Transcript

Why Safarini Leadership in Kenya Feels Deeply ALIGNED | Oli Raison & Boris Maguire

From John R. Miles · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 44 min · 7,468 words · 67 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Why Safarini Leadership in Kenya Feels Deeply ALIGNED | Oli Raison & Boris Maguire", an episode of John R. Miles published December 16, 2025 (44 min, about 7,468 words). It mentions 20 people, works and ideas, including Sambururu, John R. Miles, Bill von Hippel, Passion Struck, Saffarini Leadership.

What this episode is about

The discussion explores the contrasting perspectives on leadership and success between Western cultures, which prioritize speed and youth, and the Samburu people of Kenya, who value the journey and life experiences over immediate outcomes. Oli Raison and Boris Maguire share insights from their work that combines indigenous wisdom with modern leadership techniques, emphasizing a more holistic approach to personal and professional growth.

Key takeaways

  • Zuckerberg's billions at 19 overshadow wisdom of elders; wealth can be timeless, not just ageless.
  • Journey over destination: Samburu society thrives on path, not speed—billionaire lifestyles could learn.
  • Ever feel like webinars hypnotize us? Kenyan walks awake potential in executives instead.
  • Leadership enlightenment: Disconnect to truly connect; leave Wi-Fi behind, find wisdom on foot.
  • Western fixation on who's first blinds us; the Samburu's endless journey holds richer tales.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Passion Struck, Sambururu, Ali Raisin, Boris Magcguire
  2. – 10:00: Northern Kenya
  3. – 15:00: Joe Pine, The Experience Economy, The Transformation Economy
  4. – 20:00: Naboisho, Nairobi, Sambururu
  5. – 25:00: Sambururu
  6. – 30:00: Sambururu
  7. – 43:50: Passion Struck, Saffarini Leadership

Notable quotes from "Why Safarini Leadership in Kenya Feels Deeply ALIGNED | Oli Raison & Boris Maguire"

  • Think it speaks to the fact that in the west we are destination driven whereas the Sambururu it's much more about the journey. It's the life's path and how you get there is…
    about Sambururu · at
  • I am absolutely thrilled today to have Ali Raisin and Boris Magcguire join me all the way from Kenya on Passion Struck. How are you Olly and Boris?
    about Ali Raisin · at
  • Sure. Thank you. I was always cautious of us talking over each other. Yeah, great. Saffarini leadership was really born out of two passions that Boris and I both share. Boris…
    about Saffarini Leadership · at
  • Building relationships with warriors and elders from the nomadic Sambururu tribe up in northern Kenya.
    about Northern Kenya · at
  • Sure. We've been talking to I don't know if you're familiar with Joe Pine who wrote the experience economy and is now coming out with the transformation economy and transformation is a word that we probably weren't super.
    about Joe Pine · at
  • It's they have a philosophy called Naboisho, which is essentially a kind of we are because they are. It's this concept of interdependence, interconnectedness, and that we are all necessary to society. And so that.
    about Naboisho · at
  • That we work with are very marginalized, very poor actually. They are very they're a long way from Nairobi. They're under represented in Kenyan politics.
    about Nairobi · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • John R. Miles — Person · 6 mentions
  • Bill von Hippel — Person · 4 mentions
  • Joe Pine — Person · 2 mentions · first at
  • Ali Raisin — Person · 1 mention · first at
  • Boris Magcguire — Person · 1 mention · first at
    I am absolutely thrilled today to have Ali Raisin and Boris Magcguire join me all the way from Kenya on Passion Struck. How are you Olly and Boris?
  • Olly — Person · 1 mention

Books & papers

  • The Experience Economy — Book · 1 mention · first at
    Sure. We've been talking to I don't know if you're familiar with Joe Pine who wrote the experience economy and is now coming out with the transformation economy and…

Companies & orgs

  • Passion Struck — Company · 3 mentions · first at
    Journey. It's the life's path and how you get there is more important than where you end up. Welcome to Passion Struck. Hi, I'm your host John Arm and on the show we decipher…
  • Saffarini Leadership — Company · 2 mentions · first at
  • Aperian — Company · 1 mention

Products & tech

Concepts & topics

  • Sambururu — Concept · 6 mentions · first at
  • The Transformation Economy — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    If you're familiar with Joe Pine who wrote the experience economy and is now coming out with the transformation economy and transformation is a word that we probably weren't…
  • Naboisho — Concept · 1 mention · first at
  • Hudza (Hadza) — Concept · 1 mention
  • Kai — Concept · 1 mention
  • Swahili — Concept · 1 mention

