Creative Cycles and the Rhythm of the Universe

“The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.”

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Stability is not the way of the universe and that’s why doggedly embracing the status quo is almost always a mistake. Trial and error, experimentation, and the natural creative cycle of nature, in fact, reality and never ending. Even a brief study of human history demonstrates that change will happen regardless of our desire to evade or divert the inevitable. It shows us we are all along for the ride. My first trip outside of the United States was to Japan at the age of eleven. I toured ancient castles, religious sites, and went to the historical museum in Tokyo. I was awestruck by the immensity of detail, the level of effort, and the rich tapestry of historical Japan. In time, I began to see the truth. Everything, no matter how wonderful or impressive, was rendered moot by the onward march of time and time changed everything.?

Later in life I would visit another forty-three countries, experiencing their cultures, their history. Always fascinated by our human past, I made it a point to tour every historical site I could find, witnessing the remnants of peoples, empires, and nations that had risen, flourished, and then died. The story was the same everywhere I traveled. France, Spain, Germany, Greece, Italy, Israel, Iraq, Britain, Afghanistan, and even Carthage, the ancient home of Hannibal, a man who nearly destroyed the great Roman empire. Looking back on these experiences, I now realize history confirms the nature of our existence and the true nature and natural order of the universe. Change is inevitable. Our personal and professional lives, human organized activities such as businesses, governments, and religions, all follow business, and empires experience this cyclic experience of continuous change. While we can attempt to protract the status quo through force of will and intellect, eventually the universe has its way. It's clear to me that understanding the natural force empowers us to leverage knowledge of the inevitable. To cast aside the normal and to rethink the next normal. ?Let’s dive into this cyclical phenomenon a bit more.

Are We the Problem?

If the universe abhors stability and humans appear to love stability, then it may be that our desire to keep things as they are is the problem. Rather than make peace with the design of the universe, we hope to secure through our efforts a predictable existence. A construct applying controls, rules, laws, regulations, and all manner of behavioral obstructions controls designed to calcify the way things were and are. To aggressively impede the forces of change. These methods endure even if change happens anyway. They become traditions and norms that represent comfort. However, this sense of ease and comfort is an illusion. I hope you can see the folly in this. Spitting into the wind will not make a tornado stop being a tornado. Our puny measures to evade the inevitable chaos of steady or radical change are insufficient to affect the ultimate outcome. Far better that we strive to understand the forces that sway us personally, professionally, economically, and physically. For in doing so, we learn to surf the flow of reality and, better yet, anticipate the trends that are sure to disrupt our na?ve fortress of intellectual and emotional denial.

Was the fall of Rome or the disintegration of the Dutch, Spanish, French, British, and German empires foreseeable? I can only assume the answer is yes. Is there evidence these social and economic constructs were aware of what was happening? Did they act and fail to stem the tide of change, or did they ignore the macro trends and hope to hold on to the status quo? What about the leadership of great companies that have faded into obscurity? Did they see it coming? What we need to do, what you need to do, is accept the natural principle, the universal law of change, and learn to roll with it. What do you have to lose? Why don’t you lift your head up from the day-to-day grind of living and begin to think clearly? Why not ignore the intellectual white lines painted for you by others and open your mind to the power of change? Understanding the change cycle gives you vision, situational awareness, and the ability to see the train coming at you in time to calmly step off the tracks and smile.

Can Behavior Affect the Inevitable?

The Catholic theologian and philosopher Saint Thomas Aquinas posited that human will is free, but only insofar as the intellect is free to make or revise judgments. In other words, humans have the gift of free will so they can decide. That puts the responsibility for action or inaction on the individual, not another person, and not an institution or organization. From this perspective we all have the capacity to decide differently one day to the next and one change event to the next. Then why do so few leaders behave in a way that exercises free will when faced with the unknown? I tend to side with Saint Thomas Aquinas. I believe we are born with free will, and, fortunately or not, that perspective puts the monkey square on our back. I also believe that hesitating to act is the root cause of why we fail to dodge threats or seize opportunity. This applies to life in general as well as other productive endeavors. Learn to decide, to exercise clear judgement, and you will be free to exercise your incredible intellectual capabilities to shape your future.

