Lessons at the Watering Hole

Caught this video today on YouTube. It’s a little on the long side. But all the twists and and turns that happen at this particular watering hole over in Africa are worth watching all the way through.

The Battle of Kruger Video

There are a bunch of lessons that jump out at me watching this. Some from the side of the buffalo, others are from the lion’s point of view. Here’s a few to get our minds working.

Some Lessons

Running off on your own can be dangerous.

Lions never attack the center of the herd. Instead they go for the loners on the fringes that don’t stick with the herd for whatever reason.

What are some of the things that pull us away from the herd?

Maybe we don’t have the maturity to see which way the herd is going. Or perhaps we are too proud to accept that we need the herd at all. We might get so wrapped up in our own work and our own life hassles that we don’t even realize how isolated we’ve become.

Regardless being all alone can be very dangerous. It is one thing to work on your own. But hopefully we all have a network of professional friends and associates that we can turn to from time to time. That interaction within our networks can save us from getting into all sorts of problems.

But the network has to be there and we have to tap into it.

Someone may try to steal your steak.

Sometimes, just when you think everything’s going your way someone comes along and tries to steal what you’ve worked so hard for.

How do you protect against that?

Well one way is to look at that first point. If you have a network that can pull together you might have a fighting chance to defeat the interloper. And it never hurts to have a few friends who can share the duties of watching each other’s backs.

It was interesting that in the video, one of the lions changed roles when the new threat of the crocodile appeared. One that had been holding back standing guard joined in to help drag dinner back up the hill away from the crocks.

A group can work together to achieve things that an individual could never accomplish alone.

It’s hard to guard your prize with enemies to your front and rear.

This kinda goes without saying. When you’ve got an army marching down on you the last place you want to be is with your back up against crocodile infested waters.

The lions chose poor ground for their hunt. Sure the watering hole was a target rich environment. It seemed to make for easy pickings.

But there were some serious tactical problems created by choosing that particular spot.

In the same way, we should take care in our business to make sure the down sides of our choices don’t outweigh the apparent benefits of choosing the seeming easy money.

When the angry buffalo charges you’ve got two choices: run away or take a shot to the ribs.

It’s that old fight or flight thing. Only in some fights you know it’s going to hurt even if you do win.

There is no stopping over a ton of angry buffalo when it decides to charge. You stand your ground and there is going to be a collision. And it will hurt.

There are times when running away, even though it hurts our egos, may be the better choice.

Other times the right thing to do is to stand and take our lumps. It is important that we understand the consequences of our choices.

It Ain’t Over ‘Till It’s Over

Ah, yes. Don’t give up until the fat lady sings.

Sometimes when we see no way out, when the night has closed in and everything is at its darkest is just the moment when we will see victory.

Giving up too soon will prevent us from ever experiencing that sweet taste of overcoming those seemingly impossible roadblocks that have been thrown up in front of us.