S2 EP34: TRAVIS POMERLEAU

You never know who you're gonna meet when you volunteer at WILMINGTON COFFEE FEST! Nicoa overheard Travis Pomerleau, a former electrical engineer, who transitioned to running a coffee roasting business after being laid off during COVID-19 talking about his LIFE BY DESIGN and knew she'd found her next podcast guest! He shares his journey emphasizing the importance of taking calculated risks, maintaining financial stability, and leveraging his senses as a guide - critical in the coffee roasting process. They discuss the emotional and practical challenges of transitioning from a stable corporate job to entrepreneurship! What works? Self-awareness, therapy, and community support being key to navigating  his life change. Listen in to get inspired to embrace the adventure and seek personal growth through intentional actions. LIFE BY DESIGN!

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSOR Travis Pomerleau, Founder and CEO of Wilmington Coffee Roasters! Use Coupon Code COFFEEWITHNICOA for a Nifty 10% of your entire purchase at WILMINGTONCOFFEEROASTERS.COM

And don't forget to follow Wilmington Coffee Roasters on Facebook and Instragram, TOO!

Buy your copy of YOUR LIFE BY DESIGN: A Coffee With Nicoa Self-Care Coaching Journal
on Amazon today! 

Transcript

Nicoa Coach: 0:00

Nicoa, grab your coffee and join me, Nicoa, for a caffeinated conversation about life. I'll be talking to people who have chosen to walk their own paths, and just like me, are creating a life by design. I hope it will give you the inspiration you need to do exactly the same Bonjour.

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 0:27

Monsieur. I actually took Spanish in high school, so

Nicoa Coach: 0:32

I did take French. So you think I would have gotten the ability to pronounce Travis Palmer Lou appropriately. But thank you for guiding me right before we started here on coffee with Nicoa. Hey, Travis, welcome.

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 0:45

Well, welcome. Thank you for having me.

Nicoa Coach: 0:47

I appreciate Absolutely. You know, I was talking to my son this morning, who does a lot of events, kind of like you were doing at the Wilmington coffee fest. And he said to me last night, he had this thing in Raleigh. He sells artwork and stickers and sculptures that he's created. He's a an artist. And he said, You never know who you're gonna connect with. He goes, this woman might be giving me this tool that I need. And I met her at the event last night and and I said, two people I'm talking with today. I met volunteering at Wilmington coffee fest.

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 1:20

It you know, it's such an interesting you know, tree with its branches, because you're exactly right. And it's like for me, I was an engineer my whole life up until this past year, right? So everything was scheduled, everything was disciplined. I knew what I was doing, and this year is flying by the seat of my pants. I never know what's going to happen next. I never know who I'm going to meet. I never know, like, what brainstorming and mind building, where it's just, it's wild. It is

Nicoa Coach: 1:49

wild. And I and, you know, that's exactly one of the reasons that attracted me to you during the event. You know, I'm running around, taking coffees to the judges and and I took advantage, as you recall, of the opportunity to hand my podcast business card out. I wasn't even sure. I mean, I didn't know who I'd hand it to, but you were talking to a couple right in front of me, and they were tasting your coffee, and you, they asked you how long you'd been doing it, and you said, You know what, I'm about to throw caution to the wind, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this full time. And I got my card out, I was like, Oh, he's my guy. He's my, my example of a life by design, you know. And that's what I hope we can talk a little bit about today, is sure, that feeling like so tell us a little bit about that decision to just throw caution to the wind. Yeah, so,

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 2:44

you know, with lack of a lot of talking, I think everybody's been through COVID and what influence it's had on their lives and and career, whatever that may be. And me always being in corporate America, I I'm not a dummy, and you can sense things a lot of times. And so that's had a gut feeling that the end of the year, beginning of the year, headwinds might be blowing in an awkward direction. And I had no prior knowledge. I didn't know anything. And

Nicoa Coach: 3:18

you know what, Travis, I realized we didn't tell everybody what you do.

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 3:22

So yeah, I mean, historic. Historically, I've been a electrical engineer or an engineering manager, both and and today now actually have a little bit of rental property, but my big adventure has been I've always done it as a hobby, side fun thing, but starting a coffee roasting company and becoming a coffee roaster and this year is going to be make or break for me. We'll see what happens.

Nicoa Coach: 3:53

I think it's going to be awesome. I just want to let everybody know that you gave me some awesome coffee when we met. We met for coffee. Duh, with coffee lovers do. And you gave me this Papa New Guinea. And I wanted you to know that I'm having a cup right now. And I had some breakfast as well. That's

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 4:11

delish. I actually have my not so limited edition you coffee mugs. And I just roasted the first batch. I got a brand new Mexican Swiss water decaf. Swiss water process, decaf. Wow, good. I'm happy with it. So, yeah, we're throwing caution to the wind, rewinding. So I kind of had a gut feeling that some things may change. And you know, mid January, traditional time after Christmas, time to get laid off. And I did, and it's okay. And I'm very much a person who's a lot about stability, both financially and knowing what's happening. So that was, it was a big gut check, but I'd say. Maybe a month and a half, I started to mentally and kind of prepare myself, mentally and in my gut, and I started putting a few small seeds in the ground for myself, personally, financially, business, rental property all together. And as well, I'm going to put the last bit of water and fertilizer on these things, these seeds, and see what happens. And had you been

Nicoa Coach: 5:25

planting these seeds all along? I mean, was there this voice inside of your head that said, you know, if I wasn't an engineer, I'd go rose coffee. I mean, maybe tell us a little bit about that inspiration.

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 5:37

Sure, I have a few of those. Part of me is to live off grid in Hawaii, maybe, and just not have to make a lot of money and just live part of it. I'm always fascinated by the human psyche and how it works, and maybe if I were to do it, get again. I would do psychology, sociology. Maybe I would be a botanist or something to do with trees in nature. Roasting coffees obviously on there. And I learned from my dad and my granddad to be very handy hands on woodworking, remodeling. So I stay busy. Yes.

