Bookworm Transcripts

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Mike, I don't know that we've had a book where we've had this much color in it before.

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Can you think of one that's had more color in it than the one we have today?

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I don't think so.

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This one is definitely colorful and there are reasons for those colors, which we will get into.

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But...

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Oh, we'll get into it.

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It's true to itself. I'll say that.

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It's very meta.

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Very meta. However, before we can get there, we have to catch up on a couple things.

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And my first question is, did you listen to typology at all?

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I did.

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I've continued to listen to typology, basically.

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That's so nice.

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I listened to it before we recorded.

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Right.

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And it's I've subscribed.

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So I get the regular episodes.

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I don't listen to every single one, but some of them that sound interesting.

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I listen to.

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Nice. What any particulars that we're standing out to you, specific episodes?

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No, it's basically more of the one that I described.

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So I don't really care to...

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Sure.

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If you like the then-your-gram, it's going to be a cool podcast where they continue to

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like on-earth insights and it's kind of cool seeing people's reactions live.

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Like, hey, wow, I never really thought about that.

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You know, or totally, I can see that myself now.

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But to be honest, it's I've kind of moved on from the Enneagram.

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I was really excited about it when we recorded it last time.

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And I got some insights from it and still occasionally bring it up in conversation with my wife.

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Like occasionally, you know, Malachi will be doing his thing.

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Remember, he's a seven.

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She's like, oh, yeah.

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Here comes number seven.

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Yep.

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Yeah.

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Refer to your kids by their numbers.

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And I bought Toby a license for the Enneagram because he was curious about it

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after editing the last episode.

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And do we get to know?

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I don't think he took it yet.

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Oh.

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Hopefully he'll, hopefully he'll take it before.

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He has to take it before tomorrow.

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You have to take it before tomorrow for those for those listening.

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Mike and I are getting together tomorrow.

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Mike's you're coming to the Twin Cities for soccer tournament.

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Toby's soccer tournament, I believe is what that is.

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Yep.

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And well, you know, if we're going to be that close to each other, you got to stop by.

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Of course, obviously, right?

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So we get to see each other tomorrow.

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Super fun.

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Yeah.

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So yeah, my my fascination with the Enneagram has basically passed, but I still have the

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results and threw it in obsidian alongside the goalbie and all the other stuff.

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Of course.

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And that's it for now.

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I occasionally listen to typology and I'm good.

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I give you a service slash product idea that you should develop because you should do this.

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I couldn't do it.

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I could be your coder, but I couldn't do anything other than that.

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I think I think you should come up with some way to gather a bunch of these different types

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of tests, take the results from those tests collectively and give a test result.

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Okay.

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So this is you've already got my my wheel spinning because basically what Dan Sullivan

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did with unique ability is it's the Colby plus the Strengths Finder plus a couple of prompts.

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Yep.

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I could totally do this.

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But you should do Colby Strengths Finder Enneagram.

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Take your pick.

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If you had somewhere between five and ten of these things and you could somehow bring it

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all together, I think you would be good at that.

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I will gladly work on this if you're willing to code it.

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Yeah, I feel like it would be very interesting.

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We talk about these tests and personality test things enough.

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I feel like it would be super interesting.

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Yeah.

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It's a cool idea.

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Let's do it.

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Super fun.

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In our spare time.

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What is that?

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Do you have a definition for that?

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I've not seen it in so long.

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I forgot what it is.

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Nope.

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I did going coming back around.

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I did listen to an episode of Typology.

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It is interesting.

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Like you were saying, like it's fascinating to see people's reaction.

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I hear people's reactions to it.

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I hadn't thought of that before.

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So it's it's kind of cool.

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So I've I've left it on the subscribe list.

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It'll be it'll be good.

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So yeah, nothing more to say there.

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Did you try out daily?

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The other thing you got here.

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I did not.

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I have made more adjustments to my journaling.

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Okay.

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And to be honest, I can't even remember specifically what I changed this last time that we've done

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this because it continues to to modify.

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But one of the just one of the things that I was talking to my wife about today is we

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are trying a new budgeting software that every dollar that Dave Ramsey has.

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Oh, yeah.

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Yeah.

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Because it includes financial piece and all the other like subscription stuff that they

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they do now, financial piece, you can't buy it standalone.

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And when you could, it was like 150 bucks.

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So right.

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They've got a whole bunch of stuff now is like subscription content built into every dollar

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plus and then the software itself, which YNAB had gone up again and it was pretty similar.

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That was renewing.

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And I was like, I'll try this.

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And so as a result of going through some of that stuff and Dave Ramsey's thing, it's

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interesting because they don't believe in credit cards, right?

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So right to process an online payment, they have the field named debit card.

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And then below that, they say, we can't really tell if you're using a credit card here.

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So this is totally the honor system, but follow the plan and use your debit card.

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Uh huh.

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Yep.

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Yeah.

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So anyways, like just I've heard of that stuff before, but using the software, they have

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all these little touches, which I think are kind of cool to kind of nudge you in the direction

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that they're trying to teach you to the way to manage your money.

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And realize that one of the things that I want to start tracking my journal is basically,

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did I succeed in not spending anything today?

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Nice.

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Nice.

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Just so I have an opportunity to celebrate that if I did, you know, and bring awareness

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if I actually did have to buy something or whatever.

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So we should ignore Blake's comment about going fountain pin shopping together?

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Probably, but we'll see.

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All right.

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Fair enough.

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Yeah.

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Outside of all the other follow-ups that we've got, I had one other one, which you wrote

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down is focus more on my creativity, kind of leaning into that type four that I learned

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about myself with the Enneagram.

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And I spent quite a bit of time on this and I actually have a number of notes I made about

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this and trying to figure out what that might look like.

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And that actually led me down a pretty big rabbit trail of just realizing how much time

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I spent on making things and have spent on making things in the past.

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So it maybe got somewhere.

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I'm not really sure what to say as a result of that other than it's generated a lot of

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the insight about my history and the way my brain works.

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But I haven't really nailed down if that's going to lead to anything action oriented quite

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yet, but I don't know.

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I'm still down that process.

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It still comes up in the notes process.

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I go through occasionally, but that's how that stuff works right.

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So super fun.

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Exactly.

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Cool.

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So we should jump into today's book because...

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Speaking of creativity.

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I know, right?

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This will be fun.

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Yes.

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So this book is Mind Map Mastery by Tony Buzan.

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And I learned a lot about Mind Maps.

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I learned that he is the self-proclaimed inventor of Mind Maps, which I kind of knew

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prior to picking this book up.

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I had seen some things on Mind Maps, watched some YouTube videos of him way back in the

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day now, and where he was talking about how he invented it.

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And it's always seemed a bit hokey to me.

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Really?

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I feel like this has been around a very long time.

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How can you say that you invented this?

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And I think I have the answer to that question.

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But we're not going to answer it quite yet.

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So my big question at this very beginning, well, before I get there, the tagline on this

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is the complete guide to learning and using the most powerful thinking tool in the universe.

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That tagline by itself will probably tell you Tony's personality in itself.

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But it is an interesting read.

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But I'm curious, Mike, you have been quote unquote "mind mapping" for quite some time.

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Were you anxious to read this, scared to read this, skeptical to read this before you started

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reading it?

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What was your perception on it?

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Oh, that's a good question.

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Because I didn't count up the documents in my Mind Node folder in iCloud, but there

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are hundreds of them going back to 2013.

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So and I was mind mapping before Mind Node.

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So yes, I've been doing this for at least 10 years, probably more like 15.

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Moving into it, I was expecting to learn a few things that I did not already know about

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Mind Mapping, but I expected the majority of it would be kind of, yeah, I understand

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that already.

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I think I was pleasantly surprised and found more nuggets here than I thought.

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But that is very different than somebody who is coming to this with the intention of learning

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how to mind map from scratch today.

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Not person, I don't think I would recommend this book for.

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Okay, sure.

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What was your perspective going into it?

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It kind of sounds like you have not mind mapped as much as I have, but I'm assuming you were

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familiar with the concept, so you're not coming into it cold.

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Correct.

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Yeah, I had a period of time when I was working corporate where I did some very lightweight

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mind mapping as I called it, and I did get into the brain.

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Remember the software, the brain, I think it's still around.

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I got into that as a result of that experiment.

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It did not last long.

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I think I was into that for maybe a couple months.

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And I know that I've had maybe a couple periods where I did some mind maps about online courses,

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like trying to figure out what all should be in a course.

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And so that's really been my only real experience with it firsthand.

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I have not done mind mapping extensively at any stretch in my life, and I have not really

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done any form of study of what it would mean to do that.

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I've merely seen them and thought, huh, that's kind of cool.

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I heard a piece of paper and went for it, or grabbed my node and went for it.

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And I think I did play with Xmind at one point.

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What's the other one that's on set app?

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I thoughts, I think is in there as well.

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Yep, Xmind and I thoughts I think are both on set app, or they were at one point.

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Maybe they're not anymore, because like I said, I use my node.

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For several reasons, primarily it was the best looking one that synced seamlessly across

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all my Apple devices.

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However, it would be interesting to see which one Tony Bizan would say this is the closest

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thing to what I describe as mind mapping.

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Since his app is no longer being developed and supported.

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Correct.

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Is now defunct, yes.

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So I guess going into it, my expectation was, and what I was hoping to achieve was kind

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of an understanding of how I could use more around, like more visual thinking tools, not

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just text thinking tools.

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And that comes from me wanting to expand maybe some of my creative methods.

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I guess I would say that.

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So knowing that background, knowing I wanted to try to maybe implement another tool in my

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creativity tool belt, knowing that you had the background on this pretty extensively,

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and knowing that Tony Bizan is kind of known as the inventor of mind maps, it kind of all

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just seemed to work pretty well together.

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So here we are with mind map mastery.

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So I guess that all being said, unless there's something you want to say ahead of time, I

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feel like we should jump in and figure out what a mind map is.

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Let's do it.

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Okay.

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So there's at the very beginning, there's a forward by an eight time world memory champion,

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Dominic O'Brien, which is super interesting that I mostly skimmed.

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But at the same time, he jumps into what is a mind map at the very beginning, like that's

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the first section, which is super helpful because he very quickly qualifies himself as the inventor

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of mind maps.

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Like this is one of the very first things he points out, which I have to ask.

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What was your perception on that?

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Because I knew that was going to come having done a little bit of research on Tony Bizan.

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How did you take that?

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Did you just say, Oh, sure.

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Or did you deep dive the research?

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I didn't deep dive the research.

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I have written about mind mapping.

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I don't even know how many times over the last 10 years or so.

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And so I had done some preliminary research and Tony Bizan's name comes up all the time,

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some specific quotes from him about what is a mind map.

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At this point in the book, I kind of took it as like, yeah, that seems mostly true.

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I could tell he's taking some credit here where maybe he shouldn't be, but it wasn't

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a big deal to me.

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It didn't cause me to put the book down and figure out what's really going on or feel

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like I can't trust this guy at all.

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Sure.

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Yeah.

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Well, he's got, he does get into the explanations of what is, like how to create one.

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But I did do a little bit of research on the history of mind mapping because I figured,

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and I did kind of stop when I was reading to do this research because I knew it was going

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to color the rest of my perception on the book.

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If I didn't do that.

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So just to get this out here so that it's aired out before somebody else throws a fit.

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One of the first known mind maps originates somewhere around 300 AD.

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Just saying that however, this is, this is by a guy, a philosopher, Porphyry.

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I think is how you say it.

