Hey there!

Butterflies don't do anything just because you ask them to.

They don't want to please you. They don't care about your classical music, your garden, or your ten thousand tiny wings all needing to move in perfect unison. So when a trainer named Ken Ramirez was asked to teach 10,000 butterflies to fly on cue, in a London garden, in under two weeks — the real question wasn't "what signal do I use?"

It was: "what's actually in it for the butterfly?"

His answer was food. Bowls of fruit, nectar, or a special liquid solution, depending on the species — paired, every single time, with a specific cue: a vibrating tone for one group, a flashing light for another, a different pitch for a third.

Signal, then food. Signal, then food. Over and over.

By the end of day one, the butterflies were already flying toward their food the moment the cue switched on. By day two, Ramirez's team moved the bowls several meters away — and the butterflies followed anyway. Within two weeks, they'd moved the bowls 75 meters, and roughly 95% of the butterflies were reliably responding to their cue.

On his last day, the team surprised him. They sat him in the middle of the garden and played a full orchestral piece. Right on cue, whole colors took flight in sequence — reds and oranges first, then blues and purples, then thousands more sweeping directly over his head. He said there were tears in his eyes. I believe him. I might have cried too.

Here's the part I love most: none of it worked because the butterflies were smart, or cooperative, or trainable in some special way. It worked because Ramirez built a direct, reflexive association—cue, then food, every single time—until the cue alone triggered the response, the same way Pavlov's dogs learned to salivate at a bell.

That's classical conditioning. What I do with my dogs is considered operant conditioning, also known as shaping behaviors. I'm waiting for a choice, then reinforcing it. The learner is in control of the choices.

And with humans, I use the same principles to help facilitate problem-solving skills. But the key to all of these approaches is finding what motivates your learner. Once you've figured that out, it's time to turn them loose on the problem. It helps to set them up for success.

Which brings me to Monday.

I had my own small butterfly moment this week — nothing as dramatic as a London garden, but it made my whole day. Within about twenty minutes, I spotted a monarch, a female tiger swallowtail, and — the real prize — a female zebra swallowtail laying eggs directly on the pawpaw seedlings I've been growing just for her.

I don't get many zebra swallowtail visits. My last confirmed egg-layer showed up on August 25, 2019. I raised one of her eggs to adulthood—through multiple caterpillar instars, then to chrysalis—until finally, 33 days after the egg was laid, a beautiful female zebra swallowtail emerged. I named her Zephyr.

Zephyr, newly emerged (2019)

Zephyr as a late caterpillar instar (above) and egg (below)

Zephyr as a chrysalis

Thirty-three days between "mama chose this leaf" and "she's airborne." I still think about that timeline. Butterfly metamorphosis is one of the most magical transformations in nature. You don't get to rush it. You just get to notice when it's happening, and pay attention.

A similar transformation occurs when you take control of your learning, and learn to solve problems. That's the argument at the center of Choose, Fail, Grow — and it's the reason a book about parenting and education is full of stories about dogs, butterflies, engineering, and a very memorable cardboard boat race.

The principles echo across species. We humans just have a lot more choices.

More next week,

Marsha

More next week,

Marsha & Mooney

P.S. Want to see the butterfly training in action? Look up Ken Ramirez's "London Butterfly Project." It's a marvel.
​https://clickertraining.com/the-butterfly-project/​

P.P.S. P.P.S. Want to try your hand at raising your own butterflies? My free guide, Plant It and They Will Come, has everything I've learned—including more of Zephyr's story.​
​https://putneydesigns.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Plant-it-and-They-Will-Come-1-16.pdf

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