My take home lessons after watching how lions live.

For the last 90 minutes, my eyes have not moved away from the screen of a CRT TV. I have been watching one of the programs on National Geographic channel. I naturally love nature, especially wildlife. I find it fascinating and I don’t stop to be amazed every time I watch. I learn new things from nature. It might be one of the reasons I would like to live longer to see apart from seeing my children grow up and become independent.

This time I was watching the so-called The King of the jungle. Lions live by killing other animals, especially those eating grass, omnivores. Honestly, I don’t like the fact that they kill other animals. But what can I do? That is how nature is. The entire ecology is sustained by one living being eating the other, dead or alive. Even you and me will provide food for some other living beings when we die, whether in carcass form or even in ashes. We are not an exception. We form part of the food chain. We are also hosting and providing food for millions of living organisms in our bodies while we breathe. 

What I like about lions is how they use their soft skills to ensure their existence from generation to generation. Today I have paid very close attention to observe their daily life routine. Just after five minutes, I had to grab a pen and a notebook because what I was watching were big lessons to humans too. I know we are also capable of developing those skills which are very important especially in these days of technology. These skills make us more humans because we can learn and practice them better than any existing robot, thanks to the evolution that gave us new cortex which is very complicated. I say it is complicated because we have not studied it fully yet.

My focus on the program taught me some of the important skills lions have which are important to us too. Here they are:

1.      Lions are selective

When it is time to hunt, they don’t kill just any animal. They pinpoint one in the group. I think they have an ability to identify an easy target but also the size that can feed an entire family. Most of the time their instinctive calculator works. The lesson here is that we have to be selective too. We can’t go after everything in life. We must choose among many opportunities that come on our way. When we are selective, there is a high chance that we win and become successful if the following second lesson is put into practice.

2.      Lions focus on one target. After selecting a target, they only put attention to that. They don’t waste time looking at others unless there is a danger coming to them. From what I have watched today, only bachelor lions don’t focus at the beginning. I think because they have not learned fully the tactics.  And so this applies to us. If we want to reach our goals, we must be aware that there are and there will be many distractions on the way. The distraction may look more promising than what we are chasing. When we have a focus on a target there is a learning process or methodology that we develop. This is a road map we make on the process and later on we can follow it to ensure success on other goals after we have accomplished a task at hand. I have personally learned this practice in school. The school system did not teach me but the methods I developed at each stage helped to be more successful academically at a higher stages. Not bragging but I finally finished my medical degree with the highest GPA in the university, and perhaps the highest GPA in the entire country in that particular academic year.

3.      Thirdly I have noted that lions hunt quietly to ensure high levels of success. Silence increase concentration on what matters the most. If there are enemies around, don’t make noise about your new move. Your plans can easily be torn down. I think this applies also to the business world where we face many competitors. I will put this into action as soon as I put down business plans. All lions participating in the ambush were very quiet and each one seems to know what it was supposed to do. This brings me to the following point.

4.      Teamwork is their norm. In the program I watched, there were about five fully grown lions and a number of cabs. In one of the moves to hunt down a buffalo for a meal, they separated and then I saw one lion moving towards the herd of the buffalos furiously. This lioness was so intimidating. Finally, the buffalos scattered. Suddenly I saw an attack on one of the buffalo by one of the lions from behind, then others came on top and the one who ambushed jumped straight to the throat. All these were lionesses; the king Lion was seating aside waiting just to eat. The narrator later said that the lion’s role is to protect the family. He makes sure that no intruder comes into their territory to threaten the peace of the family.  So this says that we cannot be successful by working alone. We need a team and each member must know his or her role. Team leaders must make sure that each member knows what he or she is supposed to do to reach the vision. In the program, I also saw the cabs watching and following closely how their parents were hunting and later they joined in the hunting movements. Leaders must make leaders. We are not on this planet permanently. Someone will take our role and we must transfer the knowledge and skills if we want to create a successful future generation.

5.      A few months ago I read a book titled Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek. He gave an example of a leader in the group of soldiers. He explained how the leader was inspiring the team and he always . Among the lions, the lion eats first. Different from what Simon Sinek wrote. But, among the lions, the privilege to eat first came after paying a price which is to protect the family. I assume the lionesses had to make sure that their protector had enough food to provide enough energy and power to fight the enemies if they come. A leader must be willing to serve others and s/he will definitely be treated with respect by those s/he influences. To be at the top of the team you have to play a big role and be ready for people to finger point you when things go wrong. And at that point, you gonna have to accept responsibility and be accountable.

6.      The mother lion was 100% responsible to make sure that her newborn cabs were safe. She went far away from the group to give birth. The cabs did not come out until they were a little bit grown. I once watched an episode where the mother lion had to find a safe place to leave her cabs and go hunting. Her cabs need milk and without food, she cannot provide for them. She found a spot that looked to be safe. I watched the mother lioness pointing down with her head and the cabs stayed there. Remember that where lions live, hyenas and other cats are always around. When the lioness came back after two days, the cabs were missing. She desperately started to call but no sign of any cab. For two days she searched for her cabs and finally, she found only one, the other disappeared. On her face, she looked sad. To me, she took a calculated risk. She had an option of finding food so that the cabs could get milk or to stay there and die with her cabs. We have to take risks in our lives. We never know what can happen if we don’t take a risk. Of course, if you don’t do anything, don’t expect anything to change.

7.      In the same episode, I also watched a teenager lioness and a cab being left behind after falling asleep and no one among their parents had noticed their absence. The dusk was coming and hippos were getting out to feed. That teenager lioness was brave enough to chase away a big hippo to protect the cab. Remember, they don’t share the mother, they are cousins. Later on, I learned that lions are the only social cats capable of protecting one another. If a cat can do that, why can’t we do it? Protect your teammates at all cost because, without them, you cannot do much. Two minds are better than one.

This has been a long story. It took me roughly 90 minutes watching the program and few minutes to write it down. I hope the Lions have inspired you as they have done on me. Please share with others.