I spend a lot of time around caffeinated beverages now, thanks to my new job working for a Los Angeles-based organic coffee company. I have plenty of choices at arms reach: a brew of the day, a latte, or a perfect shot of espresso. Hand-made coffee gives me more than enough energy to get me through a long day.

The other day I overheard the owner/coffee buyer discussing his daily ritual of buttered coffee. “One cup of the stuff,” the owner said, “and I’ve got enough energy for the morning, I don’t have to eat until lunch time.”

I couldn’t help but blurt out, “Butter Coffee?”

Buttered Coffee?

I can’t say that putting a pat of butter in my coffee sounds all that appealing. But when a coffee professional suggests buttered coffee as a great source of sustainable energy and a cognitive enhancing beverage, I couldn’t help but get interested.

I had to try butter coffee for myself.

The good news is, the recipe for buttered coffee couldn’t be any simpler.  No need for gourmet shop ingredients and fancy techniques. All you need is a frother or a blender, coffee, and a high quality butter.

Taste Test: No Oil Slick. Just Frothy Goodness

Once the buttered melted a bit and I submerged my milk frother into the coffee, I was surprised at how quickly a thick foam formed at the top. The taste?  With just one tablespoon of a butter, my coffee had a velvety and silky mouthfeel that wasn’t a bit oily. I found that adding a tablespoon of coconut oil and agave made my beverage even more delicious and decadent.

Use Great Ingredients

If you’re going to make a buttered coffee, I suggest using the salt free Kerrygold butter. I’m in love with the stuff. I’ve been this way ever since I was awarded with a year’s supply of Kerrygold’s butter and cheese. I got lucky when my name was pulled from a hat at this year’s Big Traveling Potluck raffle! I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the high quality and nutritious butter from happy, grass fed cows from Ireland.

Buttered Coffee

1 heaping tablespoon of Kerrygold Butter
2 cups of coffee
Optional: 1 tablespoon of agave
and/or 1 tablespoon of coconut oil*

Heat the container you are going to froth your coffee and butter in with hot boiling water. Dump the water.

Put the coffee and the butter into a hot mug or hot blender. Wait 10-15 seconds for the butter to butter melt. If adding sweetener, add it before blending the beverage. Froth the coffee (either with a hand held frother or a blender). Serve immediately.

*When you add the coconut oil and butter to your coffee this is frequently called a Bulletproof Coffee

If you’ve even played around with the idea of opening a juice bar, you’re not alone. Lots of people–about one in ten new restaurant owners today–want to invest time and money into turning fruits and vegetables into liquid gold. I work as a restaurant consultant in the city of Los Angeles and in a few city blocks there are at least one or two juice bars and there are more on their way. Fresh juice bars are a $5 billion dollar business that’s projected to grow from 4% to 8% a year.

So why is a fresh juice bar such a popular idea? Well, if you think running a juice bar is easy, think again. There is no such thing as easy in the business of food.

Search the internet for suggestions of how to start your own juice bar, and you’ll find advice that suggests that location is the most important thing to figure out first. After that, they say, come up with a business plan, and then come up with a concept.

As someone who has worked in the restaurant industry for over two decades, I humbly suggest you consider something else first: is running a juice bar something you want to do for the next five years?

Freshly pressed juices are the newest food fad. Lots of people want to get in on a business that promotes a healthy, on-the-go lifestyle for health conscious people who want to take care of their bodies in a fast and efficient way.

Juice, my friends, is the new cupcake.So if you were day dreaming a few years back about opening a successful cupcake or cookie shop you could franchise for a few million, then you’re probably thinking about how you could do cold-pressed juices better than everyone else.

And maybe you can. But location alone does not make a concept successful.

Daydreaming about restaurant ownership

Great service, innovation, and high quality products AND a great location are the key markers of a successful food business. So if you want to create a business worth running–one that will make you happy, perhaps make the world a better place, and pay the bills–then I suggest you consider these important points before you write a business plan and start shopping for a location.

