Stone Soup Story: Using OppThink to Transform Scarcity into Plenty

Many of you may have read or heard about the "Stone Soup" story. I heard a version on the radio not long ago here in Los Angeles. An entry on Wikipedia describes it as follows:

According to the story, some travelers come to a village, carrying nothing more than an empty pot. Upon their arrival, the villagers are unwilling to share any of their food stores with the hungry travelers. The travelers fill the pot with water, drop a large stone in it, and place it over a fire in the village square. One of the villagers becomes curious and asks what they are doing. The travelers answer that they are making "stone soup", which tastes wonderful, although it still needs a little bit of garnish to improve the flavor, which they are missing. The villager doesn't mind parting with just a little bit to help them out, so it gets added to the soup. Another villager walks by, inquiring about the pot, and the travelers again mention their stone soup which hasn't reached its full potential yet. The villager hands them a little bit of seasoning to help them out. More and more villagers walk by, each adding another ingredient. Finally, a delicious and nourishing pot of soup is enjoyed by all.

Look at how the story, when you analyze it, really is an excellent example of OppThink :

This fable can be thought of as "The Emperor's New Clothes" in reverse, where nothing is revealed to be something, after all. The original stone was only a pretext to start the villagers sharing in a way that they would not have considered without the catalyst of the "stone soup" that they thought they were improving.

Here is an OppThink way of looking at this story:
When something (S) of no real value (value=0)
is thought to have value=V by person X,
X may be willing to increase the value of S to V+X.
For every N persons (X1 to Xn) who think this way upon seeing S,
the value of S increases from 0 to V+X1+X2+X3+...+Xn.

Or, put another way (namely, English):

When nothing is thought of as something,
others want to make it an even better thing,
until it may eventually contain everything!

Now, just for fun, here's a Web 2.0 version of this:

When (a new website) is thought of as (the next big thing),
others want to make it an even (bigger site with more members/content),
until it may eventually contain (millions of members and user-generated contributions)!


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Here is another OppThink way of looking at the Stone Soup fable:

If you want to ask a person (P) for something (e.g., X=soup),
don't use the approach that you are asking P for X.
This is scarcity thinking.
Do the opposite.
Start with success thinking.
Do use the approach that you are sharing X with P!
Although you have no food now (Soup=0), use an OppThink pitch:
"add a little to my Soup now, you'll get a big bowl of Soup later."
In short, you're not asking P for food, you are offering to share food to P!
The mindset has been OppThinked from desperate scarcity to hopeful plenty.
P just needs to share a little garnish, or a little seasoning, or small food item.
P feels no pain in donating a little something, and P can even get some delicious food back.
If many people do this, the soup gets hearty, huge, and a heaping bowl can be given to all.

Note that last "if".
The stone soup approach needs the cooperation of many people in order to succeed.
Many people contributing small items to the non-existent soup makes a sensational soup.
This shows the power of group cooperation to achieve great results.
(And, by the way, it's the secret of a great potluck dinner, too!)

Analogy: all this can also apply to Web 2.0 social networking websites.
The more people sign up and contribute content to them, the more value the networks have,
which in turn leads to even more signups and content, hence even more value, and so on.
In short, it is a positive feedback loop.

Bottom line:
Given a powerful idea
and many people who believe in that idea,
who contribute things to build the idea into a real thing,
very useful creations (whether websites or inventions or dinner) can be achieved.