Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► Welcome to episode out of time for Revenge of the Time.

00:00:04 ◼   ► This is the fourth out of time episode that we've done, I think.

00:00:08 ◼   ► Revenge of the Time. Is that the title?

00:00:10 ◼   ► Yes, the reason we're in Revenge of the Time. I'm gonna come to that in a minute actually.

00:00:15 ◼   ► Okay.

00:00:15 ◼   ► Because we need to set some context.

00:00:17 ◼   ► There's a couple of things happening that are extra peculiar. One...

00:00:21 ◼   ► No, you don't need to tell the people, Myke.

00:00:23 ◼   ► Okay, I won't tell them that we're in the same room.

00:00:25 ◼   ► In an undisclosed location.

00:00:28 ◼   ► in an effort to

00:00:30 ◼   ► Throw off the guesses because people like to try and guess when we record

00:00:36 ◼   ► Episodes out of time right they try and triangulate things

00:00:40 ◼   ► We are recording this episode before

00:00:43 ◼   ► Episode 90 right? I don't know why we did it that way. No we

00:00:51 ◼   ► Set the recordings up

00:00:55 ◼   ► They're just like, all right, we'll record this one then and this one then

00:00:58 ◼   ► I'm not a hundred percent sure why we've done it and it is posing more difficulty than is necessary

00:01:06 ◼   ► Because we need to refer to things that we have spoken about on episode 90

00:01:12 ◼   ► Which hasn't been recorded yet

00:01:15 ◼   ► I think what happened is we set the recording date for episode 90 which is two days from today

00:01:23 ◼   ► first and then whatever it was a week later we realized we need to

00:01:29 ◼   ► record the episode out of time. No there's no way we scheduled

00:01:35 ◼   ► these on the same day. Listen, later when we weren't thinking clearly

00:01:39 ◼   ► we realized oh we need an episode out of time what's a free day today was the

00:01:45 ◼   ► free day. There is no way we did this. There's no way. That can't

00:01:50 ◼   ► possibly be mic'd because it's so dumb. Do calendar apps have like an event created on date? I'm sure they don't.

00:01:56 ◼   ► I'm sure there's no metadata. There's no way anyone could know. Computers don't record that kind of information when events were created, no way.

00:02:03 ◼   ► But this is where we find ourselves today. So this is why time has its revenge on us. Okay. Because we have to guess what's going to happen in the future so we can refer to things that have already been spoken about.

00:02:15 ◼   ► Also, time has its revenge on us because there are a couple of things that we would usually talk about on this show.

00:02:24 ◼   ► Well, one main thing really, which is the new iPhone.

00:02:28 ◼   ► Oh, right.

00:02:29 ◼   ► Here's the funny thing. We are recording both of our episodes in September before the iPhone is announced.

00:02:36 ◼   ► So everyone that listens to the show that hates us talking about iPhones can rejoice.

00:02:42 ◼   ► Right, there's no iPhone talk for a month.

00:02:44 ◼   ► Because we have nothing. You're gonna have to wait until October, I guess, to understand

00:02:48 ◼   ► how we truly feel about our iPhones 11 Pro, Macs, or whatever they're gonna be called.

00:02:53 ◼   ► Right. I'm so thrown off right now because we only realized this whole scheduling situation

00:02:59 ◼   ► minutes ago. And if you hadn't said anything to me, I would never have thought about it.

00:03:05 ◼   ► And we could have just recorded a totally normal show. And now I feel like my brain

00:03:09 ◼   ► has had some kind of train derailment of which episode of Reverb.

00:03:14 ◼   ► I wanted Time to have its revenge because I've already worked on the amazing artwork.

00:03:18 ◼   ► I've already had the artwork made.

00:03:20 ◼   ► Artworks made show has to go up.

00:03:22 ◼   ► Yeah, but also Time needs to have its revenge and it can only have that on us if we are upset about Time.

00:03:28 ◼   ► So I'm very thrown off and I'm increasingly feeling like we should just be starting episode 90,

00:03:33 ◼   ► but we can't because there's no preparation for episodes 19.

00:03:38 ◼   ► I will ask you, are you going to buy a new iPhone no matter what it is or are you going to wait and

00:03:44 ◼   ► see? Like I'm just intrigued because I will do it right? Like I will just buy it because that's who

00:03:48 ◼   ► I am but like are you in that mindset right now? My rule is better camera by phone. Yeah.

00:03:57 ◼   ► If they make the camera better I'm buying it. Because everybody knows now that they have

00:04:03 ◼   ► released an iPhone with three cameras on it. Even I've even I've heard that.

00:04:07 ◼   ► Yeah and for all we know I've recorded that multiple times and have just edited in the

00:04:12 ◼   ► right version. Right. As per the released information. Yes I too am looking forward

00:04:17 ◼   ► to the four camera iPhone. Five cameras iPhone, six camera iPhone. Yes the iPhone 11s2.

00:04:24 ◼   ► See I already know I'm unhappy with the name even though I never heard it.

00:04:31 ◼   ► Also, I will be back from Memphis again and we will have completed our St. Jude live stream,

00:04:38 ◼   ► our six hour live stream, which went well, I'm assuming.

00:04:41 ◼   ► Of course, the live stream went well.

00:04:43 ◼   ► Went fantastic.

00:04:44 ◼   ► Many funds were raised for an excellent cause.

00:04:48 ◼   ► And it really is an excellent cause and you can still give money,

00:04:50 ◼   ► you can still donate to St. Jude Children's Council Research Hospital.

00:04:54 ◼   ► If you go to stjude.org/quotex, you can do that.

00:04:57 ◼   ► Any donation at all is incredibly valued. It's going to an incredible organization

00:05:02 ◼   ► that helps make children's lives better who are dealing with an absolutely terrible thing.

00:05:08 ◼   ► So thank you so much to every cortex and that has given any money at all to St Jude.

00:05:13 ◼   ► September is still childhood cancer awareness month so please go ahead

00:05:18 ◼   ► and donate any money you can to help out this wonderful cause. That's stjude.org/cortex.

00:05:25 ◼   ► And the other thing is, so we should know now how well the second printing of the theme system journal has sold.

00:05:35 ◼   ► Yeah, so this feels dangerous here.

00:05:40 ◼   ► This is so dangerous.

00:05:41 ◼   ► So as we are recording right now, I know two things.

00:05:47 ◼   ► Okay.

00:05:48 ◼   ► I know that the notebooks are in America and have cleared customs. I know that.

00:05:53 ◼   ► Okay.

00:05:54 ◼   ► I also know that the delivery date is scheduled for the 6th of September,

00:06:01 ◼   ► which is some days ahead of now. Right. Not many.

00:06:05 ◼   ► I also know that I was able to complete the project of getting the theme system

00:06:12 ◼   ► dot com up and running. So the instructions in their current initial

00:06:18 ◼   ► form live online for people buying. Looks beautiful. Thank you for people

00:06:22 ◼   ► buying the journal that they can do that. So we will know now, in theory, how well they have sold.

00:06:31 ◼   ► Or they fell off a truck somewhere and they never made it.

00:06:38 ◼   ► Yeah, I have to say, you're very confident that we're actually at the

00:06:45 ◼   ► final line here for the journalism. Like falling off a truck, total possibility.

00:06:53 ◼   ► - Combust into confetti. - Right, yeah. They're in...

00:06:57 ◼   ► They've cleared customs, so they're at a dock somewhere.

00:07:02 ◼   ► - They are currently, or the last I heard, a couple of days ago, they are a facility in JFK,

00:07:10 ◼   ► ready to be put on a truck. We have had to contest with Labor Day.

00:07:15 ◼   ► It's a national holiday in America.

00:07:16 ◼   ► Labor Dayber.

00:07:17 ◼   ► This is one of those things where like you say a thing and I don't know if it's a real thing that Americans do and I don't want to touch it.

00:07:25 ◼   ► Because I know you like to make fun.

00:07:28 ◼   ► No.

00:07:28 ◼   ► What is Labor Dayber?

00:07:29 ◼   ► Labor Dayber is just, it's like you're taking it easy for Labor Dayber.

00:07:34 ◼   ► Right?

00:07:34 ◼   ► So you're going to have him.

00:07:35 ◼   ► It's Labor Dayber.

00:07:36 ◼   ► I hate you so much.

00:07:38 ◼   ► So.

00:07:40 ◼   ► Thank you if you bought one.

00:07:44 ◼   ► There were many people on a mail, a lot of people joined that mailing list.

00:07:49 ◼   ► So there is a possibility that a lot of them were sold.

00:07:52 ◼   ► We'll know if it sold out immediately, which as of right now, I don't think will have happened.

00:07:57 ◼   ► My best case scenario right now is that we sell half of the amount that we ordered, like within the first two days.

00:08:09 ◼   ► Okay.

00:08:10 ◼   ► Now, Myke, do you want to give people a number?

00:08:14 ◼   ► We started this thing. We're going to talk about the business.

00:08:18 ◼   ► We haven't actually said how many notebooks are sitting in JFK.

00:08:24 ◼   ► So the second print is 2000,

00:08:30 ◼   ► which means the initial order was 200.

00:08:33 ◼   ► The 200 number is very small and I feel like we were very clear about it being

00:08:39 ◼   ► very small. I don't know if 200, honestly,

00:08:43 ◼   ► at this point is more or less than what most people thought.

00:08:47 ◼   ► But like that is why it sold out so incredibly quickly

00:08:49 ◼   ► because there were only 200 of them.

00:08:52 ◼   ► But like I maintain even now with the amount

00:08:56 ◼   ► that we have ordered again, that that was still a risk

00:09:00 ◼   ► because I mean, there are like T-shirts that I have sold

00:09:05 ◼   ► for other shows which haven't sold that amount, right?

00:09:09 ◼   ► Which I thought have been really great designs

00:09:11 ◼   ► or we have sold t-shirts that we thought were really funny ideas

00:09:15 ◼   ► that got nowhere near the level that we thought it would, right?

00:09:19 ◼   ► Like where we've been in the low hundreds.

00:09:21 ◼   ► So you never know, and this felt like such an outside bet to me

00:09:27 ◼   ► of what people might actually want.

00:09:29 ◼   ► Like I was confident in it. We're both confident in it.

00:09:32 ◼   ► But it was one of those things where it's like,

00:09:33 ◼   ► we've never done anything like this before.

00:09:35 ◼   ► I don't listen to any podcast

00:09:38 ◼   ► that's done something like this before.

00:09:40 ◼   ► I'm sure that they exist, but where it's like, "Oh, we're gonna try and make this completely

00:09:45 ◼   ► different thing we've never spoken about, here it is."

00:09:48 ◼   ► There isn't a good model to look at for this quality journal being sold on a podcast.

00:09:56 ◼   ► The only thing that's related to the podcast branding is just what's on the front.

00:10:03 ◼   ► Everything else inside is completely different.

00:10:05 ◼   ► Yes, we talk about yearly themes, and that's where it all came from,

00:10:09 ◼   ► But like if we made a, which I still do want to make at some point, a blank journal, like a blank

00:10:16 ◼   ► notebook with the Cortex logo on it, I would have no problem like ordering 500 of those like

00:10:20 ◼   ► immediately be like I will sell those because people will use a notebook for whatever they

00:10:24 ◼   ► want to use a notebook for. I'm going to disagree with you there. Okay. And this is based on nothing.

