Each week I release a free video message with tips on creating and maintaining healthy parent/child relationships. I call my weekly video - "You Are Destined For Greatness" because I have full faith that you my friend, were born to be extraordinary!
So sign up, kick back, and get ready to wrangle some wisdom!
Sign up for
You Are Destined For Greatness here
Inspiration for parents. Enter your info below to get a free printable, frameable copy of The Country Code for Stable Parenting.
Print it. Frame it. Live It. Love It.
Live by the Country Code.
It’s time to Thrive!
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this episode of Stable Parenting Podcast (formerly The Horsemanship Journey podcast). My name is Shane Jacob, your host, and I thank you for taking your time to be here with me today. Got a fun subject. I hope you'll get something out of it and enjoy it.
With horses, know, talking about horses and humans, like always with horses, you know, the big challenge is, is, you know, how, how am going to get this horse to do what I want it to do? Right? That's the, that's the challenge we face. How am going to get this big beast that doesn't speak English to do what I want it to do and not hurt me and get where I want it to go? And how can people, humans, men and women accomplish such amazing things on these horses with such what seems to be little or little or no effort?
And, you know, of course, horses, have their own freewill and they just don't naturally do what whatever we want them to do.
Okay. So then how then do we get all this? How do we accomplish all these things? So, great horsemen, they know how to create desire in horses. That's what great horsemen do that, that others don't.
If you look, some people, you look at some horsemen and you see that they constantly consistently have horses and you look at the horse and you're like, wow, that guy always rides horses that are so willing and so easy and so soft, and there's no, there's no conflict. There's no apparent conflict or struggle. It's just, everything seems to be so smooth and cooperative, right? It just looks so nice. Like everything's flowing so peacefully, right?
And then you look at other people and it's like, man, that guy always rides horses that are a problem. Well, as it turns out, it's not always the horse, right? It's how were the riders communicating with the horse that gets the result that, that the deal is.
And so, as a matter of fact, I used to show horse a little bit in reining, which is a discipline or a sport. And in the national reining horse associations rule book, it states that they use the term willfully guided or willingly guided. So they, they judge a horse based on how willingly guided that a horse appears to be in this sport.
So, you know, the, the overall objective of horsemanship is to have this willing participant that we fully trust. And he's on our side and we work together to accomplish the things that we want to do. And it's very smooth and there's no pressure. And we all get along great and do all these cool things. And half the time you watch riders and you're like, I can't even see how they're even queuing or communicating with that horse to do these things because they're so light and so subtle.
So, all this sounds great, but the question is, is how do you get this done? So, my answer is probably going to surprise you quite a bit because I've been in this game for a long time and here's the answer. You love them. You have to love these horses. And that's really what it comes down to in the bottom of my, I that that's it.
You know, the best horsemen that have figured out how to have this amazing bond with horses, they love them. Okay. So how do we, that's the secret, but then how do we implement this love with horses?
Now, I adopted a system that I learned from Rick Steed, who's a very accomplished trainer. He's my friend. He's been on this show before a couple of times. And it's a system, it's a four-part system with communicating with horses. And, and so I want to take a look at that because the goal with horses is to do more or accomplish more with less, with less effort, with less conflict, with less communication, with less pressure, whatever you want to call it.
And so, uh, as a matter of fact, our Cowboy Cuffs, the sponsor of The Horsemanship Journey podcast, Cowboy Cuffs shirts, named a shirt after one of Rick Steed's motto, which is Do Less. Okay. So it's the Do Less shirt, by the way, pro tip of the week. It's a behind the scenes tip of the week. It's a beautiful blue paisley. It's got a men's and women's version, the Do Less. It hasn't even been released, but look for the Do Less Cowboy Cuffs shirt coming from Cowboy Cuffs soon.
Anyway, the Do Less, idea, Rick's idea of Do Less is that a lot of times with horses, we're busy trying to micromanage and do all these things and we're overthinking and we're like doing too many things. Okay? And it confuses and frustrates a lot of times the horse because we're not clear with our communication. We don’t.
And so I adopted just as simple, it's a four part system to kind of to unlock the whole thing, okay? And a lot of times we overcomplicate it.
The other thing, I actually see the opposite a lot of times with parents too. I see both, right? It's either too much, too much, too much, too much, or else it's totally the opposite. It's nothing, right? We're not intentional. We're watching bad behavior. We're accepting it and we're not doing anything about it. So it can be one extreme or the other.
But this four part system, I think if you use this as a tool, it will help you not just in horse training, but in life. So let's just take a little bit closer look at this four-part system. So let's see, so what, let's just begin with how to go about trying to accomplish having this willing participant or this willing partner.
So let's talk about the four-part system.
It's four parts. Number one is ask. Number two is tell. Number three is promise. And number four is enforce. Okay. So what does that mean? Let's take a look exactly what that looks like.
