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Well, hello everybody. I want to thank you for joining me today. It's a fabulous day. I'm in Dallas. I just spent the weekend at the Mastermind event with Joy Mack and his faculty. It's been a fantastic weekend and I always love my time when I spend it here with my friends in the USA. It's just been great. Now today I have scheduled a very special interview with Mr. Tony Buzan, and if you read the beginning, of course, you can see that I first met Tony in May early of this year. Now, Tony is the inventor of Mind Map. He has helped hundreds of millions of people to unlock their creativity. He enhances the memory skills and expands the thought processes. He is in great demand on the lecture search circuit as the motivational speaker for businesses and government organizations and major business ventures all over the world. And in 2008, Tony received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Creativity Association. He is a prolific author. He has written more than a hundred books translated into 33 languages with sales in over 150 countries. And in 2006 together with Chris Griffiths, Tony launched the featured Mind Mapping Software. And that's by mind mapping, you can speak about so often. And together they share vision to produce a computer-based tool that accurately reflects the true nature of mind mapping. Now Tony, I know I have you on the line here. It's an honor and a privilege to be able to speak with you today. I want to thank you for taking the time out. Your time is in such high demand. And I appreciate it Tony. So, welcome to the show.
It is lovely to be on the show, and thank you for giving me the time.
(Laughter) It's wonderful Tony, wonderful. Isn't it amazing how I can be sitting here in Dallas and you're sitting there in England, and we have listeners joining us from all over the world. What a fascinating age we live in, Tony.
Yes we do. I think that we are actually at the dawn of the age of a global brain which you and I and others now listening with us, and with us are plans of and it's also the beginning of the age bulk. Can I chat on a little bit about the age, I think we are in.
Yes, please.
Yeah. If we take the standard assumptions about civilization, I'd presume that civilization globally started around 10,000 years ago with the Agricultural Age. And that lasted until the Industrial Age. And so, during the Agricultural Age, obviously people thought agriculturally and during the Industrial Age, people thought industrially. And the Industrial Age ended only a few decades ago really. And the question now is of course, what age are we in at this moment of time? And I have done field surveys now in 30 different countries in the last year about where people think we are now. And it's 99.99% say the Information Age, the Technological Age, the Digital Age. And of course if you are in that age, you think informationally, you think digitally, you think technologically.
And that's fine if you are in that age. And what I am strongly suggesting is that we are no longer in that age. That the information age, wonderful as it was gave us many gifts and it also gave us information overload. And as a result of that, the human brain being very adaptable and flexible created the Knowledge Age. And people became knowledge workers and knowledge managers and directors of knowledge management, and that seemed to be good because it managed the information. But it didn't work, and the reason why it didn't work is that there's something far, far more important to manage than knowledge. And Deborah I'm sure you know that it is. All our listeners now would love to have them, you know, just to shout out and if you want the people all hear it...
Yes.
Yes. Sorry. Go on.
No. That's right Tony. If we could hear all the answers, that would be fabulous. So, I know that I spent that time with you. So, please share with where we are at right now, fascinating.
Yeah. What it is more important to manage than knowledge, is to manage the manager of knowledge. And of course the manager of knowledge is the human brain. So, we are now at the dawn of the age of intelligence. So, from thinking agriculturally to thinking industrially to thinking informationally and technologically and digitally, from thinking knowledgeably, we now move into an age where we will think intelligently at large. (Laughter)
Yes. Yes.
And I think that is the -- it's one of the most interesting stages the world has ever been in and the most exciting stage and age for the human race.
Yes. Yes it is. And when you say think at managing the brain, managing being intelligent, intelligent thinking, what does that mean to you, Tony?
It means a lot. Obviously, we have multiple intelligences. So, we have our verbal intelligence. We have our mathematical intelligence, which is the standard IQ. We have our engineering spatial intelligence. We have social intelligence. We have personal intelligence. We have physical intelligence. We have creative intelligence. We have ethical and spiritual intelligence. And being intelligent means using all those intelligences to the maximum of their potential. And I believe that the human race is now entering the age where intelligence had become the prime focus. And you can already see it. You know, companies are talking about being smart companies. Creativity, which is another major intelligence, is becoming the buzz world throughout the industrial and throughout the business and organizational world, and in the political. So, it is the time when we apply the astonishing thinking power of the human brain to our own futures. And to the development of that very brain which is thinking about it.
And Tony you know, I have been fascinated with thinking and I have some unskilled, I've not been skilled particularly I can feel like the training and studying on your course which was absolutely fantastic. And as I put in the right up, I haven't been able to get you out of my mind since all the things in the course.
Thank you.
