The Detriments of Early Success

Is there something more detrimental to growth than early success?

When I was a young trainer, I was incredibly frustrated. I didn’t feel respected, and I definitely didn’t get that “big fish in a small pond” situation I wanted. Other trainers my age nearby seemed happily in control of a large group of clients, admired for their skill, and bordering or tipping over the arrogance scale.

At the time, when you aren’t getting what you want, it can feel like such a hindrance. But this frustration was based in me wanting to fight reality - I was young, uneducated and unskilled, though I could ride a colt I couldn’t really guide one. And I sure didn’t know what I was talking about.

And so not being taken seriously gave me the gift of pushing me to get more educated, to get more experiences, to take more horses. It pushed me to horses others wouldn’t take for need for work, and gave me a skill set of problem solving physical and behavioral issues.

Some arduous years helped me drop the desire to be admired, molding them instead into a desire to help. It was my great fortune that I was not taken at my word, and that I was hungry and broke enough to need to push toward better skills.

The trainers that I was jealous of at the time show stagnated skills - still continuing in the same vein they were over a decade ago. And I really wonder, if I had been admired back then, would I have the strength to leave what wasn’t working, or leave what was incomplete behind? Would I have been able to leave my admiration for growth? I’m not so sure.

I have had the great fortune of being pushed to prove myself to the horse and not the public, and the even better fortune of having mentors who did not reward my ego but instead pushed my growth.