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Episode Transcript
Hi, I’m Bec McFarland from Pop Your Business and Pop Your Career. In this podcast, I’ll be speaking to entrepreneurs who have overcome adversity, made difficult decisions, challenged the status quo and achieved amazing things in their businesses. Welcome to Brave In Business.
[00:00:00] Hello. Hello. It is Bec McFarland here helping you to better and be better in your careers and businesses and I would just like to welcome you to this week’s episode of Brave in Business. Now, we did not have a solo episode scheduled for this week, and I am also not recording in my usual podcasting spot. But something happened this morning and I felt compelled to jump on here and do a little bit of a story time episode and talk to you about being brave and [00:01:00] seeing possibilities everywhere.
[00:01:03] So I find that people often comment to me or ask me questions or say things about the fact that I’m a bit of a risk taker. I tend to often implement things in my business without necessarily thinking them through or being particularly strategic. And it means that I’ve always got something on the go.
[00:01:26] Now, I’m not saying that this is the perfect way to be. I would definitely like to be more strategic, and my team are really working with me to turn this around. And to make sure that things are a little bit more planned and not so off the cuff in my business. But I do think there is something to be said about this approach, particularly in the way that I view possibilities or opportunities. And that really is as simple as seeing those possibilities and opportunities absolutely everywhere.[00:02:00]
[00:02:00] So what brought me here? Why am I doing this story time episode today? Well, what I can tell you is usually I go into the office on Thursdays and Fridays, every week straight into the office. Those are the days that I work alongside my team in person. And it is just like that. That’s just my routine. I usually go into the office on a Saturday as well, and I see clients, but I’m usually there on my own. And then the rest of the week, like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, I work from home. I am recording this episode on a Wednesday. And I am in the office. So already this morning things have taken a little bit of a turn. Things are different to the way that they usually are. Usually on the days that I go into the office, I stop at McDonald’s on the way to work.
[00:02:55] Something I’m not necessarily proud of, but I love [00:03:00] my why bother coffee, which is a large decaf latte on soy milk. But this morning I had other plans. As I was leaving the house, I felt that little niggle in my belly, you know the one ‘I feel like my coffee’, like, where is it? And instead of driving to McDonald’s, I actually drove to my local IGA because I thought, ‘No, I’m gonna change things up today. I’m gonna drive to work a different way, and I’m not going to stop off at McDonald’s, but instead I’m gonna go to IGA and get something a little healthier. I feel like yoghurt.’ So I pull up into IGA. I never go to IGA in the morning. I can honestly tell you that I have never ever [00:04:00] stopped at IGA on the way to work.
[00:04:05] I’m a creature of habit. I’m the kind of girl who goes to a restaurant and always orders the same thing. But this morning things were different. When I pulled up in the IGA car park, I noticed a sign. It was a sign for a place called Little Luxton. And then next minute I see people lining up at a window and ‘oh my God, it’s a coffee shop’.
[00:04:41] you have no idea the excitement that I felt in this moment because not only was I going to get my delicious yoghurt from IGA, but I was also going to get my large decaf latte on soy milk . [00:05:00] So I wandered over to the cafe and I had a little bit of a look, and the first question that I asked them was, ‘um, is this place new?’
[00:05:10] I mean, I’ve never been here in the morning before, but I have never seen this place. And they said to me, ‘Yeah, today is our third day’. Now already, I’m like, ‘Wow, this is super cool. Right?’ Because the universe has got my back for whatever reason. I woke up this morning and I thought about driving to work a different way and stopping it and doing something that was completely outside of my usual routine.
[00:05:39] And here I am and I’ve been rewarded by finding this absolutely gorgeous, like to die for, little cafe set up at the community center near my house. Totally cute. Like I , I just wanna take a moment to really emphasize the [00:06:00] fact that like this place is cute. It’s got like fake grass and they’re all like tables and like it’s a total vibe.
[00:06:11] So I get talking to the guys and they’re like, Yeah. And also like we are partnering with the local community center, so they hand me a card. And it says, Little Luxton, the name of their establishment, Coffee for Community. Our mission is to leverage Canberra’s coffee culture to connect community, resource, and community need in the Lanyon Valley, which is where I live, inside of Canberra.
[00:06:39] Then there are three little symbols, a heart, a little piggy, and a human head. Not in a creepy Jeffrey Dahmer though. Underneath the little icons, it says, Build Community Connections in Lanyon. Donate $1 from every coffee [00:07:00] sold to Gordon Community Center and provide training and employment opportunities.
[00:07:05] So the guys at Little Luxton, shout out to Nate and James told me a little bit about what it is that they’re doing here. And really they want to use coffee, which we all love, beautiful treats that we all love and use that to develop community and also give back to the community. This is just out of this world.
[00:07:37] Now, I’ve gotta admit to you, I’ve lived in this area for I think about 11 years or so, and I’ve never ever given any thought to this little community center. Like ever. I mean, I stop at that IGA all the time, never before work, as I said, usually after work. But I have [00:08:00] never really noticed this community center or really even thought about what it is that happens there. Right?
