The Way to College Podcast - Ep 177 - Jacob James Garcia

clergy clergy clergy This is Dr. Oses Aliveid with another episode, The Weight of College podcast. And I've said this countless times about the blessings that this podcast has brought upon me and the opportunities to connect with folks. I've connected with folks all over the world and in different fields. And it is the experience has far exceeded my expectations. And so I'm excited to have today's guests on. I know a little of this gentleman's story. I connected with him a couple of weeks ago at a local event hosted by our regional service center, educational service center. And so I'm really eager to jump into his story. When I met him, he shared a little bit and there's a fascinating story. But I know I can't do it justice. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to turn it over to him and have him introduce ourselves to the audience. Jacob James, you mind introducing yourself? Not at all. I'm actually looking forward to it. I've been on pins and needles. My name is Jacob James Garcia. I'm a little brown boy from a border town here in South Texas, Donna, Texas to be specific. And yeah, we met a couple of weeks ago at an awesome regional event. And back then I had all of my voice right now. I'm struggling through. I'm not sick anymore, but I'm dealing with the aftermath. So I felt sound like a man who's been smoking too long, which I haven't. But yeah, we met and I just done a keynote speech at the event. So I was talking about using perspective as a tool. But during that keynote speech, and while we were talking, I gave you a little bit about my background and how 23 years as a stand up comedian led me down a path that was unexpected. So don't get me wrong. My dad expected this. My dad 20 years ago was like, Meagol, you should go talk at schools. And I was respectfully rebellious. And I was like, no, I'm going to be a stand up comedian. And looks like Father knows best. You know, I was just I was a little late to the game, or maybe right on time. Maybe right. I'm going to say right on time, because all of my experiences and my pursuits as a sole proprietor, as a stand up comedian, which in essence, a lot of people don't think about the business and show business. And a lot of talented people don't get to where they wanted to be, because they just nurture the artist. I'm very well aware of the business side of it. And as a result, I think it did prepare me for being a keynote speaker, a team building facilitator, focusing on employee morale. But fire away, ask me some questions. I definitely will do my best to give the answer. Well, thank you. Thank you for joining me. And I think just based on that brief introduction, you are the perfect guest, the perfect candidate to be on the podcast. I often share with folks that I created the podcast to share with students, because I think there is tremendous pressure for students today. If you were in high school, there's tremendous pressure to feel like, I've got to have it all figured out. And I've got to know the straight line that I'm going to follow from point A to point B to get to whatever it is that I'm going to do for, quote unquote, the rest of my life. But just in your brief introduction, you talked about how your father could see other things for you. You did 23 years in stand up. And so I'm sure there's much more there to unpack. And so as with all my guests, I always ask the same question to get us going. And that is, if you had to identify a starting point for your educational journey, where would that starting point be for you? My superhero parents, I mean, both of my parents are superheroes. My dad is born and raised in the east side of Donna. You don't have to know much about any time you say, anytime you you identify the location of where you're from, that probably means humble beginnings. I can say the west side of Alabama, and you'd be like, Oh, that sounds rough. I don't know if it's the rough area. But to put east side in front of Donna means he came from very humble beginnings. My dad's the youngest of 10. English is his second language. And he worked really hard. And my educational journey started with him, my mom. Also, she's from South Texas, the Rio Grande Valley. Not the most also a humble beginning, but she bounced around the state of Texas growing up. So her roots aren't as deeply rooted as my dad's to the Rio Grande Valley. And both of them are retired educators. So where did my path of education start with mom and dad? It really did start with mom and dad. My dad, pardon the voice, I'm going to muscle through this. My dad, I don't know. I mean, I can tell you four or five times a week. But often, going to school, he would tell me, Michael, remember, whatever your mind can conceive and believe it will achieve. And I'm not making this up for some crazy success story. I'm not trying to be my Wolverine origin stories are so great, because my dad said this, I'm not painting a picture, I'm telling the truth. My dad literally said that whatever your mind can conceive and believe, it will achieve. Did he make it up? It's not important. He did not. He read it in a book. He was all about continued education. It wasn't until three weeks ago, I found out the source of the quote. I actually didn't know. I never cared enough to look about it, to look it up, because what was more important to me was the message. And who delivered it to me? You know, it wasn't a book. The person who wrote the quote means a lot to a lot of people. But my dad met the most to me. And