I’m home from my first show of the year, my annual trek to the Palm Beach Fine Craft Show. I’ve been doing this show for over twenty years. It’s usually one of my strongest of the year, and over time I’ve built relationships with collectors who return year after year. There’s a rhythm to it. A familiarity. I spend the winter creating new ideas in the hope of surprising and delighting long-time collectors while welcoming new ones into the fold.

This year was the usual whirlwind, with the added layer that my husband also exhibits in the downstairs art section. The weeks leading up to the show become a complicated dance of logistics, packing, problem solving, and caffeine. If I’m honest, I went into this one carrying a fair amount of anxiety.

Have you ever heard the story Who Moved My Cheese? (I’m not even sure I have the title exactly right, but you get the idea.) It’s about two mice navigating a maze in search of cheese. Every day, the scientists put the cheese in the same spot, and the mice run through the maze and eat it.

Then one day, the cheese is gone. The mice retrace the same steps that always worked, but no luck—no cheese. Finally, one of the mice tries a different path and finds it. The other mouse refuses to try anything new and keeps coming up empty.

The moral is simple: to keep finding the cheese, you have to be willing to adapt.