Thinking Lab Scholarships

Dear Donors,

I’m amazed that it’s been a year since, thanks to your support, I had the unique opportunity to participate in the Thinking Lab and learn from Jean. But to tell you that I have benefited from the program would be an understatement. So let me tell you a little bit about my week…

My university studies continue to progress and this week I found myself in a very familiar situation for me: once again I left a lot of homework to do at the last minute! But now things are very different, as I’ve learned that living putting out fire after fire is not a good policy to fulfill my goals (nor to preserve my energy and good spirits).

A few months ago, I took a full-time job with a friend with whom I’m starting a philosophy startup (a crazy idea, isn’t it?) By far, this has been the most exciting and intellectually demanding job I’ve ever had in my life, and, not least importantly, the most personally meaningful. Coupled with a full commitment to university life, I’d better get ready putting on my firefighter’s suit, right?

Not so fast!

Jean’s courses and classes have taught me a key insight that every time I need to get down to work, makes me stop and reflect first about the habitual way I’m used to working: your productive output does not have to be bound up in despair, pressing deadlines, or physical struggle–not if you can steer your motivation properly.

For a guy who has questioned any form of determinism and fatalism ever since, as a young teenager, he decided that his teachers were wrong, the idea of harnessing your motivation might not seem so revolutionary. But you wouldn’t believe how much I’ve been able to learn about my mind and character by studying, testing, and trying out all the tools that you and Jean have made available for me.

I continue to learn every day, making sure to carefully study Jean’s material and adapt it for my concrete situations. In the process, I have had to face what some people would call my demons and dragons, those that sabotage my mind by leading me to procrastination and demotivation. Or at least that’s what I would call them if I didn’t know first-hand the Thinking Lab’s way of understanding and approaching motivation.

And that’s the crux of the matter. Understanding my mind and my motivational mechanism has not only helped me to be more productive, undertake new projects, and work on starting even more ambitious ones very soon. At root, it has made me a man of greater integrity.

Today, when I have to complete the last of my exams at the latest hour, I am happy to say that there is a lot I can do (here, now, this minute) and that I know exactly how to do it creatively, efficiently, and perhaps even with time to meet some friends for a drink. Strain and guilt have no place in my worldview.

I can’t thank you enough for all of this and my wish is that you may have experienced some of my journey (not necessarily with the fire and music that I put here, something very typical of my Latin roots!). Of course, there is much more material that I have yet to go through when the time comes. To that end, counting on your ever-appreciated support would be of huge help for the year (and ambitions) to come.

Thank you again, and I wish you the very best!

Dear Donors,

My name is Alexander Becker, I am 26 years old, and I am currently enrolled in the Thinking Lab through a scholarship. I have taken a couple of courses so far, I listened to “Do What Matters Most”, “All  about emotions” and the “Launch Bonus Lectures”. I am writing to express my gratitude and to share a personal story that illustrates the impact the Thinking Lab has had on my life.

In the past, I was highly motivated by self-discipline and duty. While this approach drove me to achieve many goals, it also left me feeling emotionally repressed at times, often feeling low, numb, or as if everything was grey. This has significantly changed, especially since I took a sabbatical and began working continuously on my YouTube channel, a project that holds immense value for me. This freedom, combined with the insights from your lectures, has allowed me to apply the principle of self-direction more effectively in my life.

Today, I reached a significant milestone that I wanted to share with you. Initially, I didn’t feel like going to the gym, but instead of forcing myself, I took the smallest possible step without shutting down my emotions—I put on my gym clothes. I then started to think of the reasons why I wanted to go to the gym, to motivate myself: “I want to be strong, attractive, fit…uhh and I want to spend time with my future self!”

During my last gym session, I motivated myself by envisioning a future version of myself—someone who is strong, confident, attractive, and living a life I aspire to. This future version of myself started encouraging and became like my imaginary gym instructor. I very much enjoyed that gym session and the idea of spending more time with me, was motivation enough to go to the gym.

Once there, I again visualized this future self and found it incredibly motivating to think of him getting stronger and better as I exercised. When I reached the most difficult exercise, I imagined a full stadium of future versions of myself, all cheering me on. This vision helped me push through and complete the 120 seconds required by my exercise program. The entire stadium of future Alexes celebrated with me, and I felt immense pride and joy.

This was the most enjoyable exercise session I have ever had, and it is largely thanks to the principles I have learned from you and the Thinking Lab. I wanted to share this experience with you to express my gratitude for the profound positive impact your teachings have had on my life. You don’t need to reply to this email; I just wanted you to know how much your work has helped me and how grateful I am.

Thank you so much for the scholarship and for the invaluable lessons. They have truly transformed my approach to motivation and self-direction.

Oct 31st, 2024

Dear Donors,

I am Gilad Herzfeld from Israel, and I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to share my experiences with the Thinking Lab. There are many things I gained from the Thinking Lab; I will focus on just a few.

One of the reasons I was excited about the Thinking Lab was Non-Violent Communication (NVC). I started practicing NVC before I delved into Objectivism 4-5 years ago, but only last year I found out that Jean is passionate about the NVC framework and had even developed her own approach to it, “Rationally Connected Conversations” (RCC). I knew I wanted to dive even deeper into communication and introspection, and the Thinking Lab was the perfect place.

I’ve listened to many of Jean’s sessions about RCC and enjoyed the real-life examples from different participants. I found Jean’s more rational take on NVC to be very enlightening; for example, how she clarifies that NVC’s “needs” are better thought of as deep rational values.

One of the best parts of my scholarship was the 1-on-1 sessions with Ellen Kenner. In some of the sessions, we focused on the practice of RCC by analyzing and reenacting social examples from my life, and Ellen proved to be of great help. Also, this last year in Israel was very challenging, and the extra support and empathy I received from Ellen was invaluable.

There are many more examples of new perspectives I gained from the Thinking Lab, but I will end with this last one. Like everyone, often in life, I come across situations where I need to choose between two alternatives. I always knew I should write the advantages and disadvantages of each alternative, and that it would give me clarity on the decision. BUT I was rarely able to do that because I always felt awkward and unclear when I ended up basically writing each thing twice, because almost each disadvantage of one alternative is the advantage of the other and vice versa—this often prevented me from engaging in this type of written
introspection.

Jean solved this issue for me with her explanation of the Go-No-Go tool; her approach clarified that we have two systems that guide us: the Fear System and the Love System. She explained that first, we want to give a fair hearing to our fears (disadvantages of each alternative) and that once we do that, the “magic” can occur—we can transform each fear-disadvantage of one alternative to an advantage of the other. This changed the way I introspect in so many ways,
giving me deep insight into the fundamental importance of the alchemy of moving from fear-orientation to a love-orientation and a value landscape.

Dear Donors, thank you for the opportunity to participate in this transformative educational process. I look forward to discovering more implications of this in my life and finding ways to share it with others, helping them understand how egoism and rationality are essential for achieving human happiness.