SAFARI LESSONS
Ghia and Judy- What we learned on safari in Africa. Learning to live with high expectations and high love, and being our true authentic self.
Transcript
Sonny Bonani.
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:Hooray.
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:I'm Judy.
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:And I'm Gia.
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:And we are your host for the Creative
Spiritual Journey podcast, which is
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:coming to you live from South Africa,
South Africa, and we're we're together.
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:Can you believe it?
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:We're so excited.
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:It's been super fun.
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:We love it.
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:So let's, shall we talk about today?
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:Well, we thought it would be fun to
share with you the lessons that we
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:learned from going on Safari together.
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:We spent the past week in
the Kruger National Park.
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:it was amazing.
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:I knew that there were giraffes and zebras
and lions in South Africa, in the parks.
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:I knew that we would see them, but I
was amazed how intermixed they were,
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:they were just, they were everywhere.
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:We, yeah.
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:It's not like one's in
each separate place.
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:Yeah.
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:Yeah.
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:They live together.
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:Anyway, I was surprised.
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:Yeah, it is been super fun to show you g.
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:The just.
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:South Africa, not just Krueger, the
potholes and out potholes and the
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:day, the potholes in the roads, the
traffic, the crazy taxi drivers,
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:the people walking in the dark to
work that you are sure that they're
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:just gonna get run over on the way.
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:Yeah.
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:They're in dark clothes and they're
dark skin and they're, they're hard
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:to see it that, you know, the members
of our branches here have just warmly
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:embraced Kirk Gee and Luann, and it's
just been really fun to share our life
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:that we've been experiencing in the past.
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:What, 17 months with you and when she
says embrace, she means it literally.
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:Yeah.
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:Like we went to church and
all these strangers were just
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:coming up and hugging us.
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:Yeah.
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:They're beautiful people
with, Lots of love to give.
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:Okay.
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:So there we were.
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:At Krueger National Park, we wake
up at four o'clock in the morning so
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:that we can meet our guide at five.
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:And it's fall here, right?
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:Mm-hmm.
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:At home, it's spring here.
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:It's fall and it's starting to get cold,
and we are in an open safari vehicle
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:and we have to drive from our lodge.
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:To the entrance station of the national
park, 20 minutes going a hundred
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:kilometers an hour, and we were freezing.
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:It was like the polar bear plunge,
bobsled rider, I dunno how to
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:describe it, but it was cold.
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:But we would get into.
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:Kruger National Park, right at dawn.
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:Mm-hmm.
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:And just watch the world wake
up and the sky change colors.
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:Mm-hmm.
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:And the mist across the mountains.
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:Yeah.
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:And lo and behold, there was a giraffe.
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:A giraffe is standing right there.
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:Oh my gosh.
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:The first time we saw them, you know,
they were a speck in the distance
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:and we all got on our cameras and
we tried to take pictures and.
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:And Eric and I look at each
other 'cause we've been on
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:safaris and we know how it is.
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:The first sighting, you're trying
to take that far distant picture
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:and it's a speck and you're like,
oh, by the end of the drive you're
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:gonna be like, ah, another giraffe.
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:And that's exactly the way
it was, but it was still.
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:Amazing.
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:Yeah, those first few sightings, giraffes,
elephants, impalas, zebras, wart, hogs.
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:So what you need to know about the impalas
is their markings are on their bottom.
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:When they're tellers down, it looks
like an M, and they're so many of 'em
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:that they call them the golden arches.
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:Of the Kruger, the McDonald's,
these are the food.
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:This is your basic everyday food.
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:That's what they are.
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:and they're beautiful.
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:The other thing about the Impalas
is that they are in rut right now.
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:Oh.
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:Which means that the, that the male
ram is running around, you know,
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:controlling his harem, keeping them
in a bunch, chasing away all the
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:males, and they grunt and growl.
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:It sounds like a demon from hell yeah.
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:Coming at you.
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:It's unbelievable.
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:So we have this very nice 23-year-old
guide and I asked him how long he had been
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:guiding and he got really embarrassed.
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:He says, well, this is my first month,
but he was raised in the Kruger.
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:His dad was a guide and he
used to ride around in the.
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:jump seat in the jump seat right
next to his dad since he was a
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:little boy and he loves this park.
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:And when we met his dad, his dad said
that the first time that he took him to
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:Kruger, that he cried when, when he had
to leave because he just loved it so much.
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:So this is his life.
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:It is.
