How a primal craft moved one leader from a world of invoices, inventories, and interruptions to a state in which simple satisfaction came through the act of shaping raw dough into a loaf of bread.
I make my own bread, something I’ve been doing for many years. My sourdough “starter” comes from Oklahoma, the gift of my mother-in-law in the late 1970s.
It, the starter, is hardy stuff. I keep it in the fridge; sometimes, when I am away, it sits for months. When I return, it’s usually a bit dried out, but I “feed” it and, overnight, we are back in business. A “loyal” employee, you might say.
I am told that in gold mining days, the Forty-niner miners would jury rig an oil cloth belt in which to store the starter and protect it from freezing.
Whenever I shape the dough into loaves, I’m reminded of a factory tour with a man who stopped everything to knead and shape a lump of raw dough.
The man – let’s call him Sam – is a very successful food entrepreneur starting with a boutique bakery and now, decades later, owning a conglomerate of food industries.
Through a mutual acquaintance, he’d agreed to give me a tour of his food empire.
Sam and I met in his eponymous grocery/deli store, and from there we walked several blocks to a large warehouse and bakery.
As we approached the building, I noted a delivery truck outside its entrance. On the sidewalk , left unguarded, was a trolley loaded to overflowing with smoked meats. No one was around. Sam pointed it out to me, saying, “That turkey will be gone in a minute with no one here!”
He fumed over his workers not caring enough to think about what they were doing.
Inside the warehouse, he found another problem: the exposed blades of a large floor fan. “This can hurt someone. We got to do something about it”, he shot at one of the workers.
His is a large operation with a massive payroll and inventory and obviously Sam is proud if worried about the whole thing.
Some of his impatience may have been caused by his agreeing to show me around.
I did not feel unwelcome, but I knew I was an extra burden on top of many others, ones more immediate.
When we came to a bakery prep area, he stopped, rolled up his sleeves, generously dusted his hands and a table top with flour, grabbed a piece of raw dough and started kneading and shaping it.
Visibly, his body relaxed; the tension slipped away. The cares of being boss slid off his shoulders. Shaping – folding, pressing, and stretching – bread with his hands was far removed from running a large business.
Here he was handling a living, breathing mass that responded to his every move.
Sam changed from an anxious business man into someone focused on a simple, satisfying and rewarding task.
Calm replaced angst.
Moral: When your head is spinning, go back to what you love doing. And, don’t spare the flour!
N.B. For other essays on numerous topics on leadership and literature and fables go to my Nucleus archive from 2010-early 2025.
© Copyright John Lubans 2026