Nicoa Coach: 6:17

So you've had these, you know, dreams, and we all do yes. And I was gonna tell you're only 45 you can still do all those things you just listed. By the way,

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 6:27

we can do them all. We can do them all. Yeah, you don't

Nicoa Coach: 6:30

have to wait till the next lifetime. I mean, I'm serious. I've seen a lot of people make massive changes. And you going from engineering to coffee making. I mean, tell us that little story. I think you said something about your brother or brother in law, and it's Yeah. Encourage start.

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 6:45

Let me start from the very beginning. I didn't drink coffee until I was 24 and it was a great excuse to take 10 minutes during the day because they had free coffee in the break room where I worked. And I it was like in the beginning, and then after a year, I decided I really liked it. It's the taste, it's a ritual. It kind of gives you a little space in the morning. But, you know, I wasn't huge into it. And then I funny enough with the Papa New Guinea. I grew up in upstate New York, and didn't move until I was 35 to here, and I walked in when I was in my mid 20s to a small little shop that a guy had been open two weeks, and it was Utica New York. Was Utica Coffee Roasters, and he told me a tiny story of his dad passed left in this little building. He was another engineer, same age as me, married, and he didn't, couldn't financially keep the building if he didn't do something with it. So within two weeks, he went on eBay, took vacation, bought a used coffee roaster and put it in there, and away he went, and he taught me a little bit about roasting on a medium sized industrial machine. Man, it stuck with me, but he kind of blonde roasted one bag of Papua New Guinea that I took home. And man, did that make an impersonation or impression on me? Pardon me, and there you are drinking some New Guinea. And of course,

Nicoa Coach: 8:19

I'm drinking it black. I didn't put anything in it. I wanted to make sure I appreciated the full on taste and and that's great, because you had kind of a role model to somebody that had just kind of off the cuff, made that decision

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 8:32

that far off for me. Two things to compliment what you said about my brother, so I let maybe a decade or better go by. You know, corporate America being afraid to take a risk and a financial and time and effort risk. And my brother and his wife were doing reasonably well financially at the time, and still are. And my brother had bought a little tabletop roaster, a little electric. Bit more is the name, the brand name, and he gifted me one because he knew I liked coffee roasting, and so you can only roast a pound at a time. It takes 2025, 30 minutes a batch. And I learned how, made some mistakes, had some successes, and I randomly, over four years ago, put in for a spot at the downtown Farmers Market here in Wilmington, and I got a spot. I was like, Holy crap. Okay, so I here I am with a one pound machine, and I was selling, I was every other weekend at the time, and I was selling 4045, pounds every every market, maybe 50 on a good weekend. And here, but to do the math, I was 30 minutes of batch at one pound. And I did this for the first year. I was seeing somebody at the time, and I was on nights and weekends, roasting 30 minutes back to back. Back just to make volume. So I took every penny I saved that first year, and I took another risk that scared the crap out of me. I went on one of these Chinese sites, Ally expresses this one, and Ally Bob is another one, yeah, and it's like the Amazon of America. And all said, done duty, taxes. I was around 10 grand for buying this, about 30 pounds industrial machine. I had four months where I had no idea if, if the whole thing was going to happen or not, in the middle of COVID when the ports got clocked and it was a nightmare to get through customs. My my shipping went from 400 to 1500 like, for no reason, oh my gosh. And I didn't know if it's gonna end in one day, I got a call from the warehouse and said it's there. Pick it up on the trailer. I was like, oh my god, so cool. I

Nicoa Coach: 10:56

bet you spent a lot of sleepless nights, though, over that time frame worry and like, what have I done? I'd

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 11:02

say it two months and three months, I went in a couple shifts, and then the last couple weeks, when I knew it was on the way, yeah, a lot of sleep was lost. Yeah.

Nicoa Coach: 11:11

Now this is the whole time. This is after you got laid off. You had already started trying to make this happen, and well,

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 11:18

so no, I be I got laid off in the beginning of this year, I'd had the big for two Yeah, so I had the big roaster for a couple years already, but I me being in corporate America and trying to live a little bit life, I've kept the business small. Just the farmers markets, a local shop had picked me up a little bit and some Internet order I was scared to grow. And how do you think

Nicoa Coach: 11:45

you were scared to grow? What was it that caused you to be afraid? Huh?

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 12:39

I'd say I always want to make sure people are satisfied and happy, and I don't ever want to dissatisfy somebody or create an issue with a customer. So I have a little fear around that. I have a fear around financial and time risk and not being able to put food on the table, etc, etc. So stability is important, and doing something and never did all the things Nicoa and stability is big for me, so it's scary.

Nicoa Coach: 13:13

What would you tell yourself now that younger version of you, even though it was a few years back, you know, is there anything you would have done differently?

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 13:21

Yeah, I would have taken the risk earlier and lived in the adventure earlier. I really would have why? Because you strangely when you take the risk, even though you may have less income or less, you know, spending money or whatever, the adventure and the satisfaction in meeting people, the connections, the mental, emotional rewards, is just all worth it. It just, and you don't know until you go through it. It

Nicoa Coach: 13:54

really is freeing, isn't it? It is. It's freeing. And at the same time, there are moments of terror. I mean, I've been there. I don't know why I would still have these moments of fear. You know, if I could give any advice to someone that's that's just starting out. I mean, I've been doing this for 15 years.

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 14:18

I saw that,

Nicoa Coach: 14:19

and I'm still, every once when I'm like, holy crap, you know, I hope I get another client soon. Or, you know, now I'm also going through a divorce, so that kind of threw a little wrench in the whole mechanics of this life by design. But you know, we get thrown these curve balls. You're not going to go through life and not get thrown the curve balls. But I'll tell you, when you're on your own, you have a lot more control than you might think you have, because when you're handcuffed to the corporate world, sometimes you're just pinned, man, you're just stuck. It's, I call them the golden handcuffs. In some cases, you

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 14:51

are it's a double edged sword. You probably will always have food on the table and keep the temperature in your house where you want it, but you may not be completely satisfied emotionally, you know may not be. And divorces are a curveball. I've been through one some years back, and money is very, very, very tight. So, yeah, it's funny

Nicoa Coach: 15:16

that you said that about the temperature. I'm gonna laugh, because I've just got to tell you, you just got my Duke Energy bill, and I was like, Oh man, keeping keeping that thermostat on eco is helpful.

