Ten Years of Brewing Against the Machine—Year 9 / 2024 / REFLECTION

Let us reflect on the ninth year: the year of our Lord 2024 | REFLECTION

This year couldn’t have been more different than the last two. Between a whole brand shift, lots of travelling, and self discovery, the previous two years (and frankly, every year before 2024) were amazing, but chaotic. Once I began to integrate our metamorphosis and curiosity, I realized the chaos we had existed in perpetually since the beginning was no longer working. I didn’t necessarily understand at the time what that meant or why, but I knew that we needed to truly pause. Calm. Focus. I mean, I was only a year or two into being diagnosed with heavy ADHD which I quickly learned was the driver for the chaos. Apparently all the wild decisions and erratic behavior were due to dopamine seeking tendencies. Better late than never!

So this year, we took it down a few notches. Even though I was navigating personal challenges, I was still motivated to run the business with a different mindset. I committed myself to growing in patience, and making decisions that were preemptive instead of reactive. Maybe we can teach old dogs new tricks. 

What was wild is that my desire to reflect on how to do things differently, while also pursuing more sustainability, led me to finding myself in the throes of my own personal reflection. My Dark Night of the Soul. Fuck me. I thought I was done with that from my time in India. Nope. Sorry. Life doesn’t work that way. There are no shortages of opportunities to grow, if indeed we think that way. 

Growth mindset they said… but I don’t think I was given a fair warning of just how riveting it would become, both personally and professionally. 

I’ll tell you right now… something that would have saved me a lot of heartache is realizing that what we battle with in our lives is nothing more than a direct reflection of what we need to acknowledge, work on, and improve. Everyone wants healing. But the real shadow work? It can cause you to run the other direction REAL fast. It does appear true that most people would prefer a familiar hell to an unfamiliar heaven. 

But enough therapizing for now… what did happen in 2024?

A couple foundational events took place no doubt.

We actually started the year with a bang. We hired Genifer. Who is Genifer you ask? In case you were unaware, Genifer is our head roaster and coffee guru. Your Highness of Roasting, if you will. Genifer came to us by way of Black Rifle Coffee in Manchester, TN; after making the move several years before that from Utah where they had began with BRC. I remember seeing their resume and thinking, “there is no way in hell this person will be a good fit for this company”, knowing very well that BRC, as much as I respect their marketing efforts and growth, was completely opposite from our brand. Well, I was terribly wrong. 

Frankly, I feel like this was the beginning of my deeper understanding of how much of a stronghold our perceptions, filters and narratives fuck up how we see people and the world. But again, I digress (I know, I know, you’re here for the coffee, not the meta bologna).

Genifer has quickly become a pillar in this company on so many levels. 

This experience also led me to the reality that culture and energy truly do have a powerful impact on outcome. I used to think I was good at building teams… or maybe I was decent at finding good people, but terrible at maintaining them. But between Genifer, and Abby, our Archbishop of Marketing and Community Outreach, something was beginning to shift in our team dynamics and culture. I began relinquishing control. I began to trust. We built things off of mutual respect and goals. 

What I cannot stress enough is how everything is connected. Remember how ‘the hard’ is usually just what you need to learn? Well, it goes the other way too. You follow your gut, you trust your intuition, you heal and grow, and thus you will also begin to see how it impacts all the other areas of your life… the things you begin to attract.

Thus, the McCallie Ave. shop began.

I knew our lease was coming to an end at our little hole in the wall where it all began, and the idea of moving and beginning over was honestly frightening. Remember? Familiar hell. Not that Broad was hell per se, but it certainly was at it’s peak, and was incapable of taking us to the next level in the business. But damn was it scary. 

After looking at tons of places, and NOTHING working out, I was losing hope. There were a few options, but that intuition kept saying no – which honestly I almost questioned since nothing was really working out. But I kept looking. Remember Michael? You’re focused on patience and reflection… or maybe we should try to stay at Broad and just improve it. Oh wait, nevermind, we were told we had to leave without any real conversation. Back to the drawing board!

Then the realtor showing us a spot off Main mentioned an upcoming opportunity that wasn’t even on the market yet. As we turned the corner at Holtzclaw my heart started beating superspeed. No fucking way. The building I’ve drooled over for YEARS, the location I drove by literally EVERYDAY because I live one minute down the street off McCallie, the place I’ve been dreaming to myself how awesome it would be for a shop… maybe manifesting does work after all. 

Despite the alignment that felt divine, the universe wasn’t done teaching us patience. We signed the lease and began building out expecting to open by fall/winter at the end of the year. Nah. Not even close. “You still gotta learn more about timing and trusting the process”, she told me. But hey, we got our space.

But damn did I learn that patience and trust starts to become much easier when you just let go and accept. I suppose it doesn’t matter how cliche the serenity prayer is, it’s simply true. So, we did our thing and began planning out our new space… together. 

+Michael, High Priest