My body is an office

Hear me out here, I firmly believe at this moment in time that my body is an office with three employees fighting for the assistant manager spot, or rather the assistant to the manager spot. If you get that reference, we are automatically friends. Anyways, these top three employees are the same for everyone, the heart, the mind, and although some might disagree, the gut. Not the soul, for that thing is in a bracket all of its own. I have been a firm believer that the gut is the go to organ for making important decisions in life and I would love to tell you why.

Pretend with me if you will that you are the boss of your body and these three organs are your top three employees fighting to influence your decision making and proving themselves the best. I did say pretend because let's face it, when have any of us been the boss of our body? That thing seems to have a mind of its own. Each of these employees plays an important part in the future of the company and each should be treated with their own special care, just like any company that employs multiple people. No two people are the same, and that goes for these three organs as well. For the sake of argument, we are only going to be looking at the emotional aspect of these employees and not their obvious physical contributions.

Let us begin with the heart. The heart is without a doubt the most emotional of the three and is prone to running with whatever it wants without additional consideration. The heart thinks it knows what's best for the company despite what the research tells it and will guide you down some avenues you are not prepared for if left unchecked. The heart is loyal but it suffers from mental health issues and will let those get the best of it if not taken care of. The heart is a wild card if left unchecked, but with the proper guidance and a clear and healthy goal to follow, the heart will do no wrong. The heart is caring and thoughtful and is the type of employee that will jump on a task at a moment's notice. Taking all of this into consideration, it is not the ideal choice for the assistant for your company, though many times it does get promoted.

Next up we have the mind, and although it seems like a reasonable candidate for the assistant manager position, it is not without its faults as well. The mind, at least in my case, is the logical one. It has looked at the numbers, read the reports and has done its own research. In my case it even has focus groups with itself. The mind is a difficult one because it is different for everyone elses company. Mine has done all this plus gone over every single scenario that could possibly happen from best to worst and is preparing for the worst one to happen. The mind is that top of its class student you hired on credentials alone that has little to no real world experience. Also, I’d like to think of my company as one that hires people of multiple nationalities, whereas the heart and the mind speak little of each other's languages and only know enough to make things difficult. I feel as if this is something we could all agree on. I would also like to think that we as a manager do not speak either of their languages, which makes this all the more fun. With just these two in your office, you will be left confused and irritated as the heart and mind fight over who is right and who is better for the job.

Now if you are lucky, your third candidate for the open position will burst into the office without knocking and tell the other two to shut up and sit down; this employee is the gut. The gut doesn’t much care what you think of it and honestly it's not too sure it even wants the job, but the gut has a talent the other two don’t have. The gut is bilingual. The gut can communicate with both the heart and the mind and come to a reasonable conclusion based on the other two's wants. The gut has the ability to rope in the heart from doing something stupid and the ability to reassure the mind that everything will be fine. The gut is the one you want to have in this position, it is the one you should trust. Unfortunately, the gut is often overlooked because it once again doesn’t really care what you do, so long as it is still getting a paycheck and is unwilling to give a definite answer one way or the other like the heart and the mind will. The gut is not there to make the choices for you, it is merely there to make its suggestion and leave the decision making duties to you, the manager.

Personally, I have given the position of assistant manager to my gut, solely on the fact that it has not been wrong yet. I haven’t always listened to it, and that has cost me, but the gut is still the best one for the position in my book. The heart is its own worst enemy and the mind would leave you in limbo if given the reins. So if I had any advice to give you in running your company, give the gut a chance and see what it can accomplish, it just might surprise you.

As always, if you feel the need to expand or add to my way of thinking, please let me know, I would love to hear from you all. On that note, I would like to leave you all with one final thought, if your body is an office, please give your employees some vacation time, I'm sure they would appreciate it.