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Mind Map Handbook

Tony Buzan Mind Map® Handbook

Contents

Cover

Title Page

A Letter to My Readers

1: How to Mind Map

1.1: Introducing the Mind Map!

1.2: Making a Mind Map

1.3: Your Daily Life Made More Successful with Mind Maps

1.4: Making the Most of Your Creativity with Mind Maps

1.5: Your Ideal Future Designed by Mind Maps

2: The Power of Verbal Intelligence

2.1: Fore-word! Your Journey to Verbal Power Begins

2.2: Child’s Wordplay – Proof that You are a Natural Verbal Genius

2.3: Word Power I – Roots: How to Improve Your Vocabulary, Creativity, Memory and IQ!

2.4: Word Power II – Prefixes and Suffixes

2.5: Brain Word – Using your Brain Power to Develop your Word Power

2.6: Body Talk – Body Language and How to Improve It

2.7: Present Yourself – How to Become a Successful Speaker

2.8: Read On! How to Improve Your Speed, Comprehension and Recall

2.9: Communication Power – Using Your Verbal Intelligence to Gain Control of Your Life

2.10: Using Your Verbal Intelligence to Increase Your Other Multiple Intelligences

3: The Power of Creative Intelligence

3.1: Introduction – Beginning Your Creativity Journey

3.2: Using Your Magical Left and Right Brains

3.3: Infinite Creativity – Mapping Your Mind with Mind-Maps

3.4: You the Creative Artist

3.5: You the Creative Musician

3.6: Creative Productivity – The Power of Volume and Speed

3.7: Creative Flexibility and Originality

3.8: Your Brain: The Ultimate ‘Association Machine’ – Expansive and Radiant Thinking

3.9: You and Shakespeare – Poets Both!

3.10: Only Kidding

Congratulations!

Plates

Answers

Contact

Acknowledgements

Copyright

About the Publisher

A Letter to my Readers

Let me tell you the story of how Mind Maps came into being.

As a young child I had loved the idea of taking notes and of learning. By the time I was a teenager my thinking was already getting into a mess, and I began to hate anything to do with study, especially note-taking. I began to notice the extraordinary paradox that the more notes I took the worse my studies and memory became. In an effort to improve matters I began to underline key words and ideas in red and to put important things in boxes. Magically, my memory began to improve.

In my first year of university, I was still struggling. It was then that I became fascinated by the Greeks, for I learned that they had developed memory systems that enabled them to recall perfectly hundreds and thousands of facts. The Greek memory systems were based on Imagination and Association, which I noticed to my amusement and concern were absent from my own notes!

I then began to notice that everyone around me was taking the same kind of crowded, one-colour and monotonous notes as I was. None of us was using the principles of Imagination and Association – we were all in the same sinking boat!

I suddenly realized that in my head and the collective ‘global brain’, there was a gigantic log-jam that needed a new note-taking and thinking tool to unblock it.

I set out in search of a thinking tool that would give us the freedom to think and the freedom to think in the way we were designed to think.

I began to study every subject I could, especially psychology. In psychology I discovered that there were two main things important to the brain during learning: Association and Imagination. Similar to the Greeks! By now I was becoming fascinated by my brain and what I realized were its power and potential. The power and potential were both much greater than I had thought. I began to focus on memory, note-taking and creativity, as it seemed that the answer to my quest would lie with them.

I quickly discovered that most of the great thinkers, especially Leonardo da Vinci, used pictures, codes and connecting lines in their notes. They ‘doodled’ and thus made their notes come alive.

During all these explorations, I would often wander in nature, where I found it much easier to think, imagine and dream. It began to dawn on me that, as we are part of nature, our thinking and note-making must relate to nature and must reflect nature; we must mirror the universal laws of nature in our own functioning!

There was only one possible solution to my dilemma. The thinking tool had to apply to the full range of human daily activities, and had to be based on the way the brain naturally wants to work. I needed something that reflected the processes of nature and how our brains naturally work rather than something that put us in a mental strait-jacket by forcing us to work against our natural design. What emerged was a star-like, simple, and beautiful tool that did reflect the natural creativity and radiance of our thinking processes.

The first Mind Map was born!

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) heard about this new discovery and about its remarkable effect on children. As a result they asked me to do a half-an-hour television program on Mind Maps.

At the meeting to discuss the content of the program, I Mind Mapped the brain-storming session. Looking at the growing Mind Map, the Head of BBC Further Education exclaimed: ‘There’s more than one programme here. There are at least ten!’ Within a year the Use Your Head ten-part television series and accompanying book were launched. The Mind Map had created its own future!

Since then I have devoted my time to lecturing and teaching about the theory and application of Mind Maps. Having struggled through my student days, I was determined that everyone should have the benefit of this liberating thinking tool.

Mind Map Handbook is part of this determination to make Mind Maps accessible to everyone.

Part One introduces you to what a Mind Map is, how Mind Maps work and the many ways in which they can help you excel at what you do.

Part Two focuses on how to use Mind Maps to harness the power of your verbal intelligence and become brilliant with words – whether you are reading, speaking, remembering or understanding them.

Part Three shows you how Mind Maps can help you unlock your creative genius and become the ideas person you’ve always wanted to be. Mind Maps are the Swiss Army Knife for the brain, and with them you will sharpen your powers of thought and be able to generate new ideas with speed and ease.

Mind Maps wonderfully and dramatically changed my life for the better. I know that they will do the same for you.

Be prepared to be amazed – by yourself!

1

How to Mind Map

1.1

Introducing The Mind Map

In this chapter I will answer the following questions:

Just What Is a Mind Map?

What Do You Need to Make a Mind Map?

How Can Mind Maps Help You?

Just What Is a Mind Map?

A Mind Map is the ultimate organizational thinking tool. And it is so simple!

The very basic Mind Map below is a plan for today. Each of the branches emanating from the central image relate to different things that need to be done today, for example, calling a plumber, or doing the grocery shopping.

A Mind Map is the easiest way to put information into your brain and to take information out of your brain – it’s a creative and effective means of note-taking that literally ‘maps out’ your thoughts.

All Mind Maps have some things in common. They all use colour. They all have a natural structure that radiates from the centre. And they all use lines, symbols, words and images according to a set of simple, basic, natural and brain-friendly rules. With a Mind Map, a long list of boring information can be turned into a colourful, memorable, highly organized diagram that works in line with your brain’s natural way of doing things.

You can usefully compare Mind Maps to maps of a city. The centre of your Mind Map is like the centre of the city, and represents your most important idea; the main roads leading from the centre represent the main thoughts in your thinking process; the secondary roads or branches represent your secondary thoughts, and so on. Special images or shapes can represent sights of interest or particularly interesting ideas.

Just like a road map, a Mind Map will:

Give an overview of a large subject or area.

Enable you to plan routes or to make choices, and will let you know where you are going and where you have been.

Gather together large amounts of data in one place.

Encourage problem solving by allowing you to see new creative pathways.

Be enjoyable to look at, read, muse over and remember.

