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Jocelyn Hastie spent 30 years as an accountant before the combination of a stage 4 cancer diagnosis and a sudden job loss forced a radical turn, leading her to work full-time with horses as a way to foster leadership skills and personal growth. She joins me to talk about why it’s not fair to judge accountancy as boring, how bad management and leadership happens (including her own realization that she was a bad manager), what we lose when we forget the lessons of the natural world and our roots in it, what we can learn from the animals around us—including horses—and more.
Episode breakdown:
00:00 Introduction
04:25 Family influence suppressed creativity; art rediscovered after cancer diagnosis.
08:32 Jocelyn reflects on common misconceptions about accounting creativity.
12:39 Accountants add value, not just boring number crunchers.
16:32 Jocelyn’s career choice influenced by her father and education.
20:06 Radical life change after cancer and job loss in 2016.
24:35 Horses revealed Jocelyn’s management flaws; learned new leadership styles.
28:09 Importance of authenticity and boundaries, not pleasing everyone.
32:25 Animals and nature as teachers for leadership and mindfulness.
36:05 Jocelyn describes her non-riding retreats and somatic awareness.
40:34 Emphasizes intentional learning versus just-in-case learning.
44:05 Life shifts can come from crisis or noticing “little knocks.”
48:54 Childhood expectations shaped independence; cancer forced acceptance of help.
52:23 Lessons from herd dynamics and horses’ instinct to regain calm.
56:07 Gestalt coaching emphasizes honoring emotions and shaking off fear.
Show Links: Jocelyn Hastie
Jocelyn’s website
Jocelyn’s free page
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Transcript: Jocelyn Hastie
Please note: This is an unedited transcript, provided as a courtesy, and reflects the actual conversation as closely as possible. Please forgive any typographical or grammatical errors.
Nancy Norbeck [00:00:00]:
Foreign. Welcome to Follow Your Curiosity. Ordinary people, extraordinary creativity. Here’s how to get unstuck. I’m your host, creativity coach, Nancy Norbeck. Let’s go. Jocelyn Hastie spent 30 years as an accountant before the combination of a stage four cancer diagnosis and a sudden job loss four forced a radical turn, leading her to work full time with horses as a way to foster leadership skills and personal growth. She joins me to talk about why it’s not fair to judge accountancy as boring;
Nancy Norbeck [00:00:39]:
how bad management and leadership happens, including her own realization that she was a bad manager; what we lose when we forget the lessons of the natural world and our roots in it; what we can learn from the animals around us, including horses; and more. I think you’ll get a lot out of my conversation with Jocelyn Hastie. Jocelyn, welcome to Follow Your Curiosity.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:01:02]:
It is a pleasure to be here. I’ve been looking forward to this.
Nancy Norbeck [00:01:06]:
So I start everybody with the same question. Were you a creative kid or did you discover your creative side later on?
Jocelyn Hastie [00:01:13]:
I was not a creative child. Farthest thing from it, I. I really concentrated on maths and sciences and I loved English, but wasn’t crazy about social studies and found art painful, I think, because if I look back on it, that was never something that was honored or respected in my family. It was always academics that were really pushed as what was important. What is interesting, though, is after the first art class I did was when I was in my mid-50s and it was a creative journaling class that I did through a cancer support organization when I was recovering and I discovered a love of it even though I really suck. It doesn’t matter. I celebrate the suck and do it anyways. Wow.
Nancy Norbeck [00:02:14]:
That’S a heck of a long time.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:02:16]:
It is, it is.
Nancy Norbeck [00:02:19]:
It is. So not anything creative as a kid is kind of remarkable in its own way, really, because most kids find something somewhere. And yet you’re right because, you know, family influence is huge on that kind of thing.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:02:41]:
Yeah, they did encourage me to read, but they didn’t encourage me to write or draw or sing. And I’m a terrible singer anyway, so maybe that was for the best. However, I will admit that I sing sometimes. I make up for singing badly by singing loudly, but primarily in the car.
Nancy Norbeck [00:03:02]:
Fair enough. Singing in the car is kind of its own art form, I think, know.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:03:06]:
Or singing for my dogs and. And they think I’m terrific.
Nancy Norbeck [00:03:11]:
That’s their job, right?
Jocelyn Hastie [00:03:13]:
That’s right.
Nancy Norbeck [00:03:14]:
Yeah. But, you know, I was. I was behind somebody in traffic the other day and they were having Their own special dance party in the car. It was really something. Why? It was. It was almost, you know, to the point of distraction, but I was at a stoplight when I first noticed, so that was good. But. But it was really.
Nancy Norbeck [00:03:30]:
I mean, at first it. It was interesting to notice my own reaction because at first I was kind of like, whoa, what is going on up there? And then the more I watch, the more I thought, you know what? You go, you’re having a great time. You. You just. You. You have.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:03:46]:
You do you. And. And power to you.
Nancy Norbeck [00:03:49]:
Yeah, you have your own little party up there and more power to you. So. So yeah, I think you, you know, your car. Your car is sort of your own little space. Maybe not quite as private as you think it is, since I was kind of watch. But still, you know, there is something kind of magical about singing in your car, you know, dancing behind the wheel, that there’s something freeing about that. And maybe it’s also just the motion of being in the car. So I think you get a free pass on singing in the car.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:04:22]:
Okay.
Nancy Norbeck [00:04:23]:
Yeah, I think we all do.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:04:24]:
Keep doing it then.
Nancy Norbeck [00:04:25]:
Yeah, yeah. And singing to your dogs. Because your dogs have to love you. You feed them. It’s their job.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:04:31]:
That’s right.
Nancy Norbeck [00:04:32]:
Totally their job. Yeah.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:04:33]:
I tell them until. Until they have a thumb and they can write their own paychecks, they have to just kind of put up with me. And there are certain expectations that come along with the dog food, but, you know, they’re.
Nancy Norbeck [00:04:51]:
They’re dogs, so, you know, most dogs are totally cool with that.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:04:56]:
That’s right.
