Theatre of the Mind Podcast Episodes

Kelly Howell: OK, here we go. Welcome to Theatre of the Mind. I'm your host Kelly Howell. Last week we did a map of the human soul. This week we're doing mind mapping with author Michael Gelb. He was on the show a few weeks back.


He is the author of "DaVinci Decoded" and a number of other books. This particular show was a request from Nakita, and as I've never taken a formal class on mind mapping, I thought it was a great idea. Trevor, I hope this isn't too wifty for you. Wifty, not to be confused with witty.


What we're looking into today is a very powerful technique to develop crosshemispheric thinking, meaning using both sides of your brain. Now mind mapping has been around for a long time, but some things are really worth revisiting and this is one of them.


Before we go into the interview which I recorded with Michael on Friday, I'm going to tell you that I've been following the instructions he gave me, which you'll hear in a minute, and I'm astounded. You can use mind mapping for just about anything.


You can use it for brainstorming and problem solving. Michael uses it to write all of his books. You can use it for inner work like examining your own beliefs, desires and goals. You can use it for dreams, for note taking, for anything basically.


What it's like is a crosstraining for your brain and as you do it, you'll feel the new connections happening in your brain. It requires the left side of your brain to follow the rules, which we'll learn, and the right side of your brain just to have fun, explore and be creative.


I want to read you something that I found in Tony Buzan's book, "The Mind Map Book", that I found to be fascinating. He writes, "Every time you have a thought, the biochemical resistance along the pathway carrying that thought is reduced.


It's like trying to clear a path through a forest. The first time is a struggle because you have to fight your way through the underbrush. The second time you travel that way will be easier because of the clearing you did on your first journey.


The more times you travel that path the less resistance there will be until, after many repetitions, you have a wide smooth track which requires little or no clearing." In other words what he's saying here is that the more times a mental event happens, the more likely it is to happen again.


This can be a good thing but it can also be not so good, depending on what that event is. What I find fascinating about that is that we get into habits, patterns, ways of thinking, being and behaving. It's hard to make changes.


Mind mapping is a very powerful tool to work some new neuronal pathways and new ways of thinking. Yes, I think we all need to remember that the brain is a like a muscle and we need to work it. Mind mapping is a wonderful way to stretch the brain, to pump iron, to build that muscle.


I love what a neuroscientist said. I think I saw it on "60 Minutes." He said, "You know, everybody today is so worried about how they look, going to the gym and pumping iron, getting facelifts and taking human growth hormone. What people should really be worrying about is the brain." We need to work our brains to keep them young and vital. Just like going to the gym. So here we go with the interview. Welcome back to the show Michael.
Michael Gelb: Thank you very much. It's great to be here.
Kelly: Yes. Thanks for coming. You've been away for a while. Where have you been?
Michael: I have been in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Washington D.C.
Kelly: What were you doing?
Michael: Oklahoma. Seminars, lectures, teaching people how to think like Leonardo da Vinci, how to mind map to solve their most important business problems.
Kelly: Oh good.


[laughing]
Kelly: That's what we're going to talk about today. I'm really excited to learning about mind mapping. Tell me what is the origin of mind mapping?
Michael: Mind mapping was originated by my dear friend and longtime colleague Tony Buzan. Tony was researching how people learn and how the learning process could be accelerated, focusing originally on helping students improve their schoolwork.


He studied techniques of speedreading, memory development, and of course he did research into note taking. He took all the research into note taking that was available at that time in the late sixties, and the best of the best research into note taking at that time, was that the best note takers use key words.


They're succinct and capture the essence of what a professor might be saying in a lecture for example. They jotted down the key word. Curiously, they also found that the best note takers printed their notes. One big problem that they had was people taking notes...
Kelly: They can't read their handwriting.
Michael: Exactly. They couldn't read their own writing. So printed key word notes were much better than sentences, paragraphs, outlines or anything else. Buzan, at this time, was tuned into the research of Professor Roger Sperry on the left and right hemisphere of the brain.
Kelly: I love the way he writes about the brain.
Michael: All his books are written with mind maps just like all my books are written with mind maps.
Kelly: You write your books with mind maps?
Michael: Of course. And so does Tony. People say, "So how could you write a book so efficiently and gracefully?" Mind maps. Tony was and still is a student of the great brains of history, and he will tell you that the person that inspired him the most in the creation of mind mapping was Leonardo da Vinci.


