Pursuing the Path of Ramen
Description
This week, Tyler and Jordan interview the owner of the best ramen shop in Massachusetts, Jake Vo of Yume Wo Katare. Given that Yume Wo Katare roughly translates to "Share Your Dreams," it only made sense that in the episode, we would talk about the reality of the process of pursuing the path of following one's dream.
Yume Wo Katare's Social Media Accounts:
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/YumeWoKatare/
Instagram Page: https://www.instagram.com/yume_wo_katare/
Transcript
00:00:00.000Jordan Ugalde: Welcome to the Path of Passion Podcast, the podcast where we interview people who are living lives that they love, that they're passionate about. I am your handsome host Jordan, and this is my convivial co host.
00:00:13.470
Tyler T Hamer: Hey I'm the less attractive co host Tyler.
00:00:17.580
Jordan Ugalde: And today, we are have Jake joining us. Now, Jake runs the ramen factory, the ramen workshop, the dream workshop, Yume Wo Katare.
00:00:29.460
Jordan Ugalde: Y U M E W O K A T A R E and it is, if I might say so myself, the best ramen shop, if not in greater Boston and then at least the entire United States. I think so. With ghat being said, Jake how did you get into the ramen world.
00:00:49.860
Jake Vo: Ah, it chose me.
00:00:54.990
Tyler T Hamer: Best answer possible.
00:00:57.180
Tyler T Hamer: So guys, we're done here with the interview, like, let's wrap it up.
00:01:03.690
Jake Vo: Yes, it's literally chose me.
00:01:09.630
Jordan Ugalde: Yeah.
00:01:11.160
Jake Vo: I.
00:01:14.280
Jake Vo: I am not interested in cooking ramen.
00:01:22.530
Jordan Ugalde: How did you go from not interested in talking ramen to coaching so much ramen.
00:01:28.980
Jake Vo: um it's a good question, I think...
00:01:34.080
Jake Vo: So um,
00:01:38.520
Jake Vo: so, so, Tsuyoshi Nishioka he opened up Yume Wo Katare.
00:01:43.920
Jake Vo: And on the side out said, on the sign outside of says, Yume Wo Katare until 2013.
00:01:50.490
Jake Vo: And that was...
00:01:55.080
Jake Vo: created by him and he said that every dream has an end date so by 2030,
00:02:03.420
Jake Vo: he hopes to accomplish his biggest picture and what he wants and
00:02:11.880
Jake Vo: I can go into that a little bit later. What that meant. However, for me, I was like well that wasn't my dream initially what, what do I do what should I accomplished by 2030.
00:02:27.000
Jake Vo: So for me, what I want to accomplish by 2030 is that in the duration of human being opened from now to 2030,
00:02:37.440
Jake Vo: my dream is just to cook
00:02:41.220
Jake Vo: good ramen.
00:02:43.320
Jake Vo: So when you come to Yume Wo Katare you're
00:02:49.740
Jake Vo: not
00:02:52.470
Jake Vo: eating or experiencing the end result, you're paying $15 of, for me to figure out how to be cooking ramen. That's what you're experiencing, it's me working on a dream.
00:03:08.160
Jake Vo: And that's simply as the cook good ramen and it's gonna take me from now til, I think, 2030 to accomplish.
00:03:20.910
Tyler T Hamer: So I mean like I already think Yume is the best ramen like, I mean. it is objectively the best one I've ever had so I just I'm curious what improvements are there, like, I mean from, like, a very naive perspective, like myself.
00:03:36.960
Jake Vo: Um so that's the funny thing about this ramen so like we serve like one dish only right?
00:03:43.410
Jake Vo: And
00:03:46.770
Jake Vo: for you, as the customer to continue to like this one dish,
00:03:52.890
Jake Vo: I think the number one rule for anybody is consistency right? Like, you know, one of my favorite meals in the world and will forever be my favorite meal in the world is a Big Mac with some Fries.
00:04:11.340
Tyler T Hamer: I mean it's the secret sauce right? Like..
00:04:14.610
Jake Vo: Like a McDonald's Big Mac and McDonald's fries I love it and I don't eat it often I eat once a year.
00:04:22.740
Jake Vo: But it's like one of my favorite meals in the world.
00:04:26.580
Jake Vo: And I know that every single time I go to McDonald's it's gonna be that consistent tastes, no matter what.
00:04:34.770
Jake Vo: So,
00:04:37.830
Jake Vo: for me, for you guys as the customers to have that consistent taste on the back end of it, I need to like improve
00:04:46.620
Jake Vo: the rest, like improve the ramen every single day, because if I don't improve the ramen you will you as the customer will feel like it's has gone lower in quality, does that make sense?
00:04:58.950
Tyler T Hamer: Yeah yeah, I think it's the I mean it's the idea that, like if you're not striving for your best if you're just striving to be the exact same, you know, if you have a hiccup you're going to fall below versus just fall down to that norm.
00:05:14.550
Jake Vo: Yeah, so,
00:05:18.240
Jake Vo: I'm like I'm not like a chef like I don't like in my spare time I do not cook. I don't cook anything. So like I'm not like I was never like culinary really trained or I've never worked in a restaurant before. I've never done any of these things before.
00:05:38.160
Jake Vo: And I started only doing these things in the last six years.
00:05:42.600
Jake Vo: But prior to that I was a analyst, I graduated Business School, and I was just signed a cubicle for eight hours a day, and I couldn't do that anymore.
00:05:54.930
Jake Vo: And Yume was the first restaurant that ever worked in.
00:06:01.260
Jake Vo: I mean, I worked at like Subway when I was 16 that wasn't really a restaurant y'know.
00:06:08.640
Jake Vo: And yeah Yume was like the first restaurant ever worked at and
00:06:13.770
Jake Vo: to me, because I worked under Tsuyoshi and he is Japanese,
00:06:21.960
Jake Vo: I've basically been trained under Japanese discipline as my first restaurant experience.
00:06:29.700
Jake Vo: And that is extremely rare in America.
00:06:36.690
Jake Vo: So when I talked to other chef friends and people that are in the industry, the restaurant industry, the things they said, I have no idea what they're talking about.
00:06:45.720
Jake Vo: You know what I mean?
00:06:46.890
Jake Vo: Yeah like there's just like like all this like chef talk all this stuff I have no idea even. Like, like,
00:06:56.640
Jake Vo: it was only like last year I learned what front of house and back of house meant.
00:07:00.900
Jordan Ugalde: Really? Okay, okay, and for the listeners who aren't familiar, could you just clarify what front and back of house are.
00:07:08.730
Jake Vo: Like front of house is all the people like, like it sounds, like the front of house, taking care of the customers, you know the host,
00:07:15.630
Jake Vo: the waitresses, the bartenders, and all that stuff. Back of the house, the kitchen staff, the dishwashers, and, you know they, they never go to the front of the house, they're always back of house right? And at Yume, there is no front or back of the house it's.
00:07:33.030
Jordan Ugalde: Literally one house.
00:07:35.280
Jake Vo: One house.
00:07:37.050
Jake Vo: And it's like you know even me saying that right now it's like it, it makes me just also realize every time you as a customer walk into the door what you're experiencing as a performance, you know every night right? Like I'm,
00:07:56.610
Jake Vo: So this is why I say I'm not a chef when I first came to Yume, what fascinated me the most was
00:08:06.570
Jake Vo: the dream concept.
00:08:09.960
Jake Vo: And I wanted to be the best host possible, I wanted to learn how to be a better public speaker, I wanted to learn how to articulate well, and learn how to...
00:08:26.790
Jake Vo: Like, I'm so fascinated by storytelling.
00:08:32.070
Jake Vo: That, I just, I'm so envious of storytelling and people that can tell good stories and that's something I'm really bad at so I'm like working on that.
00:08:41.160
Jake Vo: And when I was a host at Yume Wo Katare, I was really good at it after a while, because I wanted it so badly, and you know,
00:08:52.500
Jake Vo: the first year that I was the host of Yume Wo Katare because when you're the host of Yume Wo Katare, you're considered the face of Yume. Not the chef, the host.
00:09:01.650
Jake Vo: The chef doesn't really matter it's like, the host. And
00:09:07.680
Jake Vo: the host is like the first person, you see the first person you meet, and the first year I was the host we collected like did 20,000 dreams, so we started collecting the number of dreams.
00:09:20.610
Jake Vo: And then the second year I was host our goal was 40,000, cuz we're like okay 20,000 so easy let's double that. 40,000 was hard.
00:09:31.050
Jake Vo: Right?
00:09:31.321
Jordan Ugalde: Did you hit it?
00:09:32.490
Jake Vo: Yeah we hit it.
00:09:33.990
Jake Vo: We had like 41 or 42,000.
00:09:37.050
Jake Vo: But it was so hard, like we had to think of strategies on strategies on strategies of how to hit 41,000. I remember like,
00:09:48.420
Jake Vo: I remember, let's see. What did we do?
00:09:54.540
Jake Vo: For example,
00:09:56.460
Jake Vo: we would say like,
00:10:01.200
Jake Vo: if you share 10 dreams, we will give you a free bowl of ramen.
00:10:06.570
Jake Vo: Right so like, like near the end of like the 41, like the for the 39th, we were like so desperate for dreams that you know, we asked the first six customers to share
00:10:19.260
Jake Vo: you know, 10 dreams and would we offer them to the free bowl of ramen right? But then there was the precedent that everyone shares 10 dreams so for the rest of the night everyone just naturally shared 10 dreams, you know?
00:10:32.940
Jake Vo: But that's that's a strategy that we use to get dreams.
00:10:38.430
Jake Vo: Like we're not, like you know, like when you go to a restaurant, like the host comes over and they're just like oh like would you like another drink and stuff, like that, it's the strategy, they use to, you know,
00:10:51.360
Jake Vo: increase your bill.
00:10:53.610
Jake Vo: At Yume, we're not we're looking to increase the dreams, you know what I mean?
00:10:59.220
Tyler T Hamer: Just to interject a bit, like, so people who haven't been to Yume, Jake could you go into, describe like what is "sharing your dream." Like that experience for people who have been to Yume.
00:11:11.130
Jordan Ugalde: For people who have not.
00:11:13.530
Jake Vo: Okay, wow, I haven't done this concept speech in a while, because of COVID.
00:11:19.680
Jake Vo: It's, I'm still getting back into it, you know? Because we recently opened again for dine in.
00:11:25.890
Jake Vo: Um.
00:11:27.630
Jake Vo: So at Yume Wo Katare, it's not a ramen shop, it's a dream shop. And what we do there is, we serve the customers a lot of food.
00:11:36.780
Jake Vo: But not too much, just enough that it's challenging for the customer.
00:11:42.690
Jake Vo: And the concept that is, if you can finish this bowl of ramen, you can finish any dream that you have in mind, so, while eating we ask customers to think about a dream that they really want to accomplish.
00:11:55.080
Jake Vo: Just think about it, and then as they're trying to finish this bowl, use that dream as, you know, your motivator
00:12:03.000
Jake Vo: to accomplish that dream. and there's this feeling that you get inside, you know, and we want customers, remember that feeling, that good, good feeling of accomplishing something, and it gets associated with that dream.
00:12:16.710
Jake Vo: And
00:12:18.540
Jake Vo: because its associated, at the end of the mea,l when you're, done we just simply ask customers, "hey would you like to share what you've been thinking about?" And you know customers will either share or not share and that's like the concept of sharing the teams at Yume. And...
