APRIL 13, 2026Are you the one I’m waiting for?
A number of years ago, I was working with the team at Blue Bottle Coffee to open a new cafe. One afternoon, I sat at the bar to log some notes. From there, I had a clear view of the front door and, like the rest of the team, instinctively looked up to greet every guest who came in.
One guest locked eyes with me and, instead of heading to the register, walked straight across the cafe to where I was sitting.
"Are you the one I'm waiting for?"
He was, I soon learned, there to meet an online date in person for the first time. I apparently looked close enough to the person he was expecting that he'd read my warm welcome as recognition.
We shared a laugh, and he grabbed a table for his actual date who - spoiler - did in fact look a lot like me. Knowing it was their first date, the team brought them a surprise cookie to go with their drinks.
Greeting every guest at the door was a shared habit across the team because it was one of several service beats in the cafe experience. We'd mapped those beats deliberately so we could find ways to infuse each one with hospitality.
When we're in the habit of noticing what it's like for people to move through an experience, we start to see the openings - friction we can ease, ways to surprise and delight, opportunities to turn transactional moments into ones of connection.
Not every moment matters equally for every person, but some tend to carry outsized impact:
The peak and the end: we remember the high point of an experience and how it wrapped up far more than anything in between
Transitions and milestones: beginnings, endings, and big shifts tend to stick with us
Personal intersections: the moments when our personal life crosses into the experience (a move to a new city, a return from leave, a birthday, a hard season) and how those life events are acknowledged.
This past week in Thoughtful, the small group program I recently launched for coaches, we explored the service beats inside our businesses and what it would look like to meet those moments with more intention and creativity.
If you want to try it yourself, grab a piece of paper and sketch the arc of working with you across a coaching engagement or a specific offering. Which moments matter most for your clients?
Thoughtfulness doesn't need to be elaborate or expensive to be meaningful, just specific - this person, this moment.
Alright, let's get to it. Hope you have a great week.
Mallory
P.S. To this day I think "Are you the one I'm waiting for?" is the most endearing way to greet someone you're meeting for the first time. Because even though I wasn't, being asked felt so nice that for a second I thought, well - maybe so.
