My wife and I would walk past these pink benches every time we went to get pho.

I walked with Wifey the entire first week, trying to get a scope of the land because of my eyes. I need repetition when I go to a new place.

I had to figure this type of thing out in California by myself because, at that time, my wife couldn’t walk.

It’s amazing how life is. Some seasons are so crazy that you don’t even know how you’re going to make it to the next one. Then some seasons are so beautiful that you just enjoy every minute of them.

I said to myself, “This is gonna be my spot.”

This is gonna be the spot where I drink coffee most mornings and write my blogs.

Now, every day when I go to drink coffee and sit on one of these benches, I realize I meet somebody new.

Today started out kind of funny.

This lady walked up to me who wasn’t a native to Vietnam and asked me if I had a cigarette.

When I told her no, I don’t smoke, she looked at me like, “Are you sure you don’t smoke?”

I looked back at her and said, “No, ma’am. I don’t smoke.”

For some reason, she was not convinced. 😂

I said to myself, “Do I look like a smoker?”

So, as I’m people-watching and watching the traffic, this guy walks up to me and says, “I see you here soaking up the sun.”

His accent caught me off guard because he sounded like he was from France.

Then I looked closely and realized he was a Black guy with locs that were just beginning to drop.

He told me he was from a small island next to France and close to Madagascar.

That really piqued my interest, so we started having a conversation.

He asked me what I was doing here and what I did for a living. Once I told him I was an entrepreneur, he started leaning in and asking me a lot of questions.

It was a really amazing conversation.

I got the opportunity to tell him about the freedom of routine. We also talked about why you shouldn’t chase money because it will always elude you.

Instead, create something the marketplace needs so you can serve people. When you focus on creating value and serving people, you put yourself in a position to earn money by doing something that matters.

Anyway, it was an amazing conversation.

And I thought to myself, there are gonna be some very interesting conversations taking place on this pink bench in the future.