Once Upon a Business – Episode 82
The Fox and the Cat
Lisa Bloom: It happened once that the cat met Mr. Fox in the woods, and because she thought he is clever and experienced in all the ways of the world, she addressed him in a friendly manner. Good morning, dear Mr. Fox. How are you? And how do you get along in these hard times?
Hi, I’m Lisa Bloom, the story coach, and you’re listening to Once Upon a Business. In each episode we explore a story, a fairy tale, folk tale, or traditional story, so that we can discover the amazing lessons relevant for business and for entrepreneurs.
The fox, full of pride, looked at the cat from head to foot for some time, hardly knowing whether he would deign to answer or not. At last he said, oh, you poor whistler wiper, you piebald, you starveling mouse hunter. What has come into your head? How dare you ask me how I’m getting on? What sort of education have you had? How many arts are you master of?
Only one, said the cat meekly. And what might that be? Asked the fox. When the hounds run after me, I can jump into a tree and save myself. Is that all? Said the fox. I am a master of a hundred arts, and I have a sack full of cunning tricks in addition. But I pity you. Come with me and I’ll teach you how to escape the hounds. Just then, a huntsman came along with four hounds. The cat sprang trembling into a tree and crept stiff stealthily up to the topmost branch, where she was entirely hidden by twigs and leaves.
Open your sack, Mr. Fox. Open your sack. Cried the cat. But the hounds had gripped him and held him fast. Oh, Mister Fox. Cried the cat. You with your hundred arts and your sack full of tricks are caught while I, with my one, am safe. Had you been able to climb up here, you wouldn’t have lost your life.
This was a story by The Brothers Grimm. I really enjoy this kind of story. Simple and very typical of the Grimms brothers. The animals speak and have human characteristics, and the lesson for human behavior is clear. And yet there’s always more to learn, more layers to dig into. The story speaks of the value of simplicity. The cat’s one trick is more useful than the fox’s bag of tricks that don’t manage to save him in his hour of need.
So for business, we can understand that knowing how to do one thing really well should be enough. We don’t need the bag of tricks. I’m not sure that’s true. Yes, we need to have deep expertise in one area. But I think it’s important to have at least a rudimentary understanding of many aspects of business. For example, I’m a storyteller, but I also need to know how to design the courses that I offer and how to speak on the stages I’m invited to. I need to understand marketing and sales and I need to be able to run the business.
And yes, I can hand off all of that at a certain stage, but starting out, most entrepreneurs are a one person show and they need to get the business to a certain level before they can afford to hire staff or other companies to fulfill on the functions that’s not their forte and they’d rather pass on. I remember starting out as a coach. I just wanted to coach. I thought it’s what I’m really good at. But I realized that I also need to sell my coaching and that felt really hard at first. I specifically remember talking to my coach about it. I said, can’t I just hire someone to sell my coaching for me? She said, maybe at some stage, but right now, if you can’t sell your coaching, then you can’t train anyone else to sell it. You have to know how to do it first. I think it’s a really important lesson for every business owner.
From another perspective, though, knowing your limitations, what you struggle to do and what you’re really good at is really important as an entrepreneur. I used to do a newsletter in the first few years of my business that I would send out to my list each week. It would take me about 45 minutes to write the story and all the other content, and then it would take me about three or 4 hours to get it set up in the system, to make it look good, and to make sure that the tech was set up properly. Finally, I realized that I was just crap at doing that part of it, and I asked my virtual assistant to take it on. After she’d done it a few times, I asked her how long it took and she told me on average, 20 minutes. That was her expertise and I needed to stay solidly in the realms of my own.
So the lesson that the cat teaches us in the story is to be clear about your one trick, what you’re really good at, and if you can, stick with it and get others to help you to do the other stuff. But there’s a deeper lesson in the story, and it’s all about the attitude of the cat and of the fox. The cat is humble and friendly. She says about the fox, he’s clever and experienced in all the ways of the world, which may have been true, but in reality, the fox was really arrogant and patronizing. It even took him time to decide if he would bother to answer the cat.
And when he did, it was in an offensive and dismissive way. He said, how dare you ask how I’m getting on? I hate that term. How dare you? I heard it often in my childhood and it makes my skin crawl. It was in that moment where I was being shamed by someone that it was used. I think in the old days they believed that shame was a great educator. The only education I got from being shamed was self-doubt and the realization that I never want to shame anyone else. It’s one of the most painful emotions.
But it’s also fox’s arrogance that teaches one of the biggest lessons in the story. The story is telling us that when you’re arrogant, you’ll get caught. The fox is so distracted by his arrogance that he ends up being eaten by the hounds. And so the story teaches us that we need to be humble and nimble. The cat responds quickly when the hunter comes, so she can jump into the tree without any thought. But the fox is busy with his arrogance and his choice of so many tricks that he doesn’t actually do anything and is caught.
This also speaks to me of the entrepreneur that’s so busy with the marketing promises, with the grandiose ideas of success, that they don’t spend the time to actually do the work, to become the expert and to be able to deliver on the promise. I remember a few years ago, a well-known marketer in the online space created a course that had an incredible promise of business growth. Everyone I knew in the industry was taking this course. We were all wowed by the promise and the amazing language used to describe the promise.
I actually didn’t take the course as I was working with a different coach at the time, but I remember a few months after it started, I spoke with a friend of mine about it. She joined the program impressed like the rest of us by the incredible promise in the marketing. But she said that the actual content and delivery was very disappointing. I remember we had a long discussion about the lack of integrity when the promise doesn’t meet the delivery. It was actually a great lesson for me, not just in assessing other people’s offers, but also for myself, to make sure that I’m not just focusing on selling my services, but always doing what it takes to make sure I’m offering the very best value in the program itself.
As with all Grimms Brothers’ stories, the stakes are high. The fox gets gobbled up by the hands and the cat lives to tell the tale in business. We don’t usually lose our lives for the sins of our arrogance, but we can pretty easily get gobbled up by the more humble entrepreneur who works from a space of integrity and truth. As always, the story shows us the way.
I’m Lisa Bloom, and you’ve been listening to Once Upon a Business. You can find out more about me at story-coach.com. That’s story dash coach dot com. Once Upon a Business is part of the Mirasee FM podcast Network, which also includes such shows as Making It and Behind the Launch. To catch the great episodes that are coming up on Once Upon a Business, please follow us on Mirasee FM’s YouTube channel or your favorite podcast player. And if you enjoyed the show, please leave us a comment or a starred review. It’s the best way to help us get these ideas to more people.
Thank you. We’ll see you next time.