00:10:28 ◼   ► But my gut says for starting this stuff out the specific product is the clearer sale. That is I

00:10:39 ◼   ► 100% understand where you're coming from but I feel like even if we wouldn't sell 500 as quickly

00:10:46 ◼   ► as we sold the 200 but I'm confident we would eventually sell all of them. I was not confident

00:10:52 ◼   ► we would eventually sell all of the theme system journal. It was like either we sell them

00:10:55 ◼   ► pretty quickly or they will fizzle out and we'll end up with 100 of them that we'll just have to

00:11:01 ◼   ► send to me and I'll use them forever more. But like a blank notebook there's no shelf life on it

00:11:07 ◼   ► like it will just take whatever it takes until it gets sold. But I understand your point of view.

00:11:11 ◼   ► I also think I would be more comfortable ordering larger amounts of a blank book because I would

00:11:15 ◼   ► have no personal feelings tied up in its success or failure like I did with the theme system.

00:11:21 ◼   ► Whereas like we created this thing that we believe works if people don't buy it,

00:11:28 ◼   ► they're not even interested in trying it. So I think I'll also share, so

00:11:35 ◼   ► people may be surprised to be like why in my mind is 1000 the best case scenario?

00:11:40 ◼   ► because isn't best case scenario to just sell them all immediately within two hours?

00:11:44 ◼   ► for me it's not because what I want to create with this is a sustainable business that has

00:11:54 ◼   ► some longevity to it. that's what I want, it's what we both want Cortex brand to be and we want

00:12:01 ◼   ► for the time being the theme system to be the core of our company as the products that we sell.

00:12:07 ◼   ► If we sell all 2,000 of them within a day or two days, all we know at that point is that we are

00:12:17 ◼   ► very good at getting people excited about a product. What I want to see is we sell a big

00:12:23 ◼   ► chunk of them so we're able to get people excited about a product or people can see something that

00:12:29 ◼   ► that they're interested in.

00:12:31 ◼   ► But then I want to see people buying them again and again,

00:12:36 ◼   ► that we sell the rest of them at a pretty good clip.

00:12:39 ◼   ► Because if we sell them all immediately,

00:12:42 ◼   ► I don't know if people like it.

00:12:43 ◼   ► I don't know if people want to use it.

00:12:45 ◼   ► All I know is that we have been able to build

00:12:47 ◼   ► enough interest, which is great.

00:12:49 ◼   ► But that doesn't tell me it's sustainable.

00:12:51 ◼   ► So then we need to go through this process again

00:12:54 ◼   ► and probably order even more and take an even bigger gamble.

00:12:58 ◼   ► So my view on this is,

00:13:02 ◼   ► and we've discussed this over the years,

00:13:04 ◼   ► I never like the one time sales as much as I like the idea of a regular sale,

00:13:09 ◼   ► a thing that can sell repeatedly. And that's,

00:13:15 ◼   ► that's part of the reason that we're doing this. But my,

00:13:19 ◼   ► my prediction, which feels like going out on a limb cause we don't know, I,

00:13:24 ◼   ► I'm really bullish on this journal.

00:13:26 ◼   ► And I think we're going to sell out all 2000

00:13:30 ◼   ► in a very short period of time,

00:13:34 ◼   ► which is going to put us exactly back in the situation

00:13:40 ◼   ► of having, like here's, Myke, this is what we're doing.

00:13:45 ◼   ► Here's a metaphor to calm your mind.

00:13:47 ◼   ► We've gone into a casino and we've taken a dollar

00:13:51 ◼   ► and we've put it on red 42.

00:13:55 ◼   ► know if it's for I don't know if it goes up to 42. I don't know how high I picked a number that's

00:13:58 ◼   ► too high in cortex casino it goes to 42. Yeah in cortex casino you put on blue 42. All right so

00:14:03 ◼   ► it went on blue 42 and we won. Uh-huh. It was great that was the first sale of the journal.

00:14:11 ◼   ► I said well let's let's let's let it ride on blue 42 again and I like and I think it's going to sell

00:14:19 ◼   ► out and we won't have the answer to your question about regular sales in the future, and it

00:14:27 ◼   ► will also create for us the problem of again total uncertainty of do you let it all ride

00:14:33 ◼   ► on Blue 42 and order even more. But that's that is my prediction. I think that's what's

00:14:42 ◼   ► Here's the problem of selling out quickly again. I need to make an order for the new year.

00:14:51 ◼   ► Yes. Listeners, if there's one thing the manufacturing process does not lack, it is long lead times.

00:14:59 ◼   ► I'll tell you what this has made me think of. It's made me think of the time when I was debating leaving my job as a teacher.

00:15:06 ◼   ► And because of the way the teaching schedule works, I had to let them know in April if I was not coming back next September.

00:15:14 ◼   ► That's what this totally feels like.

00:15:18 ◼   ► School is just like the manufacturing of adults, right? It's the same thing, I think.

00:15:23 ◼   ► That is exactly correct.

00:15:26 ◼   ► Raw materials go in one end and cogs come out the other end.

00:15:34 ◼   ► That's how that works. That's school. We're getting off on a tangent here. But, but yeah,

00:15:38 ◼   ► there's, there's these long lead times. And so yes, I expect we're going, yeah, listen,

00:15:44 ◼   ► you can't, Myke is in front of me and I'm kind of glad that he's in front of me for this because I

00:15:49 ◼   ► cannot, he's genuinely frustrated and sad. No, I'm not frustrated. I'm concerned because it's also

00:15:55 ◼   ► like, if it sells really fast, then I know we will have no stock leading up to January.

00:16:04 ◼   ► Yes, which is also an actual problem.

00:16:06 ◼   ► Because then I also can't make any changes.

00:16:08 ◼   ► Because I need to put the order in within 24 hours of us putting it on sale if it starts to sell quickly again.

00:16:14 ◼   ► Yes, yes. Which is exactly what I think you're going to have to do.

00:16:18 ◼   ► Now, I may be too bullish on this. I may have...

00:16:21 ◼   ► I honestly, I actually really like that we have such different opinions because this is like a time capsule.

00:16:27 ◼   ► Yeah, and it's it is also such a it's an uncomfortable and dangerous feeling thing to be

00:16:34 ◼   ► talking about the sale of the product like before it's happened, right? Because in an ideal world

00:16:40 ◼   ► what you want to do is you want to be able to just always be like "oh it went perfectly exactly the

00:16:44 ◼   ► way that I want" right? I think that this is in our efforts to try and share more about the company

00:16:50 ◼   ► we're forming which is still very early. Yes, it's very early. Which is why there isn't too much

00:16:56 ◼   ► to share really, but like there's stuff that we have a Slack, we made a Slack, because

00:17:00 ◼   ► every business needs one of those, so we've got one of those.

00:17:03 ◼   ► I think we were both quite sad pandas the moment we were discussing about how to communicate

00:17:08 ◼   ► about a thing and it was like, oh, the inevitability of Slack was approaching and it was dawning

00:17:15 ◼   ► on both of us at the same time.

00:17:18 ◼   ► We're going through the arduous task of trying to set up bank accounts, which is just like

00:17:23 ◼   ► a whole thing.

00:17:25 ◼   ► I guess this is a way for us to show more is by making one of us look like a four or

00:17:32 ◼   ► both of us.

00:17:33 ◼   ► Because we might sell 20 and then we both look like idiots.

00:17:37 ◼   ► Yes, at the very least one of us is wrong, both of us could be wrong.

00:17:43 ◼   ► And I also find the thing about working with someone else, I do find it interesting the

00:17:48 ◼   ► way you sort of flip back and forth about a product.

00:17:52 ◼   ► And this way of like, who is the person who is more uncertain has changed over time and

00:17:58 ◼   ► who was the person who was more bullish about it.

00:18:01 ◼   ► And it's just, it's interesting to do that over the course of a year.

00:18:04 ◼   ► Right, because, well it's more than a year now, like originally I brought the idea to

00:18:09 ◼   ► you as like, this is a thing that I think we could do and you're like, hmm.

00:18:12 ◼   ► And then, you know, it's like, yeah, okay, let's give it a go.

00:18:15 ◼   ► And then I create a design to show it to you and I'm like, I'm not sure if this is...

00:18:20 ◼   ► And then it's like we keep going, like it just keeps switching off, which is like from

00:18:23 ◼   ► one to the other.

00:18:24 ◼   ► And I think it…

00:18:25 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:18:26 ◼   ► And I keep pushing you.

00:18:28 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:18:29 ◼   ► Order more.

00:18:30 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:18:31 ◼   ► And you may be totally right of, "No, that's a terrible idea."

00:18:34 ◼   ► But it's good to not like to not always have both people on the hype train at the

00:18:39 ◼   ► same time.

00:18:40 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:18:41 ◼   ► And so, like it's…

00:18:43 ◼   ► I just I kind of have always been aware that one of us at any moment is more uncertain

00:18:47 ◼   ► than the other.

00:18:48 ◼   ► And I think it's good.

00:18:49 ◼   ► funny in the amount that we ordered because I wasn't sure how many to order and you were

00:18:55 ◼   ► like "I'll order a thousand of them" or whatever and then when I spoke to Tom and Dan at Studio

00:19:00 ◼   ► Neat who help us make this product and I explained to them how fast they sold and how many people

00:19:07 ◼   ► were on the mailing list because the mailing list has more than 2,000 people on it. They

00:19:11 ◼   ► were like "oh you should not order a thousand, you should order two thousand" especially

00:19:17 ◼   ► when I said to them, "Well, I ideally want to have enough in to last me for the rest

00:19:21 ◼   ► of the year." And they were like, "Well, definitely don't order a thousand." And

00:19:25 ◼   ► they were trying to, like, they were maybe suggesting even more, and I was like, "I

00:19:29 ◼   ► can't, I can't do this. It's just too many. It's too much of a risk."

00:19:32 ◼   ► Right, or as I'm the devil on your shoulder whispering like, "Tom and Dan, they're

00:19:35 ◼   ► smart guys, they know."

00:19:36 ◼   ► Well, but the thing is, it's like so—

00:19:38 ◼   ► "Order 20,000, Myke."

00:19:41 ◼   ► Wonderful friends at Cotton Bureau—

00:19:42 ◼   ► "You can go bankrupt so fast."

00:19:43 ◼   ► fulfill these things, 40 boxes are arriving with them.

00:19:48 ◼   ► And I'm like, I don't want them to have 35 laying around

00:19:53 ◼   ► for a while.

00:19:54 ◼   ► So like, you know, I'm also like,

00:19:57 ◼   ► they're letting us take this gamble as well.

00:20:01 ◼   ► And I feel like there are so many people involved

00:20:03 ◼   ► in this now, I don't want to be like this huge burden

00:20:08 ◼   ► on everybody.

00:20:08 ◼   ► - Right.

00:20:09 ◼   ► - Like, oops, well, we solved five.

00:20:12 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:20:14 ◼   ► The Cortex Journal, it involves a lot of people now.

00:20:16 ◼   ► And it's not just a tiny venture.

00:20:20 ◼   ► It's like actual boxes, sitting in a warehouse, possible burden on a company that you have a relationship with if it all goes wrong.

00:20:28 ◼   ► Again, I've said it many times, but the whole manufacturing process just has so much more

00:20:39 ◼   ► involved in it than you ever think, no matter how simple the product is. More people, more

00:20:46 ◼   ► delays, unexpected world events, like all sorts of things are involved in this in a

00:20:52 ◼   ► in a way that you just never expect.

