Building Value and Hope Through Coffee

[Music]

i am a cynic

and a skeptic and i’m here to tell you

about hope i don’t mean the kind of

commercialized type of hope that lacks

any substance

i mean the type of hope that is real and

true and is messy

and filled with pain i discovered the

formula about hope and i want to share

that with you and then i’m going to tell

you about how i brought that formula to

life

so this type of hope has been the

driving force

behind every beneficial movement

throughout history

both major and minor that has ever

brought about positive change

and that was a very bold statement and i

intend to back it up so if you’re

feeling skeptical or cynical about that

as i am

and join me and i’ll walk you through it

one of my biggest fears as a child

beyond being embarrassed or the dark was

losing one of my parents

and i feel that’s probably a common fear

but it was very intense for me as a

child

that began to change when i was around

nine and i went to summer camp for the

first time for a week

a week away from home at that age was uh

it was a long time so it was a little

bit difficult

and my biggest fear transitioned not to

losing a parent but to looking like a

or embarrassing myself in front of

all the other cool camp kids

which spoiler alert it did happen a

couple times and i’ve got some good

stories to tell about it

but what happened there was my worth and

my value i began to identify that with

things external to myself

but life has a way of reminding you what

is truly worth fearing sometimes

on my way back from my third summer at

camp an off-duty paramedic fell asleep

at the wheel

after a 24-hour shift and came careening

across the median towards us

my mom was a health nut especially with

sweets

and i couldn’t have cereal with over

seven grams of sugar which was

essentially bran flakes

and nothing so it was a big deal

when she relented to my begging to get

ice cream on our way home

and that was the second to last memory i

have of my mom

uh she did her best to avoid the car

coming towards us but in doing so

took the brunt of the head-on collision

and was killed almost instantly

my biggest fear not only became a

reality

but it happened in front of my face so i

know a thing or two about fear

and i know something deep about pain but

i also know something about hope

i know what it is and what it isn’t and

i know that real hope is more powerful

than fear or

pain or anything else that would stand

against it

fear robs you of life and hope restores

if you don’t believe in your worth and

your value you cannot truly hope

you do not believe that you have a life

worth a better future

hearing me say that only goes so far

though so i’m going to share the formula

with you

and then i’ll tell you about how i

brought it to life

as you can see it says value plus

purpose

equals hope on the surface it’s very

simple

and it is but is it anything that is

truly elegant its beauty lies in its

simplicity

as two things added together that equal

a third

though there are only two components to

the hope formula there are layers of

complexity to them both

if anyone could figure out how to help

people understand their true worth

and discover their purpose in a matter

of days or weeks you truly change the

world

both take time but is time well spent so

i’m going to use worth

and value and interchangeably here when

i describe this

but worth and value are intrinsic to who

we are it is internal

not an external thing and the ironic

component of this

is that other people often have to help

us figure it out they see it before we

people outside of us see what is inside

of us before we do

and help us draw that out and understand

it again

hope begins with understanding your

innate value and worth

this is not derived from comparison

accomplishments

or possessions it is the unshakable

truth of how much worth and value you

have simply from being born and created

the way you were

when we don’t understand that we seek

our value and worth and destructive

things

that too often involve tearing down our

neighbor and finding our worth

at the cost of theirs and that’s not

worth that is oppression

and oppression feeds the enemy of hope

fear

i’m going to ask you to follow me here

with what i’m about to say because on

the surface it may seem contrary to

everything i have already said

but i assure you that it’s not i don’t

believe all of us are good

i don’t believe humanity at its core is

good

i’m going to let that sink in for a

second

if you disagree with me i encourage you

to open a history book to see the

atrocities that we have committed

because of greed fear pain

loss suffering or just confusion

or better yet look around you right now

or in the middle of a global pandemic

with a severe economic downturn that has

affected millions of people here

and globally as well the facade we use

to cover racism has been ripped down

and revealed that too many people are

still seeking their own worth and

validation at the cost of someone else’s

i don’t believe humanity is good but i

believe we can be

i believe we have the capacity to be

good that we all have innate worth and

value

there’s a stark difference between the

two of those ideas

one says that we are and one says that

we can be

one embraces our pa our painful messy

reality

while the other whitewashes truth with a

lie real

changing hope has to be anchored in

reality

which brings me to the next point so

this graph

graphic i borrowed from peter singe and

added and changed some things as you can

