Transcript for this weeks message

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this episode of The Horsemanship Journey Podcast. My name is Shane Jacob, your host, and thank you for taking your time to be with us today.

So, in The Horsemanship Journey's Stable Living coaching program, we teach mind management. Well, isn't that hunky-dory, Shane? What the hell is mind management? So, mind management, I mean, what does that even mean? So, when I say mind management, what I'm talking about is a few things. It's understanding what thoughts are, okay? Really understanding this endless chatter of thoughts that's going on in our minds. It's understanding that we have thousands and thousands of thoughts that are shooting through our brains on a 24-hour period. It's understanding that we're not our thoughts. It's understanding that our thoughts create our feelings. It's understanding that we get to choose what we think and what we believe. That we can choose our thoughts, and we can also choose our beliefs. When we become aware, when we become conscious of our thoughts that we have to, we don't always have control over what thoughts our brain feeds to us. But we can consciously think thoughts on purpose. It's understanding, mind management is understanding that the goal isn't to feel good all the time. It can be embracing the negative. And it's knowing that it's all okay and normal, and in fact it's part of the human condition that we have kind of this unorganized chaos that it's up to us to make sense out of.

In summary, to summarize mind management, okay, my definition of mind management, it's making sense of what's happening inside of our minds, okay. It's knowing that we can choose what happens in there, and then it's being intentional in making choices that will get us the results thatwe want. Okay, because our thoughts are really where it's at. Because our thoughts create our feelings, our feelings drive our actions, and our actions equal our results. And that, my friends, is our life.

Brooke Castillo, owner of the Life Coach School said, “Most of our thoughts are unsupervised, half-hazard, unconscious, and pre-programmed. They're not conscious. So, your life becomes an unconscious response to unexamined thoughts.” So why is that? I mean, what does that even mean? Basically, you know, we come into this world, and we have this, we have our, what we came with. We have this empty brain, kind of mostly empty, and that's our DNA. And it's our little, our own personal computer. It's ours. And from the moment that we take breath up until this moment, our brain is constantly getting input. It's just a magnificent makes puts AI to shame, right? It's this unbelievable computer that is constantly taking input right now, right now, right now. And it's constantly feeding back information in the form of thoughts.

So, let's just define a thought. A thought is a phrase or a sentence that is in your mind, okay? So, you're having thoughts about what I'm saying right now. And most of… It's been said that up to 95 % of our total activity in life is unconscious. Everything from blinking and breathing, to how we get to the grocery store in our car, are just automated responses that our brain spits out. We don't have to really think them through. And so, as we goon throughout of our lives, okay, and our supercomputer, our own personal brain, is taking all this input. It's everything that happens to us, everything that we do, everything that we observe with all of our senses is constantly being inputted. And as we go about our days and our lives, it's constantly feeding us thoughts. Some people have said 60,000 every 24 hours. The last I heard somebody recently say that it was, you know, like 6,700, whatever the case, it's just some, it's thousands and thousands of thoughts a day that our brain is feeding to us. And we're not conscious of most of those thoughts. And so, we can, you know, if we don't identify basically what thoughts are, and we don't come to know that we can have control over, that we can choose some of our thoughts and we can change our thoughts, and that we can think things on purpose about things that don't serve us.

Now, some of these things we don't need to know. In otherwords, here's something that I don't really need to change or know about. If mybrain tries to protect me from danger, let's say a car's coming toward me at ahigh rate of speed, and my brain gives me a thought run. And so, I run, and Imove out of the way of this speeding car towards me. You know, that's justsomething that happens that I don't need to change because that thought servesme. It just saved my life.

The thoughts that we don't become aware of a lot of times are thoughts that we think are that we think are circumstances. We think thoughts as if they are facts of simply, you know, just the way things are. They're simply facts, and they're just facts. That's the big thing is we confuse our thoughts as if they are facts. When in fact a lot of our thoughts, when we can recognize that they are thoughts, we can recognize that we can change them because they're not serving us. So there's that.

What we're trying to do with mind management, is we're attempting to have more awareness of ourselves. We're working on living with more intention and working with living more on purpose in order to attain more of our potential. That is why we work on mind management. So, in Stable Living, okay, in our coaching program, we use four principles that we see in horses. What I mean by that is, in other words, the principles, they can be seen in horses when horses interact with each other and when they interact as people. And we use these principles as the basis for making decisions in our mind management so that we get the results that we want if we use these four principles as the foundation, if you will, for making decisions on purpose. So, as we begin to manage our minds purposefully, we begin to intentionally choose our thoughts and we use thoughts based on principles, these principles that we see in horses that lead to an extraordinary life.

Now, the horses didn't come up with these principles. These are foundational, like natural law found, I mean, these are universal truths. These principles that horses demonstrate, you know, so we can see them in horses and that we can kind of resonate with that. And it makes it easy to learn and easy to accept. And it's kind of interesting to see horses and how we relate the principles to horses in The Horsemanship Journey.

