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Episode 86: Future-Proof Your Mind: 5 Essential Executive Function Skills

Below you can view or listen to Episode 86 of The Personal Brain Trainer Podcast.    

In this episode, we dive into a fascinating report outlining the top 5 skills that will  dominate the global job market over the next 5 years. These skills are all deeply rooted in executive functions—the mental processes that enable us to plan, focus, adapt, and manage tasks effectively. We’ll explore why these skills are in such high demand, how they connect to our ability to think critically and flexibly, and what you can do to cultivate them. Whether you're a student, professional, or lifelong learner, this episode will equip you with actionable insights to future-proof your career and thrive in an ever-changing world.

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    #86: Future-Proof Your Mind: 5 essential Executive Function Skills

    Erica: Welcome to the Executive Function Brain trainer podcast. I'm Dr. Erica Warren.

    Darius: And I'm Darius Namdaran. And we're your hosts, sponsored by ivvi. Imagine turning your meeting's audio into a live mind map instantly so you remember what matters. Well, try ivvi for free now at Ivy app. That's ivvi.

    Erica: Sponsored by the Executive Functioning Remedial Assessment, an online tool that quickly identifies challenges and delivers targeted strategies for success.

    Darius: Hey, Erica, how you doing?

    Erica: Good, how are you? Darius, Nice to see you today.

    Darius: Yeah, doing great. It's been a while. I've been looking forward to doing this episode with you.

    Erica: Likewise.

    Darius: So I've been. I want to talk about the top five to seven skills that people will need over the next five years to deal with this AI transformation that's coming around. And these aren't just five skills I plucked from the air. I've been inspired by this report by the World Economic Forum. They come out with this report every four years, I think maybe five years, and it's called the Future of Jobs Report 2025 by the World Economic Forum. And it's an amazing report. It's a really in-depth report that a lot of very serious companies pay a lot of attention to. So basically what they do is they look at the macro trends within society, they look at the technology changes, the impact on jobs, the changes of skills people are going to need, the impacts of AI and automation, the global economy, different changes in demographics, etc. They take it all. And basically what they're looking for is what insights can they get from the participants. Thousand companies, a huge number of companies, very big companies, give them feedback on all of this and they feedback what they think they will be needing from staff in the future. And this informs the strategy of hundreds of thousands of companies around the world. How, how they employ, how they do skills development, etc. Okay, and can you guess what the top five to seven skills are? They're different than the last five years. Okay. But they've all got a theme. And you're going to guess what the theme is, aren't you?

    Erica: Executive functioning.

    Darius: It is. It's just crazy how it all comes down to executive functioning. And I know we might feel like to every man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And it might be that to the Executive Function Brain Trainer podcast, everything looks like executive function. But bear with me, here are what they think are the top five skills. I'll start with the top five that will be required during the AI adoption phase that's coming on us right now. So number one of all of them, seven out of 10 companies said analytical thinking was the number one skill on virtually every kind of job that they're employing. For now, we're not talking analytical thinking for managers and executives. This is the important part because they look at every single type of skill. Manual dexterity, your ability to tighten up screws, your ability to move things from left to right. They've got this massive list of like 200 very clear skills that they rate everything on that is required to do everything within society. And the thing that's coming to the top is analytical thinking. The ability to analyze problems, the ability to find patterns and get solutions. The ability to step back, look at something critically and solve a problem and look at the data and see the patterns and just come up with a solution. Okay, so that analytical thinking is incredibly important, and it keeps going on. I'm just going to go through the other.

    Erica: Wait, wait, wait. Let me just respond to that really quickly because it gets me really excited. Personally, I'm going to brag a little bit. I've never been good at standardized tests.

    Darius: Yes.

    Erica: Dyslexic, not very good at standardized tests. But when I took the graduate record examinations, the GREs, I got close to a perfect score in analytical thinking.

    Darius: Yes.

    Erica: And nobody cared. And now, now perhaps they will. So that's, that's so interesting.

    00:05:00

    Darius: Well, I think looking at a meta level, I'm obsessed with what's going to happen in the next five to seven years, because I think something truly incredible is going to happen in the next five to seven years. That is like what happened over 20 years when electrification was introduced. Electrification was introduced into the world, and then 20 years later, the world gradually transferred over to it. I think we're going to see the same effect with the AI- ification, the intelligence of everything, all the way down to your toaster and your Hoover.