Nancy Norbeck [00:04:59]:
So I know that you became an accountant, which, you know, we. We talked a little bit about the fact that accountants get kind of the brunt of the least. Least creative job you can think of, you know, stereotype, fairly or unfairly. And I think it’s largely unfair. And at this point, after talking to my cousin, the forensic accountant a couple years ago. So I would love to hear what you think about that.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:05:31]:
I agree with that. And I really think I was a square peg in a round hole for most of my career. I had an accounting career for over 30 years, but I did things differently to make it more bearable, perhaps. For example, many times I worked on multidisciplinary teams, so I was working with operations, and in the case of the energy industry, the land department, and various other groups, geology, geophysics. So I was the accounting representative on a lot of those because I did tend to be able to look beyond debits and credits more than a lot of the other accountants could. And keep in mind, Nancy, we’re talking the 80s and 90s and early 2000s. So this was in a time when, when things were different. One of the really cool jobs I had, though that really does show creative accounting was I worked for an energy company in Calgary called Talisman Energy.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:06:35]:
And they were the largest independent oil and gas company in Canada at that point in time. And they did an awful lot of acquisition and divestiture activity. So we would be negotiating some 400 deals a year and closing on 100 of them. And sometimes the accounting to do, particularly with a property swap where it was mostly properties, maybe some cash, and valuing the assets so you could recognize gains and losses could be really very creative. And I used to tell the negotiators, I was the manager of the acquisition and divestiture accounting group and I told the negotiators, I can make it what you need it to be as long as you can give me supporting documentation. So we might have valued it to do with cash flows, we might have valued it to do with the reserves. So there were actually some pretty creative things I could do in acquisition and divestiture accounting.
Nancy Norbeck [00:07:31]:
That’s so interesting because like there is the, the negative stereotype of creative accounting, right? Which basically implies that you’re cooking the books. And when I hear you say that, that’s kind of where my head goes. But I don’t think that’s what you’re talking about.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:07:53]:
It isn’t, because it has to be justifiable. So you have to have a reason for valuing it the way you do. So I would tell the negotiators, we need to, we need to figure out how to do that. And sometimes I would just have to tell them no, that I just, I can’t make that fly. That, that bird ain’t gonna fly no matter. It just, it’s too far fetched. But if we could find a really reasonable justification, and I would sometimes help them find that. So like I say, it could be based on the value of the reserves or the cash flow from the property.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:08:32]:
So there was some creativity involved in that. Although it did, I mean, certainly there were, there were guardrails and we needed to be able to justify what we did.
Nancy Norbeck [00:08:43]:
That’s so interesting to me because I think a lot of us who don’t deal with that kind of thing tend to think that anything to do with money and numbers is a straightforward two plus two equals four. There’s no other way to look at that. There’s no question. And if you add two and two and don’t get four, you’re doing something wrong or you’re doing something shady. But clearly, from what you’re saying, and as I’m thinking about other things while you’re talking, there are so many different ways to look at all of those numbers. It’s not necessarily that simple and straightforward. It’s not your elementary school arithmetic class. And so it’s.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:09:35]:
Think of it this way, maybe this will help. If you’re selling a car, if you sell it to the car lot, you’re going to get bottom dollar for it. If you sell it privately, you might get significantly more. And if you can tell a really good story about that car, it could be a really good price that you create for it. So that’s the kind of thing I’m talking about, is it requires justification, but you can be creative at it and you can, as long as you can justify it and make it reasonable. I’m not saying I let them get away with crazy stuff. I didn’t. But I would work with them to try to figure out the best way to do the accounting for a property swap.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:10:26]:
Because you’re valuing both the property going in and the property going out. So there’s. There can be some, There can be some. Not necessarily creative license, but different. Just justifications for different values. Yeah, there’s, there’s, you just have to be able to support it.
Nancy Norbeck [00:10:48]:
There’s more subjectivity to all of this than. Than I think most people are. Are aware of is what it sounds like to me.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:10:56]:
I, I would agree with that comment.
Nancy Norbeck [00:10:57]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s fascinating to me because I think most of us think that accountants are just people who stare at Excel spreadsheets all day and do the math and that’s it. And that’s where, oh, you’re going to go off and become an accountant. And that sounds like the most boring thing in the world. I think that’s where that idea comes from. But clearly that’s not actually accurate.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:11:25]:
Well, and I don’t think it is. And I think the other thing that people miss is that accountants can add absolutely massive value to an organization by providing financial data that helps the operations groups make really, really good business decisions.
Nancy Norbeck [00:11:44]:
Yeah.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:11:45]:
And they can’t do that without having accurate financial data. So I definitely see the value in accounting. I don’t want to go back and do it anymore, but I understand the value of it.
Nancy Norbeck [00:11:58]:
Yeah. I think that’s the thing. I think people who haven’t done it don’t get that it’s not what they think it is necessarily. And I think that was kind of my big surprise when I interviewed my cousin. And certainly forensic accounting is a whole different angle. But, but even just getting that new basic understanding from her was really eye opening for me. And then again when we talked briefly and you kind of echoed the same thing, I was like, yeah, we unfairly malign accountants as these boring number crunchers and it’s not fair.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:12:39]:
Yeah, A lot of us do not live up to the stereotypes.
Nancy Norbeck [00:12:43]:
Yeah.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:12:44]:
I do have to say though, when I talk to people and they find out that my background is accounting, I really love it when they say, I never would have pegged you for an accountant.
Nancy Norbeck [00:12:55]:
But that’s the stereotype, right?
Jocelyn Hastie [00:12:58]:
It is, it is, yeah.
Nancy Norbeck [00:12:59]:
I mean, I would never say that my cousin is a, you know, boring, uninteresting kind of person, which I think is what most people think of when they think of an accountant. And so it’s. It’s that unfair stereotype again.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:13:13]:
Yeah. I will guarantee you absolutely every personality type profile I have ever filled out has never put me as an accounting. Accounting being my ideal profession.
