Once Upon a Business – Episode 95
The Fox and The Grapes
Lisa Bloom: One day, a fox became very hungry. He went out to search for some food. He searched high and low, but couldn’t find anything to eat.
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.
Finally, as his stomach rumbled, the fox stumbled upon a farmer’s wall. At the top of the wall, he saw the biggest, juiciest grapes he’d ever seen. They were a rich purple, telling the fox they were ready to be eaten. To reach the grapes, the fox had to jump high in the air. As he jumped, he opened his mouth to catch the grapes, but he missed. The fox tried again, but missed once more. He tried a few more times, but kept failing. Finally, the fox decided to give up and go home. While he walked away, he muttered, I’m sure the grapes were sour anyway.
So this is where the term sour grapes comes from, when people describe a person who is discontented or can’t have what they want. I never knew that until I rediscovered this story recently. I have quite a strong reaction to the story. It reminds me of the worst thing we could have done in my childhood home, which is to be ungrateful or discontented with our lot. It was always important to be grateful and appreciative, no matter the situation. So hearing the story just feels wrong. Like the fox is bad to be so unhappy because he couldn’t get what he wanted, rather than say, well, that’s just the way it is and never mind, I’ll try again another day.
He has to justify his situation, as if saying that the grapes are probably sour makes it easier to walk away. The truth is that we all do this in one way or another in life and in business. How often have you lost a client and then justified to yourself that they weren’t that great to work with anyway, so no harm? Or have you had a situation where you didn’t win a new contract and decided that it was not the right time to take on something that big, that maybe you weren’t ready for it and it would have pushed you beyond your limits?
I’m not clear why we need to do that. Maybe it’s emotional immaturity, and that’s definitely a disadvantage in business. What’s wrong with just saying, oh, that’s a shame. I’m disappointed. I really wanted that. Emotional intelligence is critical to becoming successful in business. So this kind of tendency really needs to be overcome when we get grumpy and mopey because we didn’t achieve the goal and then run away from it because we’ve justified to ourselves why we shouldn’t have wanted it in the first place, well, it’s a lost opportunity.
In the story, the fox’s initial excitement and repeated attempts to reach the grapes illustrates a natural drive towards achieving a goal. We all have this ability to strive in this way. However, his final reaction to failure, claiming the grapes were sour, this is a defense mechanism that we all tend to use to minimize disappointment in business and in life. How can we build resilience and a more constructive approach to failure? Rather than rationalizing defeat, what do we learn from failures? I’ve often spoken of the importance of failure in business and yet the reluctance of people to share their failure stories. This story illustrates this.
I wonder how can we admit failure but continue to try again and again and yet again? The fox’s dismissal of the grapes as sour is an interesting illustration of how businesses might downplay the importance of a missed opportunity or a failed venture and end up inadvertently avoiding dealing with the actual shortcomings in their approach. Maybe the fox could never have reached the grapes, they were just too high. It’s a reminder that we need to create realistic goals and then continue to improve until we reach them. Also, the fox tried the same strategy multiple times and failed each time without adjusting his approach.
We need to take calculated risks and try new approaches. Innovation will often succeed where brute force fails, so there’s lots of lessons in this simple story. In the book where I found it, it said that the moral of the story is never despise what we can’t have. Nothing comes easy. I don’t agree with that conclusion. I think this story is about never giving up on your goals. You can strive and stretch and maybe you’ll be successful. And if you’re not, you can simply share your disappointment and your frustration and then start all over again.
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-coach.com. Once Upon a Business is part of the Mirasee FM Podcast Network, which also includes such shows as Making it and Consciousness Explored. To catch the great episodes that are coming up on Once Upon a Business, please like and 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.