Think Like a Horse: Lessons in Life, Leadership, and Empathy from an Unconventional Cowboy - Hardcover

Golliher, Grant

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593331923 ISBN 13: 9780593331927

Verlag: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2022

Inhaltsangabe

In Think Like a Horse, veteran “horse whisperer” and leadership expert Grant Golliher applies his hard-won horse sense to teach invaluable lessons anyone can use to live a fuller, more successful life.

Grant Golliher is what some would call a “horse whisperer,” able to get a wild horse to calmly accept a saddle and a rider without the use of force. Through training thousands of horses, many traumatized or abused, Golliher was able to learn essential lessons about communication, boundaries, fairness, trust, and respect—lessons that apply not just to horses but to humans as well. It’s why celebrities, Fortune 500 ex­ecutives, professional coaches, supreme court justices, and even ordinary families from around the world flock to his Wyoming ranch every year to take part in what one CEO called “the most transformational experience I have ever encountered.”
 
Horse whispering may sound like magic, but as Grant explains in Think Like a Horse, it’s not really all that mysterious. The lessons he shares are as fundamental and ageless as the relationship between horses, the people who ride them, and the beauty of the West. In fact, it’s an approach that anyone can learn, and should learn, in order to better understand our common humanity, overcome trauma, foster more fulfilled relationships, and unlock untapped potential in virtually every aspect of our lives. All you have to do is think like a horse.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Grant Golliher is a horseman and proprietor of the historic Diamond Cross Ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where he has shown corporate executives, coaches, celebrities, and families from all around the world the skills necessary to tame troubled horses and become leaders and better people. 

 



 

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

CHAPTER ONE
 
You Can't Lie to a Horse
 
No philosophers so thoroughly comprehend us as dogs and horses.
 
They see through us at a glance.
 
-Herman Melville

 
The galloping hoofbeats slowed and came to a halt. The frightened young horse had stopped running around the pen and turned toward the middle, where I stood. I could hear his heavy breathing and smell the sweat that streaked his rich chestnut coat-the inspiration for the name we'd given him, Wildfire. Not long ago, he'd been living wild with a herd of mustangs, never touched by a human hand. Now it was up to me to teach him how to live and work with people so that he could be adopted into a good home.
 
"He's considering that maybe I'm not so scary after all," I told the group of people watching from the fence. "I can't force him to trust me; he has to decide to do that for himself. I want him to choose to face his fear, rather than fleeing. So what I'm doing is making the right thing easy and the wrong thing difficult. Running away is hard work. Coming to be with me is easy. He can rest here in the middle."
 
The horse hadn't quite realized this yet, but I noted that his expression had changed. His wild eyes were softening, and he was lowering his head, a sign of submission. Soon, I could tell, he'd be ready to walk slowly toward me, and I'd feel his warm breath as he reached out his head to sniff me. I knelt down in the dirt, making myself as small and unthreatening as possible. He'd shown respect to me, so now it was time for me to show humility to him, to release the pressure and indicate that I was not a predator.
 
As I waited for the colt to take those first tentative steps of trust, something on the other side of the pen caught my attention. Standing by the fence was a young cowboy, tears streaming down his handsome face.
 
Jeremy Morris was our first employee at Diamond Cross Ranch, and at that point he'd been working for us for just a couple of weeks-or rather, as my wife, Jane, and I liked to joke, we'd been working for him. A born leader with natural confidence and charisma, Jeremy was the kind of guy people loved to be around and were quick to follow. But he didn't take direction easily. Not long after he began working for us, I asked him to ride a horse I'd recently gotten in a trade.
 
"Don't tie him up tight," I warned. I'd already learned that this triggered panic in the horse. He would pull back violently, fighting the rope and risking injury to himself and anyone around him. But Jeremy didn't listen, and that horse freaked out. He reared up, breaking the rope, and then flipped over backward, scuffing up Jeremy's saddle. Luckily no one was hurt, but they could have been.
 