    Erica: And it's so important that education is on top of this because we want to be producing what we need. It's unfortunate that we can't have more foresight because it takes about what, 15 years to go through the educational system. 15 to 20 years. So even if we start this now with the littles, it will morph and shift again by the time they're in the workforce. But that doesn't necessarily mean that we can't start to do some intensive training right now, because I think it's something that we can help people develop. And I, I really believe in executive functioning training.

    Darius: Well, I think where we'll see it happen is where it matters to people's pockets first. Okay. Financially first. So if it hurts people financially, they will respond. Training children in education does not hurt people financially enough for them to move fast enough. They're.

    Erica: No, but, but adults. I mean, what about executive functioning training for adults? And you and I have talked about this.

    Darius: I was thinking you were talking about school.

    Erica: Not necessarily. I think just school into my mind across the lifespan.

    Darius: Yes, okay, absolutely. I'm with you. I get you. Because I think executive function training is going to be so important in this phase. Because what's going to happen is we're going to move away from procedural intelligence over to analytical intelligence and agency. So people are asking, what have we got that the computer won't have in the next five years? And what you're hearing from the big CEOs starting to drip out. I'm noticing this is this word agency. Okay. So if you look at AI, they are creating AI. Every agents who are able to go and be your agent and do things. However, those agents won't have agency. And the way they're using agency is that ability to decide with your own willpower what's going to get done. Choose a goal, use your willpower to get there and use your agency to get there and the tools round about you to achieve that. All of that is basically executive function in a different language.

    Erica: Well, and if you want to make it simpler, you can just say basically, you're flipping it. We've used this before. Is that executive functioning is being a functioning executive.

    Darius: Yes.

    Erica: And that ultimately, we need to be the executive of AI, the conductor. And we often use the idea of executive functioning being the conductor of cognitive skills. But AI is almost like an external hard drive. It expands our working memory; it expands our capacity. And we can use it in a symbiotic kind of relationship that's mutually beneficial, but it has to be conscious. And we've talked about that as well in the past.

    Darius: Absolutely. So let me go through the top five skills. So skill number one, analytical thinking. That is what people are desperate for. Skill number two is resilience and adaptability. They're looking for resilient people who are adaptable. Skill number three, they want people who have leadership and social influence. And then the fourth one is creative thinkers. And then the fifth one is motivation and self-awareness. And I'll go to the last three. Six is technological literacy. Seventh is empathy and active listening. And eighth is curiosity and lifelong learning. And I couldn't think of a better list of kind of Combination of skills to give you the adaptability. So your analytical thinking to solve problems. You've got resilience and adaptation, cognitive flexibility,

    00:10:00

    Darius: you've got that leadership and social influence. You're a creative thinker, you're motivated and self-aware, you've got technological literacy, you've got empathy, and you actively listen to people and you've got curiosity and lifelong learning. These are the top eight skills that every single person will need to secure their job in the future. And if they don't have it, will lose it to AI. That's my thesis.

    Erica: So there are eight, eight skills and I see only one of them is not executive functioning, technological literacy. All the other ones are executive functioning, either fitting under working memory, inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility or higher level.

    Darius: Yeah, I could tell you the top 20. I could tell you the top 30 because they've ranked them all, you know, right. And there's more, but these are the number one, the top ones. And I just think, are they the.

    Erica: Actual top eight or did you pick a few of them for like from the top ten?

    Darius: No, no, no. These are the exact top eight in their list. And let me just be clear. They determine it according to. So what they've got is this global skills taxonomy in America. Okay. So what they do with jobs is they take every single core skill of every single job in the world, and they break it down into a taxonomy. So they break all the skills down into this level and then they break that down into more levels, more levels. And they've got, they're broken down and they've each got a category and are clearly delineated academically. So for example, what is analytical thinking is precisely the ability to analyze complex problems, identify patterns and develop solutions. Then the resilience, flexibility and agility is the capacity to adapt to changing circumstances, recover from setbacks and remain productive in dynamic environments. So they've got very precise descriptions. It's kind of like creating a job description. This is what they would pull out to make sure they're targeting exactly what they want. So for example, leadership and social influence is the ability to guide and inspire teams, drive initiatives and exert influence within an organization. But that's also married with the ability, empathy and active listening. The ability to understand others, perspective and communicate effectively through attentive listening. So it's not just leadership in terms of imposing and persuading, but it's attending to the team. So there's a richness to this that is so important. I think the reason why I brought this was, I think over time a Lot of people will become extremely worried about losing their jobs to AI. And they'll start wondering, what have I actually got to give? Because these AIs will be so technically competent at so much of what we regard as our work. There's this amazing advert that Fiverr. You know Fiverr, the place where all these freelancers do jobs for you? Yes, they've got this advert. It's a beautiful advert. Have you seen the Fiverr AI advertisement?