(Laughter) I think so.
Go ahead. I'm deeply honored.
Oh good, but thinking today, our thinking has been affected I believe Tony. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I think with all of the bombardment of information, of knowledge that surround, and the instant world that we live in, I personally think that our thinking has been affected and that we have to set time aside everyday on every subject in every way. I guess maybe the Eastern countries may call that meditation. They may call it prayer, but actual thinking about what I'm thinking about is vital today. And it's a practice and learned skill, Tony. Am I correct?
You are totally correct. Thinking about thinking is the new field. It's called metacognition. Thinking about thinking. And everybody needs to do it. And fundamentally, everybody does anyway. Especially with their children. The thing that mommy was my brain or...
I just had a conversation with my imaginary friend. And the child is creating an imaginary friend may not be at the stage of thinking about why they thought about that, but they are doing these extraordinary thinking tasks. And our task now is to think about that. What is the power of the child's brain? And we know that it's immense as much greater than we ever thought. But the world's greatest untapped resource is the mind. It's the world's greatest source of all wealth. You know the brain and its application is the source of all wealth. And its misapplication is the source of poverty. So, the moment we need...
Wow!
We need to think about thinking. And we need to set aside time everyday to think well and to improve our thinking skills. It's the same as really the body. You know your body is the miraculous organ that carries you through life and does trillions and trillions of things everyday to help you, by which we are not consciously aware. And things with your brain and your body, you know, as everybody fundamentally believes and agrees and most indeed practice requires good treatment.
It needs exercise. It needs oxygen. It needs good food. It needs flexibility in the muscle. It needs strength in the muscle. It needs stamina. It needs training and we give it that and nobody even questions the fact that we should train the body, but in many, many educational systems, there is no real training of the brain. There is training in what to learn. That you must learn Math, you must learn Geography, you must learn History, you must learn Physics, you must learn religion, you must learn language, etc. So what to learn we are taught. What we are not taught is the most important thing to teach anyone and that is how to learn.
Yes. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Tony you just reminded me then as you were talking about when during the training we covered the diminishing creativity in the study of a child as they get older into adulthood. Tony would you afford me the pleasure of telling our listeners today, how that sadly diminishes and of course what we can do about it, the creativity test on the child through to leaving university or college, would you be able to tell me about that Tony?
Happy to do so. These are generic studies which actually take people of different age groups and give them problems to solve and then the psychologists who set tests observe the people solving or not solving the problem and they give the marks out of 100 and some marks are for the speed of solution, some are for the elegance of the solution, some are for the ability to cooperate with others in getting a solution, some are in the originality of the solution, other marks are given for the number of different perspectives from which the problems approach etc and they've given a total of possible 100 marks. So, it's percentage. Kindergarten children scored on average 95% plus. And by the time they were in --
Yeah I mean it's pretty good.
Most people know that. When I've done these field surveys, everybody knows it. It does not matter whether I'm in, you know, America, or I'm in China, Japan, Germany, Italy, Australia, and now back, you know, Latin America. It doesn't matter where and everybody knows that the little children are really creative. By the time they're in primary school, it goes down to 75%. By the time they're in secondary school, it's down to around 50%. By the time they're in university and I apologize to any of you listeners, who are university graduates like myself, that the unfortunate statistic there is 25% for university students and in adulthood, it goes down to 10 and below. So, globally and this is normal, the creativity reduces throughout a lifetime on average.
Uh-hmm.
And that's very depressing news because it's normal and that's why governments and businesses and organizations are getting very, very frightened because the average age of the average human is rising and therefore the average per capita of the average human is diminishing. So, the future scenario is that of a planet filled with elderly uncreative brains.
And human race, you know, going as if they down the tubes. Now the good news after all that bad news is the normal -- just observe the declining creativity is not natural. It is completely unnatural. It's strange. It's like taking someone and saying that I'll teach you to be an Olympic athlete, and in order to teach you that, what we're going to do is to have you do no exercise, we are going to make you drink 25 pints of beer everyday, you will have only junk food, you're not allowed to walk, you could drive everywhere and then people wonder why, you know, after 10 years of hard training, they weigh 400 pounds --
-- and can hardly walk.
That's not natural for the body.
Exactly, but for a number of people it is unfortunately normal.
Uh-hmm. That's right. Yes. Yes.
Now the brain is the same, the same, most normal behavior in terms of creativity is anti-creative, which is why the percentage of creativity goes down with age. We trained ourselves and our children and our future generations to be uncreative.
And it's absurd because now we finally know in this age of intelligence, how to train the brain to be more and more creative as it progresses through life.
