Category: life stories

Can’t Believe My Boss Made Me Do This

Let me tell you this crazy story back in my corporate world job days...

(Be sure to read my last blog How would you define leadership? here).

At A Glance

∎ A crazy story when I worked in the office downtown

∎ Key takeaways - do we need bad things to inspire positive change?

∎ Work Culture pro tips

You'll Never Believe What Happened...

Back in my corporate days I had a boss who used to make us chant in the afternoon huddle. It felt like a frathouse in many ways. I always felt uncomfortable trying to join the chanting as it felt fake, and forced.

Everyday I would dread when the afternoon huddle came about, debating on if I was going to actually say anything or mouth the words silently like I was lip syncing.

The thing was you didn't want to be called out for not being part of the group. As I write this now, a dragonfly hovers outside my window and a plane's wings catch the sun and flash a bright spot of light.

It's such a contrast to the dudebro environment at my job at this marketing company.

The office building was located off Congress in downtown Austin, Texas so you could easily walk to a hip lunch joint and grab a bite to eat while people watching suites and ties, the homeless, college students, interns, bike messengers, musicians playing brunch gigs or fellow office workers.

I was late coming back from lunch one day and the CEO Luke, a very white dude bro singled me out as soon as I stepped off the elevator. The afternoon huddle had begun.

Luke told me in front of everyone that to go back to work I had to do 25 push ups in front of everyone. There were about 30 people standing in the office.

I got down on the floor and did the pushups.

"ONE!"

"TWO!"

"THREE!"

30 voices chanted in unison, counting the pushups as I did them, each time I came up I heard their voices chant the number until I reached the 25th pushup.

Walking out the glass double doors of that skyscraper on my last day there felt so good. I made a promise to myself to never work in that type of environment again.

I don't mind a little bit of the competitive spirit but this wasn't that.

When you're running a company, one of the most important assets you have is company culture. It's what motivates you and those you work with to go above and beyond just the bare

minimum to get by and achieve greatness.

Let me assure you - there wasn't a lot of greatness achieved at Main Street Hub. It was a toxic place to work on many levels. The positive takeaway is that this experience is informative on how not to be.

From Rat Race to Ship Captain...What Does It Take?

More than one person that worked at MSH hub went on to become an entrepreneur.

I worked at a few more jobs, including Facebook before I started my firm but it begs the question:

Do we really need bad work environments to spurn industry disruptors and innovation in the startup world?

I can't answer that question definitively as I don't have a magic crystal ball that would show me the alternate life path if many of the jobs I worked at didn't have such terrible work ethics I never wanted to work at a day job again.

Clearly, it doesn't affect everyone the same way as well.

Some stay in a bad situation for years at a job they tolerate, just barely, because risking starting something new seems to be too much to do.

Whether it's a new job or venturing into entrepreneurship many are frozen accepting emotional abuse on a daily basis because we are trained to get a safe job and stick with it.

But there is a movement now, to invest in ourselves and our dreams.

With angel investors, startup accelerators,* the 1000 and 1 programs you can buy online to teach you how to start a biz (believe me I'm a program-a-holic)...

- being your own boss isn't such a far away concept as it used to be.

What happens though, if you become a boss, scale your company as big as some of the jobs you used to work for, and make so many of the same mistakes with soft skills that you are now doing to employees what was once done to you?

Paulo Freire wrote in Pedagogy of the Oppressed that often what happens is the oppressed rise up to become the oppressor in a vicious cycle and we have to create a 3rd role of stepping outside this binary cycle to achieve freedom.

Social Impact Starts At Home

I think that's what motivates many of us in the entrepreneur world to not just start a business but start something special for our communities that gives back.

We seek to rise above hell with fluorescent lighting and cubicles to do something more. To be independent. Not just chase a dream but live it.

The increased connectedness of the internet facilitates good ideas making a greater impact.

In 2021, challenges that once felt hyperlocal are being discussed on national and global levels.

Issues like financial literacy in underserved populations, access to clean water, education for women and girls, and environmental conservation are just a few of the problems that social impact companies are attempting to tackle. [Source: Causelabs]

The increase in social impact organizations means that the people working to solve these challenges have more resources than ever before.

But no matter how grandiose the company mission is - we must take care of those at home first.

Ensuring there is good communication with healthy company culture, lateral leadership approaches to management and intrinsic motivation for projects is how to help ensure success. And employee retention. Don't be Luke at Main Street Hub.

Be someone that inspires, who is curious about new perspectives and genuinely appreciates other people.

This is a good recipe for creating friendships that last, better social networks as well as professional relationships.

If you aspire as an entrepreneur that makes a difference in the world, you'll benefit from developing relational capital not just financial capital, as you never know what opportunities come a-knocking from who you know.

When you build a positive work culture your employees become brand ambassadors once they believe in what you're doing.

That's better than cracking the whip.

What needs to change in the workplace? Comment below!

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PSS. I'm working on the website for Entrepreneurs That Make A Difference and am seeking feedback from business owners on what benefits you'd like to see in a SAAS membership, let me know if you'd like to contribute your ideas and become an early adopter.

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. . .

How Entrepreneurs Go From Good to Great

Credit:NeONBRAND

As an entrepreneur you are a risk taker by virtue of your chosen profession: to be a leader instead of a follower takes courage. But how good do you have to be to succeed? How is success defined in your professional and personal life?

My last blog, COVID Economic Recovery Solutions, discussed the benefits of investing in employees, and seeing the return of professional development in productivity, profits, and increased word of mouth marketing.

In the same way you may invest in your staff, you can also invest in your company's other assets.

Don't Settle for Good Enough Go for Great

We walk a fine line between "just good enough" and "great." To the average suburbanite, just being able to pay bills without a boss breathing down your neck is a huge success.

But the line between good and great, while being thin, is what separates the quitters from the Elon Musks and Steve Jobs of the world. Entrepreneurs benefit from a daily check in and brainstorm sesh on how to make what's good even greater.

You will feel the difference, those few extra hours here and there add up to the bling, the shine, the razzle dazzle of a clean mean business machine. Your customers will feel the difference too when you put in the energy to fine tune and improve what's "just good enough" into something truly excellent.

Drive & Dedication

It feels good to solve a problem - this is at the heart of 99% of all marketing messages. When you've gone through the rigmarole of questioning how to fix something until that eureka moment - it's satisfying to arrive.

But don't rest on your laurels. The allure of complacency is strong and keeps you at mediocre instead of embracing your brilliance. You have to cultivate the inner engine to improve. It has to be an attitude. A mantra.

Once you create the habit of improving, you can't help but get better. This is across the board, personal, romantic, business, family, social life, hobbies, sports - attitude is gratitude.

What I mean is, you'll thank yourself for creating the habit of dedication to improvement. It's a new routine that once developed will help you reach the next level of your potential.

Self Sustaining Networks & Teamwork

There are plenty of entrepreneurs who can wear 10 hats and play multiple instruments. But to be truly successful as an entrepreneur, this means building a strong network. Creating a team that fills the gaps in your own competence is part of what crosses from 'just good enough' to something great.

I chose to use the word sustainable with a specific intention: The personal and professional networks built must be mutual, reciprocal and headed towards a destination that is beneficial.

If only one business is benefiting, see where you can help the other business benefit even more. This goodwill will not go unnoticed. It's all about who you know right? You may catch the eye of an affiliated interest that yields even greater return.

At the very least, you've increased loyalty to your brand and secured a better professional network.

