Caster Azucar Unveiled: Greg Pryor's World of Food, Film, Storytelling

The Randal Osché Podcast: Season 1 | Episode 4

In this episode of The Randall Osché podcast, we embark on a journey through the intricate balance of creativity, productivity, and personal life. Today, I am thrilled to be joined by Greg Pryor, known as Caster Azucar, who takes us through his remarkable journey from screenwriting to the culinary arts. With passion and insight, Greg explores his love for storytelling through food content creation on platforms like Instagram and YouTube. He illustrates the symbolic significance of his moniker, shares pivotal career moments, and discusses his unwavering pursuit of contentment over happiness and impact in his work.

As our conversation unfolds, we discuss into hyper-productivity and its effects on personal relationships. Together, we confront the daunting challenge of maintaining a healthy work-life balance, especially for those whose hobbies evolve into professional endeavors. Throughout our dialogue, we underscore the importance of self-reflectionand advocate for the deliberate separation of work and personal activities. We highlight how open discussion can catalyze profound self-discovery and clarity when navigating life's complex intersections.

Don't miss out on this episode, where you'll gain invaluable insights from Greg's inspiring journey. Join us as we explore strategies for cultivating a fulfilling and balanced life amidst the demands of creativity and productivity.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Index, Podcasts Addict, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

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SHOW NOTES

• 00:00 The Journey from Novelist to Podcaster 00:12 Intro 01:01 Diving Deep with Greg Pryor: From Screenwriting to Cooking 01:31 The Self-Taught Cook: Greg Pryor's Culinary Journey 06:25 The Art of Cooking and Content Creation 15:54 Exploring the Razor Griddle and Creative Cooking 27:58 The Global Food Conversation: Quality, Accessibility, and Sustainability 33:55 Back to the Basics: The Power of Blue Zones and Minimalist Cooking 38:12 The Griddle Saga: A Tale of Too Many Cooktops 39:04 From Office Space to Creative Hub: A Misadventure 40:46 The Evolution of a Storyteller: From Novels to Content Creation 41:30 Pivotal Moments and Advice for the Younger Self 44:39 Embracing Imperfection: The Journey of Content Creation 47:34 The Art of Storytelling Through Food 49:46 Navigating the Path of Creativity and Productivity 52:04 Current Projects and Balancing Acts 53:17 The Power of Focus and Learning Languages 01:06:16 Hyper Productivity and Its Impact on Relationships 01:09:11 Reflections and Takeaways from the Conversation

Quotes from Randall

• "Done is better than perfect. You just have to do the thing."

• "There's never going to be the right time, the right moment to do the thing, to write the book, to start or travel. The stars are never going to perfectly align."

• "When you are deliberate about how you're going to spend your time, it doesn't actually take that long to move some of those big rocks that you have to move."

•  "I think my focus is on trying to get focused. I'm curious about a lot of different things and I'm ambitious about a lot of different things."

• "The gym is one of the things I always tell people you should focus on, what season are you in?"

•  "I'm trying to corral my focus. It's challenging because I'm motivated and always busy, but I don’t have the bandwidth or capacity to do everything I want to do effectively all at the same time."

• "In European Portuguese... they have a word for lunch, but also sort of a word for breakfast, which literally means 'little lunch.' It gives a different perspective on how you view that meal."

Quotes from Greg

• "You're essentially creating like a miniature environment or ecosystem for your body to live vicariously... it's just slightly less enjoyable being at the gym than maybe being out in the field."

• "I'd like to think that I'm a storyteller more than anything. It’s about finding a platform that allows me to express my creativity and also express ideas."

•  "These things are easy to do without an audience. And then as the audience grows, so does the pressure, but it equalizes faster."

• "The context is out of six or seven billion people on this planet, when you upload something, nearly not a soul is watching you."

• "Apart from the fact that it's been a very easy and very fluid conversation, I've enjoyed what the self reflection I've actually got from it."

• "Trying to balance work, especially when hobbies evolve into professional endeavors, is a daunting challenge."

• "I think the challenge for me is that I never make it simple enough... It gets really stressful."

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments!

And that's it for today's conversation here on the Randall Osché podcast. Thank you so much for joining us and we hope that you've enjoyed listening as much as we've enjoyed recording it.

Many many thanks to our guests today for sharing their knowledge, their experience and their life lessons. If you found today's conversation insightful, interesting, inspiring, please join our growing community by subscribing. Randall Osché podcast on your favorite podcast platform, and never ever miss another episode.

 We'd love to hear your feedback. So keep the community alive by sharing your takeaways from today's episode and use the hashtag Randall O'Shea podcast. Your feedback and interaction fuels our continued efforts to build a safe space for meaningful, long form conversations. So thank you so much for the support until next time, stay curious, stay inspired and keep the conversation going.

The Randall Osché Podcast - Greg Pryor (Episode 4)

[00:00:00] Greg: Before anything, I was writing books. I wrote and published a novel that was terrible. I was 17, published it when I was 21. It was awful, awful book. But I was doing that first. I'd like to think that I'm a storyteller more than anything. 

[00:00:12] AI: Hello and welcome to the Randall Osché podcast. Where we create a safe space for meaningful and thought provoking conversations. We have long form interviews with entrepreneurs, thought leaders, artists, and change makers in order to deconstruct their journeys and to pass out valuable life lessons and life changing perspectives for listeners like yourself.

[00:00:35] AI: So that you can, as Randall says, learn their lessons without their scars. So whether you're tuning in on your daily commute or during a workout or cooking dinner, we are happy to have you join us. So take a seat, relax, grab a cup of tea and join the conversation. Now let's dive into this week's episode.

Oh, you made it. 

[00:01:14] Randall: All right, Greg. Appreciate you making the time to meet with me today and have another hopefully interesting conversation. We were chatting a little bit about this before we started recording, but real name, Greg Pryor. But you're AKA Caster. Why don't you get into that as we kick it off.

[00:01:31] Greg: Okay. So that actually came from the career path I had planned before I got into cooking. So I was actually a screenwriter, not very successful. Did like one feature, which was not great. And then a couple of shorts and I'd written a screenplay called Caster Azucar. It was about a woman in Cuba she died, and her husband hotwired her brain with a PlayStation in a car battery.

[00:01:56] Greg: And the game that took over, there's a game that basically takes over her mind, and the character in that game is CasterAzucar, and it's a race to the bottom of the moral limits of this particular game. And that character does that and it all started when, basically when Obama became president and opened up relations with Cuba, it sort of killed the script.

[00:02:19] Randall: And so I was getting into cooking and I wanted it to be anonymous initially. And so I just picked a name out of one of the screenplays and CasterAzucar seemed semi relevant because it was about food. Oh, yeah. Now that makes sense to me I've put it together.

[00:02:33] Randall: So I think that brings up an interesting question for me. How did you get into cooking? How'd that start? 

[00:02:40] Greg: Well, it's sort of been a long lifetime thing. I've not really been like as intensely into it as I am now. But right about 2016, I was doing film. I was attempting to make movies isn't photography and I was cooking a what do you guys call it?

[00:02:57] Greg: A fillet steak, but like a full fillet steak and I was tired working out how to do a butcher tie. And so I looked down at the chopping board and it looked really nice. I took a photo and uploaded it to Instagram, and that's how the Instagram part started. But in terms of recipe creation and recipe invention, that's sort of been going on for as long as I can remember.

[00:03:18] Greg: My dad is the main cook of the house. Still is to this day, although now that I'm back, sort of, I've moved back to New Zealand in case. Now that I'm back, it's sort of like we're toing and froing over who does what, but dad is very good at recipe inventions. So I grew up watching him and I guess that sort of filtered down into who I am.

[00:03:40] Greg: And so creation is a, deep part of me, I think.

[00:03:43] Randall: So, self taught. 

[00:03:45] Greg: Self taught. Never been to culinary school but I don't know if I'd necessarily want to go. They draw a very, very distinct line between a cook and a chef, and some people will say I'm a chef, but I'm not. I'm a cook. I don't have the rigor required to do chefing and the way, the reproducibility of it, and making everything perfect exactly the same time.

[00:04:05] Greg: I don't think I've ever cooked the same dish twice. 

[00:04:07] Randall: Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that. I would also distinguish between the two. I mean, I started cooking in a restaurant, I think at like 17, but I'm not going to say the food was good. And there's a, there's a, there's a difference to me between being a line cook and being a chef.

[00:04:22] Randall: Like if you tell me cook a mass amount of food over a dinner rush and you will show me how to do it. I can probably execute on that, but by no means am I as competent as a chef would be right. 

[00:04:34] Greg: Yeah, but I think you'd get to a stage where you were able to reproduce things to a very, very particular standard each time, which in which case I would say you actually are a chef because I think chefing is about as like a hybrid of creativity and the ability to reproduce something perfectly every time.

[00:04:52] Randall: I would agree. The other thing too, I think about is you can be a good at home cook and sometimes good at home cooks are like, I want to open up a restaurant because I'm a good at home cook. And then you just don't understand that a restaurant is like a food factory, right?

[00:05:09] Randall: It's not about cooking one dish well, or cooking one dish well for six people at a table. It's about doing that the same way 200 times a night. Like how do you keep the mashed potatoes warm without making them terrible, right? And cooking that again, the same food and et cetera. So there's a bit of a difference between all of that. 

