Creating from Lemons

I love to bake and I love to try new recipes. Today I got to do both. My business partner will be arriving from Minnesota tomorrow and will be our guest for several days as we prepare for a workshop this week-end. With the intention of preparing an easy treat to serve him, I thought I'd try a new recipe for Lemon Blossoms from Paula Dean's show on the Food Network.

The recipe looked simple and easy to make. The finished product was like a little mini lemon cupcake that is then covered with a lemony glaze. I love lemon anything, so I jumped into my project in between coaching clients this afternoon.

The batter amount was greater than what was needed to fill the mini pans half full. Since I don't like to waste, I filled them to the top, ignoring my intuition that they may be hard to get out of the pans.

Once again, my intuition was correct. Some of the itty bitty cupcakes had developed hats that broke off in the removal process, leaving the cupcakes looking a bit unsightly....not that any cupcake can really be unsatisfactory, they just didn't look like Paula's. Having invested my time, I was not going to give up on my project. I separated my tops (hats) and bottoms and glazed them all. They were equally delicious.....the ones that broke and the ones that came out of the pans intact.

So what does my baking mishap have to do with joyful leadership? Simple.....My lesson is that when things don't go exactly as planned, you should take a closer look. You may see another solution. It's fine to shift gears and adjust when the unexpected happens. Another lesson is to not judge things (or people) by their appearance. The overall taste, quality and delight of whatever or whomever can still be present, even though it is not what we expected to see.

My greatest lesson I created from lemons today is if we don't take chances and have new experiences, we may miss out on a delicious treat.....and a delicious life.