Meet Jamie Maher

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jamie Maher. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jamie below.

Hi Jamie , thank you for joining us today and sharing your experiences and acquired wisdom with us. Burnout is a huge topic these days and so we’d love to kick things off by discussing your thoughts on overcoming or avoiding burnout

Burn out is so real in the culinary industry, we work pretty demanding hours with lots of pressure to be the best all the time. Ways I’ve delt either that to avoid the burn out feeling is
-create a solid schedule that you follow weekly, yes some weeks may look a little different but keep the week structured the same
-stop comparing and trying to do what everyone else is doing. Stick with what you know and you are good at.
-find an outlet for the stress, do art, workout, join a run club whatever, but have something you can do to get all those feeling out
-stop taking on last minute orders- they aren’t worth the extra stress for that $50-100
-have a power list of things that NEED to be done that day no matter what break the whole week down, having 3-4 tasks a day is less intimidating than 12 for the whole week

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I am a pastry chef and cake artist specializing in large hyper realistic cakes. I do everything from cake to cookies to pies, you name it I can make it. I’ve been doing this for 15 years and can honestly say I’m still learning and growing and perfecting skills.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

First and probably most important is communication with customers, you want them to feel comfortable and confident in you and like they are the only person you are working with at that time, stay focused and honest with them even if it’s not what they want to hear.
Second and probably hardest thing is stop the comparison. Your business is unique to you, your life is unique to you and people are there because of you not what’s going on down the street in Jo shmos shop.
Third constantly evolve, take classes, learn new ways to improve what you already have, you can always be more efficient

What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?

When I get overwhelmed I walk away from what I’m doing for a minute and go outside, 5-10 mins of fresh air away from what’s going on can give you new perspective also just being outside increases serotonin levels. If I can though i really prefer to go work out when I’m overwhelmed. Getting your body moving and doing something different can really help get your brain refreshed and ready to look at something from a different perspective.
Also creating that power list I mentioned before will help you from getting overwhelmed since you should only have 4-5 daily tasks that are nonnegotiable for that day.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Instagram/rollinindough850
• Facebook: Rollinindough850

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