Keep Your Spirits Up: Making Entrepreneurial Lemonade in a Crisis

David Anderson, an Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) member in Arizona, is co-founder and CEO of Off Madison Avenue, a marketing agency that unlocks brand potential by tapping into audience motivations through behavior design. We asked David, author of Leadership is Not a Title, how he’s staying positive and strategizing for the future during the ongoing uncertainty of the Covid-19 crisis. Here’s what he shared:

While working from home this week (as many reading this likely are, too), I was looking out the kitchen window at the lemon tree in my backyard. During lunch, I decided to pick a few lemons and make lemonade–something I had not done in years. As I cut up the lemons and began to juice them, it made me think about everything that’s going on in the world right now and how it relates to those lemons. 

Here are three optimistic thoughts that you may find relevant in these uncertain times.

1. The obvious: When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. 

It may seem cliché, but it’s true. We can either cope with the sour taste in our mouths from the current situation, or we can figure out what amount of sugar and water it will take to transform it into lemonade. 

I’m not saying it’s going to be easy. (Have you tried finding sugar in a grocery store these days?) But, life is not easy. We can complain, or we can keep working to find ways to make things better.

As an entrepreneur, this is not the first major downturn I have faced. Anyone remember 2008 and the Great Recession? It was difficult, but we got through it. I know many who struggled while others failed and had to close their businesses. However, most of them got right back in the game and are more successful today than they were in 2008.

Trying times can teach valuable lessons–about priorities, relationships and resilience, among others. If this is the first time you’ve experienced such a devastating life event, the one thing I can assure you is that it will get better. We just need to work our way through it.

2. Don’t run your lemonade stand alone. 

As a kid, you never ran a lemonade stand by yourself. Remember? You always worked with your brother, sister, friend, cousin or neighbor. The same goes for the current situation we’re in: Don’t try to get through it by yourself. You are not alone. We are all in this together. There are literally thousands of business owners who are stressed to the max and worried about how they will survive these trying times. 

It’s a best practice to connect with fellow entrepreneurs–get online and ask for help through social media channels. Join a networking group such as EO, or find a business coach. There are so many people willing to help, offer advice and share past experiences–you just have to ask. Those of us who’ve been through similar rough times before are still to this day engaging our peers and asking for help. 

There is significant value in finding a community of like-minded peers and weathering uncertainty together. Engage with that opportunity.

3. All seasons bring new opportunities: Embrace them. 

My tree only produces lemons for a few months each year. And then, like all seasons, it comes to an end. The rest of the year, I need to choose another drink option. The coronavirus has brought us a new season, and we are compelled to face it head-on. 

But with difficult times come new opportunities. It’s easy to sit around and lament everything that we might be losing at this very moment. Instead of focusing on all of the negatives, wouldn’t it be a better use of our time to think about other types of proverbial fruit trees we could plant that may provide juice year-round?

Though it’s tempting to complain and commiserate, it’s far more productive to explore new opportunities that are presenting themselves. 

What I’m saying is that life sometimes throws unexpected curve balls that force you to change course. With change comes growth, as evidenced by my lemon tree. Our collective challenge as leaders is to figure out how to deal with adversity and become stronger because of it. It’s not easy, but it’s the only option right now.

Each new season brings new opportunities. We’ll all need to think differently and work harder to develop these possibilities, but they exist, untapped–waiting to be discovered. And entrepreneurs are uniquely positioned to leverage them.

The bottom line: Covid-19 is here and will be around for a while. The fallout from it is going to leave a sour taste in everyone’s mouth. It’s up to each of us to figure out how to make lemonade from it and move forward.