The Self Efficacy Question

Self-efficacy is, in a nutshell, increasing your abilities by believing that you can increase your abilities. And of course taking action to increase them.

It's shown remarkable results in test scores in children in Kansas City, Missouri, and strengthening people's beliefs that they have what it takes to succeed produced even better results in college students at University of Wisconsin Milwaukee.

Student underachievement brought about by low academic motivation is a major factor contributing to school dropout levels according to the Department of Teacher Education and Higher Education at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Beyond Social Cognitive Theory in an academic setting, self-efficacy has huge potential to help businesses improve. 7 League Boot leaping over obstacles with emotional resilience is achieved by believing that you can overcome these obstacles.

The consistency and commitment to keep on trucking, and examine your methods for achieving success along the way is the key to making that success a reality.

Live, Breath, Sleep the Mindset of a Champion

Whether you're fighting cancer, winning an olympic gold metal, or mastering the art of public speaking - the mindset that you have frames your ability to perform at low or at peak levels.

To even consider quitting a day job requires a whole shift of mindset. But let's take that one step further.

When you believe your company will succeed, in addition to making the efforts to ensure it will, the mindset of a champion means that that needed grit to not only survive but to thrive is present.

Having the mindset of a champion doesn't mean you ignore the less-than-great realities of a situation or sugar coat the gaps in your business.

It means you don't hesitate to face these head on, and do what it takes to succeed. With of course, no moral ambiguity. Doing the right thing, for your business, only improves who you are and the quality of customers you attract.

I've mentioned this before, but one of the defining moments of my life was when my childhood mentor drove me to a homeless shelter when I was kicked out of my mother's house.

He let me know that while he doesn't support this happening, I also needed a wake up call and realize that even if I didn't like my step father, I had to do what it takes to survive with a roof over my head.

Hows that for a gut check?

I didn't have the mindset of a champion then. But 3 days ago I graduated the University of Texas at Austin, having gained acceptance into UT with a recommendation letter from the president of Austin Community College.

It was a hard struggle but once my mindset changed from victimhood to proactive reluctant hero - life aligned to produce the results I wanted.

The same is true for entrepreneurship.

What separates us from the 9-5ers is our ability to innovate, think outside the box, create solutions, and have an unshakable belief in ourselves, our brand and the goals we set out to achieve.

This is the mindset of a champion.

. . .
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Secret Dreams

Running a business is a stressful job if your heart isn't into it. When you're driven by a sense of a calling, a passion, and as previous blogs like "Uh Oh Management Needs A New Business Plan" have mentioned, armed with an intrinsic motivation much of this can transform into a labor of love.

But what of the paths not yet taken but dreamed about? Those nights entrepreneurs lie awake, thinking of the next million dollar invention or business model are full of the promise of what's to come.

The nights of enigma, mystery, and that sense of a far away destiny calling you. It is as if there is a party on the other side of the horizon line, just out of view, that you've been invited to, but can't find the address.

It was a feeling like this that introduced me to entrepreneurship in the form of blogging 4 years ago in April 2016. It was taking action on this feeling - refusing to miss another beyond-the-horizon opportunity - that let me quit my day job. It is the nature of being proactive that actions product results.

Instead of acting 'normal' and just chalking up my late night ideas as fantasy or 'unrealistic' I pursued my passion. Taking little steps one at a time, starting companies on the side while I worked at Facebook.

Getting proof of concept that there was a market for my services, a demand that exceeded the supply and thus the side hustle became the main hustle.

That's not all though. We want to make it to the top with our goals and ambition. For someone truly motivated I feel like there are not limits to how high your energy and focus can take you. As Lil Wayne raps, "No ceilings."

In the time I've spent working as a full time entrepreneur I realized there are secret dreams I have yet to act on. Sometimes it's out of nervousness that I'm not capable of achieving them. Other times the to-do list takes over and I forget about the never-talked-about dreams a part of me is still nurturing.

Some of it are businesses and iPhone apps I want to start but haven't been brave enough yet to seek venture capital for. And there are secret dreams I have for my own human potential. Many of these secret dreams surprise my family and myself when I shared one last week for the first time.

I want to be a classical pianist, and perform classical piano pieces in concert halls by Bach, Mozart, Chopin, and Ludovico Einaudi. There's no background that justifies this - I didn't have piano lessons as a child or study it in college. I play some blues piano improv, but I've never been good enough to consider myself "a pianist."

Yet - this is something in my heart that I really want to pursue. I'm considering taking piano lessons now, to make this secret dream a reality, once the world opens back up for regular business after COVID shutdowns. I had the fortune to see Ludovico live at the Bass Concert Hall in Austin, Texas last year, and he was incredible.

I suddenly realized, after I took the leap of quitting my day job, and following my instinct to become a business owner, now that this was possible, I could pursue another secret dream: sailing. Again, there is no context that makes any sense at all. My family hasn't been big on boats, I didn't grow up with any experience on boats that was memorable.

Well there was one moment, as a child, I heard my father say that one day he hoped to get a sailboat. Except, he invested poorly into his life, and business. Ended up old and broke, never pursuing any of his dreams. I guess I took that lesson to heart: how not to be.

I joined a sailing club, befriended a few skippers, and ended up going sailing on $100,000 dollar yachts. The waters glistening with beauty, the wind on my face, as a new friend let me steer his Beneteau Oceanis 38 across the lake. I marveled at how my secret dream, while not yet achieved of owning and sailing a yacht, was at least made more real now. Someday this will be my yacht, I'll let my friend steer.

Another ah ha moment came in a flash, as I found myself thinking about music. I've never seriously pursued learning how to make electronica music. I've dabbled here and there with a few experimental tracks like this one.

But, overall, I didn't take this seriously. In a sort of heart-to-heart moment, before I fell asleep a couple nights ago, I came to terms with the fact that this was something I never thought I would be capable of doing but have a very real interest in learning.

Chillstep in particular, with sampling beautiful singers, on a broad spectrum of neat soundscapes, complete with clips from movies relevant to the mood of the track - this is a dream I've denied myself the chance to see if I can make it happen.

I don't know when I will (perhaps if I meet DeadMau5 at a party & he's cool with sharing a few tips) but...I'm honest with myself that this isn't bullshit. It's a legit passion and interest I just haven't nurtured a whole lot. Another path yet to be taken, waiting, on the other edge of the horizon.

Any one of these secret dreams, has a startup idea behind it. It's part of what guarantees success - if you are genuinely interested, beyond just the money, in making something happen, that kind of motivation is unparalleled. I encourage you to look inside, and ask yourself,

"What are my secret dreams?"

Think about what you may have written off as unrealistic, or just not for you. And revisit these dreams. You just may discover that million dollar idea. Or at the very least, create a new route, for a path not yet taken, that leads to a good work-life-balance and increased personal happiness.

. . .
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I’m Not for Everyone Here’s Why…

Do we trust people we like with less experience more than we trust people we don't like with more experience?

Yes and the reason comes from caveman times. If we felt that someone was going to be able to stick with the herd and provide consistently they were always the safer choice.

Times have changed though, and many build their entire careers from being immune to social niceties. Whether it's Gordon Ramsay or Gary V these public figures have disregarded wanting to be liked. Or at least trying to sugar coat their social interaction skills and language.

There is a lot to be said for the walk-away feeling one gets after shopping at a store. Whether this is an online marketplace, or a retail establishment, we tend to remember the last thing more than the first thing.