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 15:34

It really is. And I used to run very warm all the time, and so I wanted the house at like, 71 or 72 for the air conditioning. And I've trained myself. Maybe I'm getting a little older. I've lost a tiny bit of weight, but I keep it at 77 now, and it's not bad in it energy, you're

Nicoa Coach: 15:55

right. And that's exactly where it is right now. It's like 7677 and I was thinking, you know, I'm kind of getting used to this. This is kind of nice. I'm okay. Now it is. The temperature did just change in this seasonally here, but it's still going to be 84 to this. I don't know why this is, you know what? The reason this is a topic is because this is an example of what people freak out about when they do go out on their own. And I can imagine people might be listening to us going, No, no, no, not gonna have to worry about my temperature.

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 16:25

You know, Nicoa, that's a deep, deep emotional topic, because the immediate worries and stresses and OCD obsessions, if you don't work through the years to train yourself and try to develop yourself, with and without the means that you do or don't have, like the patience, the steadfastness to calm yourself, the little tiny worries, the temperature in the house, paying the heat bill, those things can tear you up and make you lose sleep. And maybe it's age, maybe it's wisdom, maybe it's help and influence from other people, whether it's personal or professional lives, professional help that you even may have like those things teach you to sit back, have patience. Look at the bigger picture. Maybe you have to let something you know simmer for some weeks or months before you know what's going to happen or even have to worry about it. It's a trick. It's really it's

Nicoa Coach: 17:36

a practice. And you said it's patience and it's self awareness. What type of practices I know you're interested in the psyche just like me, and that's one of the reasons I loved your responses. Everybody Travis went through and actually answered the sample questions I typically send. You're, by the way, you're the first one that did, did so so thoroughly. I was like, wow, because typically I'm like, heads up, we might talk about it, but I really enjoyed reading your responses. And even though we had coffee together, I learned so much more about you by your writing. Even though I know you were talking to text and you were just giving me, you know, off the cuff that day, but it you spoke from the heart. What? What type of work have you done to really tap into your own consciousness and and your self awareness? I can tell you've done a lot of work,

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 18:26

a lot of things. The biggest couple things I owe a lot of development in my younger years, and I'm maybe tearing up a tiny bit saying this to my ex wife. She's an amazing person, and she probably started out as a teenager, young 20s just as turmoiled and impatient and undeveloped as any young next male that would struggle with life and either listen to people and calm his butt down or work on himself or not, you know, Enter later 20s and being married, and to realize, yeah, gosh, maybe I'm not developed to handle a lot handle life. And at that point, I really started admiring and listening to my ex about a lot of things. And I'd say, when I was 29 I stuck myself in some therapy, tried a few different things. It's definitely stuck with it. And therapy is so multifaceted, right? Like it's but it can be treated to work on old things, current things, future things. It could be a weekly check in, like all these things. And you gotta shop for therapists, because you got to find one, you identify one, one that you believe will develop you. It's like shopping for a spouse, right? It's so, so that's, you know, a couple of things. What do I do on my own? Nicoa, the good things that I do on my own is I'll go to the beach. Sometimes I'll go get coffee. I'll go for walks, whether it be with my dogs. Allow myself some headspace. I don't allow myself enough headspace, because my method of dealing with the worries and the outlets are, do something fun for the business. Build something you know, renovating this in law cottage I put in my backyard, there would be a day I'd get up at seven and work on it till I went to bed at 10 less meals because it, yeah, there's an outlet here, and I sleep good afterwards, but I probably should have taken a few hours to really. You decompress those days, you know,

Nicoa Coach: 20:51

I know what you mean, where you tend to spend. I get confused with that too, because I think, well, I really like my work, you know, I'm excited about, you know, working on updating, like, the journal that I published last year, or, you know, I want to rebrand. I'm working on the website or, and I do question that as well, like I spend all day working, and it's a Saturday and everybody else without having a good time. Is that serving me or not serving me? And I still get confused sometimes, because if I'm having fun, but am I really? This is where I go to the Why am I doing it? You know? Why am I doing out of fear, or am I doing out of fun?

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 21:31

Mm, hmm. You know, maybe it's a little bit of both. Maybe it serves you in waves over time. Maybe it's meant to be that way for a certain time.

Nicoa Coach: 21:45

Yeah, that's a really nice response. I appreciate that. Yeah, I think about that too. I think Nicoa, this is a season, and it feels different than it felt for a number of reasons, you know, but, yeah, I mean, it seems like you've gone through a number of those seasons, and this year's been pretty, pretty much the kind of exclamation point on this dream. Talk a little bit about your life by design right now and how and how you're being intentional about things?

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 22:14

Yeah, sure, I give you a minor frame up of where I'm actually at, business wise, with the life by design for that first I literally made a couple of weeks back, I made a ongoing 15 page just list of businesses, phone numbers, addresses that I want to just blind solicit for sales and honestly, Nicoa, I'm too small right now. I'm scared. I need to grow, and I do keep a lot of irons in the fire to life by design. I'm very intentional about putting I don't take huge risks. I don't take huge gambles. I'm very intentional about moving the chess pieces one square at a time and advancing forward so life by design. I'm very intentional with putting those chess pieces in place, and I will only climb one step at a time, typically, so for myself personally, you know, I just finished this apartment and got it rented out. Well, that's Travis's self sustaining income for a little while, and then I can go have a little fun and grow a little more well, this couple weeks, I love my mom. She's getting older, but she's here from New York, visiting for two weeks, just been here in about five years because of a lot. Wow, health, COVID. So it's a real treat. But now these two weeks are, you know, I want to sit back and focus, just relax with mom, but after that, I really need to hit the road for sales, and in being intentional about that and and life for design there. Well,

Nicoa Coach: 23:54

congratulations on renting out the the grandma suite, or whatever you're calling it in the backyard, that when you had responded, you were like, I'm looking for a loving person, like someone that you know aligns with your values. It sounds like you might have found that person, huh? I think so

