Gwen: Okay, well, thank you for meeting with me today. It is November 14th
and I'm here with Nick Kassouf. He is the owner and founder of TruBru Organic Coffee and other enterprises. So, thank you for meeting with me Nick.Nick: Of course, thank you for asking me to do this, it's cool.
Gwen: Yeah!
Nick: I'm honored you thought of me
Gwen: Oh yes, of course. We can start with what made you want to start TruBru
and a coffee shop? And choose leadership in this way or did it just happen in that way?Nick: Sorry, one second, my computer is glitching out. Hold on, one sec.
Gwen: You're good.
Nick: Okay, there we go. Sorry this thing glitched out. Okay, what was that
first question?Gwen: What made you want to start a coffee shop and TruBru and find leadership
in this way?Nick: Well, honestly, so I was reviewing- I actually liked the order of the
questions that you sent me them.Gwen: Oh, yes.
Nick: 'Cause it was very like, almost like one lead into the other, and so I
could- telling you why I opened a coffee shop and all that kind of would feed in from the first questions about my origin, my background, cultural stuff.Gwen: I had just switched them around so I can start with the other ones first.
Nick: Yeah, so I mean, just that way it's not- answering that question I'm going
to answer those other questions, kind of, I noticed a few of the questions all answer the same thing, kind of.Gwen: Okay
Nick: But essentially, like, what I would say is, you know my family all
basically came to this country as immigrants. I was the first one in my family born here and basically growing up, every single person in my family was an entrepreneur of some sort. No one had like a regular corporate job, everyone worked for themselves. My mom owned a café in Canada and my dad was a jeweler. He had his own jewelry store and my uncles had their own businesses. Pretty much everyone around me was an entrepreneur of some sort and so you could say from a young age, that's just all I was exposed to and all I really thought was out there-Gwen: Yeah
Nick: CONTINUES TALKING BUT MIC DISCONNECTS
Nick: I remember in like third grade, or maybe it was like fourth or fifth
grade, I can't remember. We used to have this candy cart at school where they would sell candy at recess on Tuesdays and Thursdays or something like that. I had the mindset of like I was going to buy out all the popular candy and resell it at a higher price at my locker.Gwen: Oh my gosh, in fourth grade! That's too good.
Nick: So yeah, it's weird. I don't know necessarily where I learned that- SOUND DISCONNECTS.
Gwen: It keeps cutting out.
Nick: Hey.
Gwen: Are you there?
Nick: Can you see me?
Gwen: Yeah, it was doing great and then your voice cut out and then it froze.
Nick: Let me see, I don't know if it's my internet or what.
Gwen: I'm trying to check mine too.
Nick: Okay, maybe this is better. Okay, can you hear me okay?
Gwen: Yeah, it's working on my end, hopefully it stays that way.
Nick: Okay, cool. Technology- it's great till it's not.
Gwen: Yeah, but that's awesome.
Nick: So it's kind of like- there was a question about cultural identity or
experiences or whateverGwen: Yeah, we can do that
Nick: So that was what I was thinking about when, you know, I read that. That
just gives you a base idea. Fast forward to opening TruBru, it was actually really my mom's endeavor that she wanted to open a coffee shop. I didn't particularly have a strong propensity towards coffee other than the fact that I worked at a coffee shop. I was actually a pretty good barista at the time, like I was very interested in pushing the envelope of what coffee was, at least in the area. I'm talking like twelve years ago, before, really, like specialty coffee fully took off. Like no one used to do latte art, like really care about quality to a high degree. So I was already interested in that and trying to experiment with myself since there weren't really any resources on the internet. So it was a lot of self-taught stuff, like for example, learning how to pour a heart took like three years, where now it is like I can teach you guys in like ten minutes, right?Gwen: So true, yeah, totally.
Nick: There was no resource on how to do it.
Gwen: You had to figure it out for yourself.
