Season 1 / Episode 19
Keep Your Eyes Up: How to Set Goals for Your Horse Business
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My trainer keeps telling me the same thing:
“Jamie, stop looking at your horse. Look where you want to go.”
When I get nervous or lose confidence in the saddle, I start looking down. I watch my horse’s head, shoulders, and every little thing happening underneath me. Then I start making tiny adjustments, my body changes, and pretty soon we’re wandering all over the arena.
I’ve realized I can do exactly the same thing in business.
We get so focused on today’s client texts, bills, horses, staffing problems, appointments, and emergencies that we forget to look up and ask a much bigger question:
Where are we actually trying to go?
In this solo episode of the Equine Business Edge Podcast, I use that lesson from the saddle to walk through a practical goal-setting system for horse professionals.
We start by defining what you actually want your life to look like, then determine what kind of business needs to exist to support that life.
From there, we work backward:
5 years → 1 year → 90 days → this month → this week → today.
I also share why being told I’d built a “nice little lifestyle business” initially felt like an insult, until I realized I’d actually built exactly what I wanted.
You’ll learn the five-year congratulatory-letter exercise I use, the questions I ask to define success, and how I use the Power Hour to make sure important work doesn’t continually get buried underneath urgent work.
Looking at what’s immediately in front of you isn’t the problem.
The problem is when that’s the only place you ever look.
Pick your fence post. Figure out where you’re going. Work backward until you know what you need to do today.
Then keep your damn eyes up.
Timestamps
00:50 — Why my trainer keeps telling me to stop looking at my horse
01:15 — What looking down does to my riding and my business
04:00 — Pick a fence post and look where you want to go
06:00 — Why horse professionals need clear business goals
07:00 — The harder question: What do you actually want?
08:00 — Why being told I built a “lifestyle business” changed my perspective
11:00 — Start with the life you want, then design the business
12:00 — The five-year congratulatory letter exercise
14:00 — Questions to define what success actually looks like for you
18:00 — My five-year goal for EquineRevShare
19:00 — Working backward from five years to one year
21:00 — Turning your one-year goal into 90-day priorities
23:00 — Breaking those priorities into monthly and weekly actions
25:00 — Why looking at today’s problems isn’t actually the problem
26:00 — Using the Power Hour to work ON your business
29:00 — The yearly, quarterly, monthly, and weekly planning rhythm
31:00 — Keep your damn eyes up
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