welcome to Show Me Yours i am Reanna Werner your co-host along with Jason Sheffield hey everybody we're so happy
you joined us today today you are in for a special treat we are here with Don
Neeem Story Coffee and what an incredible story it is this man created
a business out of a tiny home where you raised your children
right close we raised two of our children in a RV that was about the same
size oh and so that led to the idea of the tiny house still about the same size
wowza oh my goodness and he's got an incredible um deeper story that we're
going to jump into and then we're going to ask some really crazy questions you guys may have seen in our last episode
um we introduced the show me yours bucket bucket
and we had so much fun with it we thought we would pull it out on Don and he yeah he graciously agreed which was
wonderful so we're going to play with the bucket a little bit later um but Don
I would love for you to talk with our our viewers and listeners today about
how in the world you came up with a brilliant idea of opening up a tiny home
coffee shop in Acacia Park okay so start from the beginning oh the beginning um
so I get this question at least weekly maybe not quite daily but a lot what's the story a story and I got a lot of
different versions of the answer depending on how much time we have i'll kind of tell you the a little bit medium version uh my wife and I we lived here
in Colorado Springs and uh got married and wanted to go i was working at Starbucks at the time and um wanted to
go do something you know that was her and me not you know she she lived in
Texas when we met so she moved here to be with me and it was like me in my context add Cararissa and so we're like
"Hey let's go someplace where it's Dawn and Cararissa." So we looked around and Portland Oregon was a interesting place
and so we packed up with one of our one one daughter at the time and then we
were pregnant with the second one i've got four daughters now and took off to Portland Oregon where we ended up
getting involved in the coffee scene out there so we spent eight or nine years out there um just learning everything
that we could about coffee um we had a mentor that at one point we were like "What what what you know what's the next
step?" And he said "Y'all should get into judging competitions." We're like "Oh we could never do that what what even is that?" You know but he said
"Well there's a training this weekend you should go to that training and then you'll kind of see." Well to our shock
uh we went to the training and they said "Yeah y'all get in here you're going to be judges." And so we started judging coffee competitions um and so we did
that for years and by by so doing what you end up doing is you're just hanging out with some of the finest in the
industry the people that are competing at the highest levels you know national levels and so we were just learning a lot really quick coffee competitions
what are you judging like the the beans the taste the the creativity behind
making a latte i've never even heard of a coffee competition we could have a whole episode about that but the short the short answer is it's a barista
competition so you're judging barista skills okay okay you know they make coffee for you serve it to you you taste
it how long ago was this uh well so we started that in somewhere around '08
okay so like right as thirdwave coffee is coming online and the barista movement is happening you guys are like
in it and you're starting to figure out how to like kind of ride that wave totally in a city that is known for it
portland is like you know one of the best cities in the world for that kind of thing so we the point there is we were just learning but meanwhile our
little two little girls now were growing up and we decided we we didn't want to be so far away from home so we wanted to
go back to you know somewhere around Colorado closer to family i'm from Oklahoma i wasn't going to go back to
Oklahoma but um my wife's from Missouri so we thought we can be on the front range you know back in Colorado we
weren't coming to Colorado Springs though because we're like we already been there why would we go there again let's do something different so we were
kind of looking at Fort Collins which I know you spent some time in and anyway we we just got this I got this idea one
day i was like "Hey you know what we're going to be selling our we had this time we had three coffee shops out there so we're gonna be selling our coffee shops
you know we're going to be rich but we got a little money in our pockets why don't we spend maybe a couple of weeks
um just kind of like between here and and uh Colorado between Oregon and Colorado we just like you know go to a
few coffee shops kind of see what's out there." Then that idea grew into like well you know if we had the right machine we could do this for even longer
than two weeks and it was this crazy idea of like a two week vacation what if it was 3 weeks you know that seemed insane well that kept growing and then
we got our hands on this little mini RV called Volkswagen Rialta which was perfect for four people pretty small
drives like a car gets pretty good gas mileage but big enough that we could all be in there you know and we thought
let's just hit the road and see where it takes us well that led to there's another part of the story where we ended
up not leaving town for 2 years it's a whole other great story but I won't get into that right now so we had literally
ended up living in this RV on the streets of Portland running businesses taking our kids to school for like 2
years acting as if we were normal but we were truly homeless like we just lived in an RV and we loved it the whole thing
was hilarious and you know we were learning so much stuff our kids loved it you know we were waking up in
interesting places every day and just going wherever we wanted to you know saving a ton of money by the way because now for the obvious reasons well we
finally did sell we got into problem selling our third shop we got we finally did sell it and took off and spent a
year traveling around and we knew we wanted to do something in coffee but we didn't know what so we were looking at
different ideas and somewhere during that trip we got the idea you know what
we're getting pretty good at minimalist living like accidentally we weren't planning on doing this for it ended up
being four years we weren't planning on living in 100 square feet with four people for four years but that's what
ended up happening so therefore just by accident we got kind of good at it and
so we thought we kind of know how to use tiny spaces what if we built a tiny coffee shop and then we kind of ha that
would be hilarious you know and we're like no but really like what would that be like you know and that turned into
the idea of a tiny house coffee shop and so that's what we built and to just
maybe this could go a bunch of different places but to button that up because the next question like how'd you get in Aacia Park so I'll answer that which is
another accident so the best things in my life have been accidents i think that's true for a lot of people you know but you know if just to get philosoph
philosophical for a second accidents come but if you're paying attention it's when you're like hey I I I noticed
