Transcript
Speaker: Welcome back to the Optimal Equestrian Podcast.
Speaker: This is a podcast where I dive into how to optimize ourselves, our horses, and our businesses.
Speaker: Today's episode is number 14, and we're going to be talking all about how to handle discourse, not only online, but if you're having an in-person argument or discussion about how maybe your horse is handled or trained or their living environment, there's a shift going on in the equestrian industry.
Speaker: I'm sure everybody kind of feels it.
Speaker: Everyone's kind of talked about it.
Speaker: but I feel like the industry is in a hole, just starting to embrace horsemanship.
Speaker: We're understanding how our horses can communicate better.
Speaker: We're noticing and paying attention to their pain signs.
Speaker: And all of that is backed by science.
Speaker: The industry is starting to hold top riders accountable for questionable training practices that have been brought out from whistleblowers and the
Speaker: things that are happening behind barn doors.
Speaker: The top regulating bodies are in turn disciplining those riders for those behaviors.
Speaker: They're changing rules on equipment that's allowed at shows to allow more kind tack and possibly removing harmful ones or harmful practices.
Speaker: They're tightening up on what is allowed in the warm-up ring.
Speaker: All sorts of things are changing and it's all for the better and especially for the horse.
Speaker: But no matter what your beliefs are, there's going to be extremes on both sides of the coin on each one of those aspects of horse handling, training, care, all these sorts of things.
Speaker: There's going to be people who question if we should even be riding horses, or there's going to be those on the opposite who want to push the athletic ability of horses, ask more of them.
Speaker: Some people will spend endless amounts of money on animal communicators and Reiki and acupuncture, red light,
Speaker: And then there's the other ones who don't believe any of that stuff works.
Speaker: Just treat them like a horse and ride them like we always have.
Speaker: There's horses who live in extravagant stables with chandeliers and they never get turned out with other horses.
Speaker: And then there's the horses who live on hundreds of acres and huge herds and maybe see a person once a day.
Speaker: Yet all of us are bonded by the love of horses.
Speaker: We've all been drawn or called to them and you can't stop us from pursuing the sequestering lifestyle.
Speaker: For a lot of us, it's our therapy, our quiet time, a time to recharge our batteries and pour out the love that we have to our horses.
Speaker: But once we leave the barn, maybe you head to social media, you want to share your day with your horse or a video of your show or your ride.
Speaker: We go on social media and we follow our role models, our teachers.
Speaker: We follow brands of equestrian apparel and other horse girls who have commonalities with us.
Speaker: Most of us use it as a way to kill time and share memories.
Speaker: But maybe you share those memories and then a few hours after you post, you get a notification of comments and you're being picked apart for your position or that your horse looks lame or you're doing something wrong.
Speaker: Some people will pile on in the comments and others will come to your defense.
Speaker: Either way, it's a complete battle.
Speaker: But it doesn't matter if you're an adult amateur, a pro, maybe you're a equestrian brand.
Speaker: It's happened in every single space.
Speaker: And this isn't unique to the equine industry.
Speaker: It's happening all over social media, in our personal lives, and every industry that you can think of.
Speaker: But our industry is already full of different opinions, tactics, methods, ideologies, and the amount of information that you need just to enter the equestrian world is already overwhelming.
Speaker: And then if you add on the social media pressure, it can just be debilitating and will make you question if you should ever post that ride or that video or share your show results.
Speaker: But social media is here to stay, and there's some ups and downs to it.
Speaker: It allows everyone to have a voice and comment their opinions, experiences, beliefs.
Speaker: There's hate that's spewed, but there's also a lot of love and support given.
Speaker: And I hope our industry does give a lot of that too.
Speaker: I think it does in certain areas.
Speaker: And there's also a lot of hate spewed, especially if you think of like,
Speaker: the weight and body positivity part of it.
Speaker: But I wanted to make this episode as a way of starting to have this conversation on how to navigate the change in industry.
Speaker: There are a lot of eyeballs on it and it's only going to get exploited more and more.
Speaker: And so we need to be able to handle it correctly.
