Business Strategies Straight from the Horse's Mouth

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 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.

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Economic Growth Continues - More Than 5.3 Million Jobs Created Since August 2003
On June 2, 2006, The Government Released New Jobs Figures – 75,000 Jobs Created In May. The economy has created about 1.9 million jobs over the past 12 months – and more than 5.3 million since August 2003. The unemployment rate fell to 4.6 percent – lower than the average of the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.

The Economy Remains Strong, And The Outlook Is Favorable

Revised Report Shows Fastest Real GDP Growth In Two-And-A-Half Years. Real GDP grew at an annual rate of 5.3 percent for the first quarter of this year. This follows our economic growth of 3.5 percent in 2005 – the fastest rate of any major industrialized nation.

Productivity Increased At A Strong Annual Rate Of 3.7 Percent In The First Quarter.

Real Hourly Compensation Rose At A 3.2 Percent Annual Rate In The First Quarter.

Personal Income Increased At An Annual Rate Of 6.7 Percent In April. Since January 2001, real after-tax income has risen by 12.9 percent, or 7.3 percent per person.

Real Consumer Spending Increased At An Annual Rate Of 5.2 Percent In The First Quarter.

Employment Increased In 47 States Over The Past 12 Months Ending In April. Nonfarm payroll employment increased in 41 states in April.

Industrial Production Increased 4.7 Percent Over The Past 12 Months. Over the past 12 months, manufacturing production has increased by 5.5 percent.

President Bush Has An Aggressive Agenda To Keep The Economy Growing

This Week, President Bush Nominated Henry Paulson As Treasury Secretary. Paulson has an intimate knowledge of financial markets and an ability to explain economic issues in clear terms. For the past eight years, Paulson has served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Goldman Sachs Group, one of the most respected firms on Wall Street.

The President Has Expanded Tax Relief And Is Working To Make His Tax Relief Permanent. Two weeks ago, President Bush signed into law a bill that extends the tax cuts on dividends and capital gains. This legislation also contains an Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) patch enabling millions of middle-income families to avoid paying higher taxes in 2006.

The President’s Tax Relief Has Helped Spur Growth By Keeping $880 Billion In The Pockets Of American Taxpayers. The Administration reduced taxes for every American who pays income taxes, doubled the child tax credit, reduced the marriage penalty, created investment incentives for small businesses, and put the death tax on the road to extinction.

Growing The Economy And Reducing The Deficit Depend On Controlling The Spending Appetite Of The Federal Government. Every year since the President took office, the Administration has slowed the growth of discretionary spending that is not related to the military or homeland security. The President's last two budgets cut discretionary spending that was unrelated to the military or homeland security, and we are on track to cut the deficit in half by 2009.

If The Emergency Supplemental Bill – Which The President Has Requested To Help Fund The War On Terror And Hurricane Recovery – Includes Non-Emergency Or Wasteful Spending Or Exceeds The President's Set Limit Of $92.2 Billion Plus Funding To Prepare Our Nation For A Pandemic Flu Emergency, He Will Veto It.

In The Long Run, The Biggest Challenge To Our Nation's Budgetary Health Is Entitlement Spending On Programs Such As Social Security And Medicare. We call on members of both parties to join us in a bipartisan commission to address this critical issue.

The President Will Continue Working With Congress To Restrain Spending In Other Ways, Including Passing A Line-Item Veto. A line-item veto would allow us to cut needless spending, reduce the budget deficit, and ensure that every taxpayer dollar is spent wisely – or not at all.