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Click to watch (18:41) or scroll down to read on…

Hey there, innovation champions!
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Back when I was a professional artist, I used to meet once a month with a group of about a dozen fellow calligraphers. Some were professionals, like myself, others pursued calligraphy as an avocation.
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Sara, the one who invited me to the group, had been my second-ever calligraphy teacher. And she was not only a professional, she was wildly prolific.
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We had a bit of a joke in the group that Sara made 3 pieces before she had breakfast every morning. It wasn't too far from the truth.
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At the time, I was wrestling with some pretty severe creative block, so this prolific energy really baffled me. In fact, I was really envious! I wanted nothing more than to make art at the same rate as Sara, but alas, I would no sooner form the intention of making something than I would tie myself up in perfectionist paralysis knots, stuck in the comparison trap.
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It took me awhile to figure out what Sara had learned long before: the key is to let go of aspiring toward perfection. I had been so wrapped up in avoiding making mediocre or "bad" work — not "living up to my potential" — that I couldn't make a thing. What I really needed was to lower the bar.
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Because, as I finally figured out (and this became something of a motto): we need the crap to fertilize the good stuff.​
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Nature's Mastery of "Productive Failure"

Years later, when I started studying innovation patterns across industries, I realized that Sara had stumbled onto something that nature has been perfecting for millions of years. Nature is the ultimate innovation lab — and it operates on principles that would make most corporate boardrooms very uncomfortable.
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Think about it: An oak tree produces thousands of acorns each season. Maybe 1 in 10,000 will actually become a mighty oak. By corporate standards, that's a 99.99% failure rate. But nature doesn't see it as failure — it sees it as a necessary part of the innovation process.
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Every acorn that doesn't sprout still serves a purpose. Some feed wildlife, others decompose and enrich the soil, and some teach the tree valuable information about timing, conditions, and placement. Nature understands something we often forget in our innovation efforts: volume leads to breakthroughs.
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But here's where it gets really interesting for us as innovation leaders.
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The Three Principles Nature Uses for Breakthrough Innovation

Nature operates on what I now recognize as the three core principles of my Create the Impossible™ framework — and understanding how nature applies these can revolutionize how your teams approach innovation.
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Play Hard: Nature's Endless Experimentation

Nature is constantly playing. Think about how a river finds its path down a mountain — it doesn't analyze, strategize, or hold committee meetings. It simply explores every possibility, following the path of least resistance while testing countless variations.
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Mushrooms experiment with spore release patterns. Birds try new migration routes. Even viruses are constantly playing with mutations (though that's perhaps not the best example for team dynamics!).
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But here's what's brilliant: nature's "play" is purposeful. Every experiment serves the larger goal of adaptation and survival. In your teams, this translates to creating environments where experimentation isn't just tolerated — it's celebrated as essential research.
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The Innovation Application: Just as nature experiments relentlessly, your teams need permission to try approaches that might not work. When Google implemented their famous 20% time, they were essentially mimicking nature's approach to innovation through play.
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Make Crap: Nature's Embrace of Imperfection

Here's something that might blow your mind: nature's first attempts are always "crap" by our perfectionist standards. The first feathers weren't perfect flying machines — they were probably just fuzzy insulation. The first eyes couldn't see clearly — they could barely detect light from shadow.
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But nature doesn't abandon an innovation because the first iteration isn't perfect. It builds on each "crappy" version, gradually refining and improving. Evolution is essentially a massive "make crap" laboratory that's been running for billions of years.
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Take the human eye — often held up as a marvel of design. But did you know it has a massive blind spot where the optic nerve connects? And the blood vessels run in front of the light sensors, creating shadows? By engineering standards, it's pretty poorly designed. But nature doesn't care about perfect design — it cares about "good enough to work and improve."
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The Innovation Application: Your teams need to embrace their "blind spot" prototypes and "shadowy" first drafts. Sara understood this intuitively — she knew that her morning sketches might be terrible, but they were necessary steps toward her masterpieces.
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Learn Fast: Nature's Rapid Iteration Cycles

Nature is the ultimate rapid learner. When conditions change, organisms that can adapt quickly survive and thrive. Those that can't... well, they become extinct. It's evolution's version of "fail fast, learn faster."
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But here's the key insight: nature doesn't just learn from its own experiments. It learns from everything around it. Trees share nutrients and information through underground fungal networks. Bee colonies use dance to communicate food sources. Wolves learn hunting strategies by observing other packs.
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Nature has created the ultimate learning ecosystem where information flows freely and every participant both contributes to and benefits from the collective intelligence.
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The Innovation Application: Your teams need mechanisms for rapid learning and knowledge sharing that mirror nature's collaborative learning networks.
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Your Team's Innovation Ecosystem

