Tik Maynard

Speaker 1 (
00:00:08
):
You're listening to the journey on podcast with Warwick Schiller. Warwick is a horseman trainer, international clinician and author, whose mission is to help people achieve a deeper connection with their horses through his transformational training program, just because of your buddy. And welcome back to the genuine podcast
Warwick (
00:00:35
):
I'm your host Warwick Schiller and today I have a very special guest. He's a horseman named Tik Maynard. Now I met tick at a horse expo, you know, I believe Massachusetts a number of years ago, and I watched him work with horses and I just, I was pretty amazed at his ability and, and, uh, we got chatting there and I learnt that he'd just written a book. So he's an author of a book called in the middle of the horsemen, uh, published by Trafalgar square books. Amazing book, if you want to read that. And before I, um, had him come on here, I had him send me a bio and I there's things on here. I didn't know about tick. So think about this. This guy's pretty well rounded, sort of a fellow. So he's a horse trainer, but he has a BA in history from the university of British Columbia.
Warwick (
00:01:22
):
He was an athlete in the modern pentathlon. So he was on the Canadian national team from 2005 to 2008, and he represented Canada at the Pan-American games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2007. Now, if you don't know what the modern pentathlon is, it's fencing and that's not building a barrier to stop one horse getting into the other horse. It's sod fighting, basically fencing, freestyle swimming, show jumping, and then a combined event that combined shooting and cross country running. So he can, he's done all that. He also has been long listed and shortlisted for the Canadian national team for three-day eventing. He has was the winner of the, a thoroughbred makeover freestyle in 2015 and 2018. And he's also a clinician traveler and does lots of clinics. And so a pretty well-rounded sort of a fella and a amazing guy to talk to. So let's, uh, let's talk to tick, may not, Hey Tik, how's it going? Good. Thanks for having me. It's a, I'm pretty happy to be here.
Warwick (
00:02:24
):
Glad you're here. Um, you know, just in the intro a second ago of saying that I met you at a horse expo in, I think it was Massachusetts, uh, equine affair in Massachusetts, and it was a bit, Yeah, three years ago with it. I think it was the winter of 2018. I think my book had just come out. So that's kind of a reference point in my mind. And it was the first time I think I'd done a big horse expo like that. And it was the first time I met you. And, uh, it was probably actually, I got in one of my sessions. I got, I think the most day or the most difficult horse I've ever had in front of our crowd to work with that, that weekend was very memorable for a few reasons.
Warwick (
00:03:03
):
That's pretty cool. Yeah. I just did a podcast on manifesting. I don't know if you're into that, but I'm really big into manifesting and I think, Oh, I might've manifested you there. Not even knowing I manifested you. It's just like, you know, I'm pretty sure I put it out there. I want to make one of the other clinicians that's really cool this weekend. And, uh, I, one of your influences as Jonathan field and we'll get to Jonathan lighter, but I met him at a whole six, but I forget how many years ago, probably six or seven years ago now. And when I went to that horse expo, I kind of like my goal here is to meet Jonathan Fields. Cause I knew he was going to be presenting at it, but I wanted to, um, track him down and meet the guy. Cause I had a lot of people say, Hey, you need to meet Jonathan Jonathan Fields.
Warwick (
00:03:44
):
And the very first morning, the expert that the doors have just opened and I'm in the booth and this guy with a cowboy hat and a bead walks up and says, hi, I'm Jonathan field. And I'm like, Oh, there you go. So I didn't have to go hunt him down. I, I found him and it was kind of the same thing happened when I met you. The doors have just opened the first day of the expo and you had to do a demo in an arena that wasn't, it was in the same building. We were in it. Wasn't very far from me, a booth and you came up to the booth, introduce yourself. And then you said, Hey, I need a flag for a demo. Do you ever, do you have a flag? And so I gave you one of those, those ones we get from Kelly Cronenberg, one of those extendible ones and off you went to do your demo.
Tik (
00:04:23
):
Yeah. And, uh, I, those, those flags are great. They extend out, I, you know, I don't know Cali, but I know, uh, I think her name's Sarah from the horse education company them great. Um, and I also remember, you know, one of the things we had in common was we both knew Jonathan, uh, Jonathan field. And I love the way you described him, which was, you know, the warmth you get from just being around him as I think you compared it to the warmth you get from sitting around a little bonfire in the evening and it was just, the warrants just comes off and you can just feel it on, you know, in your hands and in your body and then your shoulders. And Jonathan's just such a amazing guy. He was the first big influence. And the first big mentor I had in the, you know, in this world that we call horsemanship or, or whatever you want to call it.
Tik (
00:05:09
):
And I remember when I first met him, I remember really vividly going into his place. I was with somebody, I didn't know much about him, but I was with somebody that was looking to buy a horse that he just happened to have for sale for one of his friends. And we went in there and he was playing with one of his horses. You know, he's got these amazing little, uh, most of them are quarter horses, but he's got this great connection with them. And he was just walking up the long side, the horse was at Liberty, uh, no halter lead or anything like that. And he would stop and the horse would stop and he would go and the horse would go. And then he started to get a little faster. And you saw the horses connection to him changed sort of like a cow horse, you know, like really getting in sync with them and Jonathan would trot off.
Tik (
00:05:50
):
And then Paul and the horse would almost do a little sliding halt. And I remember afterwards, Jonathan explaining to me a little bit about what he was doing and he compared it to a flock of birds or a school of fish or a Marin, a full how they get in sync with each other. And I had, before that moment, I had never seen somebody do that with a horse before. And it was one of those moments with horses in my life that gave me goosebumps to sing something like that for the first time or sing it done better than anybody else has ever done it. And, uh, it'll stay with me forever. And it's one of those just small moments that's inspired me for the last 10 or 15 years.
Warwick (
00:06:25
):
Is that, that little, little oval, half oval covered arena at his place with the white cover.
Tik (
00:06:31
):
Yeah. He's got a white cover. I'll move now from there. I think that was his dad's place, but the light in, in a friendly way there,
Warwick (
00:06:41
):
Yeah. I've been to that place and had the same experience watching him do stuff like goosebumps sort of stuff. But yeah, he is one of those guys that, um, yeah, he's, he has a certain energy about him. It's just an openness, you know, like he doesn't have any walls up or enemies very open and, and there's going to be some questions I'll ask you later in this podcast. And as you know, I, you know, I give people a list of questions to choose some stuff from, uh, one of the questions that you didn't choose, but is, is a question, is what qualities do you admire in people? And when I, so I did a podcast where I answered all the questions and I sent in that, I said that my, um, what I admire and people had changed over the years, you know, I've had a lot of in the past, had a lot of fee. And so for me, the, the quality I admired in people was bravery, like physical bravery. But as I got, yeah,
Tik (
00:07:37
):
Let me interrupt you for one sec, because I was listening a couple of days ago to your, your podcast with Mustang, Maddie. And if anybody hasn't listened to that, that's a fantastic one to listen to. And I think you said something like, uh, you know, bravery, and you said, now it's an openness or a vulnerability is your new thing. And, and, and immediately I thought, wait a sec, you're missing the whole link here, which is the whole Bernay Brown thing that you're talking about, which is that vulnerability is bravery. It's, uh, you know, it's, it's, you haven't actually changed what you admire. You've just changed how you see it. Right.
Warwick (
00:08:12
):
Well, I think I've changed the type of bravery, the ones of a physical bravery that I think now is actually rooted in rooted in shame or perfectionism or whatever, which means is pretty fight that the, the openness people that are really open and Jonathan Fields, one of those people, and I think that's part of that energy to get off. Jonathan is the fact he so open, he's got no ego. He's just, he's just two years. And it's yeah, it's, it's a very, it's a very pleasant sensation to be around. And everybody I've ever met, who knows, Jonathan says the same thing. I've never met anybody go, Oh, that guy's an . You know? Like they were like, Oh yeah, isn't he the coolest dude EV everybody that's ever met. Jonathan has the same. Yeah. So that's what I did say in that, in that thing, the answer to the thing was, you know, I used to be, I used to admire bravery. Now I admire that. And it's not, I don't think it's the vulnerability to be open, but it's just that, that openness, I, I think once you get past being brave about being vulnerable, you're just left with the openness, you know, that's the, that's the purist.
Tik (
00:09:21
):
Yeah. The initial part is, you know, there's initial part about being, being vulnerable, I think does take a lot of bravery, but I think the more you practice it, the more you're open, the more you listen to people, I think the easier it gets, but maybe that's the same with anything that as you practice it, it takes, it becomes easier. It takes a little bit less bravery because you get better at it.
Warwick (
00:09:43
):
Yeah. And I think you start to lean into it instead of shy away from it, you know? And, and, and it's, it's the, you know, I just, I think you heard me talk about it with Maddie, but I just came back about a month ago from a three-day what was called a men's emotional resilience retreat. And it was just mind boggling. But the thing about that was you, they was all these, some of them are tough guys. Like one guy was a former UN hostage negotiator, you know, one guy's a first responder, uh, is a fireman. Um, there's a guy from New York there. He was just a beast of a man. And when it comes down to it, everybody's fees, the sun, you know what I mean? I just, when they, when, when you get around a group of men and they they're actually authentic, like they spill their guts and they tell you exactly how they feel and what they, what hang ups they have and what they're afraid of and all that sort of stuff.
Warwick (
00:10:31
):
They did a thing. They a bet two days into it, the, they called going into the obese and you sit in the front of the room and it's this full-on couple of hour thing where you're just letting everything out. And the first guy said, who's going to go first. And the first guy that went, I'm sitting here thinking, we'll go, no, don't want to do this. I don't wanna do this. And then the second guy went and I'm thinking on under this, by the end of the second guy, then like, who's gone next, like me, um, I'm ready. Like, um, I can see what, what it does few, but I'm not scared of it now I'm excited about it. You know what I mean? And so, yeah, it was pretty cool. But, um, getting back to when we first met, you know, you borrowed the flag and you went out to do that demo.
Warwick (
00:11:13
):
And I said to my wife, Robin, she stayed in the booth. I said, I'm going to go out and watch tick and see what he does. And you had, I think he had three horses there and they're all different types of things. One was kind of, you know, wanting to be in your space a lot and bit clinging and not real reading of your energy. And then there was one, I think it was kind of spooky. And then there was one that was headlight, you know, it's an inner turmoil to where there's some PDs and stuff like that. I forget, but they were, none of them were easy. And I think one of them, the person had the horse was a little girl and I went over and I watched you, um, work with those horses. And I just, how you chose to interact with horses and the finesse with which you did it and the, and the intuition you had to deal with each horse and each human on the level that we're at.
Warwick (
00:12:01
):
You know, it just, it was pretty amazing to watch. And I actually, I texted Robin, we could actually dig out my phone records if you didn't believe me, but I texted, I'm sitting there beside the arena and it's about 15 minutes in and I texted Robin and I said, I don't know much about horses. Meaning watching you kind of gave me a, an insight into how much, I didn't know. And I was pretty sure I was at, you know, at the point where I, you know, I knew what I, I kind kinda knew how much, I didn't know, but watching you do this, like, Oh, there's just so much to this stuff. It was, it was very, very cool to watch. And I think it influenced me quite a bit.
Tik (
00:12:37
):
Thank you. Yeah. I think that's, I think that's gotta go up there as one of the top three or four compliments I've ever, you know, I've, I've ever, I've ever gotten in my life. That's really, that's really nice. And, uh, you know, the other thing that I remember from that weekend, another, another really generous thing that you did was you, um, I think it was on the Friday you came by, and then, I don't know if you already had a copy of my book or you got a copy on the Friday, but I remember you came back on the Sunday and it was right before we were all heading home. You know, I was, you know, it was right at the end of the day, people are starting to leave. All our sessions are done. I was heading back to Ocala in Florida. And I think you were heading back to California and you came by the Trafalgar square books booth.
Tik (
00:13:23
):
And I was saying goodbye to, to the nice ladies there that run it, that I think you've met, but I want to chat with you about that later. And, uh, you bought a whole box of books, which I think there's 18 or 20 in a box. And I was so, uh, so kind of flattered and honored that you would do that. I mean, I don't even think my parents have bought a box. I don't even think my parents have bought one book. I think I gave them a book. So that was pretty nice. And then, uh, and then we sat together and I signed every single book to somebody that you were going to give it to you for Christmas, you know, like family or friends or something like that. And, uh, and that was pretty fun. You know, I, I love that story of you doing that. And then I love, you know, I love that you did that. You know, not many people would do that. And I tell that story at a lot of clinics that I do, and I kind of share the word about what you're doing and I tell them about, you know, your videos and podcasts and stuff. So I really appreciate that.
Warwick (
00:14:18
):
Oh, thanks. You know, that was, I usually buy, if I have a book that during the year that like, kind of hits me and I'll usually buy a number of those books for friends of mine, for Christmas who are on kind of on the same path, but I don't usually get to buy a book that mom and dad would read too. But that one, I got one for everybody, including mum and dad. And, um, I got, I got to say, so I had, I had to sign, you know, a little bit of something to so-and-so, you know, whatever, enjoy your journey with your horse, whatever in the books. But mum, and I said, you write something to my mom and dad, and it said something like, Oh, I don't know something like, you must be tough if you put up with this kid for 18 years, but they appreciate it.
Tik (
00:15:05
):
We got to have a shout out to your parents here. They did a good job.
Warwick (
00:15:09
):
Uh, that was pretty funny too, but so tell us about your book. So the title of your book, I would have mentioned this in the intro is called in the middle are the horsemen. And it's such an interesting lawn in that lawn is so cool because it's part of a paragraph in the book and there's a horse when you talking to when he says, so see those guys over there doing that, and then see those guys over there doing the complete opposite, somewhere in the middle of that. No, somewhere in the middle of the horse men. And I just, uh, that was not only is it the title, if even if it wasn't the title, I think it would have remembered that out of the book more than anything. Can you tell us exactly what that said or who said it or anything about that?
