#7 - I'll Take Potpourri for $200
On coaching, karma, and getting away
I feel like an asshole because I got a bunch of new subscribers and proceeded to disappear. Welcome new supporters! Thank you so much to those of you who have migrated over from Good Food Jobs to munch on The Mustard Sandwich. (And thank you to Tay & Dor at GFJ for always sharing my work!
I have some perks coming for paid subscribers: 8 oz of freshly roasted coffee beans and an hour of professional coaching if you want it. I’m qualified to provide both:
I own a coffee roasting social enterprise called Los Compas Coffee that, in addition to selling damn fine coffee, also runs small business entrepreneurship workshops at a local continuation high school for teens and adults with special needs.
A few months ago, I completed the Leadership and Performance Coaching Certification through Brown University and ACT Leadership, and was told by many veteran coaches that I don’t suck.
If you’re a paid subscriber and are interested in receiving your coffee and/or scheduling a free coaching hour, please fill out this form. Coaching hours will take place starting in April when my school schedule loosens its death grip on my life. I am in the process of setting up coaching as a more regular thing I do and will share a link to new developments for anybody who is interested in a low-cost offering from a newly-minted coach trying to accumulate hours for her next level of certification.
Some Thoughts on Coaching
Coaching and being coached these past few years has been a game-changer for me. Radically investing in myself by hiring a professional coach has helped me unlock new realms of living and working, and recognize patterns and behaviors that have been inhibiting me for years that I was previously blind to. Where I once doubted myself, I now feel courageous because my challenges, though still there, are far less nebulous. With the help of my coach, I am able to have my neuroses over for tea, as Ram Dass humorously put it.
Also, very simply, paying for someone else’s time for a one-on-one engagement has changed how I value myself and my own time. I see what is possible in an hour and I treat the time of others with so much more dignity now, making sure I don’t cancel on people and holding them accountable when they cancel on me.
I am now stunned at how we allow companies and institutions to flatly tell us what our time is worth. Giving and receiving coaching turns that insane practice on its head. It is a bold declaration of self-worth in a world of systemic injustices that rewards some for their time and not others.
Being coached has helped me see all of my life experiences, even the bleakest ones and those I am most ashamed of, as just as valuable as the times when I’ve gotten awards on stage. It’s democratized my life’s moments. I am able to appreciate life more in its entirety rather than box away the parts of it that that feel awkward. It has helped me embrace my awkwardness, and I feel emancipated by this reevaluation of discomfort. For all of this to be rooted in a deeply human relationship with another person as opposed to some corporate connection makes it all the more freeing and meaningful.
Gone Fishin’
I’ve spent the past couple of days on Shelter Island, one of the few remaining vestiges of “old and weird” San Diego where crusty boat guys with anchor tattoos still roam a plenty like Bison in the 1700s.
Being away helps me realize so much about myself and my anxiety-inducing behavior patterns that hobble me in my day-to-day life, such as my complete and utter inability to settle into swaths of unstructured time. In my defense, I was never taught to relax. I was taught to work because that’s how you earn everything — money, love, everything. (The earning love thing is wild — I’ll write about that some other time.) So yeah, relaxing. Not a skill over here.
The underpinnings of this are pretty deep and spiritual. I grew up around the ideas of yoga and dharma. Yoga is not something you do in $190 stretchy pants, it’s your life practice. My father always refers to himself as a karma yogi, karma being work or “your doing.” As opposed to seva yoga, for example. Seva is “service,” so the practice or yoga in this case is serving others, the planet, etc.
The overarching idea here is one of paths to liberation or moksha, freedom from the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. Each of us is a yogi of some ilk, and our respective yogas are our pathways out of the tyranny of mrityu loka, what we call earth, the realm of the dying.
I realize this might sound bleak to cultural outsiders, but I find it rather empathetic. It both acknowledges human suffering and contextualizes mortal life as a mere blip on the eternal journey of the soul. Even though planet earth and living on it is characterized a certain way, it is special because, according to Hindu philosophy, you’re here because your soul is on a purposeful journey to learn or attain something only possible here.
I, like my father, identify as a karma yogi, so my path very much runs adjacent to the work I do. This is great most of the time because it imbues my life with a learning and doing spirit. It’s horrible when you’re tired though and need to be still for the sake of your body and well-being. I just recently tried to work my way out of burnout for the millionth time and it didn’t work, hence the mini-vacation.
I can’t always go on those though, so I gravitate toward activities that force me to surrender, like writing The Mustard Sandwich or roasting coffee beans. Both require letting go of my grip on time because I never know how long either will take. Sometimes when I fire up the roaster to do a roast, I end up doing three. Before I know it, it’s dark outside. Time has flitted away and surprise — it didn’t kill me.
Until Next Time
I wanted to share some cool links to docs I enjoyed this weekend. I deleted Instagram from my phone for the time being because I found myself doom-scrolling funny videos too much. Consuming content with no natural order messes up my brain, so I’m back to watching long-form content on YouTube and here are some magical finds.
PBS (Lost LA) Tiki Bars and Their Hollywood Origins - As a lover of all things kitsch, this was a treat for the eyes, especially because I watched it at the fire pits of a tiki-themed hotel. Also a nod to the Filipino contributions to the tiki experience, something I had no idea about. These bartenders were artists.
PBS (Lost LA) Fast Food and Car Culture - I love learning about the food business, and I take pride in the fast food innovation heritage of the Inland Empire where I’m from. These businesses changed America forever, and I love the connection to travel and cars. Shout out to Mitla Cafe in San Bernardino for incubating Taco Bell!
PBS Flour Power - Who knew the dusty hands of the early American milling industry reached so far into our pantries and politics?