Think of your organization as an ecosystem. Just like a forest, your innovation environment needs the right conditions for different types of ideas to flourish.
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In a healthy forest, you'll find:

• Pioneer species (like your rapid prototypers and early adopters)
• Established trees (your reliable implementers and refiners)
• Decomposers (your constructive critics who break down failed ideas into valuable insights)
• Pollinators (your connectors who spread ideas between teams)
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The magic happens when all these roles work together in a supportive environment.
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Creating Your Innovation Conditions

So how do you create these natural innovation conditions in your tech environment?
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For Play Hard: Create "acorn time" — dedicated periods where your team can experiment without pressure for immediate results. Just as nature overproduces to find what works, give your teams permission to generate volume without judgment.
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For Make Crap: Implement "evolutionary sprints" where teams start with intentionally imperfect solutions and iterate rapidly. Remember: nature's first flight wasn't from bird to Boeing 747 — it was from tree-gliding to slightly better tree-gliding.
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For Learn Fast: Establish information-sharing networks that mirror nature's mycorrhizal fungi — create connections between seemingly unrelated teams so insights can flow freely across your organization.
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The Compound Effect of Natural Innovation

Here's what I've learned from studying both Sara's artistic practice and nature's innovation patterns: small consistent efforts compound into extraordinary results.
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Just like Sara's daily creative practice eventually led to her prolific output, nature's continuous small experiments accumulate into major evolutionary breakthroughs. The key insight is that both Sara and nature understood something most of us resist: consistency matters more than perfection.
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Think about it — nature doesn't wait for the "perfect" moment to innovate. Every season brings new experiments. Every generation tries slight variations. This relentless, gentle persistence is what creates those miraculous adaptations we marvel at.
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Your Nature-Inspired Challenge

This week, I challenge you to observe one natural system and identify how it approaches innovation. Maybe it's how your local park adapts to seasonal changes, or how weeds find creative ways to grow in impossible conditions, or how birds collaborate during migration.
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Then ask yourself: What would our team's innovation process look like if we approached it the way nature does?
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Remember, nature doesn't innovate despite uncertainty and constraints — it innovates because of them. Your next breakthrough might be hiding in the very challenges you're trying to avoid.
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Nature has been perfecting the art of turning impossible into inevitable for millions of years. Isn't it time we started taking notes from the ultimate design lab?
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What natural innovation pattern are you going to explore with your team this week? I'd love to hear what you discover!
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Stay curious, stay experimental, and keep creating the impossible!

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​I'd love to hear from you: What natural innovation pattern resonates most with your team's current challenges? Hit reply to share your thoughts—I read every response!
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Senior Leaders: Ready to transform your organization's innovation approach by learning from nature's ultimate design lab? Book a complimentary Innovation Strategy Session and let's explore how the Create the Impossible™ framework can help your teams achieve breakthrough innovation naturally.

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🎧 Podcast: Guess Who’s Back on the Airwaves?

What do LEGO bricks, “crappy” doodles, and play have to do with business innovation?
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A lot more than you might think.
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I recently sat down with Dean Rotbart on Monday Morning Radio to talk about unleashing creativity and innovation inside organizations—especially the ones that think they’re “too serious” for play.
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We covered everything from corporate calligraphy gigs to why “Make Crap” is a legitimate leadership strategy.
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🎧 Listen to the episode now
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P.S. Know a team that could use a little creative jolt? Hit reply—this is exactly the kind of transformation I help clients create.

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📓✏️ Doodle Discovery: The Art of Multiple Truths
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When I'm doodling, I'm in constant discovery mode—starting with one mark and letting each new line become an "offer" that I build on, just like in improv. My inner four-year-old takes the lead.
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But here's what's beautiful: when you look at this abstract doodle, you're discovering too. You might see a spaceship where I see a flower, or a complex machine where I see dancing figures. This ambiguity isn't a flaw—it's a feature that leaves the door wide open for multiple interpretations.
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The same principle drives breakthrough innovation. The most transformative solutions emerge when we embrace ambiguity and welcome multiple perspectives.
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What do YOU see in this doodle? Hit reply and let me know!
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👉 Want to help your team embrace this kind of discovery-driven innovation? Book your complimentary Innovation Strategy Session and let’s explore how the Create the Impossible™ framework can unlock fresh breakthroughs.

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That's it for this week!
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Creatively yours,
Melissa

​P.S. When you’re ready to build a culture of thriving innovation, so your team can Create the Impossible™, here are three ways I can help:

1) Download my FREE Innovation Culture Assessment to evaluate where your team stands

2) Download the first 50 pages of my book, The Creative Sandbox Way™, to reconnect with your creativity

3) Click here to schedule a complimentary Innovation Strategy Session

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