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Basically he drew what looks like kind of like your standard family tree picture and

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then he has names and concepts around the outside of this.

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Also from the roots, that's being classified as a mind map.

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If you look at it and then you look at some of the rules and laws that Tony Bousin gives

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us, he would not call that a mind map.

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So this, this is where it starts to get messy.

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So it wasn't until when was it the early 1970s that Tony Bousin coined that term mind map.

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So that's why he's claiming the invention of that.

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Fun side note to all of this.

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He actually, the Bousin organization.

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He passed away in 2019 or in 2019 by the way.

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But he, his organization holds the trademarks to the term mind map in the UK, the United

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States and Germany.

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I did not know that that was possible, but he owns the trademarks on those, on that phrase,

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which is fascinating to me.

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Anyway, that's some of the history of it.

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That kind of bothers me, to be honest.

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But that's just my perspective on ideas and I don't know.

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I understand it and there are things that you develop, that you are intellectual property.

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My parents have trademarks on some of the software and the assessments that they've developed

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for the family business.

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Mind map doesn't seem like something trademarkable.

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Right.

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But if he's got it, kudos to him.

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Makes more sense now why he's adamantly defending it because once you have a trademark, I can

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tell you that you have to defend it.

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The minute that you don't, you basically open up yourself to, if you were to try to sue somebody

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down the road, the fact that you didn't defend it and you were aware of it, that can be used

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against you and can cause your trademark to be invalid.

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So I'm not a lawyer.

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I just understand a little bit of it from experience with the family business.

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Yeah.

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I get where he's coming from a little bit more now.

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I do think by the way, the introduction to this is interesting where he talks about the

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conventional note taking versus mind mapping and how conventional note taking is linear,

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monochrome, word based, listed logic, sequential, restrictive, disorganized.

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I agree with this.

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He has a lot of these side by side comparison things, which I think are pretty cool.

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In mind mapping, he talks about being multifaceted, colorful words being combined with pictures,

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associated logic, multidimensional, imaginative and analytical.

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This is getting to the point on why you would want to use these things, which eventually

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he's going to get to chapter two, how to mind map chapter three, what is not a mind map,

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chapter four, solution finding, chapter five, the infinite applications of mind maps and

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then chapter six is the future of mind mapping.

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It's not explicitly called anywhere else, which is why I want to bring it up here, but

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those ingredients will pop up over and over again throughout the book.

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I do think that there is something to be said about thinking this way.

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He's also got a lot of research.

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There's a lot of different stories about the success that people have with thinking this

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way.

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I think those arguments are stronger when you try not to trademark the term yourself.

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It's just something that you made as opposed to something that humanity has been using

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successfully for a very long time.

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Those pictures of the very earliest mind maps, you're right, those don't fit his definition

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of a mind map.

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But I would maybe say tone down the militant defending of what a mind map is so that you

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can say, "Hey, look, people have been doing this for a long time, even if it means that

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you didn't come up with it yourself."

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Right.

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I don't know.

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It seems like an insecure thing to do to say, "No, no, no, this is my process.

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I made this thing.

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Are you looking for some external validation from people who read this who say, "Hey, good

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job, Tony?"

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Absolutely, yes.

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But, yeah.

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Yeah, I think I'm a little looser on the definition here.

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But let's dive in here.

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He does have a three-step process for how to create a line map, which he gets into here

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in the beginning of the first chapter.

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And there's three pieces to this.

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One is a central image.

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And I assume, based on what we were just explaining about the militant definitions of

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this, it's interesting to me that it's a central image and not a central word.

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Just pointing that out.

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Thick branches radiating out is the second essential characteristic that he qualifies

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for a mind map, which also is a bit just because I know that a lot of mind maps I've

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seen are just your standard line or it could be curved, but it's a yes.

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Called out that it has to be a thick line, thick branches, sorry.

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And a single key image or word is placed on each branch.

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A single word or a single image on each branch.

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So if I put a phrase that doesn't qualify.

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Yep.

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So, and I think you get the detail that he's putting here, it's like this is very specific

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that he's calling out here.

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He follows this up with, how many steps is this?

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Seven steps?

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Yeah, seven-step process, right?

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He's got a seven-step process.

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You got it?

00:21:04

I do.

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So step one is use at least three colors to draw a picture in the center of a horizontal

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page.

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Step two, pick a color and draw a thick branch coming away from the central image, like the

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bow of a tree.

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Step three, label the branch with a single word and cap the letters.

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Step four, send out secondary level shoots in the third level and third level branches

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from these right keywords or symbols on all the branches.

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Step five, pick another color, draw another main branch, repeat until you have five or

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six main branches to work with.

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Step six, leap from branch to branch, fill in the gaps.

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Step seven, add arrows, curving lines and links between branches to reinforce connections.

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Yep.

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There you go.

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When you hear that, you're like, yeah, that sounds good.

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Like I can see the value of that approach and I can see how apps like MindNote have made

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design decisions on modifications to that.

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And so it's a little bit weird when you later on is like, no, that's not a mind map because

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you didn't use three colors in the middle or the branches are a single thickness.

00:22:04

Yes.

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You know, and I'm not quite sure yet.

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Maybe by the end of this episode, I'll have wrangled my thoughts on this, but I kind of

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feel like making mountains out of moles here, buddy.

00:22:16

Yeah.

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And that's probably a good way to say it.

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And part of the reason I'm calling this out and you can probably sense the maybe angst

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or frustration with him and my voice on this is because like, who cares?

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Like let's let's draw a picture together.

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You know, if it helps you think through things and it has like a central point and you have

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a network that comes out from that and it's a visual that you can work your way through,

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like I would call that a mind map.

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But it seems like if it doesn't fit this very specific mold for him, he instantly qualifies

00:22:52

as it is what he called a concept diagram.

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It's instantly declassified as a mind map.

00:22:59

And that I think that's the trouble that I take with it or the fault I find in it is

00:23:06

that if you were to open this up and not be so specific and not be so, I guess, upset

00:23:15

almost like he's not upset, but you kind of get that tone from it.

00:23:19

Like, you know, it's a cranky old man.

00:23:21

Yeah, it's totally cranky old man.

00:23:23

Totally.

00:23:24

But like, you know, back off a little bit and I don't think you would have near as many

00:23:28

people.

00:23:29

I would not be critical of this at all.

00:23:32

We're here to be quite open about that.

00:23:34

But because he's so militant on it, like, no, no, no, no, no, hold on.

00:23:38

Back up.

00:23:39

It's okay.

00:23:40

You don't have to have thick branches.

00:23:41

Lines will do.

00:23:42

It's okay.

00:23:43

Get your concept map off my mind map lawn.

00:23:44

Right.

00:23:45

Totally.

00:23:46

Totally is.

00:23:47

Yeah.

00:23:49

I do think the essential ingredients for the my maps, uh, there's value here, which is the

00:23:54

radiant thinking, the nonlinear organic flow, the color images and the words.

00:23:59

And he's got reasoning behind why you need to have these ingredients.

00:24:03

Visual information is processed 60,000 times faster than text, for example, under images

00:24:07

and single words pack more punch than a phrase.

00:24:09

Like, I understand that.

00:24:11

But those are great, like, guidelines.

00:24:13

I'm going to, I think the best application of my maps, you should feel free to break

00:24:18

those once in a while if you think it's better for whatever purpose.

00:24:21

But he would obviously say no.

00:24:24

Radiant thinking, I think is, is cool.

00:24:26

But the one that is really interesting to me is like this nonlinear organic flow.

00:24:30

He talks about how putting things in a linear sequence limits your thinking.

00:24:34

I totally agree with this.

00:24:36

When you have an outline, you basically go from top to bottom.

00:24:40

You're not jumping back and forth between different points because there's no visual

00:24:43

anchor point for your eyes to go to a lot of times.

00:24:47

And he mentions that a list represents one dimensional thinking and my map represents

00:24:50

two dimensional thinking.

00:24:52

Do you know where I'm going to go with this?

00:24:53

No, not at all.

00:24:55

Well, what does three dimensional thinking look like?

00:24:59

And I'm not going to say obsidian is it, but I think it's closer than anything else out

00:25:05

there.

00:25:06

Sure.

00:25:07

And that's what's fascinating to me about these thinking tools.

00:25:11

Like I've been using my maps for a really long time.

00:25:13

I've seen the benefit and how they force you to think about things.

00:25:16

I shouldn't say force.

00:25:18

Encourage you to think about things in different ways.

00:25:20

And from a creative standpoint, that opens up a lot of doors and helps you see things

00:25:24

in ways you didn't see them before, which is totally the way that I'm trying to use obsidian

00:25:29

and why bidirectional links is just one more dimension, right?

00:25:33

It's just one more tool that you can use to think about things a little bit differently.

00:25:38

And I love that.

00:25:39

And whatever is next after obsidian, I'm going to love that too, just because it's encouraging

00:25:44

different ways to connect these dots.

00:25:47

And I think the approach we should all take, whether it's with mind maps, connected notetakers,

00:25:54

whatever is next, is really just how do I level up my thinking?

00:25:58

How do I add more dimensions to the ideas that I'm currently holding inside of my brain?

00:26:04

Yeah, I'm totally with you.

00:26:06

I think that particular piece to nonlinear organic flow like that one is probably the

00:26:13

one that I resonate with the most out of these.

00:26:14

I mean, yeah, the color images, words, these ingredients, they're all helpful.

00:26:20

The radiant thinking, like, yeah, sure, you know, it's radiating from a central point.

00:26:26

Not sure that's exactly what you would want me to say about it, but the nonlinear piece

00:26:31

is the part that I think is, you know, the organic piece, I totally get it, the flow

00:26:36

piece, yeah, but the nonlinear piece.

00:26:38

Like, I tend to think very linearly in lines.

00:26:45

The thing here is that whenever it comes to a whole bunch of disconnected thoughts or

00:26:49

seemingly disconnected thoughts, trying to put them all together and make sense of them,

00:26:54

I think is super helpful.

00:26:56

I know, like, whenever I just did a massive rebuild on my site and have been continuing

00:27:02

to do a lot of that because there's a lot of little pieces behind the scenes, I'm trying

00:27:05

to get it to do, but in order to figure out how all those code pieces needed to go together,

00:27:11

I had drawn, like, squares on a piece of paper and then started connecting the dots between

00:27:16

the two to see how they would go together.

00:27:18

Now, I'm not sure I would call that a mind map because it was more of me just diagramming

00:27:22

how a product should operate.

00:27:25

So it's not me trying to come up with how it's going to work.

00:27:28

I just knew that there were component pieces that need to be tied together somehow, but

00:27:31

it was very non-linear because certain pieces need to tie a bunch of places all at once.

00:27:36

Blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:27:38

And so I do think that's an important concept here in the midst of this mind mapping conversation

00:27:43

because it is, it frees you up to have disconnected thoughts and you could have one that's connected

00:27:49

to something way on the other side of the page and then come back to one where you were

00:27:54

at the beginning, like, it doesn't force you to stay on a single train of thought, it allows

00:27:59

you to bounce around.

00:28:01

And that in the scheme of trying to be creative is extremely valuable and it makes it kind

00:28:06

of tough to do creative thinking without it.

00:28:09

Totally.

00:28:10

He's got a reference to the 2014 Nobel Prize, which I jotted down in my quote unquote mind

00:28:17

map.

00:28:18

Yep.

00:28:19

[laughter]

00:28:20

Talks about this as being awarded to John O'Keefe and then the other half of it was Mabort

00:28:24

Moser and Edward L. Moser, I think, I Moser.

