I spent last Friday attending a business course in London. At the end of any course I always hope I will go away with lots to muse over. I did, this time during the course not just after it!
The theme of the course was Accountability - with lessons taken from The Wizard of Oz .
As a film it is apparently one of the wildest and most infamous productions of any movie ever filmed. Did you know that half of the cast was either injured or nearly died during production?
Despite this reality, when we think of the film most of us reflect on it with fond memories of red shoes, a yellow brick road, munchkins, the Emerald City, Judy garland, and of course Toto the dog.
A potentially bland plot about a little girl "trying to get back home" is spiced up with a gnarly wicked witch and the central characters of ...
Dorothy
a Tin Woodsman
a Tin Woodsman
a Lion
and a Scarecrow
The tin woodsman craves a heart, the lion - courage, the scarecrow wants a brain and of course Dorothy just wants to go back home!
As many horse owners will know the journey these intrepid four took towards the Emerald City (the alleged font of all knowledge) feels similar to the one we take each day as caring horse owners.
When you take on the guardianship of another sentient being, there are days when you have to embrace the true meaning of the Wizard of Oz and...
have the courage to see things differently,
the heart to own the things that are most important to us,
the ability to solve and deal with daily problems that arise,
and
the means to take action.
The mantra of courage, heart, ownership and action trips us up daily be it as we wrestle with should we ride horses, is horse racing cruel, do we have the right trainer, horse management, or diet for our horse? A fellow equine blogger Issy Clarke has recently been capturing her own inner debate about to ride or not in her blog The Spoken Horse.
Back to the Film. Most of the film has a central focus - finding the Emerald City. As everyone likes a successful outcome, the gang find it but then realise it isn't real. Our fab four quickly realise the Wizard is a fake, all smoke and mirrors and their journey looks like it has been for nothing.
Life can feel like that at times. Jobs full of promise that don't manifest, bosses full of empty words, kids that say they will, then don't.... etc. The good news in the film is that the four characters had the very qualities that they desired, all along, hidden within themselves. Their journey, far from being a waste of time, ended up the process through which they revealed important inner qualities and forged lifelong friendships along the way.
For many of us, horses are part of our learning and journey towards such personal growth and discovery whether we see it or not. They are our friends and teachers not just stable companions. As Issy says in her most recent blog "they open up windows and doors" of experience and awareness that in turn reveals more about ourselves so we can find our true nature and get in step with the nature of the horse.
Here is another equine writer and friend who is exploring amongst other things, how horses bring out our true colours and nature, in his blog The Mindful Horse.
I have found that horses help us find new depths and hidden truths about our character, and as if by magic they can lead us down the path of new friendships, (two and four legged kind), that last a lifetime!
The Wizard of Oz has other meaningful lessons for us to learn about in the quest of being accountable for the well being of our selves and our horses. The central characters are full of reasons why they can't.... why they lack courage, heart, intelligence or continue to be lost! The truth however, is that when we stop working on finding a solution - we lack true 'accountability' and end up with nothing more than a host of excuses!
One way out of this trap is to wake up and consciously begin our own journey down the yellow brick road. We can find more of ourselves when we pursue the Emerald City and Wizard within.
Sometimes, we don't know where to start or how to search, or what to look for. The answer to where lies within; the answer to how and what is in our behaviour.
Our behaviour becomes our own pair of red shoes waiting to take us home if only we knew to click our heels!
On the journey towards accountability (versus excuses) our power lies in cultivating the following behaviours (source: Partners in Leadership).
How would you score against each of these key behaviours, today?:
- You seek the perspectives and ideas of others?
- You are open and candid in your communication?
- You ask for and offer feedback?
- You hear the 'hard things' so you can see the reality of a situation?
- You are personally invested (have passion)?
- You learn from successes and failures?
- You act on any feedback you receive?
- You constantly ask 'what else can I do?'
- You creatively deal with obstacles?
- You take necessary risks?
- You do what you say you'll do?
- You don't blame others?
Frequent readers of this blog will know I like to come up with generalisations such as "there are 2 types of horse people"... well, today, there are 4 kinds:
those people who make things happen
those who watch it happen
those who wonder what happened
those that never knew something happened at all
If we want to "find our way back home" like Dorothy, it begins with personal introspection - lots of it. The questions above can act as a self navigating compass to keep us on track to find our inner Wizard. Our horses will often be the ones to bring to us the most useful of life's lessons through experience. To experience life is the only way to reveal more about our strengths and areas of growth.
Given that at the start of this post I mentioned the high 'incident and near death rate' associated with the filming of the Wizard of Oz, we might sometimes ask ourselves if the risks outweigh the benefits of 'finding ourselves'?
I think the answer has to be yes.
A film like this survives the decades. Similarly once we learn important lessons be that accountability or any other, it stays with us for life, maybe even lifetimes! I like to think of our personal growth as comparable with us reaping in later lifetimes what we sow in this one.
So, once we really know ourselves, its the equivalent of Dorothy finding her way 'back home' and that has to be a good feeling for us and for everyone in our circle of influence fury or human!
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