Road to Reality | A Thing You Did Once with Jacob Derwin

[00:00:09] Hey, everybody, welcome back to Road to Reality. Today we are speaking to one of my dear friends, Jacob Derwin from Ghost Island. Hang around. This is an amazing episode. Jacob is a friend of mine since the show even though we did not meet out

[00:00:25] on Ghost Island, our paths did not cross then but they did shortly after and he has been a dear friend ever since. In fact, I looked back when you get voted out of Survivor, you do a word association and here was the word association I said about

[00:00:40] Jacob. After I got voted out of the game, he's a Survivor super fan gem and the number one person I wish I could have played with. That is so so true. J'Tia said in her episode that Survivor casts 20 people to start who could have a winner's

[00:00:56] edit and a winner's story and Jacob is no exception. And we forget even here at Road to Reality where I've talked to so many winners and repeat players and heroes that sometimes your big, big, big Survivor dream comes crashing down and spins

[00:01:13] out of your control. Sometimes you're just a 22 year old kid trying to find your way in the world. That way gets a little lost on a little ghosty island and turned into clown music for an edit that fits the narrative of a first episode boot. This

[00:01:29] couple hours here with Jacob shows us how he could have been a winner's edit. He was living a full life and certainly the way he gets into the nitty gritty of his Survivor experience and gives us the perspective of what it's like to pick yourself up,

[00:01:44] dust yourself off and start your post Survivor life, which has led him to a super cool job in New York City. We start out talking there, his beautiful fiancee, you'll hear more about her and just his perspective on his experience that we all all

[00:01:58] of us, everyone who plays Survivor, everyone who has lived life can learn from. I am thrilled to introduce to you, reintroduce to you the goofy, charming and wholeheartedly sincere Jacob Derwin. I'm currently at I'm currently in my little workplace studio

[00:02:21] work for Audio Technica at the moment and we have we have this cute little podcast studio here in in Soho and so I'm making good use of it for today's for today's chat. Yeah, it's a it's a wonderful little space and we're building it, we're

[00:02:34] refining it, it's brand new, you know, ironing out all the kinks and it's becoming something really special and something that can be kind of hard to find here in New York. Yeah, so it is a correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding

[00:02:46] is it is a rentable studio space where you can come in record a podcast just like this to be a podcast guest or a podcast host and you look perfect and the audio sounds perfect and the lighting is perfect. That's, that's the setup right that you

[00:03:03] have there. Super cool. Yeah, we're still working on obviously this is not an ad for Audio Technica but I am I yeah, we're working on making it into a rentable space. We're working with a lot of local shows, podcasts, entertainers who have been like coming in doing

[00:03:19] episodes here testing it out with us. And eventually probably starting next year, it'll be like, you know, you pay a certain amount, you get a certain amount of hours, and we'll help you out every step of the way that we can.

[00:03:30] Awesome. Yeah, no, this isn't a paid for ad unless they want to. Hi, boss. Hey, boss, boss. Hey. I mean, hey, why not? But you have been working there for a few months now. You started there. Yeah. And this is at least for a

[00:03:47] while, one of your first long, big full time. That's so funny. Yeah, it's a funny situation because I this is my first like, full time corporate job ever. It's one of my I mean, I wouldn't say it's my one of my first full time

[00:04:04] jobs ever, but it is up there. I mean, I spent most of my adult life working freelance or like a ton of part time jobs at once or like a full time job that was like kind of more like a part

[00:04:15] time job. And then I had like two temp jobs on top of that, like, you can ask anyone for the last seven years, I've, you know, worked a million different positions in a million different places. So this is like my first kind of like, oh, I'm where I

[00:04:27] have an office to go to I have a there's a corporate ladder, there's an org chart. So it's a it's a very interesting kind of adjustment to get used to but it's been very enlightening about how all this works and I'm figuring it out day by day.

[00:04:44] Yeah, I love that idea. Because I think so many people are either who have done what I would call maybe a portfolio career doing a little bit of this a little bit of that a little bit of this a little bit of that along the way think that

[00:04:56] they could never get a quote unquote corporate job or just like people who are in a corporate job but would love to go work part time at a podcast studio are afraid that if they took that break, they could never quote unquote get back in

[00:05:10] to like a corporate job and I love that your example is such one of like, all of your experiences led you to this perfect spot, which is what do you want to just give us a little bit more about what your role is there?

[00:05:23] Yeah, sure. So my job title is event manager and brand ambassador, though I'd say I have at least four other titles. It's a lot it's a lot of different responsibilities all rolled up into one. It's an ever evolving position because

[00:05:35] it's a brand new position. I didn't jump in or fill in for somebody. This was a brand new situation in a brand new studio, brand new office brand new. It's a lot of new and so we're all

[00:05:45] still figuring it out together. It is a culmination of kind of all this all the different things and roles I've held for and the little ones who not just like working in casting and stuff which I did for almost four years but like you know, the the

[00:06:01] two months of sales I did at the holiday market you know what I mean the the little bit of education and music teaching like at being a musician myself like being able to speak those different languages has been very, very useful. And I'm

[00:06:16] learning that it kind of makes me a little bit of a multi tool in in this environment. So I'm figuring out you know which buttons to push and which way to go on different things. It's a whole whole new thing. Yeah, the whole commute happening again, right? That's

[00:06:34] part of it. What is some of like, what's one of the most fun things about your job so far? Yeah, well, I mean, the best part of it is the fact that Audio Technica is a pretty established company. And we've been we've been around for 60 years or so.

[00:06:50] So I'm have I happen to be using an Audio Technica mic. So we are there. So for people who don't know Audio Technica is a company that creates microphones and recording equipment headphones and these mics and record player at home. I've been

[00:07:05] around for a really long time. So the best part of it has just been the fact that, you know, if we want to reach out to a musician or a content creator, or podcaster, like we can kind of

[00:07:15] do that and not worry about, you know, I'm so used to a DIY background where I'm like getting whatever I have together and just making it work however I need to make it work. There's this is a been established brand, you know, I mean,

[00:07:28] people know who you are. If you reach out and say I'm a brand ambassador for Audio Technica, they say okay, and yeah, let's talk. So, you know, we're still working on what all those different relationships are going to mean for the company

[00:07:38] and what we're going to be able to collaborate on and things like that. But the really exciting bit is, you know, I've invited and welcomed, you know, over 100 people to this space already in the first couple months of working here. And some

[00:07:51] of the people who I'm like genuinely a fan of, you know, I mean, or genuinely like I love their work or their art or their content or whatever you want to call it. So it's really special to be able to kind of build a little bit of a

[00:08:01] connection with them personally, and, and try to find ways that we can work together that benefits us and benefits them. Because I've been an artist myself, and I know what it feels like to have a company trying to rip you off. And it's nice that

[00:08:14] I can kind of be that little intermediary in between that where I can make sure everybody's getting a good deal. Yeah, it's nice. Tell me about your your, as many of you know, the intro and outro song is Jacob's song written, composed, produced by Jacob Derwin here.

[00:08:35] Yeah, it was engineered by an old friend. Yeah, but the rest Yeah, yeah, it's Jacob song. And thank you so much for letting me use it. And I get so many comments around people who love

[00:08:47] the song. And just it's a part of this space here. But I do not know how old young you were when you started like, when did you pick up a guitar for the first time? When did you start singing for the first time?

[00:09:00] Yeah, sure. I mean, I was involved in music from when I was like little like I did choir and stuff and like fourth grade and all that and and then growing up in a reform synagogue and Jewish summer camp and all those things like contemporary

[00:09:14] music was a big part of those worlds to like singing and harmony, singing, sing along song sessions, whatever you want to call them. And so singing has always been a big part of my life. The the irony of it is I've never been the best singer.

[00:09:30] It's this kind of like, you know, I've done a lot of classes and been around a lot of great people who have taught me a lot of things and you just kind of, you know, you take little influences

[00:09:38] here and there, but I've always had kind of a distinct, maybe slightly off pitch voice. So for me, it's, you know, when I started pursuing my own music, it was kind of about trying to find what fit me instead of trying to make myself fit into

[00:09:51] other genres. Like I'm never going to be a, you know, a jazz singer or something. So I got to figure out, you know, what, how do I express myself in a way that suits my my style? I played

[00:10:03] like piano and drums growing up and I got into guitar when I was a teenager. Once speaking of like Jewish summer camp, like I learned pretty much everything, all the basics through summer camp and synagogue because I was trying to be a song leader,

[00:10:15] which is, you know, if you grew up in a church, maybe there was that one young guy with an acoustic guitar who was playing like pop Christian songs at you. I'm, I was just doing the Jewish version. So, you know, you're, you know, Rick Rects and Dan

[00:10:28] Nichols and Noam Katz, all these kind of cool hip acoustic rock pop, contemporary musicians bringing a little bit of a modern musical flair to ancient Hebrew text, if you will. So that was my life for years from 16 when I was learning guitar all the way

[00:10:44] through my early 20s when I was working at camps and synagogues teaching that music to kids as like a way to access their religion and stuff like that. Super cool. And is, I mean, you wrote Mirror for Manhattan, like

[00:10:57] at what point do you start writing songs and writing your own stuff? I mean, I was, I was a moody little kid writing poetry for a long time. Writing seriously, like trying to sit down and like actually like turn songs out and like present them to people.

[00:11:11] Started doing like open mics and stuff when I was like 17, 18, 19 going to coffee shops, just trying stuff out. Sometimes it was covers, sometimes it was originals. I think probably like 1920 is when I started like feeling like, oh, I'm a decent

[00:11:28] songwriter. Like I can, I can come up with an idea and I can follow it. And so I would just write my like college dorm or my bedroom or wherever and record it on whatever janky equipment

[00:11:38] I had available to me. A lot of those early recordings do not sound amazing. And I mean, Mirror for Manhattan, I wrote, that was a, that's a funny song, man, because it's not about anything. That's what's, that's what's funny is it's, it's, it

[00:11:54] was almost like a writing exercise. It's in some ways, it's very literal. I was literally, I was turning 21 and I decided to spend a few weeks in the UK. I just paid for a ticket and some housing in like Scotland, Ireland, Northern

[00:12:10] Ireland, just that whole, that whole area. And I had some friends out there from like when I was a camp counselor, there was international staff. And so I crashed with them for a bunch of it. And like, I was on the plane, I was seated next to a

[00:12:22] woman who we were just like chatting and you know, nothing serious, literally just like chit chat. Oh, where are you going? I'm doing this. So what's up? Like, so I picked up a handful of details about her trip. And so those details are the lyrics

[00:12:37] of the song basically, where I was just like, I just wrote it down basically, like she was literally taking notes in a novel that she was reading. I think it was the Aziz Ansari, like love, modern love book or something. There was, I caught

[00:12:51] the emojis that she was using with the flags to show where she was going, her next leg of her trip, you know, little stupid, tiny little details. And I had been working on a different song that was using that guitar line. Like before I'd even left

[00:13:08] on the trip, and then one of the people I was staying with, she had a guitar. And so I was like, I had like a few hours of downtime in the apartment. And so I was like kind of plucking

[00:13:16] out what I've been working on. And then I brought up my notes, and I saw the notes I'd taken about the person on the plane, and I kind of merged the two together. And that's where the

[00:13:23] song came from. And I was, yeah, I guess I was I just turned 21, I guess. And she's like, Oh, that works pretty well. That's cool. It's a fun little exercise. And I mean, to this day, a lot of people's, I mean, it's the favorite song I've written

[00:13:36] for sure. So it's funny how that works out. Oh my god, was her name actually Mira? No clue what her name is. No, no, that's the whole point, right? That's the whole point. Is it literally, it doesn't matter where she's from.