Nancy Norbeck [00:13:25]:
So how did you pick it?
Jocelyn Hastie [00:13:27]:
I picked it because for two reasons. My father was an accountant and the second reason I picked it was, it was I really, really loved money as a teenager. And in Canada at that point in time, you could do an accounting designation, certified general accountant part time in the evening rather than going to university full time. So that was what I did so I could earn a full time income and get an education at the same time. So that was a big contributing factor to me making that decision that accounting was going to be the way, the way that I. That I would. The road, the road I would travel.
Nancy Norbeck [00:14:11]:
There you go.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:14:13]:
I couldn’t do the delayed gratification of four years of. Of university.
Nancy Norbeck [00:14:18]:
Sure. So how long did you stay in accountancy?
Jocelyn Hastie [00:14:23]:
30 years. Total? 30. 30 to 35. Yeah. And there were a couple of years where it was part time. When I was recovering, I was off work for almost a full year and then on a graduated return for a year.
Nancy Norbeck [00:14:39]:
So what led to you leaving?
Jocelyn Hastie [00:14:43]:
What led to me leaving is the thing about accounting is it was easy. I was really good at it. I could make a very good living. And I had an ideal setup in terms of I live in the country on a horse ranch, but my employer was only eight minutes away from me because I worked at a natural gas processing facility out of town as finance manager. So it was pretty easy. I only worked four days a week. I had a really good income and it was very comfortable to me. I had a horse trainer on staff that took care of the ranch and my horses and it was easy enough that I never would have been brave enough to make the change.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:15:31]:
And then the day I was removed from long term disability, the gas plant went bankrupt and my job was gone. Same day, June 30, 2016, and I could not. I’m about an hour and 15 minutes away from downtown Calgary, which most jobs I would have gone to as a finance manager would have been in downtown Calgary. And I just knew that after my recovery I was too fatigued to be able to do two and a half hours a day of commuting and an eight hour workday and take care of the ranch. It was just going to be far too much for me. So I decided to take off in an entirely different path and started working, partnering with my horses to help women really learn about their own empowerment and step into their personal power.
Nancy Norbeck [00:16:32]:
That’s definitely a massive turn. And before we totally go there, you mentioned, and you keep. Since you’ve mentioned recovery and we haven’t really talked about that, you did mention to me that your diagnosis was also a major turning point. And so it was.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:16:50]:
Yeah, I had sure about two years before I was diagnosed though. What I learned was when I got involved with the horses was that I didn’t like the person I was and I didn’t like the leader that I was. I had largely learned to lead staff. I’d been leading staff since I was 22 years old. I was in my first supervisory position and I thought I was a good supervisor. What I found out was I was a very, very good technical accountant. I was fast, I was accurate. And that was why they chose me for supervisory and managerial roles after I’d been doing it for eight years and I discovered horses.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:17:33]:
Now horses walk all over doormats and they avoid bullies and my horses avoided me. So I did a lot of soul searching and realized that they really needed me to be congruent, to be honest about who I was and how I was showing up with them. When I was centered and grounded, when I was around them, they would follow me anywhere and they would really work hard to please me. But I did discover that I was either I used either bullying or bribery. So with the horses, I’d try to give them horse cookies to get them to like me or carrots. And with my staff at work, I would bake every two weeks. I’d bring cookies in on Fridays that I would bake for my staff. So I discovered that I really didn’t like the person that I was.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:18:22]:
And in 2012 I enrolled in a two year program called Equine Gestalt Coaching. So I really explored how horses could help people and I finished that in 2012. And I really do credit the horses and what I learned in that coaching program for saving my life. Truly, that is, I don’t think I would have survived without having the horses. To get back to a reason to live, there’s an excellent book, just as a tiny aside, an excellent book called Radical remission written by Dr. Kelly Turner, a PhD and what she did was examine people that had had radical remissions from cancer and what they had in common. So she examined the outlier and some of the most important things in addition to diet and exercise, which you’d expect is having a mindfulness practice and also having a reason to live and support around you. So I found that the horses gave me a reason to live.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:19:31]:
And they are very calming pres. They for me are very calming presences. Just, they hold space for me to deal with my, my own stuff and I wanted to be able to help other people have that experience as well. So I believe that in that case things happened for a reason. I finished that training and then really had enough self awareness that I could examine whether I wanted to stay on this plane or move on.
Nancy Norbeck [00:20:06]:
Well, and it’s so interesting to me, you know your comment about being promoted to supervision because you were a really good technical accountant. What does that have to do with being a good leader?
Jocelyn Hastie [00:20:21]:
Absolutely nothing. But that is the way our world works, right?
Nancy Norbeck [00:20:25]:
And it makes no sense. And you know, I mean, what do people complain about most about their jobs? Nine times out of ten, at least it’s bad management.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:20:36]:
Absolutely.
Nancy Norbeck [00:20:37]:
You see bad management because people get promoted because they’re good at their jobs, not because they’re good leaders. And so often they’re given no management training whatsoever and no one cares about that part. And then they wonder why the staff is unhappy. Well, because they’re being managed by people who don’t have any management skills.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:20:58]:
That’s right. And I think that’s a big issue. And I have done some training like particularly in the area of delegation for the CPA Association, Chartered Professional Accountants association here in Canada. So in the area of delegation, because I believe that delegation is absolutely a top way to teach people new skills on the job, I really, I’m a strong believer in delegation and I also understand that if you are one of those managers that is extremely Technically competent. It’s really hard, really hard to turn over the reins. So I built a little process that helps them do that gradually and build the trust between them and their employees. And look at things like how risky is what they’re doing, what are the repercussions if it goes off the rails? And starting with simpler processes and thinking about, Very consciously thinking about just how much authority you hand over to people and do it gradually so that they prove themselves to you, so that you can feel more comfortable handing over more authority and getting them involved in bigger, more important jobs.
