Was raised in northern California, six miles from the nearest town. Dad was an electrician, but we were surrounded by small farms and ranches running sheep, and or Angora goats, and cattle. When I was five, the neighbors were doing something with the goats. Asked the old man what they were doing and he told me to go find out. After that I was there anytime I saw them doing anything with the animals. Parents would tell me to take a hike, just be home by dark, so my childhood was spent running around and joining in when people were doing anything with the animals. Before I was ten, I was wondering why sheep, goats, and horses grazed together but cattle scattered out. Never accepted the "thats what cattle do" answer.
In the beginning I wanted to just work on one ranch until I retired. Without the moving around I would have never had the mentors which kept me thinking and experimenting. Several mentors wouldn't tell me what to do, but ask me questions about how I did something, then ask me to figure out how I was doing it. This is why I sometimes answer a question with a question. The answer is right there in front of you IF (and only if) you think about it rather than grasping onto what you assume the answer is.
I got hooked on to grass management in the 70's and started following Savory's work. Other than the fences, it made sense to me. Through a lot of experimentation in different environments, I eventually figured out how to have cattle behave as the wild herds of herbivores do so that larger places can practice biologically correct grazing without adding fences.
Several things I've learned along the way are
1) Just because it was in a book, or taught in school doesn't necessarily mean its right.
2) More often than not we go through the motions of this profession without thinking about (or knowing) how we are doing things. When something goes wrong, the tendency is to blame the animal without wondering if their "wrong" behavior is a response to what we are doing.
3) Trying to learn stockmanship or horsemanship through videos, lectures and demonstrations is the worst way to learn. It takes exposure to the concepts through demonstration, then being walked through it, then doing it alone while being critiqued (in as close to actual working conditions as possible.)
4) We're only beginning to expose the tip of the iceberg of soil health and how we can influence it with grazing. Concerning how we can affect it by changing our livestock's behavior (without fences,) the iceberg is only beginning to come into view. There's a lot more to be discovered.
5) The most overlooked thing in grass management is plant succession. Learn how to distinguish when it is heading to, or away from the direction we want.
6) Never get complacent on your methods. There's always more to learn, and small changes you can make to get even better.