I was like, he told me this. Where to get it from? He knows. But apparently, it's a Napoleon Hill quote. And the quote is actually, whatever your mind can conceive and believe it can achieve. My dad delivered it with will achieve. He personalized it and made sure that we knew we were going to do what we set out to do. My mom just the other day was getting onto the my nieces and nephews, their grandchildren. I heard her from the distance saying, no, no, no, no, no, you finish what you start. Like I went back. I went back to being a seven year old kid, being like, ooh, I heard that growing up too. And fast forward all these years later, decades later, I'm here in her tell the grandchildren, no, no, no, no, no. I don't even know the context. I don't know what was happening. But the message was the same. And she wasn't going to let them off the hook. So my educated education and path in education started with being raised by two educators. And although that wasn't the path I thought I was going to be on, it was part of my foundation. So that's for sure. What you say it, it wasn't the path that you thought you would be on. What was that path and how early did you foresee that path? I guess the question how early is a relative question. So I'll break it down best I can. Early on, I thought my path was to be helpful that I wasn't exactly sure what was I going to be as a child. You say all kinds of things. Some people want to be doctors and astronauts, which is great. Go get it. I remember being five, six years old saying I wanted to be a pharmacist. I had no real desire to do it. But I knew a pharmacist from Donna who had a swimming pool. So to me, I'm like, well, I get to be a pharmacist. I will have these awesome things. It was no real desire. I had no love of chemistry or biology or helping in that way. But I wanted to have things. And so growing up, I just wanted to be, honestly, dude, I just want to be really good. Like not even as a person, that was part of it. But I wanted to excel. I wanted to stand out. And you know what, who doesn't? What person on earth doesn't want to be recognized? What person on earth doesn't want them to say? People give themselves characteristics and ticks so they can be identified in a social setting. You know, I knew a guy for a long time who'd wink and go to do the finger guns. That was the thing that you know, psychologically, he had adopted to stand out. So we knew, hey, have you seen Fred? Which one's Fred? Oh, he's the guy that goes, okay, he stands out. That's that's a way to do it. You go through your, your phase where you grow a soul patch on your chin. That's how you stand out. You know, it's 1996, Jacob's going to college. He wants to stand out. I grew my hair out. I had a soul patch. Now in hindsight, man, what, what chubby boy band was I trying to be part of? But I knew what I wanted to be was highly, I didn't use these words then I'll use them now. Effective, whatever it is I did, I wanted to be good at that thing. And a lot of that was my parents. You know, my parents were, they never told us we had to be the best. They always told us to try our best, but they kept us honest. Did you try your best? And with that attitude and that mentality of try your best, the word best kind of ping pong is around in your head a lot. Again, to be clear, my parents weren't stage moms trying to make me tap dance my way into the hearts of society. But the word best was involved. And they accepted our wholehearted efforts. But in that I decided I wanted to be really good enough to stand out. And then as I played sports, my whole family is very active in competitive sports. I find that to be very valuable. If it's not sports, I think the whole idea of having pushback barriers, obstacles to overcome, I think is healthy. If it's not sports, maybe it's give yourself a challenge. If you like writing, then write a poem a day for seven days without failure, no excuses. So that was always my mindset. So I did try to excel at sports. I was good enough, good enough to be a starter, never a stand out, never, I wasn't the superstar of the team. I was a linebacker and alignment. But I broke my ankle in high school, playing basketball at a neighbor's house, I point because it's back there. And I wasn't able to play baseball that year. And baseball is something I thought I would excel at. Football, good enough, basketball, I could play, what am I going to start in basketball? Baseball, I expected to excel, I broke my ankle. And as a result, I joined theater. And I'm like, I missed my freshman year in baseball, that means I can't reach my goal unlikely of reaching it being varsity by sophomore year, because they won't play till sophomore year, and they're not going to put a fresh face on the varsity team. So I got recruited to do theater. And that's where I excelled. Theater wasn't part of the plan. That was something that just kind of a consolation prize. It's like, I got to do something. I like competing. These people are wild. Me too. They're eccentric. Let's do that. And theater showed me a whole new world. Really did. Thank you for breaking that down for us. And I love how you said you wanted to excel and you were looking for that opportunity. You were trying to figure out where is it that I can excel. But I also love how you talk about you had these plans, whether it was for football or for baseball, you had plans, you had goals, and you had a setback. And so theater, as you said, wasn't part of the plan. Can you speak to that? Can you speak to the idea or was it something that