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Ways of thinking is an innovative course that stems from the premise that to change the world, you have to change the way people think.
The world doesn't change because of technology or politics. It changes when people change the way they think. Revolutions, religions, inventions - Everything begins with a shift in perspective.
That's what this course podcast is about. My name is Malcolm Xavier, and this is Navision. Welcome to ***Ways of Thinking***, a course that has been designed to help you expand your mind and see the world differently. This isn't about **me** teaching you answers. It's about **you** discovering new ways of thinking. So let's begin. Because the way you think might just change your life, and with it, the world.
In this first episode, we'll talk about why to change the world, you need to change the way people think. But first, let me share with you a story.
## Recurring Dream
I've been having this recurring dream. It's a very scary and strange dream, and I've been having it for two years now. In this dream, I die. And everybody I love also dies. It's a dream of the end of the world. And it's a dream of hope.
---
### The Cataclysm
I'm at home, looking out the window. At first, I feel at peace, watching the blue sky. Then suddenly I start to grow hot and uneasy. The sky shifts from clear blue to green, then yellow. At that point, I know something is wrong.
The heat presses down on me. I go outside. I look up and see a small point in the sky—a meteorite. It grows larger and larger until it fills the sky, much bigger than the moon. It radiates heat. My skin burns, sweat pours, and the air feels suffocating.
People start leaving their houses too, but they're not my neighbors. They are everyone I love: my partner, my children, my parents, my friends. We all stand together, staring at the sky as it turns dark orange.
The meteorite now takes the whole sky. I know I will not survive. Neither will the people around me. None of us will. I try to run toward them, to give one last hug, one last goodbye. But I can't move.
The pressure in my body and head builds up. My heart pounds, my ears ring, I feel dizzy. It builds and builds until my head explodes. I'm dead.
---
### The Void
Then—only darkness and silence. I can't think. I can't act. I can't do anything. I only float in emptiness. I exist, and nothing more.
They say you always wake up when you die in a dream, but not me. I stay in the void for what feels like a very long time. Time doesn’t exist there. I remain until nothing matters anymore. It almost feels soothing. Everything is wiped out—nothing to worry about, because there’s nothing.
Eventually, my awareness stirs. A dot of light appears in the distance. It grows brighter, larger, pulling me toward it. Closer and closer.
Suddenly, I wake up.
---
### The Cabin
I'm a small rustic wooden cabin. I feel déjà vu—as if I’ve been here before.
A fire burns. A man sits in front of it, in an armchair, his back turned to me.
Without looking, he says:
“Hello.”
I ask, “Who is this?”
“My name is Argoss. I’m here to assist you.”
“Assist me with what?”
“To think better.”
“What do you mean, think better?”
“Your ways of thinking. Your ways of thinking. Your ways of thinking.”
He repeats it harder, faster, over and over. Fear rises in me and I cross the room to open the only door.
***
### The Pod
And then I'm in a pod.
As I look around, a soothing female voice greets me:
“Hello.”
“Who’s this?”
I see no one, though her voice fills the room.
“My name is Lidia. I’m here to assist you.”
“Assist me with what?”
“To find your purpose.”
“What do you mean, my purpose?”
“Your life purpose. Your life purpose. Your life purpose.”
She repeats it harder, faster, over and over.
And then—I wake up, for real this time.
---
### The Recurrence
This is a recurring dream. Sometimes once a month, sometimes multiple times a week. Always the same core pattern, with small changes:
- Always the end of the world.
- Always me trying to reach my loved ones, unable to.
- Always the darkness after I die.
- Always the pod with Lidia.
- Always the cabin with Argoss.
This dream changed my life. It made me obsessed with two things:
1. My ways of thinking.
2. My life purpose.
For the past two years, I’ve tried to figure out what those mean for me. And I think I have an answer to both. I feel like sharing it.
## Changing the Way You Think
### Why Changing the Way You Think Changes You—and the World
I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of changing the world—to make it a better place for me, my children, and the people I love.
So I studied movements and revolutions of the past. And the way they were described by historians was often through a figure. For most of my life, I thought that changing the world meant becoming someone extraordinary—someone like George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Martin Luther King Junior.
But I was wrong. Changing the world does not happen alone. No one is powerful enough to change the world by themselves. Only a big mass of people can steer the world.
[[Changing the world cannot be done alone]]
[[Changing the world can only be done as a group]]
I saw another pattern: every big change in history started with a thought, a shared vision.
[[Revolutions start with an idea]]
***
These figures were not superhuman. They were people. Normal. Flawed. Human. What made them powerful wasn’t their actions—it was that they had a vision, and more importantly, that others shared it. Because without that *shared* vision, you’re just one person who thinks differently than everybody else.
Think about it. A revolution doesn’t succeed because of one general. The Civil Rights movement wasn’t carried on Martin Luther King Jr.’s shoulders alone. Every one of these moments needed thousands—millions—of people who began to see the world differently.
