The Best Four Months of the Year

By Tricia Scott.

Four whole months of this year are still sitting there, unspent. The kids go back, the diary reopens, and the time comes back — which makes September, not January, the real New Year. So before we spend the best four months of the year on autopilot, four questions worth answering.

As the calendar flips to September, I will, as I do every single year, behave as though someone has handed me a brand-new pencil case.

You see, Autumn is my absolute favourite season. The light turns that perfect shade of gold, the jumpers come out (hurrah!), and everything smells faintly of Pumpkin Spice (I may have already bought my pumpkin-fragrance candles in preparation). The out-of-office comes down. Inboxes wake up. And four whole months of this year are still sitting there, unspent.

Not a countdown. A third of a year, carrying the potential for your best working energy in it.

September is the entrepreneurial New Year — the real New Year, whatever January likes to claim.

The kids go back. The diary reopens. The time comes back — actual, usable time to work ON the business instead of underneath it. If you have ever promised yourself a September reset, this is the fortnight it actually exists in. Everyone walks back into the room at once, and for a few glorious weeks LinkedIn feels exciting and hopeful.

I love trees (I know, total side quest, but bear with me here). I’m one of those people you’ll see staring up at a giant oak, hand on the bark, marvelling at the intricacies of its hundreds of years of weather-beaten growth, and how intelligent it is.

Because trees don’t merely grow. They decide.

The trees worked out long ago that change isn't a choice; it's essential to life. A tree doesn't turn gold in Autumn because it's giving up; it turns gold because it's decided. It stops sending resources out to the edges and pulls them back into itself, into the roots, into next year.

Four questions before you spend it

So before we spend the best four months of the year on autopilot — four questions:

What do you want from these four months?

What does your community need more of from you?

What do women need more of right now?

And what do you need more of?

If the answer that came back was, “Once things settle down,” they don't. That's not a season either.

Because you're a leader. Not in the LinkedIn-headline sense — in the actual sense. Your rate is somebody's benchmark. Your boundary is somebody's permission. Your voice in a room is the reason a woman two seats down decides she's allowed one too.

And that's exactly what The Female CEO is for. Not the pretty bits — the point.

We power women-led businesses, because a woman with money has options, and a woman with options changes things.

We take up space until it is the default, not the prize.

We say the names of women who aren't in the room yet — because a ladder you don't lower is just another wall.

None of that runs on good intentions. It runs on women deciding, this season, today, that they're the ones who do it.

So as the leaves change: what will you do? In your home. In your business. In your world.

Decide what these four months are made of.

Say her name.

Write the email.

Register the business.

It starts with us. It has always started with us.

So go on. Turn gold.

I believe in you (always).

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 Tricia Scott is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Female CEO — a global platform, magazine, and community dedicated to helping women build confident, aligned, powerful businesses.

A startup mentor and multi-company director, she’s spent the past decade helping women move from overwhelmed and isolated to empowered and intentional.

Most days, she’s juggling her MacBook, her next big idea, and a very necessary caffeine supply. Connect with her at thefemaleceo.com.