Editor’s note: This article was first published in July 2013; its description of the best sushi restaurant in the world and Jiro’s plans to keep working reflect that time, and Sukiyabashi Jiro’s status, such as its Michelin listing, has changed since.
Imagine getting up every day at 4 a.m., taking the subway to open your restaurant and spending the whole day meticulously preparing the same dish for your customers. Then you clean the place and take the subway back home to sleep. Now imagine you’ve been doing exactly that since you were 8 years old until your current age of 80, practically without a break, six days a week.
That is the life of Jiro Ono, the owner of a sushi restaurant. Well… in fact it’s the life of the man considered the best sushi chef in the world, who runs what is considered the best sushi restaurant in the world. His story has not only caught the attention of Jim Kim, president of the World Bank; Jiro Ono even has his own documentary film, Jiro Dreams of Sushi (available only in English).
Jiro’s life began with serious hardship when his parents abandoned him at just 10 years old. This tireless worker, who at first glance seems to live only to work, has moved a great many professionals, not because of the work itself but because of the way he does it. Basically, this businessman holds the secret of mastery, and it lies in a “discipline of routine.”
“We are what we repeatedly do,” goes the line attributed to Aristotle. To become a professional at anything, you need at least 10,000 hours of practice, many experts say today.
In Jiro’s case, his precise movements, his impeccable cleanliness, his astonishing consistency and the culinary experts who say it’s worth traveling to Japan just to sit in his restaurant and eat the sushi Jiro makes are clear signs that he has achieved excellence in his profession.
But it isn’t money that motivates Jiro: he has a genuine passion for making sushi. Even knowing that he’s already considered the best, Jiro keeps looking for new ways to innovate and improve his techniques, and above all to keep surprising his customers.
Watch: Video about Jiro Ono
Jiro has the best restaurant because he has surrounded himself with the best suppliers. His tuna supplier is a tuna expert and, in fact, has the best tuna in Japan. The same goes for his rice supplier.
Jiro has built an ecosystem around his business in which everyone who works with him, directly or indirectly, is truly passionate about what they do. Through this ecosystem, together with Jiro’s own skills, sushi stops being just sushi and becomes a work of art, and Jiro stops being a cook and becomes an artist.
The conclusion Jim Kim drew from Jiro’s story, in essence: when we love our work and believe in what we do, we should never be satisfied. We have to be disciplined and surround ourselves with the best in our field. Only then can we achieve mastery in a profession.
Still, everyone can draw whatever lesson they see fit from the story of this chef, who has no plans to retire as long as his health lets him keep enjoying his work. Because, it must be said, he has saved everything he has earned and already has enough money that not even his grandchildren will need to work. So if he’s at the restaurant every day, it clearly isn’t for the money.
Further reading
- 5 keys to excelling at whatever you set out to do
- What highly successful people were doing at 25
- 10 personality traits you need to be an entrepreneur
Featured image: City Foodsters, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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