1. Think beyond profit and million dollar franchising. If your goal is to make lots of money and retire young, be prepared for high stakes losses as well as rewards. Not only do most restaurants fail in their first year, but depending on where you open, you may find that juice bars have already saturated the market. If you think opening a juice bar will be an easy way to make a fast buck, consider investing your money somewhere else. There is no such thing as an easy buck.

2. There is no such thing as an easy buck. All restaurants–no matter how simple the idea is–require lots of time and hard work.  If you’re looking for a fast and easy way to make money, do not open a restaurant.

3.  Are you interested in spending the next five years of your career running a juice bar? You may be the creator of the world’s greatest juice bar or you may have a good idea that is hard to deliver on a consistent basis. Either way, making a successful concept work requires you (or a partner, or well paid employee you can trust) to nurture your business. Consistent care sometimes means being on premises every day for the next couple of years.

4. Are you willing to invest in training if you have never worked in the restaurant industry? You don’t need a masters degree in hotel management or food science to own a restaurant. In order to be successful, however, you need to have a basic understanding of what it takes to own and operate a food business. You may have read lots of chef memoirs and watched every episode of Kitchen Nightmares, but have you ever managed a staff or worked a busy service in a kitchen? Invest in a restaurant consultant like me who can walk you through the process of restaurant management, give you hands on training in a “dining room school” setting, and show you what you’ll need to know to be successful. Or, you may want to think about offering to work for free as a prep cook for a couple of months or get a job waiting tables.

So now that you’ve considered the previous questions, you have one more to ponder:

5. HOW will your dream juice bar be different?

My best advice to anyone thinking about opening their own juice bar concept is to put aside big dreams of cashing in and get clear on why you want to get into the juice bar business. Beyond profit, what will make you jump out of bed in the morning and speed to the juice bar? What sort of impact do you want to make in the world? What will your juices taste like? What will make them different?

Write down your guiding principles, sketch out what your juice bar looks and feels like, and ask good people who have gone down this path before to help you and give you guidance.

A funny thing happens when you bring a little food business to a small community: while most of the population celebrates their new food options, others–a small, warlike bunch–see the new eatery as a threat to their entire way of life.

While most may celebrate the proximity to a new pizza joint, being a stone’s throw from a great gourmet food shop, or have short walk to a charming café, a fringe group will always emerge within the community. Quick to anger and fast to threaten, these are the people within a locale who dedicate hours a day to gather proof that the new business will destroy their peaceful way of life.

First World Problems/Old World Problems

Throughout history there have always been Angry Neighbors. Early agrarian humans beat their hairy chests in anger when Cro-Magnon man built their first cave. British royalty set cannons afire when caravans (the Medieval equivalent of a food truck) got too close to their castle. Certain villagers in 1600‘s Salem Massachusetts were hung or imprisoned when they let their animals graze too close to their neighbors’ property.

I’ve opened more than a dozen restaurants during my career in the food industry, so it shouldn’t come as such a surprise by the back lash. Every new shop earns its own brand of negative feedback. One shop gets a city planner who doesn’t like the style of coffee being served. Another, the irate woman with a clip board filled with signatures that demands the end of the scent of pizza baking. Perhaps it’s the irate man who spits with rage over the infringement of so-called property rights whenever a stranger parks a car on “their” street.

Whenever I see an Angry Neighbor snap a picture of a my employees (a quiet father of four, a bright-eyed student looking to pay her bills so she can go to school) park their car legally on a quiet street for proof of something detrimental, or listen to a Concerned Citizen’s voice-mail threatening to sue me for smell of bread baking, I can’t hold back the astonishment.

I suppose it’s the nature of the furious rants that shock me.

How bad can handmade food be for a neighborhood?

Is street parking more important than sustenance?

Where is the compassion for our fellows?

I understand that change is hard for some people. But what is lost if we open our neighborhoods up to people who want to serve the community? Surely there are better causes than attacking a small business that’s dedicated to making something beautiful and nourishing for a neighborhood.

