Learn how horses reveal the secret to taking responsibility and shifting from powerless to empowered.

Horses and Humans: Lessons in Personal Responsibility

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this episode of the Stable Parenting Podcast. My name is Shane Jacob, your host, and I thank you for taking your time to be here with me today. There's lots of places you could be, and I'm glad you're here with me.

You know, today I want to talk about horses and humans. And most of us approach our relationship with horses the same way that humans do in that, well in lots of ways, but today what I want to talk about is, here's what I mean by that today.

When things are going good, okay, we tend to focus on ourselves. For example, “Hey partner, your horse did amazing today. Good work. “Yeah, well I've really been working on +him lately. And my work's paying off. I had this idea that I tried and it really worked and things were going pretty well. Thanks for noticing.”

Okay. When things aren't going how we want, we tend to focus on outside of ourselves or on the other party. And here's what I mean by that. “Hey, hey there, partner. How'd you enjoy your ride today?” “You know this horse, he won't cross water. I don't know what's matter with him."

He just won't cross water. He will not do it. He does this. He thinks this. We get close to water. He acts this way. I just, I don't know. He's got this problem. He's just all messed up in the head. He's afraid of water. He thinks I'm trying to ask him to cross the Grand Canyon when I'm trying to ask him to walk across this little puddle. I don't know what's the matter with him or if I'll ever be able to fix him.”

Why We Blame the Horse (and Others)

Okay. And anytime, anytime something goes wrong, we're basically lasered in on what we think something else, the problem, is outside of ourselves.

And it's normal for us to look to outside sources when there's a problem. Okay. We don't want it to be us. It's actually normal physiology. It's default physiology. It's the way we're wired. It's kind of the way that we came from the factory. And that is, is that our natural default brain, without our conscious instructions, it always goes to something or someone else outside of ourselves because it doesn't want us to be wrong.

Because our natural brain guides us normally and naturally to seek pleasure, avoid pain or discomfort of any kind, and conserve energy. And so if we have to go through the discomfort of looking at ourselves and say that we might have mistake or would have to learn a new thing and that would be hard, or would have to admit we did something wrong or any of that, it just sounds like a lot of work and a lot of discomfort.

And so if we are not paying attention, we'll just constantly be focused on the outside sources as the problem. Okay. And that's not something, because something's wrong with us. It's because that's the way we come out of the box, right?

And our, our brain, it doesn’t, it guides us as much as possible to stay out of any kind of discomfort and conserve energy.

Why Change Feels Uncomfortable

So if we're the ones that actually need to change in order to change our situation, that might involve work. That is not conserving energy, and it sounds uncomfortable. You know, or it might, like I said, involve accepting that we might've made a mistake. That could be painful.

We, and the reason it's painful because we might actually, we might devalue ourselves. We might think because we did something wrong or made a mistake that we're less than or deficient, or we might perceive other people to think that something, that we're deficient in some way because we did something wrong. And so that is discomfort.

And so we avoid that and just look to outside sources, and kind of, we blame, okay, outside sources.

The Problem with Looking Outside Ourselves

Now, what's fundamentally wrong with that is, is it terribly wrong? Nothing's wrong with us. It's natural. But we do want to override it. Because here's the deal: as long as we're normally and naturally looking outside for the solution and blaming everything else other than looking at taking a close look at ourselves, we're not able to make any progress, right?

We're at the mercy of, and the effect of, circumstances, things, and people that happen to us. We don't happen to the world. It happens to us, and we just bounce around, you know, and you know, and then we die. Basically, okay.

We're stuck, okay. We're stuck, we're focused outward. No progress can be made while we're focusing outside. We, think we can make progress by trying to control, control circumstances and control other people.

And we spend lifetimes, hours and days and months and years and lifetimes trying to control circumstances and other people, when really the only thing that we can influence, okay, we have a tremendous influence on our circumstances and on other people, but the only thing that we can truly control, as you know, is right here.