Tik (
00:15:53
):
I, I, you know, word for word, everything he said, but I definitely remember who said it and where they said it and what we were talking about. And it was a guy called Bruce Logan. Who's a sort of a cowboy. He starts a lot of horses. He, uh, he competes in cutting and I got introduced to him by Jonathan Fields who w who have talked about, I think if anybody's listening and I kind of repeat any of this it's because we've had some technical difficulties and had to repeat a little bit of this podcast, but, you know, Jonathan field is an amazing guy and, and he was pretty quick to put me in touch with Bruce Logan in Texas. And we went, uh, I went down there not having met him before. And one thing that was funny was before I went down there, you know, this guy, like at the heart of rural Texas cowboy that, you know, like he travels in cowboy boots and a cowboy hat, and that's like normal for him.
Tik (
00:16:45
):
And I remember texting him, you know, I think I said something like, do you think I should bring my, my riding pants and boots like implying my English, riding pants and boots. And he just, he just said something like, if that would make you feel more comfortable, you know, or something like that. And I was just like, Oh my God, I hit, no, I didn't bring them. I just got, I bought some jeans. I bought some cowboy boots and I went down there and I, I spent the winter with him and there were so many firsts for me that, you know, it was the first time I'd ever started a horse, like put the first ride on a horse. It was the first time, you know, we try to catch a horse in a 10 acre field that didn't want to be caught. There's the first time I'd tried roping something.
Tik (
00:17:24
):
It was the first time that he'd roped a horse, you know, in front of me. And, uh, it was just, you know, it was a really memorable time. I don't think we had electricity or wifi where I were staying. And it was just really a few months where it's just about, you know, just about the horses. He's one of those guys that was, I think, brought up in a really get her done kind of way at how I kind of cowboy way. And he got introduced to this idea of, and he started to, you know, go down that road where a lot of stuff is not so much always about the purpose, I think is how he saw it, but more about just being nice or just being kind, but you're not really going anywhere. And sometimes you lose that sense of having a reason for doing things or going out and working and having working dogs and working animals.
Tik (
00:18:11
):
And for him, you know, for Bruce Logan, I think it was really about joining those two worlds. Whereas you've got a purpose, you've got to check fence lines, or you got to bring the cows in and your dogs have to, you know, they got to work, but really he was trying to do it the best way that he knew how taking into account, how horses body works and how a horse his mind works, you know? And he said, you don't want to be all one way or all the other way. And that was probably one of the, also the first big moments for me in my life, where I started to really see a lot more gray area in how people train horses, that not everything is black and white, but that you can have multiple people be right. They can say different things and do different things and they can both be right. Ever since then. I just liked that idea. And it obviously it became the title of the book that, you know, you're you want to kind of, you know, he wanted to end up in the middle. I think I kind of want to end up in the middle that you can see both sides take into account both sides and change depending on the situation.
Warwick (
00:19:10
):
Yeah. So what, what year was this? Do you remember?
Tik (
00:19:14
):
Oh my God. It was it, uh, probably around 2009 give or take. Right.
Warwick (
00:19:21
):
Okay. So this, you know, this podcast is called the journey on podcasts, and I'm trying to get people in here who are on a journey. You know, they're not doing the same thing they've been doing for 25 years. And so you were at this point in time, you're a successful, uh, event vendor, aren't you?
Tik (
00:19:40
):
So at this point, um, I've only been inventing actually for a couple of years. I'd say most of my background up to that point was in show jumping. I'd written my whole life, my parents road, uh, I did the whole pony club thing and, uh, I was just getting into venting actually. Yeah.
Warwick (
00:19:57
):
Okay. So, but this is after you've gone to Europe and lived with the stuffy old German massage Mazdas and stuff, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing is, I'm not sure. I'm like, I'm sure I could count on one hand. If I could find him the number of people in the world who have spent the time to go to Europe and put up with the stuffy old German guys telling you you're doing everything wrong and beyond enough of a journey to go to the middle of Texas and live in a trial that with no plumbing to learn from some old cowboy dude. I mean, that's a, that's a very open attitude that not many people have. I mean, those, those are some pretty extremes right there from, you know, a lot of people go to one of those or the other ones and never even consider about going to the other. And you've, can't, you're one of the few people I think, who have really looked into the total opposite ends of the spectrum. Like that. That's pretty amazing.
Tik (
00:20:55
):
Yeah. And actually, you know, I, I went at like part of the book is about the process and the experience of being a working student and a lot of working students are doing, you know, going through that process when they're, you know, 17, 18, 1920. And for me, it happened a little bit later, which had its pros and cons. And I think one of the, one of the good things about it is I was able to put myself in different situations like that. And I don't think I would have been mature enough to do that five years ago and be able to say, I want both of these experiences and be, you know, because a lot of the times you hear stuff and it's on the surface is contradictory. And I think if I had done that same journey five years earlier, I think I would've just been frustrated. I wouldn't have understood it. I wouldn't have been able to look deeper. And I think it's one of those things that happened just at the right point in my life.
Warwick (
00:21:45
):
And so you don't only just got into the venting, is it, so is it the Canadian national show team or a venting team has been shortlisted in?
Tik (
00:21:53
):
So, yeah, right around, right after that, I, you know, there's a, there's a bunch of people that I worked for before I went out and I started my own business, but I had a really good horse, uh, uh, mayor, her name was Sapphire and my dad actually bought her as a show jumper right around that time. And I would kind of go off and be a working student for a little while and I'd come back for a few months and ride that horse. And, uh, I had a pretty strong background in show jumping and, you know, I'd written my whole life and done a lot of stuff. And so I kind of moved up the ranks pretty quickly with that mayor. And we got on some of the lists for the Canadian team and it was all, uh, you know, happening right around the same time actually, you know, where I would go off and become a working student and then I'd come back home and I'd ride that horse.
Tik (
00:22:34
):
And then do you know, I don't know. Do you know Karen and David O'Connor, have you ever met them? I've not met them. I know who they are. I worked for them for awhile and they, the starting horses and working in a rope halter and understanding how horses move and think that's a really big deal for them. And when I worked for them, that's kinda actually, I worked for them even before I met Jonathan field. They were the first ones to introduce that idea to me, of reading a horse's body language and, and communicating with horses that way, and that riding isn't sort of the, be all and end all of everything. And then later on, after, you know, after I've been through some of these experiences and I started my own business, then, and I had this mayor Sapphire that was competing, then I went back and I was taking lessons from David O'Connor as part of the Canadian national team, which was
Warwick (
00:23:23
):
Pretty cool. And that national team, what are they going to come? What would they be going to compete at? So in a way,
Tik (
00:23:32
):
Yeah, so I didn't actually go to the Olympics or the pan AMS, but exactly when you're talking about a national team, you're, you're trying to qualify for the Pan-Am games or the Olympic games.
Warwick (
00:23:40
):
Wow. And what year was that?
Tik (
00:23:43
):
2012, then again, I, I had a pretty close run in 2016. So how many on one of those teams for, yeah. Between, you know, but when you talk about the world equestrian games and the Olympics and the dynamic is between four and six, uh, it depends on the depends on some stuff that I don't know anything about. And
Warwick (
00:24:02
):
When you shortlisted for that, how many is on that list?
Tik (
00:24:05
):
You know, a long list could be pretty much anybody that's qualified at that level. So for Canada, you might be talking about, you know, 40, 40 horse rider combinations in the United States. You might be talking about a hundred horse rider combinations. And then for the shortlist, and, you know, in Canada, you're probably talking 10 horse rider combinations and the United States, you're probably talking like 20. Um, you know, it's not just the people that have qualified, you know, just getting to that level and inventing, having a horse that can compete at that level is, is hard enough. Uh, you know, and then the, the, you know, inventing more than a lot of sports it at the end of it can almost become for smaller countries sort of, uh, you know, uh, uh, battle of attrition, meaning, you know, which horses and riders are going to be sound leading up to the actual games, because there's a lot of sort of casualties as you go along there.
Warwick (
00:24:57
):
Yeah. And, and so you think about the point I'm trying to make here is you were shortlisted, so he didn't go to the Olympics or the, the Pan-American games, but you are shortlisted. So you're, let's say in the top 10, which means you are at that, at that level, extremely high level, the elite level,
Tik (
00:25:14
):
A vet. But then,
Warwick (
00:25:16
):
And like I said, you're, you're going to Texas and living in a trailer, so you can learn stuff from an old cowboy. And that's just a, ah, I just think that's an amazing mindset to have because a lot of people who are you, I mean, you are one of the very few people in any of the horse disciplines who is good enough to be at the elite level of whatever discipline they choose. So competition they choose, but also really has a mind into the whole horsemanship thing. I mean, there's not, there's not many out there it's, it's, it's a one or the other sort of a thing. You know, you spend your whole life trying to get to the Olympics in the eventing or whatever it is to the elite level of whatever your discipline is, or you, you spend your whole life trying to really get into the mind of the horse and having, you know, it's just a, such a, Oh, it's an odd combination of, uh,
Tik (
00:26:08
):
Very, you know, it is an odd combination. I, uh, along the way, I've had people straight up, you know, people that are close to me and saying this, not in a way to read it, but, but they're trying to be polite and they're trying to be helpful and say, you know, say to me, you shouldn't do this. You can't do this, trying to have your foot in both. These worlds will be a detriment to your career. You need to pick one of these things and do that really well, rather than trying to do both. And I mean, I, in what turned out is the opposite is entirely true of all. You know, I've gotten better at both of those things because I learned from each discipline and also, you know, in terms of teaching clinics and stuff like that, it's been a huge boost to be able to draw people into experiencing, uh, you know, this idea of horsemanship and communication and motivation people that only have a competitive background. So not only has it sort of helped my career as a competitor, it's helped my career as a clinician. And there's also, I think, brought this idea to so many people in the English world that don't want to hear it from me.
Warwick (
00:27:15
):
Right. That's, that's, that's the thing I think you, uh, you know, like I said, not only are you at elite level, at some competition and in the horsemanship you part you're in elite level, in a world that never really looks at that horsemanship thing. A lot of times, I think there's some dogma about the go with the cowboy hat. You know, like when I was, I don't train horses for the public, but when I was training horses for the public year, I got a lot of eventing horses and jumping horse and massage horses that had problems. And I found out one time why, at least one of those people sent the horse to me, they sent the horse to me because I wear a cowboy hat. So obviously I'm going to get on and ride the buck out of it, which is the furthest thing from the truth. That was the, that was the perception why they sending the horse to me because he wears a cowboy hat. So he's just going to ride the ride, the bad stuff out of it.
Tik (
00:28:04
):
That is not, that's not unique or rare. That's a really exists everywhere. And it's very common. Like, it's unbelievable.
Warwick (
00:28:11
):
Yeah. It's, you know, it's a little bit like you're a little bit like, so do you know, have you ever met Vicki Wilson?
Tik (
00:28:17
):
I haven't, but I've, I've wa I've not met her, but I've watched her compete at road to the horse.
Warwick (
00:28:22
):
Yeah. Like, so Vicky Wilson come on the road with the horse. I mean, you know, she only gotten rode at the horse, I think, cause Chris cops, his wife had back surgery that year and 2d Blaine needed another female. And I think the story was, she asked Dean James, you know, and you want to do this. He gets out there's this girl in New Zealand, but she she's an English rider. And 2d is like, well, that might be just strange enough to be interesting. And she comes back and she, and she wins it. And you know, Vicky's Vicky. So Vicky is kind of in the same situation too, where she, you know, someone in that, that discipline that's completely out of the box. You know what I mean? And I, I just, I think it's a wonderful thing what you're doing because, and I'm not saying this is not judgmental at all the people in your discipline, but they tend to, like I said, they tend to look at people with the cowboy hats, like, Oh, they just, they just Cowboys, you know, they don't know anything about what I do.
Warwick (
00:29:11
):
Whereas when someone of your level, you know, who can be shortlisted for the Olympics or the, or the way go the Pan-American games or whatever can bring those ideas to them. I think that's, that's just, I think that's, that's amazing because, and tell me if you think this is, um, what if you agree with this, but I really think once not, not when you first hear about it, but once you understand this stuff, you can't not see it. You can't get, Oh yeah, I get it. But I don't like that. I'm going back to what I used to do. You can't, you can't unsee it.
Tik (
00:29:47
):
And, and not only that, but you just, it's almost becomes addictive and you just go more and more in that direction. Like, you just go more and more down the rabbit hole and you just start seeing more and more, and you just, you know, you just start reading books and seeing DVDs and start relating stuff, you know, like you saw the, uh, my octopus teacher and you just start realizing how all these things are connected and, and, uh, it's so it's so fun as well.
Warwick (
00:30:14
):
Yeah. My octopus teacher, what did you think of that?
Tik (
00:30:17
):
Got it. I thought it was phenomenal. And actually, uh, you know, the, the, there's so many things about funnel, you know, phenomenal, you know, amazing about it actually. But one of my, one of the things that really brought me back to, you know, I grew up in Vancouver, in Canada, was just swimming in really cold water. And how alive that can make you feel. I don't know. I don't know where you, where you grew up, where in Australia, was there cold water there where you grew up? Not at all. Have you ever been urban farming and like really, really cold water and just staying in there for 10 or 15 minutes? And you're just like, you know, it just gets your blood flowing in a way.
Warwick (
00:30:53
):
Uh, every day I've been taking a cold shower for almost two years and I have a chest freezer that's full of water that are getting every day. So it's only for two minutes, but it's, you know, that's one of the things about that. My octopus teacher that really got me in the beginning, so I've done, I've done quite a bit of, uh, like breath work and I've done, you know, I have the, I'd been doing cold showers for about a year before I started with the chest freezer, maybe a year and a half. And that chest freezer, I have it set about 48 degrees Fahrenheit. So about eight degrees Celsius. Sometimes it gets down to about 43. So about five, four or five degrees Celsius, which is really quite cold for me. The 48 is pretty cold, but that go in my octopus teacher, that's what temperature the ocean is. And he gets in there and stays in there. And he spends yes
Tik (
00:31:42
):
For men. I don't know how long but minutes at a time. It's it's uh, yeah, you can imagine how you'd feel when you got out of that one.