00:28:30

And what they found in this Nobel Prize project was that grid cells work with place cells

00:28:36

in the brain's hippocampus to create a mental representation of a person's location in their

00:28:41

environment.

00:28:42

This is a great study that supports the ideas behind mind mapping, but this is also where

00:28:47

his lock into his definition of mind mapping steals some of the power of this because the

00:28:53

dendrites and the synapses and the brain cells, they combine up to create a form of

00:28:57

an internal mind map, but they don't have different varying branch width and single

00:29:04

key words, you know, labeling them.

00:29:05

So it's not really an internal mind map here, Tony.

00:29:09

But I get to, you know, the point he's making here, I agree with, both making sense of a

00:29:12

situation, enabling information to be retained and recalled at a later date.

00:29:16

That like the way that your brain naturally works and how mind mapping can help facilitate

00:29:24

that is fascinating to me.

00:29:27

But I also, based on what we're just talking about, believe that the mind map is not the

00:29:32

be all end all of that.

00:29:33

There are different levels of this.

00:29:36

And I wish at this point he would have just said, this is basically what a mind map is

00:29:40

and this is why these different elements and some of the research behind it, like why they

00:29:45

work and left it at that.

00:29:48

But that's not what he did.

00:29:50

Yep.

00:29:51

Well, that's that's a good spot.

00:29:53

Let's move on to chapter two here, which is how to mind map because the steps for how

00:29:59

to mind map are not in the chapter for how to mind map, which I thought was an interesting

00:30:04

choice.

00:30:05

But if you step into chapter two early on in that, this is where we get the crux of

00:30:13

how he defines a mind map.

00:30:16

At least what I would say is how he's saying that certain things are or aren't a mind map,

00:30:23

which is seemingly weird to me because he's got the steps for how to make a mind map in

00:30:27

chapter one, but then he's got the laws of what a mind map technically is in chapter

00:30:31

two where he talks about how to mind map like to me, you need to switch places with

00:30:34

those two.

00:30:35

But I also kind of get how he got to that point.

00:30:39

But there's ten laws here.

00:30:42

One, always use a blank sheet of paper, at which point I ask from later on in the book,

00:30:47

he talks about the software side of things.

00:30:49

Wait, blank piece of paper, software, those don't line up.

00:30:53

Your software isn't a true mind map.

00:30:56

Yeah.

00:30:57

You're probably going to be skeleton about this.

00:31:00

So question for you, do you think, because you mentioned that he passed away not too

00:31:04

long ago?

00:31:05

Yep, three years ago.

00:31:07

I don't know what the published date was of this book.

00:31:09

I don't know what version this is.

00:31:11

Maybe this is like the third edition or something.

00:31:14

Do you feel that he wrote parts of this at different times and they just kind of added

00:31:22

it on as it went?

00:31:25

00:31:31

There's no other date.

00:31:33

There's a design and typography in 2018.

00:31:36

Okay.

00:31:37

But I mean, he must have written like these laws of mind mapping.

00:31:42

This seems to me like you're saying, start with a blank sheet of paper in the middle.

00:31:47

That made sense when computers weren't a thing.

00:31:50

So maybe he wrote it then as part of a different project, a different book, a different edition.

00:31:55

And they included it in this one when they published it in 2018.

00:32:00

And at that point, you have to address digital, just like David Allen and getting things done.

00:32:05

Right.

00:32:06

He could have just said, could take the David Allen approach and be like, you know, I don't

00:32:10

recommend any specific software.

00:32:13

Yeah, but I know he was still around and I know he has other books on mind mapping.

00:32:19

Like this is not his only work on it.

00:32:22

So I don't know.

00:32:23

I don't know if it was put together and then he signed off on it or what it was.

00:32:28

But yeah, I know that definitely well, software had to have been around.

00:32:34

He talks about his software later on.

00:32:36

Right.

00:32:37

But that's I guess like that chapter seems to me like that was added later.

00:32:42

Sure.

00:32:43

The rest of the book stands on its own without any mention of software.

00:32:46

And he does have a lot of like internal references in chapter three.

00:32:49

I'm going to talk about this.

00:32:50

In chapter two, I talked about this.

00:32:52

You know, so there isn't really a section, anything in the main text of the book that's

00:32:57

we'll get into the software later.

00:32:59

It's just a blank piece of paper.

00:33:01

Yeah.

00:33:02

It could be.

00:33:03

It very well could be.

00:33:03

I would like to know, but I'm not sure we're going to answer that one.

00:33:07

Anyway, that's fine.

00:33:08

The laws of mind mapping number one, always use a blank sheet of paper or grab your computer.

00:33:13

Number two, draw a picture in the center of the paper.

00:33:17

Three use images, symbols, codes and dimension throughout your mind map.

00:33:22

Four select keywords and write these using capital letters.

00:33:24

You have to use capital letters.

00:33:27

It's very important capital letters.

00:33:30

Number five, place each word or image on its own branch so that it stands by itself.

00:33:35

Six, radiate flowing branches out from the central image.

00:33:39

Seven, keep branches the same length as the words or images on them.

00:33:44

Eight, use colors throughout the mind map, developing your own color code in the branches.

00:33:49

Nine, use emphasis, arrows and connecting lines to depict associations.

00:33:54

And ten, aim for clarity in your mind map by positioning your branches and carefully

00:33:58

thought through space.

00:34:01

Number ten I have an issue with, actually.

00:34:04

And because the conversation we just had about the non-linear, like the ability to

00:34:09

jump around, if I'm going to position my branches and carefully thought through space,

00:34:15

that won't happen.

00:34:16

So, requires me to know it ahead of time.

00:34:20

Yeah, this, okay, so I, this is where my mind mapping experience, I can understand

00:34:27

why he is saying that.

00:34:30

Because that was my biggest hurdle to mind mapping when I was doing it analog back in

00:34:35

the day is the first ten mind maps you actually make.

00:34:39

If they are, have any complexity whatsoever, you quickly are like, "Oh, I messed this up."

00:34:47

And so me being a perfectionist, I was just like, "I'm just not going to mind map because

00:34:51

I hate having to erase things or running out of space."

00:34:54

But if you do it enough and you make enough mistakes, you kind of get a feel for where

00:34:58

things should be.

00:34:59

Right.

00:35:00

This is very important if you are analog mind mapping.

00:35:02

This has zero importance today.

00:35:04

Yes.

00:35:05

I totally get that.

00:35:07

I know the mind maps that I've done, I've done a couple on paper, most of them I've

00:35:11

done digitally.

00:35:13

And it was a matter of who cares where I put it.

00:35:16

I can always move it.

00:35:18

So to me, that's important.

00:35:20

This is one of those few cases where in my mind, the computer side of it is significantly

00:35:26

better than the paper side of it just because it lets me have that free form and lets me

00:35:31

be less restrictive.

00:35:34

But if I'm going to do it on paper, I could see how that's a pain because you'd have

00:35:38

to give yourself, and he does talk about white space quite a bit, but you have to give

00:35:41

yourself a lot of margin in order to have things come in around it because you don't

00:35:44

know what's going to come in.

00:35:46

You don't know how much space you need.

00:35:48

Here's the thing though.

00:35:49

Mind mapping today, yes, go ahead, use analog tools.

00:35:53

I guarantee you you're doing some form of this digitally.

00:35:57

And if you're doing this digitally, you make a handful of mind maps and it auto arranges

00:36:03

things so that you put them in the right place and you don't have to worry about things

00:36:08

overlapping, you will understand what sort of spacing you need when you create a mind

00:36:14

map by hand.

00:36:17

So even if you are doing some analog mind mapping, but you're also doing some digital mind mapping,

00:36:24

which I think that's the place anybody coming to this today is going to start.

00:36:28

Even if you're a full boudgeau, whatever, you're going to download a mind map app for

00:36:31

your iPad and mess around with it by dragging things around with your finger because that's

00:36:35

a great way to interact with these mind maps.

00:36:38

You do that a handful of times and then you're in a meeting and you're creating a mind map

00:36:43

on a whiteboard.

00:36:44

You don't need to know point number 10.

00:36:46

It's one of those things you just kind of catch by seeing it a couple of times and then you're

00:36:51

like, oh, that's what that means.

00:36:54

So total, I'm going to defend my statement that this has zero relevance today.

00:37:01

This you don't have to worry about at all.

00:37:02

But there are some things that I actually like about these laws of mind mapping, like

00:37:05

the arrows to connect things.

00:37:07

This one thing that he kind of hammered on and I was like, yeah, you know what?

00:37:10

I should add that to my mind mapping.

00:37:12

But there are other things like the all caps that you mentioned, I'm just like, dude,

00:37:17

no, no, because he also says later on here to develop your own style while my own style

00:37:23

is going to break some of your laws.

00:37:24

Correct.

00:37:25

I'm going to be okay with that.

00:37:26

Yep.

00:37:27

Because like something I do all over the place is no title case, no capital letters, everything

00:37:34

is lowercase.

00:37:35

In some places, it's not even spaces, it's dashes.

00:37:39

Maybe that's the developer in me coming out, but I don't do that.

00:37:43

It's lowercase, no spaces.

00:37:45

That's the way I do things everywhere.

00:37:47

And it's all done with mono space fonts drives people nuts when they look at my computer.

00:37:51

That's definitely the developer in you.

00:37:53

Totally is that part I know is.

00:37:55

But it's just the way I do things and have done it on a computer that way for so long.

00:38:00

It's like, don't let me change that.

00:38:01

I'm not changing that.

00:38:02

Like we're not using capital letters.

00:38:04

That's for barbarians.

00:38:09

One of the things he does talk about in this chapter, by the way, is to develop your own

00:38:13

code.

00:38:15

And I have definitely done this.

00:38:19

I have my own emoji code that I use in the MyMap files.

00:38:23

So Bookworm Club Premium members are familiar with this kind of stuff.

00:38:26

I have a light bulb icon, which is like inspiration.

00:38:32

I've got a quote bubble for quotes that I want to remember, keys for key ideas, going

00:38:37

back to how to read a book again, understanding the author's arguments.

00:38:42

I've got a talking head emoji for like the things that I want to make sure that we discuss

00:38:48

in the episodes that we record.

00:38:51

Got a mind-blown emoji for things that just like totally rock my world.

00:38:54

Don't use that one very much.

00:38:55

When I say don't use it very much, like one side of every 15, 20 books that I read, I'll

00:39:01

add something like that.

00:39:02

Usually around a statistic that just is shocking to me, hard to believe.

00:39:08

Yeah, exactly.

00:39:09

So again, there's like really great stuff in here that's diluted by his rigidity with

00:39:17

his laws.

00:39:19

I would say to anybody picking this up today, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

00:39:23

Hate that phrase.

00:39:27

And disregard the positioning of your branches.

00:39:30

Try to implement some of the other stuff.

00:39:32

But there's definitely some gains to be had here with mind mapping in general.

00:39:38

Don't be put off by the cranky old man tone from this book.

00:39:43

But I think these laws are unfortunately called laws.

00:39:49

Yep.

00:39:50

I wish it was called mind mapping guidelines.

00:39:53

Yep.

00:39:54

That's what I wish it was called.

00:39:57

I don't think I would have quite the reaction to it that I am having were he to do that because

00:40:03

he does have such a tight, tight rain on it.

00:40:06

Anyway, I should probably set that aside.

00:40:07

But regardless, the idea of like building this network or having like your central image,

00:40:14

the branches and colors and stuff coming off of it, I mean, it's pretty.