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 24:12

you cannot judge books by a cover that is something that I've immensely learned later in life. And I think this person is at a point in their life where they've grown and they want something quiet and stable and beautiful in their life, and we'll see what happens. But, you know, I gotta have that gut feeling. I just have to have it

Nicoa Coach: 24:39

talk about that. That's intuition, you know, and trusting that I was reflecting on that the other day for myself. And I can think of two core times in my life where I intentionally ignored, and I say intentionally, because I could hear it, and I was like, Oh no, no, no, I'm not going to listen to that. And I think that's where my ego kind of over. Did an override. In retrospect, I think the ego and the intuition were working together, but talk to me about your intuition and your gut. How's that working for you? Well,

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 25:11

there's always a balance. And I think you hit the the nail on the head there, because you have your conditioning, you have your fears, you have your intellect and your your analytical ability, and then you have your your gut talking to you well, your your fears, and your your you know training from your life growing up, those definitely influence your gut. So sometimes, if all these different directions are coming in, you gotta sit down in a chair a little space, or on the beach or something and and maybe sleep on something and see how it feels in the morning when you wake. Yep. So you really have to work hard at maybe you use two examples that you knew, and I don't know if they were decidedly bad directions or decidedly good directions, we'll say,

Nicoa Coach: 26:01

but you I'd say there's value at all.

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 26:05

That is really cool. I'm happy to hear that, yeah, but you have to overcome your fears and your conditioning if you think it's intellectually a good a good path to take. Give

Nicoa Coach: 26:19

me an example of where you either recall listening when you should have or not listening.

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 26:27

Hmm, I may be in the middle of some right now? Yeah, so let's talk about that. It's minor things, you know, it's, it's minor things. Nicoa A couple. It was like, you know, I'm careful about money, if you haven't already picked up on that, but I got that last little bit with this apartment building, and I need to get a fence out there need to put a railing up and and it's just like, it's money not yet earned, but it's investment you need to make at the last minute. So I just, like, closed my eyes, just calling the nerves in my stomach, and said, You gotta do it. And I whipped out the credit card, and I went, Yeah, same thing. It's just like, I've never done any holiday markets for the coffee business and, oh, I put together some gift baskets. There's an extra investment there. It's like, Well, geez, I'm charging a little bit more than just the coffee and the coffee cups I'm putting in these things. I feel bad, because I want to be fair about my pricing, but I somehow got to cover the extra prettiness, right, the rights and whatnot. So it could be a mistake. I could crash and burn and or I could be okay and sell quite a bit. So I'll stay tuned for those. I don't know what's going to happen. Well,

Nicoa Coach: 27:40

I think that's I mean, my dad always told me, and most people say it, you know, you got to spend money to make money. And when I went through this separation about seven, eight months ago, I immediately was in the process of trying to get work with another organization to be deployed as a coach, and I had to invest 1000s of dollars in training and certifications so that I could be eligible to be a coach. And I had to do the same thing. I had to close my eyes and pull out the credit card. I was like, All right, I know this will give me work in the future, so I think our intuition supports us in those decisions and, and, yeah, and what's the worst case scenario? Oh, well, don't get any work from that. Lost the money. Gotta pay it off.

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 28:24

Yeah, actually, you just, you just triggered me on another one. I just literally went up to a couple hours north to pick up a new load of coffee, which was, I mean, I don't know where your mind works in some businesses, this is not a lot for a business that's starting out. It's enough. It's 3500 bucks worth of of, you know, green coffee, yeah, slow season is coming up, and I'm just like, I need to grow so, yeah, I don't know if that one's gonna pay off or hurts. We'll see. I

Nicoa Coach: 28:55

think Chris the Christmas markets, I got a good feeling about that for you, because that's when people love to spend their money, even right now, even in a an economic downturn, people spend their money and they like to give gifts, like coffee, because it's something that can be used and it creates true experience, you know, you know. But I want to come back to something you said way earlier that had triggered me thinking about how we treat the like the electricity bill or whatever. And my sister in law the other day said to me, stop. I was panicking about something. She goes, Stop treating $2,000 as if it's 200,000 and I was like, Oh my God, right. She's like, quit being so focused on the short game, and put all of your energy and focus on the long game, because you're right where you said you wanted to be, and so are you Travis. I mean, we're both right where we said we wanted to be That's very true. So how do we appease the fears and really focus in on that long game? I mean, we keep going, right?

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 30:00

There's, there's one thing recently that I keep using as a tool, and it's very simple. I don't know if it's right or wrong, so to speak, but it's, it's this, maybe, maybe being middle aged, you start to get a tiny bit older. Maybe you learn a lot. Maybe you learn you want to live your life by design, great analogy. But picking up the coffee, you know what you just talked about. I just say, if you stick to your conditioning and your fears from when you were young, and you just keep going that path and you clamp down, you're not going to change anything. So take the risk and you're it's either going to be a great learning experience and you might suffer a little bit, or you'll thrive and you don't. Don't know if you don't do it,

Nicoa Coach: 30:50

that's right. I mean, what if it does work out, and what if it's something even better than you could even imagine?

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 30:59

And and it applies not only to financial, business decisions. It applies to personal ones too. You know

Nicoa Coach: 31:06

it does. And look at you spending two weeks having freedom to hang out with your mom.

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 31:12

Yeah, it's a it's unique. You know, she's she's 70. This is her second battle with cancer right now. I don't know what's gonna happen. It's okay. She's in a really good way at the moment. Doctors say she won't go into remission again, but she's hit a nice, very sustained Happy Valley at the moment. It's just a matter how long we can make that valley last. So I don't know what's going to happen next, but it's been very important to me the last year or so to get that time in.

Nicoa Coach: 31:46

It's about what matters most.

