In 2023 and continuing in 2024 my focus is on coaching coaches in the science and practical use of lateral thinking/x10 thinking for much better results on and off the field.
CONTACT: If you are a professional coach and would like more information on ‘bespoke coaching for coaches’ you can write anytime to me here …
Compatible with the fast developments in neuroscience my two axioms for changing human behaviour and raising performance are:
1 • There’s nothing more important in life than coaching.
2 • There’s nothing more powerful on earth than lateral thinking.
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On Coaching
Coaching is anytime we are trying to change the behaviour of another person.
There are sports coaches, business coaches, military coaches, religious coaches, academic coaches, and social coaches like parents, family and peers. Some are professional others are not.
All coaching is brain coaching. There are no exceptions to this. Because all human behaviour is led by human thinking and all thinking is in the brain which includes the nervous system.
Any deliberate attempt to change human behaviour must start with the human brain. There is no magic. There is no other way.
When is comes to neuroscience we can see that different brains are using different perspectives depending a lot on the individual brain’s cultural and educational wiring.
A traditional pre-science view is: I tell my brain what to do. A current post-science view is: My brain tells me what to do.
Using a diverse chemistry of over 100 neurotransmitters (adrenalin, glutamate, seratonin, dopamine, oxytocin, endorphins, histamine etc), your brain always tells you what to do next. Moment by moment. There’s no room left for magic.
You can never defy your brain. Your brain leads your behaviour every time, without exception.
You have never, on any single occasion of behaviour, told your brain what to do. Ever.
At any given moment you do what your brain commands through its diverse range of emotional messaging such as anger, fear, shame, joy, anticipation, surprise, trust, disgust and so on.
However, brains change. They are always changing. The scientific term is neuroplasticity.
Today’s brain dictates today’s behaviour. Tomorrow’s brain dictates tomorrow’s behaviour. This week’s/next week’s. This year’s/next year’s. Etc etc. This, of course, is also happening from moment to neuro-moment.
So, this moment’s brain dictates this moments behaviour and the next moment’s brain dictates the next moment’s behaviour.
And, the brain that we have, at any particular moment, is the end product of all its biological moments which came before this moment.
For coaches, this is good news. What can take place between the NOW brain and the FUTURE brain … is coaching. In simplistic terms:
NOW + COACHING = FUTURE
We cannot defy our brain. We can only do what it tells us to do. However, we can intervene with coaching to change our future brain.
We can curate our brain, we can rewire our brain through neuroplasticity so that a future brain will tell us to behave in a different way.
This is why there’s nothing more important in life than coaching.
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On Lateral Thinking
There are many valuable human behaviours that are just not possible from deductive, analytical and logical thinking.
When thinking is limited to inside-the-box logical thinking, then the behaviours are also limited that are led by that thinking.
However, outside-the-box thinking makes other behaviours possible. We call this lateral thinking and since the past 25 years of neuroscience we now know how to coach lateral thinking.
In a world that is entrenched in I-am-right-and-you-are-wrong logical, analytical thinking there is nothing more powerful than lateral thinking aka x10 thinking.
In a competitive world like sports coaching or business coaching there is nothing more powerful than ESCAPE.
That is the cognitive ability to escape from the box of logical thinking to the big, wide world of lateral thinking. More options, more possibilities, more alternatives, more choices leading to much better behaviours.
This is why there’s nothing more powerful on earth than lateral thinking.
1 • There’s nothing more important in life than coaching.
2 • There’s nothing more powerful on earth than lateral thinking.