I ate some of my school lunches under the stairwell.

Partly out of a healthy terror of the cafeteria, mostly because I had not yet cracked the code of who I was supposed to be and where I fit in.

Feeling anxious and misplaced, I was convinced that everyone else had been issued a private handbook on how to fit in while I had been left on the waiting list. 

But when you spend your youth on the periphery, you acquire a habit of relentless observation. 

Eventually, a marvelous truth dawns on you. Nobody else knows where they belong either.

We are all desperately searching for an entry pass into a world that makes us feel understood.

We look for these passes in strange places. Subcultures. Secret Handshakes. Online Corners. The brand we choose to support. The language we use to describe our daily habits. 

Consumers want the comforting assurance that someone out there comprehends their oddities and has built a place specifically for them.

What I assumed was a personal defect turned out to be the finest strategic training ground imaginable.

It gave me an insatiable curiosity for human nature where it is most honest: Irrational, ritualistic, easily bored, and desperate to belong.

I’m Andrew Coccaro, a Strategist who unlocks the worlds people want to belong in.