Tweet

Stone Soup

Guest post by: Eric Garner

Article Overview: I train people to become better team players and I also train trainers to use stories to get their points across. Here is an article that combines these two.

Stone Soup

For those of you are regulars of my newsletters, blogs and articles, you'll know that I love stories that coach. Stories that coach are great ways to learn. They are fun to listen to and easy to remember. And the best stories always bring a smile to people's faces and a glow to their hearts.

If you want to see what I mean, read the following story on teamwork. It's called "Stone Soup".

There exists a tale, handed down from times long ago, of two travelers on a pilgrimage. Hungry and tired from a long day's journey, they come to a small, impoverished village, where they decide to rest by the side of the road. One of the travelers builds a small fire, upon which he places a large pot, while the other, having drawn water from the town well, fills the pot and places into the vessel a simple stone. As the two men sit by the fire, bringing their "stone soup" to a boil, the local villagers become inquisitive of the curious antics of these strangers. Eventually, several townsfolk decide to investigate the matter and approach the two travelers to engage them in conversation.

Shortly thereafter, there is heard the sound of merriment, as the visitors, who turn out to be quite friendly, share their tales of the lands and people they have met throughout their journey and pilgrimage with the local villagers.

Finally, a young boy asks the travelers "But why, pray thee, are you boiling a stone?"

One of the pilgrims replies, "So we may eat stone soup."

"It must be terribly bland!" says an old woman. "But I have a cabbage, which will add some flavour!"

"And I, some carrots, which will add colour!" says another villager.

"Some potatoes!", offers another, until, shortly, by the contribution of a little by many, a hearty stew was made, upon which the entire village and the weary pilgrims dined... and while doing so, shared their tales, talents, and camaraderie throughout the night.

The very next day, the travelers (who by now could be called "strangers" no more), continued their journey, leaving the little town, and its people, behind. But the villagers never forgot them, and the lesson they had learned. In fact, during the hardest of times, in such a time as this tale, that little village thrived, because the townsfolk never forgot how to make "stone soup".

I love this story for its simplicity, truth, and wisdom. And, just like the villagers, I've added it to my article list in the hope that you, too, will never forget the lesson and pass the story on.

Related Articles
  Reality Internet Marketing It Takes Time to Build Your Internet Business Remember Magic Stone Soup
  There was a Fly in the soup!!! But they kept the customer
  Lesson #2: “So what if it’s just fun?”
  Lesson #5: “We’re holding on to the ship with our fingernails”
  Design Process - Concept Development
  Give Something Back
  Inspirational Leaders Love What They Do
  Design Process - Define the Problem
  Throwing Caution to the Winds
  Lesson #3: “There is something healthy about friendly competition”
  Making Soup from Stones
  A Grandmother Finds Hope After Devastation
  The SMS to Success: Texting Takes Twitter To New Heights
  Lesson #1: “Creativity comes from constraint”
  Define Your Business
  Here’s One REI Improvement That’s Worth Doing
  Where the Bible teaches us how to improve our cashflow
  STEPPING STONE GOALS
  Lesson #4: “We focus a lot on culture”
  Lesson #3: The Accidental Entrepreneur is No Accidental Success

