Transcript
Speaker: Welcome back to the Optimal Equestrian Podcast, a podcast where I dive into how to optimize ourselves, our horses, and our businesses.
Speaker: I am an adult amateur, and I am just curious about the world, wanting to learn how I can improve my own business, improve myself as an equestrian, how I can help my horses live a better and more comfortable life.
Speaker: If you're new here, welcome.
Speaker: I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday season.
Speaker: Hopefully you wrapped up your 2025 year on a positive note.
Speaker: You've done some reflecting and some looking into the future and what you're wanting to accomplish in 2026.
Speaker: This episode is just going to be a little tool to hopefully help you all.
Speaker: reflect on 2025 and find some direction and focus that you're going to take into 2026.
Speaker: In this episode, I'm going to cover some of my accomplishments in 2025 and just reflect on what I've done in 2025, as well as lessons that I've learned and I want to make some projections for 2026.
Speaker: And I'm going to share some of my favorite books and products that I discovered in this previous year.
Speaker: I did make a questionnaire that I can email over to you all if that is something that you're interested in just to kind of figure out what went well in 2025, what didn't, what maybe some processes or people that aren't serving you anymore that you need to reflect on and either alter or cut out of your life.
Speaker: And I
Speaker: Some big questions that I like to ask myself is how can I help my horse live a happier, more natural life?
Speaker: Is there something that my horse needs from me?
Speaker: So if you're interested in that little questionnaire, just shoot me an email at Optimal EquestrianPod at Gmail and I will share that with you.
Speaker: You can copy and paste it into whatever word document that you want and write it out.
Speaker: I found that
Speaker: Actually sitting down and thinking about these things and listing out what I did in 2025 helped me to really reflect and
Speaker: I found a lot more deeper answers and direction than I would have if I just asked these questions and gave it a couple minutes thought.
Speaker: And you think that you can do it all in your head, but it really is powerful to actually write it down and list out everything that you went through in 2025.
Speaker: And that's kind of what I'm going to share today.
Speaker: So let's go ahead and jump into it.
Speaker: My...
Speaker: The things that I went through in 2025, it was a really big year for me for growth and learning.
Speaker: I can't exactly say that I accomplished a whole lot, I feel like.
Speaker: I feel like I was just treading water and trying to get my horse back to normal.
Speaker: And that was a lot more difficult and took a lot longer than I thought that it would.
Speaker: But let's start at the beginning of the year.
Speaker: I started this podcast.
Speaker: I was not as productive as I wanted to be, but just starting it is a big thing.
Speaker: And reading, staying on top of my reading, and continuing to learn and grow has been...
Speaker: massively important to me this year.
Speaker: So I read about 35 books.
Speaker: I also went through the loss of my dog, my boy dog Brutus.
Speaker: He passed away and at the same time my other dog Heidi, she's about a year older than him.
Speaker: I'm just watching her age a lot and I'm going to do an episode on grief and handling all that and go into deeper on that.
Speaker: But I
Speaker: It just made me realize that we need to really cherish the moments with our animals, our loved ones, anybody that is important to us.
Speaker: And I think we all just get so caught up in our business of our lives and our
Speaker: accomplishing what we want like with our animals it's like okay we need to go for this walk let's get it over with I got things to do or with your horse you're like I just need to go out and ride and we need to accomplish this this and this instead I think if we just realize that they're gonna be gone one day and we need to cherish all these little moments do just enjoyable things with them things that we can make their lives better
Speaker: Like my dogs love just sitting outside sun tanning or my horse likes to hand graze.
Speaker: Just doing more of those things and really cherishing those moments and being present with them instead of just having it as a checklist on the thing that we need to do throughout our busy lives.
Speaker: So that was a big lesson and big things that happened with the loss of my dog and
Speaker: My other one just declining rapidly.
Speaker: Just makes you think a lot more about those things.
Speaker: We also did some traveling.
Speaker: We especially fell in love with the Wilmington and Wrightsville Beach area.
Speaker: I don't know if any of you all are from the Carolinas.
Speaker: I'm obsessed with them, but I've always loved Savannah, Charleston, those areas.
Speaker: But we wanted to go to a new beach this year and fell in love with those.
