The content machine who escaped the 9-5 to “do fun” for a living

HERMOSA BEACH, California — Daniel Freitas’ dream job, the one he has labeled as “doing fun” for a living, began as one might expect: Abject misery.

He’d taken all the right steps. Checked all the boxes. Got his bachelor’s degree at California Baptist University. Could have taken an extra year to get his masters with his final season of eligibility remaining but decided against it. He’d already been hired for a full-time job in the field he studied. His girlfriend, too, had taken a job.

It was time to move on, continue following the Becoming a Functioning Adult Playbook.

“The team was balling,” Freitas, known to most as Frito, said with a rueful amusement, “and I’m just putting numbers into Excel. Going from Division I college athlete to sitting at a desk was just rough. It was fine, it was a good first experience, but you’re at a desk eight hours.”

And so the Adult Playbook, mostly for worse, continued. He got married. He got divorced. Racked up some credit card debt. Moved back in with his parents. Talked life over with a therapist. When he had finally saved enough to clear out his debt, putting him back at zero, a friend asked if he wanted to move out of his parents’ house.

“My life is already being flipped upside down,” he said on SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, “I’m just going to do something else. I didn’t have six months saved up. I just went for it. For the human brain, you’re only supposed to do one major life change in a year and I did three or four. It was rough.”

So he moved, and continued flipping his life upside down and inside out and shaking it out for good measure. Just to make sure only the vital parts of the old remained. He made sure one habit stuck: Video production.

Even when he was in college as an outside hitter at Cal Baptist, he’d arrive strapped, almost literally, to the teeth in cameras.

“It was a hobby for so long,” he said. “I was always into GoPros. I had a GoPro in college,…