Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive into our discussion about leadership, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?
After dying eight years ago from inflammation around my heart and lungs, I returned to my body, which was so sick it felt like I was crawling into a dead elk carcass. I was in the hospital for several days and was not in the Intensive Care Unit or on the regular floor. I was in a special place where the hospital took care of patients with heart and lung problems.
As I lay in my hospitable bed, I realized I could die because several around me had coded and left their bodies. So, I talked to God. I told God that I did not really like it here on Earth because I had suffered early childhood trauma and had never dealt with emotional and physical pain that got stuck in my body. At one point, I told God I wanted to return home.
All of sudden I was enveloped in a white and gold dazzling tube of light that surrounded me and grew to be as big as the circumference of the earth. I went up, up this tube of light and was soon high in the upper atmosphere. I was walking in the Milky Way.
I felt translucent, one with light, loved, totally at home and one hundred percent worthy. All my life I had longed to feel the light and love that I felt as I was out of my body in the tube of light. Then I realized that I had not finished my reason for this life.
In my heart of hearts I did not want to disappoint God, so I hoped I could return to my body and complete my reason for this life. I went deep into my heart and gut and made two promises. I promised to do whatever it took to heal and to get into my body. As soon as I made those promises, I fell downward in the chute of light and entered back into my body.
Since then, I have followed my heart and my outer research to utilize many different healing modalities to keep my promise to God. Initially, I was house ridden for months and I found a good naturopath who treated me with herbs, vitamins and a few prescription medications. Also, I did acupuncture, counseling, cranial sacral and body, mind therapy. At some point, I was healthy enough to spend time with my beloved horses and I attended an Equine Gestalt Coaching retreat at my next-door neighbor’s guest ranch.
This retreat was led by Melisa Pearce, a psychotherapist, master coach, Gestaltist, and author for many years. During the retreat, I witnessed how Melisa partnered with horses to help a woman deal with her grief over her son due to police brutality. This woman was my friend and she had witnessed police wrongfully shoot and kill her son who was in his twenties at the time. After her session with Melisa and the horses combined with being out in nature helped my friend reach a place where she said she slept for the first time since he was killed.
Melisa also helped me move forward on my healing path to deal with the post-traumatic stress disorder that I had formed due to my childhood trauma. While I was witnessing Melissa assisting myself and others to find transformational healing, I decided that I too wanted to be an Equine Gestalt Coach. I signed up for her program at Touched by a Horse and studied, attended class and multiple four-day intensive hands-on training to attain my Equine Gestalt Coaching certificate. One year after graduating, I signed up for another two-year course to attain my Master Gestalt Coaching certificate.
Since then, I have held nine retreats. My first retreat was with five women who lost a loved one to suicide. Three of them had lost their child. During the retreat each woman partnered with a horse while she experienced the remnants of feelings that she carried with her after her loved one’s suicide. At times the horse partner wrapped their head around and seemed to hug the woman to hold her as she felt her pain.
After this experience, I wrote a poem titled Finally On The Way To Yes.
I hear
I listen
I no longer run
I feel, I acknowledge, I accept the pain
The pain is ancient, dusty, crusty, rusty
Like barnacles clinging to the underside of a submerged vessel
I touch the pain, it allows me in
I groan, I writhe, I moan, I cry
The pain finally has a voice
The pain talks to my heart
My heart talks to the pain
They talk, they connect, they share, they weep
I surrender to the connection
Through the eye of the needle I burst
I merge with pain
I fuse with love
I feel whole
I feel Holy
I am grateful
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
Four Horses for Wholeness stands out because we offer people to have a life altering experience through Equine Gestalt Coaching, partnering with horses, and being immersed in Mother Nature in a high-altitude high mountain meadow on a cattle ranch in Montana.
After my retreats all those who attended said it was life changing. After that retreat, one woman wrote me a thank you note in which she said she had admiration for the courage that she witnessed in me to “get to the level of wholeness that you live and emanate — you absolutely glow.” Also, she wrote, “[t]he next one I struggle to put words on. It has to do with knowing that I was in the presence of a gift and feeling a call to respond to your open-hearted grace. And somehow Ruby (the mare this woman partnered with) helped me respond in kind. She gave me feedback to know when my heart was open.”
