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Business Strategies Straight from the Horse's Mouth

Author: Ann Kerr Romberg

Contact: Ann@WisdomHorseCoaching.com

Web Address: www.WisdomHorseCoaching.com

Summary: Looking for new business strategy ideas or confirmation

of ideas you already have? Consider a new source of intuitive

information--the horse . This article describes how horses (with

the assistance of an experienced business coach, of course)and

openness to one's own intuition can provide clear and definitive

direction for your business.

When I became a coach six years ago, I had a dream that took me

a while to admit to--even to myself. What I really wanted to do

was to combine the two great passions of my life--coaching and

working with horses--but I had no idea what that might look

like. As I bravely shared my fledgling dream with others, people

began to point me to other people who had the same dream. I

started exploring and discovered that the field of Equine Guided

Education is a lively and growing one, where there's plenty of

space for the coaching process to be incorporated.

You might be surprised to learn that coaching with horses

provides a depth and immediacy that brings new information, even

about business development. Synchronicity happens in the domain

of energy--energy from our thoughts, our emotions, our body, our

spirit. Horses, unencumbered by language, read and reflect this

energy, providing unbiased feedback. How does coaching with

horses work, you ask? To give you an example of how this process

works, I want to share my experience of doing my coaching

process with horses around my own business questions.

Here's what happened...

Background: I am deeply committed to bringing Equine Guided

Coaching and Education to the world, but unsure of how, exactly,

to grow my business. So the question now is "What's next?"

Equine Guided Coaching Process: One warm, sunny October day when

I had a few extra minutes at the barn, I went out into the

pasture where the six horses I work with were grazing. As I

stood in the middle of the pasture, I posed the question--to

myself and so to the horses--"What is next for my business, for

this business with horses?"

Very quickly a horse named Digby came up to me. Digby is a

thoroughbred horse who takes his rider over those 4- and 5-foot

jumps you see in the Olympics. His athleticism and performance

are not small potatoes. I said, "Hi Digby, why are YOU here?" As

I looked at him, the thought occurred to me (openness to the

synchronicity of thoughts is key to this work with horses) that

he is large, the second largest horse in the pasture. I said,

"Well, you are big. Am I supposed to play BIG with this

business?" Just as I finished that thought, Colin came up. Colin

is a Clydesdale-quarter horse cross and is the biggest horse in

the pasture, with big feet, bones and a tall, strong stature. As

I looked at Colin and petted his nose, it came to me that I'm

supposed to play REALLY big. Gulp! I immediately noticed the

fear that came up for me around this. Then I thought: "What does

'playing big' mean for me? How would it look in my business?" As

I accepted that this was the message they came to tell me, both

horses turned and went back to grazing, leaving me alone to let

this idea settle in, confirming that I'd understood what they'd

had to say.

Now these messages from the horses come quickly, and the full

implication doesn't always sink in immediately. What happened in

the hour after my time with Digby and Colin started to clarify

what "playing big" actually meant. My business partner and I had

invited our insurance representative to the pasture to

experience a sample equine-guided coaching session since she had

expressed interest in what we were doing. As is typical, she

experienced deep and profound shifts in her thinking about the

actions she could take in her life. She became aware of

important new options that had simply never occurred to her

before. For example, normally a type A personality, she had

never thought of the possibility of a more relaxed lifestyle.

She saw that she could use space and openness to see what is

next for her rather than more busy-ness. As we talked about it

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over lunch afterwards, our agent expressed such enthusiasm about

our work and strongly urged us to incorporate our business to

fully professionalize our work. And she asked if she could

invite people she knows in the horse world to a workshop so that

they could also experience the power of this process!

Synchronously, once I offered my question about how to direct my

business to the process of equine-guided coaching, I not only

received an inner direction to consider building my business to

be really big, but also began to discover what that might

entail, actually taking a first step to begin to grow it.

Coaching with horses this way grounds the process so that we

step out of our minds and invite all of ourselves--body, mind,

and spirit--to engage with our intentions and clarified

direction. The response is almost always startling and exciting,

filled with the lively energy of newness. In these few months

since Digby and Colin made the message known to me, we have

conducted a workshop with eight influential friends of our

insurance representative, incorporated a new business called

Wisdom Horse Coaching, which will serve as an umbrella for all

of our work with horses, and have presented a demonstration of

our work at the first annual Equine-Guided Education Association

conference held in California to 70 people from all over the USA

and seven other countries in the world who are doing this work

with horses.

For more equine coaching information go to

www.WisdomHorseCoaching.com.

©2005 Wisdom Horse Coaching

About the author:

Ann Romberg, an internationally recognized Equine Guided Coach

and Educator co-founded Wisdom Horse Coaching with Lynn

Baskfield. They have presented at international conferences and

offer equine guided personal and professional development

services. Ann and her business partner Lynn Baskfield (guided by

their magnificent horse partners) will reveal the source for

that competitive edge you've been searching for.