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 31:49

It is, you know, something else I just want to say too. You talked about those, you know, having those risks that you take, that we just get done talking about. And I talked more about financial and business type risks, and I was hoping I could come up on the fly more with something that's a little more personal and heartfelt, deep. And I just, I don't know if I have a great example right off the cuff, but it just, it was, it was pulling on me and my heart to think, yeah, well, and I can't, I can't pull one out of the air right at this moment. But it was pull, pulling on me, you know. Well,

Nicoa Coach: 32:29

that's because you are very caring and feeling individual. I mean, when I read your responses, you know you're craving a lot. You wrote that, you know you want to feel good about your values and your morals and and not feeling like a number on the wall. And when you talked about that, there's so many people that feel like they're this, just a number. They're just, you know, a cog in somebody else's giant wheel of corporations or organizations. I think you hit it. Though, the more you describe your life, you talk about coming back to the senses and that coffee in and of itself, and that's why I like coffee and and savoring things like life, it's all about a sensory experience. It sounds to me like you've come back to that that's a channel of creativity for you and also a way of external validation. When you're interacting with your your clients you know, and your customers talk a little bit more about you and your life of of sensory experience,

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 33:32

Oh, gosh. Um, well, let's start with a coffee. Um, I get a unique experience that a lot of people just just don't on the Creator side of roasting coffee. And I think part of the draw is, is, you know, so when you're roasting coffee, lot of people may not know this. It cracks like popcorn a little later on, like there's what you call a first crack and a second crack. Most medium, lighter blonde beans are somewhere around first crack and then darker ones, like Vienna roasts and Italian roasts are usually second crack. So you have hearing. You have smell. Is a huge thing when you're roasting. You can smell caramelization, sweetness, or, you know, carbonization. I call it the till where you're at color site. You know, all these things you need when you roast and you cannot, even though most modern roasters have computers on them and you can see temperatures and things. You cannot be a good roaster and get a good product without using all your senses. I think that's really what drives it home for me. That's really

Nicoa Coach: 34:44

cool. I don't know these things. I should come and see it actually in action. I've actually never been to a roastery before, not where I was there during the roasting process.

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 34:57

It's, it's a it's a trip. You should do it, especially considering the the name of your podcast. Yeah, okay,

Nicoa Coach: 35:05

I know I'm a little behind.

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 35:07

No, no, it's, actually, it's, but I mean, again, how many people do you meet and know that have a roaster? There's just not that many. That's true. And

Nicoa Coach: 35:15

now I do. I did go in Costa Rica. I went to a coffee bean farm, and I'd never been to one, and it was fascinating. And the girl is like, all of a sudden, my driver took me there on the way to the airport, and he's like, hey, well, I got the perfect place for you. So we stopped, and I'm buying coffee from them. They're making me a coffee. And then they're like, come meet the roaster. I was like, what? So I go. So I'm following the girl, and we go into the back and we're in the field of little trees and beans, and she's and I'm like, What the So I was. Yeah, very excited. So

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 35:51

I You're a step ahead. I mean, I've been to some Kona coffee bean plantations in Hawaii. I've never taken, you know, and maybe some years later, as I grow but I would love to go to some of my favorite places. So I get a lot of pictures and videos, but um, to what we know is life in America, especially a lot of us, not being in agriculture of any kind. It's very manual. It's very a lot of heartfelt, not a ton of machinery, you know, a lot of a lot of by hand. It feels more natural. It's a very fulfilling experience. And again, I'm just going by what I see. Do want to touch more on the personal side of feeling and sensories as type stuff in my life. I'll use this time Mark for myself being laid off. Extremely scary. You're either gonna fight or flight from those kind of things, right? I started feeling and allowing myself to feel, pay attention to my body more, and I have made some personal decisions, and some some business decisions, of this is what I want to do, or this is what I need to do, and if it's doesn't feel good, I You know, I've passed up in some some income opportunities, because it just wasn't right, just didn't feel right. And, you know, I don't want to say I've watched money go down the tubes, kind of, but I have watched some and because it just didn't feel right, so I've let myself, whether it's personal or business or life related. Feel more you know, I feel with my gut and my tears a lot I do, yeah,

Nicoa Coach: 38:00

you know, if it doesn't, it's a new way of being for me, too, over the years. You know, if it doesn't, if isn't a isn't a full body, yes, I'm learning to say no.

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 38:12

There's a caveat. And this caveat I touched on, is your conditioning, your fears, influencing your gut,

Nicoa Coach: 38:23

right? Is it? Is it, if it's not a full body Yes, is it conditioning that's preventing me, that's limiting me from an opportunity. And you know when I right, when I told you that I was thinking, well, except for those three or four times, because I had to overcome that limiting hesitation to your point? Yeah, our good

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 38:50

point, our extroversion and introversion in our our relaxation and stress levels, they they have a big pattern. They cross over. They go up and down, right. And so when we're more relaxed and we're more comfortable and more stable feeling. We might become a little more extroverted, or we might be a little more productive, or we might take some more risks to grow do things, but that influences our gut, that influences our decisions. So I always more so now than ever. You know, let's see. Travis grew up in a very, very, very, very lower middle class financial family with a mom and three kids and money was never really there. Did we starve? No, my mom was wonderful. Somehow managed to put a roof over our heads and gave kids their first three cars. I don't know how she did it. There were nights where we had our meal and we were hungry by eight, 830 and it was very scary. Only after college did I maybe get away from the teenage mentality making friends with my parents, and I really understood how little she made and how much she balanced. Oh, my God. I don't know how she did it, but that's, that's conditioning for me. Oh, yeah, that's, that's fear of money and stability, which I've touched on too much. And it's real that that influences my gut and my decisions. So I really have to work hard to check on, you know, check that I'm

Nicoa Coach: 40:32

right there with you. I used to hear, you know, my parents got divorced when I was eight, and I can remember lots of arguments and conversations about bounce checks and, you know, sorry, dirty laundry here, mom, dad, brothers, but, I mean, it was our reality. And. And I have this tendency to, I wouldn't say, hoard, but I do stay stocked with basics, as if I was some sort of, you know, kid from the, you know, the 40s, yeah. I mean, really, like, I have a physical reaction to security, like, when I have detergent, this is so when I open the cabinet for my laundry, detergent, softener, Cora, I mean, like, I'm like, Okay, I have everything I need, or plenty of toilet paper. Like, it's a it's all these primary needs. I mean, if you think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I have to work really hard on that too to not feel the scarcity.