you welcomed? Was it something you pushed back against? Because I think, I don't know, I feel like today, more than ever, young people are kind of like, well, what's your plan? What's your plan? And we don't necessarily teach them how to deal with adversity. And do we embrace it? Do we push back? How did you approach theater? Well, as I'm on your podcast right now, I have the benefit of hindsight. So I want to make a statement before I answer that question. How do we deal with adversity? How do we deal with the fact that, oh, no, we don't have a plan? You deal with it by putting yourself in a constant state of growth and evolution. At the end of the day, we don't know what tools we're going to be called on to use. But wouldn't it be great if we had every tool in our tool shed? So you may not know what you need. If you're going to throw a barbecue or if you're going to have guests over, you don't know if what's said has particular dietary considerations. I may make it a barbecue. You show up and you're a vegetarian. It'd be nice if I had something to accommodate your needs. The goal for pushback is to be ready at all times. So how did I enter theater? I entered it with open arms because I liked, especially at the time, I liked the opportunity to be the center of attention. I liked it. I was a 15-year-old boy, not nowhere near a man. A 15-year-old boy is what I was. I like challenges. I do like challenges. And I liked the fact that it was, and I didn't know this then. I know this now. I liked that it was communal. I liked that it involved a group, a collection. It was me and you and you and him and her and him. It was us. I didn't know how to phrase that back then, but I acknowledge now I did like that. It's fun to be part of a team. Even if you're working on different things, there's an old saying, it's not mine. If you want to go somewhere fast, go by yourself. If you want to go somewhere far, go together. And being part of a team allows that. And if it wasn't football, it wasn't baseball, it was theater. And as a thespian, as an actor, I got to be part of this group, all moving towards a common goal. So that's a great place to be. And the thing is, if you're not a competitive person and you're listening to this, that's fine. I'm not trying to encourage you to compete. I would encourage you to be part of something. And people enjoy going to NFL football games. Why? They're all thinking the same thing. All of their ideas, all of their thoughts are on the same page. It might not be your team, but half of the room is thinking the same thing. Go Cowboys. The other half of the room is thinking the same thing. We don't like the Cowboys. But you're united. People go into cooking. People start talking about the flavors. You're united. You have something in common. Being a lone wolf isn't as romantic as people make it sound. Everyone's like, I'm a lone wolf. And they take pride in that, especially guys, especially guys that are 15 to 30 years of age. I'm a lone wolf. Let's not forget the lone wolf has been outcasted and is in trouble. They don't have the power of the pack. So don't over romanticize being vulnerable. You don't want to over romanticize. You don't have to have a team of 85. Maybe it's you and one other. But theater, I like that. I like the opportunity to grow and excel. And we did well. And being from a city like Donham, where especially at the time, English was a large part of the city's second language. So I felt a sense of, look at me, excelling, having an opportunity for someone to pay for my college by way of English. There was almost a sense of rebellion, to be honest with you. It was just like, look at how well I'm going to rebel. Which, again, me now, what was I rebelling against? I had no reason to rebel. But you're young. You want to push back. Might as well use that energy to get yourself further along. And for the longest time, I got out of college. I got accepted to one of the best theater schools in the nation. My parents elected against it. They were like, this school doesn't offer scholarships. So we can't afford to go into debt if you change your mind. If you decide you want to take a different path, you're going to graduate from college so far in debt that you absolutely 100% need to be Brad Pitt. It's Brad Pitt or bust. Because of all the debt I was going to acquire. Other schools offered scholarships. This particular one was a conservatory, freshman through senior, 100 people. It was in Missouri, Webster Groves. I got accepted to the third ranked theater school in the country. I did it. I did it. Little brown boy from Donna got accepted to one of the most prestigious schools for theater utilizing the English language I got in, then out, wasn't allowed to go. Devastated. And how did you do with that? What can you do? You're devastated. Am I going to lay in my room and suck on my thumb for the next 48 hours? Tony Robbins. Anthony Robbins. I saw him say something along the lines of, I give myself 90 seconds to be upset. I can process it, generate it, 90 seconds. After that, I'm wallowing. I'm paraphrasing at this point. I'm dwelling. Process it. Now I didn't know that then. And it's not easy to do now. But every cliche in the book, why do we fall down to get back up? You didn't fall down to the earth. It's an opportunity to push yourself back up. If you go back down, all of a sudden, it's a pushup. All of a sudden, it's a pushup. Now you're just getting stronger. So at the time, yes, devastated. I cried. I cried. I didn't know what I was going to do. That I put all my