5 Years From Today…

It has been said that the difference between who you are today and who you will be in five years is the people you’ll meet and the books you’ll read.

In 2012, fresh off a move to Austin, TX, I decided to make a deliberate attempt at personal growth through a weekly challenge of finding a stranger who’d agree to have coffee with me and documenting the conversation to share the lessons. I could have never predicted just how transformative the project would be. After 100 conversations, I wrote a few insights you might find interesting.

Along the way, as a list of strangers became a list of friends, I made a choice to get even more laser focused with my stranger selection. Looking back at the conversations and connections, I noticed that my favorites were people who could either be described as “beams of sunshine”; folks that walked into a room and lit it up with their warmth and their positive energy that made everyone around them grow and flourish. Or they were “bolts of lightning”; people who lit up a space with their flashes of brilliance and sparks of creativity who get things done and you can’t help but notice them.

As nearly every stranger was a referral or recommendations from former strangers, I simply changed my ask from, “connect me with people you think would be interested in having a coffee with a stranger”, to “Who do you know who is a beam or sunshine or a bolt of lightning? Those are the people I’d like to meet!” And guess what? It worked!

Once again, I find myself in a new city – Minneapolis, MN. And frankly, as much as I love Coffee With A Stranger, I knew deep down it was time for a change. After much reflection, eventually I realized I was ready to relaunch the project – with a few changes.

• New branding – introducing Beams & Bolts. Although I’m technically still having coffee with strangers, the focus is now on those people who are making the world brighter and better. And it’s time to highlight that.
• Shorter – 3000 words…that’s how long the average Coffee With A Stranger post was. EEK! Fun fact – NO ONE wants to read that many words. So Beams & Bolts will be shorter, and will focus on just a few aspects of a person’s story rather than the entire thing. Can we all breathe a collective sigh of relief? Whew!
• Big on impact – fewer words but more action. Beams & Bolts is a blend of story sharing and secrets of the successful. Conversations will focus on the distilling the actions, habits and ideas that create the biggest impact for someone, resulting in an action plan for making changes – if a reader so desires.

Who will I meet this week? Check out Beams & Bolts to find out. If you are interested in the Austin, TX series of conversations, check out Coffee With A Stranger

Still have questions? You aren’t the only one. I bet you’ll find your answer by reading the FAQ.