Neuroscience of the 3 Brains - Head, Heart and Gut - ICF ICW 2024 Wednesday by christoffel MCC

It's one of the best sessions I've ever attended in my life. I've been learning since more than 3 years. I'm a master practitioner, AI trainer, AI. I've done coaching. I've done more than 500 hours of learning the previous 2 years, and this is one of the best sessions I have ever attended. Thank you so much.

We're going to do something amazing. In my opinion, you are the most important almost workforce we have. Why is that? I just muted you all because some people I hear some Bangladeshi and other kind of language in between. And I thought, okay, I will not let everybody be disturbed by that. So I made a really, uh, decision. If you like to, by the way, important, I said you are the most important people before that. Um, I'm the founder of this. I'm, you could almost say, so I know much more about it than sometimes is healthy for myself. I try to do my best to give you a beautiful overview, but if you have questions, remarks, something else, Please unmute and share your question or ask your question or just say I don't agree, whatever you like to share. Because my objective is that you really get a beautiful session here, that you learn something from it, something, get something value out of it. I cannot all ask all 66 people of you what would you like to get out of it? Because then 1 hour is gone. So if you like to have something out of it, take care of yourself and ask the question. Really, my objective is that you learn the most. Secondly, I said you're the most important people, and it's true. We as coaches have an extremely important role. You have an extremely important role. You coach so many people. And if you do an amazing job, toxic leadership and all the kind of order craziness somewhere disappears. You are one of the frontiers of making this world a better place. And it will be great for me, for you, our grandkids, kids, and those kind of stuff. So my passion is actually to help all of you to become better coaches so you can help actually to make all your clients also better people, whatever better means. So in that case, if you have questions or something else, please ask. So what is the neuroscience of the 3 brains?

Sorry.

First, who am I with my big mouth? I'm an MCC coach. So at least according to ICF, I'm a smartass. Or at least I did all my hours. I'm a clinical supervisor mentor for ICF. So I mentor ACC, PCC, MCC people or supervise them. Uh, I'm executive coach MCC level based on my gray hair now more in executive boards. The beauty of getting old. I'm a clinical psychotherapist, hypnotherapist. So I'm also working with, now say you could say patients, Besides that, NLP master, Reiki master, constellation master, crazy master, and all this kind of stuff. I learned many, many, many modalities actually with one, with one goal. What makes us tick? What makes us change? Why do people don't change? Although we know all the things we know. Besides that, visiting professor at the business school here in Madrid. 30 years now, experience in coaching, training, and therapy, and in small groups or one-to-one. I saw up to now 12,000 people. That's the beauty of getting old. The numbers grow. And I'm the founder of the 3 Brain Equipments and also the 3 Brain Coach Certification Training that has 40 CCEUs if you follow it and you get the best training ever. Secondly, in my beautiful dyslexic ambition, I wrote 2 books about it, how it actually deals with relationships. Because as I said, and it was a huge statement, if you notice that we have 3 brains, if you know how their responsibilities are, what we're going to talk about today and why there are those responsibilities, life will never be the same anymore because you're getting an insight to make your own life and life of others better. Big words. Love to, love to bring them. So my intention is there, give you the insight and you know, you saw it already in the invite. It's also in the slide pack somewhere as the last slide. If you didn't do it, you can discover your own 3 brain preferences. So are you more head, heart, or gut dominant? It's a free assessment of 10 minutes on my website. You get an insight if you're more head-heart or gut-brain dominant. There's no right or wrong, but it gives you an insight. Hey, how do I actually make decisions if I don't really consciously think about it? How do I communicate? How do I do my sales? How do I do my coaching? How do I connect with people? That's all connected with it. You can discover that. And a gift at the end of the webinar, I can tell you right away, it is actually a discount on the training. Let's go to, to the knowledge because I love to stuff your beautiful brains with some real insights. No sales pitch, no sales stories, content. So I'm just curious, did you ever say to somebody, just follow your heart as advice? Or why don't you just trust your gut in this case? Or maybe even heard that advice when you're talking, especially when we talk about follow your heart, is most times boyfriend or girlfriend advice. And then we hook up actually with one person, but that's, that's okay. So why do we say that actually? If we think that our head is so freaking important, like all the psychologists, coaches, and all those kinds of other people think, then why would you say follow your heart and follow your gut? That does not make sense. It's not logical. On the other hand, did you ever sometimes regret the decision you made and said to yourself, I should have followed my logic more, I should have thought about this more, or maybe I should have followed my heart, or maybe I should have followed my gut feeling? And I assume we all did it somewhere in our life. So it's interesting that we say follow your heart, follow your gut. But if we do coaching as we do, it's always about powerful questions and it's about logic, action plans. We have to understand it. Of course, if you do somatic training or know about somatic training, you know the body is important. But how's it possible that mismatch? And just to make you aware, because these are issues Topics that doesn't have to do anything with who of you sometimes procrastinates? Yes, I was. I raised two hands of myself because I always say to myself, I work the best in the last moment, and it is absolutely true. But you're not the smartest in the last moment because you put yourself in the fight and flight mode. Or eating unhealthy. Now I cannot raise my hand on that one because I don't like to do that. Setting boundaries or saying no. I have an issue with that or having issues with communication of hard decisions, bad news talks with employees, or maybe depression or anxieties. All of us somewhere had in their life these things. Eating unhealthy is do what you do in your 20s. You go to McDonald's and all this kind of stuff. And later you become aware actually vegetables are healthy. So I start changing that. And we all did it somewhere, but we all know it's not good. We all know it's not wise. We all know it's not healthy. So then who's inside you? Who's inside you making these bad decisions if it's not your logical head? Like if you go to the current neuroscience, they talk about the beautiful brain and all the different areas we have there. And this is just one slide of it. Of course, I can also show the cerebrum, limbic brain, and neocortex brain and those kinds of things. But neuroscience talks about, hey, these are the different areas of our head, speech, smell, hearing, facial recognition, And then your prefrontal cortex, there's the CEO of our body and our mind where we do concentration, planning, and problem solving. The prefrontal cortex, that's somewhere here and that's always in charge of us. So if that one is in charge of us, then why do we still do procrastination? Why do we still eat unhealthy? Why do we sometimes get depressed or anxious? Because it does not make sense to do that. So then, if this one thinks and knows it's not good, then who's overriding him or her? And that actually always kept me busy and annoyed all my teachers I had in my past when I asked the question, who's in charge of us? And when I'm looking inside of the fridge late at night, And I see a healthy salad and I see the leftover pizza of yesterday, or actually in my case, lasagna. It's always the same choice I make. I go for the lasagna. I don't go for the healthy salad. So I don't have an issue with that anymore because I know it. But then who's in charge of me? Because also now in my little head, having a salad in the evening is better to go to sleep. Than with lasagna in my tummy because that's heavy. But still I do it. So what's happening there? Who's making a decision? Now you can see I called it old neuroscience. That's just to annoy, annoy a lot of people because this is actually not true in the same moment. Yes, our head is amazing. Yeah, I don't like to dismiss it. So let's first do honor to our head. It takes 25% of your oxygen and 20% of your calories on a daily basis. So it has an extremely important function. It works on glucose. That's why we love sugar. And it's something like a 12-watt power, something like an LED light. 100,000 million neurons in our brain, 5,000 connections every neuron has, and a neuron is actually a brain cell. And this popular, they're, they're called officially neurons. It's a brain cell and they have 500 trillion connections processing on a daily moment, always busy. And our beautiful head. So all 3 of them, cerebrum, limbic brain, neocortex, process information.

