The Carrot, The Egg & The Coffee Bean
When my pastor first preached on the carrot, the egg and the coffee bean, I was amazed. The analogy got me thinking and thinking. His words were that humans when faced with difficult situations react in any of these three ways, a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean.
When the carrot comes in contact with heat (hot boiling water) it becomes soft, the egg in contact with hot boiling water gets hardened while the coffee bean in contact with hot boiling water produces a drink, black coffee. You can now decide to add cream and sugar if you want.
At the end of that teaching, I asked myself which of these describes how I react to difficult situations. There’s isn’t a singular fixed reaction. My reaction had always varied and would perhaps always vary. But after that sermon I decided that I always want to react in a similar fashion as the coffee bean. I haven’t been totally successful on that yet but will someday.
Recently I have been reading one of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen – Chicken Soup for the Entrepreneur’s soul. A lot of these entrepreneurs are like the coffee bean. When life dealt them a tough blow, they made something out it, added cream and sugar and out came great coffee. But one of the stories touched my heart extra.
It was the story of woman whose first daughter was born deaf, and her second daughter born with spina bifida and cerebral palsy. She went from one tough blow to another but rather than becoming a carrot or an egg, which anyone could almost understand as she had enough reasons to become weakened or hardened in her perspective towards life, this woman turned her situation into a great coffee drink (of course not literal coffee drink) which later grew to become a great brand sold all over the US and in twenty different countries. You can read more about her story in the book Chicken Soup for the Entrepreneur’s soul.
When life gives you lemon, make lemonades, and when life takes you to a boiling point, become like the coffee bean, make coffee and not just any coffee, make really awesome coffee.