Boyd Varty - Trust Your Inner Guide

Speaker A: I lived with an ideal of who and how I thought I should be. And that ideal was set by the environment I was around in and, um, the people who were around me. And I always thought that I should be doing something really great and I should be doing something big. And I should. And it was only when I, when I got to the point where I could let the ideal go and attend daily to the smallest practice. And, you know, that's where in Track you. If you look at the Track youk Life Work or at Lion Tracker's Guide, uh, I talk about the first track. And so when I became committed to doing the next smallest thing that I knew to do, and then doing it and starting to feel solid in that, and then doing the next smallest thing without the ideal of who I thought I should be or where I thought I should be, constantly judging me, I started to build that internal trust. And there was also a humility to it. I had to let go of the feeling of where I should be or the level I should be at, or all of these ideals and, um, judgments and comparisons built into the cultural milieu that we live in. Only when I let that go and I humbled myself to say, you know, I am where I am and I'm going to do the next thing that I know to do. And it's, whatever it is, I will take the next first track and then the next first track. And I don't, I don't know where it's going, but I'm just gonna, I'm gonna consistently show up for myself on the next smallest thing that I could do. And when I started to do that, over the course of a few years, I started to build trust and I got out of the cycle of I should do something great and powerful and amazing, but I'm not doing that. So then I judge myself and criticize myself and don't start. So that was one part of it.

Speaker B: You're listening to what Got yout There. I'm your host, Sean Delaney, and on every episode I sit down with some of the best to deconstruct and distill the timeless lessons they've learned to reach the pinnacle of their craft. Let's get into it. My guest today is Boyd Vardy, who

Speaker C: is back for a second time on the podcast.

Speaker B: And I can honestly say Boyd is

Speaker C: one of the people in life that I have learned the most from. Boyd M. Is a lion tracker, A,

Speaker B: uh, teacher of the inner life. He's the author of one of my all time favorite books, the Line Tracker's Guide to life. Now, Boyd grew up at the Londolozi Game Reserve in South Africa and where his family restored this exhausted farmland into one of the world's great wildlife sanctuaries. It's actually where Nelson Mandela went to recover after his release from prison. Now, in this conversation with Boyd, we explore the inner cultivation of self trust and we go deep into the unconscious scripts that quietly run our relationships and our life. We, we also explored the mature masculine and the lifelong practice of returning to center your centered state again and again. Please enjoy this conversation with Boyd Vardy.

Speaker C: Boyd, it's good to see you again. So it's funny, it's been eight years since we last had you on the podcast. And I'm curious, in those eight years, what do you think you've changed in terms of your approach to life or how you think about your life?

Speaker A: Um, sure. You've opened with a, with a eater here, right? Uh, I think my fundamental philosophy remains the same, following the non rational inner track. And by that I mean, you know, I still, I still follow my internal sense of where there's energy and often that still pulls me in, in non rational directions, but it's a way that it pulls me towards, you know, what I would think of as like the fullest expression of myself. And so that's still absolutely fundamental. But I think that I've refined my. I, uh, continue to refine my process with it. And I also think there's been a, uh, like, like there is. In eight years a lot has happened. I've gotten married, I've had a child. And so I feel like there's um, been a maturing of my understanding of that that comes with that, that comes with that natural kind of transformational maturity that comes when you enter into those phases of life. So I would say no fundamental change, but a constant refinement and a constant attention to it. One thing that might be interesting is that I think I've moved away from when I first started developing the idea of track your life and this body of work around finding what you were looking for based on the principles and mentality of a tracker. I was very focused on purpose, goals, outputs. And even when I would run retreats, you know, it would be what are we? You're trying to find your purpose, you're trying to find your mission. And I think the deeper, uh, the deeper experience of that has been the, that what we're actually looking for is a state of awareness, a depth of presence out of which we operate. And so I would say that's like the fundamental of it is I'm way more interested now in the state in which I do things than in what I'm doing.

Speaker C: Can you even go further into what that state is like in terms of the embodiment of that level of awareness and presence for someone who's not as familiar or has not been into that state as frequently as you?

Speaker A: I would say that as you, as you cultivate that type of self awareness and presence, the, the irony of it is that how, how would I even begin to talk about it? The irony uh, of it is that you find what you're looking for everywhere. And so one way to think of it is if you were an athlete. And Josh Waitzkin references this in his training models. He says, you're looking, you practice form M so that you can ultimately leave form. And so the striving for the fullest expression of my life, to find my purpose, to be on mission, all of that striving eventually is necessary. It's absolutely necessary. And then at a certain point it gives way into this deeper understanding that in this state of presence, life is innately meaningful. And it goes from being goal orientated to something like I wake up in the morning, I wash my face and I let the day unfold. But I let the day unfold because I'm in touch with a part of myself that knows what is mine to do when it sees it. My inner track, my inner guide is loud and uh, so it's like a kind of spaciousness, but it's not passive because when something crosses my path, that is for me, I'm extremely directive towards it. And in any given day where I wake up and my whole plan is to wash my face and let the day unfold rather than a lot of perseverating and thinking I should do this, then I should do that, or that would, it's stillness and then something unfolds and I know to do it and I take radical action towards that. So you know, in, in our mutual friend Jim Dethmer's model, he's got the idea of by me, through me, as me. And so you're, you're heading up this ladder of consciousness. First you think it's all by me and you take action because I've got to make it happen at the next level, you're allowing things to come through you. And then at the highest levels, which I'm not saying I'm at permanently, but uh, you know, I might touch it occasionally, it's as me, it's out of your presence Things unfold. And there can be a huge variety of things unfold, but, you know, what is yours to do? And you're. It's almost characterized by radical discernment. And so all these, you know, really interesting things crossed your field. But then only when out of that stillness and self knowing, you feel this massive expansion, expansion of energy, and you can feel, well, that that is mine. And, um. And so you follow in this very discerning and decisive way. But it's quite asymmetrical to the. You know, write your list of goals and figure out how to knock them off.

