It's ironic that no matter where I go, I meet people from Brooklyn. I'm proud of that heritage. It's where I'm from, who I am.
Interpretation
The quote reflects pride in one's roots and the connections formed through shared culture.
In this quote, Howard Schultz expresses his pride in being from Brooklyn, highlighting the unique heritage and identity that come from a specific place. He finds it ironic that, regardless of his travels, he continues to encounter individuals from his hometown, emphasizing the strong bonds and shared experiences that define who he is and how he relates to others.
In practice
During a graduation speech, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of one's roots.
The rules of engagement around building a brand have changed significantly over the past 10 to 15 years. Where companies at one time could spread their message through traditional marketing, consumers now seek an enduring emotional connection with the companies they patronize. The foundation of that connection is the most important characteristic of building a world-class brand: trust. Trust with your people and trust with your customers.
The future of America is not an entitlement. We have been given a treasure chest of gifts and opportunities, but some people are being left behind, and success is not sustainable unless it is shared.
Starbucks is not an advertiser; people think we are a great marketing company, but in fact we spend very little money on marketing and more money on training our people than advertising.
While their service is ending, our responsibility is just beginning!
In life, you can blame a lot of people and you can wallow in self-pity or you can pick yourself up and say listen, I have to be responsible for myself.
When I first discovered in the early 1980s the Italian espresso bars in my trip to Italy, the vision was to re-create that for America - a third place that had not existed before. Starbucks re-created that in America in our own image; a place to go other than home or work. We also created an industry that did not exist: specialty coffee.
Blackness remains the coat you can't take off.
I was a mixed black girl existing in a westernized Hawaiian culture where petite Asian women were the ideal, in a white culture where black women were furthest from the standard of beauty, in an American culture where trans women of color were invisible.
You're trying to grow up, and you don't want to be like your parents, and that gets mixed up with being Korean... They brought their values from Korea, and I accepted them because I didn't know anything more. But as I grow older, I feel more Korean every year; it's very strange.
Being South Asian in the U.K. is like being Latino in the U.S., I would guess. It's a bit more hood. You see things; things happen. I was bouncing between worlds. You're acting from a very early age, when you have to code-switch like that. I'm a hybrid, a mongrel. I think many people live that life.
I have always wanted to be both man and woman, to incorporate the strongest and richest parts of my mother and father within/into me - to share valleys and mountains upon my body the way the earth does in hills and peaks.
My mixed-race background made me a broad person, able to relate to different cultures. But any woman of colour, even a mixed colour, is seen as black in America. So that's how I regard myself.
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