something there what if we turned that that we weren't really doing on purpose because you do some things on purpose as
well but like I wasn't really doing this on purpose but like I ended up with this skill set i wonder if there's a way and
curiosity is one of our core values of like I just wonder what there is here i wonder what could be possible let's you
know play with that a little bit so anyway we played with that idea built the tiny house but we didn't know where
we were going to put it our thought was that if we went to somebody and said "Hey can we build a tiny house coffee shop and put it on your property?" They
would say what anybody would say which is "What is a tiny house coffee shop?" Because as far as we know that hadn't existed before there certainly are small
shops shops in you know trailers and different things but as far as a tiny house our unique you know uh competitive
advantage if you want to say it that way was that people could come inside so we weren't just serving out a window like a
like a food truck but you could come inside and kind of have a what we wanted to be an elegant experience so we we
built it first and then started kind of pitching you know hey we have this we would show pictures of it we we are in possession of this what do you think and
the person the people the entity that answered the question affirmative was
accidentally the city of Colorado Springs because as you guys know they have an ice skating rink that opens up
every year and they had been running it for a couple of years this was 10 years ago um but they had gotten a little
feedback consistently which was like skating is great it'd be cool to have a place to get a warm drink maybe a
warming place to warm up you know before we go and they were like and that's what you've built here and it's on wheels so
you could park it right next to the ice skating rink and I said "Well I'm looking for a a permanent location." And
they said "Well do you have one?" I was like "No." They said "Well this could be a place to kind of try it out." And I was like "You know what let's go let's
do it." So we set up in the middle of uh of uh Acacia Park and served hot
chocolates to ice skaters for about 3 months and then that turned into an invitation to stay there i always say I
would never have even had the thought to approach the city of Colorado Springs and say "What do you think can I put a
business in your park?" Because they'd be like "Get out of here what are you talking about we don't even do that." But because it was a shared need and a
shared vision and because we kind of we joined in with them at something they were doing met a need that they had and
by the time that was over they were like "Man everybody seems to like y'all being in the park why don't you just stay here?" And that was 10 years ago when
we've been we moved to the edge of the park and we've been sitting there for it's been it'll be 10 years this November wow what was that moment like
when you heard back from Colorado Springs and they're like we want you oh unbelievable been jubilation well yeah
because you can't like I said I wouldn't even cross my mind to ask for that but I was like "You want us to come where?" And they're like "Right here in the
middle of downtown Colorado Springs in the in the middle of the park." I was like "Okay that's let's do that." You
know i mean there were some problems we didn't know where we'd get electricity water you know there were there were some problems but we solved those
problems and there's got to be some com complexity to though working with the
city and being in a city park i mean is there a permitting process is there
yeah this is one of my favorite I love to tell this bit because the piece of paper that I signed to be there it's
something that in in the world that they live in they have such a thing for you to do that it's called a revocable
permit m and I'm like revocable talk a little bit more about revocable where you going with that you know uh I tell
people like when I got married I didn't get a revocable marriage license like I kind of want a commitment here you know like if you if you open a business you
sign a lease for 5 years or whatever it is like I kind of want a commitment they they have no such thing it's like well we think we're going to leave you there
for a while but the permit itself is called revocable and I tell people like if you were going to sell hot dogs at a
parade you would need a revocable permit that's just the language they put on it so they gave me a longer term revocable
permit i've been working off of for 10 years now to answer this question by the way the city's been great and I think
it's been great number one because it's a great city you know good people that we're able to work with um but you know
to our credit if there is any we are again I said it already we are operating as somebody who understands we're not
you know you're not here to help us we're plugging into a thing that you're doing and we're going to do that we're
going to what what are your needs how do you want us to do here you know and so you know with regards to everything from
how much insurance they require to you know operating out they're like "Well we want you to be open when the ice skating
rink's open." Done and so we every every second that the ice rink was open for
the first two or three years we did come to another understanding later because uh news flash Monday afternoon at 4:00
during school there's nobody out there so they're like "Okay you know maybe not every second." But anyway we tried to be open whenever they wanted us to be open
we tried to be nice to people we try to be nice to people who weren't there as our customers they would come like "Hey can you tell us where the nearest
bathroom is?" Oh absolutely right over here you know we just try to be nice and try to serve their purposes and of
course this is again philosophical when we serve their purposes then it reciprocates and then we get our needs
me met as well so that's what we've been doing that for 10 years now and we have a great relationship with city that's
wonderful so then take us through a little bit to the the evolution of the second location so kind of out of the
the tiny house you guys then open up the second location in Okaro City take us
through kind of that shift to now more of like a an actual physical location that's in a shared space so it kind of
has some of that more communal element to it but take us a little bit through that piece yeah so people would
frequently you know they'll come in their little thing and they look around they're like "Man y'all thinking about having a real coffee shop sometime?" And
I would you know I didn't say this out loud but like as opposed to this fake one this imaginary one the one where I just made you a cup of coffee you know
but you know I understand you know you just alluded to like it's not a it's not a traditional space it's not a brick and
mortar or whatever and so they would that conversation would frequently go to you know when are you wanting to do that
you know when when might you do that and I always say well I hope I never do that because I like my simplicity we as a
company and us as a family we chase simplicity all the time that's our
