ICF Slovenia Webinar: The 3 Brains Secret - How Aligning Head, Heart, And Gut Drives Success

I would just now like to briefly introduce Christoffel Sneijders, who is a PCC accredited coach with ICF and on his way to MCC shortly. He's working as visiting professor of behavioral organizational leadership at the EAI Business School Madrid. He's executive coach and trainer and works as well as clinical hypnotherapist and psychotherapist. He is founder of You Academy, where he's teaching accredited ICF 3 Brains Coaching Certification Training. And last but not least, very importantly, he's the author of How Men and Women Fit and Finally Understand Your Partner with the 3 Brain Theory. Groundbreaking book really on how we can make all our relationship Flourish. Apart from that, he is master in NLP and Reiki. And the thing I find very interesting about him is his experience. He was walking on fire really recently, as he told me. And Christoffel, I'm just handing the microphone over to you and inviting you to say more about Thank you, Nena.

And what she didn't tell is that Nena is almost a supervisor as a coach, and she also was my supervisor for some moments to help me to become even a better coach. So all the gratitude also to her, and thanks also for inviting me here. And yes, what I shared with Nena, besides that, all the other things I learned, I also am an official firewalker instructor, so I can teach people to walk on Hot calls. But the most important thing, what I also remember, that's what I have here, that is say a broken arrow. And in the course, you have to put this arrow on your throat, on your soft point, and then break it. And I can tell you, if you ever like to experience your own fears, this was it for me at least. Because everything in my logical mindset, that's not possible. And everything in my gut said really, okay, Chris, it was nice knowing you. Can we have some text for after your funeral? And of course, in that state, it didn't work. And after some minutes, after aligning myself, it could happen. But it always reminds me what we are capable of. If you are fearful, you stop. And if we are not fearful anymore, amazing things can happen. And I could actually feel and practice the 3 brains on myself in that moment that I almost was, um, now doing something in my boxer shorts from fear. So I'm really happy that we're all here. And what are we going to discuss and what we're going to do? So if you have questions in between, always say you can always stop and ask, raise your hand, or go into the chat. For my objective is, is that not that I share my story, but actually that you get all your benefits out of it. Because I can talk hours and hours about this. I deliver training in it, so it makes sense. But my much more important thing is after you leave here, you really have something like, I know what's happening, and how can I assist my clients to really let them achieve long-lasting change? Because that's actually what is, say, my deeper passion, and not how can we say yes now, but how can we say yes for a longer period of time.

So what we're going to do, Nina already shared it.

What are actually the 3 blind spots that stops us of actually creating long-lasting change? There are more, but what's there? What could we do as a passive solution? A demo, and Petra is so kindly to be, say, the client.

Say, a special gift to you.

Say, if you'd like to know more of this, Of course, Q&A, closing, and all the other things you like to do. Now, what's my intention? That you get those insights, a little bit of knowledge, so you can really achieve that. So I start with, say, one of the people who inspired me also, because I also work as a therapist in trauma work. I will not say I love trauma, but I love to help people overcome trauma. And what the person said, Bessel van Gogh, he's a psychiatrist and professor in Boston University. He is writer of the bestselling book, Body Keeps the Score. And what he says, and it's rather amazing, this is my point, he says what he became aware of, that the memory of life experiences are encoded in your viscera. That's actually underneath your diaphragm, what I call the gut brain. And almost every autoimmune disorder, muscular problems, and other kind of issues are actually coming from that part, all those little things you stored there. So, and if that's true, then coaching therapy needs really to re-change how they work on things. And this is a person who's in his mid-70s and is since his 20s a psychiatrist and worked really the old-fashioned way from psychiatrist up to all kinds of other things. And someone became aware that the normal things we do as a psychiatrist or coach or Psychologists are not good enough to really embed change. The body keeps the score. Amazing book if you like to read it, by the way. Now, so this is what you know already. I skipped right away because you know already about me. But what made me now really— the audio seems disturbed. So if that's me, then what I do right away is change to the old-fashioned way with a cable.

See, is this better?

Yes. Okay. Yes, this is better now.

Yeah, my cable. Excuse me for this. That's why I use my little—

what's this about the quality? So yes, external microphones there, so that's good. Okay, so that's So that's it. So what made me now really dive deeper? Because just like you, mostly I'm already 25 years behavioral trainer, coach, therapist. And actually, that is that we like to do the best as a coach for coachees. We like to help them as best as we can. But when I did my research, I became aware that the success rate of us and most kind of therapies is less than 50%. Culture change projects, 4 out of 10 really are successful. This is information from McKinsey and Gallup organization and IBM. Agile projects, the same. Psychology has a success rate between 15 and 50%. Of course, they have heavy issues, but still it's not a lot. Psychology, business coaching, and what I mean with success, that is not happiness, how happy is your client, but after 1 year what kind of behavior or beliefs are really still changed one year after the sessions we did. Life coaching, even, I say, lesser score. And I found that, what I say, appealing. The same if I did my coaching and therapy work, I always had some like do amazing stuff and people fall back. What can I do about that?

Christoffel, can you maybe just put your volume off? your, uh, phones. Yeah, perfect.