Speaker: So highly recommend checking out Wilmington and Wrightsville Beach if you all are looking for a beach vacation on the East Coast.
Speaker: They're fantastic.
Speaker: I also discovered more about cold plunging and finding more discipline in cold plunging and working out, really nailing my diet down.
Speaker: I still have more to go and definitely could improve my discipline some more, but that's something that I really worked towards and improved in 2025 as well.
Speaker: As far as my horse goes, I did end up moving him to a different farm this year.
Speaker: I really like that farm.
Speaker: It is a little bit more of a drive, which is becoming challenging.
Speaker: But I have really worked on the last year or so to improving his feet.
Speaker: I learned how to do some barefoot trimming.
Speaker: And I solely took on his feet myself this year.
Speaker: I didn't really have any help from him.
Speaker: any other farriers and it's going well.
Speaker: I think at first I kind of butchered him, definitely had some learning moments and got some guidance from my trainer and stuff like that.
Speaker: So that was a learning curve, but he's definitely improved.
Speaker: I've gotten very scientific about his feet.
Speaker: I know the exact angles, lengths that they should be,
Speaker: And I'm, I mean, I am not going to trim anybody else's hooves, but I'm very specifically good at trimming my own horses.
Speaker: I can't say that I could go out and trim any other horse's feet, but his, I've really nailed down where they should be.
Speaker: And it has improved his hind end soreness.
Speaker: He used to get really flinchy when you're grooming his like lumbar region.
Speaker: And that has gone away.
Speaker: And I think it's because his hoof angles have,
Speaker: improve so much.
Speaker: So that was a really positive part of 2025.
Speaker: I did also learn though that I am not capable of training him and I need to pass that off to a trainer.
Speaker: So he is at the end of the month going to bootcamp with the trainer.
Speaker: He'll be gone for hopefully just a few months and then I'll get him back.
Speaker: And I really, I thought I could do it on my own, which I probably could.
Speaker: It would just take a lot longer and he's sick since time that he
Speaker: gets trained.
Speaker: I think that I've, it would just take me so much longer that it would be better if they just got it done.
Speaker: Plus I have so much like PTSD from my concussion, which if you are interested in that, my intro episode talks a lot about that, but I just, I'm a,
Speaker: haven't ever gotten over the fear of riding and falling off.
Speaker: And anytime like a little thing goes wrong, I just get off.
Speaker: I get so scared and I can't handle it.
Speaker: So I have accepted this year that I am not capable and that he needs to go to a trainer, which is okay.
Speaker: I mean, that's what trainers are there for.
Speaker: And they're going to
Speaker: get him squared away.
Speaker: That way him and I can come together and be a lot better and we'll progress a lot faster than if I just tried to toughen it out.
Speaker: And I mean, I have a tendency to be really stubborn and I want to figure things out, but at the end of the day, it's what's best for him.
Speaker: He really needs to have a job at this age.
Speaker: So I will keep you all posted in 2026, how that goes.
Speaker: As far as my business goes, I, I,
Speaker: Continued to grow it by 50% this year.
Speaker: So that's fantastic.
Speaker: Learning a lot there.
Speaker: And hopefully going to grow some more this year.
Speaker: That's been great.
Speaker: We also decided to remodel our home, which has been so stressful and I do not recommend it to anybody.
Speaker: We moved out into an apartment while, cause they're doing a full remodel and it's been such a nightmare and I don't think we'll ever do it again, but it will be beautiful at the end.
Speaker: We will be in hopefully in the next month or two.
Speaker: My husband and I also started going to a bunch of basketball games here in Charlotte.
Speaker: And so that's been fun to have these little date nights.
Speaker: I've always been a big NFL girl and the basketball games are surprisingly fun.
Speaker: They're a lot more fast paced and interesting than a lot less downtime than NFL games.
Speaker: So that has been really fun thing to do on our free time.
Speaker: And I also health wise, I had started to train for a half marathon and
Speaker: And I ended up getting injured.
Speaker: I don't think I was stretching or recovering nearly as well as I should have.
Speaker: And I ended up having some Achilles issues that I had to stop training for the half marathon and I had to rehab it.
Speaker: Which it sucks that I didn't run the half marathon.
Speaker: I didn't achieve that goal that I wanted in 2025.