eggs in that basket. And because I was going to be an actor. And then that setback happened. There was another setback. If we had three hours on this podcast, I would share some of the ones. But right now, I'm going to go in chronological order according to my memory. That's in my stream of consciousness. There's other ones in my youth. I remember a time, kindergarten, a loss that haunts me in kindergarten, a 50 yard dash. I got second, it hurts to this day. I third grade jump rope. I lost got second hurts to this day. Fourth grade supposed to get after like of the week. My dad warned me, they're going to give someone else after the month, because they want to boost his confidence. Me, cool. You don't need more confidence. I remember the song that was playing as I drove away with an old school 1980s commercial native American cheer coming down my eye. I remember the song by the pet shop boys. What have I, what have I, what have I done to deserve this? What have I, what I remember the song crying, looking out the window because I want to act later the week so bad. Didn't get it. But again, we don't get what we want all the time. But what we do get is a lesson. We do get an opportunity to get something bigger. Whatever I didn't get was here. Whatever is to come is here. Then after that, but no matter what happens in between here, you can get stronger. You can get stronger. If you're struggling, looking for inspiration, we live in a wonderful time of technology. You can Google the words inspirational story. It's up to you. It's up to you to be like, I'm going to Google Michael Jordan inspirational story. They will talk about his failures because we all know his success. I'm going to Google Tom Brady, even though I'm not a fan. I respect what he's done. I can Google all his failures and then the end result. None of them got there by sitting down and feeling sorry for themselves. There comes a point. So yeah, I didn't like it. But that's where a former teacher said, have you considered doing stand up comedy? I said, no. She goes, when you talk, you have fun and people are generally captivated. I didn't grow up wanting to be a stand up. It just made sense. I'm like, I'm going to do that now. And I just did that. And so you're not allowed to go to the school, right? And a teacher suggests, have you thought about stand up comedy? Was college still in the cards? Was it something that you still went to? Like I still got to go to school, right? It sounds like your parents, your parents emphasized education. They're both educators. So did you go to school? Did you jump immediately into stand up? How did you get there? Look, I think school is very important. I think education is very important. I'm not going to have the answer. A lot of people want to hear I did stop going to school. I thought to myself, well, I was going to school for theater and psychology, but I was going to be an actor. That would be beneficial. Now granted, use all your tools. I inside 2020. But I thought, well, there's no degree in stand up comedy. What would the degree be for? What degree could I get that would help further this pursuit? If I want to be an MMA fighter, I don't practice, I don't train pro-K. I don't practice cooking to be a better fighter. The way to do what you want to do is to do the thing you want to do, which funny enough, I claimed I was going to be a comic for a couple years before I actually did it. I walked around, puffing out my chest, telling anyone that would listen, my views on comedy and who I was going to be. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I had enough charisma that people had faith in my potential rather than the reality of who I was. And I think that's a very important distinction. Potential versus reality are two different things. You can have all the potential in the world. There's an old saying from G.I. Joe back in the 80s, knowledge is power. I did read something recently that said applied knowledge is power. And I'm like, nice. What a great follow up. And I could talk about stand up. I could study stand up. But until you do it, and even then you really can't claim it. You can't say I'm a comedian just because you did it. You can kind of, you get our respect. Hey, Jose went up there. Awesome, dude. Good for you. Everyone talks about doing it. You actually did. Power to you. But you're really not a comic yet. I can spar in a gym. Doesn't make me a fighter. Doesn't make me a fighter. So I did stop going to school. And it was a roll of the dice. It really was. I was aware. I was aware I was rolling the dice. And bed big or go home. Risky to get the brisket. So. Okay. So you decide you're not going to go to school. Decide I'm going to be a stand up comedian. But it takes you a while until you become a comedian. So what did you do? Like, what did you do in that in between time? Talked a lot of smack. You know, honestly, I talked about myself in future tense. And that's a problem. That's a problem. You know, talking about where I'm going, talking about how I see things. No amount of willpower without application is going to make it a reality. You can't want it into existence as far as I'm concerned. I'm sure someone can find a way to disagree. You have to want it. And then apply it. I thought about comedy probably more than most people. And I dissected it. And I would watch some listen to some come up with ideas. But at the beginning, there wasn't a sense of actual full commitment. And, you know, I don't know that I've ever said that to anybody. But I don't there wasn't a sense. And