Okay, I can put them on. Yes, thanks, Naina, because I can hear myself perfectly, but that's not the standard. For everybody who did NLP once or saw Anthony Robbins, he screams out, decisions are the core of everything we do. And actually, that makes sense. Everything we do is based on decision. Every habit we do is based on decision. Maybe a subconscious decision, but this decision that we can decide even to change our breathing, we can decide to take a sip of water, we can decide to do something, not do things, something. Maybe today you had some coaching clients, they made an action list at the end, but somewhere they will decide today or tomorrow if they do that action list. It's all based on the decision, or if they fall back to their old patterns. So for me, it was something like, okay, how can we change the core of the decision-making? Who is making the decisions? Yes, the presentation, so the slides will be available. So I sent the slides to Nena, and she can— and actually she has already the slides in PDF, and she can send them out. I believe sharing is caring. If you can use this, love to do so. Of course, if you use it somewhere, please use me as a reference that you got it from me. So based on the decisions, then is the question actually, who is in charge of our decisions? If you think about it, a lot of people say, oh, there are my habits. Then I ask, who's in charge of your habits? Oh, that are my beliefs. Okay, who's in charge of your beliefs? Oh, that's my emotions. Okay, who's in charge of your emotions? If you can bottling up somewhere, you come aware. Hey, maybe it's something inside me. Maybe my brain, maybe my body, but something makes that decision. And for me, it was always the question: What is that? Because probably, just like me, you like to know what's happening. So let's do a little test just to make you active. Let me see. We have pulling here. I will start the poll, and the question is actually just from your first reaction. Say you're going to work somewhere; you have the choice from two bosses. The work is the same, but you have the choice of two bosses. So I have to launch and see how it works. And the first boss is a vegetarian. He always goes to bed at the same time. Is a non-smoker, not drinker. Is structured, has a love for art, and keeps his promises. That's boss number one. Door opens. Boss number two is an alcoholic, a smoker, doesn't sleep enough, was just allowed to college, finished it when he was allowed, but he finished it. Lost his father at a young age. He also has a love of art and knows what's right and wrong. So now in the polling, just choose: Would you like to work for boss one or boss two? And there is no right or wrong, just what's your first decision you make? Because now we have to make a decision based on this information. One person says boss too, so still a lot of people did not choose. Do you know all how polling works or how to choose? Because I'm wondering if the polling works. Oh, okay, jongeren, please. Nou, het is al in, not in, not in two.

Boss number one.

Boss number, the boss number one becomes popular, I see. Just wait a little moment. So some 10 people answered. So boss number 1 is the most popular in this month. I just entered the poll just for, for the sake of the session. Everybody else probably also made a choice. Okay, so I can close the poll. So now, who is boss number 1 and who is boss number 2? Let's open the doors. Okay, the people who chose for number 1, welcome! You are part of now Adolf Hitler's team. And the people who chose boss number 2, you're now part of Winston Churchill's team. Now, of course, you could ask, why did you do this test? Because we always make decisions. We make decisions with the information we have. And say somewhere in your logical mind, or maybe in your feelings, you chose for left or right based on your values, Your belief systems, your habits, what you like and don't like. There's part logic and part emotions to your decision, and that's what we always do. So it doesn't mean you're bad people, just means that based on this information you chose this. So this is how we work in decision-making. So if we go on, when we are working as a coach, most of us like to change the conscious mind Hoping to change the subconscious mind where all the beliefs, emotions— yeah, the second question is for the poll later on. Yeah, so the, the poll, the second question comes later to get your information. So sorry about that, I'm not the expert in polling, but it will be later. I found it hard to choose. As first, I went for boss 2, but if you were actually an alcoholic, his capacity may be affected. But right and wrong are very crucial. You're right. Daniel, Daniel, Daniel. I saw the— I saw actually a documentary about Winston Churchill, and he really loved alcohol. And in that part, Adolf Hitler was extremely boring. That's about— we can discuss if his, uh, if his judgments were really impaired by all his habits he had, because he did some amazing things. And so when we coach people, we work on the logical mind. The conscious mind, in the hope to change belief system, values, experiences. I like the boss is not perfect. So true. But again, actually, I like the boss who's not perfect. Is that a logical decision or is that an emotional decision? So that's where we come in. Now, based on that, I worked so much on working on the subconscious, but Just like you, the subconscious is not tangible. Where is your subconscious? I always asked all my teachers. I had to ask, where's the subconscious? And some people asked there. Then they came with stories about that your brain is only 10% active and 90% is not active. And all kinds of stories came aware until I came aware that there's actually more. And based on the last, now I would say 10, 15 years, on all the research I did and all the courses I did, I came aware We have actually 3 blind spots. What's the first one? We have actually 3 brains, and we come back to that later. 3 brains, and they have their own authority, they have their own decision-making, they have their own things what they find important. The second one is that most of us, we communicate, or as a leader, we lead from the wrong brain. For engaging people and to make success. The third one is that how we learn. There's a huge difference between new learning and changing things you already know. We don't do this webinar because it didn't fit, and I thought it's better to touch with the things that I really can touch than to put even more in depth. If you like to know more of it You can always send me an email. 3 brains. Let's dive in that. What do I know with 3 brains and why it's actually true? Maybe you heard of it, maybe dismissed it or not. So I didn't do a poll, but before we start, are there people who actually don't believe we have 3 brains? That your heart and your gut is not a brain. And it's totally allowed to think so, because up to 10 years ago I had the same. And I come aware that actually scientifically it's proven. In the old days, and maybe you taught people the same way, this is shared. We have a neocortex, a limbic brain, and a reptilian brain. Now, actually, the word reptilian brain is scientifically wrong. That we have an emotional brain is actually all scientifically wrong in that part. And that's not coming from me, that's from neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett. She writes about it in, uh, The Origin of Emotions, plus about 7.5 lessons about the brain. So reptilian brain, emotional brain, mammal brain, that's in charge. It's not true. It's scientifically bunked. And by the way, all the animals have the buildup for these 3 brains, even reptilians. So if you go and would open your, uh, snake— please don't do it— you will find he has a reptilian brain, a snake. He has part of limbic brain, and he even has a little layer of neocortex brain. Only that little snake did not develop it in the way we have it. So DNA-wise, reptilians and we have the same possibilities to have this brain, only based on other DNAs it does not grow so much. So actually there is not scientifically like they said in the past, we have a reptilian brain, then later in evolution we create a Emotional brain, and even later in evolution we create a neocortex brain. Uh-uh, they are there already with all of them. Scientifically it's there. Now if you think about that, that we all have it, therefore animality starts thinking, hey, then that's rather interesting. So there is no difference between us and reptilians, then how does it work? Because we are totally different than reptilians. And And actually, then we come across our ancestor. And you can put it in the, in the, in the chat. What kind of living creature is this? This is still a creature that is alive nowadays. You can find it in the sea. I will help you. This is a living creature. You could call it an animal, but let's call it a creature. What kind of living creature is this? An octopus, a squid. Daniel, you're close, but it is not. An octopus has 9 brains. Uh, Naina, you're not allowed to give any answers anymore. You're too smart, and that's a positive thing. It's a sea cucumber, almost like—

Really? It is? I didn't know.

