Lions Aren't Vegetarians

In the wild elephants spend around sixteen hours per day eating. Sixteen hours grazing in order to consume enough calories to survive.

Graze, chew, swallow, repeat; for two thirds of your elephant life.

Seeking out and consuming five calories at a time, a good portion of which are allocated to fueling the elephant body in its quest for even more leaves. Two more hours per day are spent sleeping leaving only six hours to run the elephant errands, clean the elephant den, and spend time with the elephant family.

“What kind of elephant life is this?” After a lifetime of grazing, this is the only question to ask.

The mighty lion on the other hand craves calorie dense, nutrient rich meat. Meat which can sustain the lion for days. Meat which can be hunted in a matter of hours and feed the entire pride leaving sixteen hours of the day for lion free time.

Free time to take a lion snooze, read a lion book, get sucked down a lion YouTube worm hole, learn a new lion skill, spend time with lion cubs, vacation in exotic lion destinations, or volunteer at a lion shelter.

The ambush predator will lie and wait, do nothing, then strike. Where the elephant roams for sixteen hours a day, the lion lays around then hunts producing a better return on energy.

Work like the lion to maximize your return on energy.

The average personal wealth building diet is based on the oversold advice akin to the elephant grazing. Get good grades, go to college, and get a good job. What is the end result of this road map? We end up eating leaves. Grinding away like an elephant for the majority of our productive days working to consume enough financial calories to survive. Then the zookeeper comes into our natural habitat and puts a hay bail on front of us and lures us into captivity. We start to rely on the zookeeper to keep bringing us hay in the form of a salary, a pension, the promise of a promotion, health insurance, and the like. Now we are stuck in a cage for sixteen hours a day eating hay.

Be the ambush predator. Be the lion.

Lie and wait, store your energy, and when the time is right, pounce on undervalued and underperforming assets. Businesses, commodities, real estate, or whatever asset class appeals to you. Pounce on the cash flow and diversify your streams of income.

For me those nutrient dense calories are in real estate. I feed myself with 5%-10% tax free cash flow, recapture of income through depreciation, large capital events through a sale or refinance. These deals are hard to come by and even harder to take down. However, by pouncing at the right time and with the right effort, the return on energy is extremely rewarding. The returns produce more prosperity for all the investors and their families, the pride.

Go to work and earn your leaves, then use your leaves to buy calorie dense nutrient rich meat that can feed the pride for generations.