Buzan took what he learned from the way that Leonardo took notes, from the research of Professor Michael Howe at Exeter University in England and other note taking research of the time, integrated with Sperry's work, and created mind mapping which he introduced in his original book, published in England, called, "Use Your Head", which was also a show on the BBC.
Kelly: I remember reading about that. How did you get into it?
Michael: In 1975 I was in London training as a teacher of the Alexander Technique. I was also doing a master's degree, a selfdesigned master's program, in which I was required to write a hundred page thesis. The problem was that I had learned to write by joining paraphrased quotes with ands, therefores, and indeeds.


[laughing]
Michael: Which is good enough to get me honor's graduation from university in three years instead of four.
Kelly: Yes.
Michael: When I graduated I realized I knew something of great value which was that I knew nothing of any value.


[laughing]
Michael: So, I crafted this masters program. It was one of these selfdesigned masters programs. But, you really had to write something that was an expression of your real thinking, not just feedback what the professor had taught you, and I was stuck. Fortunately, Tony Buzan was taking private Alexander Technique lessons at the time, and the head of the Alexander Technique training course was Tony's teacher.


So this gentlemen, Paul Collins, invited Tony to come and give a talk about his work to our Alexander Course. So, after Tony's talk, I went to Paul Collins, the director of the school, and I said, "This Buzan guy is brilliant. I would really like to learn more about what he's doing" because I had this vision at the time of creating a system of total development body, emotion, mind, spirit. And Tony seemed to have the mind piece worked out already. Well, Paul said to me, "Well, it's funny you should say that, cause Tony said to me right before he left 'Who was that American guy who was asking all those questions? I really want to work with him.'" So, Tony and I got together, and he taught me Mind Mapping personally.
Kelly: Oh my!
Michael: And I give him Alexander Technique lessons...
Kelly: Lucky you!
Michael: ...and taught him how to juggle. So, I went back to the drug board on my thesis, and put some big flipchart pad that's on the wall of my flat in London, and started Mind Mapping. And I made this amazing Mind Map that covered all my walls. It was it looked completely chaotic, but I followed the rules of my mapping as Tony imparted them to me, and something amazing happened. I discovered I knew way more about my topic, had so much more to say than I imagined, made connections that I never would have made otherwise.


And just to give you an idea of how long ago this is there were no computers. I wrote it out longhand, and I gave it to a friend who typed it up for me, and sent it in. My thesis advisor said, cause you had to do writing essays along the way, but when I handed him my thesis he said, "I've never seen a student's writing improve so much in the course of my career. It's as though you've found your true voice." And that thesis, then was passed on to a publisher, and it became a published work. I remember seeing it for the first time in a 400 year old book store, in the front window, as I walked past the storefront in Hampstead.
Kelly: Oh, that's wonderful.
Michael: I think I became an international author. The book I translated into 14 languages.
Kelly: And how old were you then?
Michael: Well, let's see. This year is the 25th anniversary of that publication of that book, and that was 1981.
Kelly: Well, and you're still using the same technique.
Michael: Yes, and the good news is that I was lucky enough to be there, at the inception, at the birth of, the launching of Mind Mapping, and Tony and I started to collaborate. In 1978 we talked about our first seminar together, called the, "Mind and Body Seminar." My insight at that time was that this was much more I mean Tony understood this too, but I made it explicit that Mind Mapping was much more than note taking technique. It was a technique for training you to think like Leonardo da Vinci. To integrate art, and science, logic, and imagination.