Wow.

11 million signals per second coming from the body. 10 million coming from the eyes, 1 million coming from the skin, 1,000 from the ears, 100,000 ears, smell 100,000, taste 1,000. So this one gets a massive amount of information from the outside world and our inside world process. So it's a freaking amazing thing we have there. But the question is, is it in charge of us? Or how does it work when we like to coach or change people? Now, first, I like to shock you because I always love to shock people because I know you can learn something in 2 seconds for the rest of your life. You just have to traumatize somebody. So the answers on these questions are, by the way, no. But First question is actually, there's not a no. When is the first memory you have in your life? What's your age? Who has an age underneath of 3 years old? Hey, Allison has one. Do you see how many hands go up? Only one. Only Allison. And Allison, is that just a normal remembrance, or is that something more highly impactful, happy, or maybe horrible? You fell off the—

No, several doctors have said it's, uh, 0.01% of the population. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

You're one of them. Most people who remember something before the age of 3, it's because it's extremely happy or extremely, uh, um, um, horrible. And Rana Al Sabai, I hope I pronounce it correctly, raised her hand. So what can I do for you, Rana?

Yeah, no, I just want to answer also this question because I have memory since I was in KG1.

Oh, wow. Freaking amazing. We have 2 unique persons here. And are they happy memories or just daily, daily memories or?

No, it's a happy memory because I remember when I painted one picture given to me by my teacher and she said, wow, it's very amazing. And she gave me a candy. So I remember this. It was, it was in KG1. I still cannot explain it to myself. How can I remember this?

I would say it's very easy. Um, I would say it's very easy. Highly impactful events. I call them highly impactful events that can be happy or say more traumatized. They're not only stored here, but also in the body. And the body remembers because what's the beauty Why don't we remember in general before the age of 3? It has actually to do with also the next question. When do we learn actually last week and next week? When do we learn time? What age is that? I will give you a hint so I can give you the answer. It's 5 or 6 years old. Before 5 or 6 years old, most people don't know last week or next week. Kids from 3 years old, Have the same appearance of time as your average dog or cat. And if you don't believe me, then go to your nephew, daughter, whatever kind of kid of 3-year-olds, and say next week we go, uh, to buy some beautiful candy. And I wish you a beautiful week because you get every 5 minutes a question, are we going already to buy candy? Because they don't know time. So what's happening with this beautiful head that doesn't know? And now the question where the answer should be no on that. So the answer is no. So if we don't have a memory before 3, except to people here, is it then allowed to abuse kids, not give them food, put them in cold showers, hit them, slap them? Because they don't remember. And again, the answer is no. We don't have to answer. This is a rhetorical question. Okay, so we know we have to nurture kids. Or babies when the moment they're born, but they don't remember. So what's the use of that? What's the use of this beautiful head then we have there? Now then the beauty comes in when we were born, even 9 months after we are born. So the first 18 months after we're conception, we create 250 million new neuron connections there. Up to year 3, our brain is growing massively. And when we come out of mama with a 10-centimeter head, we have 80% of actually the volume of her head. And that is deliberately done by evolution. Otherwise, mama would not love us. If this head is coming out of you as a female, you really, you would like to put me right away underneath the train track. Because this head is too big. So evolution made us almost like little kangaroos. So we come out premature. That doesn't mean we are premature, but our head is actually premature. So the first 3 years it grows to a bigger size and all those connections are made. After 3 years, they're also being pruned down a little bit to make it more efficient, to make it more lifable. Hence, it's extremely hard to remember before the year 3. So those memories we have, except the 2 people had, cannot be stored inside our head so logically because we cannot retrieve them. So what is then happening? And that always kept me somewhere busy until 8 years ago. I came over here. Of actually Peter Levine. Peter Levine is a trauma expert and has his topic, the body keeps the score. The body is actually a somatic knowledgeable thing. And when I did my course with him, I said, okay, Peter, but if the body knows who's in charge of the body, there becomes a little bit more wiki wiki. Jessica from Sweden has an Has a question. So we know she's from Helsingborg, wherever that is in Sweden, but she has a question. So, Jessica, please. What, what, what?