Speaker: But I did learn a lot about not only fueling properly and stretching and recovery and the importance of that.
Speaker: And I think that we can also take those lessons of working out and getting injured into our horses and handling their health and how important it is, especially as I start getting older.
Speaker: I mean, I'm mid-30s, so...
Speaker: Once your horse is past their prime, I think we just have to be cognizant of how much more important all those little factors and the warm-ups and the stretching and the massages and anything we can do to help them recover faster is going to be even more important than when they were younger in their prime.
Speaker: I always played soccer growing up.
Speaker: Hardly ever stretched.
Speaker: I mean, every sport.
Speaker: I stretched when the coaches made us.
Speaker: And never did any kind of warm-up or stretching outside of that or anything that would constitute recovery.
Speaker: And when you're young, you can get away with that.
Speaker: And I'm now learning that as we're getting older, there's not as much leeway and give.
Speaker: So hopefully in 2026, I will get that half marathon knocked off my bucket list.
Speaker: So I'll keep you all posted on that as well.
Speaker: So the major lessons that I learned in 2025, I already spoke a lot about the loss of my dog and that lesson just about valuing the moments that we have with our animals, with our loved ones, and just letting our animals be animals and do the things that they enjoy to do, not
Speaker: the things that we think that they enjoy.
Speaker: So just how can we improve our animals' lives and what makes them a dog or a cat or a horse and what they actually want to be doing.
Speaker: Another big theme I learned over and over and I'm still working on is being able to control your thoughts.
Speaker: My attitude is
Speaker: can turn really sour really quickly if I think that someone's trying to take advantage of me or just anything that brings up emotion is going to have these negative thoughts in my head.
Speaker: And a lot of the times they're going to be irrational thoughts and all those thoughts are going to affect how you feel.
Speaker: So if you're feeling those bad emotions, you need to look inward into what your thoughts, your thought patterns have been.
Speaker: And
Speaker: try to flip that to a positive.
Speaker: And that, and just being, I tell myself all the time, like my mood, I choose my mood.
Speaker: I can't let anybody else affect my mood.
Speaker: Like that is up to me.
Speaker: And just, I have a tendency to overanalyze, overthink every situation.
Speaker: I always think the worst things, you go through all these possibilities and it's always the worst things and these negative things.
Speaker: And you just sit there and dwell on that.
Speaker: And it's just all consuming.
Speaker: I can't focus on anything else when those thoughts are in my head.
Speaker: And so just noticing that you're having those patterns and how negative they are and how most likely they're going to be irrational thoughts.
Speaker: And you have the ability to flip those thoughts and stop those thoughts.
Speaker: And it just comes with
Speaker: actually noticing them and putting a label on it and thinking, I need to switch these thoughts and make them more positive or dwelling on it isn't going to change anything.
Speaker: I just need to either like have that conversation or do this action, whatever it is that you're dwelling on.
Speaker: Just either put it out of your mind, flip it or get the action or conversation done.
Speaker: And a lot of those events that cause you to have those bad feelings are just your interpretation of the event.
Speaker: That doesn't exactly mean that that's how it actually happened.
Speaker: Like I always try to think that, or I always, my big one is I think that everyone is trying to hurt me and do this on person.
Speaker: on purpose, and I just take everything so personal when they in actuality didn't think that much about it.
Speaker: They weren't trying to cause me to feel bad or put me down.
Speaker: It's just this narrative that I tell myself in my head.
Speaker: So that was the second big one.
Speaker: The third one, like I said with Opie and I'm succumbing to the fact that I'm not the right person to be training him at this moment.
Speaker: It's just okay to give up control.
Speaker: And I think that I especially like with a business and with my writing, I just have these control issues where I want to control everything.
Speaker: I think nobody can do it as well as I can.
Speaker: And I
Speaker: I think that it's just really important to be cognizant of what your strengths and weaknesses are.
Speaker: Like when it comes to business, you need to, if you're not the person that can do it 80% better than most other people, then you need to pass that job on.
Speaker: So I've dealt with that with Opie and his training and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker: And once he gets trained, yeah, then it's, we can take our time and we can grow together and we can progress up the levels because there's no pressure on him.
Speaker: But at the moment,
Speaker: He needs to have some education and learn, and I'm not the best one to do that.
