Leaders are often imagined to always be in control and an expert in almost everything.  They are idealised by the media, educational system and social media. Since infallibility is not possible, it makes sense that we resist admitting mistakes and are ready to protect an image of ourselves. This idea of leadership is bad for leaders and businesses as it limits an organisation's ability to be successful.

Outdated leadership ideas still persist

The likelihood of having perfect answers or solutions to all the challenges we face is very low. Leaders who strive to have all the answers will prevent team creativity and stay stuck in outdated thinking models. Inquiry-driven leadership is one method of dealing with uncertainty. Ask questions that are productive such as "what" and "how" to help frame problems and move toward positive outcomes.

Focus on questions, not answers

Being vulnerable and authentic as a leader means admitting errors instead of sweeping them aside to protect your image. But putting on a show actively discredits them. Instead, declare the mistake as soon as possible to everyone involved. While it can be challenging, state the nature of the error succinctly and apologize if relevant. Then, spend your time finding the cause of the mistake.

Own mistakes publicly

Failure can be a great learning experience. The key is to make "smart" failures by fostering two conditions among the team.<ol><li>Crean an environment of psychological safety. The team should know that smart risks that end in below-average outcomes won't hurt them. Publicly applaud the effort and focus on the learning and growth phase of the loss.</li><li>Leaders must conduct after-action reviews focused on learning from any major project or initiative.</li></ol>

Embrace smart failures

Being an infallible leader is bad for business.  


leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

Admitting what you don’t know is key to effective leadership

All worldly possessions are prone to attrition and decline. The more you have, the more your life becomes devoted to the vigilant, custodial work of maintenance and repair. This is why so many spiritual traditions advise against becoming attached to material things. Ancient philosophers said that the physical world is inferior to the unchanging realm of the immaterial, that we should not become entranced by the elusive objects here on earth but look instead to the higher, intangible things (virtue, relationships, intellectual pursuits) that are immune to the inexorable wear and tear of time.

You Will Lose All Material Possessions

If it seems odd to think of files and personal data as “possessions,” it’s because they appear to already belong to the spiritual realm. Information has no visible substance. It’s not composed of matter or energy, at least not in the same sense as a table or a lump of gold. Our files, photos, and music appear magically across multiple devices. It’s easy to believe that data will exist forever, carrying our spirit (our voice, our words, our image) into the eternal ether.

Data Is Already Non-Physical And Resembles Spiritual Stuff

Nietzsche pointed out that the thinker who has “put the best of himself into his work” can rest easy as he watches the erosion of his own body: “It is as if he were in a corner watching a thief at his safe, while knowing that it is empty, his treasure being elsewhere.” We too sleep soundly knowing that our most valued thoughts and memories reside in the cloud, our own celestial storehouse, where neither flood nor fire, moths nor malware can harm them.

Taking A Backup Of Your Thoughts

Your acknowledgment that your memories are “attached to these bits and bytes” signals an awareness that your identity is mysteriously bound up with those files, that to lose them would be to lose, in a very real sense, an extension of your own mind. Would you be able to remember that trip to Europe without the photos you took? If you can never again read through the folder of journal entries you wrote in college, will you have lost that period of your life?

Pictures Or It Didn't Happen

The fragility of those externalized memories dawns on you slowly with age, as portions of your former selves get buried with defunct hardware or fade into the digital void from whence they came, casualties of content drift and link rot. The sudden nostalgic impulse that spurs you to Google your undergraduate blog ends at the impasse of a “Page not found.” Or you sign in to a long-abandoned Yahoo account only to discover that an entire decade of email correspondence has disappeared.

The Cloud Goes Dead

Our culture’s long-standing dualism endures in the popular notion that the mind is a software program running on the hardware of our physical forms.If the glitching laptop awakens you to the obvious fact that your data is entirely dependent on material processes—forcing you to recall the silicon and copper embedded in your SSD, the ghostly blue light of server farms housed in the bowels of corporate facilities—it also drives home the larger truth that all things, no matter how lofty or transcendent, depend on some kind of material substrate.

Hard Awakening By Software Files

<ul><li>Forward to friends those old email chains you discovered in your long-abandoned mailbox. </li><li>Consider trying to finish and publish that half-completed novel that’s been lingering in your files—not as some misdirected gesture toward life extension but as a genuine transmission to a good-faith reader. </li><li>Ensure that your diaries and photos will be handed down to your descendants.</li></ul>

Save Your Data When You Can

WIRED’s spiritual advice columnist on external hard drives and the value of digitized memories.

parenting

Parenting

artificialintelligence

Artificial Intelligence

Do I Really Need to Back Up All My Data?

