Let go of good to get great

Michael Le · 13 July 2026 · 8 minute read

I once spent almost a year trying to pour a swan on top of a coffee. Not a heart. Not a leaf. Those are for beginners. A swan. With a neck. Somewhere along the way, "learning coffee" turned into "make a bird out of milk or you have failed." Nobody warned me that was a strange goal to have. But here we are.

I did learn it, mostly. But the swan is not the real story. The real story is this. Why would a grown man with a good office job, in a shirt that had never once seen a drop of milk, decide to become a total beginner again? On purpose. For fun. At his own cost. Let's go back to the start.

Before you scroll past this and think "cute coffee story," answer two questions. Be honest. Nobody is watching. If money was not a problem, what would you do more of? Now the harder one. What would you stop doing that same day? No two weeks' notice. No nice goodbye email. Sit with those two answers for a minute. That is your north star. It has been hiding this whole time, behind the bills, the group chat, and fifty open tabs.

I am not going to tell you to quit your job and "follow your bliss." Rent does not care about your bliss. Kids need to eat every single day, like it or not. Most of us cannot burn our whole life down to go find ourselves in a coffee shop. But you can take small steps toward it. Find people who are already doing the thing, and go stand near them. Being around people who talk about your dream like it is normal is powerful. Take the small, ordinary job that teaches you the real basics, even if it pays badly. You might love it. You might hate it. Either way, you will know. And knowing in three to six months beats grinding through ten years in a job you already know, deep down, you hate. Worst case, you go back to your old life. But now you have the answer, and a good story to tell.

How I ended up chasing a swan

Back to the milk. At the time, I had a proper office job. Lanyard. Parking spot. The whole thing. But I got it in my head that I wanted to learn coffee properly. Not "I can push a button on a machine" properly. I mean really properly. So I did three barista courses. Three. Not one. Not two. Three certificates. I do not do hobbies by halves. By course two, I had convinced myself that pouring a nice pattern in milk was the whole point of coffee. Very serious business, that swan.

Then I did something that made my office friends raise an eyebrow. I took a job as a waiter. Weekends, day shifts. On top of my day job. I did not even start behind the coffee machine. I carried trays. I cleared tables. I asked people if they wanted the bill split evenly. I did this because I wanted to be truly great at coffee, not just certificate-great. I also wanted to unlearn my office habits. And the only way into the best places was to start at the very bottom and prove I meant it.

The team that humbled a man in a lanyard

Eventually I got a stretch of time at All Press in Zetland. I wanted to learn from the best, and I still think they are one of the best coffee teams in the world. The team there were kind to me. They were patient with a grown man who was still learning the basics. They taught me more about coffee in a few months than three certificates ever did. I was barely 30. I was probably the slowest person in the room. Everyone else could steam milk in their sleep. I was still trying hard not to burn it. That is a great way to remember you are still a beginner at plenty of things. I left with better skills, real respect for the craft, and a swan I could pour most of the time. The heart pattern, though? Never nailed it. Nobody is perfect.

Not long after that time at All Press, I did something bigger. I resigned from the bank. It was a genuinely good job. The kind people spend years trying to get. Safe. Well paid. The kind of job that makes people nod at a dinner party. I handed it back anyway. Something in me wanted to build my own thing, and that feeling had gotten louder than any milk steamer. No salary could drown it out forever. Everyone thought I had lost the plot. They were right. Just not for the reason they thought.

The bit where I had to let go of good

Here is the part people usually skip. It does not look good in a photo. I already had a title. Good pay. A nice, tidy story people believed about me. But I went back to the bottom anyway, on purpose. To do that, I had to let go of good. Good was the safe job. Good was the story everyone already believed about me. Good was knowing exactly where I stood the second I walked into a room. None of that is nothing. Good is actually good. That is the whole problem. Good also stands right between you and finding out what great feels like. You cannot hold onto good with both hands and still reach for something new. At some point, you have to put good down.

It did not feel brave while it was happening. It felt like being a little bit embarrassed, over and over. But that seems to be the price you pay. You do not learn much while standing somewhere you are already the expert.

Nothing on the way there was ever wasted

I never became a career barista. Turns out that was never the real goal. It was training, dressed up as a hobby. But not one hour of it was wasted. The service skills. Reading a room. Respect for doing a craft properly. The stubbornness it takes to be bad at something in public while you slowly get better. All of that walked straight into Great Aunty Three a few years later. It is still part of everything I build today. You rarely see the thread while you are pulling it. You only see the whole rope once you look back down the road.

Same mountain, different decade

Here is the cheeky part. The part that ruins any excuse that this was a one-time, young and reckless thing I grew out of. It is 2026 now. I am not some twenty-something with nothing to lose and a milk jug for a personality. A few months ago, I quit my job in real estate. Another genuinely good job. Steady. Sensible. The kind of job you say out loud at a barbecue and people nod. I walked away from that one too. I put myself right back at the bottom of a brand new mountain, on purpose, with a clear view of just how far up it goes. Apparently I have learned nothing in twenty years. Or maybe I have learned the one thing that actually matters. Good is not the ceiling. It is just the last step before the next climb. Ask me how the view is from down here. Terrifying. Also, so far, worth every bit of it.

So go try the thing. Find your people. Join the community. Take the job that teaches you the basics, even if it pays less and looks like a step backward to everyone watching from the safe lane. Three to six months of finding out beats ten years of finding out the slow, expensive, tired way. Let go of good, one small step at a time. Go see what is on the other side. You never know who you will meet, what you will find, or which small, silly side project is quietly building the next big thing. Mine started with a milk jug and a bird I had no business trying to make. Yours starts wherever you are finally brave enough to be bad at something new, out loud, on purpose.