We live in a broken and hurting world. Why make the world a more painful place over street parking? Is fighting for an empty street really a worthy battle?

Time = Money

Want to know why great customer service is hard to find? Because it requires an investment of time, money, and planning.

We’re fast to complain about the shortcomings of businesses who fail to give great service — just read Yelp and you’ll see all sorts of disappointments in the area of customer service — but are we actually willing do something about it?

We all may hope a culture of appreciation and helpfulness was built into every business exchange, but desire doesn’t make it so. Money and intention do.

So if you want great customer service, you need to start investing in it.

Investing in Hospitality

Kindness and generosity of spirit may be inherent for some, but natural empathy and kindness is a trait that requires cultivation in most people.

The average Jane and Joe don’t spend their days thinking up ways to relate to another person’s pain. The hourly worker isn’t empowered to dedicate time to creatively problem solve a solution that will make a stranger feel better about themselves and the product they just purchased. In truth, most consumers and employers want fast and efficient help that comes at a low price. They expect nicety and warmth will be offered to them gratis.

The sad truth is, we live in a world where we expect altruism and compassion but we don’t cultivate these traits in our institutions. Schools don’t require Mindfulness and Compassion 101. The workplace isn’t where you take classes on empathy. Our government doesn’t require our public servants to be trained in radical hospitality. I mean, who can afford such frivolities!?

And yet, how is it we expect people to be giving and kind to one another in our daily exchanges, if we don’t invest time in speaking about such things?

If you want to grow employees or people who treat others with warmth and compassion, we have to take the time to teach such traits.

And guess what, folks. Time = money.

Invest in hospitality

Time = Money

We can wish all day long that kindness and compassion were inherent traits that were  taught in homes and in the business world, but–on average–they aren’t.

As a people, we would rather spend money on software training, speed, and efficiency than traits like big-heartedness and unselfishness. Check out the job postings on most company websites and you are not going to find empathy and benevolence listed under job requirements.

To get great customer service we have to build meaning into our work and begin growing gentleness and hospitality within us.

A Call to Action

Businesses: If your business collects complaints about customer service or you own or work at a restaurant that’s plagued with flaming Yelp reviews, I suggest you think about investing more time into building a culture of hospitality. If you don’t know where to start, I suggest you seek outside help (there are great books and people like me who specialize in teaching such things).

Consumers: If you find yourself consistently disappointed with the service you get at restaurants, banks, retail stores, and daily business exchanges–I have a revolutionary suggestion for you: start investing time and money into supporting the businesses that treat you well and learning how to be kinder to yourself and others.

If you want to be treated well or have employees treat customers with kindness and respect–we have to be willing to invest in it. How will you start investing?

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised 2.0*

A poem inspired by The Big Traveling Potluck. *Adapted from Gill Scott-Heron’s original 1970’s spoken word poem

You will not be able to stay home and read about it from your laptop, brother and sister.
You will not be able to plug in, Face Time, or zone out on page views and rankings.
You will not be able to lose yourself on Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram;
Skip out for a hand-crafted cocktail during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by KitchenAid
Or shown on the Food Network without commercial interruptions.
The revolution will not show you glossy, inkjet pictures of
Melissa Lanz, Matt Armendariz, or Helen Jane
blowing a bugle or leading a charge in Temecula
to find a personal mission statement, be kind to yourself, or
embrace your blog as your power name.

The revolution will not podcast a web-isode of
Maggy Keet, Erika Pineda, and Pam Anderson
being generous and kind.
Gaby Dalkin and Lori Lange won’t be there to
tell you to mash avocados into Guacamole or
bake snickerdoodle blondie bars three different ways.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be brought to you by the California Avocado Board
or Harry and David, Whole Foods, Redwood Hill Farms, Sabra, or Kerrygold
and will not star Ree Drummond
or Mary Sue Milliken.

