“Follow your heart but take your brain with you.”― Alfred Adler

The notion of following heart has been overhyped in many ways. On the contrary, Notion of “Paralysis of Analysis” also exists parallel in world.
Vast majority on earth is floating in between this two notions.

This split of life or we can say the zone of dilemma occurs in our early twenties. When we finish our academics and dive into real world which contains unknown dynamics all around. For the inner satisfaction, we fall for the choices of heart, but for the satisfaction of stomach we have to walk on the choices of brain. On one side, we have fear of being left behind from peers. On the opposite side, we are haunted to loose our true self if we don’t follow our heart. As Bob Marley said,

“Don’t gain the world and loose your soul, wisdom is better than silver and gold”.

But if we pass it though the reality check not just with morality check, all of us are aware about the fact,
‘To thrive in modern world, we need both, The wisdom and the gold’. By gold, I am point towards substantial financial stability to fall back.

In that sense, We need best of both, the “Creative Faculties” and the “Rational Faculties” in our personal toolkit.

Now the question arise, why we need both at the same time? and How can we do that?

We will discover ‘WHY’ first.

Brain is the best tool we posses to advance our journey of life. It has capability of analysis and pattern recognition which unlocks doors of understanding dynamics as follow,

• Strategy

            In a real world, our ability to make a strategy is the key elements of productivity. History is full of war and every war has been won by not the biggest armies but by the best strategist. For example, Napoleon Bonaparte crushed the British invaders having 50k troops with his little army of 5k troops. 

• Frameworks

            On a level of individuality we might not need frameworks, but on a level of organisation we work in groups and framework is necessity to work collectively for the common goal. 

• Politics

            Wherever there is organisation, there would be internal politics whether at micro level or macro level. We should not deny that reality of life. As bill gates said, “World is not fair, get use to it”. To diplomatically deal with the power dynamics of politics, we need smartness of brain.

• Unknown Factors

            There will always be uncertainty in this world. Because it is the basic nature of life, it plays different card of uncertainty all the time. To deal with it, one need rational ability to recognise its pattern and consequences. So that he can adopt the change for its personal betterment. Heart will sink into fear at this type of moments.


Heart is also important tool we posses which adds meaning and beauty in our life. It includes three important parameters which plays their role in our career.

• Originality

            Our world right now is very fast and transparent. Same ideas and same methodology won’t last long, we need constant improvement and novelty into our way of working. There is only one trait which can produce those results constantly, Originality. Monalisa is the best example of Originality.

• Creativity

            Originality and creativity goes hand in hand, those who are less influenced by external forces remains original and ultimately finds their way to express their originality through creative expression in their work. Monalisa is one of the most dynamic human expression ever happen on earth.

• Substance 

            Original and creative work always have some invisible factors which we can only experience. That inner experience are always dependent on Substance, there is no other alternative. There can be so many explanation about the beauty of Monalisa, but no science has ever came to perfect conclusion about it. Because substance is something which we can only experience, we can’t understand it rationally.

Every element of both tool is essential for steady and substantial growth of life. Only with brain tools, there would have progress without fulfilment. Only with heart tools, there would be fulfilment without progress.

How can we use both optimally?

Whenever we have to take decisions which have potential to impact our entire life from then on, we have to use supreme rationality. Just write down all the variables of present and future which possibly plays its role. Figure out best 5 iterations and choose which is best for the long term. Your heart will go with the short term option because it would feel uncomfortable if long term option would be taken.

Only at the level of personal expression and only for people of our family, we should rely completely on our heart.

It is like, if we use trimmer instead of hair dryer for the purpose of drying our hair, we will always end up in chaos. 
Its not the fault of hair dryer nor the trimmer, it’s the mediocre choices of its user which is responsible for the chaos.

All we need is, “Clarity of the purpose and ability to choose the right tool for it”.

Without this awareness, vast majority is making their decisions based on their emotional jerks. Hard to realise this truth, but it took me 24 years to understand it.

“Hammer is good tool, but that’s not the only tool we use to build the home”
Life is very large, we need various range of tools to deal with all its diverse range of problems.