Image by Ioan Sameli via Flickr

After reading countless stories about deals that fell through -  I want to share with you a famous story that I resented reading, but in retrospect have found comforting.

Ping - A Frog in Search of a New Pond by Stuart Avery - tells of a frog who needs a new  pond and finds an owl who agrees to be his guide and mentor.  For years the frog trains with the owl to make his great leap over a vast waterfall to a bigger pond.

The owl gives the frog wisdom, discipline, tough and cryptic challenges - they bond, the frog gets stronger and better and you think it is going to turn out like the Karate Kid but it doesn’t.

On the day of the great leap the frog bounds in the air with perfection. As he is sailing across the great waterfall with the Owl watching proudly a hawk drops from the sky and swoops the Owl away digging its great claws into the Owl’s back.

The frog sees this in horror, loses his balance and crashes into the gushing waterfall.  Fighting to live, his little body crashes against rock and water - gets banged and submerged and suffocated. Then the frog suddenly thinks of the Owl’s lessons and lets go as his teachings would remind him.

He stops fighting and struggling, stops flailing against the current and lets the experience wash over him as painfully as it might be .  His instinct kicks in and then he lives.  End of story.

This is entrepreneurship and the struggle of small business to survive.  Sometimes you leap and sail, sometimes you leap and crash but as long as you live and learn, you’re good to go.

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