The Grasshopper offered this little sprig of mint for my mental iced tea: “Adaptation is a catalyst for continued creation.”

The alternate message seems to be that when we don’t adapt, we get stuck in stale. Creativity comes to a halt.

Creativity isn’t linear. We seem to want a formula – 7 steps. From my experience, creativity doesn’t work that way. In fact, the steps seem to get in the way because we forget to adapt to changing circumstances the current steps don’t fit.

I’m a photography buff and I’ve heard this exact same suggestion from a number of landscape photographers. If the scene you’ve decided to take a picture of just isn’t looking good to your eye, turn around and look behind you. There may be a previously unnoticed gem just waiting for you. That’s adaptation spurring potential creativity. Many will continue to photograph the first scene over and over again, getting the same unsatisfying results.

Failure to adapt will give you a steady diet of brick dust.

It’s like the basketball coach who inherits a team that is highly adept at playing at a very fast pace and attempting to fit them into his model of slowing the game down. He doesn’t adapt to what he has and is totally surprised when he doesn’t win.

I have an expression I use for those who don’t adapt: “One Speed.”

Here’s a story I’ve told before: I worked with this fast talking, high volume DJ when I was a broadcaster. He did the best concert commercials with his patented delivery but you had to hear the commercial he did for the funeral home; it was comical. He didn’t adapt to the material and his creativity was cut off by his cookie cutter approach.

Life is filled with choice points. If we continue to make the same type of choices at each crossroad, we have ignored adaptability and shut down our creativity. “How did I wind up here again?” is easily answered by pointing out our failure to adapt.

Choice points are an opportunity to create something new. If we don’t adapt to the circumstances, we keep our creativity encased in glue.

All the best,

John