[00:13:47] Oh, well, yeah, I just I mean, I was listening to your music right as I got back from the show because we had not met yet. I think I would have listened to your music before I had even

[00:13:58] met you, you know. And I just, I was doing a lot of flying at the time. And when you get back from a show like Survivor, your identity is confused, to say the least, or some of our identities are confused. And I just remember being on those

[00:14:16] planes going in and out of Denver, and I moved from Chicago to Denver at the time and just like, I identified so much with that woman that you were writing about. And also like, what can my life become right now? This excitement piece of I could say

[00:14:32] what my name is, I can say I'm Mira from Manhattan, Chelsea from Chelsea, you know, like we, it was all this stuff. And then also the feeling of there's an undertone of grief for me, of listening to it, of like, do these people really ever know

[00:14:50] who I am? And are they going to actually ever know who I am? So it just meant a lot to me. And I think the first time I told you that you were just like, Oh, yeah, I just like it was a

[00:14:59] little ditty. I wrote one song on a girl on a plate and I was like, but this is my entire life. That's so sweet. No, it's true. That's the first one's very, very sweet and very kind and gracious of you to share that

[00:15:10] it's funny how that works, though. I mean, you know, most of the hits aren't the song that the songwriter thought was going to be the hit, you know what I mean? Like, it's, it's, I'm glad it connects with you in that way. And I'm glad it's what you

[00:15:23] take from it. And I mean, obviously, I, you know, the album art is a is by Shelby Solomon, a friend of mine and I the kind of theme of the whole record was that paper plane idea was that like, ethereal flying thing. So that I clearly

[00:15:37] I my brain was in a similar place of, like, you know, you do a lot, you need a lot, you see a lot, what does it actually amount to? But yeah, it's funny how, you know, unintentionally things can can have an impact like that.

[00:15:53] For sure. And then when it was like, time to put all this all podcasts together. And you were a friend who I called to talk about, like, can I do this thing? I don't even know what

[00:16:02] it was. What is this world like? And you believed in me and encouraged me and I appreciate that so much. And it was just like the words like, I never knew you. It just fits so much with this idea of road to reality, right? Like you see

[00:16:15] these people on TV for two minutes, you think you know their name, you think you know where they're from, and you didn't really know them at all. And I think that that also tied into I'm not sure if anyone was picking up on any of this

[00:16:27] meaning of the road to reality piece and choosing this song. But for me, that is what it has. It has really meant, like grounding the people that you meet on your television here in this moment and getting to know who they really are. And getting

[00:16:44] to express who you really are. Karishma's episode came out a little bit before this and she just messaged me like, I'm saving this for my children. Like it feels like this opportunity to have told my story and I haven't gotten to do that in this

[00:16:58] survivor experience. And that's what I wanted this place to be. So when I suggested that you come and be on the show and talk to me a little bit about your before, during and after survivor journey, what's your like, gut kick instinct when

[00:17:17] somebody asks you to do that? Yeah, I mean, that's that's the funny thing. I mean, so I mean, I almost feel like I should preface this whole conversation with like, I know what I'm sorry. You know, like, I've

[00:17:28] definitely taken like a couple years kind of out of the thing. You know, I'll pop in on the Reddit sometimes leave a comment or something. You know, I think that's about as far as I go

[00:17:37] these days. And as grateful as I as I was that you reached out and that you're interested in having me on because of course, it's very flattering. There's the there's the pretty, you know, large part of me that's like, yeah, but every time you

[00:17:52] talked about your experience in the past on a podcast or a charity event or a panel, it was mostly people being like, Jacob, please stop. Like you're bumming everybody out. You know what I mean? Like, like, we're tired of the Eeyore schtick. And

[00:18:03] it's I think there's a lot of context, maybe missing about my story, I guess, if you want to call it that. Well, I was surrounded by that there you were on the show for however many minutes, two minutes, I would imagine that

[00:18:21] there is a lot of context. Sure. Missing. But I don't even mean I don't even mean like why I did what I did. I think I think there's I could I could explain for for while we're not talking. Yeah, that's part doesn't you know,

[00:18:32] it doesn't even really I mean, if that's what you wanted to talk about today, but it's not. I want to talk about is you were very close to 21 when we went on the show, right? How old were you?

[00:18:44] I turned 22 about three days before the shoot. So you're like on the plane going to Northern Ireland, like going to Northern Ireland, riding mirror from Manhattan, like in your life, you're working at summer camps and teaching music. And your

[00:19:01] relationship with Survivor as a show is what at that point, like leading up to the show? Sure. Yeah, I was just a big old fan boy. I was I've been a big fan forever. That's if there's one thing you pulled from

[00:19:12] my character, from watching it, you got that Jacob is a big old nerdy fan boy. I was writing a blog, I was involved online, I'd never really broached the in person fan community. I'd always kept my distance a little bit.

[00:19:27] People forget that back then it wasn't that, right? At least for me, maybe there was an island on the East Coast. But where I'm from, there wasn't like tons of Survivor meetups. Yeah, it was kind of like it was kind of like coastal. You know,

[00:19:39] I mean, there was like a New York group, there was an LA group, and I felt like mostly it, you know. But yeah, I wasn't I wasn't super involved. I, you know, but I'm memorizing every like, did you just love the show? Did you? Yeah. Playing like

[00:19:54] what kind of fan? Sure. I didn't have I've never had the memory power to be the guy who knows like every single contestant in every boot order, like some folks do. For me, I always been a big gamer and a

[00:20:05] big strategy person. And the idea of playing this specific game that was on this scale with these stakes had always been like a huge kind of like, how crazy amazing would that be? Like, it was it was always just the appeal of the adventure in

[00:20:24] the game. And the proving myself thing there was always that always had kind of been at the core of my fandom of it. On top of the storytelling. I've always I mean, I've kind of studied reality TV, whatever that means. For most of my life,

[00:20:40] like I worked in the industry for a couple years, like, I'm really fascinated by formats and characters and development and story and game and to be in the middle of you know, the one, the

[00:20:53] kind of the OG and in the US at least, it always felt like a, it would be just a really special thing. And a cool experience. And who doesn't like to be a little bit of a know it

[00:21:04] all and smarty pants on a TV show, maybe maybe maybe outplay a couple people. So that that had been kind of the core of the fandom for especially the couple of years leading up to me actually making the show. When I was younger, I think it was just

[00:21:16] like the thing everybody was watching. And it was fun. It was exciting. And it was moody. And it was, it was action. And you know that that there was a movie you watched every week with my my family. You don't mean it was cool. Yes.

[00:21:28] So you were watching with your you were watching with your family. And you get to 18 and you start applying. How to Yeah, absolutely. My son did my first tape at 18. I hope it's somewhere in the depths of hell. I hope it never emerges.

[00:21:44] Deeply embarrassing thing. I applied again when I was 19. After I'd started blogging a little bit, I think I have a timeline, right? I think I started blogging and then I applied again at 19. And I heard back I heard back when I was when

[00:22:00] I was 19. And I got to like the first round, which is just like paperwork and phone call like basics. That was that didn't hear back after that. I believe that season was the season we're in Cambodia, like the Koh Rong situations. I always joked that

[00:22:17] Julia Sokolowski. I always joke that Julia took my place because she was the 19 year old on that. Because she was the kid. So hilariously wrong. But you know, hope you're well Julie. And then yeah, I kind of I applied the next year as well

[00:22:37] when I was 20 and didn't hear back and I was like, well, that's a bummer. And then knowing it was like kind of casting season was going to start up in the fall when I was 20 when I

[00:22:49] was 21. I instead of sending a tape and I just kind of emailed the casting producer who'd reached out to me. And I literally sent her my resume, which is God Almighty. Here's everything. Here's everything I've done since we last talked basically.

[00:23:06] Yeah, yeah, which they are tracking by the way. Literally like I've been living a life I've done, you know, done three internships and I'm graduating early on Dean's list and I've been involved in two student media organizations. And

[00:23:21] I'm trying to get into, you know, radio and NPR and I'm, I'm doing music and I traveled here and I've done like I'm living a life. You want a young person with life experience, which was the tagline for a long time. I'm a young person with life

[00:23:35] experience. And I got I got their attention that way. And they started working with me to kind of build up my application and I got all the way through that time. Yeah, I mean, we laugh about the resume thing just because of

[00:23:47] the instant like what you first think of as the contrast of like sending your resume into sprout, but it is so true. And actually, we, we don't do a ton of casting advice on this podcast. But that is true as they are looking for people who

[00:23:59] are living a life. And that was the best thing you could have done was say, Hey, this is that's what I did as well. I applied one year and then the next year I redid my video, I

[00:24:09] got through the as far as you did just like the written stuff. And then I just make a new video being like so since last year, I happened to have gotten married, got divorced, moved to a futon, you know, not didn't have a house to live in.

[00:24:21] It happened to be like a lot happened in that time. But even if it wasn't that quite dramatic, they are tracking you and even if you don't think they are, they are watching people and seeing where they're going if you're interested. So I

[00:24:35] love that you said, Hey, here's my resume. Here's my life resume. Check out. I'll say this like I was graduating that December across the semester early doing pretty well in classes. And all these internships under my belt. I knew exactly what I wanted to

[00:24:50] do. I applied to a bunch of radio jobs, bunch of podcasting jobs, news jobs, all across New York, mainly in obviously in the tri state where I'm right where I live. And I couldn't get an interview. I was getting I think I got two interviews and then

[00:25:04] rejected. I was getting rejected left and right. And I had all this like energy and passion. And I knew exactly what it is I wanted to do. And nobody would hire me out of college. And, you know, just like that, I'm on my parents couch at home,

[00:25:19] wondering what I'm going to do next applying to work at grocery stores and CVS who also aren't interviewing me because they don't want someone with a bachelor's. They want a high school student. Yeah. So I'm like, truly, I had zero

[00:25:33] prospects, except survivor. Survivor was the only thing that was calling me back. It was it was a weird situation. I treated it like a job interview. Genuinely, I was like, I was on top of it constantly in a way that I bet a lot of other people

[00:25:45] didn't have the time for because I didn't have a, you know, my job, quote unquote, as a music teacher was once a week, I was going to a synagogue and playing singalongs. Like I was legitimately, I had nothing.

[00:25:56] What do you mean by on top of it? Because I know the casting directors are always like, don't bother us. Like so and I don't imagine you're bothering maybe somewhat. I mean, good, but you got to bother him a little bit. But what would you what do you

[00:26:08] mean by you were on top of it? I mean that when they needed something, I got it back to them within 24 hours. Yeah, I mean, if they needed it, yeah, if they needed an update to paperwork, if they needed me to edit my

[00:26:17] tape seven times, which I did, I think I held it. Yeah. They're having you edit your tape and do all that stuff. Oh, yeah. If I needed wardrobe options, if they like, literally every aspect of the process, however it was back

[00:26:31] then, I don't know how it is now. Every step of the process, I was I was the I imagine I was the first one of the first if not the first person to get back to them with everything they needed.

