How I Became a Starbucks Stalker - Pt. 6

The five minute drive over to the Starbucks passed without much substantive conversation. We made idle chit chat; more my talking more as a result of my nervousness and I suppose in a desperate attempt to apologize for my unloading, so to speak, minutes earlier. J was accommodating, allowing me to calm my nerves by babbling on about the weather, birds, traffic and a sundry of really mindless subjects.

After I insisted on paying for our new cups of coffee we made our way over to the table and sat down. “I want to revisit something you said earlier,” he said. My nervousness instantly returned. I felt like a little boy sitting in front of the principal. “Why do you think your business is in trouble?”

“Well we need more customers. Simple as that really,” I responded. Sounded simple – in fact still sounds simple recalling it all these years later.

“You know in the brief time that I have known you, I had no idea that you owned a company. Did you know that?” It was a question that was asked but it was obvious it wasn’t supposed to be answered. “Think about all the people you have met these past few weeks. How many of them work for all sorts of companies and all the while you never shared with anyone you owned a company did you? An impressive one I might add from the looks of your office.” He smiled because he could see the pride welling up inside of me.

“Now don’t get me wrong. Most people could care less what you do.” My smile instantly vanished. “You see most people are so caught up in their own craziness that they rarely look beyond themselves to see others. Yet in these few weeks you have managed to do that. You have learned to focus. You have learned to be aware. You have learned that a well placed question at the right moment can tell you more about a person than you ever imagined. Their hopes and dreams. What they are truly passionate about. Tell me I am wrong,” he said defiantly. “Tell me about who you’ve met since our first encounter.”

My mind scrabbled. There had been so many. Madge of course! There were multiple entrepreneurs such as myself. There were teachers, crossing guards, insurance salesmen, ad executives, salespeople of all sorts. I had met mothers and sons, fathers and sons. He just sat there looking like Garfield the cat after a bowl of lasagna. As my mind wandered and I gave him names and details about this person and that person my heart began to pound. I really had met a log of people from all walks of life. Some that surely would be interested in what I had to offer and others that were just plain neat to know- even if it was for a few minutes.

“Boy you have discovered something that most people wait a lifetime to discover and even then so many never do. You my friend found a way to make a connection. You found a way to make a momentary impact on the people you met each time you did it. You brought them out of their myopicism and made them wake up and pay attention – maybe for the first time in a long time. You did this. You didn’t even realize you were doing it did you?” I sat there dumbfounded. “You did it and never pushed yourself on anyone. You didn’t say 'hey look at me and what I do.' You simply connected for the sake of connecting and it felt good didn’t it?”

It had felt incredible admittedly though the true depth of what I had done and what I had apparently learned didn’t actually sink in until that very moment. A smile broke out all over my face. “You connected with people that will remember you. Heck in the time we have just been sitting here you have had more people say good morning to you than they have me.” It was true. “But you still have more to learn my friend. Connecting is just the first step. Making a more relevant and permanent impact is the bigger opportunity.”

“Bigger opportunity,” I sheepishly asked.

“Yes.” He reached over and put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. Memories of those special at-a-boy moments with my dad or favorite teachers came rushing back. “You can’t make the kind of impact that you are destined to make locked away in some dark office my boy. The people are out here,” he said gesturing around Starbucks. “And out there,” he pointed out towards the street which I understood to mean the world.

“That is great J and I appreciate that, I really do. But how on Earth can this help me with my business,” I asked him.

“Let’s just save that for tomorrow shall we?”

With that he said good morning to a young couple that had settled in two tables over.

How I Became a Starbucks Stalker - Pt. 5

I had been under enormous pressure at work. Our company, a start-up at the time, was losing cash, what little of it we had and losing it fast. Six months earlier, I had been living high on the hog as one of the nation's most recognizable young talents in the Xerox agency stable. Now, having left Xerox, I was trying to start another company in the same industry but without the same outdated approach Xerox insisted I subscribe to. We were making headway, slowly but not fast enough.

(I had driven past the Starbucks several mornings in a row now, insisting that my time would be better spent figuring out how to right my struggling ship. No time for coffee chit-chat when I needed to most be spending my time figuring out how to motivate my team and find more sales. At least that was what I would tell myself. The pang in my heart still shot through me each morning as I tried to ignore the urge to turn into the driveway that led to Starbucks. I felt alone and scared about my future and would have given my hind teeth to see a friend like J for a little pick me up convo (a Steveism by the way), but I insisted on heading into the office, long before anyone else, so I could resume my stressing. As if looking at papers in a dark office was going to help right?

It had been at least two weeks since Madge and I had last seen each other. We ended up having several delightful conversations and expanding our range of acquaintances at that Starbucks - jointly introducing on another to strangers became sort of our game. Game or not, we had met a lot of fun and interesting people. At last we met, she was headed to Colorado and then maybe over to California to a spa she had read about in a magazine. All the while, still no word or sign of J anywhere.

Then one day it happened. I was at the office very early one morning when there was a tap on the front door. Given that it was dark outside and still very early, I nearly peed my pants when the tap occurred; it scared me to death. I had one of those Fred Sanford moments - you know "They're coming for me Weezy!" (Sanford and Sons television program from the seventies for my younger readers). I peeked around the corner of my office out into the lobby and there with his big muggy grin stood my old friend J. He was holding two to-go cups of Starbucks coffee.

We sat down in my office and he proceeded to chew me out for making him hunt me down. I thought some nerve, you are the one that up and disappeared but I said nothing and held my tongue. "What's going on with you Steve? You were making such fine progress." His tone was filled with both caring and disappointment.

I shared with him my work dilemma and the fact my company was on the precipice of possibly not making it. I whined on and on for what seemed like an eternity about making the wrong moves at the wrong time, under capitalization and a stress level of having to get more sales if we were ever going to make payroll, let alone survive period. He listened intently and the look on his face showed he felt my pain. He understood and seemed to empathize with my plight.

"The secret to your success is right in front of your face you know?" A momentary flash went through my my mind - maybe J is a rich investor looking for a promising company to invest in. I smiled and he smiled back. "No, I am not a rich investor unfortunately otherwise I would be investing in you my boy in a flash." A stunned look crossed my face. He was a mind reader.

"The secret is very simple and you have been uncovering it since you and I first met," he said as he took a long sip of his coffee.

The moment passed like molasses. I nearly screamed, "What secret? What on Earth do you mean J?" All of a sudden my polite, unassuming manner turned angry. I was dealing with real world problems here - maybe not on order of world importance but pretty damn significant to my world. I was tired of games. I was tired of quippy anecdotes and talking in circles. I didn't give him time to answer. I just fired off, "I've met you, Madge and a bunch of people. Great people all of you but honestly don't see how any of you can help my situation. I don't see the relevance of how just sitting down and chatting with someone can fix what for me, is so obviously broken."

He simply sat there....smiling. He sipped his coffee and when it was obvious I had finally gotten all that I needed to say out, he said, "People Steve. It's your ability to connect with people. That's the secret you have been missing all these years. It's the secret that can and will help you get whatever it is that you want. My coffee is a little cold. Why don't we go get a warm up."

With that, he was up and halfway out the door. I simply followed.

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To my readers, thank you to each of you for such amazing emails and phone conversations this past week. This series has drawn out a bit and I was worried that some of you might have a problem with that. As I near the end of its completion I hope that you will be patient with me a few more days as I finish up. My posts this week may be a little hap-hazard as I am traveling to Las Vegas to do a speech and a Ripple for a delightful company. Please be patient with me as I will get this series wrapped up as time allows.