Warwick (
00:31:50
):
Yeah. So in the first thing it starts and I'm like, okay, there's the cold. I, I get that because he says, you get to where you actually crave the cold. And I still have to talk myself to get into that chest freezer every day. But when I get out, after you get any in there, it's no fun, but it's like a lesson in acceptance, you know? But when you get out the feeling you get after you're out of there, you just feel so vibrant, alive, and it's pretty cool. So there was that bit, then there was the breathing bit and I'm pretty sure he didn't show how he does it, but I'm pretty sure he kind of hard to vent lights before he goes down. And have you ever done the Wim Hof breathing? No, but tell me about it. So when I'm off the ice, they call him the ice.
Warwick (
00:32:32
):
You know, he's holds the world record for the longest. Under I swim at the polar canopy, holds the world record for longest submersion in ice. Um, he's climbed, uh, Mount Killman. I met, he climbed Mount Everest in a pair of shorts, no shirt. Um, wow. He, um, but anyway, he does this, this breath. He does the cold therapy also, there's this breathing thing where it's, so it's really deep abdominal breathing in and out your mouth with no pauses after the, after the hour. And you do like rounds of save 30 to 40 of those. And then on the last, on the last inhale, Oh, sorry. In the last exhale, you breathe out and then see how long you can hold your breath. And the first time you do it, you can hold your breath for about two minutes. Cause you really oxygenate your blood. The whole, you hold your breath for about two minutes.
Warwick (
00:33:29
):
I mean, how long until you feel like a gasp and you've got to get taken in. But the first time I tried it, I held my breath for about two minutes. And I remember as a kid in the swimming pool, you'd try to work on holding your breath and you'd go down and hold yourself at the bottom of the ladder under the water and you know, your time, each other, whatever. And even when I was doing a lot on him, held him for two minutes. But yeah, so I think that guide with the octopus teacher is doing that, you know, that hyperventilating stuff. So you can get in there something to that bit, but then he starts having the relationship with the octopus and then, Oh my goodness. I really think there's there's life before watching my octopus teacher and there's life after what, to my octopus teacher, you can't watch that and not, not be affected by that. Not really start to think about Holy cow.
Tik (
00:34:14
):
And then also you start to wonder, um, you know, when you look at horses or you look at dogs, you really get to know any, any animal. Like we had growing up, we had ducks and chickens and sometimes would raise them. And you start to realize that they're all unique as well. Like just because of horses or horse, every horse is different and every dog is different. You also start to realize that other creatures like ducks and chickens, they can all have their own unique personalities. And then you start to wonder what that octopus, is that an average octopus or is that a smart octopus or are there octopus is a lot smarter? Like where, you know, how, how, you know, what's this world of octopus has look like
Warwick (
00:34:54
):
An octopus is actually the right term. Cause after I watched that movie, I downloaded an audio book called the soul of an octopus. And ah, this, I've got to read you the subtitle for this book because it's not just about octopuses, but it does say in the very start of it, that octopus is, is the right term because, um, octopus is Greek. And the, the whole, I think for plural is Latin and you don't cross Greek with Latin. So it's actually not octopi. It is actually octopuses. There you go. So you, it's a very good book, but the, the subtitle, I got to look at it here in my phone, the subtitle, this thing, uh, is a surprising exploration into the wonder of consciousness. That's the subtitle of the soul of an octopus, but it's about a, um, a lady who has a lot of interactions with an octopus in a, um, in an aquarium.
Warwick (
00:35:54
):
One of the major aquariums, I think might be the one in Baltimore, maybe, but just the personality octopus has have. And, and, and they're all different. They all have quirks, but they're all the smart as that octopus in that movie. I mean, I think they're actually smarter than we are, like the higher, more highly developed cognitive function than we do. Cause they get eight legs and each one of the eight legs has like 24 suckers on them. And I can manipulate each one of those suckers individually. It's kind of like thinking about a concert pianists playing the piano, cognitive functioning. You've got to have to be able to get that stuff to work. They've done functional MRIs on, on, um, concert pianists. And like some of the, you know, the, the neural snaps is that they've, they've created being able to do that, but we're going to get 10 fingers, but you know, these octopi octopuses have eight tentacles and I think they got 24 seconds on each one.
Warwick (
00:36:49
):
Each one can pick up a bowling ball. I can suck hard enough to pick up a bowling bowl. It's just fascinating. Octopus is, you know, they can blend into the background, color chameleon. Yeah. They colorblind. So they can't actually see that color with their eyes. They actually sense the color with their skin. They've got optical receivers in this skin, like listen to this book. It's like, Oh my God, they're aliens. And they are, they got way more stuff going on than we'll ever have. Pretty fascinating show. But, uh, yeah. I, you know what, I might get into some of these questions while we chat ne um, cause we, we talked about your book. Tell me, actually, tell me a bit your book. So, um, it's been out for about three years now, has it, has it gone,
Tik (
00:37:37
):
Uh, you know, the big thing that I wanted to do when, you know, I'm sure you can relate to this because for, for anybody that's been following your work, uh, I think people have been hoping for a book, you know, from you and I, and uh, I'm kind of hoping you're going to do a book as well. And if you're going to do a book almost inevitably, it's gonna, it's hopefully you're not approaching it. Uh, you know, about the money or about how many books you're selling. It's about trying to do something that you're going to be proud of trying to do something that you can look back on, you know, in 20 years and still be proud of trying to do something that you, maybe you don't enjoy every minute of it, but you enjoy the creative process of it. You enjoy the writing of it.
Tik (
00:38:24
):
Um, and then, you know, and then it just matters that, you know, like how you define success. If you look at people, you know, professional writers that are making a living, writing books, uh, I'm definitely, you know, it's definitely not that far. Most it, you know, if anybody's actually interested in numbers most, um, publishers, I guess do not release the statistics for how many or the numbers for how many books are sold. But my book, uh, they actually gave me permission to do it and we've sold just over 10,000 books. So from my perspective, that's pretty good. You know, if you were to make a living as an author, that wouldn't get you very far, but I'm pretty happy with it. You know, the, the bigger thing I guess, is when people reach out to me, which happens sometimes at clinics, once in a while, I'll get an email and they, they say, they've read my book and they say it, it changed them or effected them in some way. Or they were inspired to think a different way. I, you know, one of the, one of the nicest things that girl told me, she was probably 15 years old and she, you know, she said, she said, first of all, that she read the book three times and that it changed the way that she had a relationship with her horse. And I, you know, you're better off selling five books and having that happen then selling 200,000 books and not having that happen, I think,
Warwick (
00:39:39
):
Oh yeah. Most certainly, like when I said, how's the book going, I didn't mean, are you making your money off it? Cause that's your business. But the, you know, you think about we're in quite an enviable. Well, I don't know if it's an annual position, but it's a, it's a pretty amazing position where we, we actually have influence can have an influence, a positive influence in other people's lives. Yeah. I'm not, I'm in the middle of writing a book right now, and I'm not trying to think about how many books I can sell or anything like that. I, I, you know, like you said, if you can influence, if you can influence one person and make their life, you know, change their life a little bit, that's what it's all about. And I, you know, that's, that's gotta feel good knowing that you've sold 10,000 books and let's say 10% of that, you've made a change in their life.
Warwick (
00:40:28
):
That's a thousand people. I mean, who, how many people in their day to day in their job gets to, and this is not about ego, about who I help so many people, but get, you know, just get to have a positive influence in someone's life, to where they, you might change the way they look at things like this girl say to change the interactions I've had with my horse, you know, and she's 15 and think about, you know, you think about the mindset you get when you start looking at things that way she's 15. I mean, I didn't get this mindset for a long, long, long, long time. Think about the influence she might have over her friends with horses and the influence they have with their friends, with horses. And it's not just about the horses, but it's about that carries over into every aspect of your life and think about the influence you will have upon their children. You know what I mean? This is, this is this stuff. I think really not only changes lives, but is can help change that in a slight way, change the course of humanity. You know what I mean?
Tik (
00:41:36
):
Yeah. Yeah. How is, um, how's your book coming? Um, lowly,
Warwick (
00:41:43
):
I mean, it's, uh, I've got, I've got most of it written. I mean, you know, it's, it's um, I don't know how many, do you remember how many words?
Tik (
00:41:50
):
That is a great question. So if you researched this at all word count for books. Yep, yep. Yep. Oh, you know, for it, it depends, you know, our suggested word count for different genres. You know, if you're writing science fiction or nonfiction or a novel or a beach read or a man sample, they have sort of different suggested word counts for you. But also if you look at, you know, if you Google, you know, most successful books at all of all time and word length, you know, it runs the whole gamut. You've got, you know, books like the old man and the sea or the Pearl by Hemingway and Steinbeck that are very short. They're not villas. And they're two of the best books ever written. And then you've got, you know, like, and peace and Lord of the rings and stuff like that, which are huge long books. But you know, what they told me was they wanted, uh, they wanted the book to be around 80 to 90,000 words. And it ended up being about, I think, 500 words over a hundred thousand words. So just over a hundred thousand words.
Warwick (
00:42:48
):
Yeah. So, um, I think I've got like 60,000 down [inaudible] that, you know, 80 to 90,000 range. Um, I just have to be careful. It doesn't turn into 200,000, you know, and it's, uh, you know, I did a TV show for, um, an initial, I started doing this TV show for farm and ranch TV and in here in the U S and it's a Roku, it's a Roku channel. And it's like Netflix where it doesn't matter how long an episode is. And so I could just get my ideas out and be done with it, but then horse and country TV in the UK picked it up and it's, it's a half hour slot. And so I've got to do 22 minutes with a break at 11 minutes. And that was the hardest thing for me to get, you know, to get a full thought out and, but keep it running up to 11 minutes and then be able to stop and be able to come back and pick up that thought and go for another 11 minutes and the books kind of the same thing to where it could be war and peace. So it could be, you know, the grapes of wrath, it could be shorter, it could be long. And so, um,
Tik (
00:43:50
):
Right. So is, is harder. Like you said, being concise is harder than being wordy. And when I write, I enjoy writing and I do a lot of articles and stuff is I usually end up sort of like, you know, you're doing, you're going to end up twice, the word length that you want. You know, if I'm writing an article and I want it to be, you know, 1500 words, I usually end up writing a 3000 word article and then cutting half of it out, little by little,
Warwick (
00:44:13
):
Get all the ideas down and then just start chipping away at the bits you don't need instead of trying to write to 15. Yeah. And I've, I've found some of the articles I've written came out that way. So your book, it started out as a series of articles, didn't it?
Tik (
00:44:25
):
Yeah. Right around the time I went down this path of wanting to be a working student and learn, learning more about horses and to decide if this was going to be a career for me, I, I wanted to write about it. Uh, and I found a little magazine in British Columbia and I, I, um, I submitted, you know, I submitted this article and I think they paid me 50 bucks or something like that. And I was going to do a few of them a year for them as I went off to Germany. Uh, but right from the beginning, I had the idea that I didn't want to just do the articles. I wanted to actually become a better writer and learn more about writing and the process of writing. So I did two things is, is I hired an editor who, you know, cause you can get stuff edited by family members or friends, but it's, uh, for anybody that's done that, they know that it can be a little difficult.
Tik (
00:45:14
):
They, you know, you either take it personally or they just tell you what you want to hear. You know, that can be hard to find the right person, you know, somebody that you trust and respect in the writing world as well. So I hired an editor and then I also started reading books about writing, about the process of writing. And so, you know, for the first three years I was, you know, being paid 50 bucks. And then when I switched magazines, I think I got paid a hundred bucks or something like that for each article. But I was always spending at least twice that on paying somebody to help me learn about writing and these editors, they're not saying do this, do that. They're like teaching me, they're saying, you know, draw out this theme more, or this, uh, metaphor is too cliche or, you know, they're not changing it for me. They're, they're giving me suggestions on how to make my writing better.
Warwick (
00:45:59
):
Yeah. So, I mean, I've got a, I've got an editor that I've got some clinic pleaded chapters and send them off, send them off to, and they've come she's, you know, she's come back with the same sort of thing. Like, you know, maybe rep this, uh, this chapter up or yeah. Maybe expand on this theme just a little bit more. Yeah. Things like that. So some of the chapters are almost pretty complete and some of them are just bare bones right now, but, uh, it's not, you know, it's not something I enjoy doing because the thoughts come to me too fast and I can't get them out. And then there's like a traffic jam and then it just stops. And then I'm like, I can't get it out. And, and you know, if I was going to be a rider, I think I'd spend time learning how to be a writer, but I'm not going to be a writer.
Warwick (
00:46:41
):
You know, it's, it's, it's just some, you know, I'll probably do two or three books, I dunno, but I want to get this one out of the way first, but I'm not, I'm not, I don't think I want to spend a lot of time trying to all learn how to be a writer. You know, it's, it's the way it's written. It's written pretty much, uh, like first person, you know, like when, like we're having a conversation, it's not terribly structured, I'm not terribly structured anyway. So, but, uh, yeah, but it's, it's, it's, it's been fun. And, um, speaking of books, one of the questions that you chose to have me ask you is the question that says, what book do you recommend the most, not your favorite book, but one everybody you think everybody should read.
Tik (
00:47:23
):
So I kind of wanted to just talk about books in general with you. I do maybe have a couple of books in mind, but I, I started listening to your podcast about books that you've read and, uh, you know, I've read a lot, not all, but I've read a lot of the same books. And so I just, I just loved listening to that. And, uh, one of the first books you mentioned is probably, it was probably my favorite book as a teenager, all through high school, which is Bryce. Courtney's the power of one.
Warwick (
00:47:49
):
I actually didn't mention that one, but I didn't mention, I don't think, I mean,
Tik (
00:47:53
):
You mentioned the name, Bryce, Courtney. No, I mentioned it when I talked to the South African dude. Oh, did you? Okay. Okay.