[00:05:29] Randall: So, self taught, have you ever cooked in a restaurant before? 

[00:05:32] Greg: No. No. 

[00:05:34] Randall: I would have definitely thought, either professionally trained, definitely professionally trained, or had at least spent time cooking in a restaurant, so good for you. 

[00:05:42] Greg: I think a lot of the things I do do, though, are impractical in terms of executing in a restaurant.

[00:05:48] Greg: I mean, I'll cook stuff and I'll use certain methods. I've had chefs comment on it before, but they'll be like, there's better ways to do that. And I'm like, I don't know. Oh, well, I don't know. But yeah. 

[00:05:57] Randall: The one video that you did comes to mind where you cooked pizzas in like the wood stove, you like retrofitted, I don't think that you could have necessarily pulled that off the same way.

[00:06:07] Greg: I mean, I absolutely, I bought a frying pan specifically for that video because it was the only one that would fit in a hole. It was a crate pan, I did buy a crate pan, absolutely nuked the handle, the paint or whatever was coated and came off. I still keep using it, but like, that poor thing didn't know what it had coming.

[00:06:25] Randall: Oh book recommendation, by the way. Have you ever heard of Pancakes in Paris? 

[00:06:29] Greg: Nope. I am going to Google it right now.

[00:06:31] Randall: Pancakes in Paris, written by Craig Carlson? Yes. Also involved in screenwriting or Hollywood in some sort of way and decided to, I guess, immigrate from America to Paris to open up a restaurant. Good read. 

[00:06:49] Greg: That's brave. 

[00:06:50] Randall: Yeah. Good read. The short of it is he really loved Paris, and when he returned home to the States, he realized that the only thing he actually missed was an American breakfast.

[00:07:01] Randall: So his dream was to have pancakes in Paris, I suppose. 

[00:07:05] Greg: But I think that works great. I mean, when I was living with a French guy for a while back in, well, here in New Zealand, like 15 years ago, and whenever he came out, the only thing he would want to eat was McDonald's. So French people are about that sort of food, you know, they'll be like, I just went to McDonald's.

[00:07:23] Randall: I love that. So screenwriting to not working, not necessarily in this order, but. Not working in a restaurant, not a professional chef, but your content would lead people to believe otherwise. And that's a compliment to you, but how did you get on that path? 

[00:07:38] Greg: Well, the screenwriting, I think I was secretly just looking for a way to be creative because all through film school, you were just making content, making, you know, making short films, using video cameras.

[00:07:49] Greg: And I wanted a way to express myself again. And I think Instagram and video, and it just sort of all came together in sort of that one unit. And so you'll often see in a lot of my videos, even in my short ones, there's a lot of sort of like fanciful stuff in there that is not really relevant to cooking.

[00:08:08] Greg: I mean, I thinkthere's the French focaccia video. And then there's a video where I learned a little bit of Portuguese so I could like recreate what it might've been like in the time when they were eating this particular dish. And so I think it was just finding a platform that would allow me to express my creativity and also express ideas because one of the other things I was looking for is a way to share information and share knowledge and share inspiration without necessarily charging people for it.

[00:08:36] Greg: So I sort of believe in the freedom of information to some extent, some limitations, but I think that Instagram at the time fit the bill really well. And then, once I got the confidence built up, YouTube was definitely the place to go. Yeah, I mean It's a great platform. 

[00:08:50] Randall: YouTube? 

[00:08:51] Greg: Yeah, YouTube. I love it. I spend most of my time on YouTube.

[00:08:54] Randall: I've migrated to spending more of my entertaining hours on YouTube. I find people like yourself, those stories more interesting, right? For various reasons. 

[00:09:04] Randall: Well first I want to say, That your voiceovers? I think it's starting to make more sense to me because I think I've like commented before that I think your voiceovers are phenomenal.

[00:09:14] Randall: They have this perfect balance between the food, the art of cooking, humor and like your own voice coming through. And I think they're exceptionally done. But now that I know screenwriting background, like that has to do something with it, right? 

[00:09:31] Greg: I think so. 

[00:09:32] Greg: Also, I think because of that, it misses a lot.

[00:09:34] Greg: Like I don't hit the audience I think I could hit. If I had if I go down the slightly more traditional route. I think there's a lot of other things in terms of the voiceover is often like far more ridiculous than the food actually is. I'm not like Max the Meat Guy or Jorts Kitchen making pizzas out of chicharron and stuff like that.

[00:09:53] Greg: I'm sort of just making normal food, but with slightly ridiculous voiceovers. I think I enjoy that part a lot. And I enjoy the pure creativity of writing a voiceover and then trying to make it relevant, sort of like square peg round hole, but it gets there in the end. 

[00:10:08] Randall: How long would you say, like on your average. 

[00:10:11] Randall: Well, I guess two questions I would be curious between the whole process like soup to nuts. Coming up with the recipe cooking the recipe and then editing and posting the video. But specifically what we were talking about the voiceover part like how much time is involved into that separately 

[00:10:28] Greg: Okay. So the whole process beginning to end on a good day, half a day. On a bad day, it takes days and days depends on what the recipe is. Cause a lot of the time, if it's like sous vide or something like that, you know, sometimes I'll stick it in there for a couple of days and often I screw things up and have to do it again.

[00:10:43] Greg: But a lot of the time we don't see that because internet and everything magic. So I'd say on average. We're looking at a day. So eight hours be like the absolute maximum I'd want to spend on a video. And then in terms of writing, well, sometimes I'll edit the video and then I'll wait for days and days and days and days.

[00:11:02] Greg: And I don't consider that active time, but then eventually a topic or a sort of like an angle for the video pops into my mind. And then usually after that, once I've got the direction, it's 30, 40 minutes maximum, I'd consider if it was like, if I spend days writing 30 seconds to a minute's worth of writing I'd say that'd be pretty unproductive. But 

[00:11:22] Randall: Yeah. I had the great idea that I wanted to make some food content and my thought process at the time was like, well, I cook every day anyways, it might not be like super fancy, but I can just be a little bit more diligent and deliberate about the recipes I want to cook.

[00:11:36] Randall: Set up my phone and record. And then I realized it's two very different things. Cooking for yourself for dinner and then trying to eat it while it's warm. And then also documenting the process is work. And is an eight hour day to do everything. And then I have just for fun, I do it now.

[00:11:55] Randall: And I still have recipes I've cooked where the content hasn't made its way anywhere because I haven't edited together. I'm not even trying to recreate what you do, I'm just trying to put, like, some clips together, right, for 30 seconds. 

[00:12:08] Greg: I think, once you've got a process, it becomes less difficult.

[00:12:13] Greg: I mean, I shot some stuff just recently, but, like, I haven't shot anything with any sort of consistency in a while. And, if you get into a rhythm where you're just, used to setting up your camera angles, and just, getting everything going, I think then, it becomes okay.

[00:12:26] Greg: But I think where the challenges for me is that I never make it simple enough. So I've got a camera and you may notice that most shots have a different angle. Most shots, I've moved the camera or I'm, going from overhead to the side and I've got one camera.

[00:12:40] Greg: I'm doing this while I'm cooking and it does get really stressful. And I don't necessarily enjoy that process. And so when I can take some time to actually just cook and not film, it's really nice. But I think if you wanted to do that, it would be just okay. This is sort of applies to anything that I'm doing, at least once you get into a rhythm of doing something consistently and you form a habit, then the creativity is still want to keep the creativity and not have like the shots they select be a routine. But like, if I can do that and get into the rhythm of just selecting new shots, every time it sort of comes a lot easier, the light.

[00:13:16] Greg: Way back, I was, before I had kids, I was producing a video like three, four times a week and you get used to that. You get to the rhythm, the stress sort of like comes to an equilibrium and then suddenly it's just okay. But now I look at it and then you're like, Oh my gosh, it seems like such a hurdle.

[00:13:33] Greg: I've got a video that I need to make, that's relatively simple. I'm going to, with the griddle that I've been using, the razor griddle, I want to cut. Piece of cork and plug up the hole and then deep fry on this griddle. Right. But for some reason I have to keep putting it off. So this is one of those things I need to get back.

[00:13:48] Greg: And I think it's like a flow state. If you can get into a flow state, like everything becomes so much easier. 

[00:13:54] Randall: I want to jump to the razor griddle, but yeah, I find the same thing as well, right? I've always worked out, but the last 93 days I've really up to the intensity, and there's a couple of things that have helped me do that.

[00:14:08] Randall: And I'm happy because I've seen the results where I'm seeing the results, but one of them is I've never for the last, I did a newsletter for like 2023. So I counted the number of years I've been like consistently working out 27, right? I would think I'd be on the cover of men's health already, right?

[00:14:26] Randall: But not quite there. So, but I, you know, reached out to a personal trainer online. He gave me a program. So I've been following the program and the program became with an Excel sheet. So I track everything in Excel where I was doing it before. I've never tracked it before.

[00:14:43] Randall: And I think that was one of the mechanisms that has helped hold me accountable. And then. You know, I don't know what, like I wanted to see more results more quickly, or he gave me a new program, but then I went from three days a week to lifting four days a week and then running two days a week.

[00:15:00] Randall: So I'm working out six days a week when I was only working out five days a week before, and now I'm doing seven days a week. And looking back with my self, that was only working out five days a week would say like, Oh, you're working out seven days a week. That's not necessary. You're like, that's too much.