00:12:38.040
Jake Vo: yeah.
00:12:39.930
Jake Vo: I'm getting all excited thinking about it because I haven't done this for like a year and a half.
00:12:46.080
Jordan Ugalde: Yeah honestly I've missed it. Like that, Yume has such a distinctive community and culture that does not exist at any other dining establishment and I, I love it for that. Like it, it very much feels like
00:13:05.040
Jordan Ugalde: a community of, a community of complete strangers when you walk in where everyone cheers you on for you saying what your dream is. It's, I, I really love what it presents. I mean I also love the food, the food is amazing, but the culture is...
00:13:23.100
Jordan Ugalde: very unique in the best way possible and I'm actually really excited that you guys are open for in indoor seating now because I'm looking forward to going back to there.
00:13:33.690
Jake Vo: Please, I'm always waiting.
00:13:37.500
Tyler T Hamer: Because like, so like, Jake, I actually happen to live like a block from Yume and I happen to walk by and saw you guys had seating like yesterday, I think it was, is, is it officially now sit down with the, have the COVID restrictions that lifted enough or...
00:13:54.960
Jake Vo: I've,
00:13:56.760
Jake Vo: I've opened since June 1.
00:13:59.250
Tyler T Hamer: No but I mean, I mean like sitting
00:14:01.290
Tyler T Hamer: in. Oh oh actually June 1 sitting in the restaurant?
00:14:05.580
Jake Vo: Yeah.
00:14:09.600
Tyler T Hamer: Well.
00:14:11.640
Jake Vo: I actually, I actually haven't made any public announcements on it.
00:14:17.610
Jake Vo: The reason why is because
00:14:21.000
Jake Vo: I wanted to ease back into dine in
00:14:27.540
Jake Vo: and I know how sensitive
00:14:33.780
Jake Vo: COVID has been on for people.
00:14:37.830
Jake Vo: So when I opened again for dine in I didn't want to just announce it, have a bunch of people come, and lose the hospitality, lose the service, lose the quality. So I didn't, I made it, I just didn't announce it and I just kind of let you know word of mouth do its thing.
00:14:57.540
Jake Vo: Just so that we can figure out a good system so everybody feels safe, everyone feels comfortable, everyone's relaxed and it's not tense. Because you know. And surprisingly, people are really comfortable with sitting next to each other.
HERE 15:14
00:15:12.510
Jake Vo: Yeah, like really comfortable, like, like you know arms and arms, I was like wow, I did not realize how comfortable people have gotten. And you know, things are really looking really good.
00:15:25.650
Tyler T Hamer: I definitely, like, alluding to what Jordan said about Yume being like a very unique experience I think um yeah it's it's one thing to miss restaurants, but
00:15:36.420
Tyler T Hamer: with COVID it's another thing to miss a community. And like, I think people are just really wanting to jump right back into it, because it's been so long. It's really hard,
00:15:45.210
Tyler T Hamer: you know? It's, it's one thing, obviously, you know it's, it was scary, especially when you when you weren't vaccinated that um the medical issues that could arise for COVID
00:15:54.090
Tyler T Hamer: and the risks. But it's also the mental toll and not being around a community I can kind of understand why people just want to jump right back into it.
00:16:04.350
Jake Vo: You know,
00:16:06.180
Jake Vo: it's interesting because, like,
00:16:08.700
Jake Vo: when you say mental toll, not being in a community that's kind of like what I experienced a little bit because I didn't get to work with so many people.
00:16:16.800
Jake Vo: You know I...
00:16:19.440
Jake Vo: yeah last year has been tough.
00:16:21.870
Jake Vo: I, you know you, cuz I like,
00:16:26.490
Jake Vo: it's like,
00:16:27.960
Jake Vo: I, so I went from working with multiple different people every week to two people,
00:16:34.230
Jake Vo: because I was trying to keep a very small circle of people so that none of us get sick and it was reliable. Because for me,
00:16:44.580
Jake Vo: I have too much I have too much risk.
00:16:49.470
Jake Vo: You know? And what I mean by that is that if I get sick like the restaurant needs to close.
00:16:58.260
Tyler T Hamer: Right.
00:16:58.620
Jake Vo: Yeah, yeah, because the amount of like the amount of dedication that I've put into making this bowl of ramen,
00:17:08.730
Jake Vo: I can't ask for that dedication of anyone really.
00:17:14.250
Jake Vo: Um because that dedication just goes for me, I think, goes beyond,
00:17:21.600
Jake Vo: beyond what
00:17:24.390
Jake Vo: you know, you can,
00:17:27.240
Jake Vo: you can ask of someone.
00:17:30.150
Jake Vo: I'm and, you know the funny thing that my, one of my employees said to me, he's like, why don't you just hire like a, like a sous chef I think they're called sous chef? Something like that? I just learned these words recently.
00:17:47.610
Jake Vo: And,
00:17:50.100
Jake Vo: and I think it's like Yume Wo Katare, we don't hire chefs, a chef is chosen.
00:17:59.010
Jake Vo: You know, like you need to work and dedicate yourself to this craft, to be able to produce this product.
00:18:07.830
Jake Vo: And I think you know this, this podcast is about my path of passion right?
00:18:15.030
Jake Vo: So I'm kind of like switching gears a little bit.
00:18:18.210
Tyler T Hamer: Yeah sure.
00:18:22.380
Jake Vo: And you know, I was thinking about how
00:18:28.560
Jake Vo: I spent four... so the soup takes about 14 hours to cook.
00:18:33.360
Jake Vo: Right? Okay, so, because the soup takes 14 hours to cook,
00:18:37.860
Jake Vo: so when I say, "Hey the soup takes 14 hours or so to cook"
00:18:41.700
Jake Vo: let me switch the perspective for you.
00:18:44.250
Jake Vo: I work 14 hours a day.
00:18:47.400
Jake Vo: Right? So, you know,
00:18:52.680
Jake Vo: and
00:18:55.800
Jake Vo: when I realized like that's the biggest thing, what, what tasks takes the longest in your profession?
00:19:01.560
Jake Vo: Cooking soup. It takes 14 hours. So what can I accomplish in 14 hours you know?
00:19:07.980
Jake Vo: So, then, I fill up my time with what is, what does equate to quality? You make your own noodles.
00:19:16.680
Jake Vo: Right? You make your noodles you make your own soup. You, you do everything. And I think for quality purposes, if you have somebody that does everything
00:19:30.600
Jake Vo: then the quality will always be the best it can be.
00:19:37.740
Jake Vo: And I've over the years, let other people make like noodles and other stuff like that, and I see a drop in quality.
00:19:46.590
Jake Vo: But I want them to improve. I want them to improve. So we have we always have drops in quality,
00:19:54.660
Jake Vo: but then it always goes back to, hey like,
00:19:58.950
Jake Vo: I, when I do everything by myself,
00:20:03.810
Jake Vo: that's where I know the quality, will be the highest possible quality.
00:20:12.150
Jake Vo: I hope I, I want to let you guys talk, because I...
00:20:15.960
Jordan Ugalde: Actually, on those points exactly. How do you thread that needle of like, you know, you know the product best, you know that you can make the most quality ramen.
00:20:27.630
Jordan Ugalde: But at the same time you want, if I understand, you want other people to have the opportunity to learn and grow better themselves. How do you balance between growth opportunities for others and making sure you deliver the best product possible?
00:20:43.590
Jake Vo: You know how I mentioned earlier, I can't ask anyone to do what I do?
00:20:49.080
Jordan Ugalde: Yep.
00:20:50.130
Jake Vo: I feel like because,
00:20:56.310
Jake Vo: to like really break it down,
00:21:03.900
Jake Vo: I woke up one day and decided that I really wanted to do this.
00:21:08.790
Jake Vo: On that day, I stopped playing Call of Duty.
00:21:18.960
Jake Vo: Um yeah on that day, I stopped playing Call of Duty, one of my favorite games in the world.
00:21:25.470
Jake Vo: On that day, I stopped watching TV shows.
00:21:29.160
Jake Vo: On that day, I stopped going out Fridays and Saturday nights. On that day, I stopped
00:21:40.800
Jake Vo: doing things that provided me no value.
00:21:44.820
Jake Vo: I stopped hanging out with friends that were not going anywhere in life
00:21:51.900
Jake Vo: and other than, other than company is all they provided. That was the only thing that they provided. I started focusing on making friends that were
00:22:02.040
Jake Vo: better than me or friends that were, just provided me with some kind of value. Teaching me something you know?
00:22:12.840
Jake Vo: That was a day like,
00:22:15.540
Jake Vo: when I decided, I wanted to do this,
00:22:19.080
Jake Vo: you just really like, I know that I will never have children.
00:22:26.640
Jake Vo: I don't want children, because what I want to accomplish, I will not have
00:22:34.080
Jake Vo: the capability of being a good father, but also doing what I do best of my capability.
00:22:41.280
Jake Vo: Impossible.
00:22:43.140
Jake Vo: Literally impossible. And
00:22:47.070
Jake Vo: I feel like,
00:22:51.630
Jake Vo: when I accepted that was when I a lot of things unlocked for me in terms of doing, and doing what I do.
00:22:59.460
Jake Vo: So, when you say like, how do you thread the needle the needle?
00:23:03.450
Jake Vo: You sacrifice so much. Like you literally sacrifice so much of the things that you used to do so that you can be great at something.
00:23:15.270
Jake Vo: Like I don't like,
00:23:17.790
Jake Vo: like when I die, I want to be great at something. I want to be like, I want to build a legacy right? And to accomplish that I need to like focus all my energy on this product right? So,
00:23:35.730
Jake Vo: that's like how you, I became like a minimalist, where I don't really need a lot of things in my life. Like I
00:23:45.570
Jake Vo: really follows Zuckerberg example of clothing. Like, I have the same pair of shorts in the same shirt. When I wake up, I don't have to think about what I need to wear. The first thing I think about it has, how do I make good noodles today.
00:23:59.730
Jake Vo: Right? Not like spending hours or even,
00:24:03.720
Jake Vo: to me, because my days so busy doing what I love, five minutes is, I can accomplish a lot in five minutes right? I'm,
00:24:14.700
Jake Vo: likem
00:24:16.230
Jake Vo: like do you guys follow us on Instagram?
00:24:19.470
Tyler T Hamer: Yep I, I do yes.
00:24:21.540
Tyler T Hamer: I don't think Jordan has an Instagram, unfortunately.
00:24:24.990
Jake Vo: So a lot of my like Instagram stories uh is developed in five minutes.
00:24:32.790
Jake Vo: Because I have like. so, I decided that after I wake up and then I do my morning routine I have five minutes to accomplish
00:24:45.930
Jake Vo: an IG story. If I can't do anything in those five minutes, it's not worth my time. I need to move on and not like dilly dally for the rest of the day, trying to figure out, so once I get that Instagram by idea, I have one hour to produce it.
00:25:03.900
Jake Vo: And then post it and that's that's that. So,
00:25:10.740
Jake Vo: when I have five minutes, in like, my line of work, it produces like better results so like if I want to make really good noodles, if I wake up and I have to decide what clothes to wear and I lose five minutes, I lose five minutes of developing how to make good noodles that morning.
00:25:29.430
Jake Vo: You know? And just removing all these like decisions out of my life that can make like what I'm going to eat tonight or stuff like that,
00:25:39.930
Jake Vo: I just eat one thing a day, ramen.
