The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Transformative Kenyan Safaris with Karen Cleveland of Nunus Kenya Safaris

Episode Date: September 20, 2024

Transformative Kenyan Safaris with Karen Cleveland of Nunus Kenya Safaris Nunuskenyansafaris.com About the Guest(s): Karen Cleveland is the co-founder of NUNUs Kenyan Safaris, a company she started with her husband. With over 30 years of experience in corporate America, Karen transitioned into a role that combines her passions: she is a seasoned spiritual and mindfulness teacher, animal communicator, and safari experience guide. Karen has established a new company aimed at providing transformational safari adventures in Kenya, helping professionals reconnect with their inner selves through a unique blend of spiritual enrichment and thrilling wildlife encounters. Episode Summary: In this episode of The Chris Voss Show, Karen Cleveland shares her remarkable journey from corporate America to the wild terrains of Kenya. As the co-founder of NUNUs Kenyan Safaris, Karen discusses how she and her husband provide transformational safari experiences that reconnect people with nature and their inner selves. The episode dives deep into the unique offerings of her company, which include group and custom private safaris designed for professionals seeking adventure and mindfulness in equal measure. Karen elaborates on the different safari packages available, each tailored to provide a distinct encounter with the Kenyan wilderness. She highlights the benefits of unplugging from the digital world, the profound impact of face-to-face encounters with wildlife, and the importance of taking time for spiritual nourishment. Throughout the conversation, Karen reflects on her personal experiences and how they have shaped her unique safari offerings, making these adventures accessible and meaningful for people from all walks of life. Key Takeaways: Transformational Adventures: NUNUs Kenyan Safaris offers unique experiences that blend adventure, mindfulness, and self-care. Deep Connection with Nature: The safaris provide a profound opportunity to reconnect with nature and gain spiritual enrichment through encounters with wildlife. Tailored Experiences: The company offers a variety of safari packages, from budget-friendly to luxurious, catering to different needs and preferences. Unplug and Reflect: The safaris encourage participants to disconnect from their digital devices, promoting a deeper focus on personal reflection and awareness. Team Building Opportunities: The safaris are ideal for corporate team-building events, providing an adventurous yet reflective retreat for professional groups. Notable Quotes: "It's like looking into the soul of the world almost sometimes." "They have tropical beaches there in Kenya too." "I am happy to talk to anyone about Safari 24 hours a day." "You get a better experience with animals because they are not inherently afraid of people; you get a better connection." "Our safaris are designed to help participants reset, rejuvenate, and find lasting fulfillment."

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from the chrisvossshow.com. Welcome to big show. We certainly appreciate having you guys on. As always, the Chris Foss Show is the family that loves you, but doesn't judge you, at least not as harshly as your family.

So go to Goodreads.com, 4chesschrisfoss, LinkedIn.com, 4chesschrisfoss, Chris Foss 1, the TikTokity, and all those crazy places on the internet. Today we have an amazing young lady on the show. We're going to be talking about her adventures and how you can have some adventures with your life as well. Get the hell out of the house for a change, William. We have Karen Cleveland on the show with us today. She is the co-founder of Nunu's Kenyan, let me recut that, Nunu's Kenyan Safaris, which she has co-founded with her husband. She is a seasoned spiritual and mindfulness teacher, animal communicator, and safari experience guide.

With over 30 years in corporate America, she now leads transformational safari adventures through her company, Nunu's Kenyan Safaris, which are designed to reconnect people, particularly professionals, with their inner selves by offering a blend of spiritual enrichment, thrilling encounters with the animals, land, and people of Kenya. These life-changing journeys provide a perfect balance of adventure,

mindfulness, and self-care, tailored to help participants reset, rejuvenate, and find lasting fulfillment. Her passion lies in these transformative experiences, making them accessible, reminding every woman she deserves time to nourish her soul. Welcome to the show, Karen. How are you? Fantastic.

Thank you. I'm doing great. Thank you. And it's wonderful to have you on the show. Give us your.com so people can find you on the interwebs. Yeah,.com. So NUNUS, which is N-U-N-U-s kenyansafaris.com and sometimes it's easier to find me at revkarencleveland.com and that'll direct you over there as well so give us a 30,000 overview of your

company and what you guys do there yeah my husband and i we take people on safaris or we set up safaris for people. I actually lead a few a year myself. I take group safaris, women, men that are usually older, travel by themselves. We get together as a group, 15 people or so. And we have these deep connections in Kenya with the animals, with the people, with the land. And it's something I've been doing for years. Our company is brand new, but I've been taking friends there for a number of years. So we finally made it official this year. What is it that draws you to that area? It's a combination of a number of things.

