Show me your horse and I will tell you what you are

Horses can tutor human beings about faith and affection. Practicing psychiatric therapists use them in their treatment programs with psychologically embattled patients, who often connect with their equine buddies even when they are not capable of establishing relationships with other people. Horses are quick to smell deceit, compel people to depend on their gut feelings and to be authentic. 

In another horse tale, writer Ariana Strozzi powerfully revealed how horses reflect your inner world and provide dramatic, transformative changes in the way you see yourself. She mapped out a path to leadership that begins with self-understanding from an organic viewpoint. She declared, “When you learn to think more like a horse, you develop your instinctive imagination and create new possibilities for your life. And rather than focusing on what is wrong with you, shift your attention towards what you’re naturally good at. On this path, you focus on staying connected to what has meaning and purpose.”

Horse sense is common sense. A horse shows you what you truly need to do to inspire and lead people. It’s about understanding how to inspire people, because a horse cares about how much you care, not about your titles or positions. A horse reacts to you exactly as you present who you are, reflecting your leadership style, and how you’re perceived and received. It considers its rider a partner, and focuses on what it does, acting and reacting with total awareness.

The book Horse Sense: How to Pull Ahead On The Business Track, authored by marketing gurus Al Ries and Jack Trout, helps us pick the right ideas for success. The tandem provides “odds for success,” akin to odds in betting on horses or boxers on each of the listed “Success Horses.” A brief description of each one of them and the “odds” for success are given. “A way to use the authors’ “success horse” list is that when you are looking at an idea, business opportunity, or an investment, you can look at how many of these success horses are present the better odds,” Ries and Trout say.

• Membership in a “buena familia” increases your chances of success. If you are born rich, use the “Family Horse,” and enjoy 3-to-2 odds. With it, doors open easier, more opportunities are put in front of you, experts are available to help you, and positions and investment funds come in abundance. Many members of moneyed clans are proud to utilize the “Family Horse.”  It’s an asset, so leverage it or its worth. Others use their success assets — good physical looks, exceptional athletic talent or acting abilities. Still others harness their intelligence and brilliance or their access to money. If you’re not part of a prominent family you can still get the most out of the “Family Horse” if you are in business with someone who has the credibility, status and power of their family name on their side.

• If you are married to the right person it obviously opens many doors to triumph. Draw on the “Spouse Horse” and secure 2-to-1 odds. History is full of examples of people who married the right person, and that factor became a major contribution to their success. While it may not sit well with other people, Trout and Ries’ message is simple:  “Everybody needs a success horse to ride. It is your second best option in reference to the success horses available.”  The downside, compared to the “Family Horse,” is the possibility of separation. There are many cases where this has happened, but the two people involved usually kept the professional relationship or partnership intact, and continued to do great business.

• Two of the right heads together are much better than one. Employ the “Partnership Horse” and obtain 5-to-2 odds. An equally valuable partner can generate revenue and open doors to opportunities you might not have the time or ability to do.  Good partners trust each other and are objective, which is sometimes tough to be when you are on your own. You may often be a poor evaluator of your own ideas. With enthusiasm, energy and youth on your side, you start strong as a loner and often quickly experience the success you’re looking for. With your hands on the controls and your confidence building in place, you can easily begin to believe you are the “only one” that can do what you do and “that you do it much better than everyone else.” But remember, your basic talent can only grow so much. At some point you will need trusted, equally talented partners to open the doors to many new opportunities, help spread the responsibilities, risks and, yes, the profits, and importantly, help keep your ego in check.

• Alertness for partnership opportunities with others increases probability for victory. Operate with the “Other Person Horse,” and have 3-to-1 odds. A boxing promoter may ride the other-person horse (a talented boxer like Manny Pacquiao) to the top or a boxer may ride the other-person horse (Bob Arum) to the top or bottom. It could also be an exceptional sales manager, top-producing salesperson, marketing genius, software developer or financial wizard that you hire to work in your business.

• You have to be first with a new idea or first with a new twist to the old. That’s how to win with the “Idea Horse,” and spawn 4-to-1 odds. You have to stick your neck out and manage the censure and scorn that come your way. Experts may challenge you or say it won’t work. That’s why your “Idea Horse” must be pioneering, bold, impactful, timeless and simple to produce and launch. It can also combine with the “Other Person Horse” by bringing other people who are also great in idea generation. You also have to be certain others will buy into or sell your concept.

• You can make money while you sleep. The “Product Horse” or “Business Concept Horse,” with 5-to-1 odds, can provide that great value if implemented correctly. If you recognize said product value or business concept and know how to market it, you can achieve real success more than perhaps the inventor, originator or founder of it. Ray Kroc got it big with McDonald’s. The McDonald brothers did not. What is important here is that you have a product, concept, process or business that can be replicated and others can market it, operate it, or expand it without you present.

