Our series adVenture of Entrepreneurship highlights our heroes, those who embrace and embody the spirit of adventure throughout the journey of entrepreneurship – the highs and lows, successes and adversity. Those who see a problem or need as an opportunity, who work tirelessly to transform “impossible” to “possible,” “dream” to “reality.” One moment with this week’s guest, Aaron Glassman Founder and CEO of Macaccino, will leave you in awe of his passion for life, his businesses, and energetics. Aaron’s adventures in entrepreneurship lead him into the deep depths of the human experience.
Aaron is the CEO of Macaccino and the owner of Golden Mean Café in Santa Monica. On the outside, both appear to be a simple source for healthy, organic, plant-based food. Of course they do serve this purpose, but both companies’ origins and visions run much deeper.
In 2002, Aaron took some time to escape to the mountains of Malibu to do some soul searching. Every day he turned to meditation and to journaling. Golden Mean Café was conceived during this introspection. Towards the end of this time, he realized that community would be necessary to bring his vision to life. What was the vision? To help enlighten and enliven heart-centered living within all of us. And what better way to inspire people to shift and expand their energy than through sharing the experience of delicious, heart-centered food.
Today, Golden Mean Café is a Santa Monica staple for plant-based cuisine. Aaron had initially opened the space as a place for meditation, crystals and books providing perspective on life and living, but the heart-centered cuisine emerged as the driving force of growth and the restaurant continued to evolve into what it is today – a dynamic hearth that unites, delights and transforms. Throughout this journey, Aaron had experienced incredible response to his Macaccino, a delicious organic roasted maca superfood drink that he developed. In fact, there was so much demand for him to package Macaccino that he realized that this continued to build upon his vision of enhancing wellbeing, energy, and heart-centeredness.
How does plant-based food help achieve Aaron’s vision of transforming the collective consciousness? For Aaron everything is about the energetics: “Plant-based food is water and light, as is our body,” says Aaron, “the closer we are in harmony with what we are, the higher our vibration will be.”
Why would food be such a powerful medium for shifting peoples’ energy? “Because people aren’t just consuming food, he says, “they are consuming an energy. It is truly an honor to serve people nourishment.”
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Aaron’s philosophies run deep and are esoteric in nature, so how does he balance this with the day to day of running a successful business? “The Golden Mean,” he says. According to Aaron, the Golden Mean is the fusion of the left and right brain and where transcendence happens. Masters of the golden mean include: Da Vinci, Shakespeare, Bach, The Beatles because their work is the perfect balance between right and left-brain. During our brief interview, he mentioned Steve Jobs more than once:
“Steve Jobs’ genius was that he was allowing the force of creation to come through him. He was a visionary for how we could transform consciousness and awaken humanity. This is where our transcendence and power reside. When we see, hear, feel, experience the work of these visionaries, we’re transcended.”
How can this concept of the Golden Mean be applied in the day-to-day?
“You have to have a good sense of the practical applications, but it has to begin in the foundation of heart-centered energy. I meditate everyday on allowance, surrender and deep introspection to what expands me to a joyful happy state and my businesses are just an extension of my meditation. Everything is an organism, is energy, the businesses wouldn’t operate without my awareness,” he says.
Aaron’s enlightening viewpoint may give the impression that he has not experienced struggles, but building a restaurant and launching a product line are far from easy. In fact, someone once told him that the only thing harder than starting a restaurant is creating a retail product. Shifting from the peace and grace of a simplistic meditative lifestyle to running a restaurant 7-days a week, 14 hours a day was jarring. Overcoming constant changes, putting out fires, and overcoming the adversity in the day-to-day of building a highly successful restaurant truly put the power of mediation to work. He has also been surprised by how much red tape there is in the natural products industry as he navigates retailers and distribution for Macaccino. Regardless of these barriers and challenges, Aaron’s passion for his vision for heart-centered living persevere and he continually pushes through the density of these moments to helping realize the power of purpose in helping people live healthier, happier, more centered lives.
Aaron Glassman is not just in the consumer products business, he is truly an energetic visionary.