Get to Know Me
Susanna Massie Thomas,
CPC, ELI-MP
Empowerment and Leadership Coach
There are so many reasons for not being heard:
From introversion to lack of confidence, competition from noisier individuals, to experiences of being ignored, dispelled, or traumatized.
Been there. Done that.
I come from a vocal, opinionated, and articulate family. When I was 10, we moved to France. (Oh my! Do I know how horses feel when they try to learn the language of humans!)
I went to Princeton University with of lots bright, outspoken, and intimidating students. Then I worked in publishing in midtown Manhattan at Random House where words were all powerful. Introverted and shy, I watched rather than spoke and what I saw was a lot of posturing, pleasing, and pretending. Not my gig. So, what next?
Horse-crazy as a kid, I never had the luxury of owning a horse growing up. Which is why, in my mid-twenties, I decided it was time to live my dream. I quit my job, borrowed a car, and headed for Lexington, Kentucky, “Horse Capital of the World.”
What horses taught and continue to teach me, is a conscious and mindful way of experiencing, seeing, and navigating life with authenticity and purpose.
It’s an art form to live that way. But once you become a heard leader, mastering the art of always becoming the next best version of yourself gets easier no matter how upside down you get in life.
There I created my own “graduate school” of horsemanship working sequentially as a veterinary assistant, farmhand, exercise rider, night watch person, Thoroughbred sales showman, and farm office manager. All the while, I wrote for horse magazines about subjects I wanted to research, or horse people I wanted to meet.
From horses I learned how to speak up and how to hold my ground, giving me the confidence to be a heard leader in all kinds of endeavors—from advocacy for land and historic preservation to running a nonprofit adoption organization for former racehorses, to being an editor for several magazines and a contributor to many others, to owning my own farm where I raised and trained my own horses, and now have a haven for retired race and sport horses.
