How many of us as leaders have had a humbling moment. That moment where we stop and go “WOW” what just happened there? With horses those moments come very frequently!!
This amazing guy above is Slick (no I did NOT name him!) and he is a former eventer. (Here is a definition of an eventing horse) Eventing (also known as three day eventing or horse trials) is an equestrian event where a single horse and rider combine and compete against other competitors across the three disciplines of dressage, cross-country, and show jumping.
You see these horses push themselves and their riders to do things that most of us can’t do normally! And they love it! They are also very high energy and tend to be a bit spooky because they are taught to always be looking for the next thing.
Slick is spooky! He likes to jump at everything, no matter if that thing exists or not! In his head it’s going to kill him and he has to keep everyone safe.
Yesterday it was the tractor. It was going to kill him and me! So he spooked. Thankfully I stayed on and we worked through it. But instead of just pushing through it and pretending it didn’t happen I got off and showed him the scary tractor. I talked to him about it, then he ate some grass as if to say “OK mom that isn’t scary you are right let’s go back to work”
But in that moment I had to calm myself down, I had to get my head back on and we had to go back to it!
As leaders we often have these moments where we stumble but how often do we stop and actually look at the issue and assess it. So many times we want to run away from it and pretend it’s not there. What if we got off, and looked at the issue, talked about it and then got back to it and hit the issue head on!
What issues do you feel that you need to hit head on and stop pretending??
Leadership Simplified 