“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're the lion or the gazelle – when the sun comes up, you'd better be running.”
- Christopher McDougall
With this illustration, there is no confusion where the head of the lion or the head of the gazelle is, they wake up and know exactly what they need to overcome that day, they know the standard at which they must perform.
With the lion and the gazelle, a thought that is often overlooked is that being the slowest gazelle means that you probably won’t last long. With that happening, the lion must wake up the next day and chase down the next fastest gazelle, the gazelles don’t get slower and therefore, for the lion, yesterday’s speed and effort won’t cut it today.
Sometimes we like to wake up and think that since we did well or good enough yesterday that we can survive today or that yesterday’s handwork will get us through today, the simple fact is that it won’t. This is every day, you have to wake up and be ready to go out and get better, find the gazelle. Small things and large things that we can chase down every day to make us better.
If the lion doesn’t improve enough each day to catch the slowest gazelle it will starve, think of the desperation, perseverance, and focus of the lion, it’s do or die for them.
So again, when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.
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