Adapt or else

Shot for Virginia Science Museum

Growing up in Yellowstone I learned how survival was really about one’s ability to adapt to their environment. Yellowstone is an amazing place and it is fascinating to see how one species is dependent on another. A great example of that was when they reintroduced the wolves to the park in 1995.

Wolves were eradicated from the park in the 1920s and now seven decades had passed with this top predator gone. What was going to happen when the top dog returned home? The results were more than fascinating with some outcomes nobody thought would be possible.

Now if you were to have told me back when this first pack was released that rivers were going to change and the Beaver population was going to be saved, I would have honestly laughed. But that is exactly what happened. Elk herds were forced to move and thus allowed vegetation to grow and literally change the flow of rivers. That in turn enabled a new home front for Beavers to exist in again.

There was a huge rippling affect across the whole ecosystem. Many species had to adapt. They didn’t have a choice.

As we start out building and forming companies and teams, one thing that we don’t often think about is how much we will need to change and adapt throughout the process. You may lose your best client, best player, best supporter, biggest fan. Mobelux was started in a down economy. We adapted. We stayed lean and learned to listen to ourselves and our clients. That first business plan was useless three months into the journey.

Now a decade later, we live in a time where we will all need to adapt. Our first instinct is to resist and fight. Change is hard. But if we don’t adapt, we will not make it. Our ability to provide and succeed now has to be different. New skills are needed. Better listening. Better products. Time to be scrappy.

The photo above I took during a side project in the early 2000s where we decided to work with middle school kids to build an information website for the Virginia Science Museum. We needed pictures of animals. Now I had never really done very much macro photography, but now was the perfect opportunity to try and grow that skill. See the need, adapt, and deliver.

I’ve found over the years that if we are willing to put ourselves in uncomfortable situations, incredible things can happen. Nature is a reminder of that. Let us continue to value the ability to adapt.