Is Stepping Back a Law of Attraction?
Did you know that an object moving backwards is more attractive and draws you in?
This weekend I attended the second of my 2024 horsemanship academy clinics learning to work with my horse at liberty. Horsemanship, (‘horsemindship’ as I like to call it), is about working with horses using their own language and natural behaviour to communicate and influence their actions. Liberty is being able to do this without any lead-rope or other physical connection between you and your horse. This weekend we were working on our draw (bringing the horses towards us) and our drive (pushing them away). The two are like a pendulum as you get good at drawing, you can lose your drive and vice-versa; so it is necessary to work on both and strive for a balance of excellence in both.
Horses find things moving backwards far more attractive than things moving towards them. In fact, an object coming towards them is quite confronting and for some horses it is too much pressure so they turn and leave. It’s very frustrating when you are trying to catch your horse and they decide that they are out-of-there over and over again. Instead of continuing to advance in this case, just before your horse is about to turn tail to run away, stop and walk backwards. It’s amazing how you become interesting and attractive. The horse, more often than not, will start to follow you and allow you to put on the halter (sometimes the advance and retreat dance continues few more times before that happens, but it eventually does happen).
I am currently listening to “Look — How to Pay Attention In a Distracted World” by Christian Madsbjerg. I just finished a passage that inspired me to write today. The passage is an account of an exercise in which one of the author’s students observes the actions of volunteers who achieve the most fundraising success when soliciting for charities on the street.
Madsbjerg’s student is sent to observe at the unveiling of The Last Three Northern White Rhino sculpture in New York city. Not surprisingly, there were a number of charity groups at the event fundraising from the crowd. The student observed the actions of these volunteers and noted those that had more success in converting engagement to charitable donation.
I will broadly categorise the three kinds of behaviour he observed as Approach and Interrupt (AnI); Smile and Be Friendly (SnBF); Step Backward and Educate (SBnE). I hope it’s surprising if not difficult to guess that Step Backwards and Educate was the most successful behaviour. SBnE led to more conversions than any of the others. This surprised me and got me thinking about my weekend with my horse.
All three of these behaviours when engaging with our horses probably have the same amount of success statistically as those donation conversions. Approach and Interrupt — this is confronting and could be frightening leading the person/horse to ‘run away’. Smile and Be Friendly — well if you haven’t got anything more interesting to offer the horse, like a treat or something curious they want to investigate, then just like the human they are going to say — yeh whatever — and continue on their way. Step Backwards — oh this is inviting, let me follow you and see if you are interesting; Educate — yes you are interesting I have learnt something tell me more and what do you need from me.
The educate phase of SBnE, ties in well with a book I just finished call The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson. One of the key attributes of Challenger behaviour is to educate and teach a customer something they might not know. This same behaviour was observed by those volunteers most successful — instead of asking for a donation, they talked passionately about their charity and the ‘why’ behind the charity’s work. This led them to convert more of those engagements to charitable donations and in-turn, I surmise, make the volunteer, the donator and the charity happy.
I have been musing on this, and as I went to write it all down I was reminded of successful dating behaviours. This one is personal. When in the early stages of dating my now husband and partner of 20 years, I wasn’t quite sure if he was interested. As I had experienced disappointment and hurt previously I put myself in protection mode and I told myself it won’t work anyway so just back off and don’t get your heart broken. Hilariously I am convinced that in backing off I became more interesting and more attractive than if I had continued to Approach and Interrupt OR Smile and Be Friendly.
So next time you are pondering how to convert an engagement, how to have more draw, how to have more attraction — perhaps consider the SBnE technique. Let me know how it goes.