Mind Maps are also brilliant route-maps for the memory, allowing you to organize facts and thoughts in such a way that your brain’s natural way of working is engaged right from the start. This means that remembering and recalling information later is far easier and more reliable than when using traditional note-taking techniques.

What Do You Need to Make a Mind Map?

Because Mind Maps are so easy to do and so natural, the ingredients for your ‘Mind Map Recipe’ are very few:

Blank unlined paper

Coloured pens and pencils

Your brain

Your imagination!

How Can Mind Maps Help You?

Mind Maps can help you in many, many ways! Here are just a few!

Mind Maps can help you to:

be more creative

save time

solve problems

concentrate

organize and clarify your thinking

pass exams with good grades

remember better

study faster and more efficiently

make studying a breeze

see the ‘whole picture’

plan

communicate

survive!

save trees!

Let’s compare your brain and the knowledge in it to a library.

Imagine that your brain is a newly built and empty library waiting to be filled with data and information in the form of books, videos, films, CDs and computer discs.

You are the chief librarian and have to choose first whether you wish to have a small or a large selection. You naturally choose a large selection.

Your second choice is whether to have the information organized or not.

Imagine that you take the second option, not to have it organized: you simply order a dumpster of books and electronic media, and have it all piled in a giant heap of information in the middle of your library floor! When somebody comes into your library and asks for a specific book or place where they can find information on a specific topic, you shrug your shoulders and say: ‘It’s somewhere there in the pile, hope you find it – good luck!’

This metaphor describes the state of most people’s minds! Their minds, even though they may – and often do – contain the information they want, are so horribly disorganized that it is impossible for them to retrieve information when they need it. This leads to frustration and a reluctance to take in or handle any new information. After all, what is the point of taking in new information, if you are never going to be able to access the stuff anyway?!

Imagine, on the other hand, that you have a giant library, filled with incredible amounts of information on everything you ever wanted to know. In this new super-library, rather than all this information being piled randomly in the middle of the floor, everything is filed in perfect order, exactly where you want it.

In addition to this, the library has a phenomenal data-retrieval and access system that enables you to find anything you want at the flash of a thought.

An impossible dream?

An immediate possibility for you!

Mind Maps are that phenomenal data-retrieval and access system for the gigantic library that actually exists in your amazing brain.

Mind Maps help you to learn, organize, and store as much information as you want, and to classify it in natural ways that give you easy and instant access (perfect memory!) to whatever you want.

Mind Maps have an additional strength. You would think that the more information you put into your head, the more stuffed your head would become and the more difficult it would be to get any information out. Mind Maps turn this thought on its head!

Why?

Because with Mind Maps each new piece of information you put into your library automatically ‘hooks on to’ all the information already in there. With more of these grappling-hooks-of-memory attaching to any piece of information in your head, the more easy it is for you to ‘hook out’ whatever information you need. With Mind Maps, the more you know and learn, the easier it is to learn and know more!

In summary, Mind Mapping has a whole range of advantages that help make your life easier and more successful.

It’s time for you to start your first one!

1.2

Making A Mind Map

Discovering Your Natural Mind Mapping Ability

Imagination and Association Game

Seven Steps to Making a Mind Map

Creating Your First Mind Map

In this chapter you are going to make your first Mind Map, starting with an Imagination and Association game.

You will graduate from this chapter knowing how to Mind Map and having learned all the ingredients that go into making a great Mind Map.

Discovering Your Natural Mind Mapping Ability

How does a Mind Map work? In the same way your brain works!

And fortunately, although your brain can do the most incredibly complex things, it is based on the most profoundly simple principles. That is why Mind Maps are easy and fun to create, because they work with your brain’s natural needs and energy rather than against them.

So what are the keys to your brain’s functioning?

Quite simply: imagination and association

Doubt it? Then try this game and make your first Mind Map.

Imagination and Association Game

Read the word printed in capital letters below and immediately close your eyes and keep them closed for about 30 seconds and think about it.

FRUIT

When you read the word and then closed your eyes, was all that popped into your mind a little computer printout of the word: F-R-U-I-T?!

Of course not! What your brain probably generated was an image of your favourite single fruit, or a bowl of fruit, or a fruit store, and so on. You probably also saw the colours of different fruits, connected the tastes to appropriate fruits, and similarly ‘experienced’ their aromas. This is because our brains work with sensory images with appropriate links and associations radiating from them. Our brains use words to trigger these images and associations. They produce 3-D pictures with numerous associations that are especially personal to us.

Your brain thinks radiantly in all directions.

What you have demonstrated with the ‘Fruit Exercise’ is that your brain Mind Maps naturally! And in doing so, you have accomplished even more than you thought, and opened the way for phenomenal improvement in your thinking power. You have learned how your brain actually works!

To get some insight into just how brilliant your brain is and how important Mind Maps are as a method for allowing it to express itself naturally and easily, think again about the ‘Fruit Exercise’ you have just completed: how quickly did you get that image of fruit? Most people answer ‘immediately’.

In daily conversation you are accessing ‘immediately’ a constant stream of continuing data so easily and elegantly that you don’t even notice that your brain is doing something that makers of the world’s super-computers can only dream of doing! You already possess the ultimate super-computer. And it’s in your head!

It is this amazing ‘super-computer power’ that Mind Maps harness. Mind Maps are the reflection of your brain’s natural, image-filled thinking processes and abilities.

This is how our brains work –

IMAGES with networks of ASSOCIATION

This is how Mind Maps work –

IMAGES with networks of ASSOCIATION

Seven Steps to Making a Mind Map

Start in the CENTRE of a blank page turned sideways. Why?

Because starting in the centre gives your brain freedom to spread out in all directions and to express itself more freely and naturally.

Use an IMAGE or PICTURE for your central idea. Why?

Because an image is worth a thousand words and helps you use your Imagination. A central image is more interesting, keeps you focused, helps you concentrate, and gives your brain more of a buzz!

Use COLOURS throughout. Why?

Because colours are as exciting to your brain as are images. Colour adds extra vibrancy and life to your Mind Map, adds tremendous energy to your Creative Thinking, and is fun!

CONNECT your MAIN BRANCHES to the central IMAGE and connect your second and third-level branches to the first and second levels, etc. Why?

Because, as you now know, your brain works by ASSOCIATION. If you connect the branches, you will understand and remember a lot more easily. Connecting your main branches also creates and establishes a basic structure or architecture for your thoughts. This is very similar to the way in which in nature a tree has connected branches that radiate from its central trunk. If there were little gaps between the trunk and its main branches or between those main branches and the smaller branches and twigs, nature wouldn’t work quite so well! Without connection in your Mind Map, everything (especially your memory and learning!) falls apart. Connect!

Make your branches CURVED rather than straight-lined. Why?

Because having nothing but straight lines is boring to your brain. Curved, organic branches, like the branches of trees, are far more attractive and riveting to your eye.

Use ONE KEY WORD PER LINE. Why?

