Over a decade of meetings, spreadsheets, and decisions that served other people’s dreams. I climbed the ladder and learned every polished phrase of corporate success, but each promotion cost me nights with my family, my health, and the quiet joy of play. I was making other people rich while my body and spirit quietly unraveled.

Outside the boardroom I was two things at once: a gamer who loved the small, clay-and-cardboard worlds of table-top play; and an athlete who trained to move heavy iron, competing in powerlifting to feel my body’s strength and dignity again. Those opposing worlds — one of careful strategy and tiny treasures, the other of raw physical focus — taught me a single truth: the things that bring real joy are often small, tangible, and shared.

One evening, after a meet and a marathon of tabletop sessions with friends, it hit me. The joy in those little trinkets — dice with a perfect weight, a hand-painted token, the satisfying clack of a meeple — was as real and restorative as a successful lift. Those pieces helped people connect, celebrate, and forget their worries for a few hours. I wanted to make more of that joy, and to spend the days I had left on the things that mattered.

I left upper management and founded Shantz Forge 3D LLC. — a small studio where craftsmanship, play, and wellbeing meet. We design and produce thoughtful game pieces, tactile accessories, and curated keepsakes that invite people to gather, to compete, to laugh, and to care for themselves. Our work is rooted in three principles:

• Craft: every object is made with attention to weight, texture, and balance so it feels right in the hand.

• Community: our pieces are built to bring people together, whether at a kitchen table or a competition platform.

• Care: we create products that encourage intentional downtime and physical wellbeing, a reminder to steward both body and joy.

This business is more than products. It’s a reclaiming of time and health, a promise to spend mornings with the people I love and to lift for myself, not for someone else’s balance sheet. If a tiny coin, a tactile token, or a perfectly weighted die can brighten a person’s day, then every piece we craft is a small act of care.

I built Shantz Forge 3D LLC. to make objects that invite people back to the table and back to their own strength. That’s my origin story: leaving a life of pleasing others to create things that help people play, heal, and belong.