The answer to every trap is found in stories.

Because self-help is a fairly new concept — every valuable answer has to be embedded into a story that delivers some golden nugget in the end.

So, we (Thoughts & Productivity) set out on a journey to :

• Find them

• Curate them

• Filter them

• Adapt them

And present them in a way that’s actionable for you today.

Wednesday Stories — a short 2 min story that aims to spark some interesting ideas in your brain. Every Wednesday, we send a new one to our paid subscribers only.

Hello readers!

This week’s story is about survival.

There was one point in history where humans were no different from other animals.

We were actually somewhere in the middle of the food chain— above rodents but under hyenas.

The lion would hunt and eat the good parts, then came the hyenas, and only then would humans have their turn at whatever is left. We consumed the hard-to-get fats like bone marrow and whatever else the predators didn’t want.

Think about how far we’ve come simply due to our ability to work together and use our intellect to escape the food chain.

But, there’s still a lot of value to draw from the natural world…

Kill or Be Killed

Every morning the lion wakes up with a mission to eat or starve to death.

The goal of the lion is to find the weakest prey possible — the slowest gazelle, the crippled Zebra calf, the easy meal.

And that very same morning, the gazelle wakes up with the mission of staying alive.

The goal of the gazelle is to outmaneuver and outrun the fastest lion.

For as a gazelle, you’re not sure who’s going to come after you.

Pay close attention here:

The lion is running after something.

The gazelle is running from something.

As long as the lion keeps chasing the gazelle, the gazelle will keep on running because the alternative is death.

As soon as the lion stops chasing it, the gazelle stops.

The duality between prey and predator is fascinating to us… for it’s very much similar to the personality traits we see around us — some are predators and some are prey.

But one thing is certain: It doesn’t matter whether you’re the lion or the gazelle, when the sun comes up, you better be running.

Although in today’s world, you’re no longer running for bear survival — you’re running to escape the game of necessity. You’re running for freedom. That’s the majority of people reading this story.

Some of you are lions and some of you are gazelles.

If you are getting work done, if you are running only if people are pushing you, coaching you, telling you what to do, forcing you to do work, and giving you a reward if you do what you’re told — you’re a gazelle, my friend.

And the lion, on the other hand...