On the opposite end, there are people who will say anything to get you to like them. Some have personalities that cannot stand to feel the disapproval of others. Crippling social shyness aside, there is a magnified effect of personal dishonesty that goes hand in hand with trying to please everyone.

How can a business please everyone, and still remain true to the core values that founded it? There are a few businesses that deliberately take confrontational stances on an issue to gain media attention and customers. The crazy thing is it works. (Look at whose president right now).

However, there's something to be said about caring for what kind of CX your company provides and the residual income that is purely from testimonials being shared. I think there is a balance between kowtowing to every little thing your client base needs and drawing the lines for ethical behavior.

One of my clients asked me to do work on making sure their client, who was running political ads on Facebook, was Facebook policy compliant.

I Had to Take a Step Back

There are some crazy people out there right now that want to encourage unsafe behavior, and many are political. I had to do a gut check and ask myself,

"Can I live with myself, if my FB Policy Analysis helped a candidate get elected who endangered the lives of others?"

It wasn't easy. Times are hard, business is slow, and you take money from the money tree when you can grab it.

I gave my client an ultimatum and said that I would need to review the goals of their political ads client and end game before I could say yes.

I wasn't going to walk into this with blind faith or just wanting to make a profit.

What I stand for, and the ripple effect of my business decisions matter.

I would rather starve than steal.

But that's just me. If I was having to feed a bunch of mouths at home, with mounting bills and little options, would I have chosen differently? I can't say as that's not the reality.

The reality is that I have to trust the people I work with to do business (and their clients) otherwise I won't sleep easy. In the last blog we discussed the power of showing up and this counts for showing up for what your business stands for.

Profit Over Principles

This also made me realize that there are lot of businesses that don't factor ethics into their business decisions. Walmart has dumped tons of toxic waste into Texas tributaries and was almost sued by the EPA before they stopped.

There are plenty more examples of behavior like this that puts profits over principles. I think I learned something about myself through this last experience: I'm not for everyone.

I'm fine with that.

As an Entrepreneur I Get to Choose Who I Do Business With

Abdicating that choice because I was being lazy, or too eager doesn't seem fair to the many people who don't get to choose who they work with. It also doesn't do justice to the hard work I had to put in to become a startup founder who has options I didn't have in my 9-5er past life.

What experiences have you had that made you question your business choices?

Comment below:

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Think Different

The kind of thoughts in my head
these days are different than before. I think you’ll understand, given that we are all in this together.

Past
Last year around this time, I’d just returned from Paris for the 1st time. I’d become trapped in an airport in Miami, Florida for 2 days all the flights back home sold out due to spring-breakers and the airlines wanting to sell as many tickets as possible. New country, new experience, new little moments that will stick with me. I saw and entered Notre Dame before it burned down, and took this photo:

Present

Right now, I’ve watched the rain, listened to online radio while reading a new Ken Follett book, A World Without End. I don’t feel trapped inside or suffer from the same cabin fever some of my friends and business associates do. Perhaps the years of solitary survival, before social networks were invented, prepared me for what’s going on, with the city on lock down.

Future

Looking to the future, I can’t help but think this whole experience is pushing us to take better care of ourselves. As challenging as it may be, looking for ways to be thankful right now is helpful. I am thankful for my neighbors. After self isolating for weeks, the first friend I interacted with (at a safe distance across fences) was my neighbor. She talked to me about going bike riding with her friends through the neighborhood and feeling safe at that distance from each other – yet able to socialize still. It was nice to hear.

It was kind of low key shock to me, how much I enjoyed our short convo before walking to a local Mexican restaurant (remember to support your local restaurants for delivery and pick up during these times) to pick up a gordita and breakfast burrito. I guess I was so well adapted to being myself I didn’t realize it’s healthy to socialize with other people you know and care about. I encourage you to get on Skype or Zoom with your friends and family on a weekly basis to maintain lines of communication.

Years ago, in my 20s, I was working at a job doing tech support for wifi interconnectivity. My roommate bought me a swivel chair so I had a big black leather office chair since it was one of the first work from home jobs I ever had. We had a group chat and only interacted digitally, boss and coworkers included. On my breaks I would throw horse shoes in the backyard or walk around the block. Back then, working from home was a novel concept.

Today it’s necessity.

Scanning the years that passed since then, there is a lot to be thankful for. The travels, new friends, books, random experiences with art, music, community and the kindness of strangers are all pieces of the large infinite beautiful mosaic of life. I know I am not the person I was back then. Parts of each of us have changed, sometimes in imperceptible ways.

With these tiny changes also comes new perspectives, because the little adjustments in how we frame the same issues are a ripple effect in the aspects of our personality that responds to the world. Our personality responds to how our personality responds as we are agents of our own change, for better or worse.

The people we have to become in order to survive ordeals, and the people we have to become in order to achieve our goals are comprised of these tiny changes. So as you adapt to the way things are right now, be perceptive. Don’t lose yourself. Remember what matters most regardless of external circumstances. Treasure the bonds of friendship you’ve created with meaningful people and the shared experiences that define us.

It’s hard because we’re all human right? I’ve had people text to ask if everything was ok given what’s going on right now, who will often go a whole year never even expressing interest in hanging out. And I have to quiet the inner critic and respond compassionately with genuine concern and interest for his family and well being because – we are all trying to make it through the day. Make it through, somehow intact, mind, body, spirit. Let me share a song I was listening to today, that helped uplift the spirit:

Follow the Sun

Tomorrow’s a new day for everyone

Brand new moon

Brand new sun

So follow, follow the sun

The direction of the birds

The direction of love

Routines help us cope, and many of us struggle to create them. It’s like a ship lost at sea, in uncharted waters. And yet, land is almost visible on the horizon line. Having to restructure the day, and create new patterns that include physical and emotional self-care may feel the twinge of growing pains but push through it.

You are the architect of new tiny changes that will help create the version of you that is going to pull through this.

As Kendrick Lamar raps:

“That’s why I do the best I can, because I know how blessed I am,”

Power of Perception: Business & Life

Is Struggle Always Necessary?

Have you ever heard the saying "struggle leads to success" ?

There's a lot of talk about how life has to suck before it can get better. But is this a false dichotomy? That's a fancy way of saying, do we have blinders on and just aren't seeing all the options?

I agree working hard can produce results - IF you're aimed in the right direction. But is hard work always a struggle?

Labor of Love

"Labor of love" is often a term ascribed for when you ARE working hard but, you believe in your work, your steps to the big goal, the pay off, and every act that gets you closer is worth celebrating.

Is THAT a struggle?

Isn't 'struggling' just mental for how we choose to think about actions?

I mean, physical pain aside, generally, being on the grind, if you always frame it as 'a struggle' wouldn't that make it harder for you than framing it as necessary steps towards becoming that bad ass you know you already are?

We can go deep on this one.

If you do become successful but are an a$%hole to everyone, and don't have good social skills (Steve Jobs, asperger et al) - is that success?

How We Look at Ourselves
The World
Our PROCESS

All of these things...determine how hard life is, and if work is really a struggle or just a system you use to become el jefe. If there's one super power you can opt in to having, without being bit by a radioactive spider (which would make you sick in real life), it's the power of perception.

The Power of Perception

Being able to look at how we look at things is a strange gift I've had since I was fighting tooth and claw to not become my father, fighting for scraps living on the streets as a teenager. It's the one thing that led to getting accepted into the University of Texas, working at Facebook, and starting my own businesses.

