How to Use Your Head With Mind Mapping
Transcription of interview with Tony Buzan on June 13th 2011
Douglas Goldstein, CFPÆ, Financial Planner & Investment Advisor
Douglas Goldstein: We are talking with Tony Buzan, the worldís foremost expert on thinking
visually and leading lecturer on the brain and learning.
Heís the inventor of Mind Maps, which Iím sure many, many people use and if you donít,
I think after this discussion, you will certainly want to.
He has been a mentor and teacher to many of my mentors and teachers when I first started
getting interested in memory from 20 years ago.
Iím very honored to have you on the show.
Tony Buzan: Doug, Iím glad to be on this.
Douglas Goldstein: So letís just start right away with mind mapping.
You invented this technique?
Tony Buzan: Yes I did.
I invented it because I was at university and I found that my marks were going down,
my confidence was going down, and the amount of work I had to do was going up.
It didnít seem right.
Again, I examined my notes, thinking that my notes were my savior and the more notes
I made, the better I would be but I found exactly the opposite.
The more notes I made, the worse I got.
So I analyzed my notes and I began to realize that when exams were looming, I would, in
desperation, pull through my notes, underlining the keywords, taking them out and putting
them on the memory cards, and those memory cards were less than 10% of the volume of
my notes.
So it struck me that I was wasting more than 90% of my time making notes that were totally
irrelevant to my memory.
Douglas Goldstein: When you say memory cards, do you mean flashcards with one side and another
that you flip over?
Tony Buzan: Yes.
They were slightly large flashcards with a few keywords on each one and then I realized
that those keywords were isolated in space.
So I began to draw lines and I was filling them out of little codes and whatever and
I found that those memory cards of mine were 10 times more efficient than my normal linear
wordy, not much monochromatic, and boring notes.
Then I closely added pictures worth a thousand words, and every society knows what it means
that a picture worth a thousand words in terms of memory and learning.
So I began to put little codes and little images and I found that suddenly in front
of me was this map of my thoughts.
It was as if Iíd been driving through my life with the windscreen totally caked with
mud then suddenly the windshield wipers had wiped and I could see.
My map was just like that.
It allowed me to think more clearly, to see the detail of my thinking, to see the overview,
and everyone wants to see both the trees and the forest at the same time and the woods.
It allowed me to overview.
It allowed me to strategize.
It allowed me to remember way, way better than before and that was the invention of
Mind Map.
It was a gift.
Douglas Goldstein: That certainly was a gift because so many people have now learned about
it from you and your books, and in a few words youíve described how it allowed you to see
clearly, gives you an overview, strategize, and remember.
My day job is that Iím an investment advisor here in Israel at Profile Investments and
I do investing.
I do financial planning with people and the concepts youíre describing are so important,
but how can people use the Mind Map, letís say to become better investors?
Tony Buzan: Well, for example thereís a man called Johnson, who used to work with various
leading companies and he had a 10% compounding improvement in his investment portfolio for
10 years.
What he would do is take all his major advisors and say, ìAlright, give me all the latest
news that you think is relevant to investment.î So the top 10 people would give him all the
information.
He would Mind Map each individualís information and then he put that into a big Mind Map.
He looked at the big Mind Map where the repetitions were positive and repetitions were negative,
but the overall pattern was looking like he had his own thoughts or ideas from that previous
week and then heíd make his decisions.
And he said, ìThe Mind Map allows me to see the whole picture clearly and especially in
times of crisis where now people panic.î The thinking goes AWOL.
They become unclear.
They firefight rather than looking at the entire situation.
So the Mind Map gives you perspective.
It gives you more detail.
It gives you a bigger overview.
It gives you the whole picture and you can, therefore, make a much more intelligent and
probably successful decision.
And Johnson said, ìIím not correct every time because the percentage of my being correct
has shot up, as the 10% increase annually shows.î
Douglas Goldstein: Right.
Certainly, I think if you have the ability to strategize and you have all the information
at your fingertips, this can only help.
We are talking with Tony Buzan, who is the worldís foremost expert on thinking visually
and he is a leading lecturer around the world.
Heís lectured to diverse audiences ranging from large companies to universities and governments.
Weíve been talking so far about mind mapping, but another area that I know you focused quite
a bit on is speed reading.
Now a lot of people claim to be speed readers and Iíve tried it myself and I just feel
nothing really happens, but what is it about reading that people can really, really improve?
Tony Buzan: Good question.
That was actually one of the big eye openers and mind openers in my life.
When I was about 13, we were given a battery of tests and we didnít know what they were.
We didnít know weíre being tested.
It was so designed, but one of the subtle tests was speed reading.
