Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Making Lemonade


It is a rare thing to have a career that you love.  A career that makes you happy to get to work in the morning, one that doesn’t really feel like work.  I have had a career like that.  I have loved my job, and worked hard to be a good employee.  I have worked late, and kept a good attitude, and tried to do the best I could possibly do, no matter what challenge came my way.  And yet business is business, and when business is bad, no matter how much you love what you do, it can come to an end, and my dream job did come to an end.  I was laid off.  


I was assured that my being laid off was not performance related, and my sweet boss said that she had fought hard to keep me.  But business is business. It’s not personal, it’s just business.  One might refer to this type of situation as “Life handing you a lemon”.

Through experiences such as this one I have learned three things:
  1. To enjoy where I am while I am there, so that when it is over I can look back on my work and know that I did all I could, that I worked as hard as I could, and that I enjoyed it as much as possible.  
  2. I have also learned that when a new opportunity presents itself, you have to take it, and enjoy the ride.
  3. I have learned that when life hands you a lemon there is only one thing to make; lemonade.

So I decided to accept being laid off from my amazing, wonderful, job as an opportunity to pursue other professional interests.  I had been slowly developing a business on the side, with my sister.  More of a hobby, a creative outlet with the potential to become a business one day.  And the day had come.

I started making cake pops for a friend’s baby shower.  She is a good friend so I wanted to make a cool looking treat to match the theme of her shower, which was “monsters”.  The first time I made them, they literally fell apart and fell off the stick.  The second time I made them, the coating seized up on me.  But the third time they were awesome.

It inspired me, and I started making them more often.  I looked at cake pops as a new art medium, and making them became more like a hobby.  Soon my sister joined me in my cake pop adventures.  We would work on different designs, and make them for family parties, and events at church, and it naturally evolved into something that we wanted to turn into a business.

Then, when I was laid off from my dream job and felt like it was the end of a great ride, and an opportunity for a new one.  An opportunity, one might say, to make a lemon into lemonade.

The hope that I have for this business, is that it will be a great ride.  But one thing is for sure, I love making cake pops, so it will definitely be fun. Here’s to making lemons into lemonade!

1 comment:

  1. Hey you! It's Driggsy! Just wanted to say that I'm so excited for you! This is so fun! And they look (and probably taste) delicious!!! Good luck with your new adventures! The new website looks awesome too!!!

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