[00:15:14] Randall: She was like. It's fine. It's normal. 

[00:15:16] Greg: You can do it. I mean, I had the same experience during COVID. Suddenly, you know, everyone's wearing masks. No one's on the train. When I was in London no one's on the train when I still had to go to work and I didn't get sick for a year and a half.

[00:15:27] Greg: I ran every day for a year and a half and then I got sick and now I need to get back on that bandwagon. 

[00:15:34] Randall: Yeah. I mean,I don't like to get sick and I'm certain that exercising pretty consistently helps. But yeah,it's easier to stay doing it.

[00:15:43] Randall: Like, it's easier probably to stay creating content than if you stop and then try to start again. 

[00:15:49] Greg: Inertia. 

[00:15:50] Randall: Yeah, whatever that pace is, keep the pace, you know. But you said Razor Griddle. I want to dive into Razor Griddle a little bit. Couple things talk about your creativity because like wow, I didn't know you could use a razor griddle for so many different things. So kudos to you for executing and making it entertaining simultaneously. But talk to me a little bit about how you made that sort of like your thing.

[00:16:13] Greg: Well, they actually approached me and I thought they were joking at first because I was living in London.

[00:16:18] Greg: It's an American company. So Cassie, if she happens to listen to this at some point, I'll send her the link, but she was working for an agency based out of Atlanta and she approached me and she's like, Hey, I wondered if you wanted to do some work with these griddles, I really like your content.

[00:16:33] Greg: Can you make some stuff with these griddles? And I was like, sounds great. I'd love a griddle, but I'm actually based in London. You're in the States. But you know, I would love to, but that doesn't seem feasible. And she's like, no, no, it's fine. And then they ended up sending me seven of the seven of these huge, huge griddles and yeah, they just agreed to it and basically they sort of left it to me in terms of coming up with stuff and I pushed the boundaries pretty hard right out of the gate, stressed out some of the people in the management because they invited me out to a trade show in Vegas and there's another marketing or like sort of marketing guy Luca, she was based out of the Czech Republic and I'd been liaising with him as to like what content I needed to make.

[00:17:13] Greg: And we were sitting at In N Out in Vegas. And we're just eating these burgers. It's my first ever in and out and I turned to Luca and I'm like, Hey. And and he's like, yeah. I was like, so I've got this video coming out in the next couple of days. It's the horse burger. And he's like, oh yeah, yeah.

[00:17:27] Greg: It's going to be posted. It's fine. XYZ. And you know, we're just like chatting about it real casually. And then Drew, the marketing manager, he's like, puts down his burger. He's like, sorry, what? And I was like, he's like, what did you say? I said, it's a horse burger. He's like, it's as big as a horse. No, I was like, it's actually horse.

[00:17:42] Greg: And he's like, no, we can't post that. Such, he's like, you can, you can post it on your account, but you're not posting it on ours. And so basically went through a whole list of things that I could and couldn't cook. So he was like, camel was a no, moose was a yes. So I ended up like leaning into the moose quite hard.

[00:17:58] Greg: Zebra, no. So basically there's a whole list of things that I, that I've cooked but aren't necessarily affiliated with them, but kudos to them. They've really allowed me to express my creativity and as I always say. When I'm talking about the griddle is that I see it as a blank canvas, you know, and I've been able to move these things around the world.

[00:18:16] Greg: They're like, this sounds like an ad now. It's not an ad. There's I mean, I suppose, yeah, but I've been able to move these things around the world and just cook on them and they've given me a reliable income to keep doing what I'm doing and to keep supporting a lot of the work that is completely unpaid, which is like most of the Instagram posts because.

[00:18:35] Greg: I don't take like, you know, you get sponsorship offers all the time, but if they're not really relevant to my audience, I don't feel like advertising something to your audience where they've come to watch you cook, they've come to watch things that are food related and you start advertising like hair loss supplements or something like that.

[00:18:50] Greg: I don't necessarily think that I would want to watch that. So I try to keep things as relevant as possible. So they've been my only sponsor for three, two years or something. So.

[00:18:59] Randall: I like it. One of the restaurants I worked in did have a flat top grill. And that was fun to cook on.

[00:19:05] Randall: Like, that was fun. I mean, I didn't cook as many different things on there as many different ways as you try, but you can have different sections, different temperatures. You can cook different things at the same time. You can keep things warm when other things need to be hot.

[00:19:20] Randall: Like it's, it's fun. 

[00:19:21] Greg: Yeah, that's for sure. And obviously some of the things I try to cook on the griddle are not practical. Like ribs are probably best done in a smoker or like in the oven, or maybe even over a grill with a heat is like more evenly applied. In that one case, I find that grills work, but it doesn't mean to say you can't get it done, but I think it's more a case of showing people that like, for me, the griddle is a great way for people to get accessibility to creativity and food and get people cooking.

[00:19:50] Greg: And so that's really what led me to say, yeah, okay, let's do this crazy thing. Well, even it's not that crazy now I think about it, but like getting people creative with food has always been one of the main objectives of what I'm doing and they helped me a lot. Yeah. 

[00:20:05] Randall: The other thing I think of there is, there's a quote from, I think it's actually Matthew McConaughey.

[00:20:11] Randall: I heard it from him in his book, Greenlights, but I think he said it since then. I think we can attribute it to him or maybe he's repeating it from somebody else. Nonetheless. It's that too many options make tyrants out of us all. And I think if you, if you have like all the, like,I hate kitchen gadgets and gizmos.

[00:20:30] Randall: I need two knives. I need a paring knife and I need a chef's knife. I need a cutting board and a frying pan and a baking sheet. Maybe you could do so many with that. And everything else to me is just noise. So I think. If you can reduce the noise and pare down what you actually need to cook a meal. That's going to help you instead of figuring out.

[00:20:54] Randall: Oh, I want to cook something. I need to go. You know, I'm a new cook. Perhaps I need to go stalk my. No, you just need a couple things. 

[00:21:01] Greg: I think you're 100 percent correct. I mean there's virtue in going the slightly more difficult route. And getting a better result. I mean, for me, the big bugbear is chimichurri.

[00:21:10] Greg: So when chimichurri gets into a food process, I'm just like, it's a texture thing as well as like a, flavor thing. And so I was always taught with chimichurri that you have to mince it with a knife. Spend the time mincing it with a knife. You get smaller chunks, you get bigger chunks.

[00:21:23] Greg: You end up with this really nice sort of like, Salsa, as opposed to just a homogenous green pulp. I've never owned a food processor. I've got like a whiz stick. What do you guys call them? An immersion blender? 

[00:21:36] Randall: Yeah. Immersion blender.

[00:21:36] Greg: But like, That and a sous vide. Although I don't actually have one now, because it's way back in the day, but I'm a believer in whatever the kitchen offers is what you're cooking with.

[00:21:47] Greg: So that's part of the whole, my YouTube series Airbn feast is basically getting into a kitchen that's completely foreign. You don't know what's in it. And trying to cook a meal with what's available, with what's available in food locally, and also, how are you going to get through this meal when you've got just a paring knife, or something like that, so.

[00:22:04] Randall: I think it makes you better, right? Yes. It makes you better, because you can think more creatively, and again, you don't need a ton of things, if you can make do with what you have. I like to cook. I probably started to think that way as like a poor college student where I couldn't go out and buy the things I wanted to buy, the ingredients that I wanted to buy, or like the cooking gear I wanted to buy.

[00:22:25] Randall: So it was like, Oh, whatever we have here in this rental is whatever is gonna, however, we're going to get the job done. 

[00:22:30] Greg: I feel that, man. I feel that. And I'm guessing you created some pretty fantastic meals out of that as well. I mean, for the time. I mean, Yeah, I remember back when I moved into a office building.

[00:22:41] Greg: One of my many poor decisions in life. Moved into this office building that had a kitchen, but I had no money because the office cost so much. And I was like, living in there. And so, there was this Chinese run grocery store in Auckland. And everyday I'd go in, and I'd get the cheapest cut of meat I could find, and it was usually like beef shin.

[00:22:59] Greg: Oh my goodness. Some of the meals were great. Some of the meals were absolutely horrendous. It's like a string. 

[00:23:04] Randall: Yeah. I think, I don't know if there's anything that sticks out to me. I think definitely I've cooked some good meals in Airbnbs. I spent three weeks in Europe this summer and spent time in various Airbnbs, we'll say four or five, and then say like in three or four of those Airbnbs, they all had like the same basic, Ikea special starter kit.

[00:23:29] Randall: Cause I'm curious, I'll look at the brand, like, Oh, this is nice or not nice. And like, Oh, what brand is it? Right. And then it's just a habit. And then the next Airbnb, I was like, Oh, this looks familiar. And during that three week period across, you know, Spain and Portugal and Madeira which is still, I guess, a part of Portugal.

[00:23:47] Randall: They all had the same stuff. And it, you know, it was. It's not the best, but it gets the job done, right? 

[00:23:53] Greg: What did you cook in Medeira? Cause when I went there, I found like fillet steak for the cheapest I've ever seen it. I was like, this isn't real, is it? 

[00:24:00] Randall: I don't remember what we cooked, actually. It was 

[00:24:03] Greg: ah, one of those nights. 

