Why You Keep Second-Guessing Yourself (It's Not Self-Doubt)

So if you overthink, people please, or ignore your gut and regret it later, this episode will explain exactly why. I took the 3 Brains Dominance Test, and today we're breaking down my results so you can understand yours. Chris Schneider's executive coach, author, and creator of the 3 Brains Intelligence Method is back to discuss exactly this. His work shows how your head, your heart, and your gut each have their own intelligence. And when one dominates, it quietly sabotages your decisions. Today we're using my 3 Brains Dominance Test as a real-life case study so you can recognize yourself in this conversation and start making decisions you actually trust. So Chris, it's so good to have you back. I'm super excited for the conversation. Can you tell everyone what the 3 Brains Dominance Test is and why does Yeah, of course, Lisa.

And by the way, it's also good to see you. And we discussed that you look, you look radiant like always. Is it allowed to say that?

Yes, that's very sweet. Thank you.

It is. That's sort of because we, in our pre-talk, right away dived into the scores and the test and all kinds of stuff. And I thought, where are your manners, Chris? She looks, she looks radiant and you don't say anything about it. So anyhow, coming back, 3 brain states. Why is it important? And what does it say? Um, if somebody ever listened to my pod— to your podcast with me, they know you have 3 brains, one in your head, one in your heart, one in your gut. Why do we have those? Because evolution or God, whomever you believe in, thought it is wise to have 3 wise men, just like the 3 wise men who went to Jesus. Everything comes in 3.

Of course.

And they have 3 different kinds of qualities, different kinds of reasons. Your gut is all about me, myself, and I. How do I succeed? How do I achieve? How can I make the best for me? Your heart is all about connection and bonding. Your head is about predicting, predicting what could be a good step because it's the only part that knows time. So can do a cause and effect analysis. Now those are the three. So what does it say? Those tests, the three brains dominance test, as you did, where you have a score thirty-three head, thirty-six heart, thirty-six Gut shows what kind of decisions you make without that you think about it or that you reflect on it. And what Daniel Kahneman says in his book Thinking Fast and Slow, System 1, you just make an autonomic decision. And that means for you, your heart and your gut, you follow more your heart and your gut in decisions. Your head is a little bit lagging behind. That's why you already have your green matcha tea in your hands and then said, oh wow, this is my 5th one. Why did I order it actually? That could happen.

Yeah.

Instead of thinking, oh, it could have been—

I always go for what my gut tells me. And so, I mean, I don't really realize it, but I like to listen to my intuition and logic kind of gets the backseat most of the time. So why do most people not realize that one brain is running the show?

Because now, simply because we're not educated in it. Because when I say 3 brains and I talk about this, many people, many in my own circle and trying to make it out here, I'm also on your show for that, is we all said once in life, follow, just follow your heart. Oh, follow your gut feeling. But nobody ever said to you, if it's not biology class or in school or in university or with a coach, by the way, if you say that you actually have 3 brains and have different kind of Objectives or strategies to keep yourself healthy, sane, successful, etc. And it makes sense because it is, say, you could say new science. It's not new that we have a heart and a gut brain. That's already 40 years old. But actually, that based on that, we make decisions. So if you go to some gurus that talk about the heart brain, if you go to HeartMath or maybe Joe Dispenza, they talk about it. The gut brain does not really come in until probably Joe comes where Oh hey, my my work doesn't work. Let's also bring in the gut. Then probably he becomes an advocate of that. So it's not known in in the popular science. And why why is that? Let's not go there. Otherwise, pharma and other kind of things will right away come to you and ban your station show. So that's so we don't do it. And if you look at epigenetics, that fifty percent of who we are is what our parents did. And that's why we have the hair we have, the skin we have, the eye color we have, and some of the behaviors we have. The rest is based on education, uh, your social community. So it means your parents or your school and how you then go on with that in life. So it can change because when we are born as kids, we're almost all the same. Yeah. Babies are almost all the same in her, in their normal behaviors. 10 years later, they can be totally different. Yeah, safe attachment, insecure attachment, all kind of things happens. What kind of school do you go? What kind of environment do you live? So what does it do? The three brain says what you do. Then you also did the protector test, and then it becomes all say. Then becomes fun because the protector test or the people called the limiting belief or saboteur. I don't like those negative words because that means actually there's negative act. Negative label on it. And a protector is learned by us when we were younger in life. Something happened and we had to cope with that event, with those circumstances. We did a beautiful coping mechanism. That coping mechanism became a habit, became a belief. So it protected us from the pain or the rejection or the failure in the past. That's why I call it the protector, to give the positive name and the label. Because if you can see it as positive, you have much easier to change it. Now we have, I have, or we have 12 protectors in my analysis, 4 of the head, 4 of the heart, 4 of the gut. And they show different kind of, say, limiting beliefs for normal people, for me, protectors, what are running your show.