Article Tags: teamwork



Related Forum Posts
Re: I'm A Winner!! - I have read the report on your site.Thanks for sharing it. Is Stone Evans part of your menthor
Hi! - Hi everyone! I'm Laura from Platinum Staffing Solutions. Like the saying goes, "when the student is ready, the teacher will appear", I guess I'm ready! I'm looking forward to reading and posting/ meeting like minded entrepreneurs, this a first for me. I'm usually reading, studying or attending workshops locally, it's time to step up the game. I own PlatinumStaffingSolutions.ca, as I've mentioned, I started my own company over two years ago to be able to do what I know how to do with the integrity that lacked where I was previously working. It's a *people* centered agency that keeps the best interests of both the professional and the hiring company in mind. It's a tough industry, especially right now, any leads or referrals would be appreciated. Business-wise I'm very big into Napoleon Hill, Wallace Wattles, W. Clement Stone, Genevieve Berhendt, Florence Shinn - all of the late/greats; I'm wary of the modern writers but still like to read what applies to keep learning or see different perspectives; no one theory of success applies to every business out there. Hopefully you'll drop me a line and see ya' on the boards!
Book: The 1-Minute Millionaire: The Enlightened Way to Wealt - Book:The One Minute Millionaire: The Enlightened Way to Wealth Robert G. Allen (co-author of Chicken Soup for the Soul) 2002 Jacket: Is it possible to make a million dollars in only one minute? The answer just might surprise you. [This book] is an entirely new approach, a life changing "millionaire system" that will teach you how to: 1. Create wealth even when you have little or nothing to start with 2. Use the power of leverage to build wealth rapidly 3. Overcome fears so you can take reasonable risks Use "one minute" habits to build wealth over the long term ...Here are two books in one, fiction and non-fiction, designed to address two kinds of learning so you can fully integrate these life-changing lessons. On the right-hand side pages you will find the fictional story of a woman who has to make a million dollars in ninety days or lose her two children forever. The left-hand pages give the practical, step-by-step non-fiction strategies and techniques that actually work in the real world.
No guru is an island - In life we always look toward some men to solve our problems for us. We always put men on higher pedestals than ourselves. If only we know that there are no gurus out there. If only we know that whatever any of the gurus achieve we can achieve it and do better then we would look inwards to get things done ourselves. If you will be able to pay the price they pay, you will get there. Have you not seen the protégé that surpass his/her mentor? They are important to help us achieve our goals, but we should never make them our tin gods. They can make mistakes. If we rate them higher than necessary we will never believe we can be better than them. I have learnt that the so called gurus got to where they are today through hard work and learning. If you can pay the same price they pay. You will get there as soon as possible. How many times the guru had been wrong? If J.K. Rowlings listened to the advise of the expert we will not have Harry Potter’s series today. The Chicken Soup for the Souls first edition was rejected 33 times. Bill Gates said “The Internet? We are not interested in it” in 1993. This shows that the gurus can be wrong. So no guru is an Island. You can achieve anything in life if you put your heart to it. There is no guru that is better than you. You have also what it takes to be another guru yourself. You have all it takes to succeed just like them. You are solely responsible for your life. Don’t blame anybody. Don’t blame the gurus. Don’t say they are not available to help you out. Don’t say they reject your offer to do JV with you. You are to take them from the pedestal you place them and take your life and destiny into your hand. Stop the blame game. Don’t blame anybody but yourself for your misfortune. Your life and destiny is in your own hand. No guru is an island. No guru has a monopoly of ideas and hindsight. The good thing about the age we live in is we have access to the information they use to make exploit. The gurus are even good and generous enough to teach people their secret. If you can duplicate what they do you will get to where they are. You will even do better, because you will not make the mistakes they had made in the past. It is now time for you to begin to believe in your own judgment. I have been advised by my mentor in the past and I knew inwardly that it will not work. I listen to the mentor against my judgment and I lost a lot of money. Now I know better than to trust my instincts when making decisions. This is what you should be doing. It is your life and the decision you make will only affect you not your mentor.
Profile: Julia Cameron: journalist, screenwriter, poet, nove - Julia Cameron will be one of our featured speakers at the Ladies Who Launch NYC Speaker Series taking place on April 28. Click for more info. Julia Cameron is an accomplished journalist, screenwriter, poet, novelist, and playwright. But mention her name in conversation and inevitably it will be linked with The Artist's Way, a workbook for those looking to discover or re-discover their creative selves, which was initially published in 1992 and has sold over 3 million copies. Cameron grew up in Chicago and began her career writing for the Washington Post and Rolling Stone (where she met director Martin Scorsese, whom she married in 1975 and later divorced). While married to Scorsese, she worked on the screenplays for two of his major films: Taxi Driver and New York, New York. Cameron's first musical, Avalon, was staged in 1998. At 60, Cameron continues to follow the advice she espouses in The Artist's Way: jotting down her thoughts daily in her "morning pages" and channeling her artistic vision into a variety of projects. Below, read how Cameron fends off writer's block (yes, even she suffers from it sometimes), calls on friends for guidance, and dispels the myth that writers need to be miserable to be good. what we learned from julia: "If you're good at doing one thing, you should