that's our drive one of our driving you know factors and so we had gotten it to where you know our overhead is really
low yes we do pay to be in the park but we have our own building so it's less than if we had to rent a space right so
our overhead's low our operation's simple and we had kind of carved out a way we're like you know nobody's getting
rich here but we're paying our bills and like it's life is simple go home and play with my kids this is great but then
my buddy Ryan Lloyd he's an architect um that has done some of the more interesting uh jobs around town and I've been
knowing him for about 20 years um he and his wife Valerie uh bought an old
building over there that is now known as the Slle building used to be the um uh
what was it the Army Surplus the Army Surplus yeah yeah the Army Surplus Store a lot of people remember it as that anyway they bought that building and
they they had a vision for like turning it into a community space i'm like "Oh yeah not really interested." Like we'd
like our Well I don't know what'd you have in mind and that question what'd you have in mind turned into like we were dreaming of these things you know a
community space that you just touched on a space where you know makers and dreamers and creators can share
resources and be in here together and I was like "Oh man that sounds like that sounds like the kind of thing I wouldn't
want to do you know and um so they they said "Well we need coffee." I said "Well I can do that." You know so that led to
us you know moving in over there and and so we all built that at the same time but I said "But we're we're going to
keep it simple like we don't want a big palace we just want like our small footprint they said "Okay well allocate
you about 450 square ft," which they did um but what has ended up turning out
turning out to be the case is because there's 12,000 square feet there some of it shared space and that is open for
Story Coffee customers to use and that's the vision of the building and they want it to be open for the community and so
there's that there's a set of bleachers there where they have events and different things and little tables and
stuff and then there's a 40ft deck out front that you know that's a shared space as well but my you know our
customers benefit from all those shared spaces and so it feels like we have all this space but we just pay for that one
little you know you know the the 450T that's specifically for us and we have
loved it it's been a great move for us it's given us you know more um possibility as far as like gathering and
meeting and people that come and meet with their friends there's more space for them to do that so it's been a great
move for us what a great way to keep it simple but yet still give so much more to the community i mean you have a total
of from what I'm counting 550 square combined feet and here you are feeding
an ice or fueling an ice skating rink and the uh old Colorado city corridor
full of caffeine i mean that's pretty incredible with simplicity as your core
that's the hope yeah yeah that's impressive and you guys were one of the if I remember correctly the first true
what felt like thirdwave good coffee in town i remember the first time you guys popped up in Acacia and I was like "Oh
my gosh it felt like Portland Coffee had arrived at Colorado Springs." Thank you it wasn't like Starbucks at that time it
was Wild Goose which is of course not exist anymore and then um uh the principal's office was doing some really
good coffee um but then you know we were the ones after then and right after us you know it was Loyal of course oh well
by the way Switchback was around right they were roasting they were roasting but they have since become you know one
of the finest operations in town at the time they were mostly just roasting coffee um that's a whole other story but
their their cafe wasn't name switch back it was called 50/50 and old schoolers yeah brandon Del old
schoolers will remember that but again today one of the finest you know in town but they weren't doing then what they're
doing now so yeah I'd like to think we were one of the first innovators in town for sure and I'm curious like in all of
this at the coffee talk and move movement of your philosophies how has that driven you as a business leader
like yes you've been a pioneer on these other things it's very tactile and like actually the doing of the coffee but now
there's like the running a successful business for the last 15 plus years and then obviously the years in Portland so
as a business kind of leader and an entrepreneur how's some of that thinking kind of bled into how you've led your
organization yeah that's a broad question it's a broad one and then we'll
dive into the bucket but I want to know a little bit more just kind of like or maybe maybe we can kind of focus it in a
little bit more and I'm just curious like why step into the entrepreneurial path right i mean you've learned coffee
you have a skill set you've obviously passed that skill set on to your baristas they know what they're doing
for you what was that kind of thing where you're like "No there's an entrepreneurial piece to this for me as well." There's a lot of ways I could go
with that but I'll go with this one because it's funny i kept getting fired from other jobs um and I think
entrepreneurs resume entrepreneurs resume like I'm in and in every case I thought and I think to this day I think
I was solving problems like I've got this creative solution here that's going to solve a problem for us it's going to
be my my employees i was managing this was uh one of most most recently well I
got fired from Starbucks and then for doing what I thought was a good thing um
and then I took a job at um Verizon Wireless i was managing just selling you know wireless phones i got fired from
them and you know I'm like my my team is happy my customers are happy the
company's making more money i'm like yeah but that kind of that broke a little obscure rule i'm like well your rules are dumb like you know and as it
turns out that's the wrong answer they're like there's the door buddy see you and so yeah so I I literally kept
getting fired from like corporate America jobs and somewhere along the way the line come like I think I should be
doing my own thing so I think it's true for a lot of entrepreneurs is just you don't become an entrepreneur because I
think I might like to try that out you do it because that's the only path for you you know there's not I I mean part
of it is I wasn't I guess I could say I wasn't really good at um you know playing by the corporate rules but the
other thing I can certainly say is I didn't like it you know I don't like having creative solutions but being told
don't get back in your box and just do what we said you know some people thrive in that i use I always I one of my shops
in Portland we had a guy who was a mail carrier while I was you know he would come and get his coffee every day and um
during that season he retired and so we had conversations about you've been doing this for like 40 years he's like
"Yeah they have the same route too." And he was real proud of that it's like "So you get a stack of papers and you walk in a circle and drop the papers off."
