This week's guest is Jacob Menteau, who joins us from sunny San Diego, California. Jacob is currently a bartender at the realm of 52 remedies in San Diego. Jacob is an avid mental health advocate and has been diagnosed with anxiety, depression, ADHD, and autism. We talk with Jacob how this impacts his life and work and how he uses this as a positive to achieve his goals in life.
Jacob is extremely open up to struggles and is terrific to see how he's overcome these hurdles and become successful. One of Jacob's favorite quotes is the following. We never lose. We either win or we learn.
We had a great conversation with Jacob. Check him out on Instagram at the cocktail retriever. Enjoy the show. Back again with another episode of the industry podcast.
My name is Kip. This is Dan. What is going on? Not too much.
I was hanging out with you. Awesome. It's always going to be awesome. Just great.
That's great. Wonderful. That was the usual question I asked every week. How's business at bars?
It's just a non-stop roller coaster ride. One day I'm going to wake up and all bars will have been good the same weekend. I'm waiting for that miracle. Yeah, with all the students back in town, even though your bars aren't so student oriented, does that have any impact on business?
Well, as we're recording this, we had homecoming weekend last weekend. I like the party school. Yeah, so that was really good for the bar up town. Townwater Lou Babylon Sisters.
Not so good for downtown kitcheners. Should have run where the speak easy is. Really terrible for the argyle arms in Preston, where there are no schools. Yeah.
There was also a massive festival, music festival in Cambridge. So that threw a lot of our customers away. I could have just shut the doors. We're left them open.
Nobody would have dropped the place because there was no one in the area. But yeah, like I said, the miracle one day you're going to ask me this question. On a Monday, I'm going to be like, every single bar was busy. Perfect.
Well, let's open the batch. You'll know because I'll be shooting to kill it. Yeah. Wonderful.
Okay, so we have another great guest. As always, we're going to get to Jacob and tell him just a minute here. Before we do, if you like the show and you like what we're doing here, subscribe, review your hear me say it every fucking week. So maybe do it.
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All right, Jacob. How are you? I'm doing good. Yeah, I think especially let me pop on the show.
It's really, really great opportunity and a real privilege. Oh, thanks for doing it. We appreciate it. Especially we always appreciate people with the time difference too, because Jacob's coming from San Diego.
So three hours behind us and we fucked up the whole scheduling of this. So thanks again for being a good sport about all this. Yes, thanks so much. I wouldn't have to use it.
No, I mean, honestly, yeah. I mean, honestly, when you do you just teach me too, because I'm at that point where it would have been the other way around it. Yes, it would have been on time. So it's perfect.
Okay, so let's talk a little bit about before we start recording. You were mentioning that you were recently from Vegas? Like, did you actually grow up in Vegas? Yeah, you know, actually I was there for a lot of my high school.
And so if I did, I had a few videos where we moved around quite a bit. So what I call my like hometown is just a place I live in the longest. So that's between like Oregon, which I live in like Salem, some small town like capital over in Oregon itself. And Vegas for about three years, three or four years.
And it was, I'll tell you why you grew up real quick in that city for sure. Yeah, when you say big into casinos, what does that mean? Oh, actually it was the marketing for like a Vlogio, one point for that department. Oh, they were kind of waiting.
So it's actually been a really good kind of outlet for me for a lot of stuff that I do on a size well, because I mean, you're doing some drastic massive, I mean, one person didn't market themselves, especially a guy with a goofy smile. Yeah. So you were kind of like an army brat, but for debauchery? Literally, literally that.
No, I grew up in the like casino arcades and the little playgrounds where every loser gets while they're gambling. Oh, crazy. Like we obviously, this shows about the industry. So we want to get into talking about your industry career, but we can't let this go.
Like talk about that upbringing. Like what was it like? Well, you know, it was actually a mix of two different things, obviously, I was like, my dad was always very busy. But same time, I always had a lot of these really awesome opportunities.
