Are you in the 0.1% when it comes to discipline, or do you, like most of us, belong to the 99.9%?

Why this question? Over the last few years, I've asked the same question in all my webinars, trainings, and even podcasts.

What is the question? What will you put in your shopping basket in the evening: what you decided in the morning, or what you see that evening?

Your answer may tell you much more than what you eat tonight, because, a bit like the marshmallow test that Stanford once did with children, it shows which of your 3 Brains takes over when you are hungry, tired or under pressure, and whether you can still listen to the other two before you decide.

And the Brain that fills your basket at nine o’clock in the evening may well be the same one that decides in your meetings, your relationships and your big choices, and if you look back, it was probably not always the one you would have liked to make that decision.

What is the story behind it?

In the morning, you write a shopping list for yourself with all the healthy food you want to buy for today: vegetables, fish, fruit, salads, and, in my case, that means no sweets, no chocolate, and no cheese, because those simply aren't on the healthy list.

Now imagine that between that moment and the supermarket you have no breakfast, no coffee or tea, no lunch, no snack in between, no merienda, as we call it here in Spain, and you only go shopping at eight or nine o’clock in the evening, without having had dinner.

Will you buy exactly what is on the morning list?

I would love to say I keep my hand up, because if you ask my girlfriend, I am rather disciplined: every morning, my yoga, healthy food, in bed on time, rather boring, she would say. And still, especially in the past, when I had burned a lot of energy and was still hungry, a chocolate bar could find its way into my little basket, and I would eat the whole bar. The funny part is that my discipline and that chocolate bar come from the same place: my Gut Brain, which loves to achieve and stay healthy and, when the tank is empty, simply wants energy now.

So how is it possible that in the morning we know exactly what to do, and twelve or fourteen hours later we do something else?

This is what I call a logical Head disagreeing with a hungry Gut, and in my experience the Gut wins almost every time, unless you are one of those extremely disciplined people, a Ronaldo, a Serena Williams or a Djokovic, who are or were at the top of their league precisely because of it. For the rest of us, and I include myself, it is not a lack of discipline, and it is not that something is wrong with us. It is so extremely normal that it happens to almost everybody, every day, in a big or a small moment, because this is how our biology takes care of us, or at least believes it does. We are not broken, we do not lack discipline, and we are not unmotivated, and perhaps, so far, we simply have not yet listened to all 3 of our Brains.

What drives our behaviour?

When we look at behaviour, I keep coming back to the question of what is actually driving it. It can be our habits, it can be our experience, our beliefs, or highly impactful events that changed how we see the world, and underneath all of that, I dare to suggest, are two hidden drivers, two Brains with their own unique strategies and objectives, and when they do not agree with our logic, they step on the brake.

And in general, when one of our 3 Brains is more dominant than the others, it shapes the behaviour we see in a very particular way.

The layers, from what we can see to what we cannot

I like to draw it as layers, knowing that the map is never the territory, so it is never complete or perfect.

At the top is what other people can see of us, how we present ourselves, our clothes, our watch, our glasses, what we did with our hair this morning, and that is extremely easy to change, because I had three shirts on this morning before I chose the one for today.

Just underneath is our behaviour, verbal and non-verbal, how fast we speak, how high or low our voice is, which is still changeable but takes a little more effort, because it asks for a conscious decision.

Underneath that sit our knowledge and experience, together with our rules, principles and predictions, the thinking part, where our Head Brain keeps what it can declare, what we know and what we did, and because we gather new knowledge and new experience every day, this layer changes quite well, although it is already invisible to the people around us unless they ask.

Then we come to the feeling part, our emotions, beliefs and values. Here our ability to change can feel much more limited, because so much of it is stored in what neuroscience calls non-declarative memory, the feelings, sensations and muscle memory that live far more in the Heart and the Gut than in the Head.