So, in Stable Living, the third core principle is personal responsibility. And I've talked about personal responsibility here on the podcast before, but it's something I deeply believe in. And, you know, we've also talked about responsibility. You know, the word, it just sounds hard. You know, it sounds hard. And so sometimes we try to kind of run away from the word just because it sounds so difficult. It sounds like work, to me anyway. But thinking that circumstances or other people are responsible for our results ,that leaves us stuck and powerless. And that, I think, is more work. Sort of. Because, I mean, look at it this way. Maybe not. Because if we blame somebody, you know, we're kind of, if we shirk our responsibility, if we don't take ownership of what is going on with us, we are powerless. We can't make any progress, but it's kind of easier, right? Because we don't have to take any action, we can just kind of kick back and complain. Well, you know, if they would have done this, I could have done that. And it's all about if they would have done this and that and the other. If it's always somebody else's fault, in that respect, it's a little bit easier because you don't have to take action. But I believe in the long run, because you're not gonna be able to make any progress and you're gonna render yourself powerless. And you're not gonna be happy with yourself, that I believe that the small amount of work that responsibility is gives you your personal power. We call it your personalhorsepower, and it's what is able to propel you forward, one of the things.

In fact, I've said that taking complete ownership of ourselves is like a shot of energy. It gives us the power to make progress towards what we want and accelerates reaching our goals. That's a quote by Shane Jacob. Usually, we look at examples of how we blame our horses for what they do or don't do as examples of irresponsibility. Like, you know, “My horse doesn't like this or that. Or, my horse won't do this and that and the other.” For example, my horse won't cross water, or my horse won't load in a trailer, or my horse doesn't like to be tied. We say that like it's all about the horse and there's nothing that we can do about it, even though we're half of the relationship. But remember that taking responsibility, it gives us the power to make progress towards what we want, and it accelerates reaching our goals. It's kind of like saying, you the reason I have a problem in my marriage is because you know my wife It's her problem. Which is not the case in my marriage; I have an exceptional wife. But it's like blaming somebody else for the, you know, for our result. So the moment that we can look inward and examine ourselves and ask, what can I do in this situation? Is the moment that we can begin to have progress, and not until then, not until then.

So, I want to look at an example, another example today of how horses demonstrate this principle. So, it goes like this. In the wild, feral horses or wild horses, they go in groups. Okay. And the size of the groups can vary, they go in groups, they stay in groups. Their strength is in numbers. Their safety in numbers because horses are prey animals. Okay. They can, you know, they can be eaten by all number of different prey animals, wolves, coyotes, even for young horses, bears, lions, cats, cougars, and on it goes. Their strength and their protection is in the group where they can help protect each other. And so usually the group consists of a fairly large number of horses. I don't know, we'll say 20, okay? 20, 25, I'm not sure exactly. Inside of that group is going to be quite a bunch of mares. There's usually one dominant big boss mare. And then also, there's a couple of stud horses, usually an older one and a young one. There's lots of younger horses, right? The younger horses stay with the herd until they can venture out and, you know, kind of start their own herds and things like this. So that constitutes the herd.

Now in horse herds, in horse communities, in their little community there, they have rules. And usually, it's interesting to observe, it kind of goes like this. Sometimes the, usually the younger horses, okay. So, the horses that are two years or less, like a weanling, or a yearling or, even up to like a two-year-old, most generally, sometimes those horses will misbehave. And so, what does that mean? That means they're doing things that the rest of, they’re breaking the rules of the group. Right. So, what might they be doing?

Maybe they're bringing too much attention by making too much noise. Maybe they're too rowdy. Maybe they're disrespecting the other members of the group, or whatever. Whatever the rules are, sometimes the young horses in the group break the rules. When they break the rules, you know what happens? The bosses drive them out. They do this by, I mean, they'll chase them out, or else they'll physically harm them if they don't leave. They'll turn their wheel around and kick at them and run at them and bare their teeth and bite at them and bite them, and they will run them away from the group. Okay. They will isolate them off by themselves, and they won't let them come back near the area. If they start to come back, they push them back away. So that's the deal. If you don't follow the rules of the group, you don't get to be in the group. And that's the way it goes.

So now let's just see what's happening. A younger horse doesn't follow the rules of the community, they exile him. They throw him out of the group. Now he's over there by himself, and guess what? He's in danger. His life is in danger because he has no protection. He only has himself for protection, which is much far less protection than what he had in the group. So, his life is literally at risk every moment that he's away from the group. And he's young, right? He's small, so he's even at higher risk of losing his life to a prey animal. So, to what would prey on a horse? So, what does he do?

Well, there's certain things he doesn't do. If he were a human being, he would have the luxury, and maybe he would take some time and just think it over and say, “Well, you know, nobody told me the rules. They didn't even tell me what the rules were. And if they did, I didn't fully understand the rules.” Or, “I'm not sure that I totally broke the rules.” Or he could think, “Well, you know, this just isn't fair. This isn't fair. And even if I did break the rules, putting me at this high of risk is just something that is not right because I could die out here. And did I, I mean, how really important was that rule I broke? You know, my death?”

