The Lemonade Life

How to Fuel Success, Create Happiness, and Conquer Anything

Zack Friedman

• Publisher: HarperCollins Leadership
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781400211609
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Personal Success

The secret to an extraordinary life starts with five simple changes that anyone can make.

In this groundbreaking book, Zack Friedman starts with a fundamental question: What drives success? It's not only hard work, talent, and skill. The most successful people have one thing in common,?the power to flip five internal "switches." We all have these five switches, and when activated, they are the secret to fuel success, create happiness, and conquer anything.

The Lemonade Life is filled with inspirational and practical advice that will teach you:

• Why you should write yourself a $10 million check
• Why your career depends on the Greek alphabet
• Why you need?ikigai?in your life
• How Judge Judy can help you have better work meetings
• How these twenty questions will change your life

Learn from the entrepreneur who failed 5, 126 times before becoming a billionaire, the fourteenth-century German monk who helped reinvent Domino's Pizza, the technology visionary who asked himself the same question every morning, the country music icon who bought more than one hundred million books, and the ice cream truck driver who made $110, 237 in less than one hour.

With powerful stories and actionable lessons, this book will profoundly change the way you live, lead, and work. Your path to greatness starts with a simple choice. Everyday, you're choosing to live one of two lives: the Lemon Life or the Lemonade Life. Which life will you lead?

SWITCH #1

P IS FOR PERSPECTIVE

Change your outlook to change your possibilities

2

MEET THE LEMON LIFERS

I want to introduce you to three people you already know.

You’ve met them before, somehow and somewhere: they are your neighbor, your colleague, a parent at your child’s school, a friend of a friend at a backyard barbecue. You’ve watched them at a cocktail party or at your family reunion. You may know them from the gym or from your book club. You’ve surely had dinner with them before.

You may even be one of them.

I’m talking about Lemon Lifers. It’s easy to spot Lemon Lifers because they are everywhere.

There are three main types of Lemon Lifers:

• Eternal Excusers

• Steady Settlers

• Change Chasers

Let’s meet them again for the first time.

The Eternal Excuser

Eternal Excusers have endless reasons for why they can never lead the Lemonade Life. It’s too much work. It’s too much time. It’s only for rich people. Their negative mind-set is their own worst enemy. Eternal Excusers spend more time worrying about doing something than actually doing something.

At their core, they are the ultimate complainers. They invented the buzz-kill. They see rain clouds on a sunny day, point out the problems with an offered solution, and usually attribute winning to luck.

From their front-porch rocking chair to the confines of their sofa, action is not their middle name. They love to give their opinion, especially when you’re not asking for it. They are somehow experts on everything (a.k.a. nothing), but when it’s their turn to jump in, they suddenly get cold feet.

Eternal Excusers have expectations about how life “should” be. When those expectations fall short, Eternal Excusers become frustrated. Until they remove their psychological roadblocks and transform their way of thinking, Eternal Excusers cannot lead the Lemonade Life.

Eternal Excuser at a Glance

WHO: Your cynical friend, parent, colleague, or neighbor who could never do that because it’s just too much time, effort, and money.

TAGLINE: “The system is rigged.”

HAPPINESS DERIVATION: Eternal Excusers gain comfort from their “us versus them” cocoon and gain power from criticizing other people, places, and things from the safety of their stoop, balcony, or office watercooler.

FIRST QUESTION AT A BACKYARD BBQ: They don’t ask questions because they don’t care what you have to say. But they’ll be first to respond to your statements with “Yeah, but . . .” or “I would have done that, too, if only . . .”

MOST LIKELY TO TELL YOU: That you have a greater chance of being struck by lightning than winning the lottery. However, they still play the lottery regularly and haven’t been struck by lightning (yet).

Eternal Excusers make all types of excuses. Here are the five most common:

Five Most Common Excuses from an Eternal Excuser

Excuse #1: It’s too hard.

Eternal Excusers love to quit before the race begins. Since they magnify roadblocks, they make easy tasks hard and hard tasks harder. Everything is more challenging than it needs to be, and the weight of a challenge crushes the Eternal Excuser’s spirit. Here’s the thing: few things are as hard as they seem. Even if you think something is hard, there’s always a solution, and it’s up to you to find one.