Yeah, my question was, um, I'm thinking about photos. Uh, if you see a photo before age of 3, can that trigger something or that is the same, that there is nothing stored?

No, it could trigger if it's a highly impactful event. And so when it really connects with something now, like the, the, the drawing we just heard, Or something else that really happened. I broke my collarbone when I was 1.5 years old. I was climbing out of my bed because I wanted to see my sister, went head down, broke my collarbone. I don't remember I broke my collarbone, but I do remember to climb on something and see my sister. After that, I have a huge gap. So you could say it's a traumatic experience. I, I remember, but I only remember one part of it. Luckily, I don't remember falling head down on my shoulder or whatever happens. I'm happy I don't remember that, I can tell you. So highly impactful events, remember, because actually they're stored in your heart or in your gut. And that's what we come in the next slides by. So first, 4 big myths, what we still in popular science is shared all over the internet, and I like to debunk them right away. So we don't have it. The amygdala, what a lot of people say, is not hijacked and is not your fear thing. The amygdala in your beautiful limbic brain is responsible for many, many, many emotions and regulations. It's always active and it does not get hijacked. It's a control center of actually that gives information to the hypothalamus. What should I do? What kind of neurotransmitter should be released or not released? The second one, your brain lights up. We only use this part of our brain. Now, every cell in your body is alive or is dead. Your every brain cell is always active in high mode or low mode based on brainwaves. We can know how much they are. Cortisol is the stress hormone. What a lot of people say is also not true. Cortisol is the energy hormone or neurotransmitter. When you wake up in the morning and put your feet out of your bed, you get a huge spike of cortisol because it helps you to produce energy in your body to get up. Actually, yes, it's also produced when you have stress, but it's not a stress hormone. Why I use these debunks? Because a lot of popular people say, oh, your amygdala is hijacked by fear. Oh, your brain only works 10%. Crap. Oh, cortisol creates stress. No, it doesn't create stress. It creates energy. And the last one, people who love the polyvagal theory, I'm going to really disappoint you. Uh, it's cranial, uh, uh, 10 nerve. It's actually scientifically debunked as not true. The system where Stephen Porges has his system about how, how it works is scientifically proven to be wrong. Because even in fish and in some reptiles, the nerve systems work like the same as he says that only works in mammals. And so his social connection he talks about as the social nerve doesn't work because the last time I checked, fish are not social animals. Why do I say that? To become aware that we as coaches are flooded with information about things work to make life simple. And most times it's pitifully not true. So having said that, why do we actually need this? And I'm going to say, I love to shock you about how good we are. So If you like to change, most companies go to experts. If we have an issue, we go to also an expert. So the McKinseys, Boston Consulting Group, and Accentures have a success rate of 40% maximum if they do culture change and other kinds of projects. 4 out of 10 of the projects are succeeding. McKinsey claims 75% if they do one, if you do 100% of all their steps and pay all their bills. 75%, eh? Psychologist has on average 35% success rate. In depression, they did a massive research. 43% had a 50% reduction of symptoms. That's not a lot if you especially come remember that 27% of people who didn't do anything also had that reduction. So what's happening? Life coaching has a success rate of 25%. Even worse, we coaches have 55%. It's not in the stats. Hypnotherapy, 55%. Repetition, if you would do it for 3 months, 30 minutes daily, you have a success rate of 80%. Only the pity is only 8% does it. Based on research, more than 80% of the people drop within 2 weeks their exercises or their action plan or all those kinds of stuff. So most of our clients who make an action plan don't do it or do it maybe once. And I don't know how it is with you, but if you do it once, you still don't know it. You have to repeat it, repeat it, get it into your system. Because do you know how many times you fell on your butt before you were able to walk or actually to stand up when you were a child or baby? You can put it in the chat if you have an, if you dare to give an answer. Yeah.

Yeah.

It takes an effort. 66 days to create a new habit. The research says between 26 and 66 days depending on the habit. But yes, you have to do it 3 months daily, 30 minutes. It was actually a different kind of exercise thing. But you need to do— yes, Sunil, you have the perfect answer. Research shows 1,000 times you have to fall down on your butt before you can stand up. That is actually repetition learning. Now, I wonder which of your clients likes to exercise something 1,000 times to become an expert in it and can do it. To do the GROW model, to do, say, an evolution session, to do a bad conversation. They have to exercise it so many times to get it really into their system. They don't do it. And we're the same, eh? By the way, we have an excuse for that. That's evolutionary biology. That's actually the second webinar I show that. By the way, as I said, I had surgery. My surgeon, who was luckily the best in Spain, has a success rate of 99.9%. On average is 99%. So if you like to do something, who would you trust more? Just imagine my surgeon would have said, oh, by the way, you have the same quality as McKinsey. Then maybe I would not be here. There, Dr. Leona Nassar, author and trainer and coach, raised her hand. Oh wow, a question. Sorry, I just was reading the whole thing.

