The Silent Lesson

There’s a truth I’ve seen play out in the arena with horses, in the counselling room, in leadership spaces, and around the kitchen table with family.

We teach — whether we mean to or not. Every moment, we are transmitting a message.

With horses, I often say: we are always training. We are either training what we want… or we are unintentionally training what we don’t. A horse is learning from the release we give, the behaviour we ignore, the tension we hold in our body, and the energy we bring before we ever pick up a rope or give a cue.

And the more I witness humans, the more I realise: it’s no different with us.

🐴 What Horsemanship Taught Us About Teaching Without Words

Great horsemen have echoed this for generations.

• Warwick Schiller reminds us that every interaction teaches a horse something, whether we’re conscious of it or not.

• Ray Hunt believed that the horse is always learning from the quality of our feel and timing.

• Tom and Bill Dorrance taught that our presence is what the horse reads, long before our technique.

The lesson

? We don’t get to “switch off” being a teacher just because we’re not in a formal teaching moment. Horses learn us, not our method.

👶 Children, Too, Are Learning Who We Are, Not What We Say

In parenting and education, this truth is echoed again and again.

• Dr. Shefali Tsabary teaches that children respond to the parent’s inner state, not their lectures.

• Maria Montessori observed that children “absorb everything” from their environment and the adults within it.

• Albert Bandura’s research shows we learn more from watching behaviour than from being told what to do.

Children learn courage when they see us take brave steps.They learn boundaries when they see us model them.They learn regulation when they witness us self-regulate.

We teach even in our silence — sometimes especially in our silence.

🧠 Leaders Teach Culture With Every Choice

In leadership, the same principle plays out — sometimes with great impact, sometimes with great harm.

• John Maxwell famously said, “Leadership is influence.” We influence with everything we do.

• Patrick Lencioni teaches that leaders shape culture not by values on a wall, but by what they consistently tolerate or reinforce.

• Brené Brown reminds us: we are the model. We either model courage, or we model avoidance.

Leaders don’t teach through their PowerPoints — they teach through how they show up in the hard moments.

People don’t remember the mission statement. They remember how it felt to work with you.

🌱 On the Spiritual Path, Our Being is the Teaching

Spiritual teachers point to the same universal truth:

• Thich Nhat Hanh taught that our presence is itself a transmission.

• Ram Dass said, “We teach best by the way we live.”

• Eckhart Tolle reminds us that our state of consciousness affects everyone around us.

The spiritual teaching is clear:Your energy arrives before you do.

✨ The Uncomfortable Mirror

If this is true — and it is — then there’s a confronting reflection here:

We teach even when we don’t want to. We teach even when we’re tired, triggered, or checked out. We teach with our reactions far more than with our intentions.

So the question becomes:

If someone only learned from my energy, behaviour, and presence this week — what would they have learned?

🔥 A Conscious Invitation

Whether we are with a horse, a child, a client, a partner, or a team, we are always teaching:

• Are we teaching safety, or are we teaching people to shrink?

• Are we teaching calm regulation, or the normality of chaos?

• Are we teaching authenticity, or performance and perfectionism?

To teach consciously is not to be perfect — it is to be aware.

It starts with noticing what our body, breath, tone, and energy are saying on our behalf.

🧡 A Closing Thought

Horses taught me this truth first: I am always communicating — even when I think I’m not.

Humans taught me the weight of it. Spirit taught me the responsibility of it. Life continues to teach me the humility of it.

We are all teachers. The question is not whether we are teaching…but what we are teaching through the way we choose to live.

And lastly, people don't remember what you say, they remember how you made them feel.