Welcome to See'rs, Be-ers, Knowers and Doers, a podcast about intuition. Do you know what that is? Intuition to me is that inner sense for knowing that something is true and yet I have no proof but there's so many definitions and there's so many ways that can come and will even be bring together and share with you some amazing guests. You have some amazing life stories and also some insights into how intuition can come and I'm looking to gather those crows in the trees.
I hope you're one of them. I hope that this podcast inspires you to be more connected to your intuition and I hope that by doing that we make the world a better place. Thanks for coming on this journey with me. Before we get started today, I would love to share some tools with you to help with stress and feeling overwhelmed, especially for the energetically sensitive person. Feel free to go to my store on my website@ www.healingvitality .ca . Thanks so much for coming on this journey with me.
My guest today has climbed the corporate ladder and she has left it all to follow her passions. She is a stepmom, she is a horse lover. She raises sheep, she leads and teaches from her heart I would say. And she is somebody who sees the silver linings wherever she goes and lands on her feet by doing so. My guest today is Tracy Evans. I'm really excited today and I think I say that every single podcast, but it's true.
I'm really excited today to talk to Tracy Evans and get to know and get to share her with you because when we connected two days ago we just couldn't stop talking. So I'm excited for today. So thank you so much for joining me Tracy.
Oh, it's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.
So my first question always is tell us about yourself and share with the world what you do cause I think it's fantastic.
Oh well I am a owner and a master instructor for equine assisted learning. I run Dreamlands equine assisted learning center here in Bradford, Ontario. I started this business in 2012 because I have a huge passion for helping people become better leaders and better communicators and have stronger relationships and all kind of came out of my corporate career.
So I had spent, I guess almost 1520 years in corporate building, my marketing career, and by the time I was about 2012 I was vice president of marketing for American express and traveling the world. I had teams in Argentina, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and it occurred to me that I really wasn't living my dream. I had kind of arrived based on my career objectives of the time and but didn't really feel like it was all it was cracked up to be. I was kind of unfulfilled, I guess you could say.
And years before that I had discovered horses, and this was about a year after I finished my masters of business administration. I had found I wanted a hobby. I was only working, I was trying to climb the corporate ladder. CEO or bust was my mantra at the time and I decided I needed to get a hobby. And so I decided to take a writing lesson cause as a kid I had this huge passion for horses but no means or opportunity to pursue it. So by that time I finally had a good job.
I was sort of establishing my career and I now had a little bit of time and opportunity to take a riding lesson and I took my first lesson at 31 and was absolutely hooked to within 10 months I owned my own horse. Who of course is your perfect first horse that's five-year-old off the track, thoroughbred who was 17 hands. Hot. Hot. Hot.
Okay. Describe hot. Hot. Hot.
So that's a term we use for horses that are very spirited, very energetic and highly spirited. So this guy was 17 hands and horse. He was off the track about a year and just full of energy, like very explosive energy. Always kind of gentle on the ground. But under saddle he just always wanted to go. I mean thoroughbreds are born to run, so it's in their blood. And he was your stereotypical thoroughbred , spooky, jumpy, fast, all those good things.
I think someone who's been riding 10 months shouldn't be on,
Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. There should be a clause for people who sell horses. Like please sell the right horse to these people. But I'm sure you he's taught you a lot I'm sure.
Oh absolutely. And it was really interesting how I found him because I had looked at 20 horses and on this particular day I, and you know I had seen a horse just before him. That was perfect. He was 11 years old, been there, done that, had done the show circuit was still sound healthy and kind of in his prime but very safe and sweet. I just had no connection with this horse but I , but he was sort of top of my list at this point cause that was the horse that I should buy .
And then I went to this other barn and I was seeing a five-year-old thoroughbred . I didn't even take my equipment out of my car cause I thought the last five year old I got on, I was dragging around the arena at high speed. So I thought I'll let this other person, I'll let the owner ride them and see how it goes. And she got on him and he was very quiet. So then I got my stuff and I actually got on him and I rode him. But I just, I fell in love with him in the barn.
He just has the sweetest, kindest personality and like there's an instant connection. So for me, I trialed him for 10 days and the person who was advising me know , helping me shop. But if at any moment I felt unsafe, it was a deal breaker and I never did. And I even with all his antics when I got him home, I never felt unsafe in the almost 18 years I've had them , I've never felt unsafe on him . He's just a pretty special guy.
See, that to me is one of those stories that, you know, falls in line with intuition. It's like divinely how cool.