Yes. Yes. Yes. And this is a part of your mission, your passion in life, Tony and also the listeners, I have many listeners that they're probably hearing about Mind Mapping and certainly hearing about Mind Mapping from the inventor of Mind Mapping.
Yeah. Take us back to -- you've almost, you've answered why definitely for me, but way back at the beginning on your journey to feeding them with your pencil, with your paper, then bringing the coloring to it, could you just take us back to that beginning and how it came about forth?
Love to do that. It's one of my favorite stories because really it's a story of my life.
Uhm. Uhm.
And you know, when I was 7, I had a friend who was incredibly brilliant in nature. He can identify the flight patterns of birds and butterflies as they flew over the horizon while I was mumbling, you know, cabbage white, sparrow, and they'd all gone. So, I knew that he was a genius but he was dyslexic. He has alcoholic parents and the school systems thought that he was a moron and so he was ranked at the bottom of the classes we're in and I got top mark in a test on Nature. So, I was named the top student for that week in the school for that year and my best friend was bottom. Now I knew that he knew more than I knew and therefore I knew that he should have been, you know, half a mile down the road to my right in terms of how far ahead he was of me in terms of his knowledge and genius in Nature. So, my little 7-year-old brain said "now hold on a minute, you know, this is not fair. He should be number one and I should be number two." And so, it made me question who says who's smart? Who has the right to say that? What does smart mean anyway? Does anybody have the right to label anybody else stupid or dull or unintelligent or non-university material? And so from that moment on, I became, you will be pleased to know, delinquent, an intellectual delinquent and I began to question as we talked about earlier in the program about the way that I was doing things. And my note -- I was a good note taker, so I could get 15 words on a line and nice little writing which was fairly neat and so I would get, you know, matters of words on a page all in a black ink and I got good marks 10/10 from neat notes and I thought I was a good note taker. And jumping a few years, when I eventually got to my senior years in school with my university, I was taking more and more of these notes using my blue-black ink and slowly my marks were going down and all those years, one goes hard up, the academic ladders were hard and more the work is, and so I was beginning to think. You know, I was actually becoming more stupid as the years went on, and so I made more notes because notes were my rescue. They're my lifebelt. And, I suddenly realized one day that when exams were approaching I automatically went through my notes and I mean desperately underlining the key ideas.
And putting them on little memory cards and those memory cards were just the keywords, the key facts, the key data, and they were far less than 10% of the volume of my normal notes, and it slowly dawned on me that my normal notes of 90% plus irrelevant to my memory and learning, but my memory and learning needed the key ideas, so my memory cards were a lot more effective than my calipers books worth of fundamentally relevant sinking me notes. So I began to use the memory cards only and then I realized that these key ideas were hanging around in space isolated and they obviously had associations and connections. So I drew little lines, I put symbols, you know, two things were connected. I might use a triangle, little triangle by the side of each one to show that they were connected and then of course the color began to wear its very pretty head.
And I realized that I could use color to code and the color which I have been told as childish and I was not to use in my school or university notes are the phenomenally powerful thinking tool. I could organize. I could categorize. I could prioritize. I could structure. I could memorize. I could stimulate creative thoughts, you know, all those things that I could do with color alone. So, I began to use a lot more color in my notes. So, I had key ideas. I had lines and symbols, arrows connecting ahead colors, but I didn't have any images because I thought that I couldn't draw. And then I was disabused in that way by increasingly famous artist by the name of Lorraine K. Gill who said, "You know, Buzan, don't be ridiculous. Anybody can draw, all you need to learn is the aspects of art" and she taught me. Then, I suddenly realize anybody could draw and so rather than doing definition portraits in my notes, I just put a little stick figures. I drew the outline of a car or plane whatever was appropriate and I found that the images really did help and that of course reminded me of the thought, an image is worth or a picture is worth a thousand words, and from memory and creativity thinking and learning, that is true. And slowly in front of me, you know, like an invisible thing being uncloaked formed the Mind Map.
Hmm.
And it was a picture. It was a picture with a map of my own thoughts. It was like looking at a city of thoughts, but the central of the city and the main roads being the main branches of thought of reading out, the chapter headings that you like, and then the tributaries, the second level, third level, fourth, and fifth level ideas with connections and arrows and colors and codes and it was like a photograph on that page outside my head or both inside my head. And it was as if I've been driving all through my life in a car with a totally mud-cake windshield and suddenly the windshield that they go through and it was all clear and I could see and think clearly for the first time in my academic career with a remarkable and wonderful feeling.
Hmm. Absolutely.
