Transcript for this weeks message

Shane jacob

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this episode of The Horsemanship Journey Podcast. I'm Shane Jacob your host, and I appreciate you taking your time to join us today. I've got kind of an interesting subject. I want to talk a little bit about desire today. It's an important, seems to be a pretty important principle.

You know, I interviewed Dan James, which is one of the, in my mind, one of the best trainers in the world. I interviewed a lot of the best trainers, but Dan James is one of the top five. Because of what he can accomplish, what he can communicate with a horse, and what he can get a horse to do with such a low amount of effort is so low amount of pressure,  is incredible to me just what he can get done to have a horse do. If you don't know Dan James, check him out.

He started Liberty Horsemanship, him and his wife. Pretty incredible individual. But one of the things that he said when I interviewed him is this. I said, "How do you do this stuff? How can you get these horses to do these incredible things and you're standing on the ground and it doesn't look like you're even hardly cueing them?" And he said," Well, it comes down to creating desire. Creating desire in the horse."

When we take a look at that for ourselves, I look at things that I want to accomplish. And then we hear it and we say, well, I want to do it, but maybe we just don't have enough desire to really go for it. So maybe we don't want to do it. They say, well, if you really want it, then you'll go for it. Well, I think I want to do it, but how do I create that desire in me to actually follow through and get it done? Napoleon Hill wrote Think and Grow Rich. I read it many times. The first time is in my early twenties. And in the book Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill said, "When your desires are strong enough, you will appear to possess superhuman powers to achieve."

And, you know, what he's saying, the way I took it is, if your desires are strong enough, the rest of the world is just going to think you're a superhero for what you're going to be able to get done. So, okay, sounds pretty good to me. Dan James, pretty cool dude, getting a lot done, incredible. Napoleon Hill says that I'm going to be a superhero. So how do I get the desire? Okay, that's the topic today. You know, I used to shoe horses with a man when I was beginning my horse shoeing, my career at farrier, with a man named Wayne Nielsen.

And he was a good friend of mine and a good mentor. He's passed on now. But Wayne, he used to work on some pretty rough horses. We used to work on more rough horses when there was less sedation, and it was just much, it was a different deal back then. We had this one particular mule that he was extremely dangerous. I mean, this mule would try to kick you all daylong. And I said to Wayne one day, I'm like Wayne why do you do this mule? He's like I love doing that mule. I said you don't love doing that mule. He's like I love to work on that mule. I said you can't love to work on that mule. You're risking your life every time. It's hard. I mean it's, this is just a bad deal. You could get killed. And he said to me... I said why are you telling me that you like working on this mule so much? And he said because it's just so nice to be done. You know to have it finished. I thought I was kind of puzzled by that for a minute I just kind of laughed at that and hope he was telling me the truth or not. Maybe he was and maybe he wasn't. But the thing of it is is that I thought more and more about what Wayne used to say about tough horses, and specifically that old mule, was  that the idea that Wayne had inside of his head the idea of how it was gonna be when he accomplished the hard thing, could have been one of the things that actually drove him to successfully do hoof care on that mule's feet. I mean, repeatedly on for years, okay? So, here I have another story that just happened to me recently.

See if you can relate this story. You can, we probably ,we've all done this. You should be able to relate this story. This should kind of hit home because we all kind of encounter the same sorts of things. So here's what happened to me just yesterday. So I got a call from our yard manager. I have a hay company in Las Vegas, a horse feed company. And I got a call from the manager and he said that we had an unhappy customer and that he couldn't solve the problem.

He had told the customer that I'd contact the customer. Okay. So I was familiar with the situation the customer had. It was a kind of a dispute over damaged property during a delivery that we may or may not have damaged some property that they wanted to have repaired. So, I said, okay, sure. I got this no problem. And, and then I thought, well, I'm going to, I noticed what was happening to me and I'll tell you what was happening to me. I was getting all sort of worked up. My heart rate was up, my breathing was up. I was like, what the hell is going on with me over making a phone call? I'm not even in town today. Okay. I'm not in the vicinity of this person. I haven't even spoke to this person. And, you know, and then I started to think, well, this person's controlling me. I'm like, and they're not even here. And I'm like, that's ridiculous.

And then, I'm controlling me, right. Nobody else is controlling me, but I was allowing my thoughts was what was happening to, I don't know get me all kind of losing focus. And so I thought, well I'm gonna take a little bit of time and I'm gonna think about this. It's not urgent that I, you know, this isn't an urgent thing, so I'm gonna call him back in just a little bit.