Because single key words give your Mind Map more power and flexibility. Each single word or image is like a multiplier, generating its own special array of associations and connections. When you use single key words, each one is freer and therefore better able to spark off new ideas and new thoughts. Phrases or sentences tend to dampen this triggering effect. A Mind Map with more key words in it is like a hand with all the finger joints working. A Mind Map with phrases or sentences is like a hand with all your fingers held in rigid splints!

Use IMAGES throughout. Why?

Because each image, like the central image, is also worth a thousand words. So if you have only 10 images in your Mind Map, it’s already the equal of 10,000 words of notes!

Creating Your First Mind Map

Let’s return to the topic of ‘Fruit’ and use your powers of imagination and association to make a Mind Map. There is a sample Mind Map on Plate 1, but try to complete the Mind Map yourself before you look at it.

Level One

First take a sheet of plain paper and some coloured pens. Turn the piece of paper on its side, so that it is wider than it is long (landscape rather than portrait). In the centre of the page draw an image that sums up ‘Fruit’ for you. Use the coloured pens and be as creative as you like. Now label this image ‘Fruit’.

Level Two

Then, draw some thick branches radiating out from the central ‘Fruit’ image. Use a different colour for each. These branches will represent your main thoughts on ‘Fruit’. You can add any number of branches when you make a Mind Map, but, for the purposes of this exercise, let’s limit the number of branches to five.

Basic form to copy for your first Mind Map (Level 2)

On each branch, print clearly and in large capital letters the first five single key words that pop into your head when you think of the concept ‘Fruit’. As you can see, at the moment, your Mind Map is primarily composed of lines and words. So how can we improve it?

We can make it better by adding to it the important brain ingredients of pictures and images from your IMAGINATION. ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ and therefore saves you a lot of time and wasted energy writing down those thousand words in your notes! And it is easier to remember.

For each of your key words, draw in a picture next to it to represent and reinforce it. Use your coloured pens and a little imagination. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece – a Mind Map is not a test of your artistic ability!

Level Three

Now let’s use ASSOCIATION to expand this Mind Map on to its next stage. Returning to your Mind Map, take a look at the five key words you have written down on each of the main branches. Do these key words spark off further ideas? For example, if, say, you had written the word ‘Orange’ you might think of colour, juice, Florida, Vitamin C, and so on.

Draw further branches coming off each of your key words to accommodate the associations you make. Again, the number of sub-branches you have is totally dependent on the number of ideas you come up with – which may be infinite. However, for this exercise, draw in three sub-branches.

Basic form for you to copy for your first Mind Map (Level 3)

On these sub-branches do exactly the same as you did in the first stage of this game: print, clearly, single key words on these waiting-to-be-filled branches. Use the main word on the branch to trigger your three new key words. Again, remember to use colour and images on these sub-branches.

Congratulations! You have just completed your first basic Mind Map. You will notice that even at this early stage your Mind Map is brimming with symbols, codes, lines, words, colours, and images, and is already demonstrating all the basic guidelines you need in order to apply your brain most effectively and enjoyably. For a completed ‘master example’ of this exercise, see Plate 1.

You are now more than ready to explore the exciting world of Mind Map applications and how they can add quality, effectiveness, and success to your personal, family, professional, and daily life.

1.3

Your Daily Life Made More Successful with Mind Maps

Communication and Presentations Mind Map

Planning Family Events Mind Map

Persuading People and Negotiating with Mind Maps

Romantic Weekend Mind Map

Telephone Calls Mind Map

Starting a New Venture Mind Map

Shopping Mind Map

Reduce a Book to a Single Page Mind Map

Now you have mastered the basics, it is time to introduce you to a range of the most popular and successful applications for Mind Maps in your daily life.

You now know that Mind Maps have many advantages, including saving time, organizing and clarifying your thinking, generating new ideas, keeping track of things, dramatically improving memory and concentration, stimulating more of your brain, allowing you to keep your eye on the ‘whole picture’, and, very importantly, being fun to do!

In this chapter I am going to put all these advantages to work for you.

You will learn how to apply this master thinking technique to a whole range of the most important Life Skills including planning, shopping, studying, note-taking, coming to new realizations and awareness, and making presentations. You will then be able to Mind Map your way through any problem (Plate 2).

Communication and Presentations Mind Map

Being asked to make a speech or presentation is ranked as the number one fear on the planet – higher than the fear of snakes, spiders, rodents, war, disease, violence, and even death!

Why?

Because when making a speech or presentation we are both physically and mentally utterly exposed. There is no escaping the inevitable mistakes in front of the audience.

Thus the dread.

To deal with this dread, most people spend hours and days preparing written presentations that waste precious time and which often have the opposite effect to that desired.

Because they are written in sentence form, and because we do not speak in this form, they become monotonous and boring. In addition, because you have to keep on looking down at the words, you lose contact with the audience. In further addition, because you have to keep looking back up at the audience you increase the probability that you will lose your place. On top of all this, because you have to hold the pages, you trap your extraordinarily expressive body in an immobile prison, thus losing more than 50% of your communication ability at the start.

Mind Maps to the rescue!

In the same way as you Mind Mapped ‘Fruit’, simply place the topic of the speech in the centre of the page, and radiate out the main key images and words you wish to address.

When you have completed the Mind Map, number the central branches in the order in which they are to be presented, and highlight any major points or any major connections between the branches.

You will be delighted to know that for making speeches, the standard rule is one key word or image for one-minute’s worth of speech on a topic you know well. Thus for a half-an-hour speech you need only a small Mind Map to complete your task more than successfully.

The advantage of using a Mind Map for presentations, which millions of people in the business world now do, is that it keeps your mind constantly aware of the ‘whole picture,’ allows you to add and subtract information as the time for your presentation approaches, and guarantees that you will cover all the major points you wish to address. Your eyes will be able to make much more contact with your audience, your body will be a lot more free, and so will your mind.

Presentation Mind Maps give you that ultimate freedom – the freedom to be yourself. And audiences appreciate nothing more than someone who is doing just that.

For an example of a completed Mind Map on this subject, turn to Plate 3.

Planning Family Events Mind Map

A dear friend of mine uses Mind Maps to plan all her family’s daily, weekly, annual, and special events. Her Mind Maps appear in a place, commonly known as the community hub of the family and where they are increasingly to be found: on her fridge door!

She, in her own words, will tell you how she uses them, what for, and what the advantages are.

‘Before I had heard about Tony and his Mind Maps, I was in chaos! I consider myself a pretty typical twenty-first century woman – I want it all! I am a wife, a mother, I have a career, I like to keep fit and I love my social life. Everything has equal importance and I enjoy all the demands and successes. And I certainly don’t want to miss out on anything, least of all any of my son’s important activities – be they studying for exams, attending a concert, helping him with his art project, or making sure his hair is cut in time for the school photo!

