Here is another way this Head-Heart-Gut may add value to your coaching: What if your coachee makes decisions or responds to situations from only one brain and ignores the others? This can occur when under pressure or from habit, and may be likened to “over reliance” or “overdrive” when one brain is overused or used inappropriately in exclusion of the other brains.
- Gut Brain Overdrive: Reactive, impulsive, and action However, this is useful in an emergency, or when safety or survival is threatened.
- Heart Brain Overdrive: Concern about self-image, impact on others, and lives of May end up waiting, hoping, and dreaming – or show emotions too obviously and readily.
- Head Brain Overdrive: Plan and prepare, focus on what could go wrong, too much visioning or try to do it May be viewed by others as cold, impersonal, and calculating.
As a coach, when faced with a possible overdrive situation in one of your clients, consider asking one of the following questions:
- What does your gut tell you?
- How does your heart feel?
- What does your head say?
What does this mean to me a leader?
Given that you as a coach are also a leader, your assignment is to look inside and determine if you have an overreliance on one of your brains. Remember, the “functions of the brain have been categorized in three levels. The gut level governs a lot of your instinctual reactions, the heart level is involved in the processing of emotions and memory, and the head level adds thinking, reasoning, and the ability to project into the future a plan.”6 Add to this the fact that the heart brain has an electromagnetic field that has the capacity to influence people around us, and you may be unknowingly influencing others for benefit or not. Bottom-line: if you have an over reliance on one or two of your brains, practice and integrate trusting your gut, listening to your heart, and using your head. Remember the pyramid – from a solid foundation in your gut brain, you connect with others emotionally from the heart brain, and give your logical head brain a much needed rest.
