Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Oli Raison & Boris Maguire on Leadership Beyond the Boardroom | EP 703
16 Dec 2025
Chapter 1: What unique leadership insights can we gain from the Samburu culture?
Coming up next on Passion Struck.
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 multimillion 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 overly fetishized 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 Samburu, 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. I'm your host, John Miles. This is the show where we explore the art of human flourishing and what it truly means to live like it matters.
Each week, I sit down with changemakers, creators, scientists, and everyday heroes to decode the human experience and uncover the tools that help us lead with meaning, heal what hurts, and pursue the fullest expression of who we're capable of becoming.
Whether you're designing your future, developing as a leader, or seeking deeper alignment in your life, this show is your invitation to grow with purpose and act with intention. Because the secret to a life of deep purpose, connection, and impact... is choosing to live like you matter. Hey friends, welcome back to episode 703 of Passion Struck.
Today, instead of doing what we normally do with our guests, I want to transport you somewhere very different. Today, I'm taking you with me to Africa, into the bush, into nature, into a kind of leadership experience most of us have never been invited into. Think of this episode as a virtual safari, but it's more than that.
As leaders, we are being asked to navigate uncertainty on every front at once. climate change, artificial intelligence, generational tension, mental health crisis, cultural fraction, moral exhaustion. And here's the uncomfortable truth. You can't meet challenges of this magnitude from inside a windowless hotel ballroom.
You won't find the answers in webinars, motivational speeches, or surface level leadership training. And no amount of productivity optimization will give you the wisdom required for this moment. What these times demand is elevated leadership, An elevated leadership doesn't come from more information.
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Chapter 2: How does cultural immersion impact leadership development?
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I am absolutely thrilled today to have Ali Raisin and Boris McGuire join me all the way from Kenya on PassionStruck. How are you, Ali and Boris? Very well. Thanks. How are you doing, John? I'm doing fantastic. And I was so excited that our mutual friend, Bill Von Hippel, introduced us because your work really sits at the intersection of wilderness, indigeneity, 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 treks 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 safarini leadership was really born out of two passions that boris and i both share boris and i have been both expatriates 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 people.
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Chapter 3: What challenges do modern leaders face in today's world?
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 Ali 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 shoulder to shoulder 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.
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 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
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.
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Chapter 4: Why is nature important for enhancing leadership qualities?
And when they arrive in Kenya, before we get out into the bush, they have the opportunity to meet our team of Samburu 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 and we're coming to know people's background and life experiences. So there's a lot of preparation and discovery that goes into this experience before it really even truly begins.
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
And then we'll usually walk for anywhere from three to five 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 the chance to hear from the elders about a specific topic so we'll look at what is resilience to the sanbru 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 ollie 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 and talks we then have leadership circles in the afternoon and on the final day we ask everyone to make a we call it 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 Samburu 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, where it's not just 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 lasts.
And so 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.
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Chapter 5: What lessons can Western leaders learn from Samburu elders?
Nairobi, they're underrepresented in Kenyan politics. They are living in a very harsh environment. We're talking about a semi-arid 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, people are grounded in the society's values from a very young age. So if we could just focus on the life's path of a young boy in the Samburu 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 any body 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, en masse, graduate to become junior elders.
And the junior elder period is a real shift in the way of life. They settle down, they build a house, they accrue 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 en masse. And so from a young boy, he knows what his destiny is going to be. His destiny is ultimately to be a leader for the welfare and 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 some of our Samburu colleagues, and she realized just from asking them, what is the word for anxiety in Ma, which is the language of the Samburu? They don't have a word for anxiety. They don't have a word for depression.
And you won't meet a single Samburu 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 Hippel 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 that.
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Chapter 6: How does the concept of time differ between Western and Samburu cultures?
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 are overscheduled. 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 et cetera, et cetera.
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 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 workforces 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 Samburu 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 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?
yeah it's a great question i think it's one of the fundamental yeah points of differentiation maybe and i guess if i could summarize it a good life is a life of a samburu and that sounds like a non-answer But it begs the question, what is it to be a Samburu? 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 Samburu?
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. It is not about, Bill von Hippel 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 thing, short perhaps of the family unit, of having a family. So to be a Samburu is to have a family, to create more Samburu, but also to fulfill your role and purpose to serve Samburu. your community.
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Chapter 7: What is the significance of community in Samburu decision-making?
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 Sambura culture, a lot of this really reflects also on what Native American tribal life was like for centuries. And in some reservations, what it's like today, especially as they're going through the rites 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 Samburu life.
I think that with spirituality, they have a belief in God, and Kai, they call, is their God. But Nkai is represented in nature 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 quarter. 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.
Well, another thing that you guys were talking about earlier is how the Samburu make choices. And you were saying that it really comes down to community decisions are made amongst the tribe. As you've seen this compared to how hierarchical Western systems are, how do they differ?
And why have you found the Samburu community decision-making to be successful compared to some of the hierarchical systems that exist in other parts of the world? And maybe Boris, you can take that.
Yeah, sure. I feel to some extent, yeah, this theme of time comes back. And you mentioned the walk and Ollie just mentioned the role of time and kind of spiritual thinking. And one of the things that our elders always say, and they often tell the clients, particularly when clients are a bit worried that the walk might be taking long and do we have time for this?
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Chapter 8: How can leaders apply the principles learned from this episode in their lives?
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 about- I think homelessness as well. Oh, homelessness. Yeah.
Yeah, for sure. So obviously- Sorry, 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 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 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 Samburu are 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 Sunbury 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 Stephen,
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 great-grandfather. 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.
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