However, I realized that wanting it all meant that I had to be super efficient in my organization at home. While packing my briefcase for the following day’s meetings, had I remembered to pick up the dry-cleaned suit for my husband’s important meeting the next day, or that the dog’s appointment with the vet was at 3.00 p.m. at precisely the same time as I had a meeting, so who was going to take him? And which day of the week was it in my son’s school schedule? If tomorrow was Wednesday, he needed his football boots and his piano music and would need to be picked up later than usual as he was in the school musical rehearsal and then when he came home he had homework to do before supper, bath and bed! Oh, and my mother was arriving for two days – must make sure the guest bed had clean sheets on and get in more food, and send off the deposit for our vacation or we would lose the reservation! And remember to call Susie to tell her that I can’t join her at the yoga class after all because of all of the above.

Most of the time, we somehow muddled through (with frantic phone calls from the school about some vital piece of equipment that had been forgotten and equally frantic calls from my husband reminding me of that important business dinner that yes, I had forgotten about). Then I heard about Mind Maps. I couldn’t think what on earth these could possibly be, but was sold on the idea that on one piece of paper I could map out our daily or weekly diary so that all of us knew just exactly what the other was doing and what was needed. This has quite simply transformed my life! I now have a Mind Map on our fridge door and can visually see what the week ahead holds. It goes up at the weekend and we all do it together and add to it as the week progresses. I don’t think my life has ever run so efficiently.’

What my friend has demonstrated is that a Mind Map is a wonderful way to note down, in an attractive and organized way, everything you have to do. You can either have one overall Mind Map or a series of mini-Mind Maps that cover the areas of your future activities. These Mind Maps will give you a good degree of control over your future, and will help you plan far more easily and effectively.

For an example of one of her Mind Maps see Plate 4.

Persuading People and Negotiating with Mind Maps

Persuading other people to see things from our point of view is necessary for survival.

In every walk of life and on a daily basis, we are all involved in persuading people. Whether it be deciding on where to go on vacation, bargaining for a better deal, attempting to sell something, or even applying for a job, the result depends on our ability to persuade.

In these communications you need to be prepared, and a Mind Map is an excellent preparation tool.

Before entering the ‘persuasion zone’, Mind Map out the entire situation, including as your main branches the big goals you have in the situation. Consider the arguments you want to put forward, and note them down in key words and images. You could, for example, use a Mind Map to argue for a raise. You could use the Mind Map to map out all the reasons you deserve more money, taking into account not just your strengths but your weaknesses, in order to pre-empt any objections. You could also use the Mind Map to highlight any particular successes you have had in your present role.

It is also a good idea to include other people’s points of views in your Mind Map. When you do this, it gives you a much better overall picture, and allows you to make your points in a spirit of mutual co-operation rather than one of mutual combat!

Mind Maps are especially useful when it comes to negotiating contracts. Getting that all-important ‘whole picture’ and proper perspective is far easier if you use a Mind Map. A Mind Map also helps you add as much detail as necessary without getting lost, because words, colours, symbols, and other Mind Mapping techniques concentrate the information while at the same time organizing it effectively for you.

Colour codes

Colour codes are especially useful. They can highlight areas that are negotiable, non-negotiable, or neutral while the contract is being negotiated. This allows you to concentrate on what is important and not waste time and energy on the irrelevant.

The more contract negotiations get bogged down, the more the Mind Map comes to the rescue. It enables you to see the ‘whole picture’ all the time and that you see relationships that might otherwise be invisible.

One lawyer, who was negotiating a long and complex case, used Mind Maps to keep track of everything over a period of six months. His memory of and grasp of the case was so immense, complex, and complete that his offices were raided by the opposition looking for the secret electronic equipment they thought he must be smuggling into court to give him such perfect control of the case!

Romantic Weekend Mind Map

Planning a romantic weekend can cause a lot of anxiety and stress, because it is so important that such events are wonderfully successful. As with any other form of planning, if any vital ingredient is missing or forgotten, the whole event could be a catastrophe. This is where Mind Maps can come to the rescue again! With your Romantic Weekend Mind Map you will radiate, from a suitably romantic central image, the main branches of the things you need to consider.

These will include location, travel, activities, food, drinks, equipment (including clothes, toiletries, books, and games), and special surprises, etc.

Perhaps the main advantage of the Mind Map for planning the romantic weekend is that it gives a much greater probability that the weekend will be a success, and simultaneously gives you more confidence and less stress.

The confident and relaxed individual is a much more attractive romantic partner!

For an example of a completed Mind Map on this subject, turn to Plate 5.

Telephone Calls Mind Map

Many people make notes during important telephone calls. Business calls, for example, can be extremely complicated and it is easy to miss information if you are not adequately prepared. Similarly, if you are planning a vacation, you may need to jot down details of your itinerary. A Mind Map is ideal for this purpose.

Begin with the central image that summarizes either the topic of the conversation or the essence of the person with whom you are talking. Your first main branch will include the person’s name and the date. You print each main subject on a branch radiating from the centre, adding details using single key words, codes, and images printed on the smaller branches.

As the conversation progresses, the information goes on the page in a way that helps your brain ORGANIZE, REMEMBER, COMPARE, and CONNECT very quickly. When the subject changes, add another branch using key images, codes, and words on the line as before. When the conversation goes back to an early subject, simply go back to the appropriate branch and add the new information.

The telephone conversation can regularly dance from topic to topic, often returning to particular points again and again. With the Mind Map, this is easy to handle because the information always ends up where it belongs. Normal notes simply record, chronologically (not truly logically) the flow of data. This means that the key information gets scattered and lost. You will often find that the information coming out of your telephone call Mind Map is a lot more organized than the information that originally came in on the telephone!

In telephone call Mind Maps, colour adds another useful dimension. You might use red for what you have to act on right away and blue for things you can deal with later.

Pre-drawing the branches for calls you initiate is a good way to keep things on track. This will allow the branches and key words and images to remind you of both what the conversation is about and your goals. People who use Mind Maps get more information across in less time. They are also much more organized and focused because they have a picture of what they want to talk about in front of them.

When you do pre-draw your Mind Maps in this way, it will avoid the incredibly frustrating experience of having to telephone people back because you have ‘just remembered’ (after you have hung up!) a vitally important topic that you forgot to mention. Telephone call Mind Maps save you time, save you embarrassment and save you money!

Starting a New Venture

As you have seen so far, Mind Maps are a fantastic planning tool. They enable you to see the ‘whole picture’ and ensure that nothing is left to chance. What better way, then, to plan a new venture?

Perhaps you are thinking of starting up your own business, like a store or a company. Or perhaps you want to do something on a smaller scale, like starting up a babysitting service or a social club. Whatever your idea, Mind Maps can help you plan smarter and be more successful.

There are so many things to consider when you are starting up a new venture. It can be a really daunting task. However, if you use a Mind Map you can make sure you have thought everything through carefully first. For example, where will you locate your business? Do you need your own premises or can you work from home? And what about staff? Do you need to employ other people or can you manage alone? How will you finance your venture? Will it take a lot of start-up capital? Do you need to borrow money? All of these issues can be plotted out on your Mind Map, using the key words for each of the main things you have to consider. This will allow you to see problems before they arise, and take the necessary steps to avoid them.

