You never forget your first...

During lunch with a friend yesterday I mentioned how the older I get, the more fascinated...and interested, I am in time...the concept of time, the passing of time, the wasting of time, etc. Each year around this time I'm taken right back to the founding of The Roasterie in 1993. It was about this time that I secured our first customer and of course, I was scared to death that I'd never make it.

Fifteen years later I can almost recall every day during those first couple of months. At times it seems almost weird...like it was a lifetime ago. Then it seems like only a short time ago, and then this makes me nervous 'cause I think if the next fifteen years pass by that quickly, I'm in trouble!

My wife thinks I'm morbid but I just don't want to waste time anymore, especially since our kids were born (3 year old son Terry and 5 month old Sophia). Now I'm tending to 'vet' things that come across my desk, or meetings that I'm at, and I find myself thinking "This is going to keep me from being home with my kids; is it worth it?" I have a new set of criteria to judge value that I didn't have even a few years ago. So far, I think it's healthy.

Last month I took Terry and Normy, our green coffee buyer, to my 25Th class reunion in Costa Rica. I was a foreign exchange student there during my senior year of high school and received an email that we were having a reunion. My first reaction, of course, was "I don't have time." But I thought about it for a few minutes and just knew that I needed to go, and that Terry needed to go with me. We hadn't really travelled anywhere without mom so it was going to be a bit of an adventure. It would be his 3rd time there so he was totally ready to jump on the plane.

Which leads me to time; my host sister went with us to our old school and we visited our classroom. Terry sat in my old desk...everything looks just like it did while I was there! It was so surreal...he was sitting there so cute, loving it, and I could almost see myself sitting there; it is hard to describe but the memories were almost like watching a movie. I could see myself...then Terry and my host sister. Very good stuff but scary in that the time just went by so quickly.

I have shared this with some of the young folks that we've hired lately to encourage them to really follow their passion. There are so many awesome people, so many great things happening, life is simply too short to drink nasty coffee or to waste time. It's definitely too short to waste time in careers in which you are not passionate.

And now, I have run out of time. I have one of my big lunkin letters getting ready to spill out and I'll post it soon. Tchau for now.
Danny