Speaker C: Yeah. Can you even dive further then into your philosophy on your life architecture, how you think about that?

Speaker A: Yeah. So my. My life architecture is now, it's built around a couple of principles. And those principles are, um, things that I know, um, broad categories of things that I know make me feel good. But it's not a schedule, it's a. It's an awareness that, like, every day I need some time alone. I need to move my body, I need to connect with people. Like, you know, I have like one pillar out there, which is basically like talking shit with people, because I notice when I jam with people in an unstructured way, often really interesting things emerge out of it. So I have principles, and I live, like, pretty much consistently by those principles. I need time in nature, but I allow them to modulate. And I can sense when I'm, you know, out of balance with one thing. You know, if I'm too family heavy and I haven't attended to my solitude, I can start to feel it out of the state of awareness. And then I find ways to redirect and bring a little more of that into what I need in my life. The other thing that's, uh, probably new since the last time we talked is outside, inside of those principles too. There's also, um. There's things like, I know I need to be of service. I know I need to, you know, uplift other people. There's. There's some duty that I need to do. Things that are like, maybe I don't feel like doing them, but they. I know they're mine to do, and when I do them, I feel more solid in myself having fun creating things. And then I catch myself doing those things. And so, you know, if I'm hanging out with a friend and I really am enjoying it, I notice like, oh, I'm in my having fun bucket. If I write a letter to someone expressing gratitude or how I feel about something they did for me, I notice I'm in my human connection bucket. If I give someone advice, I notice I'm in my uplifting others bucket. So, yeah, know I have these principles. I practice them out of the state of awareness. And I am constantly, subtly auditing and noticing if I'm in my general principles of how I want to be living.

Speaker C: I like the, the overall fluidity of that. I feel like you, you and I have very similar approaches or, or philosophies on this. What I mean is that that inner level of awareness which you're living from, and I love your word, the modulation, right. The way I interpret that is you might have something on the, let's call it the schedule or the plan of what you might want to do. I want to go to the gym today. But you're listening to that state of inner awareness and almost to tie back to what you were saying with Josh Waitzkin, form to leave form. It's almost like, I know I want to go to the gym, but right now what the body actually needs is some rest and recovery.

Speaker A: A hundred percent. And there's been days where, you know, I think you have to, uh, establish in yourself the self trust that you are disciplined, you will create you attend to your duties. You know, you, if you know that those things are in place and you, you arrive at something and you feel like, I don't like. You walk into the gym and you're just not feeling it in your body, you can trust that you're not just bailing on yourself out of a lack of discipline. So it takes a cultivation of that level of like, self trust. And I've done it long enough now that I just know I'm going to do the things I need to do. So I can really trust, um, that I can follow my guidance on that. And I think it also helps that, you know, my work is at a phase where it allows me to do that. But having said that, I coach lots of people whose time is, is not yet as much their own. And I, you know, almost everyone who I've coached, when you first get going, says, well, I would do all of that if I had more time and money, you know. And, uh, through the process, we almost, we almost always quickly find out that the time is there. It's just a question of how we're allocating ourselves and where we're and when and what we're doing in, in the moments where we do have time, it's there. It's just often structured wrong.

Speaker C: Hey guys, it's Sean. Just a quick note. And then we'll jump right back into the episode with Boy. So I want to tell you about what I do outside the podcast. I'm a private advisor who works with

Speaker B: a small number of CEOs, founders and investors. The stuff I help with doesn't have a playbook.

Speaker C: It's those things you can't bring to

Speaker B: your board or your spouse or your team or your LPs.

Speaker C: So you've been looking for someone to help you navigate the complexity of what you're facing and do it behind closed doors.

Speaker B: Head to Shawn Delaney coaching.com and let's have a conversation.

Speaker C: Talk to me about the word you used a minute ago. Trust. I'm thinking about the, uh, the cultivation of self trust. One of my favorite quotes is by the, uh, the German playwright and poet Johan, uh, Wolgang von Goethe in his play Faust is a line, as soon as you trust yourself, you'll know how to live. And I've shared that with certain people. It kind of goes over their head. And then I might share it a year or two later and it clicks. Talk to me about that cultivation of that inner trust that, that you've been able to. To develop.

