I am not going to lie to you...when I started out on this journey I thought that this would be a simple process of just setting up workshops to coach people working with the horses on the ground - this cannot be that complicated I told myself.... I am a qualified coach, I have years of experience working as a leader and also know my way around horses....?!
As it turns out I was sooooooo wrong!
I started off this journey by looking for a mentor to help me put all the pieces of the puzzle together, someone to help me get to grips with how I could use all my skills I had gathered to make a difference. I want to help people get out of their own way and progress with whatever it is they want for their life. I want to deliver the highest quality experience for people who wanted to bring their personal and professional lives to the next level.
Simple again, or so I told myself!
After much searching and persistence I found David and Sharon Harris at Equine Guided Leadership in the UK. The one advantage that Covid has brought, for me anyway, is the accessibility of people internationally. I asked David if he would mentor me and share his knowledge with me. Luckily for me he thought about it and agreed. I am so very grateful to David for his generosity in imparting his knowledge. His ongoing support and belief in my ability to make a success of this new venture has helped me get out of my own way!
With David's help I entered this fascinating and complex world of leadership development and empowerment of people, working with horses. A world where horses are the teachers, and as a coach l am the facilitator …my eyes were firmly opened and I realised how little I knew about horses and their impact on people. And this is from someone who has been around horses from an early age.
What I have witnessed with people, and their work with the horses is absolutely transformative, and not to be taken lightly. In fact, what I would say is given the impact the horses have on people it is our duty to ensure that people are supported on their journey after their interaction with the horses. I believe that it is essential to ensure that any doors that are opened are kept that way. People need to be supported on what to do with their newly found information on themselves and how they are in the world.
Being of a scientific mind I wanted to know the research behind this, how can we see the impact of this work, how can we measure it, how can we evaluate it and how can we provide the evidence? I trawled through research papers and used a lot of this information to develop our website and brochures, based on scientific facts and not on my imagination.
While I am on the subject of evidence I am keen and will work with universities to look at how we can measure the impact of our work at Martinstown Lodge, we are ambitious and want to be the best we can be.
Watch this space, exciting times ahead!!
PS the picture is of one of our horses we bred, the beautiful Juno. She represents the curiosity and infinite possibilities in the world and how we all need to tap into this, in order to be the authentic leaders, the origin of who we are when we are born.