Thursday, July 3, 2008

Horse Zen #2 - Making Money with Horses

Don Blazer is an author, a teacher, a trainer and a trader. For more than 40 years he's helped thousands of horses and horse owners enjoy the best of relationships based on knowledge, understanding and actions which are mutually beneficial.

The author of eight How-To books on training performance horses and horse health care, he also writes the syndicated column A Horse, Of Course, which is must reading for thousands of fans across the nation.

As a teacher, he's traveled from Alaska to Australia demonstrating training techniques and he's taught a variety of horsemanship courses for seven colleges and universities.

Show horses or race horses, he's trained world class winners at both ends of the spectrum. His show horses have competed at world championship events and his race horses have won both Quarter Horse and Thoroughbred Stake races.
Making Money With Horses is not only the title of one of his books, it is a way of life for him. He began his career as an author, trainer, teacher and trader at 19, and he's still at it-a syndicated column, clinics and lectures, young horses ridden daily, and occasionally he sells a horse.

Making Money With Horses By Don Blazer

In all businesses, nothing seems to succeed quite like “consistent persistence.” Of course your consistent persistence must be in the right direction.

The only constant is change, and change is happening to you at every moment of every day. Questions to ask yourself are, “Am I going to be a master of change, or be mastered by change? Am I going to ride the wave of change, or be buried by change? Am I going to anticipate change, or be left behind?

Who Moved My Cheese? is a little book by Spencer Johnson, M.D. which lets us observe Sniff, Scurry, Hem and Haw as they deal with change. Sniff and Scurry are mice, Hem and Haw are men and all make a daily trip through the MAZE to their cubical which contains their cheese.

One day they get to their cubical only to find someone has moved their cheese. Sniff and Scurry—not having big egos—immediately start back into the maze to find new cheese. Hem and Haw, knowing they certainly deserve cheese, sit and wait for whoever moved the cheese to return their cheese. The cheese, of course, is never returned. After days of waiting, in a desperate move, Haw returns to the dangers and frustrations of the MAZE. Along the way, he writes notes on the MAZE wall which he hopes will help Hem in his search.

These are the messages—the handwriting on the wall—left to help Hem.

1. Change Happens: they keep moving the cheese.
2. Anticipate Change: get ready for the cheese to move.
3. Monitor Change: smell the cheese so you will know when it’s old.
4. Adapt to Change Quickly: the quicker you let go of old cheese, the sooner you can enjoy new cheese.
5. Change: move with the cheese.
6. Enjoy Change: savor the adventure and the taste of new cheese.
7. Be Ready to Quickly Change Again: they keep moving the cheese.

Nothing succeeds quite like consistent persistence, and nothing assures failure more certainly than consistent persistence of an old idea, system or approach which has been left behind by change.

For information about horses and business, visit http://www.donblazer.com/

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