52 Cups of Coffee: Inspiring and insightful stories for navigating life’s uncertainties (17 page)

Wanda Herndon

Starbucks in Seattle, Washington

Grande house coffee

Never underestimate the power of choice.

I spent every spring break in college visiting my brother, which meant a trip to Seattle was in store for my spring. Considering Seattle
is the birthplace of Starbucks and their caffeine revolution, it only made sense to have coffee with someone who was a part of that magic.

I found the perfect person
: the former Senior Vice President of Global Communications for Starbucks

* * *

Wanda Herndon has an impressive resume. After graduating with a journalism degree from Michigan State, she realized journalism wasn’t the right route for her and decided to try her hand at Public Relations. Wanda set her sights on a successful corporate career and soon found herself advancing through various positions at Fortune 500 Companies, before ultimately ending up at Starbucks in Seattle.

After 11 years at Starbucks, Wanda left and started W Communications, a strategic communications consulting firm, where she
takes on one client at a time. The setup keeps her working but leaves plenty of room for traveling and enjoying the life she worked so hard to create.

I found Wanda through a friend who met her in 2002 when
she received the highly regarded Distinguished Alumni Award from Michigan State. When I looked into the award, I discovered it wasn’t the first of her accolades. She had been named one of the twelve leading African Americans in public relations by
PR Week
magazine and one of the “Top 100 Black Professionals in Corporate America” by
Black Professionals
magazine. She was also a frequent public speaker among her many other honors and activities.

Wanda spent the hour we shared together passing along advice garnered from years of experience in the working world—advice I needed to hear. Rita Meyer,
Cup Two, had told me early on that young women need more positive female role models—more examples of bold women setting the bar high and reaching their goals. After talking with Wanda, I saw the value in Rita’s sentiment.

What I noticed very quickly was that Wanda d
idn’t make excuses. I admired her candid, no-nonsense, approach to life.

I asked her how she dealt with the stress of being in a se
nior-level position. She told me she’d always been a good multitasker and had developed better skills as she advanced through positions.

I asked her how she found confidence as a young profe
ssional in intimidating business situations. She said she worked hard and paid attention to what others were doing. If she ran into a tough project, she executed it to the best of her ability and then looked for ways to do better the next time.

I asked her how she kept moving forward when life got overwhelming. Her response was
just to hang in there; tomorrow would bring a new day—maintaining patience, diligence, and perseverance was the key.

Wanda told me
that there would always be people telling me that I’m not good enough and that I shouldn’t allow myself to add negative self-talk as it only adds fuel to their fire. She said I should be my biggest fan, cheerleader, and promoter, and I should stand up for myself and believe I could do it.

Her mentality was like a Nike commercial:
Just Do It
. And that was just the beginning. Wanda continued to share more insights, which culminated in this take-away: “Life is about choices.”

* * *

The situation you are in right now, whatever it might be, is the direct result of the choices you made in the past. Where you are next week, next year, or next decade will be the result of the choices you make today.

Life is not the product of the environment, the economy, the weather, what your friends are doing, or what your boss wants. Life is about what
you
choose
to do under those circumstances.

Considering the next six months of my life would be full of choices, Wanda
’s perspective was indispensable from a variety of reasons.

First, she reminded me that we all have to make decisions we don
’t want to make: The fear of making the wrong choice sometimes incapacitates our decision-making abilities. We procrastinate; hoping someone or something will come along and make the choice for us. Wanda isn’t the type of woman who takes a passive stance when it comes to deciding which direction to take her life next; she has great confidence and is bold in her decision-making. If she makes the wrong decision, she quickly makes a correction.

Very few choices
are permanent.

Her advice reminded me of my college search. I was so overwhelmed and worried about deciding on the right college.
When my mom told me, “Megan, don’t let the choice create so much anxiety. If you pick a college and hate it, you can transfer.” Like magic, her advice lifted a weight off my shoulders.

* * *

After talking with Wanda, I realized the real mistake isn’t making the wrong choice; it is failing to change course once you realize a choice was wrong. This is what Wanda meant when she said people underestimated the control they have over their lives. All too often, people get stuck in a bad spot and don’t take action to get out.

Whether it
is a dead-end job, an unhealthy relationship, financial trouble, poor health or something else, people fail to realize they have the power to make choices that can change the situation.

Maybe we
’re afraid of how people will react to our actions. We get caught up thinking our behavior needs to fall in line with others’ expectations. But, as Wanda said, “Ignore the expectations others have for you. Create expectations for yourself and focus on those because if you reach your expectations, I guarantee you’ll be exceeding the expectations other have for you.”

* * *

When I walked away from my meeting with Wanda, I was overcome with a great feeling: a mix of energy and relief. Yes, I had a lot of decisions to make in the next six months—heck; I have a lot of decisions to make in the next 60 years! But talking to Wanda made those decisions seem much less daunting.

The high expectations I have for myself will serve as a guidepost for my choices. And
over time, I would develop the ability to make difficult revisions if necessary, growing more confident in my decision-making abilities along the way.

Jonathan Zittrain

Austin Convention Center at the SXSW Conference in Austin, Texas

Bottle of water

Don’t wait for an opportunity, create an opportunity.

I never expected a project that started in Michigan would lead to a meeting in Texas with a professor from Massachusetts that happened because of a conversation in California.
But the world works in strange ways.

It all started when
Jonathan Zittrain, an accomplished professor at Harvard Law School, came across a link to 52 Cups on a website and then mentioned the project on Twitter. I sent him a quick thank you for helping spread the word, and he said if I were ever in the Boston area we should get coffee.

A month later, long after the conversation had faded from memory, I was in San Francisco
, visiting friends before traveling to the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference in Austin, Texas. I had met up with my friend Kelly, who mentioned her boss was speaking on a panel at SXSW. She told me to check it out because a guy named Jonathan Zittrain was on the panel and always gave a fascinating presentation.

I knew the name sounded familiar, but couldn
’t put my finger on the reason. After going back through my email archives, I put two and two together: it was the law professor from Twitter! I sent him a message, and a week later, Jonathan and I were sitting in the crowded Austin convention center, having a great conversation. What are the odds?

* * *

Kelly was right; Jonathan is fascinating. To kick off our conversation, Jonathan gave me a condensed history of the Internet (he wrote
The Future of the Internet
—
And How to Stop It
). Jonathan has a great ability to explain intricate concepts in an interesting manner. Plus, he has great stories.

My favorite was how he had gotten involved
with the Internet back when only serious techies understood it. Although he was only 12, Jonathan had been intrigued with the Internet and had found a way to get online and join different communities where other technology geeks met (an activity his parents didn’t know about until they received the hefty phone bill). Not wanting to reveal his age out of fear people wouldn’t take him seriously, Jonathan made sure to be as articulate as possible to appear older. The strategy paid off. He was selected to be a moderator for an online forum, where he built a great reputation—he wasn’t even 15.

The best part was when he explained how Texas Instr
uments (the forum to which he contributed) was going to be hosting a large convention and had asked him to be the keynote speaker. They had no idea how old he was, and he had decided not to tell them. Instead, he packed his bags, boarded a plane, and landed at the airport where a half dozen very surprised men welcomed him. Once they had gotten over the fact he was so young, the businessmen let him give the keynote. It was a big hit with conference attendees.

The mix of delight and nostalgia Jonathan showed as he
continued telling stories from his life made our conversation delightful. Stories like the time he had met Stephen Colbert, or how he had gone to Yale to study Artificial Intelligence and ended up with a Law degree from Harvard.

He told me that he had stayed at his first job after law school for two and a half weeks before quitting. He had a
ccepted a job in Washington, D.C., quickly realized he hated the job, and promptly quit. He didn’t see any value in “sticking it out” for a year. In his mind, every day spent at the law firm was a missed opportunity to be working on a career he wanted.

As he later said, “Why settle for anything less than the life you truly want?”

He decided to head back to Harvard where he co-founded the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, which would later spin off Creative Commons, which encourages the free exchange of knowledge online. He was the first Executive Director of the center while also teaching first-year law classes at Harvard.

Although highly distinguished, Jonathan
is down-to-earth. I thoroughly enjoyed his fresh perspective, wit, and insight on life. During the conversation, Jonathan brought up this idea of affordance. It is a term social scientists use to illustrate that at any one time, there is a set of actions we can perform—choices we can make. We all have them, but the number and degree of the choices vary with each person and change constantly.

For example, having five dollars in your pocket leads to a set of options.
Having 50 dollars leads to a different set. How you choose to utilize your affordances determines how many more you will create. Accepting a job offer in New York will lead to a much-different outcome than accepting a position in Toledo. Deciding to go for a run after work will create a different outcome than meeting a friend for dinner, etc.

Past experiences, education, financial situation
, and natural aptitude are just a few factors affecting affordances. However, some affordances are available to everyone. As Jonathan pointed out, Twitter, Facebook, and other online technologies have created new opportunities across the board.

It
is a somewhat simple concept, but one that provoked my thinking. If each opportunity we take branches into a new set of opportunities, there are an exponential number of outcomes for the future. The potential is exciting, but you have to be willing to act on the opportunity.

Jonathan said that during his years of teaching
, he found that many people, especially students, didn’t realize the number of affordances—or opportunities—they had, or could create for themselves.

The opportunity to keynote a major conference hadn
’t come out of thin air; Jonathan had made that happen by making a name for himself doing something he loved. He had turned an affordance into an opportunity that fit his skill set—and that opportunity spiraled into many more.

That
’s what I took away from our conversation: everyone can create incredible opportunities for themselves. The lesson was not just a result of Jonathan’s advice, but also of how the meeting came about in the first place.

I capitalized on three different affordances
. I had made friends during an internship in San Francisco two summers earlier, which gave me a reason to visit San Francisco; I had started a blog, and I joined the student group going to SXSW—three very separate activities I never expected would bump into each other. But they did, and the result was a chance to meet Jonathan.

* * *

Discover what sparks your interest and dive into it headfirst; you never know where the path will lead, because the world works in strange ways.