[[changing the way community thinks creates change]]
And here’s the realization: you and I are _already_ changing the world simply by existing in it. Every action we take, every belief we carry, every conversation we have—it all shapes society around us.
[[Changing the world starts with changing ourselves]]
[[Everyone is changing the world]]
The big difference between someone who changes history and someone who doesn’t is _intention_. It’s vision.
[[A clear vision is critical for communal progress]]
***
Most of us move through life with ideas in our heads, but no vision guiding our action. We get pulled along by invisible strings—social expectations, culture, routine.
So the question becomes: how do we cut those strings? How do we stop being passive participants in the world and become active creators of a better world?
The answer is simple, but profound: we change the way we think.
Every movement that transformed history—every revolution, philosophy even religions—began as a shift in thinking. A new way of seeing the world. A vision people could share. A mental language they could all speak.
When you change your thinking, you change what you do. And when enough people change what they do, the world itself changes.
***
Think of a small shift in your own thinking, like deciding to treat people with more patience. That doesn’t just change you—it changes your relationships, your community, even strangers you interact with.
The world is nothing more than the sum of our thoughts made real. Change your thoughts, and you change the world.
[[Everything starts with the mind]]
And the world is changing. You can *feel* it. There are so many things around that tells me that things are about to change. I want to be part of it because I want this change the good for me, my future children and all of humanity. But right now, I don't feel like we're ready for change. We don't think the right way. We think how this society has taught us to think. To change society, to change it well, we have to change how society thinks. And that's what this course is about and that's why it's called *Ways of Thinking*.
---
### About This Course
It isn’t a typical lecture. It’s not about memorizing facts or learning theories. It’s about exploring _how_ you think, _how_ you see the world, and how that shapes your life.
It’s for everyone—no matter your worldview, religion, or philosophy. And this is not a philosophy course. I’m not trying telling you _what_ to think, or _how_ to think. I'm just sharing ways of thinking that I use, and *you* can decide if that's useful in your life.
Your worldview is like your operating system—it runs in the background, shaping how you see everything. I don’t want to change that.
Your ways of thinking are like the apps you use. This course is not about replacing your operating system. It’s about upgrading your apps—or adding new ones you didn't know existed.
---
And it all started with one question.
A question from a recurring dream: _What are your ways of thinking?_
Since then, for two years, I’ve been questioning everything I thought I knew, everything I’d been told, everything I believed.
I asked myself: _How do I think? How do people think? And ultimately, how should we think as a society?_
If you asked science that question, it would tell you _how_ thinking works: neurons, synapses, brain chemistry. Interesting, yes—but it doesn’t answer the deeper question: _what is it like to think, and how can we change it in practice?_
So this course is my experiment. And I am the guinea pig.
***
I’ve tested these ways of thinking on myself—on how I view the world—and it has changed my life for the better.
I used to be scattered, full of vague intentions. Now I’m actually creating something—this course.
And this project also answers the second question from my dream: _What is my life purpose?_
I see this course as one part of my personal purpose—and I’m happy to share it with you.
To be honest, I don’t know if this will be a success. But to me, success is simple: changing one person. Changing in a way that they can envision their own future.
If I change the way _you_, listener, **think**—even a little—that’s success for me. That’s all I want. Anyway, I see personal value in creating this course for myself. If others can resonate with it, even better.
Because changing the way you think determines what you see, what you notice, what you believe is possible.
Sometimes, we see things as impossible—and that stops us. The way you think shapes your choices, your relationships, your future.
If you’ve ever felt stuck, confused, or overwhelmed—it’s not just the circumstance. It’s the _lens_ you’re using to look at the world. And when you change that lens, the picture changes.
That’s why revolutions, religions, movements didn’t start with armies or money. They started with ideas. With new ways of thinking.
Because ideas can’t be killed. That’s why so many revolutions couldn’t be crushed. The ideas were stronger than any single person.
---
This matters because your thinking is also the foundation of your life. And when you shift it—even a little—you don’t just change yourself. You ripple out into the world. You change the world.
But to create large changes, people need to share a vision. But to see and understand that vision, people must share a common language. They need to think in compatible ways.
[[Good communication required a shared language]]
That’s why I want to create this course: to build a common language. Not so we all believe the same things—but so we can use the same lens to see the world, with our own beliefs as the background.
This course is a journey you can take if you want. I cannot promise answers. I’m still an apprentice myself. But by sharing, I hope we can learn together.
This is not a passive course. It’s not about listening once and moving on. It’s self-directed. You’ll get the most out of it if you _think while you listen_.
Take the time to think by pausing the episode. Ask yourself the questions I ask you. By doing the exercises I suggest.
***
And then discuss—with friends, with strangers, and in the subreddit I’ve set up for this course. Thinking begins alone, but it grows stronger in conversation.
Everything here is free. No ads. No hidden paywalls. This is part of my purpose, and I believe these ideas belong to everyone.