Jeremy was good at his job, but he'd always push the boundaries. He'd show up tired for work because he'd been out partying the night before. Still, he was talented with the horses and cows (and great with our corporate clients, who thought he looked like a Western movie star in his buckaroo outfit and silk necktie). The other ranch hands liked him, and our kids adored him. So we tried to make it work. Jane and I were inexperienced leaders ourselves at that time, so I'm sure we made our share of mistakes.
 
Jeremy had been around horses his whole life and had come to us because he wanted to learn my training methods. Like me, he'd been raised with the tough cowboy approach, but he was intrigued by the possibility of a way to train horses that didn't rely on fear, pain, or force. I'd explained to him that I couldn't really teach him a method, but I could share the philosophy-the set of principles that all my training is based on. Every horse is different, and each one requires a somewhat different approach, but the principles stay consistent.
 
I know these principles-which I'll be sharing in the pages ahead-work with horses. I've seen it hundreds, if not thousands of times. But back in those days, I had only a hunch that they might apply to humans as well. So it surprised me to see the impact of my words and my demonstration on the young cowboy by the ringside.
 
Today, almost two decades later, I wouldn't be surprised at all. It's become common for people to approach me after demonstrations with tears in their eyes. I've seen powerful CEOs grapple with their own shortcomings as leaders while watching a wild horse respond to firm but gentle boundaries. I've seen fathers break down in tears, recognizing that they were too harsh with their children. I've seen grown men and women begin to release decades of hidden trauma as they understand for the first time that it's safe to trust. I've learned that the horses have an extraordinary ability to reveal people to themselves. In so doing, they become a powerful catalyst for personal growth and leadership development.
 
Like I always say: you can lie to others, and you can lie to yourself, but you can't lie to a horse.


A Horse Is Like a Mirror
 
Why is it that so many of us can be truly ourselves around a horse? Perhaps it's because horses see us for who we really are. As prey animals, they're highly sensitive, attuned to human body language and energy. Horses have a direct line of sight to what's inside of us. They see who we really are, not who we pretend to be. They intuitively know what we're made of, and they can sense our intentions.
 
"Put a wild horse in the middle of a group of people, and it will pick out the most dangerous guy, every time," says my friend Mike Buchanan. Mike worked at the nearby Honor Farm, running a program that taught ex-convicts to gentle and train mustangs. It's a win-win idea: these men, who are getting ready to reenter society, get to learn some valuable skills, and the horses get trained so they can be put up for public adoption. Mike said that when a new group arrived, he would tell the guys to stand around the edge of a big pen, and then he would turn a horse loose inside. That horse would run around, and pretty soon it would throw its head up and snort at a particular fellow in the group. Without fail, the horse knew which among the men was the most dangerous criminal. The horse could also pick out the least threatening guy-the one at the bottom of the pecking order-and would be drawn to him.
 
Sometimes a horse knows us even better than we know ourselves.
 
A favorite poem of mine is called "The Guy in the Glass" by Peter Dale Wimbrow Sr. It's about the idea that we all have to answer to ourselves in the end-"The feller whose verdict counts most in your life / Is the guy staring back from the glass." Oftentimes, for this very reason, we avoid taking a good hard look in the mirror. We're embarrassed, ashamed, or just not brave enough to reckon with who we are.
 
This is where I'm grateful for the horses in my life. They've acted as a mirror, reflecting my own shortcomings back to me even when I didn't want to see them. They've helped me to see myself as I am, not as who I hope to be or pretend to be. Too many of us hide from ourselves, pushing the parts we don't like out of sight and going about our business, hoping others won't see them. But if you're walking through life trying to look like someone you're not, that's hard work. You can't keep it up for too long. You build up shame and self-hatred around the things you're hiding, and you live in fear of them leaking out for all the world to see.
 
Many people find it hard to admit their own faults, weaknesses, vulnerabilities, wounds, or fears-even to themselves. For someone in a leadership position, whom people look up to, this can be doubly true. And yet it's critical that we find a way to be honest about all of who we are. If we are to grow, as leaders, as parents, and as human...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: G.P. Putnam's Sons
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2022
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593331923
• ISBN 13: 9780593331927
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 272
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Friedensallee 273; Hamburg; 22763; Deutschland