Totally. And I have a scrapbook that I did actually where I have my, you know, my wishlist and my, what my new, my first horse should, the quality of my first horse should have. And then on the next page I have the horse I bought very few of those boxes other than big and beautiful. And there wasn't even a reason that I should have answered the ad, but I just had to, I had in my mind to what I would name my first horse. I always wanted a horse named Oliver.
And when I got to the farm riding him and everything and I said , by the way, what's the name? And she said Public Mischief, but we call him Oli.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah. Like you say, we were led . But what was really interesting is because he was so spirited, I had to figure him out cause he was, I knew he was my forever horse regardless. I mean, if we were going to have wild rides our entire life together, that was so be it. But I knew there was more that I could learn about them . And I took a horsemanship clinic and it was in that clinic that I learned he wanted a leader and he didn't see me as a leader.
And then when I learned what kind of leader he wanted, it was someone who was confident and compassionate, someone who could instill confidence in him. So was a clear communicator and consistent. And as a, as a leader in my organization, that was exactly the kind of person I wanted to work for and the kind of leader I was aspiring to being to be.
So it was there that I realized the kind of bells went off that I could actually work with horses to teach leadership cause I've learned more in this 45 minutes about my own leadership style and what I bring to a room and to a team. Then I had in my MBA and all the corporate training I had done since the bug bit me and that was probably about 2005
I love it when animals teach us stuff. I just love that it's so pure, you can't get a better, you can't get a better teacher than an animal. To me. You just can't.
True, they're so honest too. Like they're not pulling punches, they don't have an agenda. It's just this works for me or this doesn't. And that's what makes them so amazing in our program as well.
Absolutely. What is equine assisted learning c ause n ot e verybody k nows what it is.
So equine assisted learning. It's an experiential approach to teaching life skills with horses. So we run a program and using obstacles and exercises and our particular modality that I train in and that I teach, it's a objective based exercise curriculum. So every exercise leads to a specific learning objective .
And in this instance we're working in leading with horse on the ground in small group and as we work together with the horse through these obstacles and problem solving scenarios, the horse is giving us feedback on how well we're leading him, how well we're communicating, how well we're working together as a team and their body language is what I and my facilitators are looking for to be able to interpret what's happening with the individual.
Cool. Do you need particular personalities of horses to work with in order to do this?
We need a variety. Just like people. So people often ask me like, what's the perfect EAL horse? And you want variety. I obviously EGA L horse's chosen for specific qualities that standardized qualities like safety, stable mind, gentle, kind, willing, those types of things like that . And for me, when I'm choosing a lesson horse, I'm really looking for a horse that loves people that even more than they love being with their herd.
And I have a number of horses that are like that, that just want to be with you and want to spend time with people. And then there's the other ones that just so like not hard to catch, don't want to leave their herd. They're very herd bound . And so that's not a kind of horse I would look for for my program. I want them to be people lovers because they have to be quite tolerant.
Most of my clients have never been with a horse, so they don't really understand how to lead a horse, how to work with a horse. We teach them those things, but obviously it's not as consistent as my horses would be used to. So they have to be quite tolerant and it's fun. It's fun to watch them. I watched my horses over the last seven years sort of evolve their teaching style and they get quite into it. They'll move obstacles, they'll put things in people's way.
If they're not working well together, they'll move them out of their way if they want to help their teammates. Fascinating to watch. Like comical.
I really don't doubt it. I mean there, there's a part of me that thinks we are on an evolution to come back as an animal because there they have figured out unconditional love. They figured it out
for sure. Human many cases,
right? They figured out how to operate in a healthy way as a herd or a family. They figured out how to be sustainable in nature. To me, they are the evolution, the place we're going. If we're not landing in heaven, we're coming back as an animal and hopefully an animal that's treated properly.
Yeah, I'd like to come back over to one of my dogs or one of my horses, yeah, exactly. So we're doing this interview during the coven 19 and it's forcing us all to be a little more innovative. And in our chat on Tuesday you were talking about taking some of your programs on line or pieces of them online. Like is that some place that intuitively you think can stay?
I think, you know, obviously when Kobe 19 hit and we were required to shut down, it was a big shock to our business system and my life system. My , my barn is a very small intimate barn, but I have a really close barn family here that has their horses here and rides here. So it was a big shock to my system and especially considering all of my programs are centered around group work and interpersonal relationships and social and social engagement.
So to be told we can't have people here and we shut our programs down right away. So obviously I can't run my team building programs and things like that. And I'm a big proponent of experiential learning, which is challenging to do in an online environment. But with our certification, what I realized is that we do a heavy costume component to that training. So because I am a master instructor trained in the Cartier program that I now teaching, so that's the one that I was trained in.