Nancy Norbeck [00:22:11]:
Yeah. And that’s how people grow and how you build the trust and how everything works better.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:22:18]:
Yeah. So I’m. I’m an absolutely firm believer in delegation and how important it is and how important it is that you as a supervisor, understand that you may delegate responsibility or you may delegate the doing of the work. You don’t delegate the responsibility for it if it’s still residing within your group, you are ultimately responsible. And you don’t get to blame somebody if they didn’t do it.
Nancy Norbeck [00:22:49]:
Oh, I wish more people understood these things. It’s amazing to me how many people don’t get. And, and that’s. To me, it seems so basic, but.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:23:02]:
It does to me now. And I have to tell you, it didn’t until I. Until I learned to be a leader that. That I truly believe is worthy of being followed. When my horses started following me, I was authentic enough and real enough that people started following me too. And the thing that I found that’s really interesting is when I became more and more authentic. It is absolutely true that more people disliked me, but there were certainly many more people that liked me and far fewer that sat in the middle and were ambivalent about me.
Nancy Norbeck [00:23:41]:
That’s interesting, too. Were the people who, who then disliked you people who had originally liked you more? Or. I mean, was it. Was it a real.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:23:54]:
At the point in time when I. Because I. I was kind of. I was really odd. I was kind of a combination between a people pleaser and a bully. And I did what I thought I had to do to get things done, and I wasn’t authentic in doing it. And I was quite, quite prepared to flatter someone who didn’t for something very tiny just to get them to like me and be more willing to do the things I needed them to do in their positions. So I do believe that as I learned to draw boundaries and be really clear on what worked for me and what didn’t, there were more people that disliked me and that was okay with me.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:24:35]:
One thing I really discovered was that I had spent a great deal of time in my life trying to get people that didn’t like me to like me. Even if I didn’t like them or respect their opinions, I still wanted them to like me.
Nancy Norbeck [00:24:54]:
Isn’t it amazing how we do that?
Jocelyn Hastie [00:24:57]:
Yeah. Yeah. And I mentioned the cookies, so I’ll mention it again. It’s kind of a funny story. When I had that staff of five, I had one woman in particular that really disliked me. Rolled her eyes at everything I said, and her disapproval of me was pretty obvious. But every other Friday, I would bake cookies for the staff, and I would let each of them pick their favorite cookie that I would bring in. And she didn’t pick easy cookies like oatmeal or peanut butter cookies.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:25:27]:
She picked snickerdoodles. Now, anyone that makes snickerdoodles knows they are a pain to make because you have to chill the dough and you have to chill the cookie sheets. And if you don’t, you get one flat, crunchy snickerdoodle instead of fluffy, chewy snickerdoodles. And I made the snickerdoodles, even though it was a pain. And you know what? She ate my snickerdoodles, and she still rolled her eyes at me. So something I ask myself when I turn myself inside out trying to get someone to like me is, why am I baking these cookies?
Nancy Norbeck [00:26:09]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:26:11]:
And if you’re baking them because you love someone and you want to give them something that you’ve made by hand, that’s fabulous. But if you’re just doing it to try to curry favor, you might want to rethink whether you’re making cookies at all, let alone snickerdoodles.
Nancy Norbeck [00:26:26]:
Right. Right. And I think, you know, there’s this whole societal thing that says that we need to make sure everybody likes us, which is impossible.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:26:38]:
Right.
Nancy Norbeck [00:26:39]:
No one is. There is no one that everyone likes.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:26:43]:
Yeah. I remember reading somewhere, you can be the sweetest, juiciest peach in the world. And to someone who doesn’t like peaches.
Nancy Norbeck [00:26:54]:
Yeah.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:26:54]:
They’re not going to find you appealing.
Nancy Norbeck [00:26:57]:
Yeah. I mean, I was gonna say maybe. Maybe Dolly Parton is the only person in the world that everybody likes. But I’ll bet you there’s somebody who doesn’t like her, too. You know, I mean, it’s just. It’s just not possible. So, you know, at some point, you just have to say, okay, fine. You know, there are people who don’t like me.
Nancy Norbeck [00:27:14]:
Great. Move on.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:27:16]:
Yeah. You know, and the reality is I don’t like everybody either.
Nancy Norbeck [00:27:20]:
Right.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:27:22]:
And that doesn’t mean I have to be. I don’t have to be nasty to them, but I don’t have to choose to hang out with them either.
Nancy Norbeck [00:27:29]:
Right. Right. There’s no need to torture yourself.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:27:32]:
Right.
Nancy Norbeck [00:27:32]:
Or them. There’s room for everybody to do their thing and move on.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:27:40]:
I remember having a boss once that I said to him, you don’t like me, and that’s okay, but I really wish you’d respect the work I do.
Nancy Norbeck [00:27:50]:
Yes. And that’s a crucial difference that I don’t think we often remember, you know?
Jocelyn Hastie [00:28:02]:
Yeah. And then, of course, he was all flustered. Oh, yeah, I like you fine. And I said, no, you don’t. And it doesn’t matter. That’s not what I’m losing sleep about. What I’m losing sleep about is you’re disrespecting the work I’m doing.
Nancy Norbeck [00:28:17]:
Right, Right. Yeah. Like I said, there’s so much bad management and so little concern about that. And that’s the kind of thing that, you know, someone like that isn’t. Isn’t even able to distinguish between. I don’t have to like you, but you can still do good work, and I can still be okay with that fact, even if you’re not my personal cup of tea, you know? And, I mean, that seems really basic, and yet for a lot of people, it just isn’t. Yeah. Well, I’m glad that you figured it out.
Nancy Norbeck [00:29:00]:
And I’m fascinated that it was the horses that taught you.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:29:06]:
You know, I look back, Nancy, and I always, always, always wanted pets and wanted animals around me, and my parents really didn’t want that for me. And I think my life would have been very different had I had more access to the animals. I think I would have been a more compassionate person from a much younger age had I had more exposure to animals.