Speaker: So giving up control and how freeing and rewarding that can be for both you, your employees, your horse, whatever it is that you're learning to delegate.
Speaker: The fourth big lesson that I learned was how much of a time suck TV and social media is.
Speaker: And we all know it, but I think once we actually cut out all that scrolling and TV time, we're like, wow, I have...
Speaker: Four more hours to my day.
Speaker: Like, what can you get done in four hours?
Speaker: I bet it's a lot.
Speaker: I mean, I would just sit there and I would be like, well, I'm just going to watch one show.
Speaker: Well, one show turned into two episodes and then into three episodes and I'm scrolling half the time.
Speaker: So I'm not even paying attention.
Speaker: And then
Speaker: So you're pausing it and you have to rewind and it's just such a time suck.
Speaker: And there's so much more that you could be doing with your time.
Speaker: And I mean, honestly, I think even if you're reading fiction books, that's such a better use of your time than TV.
Speaker: And they're far more entertaining and enjoyable to me than TV is.
Speaker: Also for me, the social media and TV, all I was doing was watching drama and I'm watching other people live their lives.
Speaker: And I would notice on social media that I was always in the comments and I was just looking at what everyone was saying and it's just arguing back and forth and it's negative.
Speaker: And now I've found that once I find myself in those comments, I'm just like, that's my trigger to get off social media.
Speaker: And it happens within minutes of getting on there.
Speaker: I mean, it's just crazy how you'll just be like, oh, I'm just going to like catch up for a couple minutes and
Speaker: And then you're like, oh, let me see what people are saying about this.
Speaker: This could be controversial.
Speaker: And you're in the comments reading, oh, let me look at their profile.
Speaker: What did they look like?
Speaker: I mean, it's just such an utter waste of time and you're not going to change anyone's mind on social media.
Speaker: I just...
Speaker: It's such a time suck and such a waste of time that that's now my new one site.
Speaker: I mean, I should just delete them, but everyone's like, well, I mean, I've got businesses that you need to post on and those are all excuses to get on.
Speaker: And I try to not post that much and not spend my time on there.
Speaker: But whenever I do find myself on there and I am hitting those comments, it's just now that's like, oh, I'm in the comments.
Speaker: Time to get off.
Speaker: I could be doing something else.
Speaker: And it's just all it's going to do is make you feel bad.
Speaker: And with the drama, I watch a lot of Bravo TV shows and that's all drama.
Speaker: And the other day I was just like, I'm just watching them live their lives while I'm sitting here doing nothing.
Speaker: Like, why wouldn't I be out there trying to live my life, have these experiences and...
Speaker: do like one thing I want to do with my horse this year is take him out quarterly to a different venue or something just go on adventures with him like even if we're not showing if we just walk around a show venue or we go to a trail ride or something like that just go out there and experience life with him with my husband with our friends just going out and living life and so now whenever I'm
Speaker: watching those TV shows, I'm like, this is just kind of pathetic that I'm sitting here on my couch watching them live their lives instead of living my own.
Speaker: So that's been a major thought in the past couple months that I've had.
Speaker: And I've honestly haven't really turned on my TV in probably a week.
Speaker: And before that, when I was turning it on, I couldn't even get through an entire TV show because I was just like, I need to go be productive and do something.
Speaker: So maybe that resonates with you all too and you can take some little tidbits there and remind yourself that if you're in the comments to just close the social media app or if you find yourself on the couch watching TV, just say, no, I'm not doing this.
Speaker: I'm going to go train or go have dinner with my friends or do something where you're out there living your own life.
Speaker: The final lesson that I took out of 2025 is the importance of hoof angle.
Speaker: As I told you, I learned to do some barefoot trimming on my horse and how it's just helped his body be so much more comfortable.
Speaker: And the thing that I think a lot of people, everyone talks about getting x-rays on like their front feet and the hoof angle there.
Speaker: But I, I mean, especially with my horse who has those hind end issues, I,
Speaker: The angle of the hind feet I think is so much more important than we know and I think that if you're getting those x-rays on the front feet, how valuable it would be to also get them on the hind end just to make sure that all four feet are in balance and angled properly.
Speaker: So I will be sharing how I started on my hoof care journey a little bit later.