No problem. My question is, considering neurodiversity and that we are neurologically different, how would that repetition rate change from one person to another?

That's a good thing. Now we know the 10,000-hour rule. We know, say, the things depends on habits and it depends absolutely also on what you like to change and what you like to do. Stopping coffee is easier in a lot of cases than really become, say, expert in a different kind of thing. So there's a different kind of rule of thumb there. It's more, say, that if you like to change the habit, the muscle memory, It takes a lot of time to, to get it out of your system. And neurodiversity also, yeah, it, it, it makes a lot of change in there. This is just on average the, the, the numbers, and it has a little changes because yes, in repetition, the simple things you can do much easier. But say as a hypnotherapist, when I was really hypnotherapist living in Australia, in my first years, I saw a massive amount of smokers. Who wanted to become a non-smoker, and most of the issues they had after we did a successful session is that the next day they had that habit of going to the place and almost pick up the cigarettes where they always were lying. The muscle memory was actually still in there. So the cravings, what we also have, and the addiction bodily-wise also can stop it. Say coffee gets out of your system in three days. Um, soft, soft drugs within 2 weeks, alcohol a month, cocaine 3 months, ecstasy 9 months. So the body, based on the dopamine releases and dopamine, dopamine, um, addiction can have a massive amount of cravings. And it also stops somewhere, that changing of the habits. So it's much more complex than I just say in this little sentence. You're so right, uh, Leona. That is And there's much more, much more water underneath the bridge than you say. So thank you for asking. But this is on average for the average of things. But it's also, but it's also there to shock you, uh, and to make you think hopefully that if your client makes an action plan, there's a huge chance they don't do it or really get it into their veins because the success rate is the test. How much did they change after 1 year? Not what they say to you after 1 week and they're so happy with your session.

Is that related to lack of motivation after?

It is. Now, it's not always motivation. Motivation helps, but, um, I'm going to give you the answer. What you see in the other thing, your biology stops you because your 3 brains take 40% of your energy. And Lisa Barrett Feldman calls it the body budget of energy. So you have 60% to do all your other kind of stuff. So how we learn easily is the law of association. So if I erase this, everybody knows this is a glass. If they see the liquid here, probably everybody would say it's water. And I don't hope you say it's vodka because You don't know, but that is actually because this is the most normal thing to say based on your experience. Law of association, 1 and 1 is 2. As Daniel Kahneman in his books writes, Thinking Fast and Slow, System 1 and 2. If we really like to change and learn, you have to do something different. So 1 and 1 is 2, that doesn't take any energy. Okay, now this math, 17 multiplied by 8 divided by 3 plus 8 minus 5. What's the answer? Now, and everybody else thinks, well, Chris, you're crazy. I also don't know the answer. But to make that answer, you have to put a lot of energy in there. And that energy is taking away from the 60%. So if it's not really needed, actually your body, your heart and gut say, no, no, we're not going to change. This is the safe route. And that's not motivation. That's actually your whole bodily system saying, not going to put energy in there because the old ways were better. There is no extreme need to change. So your body stops you unless you really override that system. Anthony Robbins likes to say you need a huge leverage to change. There must be a huge desire and a huge pressure to change. Then it will happen.

Does it have to be a life-threatening situation?

It does. It doesn't have to be. It can also be a change of values. A change of perspective. Kijk, I have to say, when I was lying there in intensive care two months ago, I really made the decision: I'm going to change some things in my life. I really not going to worry about any politics anymore and somebody thinks I cannot influence really not anymore. And I'm going to enjoy every day of my life. That was really because I was lying there as a crippled person. I thought, you know, I'm old and old and wise enough to change. So yes, that's really true. But it can also be a change of perspective or a change of learning, coming aware, hey, this is more beneficial for me.

So unlearning old habits and relearning new ones.

Yeah.

So it is like a positive motivator is less strong than a negative motivator. The slap will make you move faster than a candy. And that's because our 3 brains, and then we go to the next slides, will give you the answer in that, why, why it is, Laura. So, so stay with me, Leona, for, for some slides, then we give you the answer, then it makes sure it fits in the system again. Livia, whose name I'm probably pronouncing totally wrong.

Okay.

What would you like to ask or say?

It's okay. Thank you for offering this information. I was thinking about change, what you said, how could it be provoked most effectively? And most of the time, our brain kind of takes the lead and creates change if there is enough motivation. And I've been working with clients that have— I'm a psychotherapist as well as a coach, and I've been working with clients who have depression. for example. And what I've noticed, and I'm curious what do you think about it, is sometimes because it is very hard to access their thoughts or their mindsets, what I recommend is kind of to change bottom up. For example, a person who has depression and who maybe has a position like a low position, or if they practice standing straight with their back straight, it creates an effect and it has an effect on their thoughts. Um, is there any research or any—

Yeah.

Yes, there's massive research on that. I say for the people who did neurolinguistic programming know this already by heart and say, oh, this is old, this old, this is old cake. If you crunch the body and go down, actually you put your body, your body gives a signal, I'm saying in a low energy mode. if you straighten up your body and now what, what, what you do actually, you give you, the body gives the signal, I'm in high energy mode. The same if you look up or you look down. So what you say actually makes totally sense. The body gives those signals. And so those, those 11 million signals that go to your beautiful head, what I said on a secondary base, are actually signals. How's my body moving or not moving? So in, in—

So it could have a more, um, Positive effect than trying to change the mind.