Tracking may be the origins of the scientific method, it was the beginning of deductive reasoning – the art form of applying meaningThe principles of tracking should also be applied to your life – constantly look for and acknowledge information that attunes you with your inner self.The successful art form of tracking naturally creates safety, excellent trackers can convey presence through non-verbal communication with the animals, and vice versa

Tracking & The Meaning of Life

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate

Whenever you see a leopard, the leopard is allowing you to see it

Where your attention goes, your life goes. When you put your attention on living things, there’s more aliveness in your life.Spending time in a single spot in nature becomes deeply personal. You become attuned and orientated with the patterns and interlocking intelligence within natureTrue fear is a rare experience in modern lifeBoyd details a treacherous storm he had to embrace and was overwhelmed with humility and an understanding of the fragility of life.

Lessons from 40 Days in a Tree

The more time you spend in nature, the more you realize how little we know

Ubuntu – the universal bond shared across humanity, translated as “I am because we are”The western world often is misguided in its search for meaning, associating meaning by comparison. If you grow up in Africa or in nature, you associate meaning through relation. You learn about yourself through your encounters with the world.Sometimes you have to let go of your rational consciousness and let nature take you to a place you can’t go on your ownBoyd describes an encounter with a leopard where he felt this overwhelming sense of connection

Ubuntu Philosophy

A person who is dealing with trauma has a reduction of options. You’re frozen – traumatized people often resort to retreating and isolatingCeremony spaces are healing opportunities: AA, sweat lodges, shared plant medicine experiences. Helps you understand and openly share your traumas.These experiences can alter your personal narrative, viewing the trauma from a new perspective.Boyd struggled with immense trauma from a crocodile attack, he describes a sweat lodge experience where he passed out and thought he was dying but the guide assured him: you’re not dying brother, you’re just being born

Trauma & Healing

Boyd Varty — The Lion Tracker's Guide to Life | Brought to you by Wealthfront automated investing, Athletic Greens all-in-one nutritional supplement, and Helix Sleep premium mattresses. More on all three below.Boyd Varty (@boydvarty) is the author of two books, The Lion Tracker's Guide to Life and his memoir, Cathedral of the Wild. He has been featured in The New York Times, on NBC, and in other media and has taught his philosophy of “tracking your life” to individuals and companies around the world.Boyd is a wildlife and literacy activist who has spent the last ten years refining the art of using wilderness as a place for deep introspection and personal transformation. He grew up in South Africa on Londolozi Game Reserve, a former hunting ground that was transformed into a nature preserve by Boyd’s father and uncle—both visionaries of the restoration movement. Under his family’s stewardship, the Reserve became renowned not only as a sanctuary for animals but as a place where once-ravaged land was able to flourish again and where the human spirit could be restored. When Nelson Mandela was released after 27 years of imprisonment, he went to Londolozi to recover.Boyd has a degree in psychology from the University of South Africa. He is a TED speaker and the host of the Track Your Life podcast. This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront! Wealthfront pioneered the automated investing movement, sometimes referred to as ‘robo-advising,’ and they currently oversee $20 billion of assets for their clients. It takes about three minutes to sign up, and then Wealthfront will build you a globally diversified portfolio of ETFs based on your risk appetite and manage it for you at an incredibly low cost. Smart investing should not feel like a rollercoaster ride. Let the professionals do the work for you. Go to Wealthfront.com/Tim and open a Wealthfront account today, and you’ll get your first $5,000 managed for free, for life. Wealthfront will automate your investments for the long term. Get started today at Wealthfront.com/Tim.*This episode is also brought to you by Helix Sleep! Helix was selected as the #1 overall mattress of 2020 by GQ magazine, Wired, Apartment Therapy, and many others. With Helix, there’s a specific mattress to meet each and every body’s unique comfort needs. Just take their quiz—only two minutes to complete—that matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress for you. They have a 10-year warranty, and you get to try it out for a hundred nights, risk free. They’ll even pick it up from you if you don’t love it. And now, Helix is offering up to 200 dollars off all mattress orders plus two free pillows at HelixSleep.com/Tim.*This episode is also brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time, “If you could use only one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually AG1 by Athletic Greens, my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body in 2010 and did not get paid to do so. I do my best with nutrient-dense meals, of course, but AG further covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system. Right now, Athletic Greens is offering you their Vitamin D Liquid Formula free with your first subscription purchase—a vital nutrient for a strong immune system and strong bones. Visit AthleticGreens.com/Tim to claim this special offer today and receive the free Vitamin D Liquid Formula (and five free travel packs) with your first subscription purchase! That’s up to a one-year supply of Vitamin D as added value when you try their delicious and comprehensive all-in-one daily greens product.*For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast.Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss YouTube: youtube.com/timferrissPast guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, Balaji Srinivasan, Sarah Silverman, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Dr. Michio Kaku, and many more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

