Why My Barista is Smarter than I Am

I was recently in Detroit at 5 AM and had a remarkable interaction with a woman at Starbucks. She should be the motivational speaker…not me. Check out this video I recorded with my phone — which is code for, “calm down, I know the quality isn’t that great!”

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Brad Montgomery
Motivational Speaker, Inspirational Speaker, Fan of Detroit!

For people who prefer to read, here is the transcript:

Howdy. I’m Brad Montgomery. BradMontgomery.com. I’m still in the Detroit airport. I wanted to put up one more video for you because I was struck yesterday with another person that really has figured out humor in the workplace. She works at Starbucks. She works in the airport. She works at Dallas-Ft. Worth. Alright, so you know how it is, you go to, we’ve all been to somewhere and boughten a drink. It’s no big deal. It is a big deal with this woman because she just made, she just owned this whole concourse. She owned the concourse. She was like the queen of Dallas-Ft. Worth airport. She was like holding forth at Starbucks and she was calling everybody up, “Hey how are you doing? Get up here! How are you? What are you doing? Where are you going?” Just a super unbelievably friendly woman. So as is my habit, I asked her, “What’s the deal? You know, how do you do this? How do you stay happy when it seems like people around you are not so happy with their job?” And she said, “Oh it’s up to me, baby. But really what makes me happy is making you happy.” It’s so simple, but it’s so cool. So social psychologists are going to call this flow, motivational speakers are going to call this motivation, customer service experts are going to call this, you know like “she’s in the zone, she’s doing her thing.” But I think what really struck me is that she knows what keeps her happy and she knows that when she invests in other people, the payback is twofold. Not only are her customers happy, I was thrilled. She called me baby. I loved it. “Okay, here’s your coffee, baby”. I loved it. Not only did she make her customers happy, but I’m in the airport, can you hear me talking? Not only did she keep her customers happy, but she keeps herself happy. By delivering service, she feels served. It’s just so, it’s such a basic truth, but it’s so easy to forget. So here is my challenge to you. What are you doing today to help others? And if you’re thinking you are having a crappy day, maybe the way out of your crappy day is to deliver excellent service to your teammate, to your managers, to the people who you’re managing, to your customers, to the people you are trying to sell. How can you make it better for them? And I think that what this woman at Starbucks is going to teach us is that by doing that, it will make it better for you. Happiness at work equals excellence at work. It’s so cool. Serve others, you become happy. Love it! Alright, Brad Montgomery. BradMontgomery.com. Thanks for being here.