Learning to lead.
“You’re either scared, or you have such a need to be in control that you won’t let yourself get into a rhythm.”
Nailed it.
And it wasn’t that I was scared.
As I was sitting on top of a young horse I hadn’t ridden before, doing my best to be dialed into the moment, my head might as well have been disconnected from the rest of my body. Nothing was working. I was trying to force a connection, and fool her into thinking I had control. Joke was on me. Over the course of the entire lesson, I had maybe a few minutes where she and I truly got into a groove. It was short lived, and I kept repeating my same mistakes.
“I didn’t anticipate you to be this emotional”.
Me neither.
This was my trainer’s nice way of saying: what the hell are you doing letting your emotions cloud your judgement? My emotions, of course, had nothing to do with the saddle or the horse or the lesson, and everything to do with the shit I brought with me to the barn.
So towards the end of the lesson when I went flying, nobody was really that surprised. It wasn’t the horse’s fault, it was mine. I was unintentionally confusing her. Everything was all jumbled in my head, and it was preventing me from doing what I came there to do - from being who I came there to be.
When I say “everything”, I mean all the shit we carry around with us each day that no one else sees. The argument you had with your spouse, the way you regret yelling at your kids, how you didn’t wake up early enough to work out, or how you binged 2 hours of Netflix and procrastinated on a project for work. All these little things pile up if we let them, then they manifest into something bigger - misdirected anger, illness, the inability to focus on the task at hand - dis-ease in some shape or form.
And you know what I learned the hard way? That horse doesn’t give a shit about any of it. Nor should she. She was expecting a leader, someone she could trust to guide her where she needed to go. Instead, she got a stubborn old lady who was acting like she’d never ridden before; letting external emotions dictate her actions. That’s a dangerous state to be in when you’re trying to lead a thousand pound animal with a mind of its own. Hell, it’s a dangerous place to be in regardless.
Since I started riding, I’ve learned more about leadership skills than I ever did as a professional. Learning to ride a horse (or ride one well, I should say) requires confidence and humility. It requires you to be equal parts gentle and firm. And it requires trust. (All the qualities that the best leaders I know, possess). These skills are so integral to riding because you’re never going to be fully in control when you’re on an animal with a mind of its own, just as you’re not when you are leading others; you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. Relinquishing control, while remaining confident, is not something that comes naturally to me, and that horse knew it.
A successful leader knows the difference between confidence and cockiness. She knows that firm does not equal mean, and gentleness is not an equivalent to weakness. There is an undeniable strength that comes alongside such a leader. And just as a horse will thrive under this type of leadership, so will your employees, and your kids. Riding is yet again providing me with quite the opportunity to improve.
Because despite how many people we may fool with a pretty IG feed and a smile, you’re simply not going to fool a horse. They can sense a fake from the second you get on. It’s in your energy and your aura. They can feel it. I’ve never been a great compartmentalizer; I often wear my emotions like a neon sign. What horseback riding is confirming for me, however, is just how important it is for a leader to, as much as possible, remain in a state of neutrality. How we have to constantly practice the act of letting shit go, and have enough faith to surrender our focus to what’s right in front of us. To get out of our own head long enough to successfully live and lead; to do something we love because we love it, not because it is easy.
At the end of the day, when you’re up on a horse, literally NOTHING else matters. Nothing is more important than the rhythm generated between you and that horse. It’s what is going to awaken you to an undeniable sense of freedom, and also keep you safe. When you let your emotions, or your ego, get the best of you, you’re probably going to find yourself mid-air before smacking the dirt, HARD. Talk about an analogy for life.
I have such an appreciation for the young girls (and boys) I see riding with such grace and ease. I often wonder why it took me 20 years to get back on a horse; it was always my happy place as a child. And it often makes me sad, that something I love so much can feel so foreign to me at times. That it was so foreign to me for so many years; like a favorite toy from childhood I thought was lost, but eventually found again. It’s in those moments where I remind myself to be so very thankful for the path that led me back, and for how this experience is refining me into the type of leader I can be proud of. I’m not sure I would have appreciated it as much at 18 or 25 as I do now as a 35 year old married mother of two.
Some days I leave the barn on cloud 9. Others, I leave in a pile of frustration and bruises. But no matter what, I always leave with a lesson that applies to so much more than just riding.
May 2021 - learning to lead