Speaker A: Sure. Well, it's taken a long time, and I think it. I think it comes back to the form to leave form. You know, I struggled to get my show on the road so much in the early days. I had. I struggled with depression and I struggled with anxiety, and I had all sorts of. I had PTSD when I was younger. And I would get into these cycles where I would think I should do something, not do it, and then criticize myself. And then the criticism, um, would be so intense that then I would give up on doing anything. You know, I've done all of those kind of reps. And I think one thing is I was always. I lived with an ideal of who and how I thought I should be. And that ideal was set by the environment I was around in and, um, the people who were around me. And I always thought that I should be doing something really great and I should be doing something big. And I should. And it was only when I, When I got to the point where I could let the ideal go and attend daily to the smallest practice. Practice. And you know, that's where in Track you. If you look at the Track youk Life Work or at Lion Trackers Guide, uh, I talk about the first track. And so when I became committed to doing the next smallest thing that I knew to do, and then doing it and starting to feel solid in that, and then doing the next Smallest thing, without the ideal of who I thought I should be or where I thought I should be, constantly judging me. I started to build that internal trust. And there was also a humility to it. I had to let go of the feeling of where I should be or the level I should be at, or all of these ideals and, um, judgments and comparisons built into the cultural milieu that we live in. Only when I let that go, and I humbled myself to say, you know, I am where I am, and I'm going to do the next thing that I know to do. And it's. Whatever it is, I will take. Take the next first track and then the next first track. And I don't. I, uh, don't know where it's going, but I'm just gonna. I'm gonna consistently show up for myself on the next smallest thing that I could do. And when I started to do that, over the course of a few years, I started to build trust. And I got out of the cycle of I should do something great and powerful and amazing, but I'm not doing that. So then I judged myself and criticize myself and don't start. So that was one part of it. The second part of it came out of Gay Hendricks's work, which is his ideas about the problem with upper limits. I don't know if you've, uh, read this.

Speaker C: Yeah. But please, please expand on it for the people listening.

Speaker A: Yeah. So the idea is, is that from the time you were young, you. Your nervous system got set to a level of how good you're allowed to feel. And if you start going over that, it actually feels like you start feeling really good. It starts to feel unknown to the nervous system. And so you will unconsciously reset yourself back to, like, a certain level of how good you're allowed to feel. And people unset themselves. Sorry. Reset themselves unconsciously in a lot of ways. Judging, criticizing, um, people reset themselves by overeating and drinking. People reset themselves by picking drama and, uh, you know, unconsciously setting off fights in their life, all these ways. And so when I started to realize that I was still driven by a lot of unconscious drivers, and I started to notice that there was a pattern to how I would start to do well and then self sabotage. And then do well and then self sabotage. When I started to see that there was a pattern to that, I started to be able to make it conscious. And. And instead of saying, oh, you've let yourself down again, I would notice, oh, uh, I'm just upper limiting. I'm doing what I Do to keep my nervous system feeling safe. And so there was a kindness to that. And then slowly I started to titrate myself into feeling better and better. And the way that you do that is when you actually feel good. Because usually you upper limit just when you're starting to feel really good, when you actually feel good, you actually might even say to yourself like, wow, things are going well, I'm feeling really good. You stop and you take a moment and you let that feeling into your body and you almost consciously tell yourself, this is how good we're allowed to feel. So humbling myself to take on any small task, working with the small track, becoming aware of my upper limit pattern, how I would sabotage myself unconsciously. And then the final thing is, for about a year I questioned all of the thoughts that caused me intense stress using Byron Kagi's method where you, you write down a thought that's causing you trouble, like I'm not, I'm not doing enough. And then you walk through this very systematized process and you meditate in it. And what happens when you do Byron Katie's work, which I would encourage everyone to check out, is instead of saying I'm not doing enough, you should be doing more, getting into a fight. Instead you, you, you hold it all in contemplation and in kindness. And it's an incredibly powerful process. And, and so through those practices and being disciplined about those practices, um, something, something really shifted and a different awareness started to take root.

Speaker C: A word you said that I found was so important is, is meditate with Byron Katie's work. And I think where you're coming from with that is not this rational. Let me solve this, Let me, you know, question my thoughts. It's the deep breath of awareness of let me observe these. And I love where you're coming from, from that. A little bit more compassion there.

Speaker A: A hundred percent. If, if you, if you were to say something like I'm not doing enough or I should be more successful. And then the egoic mind wants to push against it and say, well, that's not always true, but sometimes it's true. And uh, actually you did well yesterday, but you're not doing well today. You're still. The ego likes that. But when you sit and you contemplate in the thought and you ask yourself, is it true? What happens? How do I react when I believe the thought? And you watch what happens when you believe the thought. Who would I be without the thought? It's actually very loving. You're getting to know yourself and so all of that to say that the self trust has been built out of practice. And now what it looks like is mostly I feel really, really peaceful. I feel really, really happy. And then that can go on for weeks at a time. And then something will come up and I will get knocked off my center. And then I go back to my practices and it's, it's literally like a few, you know, like something will come up and then I will go to the root of it and. And then it moves through. So it's, it's really interesting even to me. I, uh, I'm like, I'm um. I'm. For someone who is so depressed and anxious for, you know, 15 years, I, uh, I just really can't believe the state of generalized happiness I am in at the moment and have been for a few years now.

Speaker C: I intrigued by that because you mentioned the length of time, the 15 years of being in that depressed or tense state. You've even talked in the past about land, speaking of land in Africa that's traumatized can absorb the rainwater similar to a person who's been traumatized. They can't absorb some of these things as easily. What do you think allowed you to start being able to get some of that nourishment, absorb some of that?

