There’s an old wives tale that (like most stories with a moral) seems to entertain children, but holds a fascinating lesson for budding entrepreneurs. I’ll share:
A hungry spider monkey was wandering in the forest looking for food and came upon a glass jug with a piece of food in the bottom. He reached deep inside the jug and grabbed the food in his fist.
But, when he went to pull his hand and food out of the jar, he discovered that once his fist was closed, it was too big to fit through the mouth of the jug. He pulled and pulled and tugged and tugged for days and weeks on end, but he wouldn’t let go of the food. He forgot to sleep. He forgot to drink water. To the spider monkey, everything else in life slipped away. Nothing existed but the food in his hand and the problem of the jug.
Finally, the spider monkey died… He died holding on to that one piece of food. In the middle of a forest, teeming with berries and nuts and leaves and seeds and flower nectar and small bird eggs.
Hey, start-up business owner… what are you holding on to? JUST LET GO and DO the next right thing.
About Wendi McGowan