1st Lead U - Leadership Development
This podcast, now in Season 3, is dedicated to self-development, self-awareness, and learning to lead oneself so listeners can lead others well. If someone cannot lead themselves well, it will be difficult for them to be an effective leader of others. This podcast will help listeners understand what it means to 1st Lead U and build confidence in themselves and their leadership ability. Personal Growth Coach John Ballinger has spent 35 years developing the knowledge and material he shares with individuals, business owners, and leaders from a variety of areas.
1st Lead U - Leadership Development
Think Better, Lead Better: The Science of Cognitive Skills Training - With Michelle Hecker Davis of Learning RX
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Neuroplasticity isn't just a scientific buzzword—it's the key to unlocking your brain's untapped potential and transforming your leadership capabilities. Michelle Davis, owner of LearningRx, returns to 1st Lead Y to share how cognitive skills training creates lasting neural changes that become your brain's new "default mode network."
When most of us struggle with learning or processing information, we develop compensatory strategies rather than addressing the root cause. Michelle explains how LearningRx's approach is different, targeting the seven core cognitive skills—attention, short-term working memory, long-term memory, processing speed, logic and reasoning, visual processing, and auditory processing—through intensive, personalized training. The results are remarkable: a 97% retention rate of cognitive gains a year after completing training, with success stories spanning from struggling students who later make the Dean's List to executives who dramatically improve their decision-making speed.
What makes this especially relevant for leaders? When Michelle assessed 40 executives from major companies, only one demonstrated strong cognitive skills across all areas. Think about that—most leaders are operating with significant cognitive weaknesses they may not even recognize. "If you're weak in logic and reasoning, it's going to be very hard for you to lead a team," Michelle points out, highlighting how understanding cognitive strengths and weaknesses can transform both personal performance and team management.
Whether you're struggling with processing speed that leaves you buried in emails, working with team members across generational divides who process information differently, or wondering why traditional approaches to problems aren't working, cognitive training offers a science-backed pathway to improvement. As Michelle emphasizes, "We don't have to just work harder anymore. We have opportunities and ways to change that makeup." Ready to transform your brain's default settings and elevate your leadership capacity? This episode is your starting point.
The key in training is making a new default mode network. Now that we have that, that's our new default and we will use that, so you don't actually stop using these skills when you stop in the training program. You know so, which is why you see long-term benefit and what we've found. There's about a 97% average retention of the gains that were achieved a year later because now we're using those.
Speaker 2:Welcome to First Lead you, a podcast dedicated to building leaders, expanding their capacity, improving their self-awareness through emotional intelligence and developing deeper understanding of selfless leadership.
Speaker 3:Hello America and welcome to First Lead you where we believe selfless leadership is essential. America is suffering a leadership crisis. Self-awareness and emotional intelligence is the key to developing selfless leaders.
Speaker 2:Now here is personal growth coach John Ballinger.
Speaker 3:Hello leaders, welcome to First Lead U. My name is John Ballinger. I'm here with my trusted co-host, mr Douglas Ford. Hello, john, it's great to be back. It is great to be back.
Speaker 3:We have a guest today. She was with us last year and, through a series of events that happened that we really didn't know, it was kind of connecting. Michelle came back on our radar with LearningRx and we wanted to invite her back in to talk about it and get our audience re-acclimated to what LearningRx is, in anticipation of a roundtable discussion with Dr Charles Miller, myself and Michelle with Douglas, kind of moving us down the pathway on the podcast to ensure that we are staying on task and on time. And Michelle, obviously she worked with my daughter. We found out that Dr Miller's daughter had gone to learning RX on something completely different but we both said valuable to our children's success, uh, and not just academically but societally, and so, uh, uh, we're glad to have Michelle come back in and talk about learning RX with us today. We have a special guest this morning. Actually, it's a re-invite because of what this young lady does with her company and her clients. Michelle, welcome back to the podcast.
Speaker 1:Thank you, and thank you for calling me a young lady.
