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Right. Let's be honest from the start.
I'm Luca. I'm 23, English, and I've spent the last few years working abroad, studying, dreaming, regretting, making mistakes and trying to figure out what kind of person I actually want to be. This site is where I document that process — publicly, honestly, and without pretending I've got it all sorted.
The person
Who is Luca Mayes?
I grew up in the UK, studied International Tourism Management at Manchester Metropolitan University, and graduated with a First Class degree. That felt good. Then I went to Thailand for nine months and worked at a five-star Accor resort — food and beverage, events, sports, entertainment, guest experiences — and that felt even better. Not because it was glamorous (it wasn't always), but because I was actually learning how the world works.
I'm now in Florida, gaining more international experience, meeting more people, and trying to build something real with my life. I don't have a finished plan. I have a direction, a lot of curiosity, and the willingness to figure it out in public.
I can come across as confident. I'm sociable, I like people, I find most situations funny. But underneath that, I've spent years letting anxiety about embarrassment, fear of failure and a habit of overthinking stop me from doing things that actually mattered to me. I'd wait to feel ready. Ready never came.
So I stopped waiting.
The honest bit
Part of what I'm rebuilding from is gambling harm. It caused real financial pressure and real damage to my confidence and sense of self. I'm not going to dress that up or skip over it — it's part of the story. But it's not the whole story, and it's not where the story ends. I'm choosing responsibility, honesty and daily action instead of shame and avoidance. That's what this journey is about.
The journey
365 Days to Become a Gladiator
Entering the arena, one day at a time.
The gladiator thing isn't about being tough or invincible. It's about the moment you choose to walk into the arena anyway — even when you're scared, even when you might fail, even when people might watch you fall. That's the whole point. I'm documenting 365 days of choosing action over avoidance, across five areas of my life.
Mind
Confidence, clarity, presence. Learning to act before I feel ready. Facing the anxiety that's cost me opportunities and choosing honesty over performance.
Recovery & Finances
Staying free from gambling. Becoming debt-free. Rebuilding financial independence from scratch. One honest, unglamorous day at a time.
Body
Fitness, surfing, football, backflips, cold water, physical challenges that scare me. The body is the first arena you enter every morning.
World
Travel, Italian, new cultures, sport communities, conversations with interesting people. The world is the classroom I actually learn in.
Future
Content creation, storytelling, hospitality ideas, career development. Building something real — in public, without waiting to have it all figured out first.
Why do this publicly?
Because doing it privately hasn't worked. I've started and stopped more times than I can count. I've had plans, journals, private goals — and I've abandoned all of them when things got uncomfortable.
Doing it publicly makes it harder to quit. It creates accountability. And honestly? The fear of public embarrassment is one of the things I'm trying to overcome. So doing this in public is itself part of the work.
I also think there's something genuinely useful about watching someone figure things out in real time — not a highlight reel, not a success story told in retrospect, but the actual messy process. If that helps even one person feel less alone in their own version of this, that's worth the discomfort of being honest.