00:20:54 ◼   ► Yep.

00:20:56 ◼   ► I'm very confident, Myke.

00:20:59 ◼   ► Sold.

00:21:01 ◼   ► [laughs]

00:21:03 ◼   ► Blue 42. Let's put it all down again.

00:21:06 ◼   ► So, I guess if I'm right,

00:21:09 ◼   ► please go to cortexmerch.com and buy more.

00:21:12 ◼   ► If you're right, go there and put your email in.

00:21:15 ◼   ► And sign up.

00:21:16 ◼   ► And our hope is we will have more for sale

00:21:19 ◼   ► around the holidays-ish.

00:21:21 ◼   ► Shh.

00:21:22 ◼   ► - And if we're both wrong and we only sold 20,

00:21:25 ◼   ► please also consider checking out the,

00:21:27 ◼   ► like basically there's one clear action you should do,

00:21:29 ◼   ► which is go to cortexmarch.com.

00:21:31 ◼   ► - Because there will at least be T-shirts there

00:21:34 ◼   ► if you commiserate us with it,

00:21:35 ◼   ► if you don't want the notebook and feel bad for us

00:21:37 ◼   ► 'cause they're in stock forever.

00:21:38 ◼   ► - The T-shirts are great.

00:21:39 ◼   ► - They're always great.

00:21:41 ◼   ► This episode of Cortex is brought to you

00:21:43 ◼   ► by our friends at Casper.

00:21:45 ◼   ► Casper is a sleep brand that makes expertly designed

00:21:48 ◼   ► products to help you get your best rest one night at a time.

00:21:52 ◼   ► Casper products are cleverly designed to mimic human curves, with engineering to soothe and

00:21:57 ◼   ► support your natural geometry so you will have all the right support in all the right

00:22:01 ◼   ► places.

00:22:02 ◼   ► Casper offers a range of mattresses, the Original, the Wave, the Essential, and the Hybrid, and

00:22:08 ◼   ► they also offer other sleep related products like pillows and sheets so you can get an

00:22:12 ◼   ► overall better sleeping experience.

00:22:16 ◼   ► And it's all affordable because Casper cuts out the middleman selling directly to you.

00:22:20 ◼   ► They have over 20,000 reviews online with an average rating of 4.8 stars.

00:22:25 ◼   ► Casper is very quickly becoming the internet's favourite mattress.

00:22:29 ◼   ► And you can be sure of your purchase of Casper's 100 night risk free sleep on it trial.

00:22:33 ◼   ► They'll deliver direct to your door and if for any reason you do not love it, Casper

00:22:37 ◼   ► has a hassle free return policy.

00:22:40 ◼   ► I have found myself unexpectedly in Chicago and sleeping in hotel beds for a bunch of

00:22:46 ◼   ► time makes me feel like I really could do with the support of that Casper mattress.

00:22:51 ◼   ► Casper mattresses are super comfortable, they are so easy as well to get into your home

00:22:56 ◼   ► because they come in these wonderful boxes that can be taken upstairs and if you live

00:23:00 ◼   ► in an apartment like me that is very very useful indeed.

00:23:04 ◼   ► You can get $100 towards select mattresses by going to casper.com/cortex and using the

00:23:09 ◼   ► code "CORTEX" at checkout.

00:23:11 ◼   ► Terms and conditions apply.

00:23:13 ◼   ► That's casper.com/cortex and the offer code "CORTEX" for $100 towards select mattresses.

00:23:19 ◼   ► Our thanks to Casper for their support of this show and Relay FM.

00:23:23 ◼   ► So we watched a movie for Cortex Movie Club.

00:23:26 ◼   ► Yer-o dreams of sushi.

00:23:28 ◼   ► Is it Yer-o or He-ro?

00:23:30 ◼   ► He-ro dreams of sushi?

00:23:31 ◼   ► Jero.

00:23:32 ◼   ► Jero?

00:23:33 ◼   ► head it's Jiro with a J. I think it's Hiro. You think it's Hiro? We're off to a great

00:23:40 ◼   ► start here. Oh gosh. No, look, I'm going to call him Jiro. No, it doesn't matter Myke

00:23:46 ◼   ► because I know. Jiro dreams of sushi. Even if it says "Iro", I'm just going to say Jiro.

00:23:51 ◼   ► Jiro! Ah, I'm right! That is totally a J. Okay. The Japanese robot lady agrees with

00:23:58 ◼   ► me Jiro. - Okay, well I've attempted to... we've attempted every effort and then we

00:24:04 ◼   ► consulted YouTube, so it's Jiro. Jiro James Sushi is a documentary from 2011

00:24:11 ◼   ► about a man who has a restaurant in Japan which looks like it is in a mall

00:24:21 ◼   ► or something or in some kind of business center. It's like in a really weird...

00:24:26 ◼   ► Did you even watch this documentary?

00:24:28 ◼   ► Yes, I watched the documentary.

00:24:30 ◼   ► What is happening?

00:24:32 ◼   ► OK, listen.

00:24:33 ◼   ► Let me pitch Giro's restaurant to you, listener.

00:24:37 ◼   ► It is in a subway station.

00:24:39 ◼   ► Subway station.

00:24:39 ◼   ► OK, maybe I was making a note at that point.

00:24:41 ◼   ► Yeah, I think you were paying attention.

00:24:43 ◼   ► Although, to be fair, I have seen this documentary

00:24:45 ◼   ► multiple times.

00:24:46 ◼   ► One time.

00:24:47 ◼   ► So this is your first viewing.

00:24:49 ◼   ► First time, yes.

00:24:50 ◼   ► I've seen this multiple times.

00:24:51 ◼   ► I was actually trying to remember what this must be.

00:24:53 ◼   ► And this has to be at least my fourth or maybe fifth viewing of this.

00:24:57 ◼   ► But the restaurant is in a subway station in Tokyo.

00:25:01 ◼   ► So you descend down the stairs.

00:25:03 ◼   ► I thought Tokyo, but I didn't want to say Tokyo in case I misremembered.

00:25:07 ◼   ► And it's like everyone thinking everything in England happens in London.

00:25:10 ◼   ► But it does.

00:25:11 ◼   ► So let's just be honest about that.

00:25:13 ◼   ► I did not say that.

00:25:14 ◼   ► Remember Grey isn't on the internet.

00:25:16 ◼   ► He doesn't read the email.

00:25:18 ◼   ► So just, I don't know, put it in the Reddit or something.

00:25:23 ◼   ► or keep it to yourself, it's nothing to do with me, I apologise.

00:25:26 ◼   ► Well, look, this is an episode out of time. By the time it goes up, I may be back on the

00:25:30 ◼   ► internet, but we can't discuss that now, because it may or may not have happened. So, it's

00:25:36 ◼   ► in this subway station in Tokyo, I'm just going to say that very confidently, even though

00:25:40 ◼   ► now you've worn away at the foundation of my confidence slightly. You go down the stairs,

00:25:45 ◼   ► the restaurant has no bathroom inside the restaurant, you have to use the subway bathrooms,

00:25:52 ◼   ► There are 10 seats, a meal maybe as short as 15 minutes. You have to book one month

00:26:04 ◼   ► in advance. Prices start at $300. 30,000 yen? Yeah. The problem with yen is it's always

00:26:15 ◼   ► it's a million yen and you're buying like a two-pack. One of the issues of that is,

00:26:21 ◼   ► okay so it's a large amount of money but it could be more expensive depending on the type

00:26:25 ◼   ► of fish they have that day. You have absolutely no control over this.

00:26:29 ◼   ► Yes that is the minimum amount that it is going to be. You can't get appetizers, there's

00:26:34 ◼   ► nothing else. You're going to sit down, they're going to give you 20 sushi to eat.

00:26:39 ◼   ► Around 20 sushi.

00:26:40 ◼   ► Around 20 sushi. That's it. And it is a three star Michelin restaurant.

00:26:46 ◼   ► Yes. Which is the highest you can achieve.

00:26:48 ◼   ► Yes.

00:26:49 ◼   ► Michelin, the Michelin, I'm sorry.

00:26:52 ◼   ► - This can't help if it'd be fancy.

00:26:54 ◼   ► - Three star Michelin.

00:26:55 ◼   ► - Which is, in case you don't know, the tire company.

00:26:58 ◼   ► Yes, they are the same organization.

00:26:59 ◼   ► - You just love that fact.

00:27:01 ◼   ► - It's the best.

00:27:02 ◼   ► They rate a three Michelin star restaurant

00:27:05 ◼   ► as a restaurant that is good enough

00:27:09 ◼   ► that you would travel to the country to eat there.

00:27:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's it. - That is the classification,

00:27:14 ◼   ► which I love that classification.

00:27:16 ◼   ► I mean, I don't know about that, right?

00:27:19 ◼   ► Like I'm sure it's amazing, but what is the rating, right?

00:27:23 ◼   ► Well, like somebody who lives in Australia

00:27:26 ◼   ► would have a very different like expense

00:27:29 ◼   ► to somebody who lives in Canada to get to this restaurant,

00:27:32 ◼   ► but nevertheless, I get what they're trying to say, right?

00:27:35 ◼   ► Like, sure, it is like, you know,

00:27:38 ◼   ► as life-changing a meal as you could have.

00:27:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's worth planning a trip around that restaurant.

00:27:43 ◼   ► - Yeah. - That is the central thing

00:27:44 ◼   ► you're going to do.

00:27:46 ◼   ► - And I have known about this documentary for a while,

00:27:49 ◼   ► but had never seen it.

00:27:51 ◼   ► And I am very aware of the fact that this restaurant

00:27:54 ◼   ► is considered to be like that, right?

00:27:56 ◼   ► Like people will plan it.

00:27:58 ◼   ► And even in the documentary, like it is considered

00:28:01 ◼   ► in the same way it is considered now,

00:28:03 ◼   ► it is just more popular now because of the documentary.

00:28:05 ◼   ► There is a reference to Jiro wanting to set a seating plan

00:28:09 ◼   ► to make sure that he gives the best experience

00:28:11 ◼   ► to the people that booked their meal one year before.

00:28:14 ◼   ► So people, if you are booking a restaurant

00:28:18 ◼   ► in a year in advance, you're making a plan for it.

00:28:20 ◼   ► And even in the documentary, there is somebody who arrives

00:28:23 ◼   ► who doesn't seem to have a reservation,

00:28:25 ◼   ► but has traveled for the restaurant,

00:28:27 ◼   ► which is very confusing.

00:28:28 ◼   ► I feel like they could have done their research,

00:28:30 ◼   ► but they didn't, and they're probably not gonna get

00:28:32 ◼   ► what they want now, but people travel to this place.

00:28:37 ◼   ► I'll ask you now, maybe we can answer it later,

00:28:40 ◼   ► would you go there?

00:28:42 ◼   ► - I can say maybe.

00:28:44 ◼   ► - I think I'm a maybe too.

00:28:46 ◼   ► If I was in Tokyo, which I do desperately want to do one day,

00:28:50 ◼   ► I would want to try it because it seems so incredible,

00:28:55 ◼   ► I don't like fish enough.

00:28:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, so this is my problem as well,

00:29:00 ◼   ► is it's a real sushi restaurant.

