Grant Golliher - Think Like a Horse: Lessons in Life, Leadership, and Empathy from an Unconventional Cowboy

Chasing a Dream: A Horsemans Memoir

INTRODUCTION

All I Really Need to Know I Learned from a Horse

I understand you help people whove got horse problems.

No maam, I dont.... Its kind of the other way around.

I help horses whove got people problems.

Nicholas Evans, The Horse Whisperer

G rowing up , my best friends had four legs and big ears. My dad raised mules on our peach farm in Palisade, a small town in western Colorado where the Rockies give way to the Utah desert.

At the age of eleven, I was tasked with breaking the mule coltsthe old cowboy term for teaching a horse to accept a saddle, a bridle, and a rider. As the term implies, its not typically done gently. The idea is to break the will of the much larger and stronger animal so that he will submit to the direction of his rider. Or, as my dad put it: Show em whos boss.

I could feel the colts fear as Dad held them tightly by the halter rope. Id scramble onto their backs and hang on for dear life as they panicked and bolted through the peach trees. Its little wonder they were afraid. For a horse in the wild, the only thing likely to land on its back is a mountain lion. I was afraid, too, with good reason. I soon had plenty of cuts and bruises where Id been raked under a tree or dumped on the hard ground with the wind knocked out of me, gasping for air.

I quickly learned something important about a mule. You cant make him do something if he thinks hes going to get hurt. Especially not if youre a scrawny kid weighing less than sixty pounds. So Id need to figure out how to cooperate with them instead. Plus, I didnt like the way my dads training methods relied on pain and fear.

Kick them in the belly to get their attention, hed say.

That didnt sit right with me. So instead, I tried to befriend the mules, get inside their heads, and figure out how to convince them to cooperate. One of the first tricks I learned with my favorite colt, Skeeter, was that if I scratched him behind his big yellow ears, hed lower his head for more and I could quietly swing a leg over his neck. Then, when he raised his head again, Id slide down and be sitting on his back. I rode him without saddle or bridle, and when I wanted him to stop, Id just lean forward and clasp my arms around his neck.

These days, I mount my horses in a more conventional manner. But the basic principles I employed with those mulestrust, patience, firmness, kindness, and respectare still the foundation of my lifes work. And not just with my four-legged friends, but with two-legged ones as well.

It turns out that thinking like a horse can teach you a lot about being a human being.

If youd told me back then that Id end up focusing my work not just on horses but on people, I would never have believed you. The last thing I could have imagined is that Id end up writing books and teaching leadership principles to executives, coaches, parents, politicians, judges, and more. My boyhood dream was to become a mountain man like the legendary figures in the books I loved. I would live alone out in the wilderness with my muleshunting, fishing, and trapping. I was always more content with animals than with other human beings.

This makes sense when I think about my childhood experiences. My mother battled suicidal depression and sought comfort in God. My dad, in those early days, was a harsh man who had no idea how to give or receive affection. He was never physically abusive to me or any of my three siblings, but he was very critical, and he had little time or patience for his kids. I grew up largely unsupervised, to a degree that I now understand bordered on neglect. There was no one stopping me from swimming in the fast-flowing irrigation canal, riding up treacherous cliff paths on the high mesas, and camping out in the wilderness with only my mules for company. At the age of nineteen, I saddled up one mule, Kate, loaded my packs on another mule, Jack, and set off on a journey north along the Continental Divide toward Canada.

I only made it as far as Wyoming, where I got work on a ranch and started living the cowboy life. It was there that I met my first wife, Locke, a talented horsewoman and musician. Together, we lived and worked at international polo clubs and on ranches from Texas to California to Kansas to Idaho and eventually back to Wyoming. My love of horses never wavered, and I was considered a good trainer, but I mostly did things the old way, which relied on force, fear, intimidation, and repetition. I wasnt intentionally cruelpeople who work with horses in this way generally are notbut I was no longer a boy making friends with his mules. Id lost touch with that natural sensitivity I once had. Horses were my livelihood, and I did whatever seemed necessary to produce well-trained, obedient mounts for the ranch, the polo field, or the show ring. Id not yet learned how to think like a horse.

Everything changed for me when I was introduced to a horse trainer by the name of Ray Hunt. Ray reminded me what Skeeter the mule had taught me: that introducing a horse to a saddle and a rider doesnt have to involve breaking his will. In fact, it can be done with the very opposite approach: allowing the horse to exercise his free will, and creating a situation in which he chooses to cooperate with his rider.