Today’s blog is inspired once again by the behaviour of some horses and the wise words of John Assaraf. I’m currently following John Assaraf’s the Inner Game of Money programme which involves re-conditioning the neural pathways of the brain to be more accepting of money. Research has shown that our outer circumstances are dictated and created by our inner being, belief and thoughts. So if you believe that you should be poor you will be poor. However, by focusing on being wealthy you can attract wealth creating opportunities into your life. This is a 90 day programme and I am on day 69.
On one of the audio tracks John describes the tenacity of young children. They set their sights on a goal and do everything in their power to achieve it. Obstacles are no problem as children just overcome these any way they can. Ironically despite the fact that adults have many more resources available to them they seldom have the tenacity and determination that children do to achieve their goals. When I first heard this I was mesmerised by this observation as it is so true. As adults we see all the barriers and reasons why we should not do something rather than look for creative and innovative ways to solve the challenge. It’s as if ignorance as a child is bliss as you are unaware that something is not possible. Indeed if you believe that something is impossible you create that reality and indeed it is impossible.
This reminds me of a story I heard once of a young man who turned up late to a maths class. On walking in late he saw two maths problems on the board and thinking they were homework he wrote them down and then fastidiously worked on solving the problems. A day or so later he went to his teacher and delivered to him the answers to the questions. The teacher was dumbstruck. You see the two maths problems on the board were not homework but rather examples on unsolvable problems. The young man being unaware of this fact, and having no preconceived idea that the problems were not solvable had approached the challenge in a different manner and been successful. How often in life do we fail to achieve things because we believe that they are not possible. Who put that mindset out there for us to use as our reference point. In fact ignorance can on many occasions equate to bliss as you have no limitations on what is possible.
So back to my horse lesson. This was so funny it made me laugh out loud. You see I have recently adopted two ponies that had been left abandoned to roam on the roads. I’ve called them Thistle and Bracken and they now form part of my little herd, at least until they have gained some trust in people again and have been given the skills to be safe,child friendly ponies. Well Thistle and Bracken are young, maybe a year old at most and they are currently grazing in a roped off area of field within one of my larger pastures. The grass in their area is good but the grass on the other side of the fence is much better. So this afternoon when I went to get the ponies in they decided to go for a run. They galloped round and around the field, their energy ever-increasing. As they galloped towards the electric fence (a natural barrier to the lush grass on the other side) my heart was in my mouth. I was worried they might crash into the fence although instinctively I knew they would probably skid to a stop. How wrong was I. Seeing the electric fence Bracken effortlessly jumped over it. The fence was at least a metre high and Bracken can’t be more than taller than that. Bracken clearly hadn’t seen the fence as a barrier to the lush grass but rather as an obstacle to be overcome, however that might be. Thistle however took a different approach ploughing straight through the fence and breaking it. It was so heartwarming to see these little ponies being so tenacious in their quest for the best grass. They had no pre-conceived ideas that they could not get over or through the fence and so faced with a challenge tenaciously moved forward. I would suggest that tenacity is perhaps the magic ingredient missing from the lives of many adults today. What do you think?
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