Nancy Norbeck [00:29:38]:
Yeah, it makes sense. It’s funny, I was thinking before we started here a little while ago, I grew up in a little neighborhood way down a side street across from a horse pasture. The people who built the development lived down this little side street, and they had their own horses. And so, you know, certain nights after dinner, the horses would be out, and my mom would give us a carrot and go over and feed the horses and talk to them and whatever. And it’s a wonder to me that I never really thought about until this morning that I did not end up being totally nuts about horses just because they were there. And I remember, you know, around third grade, somebody in my class saying that, you know, they wanted to have a pony as a pet. And the teacher saying, well, you can’t do that because. Because you don’t live in a place where you’d be allowed to have the pony as a pet.
Nancy Norbeck [00:30:38]:
And I’m like, but there’s horses right across the street from my house. So. So, yeah, I mean, that’s. It’s kind of interesting. You know, they. They were there. I never. I never had the desire to go horseback riding, but I loved that they were there.
Nancy Norbeck [00:30:53]:
And we could kind of climb up the fence a little bit and pet them and, you know, feed them and just kind of be like, oh, there’s horses.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:31:02]:
Yeah. And it’s. Even for someone like me, I did compete with the horses for 25 years. I showed. Once I got into horses, I got in big time. And as I said, I had a horse trainer on staff. And I really find that some of the most amazing times I have had with them have not been in the saddle but on the ground. And one of my very favorite things in the world to do in the wintertime is to go outside on moonshadow nights.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:31:35]:
My horses are on a hundred acres, and I go out, and they. When they hear me, they will come and investigate. And the winter nights with the moon shadows and the horses there is just. It is absolutely magical, and it fills my soul.
Nancy Norbeck [00:31:58]:
I bet.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:31:59]:
And I always find it interesting when people ask me about the on ranch retreats I do, because with the on ranch retreats, Nancy, there’s no riding. Because I’m such a firm believer that building the relationship with them is much easier to do actually on the ground than if you’re an inexperienced rider and you’re trying to manage all the technical things of riding. But just being with the horses on the ground and grooming them, you can learn to create a connection with something that you think of as much bigger and stronger than yourself. And then some of the other work I do is just a very simple obstacle course. And people lead the horses through the obstacle course. And for many women, it’s the first time that they can feel a sense of competence in leading something that is so much bigger and so much stronger than they are. And what I really want them to do is gain the somatic awareness, like, feel in their belly what it felt like to be a leader to someone, something that’s so much bigger and stronger than they are. I think there’s magic in that.
Nancy Norbeck [00:33:14]:
It sounds like it. And, you know I mean, I’ve heard off and on over the last 20 or 30 years about horses being used in different ways, different kinds of therapy, and I, I find it so fascinating because it kind of makes sense to me and it also kind of just sounds so out there all at the same time.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:33:35]:
Right. And my goal is never, ever, ever to turn people into, to turn women into horse women and to have them move out to the ranch. That’s never what my goal is. What my goal is, is to open their mind to the many different ways they can practice being a leader and the many different teachers that are around them that they may have completely overlooked. And if I can open their minds to that and give them the experience of being a leader to something that could really choose to tell them I’m not interested and could do something about it, if I can give them those experiences, I think that can change their lives. I really do.
Nancy Norbeck [00:34:25]:
Oh, sure, absolutely. And I’m curious, you talk about the other leaders and influences around them, what all that might include.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:34:41]:
It can be your dogs. It can be learning to slow down because you’re in such a beautiful park and you see the birds. It can be that those are the kinds of experiences I’m talking about. And if you stop being so busy in the everyday and can learn to take just those micro pauses, that’s meditation to me and that is really developing self awareness to take that time and, and think about how do I feel about that instead of just saying, ah, it’s not that big a deal. It’s not worth getting excited about. Maybe it is. Check it out. Are you still thinking about it five hours later? Are you still mad at that guy that cut you off in traffic? If it is, maybe it was that big a deal or maybe it isn’t the guy in the traffic that you’re mad at at all.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:35:49]:
So it to me, that time in nature, around horses, around dogs, around a tree, can give you so much self awareness when you take the time to center and ground yourself.
Nancy Norbeck [00:36:05]:
Yeah, yeah, I think, you know, we’ve had all of that so trained out of us that we don’t even notice it. I mean, there’s a little park near my house and I love to go out and walk the paths in the park. And you know, sometimes I’ll listen to a podcast or an audio play, but sometimes, you know, I just want to go and turn it off and, and walk around and really pay attention because I know if I’m listening to the podcast or something else, I’m not probably really paying attention. I mean, I’m seeing things, but I’m not hearing the birds, I’m not hearing the wind. I’m not really fully experiencing being out there. And it is a really different experience when I don’t have something in my ears distracting me except for the sound of my own voice, which can be plenty distracting on its own, but it’s still not the same as an external thing pumping into my brain, you know, so I’m much more likely to notice how I’m walking, how it feels while I’m walking. You know, the way the light is coming through the trees, the deer on the other side of the park, you know, all of those things. If I say no, I’m leaving the headphones at home today.
Nancy Norbeck [00:37:33]:
And I’m.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:37:33]:
Yeah.
Nancy Norbeck [00:37:34]:
And I.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:37:35]:
Something I’ve taken to doing just recently is it’s a 40 minute drive to Calgary just to the city limits from my place, and it’s 30 minutes to the, to the town that’s closer than that and 25 to the other. So anywhere I go, I’ve got nearly an hour of drive time to get there. And I have taken to no sound in the car. I’ve taken to no radio, no podcasts, just being in the car and noticing my thoughts. And that’s made a difference for me too. I don’t do a lot of sitting quietly and meditating the way most people do, but I do take that time to think when I’m in the car. And I also do it when I used to listen to podcasts when I was out feeding the horses and doing chores, and I don’t do that anymore either. Now I just pay attention to the dogs and, and the horses while I’m feeding them and, and make sure that it doesn’t just become chores, that it becomes an experience.
