Latest / Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson / From Corporate to Compassion: How Troy Shaw Built New Leaf Triangle | Ep 42

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From Corporate to Compassion: How Troy Shaw Built New Leaf Triangle | Ep 42 · Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson

0:00
Rupert Isaacson: Welcome to Equine Assisted World.
0:02
I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New York Times best selling
0:05
author of The Horse Boy, The Long Ride Home, and The Healing Land.
0:08
Before I jump in with today's guest, I just want to say a huge
0:12
thank you to you, our audience, for helping to make this happen.
0:15
I have a request.
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If you like what we do, please like, subscribe, tell a friend.
0:22
It really helps us get this work done.
0:24
As you might know from my books, I'm an autism dad.
0:27
And over the last 20 years, we've developed several
0:31
equine assisted, neuroscience backed certification programs.
0:35
If you'd like to find out more about them, go to newtrailslearning.
0:40
com.
0:41
So without further ado, let's meet today's guest.
0:44
Welcome back to equine Assisted World.
0:47
Today I've got Troy Shaw from NewLeaf Triangle in Leicestershire in the uk.
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One of the reasons I'm really excited to have him is I first met Troy, God we're
0:58
gonna have to peel back through the years.
1:01
It was somewhere, it was between the Cretaceous and the plyo scene,
1:05
I think roughly when the first mammals appeared after the dinosaurs.
1:09
And when I first met Troy, he was manager at, I believe Pepsi Cola
1:16
and Walker's Crisps, but a horseman and his better half, Lorraine was
1:24
also a horseman and working in a special needs school in in the uk.
1:29
And they made a switch, a rather sudden switch to the equine assisted field.
1:35
And I was in at the birth of that and I watched them say,
1:39
yeah, we're gonna do this.
1:41
And I just watched them over the years create this, massively successful
1:48
massively positive service in the East Midlands of the uk, really from nothing.
1:56
But if you look at it now, you think, oh, these guys must have, you know, come from
1:59
so much money and because it's just, you know, you've got two now, three locations.
2:05
And so I think for the listeners and the viewers to really know your story,
2:13
Troy, Troy, of how you and Lorraine bootstrapped this thing up, I think
2:18
would be really educational for a lot of us because you came in like through the
2:24
back door and made it more successful than a lot of people I know who've
2:28
done it through a more Orthodox way.
2:30
So tell us who you are, why did you get involved in this?
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And yeah.
2:36
And then let's go into how you've, you've built this thing and what you do.
2:40
Troy Shaw: Okay.
2:41
Thank you very much.
2:41
Thanks for the history lesson as well.
2:44
I've forgotten all the dinosaur stuff.
2:46
Rupert Isaacson: That's right.
2:46
Well, you know, back in the di we, we have, we have, yeah,
2:50
Troy Shaw: it does feel like a lifetime ago.
2:52
Rupert Isaacson: It does.
2:53
It does.
2:53
Troy Shaw: So, yeah.
2:54
So I'm, I'm Troy a director at New Leaf Triangle.
2:58
New Leaf Triangle started way back in 2014, so sounds like not a long
3:05
time ago, but it's a long time ago.
3:08
And the change from that initial start point in 2014 to where we are now is huge.
3:15
It is pretty almost unrecognizable to the service we provide today.
3:19
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
3:20
Troy Shaw: So from a history perspective, really, so this is all Lorraine's
3:25
my wife's and fellow director's brainchild, so I'm just the pretty
3:30
one, obviously in the partnership.
3:32
Rupert Isaacson: Well, that's why I had you on the show.
3:34
Troy Shaw: So she, she was effectively a operations manager for national Charity.
3:40
And she spent most of her time in the car up and down the country from one
3:45
end to the other looking at different services that was being provided.
3:50
And I think by chance she met you at one of the services she
3:53
was working for or working at.
3:56
And, and there's
3:56
Rupert Isaacson: a funny story there actually, which I wanna tell after this.
3:59
Yeah, but you go on.
4:00
Yeah.
4:01
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
4:01
And, and, and I think if I, if the story I've got from that one is she, she said
4:06
she'd met this interesting guy called Rupert, you know, dressed like a cowboy.
4:10
And I think I was working at Walker's at the time for PepsiCo and she
4:14
said, we're gonna go meet him.
4:16
And it was like, oh okay.
4:18
Where Oh, soho when?
4:20
Tonight.
4:22
So we both, and for those
4:23
Rupert Isaacson: listeners who dunno what he means by Soho, so this, they live up
4:27
in, Troy and Lorraine live up in about two and a half hours north of London.
4:30
Soho is of course the middle of London.
4:33
So she's telling him, no, we're gonna drive, you know, two and
4:35
a half, three hours to meet this bloke that you've never heard of.
4:38
Yeah.
4:38
Yeah.
4:39
Troy Shaw: Yeah, no.
4:40
So we, we, we, I actually finished work five o'clock or something.
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I think we actually got the train in the end rather than drive.
4:47
So we trundled down to soho, sat, I can't even what the restaurant's name is now.
4:51
But I just remember being like a, a real whirlwind experience of like,
4:55
you know, whoa, what's going on?
4:58
Yes.
4:59
And then then the, the train journey back was just a, you know, like
5:02
a head spinning moment of, oh, Blamy, maybe we could do something.
5:07
And the rain was like really hooked on it and the opportunity arose
5:11
and almost like the little nudge you need to take that leap of faith
5:16
and start something for ourselves.
5:19
We al already had the facilities to an extent, so we had the the land and the
5:24
sites, but nothing like it is today.
5:27
And so we had a sort of starting point and a place to start from, but that's where
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the initial sort of kickoff came from.
5:36
So 2014 it was right, let's go and do this and let's go and
5:40
register on company's house.
5:41
And, you know, we're gonna start a business that's predominantly working
5:44
around young children with autism.
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That was Lorraine's background, her specialism.
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So she's got a master's in autism, so she's a really sort of
5:53
academically clued up in the area.
5:56
So it seemed like a natural progression to go into that field.
6:00
And it started off very, very steadily.
6:03
With a, a couple of children that came at the weekend.
6:08
So, and I think one of them was one of the guys you met years and years ago.
6:13
And he, he was a very interesting character and we sort of
6:19
just did weekend activities.
6:20
All we did was every Saturday and Sunday.
6:23
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
6:23
'cause you was, you still had your day job at this point.
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I still, I was still
6:25
Troy Shaw: working at Walker, so 2014 I was still at Walker's every day,
6:29
so I volunteered at the weekends.
6:30
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
6:31
Troy Shaw: Who just sort of support and get involved and learn really.
6:34
So I, I've got no background in this, so I had to learn through hands-on
6:39
experience and trying to understand the world of, you know, Lorraine's life
6:44
and her background and stuff like that.
6:46
I had to learn through putting my feet on the ground and understanding it that way.
6:50
So we had, we started for a couple of students and I was
6:53
still working at Walker's.
6:54
And then we had another slightly older child came during the week who was
7:01
more, less on the autism side, but more on the social emotional side and
7:06
just needed some support in his own sort of mental health and how he worked
7:11
and how he saw the world and stuff.
7:13
So Lorraine worked closely with him on a one-to-one basis.
7:17
I was still at Walkers again and they were, they were doing things just
7:20
like using the environment, using the countryside, using the tools
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to hand to actually get involved and build things and create things.
7:27
Which is, is quite interesting 'cause Lorraine's background's
7:29
not in creating things.
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So she was learning at the same time.
7:32
So they were, they were building things like little brick built
7:34
goat hooks, which is like wow.
7:37
From scratch.
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So they were both learning through, you know, just doing it and exploring
7:43
and that, that was sort of fantastic.
7:45
So, but still very, very low coverage.
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So we still got the students at the weekend and then this one
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child that came during the week.
7:54
Mm-hmm.
7:55
And then leaping forwards a little bit, we started to work with a local college,
8:01
a local special needs college, and they would send several students over couple
8:05
of times a week to use the environment to start to explore the horses and try
8:13
and build some of their own capability.
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And that, that went on for a, a year or so.
8:19
But again, it was just Lorraine.
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And I think by that time we just employed somebody else on a
8:23
part-time basis to support Lorraine.
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And then I noticed from the background that she, Lorraine
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was having a lot of fun.
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And, and I wasn't funnily enough.
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So I was going to work in the morning at six o'clock and when we both got home, at
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the end of the day, we were very different people in our How's your day been?
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I was like, oh, you know, all this and the finance and all the things you get in
8:50
all the corporate world where Lorraine was like, oh, I've done this, it's been great,
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and I've been building this, and I'm, you know, it's like a bit, hang on a second.
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Something's not quite right here.
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So in 2016, as the work for us started to increase, I took the
9:05
gamble to leave my corporate job,
9:07
Rupert Isaacson: which was a hell of a risk, a massive risk.
9:10
Very secure job.
9:11
Yeah.
9:11
You had a nice paycheck, you know, you could support the
9:15
work that Lorraine was doing.
9:17
You pulling out of your corporate job in a funny way, put that at risk.
9:22
And yet you went for it.
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Talk to us about, like, did you have some gut feeling that it would really be okay?
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'cause as you say, you didn't have a background in this.
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What, what made you take that big leap?
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Because you're also a dad.
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I mean, you know, it's, you've got, you've got financial commitments, you know, you,
9:40
Troy Shaw: yeah.
9:40
It's a real difficult one to answer, but I think it's one of those things,
9:43
you just work on emotions at the time.
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Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
9:46
Troy Shaw: So you see how your life is going.
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And the, the corporate world where I was working was fantastic.
9:53
It was a great company to work for.
9:55
Had all the benefits you can have, you know, the financial benefits
9:58
of a a, a really good pension plan.
10:03
So, you know, looking at the end goal of a pension, you're thinking, oh, fantastic.
10:06
I could just work up to that point.
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Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
10:09
Troy Shaw: But there was just that missing ingredient.
10:12
I could, I could see Lorraine was having fun.
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And that's something you don't normally see at work, is that right?
10:17
Ingrained fun and, and you're seeing people and making a difference.
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Sounds like a bit of a cliche, making a difference, but you could actually
10:23
physic you see the difference.
10:24
Well, cliches
10:24
Rupert Isaacson: a cliche 'cause they're true.
10:26
Yeah, yeah.
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But
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Troy Shaw: you very often are very seldom see that difference
10:30
playing out in front of you.
10:32
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
10:32
Troy Shaw: You know, and so by this time we were doing things like weekend camps.
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So during the summer holidays we'd got our TPS up and we were bringing
10:42
families in at the weekends.
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And I was working more and more with students and I was getting
10:47
more and more of the, seeing more and more of the outcomes.
10:51
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
10:52
Troy Shaw: And being part of the outcomes and sort of just seeing
10:54
how, not just individuals which had a diagnosis, diagnosis of some kind.
11:01
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
11:01
The whole
11:01
Troy Shaw: family were benefiting from what we were doing.
11:04
Yeah.
11:05
So I was getting, it's almost like getting hooked on it, if that makes sense.
11:09
Rupert Isaacson: I, I absolutely know what you mean.
11:10
'cause of course this is, it describes a lot of my own journey too.
11:14
Yeah.
11:14
Even though of course I was, you know, pulled into it 'cause of my son.
11:18
Yeah.
11:18
Very, very quickly I saw how fulfilling this work was.
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Yeah, yeah.
11:21
I know exactly what you mean.
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Troy Shaw: Yeah.
11:23
And, and it, and it was sort of like a, and I think one of the, one of the
11:26
trigger points for me was we had a, a family that came and they had a young
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boy who was preverbal at the time,
11:34
Rupert Isaacson: Uhhuh,
11:36
Troy Shaw: and he, he just wouldn't talk.
11:38
His behavior was quite extreme.
11:40
He wouldn't talk.
11:42
And he came to us for family sessions over the summer holidays and he
11:47
camped and really, really quickly he started talking and he started,
11:53
just starts with a couple of words and it starts with a few more words.
11:56
And then, then the, how old came, he was six at the time.
12:01
I actually saw him when he came to our 10 year anniversary last year.
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And he's like a, he's like a grownup now, and he's so polite and he's articulate
12:08
and it's like, it's a different person.
12:11
Right.
12:11
It's, it's such an amazing thing to have been on that person's journey.
12:14
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
12:15
Troy Shaw: And to be sort of instru in the start.
12:18
But he, he was in the very early days and we did things like back riding.
12:23
So he was on the horse with me, and we'd be going round with some horr.
12:27
Yeah.
12:28
We'd, he'd be coming round the arena with me.
12:30
We'd be trotting around, cantering around, and he'd be giggling and
12:33
we'd be playing cowboys and, you know, all things I like to do anyway.
12:36
So all I was doing was just playing at the same time as he was playing.
12:39
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
12:40
Troy Shaw: And he was talking and chatting away and, you know, and
12:43
it became an addiction almost.
12:45
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
12:46
Troy Shaw: So I wanted part of that and I could see the benefit.
12:49
It, like I say, it's a gamble, but sometimes you can't regret what you try.
12:55
Rupert Isaacson: No.
12:55
And you've obviously made a go of it.
12:57
What did you, did you, I'm just thinking about other people who are
13:00
listening now and, and watching.
13:02
Yeah.
13:02
Who might be thinking, well, you know, maybe I'm in the same position.
13:04
Troy was, maybe I've got a nice job.
13:07
Maybe I'm feeling unfulfilled.
13:09
Maybe I want to do this.
13:11
Or my spouse is doing this.
13:13
But I don't quite know how I'm gonna take that leap.
13:18
Is it, you know, fiscally responsible, I've got kids, blah, blah, blah, blah.
13:22
So obviously all of these things went through your mind.
13:24
Mm-hmm.
13:24
How did you make a go of it?
13:26
Like what, I know that there was a point where you said, you know, sort it,
13:30
I'm just going to have a go and do it.
13:32
But at the same time, you would've also had a plan in the back of
13:36
your mind saying, okay, I have to replace some of that security.
13:40
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
13:41
Rupert Isaacson: How am I gonna do that?
13:43
Troy Shaw: So, we were lucky when I left for, 'cause we got a little bit of money.
13:47
Which we could use to effectively pay me.
13:51
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
13:51
Troy Shaw: While in that transition period, while we were sort of like
13:54
growing the business, so we were, yeah.
13:58
We, the risk was smaller, but it was still a risk.
14:01
'cause that partly never sort of lasted.
14:03
Right.
14:03
Rupert Isaacson: And you said goodbye to the pension at
14:05
that point, I should imagine.
14:06
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
14:06
The pension got frozen and that was it.
14:07
Yeah.
14:07
So there's no pension, so there's no more golden handshake in 20 years
14:11
time or 30 years time from there.
14:13
Right.
14:13
So that, that had gone.
14:15
But it is I don't know.
14:16
I think if I keep talking through this now, I'm gonna, I'm gonna think of myself.
14:19
Why did I do it?
14:20
Oh my God.
14:21
Rupert Isaacson: You could go back to walkers.
14:22
Yeah.
14:22
I
14:22
Troy Shaw: could've retired by now, but it, we took the risk and there wasn't
14:28
the income to cover me on my wages
14:31
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
14:32
Troy Shaw: At that time.
14:33
So I was basically paying for myself.
14:35
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
14:35
Troy Shaw: And it is a huge risk.
14:37
It's, I, I'm, I suppose one of the reasons why it works so well with Lorraine
14:42
now, we've both got very different skill sets and different backgrounds.
14:46
Okay.
14:47
So, Lorraine, with her real in-depth knowledge and her, I don't know,
14:51
expertise in the field, not just of autism, but of education itself as well.
14:57
And her, her, I don't know, just her sheer capability in that field
15:03
Rupert Isaacson: Hmm.
15:03
Troy Shaw: Gave me the confidence to know that, you know what,
15:05
we have got an expert here.
15:07
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
15:07
And then
15:07
Troy Shaw: with me, with my equine background.
15:10
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
15:10
Troy Shaw: It sort of fits well, so I can, I could take on the horse side of
15:14
things and make that work and make it work safely and also develop horses and
15:19
bring them to where they need to be.
15:21
Right.
15:22
Is still out there doing the, you know, the, the, the real, the real hard work,
15:27
the challenge you work, which is making yourself credible with local authorities.
15:31
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
15:32
I think that's, that's the key of where I want to get to.
15:33
Yeah.
15:34
And by the way for listeners and, and viewers who don't know Troy's background,
15:38
which I should have talked about earlier, Troy came out of the household cavalry.
15:41
So, and Leicestershire, which is that area of the UK where they're
15:46
operating from, which is partly where I grew up as well, is a very,
15:49
very, very entrenched horse culture.
15:51
It's probably one of the big horse cultures in the world, really.
15:55
Mm-hmm.
15:55
Jumping and cross country riding as we know it was actually invented
15:59
there in the late 18th century.
16:01
It's an interesting history.
16:02
So I know the background that Troy comes out of in terms of that
16:06
really solid old school horseman.
16:10
This is how you produce like fit muscle horses who are good in
16:17
the head can do the job and can stand up to work over 20 years.
16:22
No problem with that kind of equine wellbeing they call it now.
16:25
Mm-hmm.
16:25
When you and I were kids they didn't call it that.
16:27
They just call, call it a horse that can do the job, you know?
16:30
Yeah.
16:30
But obviously the wellbeing's a huge part of that, and it's
16:33
interesting that you sort of.
16:36
Brought that in.
16:37
I think that that's often kind of a missing link within the equine
16:41
assisted world because a lot of people that are attracted to it don't
16:44
necessarily have that same solid background that say you did coming out.
16:49
But then you talked about, just now, you touched on Lorraine making
16:54
herself credible to local authorities.
16:56
Yeah.
16:56
And I guess that is the beginning of talking about that financial
17:01
security bit and the longevity piece.
