The American fairy tale is an interesting animal. When you look at how different cultures tell stories, the American way stands out from the crowd - it’s really fascinating.

I grew up reading mythology, fairy tales, fantasy, all kinds of stories. Kind of handy, I guess, since much of what I do now is just that - telling stories that teach a lesson.

I recently became intrigued by this fairy tale phenomenon. Here’s what I found when I began to compare cultural differences.

Russian fairy tales and folk stories have a strong undercurrent of fatalism - “What will be, will be.” They aren’t hopeless by any means, but they’re not as much ‘fun’ as many other cultures.

Arabian stories focus on deception and cunning. Outsmarting the opponent is the underlying thread in these stories, and these stories are frequently bloodthirsty. Aladdin, Ali Baba and the 40 thieves,etc. are not similar to the ‘disneyfied’ American versions of these stories.

German folk tales (Brothers Grimm, for instance) are the inspiration for many of the American stories, but they’re almost unrecognizable by the time American children hear them. The German versions are often dark, gory, and they often have -horrible- endings.

Greek mythology focused on the capricious nature of the gods, and they minimize the accomplishments of ‘normal’ people, instead focusing on those who are lucky enough to be god-born.

That’s a decent sampling - on to the point.

American folk tales and ‘absorbed’ fairy tales follow an unusual path among these disempowering missives from other cultures. Here’s the formula I’m recognizing - Disney’s ‘Cinderella’ will suffice for my example.

1. Hardship/Hard work (Years of servitude under wicked stepmother)

2. Crisis (Things become unbearable after being forbidden to attend the ball)

3. Opportunity (Fairy godmother, of course!)

4. Willingness to stop analyzing and take action. (Does a fairy godmother make sense? Not much!)

5. Change of circumstances/Climax (Even though things are changing, events don’t turn out as expected. Leaves ball, loses slipper. Cinderella gets locked in the tower so she can’t try on the slipper when the prince comes.)

6. Resolution through ingenuity, playing to strengths (Cinderalla’s friendliness to the mice means they help her from the tower just in time.)

We’ve all heard people talk about a ‘fairy-tale life’, and often with resentful tones. Consider it may be more true than you realized! Most successful businesspeople have been flat broke more than once, and they kept working, did things and made decisions no one around them believed would work. They jumped at opportunities, and most stayed ‘unrealistically optimistic’, always focusing on the future.

Fairy tale lives can be had, and they often are. Just keep in mind the mental skills required to live them!

Jeremy