So I am an animal person. I love animals, and that was what first drew me. But in the back of my head, I also just wanted to touch the dirt. I wanted to touch the land of, you know, our most distant forefathers. And now what draws me back time and time again is the people that I meet, and it's being just in the serenity, out in the huge, vast openness, wild animals all around you. You know, you don't get that anywhere else. I mean, maybe New York. Yeah, different kind of animal. Different kind of jungle over there.

For sure. That concrete jungle. So tell us a little bit about yourself, your upbringing, what kind of brought you to this end result in your journey so far of, you know, what motivated you to like, be like, hey, I'm tired of everything. I'm going to Kenya. Yeah. Yeah. I'll try to keep it short. I grew up in a typical suburban white neighborhood and got into pharmacy all my life. Always wanted to get into travel though, but I just couldn't figure out how to make any money at it. Eventually, I, and also loving animals the whole time. So it was only about, you know,

eight, nine years ago, a friend said to me, hey, I'm going on safari. And I'm like, I want to go. And so three of us went on a private safari. And I thought it was going to be my bucket list, you know, check the box, show people the pictures, and that would be that. But as it turns out, at the very end of the safari, I met the man who had become my husband. And it was most unexpected. but everything has changed since then. So I would hope so. You know, yeah. So that's why I started taking people to Kenya because I would go to visit.

It's like, hey, come with me. Let's go on safari. You know, I'm going anyway. I know the deal now. I know how to do it. So it's just evolved just completely out of the blue. And so now you have different packages that people can take and get. There's signature safaris where you, I guess, kind of custom make things for people or make them kind of custom.

Hosted group safaris. So maybe if a company wants to take the team out and build, what do they call that stuff? Team building. Team building. Yeah. And all that stuff. Yoga retreats. I usually do them to create fights so that they'll fight each other.

We do our team building at a boxing match. Oh, yeah. And then we actually, no, we go to the Thunderdome and Burning Man, and we believe in the two men enter, one man rule. It's how we promote people at the Chris Voss Show. I see. And you're still at the top, aren't you? I use the Indiana Jones method. I just give up and shoot whoever's giving me problems.

But don't do that, people. That's a joke. Don't write it. So you do the hosting group safaris that are good for building people and not the Chris Voss sort of. Not your way. Not my team building thing. Yeah. Custom private safaris so you can make something perfect for maybe an individual or a group.

I can see a lot of corporations should really jump on this because, you know, plus if you don't like Bob, you can, and the lion, you know, starts chasing, you can just trip Bob and, you know, that'll fix the Bob situation. Yeah, we try to discourage that actually. Oh, that's a bad thing? Yeah. That is kind of a bad thing, yeah. Yeah. I don't know, you might get extra for some of those safaris. So you're doing, it looks like Safari Splendor, Born Free, checking out the Kenya lines.

Tell us about some of these packages you have. Oh, my gosh. I'm so excited for these. You know what I love the most? Not the most, but putting the packages together is like one of the most fun things that I do. Because, for example, Tembo Tuskers, and Tembo is the Swahili name for elephant. So, we're going to go stay at an elephant sanctuary for a couple of nights. We're going to have exclusive access to feeding time with those elephants at Sheldrick Wildlife

Trust. We are going to also do game drives to see other animals. We'll be at some of the big parks of Kenya. So we'll see all the animals, but we're going to have some exclusive elephant time for people that like elephants and the born free safari you're probably not old enough but some of us remember a movie called born free from many years ago the lioness elsa was from kenya and so we're going to explore the lions of kenya on that saf. So even though we focus some of the safaris on something specific, actually the great wildebeest migration, I think you'd like that, Chris, because that's the one. I've never caught a wildebeest before. This is the one where they come running down the hill across the river and the crocodiles are

waiting for them. The lions, the cheetahs are waiting for them for the wildebeest and the zebras. So it's a scary time for them. And that's only once or twice a year. I think I've seen that where they go through the, they cross over the river and you'll see them like sometimes falling off of cliffs and I guess they recover really well because like that was not getting up after that fall and they do and I'm just like wow i'm tougher than i am they yeah they do they got the adrenaline going yeah yeah and then you know you'll see them drinking and there's stuff in the water i mean geez i thought it was hard to go to

my sink yeah you know what if you go take a life straw with you so you always have or drink yeah yeah the yeah i would i would that would suck to be an animal and you're like, I got to drink out of that water and there's like lions and tigers, bears and sharks in there and stuff, or alligators at the very least. But, you know, there might not be sharks, but, you know, it is Africa. You never know what you're going to find. You never know. Yeah.

