Come and experience the "Ride of Your Life" in a scenic ranch setting when our Leadership Retreat at StoneCreek Ranch takes you out of a classroom - and out of the ordinary.

In association with StoneCreek Ranch, Internal Assets offers the corporate manager, group, or individual a higher level of understanding nonverbal communication. Nature has made horses natural followers looking for natural leaders, responding to their leader’s emotional intelligence or mental strength.

During one, three, or five-day workshops, participants have the opportunity for powerful and life-changing leadership and team-building training. This leadership retreat features the most trusted leadership tool of its generation, the Leadership Practices Inventory (developed by Kouzes and Posner) and application of its Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership Model to their real-life organizational challenges.

• Why Horses?
• Benefits
• What is Included?
• Top 5 Reasons to Attend
• Facilitators
• StoneCreek Ranch

StoneCreek Ranch provides deluxe accommodations in cabins or rooms in their Cowboy Lodge with seating for 24 adjoining an indoor arena.

What can you learn about leadership from a horse?

Well, plenty as it turns out. Here is what one customer told us…

“Since we live in a hurting world, where most people are questioning most or all of the decisions they make on almost every level, this (training) is a wonderful tool to empower good people to be people of influence. What you have developed is needed desperately and is a true gift to whoever will take advantage of what you have to offer.”

- Laura Francis, Owner
  Primerica Financial Services
 Tulsa, OK

This extraordinary leadership program has proven itself to have application for individual and organizational effectiveness. If you are looking for a non-traditional approach to leadership development…..you have just found it.

Our customers have told us that the Leadership Retreat at StoneCreek Ranch is an unforgettable experience. This program focuses on developing you internally so you will show up as the leader you want and need to be externally. You cannot develop the leader unless you develop the person.

Focus of Leadership Retreats at StoneCreek Ranch:

• Teambuilding
• Communication
• Customer Service
• Leadership
• Accountability

Horses respond to our leadership style (or lack of it). If we are willing, we can gain feedback about how we are showing up for the horse, from the horse.

Using horses in leadership training easily supports people to discover their unknown fears, intentions, willingness, focus, pressure and courage.

Horses also have the capacity for independent thinking and social relationships, as well as physical abilities and limitations. Does this sound like your customers or employees?

Experiential learning events are like no other training because it so memorable when participants experience new learning through doing.

Here is what they told us:

Growth in relationships and leadership comes from being able to face your fears and communicate your truth. Focusing on strength makes sense, but sometimes it has to be uncovered. We include horses to support leadership development in our workshops. Sometimes we lead them. Sometimes we ride them. Sometimes we herd them. The one thing we always do is look, listen and learn what they are trying to tell us.

Horses are animals that are preyed upon in nature, they have a highly developed ability to sense changes in the intent and emotions of predators and other horses. Why is this important to you? Since we are predators, horses can easily transfer this sensing to us as human beings. Horses can and do act as very responsive biofeedback agents offering us constant feedback about our actions. Do you ever say and do one thing when you are relating or showing up with people, come join us to do some work with a horse in a round pen! You may discover some things you didn't know about yourself!

What makes the Leadership Retreats at StoneCreek Ranch so unique is the horse. Even people who have never had an interest in horses seem to somehow make a connection. Individuals and/or teams are given the opportunity to discover how their own self-awareness, self-regulation, self-motivation and empathy impact the relationships they are able to form with team members, as well as internal and external customer.

So how clearly do you communicate your vision, mission, and goals?

Does everyone understand each other’s intentions and the expected results?

When your behavior is congruent with your messages, horses, like your employees and customers, become willing partners in reflecting the clear message of your leadership. They approach, participate and want to connect with the leader!

Are you willing to get some honest feedback about your leadership style?

When you participate in Leadership Retreats at StoneCreek Ranch, you will become more aware of your own:

• Leadership style: How are you showing up?
• Energy: Do you know how to direct it for momentum?
• Ability to Balance: Can you recover your emotions quickly?
• Focus: If three people were asked, would they know your most important goal?
• Communication Style: Is your behavior congruent with your words?
• Courage: With it or without it, what kind of leader will you be?
• Willingness to Risk: How long do you resist change?
• Comfort Level: Are you willing to move from the status quo?
• Ideas about Change: Do you fear what is coming next?
• Pressure: Do you know how little pressure it really takes to produce results?
• Building Relationships: Do you understand the emotional bank account?
• Full Engagement: Mind, body, spirit, heart….are any of yours on the shelf?
• Accountability: Can people count on you to do what you say?

Loosen the Reins

The Leadership Retreats at StoneCreek Ranch can teach you how to encourage the heart by loosening the reins. This is certainly a tool that you will find valuable when you return to your place of business. You will be able to better recognize contributions and celebrate differences when you return to the real world. This training is about building relationships and producing results with people. Whether it is at work, at home, at church, or in your community these tools will be valuable in your leadership roles.

Calendar of Events

• Pre-session meetings and phone interviews. We want to ensure that we have a very good understanding of your organization and its needs. We will perform a thorough assessment of your organization and will be very sure that expectations are clarified before the training takes place. We never begin a project without a very clear end in mind.
   
• Pre-training assessments. Most of our custom training includes an assessment tool so that we can be sure we meet your unique needs.
   
• Facilitation tailored to your group’s strengths and challenges. As issues arise during the experience, we will be sure they are addressed to your full satisfaction. We will focus on how the participants interact with one another in the context of the training.
   
• Plan of action. Each person will leave with a specific plan to apply the learning in their day to day life at work and at home.
   
• Videotape of the experiential learning. (Optional) This often helps people reflect on the experience and enhances their self-awareness of communication behaviors.
   
• Follow-up coaching. (Optional) We will provide telephone coaching for each member of your group after the training. This will ensure that you and your team continue to build skills to transform their performance.

1. Self –Awareness

You will learn about:

• Yourself
• Your leadership style
• Inconsistencies in your communication
• Unrecognized fear and how it affects your leadership
• Taking risks

2. Self-Regulation

You will focus on:

• How you handle yourself, as well as how you handle other people
• How to make adjustments and reduce recovery time
• Incongruence between what you say and what you mean
• Making the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard

3. Self-Motivation

You will discover how to:

• Become more accountable for your own learning
• Promote goal setting at the workplace
• Ask for help more often
• Retain what you have learned. You don’t forget what you learn with a horse!
• Negotiate success
• To set smart goals

4. Empathy

You will learn how to:

• Put yourself in another’s place
• Provide feedback with compassion
• Manage tension

5. Building Relationships

You will discover:

• That creating partnerships is key
• What real appreciation is about
• That influence is everything
• That command and control leadership only works when you are in the room

Exercises with the horses are constructed specifically to meet your needs using the same skills necessary for your success in the real world of business and in life! This experience is “More Than a Trail Ride!”

To find out more, come participate in a demonstration event. Visit the Events Calendar for dates.

What else do I need to know?

• No riding experience is necessary. In fact, no riding is necessary. Some people have attended Leadership Events at StoneCreek Ranch and never gotten on a horse, and still have had a valuable experience. They can observe from a safe distance (determined by them) and still participate fully in the debriefings and learning.
   
• You do not have to ride to experience the learning, but if you would like to try riding for the first time, you will do so in a supportive, caring, safe environment.
   
• We will also provide some learning experiences which do not involve horses.

Calendar of Events

Kim Worlow has had a love affair with horses since she learned to ride as a girl. She grew up showing Quarter Horses and barrel racing. Then life set in. She went off to college and moved to Houston and the horses went by the wayside. After 25 years without riding, she visited her good friend Karry at StoneCreek Ranch and revisited the saddle. All the memories came flooding back of what she had been missing. She continued to ride over the next year, but missed the confidence she had experienced as a teenager on horseback. The fear and loss of confidence prompted lots of introspection and wondering why something she once loved now produced self doubt and sometimes even anxiety. Yet she could not let it go.

Kim continued to ride and began to do some internal work in dealing with some of her fears about life, leadership and relationships. Guess what? As she became more confident in life and work, she also regained confidence in her horsemanship.

With the right leader, Kim had found a new direction and has regained her horsemanship skills. As she continued to practice riding outside of her comfort zone she heard Arvell Bass, owner of StoneCreek Ranch, use many of the same principles she used to teach leadership in her coaching practice. Kim explained to Arvell how she used the leadership principles he was describing. Arvell had heard the same comments from other clients again and again………over time Arvell piloted ‘Leadership at the Ranch!”

Complete Resume

Arvell Bass

Arvell Bass is a co-facilitator for ‘Leadership Retreats at StoneCreek Ranch.’ A master at helping people become better riders, he has discovered his talent for helping people learn more about themselves as they learn more about riding. Arvell uses this talent to help people excel in horsemanship and in life. He is a natural teacher and is very intuitive about his horses and about people.

Arvell says he learned a long time ago that horsemanship isn’t common sense. We need to learn how horses think and how to read their feedback before we can become effective in our training. When asked if he is a “horse whisperer” Arvell says, “No, I call myself a student of horses.” Arvell says most of the good things he knows about horses, he learned from someone else.

“I want horses that are soft, relaxed, and responsive. Horses want riders that are confident and predictable.” Arvell will teach you how to build a foundation with horses that can support you to establish trust with people.

As a teenager, one of his first paying jobs off the family farm was breaking colts for a professional who started almost a hundred two-year old thoroughbreds each year. Arvell felt terrible about how the training was conducted. It was a real breakthrough for him to finally realize that horses really do want to please. He says, “We just have to help the horse understand what we want.” His history with colts is the reason that starting young horses the right way is absolutely exhilarating for him now. Arvell also loves to help people start their own colts and to be a part of an almost magical experience that can occur between a human and a horse.

One of Arvell’s frustrations was watching untrained people ride well trained, responsive horses and seeing the horses respond poorly. He learned that training people was the most important component of a good partnership between humans and horses.

Arvell and his wife, Karry, have two beautiful teenage daughters, Kasey and Courtney. Arvell has worked as a drilling supervisor and a project manager for ARCO and BP Exploration in Alaska, Africa, and many South American Countries. He is a private pilot and a member of The National Cutting Horse Association.

When God created the earth, there were several places he rested his hand just a little longer. StoneCreek Ranch is one of those places. Arvell and Karry Bass are the fortunate owners of StoneCreek Ranch.

StoneCreek Ranch is nestled in a beautiful valley in southern Baxter County, Arkansas. Over 80 acres belong to the ranch and additional acreage is available for riding. StoneCreek Ranch is 8 miles from a major highway, but it feels like 80. There is peace here; your spirit will be rejuvenated. Many people notice a difference in their mindset within hours of arrival.

The main building at the ranch is a large indoor arena with stalls down one side and a lodge with a great room and eight guest rooms on the other side. A covered porch spans the front of this building where you can sit in a rocking chair and watch the horses play in the pastures as the sun sets behind them.

There are also two Ozark style cabins complete with covered front porches and swings. The cabins have full kitchens and the guest rooms all have access to a full kitchen. Our cabins, lodge, and guest rooms only look rustic. All accommodations are heated and air conditioned with comfortable beds and clean bathrooms.