Coffee Person vs. Coffee Professional
A thought to challenge yourself with today!
We pride ourselves as an industry as being welcoming and inclusive and hospitable to our customers. It’s an integral part of our jobs and the better we do this the more likely we are as employees and businesses to be successful.
But how about the subtle way we see each other and treat each other within the industry? There’s a subtle undertone in our industry of an unwillingness to be open to new equipment and new products, new people and new places that open up. Why?
This could be for a number of reasons. We feel threatened, intimidated, competitive, inferior, triggered, jealous etc etc etc.
We all recognise that feeling of being intimidated. I’ve been there and, as the owner of a brand that continues to polarize many in the coffee industry around the world, (@elixirspecialtycoffee) I’ve been on the receiving end of many a hater email. I can tell you, it’s never nice to receive that shit and I’m often left wondering what kind of a human thinks it’s ok to send emails like that??
It doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t have to have our defences up and as individuals we can do a lot more to be open to “newness.”
When we see other people’s success, another business doing great, a new product on the market, a brand of coffee or equipment, an article about someone we know, a new shop open in the area, a new person join the coffee community, or someone that could use our help, we should be asking ourselves “how can I elevate this experience for the other person and not feed into my own feelings of insecurity?”
Often times, it just means not engaging in shit talk about people or products when in a group of people (find a way to leave the conversation or challenge the low vibration comments). Other times it means going out of your way to give props when it may seem uncool to do so. In the extreme case, I’d invite you to recognize that you’re feeling insecure by whatever it is and ask yourself “Why do I find it necessary to be an arsehole when I could just be kind?”
Often times this will be the differentiating factor that sees you moving from being just another “coffee person” to being a “Coffee Professional”.
Elixir Specialty Coffee partners with Steady State Coffee in the month of March to release Elixir made from the delicious Juliette Gesha from Ninety Plus Coffee.