Speaker: If we handle it incorrectly, we will only divide the industry further away from each other.
Speaker: We'll ostracize ourselves from the rest of society.
Speaker: And ostracized maybe other equestrians and they don't feel like they belong in the industry anymore.
Speaker: Some equestrians may quit altogether and then a lot of newcomers will never want to join.
Speaker: Like who wants to join a industry that just picks you apart and requires you to have all this knowledge and then still tells you that you're doing it wrong.
Speaker: But we can also handle it in a positive way where it brings us all together.
Speaker: We can find common ground.
Speaker: We can learn something new.
Speaker: Maybe we have discussions where we actually develop new and better ways to train our horses or care for our horses or the land or feed them anything.
Speaker: Maybe we can help dictate and change the competition rules so that everyone feels comfortable and welcome.
Speaker: Or maybe we build a bigger equestrian industry as a whole.
Speaker: And most of all, maybe our horses will benefit.
Speaker: So this episode isn't just for social media, though.
Speaker: That is a big part in where a lot of discourse happens because people feel emboldened behind a computer.
Speaker: But it's also for those bond conversations or talks with your trainer.
Speaker: Anywhere that disagreement and questioning comes to play.
Speaker: And th is is just going to be the beginning of a conversation on how to handle the ever-growing discourse in our industry and our lives as a whole.
Speaker: Believe me, I'm a millennial and I do not want to have discourse with anyone in person ever.
Speaker: I would much rather just text a problem, not have to deal with that at all would be ideal.
Speaker: But this is a really important thing that we need to get comfortable talking to each other again.
Speaker: And even if you are just doing it through a text or something, it would probably be better in person.
Speaker: We'll go over that a little bit more later on.
Speaker: But
Speaker: Having healthy discourse is only going to help move us together and forward as a whole.
Speaker: And so we really need to get comfortable with that uncomfortable feeling.
Speaker: And I've personally been pushing myself a lot more in the past few weeks, just kind of trying to find situations where I can put myself in an uncomfortable situation where I'm just telling people
Speaker: Maybe a person about how I disagree and how I think that things could be done better, but in a respectful, kind way that is actually productive and not hurting anyone's feelings.
Speaker: And it's crazy how easy it is and productive it can be.
Speaker: So there are a few books that I took some notes from for this episode.
Speaker: Two of them.
Speaker: So one of them is How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.
Speaker: And the other one is Super Communicators by Charles Duhigg.
Speaker: So highly, highly recommend both of those.
Speaker: I'm going to just kind of go over the bullet points on how they communicate being able to handle this kind of discourse situations.
Speaker: And I, after doing all this kind of research, I just kind of believe that positively healing this discourse is a balancing act between communicating properly, not offending the other person and having them like and respect you.
Speaker: So those are the three main topics that I'm going to go over and figure out how we do this.
Speaker: So the first one, how do we communicate properly?
Speaker: So in the super communicators book, Charles describes super communicators as tending to ask 10 to 20 times more questions than other people.
Speaker: They break awkward silences with a new topic or joke.
Speaker: They repeat others ideas and encourage or compliment them.
Speaker: They laugh at others jokes.
Speaker: They aren't the most talkative or the clever, most clever, but when they do talk, others listen.
Speaker: They adjust how they communicate in order to match their companions.
Speaker: So a serious conversation versus a joking one, they're going to mirror the other person's style.
Speaker: And finally, they change their mind and allow themselves to go with the group.
Speaker: That one we're not going to talk a lot about because that's not really discourse, but that is always an option.
Speaker: You can listen to the group, see what they think.
Speaker: Maybe you believe in it.
Speaker: Maybe it's just easier to go with it because there's no harm done.
Speaker: But let's say that you do disagree with someone.
Speaker: So first things first, you need to be open to discussion.
Speaker: Never, ever be married to your ideas, your training methods, specific tack and whatnot, because it's always evolving, changing.
Speaker: So be open and then ask questions.
Speaker: You need to really truly understand what their beliefs are, how they got to those beliefs, why like their experiences, where they learned it from anything and everything you can to fully understand.
Speaker: their beliefs.
Speaker: But to do this, you have to listen, which is a hard skill to actually master.
Speaker: It's very easy to say that you're a good listener, but most people are thinking about what they're going to say next while the person's talking or they're interrupting to make a point.
Speaker: But instead you need to just listen, pay attention to what they're saying.
Speaker: And then when it's your turn to speak, ask more questions, stop trying to just defend or argue.
Speaker: Just keep asking questions, trying to fully understand them without your own ideas or prejudices muddling up the conversation.
Speaker: Then once you do understand, you can start to make educated decisions on if they're correct, some downfalls that they may not be seeing, or maybe there's a path that combines both of your ideas, like a middle ground and a way to solve it that way.
Speaker: It's this is even more difficult, but if you can ask questions that actually leads them to your way of thinking, that's like an elite level of communication.
Speaker: But most people have more faith in ideas that they actually discovered than ones that are just handed to them on a silver platter.
Speaker: So if you let them feel like the idea was theirs, they're going to be a lot more willing to change most likely.
Speaker: So let's take an example.
Speaker: Say one person thinks that you should use side reins and the other person does not.
Speaker: So you guys could start a conversation asking how closely do the side reins mimic the reins of a rider?
Speaker: Do they release like the rider would?
Speaker: Is there a benefit in the rider's rein being mobile versus the static of the side reins?
Speaker: Does the side rein cause more tension in the horse than the rider reins would?
Speaker: And on and on and on.
Speaker: You can go on like that.
Speaker: But you're just kind of asking questions to one, understand and to maybe let them see your point of view a little bit too.
Speaker: So to be a super communicator, you need to listen closely to what is said and unsaid.
Speaker: And this is
Speaker: If you're in person, you really need to pay attention to their body language, facial expressions, their tone, or maybe they're asking questions that end at a desire for a deeper conversation.
Speaker: I remember one time there was this trainer who was doing a little questionable tactic that she thought was right.
Speaker: And afterwards, the barn owner came up to me and was like, oh, when she was lunging him, though, like, that seemed a little too much.
Speaker: And I didn't really bite.
Speaker: I was really uncomfortable with confrontation at that point.
Speaker: But now I wish I would have been like,
Speaker: Yeah, you know, like that isn't right.
Speaker: And maybe we should talk about this and figure out how we can better train and let the trainer know that that wasn't acceptable.
Speaker: But that person was really hinting to me that they wanted to have a deeper conversation.
Speaker: And unfortunately, I didn't give that to them.
Speaker: But you can ask, make sure you're asking the right questions.
Speaker: Maybe you're asking questions that encourage, like naming an emotion.
Speaker: If you're saying like, well, how did that make you feel?
Speaker: Or how do you think your horse would feel about that?
Speaker: So like naming an emotion really helps with that desire for that deeper conversation and helps you dive deeper and gain more understanding from the other person.
Speaker: So another thing you can do is recognize and match others moods and make your own feelings easy for others to perceive.
Speaker: So people are going to know when you're being genuine or not and outright expressing that like, Oh, I feel really sorry for you about that.
Speaker: Or yeah, I know that that probably does hurt.
Speaker: Like that will go a long way, but you have to be genuine in it because they're going to know if you're not, and it's just going to come off as fake and
Speaker: They're not going to want to keep having conversation with you or dive deeper into things with you.
Speaker: But like I said earlier, matching their moods, matching their body language, what the conversation's about, all that kind of stuff is really important to notice and will just help them feel seen and heard a lot better.
Speaker: And that's called the matching principle of
Speaker: which Charles talks about in the super communicators book that effective communication requires recognizing what kind of conversation is occurring and then matching the other person on that.
Speaker: So on a very basic level, he says there's three types of conversations, emotional decision-making or like social implications.
Speaker: So if you're in an emotional conversation, you need to allow yourself to become emotional as well.
Speaker: If you're,
Speaker: someone is intent on making a decision, you need to match the focus of that conversation and help them make a decision.
Speaker: If they're maybe preoccupied with social implications, reflect that fixation back on them.
Speaker: So say like, yeah, I know that it would seem this way if someone saw that, or it probably makes you feel this way.
Speaker: That like that they're attacking you or something like that.
Speaker: Just recognize and repeat back to them what their worries are.
Speaker: Another tactic you can use is called looping.
Speaker: And this is where you're listening and repeating their feelings back to them.
Speaker: So oftentimes arguments are often just a battle of both people wanting control over the other.
Speaker: And so if you use this looping technique, it gives the other person a sense of control over their conversation.
Speaker: I also just think it makes them feel heard and seen as well.
Speaker: So just say, oh, okay.
Speaker: So after they talk, say, I hear that you are feeling this way because of that, that sort of thing that's looping.
Speaker: And whenever you're in an argument, it's really important that if you feel emotions rising, that you take a step back, take a breath, wait for those emotions to recede before you ever continue the conversation.
Speaker: And I think that's where a lot of conversations get out of control, whether that's online or in person, either way.
Speaker: is you're just, you're feeling attacked and you feel like you need to attack, attack that person back.
Speaker: And I just don't think that that's ever the right thing to do or healthiest thing to do emotionally, like for your own wellbeing.
Speaker: At the end of the day, I just always think like, I want to be proud of my own decisions and how I handled a situation.
Speaker: So when emotions are involved, I usually am not making the best decisions or saying the right things.
Speaker: And so you really need to just recognize when those emotions pop up, let them recede and don't say anything that you're going to regret during that time.
Speaker: In Super Communicators, Charles says that if you're in a conflict with someone, you're going to acknowledge their thoughts and feelings like we just talked about.
Speaker: That's the looping method.
Speaker: You're going to find points where you both agree.
Speaker: So find that middle ground, something that you can agree on.
Speaker: Maybe there's a middle path that you guys can take.
Speaker: But finding commonalities is going to be the beginning of a conversation.
Speaker: And then you can start arguing the nuances off of that.
Speaker: But having something where you both agree is a really good place to start.
Speaker: And then he also says not to make any sweeping or broad statements.
Speaker: Everyone's heard these like you never help out around the house.
Speaker: That's a sweeping broad statement is obviously not true.
Speaker: And we'll get kind of into that in the next section, but that's just going to offend the other person and put them on the defense immediately.
Speaker: He also says when you're arguing online that you need to overemphasize politeness because the tone and nonverbal cues are not available.
Speaker: So you have to clearly write out your niceties.
Speaker: And you've seen, I've seen people who do this really well online and it does make a huge difference in kind of calming everyone down, simmering the, the blaming and name calling and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker: So if you're just,
Speaker: overly polite, tell them what your intent is and your feelings.
Speaker: You have to actually write it out because it's not available for them to pick up on.
Speaker: You also need to under emphasize sarcasm.
Speaker: Sarcasm doesn't usually come across because there's no tone and stuff.
Speaker: So it can sound just really harsh when you are actually just trying to make light of the situation.
Speaker: So just err on the side of caution when it comes to sarcasm.
Speaker: He also says you need to express more gratitudes, apologies, deferences, and hedges.
Speaker: Again, same thing.
Speaker: You need to actually write out feelings and
Speaker: Like thank yous, nicest tees, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker: He also says avoid criticism in public forums.
Speaker: We'll kind of hit this on the next one too.
Speaker: But it causes both sides to be negative and criticize, which then normalizes that behavior online.
Speaker: And it's just going to cause more and more of that to happen in the future in your own comments, that kind of stuff.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: his little tips tips on arguing online.
Speaker: Now let's get on to not offending the other party.
Speaker: So this was a lot of this was taken from the book, how to win friends and influence people.
Speaker: I have thought about this book, I think, every day since I've read it, so I highly, highly recommend it.
Speaker: But the first thing he says is never, ever criticize.
Speaker: He says, it's foolish to scold.
Speaker: Criticism is futile because it puts people on the defensive and usually makes them strive to justify themselves.
Speaker: Criticism is dangerous because it wounds a person's precious pride, hurts her sense of importance, and arouses resentment without correcting the situation.