He's like "Yeah." And I'm like "God bless you." Yeah i if that were I mean he made good money he retired well if
you can do that not not me man walking in that circle with those papers every day I couldn't do it you know so it's
just kind of like you realize this is who I am you know you're just answering the call of like what I must do you know
kind of thing it's built into your core it's built into your core it really truly is and until you actually realize
it you always feel like something's missing from your soul and uh I know gosh you hearing you you speak to that
it takes me back to my corporate days i mean I was in corporate human resources and I was expected to be the policy
police and that just killed my soul and kind of like you you know I'm a rule
breaker and I'm like well these policies are great but really do they dictate every aspect of how we deal with humans
i think they do in that context they do there's a set of rules and you're supposed to follow those rules yeah they used to and I'm like there let's work
with people and boy every time I asked a question about breaking those rules I got that pushed back and I think that's
I think that you know one of the things I was doing is adjusting my inventory you know and in what you could kind of
kind of shady way it was making it right but in a way that wasn't the policy and they explained to me you understand like
this is how someone could steal i'm like well they could but this car chargers like it's a $3 thing they're like yeah
but we have these policies because next you know you learn to do it that way next it could be a $600 phone i'm like
yeah you make a strong point and then they said "There's the door." Yeah so so I I see why they have my point i see why
they have those they have to have those they do um but I don't have to be there i tell all my clients they need policies
but there's also adaptation and rationale and and yeah anyways I totally
get it and I feel your journey and it's interesting you know we're an HR firm and we'll get resumes sent to us or for
a client or something and I'll look at the resume and I'm like they don't know it yet but they're an entrepreneur they
don't know it yet you can see it yeah it's interesting so yeah um let's shift
to the bucket really quick i question I'm dying to know today
what is the square footage of your home that you and your family are living in that's a that's a fair question it's a
10,0001 okay 1001 uh when we moved in there there was six of us wow um and uh
then we added a dog since then um my uh
two oldest daughters who are now they're almost 21 and 19 um they've
they've uh mostly moved out one of them is totally moved out she bought a house and she owns a house and she's doing
great and the other one's doing great too but one of the things that I've done with both my older daughters is um
there's the whole story here as well but we suffice it to say we each have built with them their own tiny house so we did
it with the older one she lived in it in our backyard for two years and now she owns a you know she sold that now she owns another house and then now my
almost 19year-old she and I have built one and she's currently living in our backyard so she still comes in for meals
and showers and stuff cuz it doesn't have a shower um so she's moved out but she didn't get very far you know and and
it's a transition you know next she'll go do her own thing um so mostly in that
10,0001 square ft is just there's just four of us now wow what a brilliant idea
to build a tiny home with your kid that's amazing i need my daughter to have one she's 22 oh yeah yeah that's
She doesn't live at home but gosh that would be such an ideal scenario they save a ton of money they get some independence they learn some you know
actual practical se skills they both my daughters know how to use power tools and nailers and stuff you know and um
whether they'll use those or not I don't know but well you know like I said my my 20 almost 21-year-old is a homeowner now
and so you know she's got projects she has to do sometimes and she's got a few skills a few tools you know so and also
learning how to live out of a small space is like a lesson in of itself right so yeah we we have a tiny house
that we have up in Bu a Vista that we rent out mainly as an Airbnb but yeah
anytime we the six of us we get in that thing and all of a sudden it's like wo the square footage of that goodness I
can't even um I don't know off the top of my head um it'sin it's tiny it has
but it has two beds like two little lofts off of each of the of the trailers
it's like a 20ft trailer okay so it's probably 150 ft yeah yeah something like that so
bathroom little kitchen it's like Yeah well if it's 20 foot long and it's 8 foot wide or so it's 160 so yeah
something like that that's tiny so it is six people in there it's a lot of people it is but it's fun right like when you
get everybody in there and and it just kind of shifts that piece of like where you spend your space and where you spend
your time and having to be together yeah and have to make intentional decisions and you know you you said the being
together piece you know like uh if you've got a house where you got in my case I have four daughters and every one
of them has their own room and they all can just like scatter and like do their own thing that's that's a thing i'm not
saying it's a bad thing but it's a thing uh that don't happen in my house it's like you're you're not getting along
with her you got to have a conversation and figure it out because y'all y'all going to be in there together and there's no place to go you know so yeah
absolutely that's a good point yeah definitely creates problem solving intentional movement but also conflict
resolution it does wonderful and we've had a lot of conflict to resolve in our house poor girls absolutely totally okay
all right you ready ready let's Let's give it over to the bucket break it open okay let it be oh I get to draw you get
to draw absolutely let the chips fall where they may yes got it do I read it
there you go you can read it i can see where my glasses are i think I
can do it you need to borrow mine i think I got it what's the toughest feedback you ever received about your business or leadership style and how did
you or didn't you accept it okay the toughest
feedback you ever received about your business or leadership style
um the toughest feedback
I've already talked a little bit about how I kept getting fired so those were some tough some tough moments um a story
that comes to mind I'm I'm trying to think of whether how how applicable it is here but when I was much younger I
had a job where I'll just suffice to say there were kind of two aspects to the
job and I was doing I cared more about one than than the other and um I was you
know constantly like kind of doing a halfway job on the other one and then one day I guess my uh boss had had his
fill of that and so in a very public in front of everybody moment I'll never
forget exactly the words he said he said 'I don't see you following through with very much bud that was tough i was like
okay first of all bud really we're going to we're going to do that you're going to call me bud because you're mad um but
I just remember you know being super flustered and caught off guard because I thought I was the golden child and