Absolutely. Because the body makes so many things. I will not do that now in the training. I do it. I let people crunch down and think about something, say negative, and the intensity, the intensity raises when they really are sitting like this. I ask same memory and sit straight up and look actually up. And the men, and most times the emotion just disappears. Really, people have something. What's happening now based, and there's a lot of research behind that, that happens. But I say, just if you quick answer, most depressions are heart-brain related. But let me come back to that later. Otherwise I'm stuck and don't, and don't get my slides done. And they say, hey, but you have so much more to say.

Thank you very much.

Now we know why. So in the old days, I was teaching this up to 20 years ago. We have 3 brains in our head. Because that's what actually science said on that moment. Actually, that is scientifically debunked. It's not true. A reptilian has in his DNA the setup to create a limbic and a neocortex brain. Actually, they have a really thin layer of those. So for us mammals, it does not make sense. Humans, it does not make sense anymore actually to say we have reptilian brain, emotional brain, and human brain. Because evolution did not grow it like that. And the dinosaurs 500 million, 200 million years ago actually could have been as smart as us if they had a little bit of different epigenetics and some DNA would be turned on later on. And if you'd like to read more about it, I would say go to Lisa Barrett Feldman because she wrote massively about it, 7.5 Lessons of the Brain. How emotions are created, and you'll find all the research behind it why this is not true anymore. But now, just for common logic, let's get rid of all those beautiful neuroscientists and put just Dutch simple knowledge in there. I'm going to show you a living creature, a living creature that is living now in every sea in the world, and I'm going to ask you what kind of living creature this is. First, to make you a little bit aware from hey, where are we looking at? And by the way, for the people think what the heavens earth is this? A sea and a moon. Almost Sunil, you're almost there. It has to do with the sea, but you can find it also sometimes in your fridge in the vegetable area. Why I like to push on this? Because if you understand this, it's amazing. It's a sea cucumber. If you don't know what the sea cucumber is, then you start Googling it later. It looks like a cucumber. It does not taste like a cucumber, but because it looks like a cucumber, it is there. But what is now the most astonishing thing of this sea cucumber? What is alive? What What's a living creature? And what does it not have? We humans have. What is it missing? Elena said the right thing. What does it not have? And I know it looks like the average politician, so it looks rather familiar, but it's missing something.

2 things.

It doesn't have a brain. Absolutely. It doesn't have a head. So it does not have a brain like we have in the, in the left side picture, and still it's a living creature. So it can live and be successful without a brain because it doesn't have any brain there. What's it missing secondly? Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom. Your heart. This living creature can live Is successful, is found in every sea, and can live without a heart and a head. So if you now skip all the all the scientific blah blah, and just think logical, now which then how is this possible that this one can live without a heart and a head? Could it mean? that this, say in my words, living God has an intelligence, that maybe in his whole setup, as it has in this drawing, has a nerve system that is actually intelligent. And if you think about us, survival instincts— yes, Pat, you're so right— where are those survival instincts stored? Because it doesn't have a head. The answer is actually, it came from neurobiologist Michael Gershwin, who wrote the book The Second Brain. And the neurobiology is the second brain is your gut. Our gut system looks almost the same as that sea animal. Food comes in there and you know where the food comes out. If you don't know, then you go to the bathroom, sit on the toilet, and you become aware of it. So actually, we are all born and raised are coming from a living gut system. If you think at the simplest cell in the universe or in life, it likes to get nutrition in and it secretes waste material. Everything in life is based on getting energy into the system. And energy is, in our case, food and liquids, what gets transferred by the gut system into working nutrition and energy, ATP cells, and all this kind of stuff. Most energy is coming actually from our breathing. So neurobiologists said, hey, we have a functioning brain there. 500 million brain cells are underneath your diaphragm. So in this area, You have 500 million brain cells. To make a comparison, that's something the size of a dog brain's dog brain or a cat brain. I don't like to insult any dog or cat lovers. And what he also came aware of in his research is actually that the gut brain, you can find almost all the neurotransmitters there that you also can find in the head. And are sufficient enough to survive. Because now popular science says, where's your immune system located? In your heart, your head, your toes, or in your gut? It's in your gut. 90% of your immune system's in your gut. And research shows now so, so massively the importance of your gut bacteria. Yeah, without the 1.5 kilos of alien gut bacteria, you would die within a couple of days because they actually transform a lot of nutrition into usable stuff for our body. And actually, research shows that your gut bacteria can send out signals so that a nerve connection is made from your gut system to your head. Your gut bacteria can actually give directions to your body to create a nerve cell. Autoimmune diseases confirmed it. You're so right, Leonie. Alzheimer's, but especially Parkinson's, starts in the gut. Every Parkinson's patient has dysfunctional gut bacteria. It doesn't mean every dysfunctional gut bacteria has Parkinson's, but the other way around is true. Hence, they do also feces transplant, so poop transplant. From healthy persons who have healthy poop into people have unhealthy poop. It sounds shitty, but it helps because it's gut bacteria also does amazing stuff for people and to release it. There's only one thing, by the way, only one neurotransmitter hormone the gut does not make. That's why we have 3 brains. Now you can see the, you can see them here. They're all enough. And research shows actually that your gut brain can work independently. I'm going to show you a little video, a 1-minute video of Michael Gershwin. So this is Michael Gershwin, still alive, a naughty old guy. And this is the intestine of a guinea pig. You know, those little animals that your kids love. And it has still the Zij de de nerve system intact. This one, the nerve system is dissembled. And just have a look what happens.