It's me, and it's you, right? That's all we can control is ourselves. So as long as we're focused outside, we're just stuck. We're stuck, and we're not gonna be able to progress as much. We're like disempowered. You know?

Nothing's going to change. We're not going to substantially be able to change.

The Overwhelming Complexity of Responsibility

Now, life is complicated. Okay. It's complex. There's lots of pieces in it and there's a lot to it. And personal responsibility just by itself, it's this huge subject to me. Okay. There's mountains of literature that have been written. You couldn't even read it if you spent years, all of the stuff. You couldn’t, if you studied it for years, couldn't get all the way through it.

And I've been paying attention to personal responsibility for a long time, and I surely have not figured it all out. And so because there's so much, and it's just like, so sometimes we can feel overwhelmed with, you know, like, how do we do it all?

But good news. Good news for you. All right. Great news, actually. I, Shane Jacob here, specialize in making things simple and easy. Easier, okay, not necessarily easy, but easier, okay, because not everything's easy.

But the reason that I can do this so well, the reason I can make it simple is because of my time and experience in learning how to train and communicate with horses, okay? Because horses don't speak English.

What Horses Teach Us About Simplicity

Okay. So you have to break everything down into simple, understandable, consumable, digestible, straightforward concepts so that they can understand. So you can have communication and connect and form partnerships and have progress and move forward.

So because of that, this is one thing that I can make very simple. Okay. I can, I have got this thing in personal responsibility, most of it, down to one simple, easy habit and I'm going to give you that habit today.

Okay. I'm going to give you the simple solution, my simple solution, and I'm telling you it will change your world. Okay. I'm going to give you the secret of getting unstuck. I'm going to give you the secret to move out of frustration and into progress.

I'm going to give you the solution to move out of mad, unhappy, all those things if you choose to do so. I'm going to give you the secret to being able to make progress when things aren't going your way. Okay? I'm going to give you the way forward.

I'm going give you the way out. How to find your power, okay, in those moments when you feel powerless. And it's going to be simple.

Like I said, it's going to be, and you know what? It's going to be so simple, you're going to go, ah, Shane, hell. I already knew that. That's too simple.

The Four Words That Change Everything

You might think that, okay? Maybe you will. It's so simple that you might discard it. You might think it's too simple. You might not even try to develop the habit because you think you've already heard it before.

I encourage you to give this secret credence, okay? It will improve your life, okay? I guarantee it. And what it is, is four words. Okay? Four words that if you use these four words and focus on these four words for a minute, this four-word habit to change your mindset to move forward.

And here they are: What can I do?

What can I do? Okay. That's it. That's it. That shift. If you develop that habit of saying those four words to shift your focus every time things aren't going your way, every time you're upset, every time you're wrong, every time you're not getting the result you want, it will turn your life upside down. Every time.

Learning from Matt Pond’s Story

I learned this from, well, I've learned it from a lot of people, but one guy who really paid attention to this, I interviewed 75 of the top horsemen and people and experts in human development in the world for the Horsemanship Journey a few years ago. And one of the people I interviewed was Matt Pond.

Now, Matt Pond got brain cancer and in the surgery to save his life, half of his body was paralyzed. Okay. And he was pretty upset with the world and God and everything around him, for a little while.

But then he told me that he decided to make the shift and he started thinking, what can I do instead of what I can't do? What can I do, in this situation? And as a result of that shift, he totally transformed his entire life.

Okay. It's an incredible story. I highly recommend it. If you have a chance to catch that episode, that segment of the Horsemanship Journey, Matt Pond: What Can I Do?

Applying “What Can I Do?” in Everyday Life

Here's some other examples. Okay. You see this in the horse world a lot of times. You know, horse gets afraid of something. Or you know, here's the deal. Hey, your horse breaks a rope every time you come towards him with a bottle of fly spray. He breaks his halter. He gets away. He's running away from the fly spray. Okay.

