How Scott Patterson Of Gilmore Girls Thrives As Both A Celebrity And An Entrepreneur
At night before I go to sleep, I visualize the path I want to create and the end result. I’ve always done that and it’s amazing how powerful the mind is in terms of materializing your wants and desires if you can calm and focus your mind.
At times it feels like wellness or elevating one’s wellbeing, is diametrically opposed to high achievement and high performance in one’s career. The stress, mental energy, long hours, lack of restful sleep and preoccupation that result from a high-achievement life seem to directly inhibit wellness. And yet, in order to sustain the creativity, flexibility, mental acuity and resilience that are necessary for high performance, wellness and wellbeing of the mind, body and soul are also mandatory. So how do we achieve both? This is the question I’m hoping to answer through conversations with high-achieving leaders who are practicing their own philosophies about how to maintain their wellbeing.
As a part of our series about “How To Succeed And Thrive As Both A Celebrity And An Entrepreneur”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Scott Patterson.
Scott is best known worldwide for his 7 season portrayal of “Luke Danes” from the TV show “Gilmore Girls”, reprising his role in 2016 in the successful 4 part “Gilmore Girls — A Year in the Life” for Netflix. Scott Patterson is President/CEO of his coffee company, Scotty P’s Big Mug Coffee .
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory of how you came upon this career path and to where you are today?
I started my coffee company SCOTTY P’S BIG MUG COFFEE LLC in November 23, 2017 as an homage to my mother as well as a legacy for my young son who I hope one day takes over the business and continue to expand it.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
My mother because of her smarts, work ethic, generosity, toughness, and good nature. Watching her wake up each morning at 5:30 AM to get ready for work made me realize that no matter what happens in your life you have to keep going, keep getting up and getting to work. She’s the inspiration, the role model, the rock.
Can you share a story with us about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? What lesson or take-away did you learn from that?
I don’t remember anything funny happening but at launch my fulfillment house sent out 200 incorrect orders on the first day so I called each and every one of those customers to personally apologize and tell them I was sending them free coffee. The lesson is that you must treat your customers like cherished family because they are. They pay their hard-earned money to you for your product and it had better be not just a good experience for them but a great one.
As a celebrity, you have been blessed with great success in a career path that many have attempted, but eventually gave up on. In fact perhaps most people who tried to follow a career path like yours did not succeed. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path but know that their dreams might be dashed?
If you think your dreams might be dashed, then they will be dashed. Don’t think that way. That mindset will lose every time. Here’s how you become successful — you work harder than anyone else to acquire a superior skill set and then you apply that skill set over a period of time with the mindset that you’ll never give up and that there is no plan B. Or you find a need in a marketplace and fill that need. Or you create a product that solves a problem. Practicality is a good starting point. Visualize your success, map it out in detail, see it, feel it, live it and then execute. Be a beast and never stop. Forces of nature.
Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of our interview. You have been successful as both a celebrity and an entrepreneur. Most celebrities don’t make that transition successfully. We’d love to learn your secret.
By finding a need in the marketplace you’re entering, by solving a problem no one else sees. Right now we see that specialty coffee prices are too high so we offer the best quality coffee at the lowest specialty price. We offer Grade 1 specialty coffees that are hand-selected and micro-roasted European style. We also add coffee cherry, a natural and healthy additive full of vitamins and antioxidants, to our three top blends. Coffee cherry is made from the cascara, or fruit that surrounds the bean as it grows and is normally discarded in streams, rivers, etc. Using the coffee cherry in these blends contributes to cleaning up waste material on the planet. We’re doing good for the environment and boosting the flavor, too. No one else is offering this in the coffee space.
In my work, I focus on how one can thrive and care for oneself in three areas: body, mind, and heart. You are a busy leader with a demanding schedule, can you share with our readers two self care routines, practices or treatments that help your body thrive? Kindly share a story or an example for each.
I make sure to get in an hour workout every day (weekends off). I’ve changed my workouts to be skiing-specific and focus on my core and lower body. I also do yoga to release stress and breathe. I also meditate each morning for twenty minutes. Emptying the mind is a daily process and essential for me to give my best each day.