Right. So when you look at my results, what immediately stands out for you?

Uh, I said what I said earlier. Yeah, in all your 3 brains, you have a protector, say, higher. Actually, in one you have 2. And that becomes interesting because it means you follow your gut, you follow your heart, your head a little bit lower. And if you then look at your score in your head, you have the perfectionist, say, a little bit sticking out as a protector. It means that if you start doing something that you find important, the perfectionist steps in and says, Lisa, no, no, no, no, no, you cannot be on the podcast like that. You have to look at you, how you look. You look amazing. Your hair is beautifully done. Your cap suits your shirt. Your shirt looks amazing. Your plant behind you is totally dust-free. The sign behind you is perfect. And so it looks all perfect. Then the little perfectionist steps, you know, it should look perfect. If you go to your heart, then it becomes interesting because you have 2 higher, the pleaser and the caretaker. And the words actually do what it does. The pleaser is pleasing. So it says yes. even though they think no, because if I like to please you, I have to say what you like to hear. Because if I say what you don't like to hear, how can I not please you? That's really the pleaser. And the caretaker is, let me take care of you.

Hmm.

Now, those are also protectors. So that means when you are with people and you say you like them or you care about them, they're in your inner circle, then this could happen. You could please people, you could start taking care of them. Even though maybe your inner gut says, Lisa, not good for you. Go to bed. Speak out what you want. You disagree. Put your own boundaries. And then your pleaser and your caretaker say, no, no, no. If I speak out, then I don't please. But the person can be, say, disappointed. I could get rejected. And if I don't take care of them, they also don't like me. There are strategies to be liked. And they are stronger.

So how does this show up in daily life?

In daily life, um, the most important is that I love to say I wrote a book about relationships. So say you have a relationship and we'll not talk about you, but in general, otherwise it becomes, if you have these scores in your relationship, it means that, um, you don't listen to your own boundaries. So if the other person, say, likes to have a pizza and you like to go for your healthy food, you're, you could easily say yes.

Mm-hmm.

You like to please the other person. If the other person says, let's watch Die Hard 3 for the 5th time, you say, okay, actually, I'd like to see something else. I thought actually, actually, actually Love of Love Actually. Then no, no, no, that is too soft. Let's go for Die Hard 3. And before you know, you're watching Die Hard 3 again. I think, why on heaven's earth am I watching Die Hard 3 again? And a caretaker means actually that you take care of them easier than for yourself. It is great, say, if you are with your parents or your kids or with your sister or your brother, and you take care of them when they're sick. That's great. But in normal relationships is actually that if the person, let's say, doesn't clean up his own clothes after he wore them, that you just pick them up and bring them to the laundry basket. As a caretaker, because that's hard for him. He does not know. He's maybe in a hurry. And so he does things to take care of the relationship and of the other person that are actually against your own inner needs.

Right.

If you're a pleaser, you don't say that because why would you say, yes, he likes to be standing up, so why would he put the lid down? Now, because that's what you do, guy. And so that could happen. Now, in your gut, you have, say, the controller higher and a little bit the rebel higher. And that could mean that in, say, you have a personal relationship with somebody, could mean, not that it is, that when you're really fed up with the person, you don't speak out what you like and don't like until it's really like, I have enough. Then the controller and the rebel step in and they say, okay, I have enough. Okay. So by the way, Don't love you anymore.

Bye. Yeah.

Before the whole discussion starts, the breakup could be coming. That's how you, you are beautiful silent water. And in one moment it bursts out. It's almost like it could be, say, more the volcano discussion you have.

Yeah, I think it's the decision of knowing. It's like you, I already would know before I would tell them. So it's like once I'm out, I'm out. And then nothing can convince me otherwise.

because before that there were some signs what the other person maybe didn't pick up because you pleased them and you took care of them and you did not speak out. So for the other person, it could be some, I did not see this happening.

Yeah.

Let's say in normal relationships, I don't say the personal partner, it could mean with your friends or with other ones also. That could be that you are the easygoing person. So in a group of 5 friends, They all have a decision and you just say, oh, it's okay. Yeah, let's do that. Instead of saying, no, no, no, no, I like to do something else.

Right.

It could be in the group that you're easier, say, following the group than saying, no, no, I like to go left or right.

Yeah. And I'm sure a lot of listeners are hearing this and they're like, oh my God, this is so me. This is so me. Where a lot of us are taught to be easygoing and not rattle the cage and, you know, not go against. So if 5 people want to go have pizza and 2 people want to eat healthy, why would you fight against that when everyone, mostly everybody, just wants to do the pizza, right? So we're taught how to just kind of blend in.

