When planning for this week’s show with Penelope Trunk, my theme was about being vulnerable. As usual, I started the show with a horse story. This week’s story was about putting myself in a situation with a horse where I was the vulnerable partner.
I chose this topic because Penelope is often brutally honest about her own perceived shortcomings in her blog. I wanted to find out why she could announce her insecurities to the world when the rest of us tend to hang onto them and don’t share them with even close friends.
But a funny thing happened during the show. We ran out of time just when we hit on the real topic we needed to talk about. We started talking about what it is like to perceive the world differently than other people. Penelope, her son, and other people in her family have Asperger’s syndrome, which is kind of like being a high-functioning autistic. (Penelope, if this is not an accurate assessment, please correct me in the call-in show.) In any case, Penelope sees and understands the world differently than most of us do, and she is constantly trying to see how she fits with the rest of us.
This resonates with me because so much of my philosophy of horsemanship contains knowledge that horses perceive the world differently than we do. We get along with them better when we try to see the world through their eyes. Learning to put yourself in another’s position is an important skill. I believe that most of our human conflicts are caused because we assume that the other person sees the world in the same way we do. If we can learn to see the world from another person’s point of view, as working with horses forces us to do, we will get along a whole lot better.
I hope that you will join us on our live call-in show on Tuesday, October 6 at 8:00 PM Eastern time. I am looking forward to a really interesting show.
If you have listened to one of my shows, you have heard that moving and haunting intro music. This week, I talk to Stewart Raven Smith who wrote and performed that little piece.
I asked Stewart to be on the show because we connected music and horses in a couple of ways. First of all, skills that seem amazing to a beginner are really just the result of really hard work as much as it is talent. Secondly, Stewart and I find a certain peace and spirituality in our chosen endeavors. With Stewart’s music and my horses, we each find we can get into a meditative state that seems magical. With these connections, I knew we would put together a great show.
I can hardly wait for the call-in show on Tuesday, September 22 at 8 PM EDT. There were several items that Stewart and I talked about that I want to dig into deeper, but we just don’t have time in a fifteen minute show.
I read a post on Seth Godin’s blog today that I wanted to reply to on his blog, but I couldn’t figure out how to reply. Maybe he doesn’t need to hear from us, but I wanted to reply.
Perhaps the worst outcome most people can imagine when a project stutters is having to go, "all the way back to square one."
Apparently, square one is an unhappy place, and far away, too.
Hey, if you’re lost, if you’ve gone down the wrong road, it doesn’t make sense to speed up and keep racing down the wrong road. Instead, the smart thing is to go back to the last spot you were in where you had a chance to find the right road and start from there.
Square one: nicer than people expect.
Yes, it is discouraging to have to start over, but I would contend that it is not possible to go back to square one. Even if you throw everything away, and start all over, you are not back at the place you were when you originally started. When you started at the original square one, you didn’t know the problems you would encounter. You learned something during the project, even if it’s just to avoid the same mistakes.
When you start over at the new square one, you are actually further along than when your foot stepped off the first square one. The journey you took along squares two, three, and beyond led you to learn something. That path was not a failure, just a necessary detour. It led you to the new square one.
So, Seth, if you’re listening, rethink your blog and come join me on a new square one.
About a month ago, I wrote a post about how we like to celebrate numbers with a pattern, like 12:34:56 7/8/9. Or it’s fun to watch an odometer change from 99,999 to 100,000. (See that post here) I implied that we are all a little silly for liking to see "interesting" numbers.
So, what do I do tonight? Right now, I have 7,775 Twitter followers. Sometime during the night, I will probably pass 7,777. That would be a cool number to see.
It’s now 10:30. How long do I wait to get two more followers? If I go to bed, it will probably be past 7,780 by morning.
Why am I even considering this? I KNOW exactly what my Twitter screen will look like. It won’t be a surprise, but I want to see it.
Now, that I say that it makes me feel kind of strange. It’s not like I’ll win a slot machine jack pot. It’s just a number.
A few months ago, my friend, Shecky (@ReallyShecky), sent a tweet announcing that he was at 7,777. I looked at his profile. It said, 7,776. Someone must have unfollowed him in those couple of minutes. A few minutes later, it was 7,778. Would anyone think I was weird that I temporarily unfollowed Shecky so that I could see 7,777 on his profile? Then followed him back?
I think I am going to appeal to my higher reason and go to bed.
If anyone sees my profile at 7,777, take a screen shot and send it to me. @JayKoch.
—————————-
45 minutes later:
I couldn’t stand it. I stayed up. @JaneWMeade and @amerisud both followed me, but I got up to 7,776. Go figure. But, this was my 7,777th:
Ain’t that a hoot?
