Tag: food

Lesson 1- Leadership Matters (10-29-25)

I listened to a podcast once and the interviewer asked, “What lessons does life keep putting in front of you?”  This series is inspired by the lessons that continued to show up in front of me this year.  This week is an analogy about baking and how leadership matters.

I have many skills, but baking is not one of them.  If you give me eggs, salt, butter, flour, milk, a pan, and an oven I will give you a disaster. If you give those exact same things to my wife, she will make you an amazing dessert.  It’s the same challenge.  It’s the same ingredients.  However, it is totally different outcomes, based on the knowledge and skills of the people involved.

What does this have to do with leadership?  In the above example, it’s not about the ingredients, it’s about the baker and their knowledge and skills that lead to different outcomes.  In a similar way, it’s not the ingredients, it’s the leader.  Think about when times have been tough and you’ve had a good leader vs a not so good leader.  Under good leadership my vibe is, “Bring the challenges.  I’ll just run through those walls or jump over them.”  My vibe under not so great leaders is, “Dude, why am I always running uphill with hundreds of pounds on my back while people throw rocks at me?”  Any of those vibes feel familiar to you?

Right now, the world is giving us a lot of ingredients, and they aren’t all easy ones to deal with.  There is chaos, burnout, turmoil, stress, competitive pressure, AI (totally a fad by the way, just like the internet 😉), shifting priorities, lack of stability, and more.  This is why leadership matters now more than ever.  While people are handed the same ingredients, there are VERY DIFFERENT outcomes.  Good leaders are finding ways to take these ingredients and turn them into opportunities and paths forward.  Other leaders are overwhelmed by these ingredients, creating lost teams filled with doubt, uncertainty, and low engagement.

The challenge: How can you continue to grow as a leader to be ready to bake with any ingredients sent your way?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Learning to Listen to What You Need (7-10-24)

I hope you all enjoyed the 4th of July holiday!  The last entry was about expanding your comfort zone.  This entry is about listening to what you need.

Cam came home after a particularly long rehearsal and was irritable.  It had been a long week of rehearsals and other commitments.  He was exhausted and grouchy.  He comes home and says, “I’m grumpy.  I just need to go flump.”  In our house, flumping is like collapsing onto a softer cushiony service like a bed or a chair.  Sometimes the flump also includes snuggling, reading, or just listening to music.  In this instance, Cam flumped on his bed in his room and read his favorite book for 10-15 minutes.  He then emerged from his room feeling so much better and was ready to face the world again.  (Pic from Pawz Pet Café where you can go to snuggle some cats. #advancedflumping)

What does this have to do with anything?  I love and am so impressed with how well Cameron can listen to what he needs in a moment and then act on that.  He knew he was irritable and grumpy, and he knew that all he needed was 10-15 minutes to read to recharge his batteries.  That’s wisdom and awareness that I don’t always have.

Meanwhile, here is how things play out for me.  I don’t fully understand how upset I am at the moment and continue to keep pushing forward while a lot of time goes by.  Eventually, I accidentally stumble into doing something along the way that is what I need whether that’s going on a walk, writing, reading a book, or something else.  All of a sudden I feel a bit better, and then I say to myself, “Dang, I didn’t realize how much negative energy I was carrying.  I wish I would have paused and did this thing sooner to deal with it.”  Anyone else like that, or is it just me?  I’m getting a bit better at listening to myself, but I’m not where I want to be yet.

The challenge: How can we do a better job of listening to ourselves and taking action?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry