Latest Blog Post

It’s the same across the known universe.

I think it matches up beautifully with the concept of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

We start with the basics, if that’s ok we move up and if we get the middle bit right we go to the top.

The top doesn’t matter if the bottom doesn’t work.

Apply this to pretty much anything you want but here’s an analogy from my life from this weekend about how the pyramid works…

My daughters Grace (16) and Rosie (14) are horse riders and one-day eventers.

A one-day event is a triathlon for horses where they do dressage (horse dancing) followed by show jumping followed by cross country.

Cross country is the epic part of one-day eventing. Around a three or four mile track they jump over solid fences that don’t move. It’s not like show jumping, the fence doesn’t fall. You hit that fence hard and you can be in trouble. For that reason my girls and many of the riders wear air jackets which are attached to the saddle and which inflate in 0.2 of a second should they detach from the saddle for any reason, to try to protect them from the dangers of cross country.

From time to time there are hunter trial events which are only the cross country element of one day eventing and Rosie had qualified for the National hunter trials on Saturday for the third year running at her fence height. And so Callum and I go about our business with football and bike riding and stuff that boys do when the girls are away on horses and I wait for the text… like always.

Rosie’s off at 3pm and I check my watch. At 3:20 I get the text from Alison and so the pyramid begins… first, is she safe? Yes. Second, did she go clear? (meaning she didn't have any faults or stops or anything that queers the deal) Yes. Then thirdly is she within the time? The crazy aspect of hunter trials is that an optimum time is developed and if you are outside or inside that time you get faults but you’re not allowed to wear a watch. It’s supposed to demonstrate that you have the ability to ride your horse on feel and sense alone, quite an extraordinary concept.

If Rosie isn’t safe the rest doesn’t matter. If she’s safe then she needs to be faultless with no stops to be anywhere in the competition. If she’s faultless then she needs to hit the time to within about 0.5 of a second to have a chance of even getting a rosette.

Extrapolate this if you will to the rest of your life. You need to get the money right to be able to live but that allows you to move onto the better things. When you get the better things right you can get on to helping everyone else which is the best thing.

But you have to get the money right and then move on whereas many people think that getting the money right is the only thing. It’s actually only the start of the thing.

Blog Post Number: 1790