SELF-ASSURANCE
His cowboy hat tilted forward to block the rain, soaked oilskin jacket dripping with water, a taught lead rope with a very unhappy donkey clipped to the end begrudgingly following. This image of Paul Smith leading Hercules, the mule, back to his pasture on a stormy Arizona night embodies the critical importance of having a support system. We, the participants and faculty of a Prescott College equine-assisted learning intensive, peered from the doorway of the bunkhouse to witness the scene. Paul was part of Herc’s support team. He took care of this stubborn mule, literally dragging him back to a secure area where he would be free from the threat of bears, coyotes, and other horse-eating predators.
Zooming an imaginary camera lens outward to capture a wider scene, the group of eight of us in the bunkhouse that night was also part of our own support team. We’d travelled from all over the country, east coast, west coast, and parts in between to gather for one of our four annual intensives. Joined together by our love of equine-assisted services, desire to practice and improve our skills, coming with a willingness to be vulnerable together.
Support teams can not only keep you physically safe (I’ve been grateful for this kind of help a time or two), but they can also be there for your emotional, spiritual, and psychological support. Often humans and human systems are predicated on a zero-sum game. Meaning, one winner and one loser. The idea of winner takes all is deeply seeped in many cultures. From sporting teams to educational bell curves that require losers in order to declare winners.
My personal educational experience in my master’s degree and Ph.D. programs were competency-based, meaning we were each individually responsible for our educational outcomes. My master’s brought together adult learners in management and leadership roles from around the world to a Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) classroom in Rochester, New York. A diverse group of individuals which included a former freedom fighter and now educator from Croatia, Nina, a casino pit boss and former Olympic luge runner from New York, Peter, as well as Annie and I from Frankenmuth Michigan and a cast of another eight characters.
During our two weeks of torture and euphoria at RIT, our group of twelve people became a high-performance team. As a high-performance team we shared leadership roles, had both individual and mutual accountability, and we learned to use the dialogic process as a method for deeper understanding. We were profoundly committed to one another’s personal growth, often putting the group’s success ahead of our own. We helped each other through it all, balancing the work required by looking at individual workloads, skills, and personal goals.
One testament to this process was when we learned our lead facilitator, Dr. Dick Marecki, was concerned about Nina’s lack of participation in class. She was from Croatia, not confident about speaking English. Often during class, because of our own enthusiasm, we would not even notice she hadn’t shared a thought or asked a question.
Once the faculty brought to our attention the shared goal of inviting participation for all, Annie and I strategized on the best way to accomplish this objective. We concluded that it would be best if we approached Nina in between class, sharing our reasoning with her and offering support. To help Nina and for the entire group’s success, we asked her if it would be all right to put her on the spot in class. If one of us noticed she hadn’t participated, would it be okay to directly ask her, “Nina, what do you think?” Being that straightforward, personal, and honest with a virtual stranger was scary! Taking the risk of possibly hurting her feelings with our question was overridden by our collective desire for successful learning by the entire team.
Supporting the success of another is a choice. By acknowledging that we accomplish little of any significance on our own, we’re willing to compromise, negotiate, and explore alternative futures. Healthy teams and organizations look out for each other and do their best to support each other’s success. Members are accountable for doing so and such teams eliminating those who do not help. The lack of such accountability is why many teams and organizations are not as successful as they could be.
Support systems remind us that whatever dysfunctional behavior we may exhibit, we can choose something more useful. Healthy team members contract with each other to consistently and proactively help each other accomplish the work each must do. They assist individuals in owning their choices regarding their behavior, emotions, thoughts, and belief systems.
Paul was self-assured that he knew the safest choice for Hercules. One of the bits of wisdom he would often share related to the life and death choices we accept when a person decides to care for animals. He’d say, “if you’re going to have live animals, then accept the fact that you’re going to have dead animals.” A pretty sobering statement.
This mantra is true not just for living, breathing animals, it’s also true for ideas. We humans breathe life into ideas, aspirations, and dreams. One use of our energy, our personal power, is to influence others. How effective we are in influencing others is proportional to building the support we need to accomplish our goals, in both our professional and our personal lives.
A key to developing and sustaining successful support systems is to stay curious. We need to build support systems of people, who in their various roles, will add their energy to our own when our own is insufficient to accomplish our goals. Building such support requires us to use our personal power and energy to attain the agreement—tacit or explicit—of others to use their energy on behalf of our goals. That’s influence.
Connection before content is a Kaleidoscope value, a foundational belief that drives much of our gathering decisions. One of the simple things we do in our programs is the opening activity of meet and greet of both horses and humans. One technique for the human side of this activity engages the right, creative side of the brain. We share a list of three open-ended questions, such as “If you were a superhero, who would you be and why?” If you were a song, what would it be (and will you sing it for us? 😊) or what is a favorite animal, please briefly explain.
We invite each participant to pick a question, without dictating the process. They each have the option to go as deeply personal or stay surfacy as they desire. This activity can help us, and the other participants, learn more intimate information about their peers. Giving the participants’ agency to choose sets a tone that supports our work throughout our time together.
I Imagine the various groups of humans as if they were all ropes, or threads, or other pieces of twine twisted together creating a lifeline. Some are longer than others. Some are thick, with many life experiences, and strong because of the shared time and overcoming conflict. Others have gaps, where they have come and gone. In each case, the ties that bind have helped me gain perspective, held me accountable, and supported me in reframing experiences that no longer serve. Your best self emerges when you surround yourself with people that you trust, vulnerably inviting your authentic self into the space with them.
Recall a time when you reached out to your support teams. Who is part of that group? Identify the conditions that enabled you to request support.
What aspects of your life boost your self-assurance?
Is there a future goal you are working on to achieve where additional support could make the situation better? What can you proactively do now to make that more likely to happen?