Darwin, lamb carcasses and yesterday’s dreams

Darwin’s premise was that evolution does not favor the strong, only the most adaptable to change.

Entrepreneurs are confronted with this reality on a regular basis. Particularly when business is slow.

My management consultant friend has spent the past two decades working with organizations around the world, and she said she’s been feeling the evolutionary pinch lately.

Because historically, her response to an economic downturn was always, okay, let’s put the pedal to the metal and rev up the gas.

But that approach is no longer working like it used to. Her phone isn’t ringing off the hook like it did ten, five, even two years ago. And so, the questions she’s forced to ask herself are:

What happens when you run out of fuel? What happens when your tank empties and you’re coasting on fumes just to get from point a to point b?

Eventually, you have to adapt. You have to either switch lanes, switch vehicles, switch races, or hang up your keys and stop driving all together and find some other way to create value for the world and satisfaction for yourself.

Reminds me of an inspiring obituary of a legendary innovator.

Ratcliff toiled in anonymity as a ghostwriter in the personal finance industry until the sixties, when she surprised everyone and left the world of publishing to start a small farm.

When she first arrived on the scene, she started to recognize that farming was a dying industry, noticing that farmers were being forced to sell their livestock at low auction prices.

Lydia soon decided to launch a coop that organized local farmers to raise their animals humanely.

Before long, she created a working farm that marketed her meats to some of the top restaurants in the area.

She began delivering whole carcasses herself from slaughterhouses directly to premiere chefs in major markets, making her an early practitioner of sustainable farming and what would become the farm to table movement.

Lydia was a strong person, no doubt. You don’t carry lamb carcasses around town without building a few muscles. But more importantly, she was adaptable to change.

Ratcliff’s story of reinvention proves that if you connect the dots between culture, commerce and community, you can find the whitespace, aka, the area where there is latent demand without supply, fill it with your talent and desire, and leave one hell of a mark on the world.

Darwin’s immortal words come to mind once again:

In the long history of humankind, and animal kind, too, those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.

If your winning strategy is no longer working like it used to, figure out how to maneuver your way to something that works for today’s demands, not yesterday’s dreams.

What is the driving force of your career evolution?