everything amazingly you know um I don't think that was the right way to handle that but he was not wrong he
was right um he he was half right i was following through with everything on the thing that I cared about right you know
my little pet thing but the other thing which was a part of my job um I was kind
of like phoning it in you know and so while I think he could have delivered
that message a little less publicly and with maybe less um you know kind of
condescending language a little thoughtfulness a little thoughtfulness would have been good yeah um nonetheless
he was right and I think I was maybe 21 at the time so it was hard for my
21-year-old ego never mind 55-year-old one now but man my ego then was you know
unchallenged and so that was the first time anybody ever like kind of in Oklahoma said "Jerk the slack out of
me." You know what was your initial reaction i mean just acquiescence i'm like "Oh
okay yeah I will say anything right now for you to quit talking to me like this in front of all these people what What
do I need to do?" You know kind of a thing and then you know I did a better job and it did have the intended outcome
that's another lesson too like sometimes you can have the intended outcome like I did start doing a better job but that
did stick with me like it didn't do anything for our relationship you know it it it undermine some of my some of
what I would call his credibility with me and so I think about stuff like that all the time you know now I'm the old
guy you know as a by definition i'm you know in my 50s when you hire people at a
coffee shop it's almost always 20somes you know um and so I'm you know just
math i'm 30 years older than these people you know so I have those moments where I want to say I don't see you
following through with too much bud but I remember I try to remember i don't think that's the language in the way you
want to you know that deliver that message you know and do I do well i don't know ask the people that work for
me i think I probably do well sometimes and sometimes I don't um sometimes you know I fail and sometimes I miss the
moment and misunderstand the best path here and then there's this other tricky thing which you know if you do if you've
done HR I guess both of y'all um people are different have you noticed that one
size does not fit all you know like and they're unpredictable and they're unpredictable so what might be you know
I might be able to say to you hey I need you to do a better job on this report and you're like okay got it and if I say
hey I need you to do a better job of this report you're like why are you talking to me like that man you know like people are different they have
different personalities different things motivate them you know and so that's one of the challenges of of leadership is
you know I always say you know there are times and places and contexts where it
is my line to hold this is the standard this is what we do this is how it works
here step up and do this and then there's other times where it's like well who are you yes I've got this line but
like how are you going to get there you know when I might say you know what let's forget about that let's talk about this line over here for you not that I'm
lowering the are but like you know some people for example I was telling somebody yesterday I had this employee
who um you she just her way of talking is just
flat you know so whereas you might be like hey how's it going it's so good to see you let me get you some coffee you
know kind of thing she's not like that you know she's like hi you some coffee today yeah no we can do that absolutely
it's going to be $5 flat so I tried to coach into her years ago that was a dead
end street man Yeah months of being like "Hey try it with this tone and remember you know you got to you know got to go
to where the customer is or whatever." It accomplished zero you know probably made her feel like a failure too it I
think it did yeah and at some point I had to come back like hey you know what you do you you be you you be you and if
that doesn't work here then we'll you know maybe help you find a job where that does work but as it turns out she
she's a great employee um in fact she's been gone for a couple years we're talking about maybe her coming back she's moving back to the Springs and
she's like "Hey if you got a spot you know so I might even bring her back." Great person but it's just realizing not
everybody's the same yeah you know absolutely i oftent times Oh no you go i oftentimes tell my clients I'm like
"It's not the golden rule in leadership." You know do unto others as you like done on to you throw that to
the side that's the biggest rubbish ever that rule just toss it in the can the
platinum rule is where it's at okay do unto others as they would like done unto them which means leaders have to step
out of their own skin understand the needs of others actually give a [ __ ]
about who that person is in front of them and meet their needs and I think you just Yeah gave a perfect picture are
you familiar with uh radical cander i think is the that's her whole thing is you've got to care about that you can't
start with here's what I want you got to start with caring about the person in front and realize that is a person it is
you know that's what I wanted that guy to me like the bud guy like I'm a person man i'm not just like a tool to meet
your goals i didn't get that so I try I mean and my very best I do remember these are people
yeah and in that moment that that guy that manager had his bud moment with you
he lost probably 95% of your loyalty whereas an hour prior to that you
probably would have jumped up and done most things for him all in right totally
and then after that moment you're like "Screw you." Right why why would I do
that for you i'm curious i want to kind of deepen this question a little bit because you've done a lot of innovative
things you've opened up a very innovative coffee shop out of a tiny house you have philosophies and some
standards and how you do things i'm curious how have you received feedback
on how you've done these things and has there ever been a moment where you know you holding a standard has actually cost
you something either having to let go of an employee or missing out on one opportunity that maybe you thought was
right but it didn't meet the standards and so therefore you gave up on it and it led to an accident that was maybe
better but in some way like in that vein of it feels like you have a lot of
clarity around how you do things who you are what you want done have you received
feedback about that that's been challenging or kind of uh yeah a hiccup if you will in that process yeah yeah i
mean dozens of times you know like I've got a a I mean I've been doing this for
20 years now together and or something like that um and I could there's a if I
sat down and wrote it out be a long list of former employees who don't like me you know it didn't go well you know one
or two of them have come back and circled back around and said "Hey just want you to know that I figured a few things out on this live thank you for
what you were trying to do back then i know that I was really a snot about it but I can see now what you're up to."