There is an adage that delaying resolution or execution of an important issue will convert that issue from the status of important to one of urgency. Then if the issue is ignored further, the urgent transforms, due to procrastination, into an emergency. Procrastination is often a symptom of one’s failure to exercise their gift of free will in a timely manner, coupled with a wrongheaded desire to preserve stability by delaying action. In the end, a compelling challenge to your reality will have to be dealt with one way or another. Just ask the Romans.

Cycle Theory

Cycle theory is based on the premise that what goes around comes around. In retrospect, it seems more a principle than a theory. The aforementioned empires suffered the same process of rise, plateau, and fall. Economies, countries, businesses, and individuals all fall into this cyclical profile. If taken the wrong way, this could give one a sense of foreboding. If what goes up must come down, why bother in the first place? I beg to differ with this pessimistic view. When I managed investments at UBS, I had the responsibility to track not only my high-net-worth clients’ portfolios, but also track the greater investment environment. Think of moving across the Great Plains in the nineteenth century, wagons filled with all your possessions and your precious family.

While you would certainly be aware of the details of your horses, wagons, and family, you would be insane not to be focusing most of your attention on the hills around you. This was my mindset. Know and understand the dynamics related to the companies in my stock portfolios but watch the horizon. This market-related situational awareness exercise provided me with an early warning system against surprise cyclical changes, for better or for worse. As I watched and observed different sectors of the economy rise and fall, I got a sense of the game. Like noting the tides, I was able to anticipate when and where to be financially based on these micro cycles. The economy writ large was also cyclical and more akin to a storm rising or abating. This level of cyclical event would in turn affect all the micro cycles.

In military combat operations, there is what is referred to as a battle rhythm, a cycle of intense effort, sustainment of effort, and lulls in activity. Historians write of this across the ages of warfare. Smart noncommissioned officers in the military teach it to new recruits. Nobody on either side of the battle lines can be on the attack forever. One side’s pause is another side’s opportunity and so on. Knowing this cycle allows military leaders to exploit and leverage the pace and trends to their advantage. Get to know the cycles that impact your world. They will be different and dependent on multiple factors, but they are discoverable and should be studied. From a creative point of view, consider what your competition is doing right now. Are their sales surging? Is their marketing outreach resonating? Are they building infrastructure, or laying off employees? If any of these is the case, what’s next? Anticipate by studying your competitive environment and then act!

Do you feel the calm before the AI storm? I certainly do. This will be a macro trend for several decades on par with creation of the Internet and cellular phones. I was around back then and nobody, I mean nobody, on the street cared about the Internet. Cell phones were too big and too expensive to be mainstream. In fact, if you had traveled back from the future and told me to invest in Microsoft, I would have thought you were crazy. Macro trends are our friends. Seek them out, understand them, and then think of ways they can improve your world. Become cycle aware and then when the cycle changes, adapt and act!

Maintaining the Upward Cycle

A key question is at what point in the cycle is, where are we right now? Another is what cycles matter to us personally, professionally, or organizationally. When I say organizationally, I mean as a species, a global collection of friends and allies, as a nation, and as a microcosm of that nation. Private or public in nature. For the sake of this segment, let’s assume you find yourself on an upward trend in a cycle. It would be important to identify that cycle’s history and specifically the duration of its trends over time. We know tides cycle multiple times a day. What about economic depressions? Or how small stocks move up and down over time as a class of investments? How about art or fashion trends?

Your chosen cycle may operate like the tides, alternating frequently, or more like macroeconomic shifts, adjusting slowly and deliberately over time. In either case, there will be a pattern, and it is the pattern that informs you about positive and negative probabilities. Falling in love with an upward cycle feels wonderful, but it is a fool who takes the ride all the way to the top. Sustaining upward momentum isn’t about holding on for the ride; instead, it’s about knowing when to leap off one that is peaking and onto another one that’s beginning the upward swing in momentum. I like to imagine jumping off these cyclic elevators as they reach the eighteenth floor of a twenty-floor building in exchange for an elevator in a new building moving from the third to the fourth floor. Seasoned investors do this in real estate, commodities, gold, silver, and of course, stocks. Anyone working in any industry can become a student of their cycles and trends and begin to leverage this insight to plan for a different future. If being innovative is to anticipate and seize the next normal, tracking these upward movements can be essential to innovation and success.