Speaker: And I guess I've always known that, that you probably shouldn't do that.
Speaker: But once he said it like that, that it arouses resentment, I was like, oh, yeah, it does.
Speaker: You kind of never get that out of your head.
Speaker: If one person criticizes you, you're always going to have that like negative connotation when it comes to them.
Speaker: And the situation is not going to be corrected also.
Speaker: Like it just absolutely does nothing.
Speaker: We all know that humans and animals learn more rapidly with positive reinforcement than negative reinforcement.
Speaker: This is a big thing in the equine industry.
Speaker: So we all know that.
Speaker: But when you criticize someone, that is a negative reinforcement and it will not make lasting changes that
Speaker: And you're going to get that resentment with it.
Speaker: In Dale Carnegie's book, he talks a little bit about, he tells his stories about Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain.
Speaker: I guess they were notorious for writing like mean and criticizing letters to people.
Speaker: And Abraham Lincoln's wife would go and grab them out of the mailbox before they could go out so that they never actually got sent.
Speaker: So Lincoln thought he was sending them and they never actually made it to him.
Speaker: So he says, if you feel the need that you need to write something mean and nasty, write it out.
Speaker: I mean, these days we could write it in your notes app.
Speaker: You don't have to actually write it out.
Speaker: But
Speaker: Write out your frustrations, but don't ever send it to them or let it see the light of day like that would just be the worst.
Speaker: And I would say write out when you're emotional and then go back to it once those emotions has passed.
Speaker: And maybe you can find a constructive way to say it without all the mean parts in it.
Speaker: And figure out how you can get the other person to either see your side or come up with a solution that helps both of you.
Speaker: So instead of criticizing, you need to try to see their perspective.
Speaker: So this goes back to the asking questions.
Speaker: And just remember that all humans are creatures of emotion.
Speaker: We all have prejudices and we're all motivated by pride and vanity and our egos.
Speaker: And you have to figure out why does that other person do what they do?
Speaker: Like, where do they come from?
Speaker: How do they get to this?
Speaker: Who influenced them or taught them that?
Speaker: So if you begin starting with those questions in your own head, it's just going to breed a lot more sympathy, tolerance, and kindness to the other person.
Speaker: And you don't necessarily have to say that out loud, but ask questions on how you can answer those in your own head.
Speaker: Just know that they all have different upbringings in you.
Speaker: and different ways and reasons that they got there.
Speaker: No one's trying to be malicious or do bad by their horse or train them incorrectly.
Speaker: Everyone's trying to do the best.
Speaker: And we just have to figure out where that commonality is and how we can all grow from this and do better for our horses.
Speaker: A quote that I love from his book, he says, any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain, and most fools do.
Speaker: It takes character and self-control to understand and forgive.
Speaker: And that's not a strong statement.
Speaker: I don't know what is.
Speaker: I mean...
Speaker: I'm certainly guilty of criticizing, condemning and complaining a lot.
Speaker: And it has taken a lot of self-control to stop that.
Speaker: And it's still a work in progress.
Speaker: And I have weeks and months that I do great.
Speaker: And then I regress again and I have to remind myself again and again and again.
Speaker: Along with not criticizing, you also don't want to just flat out tell someone that they're wrong.
Speaker: Instead, say something like, I may be wrong, let's look at the facts, or I'm frequently wrong, this is what I think, etc.
Speaker: That will just stop all the arguments and inspire your opponent to maybe be just as fair and open and broad-minded as you are being, and it will
Speaker: also make them want to admit that they also are wrong sometimes and they may not always have the facts correct.
Speaker: Remember the saying, you will catch more flies with honey than with fig vinegar.
Speaker: And just make sure you're starting out on a positive note.
Speaker: Compliments and appreciation goes a long way.
Speaker: And that will just help soften them and
Speaker: That will possibly lead them to seeing your side and they're just in general going to be more agreeable.
Speaker: Conversely, though, if you are wrong, you need to admit it quickly and empathetically.
