Rewiring brains
to feel, think, act and be
humanely different
Soul-Chaplain - first provider of professional development on the neuroscience of leadership and learning
Who learns from one who no longer learns drinks wisdom from a stagnant pond.
But who learns with one who also learns drinks wisdom from a flowing river.
All human interactions - including learning and leadership - are based on emotion - and all such interactions begin with a feeling.
This is completely overlooked by almost all formal learning and development systems.
Paul Nicholas
Large skepticism brings large understanding,
little skepticism brings little understanding
and with no skepticism there will be no understanding.
Xi Zhi (1130-1200)
The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts as soon as you get up in the morning and doesn't stop until you get to the office
Robert Frost
The human race is experiencing an intellectual Stockholm syndrome of epidemic proportions - and most people have an unthinking love for the ideas by which their minds are held captive
Our aim: To stimulate, in the words of the inspirational Jaron Lanier, "an alternative intellectual environment that is large enough to roam in...a new encompassing architecture of interconnected thoughts that can engulf a person with a different worldview".
Our education system ignores the role of emotion in learning and decision making
Antonio Damasio
Cognition is not as logical as we once thought, and emotions are not always so illogical
Joseph LeDoux
I have long tormented my brain with thinking and pondering, day and night, but your kind eyes have brought me to a decision
Heinrich Heine
Why think differently?
Human interactions, including learning and leadership, are based on emotions and all such interactions begin with a feeling. This simple fact has become completely overlooked by almost all formal learning and development systems.
Natural and instinctual learning and leadership behaviours work because they evolved with us - conventional and traditional ones fail because they were invented for societal and organizational purposes and imposed upon us.
Brains are confined, but minds extend as far as physical senses allow
- and that includes into other brains and other minds.
The brain now reading this is a product of a few hundred million years of emotional development, a few hundred thousand years of intellectual development, a few thousand years of cultural development, and hopefully at least a few decades of personal experiential development. This history in inescapable, and everything you feel, think and do is shaped by it.
This site will help you understand and make better use of your brain's history - and allow your brain to network more effectively - within yourself, with your environment, and with other brains around you.
*********************************************************
Herefordshire Brain Seminars
"Just as the quality of a sage reflects the quality of his master, so it is helpful to judge the quality of a work by the intellectual power of its quotations"
Seminars currently offered include:
Soul-Chaplain was formed in 2007 by Paul Nicholas and colleagues in higher education and local government. The group came together to apply the neuroscience of leadership and learning to improving the quality and value of human interactions in organizations.
Who is Paul Nicholas?Paul Nicholas is an established authority on emotional leadership and learning and a pioneer in the application of neuroscience for professional development.
He has provided professional development for thousands of individuals and teams in over 300 organisations across five continents.
He is the author of many articles and programmes, including the Master’s level programmes ‘Leadership in Multi Agency Teams’ and ‘The Neuroscience of Leadership’. His materials and methods are used by the National College for School Leadership, the Training and Development Agency and the Children’s Workforce Development Council.
Paul has served on numerous working parties and been a guest speaker at UK and international conferences.
Before bringing Soul-Chaplain together he was a Headteacher, School Principal, Teaching and Learning Consultant and Leadership Development Adviser for UK Local Government, National Health Service and Social Care managers.
He is a Chartered Physicist and Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society and holds degrees in physics, molecular biology and education.
Look inside your brain:
I want to be with those who know secret thingsRilke
Heretics are the only antidote to the entropy of human thought
Yevgeny Zamyatin
View a flow diagram for normal (i.e. emotion based) decision making:
Shaw said unreasonable people change the world, the reasonable keep it as it is. I'll go further and say that it is amateurs who change the world - that is, people who do things for the love of it - professionals are paid to keep things as they are. Modern life has become too reasonable and too professional - our greatest hopes rest on the passion and imagination of unreasonable amateursPaul Nicholas
Our highly educated,technocratic, specialized elites...are caught in structures which require of them courtier-like behaviours
John Ralston Saul
What we do differently
We apply neuroscience, non-conventional thinking andmnemosynthesis - whole brain construction of memory and meaning - to people development, especially for growth within leader-follower relationships and teacher-pupil relationships.
We pay great attention to the emotional ecology in which clients function, and we work for the development of individuals, teams and organizations.
What does this look like?
It is dangerous to identify the real world with the models we construct to explain it
John von Neumann
1. What do we do? Help people and organizations to learn, think and develop differently
2. How? By providing structured, personalised and contextualised opportunities for individuals and groups to analyse, learn about, articulate and develop their professional thoughts, feelings and behaviours
3. What techniques do we use? We compose and facilitate highly developmental learning conversations. Design of these exploits 21st Century neuroscience, but the style of interaction is influenced by person-centred counselling and psychotherapy
4. What does success look like? Clients regularly describe this as the most focused and transformative professional development they have experienced, and every participant enjoys a unique learning journey.
5. What's in it for me or my team? Highly effective professional development - participation improves individual, team and organization performance.
The process teaches development skills and materials and techniques are designed so that participants will continue using them for their own development and that of their team or organization. As such they constitute the first designed truly Continuing Professional Development system in the world.
Distrust of the contemplative temperament arises less from innate philistinism than from a suspicion of anything that cannot be counted, stuffed, framed or mounted over the fireplace
Lewis Lapham
*************************************
Facilitation We have moved facilitation into the 21st Century through neurofacilitation. We can design and facilitate your own programmes, courses and professional development sessions.
Event and conference design We can design and plan learning events, programmes and conferences for you, or tailor your existing materials to fit new needs and circumstances.
Other services We can help you recruit and select staff by:
- Planning interviews
- Supporting interview panels or conducting interviews on your behalf
Through our Associates we offer a range of inspection, advice and development services to schools and learning organisations in the UK and overseas.
Paul Nicholas
Director
Offices:
Leominster and Hereford, West Midlands
Partners with:
West Midlands CPD Group
Herefordshire CPD and CPD Online
Learn2lead
To promote harmonius interaction, development and learning we moved 'training' to new levels - we work with thinking people, not circus animals
Dedicated to the rabbit in a hat - who brings love, inspiration and magic