Speaker A: It's a, it's a great question. I think the con. The consistency of the work and so the big one was the idea that something in me already knew how to be myself. Uh, for lack of a better word, how to be myself. Something in me knew. And when I started realizing that that part of myself didn't speak to me in the rational strategic plan of how to get here or how to do this, it spoke to me simply in this feeling of expanding energy in the body. And I started to just follow that. So literally I would move towards things that made me feel physically expansive and energized. Um, that was very powerful. And then that together with Byron Katie's work were where I realized that my whole life I, and probably from childhood I had experienced this feeling of criticism and not enough, that probably came from the outside first and that I internalized. And so I was incredibly critical of myself. And once I saw that the criticism actually kept the cycle going and I started to be able to interject it with this type of loving contemplation. Uh, something, something different started to happen. But I had to, I had to break out of the way. My own mind was constantly judging and criticizing me. And actually I think that some of this is built into the culture you Know, in a society where the individual self is disconnected from the whole, the search for meaning is reduced to the state of comparison. And in consumerist society, so you're looking out and there's this feeling of always like, well, they're there. I'm here. I should be there. It's like, built in. And in a society like that, your own ego structure, which is like, it's a construction, it tends to constantly judge you. So unless you can befriend it lovingly, it. It almost gets energy from the criticism. And even trying to break through your ego feeds it. The only way to do it is to hold it and for something bigger, to hold the feeling of who I am, who I'm not. You know, one way I would say it is if you go live alone out in nature, like, the critical voice starts to fall away because you're in relation with everything. You're not judging yourself against everyone and everything. You're just, uh, you're in it, You're a part of it. And. And there's a kindness to that. And so all of that started to. To take root. In the COVID year. I went and lived for 40 days and 40 nights by myself out, um, in a tree. And I had this incredible period of. Of just solitude in nature. And it was an absolutely profound time for me because things started. A lot of these constructions started to break down, and I started relating to myself away from other people, away from all of the constructs of the world. It changed the way I related with myself in a very fundamental way.

Speaker C: It's interesting. I'm sure you've seen the same thing when you travel to different pockets. I know you spent time in Austin and you're in Africa. You know, you're somewhere like New York. You can feel these competitive, comparative, almost clouds absorbing that pocket of society. And then you kind of enter maybe into a different friend group, and you feel more of that relational, connected element. So I'm wondering for you, if you're not spending 40 days and 40 nights out there alone in the wilderness, how do you. How do you find more ways to drift from that comparative, competitive into more of the relational dynamic and find those ecosystems?

Speaker A: I mean, I have this joke now that I never leave the world Village. And I really feel that. I feel like everywhere I go, I'm in that state of relationality. And some of that is. Some of that is constructed, some of that is context, cultivated. But I've. I've definitely been at the dinner in New York where everyone around the table has founded a company and sold it for, you know, $100 million. And I felt the comparative voice come in. Like, wait, should I be, you know, should I be starting, uh, a. An AI company? Is that what I should be doing? You know, like, I've. I've had all of those movements, and then I go away, and I will sit with the belief and I'll do my work on it. And almost always I come back to, you know, just staying true to what genuinely to my own inner guide. Uh, I just. I just keep following my own inner guide. And I follow it without any sense of where it's going. I follow it without really ever knowing what the outcome will be. And I notice that when I do that, I feel solid in myself in a way that is hard to explain. I feel like I'm in some kind of integrity with myself that trumps everything else. And so I became very disciplined with that. And I notice a place, you know, I'll notice a place where I cross myself or if I go out of alignment with myself, and I'll clean it up pretty quickly because it's a very. That presence with myself, that presence, um, relational presence with others is the thing that is genuinely just more solid, you know, like in the east, they. When I used to be in the meditation traditions, they would say, once you connect yourself with the real, with presence, you don't have to work so hard to, like, let go of the clutches of the world, because the feeling of that other thing is much. Is just much stronger. And I sort of, uh. I feel a bit of that now, not abiding. I definitely fall back asleep regularly, but I just want to be with that integrity, with myself, more than I want anything else.

Speaker C: A few things, boy, that are really coming through is just the amount that you've made this practice, your way of life. What I mean is the continual refinement and cultivation of this right? There's no perfection. You get knocked off center, and. And then you're back to center. The times you keep going back to that practice, to me is really important because I think so much in this type of society is we. We look to someone like you and say, he's achieved it. He's gotten there. All of this practice isn't taking place, and you're saying the complete opposite. I just wanted to. To highlight that. And then another thing that you're saying is that that inner state, that inner center, it's making me think of a. A concept from Carl Young. What supports you, and nothing supports you. And I feel like that. That internal center that you're talking about is really coming through with that.

Speaker A: Oh, uh, man, that is so well said. I, more than anything, I consider myself a practitioner. You know, I, I am a, uh, I am a student. I stay in my practice and it's beautiful to have had a practice long enough now that I understand where I am in my practice. I can feel and I can feel when I'm, when I need to D m. I'm, I'm a little out on the. And it needs to, needs to tighten up. I need to go back to the basics. But I'm a practitioner and this, this way of living, which I would call tracking your life. Staying in tune with the inner guide that knows how to bring you to your fullest expression. Staying close to that, knowing how to shed, you know, an identity, a way of being, getting good at being someone who can transform. It's the alt, it's, it is a practice through and through. Um, and so when I teach now, I, I'm fundamental to the fact that owning, owning the practice is the only way, uh, that it has worked for me. You know, there has not been like some outcome has been stay constantly in practice.