    Erica: No, I have not.

    Darius: So it's this beautiful advert, a beautiful person there, you know, full view. Then it says, AI took my job in big white letters. Fiverr AI took my job. And you go to yourself, well, yeah, I can see why AI took a Fiverr's person's job. Because copywriting, video editing, audio editing, all of these things AI can do, and we'll do even better in the future. But then in small writing underneath it says to the next level. I took my job to the next level.

    Erica: Yes. So they're having to step up. Instead of being in mass production, they get to be producers.

    Darius: Yes. So instead of becoming like the kind.

    Erica: Of like the worker be, you get to.

    Darius: Instead of them being the editor, they're now the executive editor. Because the AI becomes the editor, and they become the executive editor. Instead of becoming the social media manager, they become the executive social media manager. Everything is moving up to executive. So there might be 10% of your job that is an executive type of role and 80% of your job that is just the technical side of doing it and 10% of it managerial, that whole proportion is going to change. Instead

    00:15:00

    Darius: of 10% executive, 10% managerial, 80% technical, that those proportions are all going to change and AI is going to take the technical away from you most of it. But take your job to the next level. If into the executive functioning level, if you choose to do exercise your executive functions and learn how to use AI.

    Erica: Well, I also think beyond AI. We have been stuck in the industrial age educationally for too long. We are not what we've been teaching towards and being able to shift into teaching analytical thinking, resilience, adaptability, leadership, creative thinking, how to be motivated, how to be self-aware, how to be empathetic, how to listen, how to be curious, how to embrace lifelong learning. I mean, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

    Darius: But if you think about it, you could do the exact opposite. Okay. Of each one of these thinking and it would become what would do well at school. So instead of analytical thinking, you've got systematic thinking where you go through a process systematically. Well, if you do systematic thinking at school, top marks.

    Erica: It's. Well, opposite of analytical is like regurgitation.

    Darius: Yes. You go through a system, you go through a process and.

    Erica: Yeah, and it's a bummer because. Right. And that's why so many kids are bored in school, and they don't like school because it's not creative enough. It's not tapping into their analytical thinking or their, their ideas. And so they're kind of coming out deadened instead of livened.

    Darius: And what I think also is the. Made by dyslexia commissioned a report five years ago to look at the World Economic Forum jobs report and then match it to the dyslexic advantages. And what they found was that a lot of the top skills are natural abilities. For people with dyslexia and actually for people with dyslexia, adhd. A lot of people, dyslexia and ADHD have analytical thinking in buckets, resilience in buckets, leadership in buckets, creative thinking.

    Erica: As long as they've gotten the right support. If they've not gotten the right support, sometimes they can go the other way because they're smart enough. If they can't make the work the system, if they can't work within the system, they'll work against the system.

    Darius: Well, that's. That's true.

    Erica: And that's why there's such a high rate of dyslexia in, particularly in the United States, in prison. In prison. Yeah. It's. It's really sad.

    Darius: It is. And if you think about it, analytical thinking, resilience, leadership, creative thinking, a lot of this can be adapted to crime. You know, like.

    Erica: Yeah.

    Darius: You know, if you think there's a fine line between being a really good criminal and a really good entrepreneur, one sticks to the law rules and the other doesn't stick to the rules. But much of the same skill sets are required in breaking through into a new realm. And a lot of people with dyslexia and ADHD get forced outside of the system. And there's two ends of that system. And one is the world where you don't need to fill in forms, you don't need to do admin, you don't need to sit tests. You can just go out onto the street and start dealing drugs or stealing ever. Do you know what I mean? You start using your skills in these sort of right ways.

    Erica: If I can't work within the system, I might as well work against it.

    Darius: Yeah.

    Erica: And I think many people feel justified. I didn't get what I needed.

    Darius: So I'll take it.

    Erica: So I'll take it.

