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Beckie Moore is the Founder of Unlocked & Unlimited and an Executive Coach & Life Alchemist who specializes in 1:1 coaching for senior and mid-level leaders. A Professional Certified Coach (PCC) through the International Coaching Federation (ICF), Beckie brings seven years of coaching experience and over two decades of leadership across the Department of Defense, private sector, and active-duty military service. Her powerful toolkit includes certifications in the Hogan Assessment System, Integrative Enneagram Solutions iEQ9, EQ-i, and Corentus Team Coaching—equipping her to unlock leadership potential through deep analytical insight and transformative coaching methodologies. In addition to her own business, Beckie is also an executive coach for Rewire.

 

 

In this episode, Jason and Beckie discuss:

  • Defining a Life Alchemist and improving environments through intention
  • Applying the Three Centers of Intelligence: head, heart, and gut
  • How internal vs. external processing styles impact leadership and team dynamics
  • Common leadership blind spots and how self-awareness enhances effectiveness
  • Real-life examples from her coaching work with Department of Defense and corporate leaders


Key Takeaways:

  • Self-awareness lays the groundwork for effective leadership, but it’s only half the equation. True impact comes when leaders also seek to understand how others think, feel, and operate.
  • Many leaders instinctively lean on one primary intelligence center—head, heart, or gut. When the other two are neglected, it can create blind spots that weaken team trust and collaboration.
  • Internal processors may appear hesitant, while external processors may dominate with rapid thoughts. Recognizing these styles—and naming them—helps teams align expectations and avoid miscommunication.
  • Over-reliance on a single intelligence center creates imbalance: the analytical may seem cold, the empath may fear confrontation, and the instinctive may act prematurely. Balance requires awareness and intentional adaptation.
  • Sometimes, the most powerful coaching move is to say nothing at all. Holding space with quiet presence can unlock clarity that words might otherwise crowd out.

“When you understand how you process information, you can give yourself the tools that you need in order to be the best that you can be.”

- Beckie Moore

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Beckie Moore- 3 Centers of Intelligence

Hello and welcome everybody to this episode of The Insight interviews. I've got a special guest today. We're always looking outside for guests and every now and again, we look to our left and to our right and we're like, oh my gosh, why haven't we interviewed this person yet? And our guest today, Beckie Moore, is one of those people. So, just listen to a few things about Beckie. Beckie is an executive coach and life alchemist, which, by the way, I needed to look that up. I kind of knew what that was, but needed to look that up. There are some really cool definitions from Google that I found, but she’s an executive coach in life and alchemist, she's the founder of her own coaching business, Unlocked and Unlimited, and we're lucky enough to have her on the bench here at Rewire as one of our coaches, as well. She is a professional certified coach, which in the coaching industry starts to be rare air. She's got more certifications than I do, which is just phenomenal. Not that that's a feat. I don't have a lot of certifications, but you do, and that's amazing. She has coached for the likes of the Department of Defense Marine Corps and lots of well-known global corporate brand names that you've definitely heard of. But beyond all of this, the coolest thing is she's one of the kindest and most caring people I know, and I'm fortunate enough to call her my friend. Beckie, welcome to the show.

Well, thank you, Jason, and I really appreciate that. I always enjoy our times together. You always make the situation very comfortable, and I just love having these conversations with you, so, thank you.

Me too. Me too. Selfishly, it's just another opportunity for us to get to rap with one another, which I'm very excited about. You told me before we hit record that you've listened to a few episodes of the podcast. You probably know our opening question, which is, as you and I engage one another today in July 2025, who or what are you especially grateful for?

So, I have listened, and I do know that you open up, and I still did not prepare for that question.

Good. I want the unprepared answer.

So, I would say the opportunity to be a mom is what I'm really grateful for this morning, and the reason for that is, man, your kids mirror back to you all your blind spots and all the things that you need to work on for yourself. My kiddo is six, and right now he is having lots of really big feelings that come with being six, and so one of the things that we're working on together is being able to identify what those feelings are, being able to put a name to it, being able to identify how they feel within us, and then being able to apologize when our feelings get so big that we inadvertently affect the other person. I actually had to do that this morning with my kid. I was trying to get him out the door, and my angry spot got a little bit too big, and once I was able to apologize to him too, to really show that, yeah, mommy can apologize too. And so, I'm just really grateful for him and his grace as we're navigating this parenting child thing together.

