Self-Nurturing as the Ultimate Leadership

In this video, Koelle Simpson, a "horse whisperer and life coach" talks about a very different way of being a leader.

How would you define self-centered? Selfish?
Why is self-centeredness/selfishness bad?

What would be an example self-nurturing?
What might the difference be between self-nurturing and selfish?

What does a leader look like? Who is an example of a leader you admire?
How can you tell when someone is 'in power'? Who's an example of being 'in power'?
Is there a difference between being 'in power' and being a leader?

Should a leader prove themselves in some way? If so, how?
Does winning an election prove that a leader is the best for the job?


How do you know when you trust someone?
What would someone have to look like/behave like for you to trust them?
How much should you trust a leader? Of a team? Of a company? Of a country?

Let's look at these quotes below.
What strikes you about this?
What's your emotional reaction to this?
Do you agree? Disagree?

"...being in a state of authentic peaceful awareness, [the horse] will follow my lead without any force, bribery or coercion."

"I thought what made an entire herd of horses willingly follow the matriarch mare had something to do with her sheer power, or maybe it was her ability to convince the herd she was the best one for the job. I wrongly thought it was about competing for some level of dominance."

"The dream helped me realize. The matriarch wasn't stressed, running around trying to take care of everyone. in fact she wasn't trying to prove herself at all. She was the horse who could be trusted to lead, because she was the one who trusted herself the most. She trusted her own intuition, followed her own guidance. She had a clear focus, and never hesitated to set a boundary on energy coming from other horses that simply didn't feel good to her. Most people would consider this insanely self-centered or selfish. Yet, if you step outside our social conditioning, you realize, this self-nurturing, not only helps the matriarch mare, but protects the entire herd. If she's busy about worrying about how the herd's going to judge her, and running around trying to take care of them all the time, she'll no longer be aware of the potential predators lurking ahead."

"When I dissolve my fears, and nurture my instincts, I become the matriarch mare that leads the way."

"Fear can make a hell out of many ordinary looking lives."

"When you hold back, for fear of being judged, others will mirror your lead. When you become stressed about the lack of abundance around you, others will mirror your lead. When you become afraid to openly celebrate love, others will mirror your lead."

"We don't need to compete with one anouther, to be the one with the most beauty, knowledge, power, or even money, to create what we want to have happen in our world."

"When we stop the cycle of fear, and begin to both lead and trust ourselves, in an amazingly short period of time, we come together to co-create with others. "