Video Coffee

I started my video on how to roast coffee beans. I am doing this video to teach people. I am also marketing this video to teach the basics.

Learning from forums

Even as I was younger, older men in business that I meet to talk about business seemed to be intimidated by me especially Asian men in general. I know that also happens with men in general born in the 50's and 60's.

I find it interesting that generations of men are different on how they look at young men in business. Even though I was hoping to get a new supplier for me coffee, I learned one important lesson. It was to listen but don't have believe what he tells me. He wanted to know how I do my business and when you do talk to people, you will see who believes in your work and those who want to know why you are in business and try to use their "age" to discourage you. This Korean man worked in the electronics industry for 20+ years and just got into coffee not too long ago. He may have travelled to many countries, have kids, family and business partners but one key question I asked him actually told me more than I needed to know and how I conduct my own business is my own not for his prying curiosity.

This is why it is important to ask questions and talk to people because you will learn right away if they believe and support you. I am grateful he did teach me something but not have to work with him on my projects.

Once people understand that when something that works for you does not work for someone else and they try to tell you that you are wrong, think of the validations of your customers. The people that tried my coffee no matter which roasting technique I do works..period regardless of this Korean man's opinion. He only does this for the money and knows only what his business partners tell him or his opinion. Since my roasting strategy works, I am grateful for it and my friends love it.

Learned From A Professional Businessman

I had an opportunity to learn from a businessman from the Coffee industry today about my roasting. Since I am new to roasting coffee, I knew he was going to tell me how things were and what to do. In some ways, I am annoyed because when people tell you what machine to use or you can't do this and that, I realize he was telling me he was competition in some way. The good news I learned from him. Just because people discourage you from doing something you love, you let it go and keep doing it.

My advice for startups is listen and ask questions on their thoughts. You don't have to believe everything on what they say. Just keep doing it. The real results are the people who love your product not the ones who run a business and can't ask to try your sample or they can't tell the difference between them creating their own product and hiring others just for the sake of business.

Disapproval From a First Time Yoga Practitioner

I went to yoga and while doing my 3 legged pushup, a woman in class said "I hope you fall down, show off". I find that when people do disapproval comments and being correct and self righteous wearing "Jesus Saves Lives", one it tells me they really don't believe in Jesus. I've been doing yoga for almost 2 years. Just because I laugh and not take myself seriously don't really mean I can't do certain moves. I think my instructor purposely had us do some of my favorite poses especially with a "bind" and I think my yoga moves speak for themselves and eventually she did not want to correct or comment about how I do my yoga. It's sad when people make harsh judgements, they turn very critical towards other people just because they look different or act different. I am not sure if she will show up next week for class. All I know is she stopped being serious close to the end of class and realized that the yoga class I take is fun. All of the serious people usually don't want to ever come back since they realized people came to class to not only do yoga but laugh and have fun. Too bad for the serious people.

Flyer

A couple of minutes ago, I completed my coffee flyer. There is more work to be done in marketing. I will be needing some help distributing my flyer to anyone wanting to try my coffee samples.