a lot of people around me believed the hype I created about myself. They loved me so much that they were like, Yeah, this guy's awesome. A comedy. Have you seen him? No. This guy's going to be a great comedian. When was the last time you heard his material? I haven't. And I went, it was 2002-ish. And I went on stage and I didn't have the performance I had envisioned. It wasn't anywhere near what I thought it could be or should be. Now, it wasn't the worst thing. People were polite. They were very nice. And they listened. No tomatoes, no booze, no nothing like that. It was a respectful and artistic safe place to perform. But nothing came out the way I had it in here. It all worked out here. This made sense. But this, it didn't, it didn't. It's like if you have all the ingredients, yeah, you got salt, you got pepper, but you put too much pepper. You didn't put enough salt. You got air to put in your tires, but you got to put the right amount of air in the tires so the car can run properly. I didn't have the equations right. And it's because I hadn't spent enough time doing it. There's no replacing an application. There's no replacing doing it. And I got in the back of my friend's car because he drove me up from South Austin to North Austin. Him and his girlfriend at the time. I sat in the back seat. It's 20 years later. I'm not in fourth grade anymore, Jose. And somehow I find myself looking out a window with a giant tear streaming down my face. I don't remember what song was playing this time. But I'm in the same place I was. Yeah. All those years ago, after having fallen short. What do you do? Do you just stop? You don't. You don't stop. You hurt. And then you move forward. You dissect. Where did I go wrong? What was my mistake? Why couldn't I tell that story? I've told a thousand times to my friends. Why didn't it work this time? What happened? Yeah. And then I started adopting. I started to evolve. And I stopped seeing them as an audience. And I said, these are your friends at a barbecue now. Next time you see this crowd, talk to them like they're your friends. You go to a family barbecue, a friend's barbecue. You don't know everyone at that barbecue. Not everyone there is someone you grew up with. Not everyone there is a relative. Yeah. But you talk to them because you're in a safe environment. So you include Joey and Robert and Beto in a conversation, men for Jose and Hav and Cess. You talk to them. You would your friends from childhood because they're part of that atmosphere. So stand up. Then I had to start talking to people and be like, what? There's no criteria. Tell the story with charisma, Jacob, and tell it like you're just having fun. Then I did. I remember going to poetry nights and doing, I stopped going to the comedy club because I was A, embarrassed. B, I wanted to seek out justice in other areas. So I said, in my mind, not having the show I wanted to have was in just, it was my fault. But I adopted an opponent. And the opponent was the outcome. That was my opponent. The outcome, my failure became my opposition. So now I would go to poetry nights in Austin. At the time, there was only two open mics in Austin, comedically. One was on Sunday and Thursday, I believe. Now there's five at night. But back then, there was Sunday and Thursday. So I would go to poetry nights and I'd hang out with the poets. Now the poets would let you go up whenever the muse called. No list. There was a gentleman named Tom, the world poet from Australia. He was one of the hosts. And I'd say, excuse me, I'm with my ponytail, by the way, hair down to here, ponytail, rip jeans and all. And I said, excuse me, I was like, I'm a comedian. Do I need to sign up on the list? And he's like, oh, might just go up whenever the muse calls. Just go with the muse calls. And I'm like, what does that even mean? Who talks like that? And then I started noticing he would just go up whenever there was a break in the action. So he would go up and do his poetry. The next person, Jose would go up and be like, my dog died. I don't know why it makes me cry. Oh no, who am I? And then everyone would be like snap, snap, snap, clap, clap, clap. And it's like, all right. And then Jose would get off. And then there'd be a little lovel. And I'd be like, and then I would just go up there. And I would explain who I was and what I was doing, which you don't do that. But I did. Comics don't be like, I'm trying to be a comic. And this is who I am. I did. Because I was at a potion night. Yeah. Well, as the muse calls meant, while all these comics were going up once on Sunday, once on Thursday, some of them had work. So maybe they're going up once on Thursday, they missed Sunday. Maybe they're super busy and something happened in their life. They're only going up once every month. Not me. Jose, I would go to this, at the hideout on the corner of Congress and 7th Street, still there in Austin. I would go on Monday night and I'd go up five times in a night. The muse called me five times. And then anytime I forgot what I was going to talk about, I'd get off stage like, oh man, I forgot. It's okay. There's going to be a gap. And then I would get back up and be like, so I forgot to say my grandma bought me pizza and I would tell my story. And then I'd go up five times in a night. I had a triumphant return to the comedy club on an open mic. Maybe a month or two later, I go up on stage. I don't want to say I crushed it. I did a lot better. I got pops, pops when the crowd laughs, you get your pop. I got a pop in a couple of places I wanted to get