Places & events

Full transcript with timestamps

In the west, we are obsessed with time, right? And we're obsessed with who's first and who's the youngest. We can all name entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg who became billionaires at 19 or 20. There are many, many successful entrepreneurs who build multi-million dollar businesses, but they don't achieve it until they're 50 or 55. And that's just not interesting to us. It's not sexy. It's it's almost like we're over we fetishize this idea that speed is the most important thing. But and I think it speaks to the fact that in the west we are destination driven whereas the Sambururu it's much more about the journey. It's the life's path and how you get there is more important than where you end up. Welcome to Passion Struck. Hi, I'm your host John Arm and on the show we decipher the secrets, tips and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those

around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long- form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors CEOs creators innovators scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become passionruck. I am absolutely thrilled today to have Ali Raisin and Boris Magcguire join me all the way from Kenya on Passion Struck. How are you Olly and Boris?

Very well. Thanks. How you doing John? I'm doing fantastic and I was so excited that our mutual friend Bill von Hipple introduced us because your work really sits at the intersection of wilderness, indigenous bush wisdom and modern leadership. And for me, it's a combination that feels a little bit both ancient but at the same time radically fresh. And I think we live in this world today that's just overwhelmed by webinars, boardrooms, things like that. and you take leaders on tracks through Kenya to help them transform. I'd love to start with the story behind this. Maybe Ali, I'll turn it to you first.

Sure. Thank you. I was always cautious of us talking over each other. Yeah, great. Saffarini leadership was really born out of two passions that Boris and I both share. Boris and I have been both expatriots living and working in Kenya leading cross-cultural teams for about the last 10 or 12 years respectively. And we got to thinking what would our perfect business if we were going to start a business what would it look like? And we knew that we were interested in leadership and we also knew that we had this shared passion for the north of Kenya in particular where over the past sort of eight or nine years we've gone on many adventures together. We've done a lot of trekking and climbing mountains and really building relationships with warriors and elders from the nomadic Sambururu tribe up in northern Kenya.

And during those adventures, we really got to get a really interesting insight into how these people think, their values, how their values show up in leadership, and how their definition of leadership is so starkly different to what you might consider to be more typical in a kind of conventional western business setting. And then we got to asking ourselves, what if we were to bring Western executives over to Kenya and expose them to some of this way of life and immerse them in this culture? And so that's what we've been doing for the past two years or so. And the clients that we've brought over have given us really positive feedback. And and so that's where we are. The hypothesis that we have benefit there's a benefit to really being exposed to a radically different culture has been proven out

and Boris Saffirini means on a journey. Why is that concept so central to your leadership philosophy?

Thanks. That's a good question. So people are typically familiar with the word safari which does mean journey in suili which is a lingua frana of this part of the world and safarini just means to be on a journey that was important to us for well fundamentally leadership is a journey so that was the initial uh thinking behind that name leadership is a journey we're c constantly growing developing learning and that journey doesn't typically end but oftentimes we can't see the journey for what it is we're bogged down in the emails, you mentioned the webinars, the meetings, the calls, the day-to-day. And it's quite hard to disconnect from those things. And a big part of our philosophy is to disconnect. Literally disconnect.

We're traversing areas that have very little mobile network. We don't travel with devices. But also disconnecting with those day-to-day responsibilities to reflect on the bigger picture of belonging values purpose and mattering as you like to say. The other reason is because as Olli mentioned, the cultures and the communities that we're working with, they are semi-nomadic. So their life experience is a sort of constant journey in and of itself. They are on the move. And we wanted to move with them in a way that felt authentic to their life. And that really lined up with a lot of research that we've come to understand, psychological neuroscientific research that suggests that to learn while walking, to be shouldertoshoulder rather than eye to eye, is to learn in a deeper, more focused and more impactful way. So all of that speaks to a literal and figurative leadership journey. And that's what we take people on.

Yeah. And I want to take a step back because you brought up a whole bunch of things there, connectivity and connection and mattering of course, which I'm very concerned about, but I think what you guys are doing is almost a 180 from the way that most of Western civilization works today. Because as so many people know, despite high levels of global connectivity, we've never been more polarized or disconnected, I think, in the entire history of civilization. I call it the disease of disconnection. And we are so disconnected on so many levels that it is, I think, amounting to huge levels of mental illness playing out in younger generations that we're seeing now. But I think this is also playing out in leadership that we're seeing across various industries. So I wanted to focus this on leadership. What do you guys and again I'll turn this to Ali. What do you see are some of the limitations and

conventional leadership development methods that are going on today? you know, things like hotel conferences, your weekend seminars, online courses, motivational keynotes that have flaws and what are you guys trying to do that's different?