So when I ask a horse, okay, what I'm doing is I'm communicating to the horse. I'm simply asking the horse. I'm making a suggestion. I'm saying, I would prefer if you did this. And so I'm saying, “Will you do this?” And what that looks like is I may lay a rein on his neck.
Okay, that's maybe one or two pounds of pressure. I mean, just touch his range so he feels a rein on the side of his neck. That's one example. I may push against the side with my calf. I may push against his side just a little bit where he feels just the ever so much of change. You know, it's not like a real squeeze. It's just like, I change my body to where he feels a difference and he feels a slight amount of pressure to his side. These are asks, right?
This is like, I would, I'm, when I lay the rein on his neck, I'm asking him to move away from that rein or change directions away from the rein. Okay. So that's the ask.
Now, if the horse, if I get my request, I immediately let off, move the rein off, move the leg off, whichever one I did and mission accomplished. Right? When the horse doesn't know what I'm asking, or if the horse refuses to do so, then I move to part two of the system, which is the next one is to tell.
So how do I tell a horse that I've asked? Okay, so I'm asking, I have my rein on his neck and I'm asking and he's not moving. So what do I do? I lift further towards his ear and I add pressure. I add a small amount of pressure to his bit inside of his mouth, right? Which adds pressure, which is encouraging him to move away from the bit or to move away from my rein.
So this is, this is what it can look like. I can add pressure with my calf. I can bump a little bit, you know. This is when, when, when the horse responds, I let immediately off.
Okay. So I'm to go to the next of the promise.
Okay. At this point, if the horse hasn't responded yet, let's just see. I've asked so far. Okay?
I've told him I'm saying “Hey, I'm asking you to go over here I've asked you now I've told you to go over here and you're still not going.” And at this point I want him to know that his happy place is if he complies and comes with me where I'm asking him to go.
So at this point what I'm gonna do is first of all, I'm not gonna release until he comes my way. It's important that I don't release until he comes my way.
So I may continue, I'm gonna add an increase of another pressure. Now I may lift with two reins and I may increase my pressure on my leg. I may squeeze harder. I'm just basically, I'm increasing the pressure. I may also add a verbal command. So now I have one, two verbal command plus I've increased the thing on my leg. I've got four things, four asks going at the same time in this promise thing because the next piece…
Okay, now the moment that he comes my way and responds, I totally let off and we're done. And we go back to zero because now he's came my way.
The last one is to enforce. Now, if, if we're doing it right, we rarely get to enforce, right? We rarely get to, if we're doing it right, because here's what the deal is. I, if I've given that chance, the horse to digest my communication, time to think it through. Okay?
And if I believe in my heart the best I can that I've clearly communicated my expectation, okay, that I haven't left room for what does this mean? If I believe that I'm being clear, I've given you time to think about it and make a decision and that you continue to say no to me, okay, you continue to refuse what I'm asking you to do, then at this point I have to enforce my consequence. So number four is enforce.
And so that may look like I turn my toe out and I bump him with my spur. It may include, you know, I increase the pressure and tell he actually makes that move Towards what I want him to do till I get the result and then I totally let back off.
Okay, so the, so here's the thing about that. The reason that this system works is because of two, three, and four. Okay, so if I don't get the result when I ask, if I don't tell, my ask becomes irrelevant. Move down the list.
If I don't get a response from tell and I don't move forward to promise, my ask and tell have no value.
And the same goes through throughout the system. It kind of looks like you've seen this with maybe with yourself or with other people with kids and dogs or lots of things in life, right? They start to not have any meaning because there's no consequence. In other words, if you tell your dog to stop barking and he just barks and barks and barks, and eventually you're screaming and yelling and the dog's like, he just, there's no meaning to him. He just barks whenever he wants, regardless of what you're doing, because there's no meaning. Okay. Because there's no consequence. Doesn't, none that, none that matter to him.
So same thing with people. And so that is the summary of a system to make amazing willing participants in horses. Which is okay, fine. Shane, that's hunky dory. Great. You just told me the secret to training horses. How does that help me? Cause I'm not riding any horses today.
So here's the thing. So here's the thing, the exact same system is what I've seen and what I've recommended and what I've used with my coaching that works with families, okay? It works with parents and teens. And it looks a little bit different than what it does with horses, but it's not much, okay?
Let's begin. You want your kid, your teenager, let's say, to do something different, okay? We need to have a change here. Too much time on your screen or I can't deal with you not doing your chores or keeping your bedroom clean or whatever the thing is.
Okay. So the first thing that you're going to do is not jump to four. Is, is the first thing that you're going to do is ask and you're going to ask as if you're talking to a young adult and with the expectation that they're going to come with on your side and they're going to agree to what you're asking them to, because you're just asking them a reasonable thing that you believe that that's something that you need for them to do.
