This Question Changed How I View Leading A Growing Coffee Brand

“Are you guys still open?”

It was nearly 10PM on a Saturday night in 2016.

An older gentleman walked into the quiet Starbucks where I was working to help pay my way through college.

I was 24 years old.

A two-time college dropout.

Living back at my parents’ house.

Making $8 an hour as a barista.

I put down the broom and welcomed him in.

He ordered a grande black coffee.

I poured it, handed it to him, and bid him a good night.

As he walked toward the door, I called out a final time:

“We’ll see you next time.”

He paused and turned back.

“…Are you the owner?”

I laughed. “No sir. Just a barista.”

He looked at me and said,

“You keep at it, and one day you will be.”

I went back to sweeping the lobby as he walked out.

Yeah right, I thought.

I had zero desire to run a coffee shop.

Fast forward nearly a decade.

I just crossed my one-year anniversary as Business Development for Local Habit Coffee Co., and it’s interesting to see just how much growth has happened personally and professionally over the last ten years.

I think back to that moment often…

Not because life has a funny sense of irony.

But because there was a principle at work back then, I’m only beginning to see the results of today.

The Principle of Ownership

During that season of my life, I made a decision:

If I was going to work there, I was going to own it.

Not legally. Not financially. But mentally.

I started asking myself one question:

“How would I treat this if it were mine?”

And that one question transforms you from:

An Employee → An Owner

A Fixed Mindset → A Growth Mindset

A Student → A Leader

Research calls this psychological ownership:

The idea that when people feel personal responsibility for something, performance rises.

Studies show that individuals who operate with ownership demonstrate:

• Higher initiative

• Greater resilience

• More creativity

• Stronger long-term commitment

Ownership is not about title. It’s about posture.

Patrick Lencioni called this: BEING HUNGRY.

Stewardship Precedes Promotion

Here’s what most people misunderstand about leadership:

Promotions don’t create ownership.

Ownership creates promotions.

Many want to receive the new title

→ Then they bring the new level of work.

But that’s not how leadership works…

It’s like Zig Ziglar said:

“You don’t say to the furnace, ‘Give me heat and then I’ll give you wood.’ You give it wood first.”

Ownership works the same way.

You don’t demand reward before responsibility.

→ You must always invest before you see the return.

Stewardship theory in leadership research explains that the highest-performing leaders don’t see themselves as entitled to power.

They see themselves as caretakers of something meaningful.

That means our job is not to lead from power and privilege, but to lead from humility and awareness.

Developing Momentum

Here’s the question that still guides me today:

How are you treating what’s currently in your hands?

Your current role. Your current team. Your current platform. Your current opportunity.

Are you:

• Doing the minimum?

• Waiting to be noticed?

• Blaming circumstances?

  
  

Or are you:

• Building it?

• Protecting it?

• Improving it?

• Acting like it’s yours?

  
  

Because here’s the truth:

How you treat what doesn’t belong to you determines what eventually will.

There are moments each week, each month, possibly every day, where I see opportunities to shrink back, cut corners, or grow complacent.

But then I remind myself:

None of this is mine to begin with,

And it can all be stripped from me in an instant.

And that perspective keeps me hungry.

Ownership is like a rehearsal for influence.

Stewardship is the proving ground for leadership.

And personal leadership must always come before the title arrives.

How are you showing up where you are today?

Let’s make moves.

— Chase

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