Safari for My Soul

I'm about to head out the door for Kenya, East Africa. For vacation? No, for work, although if this is work, then I'm the luckiest woman alive.

I'll be leading a Safari for the Soul, leadership retreats that help senior managers find their organizational values and mission. We use the world as a classroom, letting our travelers see a new part of the world, and perhaps change their perspective about their current work.

People always ask me why I don't lead the trips in the US. I can. But it's not the same. When people go to a developing country on a different continent, their world opens up. They see, hear, smell and discuss things that would never have been discussed while accessing emails, iPhones and the newspaper back at home. With little access to the outside world, our traveler is forced to really dig deep and see what's going well and what's not going so well in his/her life and work. We don't give them any answers; we just ask the questions. They find their own answers by watching nature, talking to the local tribe people and seeing another world.

We only take a few travelers a year and it's always a privilege to do so. It's truly a gift to see these people start the two-week trip as one person and leave as another person...someone more confident, strong and focused on who they are and what they're supposed to be doing in this life. It makes my heart sing to watch this happen.

Someone asked me recently if I'd do these trips more often. These trips fill my soul, so if I didn't have a husband and a 3 year old daughter waiting for me, I'd do these trips monthly. But I do love my husband and daughter, so being away from them for a few weeks a year is enough. The trip fills my soul until the next time. I'd have it no other way.