[00:26:41] And we were going through at the exact same time. I think this was both of our second time we were at finals together. I think we were at finals together. So I think we were both and we both had the same casting director. So you and I were

[00:26:53] probably the first two to get all over it. We were the good students. Yeah, absolutely. I didn't have a job that I need to focus on first. I didn't have to ask for permission to take some time

[00:27:01] off. I was I had nothing going all in. Yeah, this was all I had. What was the feeling for you just as a like you person Jacob going through finals week and casting? What was that like for you to be there?

[00:27:19] It was like I stepped into a storybook or something because if you're a big fan of the show, you already like kind of in your head, there's a certain fantasy version of what that's all like, right? Like it's kind of mythological. I feel like I

[00:27:37] don't know if it still is that way for folks who are still applying for the show and big fans. Like I don't know, I've kind of lost that perspective over time. But I know for me

[00:27:45] when I was like in my early 20s, and I'd heard for years about like, yeah, you go finals and you're all like sequestered and you do interviews and there's a hotel and you can't talk to each other. And it's like, Whoa, you know, like there's it's this

[00:27:59] kind of like weird mythological thing. And then actually being it to be kind of similar to what I was expecting like that. Like, yeah, you're all sitting at separate tables in the restaurant. That's right. You're being called from your hotel to

[00:28:10] come do interviews throughout the day. You're doing your this you're doing like, it was exactly the way I kind of imagined it was. So I magical and like mysterious. At least for me, it was so much. I feel like we got in at

[00:28:26] the right time to have that experience that is now, I think ruined, frankly, for us mostly because it's like virtual now, isn't it? Yeah, well, I think a lot of his virtual but they're still they still they're back to going in person. I understand.

[00:28:39] Yeah, so there is some of that but like everything you know, if you push and pry and all these people like you can go and read essentially exactly what it's like, but for me, I had no idea

[00:28:50] I mean, I knew like exactly what you know, I think which is like you go to a hotel what you're not gonna be able to talk to anybody. But I remember being I remember eating an extra sandwich at the airport before I went because I was like, What

[00:29:01] if this is the beginning of the test and they don't feed us this whole week? Like, that's genuinely how much I had no idea what was gonna happen. So you were a part of enjoying the magic and the mystery of it. Like, what was it like to walk

[00:29:14] in and meet Jeff for the first time for you? I'm fully with you. Like I had my notebook the whole time and I was taking notes on every single person I saw every single person, every little bit of information I could glean, glean,

[00:29:27] not glean, glean. I also thought it was like this is the beginning. It starts now. Meeting with Jeff, I was actually so I do this thing. And I think it comes out on the show, unfortunately, where when I'm nervous, or something, I feel like something's kind of high

[00:29:47] stakes. I tap into a kind of a fake it till you make it kind of bravado thing where I need to like this is my shield. This is my armor. I'm confident. I can do this. I'm confident. I got

[00:30:00] this. And so I kind of I try to like put on a swagger kind of because something I don't I don't typically wear in my everyday life. But when I have to, you know, I get time to go

[00:30:10] time to do got to do this to be on or something. Yes, I'm gonna be on. Okay, on right now big time. I'm entertaining. I'm huge. Because also keep in mind again, I have no job. I have

[00:30:21] nothing to go back to. I have no prospects. As far as a survivor and we're like on the CBS live and it's like it's it's high stakes, man. Well, that's just it. Like it's not just high stakes in like the

[00:30:33] sense that it's survivors high stakes in the fact that in my head at this point, this is how my career starts. Like literally, like, oh, I want to have money and start a life. Like move out of my parents house. I have to win survivor.

[00:30:45] And then to win survivor, I have to get on survivor. So I really have to bring it right now. So like, oh, I knew that I was kind of being pitched as a super fan nerd bait living in his parents

[00:30:54] basement guy. Okay, let's tap into it. And so I really played up the character like pretty hard in those early interviews. I came in with a lot of bravado, a lot of gravitas, a lot of humor, very goofy, very self deprecating. But like the parts

[00:31:09] of me that are there, they're definitely there. But I really like I turned them up to 11. But I also connected with Jeff a little bit because I remember we talked about I remember we were talking about like childhood friendship. There were some like

[00:31:21] connections there. I felt like I was able to emotionally connect with him a little bit and like kind of showed the kind of person I am. He was already like tapping into like, oh, this is your performance. And you were connecting in underneath a little bit.

[00:31:36] Exactly. There was a there was a personal like I think he understood kind of who I was, or in some way, during our during our early conversations. I felt like I had their attention. You know what I mean? Like I didn't feel like I was fighting for

[00:31:49] their intent. Like I say this, you know, in the future, I worked in casting for almost four years. Like I know I can tell when an interview is going badly. Like I can tell when like talent is having a hard time staying on message or keeping the

[00:32:02] attention of a casting director or like getting through an interview. I was not having any of that I was on top of it. If I was challenged on something, if someone called me out on something, I came back 100% harder at it. Like I was full energy, full enthusiasm.

[00:32:17] You like knew what they wanted you to be. You were all in you were in can you were in control of that? I was fully I fully understood what I was doing during those interviews. And I'll say that by the end of that week, like I

[00:32:33] had an I was 90% sure I was on like I legitimately not to sound like overconfident or anything but like I had seen people leave the hotel I had seen people kind of vanish. And after those interviews, I just every single time I left it

[00:32:47] feeling more confident because I felt like they were all getting what they wanted to get. They all had their eyes on me. Nobody was looking down. Nobody was looking elsewhere like they they were focused on me. And maybe what they were thinking

[00:32:59] was, who is this strange lunatic? Who is this? Who's this weirdo? Who's this crazy boy? Fine, I had to get on the show. So whatever I had to do, you know, and you did it. And you did it. And you did what many, many,

[00:33:13] many, many, many, many, many people in the world try to do and do not get to do. Sure. And then and then and then and then my dear friend, my dear, dear friend, like since we we so quickly, Jacob and I were on different starting tribes. We

[00:33:38] did not meet while we were on survivor we met after we came back home. I think that has given me such a one of my not just spouting this because we're on a podcast together like literally such a unique, beautiful friendship between the

[00:33:52] two of us that we had the shared experience and yet it never crossed and out there while we were on quote unquote and so my friendship with you has always been like, able to be Kellen as Kellen not Kellen from survivor.

[00:34:09] I hear that it's not changed by the game. At all and not even like the like, I always felt like you were seeing me and I was seeing you as like we're in on the joke here of like all of the fanfare of the postseason and

[00:34:25] all the stuff and like the cool kids and who's this and all that. Like I always felt like I had you see me as the person I was beyond even if I was hamming it up and if I was, you know,

[00:34:36] in my little hot pink dress and doing all this stuff and getting the attention like I felt like you were you and I could make eye contact and be like this is a show. Yes. And

[00:34:46] and knew me from that and I didn't have to play that with you ever and I don't want to do that now either. What I want to do is give the platform if we want to call it that like the

[00:34:56] space of not having you go back into the like really not lovely things of your survivor experience if you don't want to and people who went on survivor and their story got away from them and they did not have the experience that they expected

[00:35:14] and wanted is absolutely as legitimate and by the way more common than the people who go out and get to have their story told and have it go exactly as they wanted and to be the heroes journey. And therefore when people are thinking about going on the show,

[00:35:32] understanding that it can go well and it can go not well is extremely important. Yeah. And to not mince words, it didn't go well for you. No, no, it didn't go well. It didn't go well. I

[00:35:42] wouldn't say as well as it could have. Yeah, no, it did not go well. I mean, what's funny is it started really good because as I said earlier, I turned 22 right as the game was about to start and so like the production team and the casting team secretly

[00:35:56] pulled me aside on my birthday and brought me to a bungalow where it was like the resort staff and a few producers and they gave me like a cake and they quietly sang happy birthday to me away from the rest of the casting, the cast and the whole

[00:36:10] rest of everybody and I felt so special. You know what I mean? It was it was really sweet. I have the video of it I got from someone about a year later. Incredible. And so like that I

[00:36:22] was I was having so much fun with the pregame of it. You know, I got to meet all these journalists and interviewers who I was like a fan of I got to meet Andrea Belkey, you know, Wiggler and Gordon and Dalton and everyone was there. It was a

[00:36:38] full media day. I got to go around and meet people and I thought this is so special. And I was I was definitely hyping myself up. I was getting excited. I was feeling like, just so simultaneously like excited and overwhelmed by just

[00:36:56] how much was on us for those couple days. I was taking notes on all these people I was getting ready. I realized, you know, in retrospect, I probably shouldn't have had like my notebook out taking notes all the time like because what

[00:37:11] happens is like the game does start before the game starts. And so people are eyeing each other there. They're taking mental notes, they're figuring people out. They're trying to figure out how they feel about everyone. You read it in a lot

[00:37:21] of the pregame interviews, like what do you think of this person? And they'll just hold up a photo and like, Oh, that guy that you know, Fozzie Bear looking fella. Probably this and yeah. And so I probably could have done more to just come off less

[00:37:33] strange and dorky. But I think my my Yeah, maybe maybe sealed that fate a little early. But no, I mean, not without getting into the details of the whole six days, because everybody saw pretty much all of that. You know, it's it's this funny

[00:37:48] thing where I keep bringing it up, because I think it's really important context, I did not have anything going for me, like legitimately had no prospects, like had nothing to fall back on. My friends and community were all in Ohio, or I went to

[00:38:05] college, I was already living back in New York and trying to make a life for myself in New York City. So I was back on Long Island, I had my family, but it's a lot to put on them. Didn't

[00:38:18] have a partner, you know, like didn't have a job, really a community. I was a few people have asked me for advice about getting on the show before and I always told them like, if you get there, make sure that your community your world back home

[00:38:34] is set and ready to catch you when you fall. You are going to even if it goes great, even if you make it deep and you feel like you had a good experience, you're going to need people who

[00:38:45] are down to just sit there with you and help you process the parts that maybe weren't so positive. Because it's a weird thing. You know what I mean? Inherently, it's a strange experience. It doesn't exist in the real world. It's a weird

[00:39:01] little make made up fantasy thing that we film. So when it went wrong, I did not have anyone to fall back on the way I needed. In fact, because I was out so early, I was actually stuck with

[00:39:18] the pre jury situation for a couple weeks. And long time. Yeah, yeah. And and you know, I was meant to be the first out ended up being the second out wasn't exactly a beloved character of most of the people I was with. Right? Most of the

[00:39:33] pre jury is is starting Malolo. With the exception of I think Bradley and Morgan. So who also I don't think were particularly interested in me. So it's kind of this thing where you end up just kind of floating and a little sad, and a little

[00:39:50] confused. And you're not sure what you're going to do next. And you just blew your only opportunity at like a life because remember, for me, this was my career. Yeah, now you're stuck in like purgatory. And now I'm stuck in purgatory. And I was already sober. So I

[00:40:06] wasn't drinking and most people were. And I just felt I call it depressed in paradise. I was very like, it just felt like this weird fever dream the whole time from from Fiji to our pre jury trip. It just felt like this kind of exercise in

[00:40:28] tolerance. Like how much can you how much how much mental anguish Can you take how much loneliness Can you handle it was it was rough. It was a legitimately hard experience. And I don't put that on any of the people I was with. It's fine.

[00:40:44] You know what I mean? Like, I don't want it'll be the last thing I ever want is to try and make anyone feel responsible for my, my shit. Not coming across that way at all. Good. Thank you. But still, you know what I mean? Like it's it

[00:40:56] was a really challenging experience. It's like a time where you're looking for a foundation in your life. And then instead of like, walking on the sand, somebody just took you up top and dropped you out of an airplane. It's all air. It's literally you're looking for ground and

[00:41:15] it's all clouds 100% it is it is. And to make it even worse. And I know I don't come off as particularly self aware on the show, but I was self aware enough to know what was going to happen. Because I know the show. I know how editing works.