Yeah, I think the first thing is we put a really heavy emphasis on almost going back to basics and encouraging people to really consider what are their values and how do their values show up in the way they lead others. And I think that seems obvious, but it's not something that gets a lot of focus these days. And we're able to do that. We're able to go back to basics because it's quite a long period of time that we're out in the bush. Our experience is 10 days and the core of that 10 days is a six-day camel trekking or camel supported trek through the deserts and mountains of northern Kenya. So, we really slow everything down and like Boris says, we we don't have any technology. We really get off of technology. We provide people with a pretty substantial amount of time for deep reflection that I think most of us just don't get a chance for in our day-to-day lives. The other thing is like we talked about technology. The

technology is actually causing our brains to operate on a frequency that is not really conducive with creative thought. And so being out in the bush slowing everything down, our brains actually operate on a frequency that enables us to be more creative. And I think it gives it it creates an opportunity for people to really have revelations that they wouldn't normally get if they were just trying to achieve something in two days in a conference or in a boardroom whilst simultaneously conscious of the fact that their email inbox is filling up. So I think it's a number of different things that really create the impact that our experience delivers.

Could I add to that John? One of the ways we like to think about our approach is like a a three-way ven diagram. And those three boxes, one of them is we mentioned wilderness immersion where there's a lot of science to support that getting out of the familiar and getting into nature does change your brain frequency. It changes how we focus, how we learn. The other is indigenous immersion. So like we said, immersing ourselves within a culture and a community that's radically different from where most of our clients are coming from has radically different perspectives, views and approaches and confronting those and through that confronting your own assumptions or preconceptions or perspectives. And then the third is our unique coaching method methodology. So there are lots of outdoor adventure leadership experiences that one might do over the course of a couple days. There are of course different coaching opportunities out

there, but we think the real special sauce is the combination of those two things with this indigenous immersion.

Yeah. And I was hoping you've talked a little bit about this, but can you walk us through the structure of a Saffarini journey like what happens before, during, and after the track?

Sure. We've been talking to I don't know if you're familiar with Joe Pine who wrote the experience economy and is now coming out with the transformation economy and transformation is a word that we probably weren't super comfortable using early on in the sort of roll out of Sophini leadership but we've had sufficient feedback that this is a transformational experience to be comfortable using that word and talking to Joe we've come to understand why and it's because we've structured this experience in actually three parts mentioned the core of it is 10 days in Kenya Yeah, but prior to that we actually have a lot of leadup and discovery work. So we have a group kickoff call. If this is a mixed cohort group or a team, we have a kickoff call where we come to understand everyone's intentions. We give a lot of briefings.

We answer a lot of questions and we also then introduce a couple of leadership assessments. So people do these assessments. We work with the intercultural development inventory. We work with the Aparian globe smart depending on the nature of the group. And we have people take these assessments which really begins this process of self-reflection, self-awareness, understand where they are, how they show up as leaders. And we introduce them to a kind of unique activity that we've come up with called the journey line.

And the journey line is an opportunity to visualize one's life as a journey. It could be a river or a mountain or a path or a graph, whatever metaphor people want to come up with. And we ask people to reflect on why their leadership values are what they are. what do they think their leadership values are? How do they show up and where do they come from? What experiences or cultural programming has led them to to follow those values as leaders? And also why do they show up on these different assessments in the way that they do? So we before they even show up in Kenya, people are really going deep and when they arrive in Kenya, before we get out into the bush, they have the opportunity to meet our team of Samuru elders and together all of us present our journey lines. So even before we're walking, we're in the bush and we're doing our kind of formal leadership programming as it were, people are being quite

reflective. We're getting quite vulnerable. We're coming to know people's background and life experiences. So there's a lot of prep preparation and discovery that goes into this experience before it really even truly begins. Uh then we have our six day experience and that typically looks like we wake up with the sun, we have coffee and biscuits around the campfire and Ali and I will often offer prompts or open questions that kind of emerge from the day prior on the assumption that people have had a chance to sleep on it literally reflect in their journals and might want to dig into those topics with a little bit more depth along the morning's walk. And then we'll usually walk for anywhere from 3 to 5 hours through the morning. We have breakfast on the way and we set up camp around lunchtime. And after everyone's been fed and had a little chance to rest up, we have a leadership circle in the