    Darius: Yeah. Yeah. And then you've got the other end, where you've got the. The open frontier of entrepreneurship where you don't need someone else's permission to start a company. You can just start a company. You can start hustling; you can start buying and selling and so forth. So these. Anyway, so bottom line is, I think a lot of people with dyslexia and ADHD have a lot of these skills, these abilities, naturally. And I wanted to talk to you about this. The difference between an ability and a skill. Now the World Economic Forum is talking about skills, and I think there's a huge difference between the ability to have analytical thinking and the skill of. Of analytical thinking.

    Erica: Absolutely. You hit the nail on the head. My thought is that a skill is when you have built your knowledge to automaticity.

    00:20:00

    Erica: We come back to that term a lot. But, you know, if you have built your abilities to do something to automaticity, that's when it becomes a skill.

    Darius: Yes.

    Erica: That's, you know, like, you can be a carpenter. You're a master carpenter. When you have. You can almost do it. I think of a good friend of mine who is a master carpenter, and he can listen to podcasts.

    Darius: Yes.

    Erica: And still do it, because it is just kind of become a part of him. He knows how to do it almost in his sleep.

    Darius: Yes.

    Erica: Automatically, it's his body just knows the motions. Just like you can become a touch typer. When I became a touch typer, I felt like my fingers had their own spirit or something. I was like, I'm not even thinking. And they're just going there. And it's like, wow, it's magic. That's what we need, that kind of level of skills. Because you don't need to be taking the processing time to be thinking about analyzing too much, otherwise you lose the flow.

    Darius: Yes.

    Erica: So you want to be analytical. It needs to just be second nature.

    Darius: Well, and that's why I think over the next five years, it's really important to start practicing these skills to the level of automaticity. It's really easy to talk about analytical thinking, but how do you analyze complex problems? How do you identify patterns and develop solutions? For example, I use mind mapping very intentionally for analytical thinking. I try and get all the information from a complex problem onto one page so I can see everything. I try and find patterns in the information where there's gaps in the information. I try and organize it in the ways that make sense to me. And I Try and distill out from a whole range of keywords and ideas down to core three key ideas at the first level, branches. And often by rewording them, you start to reword the nature of the problem. You can articulate the nature of the problem, and then you can articulate the questions you need to ask in order to get the right answers. Because sometimes with analytical thinking, the issue isn't, oh, we've got a problem, let's find the answer. The actual thing is, let's find the right question to ask so we can find the right answer.

    Erica: There's a process, and part of it is being cognitively flexible. Right. So that you can look at all the different. It's so interesting that this comes up because I just finished. I'm doing a series of workbooks for elementary kids on inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, and working memory. And I just finished the inhibitory control one. And yeah, I'm trying to teach them how to be analytical thinkers, but breaking it down into the fundamentals of like, okay, well, first we have to think of what are all the options that we have? And then we have to pick our best option. But part of analytical thinking is being able to spread a wide net and then select the right bit and be quite adept and quick at it. But even with AI, being able to have a discussion with AI helps you to kind of chew the cud so that you're processing analytically. If you can process analytically with AI through discussion or whatever process works for you, whether it's a mind map, whether it's verbal, whether it's visual, whether it's whatever is your best processing modality. And I see you've got a thought. Go for it.

    Darius: You showed me something that you did. You've got this. You've got so many amazing exercises where this is not just abstract theory. This comes down into practice with so many of your training courses and workbooks and things like that. You showed me once this workbook of pictures you gave to students, and you. You asked them some analytical type questions, and they had to sort of analyze the picture in a certain way. Could you. I'm not sure which one it was.

    Erica: But it might be my visualization. What's it called? It's a workbook on expanding visualization. But they're bizarre photographs.

    Darius: Yes.

    Erica: And they have to. They have a choice. They can either tell a story about it, or they can open. Open their eyes and close their eyes so that they can try to establish a visualization, or they can trace It So they have, like a number of things that they can do with it, and then they look at it for a minute and then afterwards I ask them questions to see how much they visualize. But it brings in analytical

    00:25:00

    Erica: piece to it where they're having to try different approaches on how to get the information into their mind in a way that works for them. Is that what you're talking about?

    Darius: I think it was that one. But what I really love about what you do, Erica, is how you can find really practical examples. Could you give us one practical example? Can you think of something where you've got this analytical exercise, and you bring it down to.