It's easy to fall into a habit of if this, then that.

This is SQL terminology for how results of a search are defined by certain parameters.

YET...

IRL this means we tend to start to draw conclusions before actually looking at what's happening. Our eyes are not really seeing. We are going through a series of automated emotional habits.

However, it's mainly unconscious. And it can have draw backs when you want to innovate your company but are still coloring within the lines and not thinking outside the box. The habit-thinking of expecting the same thing despite there being different variables and inputs limits our growth, professionally and personally.

How Good Becomes Great

Taking the time to look at your business and ask the hard questions, without sugar coating is how good becomes great. The challenge with thinking bigger is we tend to self-impose mediocrity, and creating artificial ceilings that limit our flight path. These ceilings are due to the habitual way we think about potential. The definition of identity, of a company or a person, if it's habit-based, is going to suffer adapting to a changing world.

Do your self a favor, and begin to cultivate a sense for how you look at things. For how you look at how you look at things.

---------->Start Here<------------

What are habits you have on how you think of yourself or your business?

Are there conclusions you assume about people or situations?

What is a new way to think about this and rewire your process?

Think, be, explore - it's an adventure.

Not So Secret Weapon

What's the one thing that brings people together?

Common ground. Community. Shared Purpose.

In these trying times, it's easy to look for ways to cast judgy eyes onto those that are different from you. In business, there are seldom second chances to make a great impression. As a result, if there is contention, often this loses customers.

For good.

Ever been to a restaurant where a waiter was rude and dismissive? This makes an impression.

Impressions cost money.

One time I was in a restaurant with a friend, enjoying some chips and queso. Everything was going great, until one of the waitstaff started talking loudly to the bartender about their life. The things they had to brag about. The intimate personal details I was not volunteering to hear or participate in - like being locked in an elevator, with someone on their cell phone pouring out TMI stories as if no one else exists.

This experience cost that restaurant a customer (and perhaps more than one, if others also weren't keen to learn the backstage view of their waiters personal life).

While it may seem like a small loss, word of mouth alone can magnify this loss - if I were to say the name of the restaurant and other locals read it. Shoot, one place I ate at with another friend, she found a metal screw in her sandwich - hows that for customer retention practices???

Ironically, I still go to that restaurant. Why? Because the attitude and impression the waitstaff made on me before and after the 'screw-gate' incident was supportive and understanding.

A big contrast to self-absorbed life-story narrative waitstaff whose superpower is ignorance of the world around them. (Not sure who her arch-nemesis would be...Self-Awareness Girl? Kind of an anti-hero set up).

I can't solve national political debates, or bridge the divide between differing religions, beliefs, and social constructs - at least not with just one blog alone. However, we can all do our part both in business and in our personal lives to build community.

Community helps those with different view points find gaps we can bridge in eachother's skillsets by virtue of our shared membership in a tribe. That's our common ground. Whenever something goes down that requires team work - that sense of unity creates friendships, rebuilds relationships and helps others.

I was freestyling rhymes about living with intention at a local freestyle rap cypher here

What many may not realize is that finding common ground has to be a conscious decision to be effective. Well, I guess not necessarily if you are just a community-minded person. What I mean is most people have to make an effort to start finding what they have in common with other people.

I'll never forget...riding in the peach colored F-150 Ford truck my father drove and listening to him yell at other drivers. He'd insult them and make up all kinds of reasons why they weren't ANY good.

It always stuck with me because of the intense effort he made to find reasons to belittle strangers. I wondered if he knew how exhausting it was to listen to him yell insults. How exhausted this made his own life? I bring this up because I had a real epiphany when I was working at Facebook.

I'd take my breaks outside, and walk around downtown Austin. I started remembering my dad's judgements when people walked across the intersection at 6th and Congress entering coffee shops, jewelry stores, delis, comedy theaters and more. His words floated through my brain about how this woman is probably like ___ or that man is probably just___ [insert insult].

I don't know why it hit me at that moment.

I thought of how much control my dad completely let go of by doing this habitually. But I started to realize, as I heard my father's voice inside my head, that I had a NEW choice:

I could look for reasons to compliment people. I could find reasons to celebrate people.

I could choose to be positive. Being positive sometimes gets a bad rep from some who feel it's negating reality or practicing avoidance of harsh truths that need to be dealt with. But this wasn't it at all.

It is more of a choice on what to focus on. And when your attention is focused on adding details, filling in the blanks, with the intention of veneration, the intention of giving people back their humanity from these bullshit static labels we fall in the habit of accepting - this creates a new opportunity to build community.

Even if this is silently, just watching, enjoying little moments. Not creating negative imaginary backstories for why someone appears a certain way but instead creating positive, supportive opinions about people. Believing in their goodness. Believing in my own goodness. Feeling the glow of selflessly loving strangers just because I can and I choose to.

Does this relate at all to business?

To entrepreneurship?

Yes. And to enjoying life. When we pause, and look beyond trying to make money and focus on building relationships, nurturing a community, those who receive these messages respond in kind.

Humans have an innate urge to support positive socially constructive behavior.

Taking the initiative to create this within your customer's journey will not only empower you to extend the life time value of a client and build brand loyalty - you also won't feel like a shitty human being trying to manipulate others to buy from you.

Living with intention is not another millennial buzz phrase - when you start to fill in the details. What is your intention, specifically?

And in regards to which part of your life, or your business - how do you fill in the gaps for your intention? How does your intention manifest itself in each part of your life?

This is where you are the sculptor, molding the clay of creation, deciding to create a life that celebrates diversity, new ideas, the raw unpolished surface of the planet where all these little creatures live and die and share moments of joy.

We are part of this. We continue to choose which moments to nurture, to dwell in and continue to make. We choose which thoughts become our dominant narrative.

Yes, life is hard sometimes. We lose people we care about (RIP Kobe Bryant), sometimes money is tight, hospital bills pile up, impossible obstacles seem to face us - even if that obstacle is just waking up the next morning. I've been there. Some things we overcome quicker than others.

But when we focus on building a community, locally, within our business's customer journey, among fellow professionals, sharing hobbies like horse riding, golf, sailing, gaming, photography, education - these shared values, moments, and people create a beautiful caring network that is sustainable.

Money aside - this is the legacy we can build and contribute to - the networks and communities we build and are a part of that nourish each member with a sense of belonging and support.

This is the not-so-secret weapon against apathy, isolation, pain, ads that don't convert into sales, and brick walls we hit sometimes when deciding on our next move.

The people I know, friends, family, fellow entrepreneurs - all have given me great ideas and vice versa because we chose to listen to each other.

So keep listening. You may learn something new.

Dr. Robert Young

Press Play: Back To The Rivers Of Believe: Way To Eternity/Hallelujah/The Rivers Of Believe

Wednesday April 18th 2018

Real Life Heroes

It’s not often you get to meet your heroes. Its even less seldom that you become friends with your heroes. I’ve gone through many iterations of who I am over the years. Each new experience bringing to light a new view of the planet and how one small person can make a huge impact. All through my life I’ve had a surreal feeling of living in a dream. The habits that make us walk through our daily routine on autopilot without questioning why we are the people we become sing a seductive lullaby. This is punctuated by catalysts that shake me into periods of being awake, aware, and purposeful.