a pop. I wasn't talking like I'd had too much coffee. I was too excitable back in those days. I got these things to say. I got this. Calm down, dude. Tell your story. You got five whole minutes. You don't finish. You don't finish. This comedy club's not going anywhere. And I did my set. Afterwards, a veteran comic comes up to me. They used to call him Uncle Grumpy or something like that. And he said, you haven't been here in a while, but you've been somewhere. And he leans over. He's like, where have you been? And I said, what do you mean? He goes, night and day, where have you been? I said, oh, I go, is that a compliment? He goes, yep. He goes, you're a different person. He goes, it's been a couple of months. I said, I've been going to the poetry nights. And he's like, what? I go, I'm going up five times a night on certain poetry nights. I'm just finding them at vintage clothing shops. If there's no avenue, it's because you didn't want an avenue. You didn't want to go somewhere. That's the way I thought even then. If you want to go somewhere, go, go. There's a destination. I've said this for years. If you've never been somewhere before, before, right, left, up, down, north, south, east and west. If you've never been there, everywhere is a destination. Everywhere's somewhere awesome. Because you haven't been to any of these directions. Everywhere you land is a learning experience. And it's something that you can take home because we're alive. We need to be living. And I did better. Wasn't great. I did better. And for the first several years of my comedy career, I got by on charisma, charisma and confidence. I always used to say that behind closed doors, I was feeding people baloney and convincing them it was taken. They believed it. The, you know, as I sit here from my vantage point and I listen to stories, right? I listen to countless stories. I've got quite a few interviews scheduled for this week. And I love, because at some point in the story, somebody's going to talk about a setback. Somebody's going to talk about a challenge or obstacle they've got overcome. And so I love to hear how they dealt with it. This is different. This is different. You know, most of the time folks will say, so and so took me by the hand or so and so told me I needed to do this, a mentor, a guide. You found your way to poetry night. Did anybody recommend that to me? So, I love that you brought that up because it's a perfect pivot and a point of pride for me. I didn't have anybody growing up in the world of comedy, not personally. Personally, I've had more support than any comic ever, like personally. No, no. I had friends that were, would go to poetry nights. They were very into a bohemian lifestyle. And one of them told me about it. A good friend of mine, one of my best friends in the entire planet, his name is the lizard man. He's tattooed green from head to toe. He's got a split tongue that goes like this, surgically implanted eyebrows. He's been on Ripley's Believe It or Not, all that stuff. And he has a phrase I don't know where he got it from, but it means a lot to me. Be the person you wish you had coming up. Someone like him, there was no previous lizard man. You know, he didn't have someone tell him what it's like to be tattooed in green. Nobody said, hey, here's the blueprint to be the lizard man. Here's how you get on Ripley's Believe It or Not. Here's how you split. They didn't give him that blueprint for stand up. Unfortunately, I didn't have someone mentor me. I just went to anyone, anywhere anyone would listen. And then I returned to the comedy club. And here's the thing, right when I got what's called five minute good. Guess what? Another setback. I got good enough to where I was going to start turning heads as the new kid on the block in Austin, Texas, in stand up comedy. And both my parents got sick. They're fine. But at the time they both got sick in a three month span of each other. I was living in Austin. They were living in Donna, Texas. Right when I got good at stand up for that to take the next level, I had to move back back to South Texas. So Jose got even harder. I finally was about to reap what I sowed. And now I've been removed from the region in which in which an industry exists. There is no industry in South Texas. To this day, there's not. There's gigs. There's no industry. There's work. But there's not work. So at that point, I became the equivalent of a 1980s rapper selling cassettes out of the trunk of his car. Any bar I went to, I would see if there was a stage or a corner of a room where I thought maybe someone would let me talk there. And everywhere I went, I made sure to be memorable, tip the bartender extra fat, ask for the manager or the owner of the establishment. And then they would introduce me like, Oh, this is John Simon from Simon says, he owns this building. I said, Hey, John Simon, I'm Jacob James Garcia. I'm a stand up comic out of Austin, but I'm originally from Donna, Texas. He goes, Oh, what brings you back to the valley? I'm like, Oh, some personal stuff, family, but I was wondering what's the slowest night of the week for business here? Like, what's your deadest night? It's called Tuesdays, probably maybe Wednesdays. Tell you what, you give me 50 bucks and I'll do stand up comedy for an hour. And I'll bring my friends, my friends will supplement the money that you use to pay me. It's a win-win. And he was like, Okay, we'll try it out. So I would just do comedy there. Went to a best Western hotel in Westlaco had some beverages there. Who's the manager? And