So teach the five day certification and half of that time is spent in the classroom learning theory and the form of delivery and the essential, you know, the fundamentals of that kind of system, learning how to choose your lesson horses . We do a great marketing and business development session as well on those days. And so half the day, half of each day is spent in the classroom. What I immediately thought like , well I can still do that.
I can still help people get started cause I had an immediate course that was starting late when the shutdown began and a lot of people that still wanted to pursue their dreams and keep moving forward in spite of, you know , where we are in the world right now. And I wanted to be able to deliver that. So what I did was I brought that classroom component and so I took my classroom component and I put it online.
Now one of the things that I did maintain, because as I said, I am a firm believer in interaction and and having that experiential piece or at least that that connection is, I do teach it live. So I am not a fan of canned online courses. While I understand from a business perspective how valuable they can be, I want to , I want to answer questions, I want it to be interactive and make sure that their , the training is customized for their needs.
Cause everybody's running, you know, training to run a center that might be quite different than the person next to them or there that's also taking the course. So there's a lot of personalization I guess that happens in our training. But I wanted to maintain that online and I was able to do that at the end of March. And what we did is we basically divided it. So there's still going to be an experiential component.
We have to treat people how to facilitate and how to run the programs in the arena, like very action oriented training there. So I've been able to just take the afternoons that we would have had in those five days and we'll condense them into a solid two day workshop format. So now what I'm seeing in the light of day is I now have a program that will meet the needs of people who can't leave their farm for five days.
And that is certainly been a barrier for many people who want to take this training. So we've now been able to shorten it so they can escape their farm for a couple of days to complete the training, but be able to do the rest of the work from home. I do think that that has some legs and will appeal to an audience ongoing. So I'm looking at launching a couple more of those formats throughout the year to be able to give people some options.
I love silver linings. It's true. I hadn't thought about people having to leave the business of their barn and when they're looking after horses, there's a lot of work that goes into that, so wonderful.
Yeah, absolutely. And like I say, we're, you know, we get into this business because we're highly social, so to be told we have to isolate on our farm and not let people see their horses and not run our program is really challenging. You know, I'm still brainstorming in my own head how I can bring some of that value to my corporate team because at this time they're obviously going through isolation, they're working from home.
It can be the destruction of a team culture if not handled well while they're working from home. But also there's that huge need to bring people together at the end of it. So, you know , how can I help them throughout this time, but also then be there when the time comes to bring them back together.
Well, I think that this whole Covid is taking that snow globe and shaking it up and we're going to see prettiness eventually. So.
Absolutely. Yeah. It's going to be hard for a lot of people, but you know, the ones that can continue to see business owners, you know, I've seen the impact with a lot of my friends who all in spas and restaurants, small retailers, but the ones that can, can find a way to pivot and maintain some level of business activity during this time will be the ones that come out at the end.
Yeah. And that's where intuition comes in, I think.
Absolutely. You know, I love to say that when this happens , I did three days of research with my target group to understand what they needed and how I could serve them. No I used to , okay, so this is what I need to do. People are going to be online, I'm going to have to move forward. How can I make this really compelling and, and a real exciting and fun training opportunity for people given that we can't be together. So that was all it got . Just just go.
Yeah . Just go. And that segues into my next question. How does your intuition come , Tracey?
For me, it's, I'm very kinesthetic. So it's that it is definitely a feeling. It's not, it's not always just a rational thought or something. I see. I'm not a visual person. I'm very kinesthetic. So it's just a , it is that literal gut feeling. But sometimes I feel like it comes to me in like, this is obvious. You know what I mean? Like it's , I don't often doubt it. Maybe that's why, but it just, it seems to bring the obvious to the fore for me when I need it most.
I think we talked on Tuesday about my white tow truck and that, that's a lot of that is my intuition and just my optimism and belief that things are, we're on the path we're meant to be on. So what do you do with the situation you're in and how does that work for you?
So tell everybody your white tow truck story.
Well, I had a friend that used to tease me because I would get into these binds and usually you know, situations that I've created for myself cause I do take risks and I , I mean I do a lot of fun, different things with my business and personally. And it always tends to work out for me. And in many ways, I mean I have my challenges, don't get me wrong. And I, I struggled through things. But I , at the end of the day, I've survived all of it.
And I had this incident with my car where my one friend who is very mechanically inclined, wasn't able to go to the Royal winter fair with us that year. She was in Florida. And on our way back with my other friends who are like me, completely not mechanically inclined, I blew a tire going into the go car park in Aurora and it was a blizzard. It was a raging blizzard. You couldn't see two cars away from you in the parking lot. And I got up my car and I don't have CAA or anything like that.