So great. The opportunity to be a mom. There's a lot there in your answer to unpack. We could have a whole discussion about that. I feel like myself, and there's those around me that have really big feelings from time to time too, that at least, I'll speak for myself, we need to apologize for. So, you're already teaching me there, Beckie. Thank you. There are so many places that we could go. I've watched you for the last three years, you know, as you've coached our people. We always do surveys, and we always check in to see how we're doing for people, and you always get so highly rated. People love you and love coaching with you, and you've helped people on just a very deep level. Not just with the things upfront that they say that they want to be coached with, but like, the 360 person- the entire person. That's one of the things that I've really appreciated about you, is, hey, if somebody wants to come in and get better at I don't know, leadership skills or communication, it seems like you have a knack for helping them with that, but then when they leave, they've also been helped in other parts of their life, as well. And so, I don't know whether it's the life alchemist part or some of the certifications, just the work that you do, but you’ve helped a wide variety of people. Maybe I'll ask you, where do you want to go today? Where do you think we should go, Beckie?

Oh, thank you. No, I appreciate that. My philosophy, and one of the things that I tell all my clients is, you are you, regardless of the situation that you're in. And so, you know, if you act a certain way, if your behavior is a certain way, if you are having challenges with communication, if you're having challenges with time management, it's not just in your work environment, it's also in your home environment. And maybe you're not really looking at that, because that's not your scale of success, but so, it really is looking at you holistically, and not just in your professional life, but also your personal life. And so, one of the areas that I have found really helpful for people is to introduce them to the concept of three centers of intelligence. And so, this is really talking about your headspace. So, a lot of people think about intelligence. That's your mind. It's what you're thinking about. But you also have your heart center. Research has proven that literally is part of your brain. You have a head brain, you have a heart brain, and you've got a gut brain. And so, looking at your head, this is your mental intelligence. If you're looking at your heart, this is your relational intelligence. If you're looking at your gut or your body, this is your instinctual intelligence. This is your somatic intelligence. And you know, some of the examples of that would be, like for the body center, your gut feeling, your gut intelligence. This can be shown up with people who just know the answer. They don't know how they got to the answer, they just know the answer. You know, you're probably leading with your gut. You don't know that you're leading with your gut, but you're leading with your gut. You just know that that's the thing that you need to do. Leading with your heart center, if you're really leading with that, it's really the emotional connection with individuals being able to be empathetic, understanding how people feel, you know, those types of things. And then your head, just being able to analyze things, really getting into that headspace. And what I have found with working with people is oftentimes we lead with one of these, and we oftentimes kind of ignore at least one of these. And so, as a leader, if you ignore those, or you don't even acknowledge that the other two exist, then you can be alienating a lot of people that are on your team, which can cause some conflict.

Gosh, where do we dig in? You know, as you were talking about leading with your gut, I'm thinking of certain people in my life, right? Like, oh yeah, that person has a lot of instinct and oftentimes the one person I'm thinking about, she's often right. Like, things turn out really well, so I see her leading with that. And then I do see other people and think about the people that I work with that lead with intelligence, you know, that head, that thoughtful, methodical, and then there's passionate people, you know, the heart and so, yeah, I see a lot of that. I'm always intrigued with the manner in which the conversations that we've had, just to put some of this into context, I read some of your work where you're like, hey, concentrate on yourself first and understand just the self-awareness piece and maybe where you're coming from, whether it's your personality profile or which center of intelligence are you leading from, yourself first, and then figure out ways that that you then interact with or show up in the world, and then start to see things with other people first. So, I don't know, maybe the self-awareness piece, I'd love for you to talk about that a little bit.

Yeah, and I thank you for that. It is a little bit of a, hey, you gotta start with me first, you know? I think that we're in a situation to where leaders often want to analyze everybody on their team, but they really forget to look at themselves first and how they might be the one that is affecting their team and so, but it has to be both. You have to look at yourself, how you are perhaps affecting other people, or how other people may be perceiving you, and taking into account those other people and how they might be viewing the world. And so, I think that you have to understand others, and you have to understand yourself. So, you can't just navel gaze for the next five years and then get yourself completely figured out, because you're never going to get yourself completely figured out. It’s a little bit of this and that. And so, it's like, do some self-reflection and go out and understand your team a little bit better and check in with them. You know, hey, am I understanding this appropriately? Did that resonate with you? You know, those types of things. And so, it's constant going back and forth. You can't do both.