Speaker C: Mhm. When you were talking about really trusting yourself, essentially what was coming up for me is a line I read in your book, the Line Tracker's Guide to Life. And don't you know, when you read certain lines, it's almost like a little jolt goes through you where it's like, uh, oh, this one's gonna stay with me. And the line just stuck with me for years. And you were talking about your friend Renault and you're saying to me, a master is anyone who can be themselves in any situation. And so much what we're, we're talking about is society is trying to morph us or push us into a different way of being. Can you just talk even a little bit more about that? About essentially doing one of the hardest things of all is being yourself in any situation?

Speaker A: Yeah. Um, how would I describe it? Uh, you know, I think it, for me, it comes out of my, all my hours, which is literally now thousands of hours in the natural world. And I'm thinking about it a lot now because I take my son out every day, uh, onto the property here in South Africa. And I'm watching him take in, you know, this wild environment. And I'm realizing that, you know, all of that, the same things is, is how I grew up. And so it's just coded in very deeply. And so my conception of harmony is that everything is uniquely itself. And in Being itself, it enters into a fundamental state of belonging. And so as you walk through the wild chair and you walk past a beautiful tree, and a bird flies out of it, and a tortoise emerges out of the grass, and over there are, ah, some antelope, and then a zebra comes running past, and then an elephant appears. You can feel the relational field in it. You can feel that everything belongs, and it does so by being itself. And so to me, that's kind of like, fundamental to my understanding. And I guess in some ways it has become. It's more subtractive. Like if you imagine we're born and we're socialized and these layers of put on us ideas about who we should be, how we should be, where we should be, it's all on top of us. And as we practice, I feel like we start to see that a lot of those thought patterns, behavior patterns, they're interjections onto us and into us. And so I feel like my work for years was subtractive. Realizing that something that I thought was fundamental to me was something I took on, um, and then slowly starting to shed those patterns of reactivity, thought structures that I took on ideals, roles, traumas that, like, entered me. And the practice has been able to remove those to the point now where my life is. I wake up, I wash my face, I let the day unfold. I go where I need to go. And I know what I have to offer. I offer it freely when I know to. I, uh, discern when I know not to. And it's. It's actually really simple.

Speaker C: Lao Tzu had that great line to obtain knowledge. Every day you add something to obtain wisdom. You release something, let something go.

Speaker A: Yeah, you.

Speaker C: You were talking about being a father. I want to dive into that in a minute, but I'm actually intrigued. Uh, I don't. I don't know if you'll remember this is a few years ago, mentioning about your father and as he's gotten older, the changes of his role and how he embodied something different. Is this sparking your memory at all? What I'm referencing?

Speaker A: I mean, I. I just know about my father's. I know about his transformation. And one thing that I, I've been really proud of is that I feel like him and I together have broken some ancestral pattern. Like, if you imagine he grew up, um, he grew up. His father was in the war. Uh, his father flew every night to Poland to drop supplies. All of his friends in the squadron got shot and died. And then they would go the next night and more of your friends would get shot and die. Ah, so his father was very traumatized. My father grew up with, ah, essentially like a man who was numb, trying to feel. So they went and hunted lions together. And the whole vibe of it was like, you're useless. Get your shit together, stay alive. Um, and that's how I grew up too, was basically the idea that, like, the way to, like, help a boy become a man was to tell him he was useless and push him into situations that were where he had to figure it out. And so that was like, very fundamental to me. And I think that there are elements of that that are good if it's done with a wise mentor. And so my dad was hardened in that way. And then slowly he started to become a practitioner. And it was almost like through. As I started to transform, he was open. He gave me incredible gifts of, of kind of self autonomy, a belief in autonomy, like a strength of character. But then together we started getting into the work of figuring out what was actually valuable, um, questioning our thoughts, learning to try and activate our feeling centers. So we did the work together. And he has softened into someone who's just an incredibly awake human being. And now I'm watching him with my son, mentor him in a totally different way to what I got. And my relationship with him, which went through in like, pretty difficult times, is incredibly connected. And so again, I'm just, I'm for the work if you can find a way to do it. Uh, and I never tried to pull him into it. I just did it. And then he started to see results in me and wanted to know what I was up to. Then he started getting into it. And we just got into this process of practicing coming alive and stepping out of conditioned responses, stepping away from believing our minds. And it was amazing. We kind of found each other. And now, now, you know, I'm feeling my son will grow up differently through me, but also through him. And it's this beautiful kind of cycle.

Speaker C: What do you feel is essentially the. The healthy, the mature, masculine archetype you're trying to embody now?