I mean, he would meet so many different people. Like, I think he met like Joe Montana a couple times. We got out of rest from him. Joey Chestnut, I got to watch him way, way back in the day and always did a hot dog eating contest.
I got to go to like the boom boom hop jam was only hot. It was like something like that where it traded off. Yeah, it was crazy. You know, and coming from a kid that, you know, with a lot of the stuff that I have, wasn't like a kid with a lot of huge friend groups and stuff, so that kind of stuff was so fun.
You know, and it was really, really just a great opportunity to experience these things. These amazing things people got to do, you know, and not my end, but then like, Joe Chestnut, I mean, what freaking guy can eat 75 freaking hot dogs in a short period of time or Tony Hawk, you know, developing the 9 and 20, you know, that kind of stuff. Just a little inspiration of kid. It was Joey Chestnut just a weird as fuck dude or was he all right?
Honestly, he was literally the most normal guy you've ever been in your life. Just so polite and so quiet. But he was quiet. It was just really quiet.
You know, I think you both a little bit. And that guy was like, the skinniest person you've ever been. And it's kind of insane to see it. It's also hard to talk when you got 15 hot dogs showed down, you're throwing it all times.
So that's probably. Okay, so crazy, I'm pretty much super cool. What point did you decide you wanted to get into the service industry? You know, it's so funny.
I actually wanted to get in this industry when I was really young. So my mom worked in restaurants all my life. And so when I say my dad, my dad was my stepdad. I was 10 to be my real dad.
And so I was like, 21. And so with it, you know, I grew up in restaurants. So she worked at like a place at Crock-Dock Cafe in like hell, where I get to bar every day. And it's one of those, you hear those things in like Westworld, Cornerstone Memories, you know, and develop like everything you did rest your life.
And it was kind of one of that where I always go back that moment where, you know, I'm sitting at the bar, you're enjoying like kind of like watching this guy develop drinks and just interact with guests. And you know, out of everybody that was ever in a restaurant, you know, a nice person to me was the bartender. Right. You give me the really bad for you, like Jerry's and I eat those all day or you like magic tricks or like making cocktails all night.
And for me, that was just something that resonated and something I want to do because I was just wanting to make people happy. And so hospitality was just a natural avenue for it. And then from there, it was like not being, you know, I was supposed to clarify fighting and I did some acting when I was here too. And you know, I just kind of always led back to the bartending and it really didn't really become a thing.
It's like with the trick dogs very first menu and so I was just go, I was far back, you know, I was acting and I was very, very committed to the acting thing. And I walked in the very first trick to talk about me and I checked it out. And from then on, I was obsessed. And I never looked back the next week and just spoke to my bartending group.
And it was, it was the best thing that happened to me. So Oh, crazy. So what was the first, what was your first, what was your first, what would you consider your first like real bartending gig? You know, my first like real real lineup, I wouldn't say it was the best one because it was actually this restaurant that is close now called graffiti anti-luma, Sonoma County.
And you know, this place where it was like re pouring and, you know, like never washed and you know, you were using like sweet and sour, which nothing wrong with that especially because of business, but you want to go for it's awesome. But it was definitely just up, you just threw into a tin and you served it and it wasn't really like hot tub programs. But you know, it teaches you, but it teaches you cell things, you know, and that's kind of the beauty is something I preach to a lot of my teams and stuff is it doesn't matter where you work or where you came from. Every single one of those you can take something from to add to your toolbox and a YouTube that professional whether it be in the hostile you're elsewhere.
One I understand and like from my own career, but also from doing this show for a couple of years and the other one thing that I can definitively say is all the steps matter, you learn something from every spot and the more of those places you work at the better. Like we talked to people like lucked out in their very first job. They got like a high end craft cocktail bar. And I just think you're missing some steps that way.
Absolutely. And you look at some of the most famous people. I mean, how many well-known barters come from a barista background? You know, how many people come from corporate?