One woman who attended a different retreat said: “…that one of the things that is wonderful about this retreat is that you are out here in this wide, open country.” Also, she said, “Hertha is full of love. She is extremely professional. She is perceptive and intuitive. She guides and coaches with an immense amount of nurture, love and comfort. I would recommend it for anyone.”
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
I believe that honor, compassion and ingenuity are the three character traits that are most instrumental to my success.
1.Honor — I have been an attorney who advocates for my clients in litigation battles for almost thirty years. In litigation, I and other attorneys often forget that winning isn’t everything. Also, by nature I am a fierce fighter. During high school and college I played basketball. I was not the most athletic or gifted athlete. I was gifted with tenacity, smarts and a desire to exceed. So, I walked on to my college’s team because the coaches recognized that I would show up each day and work hard even if I did not get to play in the games. Also, they counted on me to defend and make the starters better players with my hard work on defense. As a litigator, I also will play defense to protect my client. Sometimes opposing counsel has personally attacked my clients and at that moment, I have a choice of how I respond. I have a professional duty to advocate for my client. And, I have a professional duty to honor, ethics and diplomacy. I do not always choose the high road. Yet, I am aware and I believe I choose the high road of honor most of the time and still provide good advocacy for my clients.
2.Compassion — I feel life very deeply and oftentimes I am aware of what those around me are feeling. Since dying and returning to my body, I am leaning into my deeply caring fundamental nature and I provide healing retreats at our ranch where I and my horses provide safe space and a container for others to find their path to transformation healing. Also, in my law practice, I have managed to keep my heart open and hold space for my clients and the opposing party when these people have to relive losing loved ones while responding to deposition questions. It is my goal to lead with compassion no matter where I am in life.
3. Ingenuity — Growing up on a ranch and sometimes being hours from other people, a hospital, stores or basically civilization lends towards the development of ingenuity. Several examples of my ingenuity include when during high school I was not chosen to be the team captain even though I was a team leader. I was 5’9” and typically was built in all ways to play forward. However, we had one girl on the team who was 6’3”, another who was 6’, and another who was 5’10”. To play on the starting five, I sized up the situation and realized that I had to learn how to play guard, which was not my natural position. I decided to be the best guard I could be, and I decided that I would do my best to make the other players the best they could be and to lead from where I was–not chosen as captain. The other players were very talented and better shooters than I was, so I developed passing skills and used my smarts to get them the ball where they could score. At the state championship game, we were minutes from winning and achieving our collective dream when it seemed like time stopped and they all stopped playing. I saw what was happening, we were so close to winning that somehow we all froze. I determined to change that energy, so I increased my energy and I tipped a ball and almost got a steal. Then, another opportunity came and I stole that pass and went all the way down to the other end to score a layup. This act of leadership woke my teammates up and we went to win the game.
Leadership often entails making difficult decisions or hard choices between two apparently good paths. Can you share a story with us about a hard decision or choice you had to make as a leader? I’m curious to understand how these challenges have shaped your leadership.
Almost ten years ago, I decided to run for a state Senate seat in Montana. The geographic area included in the seat included the town where I grew up and also the area where I live and the ranch with my husband on his historic family ranch. When I did an inner inventory of skills, I realized that I had worked as a journalist covering Congress, had worked at various state Legislatures as an advocate for rural ranchers and farmers. Also, I have spent more than thirty years advocating for constitutional protected property rights and other issues impacting agriculture and the families who live and work in rural America.
I had taught seminars and classes to both other attorneys and non-attorneys on legal and policy issues. Additionally, I was an entrepreneur founding my own law practice Lund Law, PLLC and employed up to seven employees at times. I had written and been published in a book on property rights, and I had published in academic legal journals. Most importantly, I lived on and worked beside my husband on our family ranch in Montana. I felt I had a full package of skills, experience and the desire to serve my district as a state leader.
In my survey of the other person running for office, I realized that he had not been to college and had not studied academically nor had the life experience that I had. I felt like the people deserved a choice. So, I entered the race.