podcasts

Podcasts

Brought to you by Wealthfront automated investing, Athletic Greens all-in-one nutritional supplement, and Helix Sleep premium mattresses. More on all three below.Boyd Varty (@boydvarty) is the author of two books, The Lion Tracker's Guide to Life and his memoir, Cathedral of the Wild. He has been featured in The New York Times, on NBC, and in other media and has taught his philosophy of “tracking your life” to individuals and companies around the world.Boyd is a wildlife and literacy activist who has spent the last ten years refining the art of using wilderness as a place for deep introspection and personal transformation. He grew up in South Africa on Londolozi Game Reserve, a former hunting ground that was transformed into a nature preserve by Boyd’s father and uncle—both visionaries of the restoration movement. Under his family’s stewardship, the Reserve became renowned not only as a sanctuary for animals but as a place where once-ravaged land was able to flourish again and where the human spirit could be restored. When Nelson Mandela was released after 27 years of imprisonment, he went to Londolozi to recover.Boyd has a degree in psychology from the University of South Africa. He is a TED speaker and the host of the Track Your Life podcast.This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront! Wealthfront pioneered the automated investing movement, sometimes referred to as ‘robo-advising,’ and they currently oversee $20 billion of assets for their clients. It takes about three minutes to sign up, and then Wealthfront will build you a globally diversified portfolio of ETFs based on your risk appetite and manage it for you at an incredibly low cost. Smart investing should not feel like a rollercoaster ride. Let the professionals do the work for you. Go to Wealthfront.com/Tim and open a Wealthfront account today, and you’ll get your first $5,000 managed for free, for life. Wealthfront will automate your investments for the long term. Get started today at Wealthfront.com/Tim.*This episode is also brought to you by Helix Sleep! Helix was selected as the #1 overall mattress of 2020 by GQ magazine, Wired, Apartment Therapy, and many others. With Helix, there’s a specific mattress to meet each and every body’s unique comfort needs. Just take their quiz—only two minutes to complete—that matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress for you. They have a 10-year warranty, and you get to try it out for a hundred nights, risk free. They’ll even pick it up from you if you don’t love it. And now, Helix is offering up to 200 dollars off all mattress orders plus two free pillows at HelixSleep.com/Tim.*This episode is also brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time, “If you could use only one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually AG1 by Athletic Greens, my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body in 2010 and did not get paid to do so. I do my best with nutrient-dense meals, of course, but AG further covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system. Right now, Athletic Greens is offering you their Vitamin D Liquid Formula free with your first subscription purchase—a vital nutrient for a strong immune system and strong bones. Visit AthleticGreens.com/Tim to claim this special offer today and receive the free Vitamin D Liquid Formula (and five free travel packs) with your first subscription purchase! That’s up to a one-year supply of Vitamin D as added value when you try their delicious and comprehensive all-in-one daily greens product.*Setting the scene. [05:44]How the Londolozi Game Reserve came to be, and what happened during Boyd’s childhood that instilled him with a “get on with it” attitude. [08:02]Why did Boyd’s father and uncle insist on keeping the property that would become the Londolozi Game Reserve when, at the time, it was considered useless, overgrazed wasteland? [10:18]Boyd shares what it was like growing up as a regular passenger/survivor of The White Knuckle Charter Company. [12:25]How a man named Ken Tinley and the native Shangaan trackers helped a trio of teenagers transform their expanse of scrub-encroached land into a thriving safari business. [21:03]On the ancient lineage of the Shangaan trackers, and how the local wildlife came to trust the human caretakers of Londolozi. [27:05]Renias Mhlongo is supreme among world-class trackers — and sometimes the importance of the work outweighs the will of his clients. [32:21]Which animals are hardest to track at Londolozi — even if you happen to be Richard Siwela? [37:53]Because nature can be unpredictable, how do people protect themselves in Londolozi? [41:03]“I don’t know where we’re going, but I know exactly how to get there.” —Renias Mhlongo [42:56]How the tracking process has changed for Boyd over the years — from confident child to young adult traumatized by a home invasion and crocodile attack to competent grown-up thanks to people like Dr. Martha Beck and Solly Mhlongo. [45:00]What is Ubuntu? [1:02:50]Boyd talks about that time he lived 40 days and 40 nights up a tree — the questions he was trying to answer for himself by doing so, the primal fear he experienced while waiting out a storm, the pros and cons of extreme solitude, and if he’d do it again. [1:05:15]Stories about bees, the birds who help humans rob them, and the power of the hive algorithm. [1:17:45]The dos and don’ts of interacting with lions in the wild. [1:29:42]On the eerie conversation of death, modern confirmation of ancient myths, and the inexplicable movements of beasts and men. [1:34:16]How did Boyd’s own path toward healing after trauma differ from the way his mother and sister recovered from a trauma they experienced? [1:39:57]What is ceremony work, and how can it help someone deal with trauma? [1:43:32]What Boyd means when he says “an authentic life infused with meaning is a kind of activism.” [1:46:40]How Boyd and I have both been affected by the Work of Byron Katie. [1:52:03]Boyd’s first medicine encounter in an Arizona sweat lodge, and what he took away from the experience. [1:56:31]Feelings. Nothing more than feelings. [2:02:49]Kudus and nightjars and leopards in the fire (oh, my)! What a close encounter with a beautiful predator taught Boyd about Ubuntu. [2:04:14]Examining the therapeutic value of spending time with animals. [2:13:05]Laurens van der Post poetically described the sound of a lion’s roar. And, in a packed presentation hall at a major Silicon Valley company, Boyd did not. [2:17:57]An invitation to visit Londolozi and other parting thoughts. [2:22:10]*For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast.For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsors.Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss YouTube: youtube.com/timferrissPast guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, Balaji Srinivasan, Sarah Silverman, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Dr. Michio Kaku, and many more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tim Ferriss is a self-experimenter and bestselling author, best known for The 4-Hour Workweek, which has been translated into 40+ languages.  Newsweek calls him "the world's best human guinea pig," and The New York Times calls him "a cross between Jack Welch and a Buddhist monk."  In this show, he deconstructs world-class performers from eclectic areas (investing, chess, pro sports, etc.), digging deep to find the tools, tactics, and tricks that listeners can use.