[00:24:04] Randall: I do remember I do remember I wasn't doing much of the cooking. The girl I was with was doing the cooking. We went to the grocery store didn't get olive oil, so while she was cooking, I was trying to roam around Funchal, I think is the town of Madeira at like 9pm in the evening, trying to, well I don't speak any Portuguese, trying to find, trying to find olive oil, and then negotiate with restaurants that happen to be open, I just need some olive oil, like, 

[00:24:33] Greg: That's committed man, that's like committed.

[00:24:35] Randall: I was so frustrated as I remember this story because, as a restaurant person, you don't go to restaurants with random requests like that if they're busy, like they got their dinner rush going on. So I wasn't going to restaurants that were busy and trying to be a jerk, but like, I don't want dinner here. I'm trying to cook dinner myself. I just need some olive oil because the grocery store is closed. So, two hosts were standing out front of this restaurant and it was empty. Nobody was there. So I was like, Hey, and they spoke good English, like good for them. So I didn't have to struggle as much.

[00:25:05] Greg: I was like, I just need some olive oil. Can I buy, I'm willing to overpay for the convenience of this. Like, no, we don't sell olive oil. I was like, just put it in a, just put it in a cup. Give me some bread and olive oil, I'll take the olive oil, you keep the bread. 

[00:25:18] Randall: But, yeah I'm always impressed though, Europe in general, compared to the states, the food, is a higher quality, less expensive, and more accessible. 

[00:25:30] Greg: Generally, I found that to be the case as well. We even noticed it from England to Europe as well.

[00:25:35] Greg: England's got, very cheap food, but it tastes, I'm sorry to end the English bit, but it tastes generally pretty bland. And then you go to Europe and everywhere, it's just like rich, red, juicy tomatoes that are just absolutely really, you know, they're just amazing.

[00:25:50] Greg: Yeah, I've had that all over Europe. Some of the French markets have just been absolutely insane. And to be honest, the best one I've experienced is, I mean, this probably sounds really biased, but there's a open air market in Latvia. It's the biggest open air market in Europe.

[00:26:04] Greg: And that place just had absolutely everything plus a entire section like just vendors selling whatever they've got and so there's these beautiful tomatoes that are growing in Latvia or like the strawberries. They're so intensely flavored that you get your strawberries And then they smell on your fingers even after washing your hands for the longest time.

[00:26:24] Greg: There's the richest sweetest strawberries we've ever had in your life. They're only little but my goodness. They're amazing. Yeah, and then conversely, going to like Costco for the first time, like last year in the States and just been like, wow, I can buy 10 steaks for this amount of money. And then they're like, oh, it's not necessarily going to be good, but yeah, it's one of those things where I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing, food accessibility.

[00:26:50] Greg: Means that the quality is slightly lower because people got to eat and if you got 350 million people to feed, you know, there's going to be some like corners cut for people to be able to eat well. If you're in a situation where you can get good food, I don't think like good food should necessarily be 

[00:27:06] Greg: expensive either. This is like whole foods I mean, I've got like, so in New Zealand, food prices have gone up rapidly over the past, couple of years and coming back was a bit of a shock. Everything's really expensive. And we've got the supermarket down the road.

[00:27:19] Greg: That's widely considered to be one of the most expensive supermarkets. And you're looking at four avocados are going to cost like in the height of the season, five US dollars. And you're like, that's nuts. It shouldn't cost that much. I mean, I know avocados are a bit of a you know, weird thing to talk about with people. So you can't have avocado toast anymore. Even like things as basic as tomatoes get super expensive, but then just down the road, you've got like a Chinese run like grocer and it's amazing. You go in there, everything's sweet, perfect, delicious, and cheap.

[00:27:50] Greg: And you're like. What are you two doing? That's one of them is just profiteering. I've got a big thing against supermarkets at the moment. We maybe don't want to go down this rabbit hole. 

[00:27:57] Randall: Maybe we do. 

[00:27:58] Randall: In July of 2022, I went to Spain and well, I was in Spain twice that year, but once in July and I was there for work.

[00:28:09] Randall: And then in the hotel restaurant where we had lunch, it was like a buffet style and then they had fruit. So I grabbed a banana, but I'll eat this later. Right. Like just a random banana. I didn't think anything of it. And then I ate the banana. I'm like, this is the best damn banana I've ever had.

[00:28:24] Randall: Like it tastes the way a banana should taste to me. The data points are connecting with the flavor. And then I had in, later that year back in Spain, I have strawberries for the first time. I'm like, these are phenomenal. These are the best tasting strawberries I've ever had. Again, the data points are connecting.

[00:28:41] Randall: It's a red fruit and it's flavorful. In the States, it tastes like water, the banana and the strawberries taste watered down versions of each of the fruit. I don't know how that happens, but it was, I was shocked and people were shocked that I was shocked. They thought I was a lunatic, like exaggerating the difference between American food and the food that you can procure in Europe.

[00:29:07] Greg: It's very real. It's a very real difference. 

[00:29:09] Randall: Significant. I think you brought up a good point that I didn't think of before of how do you feed, you know, 350 million people, if that's the number. But you know, there should still be a way where you can get good food accessible where it doesn't cost so much like a Whole Foods and a Whole Foods. I've never had that sort of reaction to any of the produce that I bought at Whole Foods. 

[00:29:30] Randall: So, however, they're still, 

[00:29:33] Greg: It's still not that good, right? 

[00:29:34] Randall: Right. Yeah. 

[00:29:34] Greg: I mean, when we're in and Whole Foods opened up for the first time there and I've never been to Whole Foods in the States and I went to Whole Foods in London and it was just like, obscenely expensive.

[00:29:44] Greg: I looked at one thing and I was like, I would spend as much on my entire shop as that one item. I think it was like salmon or something like that. And it was just crazy amounts of money, like 20 Dollars or 20 Pounds for like a fillet, like a single little shitty little piece of salmon and looking at the way supermarkets operate here as well because we have a duopoly in New Zealand.

[00:30:05] Greg: There are not enough supermarkets, so there's not enough competition to drive the prices down. I know they're a business and they've got a profit here, but they also provide a service. And I think to some extent they need to be regulated. Or at the very least have a force, a third and a fourth option to introduce more competition.

[00:30:21] Greg: As a result, people are not able to afford good food necessarily. Looking at the way something like Whole Foods operates, they sort of exist in a tier above, so they're bad for their own reasons, and it's the same thing in the UK, they've got like Waitrose as well, which also tries to elevate its stuff, so they price accordingly, and you're essentially paying for Waitrose food, but it's the same as everything else. But then there's this middle tier where things are unnecessarily expensive and they put the prices up because of inflation.

[00:30:52] Greg: But really there has been no increase in cost to them. They're just doing it because everyone else is doing it. In terms of feeding 350 million people, I think competition is good. In terms of good food, I think there needs to be more emphasis on growing and producing locally.

[00:31:06] Greg: Because one thing I've noticed is imported food invariably tastes worse than, even down to stuff like Guinness, but important food generally tastes worse. I mean, the first, one of the first things I saw when I went into a supermarket, when I moved to the UK back in 2017 was an apple from New Zealand.

[00:31:23] Greg: The mileage on the apple is obscene. Yeah. I mean, you're talking, it's gone all the way around the world when England used to be one of the biggest producers of apples and have fantastic apples as well. And then they just slowly just sort of let that industry fall to the wayside and I think there needs to be sort of support for that sort of stuff.

[00:31:41] Randall: I would agree. I think that people can do it. I think there's several reasons why I don't know what it would be necessarily. I have a couple ideas, but I want to go down those rabbit holes necessarily. But if people had more free time where they weren't like trying to constantly grind away to earn a living to pay for their health care, then perhaps they would have the opportunity to grow some vegetables in their backyard, right?

[00:32:09] Randall: Like, it can be done. And it's not like we don't have the space. If you live in a city, yes, it's going to be hard. But like, there's a lot of space in the United States where you can grow some of your own food. 

[00:32:19] Greg: I'm not sure how it would work in the States, but even if to some extent there was some sort of cooperative guaranteed good food could be, the States is like got all the climates it needs to produce basically anything.

[00:32:31] Greg: It could be a completely sustainable country. If people were prepared to just eat seasonally all the time. I mean, this implies a massive culture shift, but I don't think people who need food, people like you and me, we want food, we get food, we sort of generally buy whatever we want, but there are people who are not like that, who don't have those means, and I don't think they would care to eat you know, I think it's to some extent eating seasonally is cheapest and most effective way to do it. And so many people don't, but then there's, it's not the one solution, you know, like the States is a very specific example, but there's so many things that plague American society in terms of politics and, you know, the, weirdly the availability of land for the sort of stuff.

[00:33:12] Greg: You know, places like San Francisco is just obscene house prices, New York and all these places where people just like struggling to pay rent, you know, simply enacting a few of these ideas isn't going to fix the problem. But I think it would. start a pathway to helping it, but I'm probably dreaming.

[00:33:28] Randall: Yeah, we probably both are.

[00:33:30] AI: Let's take a quick break from today's episode.

[00:33:33] AI: If you're enjoying the conversation, please take a moment to look us up. You can find Randall on Instagram at Randall Osché, that's spelled Osché. At R A N D A L L O S C H E, and you can catch the show notes and other resources at Randallosche.Com. And now back to the episode. 

