Do a GBB! That’s the new mantra of the Sydney Roosters, Sydney’s most successful professional NRL football team.
In November, Michael ‘Hewi’ presented a Brain Coaching masterclass on Lateral Thinking and AI. On how to use AI to do x10 thinking. How to ‘Do a GBB’ with ChatGPT, Meta or Claude etc to assist. Here’s some feedback from the Roosters Coaching and Leadership Team …
Long before online learning and AI tutors, a Los Angeles college without classrooms quietly reinvented education. Its boldest project—run by Michael Hewitt-Gleeson and Edward de Bono—taught 40,000 hospital workers how to think better. It worked.
In 1970, International College launched in Los Angeles with an idea so radical it almost sounded medieval: one student, one tutor, one mission. No departments. No lecture halls. Just pure intellectual apprenticeship.
Each scholar worked directly with a mentor to design a bespoke project—real-world, measurable, and original. It was a university without walls, long before the internet made that phrase fashionable.
Among its boldest experiments was the partnership between Dr Edward de Bono, inventor of Lateral Thinking, and Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson, an Australian systems thinker who turned creativity into data, code, and algorithms.
Together, they conducted one of the first large-scale cognitive-training experiments: 26 New York hospitals, 40,000 participants, and a single question—could thinking itself be improved through structured practice?
The answer was yes. Thinking could be taught, measured, and improved.
The project’s measurable success proved that cognition wasn’t a mystery—it was a design problem.
Their work culminated in the 1982 book Learn-To-Think: Coursebook and Instructor’s Manual—a step-by-step guide for teaching creativity and logic as trainable skills. A year later, the coursebook became a global sensation when Reader’s Digest featured it in a cover story—“Seven Steps to Better Thinking”—across all international editions, reaching 68 million readers worldwide.
Though International College closed in 1986, its DNA thrives in modern education: mentorship-based PhDs, design thinking, and cognitive coaching.
The Hewitt-Gleeson–de Bono collaboration proved that serious scholarship doesn’t need ivory towers—just imagination, autonomy, and applied rigour. In an age shaped by algorithms and artificial intelligence, their insight feels prophetic:
Human cognition isn’t fixed. It’s upgradable.
The most powerful classroom isn’t a campus. It’s the mind.
Reference: Academic Paper: A College Without Walls
© 2025 Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson de Saint-Arnaud. All rights reserved.
Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson, Founder of the School of Thinking
Neuroscience 101 Should Be Taught in all Australian Primary Schools.
Here’s Ten Reasons Why …
1. *Improved learning outcomes*: Understanding how the brain learns can help students develop better study habits and improve academic performance.
2. *Enhanced self-awareness*: Neuroscience education can help children recognize and manage their emotions, leading to improved mental health and relationships.
3. *Informed decision-making*: By understanding the brain’s vulnerabilities, students can make informed choices about substance use, screen time, and lifestyle factors.
4. *Developing growth mindset*: Teaching neuroplasticity can encourage students to view challenges as opportunities for growth.
5. *Better emotional regulation*: Neuroscience can help children understand and manage their emotions, reducing stress and anxiety.
6. *Improved focus and concentration*: Understanding attention and focus mechanisms can help students develop strategies to stay on task.
7. *Enhanced creativity and problem-solving*: Neuroscience can inspire students to explore creative thinking and innovative problem-solving.
8. *Brain health and wellness*: Educating students about brain health can promote healthy habits and reduce risk of neurological disorders.
9. *Increased empathy and understanding*: Neuroscience can help students appreciate individual differences and promote inclusivity.
10. *Preparation for future careers*: Understanding the brain is essential for careers in fields like psychology, neuroscience, and medicine.
Go to: Neuroscience 101 For Teachers
• Contact Michael (click to email) for the latest on coaching, bookings and fees.
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NEW: 2025 fastbook (ten-minute read) on The Brain Game … click to start reading …
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Neuroscience should be taught in Australian Primary Schools. – Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson
On Friday, 16th August 2024. To launch this project Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson, co-founder SOT, has agreed to design an introductory training program for teachers called Neuroscience 101. It will be a foundational professional learning course designed for teachers, especially those who wish to teach neuroscience to kids in primary schools.
It explores how we think about thinking, introducing key neuroscience concepts like neuroplasticity. Based on Dr Hewitt-Gleeson’s bestselling books Software For The Brain and The Fourth Brain, this online course empowers educators to bring neuroscience into the classroom and spark curiosity in young minds. Participants can learn how the brain works—and why every teacher should teach it.
This training will be located, on commencement of the 2024 school year, here at Australia’s leading online teaching resource for educators at https://cool.org/course/neuroscience-101-getting-started
These ten lessons enable you to teach your AI … x10 thinking.
