Over coffee with a friend we chatted about life…. actually about the expectations we had of our lives and how they compared to reality. My friend made a comparison to Mother Goose stories. You enter phases of your life with a belief that you’ll follow a nursery rhyme storybook path. Thanks a lot Disney! Those expectations are only exacerbated by the “Facebook Effect” where everyone lives a life of carefully structured posts and perfectly posed photographs demonstrating the perfection of family, friends, and jobs.
As I sipped my coffee and nodded in agreement I thought to myself, are our lives more Mother Goose or Grimm?
Studying German in college introduced me to the Grimm Brothers which afforded me the chance to learn the origins of those well known fairy tales. I was surprised to learn that Rapunzel was knocked up, Rumpelstiltskin ripped himself in half during a fit of madness, and the Evil Queen in “Snow White” was sentenced to death by having her feet placed in burning shoes while others watched as she danced until she dropped dead.
The Grimm brother told stories of warning that were uncensored and also controversial. But they were more impactful and memorable to those who listened to the stories.
They are also more relatable. We associate more with the ugly and raw truth, not the unrealistic fairy tales that turn us into skeptics.
So when it comes to the stories we tell in business, should we focus on the fairy tale, or the Grimm story?