So I thought about it, and I noticed what was happening with me. And then I tried to change what was happening to me. I thought, well, okay, it's my thoughts that's getting me all worked up, so I'm gonna change my thoughts. And I thought, why is this happening? What are these thoughts? And I tried to think about this as I was going about my day a little bit. So I said, okay well, is it because the cost of this or is it what they're going to say or is it how I'm going to be perceived or is it how the company is going to be perceived? Why is this seemingly such a big deal inside of me right now? But you know what the thing of it was that I observed is I was still worked up about it. I was a little bit calmer and I wasn't quite as, I don't know, initially my heart was just going pitter -patter, just like pumping like there was a big problem, like I was nervous as hell just to make a phone call.

So anyway, I thought about this, I thought about it and then when I had sort of a game plan, and I picked up the phone and I was ready. And I made the call and man, and I said to myself, I'm gonna make this call and because here's how I'm gonna show up and here's how I'm gonna do it. And so I kind of went through with my plan. Hello, this is Shane. Good morning. You know, manager said give you a call or something. How can I help you today? And so we went through and you know, and it wasn't easy. I'm just telling you right now, no matter, my experience with this call is trying to manage my thoughts did not eliminate, you know, this, I don't know, what do you want to call it? Anxiety, nervousness? Fear is really what it comes down to. That's the word for it. So for whatever reason it was happening.

But I made the call and you know what happened? I hung up the phone and by the way, did luckily was able to reserve, resolve, excuse me, was able to resolve the issue with the customer and retain the customer, which I wasn't even expecting. You know, it would have been a hell of a lot easier just to say, you know what, Mr. Neal, my manager, just tell these people we're done with them, we're not coming back anymore. We're not making their delivery today, they can call somebody else in the future and that would have been a lot easier. And then I could have just forgot the thing and went on, but I really wouldn't have forgot it. Because you know, it's not what I wanted to do. I wouldn't have been happy with me for doing that result. It would have been easier in the moment, but it wasn't. So, I mean, it seems like I might be making this phone call into a great big thing. But you know, it applies to so many, it's just a little example of so many things. So at the end of the call, I was so relieved, right? I could, I just like breathe easy. I almost thought I had a, I was happy and I mean, I was just so relieved. So as I thought back on this and I reflected as I was going about my business a little bit yesterday.

In looking back, you know what I did? I acknowledged a couple of things that I did. I acknowledged that to some degree I exhibited some amount of courage. Now, that may be sound ri-damn-diculous to you, but here's what I'm going to tell you. It is true that I did not, you know, battle Goliath or, you know, go to war or something like that. Well, in some respect, but what I did is I gave myself a little pat on the back for following through and showing up for the way that I wanted to do it. And I would have done that regardless of the outcome. So that's one thing that I acknowledge what I did. And that's what helps me like me better because I acknowledge, I try to a lot of times acknowledge, all the time really. I try to acknowledge what I do that when I keep my promises and show up and I face my little fears and move forward. So I acknowledge that.

And then I also realized, that one of the things that motivated me to handle that call the way that I did and go through with it  was, I had this little competition going on with myself. I said, well, you know what? There is no way that this little deal is going to, you know, is going to, I'm not going to let it win. I made it this thing against me and there's no way that this thing is going to win against me. So I was happy about that, right? Because basically I made an agreement with myself and I looked and I made a goal and the little difficulty that it was and okay, I'm again, I'm making this sound like a great big thing, but I'm using it as an example. And by the way, it was a kind of a big thing for me yesterday because of what was going on inside. Anyway, I wanted to embrace the fear of the difficult. I did that.

I wanted to win my competition and that motivated me. You know what I also thought in retrospect, looking back, I thought about a man named Ben Kjar. Now I also interviewed Ben Kjar. Ben is an exceptional human being. He was born with a different condition where he wasn't like the rest of the kids or people because of this condition he was born with. And so a lot of times he thought he was a victim because of the way he was treated. And then one day he realized that he had the choice to show up as a victim or a victor. And one thing that Ben said in this interview, he says is that when he recognizes the decision point, I said, okay, Ben, if you're choosing to be a victor, when you recognize the point that it's time to make a decision, how do you have the desire? How do you make the decision to be a victor rather than a victim? And he said something that was sure interesting that you may want to apply, and that is he says that he helps music to help him do the difficult.

