Choose Your Work

I have a fellow coffee shop owner friend whose favorite phrase is “spin off cash.” Once we get to a certain daily average the business will spin off cash. Once we reach a certain wholesale threshold we’ll start to spin off cash. I’ve been working really hard but it’ll be worth it once we start spinning off cash.

“Spin off cash” has become their unofficial mission statement. Now, I’m guessing the cash isn’t really what they want. It’s a signal of something else: perhaps freedom, a certain lifestyle, distance between them and day-to-day operations, or a cultural signifier of success.

A metric of success like spinning off cash could lead you to do all kinds of unsavory things. Cut labor to the bare minimum to keep expenses and payroll low, cut corners on training, pass off a mediocre product as a great one, engaging in one-sided relationships, or fostering a low-trust work environment. These things don't live in a vacuum, they affect the guest, employee, and ownership experience.

For my friend, it manifests itself as a low trust work environment. They end up running around doing all kinds of mundane tasks because they don’t trust other people to take ownership of them. This is their work.

At Cat & Cloud, our mission is “To inspire connection by creating memorable experiences.” We believe in the power of each person to create better and to inspire others to do the same.

The decision to build an organization with this at its core has effects. We expend a huge amount of energy in emotional labor, we work incredibly hard to see things from our guest's point of view, and we often see potential in people that they don’t see in themselves. Our vision is larger than our skillset, so we’re constantly pushing ourselves in addition to trying to empower others. It’s sometimes frustrating and the work is hard but rewarding.

The amazing thing is my friend and I both work equally as hard–our energy output is the same, but the work we do is completely different.

When we choose our metrics of success, we’re choosing the work we get to do and how we view our time at work. This is true for the boss, the entrepreneur, the project starter, and the employee.

What do you want out of work? What are you building towards? How would you like to impact the lives of others?

Choose your metrics of success, choose your work.