Tale of Two Cities

I closed my coffee shop on February 16, 2023. It was my son's thirteenth birthday. Langston was transitioning from boyhood into manhood, and so was I.

The day before we closed, a friend texted me. She had been helping me figure out what to say to the vendors I couldn't pay. She was one of those vendors.

"It's concerning how when you have a need, that need will supersede all else. You do what you feel you have to do, moment by moment. We all do. But a lot of the decisions you made when you felt backed into a corner worry me."

I think about that text from time to time. The choices I made when operating from a place of lack. What my body and soul could hold when they were tired.

Survival compresses time, and everything becomes urgent.

When the shop closed, I sat with the impact of my decisions. But even that was a privilege. My VA disability gave me respite. A chance to rot on the couch, eat Doritos, watch Grace and Frankie, and lick my wounds.

After a few months in the void, I decided to move to Colombia. It was a place to sit with what I'd lost instead of immediately scrambling for work. Practiced Spanish for a year, bonded with my kid, breathed.

That move let me pick up contract work: producing events, writing brand stories, consulting on communications. Those experiences landed me my next role when we came back in 2024.

Freedom has a cost. It looks different depending on what's underneath you when you leap.

I have two friends with military backgrounds who carry different bills for that cost.

Memphis is hands down one of the smartest people I know. Incredibly well-read. Outstanding critical thinker. He could be a political pundit if circumstances were different.

We met in Japan.

He suffered a setup from a woman in a club that split his head wide open—28 staples.

His injuries and PTSD give him massive headaches with bouts of depression and anger. He lives below the poverty line in Memphis. He is a product of his environment.

He still has a heart for people, even in the worst of his circumstances.

He lives in VA disabled housing and regularly cooks for and checks in on his neighbors. During the snowstorm this week, he drove warming center workers back and forth, making sure they could get to work safely. He told me about the lady who made him wait outside forty-five minutes because she had to finish watching Law & Order. About the time his uncle cut the fool on his cousin.

Our conversations are animated. He's one of the best storytellers I've ever heard. I told him he has a voice and should use it. So we tested it. We went live on Facebook and had 1K viewers that day.

We were supposed to do it again and make spaghetti while we talked, but he couldn't afford the groceries.

Then there's Savannah.

Oldest of seven, son of African immigrants, multimillionaire. We met after my military service, while I was building the shop. He's the guy who came in one day holding a copy of Profit First, had me pull out my laptop, and taught me how to allocate money where it needed to go. He even offered to invest.

I had a fundraising pop-up at an art show, selling pound cakes. He bought the whole table and gave them out to passersby.

Our conversations are always about business: what he's building, who he's advising, what's next. Measured. Growth-minded. He encouraged me to make the move when I told him I was considering leaving the country. He suggested Cartagena. Wasn't my speed. I settled on Medellín.

He told his brother to start a business. His brother now owns a city block. Savannah owns four.

He challenges me. He suggested instead of searching for one golden senior leadership role, I contract myself to four or five. Hire virtual assistants. Build a team. Create infrastructure instead of burning myself out. A win-win. Organizations save money. I increase my revenue and network.

When I tried to contest, he spoke directly to my capacity fears and my quiet insecurities. Told me I was too smart to play so small.

But scarcity doesn't just limit resources. It limits imagination. Tolerance. Moral bandwidth. It narrows what feels possible. It limits capacity to pause, to think beyond now, to build systems that don't require constant sacrifice.

Memphis could be a pundit. But he can't afford the groceries for a Facebook Live.

Savannah challenges himself and others to think bigger. But he operates from a different set of conditions.

I'm doing what I feel I have to do, moment by moment. Just like everyone else.

See you next week. 🥂

P.S. I'm hosting a brand messaging workshop in Birmingham, Al on February 21st for small business owners. It's my soft launch back into entrepreneurship, stretching myself in the smallest things, like pressing submit on the Eventbrite posting:) https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1982412152112?aff=oddtdtcreator