Speaker 3:Michelle is the owner of a organization or it's a franchise, if I'm not learning rx. Uh, if those that listened last year remember, my daughter actually went through learning rx. Uh, I think probably four or five years ago, yes, something like that. And then we were talking to another podcast guest and found out that his daughter had gone through learning rx. And I'm going to tie that circle together because pretty soon the three of us the gentleman that we talked about, his daughter went, michelle and myself will be doing a podcast collectively and the the uh.
Speaker 3:The point of the podcast will be how do we open up our brains that have possibly been closed and some of that could be through trauma, it could be DNA issues, it could be societal issues and how do we open it up, how do we work it out? And then how do we continue the process of growing it, growing our brains Because our brains are just like a muscle and they need to be grown and massaged and worked out and things like that. And they need to be grown and massaged and worked out and things like that. So the unique feature of all three of us being in a room together talking about how much the brain can lead to success in our leadership journeys is something we're going to do soon. So, michelle, welcome.
Speaker 1:Thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3:So tell us, just remind the listeners of who you are, and LearningRx Sure, so LearningRx.
Speaker 1:Sure. So LearningRx is a cognitive skills training center, and so specifically, we train the seven core cognitive skills that affect the learning process. So those would be skills like attention and memory, short-term working memory, long-term memory processing, speed, logic and reasoning, visual processing, auditory processing, and the thing that we know through cognitive science and research is that when these skills are working efficiently, then your brain can process information efficiently and learn information efficiently. And if even one of those skill areas is weak, then we will naturally start compensating or working around or finding accommodations for that, and so this new kind of understanding of science and neuroplasticity that the brain is changing at all times allows us to be able to, for one, measure these cognitive skills and then put together very specific, targeted training to develop the weak areas, not work around them, but exercise them in a targeted, intense and efficient way so that we get significant changes in overall functioning.
Speaker 3:She used that word that Dr Miller used the other day neuroplasticity. He used that a couple of times, which seems to be a common theme, so we've used it. Yes, you're using it, he's using it. We're going to talk about how expanding the brain and working it out actually helps someone through some of the things that they go through in their life?
Speaker 1:Yes, and I'll tell you something I love about that word. Is that about? Actually, we're having our 15-year anniversary celebration next week at LearningR ex. But when I started this work, you know and this was in Chattanooga 15 years ago in 2010, no one knew the word neuroplasticity. You would say neuroplasticity and they would look at you and you know, just did it. It wasn't common knowledge. Now people know this word. They've heard it across different platforms, in different ways, and it can get confusing to go okay, neuro in different ways, and it can get confusing to go okay, neuroplasticity, cognitive skills, brain fog, like what.
Speaker 1:How does all this relate? You know so a lot of time, you know I spend a lot of time kind of demystifying what that is, and it essentially is just that that our brain is changeable and it used to be literally where doctors did not think your IQ or skills could change. The brain you were born with is the brain you had forever, and you're just a math person or you're not. You're just a reading person or you're not, and we just don't know. That's old science, that's not the truth anymore, and we know that.
Speaker 3:So how does learning Rx, brain training, work when there's so many different ways? A person may experience a variety of difficulty learning. So taking someone in and saying, oh well, they're dyslexic or they're an auditory, is it a test?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we have a cognitive skills assessment that we utilize. That's pretty brief because we're just measuring the core cognitive skills. It's not the same as a full psychological evaluation where you're considering behavioral factors and history and lots of other areas we're looking at. Do you have a weak working memory or not? Now, working memory many times a weak working memory is associated with things like ADHD, executive functioning issues. Dyslexia many times is associated with weakness in auditory processing and processing speed or fluency. So again, it's not the same for every dyslexic or every ADHD or every autism spectrum or any of those diagnoses, but we all have brain skills and we all have strengths and weaknesses. But if we have one weak area that's not related to reading, then we're not going to struggle with reading. But if it is that one weak area related to reading, we're going to struggle, you see, so it's not dependent on a diagnosis to address and exercise this.
Speaker 3:Gotcha. So who's a potential candidate for learning Rx?
