We were lucky to catch up with Jesse Diaz recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Jesse, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
I feel like I’m a pretty resilient person, more than most. I attribute this mostly to my Family, My past, and cutting hair. I sprinkle some credit in there for myself in a minute haha. My family is incredible, we’ve been through a lot together from beginning up to current time. My father is an immigrant from Mexico and has built an incredible music career out of nothing, my Mama has done the same in her respectful profession. Both have built successful careers that came with a lot of bumps and wild rides. Watching how my Mom and Dad navigating their life with us and with their work was prep course on how to keep your shit together. I could list all of the things that they have bounced back from, that would take all day. Watching that growing up was key for me in recognizing how to push through the storms in life and still be able to smile on the other end. My Brother and Sister have followed suit in this quality, it just perpetuates and has made life a lot easier. I draw a lot off of others around me and watch and listen. Perspective is a huge and sometimes unwanted element in the process of being resilient. Surrounding yourself with people that care about you and help provide that for you is crucial. My past was littered with alcohol dependency and drug addiction; crawling out of that lifestyle had a series of ups and downs. I lost everything, for good reason. When you throw your life away and want to start a new one, the steps to get there can seem like trying to win another war. You try and you fail constantly, but when everything is at stake at the time you take your lumps and you learn from it and move on. The progress keeps you going. I’ve always loved knowing that I work hard for whatever I have wanted to accomplish, when you get a little taste of what you’re capable it becomes a way of life. You start to draw off of all your experiences all the things you’ve felt, what you’ve accomplished and you realize that a lot of shit doesn’t matter. As long as you keep what’s important tucked close and surround yourself with great people you can push through a lot more than you ever knew you were capable of. My partner, Leigha and I have both been through alcohol and drug addiction prior to meeting and are still in recovery; having someone who knows what ive been through and has been through it themselves has been a blessing to say the least. It is inspiring hearing her story and what she’s bounced back from and overcome, it keeps me balanced and ready for what’s ahead. Last and not least, cutting hair…haha cutting hair and being a barber is a wildly taxing job. Physically, emotionally and mentally. The point being is that you can’t succeed until you learn to fail epically, in my own opinion. You can have great days and then you can totally farm one of your regulars and feel like playing in traffic makes sense. Failure is failure, I guess it’s what you do with it that shows whether you wanna bounce back. I always ask myself what I learned and do I wanna do it again. So I guess my resilience comes from the learning and wisdom I’ve gathered from myself and others.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
Im not good at talking about myself but I am very proud of what I do. I come from hard working families on both sides. I’ve never felt like I had really found what it was that I was really into, but I always worked well with my hands. Bartending got old and barbering took its place. It’s something that has given me structure and made me work for every little bit of what I got. That being said I’ve fallen in love with it, but ive always liked and just been able to understand people. I don’t think that its rocket science to know that people like to be taken care of, but I think there’s a level of human understanding that comes with cutting hair and making people feel good about where they are and what they’re doing. By the good graces of whoever runs the barber lotto power ball drawing, I have been privileged to work with other like minded barbers. I feel like who you surround yourself with is a reflection of who you and what you’re capable of and this crew is it. Passing the initial phases and hiccups of being a new barber shop in a new neighborhood have been surpassed. We grow from within now, and nurture what we’ve built the inside. Along with shop, my brother Andy and I Have been secretly cooking up a small record shop endeavor. We’re going to be heavily focused on curated, and rare selections of hip-hop and rap, If you like cool shit stay tapped in, that announcement should be coming soon!
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
I would say that listening, having compassion and being myself have been three important qualities that are important for success in any aspects of life. Listening has shown me to gain perspective in almost any situation, large or small. A lot my problems and when I have gotten jammed up in life have been from not listening. It also helps you have compassion and understanding for people, which for me has developed incredible friendships and connections through out business and just in life in general. Being yourself, to me is the most important one out all of them. I’m a total knucklehead most of the time but Ive embraced who I am and how I do things and it’s given me the confidence to accomplish a lot more than I thought I was capable of . Also don’t be too cool to ask questions, whether you’re starting a new business, an endeavor, whatever. Chances are there are a good handful of people who have been there as well and are dying to see you succeed, and would love to show you how.
Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?
Laugh, and usually let the melt down happen inside. All jokes aside, overwhelming happens a lot. I deal with mental health stuff, probably not unlike a lot of other people. I’m very capable handling high pressure situations and keeping the train going so to speak, until I’m not. I heard a close friend tell me, ” you can’t tell its a painting with your forehead against it” I laughed but it’s true. You can’t make out what’s going on until you take a step back and take in what you’re looking at. I guess what im sayin is that it’s easy to get overwhelmed when youre doing something you believe in or that puts food on the table. If you take a step back and look at your “painting” it’s easier to have a start and end plan as oppose all the symptoms that come with being overwhelmed.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.fortunecatbarbershop.com
- Instagram: @seasonofhealth @fortunecatbarbershop
Image Credits
photographer- Ryan Lowry IG@Ryan___lowry
