Cup 40

Person: Janina Pasik 

Drink: Coffee brewed at her home outside Warsaw, Poland 

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As I sat on a train to Warsaw, I had no idea what I would find when I arrived. 

Since we met for coffee in November, Piotr Pasik (Cup 17) and I have become good friends and when he found out I was going to be in Europe, he insisted I swing through Warsaw to visit him at his grandmother’s house. After two weeks of being in big cities surrounded by typical tourists attractions a chance to get off the beaten path sounded wonderful so I rearranged my itinerary so I could stop by for a visit. 

Piotr and his cousin picked me up from the train station and we drove 40 minutes to Nowe Miasto—a town of 2,500 where a five minute walk gets you from one side of town to the other. 

When we arrived, Piotr’s grandma, Janina, welcomed me with a  a big kiss on thecheek and a hug like only an experienced babcia (grandma) can give. She didn’t speak English, but the twinkle in her eye and the way she kept smiling as she enthusiastically clasped my arm told me everything I needed to know—she was excited I had come for a visit. 

 
After dropping my bags in the living room, Piotr’s cousin got me a glass of water a while his grandma and his aunt finished preparing a lunch that made an American Thanksgiving look weak: tomato noodle soup, salad, cabbage with sausage, stuffed chicken, fried chicken, meatballs, pickled veggies and homemade desert. Everything was delicious—and I did in fact try everything because—because when an adorable Polish grandma offers you food—no matter how full you are—it’s impossible to say no. 

Once lunch was finished, Piotr took me for a tour around Nowe Miasto and explained the town’s history and culture. It was fascinating to see Poland from a native’s perspective and get a feel for what life was like for Piotr’s family.
 
As the sun was setting we returned to the house and Janina insisted she cook us something for dinner and before I knew it, I was once again sitting at a table filled full of food. I told Janina two crepes would suffice, but she insisted I needed three. Polish grandma’s are tough salesmen. When dinner was finished, we remained sitting around the table so we could talk.

…

Piotr had explained my project to his grandmother and she agreed to share her stories with me, which Piotr could translate. The night was getting late so I decided to start with a direct question:
 
If you could give one piece of advice to young adults, what would it be?
 
I had no idea how the conversation would go, and realized I was holding my breath as Piotr took a moment to collect his thoughts and translate. Janina pondered the question for a moment before providing an answer I anxiously waited for Piotr to explain.

Be very friendly to others, do good things; help.

…

Janina is 86 years old, which means she was 18 when the Germans invaded Poland at the start of WWII. The invasion, which would last five years, spurred several rebellion movements, which Janina quickly joined. Her involvement duties varied, but a common task was to walk 12 kilometers to a hidden location in the woods where she would pick up bottles containing messages that would be delivered to the hospital. She never knew what the messages said, or why they were being delivered to the hospital, she was simply a messenger. 

I asked if her parents knew about the behavior and she said yes, her father and cousin were also a part of the movement. When I asked her what would have happened had she been caught she paused for a solemn moment before taking her index finger and sliding it across her neck indicating a fate I didn’t need Piotr’s translation to understand. 

As the German invasion intensified, Janina’s family was removed from their home and forced to move in with other family—seven people stuffed into a one-bedroom house while a war raged on in their backyard.

The family did their best to make the most of the situation until the Soviet’s helped liberate Poland in 1944 and the war ended in ‘45. A year later she met and married her husband, a young man that had spent nearly six years as a Polish prisoner of war. The young couple wanted to get as far away from the pain and destruction that was left once the war ended so they made a difficult move to the south of Poland where he worked in the mines and she worked as a clerk while they raised their children. A few years later, their daughter fell ill so Janina and her husband packed up their stuff and moved back to Nowe Miasto to be closer to family. 

Although the war was over, Janine’s struggles were not—she still face life under the new communist regime, lived in a city trying to rebuild after great destruction, and sadly lost of her husband to cancer at age 55.

As we sat there at the kitchen table listening to Janina’s story while a small candle provided llight against the encroaching darkness of night, I was deeply moved. This wonderful old woman, not even five feet tall, had endured a life filled with continual hardship yet still had a twinkle in her eye and warmth in her smile.