No, it's not. It's not. Look, I'm teasing you. It's an urchin. That is something like a snail kind of animal, is really close to this, by the way. But what is now the most amazing thing of this, of this, of our ancestor? And when you look at it, what does it not have? N-O-T have. What, what is it missing compared with us? You can put it in the chat or just speak out. It doesn't have a brain. Daniela, absolutely, it doesn't have a brain. No brain. Yes, it— this is really a no-brainer, this little creature. What it doesn't have— it doesn't have a heart and it doesn't have a head. It's actually a living god if you would make it extremely black and white. Never tell the sea cucumber he's a living god because maybe he will do some horrible things with you. But this living creature Can be alive, is extremely successful in the sea, and does not need a heart or a head. So we as coaches, how would you coach this little animal if it cannot listen to you and it doesn't have any logic? That will be a hard one. But actually, 500 million years ago, we all are somewhere coming from this kind of creatures. Every reptilian, every mammal, every dog, every human being, somewhere deep, deep, deep, deep, far away, we have this as our ancestor, this kind of animals. Lisa Barrett-Filpin even talks about another kind of little creature that's almost like a little plant, but this is more understandable, or you can see it a little bit better. So if you now just think without all the knowledge you have, without all the things, and just think logical, if this animal or this living creature can be alive without a head or a heart, and just imagine that we have a head, a heart, and a gut, which of the 3 would be the most important? The head, the heart, or the gut?

The gut.

Absolutely, Petra. Okay, just thinking about logic, it means the gut is the first thing that originated as human— now as animals, actually, as living creatures. And based on that, later on, a heart and a head came on top. Then would not just say plain logic say, hey, maybe probably the gut is the most important thing in us? No, actually that is true. So what are the 3 brains? As we said, head, heart, gut. Well, the gut brain is not an invention of me. It was already 100 years ago they came aware the gut is an amazing independent entity in our body. But neurobiologist Michael, or Dr. Michael Gershwin, still alive, a sweet old guy from 85 years old or something like that, wrote in the beginning of the '90s the book The Second Brain, where he made a synopsis of 20, 30, 40 years of research. And he came aware, based on all the research, the gut contains a complex and fully functional neural network, what he called a little brain. And based on the research, it has 500 million neurons. Neurons is something like a brain cell. It sends and receives Nerve signals throughout the chest, torso, and all the organs. It communicates. It sends out information. By the way, your gut is actually the most important thing besides happiness of your heart. Those two in your health. We talk now nowadays is really popular gut brain health and about what you eat and about probiotics. And it's totally true. 90% of all the neurohormonal stuff is produced, is produced in your gut. Parkinson originates in your gut because you have too less serotonin. Serotonin is produced in your gut from 90% of everything that's produced in your, your body. 90% comes from your gut and much more. Also, I became aware of actually only 2,000 nerve fibers from the ventral vagal nerve go via the abdomen into the gut, and there they split in 100 million nerve cells in the human small intestine and to hundreds of millions in the whole gut system, everything underneath your diaphragm. I will not go into all the details now, but if you would go into details, you would see that the nerve system in the enteric brain, as he called it, is actually independent. It has more kind of interconnections that can communicate with each other as brain cells without having any connection with this one here up. That is even so, and that was already researched 100 years ago, if you would cut the connection with the central nervous system, so with our brain, your gut is still active and can still work. If you would cut that system for your heart, you're dead. Your gut, your small intestine, is the only organ in your body that can be alive without any other connection with the body. That's what he came aware of. It's freaking amazing. And what he also came aware of, that it can learn, store memories, and perform complex independent processing. So say when we talk about fear, fear is remembered in your gut. So when we come back to the body keeps the score, your gut system knows all those traumatic painful moments you had in your life that are not resolved. Pitifully. So when you now make it more concrete to say we go to the coaching world, what does it mean? Now what's the objective of our gut? Actually the same as the sea cucumber, it has a lust for life. It wants to live, so it needs to survive. I simply call it most times the survival brain. That one makes the choices for you, what is good for you. It does not think about anybody else. Think of a cucumber. A cucumber is not a social animal. What's the highest need? To establish personal success. This is the me. So every— so, um, we just spoke about Formula 1. If you talk about Max Verstappen or Hamilton, they both have an amazing good gut brain because they want to win for every meaning. So there's nothing negative about the gut brain. They're extremely me-oriented, but they make you successful. Every top sporter needs a huge gut brain. What are their resources? And I spoke about it. They communicate, or they have resources in all the hormones. But I talked about serotonin, dopamine, the reward drug, the learning drug, cortisol that gives you energy, and the galanin nerepigraferine puts you in action, and benzodiazepines, those are the relaxation and painkillers. Your body can produce more pain Painkillers, they actually almost can swallow. And of course, it has a nervous system connected in our whole body where it can communicate with or through. How does it communicate with us? It communicates in emotions or feelings or sensations, whatever word you like to put on it, as fear, anger, rage, lust, desire, hunger, and disgust. And when you have that sensation in your stomach, and it is say 7 o'clock, you could say, hey, there's hunger, I'm hungry. If you have that feeling in your stomach and you just have a really important meeting, you could say, oh, maybe I'm nervous. And when you really have something like a feeling on it, maybe, hey, maybe I was eating too much. So it communicates in sensations, and we humans there give a meaning to it based on the context. Anger, rage are there, and the other ones. The heart brain— yes, and gut flora is usually impactful on our health and disease processes. You're absolutely right. And just one little sidestep on that: your gut bacteria— we're not going in there— your gut bacteria is a totally can actually send signals to your body so that your body starts producing nerve cells that go up into— up to your head. So they can communicate, bacteria, with your head there from, hey, give me more sugar, give me more fat, give me more— I don't know what you like—

chocolate.

