When she talked about success she didn't talk about strategy. She didn't mention investments or networking.
She pointed at her coffee.
Black.
No milk.
No sugar.
And she said something I think about every single day: "I stopped adding sugar to things that were bitter."
I thought she was talking about coffee. She wasn't. She called it The Black Coffee Rule.
She said most people spend their lives sweetening things that don't deserve it.
- Bad relationships. They add sugar. Tell themselves it's not that bad.
- Wrong jobs. They add sugar. Convince themselves it'll get better.
- People who drain them. They add sugar. Make excuses. Keep tolerating. The sugar makes it drinkable. But drinkable isn't the same as good.
Here's the part that hit me: The most successful people don't add sugar. They taste things as they are - and if it's bitter, they stop drinking.
When she said that, I looked at my own life. I thought about everything I'd been tolerating because I'd made it sweeter.
- The friendships I'd dressed up as "complicated" instead of calling them draining.
- The situations I'd labelled "challenging" instead of admitting they were wrong for me. I wasn't being patient. I was being poisoned slowly - one sugared sip at a time.
Here's what I know now:
You're allowed to stop sweetening things that are bitter.
You're allowed to taste the truth of what you're tolerating.
You're allowed to put the cup down and walk away.
Because the right things don't need sugar. They're already good enough to swallow.