    Erica: I do. I actually, as I was saying, I just finished this one. I actually have it right here. Inhibitory control. And I have a couple things. I have a couple tricks that I give them, and I really like acronyms. And I have one called power, and one called See me. And I think we're probably thinking of the SEEMEE one. Let me see if I can find it. I like that because it helps kids to remember the steps by giving them an acronym to follow.

    Darius: Yeah.

    Erica: Right. So the CME one is S is for stop and notice. So what's happening right now? E is for examine the situation. Am I struggling? What's not working? What's making this hard? E. This next one is another E for evaluate my options. You know, what are the different strategies that I can choose? 4 is M, again, is mentally picture. So that's where you're using your visualization skills so that you actually envision what could be the output of each of the different. Each of my different solutions. And then you pick the bat one that's the best. And then you execute your outcome. So that's a see me strategy. And then I have another one which.

    Darius: Is they apply that strategy. So they've got the CME strategy. And what kind of exercise do you give them to apply it so they.

    Erica: Can do it where they can either write it down, I have steps for them to follow and questions.

    Darius: A scenario. Give me.

    Erica: Or they could think about it, or they could talk about it.

    Darius: Yeah, but give me a scenario.

    Erica: So it's a workbook. So they would have to come up with their own scenario.

    Darius: Oh, I see.

    Erica: When they're stuck. When they're stuck. That this is a way to get through being stuck. So how do you process things analytically so that you're not stuck?

    Darius: Oh, I see.

    Erica: But it walks them through, and it gives them. It's very guided. And then the power one is where you're using the power, but this is getting more into creating positive change.

    Darius: Well, let's stick with that. See me just that. Let's keep it without overburdening it. But I. I really love how you do that sort of thing. So basically what you've identified is a way of using their analytical thinking to get themselves unstuck.

    Erica: Yep. And I. I also talk to them before they get to the. See me. I teach them how to do U turns, which is a Y O U turn where you're turning and you're. You're using your metacognition. And I teach little kids, I'm teaching them about this stuff. They can use their metacognition, which is looking at their own cognition, thinking about their thinking. So a U turn is being able to say, all right, I'm going to. Instead of looking at the world outside, I'm going to look at my inner world and what am I doing? And getting analytical. But a lot of it is trying to come up with the terminology that's digestible for kids. Like, a U turn is a lot easier than metacognition.

    Darius: I like that. A U turn. So basically, you're turning around and looking at you.

    Erica: Right. And so the next piece is see me.

    Darius: Right.

    Erica: I'm looking at myself and I'm analyzing my own thoughts and see me as the steps to go through.

    Darius: Love it. Yeah.

    Erica: So. But it's all a workbook, so we.

    Darius: Better put the link to that workbook in the description if it's available at the moment.

    Erica: Yes, it is. It is. And I think I'm probably going to print a hard copy this summer. Oh, right now it's a digital download. It did get the printed copy of my Executive Functioning Games, which will be that book you just wrote for the groups and classes. Yeah. So this one is done, and it should be on Amazon and all the other different bookstores shortly. But I kind of like the idea of doing these little workbooks and putting them out there as well, so. Because I think a lot of people just, they want a book to hold on to. And these are really fun and colorful. Sorry.

    Darius: That's a beautiful book. Show me again.

    Erica: Thank you.

    Darius: Well done.

    Erica: I'm actually. It's not out in this moment, but by the time people hear this, it will be out.

    Darius: Tell them what it's called.

    Erica: It's executive function games for groups and classes. Fun activities to boost attention, memory, and motivation. And so, yeah, I'm showing Darius the COVID but it's very colorful on the inside. And each game is different.

    Darius: Color, the layout, all that.

    Erica: Isn't it beautiful?

    Darius: Oh yes, that's

    00:30:00

    Darius: great.

    Erica: Yeah, I spent a lot of time on this. Oh I wanted it to be a really beautiful workbook.

    Darius: So when can I get one?

    Erica: It's actually not a workbook. It's really a book of games for classes or you could use it for group therapy. A lot of the games you can do individually with kids too. And within it tells you all the different ways of processing that each of the games honor. It's. It's very organized and has step by step process and it has a script that you can follow, and the script is highlighted in a color so it's easy for you to follow it. But yeah, that's one.

    Darius: Can I order on Amazon soon?

    Erica: Yeah, you should be able to, or I would say that it will be that be on Amazon and all the different other places by April 1st, maybe sooner.

    Darius: Fantastic. Oh, that is so good. I know how hard you've worked on that.