So, together Tony and I had a lot of dialogue, a lot of practice teaching Mind Mapping to people who were using it needed to use it to solve real problems in very dynamic, challenging, business environments. And then, in 1982 I moved to the States, and pretty much introduced Mind Mapping to the U.S. in a series of seminars around the country sponsored by Qwest. I did...
Kelly: Oh, that's amazing!
Michael: Remember that?
Kelly: Yeah.
Michael: Those are the people who introduced Gene Houston...
Kelly: Yeah.
Michael: ...and LP, and all that stuff.
Kelly: Yeah.
Michael: Well, they sponsored my Mind Mapping seminar called, "High Performance Learning." I did it all over the country. Then I started to hear from people in organizations who wanted to learn how to apply this in the work place, and then I carried on writing every book. I've written nine more books, all done in Mind Maps.
Kelly: Mind Maps. Do you have a big pad, and you tape everything up on the wall, or how do you actually do it?
Michael: Well, now I use easels, and flipcharts, and...
Kelly: OK.
Michael: And I have a big white board in my offices. I always have white boards, and I Mind Map on those. I have a white board we just bought a new house you know, we have a white board for Mind Mapping for house stuff. When you come in the house...
Kelly: Oh, I saw that. I remember that, yeah.
Michael: So, and we have a kitchen one meal planning, and recipes that we create, and...
Kelly: So, is that one of those just you erase it, kind of thing?
Michael: Yeah, yeah.
Kelly: Oh, that's cool.


[laughter]


What is the difference between Mind Mapping, webbing, and other nonlinear note taking systems?
Michael: It's a really important question, because there's a lot of confusion. It's so wonderful to break out of the tyranny of top down, higher article, linear thinking, which we're all imprinted. We're all imprinted on this idea of making an outline.
Kelly: Right 1, A, B, C, D.
Michael: A, B, C, D. If the Martians wanted to slow down human creative progress, they'd say, "Aha, let's get them to think in outline," cause outlining causes premature organization. And premature organization prevents conception. Because, it's just plain illogical to try to put things in order, before you think of them. So, nonlinear note taking, which says, "Instead of starting topdown, and going 1, A, B, C, D, just go off in any direction," is a big release from that tyranny.


Webbing is a system where you go off on lines, and you print or write a couple of words, and circle it, and go off from there. You've seen it, they teach it in schools.
Kelly: You know it's interesting. I always thought I was doing Mind Mapping, but I was actually doing webbing.
Michael: Yeah, and it's better than linear note taking, it's better than trying to make an outline. You'll be freer, but you're missing out on so much.
Kelly: I feel that I have been. I really I got that when I looked at your brochure, and I thought, "Wait."
Michael: Because every one of the rules for Mind Mapping, that make Mind Mapping, Mind Mapping, start with an image in the center.
Kelly: Why don't we just start with that? What are the rules of Mind Mapping?
Michael: Start with an image in the center of the page. Why an image? They're way more memorable. A picture's worth a thousand words. Instead of relegating them to the realm of doodling, which almost everybody does as an expression as the split between the left and right brain, bring the imaginative right hemisphere right into the center of your thinking, planning, and problem solving. You don't have to be Leonardo da Vinci, or Picasso to do it. A simple doodle that represents your topic.


So, for example, if we were making a Mind Mapping about Mind Maps, we could do a simple image of the two hemispheres of the brain. It looks like a butterfly, anybody can draw it, just to give you a visual of what you could start with. So, you start with an image in the center. Then, on lines radiating out from that central image, you print key words related to your topic. What is a keyword? It is a word that is information rich.


So, for example, if you are studying Shakespeare. The keyword in the study of Shakespeare is, "Hamlet." And if you think of Hamlet, and you've read Shakespeare, you'll think, "Prince, Elsinore, Tragedy."


Example of a nonkeyword might be, "The."