May I ask a question, Lisa? Do you have brothers or sisters?

Yes, I have an older brother.

An older brother. Okay. Only one?

Yeah.

Okay. Now I ask that because most times, if, yeah, that you see it in family situations, but you say in family situations that somewhere we have to adjust in a family. That's what you said, that the pleaser, the caretaker, also the peacekeeper, they become, say, somewhere stronger when you are growing up, say, in a family where you have siblings because you have to adjust to each other's needs.

Yeah.

And, uh, Yeah, they, and we don't like to overpsychologize it, but a lot of times you see in the family dynamics where we learn those kind of ruling systems.

Yeah.

If you, if you're gonna say you have a brother and a sister now, that, that, that there are so many, so many stories that could align to that, right? The, the boys are getting a different kind of education than us. Hey, how do I get still accepted? Okay, maybe I should do the same as them. Maybe I should do something else. How can I become the, in your case, the sweet girl? And you start just taking those kinds of things in. Hey, daddy likes it or mommy likes it. If I have, most times with girls, it's daddy. Hey, if I have good scores, okay, I'll be a little bit more perfectionist. Okay, I will not rock the boat because my brother is maybe a little bit more verbal. I will just say yes. You see a lot of times in family dynamics how already we get learned to stay the family together, how we adjust ourselves. That's totally normal because otherwise every family would be a disruptive family.

Yeah.

That's why it makes totally sense. The only thing is none of our parents say when we're 18, by the way, you live in a family system with us. Now you're 18, you're going to be yourself. Forget all those family systems. Do whatever you want. Make your own rules. Forget the old rules. We tear up the contract of this is how you had to deal with your brother in us.

Mm-hmm. So it sounds like learning about the dominance, you need to learn about the dominance in order for it to be fixed or aligned. So it's just like what you said about unlearning. So we have to unlearn what we were taught in those 18 years, essentially, so that we can be free of that and give ourselves more freedom to access all 3 of our brains.

It is because if you think about it, then say your score is not extremely high because I have, like, you're still in a good scoring range. So your highest is an 8. That is, say, mediocre high, but not really high. Sometimes I see people have a score that goes to 12, who have a 12 in caretaker or 12 in pleaser. That means almost in all their situations, that one jumps up.

Right.

It's almost impossible to get them angry.

Right.

I would say it's almost annoying. Um, and they push themselves even more away. Yeah, it is, it is actually coming over here. If you now think about it, how do they really still help me? Of course they have good things. Of course, that you're a pleaser and a caretaker as a score, the same as perfectionist and controller, has— they have hidden gifts. Yeah, the pleaser means you can deal with a lot of people. You will not rock the boat too easily. Um, the caretaker means that if you are in a group with 5, people feel you're, uh, you're always part of the group because you take care of the group. That everything is done. So people find you happy company.

Yeah.

And that's the benefit of it. So it all has benefits. The perfectionist also sorts that when you do your amazing shows, it looks good, is well organized, it all sticks.

Right.

That's great. The downfall is if that behavior shows up when it's not needed.

Right.

Yeah. So you don't have to be always a pleaser or a caretaker strong, um, in every relationship. Sometimes it's okay. Okay, 2, uh, 3 like pizza, 2 like healthy. Now, by the way, guys, I really go for healthy because I like to take care of myself. I love you, I love you all dearly, but I'm not going to put something unhealthy in my stomach.

Right.

As an example.

Yeah.

Or by the way, if I really go to the pizza bar, I take a beautiful salad and I take some risotto or something else in the, in the, in the good Italian shop.

Right.

The Italians are still Mediterranean, also have beautiful food. And so you can. So this, it is finding the way from in which parts of my life are they actually dominating so I don't feel that I can use my other qualities of it, that I can put my own boundaries, that I can say no easier, that I can let it go.

Yeah, I was just gonna say, how do you start? Like once Once you recognize which brain is in dominance, how do you bring back the quieter brain into the conversation?

Now, say in your, in your 3 Brains course, the good thing is they're rather close to each other. I got this 36, 36, 33. They're rather close to each other. So you're based on the score, you're able to jump easily if you want. The thing that holds you back in that part to use all 3 of them, just choop, choop, choop, choop, choop, like an windscreen wiper is that you have some, um, limiting beliefs or protectors that overrun the system sometimes. Because all in your heart are above 5. And so if you look at your head, they're 2, 5, 3, 3. And so your head has less, call it protectors to jump in. So your heart protectors are also stronger. So your heart will really dominate the show in relationships.