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 41:35

Yeah, it's like, I want to make sure I get my grocery groceries a day or two before I run out of any basic things. This is very similar. You know,

Nicoa Coach: 41:46

I have four things of peanut butter in there. I'm like, Why?

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 41:51

Because you might run out of peanut butter and celery. You just don't

Nicoa Coach: 41:55

know apples, apples and celery, they're just the medium. They're just the delivery system for my peanut butter. God

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 42:02

forbid you can't wake up at 3am in the morning. Stick your knife in the peanut butter jar if you need I know,

Nicoa Coach: 42:08

you know, we make light, but it is a serious block for a lot of people. I have happened to do rapid, transformational therapy work, which is a hypnotherapy approach to helping people overcome those, those subconscious beliefs. I'm curious you talk about how you have to really work on that and focus on what are some of your practices? And have you ever done any work like that, like hypnotherapy or EMDR, or any of that with your therapy? EMDR,

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 42:34

yes, early on, definitely made the tears flow as I released some things the hypnotherapy, no, it just haven't crossed that bridge. You know, how do you grow? You You You can't. You grow by reading, watching videos, which is similar to reading, meeting people that have different skill sets and training than you do, and you either identify them with them, or you don't, or you try to work them in, or you try to practice uncomfortable at first, and you will not recognize a benefit right away. You may, in fact, feel a little more stress first.

Nicoa Coach: 43:22

For sure, that is for sure, I saw a girl. She commented, I made a made some sort of post on Tiktok, and she commented, she goes well, or I commented, and she replied, and I said something like, you know, therapy and coaching have really been a foundation for my life by design. And she said, Yeah, well, that must be nice, because those things cost money, and not everybody has money. And I was like, well, that is true, but there are to your point. I can watch I learned more watching Instagram videos and following people who are role modeling a life by design that I aspire to live like and doing the work. And there's tons of free stuff, which we have the world at our fingertips right now. So So I, you know, I was kind in my response, and I also sent her to my 10 free coaching sessions, which you can get on my website, which are totally just little videos to help you help yourself. I wouldn't want money to be in the way. I think you and I can actually relate to that more than most, because we haven't had a shit ton of cash to be able to go invest in all that. If I had had good insurance, in some cases, I wouldn't even have had the therapy that I had.

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 44:41

Well, Nicoa, I can't always say that, you know, until I was this, really this past year, I did quite fine my whole, my whole life. And yeah, I had stable health insurance, and I had co pays for, you know, therapy, which we were touching on just now. Very, very fortunate this year. Yeah, definitely a change in balance. For sure. Take

Nicoa Coach: 45:08

advantage of whatever you can. And I invite people to just look for the role models, look for the people who are living the life that you aspire to live. And that works. When you're an entrepreneur, you leave corporate like you and I have whether you're forced to or you choose to, and, you know, reach out to those people and ask them for what I and I tell my kids to do this all the time. I'm like, Look, you want to go work at that company? Go find somebody that knows, somebody that works there, and just call them up and say, Hey, would you mind a 30 minute informational interview where I just ask you questions? Yeah, and you've probably done that with your own business as a coffee, you know, roaster. So.

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 45:49

Probably, gosh, it's Well, I used to be I was thinking more back because I was a hiring manager or a senior engineer, which, you know, really helped with the hiring process. And I just think about all the coaching, mentoring, onboarding, stuff that I've done through the year. Very similar, very interesting.

Nicoa Coach: 46:10

Tell me about your advice that you would give to somebody that either just lost their job and wants to do something different, or is dreaming about it like you said you wish you'd done it sooner. What are some of your takeaways and advice you'd like to leave behind today? Well,

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 46:28

I'm going to go with first. How to handle the immediate is scary as hell. You just like we talked about, you can just totally get overwhelmed with a freight train coming and look at the whole big picture, and look at the gravity, and just be scared to death. Or you can chew it off one day at a time. Take two or three days. On that first day, allow yourself to crash, allow yourself to curl up in bed. If you want to go to the beach, shut your brain off for a couple days. But man, force yourself to start building. Force yourself to pick up some tools, or hit your keyboard, or, you know, go network. Just pick it off little by little, but don't stop moving afterwards and intentionally keeping a direction of picking up those tools, whether they're soft or hard or networking. Just keep moving. Just keep going forward. Just keep moving. That's that

Nicoa Coach: 47:34

vision constant, and that's I would invite people to also visualize it literally, you know, see yourself successful at the farmers market or the Christmas market, right? Yeah, see people, and I used to do this after speaking engagement or before. I would imagine that if this, if the speaking engagement, was successful, I could visualize people coming up to me afterwards and shaking my hand and thanking me, or saying, Man, when you said ABC, that really hit home for me. And then, typically, nine times out of 10 that actually happens. So we can actually put that creation out into the future. I mean, you and I created a reality by showing up here today. You're doing podcasts. We're announcing, you know, Nicoa has a podcast. You're actually marketing your roastery. So we created this reality. Two people coming together with an idea, and here we are. So believe it. And like you said, just one little step at a time. Yeah, and

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 48:31

remember, one other thing too. This is for whoever listens and us too, you're not alone. You talked about, what do you do when you first decide to make the change? Whether it's handed to you or you hand it to yourself, you are not alone. Embrace the fear, embrace the discomfort, and communicate with other people just a little bit about those discomforts, because nine times out of 10, they're going to open back up to you, and they're going to either share a similar experience, or you may confide in someone, and you may learn some things about a handle or grow or be more successful, and you don't know you're but the thing is, you're now alone. Don't cramp up with that fear. Don't crawl into bed every day. Just don't do it, if that's right.

Nicoa Coach: 49:20

And even if you are in the bed listening right now and you can't seem to get up, that's okay, too. And as I said this morning on a post on my Instagram story. It's not that you go there, it's how long do you stay there is and if you're moving forward more often than laying on the couch, then you're making progress.

