The Hidden Flaw in Most Coaching and Leadership Methods: Why Understanding Isn’t Rewiring
- Christoffel Sneijders
- 2 days ago
- 11 min read
5 Neuroscience-Based Lessons on Real, Lasting Change with the 3 Brains (Head, Heart, Gut)
Dear 3 Brains Explorer,
What we are today is the result of our genetic blueprint, the experiences we’ve lived through, and — perhaps most importantly — how we’ve learned to cope with all of it.
Research shows that 95% of what we do each day is simply a repeat of the day before. When it comes to habits and beliefs, that number creeps even closer to 100%; you could say we live like in the movie A Groundhog Day.
So, if we truly want to become more fulfilled, successful, or simply happier, we must do something radically challenging: step out of that loop. We must venture beyond our comfort zone.
You might be thinking — nothing new there.
And yet, despite knowing this, most of us remain stuck.
Just to be clear: You’re Not Lazy — You’re Efficient: Your 3 Brains Sabotage Change with all the best intentions
That’s exactly what we worked on — and began to unstick — during the 3 Brains Master Coach Retreat last week.
🌿 A Week of Deep Learning and Transformation
Set in a small hotel nestled in the tranquil Madrid mountains, far from the demands of daily life, the retreat offered more than training. It became a sanctuary for reflection and growth.
With nourishing food, energising morning yoga, fresh mountain air, and the gentle 7.83 Hz resonance of the earth holding us, we could ground deeply — physically and mentally.
It was my honour to guide an exceptional group of coaches from across the globe — Agnes Zhang 梅 张 (China), Ann McGregor (UK), Meltem Şakarcan (Turkey), Maria Teresa Alonso Jaén (Spain), John Lovett (Ireland), and Romana Prochazkova (Czech Republic), and each brought a unique energy, open heart, and courageous curiosity to the journey.
And while I led the retreat, I was also transformed by it.
This was not just a week of learning and becoming a true master in the art of coaching and leading — it was a week of personal evolution — for them and for me.
Here are five key lessons that have stayed with me — ones I believe can reshape how we coach, lead, and live.
🧠 Lesson 1: Real Change Only Happens When All Our 3 Brains Are Involved
Here’s the question that lingers: if we all know we need to break our loops, why is it so hard to do?
We live in a world full of coaching methods, therapy schools, influencers, and ‘mindset gurus’ offering solutions. From willpower to repetition, from micro-habits to breathwork and somatic experiences — they all promise change. And some do help, but most do not.
But there’s a flaw most approaches share:
👉 They try to solve the whole person by focusing on just one part — usually the Head Brain or the body.
Let’s unpack this a bit more.
Head-based strategies—like goal-setting, affirmations, repetition, mindset shifts, or micro-habits—give us understanding, help us think things through, and create logic, structure, and an action plan.
But they rarely create transformation.
Why?
Because understanding isn’t the same as rewiring.
As I share in my e-book Why You’ve Been Lied to About Change,
Your 3 brains aren’t designed for transformation. They are designed for efficiency.
And efficiency means repeating what already feels trusted and safe — even if it’s keeping you stuck.
In fact, 40% of your body’s energy is consumed by your 3 Brains. So unless there’s a survival-level need for change, your biology will automatically default to what feels familiar.
Their motto: “We did it before it provided results, and we do the same again.”
That’s why micro-habits, repetition, and “grit” may feel inspiring for a few days — but then fizzle out. They even have a word for it: Quitter's Day. It happens on the 17th of January, less than 2 1/2 weeks afer we all start with our New Year's resolutions.
They work with the head, but the Heart and Gut resist because the deeper emotional memories and beliefs haven’t shifted.
They say: “Why change? I’m still not safe. I still don’t trust this path.”
Now, let’s talk about somatic strategies — like breathwork, body movement, dance, art therapy, and sound healing.
They are powerful for relief.
By opening up the nervous system, they calibrate your 3 Brains (as your nervous system is actually the wired collection of axons and dendrites). They help people feel the now. They drop you out of the noise of their head into presence.
But the effect often fades.
Why?
Because although these methods align us at the moment, the root cause remains untouched.
The old beliefs, the unconscious fear, and the outdated emotional strategy — still live inside the Heart or Gut Brain. And unless that deeper layer is integrated, the release is temporary.
As I say in my upcoming book Leading with Heart and Grit,
“You can breathe deeply but still be loyal to an old belief that’s quietly controlling your life.”
So, what’s the actual path forward? How can we solve the hidden flaw that is stopping us from and is part of most coaching and leadership methods?
Head, Heart, and Gut must all be in the room.
The three brains must agree on the new path. Only then will your system feel safe, motivated, and connected enough to transform truly.
That’s why the 3 Brains Intelligence approach works — not because it gives you more tools, but because it gives you access to all three internal decision-makers.
The truth?
Your Head Brain can’t override what your Heart doesn’t believe and your Gut doesn’t trust.
