Mush Panjwani

Coffee Wagera founded by Mush Panjwani completed two years, and continues to grow!

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What started as a dream few years ago is a now a success story many wish to learn from. The blog post on CW site highlights the contributions of the team, suppliers, service providers, franchisees and other supporters.

What I wish to share here are the 20 unique things about Coffee Wagera. We may be the only (or the first) café in Pakistan to…

  1. Support women empowerment by buying most of our snacks from female entrepreneurs, and to further support the community through Brunch Wagera
  2. Hire transgender as a barista, and to offer a free training program for transgenders
  3. Have a menu in Braille for the visually impaired
  4. Learn sign language to communicate with customers with speech/hearing impairment
  5. Say ‘no’ to plastic bottles, and provide free drinking water to all customers
  6. Implement ten steps to reduce waste, support clean-city and be eco-friendly
  7. Support students and startups, by providing a fully functional workbench, with individual power/USB socket for a minimum spending of just Rs.248 per day
  8. Provide three WIFI connections (and free coffee if WIFI doesn’t work)
  9. Provide low-cost franchise opportunities to promote entrepreneurship
  10. Support local artists by displaying and selling their ‘coffee paintings’ at every outlet
  11. Run innovative events like Coffee Tour in collaboration with other cafes, Brunch Wagera to support female entrepreneurs, Coffee Workshops to share coffee skills/knowledge, free training programs for personal development, Open Mic to encourage new talent…
  12. Provide “happiness” training to all staff
  13. Greet every customer with the most enthusiastic “Salam Alaikum! Welcome to Coffee Wageraaaaaa!”
  14. Open 5 outlets in 2 years (the last four opened within a span of six months)
  15. Operate a cafe without any kitchen/cooking
  16. Implement ‘no free beverages/snacks’ policy that applies to all owners, family members, friends, bloggers, influencers, celebrities… and everyone else who wishes to support CW
  17. Offer a 10% discount to students and senior citizens
  18. Offer free coffee to non-Pakistani visitors, when they buy any snacks
  19. Offer free coffee on your birthday, when you buy any snacks
  20. Have a founder with an official designation of ‘Chief Happiness Officer’ – Mush Panjwani also teaches happiness at corporates and non-profits, and is also a published author.

And we are very proud to receive the ‘Best Coffee Place of the Year 2019‘ award by APRA (All Pakistan Restaurant Association).

The lockdown due to Corono did not allow us to celebrate the 2nd Anniversary with a party, but we had a virtual meeting with 30+ team members, complete with a flashback slideshow (inserted above), an address by Mush and many special Awards of Appreciation.

Extremely grateful to have achieved the first goal of opening five outlets in Karachi in two years, and moving forward with a lot of faith for the next goal: 20 across Pakistan in five years. Thank you everyone for your support.

Mush Panjwani speaking at Pakistan American Cultural Center

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Absolutely loved the opportunity to speak to a group of students at PACC! We covered:

  • Two foundations to (entrepreneurial) success:
  • Happiness First – how our happiness affects productivity and everything else in life
  • The Four Steps – dream, goal, plan, action

The audience was extremely engaged and the feedback from the organizers was awesome…

Today’s guest speaker session at our English Works: The program by Mush Panjwani was amazingly awesome in terms of presenting practical life changing tips to the audience. Throughout his talk he created the aura of influence; the anecdotes from his life and humor kept the audience mesmerised! ~Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui, Evolution

A very energetic and full of learning session was conducted by Mr Mush Panjwani, who shared his amazing journey of life, with the lessons he learned and designed a wonderful foundation program. It was a session full of happiness. It will make a positive change in others life! ~Ehtesham, PACC

“Supercharge Your Positivity and Productivity” by Mush Panjwani at K-Electric

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So grateful to conclude the first four batches of training at K-Electric. These were 2-hour sessions that covered:

  • Latest in positive psychology – the science of happiness
  • How our positivity affects our productivity, relationships, health… life
  • Steps to become more positive
  • Causes for unhappiness at work
  • Two essentials for enhancing happiness at work

The audience included a mix from various departments, but mostly from customer service. Everyone participated very well, and the feedback was quite awesome:

Wow… really happy to attend this training session!

Very motivating and inspiring!

I learnt a lot today and will apply at work and life!

We need more of these to enhance our productivity and positivity!

Few pictures below. Looking forward to contributing more to the many other divisions of K-Electric!

PS. Very impressed by their new building at IIC, with full equipped training rooms and facilities for learning and development.

“Supercharge Your Positivity and Productivity” by Mush Panjwani at PSO Karachi!

