Befriend Your Brain

Executive Function and Visual Thinking

Led by Brandy Agerbeck, Loosetooth.com

Four-week workshop series | 2-hour sessions
November 1, 8, 15, 22, 2024 | Live online
$397 Registration Fee

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Want a sneak peek?

Brandy shares a segment from ENVISION 2024

In our time together, you will:

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Grasp the Executive Functions

Learn how executive functions (EF) affect daily life, and shape your long-term sense of self
Recognize which EFs you excel at and which ones may need support

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Gather Visual Tools to Boost Thinking

Gain real-world, repeatable strategies throughout the session
Fill your mental tool box with ways to improve your thinking personally and professionally

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Increase Self-Awareness and Compassion

Better understand how you think, fostering more positive internal dialogue
Brilliant! is just the beginning to a kinder relationship with your mind

Workshop Dates and Format

Befriend Your Brain is a virtual workshop that goes live on Zoom four consecutive Fridays:

November 1 | Starting + Completing Tasks
November 8 | Emotions + Flexibility
November 15 | Organization + Time
November 22 | Focus + Memory

Each session is two hours long from 10:00 am to noon Chicago time (CST, GMT-5)

Your registration fee includes:

4 Live 120m sessions
Workbook and expanded resource guides via PDF
⬜ Includes full set of Executive Function Self-Assessments
⬜ 100+ pages total
One year access to session video archives

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Hello from Brandy —

At age 49, I got a diagnosis of an 'executive dysfunction disorder.'

I felt like a three-year train journey was pulling into its final station.

But the route I took to get there looked like a giant squiggle.

The train doors open.

I step onto the platform.

I had just arrived in Broken Brain.

Yet my brain had taken me to so many incredible places:

building an international business based on my creativity and critical thinking
teaching others to use drawing to think expansively and accomplish their goals
learning to live in integrity in my business, my brain, and my body

My mind had adapted bold new ways of working and being in the world.

And it was working.

Broken? There was too much evidence pointing to a different route.

While my path and yours may be different, I know I am not alone.

Teaching people all over the world, I see what we have in common:

brain wearing a red headband, wristbands, and sneakers running all over the place

Our brains are fast, noisy, and hard to control.

When our minds are challenged and fixed on what we love, we are unstoppable.

Other times we struggle to point our brainpower in the right direction.

cartoon brain with dial on its forehead, the dial is turned all the way up

We tend to either be dialed up to 11... or zero.

When we give, we give it our all.

And then, we crash.

Hard to modulate our energy or focus when all of our senses are wide open.

cartoon brain standing confidently with big thinking bubble full of different, colorful shapes

We are lifelong learners and infinitely curious.

We are quick to explore new topics, ideas, and tools, to question norms, and are always looking to improve ourselves and the world around us.

Our interests can send us off on side quests, or falling down a rabbit hole.

With my uncomfortable diagnosis, I got curious.

So, how do we get derailed?

What exactly are the executive functions?

How did I get this far in life and had never really heard of them? Only to be told mine aren't working?

Executive Function
is how the mind executes what it envisions.

smiling cartoon brain crossing red ribbon of a finish line

Psychologists, educators, neurobiologists have been shaping definitions of executive function for decades.

Even if lists and labels differ slightly, these are the processes your brain constantly fire to control your behavior and keep you on task to reach a goal.

For example:

Task initiation gets you going on your project.
You plan and prioritize with good organization skills.
'Goal-directed persistence' takes you across the finish line.

Unfortunately, most of what is studied and written about is student or patient dysfunction:

Procrastination leads to starting your project at the very last minute.
Impulsivity and 'emotional dysregulation' makes making yourself feel better more important than working towards your goal.
With Poor working memory, the next step falls out of your head before you can accomplish it.

Mental Health Express to the end of the line, Broken Brain.

Working with a specialist in therapy, I learned:

⬜ What the executive functions are.

⬜ What function and dysfunction looks like.

⬜ What circumstances and actions help me think more clearly, or lose steam.