Apparently, I hit the nerve of the local good ole boys’ network because they went to work immediately spreading rumors about me. Some of these rumors were spread through the vocal hotline of people sharing stories at the local coffee spot, or at the bar. Other rumors were spread through ads in the newspaper.
Due to my many years of writing and past experience of writing for the American Farm Bureau Association and other venues, I knew how to engage in a public battle of opinions. I wanted to mix it up and get into a head on public battle with my opponent and his supporters to respond to their personal attacks against me. My husband told me, “If you fight with a pig, you both get dirty, and the pig likes it.” I responded with vitriol that I too would like to get dirty. However, the still small voice in my heart told me to turn the other cheek and keep myself clean.
Towards the end of the campaign after months of personal untruths and a full-on public massacre of my persona, the number one supporter of my opponent took out an ad in which he said I was “a fraud, a Democrat and a cult leader.” My first response was anger and pain. Again, part of me wanted to respond and to go after my opponent with the same type of untruthful attack. Again, I took the high road and stayed positive.
In this hard experience there seemed to be two good choices:
- To win in our current culture of polarizing, personal damming battles in politics, I could have also engaged in a negative campaign against my opponent; and,
- To save my soul I could keep my integrity, feel the pain of such a personal, untruthful, horrendous attack, and take the high road without responding. I chose to not get dirty and defend myself with a like-kind nasty exchange. I lost the race and retained my soul.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. Let’s start with a simple definition. How do you personally define “leadership?”
I define leadership as embodiment of the highest parts of self in service to others. To be a leader I believe it is important to embody love, compassion, vision, equanimity, honor, ingenuity and divine integration.
Can you recall an experience from your childhood where you felt truly empowered? How does that moment inform your leadership style today?
As a child, I felt truly empowered when I escaped the house to be with my beloved horse friend Little Red. I wanted to escape the house because it was not safe to be around my mom. Little Red was blood bay color, — his mane was black and the rest of him was a deep shining red color. My parents bought him when he was green broke, which means that he was not well trained for riding. I was only five years old and was also not very well trained for riding. Most ranching families have a few really gentle horses for their children to learn how to ride with. In my case, I have a twin brother and he was not as courageous or horse crazy as I was. He got the gentle, safe horse, and I got Little Red. I loved Little Red because he was my only friend since we lived more than 80 miles from any town. I had two brothers, but they banded together and I was not always part of their camaraderie. Playing with Little Red got me out of the house and he and I would explore that large pasture around our house. We lived in the Missouri River breaks. Breaks means rough country covered with large sagebrush and sprinkled with deep ravines and crevices in the earth. In the breaks you can see forever and it feels like one is very small on the vastness of the earth. When I was outside with Little Red I felt free and like an adventurer. Since Little Red was not well trained, sometimes he would shy or in other words jump sideways with great speed and force. Due to my being so little and not well trained myself, I sometimes would fall off and hit the ground where I always hoped to not land on cactus or a rattlesnake. I would then have to walk back to the barn where Little Red would run. I felt angry and hurt because he had gotten rid of me. As soon as I walked closer to Little Red, I would remember how much I loved him and I would forgive him for his acting out. I would get back on and we would commence our adventures together. I learned to treat Little Red with respect and as I developed my riding skills, I also grew in my ability to engender his trust. Eventually, Little Red was willing to do anything for me. So much so that we jumped the fence together. He went wherever I pointed him because I had earned his trust. This time with Little Red informs my leadership style today because even though I sometimes get frustrated with my team or partners, I also know that for us to travel together and achieve what we are doing, sometimes I have to look past momentary setbacks or disappointments and continue forward so we can work harmoniously together. Little Red was not trying to hurt me. We were just learning how our relationship together worked for each of us. I spent many hours in the next years riding and learning with Little Red, who was my gateway to freedom.
Were there any role models in your early years who left a lasting impression on you? How has their influence manifested in your approach to leadership?
