The Good Wolf Project- Know Your Brain. Live Better.

04/30/2026

Feeding the Good Wolf: What Does It Mean and How Can We Do It?

The concept of “feeding the good wolf” comes from a story attributed to Indigenous peoples of North America. The story conceives of two wolves that live inside each of us – a good wolf and a bad wolf. The good wolf is kind and compassionate. The bad wolf is warlike and destructive. Throughout our lives these two wolves are always at war. The wolf that wins this continuous battle is the one you feed. Therefore, ‘feeding the good wolf’ means nurturing those parts of us that are kind and compassionate.



Read more about this concept in this post: https://lnkd.in/eSPzh7xS

04/16/2026

“It may seem like we make decisions and take actions by thinking about them consciously. But we now know that our perceptions of ourselves and our world are processed—and most of our decisions are made—during unconscious brain activity before we are consciously aware of them.”

What does that mean for how we see the world and ourselves?

This piece from Good Wolf explores the invisible role perception plays in our lives—and why it matters more than we think.

Read more in this piece from Good Wolf: https://goodwolf.org/web/2024/11/10/perception-the-brains-invisible-role/

03/26/2026

On a recent evening at the Harvard Club of New York, an audience of more than 60 educators, community leaders, and philanthropic supporters gathered to celebrate a deceptively simple idea: that understanding how our brains work can transform the way we live.

The occasion, hosted by Board of Trustees members Boris Rauls and his wife, Heike, and Anthony (Tony) Venezia and his wife, Marie, was the launch of Good Wolf 2.0, the strategic vision for the future of The Good Wolf Project.

Speaking of the impact of Good Wolf's transformational educational approach on people's lives, founder John Delfs, MD a Harvard Medical School–trained neuroscientist and physician, called it "the most thrilling thing I have ever experienced."

Read the full journal entry: https://goodwolf.org/web/2026/01/10/20251113-event

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Neuroscience for the CommunityFeeding the Good Wolf: How Insights from Brain Science are Changing Lives from Classrooms to Senior CentersThe Good Wolf Project turns decades of brain science into a practical "operating manual" that empowers at-risk youth, frontline caregivers, and aging adults to rew...

12/30/2024

✨ Good Wolf has had an amazing year.

We’re so grateful for all the support we’ve received! Thank you to everyone who has followed and contributed to our mission.

Looking ahead, we’re excited to continue our work, applying insights from brain science, to empower seniors and youth in the new year.

💬 Hear directly from participants about how the Good Wolf workshops have made a difference in their lives:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po-0kE-cwts

↓DONATE TODAY↓➤ https://secure.goodwolf.org/forms/donate Your support at whatever level possible will be greatly appreciated - and will help us expand Good W...

12/27/2024

Noel, a participant in our Thriving While Aging Pilot Program, shares this powerful insight. At Good Wolf, we’re proud to teach insights from brain science to support individuals in finding tools and strategies to improve their well-being.

Your support makes programs like these possible. Consider donating to help us continue making a difference:
https://secure.goodwolf.org/forms/donate

🌟 Check out our website and start your journey to thriving today!

➤ https://goodwolf.org/web/

11/27/2024

Thank you to the The City of Yonkers, for being part of this transformative journey.

We're so proud of the incredible seniors at the Yonkers Office for the Aging who completed our Thriving While Aging program at the Peter Chema Center. Their energy and commitment is nothing short of amazing! Delivering programs like this reminds us of the strength, resilience, and joy to be found and celebrated within our local communities.

Here's to thriving at every age. Let's continue making a positive impact together! 🐺💫

Our seniors at Yonkers Office for the Aging just finished the six-week, transformative 'Thriving While Aging' program by Good Wolf! 🎉

Through their enthusiastic participation at the Peter Chema Center, they’ve discovered fresh perspectives on life, decreased levels of stress and anxiety, and more engagement in meaningful activities.

