Lessons from the horses

It is fascinating what you can learn from a horse. How dots between different aspects of training are connected and so many life lessons are surfacing in such a short time.

During the horsemanship session we did with Tony, we were talking about the hierarchy within the horses herd. What was truly exciting for me was to hear was that when the leader of the pack wants to go out to the field, it is not pushing all the other horses but is leading the way. All the other horses are following him. This is a behavior that I experienced in the army were the commanders were first to charge knowing that the rest of the troops will follow behind them. This is also true at the work place were true leaders are who they are because they inspire others to follow them not because of a hierarchical chart. This is also true in Kung Fu were if you want to lead, you need to be doing it yourself. If you are asking anything of your students, you should be doing it as well.

Another aspect that I wanted to cover in this blog is comfort zone. I've been challenged recently to get out of my comfort zone. I've been doing the same thing for the last 6 years at work. Sure, I got more responsibilities, I enlarged my clients list, I increased the size of my team and the size of the projects I've been doing. But at the end I was still doing the same thing. I was in my comfort zone. Making it a little bigger but still in it. In the last few weeks I've been listening to more and more leadership audio books and podcasts and I've been noticing that many of the ideas and suggestions these books have are to do with change, trying new things, taking changes, allowing yourself to fail, getting out of your comfort zone. Walking into the horses arena, I knew I was getting out of my comfort zone. I never rode a horse before and I am afraid of these big animals. I did decide that I need to get out of my comfort zone (outside of the arena) and just do it. Now I have to say that I felt nervous the whole time I was on the horse. I thought I was going to fall many times and I was careful not to get behind the horse when walking around it. But I did it. I decided that a change is good and that the worse thing that can happen is that I will fail and then try again. Now taking it out of the horsemanship seminar, I know it applies to everything in my life - work, kung-fu. There are major changes happening at work and I'm ready. Ready to embrace the change and to make the most out of it.