Memories of My Mind Mapping Meanderings

In this post I look back on some of the experiences and people who led me into the fabulous career of helping people achieve their goals through Mental Literacy and Mind Mapping. It certainly helped me through my school days. Just like the ‘butterfly effect’ – The theory that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings can change the course of a hurricane on the other side of the world – Any number of chance factors could have taken me in an entirely different direction.

When I was 16 years old, I enjoyed science and was generally top of my physics class. It’s odd, but I had better philosophical conversations about physics with an art teacher, Mr Hall, than I did with my physics teacher. Mr Hall was a quirky sort of guy with a dry sense of humour and a fascination for theoretical physics. He’d say things like, “I was washing the kitchen floor and decided that the ‘many worlds interpretation of Quantum Mechanics’ couldn’t be true.” Since I was reading “A Brief History of Time”, he treated me as an adult. He paid me one of the greatest compliments I have ever had. He said, in art, a ‘Chambers Solution’ was to find the most complicated way of doing something and then do it that way to show you could.

Exam Strategies

However, there’s a big difference between being good in class tests and sitting exams. My physics teacher, at the end of the course, as revision was being discussed talked a little bit about Mind Maps. As I know now, revision should be an ongoing part of studying and integrated throughout the whole course, not an add on at the end. At 16 you believe your teachers and so revision was basically started at Easter in preparation for summer exams. Knowing that there was a lot I had to recall in order to do well, I thought any tool is better than nothing. I got some GCSE revision cards from WHSmith and set about trying to Mind Map based on what the teacher had said.

Looking back now, they were a very poor approximation to Mind Maps as the teacher wasn’t trained in Mind Mapping and only knew about half the rules. Nevertheless, my Proto-Mind-Maps used colour, lines and diagrams. I had rather too many phrases and boxes but thanks to these notes and my general interest in the subject, I was able to get grade ‘A’ in physics. (It’s a pity they hadn’t invented at ‘A*’ grade at the time so I don’t know if I could have done even better.)

In the final year at School the whole of the geography department collapsed. The head of geography was given an opportunity too good to miss, spending a sabbatical on the use of computers as a teaching tool. The other teacher, having previously organised successful expeditions, was offered a senior role in the “Duke of Edinburgh’s Awards Scheme”. So, we had no teacher and at least a third of the course not yet covered. We had a brief spell with a geography supply teacher who was worse than useless and eventually the Deputy Head stepped into the role. Knowing that I was basically cut adrift, I wrote to the exam board and ordered a syllabus. I was able to use my still embryonic Mind Mapping skills and the odd bit of memory I had picked up to make sure that I covered everything necessary. To my surprise I was the only person in the school to get an ‘A’ in geography.

Incidentally, I was Head Boy at school. This means, along with ‘Head Girl’ we were in charge of the prefects’ duty rota and reported directly back to the headteacher. Looking back with modern sensibilities, the level or surveillance feels somewhat morally questionable, a bit like the education equivalent of the Gestapo! We were also tasked to give a speech in front of all the parents on ‘awards day’.

Sixth Form College

At sixth form college I continued to try a bit of Mind Mapping. I had just joined Mensa (The High IQ Society). By the way, I believe IQ is only a measure of have good you are at doing specific types of reasoning. It is not a reliable predictor of academic or career success. A trained and developed working memory is a much more reliable indicator. Tony Buzan was a sometime columnist in the Mensa magazine so I was aware of him.

Way back then, there were only four TV channels. On a Sunday morning the BBC would show ‘Open University’ programs. It was often the case that the TV would be on and repeats of Tony Buzan’s “Use Your Head” were broadcast before the lunchtime news. I don’t remember seeing the whole series or paying much attention but it was another thing that caused Tony to come across my radar.

The third chance encounter was through a book-club which my parents belonged to. This was a mail-order service where you could buy discount books. They would suggest a book of the month which you had to opt out of. One-month, my mother forgot and we got sent a copy of “Master Your Memory”. It was on the bookshelf and I read the first couple of chapters. If you’ve seen the book you’ll know that beyond this it is just tabulated data.

University Days

I applied to ‘Peterhouse College’ at Cambridge University where I utterly blew my interview. It wasn’t until I was walking out of the college that I suddenly realised that the questions asked were to see if I could recognise a trigonometric identity. I’m so pleased I went to my second choice of University which was the beautiful city of Durham. It’s famous for mopping up many of the near misses to Oxbridge. Whilst there, I joined the “Use Your Head Society” named after Tony’s TV series and he visited as guest speaker on a couple of occasions. This got me hooked. I attended the World Memory Championships as a spectator and helper in the summer vacation. I met World Memory Champion, Dominic O’Brien, bought his book (with student union funds) and read it before making it generally available as a society resource. As speakers’ secretary for the society, I was also able to invite Dominic up to Durham to give a talk. Armed with better Mind Mapping skills and Dominic’s memory techniques I was much better prepared to tackle the demands of studying Physics and Chemistry.

I think it was probably in my second year at Durham when I was called for jury service. This was scheduled during the summer vac. It required lots of waiting around so I borrowed Edward deBono’s book, “PO, Beyond Yes and No” from the Use Your Head Society ‘library’ before the break to occupy my time. It’s ironic that I was being asked to make a binary decision of ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty’ in a fraud trial whilst reading a book which is all about the failings of ‘yes-no’ thinking in creativity.

Championships and Beyond

The following year I completed in the cards discipline in the memory tournament. It was so small-scale, people could dip their toe in the water instead of attempting all 10 events. I chose cards because I only needed to learn 52 people using Dominic’s System instead of 100 had I attempted ‘Numbers’. I was able to memorise two decks of cards perfectly. At the time that was regarded as very good and I came seventh in the discipline. Today the World Record stands at a little over 48 decks. Oh, how the world has changed!

Also, at the World Memory Championships, I first met Vanda North. She suggested that I train as what was then called, a “Radiant Thinking Instructor”. I attended the training down in Bournemouth in 1995 after graduation from Durham and the rest is history.