Speaker 1:So I find that you know, really we all could use brain exercise. I exercise my, I do my own brain exercise because recently I wasn't thinking of the word I wanted to say as quickly as the word retrieval, fluency wasn't happening. So I thought I know the exact exercise to do and I said, jerry, I need you to train me in this skill, you know. And so there's different exercises that you can do specifically for specific areas at any time. But what I have found is that those who really struggle with something and they are giving their best effort, they are trying their hardest and there's something not quite clicking. That's kind of when people will call me and come see me when there's a problem. However, I might need to train myself once a week. Someone who's struggling might need to train three times a week, you know, for a longer period of time. So there's a difference between sort of maintenance training and really intensive therapeutic training.
Speaker 3:Right. Are there individuals that come in and you think you know what. They really don't need us, but they may need something else.
Speaker 1:Yes, I had one recently actually, and this was an adult with ADHD who was referred to me by a doctor who knows more about what we do and a lot of the complaints she had had to do with processing While we measured her skills. They were all strong and I said, actually more cognitive exercise is not what you need, because your strengths are you're. You're strong in every area. You're over-performing and I actually think that's causing overwhelm and anxiety and those things that you're feeling are like overworked cognitive skills, you know. So, um, I referred her actually to um, an ADHD, adhd coach who does more of an anxiety, mental health kind of aspect towards that. Um, you know, and it's something where cognitive skills training wasn't the best fit for her. But I do have a network of people that I like to refer to, you know, to help people find the right fit for their situation.
Speaker 3:Does everyone need to train their brain?
Speaker 1:Well, yes, but even things that you do when you learn a new language, when you learn to play an instrument, you're doing brain training. One thing that I think is maybe a misunderstanding about brain exercise, because you're getting brain exercise every time. You think and converse and talk to people and interact in your daily life, but what happens is that you begin to start really doing the things that you love to do. So you love crossword puzzles, so you do them every day. You're great at them. That's probably not training your brain. It's not just the act of doing it, but it's the act of doing something new or challenging. And so there are ways in your daily life that you can try to challenge yourself, and I think that's a lot you know, for what you guys do in your coaching is really working on challenging new ideas, and that's stretching your brain. That's, you know, not specific to a cognitive skill, but that mental flexibility, um, you know, is brain training.
Speaker 3:Right, I hear a lot of people, especially in leadership, say I hate reading. Yeah Well, you know what you need to do. You need to read. Pick up a book. Don't listen. Read, because it's going to force your brain into doing something that doesn't want to do. But when you do that, it's going to unlock things inside your brain and you're going to learn at the same time.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But a lot of people don't like doing what their brain tells them. I hate that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, well, and an interesting thing about reading specifically, and actually gosh, there is a really good podcast called Sold, a Story that is talking about the history of reading and how we're not born with the ability to read. We really have to be taught to read and there's lots of people that have different ideas about how to teach reading and there's different ways to teach reading, but there's really only one way the brain learns how to read and that is through phonics-based instruction. Well, when you don't have great phonics-based instruction or your brain can't process that phonics-based instruction, your brain can't process that phonics-based instruction, it becomes very hard and when you just read more, it actually feels like torture and really struggling readers, I think, relate to this. They'll listen to audiobooks and that's their kind of workaround to get that information, because the act of reading can be so mentally taxing and that's not for everyone, of course, but that is for really struggling readers and it makes it challenging because you know, the approach, for example, in our reading program, is to develop auditory processing skills, processing speed, then the brain can read.
Speaker 1:You know we have, oh my gosh, so many actually very successful business owners and you know, presidents of companies, professionals, who are dyslexic and hate to read. I mean it's very common because dyslexics have this really interesting capacity to think creatively and it's typically paired with an above average IQ and high logic and reasoning skills. So you get these really creative out of the box thinkers who don't like to read, and it's more common than you think in the business community.
Speaker 3:So the average student, quotation student that comes in, how long does it take them to go through brain training?