As I listen to you and listeners, if you're along with me and thinking, gosh, the first 10 minutes, we've already dove into the deep end of the pool, and if you are, because this was old me, maybe corporate America Jason, I would have thought, ah, man, this is too deep. I just need to, like, go lead people, tell people what to do whatever. Let me just say that Beckie has been in the military herself. She has coached the Marines, she's coached people at the Department of Defense and leaders that are in big companies, doing really important work. And so, if you're starting to listen to this and go, ah, that's a little too deep for me, whatever, I would ask you to lean in and listen even more. Because yes, we're in the deep end, but we may need to be there and there's a reason for that. So, I don't know. As you think about self-awareness, and how you just answered that question, Beckie, I'm going to put you on the spot a little bit here, are there any examples, any stories, that come to mind from a leadership standpoint, self-awareness that flows into the three centers of intelligence conversation?

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Well, I think that one of the easier examples to comprehend is, let's say you lead with your head center, right? You're very analytical, you think about things, and there are actually two different ways that you can do that. There's internal processing, and then there's external processing, and then, you know, there's in the middle, right? So, let's look at this from a scale perspective, somebody who is on the extreme internal processing portion of the scale. These are those individuals that they're going to think before they speak. And so, they're the really quiet ones that are in the meetings, maybe those are the ones that you have to literally pull the information out of. They are the ones that, if you ask them a question on the spot, they're going to get that deer on the headlight look, because they have to think about it, they have to process it before they can speak about something. Then, on the other end of the spectrum, you've got your external processors. So, these are the individuals who really are not able to process the information without speaking. They have to speak first, and then they're like, oh yeah, that's what I mean, right? And so, if you think about that, and this is where it really becomes important as a leader, let's pretend like you're on a team and you are an internal processor, and your team members are asking you information, they're putting you on the spot, they want answers, because maybe they're externally processing. They need to figure out what's going on. And you just say, this is where we need to go, and then that's it, right? You're not taking them along for the ride. They don't understand why it is that you came up with that solution, but it's because you did so much thinking inside of your head that you came to the solution without telling anybody else, right? And so, you're just saying, here you go, the answer is 42 and they're like, well, but wait a minute, why is the answer 42? But if they ask you, why is the answer 42, it's really hard for you to maybe bring them along for the ride. And so, people may feel a little distant, they may feel alienated from leaders who just say the answer is 42. On the flip side, if you're an external processing leader, and you come into a meeting and you love to brainstorm, then you may be sitting there and you may be pontificating, and you may be thinking, oh, this is a great idea. Or maybe we can go this way with this, or maybe we can go that way with that. Well, your team members may be furiously writing down everything that is that you're saying, and they're going to lead that meeting, and they're going to take action on the things that you were just thinking about.

Ah, yeah.

And so, you have to be able to understand, okay, this is how I'm processing, to be able to let your team members know, hey guys, I'm going to externally process here for a minute. Put your pencils down. I'll let you know when to pick them back up again. And so, understanding how you process information, so that way you can be with your team members, and you can caveat things and bring them into the conversation whenever it's important.

Yeah, I see so many people that have been identified as really good leaders, and then as the team gets bigger and bigger, it's not a one size fits all type of thing. Why are they a good leader? Well, she's just so nice all the time, or she always has the right answers or whatever, but different people on the teams can see that differently because of the way you know that they process. And so, it's not necessarily conforming to the way that your group processes but understanding yourself first and then start to understand other people. And I know you do. You're certified in a lot of different assessments. It's making me think of teams where there's issues, and any time there are teams and human beings get together, there are issues. That's just the nature of things. There can also be really great things that happen when a team gets together, but have you had any scenarios where, whether it's through an assessment, whether it's through working through the three centers of intelligence that you're talking about, where you've seen a team, like, okay, maybe they weren't as cohesive or rowing in the same direction as they could have been, and then after some of this work, it was just a different scenario in a good way?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So recently, working with a team with the Department of Defense and really kind of pulling in these three centers of intelligence and this particular individual, they were much more of an internal processor, and so very quiet in meetings and recognizing that the vast majority of the other peer members of this senior group were external processors, and so this particular individual really needed to step up their own game and verbally speak before they were comfortable speaking, in order to have their voice heard, and they needed to articulate that with their team members. And then, on the flip side, working with, as you know, a different member of this team who was more of an external processor of they needed to practice keeping their mouth shut in order to allow the other individuals the space to be able to speak. And so, by both individuals, number one, recognizing how they could communicate, and then recognizing how their peers communicate allowed them to communicate better, and then even calling each other out if they started defaulting back into their preferred communication method, which then allowed the team cohesiveness to increase, and where they could actually move forward.