You know, it's, I mean, Eric Castro with the DJs before he was Eric Castro, you know, and a lot of people that were really well-known came from polite. I mean, they were baristas, they came from crazy stuff and at the end of the day, you can't teach fashion, you can teach one to make a drink. So what was the first bar that you worked at where you started to develop like the craft cocktailing skills? You know, we're really, really took off for me was a bar called Double Experiment in San Diego.
It was really amazing. We actually got to be training by Stan Ross. It was a really, really good mentor to me. He was a big factor for me, getting into the cap program for Tesla Cocktail.
And so somebody I could reach out on the dime and ask advice to and where that kind of happened was walking into the situation and kind of seeing a person that you idolize, you never met before and have been teaching what he does at, you know, out of all places. I mean, it just serves up to certain kind of passion to it that, you know, like, okay, this is the real deal. Like, this is what it really, really means to me in the scene. And not necessarily whether you make the best cocktails in the world, but just, just the only thing you get being a part of something like that.
Right. Yeah. And that kind of experiences and mentorship is invaluable, especially when you're trying to break into this. Well, at one point, you're like, I know you said you just gave up acting the next week and you were like, didn't look back, but there must have been a time when you started bartending.
We were just like, okay, this is what I do now. I would say, actually, that's a great question. I would say where that kind of happened was this place which called the drawing board in Petalume again. It was right for him who was in Diego about a year.
And it was just a scrap coffee bar in the small town that was just not exist. You know, nobody knew really what a craft that was. And so I was able to kind of join in there. And he was literally a woman run bar, where I was, I think I was the only male bartender.
So it was, it was kind of an incredible experience because you like, you've really learned a lot about different ways of like handling a bar, especially with people that are so badass. You know, you had this bar bar bench at that point, had one point another work to death and go once again, happened to be in a small town, luck, you know. And Daniel Peters was another one that was really big inspiration. He's kind of taught me what it meant to be a real like bartender.
From then, I was just, I was just like, actually blown away by how many people came to see them. You know, they were just as they believed they were the happiest people in the world. Where I was working these places trying to just make money, you know, go for the money places where you know, have that's not sales and you're just trying to throw them out. You know, when I'm talking to people, but once I saw how happy you can make somebody just in a 30 minute interaction, that's what that's when I need to be a part of this.
I'm like, I have to be a part of this industry and I have to do it, you know, to a certain kind of level that I want to. So what prompted the move this at Diego? Funny enough, it was actually originally to go to school firefighting. So I was going to school firefighting me and see up in Summit County.
And I was kind of at a point, it was just happened. Seems like he touched the bullet there. You know, he's crazy. You know, he's a great, obviously he's a walker.
So those are, they, you're nothing but mad respect for everybody doesn't. He knows what they had to go through. And like, it's funny because I'm trying not to because, but it's not what I was able to do. Oh my gosh.
No, but it's so basically like the fires that just happened in the Bay Area and stuff. And on top of it, my best friend, I just think killed by a drunk driver. And so we, yeah, no, it's, you know, it's a while ago and, you know, he's grown past it and my wife and I, but it was, it was the things that inspired me to jump into firefighting to help other people that couldn't help themselves. And unfortunately, I, I didn't have the stomach, I didn't have the stomach for the bodily fluid part of it.
And so I didn't really go very far in it. Great. Why is it great? Body fluid?
Absolutely not. I'm also the guy that you can't send into a bathroom clean, throw up and let's see stuff like mint. So you've done that trick, you stuff them in your nose. Oh, no.
Oh, really? So the best way to do it won't smell it won't even bother you at all. It's amazing. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. And so we moved down to the A to go and within a couple months, I just kind of decided, you know, there's other ways that I can help people. And, you know, that's why I got this industry. You know, we, we have a great platform to do really, really amazing things.