Speaker 1:The typical program, you know, is under a year. The shortest program I would have is about three months. And I'll tell you my daughter, when she was four and a half I thought I'm just going to go ahead and see what happens if I train her for three months and she went from not reading at all, she started blending sounds and by the end of that three months she was reading chapter books, and this was kindergarten chapter books. I mean, it was phenomenal. But you know, the brains are so flexible at that time and there wasn't a problem. I just had the opportunity to train her that early on. So the less of the problem there is the younger you are, the less time you really need kind of intensive training. And if there's not, you know it. Just it really depends on the case. But if you have a severe, you know, struggle it might take more time, especially the older you get, as you've started to naturally compensate and almost create bad habits to work around some of those issues.
Speaker 3:We're going to take a break and come back and we're going to continue talking about learning, rx and brain training. Welcome back. We're talking to Michelle Davis from LearningRx. Michelle Davis from LearningRx, and one of the things people ask, even us, is how do I have to continue ongoing working out of my brain and what would you say with the LearningRx platform? Is there checkups or workouts that need to be?
Speaker 1:Well, here's a cool thing is that when you're taking an intensive approach so let's say you're struggling with reading, or you have a major struggle and you're intensively addressing it through lots of targeted exercise, by the time you get done with your sort of intensive protocol whether that's four months, five months, six months you actually have created a neural network that now is your default. You're changing your brain's default mode network. So now when you go, you know we maybe you start at a processing speed where you're at about 85 beats per minute and we build up to 120 beats per minute. Now, every time you talk, you read, you do anything, you're processing at that faster speed. So the key in training is making a new default mode network. Now that we have that, that's our new default and we will use that so you don't actually stop using these skills when you stop in the training program. You know so, which is why you see long-term benefit.
Speaker 1:A year later, actually, we call our graduates and invite them to come in for one-year follow-up testing. We've been doing this for about 10 years, so we've tracked a lot of data and what we've found. There's about a 97% average retention of the gains that were achieved a year later, because now we're using those, we weren't necessarily using them before. So it just becomes a matter of using the skills. Now, if you have a brain injury or if you become a couch potato and don't use your brain, that will change things.
Speaker 1:I mean, your brain has this use it or lose it property, and there are other things that you can do. So most people you know I'll hear from years later. I heard from a student the other day who just got on the dean's list in college and her mom messaged me and she trained with us about 10 years ago and she said college was not even an option when it came to you in middle school. There was no way this was not a kid going to college, she just made the dean's list at college. And so it's really cool to hear those kind of stories long term of how this kind of training can affect you. But you can't sit around and not work your brain.
Speaker 3:So at First, lead you, our business model is really to help leaders uncover themselves and some of the challenges. They have to be the best version of themselves from a leadership standpoint so they lead their teams well. Can leaders benefit from brain training?
Speaker 1:I love this because, you know, I actually participated in, through the chamber, leadership training a couple of years ago and as a part of that, I joined the curriculum committee and had the opportunity to do an assessment, provide an assessment for a room, a group of about 40 leaders in Chattanooga and these are major companies in Chattanooga and so I got to see that data on the back end, you know, and, and of course, I shared it with them and they got to see. But you know, and, and of course I shared it with them and they got to see, but you know, there was one person out of that 40 that had all fully functioning cognitive skills and probably lack some social skills, you know. And so that's not the point. You know, nobody really has a perfect brain in any way, but we're all working on it. But but when you specifically so let's say, you're weak in logic and reasoning, it's going to be very hard for you to lead a team when you don't have the ability, the capability, to see the beginning, middle and end, step and plan the steps to do that. And so if you're weak in logic and reasoning, I really don't see how you can lead a team.
Speaker 1:And it's tough because you know, we, we had a situation where, um, you know, there was a uh, the son was to take over the business and so that was kind of the the plan for leadership, and he needed to develop some skills. And we were a part of that plan because that was their intent was for him to do that. And so you know, that was a specific situation. But, um, processing speed was one of his complaints as well. And he would say you know that was a specific situation, but processing speed was one of his complaints as well. And he would say you know, it would take me all day to get through my emails. So it's not that you can't do it, but is it efficient? So if you have a goal to be more efficient, then brain training can help with that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we just recently met with a family that it was the dad's intent for the son to take over the business and the son absolutely didn't want to take over the business and the dad was perplexed, even just through talking through him, that the dad's ability to learn and develop was different than the son's. And the dad you could tell, if I can do it, he can, can do it. That was his mindset and it just created this divide in the family that I hope it heals. But the dad's mindset was if I can do it, you can do it. And that's not always and the son could get better at processing or learning different things, but probably never be the dad.