Now you notice this is a guinea pig intestine, and there's nothing there. The brain and the gut and the guinea pig are in the garbage, and the bowel has detected that pellet, and it's moving it along. And that is the law of the intestine: the peristaltic reflex. Oral contraction, anal relaxation propel it. And if you take the intrinsic circuitry out and put the pellet in, nothing happens.

And this is major important. Why is this important? It proves that the gut intestine can make independent decisions. There is no heart or head connected with it, but it detects the pellet and makes the decision, what am I going to do with the pellet? And it likes to poop it out. So it makes a decision and makes actually also a signal to the muscle system in the intestine actually to move it out. Why is this so important? Because this is a pellet. I know it doesn't have any But your gut system can make decisions about all the other things. In the next slide or the slide after, your gut system has its objective to stay alive and responsible. If you look at all the neurotransmitters for the fear, flight, and, uh, freeze response, for the reproduction response. So the system of your gut is all about me, myself, and I. The heart is a different thing. Oh, okay. So let's go to the heart brain because we also have to move on time-wise. The heart brain is— I don't see the slide anymore. No, you're right, Jerry. I just did a blank and make it black. So then at least you focus more on what I said than on the slide. Neurocardiologist André Amour introduced the concept of the functional brain of the heart in the early '90s. He came aware It ticks all the boxes to be a functional brain. He also became aware it can act independently. And there's something like on average 100,000 brain cells. If you're a social person, it goes to 120,000. If you are Donald Trump, you get 40,000 of them. Made a joke for everybody who doesn't like politics. Sorry, we Dutch love them. And it produces one hormone that the other ones do, oxytocin. The heart can actually release oxytocin from the outer sides of the, of the, of the, of the valves. Why is it so important? Because what does oxytocin do? It's the love hormone, also released by the amygdala. It makes us connect with other people. Females who give birth get a huge boost of oxytocin, so they love their child after 20 years. 20 hours of delivering a baby. And actually, when we are close to another person physically, a little bit of oxytocin is released to make a connection. It's actually the connection hormone, and the heart can release that. And why is the heart so important? When the heart does boom, boom, boom, boom, 6 milliseconds later, the amygdala sparks up. So based on heart coherence, and if you like to know more heart coherence, you go to HeartMath. They, they love it. The heart coherence is the in-between beat between the heartbeats that shows actually how you are, how your body functions are. Are you stressed? Not stressed? Are you healthy? Not healthy? If you have, like me, the last 2 months, 40,000 electrocardiograms, you see how your heart is Functioning actually, how it is moving along. That that signal gives to the amygdala, gives information to the amygdala. Which kind of neurotransmitters should I release on this moment? What kind of signal should I give to the body? So the heart is actually instructing the amygdala what to do. It's freaking amazing. Now, this is a little video. This is André Amour. He's going to give you a two-minute video about. A beautiful heart.

A neurologist, Dr. Andrew Armour, from Montreal in Canada. After many years treating patients with heart disease, he observed there was more to the heart than the current scientific model could explain.

In those days, the '60s, there was no consideration of the nervous system. The heart was just a pump. And the reason is because people have not had the facility To see the heart in any other form. You look at it and it's a pump, right?

But as he looked closer, he noticed something remarkable.