    Erica: I did. So yeah, I did it through. I self-published through Ingram Spark. And the nice thing is they have printers all over the world. So you know, a lot of times when you buy a book in the United States, it's expensive to ship it but because they have printers in different locations, it doesn't make the, the price outrageous for shipping because I'm sure there's a printer close to where you live where so then you don't have to pay the international shipping. And I really, I love that. And I don't have to worry about the sales tax and all of that stuff. They do it, they print on demand and then send it to you. It's more expensive for me so I don't make much on it. But it gets it out there and that's what really matters is.

    Darius: Well, we'll have to do a podcast specifically on that book. Just let's do.

    Erica: Well, I'll wait till it's been out for a little while because I'd like to get people's feedback. But so far, I have some pretty, pretty awesome feedback. I do have all of the games available on learning specialist courses where you can access them and print them out. But if you want an actual book, which I think is the way to go and it's really pretty.

    Darius: I definitely your book on my bookshelf, that's going to be fantastic.

    Erica: But the best thing about I'm actually, I didn't accept this one. I redid it because I decided I wanted to make the pages thicker because you can kind of this one that I printed, you can see a ghost image of the page behind it and that wasn't good enough. So I'm, I had it printed on much thicker paper. So that's what I'm waiting for before I put it for sale.

    Darius: Fantastic. So I mean that's a great example of the difference between an ability and a skill. So we have these inherent abilities to do analytical thinking, to be resilient, to have leadership. Some people have greater ability, and some people have less ability. But I really think you can exercise these abilities and train these abilities into skills. And I think even if you have your natural analytical thinking, which a lot of people who are neurodiverse are, it doesn't necessarily mean they're good at it because sometimes natural gets you so far. But often you need to learn the skills to pick up the tools that help you complete analytical thought all the way to a really good action at the end or to be completely resilient, have leadership, creative thinking, maintain your motivation and self-awareness. So these things and even empathy and active listening, I mean some people have some ability to do that, but then it's not yet a skill. And I think that's the key thing here. How valuable is to take time to turn it into a skill?

    Erica: Yeah, I totally believe that this is what they came up with. And it's so in line with everything I've been thinking about, particularly with AI because I, I think we're going to hold on this. I'm not going to go deeply into it because I think it would be a really interesting topic for us to do in another podcast. Podcast. But I think it's, this new atmosphere is going to change what disabilities look like. And I think it's going to be in, in many ways what we're considered. Disabilities are not going to be disabilities anymore and we're going to have a new set of them. But I don't want to go too far into that discussion because I think that's going to be a really fun to just to really feature that as a podcast episode would be really fun.

    Darius: I love that idea. Let's do it. And let's go deep into that. That'd be great. So let's, let's kind of wind this. Essential skills for success. I'll go through the eight again. Just rattle through them. So the eight are analytical thinking, resilience and adaptability, leadership and social influence, creative thinking, motivation and self-awareness,

    00:35:00

    Darius: technological literacy, AI empathy and active listening, curiosity and lifelong learning.

    Erica: And technological literacy I think also includes assistive technology, which is in many Ways does overlap with AI because AI is definitely infiltrated into assistive technology, which has made assistive technology better.

    Darius: Well, actually, if you wind it back, I mean, I'm in the AI assistive technology world with Ivy creating an AI assistive technology app. And I think back, and you think spell check is a form of machine learning. Okay.

    Erica: Yeah.

    Darius: Grammarly really is machine learning. Voice to text is a form.

    Erica: Text to voice, both ways.

    Darius: AI, it's machine learning, you know, a very basic AI and you keep going through all of these amazing assistive technologies and they end up being, at its core, some form of machine learning.

    Erica: That's really interesting. It's really the, the little seedlings.

    Darius: Yes. It's just developed on from. What it's doing is it's externalizing an internal mental process that we've had previously.

    Erica: And one that could actually be led to a disability. So if you're not good at spelling, you could have dyslexia. You know, if you're not good at handwriting, you can have dysgraphia. But now these assistive technology devices, which are really the foundation of AI, can offer the assistance so that those things don't get in your way, trip you up anymore.

    Darius: Yeah. And what's happened is the lower-level clerical tasks are being solved by computer.

    Erica: You know, the grunt work.

    Darius: Yeah. And then gradually the higher-level clerical tasks and then the managerial tasks are being done by AI until we are left with the executive tasks.