That was the birth of the Mind Map and you know, I recently called them brain patterns. They got mislabels by the diagram, but they are Mind Maps and I have been in love with them ever since and I was on Google doing a Google search for Mind Map Images and this was about four days ago and there was 56 million results -- 56 million Mind Map images on the web and I thought Mind Map is so free, like a --
-- wonderful little friendly beings that when they become your friend, multiply and give you more and more friends and energy and memory and creativity and you then pass along to other people and they become a friend of Mind Maps and start to multiply those and then they get on the web and more people see them. So, Mind Maps, I mean you have to say, watch out what Mind Maps are all about.
Uh-hmm. Absolutely. I know it's just three days that I spent with you, my thinking has completely changed and sharpened. You know, I have been Mind Mapping as an amateur for many, many years. Now I had only come across iMindMap last year and it was by accident. I have been using another program for years and you know, great, great programs out there. I just happened to think Mind Map is the only one and I'm not totally quite boldly saying that because I have these others.
Tony what -- I think about not Mind Mapping at this point, I am just going about my day. I mean a conversation on planning my day or executing a task or something within my day and my mind has started to think in Mind Map. So, it's very difficult for me to put into words, but my whole thinking and process of thinking has -- it changed me and in my day-to-day living, this is outside of my business and outside of the things that I do for passion and for art, outside of that, just a general task, the way I think within a conversation is clearer today and more organized. My head is so much more organized. I've been started an online business around the same time that I did the training with you and I don't want to talk about that at all, but the change and the things that I have had to learn about an online business, the different programs, you know, I am doing it basically on my own. I have a mentor -- business mentor within in, but what I have had to learn, I'm 49 years old Tony and --
Still young. Still young.
Yes. And I was the child that -- well actually the truancy officer said, "Deb if you don't leave, we're going to kick you out." This was at the end of second year high school. I could not -- I would ask so many questions Tony and aggravate the teachers so much. You know, and I was a good kid. I wasn't unkind. I was a thoughtful kid. I love my, you know, my fellow students and I love the couple of the teachers as well, only a couple unfortunately, but you know they stand out and I excelled when I really related with the teacher, but I failed and wherever I didn't relate with the teacher. So, you know, to be learning the things that I need to learn to stay current as a baby boomer, Mind Mapping has accelerated. My thinking is getting clearer and more concise rather than looking and researching and learning word, of course, learning all of these different things. I can go into with great clarity of mind and when I leave it, my mind is still working on it and thinking about it and formulating and putting into place the things that I've needed to learn. So, it's really -- it has changed my life, Tony. So, I'm deeply appreciative to you and for your passion in not -- in bringing it out to the world and not keeping it to yourself and thinking of others. Tony, it's very, very big in Japan, isn't it? Japan and through the Middle East, I think those --
Yes it is.
-- those countries and of course through the UK through Europe, both countries have really grasped it, why do you think that is?
Let me first of all say, thank you for your Thanks and that I'm very proud of what you've managed to accomplish. Because what you've done is goal from normal to natural, the way you describe, the way you are now thinking is natural. It's intelligent. It's clear. You love it. Your brain loves it. Your memory loves it. You know, it's natural and thinking of one of the most lovely things. We do day dreaming. Everybody day dreams and that is a very high level form of thinking that were actually told not to do that we should be doing, so you've done it. You graduated. You are a fully paid up member of the age of intelligence and you may also describe yourself as the warrior of the mind because you are using your intelligence to help other people use theirs and that's going to be an increasing trend throughout the remainder of this decade and indeed the century. Now the reason why it has gone through well in Asia and Europe and England is probably because I spent a lot of time there and my books, the main books that I have written around the subject are the Use Your Head book in America called "Use Both Sides of Your Brain," but the BBC just come up with a new English language addition called "Use Your Head" and then this is the Mind Map book and the ultimate book of Mind Maps and of course the book that I have wrote with Chris Griffiths which is the Mind Maps for Business. You're going to be chatting to Chris, aren't you?
I am on the 24th. Yes. Yes.
That's wonderful. Yeah. Because as you said, I wrote the book Mind Maps for Business with Chris and that goes in to all of these in which you can apply Mind Mapping in any business situation. Now in Japan what happen was a businessman whose Japan's voted Japan's Top Marketer had a little experience to you. You know, he was a Top Marketer, but he wasn't the Top Marketer and he discovered Mind Maps and Mind Maps -- everything in Mind Maps is marketing plans, his presentations, you know, his speeches, his major appearances, etc. and he said "This transformed my life" and he went on to Japanese television, all the main stations and he said, you know, "Hey everybody, you know, I'm your Top Marketer. I am now selling to you use this tool, use Mind Maps" and the publishers in the Japan immediately launched on, and got over 30 books published in Japan by me and by my graduates in Japan and so Japan is definitely a __31:23___ China. China has, as you know, the one-child policy.
