When you have been handed a lemon, you must learn how make lemonade. By Gary Shotton #000154

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Making Lemonade

By Gary Shotton

Hello, I’m Gary Shotton, we’re here with this Global Initiative an effort to Inspire Better Business. You can find us at Ivy detox calm or WW inspiring better business calm same website and I’m Gary shot and like I said and we’re going to talk about “making lemonade”.

Am I creating a new business with lemonade, I thought little girls and little kids did that on the corner of the street as a first business enterprise? That’s probably do true but we’re going to talk about some of those uncomfortable situations that I’ve faced and you’re going to face and your attitude towards when this happens. Are you the kind of person that’s just going to get all bent out of shape? Some people just throw a fit start cussing and swearing and attacking people because something didn’t go right, well that’s a poor attitude in my opinion.

I’m telling you if you’re in business in a very long time, at all you’re going to have things that didn’t work out like you wanted them to work out. Not while the way you expected them to work out and the way you react to that, the way you handle that it’s going to make a big difference on your future, a big difference on the people that are working with you, might make a big difference with your spouse, might be a big difference for your entire future, if you can’t learn how to handle bad situations.

I don’t know I guess the reason we called it lemons, it because it is sour.  It is normally not something you just bite into a lemon because it’s tough to eat. Myself I drink iced tea and I put lemon in that, but that it’s just normally a fruit that’s not going to be something that’s sweet. So, when you’re handed something that’s bitter and sour can you right away instantly without even missing a beat. Think about how you can turn this to something good or how can you see the good inside of this. I was planned to come  from my state of Wyoming 1,200 miles to the state of Oklahoma, and I have a family of five and this is back in the early 80s actually 1982 I called ahead and planned ahead to have a good job, because  I’ve been 10 years with my big oil company. I had a benefit from a company of vehicle.  I was doing well but I found and realized, I’m for a change in my life. and I called ahead, I was moving here to go to Bible School and I’m going to work part-time. Because I don’t have unlimited funds and I think I did the right things, and i have been called and lined out several job interview. I  was planning on and what I didn’t know was the economy took a dive from when I committed to come made all my plans within a month or to everything the world wide in 1982 was bad, and I got here and I was handed a lemon no job, no possible hopes of a job in

my field of training and expertise .And what am I going to do is  to  cry to my wife, am I going to grow ,now I’m away from home I have a family of five members , three small children, my wife and i.  Am I going to call my dad and cry to him and tell him how bad it is and could he help me? Or am I going to make lemonade out of this situation? That’s what I had to do, and It helped me learn how again to turn a bad situation into something’s better.

well in my case I happen to, you move here using my family car big old gas guzzling Pontiac, with a hitch on the back end and a horse trader, something suitable for hauling for horses. And this is big enough to put quite a few of our things, our washer machine and our dryer. And I don’t know if we put a refrigerator, I don’t think so because we didn’t think we needed that. Here we would get something here but our beds and all our clothes and I was a pretty good-sized trailer five feet by 16 feet.  what am I going to do no job I couldn’t get a job I started advertising in the paper, “let me help you move”. That was a temporary fit for my real situation of funds but I turned that into a business we made lemonade in the process of, in that moving business I learned a lot of things that was such a blessing to me, because it’s through that moving business that I learned a lot about my accounting, a lot about moving and dealing with people the customer. Because I was very close to people, because when you go into their homes and pick up all their furniture and empty out all their closets and put them in boxes, I mean you really get to know these people. I learned a lot about my employees and how to manage employees and how to pay employees.

when it was hard and how to and this is not that the upper crust of high education these are people, they’re great people don’t get me “wrong”, I have a great love and respect for them. But they didn’t go to college typically they’re not high graduates in their high school. Many people didn’t graduate from high school, so I’m dealing with people that never had a job before. And so it was extremely hard but extremely rewarding.

I was learning to make lemonade in the process we in particular, as example I had a piano we had moved this piano and we put it up on this higher level and in the process of it rolling down this three or four feet it got away from the workers. And it banged the end to the side of the wall or in this case the side of the truck and it puts some scratches and dents on it I mean it tore into the wood. The piano is okay but there’s some bad marks on it and I my goodness lemon, how can I make lemonade?

So, I immediately got on, I found a way to buy a repair kit got online and figured out how to study or read about it. I don’t know if a book came with it or not and figured out how to furnish fix furniture wood furniture, I still have that kind and I was able to fix that repair that I believe I told people about it, showed them to him but they were happy with it we did we didn’t look ugly I made lemonade from all the rest of my moving business career. I was still the main person, able to fix damaged furniture to most cases. Not all and able to make a happy customer even if I they didn’t even deserve that, like they didn’t pay extra insurance and we would go ahead and fix it for them because we felt like we had done that and   we would go the extra mile.

So how do you make lemonade?   I have seen it in travel quite a bit so boy occasionally, there’ll be somebody travelling and the flight something happened, and the flight was delayed and they’re going to miss their flight.  Some people come unglued and makes sure everybody sees them.  How mad they are, I’ve had that happen, why would I do that? I’m going to look for lemonade, I’m going to  look for somebody maybe God has me to connect with somebody, maybe I’m going to set by somebody maybe I shouldn’t been on that plane anyway maybe it is ,it’s better to not fight it so let’s look to make lemonade. I’m going to give just a little marriage counseling before you young people  that aren’t married you ought to see that future spouse and this could go either way husband or wife you ought to see them a little bit in the mud see what they’re going really be like when things are not going so well an airplane pilot that’s flying and they’ve got to make some instant reactions aluminous  is handed to them with an engine goes out. I want somebody that can make lemonade can land that dude well.

I hope these are helpful I am glad you’re a part of Inspiring Better Business we hope you will share these with others and make lemonade when you are handed a limit thank you.