Our Mission - why we do what we do
We believe that the world we live in and work in would be so much better if the employees would be more satisfied with how their leaders lead: that is though facilitation, not through pressure.
And this means that leaders serve the good and the better interests of the group and lead through authenticity not through personal power. It also means that we should communicate simply, honestly and directly without biases, frustrations and worries.
We are here and we do these seminars in order to change the way people work. And we start with leadership.
How do we do this?
Nothing changes you as much as a strong, positive experience. No book and no teacher ever teaches you as much as you do when you choose to get involved into an experience.
So we chose the way of experiential learning, and what other method would be more suitable than horses? Horses have served us well for hundreds of years. Horses can heal emotional problems. And horses manage to show us what leadership means, what the team, emotional intelligence, honesty and integrity mean.
Proven in several studies, horse-led education is gaining more and more ground in the business environment.
We are here to promote this alternative experiential learning method.
Our vision about leadership
A generous leader expects people to act in good faith. True generosity generates a generous response.
Generosity is not about money. Often, leaders mix up the generosity of monetary incentives as a true people-motivator. Nobody will say no to monetary incentives, yet more money doesn’t always equal more engaged employees.
A generous leader offers what people really need: knowledge, power, information, confidence, empowerment, responsibility and authority.
And most importantly, a true leader expects the best from his or her people
Our responsibility to society
We support education. Because only through education, any human effort or endeavour can become better. We support through volunteering our time the most courageous Romanian project on the education front - AVE Romania, the ONG for Value-Based Education.
Who We Are?
George
Corporate executive, Appreciative Inquierer, Leadership Explorer, Horse Enthusiast, Certified Trainer
Once I was a physicist; physics tells us when and how the Universe began, but it doesn’t tell us much about human behavior. I led people in big corporations, I made business decisions and I helped others make decisions; I found the weaknesses and the power of employees. Later on I discovered horses, and they taught me what it means to be present, authentic, generous and modest - something that no school in Romania or worldwide ever taught me. And most of all horses taught me that it’s more important what you feel than what you know.
3 years ago I put together all I learned about people, corporations and the passion for horses. Together with Corina we founded Horse Eye - a concept of experiential leadership training. The difference being that classical training only tells you what to do, while experiential training actually makes you feel something.
In over 15 years’ time spent in various management positions, I coordinated various teams and I had the opportunity to work with many types of leaders and to notice their behavior closely. I’ve been a trainer for many teams, trainings about critical thinking, efficiently solving problems, project and program management. This road brought me to the conclusion that values and leadership behavior matter a lot, a lot more than technical competencies.
Starting with this thought and being inspired by the respect for horses, I found an unusual way fo teaching corporate leaders to become authentic leaders: horse-led education. Though the horse eye we can find ourselves as people as well as business professionals.
Corina
Entrepreneur, Leadership Explorer, Horse Enthusiast, Certified Trainer
I am a free woman. I’ve always felt like this, but for those around me it became obvious when I became an entrepreneur. I started my first business in 2003 after 5 years spent in the hospitality industry. In less than an year, I started and closed one business, I had the partnership in business experience, I started new again, I invested, I hired and I fired, I sold my part in that company, I negotiated with lawyers, I learned finance and law. Basically, I lived the mantra “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”
I never had any mentors nor any other models from whom to learn business. In 2004, when I started Take 1 Events, there weren’t that many companies in the corporate event field. This helped me learn by experimenting. I realised then that my drive and life purpose is to offer people experiences that generate emotions, change and special connections - outside their day to day, mundane life.
When I met horses, I understood that they perceive the world thought emotions. This enables them to teach us so much. Horses do not judge, do not constrain, do not reject you and they always know the real you.They perceive our real state and intentions and their actions reflect us as pure mirrors. They feel if you are happy, sad, uncertain, fearful and if you give them time, they’ll help you find yourself. You cannot make a horse or anybody else for that matter, to follow you if you who you are, what you want and where you are going. Today, we are bombarded with so much information about “what’s good for you” that we find it more and more difficult to make the right choices and to live happily with our choices. The horses can offer us a moment of peace, in which to listen to our true voice and to find, each for himself, that thing which we can call our own - and that makes us happy.