17:04
Yeah.
17:05
Because as a lot of people know who run these programs, if you are
17:08
endlessly fundraising, and we talked about this a little bit before I hit
17:12
record you can get kind of caught in a loop of never quite having enough.
17:17
Mm-hmm.
17:18
Whereas if you can get to that point where you're being paid for your
17:20
services properly by local authorities, then you have that stability that
17:26
say a school or so, you know, a a, a mental health service would have
17:32
that's, you know, un under government.
17:35
So how did you guys engineer that credibility?
17:41
What, what was the sort of 1, 2, 3 learning curve that you had to go through?
17:46
What steps did you have to implement?
17:49
Troy Shaw: So I, I think probably the biggest thing from a credibility
17:51
perspective is having the paperwork.
17:55
Sits in the background.
17:56
So it's probably the, the most boring side of the business is the paperwork
18:01
and the procedures and the legislation and all of those kind of things.
18:05
But without those, you can't talk the same language as the people that
18:09
are potentially promoting you inside.
18:12
Can you be specific?
18:14
Rupert Isaacson: What, when you say paperwork, what do you actually mean?
18:16
Troy Shaw: Risk assessments for start, we have risk assessment for everything we do.
18:20
So every kind of activity has its own risk assessment.
18:23
And those risk assessments grow as the business grows or
18:27
as the world grows, I guess.
18:29
'cause something new will be found that now adds a, a, a need
18:33
for another risk assessment.
18:35
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
18:36
Troy Shaw: So they, they, they tend to grow with the business, but
18:39
then there's also the procedural documentation, the how tos and stuff
18:44
like that, which are also as important,
18:47
Rupert Isaacson: right?
18:48
Troy Shaw: So when you have those, when you get those conversations of local
18:54
authorities coming around to pay a visit and you've got all that information to
18:58
hand, they can almost si a, a bit of a relief and go, oh, thank gosh for that.
19:04
Rupert Isaacson: I see.
19:04
Troy Shaw: They sort of know what they're talking about.
19:07
Rupert Isaacson: Because you, what you're saying basically is these,
19:09
the local authorities have an obligation to provide these services.
19:13
Yeah.
19:14
But they can't provide these services unless you make it possible for them to
19:18
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
19:18
Rupert Isaacson: By speaking that language.
19:20
How do you approach the services that you know, because it's very interesting for
19:22
me, as you know, I came up through a very different route 'cause I was in Texas.
19:26
Mm-hmm.
19:26
There is no government money for anything, you know, it's
19:29
just completely the wild West.
19:31
So there we absolutely had to rely on fundraising, but of course,
19:36
horse Boy foundation and horse boy in general became a global thing.
19:40
So now I'm fascinated by how each group of people build it in their place.
19:46
Yeah.
19:46
So yeah, I, I would not even know how to approach local authorities
19:51
and, and so how does one do that?
19:53
Troy Shaw: So we're, we're, it's a real strange journey, to be honest.
19:57
So when we, when we first started, as you know, we did quite a lot of
19:59
fundraising and we had grants and we had a lot of help to initially get the
20:05
business off the ground and to help us with the facilities that were required.
20:09
Well, we didn't get help with was things like staff wages and how
20:13
we pay for the animals, how we pay for their food, vets bills.
20:15
Right.
20:15
All those things.
20:16
Rupert Isaacson: Capital costs, not running costs.
20:18
Yeah,
20:18
Troy Shaw: yeah,
20:18
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
20:19
Troy Shaw: So, and this is where that changeover period happened
20:22
where we had to support ourselves quite a lot in the early days.
20:25
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
20:26
Troy Shaw: And it's, it sounds almost impossible, but it's
20:30
grown fairly organically.
20:32
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
20:32
Troy Shaw: So we, we in the initial days sort of made ourselves known by
20:36
going out to local, fair kind of thing.
20:39
So we'd have like a, a, a big open event at the Kerr Theater in
20:44
Leicester where providers would go and talk about what they did.
20:48
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
20:49
Troy Shaw: And in those early days, we, we had all the facilities, but
20:52
we didn't have all of the students.
20:53
We had, we can do this, we can do that.
20:55
You know, we have all these horses and we can help with the mental
21:00
health with people, especially around the autism side of things.
21:03
Mm-hmm.
21:03
But that was our offering at the time.
21:05
Mm-hmm.
21:05
And it's, we've not really gone out and pedaled that.
21:11
We've local authorities.
21:12
What we've done is we've, we did those faires in the first couple of
21:16
early years, so 2015, 16, probably 17.
21:20
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
21:20
Troy Shaw: And as the students started to roll in, it's grown through word of mouth.
21:28
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
21:29
Troy Shaw: And not, not through our word of mouth, not from us
21:31
going out and saying, you know, we please come and do our program.
21:36
This what we provide.
21:37
It's grown through our customer base.
21:40
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
21:40
Because just the service is a good service.
21:45
Troy Shaw: I say, so local authorities
21:46
Rupert Isaacson: so do they contact you?
21:47
The local authorities end up contacting you?
21:49
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
21:50
Or
21:50
Rupert Isaacson: schools.
21:50
Interesting.
21:51
Yeah.
21:51
So
21:52
Troy Shaw: we don't, we, we don't advertise, we don't chase business.
21:54
We don't chase work at the moment.
21:55
It is done organically through word of mouth.
21:57
So there was
21:58
Rupert Isaacson: never a moment where you were like knocking on the doors of
22:01
schools and local health authorities?
22:03
Troy Shaw: No.
22:04
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
22:04
No.
22:05
Troy Shaw: In the early days, like I say, we'd go to these events where
22:07
you'd sit in a room with other providers who were doing a similar kind of
22:10
thing, but not in the outdoors and not with a horse boy method or with
22:15
any kind of animal intervention Yeah.
22:16
Or environment thoughts.
22:19
It was all done.
22:21
You know, we just went to these open days where we'd stand there for the
22:23
day in front of a big flip chart.
22:25
We have lots of pictures of the activities we'd done at the weekend.
22:29
Mm-hmm.
22:30
I, I, I would probably go dressed as a cowboy.
22:33
'cause it always generates interest when you go there.
22:35
It does.
22:35
Absolutely.
22:36
And look at you and go,
22:36
Rupert Isaacson: always wear those britches.
22:38
Yeah, I always do.
22:39
Can start a conversation.
22:39
Yeah.
22:40
Troy Shaw: Well, let's not go down that one again.
22:41
But then, but then, but then it generates people's interest and intrigue
22:45
and you start talking and, and it's quite easy to talk about these things
22:50
with a real huge degree of passion.
22:53
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
22:53
Troy Shaw: And once you do that, people get.
22:55
Hooked on it doesn't mean you're gonna generate the income, but people will
22:59
start to remember and start to think about you in their, in their day to day
23:04
and the what ifs, et cetera, et cetera.
23:06
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
23:07
So
23:07
Troy Shaw: we, that, that's how we sort of put ourselves out there.
23:10
We didn't go knocking on people's doors.
23:14
What of one of the things actually did change and had a big massive credibility
23:19
thing for us in the early days.
23:21
Mm-hmm.
23:21
I used to work with a, a young lad over the weekends who used to
23:24
come with his mother and father.
23:26
And he, he was really, really unconfident.
23:31
You know, I can't remember how old he was at the time, but he was fairly unconfident
23:34
and what we did, it got him to a point where he came with me to a local council
23:41
meeting at night and talked about what we did ah, and how it changed his life.
23:46
And he sort of sat there and this, this is a guy who's fairly
23:48
unconfident and he's, he's sitting in front of this crowd of people all
23:51
staring up at him on the platform and he's talking about what he does.
23:55
And that was like a, you know, that was a proper moment.
23:59
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, yeah.
24:01
No, it's, it's intriguing to me.
24:02
'cause I had assumed, I had assumed that having watched your progress over
24:06
the, the last years, I'd assumed that you had a mechanism for approaching
24:11
the authorities and the schools.
24:13
So I'm intrigued actually that it was the other way around.
24:16
Yeah.
24:16
You know, I just, here, I want to back up a little bit because I
24:19
said I had a funny story to tell.
24:20
About that night that, you know, we met.
24:23
But I think it's not just funny, it's, it's sort of poignant because I think
24:26
it also does serve as, you know, if, if someone is listening to this and
24:33
they're hovering about whether or not they should take the leap to do something
24:39
like what you've done or what I've done.
24:40
So as, as you know, Troy the, the way it happened was I had actually been sent
24:46
to have a meeting with this school in Buckinghamshire, I think it was which
24:51
was a residential school for kids with slightly, you know, severe autism and had
24:55
been set up by somebody who runs charities in the UK and they said, oh, this is quite
25:01
a big organization and you should go.
25:02
And so they said, yeah, we'll talk to this Rupert guy.
25:04
So, I show up as you say, you know, in my cowboy boots and everything and as
25:10
I'm, I, I approach this huge building.
25:12
'cause of course it's an old stately home right.
25:15
Set in Parkland and think, oh, this is nice.
25:17
You know, kids must be running around in nature.
25:19
And, and of course I, there's not a kid in sight under the trees.
25:23
And then I go in and inside it's just like a prison.
25:26
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
25:26
Rupert Isaacson: And then I'm sat there in the room waiting for the
25:31
people to come in to talk to me.
25:33
And I see down in the courtyard, below the window, there's this
25:37
autistic boy with a minder.
25:40
And.
25:42
The boy is clearly miserable.
25:44
Troy Shaw: Mm.
25:44
Rupert Isaacson: Crying and yeah, let's just say expressing suffering
25:50
and the young-ish minder male, just not engaged, just impatient.
25:59
Just, and the, and, and, you know, concrete.
26:02
And, you know, I've just come from, and I, I'm gonna talk to
26:05
these guys about horse boy method and movement, method and nature.
26:08
And like, they're, they're, they're just, they're not gonna be interested, you know?
26:11
And so, sure enough, you know, the people come in and I give them my, my
26:16
spiel and I can just see their eyes going, well, we are not gonna do this.
26:20
And of course, Lorraine was in the room.
26:21
She was one of the people.
26:23
And I couldn't read her at all.
26:24
I was just, but I could read that this was not gonna be a trip that was
26:31
gonna result in horse boy method or movement method being in this school.
26:34
That was clear.
26:35
And it made me very sad because I was like, wow, you guys are gonna
26:39
really make the decision to just effectively do the wrong thing.
26:42
Yeah.
26:43
And okay, you may not like me, but there is no there's no question anymore among
26:50
the neuroscientists that if you want mental health, good mental health, you've
26:53
gotta have nature, you've gotta have movement, you've gotta have these things.
26:56
You've gotta have compassion, you know?
26:57
So whether it's me or someone else, you, you're gonna have
26:59
to make some sort of change.
27:01
But Lorraine, your wife then pulled me aside.
27:06
After that meeting and said, can't talk here, can we go get a coffee?
27:12
And I was like, sure.
27:16
And so I had to then go take a taxi to go get a train from Ailsbury or
27:21
wherever it was, back into London to, and so we agreed to meet there.
27:25
And Lorraine just said, and obviously, you know, your wife is somebody
27:29
who gets things done, you know?
27:30
Yeah.
27:31
Oh yeah.
27:31
She sort of just took me aside and said, Ru all right, I heard it.
27:35
Absolutely.
27:36
I wanna do this, but I wanna do this privately.
27:40
Yeah.
27:40
And I'm like, wow, I'm so, how glad am I that I went to that meeting?
27:44
Because I can tell that you're one of those people that if you say you're
27:49
gonna do something, you're gonna do something that's clear and that there's
27:54
gonna be a way greater reach from that than there would've been if I, you
28:00
know, if the school decided to implement what we did in a half our sort of way.
28:04
And then of course she said, but you know, I need to talk to my husband.
28:06
And I said, well, you know, I'm only in London, in England for a couple of days,
28:10
and I'm meeting some of the other horse boy people in this restaurant in Soho.
28:15
I mean, it's a long shot, but do you guys wanna come?
28:17
She goes, yes, we'll be there.
28:18
I'm like, damn, you really are serious, aren't you?
28:21
And then you think, well, maybe she'll show up, maybe she won't, you know?
28:24
And then we're all there in the restaurant and then you guys show up.
28:28
And I'm like, they showed up.
28:31
That's impressive.
28:32
And ever since then, I've just watched you, you do it.
28:35
So, but because as you say Lorraine who's this driving force and has this very
28:40
good academic background, and of course, you know, a lot of knowledge of the
28:44
institutions, I assumed that she had been able to go directly to the institutions
28:49
and drum up that business for you.
28:50
So I'm actually very intrigued to hear that.
28:53
No, no.
28:54
It wasn't done that way, that it was the opposite.
28:56
It was more exactly what we did at Horse Boy with bootstrapping up and just sort
29:00
of saying, here is something that works.
29:03
And then people going, yeah, it does work.
29:06
And then going and talking to their friends and going, this thing works,
29:09
and then the authorities coming to you.
29:11
I, I had assumed it was the other way around, so thank you for, so, so for
29:15
those, for those listeners and viewers who maybe are hovering, you know, just
29:20
take a little bit of a, of a page of a leaf out of New Leaf Triangle that both
29:26
Lorraine and Troy made these kinds of instinctive, emotional, intuitive leaps
29:33
despite coming out of very secure jobs that you guys could have just stayed
29:43
doing what you were doing and run your thing off at the side at weekends, right?
29:46
Yeah.
29:47
You know, so to make that leap again, it's, it's, it's,
29:50
it's, it's just so impressive.
29:52
There,
29:53
Troy Shaw: there's always gonna be a risk where everything you do isn't there, so.
29:55
Mm-hmm.
29:56
You know, there's probably just as much risk as not doing it.
30:00
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
30:00
But it's, it's interesting to hear you.
30:02
I'm used to that sort of thing, I would say, because I've never had a job.
30:05
Right.
30:06
I mean, you know, I've always been, you know, me.
30:10
Yeah.
30:10
But, so I've always been a freelancer.
30:13
So that sort of insecurity, you know, I, I, I, I won't say I've always enjoyed
30:18
it, but you know, I'm used to it.
30:20
But you guys were, you know, even before you were in the corporate
30:23
world, you're in the Army.
30:24
And in the Army they look after you.
30:25
Right.
30:26
You know, you're not gonna worry about your paycheck, you're not gonna worry
30:28
about, you know, things like that.
30:29
You, you are to a large degree, you know, it's, well, it is a corporate environment.
30:35
Corporate environment is basically based on the merger.
30:37
Corporate.
30:37
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
30:37
Rupert Isaacson: So, given that you, you hadn't had that, you know, you were not
30:43
used to being a freelancer in that way and having that insecurity, how difficult
30:49
was it for you to make the adjustment?
30:53
Troy Shaw: I don't think it, I can't remember being difficult at all.
30:59
'cause I think, I think all of the challenges that come with making
31:01
these big leaps and stuff like that, were far outweighed by the fun.
31:09
Okay.
31:09
It, it, it almost sounds impossible.
31:11
And I don't wanna make it sound like it's this big fairytale
31:13
world 'cause it's not, it's hard.
31:15
But the stuff we were doing.
31:18
Especially in the early days, it was so, so much fun.
31:23
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
31:23
Troy Shaw: That you are able to forget that I might have a bill to pay tomorrow.
31:27
That's actually quite large and I've gotta find the money for that from somewhere.
31:30
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
31:31
Troy Shaw: Or there's a vet's bill that we've now got to try and cover because,
31:33
you know, that's what animals do.
31:35
But it, yeah, it was all far outweighed by the positivity
31:41
out of it, if that makes sense.
31:42
So what I, so, and
31:43
Rupert Isaacson: I so hear you.
31:44
And I think this is, this is, this is, you know, just not
31:48
talked about enough in our field.
31:50
It, it particularly nowadays that it's becoming like a field, you know,
31:55
because 10 years ago when you and I were first sort of doing it, it
31:58
wasn't a field, it was just people like you and me doing this thing.
32:02
And now there's this thing called equine assisted stuff and it's all
32:04
quite serious, so you can take degrees in it now and blah, blah, blah.
32:07
But that didn't, so the crack the fun was the whole point.
32:13
And I'm a great believer that if that is not there, it doesn't work.
32:17
Troy Shaw: No.
32:18
Rupert Isaacson: Because you're not gonna fire those neurons in the brain of, of
32:22
the service user, if you wanna call it.
32:23
Yeah.
32:24
You know, whether child or adult the fun is the inspiration.
32:27
It's the fire, it's the spark, it's the and I think the fun is a
32:30
little bit going from our field.
32:32
I, I, you know, I, I'm off to, to another conference in a few days.
32:37
And I can be pretty sure that.
32:41
Fun will not be high on the list of what's talked about.
32:43
I, I, I will make sure it gets talked about.
32:45
Yeah.
32:45
And people will probably roll their eyes, but talk to us about fun.
32:49
Why does fun work?
32:51
Why is fun the key here?
32:53
Troy Shaw: Because I, I think the, the big key with fun and the, and
32:56
the thing about fun, if it's genuine, no, there's no disguise in it.
33:01
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
33:01
Troy Shaw: You can't hide away from the funds aspect, and you can't hide
33:05
away from, you can't make it up.
33:06
It's not false.
33:08
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
33:08
Troy Shaw: And I know of our students and families and stuff, when they
33:11
see genuine fun, it's addictive.
33:15
They, they want in.
33:16
Rupert Isaacson: Right, because that's quality of life, isn't it?
33:18
That's mental.
33:18
That's positive.
33:19
Mental health is fun, right?
33:20
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
33:21
So when, once they're, once they're in there and they're, they're feeling that
33:24
oxytocin and, you know, they're, they're getting involved and they, especially
33:28
in the early days when you'd get parents who were really wound up, you know,
33:33
wound up tight because of their a the stigma that sometimes their children
33:38
represent maybe in a supermarket or Yeah.