afternoon. And these are never more than 90 minutes. They involve games, different activities. They're quite interactive. And this is a chance to hear from the elders about a specific topic. So we'll look at what is resilience to the Sambrew, how is it defined, what does it mean, and where does it come from? And we'll hear from the elders on that topic. And then Olly and I facilitate an opportunity to explore applications in the participants life. And that cycle kind of repeats itself for the next six days where in the morning we offer a prompt, we have walk-in talks, we then have leadership circles in the afternoon and on the final day we ask everyone to make a commitment to action. So what are the insights, the aha moments, the revelations they've had about themselves or the culture or the team in which they lead and what fundamentally do they want to change and do differently? We don't

expect that everyone is going to come here and go back and try to create a sambar leadership structure within a sort of corporate office. But there are elements that can be very powerful to people. And so then we hold them accountable. We hold ourselves all accountable to what those commitments are through a group coaching process that then takes place after the experience. And this is what Joe Pine would call integration. We're keen that this isn't a distant memory, a fun story you talk about at parties or in meetings, but actually something that shows up in your day-to-day leadership has true practical application to your work and to your leadership and therefore has a lot of value that that that lasts. And so this through the group coaching we ask people how are you doing your commitment to action was X how is that going and the group format is really powerful we find because sometimes people might struggle to find

application or they might actually find a new application and by hearing how other people are applying their experience in Kenya they can try different things they can experiment and they can maximize the value that they achieve so it's really three parts but the core is obviously the Kenya experience

yeah so if I had to encapsulate that it sounds like the three phases are you go through a diagnosis phase, then an experience phase, and then a follow-through phase that you take them through. And then is there I know you've been doing this a couple years now, but on that follow through, are there repeat things down the line that you reconnect with leaders on so that some of the things that they're learning don't fade away as time goes on? Yeah, some of our cohorts actually continue to want to meet. If I can just take a step back, the Samburur society is very collectivist.

It's they have a philosophy called Naboisho, which is essentially a kind of we are because they are. It's this concept of interdependence, interconnectedness, and that we are all necessary to to society. And so that whole kind of philosophy gets continued on. And some of our groups after the initial coaching naturally just want to stay together. They want to connect on a monthly basis and continue to support each other which obviously has the added benefit of creating a kind of a an a really special sort of alumni network that we hope we can really build on.

Yeah. Can you talk a little bit more, Ollie, about that interconnectedness? Because I think this is one of the most striking things about the Samuro lifestyle like when they see each other's worth in the community, like how is that different from what's happening in other parts of the world? Like what? Because I think this is in many ways the community that we are losing today and one of the biggest causes why so many people feel so detached. What's different about it?

I think if I could summarize it high level I would say very strong sense of shared values. Okay. The values in the Sambururu community are very much around sharing of resources. So just to give a little bit of context here, the communities that we work with are very marginalized, very poor actually. They are very they're a long way from Nairobi. They're under represented in Kenyan politics. They are living in a very harsh environment. We're talking about semiarid kind of desert. We're talking about a livestock economy where their wealth is really dependent on the health of their livestock and that can be wiped out in a drought. So life is very fragile and they can only really survive and thrive by depending on one another.

And in terms of their values, their values that people are grounded in the society's values from a very young age. So if we can just focus on the life's path of a young boy in the sambbururu culture once he gets to about the age of about 10 or 11 he will be assigned a mentor and a mentor is another man typically from the generation above and that man will be responsible for schooling that boy on how to be a warrior. And around the age of 13 or 14, that boy goes through a circumcision ceremony where he becomes a warrior. And then for the next 15 years of his life, his sole purpose is to be of service to the community. Okay? So his job is to protect the tribe and do all of the kind of heavy lifting and really be at the disposal of anybody elder. So if an older woman who he may never have met before in his life gives him an order, it's disrespectful to deny it or to refuse it. So they are really of service

