Live in the Here and Now

Live in the Here and Now

by | Jan 10, 2011

Before I started my journey with horses I never understood what it was like to be present.  I lived in the here and now, so surely I was present. What horses have taught me is that often I live in my own world, detached from reality. The world where I think more about the past and the future than what is happening here and now. The result was that often I failed to observe what was happening around me as I was so caught up in my own stuff. This is one of the reasons that I decided to study to become a field guide in Africa. Living for months in the bush surrounded by the wild animals, you need to have your wits about you and stay really focused on what is happening now, in the present, or else you might become someone’s lunch!

Over time I have learnt that just like the wild animals in Africa horses are experts in teaching humans how to be present. Horses are naturally embodied in mind, energy and spirit. They live and digest what is happening in the moment. By contrast we humans routinely step out of the present moment and skip to the past or future with our thinking, thoughts and agendas. We routinely form opinions, points of view, judge others as right or wrong, decide what is best for others, and think we have the answers. The flow of possibility stops when we define events or categorize people, places and things. Pure consciousness does not participate in the above behaviors.

A wonderful practice to increase consciousness is living in the question (versus the answer). What does this mean? Living in the question leaves no room for judgment, assumptions, or opinions. Again, all of these do is stop the flow of energy. When our mind entertains possibility through questions it puts us mentally in the present moment and opens us to the magic of life, the energy keeps moving.

What if you lived as if you knew nothing? How might that change your life? Your relationships? Living in the question:

  • Releases expectations
  • Prevents you from judging others –which creates separation
  • Limits caretaking others in an unhealthy way
  • Keeps you full of energy
  • Keeps your mind positive and open
  • Releases the need to control (which takes a ton of energy)
  • Helps you to live with more compassion and understanding
  • Makes you feel happy (which rubs off on others)

What type of thoughts limited consciousness?

  • I don’t have the money and it won’t come.
  • He won’t support me.
  • She thinks I can’t achieve my goal.
  • She doesn’t know what she is doing, She is not a very good teacher/horsewoman.
  • This horse is difficult.
  • Kids are stupid.
  • It is supposed to be done this way.
  • There is something wrong with me.
  • She should not do that, she should do this instead.

Read the above statements and pay attention to how each one feels in your body and spirit. Do you sense a contraction, blocking off from the world, a tightness or heaviness?

Now shift your consciousness into living in the question. Here are some options to help you explore the possibility:

  • What is possible now?
  • What other wonderful things can happen to me?
  • What delicious experiences await me today?
  • What could happen if I am willing to let go of this limiting belief?
  • What if I released all of the past and present expectation of this person/horse?
  • How much better can my life get?
  • How can I see this with curiosity?
  • What wants to happen?
  • What’s perfect about me?

As you say each of these sentences feel into your body and explore what happens to the inside of your being. Do you feel lighter, more relaxed, does a feeling of calm trust come through? What shift in consciousness are you experiencing between the two lists?

What I have continually discovered is that when I am working with horses in I live in the present.  Horses help me get grounded and connected to all that is around me.  So how do horses do this?  Well, as a prey animal a horse is always looking for a leader.  If he can’t find one he will assume the role himself.  Who would want to follow a leader who was not present and aware of what was happening around them?  No-one, because in the case of my horse he thinks he might get eaten alive.

So today’s question is are you living in the here and now or are you living in the past and future?  What type of leader do you think you can be for  you teams if you are not aware of what is happening around you.?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

 

Are You Leading Your Life or is Your Life Leading You?

Are You Leading Your Life or is Your Life Leading You?

by | Jan 5, 2011

We are all leaders, some lead themselves, some lead others. Being a congruent leader makes life easier and more meaningful. Equine Assisted Education is designed to help everybody lead the life they want to lead in the way they want to lead it.

Now that people are educated and think for themselves, we need a paradigm shift in their development. Congruent, inspirational leadership by example is the order of the day. This harmonious leadership is about four things:
1) being clear about what you want at any given moment and understanding what is congruent for you,

2) understanding your peers and those you are leading, the way they think and communicate and

3) simultaneously focusing on both 1 and 2 in order to

4) take appropriate and effective action.

This brings huge benefits to yourself and everybody around you.