00:29:04 ◼   ► A lot of very lightly cooked fish.

00:29:11 ◼   ► - The lightest of cooked.

00:29:12 ◼   ► - Yes, the kind of cooking where you look at it

00:29:16 ◼   ► for a few moments and the heat from your eyes warms it up.

00:29:20 ◼   ► And it's interesting that you ask

00:29:24 ◼   ► because I am not the most adventurous of eaters,

00:29:27 ◼   ► by which I mean I'm not adventurous at all.

00:29:30 ◼   ► I particularly don't like fish.

00:29:33 ◼   ► Even under the best of circumstances,

00:29:36 ◼   ► I have a hard time with fish and seafood.

00:29:37 ◼   ► - I am getting better.

00:29:39 ◼   ► But I am still not great.

00:29:41 ◼   ► I used to be a very picky eater.

00:29:44 ◼   ► I have grown up over the last few years and I've expanded my palette a lot and I'm more

00:29:51 ◼   ► willing to try new food.

00:29:52 ◼   ► I have tried more seafood in the last couple of years, just more fish really in the last

00:29:57 ◼   ► couple of years than I've maybe eaten in the 10 years before.

00:30:00 ◼   ► I'm trying, like I've been to nice restaurants.

00:30:03 ◼   ► I've been lucky to experience some like tasting menu-y type things and I've eaten lots of

00:30:09 ◼   ► fish in those because they all seem to be all fish all the time.

00:30:12 ◼   ► And I've found that like in a nice, in a very good restaurant, I can eat fish that I would

00:30:18 ◼   ► never normally eat and can enjoy it because it's prepared well.

00:30:22 ◼   ► Which makes me think that's where the maybe comes in, right?

00:30:24 ◼   ► Where it's like, this is probably the best sushi in the world, or is at least considered

00:30:30 ◼   ► by many to be.

00:30:31 ◼   ► So I have the best chance of enjoying it.

00:30:35 ◼   ► But it also might mean it is for sushi lovers only.

00:30:39 ◼   ► Yeah, this is the question of connoisseurship.

00:30:44 ◼   ► And the only thing I have in my life

00:30:50 ◼   ► to really compare this to is steak,

00:30:51 ◼   ► of learning to appreciate what a nice steak is.

00:30:57 ◼   ► And I had a friend who sort of walked me through that

00:31:00 ◼   ► in a jet like, "Here, come down this path

00:31:02 ◼   ► of why people really like steak."

00:31:05 ◼   ► And I am totally aware that there are ways steak,

00:31:09 ◼   ► is prepared now that I really like that I would have been completely revolted by had

00:31:15 ◼   ► it started there.

00:31:17 ◼   ► Any pinkness. Right, I could not have done that like four or five years ago. But now

00:31:23 ◼   ► I am like, I can accept, like I enjoy it now, right? But I would not have before.

00:31:28 ◼   ► Yeah, so I, and I do think about this every time I watch the documentary. And I'm, the

00:31:34 ◼   ► documentary is beautifully shot.

00:31:36 ◼   ► Oh it's so stunning.

00:31:37 ◼   ► As you can imagine, a documentary about sushi.

00:31:40 ◼   ► Sushi is a good looking food and it's presented very well and so they have these little black

00:31:47 ◼   ► squares at the restaurant that the sushi chef is putting the sushi down on and of course

00:31:52 ◼   ► sushi exists on this little mound of white rice and then there's a bit of color on the

00:31:56 ◼   ► top for the fish on this black plate.

00:31:59 ◼   ► It's beautifully filmed, it's gorgeous.

00:32:01 ◼   ► You've never seen it look more beautiful.

00:32:04 ◼   ► And every time I'm always looking very closely at that fish and it's like, boy, it's barely

00:32:07 ◼   ► cooked.

00:32:08 ◼   ► Yeah, that's a big piece of fish.

00:32:12 ◼   ► Because they are like, you do them in one mouthful, but they are a mouthful.

00:32:19 ◼   ► They show a couple of shots of people actually eating it and you can see that you have no

00:32:23 ◼   ► space anymore.

00:32:25 ◼   ► Your mouth is full of that fish.

00:32:26 ◼   ► Yeah, it's a thing where it is custom designed to fit in your mouth and you're eating it

00:32:31 ◼   ► all at once.

00:32:32 ◼   ► something he says right that like he kind of sizes people up and then makes

00:32:35 ◼   ► portions depending on them which is kind of wild and I love when he so this is

00:32:39 ◼   ► like at the end towards the end of the movie they're like basically showing an

00:32:42 ◼   ► entire service and the a lot of the the movie is focused around a food writer

00:32:48 ◼   ► who has been there multiple times who says like you cannot have a funny

00:32:54 ◼   ► experience there and he is still nervous every time he goes there even though he

00:32:57 ◼   ► knows Jiro now but like it is because it is such an intense thing and the food is

00:33:01 ◼   ► so incredible, this person is such a master at what they do,

00:33:04 ◼   ► that you're intimidated by that.

00:33:06 ◼   ► But he'll say that Jiro is left-handed.

00:33:10 ◼   ► He says that he watches out for this.

00:33:12 ◼   ► If somebody picks the fish up with their left hand,

00:33:14 ◼   ► he places it on the plate differently.

00:33:16 ◼   ► It's like he'll swap the order around.

00:33:18 ◼   ► Just like, man.

00:33:20 ◼   ► And this is why the restaurant has this just

00:33:23 ◼   ► incredible reputation.

00:33:25 ◼   ► And the thing that I can never quite decide about

00:33:30 ◼   ► and why I'm a very solid maybe is, is to feel like really good restaurants.

00:33:35 ◼   ► There's a, there's like a,

00:33:38 ◼   ► there's like a level of fake good restaurant,

00:33:41 ◼   ► which is very fancy food,

00:33:43 ◼   ► which I feel like is almost always disgusting where it's like you're going a

00:33:48 ◼   ► notch up to a fancy place and it's the food itself is fancy and then you click

00:33:52 ◼   ► two notches up and suddenly you get restaurants where it's very simple dishes

00:33:56 ◼   ► and that kind of thing is like, Oh, this is amazing.

00:34:00 ◼   ► I swear it's always can be the best, right? Like here, right?

00:34:02 ◼   ► He is doing it in the most simple, most classic way,

00:34:06 ◼   ► but it is done with the best ingredients with the, with the time on a tradition.

00:34:09 ◼   ► And so that is why I wonder,

00:34:11 ◼   ► cause I look at those little sushi pieces and go,

00:34:13 ◼   ► there is almost a meal that couldn't be simpler than this.

00:34:17 ◼   ► It is rice with a little sliver of fish on top of it.

00:34:21 ◼   ► And so that's why I wonder like, Oh, maybe,

00:34:23 ◼   ► maybe I could go there and enjoy the experience. Maybe I couldn't.

00:34:26 ◼   ► Maybe I could just ask for 20 of the egg ones.

00:34:29 ◼   ► Yes. Well, and then the other thing that I do wonder about is the problem is,

00:34:33 ◼   ► problem is if you go to this restaurant and you're not having a good time,

00:34:37 ◼   ► the sushi is being produced by Jiro. Most of the time he stands,

00:34:42 ◼   ► he stands there, he gets the rice, the fish goes on top, he's,

00:34:46 ◼   ► he shapes it like a little bird in his hand and then he places it on the black

00:34:50 ◼   ► dish in front of you. You are to immediately pick it up,

00:34:53 ◼   ► put it in your mouth and he stands there and looks at you

00:34:58 ◼   ► as you're eating it.

00:35:01 ◼   ► This is why it's not fun.

00:35:03 ◼   ► And if-- so this is the thing.

00:35:05 ◼   ► Let's put aside--

00:35:06 ◼   ► I mean, we have to put aside for the moment the fact

00:35:08 ◼   ► that $300 per person is an insane amount of money

00:35:12 ◼   ► to spend on any amount of food.

00:35:14 ◼   ► Especially 12 sushis.

00:35:15 ◼   ► Yes.

00:35:16 ◼   ► It is wild.

00:35:18 ◼   ► You go there for 15 minutes, you get maybe 15 to 20 pieces

00:35:21 ◼   ► of fish.

00:35:22 ◼   ► It costs you at least $300.

00:35:24 ◼   ► Thank you very much.

00:35:25 ◼   ► Like, that is a bonkers thing.

00:35:28 ◼   ► But you can see how it gets that way if only 10 people can be there at a time, right?

00:35:32 ◼   ► This is a supply-demand type thing, right?

00:35:34 ◼   ► That's how it is that amount of money.

00:35:35 ◼   ► But if you're spending that amount of money, you were in that environment where

00:35:41 ◼   ► the, at the time of recording, this man is 93 years old and for the best that we

00:35:47 ◼   ► could work out, still doing it, he is standing in front of you having done this

00:35:53 ◼   ► stuff for like 70 years, he is the best in the world.

00:35:58 ◼   ► and he is watching you eat it.

00:36:00 ◼   ► - I know.

00:36:00 ◼   ► - You better enjoy that piece of fish, boy.

00:36:04 ◼   ► - But it's not you better enjoy it.

00:36:08 ◼   ► I think my feeling would be,

00:36:10 ◼   ► I do not measure up to this experience.

00:36:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm not good enough.

00:36:13 ◼   ► - Right, like my palate is the palate of a dog before you,

00:36:18 ◼   ► and I can't appreciate this thing.

00:36:23 ◼   ► And so that's the additional level of discomfort.

00:36:25 ◼   ► And if I went there and the sushi was put in front of me and I put it in my mouth and did not have a good time,

00:36:33 ◼   ► it would just feel like total failure.

00:36:36 ◼   ► Failure of not measuring up and I would have to just like bow my head and apologize and leave in great shame.

00:36:44 ◼   ► You couldn't bow enough.

00:36:45 ◼   ► No.

00:36:47 ◼   ► Right? Especially like, I mean, because it's shown in this movie a lot, right?

00:36:53 ◼   ► which is a thing I think most people are aware of, like the emphasis on respect in Japanese culture.

00:36:59 ◼   ► How could you do that to them man? Right? How could you go there? And I'm sure it's happened a lot now

00:37:08 ◼   ► because of the movie, right? Like in the last 10 years or whatever, I'm sure it has happened

00:37:12 ◼   ► a lot that westerners are going to this restaurant like me and you.

00:37:17 ◼   ► Yeah. Hi!

00:37:19 ◼   ► who have not experienced sushi in any authentic or even half decent form.

00:37:29 ◼   ► - I was gonna say, we're eating sushi like they briefly mentioned at the end of the documentary,

00:37:34 ◼   ► off of one of those little assembly lines in a restaurant.

00:37:37 ◼   ► - I love that they're saying they have to be like, "You know you can buy conveyor belt sushi now?"

00:37:40 ◼   ► I really enjoyed that. Or like, I eat vegetarian sushi and really enjoy it,

00:37:46 ◼   ► because I really love that, like avocado and cucumber.

00:37:50 ◼   ► I think it's fantastic, it's wonderful.

00:37:52 ◼   ► Because I love all the flavors in Japanese cooking,

00:37:56 ◼   ► but I have yet, so like we cook a lot of like,

00:37:59 ◼   ► or you know, Japanese inspired food at home,

00:38:02 ◼   ► because we really enjoy the flavors,

00:38:04 ◼   ► but I've yet to really grasp fish.