to the community. And then after that 15-year period, they then collectively on mass graduate to become junior elders. And the junior elder period is a really a it's a real shift in in the way of life. They settle down, they build a house, they acrewue their own livestock, they get married, they have children, and they are really educated on how to be an elder. And then after that 15 years, they become senior elders. And at that point, they have collective responsibility for the welfare of the whole tribe and they make decisions collectively on mass. And so there from a young boy, he knows what his destiny is going to be. His destiny is ultimately to be a leader for the welfare, the collective flourishing of the tribe. And I think that shared sense of purpose gives everybody a very strong sense of belonging that I feel that we're lacking in western society these days. And as a result of that, one of

our clients who came away with us is a psychologist. And she noticed that she was talking to us some of our Sambaru colleagues and she realized just from asking them what is what is the word for anxiety in ma which is the language of the sambaru they don't have a word for anxiety they don't have a word for depression and you won't meet a single sambar who has ever known or heard of anybody who's committed suicide these things just don't exist in their society and so that's when we got in touch with Bill von Hippo and we realized that this is a society that despite their challenges, despite their marginalization and their apparent poverty are really very kind of content and happy and thriving in life and their leadership shows up in in that.

Yeah. For them, what is their average lifespan? Yeah, I don't think it's much shorter than ours. We've met people who are in their 80s in the Sambaru society. Yeah. I wouldn't actually years Yeah, I'm not sure what it is from the data. I've you have you have a higher level of childhood mortality, infant mortality with a lot of indigenous tribes and I believe Bill von Hipple talks about this with in regards to the Hudzba as well. High levels of infant mortality and that is largely driven by nutritional challenges. Right? This is a not a farming community. It's in a very a very aid, beautiful but challenging area subject to droughts and floods and the rest. So nutritional challenges often affect maternal and infant mortality levels. But after childhood, average lifespans, the likelihood of a 18-year-old to get to 80 is actually pretty similar to any other society. But it is a much more Yeah, there are higher

rates of mortality in those younger years. So I understand that one of the things that you do while you're on the excursion itself is that you incorporate daily walking tracks with Sambero elders using movement as a vehicle for learning and reflection but also having the elders paired up with th with those who are on the journey. How do these walks and talks differ from sitting in a typical classroom or conference room that so many of these leaders are accustomed to doing? Olly, maybe you can take that. I think one thing I would talk about is just the challenge.

There's we're in an area of the world where there's a lot of uncertainty. We can be traveling. We can be trekking up a mountain. We don't know how long it's going to take. One journey that we recently took people on, there had been a lot of rainfall. That meant there was a lot of growth. These are forested mountains surrounded by desert. It's really quite a remarkable part of the world. But we got to the top of the mountain and we had to really bushwack our way through with pangas or machetes as you would probably know them. And that slows everything down. We don't know when we're going to get into camp.

There's a lot of uncertainty. And that creates an opportunity for a lot of coaching moments because I think that in the west we we we are overch scheduled. We expect that okay well by this time I'm going to be in camp and by this time I'm going to have my dinner and by this time and etc etc and that's just not how things roll necessarily in these rural parts of Africa. So I think that's an aspect of it. But also I think that just it's really remarkable seeing the strength of the relationships and the friendships that grow out of bringing radically different people from completely different cultures together and seeing them connect on a really human level. I think that's that inspires people and causes them to reflect on what are they doing to foster human connection in their teams? what are they doing to create work teams or or work forces that are really flourishing? That's the most satisfying

thing of what we do in my opinion. Okay. And Boris, I'm going to turn this to you. We talked a lot about the Sambururu concept of community and identity and core values, but in their worldview, what does it mean for them to live a good or successful life? Because in the western world, if we had to wait on that track to become an elder and then a senior elder, it's counterculture. So many, and I am living proof of this, we strive for success as quickly as we can possibly get it. We push the limits to to get to things much quicker than we often should. I know for me getting to those places so quickly, I sometimes wish in retrospect I had a longer time to wait because there were critical skill sets and learnings that I wish I would have made that happened after the fact. I'm really curious about this. What does it mean for them to live a good life or a successful life?

It's a great question and I think it's one of the like fundamental points of differentiation maybe and I guess if I could summarize it a good life is a life of a sambururu and that sounds like a non-answer but it begs the question what is it to be a suru and we've often said would you rather or people have asked our elders would you rather die or would you rather no longer be a sambururu and like to a man to a woman the answer has always been death and I know that sounds quite morbid But it speaks to the importance of identifying with the collective. Right? It is not about Gilvon Hipple had spoke about this balance of autonomy and connection. And there are elements of autonomy but connection to the tribe and being of service to the tribe and to the community rise above almost any other any other thing short perhaps of the family unit of having a family. So to be a Sambaru is to have a family to create

more samuru but also to fulfill your role and purpose to serve your community. And in almost everything that people do it is never one can never see someone doing something solely in service of themsel. Even parenting is collective. We always say it takes a village. But in the su communities this is true. And children are literally considered the children of all. And likewise, leadership to become an elder comes with no material reward. There's no bigger salary, car, off corner office, watch. There's the title, I suppose, of being an elder, but that's not seen as an reward in of itself. It's seen as a a responsibility, a cultural responsibility to serve the community and make good decisions for others. And through those good decisions, the collective, the group, the tribe flourishes and continues. So yeah, I think that's the answer. And our insight on that is really comes to resilience.

What is it to be strong? Is to be resilient? Is it to be gritty? To power through, to wear the heavy crown, so to speak, to blaze your own trail or whichever metaphor you want to pick that you might be familiar with. None of them really apply. To be resilient is to be supportive. uh to be served by others and to serve others and it's only in my observation and I think Bill von Hipple's research would support this that the society flourishes and the society is inherently resilient because they are so supportive of one another.

Yeah. Yeah. We could talk for days about that. C can I just can I just add one thing because you mentioned about time and I think in the west we are obsessed with time right and we're obsessed with who's first and who's the youngest. We can all name entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg who became billionaires at 19 or 20. There are many successful entrepreneurs who build multi-million dollar businesses, but they don't achieve it until they're 50 or 55. And that's just not interesting to us. It's not sexy. It's almost like we're over we fetishize this idea that speed is the most important thing. And I think it speaks to the fact that in the west we are destination driven. Whereas the Sambururu, it's much more about the journey. It's the life's path and how you get there is more important than where you end up.

I've had the opportunity of spending some time with Native American tribes and as I'm hearing you talk about a lot of the Samba culture. A lot of this really reflects also on what Native American tribe tribal life was like for centuries and in in some reservations, what it's like today, especially as they're going through their rights of passage, the role that elders play, how they hold their elders in such high esteem. One of the things I was wondering though about is spiritual beliefs and connections to nature because those two things play a huge role in Native American life. I'm wondering what type of role they play in suru life.

I think that with spirituality they have a belief in God and Kai they call is their god butai is represented in nature and it and he's also represented in the past and in the future and they think on a much longer term basis. They believe if they don't live a good, wholesome and respectable life, the ramifications of that are not going to be visited on them as individuals, but rather possibly their descendants. They want to live a good life because they want to set their descendants up for success. And so they take a much longer term view. And I think that again is something that we can learn from in the West. I think that again it goes back to time. It goes back to everything being in a hurry. A CEO is judged on the next quarter's profitability. A president or a prime minister is really judged on what they can achieve in the next four or five years. And that's not necessarily conducive with making the smartest

long-term decisions. And so I don't know whether that answers your question, John, but I think that they think much longer term than we typically do in the West. Olly, I've got an interesting question for you. If you did the reverse and you took a group of Samuru elders to visit London, what aspects of Western life do you think they would find most confusing or surprising to them?

I think probably the hierarchical nature of things. Just having one person who ultimately is accountable and gets to make the final decision would be the most alien thing to them that they could possibly imagine. I also just think, and maybe we're repeating ourselves here, but the obsession with getting everything done quickly. I think speed is overvalued over making the right decision. And maybe that's because we live in such a competitive context, but I think they would struggle with that. Okay. And I did want to ask just one more thing.

Homelessness as well. Oh, homelessness. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So, obviously a little bit of a delay.

Yeah. Obviously, their life is dependent on the terrain that they occupy. How sacred do they hold the land and tending to it as part of their culture? Like, how do how does that play? They're not agriculturalists. So, it's not necessarily the land that is their way of life. It's very much their livestock. That is everything. And it's not just a source of wealth. It is a source of wealth, but it's not just that. Their livestock and sacrificing livestock is a key part of their ceremonies. They give livestock when somebody gets married. And but they share it openly. Like one of the things that we maybe I'm deviating a little bit from your question here, but one of the things that we found most surprising is the Samuru are an incredibly resilient people. We've already talked about the environment that they live in is very harsh. They're very marginalized.

They're very poor. And yet they're incredibly resilient and incredibly happy. And the source of that resilience is a dependence on one another. this interdependence on one another. And I think in the west when we talk about resilience that word is quite often considered to be synonymous with toughness, mental grit, broad shoulders, pushing on through. And actually in the Samburu culture, it's really quite the opposite. They have this kind of quiet confidence that if they were facing hard times, if there was a drought, then their neighbor would step in and their neighbor wouldn't resent them for it.