🎧 Lesson 2: Listening Is a Full-Body Act
As I often reference in my book (Relationships? Which Brain is Talking?), just like the fox in The Little Prince whispered gently to the boy:
“Here is my secret. It is very simple: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
And yet, even this beautiful truth captures just one part of the whole story.
One of the more powerful experiences from our retreat was the Observational Listening Exercise. In this practice, we explored what it truly means to listen — not just with our ears or even our hearts alone — but with our entire body, integrating all three of our brains: the Head, the Heart, and the Gut.
Through the Head Brain
We listen for logic, words, and clear meanings. We pay close attention to intonation, speed, volume, and rhythm. We notice non-verbal communication — gestures, facial expressions, posture — and collect all these as observable facts. But when it comes to interpreting the emotions behind those facts, we are essentially guessing, forming assumptions from a place of logic and analysis alone. This method, while precise, is inherently incomplete.
Through the Heart Brain
We tune into the emotional resonance within the conversation. We sense tone, feeling, and the subtle quality of connection or disconnection. We begin to notice the sensations that arise within ourselves when we truly connect with the other person. However, to do this accurately, we first need to clear our own heart — our emotional lens — from what I call our ‘wounded healer’ tendencies, the biases formed from past experiences. Only by stepping beyond our personal interpretations can we genuinely feel what the other person is transmitting emotionally. Imagine sensing their heartbeat, feeling its subtle fluctuations, and intuitively understanding the emotional story it reveals.
Through the Gut Brain
We go deeper still, into our primal instincts. Our Gut Brain, the oldest brain we possess, has evolved over 500 million years, honing an intuitive mastery of survival and connection. When we listen from our gut, we sense instinctively what remains unspoken: hidden fears, deep-seated desires, frustrations simmering beneath the surface, or the subtle presence of suppressed anger or rage. It is here, in the wisdom of our gut, that we grasp what truly moves the other person beneath their conscious awareness.
When we coach from all three brains — Head, Heart, and Gut — we hear the whole person.Not just their words but their deeper truth.Not just their story but the pain, the longing, and the strength hiding beneath it.
This is where coaching becomes transformational instead of transactional.
💡 Lesson 3: Mastery Begins with Alignment
I’ll admit it: on Day 2, I felt stress creeping in. I had planned to teach the Discrimination Strategies (a comprehensive topic that spans 40 detailed pages, with numerous examples covering 12 critical areas for coaches and leaders) in just four hours.
Even before starting, my Head Brain was already worrying: How on earth can I do this effectively?
My Heart Brain, meanwhile, was asking: How can I make this a meaningful gift for the students? This technique is truly insightful for leadership and coaching.
And my Gut Brain reacted instinctively, pushing me forward with urgency: Focus on what needs to be done — stop thinking, just do it!
Each of my three brains had a different strategy, creating internal misalignment. Without realising it at first, I fell straight into the very trap I was teaching about — caught between conflicting internal messages.
Then I paused.
I asked myself:
What makes me an exceptional coach and therapist?
The answer was simple:
It’s not about delivering what I have in my mind and delivering perfect content. It’s about alignment with myself and the others.
When my 3 brains align:
My Gut can sense what the client truly needs.
My Heart connects deeply with compassion and authentic presence.
My Head organises 27 years of knowledge and experience — gathered from working with over 13,000 people — into clear, intuitive guidance.
That alignment is where the magic happens. For me. For the client. For all of us.
This experience vividly illustrated how easily we can get lost in the manual — focusing so much on tasks, processes, or content that we forget the human connection right in front of us. Isn’t that exactly what happens sometimes when we coach or lead? We prioritise structure over connection and information over intuition and, as a result, risk losing the true essence of our work.
Recognising this misalignment, I closed the manual and returned to the heart of the practice — connecting authentically with the participants. Together with one participant, we distilled the essence into a clear one-page flipchart summary. This simple act recentered our focus and restored the group’s collective alignment.
I carried this vital lesson forward into Day 3, laying a strong foundation for guiding participants into deeper states of consciousness — the core of truly transformational coaching.
🧠 Lesson 4: Access the Alpha Brain Wave State to Bypass the Critical Voice
Here’s the truth about why profound relaxation is essential for creating lasting change: it brings us into the magical Alpha brainwave state. In this state, we can bypass the Head Brain’s critical filter — you know, those internal voices that say things like, “You’re not good enough,” “You should be doing this instead,” or “You can’t possibly achieve that.”
In the 3 brains coach training, we speak about the CCT state—Curiosity, Compassion, and Trust—which is a coaching state that goes beyond rapport.
By accessing the Alpha state on top of that, we empower our clients to tap into their deeper Heart and Gut intelligence and allow those authentic insights to emerge clearly.
Why is this state so crucial?
Because genuine transformation doesn’t typically happen in our usual state of alertness — the Beta Brain Wave State — where logic, analysis, and habitual thinking dominate.