Yeah, that example of self-awareness and others awareness is so different than, why aren't you hearing me, or why don't you understand? Or it just is because I said so, or whatever. I can see where that would really start, and I've seen it on teams also, where there really starts to be cohesion there, and if you've got permission to call out each other's leanings, or whatever it is and in situations, then that is for the betterment of one another and of the organization, not like an attack thing, but, yeah, that can just be really good stuff. Really good stuff. Is there anything else on the three centers of intelligence? I mean, I know like you and I talked before recording, well, we could probably talk for three hours on just that particular topic, and anything else on that topic that you want to make sure that we hit today?

I think maybe just kind of, you know, high level bullet points of, what maybe those, those blind spots might look like for each of the centers is just a way for maybe some of the listeners to start identifying where they lead within themselves. And so, if you are in the headspace some of your blind spots may be ignoring the human impact, right? So, if you lead with that, but you kind of ignore the heart space, then you know you may say something that is absolutely accurate but not taking into account how the other person is going to receive it. And so, you know that you could come off as being cold. You can come off as not having emotional intelligence, where with the heart space, if you're leading with your heart, then you may avoid difficult conversations because you don't want the other person to not like you, you don't want to have that conflict, you may have some difficulties making hard decisions, and so you make and you maintain criticism really personally. And so just because you're leading with that heart, because relationships are so important to you, and then if you're in the body space, then you may act without thinking.

You know, you were talking about this leader who just makes snap decisions, and they just go and generally speaking, it works out for them, but sometimes, if you act a little too quickly, then you put the cart before the horse. Not necessarily for you, but all of your team members that are trying to keep up with you, and so you may be moving too quickly for the rest of your team, and you may overlook those details. You may seem impulsive. And so again, you know, just recognizing where you are, and then if you're on a team, of all body centers, right? And you can all move really quickly, then, hey, go have at edge, right? But it usually doesn't work out that way, right?

Exactly, exactly. And so, you know, just recognizing some of those blind spots that are associated with some of those centers.

Yeah, that’s so good. If you're listening to this and as you went through those bullet points, I'm sure people are going, oh yeah, that's me, or, oh, that's Sharon, or that’s Todd, or, I don't know, whatever. Even that is good in my mind. If that is something that you haven't thought about and there are assessments to go way deep on this, but if there's just some awareness, where like, oh, other people don't process information the way that I do, how interesting is that? That alone is a really good starting place.

I think so, yeah. Absolutely. I would say that I've had that comment come up more often than not when talking about the various different centers of intelligence is that, aha, moment of, wait. Hold on. Not everybody processes information the same way that I do. That might be the reason why I'm getting so frustrated with this person, because, like, why can't they just see it the way that I see it?

True.

And so once they understand that, then they're able to not only give the other person a little bit of grace, but give themselves some grace as well, to be able to process that information the way that they need to and asking for what they need, right? So, if you are an internal processor, and your boss is like asking you for information or something and you don't have the answer right away, you ask for the time.

Yeah.

This is my very quick answer, but I don't have that full answer yet. Can I get back to you in 30 minutes? Can I get back to you tomorrow? You know? So, it's like when you understand how you process information, you can give yourself the tools that you need in order to be the best that you can be. That's where that life alchemist comes into play. Leave things better when you leave, then when you got to them.

Great segue. I could ask more questions about your answer there, but I was gonna go in this direction anyways. So, yeah, talk to me. I've heard the word alchemy before, and I know that has something to do with gold, or, I don't know something like that. And so, I Googled it, and there were some pretty interesting things that came up. But I want to hear from you. You've got in LinkedIn and some of the stuff that you say you're a life alchemist. Beckie Moore, what the heck does that mean?

So, I am an Army veteran and I spent three years active duty and in the army, and at the time, I was talking to one of my skiff chiefs, if anybody knows what that is, and we were really talking about this concept of leaving the environment better than you found it. And so, you don't necessarily have to make it perfect, because nothing's ever going to be perfect, but if you can make something just a little bit better than you found it, then that's really what you're striving for. So, life Alchemist is leaning into something and make it better than you found it. And so, that's really the concept is, hey, as I do my introspection work, I’m not looking for perfection, I'm just looking to understand just a little bit better. I'm looking to have those relationships be just a little bit better. I'm looking for how can I experiment to do things just a little bit better? And so, that's really where that life alchemist comes into play. The very first time I learned that lesson, where I noted it was we were at an event years ago, where everybody brings a dish type of thing and as happens often, we ended up leaving our dish at these people's house. And so, you know, it was an easy thing. Hey, next week we need to come get our dish, or, I don't know, whatever it was. The way that this person returned the dish was with a cake baked in it, and that was just, yeah. There's been several times in my life where that whole dish thing happens and you give them back a clean dish, and it's all good. It's great. That was better than when we left it, though, and I just noted that. I'm like, oh, that was intentional and purposeful.