like, let's do Ruben. Hey, everyone, what's your slowest night here? Boom. Then I ended up doing that best Western 13 times in 12 months. So it became an event. Whenever I did stand up was an event. I bartended in Westlaco. I made everybody who was my customer. You want me to keep on serving you these drinks? You go to my show on Thursday and they would go and I got better. I found a way to just keep going. And then when I returned back to Austin all these years later, I had secretly become a powerhouse. I had all my trials and tribulations around less competition. I just had to create the venue. I had to create a market for me. Then I went back to Austin, did open mics, didn't repeat myself at the same venue for two months straight. So everyone was like, when's it going to run out of material? I'm not. I've been six years away privately in my hyperbolic time chamber getting better. Then I showed back up. Then I started making friends in the business, but I never had a chance to because right when I got good enough to make friends, I had to leave. So the first 10, 15 years of my career, I was all about myself, bro, but I had support from my friends and family. And then the friends I met in Austin, the loser man who I made reference to earlier, says, you want to go to England? I said, yes, yes, I do. England turned into Australia. And let's do that too. Fast forward all these years later, I've done over 400, almost 400 shows outside of this country alone. Wow. I performed in Australia 300 plus times. I am one congratulations on the work and on that experience. I am incredibly impressed by the initiative. Because I think too often folks are like, I don't have somebody to show me the way. Or even your story, I've got to come home to take care of my parents, right? I mean, think of, I'm sure you yourself could think of countless people you know, who are maybe off doing something and just when they were about to make it, whatever it is that they're doing, they've got to come home. Family tragedy, right? Or obligation. And that's it. They stop pursuing whatever it is that they're doing. Here you showed incredible initiative going to the clubs and asking just like, hey, when's your slowest night? Continuously working on your craft, but also kind of learning the business side of things. Where does that initiative come from? My parents, I mean, they're so important to set a foundation for the youth. And there's a lot of people that don't have the luxury of Patrisso Jesus Garcia, my dad. They don't have the luxury of normal Linda Garcia, my mom. But that's where education comes involved. That's where the teachers and the counselors and the principals, being a good friend, being a good adult, being someone who says, hey, good job. You know, telling someone, I just went to a jujitsu competition. My brother has a jujitsu gym in Laferia. It's called Jungle Warrior JuJitsu, Brazilian jujitsu. And my nieces were competing in this tournament. While they were competing in this tournament, my niece won. But I asked the parent next to me saying, what is that little girl who's competing's name? Because they were cheering for her. They said, Nora. And I made sure to say, good job, Nora. I'm still, she was our opponent, but she still needs to hear encouragement. I think I don't want to place responsibility on people who don't want responsibility. But if you're willing to take on the responsibility to be a decent person, encourage somebody. You know, my friends encouraged me. I didn't have a mentor in the business of stand-up comedy, but I had all the support anyone could ever dream of. And you're as good as the people you surround yourself with. How was I going to fail? My friends are amazing. You know, my family's amazing. And again, not everyone has that luxury. But seek out what you want to be around. Look for what you want to become. Follow the people you want to be. You know, we live in a time and an era where you can literally just follow inspirational things on Instagram, but they've made the choice to follow this, that and the other. Are you distracting yourself? Maybe. Are you evolving? That's what we're going for. I distracted myself. I had some lunches earlier today. That was my reward. That was a distraction. I had a pedicure too. I was fancy. I was a little fancy gorilla, but I'm going to tell you right now, you have to be able to calibrate. You have to be able to say, remember, people always say pursue balance, right? It's like, oh, you want to find balance. That's a very vague thing to pursue. Balance. What's balance? I don't know. I read something recently, independent of the phrase pursue balance. It said pursue contrast. And then I'm like, ooh, put them both together. If you can't figure out where balance exists, pursue contrast. At least at that point, you calibrate. At least at that point, you wear it together. So I didn't have anybody show me the ropes. And here's what's crazy. The rich get richer. Once I came back to Austin, really good. I started linking up with the lizard man, with Aaron Cheatham, with people in my circle. That was just iron sharpening iron. I have friends in England. I just got back from England. I was talking to some students in England under the motivational speaking aspect two weeks ago, right before I met you. I just got back from England. I was able to acquire gigs for a friend of mine because this person liked me and trusted they'd like him. That's amazing. Yeah. Help. Help. Even if you didn't have it, there's that old, have you seen that meme? And it shows a man standing