00:38:07 ◼   ► And I have tried some sushi, I have tried sashimi,

00:38:10 ◼   ► which is basically just the fish in a lot of instances.

00:38:14 ◼   ► And like I'm coming around to it and like in a place where you know if like Adina's like "oh this is good" then I'll try it

00:38:21 ◼   ► Right because then it's like alright

00:38:23 ◼   ► So this is maybe something this is like a best-case scenario type thing like when we honeymooned in Hawaii

00:38:28 ◼   ► Hawaii is very good for for sushi and stuff too and

00:38:31 ◼   ► She had she was trying everything she could there and if she really liked it was like alright

00:38:35 ◼   ► So give me a piece of the tuna and it's like alright like I can see what people enjoy about this

00:38:41 ◼   ► I'm coming around to it, but I just

00:38:43 ◼   ► I just, I feel like I'd break the man's heart.

00:38:47 ◼   ► Like I just couldn't do it to him.

00:38:48 ◼   ► - And it would also be the feeling of robbing the experience

00:38:52 ◼   ► from someone else.

00:38:53 ◼   ► - Yes, who really wanted it

00:38:54 ◼   ► and couldn't be there that day.

00:38:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it's like, oh, I'm sorry, I'm just a pleb here

00:38:59 ◼   ► and this seat should be given to someone else.

00:39:02 ◼   ► I'm sorry I have dishonored you and myself in this scenario

00:39:06 ◼   ► and you're 93, who knows how many settings are left.

00:39:11 ◼   ► - Oh God.

00:39:12 ◼   ► Alright? It's like... I'm sure I've mentioned it before but my dad is always referencing how many books he has left to read and I'm like please don't.

00:39:19 ◼   ► He does the calculation of average lifespan and how many books he reads in a month and every once in a while he's like "Oh, this many books?"

00:39:27 ◼   ► I'm like "Please dad, don't." Like it's too much? And I just look at Jiro and I think "Dude, you are way past the number of meals of sushi that civilization could have gotten out of you."

00:39:38 ◼   ► Every one of them is a precious gift and I would not want to ruin that.

00:39:42 ◼   ► This episode is also brought to you by Hover,

00:39:46 ◼   ► one of Cortex's longest running sponsors.

00:39:49 ◼   ► One of the reasons for this is because we love Hover.

00:39:51 ◼   ► They're a wonderful technology company and they're also wonderful for helping

00:39:55 ◼   ► with entrepreneurship, which this show is all about because your business,

00:39:58 ◼   ► your project, it starts with a wonderful, awesome domain name.

00:40:02 ◼   ► And Hover has over 300 domain name extensions that you can choose from.

00:40:07 ◼   ► So no matter what it is you want to build, there is a domain name waiting for it.

00:40:11 ◼   ► And they have excellent technical support to answer any questions you may have.

00:40:15 ◼   ► Hover are dedicated to helping you get your stuff online without upselling you.

00:40:19 ◼   ► They have free Whois privacy so bad guys aren't getting your information.

00:40:23 ◼   ► They have a clean user interface which is super easy to manage and integrate with other

00:40:27 ◼   ► services.

00:40:28 ◼   ► They have monthly sales on popular top level domains.

00:40:30 ◼   ► It is so easy to see why Hover is the popular choice for people getting started with their

00:40:34 ◼   ► businesses.

00:40:36 ◼   ► When I was thinking about starting the theme system, when we had the idea for the theme

00:40:40 ◼   ► system, we registered domain names immediately.

00:40:43 ◼   ► So I have just launched thethemesystem.com, which is the domain name that I bought on

00:40:47 ◼   ► Hover.

00:40:48 ◼   ► I just got my yearly renewal notice, which means I've owned that domain for a year, even

00:40:52 ◼   ► though the website has only existed for a few weeks.

00:40:54 ◼   ► Because look, when you have an idea for a project, when you know you want to get something

00:40:58 ◼   ► online, it starts with that great domain name.

00:41:01 ◼   ► And that is why you need to go to Hover.

00:41:03 ◼   ► Buy your domain and start using it today.

00:41:05 ◼   ► Go to hover.com/cortex and get a 10% discount on all new purchases.

00:41:09 ◼   ► That is hover.com/cortex to get that 10% discount on all new purchases.

00:41:15 ◼   ► Make a name for yourself with Hover.

00:41:16 ◼   ► A thanks to Hover for their support of this show and Relay FM.

00:41:20 ◼   ► So now we are thoroughly exhausted this hypothetical.

00:41:24 ◼   ► I think the reason that we're probably both like would even consider this is because it

00:41:30 ◼   ► is difficult to watch this movie and not have absolutely profound respect for all of the

00:41:34 ◼   ► people involved in what it takes to make and craft these meals. The work that they

00:41:40 ◼   ► put in is unbelievable and it was kind of fascinating to watch it. So I actually

00:41:46 ◼   ► want to read a quote like this is how the movie kind of begins and this is

00:41:50 ◼   ► Jiro kind of I think he's like talking about his philosophy to work and he says

00:41:54 ◼   ► "Once you decide your occupation you must immerse yourself in work. You must

00:41:58 ◼   ► fall in love of your work. Never complain about your job. You must dedicate your

00:42:01 ◼   ► life to mastering your skill. That's the key to success and is the key to being regarded

00:42:06 ◼   ► honorably. That's very powerful. I don't think I think about work like that.

00:42:13 ◼   ► Yeah, if we couldn't complain about work, many podcasts would not exist.

00:42:18 ◼   ► Yes, especially this one. But like, it's quite an outlook. And when you hear that and you

00:42:25 ◼   ► hear about everything that's happened in his life and what seemed like a very difficult

00:42:29 ◼   ► childhood that he had. And you see this individual, it's like, wow, like that is, that is quite

00:42:43 ◼   ► a body of work, like a life's work that you have created at this point. To be able to

00:42:50 ◼   ► feel that way and to have achieved that much is kind of incredible, right?

00:42:55 ◼   ► Yeah, it's why...

00:42:57 ◼   ► I saw this documentary first years ago, and...

00:43:04 ◼   ► I can really recommend it to absolutely everyone, because there's something in here for...

00:43:13 ◼   ► all people watching it, and...

00:43:17 ◼   ► The thing that I think about every time that relates to what you said about that quote is...

00:43:23 ◼   ► Jiro is so singular and is so clearly focused on his work and performs at this very top level

00:43:35 ◼   ► and is obviously a man who, while he has high standards and severe looks at times,

00:43:42 ◼   ► enjoys the thing that he does and has this as a true...

00:43:49 ◼   ► And like the word calling falls so dramatically short in even trying to describe this

00:43:55 ◼   ► But I also always watch this documentary and think I would never want to be Jiro

00:43:59 ◼   ► Like people watch this documentary

00:44:02 ◼   ► sometimes and they're looking for lessons out of it and I think it is it is it is much more just this tale of a

00:44:10 ◼   ► singular person

00:44:12 ◼   ► and

00:44:14 ◼   ► that

00:44:15 ◼   ► when you get to

00:44:17 ◼   ► Extremely high levels of dedication or talent where you're talking about the best few people in the world at something. I

00:44:24 ◼   ► Actually think that the the whole idea of learning a lesson from the person becomes meaningless

00:44:31 ◼   ► like that they're just so

00:44:34 ◼   ► singular they are that person and

00:44:37 ◼   ► I

00:44:40 ◼   ► Find it fascinating to hear him talk about his work like that quote that that you said is very interesting to hear him

00:44:46 ◼   ► say that this is how he thinks about it. But I'm, I'm not,

00:44:49 ◼   ► I don't think that that's applicable generally to people,

00:44:55 ◼   ► right? Where, but like I see people with like, Oh, that's, that's great. I should,

00:44:58 ◼   ► I should apply that in my work. And, and this is,

00:45:02 ◼   ► that's one of the things I come back to this documentary is like,

00:45:05 ◼   ► Jiro is an amazing person. I would never want to be him.

00:45:09 ◼   ► I don't think I'd even want to think about work in the same way that he does,

00:45:14 ◼   ► because it's also clear that the way you achieve such a pinnacle of success is

00:45:19 ◼   ► having total focus on this thing and is very,

00:45:25 ◼   ► very open about he wasn't there for his children.

00:45:29 ◼   ► He doesn't have any home life really to speak of even now.

00:45:34 ◼   ► And what he does is he does sushi and he creates amazing experiences for other

00:45:39 ◼   ► people and the world is better for him existing.

00:45:43 ◼   ► But I'm not, I wouldn't want to trade places with him.

00:45:47 ◼   ► No. I think it is an incredible outlook to have, not in a "this is good to live,"

00:45:56 ◼   ► but it is just like an incredible way to live.

00:45:59 ◼   ► Like, you know, like how, like, awesome, like the phrase, like, not how we use it,

00:46:05 ◼   ► but like it is something that you're in awe about.

00:46:07 ◼   ► Like that's how I kind of feel when I read that.

00:46:09 ◼   ► And I am very aware of cultural differences between here and in the US versus Japan.

00:46:20 ◼   ► And it does seem, for what little I do know, that there is a vastly different approach to work.

00:46:28 ◼   ► And also, he was born in 1925.

00:46:32 ◼   ► So he is carrying also the-

00:46:34 ◼   ► out of his home at the age of nine and told not to come back.

00:46:38 ◼   ► Yeah. And to just make it work. Right, you're on your own in the world.

00:46:44 ◼   ► Yeah, so it's a different culture and it's a different time, but it has produced this

00:46:50 ◼   ► singular person. However, I don't know what you think about this, but like,

00:46:59 ◼   ► This is not just circumstance. This man has a gift. He has talent that I just think there's no way...

00:47:08 ◼   ► Like people like refer to it in the movie like he was just like born to make sushi.

00:47:14 ◼   ► Like there must... I just feel like given the same set of circumstances you would not repeat this

00:47:20 ◼   ► with every person you put through his exact situation. Yeah well there's an interesting

00:47:25 ◼   ► an interesting part of the movie I like where Jiro's talking about the chef that he looks

00:47:31 ◼   ► up to. I can't remember his name, but it's in the context of what I do think is a generally

00:47:37 ◼   ► good point for everyone. Jiro's talking about, "Oh, in order to make delicious food, you

00:47:41 ◼   ► have to eat delicious food." That you have to train yourself to be sensitive to things

00:47:48 ◼   ► in food and that if your customer has a better palate than you, it's not possible for you

00:47:53 ◼   ► to like them. That is definitely a broadly, like a broad piece of advice. Right, like

00:48:00 ◼   ► that is a totally applicable piece of advice and very useful. But there's also, there's

00:48:07 ◼   ► a, like that is a thing that a person can do if you want to write well, read books that

00:48:15 ◼   ► you think are written well. That like, that is applicable to everyone. But the thing that

00:48:19 ◼   ► is interesting is that he then immediately transitions into talking about this other

00:48:23 ◼   ► chef and how the reason he looks up to him is because the other chef has a much better

00:48:28 ◼   ► olfactory sense and taste than he does. That the other guy is just much more sensitive

00:48:36 ◼   ► to differences in food than Jiro is and so there's like this... it is not just about

00:48:48 ◼   ► practicing sushi, Giro, I would love to see some kind of, like, do a test on him about

00:48:58 ◼   ► what tastes can he distinguish, right? Like, how many molecules of tuna can we put in this

00:49:04 ◼   ► saline solution before he tastes it or whatever? Like, there's no way he's not more sensitive

00:49:10 ◼   ► than that, like, than an average person. And he acknowledges, like, oh, if he had been,

00:49:16 ◼   ► if he had a better nose and a better tongue, you'd be a better sushi chef. But he's already

00:49:21 ◼   ► almost certainly in like the top top 0.001 percent of people in the world. And this is why I say like

00:49:27 ◼   ► there's not necessarily something to be gained from looking at the very top performers in any

00:49:35 ◼   ► field because they are a perfect alignment of everything that had to go right. And it just

00:49:42 ◼   ► it doesn't mean anything to draw a general lesson in that way.

