Hello, my name is Jay Billips, and welcome to my show.
Today's show features my interview with third-generation horseman and student of leadership, Mike Lennards.
Mike Lennards is the owner and operator of Personal Horsepower.
Before we hear from Mike, we'll do the segment, what am I reading?
And after Mike's interview, we'll do the segment, explain yourself.
We're all familiar with that term, think outside of the box, right?
But really, what does it even mean?
So in most cases, the box is a set of rules, requirements, or restraints that you have to work within.
So you're operating environment.
When we're trying to brainstorm or come up with new ideas, these requirements are always on our minds.
So either consciously or subconsciously, we're applying them to the new thoughts that come up.
So if you think about it, how can you have new thoughts, look at things at a new perspective when you're thinking about restrictions and requirements?
You know, it's possible, but I don't think you're going to get the best ideas you possibly can if you're concerned about those restrictions and requirements, about those parameters.
So what's the best way to get around this?
Well, quite simply, don't think about the box.
Don't think about the restrictions as you're going through a brainstorming process.
That allows you to look at the problem from a new perspective.
In the end, when you come up with a solution or come up with some ideas, you may have to squeeze those things within the parameters and within those restrictions.
But thinking outside of that box, thinking without those restrictions in mind, gives you the freedom to look at things in a new perspective.
The next time someone says, think outside the box, don't think about the box.
And now for our segment, what am I reading?
I'm reading Food for the Journey by Jill Davis.
Food for the Journey, Stop Fighting Your Weight, Start Finding Your Way is a great book by Jill Davis.
And the premise of the book is that diets don't work.
I know, I think deep down inside, we all know that.
But she provides an alternative to yo-yo dieting.
It basically comes down to listening to your body, eating when you're hungry and stopping when you're full.
That sounds easy, but I think we have forgotten what hungry and full feels like.
Jill gives some fantastic advice and charts, which I love, to help you learn how to listen to your body again.
You learn that there is no such thing as good food and bad food.
Jill gives us some great advice of her own personal journey and how to appreciate our bodies and how to start having a healthy relationship with ourselves again.
You may find Jill's book, Food for the Journey on Amazon.com.
If you want to learn more about Jill, go to her website, JillDavisCoaching.com.
And now for my interview with Mike Lennards.
Mike Lennards is the owner and operator of Personal Horsepower.
Mike, as well as all my guests, discusses his passion and how he incorporates that into what he does.
Listen closely to discover Mike's creative process.
I'll give you a great example of how you can apply your passion to solve a problem or an issue that you face.
Mike Lennards from Personal Horsepower.
Personal Horsepower is a company that focuses on leadership and communications, training and consulting.
I get to use my passion for horses.
I'm a third generation horseman with my passion for leadership.
I've been a student of leadership my whole life.
When I got my degree in history, I was also commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Air Force.
I spent 26 years in the Air Force.
I had a great time.
They allowed me to command twice.
They selected me for promotion six different times.
I retired at the rank of colonel and loved every minute of it.
Did not prepare myself mentally for the transition into corporate America, a profit-oriented job.
And believe me, I have nothing against profits because my company is for profit.
But not at the expense of the people.
And that's what I saw in corporate America, a real lack of leadership and communications.
I'm a third generation horseman, so I went into horse training.
I did it during college and I was quite comfortable doing it.
And one day I got this 1100 pound animal to do what I wanted to do by effectively communicating my leadership.
And without compromising its dignity or my integrity.
Gee, it's too bad the vice president from business development, from company X,
didn't get to see what I just did with this horse.
And I thought, that was kind of the epiphany.
Maybe I should take this on the road.
Maybe I should start a leadership development kind of business.
And so that's how personal horse power was born.
What makes this unique is I use a horse to demonstrate these key leadership and communications concepts.
So the big question is why do I use a horse?
We have a lot of things in common with horses, humans and horses.
We both have leaders, we both have followers.
We have a similar communication system in that ours is verbal and nonverbal, theirs is audible and nonaudible.
So for horse winnings, obviously that's audible.
But on horse pins, it's ears back.
It's trying to communicate some level of frustration.
And if you don't want to address that frustration, it will up the communications.
And I can tell you right now, you don't want to be on the receiving end of that.
Eye contact and body language is very important.
Most strikingly, we are left brain and right brain.
And the left and right match up almost perfectly.
And we're both very social.
When I take one of my horses out to take it to a vet or on a trail rider or something like that,
the other two are running up and down the fence line, breaking a sweat in 10 degree weather.
And they're winning like crazy.
