52 Cups of Coffee: Inspiring and insightful stories for navigating life’s uncertainties (23 page)

Tony Stone

Stoats Porridge Oat Bar Headquarters in Edinburgh, Scotland

Office-brewed coffee

It’s important to have a plan, but the real key is having the courage to take the first step.

Don
’t be afraid to change directions. This was the mentality I had going into my European adventure, and the reason I ended up in Scotland.

My flight back to the States was out of London, so I d
ecided that’s where I would spend the last four days of my trip. However, when a friend from Michigan State emailed me to say she was going to be in Scotland for the TED Global conference, I decided to revise my plan. I’d spend two days in Edinburgh before taking a short train ride to London for my last two days.

* * *

I was weary from travel when I rolled into Scotland at 10:30 pm, but the beauty of the castle-lined landscape resting under a crescent moon restored my energy. After pausing to take a few photos and drink in the moment, I headed toward the hostel I’d booked, making a quick stop inside a convenience store along the way for a late-night snack.

It was the
bold green packaging on the Stoats Porridge Oat Bar that caught my attention.

After looking at the package, I discovered it was produced locally in Edinburgh. And after eating the bar I checked online to see if the bars were available in the States. The search naturally led me to the Stoats website, where I read about the
offbeat origins of the company. It was a fascinating story (filled with delightful British vernacular), so the next morning I decided to email the company to see if I could grab a coffee with co-founder Tony Stone. He agreed, and we set up a meeting.

* * *

When I arrived at the Stoats headquarters in the outskirts of the city, I wasn’t sure I was in the right spot. But then I noticed the small white Stoats sign, on a door nestled among a handful of larger manufacturing shops. I cautiously turned the handle and walked inside to find a simple setting: large bags of raw oats, stacks of cardboard boxes, and various flyers on the walls. Basically, I saw what you would expect from a manufacturing plant if you spent any time imagining what a manufacturing plant might look like.

Tony heard me enter, and yelled hello from his office down the hallway before coming out to meet me. He was tall, lanky, and personable, with a relaxed disposition and friendly Scottish accent. We walked into the office he shared with two other employees. He apologized for the disorder—piles of promotional material and files lined his desk, random boxes of product samples strewn about—and the lack of quality coffee.
I told him I didn’t mind; after seven weeks on the road, I was used to disorder.

* * *

Tony had always entertained the idea of starting a company, but he wasn’t sure in what capacity. That changed the day he and his friend Bob went to a music festival. I like how their website explains it:

Stoats began with an idea in 2004 to serve fresh porridge at music festivals. We listened to our mates moan and groan about what they had to eat to survive at music festivals. We knew that porridge would make a healthy, filling and tasty eating option, so we decided porridge was the future (and quite a cool way to spend the summer). Bob and Tony got a shiny wee mobile porridge bar and started selling freshly made porridge across the UK, and festival audiences loved it (and still do—look for the biggest queue at breakfast and you’ve found Stoats Porridge).

In 2004, porridge was getting a lot of attention in the press—it was one of Scotland’s best exports and was an especially trendy food at the time. Tony and Bob saw an opportunity and decided to capitalize on it.

They deci
ded to take it one step further: they would set up a small store where they’d sell porridge year-round. But reality intervened. When they approached the bank for a loan, they weren’t able to get as much money as they requested.

But that
didn’t stop them; they just reevaluated the plan and decided to stick with selling bowls of fresh porridge to festivalgoers, advertising their product with a big banner alongside the truck that read:

STOATS PORRIDGE BAR

Their decision worked, business was booming, and (although they didn’t see it) was about to change directions again.

Many of their customers misunderstood what “PORRIDGE BAR” meant. While the banner implied the type of bar synonymous with buffet, table, counter, etc., many concert goers thought that Stoats sold bars of porridge—like granola bars. The thought never occurred to Tony and Bob, but they figured if that
’s what their customers wanted, that’s what they should sell. After a little experimenting in the kitchen, the original Stoats Porridge Bar was born and became an instant hit.

While h
earing Tony’s firsthand account of the company’s growth, it became clear to me that it was their ability to be flexible and their willingness to try new things that allowed them to develop a successful business, one that continued to grow. It was a lot like my European trip: I had an itinerary, but it hadn’t been so concrete I couldn’t revise it when a better opportunity arose.

Changing direction
s can be scary, especially if you have taken a lot of time devising the original plan. But the thing is, you can’t predict life. If you think you have total control over your plan, you’re setting yourself up for failure because something unexpected will inevitably occur.

However, if you accept that life will throw you curveballs (both good and bad), the unexpected moments
can turn into the greatest opportunities. Had Tony and Bob been dead-set on sticking to the plan, the lack of funding from the bank could have completely derailed them. Or they could have ignored their customers and neglected the opportunity to take their business in a new, and better, direction.

When I asked Tony what the greatest lesson he
’d learned in the past five years was, he told me this: “Start small.”

He said
, oftentimes, the idea you are most excited about ends up going nowhere while an offshoot of the idea becomes an unexpected hit. That is why they roll out new products in small test batches; if it works, they roll it out to the whole market.

Starting small allow
s them to take smart risks. Take enough small risks, and you can start to see big change. It’s a smart strategy, much better than devising a grand scheme and then aborting it at the first sign it won’t work.

* * *

I was thinking about my conversation with Tony while walking back to the hostel from the Stoats Headquarters.

A year ago I hadn
’t planned to be drinking coffee in Europe. I’d just wanted to meet new people in the city where I lived, so took a risk and invited a stranger to coffee. It worked, so I kept at it; one thing led to another, and I ended up in Scotland surrounded by beautiful scenery and wonderful people—and drinking coffee with strangers.