Speaker: That will make you just a much bigger person and again, show them that they can also do the same when they're wrong.
Speaker: Final point I want to hit in this section is the one sure way that you can alienate or anger someone in a conversation is to make those sweeping judgments or assumptions or putting them in a group.
Speaker: We kind of touched on this earlier.
Speaker: There's a lot of these stereotypes in the equestrian world.
Speaker: So there, I'm a dressage rider and there's the dressage queen stereotype, or maybe you're a trail rider and you say, well, I'm just a trail rider, but that doesn't mean that anything you do is less important than the hunter jumpers who are going to shows every weekend.
Speaker: And those are all identity threats.
Speaker: And if, like, I don't associate with the dressage queen stereotype.
Speaker: So if you call me that, I would immediately find, try to find a way to escape or fight back from that because
Speaker: If it has a negative connotation, I don't want to be associated with that.
Speaker: And so you're automatically putting them on that back foot.
Speaker: And it's just not a great place to start a conversation.
Speaker: I think if you go back to just remembering that every person's complex, we've all had those different upbringings, experiences, influences, with all different values and morals.
Speaker: And that's what's so interesting about people.
Speaker: And if we all believed in the exact same thing, how boring would life be?
Speaker: And how nuanced would the equestrian world be?
Speaker: And there wouldn't be anything exciting about it.
Speaker: So our differences is what makes us all interesting.
Speaker: And that's where these conversations really need to start from.
Speaker: And just making these mass conversations.
Speaker: assumptions about someone because of the discipline that they choose to ride or that say they're riding a quarter horse versus a big fancy warm blood imported from Europe.
Speaker: Like none of those things need to factor into it.
Speaker: And all you're going to do is hurt the other people's feelings and egos.
Speaker: And we know we don't want to do that.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: Onto the last section, which is gaining respect and likability.
Speaker: So a general rule, people will always like you more if you allow them to talk about themselves.
Speaker: Everyone's favorite subject is themselves, and they would gladly talk about that all day long.
Speaker: There's a story of the most clever person in England where he
Speaker: At a dinner party, Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone, who were political rivals, they sat down with a reporter.
Speaker: And afterwards, people asked her what her impressions were of the two notable leaders.
Speaker: She said,
Speaker: And Disraeli just talked about her and asked her questions and was interested in getting to know her.
Speaker: And so she left with that feeling of like, wow, I'm really important and clever.
Speaker: And so I just think that's an important thing to keep in mind when you're having these conversations with people.
Speaker: And just maybe you'll err on the side of asking them more questions and stop talking about yourself so much.
Speaker: So that's the main way to get the likability of the other people.
Speaker: But in order to gain respect, I think you really need to, one, admit when you're wrong.
Speaker: to don't name call or make those sweeping accusations.
Speaker: I think that just kind of lowers your credibility and intelligence, honestly, but I also think you need to be a great example.
Speaker: So on social media, show how your training method, your attack or the attack that you're not using and how all that's possible and explain the benefits that it has for you and your horse and your training and showing.
Speaker: And the best way to motivate someone is... Sorry, my dog is hacking something up.
Speaker: But the best way to motivate someone to implement your ideas is for you to show how it would benefit them and their horse.
Speaker: Because we're all just really obsessed with ourselves and our own horses.
Speaker: So if you can show them how it's going to benefit them riding and training and maybe their happiness...
Speaker: Maybe it's a new challenge that they can try stuff like that.
Speaker: You also need to talk about your own mistakes, not only on social media, but in real life.
Speaker: It's easier to listen to someone else tell you the faults that they've made instead of them criticizing you.
Speaker: Just begin by humbly admitting that you are far from impeccable or you've made these mistakes and this is how you fixed it.
Speaker: This is what you learned from it.
Speaker: But just starting from that place of
Speaker: Being humble and admitting your wrongs is always going to lower their defenses and make them respect you a lot more that you're actually admitting to those things and that things aren't always perfect.
Speaker: And you don't just have a gift for it, that it's a talent or thing that you've had to learn throughout the progress of training horses and learning all this stuff.
