I recently saw a post by Ginny Telego on LinkedIn that had me reach out to her. I love discovering new horse careers and qualifications! She was kind enough to be profiled and share about her work that can include horses!

How much of your day/week is related to horses?
Every day! I have 4 horses of my own – Wager, an Appendix Quarter Horse gelding; Gia, a solid APHA mare; Cookie, a Miniature Horse mare; and Carmel, a Miniature Horse gelding.  My business is focused on equine assisted learning.  So when I’m not doing something related to caring for my horses, I’m doing marketing and other administrative work for my equine assisted learning business.

Leadership Development with Horses

What is it exactly that you do? 
The “umbrella” of the work I do through my business, The Collaboration Partners, is providing experiences for organizational and community leaders to develop the capabilities they need to navigate through uncertainty with vision, understanding, clarity, and agility.  The majority of my leadership development work is done in partnership with horses; I also coach leaders and facilitate leadership development without horses. But the work WITH the horses is far more powerful and engaging for my clients!

In this field of work, is it possible to be a full-time professional and earning a liveable income?
Is it possible? Sure – anything is possible. Is it reality? It depends.  I can’t say that it’s easy to work full-time in the field of equine experiential learning and earn a livable income.  A “livable income” is going to look different for different people in different areas of the world.

I can tell you that I do make enough money from my equine experiential learning work to pay all of the annual expenses for my four horses as well as contribute financially to my personal expenses.  My husband is a Project Manager for a tech company.  So between us, we are able to provide a comfortable life for ourselves due to the low cost of living where I am located in North Central Ohio.

The main challenge for me, since the primary work I do is in the Organizational Development field, is that equine experiential leadership and team development is still fairly unknown to the people who are coordinating training and development for their organizations.

I recently co-facilitated a 3-day equine experiential leadership development program.  It was for senior executives of a Fortune 500 company with another equine experiential leadership development company that contracts for my services.  The two program managers of the company’s Learning and Development office attended as observers (the 3 days with the horses were part of a larger 6-month leadership development program they were piloting).

While talking with the two program managers at the end of the second day – after they had observed the experience that we were providing with the horses along with the debriefing conversations we led – they marveled at what the leaders in the program were gaining from the experience.  They said “We had NO idea something like this existed!”

At the end of the third day, they were talking to us about bringing the leadership team back to do another program with us at the end of the 6-month pilot program.  This was so the participants could SEE and EXPERIENCE the progress they made throughout the program.

What we know in the area of equine experiential learning with organizations is that a) sending their people to do leadership or team development with horses is not something they actively seek out unless someone else they trust tells them about it; and b) people have to experience the work in order to really understand what it is (and what it’s not – which is riding or learning horsemanship).   Collaboration with other equine experiential leadership development facilitators is a much more productive means to create a viable business doing this work.

Profile On: Ginny Telego, Organizational Change Partner

Now, if you are interested in doing equine experiential learning with youth – say for developing life skills – or doing equine assisted psychotherapy, you may be able to garner a more steady revenue (which may or may not be a livable income depending on your overhead to have a horse facility and horses) once you establish yourself in the field and develop relationships with the organizations that will fund those kinds of programs.

What are the general steps taken to be employed in such a role? 
The short version of this answer is:

1. LOTS of experience learning about horse behavior and herd dynamics through hands on interactions with all kinds of horses – especially horses that are not “dead broke” riding horses.  The essence of equine experiential learning is that the horses are given permission to just be horses. They aren’t disciplined for rubbing their head on someone, or moving while someone is holding them, etc… Everything horses do is simply information, and they are always responding to the energy around them.  If the person holding the horse is nervous or excited, the horse is picking up on that energy and trying to figure out what to do with it because horses MOVE their bodies as a way to manage energy that comes at them from people or other horses.  They are genius at teaching people how to manage their energy to effectively influence others in a non-threatening way.
2. Training in a model of equine experiential learning that is congruent with the work you want to do.  There are a multitude of quality organizations around the world that train people to do this work. And it’s important to do your research on them before investing the money to get trained and certified.  Some training organizations are focused on equine assisted psychotherapy; some are focused on equine assisted learning (non-therapy based work like leadership development or life skills development); and some are focused on equine assisted coaching.  I am a Certified Advanced Practitioner and Master Trainer through E3A (Equine Experiential Education Association).
3. Education – again, this depends on the path you want to follow (primarily therapy versus non-therapy).
   1. If you are interested in doing any type of therapy based work in partnership with horses, you either need to be a licensed mental health professional (and training in a therapy based model of equine assisted psychotherapy or therapeutic riding if that’s what you want to do).  Or get trained in a therapy model of equine assisted psychotherapy and partner with a licensed mental health professional.
   2. If you are going to work with organizations to do equine experiential leadership development, it helps to have education in some kind of organizational management field as well as experience working in the corporate world.
   3. If going to do life coaching or other personal development, it’s recommended to have some kind of coaching certification.
4. There aren’t a ton of jobs in this field as a facilitator. Most of the people doing the work are self-employed and work as contractors.  Some therapy based programs do hire people.  These are most often non profit organizations and pay is likely on the lower end of the scale unless you are a therapist.  So having some education in entrepreneurship and running a business is REALLY helpful.

Favourite horse memory? 
Oh gosh, there are so many…. 43 years with horses creates a lot of memorable moments with a lot of horses… 😊  I think my favorite memory would have to be with my very first pony, an unregistered POA that my Dad got for me for $100 when I was 13. That pony put up with so much from me…

My dad passed away just before my 14th birthday and the moment I received the news from a pastor in my town, I ran to our barn, saddled Chief, and just started riding.  As I sobbed in the saddle, he just gently walked, letting me bury my head in his neck.  I didn’t realize it until many, many years later, but I was so grateful for him supporting me at my darkest hour.  Someday I hope I see him at the rainbow bridge so I can thank him.

Future goals? 
To grow my business and help make equine experiential leadership development something that organizations are seeking as the primary option for developing their people (meaning I don’t hear them say “I had no idea this existed!”).  I also want to continue mentoring new facilitators coming into the field.

Combining Your Passions

Best thing about your sport/profession?
I get to combine the two things I love most – horses and coaching people to their fullest potential. And get paid for it! (The travel is fun too!)

About the author
Ginny Telego is President of The Collaboration Partners, a consulting firm she founded in Ashland, Ohio.  She travels in the U.S. and Internationally to facilitate equine experiential leadership and team development with organizations; provides facilitation expertise both in person and virtually; and trains and mentors coaches in the field of equine experiential learning.  Ginny has a Masters Degree in Business Psychology and is a Certified Advanced Practitioner and Master Trainer with the Equine Experiential Education Association (E3A), an international organization that trains and certifies practitioners in equine assisted learning and coaching.  She and her husband, Greg, have 4 horses and live an exciting life with 3 Australian Shepherds.