Last Friday, I enjoyed a movie night by watching the Truman Show. The Truman Show tells the story of Truman Burbank, an insurance salesman who lives in Seahaven Island, which is actually an enormous movie set where he’s watched 24×7. The people interacting with Truman are all actors.

When Truman realized that there is a world outside of the simulated set, he willed himself to escape the world he knew his whole life. He ignored the people/actors around him trying to stop him from leaving.

The Truman Show reminded me of The Matrix trilogy of movies, where humans are enslaved in a program called the Matrix. Even if we are told what we know or see is not true, will we still believe it?

How often did we hear from teachers and elders to not question things while growing up? Or that we aren’t good enough to achieve greatness?

The world we grew up in conditioned us to simply accept the world for what it is and to be afraid of how powerful we can be, creating a Matrix of sorts that we live in.

On the morning I Actually Turned Pro, I caught a glimpse of the man whom I was meant to be outside of this Matrix. A group of us men lied down on the floor of a dark conference room doing breathing exercises that morning. As the breathing exercise intensified, the breathing coach yelled at us, “Step Up! Your family needs you!” His words struck a chord in my heart as tears flowed down my face. I had been selling myself short all these years. That I was not worthy to be a leader at work, earning over six figures. That I was not worthy of living in a nice part of town, because it is expensive. That I was not worthy to marry a beautiful and sincere woman.

We often sell ourselves short because leveling up to awaken our inner power is hard. It involves overcoming failure, heartbreak, and sometimes, losing money. Failure from plans not going the way we originally intended, forcing us to adapt. Heartbreak from losing relationships and friendships along the way, because our values no longer align. Losing money from investing in programs with no guarantee we will succeed. Rather than awaken the inner power we have, we commit self-sabotage.

One story shared in my religious retreat back in 2011 asks: Are you a carrot 🥕, an egg 🥚, or a coffee bean ☕?

A young woman complained to her mother about her life and how things were so hard for her. She didn’t know how she’ll make it through and wanted to give up. When one problem was solved, another one came up. Her mother took her to the kitchen and filled 3 pots with water. The first pot was filled with carrots, the second was filled with eggs, and the third was filled with ground coffee beans.

After 20 minutes, the mother took the carrots, eggs, and coffee out the pots and placed them in separate bowls.

The carrots that were placed in the boiling water became soft.

The eggs that were placed in the boiling water became hard.

The coffee beans that were placed in the boiling water became fragrant, flavorful coffee.

The mother explained to her daughter that each of these objects had faced the same adversity (in the boiling water) but each reacted differently.

The carrots went in strong, hard, and unrelenting, but became softened and weak from the boiling water.

The eggs went in fragile and weak, with its shell protecting its liquid interior, but its insides became hardened from the boiling water.

The coffee beans were unique, however, in that it had changed the water.

The mother asks her daughter, “So which are you? When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot? An egg? Or a coffee bean?”

“Am I the carrot that seems strong but with pain or adversity, do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength?”

“Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, breakup, financial hardship, or some other trial have I become hardened and stiff? Does my shell look the same on the outside but on the inside, am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and a hardened heart?”

“Or am I the coffee bean, where the bean changes the hot water, the very circumstances that brings the pain? When the water gets hot, the coffee beans release its fragrance and flavor. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you. When the hours are the darkest and the trials are at their greatest, you elevate to another level.”

“How do you handle adversity? Are you a carrot 🥕? An egg 🥚? Or a coffee bean ☕?”

Don’t think you are great. Know that you are great!

How do you know you are great? Get results on the table. At the time when I Actually Turned Pro, I didn’t have a consistent track record to build the self-belief that I’m good. I started writing Noy Sauce as a hobby in 2014 and became inactive around 2017 when I hit my lowest point in life. I took a graduate program at Stanford University in 2014 and dropped out after failing a midterm a few months after starting. I went on a series of dates in 2015, only for all those dates to end in failure.

What I failed to realize prior to 2018 was that I was not far from believing I was good. I allowed those failures to turn me into an overcooked, soft and mushy carrot in my professional life. I also allowed those failures to turn me into a hard-boiled egg, with my heart filled with bitterness in my personal life.

Once I made that commitment to excellence, I started putting results on the table. I worked on side projects outside of work, building websites for small businesses, finishing a professional certification program from Stanford University, and writing weekly posts on the Noy Sauce blog. I put myself out there attending events at work, at Amazon, and at school. I took my mother and Mama on trips of a lifetime, showing them that we cannot always wait until the stars align before making things happen. I made the commitment to live in a beautiful state the best way I can after my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer two and a half years ago. I caught the love virus during the coronavirus pandemic, falling in love, after building skills to converse with women in events.

People will ask, “When does my life change?”

Answer: “When we change.”

It was scary at first making that commitment and taking action. But each event attended and result achieved taught valuable lessons to build confidence from. Each lesson gave me greater trust in God and in myself that the desired results will eventually come. Rather than behaving like the carrots and eggs as I would have in the past, I reacted differently this time and behaved like the coffee beans, changing the circumstances around me by first changing myself.

Being vulnerable, sharing stories about what happened in those events and past failures helped build stronger relationships with people.

This led to a valuable lesson: When we work towards goals, our relationships build a deeper attraction. Women love ambitious men, whom they can respect and believe in 😉

We are not supposed to know all the answers when starting. We have a rough idea of how to achieve the goal in the beginning, and get better in our skills as we take consistent action. This development transforms us, changing our outlook of this world. We become the dissolving coffee beans, turning the boiling water into fragrant, flavorful coffee.

So how will we handle adversity? Will we be a carrot 🥕? An egg 🥚? Or a coffee bean ☕?

Hope you chose coffee, embracing how powerful you are like Truman and Neo, because this coffee is pretty damn good!