Okay. It's important or you wouldn't ask. Cause if it's too small of a thing, it's like, then you could be doing too much.
What I mean is, if it's not something that really doesn't have value, you can't just let it go. I mean, does this really matter? I mean, does the towel on the floor really matter right now or they won't pick their socks up? Is that a big deal that you really need to go over? Is that something that's just going to be okay to live with?
When it's not okay to live with, then what I'm saying is, is that can be like doing too much. You know, like Rick's motto, Do Less. I mean, some things are probably just need to be okay.
You can't control every single little teeny tiny detail that they do. They're their own human beings. And if it doesn't matter, then maybe it doesn't matter.
If it does matter, then you're going to ask with the expectation that they're going to communicate back to you like a young adult that they are, and you're going to also go into it with the expectation that they're going to agree with you. Because why wouldn't they? Right?
So it's just like it says, it's just a simple ask. Okay?
Now, if they agree and they change the behavior, end of story. You go back to zero to everybody's in their happy place.
If they don't do what they said they would do, or if they disagree to do what you're asking them to, then the next step is to move to the tell. This is an important one. They're all important. There's only four steps, but they're all super important.
Here's number two. The second step is tell. With our families and with our kids what tell looks like is it's an open conversation.
Okay, the big thing here is to be able to be willing to take the time and the effort because what you're gonna do is you're gonna enter into a conversation with them and find out as much as you're gonna ask a lot of questions. You're gonna try to find out what's going on with them. Why didn't they do it? What are they thinking? What are they feeling? What's going on with them?
You're gonna try to accommodate their needs. Okay, I'm saying that they didn't do what you said and so you're going to look at them and try to accommodate their emotional needs. I can't believe I'm saying this but I am. It's important. Okay.
And then you're also going to ask them to consider yours in this thing. You're going to look at this as if they are the young adults that they are and you're going to try to acknowledge, to validate, to give to, to give them the things that they can, to emotionally support them and to consider what's important to them. And you're going to ask them to take a look at your side of this thing. And you're going to have kind of an adult conversation about this thing, okay, with your kids.
And you're going to, and in this, okay, in the end, you're going to try to, you're going to come to an agreement, okay, that is you're going to get them to agree to, to come with you to agree to do the thing that they haven't done.
Okay? You make kind of an agreement, just an agreement at the end of this, okay?
So now, a lot of time, if we've taken the time to listen to our kids, we care about, we've shown that we care about what's going on with them, we've asked them to care about what's going on with us, a lot of the time that can be the end of it.
For me, and for a lot of particularly men, this is an easy one to skip. We just kind of want things done the way we want them done right now. Don't have time to find out what's going on inside your, on your little head. It's not important. It's everything important. Okay. So this is a big step.
It teaches kids so many lessons. It's not just about the compliance about the thing. This is about creating an amazing future adult. Okay. Big deal.
So same thing at the end of this conversation, you've come to your agreement, whatever it took. You've talked it long enough and, and spent enough time that you were both willing to come to an agreement.
Okay, now that you have your agreement, if they comply with the agreement and they follow through with it, if they agree to it and follow through, end of story. Back to your happy place, no further action is necessary, okay?
If they do not, you must go to step three, okay?
Of course, step three is the promise, okay? Step three is promise.
So, step three basically is a warning, okay? You can call it a threat. It's a threat. Okay. That's what the promise is. Okay?
This step is a calm, thought-out conversation that you as a parent are going to have with your team about what has happened or what has not happened after you've had your agreement and once you’ve talked this through. You're going to again, have a bit of a conversation about why didn't this happen? What's going on with you? What can I do?
And then here's the promise. The promise is, is if you don't do this, I just want you to know, I don't want you to be surprised. I want you to know that this is going to be the consequence. And man, I don't want to go there. You know, I don't want to do this. It can, it can be hard on our relationship. I don't want to go there. And so if you'll just, you know, help me out here and help yourself. If you can see to, to do this because you know, I, don't know what to do. I've, I've asked you kindly. I've talked about all the things that were important to you. You've given me agreement, but then you didn't do it. And so now you kind of, you're hurting the trust in this thing. And I just can't go on like this. It's not, I can't have it, right? Because that's, we agreed on this and it's not okay to not follow through with your agreement. And so I'm going to have to do this if you continue to do it.
So this is a warning, okay, or a threat.
Now there needs to be a consequence that matters. Okay.
The same thing with horses. You don't want to get there. Okay. You need to get there, but not very often. Okay? Not very often.
Men, a lot of times, and me included, I have a tendency to jump to four all the time. Right. There's a problem. I'm up for it. Okay. Bad plan.