[laughter]


"Of, Wherefore, What."
Kelly: Oh, yeah.
Michael: You don't need those words to remember, or think creatively. Once you have learned grammar, and syntax, you put keywords into sentences and paragraphs [snaps fingers] automatically. What your mind needs in order to associate in the most effective way, to remember in the most effective way, create in the most effective way, are images and keywords. So you print a keyword...
Kelly: So you have your image in the center.
Michael: Your image in the center...
Kelly: And then, say your first thing, you draw a line...do you put the keyword on the line?
Michael: On the line, just for common sense reasons. If you put the keyword off the line, it is just sort of floating there and you wasted the space of the line.
Kelly: Well, what I have been doing is doing a line, attaching to a keyword, and circling it.
Michael: You are wasting space. Plus when you circle it, you are cutting it off from its next line of association. So for example if we were making a mind map of this conversation so far, we might put our butterfly image of the two hemispheres of the brain in the center and we might have a branch coming off with one keyword printed, "Origin." because that was the first question you asked me. Then we would have a keyword that said, "Buzan." Then we might have a keyword off that said, "Da Vinci."
Kelly: Are these branches off the...
Michael: They are branches off the note taking. Got the idea?
Kelly: So they are almost like dendrites. [laughs]
Michael: Not almost like, it is like dendrites. Dendrite comes from dendron, meaning "tree." It is like a tree of your thought. Your brain is like a tree. A mind map is a graphic representation of the interconnected amazing network of dendrites that are operating right now, that are living right now and recreating themselves right now. Mind map is a way to allow that process of thinking to be manifest graphically.
Kelly: On the page...
Michael: In the most precise and balanced way, A la Leonardo da Vinci. And so each one of these guidelines or rules print one word per line. Why print? So you can read it. Why one word per line? Because if it is a keyword, it is only one word by definition. Occasionally you can hyphenate or put in a slash but that is an exception, generally one word per line.


On the lines, because part of the power of the mind map is that you are going to get more ideas on one sheet of paper than you ever have before, and you want to make new connections between them. So you don't want to waste space on a line with nothing on it. It is just common sense. Plus, you want to see as clearly as you can, how the thoughts flowed one into another. So when you connect on the lines, print on the lines, keep the words the same size as the lines. It is easier to see the logical flow of association. Just as we...
Kelly: Because the lines are just if you don't have a keyword with it, you have no idea...
Michael: What is it there. You just get lost and you are discoordinated and disconnected in your thinking. So we want to be free but we also want to be focused. This is the harmony, the balance, the ying and yang. Webbing goes off too much into the free flow without the clarity and focus.


Plus, webbing and other nonlinear systems leave out the visual. They leave out the images which is critically important for integrating the two hemispheres of the cerebral cortex. When you take those doodles and make them images in your mind map around your topic, you are then stimulating that right imaginative hemisphere to be part directly of your thinking, planning, and problem solving. Not something you do to get relaxation from the overbearing pressure of trying to put everything in order.
Kelly: Speaking of pressure. A lot of people feel pressure when it comes to drawing, seriously.
Michael: You know who the most natural, wonderful mindmappers are? They are kids. Because they haven't yet learned to internalize vicious critique of everything they draw. [laughter] So the simple guidance is to draw like a child. Now we need help in becoming as little children. For example in the appendix of "How to think like Leonardo da Vinci," that is why put in the "Think like da Vinci Drawing Course." To give people a very basic stepbystep way of accessing that ability to draw the kinds of images and shapes that will help them be better mindmappers.
Kelly: Is it important to use different colors.
Michael: Once again, you want to bring in as much sensory richness as you can. Because the richer it is, the more you remember it, the more stimulating it is to your imagination and your creativity. You can use colors in a coded way. For example, you can make your mind map all in blue ink, and then you could highlight in vivid yellow your most important points. You could put in the Orange the points you still have big questions about. You could put in blue the points you think might be relevant to a particular constituency in your workplace or to your boss.