When she asked Piotr is I had anymore questions, I had so many thoughts swirling through my head I couldn’t formulate a question. I could only have Piotr pass along the message that I was inspired by her incredible strength.

…

The following day I visited the Warsaw Uprising Museum to learn more about the many involved in the resistance. It is an incredible museum I appreciated even more after hearing Janina’s firsthand account.  As I wandered through the pictures and artifacts representing the horror, suffering, and imprisonment of Poland’s past, I tried putting myself in her shoes, to imagine how she must have felt, but I couldn’t. The dire state of her adolescence was far beyond what I could grasp.

However I could understand why she gave me her initial advice:

Be friendly to others, do good, help.

When you’ve been through a situation so dark—you do what you can to bring light to others. 

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Cup 39

Person: Colin Wright

Drink: Americano in Reykjavik, Iceland

I found Colin Wright through Twitter. I was leaving Iceland’s Blue Lagoon (a recommendation from Cup 21) where I’d been sitting in 100 degree water with 30 mph, freezing winds blowing around me.

The outside temp was a meager 40 degrees, or I suppose I should say 4 degrees Celsius. I had just finished eating an Icelandic hot dog (a dog topped with ketchup, sweet mustard, fried onion,raw onion and remolaði) while taking advantage of the free wifi.

Earlier, I’d sent out a tweet looking for some one in Reykjavik interested in having coffee and Colin responded. The power of social media never ceases to amaze me. His twitter bio explained he was an entrepreneur who moved to a new country every four months. I knew we’d find plenty to talk about so I responded to his tweet. Five hours later I was sitting at Kaffibarinn, a trendy spot Colin picked. When I arrived it was empty aside from a few locals—too early for a big crowd—but filled with personality; Rejkavik is a city with character.

Colin walked in and I introduced myself before we got drinks (coffee for me, green tea for Colin) and found our way to a table toward the back and started our conversation.

…

Born in San Francisco, Colin’s family moved to Missouri when he was 10 years old. His aspirations were to go to college in New York, but he decided the better option was to attend the school in his back yard, Missouri State University.

He was interested in design and Missouri State had a fantastic program that allowed him to work alongside great designers from around the world. When he left with his degree in hand, he headed to Los Angeles to make a name for himself. He quickly succeed, going from working in a boutique design shop to starting his own studio that attracted big name clients.

He had several career goals, but the big one was to make enough money that he could quit his job and travel the world. By age 24, his dream was becoming a reality. He knew in a year and a half he would reach the financial goal he wanted to achieve before traveling.

Then one day it hit him - why wait a year and a half to start doing the thing he wanted to do the most? He decided to find a way to make his dream of international travel happen as soon as possible.

His solution was an unique recipe of entrepreneurship, writing and straightforward resourcefulness. The companies he had started in LA were companies he could run from any location with a computer and internet connection. However, he wanted his travels to be more than just doing the same work from exotic locations. He wanted his travel to have a purpose. He decided he would start a blog and turn the adventure into a project. The result was Exile Lifestyle, a blog containing a mix of content that covers insights gained from both work and travel experiences along with the results of various lifestyle experiments conducted on the road. The best part is that every four months he moves to a new country decided based on votes from the readers. Since 2009, he’s lived in Argentina, New Zealand and Thailand. His current location is Reykjavik, Iceland.

My suspicions that we’d have a lot to talk about were correct. It seemed like we would settle on a conversation topic and three sentences later we’d find another tangent to follow. It was fun to learn about Colin, swap stories, and get a glimpse of what a vagabond life looks like.

Colin told me the two questions he gets most often are how he manages to keep relationships together since he’s always moving and if its hard to leave a place he’s grown to love. Both questions had crossed my mind. Four months seemed like just enough time to make a few solid friends and start to feel at home in a place.

Surprisingly, the pattern of starting over doesn’t bother him. He doesn’t like to get complacent so the constant moving keeps him on his toes. He’s very up front with people (especially potential dates) that he’s only going to be around for four months and, with the power of the internet, he can stay in contact with people and the new friends he makes. To explain his mentality for leaving a country, he used a Dr. Seuss quote:

Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.

