Are You Building Your Lemonade Stand?
“When life gives you lemons, you don’t make lemonade. You use the seeds to plant a whole orchard – an entire franchise! Or you could just stay on the Destiny Bus and drink lemonade someone else has made, from a can.”
― Anthon St. MaartenLet me tell you about two people who felt life gave them some lemons. One is making lemonade and the other built a lemonade stand! Which will you be?
Lolly worked all her life at one job doing everything right. She established a retirement account on her meager earnings and expected to retire at what has been called “normal retirement age” She achieved the American dream. Retirement and living the good life into the sunset. Only it didn’t work out that way. Medical bills and other unexpected expenses cut into her cash flow. She is careful with her money and she gets social security. Lolly is making the most of it. She is making her lemonade on her front porch. “It’s OK” she says. She wishes she had more but what are you going to do when you are on a fixed income. Good attitude but it’s too bad she isn’t building a lemonade stand.
Eddie is doing it differently. Eddie is 55 and has worked as a software programer for most of his life. At his age, he is a pioneer in the industry with a depth of knowledge few of us could expect to learn. Problem is no one wants to hire him. As he told me, “55 is ancient and over the hill in the software industry. Over 30 and your out. Eddie is facing reality. He also did everything right — went to college, earned a degree in a highly sought after field, was a good employee and kept current in his field. Still, reality really sucks. What is Eddie doing with his lemons? He is opening his own lemonade stand.
Eddie has way more knowledge than the rest of us when it comes to setting up websites. He knows SEO, mobile apps and all the rest of the jargon. This is a valuable commodity. People pay for this and they usually don’t know where to find someone. Now they do. They can find Eddie’s lemonade stand. By doing what he knows better than most, he can build his own website and get a following. He will have better security than the young whippersnappers getting the jobs because he isn’t going to get laid off or downsized. His lemonade stand will sustain him.
What do I mean by a lemonade stand? You’ve heard the adage “give a man a fish and he eats today, teach him how to fish and he eats forever”? This is a variation of that. We’ve all heard about making lemonade when life hands you lemons. Of course there is the variation that says find someone who was given vodka and have a party but that’s not the point here.
What I am talking about is being and ENTREPRENEUR! Gasp! Yes you. I bet you did it when you were a kid. Did you baby sit? Have a newspaper route? Sell something door to door? You were an entrepreneur. You might even have had a real lemonade stand. I know I did.
I grew up in a time, and most of you did too, I’m guessing, when the goal was a “good paying job”. You worked up “through the ranks”, and somewhere in your 60’s you were put out to pasture, ehr, retired. You got a pension and maybe a plaque. Did anyone actually get the proverbial gold watch?
Folks those days are gone. The old line companies are phasing out pensions and the new ones never had them. You are on your own buddy. The financial planners have been telling us this for years, but most of the boomers didn’t listen and now they are out there picking lemons.
So what does your lemonade stand look like? Mine? I made a huge mid life career change and went to law school in my 50’s. I pretty much believed the folks who told me no one would hire me at my age. But surprise, surprise! A well respected mid size firm in Orange County hired me. Wow, That felt good! Too bad I hated it. I won’t go into what a mind numbing experience it was but suffice to say the dress code almost did me in. Or was it the mandatory meetings on how to increase our billing? Not better work, just more billing. It was definitely time to build my own lemonade stand.
So I “hung out my shingle” as it used to be called. I had a lap top and a fax machine. I was in business. People actually paid me money for my legal skills. After a while I knew I had to find a specific focus for my practice. (We aren’t supposed to call it “specialize”) People kept coming to me with their divorce issues. Even though it was the furthest thing from my mind when I was a wide eyed new lawyer, I found that handling divorces was a pretty good lemonade stand for me. Eighteen years and thousands of cases later, I am still practicing — although it has grown to slightly more than a fax machine and a laptop.
So here is my challenge to you. Are you building your own lemonade stand? Maybe you currently have a job. You might even like it — or not. Start building that lemonade stand because you never know when the lemons might arrive.
Right now — write down three things someone might pay you for.
This is a random list that might jog your creative juices.
- Give speeches
- Bake cakes
- knit scarves
- travel the world and pick up interesting jewelry or gift items
- Write a book
- Teach people how to use Facebook
- Teach English to non native speakers
- Start your own community newspaper and sell advertising
- Design your own clothing line and sell it via kickstarter
- Sell other people’s stuff on eBay
- Ghost write blogs for other people
- Organize garages
Ok, this wasn’t a totally random list I made up. Each of those represents someone I know who is making money at their own lemonade stand doing just that thing. Good money? Some are, some are not. Depends on the effort and creativity they put into their lemonade stand. Not only are they making money, they feel good about being creative and useful. No out to pasture for them
And Lolly, the person whose story I opened with? We are still working on it. At least her eyes lit up when I gave her the suggestion. Stay tuned. I am sure there will be something fun to report about Lolly’s Lemonade Stand.
Make your list today. Get creative. I’m anxious to hear about your lemonade stand.
LET’S TALK SPIRITUALITY
Living your best life includes having a spiritual basis. Don’t worry, I’m not going to go all religious on you. My friends come in many variations of spirituality including traditional Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, NewThought, and even atheist. The kind of spirituality I am talking about can include any of these or something different. It is something beyond the physical, intellectual or body. I often refer to this with complete respect as “woo woo stuff”.
