Earn like a lion 🦁💰
a monthly salary isn't the only way to earn money
imagine this: you’re hungry.
but not just any kind of hungry, you’re well past craving, you need food in your tank before you collapse, it’s been days since your last meal.
you can’t figure out a way to get any food, all the others around you seem to get the scraps & easy pickings before you get a chance at them.
but, you need, absolutely need food.
so what do you do? you hunt. hunt for any food in any way you can & you stock your prey until you know for certain you’ll get some food.
this is the way of the lion. but if you thought for a second I was talking about humans or you, you’re not mistaken entirely… because today, I want to talk about humans earning money like a lion would hunt for food.
not in a monthly salary, but in lump sums with periods of rest, or non-work.
free useful stuff
Just before we dive in, recently I’ve made a free really cool thing which I might as well tell you about.
Because if you’re reading this, then the odds are you’ll be someone who finds this free thing I made useful.
I used to use a daily planner every day to stay on top of my work, but I’ve found a better system for me that you may enjoy too.
It’s a simple to-do list template, that divides things in a way to keep you from being overwhelmed & getting things that matter most done.
Download it here (free)
This came from me reading 4000 Weeks by Oliver Burkeman this last week & near the end of the book it recommends a best practice to-do list, so I went ahead & followed the Instructions then turned it into a template for myself & for you.
Go get it here (free)
earn like a lion 🦁
recently my monthly income fell of a cliff
intentionally in a sense because I work for myself & decided to pivot my entire business that makes (or made) most of my income.
in this steep decline in MRR (monthly reccurring revenue, the thing everyI've realized i would much rather earn like a lion in the sense you "hunt", for big wins rather than monthly ones (small consistent wins) & then you rest for awhile after you get your big win rather than getting small wins, “resting” for 2 days … we all know you can hardly do much on a weekend, and the time after traditional work is quite hard to fill when your tired from work already.
This may not be entirely practical for many people reading this I know that for certain, but I want to outline how I plan on doing this & kind of already have been for the last few years working for myself since i dropped out of college.
First: earning like a lion has a few forms
There’s the early form when you’re just a cub and your income batches are still very small.
This form relies absolutely on you living below your means.
because being a “cub” also translates to being a human with no money or equity in anything outside of a day job.
This first form took me a long time to even peak my head out from, & even now I can still assure you that I’m still in parts of my cub shoes when it comes to adapting to this style or non monthly earning.
the next stage is being a lion that goes hunting & always comes back with a juicy meal.
earning like a lion at its core is being an entrepreneur, you starve yourself for days, weeks, months, maybe even years before you succeed. You may even go in a decline on many metrics when you’re trying to see something to a successful end.
Earning like a lion applied is really just going out and hunting a lot, & succeeding big once in a while, or big enough to feast on for the rest of life.
The way so far i’ve been earning like a lion has been really just hitting small wins as an “entrepreneur” - me in my moms basement making money on the internet doing stuff I find interesting & fun.
after about 2 years of starving myself of a monthly income I hit it big.
I made close to half a million dollars, but like a lions first big haul of food, i let some of it spoil & lost almost all of it to poor decisions (taxes, negative returns on investments, etc)
Now i’m at the point in my cub to lion arc of earning money like a lion where I can be confident not to squander and big meals I come across on my journey.
Thats how I think about “earning like a lion”, what first comes to mind when you hear “earn like a lion”? let me know in a comment or reply.
The Monthly Addiction
“The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb
a monthly salary really is a drug in many senses, I’ve found that by detaching myself from it I have found a lot more freedom.
Sometimes it’s worrying, but for someone with little responsibility & who is young, it is a lost cause type of worry.
I’m constantly trying to battle employment of someone else & create a new self employment not based on a monthly salary - to detach myself from the harm relying on a monthly income brings. (bad spending habits & life choices based on the expectation you'll always have money coming in each month)
that’s it for today, thank you for reading it means more than you think.
kindest & warmest regards,
your friend,
jack.