The revolution will not make your cupcakes look more sexy.
The revolution will not offer you that font for free.
The revolution will not make you more relevant.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds thinner,
because the revolution will not be televised.

There will be no pictures of your favorite blogging characters
in mustaches and shiny hats showing you how to have faith in yourself
or a Power Point slideshow that will give you the steps it takes to be fearless and successful in online publishing.
The revolution will not be televised.

The Real Housewives, Bon Appetit, and Top Chef
will no longer be so damned relevant,
And making friends with so-in-so in order to get invited to “that thing”, will not be as important,
and people will not care if Food Gawker and Taste Spotting accepted that photo or not,
Because all kind of people will be more interested in talking about
how their work online can make a difference–
not just in their own lives but in friends’ and strangers’ day to day.
Trends will mark how people which people are forging a new trail
and the markers will be fearlessness,  self-lessness, and compassion.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no highlights on Facebook
and no pictures of macaroons, quinoa, gluten free flour mixes, and multi-course dinners on Instagram
The theme song will not be written by Justin Timberlake, scored by John Williams
nor sung by Adele, Elton John, or Jack White.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not start playing
after a short commercial about a new app, a new camera, or a new ceramic dish for your prop closet.
You will not have to subscribe to the meal plan,
or worry about natural light vs. artificial light,
or how to improve your brand image with a cute banner.
The revolution will not go better with Neuske’s bacon.
The revolution will not show you how to win the internet.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.

The revolution will put you in the driver’s seat.
The revolution will make you the pilot.
The revolution will put an apron on you and tell you to cook with heart, already.
The revolution will make you a digital publishing house of one (or many).

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.

The revolution will not be re-broadcast, Tivo’d, or saved on Hulu.
The revolution will be digitally published.
The revolution will be live.

I have a dirty little secret: I have a thing for milky, sweet coffee drinks.

Look, I know the fondness for a spicy or sweet latte isn’t the worst sin a person could have, but it isn’t a transgression I want to indulge in all the time. Now that my job description includes working in with lovingly crafted artisanal coffees, my palate needs to be developed so I may experience the nuanced flavors, exciting aromas, and subtle textures of a well-made cup of coffee or espresso.

Coffee is like wine; the flavor of the beverage is the result of climate, growing technique, varietal, location, and how the fruit is harvested. The process of getting a bean ready for consumption requires such an incredibly long process and delicate labor, it seems wrong to cover up its natural flavors.

Ask any coffee expert and they’ll tell you that a truly great coffee — like a beautiful glass of wine — should be enjoyed in its most natural state. A mindful drinker can experience aromas, flavors, and mouthfeel that can only be encountered if the beverage is treated with respect.

Additives assault a coffee and rob it of its inherent and natural flavors. Overly hot milk, whipped cream, packages of refined sugar, spice dustings, sprinkles of cocoa, Splenda, or flavored syrups do nothing to heed the delicate nature of a coffee bean. All that extra stuff disses the fruit.

All that being said, I really do enjoy a hand-crafted, flavored latte. Forget mass produced syrups, artificially enhanced nondairy creamers, or flavored powders. If I’m going to attempt to make a flavor cocktail with my caffeinated beverages, I use high quality ingredients.

Salted Caramel Latte (Dulce de Leche con Sal)

What makes this decadent salted caramel latte so good is the balance of espresso with the sweetness of the caramelized milk and the highlight of Maldon sea salt. This isn’t the lowest calorie beverage, but it’s a cheat-day worthy treat!

2 Tablespoons of Dulce de Leche*
1 cup of whole milk.
1 shot of espresso
1 pinch of Maldon Sea Salt

Begin to heat the milk in a small sauce pan over medium heat. Add the dulce de leche. Stir often, making sure not to let the milk scald. The milk is ready when it begins to thicken and micro bubbles begin to appear on the side of the pan. Add half the pinch of maldon to the milk. Stir and remove from the heat.

