Befriend Your Brain

Executive Function and Visual Thinking

Four-week virtual workshop series led by Brandy Agerbeck, Loosetooth.com

August 6-27, 2025 | $397 Registration Fee

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Brandy introduces you to her systematic approach, structured to help you better understand your unique challenges and strengths and gather the visual tools to support both —

Workshop Dates and Topics

Befriend Your Brain is a virtual workshop that goes live on Zoom four consecutive Wednesdays:

Session 1
Starting + Completing Tasks

Wednesday,
August 6
10:00 am to 12:30 pm
☝️ Longer first session

Session 2
Emotions + Flexibility

Wednesday,
August 13
10:00 am to noon

Session 3
Organization + Time

Wednesday,
August 20
10:00 am to noon

Session 4
Focus + Memory

Wednesday,
August 27
10:00 am to noon

All times Chicago (CST, GMT-5)

Your registration fee includes:

4 Live sessions

Full set of Executive Function Self-Assessments

100+ page Expanded Resource Guide

One year access to session replays

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In our time together, you will:

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Grasp the Executive Functions

Learn how executive functions (EF) affect daily life, and shape your long-term sense of self
Recognize which EFs you excel at and which ones may need support

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Gather Visual Tools to Boost Thinking

Gain real-world, repeatable strategies throughout the sessions
Fill your mental tool box with ways to improve your thinking personally and professionally

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Increase Self-Awareness and Compassion

Better understand how you think, fostering more positive internal dialogue
Befriend Your Brain is just the beginning to a kinder relationship with your mind

Hello from Brandy —

At age 49, I got a diagnosis of an 'executive dysfunction disorder.'

I felt like a three-year train journey was pulling into its final station.

But the route behind me looked like a giant squiggle.

The train doors open.

I step onto the platform.

I had just arrived in Broken Brain.

Yet my brain had taken me to so many incredible places:

building an international business based on my creativity and critical thinking

teaching others to use drawing to think expansively and accomplish their goals

learning to live in integrity in my business, my brain, and my body

My mind had adapted bold new ways of working and being in the world.

And it was working.

Broken? There was too much evidence pointing to a different route.

While my path and yours may be different, I know I am not alone. Teaching people all over the world, I see what we have in common:

brain wearing a red headband, wristbands, and sneakers running all over the place

Our brains are fast, noisy, and hard to control.

When challenged and fixed on what we love, we are unstoppable.

Otherwise, we can struggle to point our turbo-fast brains in a useful direction.

cartoon brain with dial on its forehead, the dial is turned all the way up

We tend to either be dialed up to 11... or zero.

When we give, we give it our all.

Followed by The Crash.

Hard to modulate our energy or focus when all of our senses are wide open.

cartoon brain standing confidently with big thinking bubble full of different, colorful shapes

We are lifelong learners and infinitely curious.

Quick to explore new topics and tools, to question norms, always looking to improve ourselves and the world around us.

We are prone to side quests or falling down rabbit holes.

How do we get derailed?

And how did I get this far in life and had never really heard of executive function?

Only to be told mine isn't working?

So, what is it?

Executive Function
is how the mind executes what it envisions.

smiling cartoon brain crossing red ribbon of a finish line

Psychologists, educators, neurobiologists have been shaping definitions of executive function for decades.

Even if lists and labels differ, these are the processes your brain constantly fire to control your behavior and keep you on task to reach a goal.

Sadly, many of us are introduced to executive function when a medical or educational professional tells us ours, or our child's isn't working.

Much of what is studied and written about is student or patient dysfunction:

For example:

Procrastination leads to starting your project at the very last minute.

Impulsivity and emotional dysregulation makes making yourself feel better more important than working towards your goal.

With Poor working memory, your next step falls out of your head before you can accomplish it.

When life goes off the rails.

While negative, these labels can be useful.

Especially, when specific and constructive language leads us to more deeply understanding our experiences.

Instead of my inner critic telling me I am "throwing a fit," I can learn about emotional dysregulation, leading to less harsh self-talk.

Then, if that fast and cruel voice says, "You're being a baby," I can counter with, "No, jerkwad, I am feeling dysregulated. My emotional response is out of proportion. Let me feel this out."

What's even better?

Having language for the functioning side of executive function.

For example:

Task initiation gets you going on your project.

You plan and prioritize with good organization skills.

'Goal-directed persistence' takes you across the finish line.

When we are full steam ahead.

Post-diagnosis, a therapist gave me his executive function assessment. It blew my mind wide open.

Look, I'm a freaking, half-a-century old. I always knew I was a procrastinator.

But I never knew what I needed was better Task Initiation.

Holy heck! Yes. Now I have a name for what I wanted to get better at, versus the generic and useless name for a perpetual pitfall.

I thought, "Why don't more people know about this?!"

I wanted more of this clarity!

I dove into the research, looking for The List of Executive Functions.

There wasn't one.

I found a mess of scattered lists with little overlap, usually geared towards children, and overwhelmingly focused on being broken.