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Extremely grateful for the opportunity to contribute to an open-to-all session at the PSO Head Quarters in Karachi last week. There were managers and teams from various departments. The organizer commented:

I’ve heard many trainers on happiness and positivity, but without much substance. This was different and full of useful contents and tips!

And some of the audience found the session to be…

Extremely energizing!

Very much needed, and useful!

We need more of this!

Looking forward to doing more with PSO!

Mush Panjwani speaking at Dawood University of Engineering & Technology, Pakistan

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Mush Panjwani at Dawood University of Engineering and Technology

There’s something special about talking to the youth – their open minds, their energy and their level of ambition to do great things!

Some of the students of Dawood University of Engineering & Technology had heard me at a recent conference in NED University, and decided to organize the same talk at their own university. And that happened today! They had done a great job of promoting the event, so we had about 500 students in the auditorium, giving up on their lunch break (1-2pm) to listen to me. So honored and grateful!

I spoke about happiness as the foundation for all success and the four steps to achieve anything! And came away very excited about the impact this may have on their lives.

Looking forward to more opportunities to work with the youth and other universities!

One year in Pakistan, and no looking back! (3 Tips to Manage Change)

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Mush Panjwani with Shanzeh

It’s been more than a year since I left half my family and a very comfortable life in Hong Kong, and moved to Pakistan, in September 2017. And I am often asked how can anyone willingly move back after spending over 20 years abroad; how has the experience been; and how do I manage to stay so happy and positive. It was a combination of things I’ve learned over the years and have applied in many situations, particularly in dealing with any change…

Manage your expectations: I didn’t expect anything in Pakistan to be similar to HK – effective government, efficient systems, easy public transportation, organized traffic, law-abiding people, beautiful weather or the basic stuff like security, electricity, water, Internet etc. Those are the luxuries that most countries/people do not experience in a lifetime. So I rarely found myself getting frustrated about the weather, traffic, government or lack of any of those things I often took for granted in HK. Everyday I experienced what I had expected, so there was no disappointment.

Focus on the positives: An essential part of being happy in any situation is to be grateful for what you have, which is only possible if you are always looking for, acknowledging and appreciating all the good things in your life. And there are a lot of good things about life in Pakistan, which we did not have in HK, or may not have in many parts of the world e.g. local fruits, vegetables and meat (instead of imported); varieties of great food from around the world; beautiful country with lots to see and do, from Karachi to Kashmir and everything in between; lots of opportunities for entrepreneurs (and businessmen too); good people (mostly nice, kind, friendly, helpful, awesome); hardly any natural disasters like earthquakes, tornados, typhoons, volcanoes, tsunamis, or even flooding!

Be the change: Instead of complaining about things, we can try to be the change we want to see in Pakistan. At a personal level, it’s things like following traffic rules (very difficult though), reducing power/water consumption, being more tolerant with people who are different (Sindhi, Panjabi, Pathan, Shia, Sunni, less educated or civilized). At business level, we can do that by supporting good causes – e.g. equal opportunities for the transgender, women empowerment; minimizing disposables and reducing waste. And most importantly, being positive and spreading cheer!

Few other things that made the change exciting for me were:

  • Starting Coffee Wagera as a hybrid of social-commercial enterprise that becomes a force for good and a model for other businesses.
  • Introducing the concepts and teaching the principles of ‘Happiness at Work’ in Pakistan for the first time, through my training programs.
  • Supporting Hur with his training at Special Olympics – one of the best non-profits in Pakistan! They are preparing him and many others for the Special Olympics World Games 2019 in Abu Dhabi.
  • The excellent support of family, friends and the business community. And finally, the secret: the love of Shanzeh (my granddaughter) and the opportunity to spend time with her 🙂

 

 

Inspiration from one of Pakistan’s top cyclists: Ali Laghari

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I have been lucky to get to know a few running and cycling groups in Karachi, since I started Coffee Wagera. It’s always inspiring to meet these people, because I know how much passion, commitment and discipline it takes to come out for a run or ride before sunrise.

Ali Laghari is part of “Cycologists“, one of the most active cycling groups in Karachi. And I met him during World Heart Day on 29th September. That’s when I found out about his record 4900km of cycling in one month, and asked him a few questions… his responses were very inspiring indeed, as you can see from the video above. The highlights were:

  • He wasn’t competing with anyone else – just himself!
  • Cycling and healthy living is a way of life for him, which he is trying to promote.
  • He cycled all the way to Mubarak Village and back – 100km in a day!
  • He started small. Just one ride, on a rental bicycle. Then another…

Bonus: Commentary at by Zeeshan Khalid, another Cycologist, at the end of the video.