Nancy Norbeck [00:38:47]:
Yeah, I bet it’s a very different experience too.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:38:52]:
Well, but I think like people that live in the city, if you’re a mom and you’ve got kids, making a meal for your family can be a spiritual experience that you are nourishing your family.
Nancy Norbeck [00:39:07]:
Sure, if they’re not all screaming at you while you’re doing well, they’re such as my first. But yeah, I think, I don’t know, I mean, I feel like there is so much chaos and so much distraction and we’ve forgotten that some of that at least is optional, you know, And I certainly can be the kind of person who always wants to be. Ooh, that book sounds really interesting. I want to read that next. And oh, I want to listen to that podcast because that sounds really fascinating. And so it’s like I can fall into that trap of always wanting to pour new information into my head. And it’s very interesting. And it’s not like I regret doing that, but at the same time, I think you can have too much of a good thing.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:40:05]:
Right. And I think that when you do fill your brain so quickly and you don’t take time to contemplate the things you’ve learned, they don’t really stick, even if they were absolutely fascinating at the time. And one example I think about is the book the Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. I read that book four times a year, and every time I read it, I swear that they put new pages in it.
Nancy Norbeck [00:40:34]:
Yeah.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:40:35]:
Because I’m in a different place and there’s a different message that I needed to hear that comes through. And it’s. It’s a fairly small book. It doesn’t take long to read.
Nancy Norbeck [00:40:47]:
Right.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:40:47]:
But every time I read it, there is something. It’s, to me, a really deep book. And there’s something in there that I needed to hear that time that I didn’t necessarily need to hear before.
Nancy Norbeck [00:41:01]:
Yeah. And you hear it differently each time, I’m sure, because as you said, you’re in a different place. And so something that you understood one way, the first or second time probably means something different the sixth or seventh time, too.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:41:16]:
Yeah, I. I heard it described this way once that I really loved. There’s just in case learning, which is what you’re talking about that. Oh, that would be interesting. And I might. I might like that. And then there’s just in time learning where there’s a specific topic that you need some help with, and that’s what you focus on. And I.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:41:37]:
I’m trying to spend less time on the just in case learning and an awful lot more on the just learning, really focusing on the things that I think are going to help me. Help me move forward more effectively.
Nancy Norbeck [00:41:52]:
Yeah. That’s an interesting way of looking at it, too. I like that.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:41:57]:
Yeah, I did, too. I thought that was really interesting. I wish it was me that created it. It wasn’t actually. That was. That was Danny Enie.
Nancy Norbeck [00:42:06]:
Oh, okay.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:42:07]:
Yeah.
Nancy Norbeck [00:42:08]:
Yeah. He has. He has a way of coming up with. With memorable ways of. Of putting things like that. For sure.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:42:16]:
Yeah, that made a lot of sense to me.
Nancy Norbeck [00:42:19]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:42:22]:
So.
Nancy Norbeck [00:42:25]:
I mean, you had sort of a. How do. How’s this the right way to put this? Like a. A defining, unexpected moment in terms of a diagnosis that changed everything. On top of that, you know, job situation changing radically, and that changed everything for you. And sometimes, you know, you hear stories like that a lot. You know, I’ve heard so many stories of people who, you know, got a diagnosis that totally shifted the way that they looked at life.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:43:13]:
Right.
Nancy Norbeck [00:43:13]:
And while I don’t think anyone wants that kind of scary diagnosis, there are moments when I’ve thought I kind of want the, the radical shift that comes along with it. I would prefer it not to come with the scary diagnosis, but I’d kind of like that shift, you know, and I don’t think it works that way. But I’m curious to know if you have any thoughts about, for somebody who hasn’t had that scary moment, how do we get to that shift? Do you think it’s possible to get to that kind of shift without it? Because it seems like it’s easier when you have that make or break moment that kind of forces you into it.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:44:05]:
I think the universe hands us learning opportunities all the time. And I think sometimes it just starts as the tiny little knock, hey, are you listening? And when that doesn’t work, the universe gives you more opportunities to learn until you, if you are as independent as I was and, and in many ways, all knowing as I thought I was because I’d been so competent at, at work and that kind of thing, I really did think I had it all figured out. And I think some of the things that I really needed to learn. One of the most important lessons I learned was allowing other people to help me, because here I was, finance manager at the natural gas plant. I had bought raw land and built the farm, and I’d done it all. I rode a motorcycle. I mean, I just. Sisters were doing it for themselves and I really, I was fine with paying someone like my trainer to work for me, but when people would just offer to help me, I would almost feel indignant that they thought I couldn’t manage things myself.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:45:33]:
Rather than appreciating that someone cared about me enough to say, I know you can do it alone. I just don’t think you should have to. And it wasn’t until I was literally brought to my knees that I learned the grace to allow other people to help me. And that was a lesson, I don’t know, because it had been so ingrained in me as a child to be independent and not to cry and take care of things. It had been so ingrained in me. I don’t know that I would have learned that any other way. Nancy. For me, that was necessary.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:46:18]:
But I absolutely, sincerely hope that other People listen to the knocks before the baseball bat and don’t go through what I did. And I consider that part of my mission in this world is sharing that message. And some people will get it, and others will be like I was and need to learn it the hard way. But if I could get just a few people to pay more attention to it before the baseball bat, I would really feel like I’d made a difference in this world, and a much bigger difference than financial statements with 30 pages of notes.
Nancy Norbeck [00:47:06]:
Yeah. Yeah, I can see that. And I think that’s an admirable goal. And I think you’re right that there are the little knocks and whispers, and the challenge is to pay attention to them in the world that tells us, oh, that’s not a big deal.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:47:27]:
Yeah, that’s right.
Nancy Norbeck [00:47:28]:
Keep going, keep driving, keep pushing. Keep pushing yourself, even if it’s not good for you, and it’ll all be okay.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:47:38]:
Yeah. And I think for me, it started very, very, very young. Like, when I was born, my father was absolutely convinced I was going to be a boy, and my nickname was Charlie till I was 10.