[00:41:29] I know how character portrayal works. I I know this stuff. And I know how much I did in six days. Trying ridiculous last ditch efforts to save myself when I knew I was in trouble pretty early. And every single attempt failed. So I wasn't helping the

[00:41:45] situation. I was digging my own grave deeper and deeper and I knew that every single time something didn't work. That was another thing that was going to be featured on the show with cloud music in the background. And so by the time I was out,

[00:41:57] I'm like, I was looking but I think I was literally sitting in like the tent. They hold you in after you're voted out. And I was thinking to myself, I'm like, the first two episodes are going to be the Jacob Derwin falling on his ass montage. Like

[00:42:09] I just I knew, like unless somebody else somewhere on the other tribe was doing more insane stuff than I was, which I guess maybe a little bit of Dominic and Chris. I was they did that for a long time. So they got to show a little more. Yeah,

[00:42:27] they spread that out. Yeah, I knew that. I knew that this was not going to go. And it was you have the weight of that upcoming you have the weight of like, I'm going back. I'm 22 years old. Anyone who's coming out of college is like freaking out

[00:42:42] about what is my job going to be? What does my life look like? And then you have this added pressure of we're coming back in July. And we know the show doesn't come on until February. Yeah. What is that period? Like, it's a bad time. It's a bad

[00:42:59] time. Yeah, I was it was it was good in that, you know, you get a little bit of money for showing up on the show. And I was able to advance it to a certain degree, not all of it, but a

[00:43:08] little bit of it. So I was able to move out of my parents house. So I got my first room in an apartment in Brooklyn. I started working every part time job I could get my hands on working at synagogues, after school programs, preschools, music

[00:43:21] teaching, anything. Start making a living because I wanted to live. The last thing I wanted to do was sit around and just like wait. Yeah, I didn't want to rot anymore. I wanted to go live a

[00:43:33] life. And so I just started living. You know what I mean? I took I took voiceover classes. I started performing at open mics. I started meeting people, building a community, a network of artists and others. And that part was going great. Like that part was unbelievable. You know, 2018.

[00:43:53] What were you doing to like go meet people? I feel like so many even myself when I'm getting ready to move again to a new place. And it's like, oh my God, how did you build out meeting new friends and new community at that time?

[00:44:06] Yeah, for me, a big thing was open mics because I obviously music. My roommate, Ryan was part of a theater company and they would put on mics every single month at a coffee shop in Harlem called Manhattanville Coffee. The name of the mic was

[00:44:20] work in progress. And it was kind of meant for musicians, artists, actors, anyone to come present something they were working on. And I went every single month with him. And we were in Brooklyn. So we went all the way up to Harlem every

[00:44:34] single month. And I just started meeting people. That's where I met my fiance. You know what I mean? Like it was a vital community that unfortunately COVID broke a lot of that up and people moved all over the country. But for a couple years

[00:44:47] there, like I started, you know, I started finding friends who I would continue to be close with for three years now. And are now marrying. Yeah, that was huge. She was the best thing that came out of

[00:45:01] all that, obviously. But I can wrap that all up with a bow later about destiny and fate and how one thing inevitably leads to another, I suppose. But yeah, those open mics were huge. So you're back. This is like you go to this open mic, you're

[00:45:14] building your community, you're getting these jobs, you're hustling to get together. And simultaneously, and simultaneously, whenever things are quiet, the spirals begin. That's when things get rough. That was like, I remember, so there's a therapist on the show.

[00:45:30] There's two therapists, but we had Dr. Liza. I remember emailing Dr. Liza because I was a few months out and I had been living in the apartment for a little bit and I've been living my life

[00:45:40] and I went to a concert with an old childhood friend of mine. So Jonathan Colton, a great show. And I get home and I've had a great night out. I've had an amazing night out. I saw one of

[00:45:50] my favorite musicians, hung out with one of my oldest friends, had a great evening. I get home and the voice inside my head is screaming. I am spiraling out of control internally with just like self hate and how the fuck did you ruin this? Your life is

[00:46:13] over. How do you think you're going to come back from this? Just like, how did you blow it this hard? Like legitimately, I could not get off of myself. You know what I mean? And I would try to redirect it as like self-deprecating humor,

[00:46:28] which a lot of people really did not like, as I learned over the last over about two years. Just trying to like cope with it and like kind of deal with it. I remember emailing Dr. Liza being

[00:46:38] like, I don't know how to get the spiraling to stop. Like I don't know what to do. And at this time we've been leaked, right? So people in your life are like asking you about it. You're having to lie. We all

[00:46:52] are having to lie. So it's not like you're getting to just like, I mean, maybe that would have been better or worse. I don't know, but you are having to talk about it and people are asking you about it as well.

[00:47:01] Yeah. And I think I was able to turn it on. I think, I think I would have to ask people who were around at that time what they thought. I felt like I did a pretty good job of like kind

[00:47:15] of pretending like it was going to be good. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like I did an okay job. I don't know. I might've won. I might be a million dollar man.

[00:47:23] I was able to play it. I didn't lie to my parents. Like I told my family as soon as I got home, like it did. But like everyone else, I feel like I was able to kind of sidestep it to a certain degree.

[00:47:35] Building and building and building and it's getting closer and closer to February. It was, it was rough and to make matters worse, I agreed to be a part of a watch party here in New York with like James and

[00:47:47] James Lim and it might've been one or two other people there. I can't remember. I don't know why I did that. I should have just been like, I think I'm going to sit back on this one.

[00:47:57] But you know, I was trying to like also be a part of it and still try to make the best of the parts that were still there. Right? Yeah. I wanted to, I wanted to see if I could have

[00:48:07] fun with it. You know what I mean? Like the New York survivor community, the fans are reaching out and they want to like play games with me and like invite me out to watch parties and they

[00:48:14] want me to do this. And I'm like, yeah, let's do it. And I'm so I'm showing up and charity, all the, all the charity events. Oh yeah. Come on out. The new season come on. Oh yeah. I got to

[00:48:22] go to that. I got to be a part of that. So like I was doing everything that I felt was expected of me and that I wanted to do, you know, as a fan of the show leading up to the things

[00:48:29] I thought I would be more excited to be involved with. And then every step of the way just felt like it just, it was just a, Oh boy, it was a rough one. It's just, you know, you feel like you feel like everyone's thinking the same

[00:48:49] thing. You know what I mean? You feel like, you know, I would go to an event with a bunch of survivor fans and I'm sitting there and you know, I may as well have been wearing like a

[00:48:56] mascot head or something. You know what I mean? Like we all, yeah. All right. There's this, this, this clown over here. Yeah. Let me sign my buff. You know what I mean? Like, and I'm sure that's not how people were thinking. You know what I

[00:49:06] mean? Just to be clear for people who asked me to sign their buff, I don't think you think I'm a clown or whatever, but that's how I was. That's how, that's where my brain went. You know what I mean? I would, and I, I try and I could,

[00:49:19] unfortunately I could only handle the, the, the, the thing in my head telling me that for so long, you know what I mean? It was this issue of, uh, this issue of, of, of, you know, truth versus reality. And, and, uh, it was, I don't know if I'm

[00:49:39] making any sense. I relate. I relate like inherently. It's not that I understand what you're saying because you're speaking clearly what you are. It's, I feel what you're saying. Like, because no one gets away from these. I don't think hardly anyone that

[00:49:59] I've spoken to, or my experience gets away from this negative self-talk that happens between when you play survivor, you think it's going to be something it's not that no matter, even if you win, I don't think, you know, taking it from, from

[00:50:12] Wendell and Adam people who have won that I've interviewed on the show. I think we all have this where you just said, like the difference between truth and reality and like the difference between who you are as a person and then what your

[00:50:27] real lived experience was of the show. And then what it is on the show and the mix of all of that and who you were before and who you are now meeting people. It is a, it is a identity shattering experience, no matter how it

[00:50:46] goes. And then when you had this additional fear of essentially knowing for sure, like you said, you understand casting, you understand storylines. You understand that you're not going to get out unscathed as like, oh, it was Joey amazing

[00:51:04] who voted out because he was a big threat. Like you knew it was not going to go that way. And so that having that added pressure on top of having to do the whole like performance piece outside of it is, it makes sense. And it's, it's a

[00:51:20] massive undertaking for anyone. And then it had this added spice for you, I guess. Yeah. It was a, it was a pretty darkly frustrating moment, right? Because it's the, it is the, the, the knowing of what's coming, the, the, the deep

[00:51:37] suspect of, of, you know, the deep suspicion of knowing what your head's going to look like and just how catastrophic it's going to be and how deeply, how far removed it's going to be from your expectation of your experience and how you want it

[00:51:51] to be portrayed. And it's, it's, it's basically almost a year just waiting for a bomb to drop. You know, you got a premonition of the future. You don't really know how damaging the blast radius is going to be until it hits. You can only, you

[00:52:07] can only write your little predictions in your little books. So it was, it was, it was a lot of waiting. Shortly before the show aired, Dr. Liza recommended a therapist to me. I ended up with a therapist and started going to therapy pretty

[00:52:21] regularly just to start talking through all this before it even happened. And, and, and I kind of just braced myself for, for the worst. Yeah. And so then the show comes on, does that happen to be the worst or was that after all of this time, not

[00:52:39] as bad as maybe you thought it would be, or was it worse? It's, it's funny. It's a little muddled in my memory, if I'm honest, it was such a, it's such a whirlwind. Um, I think, I think my portrayal was actually a little worse than even I

[00:52:55] thought it was going to be. Like I knew it was going to be bad. I don't think I realized that I was going to have more exposure in our premiere episode than some people got their entire season. I don't think I realized that. And some people

[00:53:10] put it up as like, wow, production really loved this guy. Uh, like they showed, they showed him so much. He had such a big editing. They must've loved it. Like, no, no, no, no, no. That's not how TV editing works. How reality TV editing

[00:53:22] works is that there's a bunch of story producers on the beach or marking down whenever anything interesting, notable happens. And then they take the best of those bits and they weave it into this. It's like all these little glass shards and

[00:53:33] they make a little like stained glass window out of it. So it makes sense to the, to the naked eye. Uh, so I just had so much material that they just had to put it all out there. It

[00:53:43] wasn't because the production loved me. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not buddy buddy with the cameraman. You know what I mean? Like it's, I think I'm friendly with like one story producer. If that's kind of it, you know, um, it's, it's a

[00:53:55] misunderstanding of how this thing works and there was just so much of me and all of it was bad. It was a strongly negative edit. Uh, and so it's this thing where I'm standing there in

[00:54:12] public at a bar to watch party with a bunch of other people, a bunch of my friends, my family, my other survivor people, uh, just like gritting and bearing it being like, wow, crazy. I wonder what's going to happen to this guy. You know what I

[00:54:27] mean? Like it was, it was, it was a new kind of catastrophe. I don't think I've ever experienced anything like that before. I've always been an anxious neurotic person and I've always kind of suspected that everybody was pointing and laughing. I've always been sensitive to that. I was

[00:54:41] bullied a lot as a kid. It was kind of ingrained in me. And so watching that show, it was the recognition. It was the realization that my worst fear was in fact happening. Like I, I literally had millions of people pointing and laughing

