Bringing the principles of Neuroscience to Educational Practice and Career Development.
I have been reflecting on the swings of society recently.
There are subtle differences in the wording but a big difference in their manifestations. As a result, this is what I have observed:
Continue reading “Are you Group One or Two?”
These are tricky times we are in and I would like to share a few of my thoughts on real leadership and our responsibility as citizens at this time. I think we can all agree, now is the time for real leadership. We need to see it, feel it and witness it in action daily.
It’s a tough time to be a leader because in these uncharted waters, mistakes will inevitably be made as no-one in this life can see around corners and know what will happen next.
It is also a time of intense scrutiny of our leaders from families, businesses, communities and our entire nation. The cracks in character and resolve will be seen and right now, we can be assured that they will be noticed.
Continue reading “Are We Seeing Real Leadership?”
I attended an Elton John concert a few days ago in Sydney. It was amazing and, being a songwriter myself, I have always thought of him as one of the great songwriters of our time.
One specific observation shined out to me about this concert.
It was not only the genius of his music and piano ability that I was seeing. It wasn’t even how brilliant his band played. They were superb!
Continue reading “Why Struggle Matters”
Back in 1984, my cousin Richard and I backpacked to California and ended up somehow in the deserts of Morocco, a North African country bordering the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea.
One day we saw out of the van window in which we were travelling, a bright green dot on the horizon. It sat surprisingly alone amongst the dry barren brown desert and didn’t seem to fit the view.
As we approached, the scene opened up to what I can only describe as a large depression in the landscape of about three to four hundred yards.
Continue reading “Leaving the Oasis”
How often have you found yourself metaphorically lighting the lamp in the dark and hoping it’s a candle and not a stick of dynamite?
As a year nine drop out with Tourette’s syndrome, I was forced into a position of choosing life as a victim or a victor. I thank God every day because those circumstances have formed me and made me take risks that have enabled me to push beyond the potential I thought I had.
I have tried some really, really dumb things. But I have also succeeded beyond what people thought I could.
I have neurological disorders handed down from both sides of the family line; however, I have learned to avoid the destructive actions and indulgence in those things that would lead to the continuance of those symptoms in my own life.
As a person with Tourette’s syndrome, I can be ‘grasshopper minded’ as my Father used to describe me, flittering from one obsessive idea to the next.
Continue reading “Reflecting on Life”
In careers counselling, we often have to dig deeper than just helping someone find a job.
In fact, the more people insist that they will do ‘anything’, the more inclined they are to fail when they gain the position they have applied for.
The realities are that our deepest career desires are actually the children of far deeper emotions than the surface concerns like remuneration and position.
Neurologically and psychologically we need to fulfil a destiny and ‘inner calling’ to be people of consequence and to live a life of meaning.
We ultimately want to do something that matters.
Continue reading “Digging Deeper”
Focus is an important skill. Focus and persistence can get you through the darkest days until you can find the light again.
Through the persistence of my parents who never gave up, a few lifelong friends who saw past my Tourette’s and a large church youth group who fed my soul with a great social life, I came to life.
I was able to respond to challenges in my thinking that allowed me to reach towards my potential.
I love the story that Dan Miller writes in his blog about himself and a 10-year-old friend, Bob. They were out in the neighbouring farms and his friend got bitten by a snake.
As his friend was incapacitated Dan’s first instinct was to go after the snake and give it the retribution it deserved for biting his friend. Bob, however, did not pursue the snake but settled down to dealing with the wound by lancing the bite and sucking and spitting out the poison.
I am at a point of transition.
It is me, who has lost my taste for what I am doing for a living and is now considering a move into something I am passionate about.
Does that resonate with you? Do you feel it?
I think most of us do not mind working hard. It is part of our commitment to earning a living and keeping ourselves and our families financially abundant.
It is whether we feel that our work is of consequence and significance that makes the work seem hard or easy sometimes.
