Twenty years ago, we worried about our CDs getting scratched. Today, we stream everything from the cloud. Two decades ago feels like a lifetime away, yet somehow it also feels like yesterday…
The world of 2005 wasn’t just a different business landscape—it was a completely different planet. Our phones had actual buttons. MapQuest meant printing directions and hoping you didn’t miss a turn. Netflix was still mailing DVDs in red envelopes. Twenty years later, these practices seem quaint.
Here’s what’s fascinating about our “Then & Now” moment: we’re terrible at recognizing how dramatically things have already shifted, and even worse at imagining what’s coming next. Our brains use yesterday’s rules to judge tomorrow’s possibilities.
We cling to old wisdom like “don’t reinvent the wheel,” while MIT literally reinvents the wheel. We build strategies on what worked in the early 2000s while startup founders rewrite entire industries from their dorm rooms. The gap between what was and what’s possible grows wider every single day.
But here’s the thing about living through exponential change—it’s not just happening to us. We get to participate. The same forces that made your Blackberry obsolete can make your next idea unstoppable.
The question isn’t whether change will happen. It’s whether you’ll lead it or follow it.
The Frogger Principle
A simple arcade game from 1981 reveals a psychological truth we often ignore. Success isn’t meant to be permanent…
Research shows that our brains are wired to seek stability, to rest in our achievements. But Frogger taught millions of kids an uncomfortable reality about progress. Every landing spot is temporary. Every victory is just a transition point to the next challenge.
The game’s design was accidentally brilliant from a behavioral perspective. It punished players for dwelling on success and rewarded constant motion forward. This mirrors what psychologists call the “hedonic treadmill,” where we must continuously adapt to maintain our position.
What made Frogger addictive wasn’t the graphics or the challenge alone. It was the constant tension between safety and progress. Players learned that security was an illusion. The only way to win was to embrace uncertainty and keep moving.
Organizations that treat success like a permanent achievement fall into the same trap as a frog sitting too long on a lily pad. The environment keeps moving whether you do or not.
The most successful people and companies understand that today’s solid ground becomes tomorrow’s rapids. They’ve learned to hop from achievement to achievement, seeing each success not as an endpoint but as fuel for the next leap forward.
An “Apeeling” Innovation
Here’s what’s fascinating about innovation: sometimes the solution you find is more valuable than the problem you were trying to solve. Glasst Innovation proves this beautifully…
They set out to replace single-use plastic in construction. Instead, they created something that could transform how we interact with color and space itself. This kind of serendipitous discovery requires what researchers call “planned opportunism”—staying open to unexpected possibilities.
The result: Unpaint. A paint that can be applied but then peeled off easily, quickly, and safely.
What makes Unpaint compelling isn’t just its functionality—it’s how it changes the psychology of commitment. Traditional paint requires long-term decision-making. Unpaint enables experimentation. This shift from permanent to temporary fundamentally alters how people approach space design.
The environmental story is equally intriguing. Most sustainable alternatives ask us to accept trade-offs. Unpaint offers superior performance AND carbon negativity. It proves that environmental responsibility and practical innovation aren’t mutually exclusive.
The business implications are profound. Glasst didn’t just create a new product—they created a new category. They turned a fixed cost (repainting) into a flexible opportunity (temporary transformation).
Sometimes the best strategy is to stay committed to your values while remaining flexible about your methods. The future often emerges from the intersection of intention and accident.
Reinventing the Wheel
The wheel worked fine for 5,000 years. Then MIT made it better. This reveals something crucial about improvement: perfect is the enemy of evolution…
Small, continuous improvements compound over time. The Copenhagen Wheel isn’t a complete reinvention—it’s the wheel plus smart technology. The best innovations often combine existing solutions in new ways.
Here’s what matters: they didn’t wait for the wheel to break before improving it. They saw an opportunity to make a good thing better. This mindset—continuous optimization rather than emergency fixes—separates thriving organizations from struggling ones.
The statistics about turnarounds are telling. Once you’re behind, catching up requires exponentially more effort. It’s easier to stay ahead through small, regular improvements than to make dramatic changes later.
Think of reinvention as a practice, not an event. Set aside time regularly to question how things work. What if we did this differently? What would happen if we started from scratch? Small questions lead to big breakthroughs.
The key is building what I call “improvement habits” into your routine. Regular reviews of processes, systems, and assumptions. Before complacency sets in, before decline becomes obvious. Continuous reinvention isn’t about being restless—it’s about being ready.
To your creative success…
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About Josh
Josh Linkner is a New York Times bestselling author, serial entrepreneur, venture capital investor, professional jazz guitarist, and a globally recognized innovation expert. To learn more or to explore a collaboration, visit JoshLinkner.com