And I thought, wow, I'm really unprepared. I don't know what I'm going to do. We're going to be stuck here. And I just wanted to go home because it was a blazer , crazy blizzard. It's taken us forever to get there from downtown. And all of a sudden I look up and there's a white tow truck coming up the road behind like in the parking lot towards me. But it was like a Mirage coming, coming into view.
And I flagged him down and for 50 bucks he changed my tire and we were on our way in half an hour and all my friends said, you know your white tow truck always comes. And I said, I think it always comes cause I believe it will come. So I'm always looking for that opportunity and looking for that availability. I mean if we hadn't, if I hadn't been looking for a solution, I could have missed that whole wait white , the truck he could have driven by and not have been the end of it. You know?
And I always say that to people, you know, everybody has a light tow truck. I'm not special. I think you just have to be aware. And have your eyes open and, and be welcoming those kinds of opportunities and, and have a belief. And I went through a really trying time last year where the horse, I've mentioned earlier, Oliver broke his leg catastrophic.
We actually, it was a radial fracture and everyone who's ever seen that kind of fracture and a 22 year old horse would say we need to put him down because it is not something that they tend to come back from it . I couldn't find the study anywhere where there was any success. I came, I was in Florida because they only do these things when you're away. I came back from Florida and the vet had x-rays , found the down the break and said, you know what? And he's always, he connects to everyone.
The way he connected to me the first day I saw him. So he has a big fan club and my vet is one of his biggest fans and she said , I said to her, you know, just give it to me straight cause I don't want to put him through undue stress if this is not going to work. I don't want to make, I don't want to make this miserable for him. Like, you know, don't sugar coat it if it's, if it's, if we're done, let me know and I will deal with it, but can you keep him standing until I get home?
And when I got home she said we're not done. She said, you know, the only way this will work is if he stands in his stall for at least four months and doesn't lay down and it's cross site and install . And she said, and knowing who he is, I think he can do it cause he's done stall rest before. He actually likes people more than horses. So he'll make it work for him. And he sure did.
And so we did that and you know, eight months later he was coming out to be hand walked and I'm now able to ride him, which was something that we never imagined possible. But on my vision board I have, I have one of those letter boards where you put the letters on and put your sayings on it. As soon as it happened last year, I just put a picture and I put the strong and belief and we just moved forward.
Like we were always going to be moving forward and that this was going to pass and he was going to be fine. And that's exactly how I'm going to approach COVID cause it's difficult as like this too will pass and we're going to be fine. So you just have to keep moving forward and have that unwavering burly even when it sound crazy,
I'm with ya . But you almost made me cry with that story about Oli.
It was the most emotional year I have ever had and I, and at the time I said it was my most challenging year in business because my, I wasn't on the ball during that time for most of, from like eight months of the year. I was really focused on getting him through it and my business sustained. Like my clients came and , and we kept going, but it wasn't my single focus like it normally can be. Again , you wouldn't believe the people that rallied for him.
You know, if you go through my Facebook page and things like we just had, he had such a fan club and I felt like we had this international support group that was helping us through it and my barn family here, I mean they came and sat with them to make sure he never sat down and that first week and all these things and you ever get a chance to meet him. He's this horse that will just tell you as it is.
And when I came home from Florida and I looked at him and I said, you need to tell me like, are we doing this? Like can you do this? And he just had this look on his face. Like, I got this, you know, I told him this one night, then that was coming the week after the first week is the most challenging. It's the most likely to displace. And uh, the night before she was coming, I said, you've just got to not lay down, but that's the only really have really don't bounce around, don't lay down.
And I came in the next morning, he slipped his halter and he was covered in shavings , but he has roll he had done the whole business. And I, my heart sank. But at the same time, all my water were frozen so I had to deal with my water. It was at that moment, he had this huge ice storm the night before. And I was devastated because I thought for sure that day my vet was coming and she was going to x-ray and say we can't, we can't go forward.
And so she and I texted her and she didn't even answer me when I told her he'd laid down. So I'm like, this is that. And when she arrived, I could see she had tears in her eyes. I'm like, this is still bad. And she took the X Ray and I heard her as she's looking at the computer, cause I wouldn't even go near the computer. And she said, I cannot believe the torque , that it's fine. We're going. And I'm like, and I'm like, that's my horse.
You know, people say, Oh, you're not going to recover from a , from a radial fracture. And all these , the hold my beer horse , you can't lay down or it'll shatter, hold my beer that he sat down three more times during that whole episode and still managed to maintain integrity in the leg. That's crazy.
Wow. I think there's a children's book in that
I no kidding. Eh. Yeah. Wow.
And it's so true. If we believe, well, I think that there's always a plan, but sometimes believing is the plan.
Yeah. When you have nothing else, right. You have no proof. You have no, no reason to think it to work. But we just knew and he knew. He knew all along there was, you know, even when he would do something really stupid to do that, it's like, I'm fine. I told you I'm fine. You know , I could just hear him saying it. I'm fine. I know you got it. We have to do it your way. I got in at 23 he's still that hot spirited therapist. Amazing . See on my Facebook page the day I got to ride him too .
I was, I was in tears. I just, I couldn't even handle it. It was amazing. But they had sat on his back again cause I never thought that would happen when we were rehabbing him. It was never with the expectation he would ever be ridden again. It was just to give him a good life and he could still be an EAL horse, whatever, whatever he could do to do.
Wow. I think they call that grace something recovers miraculously. I think you're , you were given grace.
Yeah. Yep .
Amazing.
I'm very grateful. That's for sure. And you have to also kind of think through like, why are you here? What's your purpose? What is your plan? What are you meant to be doing? And I feel like I haven't made these crazy monumental changes in my life to be taken out by some virus to lose my farm because of some virus. Like it's not happening. I'm way too much to do.
And this whole global situation is just reminding me of how important it is that we connect and that we build strong relationships and learn how to communicate and respect each other. And it's all the things that my program teaches. So you know, there's just, there's too much work to be done to just sit back and go, Oh, I'm not going to be able to go forward.
And I think what's happening globally is people are being given the time to figure out what their purpose is. There's so many silver linings and gifts to this, and I don't want to take away from the people that are going through the stress of having to work through this or the stress of having to go through family illness or family death or any of that. That's not my point at all. It's , it's for the rest of us, the other, whatever percentage it's going to be that we've got this opportunity.
So I so appreciate your insights today.
Well, it's been my pleasure. If I can talk to EAL all day long and I love diving into intuition and why things happen and what we can do about it. Well, and that's why I was so pleased when you said yes. I'm like, Oh, she's got something to share. One thing we haven't told people is the name of your business. Oh, it's Dreamwinds equine assisted learning center.
And how did you arrive at that?
So obviously horses had been my dream my whole life. So when we , my husband and I decided to buy a farm, ironically it was his idea because I was looking to do a career change in some way, shape or form. And as the stress levels were mounting and I wasn't, you know , kind of following my path so we know we should buy a farm. So when we did that, I really wanted it to be our farm because horses are my thing. He didn't even have dogs. Oh, there's my dog talk .
And when we, when we came down to naming it, I didn't want it to just be my idea. So for years, I'm a very type a person. I like to plan things as intuitive as I am. And as much as I follow my gut, I still write everything down and have a plan to move forward with that. And my husband is very free flowing. So whereas I might have, you know, if we have , uh , an event to go to, I have back tracked the whole day to know when I have to shower.
How long it's going to take to dry my hair, when everybody needs to be in the car and all that good stuff. And so when I'd be trying to manage my husband and my , my step son, he has three sons. So we have three sons. It would be like hurting packs and we always get into it. And that last moment, and my husband would be like, where are the wind Tracy ? I'm the wind. And I was like, I am not the wind. I'm like, if you're lucky on the sail .
But some days like today on the brick wall, we would have these conversations about how he is the wind . So when it came time to name our business, I thought, well it's my dream, but I really want my windy family to be part of it . So we came to the, to the , and then when we started to dive into the meaning of the name, you know, for us it was a huge winds of change. We were kind of swarming our whole lifestyle. I was changing my career.
You know, wind has a lot of, a lot of symbolic meanings about, you know, blowing out the old and bringing in the new and helping people grow. And so for me a dream wins was just the perfect name.
I love it. Well thank you so much for today and your time, Tracy . I really, really appreciate it and perhaps we'll do this again.
Thank you so much. It was really a great pleasure to be part of this today. I appreciate it. Thanks Heathers. I hope we're having better conversations, non- Covid conversations soon as we can all free ourselves and come together.
Yes, exactly. Thank you. Thank you.
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thank you so much for giving us your time today. We truly appreciate our guests for sharing their stories and insights about how intuition has impacted their lives and I'm so grateful for Peter trainer for his time and giving me this original music . It's now your turn. It's your turn to listen and act on your own intuition and help make the world a better place. Until next time, keep seeing being, knowing and doing. If you like this podcast, please share it.
If you want to find others like it, go to www.healingvitality.ca or wherever you would find your podcasts. We would love to have you join us on this journey . Come be a Crow sitting in the tree. Be part of our community. [inaudible] .