Really! The time I spent working with horses and my riding students was a post-graduate education as an advisor. Looking back, you can only begin to imagine how grateful I am that I refused to listen to people who questioned my priorities.
WORK WITH WHAT YOU’VE GOT — not what you would like. Regardless of how much effort I put in, I was never going to turn a plow horse into a race horse or a race horse into a plow horse. What I could do is help an ordinary horse develop her talents into being the best possible horse she could be, or in building a foundation for more talented trainers in her future. It wasn’t about how great I was, but in how great the horse (or riding student) could be.
Applying that insight to people and institutions wasn’t that much of a stretch. Instead of immediately focusing on their weaknesses (already documented to a distressing degree), I took time to discover their strengths. This was their baseline, the starting point of our work. The focus of my services is not on their failings (which is not very inspiring), but in strengthening their capabilities (which is much more positive).
4 thoughts on “Straight from the Horse’s Mouth”
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I’m really impressed with your writing skills as well as with the layout on your blog.
Is this a paid theme or did you customize it yourself?
Either way keep up the excellent quality writing, it’s rare to see a nice blog like this one these days.
Kristin — thanks for the positive feedback. This is my work using WordPress. I promise to be more diligent moving forward.
Okay. What’s horse’s mouth?
Ahhh. “Straight from the horse’s mouth” means that the most trustworthy information comes from the source. This comes from the horse racing world, where the people who worked closest with the horses (grooms, riders, and so on) had a better idea of the horse’s performance for a race than the people who didn’t work as closely with the animal. For me, my work around horses taught me that if I want to make a difference, then I needed to understand my clients’ world from their perspective. Thanks for the question. I am going to be more diligent in my postings. I hope to hear from you again.