“Skill set without mindset results in upset”, these words of Rob Moore from Progressive Property are still ringing in my head after the amazing weekend I experienced at the Power to Achieve Seminar led by Andy Harrington. The entire weekend was devoted to shifting my perspective to having a “Millionaire Mindset” by really pushing you through your comfort zone. Over the course of the weekend I broke a one inch think wooden board with my hand and with a colleague bent a 1.5 metre metal rod using our throats. When you achieved both those feats, which quite frankly I thought would be impossible, then you believe that anything is possible in life. All too often we go through life believing that things are not possible, when quite frankly everything is achievable if you have enough focus, certainty and a big enough reason to do it. Of course the activity of breaking the board and bending the metal rod were made much easier by the fact that there were over 100 people urging me on to do it. Yet, how often in our daily lives do we have that number of people urging us on to achieve our goals. In my experience it’s usually the opposite, loads of people telling us how we can’t achieve our goals. No wonder the majority of people fail to achieve their dreams and settle for a life of mediocrity. How sad is that.
So what has this got to do with horses you might ask, well Rob’s quote I feel sums up so well that I observe happening in the equestrian world. There are loads of equestrian people out there with great skills and yet I see equally as many upset horses. Horse owners are always complaining to me about the bad behaviour of their horses – he bites, kicks, pushes me around, doesn’t do what I want – and yet what I also observe is that these people are in the wrong mindset. They turn up to “work” with their horses in a bad emotional state. Their mind is racing thinking of all the other things they have to do today, what happened yesterday, in fact anything to stop them being present and in the here are now. And these thoughts trigger off a range of emotions. For example, anger, rage, frustration, confusion. As master communicators horses read what state we are in and respond appropriately. Have you ever noticed that when you are anxious and in a hurry to load your horse to get to the show guaranteed your horse will never load. I had an experience of this yesterday morning when I went to check my horses. Toby (who is a bit overweight) had managed to get his grazing muzzle off overnight. I was in a rush to get to London to this seminar and sure enough I couldn’t catch him for love nor money to put the grazing muzzle back on. Funny how that happens.
So why is mindset so important when we are working with our horses. In my opinion if you are not in a good emotional state then your horse will not connect with you If your mind is chattering away detailing all the things that you need to do that day, then you will never be present and aware of what is happening around you. And as we know we can’t be a good leader for your horse if your attention is elsewhere. So every time you go to the barn or yard just spend a few minutes and think about how your mindset is right now, and if it’s not great change it because you can have the best skills in the world but if you fail to get into the right mindset then you won’t attract the results you desire and upset will occur.
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.
