My day gig is Safety Dilemma Fixer and eLearning Creator and business owner.
But in my carved-out time, I’m an endurance rider, someone who rides horses dubiously fast and far. (I’ve been doing both for roughly a quarter of a century, which makes me a bit of a dinosaur.)
At first glance, these two passions seem wildly disparate. But the more closely you look at why each trips my trigger, the less of a mystery it seems.
The first one is obvious to anyone who knows me.
Delivering safety training allows me to talk with my hands (even when an employee is hanging suspended from a harness):
Photo credit by partner-in-crime, Dr. Susan Garlinghouse.
Likewise, riding for a really long time (you have up to 24 hours, i.e. one day, to finish riding a 100-mile endurance ride) means you also have a lot of time to talk with your hands with your riding partners.
Photo credit by my riding partner, Dawn Hilliard.
But wait, there’s more.
The Joy of Problem Solving
Horses are complicated. I often quip that none are perfect, and our best bet is to find a horse whose idiosyncrasies match our personality and skill sets.
Likewise, our clients have their own unique needs, cultures, foibles and dysfunction. It is our role to weave and bob and adapt to those each day.
For both my sport and my business, the passion lies within the fixing.
The older I get, the less I worry about each, but as my husband Tom likes to tell me, worrying is my super-power.
Horses — it’s hoof balance and electrolytes and matching conditioning and rest to the demanding travel and competition schedule. It’s body work (yes, my horses get massages and chiropractic work) and preventing ulcers and ensuring the horse is traveling symmetrically and that my own body helps him do that rather than burdening him by riding like a crooked sack of potatoes.
All four off the floor in this shot at Old Dominion. Dunkin has the go-go boots on! Photo by Becky Pearman.
Business — it’s finding and coaching and keeping the right team in place who, let’s face it, is the secret to taking care of our clients. The written and unwritten rules of listening to our clients’ dilemmas, dissecting those into workable tasks and projects and pitching a solution as simply as we can, when in fact, we know the jigsaw puzzle is complicated. And three-dimensional! Ideas are easy, we realize, it’s the execution that separates the pros from the not-so-greats.
Collaboration
None of this happens — if you’re smart — in an individualistic blaze of glory. The best results, for the horses and the clients, come from a village of geniuses, specialists, and professionals dedicated to the cause. Dedicated enough to have “rumbles” (a term Brené Brown uses to describe difficult and honest conversations), and seeking feedback. Collectively, we are wise enough to know when to say ‘no’ or at least ‘not now’ or when to call it a day or, as we joke about regularly, “good enough” when most of us are perfectionists.
For both our human clients and my horses, we meet them where they are.
There’s something a bit special, of course, about having an endurance competition partner who is a farm animal.
This past weekend, my goal for my horse, Dunkin, a talented and athletic and sometimes emotionally-challenged Arabian gelding, was for him to be adequately taxed to pause and say, ‘okay, yes, let’s rest.’
As we climbed a mountain trail strewn with boulders on the Old Dominion 55-mile ride last weekend, I felt him hesitate and pause to be still, to catch his breath and let what I know must have been his burning hamstrings and glutes rest for a moment. Then choosing when to surge forward again, a bit wiser.
I raised a fist to the heavens in celebration.
It was this mountain climb, which went on for miles, just like this, that caused Dunkin to say “hmm, perhaps a little breather is in order?”
We are a better partnership for his realization that there are times one must say “Uncle.”
It seems obvious that there comes a period in your life when you have to learn to say no to things you don’t want to do. But the biggest, trickiest lesson in holding on to the stalwart commitment to your creativity is learning how to say no to the things you do want to do. [Elizabeth Gilbert]
Sharing Success
For a long time, and with my first business, I was mostly just self-employed. Or as I used to say about my work schedule, “no workee, no payee.”
With PCS, it’s become about a whole village of people who support the business. Consultants, subject matter experts, instructional designers, technical support gurus, instructional designers, translators, voice over artists. Sharing the challenges is what we do, but what really chuffs me is getting to launch projects and keep those talented people employed doing what they love. When we get a little slow, when a project doesn’t go seamlessly, I lose sleep.
When I’m watching our eLearning just because it’s so cool and creative, or showing my family a Capabilities Summary because I think we are all that and a bag of chips, it puts a little pep in my step.
For endurance rides, it’s texting Dunk’s massage therapist to say how great he’s feeling, or his saddle fitter to say his back is fabulous, or to show his farrier a photo of Dunk cantering, and how the first thing I noticed about the image was how great his hooves looked.
Check out those perfectly balanced feet! (Horse not human) Photo credit: Becky Pearman
Or sitting down after a tough ride with fellow riders and my husband, Tom, and my crew, and laughing over the challenges of the day. Adult beverage in hand, freshly showered, a little stiff, and my horse eating and drinking and looking as though he really had not done a thing.
I laughed with someone recently about owning a business. “It’s the best worst job on the planet.”
Or as we say about Endurance riding. “If it was easy, everyone would do it.”
The highs are a little higher, the lows are a little lower. There is rarely a dull moment.
I would not have it any other way.
With humble thanks to everyone in both of those villages, and all those who make it possible.
Now, still feeling those mountain climbs in my calves and quads, I have to use both hands to get me up from a seated position. I need to go toss my horse partner a bit of hay, feel his legs for any swelling or heat, and check in with my human team on how a consulting project is going.
Happy trails!
[Feature image by the extraordinarily talented and hard-working Becky Pearman.]