33:40
Just in general life.
33:42
When they saw that actually it's not that bad.
33:46
You know, there's people here that are prepared to have a, a
33:49
proper laugh and, you know, get involved and do some stupid things.
33:52
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
33:53
Troy Shaw: And they themselves could go, oh, blind me.
33:56
I, I can actually reconnect with my children and have a laugh myself.
34:00
You know, some, some, some of the real milestones is when you get a, a, a father.
34:07
Who's, you know, oh, I'm not gonna do anything.
34:08
I'm gonna sit in the corner and get my iPhone out, or do
34:11
whatever and just read a book.
34:12
Or getting those involved and being silly.
34:15
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
34:16
Troy Shaw: The, the, the benefit for the whole family was just phenomenal.
34:18
'cause you can see there's a, there's light switches going off everywhere
34:21
and everyone's going, blow me.
34:22
The child's going, that's my dad.
34:24
And he's, he's messing about what's going on here.
34:26
And then the child, this parent would be going, hang on a minute,
34:29
I've not done this for centuries.
34:31
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
34:32
Troy Shaw: So it's a,
34:34
Rupert Isaacson: it's a, yeah.
34:35
Fun.
34:35
Real fun.
34:37
Is life changing in to, what I mean by that is back the idea of
34:44
neurons and new neural pathways.
34:46
What is fun?
34:47
But exploration and l and curiosity and looking at new, even the same situation
34:55
through new eyes or new perspective.
34:58
And of course, that's going to have a knock on effect, isn't it?
35:00
That's gonna mean that you can then go and look at your own situation
35:03
or things that you thought were closed doors and go, well, hold on.
35:07
Actually, no, maybe there's a way around, because this perspective I had through
35:10
humor I I is now generalizing over to, you know, perspectives on, you know Yeah.
35:16
Day-to-day stuff.
35:18
Talk to us about silliness.
35:19
I mean, I, I like that you bring this up.
35:21
I mean, obviously we, Brits are quite silly people.
35:23
We pretend not to be, but we are.
35:25
But you know, through the years I've known you.
35:28
I love that you've got this whimsical side to you, you know, because you
35:31
were this army dude, and then you were this corporate dude, but you
35:35
love to dress up, you love to mess about, you have these passions that
35:40
are outside of the therapeutic side.
35:43
Like you, you, you know, you've got this big thing with mounted
35:46
archery but you also love to go and ride on movie sets and Yeah.
35:51
Play, dress up and do all that.
35:52
And you bring that of course, into the sessions.
35:56
Talk to us about that whimsical thing.
35:58
What, what do you think, what does that spark in the child or the family when they
36:08
see you getting up in medieval gear or you
36:11
Troy Shaw: I, yeah, I think, I think it's the, it's really hard to sort of
36:15
put into words, but when I get, if I get dressed up in something, I don't
36:18
feel like I'm getting dressed up.
36:19
I just feel like I'm putting some clothes on today, but today I'm gonna be,
36:23
Rupert Isaacson: yes.
36:23
Troy Shaw: And it, but taking on a role,
36:25
Rupert Isaacson: right?
36:25
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
36:25
And it, it's just, it's, and I, and I think it, again, it comes
36:28
across as like fairly genuine.
36:31
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
36:32
Troy Shaw: I'm not, I'm not, I'm not putting clothes on to
36:34
acts and I'm not playing a role.
36:36
I've just been me, but dressed as, you know, and, and it's to
36:40
tell a story or to facilitate a session or to just to get, yeah.
36:45
I, I engagement,
36:46
Rupert Isaacson: I, I think what comes across from it when I see you do it.
36:49
Is, it would be really easy in your position, Troy, to be a
36:53
kind of, I'm the authoritative, slightly macho horseman here.
36:59
I think that when you dress up to make, you know, a session happen, okay,
37:05
we're gonna do something medieval, so let's dress in that costume.
37:08
Well, we're gonna do something Napoleonic, we're gonna do something.
37:10
Let's dress in that costume.
37:11
Yeah.
37:11
Well, A of course you're teaching history, but BI think what what it
37:17
sparks is you make yourself vulnerable.
37:20
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
37:21
Rupert Isaacson: You say to the person, you can judge me if you want.
37:25
You can say, oh, here's this grown man playing dress up, but you know
37:28
what, I'm gonna do it anyway and you're gonna see why I'm doing it.
37:33
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
37:34
Rupert Isaacson: And we're gonna have a laugh, but that vulnerability, that's it.
37:39
It takes some balls and it takes, it takes a certain egolessness actually.
37:46
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
37:46
Rupert Isaacson: Do you know what I mean?
37:48
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
37:49
I, I'll just remember back when I, when I first started doing
37:51
this, because I've always had a thing about dressing up right.
37:52
From as child.
37:53
So when I was young and I used to go for a ride on my horse, I used to dress up as
37:56
a cowboy and ride around the field as a cowboy because that, that got me riding.
38:00
So, otherwise I probably wouldn't have been riding if I couldn't have done that.
38:03
Like a role play kind of thing or, yes.
38:05
Where I saw myself being, but I remember one sort of dressed up event.
38:10
I think it was a pirate.
38:10
We did a pirate day.
38:13
I was so sort of engrossed in being a pirate that I actually forgot that I
38:17
was dressed as a pirate walking around Tesco's, and I was wa just walking around.
38:22
I had to go and get something.
38:23
I can't remember what the event was, but I was walking around Tesco's
38:26
dressed in full pirate kit, and people looking at me, I'm, I'm sort
38:29
of going, what are they looking at?
38:32
What's, what's the big deal?
38:33
And I, I was sort of lost.
38:34
So lost in that world that, you know, it became the norm.
38:38
Rupert Isaacson: It's, it's, it's funny if you, I think when you do that stuff,
38:42
it allows the person watching you to think I could take on a different persona too.
38:50
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
38:52
Rupert Isaacson: What persona do I want to take?
38:55
And it's an interesting conversation that's often been had around autism,
38:58
particularly people talk about masking.
39:00
Troy Shaw: Mm-hmm.
39:01
Rupert Isaacson: As if it's always negative.
39:03
And I think they're right.
39:05
It's negative if you constantly have to mask 'cause it's no choice.
39:09
But it's also a very good survival skill, right?
39:11
Yeah.
39:11
To blend in and let, let's say you are, I don't know, a hunter
39:16
gatherer and you wanna go hunt deer.
39:17
Well, it makes sense to put on a deer skin and a pair of antlers,
39:20
you will get closer to the deer.
39:23
And this, I, you know, the shamanic side of things, you, you shapeshift,
39:26
you take on another persona in order to get a perspective, in order to
39:31
get information, in order to get.
39:35
If you like, even a series of instructions to better your current
39:40
situation, I would argue that the amount of dress up that you guys do at
39:45
at NewLeaf, and I wish more people did it is actually a shamanic exercise.
39:50
Mm-hmm.
39:50
In the same way that going to the theater is right or go getting lost in story.
39:55
And then story of course is transformation, isn't it?
39:59
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
39:59
I, and I think it when you think about masking, even in the neurotypical
40:03
world, everyone does it because, we'll, depending on who we're talking to.
40:07
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
40:07
Troy Shaw: So it's a natural part of life to learn how to interact with different
40:11
people based on what they expect.
40:14
So it's a, it is a way of being able to flex your life skills really.
40:18
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
40:18
And meet people where they are.
40:19
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
40:20
We just go to the extreme.
40:22
So we might, you know, we, you know, it might be a cowboy or a pirate or
40:25
a dic turian or whatever it is that we need to dress up as, but it's, it,
40:29
it just shows especially of our more quiet, reserved students that it's
40:36
okay to just do what you want really.
40:39
And go back to that word fun again.
40:42
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
40:43
You know?
40:43
Yeah.
40:43
'cause fun is courage, isn't it?
40:45
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
40:46
' Rupert Isaacson: cause if you're having enough fun, you
40:47
lose your fear of judgment.
40:49
Yeah.
40:50
If you're in the equine assisted field, or if you're considering
40:53
a career in the equine assisted field, you might want to consider
40:57
taking one of our three neuroscience backed equine assisted programs.
41:01
Horseboy method, now established for 20 years, is the original
41:08
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41:14
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41:17
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41:20
We work in the saddle with younger children.
41:24
Helping them create oxytocin in their bodies and neuroplasticity in the brain.
41:29
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41:31
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41:33
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41:34
If you're working without horses, you might want to look at movement
41:39
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41:42
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41:44
If you're working with families, you can give them really tangible exercises to do
41:49
at home that will create neuroplasticity.
41:52
when they're not with you.
41:54
Finally, we have taquine equine integration.
41:57
If you know anything about our programs, you know that we need a
42:00
really high standard of horsemanship in order to create the oxytocin
42:04
in the body of the person that we're working with, child or adult.
42:09
So, this means we need to train a horse in collection, but this
42:12
also has a really beneficial effect on the horse's well being.
42:17
And it also ends your time conflict, where you're wondering, oh my gosh, how
42:21
am I going to condition my horses and maintain them and give them what they
42:24
need, as well as Serving my clients.
42:28
Takine equine integration aimed at a more adult client base
42:32
absolutely gives you this.
42:34
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
42:34
And once, once that fund's engaged, you can pretty much do anything.
42:37
So once you've got people laughing, you can then all the
42:40
stuff that was frightening Yeah.
42:41
Before the fund started is now on the cards to do probably like horse, horse
42:46
riding's probably a really prime example.
42:48
Well, I'm not gonna ride a horse, not gonna ride a horse, but now I'm laughing.
42:50
I can do that.
42:51
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
42:52
Yeah.
42:53
So, yeah.
42:53
Yeah, yeah.
42:54
And that transfers to other Yes.
42:55
Situations in life.
42:56
Do you, I mean, you have a lot of staff now.
42:58
How many staff do you have?
42:59
Troy Shaw: 24.
43:00
Oh,
43:01
Rupert Isaacson: not every one of those people coming in probably has
43:05
the natural ability for dress up, laugh, fun, and story that you do.
43:10
How do you bring that out of people in the staff too?
43:14
Troy Shaw: And that's, that's one of the challenges.
43:15
So you talked earlier on about the world changing slightly and
43:18
the fun side and the, the laughter side drifting away a little bit.
43:21
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
43:22
Troy Shaw: And as, as the organization grows, you can sort of see it's harder
43:26
and harder to get that kind of early days fun where everybody was comfortable
43:32
around each other to let themselves go.
43:35
Yeah.
43:35
So the, the way we do it at the moment is, we'll, we'll get
43:38
in there and do it ourselves.
43:39
So we are, you know, the directors and all the very serious people
43:42
and all that sort of stuff.
43:43
But if they see me going to work one day dressed ridiculously,
43:48
Rupert Isaacson: yes,
43:48
Troy Shaw: it's actually okay.
43:49
It's almost like a, you wrote it's okay to be silly.
43:52
And one, one of the things we really keen on is when we recruit people, we,
43:56
we guess we get the cvs and we get all of the backgrounds and all the information,
44:00
but we really need to the person who sat in front, and you can get a really
44:04
fairly good indication of what they're gonna be like just from a conversation.
44:08
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
44:09
Troy Shaw: You know, we, we get obviously have to go through all
44:11
of the legislation, the right recruitment process and all those.
44:16
The conversation still says what they're gonna be like when they start work.
44:20
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
44:20
But a young person, you know, coming into the field and it's, you know,
44:24
mental health and, you know, they feel they've gotta be kind of serious.
44:28
I, I, I hear that you lead from the front.
44:32
You will come in to the workday dressed up and say, yeah,
44:36
therefore it's all right to this.
44:37
But nonetheless, you know, when you're dealing with people, how do
44:41
you draw out of them in the sessions?
44:42
How do you help them build that skill?
44:46
Troy Shaw: A lot to be fair on our staff that, that most of
44:49
'em have got that there anyway.
44:50
Then they've got this, they've got this desire to want to make
44:53
a change for people and they'll, they'll bring the fun element in.
44:56
There's, there's always gonna be the people that through life
44:59
that find it a little bit more challenging to want to dress up.
45:03
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
45:03
Troy Shaw: You know, but even when they don't dress up, they still
45:06
might be sat in the back laughing.
45:08
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
45:08
Okay.
45:09
Troy Shaw: You know, because they're still laughing, they're still taking part, you
45:11
know, they're not sitting there serious.
45:14
I don't, there's not one of our staff that won't.
45:17
Openly ball out laughing when something's funny.
45:21
You know, they'll absolutely, you know, be in tears sometimes.
45:26
Rupert Isaacson: It's, it's so unusual.
45:28
I'm just thinking about all of the I mean I'm, you know, we used to see joy
45:31
with horses 'cause horses joy, right?
45:33
Yeah.
45:34
That's, yeah.
45:34
You can agree.
45:35
But when I go round looking at equine assisted things, it's not that often
45:42
that people are just like on the floor, proper job belly laughing.
45:47
Troy Shaw: Okay.
45:49
The problem is people do it for a textbook and, you know, a lot of the
45:52
time having the expertise because you've read it and you're able to interpret
45:58
what it means and how it doesn't mean necessarily that you can deliver Yeah.
46:03
On those on that text, because it, it is, we talk about the environment quite a lot.
46:08
So there's the natural environment, the nature around you, but
46:11
the human environment is so much more important as well.
46:13
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
46:14
Troy Shaw: You know, if that person's happy and engaging and laughing
46:19
and, and open and listening and all those things, that has a massive
46:24
impact on how, how everything works.
46:28
Rupert Isaacson: It's so true.
46:29
You know, as you know, with the Horse Boy trainings, we.
46:33
The environment's, actually the thing we talk about the most, right?
46:35
Get the environment right.
46:36
It does 60% of your work for you.
46:38
And as you very correctly pointed out there, human environment, huge part.
46:42
And in fact, we generally find the human environment will, at the end of
46:46
the day, top the natural environment.
46:48
Meaning that if you went out into a beautiful forest, but with someone
46:52
who was a complete asshole and you felt threatened by it, wouldn't
46:57
matter how beautiful that forest was.
46:59
Your entire experience is cortisol.
47:01
It's stress and fear.
47:03
You could be in some really pretty, not nice environment, but if you're with
47:09
the like, super empathetic, cool, nice, funny person, it's gonna override what's
47:16
missing from the nature, isn't it?
47:18
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
47:19
And, and it does, it really does work as well.
47:21
So, and that's why we're so keen on getting the right people.
47:25
Rather how
47:25
Rupert Isaacson: do you, you you say you can find out a lot from the conversation,
47:27
but how do you make it safe for them in the course of like your job interviews
47:33
to say, not only is it all right to be silly here, we actually quite, you know,
47:37
we'd like it if you show us you're silly,
47:40
Troy Shaw: you know?
47:40
I, I guess from an interview perspective, they can't sit there and
47:42
like crack jokes off because they're not gonna feel comfortable doing it.
47:46
Sure.
47:46
Exactly.
47:46
They're gonna be very insecure.
47:48
But you can just sort of.
47:50
Just by the way, people are, the, the way they talk, the, the, whether they're
47:54
just reading from a text saying, I, you know, I'm a team player and I work
47:58
alone well, and all that sort of stuff.
47:59
That all those things go out the window.
48:01
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
48:01
Troy Shaw: And, and it really, it shows with our team in the first week of them
48:07
starting, whether it's for them or not.
48:10
Okay.
48:10
You can sort of say they're coming to work and within the
48:13
first week you can sort of say,
48:15
Rupert Isaacson: Ugh,
48:16
Troy Shaw: it's not gonna work.
48:18
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
48:18
Troy Shaw: And it's, and it's not as everybody thinks, it's not
48:20
based on whether it's raining or snowing or sunny or all that's just
48:24
like a, that's out of our control.
48:26
Yes.
48:26
It's literally on how they're finding the approach.
48:30
And what, what we've actually found is, and it's it's only really occurred
48:33
to me just now sat here, is as the team grows, the team's become a little
48:39
bit more self-supportive in this.
48:41
So we went through a stage where we had less people, but more than the original.
48:47
So we were sort of losing contact with that day-to-day stuff, and we
48:52
sort of went down the gap where the, the, the team was bonding well, but
48:56
they weren't necessarily bringing that fun element, if that makes sense.
48:59
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
49:00
Troy Shaw: Because they didn't know how to lead it out themselves.
49:03
But now the team's got bigger.
49:05
They're starting to self support each of the now and bring it out of each
49:09
other so that there's, you know, it's more of a community within the team
49:12
and they're all sort of helping each other to develop in the right direction.
49:17
Rupert Isaacson: I'd be interested, I think maybe we should plan this
49:20
for some time in the coming year.
49:22
You know, you, I dunno how many of these things you go out to these days, but
49:26
I, I go and speak up a lot of equine conferences of one kind or another.
49:31
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
49:31
Rupert Isaacson: I think we should go and do something on fun.
49:36
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
49:37
Rupert Isaacson: Because I just think, I just think it's being un undervalued.
49:42
And I think more people, you know, wish they could but feel they can't.
49:47
And it might be really useful, I think, for somebody like you to come along
49:50
and say, look, I've built this very successful, very kind of by the book
49:55
service here, which does work with the local councils, the local authorities, and
49:59
the local, and yet we can still be silly.
50:02
Yeah.
50:02
One does not preclude the other.
50:04
Troy Shaw: No.
50:05
I mean, the funny is the underpinning of making things happen.
50:07
It it does unlocks that, that self-consciousness.
50:13
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
50:13
Troy Shaw: That you it does.
50:15
Rupert Isaacson: It does.
50:16
It does.
50:16
You know, and, and if, if, you know, again, it just comes down to if
50:19
what we're trying to really achieve here is a positive mental health.