Speaker: But I just wanted to kind of throw that out there in case anyone has been dealing with body issues, hymen issues.
Speaker: Maybe that's something that you all could think about doing, just x-raying all four feet, getting those x-rays to your farrier or possibly you learning how to do it yourself.
Speaker: So on to my projections and what I'm working on in 2026.
Speaker: I broke this down into five different categories.
Speaker: So the first one is my own personal development.
Speaker: Second one is my horses and horse training, riding, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker: Third one is my own personal fitness.
Speaker: Fourth is my book goals.
Speaker: And the fifth is my professional and my
Speaker: business goals.
Speaker: So my first one, personal development.
Speaker: I want to work on being happier, controlling my anger, controlling my emotions.
Speaker: thoughts and attitude and along with that a big key to that is staying off social media and stop watching so much tv which i've already accomplished a lot in the past couple months so we're off to a good start on that for my horse and riding i am wanting to take op off farm quarterly like i said earlier
Speaker: One thing that really has always kind of scared me and made me nervous and honestly it's enough fear that it's just caused me to not travel is taking my horse off property.
Speaker: I've never felt totally comfortable trailering, being in a new environment, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker: And instead of dealing with it and going out and getting that experience for him and me, I've just been like, nope, I'm only going to trailer when I absolutely have to.
Speaker: I don't even want to go to the vet.
Speaker: They can come to me.
Speaker: If that vet doesn't travel, I'll find a new one.
Speaker: I mean, it's crazy the lengths that we'll go to to avoid the things that scare us.
Speaker: And so one big thing that I want to do is every few months take him off.
Speaker: Like I said, if
Speaker: Even if I'm just going to a show facility, but I'm not competing and I'm not even going to get on him.
Speaker: Just taking him and walking him around, getting him back on the trailer, going home, call it a day.
Speaker: But those little experiences are going to help us so much when we do decide to compete.
Speaker: go show or trail ride or anything, just him being more comfortable off property, going and seeing new sites with horses and that environment.
Speaker: And so that's, yeah, that's something I want to do.
Speaker: I think it'll be good for both of us.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: That's what I'm going to aim to do quarterly.
Speaker: And a good question I have for everyone else is what are you scared of and what can you do quarterly to either start to overcome that fear or conquer it?
Speaker: Just something that pushes you a little outside of your comfort zone.
Speaker: It doesn't have to be horses.
Speaker: It could be your business.
Speaker: It could be meeting new people.
Speaker: It can be whatever.
Speaker: Whatever area that you feel uncomfortable and just...
Speaker: Every few months, try to push that boundary a little bit.
Speaker: For my fitness, I am hoping to run a half marathon this year.
Speaker: I also need to be more consistent about working out and especially lifting weights.
Speaker: They said that that's a common issue with the runners and stuff is that if they don't lift weights, that they, like my Achilles was weak basically.
Speaker: And so then when I started running on it a bunch, it strained it and I just, I kept running so I never had time to recover.
Speaker: so lifting weights more consistently plus i've noticed that my weight the weight comes off a lot more whenever i lift weights and if i like over the holidays i wasn't exactly sticking to my diet there's a lot of sweets and carbs and stuff that i don't normally eat but i think that the amount of weights that i've been lifting has helped me even though i was
Speaker: faltering on my diet, I stayed at basically the same amount of the same weight.
Speaker: I didn't really gain a lot over the holidays, surprisingly, but I would attribute that to weightlifting.
Speaker: I have been going to Barry's.
Speaker: I don't know if anybody has ever been to a Barry's bootcamp, very high intensity weightlifting.
Speaker: Like I try to lift heavy weights there.
Speaker: So that's been a really good supplement to my running routine.
Speaker: So that's my fitness wise.
Speaker: As far as books go, I think I read 35 books this year.
Speaker: So next year I want to bump that up to 50.
Speaker: And I always try to read a business book, a horse book.
Speaker: And then just recently I started getting into fiction and I really, there's just no pressure reading the fiction.
Speaker: Like with all my other ones, I'm taking notes and
Speaker: I'm trying to read two chapters a day.
Speaker: Like I try to have this schedule and these like goals that I have to hit every day.
Speaker: And so with the fiction, it's just reading for fun and I don't have to take notes.
