Impossible Is Not French
It’s romantic to dream. To picture rolling hills that fall away into wildflower meadows and small patches of forest. To feel the sun pour through skylights in a vast atelier turned coffee workshop, with a thoughtful boutique and treats from the garden just outside.
« It’s just 10 minutes from the station, » we say, « and a little over an hour from Paris. »
We imagine taking the best of a tasting room and the best of a coffee shop and making something you couldn’t find in any city. Something attached to our place, and only our place.
But when a project is truly new, how do we keep walking toward its completion when the path can be erased by well-meaning voices? The people who say it won’t work. Does their certainty in our failure outweigh our ability to make it flourish?
We all know stories where clear vision, innovation, and hard work still weren’t enough. I’ve spent years reading market studies, drafting brand guidelines, writing concept plans and pitch decks. Sometimes it’s not enough.
So how do we find the project that speaks to our truest passions, meets a real need that isn’t being met, and still offers something genuinely new? How do we move forward with confidence, having done our homework, without bending to every warning around us?
Sometimes timing is everything. The right address. The right mention in the right article. The quiet orchestration that lets all the pieces arrive together. Much of that is outside our control.
We can’t see the future. We can do our best. We keep going. We research. We listen. We talk to people. We make choices. And when the last small touch is in place, we open the doors and present our work to the world.
It is romantic. It is the stuff of dreams. Maybe that’s exactly what is required.
And I have a feeling we’re in the right place at the right time—wildflowers at our feet, skylight above, an atelier humming with coffee and conversation. After all, this is France, and as they say, « Impossible is not French. »
Artwork : Wheatfield, by Vincent Van Gogh. Photo taken by Benjamin Schwartz.