Speaker 3:Right and the dad expected him to be.
Speaker 1:That's tough. I sit down with a lot of families and I hear the dad a lot of times say he's just not working hard enough. I had the same struggles, but I picked it up and I did it, you know, and it's it's kind of like you found some workarounds. Yes, you had to really really work harder. We don't have to anymore. We have opportunities and ways to change that makeup and it's. You know, there is this, this sort of idea that, yeah, if I could, you know this, uh, putting putting something on to your child that they should be just like you, you know, and they're just not they're different people they are.
Speaker 3:uh, brain training is something that, having having seen my daughter go through it and actually coming over, so I got to witness it firsthand by just listening to the metronome go back and forth and then it gets sped up and things like that and I so I've got actually a metronome on my desk at one of my businesses.
Speaker 3:Oh, love it, yeah, and trying to teach my team how to process decisions faster in the firefight, Right, and that's, that's a. That's a skill as a skill that a leader needs to learn, should learn. But when you're working with three to four different generations that crop, the intake information, process it differently and then hear differently you're, can brain training help a leader understand how to develop, how to listen to those different generations?
Speaker 1:So I think it's important as a leader to understand your team right, what kinds of things you're working with. I mean, we do have, you know, sort of an executive track of cognitive testing that we do, so we can. It's a digital online, you know assessment that you do, but it can tell you your entire team's strengths and weaknesses, so that's very helpful to know. That's one aspect that's of cognitive skills. But you know, I know there's a lot of.
Speaker 1:There's so many other tests you can do for personality tests and you know just kind of understand their love language, whatever it is. But I do think that the impetus is on the leader to understand their team, to best lead them right, and a part of that is what is their functioning like? Because, again, if they don't have great logic and reasoning skills, you need to know that they're going to be maybe a great follower but not really a leader, and you have to have all different people you know. So it helps you when you understand their strengths and weaknesses. If they're not great at visual processing, they're going to have a hard time picturing in their mind's eye, so they're not necessarily going to be able to think, you know, maybe about or visualize what that thing needs to look like.
Speaker 3:Have you ever had to tell a leader that, based on the results and what they're doing, that they're probably not suited for that position?
Speaker 1:I like to lead to that and let them think they have to come up with that themselves.
Speaker 3:I maybe haven't been as direct. Yeah, sadly we've had to do that and it doesn't go. But in our in our position, going inside corporations and things that we're brought into, sometimes there's a lot of difficulty already going on and there's an uprising with you, if you will, with the employees, and you know, like you know, it starts with you. And that's not always an easy conversation to have with a leader.
Speaker 1:Well, there's another, another big thing, and you're absolutely right. There's another big thing that I think about quite a bit when it comes to leadership and performance, which is mindset and specifically, a growth, having a growth mindset so we can make mistakes and it's not a problem. You know, I see so many times that, depending on the leader, maybe the employees are terrified to make mistakes, so they're more likely to cover them up. Or, you know, work around, you know, and it becomes an issue. Rather than being in an environment where it's not a problem to make a mistake, we talk about it and we figure it out, and that's something that we really foster with our clients is how mistakes are actually, what an amazing opportunity we have to learn. We really go on about that. Mistakes are not a problem, and so we translate that same thing to our trainer staff and our admin staff. That, you know, it's just, it can't be a problem to make mistakes, and if you don't have that comfortable environment, then it's going to be really hard to make changes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, correct. Do you see anything new in research coming out that will impact brain training?