00:40:18

If you're willing to loosen up on it, there's a lot of potential here.

00:40:21

Obviously, you know that.

00:40:22

I don't need to explain that to you.

00:40:24

So I know, do you have like a published like a blog post or something YouTube video that

00:40:31

explains your emoji code that you use somewhere?

00:40:34

I feel like you've done this and I just can't recall where it's at.

00:40:37

Yeah, I do.

00:40:39

I'll put a link in the show notes about how I take notes on books that I read.

00:40:46

Probably needs to be updated.

00:40:48

The basic principles of it are definitely still relevant.

00:40:53

It's very evergreen.

00:40:54

There's a picture of my bookshelf with all the books on it and like why I read physical

00:40:58

books.

00:40:59

That's part of that too.

00:41:00

And seeing that picture and how bare my bookshelf looks, I realize I bought a lot of books

00:41:06

in the last couple of years.

00:41:08

But yeah, I'll dig that up.

00:41:11

He has so as we continue in this chapter of how to mind map, which is I think it's close

00:41:20

to the longest.

00:41:21

Yeah, it might be the longest section in the book.

00:41:23

It's fairly easy for me to tell because he has the edges of the book colored so you can

00:41:27

see how long each chapter is.

00:41:30

He has this section called development of a mind mapper where you have essentially three

00:41:34

different stages of mind mapping.

00:41:39

Did you read through this and try to pick out where you're at?

00:41:42

Obviously, I'm towards the beginning of it.

00:41:44

The acceptance stage.

00:41:46

Let me explain these quick and then you tell me where you're at.

00:41:50

The first of these is acceptance, which is where you're basically setting aside any artistic

00:41:56

skill that you do or do not have and allowing all your preconceived notions of how this

00:42:01

should work go away, which is interesting that he says that despite the hard lines on what

00:42:07

this is and allowing yourself to move forward with it.

00:42:13

The second stage is application.

00:42:15

Once you understand how it works and you've accepted your ability with it, you're starting

00:42:20

to apply mind maps and using them in a lot of different ways, using them to take notes,

00:42:28

make decisions, acquiring skills, etc.

00:42:31

And then the last stage, the third stage is called adaptation.

00:42:36

He's got him all his A's.

00:42:37

It's A-A-A.

00:42:38

Here you go, Mike.

00:42:40

With time, you'll develop a personal mind mapping style.

00:42:43

Basically, you've reached the point at which you are altering it.

00:42:46

You've created hundreds of these and you're adapting the mind map concept to take it to

00:42:52

the next level, as he says.

00:42:54

"Yourself?

00:42:56

Where would you put yourself here?"

00:42:57

I'm still accepting my own abilities with this.

00:43:00

I'm definitely the adaptation phase and this is why I feel it's unfortunate that he takes

00:43:06

such a hard stance with the laws in other places because what you just shared in isolation,

00:43:14

that is great advice.

00:43:16

Even the three A's that he has listed here, he obviously did that to make them easier

00:43:21

to remember, but I think those are very valid definitions.

00:43:28

You could use those terms and know what those mean.

00:43:31

It's not like that crazy acrostic from doing the hard things.

00:43:38

Who knows what it was?

00:43:39

I can't remember because he's picking out letters from the middle of words that don't

00:43:44

necessarily even tie to the point that he's making.

00:43:48

This is great.

00:43:49

This is all you got from the book, I would argue.

00:43:51

This is one of those gold nuggets that makes it worth reading.

00:43:55

But then it's diluted because he's like, "Well, you can adapt it, but only to a certain

00:44:00

point because you have to follow the laws.

00:44:02

Otherwise, you're getting into concept map territory and you're no longer a mind mapper."

00:44:06

Who cares?

00:44:09

Just be glad that people have gotten to that part where they're comfortable enough with

00:44:11

this seed of an idea that you've presented.

00:44:16

Go ahead and celebrate that fact that you've helped somebody create hundreds of mind maps.

00:44:22

At that point, yeah, they should be making it their own.

00:44:25

You should be able to recognize everything in there.

00:44:28

Otherwise, they've got the wrong mindset.

00:44:30

They're not getting the most value from it anyways because they're just trying to follow

00:44:33

the process.

00:44:34

It's a weird dichotomy, this concept of a mind map which is used for thinking better,

00:44:41

more clearly, more creatively about things, and then putting the lid on it from the other

00:44:45

side by saying, "But make sure you follow the laws."

00:44:52

This is interesting.

00:44:54

It makes sense that he would do this, but the next part of this chapter is talking about

00:45:01

key application areas of using mind maps.

00:45:06

He steps you through making a mind map of what those areas are going to be.

00:45:12

I kind of appreciate this.

00:45:13

At first, I thought, "Well, really, you're going to do this.

00:45:15

You're going to have me make a mind map of the content that you're getting ready to

00:45:19

walk me through, really."

00:45:22

It's kind of genius because what he's walking you through, and if you think about the intended

00:45:27

audience for this, it's for someone who's never made a mind map has no idea what it

00:45:30

is and is trying to figure out how to use it.

00:45:32

That's his audience here.

00:45:34

We're probably the wrong people for it.

00:45:36

I'm probably borderline, even with my knowledge.

00:45:40

He's having you create a map so you can make your first one with him.

00:45:47

Then he's got you set up such that you can then expand on it as you're reading the book.

00:45:53

I think that's super interesting that he's like, "Okay, here, start here.

00:45:56

Do this while you're going through this next part of the book."

00:46:00

This can be your first foray into getting comfortable with making mind maps.

00:46:06

Did you have an opinion on this?

00:46:07

I thought it was interesting.

00:46:09

That is interesting.

00:46:11

I didn't care for this section, but it makes sense that you would.

00:46:16

This is a little bit of, I think, the curse of knowledge for me and having done a bunch

00:46:20

of mind maps.

00:46:21

I glossed over at this point because I know how to do this.

00:46:26

I know the different areas that mind maps really benefit me.

00:46:31

Using them the plan my week is not one of those areas.

00:46:35

I do think it's cool though.

00:46:36

I think it's a good approach because there are lots of different ways to use mind maps.

00:46:41

You got to find the ones that are going to provide you the most benefit.

00:46:45

It's going to be different for every single person.

00:46:47

I use them primarily for architecting course content articles, things like that.

00:46:53

The book notes that I take, those are the two primary use cases for me.

00:46:57

Synthesizing the ideas from the books that I read and then the things that I create.

00:47:02

If I'm trying to wrap my head around what I want something to look like, I open up a

00:47:06

mind map and I just start building it out.

00:47:09

I've shared before that I think that when I'm creating, every hour I spend my mapping

00:47:12

actually saves me two hours when I sit down to write.

00:47:15

I would argue that the quality is improved as well.

00:47:17

It's definitely value there, but I'm not going to use it for a lot of the different

00:47:21

areas that he mentioned here.

00:47:24

I think there are folks that make sense, but you don't really know until you put in some

00:47:29

reps.

00:47:30

This is great.

00:47:31

This is like making people take action on the action items that you would list out in

00:47:37

your book.

00:47:39

That said, I did not do it.

00:47:42

That great setup and then...

00:47:44

Yep.

00:47:45

No.

00:47:46

It's not.

00:47:47

Cool.

00:47:48

Yeah.

00:47:49

That's a neat idea.

00:47:50

What he's walking you through is there are six application areas.

00:47:54

In my mind, this is probably one of the most important parts of the book right here.

00:48:00

This is going to walk you through ways to use this.

00:48:04

What does it look like?

00:48:07

Once you see a picture of two of these, you're pretty much locked in.

00:48:11

It makes perfect sense because it's visual, right?

00:48:15

Humans are visual people, so it's pretty easy to grasp what it is he's getting at.

00:48:19

This particular piece, how do you actually use these things?

00:48:24

What are areas that you could use?

00:48:25

Obviously, you're talking about using it for book notes and course outlining of sorts,

00:48:30

coming up with what's going to be in content is a pretty easy one.

00:48:35

He's got some interesting ways that I would not have thought of and ways I will not think

00:48:39

of using these, but it is good nonetheless to at least see some ways that you could use

00:48:47

this.

00:48:48

The area here is at home.

00:48:50

A lot of people like to start with work with something like this, so I appreciated that

00:48:54

he at least started with home to begin with.

00:48:58

Areas that I'm not going to do, but he at least steps you through and shows you examples

00:49:02

of what this could look like.

00:49:05

A couple of them here are achieving a personal goal, which was what did he have here?

00:49:09

A marathon.

00:49:10

He's got all the process of training and the motivation, the equipment, nutrition revolving

00:49:17

around a marathon.

00:49:19

Then another one here was planning a week.

00:49:21

Real quick.

00:49:22

On that one, I have gone through that process of training for and running a half marathon,

00:49:31

not a full marathon.

00:49:32

I can tell you from personal experience, my map is the worst tool for this.

00:49:42

This is a bad example.

00:49:43

I'm glad that he's trying to use examples, but this is one of the things that stood out

00:49:47

to me throughout this book is there are some things where he's trying to force a square

00:49:53

peg through a round hole.

00:49:56

This is where you don't need to have it all figured out.

00:50:00

Running a marathon is not a knowledge problem.

00:50:04

That's not the one you should use for this, but I digress.

00:50:08

Okay.

00:50:09

What if you're brand new to running marathons and you don't know what you need to do?

00:50:13

Then how would a mind map help you?

00:50:15

Only collecting all the stuff around it.

00:50:18

Sure, but you don't even know what you need.

00:50:21

I guess that's the point.

00:50:22

If you're doing some research on it, I guess that's the way I took it and he doesn't explain

00:50:26

it this way.

00:50:27

But if you had a map that you were using to capture little bits as you're doing research

00:50:35

about it and then you could go through it later, I guess I could see that.

00:50:39

Maybe that's what I took it as, but maybe I'm wrong.

00:50:41

Yeah.

00:50:42

I think maybe you're convincing me a little bit, but still I feel like the path forward

00:50:48

here is get around some other people who are doing this and do it with them and live,

00:50:54

figure out the mistakes that you're making and don't do those things.

00:50:58

My mapping seems to me, I know that he has collaborative examples in here like in home,

00:51:03

but running a marathon is not a group goal.

00:51:07

This is an individual thing.

00:51:09

And so you're trying to achieve an individual goal, which means you're probably making

00:51:13

this my map by yourself.

00:51:15

So I don't know.

00:51:17

That one is not a great example.

00:51:20

And I feel like there are several of those where he's trying to use examples that don't

00:51:25

really fit and he's doing himself a disservice.

00:51:28

Sure.

00:51:29

Okay, then.

00:51:30

Are you going to plan your week with it though?

00:51:32

Nope.

00:51:33

That was his other one, big one that he had here and he's got the week number on there

00:51:37

and he's got Monday through Sunday, Sunday through Saturday.

00:51:41

I think of it as Monday through Sunday, but then he's got all the different things he's

00:51:44

going to do each day like that.

00:51:46

No, that's what a calendar's for.

00:51:50

Yeah, so I see the argument for that.

00:51:55

That's kind of like weekly planning.

00:51:57

And I think an argument could be made for these are all the things that I got to do this

00:52:01

week and visually looking at them that way.

00:52:04

If you're trying to put them all on the date that they do, whatever you could end up with

00:52:08

a day that's just impossible for you to get everything done.

00:52:12

Oh, this Tuesday actually earlier in the week, that doesn't have a whole lot going on.

00:52:15

So I'll move this over there.

00:52:18

I could see that at least.

