A Rabbit, Lion & AirBnB | What They Can Teach You

Last time I shared a story with you from the Panchatantra.

Again,

I am reminded of another story because I feel stories have so much power and you can learn and imbibe these lessons in your day-to-day life.

Again,

This is a story from over 2000 years ago,

Still relevant today.

This is the story of a rabbit and a lion.

So long back in a forest in India,

There used to be a very ruthless lion.

This lion had bloodlust.

He would go and just kill animals for pleasure.

And so one day all the animals in the forest gathered together and they said,

You know,

This lion is so ruthless,

We need to come up with a solution.

So what they decided was,

Every day one animal will go to the lion,

The lion will eat that animal and that lion will not kill anybody else and now the lion would not need to hunt.

So all of them went to the lion and they were terrified and they said,

Your majesty,

We have come with a proposal to you.

And he looked at them and he was so happy when he saw all of them were terrified of him.

And he said,

What is the proposal?

And they said,

The proposal is every day we will send one animal to you,

You don't need to hunt and you can eat and don't kill everybody.

So the lion said,

Okay,

No problem.

So every day one animal would go,

One day a goat would go,

A deer,

A sheep,

A buffalo.

And one day the turn came for a rabbit.

And this rabbit was going and purposely this rabbit reached late and everybody was terrified and the rabbit reached late and the lion was furious.

He said,

How dare you come late?

Don't you know I'm the king of this jungle?

And the rabbit said,

Your majesty,

I wanted to be on time.

I was coming,

But on the way I was caught by another lion and that other lion asked me where I was going and I said,

I'm coming to you.

And he told me from now on,

He is the king of the jungle.

And I should inform this to you because he says he is much more powerful than you and he can defeat you in the battle.

Now this lion became furious.

His ego got hit and he was a very arrogant lion.

He says,

How dare this other lion tell you that?

Take me to this other lion.

Let me teach this other lion a lesson.

The rabbit said,

Okay,

Your majesty,

Follow me.

And this rabbit went up.

He went to a well and he said,

See,

The other lion is down there.

That's his cave.

So this lion looked down and in the cave he saw his own reflection and he started growling and he said,

I'm going to attack you.

And the other lion said the same thing.

And this lion jumped into the well and as soon as he jumped into the well,

The rabbit climbed up onto the well and looked down.

And now the rabbit,

The lion was stuck in the well and the rabbit started laughing.

And this is a very powerful and a beautiful story,

Which applies to every area of your life.

I will share how,

But before I share how,

Let me share an incident from the modern world.

There were two people and they were struggling to pay rent.

Brian and Joe,

They were really struggling to pay rent.

There were young guys struggling to pay rent and they came up with an idea.

They said,

We are struggling to pay rent.

Let's set air beds in our house.

So they bought air mattresses,

Put it in their house and started renting it out and they made some extra money.

The reason they made some extra money is because in those days a conference was happening in their city.

So they started this company called Airbnb,

Where people can give out their homes.

They can use their existing homes on the platform Airbnb.

But again,

When they started this business,

They were facing a lot of challenges.

In fact,

They were losing money and they started going to people.

They wanted to raise money from private equity,

From venture capitalists,

And they were really struggling until one day they came up with an idea.

In times of challenges,

Sometimes you need to come up with ideas.

And what was the idea they came up with?

The American elections were going on.

So they decided to sell cereal boxes of cornflakes.

So they went to the supermarket,

Bought boxes of the Kellogg's,

Removed the box and printed new boxes with the names of the presidential candidates.

And they sold each one of those cereal boxes for $30,

$40.

And they ended up selling a thousand boxes.

That's how they raised around $40,

000.

Now,

When they went to a venture capitalist,

That person was about to reject them until he heard the story,

How they survived.

And he said,

If you guys can sell a cereal box for $40,

You guys really have the ability,

The passion to not give up.

And that's how they got funded.

And today they joke,

They say we are cereal entrepreneurs.

But,

And today Airbnb is a multi-billion dollar company.

In fact,

Their profit margins are higher than a Marriott or a Hilton because they don't need land.

They don't need hotels.

They don't need to hire so many employees.

Their profit margins are around 80 to 85% and their valuation is around 85,

90 billion dollars.

And again,

You can learn so much from this.

What can you learn?

Whether you are a rabbit,

Whether you are a small startup,

The first thing is be innovative because when you are innovative,

You will come up with unique ideas and solutions.

And many times innovation is more powerful than brute strength.

The lion had brute strength.

The rabbit did not have brute strength.

The rabbit had innovation.

Airbnb did not have brute strength,

But they were innovative.

And when you are innovative,

You can come up with solutions.

The next is use technology to your advantage.

Airbnb used technology to its advantage because of technology,

They were able to disrupt a market.

They created an entire new market.

So today they can compete with traditional hotels without having to invest hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in real estate.

And the third is sometimes a crisis is the best time to innovate.

So if you are faced with a challenge,

If you are in a moment of crisis,

Maybe it is the best time to innovate.

For these two young men,

Because they could not pay the rent,

They started innovating.

Now the next time you look at Airbnb,

The next time you are in a moment of challenge,

See how you can innovate and come up with a new solution.

This is Yogesh Chhabria sending you lots of love.

Keep learning,

Be innovative and see you soon.