That doesn't mean though that I was always up to the right thing some people are mad at me that should be mad at me because I mishandled something you know
I made mistakes you know news flash you're human news flash you know it doesn't Yeah absolutely so yeah
certainly there have been um you know those types of of situations we're kind
of leaning a little heavy now um but that's okay uh I'll try to hold up show me yours show me yours yeah yeah no
that's good i you know I have one employee that comes to mind that um and
I I've got a few a number of people that the way the way I even talk about them I say they broke my heart you know because I love this person and um and I just
felt like there was so much you know possibility you know there um and maybe
I could have handled it differently i mean so there are times I'm like man I did
everything I could and then there's other times I'm like I don't know could I have done more maybe
i think you just nailed it though you did everything you could i do everything I knew to do yeah it's also a two-way
street too i mean that other people have to be receptive to your giving and what
you have to offer and it doesn't always work out that way yeah I reflect on a
few employees that I that have broken my heart too you know you put in all that belief and you pour into them and then
they walk away in some way and you think gosh if only but really and but a part
of it it too is is a judgment about um or a series of judgments about am I you
know is this person mine to care for because I do think that way about life like you're mine to care for you know
one of the things that we say is a little aside about our you know a lot of times people want to talk about talk
about our engagement with the homeless community down in Aacia Park and one and the way I tell that story this is what
literally happened was we didn't ask to be in Aacia Park that's just what happened but once we got there we looked
around like there's a bunch of homeless people around here here we are what do we do what do we do and my philosophy my
belief what I've been trained in is like you don't always you don't always ask for the people you're given but once you
are given those people those are your people to care for right so we have worked with the Marian House for years
and like you know giving a portion of our proceeds to them because they take care of those people you know what I
mean so we're not equipped to care for you know unhoused folks mentally
unstable folks whatever drug addicted folks we're not we're not equipped to care for those people that's what the Marion House does that's what Springs
Rescue Mission does so we try to support those organizations so that's just a little philosophy but then you come back to employees i do lean that way like you
are mine to care for like I said I got four daughters i kind of think of these people as my kids like just in the same
way I care about my kids I care about my employees but there are times and ways where that's not really appropriate
and I don't always think I shut it off soon enough because I want to keep
caring and you know that's a that's a hard thing too i get I don't want to I don't want to run my business in such way as I don't care anymore yeah
absolutely but I also don't want to cross a line where I'm like I'm caring for you in a way that you don't want me to care for you you know in a way that's
inappropriate or whatever you know that's a hard thing for small businesses it is and it's it's a reality that we
live with it's a challenge that we accept by virtue of getting into this and it's a line that we have to walk
yeah but you also have to think about like you know who do you want to be at the end of the day oh totally right so
if you lean to the the the the far end of caring too much or not caring enough
I mean I'd lean towards caring too much i think so yeah i think so so good for
you the acknowledgement that your heart will be broken more often it's just it's an acceptance factor i think at the end
of the day it's like hey I'm going to my default my wiring is to care a little
bit more in these ways and that just means I might be hurt more and it's a
it's a risk it's that you got to take but it's worth it because the upside of carrying is so much more valuable than
the not carrying side of it right i think that's right so I think it boils down to that all
right let's do one more okay maybe maybe two more i'll read this one for you to see and again if you decide to skip you
get you get a skip i get one uh what's one personal habit that seriously
clashes with your entrepreneurial drive but you just can't seem to shake
what is one personal habit that clashes with your entrepreneurial drive but you
can't seem to shake well I mean I could uh take the what's
it called where you um there's a phrase for like where you kind of weenie out
and say well we just talked about it with caring too much right right no let me let me try a little harder
um gosh that's a tough one well here's here's what comes to mind and I don't know that because it the question
presupp seems to insinuate presupposes that you're yet you would like to get to disabuse yourself of that habit it seems
to but that would be the idea i do have I do have a habit that sometimes does have that effect but I'm not even
considering how to get out of it which is I'm a nap taker oh okay tell me about I love this down this almost every day
not a long one you know 10 or 15 minutes um but like if I'm don't it don't matter what I'm in the middle of like I'm going
to I'm going to have lunch i'm take a nap you know so there might be times where you know that clashes because I
got stuff I should be doing but I'm like I'll do it when I wake up so and what I love about that question is you're right
a lot of times people might look at their habits as a clash right to their entrepreneurial drive as something they have to shake i'm curious though to
shift that and where when did you accept that you needed naps and when did you give yourself the permission to actually
take them yeah it was uh college yeah and I've never I've never not been a
person that takes naps really yeah through all my uh career i mean there
there are times when it's just not possible you like I'm managing Verizon wireless stores i don't go in the back and take a nap um but you know even like
on a day off or you know in those days one of right in those days one of the things I do is I'd go in like at because
I'm a morning person i mean I'm up five o'clock every morning like let's go let's get I mean I'm awake i'm alive my
my brain's firing my synapses are going um I'm getting some coffee obviously you know to fuel that and by noon I'm like
"Okay it's I've done a full day's work now it's nap time." So I might go in you
know we opened that store we opened at 10:00 i might go in at 5:30 or 6 and get
I could get I could get 10 hours of work done in that four hours before customers showed up so I was extremely productive
you know but then I'd be like "Okay done for the day hey y'all carry on i'm going to go and take a nap you know so um so
it was early on and then and I suppose a lot of it's not philosophical it's biological like my body just tells me I
need to take a nap and so that's what I do but what I love about the philosophy behind it is the permission to do it
yeah i I feel like a lot of people might have that sense of like I need this but
because of whatever society tells them or whatever the kind of triedand-trude blueprint of how something is done they
they kind of fit themselves into that versus honoring what they need and so I think that's the fun piece is like you
figure out a way to honor something that you really need and make it work within your lifestyle yeah for all of my
shortcomings and weaknesses and uh things that I can't see clearly that's one that I you know I didn't get married