Nancy Norbeck [00:47:54]:
Wow.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:47:55]:
And I put a lot of pressure on myself. Even as a small child, I didn’t want to be better than the men, but, darn it, I did not want to accept less than the boys just because I was a girl. Even as a small child, I remember having those thoughts that I was not better than the boys, but I was as good as any boy. I was just as smart and just as capable as any boy. Now, in my family, athletics were not valued either, so arts and athletics weren’t valued at all. It really was academics that were valued, and fortunately, I was smart enough that I got some approval for that. So I think that really set me up for an awful lot of how I lived my life. And I think for me, it did take the baseball bat of stage four cancer to get me to pay attention.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:48:50]:
And I don’t want anyone else to have to do that.
Nancy Norbeck [00:48:54]:
Yeah, yeah. It’s just thinking about, you know, how those things in childhood that, you know, our parents don’t knowingly set us up to have a good hard time, and yet so often they do set us up to have a hard time without realizing it. Yeah.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:49:22]:
Yeah. And. And I don’t think it was. I don’t think it was malicious at all. But to have that feeling, even as a small child, that I even got my gender wrong.
Nancy Norbeck [00:49:33]:
Right. That’s huge. I mean, that. That’s just. That’s.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:49:42]:
And it did set me up for a lifetime of not ex, which is a good and a bad thing. It set me up for a lifetime of not accepting less because I was born with ovaries instead of testicles. And I never wanted to be a man either.
Nancy Norbeck [00:49:59]:
Right.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:49:59]:
I really didn’t. I always wanted to be a woman. I just was frustrated that women seem to have such a hard time compared to men especially. And then I went into the field of accounting and not just the clerical, but the supervisory management role and in the energy industry, which is super.
Nancy Norbeck [00:50:22]:
Yeah.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:50:22]:
Male dominated. What’s really interesting now with horses is my favorite horses for the last 20 years have been stallions. And it’s been because I absolutely love the dance of the feminine and the hyper masculine together. And it’s not over dominating them, it’s creating a partnership with them. And it’s magical when it happens.
Nancy Norbeck [00:50:47]:
Can you say a little more about that? Because that sounds really interesting.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:50:51]:
Sure. Stallions, people, people misinterpret stallions and they think they’re the boss. And the stallions are not the boss, they’re the protectors. The horse in the herd that makes the decisions about where they’re going to graze and when they’re going to go for water is the mare, the alpha mare. And the way the alpha mare is chosen is the alpha mare is the one that keeps the other horses safe and the stallion’s role. So she chooses where they’re going to be in terms of grazing and that kind of thing and when they’re going to move. And the stallion will be on the lookout to make sure that indeed she has chosen a safe place and if she hasn’t, to fend off predators and that kind of thing. So the.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:51:51]:
What horses are looking for from people is safety. So they want to be with someone who will make decisions for them to keep them safe. And once you’ve established that you are a leader worthy of following that, you’re not going to. They’re not going to get hurt when they’re with you. They’re not going to get scared when they’re with you. And if they do get scared, they’ll get over it because you’ll help them get over it. For example, a plastic bag floating across the field. When a horse first sees that, they honestly believe it might kill them.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:52:23]:
So they are afraid for their lives when they’re younger and inexperienced and they’ll run from it. But when the rest of the herd just looks up, sees it’s a bag and goes back to grazing, the young ones will also learn that, okay, that’s not something to be afraid of. When you as the horse’s trainer can expose them to things that scare them a little and they learn that they don’t get hurt, they learn to trust you. So leadership with the horses is all about safety. And I think that that is true of humans as well, that even if we’re in a group where someone has the power, someone is the leader by the position they’re in, perhaps there is always someone in the group that everybody looks to to see how are they taking this. There always is. And that’s the kind of leadership and power I’m talking about, is the leadership through influence and through having created a relationship where the other person trusts you. And what’s interesting with horses is because they are prey animals, they are hyper aware of their environment and they see things that they think may hurt them that really won’t.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:53:40]:
But the magic with them is that there is nothing they want more than to get back to grazing. And we as humans can take a long time before we get back to grazing. We relive the things that scare us over and over again. So that is a really. That’s another really magic thing I’ve learned from horses is to live in the moment and get over it and get back to grazing as soon as I possibly can to find the things that comfort me so that I can get. Get my equilibrium back.
Nancy Norbeck [00:54:18]:
That’s really powerful because you’re right. You know, an awful lot of us just get into that loop.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:54:29]:
That’s right.
Nancy Norbeck [00:54:30]:
Never let it go and, and want to, but don’t know how because we.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:54:36]:
Know that, no, it’s not good for us.
Nancy Norbeck [00:54:39]:
Yeah, it’s exhausting, you know, among other things. And nobody wants that, but we don’t know how to let go of it.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:54:47]:
Right.
Nancy Norbeck [00:54:50]:
Yeah.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:54:50]:
Right. So just watching the horses do it and, and they do physical things that they need to do. They’ll shake it off, though. And so do dogs. They do a big shake after they’ve been scared. And if we need to do that, I invite people to do that. You know, if you need to do that, shake out your arms. And that was scary.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:55:10]:
And that is exactly what the horses do after they realize that plastic bag isn’t dangerous. What they do is say, that was scary. I’m glad it’s over.
Nancy Norbeck [00:55:22]:
Yeah. Yeah. And that’s the thing that I’ve heard over and over again over the last couple of years that we’ve been trained not to do as humans, that we’ve.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:55:32]:
Been trained to just do that. We don’t say oh, that was scary.
Nancy Norbeck [00:55:37]:
Yeah. We don’t shake it off.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:55:38]:
We say, oh, it wasn’t that bad. Meanwhile, we’ve got that pit in our stomach.
Nancy Norbeck [00:55:44]:
Yeah. And the funny thing is we tell each other to just shake it off or brush it off, but we’re not allowed to actually shake it off. Off.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:55:51]:
Yeah.