Speaker: I don't have to pay that much attention.
Speaker: It's just pure entertainment and I've really enjoyed it.
Speaker: Surprisingly, I've always not really liked fiction, but I found thrillers and just if you're finding books that are interesting to you, it's going to be a lot.
Speaker: It's going to make a lot more fun.
Speaker: And then professionally, I'm hoping to make a lot more podcast episodes.
Speaker: I want to be more consistent and try to get one out every week.
Speaker: But I at least want to double the episodes that I did in 2025.
Speaker: And then as far as my cleaning business goes, I want to increase my business by 25%.
Speaker: And I am gearing up to start hiring people.
Speaker: And so just...
Speaker: Being able to hire the right people and keep them happy, keep my clients happy, all that.
Speaker: Just slowly grow step by step.
Speaker: And there's a lot of steps to that.
Speaker: But that's my goals for 2026.
Speaker: Now onto my suggestions.
Speaker: So my favorite books that I read in 2025.
Speaker: For business, I just got done with the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.
Speaker: And oh my gosh, it was so powerful.
Speaker: I'm definitely doing an episode on it.
Speaker: That book was just so clear cut.
Speaker: It made leadership and what a boss should be just so clear in my mind, which as I'm hopefully growing my business this year and hiring employees, that's going to be so valuable.
Speaker: And there's just so much good information in that book.
Speaker: So if you're wanting to learn about leadership, I would highly, highly recommend that book.
Speaker: Again, it's called The 21 Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell.
Speaker: And in the back, he even, like I bought it on Kindle, but I'm going to actually buy a physical copy of it because he has this like workbook to go through in the back.
Speaker: Just really powerful stuff.
Speaker: The second business book that I would recommend is Your Next Five Moves by Patrick Bett David.
Speaker: I listened to this on audio.
Speaker: I just, I really love him.
Speaker: I think that he's a great leader.
Speaker: I think he's a really positive person.
Speaker: But this book is a lot about starting and growing your business and what needs to be in your business, like what you need to be as a leader, all those kinds of things.
Speaker: Very good.
Speaker: The last business book I'd recommend is $100 Million Offers by Alex Hormozzi.
Speaker: This book is really good.
Speaker: If you're looking to get basics of marketing and how to get clients, fantastic book.
Speaker: He has a whole series of them, which I'm going to be reading and hopefully covering.
Speaker: But that book is just fantastic in getting you to think outside the box and what you need to do in order to advertise, get clients, social media, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker: Very good.
Speaker: Horse books.
Speaker: I did the episode on Ty Murray, King of the Cowboys.
Speaker: So well written.
Speaker: So entertaining.
Speaker: Like it reads like a fiction book.
Speaker: It's that entertaining and just so many good lessons in there.
Speaker: Love that book.
Speaker: For the natural horsemanship, I did the episodes on these too.
Speaker: But Buck Brandman, a new book by him.
Speaker: and Warwick Schiller's book.
Speaker: All very useful information.
Speaker: Necessary information to equestrians.
Speaker: And the last horse book I'd recommend is Jack LaGoff.
Speaker: I just got done reading it.
Speaker: We'll be doing an episode on it as well.
Speaker: His book, Horses Came First, Second, and Last.
Speaker: I...
Speaker: Wish I found out about him earlier.
Speaker: He just has a fantastic story.
Speaker: And that book has so much information on training horses, like fitness wise, theory behind training, plus his story is fantastic.
Speaker: It was very good book.
Speaker: I also would highly recommend, I just read the first book of Jane Myers, her Equicentral System, which is about keeping horses and managing horses, specifically on smaller pieces of property, how our farm should be laid out.
Speaker: And her system kind of rivals like the track systems, a lot of similarities as well.
Speaker: And so I think if you're looking into track systems or if you own your own farm and want to use the land better without depleting resources, which is so common in a lot of horse farms, thinking of all the weeds in the fields, all your mud around your gates, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker: She provides resources.
Speaker: fantastic solutions for it.
Speaker: Once I'm done with all of her books, I will be doing an episode on that.
Speaker: But very, very interesting stuff.
Speaker: And I mean, fantastic information on like how horses are supposed to live, what's important to them, how they would like deal with weather, food, like what their nutritional requirement, just so much good information that you need to have if you're managing and keeping horses.