One of the good things that came from that is that each child being only one with the future of both parents. You know, you could have a family of eight and many, many grandchildren. You had one child and all your family investment and almost genetic investment went into that one single child and so education for the child became overly paramount.
Right.
And the Chinese loved education and the kids loved homework because they're learning and because they're doing well and because they're making their parents happy and proud and because they are experiencing the joys of really good success. So, the Chinese are very, very open to any idea that helps you learn more effectively and efficiently. So, they immediately got, if like, got the idea of Mind Mapping and the Mind Mapping if you think about is -- let me reverse my thought that the Chinese -- raising the Chinese characters are like mini, mini Mind Maps, condensed Mind Maps.
Of course.
Yeah. Their symbols and images all contained in this one "letter" and you know, my name in Chinese is Buzan and there are 28 characters, 28 strokes, brush strokes just in the name Buzan and each one has a shade and nuance of meaning. So, it's almost that you like the Chinese have been using a condensed form of symbolic Mind Mapping for 10,000 years.
Uhm-Uhm.
So, they love to front it and of course, they are very, very focused at the moment on becoming the world's #1 Nation.
Yes that's right.
And anything that they can do to do that, they will obviously embrace.
They are hungry for, yes. Yes. Yes.
Exactly as is it. So, Chinese Mind Maps are pouring out, you know by million every day. In fact, I am off to China in almost exactly three weeks. I'll arrive just before the first of December for the World Memory Championships. You know, I invented the World Memory Championships in 1991 and it's now become, I'm very happy to say, a big mind sporting event and they got over a 150 really strong international competitors for the World Memory Championships in Guangzhou from 2nd to the 6th of December.
That's fabulous. Tony just tell me -- tell me about the kind of memory that the participants -- the competitors have? You told a particular story in May of what their memory is like. Can you say that? We need to know that people would love to hear it.
Yeah I can. The psychologist from London University in 1994 came to the World Memory Championships which was being held in London at that time and said, "We've done research and we discovered that there are certain limits that the human brain can never ever and never will surpass and one of the average that you like of memory was that nobody would ever remember a spoken number --
Spoken at the rate of 2 seconds every digit that no one would ever remember spoken telephone number over 30 digits or more. And to experiment on that, they simply gave the students in London University a test and so, we can do the test now as you like. Deborah would you like to do that with the listeners?
Yeah right. Yes. Yes. That would be great.
Okay. Let's supposed that you are now in a memory experiment and all you've got to do, don't write this down, just remember the numbers that I say. First number 3, 5. Okay that's the number. Can you remember it?
And of course everybody laughs, this laugh would be easiest two digits and everybody can do that. So, you can now store that number and forget about it. The next number 5, 3, 9, 1, 4. That's the number.
Yeah. Okay. 5 --
Now most of you -- okay go on.
Yeah. 5, 3, 9, 1, 4. Yeah.
Very good. Now that number most people find easy-ish, you know, easy-ish to get difficult. You know. Next number, 7 and this is for all the listeners, 7, 3, 1, 8, 2, 9, 6. That's the number. Now that was seven digits and at seven, many people begin to wobble. You know, they reverse some of the digits or whatever and if you think about it, this little test is getting more difficult on a straight line, narrow, increase or they're getting exponentially more difficult and they are true exponentially. Every time you add a digit, it becomes that much more difficult. So, here is the next number and I'm okay listeners really try on this one. Are we ready?
6, 4, 8, 4, 0, 1, 6, 2, 8, 4, 7, 5, 9. That's the number. Now, that was only 13 digits, lucky 13 and basically everybody is kind of smiling and despair, you know, by the time the 10 digits has been said, it becomes laughably difficult, after 10 digits and if you can remember 9 or 10 digits spoken, it means that in that subsection of IQ test, you are in the genius category. So, you now understand why the psychologist said no one will ever, ever get the 30. It's million of times more difficult.
Uhm.
And last year, the World Memory Championships which was held in London. Three competitors memorized a spoken number, spoken twice as fast as I gave it to you of 100 digits long and they memorized --
One hundred digits long. Wow!
One hundred digits long and they did it perfectly and the man who won that competition memorized a spoken number 202 digits long.
Wow! Wow!
And you know, he won that competition. The psychologist said, impossible and obviously it wasn't impossible. You know, it was million of times better than the best things that could never be done and that night at the celebration dinner, some mean individual, you know, 10 hours after he had actually done that competition and after some more competitions, some mean spirited individuals said, you know Gunther, can you remember that number? And he pulled through and he said, "let me try it." And he rattled it off again all 202 digits perfectly 10 hours later and when he finished, he said "would you like me to do it again backwards?"