That damn horse. I've about had it with him. He's broken five ropes and three halters and he's hurting himself. He's going to get somebody killed. He falls over backwards and all I'm doing is walking over there with some fly spray to help him. He's nuts. I'm about ready to get rid of him. Sell him. Get, move on. It's just not even worth it.

Okay. That horse is, he's just spoiled. He's just crazy. Okay. Here's your shift. You know that that happens. You're thinking about it. Not too pleasant. Here's the question: horse pulls back when you bring fly spray towards him, what can I do in this situation? Who can I learn from? Where can I learn a technique? How can I change this situation? What can I do?

Okay? Horse bolts when he sees water. That damn horse, he's going to jump out from underneath me one of these days. He thinks every time I ask him to cross a puddle, it's a Grand Canyon. I've had it with him.

Hey, horse comes up, tries to bolt when he sees water. What can I do? What can I do? Huh? What he's doing, what can I do? Okay? Because that's going to be the route to my solution and my progress.

From Excuses to Responsibility

Hey Shane, you know, this 15, 20 minutes late to work today, it's a problem. I need you to be here on time, Shane.

Hey, well, hell, you didn't see the freeway. I mean, this accident, it was something else. Backed up for, I don't know, it seemed like miles. Could have been a fatality. They had it shut down to one lane and it seemed like forever. I was on the interstate parking lot or I'd have been here on time. And you know, the traffic in this town anymore is getting out of control.

Okay. So I guess, uh, I'm going to be, my life's going to be at the mercy of other drivers on the interstate. Or maybe not.

Hey Shane, I noticed you were late to work today. I need you to be on time.

You know what? I need to be on time. And I ran into an accident today, and I was thinking about what I could do about that. And here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to start leaving 15 minutes earlier than I normally do, just to make sure that if I run into an accident, I'm going to account for it.

And then if I get to work early, I'm going to ask my supervisor if I can either start early or I'm going to do something productive. I'm going to listen to an episode of the Stable Parenting Podcast so I can move my life forward while I’m, before I start work.

Because I'm trying to figure out what I can do in this situation. Because people are going to do what they're going to do. I just have to decide what I'm going to do.

Choosing How We React

This actually happened here yesterday. At our horse feed company here in Las Vegas, Nevada, I was talking to one of our drivers and I said, well, tell me about this road rage incident that you know, that happened. What was that all about?

And he said, well, you should have seen what they did. Came flying past us a hundred miles an hour, flipped me off as he went by, and so on and so on. Okay. And how, so, you know, obviously, can't you see, Shane, that the problem was the other driver over there?

And so, or here's the alternative. Tell me about that road rage incident. You know, I've, and by the way, I'm not saying I've never been upset at drivers, so don't hear me saying that, okay? But I have a choice. And so do you, of how we react to what happens around us.

And I'm suggesting that these four words can turn it around, okay?

From Powerless to Empowered

And the habit of those four words, “You know I've told that kid a thousand times if I've told her once. I've shown it to her. I've explained it to her. I begged. I pleaded. And I turn around and she does exactly the opposite. I've had it with her. I mean I've had it. I'm gonna let her have it.” Whatever it is, you know. Or, you know, I’m still not getting her to do what I'm asking her to do. So what can I do?

“Hey young lady, you know I love you so much. So much. I'm hoping you can talk to me and tell me what's going on with you, and we can have a little talk and come to a solution about this thing that's not working out between us and the thing that you're not doing for me. And maybe we can find a solution that will work out for both of us.

How about that? How about that?

You know, I'm telling you these four words will change, they will improve your life. Those four words, if you use those four words to shift your mindset from outside to inside, and then start actually putting them into practice and take action, okay, you will go from powerless to empowered every time.

Okay. Four words: What can I do?

Stable Living Coaching Invitation

Yeah. And we talk about these subjects more every day in Stable Living Coaching. I encourage you to join there. Go check us out atstablelivingcoaching.com. We've got a free trial going on right now. StableLivingCoaching.com.

And hey, thank you for taking your time to be here with me today. Remember, you cannot fail as long as you Don't Ever Stop Chasin’ It.