00:52:22

But yeah, anything that's time specific, you're going to need a calendar for.

00:52:25

So you can use this as part of your planning process.

00:52:29

But again, bad example, because it's not going to be the only thing that you can use.

00:52:32

You're going to have to have a calendar to manage your appointments.

00:52:35

Yeah, I think, you know, kind of going off of what they're saying in the chat, number

00:52:40

one, don't use Google Docs.

00:52:43

But I think there's, I don't know that he calls this out anywhere.

00:52:47

I'm trying to remember, but I don't recall there being a spot where he made this differentiation.

00:52:52

But there's a big difference between mind mapping, known information, like facts and logistics

00:53:00

and quantities of things.

00:53:03

Like he talks about, and the next one here, I'll just jump in there here as part of this.

00:53:08

But the next application area is work.

00:53:10

And one of the first ones he talks about is time management.

00:53:13

That doesn't make any sense to me because it's a logistical, like it's a pie, you know,

00:53:18

there's certain parts that you can go through.

00:53:19

Like there's, you know, it's a bar, you can segment it off.

00:53:22

It's not a creative map that's there.

00:53:25

So whenever you have like something that's logistical like that, that's fact-based, that's

00:53:31

with full knowns, that doesn't make sense to me why you would use a mind map.

00:53:35

If anything, it's an outline.

00:53:37

If you already know all of it, what's the point of the mind map?

00:53:40

But the map, I think, gets its value in that when you're doing the ideation process and

00:53:45

you're trying to figure out an answer to something, we're trying to put together a product, but

00:53:50

you don't know what needs to be in it.

00:53:52

If you already know all the information, it's just a matter of connecting the dots and you're

00:53:55

done.

00:53:56

But when you don't know all the information, I feel like that's where it gets to be important.

00:53:59

But I don't feel like he makes that split anywhere.

00:54:02

It doesn't call out those two different places.

00:54:05

Yeah, I agree with you.

00:54:07

And then the other thing here is like all these different examples that he's sharing,

00:54:13

these don't need to follow the laws.

00:54:17

If you're using a mind map for time management, who cares about the length of your branches?

00:54:24

Or those are good things to keep in mind when using a mind map for fill in the blank.

00:54:33

But the question you have to ask yourself is how does this get modified to achieve the

00:54:38

goal of this use case?

00:54:40

And I would argue that the bows of a tree branch, being visible in your mind map itself, that's

00:54:47

going to have limited value when it comes to time management.

00:54:52

Or I don't know, maybe you could argue for project management.

00:54:56

But it's definitely more important for some things than it is for others.

00:54:59

So to make it a law and be like, this has to apply to every single mind map that you

00:55:02

ever create is weird.

00:55:03

Right, right.

00:55:05

Which seems to be what he's advocating for.

00:55:07

Because he's got, like here in this work section, he's got one that I do think would be helpful

00:55:13

is researching a topic.

00:55:15

You know, if you're collecting information about a bunch of different places, I kind

00:55:18

of get that.

00:55:19

I don't know that I would do that one because I've slowly been developing a way of collecting

00:55:25

like snippets from things, like collecting pictures, quotes, etc. with links and such.

00:55:31

I've been slowly collecting a way of doing that.

00:55:34

So I feel like mind mapping that would actually complicate it.

00:55:36

Not going to be that one.

00:55:39

Things like writing an annual report seems like an odd thing to put here.

00:55:44

But I could see how that would maybe be super helpful if you don't know all of the details

00:55:51

that need to be in that annual report.

00:55:53

Like if you're trying to figure out what it needs to look like and what are the different

00:55:56

components of it, if you don't know all of that, to me, that's the same as trying to

00:56:00

put together a whole video course.

00:56:02

You're just not recording videos for what you're typing or collecting charts and graphs

00:56:06

and such.

00:56:08

That's probably where that could land.

00:56:10

So I could see how it could be used in those areas.

00:56:12

He's got project management here as well.

00:56:15

You kind of alluded to that.

00:56:17

That could probably be one as well if you don't know what components need to be a part

00:56:20

of that project.

00:56:21

If it's known, that would not be helpful.

00:56:23

If you're doing a commercial contractor built, like you're building a commercial building,

00:56:28

you don't need a mind map.

00:56:29

They have extensive software for how to put all the pieces together for that.

00:56:33

It's not, you're not trying to figure out, does it need to have HVAC?

00:56:36

Does it need to have electrical?

00:56:37

The answer is yes, it does.

00:56:39

So the question is, what and how much is it going to cost?

00:56:43

You know what I mean?

00:56:44

So you don't have to worry about mind mapping that one.

00:56:46

So I don't think I would go there.

00:56:47

It would just depend.

00:56:48

I'm rambling.

00:56:49

You talk.

00:56:50

Well, let's crank through the rest of these categories here.

00:56:55

The other ones are education, which includes revision and essay planning, creativity, well-being

00:57:00

and memory.

00:57:01

Those are big categories.

00:57:03

So there are six total homework, education, creativity, well-being and memory.

00:57:07

But yeah, I don't know.

00:57:10

To call certain ones, keys is weird, especially when later on there's a giant list of 99 different

00:57:18

ones.

00:57:19

And yes, I captured them all.

00:57:21

Really?

00:57:22

Yep.

00:57:23

But that's not till...

00:57:24

Do you do like any picture to text stuff to do that?

00:57:27

Just type them all.

00:57:28

I dictated it all.

00:57:30

Nice.

00:57:31

Nice work.

00:57:32

That's chapter five.

00:57:33

So put a pin in that.

00:57:35

Nice.

00:57:36

Nice.

00:57:37

Let's go on to chapter three here because this one's kind of fun.

00:57:41

What is not a mind map?

00:57:44

Super fun.

00:57:46

He has a section here, a case of mistaken identity.

00:57:49

I'm actually not sure why this section is quite so long, but it is.

00:57:53

But the very beginning of this is this...

00:57:57

What are there?

00:57:58

I'm here that he specifically calls out things that are not mind maps.

00:58:03

The first one is what he calls a spider diagram.

00:58:07

And I suspect that that's what a lot of people would also call a concept diagram.

00:58:12

I feel like those two are probably synonyms.

00:58:16

And he has a picture of this.

00:58:17

And it's what I would traditionally call a mind map because it looks exactly like a

00:58:22

mind map except that it's bubbles and lines instead of colored branches.

00:58:27

Connecting to each other.

00:58:29

I would still call that a mind map.

00:58:30

He's very specific and that is not a mind map.

00:58:33

Let's just call that a local graph.

00:58:36

Sure.

00:58:37

Whatever you want to get.

00:58:38

There you go.

00:58:39

That's probably a good way to describe that.

00:58:40

If you've seen a local graph in Obsidian or Rome, that's what he's talking about.

00:58:46

Yeah.

00:58:47

And I say local graph just because that's what the one I always use, but really it's that

00:58:50

graph view with all the different dots that are connected.

00:58:54

The difference between that and the local graph is you can just see the ones that are connected

00:58:59

to the current note that you're looking at.

00:59:03

Which again is a thinking tool that is similar to a mind map.

00:59:05

I would just love to see him include.

00:59:07

This is where you should use these things.

00:59:10

And not try to put up a fence between the, it's mind map neighbor.

00:59:19

Right.

00:59:20

But whatever.

00:59:21

The other ones that he's got here is a pyramid diagram.

00:59:25

A pyramid.

00:59:26

It's got layers.

00:59:27

You're used to seeing these.

00:59:28

He does call out concept maps here as being different than spider, spider diagrams, which

00:59:35

is essentially a spider diagram by arrows instead of lines.

00:59:38

There you go.

00:59:40

That's the difference between it.

00:59:42

Fishbone diagrams.

00:59:43

Ooh, cares.

00:59:44

I know, right?

00:59:45

Sunburst chart.

00:59:46

Like these are all, all, I mean.

00:59:51

The spider diagrams and the concept maps I would probably call mind maps.

00:59:55

The others, like they're not even close.

00:59:57

Like they're not even.

00:59:58

They're just charts and graphs.

01:00:00

But he does have a list of questions that you can ask to determine if something is a

01:00:06

mind map or not.

01:00:08

Now this is where things get weird.

01:00:11

Is there a clear central concept?

01:00:14

Is there a clear central image depicting that concept?

01:00:17

Does the diagram radiate from the center?

01:00:20

Is there always one word per branch?

01:00:22

Are there any images?

01:00:23

Is color used throughout?

01:00:24

Is the mind map clear?

01:00:26

Is the mind map natural and organic in appearance?

01:00:29

Is the mind map highly visually appealing?

01:00:32

If the answer to any of these questions is no, you are not looking at a true mind map.

01:00:37

Okay.

01:00:38

So at this point, then no one should download my mind maps from the books that I read because

01:00:45

some of those branches are chapter titles and those aren't never a single word.

01:00:51

So okay, you've just alienated me.

01:00:53

I guess I'm not going to be part of your community anymore.

01:00:55

Right.

01:00:56

Why?

01:00:57

Everything else.

01:00:58

Yes.

01:00:59

But that one criteria and he's got to meet all of these.

01:01:03

That's enough to just like close the door.

01:01:07

And that's completely unnecessary.

01:01:08

Yep.

01:01:09

And if you follow that, even his own software wouldn't qualify.

01:01:13

Like, if you want to be completely pedantic about it, it doesn't qualify.

01:01:18

This chapter by itself, I feel like epitomizes some of his insecurity because why if you

01:01:25

are the inventor of a mind map, this chapter is included to show your superiority over

01:01:33

everyone else's attempt at trying to think visually.

01:01:37

Like you know what I mean?

01:01:38

Like this is unnecessary.

01:01:41

You're trying to qualify something even though you've said we're supposed to adapt and make

01:01:46

it our own.

01:01:47

And then you turn around and say, oh, by the way, if you adapt and make it your own outside

01:01:50

of these bounds, you're no longer mind mapping.

01:01:53

What?

01:01:54

Yeah.

01:01:55

So this reminds me of a scarcity mindset.

01:02:01

And people have this in business sometimes.

01:02:04

They feel like the minute that someone buys something from your competitor, you didn't

01:02:09

do a good enough job explaining why you're better.

01:02:12

Sometimes people just make emotional decisions.

01:02:13

They like the salesperson or whoever, whatever.

01:02:17

So the abundance mindset is like, you know what?

01:02:20

That's okay.

01:02:21

There's enough potential customers out here.

01:02:23

We can all be successful.

01:02:24

The fact that this person bought from somebody else doesn't diminish the earning potential

01:02:32

that I have.

01:02:35

And it's evident at this point that this is the approach he is taking with the term mind

01:02:41

map in the whole thinking tool space, which is completely ridiculous because this is

01:02:48

way bigger than he could possibly fill.

01:02:52

And so this just feels very weird at this point.

01:02:57

And this is where you start to feel like, I'm not sure I want to be associated with this

01:03:01

guy.

01:03:02

Right.

01:03:03

And the person who just refuses to accept anything positive that happens from what he's doing.

01:03:10

And the fact that there is at least one other person out there somewhere who is buying mind

01:03:16

map software, quote unquote mind map software that isn't following my laws.

01:03:20

They don't understand that that's not really a mind map.

01:03:24

Right.

01:03:25

And like, okay, fine, be upset about that.

01:03:28

But you're going to be better.

01:03:29

You're going to have a miserable existence while you're trying to defend this.

01:03:36

And it's not worth it.

01:03:39

There is no reason for this chapter to exist other than that mindset being at the root of

01:03:45

his whole thinking about this concept.

