Creating the Perfect Vibes | Wendy Kumma | the Nest Cairns

“If you’re happy and genuine at work, it makes everything better. It makes your staff feel better. It makes your customers feel better. It sounds cliché, but when you’re going to work you can choose happiness, which makes such a difference to the people walking through your doors.”How do you create the perfect vibes for customers? What is it like to rip the guts out of 300 fish in a day? What are the logistics behind eloping in Las Vegas? And how can one rediscover a dormant faith and weave it back into the fabric of their life?On this episode of the How Good are Humans podcast, we unveil Wendy Kumma, whose story runs deep, twists often and winds around far-flung pillars of authenticity and imagination.Wendy is a (multiple) cafe owner; she is someone who just gets hospitality. As the owner of the Nest café in Cairns (and also the Nook), Wendy has cultivated an F+B atmosphere that spoils the comfort senses of each patron. The Nest is a microcosm for harmonising community and business; it breaks the transactional barrier between staff and customer, and in its place opens the space to friendship. When you walk through the doors, the staff learn your name, your story, and — if you’re extra lucky — your birthday. They’ll remember how you like your coffee. They’ll ask about that thing that only a month ago you were really excited for. They’ll ensure, whilst you’re sitting under their roof, that it feels like an extension of your home. For Wendy, this is the only way a business ought to operate.Wendy’s story however is so much broader than hospitality. She’s grown up in a family that was afflicted, but not defined, by mental illness. She left her studies to chase intrepid experiences around the world. She met the love of her life on a beach in Cairns and found herself married, in Las Vegas, just months later. They then spent three Alaskan summers living on a boxy boat, chasing Atlantic salmon and getting to know each other (and the insides of fish) properly. Wendy also speaks about the role her Christian faith has played over the course of her life, and the meaning that she has discovered within.I hope you enjoy the conversation, and come to see, like I did, how good this human really is.