ONLINE COURSE

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Understanding ourselves and the world:
The human mind and the systems we shape

What if much of how you experience your life isn’t a direct reflection of reality, but something your brain actively creates? A story your brain predicts and interprets, rather than the world as it actually is?

Cognitive neuroscience shows that the brain is not a passive observer. It constantly predicts and fills in information based on past experience, bodily signals, and learned patterns. These processes shape how we perceive situations, how we react, and how we decide what is possible. This doesn’t just affect individuals. When many people act from similar patterns, the result is collective behavior. Organizations, cultures, and entire systems are shaped by how human beings think, feel, and act together over time. In that sense, the world we live in is deeply influenced by human behavior.

This course is not about simply choosing a new mindset. It explores why change is often so difficult, even when intentions are good. Powerful biological and psychological systems are constantly at work beneath the surface, reinforcing existing patterns and resisting change. If we want to create meaningful change in the world, we need to understand these root causes. And that means starting with ourselves, not as isolated individuals, but as participants in larger systems.

Led by Erik Fernholm, the course connects insights from cognitive neuroscience with real-life challenges. Through short lectures, written summarys, and practical exercises, it helps you better understand how inner patterns shape outer systems, and what actually supports lasting change.

Course Format

  • Video lectures with Erik Fernholm: Scientific insights and the bigger picture

  • Downloadable summaries: Written summaries to reflect on and return to

  • Practical exercises and guided reflections: Tools to apply the learning in daily life and work

Erik Fernholm is one of the leading voices on human behavior, inner development, and change. For more than fifteen years, he has worked with leaders, teams, and communities to build the human capacities needed to navigate today’s world.

With a background in cognitive neuroscience and happiness research, Erik connects science with everyday life. His work makes it easier to see how our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors shape the systems we are all part of.

He is known for turning complex ideas into something anyone can relate to. Over the years, he has collaborated with governments, philanthropists, and some of the world’s most influential companies, always with the same purpose: to help people see themselves and the world with greater understanding.

Erik is the co-founder of 29k Foundation and Aware, initiator of the Inner Development Goals, and chair of the Ekskäret Foundation. Across everything he does runs a simple idea: lasting change in the world begins with a shift within ourselves.

About Erik Fernholm

  1. Understand how the brain shapes experience
    Learn why much of what feels obvious in daily life is the result of prediction and interpretation, not objective reality.

  2. See why change is harder than it seems
    Understand why willpower and good intentions are often not enough, and how underlying biological systems can work against change.

  3. Recognize patterns that drive behavior
    Become better at noticing the patterns behind stress, habits, reactions, and decision-making, in yourself and in others.

  4. Connect individual behavior to larger systems
    See how everyday human behavior scales into organizational cultures, societal dynamics, and the world we collectively create.

  5. Learn what supports real, lasting change
    Explore practical ways to work with human systems rather than against them, supporting wiser choices and more sustainable outcomes over time.

Five key takeaways from the course:

BUY COURSE

Understanding ourselves and the world:
The human mind and the systems we shape

With Erik Fernholm

A course about how the human mind shapes the world we live in. By combining science, reflection, and practical tools, the course helps you make sense of change and offers powerful ways to grow as a person and as a leader.

890 SEK


• Personal notes from Erik

• Three recorded lectures (approx. 50 minutes total)

• Three downloadable documents with written summaries

• Six guided exercises (two for each chapter)

• An introduction to Aware, with unlimited access to all exercises