So you can colorcode it for meaning as you go through it. Or you could just mindmap in different colors as you are so moved to do because it is more fun and more beautiful and therefore more stimulating and relaxing and expanding for your mind.
Kelly: I was trying to mind map with colored pencils and I felt like I had too many choices. Which colors should I choose for what and...
Michael: Well if you have that problem, just do bluebased color. So you don't have to worry about choosing a color. Just map out everything in blue, then go around with other colors and highlight in those other colors.
Kelly: Now how long do you spend doing a map? Did you do a map of your whole book or did you go chapterbychapter? I'm sure you did chapterbychapter.
Michael: I did both. I did the whole book first, got the big picture, then I went through and took the keywords from that map and they become the center of separate mind maps which became the chapters. But the answer is there is another question within question...
Kelly: How long do you spend? Say your first overview, your very first mind map on a project.
Michael: We could also add to that because it also implies the question, "How do you know when your mind map is finished?"
Kelly: Exactly, that was going to be my next question. [laughs]
Michael: [laughs] Well, they all connect.
Kelly: I don't know if they ever get finished. Do they?
Michael: Well this is the thing. Theoretically, a mind map never ends. Because, as Leonardo da Vinci said, everything connects everything else. So if you mind map long enough you connect all of human knowledge. That is what he was trying to do in the "Adoration of the Magi" for example. So when is a mind map complete? When your problem is solved. [laughs]


So your first mind map might be, "Let me map out the big picture of this project, this book, this article, this vacation, this presentation." When you feel, surveying what you have done, that you have solved that problem, you are done with it. Now let us say you mapped out everything and you don't feel you have solved the problem yet. Take a break. Let it go completely. Leonardo counsels us in his notebooks, It is good every now and then to take a little relaxation and come back to look at problem afresh.


It is also from the research we know from how the human mind works. If we work at something for 50, 60 minutes, take a 10minute complete break, our recall for materials is higher after the 10minute break than it was at the end of the 50 or 60 minutes because we need time to integrate. So you build in that break, come back and look at your mind map, you will probably find a new stream of association. Another image that occurs to you. You will see a connection you didn't see before and you will get a whole new burst. And then you will map for another hour or another hour and a half. Then you will take another break. And now maybe your problem is solved or maybe you will come back to it and it continues.
Kelly: I learned mind mapping which I thought was mind mapping because it's been integrated into many different books as a creative tool. I learned it for writing.


Anytime I had a script to write or a brochure or a project, I would always do a little map. I would spend, maybe half an hour.
Michael: Well, here's the thing. You know what Jung said? He said, "I'm glad I'm Jung and not a Jungian." Tony Buzan wouldn't say I'm glad I'm Buzan and not a Buzanian.


[laughter]
Kelly: That sounds like someone from outer space a Buzanian. The Buzanians are coming!
Michael: But here's what I can tell you. On one hand imitation is a sincere form of flattery. But when the imitations are incomplete you are only getting part of the picture. So it's a blessing on the one hand that even incomplete teaching of mind mapping is a lot better than no mind mapping at all, right.
Kelly: No mind mapping at all.
Michael: But I can't emphasize enough how much benefit you'll get if you really learn mind mapping properly as Tony created it. I know because I was there at the beginning and went through the evolution of all of these rules with him, crosschecked them. There is so much more to be gained by learning it properly. Then after you learn it properly the find and create your own style. Imitate, assimilate and innovate. But you get so much more if you imitate the correct thing first.
Kelly: How would I get started really learning how to do it right?
Michael: I'll recommend a few resources. Obviously I recommend what I write, that's why I write it.
Kelly: We'll put it in the show notes too.
Michael: The Arte/Scienze chapter of 'How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci' and the Connessione chapter take you through, step by step how to mind map. It helps you build up the mind map and relate it to your most important life issues.


I also created an audio program on mind mapping from which people seem to get a lot of value. It's in a twocassette version. I think it's published by Simon & Schuster now. It was originally with Nightingale Conant.
Kelly: What's it called?
Michael: Mind Mapping. What a concept!