01:03:47

I feel like that's a good place.

01:03:49

Let's go on to solution finding.

01:03:51

See, we find a solution of this, which I summarized in my note on this as don't stop using mind

01:03:58

maps because then you'll forget me.

01:04:01

Like that's the way I wrote it in here.

01:04:04

But basically that's it.

01:04:06

He starts it off with perseverance as the key to success.

01:04:09

Please don't stop using mind maps.

01:04:10

And he calls out that if you find yourself struggling to use mind maps, you're not using

01:04:15

mind maps at all.

01:04:16

You're probably making spider diagrams, which means you need to introduce color and keywords.

01:04:22

So don't forget color, Mike.

01:04:24

Don't forget keywords.

01:04:25

Don't use too many.

01:04:26

Make sure you use pictures.

01:04:28

Okay.

01:04:29

That's the key to making sure mind maps work perfectly for you at all times.

01:04:34

I'm of course saying these things in just, but he's saying that if you're finding yourself

01:04:40

struggling with mind maps, I can't speak to this.

01:04:42

I don't have this experience, but if you're struggling to use them, you're probably not

01:04:46

using them right and you need to keep trying and keep working at it.

01:04:50

That's his perspective.

01:04:52

At least that's the way I took it.

01:04:53

I would argue that if you're reading this book now and a mind map is not working for

01:04:59

you, it is probably because you are trying to follow all of these laws of mind mapping.

01:05:06

And none of the great applications that are available to us for this purpose meet these

01:05:12

criteria.

01:05:13

So you have written off all of the ones that we have talked about today and you are using

01:05:17

some bloated piece of junk that doesn't work anymore, like his own iMindMap software.

01:05:22

Sorry, read the chat.

01:05:24

I'm going to go get my pastels and crayons today.

01:05:27

I love it.

01:05:28

You guys are awesome.

01:05:31

I will say he does have a section in here called Ask the Right Question, which I like,

01:05:37

obviously questions, poorly formulated questions.

01:05:41

I specifically didn't bring this up because I knew you would.

01:05:44

Yeah.

01:05:45

So this is again an example of like the gold nuggets that are in this book here.

01:05:50

You just got to sort through the cranky old man stuff.

01:05:55

Trigger the an effective question or topic will trigger the powers of association imagery,

01:05:59

be open, allowing consideration assessment rather than close yes or no answers, inspire

01:06:02

critical and analytical thinking, create clarity, challenge assumptions, stimulate breakthrough

01:06:06

thinking, achieve a balance between the content and the process, inspire a positive reaction.

01:06:11

I love this.

01:06:13

And I think this is really the unspoken.

01:06:17

Maybe he says it, but I don't think it's very clear.

01:06:20

If you're creating a chapter called solution finding, really what you are saying is that

01:06:26

when you have a problem or a question that you are trying to answer, that's the thing

01:06:31

you want to use for your mind map.

01:06:33

But again, that's not going to meet the requirements of the laws that he lays out because a question

01:06:40

is not an image with three colors very often.

01:06:45

And I would argue that that is okay.

01:06:47

You can put that in the middle and that is the beginning of your mind map, but he would

01:06:51

disagree with you.

01:06:52

Right.

01:06:53

Well, I know that there's a lot of ways that you can use these.

01:06:57

Obviously we'll get into that in the next section, but the idea of telling me to just

01:07:02

try harder and keep going, that never works.

01:07:07

And he almost says that verbatim.

01:07:10

So yeah, pretty much.

01:07:12

Just don't.

01:07:13

I don't buy that.

01:07:14

The important part is in the way I think of it because I've kind of been dabbling with

01:07:20

some beginning mind maps here since reading this.

01:07:24

But I was trying to determine what is it about the process that makes it work.

01:07:31

And it's more that I can stop worrying about what I'm writing down and where it goes and

01:07:39

I can just get it into something and then I can organize it later.

01:07:43

And I can do that.

01:07:44

When you're going through a book, like with your maps, you kind of have a flow and I'm

01:07:48

assuming you have a method.

01:07:50

Well, obviously you have a method for like how those branches are going to break off

01:07:55

from each other.

01:07:57

But at the same time, like if you're trying to come up with an online course like we've

01:08:01

been talking about or if you're trying to choose a baby name as one of his examples

01:08:06

we'll get into here in a second.

01:08:08

If you're trying to come up with something like that, the free formness of it is what

01:08:13

allows the creativity.

01:08:15

But trying to lock it into some of these rules, I feel like can hinder that as much as he

01:08:20

wants to say that it's helpful.

01:08:22

So I don't think I'm going to even attempt any of these rules.

01:08:27

I think the concept of being able to just have branches and work off of those and maybe

01:08:31

use a nomenclature of my own, a syntax of my own like that, I feel like is more important

01:08:37

than pretty much anything else he's trying to dictate on me.

01:08:41

Yeah, if I were writing this book in his stead, I would simplify the rules for shortcut out

01:08:48

number 10, probably cut out a couple others.

01:08:51

And then instead of sharing 99 different examples, like in the next chapter, I would

01:08:58

share 15 or 20 and I would explain how the rules become adapted for those different scenarios

01:09:07

and basically leave it at that.

01:09:08

Yep.

01:09:09

So what Mike's getting at is the next chapter here, which is called the Infinite Applications

01:09:14

of Mind Maps, in which case he's got a list of 99 Mind Map applications.

01:09:22

And he does break this off into those six areas, the homework, education, creativity,

01:09:27

well-being and memory.

01:09:30

Some of these are just interesting, like diary keeping, business growth, getting promoted

01:09:36

archaeology for education.

01:09:38

I feel like he just started labeling like genres of subjects in school, like geology, grammar,

01:09:46

history, like what?

01:09:48

That got confused.

01:09:49

This section is useless.

01:09:51

So he obviously picked a number of 99 and then came up with 99 different examples.

01:09:56

However, you have your book in front of you?

01:09:58

I do.

01:09:59

Okay, so there's like a table on two pages, right?

01:10:01

Yep, 160 and 161.

01:10:03

Okay, 161, the top section, look in the middle column, do you see a duplicate?

01:10:10

Yes.

01:10:11

Okay, I didn't write down which one it was.

01:10:14

Math.

01:10:15

But I know, yes, that's what I was going to guess.

01:10:17

But yeah, so there are 98, not 99.

01:10:20

Wait, does he?

01:10:22

Okay, hold on.

01:10:23

So there's three columns.

01:10:25

What have I got?

01:10:28

Five, six, ten, twelve, fifteen.

01:10:31

So five by three, no, 15 by three.

01:10:35

I didn't even go into that level.

01:10:37

I just saw that.

01:10:38

I'm going to make sure.

01:10:39

I got to double check this now.

01:10:41

So there's 15 here.

01:10:42

Is there 15?

01:10:43

No, I'm second guessing this.

01:10:45

Five, five.

01:10:46

Doesn't matter because he threw extra words in there that we didn't need to read by listing

01:10:50

something twice.

01:10:51

Sure.

01:10:52

Okay.

01:10:53

So at that point, the whole section is worthless to me.

01:10:57

Like you literally were just coming up with as many things as you could think of and put

01:11:02

him in a table, which actually he probably did this in a mind map, which is why he missed

01:11:07

it.

01:11:08

If you have done it in an outline, he could have at least sorted it by alphabetical order

01:11:11

and seen the duplicates, which is why this is a great tool in some scenarios, but it

01:11:17

is only one tool and it is not the be all end all solution for everything, which is

01:11:22

kind of how he's positioning it because I trademarked this thing back in 1970, whatever.

01:11:27

Yeah, he's got 33 rows by three.

01:11:30

So he's got the 99, but he's got the duplicate of maths, but there's also, like if you look

01:11:35

underneath his creativity section, he's got creative doodling is in there.

01:11:39

I don't know why I need a mind map for creative doodling, which is right next to creating

01:11:44

mind map art.

01:11:46

What?

01:11:47

I don't understand.

01:11:49

He's reaching here just to fill the 99 quota, but then completely invalidates that number

01:11:54

by having duplicates in the table and I cannot fathom how any editor who looked at this was

01:12:01

like, yeah, let's just ship this.

01:12:03

Or they were just tuned out when they were editing at that point and just like whatever,

01:12:07

just go with it.

01:12:08

Yeah, yeah, true.

01:12:10

Anyway, there's some stuff in here like advanced, he's got advanced mind mapping at home, at

01:12:16

work, etc, etc. conflict resolution.

01:12:19

There's just a bunch of different examples here.

01:12:22

It's kind of like the next level, I guess, is the way he's trying to position this.

01:12:27

Honestly, it was hard for me to keep going at this point because I felt like it was repetitive.

01:12:31

Yeah, going over the same stuff again.

01:12:35

This part is the idea behind this section is good.

01:12:39

The execution of it is poor.

01:12:41

You're burned out after reading through the 99 different things.

01:12:45

And just reading through them, you're burned out by them because at first I read through

01:12:49

them and I was like, oh man.

01:12:50

And then I went back and I added them all the adaptation just so that I had this for

01:12:57

a historical artifact.

01:13:00

And that's when I caught the duplicate.

01:13:02

And I was like, yeah, I just wasted half hour of my life.

01:13:09

But what he's trying to do here is give examples of some high level projects, some really valuable

01:13:14

things that people could use in MindMap for.

01:13:17

So like getting published, writing a book, those are good examples, although the version

01:13:24

of that that is relevant for me.

01:13:26

And I have no trouble making this jump is like outlining an online course.

01:13:31

He's not going to talk about that because that's not his world, I don't think.

01:13:35

But that's the sort of thing that you should maybe get some people who are using this,

01:13:42

who you have an alienated by saying they're not mind mapping really to come contribute

01:13:46

this because it makes your argument stronger as opposed to picking some things that really

01:13:51

don't resonate with your readers.

01:13:53

But these are the types of projects I was talking about where, yeah, go ahead and show

01:13:56

me how to apply the laws with these different areas.

01:13:59

Other than being extraordinarily complex in some scenarios, like there's nothing of value

01:14:04

here.

01:14:05

Well, let's go into the last one here.

01:14:08

The future of mind mapping, which is really him just talking about it going digital.

01:14:14

And what is the digital form of this?

01:14:19

And it's basically a pitch for iMindMap.

01:14:22

I shouldn't say that.

01:14:24

It talks about iMindMap a lot, which is the software that he created with what's his

01:14:31

name, Chris Griffiths, to create the first effective digital mind mapping software, iMindMap,

01:14:37

which as we were talking about before we started recording, you cannot get is defunct.

01:14:42

And you can't even really get to the document that explains what happened.

01:14:49

It's a 404.

01:14:51

So let's walk through that real quick for people who weren't live before we hit the record

01:14:55

button.

01:14:57

If you search for iMindMap, the first result is app.imimap.com.

01:15:02

iMindMap.com actually just redirects to a YOA, which is I think the replacement for this.

01:15:08

But app.imimap.com, which is the result, takes you to the website login.

01:15:14

The banner at the top of that says this is no longer supported.

01:15:20

And below the name and email or email password section is four different icons for the platforms

01:15:27

that this exists on.

01:15:29

And none of them are links.

01:15:30

It is just an image.

01:15:32

So literally it's just saying this no longer exists, click here.

01:15:37

And then when you click there, you get the, oh, this doesn't exist on a YOA's help site.

01:15:44

Super helpful, right?

01:15:46

So we were hoping, but here we are.

01:15:49

He does call out some benefits of using MindMap's on a computer doing them digitally.