As your venture develops, you can use your Mind Map as a constant point of reference to check that things stay on track. For example, very often your finances and cash flow take up so much time and importance that it is easy to forget all the brilliant marketing ideas you had for making money in the first place (ironically, it is these very marketing initiatives that could increase your revenue). But if you refer to your Mind Map on a regular basis, you will not forget any of your initial ideas, and you will be able to implement them when the time is right.

With a Mind Map at your side, you are giving your new venture a head start to success.

For an example of a completed Mind Map on this topic, turn to Plate 6.

Shopping Mind Map

Mind Maps are a wonderful shopping aid. They guarantee that you remember everything you wish to buy, and streamline the entire process. They also feed your brain with a constant diet of whole-brain stimulation as you use the Mind Map to remind you while you shop.

No more the infuriating confetti of random scraps of paper, which fracture your thinking, stress your mind with uncertainty, and as often as not get lost! You could even use a Mind Map to plan out all your shopping when faced with buying gifts for Christmas or other special occasions.

First, draw a central image to remind you of your shopping. Then use each of the main branches to think about each person for whom you are buying. Write their names as key words and draw in some sub-branches on which to put their details. For instance, what are their hobbies, their likes and their dislikes? This will help you decide what gifts would be most suitable.

You can even use the Mind Map to work out the most efficient route for your shopping trip and the best stores for each present. Then, when you actually go out, you can take your Mind Map with you for reference to make sure you remember everything.

Use a Mind Map to shop, and your shopping planning will be faster and more efficient, you will buy everything you wished to buy, you will rid yourself of the nagging doubt that you have forgotten something, and you will never have to make those unnecessary return trips to pick up those things you forgot! (See Plate 7 for a Mind Map on this topic.)

How to Reduce a Book to a Single Page Mind Map

Mind Mapping a book is easy. In fact books are made to be Mind Mapped! This can be invaluable for study. Mind Maps enable you to get to grips with the subject before you start, as well as providing a fantastic study aid to which you can refer.

To reduce a book to a single page, first scan through the book, checking for the main divisions and chapter headings. These will give you the main branches of your Mind Map, which can radiate from your central image. The central image will either be one that summarizes the topic of the book or an illustration of the book itself.

With this master structure in place, you can fill in the details as you go, even though you are not always reading ‘in the right order’.

The Mind Map, because it is a ‘self-organizing system’, will present to you the developing overview of the work, increasing your understanding and comprehension, making your study and learning faster and more enjoyable, and vastly improving your memory.

When you review a Mind Map of a book, it is like looking at a photograph album where you immediately remember vast arrays of information with the trigger of each of those ‘thousand words’ pictures.

Novels are easy to Mind Map. With a novel the chapter headings, if there are any, will probably not make the best main branches. Something else, however, will!

All novels are made up of a number of major component parts, which allow you to condense an entire book onto a single page. These main elements are:

Plot – the structure of events

Characters – their type and development

Setting – the places and times where the events of the novel take place

Language – its general level, the type of vocabulary and its rhythm

Imagery – the kind of images the author provides for your imagination

Themes – the kind of ideas with which the novel deals, including such common themes as love, power, money, religion, etc.

Symbolism – where the author substitutes one thing to mean another – for example flowers for love, thunderstorms for anger, calm seas for peace, etc.

Philosophy – some books present a point of view in order to challenge the way we think

Genre – novels can be categorized under different headings, for instance, political, adventure, mystery, detective, historical, etc.

When you Mind Map a novel in this way, you will never again get confused about which character is which, what time is when or what is actually going on! The Mind Map will be like a beacon for you, lighting your way as you progress, and giving you a far richer, deeper and more complete understanding and appreciation of whatever you read.

If you are studying or planning to take further education courses in any subject, book Mind Maps are the ideal way to get that ‘A’!

Computer Mind Maps

Computers can be helpful when you Mind Map! Although it is still your brain that comes up with all the ideas, the latest software can allow you to draw a Mind Map on your screen. The advantages of this are obvious. You can save your Mind Maps in a file and then transmit this information to others. Computer Mind Maps allow you to store vast amounts of data in Mind Map form, to cross-reference that data, to shift branches around from one part of the Mind Map to another, to rearrange entire Mind Maps in light of new information, and to hold global conferences.

Many companies are now using computer Mind Maps for storing and sharing information and for keeping track of projects. Use them in conjunction with handmade Mind Maps – the combination is explosive!

As you have seen, Mind Maps have many and very varied uses.

In the chapter that follows, I will introduce you to Mind Maps as a super-tool for improving your creativity and ability to generate thoughts. First because creativity is such a vital ingredient in our modern lives, and secondly because using Mind Maps creatively reveals a fact about your brain and its potential that will amaze and delight you.

1.4

Making The Most of Your Creativity with Mind Maps

Unleasing Your Amazing Creative Power with Mind Maps

Linear Note-taking and Its Problems

The Worldwide Web in Your Head and ItsCreative Power

The Great Creative Geniuses and Note-taking

This chapter will explore how Mind Maps work through the brain principles of Imagination and Association to maximize your creativity.

Unleashing Your Amazing Creative Power with Mind Maps

Do you feel you are creative?

In this chapter Mind Maps will show you not only that you are, but that you are amazingly creative. To do this, let’s go back to the exercise in Chapter 1.2, on ‘Fruit’. Look back at your own Mind Map or use the sample Mind Map on ‘Fruit’ on Plate 1. There are five main branches radiating from the central image, with three further ‘twigs’ coming off each branch, for a third level of Association. By using your imaginative, associative brain, you added key words or images to those branches. This may seem simple, but what your brain did was actually something quite profound. You took a single concept, ‘Fruit,’ and radiated from it five key ideas. Thus you multiplied your first creative output by five – that’s a 500% increase in creative output.

Next you took your five new, freshly created ideas, and from each of them you created three more new ideas. Another threefold or 300% increase! In no time at all, you started from one idea, and created 15 new ones; a 1,500% increase!

Now ask yourself: ‘Could I create another five words/ideas from each of the 15 words that radiate from the original key five?’ Of course you could! That’s another 75 ideas created!

Could you add another five from each of those? Again, of course you could – another 375 ideas! That’s 37,500% more ideas than when you started! Could you keep going to the next level? And the next? And the next and the next? Of course you could! And for how long? Forever! Generating how many ideas? An infinite number!

Mind Maps demonstrate that you have ∞ creative abilities.

This new knowledge has immediate applications. You can use it to give you the confidence that you will always be able to find an appropriate word, that you will always be able to find a solution for a problem; that you will always be able to come up with creative ideas; that your natural ability to link and connect will always help you with any thinking situation; and that you will always now know that you are smarter than you think!

Unconsciously, you have already been demonstrating this infinite creative capacity all your life. It’s called procrastination! Just think of the incredible creativity, the amazing number of original ideas, that you generate every day when you think of new reasons (excuses!) for not sorting that cupboard, studying that book, doing that unpleasant or boring job … infinite creativity!