Warwick (
00:47:59
):
Different podcasts, but yes, the pair of one, I love that book.
Tik (
00:48:02
):
Yeah. And, uh, one of the quotes from that book, which gets repeated a few times throughout the book is first with the head then with the heart. And, uh, I think it, I think it also applies to a lot of things, you know, with, you know, even with horses, like you want to do stuff and you want to do the right thing and you want to have your heart be involved, but you also got to know, you got to have some education, you got to know how to read horses. You got to know how to feed horses. You gotta learn how to communicate with horses. You have to take some lessons in order to increase your knowledge. But then in the end we do want to have that relationship with our heart. So I love, I love that quote and I love that book. That's one of the first books that comes to mind.
Warwick (
00:48:43
):
I need to go back and read that before, before you go on, I need to go back and read that book because I, you know, I read it a few times a long time ago, but, um, I think, I think you're, you're right. You know, a lot of the stuff that I'm doing with the horses now, it, I tell people, I quote Richard Branson, where he says, in order to, you know, in order to break the rules, firstly, to learn the rules and a lot of the things I'm doing with horses now, especially giving them a voice and stuff and allowing them to say no. And things like that. If you don't know what you're doing, when you do that, you can get yourself in a lot of trouble. So I tell people, you kind of got to learn how to do it, and then you've gotta be able to just have the feel and the, you know, that the flow and the intuition stuff.
Warwick (
00:49:24
):
And so it's, you know, first it's got to be in your head, but then it's gotta be in your heart. And I spent, you know, a long time just in my head with the horses. And it's funny, I told you about that, um, that three-day emotional resilience retreat. I went to one of the things they said we're trying to do the here is they said, we're trying to get you out of your head into your heart. Cause a lot of men are kind of shut down to emotions and don't feel it's all about thinking and it's not about, it's not about feeling. And I think when you get to that intuitive level, that heart level, that intuitive level with horses is where all the magic happens.
Tik (
00:49:55
):
And then, uh, you know, I got a whole list of books here, which I, which I was thinking of trying to pick a favorite here. Just
Warwick (
00:50:03
):
Tell us a little bit of me if you want to
Tik (
00:50:06
):
Do here. Yeah. So I wanted to share a quote with you from, uh, Steinbeck. Steinbeck's one of my favorite authors. And, uh, the interesting thing is there's all these, you know, uh, probably a liar, you know, I would guess that there's a large number of Americans that, you know, grew up and they had to read Steinbeck for school or, you know, but I grew up in Canada and we didn't have to read many American authors read, mainly Canadian authors and British authors. And so I didn't really discover, uh, Steinbeck and then later Hemingway until I was out of high school. And, uh, I'm really glad that I read them as an adult. They're so good. I'm going to go back and reread some of them, but I want to share a quote here, uh, that I think I might've actually quoted this in my book.
Tik (
00:50:47
):
I can't remember, but I'm going to, I'm going to just read this to you here in human affairs of danger and delicacy successful conclusion is sharply limited by hurry. So often men trip by being in a rush, if one were to properly perform a difficult and subtle act, he should first inspect the end to be achieved. And then once he ex has accepted the end as desirable, he should forget it completely and concentrate solely on the means by this message method, you would not be moved to false action by anxiety or hurry or fear. Very few people learn this. And the reason I love that is because it's, so it applies to so many things that you can't be thinking about the end while you're doing it. You gotta be, you know, in the moment it definitely applies to training horses. And even more than in the horsemanship world where people, you know, a lot of the people that I teach, teach, they don't feel pressured by time.
Tik (
00:51:47
):
But if you're competing in anything, you have very specific deadlines. You have a competition that you're going to, that you're trying to get ready for. And when you're training your horse, if you're thinking about that, and you're trying to get something done with your horse in a hurry, and you have that deadline in your mind, you're not going to work. Like it's going to go backwards. And some horses are more sensitive to that than others, but you got to really be in the moment and be in the present. And then the, you know, the interesting thing about this quote is it's, uh, what they're talking about is somebody who's planning a murder. And so it, yeah, somebody was planning a murder. So it doesn't just apply to like the good things that we're doing, but it can apply to anything, you know, and she's what she's trying to do is she's trying to figure out how to poison somebody. I think if I remember correctly from the grapes, wine was Monday Steinbeck, Steinbeck.
Warwick (
00:52:35
):
Yeah. Um, yeah. One of the, um, you know, there's a, there's a thing called one of the most spiritual of the ancient Hindu practices is something called karma yoga and karma. Yoga is applying yourself to a task with no thought as to the outcome of that task. And, um, my friend Jane pike, I don't know if you listened to the podcast with Jane pike, she's a, a question mindset coach in New Zealand. But she says, if you're doing the work while you're focused on the outcome, you're not doing the work, that sort of thing
Tik (
00:53:07
):
You gave that example also of going out to the field and sitting and waiting and sitting and just being in the moment and the horses come up to you and then somebody came up to you and said, they, you know, they were, they were sitting in the field and waiting for the horses to come up to them and the horses wouldn't come up and they kept waiting. And you pointed out,
Warwick (
00:53:26
):
I forgot what you said, but you said they had that. That's what they wanted in their minds. So they weren't really in the present. Do you remember that? Yeah, they said they, I said, they said I went out in the field and I sat, I did that whole thing where you go out there with no expectation. You just sit there. And I sat there for an hour and he never came up to me. Yeah. You just said you went out there with no expectation and know, and that's, that's so hard to get, you know, that it's a mindset. Um, you know, I've got a, I've got a Mustang ear now that's had, I don't know, she's had four or five trailer loads in her life. And the first one would have been very traumatic, just getting chased in there at the Mustang place. But when you put her in the trailer, they have never tied her in the trailer.
Warwick (
00:54:08
):
They put him in there and turn it loose, but she just can't stand still. And when they, when they get where she's going, she's just shaking and covered in sweat, poor thing. Um, and the owners were Danny yesterday. When she first got here, she paces back and forth along a fence line. Any way you put her, it doesn't matter where she is. She wishes she was somewhere else. And I've actually solved that. And the only thing, the only thing I did with that was whenever she would go and she'd pace, I would go in there and I paced with her. I just matched steps with her. Wow. And I walk up and down with her. I did it for about eight days before she stopped doing it. And hasn't done it since. And that's been a couple of months now, but, and she's been here for a couple of months now, and we haven't mentioned the trailer.
Warwick (
00:54:53
):
And recently one of the owners, this she's got two owners. The owners said, well, I want to start working on the trailer. I said, huh. Or when are you going to start working on the trailer? I said, well, probably never. I dunno. You know, when they're that friend to give out the trout and it's probably not something you'd ever want to fix, but when that they were down here yesterday and I was telling them, you realize that you took a horse, that when you put her in a pasture, put her in a pan, put her anywhere. She can't stand still and has to walk back and forth. And then you put her in a trailer and expected her to stand still. And I kept saying none of her trailering problems or traveling problems. And then the, well, when do you think, when do you think you're gonna get these trailers open?
Warwick (
00:55:33
):
Well, what did you know? And she kept saying trial, and I said to her, can you promise me something? I don't want you to ever mention the word trailer to me again, concerning this horse, because it has nothing to do with the trailer. The trailer is not the problem. If you focus on that, you're going to miss the, you gonna miss the stuff that's, that's, that's causing that, but I'm not sure she will have, you know, two things. They bought their trailer down yesterday. And normally they said she loads perfectly fine, but then she's frantic in there and yes, and I've done it. She was kind of shut down and she I've done a lot of work with, uh, getting it to actually start communicating how she feels. And she's getting a whole lot snottier than she used to. And she's getting more worried about stuff.
Warwick (
00:56:14
):
And yesterday they bought the trailer down to show me what she does and she wouldn't load the trailer first time. She'd never loaded on the trailer. And they thought it was a bad thing. I'm like, no, that's a good thing because now she's actually telling us what's going on. And you can tell where it starts before. She was just like, okay, you want me to get in there? I'll get in there. But wasn't, wasn't expressing how she felt about the whole thing. And so I said, I don't really think the trial is going to be problem, but promise me, I don't want to hear about the trailer because it's definitely not the problem.
Tik (
00:56:41
):
You know, that's I had a horse, I still own him. He's retired now, but I had a horse a couple of years ago. And, uh, he was one of these problem horses that we get and reared and didn't go forward. He was a venting horse and he'd, you know, he'd, you know, he's, he would jump all the jumps. But I think only because of the adrenaline and the, and the force, like never really given a choice. And at some point when the horse felt enough pressure, that would catch up to him and, and, you know, the, the rider would get into trouble. And in the horse, the horse was limited to going all the way to the top, even though he was a very talented horse by, by this coming out at the wrong moments. And I rode that, I took the horse on as a project and I took him to a bigger event.
Tik (
00:57:30
):
And, you know, you spend sometimes $500 and you travel eight hours to get there. And there's a lot of, you know, sometimes there's a lot of people watching and you feel like you got to get around all these jumps. And I don't think I would have had the confidence to do this even a couple of years before, but this horse stopped at, I think the fifth jump on course, and I didn't close my leg. I didn't use my spur. I didn't use the whip. And he expected like that. You could tell this horse expected me to like his reaction. And I just sat there with people watching with the other horses still going on. Course. I just sat there with this horse just for some reason I don't, I don't even know why. I just felt like it was the right thing to do. I just stopped.
Tik (
00:58:09
):
And I just waited there almost, you know, in my mind is kind of like it's, you know, it's okay. Like giving him permission to stop. Um, and then I circled around after, you know, 30 seconds seems like a really long time when you're in a situation like that, but I, I probably, I'm 30 seconds. They're letting them just stand in front of the jump and just look at it. And with me doing nothing. And then I circled around again. And after that moment for the rest of this horse, his career, he never gave me that feeling like I feel forced over jump, which makes me want to stop when the going gets tough.
Warwick (
00:58:42
):
Yep. Yeah. I had a, I had an inventing Mer here a couple of years ago that had a chronic raring problem. And I kind of went back to the start with her. But when I, when I, I had her for about six weeks, I think, and when I took it back to the, the, the owners also an inventing trainer, and I took it back up there and dropped her off and I said, I want to see your jumper. I hadn't jumped it. You know? And we started working on the jumping stuff. And sometime during that lesson, the Trenton said to me, wow, that's the first time this horse has ever taken me to a jump. Like she wanted to go to the jump. And to me, it was like, just the way I look at things, I'd want a host to take me to a Crossrail.
Warwick (
00:59:24
):
You know what I mean? I would want the host to want to go over the ground routes. I'd want to, I want the host to take me to everything. And, and this is not a judgment, but you know, sometimes in the competitive mindset, you're riding a horse in it. It's not taking you the jump. I'm just going to make you take me to the jump. But at some point in time, you you're going to run out of that, making them go there. And then at some point in time, you get to go back and get them to, to want to go there. But it was, you know, I just thought it was funny that she looked at me. She goes, that's the first time she's ever taken me to a jump. I was like, this horse was a two-star Aventa um, you know, I just thought it was an interesting, um, yeah, they definitely
Tik (
00:59:59
):
No, in the venting world that you definitely have to have this idea with an upper level horse that they're, they're seeking the jump. They're looking to go to the jump and I've, I've thought about it a little bit, you know, as I go into the horsemanship world about the way that, you know, you can teach, uh, in the Western world, which I haven't done much, but a horse can get on a cow and they're seeking the cow. Or, you know, if you watch how Dan James, you know, or some of these people that do stuff for movies, they teach a horse to seek a target and go there and stand it. And they're like, they're looking at it with both their eyes and both their years. And they're going towards something with the, with the understanding. And so, you know, whether you're going towards the pedestal or going towards a cow or going to the awards, this jump, it's all really, you know, three different versions of target training. Like they, they have to understand this is something I'm going towards. And if you, if they're not, if they're going away from your leg or away from your stick, it's not the same thing, but it wouldn't say understand the job it's, you know, it makes it so much easier and more fun for both of you.
Warwick (
01:00:55
):
Yeah. I think it's kind of the same thing as say maybe getting a horse to, to relax and stretch over the top line or run them in drill runs. You know, the head goes down in both of them, but one of them is a whole level of tension there that they achieved the shape, but all the wrong muscles are engaged. Whereas when you, if they want to do it, the correct muscles are engaged even though that, you know, their heads in the same place in relation to the wither or whatever, you know, it's. Yeah. There's, there's a, yeah, there's a whole different, um, yeah. Different things going on with the muscles there. Okay. But good. I books
Tik (
01:01:28
):
What's you're to, we got to spend a couple more minutes on the books because yeah, I got some more books I want to, I want to share. So I w first of all, when I started thinking about books, I wanted to share with you listen to some of your podcasts. You had a lot of nonfiction, and I love reading non-fiction because I love understanding stuff. The way that people can break it down in certain ways like ABCD or one, two, three, four, this is the way your mind works. Or these are the four things that motivate horses. But when I started to make the list, everything pretty much was fiction. You know, Steinbeck, Hemingway, uh, Neville shoot, Elizabeth Gilbert, Kurt Vonnegut, uh, the Alchemist for those of you that have read the Alchemist, but in the past 12 months, this, the book, the author that I've enjoyed the most. Again, this is somebody I'd never heard of before 12 months ago, but he has now become one of my five favorite authors. And if, uh, he apparently he's very famous in, in the South, uh, you know, in the Southern United States. And it's where he was born. That's where he grew up. That's where he writes about his name is Pat Conroy and he is such a fantastic author. Have you ever heard of Pat Conroy?