[00:54:55] or cringing or reacting strongly negatively to me. And it is a weird sensation and your gut instinct is to fight it a little bit. Like I've spent, I've never spent quite a few like weeks just like kind of like, no, no, no, no, no, that's

[00:55:13] not what you don't understand. You gotta get the full picture. You gotta send the full story. You gotta say why, why this happened? Why? I'm not gross. I'm normal. Like you, you get so defensive about it because, because what do you do? You know,

[00:55:22] you, you searched my name on Google and it was just headline after headline of people making puns off me. You know what I mean? It was, what do you do? So I became very defensive and

[00:55:31] very, I tried to be like, I tried to be like down and in on the joke for a little while. You know what I mean? I tried to be like open to, you know, going to events and like, yeah,

[00:55:41] totally. Ha ha. You know, very, totally, you know, like being, you know, whatever about it. But it was, it was haunting me truly, like deeply in my guts. Uh, just nudging me every second and, um, trying to navigate that feeling. I mean,

[00:56:02] inevitably the result was just like, oh no, I need to completely separate myself from this. And it took me about a year or two to like actually fully do that. But like, yeah, I'm not going to meet ups anymore. I'm not going to go to

[00:56:12] events. I'm not going to go to shows. I'm not going to go to this. I'm not going to go to that. No offense to any of the people there. It hurts too much. It just hurts. It's, it's,

[00:56:20] it's digging into a wound that I need to let heal. And I, I, the only way I'm going to do that is with space. Um, and so I took a, I mean, with the exception of a little thing

[00:56:30] here and there, a little comment, a little post, I showed up on a little thing here. Like, you know, I, I, I just started saying no to a lot of things. Um, which I'm sure some people didn't like also, I'm sure some people saw that as

[00:56:42] like dismissive or, or, you know, Jacob's not doing so good. You know what I mean? There was literally an article headline that was like, you know, this survivor player needed therapy after he was voted out. I'm like, yeah.

[00:56:55] Yeah. All of us did. And yeah, all of us, all of us did. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. When it was that time where you decided to just be like, I I'm out for a bit. Were you still communicating with

[00:57:13] people from your cast? Did you maintain a relationship with people from, you don't have to use names or anything, but I mean, I know our, our situation, but like, were you talking with people from the show? Like, was there the other piece of the

[00:57:26] people you had met somewhat, or were you like close the door altogether? I'm out. I'm done for now. It's a, it kind of depended if I'm honest, like there were some people that I've found, you know, like you, uh, Laurel, for

[00:57:39] example, people who I've, I've kind of built a real genuine connection with that has nothing to do with survivor, which is really nice. You know what I mean? Like, it felt like for a couple of years, the only conversation I could have with

[00:57:49] survivor players was the back driver and like, why are we still talking about what we could have done, should have done, did, but wasn't appreciated four years after it happened. Like the game's over, dude. Like we're not going back

[00:58:02] to the island. Like, can we, can we, can we cool it on the game talk? Like I felt that way even during the pre-jury trip. It's like, you know, we're literally here because we're out. We're in Brisbane because we're not in Fiji. Like, can we, can we, can

[00:58:16] we cool it on the game talk? You know what I mean? None of us know each other. None of us have any connection. There's no, there's no personhood here. And, um, so like with people outside

[00:58:26] of people on the cast, who I was able to connect with and become close with outside of all that, like Laurel, like you, um, I still have a good connection with, and they were pretty important to all that, you know, uh,

[00:58:38] I think that that like tells the explains in a different light, like how on, on this show in particular, we talk about our relationships and like the, like to tie it back to like, what's real and what's the truth and all that stuff. Like even in our

[00:58:56] one-on-one relationships with the people from the season, each of those storylines has its own. Sure. What's from the show. What's real. What's the truth. What's the reality TV piece. And that is, I think would describe why my relationship

[00:59:10] with you is so fun for me because we went through the, the exact same time and there was no really question about what was game relationship and what was real relationship. And that was a really beautiful, like unique thing. Um, yeah. Yeah.

[00:59:30] Like I see people, I see people pre-gaming for 50, like that thing, you know, I'm talking about where like people are posting photos, hanging out with other players, like, and there's the, the, the jokes in the comments, but yeah, they're talking about their season 50 Alliance because yeah, apparently

[00:59:44] it's going to be a returning season. Like that stuff drives me crazy. It's like, you can't, the game ended the game, the game starts when you go out, it ends when it's over. And, and that's why I like games. Yeah. I love that. I like games. I have

[01:00:00] a board game group that I play with constantly and it's because yeah, maybe we get heated about a thing in the strategy or the, why did you hang up on me? You can't do that. Or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Or whatever. But like when it's

[01:00:11] over, it's over. What happened happened and you could talk about it, but like trying to trudge on it, like it means more than it did. I mean, you're just going to hurt your own feelings. It's, it's so don't get me wrong. Survivor is

[01:00:22] a much more high stakes game than, than werewolf. Yeah. There are differences. But it is a little, I've been playing blood on the clock tower or some, I don't know. Have you ever played it's so fun. I love this thing to like a survivor. Is that, is

[01:00:37] that something that you would like, or even that like Stephen Fishback hosted a game or something? So there were a couple of survivors. There were a couple of people. Is that kind of stuff? Are you interested in that? Like, um, I

[01:00:50] don't know what to say, like nearby stuff, or is that still too much like survivor? If I'm honest, I think I kinda, I think I kinda blew that. Um, cause I did have people like text me about those kinds of things and seeing if I was interested and

[01:01:07] I said I was, um, but in retrospect, you know, I think in the couple of years after the season, when like the ghost island cast was a relatively relevant group of people in survivor community and like the recency of it all, um, I was

[01:01:24] 22, 23, you know, working a bunch of part-time jobs, just getting my life started dealing with a whole ton of anxiety. Um, not articulating myself well, not explaining myself well in a way that was engaging more self-serving than anything, right? The whole self-deprecation of it all. Um,

[01:01:49] I had a really hard time, but what I've said to you a couple of times today is like, for me, it was so hard because my life was over. It wasn't over. I wasn't, I wasn't messed up because I lost survivor. I was messed up because I lost

[01:02:01] everything. You know what I mean? At least in the perspective of that kid who went through that, but um, you know, you look back on it and I'm almost 30. You know what I mean? Like it's, it's, I look at the way it was all handled

[01:02:13] and I don't, I see a lot of mistakes made along the way and I see a lot of relationships that could have been stronger than ours. Um, I see a lot of people who see me in one way and

[01:02:25] that's not how I see myself. That's not how my community sees me. Um, and so at a certain point in my life, I kind of decided like it's not worth harping on. You know what I mean? If people want to reach out and I'm glad you reached

[01:02:36] out. If people want to reach out and they want to talk and I feel like I can talk about it or I want to be involved in that, then I'll say yes. You know what I mean? But I'm not trying to

[01:02:45] make it my whole life anymore. I know people who did the show in 2003 who still, it's still their whole life and yeah, and you need to, you need to move on. You need to live. We're not

[01:02:54] going back to the island. We need, we need to live here. I have a fiancee, I have cats, I have a career, I have hobbies, I have friends and survivor was a survivor was a weird little

[01:03:04] thing I did once and it's a fun story sometimes to bring up in certain company and I pray to God that employers in the future don't Google me before they talk to me. That's really it. I always feel like if uh, if they see that and they want

[01:03:20] judges from our time on survivor, then it's not where I want to work anyway. Um, sure. But I, I do. It was interesting cause I just talked with Jitia. She obviously had a fire experience. Weirdly, weirdly, weirdly. I'd say me and Jitia

[01:03:36] fall in a very rare group of people. It's like, uh, I didn't think going on a survivor that my, one of my closest, uh, uh, reference points for my experience would be Jitia, but I think it is. Yeah, they like, um, go out hot sort of, it's

[01:03:50] short and it's, it's fire sort of experience. And you know, she has just recently started to go back. She was at the Bryson Wendell event in Chicago and she was like, really, this is actually like really fun to like go in and do these things.

[01:04:08] She also, she has, her life has gone on. She now is married and has kids that is working and it has the whole thing. And, and so it's so interesting to, although she did sequester with me during, during 2020 and, um, online games. And like I have

[01:04:27] recently, I didn't do some stuff for a while. I think whether or not it looks like it to the outside, I feel like I took a pretty big break. Like my first live event since I'd been on the show was Chicago this year. Wow. Yeah. So I hadn't

[01:04:41] been going to anything in person or anything like that at all. And it was so fun. Jacob, like most people didn't even know that I was a survivor at the event. Like, and that part is like, like that part was so fun to like literally a couple of

[01:04:58] people. Like I went up and said, like, you're trying to be friendly and stuff. And I like went up and said like, Oh, Hey, are you guys have, they had no idea it was on the show. And I

[01:05:04] just got to like talk to them about the current season without the pressure of that. And it was so, it really was not saying that you, I have in no way saying you should, that is not what I mean. I'm saying that like after time it has changed

[01:05:20] for me and all of us are like relationship with the show and being on the show and the fandom of it just changes. Um, I know you weren't watching for a while. Have you, have you been watching at all? No, I'm not watching as lovely as it does

[01:05:37] sound to like, you know, kind of infiltrate those spaces a little bit. Um, and I, and maybe not, maybe not. Well, that's, that's what's funny is like, you know, uh, like I said, I go on the Reddit still sometimes just to like keep up,

[01:05:50] you know what I mean? Cause I get something out of that. I guess. I don't know why I do it. Yeah. I just, I poke around sometimes and someone had posted my engagement video, uh, of me

[01:06:00] proposing to my, my, my fiance and it was very sweet. Did that make you feel good that they posted it or if it was more, well, not good or bad. It's just like, oh, okay. I guess, I guess someone was interested in all three. There were only

[01:06:12] three comments and the three comments were like, I didn't, who is this guy? I don't know this guy. And then somebody that goes from ghost island, he's like, oh, I didn't watch that one. Cause a lot of, you know what, we're almost at 50.

[01:06:21] There's, there's this whole era of 40 plus that a lot of people got into that reemerged interest in the show, uh, uh, uh, from a certain group that maybe wasn't really into it for the 40 seasons prior. And like, yeah, we're not relevant characters in

[01:06:37] that story. You know what I mean? Maybe, maybe two of us from our season are it's not, it's not a, we don't loom large like, like Robin Sanders giant heads or something. So it's, it's, uh, it's, it's the one that's the, that's the island of the idols.

[01:06:57] Uh, that would be italic too. Um, yeah, I don't, I don't think I'm going to be like, I will say like the most I've done is like, I have a couple of friends who are still really big, big fans.

[01:07:06] And so like, if they asked me to come to a little viewing party, where it's just like a couple of us hanging out in their apartment and we'll do that. You know what I mean? Like I'm happy to do that. It may, maybe one day somebody will

[01:07:17] give me a call and be like, I really want you to be a part of this panel. Cause I think we have an interesting perspective and maybe I'll do that. You know what I mean? But like the

[01:07:24] idea of just like showing up at a place and you know, I don't, I don't really think I needed to be a big part of my personality at this point. Like it was such a massive aspect of me for so literally most of my, my young adult life.