Nick: Yeah, exactly. It took forever. You know, so I did have a degree of like,
at least, knowledge and interest in the coffee industry. But to be honest, I was just in business school, not really particularly set on a thing, studying business in college and my mom, at the time, decided she was going to open a coffee shop and she asked me to come help her. And so, it was kind of like, okay, I'll come help youGwen: Here we go, yeah.
Nick: Then I realized pretty quickly that this is like a really time consuming,
full-time endeavor and I had to drop out of school. Which I was fine with because I hated school anyway, I thought it was pointless and I didn't have like, I just wasn't a school person.Gwen: You don't need it, yeah.
Nick: So yeah, for that question, what made you choose leadership or whatever,
like I guess in this sense I was kind of called to it and so it wasn't necessarily that I chose it, but it chose me. I had to just step up and figure out how to lead and how to run a business. And it took several years and I am still figuring it out. It's a never-ending process.Gwen: It's a growing thing.
Nick: Yeah, absolutely.
Gwen: Totally. That's awesome, really cool. I didn't even know all that info,
that's great. That sort of covers the personal biography and background, if you want to touch on anything else? I think that pretty much sums it up.Nick: No, that's kind of a good summation or whatever of my background.
Gwen: Yeah and same with the cultural identity/experiences that are most salient
for you. You mentioned your family.Nick: Yeah, definitely heavily a cultural thing.
Gwen: Yeah, that's awesome.
Nick: My family is mostly Lebanese and so there is a lot of definitely
businesspeople in their culture.Gwen: That's awesome. That's cool that it still carries through for your life as
well. We can go to the next one: what experiences have most shaped you as a leader?Nick: What experiences? I think, honestly, its more of just the day-to-day
experiences. There's not like a particular one event that is going to shape you as a leader. I think being a leader is a daily thing and waking up every single day and trying to do the little things as best as you can. It's really just a process of refinement. I think, kind of like another question is like what are some of your mistakes or whatever. I don't remember what it was exactly, but honestly, leadership is just being honest with yourself and trying to reflect and grow. You really need an attitude of humility because you see these people in positions of leadership who are extremely arrogant, egotistical, and just like not fun to work for or work with. Those are the type of people who never take the time to assess their own capabilities, their own actions, how they affect other people. They're the type of people who just don't ever grow with themselves and usually their businesses don't grow either. I think for leadership, it's really the small things, it's the daily reflections. It's like reassessing how a conversation went with an employee or how an interaction went with a customer, or how your team feels. All these things are what kind of create that process of refinement in leadership.Gwen: That's great! I totally respect that and value that because it is so
important check yourself before just checking everyone else. It's like, I can't remember the quote exactly, but its like, you have to be confident and know your strengths and weaknesses before you can help lead others.Nick: Absolutely, I think that applies to every facet of life. It's like before
you go and, quote on quote, try to fix the world, you have to fix yourself and your own household. It's a process. So much of leadership, business is a process of self-refinement and self-growth. Because, at the end of the day, as a leader of a company you are the limiting ceiling of what that company is capable of. It is only going to grow to the capacity of which you are able to allow it to fill. If you're limiting yourself, your own abilities, your own mental states, confidence, whatever, then your company is going to be held back by that. You are the ball and chain of that.Gwen: Like the pinnacle of the whole thing.
Nick: Yeah, exactly. So that's why even until today, I've been doing this nine
years now and its' like I'm always reading a new book, I journal, I do all kinds of self-reflective things. Half the time I spend, I spend working on myself, but I view that as working on the business because I can only do so much if I am just the same person, right? I have to grow in order to grow my business.Gwen: Yeah, you got to pour into yourself to be able to-
Nick: Pour it out, yeah exactly.