Right.

It does also have some higher scores, but not enough to balance that. So I can imagine that when you're by yourself, you follow your gut. When you're in the relation, in groups or with people, you follow more your heart. And the head is always lacking around. So it is then really coming over here. Hey, should I work, say, on those protectors to bring them down and get them under control? Or should I really come aware that if I make decisions that say, quote unquote, are important, I just pause. And when people say, hey, should we do this, Lisa? You say, just give me a minute. Let me just think about it. Because the funny part is, Lisa, if you go to people who have, say, high head brain dominance in decision making, and in my, if I train people, you find those. If I ask them, hey, what do you think about this? Or what's your opinion about this? And I say always, what's your opinion? Uh, would you like to do this? They always say, oh, let me think about this. I don't know. And they, head brain dominance brings right away already for themselves a pause in it because they like to do a perfect, perfect answer. So they're totally conditioned to say, I don't know, let me think about this. And they just take that pause and it's totally normal for them.

Right. Yeah.

So for your score, And for many scores, actually bringing the pause in. Okay, let me think about this pizza or healthy. Okay, let me just think about it. Okay, what did I eat last week? What actually do I really like to eat? What does my body now actually say to me? Does my body like to have pizza or just a beautiful, healthy Mediterranean salad with some tuna in it or some salmon on top of it? Maybe some, some eggs through it. And then come away. Hey, what does my body actually say? Okay, my body says this. Okay, guys. Girls, love you all, but I prefer this.

Yeah, taking that pause. I think our culture these days, though, I mean, I follow like a really healthy lifestyle, and everyone is talking about quieting the mind, right? And how using tools like meditation can help quiet the mind so we can listen to our heart and listen to our gut. So can you speak to that a little bit?

We had a funny part as you're right in the— everybody now feels stressed. Not everybody. I don't feel stressed, but many, many, many people feel stressed. Burnout rates, and especially in Generation Z. I was reading an article about it, about the Dutch newspapers that I think 1 out of 5 up to 25 years have something like a stress or feel prior burnout or cannot deal with it anymore. I think, well, it's good that we don't have a Second World War now because really we would lose in 2 seconds. But that's then my, my mind jumps up. But makes sense how you do it. And why do we like to quiet the mind? Because if you would take your, this beautiful thing that bursts information or actually messages all the time out, if you're on Telegram or WhatsApp and you see a message, then people expect actually to respond right away.

Yeah.

If you go on social media, you get bombarded with so many different kinds of things and that your mind actually gets a little bit of an overload.

Yeah.

And we're not trained ourselves to what is it, how can I actually balance what is important to see for me to not important to see for me? Can I put my phone away? So therefore people like to silence the mind and listen to their internal system.

Right.

The funny part is in that part, your gut and your heart don't know time, do not know time. Do not know time, so they're always living in the present. So if you then would silence your head and go to your present, what does my heart and God say? They have an issue actually with making that decision to stop social media or other things, because your heart likes to be connected, and social media or your phone, for a lot of people, it feels like you're connected.

Yeah.

So your heart could say, no, no, no, don't put all those social media apps out because before you know it, you miss a post of Lisa and you know you like her. Maybe if you turn it off, you don't see your WhatsApp. So keep it open. Just have a look sometimes because maybe you missed a message from Lisa. Your heart does not know the consequences of that decision.

Right.

And I can talk about myself. easily. How many times did you not go for the wrong boyfriend? You don't need to say a number. Don't say a number. Don't say a number because, but it happened to you. It happened to me in a girlfriend situation.

It happens all the time. Yeah.

Because we follow our heart. Or maybe we follow our gut and think, oh, that looks good.

I remember the last episode, you told me not to text my ex. Absolutely. And I learned, I learned a lot from that. So I set that boundary and And I actually said to him, I would prefer if we don't communicate anymore. And ever since then, it's been great because I set that boundary.

Beautiful.

Yeah, but it makes so much sense because the heart wants to connect, but the brain knows that that's not good for you. So if we continuously allow stuff that's not good for us, even though we know it's not, then we're not going to move forward in any way.

And now you say it, it's good you bring it up because we just discussed your pleaser and your caretaker score that was high. So does it make sense that you like to text, you wanted to text your ex? Yes, because the pleaser and the caretaker likes to, the caretaker likes to text them. How are you doing? How was your breakup? Are you doing good? Although we're not together anymore, I still care about you. All those kinds of horrible sentences. That's a caretaker. Ah. Yeah. So actually what we said before that the New Year's Court actually don't take care, don't please.

Yeah.