So actually, your gut bacteria can create nerve systems that start communicating up. That's really amazing, but that's an Story on the sideline. Your heart brain, Dr. Amour, also in the 90s wrote a research document after research did that the heart also have a separate stomach just for chocolate. Daniel, that makes two of us. Dr. Amour introduced concept of functional brain of the heart in his research. I don't show you the videos now. He came aware that the heart actually had different kind of little neurons that he started to analyze and investigate. He came aware actually there were neurons like we have here. Based on further research, he came aware that everything was around the heart that could be qualified as brain. So it has all the different kind of types we have also here. It has approximately between 40,000 and 120,000 brain cells. Research shows that your heart can really grow in brain cells, and people who have less brain cells compared with more brain cells are, say, more egocentric and more social. So actually, the more social you, social you come, you more connect with people, the more happiness you have, the more heart-brain cells you create, actually. Normally I make jokes about prime ministers and how their heart brain is, but I will not do that based on the international community we have here. Don't like to step on any toes. But just think about your own prime minister and then think, what kind of heart brain will he or she have? What does your heart brain produce? And that's really amazing. Besides the hormones or neurotransmitters produced to do boom boom Boom, boom, boom, boom. It produces oxytocin. What was always assumed only was produced in your head, and that's the love hormone. So yes, your heart can produce the love hormone so you feel love. It can produce dopamine, the famous reward and motivation hormone. And last but not least, it can create norepinephrine that can put you in action. So actually, Your heart can do what it does in all those songs. It is your love center. Half of the music is written about your heart that is in love. Olivia Newton-John sang to what is it? John Travolta. My heart says yes, my head says no. Somewhere in movie Grease, long time ago. Now right away I disclose my age. I know the movie. It's a complex neural network. It is a real brain. So if your thought is not scientifically proven, it's scientifically proven there are actually brains and they can memorize and they can make actions. For your heart brain, there's massive amount of research about heart transplants and that they actually transplanted also the memories. The most famous cases where a cold case of murder was solved— the little kid who got the heart from a kid who was murdered got intrusive dreams and intrusive ideas about how he or she was murdered. Psychiatrists, psychologists, police came in and actually found the murderer of the donor because that little kid was murdered. And there are so many other kind of research done that They change habits, taste, smell, favorites, and even belief systems because the heart was transplanting those or taking them with it. So if you like to have proof your heart has, has a brain, just go in there. So what does your heart do if you think about, say, coaching again? The most important objective of the heart is to belong. What is as high as need to be connected? And it makes sense if you think about biology, because when we are born, what is the most important thing for our survival? The connection with our parents. If our parents dump us, then we don't survive because we're totally helpless when we are just born. So being connected is the most important thing. And also, for every parent, really, to love your kids, the heart is extremely important. Research shows actually the heart and the oxytocin the heart produces spikes if a mother gives birth to her kid, just that she loves her kid. And for the people who are mom or dad and saw the delivery, sometimes it's an easy one and sometimes it's a hard one. And I know if it's a hard one, that it really takes some effort for a mom to really love her kid if you have been for 24 hours in labor. Good question. In the old days— what's the question of Sasha? Does the heart produce the hormones or give the signals to the glands to produce them? Actually, in the outer lining of the vessels of the heart— so this is the heart, this is the vessel— In those outer lines, they actually produce the hormones. They can also synthesize it and can give the signals, but they can also really produce it. If you'd like to know more about it, send me a separate message. HeartMath, HeartMath, and I have it here, HeartMath. That's this one. That's a little device that, that tests your heart congruency. They did all the research also about the heart and about the heart-brain and have massive amount of research about it. That it actually produces. How does it communicate and what does it do? It has now those neurotransmitters, but it has three other ways of say resources. First, the biophysical communication every time the heart beats. Sorry, the heart does boom boom boom boom. And for the people who still thought past tense. Dat de amygdala is de meest belangrijke ding voor voor emoties, of speciaal voor vrede. Zei de amygdala hijack is one big hoax. Lisa Barrett Feldman zegt dat, zo ik just connecteert ze. Zeven milliseconden after your heart beats, boom boom, er is een little spike in amygdala. The heart sends a signal to the amygdala how it feels. How the how the heart actually is feeling, how much sensations the heart has. It sends information to the amygdala and the amygdala spikes up from okay, what should I do now with this information? So the heart is actually giving signals to the amygdala: do this or do that. So the heart actually is in charge of the amygdala in some moments. Electromagnetic energy. The heart produces so much electric. Magnetic energy. It can be measured 3 to 9 meters outside your body. It produces 5,000 times more electromagnetic energy than your head and is connected with cranial 10 nerve that's sometimes called popular