An interesting thing happened on Saturday. I was at home when a car slowly drove in our driveway, looked around, then drove out again. A few minutes later, it came back. Two women got out of the car, and right away I recognized one of them as someone I knew from when we lived in town. Mary and I enjoyed running into each other now and then out walking our dogs. I hadn’t seen her in several years.

Mary was clearly delighted to see me, too. We greeted each other with a hug, and she said she was glad to find where I’d moved out in the country. They were campaigning for one of the presidential candidates and looking for a particular address. It wasn’t mine, and I didn’t know the people she was looking for. I’m guessing the address was old.

She said she hoped I was voting for her guy. I put my arm around her shoulders and said I was voting for the other guy, but we could still be friends. We laughed, but I knew right then that something had changed and some part of the relationship would need rebuilding.

I’ve seen the same thing happen in the horse world, particularly in the field of “natural horsemanship.” Folks get stuck behind one guru or the other, forgetting what’s really important. They’re often shocked to find that the gurus are friends, even if their supporters are polarized. It happens between disciplines, too. Dressage riders sometimes write me off when they hear that I’ve written for John Lyons for years, until I tell them how hard I worked to arrange for John to be able to sit in a seminar taught by Reiner Klimke a long time ago, and how much common ground he recognized. Sometimes the substance is the same and only the style is different.

This upcoming election, though, isn’t just about style. It is about the different world views of two people and their followers. I give Mary a lot of credit. She was out doing what she believed in, and people like Mary make this nation strong. I can’t say that I’ve done as much, though I did reply to a comment about “Caribou Barbie” in an online group recently.

America has a tough road ahead, no matter who wins the election. It will need horse people to help focus on our strengths and good people like Mary and me to pull together in our community. Now that Mary knows my address, I’ll have to invite her over — after Nov 4th.

Doug Emerson (http://www.profitablehorseman.com) and I will present a three-hour workshop for equine professionals to help them to discover their best business strength. So often, trainers and instructors feel they have to be everything to everybody, and the tail ends up wagging the dog in their business.

Alongside my other activities, I’ve been consulting for equine professionals for years, helping them to see that unless they want to be the low-price leader in the horse industry, they need to focus on doing one thing really well. Or at least they have to be clear about what they want to become known for. Then clients will tell others about that one thing. Unless you identify your passion and strength, other people will define you, and in ways that take you in lots of directions.

That may be okay when you’re young, because you’re still exploring who you are and where you really fit. You can change hats quickly and often, and even find it energizing. But as you get older, and particularly as earning a living has more stresses, you recognize your energy is better spent if you aren’t always changing hats. It’s learning to work smarter, not always harder, and to find more joy in your work.

We know how to do this with a horse — we look at his conformation, feel his energy with one task or another, look at his training, his age, his opportunities, and so forth. We say one horse loves to run, another has a lot of cow in him, and a third comes alive with tiny kids. Of course, some horses have to do it all — and that is a specialty in itself. But not every horse does everything well. Neither do people.

You note that I said, “Alongside my other activities.”  That’s because, like so many in the horse industry, I have many interests and have become proficient at lots of tasks. So, like others, my challenge has been to figure out my best niche.

Some people know me as a writer/editor. Others know me as a consultant/life coach. Still others know me for my understanding of the horse industry and marketing ability. Yet others recognize my passion about how horses help us to understand God’s love. Who I was to you when you first met me is how you may characterize me. But that may not be my essential strength. I have a friend who introduced me as training dogs, merely because I taught her big hound not to jump on me when I walked through the door. But I don’t want to be known as a dog trainer.

Figuring out what really makes you tick, what makes you valuable to your clients — what differentiates you from other people in your same job category — is rewarding personally and professionally. But it takes effort.

Doug and I have never met, but we’ve had some great conversations on the phone, and had to work through what each of us brings to this workshop table. At first glance, you might think that we are the same. After all, we’re both consultants, both write, both have a blog, newsletter, etc, and both offer business services to professionals in the horse industry. If Doug and I aren’t clear about who we are and what we do, we’re likely to think of ourselves as competitors, and to get defensive of our turf. And that would be a shame - we’d lose as individuals, because we’ve seen that we bring relative strengths to the table that benefit each of us. Our projects would lose, because instead of trying to be the best, we’d just be defensive of “our stuff.” And our clients would lose, because we’d transmit that sense of defensiveness to them.

The problem is that trainers and riding instructors often feel they have to be everything to everybody. They feel under pressure to be as good as the trainers on TV, and in whatever style of riding a potential client wants. They are also more oriented to the horse business as a lifestyle, than a business.

By the way, we figured out that Doug’s emphasis is as a business coach, which of course, involves dealing with people and where they want to go in life. My emphasis is as a life coach, with the business skills to help people figure out where their business is headed, too. 

This workshop and much of my consulting has to do with helping people to find where they fit best, and structuring their businesses and relationships so they can meet the demands of the current economic climate in a way that works for them. If you can make it to Lexington for next Thursday morning, we’d love to have you. (http://www.InspiredByHorses.com/CHA.html) And if Lexington isn’t in your travel plans, you’re welcome to contact us individually.

Most importantly, whether you need help or think it through on your own, remember that having a specialty will help your business, just like having a special dish helps a restaurant. You are the best person at something, so you want to be known for that. Your clients want to work with the best, so they’ll help spread the word.

By the way, Doug and I are still working through what to say to explain how we are different. The subtleties matter in attracting clients who are a best fit for each of us. It could be that our closing conversation says the most.

Maureen: “By the way, Doug, do you work on a Mac or a PC?”
Doug: “A PC”
Maureen: “I assumed as much. I’m a Mac person from the get-go.”
Doug: “What a surprise. It will be fun working together.”

It got me to thinking about my focus, which I admit, has been distracted by the news reports lately. The squirrels reminded me how important it is to hustle when you know what to do next. I think knowing what to do next is the key piece, and why our changing world so absorbs us. Things aren’t the same as they’ve been before. We’re in a new reality, of sorts, and we think we don’t know what to do next. 

Riding Calvin yesterday, I was impressed with how good and solid he was. Clearly he hadn’t spent the week watching the stock market or the debates. He knew his job, and whatever had changed in the world was beyond his control. He wasn’t distracted by it.

I’m starting this week more settled and with my focus sharpened. God hasn’t changed. My horse hasn’t changed, and the squirrels know what to do. So I’m back on track.