And now I know your court makes so much sense for you. That's also a red flag. The moment you like to text somebody who's not in your zone anymore, then you really say, uh-uh, pleaser or caretaker, please buck her off. The answer is no.

Right.

And don't please or take care. So it makes sense. So the silencing of the head makes sense. Only your heart and your gut are not the best advisors because your heart said actually to, wanted to say to your ex, I will stay in contact.

Yeah.

So we need our beautiful head because I always talk about 3 brains to do a cause and effect analysis. And that's where I still remember when I immigrated to Australia, And one Australian said to me, hey, Chris, to become a really— did you already become a real Australian? I said, how do I become a real Australian? He said, you have to do a lobotomy. And I really looked at him. What's a lobotomy? I said, putting something in my nose. And he said, yes.

Yeah.

It didn't make sense. But in some jokes it made sense. But what we need to do actually is to use the brain where it is amazing. Cause and effect analysis. Say I'm going to text my ex. What could be the result of that? How would he see it? How would he interpret it? What is his mind on that moment? Probably this. Okay. Do I like that? No. Okay. I'm not going to text him. So what they call critical thinking, right? Cause and effect analysis. And that's not happening. And if you say quiet the mind so we can feel good, that's for stress response. for making decisions, say, talk about social media or those kinds of things, is not the best because they don't know what's the effect. But we all know that if you go on social media, it creates, say, that little addiction effect, just like the one-armed bandit. Because every time you get a little bit of a rush, oh hey, somebody texted or WhatsApp me. Oh, that's a nice post.

Oh, or somebody liked my post. People get that rush from just a simple checkmark. Yeah. Oh, well, how many likes do I have today?

Oh, hey, well, even somebody said, I like your red sweater. Oh, that is good. So you get all that little rush. So, so your heart and gut say, no, no, stay on social media. On that moment, actually, you should really go in your head and say, is this really good for me? I'm now watching already half an hour social media instead of doing something else. What is the consequence of that? And then you, the pity is this one can give you advice, but this one most times is stronger, your heart or your gut. So then you really have to train yourself in a different way from I can just put it away, I can, I can just do it. And then you, then you have to create actually belief and then you use your gut or your heart, actually your gut. What is good for me? And really ask the question, is being 1 hour on social media good for me? Does it benefit my health? Do I get, or do I need, after 1 hour of social media, actually go into a meditation retreat? If that's the answer, it was horrible.

Yeah, yeah. A lot of times I know when I start my day on my phone, even like looking at emails, I get so anxious. And then starting the day like that is the worst. And I know Many people start their day by grabbing their phone and their excuse is, well, it's my alarm. Yeah, but that doesn't mean that you need to sit there and scroll, right? Like, we need to start utilizing other things and connecting on a real level, like not through messaging and likes, which really don't mean anything because someone could accidentally like a post and you wouldn't know it, right? So it's— we attach meaning to these little signs that really mean nothing. Right.

Um, this, and by the way, research shows extremely healthy. I also have a phone and I don't use it. My alarm is actually one of those light alarms, you know, where slowly the light goes up. Natural light alarms. That's the most healthiest you can have. Oh, I love that. My phone, I first do my yoga, then do my core exercises. I take a shower, I take my breakfast, and during my breakfast, so that's 1 hour later, my phone starts entering my life.

Right.

So I'm already totally done my procedure, and then you're actually ready for your day. Because what happens actually, if you open this one earlier, we get a cortisol rise when we wake up, and cortisol is energy. But the moment we see messages, also other signals in our 3 brains get signaled. Do I have to do with it? And before you know, apyrophorina, nigrophorina, testosterone start running to our body. I have to take action. The moment you're in your first half an hour of being awake, I have to take action. You're actually really doing something horrible to your health.

Yeah. And then suddenly we don't do the yoga or the meditation because we've let that take over. And then those healthy habits that we're trying to stack get put on the side burner.

So watching your phone, 3 brain-wise, health-wise, Is the same as going to the gym and not doing a warming up. It's going to say, hey Lisa, we're going to sprint 200 meters. You have to do it without warming up. There's a huge chance that you, that you torn a muscle.

Yeah.

Nobody would say to, okay, do a sprint of 200 meters without warming up because everybody would say you're, you're, you're crazy. Your body's not made for that. Putting the phone on in the first half hour after you wake up is actually saying do a sprint of 200 meters without warming up.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Go to the gym and without warming up, start pushing 100 kilos. Do your maximum rep. Nobody would do your maximum rep in gym without any warming up.

Yeah.

But that's the detriment, Frits, because, and the part now you come back to your heart and gut, but your heart and gut don't know that. They see a message coming in. You open your phone, oh, it's 7 o'clock in the morning and you see all the notifications coming in. Oh, hey, Lisa posted something. Oh, it has 40 likes. Maybe I should also watch that. Oh, something on X. Oh, something on Instagram. Hey, somebody liked me. And before you know, you start already rushing up and taking all those actions without— and nothing in there, almost nothing in there, let's make— needs a direct response. If it can wait the whole night, It's going to still wait another hour.

Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting how when we see a message, we automatically feel like we should be acknowledging and responding immediately.

What did you say? You right away feel. You didn't say you right away know.

Yeah, it is. It's a gut feeling. It's like an anxiety. It's like, oh, I must respond to this.

Anxiety. That's your heart and gut. Anxiety from the heart of being rejection. Anxiety from the gut. Van ik don't have success. So it is a feeling sensation. So the moment you feel you have to respond, then you have to go to your head. What happens if I wait half an hour? Probably nothing. Okay, then I don't do it.

Right.

Because then you don't need that meditation or retreat kind of let's meditate on it. Because if you do meditation, that feeling will still come up because you silence this even more. So the signals from here come even more stronger up there and says, Lisa, you're not going to do meditation, but you did not respond on that post. Lisa, you're doing your meditation, did not respond on that post. Stacy will not like you if you don't respond on that post. I can tell you that Stacy will hate you if you don't do response on her post. And before you get totally stressed in your meditation, you start responding to the, to the post of, of, of your colleague Stacy. Well, she would not have cared anything less if you had done it 30 minutes later. Because it would even—

yeah, it's interesting. It's so interesting.

Don't meditate and actually do the opposite and go in here and do a cause and effect analysis.

And I was just going to say, what is a practice that people can use to help rebalance their 3 brains? So do you have a daily tip or practice that one can use to rebalance, recalibrate?

Yeah. for yourself, like if you do it by yourself, if you say go to a coach or a therapist or something else, they can work on the beliefs or the protectors you have. And if you work on those, you get them under control and then they don't push your life. If you do it by yourself, then the only thing is discipline, repetition, and actually awareness.

Wow.

And, uh, in the best way of awareness is don't trust your own 3 brains. They will bring up the message. So it's really, Putting the message on your screen, on your table, there's not on your phone like a Post-it and say, does it need a response now? So to bring it to the head, can it wait 30 minutes? And then you train your head brain. Can of course then your head comes in. For your heart is really that message. Will this break? This will. Does this mean right away rejection? Does this mean actually? Uh, that I get a better bonding. Uh, your gut is really, hey, um, is this really good for me? Is this what I want? And those sentences, if you put them everywhere, and I had them when I started to train myself in this, because I also like to train myself in this, I had, say, a whole bunch of post-its on my screen saying, I put them in 3 things: head, heart, gut. Otherwise it became messy. A little bit organization should be there. And I, and I changed them every week. So I didn't know only the head was left and the heart was right and the gut was in the middle.

Yeah.

Because then I could only look to the right because it was easier to read because then to the head. And by reading them every time, it became stronger, stronger in my mind. Because if you, that's the part of repetition, you only build the muscle by repetition. But repetition is the hardest because it means discipline. And it means actually going out of your comfort zone. It goes into your uncomfortable zone. So that's why we don't like it. But if you always see it, it's hard to deny and it becomes more and more ingrained in yourself.

How long does it take to start reprogramming?

Yeah. So in your, in your case, you did amazing stuff, by the way, by not texting your ex. I'm really proud of you because we said it and I never know if people listen, but you did an amazing job because you proved actually I can. The response, it is better for me.

Yeah. And the output of that is that I was able to move finally past that part of my life and so fully move on. Because so many of us keep those relationships alive in a sense, and then we're not able to fully move on to the next phase of our life into what Is better for us. Because it keeps us— it's like having one toe in, you know? It's like even though most of myself was out of it, just that little bit of contact was preventing me from the next best thing, right? And I think a lot of us do that because, like you said, we don't listen to our heads. We're wanting that connection feeling that so many of us are missing. There's so many people that are lonely in this world. Again, with the social media, think that that helps with loneliness, but it doesn't. It actually makes it worse. But we're looking for that. But we have to choose our battles. So by not texting him, now I have, you know, I met a whole bunch of other people that I would prefer that are better for me, right? That are better for me as a human being. So when you close a door, it opens up other doors that are better for us.