You never know. Yeah. It's pretty scary time though for some of those animals. Not too long ago when I was on safari, I actually had a lion walking right towards. I was inside a vehicle. I was safe. But it was still really scary to have a lion looking you in the eye and walking straight towards you. And I thought, should we go now?

Start it up. Let's go. Yeah. Yeah. God, there was a couple of videos recently where you saw, you know, the little charging from the elephant and stuff. But, you know, everyone survived. But it was a great experience, I imagine, because you're like, hey, we had this lion, eh? Come after us.

So why Kenya? Is there other places you're going to cover other countries or is kenya the main focus of what you're doing there there's a couple reasons why kenya one and primarily right now is because my husband's from kenya and that's what we know so he was a guide at one point so that's that's where we know but i also also chose Kenya the very first time I went because we can have a better connection with a better experience with the animals. Because believe it or not, the animals remember and there's no hunting in Kenya. So they are not inherently afraid of people. You know, there are some poachers and stuff like that, but in general, they're not afraid

of us. So they don't have to run from us when they see us. So I feel like we get a better experience doing that. And your husband's from there. So does he speak the language then and kind of has a good working, probably benefit, right? He has a good working knowledge of benefit right he has a good working knowledge of how the country works and all this ins and outs yeah yeah he's only been in the u.s like five or six seven years so he he speaks the language he knows and knows the people knows the

places he's definitely an asset to have when going to kenya see it was a good reason you married him now you can sell this i know that's right good reason you married him. Now you can sell all this stuff. I know. That's right. Good thing I married him. So I see on the website, there's some custom private safaris that people can engage in. 14-night grand safari, 10-night epic safari. Is there any way I can ride the elephants, or is that a bad thing?

Yeah, that's not possible in Kenya. Maybe next door in Tanzania. I'm not sure. I don't think it's a good idea anyway. I mean, I suppose if they're tame, like in Indian places, they do that. But I don't think I should be riding wild elephants. It probably sounds like a Friday I had several years ago after a bottle of vodka and some pills. But we don't talk about that anymore.

Seven-night hidden gem safari. Five-night wilderness escape. Night explorer's getaway. vodka and some pills, but we don't talk about that anymore. Seven Night Hidden Gem Safari, Five Night Wilderness Escape, Night Explorer's Getaway. This Night Explorer's Getaway is really cool. It looks like there's a picture of a bunch of maybe hotel rooms and some cute things, but they're lifted off the ground so that you can watch everything pass underneath and probably not come through your window. Yes, yes.

So below those, and I don't remember the picture exactly. I know where it is. There's a water hole. So you can sit in your room high above and just watch the animals come and go. We've seen leopards and elephants and all kinds of things come to the water hole. And so what do you think people come away with?

I mean, you've been through this multiple times. So what is the feelings and emotions and experiences? What do you think it does? Does it open people's apertures a little bit? Does it help them reset, et cetera, et cetera? Yeah, all of the above. So there's something about being out there in the wilderness. And these animals, they have a choice on where they are

you know they're not caged they can go anywhere and they they choose to be there or to stay there and when you come eye to eye with them it's it's like looking into the soul of the world almost sometimes and i i don't know anyone that hasn't had what they call an amazing or magical or transformative experience and it's kind of funny because people come home from the trips and some of them some people can put it to words but some people are just like it was so amazing I'm still processing it I can't really explain it but it was an amazing. I'm still processing it. I can't really explain it. But it was an amazing experience. And I actually, there was a guy on my last trip, and he said, so we stay in nice places, they aren't the highest luxury places, but they're nice places. And they

all have swimming pools and bars and all that kind of stuff. And he started swimming every day. And he came home and he said, I can swim a mile, I think, 13 minutes faster. I have started writing again, because I've been so inspired. I've been studying, you know, some of the spiritual studies. It's everything coming together there. And you get to look at yourself and what's your priority in life and you got these wild animals and it's like they're saying is that really important you know is it really important yeah it really gives you perspective i found that getting out of the office getting away from stuff taking some time off especially if you can be reflective because some people do like vacations where they do disneyland yeah that's a lot of busyness for a vacation, you know.

