How elite performers use Physical Intelligence to make better choices in less time.

Opening Notes From Traciana

While preparing Day 4 of the Best Self and Life Mini‑Retreat, I found myself circling back to a memory I hadn’t fully explored in years: the moment I stopped treating my body’s signals as background noise and began to honor them as a source of high‑level intelligence. For much of my professional life, I’d been the person who powered through, who prided herself on sharp analysis and outworking any challenge. I hit milestones others could see and measure. But quietly, beneath the surface, my body had been carrying the cost—and trying to speak to me long before I was ready to hear it.

When Your Body Becomes Your Teacher

The signals arrived subtly at first, so subtle I could dismiss them as quirks of stress. A heartbeat that accelerated in boardrooms where the conversation was routine. A tightening across my chest whenever a particular line of strategy was mentioned. I remember sitting in a meeting where everything looked, on paper, like the culmination of years of work, and yet my hands grew cold and my shoulders lifted toward my ears in quiet protest.

Those signals escalated in ways that were harder to ignore. There were nights when my heart would race as if I were running a marathon while lying still in bed. I sought out tests and experts who told me I was fine—heart strong, vitals steady, nothing to worry about. But the truth was I was living in conflict with my design. I was working in ways that looked impressive yet felt like I was wearing a suit tailored for someone else. Every plan I approved, every opportunity I said yes to, every metric I hit had a hidden asterisk: it cost me a part of myself I couldn’t keep giving away.

It took me far too long to realize that my body had been trying to deliver critical information all along. I’d been trained, as so many high performers are, to view the body as a vessel for the brain—an engine to keep running as long as output stayed high. What I hadn’t been taught was that my body wasn’t just reacting; it was evaluating, synthesizing, and guiding. It was, in many ways, ahead of my mind.

Listening Below the Surface

We’ve been taught to treat the brain as command central. But the latest neuroscience shows a far more intricate reality. The gut is home to what scientists call the enteric nervous system—a dense network of more than 500 million neurons, exceeding the number in the spinal cord. It operates semi‑independently, analyzing signals about our environment, our internal state, and our safety.

This “second brain” communicates directly with the central nervous system through the vagus nerve, a bi‑directional superhighway carrying information between the gut, heart, lungs, and brain. About 80% of the vagus nerve fibers actually send information from the body to the brain, not the other way around. That means your body is continuously shaping your thoughts, perceptions, and decisions before you’ve consciously “thought” about them. When researchers like Dr. Beatrice de Gelder study affective blindsight—the ability to sense emotional information without visual awareness—they find that our bodies and brains are processing patterns and threats without our conscious involvement. That explains those gut-level tugs, the sense of knowing without logic to back it up.

The Speed of Somatic Intelligence

Beyond the gut, your entire nervous system is wired to give you advance data through what Dr. Antonio Damasio calls somatic markers. These are physical sensations—like a tight stomach, a quickening pulse, or a loosening in your chest—that arise as your body rapidly integrates emotional memories, past outcomes, and environmental context. In his landmark work, Descartes’ Error, Damasio showed that patients with damage to areas processing emotion could analyze pros and cons endlessly but struggled to make even simple decisions. Without those somatic markers—without the body’s input—they became stuck in cognitive loops. In other words, the body’s signals are not “extra”; they’re essential to efficient decision‑making.

Think of it this way: your conscious brain processes about 40 bits of information per second. Your unconscious systems—body and brain combined—are processing closer to 11 million bits per second. Your heartbeat, your breath, your gut activity are integrating that data and surfacing it as sensations long before your conscious mind articulates “yes” or “no.”

How I Live Now

The shift didn’t happen overnight, but it changed everything. Today, I run my business and my life with an entirely different kind of listening. I listen when my body tells me things I don’t want to hear, and I respect signals I don’t yet fully understand. If a proposal looks flawless on paper but brings a tightening in my chest, I pause and ask deeper questions. If I feel my breath slow and my posture open when considering a new collaboration, I follow that signal—even if my rational mind hasn’t caught up to explain why.

This way of working is rooted in the same Fearless Listening® approach I’ve shared with thousands of leaders and organizations, but now I turn that methodology inward every single day. It’s not about indulging whims; it’s about recognizing my body as an extraordinarily intelligent partner in every decision I make.

The Competitive Advantage of Body Wisdom

In high‑stakes environments, the leaders who consistently excel aren’t always the ones with the most data or the longest resumes. They’re often the ones who integrate data with embodied intelligence—who’ve learned to read their own internal feedback system as carefully as they read a market report.

When you tune in to your body’s signals, you access a decision‑making layer that’s faster, quieter, and often more accurate than conscious analysis alone. Think of how many decisions you face daily: hiring a key team member, pivoting a product line, choosing a partner or investor. On the surface, the options might look identical. But your body is already running simulations in the background, comparing them against years of experience, subtle environmental cues, and emotional context.

Speed:
Where others can get trapped in analysis paralysis, you can move quickly because your nervous system is designed to integrate complex data streams in milliseconds. That accelerated processing lets you spot opportunities or red flags before others have even named them.

Accuracy:
Gut signals—like a sense of expansion or a sudden tightening—are often the first indicator that something aligns or misaligns with your deeper vision. Many high performers I’ve coached tell me they’ve avoided multi‑million‑dollar missteps simply by heeding those early cues rather than waiting for external validation.

Sustainability:
Your body also monitors cost—energetic, emotional, and physical. When you consistently override those signals, you may achieve short‑term wins but at a long‑term price. By honoring them, you design strategies and schedules that you can actually maintain, protecting your creativity, health, and reputation.

Innovation:
Listening inward often reveals possibilities your conscious mind would have dismissed. I’ve had clients report breakthrough product ideas that arrived during moments of physical rest, not while grinding at their desks. Personally, my most profitable pivot emerged when I trusted the calm I felt imagining a new direction—even though the spreadsheets said “stay the course.”

In a world where competitors have access to similar tools, research, and technology, your body is the differentiator no one else can copy. It’s the part of your intelligence that’s uniquely yours—finely tuned by your history, your values, and your lived experience.

When you learn to pair your external analysis with that internal data, you’re not just making decisions. You’re creating a way of leading that is faster, sharper, and deeply aligned—giving you an edge that lasts.

A Reflection for You

Your body is always processing more than you realize. It carries patterns, wisdom, and warning signs that your conscious mind may not yet be ready to name. Sometimes it whispers. Sometimes it roars.

If you pause and tune in—right now—what signals are rising? Where do you feel expansion or contraction? Where do you feel steady and alive, and where do you feel the strain of living someone else’s script?

What is your body telling you about your path today?
Listen closely. That quiet wisdom might be the most advanced intelligence you have.

👉 Ready to turn these signals into practices you can use every day? Read Part Two: Physical Intelligence in Action.

About the Author
Traciana Graves is the founder of Happiness 360. She helps leaders and creators translate their body’s intelligence into strategies that build businesses and lives they are truly designed to sustain.