MAKING BETTER DECISIONS USING YOUR 3 BRAINS
Brain: Creativity & Consciousness
Heart: Compassion & Values
Gut: Courage & Action
Neuroscience has discovered that we have 3 brains - the one we most often think about in our head as well as one in our heart and one in our gut. Each has neural networks that are able to take in information, process it, store it and access it. According to a study in The Journal of Medicinal Food, 400 times more messages go up from the gut microbiomes to the brain as opposed to from the brain to the gut. The same is true of your heart, more messages move up from your heart to your head via the Vagus nerve, as opposed to the other way around.
Why are the 3 brains important in leadership?
Each of the wisdom centers has its own area of expertise and influence. Our cephalic brain (head) is great at thinking, analyzing and making meanings of things, our heart can lead us to emotional processing, connection and passion and our enteric (gut) brain can focus us on our sense of self, action and courage.
When we depend on our head brain alone to make decisions, we don't include the knowledge and perspective of what our heart wants (compassion & values) and what our intuitive wisdom offers us (courage and sense of self).
Further to this, the gut and heart influence the quality of our cognitive functioning. They send important signals to our cephalic brain and so considering them when making decisions can help us to make coherent and connected decisions.
The heart brain's area of expertise is connection, passion, emotional processing and values.
"Containing over 40,000 neurons, this 'little brain' gives the heart the ability to idependently sense, process information, make decisions, and even demonstrate a type of learning and memory." - HeartMath Institute
The head and heart are closely connected and constantly in communication, with the heart doing much of the talking. The heart communicates with the head in 4 main ways: neurologically, biochemically, biophysically and energetically.
"New science is mapping the influence of the heart on the brain and body and how the heart communicates an amazingly wide spectrum of information from health and wellness functions to higher qualities like wisdom and compassion." - HeartMath Institute
Being able to shift the rhythms of the heart allows us to access the intelligence of the heart, activate our parasympathetic nervous system, release oxytocin (the connection chemical) and influence our emotional experience - all of which is communicated to the head brain.
I worked with a client recently that had a big decision to make about his career. He laid out his analysis for why he should stay in the role he was in - it was a senior role. He was respected, did a good job, got paid well and had been able to find balance between his personal and work life, following years of struggling from burnout. Why the heck would he leave and risk this? When we focused his attention on the heart, he realized that he was not passionate about his work - he didn't hate it, but it didn't light him up - he wasn't using his creativity which tended to energize and excite him. He felt stuck in his role, which went counter to his deep value of freedom. When he connected with his heart, it was like a spotlight was directed to what was truly important to him beyond the business case. From there, he started to make decisions with the information from his heart and his head and not simply his analytical rationale.
A quick way to do this is to bring your attention and awareness to your heart. Imagine your breathing is falling in and out of your heart. Continue this heart-led breathing and bring a sense of appreciation or care to someone or something that is important to you. Continue this for a few minutes as your nervous system synchronizes, regenerative hormones are released and signals from your heart move through your emotional and higher brain venters facilitating insight and intuition. This brings on coherence which enhances your ability to make good decisions.
Your enteric (gut) brain is the center for sense of self and courage.
"Comprised of 100 million neurons, the network of nerve cells lining the digestive tract is so extensive that is has earned the nickname 'second brain'. - Center for Brain Health
The gut produces over 30 neurotransmitters, signalling molecules typically associated with the brain.
About half of the dopamine in your body, a neurotransmitter associated with rewards, pleasure and compulsion, is produced in the gut. Almost all the serotonin in the body (95%), the "happy chemical" that regulates mood, memory, cognition and sleep is produced in the gut.
As it relates to communication,
"90% of the neurons in the vagus nerve are actually carrying information from the gut to the brain, not the other way around. This means the signals generated in the gut can massively influence the brain." - Center for Brain Health
According to Dr. Judith Orloff MD, Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA and author of Guide to Intuitive Health and The Empath's Survival Guide, scientists believe intuition operates through the entire right side of our brain, the brain's hippocampus and through our gut.
As executives and leaders, we are constantly making decisions, often quickly and without all the data - being able to connect with our intuition as we make decisions helps us to include additional wisdom beyond spreadsheets and business cases. When we add to this, the wisdom of the heart that we described above, we are able to access a rich source of intelligence and knowledge.
A CEO that I worked with recently had a significant decision to make about a potential deal. Her team had completed an extensive review including financial due diligence and market analysis - it had all made sense on paper. In one of our sessions, we connected with her gut and asked what she should do. She got an incredible sense of restriction and alarm in her body. Her gut was clearly communicating to not move forward, a sense she then realized had been lurking in the background for weeks. She didn't move forward with the deal and later found out that there were some serious issues with that business, and it ultimately failed. She was glad she included her gut intuition in her decision process.
Working with the 3 centers of wisdom in leadership.
When I work with leaders to incorporate each of these areas of knowledge into their decision making, we develop awareness and understanding for the felt sense of our heart and our gut. We look for ways to consider from a heart-led place, what is important and what is the connectedness of the variables at play. With respect to our gut, we consider our intuition and pull for action.
This is strange for many leaders who have been taught or believe that decisions at work should be made from your head brain alone - believing that analytics, rationality and pure cognitive functions lead to the soundest decisions.
The reality is that neuroscience is beginning to show that our heart and gut offer valuable access points to additional wisdom and insight, that should not be ignored. I am not suggesting that we eliminate or not consider the information that our head brain offers - this cognitive powerhouse is an important base of decision making. What I am inviting you to consider is that your heart and gut also have a role to play in making decisions, especially as executives and leaders, where decisions happen often, quickly and sometimes with little data.
"...it's crucial whenever making personal or group decisions that all three intelligences are accessed and incorporated into the decision-making process." - Research Gate, The Three Brains of Leadership: Harnessing the Wisdom Within
Connecting with our heart and gut offers valuable information to add to the already extensive and well accepted power of our head's higher cognition. Learning to connect and bring awareness to the heart and gut intelligences is an important skill set for every leader to develop and grow.
Warmly,
Lisa
Lisa is an Executive Coach, Founder & CEO of LDR Leadership Labs. For more from Lisa, join the LDR Leadership Community on LinkedIn at: www.linkedin.com/company/ldrleadershiplabs and sign up for the LDR Insiders Newsletter here.