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:You can just see his passion for it.
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:He's a photographer, but he
just knows the little intricate.
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:Things about nature and he respects it.
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:That's what I liked about him.
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:Yeah.
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:Is he was just very
respectful of nature and.
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:And so this may have been his
first month guiding, but that's
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:because he was away at college.
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:And then you have to
jump through all these.
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:You had to grow up.
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:Yeah, you have to jump through all these
hoops in order to get your guide license.
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:Mm-hmm.
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:It's not easy.
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:He was finally in the guide seat, and I
think he was on just cloud nine, but he
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:also had a tremendous amount of pressure
to show us everything that Kruger had to.
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:Show us the big five, right?
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:Yeah.
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:And you know, so like we said,
we were completely excited and
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:blown away to see the giraffes
and the elephants and the zebras.
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:But as his mind.
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:I think he was afraid that the
customers wouldn't be satisfied unless
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:they had seen a cheetah, a lion,
or a lion or one of the leopards.
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:And so he's under a lot of
pressure to show those to us.
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:So we would see this elephant
herd and we would be there for,
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:literally, it felt like a few seconds.
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:It, it was maybe a couple minutes,
but it seemed like a few seconds.
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:And then he would be driving
away and we would be.
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:Looking wistfully back at the
elephants, you know, he wanted
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:to soak that in a little longer.
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:Yeah, so that night, you know, we
kind of talked it over and the next
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:day when we met him, we were like,
Hey, we would really, you know,
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:like to slow down a little bit and
spend more time with the animals.
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:And he like, got it.
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:Immediately.
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:He was like, okay.
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:And he took us out on this.
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:Different road that we hadn't been on the
day before, and we just drove much slower.
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:We stopped even when we
hadn't seen an animal.
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:Mm-hmm.
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:Just because he was like,
something might show up here.
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:Oh.
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:And we would just sit there and
talk and a bird would fly up.
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:What were those?
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:Oh, the lac, the rollers, Lilac breasted
roller and he was explaining to us
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:how this bird was the wedding ring.
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:Bird.
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:You're supposed to be able to give
one of its feathers to your love.
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:Yes.
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:To tell them you wanted to get married.
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:You have to look up the lilac
breasted roller 'cause it is
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:lilac and this aqua blue and.
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:very beautiful, very stunning bird, and
I don't think we would've ever seen it or
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:really had a chance to stop and enjoy it.
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:Mm-hmm.
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:Mm-hmm.
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:If we hadn't just been
sitting there mm-hmm.
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:If we hadn't slowed down, then
we would have missed seeing
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:some black back jackals.
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:I love these.
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:They're like the fox of South
Africa and they are hard to see.
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:If we weren't sitting still, I
think we would've totally missed it.
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:Yeah.
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:And they were hunting.
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:Mm-hmm.
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:And he was really wise in how he
would notice the impalas and, they
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:would stop and watch if they're
all looking the same direction.
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:You know, there was something to
look also, and he knew about the.
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:Go away bird.
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:Mm-hmm.
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:He would hear the, and he
knew that was an alarm.
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:He knew the alarms of the savanna,
which meant there was a predator.
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:Mm-hmm.
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:And we could stop and
watch and look for them.
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:And so one of the predators
that we saw when he said, oh,
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:there's something around here.
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:And we looked and we saw some.
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:Spotted, hyenas, you know, in the
daytime hyenas are, done, and they're
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:usually sleeping in their den.
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:And so we saw two headed back home and
that was, that was pretty cool to see.
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:Yeah.
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:And then we saw the
elusive Secretary Bird.
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:Now go look that one up too.
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:The Secretary Bird has the real long
legs and it spends most of its time
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:on the ground, and they are expert.
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:Snake hunters.
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:They're so cool they are, I think one
of my favorite birds here, and they look
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:like they just woke up with bedhead.
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:They have the, a whole bunch of
these random feathers that just
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:stick out at the top of their heads.
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:Well, they're called secretary
birds, like they have these.
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:Pin, like their writing pins.
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:Oh, their pins stuck in
their bun, stuck in their,
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:and there was a feather laying at the
feet, and Judy tried her best to talk,
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:our guide to get out and get the feather,
but we, in the end, we decided it wasn't
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:worth risking his life to get out of this.
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:I don't safari.
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:I don't know.
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:Gia don't think he should
have caught up for me anyway.
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:tell them what you learned.
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:Okay, so one of your jobs
on a Savannah is your eyes.
