Gerald Hüther - Individualisierte Gemeinschaften - Teil 1 #4

Yes, valuable impulses today with the well-known brain researcher, many-time bestseller author and chairman of the Academy for Potential Development, Prof. Dr. Dr. Gerald Hüther. Dear Gerald, thank you very much for taking the time to talk to me about one or the other, especially about the topic of how we can create a successful relationship culture. And for me it is a particularly great pleasure to talk to you today, because you have basically accompanied me for many years, through your wonderful books and especially through your lectures. And recently I got to know you a little better, when I supported one of your teams a bit. And so I'm just happy to have the one or the other deepening conversation with you today. Dear Volkmar, I would also like to say again that I like very much what you are doing there. And I am always happy when I can exchange with smart people about topics that also interest other people. And therefore also a warm welcome to everyone who is watching or listening to us here. Oh, wonderful. Thank you very much, dear Gerald. Yes, from my children I know that not all people have actually heard from you yet. And in this respect, my request would be, would you like to introduce yourself with a few sentences? Yes, whatever is going on under the heading of the most famous brain researcher in Germany, is really just an attribution of what I am, perhaps. And I'm pretty proud of that. The most unusual brain researcher in Germany. I have really done experimental brain research for two or three decades, how to imagine it and how it should be in the opinion of most people. Cut brains into slices, isolate individual nerve cells, isolate individual synapses and then see if, after you have put it all into its individual parts, you get an idea of how it all works together and how it works. And when I did that long enough, I understood that it works. Analytical approach is nice. You can also find a lot of things on the way that you can then use. That's right. You can also find pharmacists who intervene at some point. But it's just a path of knowledge. And there is a second one that is more widespread in Asia. There you can also try to understand a phenomenon that you have not understood until you look at its embedding in the big picture. So how do you hang yourself, Volkmar, in this world? How did you embed yourself there? With your children, with your family? Where did you come from? What kind of experiences did you have? How did these experiences in your brain come together? What of it is firmly anchored there and has become a fixed idea? How did you come to your convictions and attitudes? These are all questions that an experimental brain researcher doesn't even ask anymore. So that was a big surprise for me when I finally came to the realization that the brain that I always examine still has a body down there. And that they are so connected that nothing is going on up there that doesn't have an effect down there either. And then I started to think differently. And with this other thinking you don't fit into the academic business here in the western world anymore. There is no profession for that, there are no research funds for that, there are not even any more magazines for that. It's just gone. We have eradicated it so radically since the enlightenment that there is hardly anyone left. And if you then proceed like me, you are even excluded from your own orthodox brain research community as a mess, who takes care of things that have nothing to do with the expertise that everyone has worked hard for decades. And then I decided to go another way and started to prepare the knowledge from brain research for those who could use it. So kindergartners, teachers, parents and caregivers and also entrepreneurs. And then I noticed that there is a huge need out there. They didn't really get it all, what really important insights have been promoted to date within brain research. And one of the most important insights is that we are not individuals. We all develop an idea of ourselves in the course of our lives. The Asians call it the I-construct and think of it as an illusion. But we walk around with it and defend the thing. These are the ideas of who I am and why I am. And then they always say, that's just the way I am. And then comes the brain research and says, no, everything that has arisen in your brain and imagination has not yet been constructed. Or to put it more beautifully, these are the solutions that you have found in living together with others. And they are actually anchored in the brain. So not the problems that I had with everyone, but how I managed it. And I and you and every single one of us has always done it in a completely different way. And that is anchored in the brain. And that's why we are so much influenced by these experiences that we make in communities. And we actually have to have communities in which you are actually invited, encouraged and inspired by what is inside of you, a potential. And that's where brain research says, that's infinitely much bigger than what we currently bring to the table. Where this potential can unfold within this community. It's not possible alone. It's not possible against the others, it's not possible without the others. And the communities that we currently have here in our cultural circle are, I'll put it this way, they are simply care versions of what they could be. To put it very carefully. They are property management communities, emergency communities, forced communities. I don't know. And then such hierarchical, organized things, where someone says where to go and everyone runs after him. So that's really not what you need. And that's why I thought, why don't you try to find the starting point that you create a community, a community that carries an academy. And this academy takes care of how, from a pile of pieces, a proper and then also really unfolding community can be formed. And that's what we're doing now. We accompany teams from all areas. So from the economy, from the municipalities, from teacher teams, from the school, sports clubs, whatever that might be. They come to us, ask, say we have a problem and could you help us? And then we look at what we can do to put them in a situation where they suddenly realize, hello, this is also quite different than how we do it. And that's usually so happy and attractive that they don't let go again. And then they go their way. And before you ask me, the secret of all this work is in the beginning. It's not the support in the back. Everyone can do that really well. The process supervisor, great. The