Work Like a Lion? Or Like a Mule?
Which is Best for Skill Acquisition? Blitz or grind? Both!
Some time ago I came across this piece of advice by entrepreneur and investor Naval Ravikant: “Eat like a lion, work like a lion, feel like a lion, live like a lion“. Ravikant uses the comparison between a lion and a cow when talking about how we should approach work. He juxtaposes the cows grazing all day with lions resting most of the time and engaging in occasional bursts of activity with maximum energy and focus.
The cow (I will replace the cow with a mule in this article) is a metaphor for drudgery, routine, monotonous work done over a long period of time with a similar pace with very little change, and what is seen as traditional 9 to 5 work. The lion is the antithesis of this approach, engaging in action only once the right target is identified, otherwise resting most of the time. Lions notoriously can sleep up to 20 hours a day (though lionesses sleep much less). We can make fun of that, but at the end of the day, lions “do the work” and the results allow them to rest the rest of their day.
“We’d like to view the world as linear, which is, I’m gonna put in eight hours of work, I’m gonna get back eight hours of output, right? Doesn’t work that way. The guy running the corner grocery store is working just as hard or harder than you and me. How much output is he getting?… Outputs are non-linear based on the quality of the work that you put in. The right way to work is like a lion.” — Naval Ravikant
Ravikant is not just naively suggesting doing this in all situations. He makes it clear that this strategy is best applied in creative work, in knowledge-based activities. He argues that when people who work in such jobs say they work 40, 50 even 80 hours a week, it is, much more often than not, simply not true. That such people are status signaling, showing off, no one can work for such an extensive amount of time every week and really produce consistently. That such people would be incapable of producing good ideas. Instead, he posits, sprints are more productive in knowledge work. Inspiration matters and because it flashes and disappears quickly, one needs to act on it when it appears.
I completely agree. Working hard or being at work for 8 hours or more every day is not an indicator of success. A knowledge worker is not a factory worker. Hours do not necessarily add up to more output. Or rather, they should not. Knowledge work should be about the quality of ideas and execution. Any time spent performing an action should give us the maximum possible return on investment. At least that is what we should aim at. Recall the Pareto principle.
However, a key component of any knowledge work, any creative work, is learning. We constantly, inevitably, unavoidably need to learn, adapt, improve our methods and learn new skills. And this is where we see that “the way of the lion” may make sense in the context of entrepreneurial activities, in business, when creating a start-up. But this approach is not optimal for learning and skill acquisition.
I believe a more nuanced approach is needed. We don’t just have two choices — a mule-like grind or lion-like hunting/rest cycle. In this article, I want to propose a third one — MULE + LION strategy for skill acquisition. It consists of:
- Component A — Mule strategy: regular, continuous minimum necessary input with non-maximum effort. Examples:
- 15 minutes of Spanish language learning a day,
- half an hour of piano practice 5–6 times a week,
- regular exercise with the objective of staying in shape and slowly, progressively improving performance. - Component B — Lion strategy: planned or unplanned (sometimes driven by unexpected inspiration caused by something or someone) burst of the limited-time highly intense study period. Call it hunting time. :) Examples:
- 1–2 week trip to Spain, or a short and intense Spanish course,
- 2–4 week period of intense study of a piano piece,
- intense exercise regimen of 4–8 weeks as part of the preparation for a tournament, or a seminar/focused study of a particular sub-skill related to the sport over 1–2 weeks.
B comes on top of A. A is something you do regularly, and B you do occasionally. So a steady pace with occasional sprints included.
Here is, for example, how I work on my Spanish using the MULE+LION strategy. I know I will not have much time for it every day. In fact, most days I barely have 15 minutes for it. So I make sure to do two things — read one page from the Spanish version of the Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday, and journal in Spanish using the Stoic’s Diary. This is a non-negotiable minimum. When I know I am going to have 1–2 hours a day for a few days, I add various activities, for example: reading a fiction book in Spanish; watching a season of a TV show in Spanish; listening to podcasts, doing vocabulary work, etc.
Or let’s take Brazilian jiu-jitsu. As a minimum, I try to attend the classes 3–4 times a week — this works most of the time. This includes the times when I do not particularly feel like working out, I go through the motions, so I can at least accumulate mat time. On the weeks when I have little free time, I add two components — studying BJJ instructionals and having private classes with a coach. This ups the ante and significantly improves my jiu-jitsu progression. Finally, 2–3 times a year, there is competition preparation where training frequency and intensity increase quite a bit. After the competition wraps up, there is a slowdown and rest period. In sports, training hard is not enough — you will get tougher, but not better. You have to sprinkle a bit of smart work on top of the hard work.
I have applied the same approach to studying chess, piano, and other interests. It ALWAYS works.
How about work? Same. Going back to Ravikant’s comment, no one can work at a high pace and efficiency for 40 hours a week. So my approach is, as a minimum, to maintain the MULE strategy — keep processing e-mails and routine activities, making sure the accumulating backlog of issues is kept to a minimum. Every once in a while, including when inspired, I switch to the LION strategy and go after specific thematic things that require more time and focus, things that enhance the quality of work overall, improve processes or build staff capacity.
Some additional thoughts:
- Lion strategy is great for making impressive progress quickly. But it is not sustainable over a longer period of time. That is why you should do it in short bursts. At the same time, if you just rest the rest of the time, your progress will stall. So you need to build a foundation of a mule-like work ethic to make sure the time in between your lion sprints is not wasted.
- That said if all you need is a basic understanding of a field or a skill, and you have limited time, use the lion strategy. You won’t get to mastery this way but can reach your immediate objective.
- Mule strategy alone won’t get you to mastery. You will progress, sure, but even if you spend more time or effort on a regular basis, you will hit a plateau. Without the lion strategy, you’re just Boxer from Animal Farm. His answer to every problem, every setback, was “I will work harder!” We all remember (I hope) how it ended. So if you hit a plateau, you need a sprinkle of a lion-like approach.
- Rest! Especially right after the lion strategy time. Check out my article Rest Comprehensively here. Sleep and take naps! The best resource on sleep is Matthew Walker’s book Why We Sleep (see my takeaways here).
- Finally, needless to say, executing the mule strategy needs discipline. without going too much into the topic (maybe I’ll do that in another article :)), here are three books you can check out on the subject:
- Grit by Angela Duckworth
- Discipline Equals Freedom by Jocko Willink
- Discipline is Destiny by Ryan Holiday
There you have it. MULE + LION strategy. Try it, and let time know how it goes!