And, you know, and that's kind of what a lot of things I've been doing is trying to showcase just how much we can help out people and how much help is out there for others, you know. Yeah, talk to us about the bar you're working at now. Yeah. So with actually this, as far as called the realm of 52 remedies, it's really amazing for about five years ago.
What's so amazing about this is actually they are a bar that doesn't really look for the publicity. They don't look for advertisements. They just care about the hospitality, care about the gas interaction, the drinks being perfect. And it's funny because every bartender in town does it's the best bar in town.
You know, it's just definitely a thing where they want to keep the local spot. In our bar, Major Chris Lee comes from a really great background from a barrel fashion in South Korea. So he just comes with a great experience, great learning thing. And honestly, I've been really, really humbled being a part of this program and just learning as much as I possibly can from him.
Like I always say, my favorite thing in the world is to be the dumbest person in the room. And every day I come in here, I'm like, I am literally the dumbest person in the room and it's just going to be the world. So. Yeah, that happens to Dan everywhere he goes.
So true. I just did that. By choice, maybe not by choice. But it happens a lot of the time.
Talk to us about the bar scene in San Diego in general. The only thing I know about San Diego was supposed to be like one of the most fucking amazing places to live in the world, just for climate and it's a cool city. You have sports, you have music, you have everything right there. But what's the bar scene like?
Yeah, actually, it's very in the way of our scene. You know, it's we have, let's see, we've had at least four of the bars ranked in top 50. A couple of them that have one of the wars. It's very interesting, really cool.
Like, you know, you have play provisions, obviously, race doubles, which was ranked last year in Young Blood, which just got ranked this last year. But on top of it, I mean, those are just the big names. And that's from one company, Consortium Holdings, obviously, which owns a lot of the popular craft of bars in town. But we do have a really underrated scene outside of it where we have some very talented bar dinners that come from all over the country.
And it's got to create a really great scene. We're just so late back here that, you know, we're, once again, a lot of people don't really push that national spotlight. It's all about like a local community and making sure that outside is there and really making cocktails. And it's, but I will say for a fact, we have definitely one of the most underrated scenes in the country by far.
And I think when Bart's Week comes around, we are able to showcase that a little bit more, which is kind of a really cool thing for me to see. Yeah, with Bart's Tensor's week at all about that, we don't really, I don't know if we even ever interviewed anyone from San Diego before, have we? Well, I don't think so. So yeah, talk to us about that.
No, now the first one. So basically Bart's Tensor's Week in was brought together by Chris Fettino, who was a big factor into Speedrack, as well as just being just a legend in general, on Air Castro, who gave the other and basically created this, this event to bring people to San Diego in the showcase or industry. Originally started when play position was kind of at speak, and they were doing all the crazy stuff. And so they came to go with D that.
And we basically have four days worth of events where bars from all the country come out and they host different bars, different hotels. And it's like a mini-etails of the cocktail, a lot less education, a lot more partying, but definitely a little bit more of this like come together kind of feel, you know? They're also just started last year going to Palm Springs as well. So there's twice a year now, one of them is going to be in February here in San Diego and the other one's in Palm Springs, which just happened last week.
It's a really, really cool thing. Honestly, it's a, it gets really, really, really well. I know when I, I threw my Angels Any event, I mean, we were doing laybacks off the roof of the outdoor patio and, you know, everybody just happened a good time, people hadn't seen the years. And I mean, that's a beauty of all these events.
You see these people you've never seen, which is really, really awesome. Right. So a lot of these people you probably met down at Tails, right? Oh, yeah.
Yeah. It's weird. As you know, it's such a small industry. You know, one point or another, we run into each other, we talk to each other, especially the more involved you get, you know, it's the same people that you're a run them up, you know, it's, it tells the cost you see people coming out and you just kind of draw yourself to the really passionate people that really love the industry and to like try and do some really dope ass off.