When I was a little girl, three to five years old, my parents would farm me out to a couple who sometimes worked for them. My parents were very busy trying to make our ranch viable during hard times. They had four children within six years of age. Since I loved Jim and Cora, I would sometimes go live with them for days or weeks. They were of Native American descent and belonged to one of the “landless” tribes, which means their tribe did not get a reservation. They lived in a simple little house with a sod roof located near the Missouri River. My time with Jim and Cora was very special to me and I loved being there and learning from Cora. Their home was a loving home. Jim pretty much spoiled me since I was a precocious, entertaining, sweet child. Cora on other hand made sure that I did not get too big for my britches. Since I was smart with words and my mind was quick, I sometimes was a bit too proud of myself. Cora taught me that in no uncertain terms should I ever act like I was better than anyone else because I could read or think faster. She taught me that if I were better at something than someone else, I should keep that to myself and help the other person get better. I am aware that without her loving boundary setting and teaching that I may not be as patient and willing to serve others today. I believe that true leadership is about always serving others. My mode of leadership today is that I sit back and observe those on my team and their individual strengths and weaknesses. Then, I buoy up their weaknesses and try to extend their strengths in how I lead them.
Many of us had a favorite book or story as a child. Is there a narrative that you were drawn to, and do you see its themes reflecting in your leadership journey?
My favorite book as a child was Black Beauty, an autobiographical memoir told by a horse. Black Beauty grew up with carefree days on a farm with his mother. As a child, I dreamed that his mom was my mom because she was so good to Black Beauty. After his childhood, Black Beauty’s life meandered through many hardships and tales of cruelty with some kindness sprinkled in as he worked pulling cabs in London. Black Beauty met his hard life with an elevated desire to be kind, compassionate and of service as he tried to serve all life around him including his horse friends who were struggling under the burdens of being a horse at that time. I can now see that I took Black Beauty’s voice and journey into my soul. I wanted to be beautiful and elegant in how I dealt with life’s blows like I imagined Black Beauty in my mind. Also, it was not lost on me that in the end Black Beauty’s life was good. This too helped me to believe that even though life seems hard at times, if I keep my head up and keep positive like Black Beauty things will turn out well. Mostly, I loved how Black Beauty took care of his horse friend Ginger and gave her encouragement during hard times. To me Black Beauty embodied honor, compassion and ingenuity in how he dealt with the hard times that came upon him by greedy, unkind humans who used him and other horses for personal gain.
Many leaders find that their greatest strengths arise from overcoming adversity. Can you share an experience from your early life that was difficult at the time, but you find still lingers in your thoughts and informs your actions today?
When I was a young teenager my mom was struggling with alcohol addiction and her unresolved childhood trauma. There were times when I would find her with a gun over legs threatening to commit suicide. My heart told me that if I loved enough I could reach her through her fog of depression and help her want to live and get better. Years later when I told my therapist about this event, she asked me why I didn’t protect myself because my mom could have hurt me. I told her that I believed that if I stayed vulnerable, loved with all my heart and told my mom that I loved her and that what she was experiencing was not the real her, that my love could help my mom find her way back to herself. It always worked. There were multiple times that I faced my mom and her inner demons with open love and she would see me standing in front of her sharing my love with tears running down my face and then realize that she did not want to hurt me. So, she would pull herself together for a while until the spiral went downward again. My dad told me after I was an adult that he believes that without my love, my mom would not have lived through those years. Based on this experience and my inner heart direction, I believe that loving others even during adversity is the key to resolving all life’s problems. My mom lived to the age of 88 and died of natural causes, not her own hand, thank God.
Looking back at your childhood, are there particular ‘first-time’ experiences — like your first triumph, your initial setback, or your inaugural leadership responsibility — that you believe were pivotal in molding your leadership ethos?”