When you have generated many creative ideas you can go back, using your mighty association power, and look for links and connections that will generate new super-ideas that will solve your problems, help you make decisions, and help you come up with those new inventions that will make you your fortune!

This infinite association power allows you to generate as many ideas as you want in any creative area. The advantage of this is like the lottery: the more numbers you have, the higher the chance that you will win (come up with the ‘winning’ idea!).

Mind Maps are therefore the best way to express your brain’s infinite creative potential. We suddenly see why so many people have problems when they try to use standard linear notes to help them think. Those who Mind Map do not have such problems.

Linear Note-taking and Its Problems

How were you taught to take notes and, indeed, how do you still make them?

If you are like 99.9% of the world’s population, you will have been taught, as I was, to make notes that use words, lines, numbers, logic, and sequence.

These are pretty powerful tools.

The only problem is that they are not a complete set. They represent your brain’s ‘left-brain’ skills and do not include any of your ‘right-brain’ skills, which enable us to comprehend rhythm, colour, and space, and to daydream. In other words, you and I were taught to use only half, or 50%, of our brain’s mighty tool-kit. We were, literally, trained to be half-wits!

It’s much the same as if I asked you to run 100 meters so that we could check your running efficiency. I give you two trials. In the first one you are allowed to use 100% of your body. You’ll probably score in the 90–100% range for efficiency.

In the second trial I allow you 50% of your physical apparatus by tying your right foot up behind your back to your right hand. Once again I ask you to run 100 meters. The result? Flat on your face in the first centimeter! Efficiency comfortably less than zero, because you may well damage yourself in the process!

It’s the same with using only ‘one side’ of your brain. Our traditional notes, in addition to using an incomplete set of tools, have another major weakness.

Students around the world are taught to take notes in blue or black ink or in pencil. In my own school it was even more specific – we had to use only blue-black ink and it had to be of a particular brand. If we dared to use blue or black, we were punished by having to do reams of lines! What is the disadvantage of this mono-colour note-taking approach?

Think about it: a single colour, to your brain, is a mono(single)tone of colour. What word do we get when we combine the concepts of mono and tone?

Monotone!

And if something is a monotone, it is, by definition, monotonous! And what do we call something that is particularly monotonous?

Boring!

And what does your brain do when it is bored? It tunes out, turns off, drifts, daydreams, and falls asleep.

And it doesn’t matter whether you are an English-speaker making notes from left to right, whether you are writing in Hebrew or Arabic making notes from right to left, or Chinese making notes vertically – to the human brain it’s all the same, it goes to sleep!

So we conclude that 99.9% of the world’s educated, literate, and graduate population is making notes for the vital purposes of creativity, memory, planning, organization, thinking, and communication that are specifically designed to tune them out, turn them off, and send them to sleep!

It is sadly ironic that with this traditional note-taking system, very often the more notes you take, the more complicated simple things begin to seem.

The lines of our traditional notes are like the bars of prison cells in which the infinite creative thinking capability of our brains are incarcerated for life – unless we free them with Mind Maps.

In a very real sense, these sentences that form the prison bars of our brains’ prison cells are Prison Sentences!!

Linear notes, by their very nature and structure, train you to become less and less creative. Mind Maps, on the other hand, by using the full power of your imagination and all your left-/right-brain thinking tools, allow you to tap an infinite source of creativity.

The Worldwide Web in Your Head and Its Creative Power

The Worldwide Web is credited with enabling a massive surge of worldwide creativity. In addition we use the Web for accessing information, for communicating, for storing knowledge, and for having fun.

As you are probably beginning to realize, your brain has its own internal Worldwide Web! In fact, your brain is organized much like the Worldwide Web, except that your brain has many advantages:

It has far superior equipment.

It is much faster at accessing information.

It can generate its own information much more rapidly and expansively.

It contains many more patterns of thought – if you compared the total network of the Worldwide Web with the potential patterns inside your single brain, it would be like comparing a garden pea to a planet!

Mind Maps reflect this internal web, acting as a conduit between your personal universe and the outside universe.

The great geniuses, as you will soon discover, understood this.

The Great Creative Geniuses and Note-Taking

As a Mind Mapper, you will begin to facilitate the same thought processes that were used by the greatest creative thinkers in history! Both Leonardo da Vinci and Einstein used their imaginations fully. It was Einstein who said:

‘Imagination is more important than knowledge’.

And Einstein was correct!

Leonardo da Vinci, voted the Brain of the Millennium in 2000, is the perfect example of the power of the principles of Mind Mapping when applied to thinking. Leonardo’s scientific notes are festooned with images, symbols, and associations. And what did Leonardo use these notes for? To become the greatest genius of all time, and the ‘best in the world’ in his time, in physiology, anatomy, architecture, painting, aquanautics, aeronautics, astronomy, engineering, cooking, stringed-musical-instrument playing, geology, and court-jesting, to name but a few!

Leonardo realized the power of using images and associations in order to unleash his brain’s infinite capacity.

Follow his example! Mind Map!

1.5

Your Ideal Future Designed by Mind Maps

Creating Your Ideal Future

Mind Maps and the Future

Computer Mind Maps

A Dream Come True

Creating Your Ideal Future

You have now become aware of the extraordinary power of Mind Maps. One other major use for them is to help you to take control of your future!

You will probably already be aware of the fact that ‘you tend to get what you think you will get’. A Mind Map, as the most sophisticated thinking tool in the world, can help you think very well about what you want. Such a Mind Map will therefore significantly increase the probability that you will get it!

Your next and exciting task is, therefore, to let your imagination run riot! Imagine that you have limitless time, resources and energy, and that you can do anything that you wish, for all eternity. Again, using a large sheet of blank paper, and having a compact image in the centre that pictures, for you, the essence of your Ideal Future, develop a Mind Map (or ten!) on all those things you would like to accomplish if there were no limits placed upon you.

This Ideal Future Mind Map should include all those things you have dreamed, at any stage in your life, of doing. Some of the most common dreams include travel, learning new languages, learning to play a musical instrument, drawing and painting, writing, learning new dances, exploring new subjects, and taking up new mental and physical sports and activities. (One useful way to prepare your brain to do this Mind Map is to do a quick speed Mind Map on everything you do not want in your ideal future.)

Suggested topics for your main branches include: Skills; Education; Friends; Family; Job; Hobbies; and Goals. Mind Map the rest of your life exactly as you would design it if a genie from a magic lamp had said to you that if you Mind Mapped perfectly and extensively your ideal future, that genie would grant you every single wish!

When you are doing this Mind Map, make sure that you let your mind go totally, and Mind Map out everything you would truly like to do if you had that infinite time and money. Include in this Mind Map as much colour and as many images as you can in order to stimulate your creative thinking.

One other useful mini-Mind Map you can create while Mind Mapping your Ideal Future is an ideal day in your future. Using a clock as your central image, Mind Map all the major elements of that perfect day. After you have completed that Mind Map, make that perfect day every day of your real life.