Can you share with us two routines that you use to help your mind thrive? (Kindly share a story or example for each.)
I started meditating as a teenager as Baba Ram Dass’s ‘Be Here Now’ swept the nation. We were all reading Carlos Castaneda’s ‘Don Juan’ books about altered states of consciousness and meditating. Eastern Philosophy and mysticism were pervasive at that time and we all got involved. I remain a Hippie. At night before I go to sleep, I visualize the path I want to create and the end result. I’ve always done that and it’s amazing how powerful the mind is in terms of materializing your wants and desires if you can calm and focus your mind.
Can you share with us two routines that you partake in to help your heart or spiritual side to thrive? (Kindly share a story or example for each.)
Well, the working out and yoga are great for the heart, obviously. Those are the two things I do daily. Eat right, too.
All of us have great days and bad days. On days when you feel like a rockstar what do you do? What does that day look like, and what did you do to get there?
Ski. I feel like a rockstar when I’m skiing. Skiing for me is another form of meditation as I commune with nature high up in the mountains. Skiing is very spiritual for me because it takes me back to my childhood when I was learning how to do it, when I was free and pure and unscathed by life. Anyone or anything that can transport you back to an earlier, purer self is a good thing. Skiing also allows one to be in the midst of sheer, natural beauty while being very quiet. When all one can hear are the carving of the skis then the mind relaxes.
In contrast, on days when you feel down, what do you do?
I don’t really have down days. I’m always looking forward, thinking forward, too much to do in any given day to feel down. If I do get down during the day for whatever reason I do not stay there long. Too busy.
Is there a particular resource, a practitioner, expert, book, podcast that made a significant impact on you and helped you to thrive? Can you share a story about that with us?
The Gurdjieff books and the books written about Gurdjieff had a profound impact on me as a teen. My older sister turned me on to them and told me stories about how she and friends in college would gather at night in basements for secret readings from his seminal work “Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson”. Fascinating character this guy was, and I don’t think anyone had more fun being spiritual
Do you have a story about the strangest, most bizarre or funniest wellness treatment that you’ve ever experienced?
I was getting a massage at a high end spa in Utah by this Russian guy after a day of powder skiing and when he started digging into my stomach to massage or rolfe, he warned me that I might inadvertently release some emotions. I scoffed at that notion but lo and behold it happened and I started crying like a baby. He had this big smile on his face like “Gotcha”. Tremendous release and totally unexpected.
You’re a high achieving creative authority and leader, and yet, you may have family and loved ones that require a different side of you at home. How do you leave the high powered executive at the door, and become a loving caretaker at home?
That’s easy. I do my job all day at a high level of concentration and then let it go once home out of relief. I relax and have dinner, chat around the table and my son is hysterically funny so it’s really just enjoying him and my wife through dinner. We have amazing conversations. I really look forward to dinner. Love dinner time with my family. I could eat dinner until 11pm every night. Love it. Then it’s getting him to bed and read to — also very enjoyable. It’s very important to not bring your work home with you. I don’t talk about it when home even though once in a while I need to take a business call or two in the evening
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world with whom you’d like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this. :-)
Probably my top pick would be Peter Theil. Venture Capital is an interesting world and one I would love to enter in some capacity. I’d also like him to invest in the company and take me global in a real way with coffee shops because I have created the ultimate coffee shop experience virtually but it will take some money to make it a reality. I’d also like to sit down with Noel Gallagher because….he’s Noel Gallagher. Great songwriter and performer. He has a gift and he reminds me of Warhol in that he survived a very bad childhood but his music isn’t angry. It has attitude. It’s cool as hell and a lot of it is very therapeutic. There are three main parts to writing great songs — the chord progression and parts, the lyrics and the vocal melody. The vocal melody is where good songs become classics and Noel seems to do that with relative ease. That’s a gift. Not a lot of people can do that.
What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?
Instagram: @scottgordonpatterson & @scottypsbigmugcoffee
Twitter: @ScottGPatterson & @ScottyPsBigMug
Facebook: @scottpatterson111 & @ScottyPsBigMugCoffee
Pinterest: Scotty P’s Big Mug Coffee
YouTube: ScottyP’s Big Mug Coffee
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!
