I am horse crazy.
I have been since I was born. I didn't grow up around horses but my earliest recollection is that our neighbor had one. We lived on an acreage when I was growning up, and when I was young ( like 8 or 9 ) that horse somehow got out on the road.
Someone must have left a gate open.
All I could think of was not the easy option of running to the neighbors house to tell them, but that this was my chance to ride it back to their house! After manouvering that big beast over to the fence I climbed up and hopped on without a thought and rode it right up to their door. Proud as punch.
In my thirty's, I got the chance to own my own horse and I charged in full speed. I got the gear, and for that first year I practically lived at the stable. I was out there in -23 dressed like the Michelin man.
Now horses have been some of the greatest teachers in my life, my horse in particular. Understanding how their minds work has helped me learn in some areas of my life that are far away from the arena.
Horses are prey animals. Their survival depends on knowing their rank in a herd, which horse is above them, and which horse is below. The need to know who the leader is. Everytime you add a new horse into a herd they have to reshuffle the deck of cards again until everyone knows their number. Not always a peaceful process, but an effective one. In times of danger guess who they look to? The horse above them. You can only boss around horses below you on the totem pole. In teaching or training horses, you must earn the position above them. You need their respect and their trust.
I had been fooling around with my horse about a year when he started to figure out how little I really knew.
That sewed the seeds of distrust and suddenly I was the horse below him and the thousand pounds difference between us made that a bit of a problem. I was watching a fellow in the arena work with a horse one day while I was in there wrestling with mine. He was doing incredible things with this horse. My jaw was somewhere around my knees. When he finished, I wandered over and asked him if he would consider teaching me lessons. He said yes.
He started teaching me Parelli, which is horse whispering, a program developed by Pat Parelli. You can google him and learn all about him. Parelli is about teaching horses in a positive, learning based environment. It is not about bigger whips or harsher bits. Parelli is about asking and then allowing a horse to find the right answer. My teacher used to say if you ask a horse to do something, and he does something else, you asked the wrong question. BUT, you should quickly memorize what you just did so that later you know how to ask for that!!!!!
Most horses, like people, just want to do it right because when they do what we ask, we leave them alone!
Relief! Just like kids and employees! He used to tell me that when you are teaching a horse a new skill they will often find every wrong option. Your job as a leader, is to close all the gates but the one you want him to go through so that he can be right. He wants to do it right.
I try in my daily life to remember that lesson, and whether dealing with my kids or working with employees, I get my best results when I spend the time ahead of the process to really visualize what it is I want them to achieve. Then one by one I go through all the possible wrong turns and I close all the gates but one. When given a task where someone has thought about all of those things, you will find people are eager to learn because after they have done it once or twice, it doesn't take long for them to figure out no one is waiting around the corner to whack them. They can explore the task like a horse in a round coral, and when they find the open gate, they walk through into a new skill feeling really good about the process.
He told me something else that I think has far wider applications. He said with horses, generally women have their trust but not their respect. They allow themselves to get pushed around. With men, it is the opposite. A good leader, is a balance of both, because without both they can't put their faith in you.
Firm and Fair.
Words to live by,
Yours again in Love and Light,
Kathryn
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