Coffee, Anyone?
Coffee, Anyone?
I recently read The Coffee Bean Principle, a modern motivational parable popularized by Damon West in his book The Coffee Bean (co-written with Jon Gordon). The principle is a metaphor for how we respond to challenging environments:
· Carrot: When placed in boiling water, a carrot becomes soft and weak. This represents people who let tough situations break them down or weaken their resolve. Sometimes, life can be overwhelming, and we are tempted to collapse under the pressure.
· Egg: An egg in boiling water becomes hard. This represents people who let adversity make them bitter, closed off, or hardened inside. Examples of this hardheartedness flood our minds and sap our energy. The hard shell seems to protect us, but it also causes us to disengage from others.
· Coffee Bean: Unlike the carrot or the egg, when a coffee bean is placed in boiling water, it transforms the water itself into coffee. It changes the environment instead of being changed by it. This is the essence of a resilient response. We are all change agents if we trust ourselves and our purpose. Each of us makes a difference, even though we might never know how we affect others’ lives.
How we respond to a “boiling environment,” devastating news, or crushing disappointments can change the course of our lives. Instead of being changed by adversity, we can transform our environment with gratitude, self-compassion, and kindness.
Early Life in Exurbia
The ability to change how you assess your situation often begins early in life. I grew up in a neighborhood in what might be called exurbia, an area outside of a large urban area, but close enough to the urban center to facilitate frequent trips to the art museums and library. My immediate neighborhood was a diverse community of different races, ethnicities, small businesses, and large ones.
My home was encircled with hydrangeas and rose bushes, and a field of sunflowers bloomed in a field adjacent to my home. A huge bakery business was located across the street, where fresh-baked bread wafted smells of yeasty loaves, competing with my mother’s baked rolls and fruit pies. Gratitude and sweet comforts were baked into me early.
My mother interacted with the neighbors, often around food, flowers, or faith. My father worked hard to provide for us during long week days, and relaxed with friends and poker or checkers on the weekends.
Mrs. Fink, my round-cheeked second-grade teacher, stopped by my home on her way to the bus stop, before her long trip into the city ,to give my mother an update on my educational progress; no parent-teacher meeting was necessary with such personal engagement. I developed a love for learning and teachers early in my education.
Seeing kindness in action (from parents, mentors, leaders, teachers) inspires us to mirror it. Environments that celebrate kindness normalize it.
There Are No Strangers Here
Hosting people in my home for brief stays has been a passion of mine for 11 years. Friends seem to marvel at how I can dare to host people I don’t know from different parts of the world, speaking different languages, practicing different religions, and expressing different political and social views. Whenever the questions are raised, “How can you invite strangers into your home?” I reflect on my early life when I lived in a diverse community, and the model of interconnection among human beings that began to form. Welcoming the stranger is in my DNA and defines the humanity of compassion. A benefit of kindness is mutual exchange and the likelihood that receivers will “pay it forward.” Kindness spreads with reciprocity and fairness.
I continue to be a work in progress, but I practice self-forgiveness if fears or disappointments distract me. I am not perfect, but I am perfectly striving to be better than I was yesterday. Somehow, lovingkindness and compassion have a way of pulling me back to center when I fall off the path.
The Key Drivers of Kindness
A few years ago, a friend gave me a large cup with the words, “Spread Kindness” boldly displayed. Like the coffee bean in boiling water, we can spread transformative kindness and change the trajectory of a life instantly. Everyone can be kind, but many have forgotten or buried this enormously powerful gift under layers of suffering.
Kindness often requires patience, forgiveness, and choosing not to react with anger. Emotional self-control creates space for kindness.
Empathy, compassion, values, connection, gratitude, and purpose are the central engines that drive kindness, supported by the way we regulate emotions and learn from others.
1. Empathy – Kindness begins when we choose to feel with others, not just for them.
2. Compassion– When empathy becomes action and giving needs no reward, kindness thrives.
3. Values and Beliefs – Kindness flows from respect, fairness, generosity, and the guidance of those who came before us.
4. Social Connection – Humans are wired for belonging. Acts of kindness strengthen trust, relationships, and community bonds, which in turn reinforce more kindness.
5. Gratitude and Positive Emotions – People who feel grateful, optimistic, or content are more likely to extend kindness.
6. Purposeful Living- Kindness becomes a way to create impact beyond ourselves.
Roots of Cruelty
At its core, cruelty often grows where empathy is absent or suppressed, and where fear, power, or pain are stronger than compassion. As we journey through life, our experiences grow in complexity. My life has been no exception.
Facing cruelty, sometimes experienced as abuse, is inevitable, but our core being thrives on spreading kindness.
Cruelty often arises from fear, pain, or a desire for control, but it can also be fueled by prejudice, indifference, or harmful social pressures. People may hurt others when they feel threatened, disconnected, or justified in their actions. Yet understanding the roots of cruelty reminds us of our power to break cycles of harm, choose empathy over apathy, and rise above hatred and fear to act with kindness and courage.
Peace and blessings,
Ndidi