Warwick (
01:02:38
):
No. I'm writing it down. Yeah. So
Tik (
01:02:42
):
He, you know, when you talk about people being vulnerable and people being, you know, being brave because they're vulnerable and people being, uh, introspective, uh, and you talk about words like, you know, some of the themes he has are like this emotional balance, this introspection, he talks about a lot of things that I don't know about that I'm interested in, like what it's like to grow up in the South in the United States, you know, having a relationship to people that fought in the Vietnam war. Um, he had a really tough relationship with his dad. His dad was physically and emotionally abusive, and a lot of his fiction really draws on his relationship to his dad. And one of the things that he says, you know, for anybody that's had, uh, you know, disagreements with people in their family is how he, how he through fiction brings people along on this journey of forgiveness.
Tik (
01:03:38
):
And you cannot imagine in some of these books, like you want the, you want sort of this villain of a father sometimes to get his just desserts to be killed or, or the son to get revenge or any of these things. And in the end, actually, you see this forgiveness happen and you realize that it's almost like the ultimate form of bravery, that he can, uh, you know, forgiveness, isn't condoning something forgiveness isn't necessarily saying that you trust that person forgiveness. Isn't saying that you didn't get hurt. What forgiveness is. It's like a gift to yourself where you let go of the anger and bitterness. And it says, this is our starting point. And I'm willing to go forwards from this starting point instead of holding onto this and going backwards. And he shows all this through some of the most beautiful writing you will ever read. It's it's, uh, it's really powerful.
Warwick (
01:04:38
):
Wow. It's uh, sounds pretty cool. Have you ever read, uh, read a book called Shantaram? No, but I will write that down. No, doesn't write it down. The universe will take care of it. Don't worry. Um, the very first line of this book is something about, I learned, I learned about forgiveness, what I was chained to a wall being beaten. And in that moment, it's very eloquently written. This book is one of the best one of those books you read and you just stop and stare at the wall for awhile. Um, but it's like I learned about forgiveness first, first paragraph, the whole book, something about, I learned about forgiveness world chained to a being beaten. And in that moment in time, I had, I had the choice to hate these people or forgive them for them.
Tik (
01:05:25
):
Yeah.
Warwick (
01:05:27
):
We're acting. And it's just like one of those slap in the face paragraphs. And it's the various data, the book, but yeah. Um, okay. Pet Conroy. Got it. What else you got? Well,
Tik (
01:05:41
):
Uh, you know, I just wanted to, I think share his last pack on, or his last thing that I got from his books, which is, you know, he, he's a, he's a pretty emotional guy. You can tell that from reading his books, but in order to write these books, he somehow has found an emotional, uh, an emotional balance or a way to look at himself and be able to, to not just write in a way that is revengeful or bitter, but being able to look at some of his own feelings and share them. And I think that's, I just want to relate that back to the horses, um, because to be successful in riding, especially if you have a competitive career, this emotional control of this emotional balance is so important. And, uh, I mentioned earlier that I've been riding with David and, and Karen O'Connor and, uh, they have a big thing, you know, whenever they have a Thanksgiving or Christmas and they have some of their teenagers or staff around that ride with them is they, they don't put up with kids not being polite.
Tik (
01:06:50
):
And they used to try to explain it, you know, or that being polite is just for the sake of being polite. And then they tried to say, you know, being polite is important if you ever want to have owners in the sport. And David was just telling me the other day that the, you know, one of the ways he has, you know, he relates that idea to these kids now is he says learning how to be polite, to shake someone's hand, to look them in the eye to get up, even though it might be a little awkward and take the dishes into wash them or whatever it is, he says, that's the first step of learning the emotional control that you need to be a top level competitor. And I thought that was so interesting how he related that. And when I see, you know, when I, when I see all these books, they're, they're able to take really intense emotions and they're able to share them through stories. That's taken a lot of thought and a lot of introspection, and those are the kinds of like, novels that really attract me.
Warwick (
01:07:48
):
Um, yeah. What you said that David said minute, Indigo, it's very misdemeanor. Yagi, you know, wax on wax off, like, why am I painting the fence? You know, I want to learn karate, but it's all related. Yeah.
Tik (
01:08:01
):
Yep, yep. You haven't watched Kirby. I seen the first three
Warwick (
01:08:06
):
And started watching. I didn't yet. It's just a cheesy as any other eighties show, but we ended up watching the whole two seasons of cause we up. Yeah. It's just, it's just nostalgia. I wouldn't say it's riveting drama by any means, but it's just nostalgia and they play some pretty cool eighties hair, band and music. So it's pretty good.
Tik (
01:08:26
):
Well, I want to know who came up with this idea of creating the TV show after 35 years? What is it those two guys, like, let's say they're having a drink in the bar and saying let's, let's, let's bring these characters back to life or who's whose idea was that?
Warwick (
01:08:39
):
I don't know, but, uh, it was probably then because like, you know, there's so much good drama on TV these days, and that was not one of them was not very well acted or very well written, but if you take it for what it is, it's, it's enjoyable. You know, if you're a child of the eighties, it was pretty good. So you got any more books to tell us about,
Tik (
01:09:03
):
You know, I could talk about books all day. Uh, I'm sitting in my library right now and, uh, by library, I mean, I took a wall and put bookshelves floor to ceiling bookshelves along the entire wall, and I've just been organizing it. I've got a shelf of animal behavior books. I've got a shelf of horse books. I've got a whole wall of fiction books, and then I'm working on my collection of non-fiction books as well. Like this is a, I love this and I loved your podcast on books as well.
Warwick (
01:09:32
):
Oh, thanks. Yeah. I'm just looking around here. I've got a bookcase over there of fiction that I haven't read fiction for a long time. And then I go to all this Whoa, deep stuff over here, like a lot of that. And then I have a here, I've got some horse training books and some vet books and yeah, but it seems like the, the books that I've really got into the last few years are all, you know, not necessarily self-helpy stuff, but all nonfiction, lots of Wu stuff. Anyway, not for the books then, uh, the second question that you had said that you wanted me to ask you, and I, I love this question, uh, especially, you know, you know, that these questions came from Tim Ferriss tribe of mentors book, and he gets to, to interview some pretty interesting people. And a lot of people, your average person tends to look at failure as failure. Like that's a bad thing, but this question is, what's the biggest, what's been your biggest failure and how has it helped you? And the reason I love this question is because when you get to talk to, you know, successful people like yourself, and you get to say what your fairly, wasn't, how it helped you and really help people kind of embrace failure and embrace that sort of thing rather than look at it. Like it's a bad thing. So yeah. What is your, what's been your biggest failure and how has it helped you?
Tik (
01:10:52
):
Well, let me just back up one sec, cause what you made, what you're just saying about failure makes me think of a one pack on my book in particular, which is called the losing season. And it's a whole book brilliantly written about him playing basketball. It's a true story. It's a memoir for a college team and the team, you know, it does. And then they lose at the end. And basically what he he's, you know, most people, if they're going to write a book or create a movie about a basketball team, that's going to be a team that won. And this is a team that is a below average team. And, you know, he says he learned more about himself and about life from playing on that team than any team that he's ever won on. Wow. I just written that down, the losing season, the losing season.
Tik (
01:11:38
):
Yeah. Um, I guess probably for me, I, I feel like when I start something new, I usually set the bar pretty high for myself when I take on a new goal. And also that my life has been sort of, you know, I've written my whole life, but I've done some other sports as well. And, and, you know, had a couple of like sort of minor careers and different things. And every time, you know, in high school, I wanted to play basketball in college. I ran track and I competed in modern pentathlon and I had this, you know, I show jumped when I was with my dad. He's a big show jumper and never in one of those things, did I achieve a goal that I had set for myself, you know, the, the ultimate goal of where I want it to go in that sport.
Tik (
01:12:28
):
And in my mind, every single time when I left, I think I had thought of it as quitting or as a failure. Um, but the way I look at it now is it wasn't, it wasn't quitting. It was moving on. And, um, I don't think what's that saying something about it. If you shoot for the moon, at least you'll land among the stars or something like that. You know, I think I, I don't think I would change anything about how I set goals. Like I, I think if I go through life, I think I've gotten to the point where I'm okay with that. I think the other big thing I've learned is that some of the things I've done in my life have been more about the goal than about really enjoying the process. And even with horses, you know, I, I think switching from, you know, showjumping to venting, going from inventing more into learning about horsemanship, um, you know, even how I relate, how I make a living sort of teaching clinics and teaching lessons and writing articles and writing books is I'm constantly figuring out that I it's okay.
Tik (
01:13:44
):
Not to have the same goals as other people, when you do something like it's okay not to have a podcast or it's okay not to have, you know, a really successful YouTube channel. If what I want to do is write a book and that's my way of doing it. That's okay. Even if that's not somebody else's definition of success. And that's gotten me to the point now where I think I could, I think would miss it, but I think I would, I could never compete again with horses and I would still enjoy and love learning about horses and teaching people about horses and trying to understand more about horses myself. Whereas I think a few years ago, the competition and the goal oriented part of it was that if I didn't have that, I don't know if I would have kept doing horses. And I think there's a lot of, I don't know if this is in your world at all or anybody listening, but I think there's a lot of people that work with horses that if they couldn't compete or even if the horses weren't, you know, that's horse four wasn't in the Olympics or whatever it is, they might find something different to do with their life.
Tik (
01:14:50
):
Like they wouldn't just work with horses for the sake of working with horses as I've failed at different things. I've realized that if I, if I'm always going to set my goals so high, that I'm going to fail, I got to find something that I'm going to enjoy wholeheartedly, even if I don't achieve that goal, you know, so that I can enjoy doing that thing every day. Maybe not every day. You know, I think there's always going to be moments where you're, you're, you're, you're, you're going on a downswing or you're unhappy or there's something not going. Right. But I think overall, like if you will look, I've actually met people like this, like that, that are work, they're professional horse people, and they're working with horses every single day and they're competing and it's taking all their time and energy and money. And you just want to look at them and say, do you even like horses?
Tik (
01:15:39
):
Like, do you even do even like horses? Like, why are you doing this? And it's almost like, you know, you can understand it in a way, because they've gone down this road where it's become the way they make their living and probably even more than that part of their self identity. And I think if you're one of the hardest things to ever leave, like as I've switched, doing different things in my life is that idea of your self identity is who you think you are. And to sort of rediscover that in, in a new way for myself, like as sort of one of the things I'm going through right now is to be, is to find this happiness. Even if I can't, you know, have the horse or the money or the time to take a horse to the Olympics, am I still going to enjoy the process?
Tik (
01:16:18
):
And maybe, I mean, maybe you're going to ask me in a few years, I was able to make that decision and maybe it makes you even more successful. You know, I wouldn't be surprised like when you look at people that are really successful, like a lot of them, I think, first of all, I think there's many different ways to be successful. I think you can be successful, you know, successful in quotation marks, you can achieve a gold medal and you can come off of that gold medal and still be unhappy. I remember reading groups, dinners book, you know, who Bruce generous. He won the decathlon for that. He said, after he won the gold medal in the decathlon, he went through two years of depression. So it's really, that's what, yeah.
Warwick (
01:16:56
):
I saw her on. Um, I saw on Netflix last night, there is a, um, a new Netflix documentary and I forget what it's called, but it's basically about the epidemic of mental health issues with Olympic athletes. Yeah. I've
Tik (
01:17:12
):
Got some college athletes too.
Warwick (
01:17:15
):
Yeah. And in, you were talking about books before in one of the, when I did the book podcast, one of the books I talked about was a book called backbone. And in that book, the guy it's like a men's, self-help sort of a book, but in that book, this guy says most men spend all their life trying to get four things at the same time, you know, vocational success, material, wealth, health, and love. And most men think if I could get those four things at all at the same time, then I'd be happy. Well, most, you know, that's a, that's a tall order being healthy, having a good relationship, material, wealth and vocational success. And that would be the competing part. That would be the, you know, that'd be the gold medal or whatever. But if he said in the book, most people that, that the unlucky ones get all those four things at the same time.
Warwick (
01:18:10
):
And then they realize I'm just as miserable as I was before. And then you got to figure out, okay, what is it that's going to make me happy. And most people have that dangling character where they think if I could just get whatever it is, the gold medal, blah, blah, blah, and all this other stuff. But it's all, that's all, that's all, that's external validation stuff. And it's, you know, I think that, I think after one of the books I talked about too, was, um, Lewis, Howes, uh, the mask of masculinity and, and he talks in there about a lot of people who are very, very successful at sports as successful at sports, because that is a, that's a masking of, of being vulnerable. You know what I mean? You know, if I, if I can win enough stuff, people won't question me and, and it's yeah.
Warwick (
01:18:51
):
So it's, I have the, I have the, um, the question, you know, when you see successful sports people, like, I, I think, I wonder if you're doing it for the right reasons and you can't tell, but you know, the idea, I think that's, that's a, that's a really good point to make about a lot of people that, uh, that are really aiming to, to win. Why are they aiming to win? You know, what's what, you know, is it, is it a good reason or is it a, is it a bad reason? So yeah. Interesting stuff. Um, I might as well even another question then. Okay. So this question was, what is the most worthwhile thing? You've put your time into something that's something that's changed the course of your life. So,
Tik (
01:19:34
):
Uh, the first, probably bigger picture answer has gotta be my family, my wife and my son, my son is now just turned two years old. I, you know, I wasn't sure I, we were going to have a son. My wife's a very motivated, driven person. You know, a horse person she's competed at the world, the question games. And when we got married, I, you know, it was definitely not a sure thing. I'd always grown, you know, grown up, having the idea, maybe in the back of my mind that I was going to be a father. But there's so many things that you hear about having a kid that no, how many times you hear him, you can't, you don't actually understand it until you actually have a kid. And so it's been a pretty amazing two years for me, you know, how fast time goes by how quickly they grow up, you know, how they play, how they learn, the patients that you learn, the being in the moment. And it's really,
Warwick (
01:20:26
):
It's really, uh, I heard that, I heard that.
