328 : Relationships and Resiliency w/ Xavier Alexander of Metric Coffee

Navigating our way through the coffee industry can be a daunting task. Especially if you want to make a difference. As you go you are confronted with many challenges that threaten your stability and test both your resolve and faith in the reasons you began the journey in the first place. Through it all though, there is a kind of wisdom, strength, and perspective that you gain if you use your experiences, good or bad, as opportunities to refine yourself, what you do, and why you do it. Today we are going to be talking with the co-founder of Metric Coffee in Chicago. Xavier is someone who has had all these experiences and more working in the heart of the specialty coffee world since the early 2000's as a barista, roaster and roasting manager, and now for the last 8 years founding and running his own roastery and cafe space along with business partner, Darko Arandjelovic. Metric Coffee was born from a common desire of both founders to create a better way for themselves and for those producers they represent as roasters. A Good Food Award winning company, Metric definitely roasts and sources excellent coffees, but the relationships and commitment they develop along the way with producers is a hallmark of what makes Metric truly special. In today's conversation we are going to hear Xavier detail his own beginnings in coffee, growing in skill but also restlessness, developing resiliency through personal and professional trials, and of course the values, mission, and motivations behind starting Metric Coffee. This conversation gets deep and hopefully speaks to your heart and mind and gets you to see the world around you and your business in a clearer light. We cover: Developing values early in life Learning as a roaster The catalyst fo beginning Metric Revelations via relationships Using your position to build solutions Developing resiliency through hardships Personal responsibility and not blaming others Why it's not a race Iterating the mission Long term relationships Intuition and who to work with Inspiration to pay it forward through business Having a serving heart Representing the coffee well in a cafe Resourcing staff Defining success Related Episodes: Sustainability Series #2 : Importing & Roasting 060 : Serving the Coffee Plant w/ Hanna Neuschwander, World Coffee Research 265 : Gaining Clarity on Transparency w/ Jonas Lorenz of The Pledge 020 Joe Marrocco : Transparency, Origin Knowledge,and Your Shop : How to approach and apply coffee origin information to enhance, not detract, from the cafe experience 288 : The Truth behind Cheap Coffee w/ Karl Weinhold Visit our amazing Sponsors! www.prima-coffee.com/keys www.pacficfoodservice.com www.coffeefest.com