Your home trainer is feeling threatened?!
If you have big dreams of becoming a pro rider or trainer, your home trainer may start to feel threatened as you gain more equine industry experience.
It happens.
Unfortunately.
If you are out there chasing your pro dreams and working hard to expand your experiences, you may know what I’m talking about here. This week, I want to dive into WHY this sometimes happens from a trainer’s perspective and then WHAT you can do to navigate it professionally.
WHY this happens:
You’ve trusted your home trainer for years now. They have seen you grow into a great, ambitious rider. They have traveled the ups and downs and celebrated the high ‘highs’ with you. Now they feel like they are letting a good thing go.
With lessons, horse sales, coaching, even training board, you may be a big piece of their financial equation for their business. They may fear an income gap is coming by you growing away from them!
Some trainers are not confident in who they best serve in their business. If they are serving primarily the grassroots of the sport, they need to be ready for clients to outgrow them (It means they did their job!).
WHAT you can do:
Keep your home trainer in the loop. Communicate! Often times they want to support you in your pro goals just like they have with your day to day riding goals.
Ask for their suggestions of who the most reputable professionals are in the industry and who may best support your goals. Your trainer knows people you DO want to learn from and others you should avoid. Leverage their network!
Ignore their feelings. If you’ve done everything you can to navigate this growth transition professionally and it is still feeling toxic, ignore it. You can’t control others’ feelings. Do you. Focus on your career (And never talk badly about them…ever!)
Cheers to chasing the dream,
Emily