[00:08:06] But all of a sudden I’m in their backyard. I’m peering through the window and it occurred to me, ‘ Huh, I wonder if they do events here?’ And then next minute I’m grilling the guys at the coffee shop to say, ‘Is there an event space? What goes on? Do you guys do catering? Tell me about it. I wanna know who are the people that run it? What kind of programs do they offer?’
[00:08:33] And then I find out that the community center is run by Anglicare and that they run a whole different range of programs that are all about helping like local teenagers and underprivileged people to get into the workforce or to retrain or whatever they need. And I’m like, ‘Oh’. You can see the light bulbs going off in my head, and I think in the moment Nate and James could [00:09:00] probably see that something was going on.
[00:09:03] I’m not sure if it was light bulbs, but I did go silent, and my eyes may have rolled back into my head a little because all of a sudden I just started thinking, thinking about all of the possibilities. Now for me, when I look at something like this, I’m thinking, Okay, great. Like this could be an organization that I could partner with in order to get my programs out into the world.
[00:09:33] I’m so passionate, particularly on the career coaching side, in helping people to develop their interview skills and prepare resumes and present themselves and get jobs and, you know, get their first job or their next job, or the job that they really need. And here I am thinking, wow, we do totally different things.
[00:09:54] I’m over here as a career coach and business coach, and these guys [00:10:00] are baristas and entrepreneurs in the hospitality world. What could we possibly have in common? But yet there’s this beautiful connection of both wanting to do whatever we can to support our community and really look at ways that we can use our business to give back.
[00:10:22] As we were having this discussion, I’ve gotta say like my mind just kept coming back to the magic of the situation, and I just kept saying to them like, ‘I’m not supposed to be here. For starters, I never ever travel this way in the morning. I never go to IGA in the morning. I don’t even usually go to the office on a Wednesday. Everything is completely out of my routine’.
[00:10:53] And James turns around and he says, ‘What did you just drive a different way to work this morning?’ And I’m like, ‘Um, [00:11:00] yeah, I did’. I was like, ‘I just had this hankering for yoghurt’ and you’ll never believe it. Nate turns around and goes, ‘ We have yoghurt. We’ve not only got yoghurt, but we’ve got yoghurt and berries and homemade granola’.
[00:11:15] So I’m like, ‘Give it to me’. Not only have these guys sorted me out for my morning decaf latte on soy milk, but I also got a breakfast Danish cherry flavored, which is like my favorite. I got a yogurt with berries and granola for lunch, and I walked away with a whole bunch of ideas about different opportunities and possibilities of ways that we could collaborate, things that we could do.
[00:11:56] So why am I sharing this with you? It’s not [00:12:00] just a story. It is an invitation. Hopefully through this little bit of a story time, you’ve got an inkling of the way that my mind works. I am always looking for connections. I am always looking for little pieces of information that just tweak ideas. I’m always looking for ways to be more creative about the way that I pursue my business, or I pursue opportunities within the community.
[00:12:37] Always looking for ways to give back. I’m always looking for cool people in business who are doing things that I really love, and I really love the idea of donating a dollar from every coffee to the Gordon Community Center. I think that is such a beautiful partnership and I really look forward to [00:13:00] hearing more about what that Gordon Community Center are doing with the funds and the way that they are improving our community through this venture.
[00:13:11] So what I’d like to do is just to put out to you a little bit of a challenge. Are you like me, a bit of a creature of habit? Do you do the same things every day? Do you go the same way to work? Do you order the same thing for breakfast? Do you have a set routine that you never veer off from?
[00:13:35] If that’s the case, then I would encourage you to maybe just drive a different way to work, maybe to just go a different way to pick the kids up from school, or maybe just to stop somewhere along the way that you’ve never stopped before or maybe at a time that you’ve never stopped there before. My [00:14:00] invitation to you is to just open your eyes to just notice what’s happening around you and to just ask the question: ‘What if?’ This question.
[00:14:14] Really the question that gets me into the most trouble with my team, with my husband, in my business, because I’m always, always, always asking, ‘What if? What if we could do this? What if this happened? What if? What if? What if?’ It’s so exciting, but do you know what? As much as this question gets me into trouble all the time, it’s also the reason that I experience success in my business, and it’s the reason that I have so much fun.
[00:14:53] I hope that you’ve enjoyed my little story time and that maybe it’s given you some food for thought or maybe [00:15:00] you’ll decide to take me up on the challenge of just trying things a little bit differently.
[00:15:06] I would absolutely love to hear what you get up to and what opportunities that you are able to see as a result. Have a fantastic week, take care and I’ll see you in next week’s episode. Bye for now.
[00:15:22] Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the brave in business podcast. Don’t forget to hit that subscribe button. Leave me a rating. Although five stars, preferably, please, and a review. You can also join me over on socials at pop your biz. If you’ve got a topic you’d love me to address here on the pod, be sure to send me a DM and I’ll see you in the next episode.