Speaker: So highly, highly recommend that book.
Speaker: And as far as personal development goes, I really enjoyed the Wim Hof method that I did an episode on this with the cold plunging.
Speaker: Just a really good book on...
Speaker: Learning discipline, the value in breath work and cold plunging and all that stuff.
Speaker: I thought it was really powerful.
Speaker: If that's not interesting to you, then I'm sure you'll be fine without it.
Speaker: But I thought it was a really cool book.
Speaker: Again, another really cool person who figured everything out on his own.
Speaker: Just insanely smart.
Speaker: Um, next one, personal development.
Speaker: A lot of what I learned, which I will also be doing an episode on this coming up probably sooner rather than later for dry January, is sober on a drunk planet.
Speaker: I tested a lot.
Speaker: I was, I guess you would call it sober curious this year, but I really cut back on my drinking and played around with sobriety and it really just changed my relationship with alcohol.
Speaker: And Sober on a Drunk Planet is a fantastic book if you're at all curious in like reducing your alcohol intake, how to, why you should, any of that kind of stuff.
Speaker: Then it wouldn't hurt to pick up Sober on a Drunk Planet by Sean Alexander.
Speaker: I also love...
Speaker: Basically anything that I've read from Ryan Holiday, he to me is a really motivating writer.
Speaker: I really like his book, The Obstacle is the Way.
Speaker: If you're looking for discipline insights, that's a good one.
Speaker: I also really love his book, Ego is the Enemy.
Speaker: I think...
Speaker: lot of people including me ego is something that we don't really think about but it drives basically everything in our lives and our attitudes and so that's a fantastic book as well but i haven't read anything from ryan holiday that i don't love i also i talked about this in the handling discourse episode but the super communicators book
Speaker: Very good if you're wanting to improve how you communicate with your employees or loved ones anytime that you need communication to handle issues.
Speaker: That's a great book to turn to.
Speaker: And then the last one I want to suggest is Man's Search for Meaning.
Speaker: It's a very famous book by Viktor Frankl about his experiences as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp.
Speaker: And it's just
Speaker: very powerful about the importance of your thoughts and your mindset.
Speaker: It really just puts your life into perspective.
Speaker: Like you think your life is bad and that it's so hard, but it's, it has been so much worse for so many other people and your life could be so much worse than it is now.
Speaker: And if he could stay positive being in a concentration camp, then I'm pretty sure you can figure it out as well.
Speaker: And so it's just really great book for insight and perspective.
Speaker: Now, onto some more positive things.
Speaker: Some products, subscriptions that I want to promote that, I mean, I get paid nothing for this.
Speaker: It's just been really impactful for me in the last year.
Speaker: So, with the hoof trimming, the first place that I looked, which was a recommendation by my trainer, is the Heart Horsemanship Hoof Trimming.
Speaker: course from jamie stump you can find it at hearthorsemanship.com that's the first class that i took it's really great for owners beginners just to give you an idea of what to look for even if you aren't going to be turning your own horses it gives you a lot of information about how the hoof works she has some great diagrams and videos that she shows
Speaker: of how all these different issues in the hoof come up.
Speaker: And even if you're not going to trim, it's just a fantastic course so that you can communicate with your farrier a lot better.
Speaker: You know what you're looking at, what to look for.
Speaker: And then she gives you the basics of starting to trim, starting that journey of trimming.
Speaker: Then she also recommended ABC Hoof Trimming, which is a book.
Speaker: And I think that woman also has a course online.
Speaker: Or maybe it's an in-person course, I think.
Speaker: Anyways, I then got that book.
Speaker: And there's a bunch of tools that come with the book and stuff.
Speaker: And so I started diving deeper in it from that.
Speaker: But this is where I first started.
Speaker: And it's fairly affordable.
Speaker: So if you want to see if it's even something that you are willing or able to do,
Speaker: It's a great starting resource.
Speaker: Obviously, the second membership that I would highly recommend is Warwick Schiller's online video library.
Speaker: I talked about this in the last episode about Warwick Schiller.
Speaker: He's such a good horse trainer and explains horsemanship and how you should be training horses no matter what your discipline is in such a clear-cut, fantastic manner.