Tik (
01:20:29
):
I'm going to tell you a quote here that I heard a few years ago, and I don't think I even started to understand it until I had a son. And this is the quote. Everyone has two lives to live. The second one begins when you realize you only have one and you know, you only have one life to live. And w now that I've got a son, it's become even more obvious how much, what you do with your time. Like your time is your probably your most precious commodity and how you choose to spend it, and to be able to now reprioritize my life in that way, uh, has been diff difficult in some ways, you know, for the horses and the business, but very rewarding in every other way.
Warwick (
01:21:19
):
I'm still staring at the wall, thinking about the quote. Yeah. Isn't that a great quote. That's a, that's a stare at the wall and scratch your chin for a minute kind of quote, isn't it?
Tik (
01:21:31
):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, if I were to give a second, uh, you know, answer to that question more to do with my, you know, with horses or my career would probably be the process we talked about earlier of trying to become a better writer and not just a better writer, but a writer about horses. And it made me a very aware when I wrote that book, I went through it, you know, it's, you know, it's a hundred thousand words. I went through that many times with the editing and it made me very aware of the very particular words that I would use. For example, you know, I might say somewhere in the book, did I make the horse do something, or, you know, I might use the word make, I made the horse do this, or did you ask the horse to do this? Or did you cause this to happen?
Tik (
01:22:16
):
Um, you know, little things like that, that really, you know, on the surface, it's not a big deal, but when you start to see people interacting with horses, in the words that they use, um, you know, people that they call their horse a jerk, or, you know, they, you know, you're teaching a lesson and somebody says, you know, make your horse do this, or all these things start to have, I think, a very subtle influence on how you think about horses and also how the people around you and especially kids start to think about horses.
Warwick (
01:22:47
):
Yeah, I'd have to agree with that. I think your, the words you use have a lot to do with the way you perceive that the situation and the way you perceive the situation has a lot to do with your energy and your energy has a lot to do with how the horse responds to the whole thing. So basically it's, it's, I think it's a big thing. And I think a lot of that's caused by your judgment too. I just, I was talking about the ladies that were here yesterday with the Mustang, and I said, I don't wanna hear the word trailer again. Uh, somewhere in that conversation, one of them said something, and I said, I want, I really want you to think about the word you just used. She goes, Oh, well, you know what I meant? I said, yeah, I know what you meant.
Warwick (
01:23:30
):
But I think that the choice of words that you're using, you're projecting a certain sort of energy in that situation that I don't think is good in that situation. And, uh, yeah, I do think that's, that's a pretty true thing when it comes to those words, the, I don't like it when people use those sorts of words anymore, their horses, cause I'm kinda new to this, you know, I used to train horses and I was very good at teaching them to be obedient and very good at teaching them to respond to what my ask was. But at the time I really had no internal energy. I had no, I had no knowledge of self really at the time. So I was just, I had no emotion, so I had no energy and that, that works good. But you know, like seeing you at that horse X, by working with those horses and especially watching go to Jonathan's one day in Canada and watching work with horses and just seeing how it's almost it's imperceptible, but it's, I used to think it was like he was giving an imperceptible cue, but it's, there's a,
Tik (
01:24:27
):
There's an energy and give off as you bring your life up or down or your, your, you know, that and in a negative way too, you know, if you're even a little bit angry, there's an energy that comes off that the horses pick up on.
Warwick (
01:24:42
):
Yeah. You know, Jonathan was showing me some Liberty stuff with his horse, how, and he was talking about how, you know, see if he gets a bit out of position right here before I do anything I'm gonna, I'm going to, he said, I'm not angry at him, but I'm going to get a bit of a dark sort of an energy. And then I'm gonna look back here and then I'll just take this stick and I'll swing it when he catches up. When you go back to that happy energy. So he said, so when I'm doing a, like a Liberty performance, if house starts to kind of leave a bit, all I've got to do is change how I feel on the inside and go from like a happy energy to a bit of a stern energy and Halligan. Ooh, sorry. And suck back over here. And when he said that, I was like, Oh my God. I remember I spent a day at Jonathan's. And that night on my Facebook group, I wrote what I do with horses is basic basic math. What this guy does is quantum physics. Well, that was before I knew what quantum physics was. And now I know what quantum physics is. Yes, he does do quantum physics. Yeah. And I've, um, you know, I'm just on the very fringes of understanding that now, but I understand that it works. It's, it's just,
Tik (
01:25:45
):
Uh, I don't know anything about, uh, fork, but, um, there's a really good book again for, uh, called, uh, surely you're joking. Mr. Feynman, have you ever heard of Richard? [inaudible]
Warwick (
01:25:58
):
No, what's a code. Surely what? Sure.
Tik (
01:26:00
):
You're joking. Mr. Feynman, and is spelled F E Y N M a N. And he's one of the most famous physicists. I think he works in quantum physics of all time. And I think this quote is from him and he says, um, he says, if you think you understand quantum physics, then you don't understand quantum physics. You know, it's the same with horses. Like when somebody comes to me and they say, you know, I'm, I really understand this. Or I'm an expert at this. Or I feel really, you know, like, I'm really good at doing this. The first thing I'm thinking is like, you're not good at this at all. Like, where's the humility, you know, like when you start to understand something, then it becomes way more of a humility about how you approach it.
Warwick (
01:26:49
):
Oh yeah. But you got to have on this, you got to understand that, that point that they're at, you have to go through that, you know, like the saying says it's, it's, uh, it's what you learn after you thought you knew everything that's important, but you can't skip the I've. Got it. I totally understand it now. I've got it. You can't skip that point. So that's the thing I've really found is I've become really a lot less judgmental about anybody who's at where they're at, because at some point Tom was like, yeah, I got this. I, I understand all this stuff. And then I kind of realized how much I didn't understand it. And now I know how much I don't understand, or I understand. I don't understand a lot, um, that I that's a point you have to go through. It's not like, you know, it's, some people might get stuck for the rest of their life and not actually get through that. But I don't think you can. I don't think you can just do not pass, go collect two, you know, do not go to jail, go to collect $200 or whatever it is, monopoly. You got to get to that point and get past that point. I just think some people will get to that point and get stuck. And once again, no judgment, if you're stuck there, you're stuck there. That's, that's, that's your journey. But, uh, yeah, I think you're gonna get coming out. The other side of that.
Tik (
01:28:03
):
Yeah, I agree. I I've, I've tried to become a lot it's, you know, the writing, the book was also a big eye-opener for me in terms of judgment, because when you're writing something like that, you're really putting yourself out, you know, out there it's, uh, being pretty vulnerable in a way. And you start thinking about the kind of judgment that you have about other people or about yourself. And it starts to, you know, you S you start to think about what's in what's important and how that helps or hinders your relationship with yourself or with your other people. And, um, not just on the journey with horses, but also how people work with horses. I've been trying to be less judgmental. You know, if you think about, if you had, for example, a spectrum of how, you know, how tough you could be with a horse, you know, on one, on one end, you might have somebody that is very confident and very good, but they can be very tough.
Tik (
01:28:51
):
They draw from boundaries. Somebody like, uh, somebody like Clinton Anderson, I'm sure you've seen Clinton work with horses. Have you? Yeah. So he's very good, but there's, there's very firm boundaries and I listened a podcast with him and he said, you know, he relates to people the same way in the podcast. He says, you know, if your kids like you before, I think he's kind of joking, but he's like, if your kids like you before you're before they're 30 years old, you're probably not doing a good job as a parent. You know, like, he's like, he's like, you gotta draw firm boundaries with kids and horses. Like, there's gotta be a, an amount of respect there that borders sometimes on fear. And then, you know, then you get to the middle part with people that don't want to use much, you know, positive or negative, you know, kind of reinforcement.
Tik (
01:29:31
):
And, and to me, that's somebody who sort of like Elsa st. Claire, who I think, you know, like she doesn't want to have much food involved, but she also doesn't want to have much, you know, negative pressure involved. She's very close to that middle ground. And then, you know, on the way other end of the spectrum, you have a lot of the, you know, the diehard clicker trainers and positive reinforcement trainers, which are all about nothing negative, only positive. And, you know, I read an interesting podcast about somebody that, you know, took eight weeks to get our horse, even two feet on the trailer, because there was all about click treat, click treat. There was no leading, there was no stick. There was no nothing like, uh, it was, it was very much about positive reinforcement. So you have this whole spectrum of people on how they work with horses. And when I go watch some of those people work with horses, I try to think it doesn't matter where they are on the spectrum. Is there something that I can learn from them and take away and make it part of my own program?
Warwick (
01:30:24
):
Yes. Uh, certainly there's a, have you ever heard of a, um, there's a website called Equus Soma, you ever heard of it? No. So it's a lady named Sarah schlocky and she is a, um, a therapist, human therapist, you know, and her deal is all viewing horse training through a trauma based lens. And she has this really good, um, blog that she's written about training styles. And there's the one end of the scale. Like it's all negative reinforcement. There's a very, very firm boundaries. And she explains how you may have been bought up and X life experiences you've had. And then there's the other end where I will not use any pressure whatsoever. I'm only positive reinforcement in there. And then she, she goes and she lists. So, uh, you know, when, when you were growing up, did you not, have we not allowed to have a voice?
Warwick (
01:31:21
):
And, and so that now that you feel bad about feeling the horse kind of a voice sort of thing, it, it was really, it was really interesting because it's it, your training style that you choose has a lot to do with your trauma, your life traumas. It was fascinating. And she was equally, she addressed both ends of it equally. Like if you, uh, have huge boundaries with horses and it's all about obedience and stuff, this is your trauma. But if you are a click a trainer and you won't put any pressure on a horse ever, because you feel like it's bad, he's your trauma. And then, wow,
Tik (
01:31:57
):
I'll give you a couple, I'll give a couple of specific examples of exactly that one is, um, have you read buck Brandon's book, the faraway horses? Yeah. So he talks about, you know, his tough childhood and how with his foster parents, he, you know, he developed some of these for boundaries and how he relates to his childhood, very closely mirrors, how he relates to horses. And then on the other end of the spectrum, I spent a few days with a clicker trainer that, you know, she came out to my farm in Florida and, uh, she gave me the whole rundown and we worked with, you know, seven or eight of my horses, and we did the whole thing. And she basically said, what brought her on this path is that when she was a child, she was sexually abused. And she said, she never wants to put any other living creature in that position of saying, you have to do that.
Tik (
01:32:54
):
And she's, you know, from her perspective, if it takes three months to get a horse to lead, because she's going to go click, treat, click trick, she's going to take three months to do it. Like she's not going to pull on that rope or use a stick. And her, you know, I know those are her expectations and, and she's gotten quite good at that. But like, exactly what you're saying is, uh, is how they're relating to horses is a lot about how they relate to themselves and how they relate to people. Like they think, they think, uh, I mean, I don't know how to word it exactly, but how they think horses want to be treated as a little bit how they want to be treated.
Warwick (
01:33:34
):
Right. Yeah. And it's, for me, I think a lot of people tend to be one way. Um, and for me, I've had a massive change in the last four years to when I went from viewing the world one way to viewing the world the other way. And the thing I've got out of that is when I was viewing the world, the way I used to view the world, I was right, because it worked, I'm traveling around the world, giving clinics, people's horses come in, they leave better. I train horses. They come in, they leave better, it works. It's all jolly good. And then I had a horse that it didn't work with. And he really made me kind of step back and look at things from a completely different perspective. And now I do look at everything from a completely different perspective. And so if I see somebody who is in the same place, I was four years ago and they're like, I'm right.
Warwick (
01:34:23
):
I think you are in, in, in, in the way you view the world. You're exactly right. And so I used to, I used to be judgmental about people who weren't doing what I was doing, because I was right for God's sake, you know? And now I'm like, Hey, everybody's at, everybody's at where they're at. And everybody, uh, does a certain thing because of every experience I've ever had in their life. And it's kind of like right now, we're in the middle of this bloody election thing here in the U S and one half, the people thinks the other half idiots and the other half of people think the other half the idiots, but they're both right. Not that the other half idiots their view on the world is right. According to every experience they've ever had. And the other side, their view on the world is right. According to every experience I've had. And that's the thing I don't see, and I don't wanna get into the politics of it, but the thing I don't see with all this political debate is any acknowledgement of the other person's view, or I can see how you might see things that way. It's like you're, and it's the whole division thing. It's it's um,
Tik (
01:35:24
):
I know, I actually wonder why that is like, you'd think D I wonder if they see that as a weakness to say that I don't to say, like, I understand your point of view, or I want to try to learn more about your point of view, because it seems so, I mean, it doesn't seem like it takes that much enlightenment to try to think about compromise and understanding somebody else's point of view.
Warwick (
01:35:45
):
Yeah. You know, um, so you've watched my octopus teacher. I watched that one night, but the next night I watched the social dilemma. Have you watched that on Netflix yet?
Tik (
01:35:54
):
You know, we just started, we just started it, but I've watched the first one. So
Warwick (
01:35:57
):
When you get to, when you get to the end of that, your question will be answered. Okay. Okay. The answer to that question is in there, and the fact we're all getting fed. The algorithms of feeding is more of divisiveness will, will more of what we, you know, if, if they think you're a righty, they give you far right wing stuff. If they think you're lefty, they've given you a fire lift and stuff. So you're not, you're getting more of what you look at rather than a balanced sort of a view. And, uh, yeah. Sorry, got off on the politic.
Tik (
01:36:27
):
No, I think that, I think that's interesting. Yeah.
Warwick (
01:36:31
):
Yeah. I think it's just, you know, I think that's the thing with horses and, and I would say, uh, I don't know if you want to use the word politically, you know, I'm not a citizen in the U S so I can't vote anyway, I'm a resident. Um, but I probably have quite a few different views on say political issues than I would have done four years ago. And it's the horses that have, that have facilitated that. I just, I just, you know, I understand that everybody's problems that they're having, uh, caused by some sort of past trauma that they haven't worked through horses the same. And so you're a lot less judgmental about the, the, the problem they presenting you with a more empathetic to the fact that they might've been things that caused it to be that way rather than that's how it is. You know, it's like, and you said with the judge people with a judgment about the horses, or he's a jerk or whatever, he's not, that's your perception of what he is. But if you look behind every behind every behavior is a, is a feeling and behind that feeling is an experience. Yeah.