So, he could go on and he could think of, I'm sure he could think of… If he had the capacity is beyond the point. Maybe he has the capacity to reason this way, and maybe he doesn't. But the point of this is he doesn't do any of that. Okay. I'm just saying had, if he were a person in this example ,he could surely think these thoughts if he chose to. Or if even not on purpose, maybe he just automatically started thinking these thoughts and he could think of all the people to blame in the community, the mares for running him out. You know, nobody stood up for him. Nobody, you know, nobody helped him. They all just kind of threw him out of the group, and it's just kind of a sad day. And he's just kind of sad over there and he's… They don't, okay. What happens is that horse doesn't take time to have any of that going on. What that horse does is says, “I'm in danger.” And he reacts. And you know what his reaction is ?What do I need to do to get back to safety? That's his reaction. Okay. So here's how that goes.

He comes back near the group, okay? I mean, he's keeping his distance because he doesn't want to get beat up or bit or kicked or whatever. But he comes back, and he signals to the leaders of the group. He says, “Hey, guys, look, man, I'm sorry. I'm back, and I am fully humble. I am fully open and willing to follow the, just whatever your deal is, whatever your rules are. I'm there to follow the rules and participate as a willing participant of this group. I just want you to let me back in and I'm sorry. He sort of communicates that, and here's how he does it.

He comes back to the edge of the group. He puts his head really low to the ground, just a couple of inches off the ground, and he paces a line back and forth just at the outside of the group. Ok, back and forth, usually kind of a straightish line. He'll put his head down and he'll walk the line back and forth. And he does this other motion with his lips, he does this kind of a chewing and licking motion. And he's not eating or anything or drinking or anything, but he does this motion. These motions, what he's doing, he is communicating to the leaders and to the group that, “Hey, you let me back in, I'm all good, I learned my lesson. No more breaking the rules. I'm with you guys.” And you know what they do nearly all the time? They let him back. They let him back in with no judgment. They forget about it, and they move on until his behavior changes.

Now, why is this even important? So basically, the horse, okay, I'm gonna say it again, he doesn't take time to think about or do any of that. He gets himself, but someone else, okay, other horses put him, force him, into a position of danger where his life is at danger. And the first thing that he does is say, “How do I get back to safety?” And then he comes back and goes through the process and gets back to safety as soon as he can, okay, before he dies, hopefully.

So, what he does is he says, “What can I do to change my situation back to some, get back to the desired result that I want?” And then he takes those actions and gets himself back to safety. So just think about that for a minute. Okay. What if, what if it were possible for you and I to get to a place in our lives where we reacted more like the horse, more or all of the time. What if when something happened, there were no more listing all the circumstances. Well, this happened, and this happened and this happened, and making all the excuses. No more listing all the excuses of why everything went wrong, and why we didn't perform, and why it didn't work, and why we're in this bad spot, and on and on and on. No more complaining about it. You know, ever just whine to people and just there's no end to it. There's no point, no reason. You're just complaining, right? No more complaining about it. No more shaking our heads for disdain for somebody else's behavior and just super blaming other people. No more blaming whatsoever. No more trying to justify, you know, like trying to justify our actions.

The horse didn't sit over there and, you know, just come up with all these reasons of why he thought it was a good idea to misbehave. No, what he does is just change his behavior and solve the problem and come back to the group. No more justifying. No more facilitating the irresponsibility. So, what do you mean by that, Shane? What I mean by facilitating is no more listening to, participating in, or being the one to spread the discussion ,facilitate the discussion about the blame. No more gossiping, no more wasting time in any of that.

What if, when we didn't get the result that we wanted… When we did something that we weren't happy with, or when someone did something to us that we weren't happy with. When something just happened to us that was beyond our control. What if when we wanted a different outcome, we didn't focus anywhere except for where the horse does? Right here. What if when everything went wrong and everything went bad, and our first and automatic and even a lot of times unconscious if we're not paying attention to it, this unexamined thought leads us to go over there and start blaming somebody else and looking elsewhere, elsewhere, elsewhere, elsewhere. What if, at those moments, we could train ourselves to have the awareness to immediately look here and say, “What can I do? What can I do to change my result, improve my position, get a better outcome? Or what could I have done, and what can I do next time to have a better outcome.”

What would life be like if that became our automated response or if that became our conscious response that we purposefully thought through and acted on? What it would be like, is that we would be constantly moving in the direction of where we wanted to be instead of being bogged down in the powerless wasteland of irresponsibility, or death in the case of this wild horse.

Those are thoughts, and that is responsibility.

And I thank you for you taking your time to be here with us today on The Horsemanship Journey Podcast. Remember, You Can Never Fail as long as You Don't Ever Stop Chasing It.

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