keep doing it. In England, writers are novelists, playwrights—the word 'writer' covers a wider spectrum of activity." She also said to take a bet on yourself; she did, and it's paid off. her true calling "I was born to write. All my brothers and sisters—there are seven of us altogether—are in the arts. My father was in advertising and mom had a master's degree in English and wrote poetry. By the time I was in sixth grade with Mrs. Klopsch, I was already writing short stories and poems." investigating journalism "My goal was to write short stories. When I was offered a job at the Washington Post, it seemed like a good way to kill two birds with one stone. I enjoy writing in any form. I was proud of my Rolling Stone pieces. I wrote one about E. Howard Hunt's children. I remember getting in trouble with William F. Buckley. He called my house in Chicago because he thought it was a terrible thing I'd interviewed the children—he was their godfather. My first taste of celebrity was getting a good scolding. During my 20s I was a blind beginner. In my 30s I was a lot more conscious about what I wrote." screenwriting savvy "My early screenwriting was for my husband at the time, Martin Scorsese. I worked on Taxi Driver and on New York, New York. When Marty and I got divorced, I had a screenwriting career to pursue. I sold movies to Paramount. They bought the movie but didn't make it. I was frustrated, so I took the money I earned writing for Miami Vice and made a feature film in Chicago." sobering experience "1978 is the year that I got sober. My wild ways came screeching to a halt. I needed to find a way to write sober. I had always associated writing with drinking. We have a mythology around creativity that's destructive. We think you have to be broke, alone, neurotic, addicted. None of these things is true. When I got sober, I had to find a way to work soberly. I was 29, and I had a daughter who was a year old." do it for love, not money "I've never had to be paid to write. I published two novels. I have a musical opening in Chicago in the fall. Last year I had a play in L.A. The trick is to not need a guarantee and to be willing to write no matter what. Right now I'm writing a sequel to [my novel] Mozart's Ghost, which came out on Valentine's Day. I did the novel without a contract. I bet on myself." the power of friendship "It helps if you have friends who believe in you. My friends read my first drafts. A lot of times they will believe in a project when I'm getting rejected. We underestimate the importance of having one strong friend. The telephone is a wonderful ally to combat the isolation of being a writer, as is e-mail. If you know what your friends are doing, it's harder to feel lonely. I also think writing is its own companion. You're not lonely when you're actually writing." a typical day, the artist's way "I get up late. If I can, it's noon. I write my morning pages first thing. I ask for guidance and sit quietly and see if there's anything I need to be doing. I usually work on the music [for my upcoming musical]. I have a collaborator, Emma Lively, and we've written three musicals together. We work for a few hours. Then I put in a couple hours of prose writing. I sometimes don't get out of the house until 5:30. I try to get a walk in every day." overcoming writer's block "I use the same unblocking tools that I teach my students. They make you much more alert to the signals. I grapple with writer's block right away. Morning pages [three pages of writing about anything that comes to your head] are one such tool. I've been writing them for 25 years. In The Artist's Way, I also write about "blasting through blocks." By listing any angers, fears, and resentments related to a project, that often clears the decks right away. Emma and I have been hired to write music for a one-woman show. I feel blocked around it. I take a look at my ego—I'm not used to working FOR people anymore. I need to be a beginner again. Hopefully once I surrender my need to be the boss, it'll work out." favorite books "Tim Farrington is my favorite writer. He's written two books—The Monk Downstairs and The Monk Upstairs. He's so funny and deft, and he was the inspiration for me to write Mozart's Ghost. I dedicated the book to him." daily must-reads "I read a little teeny book called Twenty-Four Hours a Day that was put out by Hazelden. It's a meditation book. I also read Creative Ideas by theologian Ernest Holmes, which was originally published in 1934. They just re-released it, and I wrote the intro. Right now I'm reading My First Five Husbands by Rue McClanahan and Drinking: A Love Story, a memoir by Caroline Knapp." most rewarding career moment "I think I'm sort of singular in that I like book tours. I meet people who say I used your tools and they changed my life and this is what I did with them." scariest career moment "Watching my first musical go up in 1998. It's scary. I just heard the music so beautifully in my head that it was hard to deal with some of the compromises of getting it on the stage. I was sitting in the back of the theater saying, 'It's brilliant. It's awful." on networking "I think it's most important that we do the work and then have something to network about. Sometimes people want networking to be a shortcut or a guarantee. Networking gives you a sense of the possible. I have a number of women friends in their 70s and 80s and they are a tremendous source of inspiration. One runs a horse ranch. One got a master's in poetry at 75. One is in her 80s and is still an active actress. I believe that other women are inspirational." parting thoughts... -"I am happiest when ... I'm writing." -"Success to me means ... creativity." -"The public figure I wish most would read The Artist's Way is ... Warren Beatty. I don't know if he has." -"I will always think of myself as ... a good horseback rider." -"My business would not have happened if ... I waited for guarantees." -"The most important thing I do every day is ... stay sober. I have 30 years without a drink." This Featured Lady was profiled by Michele Shapiro, a writer living in New York City.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Fighting the Saw-Tooth Affect

Four Reasons Why Entrepreneurs Should Blog

Are You Listening?

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.