01:15:58

Some of which he calls out here is like they can be edited where necessary, backed up.

01:16:02

The clearer graphics are easier to read, linked to other multimedia.

01:16:08

They can, what did he say here?

01:16:09

They facilitate post process analysis, like going back over it and moving things around,

01:16:14

simple to generate using supply drawing tools and icons.

01:16:17

You know, there's a whole lot of, you know, gets into like laws and robot rules and such,

01:16:23

which I'm not really sure how that applied.

01:16:25

But it is interesting to at least see that he's trying to bring it into the digital realm.

01:16:31

Like that part I can appreciate.

01:16:34

But I don't know that I would get on board with much here other than just like, cool,

01:16:40

awesome.

01:16:41

It's coming digitally.

01:16:43

Please be open to something other than I MindMap, especially since it's not supported.

01:16:48

So here we are.

01:16:50

So this is the most disappointing thing of the, his stance here is obviously has not stood

01:16:56

the test of time.

01:16:58

His MindMap legacy being pinned to this software invalidates a lot of what he has said in some

01:17:05

people's minds.

01:17:06

I still think there's some good stuff in here.

01:17:08

And I'm glad that we read it, but I'll get to celebrating in a little bit.

01:17:12

But it's fine to say, you know, I developed my own software because I wanted to make

01:17:15

something that followed these 10 laws.

01:17:18

That include anything about all the other software that's out there that isn't really

01:17:21

MindMapping software because it doesn't follow the laws.

01:17:23

You could just be, you know what?

01:17:24

There are some people doing some interesting things with my original ideas and turning them

01:17:28

into something new.

01:17:30

And that's great.

01:17:31

If that clicks for you, go check out those apps.

01:17:34

If you had taken that approach, you're left with a totally different feel from this book.

01:17:39

But because he's funneling down you one specific path and then you go look for that app and

01:17:43

it does not exist.

01:17:45

You're like, oh, well, this guy isn't even around anymore.

01:17:49

I guess his ideas shouldn't be valued.

01:17:54

And I think there is some value in this, but it's just it's a shame.

01:18:00

Like, you could use the success of those other applications to support your arguments instead

01:18:06

of as arguments against them.

01:18:11

And I would argue that the digital future of MindMapping where we are today is actually

01:18:18

pretty awesome.

01:18:19

My favorite way to MindMap is on my iPad because I use my Apple Pencil, but being able

01:18:24

to touch the elements of your MindMap and physically drag them around on the paper, I

01:18:30

mean, that is magical.

01:18:32

If you start with an analog MindMap, the ability to do that, you're like, whoa, what is this

01:18:37

crazy future that we live in?

01:18:40

But that's also where we're at today.

01:18:43

In terms of the robots and things, I think the argument that he's making here is that

01:18:48

AI is going to develop to the point where they can actually be used in the MindMapping

01:18:52

process, which is great.

01:18:55

And I think that's interesting.

01:18:57

AI is being used in a lot of different creative fields.

01:19:02

Now, there's a service called Jarvis that I'm familiar with that you can use to create

01:19:06

marketing copy for your product or whatever.

01:19:11

So there are people using AI in some interesting ways, but I can almost guarantee you, Tony,

01:19:15

that they're not going to follow your laws.

01:19:18

So you're not going to like them anyways.

01:19:21

And that's where I feel he's painted himself a new corner with the arguments that he's made

01:19:25

in this book.

01:19:26

And by the end of it, you're left with this negative taste in your mouth, which is really

01:19:31

unfortunate because I do think he's made some really positive contributions.

01:19:36

To this space, and there's some really great ideas in here.

01:19:40

But yeah, you're right.

01:19:41

At the end, when he's pitching iMindMap, you're just like, you've completely written

01:19:46

him off at this point.

01:19:48

At least we did.

01:19:49

Well, you have no other option.

01:19:52

I mean, even someone like me who's done hundreds of mind maps and yeah, I'm going to learn

01:19:56

a few things and I still think I learned a few things and I probably have a more positive

01:20:00

view of this book than you do.

01:20:02

But even me at this point, like I can't defend this guy.

01:20:06

Yep.

01:20:07

Yeah, I can't say that I have a very high view of the book, but that's probably because

01:20:14

again, I don't have the history with mind mapping that that all said.

01:20:18

Set iMindMap aside.

01:20:20

I think we've mentioned a few other alternatives here.

01:20:25

The obvious one being the one you're using, MindNode.

01:20:28

That one's part of setup as well, isn't it?

01:20:31

I think that is.

01:20:32

It is.

01:20:33

Yep.

01:20:34

I know that MindNode, XMind and iThoughts are all on setup, a subscription if you have

01:20:40

that.

01:20:41

There's also, let's see the other one, there's another.

01:20:44

FreeMind is out there.

01:20:47

MindManager, I believe, is like an enterprise-free one.

01:20:51

It's kind of pricey and kind of hard to use from what I remember.

01:20:56

Because I think I did the trial on that one at one point.

01:21:00

But I think there are options.

01:21:04

You don't have to pay a lot to get into these things, if anything.

01:21:07

So I think there's a lot of potential in this.

01:21:11

One of the action items I have, Mike, is to try to figure out one or two of these tools

01:21:17

that I kind of want to try to incorporate in some regular creative thinking processes.

01:21:23

Obviously, I know you're biased towards MindNode, but can you kind of, are you able to give

01:21:30

a quick overview of the differences between these things, or is that kind of outside

01:21:34

the realm of what, of the knowledge you have of these?

01:21:38

Maybe that's asking too much, knowing that I put you on the spot with that question.

01:21:42

Well, I will say that if you want to know all the specifics of that question in an extended

01:21:51

form, I've got an article on the Suite Setup for the Best Mind Mapping App.

01:21:56

And it's a little bit older, but everything in that still applies.

01:21:59

And I would say MindNode is going to be the best one for most people.

01:22:03

It's going to lack some of the really power user features that I thoughts will have, but

01:22:09

it's going to look way better.

01:22:11

And ultimately, MindMapping is an emotional exercise.

01:22:15

You think better when you are happier.

01:22:17

And MindNode provides you a simple, clean, fun-to-use user interface.

01:22:24

And if you're using it on an iPad, like I said, it is a joy to just mess around with

01:22:28

your MindMaps, and that is going to influence the content that you create in them.

01:22:33

Your ideas are going to be better because of that.

01:22:37

All of the other ones that I tried were either clunky or just meh in terms of the visual

01:22:43

aesthetic.

01:22:44

And I am not one to overly weigh how an application looks.

01:22:50

I will say that when it comes to a MindMapping tool, though, that should be weighted higher

01:22:55

than normal.

01:22:56

So if you have a tendency to look for apps that look nice, like you're going to end up

01:23:01

with MindNode anyways.

01:23:03

But even if you tend to go for the ones that have the most features and are the most highly

01:23:07

functional plain text, yada yada yada, I would still recommend you start with MindNode because

01:23:13

just by the nature of MindMaps, you will get a better output when you use something that

01:23:18

you enjoy for this exercise.

01:23:20

Sure.

01:23:21

I already have MindNode.

01:23:23

So it's an easy one to jump into.

01:23:26

I don't know.

01:23:27

I'll give it a shot.

01:23:28

That said, Action

01:23:56

Items.

01:23:57

I'm going to continue to use MindNode.

01:23:59

I have no action items.

01:24:22

I'm going to continue to use MindNode, though, and continue to make MindMaps cool.

01:24:29

I will say real quickly on the tools that are available and also what you shared at the

01:24:36

beginning, you're tending to be an outline person.

01:24:39

One of the things that is nice about MindNode is that you actually get both.

01:24:45

They have an outline view, which gives you everything in a line, but it's also color-coded

01:24:51

along with the branches in MindNode in the MindMap itself.

01:24:58

You can see the things in the outline, and they've got an orange bar next to them if

01:25:02

they're part of the orange branch.

01:25:05

I think that's kind of cool.

01:25:06

Then the other thing that's great about MindNode is that you can export it a bunch of different

01:25:09

ways.

01:25:11

What I do when I'm done with the book notes that I take is I export it as a PDF and embed

01:25:16

that in the book notes page inside of Obsidian.

01:25:19

I also export it all as Markdown, and then copy-paste that Markdown.

01:25:23

I have the visual of the MindMap and also the searchable text inside of Obsidian.

01:25:28

I'll go through that, and I'll find things that I want to turn into their own notes.

01:25:35

That's one thing to consider, I think, is what are the ways that this can be useful to me

01:25:40

once I'm done with the MindMap, because the MindMap itself is not the be-all-end-all,

01:25:46

if you're using it for creativity, you're going to want to be able to use those things

01:25:51

again in the thing that you are creating, not just reference it visually.

01:25:56

Does it export to Mermaid by chance?

01:25:59

I doubt it, but I got it open right now, so let me take a look.

01:26:03

If you don't know what I'm talking about, Mermaid is kind of a text to diagram syntax,

01:26:10

I guess, which is, is it built into Obsidian now, or is it a plugin?

01:26:16

Yes, it is built in.

01:26:18

You can export to a legacy MindNode format, you can export to PDF.

01:26:23

Bookrun Club Premium members, when I export those notes, I export both of those, so they

01:26:29

have the PDF, the high-res, visual, and the MindNode file, if they want to take what I

01:26:33

did in MindNode and then use it into MindMap application of their own.

01:26:37

There's FreeMind, you can export to OPML, which basically covers just about every other

01:26:42

MindMap app out there.

01:26:45

OPML for standard outliners, image, markdown, text, and tasks.

01:26:52

The action items from your MindMaps, you can actually import those.

01:26:59

I was doing that for a while, and to OmniFocus when I was using it, you can just grab the

01:27:05

tasks from your MindMap and put them into your task manager of choice.

01:27:09

Alrighty then, they need to implement Mermaid, that would be sweet, because then you could

01:27:13

just export it and drop it in, and it would be native.

01:27:16

Anyway, side note.

01:27:17

Okay, I guess that said, let's get to style and rating.

01:27:22

We have talked a lot about the style throughout this episode, but Tony Bizan's full of himself,

01:27:29

really likes himself, thinks he's really great, thinks he's done a great thing in inventing

01:27:34

the MindMap so we can all have better creativity in our lives.

01:27:38

But it's way over the top.

01:27:42

He's very self-conscious, wants to be the guy who has all the answers it seems, and

01:27:51

it's very off-putting.

01:27:53

I feel like it's hard to get past that in a lot of areas.

01:27:58

If I set that aside, which is kind of difficult to do, there are a lot of tidbits that I

01:28:04

have to do with the ideas and processes that he calls out here that are helpful.

01:28:09

As someone who's not big in the world of MindMabs and is trying to get my head around

01:28:15

it a little bit more, I'm glad I've gone through it, but it was a bit of a slog to do

01:28:21

that.

01:28:22

But there are a lot of little tidbits that you can pull out of this, which is always the

01:28:24

important part, right?

01:28:26

For as many books as we go through, you get it one or two really cool little nuggets from

01:28:32

it, and it was worth the time, most of the time.

01:28:38

This is no different.

01:28:39

There are some pieces that I've pulled out here.

01:28:42

Obviously, it's at least motivated me to do something about MindMapping and encourage that

01:28:48

creative mind of Mind as I've learned I have, and try to develop that a little bit more.

01:28:55

We'll see if MindMabs become a thing that I do regularly.

01:28:59

As far as a rating goes, oh boy, I know that I'm not going to tell you that.

01:29:05

I had to go first on this one.