[01:07:41] Major fandom. And, and it's not to say, you know, you can't enjoy something for your whole life. You know what I mean? You can enjoy things for, for your whole life from birth to death. That can be important the whole way through. But for

[01:07:52] me at a certain point when it became too personal and I couldn't separate the game thing from the life thing, I, you know, the most, the healthiest thing to do was to, was, was to, was to break up with survivor. Kind of. It's a

[01:08:10] weird one. It's a, I also don't want us to portray the thing as like wholly negative. You know what I mean? Like, you know, cause, cause you know, there are millions of people who are, they care about the thing. They watch the thing.

[01:08:22] They, they, they listen to podcasts about the thing and they're reading blogs about the thing. I was on an Amtrak, Amtrak train from, from, from, uh, Glen's falls to New York city last weekend. And I was sitting behind someone watching

[01:08:35] an RHAP cast assessment, like it's everywhere and they didn't notice me, which is great. Uh, I'm just incognito and I wear glasses now. I'm now incognito. Um, that's, that's how far we've come. So it's not all negative, even, even with, we've talked

[01:08:50] about the heaviness of your experience, but there are clearly positive things in your life and changes that have of, of who you are today that have gone through it. Is there anything about the positive side that you would want to share?

[01:09:05] Well, I'll say this, you know, I don't know if I'm necessarily a destiny fate guy, but you know, things happen for, that's not even right. It's more like whatever came before is what causes what comes next. You know what I mean? There's a

[01:09:18] timeline, there's cause and effect, there's events that happen sequentially. And for me, the disaster of survivor for me, if I don't go through that, if I don't do that, I I'm not here. You know what I mean? Like if I don't, if I don't

[01:09:34] fight like hell to get on the show, uh, you know, if I don't get on the show, if I don't fail the way I do, you know what I mean? I don't get that $2,000 advance from the production to

[01:09:45] move out. And, um, if I don't go on the show and I, if I don't meet Andrea Belkey in an interview, I don't hang out with her in New York afterwards. If I don't hang out with Andrea Belkey in New York afterwards, I don't get in an

[01:09:57] Uber with her and her friends off to grab drinks somewhere in Queens. And if I'm not in that Uber, I don't overhear her friend talking about trying to move out of her apartment. If I don't hear that, I don't speak up and say, Hey, I'm looking for

[01:10:10] a place in Brooklyn. I just got a job in Brooklyn Heights. And if I don't do that, I don't get that room. If I don't do that, I don't get the roommate I had who became a dear friend who I

[01:10:20] still do game nights with constantly, who invited me to come to the open mics where I met all of my friends and my fiance. You know what I mean? Like I don't meet my fiance. We don't start our life with our cats and we've gone through a

[01:10:34] lot of tough parts too, but like we don't start our life with our cats and our engagement and her pursuing her career as an actor and a musician. She's done more television than I have, which is funny. We're both reality TV trash. It's

[01:10:47] hilarious. You know, I don't end up working in casting for four years. You know what I mean? Like if I don't go on Survivor, I don't feel compelled to start taking acting classes because I need to put my energy somewhere else. I don't meet my

[01:11:00] friend Kristen who gets me into the casting world and I don't work in casting for four years, which is my whole career for four years. You know what I mean? Which I turned the thing that stabbed me in the foot into something fairly lucrative

[01:11:12] for at least a little while. Yeah, that's crazy. I thought I honestly I thought we were going to talk about that piece of it. Oh my God. I can't get too deep into it, but yeah. Yeah, you

[01:11:22] can't get too deep, but just to briefly say your job for four years was to review and pitch people who are applying for Survivor. Sorry for reality TV, right? Yeah, never worked on Survivor hilariously, but I did work on the parent test. I

[01:11:40] worked on love and hip hop. I worked on an upcoming show for Hallmark and Lifetime. I worked on tons of in development stuff for like every network and streamer. There's someone you might recognize on an upcoming season of Extreme Makeover Home

[01:11:54] Edition that I may or may not have had a big part in like there is I. I was doing that. I turned the thing that kind of killed me into a career for what was that like? Like what

[01:12:06] was it like to be like watching all of those sure videos and applications? It is the most interesting perspective and one that I think anyone who goes on one of these shows should get if they can and not everybody can because there's a million

[01:12:22] reality shows now and so many people that go through some version of what we went through. But like the perspective of doing it from the outside and on the inside, you understand it so much more deeply. You understand how much how much

[01:12:40] more unlikely it was that either of us ever ended up on Survivor. You know what I mean? The sheer number of people that apply to these shows, no matter how niche and the specifics that these companies are looking for. I mean these things get

[01:12:54] narrowed down fast and it like it takes making quite an impact to make any progress at all in a casting process. So to be a part of that process to be a part of like I was the guy who

[01:13:08] was essentially trying to sell you to the network like you would send in a tape and you do an interview and I had to turn it all in 3 minutes of like this is why this person is good for this. You know like you understand why there are

[01:13:21] archetypes and personality things that people look for because you know some some exec at some network is going to look at this guy for 2 minutes and they're going to make their decision pretty quickly and they need to pop immediately and

[01:13:36] if they if they are too hard to understand as a character from the get then it's just it's probably just not going to happen. You know what I mean? So you me and the other 7000 people that have done Survivor around the world or whatever

[01:13:50] all of us had to stand out in some very specific way that made some vice president go. Alright Jeff, I'm with you on this one. Okay Lynn, okay Jesse. Yeah sure. You know what I mean? It it that's what it all boils down to. It's it is a

[01:14:05] it's a tricky process and it's it's political and it's strategic and it's it's complicated. It's hard. Yeah. Does it feel did it make it feel so much more like it's a machine? I you know I wouldn't say it's a machine because at

[01:14:22] the end of the day the thing that's interesting about casting is that like people have to make decisions about people. You know what I mean? And yes, sometimes there are box decisions on minuscule pieces right and don't get me wrong. Sometimes you just gotta check some boxes 100%. But

[01:14:43] at the overall, you know to get the attention of a casting associate to then get it to the attention of a casting producer to be considered strong enough to be pitched to the casting director and strong enough to be pitched to a

[01:14:56] network or production company or what have you. Do you want to share any like advice I guess for the casting process? Yeah sure. I'll say that there is no formula and and that's what I'm saying is people making decisions about people like

[01:15:14] even if there are certain attributes they're looking for or we want them to be hot young and sick fine great start whatever like you still need to impress so many people in a row with nobody saying no and you do that with your winning

[01:15:27] personality. Your big at your big person your big personality, your winning attributes, your life story, the things that make you interesting compelling a little bit deep fun to watch an interesting storyteller engaging right so I actually I have some problems with the idea

[01:15:45] that you can like teach someone how to make a perfect cast or something like that because there's no such thing it is it is so person to person. It is so show to show it's a project to project. You know the way you're going to get someone's attention

[01:15:57] on on Survivor is not the same way you're going to get their attention on any other show on any other network. It's so different from thing to thing. The core of it is just being a good storyteller. That's it. That's the reason I got on

[01:16:09] Survivor. I didn't get on. How do you become a better storyteller if you aren't sure like how are there things that people can do to be a better storyteller or is it just you got it or you don't got it. I well, you can definitely learn

[01:16:24] and grow some people have it in her like I think Dominic performance that you know, but but no, but it is it's something you grow with. I mean when I was nineteen, I interned at the moth and if you don't know the moth is it's a

[01:16:34] nonprofit. Yes. Yeah. It's a nonprofit and they do they do storytelling events where you literally go to an event. There's a theme you prepare a five-minute story put your name in the hat and if they call your name, you go up to tell the

[01:16:46] story and there's like judging based on the story like I came in second one for the story. So I never won whatever but I interned there when I was like nineteen. I'll put a couple events on in New York. There's a very popular podcast and radio

[01:16:58] show of a bunch of the different stories like the main thing they teach you is like beginning middle and end, you know like it's about change. It's about something changing over time. You're a different person at the end

[01:17:09] than you were at the beginning. It's about being able to right. It's it's being able to express a specific point of view in a that is compelling and engaging and detailed and where were you the catalyst and as the catalyst, what did you do? This

[01:17:26] is how I do with my career coaching or interview. Yeah. The time is before during and after what was the situation before what happened during what did you do during and what was the after and where were you the catalyst and all that

[01:17:37] like get it down to being able to tell every single story of your life in three sentences and prove that you're the catalyst. You can maybe get on reality TV that way. I think I mean that's how you get jobs. I don't know. I'm not a reality

[01:17:50] TV expert, but we talked about that. We talked about like to get on survivor. You have to be a pretty good interview. You know what I mean? You have to be a pretty good interviewee because you're doing a lot of them and you need to be you

[01:18:01] need to convince them that you're the right fit for the thing over and over and over again. It's like anything else you just also have to do it while being either incredibly hot, incredibly funny or incredibly unique in a different way that is appropriate for television. I

[01:18:14] suppose thank god. We were all three Jacob. Thank god. We're all so hot. We're so we're just so attractive. I mean it's it's kind of unbelievable honestly. No, I got I got on the show because I could tell a story and that's it. I got on the

[01:18:31] show because I made my casting producers laugh. I got on the show because Jeff looked at me and thought I was amusing actively actively. There were people at CBS who did not want me on the show because I've been writing a blog and they

[01:18:44] were worried that I was going to like reveal something on the blog or something. Yeah, which was insane. The idea that I would ever give up a shot at this for a blog that a couple people were reading is psychotic, but I was getting

[01:18:56] phone calls weeks up to the reveal that I was on the show being from my Jeff from the producers being like don't **** me. Do not screw me over if I'm putting you on the show like it was 100 like there were genuine concerns about me being there

[01:19:11] and the only reason I'm there was not because I was strong not because I was the smartest person in the world literally just because I was compelling. That's it and it's just about being able to tell your story from your perspective in a way

[01:19:24] that is engaging that makes people lean in a little bit and you learn how to do that with practice. You can go do the mock. You can listen to a bunch of stories. I recommend DND when you can. It's a great storytelling tool like there's

[01:19:37] so many ways that is the key compelling compelling compelling. Well, thank you for taking time to talk us through that. Like I just can't have somebody else who's now but on the other side and has been through such a part of it and I know that

[01:19:50] people listening want to be on survivor even after if they made it this far into road to reality season two and you all still want to play the game of survivor. You are potentially meant to be out there. So if you've listened this long even

[01:20:03] after all of these roller coasters and you still want to do it, I feel like keep working towards compelling storytelling. That's that's where to head next. Yeah. Well, that's just it right. It's it's you know what we're not saying don't

[01:20:16] play survivor. We're saying you need to have these things to do it a little more safely. You know what I mean? That's all I'm saying. I'm not you know, it's more like you know if I had done everything I had done and then come home and immediately

[01:20:31] been embraced by people who understood how I was feeling and could talk me through these feelings and I had a little more of a stable thing at home and a little more of a community. I was able to articulate how I was feeling

[01:20:44] and what I was going through a little bit better to those people very likely a completely different experience for me post game. You know what I mean? Like it's it's and some of that's on me. Some of that's on me having to learn how to be a

[01:20:57] better communicator about my feelings. I was a kid. Yeah, 100%. You're a kid like that is that's that's I mean you're doing big big big stuff that is now impacted the trajectory of your life in all of these very real ways into into beautiful

[01:21:14] situations and to really really freaking hard ones and you were a kid. I mean just to give yourself the the break there and to be 30 now and looking back on it is the the time. I don't know that time heals all but it certainly helps with the

[01:21:28] perspective when it comes to the survivor experience. Absolutely. You need that space. You so desperately need that space and that distance and some people don't understand that some people hear kind of how I talk about it and they don't

[01:21:43] understand why I can't just be grateful. You know what I mean for the experience? They don't understand why I'm not well, you know, but you got to do the thing you got you did it. Aren't you so proud of yourself? To me, it's like no,

[01:21:52] I'm not proud of myself like II performed poorly. It looked bad. I was embarrassed. I still am a little embarrassed. Now, I'm just learning how to sit with it. You know what I mean? Now, I'm trying to now, you know, I want this to be a party

[01:22:06] trick. I want this to be a two truths and a lie. I don't want this to be my whole life. Yeah. I mean like there's a big difference there and learning how to compartmentalize that thing. It took a couple years of therapy. I was at the same

[01:22:18] therapist for a real long time and it was very helpful and it was very good and also just growing and having a life and doing things and not sitting in it forever. You know, my therapy going into the show was so helpful and then I didn't

[01:22:34] do as much therapy right after as I should have but then therapy about a year later really, really helped a lot. If you are wanting to apply to be on survivor like the moment you apply, make sure you are seeing a therapist or at the very least

[01:22:47] the moment you get a call back to do it just like go immediately into therapy like that is the number one thing. 100%. Yeah. 100%. When you talked about at the top of the call like you felt like there was missing context. Do you

[01:23:05] feel like we've been able to touch on at least some of that context or is there other pieces of context that you wish people knew? No, I mean that's really it. It was it was it was

[01:23:16] the it was the fact that to me going on the show was more than a game for me. It was trying to start my life. That that was the biggest bit of context that was never really articulate.

