Trade-offs and Triumphs 15
Issue 15: Noowave Coffee, Coffee and Its Positive Influences, Beyond Handwritten Notes for the Holidays, The Valuable and Intentional Practice of Gratitude
Hello, friends! Thank you to my 76 subscribers, and welcome to my new subscriber!
Welcome to issue 15!
How was your week? What were your trade-offs and triumphs?
Last week, I briefly experienced triumph, because finally, my Noowave coffee order arrived!
So what exactly is Noowave coffee? According to its founder, Greg Frontiero, and its website, Noowave is “Coffee for Creativity 💡”:
Flow State Coffee coffee with L-Theanine and Raw Cacao is your go-to morning beverage to lower anxiety, improve brain function and support creativity and productivity.
As we muscle through the last few weeks of 2020, as I try to compile and write out all my thank you and holiday cards, plan for 2021, and conduct my day job, we need all the superpowers that enable our creativity and productivity.
Check out Noowave and consider making these a special holiday gift - because they are so new on the market!
Thanks, Greg Frontiero, for reaching out and telling me about your great product!
Coffee and Its Positive Influences
Mental Floss has compiled 15 fun facts about coffee over a month ago on #NationalCoffeeDay. Here are six that I found very interesting:
Drinking decaf coffee fuels the soda industry.
Instant coffee has been around for nearly 250 years (almost as long as the U.S. has been a country).
Americans spends, on average, about $1,100 annually on coffee.
It would take 70 cups of coffee to kill a 150-pound person (but who would drink this much coffee?!?).
Just to prove that trying to ban things generally don’t work, evidently, there have been several attempts to ban coffee entirely. As recently as the 18th century, the government of Sweden banned both coffee and coffee accoutrements, such as cups and saucers.
Finland is the world’s coffee capital.
If these fun facts have intrigued you to learn more about coffee, Jessica Eastois put together a great article about “How to Enjoy Coffee.” She is also the author of Craft Coffee: A Manual (2017).
But coffee also positively changes lives, because gainful employment at coffeehouses or coffee roasters have enabled people with criminal records and at-risk youth and women to rebuild their lives and contribute to their communities:
Coffee shop aiming to hire at-risk women, teens open on Billings’ South Side (h/t Melissa Stewart)
Felons find a fresh start at Wheaton coffee company - about I Have a Bean, the second chance coffee roaster - check out Prison Fellowship’s profile and Brewing Wisdom’s review of I Have a Bean (including this company’s tea line - because not everyone drinks coffee)
Beyond Handwritten Notes for the Holidays
It is my only good deed of the year - hand writing out a personal message in each holiday card that I send out.
But, according to Maiko Sakai, we all can do better than handwritten cards, especially when it comes to professional and business gift-giving. And, we have to be clear about our objectives when investing time and money into gifts:
Reason #1: Showing your genuine appreciation for the opportunities you’ve had to work with them.
Reason #2: Gift-giving serves as a reminder to stay on the top of their minds to beat competitors.
Reason #3: Gift-giving induces “word-of-mouth” promotion for possible referrals through them.
Once you have determined the reason for professional and business gift-giving, remember that there are three types of gifts that are worth the investment:
Gift Type #1: “How Did You Know?!” Gifts
Gift Type #2: Popular Consumables
Gift Type #3: Branded Promo Goods
Don’t forget that Maiko is also celebrating “The Season of Giving” - sign up for her email newsletter and win gifts!
The Valuable and Intentional Practice of Gratitude
November is gratitude month, but gratitude must be practiced more often than just for 30 days. And like every other habit, gratitude must be practiced intentionally
Gene Petrov recently published a collection of gratitude insights from his regular Twitter “friends”, “The Valuable and Intentional Practice of The LDRBRND.” He focuses on helping people become better marketers by becoming a better letter - or a LDRBRND.
Gene is always a welcoming figure at every Twitter chat I ever participated in - #winniesun, #TwitterSmarter, #leadloudly, #SEOChat, #ChatAboutBrand, etc. Thank you, Gene, for welcoming me to each and every community.
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Have any questions or comments? You can find me on Twitter @jennykim or email me at jennykimwop@gmail.com
Check out my website for more: puttingittogether.blog
No lie as a trade-off is ever worth the temporary illusion of triumph. Keep on cultivating that rubber ball heart.
And, find that trade-off that will lead to triumph this week, no matter how small, and celebrate it.
See you next week!