Looking back, my time with Little Red was my incubator in which I learned how much trust and fair leadership was crucial if I wanted another part of life to partner with me and allow me to lead. Little Red and I were both young, frisky and a bit rebellious. Little Red was three or four years old, which in human years would be late teens early twenties. I was five to twelve years old during my time growing with Little Red. Now, Little Red had a mind of his own and was a bit ornery. Some people use force to try to make their horses or others do what they want. Little Red, like most horses or people, did not respond well if I did anything remotely like use force. Working with Little Red, I learned to be a clear communicator, to give firm direction if needed, but to be forgiving and willing to start over if somehow he and I were not on the same page. If I pushed Little Red too hard to do things my way instead of honor his being in our partnership, he would sulk up and ignore my attempts to direct him. If I treated him with love, fairness and an open heart while being present with him, he would do anything for me. He even jumped a solid fence for me. I had watched riders jumping horses over fences on TV. I didn’t realize that the fences on TV were made of poles that would come down if the horse hit them with his feet. So, I just rode Little Red at a solid fence that was almost as high as he was tall, and asked him to jump it. He did.
From your personal experiences and reflections, what are the ‘5 Pillars of Effective Leadership’ you believe in?
1 . Do not misuse power — My horse Mystic, who is a large draft mare, taught me a valuable lesson about my inner misuse of power. We were at a natural horsemanship clinic where most of the other horses were smaller, and more athletic Quarter Horse type horses. Our teacher at the clinic had us do these exercises to see how flexible and soft our horses were in responding to our leadership riding ques. At that clinic, I was not soft and flexible inside. Instead, I had flashed back into my competitive self and was not present with Mystic. I was observing others in the class and comparing myself and Mystic to them. I wanted to be the “best,” and I wanted Mystic to react and turn on a dime like the little horses in the class. Instead of being a good, soft leader for Mystic, I resorted to jamming. Now, I was not jerking or spurring her. But, as we all know, we can jam another part of life, or even ourselves, without leaving outer signs. I was jamming her with my energy. Mystic, like many horses, is extremely sensitive, and she is also smart and kind. She did not react to me by acting out. Instead, she graciously ignored my increasingly forceful, demanding energy. The more she ignored me, the more I felt frustrated, and the more I increased my age-old strategy of misusing power. The teacher gently asked me if she could ride Mystic. I said, “Of course,” got off Mystic and handed her the reins. Before she got on Mystic, the teacher gently pulled the reins from side to side to see if Mystic would give to pressure. As soon as Mystic would respond the teacher would release the pressure. Soon the teacher and Mystic were connected, communicating and in harmony. Unlike the teacher, I had just increased the pressure and failed to give Mystic any release for trying to respond to my requests. Soon, the teacher was riding Mystic around and Mystic was moving softly, in total partnership and seemed like a ballerina. I had lost myself in my ego and then misused power to try to make Mystic move, which is laughable because with Mystic’s size she does not have to do anything I ask her unless she wants to. After the class, I was riding Mystic back to our horse trailer and it seemed that Mystic told me the problem we were having was not her fault. Humbly, I agreed with her because I had witnessed how she was my teacher. This experience with Mystic gave me a new awareness that my inner habit of misusing force on myself as well as in outer situations to get what I wanted was an outdated strategy that not only did not work well in my goal of being a good leader with Mystic, but also did not work well in any other area of my life.
2 . Never ask anyone to do something I wouldn’t do — As a leader, I believe that leading by example is much more powerful and palatable than leading by command. For example, I went to my office in town last week and the dishes from eating lunch were dirty and in the sink. I am not really a neat freak and probably could use an internal upgrade myself in this category. However, I do really care that our office is picked up and tidy when clients come to meet with us. Also, since I have been working from my home office at our family ranch much of the time, my office along with other areas need some tidying up, sorting and basically some attention. Since I am aware that I am part of the problem, and I want to be part of the solution, instead of picking one of my employees and telling them keeping the sink and other places tidy was now their job and I was watching, I decided that I first had to clean up my act. So, I made a mental note and within the next few weeks as my schedule allows, I will clean the common area and my office. I can do this in harmony and balance with my work and personal life flow because we rarely have clients in our office. Yet, I want our office and our team energy to be stellar. I will do my part to be the solution and then I will ask and expect the rest of my team to follow my example.
