The Reins of Leadership
Tired of surface-level leadership hacks? Ready to learn genuine presence, deepen your influence, and build unwavering trust with your team?
Welcome to The Reins of Leadership, hosted by Business Leadership Strategist Merinda Smith. This is your essential resource for transforming not just what you do as a leader, but who you are. We go beyond theory, offering practical strategies illuminated by an unexpected source of wisdom: the intuitive world of horses and donkeys.
On this podcast, you will discover how to:
🌸 Understand how your personal energy impacts those around you. Learn practical strategies to manage your vitality, project authentic presence, and inspire action without burnout.
🌸 Move beyond limiting beliefs learn techniques to stay grounded and focused, even under pressure.
🌸 Develop powerful self-awareness, enhance your ability to read team dynamics, and communicate with empathy and clarity.
🌸 Build stronger connections that encourage collaboration and loyalty.
🌸 Gain actionable insights into non-verbal communication, boundary setting, trust-building, and presence, drawn from Merinda's work with horses – nature's masters of authentic leadership. These lessons provide powerful metaphors and direct applications for your own leadership journey.
Ready to lead with more confidence, connection, and impact?
Subscribe to The Reins of Leadership now wherever you get your podcasts, and take the first step towards becoming the present, influential, and trusted leader you aspire to be.
The Reins of Leadership
Amanda Held: Decoding Equine Wisdom for Authentic, Real-World Leadership
In this conversation, we sit down with Amanda Held, the founder of HOOVES (Healing of Our Veterans Equine Services). While she is renowned for her life-changing work with veterans, Amanda's wisdom extends to anyone seeking to become a more authentic and effective leader in their own life.
Our Guest: Amanda Held
Amanda Held is a published author and the visionary founder of HOOVES, a non-profit dedicated to the healing of veterans through equine services. She is also the creator of the Equine Wisdom Integration Method™ (EWIM), a powerful facilitation model she teaches to equine-assisted practitioners worldwide. Each of her offerings is rooted in EWIM, blending the deep, intuitive connection between horses and humans with practical, actionable strategies for growth and transformation.
We explore how horses act as mirrors, reflecting our subconscious patterns, boundary issues, and blocked energy. Amanda explains why the feedback from a horse is often the most honest and transformative feedback we can receive, and how we can learn to listen to their unspoken language.
We Discuss:
- The Mirror Effect: How horses non-judgmentally reveal our subconscious patterns, leadership blind spots, and energetic blocks.
- The Human Blueprint: Going beyond personality tests to an embodied understanding of your emotions, beliefs, and lived experiences.
- Setting Real Boundaries: The powerful lesson in learning to establish clear, confident boundaries with a horse and how that translates directly to your personal and professional life.
- Honest, In-the-Moment Feedback: Why horses are master communicators and how they provide unbiased feedback that cuts through the noise.
- A SNEAK PEEK: An exclusive look into Amanda's upcoming Equine Communication Charts, a revolutionary system (and future app, launching August 2025!) for decoding equine behaviour and human-horse dynamics.
Resources Mentioned:
Download Amanda's Human Blueprint Questionnaire:
This is a powerful tool to begin your own journey of self-discovery through the lens of equine wisdom.
1. Visit the Equine Wisdom Institute website: https://www.equinewisdominstitute.org/faculties
2. Scroll down the page to the section titled "Your Healing Journey with Equine Wisdom".
3. Click the link that says "Click HERE to download the Human Blueprint Questionnaire."
Connect with Amanda and Her Work:
🌸 Learn about HOOVES: Discover the incredible mission of Healing of Our Veterans Equine Services more in this VIDEO
🌸 Explore the Equine Wisdom Integration Method™: Learn more about Amanda's training for facilitators at the Equine Wisdom Institute.
Connect with Merinda:
Instagram: @IamMerindaSmith
Website: www.merindasmith.com.au