Speaker A: Um, I've thought a lot about maturity lately. Ah. And probably because I was late to maturity in some ways. And that's because, you know, I just. I got married only when I turned 40 and I had a child only when I was 40 too. So I sort of like the things that sometimes mature you as a man faster, maybe came a little bit later. To me, I was focused on wisdom, but the maturing thing was different. And I, I realized in the relationship Space that up Until I was 38 or 39, I ran my relationships out of unconscious younger parts of myself. And so, you know, someone would be trying to have a relationship with a 38 year old man, but when I got under stress or pressure, the part that got activated was a traumatized 10 year old who got sent to boarding school and abandoned there. Or you know, a traumatized 15 year old who wanted to make sure his mother was okay but couldn't look after her. And so I, I saw that I was mature, I was like on the path of wisdom, but there was still these frozen bits in me that were still running the show. So that was, that was fundamental. And, and I think that maturing, what I, uh, my conception of maturity now is to make sure that the unconscious drivers are not massively out of date. And the more that I've worked with men all over the show is, I, I find that many, many incredibly successful good men still have parts of themselves that haven't caught up with who they are, how old they are, what they've achieved. They are still old survival strategies that are running the show. And so uh, I've tried to mature those parts in myself. I try to encourage other people to mature those parts in themselves. And the most fundamental thing that I've found is when you grow those parts up, um, and show them new ways of doing things. The fundamental mature expression of the masculine seems to me to be to define, to discern and to uplift. So to say I know what my space is and I know what I have to offer. Uh, I know clearly who I'm offering it to and I'm discerning about that. And then inside of that, all I want to do is make other people's lives better, safer, more vibrant, uplift and you know, unlock wherever I can. Now that might be I want to help you get your business going. That might be I want to help you heal. That might be I want your family to feel safe. And it's not rescue because I wouldn't, I wouldn't like dive in but uh, and take on the role of I can fix everything. It's this discerned mature state of I will do everything that I can and that I know to do to support that which is discerned to be mine to do. Does that make sense?

Speaker C: Yeah, that the part you talked about, uh, conducting your relationships based on like a younger primal energy that'll pop up, that part really resonated. You know, it makes me think of the uh, the Carl Jung concept. Until you make the Unconscious, conscious. It'll guide your life and you'll call it fate.

Speaker A: It's 100% that. I mean, I actually just used that same quote in the beginning of a book I've just started writing now. It's unbelievable how far you can get down the road with an unconscious pattern or paradigm still running the show. And so if you have enough of those, you can be grown and immature. And they're so. They're so subtle. So they, again, they take practice, they take introspection, and they take a willingness to face the results you're getting. Like, you keep getting the same external results. You know, uh, Jim, to borrow from Jim again, he's got this idea of, um, your conscious commitment, what you say you want. So I want to be someone who uplifts other people, is a safe person for other people. I want to be, you know, let's say those two things and then your unconscious commitment, which is the result you keep getting, which is like, I've always got drama. People feel spun out by me in relationships. People don't know where they stand. Well, if the actual result that I keep seeing in front of me is that people don't feel safe and they feel spun out, guaranteed something unconscious is running it. And so getting on top of that, uh, it feels really important to me to put out a message now to say, you know, whoever you are, wherever you are, it's almost certain that you've got some immature parts running you. And I think we're in a time where we're in massive need of some mature leadership. And so we. We've got to get on top of realizing that. That there's unconscious drivers and try and try and surface them to more mature m. Expressions.

Speaker C: When you're working with someone, where do you begin with that? You know, someone who's 40 years old and hasn't really, you know, you know, start living off those younger unconscious scripts. I'm curious where you even start to begin with that.

Speaker A: Uh, so normally what'll happen is I start. I start looking for the results they're getting, and I start. I start looking for themes and recurring outcomes. I look for addictive patterns. Um, often addictions will. Will tell you a lot. The level of addictions will tell you a lot. And I. And I don't mean like, just like hot drugs or we all have little things, right? So that would be the first thing is I start getting a, uh, sense of, like, what type of results are you getting? I start tracking. And then if I. If over a little bit of time and this can happen quickly. It can happen. You know, I ran a lot of retreats, so people arrive very primed and they, they want to. They kind of want to go. And so that, that helps a lot. And then I, uh, usually put them into silence for like 12 hours in nature. And then we start and it's almost like. So I look for the results, I look for suffering and I look. And almost always where you find, once you start digging in those two things, you'll start finding common themes and then we can go in and start working with that. But it's a tracking process. It's like you got to read and sense what is there and then find

Speaker C: the way in the resurfacing of certain patterns and how they show up. It makes me think of the, uh, the upper limits you were talking about earlier and a common one that I've even seen in my own, like, you know, weekends coming, Friday night is good. Me and my wife are doing great. And then all of a sudden, you know, we're having a ton of fun. And then there's this little like, bickering or fight and we drop back down and really being able to realize and resurface that pattern, build some space from it, and then realize how we can, you know, work through that a little bit better has been incredibly helpful. So I think a lot about just resurfacing those patterns in our own life,