Warwick (
01:37:38
):
Interesting stuff. Speaking of that stuff in relationships, the next question you wanted me to ask you, and this is a great question. I love these questions is what is your relationship with fear?
Tik (
01:37:49
):
I read this question a few times and I was kinda trying to figure it out because it's, there's a lot of, you know, with fear. I think it's quite a nuanced question because you can be slightly uncomfortable. You can be anxious, you can be mildly fearful. You can be very fearful. You can have overwhelming fear. You know, I've seen a horse. Once I saw a horse Kyla kill himself, he was blind with fear and he ran into a fence post and he, he died right in front of me. And it was one of the most horrible experiences of my life. Um, and I was trying to think about myself and think about some of the things that I'm scared of. And I think, you know, for the sake of this, for the sake of this conversation, I'm going to take something kind of middle of the road, which probably a lot of people are scared of, which is public speaking. Were you ever scared of public speaking work?
Warwick (
01:38:47
):
I probably still am. If it wasn't something like horses, I can stand up there and wind me up and push me out there. I can talk for 10 hours, but if you wanted me to, I think the public speaking thing, if I had to say like a eulogy at someone's funeral and to get up there and be very heartfelt and sincere, that would be very hard. I'm getting better at that, but that's always been something that I've struggled with the public speaking. It all depends if I'm comfortable with the subject, if it's, if I'm comfortable with the subject. Now, the public speaking is probably not a big fee for me.
Tik (
01:39:21
):
So growing up, um, all through elementary school, all through high school, all through five years of university, um, I think I only spoke in front of a class or a crowd twice because I did everything I could to get out of every other possible situation. Like whether I was sick or whether I chose a different assignment or a makeup test or an essay or whatever it was. And, um, I mean, w what's w two things started to change with that fear? The first thing is that I, I made up my mind that I wanted, this was something that I wanted to get better at. And it's because I felt like there was some stuff I wanted to be able to share. And it was because some of the biggest changes in the world and some of the people I admired most were able to make those changes by being comfortable with speaking to a crowd and through, um, equine, Canada and sport Canada, they had a program for athletes where you could go in and they would have somebody teach you public speaking.
Tik (
01:40:31
):
So I, I went in to this and there's just six of us in a classroom with an instructor. We were all in our twenties and the instructor, maybe just three or four years older than us. And, um, I tell you even just doing that, like we would go around the table and just be asked to speak about things for a little while is like, I felt way out of my comfort, like wanting to leave the room and not come back. And, um, and I would, I mean, I would call that fear. I wouldn't just call that anxiety. Like I was, I think I was scared. And, um, and I stuck with it. I did three or four of those, uh, classes. And then I put myself in the position to volunteer, to speak to some schools, like some classrooms and stuff like that, about sport and about change and stuff like that.
Tik (
01:41:19
):
Like in British Columbia at the time they had a program where they matched athletes up with elementary schools to go and talk. And I found that hard as well, but I did get a little more comfortable as I went along. And then I guess my, the biggest change is exactly what your, what, what, the way you feel, which is that as I discovered more and more and learn more and more about horses, and I felt like I had something that I wanted to share and that I felt more confident speaking about. Then I, then I went on a trajectory that, you know, at the beginning, I was, even though I had some to S to S to speak about, I would get tongue tied. I would, you know, my mouth would go, go dry. I'd want to like, run off the speaking stage or platform.
Tik (
01:42:03
):
But I went, I kept putting myself in that situation, um, whether it was a crowd of two people or a crowd of 40 people or whatever it was. And just by, through the repetition and I would have a lot of preparation, usually, like I would have, I wouldn't write out word for word, but I would go through my notes many, many times, uh, to be as well-prepared as I could. I got more and more comfortable speaking to a crowd. And I think, um, you know, now I can go to clinic and have a hundred people watching, and I can speak for eight hours about horses and teach and talk to the crowd. And, um, also part of that was learning about it's okay to have my own style of speaking. Um, you know, which is, you know, some people are going to be motivators. Some people are going to use humor.
Tik (
01:42:57
):
Some people are going to inspire. Some people are going to use facts or, or anecdotes or whatever it is. Everybody's going to have their own style of teaching. And I had to a little bit find my own style, my, my way that I felt comfortable relating to people. And, um, and there's still, there's still fear for me. I would say now when I, when I speak, especially if it's not about horses, but I definitely, um, I've gotten better at it. And so I'd say that's my relationship with a lot of things with fears. I try to, I try to break it down and start small, just like I would with a horse. Like if a horse is scared of something, I try to think, know, how can I start at the beginning? How can I break it down? How can I introduce this in a way that gradually gets the more confident
Warwick (
01:43:43
):
I read a book recently? And I can't remember what it was, but they were talking about people who were afraid of, uh, I didn't think it was public speaking. I think it might've been rejection or something or other, but they, the thing was they were to go up to strangers and ask for things that the stranger wouldn't give them to practice getting enough, like being able to ask for something, you know, you're going to get no. And every once in a while, you'll get a, get a yes, too. And it's it's uh, yeah. It's uh, yeah, it was an interesting thing. It was just about, it was just about breaking it down and starting to, you know, said it would talking to a room of a hundred people. It was go up to one person, but now your friend and mine, Jonathan field, I was at dinner with him one night that a horse expo, my wife and I were with him and Jonathan, I don't know how it came up, but Johnson said, you know what? I used to realize at some point in time that I had this fear of being punched in the face.
Warwick (
01:44:40
):
So I thought about taking boxing lessons. And he says, now I go to boxing three nights a week or something or other. And he says, he said, um, you know, you get punched in the face enough after a while it doesn't bother you anymore. He goes like, right now, you want to punch me in the face. I'll stand up ready? You can punch me in the face. Right. And he did have a bottle of wine too, but he said, punch me in the face. You've got now and see that, that right there.
Tik (
01:45:05
):
I'm still not there yet. So I re I was, I was looking up, uh, public speaking. And there's a lot of places that say, it's the, uh, it's a lot of people's number one, fear. Uh, it comes to the head of things, um, you know, like, you know, car accidents and plane crashes and stuff like that. And, uh, there's a Jerry Seinfeld quote, which is according to most studies people's number one, fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to an average person, if you go to a funeral you're better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.
Warwick (
01:45:44
):
I just said that the eulogy would sound good. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's a, yeah, that's a good one. That's a good answer a bit. You, um, it's always a really interesting question. That one, um, then I've got one, one more question on here. And this question was once again, from Tim Ferriss, tribe of mentors book, and the question is, what do you feel is the worst advice given in your profession? And, and there was a caveat that said, knowing that our professions are probably not a normal, you know, like you're an accountant or, you know, whatever. I mean, you know, Tim Ferriss has interviewed some really interesting people and where, you know, what we do is not like people say, what do you do for them? Like, I have no idea. I don't know. I couldn't give you a nine. I used to be a horse trainer. Um, and so, yeah. So what do you feel in, and I don't know if you want to put on your horsemanship hat or he would have put them in your inventing hat, or you just want to general horse hat or clinician hat, or one of the hat. What do you feel is the worst advice given in your profession?
Tik (
01:46:59
):
Well, I've, uh, again, I've been thinking about this and I came up with a couple of different answers. Uh, the first two are gonna be a little shorter. And then I'm going to go into talk a little bit more about the third one. So specifically to do with, uh, inventing one thing that we, that I hear a lot, you know, when people are talking about what horse they want to have her for venting is I'll say, here's somebody say something like, you know, this horse isn't good enough to be a pure show jumper. He's not, uh, doesn't move well enough to be a dressage horse. And he's, uh, he's pretty hot and he kind of rushes, uh, jumps. So I think he'd be a good event horse.
Warwick (
01:47:37
):
Is that, is that like, I want to die.
Tik (
01:47:40
):
Yeah. Yeah. You know, I want to rush it, the jumps, the don't move. Yeah. So it, you know, in, in jumping, especially cross country, there's a big difference between a horse taking you to jump and pulling you to jump in a thoughtful, seeking way in a way that gives them impulsion and energy. And, and there's a whole nother kind of horse, which I see quite often more often the, like where the horse rushes around across country course out of anxiety. Like they're running on sort of a fear. And, and some, sometimes people will come off the course and they'll just say, you know, my horse just loves cross country. He just runs around there. I can hardly stop them. And, and that's, um, that's probably the worst, you know, the worst advice for a horse to have, like how, if you think of a horse for venting like that, you know, these days of vending is getting more and more competitive at the top levels.
Tik (
01:48:34
):
And a lot of the horses that, you know, they used to be thoroughbreds off the track, or they used to be horses that couldn't make it as a dressage horse or a show jumping horse, but you really are getting more and more horses bred specifically for venting as a combination of thoroughbred and warm blood that can do all three phases. They can jump clean. They've got the movement for [inaudible]. I mean, not as, you know, not like a dressage horse, but they've got good movement and they can, they can go around a cross country course for eight or nine or sometimes 10 minutes without getting tired. Um, so that was my first thing that I thought of. The second thing was a little quote that I heard that Karen, Karen told me the other day, and she said, she said, tick, you've got to learn the trade before you learn the tricks of the trade.
Tik (
01:49:17
):
And I just thought that was good advice. That's not bad advice. That's good advice. Uh, sorta like in writing, uh, you got to learn grammar before you learn, you know, if you're going to write a book and break all the rules, there's actually a good Australian book. Um, two history of the Kelly gang. I don't know if you've read that true history of the Kelly gang. Uh, and, uh, in that entire book, I don't think there's any commas and the punctuation and grammar is almost non-existent. And it's written from the perspective of, I think, uh, Kelly, I forget name, but he's a gang leader in Australia and Ned Kelly. Yeah. And he, you know, they write the book from his perspective. It's a fantastic book, but the grammars pretty much non-existent. So, um,
Warwick (
01:50:00
):
I've got a big fat book here written by an Australian author, uh, Australian writer named Peter Fitzsimmons. Who's an amazing writer and it's on the Kelly gang and I haven't read it yet. It's one of those ones I picked up at the airport in Sydney or something coming back, but this guy can really, really right. But yeah, Ned Kelly was a, he's what we call a Bush ranger. You'd be an outlaw here in America, but he was like, Billy, the kid sort of thing, you know, he was, uh, he's very, very famous. He's lost. His last words were such as life when they went to hang him, they said, you're getting loud, the words and the last words. And he said, such is life. And yeah, everybody in Australia knows or Ned Kelly is he's famous.
Tik (
01:50:37
):
Yeah. And then my last thing is just a little story that I want to, I want to share that shows how the advice that I've given and gotten has changed a little bit, how you said you've gone through this journey in the past four or five years where what you might've thought of as good advice or bad advice to you have changed your perspective on the, on the world and on horses. And, uh, I got really interested in sports psychology for awhile and, uh, you know, I attend lectures and read books and we had this sports psychologist in British Columbia come out and give a talk. And, uh, he's, you know, he said, when I graduated, I got my PhD. I was working with, uh, a lot of top athletes. I was new to the profession. And I thought aside from the actual sport practice that you're doing, you know, time in the saddle or time playing hockey or dribbling the basketball or whatever it is, aside from the actual practice time, the next most important thing is your mental game.
Tik (
01:51:36
):
Um, you know, if you've never picked up a basketball, it doesn't do any good to have a mental game. You also have to have the technical skills. You have to actually practice your sport, but he's like the next most important thing is that he said, and then I went on in my profession for, for 10 years, I got a little older and he's like, I actually realized that the mental game is the third, most important thing. Number one is time spent practicing number two is nutrition. Number three is your mental game. He's like, because I was helping people with their mental game and they were practicing, but they had the worst diets, you know, they would be eating fast food. They would eat at midnight, they wouldn't have breakfast. And it just, it just started to affect their sports so much their performance so much that I actually have to say, having better nutrition is actually more important than this, the sports psychology he's like.
Tik (
01:52:27
):
And then I went on in my career for another 10 years. And this is when he's now giving us the talk and he's saying it now, I actually think number one is time spent practicing number two is getting a good night's sleep. Number three is nutrition. And number four is the mental game. He's like, because I was just seeing people that were staying up all night, they were on their phones, they were on their iPads. They were watching TV and they would show up at practice or games without a good night's sleep. And he was like, all four of these things are vital, but you he's like, he just changed his, how he thought about, uh, his profession about what athletes need. And with horses, I've gone through a similar, uh, kind of, uh, way that I've heard about getting advice and giving advice. And, uh, I used to, you know, I guess what you might call it traditional way of learning about horses.
Tik (
01:53:20
):
A lot of what you learn about is control. So I, you know, I used to, whether I use that word or not control used to be the most important thing that I would learn and teach, you know, how you use the rains or the spurs or the whip or the drawings or whatever it is that you can have control over the situation. You know? And then when I was with David, O'Connor one of the, one of the quotes that he has. It's a great quote. He says, the art of writing is about communication. And then I started to really think about how communication is different than control. Like for control. I could be there and I could physically raise your hand, or I could for communication, I could say through these radio waves, I could say, could you please raise your hand? And from 3000 miles away, you could raise your hand and it's about communicating and with horses, it's all about communicating. And I, you know, I went free for probably four years and communications, the most important thing. And now I actually, I think there's something more important than communication.
Tik (
01:54:16
):
And that is motivation, which is why we do what we do and why horses do what they do. Because I think you can communicate to a personal horse all day long. And if they don't want to do it, like you're my little brother he's, uh, he's, uh, you know, he's not little anymore. He's older now, but he's, uh, my little brother and he's a substitute teacher and he says, he'll go into school sometimes. Like, you know, difficult schools are in rough neighborhoods. And he says, there's all this teaching going on all day. There's all these teachers teaching. And he says, there's almost no learning, no motivation, no motivation. And you know, you can have kids that, aren't that smart, that do really well because they're motivated and you can have really smart kids that don't do well because they're not motivated. And I think with horses, that's been really, one of the big things I've been looking at in the past couple of years is trying to understand what motivates horses in general and also what motivates every horse in particular. Yeah.
