M&Ms: Rehabilitated for Survival

It's hard but possible to rehabilitate lions and humans on the 80th edition.

Hey Team,

In the 1960s, Harrod's in London, the world's luxury department store, sold exotic animals.

Two young men decided to buy a Lion from Harrods on a whim. And for a little while, it was good fun.

But within six months, the Lion was devouring 3 kg, or 6.6 lb, of meat a day. A fun fact, adult lions, get up to 550 lb in weight and eat roughly 15 lbs of meat per day.

But the food bill was the least of their problems.

In one incident, the Lion, lunging to hug the housekeeper, like he had done many times before, slipped, his claws came out, and he ripped her entire dress off. It soon became obvious to the owners that Christian the Lion, although the offspring of five generations of being bred in captivity, still had some wild instincts.

Then in a desperate attempt to figure out what to do, the two owners found a rehabilitator willing to attempt to bring Christian back into the wild. Rehabilitating animals is tough and stressful work. While rehabilitating Christian and another male Lion, a man was killed.

It took two years of rehabilitation for Christian to finally come to his own, form a pride, and leave humans behind.

Christians the Lion's story became a sensation on YouTube, hailed as a huge success story in rehabilitating animals back into the wild.

Christian the Lion was lucky; most lions arent; it is difficult to rehabilitate lions.

LionAlert, a non-profit dedicated to the conservation of African Lions, says that the biggest challenge for captive-bred lions is they never learn human avoidance like a Wild Lion does. That lack of human avoidance leads them to go after livestock and get themselves killed by humans.

I tell you this story because rehabilitating lions out of captivity is similar to teaching humans to fend for themselves without an employer. I am going through it now, so I know it's hard.

“The more you embed yourself into the mesh of corporate perks, the harder it gets to psychologically get disentangled from it all. Health insurance benefits is one particular perk that causes most harm. Most people can’t imagine handling it on their own.” —Daniel Vassallo

But I am lucky because I unwittingly did a few things that are turning out to be helpful now. Or maybe, I had some good instincts from generations of humans that used to fend for themselves at some point.

One thing I did differently was when I had a cushy job, my employer regularly provided lunches, especially when things were good. But I still preferred to go out and buy my own lunch except for holiday celebrations or when it was rude to leave my team behind.

That little act of pulling cash out of my pocket each time reminded me every day that I was responsible for feeding myself. And even though we had free coffee in the office, and occasionally in a rush, I would grab one; I still went out and bought multiple coffees out of my pocket every single day. Each time I reached for cash to buy what I consumed, I reminded myself who was responsible for me.

As a side note, the way they teach people in debt to avoid more debt is by carrying cash rather than paying with a card. Seeing money leave your wallet is enough pain to avoid going into debt, which is more painful later.

That may seem silly to pay for your lunch or buy your own coffee. But lions learn to hunt their food by doing silly things. They learn to hunt by playing with each other as cubs.

Another way I reduced my dependence on my employer was by using my income to buy cash-flowing real estate. That little extra monthly income slowly gave me the confidence that I might not need my employer should the worst happen.

A few engineers that reported to me did the same thing; they all created revenue streams for themselves outside of work. Two had rental properties; another had Airbnbs. And ironically, looking back, they were some of the best-performing engineers I had on the team.

It's counterintuitive, but by not needing me or our employer, those engineers had immense leverage and negotiating power. They were confident, and that confidence spilled over into their work. They were far less likely to get distracted by perks. They fought hard to get paid what they were worth. And because they got paid more, they were happier too.

And trust me, being paid more is far more important than a free lunch or anything else they might give you.

Again it's counterintuitive, but dependence on employers does not lead to better employees. It leads to risk-averse employees. You can see this all over, even with raising children. And you can also see that dependence on humans does not lead to better lions.

And you, like Christian the Lion, were born with good instincts from your ancestors. You don't need anyone to buy you lunch. And, while it might be hard, you can rehabilitate yourself from depending on anyone, or any one thing, for your survival.

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Three Tweets: Working furiously, Stay put, and Borrowing damage.

I don't know much about George Soros other than he is wealthy, and many people don't like him because of his involvement in politics.

But this thread about his working style has stuck with me all week.

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This chart shows that the global home lending economy is in for a lot of pain soon.

And it also shows that US home borrowers might be in the best shape out of anyone globally right now.

But as Sean points out, the hard part now is staying put and riding out inflation.

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Naval reminds us that bad debt, at all levels, cripples those that become dependent on it.

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One Video I Loved this Week:

I don't usually share many videos here, but I enjoyed Rahul's advice on his latest YouTube video.

It is good for anyone who has recently been laid off or anyone who fears it might happen to them.

My favorite piece of advice in the video was about building relationships.

Two Memes: Brits and Cats

My cousin is from the U.K. I wrote about him in this thread a while back, but I often remind him that he needs to take advantage of all the perks afforded to Brits in the U.S. They have a good reputation here.

My 7 year old loved this meme when I showed it to her, so I had to share it with you.

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As always, thank you for reading.

-Louie

P.S. you can reply to this email; it will get to me, and I will read it.