[Neurons] 2025 Neurons #50 THE FAST TRAIN TO MEANING

[Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall 

2025 Neurons #50

December 8, 2025

 

 

THE FAST TRAIN TO MEANING

 

As a Trainer, you know that Neuro-Semantics centers on the construct of
meaning.  Meaning is central to what we are all about-it is even in our
name, Semantics.  And semantics governs everything!  "Everything?" You ask.
Yes, everything human and everything that matters.  And that's because
without a person constructing meaning in his or her mind, there is no
meaning.  After all, meaning does not exist apart from a meaning-maker.  It
takes the brain and the nervous systems of a meaning-maker to construct
meaning.

 

This has several very serious consequences: 

           Whatever you think something means-that is what it means to you.
It is your meaning and you created it.  Wow!  Talk about the semantic
foundation of agency and responsibility.  Each person's experience of
meaning is uniquely that person's.  It belongs to him and it will govern his
life.

           The quality of your life is the quality of your meanings.  What
upgrades life, or any particular experience, is actually not the external
things that you have-but what they mean to you.  That's why a poor person
can have a high quality life and a rich person can have a poor quality life.
The quality isn't about stuff, it is about the person's semantics.  Now
isn't that amazing?  Now having things as good, and having high standard of
living, all that is good, and something we want to promote, but it is not
the key to high quality living.  How many very, very rich people are utterly
miserable on the inside?

           Life and everything you and I can do or experience in life is
governed by our meanings.  Ultimately, life is lived inside-out, not
outside-in.  Although we are all taught to think and operate outside-in.
But everything human is inside-out.  Communication is inside-out; happiness
is inside-out; love is inside-out; content, peace of mind, and serenity is
inside-out.  A sense of wealth and inner richness is inside-out.  

           Meaning is constructed by thinking.  This is the newest and most
radical understanding that we have developed in Neuro-Semantics in recent
years.  Ultimately, it is all about thinking.  Therefore, the quality of
your thinking determines the quality of your meanings which determines the
quality of your life. 

           Thinking is inevitable, quality thinking is not.  You cannot not
think.  It's what your brain elicits your mind to do.  Your brain is like
the hardware and your mind is like the software.  Your brain does not
determine the quality of your thinking.  Take a moment to reflect on that
one!  Your brain has all kinds of potentials for intelligence and
excellences but you have to learn it, develop it, nurture it, etc.  That's
why many highly intelligent people think and act in stupid ways.

           Quality thinking starts with critical thinking, steps up to
creative thinking, and graduates into executive thinking.  If you can't
think clearly, precisely, and accurately (critical thinking), you will be
(and are) severely handicapped in life.  The very ways that you think will
sabotage you and what you do so you will not be effective or productive. [By
the way these are the three levels of thinking skills we teach in Thinking
for Humans.]

           Your thinking shows up in how you talk.  The way you language
things-yourself, others, work, exercise, food, and everything
else-determines the meanings you construct and then the life you live.  If
your language is wrong, so will be everything else.  That's why we have to
get our speech right-the very purpose of the Meta-Model.

           Meaning hides.  It is intangible because it is what your mind
does.  Yet your meanings, and mine, show up and are expressed by the way you
talk, act, gesture, move, etc.  Therefore by paying deep attention to
language, thinking patterns, neurological habits, etc. you can detect and
flush out your semantics or those of another person.  It's easy to forget
that behind the see-hear-feel expressions is a world of meaning which each
of us has inherited and created.

           The quicker you can detect meaning and identify meaning, the
quicker you can get to the ultimate source of problems and solutions.  So we
learn to go meta.  We learn how to step back from the expressions of meaning
to identify the meaning itself and the thinking that creates the meaning.
When we do that we can then identify the interpretation behind the problem
... behind the solution.  Learning to ride the fast train to meaning enables
you to avoid all of the usual psychological noise, defenses, and side-trips.
When you can go directly to the Source, you can check the ecology of the
meaning and then know what needs to be done.  Do you need to update the
meaning, reframe it, or outframe it?

 

All of this is what enables a person to have a 5-minute problem-solving
conversation.  All of this allows you to have a highly focused conversation
that gets to the heart of things (the meaning) so that you can more quickly
solve problems and/or invent new solutions that can change the world.
Therefore if you would want to learn to initiate and conduct a 5-minute
conversation, we welcome to Neuro-Semantics- the fast train to meaning.




 

 

 

 



L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Executive Director, ISNS

738 Beaver Lodge

Grand Jct., CO. 81505 USA

meta at acsol.net

 

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