Okay, here's the example that Ben gave, he said for example, if I say that I'm gonna wake up, I'm gonna start waking up at 5 am every day. That's the way I'm gonna do it. I'm making a promise to myself and that's way I'm gonna do it. Well, that sounds real cool. You go person you go you, okay? You got it. But the thing of it is is when you're tired and it's 5am and you're not used to it and it's not a habit, it's a little harder than it kind of sounded like yesterday. It sounded pretty good yesterday, but not so good this morning because I'm really tired. So at that, what he does, he would, you know, in this example, he would set his alarm and it would, you know, play something that's like, boom, motivates him, redirects his mind and says that he is going to be a victor. He jumps out of bed and he goes. Okay. So he, that's one example of how he uses music to help him make the decision at the decision point to be a victor. Here are, here's the keys.

Okay. Here's the takeaways in my stories for today. First is to make an intentional decision about how you want to show up about in this thing that you have, about a goal or a promise to yourself. What I mean is, is as you look at a thing, okay, that you're facing, make a decision, set a goal. It's a mini goal, whatever it is about how you want to be. Make a promise to yourself. Okay. That's the first thing.

The next step is just to recognize. Okay, recognize what's happening. So you've set your goal. You've made a decision. You've said to yourself, this is how I want to show up in this thing, this is what I want to do. And then the next step is to recognize what happens because here's what's going to happen if you don't already know this is what happens. Your brain starts wanting to avoid the uncomfortable. It tries to think up all these reasons, right? Excuses of why not to do the thing and it helps try to justify it. It's so much easier, do you really need to? Blah, blah, blah. And we're really good, our brains are really good at giving us thoughts and information to help us change our mind away from the thing, or away from showing up the way that we wanna do it, or from not proceeding towards our goal. So the next step is just to recognize it and be aware of what's happening to you, just observe, okay? Just have the awareness, okay?

The next thing I’m giving you, three ways in these three stories to create the desire at the point when you need to make a decision at the decision point. Okay, here's three ways that I've found to create the desire. Okay, number one is to use the thought. Okay, use the thought of how it will feel to have it done to exercise the discipline to do it. Use the thought of how it will feel to have it done to exercise the discipline to do it. Okay, so in this example that I gave of yesterday, me and making this phone call, it felt so good to have it done. The next time that it comes, if I focus in on how it's going to be to get this done. How it's going to feel, okay. How I'm going to feel about me, about the world, about what I did, about how I performed, about how I exercised my courage, about how I showed up. If I'm going to, if I focus in on those feelings, that is one way to create the desire to move forward the way that I want.

Second way, okay, to create desire is to use competition. By that what I mean is to compete with yourself, okay, because you don't want to lose the competition with yourself. The more that we win instead of the thing out there, the more that we trust and develop our good relationship with ourselves. We don't want to be the one that doesn't keep our promises and and loses these little competitions that we have. So if you make it a competition, purposefully, intentionally say, this thing is not going to win, I win things like this. This is kind of the person I am. I don't let phone calls with somebody I don't even know determine, yes, it's having an impact on me right now. And that's okay. I'm going to feel it. I'm going to move through it. I'm going to do the thing. And then I'm going to be happy with how I showed up because that's how I do things. I don't not do those things. I don't avoid the call, lose the customer and do stuff like that in this example. So if you make a deal with yourself and then win, you win instead of the thing. Make it a competition is number two.

Three was Ben's idea, which is, I've used this myself and I also recommend this one. You can use them all together. You can use one more than the other. These are three good ideas that help create the desire to move forward. Ben's of course was to use music. You can apply that. You can have something on your phone, on your home screen, where you can BOOM hear that music that will motivate you and help you. Because immediately that shifts your mind into a motivational state where your thoughts change and it helps you motivate to move forward. So music. Once you've done the thing and you've showed up how you want, let me just tell you this, you are going to feel great.

You're going to be happy with you. And that's going to have a huge impact on all kinds of stuff. So being disciplined, okay, is actually how you get what you want. It's how we get what we want. And, you know, I've talked about this before, but I'll just tell you discipline to me doesn't sound very good. And I'm working on changing the way that I view the word. Okay. Cause right now when I say discipline, it's still a little bit holds a negative. It just sounds hard. It's like, my gosh, it just sounds like work.

And so I'm working on attaching different meaning to discipline. To make it means something that I desire rather than something that's hard and that I want to avoid. And you may want to consider doing the same thing. Last, when you create the desire to do the same, you get a reap the  reward, man.

Remember what Napoleon Hill said, when you desire, when your desires are strong enough, you will appear to possess superhuman powers to achieve. Hey, partners, thank you so much for being with us today.

Remember you cannot fail as long as you Never StopChasing It!

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