50:22
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
50:22
Rupert Isaacson: I don't see how that can happen without laughter.
50:25
And that laughter has to be prioritized.
50:28
Now, the other side of things, of course, is the equine wellbeing.
50:31
I know that you produce very good horses.
50:33
I've seen your horses.
50:34
I know that they're.
50:35
Fit Well.
50:36
They've got nice top lines.
50:37
They've got the things we look for.
50:39
Talk to us about how you produce your horses and how you maintain your horses.
50:44
Troy Shaw: So I, I think probably the starting point of our horses,
50:46
and the one thing that I always talk about with a team is those
50:50
horses are a key member of our team.
50:53
They're not horses.
50:54
They're not riding score horses.
50:56
They are part of the team and we need to look after them, you know,
51:00
like any other part of the team.
51:01
They're really, really important.
51:03
So we treat them in that way with that in our mind so that their, their,
51:11
their needs are met all of the time.
51:13
Which again, for me is a little bit like the cavalry.
51:15
So in the cavalry, the horses came first, no matter what you've been doing.
51:18
You know, you come off troop in the color, for example, and you do your horses first.
51:21
Before you went for a sit down or a cup of tea or anything like
51:24
that, your horses came first.
51:26
And it's the same with ours.
51:27
The horses get looked after first.
51:28
Mm-hmm.
51:29
So their, their mental health, their wellbeing is in the right place so
51:33
that when they're asked to do something with a student, they're not gonna
51:36
go, well no, I don't fancy it today.
51:38
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
51:38
Troy Shaw: Or I don't feel like it.
51:39
They're, they're open to it and they're keen and eager.
51:43
Rupert Isaacson: But talk, talk to me about the nuts and bolts of
51:46
the training and the maintaining and also the living conditions.
51:50
Like give, gimme that 1, 2, 3.
51:53
'cause because stuff that you take for granted, a lot of people
51:56
don't, you know, that old school horsemanship that you come out of.
51:59
Yeah, it's not something one can take for granted.
52:02
Troy Shaw: And I think that's, that's, that's, it's quite hard to put a a finger
52:04
on the training side of things, isn't it?
52:06
So you, you sort of just do it organically.
52:07
You just do it because that's what you do all the time.
52:10
Rupert Isaacson: What do you make sure that every horse has in the
52:13
course of their working week?
52:15
Like outside of the client sessions?
52:19
Troy Shaw: They have all the horses live out.
52:21
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
52:21
That's a good
52:22
Troy Shaw: In a herd.
52:22
In a herd,
52:23
Rupert Isaacson: okay.
52:23
Troy Shaw: So they have their natural environment and they get a chance to
52:26
socialize as a horse with the horses,
52:29
Rupert Isaacson: right.
52:29
Troy Shaw: And they get all the food they need.
52:32
So they're not scrubbing for food.
52:33
So they're, they're not, there's no sort of, I don't know.
52:38
They never feel hungry,
52:40
Rupert Isaacson: right.
52:40
So they got, they've got freedom forage and friends, right?
52:43
Yeah.
52:43
Troy Shaw: All the five freedoms.
52:44
I don't don't Right.
52:45
Whatever.
52:45
They're never remember, but Yeah.
52:48
But they get all those kind of things.
52:49
So they, they, they're treated really well.
52:50
And when, when we work with horses with the students,
52:54
they're treated with compassion.
52:56
So we take things at the pace that that horse will tolerate.
53:01
Horses just like people.
53:02
Mm, different personalities.
53:04
You know, some people, some horses don't like the girth being done up.
53:06
Some horses don't like the saddle going on.
53:08
Some horses don't like, you know, being interrupted while
53:11
they're eating the breakfast.
53:12
But as long as we understand those personalities, we can then
53:15
work around them and work with them to make them work with us.
53:18
And we sort of respect.
53:21
Each individual horse as an individual horse and build
53:23
the program according to that.
53:25
So for example, we have a, we talk about the archery world of things.
53:29
We have got a horse that we tried archery with when we first started
53:33
and it was a real, no, I'm not gonna anywhere near, I'm never gonna do that.
53:37
And we tried it a couple times and it was quite clear that
53:39
it was never gonna happen.
53:41
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
53:41
Troy Shaw: We could have forced that.
53:43
We could have made it happen.
53:44
You know, we could have got in there, we could have tried all sorts
53:46
of methods and stuff and Right.
53:48
But it would've been forced and then the horse wouldn't have been happy.
53:51
It would've done the work.
53:52
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
53:52
Troy Shaw: But it would've done it from a, a, an area of resistance
53:55
and never been a hundred percent comfortable doing what it's doing.
53:58
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
53:59
Troy Shaw: So the sim similar with the horses when they're working with students.
54:03
Some are fine with, the students are making lots of noise,
54:06
jumping around, flapping their arms, you know, and jumping off.
54:10
Others don't like it.
54:12
So we'll just, we'll just mix the personalities and from a, from training
54:17
them to get there, it's not really training as such, it's more observation.
54:22
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
54:22
Troy Shaw: So we'll just sit and we'll watch, we'll observe, we'll know, we'll
54:25
understand and we'll try and do our best to know each horse individually
54:32
and what they can, you know, because there's no point forcing things.
54:34
'cause if you're forcing your horse, you can end up with an accident and end
54:37
with a, somebody falling off in a heap.
54:40
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
54:40
Troy Shaw: You've done something that's not comfortable for either of them.
54:43
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
54:45
Troy Shaw: And we, so we do have going back to the paperwork side of
54:48
things, we've got a, a huge paperwork trail with each individual horse on
54:52
what they've done, where they've, where they've been, how they reacted.
54:56
You know, is there any concerns?
54:58
And then we have a, a, a matrix that feeds into, to what they can and
55:02
can't do, and who they can and can't do with either as well with a team.
55:06
Rupert Isaacson: Right, right, right.
55:07
So the horse has never been put in a position where No, they're being
55:10
forced to do something they don't wanna
55:11
Troy Shaw: do.
55:11
No.
55:11
Or, or the, the team are being put in a position where they're working with a
55:15
horse, they're not skilled to work with.
55:17
Yes.
55:17
Or the horse is not capable of working with them 'cause
55:19
the personalities, et cetera.
55:21
So it's, it is, it almost sounds more complex than, well, I suppose
55:26
it's quite complex, but it's through years of observation and watching.
55:29
Right.
55:29
No,
55:29
Rupert Isaacson: it, it, it is, it's complex, but it's the functional
55:31
complexity in terms of like Yeah.
55:34
I, I love that you talk about matching up personality.
55:37
Troy Shaw: Mm-hmm.
55:37
Rupert Isaacson: Because I, I see this a lot with our work too, that sometimes
55:39
we ha we might get people who are technically really quite good with horses,
55:43
but for whatever reason, you know, that they and that horse don't really jive.
55:47
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
55:47
Rupert Isaacson: And if I'm now going to put that person and that
55:51
horse in a position with your kid
55:54
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
55:54
Rupert Isaacson: Is that really a, a good decision?
55:58
No.
55:58
You know, or am I forcing those two personalities into a situation that.
56:05
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
56:06
Rupert Isaacson: You know, something bad can happen
56:07
Troy Shaw: unless you using that situation to try and teach something
56:10
about an individual's own personality, then you can sort of really get
56:13
into the nitty gritty and start some mirroring and things like that.
56:16
But that's right.
56:17
You know, that's a another skill.
56:20
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
56:21
But that's still gotta happen within certain safety protocols.
56:23
Yeah.
56:23
Yeah.
56:23
Like you can do that with like horse foy for example, where you are
56:26
back riding with a kid or something like No, that chemistry between
56:30
horse and rider has gotta be there.
56:32
And speaking about things like back riding.
56:34
Okay, so I, I notice with your horses nice top line, nice muscle, nice fitness.
56:40
I don't always see that when I go to therapeutic riding places.
56:45
And I tend to jump up and down about it a bit.
56:47
I'm like, dude, the horses are athletes.
56:49
Yes, they are.
56:50
And they're bred selectively over the last 4,000 years to be athletes.
56:55
And if they don't get that outlet, they go squiffy in the head.
56:59
Sometimes people take this on, sometimes they don't.
57:02
What do you do to ensure the top line, the fitness and the muscling
57:07
and suckling of your horses?
57:09
Talk us through the sort of 1, 2, 3 of what's your baseline that you
57:12
want to make sure that your team.
57:15
Does with the horses on a week to week basis.
57:17
Troy Shaw: So, so our horses really the keeping them fit is done by the students.
57:22
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
57:22
Troy Shaw: So we don't, because we have so many students now, we don't have to
57:26
do really that much intervention work.
57:29
Okay.
57:29
We keep the horses fit.
57:31
One of the things we do like to do to keep the horses mentally fit
57:34
is change their variety slightly.
57:37
Go on.
57:38
Okay.
57:38
What we'll do is for example, we'll take the horses to the beach, take 'em to sea.
57:42
So last week we took a couple horses to the beach.
57:45
It's a reward for us.
57:46
It's a reward for the horses.
57:47
Right.
57:48
Or we'll take 'em to the forest.
57:50
So, or we'll take just, just out for a general hack just
57:54
to change the environment.
57:55
You know, they'll, they love going out for a hack and standing on
57:57
the corner eating grass while the team just talk and have a chat.
58:02
So it, so
58:03
Rupert Isaacson: trail riding.
58:04
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
58:05
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
58:05
Right.
58:06
So again, this is something you take that for granted.
58:08
I can tell you Troy a lot of the places I go to do not do it.
58:12
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
58:12
Rupert Isaacson: I'm a great believer that all of my horses need, whether
58:15
they're got their dressage hats on, or whether they got their therapy hats on,
58:20
they need tons and tons of trail riding.
58:22
So obviously I try to serve my clients on the trail.
58:26
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
58:26
Rupert Isaacson: So it's, I'm not battling for time, but, and then
58:31
I'm trying to vary the trails.
58:33
But I also know that, say in the UK.
58:37
You know, I'm lucky 'cause I, I was in Texas and I was in Germany.
58:39
Now I'm here in Spain.
58:40
Trail riding is pretty easy.
58:42
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
58:43
But
58:43
Rupert Isaacson: a lot of places in the UK it's not unless you happen to have like
58:47
a really good bridal away system Right.
58:48
By you, people are often forced to hack on the lanes, on the roads.
58:53
Yeah.
58:53
They're not safe.
58:54
People drive really fast.
58:55
So people often end up not trail riding their horses.
58:59
Yeah.
58:59
How do you get around that problem?
59:00
Troy Shaw: We're, we're really lucky.
59:01
So, our local roads are quite quiet.
59:04
Okay.
59:05
And we've got a, a, a very good loop, which takes about an hour to ride round
59:10
where it is safe to take the students.
59:13
Okay.
59:13
For a ride out, for a trail road hack.
59:16
Our limitation there is all about the time that the students got with us.
59:20
Right.
59:20
So we can't go out for a day because the student's got to go to their next
59:24
place or they've got on their agenda.
59:27
They, they, they might be with us to do a course like an animal care course.
59:31
So they have to go and fulfill that part of their sort of time with us.
59:36
So the, it's, it's we are lucky that we have got those roads that are quiet and
59:41
they do have those grass verges, but you
59:43
Rupert Isaacson: are having to ride along the roads.
59:44
Yeah.
59:45
Okay.
59:45
Yeah.
59:46
Yeah, that's right.
59:46
Unless you have those big grass verges along the sides of the roads.
59:49
Yeah.
59:49
Troy Shaw: But is they can be a blessing and a a bit of a curse in, in both sort
59:54
of terms because the, the roads can be a bit quick when they're a bit open.
59:59
People tend not to be looking ahead and thinking.
1:00:01
But also they can be nice and relaxing.
1:00:04
And, but like I said, where we are, we're very lucky to have this sort of area to
1:00:07
ride around where it's reasonably safe.
1:00:10
Rupert Isaacson: And you take your students out on the, your, your,
1:00:13
your clients out on the trail.
1:00:15
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:00:16
Yeah.
1:00:16
So it's more of a summer thing.
1:00:17
'cause in the winter it's too dark and too dingy and nobody
1:00:20
really wants to do it anyway.
1:00:22
But it's in the summer it's fantastic,
1:00:24
Rupert Isaacson: you know, which means that you got to be also pretty confident
1:00:26
in the bomb proofing of your horses.
1:00:28
So if the fire engine comes around the corner Yeah.
1:00:30
Your client's not gonna get dumped or hurt.
1:00:33
Talk to us about that.
1:00:34
How do you bombproof them?
1:00:36
Troy Shaw: Just by exposure really more than anything else.
1:00:37
So you, you, you're never gonna know what a horse is gonna know do until you put
1:00:41
it in that situation to see what it does.
1:00:43
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:00:43
Troy Shaw: And it, we've had horses come to us that, you know,
1:00:47
oh, it can't go past tractors.
1:00:48
Oh, it can't, oh, it's terrified of tractors.
1:00:50
Reality is it's the rider that's terrified of the tractors and not the horse.
1:00:54
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:00:54
Troy Shaw: And once you put somebody who's fairly confident in there, you
1:00:56
can start to get the horse on side and get used to the environment.
1:01:01
The environment's always gonna be there.
1:01:02
You can't take the environment away.
1:01:04
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
1:01:04
Troy Shaw: They just need that exposure, how they manage
1:01:06
themselves in those conditions.
1:01:08
Rupert Isaacson: Indeed.
1:01:08
But you can't, you can't do the exposure by being out there with a kid.
1:01:13
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:01:13
We'll do it ourselves.
1:01:14
We'll get, we'll, we'll go out hack.
1:01:15
So one of the, one of the big paybacks for the team is this ability
1:01:19
to take advantage of the horses to an extent and go out for hack.
1:01:24
After work in the summer, you know, we'll go out as a group and
1:01:27
go, right, let's go for a hack.
1:01:28
Right?
1:01:29
This is where we can go a little bit more onto the bridal paths through
1:01:32
some rivers, that kind of stuff, and start to have a bit more fun, you know?
1:01:36
Yeah.
1:01:37
And it, it gives the horses that mental break, but you can also give the horses
1:01:41
a bit more exposure to stuff that you can't necessarily get with the students.
1:01:45
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
1:01:46
Troy Shaw: One, one of the things we do do is we have very clear procedures on
1:01:50
what if, you know, so what happens if the big scary tractor comes down the road?
1:01:55
What are you gonna do?
1:01:56
Mm-hmm.
1:01:57
Because we have, we do have horses that have had a history that that've
1:02:00
looked and spook at tractors.
1:02:02
So we have a program, we have, you know, we'll, we'll know exactly what
1:02:04
we're going to do and whether we take the child off or take it to a
1:02:08
gateway or stand flapping her arms in front of the tractor to make it stop.
1:02:12
Right.
1:02:13
It is.
1:02:13
We'll have something that actually we follow to make it work and
1:02:17
make it work for everybody.
1:02:19
Rupert Isaacson: What I love about that though is you don't take the, if you
1:02:23
like, the easy option of saying, well, we just won't go out in case it's a tractor.
1:02:27
Troy Shaw: No.
1:02:27
Do,
1:02:28
Rupert Isaacson: because one of the things I like about that is
1:02:32
if we're in the business of also trying to help people deal with
1:02:36
the world, which is our job, right?
1:02:38
Yeah.
1:02:39
Then if we aren't that way with our horses, how are we gonna
1:02:44
transfer it to the people?
1:02:46
And if, and if, one things I love about horses is 'cause they
1:02:48
carry you through situations.
1:02:50
You know, so yeah, I might be afraid of going up that hill, or I might be
1:02:54
not fit enough to go up that hill, or the horse can carry me, or I can't
1:02:59
understand cognitively yet how to play a game, but the horse can carry me through
1:03:03
a game and then as my neuroplasticity develops, entry cognitively, I will be
1:03:09
there, but the horse can really help me.
1:03:11
But, you know, frequently people in the interest of safety will often dumb it down
1:03:18
to the point that there is no exploration.
1:03:20
Yeah.
1:03:20
There is no risk.
1:03:23
Now I know that, you know, a certain number of listeners
1:03:25
and viewers are gonna go risk.
1:03:26
You can't have risk, you know, but, but I, I feel that you have to because you,
1:03:35
you can't actually get away from risk.
1:03:37
Troy Shaw: No.
1:03:38
Rupert Isaacson: So one can think, one is controlling the environment to
1:03:40
get away from risk, but you and I both know that sooner or later something
1:03:44
is gonna happen, like outside of your control, they're gonna land a
1:03:47
helicopter in that field next to your arena that you never leave or something.
1:03:52
Yeah.
1:03:53
And despite all your best efforts, your horse is gonna totally freak out.
1:03:57
So rather have them exposed to helicopters.
1:04:00
Do you, do you also take them through like sound bomb proofing
1:04:05
tarpaulins that sort of thing as well?
1:04:10
Troy Shaw: We, we will put obstacles in the menage like Tar Paul is on the floor.
1:04:13
Right.
1:04:14
And then because they all live in the local area to the menage around
1:04:17
their fields, around the outside of it, if we're doing a session in
1:04:20
there, which requires lots of noise and stuff, they're watching it.
1:04:23
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
1:04:23
They're there,
1:04:24
Troy Shaw: they're in the environment.
1:04:24
They're not, not being forced the environment, they're actually sat watching
1:04:28
it from the safety of their own field.
1:04:30
So they're sort, they can observe it.
1:04:31
Yeah.
1:04:31
Learning from osmosis, learning through their friends.
1:04:34
You know, we'll do silly things like if we're trying to get horses used to
1:04:37
flags, we'll put a flag over the water trough, they're gonna want to drink.
