Soraya Shaw, MSc, BrainShaw® is an Applied Organisational Neuroscientist specialising in crafting neuro-informed workplace practices for organisations. She leverages the latest neuroscience research to harness the natural functioning of people's brains and neuroplasticity to create a learning experience culture that differentiates businesses in our rapidly evolving digital landscape.

What's Our Story?

In 2021, Soraya was leading her ‘Neuroscience for Coaches’ programme for the Association for Coaching. Among the 100+ participants was Tracy.

Soraya began hosting monthly neuroscience forums to introduce new evidence and studies, helping attendees integrate these insights into their practices. This initiative sparked the beginning of Soraya’s & Tracy’s collaboration.

Soraya and Tracy bonded over their shared passion for empowering people to stretch and challenge themselves, fostering a creative and innovative mindset. As experienced leadership coaches and bespoke designers of leadership transformation, they encountered many clients who hesitated to embrace creativity as a priority focus for their businesses and struggled to connect personally with innovation. Both questioned this limiting mindset, recognising the missed opportunities for growth, enjoyment, and achievement by not integrating original and critical thinking into organisational and team practices.

They saw the potential benefits for mental well-being, sense of purpose, healthy psychosocial relationships and futureproofing their businesses.

Coming from commercial creative backgrounds, Soraya and Tracy found a synergy in their language and thinking, their positivity and sense of fun. At the time, AI was viewed both as a hero and a villain So they started with the question, “How will AI impact human creativity?” . That was six episodes ago, and the world really has moved on. In season 2 Soraya and Tracy’s purpose is to build the knowledge and share in a way that offers practical support to our listeners, as individuals and leaders, for business success.

During their journey, they also uncovered a concerning trend: the neglect of creativity in the UK education system. Many European countries, as shown by PISA 2022 Creative Thinking, are prioritising this crucial learning to develop tomorrow’s critical thinkers. Why wouldn’t we do the same? Our future depends on fostering flexibility and agility in thinking to prepare for an ever-evolving world and both Soraya and Tracy are determined that this stays high on the agenda and that Brainy Podcasts and themselves will play a role in raising the importance within our national curriculum.

“Thinking creatively was defined by PISA 2022 as 'the competence to engage in the generation, evaluation and improvement of original and diverse ideas' and one of the aims of the assessment was to provide insights into 'how well education systems are preparing students to think outside the box in different task contexts”. PISA 2022

Tracy Filler is an ILM, Level 7 Executive Coach & Mentor, working with applied neuroscience & life Wisdom to support her clients through their personal and professional development. For nearly two decades, she has worked with leaders and their teams to bring effective strategy and results, through improved confidence and capability.

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