    Erica: Well, you know, it's interesting because you see, in order to be a great writer, a great reader, you have to master those core skills, have to become automatic. It's what that they're not automatic, that they become disabilities. But now what AI is doing by taking some of that burden off of the learners, it's releasing their creativity and releasing their analytical skills. I'm seeing young learners that were struggling to get out there. We didn't even know they had great ideas. We didn't know that they had this creative thinking. And we're unleashing that by giving them these assistive technology tools that are preventing them from getting tripped up so that they can't get out their beautiful ideas. And now they are. It's really, it's very interesting.

    Darius: I've. I've got an idea here, Erica, that maybe we could just mull over for a moment, which is how can AI help us develop these skills of analytical thinking, resilience, leadership, creative thinking, motivation and self-awareness?

    Erica: I, I can tell you right now, I mean, and I use it, I use it. I have discussions. It's and whenever you create something on AI, if you just go with it, if you just go with the first thing that it creates, you're really being passive. You're being a passive recipient of the information that you want. But if you mull over it and have a discussion, say, oh, no, I don't like this, I want a little bit more of this and a little bit less of this. And how about bringing this into it? Then that's really developing analytical skills where you have to read what it is and say, is that right? No, that's not right. That's analytical. Right. Or I want a little bit more of this. It makes me think of cooking. You know, it's just, it's not about the ingredients, it's about how much of each and the sequence of each. And it's, it's that conducting. It's the conducting, which is.

    Darius: Yeah, I came across this amazing prompt. Okay, I'm going to read it out to you because it's very powerful. It says, from now on, do not simply affirm my statements or assume my conclusions are correct. So this is an instruction to your AI. Your goal is to be an intellectual sparring partner, not just an agreeable assistant. Every time I present an idea, do the following five things. Number one, analyze my assumptions. What am I taking for granted that might not be true? Number two, provide counterpoints.

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    Darius: What would an intelligent, well-informed skeptic say in response? And number three, test my reasoning. Does my logic hold up under scrutiny? Or are there flaws or gaps I haven't considered? Four, offer alternative perspectives. How else might this idea be framed, interpreted or challenged? And number five, finally, prioritize truth over agreement. If I am wrong or my logic is weak, I need to know. Correct me clearly and explain why. And finally, maintain a constructive but rigorous approach. Your role is not to argue for the sake of arguing, but to push me towards greater clarity, accuracy and intellectual honesty. If I ever start slipping into confirmation bias or unchecked assumptions, call it out directly. Let's refine not just our conclusions, but how we arrive at them.

    Erica: That's really. That's awesome. That's awesome. That's. Yeah. I think that should almost be its own AI service. Right?

    Darius: Yeah.

    Erica: You know how everybody's kind of coming out with their own spin on, this AI will help you with this. This AI will help you. This. Having an AI that helps you be an analytical thinker, that helps to develop these eight skills. Or maybe the first four. Analytical thinking, resilience and adaptability, leadership and social influence and creative thinking.

    Darius: Yes.

    Erica: Boom. I Mean, oh, that's so delicious. Right?

    Darius: Yeah. And actually, do you know what the most important thing after all of these and above every single one of them is? Agency.

    Erica: Back to agency. Okay? Bring us back to agency.

    Darius: Agency is so important. I think we're going to hear this more and more, you know, because AIs, no matter how intelligent they are, do not have a will. They don't have the desire to achieve certain things. Their output is a direct result of how much of our desire we inject into them, how much agency we put into them so they can become our agent. So it's kind of like if you think about it as the word willpower, okay? You've got the human has the will and the AI agent has the power to do it. Do you see what I mean?

    Erica: Yeah, that's fun. That's fun. I like that.

    Darius: So it, I think that is, do you have the will to achieve something? If you do, you will be able to achieve it in ways that, that are so much more straightforward than you ever dreamt of before. But if you don't have the will to achieve something or affect a change in this world, then I won't do it for you. Because you won't be injecting your will into it.

    Erica: You can't use it passively. I mean, you can, but it will probably hurt you.

    Darius: And a lot of people will. You know, they'll use it passively. Write this essay for me, write this email for me, do whatever, Create a.

    Erica: Website for me, create a product for me.

    Darius: And it will just be the usual blah. It won't have that will, it won't have that.