What to Do about Downward Cycles

As you might expect, there is a negative feeling about the idea of a trend diminishing, but what if that trend was related to a high incidence of hurricanes? There may be an element of peril and reward in everything; however, it’s understanding the nuance of these rhythms that gives us an edge. Downward cycles of negative forces are natural and should be celebrated and embraced for the data they provide. They signal a change in the status quo, and that, my friend, means opportunity. So, if you pay attention, then you will participate in the upward trends and defend against the downward trends, unless the downward trend removes or reduces risk, as in the case of historically severe weather. In the investment markets, people have ways to buy instruments that anticipate upward movement (therefore making money) while others anticipate downward movement (again making money). What about the end of technology trends? Or social trends?

Fashion often works in this way. A thing is attractive and in great demand until it isn’t. Usually, another fashion catches wind, and we all run to buy those clothes, shoes, hats, etc. In recent years, fashion has trended backward in time. Instead of new creative ideas blowing us away, fashion leaders have been simply copying fashions of the past. This is why we see young people walking around in 2023 dressed like it is 1970. Study both upward and downward cycles to know the full rotation over time. You can surprise your friends and coworkers with your prophetic awareness of what’s going to happen next and, more importantly, what to do about it. Cycles give us a path to understanding. As a species we were once in tune with the cycles of our environment. We knew when to plant, when to harvest, and when the seasons changed. We observed the cycle of life from birth to death and benefited from this knowledge. In present day America these natural processes remain, but our awareness of them is muted or nonexistent. There’s not much we can do to disrupt the changing of the seasons or the cycle of life, but we can anticipate change and act accordingly.

Creativity is one of many behaviors you will need to solve the challenges you face each day. The most innovative plan devised in a vacuum of environmental awareness will fail when reality changes lanes on you. Being the most inventive, the most imaginative, the most visionary thinker is moot unless the greater context of history is considered. Cycle theory can help you with that context. Nothing is guaranteed, but the combination of applied creativity and cycle awareness can help you leapfrog the naysayers and competition. So why not accept the theory and use it as you contemplate your design? If you are part of or are leading a creative team, make sure you inject cycle theory into your deliberations. Remember, from the standpoint of forward knowledge, the trend is your friend. Will you be able to stop a trend that is threatening you or your organization? Probably not, at least not the macro trends. The small trends, like employee tardiness or poor communication, can be neutralized; but the trends that impact and influence industries, markets, and nations are difficult if not impossible to reverse. That’s why you must lean into the trends, ride the cycles, and engineer a path to opportunity.

Can you start a cycle or trend? Of course, you can, and thousands of people have over the centuries. If your invention or innovation is so new, so fresh, and so compelling that it starts a cycle, congratulations! Having the faith and confidence in the power of your unencumbered mind to change the world for the better is a wonderful thing. I’m a huge fan of cycle theory and know this helps me every day as I sift through the firehose blast of confusing data points and messaging. It helps me to “see” around corners and over the horizon. It provides a backdrop of truth that aids me in positioning change. I encourage you to seek more information on this aspect of creative insight. Look around and watch the trends and cycles in motion. Use this, leverage this, make cycle theory a part of how you think about the universe operating all around you. Remember, it’s far better to surf the trend than to be crushed by it!

Marty Strong is a Retired Navy SEAL, CEO, motivational speaker, and on the board of BEST Robotics, Inc. He is also the author of three insightful business books, Be Nimble: How the Creative Navy SEAL Mindset Wins on the Battlefield and in Business, Be Visionary: Strategic Leadership in the Age of Optimization, and the soon to be released, Be Different: How Navy SEALs and Entrepreneurs Bend, Break, or Ignore the Rules to Get Results!

www.martystrongbenimble.com

www.BESTmindlab.com ?

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