You know, walking around Disneyland pondering, you know, what's my place in the world and what does it mean? You have people yelling and screaming, standing in line, you know, fighting over food, screaming about food. You got the lines, you got the parking, you know. The whole thing is a production. And I always hated the fact that vacations were that way i'm like i just want a vacation where i just go sit on the beach somewhere or you know

this kenya sounds wonderful and you can you get away from it yeah because that's really getting away from all the busyness the noise and the craziness it is and just for the record they have tropical beaches there in kenya too but but i think the one of the keys is that you can't sit on your cell phone all day so even on some beaches you sit there on your cell phone and you might as well be in your house yeah you get rid of the cell phone and you're present with yourself and with you know everything else and yeah definitely reflective time yeah it's a do they have a lot of cell phone service there in kenya or is it is it kind of a place where you can get off grid if you want you can get off grid they have kind of a different technology they don't have like monthly

plans like we do here or maybe they have monthly plans but it's different somehow they call them bundles and i don't know what that means. Oh. The phone works here and there. Mine does, but not everywhere. Certainly not out in the middle of Masai Mara or the Serengeti. Yeah. It's probably good. Discourage. Discourage, you know.

That's one of the things we have. Everyone, you know, everyone's looking at their phone and the beeps and the noises and the pings and the vibrations. Yeah. You know, everyone's constantly, you know, every five seconds, beep, you know, notification. And, you know, you kind of feel like you're on a hamster wheel, I think, with someone after a while. You're like, you know, it's nice to kind of turn off the phone. And I think that really helps add to the perspective. Because if you take a vacation in a lot of places now, you're still going to have all the beeps and dings and all that stuff and the problems. And, of course, people are getting to you with all their fires and their, you that stuff and the problems and of course people are getting to

you with all their fires and they're you know you know at least you can go out and you're like hey i couldn't get your call because i was in kenya yeah exactly and if you work if you have a job i mean you kind of really need that downtime and it's hard to get it on just a regular vacation yeah i mean especially you know disneyland or i mean there's a lot of places you can go that are like everyone's like why does chris hate disneyland right now but no i mean i love disneyland but it has its place but geez you can you it can really i don't know it just doesn't seem like a vacation sometimes some of those joints yeah it's definitely a vacation that you need a vacation from.

I love Disneyland too, but you're right, it has its purpose. Yeah, we're trying to keep Disneyland as an advertisement, I guess, at this point. What is, what are some, oh, you work with travel agents, I see here too, on the website as I look at it. I do, yeah. Tell us about that. I mean, you don't have to go in details there's some details on the site that people would check out yeah so if we have any travel advisors out there or people in the travel industry we do offer i just forgot the word

oh commissions so we do have a really good commission program and even though we're a new company i have been a travel advisor in the past and i know that it's important to build trust and to you know know what you're getting into so i have an opportunity for travel advisors or industry people to come on a trip at a discount a very very busy trip to check it out and and see what you want to promote what have we touched on or covered about the stuff you guys offer there i'm sorry what was that what have we what have we touched on or covered what haven't we touched on or covered what question haven't i asked i would like to say that we can create any kind of a trip for you no matter what your budget is so you can go the main part

of a safari probably there's two main costs one is the accommodations and the other is the park fees so the park fees are fixed we can't do anything about that and some of them go as high as two hundred dollars a day so they're not necessarily inexpensive, but the accommodations, you know, you can do a basic tent without electricity, water, anything like that for a fairly cheap safari vacation. The ones we do are mid-level to low luxury, and they're like luxury tents with bathrooms and electricity or cabins or cottages. And like I said, they all have swimming pools and restaurants and bars and that kind of thing. So it's the accommodations that really determines how much your safari is going to cost. And we can work with you. It really helps to work with a person, whether it's me or someone else, to get what you want.

It helps to have that. It helps to have that, what's the word I'm looking for? It helps to have that, being able to have something customized where, you know, whatever your spend is and all that good stuff. And I'd say it's probably a great thing for groups, corporations, teams, team building. I mean, I just want a free trip to Kenya at this point from the company, so that's what I'm working on. you want me to talk to someone wait is it me but i need someone else to pay for it not me that's the last thing that's what we're working on so so anything more you want to tease out as we go out let's see i i would like to encourage anyone that travels alone

and would like to join a group to look at my signature safaris. They're all set up for next year. And, you know, those are really, I don't know if fun is the right word, but they're meaningful. They're definitely, you know, amazing and magical. And people have a very good time. And I am happy to talk to anyone about safari 24 hours a day you love safaris i do i do so thank you very much for coming the show give people the final pitch out and your dot coms all right yes we would love to see you on safari in kenya and help you get there

my name is karen cleveland new news kenyan safaris and you and us kenyan safaris.com or rev karen cleveland.com thank you very much for coming to the show karen we really appreciate it ah thank you so much for having me chris thanks for tuning in go to goodreads.com fortunes chris foss linkedin.com fortunes chris foss chris foss one of the tiktokity all those crazy places in the internet thanks for tuning in be good to each other stay safe we'll see you next time