In Beta, we’re primed for quick responses, actions, and daily tasks, but this state resists deeper, lasting changes. Additionally, Beta is primarily governed by our Head Brain alone, and for meaningful transformation, we require the wisdom of all three brains, not just one.
In the Alpha state, we gain access to all three brains simultaneously, as clients remain fully aware yet nicely relaxed. Renowned biologist Bruce Lipton captures this beautifully: true change occurs when we access a “hypnotic” or nicely relaxed state — precisely the Alpha state we explored — because this mirrors the way we learned during our first seven years of life.
As young children, we effortlessly absorb new beliefs and behaviours without resistance from our critical, analytical mind.
This insight highlights why addressing learned beliefs and habits through Alpha is so effective.
It is only around the age of seven that our Head Brain begins distinguishing concepts like “next week” from “last week” or understanding cause and effect.
Before that age, our learning is immediate and direct — linked solely to the present moment, not influenced by past or future contexts.
Although conversational hypnosis is sometimes used, coaches and coaching associations often view it as therapy or an intimidating technique unsuitable for coaching. My key insight from the retreat, however, is that hypnosis — particularly conversational hypnosis — shouldn’t just be accepted in coaching; it should be a mandatory component.
Entering the Alpha state reconnects us to this open, receptive mindset, easing internal resistance and facilitating authentic rewiring of beliefs and emotional patterns. It quiets the chatter of the Head Brain, creating space for profound wisdom from the Heart and Gut Brains to surface clearly.
As one participant reflected after experiencing this state: “I’ve never felt so calm and deeply connected to myself — I finally understood what’s been holding me back, and even more importantly, I discovered how to resolve it.”
This is why neuroscience and hypnotic tools are not merely helpful but essential for truly transformational coaching. The Alpha state isn’t just relaxation — it’s the gateway to lasting growth, deeper self-awareness, and meaningful, sustained change.
🧠 Lesson 5: The Power of Integration: Completing the Picture
Building upon everything we’ve explored, our final profound insight from the retreat was the immense value of fully integrating the diverse coaching techniques into one seamless approach rather than applying somatic exercises, systemic constellations, or the empty chair method in isolation. In 3 Brains Master Coaching, these are combined into an interconnected experience. Drawing upon all the techniques we’ve learned, this holistic integration created an impactful and comprehensive approach.
Beliefs and highly impactful events in our lives — often unconscious — shape our behaviours, reactions, and decisions far more profoundly than we’re typically aware of.
We could simultaneously deeply engage with these beliefs and events' physical, emotional, and relational dimensions by weaving together the somatic part with the alpha state somatic awareness, systemic constellations, and the empty chair concept. This integrated approach illuminated how past impactful events continue to influence clients’ lives, helping them uncover deeply rooted patterns, release emotional burdens, and realign their internal dialogue. And all in a proper coaching way, it is not therapy as we don't have to dive into the past to let the client create a healthier present and future. That is the beauty of 3 Brains coaching.
Throughout the retreat, it became clear that fundamental transformation isn’t about mastering one technique but understanding how all techniques complement and enhance each other. By blending somatic experiences, constellation work, hypnotic states, and interactive dialogues, participants experienced comprehensive shifts rather than fragmented insights.
Ultimately, this carefully orchestrated integration — utilising every tool available — empowered our clients to regain their power, reshape limiting beliefs, establish healthy boundaries, and embed meaningful solutions within their three brains.
Our greatest takeaway?
Coaching mastery isn’t about choosing a singular technique — it’s about skilfully integrating the full palette of available approaches while coaching the 3 Brains. Only by honouring the entirety of our client’s experiences can we facilitate deep, lasting, and truly transformative change.
🌍 Coaching Mastery Is Not Just Learning — It’s Becoming
This retreat reminded me that mastery isn’t about knowing more but being more. More connected. More attuned. More present to what each brain is whispering.
If you’re a coach or leader reading this, I invite you to reflect:
Are you coaching or leading with just one brain — or are you listening with all three?
If you want to have a fact check, why not take the free and UPDATED 3 brains preference and dominance test to become aware of which Brain of you is subconsciously making your decisions?
And if you’re curious about how this approach could transform your practice or life, let’s connect.
If you would like to experience this fantastic transformational retreat, you can do so if you have followed the 3 Brains Coach Certification training. If you did not follow this training, I invite you to do so. Have a look here when it suits you:
To the fantastic coaches/leaders - Agnes Zhang, Ann McGregor, John Lovett, Maria Teresa Alonso, Meltec Şakarcan and Romana Procházková - who joined me last week: thank you for your courage, heart, and brilliance. You made this journey unforgettable.
Here’s to living, leading, and loving with all our brains.
— Christoffel Sneijders, MCCFounder 3 Brains Intelligence ©™ | Coach | Therapist | Visiting Professor
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