Speaker A: you'd be surprised what comes up 100% and yeah, just. What results am I getting? What results am I getting? Okay, We've consistently got tension, We've consistently got drama. We've. I think the other thing that is inbuilt into maturity, which is, again, it's a huge undertaking, but it's. And I think in the masculine, it's. It's particular. Like I am responsible. I am. I take the responsibility. If there is, uh, a ruction or a drama, it's not. They always do this. They. It is my responsibility to take it on, to, um, to be able to be with it, to clearly reveal everything that is. That goes on in myself to, you know, like, it's. There's nowhere else to look. And I think, uh, I was listening to Stephen Jenkinson the other day. I don't know if you've, uh, listened to any of his stuff. He's uh, he's a Canadian guy, identifies as an elder. He was. He's assisted in about 8,000 palliative deaths. So he's a. He's really been at the cutting edge of life and death. He's just He's a deep guy and he was saying, he recently started conducting weddings and he was saying whether you know it or not at a wedding, you, the idea it's. There's a death at a wedding and the death is the idea that your life is a uh, series of endless possibilities that you are going to pursue. And I feel like there's like the shadow side of the millennial generations. Really wonderful sense that like we could maybe create our own lives. We could, we could self architect a life that we really wanted. Was this idea that like infinite possibility always. And I think that the hard end of maturing is also like things, things are going to go. As you become more solid, as you mature, the possibility field is going to reduce and so it should reduce towards something that you feel really, really called to. But um, and that's been a. It's been tough for me. I, you know, I've had a very like broad option. Like I love optionality. But I think that containing is a, is a deep aspect of the, the maturing that is fundamental to that divine masculine thing you're talking about.

Speaker C: Could you even expand on that of really like kind of narrowing down and finding what matters for you?

Speaker A: Um, yeah. Bristol man. Brutal. This, this fundamental, the fundamental willingness to let go of optionality and to, to face that your life is not going to be exactly what you think it should be all the time. It is going to be some of what you know to do, some of what you practice towards. Some unexpected, wonderful things that you could never have imagined and some things that life is going to bring to you that you have to, you have to dance with M. And being able to handle that, letting go, handle the fact that there are things that come that need to be done. That's, that's like the feeling that it's your, your duty, you know, to do it. It's not. You do it. And when you do it, even when it's shitty, you feel solid in yourself because you know that that's mine to do. Uh, it's like it's quite paradoxical to. I should just follow. I feel like there's maturity in that and getting good at figuring out what needs to be shared and how the container needs to be tightened. Discerning that is the act of maturing. And as I say you should do, you should do it towards something that feels important enough that you can handle the grief of what you do. Have to let go. Mhm.

Speaker C: Are you familiar with the uh, the poet David White?

Speaker A: I love David White.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. He's Got the, the concept of conversational nature of reality, where it's like you have this idea of what your life should be and then society has this idea of how you should be. And it's going to be at that frontier where neither is going to work out perfectly, but it's going to be this other thing that your life actually unfolds as. So as you were speaking of that, that was, that was coming up for me.

Speaker A: No, uh, I mean, I think that's. He says it so well, but it's some, it's some version of that that is, you know, the. There's this, um, Robert Bly, who was part of the men's movement, the whole, like, Iron John, 1970s, go in the, the forest, bang drums, but really deep stuff. He had this idea that when he got married and had kids, half of his creative life fell away. But the half that he gave up as a result of having a family made him a much, much better person. And I feel like there's a step beyond that too, which is that as you discern and define and contain your life into this maturing process, half of your life is given up. The half that you give up does make you a better person, but then the half that you have left, there's an opportunity to make it dramatically more concentrated. Like the, the. In the fullest expression of the immaturity of my life was my whole life I have quested for autonomy and optionality and fundamentally, all the best things that have come to me in my life have come out of moments where I finally found an ability to reduce that. You know, so I, I had a crossed wire for years. You know, the idea that discipline is freedom. Like, you know, the freedom is once, you know, like, this is the path. But it was my path to be, you know, for the first 40 years, you know, outward like that, and then hopefully continuously refining the container over the next 40m.

Speaker C: Do you think there was a mentor or someone who kind of opened up that world and approach to you, or is that just something you kind of stumbled upon naturally?

Speaker A: No, I. My whole life I've attuned to certain people. And so, like, I've met people and I've had the feeling something about this person and this person's life has something to do with how I'm meant to be living. You know, Like, I. I once watched, um, my mentor, Martha Beck, teach a class sitting in her wardrobe, sitting in her closet, and she was teaching a class to like 150 people on the phone. And it was like I had never Seen someone do a job like that or do work like that, and I remember thinking, like, something about that has something to do with what I'm meant to do.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, and then probably as I got older, I also had some experiences. Like, you know, I would meet a gym, and I would like a gym deathma, and I would feel this presence, and I would feel a groundedness, and I would know I don't have that. I. I had a, uh. I had a few instances where I had some, you know, incredible older, like, guys who were maybe like seven or eight years older than me. And when I was. When I would spend time with them, I wouldn't relinquish my equality. Like, I could feel that I felt light. Um, and I think it's because I was, uh, pursuing this option, this path of optionality. And it's like such a broad container. You can't, like, densify yourself and you're not altogether solid because it's like the tabs is energetic, tabs open and, you know, and so my wife was the gift of that for me.

Speaker C: She.

Speaker A: She has defined, um, her presence in my life, was the thing that brought the ground that I feel, like, gave me so much that I could give up, you know, that which I thought I wanted so I could have that which I really want. And, you know, I came by my desire for optionality honestly. You know, like, I. I just knew I wanted to do my own thing in the world, make my own thing, make my own path. And in order to do that, no one. I was dogged about not being constrained, but I could see how a strength exaggerated had become a weakness. Um, at a certain point, you know, my. My savage desire for autonomy and to, you know, do my own thing. Don't. I don't want to manage other people. I don't want to be told what to do. I have a path at a certain point that I, uh, had to evolve that, um, because was just time, and I. I could see it in myself. Yeah. Anyway.