Pull your espresso shot. Add your shot to a warm, appropriately-sized coffee cup. Add the milk. finish the drink off with the smallest 1/4 of a pinch of pulverized Maldon sea salt.

Serve immediately.

*Dulce De Leche is an ingredient you may buy from a store or make from scratch at home. For a 100 % from scratch recipe, I suggest Alton Brown’s 3-hour step by step guide. Or if you want to make dulce de leche from  sweetened condensed milk, David Lebovitz has some suggestions.

Tom “TC” Cheever. Photo Credit from Jennifer Hancock Ferguson

There’s no easy recipe for dealing with pancreatic cancer.

In a space where I rely on certain structures of form, images, and ideas, I can’t find a formula to talk about profound grief. I can’t make the connections between a recipe, a photo, and words of sorrow. How does a culinary writer approach the topic of death and not reference about food? Is it appropriate to talk about loss and an easy-to-make pizza?

Ever since I found out pancreatic cancer took my friend Tom “TC” Cheever in January I’ve struggled to find a way to express my grief.

Just 43 years old, my friend was a well-respected improvisational comedian, sketch comedy writer, the father of three beautiful kids, a loving partner, and friend to all who knew him. No one expected pancreatic cancer could overtake the bright light that was TC. I certainly didn’t. He was a big, hearty guy with a laugh that could wring the awkwardness from any moment.

TC embodied improvisational comedy’s most important rule: say yes to everything. He leapt into improvised scenes with a big smile and his arms outstretched like a catcher ready for anything. I swear, he made every scene he was in better.

But now that TC’s gone, I’m left with an unexpected void and an uneasy silence.

The inelegant return

There is no dish that pairs well with pancreatic cancer. No well-lit photo of a plate of food to distract myself from the sadness. No pithy story that ties up the ends of a beautiful life cut short by fate in tasteful bows.

I can not turn to a traditional post to find my way through this. Instead, I celebrate my friend’s life through memories and story telling with friends. I fill up the space with love and service–getting into action is always the best way to move through pain and fear–but it’s a slow, incremental process to mend the fissure.

“I have nothing to complain about in my life,” TC said in a speech he wrote for his memorial. “And neither should you.”

It’s true. There’s nothing to complain about. I am alive. I have words to play with. Meals to make with friends. Time left to show up and –if I can muster it– be of service to everyone I meet.

TC taught me to say YES to everything–even the hard stuff. Say yes to the sadness. Say yes to the discomfort. Say yes to healing. Yes to the possibility of what the next yes will bring.

Yes.

To Whom It May Concern

Got an email yesterday from an internet promotional firm, Company X* today. The first line hit me like a shot of fear, pulled straight from the freezer.  “A website is only as good as the kind of traffic it has,” the email read.  The only measurement of my writing, the email’s author suggested, was in the number of visitors who come to my site. The email wasn’t done there. If I really cared about the perceived value of my blog I would invest in Company X’s services to boost my organic page ranking on Google. I would email right away to sign up for specialized SEO improvements and program for other B2B thingamabobs.

Rather than write a vengeful response, I hit delete. It was the kindest thing to do for everyone involved. Because there’s no point in getting upset, angry, or hurtful.  This little blog isn’t trying to compete with Corporate America or The Number One Website in America. What that salesman was selling doesn’t apply here. My writing is quiet industry, not big business.

Now I’ll be honest with you. I hear plenty that sometimes makes me wonder about this stance. There are plenty of sources that are quick to remind me that if I don’t stay ahead of SEO/Marketing/or traffic rate monitoring I’m already too far behind to catch up. But I know in the center of my being that the only way for me to truly succeed is to think differently.

Being an entrepreneur or blogger today doesn’t mean following the same rules as big business. We gotta work small to go big.

Outside of Industrialist Thinking

Seth Godin — an entrepreneur, marketing guru, and best-selling author of over a dozen books — proposes that successful entrepreneurs of today need to avoid the industrialist mindset and be creative in our approach to business.  Unlike the olden days of success measured by the millions, the entrepreneur of today can’t expect to win over the entire world. The modern businesswoman must figure out how to deeply impact a thoughtful few.

