Get to Know Me
Susanna Massie Thomas,
CPC, ELI-MP
Mindset 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.
If you've had any of those experiences, I feel your pain!
I come from a vocal, opinionated, and articulate family, and being very shy, it was really difficult for me to find my voice.
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 had to learn how to survive without speaking the language.
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 along with being shy, I watched rather than spoke and what I saw was a lot of posturing, pleasing, and pretending. How do you deal with that? I had no idea but knew I had to find a different path.
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.”
BECOME THE NEXT BEST VERSION OF YOU!!
What you can learn from horses, literally and figuratively 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 when you embark on the path of the heard leader, mastering the art of always becoming the next best version of yourself gets easier, no matter what challenges come your way.
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.
