The Uncomfortable

The corner spot on the couch.

Your favorite song after a long day.

Your childhood bedroom.

The first taste of a full-bodied California cabernet on your lips.

An embrace from the one you love.

Scrolling to avoid the big task on your plate.

Comfort has been a frequent topic of thought over the past few months.

The obvious positives and the un-recognized negatives.

I love being comfortable. Physically. Emotionally. Financially. Mentally. All the -ly’s you can think of. Because it’s easy.

But as I’ve learned all-too-well these last few months, comfortable isn’t always good.

I’ve made a conscious effort recently to choose un-comfortability.

Here’s a few steps I’m taking:

The Phone

It starts with the phone. Because we’re all far too addicted.

I know I’m not the only one who does this.

When I’m in an awkward social situation, I pop open Twitter. A difficult task at work comes across my plate? Let’s check TikTok first. A giant mess awaiting you in the sink? Instagram may have a cute puppy video that can help make me feel better first.

Hey. That’s stupid. Don’t do that anymore.

Confront your shit. Handle it. Get it done.

The Bad Break

I heard a great motivational tip the other day from Melissa Ben-Ishay, founder of Baked by Melissa. At a Q&A, I asked her how she deals with the shitty days.

She said that those days excite her. Those are the days she’s fired up to get up and work. It’s the kick in the ass she needs to crush the day.

I took that to heart.

My philosophy now is to tackle the hardest thing first. Because if you do the hardest thing first, everything else will feel easy.

Defense vs. Offense

Aaaaand here’s the sports reference that finds its way into every blog post.

For waaaaayyyy too long, I’ve been sitting back on defense.

Waiting for things to come to me. Reacting to what gets thrown on my plate.

I’ve gotten caught on my heels too many times.

Trying to prevent the breakdown, but doing nothing to get a step ahead of it.

It’s time we get back on offense.

Take charge of the situation before it hits the fan.

Do I have a perfect analogy for this? Nope. But you get the point.

The Uncomfortable

If you’ve ever played any sport at any level, you’ve undoubtedly heard a coach say, “get comfortable with the uncomfortable.”

Amazing advice. Substantially easier to say than to do.

I’ve been walking into coffee shops and sparking up conversations about coffee with baristas. I’ve been going to networking events alone. I’m reaching out to people that I’m terrified to talk to.

Do I like doing it? Absolutely not.

Has it worked? 1000000%.

I wouldn’t be where I am without exiting that comfort zone.

The Day to Day

Each day, I have a lot on my plate. There are tasks I like more than others.

It’s not necessarily the easy ones I like more.

It’s the familiar ones that I like more.

It’s updating my finance grid. It’s writing a blog. It’s making the coffee.

The shit I don’t want to do is the shit that I’ve never done.

Just do the thing. Get the reps. Do it enough that it starts to feel comfortable.

Some Payoff

I didn’t like creating the website. I didn’t like designing it. I didn’t like catering it for SEO.

I wanted to make coffee. Provide an amazing service. And sit on my laurels.

But there’s a process.

Allow me to flex a bit.

Our website now hovers on the first or second page for “Coffee Catering New Jersey” and other queries along those lines. We’re first page for Jersey City and Hoboken. We’re a top result if you mention “cold brew” in that search, even in Manhattan.

We’re one of the top results on ChatGPT and all the other AI models out there.

That shit was hard. It took a lot of time. And it sucked to do.

But whenever I search “Coffee Cart New Jersey,” and I see our name near the top, it’s a subtle reminder that doing the hard shit is worth it.

This Current Moment

I like doing my writing outside the home.

So I went to my favorite bench. The one with good back support. And a view of the marina. With Lady Liberty looking back at me. Under a shady tree.

Today?

It’s a little too warm. I have sweat dripping down my brow. My feet are overheating inside of my Birkenstock Boston clogs. These little yellow bugs keep falling onto my laptop. Plant buds keep getting stuck in leg hair. An inchworm just fell on my shoulder (side note: where the fuck have these little green inchworms been the last 20 years? I feel like I used to catch hundreds of them daily and this is the first one I’ve seen since I was 11 years old).

Normally, I’d move somewhere else. Somewhere more comfortable.

But that would be against the motif of this blog post.

I’m going to be uncomfortable in this spot. And sit with it.

Is it gonna help me in any way?

Probably not.

But at least I tried.