You know, we've even had stories of one of our team actually, a guy called Steven. His brother-in-law had a really difficult time and lost a lot of his camels and was told that another family who he'd never met was actually gifted 13 camels by his greatgrandfather. And so he went off and said to this family, "I've heard that my great-grandfather gave you some camels. would you return them to me to my family? And they said, "Yes, no problem." Because they had been told in turn this story that when they were having when their family was facing hard times four generations ago, they were gifted some camels and so they they returned the favor. So, it's very reciprocal. I I can't imagine that happening in the West. This idea that somebody that you've never met before would just turn up on your doorstep and say, "Hey, my great-grandfather gave your great-grandfather some camels.

Would you return the favor?" But that's how these people operate. They take it on face value and they support one another.

Boris, I'm going to switch directions here. You both run workshops on everything from harmony and disscent to resilience and crosscultural communication. Can you share a story or a moment in one of these workshops where one of the leaders perspective shifted dramatically and how that unfolded?

Sure. really put me on the spot. Let's see like in in the moment during the trek had this kind of revelation

like a powerful transformation that you saw happen. Maybe someone talked to an elder or you did a workshop and they had just like a light bulb moment where how they'd been operating changed.

Yeah, sure. You could talk about the you could talk about the cow game that we played. Boris,

let me let you talk about that. I'm going to give two examples of an individual. So, as much as this is principally, we talk about leadership, it's leadership development, who we are personally and what we're going through outside of work directly impacts how we show up at work, right? I don't really believe you bring your whole self to work, but you try to bring your best self to work. And to be your best self depends on your whole self. And so people often get very deep and vulnerable into their personal situations, not just what they're experiencing in the office. And there was a woman on one of our trips who during her journey line had spoken to having been in what she described as an emotionally abusive relationship. And that didn't seem to us initially connected to her work, which we had learned a lot about during the discovery process. So I wasn't necessarily sure how that was going to show up during the

experiences during the experience and at one point she has told us this and talked a lot about in the testimonial I believe as well but she was walking and she enjoyed walking alone and used that as an chance to reflect but one of our elders approached her and said you're always looking down why are you looking down there's so much beauty around you and this kind of ties into your prior question about nature there is great reverence for nature in the sru culture and to kill and eat a wild animal under any circumstances is to bring a curse upon your family. So there are like cultural tenants and spiritual beliefs that necessitate protecting the resources around you because while they don't farm they're they do depend on the land for their livestock. And our elder said, "Look around you. There's mountains. There's desert. There's trees. Why are you looking down?" And it sounds like a very simple thing, but

what she had said to us is she felt that she was inclined to look down for different reasons connected to the relationship that she'd been in. And that this showed up in how she showed up as a leader at work. She was in a very male-dominated industry. And she tended to, as she's described, absorb negative energy from other others and just carry on. the classic like woman working in a very like masculine field, not wanting to rock the boat or disrupt things, but actually and like therefore taking a lot of crap maybe. And this was something she talked about every day in the rest of the trip and every day since. And I think and has had this she has described total transformational impact on how she shows up with her family, with her friends and at the office. and that she seeks connection not to absorb negative energy but to deliver positive energy and to see the purpose in others and find the good and connect and keep her

head up and look for beauty not to look down to avoid kind of negativity. So that's always struck me because it's so simple and one might think that you could get that insight anywhere and anyone could give you that keep your chin up kind of insight. But I think the sambru this lack of obsession of time and rushing and goal orientation this feeling of connection to others to nature to the past to the present and to the future allows for that kind of perspective to be there always whether in a time of challenge or emergency or what have you. and it's had a truly life-changing effect on this woman. I have another example, but I feel like I've talked too much, so I'll stop there.

Yeah. Ali, did you want to give the other example that you were thinking of? Sure. I'm cautious of going into too much detail just in case somebody listens to this and then decides they want to come on one of our experiences. But one of the workshops that we do, we play a game where we break the participants that the clients into different teams and we give them instructions. They each have eight cows. And without going into too much detail, the goal of the game is to maximize the herd. And you maximize the herd by grazing the appropriate amount of cows.