This was the part that made me change my shirt three times. At first I chose logically: I had worn the first shirt yesterday, and it was still fresh. Then my Gut stepped in and nudged me towards a thicker one, in case I got cold while walking the dog in the morning. And finally my Heart had its say: “Yes, and you are walking in Madrid with your girlfriend, so you would like to look nice too.” And that is how I ended up with shirt number three, the logic totally overruled, just like with the shopping list.

At the very bottom are the layers of survival and bonding, surviving by winning and avoiding pain, and surviving by staying connected and being cared for, and this is where the Gut Brain and the Heart Brain do their deepest work.

Knowing does not always mean changing

Most leadership programmes and coaching quite naturally work in the top layers. How do you present yourself? How do you speak with your team? What behaviour could or should you change?

To explore these questions, we draw on the client’s knowledge and experience, and sometimes on the rules and predictions they have developed. Together we create an action list to put these ideas into practice, aiming to practise regularly enough for them to become a natural part of our behaviour, and quite often, just like the shopping list, it does not materialise when the Heart or the Gut disagrees, because they do not see the advantage of changing the old behaviour, the one that was so successful in the old days.

And the moment the Heart or the Gut sees the advantage, change can happen in a blink, as I experienced. A few years ago my GP, a really smart doctor who has known my girlfriend and me for years, told me my cholesterol was higher, partly genetic, and suggested three months of statins; and my first response was, I don't take pills. Still sitting in his office, I opened my iPhone and started looking up what I could do differently, as I really dislike not being in control of my health and having to take medication, and he looked at me and made a deal with me: you try your method for three months and prove it works, and if you do not succeed, you take the pills. Up to then, I really loved cheese, chocolate and yoghurt. From that moment, I never touched cheese again; my chocolate went from a whole bar to one little piece, and within three months my cholesterol dropped by 25%, and I still do not eat it today. Nowadays, when I see him, he sometimes calls me the master of those changes. My Head had known for years that the cheese I was eating wasn't the healthiest choice, and I had the excuse that I do a lot of sport, so I burned it off, but only when my Gut saw a real reason to survive did the change happen, without any struggle.

When we get to beliefs and values, I often hear that this is the therapist’s area because they were formed in the past as ingrained coping mechanisms for situations that could bring rejection, failure, or pain, and therefore we have to solve the past. Based on my 30 years of experience as a coach and therapist, I see two reasons why that is not always the case.

The first reason is that the original coping mechanism is often not active anymore. Let me take somebody who smokes. When do people start smoking? Mostly in their teenage years. Why? In most cases, it's peer pressure, because we like to belong to a group, and what I find interesting is that most people don't even like their first cigarettes.

When I worked with people who wanted to stop smoking all those years later, and asked them what their reason for smoking was now, they said: it gives me me-time, because my kids cannot come outside with me when I smoke; it gives me a break from work; it helps me to think; it tastes good after dinner; it just helps me to relax. None of it is actually connected with why they started smoking, so the first coping mechanism, the one they learned to stay connected and be part of the group, is not active anymore.

So if we would like to help people stop smoking, we do not go back and say, you were part of peer group pressure; let’s solve that so you do not smoke anymore. No, we actually talk about the triggers they have now, and what keeps them stuck now.

And in many cases, it works the same with a lot of beliefs, and also with behaviour we learned from painful or impactful events. We created a coping mechanism at that time, and it was useful, based on the belief that it would help us do better with our parents, our brothers or sisters, or maybe our teachers or colleagues, but now those reasons are different, so why go back and solve the past when the issue is in the present and has different triggers?

The second reason is the opposite of the smoking example. Here, the old reason lies in the past, but the old emotion is still active in the present, because the Heart and the Gut live in the present. They don't have the concept of last week, last year, or twenty years ago, so emotions from that time are still felt now, and they sometimes create a voice in your head, you know, those critical voices that say you still should do that. And we can work on that too, and in this case it is almost easier, because the moment we can teach the Heart or the Gut that it is not needed anymore now, because the reason daddy, mummy or whatever it was- lies in the past and does not apply in the present anymore, and the moment we split that emotion we feel now from the memory that connects it to the past, the Heart or the Gut simply drops it, and it disappears. They let the coping mechanism and the critical voices disappear, like snow on a sunny day in Madrid.