00:49:47 ◼   ► Whereas my other favorite part about this film is like,

00:49:51 ◼   ► you probably want to talk to Jiro's sons much more about how to become a good sushi chef

00:49:58 ◼   ► than you would ever want to talk to Jiro directly.

00:50:01 ◼   ► Because they had to become good sushi chefs.

00:50:04 ◼   ► And the story of the sons is very interesting. He has two sons.

00:50:08 ◼   ► and the youngest son operates his own restaurant which is in the kind of empire it is a secondary

00:50:18 ◼   ► Jiro restaurant but only he operates there his name is Takashi and a fantastic thing for this is

00:50:27 ◼   ► that the interior is exactly the same as Jiro's restaurant but reversed because Takashi is right

00:50:34 ◼   ► handed and Jiro is left-handed. I just think that's wonderful. His restaurant is cheaper.

00:50:39 ◼   ► It is less nerve-wracking. But it is a two-star Michelin restaurant. So his youngest son,

00:50:49 ◼   ► very good at making sushi. Right? Like, that is very good sushi still. And then his oldest son,

00:50:55 ◼   ► whose name is Yoshi. He works at his father's restaurant and I was like, "Oh, that's weird.

00:51:04 ◼   ► The younger son must be better." But that's not the case because he is expected to take his father's

00:51:11 ◼   ► position, which is like traditional and also is the higher accolade even though he lives in the

00:51:18 ◼   ► shadow of his dad constantly.

00:51:21 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:51:21 ◼   ► It's, it's a fascinating part of the documentary every time, because it

00:51:27 ◼   ► involves all of these, these related things.

00:51:29 ◼   ► It's sons picking up the work of their father.

00:51:32 ◼   ► It is clearly a kind of cultural difference that's, that's going on here.

00:51:38 ◼   ► And, and I, every time I watch it, my, my heart sort of goes out to Yoshi, but

00:51:47 ◼   ► then I have to remember like, but he's in like the socially higher position.

00:51:52 ◼   ► Whereas I like, I look at the two of them and I think, oh, clearly I would want to be Takashi.

00:51:57 ◼   ► Like no question about it. I want to be the guy with the two star.

00:52:01 ◼   ► Who runs his own deal.

00:52:02 ◼   ► Yeah, who runs his own deal. And I do love that explicit remark about the market where he's like, oh, I have to charge a lower price to satisfy my customers.

00:52:10 ◼   ► It's like, yeah, that's how that works.

00:52:11 ◼   ► Because he's not the guy.

00:52:12 ◼   ► He's not the guy you don't you don't have power law effects about what is the price at like the restaurant that everybody wants wants to go to.

00:52:20 ◼   ► But I do like there is a part of me which like would love to have a one on one conversation with Yoshi be like, hey, what do you really think?

00:52:30 ◼   ► And the the documentary interviewer asks him a question where they say, Oh, are you jealous of Takashi starting his own restaurant?

00:52:40 ◼   ► And Yoshi's exact quote is, "In Japan, the eldest son succeeds his father.

00:52:46 ◼   ► That is what is expected of me."

00:52:48 ◼   ► End quote.

00:52:50 ◼   ► Right?

00:52:51 ◼   ► No, no further answer.

00:52:53 ◼   ► I have no idea what that, what that means, right?

00:52:57 ◼   ► Like that could mean I have the better position or it could mean I hate my brother.

00:53:05 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:53:06 ◼   ► But whatever it is, right?

00:53:08 ◼   ► like this is a situation where he had two sons,

00:53:12 ◼   ► they were both good and he wanted to give them a place.

00:53:15 ◼   ► Like I was watching it with Adina today

00:53:17 ◼   ► and she said, she gave a quote with her like,

00:53:19 ◼   ► you don't fight for the same pie slice,

00:53:21 ◼   ► you just make a bigger pie,

00:53:23 ◼   ► which is what's going on here, right?

00:53:24 ◼   ► Like he can't have two successes.

00:53:28 ◼   ► So they opened a second restaurant

00:53:29 ◼   ► and that's where the younger son is.

00:53:32 ◼   ► And he said, like I say, he has autonomy,

00:53:33 ◼   ► I guess, to a degree,

00:53:36 ◼   ► but he lives in the shadow even more

00:53:40 ◼   ► because he's in a similar,

00:53:42 ◼   ► he's in a restaurant that's exactly the same.

00:53:44 ◼   ► He makes incredible sushi,

00:53:45 ◼   ► but he can't charge as highly for it

00:53:48 ◼   ► because it's not his dad.

00:53:50 ◼   ► Where at least Yoshi is in that environment

00:53:54 ◼   ► and there's like a good reveal at the end of the movie,

00:53:56 ◼   ► right, that every time, or at least the initial time

00:54:00 ◼   ► that Jiro's restaurant was Mission on the Star reviewed,

00:54:04 ◼   ► the sushi was made by Yoshi.

00:54:07 ◼   ► So obviously, there is no grading higher than three,

00:54:10 ◼   ► so it's not like they would come to Jiro

00:54:12 ◼   ► and be like, "Oh, you get seven."

00:54:14 ◼   ► But the idea is that the rating,

00:54:17 ◼   ► which is given to say that this restaurant

00:54:19 ◼   ► is probably the best sushi restaurant in the world,

00:54:22 ◼   ► was actually achieved by his son.

00:54:26 ◼   ► And even at the end of the movie as well,

00:54:28 ◼   ► Jiro kind of says, "I have the easy job.

00:54:32 ◼   ► It's everybody else now who's doing all the hard work.

00:54:37 ◼   ► And he has obviously instituted the rules and regulations

00:54:41 ◼   ► of the restaurant.

00:54:42 ◼   ► The reason it is that good is still because of him

00:54:45 ◼   ► and what he wants.

00:54:47 ◼   ► But he acknowledges that the sushi is basically

00:54:50 ◼   ► cooked by the time it gets to him.

00:54:52 ◼   ► He's just like, plating it at that point, I guess.

00:54:56 ◼   ► And I'm sure he's to a level reducing his role a bit there.

00:55:02 ◼   ► But he is at least, I think, giving a very fair point of like a lot of the work is in the preparation.

00:55:09 ◼   ► Now of course, right, like we see other instances in the movie where it's like one of the apprentice

00:55:14 ◼   ► chefs is talking about the egg sushi that he made and he said like he made it like 200 times before

00:55:19 ◼   ► it was considered good enough. And then he cried. And then he cried. You would cry though, wouldn't you?

00:55:24 ◼   ► Yeah and and and it's like in that moment like I'm watching the documentary like it's okay man,

00:55:29 ◼   ► right? No one would chide you for that. I nearly cried hearing your story. I wasn't even there.

00:55:37 ◼   ► But like, you know, that's the thing of like, well, the master created this standard that

00:55:43 ◼   ► everybody has to live by and that guy would have served that egg sushi. I said, "You have to work

00:55:50 ◼   ► there 10 years before you're even allowed to touch the eggs." Right? And he would have served

00:55:54 ◼   ► at least sushi attempt 100 but Jiro it's not it's not unacceptable for him so he'll keep pushing and

00:56:00 ◼   ► pushing and pushing so like he he leads right that's what he does like he is like leading this

00:56:08 ◼   ► restaurant even if he is not making the sushi himself yeah i learned a great word today shokunin

00:56:15 ◼   ► there's a couple of fun definitions of this online i like this one the japanese word shokunin is often

00:56:20 ◼   ► translated as artisan in English although it is incorrect by definition

00:56:24 ◼   ► the translation seems to lose the spirit of what Ashokanin does. Like the actual

00:56:30 ◼   ► way it's translated to us cannot capture what it means in Japan and it is

00:56:37 ◼   ► effectively like an individual who is the absolute best at one very specific

00:56:45 ◼   ► thing and that they are considered to be masters of their craft but their craft

00:56:53 ◼   ► is incredibly specific. So like for example in an article that I was

00:56:59 ◼   ► reading that I will put into our show notes about this, in a lot of Japanese

00:57:04 ◼   ► craftspersonship there is a term called urushi which is the idea of layering

00:57:10 ◼   ► individual layers of lacquer on to something. It's used in swords, pens,

00:57:16 ◼   ► that's how I know it from pens. Right of course. Urushi pens are like some of the

00:57:20 ◼   ► most expensive and incredible objects that an individual can own and it is it

00:57:25 ◼   ► was a trend which had nearly died out but has now come back again. It's like

00:57:30 ◼   ► this is how apparently this has been throughout time but it is now back again

00:57:34 ◼   ► and is even being practiced by people in America now because it is considered to

00:57:39 ◼   ► to be so such an incredible technique but there are shokunin whose job is to

00:57:44 ◼   ► apply the final layer now these are hundreds and hundreds of layers just

00:57:49 ◼   ► painted on individually every single day until it builds to the pen there are

00:57:53 ◼   ► some people whose job is to apply the last one right it's like that is you

00:58:00 ◼   ► know I just if this is all so beautiful to me mm-hmm as a way of approaching

00:58:05 ◼   ► this kind of stuff and I am very happy to have learned this word today. And also the

00:58:10 ◼   ► egg guy, the egg sushi guy, he said that like Jiro called him, he said "I remember the

00:58:16 ◼   ► day that he called me a shokunin" and he was like "what did he say, like when he fist

00:58:19 ◼   ► pumped the air or something?" It was kind of beautiful.

00:58:23 ◼   ► He said he wanted to fist pump the air but he was trying to keep it together. No big

00:58:30 ◼   ► deal, but I'm an, I'm an egg, I'm an egg master now.

00:58:33 ◼   ► Uh, it's the other part that, that goes to that, that, and why I, like,

00:58:40 ◼   ► and I think that I really like about the documentary is I'm endlessly fascinated

00:58:47 ◼   ► in like logistic worlds and that the whole part of the documentary that relates

00:58:53 ◼   ► to that is, is like, Oh, Jiro is talking about how, you know, he's the sushi

00:58:58 ◼   ► master and he's working with these people in the kitchen and they're masters of what

00:59:04 ◼   ► they're doing. But the whole restaurant sits atop this pyramid of their suppliers and there's

00:59:10 ◼   ► a whole segment in the fish market where you just find it very interesting that they're

00:59:15 ◼   ► clearly picking out particular suppliers to buy from.

00:59:20 ◼   ► The fish market thing was amazing.

00:59:22 ◼   ► And there's something about on camera, you can tell all of the suppliers are like, they're

00:59:29 ◼   ► not the normal dudes in the market, like buying hundreds of kilos of tuna.

00:59:35 ◼   ► As like, like the tuna buyer is very picky.

00:59:37 ◼   ► And he's like, I won't buy any tuna if I don't see one that I like.