Gwen: Yeah, that's awesome! That's so cool, Nick. Well, we sort of addressed the
'were you called into leadership or did you seek it because of held convictions.' You said your mom wanted to open this and so you jumped aboard and helped her with your knowledge, just figured it out together. Is there anything else you want to add?Nick: Yeah, exactly. And I think to a degree, I was like, it was like, there's
like a saying, I don't even know if it applies, but when the student is ready the master will appear. But in this case, it's sort of like, the student was ready and the opportunity appeared. It was like, I had been, since I was maybe fourteen, fifteen, I remember in high school, I was very into reading like self-help, discipline, leadership books, business books. Before I even had a business or did anything. I was very into that genre of learning and so by the time I was 22 and we opened TruBru, I had already spent years pouring all of these ideas and information in my mind. And so, you know, I had a degree of understanding, of like, just social interaction, leadership, management, on a rudimentary level but at least it was there. There was material to work with once we started actually doing the physical day-to-day stuff.Gwen: You already had a foundation to build on, that's great.
Nick: Yeah, that's why I think it is very important that people are constantly
trying to prepare themselves and better themselves, because you never know when an opportunity is going to come. You really just kind of have to be ready for it.Gwen: Yeah, I forget the what it was, but it was like "luck is when opportunity
meets preparation," or something like that.Nick: Yes, exactly. Luck is when opportunity meets preparedness.
Gwen: Yeah, that's what you need.
Nick: That's a great quote, I find it 100% true.
Gwen: Yeah when you're like--sorry.
Nick: No, I was just going to say luck kind of just showers on everybody but a
lot of people just aren't ready for it and they don't even see it because they miss it. But you know, it's only luck if you are able to capture it.Gwen: Yeah, exactly, if you can capitalize the moment. Yeah, totally. Are there
obstacles and challenges that you've faced that you have learned from? I guess that, maybe, in the business side of it?Nick: Absolutely, I mean every single day is like a new obstacle. A lot of
people think opening a business or even being a manager, owner, or whatever, there's never really a set playbook. There's just general best practices guidelines, but really, like, your main job is just figuring out how to solve problems and get past obstacles. It's never ending. I mean like now, I have a team. We have our managers, Lacey and Emily, and we have really strong employees that are able to take on more things. But at the end of the day, its like, personally I still have to deal with problems every single day. But again, that ties back into the whole how you grow, it's just like overcoming those obstacles. It can get stressful, but at the end of the day, it's kind of that process of refinement that's necessary.Gwen: Yeah, I was going to say- sorry. I was going to say one might think as the
owner that you are just up here looking over it all, but you are really, like, hands on, in the process because you do work with us and are there during the shifts. It's not just like far away, it's like you are in it too. You know, so all those little problems, you face along with the team, not just all the overhead stuff too.Nick: Yeah, exactly. And I think that's important for any type of leader is
like, not necessarily that you always need to be leading from the front, per se, but you need to be like at times in the weeds with the people you lead. They need to see and feel your presence and its like you can't just sit back and order people around People need to know at the end of the day that you could step in when needed and be competent and lead from the front.Gwen: Yeah and your example will inspire them to do the same.
Nick: Yeah.
Gwen: That's awesome. We can go to the next one- what does leadership mean to
you personally?Nick: What does it meant to me personally? I think leadership is like, I think
it is the ability to inspire others, honestly, and to support and just- I don't, I'm trying not to use the word lead because that's defining it with the word.Gwen: Yeah, haha.
Nick: Yeah, I think it would come down to the ability to inspire others, to take
a certain course of action, and I think that is best done by supporting others or caring for people. I think when a leader is genuine and cares about the people they lead, then they are going to be more effective. I think that is going to be more inspiring. People will want to follow you when they see you as someone who genuinely cares about them.Gwen: Yeah, I definitely agree! That's awesome. What are your professional
strengths and weaknesses?BOTH LAUGH
Gwen: A fun, classic interview question.
Nick: Yeah, I like this, it's like an interview-
Gwen: I know, it's reverse!
Nick: I always interview other people, but I never get interviewed.
Gwen: Two years ago we were sitting here on opposite sides.