I have planned 12 episodes that will be released every Thursday at 11:11, starting on October 2nd, all the way to December 25th. It's meant to have an end.
Every episode will offer something concrete: a perspective, questions, and an exercise. And if you try, I believe you’ll notice a difference in how you see the world.
So if you’re convinced or intrigued, then come with me and let’s see if we can change the world—one mind at a time.
Starting with yours.
Shall we?
There is only one person that can change your mind, and it's you. Nobody else can. Someone else can tell you something that you start believing in, but the choice is always yours.
As an example, imagine that we're looking at the same tree from different directions. The tree will look different for both of us. I might see a bird on one side that you can't see and when I share that with you, you can chose to believe me or not. You can also hear the bird without having to look at it and know it's there, but not know what it looks like. I can describe to you this bird in all the details that I can, but you will never know what it looks like until you come around the tree and join me from my viewpoint to see the bird yourself. And by going around the tree, you might notice something about the tree that you haven't noticed before. This is the power of perspective.
And what I shared in this episode is my perspective, and I'm aware that you have you own. If you disagree with me, that's great! That means you're critical, and that's important. I don't have all the answers, and I may be off track on some of my ideas. But what is sure is that ideas grow stronger when people bring different viewpoints to it.
[[Every human is unique]]
[[You cannot fully understand something by only looking at it from one perspective]]
To add to this we have knowledge that supports the identification of tree with another layer of understanding. You may know that the acorn can be harvested for food, but that you need to cook them to be edible. You may know that oak trees benefit from frequent low intensity fire.
But this example is not really about trees. It's about everything that we see. We need perspective to see something from all it's angles. We need pattern recognition to look at something and understand what it is. We need knowledge to know what to do with that thing. The ways of thinking that I'll be sharing in this course are patterns that you can learn to spot in things around you. But you will still need to get perspective and knowledge if you want to fully understand something and know what to do with it.
Knowledge is easy to find, but hard to trust. Like everything we hear on social media these days. That's why you need critical thinking to parse through it.
And perspective, you can only get that through discussion with other people. That's why I create a private sub-reddit: **r/waysofthinking**. Feel free to join the conversation there. One wise man has once said to me: *"Everyone in the world hold a piece of the same great puzzle."*
And here's another reason why you should share: Ideas and concepts become clearer when you externalize them. Writing them down or explaining them to someone forces you to test your understanding. Ideas that remain in your head, not shared; they get forgotten, or they remain too abstract. If you can't explain a concept, then you only partially understand it.
[[We need to externalize ideas to understand and remember them]]
***
We live in our thoughts every day, all day, yet we don't stop to ask how we think. Actually, it's a common mistake that we make. We confuse familiarity with understanding. For example, if I ask you if you know how a zipper works, you're likely to say that you do. After all, we use zipper every day. But then, if I ask you to draw a zipper and explain to me how it works, I'm not sure many of you would be able to do that. Same for things like a bicycle. Or a mechanical pencil. We think we know, but we don't know. Same goes for our minds.
But here's the key. When you bring awareness to your thinking, you start to notice patterns. And once you notice patterns, you begin to understand yourself on a deeper level, which grants you greater control over your life. This allows you to direct your life more easily into a direction that you want. It's simple. Awareness is the key to knowing yourself, and knowing yourself gives you real control over your life. And that's why in many ancient philosophies, the greatest purpose of life was summed up in two words: *Know thyself*.
***
Alright, all of this is great, but what about you? I could just end it here and you'd go on with you life after listening to this - until the next episode, maybe.
But that goes against what I'm trying to say. To change the way you think, you need to put in effort. If you're ready to put efforts, then, I have a project for you.
The project is for you to think about changing the world using the ways of thinking that I'll be sharing with you. You'll be exploring this through one aspect of the world that you want to change or want to see changed. If you try it, you'll notice your brain working differently. You'll start seeing patterns you've never noticed before.
But I'm just planting a seed until next episode. You'll hear about it then. And this is where the course really begins: not while I'm speaking, not with what I'm sharing, but with your own mind, your own words and your own discoveries.
And I’ll leave you with this:
May you notice your ways of thinking how they shape your life. May you learn to hold them lightly, to turn them over, to see what new ones are out there. And may you remember that every small shift in your thinking creates big change in your life—it echoes outward, into your relationships, your community, and the world.
Changing the world doesn’t begin with armies or revolutions. It begins in your mind.
New thoughts like seeds in fertile ground,
Grow unseen but spread around.
Change your lens, the world looks new—
And what you see is shaped by you.
And that's it for today. Thank you for listening and I hope that some of you found this interesting and will keep up with the course. I invite you to join the discussion online. The link will be in the description.
*A mind is a precious thing to waste, and so is our life. Use both fully, so that when comes the times for us to end our amazing journey, we can be proud of what we've built: something that changed the world."*