‘Who Moved My Cheese?’ and Who Launched a Podcast During a Global Pandemic?

The best laid schemes
o‘ mice and men
often go astray
—Robert Burns (1759-1796)

When I hit a period of transition almost 20 years ago, one of the books that was recommended to me was Who Moved My Cheese?: An A-Mazing Way to Deal with Changes in Your Work and in Your Life by Spencer Johnson, M.D.  At this moment, we are in a time of change due to a global pandemic —so it seems like a good time to mention that best selling book which first came out in 1998

It’s the simple parable of two sets of mice who run out of cheese. Two of the mice (named Hem and Haw) basically sit around moan about the lack of cheese and speculate when someone is going to bring more. The other two mice (Sniff and Scurry) are proactive, and they put on their little mice running shoes and head out on an adventure to find a new stash of cheese.

I won’t spoil the ending for you—but let me just say that three of the mice end up in a good place. It’s a simple story, but one that resonates many people going through difficult situations. Which explains why the 94-page book has sold 26 million copies, and been translated into 37 languages.

Here’s the writing on the wall that one of the mice wrote to encourage future travelers who’d also run out of cheese:

Change Happens
They Keep Moving The Cheese
Anticipate Change
Get Ready For The Cheese To Move
Monitor Change
Smell The Cheese Often So You Know When It Is Getting Old
Adapt To Change Quickly
The Quicker You Let Go Of Old Cheese, The Sooner You Can Enjoy New Cheese
Change
Move With The Cheese
Enjoy Change!
Savor The Adventure And Enjoy The Taste Of New Cheese!
Be Ready To Change Quickly And Enjoy It Again
They Keep Moving The Cheese.

This world has been through wars, famines, floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, plagues, hurricanes, volcano  exploding, stock market crashes, faulty governments, and you can fill in a zillion other calamities and changes. But the human race seems resilient. And I believe in time this too will pass. May we all get through this transition with grace.

The second part of this post involves the timely launch of Brené Brown‘s podcast Unlocking Us.  Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston and two of her five New York Times best selling books are The Gifts of Imperfection and Daring Greatly.She may be most widely known for her TED talk, The Power of Vulnerability, which has been viewed 47 million views on the TED  website and another 12 million on TED’s YouTube channel.

“I want to be in the arena. I want to be brave with my life. And when we make the choice to dare greatly, we sign up to get our asses kicked. We can choose courage or we can choose comfort, but we can’t have both. Not at the same time.”
—Brené Brown

May you dare greatly today, don’t miss the writing on the wall, and keep your running (or walking) shoes nearby.

Scott W. Smith