Wisdom

So I have recently finished reading Mark Rashid's book Life Lessons From A Ranch Horse which describes how much the author, a brilliant horse trainer, learned from a remarkably talented horse. It is an amazing book and I would recommend it to anyone, but as I don't expect you to read it, I'm going to try and convey a little bit of the point here because like many classic books from different genres it offers is a way of looking at things that you can apply to every side of your life and benefit from.

What Mark observed Buck, the horse, doing in ever aspect of his life was observing six simple rules, which I'm going to list with a few of my own thoughts:

Carry a non-confrontational attitude.

Nothing ever gets resolved through confrontation- no matter who wins an argument no-one's mind is changed. No matter how hard you run at a tree, you won't break through it- it's easier to go round it. Many problems can be circumnavigated in the same way.

Plan ahead

I'm pretty sure that being prepared is the important part of success in the majority of activities. Always have a plan (and ask yourself "is this the best way to achieve my goal?") but don't rely on it's success. Things don't always work out like you expect.

Be patient

Although I was sort of aware that hurrying always seems to slow things down, and that no-one's best work was ever done in a hurry, it wasn't until I started spending a lot of time around horses I became consciously aware of the value of patience because around them there is simply no point hurrying anything. Whatever you are trying to do will take as long as it takes. Being deliberately patient has made me a much happier and safer driver.

Be persistent

This sort of falls in with it's neighbours- patience and consistence only make sense if you're going to keep working.

Be consistent

You've probably heard stories of the nightmare manager who asks for one thing one day and something else the next until none of the people who work around them know what to expect. If people (or animals, for that matter) know what to expect from you they will feel safer around you and be more prepared to work with you, avoiding confrontation and making everyone's lives easier.

Fix a setback and move on

Things go wrong. There is no point getting emotional about it because there is nothing you can do about it. Even the best of forward planning can't prepare you for everything so be prepared to fix setbacks when they happen and get on with things. Don't allow yourself to be thrown by them- you can't control the world around you but you can control your own actions and you have as much of a place in the world around you as anyone else does.

It's a very simple set of guidelines- in fact they have partly served to crystallise thoughts I was having already - but if you can learn to combine and make the most of them, it seems to me that they offer a way to help solve a lot of the problems that life throws up. I try to use the same principles in programming, driving and in my daily dealings with people and horses. I realise that maybe this is obvious stuff- I think a lot of the most important things are obvious, when you notice them, but sometimes the obvious things are the ones that you don't notice at all because you don't know you are looking for them.

The other lesson that runs through the whole book is the value of humility and of being prepared to learn from the people who want to teach you, no matter who they are or how furry their ears.