CSChristoffel SneijdersThree brains: head, heart and gut for decisions you keep deferring

How Understanding Your 3 Brains Can Improve Coaching & Leadership Skills? Head, Heart, Gut Explained

26 May 2023 · 3 min

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3:04

In this talk, Christoffel Sneijders explains how the human brain can be conceptualized as three distinct systems – the gut (instinctual, egocentric), the heart (empathetic, caregiver) and the head (analytical, perfectionist). For each brain he outlines its primary strengths, the common pitfall that arises when it dominates, and the health or behavioral risks that follow, citing Gabor Maté’s book When the Body Says No as a reference for stress‑related illness. He illustrates the gut brain as a “crocodile” that prioritises self‑survival, the heart brain as a parent‑like figure that puts others first, and the head brain as a knowledge‑seeker that chases perfect answers. The speaker warns that over‑reliance on any single brain leads to burnout, anxiety, insomnia, depression, toxic leadership or chronic disease, and encourages coaches and leaders to recognize these patterns to achieve balanced self‑care and more effective interpersonal dynamics.

Chapters

We are champions. Queen. This is the Formula 1 Max Verstappen. This is the gold medal winner. This is the CEO. This is you who pushes the best out of yourself to do amazing coaching. You like to win. If you have that as a normal setup, your pitfall is me first, because your gut brain acts just like the crocodile. I eat, you don't eat. The fear of a crocodile and your gut brain is actually vulnerability, because if it would depend on another, the crocodile will never know if it will survive. Your gut will not know if I can survive. Your gut brain is an egocentric, not social being in you, but it is freaking amazing. It's Arnold Schwarzenegger, it's Total Recall, it's the Rambo, but it's It gets your stuff done. As Michael Gershwin said, it has a shitty job, but he's shitty good at it. Your heart, just to take care of everybody else. This is the mommy and the daddy who woke— wake up 5 times a night to give their little baby food. This is the coach who picks up the phone because you know your client is in stress, even if it's weekend. Even if you're at dinner, because you know he or she is at stress. So what's your pitfall then? Others first. So most coaches, or most people who have a really dominant gut brain, are less in self-care. They are the people that Gabor Maté describes in his book When the Body Says No. What's the fear of a gut brain, of a heart brain? Rejection. You cannot annoy a heart-brained person who's more dominant in there than say, I don't like you, you can go. And if people like to see how it is, just put your dog away. Your dog is horrendously sad because dogs are almost heart-brained people. What's your, what's your beautiful head does? It just likes to analyze. I like to know. What's the pitfall? It likes to give you the perfect answer. And it has a huge issue for mistakes. So people have a really high gut brain. Oh, just say, oh, you did it wrong. Really? You stab them with a knife. So what happens if one of the brains is really extremely dominant? If you have a need to know too much or a need to know, you fall in perfectionism, anxiety, or insomnia. Because your head will not rest until it finds an answer. If you have too much heart pain and need to stay connected, sooner or later you'll have burnout, depression, or maybe even chronic diseases. Hence, Gabor Maté's book, When the Body Says No. If you have too much I need to succeed, you have toxic leadership, anxiety, you are— you have control freak and power-driven society around you.