LOVEEspresso

Opening and successfully running your own business is one thing. Doing it when you’ve been diagnosed with epilepsy, cerebral palsy and autism is an achievement that deserves recognition and much respect. John Caruso meets a coffee specialist who is forging his own bright future.

Harrison Hedges is telling me how a social dynamic coach is helping him with his interaction with people. It’s indicative of the confident and determined character this young man is - and it’s clearly working.

“I’m being pushed outside of my comfort zone and I’m finding that rock climbing is very therapeutic,” he says. “There’s more to life than work, sleep, repeat and the social aspects of it are good for me too.”

Getting his customers at Whatcha Brewing Specialty Coffee Co in Big Top Shopping Centre to interact and mingle with each other is also important to him.

“The seating arrangement encourages customers to interact with one another,” he said. “People sit and chat and they all come with their different stories and from that comes a sense of community.”

Listen to Harrison talk and you will hear the word ‘challenges’ a lot.

“When I refer to my challenges I’m talking about my epilepsy, cerebral palsy and the autism,” he says. “I was diagnosed with epilepsy and cerebral palsy in the first six to twelve months of my life and I prefer the word challenges because challenges can be overcome.”

Growing up in Townsville meant that the medical specialists and health support that Harrison required were thousands of kilometres away, so the family moved to the Sunshine Coast to be closer to a child neurologist that Harrison was seeing in Brisbane.

“By the time I completed year 12, I knew I wanted to work in the hospitality industry; a customer-focused industry with long term opportunities,” he said. “I’d tried retail, business administration, call centres; none of them gave me the satisfaction that I felt in hospitality. Plus, I’ve discovered my tribe in the last few years: people with shared commonalities, with similar morals and values, especially my best friends, Annie who does all our baking, and Jack who helped me get set up.”

If you have a dream or a goal, then give it a go

In school Harrison often felt like the odd one out.

“When things got too difficult, I would run out of the classroom and walk around the oval for 20 minutes,” Harrison shared. “Now, running a business I just cannot do that and having my tribe around me now makes it easier to cope with challenges that arise during the day to day running of the business.

“I’ve worked in hospitality for eleven years and I’ve seen things where I’d be employed because of government wage subsidies and then once those subsidies ran out, I’d be let go.

“This was a cycle that happened again and again, and I was determined to change that once I ran my own business,” he said.

His work as a coffee consultant at Brisbane International Airport came to an end around March last year.

“It was a scary period: no job, no income. My mum and dad only had a very small home and I was living in a caravan on their property,” he said. “I was going stir crazy and it was petrifying. Then out of the blue a friend of mine who worked for Tim Adams Specialty Coffee called and we talked about an opportunity on the Sunshine Coast at the Big Top Shopping Centre.”

That opportunity has turned into Whatcha Brewing Specialty Coffee Co which is more than a café, it has become a supportive community.

“Utilising my experience as a disability support worker, I identified this gap,” Harrison said. “I thought, I’m going to get people like me into this industry and I’m going to present them with opportunities that weren’t always there for me. Those of us with challenges have a lot to offer and if you give them an opportunity, they will bend over backwards for you.”

Wise words from a warm and friendly man who proves that having challenges cannot and should not stop you from achieving your goals and living a full life.

“If you have a dream or a goal, then give it a go,” he says. “Write it down on paper and then it starts to become real and never let other people’s opinions stop you.” Wise words indeed.

EVERYONE HAS A STORY.

Conversations

Streaming content is dominating the entertainment landscape: movies, television shows, music and podcasts covering every topic imaginable, all a simple tap or voice command away. John Caruso explains the power of the podcast.

According to a recent report in Mediaweek, the number of unique devices used to listen to podcasts in Australia climbed from around 1.8 million per week in October 2019 to around 3.3 million in December 2020 with almost 421 million podcasts downloaded between January and November last year! The days of waiting for your favourite song on the radio or appointment setting for your favourite show on the television are fading fast. Content is king, and we can access it whenever and wherever we like.

The Everyone Has A Story: Conversations from the Sunshine Coast and Noosa podcast launched a few years ago as an extension of our company’s mission to connect community through storytelling - and as a passion project for me. I had happily been the radio guy for three decades, asking the audience if they had a neighbour from hell, or how often they washed their hair or whatever phoner topic was trending.