It’s hard to predict falling asleep because you’re not aware of it while it happens. I feel this is a modern dilemma which plagues many of the deep thinkers of our time. The comfortable embrace of forgetting introspection, and continuing to stimulate our senses rather than our mind, or that intangible spark which ignites our spirit into active engagement. In the spring of 2015 in many ways I was asleep. I’d done years of work for many Ralph Nader organizations and volunteered in my local community. I’d been a public speaker for the families of minorities shot by Austin Police Department officers under questionable circumstances. Speaking at City Hall, the Human Rights Commission and the State Capital about the ethical use of tasers, and the divide between east side grottos and law enforcement, I did my best to become involved and make a difference adding honesty and truth to the public dialogue. I’d studied environmentalism and to a small degree, sustainability. But, nothing could prepare me for how much taking Dr. Robert Young’s Green Cities course at UT Austin would change, and evolve my perspective.

I had the type of arrogance which comes from too often being a big fish in a small pond. I was used to being the most outspoken person in the room, and the one most engaged in realistic practicalities for, well, not just complaining about the woes of the world but finding a real solution. When selecting this course, it was not done with much forethought, I just knew I needed a Signature course for my degree requirements. I really liked the name “Green Cities,” it appealed to my love of nature. My curiosity was peaked, so I thought, “Why not? Let’s explore!”

First Day Of Class

I remember the first day of class, January 20th I think, 2015. Dr. Young’s classroom was held in kind of a basement floor of a pharmacy building on campus. The feng shui was less than ideal. I walked in, with my REI backpack full of notebooks, and slid into a seat midway between the front row and the back row. Dr. Young began speaking about the basics most classes covered. Then he got into the course curriculum. I was struck by how relevant, dynamic and interesting everything he was saying was. Dr. Young seemed to know what he was talking about on more than a purely academic level. I was intrigued.

After class was over, I approached Dr. Young and introduced myself. I gave a short synopsis of some of the volunteer work I’d done and how fascinated I was with his class. He was short with me and reserved, not really knowing who I was and if I was just another student who was going to drop out in the first 3 weeks of class. Curiosity, and a genuine interest for where this class was going made me eager to attend the next. Over the course of the next couple of months, my appreciation for Dr. Young and what he was teaching grew immensely. We eventually moved to the Sutton building and got a much better classroom.

I met some of the other students in his class and there was quite a range of people who were taking his course. I made a couple of really good friends who changed my life for the better many months and years later. This is the course description from the syllabus:

This course examines the history and future of the ecological city and the technological and social forces that continue to shape it. Metropolitan transformation is explored in conjunction with alternative transportation, renewable energy, green infrastructure, recycling and resource management, and sustainable economics as means toward advancing cities to become the basis of an ecologically sound and socially just society.

The first part of the course introduces students to the long, but often overlooked, history of environmental city development in the western planning tradition. Specific emphasis is placed on the classic period as well as 19th century garden city planning and encompasses early efforts to establish solar design, mass transit, and green infrastructure as the basis of urban systems that still inform contemporary green city strategies.

The second part of the course reviews present-day efforts to apply these approaches in the face of modern metropolitan challenges to creating ecologically responsible cities. Specific case studies are studied within the theoretical context and political struggles that frame them.

Required Reading:

Civilizing American Cities – Olmsted (Sutton-ed.), Da Capo Press
Garden Cities of To-Morrow – Howard, MIT Press
The Great Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences – Foster and Magdoff, MR Press The Ecology of the Automobile – Freund and Martin, Black Rose Books

The Big Picture

Each successive class, more of the big picture became clear to me. Much of the work I’d done in the previous years laid the groundwork, on top of which Dr. Young built a magnificent shining city of sustainability, agriculture, economics, and urban planning. The group discussions were animated and full of insight. I learned that Robert created a company called American Soil and was instrumental in helping America set up recycling systems and much of his passion came from practicing what he preaches. I expressed this feeling of admiration and being able to connect the dots in an email I sent him the 2nd month of class:

Thursday, February 12, 2015 11:30 PM

To: Young, Robert F
Subject: Re: Toronto’s Ecology Park Today

Hey Dr Young, I was just thinking about your class, it was such a random choice, after being forced

to take a freshman class due to my academic plan aging out, I had the option of choosing other UGS courses that better fit my schedule, and allowed me to have Tuesday and Thursday off to work. I decided, ultimately and on a whim to take your class instead because it seemed so interesting and worth sacrificing the ability to work during this semester for the only two days i would have off.

I am glad I did, today I really had one of the biggest realizations of my sustainable-activist-public speaker-volunteer career, and although it was a point already reinforced earlier in the course, it finally dawned on me, this is what I have needed for so long; an appeal to the decision makers in business and politics to associate capitalistic value to the sustainable approach…in a less wordy way…

I have been working for a long time on changing the world for the better, through many MOs,

and the road block consistently was, how do I make those in industry who are for lack of a better

term, morally depraved when it comes to a global view and doing things for the good of the world

rather than self interested motivations—ok I was too optimistic on this being less wordy–

But that was again a wall I beat my head against time and time again, in different sectors of business, the self interested projections of futures shaped by big business, came down to a social more they simply did not share, and a foolishly so in my opinion.

It dawned on just now, listening to the Floyd track attached and thinking of your class:

Green spaces ensure a quality of life that attract and keep companies like Mercedes in New Jerz

which therefore ensure jobs for workers, and circulate worker’s capital in local economies creating

windfalls for local and national chains of business that all benefit ultimately from protecting the environment in a psychosocialogical and monetary manner rather than the simplistic but true epithet of “why kill that which keeps us alive,” the natural habitat, and resource sustainability. The latter seems simple but still is not grasped by Forbes top ten lists, who have politicians in their pocket.

This is the gap I have been needing to connect; how to appeal on a economic level for preservation

of ecosystems which we are connected to and need anyways to survive, but that low level thinking

and motivations of greed have often blinded those with the power to change the world for the better

from changing it. But to connect economy to ecology like this does a lot for my ability to use

the talents I’ve already developed in this field to further reach different diasporas I perhaps would

not have otherwise, so thanks. Someday I will learn how to write in cliff notes lol

Trevor

One Person Actually Can Make A Difference

It felt amazing, the joy inside of me growing, that changing the world for the better wasn’t just some anachronistic adage from the 70s but something that can really happen. We’d have the lecture with Dr. Young, and then on another day of the week, we’d meet with his assistant, a graduate student of City Planning named Katharine. There were many animated discussions in those meetings and they offered a chance to get to know my classmates better. One of the classmates I had was a young Russian girl, who sat in the front row during Dr. Young’s lectures. She had an interesting way of speaking, as she was very intent on exploring where her ideas and understanding met Dr. Young’s knowledge. I felt there was something different about her, that she came by her world experience in a way which wasn’t as traditional as most students. One day after class, I introduced myself to her when we were standing outside of class together. For the sake of her privacy, we’ll call her D. I started sitting in the front row next to her and another student named Nathan who I became good friends with.

Dr. Young had a thing about punctuality, no matter what your excuse was, he really didn’t like it when you got to class late. This is because he was literally dropping gold mines of how to effectively sustain the planet and felt that if you didn’t share his passion or respect it at least, it was an insult. In a way it was comical, how worked up he was about people arriving late. Also, if you were looking at your cell phone during his lecture, this was a big no no as well. When you consider how valuable what he was sharing is, it’s easier to understand how intense Robert got about the class he was teaching.