And have you gotten involved in competitions as well or more just on the sort of education side? You know, it's, I've done a lot of the, I've done some competitions. I made it to the International for the Duluth Clinic, a couple years ago, which was really, really awesome. It was just a really great experience to that.
This is my first year during world class, I just have always, I'm always just kind of a big workhorse on the day of the day. And so I just really had the time to do it. And right now I'm on a bit of a, what's called a kind of a break, it's where I have this opportunity to kind of do it. And so for years I've been trying to give you the world class, I'm pretty sure doing it.
I'm really so part of it. And I think I'm going to get a little bit more involved in competitions for for sure. It's just, I'm a competitive person just by nature. And so I feel like it'd be a really good little hobby slash, a lot of things.
So it'd be great. So for the world class, I think it's obviously a lot of work. What's your plan of attack for doing that and also still trying to maintain your employment there? I know, she easily, you know, with that, you know, as far as what I'm trying to bring the table forward, I'm a bit of an eccentric person.
I know I know I know with the autism and stuff like that, I have a singular thing that I focus on. I like, it's, it's all a thousand bars, you know, anything else else is just something I never really interested in. And, you know, if you talk to people and only hobby I've ever had. So just kind of giving yourself this video world class, just they really, really want you to be yourself as much as possible.
I mean, Dissy Pollack won, you know, last year. And she's actually my great coach for Casas, last year, so my mentor was really dope. And he is just like the most original personality person ever. And she has the sweetest person in the world.
And she won. And a lot of it came from her, letting her original personality out because they don't want cookie cutter stuff. That's some of our bartenders, you know, it's, you want to be cookie cutter. We do a lot of other jobs.
So it's, it's coming out being myself, being my really nerdy stuff and explaining tacos make absolutely no sense of some work, you know, and I miss a second part of the question. So I got someone to that when I told you. I kind of wanted to focus on anyway, because you brought it up. So autism and you have ADHD and talk to us a little bit about like how that is affected you positively and negatively in the service industry.
Yeah, I mean, that's, it's a really great question. It's been an interesting process because I was, I was like diagnosed with autism and, you know, it's, it was knowing that I had a so 16. And the great thing about it, one with ADHD is it does have to multitask like nobody's business. Like it's kind of insane.
But the trade off is your clumsy person world. You know, I couldn't tell you how many times I've broken the glass, because I make a movement that I shouldn't make, but it makes sense in my head. And then as I'm kind of finding out with like the autism is hyper focused, you know, it's, it's perfectionism. It doesn't matter how many times I mess up, whether it be like, growing, I actually never throw before.
And so I started working here. And, and now I go so upset that every single day I throw like a hundred different times and not like literally different ones, but like actually doing it. And now I can do it like all the way down to like, oh, floor, you know, it's, it's that comes with that. But on the side of it too is, you know, you're always constantly struggling with, you know, the focus retention and, you know, the hard part of like making eye contact sometimes, you know, it's, you know, it's luckily, I, because I was so late, I noticed I'm a very, very high functioning.
So I'm socialized very well, but it's just many things that I can't control like that or my rocking back and forth my ticks. Like my wedding ring is a, it's like a moving ring. And so it's just so when I'm talking, I can mess with it. I'm on it.
I'm focused on them because I have something else I can pitch with. But I will say the biggest thing by far that is helping with is it gave me a really sensitive palette. So I've, I mean, I can taste something, you know, what it's, it's like for ever. And as long as I can taste something else, and I can recreate that as long as I've tasted the flavors that've been in there in some sort of spirit.
Really, I'm so cookie here. And I tried for the first time and I recreated immediately. It's not like, it's not perfect science, obviously, but I get pretty damn close and it's a blessing with that for sure. And you know, once again, I trade off on that is, you know, my head goes a million different directions at once.
And so it's time to try and like keep that one for that focus on one, you know, as you know, nobody can see me because you're listening, but you can see I'm fidgeting all the time and moving and it's an interesting process for sure. Well, I'm interested because like, so, and again, I'm going to say I'm very ignorant because I don't know anything about this. So just bear with me. So the autism is does lead to hyper focus, right?
