True Lead Academy

By Marianne Florman

In 1990’s I was busy travelling the world collecting medals with the National Team in Team Handball – we were called The Iron Ladies. In this new century the handball have for the most part been lying still. Instead I have made a lot of TV, e.g. on the Danish National TV channel DR1, been hosting the sports show ‘SundaySport’ as well as hosting the TV health magazine ‘Ha’ det godt’ (English: Be well). Since the medal harvest in the ‘90’s I have held over 1,000 lectures and Courses for businesses, associations and organizations as well as for private people. My heart desires for all people to find our way back to ourselves, finding the balance in our lives physically, mentally and spiritually and for quitting the apologies for staying in the same old treadmill. You have to make an effort to become the very best version of yourself or you will break. I learned that through meditation, yoga and by finding the power of the Now together with my horses and by studying Trauma Therapy based on how animals regulates their nervous system (SE Trauma Therapy education – by Peter Levin – Somatic Experiencing). Together with the horses I have found a way to meet myself, use my intuition, listen, feel and last – but not least – to be a leader without any need for domination. You will need courage, self-confidence, self-esteem, and blood, sweat and tears to find your POWER to be human and to find your DRIVING FORCE to live in a healthy balance in a world where the daily pace is incredibly fast – and to lead yourself and others through your heart! True Lead Academy includes lectures, physical and online courses, mentoring and therapy with the horse as the Guide. It is a broad spectrum, however with the same focus on the in-depth, respectful and lovingly powerful and equal approach. Besides this I collaborate with a lot of very talented and heart warm people, whom you can read more about here.

My journey

Let me start by taking you back my personal road to the heart of the horse – and my own! It was in the meeting with Ingela Larsson Smith and her approach to the horses – True Connection – I really started discovering alternative ways. True Connection goes a few layers deeper than what I had previously learned. It was a tremendous satisfaction to see the changes it brought to my relationship with my horses. As an adult when I decided to buy a horse I knew that the way I wanted to keep the horse would be different than I knew from my childhood. Back then it was a very traditional approach to horses including whip and spores. As soon as I bought my first horse in my adult life I signed up for a Parelli course with my Icelandic horse Tinna. When could have known back then that she and all my other horses should become my greatest teachers. The horses and I have since travelled through a wide range of courses and I keep getting a deeper and deeper understanding of both my own and the horses’ way of being in this world. From the beginning When I was a child I loved horses. I collected everything with horses: postcards, posters, calendars, and magazines – you name it! In 3^rd grade the teacher asked my mom that horses was not included in all of my sentences when I had to practice my writing. My greatest wish of all was to own a horse. However, the closest thing I got was neighing to all the horses we drove by every weekend when we went to our summerhouse near Lammefjorden. One day it finally happened. Some ponies my sister and I had secretly been riding were put up for sale. We were deeply in love with a small New Forest/Dartmoor gelding and we got to buy him for the money my sister got for her confirmation; 1,500 DKK. As an 11 year old girl I become a horseowner and I couldn’t have been happier. My sister and I gladly biked 8-9 kilometers each way twice a day each weekend to look after our new friend, Peter Pan. It became four fantastic years, where my sister and I looked after and went for rides with both Peter Pan and no less than 70 other horses. We participated in competitions of both dressage and jumping and we lived and breathed horses. But one day the fairytale ended, when the owner of the stud farm died. We lost it all at once! I decided that one day, I would own horses again. However, not until I lived in a place with space to have my horses at home. It should last 25 years before the dream came true! When my husband and I moved to Møn in 2003, it was part of the plan that we should have a couple of riding horses. In 2005 the first horses arrived; Shetland ponies that should be company horses. In 2006 I bought Tinna and Sir victor. The rest of the heard has slowly arrived throughout the years. Today I work full time holding lectures, education, teaching, workshops and horse-guided therapy as well as arranging camps and welcoming week-students. Read more about my lectures for businesses at florman.dk.