Hip Hop Scholar

We had what was called, Journal Reflections due each week. The format was up to us, whether we wrote something down that was poetic, or artistic, Dr. Young wanted us to put what we learned in our own words, or creative format as a way of synthesizing the material. It was a smart move because when you teach something you learn it even better, and essentially he was getting us to teach him what he was teaching us. After one class, one day, before the first Journal Reflections were due, I approached Dr. Young and explained that I am a hip hop artist, a rapper. I’ve made mixtapes that I’ve gone to Rock the Bells with and handed copies to Souls of Mischief, Big Krit, and Cypress Hill. Some of the local shows I’ve done had headliners including Devin the Dude and Prince Paul of De La Soul. Could I perhaps create a hip hop song for my reflection, instead of a journal? Surprisingly, Dr. Young whole heartedly agreed.

By this time, we were more well acquainted. I frequently spoke out in class asking for clarification or adding knowledge to a topic he was covering. We met often in his office hours to discuss the course and the issues of society. I didn’t realize it at the time but I had made a huge commitment to write, record, and release a new hip hop song every single week. Due to my course load, it became a challenge to do, but I always delivered. I’ll always remember those Wednesday nights, half way delirious, half way asleep, rapping into my microphone after spending 2 hours creating the instrumental, another hour or 2 writing the rap that implemented topics of the class that week. To be honest, it was not some of my best work. The Rep My City mixtape released in 2018 is a better representation of this, but, still, creating those raps was all part of the experience of attending the Green Cities class. How many professors would let you create a rap in place of an assignment?? I was super grateful he was so open minded and appreciative of my efforts. It made me think outside the box trying to write raps about the Auto Industrial Complex or Wall Street Economics.

Unforgettable Moments

I’ll never forget our heartfelt discussions in his office in Sutton Hall. He had plants on his balcony that I think technically weren’t allowed there and the sunshine silhouetted their leaves. We talked about the inevitability of fossil fuels transitioning out into renewable energy and how there was a fight to the finish from the oil kings to keep things the same even if it was killing the planet. We talked about hip hop, and I helped educate Robert on the topic as he didn’t listen to much but a few old school groups like Public Enemy. He and I talked about my journey from being a homeless teenager, living in an alleyway, to getting into Austin Community College and eventually accepted into UT with a recommendation letter from the President of ACC at the time, Steven Kinslow. Often we spoke of Dr. Young’s feelings being hurt by the students that he felt didn’t take his class seriously. It was such an incomprehensible idea to him that students would rather look at their Facebook status on Android or iPhone smart phones than pay attention to Fredrick Law Olmsted and how Green City open space planning emerged in response to the Industrial Revolution.

Personally I was riveted in my seat for his lectures. I took as many notes as I could and even recorded many of his lectures on my iPhone. I attempted to convince him to forgive these students for not having the wherewithal to realize how important I knew what he was teaching is. I’d say things like:

“Consider this Dr. Young, these kids haven’t perhaps had the catalysts you and I have had to help them recognize the significance of well, taking care of the thing that keeps us alive, the Earth. Instead of resenting them for not really giving a damn, have compassion, like you would for a wounded animal, that perhaps they aren’t strong enough right now to digest everything you have to say. Give them time. It may be next year they think back and something you said dawns on them and suddenly they have that “ah ha” moment.”

He’d say something along the lines of, “I haven’t thought of it that way, that makes sense.” I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was like an older version of myself with the same unshakable faith in humanity but the same critiques of apathy. Me if I was born a few decades earlier. We were kindred spirits and I felt that instinctively. There are so many people who are just talking heads, reciting points they heard on a syndicated talk show or radio show without really sincerely investing their heart. I found someone who, at least for the few moments we shared, could see the same world I did. And give hope that we can work together to make it better through the power of City Planning and Garden Cities.

Green Cities

Before Green Cities, I never knew how influential City Planners were, and how much power they held over how culture, race, economic livelihood, schools, transportation and local businesses developed. City Planning was a Graduate course and I was still an undergrad. It made me rethink my entire Geography degree and wish I knew about City Planning before I started going to UT. Learning about edible furniture, solar architecture, urban ecology, Cuba’s mastery of urban gardening, green infrastructure, rooftop gardens reducing AC bills and of course, Green Cities.

A Green City is a a sustainable city that by its very design can feed itself without a lot of reliance on the surrounding countryside for imports. Having a kind of perpetual farmer’s market of agriculture surrounding the city to provide both fresh vegetables and fruit as well as a source of economy is one of the cruxes of a Green City. Using solar or wind or hydrology the city can power itself with renewable sources of energy. The core concept is create the smallest possible ecological footprint, as well as producing the least amount of pollution possible. Balancing pedestrian walkways with automobile routes and efficiently use land. Composting, urban gardening, recycling, or converting waste-to-energy.

The Garden city movement was first established by Sir Ebenezer Howard in the United Kingdom.

Our class’s syllabus describes a Green City as also supporting world peace with less involvement with resource conflict:

A green city is a city that manages resources cyclically for renewal and regeneration, thus improving the prospects of peace. Note, this does not mean it is completely self-sufficient or autarkic, i.e. it is self-sufficient to the degree that it never engages in any trade or produce tradable surpluses. It does mean that it has set up systems for the responsible management of its own resources such that they are enhanced or made continually available rather than consumed and destroyed.

The Feeling Beneath It All

The energy that vibrated in that class was something beautiful to witness and it changed my life forever. Finally, I understood feasibly, how we can create a better planet, a practical utopia. The tempting cynicism of the current times was pushed at bay, and I could finally hope again. I wasn’t some idealistic but a catalyst for change. When the semester ended, I made it as clear I wanted to stay in touch with Robert and find some way to help him create the reality of Garden Cities. D and I became much closer friends than I think either of us had expected. She is super intelligent, majoring in engineering but also interested in the esoteric. We introduced each other to new reading material and concepts. Some of the things we talked about in deep conversations at coffee shops changed my life, and helped to evolve how I saw the world. We both shared Dr. Young’s sincere feeling that we too can improve the planet and that it’s worth caring about, in our own unique ways.

Green Cities Epilogue

Dr. Young and I met several times after the Green Cities course concluded. While he gave me an A, I did not do so well in Geographic Information Systems, and Spanish. I became academically dismissed and could not continue my education at UT until the fall of 2018. We touched base every few months at the Crown and Anchor, having a beer and some black bean tacos while discussing how we could work together. He also kept me updated on his adventures, meeting with the Waller Creek Conservatory for something that I think was going to be kind of like a winding greenbelt through the city (Waller Creek stretches pretty far distances across Austin). It was always a treat to see Robert, we’d catch up about our lives, and world issues. He told me about his peripatetic since of wandering, and not being sure if Austin was a city that he wanted to live in. But when his wife Katherine, got tenure at UT, that solidified Austin as his home base. Dr. Young didn’t know what to make of this, and we commiserated about gentrification and hipsters. Being a Native Austinite, I championed my city to him and let him know that he would grow to love this city too.