Equine Guided Leadership Development is a powerful experiential approach for developing aligned personal skills in action by working in partnership with horses. You try out your skills by working with a large, powerful horse to do simple tasks. Why horses? Because horses are extremely canny herd animals that only respond well to good congruent leadership and instinctively challenge weak leaders. They don’t have a personal agenda. They just respond to who and how you are at any moment. Believe it or not, human-to-human communication is 93% non-verbal yet most education and training concentrates on the remaining 7%,words. The remaining 93% is largely neglected. This means there is enormous scope to achieve a lot even with just a little work on that 93%.

This is what makes horses so useful – 100% of a horse’s communication is non-verbal. They don’t understand words, so you can’t smooth-talk them or hoodwink them. They’re experts in non-verbal communication. And they’re big and powerful, so intimidation is not an option. As you learn to lead a horse without words (and without force), you are developing the neglected 93%. You will be amazed at how instant and accurate the feedback is. Guaranteed.

I’d love to hear about any experiences that you have had with Equine Facilitated Learning.

Leadership Crisis – Can Horses Provide the Answer?

Leadership Crisis – Can Horses Provide the Answer?

by | Dec 21, 2010

Throughout the world many leaders are struggling with the leadership challenges emerging from the current climate. Some are driven by greed, some by fear and many just running around like headless chickens not sure what to do; they all have one thing in common they do not demonstrate a flexible leadership style that enables them to adapt to a rapidly changing environment, get buy in from their followers and lead strongly forward for the good of all.

So what do horses have to do with leadership; simply put they are masters of sustainable, flexible and effective leadership. They have been demonstrating it for the last 5 million years.

Windsor based Acorns2Oaks and German based HorseDream have partnered to bring a powerful and profound leadership development programme to the UK. Both Acorn2Oaks and HorseDream have an impressive track record of bringing “Horse Assisted Education” to organisations throughout Europe. Their clients include Cisco Systems, SAP, Allied Irish Bank, CAP Gemini, Proctor and Gamble, Nokia, McDonald’s, Generali, Würth Elektronik and  AOL Germany. This new partnership is the first of many spreading throughout Europe.

David Harris founder of Acorns2Oaks says” The leadership learning from the horses is the most effective, flexible and sustainable available. Together with HorseDream we have taken many hundreds of corporate leaders through our programmes and we always get amazing learning and results. Organisations often come back again and again. The partnership with HorseDream means we can now provide consistent programmes to a high standard and quality throughout Europe. This is a very attractive proposition to European companies.” Acorn2Oaks are the first of the “HorseDream” partners to run “HorseDream Partner Licensed Workshops” outside of Germany.

I am delighted to have been one of the first students to attend the HorseDream Partner Licensed Workshop run by Dave Harris.  Under his guidance and mentoring I now offer Horse Assisted Education in leadership, teamwork and communication to companies and individuals.  Please contact me to discuss how Business HorsePower can help you and your teams.

Being Present to Opportunities

Being Present to Opportunities

by | Dec 14, 2010

This morning I was listening to John Assaraf’s “The Inner Game of Money” and on that audio he recounted a story of how a man was walking through the desert.  He was tired and thirsty and wanted to turn back as he could not see a clear way forward.  I think we have all been in that position at some point in our lives. However as he looked skywards he suddenly fell over a cactus.  Well we all know that cactus’ are a source of water in the desert so the man ripped open the plant and quenched this thirst.  He then looked back over the pathway he had just trodden and noticed that he had passed a number of cacti already on his journey and as he looked forward there were even more on his path.  The reason I love this story is that opportunities surround us throughout our life and yet we often fail to see them, or if we do, we fail to act. In many instances too the more we look for the opportunities the less likely we are to find them.  I know this has been so true in my own life.  So why is that?

I believe that one of the reasons we miss the myriad of opportunities that are out there is because as a society we generally live in the past. We dwell on what happened and why. Sometimes we dream of the future and what it might bring. Yet few of us live in the present – in the here and now.  Horses are masters at living in the present.  As prey animals they cannot afford to not be on guard to what is going on around them right now or they might get attacked and injured.  Being present means they are in tune with nature and acutely aware of the slightest change in their environment.  They see opportunities all around them.

From my own personal experience I know that I am more grounded and present when I am with my horses.  Partly, I guess I have to be for my own safety.  If I’m not focused and aware of what is happening around me I could end up with half a ton of horse on top of me.  I also typically find that lots of my inspiration comes during the time I spend with my horses when my brain is not working at lightening speed analysing everything that has happened and might happen.  I’m an extreme left brain thinker so quieting my mind is challenging, yet when I do I realise that there are loads opportunities surrounding me, I’d just been blinded to them up to that moment.