⬜ That I had taken my stronger executive functions for granted

This new level of understanding made it crystal clear that:

While my kind of brain can be both exhausting and brilliant, I now understand exactly which executive functions are firing and which ones fail.
The ones that fail are not a moral failing. They are wiring. They are chemistry.
Every single one of us has the ability to learn what the executive functions are to better understand ourselves.

Both the bright and shiny parts, and the ones our inner critics are fast to point out and poke at.

I thought, "Why don't more people know about this?!"

Thus, Befriend Your Brain was born.

⬜ Goal #1

Grasp the Executive Functions

In Befriend Your Brain, you will learn the executive functions and how they relate to day-to-day life and work.

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The 'knowability' of executive function and gentle self-assessment is the first step.

Now what?

Riding my train of thought.

With every executive function I explored, I could point to the specific tools I used to keep up with my freight train of a brain.

My whole life, I grabbed whatever tools I needed to draw out my ideas.

Every time I did, I improved my weak executive functions and amplified the strong ones.

When I got derailed, I could get back on track.
The visual thinking tools I instinctually developed — and have taught for 20 years — are incredibly effective because you draw out your thinking.

brain cartoon concentrating while making a drawing

Getting out of my head with hands-on tools was precisely why I had found a place in the world that works for my kind of mind.

My constant drive to make the intangible tangible was a feature, not a bug.

Some tools are the learnable techniques that address specific executive functions.

Others are physical materials and tools that keep us focused and engaged.

Visual Thinking
is drawing out your thoughts, feelings and ideas.

Making a drawing to make sense of yourself, your work, the world around you.

Learning about executive functions are a more recent discovery. But I have been practicing and teaching visual thinking my whole life.

From long-earned experience, I know:

You can become a stronger visual thinker.
Visual thinking is a learnable skill set, not a special talent.
There are countless concrete tools to improve your executive function. Most are not fancy or expensive.

I can't wait to share my favorite tools with you.

⬜ Goal #2

Gather Visual Tools to Boost Thinking

Over our four sessions together, Brandy shares repeatable techniques and hands-on tools specific to each executive function.

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Soon you'll know what is working, what isn't working, and what visual tools help you with both.

But, what stops us in our tracks?

A large part of developing executive function is the shift in childhood from external guidance to your own inner voice.

Self-control, getting started, knowing the next steps, remembering information, staying focused, persisting until you are done... and being your own coach and cheering section all along the way.

When we procrastinate, lose focus, don't follow through, or are just feeling fried and unmotivated, the inner critic can drown out our inner knowing.

Over time, we listen to our inner critic far too much.

We forget our own past accomplishments and what we are capable of.

Put that inner critic in their place with paper and pen.

Make your inner voice seen.

Every time you get your ideas out of your head and onto paper, you are:

Shushing the inner critic.
Tuning into your intuition.
Accessing past experience.
Showing yourself what you are capable of.
Making progress towards your next completed goal.

I will teach you how to change the conversation with yourself.

Do I still have my own very real and constant mental glitches to navigate?

Absolutely.

Have I filled up my own mental toolbox with tons of tools to amplify the best parts of my brain and reduce those glitches?

A whole workshop full of tools.

Do I use these visual tools to shove that inner critic out of the way?

Every day.

Join me at Befriend Your Brain and let me show you how.

Let's get to know our brains better.

Let me show you all the wonderful ways you can create clarity and make meaning for yourself.

At your fingertips.

⬜ Goal #3

Increase Self-Awareness and Compassion

When you better understand yourself, and you hold the tools to improve your thinking, you can improve your focus, mental organization, and self-talk anytime anywhere.

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In Befriend Your Brain , Brandy Agerbeck will illustrate the executive functions that take you from the spark of an idea through to the finish line of a completed project.

As we go, you will discover a world of visual tools that keep you focused and fired up all along the way.

Over these four sessions, you will grasp what the executive functions are, what visual thinking is, and how you can bring them together to:

Befriend your brain and work to your strengths.

Gather concrete tools and techniques to improve your weak spots.

Live a more creative, engaged, and self-compassionate life.

Join Brandy to boost your executive functions with visual thinking to make your brain shine!

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