Continue reading “Transition and Meaning”
We know how important persistence is in our successful career lives.
The only common denominator in the many success stories I have read about is summed up in that one word: Persistence. Alter your dreams and know when something is not the right path and let it go.
We must take time, however, to put the brakes on and examine our awareness regularly.
In his book ‘High Trust Selling’, Todd Duncan talks about the inner world of a person being exceptionally important when it comes to establishing trust in a client’s mind.
He talks about his ‘Law of the Iceberg’ where he says that like an iceberg that conceals 90% of its mass below the water line, we need to practice integrity, trustworthiness and good healthy relationships in our secret lives.
He infers that all too often the lack of maintenance of the hidden non-public life ends up boiling over into our public lives and destroying credibility and authenticity that we need to display as a person selling a product or service.
Have you ever been approached by someone who uses all the right words but something in your gut just screams ‘yuck’!
Continue reading “Rest and Awareness”
Is it possible that we sometimes add 2 + 2 and get a not quite right 5?
How many times have I jumped to conclusions about someone or something and made a fool of myself? Too many times to count!
It happens to all of us. It appears to be an innately human fault that crosses all geographical, socio-economic, age and gender boundaries.
I would like to share a story with you about a group of scientists who were conducting experiments on flies and other insects.
Continue reading “Wrong Conclusions”
There is a saying that ‘laws are guidelines for wise people and statutes for fools’.
In other words, if you are of good character and love people in general then the rules are below your standards of operation anyway. You will choose to do ‘the right thing’ by default. For example, if you are an honest person then the laws about stealing do not really apply because you are applying a higher law of integrity.
Most of us do not break the law because we believe in a mutually civil society. We behave in a way that assists our society’s functioning by following the golden rule of treating others as you would want them to treat you.
So in every society, there are fundamentals that should not change and not stealing is seen as a fundamental.
What about the variables though? Continue reading “Variables v Fundamentals”
Speaking in my presentation about the power of small deeds every day in our lives, I heard this powerful story from an audience member on a quiet afternoon.
It is an example of how a small courageous deed from a suffering person can have an immense effect on the lives of people they will probably never meet.
At a date long ago in 1943, the air war over Europe was being fought in which a quarter of a million young people would die. Allied bombers were strategically hitting German targets to weaken their industries, before the coming invasion the following year. Continue reading “Small Acts of Generosity”
Often people who are in service industries or speaking positions are advised to keep their best materials and secrets for their special clients and avoid sharing with others in their industry.
I am very fortunate that I am in an organisation here in Australia called the Career Development Association of Australia (CDAA). Their intent is to be “a vibrant and diverse national community who share a collective interest in career development; and a desire to promote its ability to effect positive change and growth in the lives of all Australians”. They are very generous with their expertise and have the viewpoint that not only is there enough of the pie to go around but that in sharing the pie actually gets bigger which benefits everyone. Continue reading “Collaborating for Success”
The youth of this generation often get some really bad raps from the baby boomer generation.
They are labelled as ‘entitled’ or ‘lazy’ and their use of technology gets them labelled as ‘distracted and un-present for their tasks’.
I teach young people every day and I want to also put other labels on them.
This generation is ‘caring’ for the environment and for those who struggle with their ‘differences’ this generation is profound. Perhaps this awareness is due to the massive amount of media we receive every day. Continue reading “Labelling our Youth”
In the many diagrams of human needs, it appears that the different points are all condensed down to three basic important things.
These include our basic physical needs for food, shelter and sleep.
We all need these to survive.
Then, we have the need to belong. This involves our desire for recognition, acknowledgement and support within a group or community. We get our self-image from how we grow as people when we interact with those of our group. Continue reading “Survive, Belong and Become”
I recently heard a story of an elderly African American woman, Oseola McCarty, who washed and ironed clothes all of her life in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
She had quit school at age 12 to care for a sick aunt. Oseola never married or had her own children but she loved her nieces and nephews and her extended family wholeheartedly.
