Our story

Stories are how humans have always learned. Before schools, before books, before writing itself - we sat together and shared what happened to us. This is how knowledge passed between generations. This is how children learned what was possible.

Stories work because they show life as it actually unfolds. Not neat categories but real sequences - one thing leading to another, chance encounters opening unexpected doors, moments of doubt giving way to clarity. When someone tells you how they found work they love, you’re not just hearing facts. You’re glimpsing a path you might walk yourself.

We’ve been collecting these stories. Conversations with people doing fascinating work - astronauts and athletes, engineers and entrepreneurs, scientists and strategists, dentists and designers. What strikes us every time is how non-linear their journeys are. Almost nobody knew what they wanted when they were young. Almost everybody points to a moment they couldn’t have predicted - a person who believed in them, a chance they took, a door they walked through without knowing where it led.

These are the stories young people need to hear. Not because they replace lists and pathways, but because they show what lists cannot: that uncertainty is normal, that curiosity matters more than certainty, and that meaningful work finds people who stay open to it.

We built Coffee With for our twelve-year-old daughter and thirteen-year-old son. We wanted them to have what we wished we’d had at their age - not advice, but access. Real people sharing real journeys. The kind of conversations that make you think differently about what’s possible. Fewer lists, more stories.