While its difficult to leave something great behind, to achieve certain goals leaving is often necessary and Colin recognizes that. When he decided to travel abroad, he actually was in a long term relationship with a girl he really loved. He had been seriously considering international travel and one day while he and his girlfriend were enjoying coffee during a trip in Seattle, he told her of his plans. Ironically, the time spent in Seattle made his girlfriend realize that she felt at home in the city and was ready for a location change as well. Early on in their relationship they agreed that they never wanted to hold the other person back from their dreams. They wanted the best for each other and decided in four months time, they would break up and start their separate adventures.

Not only did they plan their breakup, they decided to throw a break up party. The idea was to get their closest friends together for one last hurrah to celebrate the wonderful times instead of focusing on the sadness of splitting up. As hard as it was to say goodbye, both Colin and his girlfriend knew bigger things were on the horizon.

…

I think the story about the breakup party says a lot about Colin. He’s an interesting character; ambitious, unconventional, not afraid to try new things. His work ethic, creativity, and big picture thinking have helped him create the life of an international traveler. It was energizing to talk to someone that shares my enthusiasm for travel and the adventures the future will bring.

Plus, the timing for meeting Colin couldn’t have been better. I’m currently saying good bye to a handful of great things. I’ve graduated from college which ends an incredible chapter of my life. I moved out of East Lansing, which is a town that’s been good to me. Every three of four days I’m leaving one country for another—saying good bye to the friends I’ve made in the process—and in six weeks my European adventure and nomadic lifestyle will be replaced with a stationary life of gainful employment.

That’s a lot of endings. But from Colin’s perspective, it’s also a lot of beginnings; chances for change, growth, new opportunity and more.

That’s the lesson I’ll take away from Cup 39: if you vehemently pursue things you’re passionate about, you always have something to which you can look forward. Being excited about what comes next makes it easier to let go of the past and focus on the furture.

Knowing that doesn’t make saying goodbye or ending a great chapter of life fun, but it does put it into perspective. It also helps you enjoy the present. Knowing that my conversation with Colin would eventually end—as would my time in Iceland—reminded me to enjoy each moment so when the time came to say goodbye, I had good memories to add to my collection and could look forward to what the next country and conversation would bring.

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Cup 38

Person: Seth Godin 

Drink: House Coffee in NYC

There is a passage in Seth Godin's latest book, Poke the Box, that goes like this:

Take action. Move forward. The world doesn’t have room for standing still anymore. You have to innovate. Take initiative.

Take initiative.  
 
Which, interestingly enough, was how I ended up sitting across from Seth in Le Pain Quotidien, a delightfully fresh French-style bakery in Manhattan enjoying an incredibly fresh croissant with a dollop of organic chocolate spread Seth plopped on my plate and insisted I try because it, “puts Nutella to shame”.
 
I can replay the moment in my head like a movie; the atmosphere, the colors of the restaurant, the sound of the rain outside—and its one I won’t soon forget. How could you forget the day you sat down with a New York Times Best Selling author (13 times over) for whom you have great respect and find great inspiration.
 
…

The story actually starts five weeks ago while I was returning from a Wyoming wedding. I was in Chicago waiting for my connecting back to Detroit when they announced the flight was oversold and they were looking for volunteers to take a later flight. I raised my hand. Rerouting through Nashville and arriving in Detroit four hours behind schedule seemed like a small sacrifice to make in exchange for a $440 dollar travel voucher to anywhere the Southwest flew.

The real difficulty was deciding where to go with my newly acquired funds. And turns out, that wasn’t a difficult choice either. A mutual friend knew I was a big fan of Seth’s work and said if I could get to New York City, he could possibly set up a meeting for the two of us to have coffee. That was all I needed to hear. I sent some emails, booked a flight, and a few weeks later found myself sitting in front of Seth proving that his manifesto for taking initiative works.

I was excited to learn about Seth and the path that has led to where he is today; however, our conversation took a different route. This shouldn’t have surprised me. Seth is well known for his unconventional thinking so it makes sense our conversation would also be unconventional. He wasn’t interested in outlining his path to prominence—his recipe for becoming a successful entrepreneur, CEO, author, and game changer (if you’re not familiar with Seth, find out about him here).