Yes. Isn't that incredible?
And he did. And he did.
He did it.
You know, he is a normal man. You know, the nice news for all you guys out there is that he was the oldest member of the competition. He was 45 years old. He started training his memory when he was 30 and he said, you know, every year it's got better and better and better and he sees no limit to it at all as long as the memory is used well, the memory will get stronger and stronger because you're putting more and more power into it. And it's all to do with imagination and association, you know being able to generate images in your head, in other words to day dream in a directed manner and that's how all memory works and memory like creativity, like IQ and the intelligences should naturally get better with age and that's how he did it. How everybody does it, who competes, how they all be doing it in China. It doesn't matter what race, sex, education level you are.
You remember in the same way and it's a lovely --
That's the beautiful thing. That's the beautiful thing Tony isn't it? It is -- there is no limit for one and there is no -- nobody is excluded from it. Everybody can tap into it and learn the skills and increase in their inner thought processes. Imagine a world in 20 years' time with people's mind, instead of -- my mom has just gone reasonably about 12 months into an age care facility in Australia where she is now living in Panama.
Yeah.
And she has gone into an age facility in Australia. She is 91 and she does exceptionally well. She really does, but of course, her mind is probably the strongest one there. You know, at that year's __42:47__ she has had hard challenging life, I think that there has -- instead of that overcoming her, she has used her mind through the years to stay positive and to stay advancing and to stay current as well
She does very well. She is surrounded by people that do have dementia. I think the challenge for her is trying to believe that she can be any different to these precious ones around her that have actually lost their mind. But imagine a world in 20 years' time where people's mind increasingly and commonly are getting sharper and dementia is something that is no longer normal because of we're doing natural, Tony.
Yeah. That is precisely the word that I have been imagining since I was 7 years old.
A world in which everybody will be mentally literate. In other words, would know about their brains, would know how to access older intelligences, would know how to apply them, would be as excited about the amazing thing that the brain is as you and I are. As you know, anybody who gets passionate about a hobby, you notice how their eyes light up when they talk about it. Whether that would be football or growing mushrooms in the dark or astronomy or meeting or computer software, whatever their hobby is, they light up when they become engaged than when they are talking about. Now the same thing happens with the brain and of course, with the brain, if you have that as your hobby and I'm recommending every one of your listeners to please make your brain your hobby starting now.
When you invest that interest in your brain, you become passionate about your brain. Your brain then realizes that and says, "hey my owner loves me." You know, "he is feeding me, he is helping me."
He is helping me grow and then becomes even more excited itself and you get this wonderful positive spiral in which the brain feeds the brain, feeds the brain, and all those mental skills generate and in terms of, you know, these older people's homes and establishment. They should be playing chess. They should be playing thinking games, computer games. They should be doing as much physical exercise as possible like your mom.
Yes. Hmm.
You know, there is every reason why the older person should be continuingly challenged like your mom has challenged herself throughout her life and that's why she is some more agile than the other people in the home. I mean give her a hug from me and my love and tell her "to keep the brain worrying.
I will. I will she -- yeah I will. She -- it's quite fascinating actually because her motivation is to watch her television programs, but when we're home last Christmas, we -- the family is sort of combined together and bought her, you know, the latest technology in the television and of course, the programming over is not the old VHS. She has done away with the VHS and the programming over it of course is all digital -- it is completely digital and you know, she sat down with the instruction book at 91 years of age and she has mastered this thing. She has digital radio. She has, you know, she loves to play solitaire and games on the computer. And you know that, she has always had the latest technology and always sat down -- is quite challenged for this one that she sat down until she has mastered it. You know, asking a couple of questions but --
Yeah, it's good.
Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty cool actually. I think it's very, very cool. Yeah, yeah it's great. So, I had a question for you and we've kind of answered it, but just to sort of bring it together, where do you see Mind Mapping in the next 10, 20, 30, 50 years? I know you have a huge hat for children and you spent a lot of time with children. We could do a whole lot of radio show on children this next year and all of those things and the incredible things that you've seen with Mind Mapping and I know you would have that patient for kids, but generally where do you see Mind Mapping in the next, you know, up to 50 years and beyond? Where do you want this to go Tony and how can we help?
