Edgar | Ōtara
“I guess this sounds a bit crazy, but I’d just love to work for myself at this moment in my life; late 30s.
I sort of realised that the opportunities are out there, and the biggest barrier we have in this life is how we choose to see it.
So yeah I’d just love to get out there and just own my own coffee truck, and you know, no one works harder for you than you. I just find with coffee, it’s just something that all walks of life people can relate to. You know? It’s a glimpse in a moment of time, and that moment in time you come back to the humanity of people, and you, I don’t know, you just exist in that moment. I think a lot of times, especially us in Auckland; we’re disenfranchised from each other, from our neighbours, from the guy down the road, from politicians. So that’s what I’d love to do, just be independent. You know? Take the risks myself, as well as the, as all the gains.
My vision is, you know it’s a three year plan. I’ve talked to business mentors. I just want to target obviously flea markets, people that want coffee, because coffee sells itself. It’s a great product. The city of Auckland has a great relationship with beverages. We’re slowly stepping away from alcoholic beverages, which is good. I just look at it as; it just makes sense as a business. I love people. I love coffee. I like the freedom that money allows. I feel that maybe I just don’t want to be working at the same place for the next 10 years, making a massive company richer, and being a cog in the machine, and what can go wrong? If I fail, I just get another job. Life goes on. You know? I’m not going to die.
The biggest thing for me is mindset. I’m slowly coming around to, and there are a lot of things out there that will help you. Obviously being around the right people, and things like TED Talks. All the knowledge that you need to do it is out there, because you see entrepreneurs on the daily. I look at friends that have taken the risks when everyone will say, no and have made a go with it. You know? Even those that have failed; at least they gave it a go. You don’t want to live your whole life with what-if, and that’s the thing; the biggest human condition that we have is the fear of failure and, you know, Nelson Mandela said it. Our deepest fear is that not that we’re inadequate – our biggest fear is that we’re powerful beyond measure. And that’s something that we’re not taught as children. We’re taught to be creative, and then we’re taught to conform and fit into this box.
Every day is a chance to explore and challenge yourself and fall and get up, but yeah that’s the biggest thing I would change, or the biggest thing that I’ve learned of life is, anyone can do it; it’s just that not everyone does it. That’s why you have people that, you know, are athletes, and amazing athletes, and then there are those who sit around and talk about, oh I could of, I would of, but I didn’t.
I grew up in Tonga for the first six or seven years, I was adopted by my grandma. Then I came back to New Zealand, to Ōtara, which I found was a really good place to grow up. We didn’t really see ourselves as poor, as a lot of people have that stigma. I think we just saw ourselves enjoying the simpler things. I think as most Kiwis in the ‘80s would of. You know? We didn’t really have PlayStations and things. We played outside. We ran, we ran in the street and played cricket with, you know, a piece of wood that you found down the road. I think just the hardest thing is the stigma that we even put on ourselves, because we start buying into it. Even as Aucklanders, living out of Auckland, hearing the word JAFA all the time, and the concept that the other New Zealanders have about us Aucklanders. Sometimes you buy into it and you think, yeah that’s all we are, a bunch of latte-drinking rugby supporters. I love where I grew up, like everyone does. You take the good and the bad. I think we’re still very fortunate to live in this country. There’s a lot of opportunities and it’s just, you know, slowly I think through time and, and experiences, you sort of, grasp the ideas that there is more out there for you.”
