Today I want to finish this season with what I think is some very good news.

Because here’s something the self-development industry probably doesn’t want you to hear.

You’re probably not one breakthrough away from becoming a better person.

You’re one moment of awareness away.

Those aren’t the same thing.

Real development is usually much quieter than that.

It happens…

…five seconds earlier.

Let me start with something that every teacher should hear.

You never teach just one subject.

If you teach leadership…

you’re teaching what power looks like.

If you teach psychology…

you’re teaching what thinking is.

And if you teach adults…

you’re teaching adulthood itself.

Every teacher teaches two subjects.

The curriculum…

…and themselves.

But beneath all of that sits a much bigger question.

What kind of thinking environment am I constructing?

That’s the question I want to explore today.

Let me begin with something that may annoy a few universities.

Most higher education is not really adult education.

It is childhood education with older students.

We change the vocabulary.

And add coffee.

But underneath, the model often stays the same.

The teacher knows.

The learner receives.

The content is delivered.

The assessment checks whether the learner can reproduce it.

And the institution decides what counts as knowledge.

That is pedagogy.

Adult learning is not simply about content.

It is about construction.

And this is where the distinction between pedagogy and andragogy becomes important.

Pedagogy is traditionally associated with the education of children.

My new Phd will be exploring the content of this podcast on Andragogy next year. Enjoy and feel free to subscribe.

Welcome to Season 3 of Thinking Deliberately.

Welcome back to Thinking Deliberately.

Let me start with something that sounds outrageous.

Most adults don’t think like adults.

They have adult bodies.

Adult jobs. Some have PhDs.

Some run companies.

Some lead governments.

But psychologically?

Many are still waiting for somebody else to tell them who they are.

Let's get into it...

Today, we end the season with three of the great modern myths.

Motivation.

Manifestation.

And the belief that wanting a different life is the same as constructing one.

You may not need more motivation.

You may not need to manifest harder.

You may not need another myth to make your current self feel meaningful.

You may need the awareness to ask whether the self doing the wanting is developed enough to be trusted.

In this episode, I want to take on a model that many people know, many people like, and many people have found useful.

The Chimp Paradox.

Now, let me say this carefully.

I understand why The Chimp Paradox became popular.

It gives people a simple way to think about emotional reactivity.

It externalises the part of us that lashes out, panics, sulks, competes, becomes territorial, feels threatened, craves approval, or behaves irrationally.

It says, in effect:

“That was your chimp.”

But from a Constructed Development Theory perspective, it does not go far enough.

In this episode, I want to look at another idea that has become almost sacred in self-development, coaching, education, therapy, leadership, and popular psychology.

Neuroplasticity.

Now, neuroplasticity is a real and important idea.

The brain can change.

Experience shapes neural pathways.

But here is the problem.

The self-development world took the phrase “the brain can change” and turned it into a motivational slogan.

That is the problem.

Neuroplasticity tells us the brain can change.

It does not tell us what kind of self is doing the changing.

It does not tell us what level of awareness is organising the change.

And this is why I want to introduce a different idea.

Neuroconstruction.

A person constructs self, context, and response under pressure — and then everyone else has to live in the environment that construction creates.

Today, I want to look at something closely related.

Impostor syndrome.

And its much more dangerous opposite.

False authority confidence.

Now, impostor syndrome is everywhere.

Many competent people do feel like impostors.

But I think we have allowed the phrase to become too broad, too sentimental, and too flattering.

Today, we move into leadership.

And I want to start with a statement that will annoy trainers, consultants, business schools, HR departments, leadership coaches, and probably half of LinkedIn.

Leadership styles are nonsense.

The idea that leadership can be meaningfully understood as a set of fixed styles is one of the great comforting simplifications of organisational life.

This is the third episode in the short series on WHY ARE YOU USING CDT. Jeff is new to the game and his perspective at this stage will be interesting. He is at the stage now where he is capable of applying it in situ with his manages and employees, and says it's helping define behaviours as he understands their THINKING CONSTRUCTION.Jeff's transitional period between unaware to aware is key here, and he will be writing a paper on this soon.In the meantime, check out why Jeff is USING CDT and how it has massively helped GROW HIS THINKING!