The Mind Behind The GAMER Family Playbook
Meet the creator of the GAMER Family Playbook, who made a career out of convincing people to do things they don’t want to.
I started my career teaching English and Drama to students ages 7 through 17, but I found my sweet spot with that magical middle band, ages 9 to 12. They’re old enough to argue—though not quite old enough to win—and endlessly curious… if you catch them before their attention drifts to something shinier. Teaching them taught me how to lead with both structure and spontaneity — and how to turn even the most reluctant participants into engaged collaborators (with just the right mix of humor and strategy).
Between the classroom and after-school programs, I spent years figuring out how to turn “do I have to” into “look what I did!” As I honed my craft, I learned the art of motivating kids who didn’t want to be there, didn’t want to do the thing, and didn’t see the point of any of it.
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It wasn’t about flashy rewards or punishments. In fact, those tactics are a great way to lose control of your classroom. Teaching gave me a front-row seat to the raw material of human behavior. It also gave me very little tolerance for systems that sound good on paper but fall apart the second real life enters the room.
From the Classroom to the Boardroom..
Eventually, I left education and moved into the corporate world. I climbed a few ladders, earned a seat at a few tables, and found myself in a series of leadership roles that looked wildly different from teaching—until they didn’t.
Because people don’t change that much once they grow up. They just get better at hiding when they’re checked out. In meetings, in deadlines, in team dynamics, I saw the same patterns. People respond to clarity. To feedback. To progress they can actually see. Add a dash of competition or personal challenge and suddenly the impossible becomes manageable.
In other words, the same principles I used to keep a room of eleven-year-olds focused on paragraph structure worked equally well in managing grown adults trying to meet quarterly goals. The tools were different. The behavior? Nearly identical.
I learned how to design systems that helped people function better—at work, at scale, and under pressure. But the most valuable thing I carried with me from teaching into leadership was a finely tuned radar for motivational fluff. I have no patience for strategy decks that sound impressive and accomplish nothing. I’ve seen too many of them.
…To The Family Room
And suddenly I was managing a household where no one was on payroll and the entire org chart cried when overtired. Parenting stripped away every buffer between theory and reality. Now I wasn’t guiding students or managing employees. I was negotiating with a tiny human who believed socks were an affront to their civil liberties. The demands were constant. The logistics, never-ending. And the mental load? Let’s just say it makes quarterly planning look like a spa day.
Once again, I looked for systems. Apps, tools, planners—anything that could absorb a little of the chaos. What I found was a graveyard of half-solutions. Plenty of products that claimed to make life easier, as long as you had the time and energy to manage them. The irony was not subtle.
LThat’s when I realized: I’ve been solving versions of this same problem for over a decade. In schools. In companies. Now in my own home. The problem isn’t getting people to do things. The problem is designing systems that make them want to. Or—let’s face it—that makes me want to. I was no more enthusiastic about fighting about the chores or getting homework done than they were about doing it at all.
My background—teaching, leadership, and now parenting—gives me a different lens. I understand how behavior works because I’ve lived it, tested it, and been ignored by it in both classrooms and conference rooms. I know what it takes to build systems that don’t collapse the second life gets complicated.
Put It All Together And What Have You Got?
You’ll find all of my culminated experience reflected in everything I create. Not because I read a book about it. Because I’ve spent years in the field, building and rebuilding the same engine: how to help people show up, stay motivated, and feel like they’re getting somewhere.
This project is about more than getting the laundry folded or the math homework done. It’s about building the kind of habits that stick. The kind that teach kids how to manage time, take responsibility, and feel proud of their progress. It’s also about giving parents a break from the constant reminding, checking, and negotiating. Because we deserve a little peace too.
If your family could use a way to make everyday tasks feel a little more like a co-op game and a little less like a to-do list, you’re in the right place. I’m glad you’re here, and I hope this makes your days just a little more functional—and a lot more fun.