My primary client right now is a company that sells educational DVD’s that teach people about natural horse training. But that is a simplistic description of what it is they really sell: relationships.
the Bug Whisperer?
If you’ve seen the movie ‘The Horse Whisperer’, or Cesar Milan’s show ‘The Dog Whisperer’, you understand that there are some people who have a natural rapport with animals – who seem to know what the non-human creatures are thinking and what they want. Although there are many people who do have an innate sense of what dogs or horses are saying, the rest of us are clueless.
But my client that sells educational DVD‘s is distributing more than a product about horses and how to train them naturallly. They are providing average people with the tools to be their own horse whisperer, or dog whisperer, or even human whisperer.
I never owned a horse, nor do I even intend to. Although I have a great deal of respect and admiration for the equine animals, I look at them as I would a boat: a big toy that takes lots of time, money and care. But don’t get me wrong: if a friend has a horse and wants to go riding, I’m all for it. And from what I’ve learned by working at the natural horsemanship company, I think I could be a pretty good rider if I put my mind to it.
The biggest thing I’ve learned while working for the company, though, is that what you learn about a relationship with a horse carries over to all of your relationships, whether with another pet, partners, children, family or friends. The key is to understand what makes the other person or animal tick, which is accomplished by watching and learning. I have told my nearly 17 year-old son many times, “I have never been a teenage boy so I can’t relate!” But by watching his behavior and listening when he attempts to communicate in a teenage language that I have apparently long forgotten , I am better able to communicate my own needs to get dishes done, get the lawn mowed, and have the trash taken out without any long-lasting mental trauma to either of us.
Now that doesn’t mean that we don’t have our typical mother/teenager moments, but they are relatively few and far between, due mainly to the fact that I have natural horsemanship training to thank for learning to understand an animal that is unfamiliar to me.
So whether you have a horse, a dog, a teenager, or a partner that seems very foreign at times, learning how to read unspoken signals can go a long way to developing a long-term relationship that works both ways.