But I kept combing through the research, sketching out a set of functions and their dysfunctions, synthesizing everything I was learning.

Nine months later, it was clear:

Executive dysfunction is a part of being human.

Yes, some of us have lifelong struggles because of our 'wiring.' Others develop them through trauma or chronic conditions. We all have daily ups and downs.

The executive functions are knowable.

Every single one of us can learn these 9 and their dysfunctions — 'both sides of the coin'— gaining a new vocabulary of being human.

We adopt clearer language for our challenges.

The inner critic loses their bluster when we have more specific and constructive language to understand our struggles.

We also shine a light on our strengths.

Stop taking your abilities for granted! This holistic approach helps us celebrate our wins, and build upon them.

The more specific we get, the easier it is to sleuth out new tools.

Getting granular makes it easier to find better ways of working with our unique brains.

Metacognition is the key to self compassion.

Boosted by a big picture view, kinder language, and new tools, we can all be kinder to our minds (and others' as well).

Thus, Befriend Your Brain was born.

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Goal #1

Grasp the Executive Functions

After Befriend Your Brain, you will know the 9 executive functions in delicious detail, and understand how they impact your day-to-day life and work.

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The 'knowability' of executive function and gentle self-assessment is the first step.

Riding my train of thought.

With every executive function I explored, I could point to the specific tools I had found, developed, and used to keep up with my freight train of a brain.

My whole life, I grabbed whatever tools I needed to draw out my ideas. Every time I did, I improved my weak executive functions and amplified the strong ones.

When I got derailed, I could get back on track.

The visual thinking tools I instinctually developed — and have taught for 20 years — are incredibly effective because you draw out your thinking.

brain cartoon concentrating while making a drawing

Getting out of my head with hands-on tools was precisely why I had found a place in the world that works for my kind of mind.

My constant drive to make the intangible tangible was a feature, not a bug.

Some tools are the learnable techniques that address specific executive functions.

Others are physical materials that keep us focused and engaged.

Visual Thinking
is drawing out your thoughts, feelings and ideas.

Your drawing helps you make sense of yourself, your work, the world around you.

Learning about executive functions are a more recent discovery. But I have been practicing and teaching visual thinking my whole life.

From long-earned experience, I know:

Visual thinking is a learnable skill set, not a special talent.

You are not left-brained or right-brained. Use your whole beautiful brain when you pick up paper and pen.

Get out of your head, and get your thoughts into your hands.

Trying to keep it all inside is impossible. Making your ideas tangible shows you what is possible.

There are countless concrete tools and techniques to improve your executive function.

Most are not fancy or expensive. (Your resource guide is stuffed with them.)

I can't wait to share my favorite tools with you.

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Goal #2

Gather Visual Tools to Boost Thinking

Over our four sessions together, you will fill your brain-boosting toolbox with repeatable techniques and hands-on tools specific to each executive function.

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Soon you'll know what is working, what isn't working, and what visual tools help you with both.

But, what stops us in our tracks?

Innate to developing executive function is the shift in childhood from external guidance to your own inner voice.

Self-control, getting started, knowing the next steps, remembering information, staying focused, persisting until you are done... and being your own coach and cheering section all along the way.

When we procrastinate, lose focus, don't follow through, or are just feeling fried and unmotivated, the inner critic can drown out our inner knowing.

Over time, we listen to our inner critic far too much.

We forget our own past accomplishments and what we are capable of.

Put that inner critic in their place with paper and pen.

Make your inner voice seen.

Every time you get your ideas out of your head and onto paper, you are:

Shushing the inner critic.
Tuning into your intuition.
Accessing past experience.
Showing yourself what you are capable of.
Making progress towards your next completed goal.

I will teach you how to change the conversation with yourself.

Do I still have my own very real and constant mental glitches to navigate?

Absolutely.

Have I filled up my own mental toolbox with tons of tools to amplify the best parts of my brain and reduce those glitches?

A whole workshop full of tools.

Do I use these visual tools to shove that inner critic out of the way?

Every day.

Join me at Befriend Your Brain and let me show you how.

Let's get to know our brains better.

Let me show you all the wonderful ways you can create clarity and make meaning for yourself.

At your fingertips.

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Goal #3

Increase Self-Awareness and Compassion

When you better understand yourself, and you hold the tools to improve your thinking, you can improve your focus, mental organization, and self-talk anytime anywhere.

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In Befriend Your Brain , Brandy Agerbeck will illustrate the executive functions that take you from the spark of an idea through to the finish line of a completed project.

As we go, you will discover a world of visual tools that keep you focused and fired up all along the way.

Over these four sessions, you will grasp what the executive functions are, what visual thinking is, and how you can bring them together to:

Befriend your brain and work to your strengths.

Gather concrete tools and techniques to improve your weak spots.

Live a more creative, engaged, and self-compassionate life.

Join Brandy to boost your executive functions with visual thinking to make your brain shine!

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