the ventral vagal nerve, and that connects with your facial muscles, your lungs, and your heart. Parasympathetic sympathetic nervous system. Everybody who heard about the polyvagal theory knows the cranial 10 or the ventral vagal nerve. Only the polyvagal theory is scientifically debunked because what Stephen Porges says is scientifically not true about how the nerve system works. It's not me who's saying that, but there's neurobiologists who did 10 years of his life spent on researching it. It doesn't mean that all the conclusions of Stephen Porges are wrong, but scientifically how the nerve system works, Stephen Porges and the polyvagal therapy is a hoax. If you'd like to know more, I can send you the research document. Anyhow, it connects well with the heart, the lungs, and the head, so it does, it does work. Only, not only. How does it communicate itself? Again, with emotions or sensations or feelings: love, acceptance, understanding, passion, aversion, hate, sadness, guilt, shame. And connects all the things with good and wrong. And again, there are sensations what we feel. Last but not least, our head. And then we go do more fun. Now that then the science is almost over, we note 3 pounds here. It's not an important thing because now you think the heart and the gut are the most important. It's not true. It's amazing, head. 25% of the energy and 20% of the calories are burnt in that 3 pounds in between your ears. So much energy it takes. Glucose is the most important thing, hence that's why we like sugar. It has 100,000 million neurons, so it's a freaking amazing number, the same number as stars in the Milky Way. Every neuron has 5,000 to 10,000 connections, so it's something like 500 trillion connections, and they communicate all ways. I had the hoax that we only have 10% of our brain working. It doesn't happen. Every brain cell is always active. It gives a signal between every 2 seconds or 20 times a second, because if it's not used, it will disappear based on the law of Hebb. But fires together, wires together, if you heard that sentence. So if you don't fire, you don't wire, and you disappear. So your brain is always active. Every brain cell is always active. Okay, last but not least, what does your head do? Your head has one big evolutionary reason: predict the future. So tomorrow is better than today. For that's why we have a memory. Otherwise, why would we remember? Remember is only for prediction, so we can give the current situation connect, relate it to all your experiences, and then do a prediction. That's why we have such a memory. Highest need provides the right prediction. What does it have as resources? Time and spoken language are unique for this one here. Only your head knows yesterday and tomorrow. Your heart and your gut live always in the present. If you'd like to know how that is, then If for people who have a dog or a cat, look at your dog and your cat, and they're always happy because they live in the now. They don't know what happened yesterday, and it will not know what happens tomorrow. It's an amazing brain that can influence the autonomic nerve system by breathing. Maybe we can change our breathing so we can change actually our heart rate and our sensations. How does it communicate that we have a thrive to learn? that we like to understand things, that we predict things, that we like to judge things. That's how it communicates in tides with us. That's what kind of signals are sent to us. Having said that, what does it mean for our coaching and how can you create long-lasting change? Because that's where we're talking about. If we make this as a total setup, you could say in the deepest root of us is our instinct seeking happiness, belonging, love. That's how we are born. Later in life, we learn family and cultural values. How do I deal in this family? How do I deal in the culture I'm born? We all come from different countries, deal with different kind of cultural values. The Dutch cultural value is to speak out honestly and say what you think. Hence, other— every other culture thinks that we are rude. There's no right and wrong, but that's how it is. If a real Englishman says to you, Think about it again. It actually means never come back with this idea again. Those are cultural things we just have with each other, and they're deep-rooted. On that, we have a layer of experience at home and school, and a layer on that, we have experiences in study and work. And what do we actually see in people is the communication and presentation. And you see me physically here with my shirt, there's my headphones on, you can hear me talk. But you don't know so much my experience at work, home, or cultures, or my values. But that's where we work with. So if you would say it in neuroscientifically way, we have a declarative memory, all the things we can declare. And it means things we know, things we experience, and there the head is in charge. And that's most times in the top layer. And you have a not declarative memory, and there the body is in charge. That is all the things you cannot explain. Explain yourself what kind of signals you give yourself if you raise a cup. You don't know, but you can raise a cup without thinking of it. And all the things we do, that's— you can say body muscle memory, but it actually happens. So if we take this as a working model, then talk coaching works with the communication and presentation. I see this, I observe this, how do you think about it? Doing their best to change your experience at work and the things you learned at school, and maybe even going deeper. They like to go down with their therapy, with their questioning. Well, say I would say three-brain coaching works the other way up and says, hey, actually, how does your heart and your gut communicate connected with your head? What is their part of the story? In that part, you can coach the whole system. So what does it all mean when we make decisions? And I think, yes, this is the second pull. So this is the second question. Now I'm going to see if I can put on the polling again, and that is then relaunch the poll.

