Think like a grasshopper

and reclaim that overused buzzword, “pivot.”

Dear friend,

The paths I run cut right through grasslands, interrupting the habitat of bugs that weren’t built for sidewalks. The pavement is caked with the carcasses of grasshoppers who failed to escape the treads of running shoes and tires.

From ground level it must feel like a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Bug husks and dismembered legs litter the landscape while the surviving grasshoppers suck the guts out of their fallen comrades. Jiminy Cricket, that must be a hard life.

I don’t intentionally crunch these little critters but I don’t particularly alter my route to protect their crispy skeletons. I watch them to see if there is a pattern that predicts which of the jumpers survive and which ones are destined to become streaks of goo painting the pavement.

Here’s what you’ll notice…

The losers see danger coming and trip over themselves to get out of the way. Their misplaced jumps land them in spots just as deadly as if they had never jumped in the first place.

But the survivors have a different technique…

The instant they sense danger they pause for a fraction of a second. Blink and you might miss it, but right before they fire their leg canons they…