Act Naturally

Often advice, a lesson, or wisdom arrives unexpectedly- in it's timing and source.  I inadvertently caught a television program recently that struck a chord, and my subsequent following has provided some great wisdom I've used in my daily life.  Any guesses?   A drama from a different era? The latest sitcom?  A psychological thriller? A "reality" show? Nope.

I've gathered great insight from some inhabitants of a faraway land...all of whom live their lives on four legs.  The BBC did an exceptional job capturing the lives of some groups of lions, cheetahs, and leopards in the Masai Mara since 1996, and titled the effort as Big Cat Diary.  

 

The documentary series captures every moment...happy, sad, triumphant, and depressing. It also details the ongoing effort to remain alive - one much less difficult for our grocery-store-no-more-than-2-miles-away human selves.   Not all humans have this luxury of course, and that's just another of life's realities highlighted in this series.  Cooperation, selflessness, trust, candor, assertiveness, mating, parenting, death, life...all are exhibited in their raw in-disguised and un-shielded view from these animals that have no ulterior motive.   Sure, these animals don't think as much perhaps, but I'd argue that human "thought" sometimes makes us act less intelligently.

In my current corporate business life, I have seen many humorous similarities.  Numerous mornings I'll watch the series as I prepare for another day on the corporate savannah, and I can't tell you how many times an incident I watched on Big Cat Diary directly mimicked a situation in a meeting room.   It's hilarious and sad at once.   Hyenas pester a lion until they get their way simply because they are endlessly annoying with their cackle and ignorance of personal space.  A cheetah mom stands its ground for her cubs, risking certain death, against two large male lions, and somehow makes it out alive. A brave leopard excels at making the kills, but seriously lacks the wisdom to stash its prize, and time and again, loses it after a few morsels.

The lessons aren't on the surface, and so you really need to bring an "Art of War" approach...breaking an interaction into fundamental components and rules.

 

There are some real parallels between human and animal behaviour that can be drawn.  I've learned to truly respect the adage about finding the greatest wisdom in the simplest of models.  You'd be hard pressed to find an animal on the savannah that wouldn't agree whole heartedly with "Life is short", "The  God lives in the details" or "There's no such thing as a free lunch".  (ha)   I hope you can mine some of the same wisdom I've taken from nature.  If nothing else, take the opportunity to learn about one of the most diverse ecologies on the planet - the African Savannah.