Relaunch.

So that means you have to go for the second question. And just imagine you are a manager in a company, in a department, are doing not too good, and there's a need to take action. Oh, let's go to slides. A minimum of 5 employees should be made redundant. You have 10 employees and they all have the same level of competencies. Now You get 4 possible options how you could make a decision. Production-wise, it would make sense to choose for the older employees to let them go because the job is physical. Consequences, probably these 5 people, these 5 employees will never find a job again based on their age. So we can assume that they're work, their active work life is over, and probably will have a negative impact on their income and finance because they will fall back on government subsidies. The second option is you get rid of the 5 younger employees because they can find easily a job again. The only thing is these 5 people were once your direct colleagues when you started with the company. With some you became friends before you got promoted, and they're still friends. And one of them was even your mentor who helps you to achieve your promotion. Now you have to decide about them. The third option is, is you just choose last in, first out. It's not age-related. You know that 5 employees are already working there for more than 15 years, and 5 entered the last 2 years because the company predicted growth. It didn't materialize, pitifully. It means you will have 3 older and you 2 younger employees in your new team. And then the question is, the last one, I cannot choose between any of these 3 options. What would you choose? And we can see what I actually expected, that LIFO and I cannot choose would be the most popular. And it's not because you're bad or not bad, that is the Now I will now, um, 12 and 8, I'll just end poll for a moment. So I don't know with who, whom of you made the 3 Brains preference test, what you could do, but if you did, then start relating to yourself, hey, what was my score and how does it relate with this answer? Because for the first choice, you have to be a gut brain person. You just think about the company and your own qualities. You don't care about anybody. Hey, it's good for the company, it's good for me, sack the 5 people. So you need a high gut brain score. For the second one, actually, you also need, uh, you need a big heart brain because you think about 5 people who get new jobs, and you think about the, uh, you think about the 5 older people then, yeah, who stay. But the other hand, you sack your friends and one of your mentors, so your heart brain will feel shitty about that. So most times your heart brain will say, I will not go for that one. LIFO is actually the most logical one, and it's a safe one because it's more in the head. And you can actually disconnect from the heart and the gut in that moment. And D is actually, yes, of course I cannot choose because actually my option is not there. And this is what happens in real life. Somewhere you made the decision, and if you now think about yourself and really go into yourself, what did What, what happened inside you that you made this decision? Was it a logical decision? Was it an emotional decision? Did your emotions or your values gave you that idea or stops you from choosing one? Because as a manager For the company survival or your team survival, option A is the best. In most MBAs, they will teach you option A. We as coaches have— most of us, if you do the 3-brain test— a big heart brain and a big head brain. So we almost never choose for A because it doesn't fit our values and doesn't fit our decision-making. The same is B because it hurts our heart. To fire to fire friends and people who helps you, your heart will not step in because you have a big heart. So we go for the other ones. Of course, love to hear if you agree or don't agree. But actually, this is how we work on, and there is actually where three brain coaching makes a huge difference. Because in three brain coaching, you can make help them to. them the insight how it really works. And I'll just give you another 5 minutes in slides, and then we can have a discussion about all the things that just happened and what we discussed. Because I will show you how we can work together in 3-Brain Coaching. Because what we can conclude, your 3 brains have different objectives. Your gut brain says me, myself, and I. That means what is good for me. Your heart says what's good for us. And your head says what's logical. So when you don't use all 3 brains to make a decision, they stay reflectively loyal to an old behavior or an old belief or an old system that was working— heart, head, gut— and it then could cause you pain in the now if you follow just your heart, just follow just your gut, or just follow your head. That could be the success. So the whole objective is that All three of them have a say in the decision. But what is then the whole discussion we have? Your head likes to do the logical stuff. Your heart likes to do the good stuff for us, and your heart likes to do the good thing for you. And that's actually different. They have three different objectives. So whenever you say to one of your clients, follow your heart. actually what you say, follow just what's good for the team. If you say to follow what your gut instincts say, actually you say what's good for you. If you say, hey, what happens if you think this through, you go to their head and you don't use all 3 of the wisdoms that we have. And sooner or later they will regret their decision, because everybody I met up to now who made the decision of 1 or 2 brains and the outcome is not perfect, they regret that they did not listen to the other brain. And they say, oh, I should have followed my gut. Oh, I should have followed my heart. Oh, I should have thought this through. Or maybe should have all 3 of them. And they regret some of their decisions. Now going to the 2nd blind spot, communication. Then I give the whole structure, then we can have discussion, then we can have the demo. Mind and willpower is not enough. Maybe just can we're understanding willingness and ability. People say that's all we need. So if you know what the solution is, you just need the discipline to do it. Just do it until it becomes a habit. That's what you find in many books. In many guru books of many people say, okay, you made a choice, just stick to it, keep discipline, and after three to six weeks. Your actions becomes a habit, and after a couple of months, your habits become becomes a belief, and after a couple of months, your belief becomes really ingrained in you. Does anybody of you know the Strava app? The Strava app is the most popular app for sporters. Strava made a research, and they came with the magical word, and that is quitters day. Quitters' Day was yesterday. That means on the 1st of January you have beautiful ideas which you like to— I like to sport more, I like to eat less, I like to do more on my health, I like to get more balance in my work life. And the 17th of January is the day that most of all those good intentions drop off the table. In Strava they see, okay, 1st of January we go up, we do good things, 17th of January, boom. They see a drop in all the activities, and it goes back a little bit. But the 17th, they say it's quitter's day. And then think about yourself. You're all freaking amazing coaches. How many times did you make the decision to change something? It made sense. You had the ability to do it. And still, if you now think about it, you never implemented it because it still sometimes fell off the table. Now, if it happens to you as an extremely highly experienced amazing coach, then just imagine all our clients, how hard their life is, because we are well educated, much more educated in emotional and mental stuff than they are. If we cannot, how can they? So what's the passive solution? What is part of how I'm aware of? And I'll give you an example how it works. Just stay with me. Just imagine the CEO says to one of my clients— and this is a real client case— I want you to take this project. It's really important for the existence of our company, and I know you're the most knowledgeable person and the most experienced person. What do you think?

Are you in?

And my coach, she had to give an answer. And he said, give me some time and let me think about it because it really changes. There's a huge impact in my job because I have to let things go. I come back to you next week. And the first thing my coach, he did was actually WhatsApping me, do you have time to discuss something? But of course. So he said to me when I had him on the phone later on, 4 things, and I will ask you and to put it in chat. Is it actually head, heart, or gut what he's saying? He said, uh, the stakes are extremely high, Chris, with this project. I feel it could damage my career seriously if I fail. The question to you is, is this head, heart, or gut talking? You can just put it in the chat or just speak up. Claudia, 5 points for you. The gut. Yes, I was hoping you all said gut based on this, so you're freaking amazing, awesome smart. You all give them amazing good answer. The gut is talking, the gut is fearful. So during our chat, he came further. He said, you know, um, I feel my colleagues totally depend on me for this project when I step in, and probably I have to let some go because they're not the best for this project. And it doesn't, by the way, doesn't feel good to me, Chris, because I will be the messenger to fire them. That should actually be the CEO's objective or somebody else. I should not have this, this shitty thing to do. And yes, you all talk right. The heart was talking. Oh, you're freaking amazing.

Awesome.