underneath the rain with an umbrella and he's drinking. He's drinking and it says I drink because my dad drank. And then it shows another man walking in the sunlight in a suit and a briefcase and happy in the sunshine. He says, I don't drink because my dad drank. I don't see that. Nope. It's perspective. What are you going to do with it? And I'm telling you, I don't want to create the illusion that all day, every day, I like things are working out. My life is going to be great. But I condition myself. I tell myself, you know, keep going. Sometimes I jokingly sing things I'm grateful for. And I sound stupid, but I'm by myself. I'm like, my mom's really great. My dad's super awesome. My brother ran sister are the best. And so are my nieces. And it's like, wow, I feel silly, but silly is better than sad. Yeah. So just whatever you do. And I'm like, haha, look at how dumb I am. And now I just chuckled. But I know we're running out of time. So I do want to make this, this point stand up got taken away from me because now I live back. I got that good. And now I live in the real Grand Valley again. I left Austin where I started to blossom as an adult as an international comedian. Now I'm back here where I met you, but I didn't meet you under the context of standup comedian. I met you as a keynote speaker. Well, who would have thunk it? I'm back at home for family reasons again. Pandemic started. World shut down. I a guy says, Hey, I know a motivational speaker. This motivational speaker named Jonathan Medina says, Hey, I'll guide you 20 years into a business. All of a sudden I have guidance. This new avenue, I have everything I didn't have in standup standup. I had to plus my behind. I had to trailblaze. I had to figure stuff out. This new era, people are just waiting for my call. Hey, what do you need? What can I do for you? I share moments of celebration with him and his brother. I'm like, Jonathan, this just happened. Just got this paycheck. I'll call his brother Josh. Josh. He's like, did you make sure to do this? I'm like, I did that too. But all of the things at this point, I'm not addicted to an identity. I've no longer am married to the idea of I'm just this one person doing this one thing. Now I'm married to contribution. I'm addicted to excelling. And if that's in standup, because here's the thing, I still do standup. I just pursue it less. If you want me, woo me. If you need me, tell me I'm pretty. But if I'm doing speaking, that's, I find personally, where there's so many great and talented comics, I love the idea that I think I'm better suited in the world of team building, employee morale, prepping students for college. I talked to a bunch of seniors at the idea academy not too long back. And I said, what do you want me to talk about? They said, can you talk about this? I said, no problem. But at this point, I'll say I've lived enough life to where I'm not just reciting things I've read. I have tried and true anecdotes that I can be like, I sat down and broke bread with this wonderful artist in Australia. I was in Mexico City, met a chef. He told me his story, which is true. I was in England recently at a place that does charity events. I'm talking a lot right now, because I'm on your podcast, but make no mistake about it. If you see me sitting in silence, I'm very happy. I'm very happy because that's where you learn. You learn when other people are sharing. You learn when you allow yourself to be the student. And you may master a few things in life, but you'll never fully master life. So you have no reason to abandon the student mentality. Always hold on to that. Thank you. Thank you for your story. As we transition out, you've given us countless pieces of wisdom. But if there was one overarching message you want to leave our listeners with, what is that message? I'm off the top of my head. Being mindful of the moment has brought me more wealth than anything ever has. No paycheck has ever given me a moment. A true human experience. A paycheck is a transaction. Don't get me wrong. I love it. But sitting down, breaking bread for me, discussing the meal here in a tale, mowing the lawn with joy, taking a moment to acknowledge what you've done, what you've overcome, what you plan to do. Being mindful of the moment is what I would, I always say, I present information you decide whether it's advice or not. You know, that's up to you to decide if it's advice. But being mindful of the moment has given me countless riches. And as I've grown, I'm more mindful. Being fulfilled makes you less exhausted, less tired, and you're more effective in your pursuits because you're not drained. Because you have these moments in your back pocket all day long. Oh, remember when Julie gave me a bite of vegan chili at a hostel in Adelaide, Australia? I am from Donna. She's from France. I'll never forget that moment. And it makes me rich anytime I think about it. You know, so be mindful. That's what I would say. And anything outside of that, don't give up. Don't. Yeah, you can change directions. But don't let yourself stay down. You can get knocked down. Don't stay down. Well said. Well said. Thank you again. Thank you again for your story. Thank you to our listeners out there, everybody who's joined us. And this concludes another episode of the Weigh to College podcast. Thank you to my guests. Thank you, everybody. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, follow the podcast, all of that good stuff. And do me the favor and share the podcast with one other person. I would appreciate it. Bye bye.