Having just returned from a wonderful trip to Italy to celebrate my birthday surrounded by lemon trees and maybe one or two limoncellos, this month’s blog is more about the turning lemons into lemonade than Halloween as I am not enjoying the dark evenings!
“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade is a proverbial phrase used to encourage optimism and a positive can-do attitude in the face of adversity or misfortune. Lemons suggest sourness or difficulty in life; making lemonade is turning them into something positive or desirable” This quote from Wikipedia attributes the saying to 1909, although the print version attribute the expression to Dale Carnegie who used it in his 1948 book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. Carnegie's version reads:
"If You Have a Lemon, Make a Lemonade."
Having just finally understood the UK’s new budget announcement yesterday, I have the sense that we as Solopreneur Coaches may have to just stop the worrying about the implications and just take the lemons and make of them what we can to keep our business going. The start-living part is equally applicable to noticing that work is getting done and clients will have new needs because of employment changes, policies and changes to their businesses. As a leadership coach we still offer value to help with these transitions. As for our global sponsors and clients, we will know the last part of the lemonade recipe very soon once the US election is complete.
I am hopeful that whilst October was quiet and a little sour, the lemon harvest of new opportunities will make the last part of the year positive. Thankfully, I returned to a contract with my first employer a Supermarket stocking lemon, limoncello and a lot of lemonade making to keep me busy to the end of the year.
There will always be harvests and famine points in owning our own business not of our making. Three things to share that may help you if you are coming out of a tricky period into a peak is the thinking in Clare Norman’s new book ‘Cultivating Coachability’ and Kirsty Lewis’s launch of SoFest, a learning festival for 2025 for facilitators, trainers and coaches. Both these events and people support a can-do attitude towards thinking about our learning and coaching processes and I happily recommend you look out for their work in our profession.
Finally, I started a new programme with Coach Rising on Redefining leadership yesterday with the intention to help leaders make lemonade when dealing with their difficulties and so far, it is the sweetener to my 2025 plans. What will help you stop worrying and start living?
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