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:You're looking, you're scanning,
you're scanning the trees for
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:the leopards, you're scanning the
grass for the lions, which by.
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:Chants happened to be the same
color as the lions, right?
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:The grass.
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:The grass.
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:This is the same color, and
the trees are spotted leafs.
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:So a spotted leopard, they, you know,
God created them to be camouflaged for a
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:reason, so I actually thought it got to
be exhausting and a little discouraging.
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:I felt like I was failing because
I wasn't spotting anything.
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:And, and what are, your chances and your
odds 'cause this is a huge place and,
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:so I just thought, okay, I'm gonna set,
I'm gonna reexamine, that's a good word.
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:I'm gonna reexamine my expectations.
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:I lowered it to a termite mound.
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:There were termite mounds everywhere,
and so I was winning all the
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:time that look a termite mound.
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:And we started taking pictures and
I felt the stress level go down
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:and my enjoyment level rise when I
started just lowering my expectations.
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:So we had a whole little series
of termite mound pictures.
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:I bet there wasn't a single other
tourist there taking termite mound
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:pictures But one of my favorite things
we enjoyed when we stopped and slowed
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:down is we were watching the elephants
and there was one that was asleep.
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:Up against a tree, kind of resting
resting his head against the tree and
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:swaying, and he was snoring and his trunk
was hanging straight down and like the
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:bottom part was resting on the ground.
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:Almost like a kink.
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:Yeah.
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:And he was just kind of rocking.
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:I don't know how long we sat there and
watched a sleeping elephant and then the
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:snore, it, it kind of sounded like the.
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:Reverberation in a wet, dry vac, you know?
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:Oh, it was priceless.
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:And Adrian, our guide, said he
had never heard that before.
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:That was really fun.
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:It was a rare treat.
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:Yeah.
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:I noticed as we were having this
beautiful, intimate little moment with
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:nature that behind us where these other
safari jeeps that were racing from
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:reported sightings to reported sightings.
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:It became like a lion hunt.
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:And I thought it's not so much that.
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:I've lowered my expectations.
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:it's raising the love.
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:Let me explain.
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:We have a.
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:Principle in mission work called high
expectations, high Love Christ says,
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:what man or man ought you to be?
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:Even as I am?
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:That is pretty high.
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:Some high expectations.
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:It's a very high expectation,
but if we bring in the high love.
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:His grace, his love helps us change
our thoughts and our talk of instead
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:of being frustrated and disappointed
where I can't see that leopard.
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:Mm-hmm.
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:That perfect pictured leopard.
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:Instead, I've changed to
a high love of gratitude.
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:Gratitude I think is the highest love.
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:I love that.
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:Yeah.
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:We were just grateful for anything
and everything that we saw around
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:us, and I was grateful to see
another magnificent giraffe.
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:Or another Impala and they
were just all part of it.
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:Or another termite mound,
another termite mound.
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:Then we appreciated
the things that we saw.
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:Neil l Anderson, the corner of
the 12 Apostle said that when
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:we give high expectations and
high love, we can see miracles.
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:Mm-hmm.
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:We saw some miracles.
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:Yes, we did so at the, the very last
day of our time in Kruger National Park.
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:As we were leaving the park,
we were going to drive.
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:In our own vehicle across
just a corner of the park.
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:And we didn't have a guide.
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:It was just us in our little van and,
but we had been told by the guide that
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:in this one little section of road
we might possibly see a rhinoceros.
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:So we didn't really expect anything
and we were just driving along
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:and all of a sudden, Judy shouts.
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:Rhino and we couldn't believe it.
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:We saw a rhinoceros.
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:Yes, we saw two rhinoceros and
they, ah, magnificent creatures.
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:Yeah.
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:Aren't they?
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:Beautiful.
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:Beautiful.
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:So, seeing a rhino miracle, nah,
maybe not, but a great reward.
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:Absolutely.
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:Mm-hmm.
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:So, GIA, if you were to share with
us your greatest lesson from the
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:Safari Drive, what would it be?
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:So here's the thing that I thought
about a lot while I was watching these
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:animals, that they have no shame.
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:They were all just doing
their animal thing.
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:And animals teach us to trust the design
to live from a place of wholeness.
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:Yeah.
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:And they remind us to be true
to our God-given identity.
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:That that's what I just kept
thinking about, just like
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:I could be true to myself.
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:And I feel like when I live
authentically, I create balance in
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:the world, in my world at least.