12/27/2022

This holiday season, consider donating to Good Wolf. Good Wolf teaches neuroscience to open people’s minds to self-reflection, growth, and living their best lives. We teach listening to one other and growing in positive prosocial ways. We teach neuroscience to help people transform their lives.

In 2022, several milestones elevated Good Wolf to a new level:

--We developed and launched a powerful new website (www.goodwolf.org).
--Our 18-month proof-of-concept demonstration project was a tremendous success. Click this link https://youtu.be/5frcrexBgR0to see a video about our work and its impact.
--Good Wolf’s mission and work were endorsed by neuroscientists worldwide at the 2022 Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in San Diego in November.
--We have created a three-year strategic plan as a blueprint for the growth and sustainability of our work in our three areas of focus: (1) individuals, families, and communities, (2) organizations and institutions, and (3) public policy.

In 2023 we plan to:

--Leverage the engagement of neuroscientists worldwide to guide and grow our impact;
--Expand our reach through new programs targeting additional audiences, specifically at-risk adolescents;
--Build our online community with webinars and other educational offerings;
--Launch Good Wolf Public Policy Working Groups to bring neuroscience insights into public policies in critical areas, initially targeting poverty, homelessness, and climate change;
--Build the Good Wolf organization to support work in all areas, assuring sustainability and maximizing impact.

We hope you will consider including Good Wolf in your end-of-year giving. Your support will enable Good Wolf to move from potential and promise to implementation and impact.

We pledge to use all gifts to maximize the impact on people’s lives as we work to carry out the mission of Good Wolf.
Click here to give: https://good-wolf.snwbll.com/giving-portal

Alternatively, TEXT “good” to (914) 915-8060 or use the QR code at the end of this email. Thank you again for your generous support. We wish you and your loved ones a safe and healthy holiday season and a flourishing New Year.

12/22/2022

Why our brains are not primed to consider the future.

🧠 We find it difficult to trust in future rewards.

For Sangil “Arthur” Lee, a psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, where he’s a postdoc, this makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. “You might not survive until next winter, so there is some inherent trade off that you need to make, which is not only specific for humans, but also for animals." Economists call this the “catastrophe” or “hazard” rate.

🧠 When we think about what hasn’t yet happened, it tends to be abstract. Things right now, on the other hand, we think of in more tangible terms.

Several behavioral studies have supported the idea that what we cannot clearly imagine, we value less. We tend to have more intense emotional feelings about things we can imagine vividly.

🧠 One way we can fight this bias is by deliberately trying to imagine the future more vividly, rather than just using our default imagination.

Here is where we can get some support from the arts—science-fiction movies and vividly written novels provide us with images that seed our imagination, which we can use to make possible futures more concrete.

https://nautil.us/why-your-brain-isnt-into-the-future-245128/

📚 Thanks to Jim Davies via Nautilus Magazine

What you can’t imagine clearly, you value less.

12/14/2022

𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗹 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺 – 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗽 𝘂𝘀 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁.

Much of our brain's work – including many of our decisions – occur without our conscious awareness.

Our brainstem’s medulla controls respiration and modulates our heart rate, without needing conscious input. Coughing, sneezing, and blinking reflexes happen too quickly for conscious awareness.

Regulation of body temperature and blood pressure – as well as decisions about drinking, eating, and sexual behaviors – are initiated by our hypothalamus. Many social or group behaviors are initiated in our limbic system, including areas such as our amygdala, hippocampus, and cingulate gyrus.

All these decisions arise from our non-conscious brain, usually coming into our conscious awareness only when we need to take action.

Find out more: https://goodwolf.org/web/brain-in-control/

07/20/2022

We are excited to share more information about new our organization. Click the link below to learn more about Good Wolf in our newsletter. We also welcome you to join our newsletter.

Good Wolf is a new non-profit organization that grapples with the fact that the human brain is a wondrous organ that holds the keys to our thriving or to our possible destruction. Click below to watch our video.