Now the answer is yes, because this is some research done in the beginning of the '90s. This video is a little bit later. So we have a gut brain, we have a heart brain, scientifically proven. So why do we have 3 brains? And this is for the people who don't believe it. Research is done. 300 patients who had surgery or had a heart transplant all changed their behavior and thought processes and feelings. Heart transplants actually prove the heart has a memory. Now you can see that in the slide we're going to send. So how can it actually then be in charge of us? Now, the gut brain actually can send out all these neurotransmitters on their own choice. They can make you nervous, happy, relaxed, not relaxed, hungry, not hungry, willing to have sex, not willing to have sex. All for survival means, and it can independently decide what to release. People who have anxiety have much more cortisol, adrenaline in their system. Your gut brain makes the decision, even though you don't, you know, you don't have to be stressed. When your heart is actually feeling grief, depression, because it's missing something. Because most depressed is people because they miss something they loved, whatever it is they loved. They don't see a beautiful future outcome anymore. More benzodiazepines, relaxant like Valium, is also released. People feel less energized. They don't see really fun in life anymore. The GABA is also right away affected, just like the serotonin. The heart gives a signal to the gut, or the gut works together with the heart. Hey, you feel sad, you don't feel happy. Let's put some systems in there what I think is useful and put you out of energy in the grieving period. The heart has less neurotransmitters to communicate with, but it communicates with 2 different kinds of things. Biophysical communication, that is the boom, boom, boom, boom, the way your heart beats in speed, Strength gives a signal to all your body because your blood flow goes everywhere. Secondly, the electromagnetic energy the heart produces, what is 5,000 times stronger than what's in your head, gives also a signal. Proof of synchronization is done also in monasteries where women synchronize the period just based as they live together. The heart communicates together. The head brain, we spoke about it. What's the beauty of 3-brain coaching and 3-brain intelligence? The head brain has 2 things that the gut doesn't have and the heart doesn't have. It has spoken language and it has time. The only place where we have time is in our head, actually in between 2 hemispheres. PTSD, uh, clients show that because this part is, say, less active. Your heart and your gut always live in the present, just like your average cat and dog. That means when they learn something in the past, highly impactful events, you can call it a trauma or upbringing or something else, painful events, belief systems, they're all learned in the past. The heart and the gut still think it's now useful in the present. The moment the heart and the gut learn actually is not useful anymore because it was useful 20 years ago, they drop it in a second and the topic is almost done. I will not say depressed person, uh, Livia, you can, uh, cure in one session because that's a little bit too obnoxious, but you can do it really rather quick if you know actually their heart and gut are the issue. Their head is not the issue. Yes. Is the evidence showing fascia release helps with letting go of trauma in the body? Kate, that is also proven to be true. It's not part of this training because then we really go to all kinds of different kinds of sites. But the fascia, what is the fascia? That is that skin around every organ, every muscle we have. The fascia actually is where all the nerve cells end. Actually, a nerve cell never ends in a muscle. The fascia there ends the nerve cells in. They release the neurotransmitters, and based on that release, actually the the surrounding areas know what to do. Based on trauma research, it shows that neurotransmitter P, the P from Papa, is released when a highly impactful event is there. That releases in the fascia, and the fascia gets a different kind of structure, becomes a fixed spot, hence a sore spot, and by Releasing that actually, it can trigger the emotion back again or the memory back again. Also, research shows that. Okay, let's move onward. So at least we can give an answer. What does it do for us? All that we have 3 brains. So based on this, evolution gives actually 3 reasons why we have 3 brains. The first one, what is actually when we were still, uh, now say, sea cucumbers is Live life by establishing personal success and safety. I like to be safe and I like that, that I win, that I get my way, that every lion, every sea cucumber likes to have dinner, lunch, and breakfast. It's all about them. The gut brain is the most egocentric, narcissistic brain you can have. It's only about me. You don't find a social sea cucumber in the sea. Sea cucumbers does not have friends. It's all about me, myself, and I. And that's actually what your gut brain takes care of. That's why you have your immune system. It takes care of you. How do we notice them? In sensations like fear, anger, rage, lust, desire, hunger, and disgust. Those are the sensations we somewhere interpreted, hey, we have them. That's when your gut brain is actually in charge. We are fearful, anger or rage, anxiety. Anxiety is much more a gut brain thing because it's a fear of survival. That's anxiety. Oh, I do a presentation tomorrow. I don't know if my boss likes it. Maybe I get fired. Survival kind of thing. Rage and anger, I don't have to explain. Lust, desire. Now that is to get something done. Hunger and disgust. It makes sense. The heart. How does sugar impact this massively? Because sugar has a direct impact on your gut bacteria. It creates much more energy in the system, but it creates a disbalance in the system. It gives an overstimulation of the glucose in your head. Actually, that's why those kids are totally hyper, because there's an oversensation. We have too much energy in the system. And if you like to reduce, say, fear, anger, depression, it is actually changing. Also, your diet helps massively because it changes your gut bacteria, will change also your, your system. But again, I push this a little bit away. If you like to know more, just send me an email. I love to talk about it, but goes a little bit outside this, this one. But it's absolutely true. Less sugar. Sugar is worse than fat or grease. Okay, because it's actually an energy system that is different. It doesn't mean we should not eat sugar, but if you eat sugar, eat it from fruits. A date is the best sugar provider you have, better than chocolate and other sugars. And by the way, dates taste amazing. At least that's my thing. Heart brain is all about bonding, because when we are born and our parents don't take care of us, we die. So our heart is all about bonding. That's why we feel love there. So one says it's about me, the other one says it's about us. How do we feel them? Love, compassion, persuasiveness, hate, sadness, guilt, shame. That's why we are amazing coaches. Most coaches have a big heart brain because they can listen to a story of a client, really interesting, asking questions, even if they heard the story for 10 times. Every therapist, coaches hear all the stories of the clients 10 times of different kinds of clients, and we still are interested and listen to them. And gut brain would say, I heard this story from 9 other clients I had, just do ABC and get out of my face and pay my, and pay my bill. A heart brain like us asks questions, listens, dives deeper, does powerful questions. Said, oh wow, that's interesting. Wow, that must be hard for you. A gut brain is not interested in that part. The head brain also likes to live life, but likes to give it by the— do the right prediction. Did you ever think why you have a memory? What's the use of having a big memory? It helps you to do a better prediction because you can actually, based on your experience, you can make a well-informed decision. That experience is the memory system there. Hence, 20% of your energy goes there. How do we become aware of it? Sound, words, learning needs. But you can come aware, actually, they have 3 different responsibilities: me, us, and logic. So what are the strengths and pitfalls of the 3 brains? If you now come aware to our coaching, The mindset of the gut brain is to win and to have achievements. Every gold winner medalist in the Olympics has it. Every CEO has it. Every person who runs the extra mile has it. What's the pitfall? It's me first. And it makes sense. You don't win the gold medal if you think you first. What's the biggest fear of a gut brain is to be vulnerable because vulnerability means I depend my survival on others. So saying sorry is for them impossible. And so if the gut brain is dominant, this is what you see. Me first, I like to achieve and I don't say sorry. Your fault. I blame everybody else. Toxic leadership. The heart brain says bonding and together. It means you first. It means I help you. That's what we do as coaches. We become successful because our clients are successful. We can only be successful if our clients are successful. What's our biggest fear? Rejection. Because rejection means we are alone. Yeah, you're sent to your room. Yeah, the punishment we get as kids, or some of you. The mindset of the head. Yes, uh, the dominant brain changes during your lifetime based on your education, experience, and things that happen. I can tell you my dominant brain changed when I had 2 months ago surgery. I became extremely narcissistic, egocentric the first days. It was all about my own survival. After a couple of days, luckily I became a little bit more human again and got interest in my girlfriend, which was rather helpful actually, because she then wanted to still come along. So what happens in our life actually changes also when we just are just parents and we have 1 or 2 kids and we just have a mortgage in our house. We, we are focusing a little bit more on our gut brain. It's about this little thing. Later in life, say, go to your grandparents, they can become more heart brain again because they like to share. It's not about them anymore. If you become really old, most of the gut brain is the last part that survives in aged care centers. Yes, narcissistic people operate basically from the gut brain only. Say the cheapest way always to read more about it is my book, €10 in Kindle. You read all those kinds of stuff. Your head brain likes to predict the good answer. So procrastination, perfectionism, and head brains are friends of each other. So perfectionists have most times a high head brain score. What do they don't like? Mistakes. Where do you find them a lot? Yes, the boot link is in. Oh, now actually, Allison, it's easier. It's in my slide pack on the last slide. You get the slides sent to you. So you have to look there. That's easier. So that makes life much easier. Otherwise, I get totally distracted. Okay, so one thing more. What happens if you have a dominant Head brain. If you like to know too much, these are things that happen to you or to your clients. Perfectionism, OCD, anxiety, insomnia, migraines, and headaches. The brain is running like crazy. If your heart is too big, overwhelm, burnout, depression, chronic diseases, fear of failure, poor time management, boundary settings. For us coaches, it also means we deliver gold and get paid silver. The client who gives, asks a question on Sunday, we give an answer to instead of waiting till Monday. We are, most heart-brained people are pleasers. If you like to discover a heart-brained person, it's very easy. You say, shall we go out for dinner? The heart-brained person says yes. What would you like to eat? Oh, I don't mind. What would you like to eat? That is the typical answer of a heart-brained person. They are great leaders, heart-brained people, because they take care of the team. Servant leadership is a lot of times heart-brained, but you need your head and your gut also there to say no sometimes and to make logical decisions. And the previous slide I will show after this because it gives an answer to that. I just want to show this first. Too much head brain, gut brain, fear of failure, anxiety, control-driven, imposter syndrome, or resistant to change. The previous slide, what I skipped through really quickly, is based on research of McKinsey. McKinsey did research about 10,000 leaders. What makes the perfect leader? They came aware of 20 traits. Only from those 20 traits, 4 were responsible for 90 or 8% of success. So actually they say in their own courses, these 4 traits you have to do. Solving problems effectively makes sense. Which brain is in charge? Your head. Can we deliberately change our dominant brain? Yes, you can. It takes a lot of change. You can change it. And meditation, exercise doesn't. You need your heart and your gut brain for long-term change. Operationally strong results is the second key factor. There you need the gut brain for achievements. Push through, make it happen, work 10 hours longer, make it a whole night shift, make it happen, push it, run faster, work harder. You need your gut brain for that. Because the gut brain only thinks about winning and losing. Gray does not exist for the gut brain. Think about the lion. You have lunch or not lunch. If I get the deer, I eat. If I don't have the deer, I don't eat. For the deer, it's the same. I run away fast enough, I live one day longer. I run not fast enough, I become lunch. It's always about survival. Of course, the head brain and heart brain for the long term. Seeking different perspectives is the third trait that is highly effective. And there you need your heart brain because there you have to step in somebody else's shoes. You have to listen to the person, become aware of the person. What do they find really important? Oh, sorry. You need your gut and heart actually for long-term things, not become a rescuer of a victim as an example. The 4th trait is supporting others. Hence the heart brain again. So yes, as a heart brain, you actually see you have 2 of the 4 effective traits to being an amazing leader. The heart brain is the most important in numbers. Really understand what the people want because you lead people. But what you see here, you need all the 3 brains. What do we get taught in most MBAs? Head and gut brain. Get the right scores, do the right knowledge, get the right, get the right things. Working together, understanding empathy is almost not taught in any MBA. That was the previous slide I wanted to show you. So what blocks change and success? To give a summary, your heart, your head likes to have the right prediction. Your heart likes to belong. Your gut says it's all about me. They are not the same. So if you go back to the first slide I showed you, when you say follow your heart, follow your gut, you give advice, follow you first or follow me first. You give totally different advices. And if you say to somebody, think about it for a day, you say actually make it the right prediction. What happens if one brain leads? you stay reflectively loyal to your biology. The first 7 years of your life where you learn almost everything, most of the results are pain or failure. The solution, connecting and listening to your 3 brains. That makes sense. Can you do that? Yes, you can do that. Absolutely. You can start learning to listen to them. How do you do that? Mindfulness, breathing, body scan, 3-brain CCT state, what I teach in the training. That actually helps you to become aware of your own body sensations. From your body sensations, you can become aware what kind of old coping mechanisms did I learn that are not useful now anymore. From there, you can become aware what kind of limiting beliefs actually I also have that are useful 20 years ago, but not now anymore, and also let them go. And then somewhere you can work from your 3 brains easily. If you do the 3 brain dominance test, it's not about your score. It's actually be able to listen to all your 3 brains. This is somewhere it. Last thing I like to say, if you like to learn this, you can follow my training. It's on the slide pack, €200 discount, blah, blah, blah. Perfect. 100% the best training ever according to all my ex-participants, 250, 300, 300 counters. This is in there for the book, as I said to you. If you have questions, we still have some minutes for it. And if you'd like to do 3 assessments, also in the slide pack, also perfect. Connect with me if you'd like to know more.