Then the bible of mind mapping is 'The Mind Map Book' by Tony Buzan. If you are really into it and you want to get chapter and verse, the magnum opus of mind mapping is 'The Mind Map Book' by Tony and his brother Barry. Those are the resources to which I give my kosher stamp.
Kelly: And tools for mind mapping? Do you recommend a large pad?
Michael: The bigger the paper the better.
Kelly: Better. A little notebook is just not in the.
Michael: The bigger the paper the better. Well, that's OK because once you get into this, you're mind mapping in your head all the time anyway. Then you can do it on I make my maps on postit notes, mini mind maps. When I'm in a meeting, I make a quick [makes noise like drawing quickly] and that turns out to be a 10 minute presentation at the end. It ties together everything in that meeting.


I sometimes do them on the pad in the hotel next to the phone when I'm talking with a client. I listen to what they say. They say, "We're doing this conference. We are considering you as a keynote speaker." I make a mind map of what they say.


You know what, it's amazing; I write down the exact keywords that they use. I listen to them for 10 minutes and I make my little mind map there. Then I give them my presentation, which is based on the mind map I made using the exact keywords that they used. They say, "It's amazing how well you seem to know what we need!"


[laughter]


Hello!


There are also some computer programs for mind mapping on the computer. Mind Jet and Inspiration.
Kelly: But that just seems so unfun.
Michael: No here's the deal. Those are great for communicating the mind map and for people who just work on their computer all the time. But first learn how to mind map the old fashioned way!
Kelly: There is something nice about a pen and paper.
Michael: Well, you're engaged in a different and more powerful way as far as your own mental power is concerned. The more your brain cells are kicking in more efficiently when you're drawing yourself.
Kelly: There's no technology in between.
Michael: Having said that, it's great to be able to transfer it on to the computer.
Kelly: What I'm looking at here is a wonderful 'HowTo' brochure that you've created. I'm just so impressed. You've got everything step by step mind mapping rules, putting rules to work, the benefits of mind mapping. What are the benefits? I want to hear all the benefits.
Michael: [laughs] What you're holding in your hands is called the new mind map. It's in the shape of a road map.
Kelly: It is it looks just like a road map.
Michael: You asked me before about resources before to help people mind mapping. This is the most concentrated resource. I was looking for a way once I'd taught people how to mind map, I knew that all their friends were going to say, "Hey what are your doing?" when they go to a meeting and they whip out all these colored pens. "And how can I learn it?"


I was looking for the most efficient, effective, simplest way that people could introduce their friends to mind mapping. So I created this road map for your mind.
Kelly: This is fantastic.
Michael: And I've actually sold more than 25,000 of them since I first created them.
Kelly: I bet!
Michael: Only by word of mouth.
Kelly: This is fantastic. Basically you could read books, you could get the computer program or you could get this map of the mind map.
Michael: This is the simplest thing, the simplest way to do it. If you open it up you'll see that on the other side it has a multicolored mind map about mind mapping.
Kelly: Oh, it's fantastic.
Michael: Which clients of mine all over the world have mounted on their office walls as a handy reference guide
Kelly: This is fantastic.
Michael: And again a way of introducing other people to it.
Kelly: This is great. Well, I want to do the benefits and the applications.
Michael: Benefits, applications, they go hand in hand. Because one of the big benefits is that there are lots of applications. [laughs] All of the applications help you get more work done in less time. You generate more ideas faster. And every approach to brainstorming emphasizes the importance of quantity of ideas.


Linus Pauling won two Nobel Prizes. He said, "If you want to get a good idea, get a lot of ideas." So mind mapping makes it easy to generate lots of ideas.
Kelly: And organize them, I hope.
Michael: That's the good news. Once you've generated them, because you print them on lines, one word per line, keywords keep the lines connected, they are more selforganizing. You can look at your mind map and you'll see connections you wouldn't have seen otherwise. Another name for that is creativity.


[laughs] So you will access your creative potential not just by reading a human potential book that tells you how creative you are. This is the "How To" for accessing that creativity.


So what's one thing I can do to be more creative, or as creative as I truly am, but I'm not currently manifesting? It's mind map, mind map, mind map.


[music]
Kelly: Hey Michael, thank you for coming here today. It's been great.
Michael: My pleasure as always.
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