The Three Intelligence Centres EVERY Leader Needs - with Leadership Coach, Joanna Howes

0:00I want to talk to you a bit more about the courage to be you. because seven years ago I went to an event that was titled that that completely transformed my life. Previous to that I had led from a place of self-doubt, needing to prove myself, not feeling good enough, definitely not feeling smart enough. You know I left school with only GCSEs and I have this amazing brother who's got a PhD in dark matter. So you're going to see the comparison that went on. Yet it wasn't about going well I need to get more confidence. It all came from having more courage, which is a lot of the reason why we do the Courageous Leaders podcast.

0:37But it's not that kind of big, shouty, loud courage, like jumping out of planes or making bold statements and doing crazy risks in the workplace. It's this inner, quieter courage. It's having the willingness to put the mirror up in front of you, look inside it, and take personal responsibility for what you see. And I recognized that I was enabling and allowing myself to get treated a certain way, allowing these beliefs to keep me really small. And it was about changing my internal experience and the internal relationship I had with myself versus looking outside and looking for other people to validate who I am and to shape who I was becoming.

1:18And this whole kind of, oh, I should be doing this, I should be doing that, is actually, did I want to? Did I want to be that type of person? So this courage to be you is about being willing to look inside and build a relationship with yourself. And it's that courage to start to like yourself and the courage to actually love yourself. Like I've done all the Mel Robbins stuff of high-fiving in the mirror, doing all my mantras, and it does genuinely work. I have such a stronger relationship with myself now that I'm way more aligned and becoming the person that I want to be. And I'm going to just give you a very quick exercise.

1:56It's something I learned a couple of years ago that I do as a daily practice that really helps to keep myself in alignment. Now, we all have three intelligence centers. We've got our head, we've got our heart, and we've got our gut. And we tend to be led more dominantly by one of these. Now, I'm incredibly led by my head. It overwalls everything. So I went to do this training to find out more about how do you use all three? How do you align all three intelligence centers? And as I was doing this exercise, I had physical pain appear in my chest and my heart. It was actually hurting. And the line that when I had to share back to the group was, my head is the boss and my heart is tired of not being listened to.

2:39And what I realized is that my head is so loud and doesn't want me to listen to my heart because it's scared of what it was going to do. Because a lot of courage comes from your heart. And also when you go more into your heart, you're more willing to listen to the gut instinct that you have. So by listening to my heart, I totally transformed my business. We've changed how we do the podcast. My diary looks completely different and it's given me so much more freedom because I'm listening to more of my truth versus just the rational side of my head on what I think I should do. So I just want you to ask yourself for a moment, are you more led by your head is your head the boss the rational thinking wanting to make sense of stuff needing all the logics and the facts maybe an overthinker worrier are you more naturally led by your head or do you lead more from your heart so in your heart are your values your emotions and empathy or do you lead more from your gut you know trusting that instinct of what you know the gut normally knows first to be honest but do you trust that instinct and then do you have the courage to follow it.

3:42Just take a minute to think about which one is more your dominant. And then the exercise is, put your hand on your head right now. Really connect with your head. And then ask your head, what is my head trying to tell me about the way I'm leading right now? And just take a mental note of that. If you've got a notepad, just write down what your head is trying to tell you. Then place your hand on your heart. Take a moment, feel your heartbeat, really connect with your heart center and ask your heart, what do you want to tell me? What are you noticing about the way that I'm leading right now? What is your heart telling you?

4:23Make a mental note or write it down. And then go to your gut and ask your gut, what is your gut trying to get your attention on in the way that you're leading? And write that down. And take a moment to look at how aligned are the different messages from your three centers. If they are aligned, you're probably in a good place and you probably have good energy and you're able to make some really clear decisions about where you're going. But if they're giving you very different messages, they're telling you that something needs to be addressed and then tuning into the one where you feel the truth is living the most.

5:02And my truth was living in my heart. And once I listened to it and we did the action, my head did calm down. And my head actually trusts me a lot more now because I've given it evidence that we can be okay if we actually lead more from being true to our values and what's right for us. When you have this coherence between your intelligence centers, it can literally transform your life. One thing has had a huge difference for me is comparison. By getting alignment within me, I've stopped comparing myself so much with other people. I say so much because I'm human. It's very normal to get on social media and be like, oh my God, I can't believe they're doing that.

5:41Oh my God, I should be doing that. But I can then bring it back to my heart, you know, my centers to go, actually, no, this is our plan. So I'm very clear on my roadmap now. I'm very clear on who I am. I'm very clear on what I want. And it helps me to stop hijacking other people's paths and stay true to what's right for me. And what's been incredible is I haven't had any chest pain since I've done this. And I naturally do suffer with anxiety. And if I'm going to have it, I feel it in my chest. But since I've now worked with all three intelligence centers, and they all feel heard, they all feel seen, and they're working more as a team, the pain in my body has started to release.

6:22So I wanted to share this exercise with you because it's simple, but so powerful. And it will help you to connect with yourself and really have the courage to be you and lead and have the life that you want. We don't want any quieter versions of ourselves. We don't want to mold ourselves into people that we're not. Stay true to who you are and have the courage to connect. And practically, you can do this by just having three post-it notes on your desk, head, heart, and gut. Anytime you've got a decision or reflection or something that's not feeling quite right. Just put your hand on the post-it notes or you can do as we did before and just check in with yourself because it's another way to just make sure you pause, have more intentionality with the choices that you're going to make so you can truly become the courageous leader that you're capable of being.

7:16I hope this helps. Thank you. If you've been enjoying the Courageous Leaders podcast, we'd love it if you'd subscribe to our YouTube channel your support helps us keep creating quality content and reaching more leaders like you who are ready to grow and make a real impact we fund this podcast ourselves so every subscription truly makes a difference and allows us to support courageous leaders like you thank you for being part of the journey