Absolutely. That's how you prove yourself. That is beautifully said. So your retraining is actually really asking the question, is one saying, is this my pleaser or caretaker that now wants to answer? If that's the answer, yes, they say, oh, hey, what would Chris say to this? Chris probably say, no, no, don't do it. Don't do this to me. But then really in that part, train your gut system from, okay, is this good for me? How will texting this? How will doing this this for that person help me? If the answer is it doesn't help me, then there how does this help me? How is this good for me? Those are really gut brain questions, and most females don't ask that question really strong enough for themselves. Because we're to make it generalizations. Most females are educated to be sweet, nice, and looking good. And most men are educated to be strong, uh, a little bit the dirtbag and just make it happen.

Yeah.

Guys are, if a guy's, if a boy falls on his knees, everybody's proud. If a girl falls on her knees, then girls don't do that.

Right.

So we, we are also socialized a little bit in this. So for most females, I say train your gut and really ask, is this good for me? How will this help me? And for most guys, I would say, so you could also say for most heart-brain people, ask yourself, is this good for me? And for most gut brain people, ask yourself, how will this benefit the other? How will this keep my bonding alive?

How does it—

because the gut brain doesn't care about bonding, it cares about success, about winning. Yeah, no top sporter will win without a higher gut brain.

With the pace of the current world though, how do we Take that second? How do we remind ourselves to take that second? Because most people, a lot of people are juggling multiple things at once. You know, they've got like 3 kids and a job and groceries and husband and wife, whatever it is, a million things going on. And sometimes I know I've made decisions because of the overload of work, right? Like, I'm like, okay, I'm just going to say yes because I need to get to the next thing. So how do we learn how to slow down? Because I think that's the number one thing that I need to remind myself is that it's okay to take a second to make a decision. I don't need to give an answer right away. That's something that I need to work on. But for everyone listening, what are some— how do we slow down?

So what's the age you like to become at the end, Lisa? 80, 90, 100? So what is the age you like to become? 80, 90, 100, 110?

How old do I wanna— how long do I wanna live?

Yes.

Um, 130.

130. Okay, Lisa, I love your answer, by the way. It's really, it's really such a beautiful answer because I always, always say to myself, I become 142, and maybe I change a little bit. But anyhow, how many years do you still have left? I know because you, you shared your age.

Yes, I'm 41. I'm really bad at math. I don't know, you tell me.

That's 89. Okay, that is so more than twice the time you have been up to now on this Earth. So what is the speed of doing it in the same minute if you still have 89 years to go?

Right.

Why I say that we are learned somewhere And in the States even more than in the Western Europe, that has to be now. We have to have this on this age. We have to have this on this age. We have this on this age and then you get a pensionado at 65 or 70. And then what's the rest of your life? If you would be a pensionado at 70, you still have 60 years to live. What are you going to do those 60 years? Sitting behind the flowers? Right.

No.

So it's actually also thinking, How much time do I have actually to spend everything I want to do? It doesn't mean you have to delay, but put the time in a different frame. And at the other hand, Leonardo da Vinci, the famous artist, painter, inventor, had also 24 hours and 7 days a week. It's actually balancing what is really, and that's a real question, what is neat to do and what is nice to do. Uh, back actually to the grid of, I think, uh, the many people Eisenhower grid or Mintzberg grid. And it's important for me and urgent. Important for me and urgent means you have to do it. That is going to the bathroom when you really have to go. Important for me and not urgent is, oh, I have to do my tax declarations for quarter 1. Now you don't have to do it now because quarter 1 is not finished. So you can plan it somewhere. Not important for you, but urgent is almost everything. Oh, I have to see that post and do a like. How is that important for me? How is it important for me to look at Facebook? How is it important for me now to read the newspapers? How is it important for me to now, I don't know, rush everything? 9 out of 10, they're not important for me.

Uh-huh.

But our heart thinks that it's important for us because if I don't like the post of Stacy, maybe she doesn't like me anymore. If I don't like your post, maybe you don't like me anymore. And probably in all the 40 likes, you don't see that I didn't like you at all. So probably don't even notice if I do it or not. But we make some of the hard things, oh, we need to be connected. So we are feeling it's important for us, but it's not important for us. So it's bringing that head brain in. What is important for us? What is important for us to do? That means actually we really have to start listening to our gut brain. And then the only thing we need our head brain for is coming aware you have still 89 years to live.

Right.

So could you explain me, Lisa, why you're in a rush if you still have to do 89 years.

Yeah, yeah, it's all just conditioning for sure.

Now, whatever you like to do today, how important is it that all happens today?

Yeah, that'd be crazy if everything I wanted to do happened in one day.

Even for the things you plan today, yeah, if you really want to look at it, how much is really, really important for you today to do today? Because tomorrow, everybody would reject you or you would lose your job or you would lose your house or your finance.

Yeah, there's very little. I have very little that actually needs to be done.

Yeah. So that's also coming back. And that's why I say if people steal this and they start listening to their heart and their gut is not always the best because this one does a cause and effect analysis.