Yes, it's almost the opposite of that. So actually it's a misconception of ADHD. So we actually, it's not an attention deficit. So there's actually a big push to change that term.
And she actually is like a hyper focus. The thing is, is that you hyper focus on something, but then you like, within a certain amount of time, you lose interesting net thing. That's why they call it the jackball trades. So we get really, really good.
And we get good at something really quick. But once we get good, that's it. We don't want to be anything more. And so we don't go above that.
We don't, we don't try to be like the best of that thing. And so if I, that's the cool thing about this is that it bounces that out a little bit where, once again, my hyper, my permanent hyper focus is the bar industry and cocktails. And so I always mean beyond it. And it's all I ever want to do.
But everything else is just like a jackball trades. I get good at it and I get really bored with it. So we can say it's almost like a benefit for doing this job? I would say so.
And that's also the reason why I was always so drawn to it. You know, I think actually our industry is the highest percentage of people that is in their diversion, because people are drawn to it because of those things. And it's a mixture of those traits being actually good to this industry, which doesn't normally happen anywhere else. But also that because of people drawn to it, we're actually more accepted.
We are, it is our industry is the industry of like Calcast in a sense, in the best kind of way. You know, we're kind of like the people that think outside the box or, you know, do the weird way. And that's why we're all drawn to it. And I've never felt more accepted in anything.
So part of this industry. Well, I'm glad that you went there because you actually answered a question that I was going to ask you, which is I love what that happens. Basically, I was going to leave you in that direction. You just went and answered it.
But so let's step back for a second. Because I wasn't aware about the fact that the autism would help with your palate, which is super cool. And the other question I would have about it is like, because you can become hyper focused on say crafting a perfect cocktail or like you were saying, throwing or whatever, does that ever affect you negatively when it's like a crazy, busy night, keeping up with that stuff? Or does that, can you still focus on just like keeping up as well?
Yeah. And that's once again, it's a beautiful question. So with it is, there are sometimes where I'm so focused on something I just learned. Like my first week here, actually, I learned how to make a really, really creamy, not quite whipped cream, but kind of whipped cream concoction they do here.
And so on a mild night, I was just sitting there developing 30 different like recipes, doing it their way of doing it. And sometimes it's really hard to get out of that mindset because your creativity is just going and you just want to get that done. You're still focused on like protecting this process and be able to do without thinking about second thought. But a lot of times where we thrive is where we enjoy and thrive is the trust around the industry is so busy and so bustling.
There's so many things happening and ones all around you that I don't even have time to think. And that's the beauty because a lot of people don't understand with these things is that it's not a matter of being an attention deficit. It's a matter of I have a thousand thoughts going through my head at any given time. Always, the one negative thing I do, I think about that a thousand times over, I say one bad thing to a guess, I think about it a million times over and over and over and over.
I break a glass that's going through my head a thousand times. And that one thing I still think about some stuff I did five years ago and it goes from my head on a daily basis over and over and over and over again. And that's where that protection is and kind of comes in as well where it's just an obsession because I can't always control my head enough to not think about those negative things that I mess up on or, you know, damn it, I fucked up that cocktail. You know, damn it, I don't know why I can't make this have to work.
I gotta make this work. I can't do anything else until I do that or I need a sponsorship to stake over. I have to do it right now. And so it is like a constant battle on a daily basis.
You know, it's like I was my thing as a cocktail achiever. You know, I always talk about how I wake up and I have to work hard to be that person, you know, because I want to be that person. I don't just wake up and I'm this happy-go-lucky person all the time. I have to work hard for it.
And I have to work hard to be good at what I do. And everybody does. I'm not taking away from anyone else. It's just I do a lot of things that I unfortunately can't always control.
