Written by: Amy Attenborough, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
There are many perks to spending time in the wilderness and one that may surprise you is how it hones your business sense. Here are the top 5 things a safari will teach you.
1. Situational awareness gets you further:
In order to move safely in the wilderness and find the animals you’d like to see, you have to awaken your senses. A good tracker has a well-honed ability to be aware of him/herself within the environment and to respond appropriately to the surroundings. Take tracking an elephant for example. As you walk you may notice the wrinkly markings imprinted in the sand from the bottom of its feet or the musty smell left in the wake of an older bull. If you move slowly and quietly you may notice the sound of a branch cracking as its hulking body passes through the bush in front of you and with the feel of the wind against your skin you know how to quietly move downwind of it so that it doesn’t become aware of your presence.
Not only does this kind of awareness help you to spot opportunities and find what you’re looking for it also keeps you safe from potential dangers or pitfalls. If you know the shrill sound of a red-billed oxpecker, you’re a lot less likely to find yourself up the backside of a rhino. Although these exact tracking skills may not be needed in the corporate space or in your particular business, the benefits of waking up to the world around you are just as great anywhere because once you’re aware you can truly engage with it. We all have a plethora of subtle clues guiding us in our daily lives and the best trackers are the ones that will use these to find what they’re looking for, giving them the cutting edge.
2. Go slow to go fast:
Successful tracking has so much to do with how you pace yourself. If you rush on tracks you tend to lose them more easily and are often not sure where your last clear track was. Going back to try to find it again takes precious time and energy and in those moments, the animal gets further away from you. Conversely the same is also true. If you waste time pondering tracks too much or track too slowly, you also heighten your chance of that animal getting too far away from you. The best trackers move swiftly on clear tracks and in terrain where it’s obvious where the animal is moving. Where the terrain gets tough, they slow down.
This metaphor is true of anything you may be ‘tracking’. What exactly is it that you’re trying to find? What does it look like? How do the tracking need to change depending on the environment you’re moving through, the team you’re with and the pressures present? The best trackers know exactly what signs to look for and this allows them to access a flow state. Where are you dropping balls because you’re going too fast or too slow? And always remember where you had the last clear track.
3. Teamwork makes the dream work:
Wild dogs are by far the most successful predators in the African bush. Where lions manage to make kills 20-30% of the time they hunt, wild dogs successfully kill 70-80% of the time. The reason? Teamwork.
What is just as amazing to see is how the dogs then share this meal. There is never a single snarl, bite or bit of aggression shown between the pack members. Everybody allows for others to feed and even the injured and infirm are given a place at the carcass, ensuring their survival. During the denning phase, adults regurgitate their meals for the puppies. As one adult regurgitates another adult may eat a piece and will later regurgitate some of its own meat for another dog. The result is that the meal is shared so intimately that it has come from the stomach of another pack member possibly on a number of occasions. This way of sharing also helps with the digestion of the meat for the pups.
The origins of the word ‘competition’ actually mean to ‘strive together’. The Olympian model of competition is based on the concept that you become so good that you inspire others to rise up with you and create a space where someone’s extraordinariness invites you to become more extraordinary rather than exploiting someone weaker for personal gain.
If we could harness some of the wild dogs’ spirit, we too could emerge into a new world order, one based on cooperation rather than competition. Where could you better support your team or hand over more responsibility? We are intensely social creatures and the personal changes you make ripple outwards. Imagine the positive impact this can make on your business, the quality of work you create and the systems at large.
4. The power of rest:
Arianna Huffington, co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Huffington post has made waves with her book, The Sleep Revolution: Transforming your life one night at a time. She believes that we’re in the middle of a sleep deprivation crisis and that because we’re not honouring our need for sleep, we’re undermining our health, decision-making, work lives and personal well-being. Her theory: sleep more and you’ll get more done! This may sound completely counter-intuitive but as with all things, nature knows best and when we look around, we see animals upholding their need for sleep. One prime example is lions.
Lions are lethargic for the majority of their lives and spend about 20 hours of the day resting. This may seem like sheer laziness but in terms of survival, it makes complete sense. In order to survive, lions have to hunt and eat meat as well as protect territories. These intense periods of activity require high energy expenditure and it is not unusual for a male lion to cover as much as 20km in a night if need be. Should they move about during the heat of the day, when they really don’t need to, they would be wasting this precious energy and create the need to hunt more regularly. They have evolved to fill a very particular niche and rely on the power of pride to bring down formidable prey that feeds them for days. They know how to expend energy wisely. There’s certainly something here for those of us who spend eight hours at work, four of which are spent scrolling mindlessly through Instagram or Facebook. Rest intentionally and you’ll get more done in less time.
5. Learn the value of play:
World-renowned researcher, Stuart Brown calls play a “transformative force”. When we play, we open ourselves up to profound learning experiences.
Amazingly enough, it’s also a key factor in establishing what makes us feel safe with another human and contributes to connection. Brown says “the basis of human trust is established through play signals” and that bonding and the early roots of a community that is altruistic and cohesive develop through play.
“It is how we learn emotional regulation, physical capabilities, social norms, build imagination, learn about the world, improve memory and trigger feel good hormones that affect mood,” she says.
In the wild, you see this sense of play amongst the highly social animals too, like lions, elephants and wild dogs. As I mentioned earlier, wild dogs are Africa’s most successful hunters. Could it be that their play and success are directly correlated? Curiosity and exploration are key components of play, qualities that, if practiced, would most certainly benefit hunters in a hunt. But it goes beyond this. As the dogs play you get the sense that they’re almost teasing one another, learning about individual personalities, strengths, weaknesses and establishing dominance structures. The amount that wild dogs play may well also have an impact on why they form such tightly-bonded groups due to the levels of trust and group cohesion it develops.
Many of us have bought into the lie that play equates to goofing around and that it’s something only children should engage in. But it seems we may even need it to survive. If this is true, imagine the potential it has to make us more successful in the business world and in our lives in general? If we were invited to play into the workspace could it engage more creativity and create stronger bonds between team members improving collaboration, competition and communication? How could this improve the customer experience and their sense of connection to you and your brand? With the amount of time the modern human spends at work surely, it makes sense to make it the best possible environment where people feel a sense of belonging, joy and fulfilment? The results could only be greater productivity and willingness to offer your best.
Although many of us have forgotten, we all come from nature and are bound to it daily. On a safari you have the opportunity to shake off confining routines and look at the world from a fresh perspective. It is a great reset. The wisdom it has to offer doesn’t end with the personal; it filters into every aspect of our lives. And if nothing else, the thrill of tracking an elephant is perfectly enough.
Amy Attenborough, Brainz Magazine Executive Contributor
Amy Attenborough is a South African safari guide and wilderness coach who has guided thousands of guests worldwide through Africa. These guided experiences intend to connect people with nature and a more natural way of being again. Her company, Wild Again, expands the traditional scope of a safari and facilitates wilderness experiences that heal the human-nature divide and restore wellbeing. In 2020 she lived with her brother in a Big 5 wilderness for 19 nights with no tents, no vehicle, minimal food and no other human contact, walking over 400km to raise funds for wildlife and glean wisdom from nature. Through traditional, photographic, walking, yoga and meditative safaris in wilderness areas, her mission is to restore internal wilderness and re-awaken the inherent belonging we feel in nature.
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