Nick: Yeah, I know, we're now on opposite sides. I think my strengths are that
I'm persistent, I think I'm disciplined, and I think that I can persevere through like long stretches of adversity and problems. I mean like, there are many times when I have just wanted to give everything up and just quit because it's so extremely stressful. But I think I was able to stay through hard and difficult times and I think that is a very important thing for anybody who is trying to achieve success. You have to persevere because you are always going to face roadblocks. I think my weaknesses would be, one particular one is my ability to focus for extended periods of time. It's, I've, since a young age, like when I was in fourth or fifth grade, I was diagnosed with ADD and I struggled immensely in school because of basically my ability to just sit and do schoolwork. I was never able to. I got kicked out of several schools, I barely passed high school, I had a 1.4 GPA. I just was never--Gwen: Not your strong suit
Nick: Never particularly a person to just sit and concentrate in classes. And so
in a way that translated to later in life where I, now, you know, I have to sit for several hours and focus on particular tasks. And so that's still an ongoing struggle, though I've gotten much better at it. I've found many ways to help me, basically I need to remove distractions from my life. I mean, that's always just been such a struggle of mine, of to just like focus, sit, and work on, whatever it is, mundane things for hours on end. And that's something I've gotten better at but still, I would consider it, like, not a strong suit of mine. But I'm going to turn it into one. Check back in a couple of years.Gwen: Oh, will do, will do. What or who have been your greatest influences?
Nick: I think, going back to the phase of my life where I was just very heavily
into reading books and stuff, I read tons of books on leadership and about different entrepreneurs and biography's I think really all my influences came from like, successful famous people who kind of rose from nothing and made something great out of their lives. So I like the whole rags to riches, underdog stories, like I love Muhammed Ali, I love Elon Musk, what's his face, like Arnold Schwarzenegger. All these guys, when I was young, just like really, you know, some were athletic things, some were business things, but I just love when somebody comes from nothing and is able to achieve great, greatness, basically. It's always inspiring for me, and those stories are things that I always just carry with me. I realize that even with whatever kind of past I had, I can achieve whatever I set my mind to.Gwen: Yeah, that's so true. It's really about the mindset rather than your
ability at the time after you have the goal and are willing and ready to work for it then you can totally achieve it.Nick: I'm a huge proponent of mindset, I think it is massively underrated. And I
know, like amongst your, like psychologists, like mainstream psychology stuff, that positive psychology is frowned upon as like being a pseudo discipline and stuff. Which, maybe it is, to a degree but I've found in my life that it's literally the most important thing. That mindset, that self-visualization, all that positive psychology b.s., I've found has been immensely helpful in my life. I mean, you look at people like Arnold Schwarzenegger say he's like a poor kid from wherever, not Germany, Austria or whatever, and he's like a 10 year old who's telling himself "I'm going to be the greatest body builder in the world, I'm going to be a movie star, I'm going to be x, y, z" and it's like how do you explain to somebody a poor kid from a village in Austria coming to America and becoming all the most difficult things to do. It's literally just mindset, he said it in his mind, and he actualized it into reality. Same with other people. Like Muhammed Ali or all these other people I was talking about, they all have the same mindset and so I'm definitely big on that. I feel like it's been helpful in my own life.Gwen: I totally agree. Have you read David and Goliath by Malcom Gladwell?
Nick: I have- um--
Gwen: We read that one this semester in this course.
Nick: I think I've read it, I've read most of Gladwell's books. If I haven't
read it, I probably have it because he's one of those authors, actually, I'm talking about, when I was super into all of those books. I haven't read any of his stuff, recently, but yeah.Gwen: Yeah, it was great. It was literally the story of the underdogs and not
like the big mainstream stories you hear but other personal stories that--Nick: Totally Gwen: --showed people overcoming it. Which is so cool, because
it's like even in the little ways, you can still do that and then that can expand into the bigger endeavors.Nick: Yep.