And so it's a very, very amazing thing that's built me to be the person I am today. And I wouldn't take anything back or anything in my life back at all because it's maybe the bar professional I am. It's a great thing. Well, especially I admire you because like you getting diagnosed with that could be like kind of a devastating person for someone who's already in the adult.
It seems like you've found a way to embrace it and like make it like this is a positive part of you. Do you have little mental tricks that you use to like, first of what you're saying, like you broke a glass and you can't stop thinking about it. Do you have like mental tricks to get yourself out of that headspace? Oh yeah, you know I love these questions.
No, I would say like the biggest thing as a whole, like it was just blanked that and I'll go into a little more acidic but learn learn about it, educate yourself about it. Because the end of the day, if you're doing something and you just think you're crazy, I mean that's never gonna be good for you or what you're trying to do. So learn about these symptoms. Learn what comes with these things that you're learning about yourself.
Like I learned that the reason why I say this is like I make the sound effects behind the bar like whoop, you know like stuff like that that's part of that. And never really bothered me. I just thought it was me. And but it's cool to know that.
I love that I know that. I love now that I know what I get hyper-focused on. I know that I can think about it. I'm like, no, that's just that.
It's just that. It's okay. Like who passed that? And as far as like breaking a glass or doing something on a daily basis, I mean, find the things that can get you out of that headspace.
I take laps. I normally know that people just see you leave the bar a lot. A lot of the time I'll just take a lap real quick and like it's just a lap. I'll look around.
I'm stimulated by all the stuff around me. I forget about it. Done. I go out for quick press and fresh air.
I go grab like a soda. I think I said the soda and tell myself what that tastes like. Like flavors like the gatbit. I'll make a sandwich to go with some mandarin and like simple syrup in there.
Taste and see how I can balance it. Doing something that's productive in your head. That's not so negative is what gets me to go to the next thing. And so it kind of goes back to what I was saying about the obsession of like perfecting stuff or reading books all the time is just get yourself something and like find these things super passionate about that.
You know, you can do like your photographer, which I'm getting into. And so I'm feeling a whole different level of trying to figure out how to not be too much infectious with that. It's just like instead of sitting there thinking about it, I'm just shooting on the photo. And you broke the last poll.
Subscribe to the last. You know, and making other content. You don't like that cocktail. I honestly, this is been a huge thing for me.
I'm not really just doing anything, but I do do read a lot about Buddhism. And it's more about just the helping out your fellow man and just knowing what you have is good enough and knowing that. And so I had this reading on that fidget for my wedding ring. It was a fidget wall, but also just reminds me to think about those teachings and and difficulties in my head.
Like for my instance, I found one recently that has really, really helped me from John. It's from Nelson Mandela that I heard from John Kekaru, who's the chairman of tales. I just joined his marketing company, Nancy Longgo, who's been a great mentor to me. It's that we never lose.
We either win or we learn. And I never heard that quote until two weeks ago. And I've never heard a quote that resonated with me more than that quote. And and now I just tell myself that quote quite a bit.
And that helps me out more than you can possibly imagine. Because you bring logic into it. Everything's a lot easier. Yeah, that is so true.
I'm not so I'm so I'm so I'm so I have OCD. So I have some of this. It's not that far off from what you're dealing with with the autistic stuff. Yeah.
And it's very easy to get like go down a rabbit hole of negativity. If you're not preparing yourself every day and it took me a while to fucking realize that that was what I had and what I had to deal with. Right. So like, how old were you when you were diagnosed?
With ADHD, I was 16. The progression, I was 21 and anxiety of 28. And then I just had diagnosed with autism last year. Jesus.
So do you think that's helpful or that you got diagnosed later or because I mean, you're more prepared to like read up about it and deal with it, I guess. But like, yeah, I don't know. Well, just all that you answer. Yeah.
You know what I'm trying to cut yock. No, you know, it's kind of a double word. You know, it's for what works with some people might not work with others for me personally. I after talking to, you know, the counselors and people who test me, they're anything that sounds basically telling what I do with my life and how I'm doing stuff.