If we create something special that can inspire or profoundly move just ten people, Godin suggests, those individuals gush to a handful of friends about the great thing they just found. Those friends will tell ten people, and if you move that group too, you’ll watch as your work creates a fully vested, heart and soul marketing campaign for your unusual website/brand/product. By working small and thoughtfully, you can grow big from the bottom up. Momentum builds.

Go Big by Working Small

The industrial mindset of our grandparents’ generation requires us to buy into the scary idea that if we don’t reach the same measurements of The Big Successful Companies and Industrialist Leaders (think Google, Ford, Apple, General Mills) than the safest thing to be in life is a cog in the wheel.

But for today’s business market — where individuals start thriving businesses with food trucks, small restaurants, blogs, Etsy Shops, and self-published books–these old-world measurements don’t work. For people like you and me, there’s just not enough money (or time) for any of us to out-bid or out-analyze the data of any of those big corporate websites. The industrialist concept only serves Big Companies because it keeps people scared enough to invest valuable time and money into buying their stuff: more Google Ad words, SEO optimization software, and the newest widget/gadget/technology.

So when I get an email like the one from Company X, I have to remind myself that my job isn’t to invest in some panic-laced marketing SEO/Page Rank promotional tour. My work is to continue concentrating on creating content that touches an important few. My modus operandi must be in investing in doing good work that matters.

Viral Marketing 

Seth Godin talks a lot about building tribes**. Godin says, “by interacting with others you have the platform to create something new. Something that changes everything.” Godin knows what he’s talking about. He sold millions of copies of his books without book tours or using Facebook. He sells books by making a difference in the lives of people like me who can’t help but tell the world about how inspiring his work is or how you need to sign up for his weekly emails, or buy one of his 14 books!

So if you like what I’m doing here on Foodwoolf–or any other site that you think deserves some grassroots promotion (like my amazingly talented friends Michael Procopio–Food For The Thoughtless or Tamar Haspell–Starving Off The Land, or this guy, Ian Ruhter, on his process and the camera he built)–tell a handful of friends about them.  Share a post that moved you or made you laugh.  Leave a comment.  Let us know what we’re doing right.

And lastly, thank you for coming by and being a part of this mini-revolution. I’m grateful I didn’t need to give Company X one penny in order to find you.  You’re priceless.

*Not the company’s real name

**Listen to Seth Godin on Krista Tippet’s Public Radio show On Being about the subject. It’ll blow you away!

Living the life of an entrepreneur is exciting and rewarding. Especially when it isn’t harrowing and daunting. Being a consultant, an artist, or a specialist for hire means you have to be uniquely talented, work hard, and be patient for the next right job to come in. Never having a set schedule is a benefit, but freelancing requires a strong belief in one’s self and trust that you’ll get through difficult stretches between jobs. In short, we gotta have a lot of faith.

Faith as a business model?

Yes, operating from an intuitive place isn’t a concept that works for everyone. It’s an idea that can make most people’s skin crawl, especially those who rely on market trends, data, and poll results. But for people like me who work from the gut, intuition as a business model is something that requires practice and a lot of vulnerability. For every gutsy move or courageous jump, there are plenty of uncertain moments that cause white-knuckle indecision and fear.

Being isolated and working in a way that’s opposite of how most mainstream business people operate can make for some truly uncomfortable moments. That’s where having like-minded friends comes in.

We need others who share the same business challenges and have a similar mindset to run big ideas by. When we’re feeling crazy, fearful, and generally uncertain of ourselves, it can really help to have like-minded people who know what you’re going through to share their insights, advice, and good will. When the going gets rough, it’s good to know there’s someone else out there who knows exactly what we’re going through.