[01:23:27] It was it was literally just like I had nothing else going for me and so I thought if I can do this, if I can somehow pull this off or at least do fairly well, you know, pick up a following something. I don't know why but something maybe

[01:23:44] that's how I start. I'm a musician. I wanna do voice acting. I wanna do personality stuff, podcasting, radio. I wanna do all this. Maybe this is the catalyst with which it begins and when it was over and in such fireworks, I knew that that

[01:24:05] was all probably gone at least for the time being if not forever and so the the the pain of that whole time frame that whole experience was based not just on survivor but on the loss of everything that's around with it. Yeah, the grief

[01:24:24] of the plans. Yeah, exactly which II fully recognize you know, are these realistic thoughts? Not necessarily but in those moments, you're not, you're not thinking like, wow, these these these insane sad anxious thoughts are so not reasonable. It's like no, that's that's not how that

[01:24:44] works. No, it all feels very very real. It was very very real. Yeah, I'll just say I'll just say cuz I mentioned it the funniest thing about all this is that I've been with my my partner now for 5 years. She was on undercover boss the same

[01:25:02] like year we did survivor. She was on undercover boss celebrity edition. She was a Dina Menzel's mentee and she has this amazing episode and the Dina like helped to move to New York and paid off her medical bills and like got her whole

[01:25:15] life together like started here in New York so she could pursue her dreams and we you know, we're on our third date and I say that I just wanna let you know like you know, I you probably googled me. I just wanna explain like you know, I

[01:25:29] don't I promise I'm not like I'm in real life. I'm not like I am on the show. I know II came off a certain point and she goes, I didn't I didn't look that up. I didn't google you

[01:25:37] right. You know, I'm like oh okay. Well, don't you know and then she explains to me her experience right here going on the show and make you know, you know like supporting her career and like getting her life started in New York and I just

[01:25:49] look at her and I go respectfully go **** yourself and she tackled and that was kind of the beginning of our of our understanding of people you know of our relationship and she also did on Fox. She did. I can see your voice. It

[01:26:04] aired in January of this year and she got to sing with like Lauren Alaina live on the show and it was incredible like it's it's always cracked me up how like whatever I have like a brush with reality television. It's like look at that boy and

[01:26:16] his shoes in the water and then like when she goes on, it's like you know, it's just like everyone sees how amazing she is which is amazing which makes me really happy. It's kind of the the dichotomy of a of a of a trash reality TV couple I

[01:26:29] suppose. And yet here you are together. Right? Yeah. You see something in me. I'll take it. Yeah. Of course. Of course. Of course she does. It's so yeah the the contrast between like it everything's going so well. Yeah. Meanwhile, I'm not meme of you know Troy from community

[01:26:53] walking back into the room with the pizza. Everything's on fire. You know, there's a different structure. So Jacob Derwin, I have ten rapid round questions. You can answer them with one word or however long you'd like to go. Number one, I think we

[01:27:12] already said this. How many times did you apply for survivor? Three kind of four three to three and a half. Three and a half. Yeah. In your survivor bio, you described yourself as self deprecating, charming and affable though Others would say punchable. Would you like to make any

[01:27:43] additions and changes to the three words that you describe yourself today? Oh, that kid was trying so hard. Oh, he was trying so hard. Yeah. I've I've worked really hard to take self deprecating kind of out of my my lingo. It still pops out

[01:28:01] sometimes but I'm I don't I don't rely on that anymore. It's it's not a good place to sit. I do think I'm charming. Not to everybody. I do think I'm to the right crowd. I'm a very like

[01:28:15] literally my job is to like go into rooms and be a face for a company like I'm I'm charming. Yes. Affable so **** weak. That's like how everybody for five years used like gregarious. You know what I mean? Let's say let's say oh yeah I like

[01:28:33] Charming. I'll say I'll go back to I used to say goofy. Charming, goofy and and wholeheartedly sincere II and it gets me in trouble sometimes because I say the quiet thing loud but II am so achingly sincere in my everyday life. Yeah.

[01:28:56] I think that's a beautiful thing. Yeah. It's a dizzy. Okay. From the moment you applied on the show till today, here we are. What was the hardest part of the survivor experience and what was the best part? The hardest part. A little gaming

[01:29:19] the hardest part was winning an advantage I couldn't use because obviously you edit around these things. There's about 50 minutes of footage of confessional footage lying on a editing floor somewhere of me basically screaming at the show being like how did I get this screwed over knowing that like

[01:29:43] when I go back, I am in trouble and now I have a piece of paper. I need to give away. Okay. Like that was everything was going to hell right there. So that was truly the hardest

[01:29:55] part like kind of seeing it all when you were on Ghost Island when I was on Ghost Island, I won the legacy advantage. It had no power. I had to give it away and I realized like there's

[01:30:04] there's no way out of this is there. I'd say that's the hardest part. Obviously, a lot of hard parts followed but if we're talking about the survivor experience itself, that's the one to today. The best part the best part is that

[01:30:19] I have a handful of friends from that community. There's no chance I ever would have known without the show. There's there's II never would have met you. I never would have met Laurel. I never would have met any of the people from any of

[01:30:33] the other seasons that I've become friendly with a couple of a small handful. I I I drove across the country in 2019 and I crashed on all of your couches and it was the best. It was the best like that is that is you know II definitely do not

[01:30:49] have a relationship with everybody from our cast. There are some people who I felt willfully turned and pushed me as far away from them as they could and that's fine but there are a handful of people that I have a very good relationship

[01:31:03] with and I value that incredibly highly. If you could go back and give yourself one piece of advice on day one of the game, what would it be one piece of advice? Spend a little time with everyone not just the people who you think

[01:31:32] you get along with spend a little time with everybody because you know II was I was in trouble early for a lot of reasons. There's a world in which I just endear myself to the right people but what really happened is I never

[01:31:48] really got to know. You know Brendan Michael Libby Jenna II never really got to know them at all. I don't you know until after the game even after the game. I know Brendan a little bit you know like it's it's it's II that's the biggest piece

[01:32:06] of advice is find time to ask them about themselves and who these people are forget it's a game for a minute. Just talk that's it. I don't know if it would have changed anything but would have felt better going out than I did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:32:26] That was great advice. I think that was great. I forget it's a game and talk to everybody and get to know who everyone is as a human. So good. You're so wrapped up in it. It sounds so

[01:32:35] easy from your couch right? It sounds so you're so wrapped up in it on day one. You're so it's so go go go. We we had a challenge the moment we stepped off the beat. Oh my god. You

[01:32:47] know what I mean? Like I die. I was passing out floating in the water for 7 hours or something like it's it is it is just pause just start spending time with people. That's it. Yeah. It really I think it would honestly I think remember that

[01:33:03] it is potentially some of your best new best friends for life or not even they stay your best friends but they are temporarily and a lot of them will be. I mean we're 8 years later sitting here talking with each other like it's true. You

[01:33:16] know it's the really look at it from that way for like the first 24 hours and then go yeah 100% absolutely other than survivor what's your favorite reality TV show to watch? Top Chef. Oh yeah we love a good cooking show. I love Top Chef. I've

[01:33:36] tried to create my own cooking show multiple times. I mean it's pretty far. Yeah you've gotten so far in the process right? I've done pretty good. I've had some I've had some meetings. I love cooking shows. My mom and I did a Food

[01:33:49] Network show once a couple years ago in like 2020 for for the Food Network Kitchen app that I'm still very grateful we got to do. She is the latke queen and we got to show off her latke recipe. It was awesome. Love the cooking show.

[01:34:02] My the thing that cracks some people up when I turned in my bar mitzvah. One of one of one of ten who have done survivor I'm kidding there's more but the my bar mitzvah theme when I was turning 13 we had you have your little bar mitzvah party

[01:34:19] my theme was the amazing race not even survivor. I was a huge survivor fan but my theme was the amazing race because I made all of the tables named after different countries and I made little signs for all of them and like my little book for

[01:34:32] people to sign in was like this big like like a journal with like the like a map on it and like a compass rose and stuff like II genuinely could never do the amazing race probably me and me and Beth have joked about like getting weirdly in

[01:34:47] shape and trying to do it or something but I do love the amazing race for sure. That's a good one. I know Adrian and I was like we don't we don't have the we don't have the hips and

[01:34:55] knees for that show but we did we did sit in our video. We're trying. We're trying. Yeah, we're trying. Yeah. Do you have a favorite place in the world that people could visit? I got two for you because as I mentioned earlier, I did a full

[01:35:12] cross country road trip and I got I you know for I basically just drove for a month and I got I got to most of the country and I love a lot of the country. I mean I love you were

[01:35:22] over in Denver at that point. I love that. I really enjoyed Colorado. I enjoyed a lot of places. I I have a hard time living anywhere but New York II have such a I'm so spoiled by the city and it kicks my **** every day. Don't get me wrong

[01:35:35] like it is expensive and it is hard and it's it's it's expensive. I mentioned it was expensive. It's expensive. It is living here is complicated but there's just so much. There's just so I'm an arts and theater and music guy and I'm

[01:35:52] in the middle of all of it. I my my many of my closest friends live within a 30-minute walk of of my apartment II can I can I can get to you know the I can get to the the sculpture

[01:36:06] gardens in Jersey or the the the seaside all the way out on the coast of Long Island or I can take an Amtrak a few hours up to Boston. I'm in the middle of all the places that I like

[01:36:17] to be in the northeast and the east coast. There's so much here and I and there's so many people here who I love and who I are so accessible because the city is you can get anywhere from anywhere here. You know what I mean II and so II

[01:36:30] genuinely love New York and on the more fantastical side of things I spent when I was still freelancing and I had a little more control over my own schedule. uh but uh my fiance was working on a cruise ship. She's uh she's an on and off

[01:36:44] again actor singer for virgin voyages on one of their ships and she does these amazing shows and I spent a month with her on the ship last December while they were in Australia and New Zealand and I've been to Australia and my last time in

[01:36:59] Australia was not a great experience, but this time because I was on a luxury ship with my fiance and all of her amazing performer friends and all these awesome people and we were going to New Zealand. I mean New Zealand was was was

[01:37:14] mind altering like you have not seen beauty until you have been to Taronga and and uh Wellington and these nature reserves uh along the coast same goes for Tasmania off the coast of Australia. We went to this museum called the um the

[01:37:32] Mona the Museum of old and new art in Tasmania. That was the most like gobsmacking art museum I've ever been to like literally has a whole vineyard and like wild chickens and a concert venue and like food stalls and then like a five

[01:37:46] story subterranean new age art museum like. Blew me away so uh II highly recommend that anyone who enjoys a little bit of artistic beauty or natural beauty get their **** over to Tasmania and New Zealand. Yeah. So cool. So cool. I've got to

[01:38:05] experience. Get my rear end all the way over there. My god. We're not supposed to be cursing this whole time cuz I definitely. No no we curse. We we say whatever we want on on road to reality. No you're good. Don't worry about it.