When you have completed your Ideal Future Mind Map, use it as a stimulus and guide to add quality and hope to the real future that you are going to both live and create. Decide that you’ll make as much of it as possible come true. Many people who have already tried this Mind Map have found it to be extraordinarily successful in transforming their lives and making them more happy and successful. Within a few years (or less!) of creating their Mind Maps, they have found that as much as 80% of their dreams have come true!

For an example of a completed Mind Map on this subject turn to Plate 8.

Mind Maps and the Future

What the brains of the world have needed is a thinking tool that reflects their natural ways of functioning – which allows them to use all the images and associations in the networking, radiant and explosive way to which they were born.

You are now in possession of that tool. The tool that one Irish broadcaster recently described as: ‘Perfect art for the mind.’

The Mind Maps you make will amaze, delight, and enrich you.

Mind Maps will make your life more productive, fulfilled, and successful.

Mind Mapping is, in a very real sense, a co-operative venture and adventure between what we put on paper and what goes on in our heads.

You have already realized that Mind Maps can be used for as many different things as you can think about. And how many is that? Infinite!

In addition to the uses we have explored in this book, other popular uses for Mind Maps include:

planning vacations, parties, weddings, events, jobs, and life

customer Mind Maps for salespeople, in which the growing relationship is constantly updated on the customer Mind Map

reviewing for study purposes

running and recording meetings

solving all sorts of problems including personal, interpersonal, and academic ones

getting perspectives on any situation

interviewing

running a household or multi-national business

2

The Power of Verbal Intelligence

2.1

Fore-word! Your Journey to Verbal Power Begins

‘“The pen is mightier than the sword” only if the brain behind it knows how to wield the word!’

Tony Buzan

What is ‘Verbal Intelligence’?

Verbal Intelligence is the ability to ‘juggle’ with the alphabet of letters: to combine them into words and sentences. Your Verbal IQ tends to be measured by the size and range of your vocabulary, and by your ability to see relationships between words.

Why Does Verbal Intelligence Matter?

At the beginning of the 20th century, psychologists observed that there was a direct correlation between vocabulary size and strength, and life-success. In other words, the bigger and better your vocabulary and your Verbal Intelligence, the more successful and confident you will be in your life in general – in your work, in your social and personal life, and in your studies.

Words have tremendous power. Those people who harness the strength of words give themselves the power to persuade, to inspire, to mesmerize, and to influence in all manner of ways the human brain. It is not surprising, then, that words and their power have become one of the most important currencies in the ‘Knowledge Revolution’ of the 21st century.

How Will The Power of Verbal Intelligence Help Me?

The really good news is that it is easy to improve and expand your verbal skills, and to increase immeasurably your Verbal IQ, and this book will show you how. Barry McGuigan, whom you can read about in Chapter 2.7, deliberately set about raising his Verbal IQ when he turned to TV commentating after his retirement from the boxing ring, and has since become as adept mentally as he was physically as a fighter.

The Power of Verbal Intelligence is about to take you on one of the most exciting journeys of your life. It is a journey on which you will:

discover and explore new worlds

feast your imagination on new concepts and ideas

learn more about your amazing brain and how to use it

learn the basic building blocks of word power, enabling you, at a stroke, to expand your current vocabulary by thousands of words

learn how to use your body to communicate effectively

rediscover the joy of playing around with words and their meanings

learn the basic secrets of reading faster and comprehending more

learn how to mesmerize and entrance others with the power and beauty of the Power of Verbal Intelligence has been designed to make sure that you have fun while you increase your Word Power.

Most importantly, the Power of Verbal Intelligence has been designed to make sure that you have fun while you increase your Word Power.

A Brief History of IQ Tests

As has already been mentioned, at the beginning of the 20th century, psychologists observed that there was a correlation between someone’s vocabulary size and strength and their success in life. This naturally gave rise to a desire to define a person’s mental strength, and so the first basic intelligence tests were devised.

These tests measured people’s powers of vocabulary, their ability to see relationships between words and between numbers, and logical abilities. Average scores were calculated for different age groups. If your score was average for your age, you scored 100; if your score was slightly below average, your score was determined to be between 90 and 100; and if slightly above average, between 100 and 110. Someone whose scores were measured between 120 and 130 was deemed to be of high intelligence, and a score of 140 or more conferred the status of genius.

These tests became properly known as Intelligence Quotient Tests, or IQ Tests. However, there were two problems with them. First, it was assumed that your IQ score could not and would not change. This, we now know, is completely untrue – you can significantly change and improve your standard IQ score.

The second problem lay in the assumption that what the tests were measuring was intelligence, and was all there was to intelligence.

Because of these beliefs, education systems around the world became predominantly verbal and mathematical, and being intelligent or smart meant, generally, ‘having a way with words’!

However, we are now beginning to realize that Verbal Intelligence is but one of 10 different intelligences – along with Creative, Social, Spatial, Numerical, Spiritual, Personal, Sensory, Sexual and Physical – and that each of the intelligences benefits by the development of the nine others. Thus, as you continue to develop your Verbal Intelligence, you will be simultaneously working on the other nine too!

It is time for your first Verbal Workout!

Verbal Workout

Word Puzzle Number 1

Welcome to your first Verbal Intelligence Word Puzzle. You will be given four scrambled words. Your first Verbal Intelligence task is to rearrange the letters so that they form a meaningful word. When you have discovered what the word is, place it in the space provided. When you have done this, you will notice that between one and four of the letters in each word are highlighted. These letters take you on to the next stage of the puzzle. Underneath the four words you have unscrambled you will find a clue and a number of blank spaces. The clue will guide you to a one-or two-word answer, found by arranging the ‘selected’ letters from the first phase of the game into a word or words that satisfy the clue.

This is the first of many such games. In each chapter you will find a similar game, played in the same way. Answers to all the games are in the Answer section at the end of this book.

1. giclo

X __ X __ __

2. nafgymi

__ __ X __ X __ __

3. tonij

X __ __ X __

4. goleyu

__ X __ __ X __

Clue: Having a ball – or more! __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

Verbal Intelligence Tip

Whenever you have such Verbal Intelligence questions, always scan the entire question first.

Why?

First, because scanning gives your brain the ‘whole picture’, which means that it can grasp the whole territory and therefore feel in control. Second, if you have scanned all the puzzles/questions, they are ‘in’ your brain. This means that as your conscious brain works on one of the puzzles/questions, your para-conscious brain (that 99 per cent-plus powerhouse of your brain that works without you consciously having to control it), will be working on the remaining questions. This makes it much easier to find the correct answer when your conscious attention focuses on the next puzzle/question. In the psychological idiom, you are allowing your brain to incubate (sit on, as a bird, for the purpose of hatching) your ideas.

You will know in your daily life that often when you ‘can’t get’ a word, if you allow your brain to ‘sleep on it’ the word will often pop up into your consciousness. Here, you are simply using this natural process to help raise your Verbal Intelligence.

Word Puzzle Number 2

There is a three-letter word in brackets. When you add, successively, the seven-word beginnings to the three-letter word, each one makes a different meaningful word. What is the word in the brackets?