1:04:41
They're not gonna, they'll have to find a way of getting their manage their
1:04:44
own sort of fear to get through that.
1:04:46
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
1:04:47
Troy Shaw: And it's interesting how you talked about the the risk level.
1:04:50
The thing about risk is the other side of risk is achievement.
1:04:54
So once you've got through that risk, you've actually achieved something.
1:04:57
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:04:57
You know, if you And self-esteem Yeah.
1:04:59
Yeah.
1:05:00
Troy Shaw: You know, it, it might be jumping over a small cross pole.
1:05:04
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:05:04
Troy Shaw: There's a hell of a lot of risk in jumping.
1:05:05
Yeah.
1:05:06
Especially for a new rider.
1:05:07
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:05:08
Troy Shaw: But the achievement, once they've done it far out risk, far
1:05:12
outweighs out risks as long as the work's been done in the background.
1:05:16
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:05:16
Troy Shaw: And, you know, you take all the precautions, which you need to leading
1:05:20
up without being dramatic about it.
1:05:24
Rupert Isaacson: It's yes.
1:05:24
It, it it's about preparation as you say.
1:05:26
Yeah.
1:05:27
Troy Shaw: But you, and maybe
1:05:27
Rupert Isaacson: I think your military background helps with that because
1:05:30
you know, or maneuvers and operations.
1:05:32
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:05:33
Possibly
1:05:34
Rupert Isaacson: you are putting people.
1:05:35
In risky situations, but you wanna bring 'em all back in alive.
1:05:39
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:05:39
Rupert Isaacson: But also get, you know, so there must be a certain amount of that
1:05:45
training that rubbed off on you to think about how do I prepare from the ground
1:05:49
up so that when we do have that situation with the risk, we know that the horse and
1:05:54
the human are as prepared as they can be.
1:05:57
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:05:57
And, and you've also, yes, you've done all your pre-work, you've done as
1:05:59
much background work as you possibly can, but there, there comes a time
1:06:05
when you've almost got to say, you know what, let's just go for it.
1:06:08
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:06:09
Troy Shaw: Otherwise it becomes like you'll never do anything
1:06:10
because, you know, you just won't actually put that risk in the way.
1:06:15
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:06:15
Troy Shaw: And, and then, and then there comes a point where you say,
1:06:18
well actually, I better not run the menage in case the pheasants fly
1:06:21
out today because they might fly.
1:06:22
You know, that's a bigger risk.
1:06:24
Or you, you, and it's like, I think you see that in society as a whole
1:06:28
now you, you risk just gets in the way of everything and people tend to
1:06:32
do the less risky thing of sitting at home and look at the phones.
1:06:35
Rupert Isaacson: Exactly.
1:06:35
No, exactly.
1:06:36
Which of course is a whole other set of risks.
1:06:39
Yeah.
1:06:39
Yeah.
1:06:39
I'm just thinking back to when we were in Texas, you know, we had
1:06:41
everyone and their dog had guns.
1:06:43
Right.
1:06:43
So there would be so much firearms activity going on.
1:06:47
And then my neighbor, Robert Nam Vet would build his own artillery
1:06:52
grade ordinance and set it off Yeah.
1:06:55
In his front field.
1:06:56
Which was on the other side of the woods from our arena.
1:06:59
And I'd be in there with a kid and there'd be an explosion, which
1:07:03
you'd feel like in your bones.
1:07:06
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:07:06
Rupert Isaacson: And even though it's happening, you know, 500 meters away.
1:07:10
And I'm like, what am I gonna do?
1:07:13
So I thought, well, I can't tell Robert he can't set off bombs in
1:07:16
his field because this is Texas.
1:07:18
So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna ask Robert if I can graze my horses in
1:07:21
the field where he sets his bombs off.
1:07:23
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:07:23
Rupert Isaacson: And a couple of my friends from Europe were like, well,
1:07:26
that, you know, you can't do that 'cause your horses will freak out and said,
1:07:29
well, they will initially, but I bet you after two days they won't give a toss.
1:07:34
Yeah.
1:07:34
And then I will know that I'm safe when he randomly does that thing.
1:07:39
I have no, I have no control.
1:07:41
He's not gonna call me and tell me, you know, he is gonna do it.
1:07:44
And then it was the same with, with my other neighbors.
1:07:47
They would just come and start, you know, setting off automatic fire but often
1:07:54
like really close to where we were and we just had to get the horses okay with it.
1:07:58
Yeah.
1:07:58
And so then we took it stage further and I would think, okay, well
1:08:01
why don't we go down to the fire station with our horses and slowly
1:08:06
bombproof them to the fire truck.
1:08:07
Then why don't we go to the supermarket and why don't we go to the car wash and
1:08:12
why don't we, so we actually started making a big point about all of that.
1:08:15
And then of course we started including our, our students
1:08:18
and our clients in those Yeah.
1:08:19
Fun sessions.
1:08:20
Then we realized, oh my gosh.
1:08:22
All of this thing, which normally was taking time out from, and
1:08:26
it is like a time conflict.
1:08:28
When are we gonna get the time to bombproof the horses?
1:08:30
Like, no, no, no.
1:08:30
Hold on.
1:08:31
We can do that with the students provided you know, you're not
1:08:34
gonna do anything too crazy.
1:08:36
Yeah.
1:08:36
They can be part of it.
1:08:37
Yeah.
1:08:38
Yeah.
1:08:39
Troy Shaw: We had a really, a really, really good example last year.
1:08:41
So we take our students to a big BHS event, a big dressage show
1:08:46
jumping event over at a place called Pickering Range in Leicester year.
1:08:49
And it's, it's a really big significant thing for the students
1:08:52
to go out to a dressage, get dressed up in all of the yes.
1:08:55
All of the requirements of a dressage test.
1:08:58
And last year, or this, sorry, this year when we went, it was a really windy day.
1:09:02
I mean, really windy, and they're doing the dressage tests, but nobody thought
1:09:06
that the dressage boards might blow.
1:09:09
So the, when our students riding around doing the nice dressage tests, and all of
1:09:13
a sudden these, like big plastic dressage tests boards just lifted off the ground
1:09:18
into the air, there must have been the height of the student riding the horse.
1:09:22
Wow.
1:09:22
In normal circumstances, horses would've just completely freaked on that.
1:09:25
But our horses tend to be able to accept something, changing something different
1:09:29
and they, they'd manage themselves.
1:09:31
Rupert Isaacson: We can't manage better than the average foot horse would.
1:09:34
Yes.
1:09:34
Troy Shaw: We, we can't manage the horses emotions for themselves.
1:09:36
We can't sit on the horse's back and say, no, you are all right.
1:09:38
You're all right.
1:09:39
'cause they won't listen.
1:09:40
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:09:41
Troy Shaw: They have to be able to manage it themselves, you know, and
1:09:43
be able to go, right, rationally, what am I gonna do now, you know, my, my,
1:09:46
my brain's telling me to run away.
1:09:48
Yeah.
1:09:48
Rupert Isaacson: You
1:09:49
Troy Shaw: know, I'll get rid of this rider now and I'll be off into
1:09:51
the sunset 'cause I'll be safe then.
1:09:52
But, but they seem to just manage themselves to the point where they can go.
1:09:58
Like we would take a deep breath, let's think logically, which doesn't sound right
1:10:01
of a horse, but actually it does work.
1:10:03
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:10:04
Troy Shaw: And that's what we try and get to.
1:10:05
Rupert Isaacson: Well it's interesting you say that.
1:10:07
And again, I think that the, the calvary background, the hunting
1:10:10
background, all of these things bring us into these situations.
1:10:13
I grew up very much in the hunt world and you just never know what
1:10:16
you're gonna encounter at hunting.
1:10:17
It could be anything.
1:10:19
And your horse kind of after a while becomes kind of okay with everything.
1:10:26
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:10:26
Rupert Isaacson: Through slow exposure as you say.
1:10:29
And sometimes strategic exposures, you know, before you might meet something.
1:10:34
But I love the fact that you, you have that example of, you know,
1:10:38
going to that show that happening.
1:10:41
I would posit that probably some of the dressage horses
1:10:44
probably freaked out a lot more
1:10:46
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:10:46
Rupert Isaacson: Than your horses did because the sport rider
1:10:50
wouldn't necessarily feel the need to create that safety in a horse.
1:10:55
No.
1:10:55
Because they're not dealing with the risks that you're dealing with, with the riders.
1:10:58
Yeah.
1:11:00
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:11:00
And I think one of the other things well is to exposing the horses is one
1:11:03
thing, but it's also exposing the team to these situations so you can expose the
1:11:08
horses yourself to the cows come home.
1:11:10
But you are, if you are riding them, you are the person who is effectively.
1:11:15
With them while you're exposing them.
1:11:17
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
1:11:18
Troy Shaw: If you don't get the rest of the team in those circumstances,
1:11:22
they might be a dressage rider.
1:11:23
That's all they do is dressage.
1:11:25
So anything different is, you know, a horror.
1:11:28
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:11:29
Troy Shaw: They don't ride through those.
1:11:31
They're, they're, they're not gonna learn that actually it
1:11:35
is okay to ride in the wind.
1:11:37
Yeah.
1:11:37
Or it's okay to ride, you know, in these circumstances or those circumstances.
1:11:41
Right.
1:11:41
Feather gets
1:11:42
Rupert Isaacson: up in front of you.
1:11:42
It's not the end of the world.
1:11:43
Yeah.
1:11:44
Yeah.
1:11:44
Troy Shaw: So you've gotta build the, it's almost like building the,
1:11:46
the team's responsibility and, and reactions as well as the horses.
1:11:51
Rupert Isaacson: It's true because Yeah.
1:11:52
It's the humans' involved also are not freaking out when the tractor
1:11:55
comes or the, then the horse is gonna take their cues from the humans.
1:11:58
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:11:58
Yeah.
1:11:59
Because I mean, the, the, I always tell everybody as well, one of the
1:12:02
things to remember is you've got time.
1:12:04
It doesn't feel like you've got time, but you can take a couple of seconds
1:12:06
to a think about what you're gonna do.
1:12:08
Mm-hmm.
1:12:09
Rupert Isaacson: This,
1:12:09
Troy Shaw: the circumstances, this is what I'm gonna do.
1:12:13
And you can just think rationally and it helps you just a little,
1:12:16
have a bit of a head start.
1:12:19
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:12:19
I, I, I'm thinking back to, you know, this is where, again, back to where
1:12:22
we're talking about fun and silliness.
1:12:23
I think that when you've got that kind of culture in your barn, then
1:12:28
there's also kind of a base under underlying message that's always there.
1:12:33
Yeah.
1:12:33
For the horses and the humans saying it's always all right.
1:12:36
It's always gonna be all right.
1:12:37
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:12:38
Rupert Isaacson: And most situations will be fun actually.
1:12:42
Yeah.
1:12:42
So what that I think breeds is a certain faith.
1:12:45
The horses have faith in the humans.
1:12:46
The humans have faith in the horses.
1:12:48
Give me some examples.
1:12:50
You know, we, we, we touched on the dress up and the silliness.
1:12:53
Can you give me some examples, some stories that stand out in your mind about
1:12:59
breakthroughs that happened in the course of those silly dress up sessions And,
1:13:07
and why you, and, and also what, what's the pattern of the dress up sessions,
1:13:12
the historical ones, the pirate ones?
1:13:14
When do you do them?
1:13:15
Why do you do them?
1:13:16
What makes you choose okay, to this today's the medieval day.
1:13:19
Tomorrow's a pirate day.
1:13:20
Like what, what's the rationale going on with all that?
1:13:23
And then, yeah, give us some examples of changes you've seen
1:13:27
in those, in those moments.
1:13:28
if you're a horse nerd, and if you're on this podcast, I'm guessing you are, then
1:13:34
you've probably also always wondered a little bit about the old master system.
1:13:39
of dressage training.
1:13:41
If you go and check out our Helios Harmony program, we outline there step by step
1:13:49
exactly how to train your horse from the ground to become the dressage horse
1:13:56
of your dreams in a way that absolutely serves the physical, mental and emotional
1:14:02
well being of the horse and the rider.
1:14:05
Intrigued?
1:14:06
Like to know more?
1:14:08
Go to our website, Helios Harmony.
1:14:12
Check out the free introduction course.
1:14:15
Take it from there.
1:14:16
I,
1:14:16
Troy Shaw: I think the, the dress up day sometimes just work on how
1:14:19
you're feel in the morning or depends on what student you're working with.
1:14:22
Rupert Isaacson: So you might just do that spontaneously.
1:14:23
Troy Shaw: Yeah, yeah.
1:14:25
I've got, I've got a pretty pretty horror story for one of our new starters.
1:14:28
So we had a, a lady, this is going back probably six, seven years ago.
1:14:32
It was her first day at work, and I was working for a particular
1:14:36
student, and I decided this week was gonna be Scottish week.
1:14:39
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:14:40
Troy Shaw: So I dressed up in a kilt, it wasn't a kilt, it was a
1:14:42
blanket that looked like a kilt.
1:14:44
I wrapped around my legs, but it actually looked like a miniskirt.
1:14:48
And, and it sounds horrific now when you think about it, but I had a drum.
1:14:51
I was marching around the yard playing a drum in this miniskirt,
1:14:55
which I had trousers underneath it.
1:14:56
Talking Scottish and just to try and get the student to engage
1:15:01
it, it worked really well.
1:15:02
But the, the poor new starter staff was like, what have I let myself into?
1:15:07
But it, it sort of, the dressing up doesn't really, sometimes it'll,
1:15:12
in fact, sometimes when you plan it, it doesn't work as well as
1:15:14
it does when it's spontaneous.
1:15:16
Rupert Isaacson: So you'll do it sort of by, you just wake up in the
1:15:19
morning and you say, you know what?
1:15:21
I fancy today's pirate day and Okay.
1:15:24
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:15:24
Or, and
1:15:25
Rupert Isaacson: so you won't necessarily call all your staff and say, okay,
1:15:28
lads, today's pirate day you'll just show up as a pirate, or, or will you
1:15:32
send out a bunch of texts and say it?
1:15:34
Troy Shaw: It's quite, it's quite interesting.
1:15:34
So when we, what, what we most of the dress up takes place
1:15:37
now over the holiday period.
1:15:39
So we'll say that the theme for this week for the holiday
1:15:41
sessions is, I know we're gonna be pirates or we're gonna be cowboys.
1:15:46
And the problem with that, because you, you're reliant on
1:15:50
the confidence of the individuals
1:15:51
Rupert Isaacson: mm-hmm.
1:15:52
Troy Shaw: It can sometimes not work as well because they won't
1:15:55
come in fully committed to it.
1:15:57
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
1:15:57
A bit like kind of forced fund.
1:15:58
Yeah.
1:15:59
Yeah.
1:15:59
You've got
1:15:59
Troy Shaw: to, you have to be like, go back to the authenticity of it.
1:16:02
If you don't put, if you do it half cocked
1:16:07
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:16:08
Troy Shaw: Across a lot worse than if you didn't do it at all.
1:16:11
So it's something that's better done if it's less spontaneous or more spontaneous
1:16:16
and people get involved through actually.
1:16:18
I dunno.
1:16:19
I, I'll get dressed up, there's a box of stuff there.
1:16:22
Put it on if you want to, that kind of thing.
1:16:24
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
1:16:25
Troy Shaw: Rather than be a force kind of thing.
1:16:26
Rupert Isaacson: But will you do it like weekly?
1:16:28
Will you do it monthly?
1:16:29
Will like months go by and you don't do it or?
1:16:32
Troy Shaw: Yeah, yeah.
1:16:32
We go, we could go months without doing any kind of dress up or
1:16:35
mean this time of year is perfect.
1:16:36
Got Halloween and stuff like that.
1:16:38
Yeah.
1:16:38
I mean, today I been up the field this morning and half the students
1:16:41
have come in dressed as skeletons and
1:16:44
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:16:45
Troy Shaw: Wizards and all sorts.
1:16:46
So it's great.
1:16:46
Like, okay.
1:16:47
They've really embraced the dressing up, so that's really good.
1:16:51
Rupert Isaacson: And then in terms of the silliness, like for example
1:16:53
Henrik and Giddy Bert Coffee run that amazing place horse by place in Germany.
1:16:58
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:16:58
Rupert Isaacson: They have all these really cool mechanisms for sitting.
1:17:01
It's like they do these pillow fights on horses and then she gi has these
1:17:06
toilet brushes where she uses them as like, microphones in an interview.
1:17:11
Yeah.
1:17:11
And then she gets the kids to also go dip them in a bucket and then
1:17:15
go and chuck the water from the toilet brush at their parents.
1:17:18
Yeah.
1:17:18
And so, and then they have like a toilet Yeah.
1:17:20
That sits in a sandpit.
1:17:22
And they pretend to use the toilet like in front of the kids.
1:17:25
And of course this actually often does end up being a breakthrough for
1:17:28
toilet training, but they're prepared to make themselves very silly.
1:17:31
Do you have some, you know, specific strategies like that?
1:17:36
Some go-tos.
1:17:37
Yeah.
1:17:37
Troy Shaw: It's more of, it's more of an underpinning rather
1:17:39
than a strategy, I think.
1:17:40
'cause once you've got that approach in your mind you'll
1:17:43
use it throughout the session.
1:17:45
So our, our sessions are fairly, it's education based.
1:17:48
Yeah.
1:17:49
So most of the students that come to us are here for either taken
1:17:55
away a qualification, like a city in guilds, in horse care open awards,
1:18:00
mass in English, that kind of stuff.
1:18:02
So there is a, a, a tangible outcome from it, but it, no one can prescribe
1:18:06
how you get that tangible outcome.
1:18:09
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
1:18:09
Troy Shaw: So the underpinning part could be, you might say, I dunno,
1:18:13
I'm gonna do some maths today.