The reason is that he, like every other success story out there, had a unique set of circumstances and skills with which to work. A set that I, nor anyone else, can replicate because I also have my own unique set of skills and circumstance. A more relevant use of time was talking about the mindset he developed in the process. He was interested in helping me identify places where his insight might be beneficial to me as I progress in my career. I was moved—and grateful—for his genuine interest in helping me succeed.

The ironic part is that much of our conversation was about failure.

Seth told me he failed a lot before he hit 30 and pointed out that I’d be well served if I got a few failures under my belt as well. He wasn’t suggesting I set out to fail. He was suggesting that the best ideas and opportunities are the ones off the beaten path and finding them requires taking (calculated) risks and a willingness to push boundaries. Getting failure under your belt shows your striving for something.

His advice resonated with me because it’s something the past 37 conversations have helped me realize. When I started this project in July, I was a soon-to-be college senior feeling the pressure to find the perfect job by the time I graduated from college. I figured my first job was the first step of the rest of my life and if I screwed up I’d let a lot of people down and ultimately ruin my future. It feels silly to write that now, but at the time, I really believed it.

Luckily, all these conversations have shown me life isn’t black and white—right path or wrong path—it’s a changing shade of grey and constant challenge to make the most of the opportunities life presents. And figuring it out requires failing a few times. Around Cup 32, I realized that with the right mindset and degree of perseverance, failure becomes an opportunity for growth instead of a scary dead end.

I went from being afraid to fail to accepting I was bound to fail at some point. Seth took the idea one step further. Not only did he tell me its alright to fail, he encouraged it. He knows from his own experiences that failure often breeds incredible success. When you aren’t afraid to fail you open the door to possibilities.

Failure often occurs where curiosity and courage collide. Something sparks your interest and you find the courage to explore the new idea. Then, because you rarely get anything right on the first try, it doesn’t work, or at least not the way you expected. You fall down.

But then you pick yourself up and move forward having learned something and grown in the process. You get to approach the same problem from a smarter perspective. It’s like learning to ride a bike. No one expects you to do it right on your very first try. You have to fall 100 times in order to succeed. In fact, the you fall, the faster you learn—push a boundary, fail, learn, try a new route, repeat.

Somewhere along the line, probably grade school, failure becomes a bad thing, something discouraged and avoided at all cost. But as Seth said, testing ideas and pushing boundaries—going through a 100 ideas that don’t work—is the best way to find the one (remarkable) idea that does.

However, knowing that doesn’t make being okay with failure any easier. There is a part of the brain that tries to keep us from pushing boundaries. Seth’s book, Linchpin, explains it much better than I do, but ultimately the idea is that biomechanics kick in to protect us from dangerous situations. Hundreds of year ago, dangerous situation meant a possible encounter with a saber tooth tiger. Today its more likely to be a job interview or term paper. It never fails that right before I sit down to write something, I suddenly think of three things that really need to get done before I can start writing. It’s my brain’s way of creating
resistance, trying to stop me from something that could lead to failure.

In order to beat the resistance, you have to keep fighting it, keep pushing against it, keep trying new things. Seth told me even after years of writing best-sellers and running successful companies he still feels it. But he has gotten much better at recognizing when its sneaking up on him, which helps him beat it. Essentially, it’s hard for everyone, so keep fighting.

…

Looking back on the meeting, the advice Seth gave me sounds like a lot of work—fighting resistance, getting rejected, learning from failure—but when I left our meeting, I was filled with an incredible energy. Seth gave me a wonderful gift. He gave me permission to get into trouble, make some mistakes, get my hands dirty. He knows that curiosity and courage will lead to something great.

And I believed him, because it was curiosity and courage that motivated me  to volunteer to get off that plane in Chicago and plan a spontaneous trip to New York City for a chance to meet someone I admired. I could have taken the comfortable route and stayed in my seat, not raised my hand, but I would have missed out on an incredible experience.

Cup 38 and Seth’s advice reaffirmed my actions and gave me the fuel necessary to keep starting projects, making a ruckus, taking risks, traveling, meeting people, asking questions—and ultimately look for good ideas.

Of course, in the process, there will be failure. But what’s so bad about that.