question is, how do I get the members of this team to want it at all? If they don't want it, I can try as long as I want. And that's why we work very hard on the intentionality. So how do I manage to get a group of other people or preferably a whole group of other people in a situation where they say, wow, where is the task? How do we do this? Who takes over what? The picture I always have is a mountaineer. Everyone can do something else particularly well. And then they sort themselves on the mountain so that everyone takes over the leadership where he knows himself. And you only get up together, but it depends on each individual. The model, that means in the scientific language individualized community. That would be a community where if someone finds a solution, it spreads immediately in the whole community. That is the model of success of the primates. If there have been humans for 100,000 years, then we have lived in this model for 90,000 years. And it has gone very far. And only in the last 10,000 years I would say, according to today's understanding, we have started to go mad. And we haven't solved the problem yet. Because these individualized communities have been replaced by hierarchical orders. That also has advantages, but that is something that cannot be developed. And that is also not a community that actually leads to coming up the mountain together. That's how you used to lead expeditions. The expedition leader was at the front and everyone had to push the sleds next to each other. They are mostly frozen in the ice. Yes, yes. You describe something there, I would even call it a synergy community. Because the individuals could not affect each other as much if you summed it up like this community. And that is perhaps also the special feature. And one of these initiatives or communities that you have brought into life is the desire to learn. And I find that very fascinating because we both experienced it differently as high school teachers. We experienced it differently in school. We probably already experienced it in kindergarten. Yes, what is behind the desire to learn now? Well, we then in the academy, in the practical work, noticed that it is very effective if you manage to form communities in many small places that try something on site that we all wish for. And what we all wish for is, I think, that this ocean steam school system, which has been running out for centuries, which was set up back then and on the command bridge there are captains who do not know how to change the course, that this ocean steam school finally makes a course change. We are in the 21st century. We do not need people who graduated with 1.0, but we need people who have a desire for life. A desire to discover, a desire to shape, a desire to have what they do, otherwise there is nothing here. And this joy of learning, let's call it in general, which always, as a biologist, I can say this, because everything that is alive, learns. That is a basic property of life, that you learn. So also a water flow, and a plant, and a cell, everything learns. Also a company, by the way, learns. Learning has nothing to do with the brain. But if this is the learning basic property of life, then every child who comes from school and has lost his joy in learning, also loses a piece of his joy of life. And that must not be. And that's why I've been trying for years to make some change. This is not possible from above. The school system is so firmly in the hands of administrative officers or I don't even know who directs all this. This is not possible. And it is maintained by, above all, the conviction of parents, who cannot imagine that a child likes to learn. Who, by the way, also cannot imagine that a person likes to work. And those with their stupid ideas demand from the politicians what they themselves have learned as a principle of breeding and order. And the young people are directed to learn what is to be learned. And if you have such a situation, then you can say, okay, how do you change something? And that's my favorite area, that I don't say, we have to do the demonstrations now. I don't know anything about that. I even went to Mrs. Merkel and tried it. No, that doesn't work either. But you have to, so to speak, you have to reach those who hold this wrong way. And that would be, if we would exchange a little longer, then we would both notice that it is basically the parents. The parents keep this stupid school system up to date with their stupid ideas, as they did in the previous century when they were still in school. And because they didn't die there, but got through to some extent, and the better they got, so the further they got in the academic field, the more correct they find this crap that was done there. And then the answer to such a question is, okay, then you would have to set up a civic movement in every small community, in every district, in the school environment. So let's call it a local alliance, a local alliance of adults, but also of parents, teachers can also be there, administrative officers, and above all interested citizens from the village who know that if the newcomers have such an experience in school, that this whole village then has no future. And they go together, they form this learning alliance, then go to school and offer those responsible there to support them so that in their school not a single child loses his joy in learning. That's great. So of course they are speechless and claim that they do that all the time, but then you can show without much effort that there is still a lot of room for improvement. And then they can deal with the little things. It doesn't always have to be the big revolution, that often is enough when some say okay, in good weather we do the lessons on the meadow. Yes, please. Then they have achieved something and next week they come and have a request or a proposal that goes a little further. And now the parents who are in this learning alliance suddenly gain something like a power of design. They become from the victim of the school and that is very interesting and we founded it in autumn. Now we already have 150 such alliances. We haven't even started a real public work yet because the media were constantly dealing with other topics. And the goal we have is to create about 10,000 such alliances in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Fantastic. And then it is as if you attach side boats and towboats to these giant ocean steamers and they all pull away and then the ship pulls after it. But not as a big mass movement, but on site everyone where he can do something can go in. And that is a nice example of a community.