00:25:43.890
Tyler T Hamer: It makes sense it's like,
00:25:46.620
Tyler T Hamer: it's the best ramen, and possibly arguably one of the, I think it might be the best food in Boston yeah.
00:25:54.030
Jake Vo: Thank you, but I don't think it's the best.
00:25:57.690
Jake Vo: You know I'm still striving for that,
00:26:02.310
Jake Vo: for it to be better.
00:26:05.700
Jake Vo: And I always ask customers like what could be better, what could be better about it, but I need to know yeah.
00:26:13.140
Jordan Ugalde: So all these things you're saying, you seem to be very invested in and passionate about ramen, but earlier, you said you're not that excited about making ramen, like you're not really in it for making ramen. What, how do those two things
00:26:29.790
Jordan Ugalde: coincide, how does how does that all work together?
00:26:40.200
Jake Vo: Because I don't feel like okay,
00:26:44.640
Jake Vo: this is a really good question.
00:26:49.350
Jake Vo: So in Japan right? They don't consider this type of ramen, ramen at all.
00:26:57.780
Tyler T Hamer: What do they consider it then?
00:26:59.130
Jordan Ugalde: Isn't this Jiro style ramen.
00:27:02.400
Jake Vo: Yeah but it's not traditional ramen. So,
00:27:07.800
Jake Vo: you know, for example, like uh
00:27:11.310
Jake Vo: let's, let's, let's, let's think about it.
00:27:17.040
Jake Vo: Have you ever been to Chinatown and you go to one of those like eateries that have like,
00:27:23.640
Jake Vo: it's like a noodle soup and it's like yellow noodles and it comes with like, you know, bbq pork, red pork and bok choy and all that?
00:27:35.280
Jake Vo: Why isn't that considered ramen noodles?
00:27:40.380
Tyler T Hamer: I just assumed the thickness. Isn't it, it's more like in a curry sauce than a soup I don't know.
00:27:49.180
Jordan Ugalde: But there's curry ramen.
00:27:50.820
Jake Vo: Right, it's not considered ramen.
00:27:53.670
Jake Vo: So, like it's considered just noodle soup.
00:27:59.640
Jake Vo: But it's yellow noodles, it's thin noodles, you get like chicken broth, you have all the elements of ramen there, why isn't it ramen, right?
00:28:10.350
Jake Vo: You know, I don't know that. I don't know the question, I don't know the answer to that. But same thing with,the same thing with this
00:28:17.190
Jake Vo: Jiro style ramen, it's really not, it was for a while not considered ramen in Japan.
00:28:24.300
Jake Vo: It was later on, that it was considered ramen.
00:28:27.750
Jake Vo: And for me,
00:28:33.660
Jake Vo: that's the same thing. I never liked ramen growing up. I'll dabble, I've eaten it, I'm like "Oh ramen, nice and cool." When I ate Yume Wo Katare for the first time it was like "Whoa, what is this?"
00:28:47.400
Jake Vo: What is this? I don't know what this is, but I love it. I love it so much I can eat every single day for the past six years. I literally eat this bowl of ramen every single day.
00:28:59.340
Jake Vo: And,
00:29:02.280
Jake Vo: and you know, like it's so when I'm cooking it,
00:29:08.160
Jake Vo: and learning about it and stuff like that,
00:29:11.790
Jake Vo: I'm not making ramen. I'm making some new dish that the world thinks is wrong.
00:29:19.380
Jake Vo: And like I'm not interested in, like, all these other ramens, but because it's considered ramen I do my research. Like okay,
00:29:30.540
Jake Vo: you know I don't cook shio ramen, I don't shoyu ramen, I don't cook miso ramen, I don't cook all these things right?
00:29:37.470
Jake Vo: Because I'm not interested in cooking ramen.
00:29:41.700
Jake Vo: You know, we have these ramen chefs that will cook like,
00:29:44.640
Jake Vo: you know, two to three or four different types of ramen and they're about cooking really good and ramen stuff like that. You have the egg and have the nori sheets and
00:29:52.380
Jake Vo: you know this is traditional ramen and there's like, kind of like, all this like, nuances in the in the broth, and all these complexities, and things like that. And that's what I think ramen is. Something really refined. And for Yume Wo Katare, this noodle dish is just something that just, you
00:30:13.530
Jake Vo: just want to eat and feel like this is something that's like very homey, very like,
00:30:22.170
Jake Vo: it's like a home like a really hearty home cooked meal.
00:30:27.780
Jake Vo: Right? Is that how you guys feel when you eat it?
00:30:30.840
Tyler T Hamer: I mean, I feel I have like two different opinions on it, one is I definitely feel very, like it does feel very at home cooked, like
00:30:38.700
Tyler T Hamer: being Irish I can compare it to like shepherd's pie, or like Guiness stew. It's very warm and filling. But at the same time, like Jordan and I are both like big fans of Gordon Ramsay,
00:30:50.250
Tyler T Hamer: and there is this, like in modern cooking there's this idea of simplicity, going back to less ingredients is more, and when I see Yume,
00:31:00.150
Tyler T Hamer: I tend to think it's more refined because there's less conflicting flavors. There's more focus on making that broth as good as you can make it.
00:31:08.010
Tyler T Hamer: Making the noodles as good as you can have it. Instead of having like 13 different ingredients that may or may not go with each other. So I think there's this beauty in the simplicity of it.
00:31:19.170
Jordan Ugalde: And, actually, to follow up on that, I love that the in-person menu of Yume is ramen with pork or ramen with more pork. You know exactly what you're going to get and it's amazing. And.
00:31:33.450
Jordan Ugalde: and honestly that's, that's all you need to know, because it, that is, pork dense but it's so delicious. And like it's pork, it's garlic, its goodness, and the noodles just soak it in great without losing their texture.
00:31:54.090
Jordan Ugalde: It,
00:31:56.550
Jordan Ugalde: you're right in saying that it's not delicate like a lot of other ramens but, for me, that is to its strength because it
00:32:06.960
Jordan Ugalde: is, to me, it's like yo, Jiro ramen is taking a stand. Like we are pork incarnate. We are like this is just filling warm goodness and it's, it feels so unabashed and I, I just love that strong headedness of the dish. It, it feels very
00:32:33.570
Jordan Ugalde: fun, like it feels like an experience.
00:32:38.250
Jake Vo: yeah.
00:32:38.610
Tyler T Hamer: I mean it makes me want to share my dream right? Like it's it's hardy, it's a lot, and even if I don't finish the bowl I went on a journey and that mattered.
00:32:51.690
Jake Vo: You know that's really funny you say that you went on a journey, because in Japan, when they serve the bowl
00:32:59.250
Jake Vo: and they say
00:33:02.880
Jake Vo: oh, my God I'm blanking on what they say something, and say
00:33:07.740
Jake Vo: itterasshai,
00:33:10.080
Jake Vo:and I asked somebody what does that mean? And
00:33:18.750
Jake Vo: he told me that
00:33:21.780
Jake Vo: when you say itterasshai, it means to go and come back.
00:33:26.640
Jake Vo: And basically like, when you're eating a bowl of ramen, you're going on a journey.
00:33:36.270
Jake Vo: And after you accomplish this journey, please come back.
00:33:40.320
Jake Vo: So that's like the loose translation of it, you know I mean? So when, you know, they don't say enjoy they say itterasshai, you know, please go and come back.
00:33:51.390
Jake Vo: So when you're eating this bowl of ramen you know you're going on a journey and then, when you share your dream, it's like you just came back to me the chef. That makes sense?
00:34:01.770
Tyler T Hamer: Yeah no I definitely I mean, I completely agree with that sentiment yeah.
00:34:09.300
Jake Vo:You know.
00:34:12.150
Jordan Ugalde: So, speaking of your dream.
00:34:15.180
Jordan Ugalde: So you, you mentioned like overnight going from like playing CoD having,
00:34:22.380
Jordan Ugalde: like, time on the weekends, and having relationships where it was more just like
00:34:27.480
Jordan Ugalde: companionship versus like growth and working towards your overall dream.
00:34:34.290
Jordan Ugalde: What,
00:34:37.080
Jordan Ugalde: what was that transition process like? Because I, I feel like,
00:34:42.540
Jordan Ugalde: that
00:34:44.310
Jordan Ugalde: the ability, not necessarily the ability, but the, being in the mindset of being like this, this is what I wanna pursue. I feel like that is an ideal for some, but they don't necessarily know the path to get there, like they don't know,
00:35:01.950
Jordan Ugalde: they, they've seen what it's like to be there, but for you, what was it like to get there?
00:35:16.170
Tyler T Hamer: The hard hitting questions Jordan.
00:35:31.080
Jake Vo: It was,
00:35:35.400
Jake Vo: probably so,
00:35:40.080
Jake Vo: long time ago, somebody asked me this question, "What is the hardest thing you ever did?"
00:35:48.540
Jake Vo: And I really couldn't really answer that question, "What was the hardest thing I ever did?" And I was like thinking to myself,
00:35:55.560
Jake Vo: the hardest thing I ever did was I kayaked this like extremely like,
00:36:10.050
Jake Vo: live wavy river or something like that.
00:36:13.620
Jake Vo: And you have to kayak and it's like very dangerous but that's the hardest thing I ever did. And
00:36:19.440
Jake Vo: then, at one point in my life, I'm like really? Like, that's the hardest thing you ever did? And then I was just and then like,
00:36:25.110
Jake Vo: and then I asked myself like that question again. Like what's the hardest thing I ever did? And I was like that's not that hard, you're just like kayaking. Okay, I thought okay what else did I do, that was really hard.
00:36:38.610
Jake Vo: I got up to like 50 pushups and then I, y'know, when I set these things to myself, I was like that's not really anything like you know? I graduated college like that was fine. So then
00:36:52.560
Jake Vo: literally doing what I do now is the hardest thing I ever did in my life.
00:36:59.910
Jake Vo: And because it's the hardest thing I ever did in my life like,
00:37:05.340
Jake Vo: when you're in like this state of like, you know, like a
00:37:10.980
Jake Vo: man I don't even know how to explain it.
00:37:13.470
Jake Vo: It's like you know, like when you're driving and you're playing music.
00:37:18.510
Jake Vo: And you get lost right?
00:37:22.410
Jake Vo: And when you get lost, the first thing you do is turn down the music right?
00:37:27.480
Jake Vo: Yeah yeah you like you gotta focus. So it's just like I feel like I'm doing the hardest thing I've ever done in my life and I'm completely lost.
00:37:39.540
Jake Vo: I just gotta turn off the music, turn off the video game, you know I mean? I gotta just shut everything out.
00:37:45.840
Jake Vo: And,
00:37:47.640
Jake Vo: and just focus on doing this, you know? I literally, and after realizing that it just became easier and easier and easier. But it was hard it was really hard.
00:37:58.260
Jake Vo: Like the hardest things like I have to go through aren't just like, besides running a business, and, and then like just like people, there's so many things like,
00:38:09.960
Jake Vo: I used to have peers. I used to have coworkers. I used to have colleagues. I don't have them.
00:38:21.210
Jake Vo: I don't have a coworker, I have an employee.
00:38:26.040
Jake Vo: I don't have
00:38:28.500
Jake Vo: a colleague.
00:38:30.450
Jake Vo: Because I don't consider myself a chef, so I really can't connect to other chefs.
00:38:36.180
Jake Vo: You know, so when you're at the top of what you do
00:38:41.910
Jake Vo: the hardest thing is like it's a really lonely life.
00:38:46.890
Jake Vo: You know, like you, don't have these things, and it took me a really long time to accept that and enjoy it.
00:38:57.750
Jake Vo: Because when you're transitioning from having co-workers and people that you can rely on as like a buddy,
00:39:06.000
Jake Vo: and you don't have that anymore it's really hard on you.
00:39:10.500
Jake Vo: You know?
00:39:11.790
Jordan Ugalde: How do you come to, if not embrace at least accept that loneliness?
00:39:26.490
Jordan Ugalde: Do you? Do you?
00:39:31.890
Jake Vo: Good question.
00:39:41.610
Jake Vo: It's because, when you're doing what you love every day,
00:39:49.650
Jake Vo: that is providing you with enough company.
00:39:54.150
Jake Vo: And realizing that
00:40:00.330
Jake Vo: the people that come within your company are there to
00:40:08.100
Jake Vo: see what's going on in your life.
00:40:11.520
Jake Vo: And paying gratitude to the people that's around me,
00:40:18.630
Jake Vo: really helped me be present, with what I'm doing and focusing on what I need to accomplish, accomplish, which is making this the best ramen I can.
00:40:30.810
Jake Vo: Um.
00:40:33.240
Jake Vo: And that is just like a subset dream of my biggest dream, the biggest dream is
00:40:38.820
Jake Vo: ensuring that Yume Wo Katare stays open
00:40:42.270
Jake Vo: so that I can help people accomplish their dreams. That is the number one thing
00:40:49.830
Jake Vo: that I love to do. Is to help people figure out what they want to do with their lives and accomplish that dream. And, and that's like what brings me to the fulfillment right? So like,
00:41:02.730
Jake Vo: when you get used to having friends and get used to having colleagues and going on Friday and Saturday nights and having a huge social life and all these things. when you switch to a different lifestyle, it takes you a while, for you to learn gratitude right?
00:41:20.550
Jake Vo: It takes you to learn gratitude that, whoa, every night I see so many different people. It's always fun to see your face when you walk in, and I know who you are, you know who I am and we share a moment.
00:41:37.380
Jake Vo: You know? And there are three types of friends that you meet in this life. The first type is you know your ride or die, the people you know you stick with for the rest of your life. Your parents, whatever.
00:41:49.980
Jake Vo: The other person is the people that you meet onc,e and then you never see them ever again, you know that happens, a lot.
00:41:59.850
Jake Vo: And the third type of person, and this is my favorite type, is the type of person you meet. you spend some good time with, and then you leave.
00:42:12.450
Jake Vo: You guys separate and then maybe, let's say a week, a month, years down the line, you meet again, you share your experiences in life, and then you separate.
00:42:23.790
Jake Vo: Right?
00:42:25.110
Jake Vo: That is my favorite kind of life experience. So every night when you guys come in and we get to spend time enjoying each other's company,
00:42:34.620
Jake Vo: I get to spend a moment with you.
00:42:38.040
Jake Vo: And then, when you leave to go accomplish your dream, and come back and be like "yo I did this." Like that is what makes me feel like I have a lot of friends.
00:42:48.720
Jake Vo: You know?
00:42:50.880
Jake Vo: So that's how I just thought it was like, whoa, like not a lot of people get to have this. I'm fortunate to have this.
00:43:00.900
Jake Vo: So I paid got gratitude to it, so I think I got it, that's how I find out, you know.
00:43:10.560
Jake Vo: How do you think how do you feel about the interview so far? Just want to take like a...
00:43:15.210
Tyler T Hamer: Oh yeah I mean I think it's going great. I mean like it's fine no one's actually ever asked this a bit on the interview but uh I'm,
00:43:23.940
Tyler T Hamer: it's just you know, I guess you're the fourth person Jordan and I have interviewed. And it's, one thing is just, learning kind of how you were just saying like meeting people
00:43:35.280
Tyler T Hamer: and then they go away for a while, and they come back into your life, and you get to share those experiences.
00:43:39.960
Tyler T Hamer: A lot of, you know, us just starting out a lot of the interviews have been people we already know that we're friends with that we don't necessarily see on a regular basis.
00:43:48.570
Tyler T Hamer: And so it's been really interesting to see like their, their points of view and how they've come to live to walk a path of passion yeah.
00:43:58.980
Jordan Ugalde: And also like,
00:44:02.610
Jordan Ugalde: it's a story that I think is... One of the things that I'm loving about this story and hearing your story is,
00:44:14.520
Jordan Ugalde: pretty,
00:44:16.230
Jordan Ugalde: very consistent, is the story of people who did eventually find something that they love, is it not being an easy path and often coming with a lot of sacrifice. Like,
00:44:29.550
Jordan Ugalde: for, for some, like one of our previous guests, Jared, went from being an investment banker to a bartender and that comes with a pay cut and a, like,
00:44:42.030
Jordan Ugalde: a way of living cut, but his life is a lot more happy and he's a lot more fulfilled for taking that jump. And so it's, it's interesting to see the different levels of sacrifice that people will take to pursue the ways of life that they love and what that actually looks like. Like it's,
00:45:03.630
Jordan Ugalde: it's a narrative not often told, and I have really enjoyed hearing what the, like, deep raw details are of your journey and just what that's been like. And absolutely
00:45:20.580
Jordan Ugalde: along those lines,
00:45:24.660
Jordan Ugalde: do you, do you think some of this mindset this mentality came from the previous owner? Like, and is that like why he gave the business to you? Or like what was, what is that relationship like with, was it Tsuyoshi?
00:45:41.760
Jake Vo: Yeah.
00:45:44.430
Jordan Ugalde: What was that relationship like?
00:45:53.400
Jake Vo: It's so fun working with him.
00:45:56.970
Jake Vo: It's literally like the best time of my life working with him.
00:46:02.460
Jake Vo: Like,
00:46:05.490
Jake Vo: no matter how skilled, it's like,
00:46:11.070
Jake Vo: it's funny, the best way to describe this is, at one point in our relationship, we started playing chess.
00:46:19.080
Tyler T Hamer: Nice yeah.
00:46:20.280
Jake Vo: and
00:46:22.050
Jake Vo: I got so intense that he's at home with his wife and kids and I'll just call up and I like how you want to play chess? And he's like,
00:46:28.680
Jake Vo: Right now?
00:46:31.140
Jake Vo: I'm like, I'm like I'm home with my wife and kids. I'm like yeahm right now. He's like okay. So I just go over to his house and we sit down, we play chess, and you know we were like very, we were like very consistent, like almost back and forth, back and forth.
00:46:46.500
Jake Vo: And then one day he just excelled, like exponentially, and I was just like what is going on?
00:46:54.480
Jake Vo: And
00:46:57.540
Jake Vo: this is the premise of who he is and our relationship. When I got better at making ramen and cataching up to him and making good ramen he just excelled exponentially every single time.
00:47:10.230
Jake Vo: And him excelling exponentially, I couldn't keep up. Like it was too much. Like, and like I, when
00:47:20.010
Jake Vo: you know, when I just think about it, like when you can't keep up, when you can't,
00:47:25.020
Jake Vo: you can't, it's like,
00:47:27.240
Jake Vo: you know people might get upset at you, or you know you lose that, you know you drift further and further away.
00:47:34.890
Jake Vo: And that's kind of like what ended up happening.
00:47:39.060
Jake Vo: Because he was excelling at such an exponential rate that he couldn't teach me anything new.
00:47:45.060
Jake Vo: I need to have someone that's a little bit closer to my skill set and my skill range for me to learn, because the things he, he, he is doing and his ramen is so far advanced than me that I have I don't have the capacity to understand that.
00:48:01.710
Jordan Ugalde: Yeah.
00:48:02.730
Tyler T Hamer: So, is he, is he, where is he making ramen? Is it back in Japan right now then, or is in the states or...
00:48:10.050
Jake Vo: I actually have not checked in with him for a little bit.
00:48:15.120
Jake Vo: But he, the last I know he went back to Japan, and he he opened up an udon shop in Japan.
00:48:23.850
Jake Vo: It's called I want to see you smile.
00:48:27.810
Jake Vo: And that's the last thing I know.
00:48:32.370
Jake Vo: But you know my relationship with him is great.
00:48:38.280
Jake Vo: We, you know, he's busy doing his own thing and,
00:48:41.460
Jake Vo: like I said earlier, the best type of relationship is you guys do your own thing and then you come back, eventually. You know what I mean? So I will come back eventually to Tsuyoshi.
00:48:53.430
Jake Vo: And that's when I can, that's when we update with, that's when I get the full update, you know I mean? Like I'm not like keeping up to date with himm, you know, every week or month or something like that.
00:49:03.630
Jordan Ugalde: Yeah how, as someone who is passionate about the way of your style of noodle dish, not ramen, not ramen, but your style of noodles,
00:49:19.110
Jordan Ugalde: and is dedicating their life to it, how do you,
00:49:22.800
Jordan Ugalde: this might sound weird, how do you deal with seeing someone so much farther? Like is that disheartening, or do you see that as a guidepost or what, what does that, what is that like??
00:49:36.870
Jake Vo: I'm sorry, I don't understand the question.
00:49:40.410
Jordan Ugalde: Yeah yeah yeah. So you were talking about how Tsuyoshi,
00:49:46.530
Jordan Ugalde: as a,
00:49:50.070
Jordan Ugalde: working with noodles in general, you described him being so much more advanced than you that it was hard for you to even keep up.
00:49:57.900
Jordan Ugalde: And, but at the same time you're dedicating yourself to this craft, so like I can imagine that being intimidating and for some people, I could imagine that being disheartening, but how, how do you perceive it? Like how did you experience being surrounded by a genius?
00:50:22.770
Jake Vo: I was trying to keep up.
00:50:25.170
Jake Vo: But then when I realized that
00:50:28.980
Jake Vo: if you go to the grand, the grand finale with the genius,
00:50:33.900
Jake Vo: the audience recognize that you're not on the same level.
00:50:39.270
Jake Vo: Right? I wasn't, I just wasn't on the same level.
00:50:44.910
Jake Vo: And in realizing that, the I guess embarrassment of not being on the same level is stronger than
00:50:53.520
Jake Vo: you know, not being able to keep up.
00:50:56.370
Jake Vo: I don't even want to call it an embarrassment but it's just like,
00:51:00.180
Jake Vo: it's more encouraging to know that
00:51:06.090
Jake Vo: the level gets that high.
00:51:09.780
Tyler T Hamer: So does he served them like as like a beacon or a lighthouse in the distance like where you want to go like?
00:51:16.590
Tyler T Hamer: like kind of like how you know if you're a white belt in taekwondo and then you, there's like a fourth level black belt, like it, kind of it's a place you can get to, you know if, you stick with it, you can eventually get there.
00:51:30.990
Jake Vo: Yeah, yeah exactly.
00:51:34.890
Jordan Ugalde: That's,
00:51:37.230
Jordan Ugalde: I find that really interesting because,
00:51:40.770
Jordan Ugalde: I think when seeing someone,
00:51:45.600
Jordan Ugalde: many times farther than you in something you're passionate about there can be two responses. One is the response that you have taken, which is to see that person
00:51:54.690
Jordan Ugalde: as I will constantly strive to be better so that I can reach that better, like that ideal. But I will admit for myself, I, I used to be pursuing physics, I wanted to be a physics Professor.
00:52:12.180
Jordan Ugalde: And then I made it into MIT and I saw some people who, I thought I was smart, and then I saw some people who their freshman year
00:52:25.320
Jordan Ugalde: their homework answers to graduate level classes were being used as the official answer guide to the classes. As freshman's they, their answer guide was the graduate school's answer guide. And, and, their first year they were doing like three different research studies and I realized
00:52:48.990
Jordan Ugalde: as a, if I wanted to be a physics professor, I would have to compete against that. And my take was, find a different field for me
00:52:59.640
Jordan Ugalde: to win in, to succeed in, because this one, like seeing my competition in here with the narrow opportunities,
00:53:09.300
Jordan Ugalde: I didn't like my chances. So for me it's really interesting to see someone who, see who, faced with that insurmountable obstacle decides to chase that obstacle anyway, like chase that dream
00:53:25.350
Jordan Ugalde: regardless. it's just it it's a different take than I've personally taken in life, and I think it's really interesting to see and hear.
00:53:36.450
Jake Vo: Well, I have a very simple solution for you.
00:53:40.620
Jordan Ugalde: Yeah, what up?
00:53:43.380
Jake Vo: You said that it's disheartening to see all these, like, younger people have their example be used on the test or something like that right?
00:53:55.590
Jordan Ugalde: It was disheartening to see a peer,
00:53:59.430
Jordan Ugalde: being multiple, like a peer
00:54:03.300
Jordan Ugalde: not just like, in my, in age and in position in life, be effectively like half a decade ahead of me. And, and knowing that I would have to compete against him.
00:54:17.340
Jake Vo: Well that's the thing you want to compete against them. So that's where, that's where the trouble lies. So, when I see somebody that's better than me, let's say, let's say I'll use the example of, to keep things simple,
00:54:39.750
Jake Vo: I used to see people that were better than me that, also age range right? So if you're older than me you're more knowledgeable, if you're younger than me you're not as knowledgeable. And basically, if I'm hearing you right, are you saying, like in using my example, if a younger person
00:55:02.550
Jake Vo: is at the higher person's level, and you have to compete against that, that's disheartening. Am hearing it that way, am I hearing it correctly?
00:55:10.650
Jordan Ugalde: Basically yeah.
00:55:11.970
Jake Vo: Okay, so when I experienced that, I realized that I don't want to compete with this younger person, I want to befriend them and start studying under them.
00:55:26.100
Jake Vo: Because if they're going to get there, and if you're under them, you'll get there with them.
00:55:32.610
Jake Vo: If you're competing with them and they get there,
00:55:36.780
Jake Vo: you're not with them. They're there and you're not.
00:55:41.130
Jake Vo: You know what I mean?
00:55:43.410
Tyler T Hamer: Yeah so, the previous episode before this. we interviewed my dance teacher and I started dancing his style of dance like two years ago,
00:55:54.060
Tyler T Hamer: at like 26. And there is obviously people who start dancing like you know, eight years old, so there is people that are grandmasters in terms of dance
00:56:04.110
Tyler T Hamer: much even younger than I am. And I definitely understand what you're getting at with that Jake is, I've always viewed them, as you know, Sean, my dance teacher, might bring in someone younger than me to keep
00:56:16.170
Tyler T Hamer: to also teach, but that has always been someone I viewed as, I can expand my community, that's someone else I could learn from and share their experiences with, not someone I was trying to compete with.
00:56:28.650
Jordan Ugalde: Yeah that's an interesting point because I,
00:56:31.650
Jordan Ugalde: and this might just be, just the mindset that I've had for a while, but I haven't really challenged, is I've always thought of,
00:56:42.810
Jordan Ugalde: I, I very frequently thought in terms of competition and in,
00:56:51.060
Jordan Ugalde: growth, like having a growth oriented mindset, yes, but not necessarily the idea of,
00:57:00.450
Jordan Ugalde: actively seeking people who intimidate me and trying to learn from, like grow,
00:57:09.840
Jordan Ugalde: from them.
00:57:12.720
Jordan Ugalde: Like, that, so,
00:57:16.800
Jordan Ugalde: I, like I've tried to learn from people who were so far beyond me, like at previous jobs I've talked to like the C-suite and had regular meetings with them, try and learn from them, but in that, in those situations, the gap was so distant that it didn't,
00:57:34.830
Jordan Ugalde: we didn't, I didn't see us as peers, but I had never considered some, like for someone who I saw as a peer and therefore a competitor, actually
00:57:47.250
Jordan Ugalde: acknowledging them as better than me,
00:57:50.550
Jordan Ugalde: then going to befriend and work with them, to learn from this peer who I saw as a competitor. That's just not a mindset that I had even considered until literally right now.
00:58:02.340
Jordan Ugalde: So, like if anything else I'm glad to take that away from this podcast because that's been an absolute, that's a really good takeaway. And yeah I appreciate you bringing that up that's a good thing for me to think about.
00:58:17.670
Tyler T Hamer: Oh, also Jordan just you know, one of the things you mentioned, as the example of being a physicist and looking at people.
00:58:28.650
Tyler T Hamer: When you look at like, the career being a professorship since like, especially our friend Dan wants to be that, that happens to be a really cutthroat world where you have few
00:58:39.390
Tyler T Hamer: positions, and so it kind of naturally leads to competition, but in reality there's a lot of things in life that
00:58:48.810
Tyler T Hamer: you know, I'm never going to be a professional dancer/ I'm not going to, I'm not striving to do that. And I'm beginning to learn saxophone, I'm not going to be a professional saxophone player. But, and I think that might also be a key to it, is it's freeing where you,
00:59:05.160
Tyler T Hamer: ynfortunately, money and like you know, like is a big things that, thing that plays into it. And so if you're trying to get a really exclusive job that's gonna be really hard, but if you, in a lot of things in life it's not as cutthroat.
00:59:28.290
Jake Vo: This has been a very interesting conversation so far.
00:59:32.100
Jordan Ugalde: Yeah I hope you enjoy it as much we, as we have, because I feel like we're both really enjoying this. It'ss very informative very...
00:59:42.090
Jordan Ugalde: yeah I've learned a lot,
00:59:43.740
Jordan Ugalde: about myself yeah.
00:59:46.200
Jake Vo: You guys have any additional, like what other questions you guys have? What are we at, how are we on time, do you guys want to wrap up, I know you said, like an hour, I kind of want to just kind of gauge what you want to do.
01:00:00.900
Tyler T Hamer: I mean it honestly depends we've had some episodes as short as an hour, some as long as two, so it's kind of just, based on everyone's energy level, and if people want
01:00:11.460
Tyler T Hamer: to keep talking about this yeah.
01:00:13.440
Jake Vo: If you have more questions, let me know I'm good.
01:00:17.010
Jordan Ugalde: Okay yeah,
01:00:21.300
Jordan Ugalde: I guess one question that we very frequently ask is,
01:00:28.560
Jordan Ugalde: so you are currently pursuing your dream, but in terms of what,
01:00:34.650
Jordan Ugalde: the highs and lows one should expect if you are pursuing that dream, like what have been your highs and lows
01:00:42.840
Jordan Ugalde: in your pursuit.
01:00:44.340
Jake Vo: How are you so good at asking questions man.
01:00:47.700
Jordan Ugalde: practice.
01:00:50.940
Tyler T Hamer: Well it's practice, and we also have like a computer off, like full of stuff, like a computer off to the side with like a list of questions. That like we curate questions on.
01:01:01.500
Jordan Ugalde: Don't reveal the special sauce.
01:01:03.450
Tyler T Hamer: He revealed the special sauce to us.
01:01:08.010
Jake Vo: Oh okay.
01:01:11.100
Jake Vo: What are some of my highs and lows?
01:01:14.400
Jake Vo: Is that what you're asking?
01:01:15.210
Jordan Ugalde: Yep yep yep.
01:01:20.490
Jake Vo: Lows, lows, lows.
01:01:27.810
Jake Vo: Okay.
01:01:30.570
Jake Vo: I'll tell, I'll talk to you about, okay, can I change the question?
01:01:35.610
Jordan Ugalde: Sure.
01:01:37.350
Jake Vo: I'll talk to you, instead of answering my highs and lows, how about I answer my highest hi, my lowest low?
01:01:46.020
Jordan Ugalde: Even better, we'd love that.
01:01:57.240
Jake Vo: Well,
01:01:58.560
Jake Vo: one of my lowest lows
01:02:02.250
Jake Vo: was mopping the floor.
01:02:06.240
Tyler T Hamer: Well, I mean at at like Yume or just like in general at another job or okay.
01:02:13.470
Jake Vo: I just hated mopping floors.
01:02:17.220
Jake Vo: I hated it. I absolutely hated it and
01:02:23.130
Jake Vo: one day,
01:02:26.850
Jake Vo: Tsuyoshi noticed.
01:02:29.820
Jake Vo: how I get really
01:02:34.920
Jake Vo: upset with certain things, that he was like "you're really getting that upset over mopping the floor?"
01:02:42.600
Jake Vo: You know, unless like,
01:02:44.940
Jake Vo: this, I'm like, whoa like what do you, what do you, what are you asking of me? And then he was, he was just like, he asked me to ask you, just like,
01:02:54.630
Jake Vo: he's like, can you tell me how you feel right now? And I was like I just hate mopping the floor it hurts my back,
01:03:01.800
Jake Vo: it's like gross, I just hate it, I hate doing this. And he's like, why do you hate it, like so much, like why? And he's like, well like it hurts my back. He said, well what, what can you do so it doesn't hurt your back he just looked at me for
01:03:18.360
Jake Vo: like three minutes without saying anything.
01:03:21.300
Jake Vo: And he's just getting.
01:03:28.080
Tyler T Hamer: Like a Mr. Miyagi move.
01:03:30.480
Jake Vo: Right? And then I was just like, well, if I had you know, like a longer, a longer one it wouldn't hurt my back so much. And he's like, and he's like please throw this mop away, please go buy a longer one, here's my credit card. And I'm like okay, so I went out to Ace and I found the best mop possible,
01:03:53.010
Jake Vo: and I was like, ih, this is nice I was just like staying there for a good 15 minutes in Ace and just like, just like, really examining all these mops you know?
01:04:02.190
Jake Vo: And I was like, which one should I buy? I was like wow, why am I doing so much work into buying this, I'm using my boss' money, like, I have to buy a good mop.
01:04:11.130
Jake Vo: And after I figured out how to mop I, when I got that, and then I just figured out like oh my back doesn't hurt anymore, then I was like why do I hate mopping, I was like oh it's so dirty, and I was like, and I told him that it's like, he's like,
01:04:30.300
Jake Vo: he's like it's so dirty? And I'm like, yeah it's so dirty. And he's like, do you know who cleans the employee bathroom?
01:04:37.680
Jake Vo: And I go, I go no... who, who cleans ot? He's like you know, how you clean, you know it's like, you know how, you guys clean
01:04:44.460
Jake Vo: the customer bathroom every day, and you make it really nice? I'm like yeah. And he's like, have you ever cleaned the employee bathroom? Like no.
01:04:51.240
Jake Vo: He's like, did you ever think to clean the employee bathroom? And I'm like no. He's like why? I was like because it's always so, like this is the cleanest place in this building.
01:05:00.000
Jake Vo: And then, in, he's just like, do you know who cleans that bathroom? And I was like no, he's like I do. I clean this every day and he's like I stick my hand in the toilet where you pee to clean the bathroom I was.
01:05:21.510
Jake Vo: like, I was like, he was like I touch your pee
01:05:23.460
Jake Vo: every single day, and you think this is dirty?
01:05:31.230
Jake Vo: I started, I started dying.
01:05:37.680
Jake Vo: And then the next day, I was just like mopping.
01:05:43.020
Jake Vo: When I was mopping and thinking about that he touches my pee and he cleans the bathroom every day, I was like you know what? This is great, I was having the highest of highs.
01:05:53.160
Tyler T Hamer: That's amazing.
01:05:55.800
Jake Vo: You know and
01:05:58.770
Jake Vo: that's just like, you know, that was also an example of my relationship with Tsuyoshi.
01:06:04.170
Jake Vo: You know, and that is just one of the many examples of one of the lowest lows and the highest highs.
01:06:13.950
Jordan Ugalde: Are those one and the same? Both the lowest low and the highest high?
01:06:19.980
Jake Vo: The lowest lows and the highest high right? You have to go that low to get that high right?
01:06:25.530
Tyler T Hamer: Yeah I mean it's definitely a thing right? Like if you're always baseline you can, y'know it's the idea, you can only, it's better to have loved and lost and never loved at all. You have to experience
01:06:34.350
Tyler T Hamer: te lowest lows
01:06:35.730
Tyler T Hamer: to be able to experience high highs.
01:06:38.890
Jordan Ugalde: Poet here.
01:06:40.200
Tyler T Hamer: I'm so bad at words I'm not a poet.
01:06:43.530
Tyler T Hamer: Or a lawyer.
01:06:48.840
Jake Vo: You know, damn,
01:06:51.150
Jake Vo: I was happy to share that story I don't think I really ever shared that story, you know?
01:06:57.180
Jordan Ugalde: Yeah it was interesting to hear.
01:06:59.520
Jake Vo: You're digging up a lot of like moments. I always think of year one and year two, those were like my training years.
01:07:06.180
Jake Vo: You know? And I forget a lot of things during those times, but as I advance in my skill level, and I think back to those times, I can start to see things that Tsuyoshi did that I couldn't comprehend back then. I'm slowly starting to comprehend them by myself,
01:07:27.090
Jake Vo: through leveling up. Does that make sense?
01:07:30.270
Jordan Ugalde: Oh completely one thing we've, very much talking both, both from our own experiences, as well as the people we've talked to is that,
01:07:39.630
Jordan Ugalde: it's hard to,
01:07:43.020
Jordan Ugalde: you won't always be in a place to process the lessons you're taught when they are taught to you. Sometimes the lessons you need to learn most, you learn years after they happen, years after, like, and that's because it's really hard to,
01:08:07.680
Jordan Ugalde: to know what you don't know. Like there, there's a, as you advance in anything in life, there is a specific language,
01:08:17.160
Jordan Ugalde: like we think of languages, what we generally use to talk about our day to day lives, but really it's a lot more than that there is,
01:08:23.700
Jordan Ugalde: there are there, specifics of language of, in your case mechanical engineering, in your case ramen, it, there is very specific ways of thinking that you,
01:08:36.450
Jordan Ugalde: you don't even have a conception for until you've reached a certain level. And it's, it's really hard to appreciate all the lessons you've been exposed to until, not necessarily until it's too late, but until you've reached the level to recognize what you really do know.
01:09:00.000
Jake Vo: Yeah.
01:09:03.540
Jake Vo: And it's really enjoyable to experience that.
01:09:09.090
Jake Vo: Right? I was, I was always so focused on the destination, I want to be making better ramen than Tsuyoshi that I could never really enjoy this moment right now.
01:09:22.170
Jake Vo: And when I started understanding like practicing being in the moment and say whoa, look at these noodles it me today whoa. Like, why is the soup so ridiculous today?
01:09:36.240
Jake Vo: Or like wow today's pork, raw pork that I got in, this is the most marbled pork I've ever seen in my life. I'm going to cook this today, like,
01:09:46.020
Jake Vo: learning how to just enjoy that and not worrying about, oh when am I going to be better than Tsuyoshi or when, am I going to make the best ramen. Ot when when my ramen live up to the live up Tsuyoshi's ramen, you know what I mean? It's his ramen I'm trying to replicate.
01:10:05.490
Jordan Ugalde: Yeah I think it's common when you have ambition to be laser focused on that end goal and not really appreciate everything that's happened along the journey.
01:10:18.900
Jordan Ugalde: Like it, there's,
01:10:22.950
Jordan Ugalde: it's,
01:10:25.380
Jordan Ugalde: I think if you're ambitious, you have dreams, and you're told to enjoy the journey
01:10:33.510
Jordan Ugalde: it's a lot easier said than done. Because if there is a goal you have in mind, it's so easy to get wrapped up in everything that goal means to you and everything you know
01:10:46.860
Jordan Ugalde: that goal entails. That it's, it's also very easy to fall into the trap of not realizing the 10s of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of steps you've taken along the way.
01:11:00.300
Jordan Ugalde: And how much you've grown along the way, and also all of your accomplishments along the way, like along the way to the final dream,
01:11:09.840
Jordan Ugalde: you've accomplished 10s of thousands of dreams in the mean, dreams in the meantime and it's really easy to not just forget about those but even disregard those and
01:11:21.030
Jordan Ugalde: I think that, at least from my own experiences, the act of disregarding all those accomplishments can weight down the journey and. like, honestly even take away from the final dream, because you aren't appreciating what you're accomplishing along the way.
01:11:43.410
Jake Vo: Yeah definitely.
01:11:46.890
Tyler T Hamer: I mean my Instagram, like, started off originally as a memoir to remember the accomplishments and like the good times, because I very much suffer from being, the hardest critic is yourself.
01:12:01.650
Jake Vo: hmm that's true.
01:12:07.290
Jake Vo: So then, so how did you, did you, how have you guys gotten with it?
01:12:14.250
Jordan Ugalde: A lot of therapy.
01:12:17.550
Jordan Ugalde: No, like therapy has helped.
01:12:22.800
Jordan Ugalde: For me, actually finding a community of
01:12:28.950
Jordan Ugalde: people going through similar experiences, so I,
01:12:34.590
Jordan Ugalde: I left my last job to try and become an entrepreneur
01:12:43.920
Jordan Ugalde: and that sucks, that is hard, and I mean you are effectively that as well, like you, are a business owner, you are operating your own business and, as you mentioned it's lonely, it's difficult, and for me,
01:13:02.070
Jordan Ugalde: not even regularly in like, as you mentioned about the friends that you talk to maybe once in your life, maybe once a month, maybe just once every so, like once,
01:13:15.420
Jordan Ugalde: whenever it happens, being able to be exposed to other people's experience of realizing how lonely it can be, how hard it can be how overwhelming, it can be to be faced with 10,000 choices and needing to make one. Like it's,
01:13:39.090
Jordan Ugalde: I feel that there's a lot that,
01:13:49.050
Jordan Ugalde: if you had infinite time,
01:13:52.050
Jordan Ugalde: you could learn every experience and eventually learn your best way to make it through life, but we only have our own finite lives, and I think
01:14:05.700
Jordan Ugalde: learning from others, hearing their experiences, sharing in experiences is the
01:14:13.530
Jordan Ugalde: best way to get a true appreciation for your own experience, because
01:14:21.240
Jordan Ugalde: I feel it, it both provides camaraderie and also
01:14:28.650
Jordan Ugalde: it helps provide contrast to show that the lows
01:14:34.500
Jordan Ugalde: are
01:14:36.990
Jordan Ugalde: to be expected and that the lows don't necessarily define the entirety of the journey. The entire journey is the lows and the highs and the in-betweens and it's,
01:14:54.210
Jordan Ugalde: it's easier to see that when you are sharing in other people's experiences, who have taken a similar journey as the one you are hoping to take.
01:15:06.360
Jordan Ugalde: That's been my experience, what about you Tyler?
01:15:10.740
Tyler T Hamer: I mean,
01:15:13.170
Tyler T Hamer: just the way I approach life in general has been a very much, I try to establish a baseline, even if I don't want to live life, according to the baseline that I end up
01:15:25.740
Tyler T Hamer: establishing, and I establish a baseline just by people who are similar to me like you're saying, similar journey, but people who also live lives totally different to me, I, you know, I, one of the,
01:15:37.590
Tyler T Hamer: especially being a mechanical engineer, you become really good friends with the machininsts in machine shops. They're blue collar workers there you know.
01:15:44.430
Tyler T Hamer: They work hard, but and, you're a white collar worker who gives them your drawings and says like build this for me.
01:15:52.530
Tyler T Hamer: And so I've been luckily exposed to like a lot of different people from different backgrounds and I tried to establish what is a baseline for
01:16:01.080
Tyler T Hamer: life, relationships, friendships, accomplishing goals, hobbies, and I try to have an idea of what is in the realm of reasonable. What is the realm of possible. And I find that is grounding for me, then, to go off in a direction, because then, no matter what, even if I fail,
01:16:22.740
Tyler T Hamer: which is going to happen in life, I can come back to and be like, that's part of a journey, and now I have a base point to jump off from and go in a different direction.
01:16:32.130
Tyler T Hamer: Versus like, I have failed, I have gone back to rock bottom, and I have no idea where to go. And so that's that's helped a lot because there's been,
01:16:41.310
Tyler T Hamer: hobbies that I've started that I haven't continued. Like, for example, my friend Bethany, when I first said I was getting into dance and
01:16:49.260
Tyler T Hamer: I thought I was gonna do hip hop dance, and she's like, come to swing dance with me, and what I ended up doing was,
01:16:56.460
Tyler T Hamer: I end up doing house dance with my teacher Sean I allude to that we just did an interview with, and it was really his teaching style that drew me in and, but I would never have
01:17:08.040
Tyler T Hamer: found that like right off the bat. Then like I'm going to do dance and I'm going to immediately find the dance teacher that's perfect for me. I just went,
01:17:15.420
Tyler T Hamer: I like dance. What do people do on YouTube, like how did they start off, like you know, talking to friends, and tried a bunch of experiences, and I'm like, I'm going to try to
01:17:26.160
Tyler T Hamer: find a direction and, hopefully, that suits me. And it's okay if it doesn't, I come back and try try a new direction. And,
01:17:33.180
Tyler T Hamer: also, along with talking with people about it, not just trying to establish a baseline is,
01:17:37.830
Tyler T Hamer: relating over these experiences, relating over these failures, over these journeys, that's the human condition. People like to talk about what they've been through and then hear what other people have been through and that's the reason why people go out and drink. They bitch about work,
01:17:53.850
Tyler T Hamer: they bitch about like,
01:17:55.200
Tyler T Hamer: problems going on their life because they want to, they want to hear like, what is someone else's experience. Like, how do I get through this? Because the reality is we're on this like rock in space.
01:18:07.140
Tyler T Hamer: And it's hard, it's like, that's what part of the reason we founded that the podcast is, you know.
01:18:13.530
Tyler T Hamer: Obviously me and you wanted to do this for different reasons. Like my reason is, I wanted to see more that baseline.
01:18:20.550
Tyler T Hamer: What is the jumping off point for people for being passion, or being passionate about things. And one thing I mean, obviously I went in with the expectation,
01:18:30.330
Tyler T Hamer: that there's probably a baseline. But one thing I might find out over this journey is that there isn't a baseline. Everyone's experience is different, but that's still valuable.
01:18:39.450
Tyler T Hamer: So I guess that's kind of
01:18:42.180
Tyler T Hamer: my opinion on it.
01:18:45.750
Jake Vo: So you, so you realize that there is no baseline.
01:18:50.340
Tyler T Hamer: Yeah it's, it's kind of like the dark truth behind like I want there to be a baseline.
01:18:54.660
Tyler T Hamer: Like that,
01:18:55.410
Tyler T Hamer: like being a, being a engineer, being like right? You go back to Newton's three laws.
01:19:00.750
Tyler T Hamer: You go back to like Maxwell's equations for
01:19:03.150
Tyler T Hamer: electricity and magnetism. You want, I want there to be a baseline experience that everyone goes through that I can deviate from and find my journey.
01:19:13.560
Tyler T Hamer: And what I found is there's lots of different experiences, and you know it depends on where you've grown up, where you grew up,
01:19:21.300
Tyler T Hamer: what you're exposed to, how your parents were, who your friends were, life events going on at the time, you know, country you're born in. Like it's, and so it's just kind of like well,
01:19:33.810
Tyler T Hamer: maybe there's a bunch of these different experiences and it... So this is gonna sound really cheap, like me being the poet right? Like, like life is like a fucking box of chocolates you
01:19:43.560
Tyler T Hamer: never know you're gonna get.
01:19:55.830
Jake Vo: You know, when you said
01:20:01.980
Jake Vo: if you stop doing this, or you jump off of it,
01:20:05.790
Jake Vo: what are you going to default to earlier, right? But not stop back at rock bottom.
01:20:10.650
Jake Vo: I was thinking about that, when you said that I kind of like,
01:20:14.130
Jake Vo: made me ask myself, like,
01:20:16.590
Jake Vo: If I just,
01:20:19.800
Jake Vo: let's I woke up and like Yume was on fire right? And the building's gone, like what do I do?
01:20:29.460
Jake Vo: And I, you know, and I asked, I literally asked myself that question, as I was listening to you.
01:20:36.450
Jake Vo: And when you said, there was no baseline, it made me realize that when you do what you love,
01:20:45.180
Jake Vo: you're also doing other things that you love.
01:20:48.600
Jake Vo: When you do what you hate,
01:20:51.210
Jake Vo: you often are doing things that you hate,like driving in, being in traffic for two three hours a day. Working a job you don't like and then you know, for example.
01:21:03.930
Jake Vo: When you do what you love you also have to have time to do other things that you love, so if I, if Yume disappeared and I couldn't make ramen anymore,
01:21:14.190
Jake Vo: what have I accomplished, while following what I love and what my passion is? I started investing in photography to be, like to market my brand.
01:21:24.240
Jake Vo: I started making videos to market my brand. I go to other restaurants and I want to be supportive of their restaurants and show that we have a community you know what I mean?
01:21:35.340
Jake Vo: And I use my video skills and make promo videos for them and advertise them on my web, like you know you see, I don't know you follow me and you see me.
01:21:42.600
Tyler T Hamer: Yeah I've definitely seen it yep.
01:21:44.970
Jake Vo: And
01:21:46.740
Jake Vo: you know, I do that because it for you know, it promotes community and stuff like that, but at the same time I'm also investing my time in other skills. So if I stopped doing like ramen and I have to hit rock bottom,
01:22:03.150
Jake Vo: you know I can just be like a photographer or I can be like making videos and I can like have clients, you know? I can
01:22:09.750
Jake Vo: you know, I've made all these free promo videos, I can just start making promo video for all the new restaurants, that are coming up, because I, like do you see how many new restaurants are coming up?
01:22:19.590
Tyler T Hamer: Oh yeah it's insane right now.
01:22:21.870
Jake Vo: Right? If you're a video maker or photo maker and you can like be like a local video person because word of mouth, you know I mean? Then you're you're just making like these, like videos and get paid for that.
01:22:34.260
Jake Vo: Or you know, be a restaurant consultant, like I've worked in the restaurant industry for like six years now. Like
01:22:41.850
Jake Vo: I, aside from making ramen like I handle payroll, I handle the permitting, I handle every single thing, that's, like I'm running,
01:22:52.140
Jake Vo: I'm running a business, while learn how to cook ramen, while learning how to be like a good manager and a leader.
01:23:00.270
Jake Vo: You know what I mean? So you like, when I talked about I have 14 hours in the day, like, like, it's like, I have to like read this book on how to be an effective leader. I have to
01:23:10.320
Jake Vo: work on being an effective leader. I have to prep for ramen. I have to make noodles I have to run service and make sure that everyone's happy and food is quality. After that I have to clean up the entire restaurant. You know what I mean? So it's just like,
01:23:28.050
Jake Vo: you do so much.
01:23:31.290
Jake Vo: And
01:23:33.390
Jake Vo: the things that I do in my 14 hours, while the cook is, while the soup is cooking for 14 hours, is investing
01:23:41.400
Jake Vo: in my happiness.
01:23:44.250
Jake Vo: You know? Yume Wo Katare's goal this year is investing in your happiness, meaning the time you spend doing something, is that investing in your happiness or not?
01:23:54.390
Jake Vo: You know, and this kind of goes back to what I said at the beginning of the conversation. How you just like wake up and you know stop doing this stop doing that?
01:24:02.730
Jake Vo: Simple, you ask yourself, is this investing in my happiness or not? If it is, like keep on doing it, if it doesn't just stop doing it.
01:24:14.310
Jordan Ugalde: I think, for some people there's,
01:24:18.000
Jordan Ugalde: there's a trap that they can fall into in
01:24:21.930
Jordan Ugalde: some attempt to, in pursuit of that idea, which is like the idea of delayed gratification.
01:24:29.610
Jordan Ugalde: Where you're sacrificing your short term happiness for your long term happiness. I think that can, there is legitimacy to that, but it can also be used as an,
01:24:43.740
Jordan Ugalde: it's used to never be happy. Like day one, you sacrifice a penny, day two you sacrifice a pound, day three you sacrifice like your home like,
01:24:59.250
Jordan Ugalde: it isn't inherently a slippery slope.
01:25:03.900
Jordan Ugalde: But,
01:25:06.120
Jordan Ugalde: I think there can often be, maybe not even often, but there can be a tendency to use the "sacrifice happiness now for the future," use that
01:25:18.000
Jordan Ugalde: as an excuse to justify not pursuing your own happiness. Because, I mean, as you are definitely fully aware, like really going hard into your happiness and sacrificing
01:25:33.540
Jordan Ugalde: like your time, your priorities to dedicate to your dream, you're sacrificing a lot. And that, the idea of...
01:25:44.580
Jordan Ugalde: Something, something that came up in last episode was the idea of giving up something you love to focus on something you love more.
01:25:53.160
Jordan Ugalde: Because there's only so much time in the day that, if you really love something, you have to give up some of the things you love less in order to pursue that thing you love more.
01:26:04.890
Jordan Ugalde: Because, given our finite lifespans, finite time in the day, we have to prioritize and
01:26:14.280
Jordan Ugalde: sometimes, it can be easier to
01:26:17.430
Jordan Ugalde: give excuses for why we aren't prioritizing
01:26:21.570
Jordan Ugalde: and
01:26:23.610
Jordan Ugalde: say that I'm pursuing this to provide for myself in the future. Which again there are legitimate cases where you want to do that, but it can also become an excuse.
01:26:36.660
Tyler T Hamer: Well.
01:26:39.180
Jake Vo: Go on.
01:26:39.300
Tyler T Hamer: I was gonna say I think building off both of that, one thing is, I think a lot of people
01:26:46.050
Tyler T Hamer: mistakenly like, if you're on this journey and the point is the journey, going back to what we were saying a lot of people focus on just the end goal and you're not appreciating the steps along the way.
01:26:56.310
Tyler T Hamer: And maybe one one idea I had was, you know, people a lot of people when they talk about their identity, they identify with that end goal, but are you in, like what Jake obviously,
01:27:06.300
Tyler T Hamer: Jake identifies with making this delicious noodle dish but, like you could also identify with the various steps that make up that. Being a photographer you know, being a promoter for other brands and so you know it's, it's,
01:27:21.450
Tyler T Hamer: yes, you are sacrificing your, your short term happiness for a long term happiness, but there is
01:27:26.970
Tyler T Hamer: happiness along the way right? You are, you could choose to identify not just, just with the end goal, but also with the achievements you've made along the way.
01:27:38.730
Jake Vo: Yeah because, like when you, when you sacrifice these things you,
01:27:44.460
Jake Vo: you, the way I see it in my mind is you rank up to another level. And when you rank up to another level, the person that you become at that level,
01:27:54.840
Jake Vo: for me, no longer finds value in the things that I considered a sacrifice at one point.
01:28:02.280
Jake Vo: It goes from sacrifice to, wow that wasn't really that valuable to me after all.
01:28:09.480
Jake Vo: You know, and if it was valuable to me,
01:28:13.740
Jake Vo: it, if something's really valuable to me, it does not become a sacrifice.
01:28:20.400
Jake Vo: You know?
01:28:23.430
Jake Vo: Yeah it does not become a sacrifice. Because going out drinking Friday and Saturday I with my friends like,
01:28:30.930
Jake Vo: that was a sacrifice. I remember, I told Tsuyoshi that one point and he's just like, what, he's like your days off are what?
01:28:39.630
Jake Vo: Sunday, Monday and now Monday, Tuesday right? Why don't you just find friends that'll go out drinking with you on Monday and Tuesday?
01:28:48.660
Jake Vo: He said...
01:28:50.640
Jake Vo: I was like that's an easy solution.
01:28:57.360
Jake Vo: And that's when I was like, you know, like there's always an easy solution to something but finding that easy solution is really hard you know.
01:29:07.020
Jake Vo: And that's how I was like, well yeah so now, you know I always have people that drink with me on my days off.
01:29:16.980
Tyler T Hamer: That's amazing.
01:29:21.990
Jake Vo: Very like insightful perspective, like, I really like this podcast, like the questions and yeah, so far really thought provoking.
01:29:33.870
Jordan Ugalde: Yeah I'm glad you liked it.
01:29:37.590
Jake Vo: Yeah, what else you got?
01:29:45.360
Tyler T Hamer: Well.
01:29:46.950
Jake Vo: Well, in.
01:29:48.390
Jake Vo: the interest of time,
01:29:50.490
Jake Vo: what, do you feel like we missed anything, or you like, was there a vision you had for the podcast that you felt like, you know how earlier you were like hey can you guys talk about the dream concept now I was like, oh shit, let me, let me talk about that real quick. Like, you know what I mean, like that that's important.
01:30:07.110
Jordan Ugalde: Yeah so,
01:30:09.810
Jordan Ugalde: let's, to just wrap things up a bit,
01:30:12.930
Jordan Ugalde: the question we typically end with is, for someone who has an inkling of desire to pursue the same path you did, what would you recommend to someone who wants to get started, taking the same journey you've taken.
01:30:35.880
Tyler T Hamer: Sorry Jake.
01:30:39.390
Jake Vo: Oh wow.
01:30:49.290
Jake Vo: I don't even know how to answer this question man.
01:30:52.410
Jake Vo: It's so good.
01:31:02.040
Jake Vo: I mean it's like,
01:31:08.280
Jake Vo: like my general answer is just do it right like just.
01:31:14.820
Jake Vo: Literally just do it.
01:31:19.080
Jake Vo: And see what happens. Like don't think just do.
01:31:25.050
Jake Vo: Another, another example of that would be, and you've heard it in popular media,
01:31:32.940
Jake Vo: when the boss asks you to do something say yes, then figure it out later.
01:31:37.380
Jake Vo: Right?
01:31:38.700
Jake Vo: So when you are pursuing whatever you're trying to pursue just say yes to it and then figure it out right? So
01:31:52.110
Jake Vo: most people, the hardest part is taking that leap of faith.
01:31:56.940
Jake Vo: Is,
01:31:57.750
Jake Vo: you know? And
01:32:01.890
Jake Vo: whatever you need to do to build the confidence to take that leap of faith,
01:32:06.900
Jake Vo: start there.
01:32:09.090
Jake Vo: For me, for example, I used to really care what people thought of me.
01:32:15.600
Jake Vo: I used to really care about my appearance every time I left the fouse, I had to have my hair styled, if I didn't have it styled I would not leave the house and that was just like my younger years.
01:32:27.960
Jake Vo: And you know I
01:32:32.280
Jake Vo: really cared about what people thought about me. Then one day, I decided, I really need to figure this out like, how do I get over this and
01:32:42.870
Jake Vo: I,
01:32:47.010
Jake Vo: I literally just went on to a train
01:32:52.170
Jake Vo: and just laid down on the floor. Everyone was looking at me, like what the hell is this guy doing?
01:32:59.970
Jake Vo: The first four minutes were intense. After four minutes when I, cuz I did it for 10 minutes.
01:33:08.550
Jake Vo: After 10 minutes I got up and left.
01:33:11.430
Jake Vo: And I asked myself, did anything bad happen to me? No. Am I still alive? Yes.
01:33:18.720
Jake Vo: Those people that are on the train.
01:33:22.320
Jake Vo: Are they gonna care about that tonight when they're at home and with their families.
01:33:27.810
Jake Vo: Maybe. If they do they'll have a laugh about it.
01:33:31.500
Jake Vo: But other than that, like I, like when I've gone on the train and I see something weird or something happens, like I'm like, well that's weird and then I don't really think about it, for the rest of the day.
01:33:43.500
Jake Vo: I don't really care about it, like you know I'm like, oh whatever. So in realizing that,
01:33:50.730
Jake Vo: when I did that it like really unlocked like inner confidence for me.
01:33:56.790
Jake Vo: That's something that you know, is really important to me is developing your inner confidence.
01:34:02.280
Jake Vo: Because there's like three types of confidence. The other two is like appearance, like how you look. And like your status, the other one is status, style confidence. Whether, you know your job, your car, materialistic things make you confident.
01:34:14.970
Jake Vo: But if you strip those things away from you, all you got left is your inner confidence and not a lot of people develop theier inner confidence.
01:34:22.650
Jake Vo: So when I laid down on the subway that was me to developing my inner confidence, you know? And I know it's weird but that's that's what was effective for me.
01:34:31.740
Jake Vo: And one thing that I started learning in life when I started this island, this journey is that, I used to think really black and white. This is bad, this is good.
01:34:43.170
Jake Vo: Instead I started changing my perspective, to what is effective, what isn't effective.
01:34:50.280
Jake Vo: Right? And not associated with bad or good.
01:34:53.850
Jake Vo: So when I said, oh wow this is more effective, for me, let me go down that path. So for the people that are like trying to figure out what they want to do.
01:35:03.180
Jake Vo: You know, develop your inner confidence. Is this what you really want to do like sit down have a chat with yourself? Is this what you want to like,
01:35:13.200
Jake Vo: dedicate your life to? Like, like is this your vocation, you know you decide your vocation and once you decide that vocation, you know I learned this from Jiro Dreams of Sushi.
01:35:27.960
Jake Vo: He says that you need to dedicate your entire life to this vocation, if you want to
01:35:34.320
Jake Vo: be good at it.
01:35:36.840
Jake Vo: So you know, once I made that decision like everything kind of just like fell in place. You know it's like a, it's like a,
01:35:46.980
Jake Vo: it's very similar to how I feel when I survived in the woods for
01:35:51.630
Jake Vo: a couple months.
01:35:53.550
Jake Vo: Like you, it's a do or die situation, like you have to find water, you have to hike to explosive supply of water, so that you can have
01:36:04.230
Jake Vo: water to drink and water to boil your food and survive any, if you don't get a suppli of water you're most likely going to die.
01:36:13.020
Jake Vo: It was kind of like that situation. So every day like that's the mentality that I had when I was in the woods, I was like I have to hike this, these 10 miles, right now, if I do not hike these 10 miles
01:36:23.190
Jake Vo: I'm not gonna be getting, near any water, and I will die. So when you decide your vocation, it's like, I need to do this, I need to do this, I need to do that, if I do not do these things, I will die. Like, I have the mentality that I will still die because I lived in the woods, you know what I mean? So,
01:36:42.360
Jake Vo: you know, like you really have to dedicate your entire whatever and whatever other sacrifices that you, it's okay, like it's okay, that I don't want kids.
01:36:53.190
Jake Vo: I never want kids personally, because the reason why is because I don't think I'll be a good father, because I don't think I have the time to dedicate.
01:37:01.650
Jake Vo: And like and I really want to be a good father, I want, so, when I work at Yume like I view all my employees as my kids you know? You know that's how that's how I got over that hurdle too.
01:37:17.700
Jake Vo: Yeah just build the confidence and just just go for it just do it that's it.
01:37:25.770
Jordan Ugalde: To to quote Nike branding or also Shia LaBeouf, "Just do it" "Just do it." Yeah no that's, that's really
01:37:39.090
Jordan Ugalde: honest, true, like,
01:37:42.600
Jordan Ugalde: if, if you don't take the dive now it's easy to continue pushing, pushing the buck further and further down the line, so yeah I very much feel that.
01:37:57.060
Jake Vo: And the funny thing is.
01:38:01.170
Jake Vo: You can't apply to everyone right.
01:38:03.240
Jake Vo: Kike if you some people they have kids they have a wife, they have a family, they have all these things.
01:38:11.850
Jake Vo: Right? And that's perfectly fine. Like that's that's you gotta do what you gotta do to provide for your family.
01:38:19.950
Jake Vo: Right? But
01:38:22.110
Jake Vo: you know, like I
01:38:25.380
Jake Vo: decided that I don't want kids,
01:38:29.460
Jake Vo: because I know I won't be a good father and then realizing that it unlocked me to focus on being really good at something right?
01:38:40.110
Jake Vo: You know I decided that I don't, you know,
01:38:43.680
Jake Vo: want
01:38:46.410
Jake Vo: to have like many friends, because I don't have the time to dedicate my time to hang out with people and be a good friend, I just don't have that time.
01:38:56.820
Jake Vo: So it's not really a sacrifice anymore, and you know the people that can't do that because they got friends or like they got family and they got other like obligations like that's okay too. But at least, you don't have to sacrifice everything you do, but at least
01:39:13.110
Jake Vo: take the leap to go towards something you love that's not so risky. Reduce the risk and do something a little less risky you know?
01:39:24.360
Tyler T Hamer: Well, I was just, y'know building on that I just think it's like, it's not always,
01:39:28.650
Tyler T Hamer: like, you know, you, the sacrifice, like you're saying sacrifice everything for one thing, there is there's a scale to this and, like
01:39:35.790
Tyler T Hamer: you know, one of them, is some days I just have trouble getting started at work and I just, now I have a routine where it's just like, I put on,
01:39:46.020
Tyler T Hamer: on low-fi music and then I just open up like a PDF about something I have to read, just so I get started, and the only sacrifice I'm making there as I get off Reddit. Like that
01:39:58.650
Tyler T Hamer: I'm just saying there's a scale to right? It doesn't have to be.
01:40:02.160
Jake Vo: Oh, so good.
01:40:05.370
Jordan Ugalde: Well, so actually to, to touch on something from a previous episode, when we were interviewing our friend who became a bartender, he was talking about how,
01:40:16.500
Jordan Ugalde: he left banking to become a bartender when he was 23, before he had a family, before he had kids. And he was talking about how, when he was young, single, and
01:40:29.310
Jordan Ugalde: naive like he could leave the stability for a risky dream. Because no one was depending on him.
01:40:39.960
Jordan Ugalde: If he was to do, he, he even mentioned, if he was to do that now, in his mid 30s, when he has a wife, he has a kid he has a, like here, there are people in his life that he needs to,
01:40:54.630
Jordan Ugalde: like it's not just him taking care of himself, he is integrated into more something more than just him. It impacts, the risks you can take and in those situations, like, it's understandable what you can and cannot do you. You do what you can do.
01:41:16.500
Jordan Ugalde: But at the same time, like I,
01:41:19.650
Jordan Ugalde: as you were saying, there is a spectrum of risk and there's a spectrum of sacrificing
01:41:27.480
Jordan Ugalde: happiness for risk, risk for happiness, and those two things aren't necessarily linked, you can
01:41:34.290
Jordan Ugalde: potentially, like you can, there is the potential to take not that much risk, but increase your happiness significantly and I think if you
01:41:46.770
Jordan Ugalde: think of your life in those terms, that, what actions can I take to increase my happiness in the day to day, as well as the long term,
01:41:55.560
Jordan Ugalde: without necessarily risking what's important to me. Like, how can I minimize the risk of what's important to me now for the long term, I think, if you are in a situation where there's a lot
01:42:09.120
Jordan Ugalde: of dependent, of things that are dependent on you right now, there's still is the opportunity for happiness and that's that's honestly time what I
01:42:20.070
Jordan Ugalde: that is one of the things I want to touch on in this podcast in general. Like what are the potential paths to happiness for people in any walk of life.
01:42:30.690
Tyler T Hamer: Well, so I think it goes back to what Jake was saying earlier. It's not, it's not black and white it's what is effective for me what you know?
01:42:39.480
Tyler T Hamer: I have this idea of what I want to be, what steps can I take that increment my happiness day to day and long term towards that goal, not you know society says I should do, this society says, I should do that to be happy.
01:42:56.100
Jake Vo: Yeah.
01:42:58.290
Jake Vo: Yeah wow.
01:43:01.470
Jake Vo: You guys can articulate these things so well.
01:43:05.400
Jordan Ugalde: We try, we try, we're getting more practice every week every interview we
01:43:09.390
Jordan Uglade: get our practice.
01:43:10.830
Jake Vo: It's so good to hear like in a different perspective, you know? I mean like I love that so much.
01:43:19.560
Jake Vo: Thank you.
01:43:21.240
Jordan Ugalde: We love it too.
01:43:22.890
Jordan Ugalde: Well, thank you very much for joining us today Jake, it has been amazing. We have loved having you on and hearing your story.
01:43:32.820
Tyler T Hamer: I was just gonna say just building on the idea of like friends, you know go away from apart for a while and then come back together, we definitely I think should like in the future to another episode with you, like yeah you know being yeah.
01:43:50.190
Jordan Ugalde: Our 100th episode.
01:43:53.580
Jake Vo: I mean I, my first podcast I did, can we go off off off script now?
01:43:59.370
Jordan Ugalde: Oh,
01:43:59.880
Jordan Ugalde: yeah we're, we're, yeah yeah we we have no hard scripts you can say whatever you want.
01:44:05.280
Jake Vo: No, no go off screen like this, after this is not gonna get published.
01:44:09.420
Jordan Ugalde: Oh, just wrapping things up, thank you very much for having, thank you very much for joining us Jake and everything after this off the record.