till I was in my 30s so I and then now that I'm married you know I've been married 22 years now my wife and I as a
in our family therefore we do pretty good with that one like our whole you know ethos is like I don't care you're
like well everybody else is doing this like I don't even know why you brought that up i do not care one bit what everybody else is doing i'm going to be
doing this over here but nobody takes naps their problem yeah not mine like I'm I'll be over here asleep when you
need me you know kind of thing so and that that that played into um you know moving into the RV you know like you're
gonna move my I remember my parents you know we're just like salt of the earth hardworking Oklahoma farm they're like
you're moving all four of you into a car you know like
yeah it's going to be great you know and they just I remember them struggling with that like I don't know about that
i'm like what who says that you have to have a traditional you know house like
that's just society you know like society don't don't dictate nothing for me like I do what I want you know now
obviously I need to do things that are moral and healthy and whatever you know um try to but um living in a car I'd say
like a that sounds like an adventure let's go you know how did your naps work
in a 100 square feet and two little girls running around you must sleep like a rock well I do have that gift but that
was easy i park some beautiful place kick everybody out my wife goes on a nature walk of some sort my kids are out
there playing in the swing sets and I'm like taking a 10-minute nap in the RV oh so it's kind of like a family affair
they know that it's dad's nap time oh yeah yeah yeah yeah everybody knows
because the other thing is they know that no matter when they get up I've already been up a while i've already had
my you know my omelette and my coffee an hour before anybody else even thought about waking up and I probably done
returned a bunch of emails like I'm very productive in my time whenever you know
but while y'all been asleep I've been working you know um and so I have no guilt about
like and now y'all do whatever you want i'm taking a nap i get up and do some more work you know like work's not a
problem i don't mind working but I also don't mind pausing taking a nap so that's right i love that okay let's do
one more so far and then we will land this plane
what you got bring it oh I think yeah this could be interesting what was the
most unexpected aha moment that you had that completely shifted your business
perspective or strategy and can you remember where you were when it hit oo
man a moment it was a No I have a very clear one and it was a slow burn so I
don't know that I'm going to be able to tell you the moment that it hit um but
it's been the last three years or so really when we opened the second
location and I should have come to it before that but the way I have come to because I talk about this a lot the way
I've come to talk about it is Story Coffee used to be me i was story coffee
and there was no difference if we were hospitable it was because I was hospitable if we made good coffee it was
because I made good coffee because it was just me and I liked that like we we we built it to be that it's a very small
space one person can run it whatever well slowly over time we we were you know successful if that's the right way
to say it um and so we got busier and so we started adding employees well then we added a second location this has all
been a 10-year burn somewhere in there and I don't know the moment I realized I'm not Story Coffee anymore it's not me
story coffee is another thing and we can talk about what that is but whatever it
is it's not me oh my gosh that was a massive massive
shift for me because then you're you know when it plays out all sorts of ways but for example you're you're um let's
just take hospitality which is one thing we really are you know passionate about and strive for etc used to if I said
"Here's your coffee have a great day." Done now I've got 10 other people that have to say now remember I told somebody this yesterday now remember every single
time you hand a coffee off you say thank you every time thank you you know hopefully if y'all been in the story
y'all gotten that sometimes hopefully every time because we fail at it a lot of times you know but like my job now is
not to say thank you to the person who bought the coffee it's to train other people to say thank you to the person
that got the coffee yeah and then a million jillion other things that go along with it you know um I trained
somebody yesterday in cash handling used to if I handled cash carefully then art
till was on now I have to train other people to hand handle cash carefully so artiller beyond and but then you throw
leaders onto that now I have to throw leaders and train them to train other people to handle cash and and on and on
and on it goes right and I know I'm at the beginning of that you know like I got 10 employees in two locations
obviously there are people that have you know national you know presences and they have to have systems for which you
can get terminated and all kinds of things um but that that was the big shift for me and I've spent really it's
been I'm doing pretty good at it now but I spent two hard years just wrestling
and failing and not wanting to let go of stuff what were some of the strategies
that have shifted for you in that going from kind of that mindset of it's you to now looking at it as bigger what are
some diff now strategies that you've either implemented or that's kind of alive today that came out of that
process yeah I think the big one and again people that do HR are going to be like "Yeah dummy i would should have
learned that a long time ago." Hard is like "Oh what do we got?" Uh one one-on-one conversations mhm this is so
big it's so important i actually have to sit down with people not when I feel like it or when it's convenient or when
it crosses my mind but on a regular basis every one of my employees needs to
have somebody sometimes me sometimes another leader sitting down with them and saying "Okay like let somebody else serve the customers for a little while i
need to talk to you about how you doing how you feeling any problems or any questions you have what are you feeling
like you're doing really well what are you feeling like you're not doing that well because I can help you in something that you're not doing really well and
then there's a little bit of it that's you know well let me tell you about some things that I see i told a girl just this morning I said "Hey uh you're doing
a great job and you need to probably go about three times faster than you're currently going." She's like "Oh oh like
you think there's room to triple my absolutely there is." You know so I this is my chance to tell these people what I
see you know but that happens in oneonone it doesn't happen on the fly because all those years it happened on the fly like hey where's your coffee hey
by the way speed up hey what what can we get for you you know that kind of thing where you squeezing it in there and there's no intentionality to it it's
just if it happens it happens but if it doesn't and a lot of times it didn't then it doesn't but when you have these one-on-one conversations we're like
"Okay we're not going to be serving c customers coffee right now we're going to sit down in another room and just sit
down and just talk you know and and I want to listen." Oh listening dear God so important i try to listen more than
you talk you know ask questions ask questions that are open-ended not like "Hey is everything going here going well
for you here?" "Yes I guess we're done." Like but if you say like "Hey tell me one thing that's going well as far as
you you know have your in your experience and one thing you think's not going that well." Oh oh gez think about
