We Love Sharing Our Clients’ Success Stories!

At Critical Thinking for Success, we enjoy watching people’s success stories unfold. It’s one of the best things about helping people make the most of their minds.

We have helped countless people over the years unlock the full potential of their brains. They have come to us from many different backgrounds, including pro football players, army veterans, office workers, parents, and more.

We hope the success stories listed below encourage you on your own quest for cognitive health. If you’re looking for support on that journey, we’d be honored to be part of your story!

Professional Musician

We worked with a professionally trained musician, who was talented enough to be a substitute for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra,The Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, The Lyric Opera, The Grant Park Orchestra in Chicago, and played at Ravinia. She continued to unsuccessfully audition for a full time seat in the Orchestra for 20 years before she came to us. She had between 40 and 50 auditions. After one session and completing the evaluation, it was confirmed she had a Direction and Orientation difficulty. The part of the brain that runs these skills also deals with relationship to time. When she was performing as a member of the orchestra, she could keep very good time because she followed the conductor. While in an audition, she did not have the conductor, and her beat would vary, so she was never selected. With our assistance, she was given some simple exercises to do 60 minutes each day. After two months’ time, she was ready to try again. The very next audition was a success and she was selected to be in the Lyric Opera Orchestra and is still with them today.

Commodities Broker

A commodities broker who was having serious performance issues in his trading came in for an assessment. We found he had a number of skills that were inefficient. He primarily needed to focus on Analysis and Synthesis, as he was having trouble breaking down the information he received about the commodities he traded, and thus could not create a successful strategy for profitability. Within months of daily exercises he made more money in one month than he had in his best year. Physically, he said he was weightlifting lifting 25 pounds more at 48 years of age than he had done since high school. His results are not unusual; only can we think better upon improving these skills, but we can actually physically perform better in our lives. We have witnessed these improvements with
golf, tennis, and other sports, as well.

Stockbroker's Assistant

This stockbroker’s assistant wanted to become a stockbroker. However, she struggled with word problems, and thus could not complete the Series 7 exam because much of the exam was composed of word problems. She had issues with classification and categorization, and problems with direction and orientation, analysis and synthesis, and strategic planning. She started addressing these issues by practicing with the games Set, Brick by Brick, and Arrows, and further by working on projects around the house and planning; she improved in each area. When faced with a word problem, she almost had a panic attack. However, when told to use the skills she was learning, within 5 to 10 min she was able to see that the word problem was just an algebra problem, and she came up with the answer. Eventually, she began to see she could do word problems. After a weekend of preparation for the Series 7 exam, she passed it.

VP Human Resources for a 2 Billion Dollar Company

Initially this client was a Human Resources VP of a billion dollar company and, during the time we worked with him, his company acquired another company and doubled their size. While he had already been struggling with trying to handle all the HR issues with the first company, with the acquisition of the second company, he now had twice the work with no additional staff to help him. He was skeptical about the results of this practice, so we gave him the test and the three months of coaching at no charge if he did not see any results. Within one month, he began to see results, and paid for his test and consulting fees. He then had us test his six direct reports and we begin working with the entire team. The VP HR, in his mid-50’s, could not do word problems. His staff didn’t know how to solve
their own problems and were always coming to him, but since he was solving their problems, he had no time to focus on his own work. Within four months of our working with his team, he was able to do word problems, his staff was motivated to solve their own problems, and they ended up managing the two billion dollar company better than they had been with the original billion dollar company. The VP HR now had more time off and his golf game improved.

9 Year Old Boy in Special Education

This young client was brilliant in terms of Ability but was very slow in Performance. In school, he did not have enough time to think through things, so he had to make decisions under time pressure and he under performed; as a result of this, he decided he was stupid. After two months of working with Critical Thinking, he was out of Special Education. In another three to five months, he was thriving in advanced classes. His parents were taught to be his coaches and they worked on these skills with the boy every day.

More Results!

  • A new business in branding reached $48,000,000 in sales in 5 years.
  • A new business in the fashion industry reached over $10,000,000 in sales in 3 years.
  • The Human Resource Department for a billion-dollar company improved their effectiveness so much that, when the company doubled in size through acquisition to 2 billion, they were able to successfully serve the whole company without needing any more staff and did it with far less stress.
  • A commodity broker made more in 1 month than he did in his previous best year.
  • Helped a very successful stock broker increase his revenues by over 20% while reducing his workload by over 40%.
  • A custom software company which was stuck at less $2million in sales for 5 years is now at over $20 million in as little as 3 years.
  • Helped a business owner, who was thinking of shutting his business down due to lack of profit, have his best year both in terms of revenues and profit in a period of six months.
  • Golfer after 30 years of golf shot an 82 when his previous best was 92.
  • Helped a 15-year-old tennis player become nationally ranked in 6 months.
  • Took the worse platoon in a U.S. Marine Corps battalion (There are 15 platoons in a battalion) and in ten weeks of our training they were the best platoon plus their behavior improved dramatically and it was able to recognize improvised explosive devices far more effectively.
  • Dramatically improved marksmanship of Marines without their needing to go to the rifle range.
  • In 18 months helped the Marine Recruiting Station in Chicago go from 23rd out of 24 Recruiting Stations in the western half of the United States to be number one while reducing their work week by over 40%. The Commandant of the Marine Corps called them to congratulate them on doing something no other Recruiting Station had done in the history of the Marine Corps.
  • Improved training of NFL rookies in effective decision making and emotional intelligence.
  • Helped new attorneys pass the Bar Exam, doctors pass their board certifications, architects pass their licensing exams and stock brokers pass their licensing exams.
  • Helped many students succeed academically.
  • Many more examples as well are available.