Let me share the story of Rocky, who told me I could share it on any platform. Rocky was an international DJ for years who never drank alcohol, and then, going through tough things in her personal life and a relationship that was not the best one, alcohol became her company, even though, in her own words, she does not even like it. There were days when she drank two bottles of tequila, and she used it, as she said, “for controlling the anxiety, to control the vibration that was around me.” And when Rocky starts something, she wants to finish it, so if she opened a bottle, she finished the bottle.

When we talked, I guided her through how it works, what the Gut Brain does when the Heart is hurt. The Gut steps in like a little big brother or a little big sister, with a massive amount of energy, power and push-through, what I call the Endurer, and it helps the Heart with everything it has: its primitive instincts: I fight, I flee, I freeze, I fold, I eat, I drink, I have fun. Food, drinks, shopping, the casino, all kinds of painkillers for a pain that is not a headache. And because the Gut doesn't solve the heart's issue, it only soothes it; there is no endpoint, so it keeps going, like running on a treadmill, where you can run as fast as you want, but you never find an exit or an endpoint. That is why the question is never: "the question is never "Why do you drink?" but "What is the pain you would like to solve?", or "What is the void inside you that you would like to soothe with, let’s call it, an unhealthy habit or an addiction?"

Rocky said it was like opening a door: “There are things that we always know, but you need to listen to someone who knows more than you.” She understood why: the more stressed, hurt and sad she was, the more she found herself drinking. Around the days she shared, after seventeen hours of finishing a project, with her body already feeling sick, she looked at a very expensive bottle of tequila, and she threw it away after five years of drinking. What she did so beautifully is that she turned her Gut from the supporter of her Heart into the supporter of herself again, as if she said, I am not going to let you fix the issue of my heart; you are going to take care of me, and the moment she made that change, the Gut said, "Okay, then we do not drink anymore, and the Heart can solve its own pain.

A few weeks later she told me she does not drink anymore, not a drop, and does not crave it; she still has triggers; she keeps a diary; and she feels better and better. And she said something I found so honest: “I cannot tell you that you made me stop drinking, because it’s my responsibility. But your information, your awareness, your expertise did change me.”

What she didn't know is that, in our conversation, I changed my behaviour and attitude in a more coaching way. I changed the way I explained it, my intonation, my way of being with her, so that what I shared would not only hit her logical Head, but would also connect with the emotional part of her, so her Heart and her Gut could really sense the meaning and the intention, because if we just say it to people, it can stay in the logical Head, and we have to make the connection with the Heart and the Gut. Most people don't know I do that, but that is what you learn in 3 Brains coaching.

This is what I discovered: what makes this so interesting is that the emotion behind a belief or value cannot be changed at the logical level, because it isn't stored there. That is exactly what the shopping list shows us. Knowing something does not necessarily mean you will change it, because when an emotion, a belief or a painful experience is connected to it, logic can no longer override it, and then the work is to explore that experience and that belief directly.

Each Brain looks for its own certainty

So who is underneath? What do those 3 Brains want or do?

The Gut Brain, with around 500 million neurons, is the oldest system we have, and more than a century ago researchers already saw that the intestine can respond and decide on its own, without the head and without the heart. It is the home of fight, flight, freeze and fold; it loves to win and achieve, a bit like the lion, and it keeps asking, "Will I succeed and win?

The Heart Brain, the little brain on the heart with around 40,000 neurons, as the neurocardiologist Dr Andrew Armour described it, is the home of love, care and bonding, like the elephants that form a circle around their young, and its question is, "Will you still have my back as I have yours?"