So for today, take time out and get grounded and present.  Be like a horse and focus on the here and now, and see what wonderful opportunities might be staring you right in the face.

The Impact of a One Degree Change

The Impact of a One Degree Change

by | Dec 7, 2010

For the last few days it has been snowing and my horses – Toby and Charlie – have loved this.  They have been out frolicking and rolling in the soft powdery snow making some pretty good disguises for themselves.  Their playfulness has been inspiring and heart-warming for me as I’ve dug my car out of snow drifts and cleared pathways to lead them to the field.  Today, the snow has finally began to melt and where there was once white, fluffy snow we now have large lumps of solid ice.  The landscape has changed beyond recognition.

Given the better weather (of course it’s all relative) today I decided to take Charlie for a short ride and something amazing happened.  The piles of snow-ice, that only a few days ago were his best friend, and now his worst enemy.  He is terrified of them and keeps darting to the far side of the road to avoid them.  I find this all really amusing, that such a simple change in something can cause such a dramatic effect.

I’m reminded of something that one of my mentors once told me.  “It only takes slight shift to alter the course of your life”.  Just think about the fact that it only takes a one degree change in temperature to convert water to steam or indeed water to ice. This is such a tiny change and yet most of us ignore making these types of minor changes in our lives as we think that the effect won’t be significant enough.  We live in an instant gratification society and want results now, when in fact a number of small changes done day in day out will make a massive difference to our lives.

Jeff Olson explains this concept beautifully in “The Slight Edge”.  In this book he describes a water-lily on a pond.  On day one the water-lily covers just tiny portion of the pond, but on day two the waterlily doubles and then on day three doubles again, and again and again. Eventually after 30 days the entire pond is covered by water lilies.  At the outset you would never have thought that was possible and yet repetition of this tiny change magnifies itself disproportionately resulting in amazing results.

So what small change will make in your life today that will magnify itself into a massive change tomorrow?.  I’d love to hear what you choose.

Can Leadership Be Learnt?

Can Leadership Be Learnt?

by | Dec 3, 2010

A recent study reported in the Evening Standard suggests that natural leaders are not always born and that most of the desirable personal characteristics can be learned. So in today’s ever changing world what characteristics are employers looking for in leaders.  The study suggests the following:

  • Ability to inspire and motivate – 36%
  • High levels of emotional intelligence – 34%
  • Ability to deal with people – 34%
  • Natural leadership – 24%
  • Trustworthiness – 22%
  • A natural communicator – 22%
  • Possessing vision – 22%
  • Drive and ambition – 22%

So how do employees learn these desirable characteristics? One way is to provide the employee with a mirror of their behaviour because they may not be aware of the traps they are falling into. They also need to know what they become under pressure.  Traditional ways of creating this mirror are through coaching programmes or 360 degree feedback.  The challenge with these practices is that they can lack objectivity because human intervention is required which could cloud the mirror.

Horse Assisted Education provides a cost-effective means of getting that feedback as the horse mirrors exactly how you are feeling.  Horses provide us with immediate, 100% non-judgemental, observable feedback, mirroring our internal reality.  Living in the 93% of the non-verbal world of communication, they are not impressed by position, status or power.  They cannot tell who is the CEO or who is the janitor. They just respond to what is presented to them.

Horses mirror the essential qualities of leadership – trust, authenticity, honesty, intuition, listening, a willingness of spirit and perseverance.  They have no agenda with us.  They simply reflect our strength of character, our heart, our internal incongruence and our self-limiting perceptions. They help us understand that leadership begins with who we are being.  Horses help us close the gap between how we actually present ourselves to others, and how we think we are being.

So next time you are looking for an innovative management development programme just consider what horses could teach you.

Are You Interested or Committed?

Are You Interested or Committed?

by | Nov 30, 2010

My question for you today is are you interested or committed in Connecting 2 Success?

You might well ask well what’s the difference, of course I want to be successful. John Assaraf skillfully explained the difference during his webinar on Winning the Inner Game of Money which I listened to last week. The difference between interested and committed is that if you are committed to something you will do everything in your power to make something happen but if you are only interested you will find excuses when the going gets tough or even beforehand.