Warwick (
01:55:11
):
Have you ever read the talent code by Daniel Coyle?
Tik (
01:55:16
):
Nope, but I will add that to my list. Um,
Warwick (
01:55:18
):
That was one of the books I mentioned in my book podcast, but Daniel co-wrote a book called the talent code. And what he did was he went around to all these, what they called talent hotbeds around the world. There was a Russian tennis gym and there was a Japanese violin studio when there was a soccer place in Brazil. And they, they pour out more world-class athletes out of these particular places than anybody else. And he said, what, what is it they're doing? And one of them was the way they practice, but one of them was, uh, the motivation part of it too. It's, it's a fascinating book about, about how to, um, you know, wa he talks about how talent is just myelination of nerve endings, but talked about, uh, that talent is not an innate born, something you're born with. It's, it's something you can actually work on.
Warwick (
01:56:06
):
If you understand how to work on, on talent. Um, you just said something to me to go about. That guy said a good night's sleep. Have you ever heard of sir, Dave Brailsford? So, so Dave browse fed, he wasn't, sir, at the time he was, uh, he had a, um, a degree in business, I believe. Uh, anyway, he was a British amateur cyclist, but cycling Britain or whatever. The governing body of cycling in Britain had him come along to take over the whole program. And at that time, Britain had won and had not won an Olympic medal in 110 years in cycling. And he came in and he started doing these thing that he calls marginal gains. And this is so much horse training is not funny. Marginal gains is that they're trying to change big things. He changed everything just a little bit to get us get a marginal gain.
Warwick (
01:56:57
):
He found an, a valve STEM that goes on the bike tires that weighed half announced less than the other valves. Then he figured out the best bed to sleep on. He, he, um, he realized that, you know, uh, uh, a cyclist is an aerobic athlete and has to have very good breathing. But if you have a slight cold or something, rather you not as good. So he had his athletes wash their hands on the hour, every hour. From the time they wake up in the morning, till the time they went to bed, what do we do these days wash our hands all day. Um, when they went to their first Olympics, they bought their own beds. They went the Olympic village and they threw the other beds out. They bought their beds and they get the best night's sleep. No one was allowed to shake hands with anybody during the Olympics, which is a bit like right now, wash your hands.
Warwick (
01:57:40
):
And every hour do not touch anybody to stop from getting it. Anyway, he's first Olympics, they went to, they won seven out of eight available gold metals or something or other, and it's this thing called marginal gains. Yep. And you know, if you can get a little bit asleep every night, if you can breathe just a little bit better, if your bike weighs just a little bit less, if you, and it's, it's, it's like, I think at some point in time when you're training horses, the things that we help people with are not huge, big things. They're just marginal gains. They're just little things, you know, just the little things make up a big difference, but he's a, he's a fascinating guy to study. If you want to talk about sports psychology and, and, and having, I don't know if anybody's ever had that huge impact on any one particular Olympic team, but like I said, British cycling, he hasn't won a medal in 110 years or something, rather than they win seven out of eight available metals at that Olympics. And I think the next one, they do much the same thing and it was all this. And that's why he said Dave browse for now because the queen knighted him because of his, um, his efforts for British cycling. But yeah, in very interesting dude.
Tik (
01:58:46
):
Okay. I will check that out. You will check.
Warwick (
01:58:49
):
Yeah. So we've been chatting here for about two hours now. Um, is there anything before we finish up here that, uh, I, that the world needs to hear from Tik Maynard?
Tik (
01:58:59
):
Well, I, I got one more quote here. I could read you as our last quote, is that all right? So, uh, we, you know, when I think about what motivates, you know, people is a whole nother subject, but what I'm reading, you know, temple, Juno temple granted is. Yeah, yeah. So she, uh, she talks about four things that motivate horses, which is instincts learned behavior, aggression and fear, and then a number of other people in the horsemanship world talk about four other things that they use, which is, uh, safety, comfort, play, uh, and food, you know, and then I started to go down a little path myself, which is I'm looking at things that are a little bit deeper, like using curiosity to motivate a horse, to log in, you know, in cross country, getting a horse used to the water or Liverpool. If you can understand how to use a cure, horses, curiosity, get them to use to new things.
Tik (
01:59:56
):
It's such a valuable tool and it makes it so much more fun for both you. And now I'm actually reading a book. I just got it. It's called next of kin. And it's about a, a chimpanzee, one of the first chimpanzees to learn, you know, 400 or 500 words. And when they were first teaching this chimpanzee, these words, they use very, uh, very traditional operant training techniques, which is when they learned a sign language word, they would give them, they would either tickle them, which he loved, or they would give him food. And they actually found that when they did that, he would learn, but he would learn slowly. And then the, all the researchers, they all speak in sign to each other. When they're around the champ, they were saying something about a toothbrush or something like that. And they were doing this sign with their hand up by their mouth, going back and forth.
Tik (
02:00:43
):
And the next day, without having taught this chimpanzee, that word, the chimps started to sign that. And they started to actually realize that a primate, like a person is that if you start rewarding learning and creativity, you actually hinder the learning process because the chimpanzees and the people are so wired to want to learn and want to be creative. That if you start rewarding, it, it actually slows down the process and they start thinking more about the food, or they get distracted by the tickles. And they showed with chimps as well. If they gave them stuff to draw with, um, they would, they would enjoy drawing for long periods of time. But if you started rewar rewarding drawing with food is they would be less creative. They would spend less time. And then just try to get something up on the paper. And so I've been thinking about all these things that motivate horses and then something up on my Facebook, um, which kind of ties it all together.
Tik (
02:01:44
):
And I don't even know who wrote this. So if somebody is listening and they wrote that they can let me know, but this is, um, this is something that somebody put about Anthony Bordain. Do you know who Anthony Bordain was? Yeah. Um, this is something they put after his death. And, uh, for those of you that don't know him, he is a cooking and chef celebrity and he committed suicide a few years ago. And this is what they wrote. I thought it was impossible to have a better life than Anthony Bordain, but his final bittersweet gift just knocked me on my with the stark reminder that adventure love prosperity, prestige. Anything we aspire to at all is really just the currency we use to buy the four things that really matter, dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins, realizing that even that kiss that melts your heart only melts it because those four fairy godmothers wave their magic wands and turn your brain into a freaking princess.
Tik (
02:02:48
):
But if our brain hits us with a really exchange rate, if suddenly winning that Academy award only buys us a day's ration of serotonin. Then how the hell are we supposed to stock up for our whole lives that Anthony Bordain can stand on the highest mountain and feel nothing but a desire to move toward oblivion is all I need to kick me in the and ask the most important question. How is my exchange rate? What can I do to get more joy out of everything I'm presented with big or small? How does anyone do that? I guess there begins one's lifelong quest for God, psychedelic drugs, transcendental meditation, or whatever the hell else you need to do to bring to value to the external pleasure, the pleasures of the world. Anything that promises not pleasure, but perspective. There's a good case to be made that those are the things worth seeking first, before even love and success. Because watching my little boy flood his brain with happiness, because he found a coolest stick on the lawn is all the evidence I need. That how you experience is so much more important than what you experience.
Warwick (
02:03:56
):
Boom, right there. Wow. That is that. Do you know who do you know Steven Peters, dr. Stephen Perez, who is that, that wrote evidence-based horsemanship in that, and I've got that book. So I've, I'm supposed to, I actually was supposed to do a podcast with him last week and we had technical difficulties. So we just talked for two hours, but didn't record it. But, um, yeah, he's, he's all over that sort of stuff too, but yeah, that's, that's pretty amazing right there that whole, um, yeah, the, the excitatory, um, chemicals, you know, I just, he probably about four months ago, did a fan. You can do a neurotransmitter test. And so I did a test on my neurotransmitters and found out why I had depression, no serotonin, no dopamine, no Gabba, no newer. Epinephrin no nothing. The doctor said to me, you're basically running on empty. So what do you, what do you do about that?
Warwick (
02:05:00
):
Uh, I am taking a lot of different supplements that help with that. And I'm also, uh, so she's a naturopath. So I went up there every week for about six weeks and got a big old Ivy bag full of stuff. That's supposed to get that going again. I'd go to an appointment with her on Monday to have another chat, but we're going to do another neurotransmitter test to you in a little while. Um, and see if it's changed. But it was, for me, it was, it was what was cool about it was the fact that, you know, for the longest time, I've just had this blah, this apathy and you get, you get very self judgmental about it and you, you know, you become your own worst enemy. And when, when you get the news that, Hey, there is a chemical reason you feel like that, then it remove you from our it's just me and I suck or whatever.
Warwick (
02:05:53
):
And it's like, Oh, you almost get, like, you may like, can do something about it. You know, it it's quantifiable. Yeah. She said, you're running on, you're running on empty and you've totally running on empty and anxiety. And I have a, I have a, um, my blood blood pressure lowish, and I have a low pulse rate. My heart rate's about 45 to 48. And so I've got a hut. I got the hot rate of Olympic athlete, but I think it's just completely shut down. You know, it's not, but I, for someone who's apparently run on anxiety, I should have a high heart rate, but I don't, because I think it's, you know, it's not, hypoarousal, it's not hyper arousal, it's hypo arousal, but yeah, that, those chemicals, those four things you talked about right there, um, they're the, they're the important bits. And if you don't have them, life's pretty much pretty gray.
Warwick (
02:06:47
):
So I'm in the middle of, and I do feel a lot better, you know, I take all sorts of different, um, well, they're not medicines. They're supplements there to help boost that back up. So here, here in a bit, we'll find it. We'll do a, um, I'll do another neurotransmitter test and find out what's going on. Yeah. But those are the important ones. And somewhere in my phone, I've got some notes written from a book that I was reading. And it was basically saying that the reason people get addicted to certain drugs is because they have a lack of certain things and like cocaine, the same as serotonin and heroin is the same as dopamine. And, you know, like they, all those things replace something you need that you don't actually have. Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to figure out, you know, all these different ways we talk about working
Tik (
02:07:36
):
With horses is you're looking for when they're learning stuff, you're looking for those same chemical reactions.
Warwick (
02:07:43
):
Yeah. Yeah. Once you understand that and the thing, you know, going back way back in the conversation, when I first saw you at, um, any quantify working with those horses, one of the things that you said that I'd never really considered too much was play you, you immediately started out talking about, we're going to see if we can use play to help these horses. And that's, that's one of the things at the time that fascinated me. Like that's something I've never really given any thought to.
Tik (
02:08:08
):
Yeah. And using play with horses is, you know, when you see Jonathan field with some of his horses, you know, I've, you know, if you've seen a lot of Liberty Turners, there's many ways to train Liberty horses because essentially you need two things for a good Liberty horse. You either need, you need the horse to stay with you. So you either need to make being with you really good, or being away from you really bad. And there's lots of ways to do those two things. But if you have this feeling about you, the way that Jonathan does, where you can create a sense of interest of play with the horse, wanting to be around you, especially if a horse is kind of a playful horse anyway, then all of a sudden you just work on that draws so much more. And the, and, and the there's no working, there's no drilling through something. It's just the play that he does with horses. And it becomes so much, you know, it's fun for him. It's front for the horse. It's fun to watch. Um, the trouble with play is when you really bring it out in certain ways is the way horses play can often be big and strong and fast and dangerous. And it can take a lot of experience depending on how you're bringing that play out.
Warwick (
02:09:11
):
Yeah. When I, um, when I was at Jonathan's and I was watching him work with hell on the other horses, and that's the thing that really hit me was like, this I've seen Liberty before, but this Liberty that connect, you know, the horse wants to be with him because it's a cool place to be. Not, it's the least bad place to be. Yes. Yeah. And that was like, I've not, I had not seen that before. I've, I've not seen Liberty done that way. And the way I'd seen Libby done was, you know, if you're away from me, I'm going to put pressure on you. When you come over here, we'll take the pressure off, but it's not, uh, it's not, uh, the draw is, is, is basically staying away from a bad spot rather than a desire to be over there for a good reason.
Warwick (
02:09:52
):
You know, it's not escaping something bad. It's, it's, it's, it's attracted to something good. And that really kind of blew me away. And that's yeah. That's the myth that man, the magic of Jonathan Fields and the golden ticket. Yeah. Okay. Well, we're probably up to policing up on. Otherwise people are going to have to like, you know, you'll have, you'll have somebody who's really into this thing and they'll be driving around the block. Like I don't want to stop and go in the house cause I gotta get in that, have some cooked dinner and I'll just stay out here. I'll just finish up listening to tick and all his wisdom right here. Tick, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. Um, how can people find, find you learn more about you get into your stuff or that sort
Tik (
02:10:34
):
Of thing? Um, I mean, I don't really keep up to date with much social media stuff. We do have a Facebook thing, tick main art or, or copper line farm. I think we have a website, but it's not very up to date, you know, there's, you know, if anybody's interested, I'd love it. If you got a copy of that book and you sent me a note, if you enjoyed it or you had any questions about it, um, you can also, I've got some, uh, sort of my techniques for teaching on two, uh, online platforms. One of them is the Horseman's university and the other one is the Noel Florida question masterclass. So if anybody's interested in any of those things, then check it out and we'll, uh, we'll put those in the show notes too, in case, uh, people have trouble with dispelling. People might think your names tick, but it's actually Thomas in Kelvin may not. That's right. Let's say you got Dick that's right. It's my initials. Yeah, there you go. Perfect. Well, thank so much for joining me and, uh, everybody listening at home, uh, hope you guys enjoyed listening to tick as much as I did talking to him and, uh, we'll catch you guys next time.
Speaker 1 (
02:11:35
):
Thanks for listening to the journey on podcast with Warwick Schiller. Warwick has over 650 full length training videos on his online video library at videos.warwickschiller.com. Be sure to follow Warwick on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, to see his latest training advice and insights.