Thankfully Britney went away and Ian was my REAL 7,777th!
When I interviewed Rabbi Shai Specht on my radio show a few weeks ago, he taught me about angels. Reb Shai said that in hebrew, the word for "angel" is often translated as "messenger." I learned that anyone or anything that brings you a message you need to hear is an angel.
An angel tapped me on the head tonight, but I am still puzzling over what she is trying to tell me.
There is a spider that lives above my desk. Three or four times over the last week, she has dropped down in front of my face while I am sitting here at my computer. I reach up to touch her and she scurries back up her invisible lifeline. She sits motionless for a long time after that. Maybe she thinks I can’t see her. Maybe she was afraid and has to recuperate.
Maybe I am anthropomorphizing more than a little bit. Maybe that’s OK. Maybe the lesson I am supposed to learn has less to do with the spider herself and more to do with how I perceive her actions. There’s probably not much consciousness in that little spider brain and she is acting purely from instinct. But, it’s human nature to see patterns and meaning that aren’t really there, so I’m going with the anthropomorphizing.
When I tweeted about my little friend this week, someone asked if her name was Charlotte. I guess that is as good a name as any, although I haven’t seen her write anything in English in her web.
This evening, Charlotte seems intent on extending her web down from the upper corner of the room. TWICE, she has come down and touched me on the head. When I looked up, she scurried back up. Maybe she thought my bald head was a big, shiny rock. She came down in front of my face and spread all of her legs and twisted from her thread as if trying to sense something around her to grab onto. I reached up with my index finger to touch an outstretched leg. For a moment, she grabbed on, but sensed danger and skedaddled back up.
A couple of minutes later, she came down about halfway from the ceiling to my eye level and spread herself out again. This time, I reached up and held my finger an inch from Charlotte. When she sensed my presence, she pulled all of her legs in as tight as she could, but didn’t climb up. I pulled my finger away from her when my arm got tired, but watched for another while. She eventually climbed lazily back up into the safety of the established web.
OK. You may not believe what I tell you next, but I am not making this up.
When I finished my description of my interaction with Charlotte, I clasped my hands behind my head and leaned back in my chair, and said out loud to Charlotte, "What are you here to tell me?" At that moment, I saw a small moth-like creature flitting around the ceiling in seemingly random movements. I was hoping it would get caught in Charlotte’s web. It was almost like waiting for a roulette ball to fall into the slot of the number I placed a bet on. Eventually that random movement bumped that moth into the web about two inches from Charlotte. Oh, boy! Charlotte is going to have a meal.
She reacted, but it wasn’t enough. The web did not hold the moth. It fell down and stopped on the wall momentarily near me. "You escaped this time, Buddy." Suddenly, I’m talking to insects and arachnids.
The moth was not content to stay still. He seemed oblivious to his near death experience. What do you expect? He’s a moth. He zigged and zagged his way up the wall. It may have seemed like a long time in moth time, but it was just a couple of seconds to me. When he reached the ceiling, he got caught in old cobwebs. I thought, "Fine, he got caught in the old stuff, and didn’t become a meal for my buddy, Charlotte." At least I wasn’t talking out loud this time. (No comments about my housekeeping and allowing the old cobwebs to stay, please.)
I was surprised at what happened next, but probably not as dismayed as the moth. I thought all of the webs up there were from dead spiders. But the granddaddy long legs sprung into action, snatched the moth, and immediately wrapped him up. Several of the eight legs grabbed and spun that moth. He would wrap for a few seconds, then pull the moth to his mouth for a second before spinning him around again. Eventually, the spider stopped wrapping and left his quarry an inch or so away. Figuring the show was over, I went back to my writing here. Now, the spider has pulled the moth carcass close to him. I see no movement, but I am guess he is eating. Or maybe just waiting for later.
Meanwhile, Charlotte is oblivious to her missed meal and the feast the long legs is having two feet away. And, now that I look, I see that in all those cobwebs, I see that there are actually several live spiders in that mess up in my corner.
So, what are my angels trying to tell me? I confess I don’t know yet. Maybe I need to learn Charlotte’s patience and not be upset at "the one that got away." Or maybe it’s that random movement without direction can be fatal. Maybe I’m supposed to learn to see that there is a lot of life and energy going on over my head (literally) that I am not aware of, but should be.
Maybe another lesson will come to me later as I think about it, but here’s what I am figuring out right now. Those spiders barely have a concept that I am here, if at all. I am just part of the environment, and they may not perceive me as alive at all. They are not here to teach me. But, that doesn’t mean I can’t learn something.
