May 2017 By Tair Littman Founder of The Morning Coffee Club
If you love a good story, you'll enjoy this one.
You know those moments in life that start out of nowhere? You take one small step, driven by nothing but a gut feeling, and only looking back do you realize that moment changed your life forever?
Well, that's my story with The Morning Coffee Club. A chain of random events, each one leading to the next in ways I never saw coming.
It all started with a post I published in the "New World People" Facebook group on March 14, 2017. It happened after I'd come back to Israel from abroad and was just starting out on my own.
I already had ErgoDog in the works, a project I'd started a year earlier, but it wasn't making money yet, so I decided to build my career as an independent.
I started working as a freelancer in February 2017.
Pretty quickly I discovered that as much as I love deciding what to do with my time every day (and it really is wonderful), that same freedom comes with a very big challenge.
Managing your time well is not an easy thing.
Being a "night person" by nature didn't help with my new way of life, and I found it especially hard to get up at an early, regular hour in the mornings. (Whether getting up early is really necessary is a topic for another post.) I loved working late into the night, and for more than a month I just couldn't turn my clock back around.
I was exhausted, and close to giving up.
Until an idea popped into my head. At the time it seemed so crazy that it thrilled me and scared me at the same time.
But I told myself, "Hey, it can't be worse than starting every day at 11:00... so why not? Worst case, someone will think I'm a little weird, and they'll probably forget about it."
The idea came to me in the shower, and from the moment I stepped out, I was locked on it.
After I got ready and left the house, I went to a few meetings and couldn't stop thinking about it. It burned in me all day. I had a good feeling about it.
That evening I came home, wrote my post (I could barely edit it, I was so excited), and hit Enter.
That's it. I did it.
The moment I hit Enter, I was suddenly gripped by an intense fear that no one would answer.
The first few minutes were so nerve-racking that I closed my laptop and couldn't look. But a few minutes later, curiosity got the better of me and I had to peek.
I saw that people loved the idea. They were even excited about it.
The group had only 600 members back then, and within a few hours I had nearly 100 likes and so many amazing comments that I was moved beyond words. Within a few hours, my calendar was booked from March 15 all the way to early May.
I couldn't believe what was happening to me.
I was flooded with dozens of private messages on Facebook, and every few minutes another email arrived telling me a new meeting had been booked. Ironically, that night I couldn't sleep because I was so excited. The next morning I got up for my first meeting.
And I haven't stopped since.
Every day for two months, I met someone new in the morning. I didn't miss a single one. As I write these lines, I've met more than 400 new people. Interesting, inspiring people with rich, deep inner worlds.
Since then, every morning when I open my eyes and get up to meet someone new, it fills me with a deep, satisfying sense of purpose. A feeling of aliveness and a burst of energy that's hard to explain, and my heart fills with curiosity and love.
Every morning, they start by telling me what they think of the idea, each from their own personal place. They come from all kinds of cities around the country (OK, mostly Tel Aviv), tell me about themselves, and teach me so much.
The thread that connects most of them, and one of the main reasons they took this step and came to meet me, is that we simply crave this human encounter.
The "real thing." Face to face.
As simple as it is, that's how much we miss it in today's world.
Stepping out of the digital space.
Two weeks into the meetings, I realized there was something here. Something extraordinary.
Something amazing happens when you meet a stranger for the first time. They give you perspective on yourself.
They make you realize that things you take for granted are worth sharing, and they teach you that you're able to teach. That you have something to give others. And when it's many "strangers" on a regular basis, the personal growth is significant. (By the way, many of them became my friends.)
And then it hit me.
"I have to spread this," I thought. To reach all the curious, interesting, creative people out there. The people who will take the step and show up.
That's how The Morning Coffee Club was born. As it is, the Israeli entrepreneurial community is made up of open, generous, helpful and inspiring people.
They love helping new entrepreneurs, and really anyone who just asks.
So why not bring it all together in one place?
Another thing I learned from this amazing adventure is how quickly you can turn an idea that pops into your head into reality.
In just a few hours, I didn't only change my own life. I also changed the day of many others who joined in with me.
From thought to reality in a single day.
Without a doubt, it was worth the initial fear. I hope this site will be useful to you and open doors to adventures no less exciting than the one I've had over these past two months.
Good luck!
See you soon, Tair :)