Speaker C: Yeah. Boyd, would you say there's. There's a story or person currently who takes up, in a good way, a lot of mental space for you, almost like the. The concept or idea. Is, uh, anything coming to mind for you when I bring that up right now?

Speaker A: I think Rick Rubin is my North Star right now. Oh, uh, yeah. Uh, yeah. I'm. I'm just a really big Rick Rubin fan. And I think. I think just because, again, like, attuning to someone who inspires you, it's like you can't say what he does, you know, and he can't really say what he does, but when he's in the room, people feel like they can express something. They. Something can come out that doesn't happen when he's not there. And so, so, you know, if, again, if you think of the. By me, through me, as me, um, states of consciousness to create and be in, I think Rick is very. As me. He. He, you know, he goes in with Jay Z or, you know, system, uh, of a down or whoever it is, and he's there with them. And by being there, they get to be themselves more. And to me, that mastery is what I'm. I'm interested in. That mastery.

Speaker C: What a gift.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: By you, being you, it allows others to embody their most natural sense.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's back to that mastery thing that. Yeah. Uh, yeah, you.

Speaker C: You mentioned you're working on. On a new book.

Speaker A: Yes. Uh, I've written one page. I've literally just started. Um, and I've written kind of like a prologue to what I want the story to be, and now I'm working on the spine of it. It's a book about maturity and it'll be a book about relationships. And it'll be the sort of a culmination of all these years of practice and where it has kind of led me.

Speaker C: That's exciting. I mean, as you know, your book, for one of your books, Blind Dragger's Guide to Life, is. It's so condensed in terms of wisdom. I mean, you can see the. The size of it here. But I feel like, to me, we were talking about those people or ideas that when you first come across them, it just, it clicks. But I also feel this release in the body. And I remember I was on a flight to Costa Rica the first time I read your book, and everything just

Speaker B: softened and intensified at the same time.

Speaker C: And so it's been this North Star for me throughout the years and one I gift again and again. What else do you have going on behind the scenes,

Speaker A: Sean? Well, firstly, thank you. I really appreciate, um, I really appreciate anyone who loves the book and hands it on like writing. You sit alone in your room and you never know what's going to come of it. So when I get to meet people who have had that type of reaction or it still really touches me. So I'm going to write another book. Um, every year I go on an adventure and I do a podcast about it. Um, this is the Track your Life podcast. I'm working on a masterclass at the moment. Twice a year I'LL get a group of about 30 or 40 people together and we do like a five week program virtually, um, where we can, we can go deeper into the concept of what it means to live as a tracker, uh, track your life. And then there's also an opportunity to almost have like campfire sessions where we sit around the fire, virtual fire, and we can, people can ask questions about different concepts that are in the practice. So I've really been enjoying that. That's become a uh, really special thing for the kind of the world village for me to be with people in the village. And then we run our retreats at Londolozi every year. Ah. Now through the winter months. You should come on a retreat at some stage. It would be really cool to get you here, uh, in this environment.

Speaker C: Oh yeah, we're definitely doing that. I want to wait just a little bit. The kids a little bit older because I want them to be able to remember I've got a bunch of kids as you know. Um, so yeah, but believe me, 100% it's happening.

Speaker A: Okay, good. Yeah, it'll be great to get you guys all out here. Um, so retreats and then still a lot of philanthropic work through the Good Work foundation, which is, um, does literacy and uh, skills training in all the villages around the reserve. And the Tracker Academy, which takes young men and women from um, difficult backgrounds and teaches them the ancient art of tracking. That's through my friend Alex who's in the books. Uh, in the book. Yeah. So lots going on, uh, being a dad. But yeah, looking, looking forward to connecting with anyone who's interested in the work. The website is boydvarty.com and it's, it's all on there.

Speaker C: Well, that'll also be linked up in the show notes. But Boyd, I can't thank you enough. You've been one of those just beacons. I would say not to copy your way of being, but I think what you embody in the world opens up different ideas in me. So I've just been so appreciative of that over the years. So I'm glad we were do around two and next one we'll have to do uh, do in person around the campfire.

Speaker A: I would love that, man. And yeah, let's, let's not make it eight years. Yeah.

Speaker C: Yeah, for sure. Awesome man. Thank you.

Speaker B: If this episode resonated with you, if

Speaker C: it stirred something, opened something up or

Speaker B: even challenged something, I'd love to hear about it. You can connect with me directly@whatgotyouthere.com that's where you'll find my writing, my books, more about my executive coaching work I do with the people who want to live and lead from a deeper place. And if this episode made you think of someone, a friend, a teammate, a partner, someone who's been in the grind and might need to hear this, send it to them. Welcome to what Got you there? I'm, um, your host, Sean Delaney, and, um, on every episode, I sit down with some of the best founders, investors, professional athletes, and people doing remarkable things in the world. So if you're interested in learning their timeless lessons and their foundational principles, please enjoy this conversation. Welcome to what Got yout There? I'm, um, your host, Sean Delaney, and on every episode, I sit down with someone in the world who's doing something remarkable. Welcome to what Got yout There? I'm, um, your host, Shawn Delaney, and on every episode I sit down with someone I'm learning a tremendous amount from.