This does not work and it's not good for the relationship or the long-term development of kids or horses or anything. Okay.
So it's a calm conversation about a consequence, but the consequence does need to be, have an impact. It can't be some week, you know, I'm going to take your phone away for a week or even for a month or whatever. It needs to be that, you know, this is a thing that we're going to end. And so if it comes to that, if you continue to not, you don't follow through with this agreement, if you continue doing what you've been doing, you know, I'm going to take your phone for, you know, I don't know, maybe forever, I don't know, but for a time until you can demonstrate that you can manage it and you can manage your time with it.
The thing of it is, I heard another coach talk about this and talk about discipline one time and he said, he's a great coach, and he said, “How many times did you as a parent, did you look back at your parents and say, ‘You know that consequence you made me? It really turned the difference around. You know that time you grounded me? Man, I really, that grounding really had an impact on me and it changed my life and who I am.’” You know what I'm saying?
Taking my phone away and you know, all the things that parents do to discipline, you know, usually most of the time they don't have great impacts, okay, is the lesson. So we want to reserve those for last case, but we must follow through, okay?
This is another thing. And I have, sometimes women can be, sometimes it can be harder for women, just in my experience, to follow through with these things because it's so hard to see our kids go through these negative consequences.
But if we have a natural consequence of what's happening and we fall through with it and it's for real, we must follow through. Okay, that's big thing. Otherwise, none of the first three steps or anything that we've said has value, we lose credibility as their parents. Things start to deteriorate if we don't have the courage to follow through with what we with our promise.
Okay, so we have to follow through. That's a big thing.
All of this, 1, 2, 3, 4, it's important that every step of this is intentional and it's done with unconditional love. It's not I'm not going to punish you or, “I'm going to enforce this consequence on you.” Like that. It's not coming from that place is not you know, it's not helpful, right?
We need to come from I love you, don't want to go down this road, but if we need to, that's what we're going to do because you're that important to me. It's all coming from a place of love.
So we don't want our words to... It's a bad message to children when we don't follow through.
Horses, you know, here's the thing with horses. Let me tell you this. This is an interesting fact.
When we repeatedly don't follow through, don't follow this system or a similar system with horses, they learn that bad behavior or doing the opposite of what they're asked to do is the way that they get to their happy place.
So we create with horses, people, we create just dangerous horses, spoiled, awful, and you look at the horse and you're like, wow, that's a terrible dangerous horse and he's got all these bad habits. And he was not compliant. They learn that. Okay. They learn that from lack of consequence. Okay?
That's how important this is. And a lot of those horses end up getting euthanized, get hauled off to the slaughter and all kinds of stuff because they're deemed unsafe for human beings because we have, this happens in case after case. It's a reality. Okay. That, that human beings, a lot of times if we're not willing to follow through, and this doesn't have to be a brutal thing. Remember, this is coming from with horses and with people from a place of unconditional love, we're doing it right. But if we don't have the courage to follow through with what we need from them to do for us, then it can have terrible results in horses and people.
So here's a big thing, okay? One of the last things, and that is that. Just look at this.
I have given you today in this conversation, a fairly detailed system of how to train a horse. Okay, it's not everything, but it's kind of the basic system and I've given you some details about it.
And you can tell that, you know, I've worked on training horses for a long period of time and I've spent a ton of time and energy on this.
And so here's my thing, know, as much money as I, excuse me, time, yeah, time money too, but as much time that I've committed in my life training horses, how much time am I committing to implementing good practices into the relationships that I have? And how much are you with your kids? How much am I with my kids? Am I really being intentional and taking the time to go through deliberate steps to make sure, okay, that I'm being intentional and that I'm doing the best that I can?
I'll tell you something, if you've taken your time to be here with me today, you're doing something. You're taking your time and it's going to hopefully yield a good result.
I hope you got a lot of, I hope you got some value out of this conversation today.
The results with horses and people are, to me, are just staggering. And they're for real. They're measurable. It's hard to measure respect and trust, but when you, when you feel like that you've increased the trust with horses and even more so with people, when your trust level increases, when you feel that you have a willing partner on your side, and you're not always gonna have it in everything with all your kids or your horses by that matter, for that matter, from day to day and then thing to thing. But generally overall, if the relationship continues to build trust over the time, and your kids develop into what they can see.
They grow in trust, they grow in respect, they grow in how the world works and that things matter and there are consequences and all of those things and they develop into kids that are happy and well-adjusted adults. It's pretty amazing.
This stuff is real.
This is one of the things that we talk about a lot day today in our Stable Living Coaching. So make sure to follow us if stuff like this interests you on all of our media pages.
You can find out more about improving relationships and families at thehorsemanshipjourney.com. Thank you for taking your time today for being with me. And remember, you cannot fail as long as you Don't Ever Stop Chasin It.