Every week for almost eighty years, she would put the dimes and quarters that she earned in the local First Mississippi National Bank in her town, saving for the big day when she could no longer work.
As the story goes, the bank manager spotting her in the bank one day asked her if she knew how much she had saved. Unable to read or write, Oseola said she had no idea and when told the vast amount she had little realisation of how much that sum was. Continue reading “The Importance of Everyday Contributions”
Many years ago in a business studies class, the teacher told all of the students to begin everything with the end in mind.
The teacher even gave us the seemingly morbid assignment of writing our own eulogy and vividly imagining what people would be saying at our funerals. He said that we should really visualise and imagine the detailed conversation about us and all the good things we would like people to say.
The next step was to work backwards to the present day to make it happen. He asked, “Now how are you going to make those things come true?” Continue reading “Small Steps”
Yes, our family is a lively bunch and many times over the Christmas lunch table, Mum would make failed attempts to settle down the high levels of debate. The voices rose louder between in-laws and out-laws furiously talking over each other with a passion more expected at a football match than a family gathering.
One of the many battles that ensued over the years has been the question of equality for people and what that means in a practical outworking. Continue reading “Equality of Opportunity”
I was talking to a minister friend of mine a while ago.
He shared with me that the seminary he was located at was set by the ocean and he often would wander along the sand and contemplate his life in his time off.
He told me that he would see the surfers out the back of the swell sitting up on their boards, watching for the wave they would choose to ride. It fascinated him so much at how they made their choices, that he would watch them for quite a while.
In his curiosity, he noticed they would sit up on their boards and observe carefully for a time. Then they would relax back down again, choosing to pass on waves which my friend had thought looked like impressive surf waves to ride in on. Continue reading “Reading the Waves”
One of the big needs of humanity is security. We see and hear people selling us security in so many ways.
They do this all while we sit on a thin veneer of 30-mile thick soil on the surface of a rock which is actually a giant super-heated nuclear reactor. We literally are flying through space at a ridiculous speed, trying to avoid every other rock going faster and in different directions. Where is our security here?
My point is that security is never a sure thing and playing for safe is in the end, just an illusion. Continue reading “Security v Risk”
So many of the ‘greats’ who we honour in life made many big mistakes and had significant failures. We do not remember their failures because they did not let those failures dominate their future.
Dwelling on the past failures produces nothing but negativity and makes a situation in which our brains build neurological pathways that re-enforce the beliefs about the event and our failure. Continue reading “Persistence for the Win”
A person with Tourette’s Syndrome and its related behaviours was not going to fit the mould of standard high school education without difficulty. That difficulty has turned out to be a gift as I achieved far more by not fitting into the standard plan.
I am Dave Brebner. I am a successful teacher, career coach, husband, father of six, son, brother and friend. This is my story and I want to share it with you.
A short time ago, I ran into an old friend who was very angry. He ranted about other cultures and was even happy to cut me off from his circle of relationships because I would not join him in his worldview of certain situations.
It is not the first time I have encountered this lately and am concerned at what I know is the mis-information out there and the fact that people are riled up over things they have no control over with often no first hand evidence of any of it. Continue reading “People of Influence”
People with Tourette’s syndrome often have a challenge in finding work, particularly in the public eye.
While many of us have very subtle symptoms, commonly known as ‘tics’, there is a perception among the general public that all sufferers use foul language, scream or yell spontaneously, have profound body movements, and that the condition is completely outside of our control. Continue reading “Your Ideal Employee”
I recently read a letter Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Empire, wrote to his 16-year-old self.
It really touched me as he, like many of us, struggled in school. He had Dyslexia, which made him fall behind in class and find school rather irrelevant.
As a teen with Tourette’s, I had my fair share of unwanted attention from schoolmates and was occasionally an embarrassment to others who did not understand. Continue reading “Your Biggest Asset”