And that is different from, say, a group of zebras. When lions come to the zebras for lunch, the zebras stay in the herd until the lions arrive, then they run, and everybody runs for their own safety. You could say they find safety in the group, but they don't protect each other as a group the way elephants, dolphins, or orcas do.

And the Head Brain is the only one of the 3 that knows time, long-term cause and effect, and spoken language, and its question is: is it logical, what is the next step, and does it make sense in the long run, tomorrow, next year? It is the perfect planner, I would say, and I would never ask my Heart or my Gut to plan for me, because their planning scope is no more than ten minutes, hence the shopping list change. The Gut thinks: "I am hungry now; I need energy now. What kind of food does that?" I can tell you, that is not a salad.

Each of these three kinds of certainty brings its own behaviour, and a person's beliefs and impactful events can make it louder or softer. The Gut Brain likes success, is decisive, and goes for 100%, but it can also become impatient and egocentric, with an allergy to weakness or dependency, and it cannot say sorry. The Heart Brain cares, takes care, shows up for its group, and excels at self-sacrifice, but it can also become a pleaser who avoids conflict and doesn't dare to speak up. The Head Brain likes to understand, analyse, and predict, and loves having the right answer, which is beautiful until it turns into perfectionism.

Perfectionism, people-pleasing and pushing through, so often what we see in the room is one of the 3 Brains speaking the loudest while another is hardly heard, and when you would like to change something in the behaviour, it may well be easier to start with the system underneath it, because that is where the behaviour comes from.

So what is the solution?

Simply put, two things.

First, more than nine out of ten people have 1 or 2 dominant Brains, based on my research with more than 6,000 people who took the 3 Brains Dominance Test, and by the way, I am one of those 😉, so it takes effort to bring the 2nd or the 3rd Brain into the decision, to really listen to it, to the wisdom it brings, and to let that come in. And the question I like to ask is not only which Brain is talking, but which Brain is silent, because nine out of ten times people try to solve the problem with the Brain they always use and that brought them into the situation in the first place, and they stay stuck, because they do not listen to the silent Brain, which most times gives the answer. That means creating awareness when we make the decisions that matter to us, and consciously starting to listen to our 3 wisdom centres.

Second, it means we “have to” start working on our limiting beliefs, what I call Protectors, because in the past they protected us from rejection, failure, pain or loss and created those coping mechanisms, just like the impactful events that created theirs.

And for the shopping list, these days I make sure I am not hungry when I go to the supermarket, because sometimes listening to your biology is as simple as having lunch first 😉.

If you are interested in how to do that, you are very welcome to have a look at the webinar I gave last week, “How would it be to coach the biology?”, if you would like some insights: https://youtu.be/46FNRgxL_oI

If you have only a little time, here are a few moments to start with:

7:42 The shopping list: a logical Head and a hungry Gut

17:12 The sea cucumber: we started as a digestive system

24:07 The little brain on the heart

29:07 Why we coach the 3 Brains, and not the behaviour or the beliefs

37:10 Three wise people at the table: Brain dominance

46:42 Exercise: the board asks you to let five people go; the proof that you know, but probably your beliefs and experience will overturn your decisions

The part at 29:07 is the one I love most, about fifteen minutes, so for me it's the perfect length for breakfast or coffee.

And if you would really like to learn how to help yourself, and how to help others with it, I invite you to join the 3 Brains Coach Certification, a unique training in which you master how to coach and work with other people on their 3 Brains: how to coach their decision-making, and how to disconnect beliefs and coping mechanisms from the emotion that keeps them alive. The training is extremely practice-oriented; 50% of it is practice, and you can bring your own limiting beliefs and impactful events into the training, so there is a huge chance you overcome them yourself.

It carries 40 ICF CCEUs, with groups starting on 19 November, 21 January and 25 February: https://www.3brainsintelligence.com/events/3-brains-coach-certification-training-icf-40-cceus-emcc-24-december

What might open up for your clients, and for you, when you coach the layer underneath?