Right.

We don't listen too much to this to really map it out. What is now really important for now, and what is important for tomorrow and for the day after? And if you start doing that, you come aware that you find much more peace in your own mind. That's why we need three brains. This one, yes, is great to push us to make the connection, but this one is great to do the cause and effect analysis. And it's actually asking yourself, because your head brain score is the lowest, and your protectors are also the lowest net, to put the poster there. Is it important for now? Is it urgent or can it wait half an hour or one day? And to ask yourself, really train this one in cause and effect analysis. What will happen if I wait for half an hour? I can tell you for almost all your decisions, even not knowing what they are, probably will not, nothing will be a burning house.

No, most, most, most decisions can take A minute, can wait a bit before doing, for sure. I think a lot of people can relate to that.

And so, so that is actually also training yourself. And that's then like we are pushed a lot of times by our beautiful phone or email to do, start doing things, but they're a push from outside. They're not a push from inside because the same, we woke up, you see all those things, If you would look at all the things you see in your phone in the morning, you would ask then the question to the person if he's really awake, what is really important for you now of all those messages? Almost nobody would say all of them. They would say, oh, maybe one, right? And even then it can still wait half an hour.

Yeah. So if someone out there listening feels seen, maybe a little bit exposed, By this conversation, what would their next steps be?

Um, the next step is now besides the questions that I asked, say I'm just going to tell them, um, probably next week I will drop 2 little ebooks. Now it's little ebooks, 60, 70 pages on Amazon. I was looking for the word and one is 3 Brains Intelligence. So really what is the science and with some beautiful example stories in there, what it does with people. The second one is a little ebook. Um, and I right away lost the name because I changed the name really shortly. But it is an amazing, um, Reclaim Your Brains, Brains plural, Change That Works. Because I just got it back and that actually gives already some steps, also has the questions I just asked for people who like to read it more and say, okay, I like to read it, read those little ebooks. They're the same price as a coffee in the average city. So only $3 and it gives you a massive amount of insights which you can do by yourself already.

Amazing.

Amazing.

Where do people find your brain dominance test?

Uh, now if they see me in the podcast, they see 3 Brains Intelligence next to my name because my name is Dutch and that is not so beautiful. The same as your Urbanski, that's almost impossible for people to remember. My last name is Sneijders and you write it in the most also in a difficult way. So the easiest one is 3 Brains Intelligence because that's what you need. You need 3 Brains Intelligence. You need your head running up, your heart running up and your heart running up in a balance. All 3 giving you an insight. What is the best, best for me, best for us, best to do in the timeframe. And if you have those 3 aligned, it works perfect. So hence 3 Brains Intelligence, you can do the test. You can get, just like you got, you get a total explanation back. What is your hidden gift, your protector, what is maybe the pitfalls, how does it work for you in the protectors. And for the 3 brains dominance, you get an analysis actually how you probably make decisions. And based on self-awareness, you can start training yourself because think about it, when you go to the gym, what does the personal trainer or the person from the gym do, let you do some tests so you get the self-awareness. Hey, where do you need to train on? And then you get the personal training program. This is the same. First, self-awareness. What do you need to train? Because the most important thing, Lisa, and you already proved it to everybody here listening, you can train your 3 brains. Because by not texting your ex, you start training your 3 brains. If there's a behavioral action, but you train your 3 brains, hey, I can, By training the 3 brains just like muscles, you can start listening to them more. That's why I said if you put everywhere, post it so you're reminded every time, you train yourself that it becomes an automatic question for yourself.

Yeah, I agree. Well, thank you so much for being here today and for sharing all of that and for going over my test results so that other people can understand maybe themselves a little bit more. Um, before we go, is there any last minute thoughts you wanna leave the audience with today?

Uh, for, for you and the audience, or if you have a new partner, uh, for the Lookout or you like the friends, just let them do the test because one, it gives you a beautiful insight for that, uh, and it'll make your life happier. But that's, that's a, and also a little joke in that part. Now for me, um, as I also say in my book, people are not broken. People are not dis— you're, you're not, you don't lack discipline. You're not broken. You're not unmotivated. What you did up to now is using the wrong brain to get the results. And if you use the wrong, if you use the wrong brain, you always get depleted after because you actually don't get any results. It doesn't make sense. So the moment you start using your right brain or brains in what you like to do, results come automatically.

Yeah. Thank you so much for being here today. It was so nice to see you.

Thank you so much, Lisa.

Yes. And to our audience, learn which brain is dominating your life so that you can start changing and using all 3. Stay tuned for the next episode and take care, everyone. And don't text your ex.