Adapt or die: Inspiration comes in different ways.

Ok, die is a strong word. Maybe “adapt or die trying” is more where I’m coming from. In the media business, at least according to Gary V, nothing in media really dies. Like radio. Radio was the dominant media for decades until TV came along. Now, the internet has displaced TV. But radio is still very much alive.

I’m always fascinated by how LinkedIn users share quotes that gain a ton of Likes (even more fascinating is the constant bitching about how LinkedIn is not Facebook, but that’s another post). Here’s one that caught my attention recently, mostly as I’ve been thinking a lot about inspiration and achievement in my own career.

You’ve probably seen this before as well. But the thing is, Darwin never said this.

It was actually said by some guy talking about Charles Darwin in 1963 in a speech delivered by a Louisiana State University business professor named Leon Megginson. The following year, he published an article in which he wrote…

It is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able to adapt to and to adjust best to the changing environment in which it finds itself……so says Charles Darwin in his “Origin of Species.”

And over the years through the process of misattribution and incorrect repetition, we have the inspirational quote that we see today that is not even Darwin’s OR Megginson’s. But, does it matter?

I think there’s two correct answers. Is that a cop out?

1. Yes. Better to really understand what you are consuming online before you decide to content spam your LinkedIn network to demonstrate your highly sharable thought leadership. This has never been more true in a time when #fakenews and #altfacts are real things (oxymoron of the day).
2. No. The goal is inspiration, isn’t it? I was, in fact, inspired by this. Can that be a bad thing?

Let’s continue with the path of inspiration; do what you want with answer #1. I found it inspirational that it was not the strongest nor the smartest creatures that survive, but the ones that could best deal with change. From a professional standpoint, as it pertains to digital media, this was interesting to me. For 100 million years, dinosaurs ruled the earth (at least according the Steven Speilberg), but then on one really bad weather day, everything changed and our cute little rodent ancestors got the opportunity to form a startup called The Age of Mammals. They played the long game and it went viral.

In the marketing and advertising world of today, where can mammals find our path among the dinosaurs by being the most adaptable to change? Mind you, in our industry, 7 years is more like 65 million years to dinosaurs and mammals. Things change rather quickly in our business. I remember having conversations with sports teams about Twitter in 2009. At that time, I had more followers than some of the teams I talked with. One contact told me they would start paying attention to Twitter when their team reached 5000 followers. Today, they have close 1 million followers and now all everyone talks about is how dead Twitter is these days — again, my point about radio at the start of this post. I barely tweet anymore, but I look at Twitter a lot. Because things change fast, listening to what Darwin (or Megginson, meh… same, same, right?) has to say is probably really good advice right now.

The other side of this inspiration for me was found in a 15 minute TED Talk by Malcolm Gladwell about David and Goliath.

Maybe you don’t have 15 minutes, I get that. So here’s where I’m coming from… In this talk, Gladwell turns the famous story of David and Goliath on its ear, positioning (eloquently) this classic underdog story into one in which Goliath actually never stood A CHANCE of defeating David. David was no more of an underdog than our rodent ancestors. When the circumstance came about, both were able to take best advantage of the situation before them. Neither example needs to rely on a cataclysmic event or singular moment of change, but I am trying to drive home the element of the opportunity, which in many cases is as much of a slow burn than it is a meteor strike, or a rock between the eyes.

I’m looking for inspiration during a pivotal time in our industry. When the CEO of P&G puts digital on high alert (“The days of giving digital a pass are over”), when Methbot clocks $3M-$5M in fraudulent ad revenue per day, when Facebook keeps freaking everyone out with ad stat flaws… agency models and digital result metric standards (or lack thereof) are continually challenged… you get where I’m coming from.

Now’s the time to be adaptable at the individual and organizational level. And if you’re lucky, perhaps someone will misquote you 100 years after you die to help inspire a new generation of like minded mammals. Or maybe cyborgs.