[00:33:55] Randall: One of the things that this brings up that I didn't necessarily think that I would ever be talking about, but blue zones. So I'm not super familiar with blue zones, but I do know just, a few documentaries, right? Watching them on YouTube probably. But people they all seem to fall along the same lines of latitude, if I'm not mistaken.

[00:34:16] Randall: They all have similar sorts of climates, and the people live similar sorts of lifestyles. Part of that is growing their own food, and I think that produces a couple of positive outcomes. One, they're growing their own food. But because they're growing their own food, they're getting in their steps every day.

[00:34:33] Randall: They're bending up and down. They're walking. And being mobile and doing that is good for your health. Like we said earlier, running and working out, we feel healthier, right? We have data for ourselves that back that up and the blue zones, right? Like that works. Let's do it. 

[00:34:50] Greg: Exactly. Exactly. I mean, like when you're in a situation where you live in a city and you can't necessarily do that, you can still, as we were talking about, you can still exercise and replicate the same thing, but then you also have to have the diet that comes with it. And I think a lot of the blue zones, one of the most common things between them is the slightly lower meat intake and like a high fiber, high vegetable intake. I mean, you know, you see all these like diets and stuff and they do it, diets will work for a while. And so one thing I've learned is that diets work for a little while, like, you want to gain mass.

[00:35:22] Greg: We know how to do it. You want to lose mass. You also know how to do it. And I think those blue zones sort of hit that balance quite nicely. I mean, they're not necessarily going to get me to go out and all be like ripped. They're going to be healthy for a long period of time. 

[00:35:34] Randall: You know, if you look at like Dwayne, the rock Johnson, that's not a natural body for various reasons.

[00:35:40] Randall: And I'm not a scientist and I'm not going to get into that, but he is artificial in a few different ways and so am I. It's like, I go to the gym and lift weights to build certain muscles deliberately outside of artificially creating the gym and the weights are meant to probably designed to push certain muscles from doing it out in the real world. Right. 

[00:36:03] Greg: Yeah. 

[00:36:03] Randall: Instead of working on farms, I sit at a desk all day and I work, so I don't get in my steps. If I want to look a certain way and move a certain way through the world, I have to recreate artificially living in a blue zone. 

[00:36:15] Greg: Exactly. You're essentially creating like a miniature environment or ecosystem for your body to 

[00:36:21] Greg: live vicariously, essentially, it's just slightly less enjoyable being at the gym than maybe being out in the field, but yeah, or not, depending on your circumstances or not, 

[00:36:31] Randall: And yeah, I mean, your preferences 

[00:36:33] Greg: Exactly. 

[00:36:34] Randall: So I want to get back to the razor griddles not to like harp on those, but you said they sent you seven. I imagine they're large and you've maneuvered them, like move them through the world. So, what did you do with the seven initially, and then how many of them do you have left, and how have you moved them through the world as you move through the world?

[00:36:55] Greg: Okay, so initially, they sent them to me in London, and I had a single bedroom flat with a shared garden. And they were a lot bigger than I was expecting. And so I was like, please don't send me any more. But then new models came out and they sent more. But at the time there's this four burner.

[00:37:10] Greg: I've just got a new one that arrived yesterday. But there's a four burner that is just colossal. And it says on the box, two person lift. And I was just living with my wife and she was like eight, nine months pregnant at the time. So there's no way she's helping me lift this goddamn box. Like the effort it took just on those initial seven far outweighs anything in terms of moving them throughout the world.

[00:37:30] Greg: So I shipped a four burner and a single burner over to Latvia. And that wasn't necessarily, you got a man in a van who just loads it onto the back of a truck and takes it out. And then I sent my boat. Another two griddles to New Zealand, which are the three burner and then like a hybrid one that's got a grill and a griddle on it.

[00:37:49] Greg: And moving those around, not necessarily a big problem. I was amazed that they actually like, especially the ones that went overseas, didn't rust at all. I was expecting to get to them and they were just going to be absolute dog shit, but no, they were fine. So that was very good. But in terms of like wrangling these things They're not actually as bad as I make them out to be.

[00:38:11] Greg: As you know, they're great. They're probably the, they are the most portable griddle on the market. They've got wheels, they fold down, you can wheel them around, you can take them out camping and all that sort of stuff. And so basically I was ending up in a situation where I didn't want them to ship me another seven griddles because it's just, it's expensive

[00:38:26] Greg: and I don't need seven. And so I ended up giving some away. So,a couple of 2 burners 3 burner, so I gave away 3 or 4 of them, so I think I ended up with 8. Yeah, I gave away 4, and then kept 2 in Latvia and 2 here. And it seems like,

[00:38:42] Greg: no man should have eight griddles, I don't think. And so, when I used them, part of the thing was, is that the initial seven or eight of them, I had to just shoot a video on each of them.

[00:38:51] Greg: And so I did like, video here, video there, video there, and then just slowly just started giving them all, giving them away to people. And everyone's like, you should sell them. And I was like, nah, I've already used them. You can't, it's like giving away your underwear. I don't necessarily think that's the way to do it.

[00:39:04] Randall: Yeah. You said you moved into an office building. Like what? What did we mean by move into an office building?

[00:39:10] Greg: So there was this like a car workshop, like a Mercedes workshop. And he owned the building, or his dad owned the building. And then there's office space above the building. So the second floor was like three offices, a corner office and then another office and then another office in the corner.

[00:39:27] Greg: And so I basically, the whole plan was that I was going to use it as a workspace, but also live there and then also rent it out. So my sister and my other friend Mohan ended up living in the building as well. We just had a huge amount of space and it wasn't even earning that much, but they took so long to move in that I was paying the rent for the whole building for ages.

[00:39:47] Greg: Basically ended up being a shithole. But the whole point was for it to be a creative space where I could like use it as an office as well. He ended up renting out all three rooms to other people and then putting in like Japanese paper doors in for my own bedroom, which is terrible when the lights are not connected. So people turn the lights on and there'll be like five in the morning blasting through the doors or in the door Actually in the room.

[00:40:09] Greg: Yeah, that was a bad idea. I don't recommend anyone do that. Hybridized living is not not nice. And also it leaked like crazy, it would rain and it was like it was raining inside. Ooooo. It was bad. But yeah, the whole point of that was when I was still in like film mode, I was ready to sort of like, okay, let's turn this into a creative space.

[00:40:28] Greg: We'll get a ping pong table. We'll make it like Google headquarters. I don't have Google money. So that was a bad idea. 

[00:40:34] Randall: I appreciate the the initiative and the ambition. 

[00:40:37] Greg: I think it was about a month after that I started getting into like full on, I see that my first Instagram account and started getting the show on the road with that.

[00:40:46] Randall: What do you, I mean, maybe it's this moment or something else, but from going to film school, right. To being a screenwriter to content, is that what you would consider yourself like a content creator? 

[00:40:58] Greg: I guess so. 

[00:40:59] Greg: It's one of those things where you're like, I'm not sure I want to be doing this forever.

[00:41:02] Greg: I mean, before film school, before anything, I was writing books. I wrote I wrote and published a novel that was terrible. I was 17, published it when I was 21. It was awful, awful book. But I was doing that first. I'd like to think that I'm a storyteller more than anything. 

[00:41:16] Randall: Yeah, okay. I like that. We can go with that. 

[00:41:18] Randall: I think you are a storyteller. I think your voiceovers are great and that's storytelling. You just kind of use the food as your platform to scratch that itch. 

[00:41:26] Greg: Try to. 

[00:41:27] Randall: Yeah. Along the way, right? Yeah. What would you say one of the most pivotal moments of your life or career would have been?

[00:41:36] Greg: Ooh, there's two. Probably getting into film school was one. So I'd published a novel and I wouldn't have gotten to film school if I hadn't published that novel. The person that let me in said, your book was terrible, but you wrote a book. And so I think that set me on path. And then there was an accelerator, like a pulse part way through, well, not part way through nearly at the end where I made a film with my friend Lucy when it was a feature film and it was a huge challenge, we had basically no budget.

[00:42:03] Greg: And I think that was the next step in terms of changing me internally, basically saying to me that I can do this, you know, if you can make like 80 minutes of a feature film and get it cut and done on no budget. I feel like I can do anything at that point.

[00:42:19] Greg: And so that was a big one. That was a big one. So she's gone on to do the festival short films and it's being funded by the government. The government being funded by the film commission in New Zealand. So she's doing a lot. So we co directed that film. 

[00:42:32] Greg: I went one way, got into television, I was working at Discovery Channel for a while, TV Networks in New Zealand. Still, the food thing was already there, so there was no great step, great leap with that. And Instagram wasn't even really it either, it just sort of happened to be like where two waters meet and create something different.

[00:42:49] Greg: So, I'd say that, both of them are film related, but, yeah, Entrance and Creation are probably the two. When someone opens the door for you, it's an amazing feeling. 

[00:42:58] Randall: Yeah, I can imagine. 

[00:42:59] Randall: Thinking about that, right, from your journey so far, Yeah. Looking back on it, what's some advice that you could give your younger self?

[00:43:09] Randall: We all learn along the way, right? But are there any moments in your time? You're just like, I wish this is so easy. Somebody would have just told me or that I should have known better. I would have gone further, faster, or I could have avoided this very easy hurdle that was along the way.

