…except NOT taking advantage of people!

Yesterday I went to my everyday  coffee shop, and my daytime bartender, also know as a barista, asked what I would like.

I told him, a coffee cake and a lemonade. No biggie.

He rings me. Six bucks. (The lemonade was four dollars. Must’ve had gold in it. If not…crack.) Again, no biggie.

He runs my card. Nothing. He runs it again. Nothing. He looks up. “Declined.”

What? I say. DECLINED? (Irony is, Kevin Hart has a huge joke about this) DECLINNNNNEEEEDDDD!!!!! 

Ok. Don’t panic J. It must be one of those wack bank security shutdowns. (CAN I GET A TEXT, BANK OF AMERICA?)

I start patting my pockets. No cash. I begin sliding the coffee cake back across the counter toward him, when he says, “Take it, man. We see you everyday. Just pay us back whenever.”

Phew. Saved.

Now, I know, for a lot of people, that is a freebie. And I even know that for him, he knew I would never come back and pay for that coffee cake and overpriced lemonade.

But he was wrong.

Later in the afternoon, I marched back in there, but he was gone. I talked to the manager who happened to be manning the registers and explained to him what went down earlier in the morning. He told me that he couldn’t believe I actually came back to pay him, and that I could just give him three bucks and we’d be square.

I win.

Why is this important? Well, for one obvious reason, it’s right. That barista did me a solid, that he definitely didn’t have to do. He was kind. And secondly, when you prove to be a person of integrity, people are far more willing to be favorable toward you. It’s an interesting thing that happens.

Another example of this happened down the same block, at the cupcake shop. I walked in once and ordered a slice of cake. The owner at the register (Mossimo, now my friend) rung me up, but instead of asking me what I had, he assumed it was a cupcake instead of a whole slice of cake, which of course made my total a whopping two bucks less. I corrected him and paid full price. He thanked me, shook my hand, introduced himself, and I’ve never paid for a anything out of the place since.

I dont do it for the perks (that’s a coffee reference. See what I did there?) but they sure are nice.

Life…all about doing good things. Wealth…all about access. The two are definitely related. Believe that.

(Looks up at post)

Sheesh, what a ramble.