by Julia Felton | 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.
by Julia Felton | 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.
by Julia Felton | 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.
by Julia Felton | 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?
by Julia Felton | 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.
by Julia Felton | 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.
