A Lion Tracker's Guide to Life: Follow the Next Track
Boyd Varty's tracking metaphor for navigating uncertainty: know the direction (the lion), see the next sign (the track), follow it. You don't need the full path. You need the next step. Wu wei in boots.
Peters Einschätzung
Quick, enjoyable read. The animal tracking stories alone kept me reading. The core insight, have the direction and follow the next concrete step without needing to see the full path, changed how I relate to uncertainty. Recommended by Martha Beck, who runs workshops with Varty.
On April 13, 1970, an oxygen tank exploded on Apollo 13, halfway to the Moon. In an instant, the mission plan was gone. Every procedure, every timeline, every carefully rehearsed sequence became irrelevant. The crew had to get home alive in a crippled spacecraft with failing power, limited water, and rising CO2 levels.
Nobody at Mission Control had a plan for this. They couldn't see the full path home. What they could see was the next problem. Fix the CO2 scrubber. Calculate the engine burn. Manage the power budget. Each solution revealed the next challenge. The direction was clear: Earth. The path was built one improvisation at a time.
If anyone on that team had tried to solve the entire journey home in one sitting, the overwhelm would have been paralyzing. They survived because they followed the next track.
Boyd Varty, a South African wildlife tracker, describes finding lions the same way in A Lion Tracker's Guide to Life.
Follow the next track
A tracker in the African bush doesn't see the lion. They see a partial footprint. A bent blade of grass. A disturbance in the dust. They follow that sign to the next one. And the next. Each track is tiny. Each one only points a short distance ahead. The tracker can't see the full path. They don't need to. They need to see the next sign clearly enough to follow it.
Varty's argument: life works the same way. Have the direction (the lion, the Perfect Day, the thing you're moving toward). Then look at what's directly in front of you. What's the next track? The next small, concrete step that moves you in that direction? Follow that. Don't worry about the steps you can't see yet.
For engineers, this can feel deeply uncomfortable. We're trained to plan. To see the whole system before we build. To map dependencies and critical paths. Varty says: that works for spacecraft. It doesn't work for a life, because your life has too many variables to model in advance. The tracking approach acknowledges uncertainty instead of pretending it isn't there.
The connection to everything else
This is wu wei in boots. The Tao Te Ching says act at the right moment with minimal force and let natural forces carry you. Varty says: follow the next track and trust that the sequence of tracks leads somewhere real. The SpaceX decision approach says: decide at 51% certainty and iterate. Same principle, three completely different contexts.
Martha Beck (who collaborates with Varty and runs workshops at his lodge) teaches a version of this through the Body Compass: your body tells you which direction feels right before your analytical mind can map the route. The body sees the next track. The mind wants the full GPS route before it will move.
What the book is and isn't
It's a quick, enjoyable read. The animal tracking stories are genuinely engaging on their own, even before the life analogies. Varty writes with warmth and directness.
It's not deep on exercises or frameworks. If you want specific practices, the Perfect Day Exercise gives you the direction (the lion), the Priming Routine gives you the morning state to notice tracks, and the Work helps you question the thoughts that say “I can't move until I see the whole path.”
The book's value is the metaphor itself. Once you have it, it changes how you relate to uncertainty. Instead of “I don't know where this is going” (anxiety), it becomes “I can see the next track” (enough).
Who this book is for
You're stuck because you can't see the whole path. You know the general direction but the uncertainty of not having a complete plan is keeping you from moving. You need permission to take the next step without knowing step seven.
Who should look elsewhere
If you don't know the direction at all (you don't have a lion to track), start with the Perfect Day Exercise or the diagnostic to get clarity on what you're moving toward. You need the direction before tracking makes sense.
The bottom line
Apollo 13 made it home not because someone figured out the whole journey in advance. They made it because at every moment, someone asked: what is the next problem we need to solve? And then they solved it. And then they asked again.
A tracker follows a lion the same way. One sign at a time. The direction is clear. The path isn't. And that's fine. Seeing the next track is enough.