Yeah. I see Mind Mapping becoming the automatic, the natural way that people take notes. You know, if you'd go in to any meeting, any school, any business meeting, any university, you will see people taking notes and they are always taking them on line paper usually with a cheap pen or pencil and in words. You know, that's the global human note taking system and within the next 20 years, I see the big shift that you will go into any meeting, any classrooms, any university lecture, any business meeting and you will see people with notepads but they will be lineless. You know, it will be in these prison cells of linear thinking. They will be all using blank paper. They will be using colored pens and in addition to that, they will be using computer software. You mentioned those earlier in fact, those all major computer softwares I was engaged in helping to develop and my frustration was the programs simply couldn't grasp, weren't capable of manifesting on the screen a Mind Map as the human hand would draw it, so they were linear, they were kind of mechanical.
Really?
They didn't look organic. They didn't flow and they were better than linear thinking and linear note taking, but they weren't Mind Mapping. They didn't allow the brain really. It's kind of Super Nova explosive capacity to think and so I considered them and still do consider them to have been rough drafts, you know, like an art is working on the final masterpiece.
You know, all those other softwares, where rough drafts on the way to iMindMap.
On the way. Yeah.
Yeah. Chris actually came to me five years ago and he said, "Tony, you know, I'm working with governments, so I'm producing all kinds of visual materials for the education system. I have two kids. I have taught them Mind Map. I used Mind Map and I know you must be frustrated with the software that's available. I will commit that in two years, I could produce the software that will actually enable you, you Tony to Mind Map on the screen and the way you would Mind Map on a sheet of paper and to your data, there you are and there it was."
And that was the iMindMap software so that is now the one, the only one that I recommend because it is the Mind Map software that I have spent 40 years helping to develop.
To develop, that's right. Yeah. Yes.
Yeah. That's it. You know, if you want to see a Mind Map as a Mind Map should be done, you know if anybody is wondering how should a Mind Map be done, you obviously going to find that in my books, but if you go on to the thinkbuzan.com website, you will see examples of Mind Maps as Mind Map should be done and that will help you and you can go on there obviously free and you can carry on with the software free as well.
And get a feel for what a Mind Map really does look like and a real Mind Map is -- it's like a kind of super memo in relation to a world.
The iMindMap software is so much more flexible and so much more available and so much more easy to use and in businesses now, you know, it's being use for wherever there is thinking that needs to be done, then the Mind Map is appropriate. There was a lovely review once in the early days when I was working on Mind Maps and then it said, if your life does not require any creativity, if you don't need in your business to think during the day, if you don't really care about your memory, if communication is not that important to you, if you consider learning, you know, to be something you have done and is now a part of your life, then Mind Maps are going to be totally irrelevant to you. (laughing)
(laughing) And it's absolutely true. It is absolutely true. I just have been the weekend in a Mastermind event and I had my iPadF.
And of course, I've got the Mind Map app attached to it and just going back, you know, to each speaker. Of course, I did my Mind Map on each speaker and that's how I took my notes for the weekend and I can tell you so much about each speaker and their key points and their things without even going back to the map. It's just in me. It's in my head.
And you know, they may get on Facebook. Yeah. You get on Facebook and those things, you know, you record them as you see the person's face on Facebook and write them a message, you can recall certain things just instantly and your mind is thinking. Your mind is continually thinking and continually productive. It is fabulous.
It's both true now being used by world leaders already which is very exciting, let's proceed to Mind Map software and Mind Maps themselves. I mean, Bill Gates is recommending Mind Maps. Professor Stephen Lundin, who wrote the Fish books is an avid Mind mapper. Toni Robins is recommending Mind Map.
Is he? Yes.
Yeah. He is a Mind Map himself. You have people like Ken Blanchard using Mind Map. I mean fundamentally --
-- everybody is using the Mind Map which is marvelous and I just got a lovely letter from the Minister for Energy, Enterprise, and Tourism of Scotland, Mr. Jim Mather. He said, this has actually put on my Blackberry two days ago. He said you know, "Hello there. I just thought you'd like to know that I use Mind Maps, you know, throughout my work as a Scottish Minister for Enterprise and Tourism and Energy, and that we give lectures to the constituents around the nation using Mind Map software and using Mind Map to encourage composition to help people think, to let them see the issues" and he said "Thank you for changing positively the future of Scotland."
Wow that's fabulous. Isn't it that great Tony?
Yeah. Al Gore is using Mind Map too and I'm hoping he keeps control of his global enterprise on the environment. I mean, you know, everybody is using them.
Watch out Mind Maps are about.