1:18:14
I'm gonna dress up as dick Turpen.
1:18:16
'cause we can talk about how long it takes to get from London to York and the
1:18:20
reality of it and all that sort of stuff.
1:18:22
So you can use those to actually get what you want out of it.
1:18:25
Rupert Isaacson: It's, it's just Right.
1:18:26
Almost like a distraction to say don't be afraid of the maths.
1:18:29
Actually, we're gonna talk about highwayman.
1:18:31
Yeah.
1:18:31
And in the course of talking about highwaymen, we're gonna talk
1:18:34
about distance and then distance.
1:18:36
We're gonna talk about numbers, right?
1:18:37
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:18:38
Or somebody went write or read.
1:18:40
You can give 'em a bit of paper and they can make a poster.
1:18:42
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:18:43
Troy Shaw: But they're now writing and reading because they've got to, to do the
1:18:45
poster, but they're not doing it because they've been told to go write and read.
1:18:47
They're doing it because it's part of the fun.
1:18:49
Absolutely.
1:18:50
We'll catch Dick Turpen if we buy, put a poster on the woods.
1:18:53
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
1:18:53
Right.
1:18:54
Troy Shaw: So it's, it's, it's all, it's, it's hard to describe it.
1:18:58
We don't go out with the intention of doing it, but it actually becomes
1:19:00
part of how we plan and move into the session to get the best outcomes.
1:19:06
Rupert Isaacson: It's so true.
1:19:07
And I, yeah, I use this type of distraction all the time.
1:19:11
I'm just thinking about, you know, we often do think all crazy time with
1:19:13
our horses, so, I like my horses to be able to go a bit nuts sometimes
1:19:17
and free jump usually in a group.
1:19:21
And I'll involve my students with that.
1:19:23
And so let's say we want to do some math.
1:19:26
I'm not gonna say we're doing maths.
1:19:27
I'm gonna say let's give some crazy time to the horses.
1:19:30
They'll enjoy it.
1:19:31
And you'll enjoy moving the horses as they do it.
1:19:34
Yeah.
1:19:34
But while we're doing it, I wonder how long that long side of the arena is,
1:19:40
let's walk it, how many paces is it?
1:19:42
Yeah.
1:19:43
And then we can time with a stopwatch.
1:19:45
How long does it take for the horses to go that distance?
1:19:47
And then on my cell phone, I could do distance over time and get
1:19:50
speed, you know, or there can be the heights of the jumps and the
1:19:53
distances and, and then there's a team building of setting up that course.
1:19:57
But I want a math outcome, but I'm gonna use something else to get that math out.
1:20:03
I mean, if you know what I mean.
1:20:04
Yeah, yeah.
1:20:04
Exactly.
1:20:04
It sounds like you're coming from a very similar place there.
1:20:06
Troy Shaw: Yeah, we, it is.
1:20:08
It's, it's all about how you get the outcome, isn't it?
1:20:10
And how you actually get the engagement.
1:20:12
Rupert Isaacson: And I
1:20:12
Troy Shaw: think part of the reason why a lot of the children struggle,
1:20:15
especially the quieter ones, is they need something to stimulate them, to
1:20:20
get the engagement to, to, to that.
1:20:22
Well, I guess what we are
1:20:23
Rupert Isaacson: talking about here is play, right?
1:20:25
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:20:26
All the neuroscientists now agree that play is learning, and
1:20:31
learning is play, and the most effective learning is always play.
1:20:34
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:20:35
Right.
1:20:36
But, but in, I get back to some days in the corporate world, some of the times
1:20:39
that you probably had the best team outputs is when you went on a team day
1:20:44
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:20:44
Troy Shaw: And you did things which are away from your desk, and you
1:20:47
were physically active and you'd make something or you'd be silly.
1:20:51
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:20:51
Troy Shaw: People would talk about those for a lot longer than they would do,
1:20:54
you know, how they got to the financial year end and all that sort of stuff.
1:20:58
So it became really important.
1:21:02
Rupert Isaacson: No, it's so true.
1:21:03
And this, to, to show people that you can enjoy life
1:21:06
Troy Shaw: mm-hmm.
1:21:07
Rupert Isaacson: And that you should enjoy life, you know, particularly
1:21:09
people who are coming out of, you know, some depression and that sort of
1:21:13
Troy Shaw: thing.
1:21:14
Yeah.
1:21:14
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:21:15
To be around joy.
1:21:16
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:21:17
I mean, it's really, it's really important to, and it's quite easy to get to a
1:21:21
point where you forget how to laugh.
1:21:23
Rupert Isaacson: No kidding.
1:21:24
Troy Shaw: Or when to laugh or, you know,
1:21:26
Rupert Isaacson: or that it's, is is it even safe to laugh, you know?
1:21:28
Yeah,
1:21:29
Troy Shaw: yeah.
1:21:29
But yeah, especially nowadays, you, you, you know, you're not sure
1:21:31
whether the, what the triggers are.
1:21:33
You laugh shouldn, you laugh, you know, and it's, it is quite hard.
1:21:36
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:21:38
No, it is.
1:21:38
You know, I'm, I'm thinking back to, to when I had to teach Rowan
1:21:41
my son to drive, he was 16.
1:21:44
You know, I'm now, I'm gonna teach my autistic son to drive.
1:21:46
Yeah.
1:21:46
And I'm gonna teach him to drive on the roads of Texas.
1:21:49
Terrifying.
1:21:50
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:21:51
Rupert Isaacson: And I was terrified.
1:21:52
He was terrified, but he was adamant he wanted to do it.
1:21:55
And so we sat there and I said to him, how are we gonna make this unstressful?
1:22:03
Because I'm, I'm not gonna lie, I'm totally stressing it.
1:22:06
And he said, do it in an Indian accent.
1:22:11
Troy Shaw: Right.
1:22:11
Yeah.
1:22:12
Rupert Isaacson: Genius.
1:22:13
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:22:14
Rupert Isaacson: It took, it just made the whole thing hilarious.
1:22:17
Now, someone today might come, I mean, it is still today, but, you know, when he
1:22:21
was 16, that's what, five, six years ago.
1:22:23
But the advance of, you know, savage political correctness to the
1:22:29
point now that someone might say, you can't do that Rupert, because
1:22:32
that's, you know, racist or that's, you know, it's like, no, it's not.
1:22:36
That's not where it's coming from.
1:22:37
And by the way, you are very welcome to make fun of my accent.
1:22:40
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:22:41
Rupert Isaacson: If that's gonna help teach someone autistic
1:22:44
to, to drive, absolutely.
1:22:46
Take the piss out of me.
1:22:48
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:22:48
But it
1:22:48
Rupert Isaacson: wasn't a disrespect, it wasn't a piss take.
1:22:51
What it was, was a distraction.
1:22:54
And using it for comedic effect.
1:22:56
But we could have used a Yorkshire accent or we could have used a posh
1:23:00
accent, or we could have used anything.
1:23:03
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:23:03
Rupert Isaacson: A French accent.
1:23:04
But he, but as you say, it's, these things are becoming harder and harder
1:23:08
because now I think our reaction might be, oh, am I allowed to do that?
1:23:13
You know, is, is that safe?
1:23:15
Will I get in trouble if I do that?
1:23:16
You know, and then so maybe I won't do that.
1:23:18
And then suddenly that opportunity is lost.
1:23:21
It, it's interesting how there's now an assumption that any sort
1:23:27
of stereotyping is negative.
1:23:29
When, of course our entire society's always stereotyping constantly
1:23:34
because how can we not, because we, we have to generalize, right?
1:23:38
Not everything can be specific.
1:23:39
That's what advertising, it's always disrespectful.
1:23:41
Yeah.
1:23:42
Troy Shaw: But if you, in the media, that's how you advertise, isn't it?
1:23:45
You have to stereotype to get your, to better do sales.
1:23:49
Rupert Isaacson: I mean, one has to stereotype, even to the point of
1:23:53
saying, for example, let's say I say Troy is a rider, he's a horse guy.
1:24:01
Well, that's a stereotype.
1:24:02
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:24:03
Rupert Isaacson: You might say to me, well, no, Rupert, that's
1:24:04
a lot more to me than that.
1:24:05
Troy Shaw: Mm.
1:24:06
And
1:24:06
Rupert Isaacson: I'd say, well, I'm sure there is, but I also know that you spend
1:24:10
a big chunk of your day riding horses.
1:24:13
So therefore I'm gonna say that you're a rider.
1:24:15
But that's meaning, no disrespect to you.
1:24:18
That's just sort of acknowledging that that is your predominant culture.
1:24:22
Right?
1:24:22
I mean, surely that's all right.
1:24:25
Troy Shaw: But, and I think, I think it'll eventually come full circle
1:24:27
because I think people will realize that we're actually making life so hard
1:24:30
for ourselves by being overly critical.
1:24:34
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:24:34
Troy Shaw: You know, and, and in fact, the most critical people out there that
1:24:37
are yourself, you, you tend to second guess yourself a little bit too much.
1:24:41
And then once you start second guessing yourself
1:24:43
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, that's true.
1:24:44
You
1:24:44
Troy Shaw: then start going, well, I better not do that.
1:24:46
Yeah.
1:24:46
Or I better not say that.
1:24:47
Or, and then, then you start to go down the reading from text and you
1:24:54
lose that, the ability to connect through feeling and, you know, nature
1:24:59
and doing everything through I know.
1:25:02
Sincerity, I suppose.
1:25:04
Yeah.
1:25:04
It's
1:25:04
Rupert Isaacson: authenticity.
1:25:05
Troy Shaw: Mm.
1:25:06
Rupert Isaacson: No, I so agree.
1:25:07
I so agree.
1:25:08
And nature, nature doesn't care.
1:25:10
No horses don, human ideas.
1:25:12
Like no, what's appropriate Nature just is, right?
1:25:17
Yeah,
1:25:17
Troy Shaw: yeah,
1:25:18
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
1:25:19
And we, and we have to prepare people for quote unquote, the real world.
1:25:24
So if they don't encounter humor, silliness, piss state irony.
1:25:31
Troy Shaw: I, I think it's the scary thing is the, the real world is
1:25:34
horrendous for some of these students.
1:25:35
Yeah.
1:25:36
Especially some of ours.
1:25:36
You know what the, the things they are exposed to the.
1:25:42
Especially through things like social media now where they're
1:25:45
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:25:45
Troy Shaw: Almost like not well, I suppose they are bullied through social media.
1:25:49
They're, you know, put pressure on through having this, having that and
1:25:53
not having this, not having that.
1:25:54
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
1:25:55
Troy Shaw: It's, it's so difficult to know, you know, how they cope.
1:26:00
No, I,
1:26:00
Rupert Isaacson: I, I agree.
1:26:01
And I think, I think what you're putting your, I I'm just thinking, I was, I was
1:26:04
in Michigan last week and I was with the child of a dear friend of mine, and
1:26:10
I've noticed in, in this generation, of course, that's us, a couple of old blokes
1:26:16
that go, well, when I was, I, yeah.
1:26:18
My day.
1:26:19
Yeah.
1:26:20
You, you had it ea you got it easy when I lived it up.
1:26:23
Chew box at reservoir.
1:26:25
But the, the truth is, I do think there has been an erosion of resilience.
1:26:31
And by trying to make things for good intentions, you know, wrapped in bubble
1:26:38
wrap while at the same time the world just gets more and more savage out
1:26:42
there in weird ways because social media goes right to your brain, right?
1:26:48
Yeah.
1:26:48
It's not like it's just something over there with a, a physical bully
1:26:51
that maybe you can avoid or ignore.
1:26:53
Yeah.
1:26:53
It's gonna invade your life in a really insidious way.
1:26:57
And I do think that the current.
1:27:01
Young adult generation is proportionally less resilient than the generations
1:27:08
that have gone before them.
1:27:09
And your job, you know, particularly with the silliness and the perspective
1:27:13
that that brings, you know what you're saying, I think is learn to be resilient.
1:27:21
Right.
1:27:22
That that is resilience training in a weird way.
1:27:25
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:27:26
And also learn to laugh and, you know, it is okay to laugh and it's okay to
1:27:29
have fun and, you know, and smile.
1:27:30
Right.
1:27:30
'cause
1:27:31
Rupert Isaacson: that is resilience, right?
1:27:31
Yeah.
1:27:31
You can go through a shit situation and laugh about it.
1:27:34
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:27:35
And, and you know, you go back to the going out on trail rides, one of
1:27:38
the things which we really get the students to do is when a car goes
1:27:42
past and they slow down, it's put that big smile on your face and wave.
1:27:46
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:27:46
' Troy Shaw: cause then you've got a different outlook
1:27:48
on the world, haven't you?
1:27:49
You know, once somebody smiles and you know, it, it tells you a little
1:27:52
bit more about them than it does when they just give you that sort of like
1:27:56
death dead everyone's got nowadays.
1:27:58
Yes.
1:27:58
You know?
1:27:59
So smiling and waving and being grateful.
1:28:02
Actually it teaches him so much.
1:28:04
Just from gratitude.
1:28:05
Hack out.
1:28:07
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:28:08
No, absolutely.
1:28:08
Gratitude.
1:28:09
Gratitude.
1:28:10
And yeah.
1:28:11
Kiss your horse.
1:28:12
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:28:13
Rupert Isaacson: Love your horse.
1:28:14
Make much of your horse.
1:28:15
Yeah.
1:28:15
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:28:16
Rupert Isaacson: Thank your horse.
1:28:17
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:28:19
Yeah.
1:28:19
It's such a, it's like a prime evil thing, isn't it?
1:28:22
But we sort of lose it a little bit because we get stuck in it.
1:28:24
We are in a very technology driven world, aren't we?
1:28:28
Instinct has been taken away.
1:28:29
Yeah.
1:28:30
Or at least be, we're not allowed to use instinct or act on instinct as much.
1:28:34
Now we have to, we have to always like, go through procedures and
1:28:38
policies and all those, and then by the time you've gone it, you've
1:28:40
lost, you've lost the situation.
1:28:42
You've lost in a moment.
1:28:43
And if you don't act on it at the time
1:28:45
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:28:46
Troy Shaw: You sort of like, you know, you've just missed out a little bit.
1:28:49
Rupert Isaacson: I do.
1:28:49
I, I hope you're right about it, coming full circle, because I, I feel that
1:28:53
there's a kind of a being a tyranny Yeah.
1:28:57
In the last decade or so where it, it is reached a point of Well, I
1:29:05
think we're starting to see the casualties of that in a younger
1:29:08
generation that is not as resilient.
1:29:11
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:29:11
Rupert Isaacson: And like you say, if you can't laugh, if you can't be
1:29:14
grateful, if you can't, then again Yeah.
1:29:17
You just don't have the resilience bad situations.
1:29:20
Yeah.
1:29:21
Troy Shaw: And, and again, it comes back down to that, that play,
1:29:24
Rupert Isaacson: play and,
1:29:25
Troy Shaw: and not just playing with Lego, it's the physical
1:29:27
movement play the imagination games.
1:29:29
Yeah.
1:29:29
The ones where they set their own boundaries and rules and, you know,
1:29:32
you'll go out and you'll get a group of friends together and you'll, you use your
1:29:36
imagination to create a will, which you are immersed in for however long you're
1:29:40
allowed out to play, you know, I think.
1:29:43
Right.
1:29:43
Rupert Isaacson: Rather than diving into a computer game where it's all done for you.
1:29:47
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:29:47
Then you become a character and
1:29:48
Rupert Isaacson: you don't create anything.
1:29:49
Yeah.
1:29:49
No,
1:29:49
Troy Shaw: and there's no, sounds quite harsh, but in a computer game,
1:29:53
there's no reality when you fall over.
1:29:56
You don't learn anything from it.
1:29:57
When you're out with your friends and you fall over, you graze your knee
1:29:59
and you've got like a battle scar and you've got like a bit of a cut and
1:30:01
it hurts and you remember then that actions' do that, that's gonna hurt.
1:30:06
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:30:06
Troy Shaw: I won't do that next time.
1:30:08
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:30:08
And you build, or what is a more skillful way Yeah.
1:30:11
To jump over that thing or whatever.
1:30:13
Yeah.
1:30:14
Troy Shaw: So you build resilience and you then you'll start to build
1:30:16
more ability to change things.
1:30:19
Rupert Isaacson: Yes, yes.
1:30:20
Skills and
1:30:20
Troy Shaw: learn and stuff.
1:30:21
And, and it's, you know, it's, it's not rocket science, but it feels like it
1:30:26
is sometimes that it's been moved away.
1:30:29
Rupert Isaacson: Well, it used to be.
1:30:30
It used to be, I think that imagination was built in
1:30:33
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:30:33
Rupert Isaacson: Because most of us did not have access, immediate
1:30:38
access to the stuff we wanted.
1:30:41
Right, right.
1:30:41
So we had to imagine it.
1:30:43
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:30:43
Rupert Isaacson: And maybe if we imagined it enough, we might eventually
1:30:47
manifest it, but that wouldn't prevent us from having fun along the way.
1:30:52
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:30:53
Rupert Isaacson: It's interesting, I'm thinking back to a, a, a little
1:30:55
girl that who was from South Korea that used to come to us in Germany,
1:31:00
she would, you know, her parents were expats and she was in love with horses.
1:31:05
So she would come and ride with us and she was.
1:31:09
Having to move back to, to Korea.
1:31:11
And she knew she was gonna go back to the city and the horses were
1:31:16
not gonna be really available.
1:31:18
And she was grief stricken about this.
1:31:19
She was only eight years old.
1:31:20
And I was think, how do I help her?
1:31:21
What do I do?
1:31:22
You know, this is, this is hurting.
1:31:25
I can see how much is this hurting her?
