Last week, we hosted a horsemanship clinic with some of my dearest friends. I have known Zak and Chiara since about six months into my start as a horse professional in Colorado. I met Zak while he was helping load a horse that was having some trailering issues at the facility where I was working. It was a Monday; so it was pretty much just me and Zak at the barn. The weather was a bit ugly, so he had the trailer pulled into the indoor. Me, a young, very inpatient groom waiting to lunge about ten horses and be done with my day, got angsty and started watching what was going on in the arena trying to figure out when this man in a cowboy hat with a rope halter and a flag would be wrapped up. Once I started watching though, I was amazed at the compassion and conversation that Zak was able to have with this horse about something that obviously was a huge stressor. With curiosity in my step, I marched out into the arena. My first ever words to Zak were something like, “What ARE you doing?” But after that, the rest was history. My entire life and management of my horses all of the sudden was put in question and changed for the better because this man in a cowboy hat had disrupted my lunging practices, and ultimately showed me how many things I was missing and how much more I could offer the horse world. Not only did I learn a lot, but I gained invaluable friends and life long professional partners from that one day where I was brave enough to ask, “what ARE you doing?”