We would communicate through emails fairly frequently. He used to have a phone but he got so frustrated with it, not being too hip on modern technology, that after leaving it at an airport accidentally, he just swore off having another cell phone. Getting in touch with Robert was a task as I’d have to wait until he checked his email or hope that he’d be around his office at UT to answer. In August last year I watched a Ted Talk one time where the founder of Lyft was telling Tony Robbins about how Robert Young inspired him to create Lyft and emailed Dr. Young excitedly:

Turns out Dr. Young was meeting with John Zimmer the next day, how funny is that? Dr. Young was always in a juggling act, balancing his career, with taking care of his 3 kids, helping his wife, trying to make tenure at UT and the frequent traveling he did working on various projects. I thought at one point, because he hadn’t responded in a long time, if I may have said something offensive to him. I emailed him, apologizing and asking him what was going on. He wrote the kindest reply:

The Last Supper

On Sunday March 26th 2017 I saw Robert for the last time.We had dinner together at my townhome. Our plan was to create a global network of students who had taken his Green Cities class, as many of them had risen in business and were now influential. I had suggested the idea to him a year or two back, over a beer at Crown and Anchor. We were talking about the potential of all these students who really cared about the world, pooling their resources together to create Garden Cities, and implement these concepts into every day life. Rob had to go to the University of Oregon where he used to teach and find a way to get class rosters for who attended. I had created a Facebook Page for this community, but not much more happened as he was too busy with other projects to ever follow up. Last March we had a wonderful conversation and had a great time catching up. Little did I know that it would be the last time I saw Dr Robert Young before he unexpectedly passed away from a hemorrhagic stroke on January 6, 2018.

I didn’t find out until a few months later, through my friend, D. the Green Cities classmate, who texted me saying, this is not our Dr Young right? She’d gotten an email (and I had too, I just hadn’t checked my UT email yet) inviting us to a tree planting ceremony in Robert’s memory. I had a hard night that night. I was overcome with grief and it’s challenging to even write about it now. One of my real life heroes, who has done so many incredible things for the world, has now left the world. The last time we spoke was in an email was 2 weeks before he died. I was telling him how I made one of my son’s dreams come true. I asked my son in 2016 where he’d like to go if it was anywhere in the world, he said Hawaii, so in December 2017 I took him there. I emailed Rob about it in December:

Coping With It

I didn’t know what to do, my heart was hurting and I asked why we would lose such an amazing person. I didn’t have any answers. Robert Young was more than a professor to me, he was my hero, role model, and friend. As a way to cope with this welling of emotions and the feeling of powerlessness, I created a Facebook post as my own sort of eulogy, to reach out and tell someone about how much this man meant to me. I wrote:

I cannot describe what this man meant to me to ever fully give him justice, Robert Young, more than just the professor of the Green Cities UT course i enrolled in, was a mentor, an inspiration, a dreamer who made those dreams come true.

A man who not only motivated John Zimmer to create Lyft who took the same Green Cities course i was in, but also created the foundation to the recycling program America uses. Robert Young passed away January this year I just found out today.

I loved him like family, I wouldn’t be the man i am today without his positive influence.

Dr. Young changed so many lives for the better with his burning passion to help this world become a better place through city planning, economics and the sustainable architecture of Garden Cities.

His sincere desire to enrich the lives he touched with the knowledge, energy and realistic blueprints gave the gift of faith and hope in his beautiful vision of the future. My heart goes out to his surviving wife and children.

Dr. Young and I met several times in the years after I graduated his course and made many plans to change the world together through Green Cities and the community of talented professionals who took his course.

I stay committed to his vision, and will dedicate my life to helping to make this a reality. The world has lost one of the greatest people to ever walk this planet but i will never forget his words, his wisdom, and the fire that burned so true inside his soul.

The last time I saw Robert we had dinner together at my townhome and strategized future plans to bring people together, and create a Green Cities intelligentsia to change the world, by augmenting various strengths of each individual has towards creating an organization comprised of those who shared the passion for bettering the planet through sustainable city planning, architecture, permaculture, IT, social networking, economics, transportation, solar power, urban ecosystems and global interdependence

This photo was taken that night, may peace
be with you old friend.

We took that photo together in front of my home library where all the books of his Green Cities course are kept.

Tree Planting Ceremony

D. and I, we went to the tree planting ceremony in Rob’s honor together, she picked me up and we car pooled to UT. We were late to the ceremony and D. joked, “Dr. Young would be so mad at us for being late!” We laughed quietly in heartfelt nostalgia. I chatted briefly with Robert’s wife Katharine and let her know how much Rob inspired me. How I’m going to dedicate a significant portion of my life to helping make his dreams of Green Cities a reality. I mentioned that now that I have refined my musical talents more, I’m going to do a remix of all the Green Cities raps I created for Rob’s class. This is a promise I’m going to keep.

Afterwards, we were invited to a subsequent ceremony mainly of UT staff in honor of Robert Young. As I made small talk with various people including the Dean of the Architecture school I think, I found it hard to feel present. Seeing pictures of younger Rob with his children, in various cities, at younger ages made me feel like tearing up again. I didn’t feel up to social pleasantries but did the best I could with my Green

Cities classmate at my side.

Robert’s Future

Drinking a beer and walking slowly around the room, circling back to the table my friend D. was standing at, I was filled with sadness but also hope.Hope that I am a good enough person to help manifest Robert’s vision of sustainability. I emailed him when I recently finished writing my first book, on personal development, because his approval meant just as much to me as blood relatives.I don’t have a pithy platitude to make the loss of Rob any more bearable but over time a perspective develops. Instead of sadness, I’m gradually starting to feel more and more gratitude that I was lucky enough to meet Dr. Robert Young. You only get to meet a person like that once in your lifetime. The lessons of interdependent relationships between agriculture, transportation and city planning and the forever shining hope in his heart I share with my son. I’m grateful to have been there at the right time, to have felt his sincere caring for the planet and the people who live on it. And I’m grateful for the chance to pay it forward, however I can.

-Trevor

Coffee Adventures

Tuesday Feb 27th, 2018

Press Play for added atmosphere -Dennis Kuo’s Midnight Coffee

I love coffee – I grind my own beans and I never drink preground coffee. Blech! A year ago I had no idea what the wonders of grinding my own beans fresh would be, or how much better this made coffee taste. I was working at Facebook (that’s my day job) and one of the managers named David P. showed me how to make espresso. I expressed to him when the topic of coffee came up, that I didn’t drink Facebook’s coffee that was provided because I no longer got any caffeinated buzz from it, to combat the post lunch food coma. David offered to show me how to make espresso to up the ante.

That was the beginning of my journey into the coffee intelligentsia. I started making espresso every day at work, grinding the beans, frothing the cream, pouring hot delicious super caffeinated espresso into paper cups. After I was briefly laid off, before being hired again a few months later, I went through withdrawls from not having freshly ground coffee.

I was freelancing as a social media marketer at the time & decided to buy my own espresso machine. It was nothing special, just a Mr Coffee espresso machine, but it got the job done.I discovered how much I love Cuvee after reading many coffee reddit threads & forums about the best coffee in Austin. I learned about finding beans that were roasted within 3 days of my purchase. And then, I learned a new way to brew.

Pretty soon, I had perfected making the best espresso that little machine could make, and quickly impressed my friends who happened to stop by in the morning with just how full flavored and packed with a punch my espressos could be. I don’t follow the traditional small cup espresso route, making just a couple of shots. I usually fill up an entire glass like it was coffee because, well, I enjoy drinking coffee beverages so much, why skimp on the amount?

I found myself going to coffee shops like Epoch, and becoming disappointed with their espresso skills, being too spoiled on how I like to make espresso, and the beans I like to use (Cuvee Meritage is phenomenal). But, it was all for the best, because now, I could produce coffee at home that was much better, imo, than any coffee shop I went to. Fresher, tastier, more full bodied, and so on.

Fast forward a few months later, I’m working at Facebook again, and have a long discussion with one of the IT guys, Eric G. about coffee. I share my experiences making espresso and we talk about the different caliber of grinders and machines for making espresso -which can get pretty pricey. Eric advised me to focus more on making a high quality cup of coffee than on buying a $500-$1000 espresso machine.