    Erica: You know, it is blah. I find it to be blah. If I ask it to be creative, I'm never impressed. I mean, hardly ever. I might get one thing out of 20 that's eh. And then I might say, okay, but I could make this better by doing this. It's not creative.

    Darius: Well, you know, when you use an AI, okay, on the back end, as a developer, as I do, you have the choice between 1 and 0, okay, as to how much it's creative and how much it stays on track. And most people dial it down to zero or close to zero so that it stays very close to what is highly probable that the person wants.

    Erica: You know what's interesting though? I experienced an instance where it was highly creative. And I'll tell you, it was when I was using NoteBookLM with one of my students and we were listening to the podcast, and the podcast was helping him to go over all of the Material that he had to go through for his midterm in history.

    Darius: Yes.

    Erica: And you can ask the podcasters a question and they kind of stop and they say, oh, we've got a question from the audience. And I said, can you come up with some creative memory strategies to remember this concept? And they came up with the best, coolest ideas, riffing back and forth with each other. But that's the interesting thing. It was AI riffing with AI taking on different Personas, and it was actually very creative. That's the

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    Erica: one time that I've seen it be creative.

    Darius: Well, it was creative because the AI designer allowed it to be creative.

    Erica: That's interesting.

    Darius: So you can change this. If you go into the back end as developer, you can change that sliding scale from being creative or to being systematic.

    Erica: Okay, now, human or non-human?

    Darius: Most people. No, no, but it's not human or non-human because a lot just kind of a funny, systematic, logical, process driven thinkers. They're linear thinkers and a lot of people who are very creative thinkers. The thing is, if you allow the machine to be very creative, sometimes creative stuff is quite messy. And so to be creative you need to make mistakes. And a lot of developers don't want the AI to make mistakes. It might make embarrassing.

    Erica: Ah, aha. That's interesting. Creativity can be messy and we. AI doesn't always want to make mistakes. I often ask AI, are there any mistakes in your logic? Is there any mistakes in your information that you've given? And you know, a lot of people are afraid, well, but AI makes mistakes. We'll just ask it, and it'll tell you if there any. If it made any mistakes.

    Darius: Well, it doesn't. It doesn't.

    Erica: Have you found that? It hasn't always found all. Yes, true, I've. It doesn't always find all of its mistakes. Some of it.

    Darius: If you give it access to the Internet and ask it to corroborate what it said to the Internet.

    Erica: But even with that, the Internet's not always right either.

    Darius: It doesn't find it because it creates like a confirmation bias within itself. It said it. So it's more likely to believe what it said because that's what's in its memory. And then when it goes and reflects back on it and analyzes it challenges it. Sometimes it doesn't challenge itself because that's its first output and it kind of sets it on a certain course.

    Erica: I mean, one thing I have noticed is sometimes I'll say, can you give me live links to this, to these products or these ideas or this research and it will. And not all of them go anywhere. Sometimes they go to dead ends. And. But if you ask it, say, are all of these live links actively working? It will fix them and usually get them all to be correct.

    Darius: Have you tried deep research on ChatGPT yet?

    Erica: No.

    Darius: Oh, you have to know that. And have you tried deep search on Grok3?

    Erica: I don't know what Grok3 is.

    Darius: Have you tried Deep Search on Perplexity yet?

    Erica: No, I got turned off by Perplexity and stopped using it.

    Darius: Okay, so there's this new ability that has come out over the last four weeks and it's the ability for it to reason with itself.

    Erica: Okay, I have a great idea. Do a podcast on that and then you can tell us more. Let's do one on executive functioning and the deep search.

    Darius: Okay, well, I'll just tell you now. Try Deep research in your ChatGPT plus subscription. You're allowed 10 in a month. Okay. And basically what it does is it goes out. You give it a question; it goes out and spends about five to 10 minutes researching 100 to 200 different page websites and puts together like a six-page report with everything referenced and footnoted and structured like a deep research report.

    Erica: That's really cool. Let's do a podcast on that.

    Darius: I will. All right, till next time.

    Erica: Till next time. Sponsored by learningspecialistcourses.com Courses and resources that support educators and coaches.

    Darius: Sponsored by Ivy. Imagine turning your meeting's audio into a live mind map instantly so you remember what matters. It's ideal for students and managers with dyslexia or adhd. Try Ivy for free now at ivvi App. That's ivvi App. Thank you for joining us at the Executive Function Brain Trainer podcast.

    Erica: Check out our show notes for links and resources and follow us on social media.

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