Listen to Traci

I have to confess that I'm a little behind in my blog for this week.  To tide you over, here's a recipe for super easy, no-knead bread that practically makes itself. You can make endless variations on this recipe (at least I haven't come to an end) by switching out some of the AP flour for whole wheat (not all of it, that makes for a pretty unpleasant loaf), adding nuts, seeds, grains, spices, herbs, a little sourdough starter, a touch of olive oil, etc.  You can even put in a scoop of canned pumpkin (decrease the water a little bit) and some cinnamon.  Or soak garlic cloves in olive oil, then brush the top of the loaf with the infused oil and sprinkle with sea salt and dried parsley before baking.  Once you get the hang of the basic loaf, the sky's the limit. If you add just enough extra flour to make the dough a little more stable, you can form a standard loaf, or rolls, or even braid it, if that's your heart's desire.  It probably wouldn't make a bad ...

Sales are slow and competition is fierce.  I don’t have to tell you what a serious problem this is.  So what are you going to do about it?  It seems obvious, but my own observation indicates that it needs to be said:  you can’t conduct business as usual and expect different results. First and foremost, be prepared to make some calls .  We all know that no one uses the phone as much as we used to, but if calling isn’t your thing, neither is sales. Identify who your customer is within an organization – what division/role (IT? Logistics? Operations?) needs what you sell?  Make it your mission to find the contact information for that person. Do your research.   Be the expert in your business, your products and your industry. Be a problem solver .  If you think of yourself as a salesperson, you’re subconsciously passing along the message that you’re pushy.  Decision makers are busy and don’t really want to deal with salespeople. ...

There’s no room for fun in the workplace, right?  I mean, it’s called work, after all. It’s not supposed to be fun.  If you’re doing it right, you probably get paid for it, so you have a responsibility to fulfill a role for your employer, to be productive and efficient.  How can fun factor in that equation? But it should.  Psychologists long ago determined the importance of play on emotional and intellectual development.  It helps to form the prefrontal cortex, which is crucial for impulse control and decision-making.  Play also contributes to social competency and personal resiliency. It comes to us naturally. Spontaneous animal play has been observed in the wild, and who hasn’t played fetch with a dog?  Animals that you might not otherwise associate with play – crocodiles, kangaroos, and elephants - give each other piggy-back rides, benignly spar with the adults in their herd, and toboggan down muddy hills.  Rats who have been denied d...