00:59:40 ◼   ► He's like, if I can't have my first choice, I won't buy any.

00:59:44 ◼   ► Right?

00:59:45 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:59:46 ◼   ► Because they go to auctions, right?

00:59:47 ◼   ► Yes.

00:59:48 ◼   ► And then the, the, the, so like there's an auction every morning.

00:59:51 ◼   ► The fish is bought, it is then taken to the fish market where it is then sold to the restaurants.

00:59:57 ◼   ► And so there are these levels of chogunin, basically.

01:00:03 ◼   ► Because the great thing is every single supplier is referenced as like, "This person knows

01:00:08 ◼   ► more about rice than I could ever know."

01:00:10 ◼   ► Or like, "This is the best person who knows the most about rice that we could ever possibly

01:00:13 ◼   ► find."

01:00:14 ◼   ► Like, "I trust this person completely when it comes to my rice."

01:00:18 ◼   ► And it's like that for every single one of these people.

01:00:20 ◼   ► Well that's the thing that I noticed that they explicitly call out is they only buy from suppliers

01:00:27 ◼   ► who only sell one thing. It's like the shrimp guy only deals with shrimp and we only want to buy

01:00:33 ◼   ► shrimp from a guy who only manages shrimp. Did you find the octopus part uncomfortable?

01:00:39 ◼   ► I always do. I hate it. Why do they have to show me? I didn't want to know the octopus was alive

01:00:44 ◼   ► and I don't want to see it clinging to the guy's arm. Like I just don't want to see that.

01:00:48 ◼   ► It is always uncomfortable, yes.

01:00:50 ◼   ► You know, yeah.

01:00:52 ◼   ► But it's to be expected, you know it's coming.

01:00:55 ◼   ► You're not going to get through a sushi documentary without an octopus

01:00:58 ◼   ► clinging for life thinking it's an octopus.

01:01:00 ◼   ► And when the shrimp jumps out of the pot, it's like, "Oh god, this is so bad."

01:01:03 ◼   ► Ah, whatever, shrimp, who cares.

01:01:04 ◼   ► Octopodes, though, it's very uncomfortable.

01:01:06 ◼   ► Weird line in the center drawer, but like...

01:01:08 ◼   ► But it's...

01:01:10 ◼   ► And there's something about that logistic chain that I just find very fascinating.

01:01:14 ◼   ► fascinating like everything everything is a world unto itself and and this like

01:01:20 ◼   ► their experiences in life where sometimes you get to see those logistic

01:01:24 ◼   ► chains either in person or in a documentary or something and like I've

01:01:27 ◼   ► always really enjoyed those and this whole thing about the fish market is

01:01:31 ◼   ► really interesting and I do think it's it's again like the lessons about making

01:01:36 ◼   ► sushi are not to be drawn from Jiro in the documentary the lessons are

01:01:40 ◼   ► everything around him. And this is one of those, those things of, oh,

01:01:44 ◼   ► acknowledge that the people that you are working with should be much better at

01:01:49 ◼   ► the parts they're supplying to you than you could ever do yourself.

01:01:54 ◼   ► And it's just very clear in that segment. And, and, you know,

01:01:59 ◼   ► it's like under,

01:02:01 ◼   ► it's like I've seen some documentaries about wine and I generally think that

01:02:07 ◼   ► that world is a fraud for the most part. Right.

01:02:10 ◼   ► I'm just gonna say it, so what I think about watching this fish market is this guy who's

01:02:17 ◼   ► the tuna dealer is going around and like touching the tuna and smelling it a little bit and

01:02:22 ◼   ► looking at it with his flashlight and making these like very quick decisions about it and

01:02:33 ◼   ► he's like oh I know which tuna are going to taste good.

01:02:36 ◼   ► I was like, "I can believe you because you just deal with tuna in this market.

01:02:43 ◼   ► It's the only thing that you deal with and I could imagine that you're actually building

01:02:47 ◼   ► up a skill that they bring this…"

01:02:49 ◼   ► I always forget how big tuna are as well.

01:02:51 ◼   ► I was going to say that.

01:02:52 ◼   ► I feel like I have no idea.

01:02:53 ◼   ► There's enormous tuna.

01:02:54 ◼   ► They're like whales.

01:02:55 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:02:56 ◼   ► You touch the tail and you're like, "Oh, this one's no good," and you touch the tail

01:02:59 ◼   ► of the other one, you're like, "That's the tuna I want.

01:03:01 ◼   ► That tuna or nothing."

01:03:02 ◼   ► That's my tuna.

01:03:03 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:03:04 ◼   ► this remark about like, oh, there's all these all these tuni here. He's like, well, there's not that

01:03:07 ◼   ► many tuni here. Right? Like, but I think it's also in his head because he's like, there's only two

01:03:10 ◼   ► tuni here that I would buy. Right? It's like, I can believe that his skill is being cultivated

01:03:17 ◼   ► there in an environment like whereas in other environments, I can think, I'm not confident in

01:03:23 ◼   ► this in this skill. But I was like, I just love that logistic chain stuff of it. And it's fascinating

01:03:29 ◼   ► every time the whole world around him. I love how the rice dealer is like loling that other

01:03:35 ◼   ► people want to buy the rice. They don't know how to cook the rice. They can't cook your

01:03:40 ◼   ► rice only you can cook your rice and they're both like hahaha stupid Hyatt. It's great.

01:03:45 ◼   ► I'm like I sell you the expert rice and I don't sell other people the expert rice. And

01:03:49 ◼   ► they show how they cook the rice and it's like yeah you know what that does look really

01:03:53 ◼   ► difficult. Like I don't think you could just put that in a rice cooker and get the result

01:03:57 ◼   ► salt that you're looking for.

01:03:58 ◼   ► It's like a million PSI to cook that rice.

01:04:01 ◼   ► I do like that even then they're talking about how difficult it is to cook the rice

01:04:05 ◼   ► and they're like "oh we just put a pot on it." Right? I was expecting a pressure

01:04:09 ◼   ► cooker at least or something. I don't know what I was expecting. But there was like,

01:04:14 ◼   ► it still was, the methods tried and true and they seem peculiar I guess and they're using

01:04:23 ◼   ► and strange, you know, like you said, like, oh, you would expect if you wanted consistency every time,

01:04:28 ◼   ► maybe there's a machine to use. But this is the difference where it's just like, no, we know how to do it.

01:04:33 ◼   ► And we do it right every time.

01:04:35 ◼   ► Yeah. And it's a preciseness in the simplicity that, again, I can believe from having had some experiences in nice restaurants.

01:04:43 ◼   ► And to go back to the octopus, there's one part that sort of makes me laugh every time when when Chiro's like,

01:04:48 ◼   ► when she was like oh we're always trying to improve and he says you know we massage the

01:04:52 ◼   ► octopus for 30 minutes before we cook it and he's like and we've really we've really been refining

01:04:59 ◼   ► the process and now we massage it for 40 minutes all right and it's like not too long after that

01:05:04 ◼   ► not too long after that he was talking about how like he doesn't do it like this stuff anymore and

01:05:10 ◼   ► and like and he's talking about i changed my methods i was like yeah you changed from 30

01:05:14 ◼   ► minutes to 40 minutes when you hired an apprentice now it's a 40 minute process because you're not

01:05:18 ◼   ► doing that anymore Jiro, I see how you work.

01:05:22 ◼   ► This episode of Cortex is brought to you by Audible. Audible has the world's largest selection

01:05:27 ◼   ► of audiobooks and audio entertainment, including Audible Originals. Audible Originals are stories

01:05:33 ◼   ► created exclusively for audio, including documentaries, exclusive audiobooks, and scripted shows

01:05:39 ◼   ► that you won't hear anywhere else. You can listen at the gym, while shopping, in the

01:05:44 ◼   ► car while traveling, any time that you can't actually be reading, maybe your eyes or hands

01:05:49 ◼   ► need to be occupied in other ways, you can just listen with Audible. And as an Audible member,

01:05:54 ◼   ► you'll get three titles every month, that is one audiobook plus two Audible originals from a fresh

01:06:01 ◼   ► selection, and you get access to exclusive guided fitness and meditation programs as well. Now I've

01:06:07 ◼   ► spoken many times about the fact that I am an audiobook person, I just cannot focus on books

01:06:13 ◼   ► when I'm trying to read them in any other way. Audiobooks is the way to go for me always because

01:06:18 ◼   ► I can be playing video games if I want to, I can be traveling, whenever I might be doing something

01:06:23 ◼   ► else I can be listening to audio. And I want to recommend one of my favorite audiobooks of all

01:06:27 ◼   ► time, I think I've listened to it like four or five times, it is called Icon and it's a book

01:06:32 ◼   ► about Steve Jobs that was released in 2006. So it focuses on a very specific time of Steve's life

01:06:38 ◼   ► and it goes from his early beginnings in Apple all the way up to basically when he's returned

01:06:44 ◼   ► to Apple and he's releasing the iPods and stuff like that. So it focuses on Pixar a lot, it focuses

01:06:50 ◼   ► on Next a lot as well. It is my personal favorite book about Steve Jobs's life and it only tells

01:06:56 ◼   ► just a slice of it. It's a really really fantastic book. It is written by Jeffrey S Young and William

01:07:01 ◼   ► L Simon, narrated by Alan Sklar and it's a great narration as well. I really really love this book

01:07:07 ◼   ► and it tells in depth a story of Steve's life which maybe isn't focused on in the same way in

01:07:12 ◼   ► some of the other books that have happened especially over the last couple of years.

01:07:14 ◼   ► Audible members can easily exchange any title that you don't love, and you can keep everything that

01:07:20 ◼   ► you download forever even if you cancel your subscription. So start listening with a 30 day

01:07:25 ◼   ► Audible trial, choose one audiobook and two Audible originals absolutely free by going to

01:07:31 ◼   ► audible.com/cortex or texting cortex to 500-500. That's a u d i b l e dot com slash cortex or text

01:07:40 ◼   ► cortex to 500-500 to get one audiobook and two audible originals absolutely free. Thanks to

01:07:46 ◼   ► audible for their support of this show and all of relay fm. I do like that it's like you know we we

01:07:52 ◼   ► have evolved our processes like I was expecting something more than just an extra 10 minutes like

01:07:57 ◼   ► It's like when he was talking about it, it's like, "Oh, we have a different kind of..."

01:07:59 ◼   ► We discovered that if you marinate it in ginger for 20 minutes before the massaging, it produces better.

01:08:04 ◼   ► It's like, "No, we just do it longer."

01:08:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, but just a little longer. - Okay!

01:08:07 ◼   ► Not a lot longer.

01:08:08 ◼   ► Yeah, it's the simplicity of the process to produce simple results,

01:08:13 ◼   ► but that result in something that is very high quality is...

01:08:18 ◼   ► It's also just a pleasing thing to watch as a viewer of the documentary,

01:08:22 ◼   ► which is why I've been able to watch it so many times.

01:08:24 ◼   ► It's like there is a satisfaction in seeing someone do a job well.

01:08:32 ◼   ► And there's almost an increased satisfaction when the job itself seems simple.

01:08:38 ◼   ► Like the way the sushi chefs with their hands press the rice into this little shape to fit

01:08:42 ◼   ► exactly into your mouth.

01:08:44 ◼   ► I feel like someone could put that on a loop on YouTube and I would just watch it all day.

01:08:47 ◼   ► You're so beautiful the way they do it too.

01:08:49 ◼   ► Like there's just like this method of like using the two fingers into the cup of the

01:08:53 ◼   ► hand and spinning it around and doing it again. And it's almost like, what do they say? It's

01:08:57 ◼   ► like holding a baby chick or something. Like you would have to put a little bit of pressure

01:09:01 ◼   ► on it so it doesn't get away.

01:09:03 ◼   ► Yeah. But, and it's also the thing of, of you look at that and simplicity can fool you.

01:09:09 ◼   ► This is the part of it where you're like, oh, it doesn't look that hard. You know, if

01:09:13 ◼   ► someone then handed me a bunch of rice and said, make one of these things, it's like,

01:09:16 ◼   ► well, 10 years later, maybe I could get it right. And then I would cry.

01:09:19 ◼   ► You can't make the rice. You're like the Hyatt.

01:09:21 ◼   ► Oh, I just before I forget, like again, thinking about there's not something to be learned from the top people, but there can be things to be learned from the next tier is like the clearest statement that Yoshi makes in the movie about the process of becoming a sushi chef is he says it's about making an effort and repeating the same thing every day.

01:09:41 ◼   ► Yes.

01:09:41 ◼   ► And it's like that is a key lesson to take away.

01:09:45 ◼   ► Whereas Jiro's lesson is dream beautiful dreams about sushi.

01:09:49 ◼   ► I wake up dreaming of sushi and create new sushi recipes.

01:09:52 ◼   ► Right, which is very, like, it's not very actionable.

01:09:55 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:56 ◼   ► You know, it's like, oh, OK.

01:09:57 ◼   ► That's a hard thing to say.

01:10:00 ◼   ► I'll try some lucid dreaming, I suppose.

01:10:02 ◼   ► Yes, exactly.

01:10:03 ◼   ► Find my way to the sushi kitchen.

01:10:04 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

01:10:05 ◼   ► I'm going to try to create that trigger for myself

01:10:07 ◼   ► and check if the clock is real.

01:10:08 ◼   ► Like, oh, is it-- am I lucid dreaming?

01:10:09 ◼   ► No.

01:10:10 ◼   ► I think that is great.

01:10:12 ◼   ► Of course, it also particularly spoke to me

01:10:14 ◼   ► during the year of order of, like, do the same thing

01:10:16 ◼   ► every day.

01:10:17 ◼   ► Make an effort and do the same thing every day.

01:10:19 ◼   ► and as they're using that little coal thing outside of the restaurant right that is also

01:10:27 ◼   ► that is also an enjoyable part of the documentary is so many things you're you view it as like wait

01:10:32 ◼   ► what is that like what like what what is what is he doing he's he's standing in the in the subway

01:10:39 ◼   ► path with a little coal oven uh it's i don't know did you see did you know like it seemed

01:10:48 ◼   ► strange to me at the time when they had that like look like just like a handful

01:10:53 ◼   ► of straw that they were burning. Do you remember that scene? Yeah and they pass a

01:10:58 ◼   ► fish through it for two seconds. In 2013 there was a fire at the restaurant

01:11:05 ◼   ► because of that straw using straw to smoke Bonito and that the straw

01:11:10 ◼   ► ignited and the fire took an hour to extinguish but there were no injuries.

01:11:15 ◼   ► I saw that on Wikipedia today and it was funny to read that straight after.

01:11:19 ◼   ► I was like, I did think that that looked very peculiar and slightly dangerous at the time.

01:11:24 ◼   ► The kitchen is not large as you would expect from a restaurant that is in a subway station.

01:11:28 ◼   ► And wasn't it nice to see how they would eat?

01:11:31 ◼   ► I just found that kind of nice.

01:11:33 ◼   ► They would cook all the sushi.

01:11:34 ◼   ► They were eating the sushi that was being cooked by the trainee.

01:11:38 ◼   ► He wasn't a trainee but he was one of the guys, I think it was the guy with the egg

01:11:42 ◼   ► sushi was like learning and is being kind of like graded by Yoshi. But that was the

01:11:48 ◼   ► sushi that they all then ate together. But I think it was like, you know, they will cook

01:11:52 ◼   ► there and eat great food. And it was kind of when Jiro was saying that what you said

01:11:56 ◼   ► earlier about like, if you want to be a great chef, you have to eat great food.

01:12:01 ◼   ► It is interesting because the other thing I think about every time I watch this documentary

01:12:05 ◼   ► is, you know, so these apprentices are coming in and they're trying to learn this skill,

01:12:12 ◼   ► and it makes me think about different areas of life in which you compete. And if you're trying

01:12:20 ◼   ► to be the top sushi chef in the world, that by definition, almost everyone who ever attempts to

01:12:25 ◼   ► that will totally fail. And I don't know, like, it's, when I think about

01:12:35 ◼   ► advice for people thinking about careers, I think that there's kind of, there's something in this

01:12:42 ◼   ► in this movie of be aware of fields where that is the case, where there's one winner,

01:12:50 ◼   ► and everybody else fails. And it's why I love Takashi.

01:12:56 ◼   ► He's like, "I have another restaurant." And he's in the Jiro empire, but he's not trying to be

01:13:03 ◼   ► Jiro. And it's such a high bar. And I think the most crushing quote comes from this guy who was

01:13:13 ◼   ► a former apprentice of Jiro. And he's talking about Yoshi. He says, "Well, the restaurant is

01:13:20 ◼   ► is going to change hands someday, you know, still,

01:13:24 ◼   ► still hasn't as a time of recording, but like someday Yoshi is going to take over.

01:13:28 ◼   ► And he says,

01:13:31 ◼   ► if Yoshi makes sushi at the same level as Jiro,

01:13:35 ◼   ► it will be regarded as inferior.

01:13:38 ◼   ► Only if he's twice as good, will it be seen as the same.

01:13:44 ◼   ► I think that that quote is so crushing because I also think there's just,

01:13:50 ◼   ► it's true like there's so much there's so much truth in there which is why like my heart always

01:13:57 ◼   ► goes out to yoshi in this documentary even though there is this twist reveal at the end

01:14:02 ◼   ► that he made the food that initially got them the michelin star it's not what people want

01:14:06 ◼   ► yeah it's and that that quote is true and whenever the handover happens like i just i just look at

01:14:15 ◼   ► Yoshi is being in this in this difficult situation and there's some quotes earlier in the movie about how he you know

01:14:22 ◼   ► He really didn't like working in the sushi restaurant in the beginning, but it's like this is what's going to happen

01:14:27 ◼   ► You're the eldest son. You're working in the kitchen. Yeah, there's no choice. Yeah, this is what you do

01:14:33 ◼   ► this is what's going to happen and

01:14:35 ◼   ► You know, it's like that poor guy is the one who has to go to the fish market as well

01:14:42 ◼   ► It's like Jiro used to go to the fish market

01:14:44 ◼   ► but he had a heart attack and so now Yoshi goes to the fish market and I'm looking at

01:14:48 ◼   ► a guy who's in the documentary, he's already 50 and he's getting up in the early morning

01:14:53 ◼   ► to go to this. It's like my heart totally goes out to him and I just think about being

01:14:59 ◼   ► in the situation where like success is toppling the best and that is not a situation you really

01:15:06 ◼   ► want to put yourself in if you don't absolutely have to. You want to create your own little

01:15:11 ◼   ► empire and do your own thing. I don't know, so I almost, I watched the documentary much

01:15:17 ◼   ► more engaged and involved with Yoshi and Takashi, much more than I do Jiro, because he's like

01:15:23 ◼   ► this ethereal sushi monk who's come down from the heavens to bless us with the platonic

01:15:28 ◼   ► ideal of sushi, and in a way to taste something so perfect like creates havoc around him.

01:15:33 ◼   ► I also feel like at certain points in the movie, like they actually do, like they, it's

01:15:39 ◼   ► you like the movie is it's actually kind of about Yoshi really yeah for a big

01:15:46 ◼   ► chunks of it kind of like setting Jiro up as this individual who has to be

01:15:51 ◼   ► succeeded mm-hmm and how is that gonna happen

01:15:55 ◼   ► all right and they try and show him like they try and show Yoshi and talk about

01:16:00 ◼   ► his philosophy and he's a smart guy and he cares about the conservation efforts

01:16:04 ◼   ► right like he cares about there being too much overfishing and it's ruining

01:16:07 ◼   ► the industry and that's when he throws shade at the conveyor belt sushi right

01:16:11 ◼   ► and he like he references this like how sushi came to New York and how the

01:16:16 ◼   ► California roll was created in like 1983 or whatever right like it's always it's

01:16:20 ◼   ► like I enjoyed that part like made me smile but it is interesting to see that

01:16:26 ◼   ► and as you say like not feel for the guy who has an impossible task ahead of him

01:16:34 ◼   ► him. Because it's like the funny thing is like he can't make six Michelin star sushi.

01:16:40 ◼   ► He doesn't exist. So what's he gonna do?

01:16:44 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, I didn't write it down, but someone else has a quote. And it is a thing

01:16:49 ◼   ► I think about sometimes when you see the children are very successful people. But there's a

01:16:53 ◼   ► quote somewhere in the movie where it says like, "Oh, sometimes the father is too successful

01:16:56 ◼   ► for the sun and it's like, yeah, that's a tough,

01:17:01 ◼   ► that's a tough place to be in of, of like having,

01:17:05 ◼   ► having that mountain in your life. And,

01:17:09 ◼   ► and the thing that I do think makes it harder is that sushi is ultimately

01:17:14 ◼   ► subjective. That there, there isn't,

01:17:17 ◼   ► we're not running the a hundred meter dash here and his father is the fastest

01:17:21 ◼   ► and there's at least a number where you could objectively prove to the world,

01:17:25 ◼   ► Oh, I am better. That's why that quote is like so gut-wrenching.

01:17:30 ◼   ► Because if we did have some objective measure of sushi, yeah,

01:17:34 ◼   ► it's, that's just not the way people are going to taste it.

01:17:37 ◼   ► And even in the grading, which he succeeded, it's his grading.

01:17:41 ◼   ► No one thinks of him. Right. It's not his restaurant.

01:17:46 ◼   ► It's not Yoshi dreams of sushi. Yeah.

01:17:48 ◼   ► Yoshi doesn't dream of sushi. That's the problem. Yoshi goes to fish market.

01:17:52 ◼   ► It's a less exciting title for a movie.

01:17:57 ◼   ► I hope to god they make a sequel called "Yoshi Goes to Fish Market."

01:18:00 ◼   ► I feel like there will be a sequel to this movie someday.

01:18:04 ◼   ► There has to—I never thought about it, but there has to be when Yoshi takes over.

01:18:08 ◼   ► And what inevitably happens?

01:18:10 ◼   ► It doesn't seem like it's gonna be anytime soon though.

01:18:14 ◼   ► Oh Jiro, going strong, 93 years old.

01:18:17 ◼   ► Oh.

01:18:18 ◼   ► Episode out of time though.

01:18:19 ◼   ► So let's hope that we haven't just jinxed that.

01:18:22 ◼   ► I guess.

01:18:23 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:18:24 ◼   ► No.

01:18:25 ◼   ► We haven't jinxed it, Myke.

01:18:26 ◼   ► Okay, good.

01:18:27 ◼   ► There's a wood table in front of us.