According to Psychology Today:
“Spirituality means something different to everyone. For some, it’s about participating in organized religion: going to church, synagogue, a mosque, etc. For others, it’s more personal: Some people get in touch with their spiritual side through private prayer, yoga, meditation, quiet reflection, or even long walks.”
Wikipedia differentiates modern spirituality to the more traditional. There is a long discussion which explains the many forms of spirituality including Hinduism, Buddhism, Mohammadism, other isms and the “Abrahamic” religions, if you care to delve further:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirituality#Modern_spirituality_2
Use whatever definition you want, mystical, holiness, devoutness or otherworldly. My point here is that some type of spirituality helps us move toward our best life. I will use spirituality in this context but substitute your own belief system.
Living a healthy life involves mind, body and spirit. I advocate for developing your mind whether it is something routine like Sudoko, taking a class or reading Wikipedia articles. Body includes exercise, eating and generally taking care of the physical being. You take care of your Spirit in a number of ways, which can include the sensual such as fine food and wine, music, enjoying nature and, of course, exploring the spiritual.
You probably already have a routine for exercise and health. Hopefully you have a routine for intellectual pursuits. I suggest a spiritual routine is just as important.
A routine that works well for me is “morning pages”, An idea I got from Julia Cameron’s book The Artists Way. You can incorporate morning pages into your spiritual practice. Meditate, pray or contemplate and then write in longhand for at least three pages. Write to yourself, your deity or your favorite tree. But write every morning. Before you do anything else. I promise you will find your life goes better.
Here is a link to Julia Cameron’s explanation of morning pages: http://paperartstudio.tripod.com/artistsway/id3.html
I would love to hear what is your routine. Do you sing or chant? Talk to the flowers in your yard? Pray? Read something spiritual?
What form of spirituality can you explore today?
WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENTLY IF YOU HAD IT TO DO ALL OVER?
One of my discussion groups was discussing how our lives are shaped by decisions we made along the way. There is a somewhat new agey idea that all of our decisions are the right ones because they got us to where we are today. My group all agreed there were some “growth opportunities” we would just have soon skipped.
I think it is fairly typical to spend time rethinking decisions. You probably have seen story lines for movies and TV shows, mostly of the Lifetime/Hallmark Channel variety where one goes back to a crucial point in life and makes a different decision. Invariably the plot line brings us to the conclusion that the original decision was made to get us to where we are and unless you are a homeless, drugged out street person you made the right decision after all.
What are the major decisions I could rethink? I can think of many mile stones or turning points in my life. Each is worthy of a separate discussion. Let’s begin with the decision that is probably the most life shaping one most of us make.
The person we marry.
It’s true my marriage didn’t last. I married at twenty for what was a common reason in those days- escape. I wanted out of my family home, I was tired of the struggle to find the money for college and I wanted a bigger world. Besides, everyone else was getting married. I was student teaching at the time and the psychology teacher told me I was making a mistake, the marriage would never last. He was right, it lasted only 22 years. Was it a mistake? Would I change it?
There are so many aspects of who I am today that came out of that marriage. The obvious is my daughter and my absolutely fabulous grandson. But also the growth it afforded me.
I did get out of my small, narrow minded home town. I married a military officer and being an officer’s wife in those days required white gloves, a hat and impeccable manners. My peers came from private colleges or fine southern families where girls where raised to be ladies and proper wives. From my blue collar background this served as a finishing school. Today, as a professional woman I am thankful I had that training. Of course some of the conventions have been set aside along with the gloves and hat. Calling cards have been replaced by the business card and there is a certain proper protocol that goes with the exchange of cards. Oh, and it is OK for a lady to leave a card with a gentleman. I shake hands also. I still do not walk while carrying a cigarette (there were a lot of rules around how to smoke but since I didn’t smoke it was mute) but it is OK to hold a cocktail while standing and heaven forbid, sit on a bar stool.
I married a man who was intelligent and read books. When he told me he read books I thought, “Doesn’t everyone?” No he devoured books. There was a book on every table, beside every chair and on any flat surface. The local library had to order more books to keep him supplied. While I never became that obsessed, I still have a good relationship with books and my offspring has inherited her father’s love of books. I grew up with only the bible and a set of encyclopedias in my house. Both pretty much untouched except for the summer I was going to go through the encyclopedias. Not sure I made it past the A’s, well maybe the B’s.
I married a man who loved music, mostly jazz. Ella, Frank, Miles where staples at our house. First in records then miles and miles of reel-to-reel tapes. (I know there were miles and miles when my toddler decided to unwind them one morning as we slept) One of my life stories (there are 27) is that I saw Miles Davis live. This is a good conversation starter when I am among musicians. I’ve expanded the repertoire but today I love live concerts and am grateful for iPod and Pandora Radio.
I married a man who attended law school. Law school was my dream when in high school. I am not sure. I don’t think I even knew what lawyers did but I was attracted. I didn’t follow up. My story is that I didn’t pursue law because everyone discouraged me because I was a girl. The real truth is I didn’t have the confidence to follow through. When my husband was in law school I loved hanging out with the study group. I loved that I could keep up with the conversation. My husband once told me that I caught on a concept right away that his class had struggled with the entire class period. I loved the logic and the thought patterns. Someday I would go to law school. Someday.
So that decision certainly is in the category of I wouldn’t be where I am today. There were other decisions that led me here. Other decisions might have taken me on a completely different path. The discussion continues on to another day.
What are some of your major decisions? What did you learn? How would your life be different?
Stay tuned.
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Karin Quirk