The Aeropress

Eric introduced me to the Aeropress, made by the manufacturers of the Aerobie ring. Having thrown the Aerobie ring, a super long distance frisbee, as a child, I was nostalgically surprised to find out the same company made their own version of a French Press. My friend Jeff had given me a French Press years ago but I somehow lost it when moving to my townhome I currently live in.

So, I took Eric’s advice, bought an Aeropress, and used the burr grinder he recommended (technically everyone takes Eric’s advice since he works in IT). The coffee I made was above par in excellence, and I appreciated his suggestions. Grinding coffee by hand was a unique experience, I hand ground beans I used to make espresso and coffee grinds and I am pleased with the results.

Now, drinking coffee via Aeropress, espresso machine, and regular cone filter but grinding my own beans via burr grinder or my electric grinder, I was pretty happy…for a while. I tried many flavors of Cuvee as well as 3rd Coast, but, eventually wanted to try something new. At my friend John L.’s house, celebrating his wife LeeAnn’s birthday, I met a woman there who was the girlfriend of John’s old roomate from college. She suggested I try out Anderson’s coffee.

Last weekend I rode my new blue bicycle my mother gave me for my birthday, to Wheatsville, then to Anderson’s Coffee where I bought a pound of their house blend to start off before trying more expensive blends.

It was an interesting looking place with a wall of coffee mugs for sale on shelves. I love buying new coffee mugs and made a mental note to buy a new mug on my next visit. I rode my blue bicycle to Central Market and bought Cuvee’s Spicewood blend as a fail safe in case I didn’t like Anderson’s coffee. I have to have good coffee people! I wake up every morning at 6:20am to study Spanish, and that cup of jo really helps me become focused faster on learning indefinite article pronouns and the future tenses of ir: Me voy beber cafe todas las dias en la manana (I’m going to drink coffee every day in the morning).

I could barely wait to get home & try the new coffee:

I measured out a cone full of whole beans & poured them into my electric grinder:

Then started pouring the Anderson Houseblend beans into the grinder:

The freshly ground beans are now cascading beautifully into the coffee cone:

The Pour: Less than 30 seconds later, the boiling water was poured:

While some schools of thought advocate the water poured on coffee to be of a temperature between 195 F (91 C) and 205 F (96 C) – I choose to boil the water mainly because I haven’t seen a sacrifice in taste to equal coffee going cold faster. And I love cold coffee -when I’m deciding to have cold coffee (I’m actually drinking cold coffee right now as I write this). Not so much for a glass of hot coffee to go cold faster, hence, my boiling the water.

And now, drum roll please, the finished cup of Anderson Coffee House Blend is held up to the sky, steam wafting up to the ceiling, pre-1st sip, to marvel at its glory:

I got that cup from the top of Mauna Kea mountain, at the Visitor Center on the Big Island, Hawaii. It’s a special cup to me, I remember walking down the mountain for a mile or 2, in 25 degree temperatures, carrying this cup, staring at the stars with my son. The stars were super bright and close, I’ll always remember that moment when drinking out of my Mauna Kea coffee cup.

The Verdict

It was ok. I liked it. Was it great? Hard to say. Perhaps it will grow on me. The first moment I sipped freshly ground Meritage I was in heaven, and it never changed, that flavor of Cuvee has always been the most pleasing to my palate. Next week I shall try the more expensive blends and see if one appeals to me. The kind barista offered to drink sample sips of each blend before I purchased, so I think I shall do that.

Even if this flavor isn’t amazing, and didn’t wow me, I’m still drinking Anderson Coffee House Blend every other day to variate from Cuvee, which was my main goal; to find another kind of coffee I liked, to shake up the routine. This goal I achieved.

Cheers!

To Kill A Mockingbird

Monday, February 19th, 2018

Background Music Press Play for Added Atmosphere

I like animals but there’s this mockingbird that wakes me up in the middle of the night, just going nonstop with a strange amount of chirps, it sounds psychotic. The other birds, even grackles, are less annoying because they pause between chirps and there is plenty of quiet between their chirping sessions. This mockingbird just goes on for hours and hours.

There are even other parts of my neighborhood that I’ve seen and heard mockingbirds that don’t have this bizarre frantic energy that the mockingbirds in front of my townhomes have. Perhaps the electromagnetic energy from the electrical devices nearby affects them crazy? Maybe the street lamps outside throw off their natural sense of day and night and this also…somehow…makes them psychotic chirpers?

It’s strange how aggressively they go at it. So I decided, fuck this, I have to do something about it. I bought a wrist rocket sling shot on eBay.

It reminds me of my Dennis the Menace days as a rebellious youth, or memories of watching the Sandlot movie. I started shooting rocks at the mockingbirds to get them to go away.

But it didn’t work. No matter how close I get to hitting them, no matter how many times I sling rocks at these loud non stop noise making birds, they keep flying back to the same places on the telephone wires, stop signs, and trees in the front parkinglot, where my townhome is.

The irony is there is a whole neighborhood with creeks and plush trees to fly to that is so much more of a suitable habitat than a parkinglot made of concrete -yet these little bastards keep coming back. I’m a vegetarian, supporter of animal rights (though not PETA they go too far hurting animals in their videos to try to gain attention), an environmentalist, love me some sustainable permaculture versus a forced agriculture approach. But these mockingbirds won’t shut up!

It bears mentioning that I work from home, as a tech for Facebook, so I spend a lot of time at home. This leads to a lot of times I have to hear these mockingbirds. I think they are kind of pretty with the patterned design on their wings, but they are also aggressive af.

Before I bought the wrist rocket slingshot I ended up running outside in my boxers, in the parkinglot, throwing bottled water into the trees, brooms, anything I could find to get them to STFU at 3am in the morning when I was trying to sleep. There’s no cause for that. 3am? WTF!! I found an article from 1987 on the Los Angeles Times website where the biologist who wrote the piece suffered as I do from the nonstop night noise:

http://articles.latimes.com/1987-01-25/magazine/tm-5613_1_mockingbird-sings

I found it interesting that I wasn’t alone in experiencing this (even back in the 80s these mofos were interrupting sleep with their racket). Also, I found it interesting that mockingbirds don’t sing like other birds, for joy, often they chirp because they are pissed off little shit heads and chirping isn’t a song as it is a filibuster of complaints in bird language. Somehow, I’m not surprised.

Now, I sometimes go out into the parkinglot shooting up at the trees, trying to scare the mockingbirds away. What the hell happened to a sense of survival??? I’m trying to establish a perimeter, to keep them away from the front of the parkinglot since they have an entire neighborhood, including several parks. But the loud bastards won’t take a hint.

Fast forward 6 months, I drove most of the mockingbirds off, and they don’t wake me up at 3am anymore, sitting outside my 2nd story window with their wretched chirping. For the past 3 months or so I’ve had relative peace and quiet from the mockingbirds who moved on to somewhere else.

I spoke too soon! Now there are THREE mockingbirds that have come back to harass me. I think my aim is getting better now. The whole thing doesn’t make any sense. Why come back to a place where you’re going to get shot at? The mailman yesterday saw me trying to shoot the mockingbirds out of the tree and stopped to ask me if I’d had much luck. I explained my reasons why I was trying to drive them off and we had a good laugh. Even if it sucks to have to deal with it’s still a funny story.

To be continued…