I always talk about how my horses teach me more than I ever teach them. But, my spiders have shown me that even though the intent to teach is not there, it doesn’t mean they can’t teach me something. When I go out to work with a horse, I intend to teach him something. In our session, he may learn something, but that horse doesn’t care if I learn anything. He’s just trying to get along from one moment to the next. But, I can learn from his actions. He is my teacher, but his intent is not to teach. I learn from what happens in our interaction, but only if I am willing to open up and accept the lesson.
There is a joke I have seen on Twitter several times, but I laugh very time: I was wondering why the Frisbee was coming at me, then it hit me.
Now, I see that I can learn something from the Frisbee (Duck or catch it), but it has no intention of teaching me. It’s just flying minding its own business when I get in the way.
So if horses and spiders are my unwitting angels, what else is out there that I can learn from? What else is flying along, oblivious to me, but if I pay attention, I can learn something from it? How do I learn to pay better attention?
Catherine Grison and I had fun chatting about meditation, feng shui, and – of course – horses on the Whispered By Horses show this week.
I approached Catherine about being on my show because she wrote a blog post about "How to (Not) Meditate." She said that it’s possible to try too hard to meditate. She also said that she had to do several takes of the video. I asked her if she was trying too hard to make the video.
Catherine’s musings on meditation made me realize that I ride better when I don’t try too hard to ride "perfectly." But, when I relax and stop trying, I actually ride better.
There is something magical about finding the "sweet spot" or being "in the zone." Whether it’s horsemanship, volleyball, or meditation, it takes practice and repetition to gain the experience and knowledge to be able to slip into that zone. But that perfect moment is so wonderful that it is worth the time and effort to get there.
Please listen to our show. Listen to me struggle to say Catherine’s name correctly. I’ll probably never be able to say "French Shui" correctly.
Catherine and I will be on a live call-in show on Tuesday evening, August 25 at 8 PM EDT. I hope you can join us.
What I know now is that this small blog has a very BIG JOB to do – actually two big jobs: 1) serve as witness my own “escape” from the world of mediocrity – both personally and professionally and 2) inspire others to do the same – if they feel that pull.
Sarah was anything BUT mediocre on this week’s radio show. I highly recommend that you take fifteen minutes to listen to her interview.
If you don’t have time now, download this fifteen minute show, put it on your iPod, and listen to it on the way to the grocery store. It will brighten your day and lighten your step.
With Sarah’s permission, I am re-posting her blog, "Failing Sucks". She says that she has had more comments on this post than any other:
August 12th, 2009
We’ve all heard it from the guru’s right? “Take big risks!” “Fail early. Fail often.” “When you fail, pick yourself up, dust yourself off and keep going.”
And for the most part, I agree with these sentiments. The only problem is, no one ever talks about how much failing SUCKS and what to do about it so you CAN pick yourself up and dust yourself off.
Here’s the thing: as entrepreneurs we pour our hearts and souls into what we do. Of course we are risk takers – how could we work for ourselves if we weren’t? So when we take a big risk – everything in us is on the line. Which works out great if the risk pays off.
But what about when it doesn’t pay off?
I recently lived through this experience and I am here to tell you it can be gut-wrenching and heartbreaking. I wanted something very very badly. I thought I had my bases covered. I put all my chips on the table – my smarts, my heart and my soul – and I hoped for the best.
But it didn’t work out. Not only did it not work out, it blew up spectacularly in my face. And it felt horrible.
Prevailing advice is that I should have been able to shake it off, get up and keep on trekking. And I’ve been able to do after many failures – trust me. But this time I just couldn’t. My heart was too heavy and my spirit was busted. But I also knew I had to choose between moving forward somehow and throwing in the towel.
Walking The Grid
Photo by Simon Scott
I can’t remember where I first heard it, but when I find myself in situations where I really don’t know what to do next, where I feel like I am grappling in the dark, where my heart just isn’t in taking one more step, the phrase “just walk the grid” always comes to mind
I have a feeling that I’m not the only person out there who struggles to find a foothold after failing and I’m hoping this idea might offer some help.
The whole premise of walking the grid is based on two things: 1) some structured routine and 2) keeping things very very simple. Each person’s grid will look different, but here are some pieces of mine to give you some ideas:
I walk – every single morning. Whether I feel like it or not. In fact, the less I feel like it, the more insistent I am about going. 30 minutes minimum – longer if I can.
I check in with a trusted friend or colleague every day. Not the same friend or colleague every day because I want to keep as many of those as I can. Sometimes I talk about what’s going on with me; sometimes I can bring myself to actually inquire about them (when I’m walking the grid, I can be kinda self-centered).