This is an amazing team. I'm extremely proud of you all. And then in the same thing, he said the last— not the last thing— is that, Chris, but it makes sense I'm taking this project. When I ask, why did— if this is all on page, why did the CEO ask? He said, of course it makes sense, Chris, I take this project. I know the most of this topic. So if I would just— he really said, I didn't put If I— for that reason, I could say yes, it makes totally sense. I could say right away, but it doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel good to me. And that's the head, absolutely. That was talking. So what he actually was doing— I said, how— what are you doing now? He said, Chris, I'm not sleeping at night because every night I'm thinking about it. What should I answer? I'm actually avoiding the CEO because if I see him, probably he will ask, what's your answer? And I don't know my answer. So I don't sleep. So that's why I'm texting you. So now what I do, or what we do in 3-brain coaching— this is just analysis part— we put it somewhere in perspective. So we say, hey, what does your head brain say? Hey, your head brain is actually in favor. Makes sense, it's in your hands. So you pass the result, your head brain says, all good, let's go. Your heart brain actually says My colleagues depend on me. I should let some people go. Doesn't feel good. And I'm the messenger. Also doesn't feel good. So the heart says, actually, I'm not going to do this. I cannot do that to my colleagues. So we had to work on the beliefs that are feeling the fear of the not belonging. How do we work on it? And the gut was also fearful, extremely high. I feel it could damage my career. And the gut was actually giving him the action to avoid the CEO, of course, and not sleeping at night. For everybody— it's not that I like to sell it, but everybody who once read my book will become aware that the gut brain has as a strategy avoiding. Based on fear, you like to run away, you like to avoid. So when the gut brain is active and it is fearful, it will avoid the situation. What makes totally sense. Yes, and that's why we also have to ask what sells. Yeah, we're actually coaching 3 people, not 1. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, we actually coach 1 person with 3 decision-making units in them. You're so right, uh, Paulo. What about present experiences? God tells you something but mind overcomes it. That's a good question. It's actually coming aware— where did you learn it? And say they would communicate together, what would happen? And where's it coming from? The whole idea about 3-brain coaching is that all 3 of them actually come on the table and start discussing their topic and their objectives and what they like to do and don't like to do. It's almost like you put 3 persons on the table. In this case, one says no, one says no, and one says yes. Okay, guys, girls. Talk about it. What do you need? Absolutely. And values and ethics are also in there. And values and ethics most times are stored in your heart or in your gut. And that's why it's also hard to override them, because his value was, I don't like to be the messenger. It doesn't feel right to me. I should not do that. There was a justice system in his heart that's saying no. And by the way, he didn't like to fire his colleagues, so he should first clean out the, the closet and then start doing it. Didn't feel good for him, and he likes his colleagues. So this is the first step, and then we have to work on it. Now, what, what could, quote unquote, could be an issue in that if you do the analysis? When we have a normal brain dominance like your score, you have a bigger heart brain, bigger head brain, lesser gut brain. And they can all communicate. You can bring them all to the table and they can all talk about it. You can ask, hey, what would your heart say? What would your gut say? What would your head say? And people can connect with that if they can connect. What could happen, and then it becomes different, if they have a conflict. My heart suggests, but my head says no, because then you have to actually conflict resolutions there. Because then you have to find somewhere where is the conflict coming from, what is feeding the conflict, where did you learn what you learned, when did— how did you learn that you're right? By the way, can you listen to each other? And when it becomes really, quote unquote, a challenge is when one or the two brains are silent or turned off, like dominating beliefs. Yeah, like what was an example? I come from Italian family where our meals are the social place. Eating brings us together. This is an example of a coach she had who wanted to lose weight and said, Chris, yeah, but I cannot eat less. Come on, Italian family, we always eat. Eating is the social, the social part of life. Okay, but you like to lose weight, and now you say eating is the social part of your life. So it was a logical decision, and the heart said no to that. Yes, the saboteurs. Yeah, I, I don't call them saboteurs, Jackie, because it sounds negative. Of course, there's one big step, and, um, I will— can I go back? Yes. I say they are— they're called protectors, and it's based that every brain has a positive intention. A saboteur clings like a negative intention. All your brains love you. All your brains want to do the best for you. So they all have positive intentions. The only thing is sometimes they choose from a knowledge from 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago, and they think that is still good for you now. So that's why they don't call them saboteurs. But yes, you're right, it's the same meaning, but a saboteur sounds negative, and your brains don't like to sabotage you. They only use old-style methods. And that can happen when, when say you have a belief system there. Your belief system, hey, I come from an Italian family, so eating is a social activity, is not a saboteur. Actually, it is bringing— is doing the best for you to connect with your family, which you have learned when you were young. What also could happen when they are stuck in a single operation by an extreme emotional or physical impactful event And it can be positive or negative. I will say our upbringing is an emotional or physical impactful event. We all got an upbringing. It can also be extremely positive, but it can also close your maps, or it can also be an old trauma. And based on the fact that 50% of the population of this world is somewhere experiencing a minor or more heavy Trauma, half of this group experienced one. It doesn't mean we still have an issue with it. It just means we experienced one, and that can also stop our brain. I never had enough food. The last week of the month, it was just beans and rice or bread, as once said the coachee. So for him, also again, it was about food. He had something I cannot do anything about my food because it was really a gut-brain trauma he had. That person, um, I said, then you just fin— I said, what happens if you don't finish your plate? He said, then I bring the plate to the kitchen and I finish all the plates of my whole family. I will not throw any food away based on this old trauma. So when he was in the kitchen, he finished all the plates of everybody, of his 3 kids and of his wife. Now just imagine what it does with your weight as an effect. And just then, then just imagine that you have been fired, that you had an abusive relationship, that I don't know what kind of trauma you had once. And then talking to the brains becomes harder because they are almost not communicating anymore. And what could happen, that they take other kind of roles. Everybody who does comfort eating is actually— the gut brain takes the connection, it takes actually the heart, takes the action of the heart. You feel sad, I'm— and the gut brain says, okay, I will take over, I will do the— I will do the love part, I put my food— myself as food. So sometimes it can happen that brains don't talk or that people cannot connect with their brains. And why is that? Because we're educated To be in our head. I think, therefore I am. Descartes. We not learn to feel anymore. A lot of our coaches, if you ask what does your heart or what your God say, they cannot connect with it. Or they would say, I think my heart says. And actually what they mean, my head is now trying to interpret it, something I don't feel. Oh my, I think my God would say this. So their head brain is doing an assumption what the gut brain actually could do, but doesn't know it. And you will find it a lot of times. So actually, then the gut or the heart is talking, the head is talking, and the heart or the gut are actually silent. Now, what kind of reactions could we have? Then do a little discussion and then a demo. You can have a closed mind, and then people say it's wrong, I know it already. I did it differently. I have 10 years of experience. I know what I do. I see it a lot of times if I do this presentation for psychologists. They say, Chris, I'm already 30 years a psychologist. I learned everything from CBT. And now they babble out all the kind of— so, you know, I know that this is wrong. Also, once I had a guy who said, if the other brains are true, I should have read about it in the news or something else, so it is not true. So he could not open his mind. When the heart is closed, they could say things, uh, it doesn't feel like normal. They will say, did you follow a training? And they would push me back in the peer group. Or we do different in our team, in our company. Or I work differently with all the people. We as a group stick together in this. So actually the heart stops, stops because it is afraid of being rejected. A closed gut would say all the things about their own protection. This is not me. I want to be myself. I have to take care of myself first. I do it better if I do it my way. Delegation— I could lose my job. This will take more time. And actually, they're all signs that the gut is actually closed off. How to work on it? When the protector is the head and the heart and the gut are supporters Our old coaching ways work perfectly. When your heart and/or your gut is actually in the protector state and doesn't like to move, and they had a supporter, then 3-brain coaching is really needed because the logic will not override your emotions. This is the whole science. So before we go doing a demo I will do stop share because now I can, and I can just give you all the word. Reflections on this. So in the question I would like to ask, what did you, as we ask in ICF things, what did you discover in this presentation? How could it benefit you? Or maybe what does your head, your heart, or your gut say? What do you learn from this? What would you like to ask?