While it
is important to plan ahead, success does not require some big, elaborate scheme. It requires the courage to take that first step. And then another. And then another.

If you
can do that, life will take you to incredible—and deliciously unexpected—places.

Steve Wozniak

Marie Calendar’s in Los Gatos, California

Water over lunch

Talent is overrated; it’s practice that’s important.

This story begins nine months before our meeting happened. Around Cup 16, I was talking about 52 Cups with Todd, a friend at work, when an idea hit him, “You should try to set up a meeting with Woz, the co-founder of Apple! I know he’d do it—in fact, I bet he’d even fly to Michigan.”

I figured I had nothing to lose, so I explored ways to co
ntact him. I searched his website, tried Facebook, asked a few friends. Nothing worked. My last resort was to search “Steve Wozniak” on anywho.com. I called the phone number, only to reach Steve Wozniak the pro fishing reporter, not Steve Wozniak the computer genius. I decided that it just wasn’t meant to be and moved on.

Then March rolled around, and one day I woke up to this email from a good friend at Michigan State:
FYI, Steve Wozniak will be the June commencement speaker. I bet we could get a coffee date set for you.

A strange feeling washed over me
. Todd had been right; Steve Wozniak was flying to Michigan. And there was a chance we could have coffee.

The day of graduation,
I found a way to get invited to a reception where he was speaking, (and stood next to him while drinking a cup of coffee—but that doesn’t count). He was fascinating to talk with and very approachable, so I explained my project and invited him for coffee. He said he’d love to, but would have to take a rain check; he was headed to Detroit to watch a hockey game before his flight back to California. He gave me his business card and told me to email him sometime.

So I did
. I sent him an email from Budapest, to let him know I was planning a trip to San Francisco to visit friends in July, and would love to meet up if he were around. A half-dozen email exchanges and a couple of flights later, I was riding my friend’s green beach-cruiser bike down the sunny, tree-lined, streets of Palo Alto to meet Woz and his wife for lunch.

* * *

It was a fantastic lunch, culminating with a piece of wisdom that emerged when I asked him how he and his family had stayed grounded amid the fame and success. His advice, “Be true to yourself. Find out who you are and what you value—then don’t let anything deter you.”

For as long as Woz c
ould remember, he had wanted to design computers. In high school, in college, in his first year working, Woz was designing computers during every spare moment. During his first year at Hewlett Packard, he designed the revolutionary Apple I and Apple II computers during nights and weekends away from work.

Woz knew
he was been born to build computers—not because he wanted to make a million dollars or start a revolutionary new company, but because nothing brought him greater joy than solving complex computer problems. After he designed the Apple I, he actually gave away the designs to anyone who wanted them.

When he designed the Apple II, he
was planning on doing the same thing, until Steve Jobs approached him about starting a company to commercialize the computer. At first, Woz said no. He didn’t want to be a businessman; he wanted to be an electronics engineer. At the time, Hewlett Packard was the most prestigious place for engineers, so Woz saw no reason to leave.

But Jobs
was insistent. He eventually won over Woz and they went on to found a company that revolutionized home computers and changed the future of technology forever.

Of course, it
was much more complicated than that, but the bottom line is that Woz helped create a company that most entrepreneurs could only dream about building.

Then he walked away from it.

One reason was that a near-fatal plane crash left him with retrograde amnesia. He had no recollection of the crash, and also struggled with day-to-day short-term memory (although he did eventually restore his memory). The other reason was that he wanted to finish the college degree he’d abandoned when he went to start Apple.

What happened next was surprising. H
e became a teacher, to fifth-grade kids. It was an atypical move, but Woz isn’t typical. He knows himself well enough to trust his decisions, even when they seem crazy to the outside world.

That
’s what impressed me most about Woz. More than his fame, his genius, and the fact that he had co-founded one of my favorite brands—it was his self-awareness (and self-assurance) that impressed me.

To know exactly who you are—and accept who you are—is a rare quality.

Sitting down with Woz and hearing him talk so candidly, and in such a genuine and humble manor, was refreshing.

Woz
wasn’t born with his computer talent. His expertise had been a gradual progression that developed because he was passionate and willing to work at the skill tirelessly.

That
is the most important takeaway from Cup 45: Most people aren’t born with remarkable talent.

While i
t’s undeniable that Woz had an aptitude for computers, it was the hours, and hours, and hours of dedicated practice that gave him the ability to revolutionize the computer world.

If he hadn
’t been devoted to the craft, his skills would have been wasted.

Regardless of what your skills
are and where you start, you can always get better. The people who are leaders in their field didn’t start at the top; they worked their way there. I’m not saying natural aptitude isn’t important; it is, just probably not as important as you think. Woz is a fantastic public speaker. His keynote at Michigan State’s graduation was a great blend of information, inspiration, and entertainment. That’s why he is invited to speak at events around the world—and why you would assume Woz had a natural aptitude for public speaking.

That couldn
’t be further from the truth. Growing up, Woz was so shy he wouldn’t raise his hand in class or talk to the other kids in his computer club. He feared public speaking. But as the co-founder of Apple, he had people wanting to hear him speak, so he had to face his fear of public speaking. With devotion and practice, he developed a talent he never knew he had.

I understand this
is a difficult idea for most people to believe. It is much easier to convince yourself that you just don’t have the right kind or amount of talent, rather than accept the scary idea that success is attainable, just with a lot of hard work. It’s easier sometimes to give up than to grow. I know this, because I have done it many times.

But Woz showed me how wrong I was
to assume that talent has to be innate—he took away my excuse. Now I couldn’t take the easy way out and blame my lack of talent. I would have to put in the hard work to develop talent.