see at one end

fear is at the anchor and it represents

your worthlessness

and a feeling of hopelessness at the

other end is hope

and it propels you to your envisioned

future so there’s tension with both of

these

and you have to leverage the one that

pulls you in the right direction rather

than letting fear pull you backward and

believing the lies about it

so as i said i don’t believe we are all

good but i believe we can be

and once we discover our purpose which

is the collection of our ambitions

and move forward to that we see hope

come to life

when we look for our purpose we often

believe it will be a single thing that

catapults us over our struggles and our

difficulties and slingshots us to a new

reality

this is a fanciful delusion that brings

you backward

toward despair and hopelessness and

rather than slingshotting you forward

you have to use the attention from hope

to move you in the right direction

rather than backward

so as i said purpose is a collection of

your ambitions what you bring to life

and what moves you forward

you cannot find your worth in your

purpose but it can enhance it

and it can bring more life to your

purpose but it is dangerous to seek your

worth and your value

and your purpose in your ambitions and

this isn’t discovered overnight

it takes time it takes searching

refining

trial and error failure and the courage

to get back up again

and other people around you who will

help you move through all that

it may be your family it may be people

who act as your family and are not

it may be people that you don’t know are

that way in your life and you just have

to give them the chance to be

but i promise you that there are people

in this world who want to be that for

you

to help you move forward and discover

your purpose for your life

i discovered the base of this formula

around seven years ago

to get to the point of being able to

talk with you on the stage i’ve had to

endure seven years of getting

to be getting others to believe that it

was real sitting in meetings convincing

people

why i was there in the first place seven

years

of that was filled with ups and downs

and failures

joy and peace confusion and pain and

both fear and hope

i have wept on my knees begging god to

show me if i was just a fool for

pursuing this

and if it was all foolish to throw away

my career pursuits to bring this to life

about three years ago i started a coffee

shop built on these principles

the very essence of this formula is

fused into what it is

our mission statement is simple building

value and hope through coffee

the action we’re building is what we try

to do every day my management team knows

that their number one priority

is to encourage and instill value in all

of our employees

we have a mentoring model built into the

structure of our business

and what’s funny about that is that the

younger employees who are often in high

school

end up teaching us the owner and the

management team

more than we would hope to teach them

it’s a beautiful and incredible thing

what happens when you listen to people

and just let them be their selves so i

mentioned earlier about the importance

of having people around you

who care enough about you to help you

work through this to discover your own

worth and value

and to understand your purpose the

collection of your ambitions

i was working through whether or not i

should tell you more about the business

model

but then i asked the employees for some

quotes on how they have learned about

their own worth

and if they have discovered any hope

through working at bridge city and they

gave me some

some quotes so i’ll share those with you

instead

the bridge city fam has helped me see my

value which has pushed me to build and

encourage the value in everyone around

bridge city has continued to remind me

that family exists beyond the walls of

my own home

bridge city has helped me grow in skills

i never thought i would grow into

and realize co-workers and bosses really

can’t care for each other

what i like most about bridge city is

that no matter what mistakes you make

or whatever you do no one there will

shame or discriminate you

they want to see you grow and become the

best version of yourself through the art

of coffee

they are loving and kind and i love that

we’re all a family

and i do want to point out that we are a

very diverse staff both racially and

from our personalities

we call ourselves a lovable bunch of

weirdos so it’s not like we’re all the

same people saying these

these things about each other hope is

real

and it is powerful and it is beautiful

it reaches down into our fear and pain

and meets us in our brokenness hope

shows us that things can be better

though they may not be now they can be

soon

to build on marx mark twain’s quote on

courage hope is not the absence of fear

or pain

it is the resistance to those things

mastery over them

hope does not change your current

reality it helps you move through your

current reality to a better envisioned

future

it does not eliminate what holds you

back but it gives you the strength to

move through it

we are not all good but we can be when

you understand your intrinsic value

and worth and that it does not come at

the cost of someone else’s

and when you begin moving forward to

achieve your collective ambitions

to fulfill your purpose you begin to

move outside of yourself

and realize how much you want other

people to experience the same thing

you give hope to other people and that

is worth every minute of it

[Applause]

[Music]

you