Any book you read on positive attitude will always tell you to think in terms of "I CAN" instead of "I CAN'T!" This is 90% of having a good positive attitude in my opinion. I want to give some example to drive home why this point is so important.
Say your espresso machine breaks in the midst of a decent sized rush. It's a big break too, nothing works and your not trained to fix it. The first thing most people will start doing is talking about what they cannot do, such as:
I can't make espresso
I can't froth milk for drinks
I can't keep up with the rush since I am on the phone with a tech
I can't make sales without my machine
The moment you start thinking this way you have admitted defeat. Take a moment in this situation and think "What CAN I do?"
Can you:
Use a milk frother to froth milk?
Use a whisk and heat source to froth milk? (you may not get latte art but it does work!)
Use an Aeropress to manually make shots?
Use a French press for mixed drinks? (not ideal and would depend on your shop and customer base)
The point is you have options and can make the best of a bad situation. Positive attitude helps create solutions to problems and invokes your imagination. I used the above worst case scenario to stress the point of what a positive attitude can do. Think about what GOOD can come from this scenario! You may find your some of clientele enjoy coffee from an Aeropress or other brewing means. Depending on your customers, you could even find that you could do a special day where you only serve this means of coffee and add to the uniqueness of your shop!
There are other smaller lessons you could learn from this case as well, such as how preparation (be it equipment preventive maintenance or learning about multiple brewing methods) is usually EQUALLY AS important as execution, and great customer service will keep clients loyal. I can tell some of you will roll your eyes as you read this, so let me give you a personal story to help bring this point home.
Not long after starting this roastery I encountered a problem. I would have customers order a very small amount of coffee that I did not have fresh roasted. This created a scenario where I would have pounds of roasted coffee sitting in storage and losing its freshness. My goal as a roaster was to always provide fresh coffee for my customers, and after a few days of sitting in storage I did not feel that I could sell this coffee and meet that goal.
What was I to do? Someone with a poor attitude would have given up on their goal and sold the coffee as it staled, perhaps others would have simply thrown the coffee out. I was not content with these options (and many other CAN'T options), and I refused to give up on my mission statement. I thought "What CAN I do with these beans?" This is what I came up with. Once our beans were past their sell date I toss them all into a 5 lb bag and label it "Mystery." I sell these beans at a reduced price and I will tell you this; I am almost always sold out of it.
Every problem has a solution, and a positive attitude is the key to finding that solution. Encountering problems does not mean you are weak, but overcoming them makes you strong. Solutions are abundant when you free yourself from negative thinking and a positive attitude will agitate your creativity.
Here is your quote for this week:
"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
-Albert Einstein
Lastly, here is a video on attitude I recommend you watch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRMogDrHnMQ
Take care!
-Luke Hudek
President of Old WWWorld Cafe
old wwworld cafe
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