Today we’d like to introduce you to Alex Sementelli.
Alex, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
On my 27th birthday, I woke up the happiest I had ever been in my life. There wasn’t any big event planned for that day nor had I just won the lottery or found the love of my life. Rather, for the first time ever, I thought, “I could be alone for the rest of my life and still be happy.” I finally found peace with myself and loved the person I had become. This is the story of how I got there.
Growing up, I was obsessed with money. I was also not the most well-behaved child and had a lot of energy and frustration. When I was eight years old, my mom created a unique system involving something called “Alex Bucks” to improve my behavior in school and at home. Essentially, through good behavior and doing chores, I earned Alex Bucks, which could then be used to spend on privileges such as watching TV, playing on the computer, hanging out with friends, and more. At first, the game was a success, as I started behaving better, doing more chores, and earning lots of Alex Bucks. It seemed like this might be the perfect system for me to finally start improving my behavior. However, in an unexpected twist, the system worked too well, and my obsession with money started having negative effects of their own.
It wasn’t the earning of Alex Bucks that ended up being a problem, but rather the lack of spending. Instead of going to jump on the trampoline for 20 Alex Bucks, I would sit in my room. If a friend called and asked to play, I would say, “Sorry that’s 60 Alex Bucks, I can’t afford it right now” despite having thousands of Alex Bucks. Instead of spending my money on anything, I just sat in my room and counted my fake money. Eventually, the Bank of Mom ran out of Alex Bucks, printed more money, ran out again, and eventually had to call the game a failure and end it, as I had become a well-behaved hermit.
As I grew up, my obsession with money continued as I started to really see the value of what a dollar could buy. At first, it was the standard things like awesome cars, big houses, or an unlimited supply of gumballs. But the older I got, the more I realized I could care less about material things, the most important resource in my life was time. After having been in school for 15 years and now looking at a projected 40-year work career, I figured there had to be a way to game the system. So I did the math, and the results were astonishing.
Early retirement wasn’t just possible by a couple of years; it was entirely possible to retire 20-30 years earlier by saving hard early in life and letting compound interest carry you the rest of the way. I went online to check my math, and sure enough, I found Financial Independence/Retire Early communities and studies like the Trinity study that backed up my theory. I decided my new life goal was to start saving and get as much of my future time back as possible.
I googled “highest paying jobs with a bachelor degree” and declared as a Computer Science major, followed by getting a job in IT after college.At the same time, I started trying out different side hustles that could potentially bring in a couple of extra dollars. I tried YouTubing, dropshipping, Ebay reselling, completing surveys, and many other side jobs that could potentially lead to more money to save. All of my friends were saving for new cars; I was saving for my next Roth IRA deposit.
Eventually, I found a live streaming/gaming website called Twitch, where I started to have some success under the tag MrLlamaSC. I began speedrunning (beating the game as fast as possible) a very old game called Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction. While the audience was small at the time, it was a very popular game back in the day, and I knew if people came around and saw a high-quality stream of a nostalgic game they would be inclined to stick around. I set a long term goal of making $500/month and buckled down, streaming as much as I possibly could.
Switching gears, on the life side of things I was dating a girl I had met in college and thought things couldn’t be better. Sure I was living in a cheap rundown apartment building and saving almost every dime I earned (My total expenses including rent were about $1,200-$1,400 per month), but it was all for that long term goal. Once I had my million, I could retire 20 years early and finally be happy. My girlfriend also started working extra shifts to make more money, and while she was more into saving for a house and paying off student loans, I figured at least we both had savings goals! I worked five days a week and streamed six nights a week, while she worked seven days on seven days off, picking up extra shifts on her off week. I was only sleeping about 4 hours per night and only getting to spend time with my girlfriend once a week max, but it was all going to be worth it.
Then after two and a half years, she broke up with me and my “perfect” life crumbled around me. I spent the next three months hurting badly. I woke up every single night around 3 am from stabbing pain in my abdomen. Eventually, I had to re-evaluate my life and make the following discoveries:
1. We didn’t have many experiences together. I sat in my chair every day and daydreamed about traveling to Japan or taking a cruise to the Bahamas, but I never made those a reality. Additionally, a lot of smaller experiences never happened either because it was always cheaper and easier to just stay home. It was Alex Bucks all over.
2. I wasn’t living a happy or healthy life. I worked over 300 hours per month, tried talking with my girlfriend every night, threw in random workouts, ate poorly, and of course only slept 4 hours per night. I was too exhausted to cook, clean, go out dancing, or do anything in my free time other than lay down. I was making great money, but there was a cost to it, and that cost was my relationship and my life.
3. My mood about work and other activities had become a lot more negative. I simply didn’t have the energy to care, and it for sure affected my performance and happiness. Every day I sat at work thinking about how quickly I could retire and be happy.
What’s amazing to me though, is how I never realized this until she broke up with me. I had focused so hard on my retirement goal that I almost based my life success on how well I was doing on getting to that. I was seeing my investments and bank account grow, and I got so focused on the potential future that I stopped living in the present. It was completely unfair to her, but also didn’t grow me as a human being either. I never realized that if I’m miserable during the accumulation phase, I’m still going to be miserable afterward. I had amassed a decent sum of money in my accounts already, but it meant nothing anymore. Having 100K means nothing if you aren’t happy. I had spent the last few years waiting for my future life without realizing the time waiting is also my life. On top of that, I had spent so little time doing things that I didn’t even know the life that I wanted to live. I built my savings, but I never built my life.