Gwen: Okay, well, the next one we have: leaders help to turn ideas into action
and empower others. How do you accomplish this? You can also tie it into do you feel it is important to delegate? How do you delegate if you do so?Nick: Yeah, absolutely. As I've grown as an entrepreneur and our businesses over
time, you know we have a few locations now, opened a juice bar, you know a couple of other things I am working on- and it all just completely comes out of delegation. Nobody could do everything by themselves, that's just completely nonsense. As an entrepreneur, I actually view my role now as the ability to find good people to delegate things to, to work with. And that's my main job now is literally just trying to find competent, hardworking, good people and just try to like nurture them to do the things that they are good at. So, my job is literally just putting the right people in the place because at the end of the day, if I want to have five or ten locations, I can't do that unless I have really good, strong people who can delegate tons of responsibility. So I think that, that actually almost is the definition of maybe not leadership but entrepreneurship at least, being the ability to empower others, to delegate, and to share responsibilities. So I think that is of the utmost of importance, for sure.Gwen: That's great. How do you measure success and how do you learn from failure?
Nick: Measure success? Um, I guess it kind of would depend on what realm you are
referring to. I think when it comes to business, I think success would be meeting particular goals you've set forth, which I think is important to do. I think a lot of people don't even set goals they kind of just like float by and then you really never know if you are being successful or not cause you don't have a particular destination you are trying to reach.Gwen: You can't measure it.
Nick: Yeah, you can't measure it, exactly. So the ability to measure is
important, especially in business. I think in personal life, it's not necessarily as important. I think success can be not so much reaching a goal but living in a certain way. So you need to define how you think a success- how you think your life would look if you consider yourself successful. Like are you the type of person who every morning, wakes up, reads the Bible, or works out, or whatever it is that you define as success in your own life. Then at the end of the day, it's like, if you have accomplished those things, I think you are successful. You don't necessarily have to reach a particular target. So that would be my definition of success, whether it's personal or business. And then in terms of how do you learn from failures, or what was the question?Gwen: Yeah, how do you learn from failure?
Nick: I think, in a way, failure is the only way to learn. It's like the best
way to learn. You just have to reflect. People will kind of constantly stumble through life from one mistake or failure to another. They don't learn from it because they are not taking the time to look back and reflect on it. I think the way to learn and grow is to spend time to just sit and reflect. That's why I think journaling is really helpful because you can sit, think back on a particular thing. The act of writing forces you to like process it a certain way in your brain so you can formulate it in a coherent way and put it into words. So I think it is just immensely helpful for dealing with failure, self-growth, or whatever. You have to sit back and reflect. You have to be humble and not defer blame when there is failures. So many people get defensive and they want to defer blame, but I think as a true, competent leader, you need to take that blame onto yourself, even if it's not your fault. You need to take responsibility and that is going to help you grow. It's going to help you avoid those failures in the future.Gwen: Yeah, that's great. I think that is very humble to even admit that, you
know. It is hard to take that responsibility on, but like, doing that, again, sets an example for the rest to follow which is key for leadership.Nick: Yeah, one of my, one book I really like, I don't know how like, I know
it's like kind of more a guy book only because it's about war, but Jocko Willink has a book called Extreme Ownership. I think it's a great leadership book. He was a Navy Seal but he talks about his time in the navy and just like the key to good leadership is taking ownership and responsibility of like, everything. I think that book is like really great. It's a fundamental thing to understand. I think that every leader or manager of an organization should be willing to take just extreme ownership of failures or whatever it is. I think that is just extremely helpful.Gwen: That's awesome, thanks. Okay, so we only got a few minutes left because
Zoom might end us so we can try and get through a few more. What are two or three action steps you believe are essential to enable others to be successful?Nick: Two or three action steps--I think it kind of just ties back into that
same thing like you need to delegate, you need to make people feel empowered, you need to give them the resources to accomplish whatever the thing is, and then you need to actually make clear what their particular task or mission is or what the vision is that they need to follow. So I think that would maybe be like- well reorder that- so you need to give them clarity of their mission, you need to give them the tools to do it, and then you need to empower them to feel like they are able to take responsibility and do the things they need to do.Gwen: Yeah, that's awesome. It's like a little leadership triangle. I like it.
Nick: Yeah, exactly.
Gwen: What advice do you have for building relationships and trust in an
organization? That's sort of like the humility-Nick: Yeah that just ties back into the humility, the honesty thing. It's just
being genuine. I mean, like, there's too many people out there who are just selfish, conniving, and like out for themselves. And it never works.Gwen: It doesn't, you're right.
Nick: Oh, my thing cut out.
Gwen: That's alright.
Nick: Oh man, my camera's--anyway.
Gwen: That's okay, you can keep talking
Nick: Okay, what was the question?
Gwen: The building relationships and trust in an organization.
Nick: Oh yeah, so just the same thing of just being genuine, just caring and
not- I don't think there's necessarily a formula. If it's too calculated or whatever then I think that's not a natural way to build trust. Yeah, I think it's just being supportive and actually, genuinely caring about those you work with or lead.Gwen: Yeah, that's true. Which I can say is present at TruBru for sure.
Nick: Ah, thank you
Gwen: Yeah
Nick: COUGHS
Gwen: What do you want your legacy to be, if you have ever thought of that?
Nick: Yeah, I mean, it's not something I think about a lot but, I mean, I think
it would just be the fact that somebody who came from a, you know, whatever, a single parent household, a super troubled past was able to kind of rise up above whatever challenges. You know, become successful, become a good leader, be helpful to others, and, you know, have a strong balance of family life. I try to care about all facets of my life. I try to exercise, I try to spend time with my family and my spirituality, whatever it is, and so I want that to be my legacy. Just showing others that anything is possible if you just set your mind to it and you just work at it. You just need discipline, and you can achieve truly whatever you set your mind to.Gwen: You have a great story for that, totally encompasses it. I was thinking,
like, not everyone who walks into TruBru will know that whole story, but you do, first of all, and that's something to be proud of yourself. But then also, those who you do share it with can learn from it, you know like--Nick: Yeah
Gwen: I think it's cool to be able to pour that into others, even though on the
big scale, not everyone will know all those details. It still is evident in the little ways, it becomes present. Not knowing the exact story but knowing the emotions through what TruBru conveys to everyone who comes.Nick: Yeah, exactly. And I think that's more like, you know it's not, I don't
necessarily want to be out like "this is my story" or whatever, I don't mind sharing that especially sometimes stories like that help me, so I don't mind sharing that in the sense of like I want to be able to help or inspire others but I don't want to do it in like a pompous way where it's like "Oh, look at me, I'm so great, blah blah." That's not, I don't want to come across that way.Gwen: Totally. Well, I think we got time for maybe one more. What advice would
you give to someone wanting to open their own business?Nick: I'd say it's not easy, you're going to have difficulties, you're going to
have setbacks, but I think it is extremely rewarding. I highly recommend it. I'm like a big advocate of people pursuing their own businesses and just following something that is actually meaningful for them that is going to be something specific for their life. Like I don't like the idea of working countless hours for some cause or organization that you don't care about and you're just trying to like, get a paycheck. I get that that's necessary for some people or at times in your life, but I think having a business and something you actually enjoy and care about is extremely rewarding. And even though there's a ton of hardships and stress that come along with that, I think it's still a very worthwhile endeavor. So I definitely recommend it and I think it would just be my advice to just continually work on yourself and just be the best version of yourself you can be, because then whatever you do, whatever type of business you are going to get into, you're going to be successful if you are strong, foundationally, in yourself.Gwen: Yeah, awesome. That's really great, Nick! Thank you so much! Thank you for
sharing all of that information and your story and everything!Nick: Yeah, of course.
Gwen: And for taking the time to meet with me!
Nick: Of course.
Gwen: Yeah, I think that concludes it, so I'll stop the recording now, but thank
you again!Nick: Alright, awesome.