Too often I think I am committed to something only to discover that when push comes to shove I am really only interested in achieving that goal.  Take one of my goals this year which was to release at least 10lbs.  I have looked at that goal on a daily basis as it is printed out above my desk, but have I achieved it. Absolutely not because when the going got tough chocolate still proved too irresistible.  My motivation and committment to the goal was simply not focused and clear. The pain of not achieving the goal was not enough and so time after time I relapsed into my usual chocoholic state.

The one thing that I have found that helps make sure that I stay committed is if I am passionate about the outcome.  Just thinking about achieving the goal makes me feel excited and that excitement motivates me into action. It’s no coincidence that the most successful people in the world are passionate about what they do.  They continually have that drive and ambition to take their business forward.  Nothing can stop them. Their resolve is absolute.  It is not that these people are necessarily smarter or talented than anyone else, they just have absolute faith, committment and enthusiasm about what they are doing.  This is so brilliantly summed up in the words of Charles Schwab:

A man can succeed at almost anything for which he has unlimited enthusiasm

So today reflect on those things that maybe you haven’t quite achieved in your life and if you really want them commit to make them happen and go the extra mile.  I’d love to hear about what you are committed to and why?

What is Horse Assisted Education?

What is Horse Assisted Education?

by | Nov 29, 2010

Horse Assisted Education (HAE) is also commonly referred to Equine Facilitated Learning (EFL), Equine Guided Leadership (EGL) and a plethora of other names.  It is an effective and impacting method for participants to develop their communication skills, increase self-awareness and inspire teamwork, collaboration and trust through genuine leadership. All these attributes are readily transferable to the workplace which is why I believe that horses can teach us real lessons for life. During an HAE session participants discover a great deal about themselves as they learn to achieve tasks with horses without the benefit of verbal communication, building trust through empathy and finding solutions via inventive thinking.

If you want to achieve any of the following in your life then HAE might just be for you:

  • You want to develop an authentic leadership style that instills commitment and engagement in others, creates a high performance culture and a more productive and motivated workforce.
  • You want to be a better leader, trust yourself, inspire trust in others and be able to rely upon others in return.
  • You want to develop your own self-awareness, emotional intelligence, be more consistent, a better communicator, more confident.
  • You need to understand how your actions impact upon others.
  • You want to improve your working relationships, get immediate and direct feedback on your style, try out different approaches and see the response.
  • You want to work on gaining and maintaining trust, achieving rapport by establishing a relationship based on mutual trust.
  • You need your team to work more effectively.
  • You want to understand the dynamics, the successes and failures.
  • You want to achieve cohesiveness and alignment.

HAE provides a new approach to experiential learning with the distinct ability to rapidly identify the core strengths and weaknesses of your interpersonal skills. These results driven programme provide high impact personal and professional development with a difference via a uniquely interactive and rewarding medium. They are also cost-effective too when you consider that on average only 4% of what is learnt in a classroom is retained.  So what would you rather invest in a rather boring day of classroom learning or an interactive action based learning day where the horses are your teachers.

Welcome To Business HorsePower

Welcome To Business HorsePower

by | Nov 25, 2010

Welcome to my blog on Business HorsePower – the business and life lessons we can learn from horses.  My inspiration for this blog comes from my own life experiences and the lessons that horses have taught me. When I got my first horse I never dreamed that I was about to embark on a journey of personal discovery where my horse taught me more about who I was as a person and what type of leader I was than any classroom training and coaching that I have ever experienced.

So how come horses can be such great teachers and what life lessons can they share with us?  Well it all comes down to experiential or as I like to call it action learning.  We all have different learning styles but research shows that by actually getting involved in something helps you understand that activity.  This was summed up in c450BC by Confucius who said:

“I hear, and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand”

For many hundreds of years man and horse have worked together, however in recent times many people have come to realise that horses are not just good working partners and pets, but also great TEACHERS. We are learning that horses can teach us about many highly valued core skills that can get lost in today’s hectic lifestyle.

Given the current social and economic climate it is now more important than ever to rediscover these core skills.  Horses are the perfect teachers to help reconnect us to these skills as they provide immediate and honest feedback.  They act as a mirror of our soul revealing insights through eureka moments that hours and hours of classroom theory can simply never achieve.

Horse Assisted Coaching (HAC) a new field of experiential learning in which individuals develop their own style of leadership through a variety of interactive exercises with horses.  Today a diverse number of corporations use Horse Assisted Coaching as an integral part of their management development and leadership programmes.

I hope you will join me as I explore the lessons that horses can teach us about life.

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