How COVID-19 Anger & Fights Created “Coffee with Champions”?

The origin story of how an experiment turned into a movement.

During COVID-19, most of society fell into two groups.

And each group had very, very strong opinions about why their belief was the correct one. And if you thought differently, you were automatically the enemy. The outcast. The loser.

This really bothered me. 

We don’t have to agree with each other, but we do need to respect each other as human beings.

I had an idea…

In 2021, after months of watching people tear each other apart, I had an idea.

What if I put a bunch of leaders in a room and have them talk about three things…God, business, and winning. 

What would happen? Would they start fighting about their beliefs, or would they find a way to respect each other?

Let’s try it.

We needed rules.

I created three rules to give this experiment the best odds of success.

Rule #1. We are here to learn from each other.

Rule #2. There are no wrong ideas.

Rule #3. We believe in a God.

We needed specific questions.

The big picture was about God, business, and winning. But we needed a focus question for each conversation. 

So, I began to think of questions I would ask the greatest leaders in the world if given the opportunity.

Questions like:

🤔 How do you handle those overwhelming days when everything seems to be coming at you?

🤔 During the worst moment of your business career, what was the single most important thing that brought you to victory?

🤔 Why does your “purpose” matter?  How have you identified it? 

We needed a test group.

In order for this to work, we needed to try it out some folks.

My wife and business partner, Jessica, called some of our clients and local leaders and pitched the idea.

Do you want to come to our office on Thursday and talk about hard stuff?

So, what happened?

After a little planning and setup, leaders started showing up at the office on Thursday mornings.

I recorded the question ahead of time on video so anyone could lead it.

And we started sharing and learning from each other.

It was incredible.

• We learned how each other thought. 

• We learned that we could strongly disagree with someone yet remain close friends.  

• We learned that we all have unique stories and should not judge too quickly.

• We learned that we have all different interpretations of the exact words. For example, “winning” was a good word for some, but for others, “winning” had a negative meaning for them.

Today…

At the time of this writing, it’s been three years since the idea of Coffee with Champions was conceived. 

We’ve held hundreds of meetings in multiple businesses, local governments, and other locations.

We evolved.

So much has changed, but the underlying mission has remained the same. 

1. We’ve condensed the rules down from three to two. 

   1. We are here to learn from each other.

   2. There are no wrong ideas.

2. Our tagline changed from “God, business, and winning” to “Be a force for good.”

3. Our audience changed from just leaders to include anyone. 

4. We opened our program to businesses, chambers of commerce, and local governments throughout the U.S.

We stayed firm.

Our core mission and vision stayed the same.

MISSION: To facilitate healthy, inspiring conversations with people who share best practices for winning in business and life. 

VISION:  To build an international network of leaders and teams determined to "be a force for good" in their world.

What’s the future?

So, what’s the future?

We want to continue to help people grow personally, lead well, and improve how they work.

We want to help people become a stronger force for good.

Because the world needs good Champions.

Be a force for good.

- Lance

---