In Episode 3 of Giving Horses a Voice, Sharon Wilsie explores what leadership truly is — and what it is not — in relationship to horses.

For years, the industry has taught humans to use big energy to create compliance. But the horse moving others with force isn’t the leader — that horse is often dysregulated. Real leadership in a herd is quiet, bonded, and rooted in connection.

In Horse Speak®, we call this Inner Zero — being regulated and connectable with clear boundaries. Horses are social creatures with strong attachment bonds. When they are getting along, it’s subtle and organized — not loud.

Sharon shares insights from observing rescue herds, tracking gestures, postures, and signals, and noticing how elder horses create visible relaxation. She also demonstrates tail swish messages (best seen on video) and discusses the “active calm” presence horses choose to follow.

Referencing the shift in awareness that began around Black Beauty, this episode invites you to move beyond dominance and into relational leadership.

The more connectable you are — with good boundaries — the more horses can trust, follow, and thrive.

Are you ready to listen?

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The word "Zero" comes from work with the neurodivergent community. It describes an internal state of regulation and resiliency — the place inside us where we can pause, process, and choose our response.

From Zero, we can truly hear horses.

Horses are prey animals. Their instinct is to move away from perceived danger. What feels inconvenient to us is often intelligent survival. As a fellow social species, when we ask horses to follow or trust us, we must check — and double check — the environment we’re inviting them into.

Sometimes it’s as subtle as pointing to an object and using a tail swish gesture to say, “You don’t have to worry about that.”

When we see horses through an ethological lens — not as beasts of burden, but as socially intelligent prey animals — we begin giving them something powerful: A voice.

And that voice starts with our willingness to listen.

In this first episode of Giving Horses a Voice, Sharon Wilsie shares the origin story behind her work with equine body language — and the turning point that changed everything.

Sharon explains how years of working with neurodivergent students and rescue horses led her to notice something most people miss — the slow, precise micro-gestures horses use to communicate. Not behavior. Not obedience. Not pressure-and-release mechanics.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• The difference between training responses and relational communication

• What “inner zero” first meant before it had a name

• How observing horses without interfering revealed a conversational structure

This is not an episode about techniques.

It’s about perception.

If you’ve ever felt like your horse was trying to tell you something — but you didn’t have the map to understand it — this is where that map begins.