Thinking Lab Scholarships

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.

Dear Donors,

I was fortunate enough to find the right philosophy. It gave me a mental power that enabled me to get what was true and what was good, like a map of the universe showing what was possible to me.

But even though I could see what values I could get, I, many times, didn’t feel like getting them. It was as if my ship was broken and I just couldn’t move forward.

The Thinking Lab is the troubleshooting manual for that ship: for my mind. It gave me many useful abilities: how to manager my motivation, how to read my emotions, how to set my goals, how to design my projects, how to administer my time, how to self-coach: how to pursue values!

Now, with the map and the manual, the world has opened up for me and my ambition is the limit. That is a very invigorating thought.

Such is the value you’ve given me. And for that, I solemnly thank you.