Finally, on my 26th birthday, I decided it was time I put in the effort to change. I wrote a letter to all of my friends and acquaintances asking them to come up with any activity they wanted to do, and I would go do it with them. I wanted to try new things, overcome my fears, and become a better person through all of it. Of the 60 people I reached out to, about 30 got back to me, and about 20 of the activities were able to be completed. This ranged from things as simple as cooking family meals together to scuba diving the Caribbean and skiing the Rockies. I learned more about myself than I could ever put into words. In the end, I found that not only was I more open to experiences and certain about the style of life I wanted in the future, but my character had changed completely as well. There was no challenge I couldn’t overcome, and I started to believe in myself completely. For the past year, I had watched myself grow into someone I had always wanted to be, and I had done it without requiring the love of someone else. Then on my 27th birthday, I woke up happy, and I wanted nothing more than to share that happiness with others.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
My first project was creating my stream on Twitch, where I focus as a Diablo 2 speedrunner. A lot of people are often confused about how Twitch works or why people support me and other streamers for just playing video games. The best explanation I can give is to think of it like watching a sports game. Rather than going out and playing that sport, you are sitting there watching someone else play it and at the same time listening to someone commentate the game who isn’t even playing. At the same time, there is also live chat going on during the stream so I can interact with everybody and they can interact with each other as well. Like going to a bar to watch a game with friends, it’s just another place for humans to connect.
I initially started with hopes of gaining a little bit of extra side income, however after a couple of years of streaming and seeing a lot of growth I found that having a platform to spread positivity was much more important to me. I try to talk about my ups and downs in life, my dating life, embarrassing stories, and pretty much anything that shows others it’s okay to make mistakes and fail at things while still being positive and happy. A lot of people are very hard on themselves and run from failure instead of trying to learn from it.
Every now and then I get a message from a stranger about how my stream helped them through a difficult time and it makes me remember just how much of an impact I can have on others without even realizing it. I think overall, a lot of people don’t quite realize the impact they have on those around them. Smiling at a stranger, doing a good deed, being compassionate, or even just enjoying yourself playing a nearly 20-year-old video game can be exactly what someone needs in their life at that moment. Sometimes they might let you know, but often they never even get the chance.
I stream about 4-5 days per week, though I often spend a lot of my non-streaming hours and days doing things like answering offline comments, managing the community, and more. It’s a lot more than just “playing video games for a living” and more like hosting a TV show, but it is definitely something I love doing and feel extremely lucky to have succeeded in.
My second creation actually spun off from my Twitch stream. Over the past few years engaging with thousands of people, I realized how much of a need there is in the world for two things: proper financial education and happiness advice. So I created a podcast called Grow The Buck Up aimed at helping people build the lives they want and saving for them.
A lot of the inspiration for it comes from my life and the lessons I’ve learned along the way. I talk about my experiences, my failures, and the methods I used to change how I view life as well as how I changed myself into a better form of me. To go hand in hand with this, I believe a huge step in getting to the point of change is setting yourself up financially to reduce that stress so you can focus. If you’re constantly worried about not being able to pay bills, dealing with financial emergencies that come up way too often or are simply stressed out about not being able to afford the things you want to do then you’ll struggle to find time to really focus on the other parts of your life. Through proper budgeting, responsible spending, and simply developing a solid relationship with money, most people can remove one of the biggest stressors in life.
I don’t preach any specific lifestyle as the correct one, as I believe everybody gets to choose that for themselves. I personally don’t care for flashy cars, but if someone else does then, by all means, they can make that a priority. Instead, I try to discuss topics like determining the amount of joy per buck gained from a purchase so each individual can start to better form their own dream life, not mine. In the end, my goal is to just help as many people improve their lives as possible, whether that be one or one thousand.
Do current events, local or global, affect your work and what you are focused on?
I believe art has become a lot more about quantity and community in this day and age. Hundreds of years ago you had artists dedicate their lives to single masterpieces. Nowadays, there is so much content created every second that something that took many years won’t be appreciated nearly as much as before. Instead, artists who are able to consistently churn out decent quality works find a lot more success and end up having more of an effect on the world.
I also think because of the internet and how well-connected everybody is, a lot of communities themselves can create art together. The power of many is extremely strong and something that didn’t exist nearly as much in the past.
Personally, I try not to let national or international events play much of a role in my art. A lot of people come to my channel to escape from the news and the reported events, especially in these last few years as it has seemed to only get more negative.
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
My Diablo 2/streaming content can be found at:
http://www.twitch.tv/mrllamasc
http://www.youtube.com/mrllamasc
My Grow The Buck Up Podcast can be found on any of the major podcast providers or:
http://www.growthebuckup.com
http://www.youtube.com/growthebuckup
All of my content is free, however for those that wish to support me there is a tip link on my site:
https://mrllamasc.com/support-mrllamasc/
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.twitch.tv/mrllamasc
- Email: mrllamasc@gmail.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GrowTheBuckUp
- Twitter: MrLlamaSC
- Other: http://www.growthebuckup.com
Image Credit:
Alex Sementelli
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