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What Got You There

What Got You There with Sean DeLaney
#67 Boyd Varty- Life Lessons From The African Savanna

Boyd Varty had an unconventional upbringing. He grew up on Londolozi Game Reserve in South Africa, a place where man and nature strive for balance, where perils exist alongside wonders. Founded more than eighty years ago as a hunting ground, Londolozi was transformed into a nature reserve beginning in 1973 by Varty’s father and uncle, visionaries of the restoration movement.

Varty shares his harrowing tales like an encounter with a black mamba, what it’s like to have a lion lock you in their gaze and run at you full speed and many other exhilarating stories.

This isn’t just a talk about animals and nature, its a story of transformation that inspires a great appreciation for the beauty and order of the natural world. With conviction, hope, and humor, Varty makes a passionate claim for the power of the wild to restore the human spirit.

http://whatgotyouthere.com/
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https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-delaney-00909190/
Intro/Outro music by Justin Great- http://justingreat.com/
Audio Engineer- Brian Lapres

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Invest Like the Best with Patrick O’Shaughnessy | Live Like a Tracker

Invest Like the Best Boyd Varty

An interesting question that I think about a lot: how do you balance exploring the new with savoring what you already know and love? Most of the time I prefer to explore, but the best part of this podcast experience for me has been meeting people who become close friends. For episodes 99 and 100, I’m bringing back two of the most popular past guest who are both now dear friends.

This week’s episode is split into two parts, today and tomorrow. Today’s episode is with Boyd Varty and tomorrow is with both Boyd and his sister Bronwyn. The incredible Varty family hosted me in South Africa, so you’ll hear birds and elephants in the background as we talk.

This conversation with Boyd is about our shared experience called “track your life” which I couldn’t recommend more highly. We tracked animals on foot for five days, and learned a lot from the environment itself. While we discuss our time together, this is much more about how to live. My original conversation with Boyd had a huge impact on me, and this continues the exploration of Boyd’s idea that we should all be going our own way, in the right way, instead of simply following well-trodden paths.

I hope you enjoy this conversation with Boyd and the second podcast conservation with his sister Bronwyn Varty-Laburn.

Show Notes

1:55 – (First Question) – Encounter with five wild dogs

10:19 – The idea of a perfect day on the track

15:59 – The importance of silence

19:42 – Why we could all benefit from the power of silence

21:37 – Side effects of being on the track

23:49 – Following the smaller paths

25:20 – How culture can keep us from forging our own path

29:34 – The stress he puts on the watch at night

33:34 – The power of going from alert to rest and back again

35:11 – Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers

38:25 – Disconnecting from the modern world and reconnecting with your life’s purpose

41:42 – How much does skill play into finding your life’s calling

43:23 – Common objections to what they do

49:58 – Importance of end of day on the track

52:33 – Silence and feeling of thousands of years of time passing through hallucinogenic

56:22 – His experience with bees

 

* This post is copied and embedded from my good friend Patrick O’Shaugnessy’s Podcast – Invest Like the Best on his website the Investor Field Guide

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Podcast: What Being Stung by a Swarm of Bees Taught Me About Humanity

What if bees might be holding the key to an algorithm that could teach humanity how to create vast shifts in our collective consciousness? What if they are holding the key to how an individual can create waves of change through complex social structures. What if they teach us more than any creature about how deeply relational all life is. Well I learnt all of this…and then respect. Listen to my story on how being stung by hundreds of bees taught me all of this and more!

https://soundcloud.com/user-527688819/draft-bees

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Podcast: Synchronicity

What if your life were being composed by an aspect of your consciousness that you are not aware of?  Is this not what happens when we dream? What if we left moments and symbols in the dream of life to help us wake up to a deeper reality than what meets the eye? These moments might be what you could call synchronicity.

Synchronicity is a deeply meaningful and yet unlikely occurrence in time and space that forces you to wonder what the fabric of life is made of.  As a tracker one must first notice a deeper harmony in life and then try and fall into step with that unfolding so your life gives way to life itself.

Take a listen to my 17 minute podcast in which I share with you some of my thoughts on the incredible occurrence of synchronicity…

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Podcast: Meeting Yourself in Wilderness

During a walk that I went on a couple of weeks ago, I felt a certain shift in consciousness, and a shift in the way that I was perceiving the natural world. It’s something that stayed with me for a long time, and I realised that what I was discovering was a much more native way of discovering myself in all things, in the natural world. It began with a very critical voice, centered on the fact that I felt like I wasn’t doing enough. I had all these places I wanted to be, and things I wanted to achieve, and I wasn’t doing enough to get there. That’s my common theme (it may be a different theme for you…we all have one). When that voice should have made me do more and motivate me, it actually made me rebel against it, and stop doing things. It was a recurring pattern for a week or so, and so I turned to the wilderness for the answers…