Safari Real Estate Brief | On Authenticity

The beginning of a year often invites reinvention.

In that context, it feels worth pausing on something more fundamental.

One of the strangest things about spending time in wild places is how quickly one is confronted with oneself.

In nature, no one is performing.

A lion does not try to look powerful.

An acacia does not compete with a baobab.

Each thing occupies its place. Everything and everyone has a niche.

The Cost of Performance

For much of my life, I tried to perform. To be impressive. To be more. To be enough.

But performance has a side effect: it keeps moving the finish line. No matter how well you do, it is never quite sufficient, because the standard is external, shifting, and conditional.

That way of living creates constant tension. You might not be failing — quite the opposite — but the chase prevents you from being fully yourself.

Safari environments expose this very quickly. When you are placed inside a system that does not care who you think you are, status, titles, and achievements lose relevance. What remains is presence.

I believe this is why safari trips are life-changing for so many people.

Your Only Real Contribution

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in life is that the only truly unique gift you can bring to the world is being you. But this is not a trivial endeavor. One has to face oneself, learn what it actually means to be who they are, and then have the courage to live it.

Bring your truest version. Not the unfiltered, say-and-do-whatever-comes-to-mind version, but something more nuanced.

That is the gift.

Safari reminds us of this because nothing there pretends to be something else. Each element plays its role, not more, not less. And that clarity is freeing.

I hope that with Conserve Safari we create places that act as catalysts, environments where people can gently peel away what is not true and rediscover what actually is.

Authenticity is not something you achieve. It is not a destination. And it is not something you prove.

More often, it is simply what remains when the need to impress falls away. And in that sense, safari is not an escape from life. It is a return to it.

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In the picture, Simon and I are trying to be our truest selves and also imagining how we would wash our hands at the vanity we were designing for Tarangire.