And they say it was an amazing thing that I got diagnosed later because I love me to figure out how to find these tricks and how to socialize and how to socialize normally, you know, and because when I was in high school, I was high school, middle school, I really struggled, you know, I didn't know how you really didn't have much friends. And it really wasn't until I was 18 that I decided I want to be that anymore. And so I read every book I'm communicating, I deposit fine once again to be obsessed with this. And I essentially taught myself how to socialize like more person or normal person quotation marks so that it can see me.
And it's definitely where I think it was amazing. So I learned how to develop that. I went through every aspect of that finding tricks that normally I wouldn't have found if I was someone that was always on me trying to tell me how to do stuff instead of finding out on my own. And so I got to experience every great pain, every great accomplishment, everything like that with the utmost uncertainty.
And it really allowed me to adapt to be the person I am and feel comfortable with sharing it and being so open about it, but also actually know what I'm talking about with how to actually adapt to stuff. But I also know people that I have talked to friends of mine, I don't have to mention, but they were diagnosed really. And they really, really struggle because they this is their words. I don't know.
They felt like they were always, always coddled with it. So they never really got to teach themselves how to do stuff. That makes sense. Like they're really diagnosed really and it was the best thing it happened to them because they developed all the skills they needed to do from a really amazing support group.
It's never one of the challenges. Yeah. Yeah. We're gonna let you go soon because you give us a lot of time that I'm super fascinated by what you've been able to accomplish and like your attitude is amazing.
We talked about this earlier about how for some reason our industry attracts people with mental health issues and we'll probably never really know why that is. But what would be your advice to someone who's got mental health issues and is struggling and like to stay on track and keep a positive attitude? Yeah. Honestly, don't be afraid to share.
That's the biggest thing is we're so taught to keep things for ourselves and bottle it up. And that's never gonna be helpful for you. It's be open to talking to somebody, whether it's secret or you never have to tell them when you're talking to somebody. Find that support group, find your parents, your friend, whatever it is.
Read articles. I'm working on something called Magazine. Eventually I'll get to it and have a finish where I'm literally interviewing people like Nick Hogan from Uber and Shaker and our Gasserow. I always have people and they're gonna tell how they were able to handle their things that you have to deal with.
And you never even have to admit you read it. Just use those sources and do stuff. But educate yourself, learn about it, be open, be humble, and know that there are a lot of people in this industry that are going through similar things and there are a lot of people in this industry that are very, very good people that want to help you. Well, I just say like, yeah, I would agree because give people the opportunity to be as accommodating as people actually tend to be.
And specifically in our industry, like you'll be surprised how many people are going through the same shit or similar shit and are more than happy to accommodate your shit. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get the trade off.
I love that. Yeah. All right, Jacob, that was super fascinating conversation, man. You're a cool guy.
And you're doing obviously doing great things. Good luck at world class. Thanks so much for being so open and honest in this conversation. It was super fascinating.
I think people are going to love to hear, especially people in our industry. So thank you so much for doing this. Seriously, I really, really appreciate you all taking on my sites. It's been a real privilege and you guys are doing really, really great things with industry.
Thank you. Oh, thank you very much. Before we go, there's everything you want to promote online. I work in someone's find you like on Instagram or any other social media.
Oh, yeah. And so the biggest way that you can support me is definitely just following on the content of the Retriever on my Instagram where I do a lot of stuff that I'm talking about. As well as just figuring out anything that I'm doing in the future, there'll be a couple announcements in the next couple of weeks that'll be really big ones. So yeah, feel free to follow me and see just kind of what's up and be great for doing that too.
Also, perfect. I'll put that in the show notes so we can find out. That's a like man. Yeah, great talking to you.
Appreciate it. Yeah, thanks man. That was perfect. No, I really appreciate you guys.
It's awesome.