I came out at the age of 13 at the speed of 213 words a minute and I thought, ìHey!
Thatís pretty good.î You know 213 words in 60 seconds, so I was pretty tough until
I found out that the girl sitting next to me in class was reading 314 words a minute
- over 100 words a minute faster than me.
So I said to my teacher, ìI want to learn how to improve my reading speed,î and he
said, ìYou canít do that.
Itís like your IQ, itís like your height, itís like the color of your eyes, youíre
born with it and thatís the way it is.î Now being a rebellious teenager, I thought
that I was not going to stop with that.
I had just started to work on my physical health, and I had begun to see the changes
in my muscles, so I thought, why not change my reading speed?
So I studied the way that the eyes perceive, the way in which the brain collection handles
information and data, and I managed over about four months of gentle efforts to double my
reading speed.
I thought that was pretty good, and then I put it in lifelong terms.
If I had been going to read 2000 books, Iím now going to read 4000 books.
If I had been able to read 2000 books for a certain amount of time, I can now read 2000
books in the same amount of time and use the extra time to do whatever else I wanted.
So it made a massive difference in my life.
For our listeners, what I recommend is buy books and scan the web, but just realize that
your eyes can be trained to perceive in different ways.
In the same way that being in an office trains your eyes, a gem stone expert trains the eyes,
and a naturalist trains the eyes, you can train your eyes to read faster with increased
comprehension and understanding with simple amount of training.
Douglas Goldstein: How does that connect with being a visual thinker, because reading seems
so unnatural to look at words and then to convert them to an image because, as youíve
noted, our mind is thinking images.
Tony Buzan: Yes, exactly.
Now when youíre a good visual thinker and youíre a good reader, what youíre doing
is youíre following.
Youíre reading primarily for the key ideas in the context and youíre building in your
head a picture or Mind Map of what the information is all about, especially in studying and learning
non-fiction books.
So youíre not reading for the words, youíre reading for the ideas, images, and interconnections.
One of the great stumbling blocks for a reader is the way that was taught of reading with
ñ Iíll start the phrase and see if you can finish it.
The Teacher says ìAlright, children this is a very important book, you got to take
it home, understand it all and read it slowly and --î
Douglas Goldstein: Carefully.
Tony Buzan: Exactly, slowly and carefully.
Now that sounds very intelligent doesnít it?
That if you want to understand something, you got to be careful about it but youíve
got to do it slowly until you can get it all in.
But the brain doesnít work like that, and I can give you a very simple example of why.
Douglas Goldstein: What if someone started to listen to the show now, and theyíre going
to say ìWho is this guest?î
Tony Buzan: ìWhoís that moron that Dougís got on the show today?î So slowly and carefully,
although it sounds wonderful, is disguised but is a total poison for good reading.
The brain factor is a good rhythmical, speedy intake of words rather than the slow, methodical,
word by word.
So the fast reader automatically understands more comprehensibly more than what is taught
in a way that we thought was correct, but turns out to be actually incorrect, and not
only incorrect but the opposite of what we should be doing.
Douglas Goldstein: It is tragic.
Weíre out of time now.
However, Iíd like to continue this discussion with you on a later show, so letís just tell
listeners, because weíve covered not only mind mapping but speed reading, which is all
critical, how people can learn more about the Tony Buzan method of Mind Maps and speed
reading, and then weíll take a break and come back at a different time to cover some
of the other questions that we have.
Tony Buzan: Yes, Iíd love to do that.
For mind mapping and the new computer iMindMap, they can go to my website www.thinkbuzan.com,
where you can download Mind Mapping.
Iím giving video and DVD explanations on how to do it by hand and how to do it by computer.
In terms of books, there are two books that I would recommend.
My original book, called Use Your Head is about how to get your brain better with memory,
speed reading and mind mapping, etc., and then the Mind Map books and the Mind Map for
business.
All of these books are published at the BBC, and this can give you a really good start.
Douglas Goldstein: Okay, Tony Buzan, thank you so much for joining us today.
Tony Buzan: Iíd love to come back.
Douglas Goldstein: Okay, take care.
Douglas Goldstein, CFPÆ, is the director of Profile Investment Services and the host
of the Goldstein on Gelt radio show (Monday nights at 7:00 PM on www.israelnationalradio.com.
He is a licensed financial professional both in the U.S. and Israel.
Securities offered through Portfolio Resources Group, Inc., Member FINRA, SIPC, MSRB, NFA,
SIFMA.
Accounts carried by National Financial Services LLC.
Member NYSE/SIPC, a Fidelity Investments company.
His book Building Wealth in Israel is available in bookstores, on the web, or can be ordered
at: www.profile-financial.com (02) 624-2788 or (03) 524-0942.
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