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:And, animals in their quiet way
point us back to our creator.
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:And so.
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:some of the words that I thought
about while I was thinking
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:about animals were unapologetic.
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:Yeah.
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:Meaning they're bold and real and
unashamed of their true natures.
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:Well, how many of them
pooped right in front of us?
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:Right?
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:they were also raw, meaning
stripped of pretense.
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:They weren't trying to be
anything or anyone else.
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:Um, they were true.
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:As in true to their purpose
or true to themselves.
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:Mm-hmm.
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:Um, they were wild as in untamed
and free and, and deeply alive.
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:the word that came to my
mind was just survival.
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:their life was about survival.
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:Yeah.
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:That's every day, all day.
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:Yeah, that's kind of, that's true.
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:And the reality is, is that's
what our lives are about.
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:We're about survival.
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:Mm.
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:We just get so sidetracked by
other worries that we forget.
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:We're just surviving this life.
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:Right.
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:and then the last word that came to
my mind was authentic, Listen to this
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:definition of authentic, true to one's
own personality, spirit, or character.
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:And this is the best part of undisputed
origin and not a copy genuine.
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:I love that undisputed origin.
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:I am from a heavenly home.
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:That's who I am, and
that's how I want to live.
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:I love that.
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:The word authentic being even
even the animals, you look at a.
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:I heard of zebras, and you think
they're all the same, but they're not.
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:They all have their own stripes.
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:They have their own stripes.
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:And same with the giraffes.
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:They none are the same, right?
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:They're authentic,
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:Now.
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:I am fascinated by the power of
words in the doctrine and covenants.
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:38 3.
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:Jesus says, I am the same, which
span and the world was made.
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:All things come by me.
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:This makes me want to be wise
with the words I use and it makes
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:me believe that the words I use
can create the life that I want.
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:Absolutely.
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:So.
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:As I was looking at this list of words
these animals have brought to my mind,
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:the one that really stood out to me.
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:The one that I want to bring
more into my life is authentic.
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:living in alignment with my true self,
unmasked, unfiltered, and unapologetic.
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:I love this word because it
isn't about perfectionism.
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:It's about honoring my inner being.
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:It allows me to trust who I am.
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:So I am making a deliberate choice to
bring this word authentic into my life.
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:I am going to write it on sticky
notes and put it up on my computer.
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:And I already wrote it on the
front of my South African journal.
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:No, you did.
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:I didn't know that.
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:And I am going to use it in my prayers,
and I'm going to see how many places
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:in my conversations I can use it.
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:And you might even hear me
use it in future podcasts.
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:my goal is to bring the creative
power of this word into my life.
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:So those are our lessons
from South Africa.
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:I have a saying, I always say
when you argue with reality,
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:you lose 100% of the time.
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:And the reality was we were gonna
see what we were gonna see and the
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:struggle and the fight of trying to
find the elusive leopard in the tree.
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:Instead of just accepting come what may
and and come what may was beautiful.
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:Right.
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:Come what may was beautiful and
we really have no control of life.
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:So why not relax and enjoy the beauty
and surprises we see along the way.
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:Yeah.
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:Have the faith.
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:I think we need to have hope and faith in.
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:In God's plan for us.
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:I think that goes along
with your being authentic.
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:Mm-hmm.
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:You know, we were created just like that
lion was created to blend into that grass.
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:We were created also
with purpose and a plan.
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:Mm-hmm.
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:A, a magnificent plan.
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:And it's my hope that in learning
to be authentic, it will help me
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:connect with what I value, what
I love, and what makes me, me.
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:Mm-hmm.
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:So, Judy and I know that your time is
precious and that you have many choices
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:and we love that you have chosen to
spend a few minutes with us today.
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:And if you like this podcast, will you
take time right now to share it with
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:a friend, share it somewhere on social
media, or leave us a five star rating.
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:Your efforts will help this podcast
make a bigger impact in the world.
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:And we'll tell Judy and me that you
like our show and give us the motivation
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:to keep going and we need that.
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:Yes, we do.
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:Okay.
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:I wanna leave you with an
invitation on your journey today.
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:Seek to live in high love and
high expectations and look for.
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:The rhino, no.
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:Look for the miracles, and I promise
you, you will see them as you
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:enjoy the termite mounds of life.
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:and as said by Winnie the Pooh,
oh, I love Winnie the Poh.
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:The things that make me different
are the things that make me me.
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:Ah, namaste.
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:I'll see you on the trail.
