Cogito ergo sum. This Latin phrase, made famous by French philosopher René Descartes, is translated into English as “I think, therefore I am.” The act of thinking and the act of being are linked. That is the reason Engaging Your Brain holds a unique place in the PerfectCoaches model. There are two ways to learn this special habit.
The first and most important is to pick a subject, any subject, and talk about it in your journal. The subject can be anything — friends, family, school, work, the news, sports, food, clothes, religion, spiritual life, something that is worrying you, something you are proud of. If you want, you can even just vent your frustration. If it’s on your mind, it’s worth talking about or writing about in your journal. Your coach will ask questions to encourage the conversation.
A second way to engage your brain is to make yourself concentrate. When you engage your brain on the task at hand, you will often do it better. An exercise that illustrates how hard this can be is a “Think for Three” drill. You try to engage your brain fully on only one task for 3-minutes. Tap your skull to start, then use the timer at the bottom of the page to see how long you go.
The more you engage your brain, the more you appreciate its power. Weighing in at about 3 pounds, 2% of your body weight, it is the master of your nervous system. Not only does it remember things, not only does it create new ideas, it processes the enormous volume of incoming data—sights, sounds, smells, tastes, scents, sensations of touch and bodily motion—you use to go through life each day. Without the brain, you could not think, or remember, or see or smell or taste. Be thankful for that wonderful gift.
Talking to your coach. Your PerfectCoaches journal is a conversation between you and your coach. It is as if you are texting each other. The conversation is designed to engage your brain. For example, you can tell the coach your plan for the day then check in periodically to say how things are going. You can vent about frustrations large and small. You can put your thoughts into words on whatever topic you like, whenever you like. In fact, if you do not choose a skill from the How do I Change screen, your coach is like a confidant, someone who listens without judging while asking questions to help you focus your thoughts.
The Shakespeare expert Harold Bloom said the reason characters in a Shakespeare play develop and change is because Shakespeare gave them them the ability to hear themselves talk, especially in a soliloquy where an actor is literally talking to themself. If you just talk about something as simple as your plan for the day—talking or keying into your phone—you will hear yourself talk, and, in the process, learn about how you think. Your coach will ask questions, not expecting an answer, but to make you aware of cues and reinforcers that determine when you engage your brain most effectively.
Engage My Brain is a unique skill in PerfectCoaches. Although end-users should click the learning lightbulb for Engage My Brain to understand the behavior, they do not have to select it as a skill to be learned. Every user should be working on it automatically, all of the time. Plus, it is the only skill in PerfectCoaches where you don’t say “Got It,” meaning you have mastered the habit. You never completely master the wonderful art of thinking. Rather, you spend a lifetime getting better and better at it.
Engage My Brain is a key coaching skill. For coaches following the OurClubKSAa techniques, this is the only PerfectCoaches skill central to that role. It is something of a mandate: If you are engaging your brain as a coach or a confidant—a coach functions as a confidant when the client is not working on a specific skill—you are always doing three things. These principles are so important that they can be thought of as the golden rules of coaching.
First, you listen without judging. Second, whenever possible, you help clients find their own solutions versus suggesting what your solutions would be. And third, you gently but firmly help them feel accountable for doing what they say they will do.
These golden rules are built into the PerfectCoaches process. However, if you are coaching outside the app, you should also be mindful of the three principles. Pardoning the imprecise Latin, the classic Cogito ergo sum—“I think therefore I am” has a special variation: Ego sum raeda igitur cogito sicut raeda —”I am a coach therefore I think like a coach.”
