#571: Boyd Varty — The Lion Tracker's Guide to Life

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Boyd Varty (@boydvarty) is the author of two
books, The Lion Tracker's Guide to Life and his
memoir, Cathedral of the Wild. He has been featured in The New
York Times, on NBC, and in other media and has taught his
philosophy of “tracking your life” to individuals and companies
around the world.


Boyd is a wildlife and literacy activist who has spent the last
ten years refining the art of using wilderness as a place for
deep introspection and personal transformation. He grew up in
South Africa on Londolozi Game Reserve, a former hunting ground
that was transformed into a nature preserve by Boyd’s father and
uncle—both visionaries of the restoration movement. Under his
family’s stewardship, the Reserve became renowned not only as a
sanctuary for animals but as a place where once-ravaged land was
able to flourish again and where the human spirit could be
restored. When Nelson Mandela was released after 27 years of
imprisonment, he went to Londolozi to recover.


Boyd has a degree in psychology from the University of South
Africa. He is a TED speaker and the host of the Track Your Life
podcast.


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Setting the scene. [05:44]


How the Londolozi Game Reserve came to be, and what happened
during Boyd’s childhood that instilled him with a “get on with
it” attitude. [08:02]


Why did Boyd’s father and uncle insist on keeping the property
that would become the Londolozi Game Reserve when, at the time,
it was considered useless, overgrazed wasteland? [10:18]


Boyd shares what it was like growing up as a regular
passenger/survivor of The White Knuckle Charter Company. [12:25]


How a man named Ken Tinley and the native Shangaan trackers
helped a trio of teenagers transform their expanse of
scrub-encroached land into a thriving safari business. [21:03]


On the ancient lineage of the Shangaan trackers, and how the
local wildlife came to trust the human caretakers of Londolozi.
[27:05]


Renias Mhlongo is supreme among world-class trackers — and
sometimes the importance of the work outweighs the will of his
clients. [32:21]


Which animals are hardest to track at Londolozi — even if you
happen to be Richard Siwela? [37:53]


Because nature can be unpredictable, how do people protect
themselves in Londolozi? [41:03]


“I don’t know where we’re going, but I know exactly how to get
there.” —Renias Mhlongo [42:56]


How the tracking process has changed for Boyd over the years —
from confident child to young adult traumatized by a home
invasion and crocodile attack to competent grown-up thanks to
people like Dr. Martha Beck and Solly Mhlongo. [45:00]


What is Ubuntu? [1:02:50]


Boyd talks about that time he lived 40 days and 40 nights up a
tree — the questions he was trying to answer for himself by doing
so, the primal fear he experienced while waiting out a storm, the
pros and cons of extreme solitude, and if he’d do it again.
[1:05:15]


Stories about bees, the birds who help humans rob them, and the
power of the hive algorithm. [1:17:45]


The dos and don’ts of interacting with lions in the wild.
[1:29:42]


On the eerie conversation of death, modern confirmation of
ancient myths, and the inexplicable movements of beasts and men.
[1:34:16]


How did Boyd’s own path toward healing after trauma differ from
the way his mother and sister recovered from a trauma they
experienced? [1:39:57]


What is ceremony work, and how can it help someone deal with
trauma? [1:43:32]


What Boyd means when he says “an authentic life infused with
meaning is a kind of activism.” [1:46:40]


How Boyd and I have both been affected by the Work of Byron
Katie. [1:52:03]


Boyd’s first medicine encounter in an Arizona sweat lodge, and
what he took away from the experience. [1:56:31]


Feelings. Nothing more than feelings. [2:02:49]


Kudus and nightjars and leopards in the fire (oh, my)! What a
close encounter with a beautiful predator taught Boyd about
Ubuntu. [2:04:14]


Examining the therapeutic value of spending time with animals.
[2:13:05]


Laurens van der Post poetically described the sound of a lion’s
roar. And, in a packed presentation hall at a major Silicon
Valley company, Boyd did not. [2:17:57]


An invitation to visit Londolozi and other parting thoughts.
[2:22:10]


*


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