Speaker: Finally, to convince people of your side, don't just tell them facts or what they should do.
Speaker: Instead, you need to share your own personal experiences and the motivation behind your decisions.
Speaker: Tell them why you chose to do this and how it's helped.
Speaker: Once you gain this respect and likability,
Speaker: And you've proven yourself to be someone who's not going to attack other people.
Speaker: They might feel more comfortable coming to you and asking for book recommendations or trainers or programs or advice on how to get this horse over this particular issue that they're dealing with.
Speaker: Or they might ask you what kind of tack you like to use.
Speaker: But you just need to, at that point, be a resource and a place where people feel comfortable coming and asking for that advice or resources.
Speaker: And be open.
Speaker: Don't gatekeep the knowledge.
Speaker: I mean, we're all trying to uplift and bring the entire equestrian community forward and progress and stop all the negativity and bring more people into our industry so we can make the industry bigger and
Speaker: And again, be better for our horses.
Speaker: So I want to end with Dale Carnegie's advice on how to keep a disagreement from becoming an argument.
Speaker: This is kind of a long list, but I think it's very important.
Speaker: He has some great points in here.
Speaker: So stick with me.
Speaker: Number one, welcome the disagreement.
Speaker: If there's a point that you haven't thought about, be thankful that it's brought to your attention.
Speaker: Perhaps this disagreement is your opportunity to be corrected before you make a serious mistake.
Speaker: Number two, distrust your first instinctive impression.
Speaker: Natural reaction is to be defensive.
Speaker: Be careful of it.
Speaker: Keep calm and watch out for your first reaction.
Speaker: It may be you at your worst, not your best.
Speaker: Number three, control your temper.
Speaker: You can measure the size of a person by what makes them angry.
Speaker: This I've thought about every day for months and months.
Speaker: I just, anytime I get mad about something, I'm like, wow, what does that say about me?
Speaker: I just got mad at this traffic or that my dog barked or something.
Speaker: It just seems silly then once you look at it through that lens.
Speaker: Number four, listen first.
Speaker: Give your opponents a chance to talk.
Speaker: Let them finish.
Speaker: Do not resist, defend, or debate.
Speaker: This only raises barriers.
Speaker: Try instead to find bridges of understanding.
Speaker: Number five, look for areas of agreement.
Speaker: Number six, be honest.
Speaker: Look to where you can admit error and say so.
Speaker: Apologize for your mistakes.
Speaker: It will help disarm them and lower their defenses.
Speaker: Number seven, promise to think over your opponent's ideas and study them.
Speaker: But don't just say it.
Speaker: You have to mean it.
Speaker: They may actually be right.
Speaker: Number eight, thank your opponent sincerely for their interest.
Speaker: If they take the time to disagree, they have the same interest as you.
Speaker: Number nine, postpone action to give both sides time to think through the problem.
Speaker: Those we covered some of those, but I think there's a lot of insight and a lot of those other ones that maybe haven't talked about, but we can sit and ponder on and hopefully have less disagreements or more constructive disagreements, I should say less toxic ones on the social media comment section.
Speaker: So in conclusion, at the end of the day, you're never going to stop the negativity and hate on social media.
Speaker: You just have to be proud of your own actions and how you handle the situations.
Speaker: Be proud of your own writing, your own training and growth as an equestrian.
Speaker: There's always room for improvement for everybody, even the Olympians.
Speaker: I'm sure they're working on stuff.
Speaker: It's not like we all just get to this level and we know everything.
Speaker: We do everything perfect.
Speaker: So just keep learning and striving to be better.
Speaker: And if you have social media and get on it, use it for positivity and spread knowledge and just be a positive light in our equestrian industry to bring more people in, not to make people quit our industry as a whole.
Speaker: So that's all for today.
Speaker: Again, if you like what you hear, if you love the podcast, make sure to share it with someone who you think would benefit from it.
Speaker: Like us on social media.
Speaker: It really does do a lot to help spread the podcast.
Speaker: We can have these discussions and hopefully we're just creating a better equestrian industry for our horses.
Speaker: So I will see you all next time.