I reduce my commitments as best I can. Getting back to full speed takes time and energy and I want to give myself as much of that as I can.
I write first thing every morning. Dumping out what’s bothering me onto paper helps keep it from eating away at me all day. (And a side benefit is I usually get a really great NEW idea while I’m writing – eventually.)
I try to eat well and not survive on coffee alone.
I give priority to working on the projects that make me feel really good, really smart and really talented. Same goes for people I talk to.
I read books by authors who make me feel better. My favorites when I am walking the grid are Julia Cameron, Martha Beck and Anne Lamott.
I nap a lot. (Ok – I nap a lot anytime I can. Walking the grid just gives me a really good reason.)
I cry. Yes it’s true. If the experience is heart-wrenching enough, I’ll probably cry more than once. And don’t say it’s just because I’m a girl.
I take small actions. As soon as I can I take small baby steps toward something that feels like it might be right. Baby steps feel simple and doable. As they accumulate, though, I find myself creating forward momentum once again.
Sometimes I can zip through walking the grid in a couple of days and I’m good to go. Other times, it may take me weeks or even a few months of walking the grid to feel like I am on solid ground.
Failing isn’t permanent and the fact that I failed to get something I really wanted doesn’t mean that I am a failure. But taking the time to acknowledge that the experience was painful is a gift of respect I can give myself.
What are some simple, structured ideas you would add to The Grid?
Some else wrote back that actually it happened twice, both AM and PM. And I pointed out that it happened twice in each of the 24 time zones around the world.
That was on July 8, 2009. But there are large parts of the world that say that today is 7 August, 2009 and today’s date is also 7/8/9. So that string of consecutive digits happened again twice in twenty four time zones today.
Hmm. Not so special.
Here’s something else that happens EVERY DAY, twice a day in 24 time zones: 12:34:56.789! Wow!
The original Tweeter was right about one thing, though. That afternoon moment a month ago did only happen once. Just like right, now at 9:57:43 PM MDT on August 7, 2009 only happens once. And, now its, 9:57:58. Both of those moments only happened once.
But, this really got me to thinking about how and why it’s deep in our psyches to celebrate arbitrary milestones. Babe Ruth was the first to hit 700 home runs. When he did, it was a big deal. But, guess what? He was also the first to hit 699. And 698. And 697. Why did folks get excited because that 700th had two zeroes? It turned out that the really important home run was number 714, the last one the Babe hit. But no one knew that at the time. For some reason, a pitcher that retires with 299 wins does not seem as special as one with 300.
My parents had their 50th anniversary five years ago. Big celebration. Since then, they have had 51, 52, 53 ,54, and next week 55. Ho-hum. No one notices. (I do: Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!) Nancy and I will celebrate 23 years of marriage in two days by maybe going out to dinner. Or staying in and watching a movie. But, we’ll probably have a party on our 25th. Actually, we will probably celebrate more on our 30th anniversary of when we met at 25 cent beer night at a baseball game 30 years ago on August, 31, 1979. But, that’s a whole other story…
I was disappointed when I missed watching the odometer on my truck turn from 99,999 to 100,000. Why? I knew exactly what it would look like both before and after. And there was no difference between mile 99,999 and 100,000, except that was the moment that my extended warranty expired.
Again, why? What is it about markers with zeroes on the end or consecutive numbers that is appealing to us?
Some people go wacky with the numbers, which is even wackier when the numbers are arbitrary and made up. Many centuries ago people decided that a new year started on January 1. Nothing cosmic. Just a convention. But some people thought the end of the world would happen on 1/1/2000. (Or at least the computers would blow up.) Some people got all mystical and misty eyed at 07:07:07 7/7/7. It was no accident that the Beijing Olympics started on 8/8/8. There’s nothing magical about those numbers. Nature very seldom adheres to the decimal numbering system (except that we use it because of the number of our fingers). If nature had been kind to people who calculate interest, the year would be 360 days long, not 365.25, so we could have 12 thirty day months.
The ancient Bablylonians were the first to divide our day into 24 hours and further subdivide them into 60 minute hours and 60 second minutes. These are numbers that work well because they are divisible evenly in so many different ways, but they are still made up numbers. It used to be that noon was when the sun was directly overhead in your town. It became too hard to figure out train schedules if every town had a different noon, so we made up standard time and divided the world into a couple dozen time zones. And, then, just for grins, we all agree (except for Arizona) that we just move our clocks an hour twice a year for daylight savings time. An arbitrary move that we all agree to.
But, we still take notice of 12:34:56 7/8/9, even though it is a completely made up number.