Yeah, that's right. Tony we've got about 4 minutes left and I have questions on the list that I didn't ask you. I have got Chris and I will be coming up in a couple of weeks and it will be great to cover some of those things with him, but please tell me, tell our listeners about your upcoming seminars. You just conducted one in Dubai. The whole seminar has been redone and I'm looking for a space where I can come and do the course again because I would love to experience it in a new format, but Tony just tell us where you are. What you've got coming out and how people can connect with you. I have your -- if they go to deborahturton.com. Of course, I have your website up on my site and then can find you through there or contact me directly, deborahturton@gmail.com.
But tell us what's coming up Tony please.
Lots of things for me. New books coming up. I've got new study skills with the BBC. My new series of books have just come out. The phone number that might be useful to get in touch with my offices is 44, which is England, 162 840 1010, so it's 441 628 401 010 and that's to get in contact with me about me, lecturing, and so.
That's right.
To find about the lectures -- the kind of the lectures that are going on, the training for the Buzan Licensed Instructors and ThinkBuzan Licensed Instructor, the BLIs and TLIs, those are taking place throughout the year and if you go to ThinkBuzan.com, you can find the dates of those. I myself are going to be in Bahrain for a public talks coming up at the end of this month, 27th and 28th of November. Tony in Bahrain and the Gulf. Then, I'm up to China to Guangzhou and I will be lecturing there. So, anybody who wants to pop in the World Memory Championship 2nd to the 6th of December come and see me in Guangzhou. That's a city which is just about to host the ASEAN Game, which is very exciting.
Yeah. And then I'm writing new books on the Nature of Thinking in January and February and then off from World tour in March, April, and May time, and hopefully doing some private coaching, you know, I do one on ones with prisons or proteges or people, you know, who run giant organizations. I do one-on-one coaching with them and I'll be doing a fair amount of that as well. So, very exciting times coming up with a lot of teaching people to teach other people my work and Mind Mapping and iMindMap, etc. It's very, very exciting mentally literate future now dawning.
It's fabulous, really. Tony, it's just been absolutely my honor and pleasure and delight and thank you so much for making this time. I have, you can say it in ways that I aspire to and I'm aspiring to --
That's good.
And I hope to be able to -- listeners come in and to hear you people that possibly one have the opportunity to see in you live and others that will be inspired to do everything that they can to get to see us. So, Tony you've changed the way I think and that is times in area of my life, personally, and in my business life, but thank you for your life work. As I said I could have gone on and talk for another hour with you...
So, could I. So, could I.
Maybe in -- you know, you'll be able to get to do it again. So, I just very much appreciate this. Thank you. Thank you for your life work and have a fantastic rest of the week and take my love with you. Thank you Tony.
Well, people like you who are making my life dream come true, so you are my dream come true. Thank you for being that.
Wonderful. Wonderful. Thanks Tony. Enjoy the rest of your day and we will catch up soon.
I'll look forward. Thank you.
Okay. Bye-bye now.
Bye Deborah. Bye.
Thank you everyone for listening in today. It has been absolutely fabulous. I know that you would want to share this link with many of your friends because this is awesome way to start the rest of your life Mind Mapping. So thank you everyone. I'll catch you next time on the air. Goodbye and have a fantastic day. Thank you. Bye-bye.
Deborah?
Yes Tony.
Right! That was lovely!
That was fantastic. Thank you very, very much. I really appreciate.
We will let people -- let people know about that. How long is that going to be up and available?
That will be -- I will archive that and that will be available forever.
Fantastic. Well I love to do another one. I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed that. It's so lovely to see you again.
Yes. It is. It's great to hear your voice and I've been so looking forward to it. It's been fantastic.
Yeah me too and I love your photograph by the way on your letters. That's very, very -- what is the word, it's elegant and it's human.
Good. That's good.
An elegant, human photograph.
Thank you. Thank you Tony. I appreciate that.
Stay in touch with me. Give my love to Chris when you speak to him.
I'll do that.
I will let Rhianne know when you want to do it again next year. I'd be happy to do another hour.
Okay. That would be great Tony. Thank you. Thank you. It's just so valuable for people and people are hungry for the truth Tony, that's what I'm finding that --.
Yeah they are.
-- people are hungry for the truth. Yeah. And people that they can trust.
Yes. Also that's very, very, very true and very important.
Hmm. Hmm. Great. Great.
Alright my lady. Well, I will let people know, spread the good news, and I speak to you soon and I wish you a happy Christmas and a very, very prosperous and wonderful New Year.
Yeah. And you too Tony. Thank you. Thank you. Enjoy every minute.
I promise and remember that hug and love to your mama as well.
I will. I will. I definitely will. Thank you so much for that. It's been just a pleasure Tony. You have an incredible way of inspiring and motivating truths in the heart, so thank you.
Thank you. Speak to you soon.
Great.
Bye Deb. Bye.
Okay. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye.