#also i guess i will update this post as more podcast eps come out so putting this under a cut | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

astonishinglegends · 3 years

Text

Ep 205: Terry Carnation's "Dark Air" and Rich Hatem

“Imagine the universe, compressed on the head of a pin…”

– Scott’s remembrance of a Carl Sagan quote, which, turns out, probably originates from a parody impression of Carl Sagan

Description:

We have a very special guest joining us tonight, metaphysical "astralnaut," philosopher of the liminal, "Pope of the Paranormal," and host of the AM Radio talk show Dark Air, Terry Carnation. Terry first got his start in the paranormal radio genre when unexpectedly thrust into taking over for another show. While working as a late-night rock n' roll Disc Jockey for an FM station in Buffalo, NY, in 1992, Reginald Wilcox, the host of the paranormal call-in show that aired after Terry's slot was mysteriously murdered while Terry was in the bathroom... or so he claims. In his unflappable sense of duty, apparently stronger than his sense of legal obligation, Terry immediately took over the role of consigliere for listeners stupefied by the supernatural. And in Terry's words, "that's how a legend was created." Now, after a three-year hiatus, Terry Carnation returns with a new podcast, also called Dark Air, available starting April 1, 2021, wherever podcasts are given away for free. While you may not have heard of him, there will be something uneasily familiar about his voice and visage. And the audience will come to know his strange power for tearing off the head of disbelief and reaching down deep into our souls to yank out the viscera of our darkest fears and mysteries. Wrapped around our interview with Terry, our good buddy Rich Hatem joins us once again to discuss his latest adventures and projects. We'll also con him into playing our version of a game show, in the spirit of America's NPR radio program Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! and Britain's Would I Lie to You? We'll tell Rich three outrageous paranormal stories, and he has to guess which one is fake. Please join us for an episode of inscrutable levity.

Reference Links:

Terry Carnation’s website, TerryCarnation.com

Terry Carnation and Dark Air on Audioboom, where you can subscribe to the platform of your choice

Dark Air with Terry Carnation on Apple Podcasts

Follow Terry Carnation on Instagram

Follow Terry Carnation on Twitter

Terry Carnation on Facebook

Where to stream DC Titans

“TERRIBLE FLYING JELLY BAGS aka DOMSTEN BLOBS: (SWEDEN)” by Rob Morphy on cryptopia.us

National Public Radio’s Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!

The BBC One panel show involving true and false tales, Would I Lie To You?

“The Story Behind The Haunted Donkey Lady Bridge In Texas Will Send Chills Down Your Spine” from OnlyInYourState.com

“South Texas Haunted Folklore: The Tale of the Converse Werewolf” from KSAT.com

On a totally unrelated subject…

Rainn Wilson is best known for playing the role of Dwight Schrute on NBC's The Office. Additional film and television credits include Galaxy Quest, Almost Famous, The Rocker, Super, Six Feet Under, Juno, Backstrom, Star Trek Discovery, Thom Pain, The Meg, Mom, Don't Tell a Soul and Utopia. He will also be appearing in the forthcoming podcast Dark Air with Terry Carnation. Wilson co-founded SoulPancake, a digital media company, and the Lide Foundation, an educational initiative in rural Haiti that empowers at-risk women and girls through the arts.

Dark Air with Terry Carnation was created by Rainn Wilson and Aaron Lee and is produced by Thom Harp and Chris Kelly. Dark Air with Terry Carnation is a production of Imperial Mammoth, Audioboom and Kelly&Kelly. Theme music by Marcos Moscat

This episode features the voice talents of Jinous Khjadivian and Dana Davis as the two audience callers.

Please help out our good friend Stan Gordon, by purchasing his books on Amazon and Barnes & Noble – you’re gonna love ‘em!

At Barnes & Noble:

Silent Invasion: The Pennsylvania UFO-Bigfoot Casebook

Astonishing Encounters: Pennsylvania’s Unknown Creatures, Casebook 3

Really Mysterious Pennsylvania: UFOs, Bigfoot, and Other Weird Encounters, Casebook 1

SPECIAL OFFERS FROM OUR SPECIAL SPONSORS:

FIND OTHER GREAT DEALS FROM OUR SHOW’S SPONSORS BY CLICKING HERE!

The Great Courses Plus – There are so many benefits to lifelong learning, which is why we love The Great Courses Plus! Learn about virtually anything, now with over 11,000 lectures on almost any subject you can think of – from history and science to learning a new language, how to play an instrument, learn magic tricks, train your dog, or explore topics like food, the arts, travel, business, and self-improvement. And all taught by world-leading professors and experts in their field. Their app lets you download and listen to only the audio from the courses or watch the videos, just like a podcast. Switch between all your devices and pick up right where you left off. Available for iOS and Android. So what is your purpose this year? What new things will you learn? Sign up for The Great Courses Plus and find out! And RIGHT NOW, our listeners can get this exclusive offer: A FREE TRIAL, PLUS get $30 OFF when you sign up for an annual plan! That comes out to just $10 a month! But this limited-time offer won’t last long, and it’s only available through our special URL and you don’t want to pass this up, so go NOW to: TheGreatCoursesPlus.com/LEGENDS

Best Fiends – If you’re looking for a fun way to pass the time while engaging your brain and enjoying breathtaking visuals and a gripping story, your answer is Best Fiends! Best Fiends is a casual, matching puzzle game that the whole family can play, but really made for adults, and you don’t need to be a gamer to be great at it! You can also play it the way YOU want to, wherever you want, and as much or as little as you want! Collect cute and funny cryptid-like insect creatures while battling silly slugs as you advance through stages in the Best Fiends world. Connect with friends and family through Social Media and challenge them to beat your levels or help them along. This unique puzzle game doesn’t require the internet, so it’s great to play offline while traveling or commuting, and Best Fiends has thousands of levels already, with new levels, events, and characters added every month – it’s hours of fun right at your fingertips and it never gets old! With over 100 million downloads and tons of five-star reviews, Best Fiends is a must-play! Download for free on the Apple App Store or Google Play. That’s FRIENDS without the “R,” Best Fiends!

Bespoke Post – is a monthly subscription club that finds, curates, and then sends you finely crafted and useful Boxes of Awesome gear you can really use that’ll class-up your lifestyle. Stuff like barware kits and cooking tools so you can make your own artisan cider and winter cocktails, to style and grooming goods and even outdoor hardware, Bespoke Post has you covered! Membership is free to join, and you start by taking a quiz at BoxOfAwesome.com. You tell them what you like and don’t like, and your answers will help them find the right first Box of Awesome for you. Then you can preview your box to keep it, swap it, or skip it – you’re totally in control and there’s zero commitment. You can skip a month or cancel at any time. Each box costs only $45 bucks — but has over $70 worth of gear inside. They release new boxes every month across a ton of different categories and now Bespoke Post has gifts for women too! So start making yourself or someone else happy and stylin’ with this awesome offer: Get 20% OFF your first monthly box when you sign up at BoxOfAwesome.com and enter the Offer Code AL at checkout!

Squarespace – Have something you need to sell or share with the world but don't have a website? Or maybe that old website of yours could use a serious style and functionality update but you don't think you have the time or money to pay someone to do it? Well, now you can do it yourself, stylishly and cost-effectively in very little time with Squarespace! With their large gallery of beautifully designed templates, eCommerce functionality, built-in Search Engine Optimization, free and secure hosting, and award-winning 24/7 Customer Support to guide you along the way, you'll be up and running on the Web in no time, with flair, ease and a choice of over 200 URL extensions to make you stand out! So what are you waiting for? Go to Squarespace.com/LEGENDS for a free trial and when you’re ready to launch, use the Offer Code "LEGENDS" to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

BetterHELP – Is there something interfering with your happiness or is preventing you from achieving your goals? BetterHELP will assess your needs and match you with your own licensed professional therapist. It’s not a Crisis Line, it’s not self-help, it’s professional counseling done securely online, and you can start communicating in under 48 hours. There’s a broad range of expertise available that may not be locally available in many areas, but this service is available for clients worldwide. You can login to your account anytime and send a message to your counselor. You’ll get timely and thoughtful responses plus you can schedule weekly video or phone sessions so you won’t ever have to sit in an uncomfortable waiting room as with traditional therapy. BetterHELP is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches so they make it easy and free to change counselors if needed. It’s more affordable than traditional offline counseling and financial aid is available. BetterHELP wants you to start living a happier life TODAY! Read the testimonials that are posted daily. Join the over 1,000,000 people taking charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced professional. In fact, so many people have been using BetterHELP that they are recruiting additional counselors in all 50 states! This podcast is sponsored by BetterHELP and Astonishing Legends listeners get 10% OFF their first month at betterhelp.com/astonishing

Credits:

Episode 205: Terry Carnation’s “Dark Air“ and Rich Hatem. Produced by Scott Philbrook & Forrest Burgess; Audio Editing by Sarah Vorhees Wendel. Sound Design by Ryan McCullough; Tess Pfeifle, Producer, and Lead Researcher; Research Support from the astonishing League of Astonishing Researchers, a.k.a. The Astonishing Research Corps, or "A.R.C." for short. Copyright 2021 Astonishing Legends Productions, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

8 notes · View notes

amarikwa11 · 4 years

Text

How To Not Be Racist I #AskASoccerPro Show Ep 073by Quincy Amarikwa

11-year MLS veteran Quincy Amarikwa returns for the 73rd episode of the #AskASoccerPro Show to tackle racism, what he would say to MLS Commissioner Don Garber, why influencers should do the work of anti-racism rather than just making pretty social media posts and more.

Here’s what Quincy covers this week:

00:00 – 02:05: Welcome To The #AskASoccerPro Show

02:07 – 06:02: What Quincy Would Say To MLS Commissioner Don Garber 🤔

06:06 – 10:50: Why Continue to Fight For People Who Don’t Fight For You? 👊😤

10:58 – 13:35: Will Quincy Become A Coach? @soccer_hq_09

13:38 – 15:58: How Can Parents Help Their Kids Find The Right Organization? ⚽ @oleggrymaylo

16:04 – 22:14: Why Do Elite Players See The Game Differently From Average Players? 👁️ @yojxrdan

22:17 - 23:37: Does Working On Your Business Take Away From Focus? 🧠 @johnhollinger

23:38 - 29:16: How To Not Be Racist

29:20 - 30:51: Taylor Twellman’s Dangerous Tweet 😳

31:11 - 32:26: What Do You Think Players Like Griffin Yow And Alfonso Davies Do Differently From Other Young Players To Reach The Level They’re At? ⚽ @yojxrdan

32:31 – 36:52: How Starting At The Bottom Is An Advantage

37:17 – 45:26: How Does Quincy Mentally Challenge Himself? 👉🏽😶👈🏽 @johnhollinger

43:59 – 45:26: Why Perfect Soccer Is Free? 🤔

45:31 – 49:28: What Is Quincy’s Favorite Move To Create Space? ⚽

49:35 – 51:48: When Will Quincy And Sebastian Salazar Talk? @johnhollinger

52:00 – 56:09: How To Keep Up With A Bigger Player @sabrinaa.demarco

If you would like to listen to the episode:

If you would like to watch the episode:

If you would like to read the interview:

*Transcript is unedited and machine-generated. There will be errors. For further clarity please refer to the audio or video.

Quincy Amarikwa (00:06):

LA scene, a lot of regulars joining in tuning in and dialing in with that mental strength. Ooh, just spam that hard button. If you got it, if you're feeling, if you feel a froggy I'm excited for today really just jumping into it. I am your host, coinci America, 11 year MLS pro. Current free agent would be in my 12th year but, still on like free agency or due to the whole situation that we're still in the process of getting our way back to. But fortunately the MLS has finally come to terms with the MLSPA and ratified. Kevin what's going on, brother ratified the CBA, which should have been ratified originally, but I'm sure we could get into that in other ways throughout this call as well too. But the, there has been an agreement of a coming back to play with the official Orlando tournament here at the end of the month.

Quincy Amarikwa (01:28):

So those of you who are followers of the MLS, what have your guys' thoughts been so far? Have you been following what's been going on and then more importantly, I'd say, and if you haven't let me pull up the graphic, I thought I had all the graphics already set up and ready to go, but I guess it did a duplicated it D duplicate Earl Edwards jr. Joined in what's going on, man. Everybody say hello to him as well. Oh, I'm seeing a, a keyboard is also joined in. Thanks for joining guys. I appreciate that. Like I said, everybody, if you join in every Thursday, 6:00 PM, PST 9:00 PM EST, not only do you get to ask your questions of an 11 year plus MLS pro, but you'll also see other pros in the comments section, join it in answering this question joining in on the community and sharing their, their knowledge with you.

Quincy Amarikwa (02:24):

So let's see what we got here. So what I was, there we go. So let's switch that up. There we go. So for those of you who are not aware have not read the article that I published over on perfect soccer skills.com. I, I did that a couple of days ago. I realized a lot of individuals who are casual fans of the MLS, or are wanting to become more involved in the MLS, see the MLS grow, or just more, more so see soccer in America grow, not necessarily just MLS. The article that I published over on perfectsoccerskills.com titled, What I would say to Don Garber and the MLS player pool. If I were still considered a part of the MLS consider this a, the extreme crash course in understanding the perspective of the league and Don Garber and the who is the commissioner of the MLS and the, the general perspective of the player pool and the wide degree of diversity amongst the player pool and how that relationship has unfolded over time, as well as the difficulties in finding common ground in the balance in terms of that entire negotiation process, which is the collective bargaining agreement, which is the CBA for those of you who are not aware.

Quincy Amarikwa (03:42):

I think on top of that as well too, there's there's microcosms of the player pool. And I think the overall representation of the playerr pool has been fragmented as well in its own ways. And I think with the current state of the world and what's going on, I believe people are finally becoming more aware of the systemic issues that are, that are prevalent just in the world. And in this case specifically within the soccer world itself, I think there's a lot of limitations because of the pay to play system and how that creates and breeds its own longterm problems. But as you guys know, we're over here developing that longterm winner's mindset and the MSL mentality, the mental strength league mentality is one that helps you operate, whether you are all regardless of whichever side you're on, which means it's meant to help everybody consider it, think of it like a mental, mental software update for the new world.

Quincy Amarikwa (04:49):

Everyone says we're a part of the information age. They recognize and realize we were part of the information age, but what does that mean and how do you operate it and how do you thrive and survive in it? Well, those of you who are a part and have been down with the MSL for awhile, you guys understand what we stand for, what we represent. You've watched listened to the three S's of self-awareness talk perfect soccer skills.com/sss. If you're listening, you don't know what I'm referencing or talking about. And you understand that personal responsibility is, is something that in our belief will only become exponentially more valuable as time goes on with kind of how the world is adapting to understanding the changes that have taken place. So we had to throw it back a little bit with the little in the United States of America. T-Shirt shout out Matt, Matt Watson, the originator original designer on the perfect soccer brand.

Quincy Amarikwa (05:48):

But if anybody's had a chance to read the article that I'm sharing, you'll see the graphic here on the screen. For those of you who are listening on the podcast, I've got the graphic up on the screen for the article. I'd love to see you guys drop a little bit of that below. And we'll just, we'll just really start getting into it. I think a couple of pros might be dropping in throughout the call. So if, and when they do we'll get them, we'll get them in here. But while we're waiting on that, let's let's make sure we're asking some questions.

Quincy Amarikwa (06:24):

So let's see what we got here. MLS stopped the rebel asks. Why do you put yourself through all of this and what wants you, what makes you want to continue it? That is a great question. And that is a question I ask myself all the time and I guess the simplest way I can, I can put it is when I got started playing professional soccer and the way that I was looking at it, I didn't understand why guys did not understand me. And I wanted to understand why, and if anybody has a personal relationship with me or has had any type of personal experience with me in the past I don't think it's a far stretch to say that I'm probably a pretty competitive person and I want to win. And by, by saying, I want to win. What I mean is I want to understand, and if I don't understand something, I want to do any amount of work necessary to figure out and understand why I don't understand.

Quincy Amarikwa (07:29):

And that drive that focus is what I refer back to as to why I put myself through all this because I want to figure out and understand, am I putting myself through it or someone else putting me through it for me? And not sure if those of you on the call understand that question or have gotten to that space in time and that experience, but that curiosity of wanting to know is I'd say that's gotta be a large driving factor because at the end of the day, I don't know what will result of it. And I think a lot of people believe I'm only doing it for a particular outcome that will benefit me, or because there's something I want specifically in terms of like material or monetary, I believe those things will come as a result of providing a good service, a product or, you know to, to people.

Quincy Amarikwa (08:41):

So it's not that I don't believe that those things won't happen or I'm not doing it without the idea or thought that they could. But if I'm, if I'm directly saying, what is it that I'm hoping to accomplish, have a, be the result of this. And it's really, it's really saying I've been a strong believer and advocate, I guess, for not being put into a box. I don't want someone to define for me what I am or am not capable of doing because of who they believe me to be, what they think I have or haven't done in the past or how they perceive me. And I think tying that to the greater issue, that's finally being discussed a lot more here with, with relation to a race. I think a lot of people are, are much more open to the idea of having this conversation mainly cause I think people have gotten to a point where they can no longer deny the, the unfair nature in which certain things are or have, or are taking place.

Quincy Amarikwa (09:52):

So I think that's kind of a good tie into kind of a throwback to episode 48 of the #AskASoccer Pro Show when we discussed uncovered dealing with racism, different ways in which we I know many individuals in the community have experienced that in their own way. I know others have been a part of organizations where they've seen it happen firsthand. And I, I think I'm getting a lot more questions and questions, especially from some of my my white friends and followers as to what they can do and how they can help and, and more so seeing a lot of individuals now expressing on their platforms, that they've seen a lot of these things over time and they've been complicit in their silence and dismissive of it for whatever reason. And I think you guys know, we talk a lot about it here. The truth is true, whether you believe it or not. And, and in the MSL, we remain committed to committed to doing the work we know we need to, or we believe we need to, to, to understand so good question. I, I appreciated that Joe said yes, I remember that. I remember that one

Quincy Amarikwa (11:11):

Soccer, HQ soccer underscore HQ underscore and asked, will you help the little kids reach pro by being a coach? I believe I'm helping helping kids who want to be pro or, or, you know, older individuals who are interested in being pro right now through this online coaching, online mentorship breaking down the MSL mentality, the Amarikwa process, the three S's of self awareness and sharing it with you guys here free on the platform every Thursday, 6:00 PM, PST 9:00 PM EST and answering your questions. Connor McCormick con Connor MC 42, say Quincy for president. Hey, you never know maybe one, one day, you know, I mean, if, if the people demand it, let's see. I love seeing everybody in the comment section join in a victim. Bernard is shout out victory. He joined in PG sports. Paul is down in there. I'm not sure Ryan, if I, if I had shoved you out or not riot B pro general manager, Ryan Masch in there answer you guys questions as well to you.

Quincy Amarikwa (12:22):

Heather asked Quincy, what is your favorite? Perfect soccer shirt, hats, et cetera. Ooh, that's a good question. I like, I like the, like the I'm in your head, I'm in your head pattern. We're just kind of going all the way down, but it's like Stripe. So like from far, it looks like kind of a striped shirt, but then as you get closer, you can see that I liked that one a lot. I like, obviously like this hat you guys have been noticing me rocking this hat a lot. And these last, I don't know, five or five plus episodes. The new updated ball is pretty dope. Heather also, what's your favorite perfect soccer shirt. Oh sir. That was the same question. Sorry. I scrolled up and, and saw that. Yeah, the new match ball. I had one in here. But that one's, that one's dope. I liked that one a lot. Griffin Yow joined in shout out Griffin. Thanks for joining. Your brother loves seeing you support and show love.

Speaker 3 (13:32):

[Inaudible]

Quincy Amarikwa (13:33):

Well, let's see what we got here. So we've got a fan calling in. Let's see how we do this. Yeah,

Quincy Amarikwa (13:39):

Here. I'll let you call in, get your question answered. I don't know what half the time when you guys tried to call in and then you, once you get the call, you duck out. I know I'm being kind of scared.

Quincy Amarikwa (13:57):

Let's see what we got here. O L E G G R Y M a Y L O S. My son is 12 years old, trains five times a week. Very good at center forward. How do I get him to the right? I didn't continue, but I'm going to assume you're saying get them to the right organization or the right situation. First I'd say, make sure he creates himself a perfect soccer team membership account by hand number perfect soccer skills.com/p S T M a create yourself a free account and go through the, go through and read the perfect soccer player.

Quincy Amarikwa (14:34):

Blueprint that book in the training center, then read the college soccer recruiting blueprint as well too. So I don't know how to get them to the right college, the right, whatever understanding the entire recruitment process at the collegiate level high school. And then also the professional ranks is important. That way you can understand where you have an advantage or where you have disadvantages and you can attack it the appropriate way. I think the fact that you're joining in on the live, you're sending in your questions and you're asking how to go about doing it is a great first step. And it's great to start, but understanding the process in Italian. Oh, there you go. So perfect soccer player blueprint. You can get yourself a free physical copy. We've just recently updated the book as well to the physical copy of the book. This is obviously one of the older versions and you can see.

Quincy Amarikwa (15:22):

Yeah. So as you guys can tell, as I learn and grow, as we learn and grow, we take notes, document our experiences, update, update what we're doing and how we're going about doing it, and reflect those changes in the book as time goes on. So when you create your purpose as a team membership access, you're also getting access to all the updates that we're doing in the future as well too. So for those of you who have a perfect type of team membership account drop down in the comment section, what you've gotten, gotten out of your membership, what you've enjoyed what you've liked also, what you don't like about it. Cause you guys know feedback. We need that feedback. Everyone's spamming that heart button! Love seeing that and we'll go through, we'll see in questions and we'll see if any of you are also wanting to call in while we're at it.

Quincy Amarikwa (16:22):

Let's see Jordan asks, can you talk on what you read players, see the game different from average players? Yeah. So let's set context. Let's set context. How do I break this down? Usimply, can you talk on why elite players see the game different than average players and below average players? So let's say in general, when you show up into new space to do anything new, something you've never done before

Quincy Amarikwa (17:00):

You make the mistake, because you have no real frame of reference of trying to pay attention to everything all at one time. So you get information overload, it's just everything all at once you think everything's important. And because you think everything's important, you're splitting up your mental energy and your mental capacity on everything. And I don't know if I've shared this before, directly on the show, but I've talked about it with players in the past, but expertise, in my opinion is knowing what not to do, not what to do. So let me say that again, expertise is knowing what not to do, not necessarily what to do. So let's really break it down. Let's say, when you walk into something new, let's say there's a hundred things that you could do at once. That's the information overload when you're novice, when you're a lower level player, there's a hundred things you're trying pay attention to all 100.

Quincy Amarikwa (17:50):

At one time, when you're an average player, you realize you can ignore 50% of everything. When you're above average player, you realize you can ignore 75% when you're a higher level player, you can realize you can ignore 90%. And when you're in elite level player or elite level, elite, elite level, you know, you can ignore 99%. So if you're breaking it down in that manner, the elite top level individual knows that if they focus on this one thing, everything else becomes easier as a result of it. And they can now rather than disperse the 99% of their energy on all the other things that aren't as important, they focus in on the one thing that is most important. And that's difficult for people to understand because most people are focusing on more than one thing at one particular time. So maybe ask yourself when you're walking into situations, are you looking for the one thing that you can, are you trying to break something down into the one thing that's most accurate and then committing your time, effort and energy there?

Quincy Amarikwa (19:07):

Or are you, are you spreading yourself very thin because you think multitasking and doing everything yourself and doing everything at once is the best way to go about doing it. And I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm an individual who likes to do a lot of things and you guys can tell and see on the account. I'm probably doing too many things at one time. You know what, I'm Tommy Thompson joined in on the live as wheel to drop it in and see what's going on. So my, my main point is the elite elite level players, individuals understand that. And they come to the decision early on in their process of committing to that one thing. Now it doesn't mean it will pan out and then it will work out for them, but you're in greatly increasing the chances that it does. The sooner you make that commitment and the longer you remain committed to it for. So a great example of why my focus is mentality mindset. I might not be as technically gifted as my teammates around me. I might not be as athletic or fast or as fit,

Quincy Amarikwa (20:25):

But I believe mentally I am on a level that most, if not all other players cannot operate on. And I believe that because of that focus for as long as I've been focused on it for all the other things though, I believe I get exponential results out of my focus on, on the mentality and the fact that I decided to focus in on that. So early on in my career I took the risk of thinking that applying my energy and focus there will yield me a greater result than applying my focus on what I believe most players spent all their time on, which is just the physical aspect of the game. So that's a great question. And if you guys are picking up what I'm putting down, drop some I'm in your head emojis in the, in the screen, let me know your thoughts on on that and let's see what else we've got in here. And something else that I wanted to bring up, Heather said interesting. And what are you guys' thoughts of feedback on that kind of that breakdown?

Quincy Amarikwa (21:37):

Good question that came in J a J M E C a Z, a L E Z, gave the thumbs up. Heather dropped in nine and he had emojis twice 11. That T T gave me the silly I'm in your head. Emojis. Tina take four. I mean, you had emojis Aquin. Akeem Ward's even in, in here dropping that here and what we're talking about cozy. Yeah, so that was a great question. And hopefully that broke that down a little bit. So let's see what we also got over here. Cause I was thinking this, so we're wanting to, I'm liking, I realized, you know what, everybody, there's a lot of stuff going on. I see a lot of things online in the comment sections and stuff. And I I'm realizing now I can share that here with you guys on the show, showing you guys the graphics and stuff, shout out to it or for making the the, the dope mean. And there's a couple of things that I wanted to point out. Okay.

Quincy Amarikwa (22:44):

So, which was interesting to me, especially something that Taylor 12 men had said on Twitter earlier this week K 23 Hampton said I got the recommendation from Quincy and his financial literacy newsletter. I'm happy to see that you're going through that. And, and upleveling your financial literacy literalist. [inaudible] Your literacy skills. I know John Hollinger is going through it as well, too. Soccer HQ. Oh nine. So the season goes on. Yes. You know it does.

Quincy Amarikwa (23:20):

So Jackson said never really heard it like that before, but makes a lot of sense. If you are able to focus on less things, you can hone in on them and master those areas.

Speaker 5 (23:29):

Okay.

Quincy Amarikwa (23:29):

23 Hampton said 100% agree. It's an amazing read. John Hollinger said good stuff. So what would working? So what we're working on your own business take away of your focus. Okay. John said, okay, here you go. This is a good one. So John had said stuff. So what would working on your own business take away of your focus then? Well, if my, if my business is in alignment with my focus on mindset, when I'm working on my business, I'm working on my mindset.

Quincy Amarikwa (24:01):

So we talk a lot here about the Amarikwa process that is in the first three steps of the Amarikwa processes, the three S's of self awareness, self honesty, self initiative, self accountability,ugoal oriented. So setting goals, teamwork, community, that's you guys here, teamwork equals dream work, attention to details, which is remaining focused on,uuon what got us here and how we're going to get there.

Quincy Amarikwa (24:25):

And then the ultimate one passion or fun enjoyment loving what it is that we do. And, and at the very, at the end of the day, if we're focused on pursuing our passion, if we don't reach a super high level or are successful in the eyes of others, we enjoyed the process we learned from it. We grew from it. So there's no way that we can lose. That's why you guys see you can't stop us MSL, mental strength lead. We are in your head because we can't lose. We're focused on our passion. We're building a community, we're working together. We're collaborating, we're filling, we're setting goals. We're working together as a team, but more importantly, we're taking personal responsibility for our future, for our, our individual and collective goals. So, so that's a mindset. That's a mentality. That's a belief system. That's something you either are on board with, or you're not, you're committed to, or you're not you're doing the work or you're not, you can say you're doing the work, but that, but if you're not backing it up, but doing the work, it doesn't mean anything.

Quincy Amarikwa (25:24):

And I, I believe that that's that's something that I want to especially highlight to individuals who have come to the decision that they haven't done enough in the past, or they haven't been active or vocal, or they haven't called things out that they know to be wrong. But now they realize the error in their way and that's necessary in the process. You have to make mistakes or you have to do things to then be able to self reflect on them in the future and come to the conclusion on whether that was the right course of action or if it was a mistake. And if you're deciding that what you have been doing up to this point or what you haven't been doing up to this point has been alignment with how, who you want to be moving forward, who you see yourself as when you look in the mirror or you realize you've been lying to yourself as to who you are and what it is that you do or you're willing to do.

Quincy Amarikwa (26:12):

And you've made a commitment to being different, to doing more. Then it's not a commitment that is just said by doing a social media post, Oh, I posted I'm changed. I'm doing this. I'm doing that. No, it's, it's doing the post. And then posting what you're committed to doing here, moving forward, and then taking action to remain committed to it here, moving forward. So specifically, let me get very specific because many people say, well, what do you mean? I'm saying, if you believe that you have not been doing enough in the past, well, one, you need to make up for the work that you didn't do. So there's that work that you need to do. Then there's the work that you need to do here moving forward, which means it's more than what you've done. So you have work that you have to get done and the work you're going to do here really moving forward and you have to remain committed to that here, moving forward.

Quincy Amarikwa (27:06):

So if you've decided that for instance, you need to I've seen a lot of individuals saying that they'd been silent as to not calling out racism or discrimination when they've seen it or, or and that they're there supporting of the black lives matter movement, or just more so hearing black people's experiences and not denying their experiences any longer, then that's not something that just lasts for a week. That's not just something that comes to one social media post. If you're saying that you want to do different and you commit to doing different, then you're doing the one social media posts. And you're committing to doing an additional social media post every day for the next six months, just to make up for what you didn't do up to this point. And then after you've done that for six minutes, you'll then have enough experience having listened for the first time ever to people who might not look like you, or sound like you were having a different perspective or experience in yours to then come to a conclusion as to what you will like to do next or what you'd like to commit to next.

Quincy Amarikwa (28:10):

But I definitely want to make sure I'm calling out the individuals who are saying they're there. They're about that action. They're about change. They're about doing whatever's necessary. Especially these individuals who have these platforms have been speaking a bunch of nonsense for time, which has been the reason why the system has been created in the way that it has, which is why, which is what has not allowed individuals to have access to the opportunities that every a chance of having an opportunity for. Then if you're not committed to doing that, just say, you're not, we don't need to hear your, your fake messages anymore. People have woken up. People understand that messages with no action behind it, no commitment, no consistency over time. You don't just show up today. You show up tomorrow and the next day and two weeks from now and a month from now. And even if people still don't believe you yet, you show up three months from now and six months from now, it's commitment. It's not commitment. Only if things go my way and it's perfect for me. And it's just how I want it to be. And it looks how I want it to look. No it's commitment. You're either committed or you're not. And if you're not that's okay, but not if you say you are, and then you aren't, that's the problem, self accountability. That's what's been lacking.

Quincy Amarikwa (31:07):

For the lab. Let's see if I can flip it. Cause now it's two there, as I've said on ESPN radio and Sports Center for the last eight weeks, a global pandemic means change and compromise for everyone. But as pro athletes and owners, if you make it about future pay and play and pay, you will lose your paying customers because they don't have the time. Yeah, that's interesting. That's just a very interesting perspective for him to share at this particular time, because the only thing that people have at this moment in time is time. So

Speaker 8 (31:49):

Okay.

Quincy Amarikwa (31:51):

I had responded, so I'd be happy to discuss this with him because I want to better understand where he's coming from. And yeah, you guys will be able to see around Twitter things too small. And I don't have my secondary, my secondary, well, maybe I could compete in here because yeah, I guess I know I'm seeing half this stuff that individuals are saying. And a lot of people aren't necessarily able to keep up on all the moving parts and what's happening all the time, which is why we took the time to write that first, that first article. So if you guys haven't read that article, definitely read that article, share it with friends and family, especially individuals who were interested, maybe learning more about the league or the, the soccer system in general,

Quincy Amarikwa (32:45):

But let's see what here.

Quincy Amarikwa (32:59):

Yeah. Let's see what else we've got here in terms of, okay, so Jordan, yo, yo, Y O J X, R D a N asks, what do you think of players like Griffin and Alfonso Davies do differently from other young players to reach the level they're at?

Quincy Amarikwa (33:19):

What do they do differently? Well,

Quincy Amarikwa (33:21):

I can't speak to Alfonso Davies cause I don't know him personally. I don't have any personal experience with him. But with Griffin, I think Griffin is a very talented player and he is open to, to learning. He's open to the idea that he could be wrong and doesn't know everything, which is a valuable skill to have one that allows you the opportunity and ability to,

Quincy Amarikwa (33:44):

To improve.

Quincy Amarikwa (33:46):

I think a huge advantage that Griffin has is I haven't yet met his parents personally, but I, I can tell that he has a very strong support system at home. He has a family that is very much behind him and I believe he says he has an older brother who plays as well, too.

Quincy Amarikwa (34:03):

Mmm.

Quincy Amarikwa (34:04):

For me, it's for me it seems like Griffin has a very strong support system that has been dedicated to helping him maximize his potential. And then on top of that, Griffin also has an open mentality and mindset and a willingness to put in the work and get better.

Quincy Amarikwa (34:19):

Quincy Amarikwa (34:21):

I believe

Quincy Amarikwa (34:22):

Not everyone might not, everyone may have access to the support system or a support system to help them get to whatever level that they're choosing to, but everyone does have the potential to have that open-minded

Quincy Amarikwa (34:36):

Mindset, a willingness and hunger and thirst to learn and get better. And the willingness on their own to improve their skills over time. And we've discussed this in previous episodes where I've discussed and said that your your disadvantage becomes your advantage in a longterm in the longterm

Quincy Amarikwa (34:55):

And the less you have starting out,

Quincy Amarikwa (35:02):

If you're able to, the less you have starting out, the greater advantage you have in the long run, the longer you learn to hang around and stick around.

Quincy Amarikwa (35:15):

Okay. So

Quincy Amarikwa (35:17):

I think a lot of people, a lot of players look at not having access to certain things or not having the support system or the advantages that other people around them may have as a reason to not try or a reason for it to yeah. Or for reasons to not try.

Quincy Amarikwa (35:36):

Mmm.

Quincy Amarikwa (35:38):

But the lower you start, the less you have, the greater appreciation you'll have as time goes on and the, the greater advantage it will become for you in the future. Cause you'll re you'll always remember where you started. You always remember where you start and if you started at the bottom, you know what the bottom is, you know what that looks like your Bain, right? You're you were born in the darkness molded by it. And it seems like that's the theme, these last couple of weeks, right. Embrace that. Embrace your disadvantages. See those, see those as a, as an armor, as an, as an advantage as, as something that gives you the opportunity to be stronger.

Speaker 5 (36:26):

But

Quincy Amarikwa (36:29):

O L E G G Y a O L E G G R Y M a Y L O S. How did you go pro? I broke, I actually broke down how I went pro if you go over to perfect soccer skills.com and you type in the search bar at the top there how I went from thinking, I never play soccer again to becoming a professional soccer player. I I've written an entire article breaking down that process of how I went pro, which is which will get you that full summary. And I like to make sure we're fully taking advantage of the time that we have in the call. So I'm not re bringing all that up. Chris had joined in the live, showed some love what's going on, brother? How are you doing thanks for stopping by seeing what's going on on this side. Let's see what we've got as well here. Chris was just recent on the most. Was it the most recent episode of the perfect soccer podcast? So make sure you guys check that out over on perfect soccer skills.com. You also can subscribe to perfect cyber skills.com/radio and listen to his path to the pro level.

Quincy Amarikwa (37:45):

Let's see. Oh man. I thought this was interesting as well to you over in the comment section I'm enjoying seeing you guys over in the comment section is participating in the comment section, sharing your thoughts, sharing your feedback and especially over on Twitter, trying to be a little bit more active on Twitter. It makes it a bit easier for me to you.

Speaker 5 (38:06):

Mmm.

Quincy Amarikwa (38:07):

Continue to engage with you guys, answer your questions, get information over to you. So please continue doing so, but yet, Hey Jalen, joining us. Well, you said you, the goat Quincy, a black King with the, with the crown loving that. Thank you very much, brother. I appreciate that. I'm looking forward to a lot of the things that we are working on here too, to bring, bring players together to better be heard and understood and, and more fairly represented. Let's see questions here. We got, as you guys got more questions, dropping them in there.

Quincy Amarikwa (39:12):

Let's see what we've got here. And we've got about 20 plus minutes, 20 couple of like 23 minutes here, left before. That's a wrap for the show. If any of you guys are trying to call in with some questions also leaving that open to some of you pros that are in the live as well too. If you guys want to hop in for two or three minutes, ask a question, share what's going on on your side of the world. Love to have you guys drop in, but while I'm waiting on any of those potential calls to come in, John Hollinger had asked examples of mentally challenging things you do deliberately to prepare yourself.

Quincy Amarikwa (39:48):

Ooh, so it's a good one. So I shared this a lot in the past that if you can't argue the counter narrative or a counter perspective to your opinion or how you feel about something, I don't believe you spent enough time thinking about it yet. So to be willing to be so adamant about sharing it with others. So I spent a lot of my time trying to tear down my own ideas, my own thoughts, my own systems because I want to be able to, I want to be able to have the ability to see the flaws in my own thinking, see the, see the hypocrisy of my own, my own philosophies, my own modes of operating yeah. Modes of operating so that I can come to a conclusion and decision if that's what I believe in. And I'm committed to I'm committed to for the longterm in terms of, I want to be able to look back just as I am able to now at where I started and know that I've made a lot of mistakes.

Quincy Amarikwa (41:07):

I didn't know everything when I started out, but I am, but my intention was in the right place. My intent was the right place and I remained committed to that intent. And I can now looking back at that acknowledge the ways in which I was wrong, acknowledged the ways in which I could be misunderstood and, and better refine my, my systems, my processes, my mean my mode of thinking and how I operate here moving forward. So sometimes knowingly, consciously miss I'm unconsciously, making it difficult on myself, tying it to what we talked about when we broke down new experiences in the beginning. And to be more specific. So I had to talk my way through it, so I could better describe it to you guys. So you can better understand where I'm coming from. So a specific hard example of how I make mentally challenged.

Quincy Amarikwa (42:07):

I make something more mentally challenging deliberately to prepare myself as I show up to a new environment, a new system, a new team, a new organization, and approach it as if I'm a rookie. And I take in all 100 of the information. So we just talked about this. There are things to be seen. You take in a hundred at the elite level, you find you're focused on the one thing. Every time I show up, I deliberately make it so that I'm taking in a hundred. I overwhelm myself. I try to consume all information all at one time, the same way in which you would, when you're, when you're showing up as a rookie. Now in the short term, you are the dumbest person in the room. You're an idiot. You don't know what's going on, but over time, I've refined my system and process to get me through from the hundred down to the 50 down to the 25 to the 10 to the one.

Quincy Amarikwa (43:02):

Yeah.

Quincy Amarikwa (43:02):

So I'm deliberately and purposely putting myself in the situation on a hundred. And I'm using the Amarikwa process. The process that I share with you guys, the three S's of self awareness and the remaining steps of the process to then quickly go from I'm can taking in all 100, I'm unbiased, as best as I possibly can be. I'm completely ignorant as to what's going on. And I'm willing to assume that I'm wrong about everything, a hundred boom through my process and system. How quickly can I crunch that data? That information compartmentalize it, categorize it, sift through it, organize it, break it down into 50. Okay, great. I'm back in again. 50, break that down, compartmentalize it. 25, break that down, compartmentalize it. 10, break that down even more one. Okay. One. That's the most important thing. So I'm going in reverse as opposed to, I believe when most people believe they know something and understand something, they've got it down to that one.

Quincy Amarikwa (44:00):

They believe they know everything. So when they go into a new environment, they immediately point to, or focus on that one thing in this brand new environment, but they may be unaware that, that one thing isn't the most important thing here. So my one thing was refining a process that gets me to the one thing as quickly as possible. And as I gained more experience with that, I can get, I can sift through everything and get to the one thing more quickly, so I can continue to go into new environments and new situations and new yeah. Experiences and take them in

Quincy Amarikwa (44:37):

With as little bias as I possibly can. Now that there's still all there is still bias in that process. The part of the process is to, to check my bias along the way, and to self reflect it, to acknowledge my bias account for them and then adjust and learn and grow. And that's my process and that's what I do. And that's how I've been doing it for years and years and years. And

Quincy Amarikwa (45:08):

Yeah.

Quincy Amarikwa (45:10):

Great question, John, because most, I haven't been able to talk through that part of the process, cause I'm not sure what I would name that quite yet. Hey, pretty much proprietary information. This is basically what these organizations come to in terms of their systems and processes, and then they brand them or they patent them and you know I believe great ideas should be shared and execution of ideas is the most difficult part of the process. I believe what I've learned in how I've learned it and how I've earned the lessons of learning. It is valuable. And I'm, I'm happy to share that with those of you who join in on the show.

Quincy Amarikwa (45:54):

Yeah. Yeah. And I don't,

Quincy Amarikwa (45:59):

I don't believe that it should be a requirement that you pay for it. I believe that if you see the value in something, you should pay for it. But it doesn't mean everyone has the currently has the money to pay for it. So there's the free financial literacy courses. What do you, so you can develop those skill sets on your own maybe start your own business, generate revenue or, or money, and then in the future when you can pay and you believe that what we I've been sharing and been teaching has been a value to you. You can compensate me in some capacity in the future. That's why on the perfect soccer platform. There's always a path to paying now, which may, which at the end of the day saves you time or you work for yourself to earn whatever it is you in search of her or wanting for free. So I think those of you who have already created a perfect soccer team membership accounts have already gone through that process where you can go through, you can pay obviously for access to our platform or you can for yourself to get access for free. So there's no excuse. And there is no

Quincy Amarikwa (47:08):

There is no barrier to entry other than the work you are, are, or are not willing to do for yourself. And that's what it should be. Cause ms is meritocracy, right?

Quincy Amarikwa (47:23):

Mmm

Quincy Amarikwa (47:26):

That's fair. That's equality. Mmm. Let's see what we got here. So we've got 10 more. Minutes.

Quincy Amarikwa (47:38):

Okay. We've got a lot of questions that have come in. Let's see what we got here. There we go. Ryan, Ryan Ryan is a perfectsoccerskills.com/loginaccount. That will give you the opportunity to take the path that you want to choose. Now, since I've updated that system, Ryan, I had not let you know about that yet. So no worries bro. But speaking about Ryan, Ryan had asked, what is your favorite move to create space for a shot on goal Peyton? My favorite, my favorite is just is just simple. The faint. So step paint. So coming across the body so that the player has to lean with you. As soon as they lean, then you come and you come from the com from outside the ball outside shot, all you need is happy yard for a shot. Think too many players are trying to create the perfect any of the perfect shot create too much space. You you're just wanting to have a separation of time to get your shot off. I think a player who's really great at doing that is a Bradley right. Phillips. If you guys you guys have a chance to make sure you go check out some of his highlight videos and watch how simple move, how simple his movements are and how quickly he can get a shot off in tight spaces.

Quincy Amarikwa (49:19):

Many of his goals aren't even in the army, in the corner or anything. And you might wonder like how is he's not even placing it in the corner, but it's getting it's being scored is because when you create that separation and get the shot off quickly players are still like in their sequence, in their typical sequence. Cause they're used to players, you know, winding up and taking time and showcasing and highlighting what they're doing and where they're going that you can catch them off guard. So he's able and capable of slotting him in the corner if he needs to, but only if he needs to Montreal impact means said, who remembers Bradley Wright-Phillips iconic belly for his 100th goal versus a belly celly celebration against DC. Yeah. I think he scored a hundred goal against D.C. United and took off his shirt and had the 100 on the back. Let's see. But yeah. [inaudible]

Quincy Amarikwa (50:34):

Yeah, no, I'm, I'm I'm loving today and I'm loving seeing everybody who's, who's joined in and, and the questions that are coming in, everybody, the questions are starting to get high level. I'm happy to see it. A lot of the, a lot of the questions I can tell that are coming in or are coming in from community members who have created themselves a perfect soccer team, membership account have been, have read the book, read the other books, watch some of our our training videos have been going through the training center, reading the articles on the website and just improving in increasing their mental, excuse me, their mental strength in their soccer IQ. I mean, we're seeing everybody spam that hard, been down there and

Speaker 8 (51:21):

Yeah,

Quincy Amarikwa (51:22):

We have not hard, but everybody let me see, let me see that that energy, keep that energy up as we round into the last five minutes of the show here.

Quincy Amarikwa (51:32):

Um Oh, there we go. John Hollinger asks When are you in Sebastian Salazar going to have a talk with and Gomez as a mediator? I need that. I need the MSL army to start spamming Hercules Gomez moment. Andrew Weibe Charlie Davies. He, what else? All these soccer talking heads who have been ignoring us for time now, pretending as though they don't see our community pretending as though they don't see our comments, our questions spewing, whatever it is that they want to spew without rebuttal, without giving anybody the opportunity to defend themselves. And I think now's the time. I think now's the time where they'll they'll listen, because I think they're realizing they haven't been listening for a long time. And that is a problem. Cause you guys know they can't stop us. Oh, Oh. I mean, they're trying to ignore us. They are, but we'll get through eventually

Speaker 8 (52:51):

We'll get through.

Quincy Amarikwa (52:54):

It's just a matter of time and it will be the results of our community. Yeah. Connor Quincy for president. Oh, get Earl on the line. Cause Connor also say get Earl on the line. I think Earl's been we'll just stop back to training with D.C. United. yo shout out Earl. He's been working his buns off to doing a lot of work. During this quarantine, especially mans is fit, dialed in focused and ready to attack the the Orlando tournament and the rest of the season. So I think they just, they had training session today was their first day of training session.

Quincy Amarikwa (53:41):

Quincy Amarikwa (53:43):

He'll join in on the live here

Quincy Amarikwa (53:47):

In the future, man. Alright,

Quincy Amarikwa (54:00):

So we got two, three minutes. Oh yeah. Earl said maybe next week. Zuri Zuri said, please answer my questions. I'm not seeing your question. Oh Zuri asks will using a row machine help with explosive speed. It can. It just depends on the type of program that you're going through and like the speed at the speed at which you're, you're doing the road machine. If you're just doing the run machine, like consistency consistently at like a low, at a low pace, I think that's more for endurance, but you can turn it up where the resistance there and do explosive explosive circuits. So like super sets. But again, it just depends on the program that you've, you've designated and set up for yourself. Sabrina asks, how do you keep up with a player when they are bigger than you? Well, you just got to break them down mentally.

Quincy Amarikwa (54:54):

Then you don't have to keep up. They have to keep up with you. And the way you learn how to break down players mentally, as you tune into the ASCA soccer pro show, every Thursday, 6:00 PM, PST 9:00 PM EST. And you download that MSL knowledge. But more importantly if you don't know, or you haven't started yet head over to perfectsoccerskills.com/sss that's the three S's of self-awareness check out that that talk I did at Bill Hamid's camp last year Letsbeanes joined on one was that episode 70 last soccer pro show and shared what his personal experience has been since listening to that to that talk. So you can get a lot out of a short duration of time. And the MSL mentality and MSL mindset is a very condensed down, highly valuable mental software update that you can utilize to extract a lot of value from, but more importantly, contribute a lot of value to the system because we're here to overdo the bill over deliver value.

Quincy Amarikwa (56:02):

Everybody leave every exchange, having given more than we received. That is the that's part of the mission here at perfect soccer, 10 million self-sufficient goal oriented, focused, disciplined individuals. And I'm happy to have you guys join in with me every single week to make that happen because you guys already know teamwork equals dream dreamwork. We've got a minute and a half year left, left, left on the live. I want to thank everybody for joining me. And especially all the pros who dropped in a said what's up show their support and their love Kane 23 Hampton and giving me the mental, the mental emoji plus the flex arms Reese puppy cups dropping them in the head to emojis increased football I'm and you had emojis. Everybody's spamming that heart button. If you guys enjoyed today's episode, let me see them. I'm in your head. Emojis.

Quincy Amarikwa (56:53):

Let me know if you love today's episode, you hated it. What you liked, what you didn't. I'm loving that everyone spam that heart button John said, teamwork equals three. Mark. We got a minute left here. I make sure to share this live directly on the feed post show. We'll be doing, I'll be doing giveaways for those of you who are leaving your comments from what you learned from today's. From today's episode in the comment section, I'll pick someone at random, send them some perfect soccer merge. So right when this is done, make sure you guys head over there leave your comment, share on your feed. Let people know what you've taken away from from today's episode. Tag me in not so reshare my, my accounts. I appreciate everybody who's joined in your feedback is what I use to better plan for future episodes topics he is and all that. And I really appreciate everybody joining in the community. So we have that said, I appreciate it. John dropping I'm in your head page 23. I'm in your head, Heather. Bye everyone. See you next week. Thank you Quincy. For the live today, I learned a lot loving that everybody stay safe and I'll see you here next week.

0 notes

wolfewire-media · 4 years

Text

Just a minor update - TEXT ONLY

Hey, just...y'know...checking in. Got a lot of new followers out of that last post, and I realized I haven't like...y'know...posted here in a long time.

SOOOOOO...journal time.

1. One Shot TF Podcast is back into swing. I have the whole file put together for the Pizza Delivery Guy story, I do...but it's MASSIVE, ringing in at just under 50 mins. That's why I'm cutting it down and posting it in chunks. Now...since I cut it down, I also realized there were some weird pops and hisses, and ....UGH... just smashed in there. So I'm going back and remastering each chunk as I go....and posting them to the Podcast first, then here, then spamming my promo buttons.

Keep updated with OSTF HERE: https://ostf.podbean.com

2. Working on The Group of Rather Unusual Blokes has been a blast, and a huge passion project for me, and something that always takes priority. I stopped posting it here because the episodes just kept getting longer and more and more indepth. Like...crazy in depth. And 30 mins long or more. So, That's a thing I really focus hard on, you know? Anyway, the production schedule for that is BONKERS, and I get out like one EP a month if I'm lucky...and it's also morphed into something EVEN BIGGER. The blokes come from a lot of different realities, and because of that, some times some origin stories get told. So, we changed it. TGRUBs is now OMNIVERSE by WolfeWire Media, and it contains ALL the stories and backstories of your favourite heroes of the multiverse (after the Avengers, I guess).

I actually just posted 2 new episodes there, one of which features the beginning of the story of The Host.

Keep updated with OMNIVERSE HERE: https://podchaser.com/OMNIVERSE

3. Doing all these projects takes almost all my free time. BUT...I do stream. Question: Do you all want me to announce my streams here? It'd be me working on stuff or playing a game because my throat is burnt out...

Keep updated with my TWITCH channel here: https://twitch.tv/ariohnsylvrwolfe

4. I'd have more time to do this stuff if I made enough money to stay at home forever and just clean house/make stuff for you guys to listen to. To that end, I have a Ko-Fi, and a Paypal donation Page. CONSIDER DONATING IF YOU LIKE MAH STUFFS?

https://ko-fi.com/JPAST https://paypal.me/jpsylvrwolfe

Alrighty guys. That's my bit and an update on where I am an' what I'm up to. Y'all have fun!

And remember

~~ONWARD TO ADVENTURE! HA HA!!!

#TGRUBs #WolfeWireMedia #JPAST #update #Podcast #OMNIVERSE

0 notes

jeroldlockettus · 5 years

Text

Why You Shouldn’t Open a Restaurant (Ep. 347 Update)

The all-star food writer Kenji López-Alt decided to open his own restaurant. Then came kitchen snafus, disastrously clogged toilets, and long days away from his young daughter. (Photo: Max Pixel)

Kenji López-Alt became a rock star of the food world by bringing science into the kitchen in a way that everyday cooks can appreciate. Then he dared to start his own restaurant — and discovered problems that even science can’t solve.

Listen and subscribe to our podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or elsewhere. Below is a transcript of the episode, edited for readability. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, see the links at the bottom of this post.

* * *

This week, we’re playing an updated Episode No. 347, “Why You Shouldn’t Open a Restaurant.” It features the best-selling food writer Kenji López-Alt, telling us about his adventures as a first-time restaurateur. And then, at the end of the original episode, you’ll hear a recent follow-up interview that’ll give you even more reasons to never, ever open a restaurant. Also, we’re bringing Freakonomics Radio Live to Philadelphia on June 6 and London on Sept. 7. For tickets, go to freakonomics.com/live. You’ll also find information on our upcoming shows in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

* * *

Some people just can’t leave well enough alone. Consider, for instance, the case of the famous food writer, the one who used the scientific method to take apart everything we know about cooking and put it back together.

Kenji LÓPEZ-ALT: If you use vodka in place of some of the water in your pie crust, you end up with a dough that is much flakier and much lighter.

He investigated whether the key ingredient in New York pizza really is the water.

LÓPEZ-ALT: So I did a full double-blind experiment where I got water — starting with perfectly distilled water and up to various levels of dissolved solids inside the water. And what we basically ended up finding was the water makes almost no difference compared to other variables in the dough.

He found that the secret to General Tso’s chicken lay in geometry.

LÓPEZ-ALT: The geometry of food is important because one of the big things is surface-area-to-volume ratio.

And he explored the relationship between meat and salt; he proved why it’s important to salt a hamburger at the last minute, on the surface of the meat:

LOPEZ-ALT: We rented a baseball pitching machine that would throw hamburgers at the wall at 45 miles per hour. You’ll see that salted hamburger kind of bounces off the wall like a rubber ball, whereas the burger that has salt only on the outside kind of splatters.

This was the man who finally brought science into the kitchen in a way that non-scientists could appreciate. It helped that his work was fun, not preachy, and delicious. We interviewed him a while back, for an episode called “Food + Science = Victory!”

LÓPEZ-ALT: I think a lot of people think of science as sort of the opposite of tradition or the opposite of natural. And really it’s not.

He had just published his first cookbook, a massive thing called The Food Lab, which went on to win a James Beard Award. His reputation and reach only grew. But then, something else beckoned. Was it opportunity — or a trap?

LÓPEZ-ALT: It’s that temptation you can’t resist.

Today on Freakonomics Radio: the food writer who flew too close to the flame.

* * *

Kenji López-Alt grew up in New York, in a family of scientists, and went off to M.I.T. to study biology. He got a little bored, maybe burnt-out, and during the summers started working in restaurant kitchens in Boston. After college, he worked in an architecture firm for a bit.

LÓPEZ-ALT: For a few months, half a year maybe.

And then back to restaurant kitchens.

LÓPEZ-ALT: My very first restaurant job was at a place called Fire and Ice. It’s a Mongolian grill, so I was a knight of the round grill. I stood in the middle of a giant cast iron grill and cooked stir-fried food for people, and flipped asparagus tips into the air and stuff.

Over the next several years, he worked in a series of higher-end restaurants in Boston.

LÓPEZ-ALT: After that, that was the end of my culinary career, or my cooking career.

He began building a career as a food writer, at Cook’s Illustrated and America’s Test Kitchen. Then, on the food site Serious Eats, he started a column called The Food Lab. He wasn’t expecting to turn into a food-writing rock star.

LÓPEZ-ALT: I absolutely wasn’t expecting it. I was a freelance writer living in a one-bedroom apartment with no windows in Brooklyn at the time.

DUBNER: Now, after doing all that and having that platform and enjoying it, what made you think it was a good idea to not only get back into the restaurant business, but open your own restaurant?

LÓPEZ-ALT: It’s always that temptation you can’t resist. It’s like, “Oh, what if I just went back and do cooking for a little while? Would I be able to do this?” So, I had a daughter. She’s 17 months old now.

DUBNER: Congratulations.

LÓPEZ-ALT: Thank you. And when she was born, my wife and I decided that she would continue to work, and I would be the at-home parent. So I’ve been a stay-at-home dad for the last 17 months. And about six months into that, I was approached by some friends of friends who owned a bar in San Mateo, near where we live. And they were interested in opening up a beer hall and they were looking for a chef partner. And so I thought this might be something fun I could do in my spare time. Which, you don’t have too much spare time with a baby on your hands, but I thought this could be something fun and this is a good opportunity, relatively low-risk. Mainly it was because my wife and I sort of longed for a place like this in San Mateo, a family-friendly, casual, upscale place. And that was the concept that they were working on. So it seemed perfect for me.

And initially I thought my involvement would be relatively minimal. I would work on some menus. I would lend my name to the menu. What was actually really surprising to me was — when I first signed on with them, I sent a short little tweet saying, “Hey, this is happening, I’m opening a restaurant,” something like that. Eater picked it up. A bunch of other publications picked it up. And then all of a sudden it became not, “Kenji López-Alt is partnering with these two guys who are opening a restaurant.” What it became was, “Kenji López-Alt is opening a restaurant.” And then I was like, “Oh man, I guess I’m really going to get sucked into this.”

DUBNER: Okay, so the restaurant is called Wursthall. So, first of all, for those who haven’t been to San Mateo, California, just give us a quick sense of the vibe of the place, and then we’ll get into the restaurant and why the choices were made to have a German beer hall with sausages.

LÓPEZ-ALT: Well, San Mateo is a city that’s basically dead center between San Francisco and Silicon Valley. My wife works at Google and she works down in Silicon Valley. We initially moved up into the city and her commute was crazy. So we’re like, “All right we’ll move down to San Mateo.” And if you look at the real estate curve: very expensive everywhere, but extremely expensive in San Francisco, extremely expensive in Silicon Valley. And in San Mateo and a couple of the surrounding cities, there’s a small dip, so we were like, “Alright, that’s where we can afford to live.” And that’s where my wife’s commute will be all right. I think there’s actually a lot of people in our situation there right now.

DUBNER: Why a German beer hall — why was that the right concept? Or why was that the concept they wanted?

LÓPEZ-ALT: Well, it’s two factors. One of them is the space itself. We’re located in a really nice, old, historic building, lots of nice light, so it seemed very conducive to this beer-hall atmosphere. The other thing is that my partner Adam Simpson, he is really into beer. And finally, beer halls are kind of just popular right now. So it seemed like a concept that worked in the space, that worked with Adam’s knowledge-base, and it seemed to be something that was hot and lacking in the San Mateo area.

So far so good, right? So for everyone out there who’s thinking, “Hey, maybe I should open a restaurant” — we asked Kenji López-Alt: “what’s the first step?”

LÓPEZ-ALT: So, the first step to opening a restaurant is, don’t. Opening a restaurant is a series of putting out fires every single day. I mean, even once you’re open, it’s still a series of putting out fires. Step one: don’t.

DUBNER: Okay. So, can you walk us through the opening process? What kind of work goes into those preparatory weeks, months, I assume?

LÓPEZ-ALT: So, the first step is, you have to have a reason for people to believe that you’re going to succeed and to give you money to do it. Because it’s not cheap to open a restaurant. And then from there it’s working with the architects and designers and doing all the build-out, which inevitably takes way more time than you expect. And for us we had this extra problem, because we’re in this really old building and the previous tenants and the landlord, they didn’t take the best care of the space.

But working back from my side, from the kitchen perspective: initially a lot of it was conceptualizing how German do we want to be? How California do we want to be? Because we knew we wanted to do both. Figuring out what the service style was going to be, and how customers are going to order. And really thinking to ourselves, “All right, when people come in here, what are they coming in to do?” Initially, when Adam and my other partner, Tyson Mao — when they were thinking of a beer hall, they thought, “Right, this is going to be essentially a bar. Some people maybe come to have a nice meal, but most will be coming to drink and have some food on the side.” And that’s what the initial menu is designed around: a selection of sausages, a couple of sandwiches, some appetizers to share.

So now he got to work creating a menu.

LÓPEZ-ALT: I had developed the initial opening menu on my own in my home kitchen before we had even hired any sort of kitchen staff. And I’m pretty methodical, so I had a recipe booklet written out, everything done in metric units, something that anybody could look at and replicate. Part of the idea was because it’s going to be relatively low-priced and high-volume, the kitchen has to be able to run itself, even without very minute oversight.

DUBNER: What about the sausage-making itself? That’s a big component. Can you just talk about how involved you were in the design and execution, and maybe experimentation, and figuring out how to not only make the sausages that you wanted, but how they were going to be prepared?

LÓPEZ-ALT: Yeah, from the start, we knew that we weren’t going to be able to make the sausages in-house, because we didn’t have the facilities. So in order to make a large volume of sausage, you need to have a dedicated refrigerated room, where you can grind and mix and stuff and everything, because if sausage mixture gets too warm while you’re forming it, it doesn’t bind properly, and your sausages end up crumbly and dry. It was literally physically impossible for us to make sausages in-house. So very early on we decided, “All right, we’re going to have to find some partners to work with who can execute our ideas at a level of quality and volume that we’re happy with.”

DUBNER: Is it an easy thing to find, someone who can handle that kind of quality and especially volume?

LÓPEZ-ALT: No. I mean the sausage part was mainly me going to every single sausage maker I could find in the Bay Area. We did want to keep it local. We visited many, many butchers and sausage makers, and there are many, many bad sausages around. Sausage-making is a non-trivial skill. You think, “Okay it’s just meat and fat, spiced, ground up, stuffed into a casing. How hard could it be?” But it’s one of these things where the minutiae of the technique can make a huge difference in the quality of the final product. It mainly comes down to the binding element, making sure that you have the right level of salt, and that the meat has been salted long enough that the proteins start to dissolve before you mix it. Making sure that you mix it right, and that you have the right ratio of fat to lean. And then also making sure that it stays chilled through the entire process.

And if any one of those things is off, your sausage doesn’t bind properly. And that’s what you find is the problem with most mediocre sausages. They could be flavored very well, they could be crazy and interesting, but if they’re not mixed properly they crumble instead of having that nice, juicy, snappy texture that I look for in a sausage. And so finding someone who can do that was hard.

There was also the consideration of creating a sausage restaurant that could be vegan-friendly.

LÓPEZ-ALT: So one of my goals from the beginning was: vegan items on the menu that aren’t vegan by omission, they’re just vegan by default, and they’re delicious. So we have a number of things like that, but the one that I was really excited about is a vegan doner kebab. And for that I worked with a company called Impossible Meats, they make a vegan ground-meat blend mostly out of wheat protein, but they add heme, which is a lot of what gives red meat its irony, bloody flavor. But it can also be derived from plant sources. It’s by far the best faux meat available. And so what we do is we spice it with Turkish spices — so cumin, urfa biber chilies, sumac.

And then we serve it as a — well, initially we were reforming it into a cylinder and doing it in front of one of those doner kebab spits that spins around, and you shave it off. But the fat in this stuff is coconut oil, and coconut oil melts at a slightly lower temperature than animal fat does, so the fat would end up melting out of it, and it would eventually just crumble off the spit. So that didn’t end up working. It would’ve been so cool if we could get that to work. Now we’re just forming it straight into hamburger-style patties, so all the flavor is there.

DUBNER: Okay, so you talked about the food and the building, etc. What about the people? How involved were you in hiring and training up the kitchen and front of house?

LÓPEZ-ALT: I was very involved in back of the house, and finding good people is by far the hardest thing. So, when you’re living in a place like New York or San Francisco, where the cost of living is so high, finding great people is very hard. Even finding remotely reliable people. Even before we opened, when we were training staff, we must have lost probably 50 percent over the course of a few weeks.

DUBNER: Wow.

LÓPEZ-ALT: Which is not abnormal. One day we’re there and two of our cooks don’t show up. What do we do? One of them was on a bender and the other one was just a no-show. But then, luckily, the restaurant down the street, all the cooks there showed up that morning and the manager said, “We’re closing, and you don’t have a job anymore.” So, suddenly we had 12 cooks just walk up to the front door saying, “Hey, can we have a job?” So there’s never really a shortage of résumés and applicants, it’s finding reliable people that’s hard. What I’ve discovered in my years as a cook — and it played out exactly as expected here — was that it’s much better to hire people who give a s—, even if they have no previous experience or skills, than to hire someone who has a great résumé who doesn’t really understand the concept.

Our No. 1 kitchen hire is this guy Erik Drobey, who is a career changer, he was in his 40’s, he worked in an office job, always loved cooking on the side, was a Food Lab follower. He stopped by my house once to give me some sausages and sauerkraut he made because he was so proud of them. And they were great, I thought they were great. And then he said, “Hey, I think I’ve decided I want to be a cook. Would you give me a shot?” I’m like, “Absolutely.” Finding people who really care. That’s the key. Because you can always teach people skills, but you can’t teach people to give a s—.

DUBNER: And what about front of the house?

LÓPEZ-ALT: Front of the house is actually probably even a little bit harder at the start, because you have to really dangle this carrot in front of them because during training and during the first month that we were doing friends and family meals, people are working and they’re getting paid, but they’re not getting the same tips that they would. And so they have to realize, “Okay, I’m putting in this work now. So in a month I’ll be making much more money.” But it’s hard to find people who are willing to think about that.

DUBNER: So shortly before opening, you tweeted — in all caps, by the way — “Opening a restaurant is insane. And I don’t know why anyone in their right mind would choose to do it.” So what’s going on in the weeks and days just before opening?

LÓPEZ-ALT: I can tell you what was in my head when that tweet went out. It was not actually related directly to the restaurant itself, it was more about its toll on my personal life, and particularly my family life and my marriage, because a restaurant is a harsh mistress. During those three months I was in there, I would wake up, take my daughter to daycare, go to the restaurant from 9:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m., go pick up my daughter from daycare, bring her home, put her to bed, and then go back to the restaurant from 8:00 p.m. until 1:00 a.m. It had been two-and-a-half months where I had been basically never at home. I saw my daughter for a few hours a day, but I basically never saw my wife.

We lost the chance to sit down and talk together. The only time I ever saw her was when we were with our daughter, so we never really had any alone time, which is very difficult when you’re raising a child, to not be able to talk to your partner, not even have the time to talk about things related to raising the child. And the worst part of it was that no matter how well you plan, and you think to yourself, “Right, this is the amount of work I’m going to have to put into this restaurant, and I’m just going to say no after that,” it’s really hard to say no when there’s 40 people whose jobs rely on you making this a success.

Finally, Wursthall was ready for its soft opening — investors, friends and family.

LÓPEZ-ALT: About 100 people, and everything was great. We had completely gutted the old bathrooms, retiled them in this beautiful blue tile, really nice wallpaper with these hand pen-and-ink-drawn animals and stuff. It was a really nice bathroom. And the first night we had 100 people in, the toilets backed up, stopped working. And we had to shut down the bathrooms. And as it turns out, the waste line leaving one of the toilets had never been repaired or replaced in probably decades and decades and had a huge sag in it. So we had to close for two weeks so that they can rip out all the tile we just put in, dig into the foundation, replace that. All of a sudden, we thought we were going to be ready to open the next week and now it’s like another two weeks and another 30 grand to fix the bathroom that we had never even considered might be a problem.

* * *

Kenji López-Alt, rock star of the food-writing world, decided after years on the sidelines to get back into the restaurant business with a place called Wursthall, in San Mateo, California, which started out as a simple concept: a German beer hall serving nouveau-ish sausages.

LÓPEZ-ALT: I was always one of these “I’d rather have influence and bring joy to people than have a lot of money” type-of-career people, you know? And if the money comes along with it, then that’s great as well. But I’d rather just be doing something I love.

DUBNER: Okay, so walk us through opening night, and I’m sure everything went exactly as it was planned, and everybody was thrilled, and it was perfect. Yes?

LÓPEZ-ALT: Well, we had a sizable number of people in there and we were cooking food, people were ordering food, tickets were coming in, we were firing it. It was a disaster. Major, major disaster. Some people were waiting over an hour for their food. Some people never got their food. It’s the kind of night where we’re like, “These problems are insurmountable, how the f— are we going to fix this?” But we decided, “All right, we’ll focus on a couple of the big problems first.” When I tell them to you, they’re going to seem like stupid, small things. It’s like, “Well, why couldn’t you just do that?”

So, one of them was that we have sausages and you get your choice of topping. One of the problems was communicating to the cooks on the line. In case you’re not aware of how restaurant kitchens work, there’s a line, which is where all the stoves are, where the counters with the little cutting boards are, it’s where the cooks, the guys and girls are actually making the food. And then there’s a station called “expo,” the expediter, and the expediter’s job is to first of all act as a liaison between the front of the house and the back of the house. But, more importantly, the expediter’s job is to coordinate everybody in the back of the house so that dishes come out at the same time, so that everyone in the back of the house knows what they’re doing. So, essentially, they’re the general managing the army back there.

On opening night, we had all the toppings back on the line, and I was expediting, and I was just calling out, saying, “All right, hot Italian with speck and cherry-pepper relish. One bratwurst with sauerkraut.” And it’s a lot of information to take in when you have a full restaurant, there’s 100 people there, and you’re cooking say, 25, 30 sausages at a time, and each one has their own designated topping. It’s a lot of information for the person on the line actually cooking it and plating it to take in. And so every single sausage had this huge delay, where they maybe go out with the wrong topping on it and we’d have to re-fire it, or they would yell out and everything is really noisy, and we can’t hear each other.

And once you have these tiny little problems, that can lead to huge, huge backups, because the customers — they don’t care what problems you have back there. Once they’re seated, they want to start ordering food. And they don’t care that you already have a full board of tickets and that the grill is completely full. They don’t care that you screwed up one order and you have to re-fire it. Those tickets are just going to keep coming and coming and coming. So you have the ticket printer machine that’s spitting out these tickets constantly, and you’re constantly struggling to try and catch up with it. And that puts more and more stress on you. So you make more mistakes, the people on the line make more mistakes. And it can be these tiny little things that add to the likelihood of making a mistake that can throw a wrench in the entire operation, and that’s essentially what happened that first night.

So, the second night, what we did was we took those toppings, we took them off the line, and put them next to the expediter’s station, next to my station, so that all they had to remember was which sausages they were cooking. They would pass the sausages to me, right before I handed it to the server, I would put the topping on. I had the ticket right in front of me, it was easy for me to read it. And that smoothed things over unbelievably so. A couple of seconds of extra work on the cook’s part, it translated from a sausage taking over an hour to get to a customer, because there was this huge backlog of tickets, to customers getting their sausages in about eight minutes.

There was another major problem they discovered only on opening night.

LÓPEZ-ALT: And it’s one that we didn’t resolve until relatively recently.

It had to do with the pretzels.

LÓPEZ-ALT: So, I’m also partner at a bakery called Backhaus and they make all of our pretzels and all of our bread. Really wonderful pretzels, but we serve them hot. So we were trying to figure out, “How do we get these pretzels that were baked that morning and delivered to us, how do we serve them hot and fresh?” And the obvious thing is, “All right, well, when someone orders a pretzel, put it in the oven, let it get hot, and then we serve it.”

This was a problem in a couple different ways: one of them was that Backhaus, they were salting their pretzels before they came to us. And what happens with pretzel salt is that it draws out moisture from the pretzels, so after eight hours or so, some of the moisture from the pretzels beads up on the surface of the pretzels and then it leaves kind of a splotchy wet marks, which is not good, and the salt is all gone. So we’re like, “Okay, so we have to salt our pretzels,” so that’s adding another layer of stuff we have to do. And the only oven that we have back on the line is next to the fry station, and the fryer is extremely busy with potatoes and we also do a chicken schnitzel sandwich. Adding pretzels on top of that to him became very difficult. So, for the early nights, we were firing pretzels to-order in the oven. And that was another one of those things that seemed like it’s a thing that takes two seconds, but it just piled onto the likelihood that we were going to screw something up.

So what was the pretzel-salting solution?

LÓPEZ-ALT: Well, we found a much more efficient way of salting them. So, one of the cooks had this idea to take a squeeze bottle, cut off the top until it was big enough that pretzel salt could flow through it. Now what we do is we just spray the pretzels and draw a line, trace the outline with the squeeze bottle, and that clears up all the space.

DUBNER: So what you just described, plainly these are things that most people eating at restaurants would never ever think about.

LÓPEZ-ALT: And they shouldn’t have to think about it.

DUBNER: But you have to think about it! But, as you’re describing it, it strikes me that you being who you are, and the way that you like to work, and the way that you do take an empirical and scientific approach to food and cooking and so on, that you were driven to solve these problems and get it right. Is that often the difference between a restaurant that works and one that doesn’t, which is that you have to be driven to constantly adjust, solve problems like that, that are going to come up? Do most restaurants really try as hard as you just described?

LÓPEZ-ALT: Most restaurants really try as hard. Any good chef cares deeply about the quality, and any good restaurant owner cares deeply about the quality of what they’re putting out. So I don’t think I’m unique in that regard at all. Me and my partners, Tyson and Adam, we have a lot of sit-down meetings where we analyze problems and try and solve them. So, maybe we do that a little bit more than other restaurants, but that’s my skill. I’ve worked for chefs that seem to have an innate skill to just be able to figure things out on the fly, or be able to work harder and faster to be able to solve those problems. People will attack those problems in different ways. But any good restaurant owner is going to recognize those problems and try and solve it in their own way.

DUBNER: I’m curious how much you pay attention to reviews of any sort. If you had opened a restaurant 10, certainly 20 years ago, there’s so much less feedback then, and now, some people feel swamped by it. Some people feel a lot of it is disingenuous. I know you said in the past that Yelp, in fact, this is from a tweet of yours: “Yelp is and has always been the worst place to look for decent reviews. Shady business practices, reviews by people who I know nothing about and have no reason to trust their opinion, even on the off chance they actually dined at the restaurant you’re rating.” So talk about that for a minute, your experience with Yelp and/or other online reviews.

LÓPEZ-ALT: So, it’s difficult to gain value from them for me.

DUBNER: You mean as a consumer or a producer?

LÓPEZ-ALT: As a consumer. To some degree, as a producer there is a little bit of value to it. But, especially if you start looking at trends and see, all right, people that are complaining, what are they complaining about? At the beginning when we opened, it was service. And that was some very legitimate feedback on that.

DUBNER: You didn’t need online reviews to know that was a problem, I gather, right?

LÓPEZ-ALT: There’s very little that I’ve read, I’ve seen in Yelp, that we didn’t already realize was a problem. As a consumer of Yelp, I find Yelp useful as a map of what restaurants are around, but it’s hard to trust opinions. A very good professional review, you don’t necessarily have to agree with the reviewer’s point of view on what is good and what’s not, but if you have an idea of what they think is good, then they tell you whether this restaurant met those expectations, and then you can sort of gauge, “All right, well, do I agree with whether that’s good or not?” And that’s what a good restaurant review will do. Whereas on Yelp, it’s like someone, BasicUser12345, says “this restaurant was terrible, the potatoes sucked.” Well, I don’t know what you define as good potatoes, so how is that helpful to me?

DUBNER: But the problem is that everybody eats, right? So everybody considers themself a legitimate critic, which, you can’t totally discount that fact, can you?

LÓPEZ-ALT: No, no you can’t. But at the end of the day, I’m involved in this project because I want to be, I want to have my name on it. I want to be proud of what we’re putting out. At some point you just have to stick to your guns and say, “This is what I believe is good. And I’m not going to change that just because some people say they disagree that it’s good.” And if your idea of what is good is so far off from what most people think is good, then maybe you’re in trouble and you’re going to go out of business. But I’m of the mind that I’d rather lose a little business and stick to what I believe is true than to just pander to everybody to try and make the most money, which is hard to explain to partners and investors. But at the end of the day, as a food writer, I think I do have a pretty good pulse of what people think is good.

DUBNER: Right. So overall on Yelp, Wursthall is doing pretty well. Averaging about three-and-a-half out of five stars. So let me read you one Yelp review and hear your response.

LÓPEZ-ALT: Ok, I honestly haven’t looked at Yelp reviews since, like, the second month after we opened, so we’ll see, all right.

DUBNER: This is from just over a month ago. This is from Andrew R. He writes, “I was really disappointed. I expected more. Not that I had high expectations. They were modest, honestly. But it fell below that bar as well. For one, the service was not that great. For two, the food just isn’t that good. It’s okay. Like, you would eat it if you were hungry. But another sausage would probably satisfy you more. And I like a split-top bun because you can grill both sides like they do here. But when it’s split only halfway down there’s a lot of bread with no meat at the bottom. And that’s terrible. Cut that bun all the way down. It’ll be better. Trust me.” So, that’s Andrew R. What does Kenji L. say?

LÓPEZ-ALT: Well, I’ll start from the end of it and work back. Believe it or not, we tested how far to cut the bun extensively before opening. And trust me when I say it’s not better to cut it too far, because the buns end up falling apart. It doesn’t stand right. That sounds all fair, I mean those seem like legitimate concerns. If I was at the restaurant, I would definitely love to talk to him and get a little more details about exactly what they were disappointed with. What is it about the sausage that you didn’t like? And to his point about sausages being not great: I fully admit sometimes, like any restaurant or any business, we have consistency issues now and then, and we work our best to make sure that those don’t happen. And every day gets better.

DUBNER: Here’s a professional review, this is Peter Lawrence Kane on SF Weekly. He writes, “The quality of the food is high, and it is consistent. The thing is, considering López-Alt’s eminently well-deserved reputation for being a demystifier of culinary techniques, Wursthall falls a little short of the gosh-wow factor longtime fans might clamor for. Maybe that’s not entirely fair. After all, it’s exactly what it claims to be.” What’s your take on that, Kenji?

LÓPEZ-ALT: So, I fully agree with that. This is again one of those things where it’s like what happened to the restaurant between the initial concept and between what customers expect. And, the initial concept was, “All right, we’re going to serve some damn good sausages. We’re going to make our own sauerkraut. It’s going to be good sauerkraut, but it’s still sausages and sauerkraut.” And there’s only so far that can go, as far as gosh-darn-wow factor. This is one of those things where the concept of the restaurant on paper turned out very different from what the restaurant is now. Once my name got attached to it and started bringing the media attention to it, it turns out people are coming there for dinner. They’re not coming there to drink. So, we started as a beer hall, but we’re not really a beer hall anymore. We’re a restaurant. And so that’s been one of the challenges since opening, coming to terms with that and realizing, “You know what? Some of the stuff we initially thought isn’t going to work, because customers are coming in with different expectations.” Any restaurant takes a while to find its legs. I think for us maybe it’s taking a little bit longer just because it was such a big shift from what we had initially planned compared to what customers perceive.

DUBNER: I see that — maybe yesterday, or within the last little while, you tweeted — a new menu item that’s starting soon. Maybe maybe it’s already started by now.

LÓPEZ-ALT: Starting today. I was at the restaurant all morning training the staff and making making sure the cooks knew how it worked.

DUBNER: So, this is tomato mayo toast with grilled corn vinaigrette and a corn soup, paprika oil and shishito peppers. So that’s not what I think of as beer-hall food. Was it the clientele who drove it primarily? In other words, were people confused when they came originally because they know your name and they think it was going to be more of a sit-down, knife-and-fork situation?

LÓPEZ-ALT: I think that’s part of it. I definitely saw comments saying, like, “I expected the menu to be a little more Kenji than what it is.” Because it’s sausages, and I don’t write that much about sausages. I don’t eat that many sausages. I like them. And we cook them well, but it doesn’t exactly scream “Kenji” or “Food Lab” or whatever. So, yes, part of this revamping process has been, “How do we make this menu more me?”

DUBNER: So from what I’ve read, you own 12 percent of the restaurant and 20 percent of anything else with these partners?

LÓPEZ-ALT: It’s something like that. That’s ballpark correct.

DUBNER: Would you have had the same share of ownership had you just acted as a sort of consulting-founding chef, as opposed to roll up your sleeves fully involved?

LÓPEZ-ALT: No. My partners are actually very understanding of the entire situation and the fact that I’ve now got more involved than I was planning on. Initially it was it was going to be basically just a fee plus a smaller percentage of ownership.

DUBNER: The big question I have then really is, so far, do you feel overall that it’s worth it? Another way of putting that is, if I came to you tomorrow, Kenji, with an idea that you liked, an idea for a restaurant, maybe a site for a restaurant, and a potentially worthwhile partnership, what do you do? Do you succumb? Or do you refrain this time?

LÓPEZ-ALT: I would say the restaurant on its own, in a bubble, detached from every other part of my life, was absolutely worth it. I don’t mind putting in hours and hours and hours of work even for little to no — I haven’t made any money off this restaurant yet, and I don’t plan on making any money for a while, until we pay off our investors. But we don’t live in a vacuum. So if someone came to me right now and asked me if I want to do this restaurant again, I would probably say no. Only because it cost me three months of being with my daughter. And that was a price that I wasn’t expecting to have to pay at the beginning, and one that made me deeply sad as it was happening, and also in retrospect. I don’t regret anything I did with the restaurant. I do regret how it affected my personal life and my family. But we learned those lessons.

DUBNER: Okay, final question. Let’s say that — maybe this is when your daughter is in school, when your daughter is in college even — but let’s say I come to you and I want you to work with me to open a new restaurant. What is the dream concept? Whether it’s cuisine or style or location. What is the restaurant that you absolutely would sacrifice again almost your entire life to do?

LÓPEZ-ALT: It would be something much smaller than Wursthall. So, we’re opening a couple more Wursthalls in the coming years, but we’ve talked about other restaurant concepts as well, and if we were to work on something together again, we would do something much smaller. The idea I’ve been throwing out at them is a Korean fried chicken sandwich place, which is a recipe that I’ve done at a number of pop-ups, I think is extremely delicious, but it’s essentially chicken brined in kimchi juice and then done Nashville hot chicken style. But instead of the Nashville hot chicken oil that goes on there, we make a sauce with Korean chili flakes and a bunch of Korean flavors, and it’s super delicious and the kind of thing that I think would do well as a fast-casual thing. That would basically be it for me. I want to feed a lot of people and make them happy. I don’t want to open an ego restaurant. I don’t want people to come to worship at the altar of Kenji López-Alt, come for this experience. I want a place that people say, “Hey, that’s a f—ing good sandwich. I’m going to have that once a week.”

We had that conversation with Kenji López-Alt back in July. And we caught up with him again a few weeks ago, for an update.

DUBNER: So first of all, I’m just curious: how is life?

LÓPEZ-ALT: Life is great now. At home I found a much better balance between restaurant and home life after that sort of craziness of opening. We’ve hired some more people in to help fill some management voids in the restaurant, which means that I get to spend a lot more time with my daughter and working on my other projects without having to freak out about what’s going on at the restaurant.

DUBNER: Did your marriage recover from the stress of opening?

LÓPEZ-ALT: Yeah it’s definitely in much better shape. And I have a much better understanding of what it means to overcommit myself to things. Yes, everything on that front is going much better.

DUBNER: Okay, and then importantly: how’s Wursthall going?

LÓPEZ-ALT: Wursthall is going well. I think the last time we talked, we were in this position where it was having a little bit of an identity crisis, because we had planned for it one way at the beginning, and then people were coming and expecting something different, and so we’ve been slowly trying to push it in that direction. And we’ll have completely transitioned our menu into a more sit-down experience, fork-and-knife, all that. But things are going well. We’ve never had trouble getting people in the door. We’ve never had trouble with revenue per se — the trouble has always been with profit. Maybe that’s true with most businesses. So, that’s been our concern for the last six months or so: all right, we’re making this money, we get people in the door — how do we actually turn that into profit so that we can actually start breaking even and making money and paying back our investors and all that?

DUBNER: So a lot of economists would say, “Well, the first and probably second and third and fourth steps toward bridging the revenue-profit gap would be very, very, very, very, simple, especially since you said that the demand is really strong. Right? You’re not having any trouble filling it, just raise prices.” So why not do that?

LÓPEZ-ALT: Well part of it is our goal is to make sure that families and neighborhood people can come in and feel good about coming in. And as it is right now, I would say among our top three complaints is price already, so part of our goal especially with these new menu changes, is how do we give people an experience that they are willing to pay a little bit more for that they still see value in? And, originally with the menu the problem was everything came on a bun. And there is a limit to what people will pay for a sandwich and what people feel comfortable paying for a sandwich. Despite the quality of the ingredients inside, despite the amount of labor that goes into all that, there’s a certain amount you can charge for a sandwich and people will not pay any more. That’s not the case with fork-and-knife plates. People see more value in a fork-and-knife plate. We do this chicken schnitzel sandwich. We could just take off the bun and serve the exact same plate and charge $4 more for it, and people wouldn’t bat an eye.

The restaurant’s original concept, you’ll recall, was German-beer-hall-goes-to-California.

LÓPEZ-ALT: It’s still a California beer hall. We still have sausages and German-themed things.

But customers who were fans of Kenji López-Alt’s food writing were expecting a menu that was more Kenji-fied. And so it has become more Kenji-fied. They’re serving a cacio e pepe …

LÓPEZ-ALT: It’s like a quick Roman version of macaroni and cheese.

But with Germanic noodles rather than Italian.

LÓPEZ-ALT: So it’s our house spaetzle that we pan fry in brown butter, which is the traditional way to do spaetzle.

Also: smash-burgers and Korean-style fried chicken.

LÓPEZ-ALT: It’s something we resisted at the beginning: should we do a burger? People know me for the burger, but do we need another place that serves a burger? And then we just decided, “Yeah, people want a burger. It’s good. People are going to order it, let’s just do it.” That and the fried chicken are probably our two top sellers. Once we got past that mental hurdle of being like, we don’t have to be strictly German, it was a pretty easy call at that point. Like, fried chicken and burgers — people love making them, they’re easy to prep, and they’ll help with this profit problem because both of them are high-profit dishes, compared to sausage, which are among are lowest-profit dishes because they take so much more work.

DUBNER: So you mentioned that one of the biggest problems is just personnel and turnover, both in the kitchen and front of the house, and I’m just curious to hear how you’re doing on that front with retention.

LÓPEZ-ALT: We have a number of people have been around since the very beginning. There was a bit of turnover when we changed executive chefs. I recently hired a new executive chef, and so when that management change happened, there was turnover. But we were expecting it because people are loyal to their bosses. But things seem to be settling down again.

DUBNER: Why did you need a new one?

LÓPEZ-ALT: It’s not that our previous chef was bad at his job. It’s just that the needs that we had in terms of efficiency and really managing the volume that we were doing was just something that he didn’t have experience at. Oh, one thing I should mention that actually really helped with our staff morale when these changes were happening is that we hired a translator, which I think is good advice for any business that has a lot of employees that aren’t very fluent in English. So we hired someone to come in for an entire day and we scheduled every Spanish-speaking employee to come in and sit down.

DUBNER: So it was really about communication to understand the flow of work and so on?

LOPEZ-ALT: No, it was less about the flow of work and more about the management change, the new chef, and the transition in menu. But a lot of it is also to get their feedback and to find out what they needed from us in order to be happy in their work.

DUBNER: Okay, really important question: how are the toilets holding up now?

LÓPEZ-ALT: Toilet situation’s fine. We put in the money to do the big fix, and it’s all it’s all fine.

DUBNER: So I understand that you’ve also, in the midst of all this, put yourself and the restaurant in the middle of a MAGA controversy. You tweeted, in response to public events in D.C., you tweeted, “It hasn’t happened yet, but if you come to my restaurant wearing a MAGA cap, you aren’t getting served. Same as if you come in wearing a swastika, white hood, or any other symbol of intolerance and hate.” So, that’s what you tweeted. What happened next?

LÓPEZ-ALT: What happened next was — well, nothing for a few days and then it got picked up by some newspapers and then went around national news. And that’s when trouble happened. It was a mistake on a number of fronts for me to say that. The first one and the one that I was really concerned about was, it was a mistake the way I treated my staff and my partners, because that’s my personal Twitter account. It was something I said off the cuff and I never talked to my partners about it. And I realized afterwards that I just put my partners and especially my staff in a really tough position. Because now there’s all this anger being directed at them, and they had nothing to do with it. It was just me shooting off my mouth.

The other thing I want to say is that people very fairly read that as an attack on individuals, and as an attack on themselves after reading it, an attack on Republicans. And I can understand why it was read that way. And all I can say is that in my head it was really not about individuals. It is about the symbol, the symbol of the hat. I very admittedly live in a liberal bubble, I live in the Bay Area. I obviously I get exposed to a lot of people from around the country, including my family. And if you go just outside the Bay Area, of course there’s lots of right-wing people, lots of Republicans. And I get along fine with everyone. But, when you see that hat at rallies where there’s hateful things being said, or you see that hat being worn by people who are doing hateful things, it comes on to take a specific meaning that makes me uncomfortable. I guess my big regret as it came out in the way that closed down discussion as opposed to opening discussion.

DUBNER: You said it caused a lot of anger. Were people in your restaurant, whether partners or employees, were they angry because it endangered their livelihood, or were they angry on a level beyond that?

LÓPEZ-ALT: To be honest I don’t really want to talk about my partners or my staff — I don’t want to bring any of that up again, because I’ve already put them in an uncomfortable position. It’s been tough. I’ve been realizing that I’m in this position where I want to have my cake and eat it too. I’m a normal guy. I feel just like any other schlub on the Internet. I spend my days doing normal-people things, puttering around the house and fixing things and repairing the furnace. And I’ll just talk the way I talk on the Internet. But then, especially in the last couple of years, I have this platform and it’s my responsibility to use it. And that’s an impulse control thing, and that’s something my wife tells me all the time, like, “You can’t do this, because whether you want it or not, you’re well-known and you can’t just talk like this, because it’s going to get us in trouble. It’s not just about getting you in trouble, it’s going to get our family in trouble.” It is something that I very consciously have been thinking about. This year, I made a New Year’s resolution that if I make any kind of political comments, that I won’t respond back to commenters.

DUBNER: How are you doing with that resolution?

LÓPEZ-ALT: Good. Actually, I’m pretty much zero in terms of responding back. I also promised I wouldn’t make any more ad hominem attacks on social media, which, the one time I broke that was when I made an ad hominem attack against everybody who wears a MAGA hat, and that got me into trouble.

Soon enough, López-Alt will be taking a break from America and its politics.

LÓPEZ-ALT: I’m actually planning with my wife and my daughter — we’re going to be taking three months in Colombia. The idea is researching a book on Colombian cuisine, written for an American audience, which doesn’t really exist right now.

DUBNER: And where does your passion for that cuisine come from?

LÓPEZ-ALT: Well my wife is Colombian, and we spend a lot of time down there and it’s a huge country, hugely varied in terms of geography and culture and cuisine — there’s the Andes, there’s coastal regions, there’s plains, there’s rainforest, there’s deserts — with widely varied cuisine as well, that I think is under-represented and I feel like I have a good inside track on that.

DUBNER: What happens if or when the next time you open a restaurant — how do you come into it thinking differently, knowing now what you know?

LÓPEZ-ALT: I take less on myself. I delegate more. I think I spend more time figuring out the personnel issue as opposed to the fun-concept issue and figure out how do we make this happen where I don’t have to upturn my life and give up everything else to do it. And if I can’t do it, then that just means I won’t do it. I’ve come to this place where — when the first restaurant — when the opportunity came to me it was like, I don’t want to die thinking, “What if? This is an opportunity to do something I’ve always thought about doing, it wasn’t a lifelong dream, but I’ve thought about doing it, I should do it.” And at this point, you know what? I don’t need to do it again. If the opportunity comes up and I can find a way to ensure that I don’t have to upend my life again to do it, then I would. But I’m perfectly content saying no.

Freakonomics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Dubner Productions. This episode was produced by Harry Huggins. Our staff also includes Alison Craiglow, Greg Rosalsky, Greg Rippin, Alvin Melathe, Zack Lapinski, and Corinne Wallace. Our theme song is “Mr. Fortune,” by the Hitchhikers; all the other music was composed by Luis Guerra. You can subscribe to Freakonomics Radio on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Here’s where you can learn more about the people and ideas in this episode:

SOURCES

J. Kenji López-Alt, chef, restauranteur, and food writer.

RESOURCES

The Food Lab by James Kenji López-Alt (W. W. Norton & Company 2015).

EXTRA

Wursthall, 310 Baldwin Ave, San Mateo, CA 94401.

“Food + Science = Victory!” (Freakonomics Radio, Nov. 5, 2015).

The post Why You Shouldn’t Open a Restaurant (Ep. 347 Update) appeared first on Freakonomics.

from Dental Care Tips http://freakonomics.com/podcast/kenji-update/

0 notes