Just click the lesson links and follow the simple instructions.
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• Lesson 01:
click the link … https://schoolofthinking.org/aixio-s1lesson-one/
• Lesson 02:
click the link … https://schoolofthinking.org/aixio-s1lesson-two/
• Lesson 03:
click the link … https://schoolofthinking.org/aixio-s1lesson-three/
• Lesson 04:
click the link … https://schoolofthinking.org/aixio-s1lesson-four/
• Lesson 05:
click the link … https://schoolofthinking.org/aixio-s1lesson-five/
• Lesson 06:
click the link … https://schoolofthinking.org/aixio-s1lesson-six/
• Lesson 07:
click the link … https://schoolofthinking.org/aixio-s1lesson-seven/
• Lesson 08:
click the link … https://schoolofthinking.org/aixio-s1lesson-eight/
• Lesson 09:
click the link … https://schoolofthinking.org/aixio-s1lesson-nine/
• Lesson 10:
click the link … https://schoolofthinking.org/s1lesson-ten/
NOTE:
If you’d like to receive an SOT Certificate for this training just complete all the 10 DFQs. When you’ve completed the DFQs please click here and send me an email saying COMPLETED.
Free: Click here. Start reading. Pass it on >>
SPECIAL EDITION NOTES: This smartphone edition (5.0) is designed with larger font and less words per page to make it easier for smartphone readers. So there are more pages (415) but much faster to read. This edition is free, so pass it on to others if you wish. Previous editions titled ‘Sofware For Your Brain’ have been international best-sellers since 1989.
“This millennium, thus far, could best be described as the “10x” era.” – Scott Galloway, Professor of Marketing at NYU Stern School of Business (12 July 2024).
Who is the one person you know who would most benefit from a copy of this x10 book? Pass it on. https://schoolofthinking.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/x10.pdf
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Multiply Your Business by 10!
In this exciting book, Michael Hewitt-Gleeson introduces a new way to think about business. He describes the x10 meme – the innovative idea of multiplying your business by 10.
Currently the business growth meme in most people’s brain is 10% per annum. Here the author stresses that the market is changing rapidly and businesses cannot stay the same. The 10% per annum meme is outdated and needs to be upgraded.
X10 is the focus for future thinking and for customer-driven businesses bent on profit share. Using three easy-to-follow tutorials, Hewitt-Gleeson guides you through The x10 Memeplex. Finally, a case study plan helps people to transfer these ideas into their own business practices.
This book will change the way everyone thinks about business. Go ahead. Read the x10 gospel. Infect your mind with the x10 meme. Be like Larry Page and multiply your business by ten!
Who is the one person you know who would most benefit from a copy of this x10 book? Pass it on. https://schoolofthinking.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/x10.pdf
Announcement by the Victorian Minister for Agriculture:
“We are excited to announce that Smartsense AgTech will be the first startup based in the dedicated incubation hub here — helping to rapidly improve the use of digital sensing technology across the agriculture industry”.
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In a three-year x10 Thinking project (2020-2022), School of Thinking was sought by the Department of Agriculture to help design a growing range of innovative startup science-business assets for the Victorian State Government.
Specifically, the project – called AVR x10 – created the science-business incubation hub at AgriBio which has designed four startups to accelerate commercialisation pathways of their IP assets. The first is Smartsense AgTech, a new business with technology that asks, “What if farms in Victoria were ten times smarter?” It will offer commercial solutions to that question including camera drones for use in photographing soil, earth, water, plants, crops, and agricultural products. It will focus on rapidly improving digital sensing technologies used across a range of agricultural sectors including dairy, horticulture and grains.
There will be more AVR x10 start-ups to follow.
Minister Thomas announced the State Government is providing $7.5 million funding towards the x10 start-ups that will support “a major development for Victoria’s agtech industry”.
Working in collaboration with Professor German Spangenberg, Head of AVR at AgriBio, Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson of School of Thinking led three 10-week semesters of x10 Thinking for the senior scientists and commercial managers that produced a range of innovative outcomes including the creation of the science-business incubation hub at AgriBio.
Professor Spangenberg has summarised in his letter to Dr Hewitt-Gleeson: “Thanks for all your amazing work in delivering a fantastic AVR x10 project. It has been a genuinely transformative initiative that will have lasting impact – I see the excitement of our AVR scientists in discovering their entrepreneurial skills, learning from each other, getting to know colleagues. Indeed, 5 start-up pitches in Term 1 alone is an exceptional achievement! And more to come in Term 2! Thanks again for making all of this possible”.