[00:43:26] Greg: That's a very tough question because. Where I am now, with two children and a wife, I wouldn't want to change anything that's happened. I wouldn't want to go back and change anything, because you know, butterfly effect. Who knows where I could have ended up, and I'm very happy where I am now. But if, again, if you wind back the clock to just before I got married and broke up with my ex girlfriend, I was in London, alone, yeah, there were things that I would have changed.

[00:43:50] Greg: I would have basically gone back and said when I was about 14, 15, I probably would have, and I was already interested in movies and films, and I just didn't have the confidence to, well, I mean, I did try to make a movie, but I would have just persisted longer. I didn't really dust myself off after my falls, and keep on persevering.

[00:44:09] Greg: And I think there is a way to do that. Obviously I can't do anything about it, but you know, every person I come across who is looking unsure about what they want to do, one of the things I always say is just start. Just start something. If you don't like it, you will find a way.

[00:44:23] Greg: You've got to start walking the path before you know what you want to do. No one's gonna expect you to know what you want to do and you have no life experience. It's just start experiencing things, get on the path, and then eventually, you start turning corners, opening doors, and you will find what you want to do that makes you happy.

[00:44:39] Greg: I've just gone through this in the last episode of YouTube, but not necessarily happy, but content. I think content is the first target anyone should be aiming for. Yeah. You don't have to stay content, you know, but like, good mile markers. 

[00:44:53] Randall: Yeah, I would agree. I think there's never going to be the right time, the right moment to do the thing, to write the book, to start or travel or whatever, the stars are never going to perfectly align.

[00:45:03] Randall: You just have to do the thing right for this podcast, for instance, I had the idea to do this in the summer of last year, we've recorded a few episodes and, you know, persistent, I'm not consistent, but, we're getting there, right? 

[00:45:18] Greg: All it takes is one episode for it to really kick off.

[00:45:21] Randall: Well, yeah. I just published episode one. That was recorded maybe in July of 2023. But if I waited for that episode to be perfect, which it isn't perfect, it's referred to be perfect. I would have had to re recorded the conversation multiple times. But now I know, like now that that work product is out there, it's completed.

[00:45:39] Randall: It's as good as it's going to get published. I now have informed myself of what I need to do better for this podcast and podcast to come. 

[00:45:49] Greg: Do you know Peter McKinnon on YouTube? He's got the saying, I'm not sure if it's his saying, we'll attribute it to him, but he says Done is better than perfect.

[00:45:57] Greg: I always get this quote wrong, but Voltaire had said something like not allowing perfect become the enemy of good, something to that extent. 

[00:46:05] Greg: I like that. 

[00:46:06] Randall: Yeah, there's never going to be the ideal moment, the work product, you can always get better at doing the thing, however good you are and a lot of peoplemyself included, like formerly, now I know enough that to get it out there, right?

[00:46:19] Randall: You got to do the thing, you got to publish it. And I think it's also cool. One of the reasons with the first guest we talked about sort of like dancing around. Is it good enough to put it out there in the world? Like we're just going to put it out there. But. I also want it to be like, to look back on it.

[00:46:36] Randall: And I want to show people and illustrate to them, this is where I started. And hopefully where I started isn't where I land with this. And I hope to show improvement over time with. How I conversate, how, the reductions of ahs, ums, and likes that I use, I don't know how I've been doing so far.

[00:46:56] Greg: I think it's pretty good. Yeah. 

[00:46:58] Greg: Like, the thing is, I think ahs, ums, and likes are, kind of natural. I mean, it's approachable and people talk like that in normal day to day life anyway. And you're a good conversationalist. We've talked on Instagram, but we've never actually met until now. We're talking famously.

[00:47:14] Randall: Yeah, I would think so too. Appreciate that. So, I think you alluded to this a little bit with your last response, but not necessarily happiness. I know like content should be achievable, right? A target. And then, I think happiness looks differently for different people. And I would say this looks differently for different people as well.

[00:47:34] Randall: But what do you want to accomplish with your storytelling, if you have sort of a direction in mind right now? And does that coincide with, what success looks like for you? 

[00:47:44] Greg: What do I want to accomplish? That's a really tough question. 

[00:47:47] Greg: There is no overarching story with the food content that I make. And I'm going to be real. Each individual video is an expression of what I'm feeling in the moment. The tonal shifts in them, in those videos are wildly different. Some days I'm low on energy, some days I'm not. The direction is directionless. It is a pure expression. Of emotion through the lens of food. And that's basically it. I've just finished a novel. Another novel. It's a horror novel. It's got nothing to do with, well, some little bits have to do with food.

[00:48:17] Greg: But in general, I want to slowly convert my short one minute storytelling escapades into longer and longer formats because there's a lot going on in my brain that I need to unload. If people find that entertaining, great. If they don't, I'm still going to do it. It's just. It's something that happens.

[00:48:35] Greg: So in terms of like compartmentalized things like Instagram, that's an Instagram at this point is an outlet and occasionally some advertising for Rice Griddle. YouTube is a expansion of that outlet, but heading more in the direction of where I want to be in terms of storytelling. And food is a really relatable thing that people can get behind and people can enjoy.

[00:48:59] Greg: And if I can use that to express ideas, express information, inform people and encourage people and motivate people to get in and cook or just try the thing, then I feel like that is what success is for me. If I can impact in a positive way and see people trying stuff, more people trying stuff and, actually like getting in and doing the thing, then I would consider that success.

[00:49:24] Greg: I mean, there's no way of tracking that metric, 

[00:49:26] Randall: Right, right, right, right. 

[00:49:28] Greg: My followers may grow, but there's no way of actually seeing, well, there probably is, but there's no way for me to see how the impact has been on other people. But if there has been one, great. And maybe people will tell me that. 

[00:49:41] Greg: Who knows?

[00:49:41] Randall: Yeah, I like that. I like how you seamlessly tied those two together. Well done by you. 

[00:49:46] Randall: If someone listens to this or someone sees your content is impressed or inspired and they want to try to do what you're doing in their own way, right? Specifically storytelling or creating like the food content. 

[00:50:00] Randall: What's your number one piece of advice that you would give them to get over that inertia? 

[00:50:05] Greg: Nobody is watching you, at least at the start. Nobody. These things are easy to do without an audience. And then as the audience grows, so does the pressure, but it equalizes faster.

[00:50:17] Greg: If you were to go straight from zero to 100, 000 followers on YouTube or Instagram, it's going to feel very daunting. But just remember at the start, and probably for quite a while, nobody is watching you. And I think that is a really liberating way to look at it because it'll allow you to express yourself the way you want to express yourself without worrying what people think about you.

[00:50:38] Greg: And it's a long way of saying. Don't care what people think, it's very easy to just say that. So you need to contextualize it. And the context is out of six or 7 billion people on this planet, and you upload something nearly not a soul is watching you. 

[00:50:51] Randall: Have you ever heard of the spotlight effect?

[00:50:53] Greg: No, I forgot. 

[00:50:55] Randall: So. Spotlight effect is like you said, you're not that important. Nobody cares. Nobody's following you. Nobody cares who you are. And the spotlight effect is basically, you know, when we go into like a crowded bar by ourselves and we feel like this pressure, like all eyes are on us.

[00:51:11] Randall: Nobody gives a shit. You just walked into the bar by yourself. Like nobody, you're not, you're not that important. And especially if you're putting something out online, you know, like I always joke that, if there's a like, it's probably coming from my mom or my family at first and like maybe that will grow from there.

[00:51:27] Randall: But yeah, you gotta start somewhere and then, you know, you can't certainly let perfection get in the way of doing that. 

[00:51:35] Greg: A hundred percent. That spotlight effect, it's a hundred percent correct. It's almost like when you do something that you perceive to be embarrassing in a social situation, you're like, they probably bought home and talked about that.

[00:51:45] Greg: Nah, man, they don't care. 

[00:51:47] Randall: Yeah, yeah, no, you're not that important.

[00:51:49] Greg: Yeah, exactly. I mean, also if they did, like why are they wasting time? There's two types of people, people who talk about people and people who talk about ideas, right? 

[00:51:57] Randall: Yeah, I like that. 

[00:51:58] Greg: Does it really matter for the people who talk about people?

[00:52:00] Greg: Necessarily. This ain't TMZ. Life is not that. 

[00:52:03] Randall: Yeah, exactly. 

[00:52:04] Randall: As we try to wrap this up and bring it in, what are you working on right now? Like, what's most important to you right now? 

[00:52:11] Greg: Okay, so, that changes quite rapidly, but I've got open at the moment on my DaVinci Resolve Ambient Feast Estonia.

[00:52:18] Greg: So that's the next step. We drove through Estonia on the way back to Latvia after the Finnish episode, which I released the other day. So that's on my mind, on my agenda, as well as doing an edit of the novel, which is called Birch. Maybe I'll get an agent. Maybe it'll get published. Maybe it won't, but it's been fun writing it.

[00:52:36] Greg: And I suppose just like keeping up the flow of content creation and storytelling on Instagram. So those are the three things that are occupying the most of my work time. What's occupying the most of my time is children. It's simultaneously fun and horrifying, but yeah. 

[00:52:52] Randall: And if people want to check out your social handles or follow you or check out the Airbnb feasts, where can they find you at?

[00:53:00] Greg: @CasterAzucar on everything. People have told me to change that name. Many, many times, but this is just like a minute now to the end. 

[00:53:10] Randall: Just go with it. 

[00:53:11] Greg: We've just gone through this whole thing. What about you? What are you focusing on? 

[00:53:14] Randall: Good question.

[00:53:16] Randall: Thanks for asking. I think my focus is on trying to get focused. I would say, 

[00:53:22] Greg: The gym is helping that. The gym and the exercise. You find it channels your focus more? Because it does it when I do it. 

[00:53:29] Randall: I get my best ideas when I'm on a run or when I remove myself from like the actual work.

[00:53:35] Randall: Part of what I do is you know, I consult or coach people professionally and I will leave those meetings, take my notes, leave my desk for the day and then I'll go on a run and be like, Oh, they should do this. Like they're not doing this. You know, I had the thought the other day when I went for a run, I left the meeting, go for a run.

[00:53:53] Randall: And then I'm just, you know, just not even like it's just in my subconscious. I'm not actively stressing about this or anything, but I'm like, Oh, these people are always concerned about the immediate things that need done at hand. I was like, they need to have a strategic meeting once a week to make sure they're keeping their eye on the prize and not getting distracted by these things.

[00:54:11] Randall: And that was. I thought that I had while on a run. So then come back, write it in the notebook, present it in the next meeting of this is an idea I had. This is what I think you're missing. And this is how I think it can improve what you're doing. The gym is one of the things I always tell people you should focus on, what season are you in?

[00:54:30] Randall: Right. So. Because you can only have so many like front burner and back burner activities going on before you start to start burning shit. So my challenge is I'm curious about a lot of different things and I'm ambitious about a lot of different things and I know it's not in my best interest to pursue all of them all at the same time, but I have a hard time.

[00:54:52] Randall: We're trying to say, no, I don't like, I want to do a podcast, but I also want to have visible abs by summer. So that means I'm working out three hours a day. Right? Like, I also want to learn Portuguese and I'm tired of my Portuguese tutor. I think it's tired of me not putting enough effort into learning Portuguese. 

[00:55:11] Greg: Are you on Duolingo? 

[00:55:12] Randall: So no, I use the app called Drops. 

[00:55:15] Greg: Okay. 

[00:55:15] Randall: Because Duolingo only has, most of the popular apps only have Brazilian Portuguese. 

[00:55:21] Greg: Ah, it's not the same. 

[00:55:23] Greg: Because I'm on it for Spanish, because my Spanish is like semi functional. Whenever I talk to people who are from Spain, they're like, What are you saying?

[00:55:31] Greg: Even people from Argentina, well, it's a way of speaking Mexican, man. 

[00:55:35] Randall: Yeah. The challenge too, is like with Portuguese, probably with any language, it's like you learn it one way. Maybe speak it slowly. Maybe that's part of what I mean, but then in Portugal, like everything just sounds like a run on sentence to me.

[00:55:52] Greg: I used to do QC at Discovery Channel and they'd have these advertisements that would come in and they would be in Portuguese first and then you listen to the audio track after audio track. So it'd be Portuguese, Bulgarian, Russian and Polish. And maybe Dutch. You could hear the Dutch because it sounds like Dutch and then the three other ones would sound to my untrained ear like pretty alike.

[00:56:15] Greg: But then also there'd be these times where Portuguese would sound like Russian. And I was just like, you know, like they, they, they're just so monotone. I'm like, this is all the, all these like strange noises. 

[00:56:26] Randall: Agreed. 

[00:56:26] Greg: I'm used to it now. It was like Latvian. I've been learning Latvian and Latvian's got a lot of odd noises as well.

[00:56:31] Greg: It's very, very unique language, you know, 33 letters in the alphabet and basically nothing to do with Russian. And then just all these very strange noises. It's difficult. It's really hard for my dumb ass English speaking mouth. 

[00:56:43] Randall: One of the benefits of growing up in the States is no one really gives a shit about learning a second language, so it's easier to learn, say, probably a third or fourth language if you've learned a second, and I've never invested. One, it's never been a focus of the education system here, and therefore I never focused on doing it until I became an adult and learned things about the world, everybody else outside of the United States speaks multiple languages and that's normal to them, but here we are.

[00:57:13] Greg: Well, I mean, Europe, maybe. 

[00:57:15] Randall: Oh, Europe, yeah, that's true, that's true. 

[00:57:17] Greg: Maybe not like you know, Europe, Africa, and Turkey speak multiple languages. And maybe parts of South America, but I had the challenge of conversing with my in laws because they didn't speak English and I, at the time, I didn't speak any Latvian.

[00:57:29] Greg: So that was like, I think it really stretches your brain into doing things that it's not used to. I think it's good, especially as I get older, I just turned 35. And I'm just like, I'm losing my hair,I'm getting all calcified. I'm just like, oh my god.

[00:57:44] Randall: I think as I learn it, I'm intrigued by the idea that learning the language, I always think it's like a one to one. Like this word means that word, but it doesn't work that way. And I find that super intriguing because in European Portuguese, I'm not going to try to pronounce the words here.

[00:58:02] Randall: Can I get them wrong? They have a word for lunch, but they also have like sort of a word for breakfast, but that word or combined words means little lunch. So they don't have a breakfast. It means little lunch, if you translate it literally, literal translation means like little lunch, and too late in the podcast to get into the obesity problem in the United States, but perhaps, perhaps referring to breakfast as the little lunch would go a long way with, yeah.

[00:58:32] Randall: Trying to solve that problem. 

[00:58:33] Greg: Not having, not having a pancake stack for breakfast. 

[00:58:35] Randall: Right, right, right, right, right. 

[00:58:37] Greg: I mean, Latvians got this other strange thing. I'm going on now, but like, so you got fingers. We got fingers and I'm not going to pull up my feet, but we got toes, right? So in Latvia, they've got fingers and they've got leg fingers.

[00:58:48] Greg: So it's pierced, and then for the leg fingers, kaya is pierced. And this is like the first time my wife said to me, Oh, you know, what about your leg fingers? What are you talking about? 

[00:58:58] Randall: Put that in your novel. 

[00:59:00] Greg: I just like the strangest look, right? Like imagine your thumb where your big toe is, and they're all that long.

[00:59:05] Greg: Crazy. 

[00:59:06] Randall: Yeah. No, I really appreciate the process of learning it because it gives you a different way of looking at the world and you know, I think it also helps inform me of you know, I genuinely believe if people would call breakfast little lunch, there would be different habits around what breakfast is. 

[00:59:25] Greg: I mean, even if we break down the English word breakfast, you're essentially breaking a fast. Yeah. That's all it has to be. 

[00:59:31] Randall: Yeah. Not, you know, stack of pancakes. Sausage eggs. 

[00:59:35] Greg: It does sound good. Let's not kid ourselves. 

[00:59:37] Randall: It's fantastic. But should it be an everyday thing? 

[00:59:40] Greg: Probably not. 

[00:59:40] Greg: A weekend thing after a hangover that's like an appropriate time. 

[00:59:44] Randall: Yeah. So I guess, my focus is, trying to corral my focus. 

[00:59:48] Greg: Have you tried yerba mate? The Argentinian tea.

[00:59:51] Greg: That shit is like legal crack cocaine. Give it a go. Like, any time I want to focus, you know, a couple of rounds of that, and I am like laser focused on whatever I'm doing. It's caffeine, but it's like, different, different caffeine. You don't want to rely on it either. Like, having the motivation to do it yourself is a good feeling, right?

[01:00:09] Randall: What I mean by focus is like, I'm motivated and I'm always busy, but I don't have the bandwidth or capacity to do everything I want to do effectively all at the same time, right? Because I'm spending three hours a day, not every day, but like sometimes I do spend three hours in the gym. Like I walk for an hour, I lift weights for an hour and a half, that takes a while.

[01:00:30] Randall: Days that I run, that's maybe just an hour out of my day. So like that's a focus, I'm trying to learn Portuguese, that's another hour. At least that I should be devoting to that plus working, plus trying to have a podcast. And it's just, 

[01:00:44] Greg: Where do you find the time, right? 

[01:00:45] Randall: Yeah. I'm running out of hours in the day and 

[01:00:48] Greg: 40 hour work week, man. Do you work for yourself or do you work for a company for myself and you stick to the 40 hour work week for your main source of income? 

[01:00:56] Randall: Yeah. 

[01:00:56] Greg: If I was in your situation, I mean, you probably already are, but I'd be going, you know, it sounds like you're in a lot of meetings, so that does just take time naturally, but wherever I can, I'm just like, how can I make this faster?

[01:01:06] Randall: Same, or delegate. 

[01:01:07] Greg: Delegation is big! 

[01:01:09] Randall: I'm not a big Facebooker, butI'm missing out on something here. So I joined a couple groups on Facebook that were relevant to, what I'm trying to do, and one of the groups was virtual assistants or something like that and I was like, okay, sounds interesting.

[01:01:23] Randall: I could probably use this. I'm going to join. We'll see what happens over time. And I'm not like reading comments or anything like that. I'm just sort of having it there to make sure I don't forget that it exists. And then because of the podcast, I published the first episode, and I was like, a lot went into that that I didn't necessarily anticipate, and it's something that somebody else can probably do for me, and I can just proof it and be like, yeah, go ahead, upload it, upload the episode, and that takes that off of my plate, like, I want to stick to what I would call my high value activities, is having a conversation for a hundred, but need an hour and twenty seven minutes, right?

