When Mike Brown started selling coffee, he was average.
He had a café, sold a lot of different products, poorly, and basically ran it into the ground.
In this time though he’d connect with his particularly “groggy” customers – those who wanted the strongest coffee he had – so he started to listen. He researched how he could make the strongest cup possible.
The industry standard is “Aribaca” beans – smoother, richer, more refined…
Without realising it, Mike was roasting “Robusta” beans – usually considered cheaper – the stuff you put in instant coffee.
While every peer, mentor and colleague urged him to switch, Mike decided he liked the taste of what he was creating – he refined his Robusta blend, and there was the side bonus that it had more caffeine…
He started selling one type of coffee online – his claim was the “strongest” coffee you could get.
He’d sell a bag each week, maybe two.
Then a bag per day…
Then he had to hire someone to help with postage.
Deathwish Coffee* now turns over millions. He has a raving fan base of people who want to get the most out of themselves – and this coffee helps them achieve that.
Mike lost almost everything when he had the bricks and mortar store – and the question is: “At what point did he feel like it was going to work?”
Is it at one bag per week? 10? 100?
What we find here is a shifting of the goal posts.
The “it will all be OK when…” trap comes in repeatedly, and external assurance or validation from others is fleeting.
So at any point in time, all we really have is our vision or our goal. Our own idea of where we want to explore. And then from here, our daily posture that we create around this.
The new reality doesn’t exist yet, so it can only exist in our minds. At the start and even along the way, it can only be a vision.
Knowing this, the question then is, how much work do you consciously put into seeing and clarifying your vision?
On a daily, weekly or annual timeframe, how do you help create the posture that will lead to the reality you are wanting to create?
When your narrative does creep in that tries to limit this, how do you deal with it and who is around to help you check yourself?
*Far too strong for me. Things move kind of on the fast side, even as they are, without high-octane coffee.