The Tim Ferriss Show

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

Servant leadership is a style of leadership that has been gaining popularity because it sees people's needs as the end in itself. Servant leadership does not expect any outcome other than simply fulling the needs of people. It is implied that serving them will only do well for them.Organizations around the world are directing their focus towards helping people grow and focus. Furthermore, the motivation of those in leadership positions is aligned to serve others, not just to lead, as almost every stakeholder in an institution has access to all information with the click of a button. The days when leadership and data were preserved for the few elites are bygone.

Servant leadership today

Once servant leadership is internalized and lived to its tenets, the fruits of successful servant leadership will manifest in every aspect of society through most of the various attributes enumerated by scholars. Everyone will listen and be listened to; hence there will be little or no misunderstandings. This will help in the pursuit of building a united, cohesive community that confronts common challenges in unison. As such, society will be more empathetic, resulting in a more committed society to the growth of every member.Organizations will be more responsive to the needs of those who work for them and members of the society in which they operate.

How servant leadership will change the world

Servant leadership is viewed as a more authentic approach to genuinely address the needs of the followers.

Why Servant Leadership is Becoming the Leadership Style of the Future

The hustle has become synonymous with the grind. Pushing through pain and exhaustion in the chase of a bigger carrot. Sacrificing the choice bits of the human experience to climb some arbitrary ladder of success. You’re not very likely to find that key insight or breakthrough idea north of the 14th hour. Creativity, progress, and impact does not yield easily or commonly to brute force.

Let’s bury the hustle

<ol><li>Get a great night’s sleep.You take a bigger hit on your productive and creative powers through lack of proper sleep than almost any other neglect.</li><li>Get plenty of fresh air. Unlike sleep, it’s far less known just how much cognitive impairment you can suffer from poor air quality.</li><li>Get regular exercise. This isn’t about “staying fit” or “looking good". It’s about what moving your body does to your brain. </li><li>Read some classics. Read the best humankind had to offer over the last few millennia. </li><li>Say no to more dumb shit. Engage with fewer things but at a higher intensity. Stop chasing so much.</li></ol>

Cheat sheet and counter to the hustle

I love Gary Vaynerchuk dearly. So much of his message about patience and perseverance is completely in line with how I view the world. But I can’t take any more odes to “the hustle”. Like most…

Admitting what you don’t know is key to effective leadership

Do I Really Need to Back Up All My Data?

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

Why Servant Leadership is Becoming the Leadership Style of the Future

Let’s bury the hustle

Kevin Mann