This is the third part of the inner Stone Soup story, where I reflect on the meaning behind the fable.
So at this point after getting doors shut in their faces, the travelers decided to take the smallest next step of borrowing a pot, gathering firewood, drawing water, and getting a stone.
As they were washing the stone, a villager got curious and stopped by.
“What are you doing?” the villager asked.
“Oh we are making stone soup,” replied the traveler.
“What is stone soup?”
“You know: soup with water and stone”
“Yuck that does not sound tasty! At least put some salt in it.”
“Would you happen to have any salt you can spare?”
“Yes, I do.”
The villager gave them some salt and left.
As the travelers started to build a fire, another villager saw them and stopped by.
“Hi, what are you doing?”
“We are making stone soup.”
“What’s in it?”
“Stone, water, and a bit of salt.”
“Wow, that is barely broth! At least put some potatoes in it.”
“Oh, can you share some with us?”
“Yes, here you go.”
Then as the travelers began to boil the water in the pot, another villager stopped by.
“What are you making?”
“We’re making stone soup. For now it has stone, water, salt, and some potatoes.”
You can imagine how the rest of the story goes on 🙂
I’m pausing here to say that at the beginning when the travelers were making soup with literally just stone and water, they looked like fools. Yet they’re trying something different.
So let me ask you this: have you ever been stuck, felt foolish, and yet took a risk and yet not know how it will work out? For example, I was part of a team that had low morale and toxic culture. I wanted to help but didn’t know what to do. I was a middle manager and I felt foolish to think that I have all the ingredients to bring about change on this team. So when a new team leader took over, I took a risk: I went to her to talk to her about the current situation and the need to build a new culture together. Surprisingly, she was willing to consider my ideas, partnered with me to gather the ingredients with other team members to transform the team to something we can all enjoy and contribute each of our special ingredients to.
How about you? Have you ever been stuck, felt inadequate or foolish, and took a risk even though you don’t know how it will work out? Let me know in the comments below.
Take care.