The Sweet Refreshing and Satisfying Taste of Redundancy?

A Review of Lemonade  the movie

As a Career Coach I am always looking out for the latest and most creative material that will benefit my clients.  So I spend a lot of time reading books and blogs from around the world.  I was very excited last week when I finally received the much anticipated “Lemonade” movie in the post. Like many people I had seen the You Tube trailer and knew that the film had to be watched in full.  The film was created by Erik Proulx who now runs a very successful website (pleasefeedtheanimals.com) providing support and job information to advertising professionals in the US.

If I was handing out Oscars this film would be a shoe in. The film is a documentary about a number of US advertising professionals who were made redundant during this “Great Recession”.  The title “Lemonade” sums the movie up well. Lemons can taste sour, bitter, the can give a citrus sting and the citrus can really hurt! These are very similar words we use to describe the emotions we experience when being made redundant. Lemonade on the other hand is refreshing, sweet and satisfying. This is where the opportunity of redundancy can lead you to – a change, new enjoyable challenges and more job satisfaction than ever before.

Here are some points beautifully illustrated in the film:

• People react differently to being made redundant.  Here are some emotions conveyed in the film:  Shock (totally unexpected), ashamed  and embarrassed, feel worthless and unwanted, let down, think everyone else knows, sad, depressed, angry, complete denial, felt that their employers were cold, insincere and heartless, stressed over  money and breaking the news to their family and even joy and relief.
• After you start to come to terms with your situation the film suggests that your life is no longer traveling in the same direction as before. This is a great opportunity for you to stop, think and decide what direction you choose to go. Redundancy can be a clean slate, an opportunity to do something new and inspiring!
• Many important aspects in our life that have been neglected during our working years resurface. Spending “Quality” time with your family and being present at your children’s school plays etc.  One contributor describes the feelings he felt when he found out his daughter had Cystic Fibrosis and we are reminded that there are worse things that can happen to us than redundancy. It is important to look around us and appreciate that in the big scale of things we are in fact lucky for what we have. The Haiti earthquake for me has really touched my heart and made me feel very blessed to have all the wonderful things that I have.  Donations to Haiti can be made here – Donate now to support UNICEF’s response to children in need.
• The film looks at the wonderful opportunities that many of these redundant advertising agency staff seized since their redundancy. We have a high energy Yoga Teacher and Nutritionist, A Painter, A Coffee Roaster and Distributor, A Website owner and even an individual that had the courage to change gender!  Yes, there are some truly uplifting stories here.

So many lessons can be learned from watching Lemonade.  Here are my main ones – Put your energy into the things you love and see what happens.  This is an opportunity to go back to where you were in the past and start a fresh.  As the film’s slogan states – when you get laid off “it’s not a pink slip” you receive “it’s a blank page”.

More details on this film and where it can be purchased available at – http://lemonademovie.com

I’ll leave you with a quote –

“Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.”– Confucius

Good luck with your job search, believe and try to do things you love to do often!