Skink the Lizard
By Peter LloydHumans have no lock on innovation. Our cousins in the animal kingdom have adapted to their environments with amazing ingenuity. For example, one of the animal kingdom's most innovative defenses is an invention of the skink lizard.
This little critter drops off his tail to escape a predator. While the predator enjoys a lunch of lizard tail, the skink lizard runs for his life. And lives. And starts growing a new tail.
What can we learn from nature's original fast food? That discarding parts can be painful but it always presents opportunity.
What about the crazy idea you've been forever turning over in your head? What part of it isn't working? Identify what parts of it aren't working, drop them, and run without them.
Before you do that, consider dropping the whole thing. What good is it doing taking up space in your brain? Or better yet, give it to somebody else. Giving away an idea the way skink sacrifices his tail may not be a bad idea! Even if your dropped idea flies. Especially if it flies.
Seriously. In our idea-devouring society, whoever runs with one of your ideas will have to have more. And since they scored with your idea, who will they call when they need another one? In fact, you might even give an idea to a competitor. Not a great idea--one you were thinking of 86-ing anyway. Then, while your competitor's busy developing it, you can run with a better one.
Losing can lead to success. Not that you go looking for failure, but when you do lose, think of what it does for you. Losing forces you to test your commitment, re-evaluate your possibilities, and re-group your forces.
Even the skink lizard knows that losing your rear end isn't necessarily the end of the world.
Peter Lloyd is co-creator with Stephen Grossman of Animal Crackers, the breakthrough problem-solving tool designed to crack your toughest problems.