The Happy Hippocampus Farm

In 2023, as I sat at my kitchen table, my manager called with news of my second tech layoff in two years. Before all this, I was preparing for an executive promotion. My hard-won career path vanished in a single meeting.

Listening to an intuitive voice had prepared me for a life change.

 

Staring out at my pasture, my eyes landed on Tango, my young horse. Two years earlier, quiet intuition had overridden my analytical mind. I made an uncharacteristally impulsive decision to buy a "green horse" instead of a greenhouse. 

 

My riding instructor labeled Tango as pushy. She recommended sending him to a "cowboy" to adjust his attitude. Remembering my childhood horse returning from a trainer with his spirit extinguished, I refused to send Tango away.

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A horse piqued my curiosity about his nervous system and mine.

 

I studied behavioral science and nervous system regulation as I began connecting with Tango. The breakthrough? I realized he wasn't being "dominant." He was operating from fear and anxiety.

I began recognizing how I forcefully broke into the conversation in a room full of confident male engineers (fight), then repaired any damage with girlish deference (fawn) or withdrawal (flight).

 

No wonder neither my colleagues nor Tango saw me as a consistent, authentic leader.

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My mind knew how to succeed, but my nervous system was stuck in survival patterns.

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Returning to present day 2023, the deeper epiphany struck: I was my horse, only I expressed my fear and anxiety with over-achieving and people-pleasing as a safety mechanism. Though I felt competent and in control, it was an illusion.

To calm Tango, a 1,000-pound laborator retriever puppy, I had to regulate myself first. Changing my leadership immediately improved his attitude. Now if only I could adapt as quickly as he did. I had a gap between knowing what to change and actually changing.

I learned to expand my nervous system capacity to match my leadership capability.

 

Real change required getting my body on board. My neuroplasticity coaching certification coursework solidifed this belief with firsthand experience. I built capacity to bear the uncertainty of new employment, entrepreneurship, and real estate development.

Horses teach how to lead when you don't know what's over the horizon.

 

Even though I studied at a top business school and practiced leadership at a Fortune 500 tech company, horses continue to educate me about leading when you don't know what's over the horizon: It could be a mountain lion, a source of food or water, or an artifical intelligence (AI) ready to eat your lunch or grant you superpowers.

 

That’s why I founded The Happy Hippocampus. On my farm, I partner with horses and nature to guide analytical corporate women through this somatic transformation. Horses ignore resumes. They read your authentic, real-time energy. Beside them, my clients move beyond knowing leadership to embodying it.