that a minute it's like these bucket of questions that makes you like your brain has to turn on and Yeah you know I mean
think about that a minute you know yeah yeah so that that probably the biggest shift that I can think of wow
do you have any type of training plan in place you know you've got a new employee you onboard them because I'd figure
especially with your It sounds like you've nailed your your
client experience and you have high expectations for you know the quality experience everything from hospitality
down to the taste and the thank you at the end of the transaction um walk us
through what does that how do you get that employee on their
very first day and you know whatever it is at the end of
that training period like what does that look like how do you get them there i love this
conversation i'll try not to talk too long about this um first of all they start with five shifts where we have a
list and they're written down a list of conversations that we're going to have so just kind of introductory let's get
to know each other conversations and things on that are everything from like that hospitality is something that's
real important to us you know blah blah blah uh on down to like a kind of some of these philosophical bits that I
explained to them like um keep I I I say you know on the first day early on in
the first shift I said I want you to know something you cannot fail today because the only expectation I had for
you was to show up and you already did that so you're going to be a success today i because I don't expect you to
know anything however what comes with me not expecting you to know anything is I don't know what you know and I don't
know what you don't know so I'm just going to talk to you i always kind of joke and say "I'm going to talk to you like you're a a brain damaged third
grader that never been in a coffee shop before because I don't know." I can say "Oh you know how to make coffee you've I
can see on your resume you've made coffee so go would you go go make some coffee and you're like well I don't know what your recipe is and I've never used that particular machine before and by
the way where do you keep the coffee around here like I don't know what you know probably you don't know any of those things right so I say now this is
a coffee brewer and we're going to use to brew coffee and they're like yeah I know you know but I don't know I don't know what you know you might go oh
seriously I thought that was the grinder you know I don't I don't know so we start with no expectations and we start
building one at a time the competencies and I and I thing I love saying I say now you are here because we believe in
you we hired you and offered you this job because we saw some beauty and
greatness and excellence that we believe you have but there's all these things that are kind of hiding it such as I
don't know where you keep the coffee filters around here if I could find a filter I could make the coffee but I
don't know where they are so it's my job to just like an onion to start peeling back those layers and say "Hey here's
where we keep the coffee filters they're right here when you need one that's where they'll be." That and a million other things is what you got to know in
order for that beauty that we know is in there to shine out and I say "Now keep
in mind the highest goal I have is for that goodness that's in you to hit my customers." That's the way we build a
great business and it's also the way you're happiest here in your role is whenever you know like hey I made that
coffee and it was so good and they're going to love it so much because you're good at this job you know that's that's
what we're that's what we're chasing here and so that's the first conversations and then after they've
been there for five shifts we start a we call it the barista certification program and it's 10 modules and each one
of them has to be taught by a certified trainer that's been through it and has been certified as a trainer and there
are everything from cash handling things we talked about already this morning to um hospitality is one of them basics of
coffee the basics espressos two different ones um we have one called station management which is one of my
favorite ones that's where we talk about how like hey if I'm sitting here and I go like this if you're two of you on the
bar and somebody said hey can I get some half and half for my coffee and I do like this and you're standing in front of the refrigerator that's your cue to
get out of the way and open that refrigerator door cuz you can tell I'm coming for the half and half how do you know cuz the customer just said they wanted half and half and you felt me
lean in you know like so it's station management how are we going to work both of us together back here to create an
excellent experience and man when you're doing that and everybody knows this whether it's dancing or just a
conversation where you feel like the give and take is just so beautiful that's when we're at our best you know or we're playing off of one another and
you're asking good questions and I'm answering i'm asking you good questions you're answering them whatever you know and so we just are chasing that you know
and I could go on and on about that but that's the that's the process if that was your question did I answer it
not really as a leader you did as a leader our our success is dependent upon the
success of others and it really sounds like what you're doing is pouring into the success of others trying to and you
know that's and I think that's the core fundamental philosophy that any leader should take
and it you just kind of personified it just right there and seeing the beauty in these humans and asking for them to
share their beauty with others this is what we're trying to do yeah it's gorgeous yeah so we didn't hire you
because you were a mean self-absorbed uncommunicative person you know like
that person didn't get the job you know y So we think we have something to work with well now I'm ready to go learn how
to make coffee so where do I put in my application get certified yeah let's get certified
as I'm thinking about my coffee maker that broke at home this morning I'm like "Dang I bet you got one in this building." Yeah I'm sure we do we do and
I've already had my fair share I made up for it yes you should well Don
thank you so much for coming and showing yours and getting in a little bit vulnerable and sharing your story with
us it's been a lot of fun thank you so much for having me a lot of things so we mentioned obviously the locations but where else can people go drink some of
this wonderful coffee and and find you guys is there anything else that you want to kind of share plug that you're up to no just the obvious stuff
everybody's got a smartphone you type in Story Coffee Company you'll find us um we do have a a website where you can go
and buy coffee online you guys roast as well right yep we roast and so uh you
can buy coffee online have it shipped to you if you're not local to y'all's international audience i'll just put
that out there one day story story coffee company.com is the answer to that
all right love it we might have to get some for the office let's talk we have a program for that do you really
yeah oh did you hear that business owners we have a program for that yes all right and also if you have been to
Story Coffee I'm sure you guys rely heavily on reviews so hit up the reviews
and tell everybody much or everybody how much you love Story Coffee because they are just you're a pillar of our
community so thank you yeah that's great stuff all right all right well thank you
guys thanks for listening in today and we will see you guys on the next episode of Show Me Yours bye
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