[01:38:18] Whatever we want. Uh whatever we want. We do what we want. The earth is flat. The earth is flat. Do you have a book or article that you wanna share that's changed your life or just you wanna share that you love? Um it's fun. Uh Stephen Fishback

[01:38:41] does a podcast sometimes where he interviews authors. Uh that's called Paraphrase and one of the books he featured was Severance by an author named Ling Ma and I decided to read that one cuz it was I'm not like the biggest reader in

[01:38:54] the world uh for fiction. I do more nonfiction typically um but I'm like you know I've been looking for a good novel. It's pretty it's not too long. It seems interesting and I was reading it not not too big of a spoiler but it's about a strange

[01:39:07] pandemic that occurs uh that leaks out of uh leaks out of China and gets across the world and the whole story takes place in New York um and the character lives in Brooklyn and she describes her commute in the book and it was literally

[01:39:22] my old commute from my old neighborhood and all these things that I was reading it in like 2019 and I loved it. I still love it. I recommend it to everybody. It's absolute **** like it it talk about storytelling. It changed my

[01:39:35] perspective on how stories can be told in that format. Um it's so different than anything else I've read like it before um and it just so happened to be so directly connected to where I

[01:39:48] was in my life and what was going on in the world um in a way that nobody could have predicted really so it like really really special so deeply recommend Severance by Ling Ma uh fishback did good on that right for sure. Oh super cool

[01:40:04] and you can listen to the paraphrase episode right. You can yeah. You can take that journey journey um what is speaking of podcasts? Do you have a favorite podcast or podcast episode that you just can't stop thinking about? Your podcast or podcast episode? We got a couple favorite

[01:40:24] podcasts. I love uh I love how did this get made uh which is a bad movie podcast with Paul Scheer, Jason Manzucas, and June Diane Rayfield. Uh I actually I called her Paul Scheer has become a huge Survivor fan uh and he talks about it on the

[01:40:39] show sometimes. So, I called in. I'm just like just letting you know you have one fan who's been on the show before and if you ever want to talk to him, I'm happy to like tell you all

[01:40:45] about it um and I featured the call in the episode and I'm like oh cool uh like II love that show. Um I also on the more like sincere side of things uh I was a less so these days but I

[01:41:01] was a massive Radiolab fan for like ever and ever. If you don't know where to start with Radiolab, go to the colors episode with the mantis shrimp and uh and how like different like the different uh creatures see different amounts of color

[01:41:14] and how they portray that over sound in a podcast form. It is some of the most like it's it's it's at this point, it's old news. It's been around but like at the time, let's do it like

[01:41:24] after it just come out like you've got like a teenager like blew me away completely like how how does this even exist? How do they come up with this? It's brilliant. Uh that's that's that's a big one. Yeah. Two questions left. What song do you

[01:41:38] listen to on repeat right now? That's something that you or an album you wanna share. Who's new? You're up in the cool music scene. Tell us what's good. II find myself falling behind more and more. I went to an event with work uh called

[01:41:53] the Antisocial Camp 2 weeks ago where I got to meet like over 100 artists and songwriters and producers um and like learn about them and what they were doing. Um a lot of amazing music. I met a lot of amazing artists. Uh there was one song

[01:42:09] in particular and by one artist in particular that has been like in my brain ever since the artist's name is Party Nails um like party like party and like nails um and the song I believe was called Someway Somehow and it just hit me like a ton of

[01:42:28] rocks. It was it was gorgeous. Um beautifully produced, beautifully written, super super like in some ways super straight ahead kinda slightly distorted pop rock thing and another way is so clearly very intricate and thoughtful and artistic. Big big fan of that song. I'll say shout out uh and

[01:42:49] then the artist there. Go go listen to Party Nails. They're really cool and they were lovely to spend some time with them for that. Oh cool. And then yeah yeah uh yeah Party Nails. Yeah. Awesome. That's a fun one. Um so last but not

[01:43:02] least, where if you want, can people find you if they wanna know what's going on with your music, with your worlds, meet up with you in New York. What's where where can people find you? Don't meet up with me. I don't know you. Don't find me in New

[01:43:15] York. No, I'm kidding. Um I do occasionally I'll get like a comment or something. It's like I thought I saw you in Penn Station but I wasn't sure. You look like you were in a rush. I'm like, say hi. Alright, that's fine. Um uh the hello

[01:43:28] kitty. Hi, how are you? Um you can find me uh at Jacob Derwin in all the places. Uh I don't do Twitter anymore because it's gone. Uh which was a shame. It was a shame to leave those two thousand followers or whatever. Um but uh yeah, I'm on

[01:43:47] Instagram and TikTok pretty frequently. Um if you care to see what I'm up to professionally, I have a website JacobDerwin.com. Uh you know, leading into event management and some working with talent as much as I can. Um music, I'm I'm

[01:44:03] I'm kind of out of the game at the moment but if you care to listen to Amira or any of the other stuff that's out there, it's just my name. I'm on all the streaming platforms that you typically find things on. I I highly recommend listening to

[01:44:15] my fiancee's stuff. Her name is Bet Escondola. B-E-D-A-S-P-I-N-D-O-L-A. She's an amazing musician. She's performing. Uh she's going on a contract soon but she's going to be performing all over New York. We're going to try and get her on Broadway. That's

[01:44:27] the whole plan. I'm uh constantly working with her to get her new gigs and stuff. She's she's the real musical star here and when you hear her, you'll understand. The girl is out of her mind. Uh yeah. One of the one of the best singers

[01:44:38] in New York City. Um so yeah. She's extremely talented and super fun to check out cuz she's doing cool stuff all the time too. So, um you guys are a fun couple to follow. Congratulations on your fairly recent engagement and best of

[01:44:55] luck during all the wedding planning and getting ready. That stuff is always crazy. Um just for uh for I've I've been married twice so I do have some advice here. Which is you won't remember it. So, interesting. It's like you

[01:45:17] think all of these details like you literally won't remember it. I you won't remember if you had flowers on the tables or you didn't. You won't remember all the things like all you remember is how you felt and who was there and

[01:45:27] mostly who was there. I kind of forget that part too. Um so just do what you want between the two of you. How did the two of you wanna feel when you wake up the next morning looking at each other? That's all that really matters. That's cool.

[01:45:39] That's good advice. We're doing what I will say. We we didn't we we chose a location and it wasn't because it was the thing that made the most people happy. It most certainly did not make the most people happy but it is the thing that we know

[01:45:52] we're gonna remember for us and and um we we had to be we had to be big and brave to make that decision and we're we're proud of ourselves for doing it. It is hard to be big and

[01:46:02] brave out in this world and I mean it is but you did it. I think it took a little bravery to come and talk with me today so thank you so much. I really appreciate maybe not. Maybe I'm

[01:46:15] just so welcoming cloud of pillow. I hope you are so welcoming but it definitely was not like something I thought I would do. So yeah. Yeah, I'm so so thankful you did. It's just so first of all, you're an amazing storyteller. Duh. Um

[01:46:30] that's not the first of all. First of all, your sincerity and your authenticity and talking about it and every type of survivor human being story is worthy. So, it's nice to be able to express all that for sure. Um and if for some

[01:46:46] reason, someone decides to give me a call, I'll pick up the phone and we'll talk from there. Um I've grown up a lot since then. So, it's it's it's been nice to like be able to actually put words to the feelings and process it and not

[01:46:59] just be like this looming thing on your back, you know? Yeah. Oh my god. You've come. Yeah. So far and. Yeah. So much and it's a thing you did once. That's all. It's a thing you did once. That's it. Yeah, that's right. You got you got a

[01:47:12] lot more a lot more life to live. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Well, thank you so much for being here with me today. I appreciate you. Yeah. You too, bud. Who doesn't want to have that guy in your phone to call when you're having a bad day or

[01:47:28] you're having a great day? It's Jacob is just someone who while we aren't together all the time, he's just a steadfast friend for me through this ghost island experience. He's just means a lot more than he probably even knows to me in my

[01:47:42] life and I'm so thankful for that time with him that he was willing to open up and really talk about some of the really hard stuff he's worked through over these years. I think his perspective, you know, looking back now that he's 30 is so

[01:47:55] helpful for any of us and I know some of you new survivors are listening. I've heard season 47 folks. We're so excited to have you a part of the crew and thank you for listening to Road to Reality and anyone who in the future

[01:48:11] plays survivor as well. It will not go as you expect it may go better. It may go worse, but it will not go as you expect and there are people who have gone down the road before you who

[01:48:21] are always willing to help so you are not alone and I'm so thankful for Jacob again. Anywho, thank you to those of you who are rating and reviewing. I know we hear that in our ears all the time listening to podcasts, but I

[01:48:37] could really use a few more likes a few more reviews if you feel up for that today. If you've enjoyed what you've heard here on Road to Reality, I love to see some extra stars on Spotify and Apple podcast reviews. Thank you for being

[01:48:49] along for the ride. Thanks for your lovely feedback and messages that you all have sent me. I love getting those. I really appreciate all of you who take the time to listen to me interview these survivors these amazing people. I'm so thankful

[01:49:05] and we still have two episodes left for the season. So stay tuned for two really big guests for the rest of the season to round out as we get prepared for Survivor 47. All right, y'all I went on today. I hope you're having a great week and I will

[01:49:21] catch you next time. Take care. I'd like to thank Rob Sestronino and the entire RHAP team for their support in making this podcast. Jessica Sterling is the editor. Tricky Rice created the artwork. To all of my fellow survivors, thank you for

[01:49:35] showing up for free to give me and all the listeners a look into your lives that we wouldn't otherwise get to see. I'm much gratitude to all of you listening. If you'd like to connect and only if you're kind, you can find me on social media

[01:49:50] at theKellenB or at kellenbechdel.com where I as a holistic career coach tried to give away as many free resources as I can to help people find more happiness and success in their career journeys. May each of your realities lead down a

[01:50:06] road of peace, joy, and a whole lot of adventure. And now here's Jacob Derwin with Mira from Manhattan. She's turning on the night. She takes a pen to her new novel. And the airplane takes flight. I never knew. I never knew. I never knew. I never knew. You.

[01:51:27] We're flying out to Dublin. Just a stop along the trail. Mira hops from there to Paris. I ride to Belfast on the rail. Now she's cheering in the winery. I'm staring at the sea. Her name is Mira from Manhattan. It doesn't matter much to me. I never knew.

[01:52:27] I never knew. I never knew. Never knew. You. You.

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