WELCOME TO BRAIN CAMP!

I’ve got a new name for our training on how to think, how to become a critical and a creative thinker, how to generate great ideas, how to achieve a cognitive make-over for remembering, learning, deciding, planning, being, etc. Brain Camp.

Because thinking is the most fundamental thing that you do— more fundamental than communicating, more fundamental than learning, the foundation for influencing, persuading, leading, coaching, relating, inventing, selling, etc.— if you don’t know the basics about thinking and how to be a clear and concise thinker, then everything else is in jeopardy. In fact, you are jeopardizing the very quality of your life. Yet here is the problem—who every studies thinking? Who trains or coaches or provides development in thinking skills? There’s hardly anyone. Until now.

Test yourself. Here’s a short and simple way to test your own understanding and experience of this most core competency: What is “thinking?” What are the composite elements that make up thinking? How much training have you had in each of those components? Name three or four of the key kinds of pseudo-thinking expressions. Describe how wanting to be sure, certain, and confident actually undermines thinking? What are some of the key factors that prevents new learnings from “going in?” When new thoughts do not “go in” and “take,” what is the solution? How many thinking skills can you list? What is the core thinking skill— the absence of which indicates you are not thinking?

For thousands of years, as we have created schools and sent our children there, they have learned what to think. Almost never are they taught how to think. Yet the time has come to change that. What to think was highly valuable when significant change took decades if not centuries. The what would last. But no longer. It’s estimated that some 40 to 60 percent of all jobs that will be available in 20 years do not exist today. That’s why we need to be teaching children how to think in addition to what to think.

And with the acceleration of change, the same applies to us— you and I also need to develop the ability to think— to refresh our thinking, to unlearn what we once learned that’s now in the way, to break the old semantic reactions and the automatic thinking that keeps us blind and deaf to the ever-changing emerging world.

Hence, Brain Camp! Like any intense training that occurs in an intense training context, at Brain Camp you will first of all discover what real thinking is and to distinguish it from the many forms of pseudo-thinking. At Brain Camp you will learn the foundations for how to “run your own brain” and how to re-wire your brain so that your thinking fits for today’s world. You will learn the basics of the unlearning skills, how to set up new neural connections for new learnings and to accelerate your learnings. You will learn how to think about your thinking so that with the development of meta-cognitive skills and strategies, you will be able to take control and not be the victim of cognitive biases, distortions, and fallacies.

At Brain Camp, you will discover how to take good care of your brain. Like the ancient Greeks, our aim is: “A healthy mind in a healthy body.” Then, as you learn about the levels of brain functioning, you can use your whole brain and translate from the lower to the higher and the higher back to the lower. This will enable you to be much more mindful and, in fact, live more mindfully as you tap into the higher executive functions of your brain. That will enhance your executive thinking skills— Planning— intentionally forecasting to design a compelling future. Deciding — make executive decisions that are smart and discerning. Assimilating information for creativity and innovation. Remembering— keeping track of things and having memory resources more accessible. Consciously choosing— living from choice rather than reactivity. Learning — accelerating your learning through higher quality learning strategies. Integration— self-regulation, monitoring, emotional intelligence. Problem-Solving — defining, reframing, and resolving “problems” as puzzles for the brain.

And yes, there are obstacle courses at Brain Camp, obstacles in the form of exercises and drills that will enable you to think forward, think backward, think downward, think upward, think reflexively, think analogously, and more.

While Brain Camp is only three days long, you will be abundantly challenged so that your brain will get a good workout. One man in Mauritius said it was like a “mental earthquake—lots of old formulations were shaken down.” Many others said, “Before this training I thought I was thinking, but now I realize that I was not.” One lady said, “Thank you! Now the real adventure begins.”

Finally, a warning: Brain Camp isn’t for everyone. You have to be courageous to handle it. You have to be willing to get out of your comfort zone. If comfort is one of your highest values— then this is not for you. If you have to be right and perfect— Brain Camp would blow you away and you would find it destructive to the need to be right. Brain Camp is for those ready to venture out to the growing edge personally and vocationally— who want to use their whole brain as they navigate life.