One of my freelance cheerleaders is Vivien Kooper, an LA-based ghost writer who makes a living helping ordinary and extraordinary people tell their life stories in book form. My friend is funny, smart, and shares a common language for the big, esoteric ideas.

What I value most about Vivien’s friendship is how common her un-common language is to me. Her language of faith, fear, and a willingness to surrender over to a higher power is part of her daily language. “I’m just staying in faith that I’ll be taken care of,” Vivian said to me after a particularly lean couple of weeks. It was exactly what I needed to hear. “I just know that the right job is going to come in when it’s supposed to.” Faithful words like that comfort me and offer a sense of relief.  She reminds me it’s okay to believe that one of my job requirements is to surrender to the unknown.

That’s certainly not the kind of feedback I get from every business contact I make.Vivien and I share a lot more than faith in our freelance business model. Like me, Vivien eschews advertising. Rather than rely on advertising or online promotions, we depend on former customers acting as our advertising and marketing departments.  We share the belief that the next gig will come in when it should, not when we want them. Every time a new client picks up the phone and cold calls, or a job offer gives an especially interesting challenge, or a last minute booking arrives at the exact right moment (especially when funds are at their all-time lowest), we recognize that our businesses are guided by a something far beyond our understanding. Thanks to my entrepreneurial comrade in arms, I know I’m not alone in my concerns. We have each other to call when we get scared that the financial shoe is going to drop, or the phone won’t ring when we expect it to.

Nothing worth doing is without risk

I’ve been holding onto a piece of unconventional advice Vivien gave me the other day. I’ve run her revolutionary words over in my mind tumbler until they became beautiful, like polished agate. When I told her about some business decision I had to make that was bringing up a lot of fear, she suggested a rather contrary plan of action.

“Just stop. Don’t do a thing. Just for a day, don’t push to get the result you want.” She added “It’s in not doing that you show your belief that you’ll be taken care of. That’s usually when all the good stuff happens.”

Rather revolutionary stuff, no?

So rather than stress out about tax payments, the alignment of gigs, and other bits of minutiae–I surrender to the not knowing. I give into the uncertainty of my vocation and agree to believe in what I do not know.

A Recipe of Faith, a Vegetarian Quinoa Bowl

This no-recipe recipe is based on meals I’ve prepared without a plan and based solely on what’s on hand. This is a unspecific formula, devoid of precise measurements, that may offer good results if you’re willing to take a chance.

1-2 cups of left over quinoa (cooked)
chopped vegetables (bite sized pieces of romensco, carrots, green onion, kale, chard, sprouted mung beans, etc.)
Grapeseed oil
vegetable broth
Salt & Pepper to taste
Sriracha, if you like things spicy

Heat a skillet over medium to medium-high heat. Drizzle a little oil into the pan. Add your vegetables in order of their texture and weight (carrots and onions before delicate chard, for example). When the vegetables are cooked down, add the cooked quinoa.

Add some vegetable broth (about 1/2 a cup) to get the mixture cooking in a cohesive way. When everything looks cooked to the point you like, take a taste. Does this mixture need some seasoning? Add what you think will make this more tasty? Sriracha? Pepitas? Nori flake?

Serve immediately before you question your judgement.

Who is the weakest link in your business?

Regardless of what business you’re in, every line of work has its share of archetypes. You may make your living in a dining room, in the middle of a retail showroom, under stage lights, or in the center of cubicles. Where doesn’t matter. Just like a movie with predictable characters, we all encounter common personality types in the workplace.

Heroes vs Foes

Boilerplate people we want on our team are types like the fearless leader, the go-getter, the quiet workhorse, the inspirational force, and the problem solver. But no matter how great your workplace is, there always seems to be a few pernicious characters. You know the bunch. They’re the complainer, the drama queen, the liar, or even the Friendly Incompetent.

