Guest Post by Rachael George

“You know...you have some really weird black pepper.”  These were the words I uttered right before my husband spit out the food I just made him. Ends up that the pepper I used to season his eggs on his bagel breakfast sandwich that morning was gunpowder.  Yep...I fed him gunpowder and I wasn’t even trying to kill him for his life insurance.  

Backing up a bit, you should know something about me. I don’t cook and I am pretty lost when it comes to navigating the kitchen.  During the early days of my marriage, I was trying to prove my domesticated self so I went out on a limb and offered to make breakfast for my husband. I was alone in the kitchen and was determined to make the best bagel breakfast sandwich ever in the history of Rachael.  The bagel had to be toasted just right and the eggs couldn’t be undercooked.  I wanted to top off the sandwich with a little salt and pepper but the only pepper I could find was in the black shaker container, at the back of the spice cupboard, that said pepper.  Sounds normal right, except when I shook it out in my hand, it looked like hard chocolate sprinkles.  Me, being new to cooking, and having cheated my way through home economics in high school, figured it was a new pepper variety I wasn’t familiar with.  With cooking being a big learning curve for me, coupled with the fact I wasn’t ready to admit that to John yet, I decided to just go with it. 

I didn’t think twice after I sprinkled them on and proudly delivered the plate.  It wasn’t until I bit into my sandwich and I heard a weird crunch did I pause.  Must have been an egg shell. Darn it.  When it happened again, my mind went to the black pepper.  At this point, John was already close to finishing his bagel breakfast sandwich.  That’s when I thought I’d bring up the pepper and see if he had any thoughts. 

John’s response was explosive and fast.  He spit his final bite of his bagel breakfast sandwich out, and quickly explained that what I put on the eggs was gun powder.  I told him that he must be mistaken since it was in a pepper container and in the spice rack.  Apparently, that wasn’t the case.  A few months prior John had been reloading shotgun shells with one of his boys and the container must have been put away in the kitchen.  I had no idea, especially since it was in the spice rack and that was unchartered territory for me.  Who does that?  Apparently John’s son does and my learning curve to cooking was too steep to even realize it. 

You see, we all have learning curves in different areas.  You might be a master in the kitchen while I can’t tell a skillet from a wok.  Or perhaps you are stellar at navigating hard conversations while I can crunch student achievement data and growth rates with my eyes closed.  We all have strengths and areas we are working on.  The beauty of this is that we are all in different spots with our learning, which means there are so many people around us that we can lean on and ask for support as we grow and navigate our learning curve.  

The beauty of learning curves, which I didn’t realize with my own cooking curve, is that you aren’t expected to know all the answers.  You don’t have to know the difference between gunpowder and black pepper but you do need the confidence to ask.  There are so many incredible individuals around us in our professional learning communities that are a wealth of knowledge.  If we don’t reach out, or think to double check, we get into the position where we are serving people things that we truly shouldn’t...and that can get explosive (like gunpowder).

When you are on a learning curve right, whatever that might be, take a moment and think about who you can reach out to to help guide you on a new path.  Who can you connect with for support?  Who is an expert that can act as a resource and mentor?  If you are a leader, we happen to know the book just for you!

Thank you, Rachael!