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 49:39

Yeah, you know that first day Nicoa Go out to your mailbox and get the mail and go for a walk in your local park, that's the beginning of a challenge for one day. And it doesn't need to be more than that, but just try. You

Nicoa Coach: 49:54

know, you ever find that when you do go take the long weekend, or you've taken a weeks off, or that you end up something positive happens while you're busy having a nice time, like, I'll get a client. Like, I'll be on vacation. I'm like, damn, I got a client. While I was I was all over here relaxing. Sure,

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 50:12

you know that just happened to me the other weekend. I was I decided I was going to take a weekend and kind of have a leisurely weekend. And I went to bed Sunday night, woke up Monday morning with 100 and something dollar and 70 something dollar Internet order, and I'm like, okay, that works for me

Nicoa Coach: 50:33

exactly. That's the validation, man. And if people, if you allow yourself to trust the journey, and you said it in the very beginning, it's about patience. You know, patience really is a virtue. It's been my hardest challenge to find myself in a new. First new story, and that's what you're finding yourselves in everybody if you, if you want a new story, you got to write it every day. And if you are forced into a new story, you have to have faith that you're co writing that story now. So here you are. What story do you want to I say, start out like you want to finish, you know, whatever that story is, and learn how to relax into it so that you can be open to receive doing all the time can block the receiving or not asking for help, and I'm going to do it myself that blocks the receiving. So to your point, you are not alone, and I'm so glad you said that you're

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 51:28

not. And you know, I thought of something as you were talking Nicoa. There is no right or wrong for any person about when they might need to. Let's just for an example, melt into bed and it's okay like that serves multiple purposes if you need to do that. You know, after a divorce, after a loss, whether that loss is a person or a pet or your job, and there's fears, there's emotional healing, there's building back up, but it heals. It allows you time to process. It allows you time to cleanse. It serves a purpose. It's not wrong, but you just don't want to get stuck that way forever. So my own, my own, my personal experience with that is, Do not throw the world at yourself the first day and first week when those things happen. Like I said, Go get the mail, go to the park, go sit on the beach. The next day, the momentum will probably build if you just do the little things.

Nicoa Coach: 52:33

That's right, words of wisdom. I remember once crying with my first husband, panicking, and I said, What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? And he because I didn't know what to do next about the business and this. And there he looked at me, and he said, Just get up and go back to your office and just keep going, just keep doing the work. And that's the advice that you're saying. I mean, it's really sound advice. We're living a life, right? I mean, this is, this isn't a means to an end. We're supposed to be having a good time. So when you're panicking, you're not having a good time,

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 53:11

no. And, you know, interesting. I don't know why I thought of this. Sometimes, every day, you need little tiny separations, little tiny rests, little tiny breaks and recharges. And my little tiny things are a short walk, sit out in the sun. Sometimes I'll just do a little close my eyes on the sofa for 10 minutes. You've got to create those little rests, recharges and separations, whether they're mental or emotional or energy separations. You gotta do them. You

Nicoa Coach: 53:45

know, that's one of the hardest things for most of my clients, is finding what I mean, I call that that's your flow, and you are responsible for those little interjections and those little pauses. So I'm really, I mean, I can tell your demeanor tells me that you do that you're very grounded. Yeah,

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 54:06

I can have those days, someone I dated for a while was a very wonderful person. She could tell she got to know me enough, or I could just have those super charged, anxious worry evenings, I'll call them, and that's when it's really helpful to have someone to lean on, because a lot of times, somebody just needs to vent for a few sentences and get it out, and then you reset and you you know, but everybody needs a little something they really do,

Nicoa Coach: 54:41

yeah, a safe third party, whether it's a best friend or a therapist or a coach or, you know, It could be a stranger. Sometimes at a coffee shop. You know, I've found I've been the recipient of often. You know something about me tends to pull people in. And you know, you never know where you might be that for someone, or don't forget to allow others to be that for you, I think is really what you're saying. There's

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 55:08

some beauty in opening up to a complete stranger that you'll probably never see again, because you generally have nothing to lose. That's right, I have nothing to lose. Why can't you treat that as a wisdom and venting session, maybe to the deepest, some of the deepest things that you don't normally let out to the people that are close to you, you might learn from it.

Nicoa Coach: 55:33

I think we're moving into a more authentic way of being in the world and and I'm really, honestly, I'm really glad you're a guy, because what you're saying is not very commonly discussed by a lot of men. I think they're, you know, one female friend of. Mind joke, none of the men out there doing the work. I said, You're wrong. There are a ton of men out there doing the work. And, you know, women just had to do it faster in order to survive. We had to do it because we were told that we had to do everything so. And the men are not told to do that, and they weren't actually raised to handle women like me, who were told to be over functioning and to not only be feminine, but also be the provider and blah, blah, blah. But men are doing it, and you are role modeling the fact that you've got to learn how to sit with your emotions. I mean, talk to me a little bit about your perspective on that.

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 56:31

Yeah, I try to do the work, and I do do some work, and you know, I do definitely listen when people give me the feedback and observations like you just did. It's very value added and heartfelt. Some days. Nicoa, I feel like I haven't done enough work, and then other days is very fulfilling to have someone give me that feedback. Because who am I? I'm just me, and where is my gage of if I've done work, if I haven't done work, if I'm developed, if I'm not, I know I'm an emotional person, and I do listen that being said, I've developed self awareness in later years, and so I do do some work, but I'll tell you, there's other facets in my life where I just feel like I'm a broken record, or I'm not comfortable enough, and I don't go do the work.