01:29:07

I don't think I'm going to tell you to read this in any way, shape, or form.

01:29:12

I think I would just say go look at a bunch of other people's MindMabs, do searches, like

01:29:16

image searches for MindMabs, and then grab some software and go for it.

01:29:20

I feel like that's going to get you 99% of the direction you need to go.

01:29:25

The book's not something I'm going to tell you to go pick up, even though we get affiliate

01:29:30

money from that.

01:29:31

Don't buy this one.

01:29:33

Just going to say that up front, as far as rating.

01:29:37

Let's go 3.0.

01:29:38

I'm going to put it at 3.0.

01:29:41

I really don't care for the way he comes at this.

01:29:44

I don't care for his rigidity that he puts into this.

01:29:49

I love the concept of MindMapping and the visual side of it, but the book itself.

01:29:55

It's not an encouraging book, I find.

01:30:00

It's more of an exclusionary book as opposed to get involved with this.

01:30:07

The book itself and the concepts that are in it, some of it's really good, but I struggle

01:30:12

with it.

01:30:13

There you go.

01:30:14

Your turn.

01:30:16

All right, that's fair.

01:30:18

Well, I'm going to throw another monkey wrench in here because I have read several books on

01:30:23

my mapping.

01:30:24

I can tell you, having just gone through this one, this is the best one.

01:30:29

Okay, that's not encouraging to me, Mike.

01:30:34

Maybe that means I need to write a book about MindMaps.

01:30:38

Please do.

01:30:41

Because I've made hundreds of them and I honestly wish I would have read this before I had started

01:30:51

MindMapping instead of the books that I had read.

01:30:54

I've got another one on my bookshelf, which I know is really, really old at this point.

01:30:57

That was the one I started through when I started my mapping.

01:31:02

It was just for all the things that I complained about in this one, this is much more approachable,

01:31:09

much more actionable, much more understandable than a lot of the other books on this topic.

01:31:15

Maybe it's just because it is one of those conceptual things.

01:31:19

The people who tend to write about it are the ultra academic.

01:31:25

It's harder for the average person to understand what's really going on.

01:31:29

I do think that Tony B. Zand has done a great job in this very visual book of pulling in

01:31:36

a whole bunch of research, a whole bunch of studies, a whole bunch of case studies, a

01:31:41

whole bunch of examples.

01:31:42

Some of them didn't resonate with me.

01:31:44

However, I don't think I would have had those objections if I was coming to it new.

01:31:50

I think his approach is actually pretty good.

01:31:53

I do think he needs an editor who's going to read through everything that he says and

01:31:57

say, "You know what?

01:31:59

Maybe leave this chapter out."

01:32:03

I also am struggling with where to rate this.

01:32:06

I was very animated and complaining in this particular episode because there's lots of

01:32:11

stuff that you can complain about that and that tends to make a good podcast episode.

01:32:17

However, I do think there's a lot of great stuff in here.

01:32:21

I know I've learned several things.

01:32:23

It inspired me, actually I've learned so many new things that I have to borrow that term

01:32:29

that Blake mentioned at the very beginning, the map of content.

01:32:32

I created a separate one in Obsidian on mind mapping with a whole bunch of new things that

01:32:36

I picked up from this one that I want to wrestle through and connect with some of the

01:32:40

other things that I've discovered and doing it myself and the other things that I've read

01:32:44

and the other books that I've on the topic.

01:32:48

Figure out for myself, if I were to codify everything I know about mind mapping into the

01:32:53

essential points, what would I say?

01:32:56

I actually want to continue to explore this topic.

01:32:59

I want to continue to not just practice it, but think about what really makes a mind

01:33:06

map and what makes a successful mind map for me.

01:33:09

I don't think it's the 10 laws that he outlines here, but those things have served as a springboard

01:33:14

into additional thinking time prompts for me.

01:33:17

That's the real value of something like this.

01:33:19

I had zero action items from it.

01:33:20

However, if I was coming to it new and not attempted mind mapping before, I would definitely

01:33:27

be inspired to try mind mapping.

01:33:29

If that's the case, then ultimately mission accomplished.

01:33:35

I'm going to recommend it until I find something better and I am going to optimistically rate

01:33:43

the valuable pieces of this and say this is a 4.0 book.

01:33:49

It's easy to attach to the things that you don't like when reading.

01:33:54

I have done that a lot in the past.

01:33:59

Especially when you are trying to reinforce a belief that you currently have or defend

01:34:03

an idea that you currently have, it's easy to do that.

01:34:07

I would encourage people who are going to pick this up.

01:34:10

Number one, know what you're getting into.

01:34:13

Number two, know the tone that he's going to use through this and try to see through

01:34:18

that.

01:34:19

Then number three, be willing to say, "You know what?

01:34:22

Maybe he's right.

01:34:23

Maybe I don't like this guy at all.

01:34:24

Maybe I think he's a jerk, but maybe he's right about certain things and decide for yourself.

01:34:29

You got to take the how to read a book approach with this.

01:34:31

You got to understand the key arguments the author is making and you got to decide for

01:34:36

yourself whether you agree or disagree with them.

01:34:38

I think if you take that approach, there's a lot of good stuff to be had here.

01:34:42

I'll just caveat this last thing here.

01:34:47

If you have an easy time doing that, this is probably a 4.0 book.

01:34:50

If you have a hard time doing that, this is probably a 3 or a 3.5 book.

01:34:55

It's really hard for me to rate that.

01:34:57

But I think just based on the merits of the ideas and the benefit that this could have

01:35:03

to someone who is not currently practicing mind mapping, that overcomes some of that

01:35:08

negative stuff.

01:35:10

Totally valid.

01:35:11

I still don't like it.

01:35:14

That's fine.

01:35:15

Okay, I will gladly put this one on the shelf.

01:35:19

What's next, Mike?

01:35:21

Next is I didn't do the thing today by Madeline Dorr and this is all about productivity, shaming,

01:35:27

and I think this is an interesting topic.

01:35:32

This is the book that I've heard recommended about this.

01:35:35

I've heard it recommended multiple times.

01:35:38

First time I heard it recommended, I looked it up and I was like, "I don't know."

01:35:41

And then I heard it recommended again by somebody that I really respect.

01:35:44

I'm like, "Okay, I have to read this one."

01:35:47

And I think this is going to be an interesting topic for a bookworm episode where we tend

01:35:53

to talk about productivity a lot.

01:35:55

I feel like this is maybe going to open up conversation about some aspects of this that

01:36:02

we don't normally hit on.

01:36:05

Okay, I've not started it, so I don't know where that goes.

01:36:08

So hope you're not leading me down a weird path.

01:36:12

I don't think I am, but we'll see.

01:36:13

I don't know.

01:36:14

I do it to you all the time, so it's probably okay.

01:36:18

I wrote down two for after that because I'm not sure which one to pick and I need your

01:36:22

help.

01:36:23

The first of which, it's been a while since we've covered this topic, but the great mental

01:36:29

models, there is a volume two and a volume three on this.

01:36:34

Volume two is around physics, chemistry, and biology.

01:36:36

I don't know how well that would work here in this format, but I know that they're like

01:36:41

abstracting key concepts from those to ask some questions that you can try to answer.

01:36:45

So that would be one potential, Mike.

01:36:47

The other one that I can't help myself with is a book by Johann Yahari, Johann Hari, who

01:36:54

I know has a handful of bestsellers, has one out called Stolen Focus, why you can't pay

01:37:02

attention and how to think deeply again.

01:37:04

I know that we've covered this topic before, but he's covering it from a perspective that

01:37:10

I've not seen, which has to do with things like environmental factors and diet.

01:37:15

Like he's bringing in some of that component to it.

01:37:18

Do you have an opinion between those two?

01:37:21

They both sound awesome.

01:37:22

I know, right?

01:37:24

Super fun.

01:37:25

I couldn't pick between them, so I was hoping you had an easy like, "Oh, yeah, absolutely

01:37:28

we need to do this one."

01:37:29

Well, I can say I have the great mental models, volume two, and I've actually got the third

01:37:34

one also.

01:37:35

Yep.

01:37:36

And I've not read it cover to cover, but I have read specific sections of it.

01:37:42

And I do think this one is more generally applicable than it first seems.

01:37:49

A lot of that content that I read from those different mental models showed up in the workshop

01:37:55

that I did with Nick Milo back in the day on sense-making.

01:37:59

Sure.

01:38:00

So it's more of the great mental models.

01:38:04

If that is appealing to you, then pick that one, but Stolen Focus also sounds great.

01:38:08

That sounds to me a lot like the extended mind and the environment influencing your thinking.

01:38:13

Both topics I would love to explore further.

01:38:16

Yep.

01:38:17

Let's do this.

01:38:18

Let's do great mental models next.

01:38:19

And then I'll hold on to the Stolen Focus we may cover that one after that.

01:38:23

We'll do it that way.

01:38:25

All right.

01:38:26

So then after that, we're going to do the great mental models.

01:38:27

Volume two, physics, chemistry, and biology.

01:38:31

All right.

01:38:32

All right.

01:38:33

How about gap books we got?

01:38:34

I got The Earned Life by Marshall Goldsmith.

01:38:37

I've had this one actually for a little while, but I have not made a whole lot of progress

01:38:41

on this.

01:38:42

I still want to read it though.

01:38:44

So I'm going to use this as my get book and I've got a really long car ride tomorrow.

01:38:49

So hopefully I can make some progress.

01:38:53

The Earned Life.

01:38:54

I finished up reading the Digital Zettlecaston, which was not hard.

01:38:58

It was like 70 pages.

01:39:00

I forget how long it was.

01:39:01

David Kidavi.

01:39:03

And then I also have been reading Back of the Napkin, drawn a blank on the author name

01:39:09

right now.

01:39:10

Dan Rome.

01:39:11

There you go.

01:39:12

Dan Rome, which is kind of a runoff from our book from today Mind Map Mastery is like

01:39:16

thinking visually and sharing ideas visually.

01:39:19

So it's kind of a runoff of that.

01:39:20

I actually debated that one as a bookworm book, but Mike talked me out of it.

01:39:24

So here we are.

01:39:25

I talked to you out of it only because you told me that you were wanting a book on mind

01:39:30

mapping, which I'm not sure how far you are in Back of the Napkin.

01:39:32

There's no mind mapping content there.

01:39:34

No, none whatsoever.

01:39:35

Not at all.

01:39:36

I'm about halfway through it.

01:39:37

So yeah, not in there at all.

01:39:38

So yes, that's so I finished Digital Zettlecaston into Back of the Napkin.

01:39:44

Super fun.

01:39:45

Cool.

01:39:46

That said, big thanks to everybody who's joined us in the chat.

01:39:49

We've had quite a crew there with us today.

01:39:51

So thank you to those of you in the chat today.

01:39:54

Kind of always fun to see your thoughts and give us chuckles when we have to mute quickly,

01:39:59

at least for me.

01:40:00

And so anyway, it's great to have you there.

01:40:02

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01:40:07

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01:40:08

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01:40:13

going on.

01:40:14

So keep your eyes open for that.

01:40:16

Big thanks to those of you who are members.

01:40:19

Can't do it without you.

01:40:20

You guys are awesome.

01:40:21

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01:40:25

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01:40:27

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01:40:30

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01:40:36

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01:40:38

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01:40:45

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01:40:49

All right.

01:40:50

If you are reading along with us, pick up, I didn't do the thing today by Madeline Dorr.

01:40:55

And we will talk to you in a couple of weeks.