Speaker 1:Well, I do hear a lot of people talking about mindset, and mindset is another factor. You know, yeah, this is a big question. There's research about, you know, reading that's coming out, how we teach kids to read. That starts in the brain, and this isn't that's new. That's been a passion of mine for a long time, because we're not teaching reading in the right way and we're not considering enough of cognition in the brain when we do that. And it's been that way for 40 years.
Speaker 1:We've been in the across the country. We've been in the 30 to 35th percentile of proficiency in third grade in our country. You know it's a big problem. It's been that way a long time and so you know they're just now. Since COVID, there is more and more research coming out about the brain's role in that. So that's a great example of new research that's happening. That's kind of backing up what we're doing, which is very exciting, but there is, so there are so many generational changes with, with what's going on with, you know, especially mindset and that growth mindset versus fixed mindset that people are starting to understand and pick up on. So I feel optimistic about staying in that direction.
Speaker 3:We're hoping that leaders, just people in general, will lean into some of the deficiencies that they know they're there, because that's one of the things I've realized doing this is a person always knows where they're deficient at, where they struggle, like I know where my struggle is at Recognizing that struggle and working on it.
Speaker 1:Yes, it takes an attitude of different thinking to actually lean into it seem like there is more of a general awareness and acceptance of doing some more inner work, rather than just kind of pretending like you're perfect, come on.
Speaker 3:Well, I've enjoyed this conversation. I appreciate your time. It's valuable and I look forward to Dr Miller and myself and you sitting down and really talking through. What does it take to open it up, really understand it, what's going on in there, and then working it out and continuing growth in the brain?
Speaker 1:Yes, very exciting. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3:Thanks, Michelle.
Speaker 4:Enthusiastic, wouldn't you sayelle's enthusiastic about learning rx? Yeah, it's absolutely uh a joy just to listen to the conversation and and just see her joy that she had. I mean, it was uh. I was in the room while that conversation was going on and it was uh great to uh. Every time she spoke about it she just lit up. She really loves it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love the story about the mom calling and the daughter going on the Dean's list when they said college wasn't him on the radar. You know, look at what trajectory going through learning RX and unlocking the brain did for that daughters and her kids at some point. If she has children, their success because of that, absolutely I love you know we talk about coaching and a coach sees an athlete and says you know what? That's some raw talent in that athlete, but no one's really ever coached that athlete to be the best they could be. And a coach will see that We've talked about Nick Saban having just a natural talent for that I'm. I jokingly said Nick Saban doesn't go through the normal process at Alabama of well, his seniors are graduating, so he's got uh, he's got this new friend. He reloaded every year.
Speaker 4:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Yeah, being a Auburn fan Uh, he's not my favorite, uh, football coach, but he certainly is a very good leader of people and recognizing what it takes to to pull the best out of them and, uh, you know, he did a phenomenal job doing that you know, douglas and I this isn't a football podcast at all, but I remember them talking to them him when he retired and his frustration that he really didn't get to use the talent he had to be able to coach players because it had become such a business and he, he in his career, he felt like his job was as much to coach that person into a personal development in their, in their career, after football is it was football and with the portals and you know the NIL and all that stuff going on, he's like you know, that's not even the game anymore of taking a young man and developing them, developing them into a senior and then pushing them out either into the NFL or in the life.
Speaker 3:And I could tell that that just it was really disheartening, I think would be a good word that, uh, I felt Saban was using when he retired.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I definitely agree that. Uh, he probably felt like his calling as much about as being a football coach was a developer of young men. He leaned into that a good bit and talked a good bit about it Anytime he did public speaking.
Speaker 3:One of the coaches he's put out, not just players, I mean, he would develop coaches and coaches would go on to coach to national championships. We don't want to talk about Georgia and all of this, but no, it's listen. If you don't have a coach, get one.
Speaker 4:Yep get one Yep. And learning RX is a great, great place to go to start figuring out if you are having difficulties with learning in different areas. Uh, as you heard Michelle talk about, like that's a great, uh, great thing to do if you are in need of those services.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so thanks for listening. And remember in order to lead your team, well, you must first lead. We'll see you next time you.
