"... the basic premise is that a chicken eats lunch one day, and believes the sky is falling down because an acorn falls on her head. She decides to tell the King, and on her journey meets other animals who join her in the quest. In most retellings, the animals all have rhyming names such as Henny Penny, Cocky Lockey and Goosey Loosey. Finally, they come across Foxy Loxy, a fox who offers the chicken and her friends his help.

After this point, there are many endings. In the most famous one, Foxy Loxy eats the chicken's friends, but the last one, usually Cocky Lockey, survives long enough to warn the chicken and she escapes. 

...The moral is usually interpreted to mean "do not believe everything you are told"...The Chicken jumps to a conclusion and whips the populace into mass hysteria, which the unscrupulous fox uses to manipulate them for his own benefit, some times as supper."

So what does this mean to us as entrepreneurs?  Just because banks are failing, venture capital is drying up, and unemployment is skyrocketing, should we conclude that the sky is falling?  Is this the end of capitalism as we know it?  Sure, this could be a bad one.  Really bad.  But I am betting not.  While this is not going to be a typical recession by any means, my gut tells me that it will not be a depression either.

In the fable, the sly fox is seen as cunning and crafty and manipulates the Chicken and her friends' hysteria into a tool to his own end: Dinner.  We can all look at this tale from a distance and chuckle that a hen thought an acorn was the sign of the sky falling.   Stupid Chicken.  Clueless Chicken.  Chicken lacks perspective.  Chicken lacks a worldly view.  Chicken over-reacts.

But what are we?  Maybe WE are Chicken Little.

Just because the market has fallen 40%, is that the end?  It is really about where it was 10 years ago, thus creating the so-called "lost decade of stocks".  Real estate has plummeted, but only to levels before the unsustainable rush of the past 4 years.  And jobs are being cut, but perhaps that is reflecting some of the fat on companies gained over the past 7 years of stellar growth.  Maybe the acorns hitting our heads are just that - acorns - and not the sky itself.  That does not mean that getting hit by 150 acorns at once does not hurt, it does.  But it still does not represent the sky falling.

And who is the fox in our story?  Maybe it is the investors buying the stocks we sell because we are afraid and are rushing into cash.  Maybe it is the home buyers buying homes being sold in foreclosure or at a loss.  Maybe it is the investors putting money into startups at crazy-low valuations.  (Note:  I am not anti-VC at all - many are class acts.  Some are not and will take advantage of you if they can).  There are always foxes out there ready to slyly take advantage of Chicken Littles.

So what does this mean to an entrepreneur?  Keep your wits.  Stay focused.  Believe in yourself.  Manage your cash carefully.  And keep positive, because if you ask me, the sky is NOT falling.