This excuse is about lack of creativity and determination.

Excuse #2: It takes too much energy.

Eternal Excusers operate on limited energy. They don’t approach life with vigor. Molehills seem like mountains, and mountains take substantial energy to climb. Eternal Excusers have more energy than they realize, but they can only unleash it when they understand their full potential.

This excuse is about lack of motivation.

Excuse #3: I didn’t go to a good school.

The school you attended or didn’t attend isn’t the singular predictor of career achievement. Do you know how many millionaires, billionaires¹, and other successful people didn’t go to college, dropped out of college, or didn’t attend the “right” school? Eternal Excusers like to find reasons why they can’t do something, and lack of formal credentials is an easy excuse on which to rely.

This excuse is about lack of self-appreciation and self-respect.

Excuse #4: I don’t know how to do that.

Guess what? Neither does anyone else. Eternal Excusers create knowledge barriers, as if everyone is born knowing everything. Like Bill Gates used to program mainframe computers as a toddler. The biggest myth about smart and successful people is that they know everything. What separates them from Eternal Excusers is that they’re not afraid to trust in themselves to do the work to learn more. They’re not afraid to admit they don’t know everything, or anything, on a given topic. They read, ask questions, take classes, and find a mentor to ensure they level the playing field. In the end, they’ll know more than everyone else, even if it didn’t start out that way.

This excuse is about lack of trust in yourself.

Excuse #5: It takes too much time.

Eternal Excusers cite time as a common excuse, as if they have so many other things going on in their life that warrant more attention. We all operate in the same confines of a twenty-four-hour day. However, it’s how you prioritize your time that counts. Do you value your time? If you want something badly enough, you’ll find time to make it happen. You’ll rearrange your schedule to give up something to gain something. You’ll invest the time, energy, focus, determination, and dedication to reach your destination. Eternal Excusers should ask whether they’re devoting the greatest number of hours to the most important things.

This excuse is about lack of prioritization and self-discipline.

Five Signs That You May Be an Eternal Excuser

Now that you know the favorite excuses of an Eternal Excuser, here are five signs to determine if you are one:

It’s them, not you.

Everything that happens to you is because of other people. They wronged you in some way. They prevented you from getting what you want.

The problem with this mentality? There’s no personal accountability. You don’t own up to your role. You don’t take responsibility for your actions. It’s always someone else’s fault. Until you take responsibility for your choices and decisions, the blame game is an easier deflection strategy. It’s a defensive posture, so you don’t have to carry the burden of real work. The irony is that when you take ownership and admit your faults, that’s when the burden is lifted. Accountability is the greatest form of freedom. You have control of your own destiny, and you’re responsible for all that results from your actions.

It’s easier in the short term to point the finger at others than point it at yourself.

It’s impossible for the little guy to win.

It’s all rigged. All of it. The stock market. Politics. Your job. They run the world, and you don’t. They make all the money, and you don’t. They take credit while you get none. They always win, and you always lose. You have no options but to operate in their world.

It’s a defeatist attitude, but all too common. This mentality is a losing one. You’ve diminished your own stature by making yourself the little guy. You’ve conditioned your mind to believe that you’re weaker than you are, slower than you are, and less powerful than you are. Your incessant complaining has stifled your progress, and you’ve taught yourself to just accept whatever life throws at you. Life is happening to you. You are in a state of receipt, not of taking.

It’s not me against the world—it’s the world against me.

You like to opine from the sideline.

You have a lot to say about everything. You think you’re in the know. You’re eager to share your thoughts with anyone who will listen, but those thoughts rarely elevate the target. Rather, you prefer to criticize, comment, or tease. When it’s your turn to act, you ...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Introduction: Lunch with Warren Buffett
• Welcome to the Lemonade Life
• Switch #1: P is for Perspective
• Switch #2: R is for Risk
• Switch #3: I is for Independence
• Switch #4: S is for Self-Awareness
• Switch #5: M is for Motion
• Conclusion: Lead the Lemonade Life
• Discussion Questions
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Index
• About the Author
• About Make Lemonade