So that person was a life alchemist, I think, but using your definition, and man, I've just been on the hunt ever since then. Like, okay, when I walk into a room, or when I leave somebody's house, or whatever the situation is, is there a way that I can have an influence or make this better than it was before? And even if I can't, just that attitude, I just feel like that's facing life in a different way. So, yeah, I'm very intrigued by how you answer that question. What does that look like on a daily basis, especially with the people that you're coaching? What does that look like practically speaking?

It depends.

Sure. I hear that.

Every individual is coming to the table with something different. And so, as a coach, one of the hardest lessons I've had to learn, and continue to learn is to meet people where they are. And so, my version of life alchemy and their particular moment, I could sit there and analyze what's going on with them. Well, if you just did X, Y and Z, right? It would make everything beautiful and better. But from their perspective and where they are in their life and the situation that they're facing, and everything that goes into that, you have to meet them where they are. And so, I think that for them, it's just meeting them where they are. It could be leaving that coaching session better than we came in. It may simply be that they had somebody to talk to that heard them.It may be that that they had 60 minutes, or whatever the time frame is, just to themselves, you know? I had a coaching call one time, and then the individual was completely flustered. They weren't prepared. You could just feel that they were just all over the place. And so, I invited them, like, hey, how about I just sit here and I'm going to put myself on mute, you do what you need to do to get yourself organized, write down some notes, whatever it is that you need to do, and then when you're ready, you come back.

Yeah.

And we sat in silence for probably a good 15 minutes, and that just allowed them permission to do what they needed to do to reorient themselves, and then when they came back, we could have ended the coaching session right there, because they had what they needed, but they were then prepared to be able to bring something to the table and we continue the coaching session.

Such a perfect example of excellent coaching. I mean, I don't know if you all heard what Beckie just said there, but I meet so many coaches and consultants and mentors that they want to add and add and add, and what you did there, that example was you took away to the point where you were just there, literally silent, allowing your client to work out whatever it is that that they needed to work out, and boy, that is excellent coaching there. You don't need me to tell you that, but I've been in that client's shoes. As you know, before I got into coaching, I was coached for a long time and by some really excellent coaches, and yeah, sure, sometimes adding is a good thing and collaborating and asking questions, but sometimes the more that you remove and just allow that person, whatever the space is that they need, can just be really good. So yeah, meeting people where they are. One of the definitions that I looked up for life alchemist is they are not passive recipients of life's events, but rather active agents in shaping their own destinies. And I was like, whoa, that's awesome. And so, that's you, and you're helping other people with that line of thinking. So, Beckie, as we round out our time together here, I feel like we've just done a 10,000 foot view of some of these things, we've dipped down a little bit, but is there anywhere that we haven't dipped down that you want to make sure happens before we end our conversation today?

I think that if I were to answer that question, we would end up talking for another hour. And so, I will say, I think we covered everything that that is appropriate for the time that we've had together, and I’m really grateful for being able to be here with you and discuss this, and being able to give the 10,000 foot view dip down really deep in a couple of things, and then coming back up again. So, I really appreciate you and the time to talk with you today.

Well, we're grateful for you, not only for serving our country for three years, but then continuing to do so in the capacity that you do with helping people in the Department of Defense and other areas of our military. I don't take that lightly at all. And then today, you've given yourself unselfishly to us, so we're grateful to you for that. I have a feeling that people want to reach out to you as a result of our conversation, and so if I'm right about that, how do people find you?

All right, well, thank you. I can be found on LinkedIn. Beckie Moore, B, E, C, K, I, E, M, O, O, R, E, and my website, UnlockedandUnlimited.com.

Perfect. Beckie, thank you so much. You brought it like I thought you would. I started off with a page of things, and I've added another page of notes based on everything that you said. So, thank you for that gift. Certainly appreciate that and I appreciate your time today.

Thank you, Jason. I appreciate you.

Oh. Beckie Moore. So good. I love what she said about the three centers of intelligence, head, heart. Some of the things that I got as my insights is you are who you are, regardless of the situation that you're in. I just really appreciate that. And then what she said with just starting with me first, like, if there's a problem to be solved, what is it? Can I look internally at myself first? And then just this last part, leave the environment better than you found it. So good. Those were my insights listeners, but as we say at the end of every episode of The Insight Interviews, it doesn't much matter what my insights were, but what really matters is what insights did you have?


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