[01:02:00] Randall: But that's my high value activity. And if I can outsource the, editing and uploading it and writing the description and doing the thumbnail, then that creates efficiency for me to delegate that to somebody, but getting back to like not having the time to do that, I posted the job description of what I need somebody to do, like administrative things, and then a bunch of podcasts related things specifically.

[01:02:26] Randall: I posted that to the group. I got what seems like a lot of like legitimate interest and resumes. Like I got them. It was either Sunday night or Monday. I haven't looked at them, like I haven't had time, like I was like, Oh, by sure, Wednesday afternoon, I'm going to have time to get back to everybody that inquired, and it's Friday afternoon for me here, and I have not even thought about doing it.

[01:02:49] Randall: So, I think it's just a matter of getting things off my plate, somehow. 

[01:02:53] Greg: Do you procrastinate with other work? So, I procrastinate with something that have to do with other work I have to do. 

[01:02:58] Randall: No, not necessarily. Well, yes. Yeah, I guess that's a form of procrastination. I talk about, you can be busy or productive.

[01:03:05] Randall: Being busy isn't necessarily doing the things that are gonna help you be productive and get the right things done at the right time. I try to be mindful of, If, does this thing need done now or should I be doing something else? But yeah, I guess that is a form of procrastination and guilty.

[01:03:21] Greg: I'll be needing to edit a video and I'll start writing my book. But I need to edit the video, but I want to start writing my book. But then when I have to write the book. And yeah, I just can't be bothered if someone frames it as work, it's all over. 

[01:03:34] Randall: One of the things I started to do, I was doing this pretty consistently, is I would set timers for myself, right?

[01:03:40] Randall: I would sit down like, okay, this is my to do list. This is the highest priority item. Maybe like five after five minutes past noon. So I'm going to give myself 55 minutes to focus on this one thing. And I'm going to put my phone upside down. I'm going to put it on do not disturb.

[01:03:56] Randall: I'm just going to focus on this. If anybody else out there struggles, it works marvelously. When you are deliberate about how you're going to spend your time, it doesn't actually take that long to move some of those big rocks that you have to move. It just requires a little bit more diligence and focus and setting the timer.

[01:04:13] Randall: Identifying the task, setting a timer helps me get through the things. But you know, I think for me, my biggest problem is really distinguishing between what is my focus now and what things can I get to later, because I want to do everything now. Like I want to, I really enjoy the podcast.

[01:04:30] Randall: I want to spend all my time on that. Can't do that. I also want to work out all the time. Like can't do that. I also want to try to learn Portuguese, okay. And then I have to try to make money. Well, like, 

[01:04:41] Greg: Yeah, I mean, I'm in that situation as well. Cause I know I have to scale up what I'm doing in order to have sustainable lifestyle.

[01:04:47] Greg: Cause I need to start doing like product photography, product videography, and sort of got things underway with that. But like. Getting the order sorted and then, you know, prioritize. Like prioritizing is such a huge step in becoming productive. Like figuring out what you need to do and when is like, that's half the battle I've found.

[01:05:04] Randall: Yeah. Agreed. Prioritize and execute. 

[01:05:06] Greg: Yeah, exactly. I mean, just, like you say, you said a 55 minute time. If I've got like an hour to do something, I used to look at it and be like, sweet. I can cram in and edit. I can do this. I can do that. But these days it seems to just I don't know if it's having kids or what, but the wind up into work mode takes like an hour.

[01:05:22] Greg: So I'm usually like, unless it's like a minimum two hour period, I'm not bothering. 

[01:05:26] Randall: I've heard like some guy on YouTube said like he had like a five minute rule, and if he ever had five minutes of time to kill, he would spend it doing something productively.

[01:05:37] Randall: He would get out his to do list. I find that helps too, not that I would like, adhere to that five minute rule, but sometimes if I only have like a twenty minute window or a fifteen minute window between meetings or something, I'll pull out my to do list and be like, which of these items isn't an edit where it's gonna require focus.

[01:05:53] Randall: Like, you know, I have to make a hotel reservation. I can make a hotel reservation in 15 minutes, right? I have to respond to these emails. I can probably respond to these emails within like that 15 minute window. Instead of saying, well, you know, it's only five minutes. It's only 10 minutes. I'm just going to scroll on Instagram mindlessly.

[01:06:11] Greg: Are you a single or are you like in a partnership at the moment.

[01:06:15] Randall: Single.

[01:06:16] Greg: Single, I wonder how hyper productivity affects your relationships as I know it's affected mine. 

[01:06:21] Randall: Oh, all right. Do tell. 

[01:06:23] Greg: Any waking second I can find work to do. There's always stuff for me to do, but I have in the past had trouble reining that in, especially when I'm, I've always been in relationships.

[01:06:34] Greg: So reining it into a point where like, I actually. The first thing when I've got free time now, I'm better at now isn't necessarily, I should be working because I do find it like, you know, work does punish your personal life quite a lot. Andthere are situations, even on relationships, there are situations where, you know, it's the weekend and I can find time, I can be like, I can work all weekend, this is fine.

[01:06:57] Greg: But then it comes at the detriment of your intimate relationships, your friendship relationships, all your relationships just can get punished by hyper productivity, I've found. So nowmy life is about finding that balance between, you know, personal life and private life and clearly delineating work and personal life because in the past they just slowly mushed into one, especially with stuff like the YouTube series, the Air B'n'Feast.

[01:07:23] Greg: We were going away on holiday and I'm like filming and this and that. And sometimes you just want to just like, do you mind if I swear? 

[01:07:29] Randall: Yeah. No, go ahead. 

[01:07:30] Greg: Turn that fucking camera off, you know, we just have like a normal holiday for once. And, it's sort of trying to scale back a little bit and especially kids, it's just not feasible, but like sometimes there's, sometimes it isn't, there's a time and place for everything.

[01:07:43] Randall: Yeah. I like the, I like, I don't like the idea of hyper productivity, but at least I have a name for it now. I don't think it necessarily has impacted. This is like a hobby, right? People have hobbies, people play golf. I'm not good at golf. I don't want to try to play golf.

[01:07:59] Randall: I'd rather try to figure out how to have a podcast. That's what fires me up. Like 

[01:08:03] Greg: When does the hobby become work? I just started as a hobby for me as well. You know, when you're good at something, it naturally sort of moves in the path of like. 

[01:08:10] Randall: I guess that would be ideal for me if I could spend my days getting paid to have conversations with interesting people doing interesting things.

[01:08:19] Randall: I mean, that's not my intention for the podcast necessarily, like I just want to have interesting people, like interesting conversations with interesting people, learn from them myself, broaden my horizons and hopefully put it out there in the world to do the same thing for other people. But if this ever gets to the point where this hobby becomes work.

[01:08:36] Randall: Sign me up for that. 

[01:08:37] Greg: I guess it's the same for me as well. While I was in London I was still having to work at Discovery Channel. The minute it becomes, I guess I had not had the feeling of being fully self employed though, like you have. I think that would be like dropping me into an ocean and being like, it's all yours.

[01:08:52] Greg: It's just going freaking nuts. Yeah. So I guess I'm going to like. I don't know. I have to figure it out. We'll see. See what the next months bring me. 

[01:08:59] Randall: Yeah. It's a journey, right? The journey. 

[01:09:02] Randall: As we wrap up this hour long podcast, you got any final thoughts, questions, or takeaways that you want to put out there for, for the universe?

[01:09:11] Greg: I have enjoyed this conversation in the sense that apart from the fact that it's been a very easy and very fluid conversation, I've enjoyed what the self reflection I've actually got from it. I don't know if that's what you were intending for this, but I've learned some stuff today about myself. And looking at the way that you operate compared to the way that I operate, I think I don't do enough self reflecting to know what is necessarily right for me.

[01:09:31] Greg: Maybe I just need to get out of my head a little bit, because now that you've asked the questions and now that I've said them out loud, they're down there now. And I feel like I can use this as a reference point. So this has been really, really liberating. The things we talked about stuff,it's well out of my wheelhouse.

[01:09:46] Greg: And I think that, all that talk about focus, suddenly like scattering the focus slightly and sort of seeing the lay of the land has been really, really good. 

[01:09:54] Greg: I thank you for that. 

[01:09:55] Randall: Not my intention, but happy to have that as an unintended consequence. 

[01:09:59] Randall: 

[01:09:59] Greg: Maybe that is the theme.

[01:10:00] Greg: I mean, you said you didn't want small talk and I don't think it has been. 

[01:10:04] Randall: Well, I appreciate you making the time, Greg. Is it Azucar? Is that how you say it? 

[01:10:08] Greg: Azucar, I guess so. Spanish, but like, yeah, I dunno. However people wanna say it.

[01:10:13] Greg: Spanish people say it correctly. Maybe not. 

[01:10:16] Randall: Oh, I might not know, I might not pronounce it correctly, but it will be in the show notes so people can find it there. 

[01:10:21] Greg: Hell yeah. 

[01:10:22] Randall: Boom. Well, Greg, we'll wrap it up there. I appreciate you making the time. I also really enjoyed the conversation today. 

[01:10:29] Greg: I appreciate it too. Thanks very much for having me. 

[01:10:31] Randall: You're welcome. 

[01:10:32] AI: And that's it for today's conversation here on the Randall O'Shea podcast. Thank you so much for joining us and we hope that you've enjoyed listening as much as we've enjoyed recording it.

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