1:31:27
And so we went through these exercises when we were, I would just take a
1:31:31
trail riding in the forest and we would do imagination exercises where like,
1:31:37
okay, you are in your room, in your apartment in Seoul, and I want you
1:31:43
to be able to project yourself from that to this trail riding this forest.
1:31:47
So what are all the, what's going on?
1:31:50
Like what are the smells?
1:31:51
Troy Shaw: Yeah,
1:31:52
Rupert Isaacson: what are the different greens?
1:31:53
What are the rhythm of the footfall of the horse underneath you?
1:31:57
Like when you touch the horse, is the coat a bit dusty or is the coat quite slip?
1:32:02
'cause the time of year, is there mud?
1:32:04
You know, what birds are there?
1:32:07
What, what noises are there?
1:32:09
And it, it really made me focus on this and try to think about this because
1:32:14
I knew she was gonna go back to a situation where resilience would be
1:32:20
required and suffering would be intense.
1:32:26
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:32:26
Rupert Isaacson: How can I.
1:32:29
Project into the future, something with this horse experience now.
1:32:32
And I think what you're doing with all that play and all that dress
1:32:35
up and the key is imagination.
1:32:37
What you're saying is you can imagine a different reality.
1:32:41
You can imagine your own reality.
1:32:43
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:32:44
Rupert Isaacson: What reality do you want to imagine?
1:32:46
Yeah.
1:32:47
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:32:48
And it is a, a case of just going with the flow a little bit as well
1:32:51
and just seeing where it takes you.
1:32:53
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
1:32:53
Troy Shaw: And not being as the person who's sort of leading the the session.
1:32:57
It is not being fearful, I suppose.
1:33:00
And just sort of going with it and just letting it grow and not being,
1:33:04
if it changes, it changes and you just go in a different direction.
1:33:08
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:33:08
Not being attached to any one outcome.
1:33:10
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:33:10
And using what you've got.
1:33:12
'cause you still might have, you still might have a like most things, you've
1:33:14
got a, today you must learn your 10 times table or something like that.
1:33:19
But no one can prescribe how you get there.
1:33:23
And you've gotta use what's in front of you at the time.
1:33:25
So whatever you're presented with on that student or a child on that day,
1:33:29
that's what you've got to work with.
1:33:31
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:33:31
Troy Shaw: And that might mean you have to dress up.
1:33:33
That might mean you have to be really silly.
1:33:35
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:33:35
Troy Shaw: Or it might mean you've gotta be really quiet and just sit down and,
1:33:38
you know, just sit in a safe space.
1:33:40
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, exactly.
1:33:41
Troy Shaw: So it is not, but you've got, you've got, you can't force it.
1:33:45
Rupert Isaacson: I, I, I think when you say you have, sometimes you have to
1:33:48
sit down and be quiet in a safe space.
1:33:49
It, it, it's, it's also true, like I found myself in situations sometimes with.
1:33:57
A student that who wants to do something that I don't much care for, like really,
1:34:03
really talk about Minecraft, you know?
1:34:05
Yeah.
1:34:05
And I've, I've got to, I've got to, you know, be able to fake enough
1:34:09
of an interest in Minecraft and create games around Minecraft, even
1:34:12
though that's a real stretch for me.
1:34:13
Yeah.
1:34:14
Or maybe there's even personality clashes between you and the student,
1:34:18
but that's not the student's problem.
1:34:20
And so, it's funny, I find one can use imagination in that way.
1:34:24
An environment like, I, I, I, I had this, this student a couple of years ago and
1:34:31
it, you know, it's no fault of theirs, but I would be almost dreading the session.
1:34:36
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:34:36
Rupert Isaacson: And I'm like, but that's not their problem.
1:34:39
I, I still need to serve them.
1:34:40
How do I make sure that I'm in my best place?
1:34:43
So I, I thought, okay, I'm gonna select my environment.
1:34:45
There's a, a, a, a a stream down below the stables.
1:34:50
I love being there.
1:34:52
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:34:53
Rupert Isaacson: Let's go there.
1:34:54
And I bet you this person's gonna get really into it as well.
1:34:58
And at least I'll be able to enjoy that and daydream there a little bit.
1:35:03
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:35:03
Rupert Isaacson: And then maybe together.
1:35:04
We'll, you know,
1:35:07
Troy Shaw: that goes back to that human environment again, doesn't it?
1:35:09
So it does.
1:35:10
If you are human, how you are feeling, or at least how you help yourself feel
1:35:16
in the right way is manageable, then you can get so much more out of it.
1:35:19
Rupert Isaacson: Yes, it is.
1:35:21
Troy Shaw: Yes, it is.
1:35:22
Rupert Isaacson: And and, and it allows you to access your empathy.
1:35:24
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:35:25
I'm thinking about, we, we used to have a student a few years ago who had
1:35:30
been everywhere across the country, you know, in different places where
1:35:35
he, he profoundly deaf, couldn't hear anything, had a, had her own
1:35:39
interpreter all the time, even when it came to us, had to have an interpreter.
1:35:43
But he'd been across the country and, and it turns out that the only
1:35:48
reason he was acting how he was, is because nobody had listened to him.
1:35:52
Right.
1:35:52
'cause his his way of communicating, he obviously couldn't talk
1:35:55
because he couldn't hear himself.
1:35:56
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:35:57
Troy Shaw: That he was conscious about his, his predicament and stuff like that.
1:36:01
Right.
1:36:01
And, but at the same time, he wanted people to listen.
1:36:04
Mm-hmm.
1:36:04
But nobody would listen.
1:36:05
They'd just, you know, basically shuffling around here, there and everywhere.
1:36:10
And he came to us and he was probably one of my the best students I've worked with.
1:36:14
Really, really challenging.
1:36:15
'cause he had to have an interpreter.
1:36:17
But we use the interpreter for our own advantage to create fun.
1:36:20
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:36:21
Troy Shaw: So, for example, when we used to have, 'cause you have to have
1:36:23
regular catchups with the authorities and the, the, the, you know, the,
1:36:28
the people that are the experts.
1:36:31
And he taught me swear words in sign language.
1:36:34
Rupert Isaacson: Brilliant.
1:36:34
Troy Shaw: So we'd both sit there in these meetings and we'd be doing these
1:36:38
really, really naughty sign languages to each other, just to make, because he, he,
1:36:43
he, he found these meetings really hard work because he f he knows all about him.
1:36:46
He didn't know what to say.
1:36:47
He knew no one was listening.
1:36:49
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:36:49
Troy Shaw: We'd sit there and we'd sort of team up so the
1:36:51
meeting would go really quick.
1:36:53
And I think I've share this one story.
1:36:55
We because he had an interpreter, we drummed up the
1:36:58
idea of going to Rotten Water
1:37:01
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:37:02
And doing rotten water being a big lake in your area, big Lake Lester
1:37:04
Troy Shaw: year, which then it is it got a lot of outdoor pursuits.
1:37:07
Pursuits and stuff like that.
1:37:08
And we decided to go standup kayaking.
1:37:12
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:37:13
Troy Shaw: Which it was, I still picturing now there's the three of
1:37:15
us on each, on individual boards.
1:37:17
And we'd got this, he, we got stay, he's a big guy.
1:37:20
We got him to stand up on the board and you know, it was really funny.
1:37:23
Will falling in.
1:37:24
But of course the poor interpreters have gotta stand on the board and try and
1:37:27
interpret while we are having this laugh.
1:37:29
Oh, that's brilliant.
1:37:30
It was just hilarious.
1:37:31
'cause he was just, he was, I know uncontrollable laughter because he knew
1:37:36
what was going on and, you know, and he was at his comfort zone 'cause he
1:37:38
didn't like water, but he was in the middle of getting the water on a board.
1:37:42
And it was just, it was just so, so brilliant.
1:37:45
And he changed so much and grew confident and, you know.
1:37:51
Rupert Isaacson: I love the fact too that you will do things
1:37:53
that are outside of the equine.
1:37:56
You know, this is one of the hardest things I, I find in trainings that I do
1:37:59
is to say, look, in our job, you've got to be obsessive about your horse training and
1:38:06
preparation and willing to abandon that
1:38:09
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:38:09
Rupert Isaacson: In like 10 seconds if that's not where the person's
1:38:12
at and go do something else.
1:38:14
And of course, horse people are so horse focused and narrow
1:38:16
minded that way often that they can't think outside of the horse.
1:38:21
And you know, earlier in this conversation when you were saying, you know, Lorraine
1:38:24
was coming back in those early days saying, oh, I've been building these,
1:38:27
you know, goat houses out of bricks.
1:38:29
You know.
1:38:30
Yeah.
1:38:31
Some person, someone might say, well that's not equine assisted work.
1:38:35
You know, but it's nature in the mind.
1:38:38
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:38:39
Rupert Isaacson: And equine stuff is only one aspect of nature in the mind.
1:38:43
Right.
1:38:45
How do you, when you are training up your teams get them, because
1:38:51
most of 'em are probably coming 'cause they're pretty horsey.
1:38:53
How do, yeah.
1:38:54
How do you get them to think with that type of flexibility
1:38:56
to think beyond the horse?
1:38:58
Troy Shaw: It's quite interesting that, 'cause a lot of our people
1:39:00
that come aren't horsey at all.
1:39:02
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:39:02
Troy Shaw: We're actually at the moment struggling to get horsey people.
1:39:05
Oh, is it more the
1:39:05
Rupert Isaacson: other way around?
1:39:06
Troy Shaw: It's, it's a bit of both.
1:39:07
So we went through and it, and it, it is right.
1:39:09
We get, when you get the horsey people come in, they're very much, right.
1:39:12
I've done dressage and this is the way you do it and you know, let's get
1:39:14
the horses winched in and you know, they've gotta be an outline and it,
1:39:17
and that they, they tend to be one of the hardest people to work with.
1:39:21
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:39:21
' Troy Shaw: cause they are very structured in their approach and they,
1:39:23
they tend to be less open to being silly and, and that kind of thing.
1:39:28
So I'd say probably 60% of our staff aren't horsy at all.
1:39:33
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:39:34
Troy Shaw: But they get the concept of the importance of movement
1:39:38
and the importance of play.
1:39:40
And when we do, we have to do regular training because
1:39:42
that's what you have to do.
1:39:44
Yeah.
1:39:44
But the training has to, but we don't just do training for
1:39:46
the sake of doing training.
1:39:47
We'll do training because it actually adds value.
1:39:50
So we recently did, we went back through the the science
1:39:54
behind the horse boy method.
1:39:57
Rupert Isaacson: So you just scratching my, that little ghost in the background
1:40:00
is, is my youngest son courier.
1:40:02
Hello?
1:40:02
Hello.
1:40:04
Sorry.
1:40:05
So the science behind the horse boy method.
1:40:06
Go on.
1:40:07
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:40:07
So we, we, we drew out the horse, the model, you know, for the, the
1:40:11
sous and all that sort of stuff.
1:40:12
And
1:40:13
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:40:13
Troy Shaw: And we, we got people to act it out.
1:40:17
So everybody had a part, someone was a neuro in, they were firing
1:40:20
up to the head and by the end of it they were just like in stitches.
1:40:24
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:40:24
Troy Shaw: Then we used that point there to then go away and they had to create
1:40:27
an activity to deliver to students to, and like I gave them all an envelope.
1:40:31
Here's an envelope, you've gotta do this, you've gotta do that.
1:40:34
But you had to use only the stuff that's in the men to do that.
1:40:37
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:40:37
Troy Shaw: So you had to be really creative with it.
1:40:38
So we try and do the training to make it as creative as possible unless,
1:40:43
you know, sat down talking to Right.
1:40:46
Rupert Isaacson: So that people can make that jump in the moment.
1:40:49
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:40:49
Rupert Isaacson: Of Oh, I see the ki I thought we were gonna do this,
1:40:52
but actually we have to do this.
1:40:54
Troy Shaw: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:40:55
Or I'm gonna use this to do the same thing.
1:40:56
So, you know, I might be doing, go back to my maths, you might use some
1:41:01
sticks you found in the woods to work out percentages or something like that.
1:41:05
So Yes, yes.
1:41:06
It's just thinking on the feet.
1:41:07
But at the same time as while they're doing it, they've gotta
1:41:11
be immersed in themselves.
1:41:11
They've gotta almost like see that kind of end goal.
1:41:14
Mm-hmm.
1:41:15
But have so much fun getting there.
1:41:16
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
1:41:17
Troy Shaw: That they forget they're doing it as well.
1:41:18
So if you can get your staff or your team to do their sessions and
1:41:21
they've had such a good day that they've forgotten they've done it.
1:41:24
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:41:25
Troy Shaw: Because it's been so, you know, if you look at
1:41:27
your watch going, oh bloody, oh, I've got another hour left now.
1:41:30
Oh, I still another hour.
1:41:31
That's never gonna work.
1:41:32
Rupert Isaacson: No,
1:41:33
Troy Shaw: it's almost the opposite.
1:41:34
Oh, I've only got an hour left now.
1:41:35
Oh crap, I gonna get this done.
1:41:36
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:41:37
So,
1:41:37
Troy Shaw: and that's what we try and get the whole team doing and
1:41:41
our team are really, really good at.
1:41:43
Rupert Isaacson: Well, you've made a massive success of it.
1:41:45
You've got now two locations and a third one coming up.
1:41:48
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:41:48
Rupert Isaacson: Tell us a bit, because we, we we're sort of approaching the,
1:41:51
the two hour mark and we should probably wrap up and people I think will want
1:41:55
to know whether can check you out and
1:41:57
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:41:57
And,
1:41:58
Rupert Isaacson: How they check you out.
1:41:59
Can you just talk us through what your locations are, what they do, and then
1:42:03
also tell us how do people find you?
1:42:05
How do people contact you?
1:42:06
Whether it's as a client, if they're in the east of England or whether they
1:42:10
want to actually come work for you.
1:42:13
Yeah.
1:42:13
Because Troy's always hiring guys.
1:42:15
Yeah.
1:42:16
Give us the logistics.
1:42:17
Troy Shaw: So we're, we're based in Leicestershire in a small village called
1:42:20
Goby Marwood that's never heard of.
1:42:23
People tend to drive past it 'cause they say there's no one road in, one road out.
1:42:28
We have the normal Facebook page, so new triangle dot co uk.
1:42:33
All the contact details were on there, so if anyone wants to get in
1:42:38
contact, they can send us an email.
1:42:39
They can give us a phone if,
1:42:42
Rupert Isaacson: right.
1:42:43
New Leaf trying.
1:42:44
So New leaf NewLeaf triangle.co
1:42:48
uk.
1:42:49
Co uk not.org
1:42:50
because you're not a charity, right?
1:42:52
Troy Shaw: No.
1:42:52
Dot org is our email address, not our Okay.
1:42:56
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, we're not
1:42:56
Troy Shaw: a charity.
1:42:57
Rupert Isaacson: And quickly, why did you decide not to be a charity?
1:42:59
Why did you decide to be a regular business?
1:43:01
Troy Shaw: So the, the, the challenge of being a charity
1:43:03
is you have to have a board.
1:43:05
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:43:05
Troy Shaw: That then the board at any stage could say, well actually I'm
1:43:08
not happy with the way this is going.
1:43:10
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
1:43:10
Troy Shaw: And they could say, kick you off, we're gonna kick us off.
1:43:13
Yeah.
1:43:13
Which be quite embarrassing when we started it.
1:43:15
So, you know, I mean, well I've
1:43:17
Rupert Isaacson: known it's happened to a few friends of mine.
1:43:18
Yeah.
1:43:19
You get these palace cos that happened in charity.
1:43:21
Troy Shaw: No, we just don't want to go down, didn't wanna go down that avenue.
1:43:24
So we didn't start that way.
1:43:25
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
1:43:26
But when you were fundraising initially, was that not then
1:43:28
difficult if you went to charity?
1:43:30
Troy Shaw: When we first, when we did, we initially started here at CIC.
1:43:33
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:43:33
Troy Shaw: So that gave us a bit of a, an ability to do some fundraising.
1:43:36
Just
1:43:36
Rupert Isaacson: again, not everyone's at British here.
1:43:37
So what's the
1:43:38
Troy Shaw: C-I-C-C-I-C is a, basically a community interest company, which
1:43:41
is designed to benefit everybody in the local area or people in
1:43:45
the local area to where you are.
1:43:47
Rupert Isaacson: So it's, it's a for profit, but you can raise money.
1:43:50
Yeah.
1:43:50
Okay.
1:43:51
It's not
1:43:51
Troy Shaw: profit.
1:43:51
We do.
1:43:52
You've, you've obviously raised enough money to pay your wages and
1:43:54
to operate, but it does mean you could potentially go out and do
1:43:58
some fundraising and get some Right.
1:44:00
So it's
1:44:00
Rupert Isaacson: almost like a hybrid between regular company and charity.
1:44:05
Okay.
1:44:05
And then talk us about the locations that you've got.
1:44:07
I know you're in Goby, Marwood, the Village that No, no one's ever heard of.
1:44:10
Yeah.
1:44:10
But why do you have three locations?
1:44:13
What do these three locations do?
1:44:14
Troy Shaw: So our main site, which is our smallest site, is
1:44:18
only about two and a half acres.
1:44:19
And it's got a menage in there stables.
1:44:24
We have access to the woods behind.
1:44:26
So it gives us quite a big environment.
1:44:28
And we also, we've just actually just built a whole new classroom set there.
1:44:33
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:44:33
Troy Shaw: The old buildings, were starting to look a little bit run down.
1:44:35
We self-funded as well.
1:44:38
We built this massive three room classroom with an office on the end as
1:44:42
well, to give our operations manager a quiet space to go and work in.
1:44:45
Okay.