You can either write it in the chat or maybe raise your hand and ask personally.

So if there are not a lot of questions, maybe come later. You can always email me because I know I gave a lot of information right away. To all of you.

Maybe it would be good, Chris, to write your email in the chat for everybody so they can know where to reach you.

Yes, that's a good one, Christoffel. Thank you for this advice. What's the most common situation with executives? A good question. The most common what I see with executives is that they have a high Head-brain, gut-brain score. While we coaches have a high heart-brain, head-brain score. So most executives get a promotion on success or being successful. In the old style, most executives have an issue with, say, the team and have a great idea about me. And if you go to MBAs, Jack Welch, an amazing— the ex-GE top man who fired the lowest 10% of the company, is still mentioned in MBAs as an example. So most people, most executives have a high gut brain, so they have more issues with team and connecting with emotions. How do we deal with that? Roberto, great question. Say, for me, I always ask, say, I ask a lot of times the question, hey, what is your— say your heart would talk, what would it say? And based on how they answer, you can become aware if the heart is giving some information, or hey, what kind of sensations do you have about this? How do you feel about this? And you come aware if they can connect with that part. That's something. How do you feel about this? I don't have a feeling about this. You can actually say, okay, the heart that got is maybe turned off. A lot of times I say, hey, if say you would follow your heart, what would you do in this situation? And then based on the answer and the linguistics they do, and based how the autonomic nerve system is working, you get come aware if their heart is communicating. Or their head is communicating. Now, what I think, that if I would follow my heart, I think I would do ABC. Okay, head is talking. You know, if I would just think about myself, then probably I would do this. Okay, so you ask a question about the heart, the gut is talking actually through the head. The head is talking about what the gut would say. And so when we decipher things, we analyze on the words they use, how the non-verbal communication or autonomous Nervous system works. If the sympathetic nerve turns on, you can come aware the gut brain is actually active. If the parasympathetic nerve system is on most times on also, you can come aware it's happening. And if they start avoiding, you know the gut brain is on. If they start actually connecting with people or using excuses of the team, you know the heart brain is coming on. So you can do some analysis what's happening. Okay, now I have to read the whole story of Daniela. So, wow, it's an amazing chat you made. We use a model around determining one ethical philosophy, Rochester. This talks about principled conscience, social conscience, and rule compliance. The world splits through in thirds and using 3 brains. It seems like each comes from one of the brains. I don't know all about the ethical philosophy, but What you write, Daniela, it makes sense. What I present here is nothing new. The Egyptians— do you know what actually Egyptians took out when they, when they put, made mummified somebody? Which part of the body they removed? The head brain. They put something in your nose, of course after you're dead, and they poked out your head brain because they didn't think it was important. De de thought, de hart was de so was de main purpose. Every song is about follow your heart and follow your head. Any gram also can connect with the three brains. There's nothing new about what I'm saying in that part. The only what's really new that scientifically is proven there are three brains and that they actually have different kind of objectives. And that in our early upbringing, the first seven years of our life, the imprint period. Your heart brain and your gut brain get almost all the knowledge because the four, the first two years of your life, your head brain is totally inactive because it's growing 100,000 connections a minute. Because when we are born, we only have 80 to 85% of our brain there. The first three years, all the connections grow and the brain cells grow. After three years, it gets So if you would think about yourself and say, what's my first recollection, recollection of memory? There's almost nobody who has a recollection of memory before year 4. Nobody can really have an active memory here what happened in the life before they were 4 years old, because this one doesn't remember the first 4 years. But your heart and your gut does. All the social connections are still stored in your heart and your gut. So also when we work with people, those are really strong. And when we work with people, that's why it says different kind of thing. If there are no other questions, then can I share the title of my book? Yes, of course. I have it next to me.

It's, it's there.

Because, but if you'd like to know more, this is also in the, um, the presentation. These are books you can read about it. The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van Kolk, I started with. Science of the Heart from HeartMath. My book, How Men and Women Fit. The Second Brain, Michael Gershwin, for my memory. They all connect not with 3 brains because I'm the only person next to Another person writes about it. There are only really two books in that specific way written about it, but they actually connect how our body has all this intelligence. So that's there. And thanks, Naina, for putting the the title in. So I can do stop share now because that's there.