We’re looking forward to introducing you to Isaiah Garcia. Check out our conversation below.
Hi Isaiah, thank you so much for joining us today. We’re thrilled to learn more about your journey, values and what you are currently working on. Let’s start with an ice breaker: What’s more important to you—intelligence, energy, or integrity?
I see we’re starting off light hearted. I think that’s a great question but I think they’re all apart of each other. Energy is something I think people have a moment in their life when they realize it’s very real and affects our life more than we think. When you constantly think about the negative, you get more negative. When you’re able to shift your perspective and change your response toward the negative by not giving any energy to it, that shifts it in your mind and life from this all consuming thing to just another thing out of your control. The understanding of that is something I learned from my friend Sandra when I had first moved to New York and it changed my life and out look on it for the better. I think the people who are aware of that try to live their life with a lot of integrity and it would be a lot easier in the world if people did the work to find integrity in whatever way that looks like for them. I think emotional intelligence is one of the greatest traits a person can have in this world but a very hard one to obtain because it’s taking a very honest and blunt look at yourself and starting from there. I let go of so many grudges and let go of so much wasted energy and weight that I was carrying around because of ego or this idea that I was ” wronged” in some way that was holding me back in so many ways. Through that I think you learn a lot about yourself but also that people aren’t as different than we think especially at our core. Now intellectual intelligence is a gift to have. People who can just look at a math problem and solve them in seconds on some Good Will Hunting kinda stuff are genius. Of course if you took an X-Ray of my brain you’d see a very small but well dressed monkey hitting two cymbals together.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Hello my name is Isaiah Garcia and I am an actor and an occasional comedian. Im from Sheboygan Wisconsin where I am currently back helping take care of my dad. I moved to New York at 19 and started acting in plays and short films with talented people and friends of mine I met at The New York Film Academy. Ive been acting since I was six when my teacher sat my parents down during a conference and said ” He can’t stop distracting others, have you ever thought about theater?” I did stand up in New York and met some very funny and hardworking comedians and got to perform all over at places like The New York Comedy Club, St Marks Comedy Club, The Brooklyn Comedy Club. I have been signed with Noveaux for two years now and have loved the team and all they do to help me with things like auditions and headshots. Ive gotten to spend a lot of time on some really cool sets and learn how the business works both in front of and behind the camera as well as other departments like wardrobe, hair and makeup, grips. In the meantime I’ve been auditioning for film and tv out of Chicago as well as sending tapes back to New York and Los Angeles.
Okay, so here’s a deep one: Who taught you the most about work?
My dad without a doubt has taught me everything I know about what it means to work. My dad came here from Mexico when he was 15 years old and from 15-22 didn’t speak to or see a single member of his family because he was in Chicago working 13 hour days in a kitchen and well there was no Face Time in 1983. My entire life I saw my dad get up at 3,4,5am and get home super late just to get up and do it all over again. He took my grandparents and aunts and uncles from sleeping on a dirt floor in a two room house to building them an entire home from the ground up. He paid for three of my uncles to go to college they are now a retired and celebrated teacher, a very successful accountant working in government and a nuclear engineer in Mexico…now imagine his face when his son said ” dad I think I wanna go to film school.” We could not go more than a few blocks in the town he is from without someone hugging or coming up to talk to him. He walked into any room and just charmed everyone it was the most magical thing to watch growing up he was and still is a superhero in my eyes. He taught me that hard work is what makes anything happen in life and to chase whatever dream I wanted and not let anything set or hold me back. Any good or positive trait I have or in my life is because or for him. I think the biggest blessing I’ve ever gotten is my dad.
What fear has held you back the most in your life?
This idea that life is a race and if I don’t do X,Y,Z before this age or this month i’m behind or failing. I don’t even really know what caused it, Social Media or Anxiety or just being 23 and taking some of my first steps into a world full of uncertainty. I understand that everyone is on their own journey and have worked very hard in therapy to try and reground myself and understand life happens for you and not to you.I was listening to a podcast ( I just heard half the readers click off now and trust me guys I get it.) explain that life even the worst parts of it is a process. It’s not this big evil plan set up to make sure you lose but a compilation of choices and people beyond your control that help move the process along. She goes on to talk about how life gives us chances and situations to heal and grow, but its up to us to be able to see them as such and work on having the tools to benefit the most from the situations. If not you’re stuck in this constant cycle of ” well I don’t have this or that so that’s why life isn’t working out for me” or ” well if this never happened I would be fine” because more often than not suffering while very hard and almost feels life ending is a chance for rebirth. (Do you guys think I just lost the other half with Rebirth?)
I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. What would your closest friends say really matters to you?
So I asked my friends ( and paid them) to help me answer and a few things they said was my creativity, humor, the way I communicate and express myself, my relationships and maintaining them, my dad, making others feel like the best versions of themselves. Loyalty. Needless to say I have the greatest friends in the world. there is a Robin Williams quote I like to live by “I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy because they know what it’s like to feel absolutely worthless and they don’t want anyone else to feel like that.” On days I don’t even want to get out of bed Id try to make someone laugh or smile. When I’m having days like that now I like to make myself smile or do anything that will make me happy even slightly then make someone else laugh because I learned if i’m not happy with me I can’t be truly happy with anyone else.
Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. When do you feel most at peace?
I love this question I have a lot of answers. I love going diving and being in the ocean since I was a little kid whenever I had a chance to be in the ocean i’d go underwater and just look up at the light coming through from underwater, the silence around that is a feeling I chase. I felt at peace and think about it often when Sandra Connor and I moved in together at our place on Decatur we would all get together at night in the living room and talk for hours. Even after Connor went to sleep first ( he always caved first) Sandra and I would talk all night just swapping stories and laughing with the Christmas tree we’d have to put up the day after Halloween ( Sandras orders) lighting up the whole room. Another time I feel extremely at peace is listening to music just laying on my bed eyes closed super late at night, I like to think the worlds closed and everything takes a break at night. Watching a movie by myself is one of my favorite things to do its apart of any self care day for me.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/isaiah_garcia1234/
Image Credits
Christian Reyes
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