Go figure.
I don’t know why we celebrate the big round numbers. Maybe it’s the seeming specialness of the numbers that cause us to stop and reflect about where we are and what we have accomplished. It’s good to stop and reflect and celebrate occasionally. We decide to do this together has a culture, which is a good thing. We decide that on the fourth Thursday of the eleventh month each year that the Cowboys and Lions play football, but not against each other, while we over eat turkey (that we seldom eat any other time) and stop to count our blessings, and even Burger King closes for the day. We have decided that the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox is a day we hide colored plastic eggs filled with chocolate for our children to find, followed by a large midday meal, and maybe a parade with fancy bonnets. Oh, yeah: Many of us have also decided that Easter is a day of great religious significance.
I started this essay as a lark about numbers and numerology, but thinking about why we celebrate at the times we do makes me wonder why we don’t celebrate each moment we have. As I said above, this moment right now will not come again. And I am celebrating that my parents have been married 54 years and 357 days, and that I am lucky at the age of 18,778 days I still have both of my parents. I am looking forward to my 18,779th day tomorrow. I’m lucky to have been married to the same wonderful woman for 22 years, 363 days and three hours. I’m happy that my truck is still trucking at 141,368 miles. And I take comfort in knowing that at some time after 12:00:00.000 it will again be 12:34:56.789.
Every moment counts. Celebrate now. Notice this moment right now, not just the ones with consecutive digits. Be here now. The moment just past won’t come again, and I expect to make the most of all the moments I have left.
Call in Show Tuesday, August 4, 8PM Eastern, 7 PM Centra, 6 PM Mountain, 5 PM Pacific. Click on link above for details.
What would you think if I sang out of tune,
Would you stand up and walk out on me.
Lend me your ears and I’ll sing you a song,
And I’ll try not to sing out of key.
I get by with a little help from my friends
Lennon/McCartney
Last November, I was bucked off my horse, Elvis. I landed on my hand and the force of the blow smashed my radius bone above the wrist. As far as things that could break when coming off a horse, a wrist is a small thing. I didn’t break my head, neck or back, and all my injuries are healed.
I had two surgeries in four months, and it was a total of six months in which I was forbidden to ride by my surgeon. But, once I could ride, I didn’t. I had lots of things to fix around the ranchito: tractoring to do, fences to fix, weeds to hack. I have a business to run, and I have gone back to my computer nerd job part time. I just don’t have time to ride.
But, that wasn’t the whole truth. I had time to do ground work with the horses and do some training that way. I just didn’t want to ride. It’s too hot. The mosquitoes and flies would bug the horses. I had excuse after excuse.
I really had to admit something I didn’t want to:
I was afraid to ride my horse.
I’ve always thought of myself as a fairly fearless rider. I was careful about when and where I rode, and I am not reckless. But I was seldom afraid. Not so now. That injury took a lot out of me.
If even the Beatles would worry about singing out of tune, I guess it’s not unusual for a horseman to be afraid sometimes. My question was, should I share this fear with my friends? I pass myself off as a horseman who teaches life lessons through horsemanship. What would it look like to admit fear of riding?
Working through my own fear is a life lesson I have to learn myself. Why not share that process in real time? While I am working through my issues and learning lessons, I’ll open up and let the world see me. My son, Dean, who is a TV anchorman, visited us a couple of weeks ago. We had discussed us doing some filming for my web site. I asked him to video me getting on a horse for the first time. We are now editing that video and it will be out soon.
My plan was to get on Hoss, my regular, dependable mount. I figured that would be easy. Then, I would work up to getting on Elvis, which would be scary, since he’s the one that bucked me off. It turns out, it was plenty scary getting on Hoss.
Because I was afraid, and wrapped up in my own fear, I could not see what was going on with Hoss. He was agitated, but I thought I it was because I was wound up. What my fear would not let me see was that Hoss’s bridle was mal-adjusted and it was bugging him. When I finally fixed the bridle, Hoss calmed down and I calmed down.
And I got on. And it was great.
The video showed me all the mistakes I made. How’s that for a lesson learned in real time: When you are afraid, you can’t see what is really happening around you. Fear clouds your judgment. Information that you need can be blocked by your own brain.
This is just one lesson I learned that I want to share with you.
The video won’t be out for a couple of weeks, but you can listen to my 15 minute on-line radio show any time at http://WhisperedByHorses.com.
Tonight, Tuesday, August 4 and 8:00 PM Eastern Time, I will have a live call-in show about my fears and how I am working through them. Please call in and talk to me. Details are at the Whispered By Horses link above.