Business Archetype: The Friendly Incompetent

I recently witnessed the most astounding version of the Friendly Incompetent, a negative business archetype, at a bookstore in Pasadena.The book shop employee was a tall, good looking guy with a nice smile. I noticed him right away as he said hello to customers as they walked into the store. Just as I was taking mental note of his good service instincts, however, I began to notice a pattern of neglect. Every time he’d say hello to a new customer, he’d turn his back on them just moments after they crossed the threshold.

He would ignore needing glances and check his iPhone or push a stack of books from one side of the counter to another, like a child pushing blocks for no reason. When an inquisitive book-buyer made her way to the front desk, the tall smiling guy exited the counter just before she could reach him in order to adjust a coffee cup display. Another co-worker immediately saw the neglected customer and  jumped to her aid with a great sense of urgency. Meanwhile, the Friendly Incompetent stopped re-arranging the coffee cups mid way — leaving the shelf in such disarray, another employee would soon notice and feel obliged to fix them. Later, he complained loudly about the colors of the bookstore’s carpets and how disappointed he was in the state of the bookselling business. When customers asked for information about a particular item, he pointed them to a faraway shelf, rather than walking the person to the stack of books himself.

After just one hour of observing this man, I calculated he not only lost the business several hundred dollars in lost sales opportunities and reduced efficiency in his co-workers–he created such an uncomfortable setting of bad customer service, I had to leave.

A Costly Mistake

For many, the friendly incompetent is the trickiest of characters to identify right away. What makes them so tricky is that they are nice people who appear incredibly passionate and talk a big game about being a team player and leader.  Once the Friendly Incompetent makes it through their initial training and proves themselves to be a key part of the team, they take their foot off the work ethic gas petal and begin to coast. They rely on powerful storytelling and the fine art of appearing busy, to cover up for the fact that they are no longer a fully contributing staff member. In truth, they are some of the lowest performing individuals on the team.

The Friendly Incompetent has no sense of urgency, does the absolute minimum necessary throughout their shift, and frequently does substandard work that requires a more competent staff member to fix it. The Friendly Incompetent’s lacking work ethic is damaging to businesses in lost sales, increased labor hours, and reduced employee morale. If an employer isn’t paying attention, the Friendly Incompetent can slowly kill a positive work environment and, eventually, the business itself.

Signs you have a FRIENDLY INCOMPETENT on your staff:

• Staff members mention that this particular individual isn’t doing their part.
• They do one aspect of their job well and under-deliver on every other part of their work.
• They let others do for them what they could easily do themselves.
• The Friendly Incompetent seems busy but the space around them is in complete disarray.  They exert themselves the least possible amount of effort without being noticed or written up by a superior.
• They frequently have a melt down or complain profusely if they are relied upon to do the same work load of a successful co-worker.
• Takes frequent breaks and/or complains constantly about health issues (so they don’t have to work).
• Saying no is easier for them then to say then yes.
• Has impeccable timing for disappearing whenever a particularly difficult or unappealing task comes up.
• Shirks extra responsibility. Would rather be ignorant than have a useful knowledge that would make the eligible for extra work.

Sloppy work = lost business

Sound familiar?

If your answer is yes, it’s important to act fast. The longer you wait, the more damage this individual can make on your business.  Without clear goals, expectations, and leadership that makes it clear that everyone on staff must meet their goals–the Friendly Incompetent will never leave. The result will be costly in the form of peaked labor costs, reduced staff morale, and lowered sales opportunities.

Whether you plan to attempt to terminate the employee or rehabilitate the individual (this is the least likely option to succeed), it’s important to act quickly in implementing a strategy to fix the situation.

Solutions:

• Make sure there are detailed job descriptions for every job. Along with a good description of duties, make sure it is clear what the expectations and measurable goals are for everyone on the staff.

• Have all staff read, understand, and sign-off on their job description and job expectations. Make sure they understand the consequences of failing to uphold the standards of the business.

• If the employee fails to uphold the standards, goals, or expectations begin the write-up and firing procedures for your organization.

For more tips or suggestions on how to improve your business, feel free to visit my Service Coach website for details about my consulting services.