Vulnerability vs Discernment
On Sharing Everything: What I’m Still Learning About Being the New Kid
I get a bit dizzy as a founder. A boozy blend of passion and purpose within a field I love.
I’ve always been social impact-oriented. Helping people see and then gain access to the opportunities around them for a joyful and productive life has been the driving force behind everything I’ve committed myself to. Now I get to connect the years I spent working in public health partnerships and communications to horses, and it feels like a nearly inevitable celebration of body, heart, and mind.
When I started building Unbridled Rising, I did what I always do: I read everything, talked to everyone, connected every dot I could find. I mapped the landscape of equine-assisted learning and psychotherapy. I traced the gaps. I built a framework I believed in that is grounded in evidence, clear in its logic, and honest about where the field was falling short.
Then I picked up the phone and called one of the largest therapeutic riding centers in the country.
I shared everything. Strategy, curriculum structure and design, measurement tools, ideas for referral pipelines. All of it. I’m not someone who believes in scarcity. I believe the more we work in genuine alignment toward the same goals, the more impact we can make. And I meant every word of that when I made that call.
They were excited. They wanted to pilot the curriculum. And then the gentle deflation: I wasn’t a licensed mental health practitioner. Not a problem, I told them, I can hire for that, or build a partnership. But that wasn’t really the issue. The real issue, as I eventually understood it, was that they didn’t want another organization inside their brand, another name attached to their program design.
Fair. Completely understood. We parted with good faith and intact relationships. I filed it under “not the right fit” and kept moving.
Then I attended a conference at their facility.
I sat in a session about their mental health program and I recognized it. The populations they were now serving. The measurement tools they were now using. The framing I had brought to them was reproduced without acknowledgment. Not a word to me, privately or publicly. Not even a nod.
I want to be careful here, because I need to say this clearly: nothing I presented was uniquely mine. I’m not a researcher. I don’t hold any patents. What I had done was something I’m genuinely good at: synthesizing broad swaths of research, field experience, and practical knowledge into a coherent, actionable perspective. I had identified a gap and named a way to fill it. No trademark. That’s just clear thinking. Dot connecting
But still. It stung.
What I felt first was a complicated form of validation. It worked, I was right, the idea had legs. And then, trailing behind that, something harder to name. It wasn’t so much a betrayal or suprise. But it was more like: oh. So this is how it goes sometimes.
I’m the new kid: I came into this field from the outside, which means I came in with both less credibility and less defensiveness. I didn’t have turf to protect. I didn’t have decades of institutional loyalty shaping my imagination. I have fresh eyes, a systems thinker’s brain, and a genuine conviction that the field is ready for something new because the positive impact it can have on so many people’s lives is huge.
What I didn’t have was a felt sense of when generosity becomes exposure.
I’ve been told, more than once, that I overshare. I used to take mild offense at that characterization. Oversharing implies carelessness, or naivety, or some kind of failure of judgment. But that’s not what it is for me. When I share openly, it’s intentional. I’m making an invitation: come get excited about this with me, come contribute, come build something together. I’m betting on alignment and good faith.
Most of the time, that bet pays off. And this time, it didn’t, at least not in the way I’d imagined.
I’m still not entirely sure what the lesson is. I don’t think it’s stop sharing. I don’t think it’s trust no one. I’m not wired for scarcity, and I don’t intend to become someone who is. But I think there’s something important in the distinction between sharing your vision and sharing your playbook, between inviting people into your north star and handing them the map before you’ve established that you’re actually going to the same place.
What I know for certain: Unbridled Rising is more nimble than any large institution. I can move faster, adapt more readily, and build with intention rather than inertia. The work I’m doing is mine, not because no one else could have thought of it, but because I’m the one who’s going to see it through. And maybe one day, that center will be a client of mine. Stranger things have happened.
For now, I’m still learning how to be the new kid in a field I love. Learning when to throw the doors open and when to build a little further before I do. Learning that protecting your work isn’t the opposite of generosity…it might actually be what makes generosity sustainable.
Authenticity is power. I still believe that. I’m just getting clearer on what it means to own it.