Nicoa Coach: 57:27

You know, that's pretty normal. I mean, we're not so first of all, you can't get it wrong. I mean, you're just having an experience. It's just an experience. Man, we can't get this thing called life wrong. I just remember that, and I think we're born enough, and then we are supposed to, like the hero's journey. We're supposed to forget. We're supposed to be conditioned and brainwashed and and shadowed, overshadowed by marketing. And you know what the neighbor said, or that one teacher, we're supposed to forget. And then around age 40, if not sooner, hopefully, for people nowadays, you wake up and you go, Wait, what the what? Wait, why am I acting this way? And you're pretty unique in that. You said, I know I'm an emotional being. Most people ignore that. They don't tap into their emotions. They think they need to be a thinking being as a man thinketh, right, which is true, but unless you tap into the emotion, you won't get over the hump. And you also said that you are self aware enough to take the feedback now you have to be self aware to not be threatened by feedback. And coach ability is what I hear you saying, and you're You seem very coachable, or that you've had to do enough work where feedback is something that you've been open to receiving, and I want to commend you for that. I

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 58:53

That means a lot. I worked for a CEO, reported directly to him for some years, and he's very intentional with what he shared personally, and he did it behind very closed doors and very selective. And two things he told me, one is, if you don't listen to those around you and receive that and sit on it and reflect on it and look to make changes based on that, you're doing the wrong thing. And he also, too, I found this very moving. It is okay to disagree with someone, but the venue that you take in, the path that you take to do it, is extremely important. Don't do it abruptly with an audience. Do it behind closed doors, but keep a level head while you're doing it, because the destruction that follows if you do with an audience is sometimes devastating,

Nicoa Coach: 1:00:04

and that takes self awareness so that you're not allowing your nervous system to react and you're you're conscious of your response, and great leaders, and you know, sage, wise people understand that they are responsible for Their response, right ability to response, respond, responsibility. And that's sage advice your boss gave you, and it's clearly influenced you. I admire you for taking his advice. It

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 1:00:40

has I used to have a temper when I was younger. I was in the right with the topic that I blew up at the time when this advice. Came, however, and did it with an audience, and it was not very pretty, and I think I very quickly listened and changed how I channeled that moving forward.

Nicoa Coach: 1:01:04

Well, good for you. That again, value and all you had to go through that and embarrass that person, or shame that person, or whatever happened or that circumstance, or show your ass, as they say, right? And then you learn from it. You had to have had that experience in order for your boss to then give you that coaching moment. So if people can remember that, then they'll be a lot less embarrassed or ruminate about scenarios that might not have gone their way. You know, I think that that was good learning for you. Thanks for sharing that.

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 1:01:36

Oh, you're welcome. Thank you.

Nicoa Coach: 1:01:38

Well, look we. Look at us. At the one hour mark, I'm gonna thank you everybody for listening. If you're still with us, we appreciate you hanging out with us. Let me ask you one last question. I just really want to, I always try to ask this to my my clients at the end of their their calls, what do you want to celebrate the most, not only about yourself, so two things celebrate the most about you, but also, what do you want to celebrate most about this life by design that you have created?

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 1:02:06

Hmm, I have to think on that answer. Um, for myself is easy. I talked about it throughout, but I think the adventure and the feelings and the many failures and many successes, that's a beautiful thing to me to share with others. I just want to go on that journey and find those genuine people that want to be on the receiving end and the camaraderie end, and the exploration and curiosity and growth end through this life by a design which is so funny. I've thought about this how you work things, because you definitely deep dive personal when you when you do this podcast, but you also centered around people's professional slash, you know, business intertwining. It's very interesting. But I want to share all those things and experience all those things with people, and I want to do it from a beautiful direction, rather than a just a mechanically based reaction, if that, if you will, that's, that's how I would like to grow and live my life by design, moving forward. Well,

Nicoa Coach: 1:03:32

you just did

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 1:03:36

long way to go. Nicoa,

Nicoa Coach: 1:03:39

well, I celebrate you. I celebrate all of that. And it's funny, most of my clients have a more difficult time answering the one about themselves, and they're more easily about their lives. So I'm impressed and and I I'm honored that you would spend time with us today. And I think that people like that boss of yours, and you know the people that we run into in the coffee shops of the world, they're role modeling for us. And hopefully you and I are role modeling for a whole bunch of people today. And every if you're listening, please take our role modeling and take what you like, you know, edit what you need to edit and ignore what you don't like, and move on. Just keep moving forward towards that life by design that you dream of. Where can we buy your coffee? Tell us where people can go online. We know that. Yeah,

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 1:04:27

the easiest way is Wilmington Coffee roasters.com All one word that is the easiest way. Okay, drop a line to me that you heard us on the podcast, and I'll knock off shipping for you. If you're below the 75 free shipping. I do Farmers Market downtown Saturday mornings. It's the easiest, freshest, fastest way to get it from me right now.

Nicoa Coach: 1:04:54

Awesome. And Christmas market. By the time this thing airs, it'll be Christmas time probably. So, yeah,

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 1:05:01

my birthday, November 30. November 30, okay, uh, there's 11 to four on Dock Street downtown is a Holiday Market. Music, good, warm drinks, beautiful, late fall, early winter, fun. It should be fun. And also, the night before, there's a little mini market at the tree lighting ceremony, and I'll be there as well.

Nicoa Coach: 1:05:26

Oh, and where's it's a tree lighting ceremony?

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 1:05:30

Yeah, sure, the very between Water Street and Front Street on market,

Nicoa Coach: 1:05:36

okay,

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 1:05:37

I know right where it is. Yeah, our Christmas tree for town is right there. Yeah, it's

Nicoa Coach: 1:05:42

right there. I'm sorry. I don't I don't leave the house much.

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 1:05:46

I don't anymore. Well. Has to be intentional. Now, very

Nicoa Coach: 1:05:51

intentional. Well, I'll put all of that information in the show notes and and I just want to thank you again. And by the time this airs, happy birthday and happy holidays and best of luck, I have no doubt that this is going to be a successful year for you, and that this is just the beginning of the something even better, even better than you dreamed of. So I'm really excited for you, Travis,

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 1:06:14

that's inspiring words. Thank you, Nicoa, all right, man,

Nicoa Coach: 1:06:17

I'll talk to you later. Thank you.

TRAVIS POMERLEAU: 1:06:20

Thank you.

Unknown: 1:06:23

Thanks for joining us. For a caffeinated conversation. Subscribe to Coffee with Nicoa for more stories from people living a life by design. You can also find inspiration on Instagram. Just follow Coffee with Nicoa and check out our website. Coffee with nicoa.com and that's Nicoa, n, i, c, O, A, we look forward to talking with you soon, and enjoy your coffee between now and then you.