WHY THE “BRAIN CAMPS?”

Why did I create the Neuro-Semantic Brain Camps? Simple: To change the world! Period. Oh, you want a little bit more information about the Brain Camps—their design and function? Okay, here goes. If there is anything that seems to govern the world—it is how we talk, communicate, and relate to each other. How you and I talk, communicate, and relate determines how we get along, the quality of our relationship, how we work together, how we create partnerships and collaborations, how we manage ourselves in our cities and countries (also called ‘politics’), etc. How we talk, communicate, and relate governs how we do anything and everything— research, science, media, government, etc.

Now for a penetrating question: What governs how we talk, communicate, and relate to each other? Amazingly the answer is one thing—how we think. The quality of our thinking determines the quality of our life. If we think as a child—wishful thinking, magical thinking, egotistical thinking, concrete thinking, etc.—then we will talk and relate to each other in childish, silly, and stupid ways. That’s why we need to grow up in our thinking and put away childish thinking.

Children think as children because that’s what they are—children. And as children they are in the middle of growing up through the cognitive developmental stages. This is something we cover in Meta-Coaching and why we introduce the list of Cognitive Distortions. The very thinking patterns which are appropriate and good for children become dangerous and destructive cognitive distortions for adults.

Once we get beyond puberty and begin to experience the executive functions of the prefrontal cortex, then we begin the journey into adult thinking. It begins with the ability to think conceptually and abstractly. But this is where— unless you get some training in how to think clearly— you will fall into another set of thinking problems. We call those problems Cognitive Biases. They describe some of the built-in biases that frequently work, but that can also create all kinds of problems for us. And because there are so many of them (perhaps a hundred or more), I organized them into 7 categories in Executive Thinking (2018).

The third set of dangerous thinking patterns are called Cognitive Fallacies. We learn these ways of “reasoning” from parents, teachers, TV, peers, and social media because we hate to be wrong. We want to be right even if the way of thinking is fallacious. At least it helps us to win arguments!

So why the Brain Camps? To provide training in how to think clearly and accurately. Everything important in our lives depends on it! If you cannot think about your thinking then you cannot manage your thinking. Then your thinking has you rather than you having your thinking. And if you cannot manage yourself—change yourself, especially your thinking, then you will not be able to change how you talk, communicate, and relate. And if you cannot do that, then you cannot change the world, neither your immediate world or the larger world that you live in.

I want to change the world. How about you? Are you satisfied with the way the world is going? With the way your relationships are going? Your work, career, wealth creation, health, well-being, your physical fitness, etc.? If not, then if you want to change any aspect of any of these worlds—it always begins and depends upon your thinking. That’s because from your thinking comes your meaning-making, your framing, and reframing. This is not new, the ancients knew this power of thinking: In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius wrote: “The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.” In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet arose the quotation: “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” In Proverbs 23:7: “As a man thinks in his heart, so he is.”

To this date, we run three Brain Camps: Brain Camp I: Thinking for Humans. Here we cover the 15 thinking skills essential for clear, critical, and creative thinking. This is the foundation for every skill that you have and the key to tapping into your greatest resource. Brain Camp II: Executive Learning. Here we cover the 7 Dimensions of Learning, how you can accelerate your learning, and the quality of your learning. Put off by the word ‘learning,’ then try Discovery because that’s what learning is all about—discovering yourself, others, anything that fascinates you, the world. Brain Camp III: Executive Decisions. Here we cover the 5 stages of the decision- making process so you can become a truly smart and effective decision-maker. We do that because the quality of your decisions is the quality of your life.

Ready for tuning up your brain? Actually, the brain camps are not about your brain, they are about your mind—which is an emergent property from your brain. So most literally these are Mind Camps ... but Brain Camps sound sexier so we’ve gone with that.