Speaker: So if you're wanting to work through any problems, learn about groundwork, any kind of thing like that, that's where I would start.
Speaker: I think his monthly membership is $30 a month.
Speaker: So again, fairly affordable, even if you just want to try it out, see if there's stuff in there that could help you.
Speaker: If you like how he's explaining stuff, start there.
Speaker: As far as my personal rehab went, I fell in love with slant boards.
Speaker: I got mine on Amazon.
Speaker: Great way to stretch.
Speaker: I mean, great for equestrians too because you're stretching all those muscles to get your heels down.
Speaker: But for me, it was great for my Achilles and I just sit there.
Speaker: I would like read a book while I'm stretching.
Speaker: I stretch so many hours a day now after this injury.
Speaker: And a slant board is an adjustable one where you can adjust the heights and all that.
Speaker: Just great tool.
Speaker: I mean, keep it in the barn.
Speaker: That way you can stretch before and after.
Speaker: I keep mine in my living room so I can stretch while I'm making dinner or read my book or if I'm watching TV, that kind of thing.
Speaker: Great resource.
Speaker: Also, any of the rollers with the spikes on them, anything that you can get in there and get into those muscles, all those trigger points, the Theragun, all that kind of stuff is great for our own personal rehab.
Speaker: For some horse stuff, so if you all have watched any or know anything about Opie, he has a lot of mouth issues.
Speaker: And I haven't been able to get a bridle and a bit in his mouth.
Speaker: And so I'm hoping that the trainer can do that.
Speaker: I did find a fantastic bitless bridle that has a rope over the nose.
Speaker: I was concerned with him being a young horse.
Speaker: He doesn't have a lot of training that I wouldn't have control.
Speaker: And so it has the rope over the nose.
Speaker: And he's great in a rope halter.
Speaker: He knows those cues.
Speaker: And it didn't have it over the pole, but I also don't think that he really needed it over the pole.
Speaker: And so if you're looking for a great bitless bridle where you do have some control and it's not just leather and you want a little more safety than that, then I would highly recommend the HFI Freedom Bitless Bridal from...
Speaker: horseworldeu.com that's where I got mine I think there's probably some other companies that sell it but that's where I found it and it's been a great addition to my tech room
Speaker: Kind of in that same mode, I was looking for a neck rope because I want him to... Well, one, I wanted it on so I had a little more safety when I was first getting on him.
Speaker: But I would also love for Opie to be taught with a neck rope so I could ride him with nothing on his face in an ideal world.
Speaker: So I bought a neck rope off of Etsy from... Her account is called Blondie Cinch's.
Speaker: And it is so well made and you measure your horse's neck.
Speaker: She sends a custom one.
Speaker: I got mine in black because I'm a little dressage rider.
Speaker: And it just looks really nice and clean.
Speaker: It has a padded handle for you.
Speaker: It's just really well done neck rope if you're looking for that.
Speaker: Also supporting small business on Etsy.
Speaker: I think she's out of Canada.
Speaker: And the final thing I would recommend, if you guys are book lovers like me, well, I love my Kindle, but I would highly suggest getting the Kindle Unlimited subscription.
Speaker: It's $10 a month.
Speaker: And there's so many free books.
Speaker: Half these books that I do episodes on or am getting ready to do episodes on, I've gotten for free from the Kindle Unlimited subscription.
Speaker: $10 a month.
Speaker: I mean, most eBooks are $10.
Speaker: So if you read more than one book a month, it is going to be saving you money.
Speaker: And so yeah, I would highly recommend that.
Speaker: So I am done wrapping up my 2026.
Speaker: I hope that gave you all some things to think about.
Speaker: Again, if you want that questionnaire, just shoot me an email at optimal equestrian pod at Gmail, and I will send that over to you.
Speaker: It's free.
Speaker: You can copy and paste it, edit it, use the questions that you want, ignore the questions that don't mean anything to you.
Speaker: And hopefully that gives you a little insight into what has been working well in your life, what hasn't, what you need to change, where you need to focus your energy.
Speaker: and just kind of having a mantra for 2026.
Speaker: So my mantra for 2026 is living my life, not watching others do it.
Speaker: So I hope that you all can find some inspiration and I will see you all next week.
Speaker: Bye.