• Creating publicity with your assets increases your chances for success. The “Publicity Horse,” with 10-to-1 odds, can execute the job. General Schwarzkopf, just after the first Gulf War in Iraq, was booked solid at $90,000 per speech as a public speaker. He was riding the “Publicity Horse.” The majority of people are not independent thinkers. They believe what they read in the newspapers, hear on the radio or see on television or from “other” people and those other people usually get their information from newspapers, TV and radio as well. Big business people leverage the “Publicity Horse”; so do politicians, entertainers, professional athletes, corporate executives and even special interest groups.

• When your hobby becomes your business, you lose the passion and enthusiasm. If you love to eat you can turn this love, passion or hobby into a marketable restaurant, a cookbook, a restaurant guide or TV cooking show. You like to exercise so you choose to be a personal fitness coach or open a health club. When you like to do something, you tend to do it often, and the more frequently you do it, the better you get at doing it. Your confidence builds and eventually, with increased knowledge, you become a specialist. In these instances, the “Hobby Horse,” with 20-to-1 odds, is making you do what you love to do, even if it doesn’t necessarily guarantee you business success. Many of those who loved golf became golf pros and now hardly ever play the sport because they are busy trying to run their businesses — a golf pro shop or golf lessons — and thus, do not have time to play golf.

• You need more than exceptional talent to succeed. You need to be recognized. The “Creative Horse,” with 25-to-1 odds, is a tough horse to ride because creative people get their priorities reversed, believing their expertise, creativity and talent will get them to the top. More than any other horse, it requires external recognition. John Lennon’s aunt told him, “You’ll never make a living playing that guitar.” Paul McCartney failed the audition for the cathedral choir in Liverpool and neither of them would’ve become famous with their talents if Brian Epstein had not recognized, created an image and marketed them. Whether you write, paint, act, sing, dance, or take photos, invest a good portion of your time searching for the outside expert who can certify your creativity. Also look for ways that can make you stand out in a sea of clutter. Think different. Be different.

• “The bigger, the better” as a rule doesn’t guarantee great accomplishment. A big company might not represent much of a future to you, but it does have one major benefit, according to Trout and Ries: it is a great place to get your ticket punched and earn credible credentials, provided it is the “right” big company. When joining an organization, you gain a “Company Horse,” with 50-to-1 odds. As such, it is important to ask what you can do for the company as you ask what this company can do for you. But you can make your way, too, in a smaller company. The key is to join in early with a company with great growth potential and have the chance to be next to the founders and ride the “Other Person Horse” and “Company Horse” to the top.

• Many people are born with common sense and go to school and lose it. The “Education Horse,” carrying 60-to-1 odds, is particularly desirable “out of the starting gate.” In a horse race, getting quickly out of the starting gate is important in your business and career life. And just like working for the right company to get the right credentials, you need to go to a reputable school to make a difference in your earlier years. The “Educational Horse” is there to get you in the race. But a degree by itself won’t make you successful; it is the application of what you’ve picked up from your chosen course and the credentials you build afterwards that will give you your ticket to achievements. Paradoxically, though, many well-educated people spend a business lifetime being frustrated because they see “less educated people than themselves” doing better than them. This frustration catches up with them because they believe their education entitles them to get ahead in the race. That is a myth. It is not true in the real world. Trout and Ries suggest, “Be careful that you don’t lose that precious commodity called common sense. Remember, there are lots of people who are educated beyond their intelligence.”

• Less intelligent people usually know they are less intelligent and they look for others to help them up the ladder. Intelligence quotient (IQ) is a measurement of the intelligence of a person. So why would Trout and Ries only give the “IQ Horse” 75-to-1 odds of success? The people with the highest IQ, based on research done in Canada many years ago, were bartenders and taxicab drivers. The researchers discovered that these workers did the jobs that they did because it gave them continual interaction with people. They could have many varying conversations with many varying types of people, which gave them the stimulation, independence and the feeling that they worked alone even though they were around other people. Trout and Ries posited that the smarter you are, the more you depend upon yourself to get ahead. But it is a long shot to depend only on yourself. And as one college president said to his faculty, “Be nice to your A students because they will come back and be your colleagues, but be exceptionally nice to your B and C students because they will come back and give us a new auditorium and a new science building.” They look for additional “horses to ride” in order to succeed.

• Hard work and a â€œWinning Horse” will get you anything in life. Hard work could be optional but the “Winning Horse,” with 100-to-1 odds, isn’t.  WC Fields once said, “If at first you don’t succeed, try again … and then quit. No use in being a darn fool about it.” There are times you need to change horses. You may be on the wrong horse now, but riding the right one can spell the difference. To put in a good day’s work and give it the best you’ve got is a necessary attribute in every job in every field. At the end of the day you walk away with the internal gratification that you are living within your own integrity and you are contributing your share to your company, organization and country.

To improve their odds of upward mobility, employees in an organization must utilize the “Success Horses.” Marketers, business owners, sales people, entrepreneurs, artists and entertainers, as well as those in political careers and those working within government organizations, can receive great value by utilizing these principles.  As an English proverb goes, “Show me your horse and I will tell you what you are.”

* * *

E-mail bongosorio@yahoo.com and bong_osorio@abs-cbn.com for comments, questions or suggestions. Thank you for communicating.