1:44:46
And we, on that site, we have pigs, goats, Guinea pigs, rabbits chickens,
1:44:52
or that it's like a little farm yard.
1:44:54
Really?
1:44:54
Okay.
1:44:55
And that's our pri primary site,
1:44:57
Rupert Isaacson: but also the horses there as well.
1:44:59
Troy Shaw: Some horses there.
1:44:59
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:45:00
Most
1:45:00
Troy Shaw: horses there tend to be used more for the pleasure side of things,
1:45:03
and for the experience for the, you know, we might go and paint them or we
1:45:05
might bring them out and just groom them.
1:45:08
Some people might ride them.
1:45:09
Then there's site two, which is about five minutes walk down
1:45:13
the road two minutes in a car.
1:45:16
And that's predominantly our horse side, so that's where we have more acreage.
1:45:23
The menage is used more for traditional riding lessons to get people through
1:45:27
their, either sitting in guilds course or a open awards course.
1:45:32
So it's much more structured in the way the outcomes are.
1:45:35
So the students will go there, they, they tend to be a little bit older and
1:45:39
they tend to be looking towards getting some kind of vocational qualifications.
1:45:42
Okay.
1:45:42
So they don't, don't leave education with nothing.
1:45:47
Rupert Isaacson: And then your third location?
1:45:48
My third
1:45:48
Troy Shaw: site is over, it's about 10 miles away from where we are now, and
1:45:52
that's where we have the most space.
1:45:54
We've got about 50 acres there.
1:45:56
Okay.
1:45:56
It's all hill and we, our, our sort of ambition there is to make it
1:46:01
more of a conservation kind of area.
1:46:02
So we've got, we've planted a wood
1:46:05
Rupert Isaacson: to rewild it a bit.
1:46:06
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:46:06
A couple of years ago we planted a wood, which when woods
1:46:10
never grow quickly, do they?
1:46:10
It's like, no, please grow.
1:46:12
It's not growing quick enough.
1:46:14
And so we want to try and introduce lots of different species and
1:46:19
that kind of thing over there.
1:46:20
But it's taken, it's taken a long time to get it done.
1:46:23
We've put a, a small barn there for the horses to go in, in the winter.
1:46:26
Right.
1:46:26
And all of our old retirees go over there and live their lives out there.
1:46:30
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:46:30
So, and then so you would, you would serve different types of clients at
1:46:34
di at these three different locations?
1:46:36
Yeah.
1:46:36
So, or, or
1:46:38
Troy Shaw: Yeah, maybe, but sometimes actually we might say to some of the
1:46:40
students who are working at site one that we're gonna go to Dolby today.
1:46:44
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
1:46:45
Troy Shaw: To go and do some care for the older horses, you know?
1:46:47
Right.
1:46:47
It's always, it builds that kind of empathy.
1:46:49
So you're gonna go care for the horses who have retired.
1:46:52
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:46:53
Troy Shaw: They're gonna take that as a life skill to go and care for other people
1:46:55
that have, you know, oh, we're gonna need to look after people that have retired
1:46:58
and not just shove them off and stuff.
1:47:01
They they start to build an understanding of the world
1:47:03
through doing things for others.
1:47:07
Although the others are horses, it still gives them that inroad into it.
1:47:12
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:47:13
I love the fact that you, you do these different environments when you know, when
1:47:16
we were working, particularly in Germany
1:47:18
Troy Shaw: yeah.
1:47:18
Rupert Isaacson: I would often not meet clients at our location.
1:47:23
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:47:24
Rupert Isaacson: I would say this person really needs more forest time.
1:47:26
And I'd say, meet me in this car park, you know, by the forest over there.
1:47:31
And I would ride the horse over there and we're gonna do all
1:47:34
our stuff in that forest today.
1:47:37
And then you guys drive home.
1:47:38
I'll ride my horse home.
1:47:39
I love the fact that, and then nature would be involved in that
1:47:42
'cause it never to be wildlife.
1:47:44
You'd be into trees, you'd be into, you know, plants and, and rocks and water.
1:47:49
And I love the fact that you're bringing that side of things
1:47:51
over into your third site.
1:47:52
Yeah.
1:47:52
You know?
1:47:52
Are you, what are your plans for bringing that wilderness nature?
1:47:57
Yeah.
1:47:57
What's your vision for that?
1:47:59
Troy Shaw: So the next step there has been some drive space, some indoor
1:48:01
space and some, you know, basic AM amenities to make it so that,
1:48:07
'cause at the moment the students will go there, they go for a visit.
1:48:09
And it's like almost like a rush.
1:48:10
They've gotta then get back.
1:48:12
So what we're trying to do over the next couple of years is make
1:48:15
it so they can go and stay there.
1:48:16
Okay.
1:48:17
And potentially they'll start from there as well.
1:48:19
So we're putting a base staff there.
1:48:20
At the moment, the staff aren't based there.
1:48:22
They drive there with the students.
1:48:23
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
1:48:24
Troy Shaw: So we'll end up with it being a base where staff will go and
1:48:26
start their day and end their day.
1:48:29
So it may see a little bit more of a And are you
1:48:31
Rupert Isaacson: doing nature education there that's sort of beyond horses?
1:48:33
Are you doing, you know, trees, woodland management, that sort of thing?
1:48:37
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:48:37
'cause we, we had a group of students go over there and
1:48:39
they helped us plant the trees.
1:48:40
Rupert Isaacson: Fantastic.
1:48:41
Troy Shaw: So they actually start to dig the holes and they try and get the lines
1:48:43
and levels and all that kind of stuff.
1:48:45
And they get the driver tractor, but don't tell anybody.
1:48:48
Yeah.
1:48:50
So they, they get involved in all sorts of stuff like that, which is helps with
1:48:54
their skills, you know, and I, I, I had a dig of the day and they helped
1:48:58
me help with digger a little bit.
1:49:01
So
1:49:02
Rupert Isaacson: it's what I'm, what I'm hoping that listeners and viewers get
1:49:06
from this is that you should diversify.
1:49:09
You need to, that you should use the imagination, whether it's for dress up
1:49:12
and silly, or whether it's for, well, could we not do something beyond horses?
1:49:17
Yeah.
1:49:17
Or could we not have more than one campus?
1:49:21
Or could one of our campuses be actually all about nature?
1:49:25
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:49:25
Or,
1:49:26
Rupert Isaacson: you know, I, I, I love this 'cause I, I, this
1:49:29
doesn't necessarily come naturally, I think to a lot of people.
1:49:31
No.
1:49:33
Troy Shaw: So our, our next sort of idea for diversifying is to
1:49:36
probably look at how we expand this.
1:49:38
So how we sort of franchise it.
1:49:40
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:49:41
And
1:49:41
Troy Shaw: make open to other places.
1:49:42
So we've, we've spent quite a lot of time building programs and
1:49:46
things into our everyday offering.
1:49:49
So it's how do we rather let somebody else reinvent this?
1:49:52
Well, how do we actually expand this into, I dunno, the north of the
1:49:55
country or to Scotland or to, you know, Cornwall or something like that.
1:49:58
Right.
1:49:59
So people can just lift what we've done.
1:50:03
It sounds that easy.
1:50:04
It still needs to answer that human environment.
1:50:06
Well, I
1:50:06
Rupert Isaacson: mean, you could argue that's what Horse Boy has done, right?
1:50:08
Yeah.
1:50:08
Yeah, exactly.
1:50:09
And what we, we, we went through this sort of question in the early days when it
1:50:14
was pretty clear that it was gonna grow.
1:50:16
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:50:17
Rupert Isaacson: And we thought, do we franchise?
1:50:19
Because then you've got all this difficulty of controlling a product.
1:50:24
And inevitably that's gonna be beyond your control, particularly if you're doing it
1:50:29
Troy Shaw: in multiple
1:50:29
Rupert Isaacson: countries.
1:50:30
Or do you just give people a toolbox and say, with this toolbox, do what
1:50:37
you feel is right for your context.
1:50:40
If you want to put, you know our name on it, we do require that
1:50:44
you go through an evaluation process and meet certain criteria.
1:50:47
Yes.
1:50:48
But one of the things I love about Horse Boy places is I know if I come to New
1:50:52
Leaf, it's going to look different.
1:50:54
To my place.
1:50:55
And that's gonna look different to Joel Dunlap's place in California.
1:50:59
And that's gonna look different to Kati and Henrik KO's place in, in Germany.
1:51:03
And it should, yeah, because that way each place is authentically has its, has its
1:51:10
own energy and charm while making sure that a certain kind of neuroplasticity
1:51:16
is guaranteed and a certain kind of horse welfare is guaranteed.
1:51:19
But beyond that, I, I, I want people to be much more creative.
1:51:23
Yeah.
1:51:23
And I don't wanna stand in the way of that, you know?
1:51:25
So as you, as you begin to think in those terms you know, you what, what, what are
1:51:30
your thoughts on how you expand NewLeaf?
1:51:33
Troy Shaw: That's, that's the challenge, isn't it?
1:51:34
'cause what, 'cause how you've done horse boy and movement method
1:51:37
and all those sort of things.
1:51:38
It's, I mean, full credit.
1:51:41
'cause you've, you've let it grow, but you've not, sounds bad.
1:51:46
You've not interfered.
1:51:47
Does that make sense?
1:51:47
Yeah.
1:51:48
No, sure.
1:51:48
You've, you've not been on the phone going, well, I don't
1:51:50
like the way we've done that.
1:51:51
You need to change this 'cause you're using, you know, and if you're
1:51:53
quoting me, you've gotta do this way.
1:51:55
And I, I'm not saying
1:51:55
Rupert Isaacson: we've never had that situation, but very, very little.
1:51:58
Yeah.
1:51:59
Troy Shaw: We, we've never ever had that feeling from, you
1:52:02
know, working with you guys.
1:52:03
Rupert Isaacson: No.
1:52:04
Troy Shaw: So it's always been a supportive thing.
1:52:05
And that's, that's something that.
1:52:07
I dunno how you, it's such a hard thing to do.
1:52:12
Well, I'd be really
1:52:12
Rupert Isaacson: talking about support.
1:52:13
I'd be really interested in helping you
1:52:15
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:52:16
Rupert Isaacson: Grow.
1:52:16
Like, you know me, I'm not territorial.
1:52:18
Troy Shaw: No.
1:52:19
Rupert Isaacson: But, you know, if you're doing war sports, if you want
1:52:21
to create a New Leaf program, because I have absolute faith in what New Leaf
1:52:25
does I'm just honored to be a part of it.
1:52:28
I, I, I, I find those types of collaborations really fulfilling
1:52:33
because they're so creative.
1:52:35
I'm just, yeah.
1:52:35
So, so when you've envisaged it in your mind, let's say there were,
1:52:39
you know, a dozen new leaf through the uk what would be the sort of
1:52:46
underlying denominator factor that you would want?
1:52:50
There'd be like these three things that you want to see, or something like that.
1:52:53
What, what, what would they be?
1:52:54
So
1:52:55
Troy Shaw: the primary focus needs to be on the outcomes for the
1:52:57
individual that come to the place.
1:52:58
Mm-hmm.
1:52:59
So that it's gonna meet what they are therefore, whether it's through
1:53:03
just getting them on the right track with their mental health or
1:53:06
whether it's gonna be educational outcomes, et cetera, et cetera.
1:53:10
So the focus always needs to be on the outcomes for the individual.
1:53:14
The second one is being true to that environment.
1:53:18
So working within that environment, making the environment work for everybody.
1:53:23
And, you know, especially around the human environment, which would probably be the
1:53:27
hardest thing to lift and put in place.
1:53:30
'cause that's, we've, we've, we've learned the hard way.
1:53:34
So we have had people that have been less adapted to what we do,
1:53:38
you know, with the right intentions.
1:53:41
People that tend to be more of a formal background.
1:53:44
So teachers and stuff like that tend to struggle a little bit
1:53:47
more 'cause they've been in the environment where it's small targets.
1:53:50
So we've learned the hard way on how that human environment
1:53:53
is such a challenge to create.
1:53:55
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
1:53:55
Troy Shaw: And then I think the third one is to, I know, just keep it fun.
1:54:04
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:54:04
Troy Shaw: Because, and, and then as I'm talking about this
1:54:06
franchise and, and stuff like that.
1:54:08
One, one of the things it's almost like done, if you're not careful
1:54:12
for us, that goes full circle.
1:54:14
What we don't want to do is, again, and get a Lorraine back in a car going between
1:54:17
little new leaf sites all over the country doing her, it'd be like a bit of a what?
1:54:21
How did that happen?
1:54:22
Yes.
1:54:23
That's, that's really almost like a thing to avoid.
1:54:25
Isn't it going?
1:54:26
That doesn't sound like fun.
1:54:27
No.
1:54:28
So, you know, but out there, there are people that do enjoy
1:54:32
doing that kind of stuff.
1:54:32
So.
1:54:33
Rupert Isaacson: Well, I love, I love the fact that you, okay, so let's say
1:54:36
fun is one of your three denominators.
1:54:39
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:54:40
Rupert Isaacson: Because we now know Yeah.
1:54:40
Fun is play.
1:54:41
Play is imagination.
1:54:42
Imagination is neuroplasticity.
1:54:44
Neuroplasticity is resilience.
1:54:45
Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.
1:54:47
I'd be very, very interested in, in helping to develop that.
1:54:52
Yeah.
1:54:52
'Cause I think it's, it's needed now more than ever as society gets more joyless.
1:54:57
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:54:58
Rupert Isaacson: Alright, well listen let's look to that future.
1:55:01
And I think particularly those viewers and listeners who are thinking of
1:55:06
starting a place, worried about making that leap, those of you who
1:55:10
are in the UK and want some mentorship or a job, contact Troy once again.
1:55:16
Troy, give us the contact details.
1:55:18
Troy Shaw: So it's, it's newly of triangle.
1:55:20
Dot co uk is the website.
1:55:22
Rupert Isaacson: New Leaf triangle.
1:55:23
Yeah.
1:55:24
Do co uk
1:55:25
Troy Shaw: UK Yeah.
1:55:26
So that's on there.
1:55:27
And then all the phone numbers are on there.
1:55:29
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:55:29
And they can email.
1:55:30
You're on
1:55:30
Troy Shaw: a sensible conversation.
1:55:31
Talk to Lorraine
1:55:33
Rupert Isaacson: and
1:55:34
Troy Shaw: if you wanna know, if you wanna dress up
1:55:35
Rupert Isaacson: as a pirate, talk to Yeah.
1:55:37
Troy Shaw: To be honest, if, if without her credibility and
1:55:40
without her tenacity and sort of enthusiasm, you know, we wouldn't
1:55:43
be anywhere near where we are today.
1:55:44
So, all jokes aside, I'm, I'm allowed to do what I do because
1:55:48
of the work that she's put in.
1:55:49
And just that a hundred
1:55:50
Rupert Isaacson: percent and, and, and much respect to her, you know?
1:55:53
Yeah.
1:55:53
That, that, that the fact that she
1:55:58
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:55:59
Rupert Isaacson: Met me in that context.
1:56:01
Yeah.
1:56:01
Thought actually this bloke's making sense.
1:56:03
Yeah.
1:56:03
Even though the other people in the room were completely
1:56:06
rejecting what I was saying.
1:56:08
Yeah.
1:56:08
And then pulled you down to London that same night and said, we are doing this.
1:56:13
I mean, the human quality that that takes to Yeah.
1:56:19
Just sort of say this makes sense.
1:56:21
Gonna go for it.
1:56:24
Not everyone has that courage.
1:56:25
Yeah,
1:56:26
Troy Shaw: no, no.
1:56:26
And that, that, that's why it's worked so well, I think.
1:56:28
'cause that, you know, I'd, I'd have run outta steam personally years ago, but
1:56:32
she's just kept us going and pushing and
1:56:34
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:56:35
Troy Shaw: You know, always in the right direction, always on
1:56:37
the right side of the legislation.
1:56:39
Always one foot, one step ahead.
1:56:40
And, you know, it's, it's, it must be exhausting.
1:56:45
Rupert Isaacson: Well, what I've
1:56:46
Troy Shaw: gotta do is dress up,
1:56:48
Rupert Isaacson: well, maybe you stop her from burning up by
1:56:49
dressing up so she can always roll her eyes or there goes Troy again.
1:56:52
But
1:56:53
Troy Shaw: the amount of times the eyes get rolled at me, whether it's Lorraine or
1:56:56
Tilly or, or the local village or whoever,
1:56:59
Rupert Isaacson: that's what we exist for though, isn't it?
1:57:00
We are the people who give the other people, people the
1:57:03
opportunity to roll their eyes.
1:57:04
Troy Shaw: Yeah, exactly.
1:57:05
It's a service.
1:57:06
Rupert Isaacson: Exactly.
1:57:07
Indeed.
1:57:07
Indeed.
1:57:08
For which we should be paid, I think.
1:57:09
Troy Shaw: Exactly.
1:57:10
Rupert Isaacson: Exactly.
1:57:11
Alright, my friend brilliant.
1:57:13
It's been brilliant.
1:57:13
Yeah.
1:57:14
I look forward to the next conversation about how New Leaf is gonna grow in the uk
1:57:18
Troy Shaw: Yeah, yeah,
1:57:19
Rupert Isaacson: let's talk about that next time
1:57:21
Troy Shaw: and, and, and anybody we can help more than happy to help.
1:57:25
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:57:25
And yeah, if, if, if, if anyone is in that East Midland sector of the
1:57:30
uk, these guys are doing sterling work with a all manner of population.
1:57:35
So get in touch with them.
1:57:37
Troy Shaw: Yeah.
1:57:37
Awesome.
1:57:37
Rupert Isaacson: All right.
1:57:38
Troy Shaw: Thank you.
1:57:39
Rupert Isaacson: Thank you.
1:57:40
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