Nancy Norbeck [00:55:51]:
You know, it’s. It’s in the language.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:55:54]:
Yeah. Part of the gestalt coaching that. That I took really does talk about honoring your body. And if you need to shake it off, shake it off. And if you’re not comfortable shaking it off in front of people, go to the bathroom and shake it off.
Nancy Norbeck [00:56:07]:
Yeah.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:56:07]:
Take a few deep breaths. Practice box breathing. Get yourself out of the alarm and back into your prefrontal cortex. You know, start thinking again. Because when the alarm bells are going off, you’re not thinking, you’re not doing much of anything. No. You’re just alarming.
Nancy Norbeck [00:56:29]:
Yes.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:56:30]:
And alarming everyone around you.
Nancy Norbeck [00:56:32]:
Right, right.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:56:34]:
We don’t think about how much the energy we take into a room affects the people that are in that room.
Nancy Norbeck [00:56:44]:
Yeah. Because we’ve been trained to try to hide it, and we assume that we can.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:56:47]:
Yeah. We live in denial of our own emotions. And often we. We push them down, push them down, push them down. And it’s not till we’re overwhelmed that we actually realize. I guess I gotta look at this.
Nancy Norbeck [00:57:01]:
Yeah. It’s that. That metaphor of trying to hold down the beach ball underwater. Like, you can try and you can try and you can try, but eventually that sucker gonna pop right back up.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:57:09]:
That’s right.
Nancy Norbeck [00:57:10]:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That’s fascinating about the horses and the plastic bag and all of that, though. That’s.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:57:19]:
Yeah.
Nancy Norbeck [00:57:20]:
You’re making me wish I had paid more attention as a child. Horses across the street, Jocelyn.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:57:31]:
Yeah, I. They have been some of my life’s greatest teachers. And those really. The living in the herd, getting along with the herd, understanding herd dynamics has been huge lessons for me. And. And also the getting back to grazing, living in the moment and getting back to grazing.
Nancy Norbeck [00:57:50]:
Yeah.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:57:52]:
I’ve considered it a huge compliment when people would come onto my farm when I was still actively showing and say, this doesn’t feel like a show barn. The horses are happy. And even my. Even my best show horses would be out in the. Out in a 30 acre pasture. And. And you know what? There’s badger holes in that pasture. And I didn’t try to protect them from the world.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:58:18]:
I tried to give them life with friends and as normal a life I could, except for when we Packed them up to take them to a horse show.
Nancy Norbeck [00:58:28]:
Yeah.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:58:28]:
I didn’t mean bubble wrap them and. No, I let them live their lives. Even very valuable horses.
Nancy Norbeck [00:58:36]:
Yeah. I mean, that seems much more humane than the alternative.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:58:39]:
Yeah. And I’ve never kept my horses in barns in the winter. They’ve always been outside. Even when it’s 30 below. I make sure they’ve got really good shelter and they’ve got lots of hay to eat so they stay warm, but they do fine. It’s us that has the, the big hang ups about it.
Nancy Norbeck [00:59:00]:
Yeah.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:59:01]:
And that doesn’t mean I’m, I toss them out in, in October and I don’t look at them again until April either. I mean, every day I have them come in. I give them apples every day just so they’ll come in and I can get a look at them and make sure they’re okay because I’m down to just five horses now. And, and in the one pasture they’re 27, 26 and 26 years old. So they’re, they’re quite elderly. And, and they’re doing, they’re doing okay. I mean, they’re a little arthritic. When they get up, they have to stand for a little bit and kind of get their footing again, but they get around just fine.
Jocelyn Hastie [00:59:38]:
And, and they’re, they’re pretty happy horses even, even at those advanced stages. So I think, I like to think I’m doing something right with them being that age and still doing really well.
Nancy Norbeck [00:59:51]:
Sure. That’s amazing. So if people want to learn more about what you do and how they can come come learn more with you. Where do they need to go?
Jocelyn Hastie [01:00:03]:
Well, probably the best thing to do is you can, you can find me on either Facebook or LinkedIn. I also do have a webpage, the cowgirlscode.com cowgirls with an S. And I offer. What might be interesting to your listeners is once a month I offer a program where I’ve built what I call the Cowgirl’s Code, which is my seven standards of behavior. And what I do once a month is help people walk through their, discover their own core values and start to work on their own code of conduct product. And I offer that free of charge once a month and that you can find on thecowgirlscode.com free has a whole bunch of things that are coming up. I’m speaking at a couple of events, some online, some in person. I have tickets available for those that are free as well, all on thecowgirlscode.com/free.
Nancy Norbeck [01:01:05]:
All right, we’ll put all that stuff in the show notes so everybody can find you and hope we’ll check it out. I may show up at one of those sessions because I’m very intrigued.
Jocelyn Hastie [01:01:16]:
Yeah, I’d love to have you there. You are more than welcome.
Nancy Norbeck [01:01:20]:
All right, well, I really appreciate you coming and spending some time with me today. This has been really, really interesting.
Jocelyn Hastie [01:01:26]:
I’m glad you enjoyed it. I did too.
Nancy Norbeck [01:01:30]:
That’s this week’s episode. Thanks so much to Jocelyn Hastie and to you. Jocelyn’s links are in the show notes. I hope you’ll leave a review for this episode. There’s a link in your podcast app and it is super easy and really makes a difference. If you enjoyed our conversation, please do share it with a friend. Thank you so much. If this episode resonated with you, or if you’re feeling a little bit less than confident in your creative process right now, join me at The Spark on Substack as we form a community that supports and celebrates each other each other’s creative courage.
Nancy Norbeck [01:02:02]:
It’s free and it’s also where I’ll be adding programs for subscribers and listeners. The link is in your podcast app, so sign up today. See you there and see you next week. Follow Your Curiosity is produced by me, Nancy Norbeck with music by Joseph McDade. If you like Follow Your Curiosity, please subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And don’t forget to tell your friends friends. It really helps me reach new listeners.