3 . Let my team know that making mistakes is not the end of the world, and please do not make the same mistake again — When I interview prospective team members I let them know that I believe to succeed and be excellent we all have to be free to make a mistake. Based on my experience I know that when I am pushing myself to excel at anything there are times when I have not yet mastered what I am doing. However, my profession is the law and my team at the office has high demands due to our profession. I let the prospective team member know that my main rule is that if they think they have made a mistake, any mistake, they tell me as soon as possible because I can only fix what I know about. I also let them know that making the same mistake twice is something I frown upon. If there is a third time for the same mistake, I let them know that we will probably have a talk to figure out together what has to happen to stop making the same mistake going forward. Personally, and as a team leader I strive for inner and outer excellence, and I want my team to know that our place of work is a place where there is room to grow and try new things.
4 . Create an atmosphere where team members buy into ownership and responsibility for providing our professional service — I am aware that as a leader I am not patient if my team members are not self-starters. This is something we talk about in an initial interview because if the team members I hire are not self-starters, neither one of us will be happy working together. Even though I only have one legal partner, I want all team members to believe they matter and to take ownership for their roles in our business together. I feel much safer when all team members believe their voice matters and that their viewpoint is critical to our success. As a leader, I rarely step in with an order. If I do, I have thought long and hard about whatever it is and it is a serious matter. Otherwise, I feel comfortable when all members of my team feel free to tell me what they think I should do in regards to the business. Even though I strive hard to create a healthy team atmosphere with no drama, I do not abdicate my leadership duties and my taking responsibility for what goes wrong regardless of who erred because no matter what the buck stops with me.
5 . Have clear expectations and communicate with clarity — I am aware that Brene’ Brown teaches that clarity is kindness. Personally, I am still a work in progress on this skill. I like others, get lost in my head and focus. Add in my reluctance to hurt somebody, and I sometimes do not do as well at communicating with clarity as I would like. Since I worship at the altar of efficiency, I believe that direct, plain, kind, clear communication is key to all success and I continue to seek self improvement in this area of my life.
In your role as a leader, what thoughts or concerns keep you awake at night? How do these reflections guide your decisions and leadership?
In my role as a leader the concerns that keep me awake at night center around my awareness that as long as we as individuals allow ourselves to be baited into forgetting our true selves to engage in polarity on any issue, such as politics, religion, social, race or any other issue, we will never be able to solve the collective problems that so need our attention in harmony, honor and with love. My concerns are based on my more than 30-year experience of having covered Congress and the United State Supreme Court as a journalist, and working as an attorney in litigation and in lobbying various state legislatures and Congress on policy issues. I am aware that so long as I allow myself to be hooked into a polarity opposing this or that with strong emotions, I am part of the problem and not part of the solution. I know it seems so righteous to dislike, hate or join in community to oppose this or that political party, religion,idea or person. Based on my many working on environmental and other policy issues, I am aware that I and others seem to believe that if we advocate and push for policies and laws that we believe are best, we are doing our part to solve important issues impacting our lives. In my experience, the harder I fight the more energy I waste and the more likelihood I have of generating an equal and opposite reaction from the polar opposite of my position. Also, my focusing outward to change others seems to create a bypass from me focusing on the one person I can change — myself. So, instead of doing the hard work of first embodying all those ideas and/or ways of being that I want to impose on others through policies or laws, I can bypass my inner work and massage my consciousness by joining in with others in polarity against someone or something. Creating, selling and firing up polarities between people is a multi-million dollar business that grows and thrives when I allow myself to buy into the desire to change others through outer action instead of changing myself first through inner action. My role model is Mahatma Gandhi who first worked in South Africa and then India to change government to better serve the people. He inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. He taught that his hardest task was changing Mahatma Gandhi, and that he had more success with attempting outer change instead. Yet, he taught and I believe the way we change the world is to change ourselves first.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I am committed to continual striving to embody love and live wholeheartedly, and to share what I have understood, experienced and embodied related to transformational healing. My dream is that we all join in community to start a revolution for wholeness that starts inside each of us, and from that foundation we transform the world to the place we dream of.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Here is my Equine Gestalt Coaching webpage. https://www.fourhorsesforwholeness.com/. Also, here is my Lund Law PLLC webpage. https://www.lund-law.com/.
Thank you for the time you spent sharing these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!