And I know they're saying, hey, where are you taking my best friend?
And when are you going to bring her back?
And how come I can't go?
In the seminar, everyone is in designated seating.
I'm in a 40 foot round pin.
I have a mic on.
I narrate everything I'm doing and why I'm doing it.
Because I'm the third generation horseman, not my audience.
And when I finish that task, I come back to my audience and I relate that to the human dynamics of leadership.
For example, I start out on the leadership block and the first thing I talk about is one's integrity.
That horse will challenge my integrity all the time because it wants to assume the leadership role.
So I retain the role of the leadership and I make sure that I do that without compromising its dignity or my integrity.
And so I hold them to a task. If I ask them to back up, I want them to back up and I want their response to be relatively quick.
I don't want them to sit there and think about, well, maybe I'll light up a cigarette and think about backing up.
Maybe I won't back up because maybe I won't feel like it.
Maybe I'm just going to be lazy all day.
It doesn't work that way. They got to respond quickly or at least have a good responsive attitude.
I cover what I call the four pillars of personal horsepower, leadership, communications, mentoring and fellowship.
And as a parent, by the way, you are by default the leader.
You don't let your kids be the leaders of the household because when that happens, chaos breaks out.
And guess what? Leaders, you're going to make some tough decisions.
Get ready to hear those three infamous words from your kids.
I hate you. It's not going to be, I love you because they're not going to love every decision you make.
But guess what? As a leader, get ready to be unpopular.
But good leaders realize that leadership is not a popularity contest.
You are there to make good decisions for the family.
Whatever relationship you're in, be it professional or personal, you got to be a good communicator. You should be a good leader.
So how can we apply these techniques to the holidays?
When families get together or friends get together or neighbors get together, there can be some existing friction.
And you can manage that. You can do it with the left side of your brain or the right side of your brain.
The left side of brain is the logical side.
That's how we process data, information and communications in a logical manner.
The right side of our brain is kind of too prompt.
And I don't want you to think the right side is bad because we get a lot of good things from the right side of our brain.
We get our creativity, our athletic and motor skills, our emotions like love, happiness, and joy, anger, frustration,
aggravation, and you can feel the blood pressure rising.
As someone is calling you out for preps, lying, or maybe they're just criticizing the position you're trying to defend,
you can feel the blood pressure rise, you can feel the adrenaline flowing at the speed of light,
and you just want to lash out and defend your good name.
What I would recommend in that situation, instead of using the right side of your brain,
is to tell yourself either silently or out loud, and I've used both.
I need to switch to the left side of my brain and handle this situation logically so that I remain controlled and calm.
And if you can do that, you're going to come off smelling like roses.
Go to my website, PersonalHorsePower.com, and on the website is a direct email link on every page.
So if they want to email me, it's Mike at PersonalHorsePower, otherwise just go to the website.
Thanks, Mike, for sharing. Your passion is clear, and I love how you incorporated your experience with leadership
and horse training to solve an issue and to address a problem that you see.
Mike's next seminar is a parenting seminar on February 26th. It's a Sunday from 1.30 to 5.30.
If you want to learn more about this seminar, contact Mike through his website.
So use Mike's example and think how you can use your passions and your experience to help yourself and to help others.
And now for the last segment, explain yourself.
Well, in this segment of Explain Yourself, I want to go over why I started the magazine in the first place.
So the magazine, the radio, the video, they all kind of follow that same mission,
and the mission overall is to expand the appreciation for creativity in all forms.
You all know how important I think creativity is.
So showing creativity in these different forms helps people realize that we are all creative beings.
The magazine came about because I wanted to provide a platform for businesses, artists, educators, and so forth
so they can share their stories and inspire and motivate other people.
So when I started doing a magazine, did I have any idea what I was doing? No.
Did I have any experience creating a magazine? No, not really.
It was just something I wanted to do. I had an initial idea and I just figured it out as I went along.
As you can see with anything that I do, I dive into it.
I don't know all the facts. I don't know all the requirements necessarily.
I don't even sometimes even know what I'm doing, but I figured out as I go along.
So even if you watch this video, I know we'll go back and look at episode one and I will laugh and see how bad that episode was.
However, you just kind of dive into it and keep going and you'll improve as you go along.
There is no better way to do it than to do it.
So there's something that you want to do. Don't wait and get to it.
Alright, so thank you for tuning in. I'm going to leave it right there.
I'll see you around next week.
Maybe for luck, you'll talk about why I wear a hat all the time. There is a reason.
Aside from the fact that it looks good on me, but there is a reason. Cheers.
