(This article originally appeared in the newsletter for NASSCED)
Around this time last year, my fiancée gave me a gift certificate to a knife skills class at Sur la table. I’m an avid Food Network viewer and wanna-be-chef, so I already knew some of the basics thanks to Alton Brown, but the class introduced me to something I had never even considered…
…the plastic scrapper.
Yep. That’s it.
Simple tool with a dumb name revolutionized my knife skills. It’s actually designed for baking, scrapping the dough from bowls, but it works great for slicing and dicing. Why? Because it picks up the cut product from the board. It drags things to where I need them to be rather than the knife (which I learned can dull the blade). It’s a $2 kitchen gadget that has made my prep time that much better.
So what does this have to do with leadership?
We’re well into 2013 now. Our New Year’s Resolutions have been made and broken a few times already, and yet that desire for success and improvement still lies within us. We still want change, but that change feels so big sometimes that we begin to think that change may be impossible. So maybe what we need to be looking for right now is our own “plastic scrapper.”
I’m not about to be the next contestant on Top Chef, but I’m a little bit quicker in the kitchen now. My knives remain a little bit sharper and I’m able to spend just that much more time focusing on the type of cut I’m attempting. It’s my $2 step in the right direction to being a better cook.
So what is yours?
Is it the DailyBurn app on your iPhone to reach that fitness goal?
Is it the Wunderlist app to better manage your to do list?
Or could it be as simple as making sure you schedule a weekly coffee visit with a friend to keep you focused, center, and supported as you strive for success this year?
Sometimes the biggest change can come from the smallest first step.