However following a six-year stint leading the local ABC Radio team, storytelling and extracting stories from everyday people has become an art form that I’d like to think is forever evolving. And I learn stuff too! It gives me a great sense of satisfaction and joy to record and launch stories from our community.

Our podcast has had almost 20,000 downloads with close to 100 stories from everyday people to better-known locals such as Formula One driver Mark Webber, Powderfinger drummer Jon Coghill, chef Matt Golinski, and many more. People who talk about love, loss, tragedy, business, sport, real estate, career; real life characters who are savvy, surprising, and spirited. Stories you’ll form an authentic relationship with and hopefully share with others. hold on tight as the new wave of people that want to call the Sunny Coast home breaks on the shore.

When it comes to podcast topics, there are no limitations and for us at Hello Sunshine Magazine, it adds another dimension to some of the stories in each issue as well as introducing new stories. The best news it that it can be streamed or downloaded anytime and anywhere via our website or any podcast platform.

There’s a whole world out there to explore and it begins in your own backyard with the device in your hand. Happy listening!

For business the journey has been just as challenging. If nothing else we are well exercised. We pivoted, we flexed and we zoomed. Everyone’s race was different but one of the most heartening experiences to come out of last year was to discover that we were actually playing a team sport not running our own individual race.

Words like ‘kindness’, ‘support’ and ‘giving back’ came to the forefront of our minds, words and actions. If 2020 taught us nothing else, it taught us just how connected we all are - businesses, people and the environment – and that it makes great business sense to put people and communities at the heart of what we do.

Just as we have started to see environmental sustainability become a key part of doing business, I remain hopeful that COVID might see delivering social impact through business more mainstream.

Being a social impact business can be as simple or complex as you would like to make it.

At its heart we are talking about treating people well – looking after employees, supporting suppliers, working in the best interests of customers; being a good neighbour and actively maintaining relationships throughout the community and positively contributing to making it a better place to live, work and play. Social impact businesses are caring, honest and have that most elusive characteristictrustworthiness.

As we start to see a new generation of businesspeople, this approach has been taken to the next level and we have seen the emergence of the social enterprise –a business model which has delivering positive social impact embedded in its DNA. They are there to deliver a profit for a purpose and aspire to run a thriving business that will change the world along the way.

The Sunshine Coast is renowned for its strong connection to community and sense of place, with a passion for the natural landscapes and environment. There is surely no better place that intrinsically gets the idea of doing business differently for the betterment of society and the environment, not just because it feels good, but because it also makes great business sense.

If 2020 broke the mould, then this is the year that we can begin to reshape our businesses and region into a better form for the future.

It is an opportunity make new behaviours a habit, continue with the kindness, compassion, and contribution we prioritised last year. Digital technology has enabled new ways of working and new global opportunities. The major cities are turning to our region as a place that they might be able to business – a prospect made so appealing because of our quality of life and connection to natural landscapes and the environment.

Laura Harkins-Small is the founder and principal of Many Small Things, a social enterprise which specialises is building sustainable brands. She is also the president of The Interchange – a Sunshine Coast not-for-profit which seeks to be a local interchange for social enterprise, business, community and government to collaborate and evolve, by using enterprise to maximise social, environmental and economic benefit.

The proof will be in the pudding whether we are able to turn this dalliance with a better way of doing business into something more lasting. The reward will come when we can cement our reputation as the leading region in Australia to do business sustainability. The real challenge for us will be to make sure that a rising tide lifts all boats and that everyone in our community can benefit from this new economy and our way of doing business – Sunshine Coast style.

5 Ways To Become More Socially Responsible

1. Buy local, buy sustainable. Have a look at where you are spending your dollars and where possible buy local, buy ethical and buy for impact through a social benefit or Indigenous business.

2. Hire local, nurture your talent. Our businesses will only be as good as our local talent. Be somebody’s big break - hire local and grow and nurture your people.

3. Help your customers live better lives. Step back and try and think beyond the transaction. How could you help make your customer’s lives better, happier, healthier and more connected.

4. Connect with your community

Build new relationships with your neighbours or network. Identify a charity or community group which might need some help that you can give. This doesn’t always need to be money, it might be time, expertise or assets that you might be able to share.

5. Think about your purpose

The purpose is your true north and the thing that gets you and your team out of bed every day - and why customers keep coming back. While increasing market share might do it for some people take a leaf out of Tesla’s book and centre your purpose around a higher social or environmental issue. Their purpose? Not to sell more cars but to “accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.” www.manysmallthings.com.au