you’re lazy or broken.
Maybe it’s because the work you’re doing doesn’t reflect what actually excites you at a deeper level like challenge, strategy, community, progress, autonomy.
I don’t want to change my path at all. I’m happy for everything unfolding the way it did. It would have been interesting to think about how my life would have unfolded if I hadn’t made that shift from the virtual battlefield to the tangible world of fitness and self-discovery. But looking back? I harbor absolutely no regrets about that intense chapter immersed in World of Warcraft. It wasn't wasted time. It was a profound, albeit unconsciously directed, exploration of my deepest drives.
The game provided a structured environment where my yearning for progress, mastery, community, and even strategic thinking could flourish. It revealed the raw power of focused energy, even when channeled into pixelated quests and virtual economies. It taught me invaluable lessons about motivation, systems, and the human need for belonging. Those are insights I wouldn't trade, because they form the bedrock of the work I do today. Most importantly, it starkly illuminated what happens when potent personal energy lacks conscious, real-world direction.
This journey crystallized the central idea I now explore with entrepreneurs and creators:
There are no business problems.
Only personal problems reflecting on your business.
What we typically diagnose as strategic failures, marketing missteps, or operational bottlenecks are, more often than not, the external symptoms of internal, personal dynamics reflecting onto the business. These are the unseen patterns, the unexamined fears, the unmet psychological needs, and the lack of profound self-awareness that create friction and block progress. If left unaddressed, they quietly pave the road to burnout and eventual regret.
You Can’t Tactic Your Way Out of Misalignment
Think about it. Are you feeling perpetually stuck trying to define your niche? Perhaps it’s less about market analysis and more about a deep-seated fear of judgment, a reluctance to fully claim a unique space because it feels safer to remain vaguely acceptable to everyone, ultimately satisfying no one, least of all yourself. Are you struggling with sales or putting yourself out there? Maybe the tactics aren't the issue; maybe it mirrors an internal conflict about worthiness, a discomfort with visibility, or a fundamental misalignment between what you offer and what truly drives you – forcing you to push something that doesn't resonate deep within. Are you constantly battling burnout, even when things seem “successful” on paper? It could be that your entire business strategy, the very way you've structured your work, is fundamentally grating against your innate psychological wiring, your core values, or your untended definition of a life well-lived.
Continuing down these misaligned paths, armed only with more tactics or sheer willpower, is like trying to win a game whose rules you don't understand while ignoring the fact that the controller is wired backward. It’s exhausting, ineffective, and virtually guarantees that years from now, you’ll look back not with pride, but with the heavy weight of regret – the regret of missed potential, of time spent pushing against yourself, of building something that doesn't feel true.
The ultimate goal, then, isn't merely chasing the next revenue milestone or mastering the latest marketing trend. It’s about architecting a business and a life with intention, in concert, ensuring that who you are becoming aligns with who you aspire to be. It’s about building something you can look back on decades from now with a sense of profound rightness, knowing you made conscious choices aligned with your deepest self. To build that kind of sovereign existence, free from the ghosts of “what ifs” and “should haves”, we must start by courageously examining the internal landscape.
The Architecture of No Regrets
What I want to say with this story isn't just about games. It's about energy, direction, and the deep human desire to build a life without regret. You, the thoughtful practitioner reading this, possess incredible drive and potential. You have your own “leveling up” instinct, your own desire for mastery and impact. The crucial question is where is that potent energy currently channeled?
Is your business, your work or life, a true reflection of your core psychological drivers, aimed squarely at the impact you want to make? Or are you pouring your best energy into a “game” whose scoreboard doesn't reflect what truly matters to you, risking the quiet regret that comes from knowing you played it safe or followed someone else's rules?
Building a life without regrets isn't about avoiding mistakes. It's about making conscious choices aligned with who you truly are. It's about ensuring your effort today builds towards a tomorrow you'll be proud to inhabit. The shift doesn't start with a better business tactic. It starts with radical self-awareness. Recognizing where your energy flows now, understanding the psychological “game” you're actually playing, and then consciously choosing to redirect that potent drive towards a path aligned with your purpose. That's the foundation of building a business, and a life, from the inside out. That's the architecture of “no regrets.” My accidental journey started with boredom and a pair of 2.5kg weights. Where will yours consciously begin?