10/14/2026
I once read a quote that said "Beware the dishonest absolute".
That got my attention, as I didn't know what it meant.
It went on to say that a dishonest absolute were things like "always" and "never", used in a situation that wasn't "always" or "never". It's something that's not absolute, but used in a way that suggests it is.
I then realised that I see it a lot in my work.
I'll get an email that says "I can't catch my horse, and then when I do"...
Before I do clinics I get prior information on the horses, even videos sometimes, so I can better help the person. Before an overseas clinic recently I had someone in the clinic email me about there horse saying "he never stands still on the ground or under saddle. All he want's to do is go".
I arrive at the facility the day before the clinic to check the microphone, and some of the horses are arriving for the clinic. I see one lady with her horse, and I go over and introduce myself, and ask her name, and the look at her horse and ask "And who do we have here?"
She's replies with the horses name and says "he's the one who never stands still", and I looked her in the eye and said "except for now".
This came up a number of times during the clinic, and he horse was a completely different horse by the end of the clinic.
After the clinic I received a message from her saying how much she enjoyed the clinic, and that the biggest thing she learned was when I said "except for now".
She went on to say that she had become so fixated on her perception that he "never stands still" that she failed to notice when he was.
What a dishonest absolute does is prevents you from seeing what's happening right in front of you, and prevents you from exploring the possibilities. It keeps you from being present, and it's a lens that distorts what you are seeing.
I recently had a clinic where in the evening after the first day, one lady says "my horse constantly bites me, he's always doing it and he won't stop".
The next morning I went with her when she went to catch her horse, and as she walked in his pen and he walked up to her I started counting out loud
"One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Missisippi..."
At about "55 Mississippi" she looked at me as said "what are you counting?"
I said "I'm counting the number of seconds you are around your horse and he's not biting you" and she looked at her horse with a look of "oh my gawd, he isn't biting me".
By the end of the clinic her horse wasn't biting her at all, and we didn't correct the biting in any way, as her horse, like nearly every horse I see that's biting, was checking to see if she was present. Once you are present the biting goes away.
But having a story in your head that you horses is "always biting" is not being present.
The picture below is of me and 3 of our horses, who were all stallions at the time this photo was taken. All 3 had been quite mouthy, and by being present and engaging with their muzzles when ever they needed , the need went away. They've never been corrected for having their muzzle near me.
When this photo was taken I'd been recording an itro to a video, and the 3 of them were eating out of that feed bunker behind them, and all 3 came over to hang out.
I'm a little off topic here, so let me remind you "beware the dishonest absolute".
This applies to husbands, wives, kids, horses, bosses, weather, you name it. Fixating on a dishonest absolute keeps you out of the present and focuses on problems, not possibilities.