If you overg graze, if you send too many cows out to graze, then you risk actually causing the grazing area to deteriorate and that reduces your herd, the size of your herd. And it's very interesting because once you split people into teams, they typically start thinking in a we're going to win. We've got to maximize our herd for our team. And the instructions that we give are deliberately vague. It's quite ambiguous. We just say the goal is to maximize the herd. And the catch of the game is you can't win the game, right?

You can only really maximize the herd if you work collectively together as teams as a whole. And that kind of aha moment that even though we didn't say the goal is for your team to win, that's the mindset that people enter into the game with. And I think that's quite a revelation for people. And then I think a program like this I always think knowledge is important but applying that knowledge is the most important aspect going forward. So I understand that you have a capstone called the commitment to action exercise and I was hoping one of you could walk us through that. Do you want to take that for us?

Yeah sure. So the last night with this the core kind of five to six nights is trekking through an incredibly remote and beautiful part of the world and it's very comfortable but it's certainly not luxury. We are camping. It's a sort of glamping experience perhaps. But the last night we te typically spend in a much higherend nicer communityrun lodge or camp somewhere where we have hot showers and things. And so it's at that dinner that we typically we give people a form to fill out to think about in the kind of hours before that dinner. But at the dinner we ask people to to share out to what have they what have they reflected on in those final kind of 24 hours as they say goodbye to the elders as they say goodbye to the mountains and they start this process of reintegration.

What are the things that stay with them? And so it's not particularly any more sophisticated than that, but we ask them to fill out their forms to share out with us. We take notes, we collect those forms, and then we use that as the basis for coaching down the line.

Okay. And then Ali for leaders who might be watching this or maybe they bring this up to their organization or a manager about bringing the whole team. What's the best way to engage with you or explore Saffharini leadership in more detail?

Sure. We have a website leadership.com. We have an Instagram saffirini leadership. We have a YouTube channel which is also Saffarini leadership where particularly on our YouTube channel there's a number of short sort of 90 second snippets of client testimonials talking directly about their experience but our principal sort of social media is LinkedIn which again is Safarina leadership people can find out a lot of details there our emails are obviously on our website we're very open to talking to anybody body that that may even just be curious. We don't give anybody the hard cell. It's really important that anybody that is thinking about coming away with us has a really good understanding that it's the right fit for them and that they really think that they can work with us because they're going to be out in the bush with us for six days. That's important. So, yeah, any one of those social media

platforms, they can learn a lot more about what we do. Okay. And maybe what is the typical team size that goes out with you on one of these tracks?

It's quite well minimum of six and really a maximum of eight. We can take more than eight people, but we have to change how we operate a little bit. What I mean by that is it's quite a heavy undertaking. We fly people way up into the north of Kenya and then we embark on a six-day trek where every day we're moving, we're setting up a camp, we're cooking lunch, we're cooking dinner and then the following morning we decamp and we move again and again. So logistically it's quite an undertaking and we need to keep it to a very small group. So maximum eight clients plus myself and Boris plus our three Samburu cultural co-f facilitators. So that's 13 people.

And we actually really like the intimacy that small group creates. People really do foster very strong relationships over the 10 days that they're together.

Well, Boris and Olly, thank you so much for joining Passion Struck. It was such an honor to have you on today's program and I'm so intrigued by what you both are leading here.

Thank you for having us. Yeah, pleasure. Honored to be with you. We appreciate it.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Why Safarini Leadership in Kenya Feels Deeply ALIGNED | Oli Raison & Boris Maguire"?

Steven (Guest), John R. Miles (Host), Oli Raison (Guest), Boris Maguire (Guest), Bill von Hippel (Guest), Joe Pine (Guest).

What is "Why Safarini Leadership in Kenya Feels Deeply ALIGNED | Oli Raison & Boris Maguire" about?

The discussion explores the contrasting perspectives on leadership and success between Western cultures, which prioritize speed and youth, and the Samburu people of Kenya, who value the journey and life experiences over immediate outcomes. Oli Raison and Boris Maguire share insights from their work that combines indigenous wisdom with modern leadership techniques, emphasizing a more holistic…

What is mentioned in this John R. Miles episode?

20 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Sambururu, John R. Miles, Bill von Hippel, Passion Struck, Saffarini Leadership, Northern Kenya. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Why Safarini Leadership in Kenya Feels Deeply ALIGNED | Oli Raison & Boris Maguire"?

The episode runs 44 min; the transcript is about 7,468 words in 67 timestamped sections.

More from John R. Miles

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated December 19, 2025.