L

M

P

GL

(__ __ __)

GR

BR

B

How Verbally Intelligent Are You?

Now that you are becoming familiar with your Verbal IQ, how Verbally Intelligent do you think you are, and more importantly, how Verbally Intelligent do you want to be?

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being tongue-tied and not at all Verbally Intelligent, and 10 being eloquent, witty and very Verbally Intelligent, how would you rank your Verbal Intelligence at the present time?

Now do the same exercise, but this time indicating on your 1 to 10 scale, how Verbally Intelligent you would like to be when you finish this book.

When you have completed these two tasks, start working on converting the real into the ideal.

Get Into Crosswords

Crosswords, Scrabble® and other word games such as word searches and code crackers, are all fantastic ways of stimulating and increasing your Verbal Intelligence. More and more magazines of crosswords and word puzzles are published each month, and they are a great way to try your hand at a variety of different word games.

Check Your Work-word Level

Each different profession has its own specialized vocabulary and expressions. Remember that your Verbal Intelligence has a direct correlation with your success at work. The most successful people in their chosen fields have a vocabulary that ranks in the top 10 per cent for that field. Begin to keep a list of words that is special to your own profession, and make sure that you aim for that top 10 per cent!

One way to get your mind set for this new vocabularian accomplishment is to pretend that you already are in that top 10 per cent. Act out the role, especially using the kind of vocabulary that is used by people who are successful in your field. If you keep persisting, you soon won’t have to act the role – you will be living it!

Set Vocabulary Targets for Other Areas of Your Life

Choose two or three other areas of your life, such as hobbies, social activities, your children’s interests/studies, etc., and set yourself goals similar to those you set above for your profession. By doing this you will be following the example of a body-builder who trains a wide range of muscles, rather than simply one. You will therefore develop a well-balanced body of vocabulary skills.

Listen for New Words

Listen out for new and unusual words as you go about your daily life – on the TV or radio, at the local shops or a meeting at work. Adding this new focus of attention will not only make you a better vocabularian; it will make you a better listener, and therefore more popular and successful with others. Keep a notepad or some form of recorder always with you so that you can jot down new words of special interest, meaning or beauty. At regular intervals, either at the end of the day or week, transfer your new words to a master list. When you come across such words, try to use them in sentences at least five times in a day – this will help you remember them.

Look for New Words

Do exactly the same with your eyes as you did with your ears, checking newspapers, magazines, books and screens for new and exciting words. Transfer them to your lists. When you are doing both these listening and looking exercises, be on the look-out for words that reflect or relate to your senses of sight, sound, smell, taste, touch and movement. This will both improve your vocabulary and widen its range, making you a better, more confident communicator.

Make a Mind Map

Build a mini Mind Map on all the advantages an improved vocabulary and increased Verbal Intelligence will give you. Here is a little image which summarizes Verbal Intelligence. Branching from it are 10 main branches, and from each of these, three sub-branches. Copy the Mind Map onto a large sheet of paper. On the main branches print, clearly, the first 10 key ideas that come to your mind when you think of the ways in which an increased Verbal Intelligence would improve your life and your chances of success. When you have completed the first 10 ideas, think of three more ideas that branch from each of those main 10 and, in the same way, print them neatly on the lines provided. When you have completed the exercise, place your Mind Map somewhere where you will constantly be reminded of just how valuable an increased Verbal Intelligence is to your entire life.

Invest in a Good Dictionary!

Make sure you get a good dictionary. A good dictionary is the ultimate guide and support for anyone wishing to improve their Verbal Intelligence.

Word Power Booster Number 1

As this is your first Word Power Booster, it is introductory! Below each word are four different definitions. Choose the one you think is closest to the correct meaning.

INTRODUCE (in-tro-jóos)

(a) To stick a needle into

(b) To become a Duke

(c) To bring in or present

(d) To do first

INTROFLEX (ín-tro-flex)

(a) To bend outward

(b) To bend inward

(c) To build muscle

(d) To look strong

INTROCEPTIVE (in-tro-sép-tif)

(a) Capable of receiving into itself

(b) The beginning of a reception

(c) A method of preparing food

(d) Able to perceive the inside of things

INTROGRESSION (in-tro-gré-shon)

(a) The act of going in; entering

(b) Falling behind

(c) Thinking about things

(d) Becoming aggressive

INTROJECT (in-tro-jékt)

(a) To inject

(b) To ask

(c) To discard

(d) To throw into

INTROMIT (in-tro-mít)

(a) To lay on hands

(b) To stop

(c) To allow to enter; insert

(d) To jump across

INTROSPECT (in-tro-spékt)

(a) To look for glasses

(b) To inspect

(c) To look outward

(d) To look within

INTROMISSION (in-tro-mí-shon)

(a) To start a break

(b) To insert

(c) The beginning of a project

(d) To start religious conversion

INTROVERT (in-tro-vért) (noun)

(a) One who turns inward

(b) Something upside down

(c) Dressed in green

(d) One who stands vertically; good poise

INTROPRESSION (in-tro-pré-shon)

(a) To introduce the media

(b) Pressure within

(c) To make heavy

(d) To press upon

2.2

Child’s Wordplay – Proof That You Are A Natural Verbal Genius

‘Language is the immediate gift of God.’

Noah Webster

In this chapter I will introduce you to the best language learner the world has ever known – that master of Verbal Intelligence, the human baby!

I will show you the ‘secret’ formulas that babies use to achieve their astounding results. As a consequence, you will discover new approaches to: ‘cheating’/copying; play as a learning tool; the making of mistakes and ‘failure’; creating success from ‘disaster’; general attitudes to learning; and the incredible ‘genius power’ of Persistence.

You will come to realize that, as a baby, you used all the right tools to develop your Verbal Intelligence. As your life progressed, you discarded them, and as a result the development of your Verbal Intelligence came to a grinding halt.

However, all you have to do now is pick these tools up again and continue with your verbal growth. This time around, you’ll not only have the tools you once used to learn and remember thousands of new words – you will have the additional tools from The Power of Verbal Intelligence, which will enable you to use the ‘baby skills’ as a launching pad for your own accelerated development!

You will end up as an even better vocabulary and language learner than the baby.

Let’s start with the fascinating story of a Japanese musician, Suzuki, who made some amazing discoveries about your incredible Verbal Intelligence potential.

Suzuki’s Story

Suzuki was a Japanese teacher, musician and instrument maker. He had two special paradigm-shifts in his awareness that changed his life forever, and which are at this very moment changing the lives of millions and the way the world thinks about all babies and their Verbal and Creative Intelligences.

Suzuki’s first revelation came when he was visiting a giant incubarium for Japanese larks.

The Japanese breeders of these songbirds take literally thousands of eggs and incubate them in giant, warm, silent halls that act as a gigantic nest. Silent, that is, with the exception of one sound – that of a lark Master Singer, a veritable song-bird Beethoven!

Suzuki noticed to his amazement that every little chick that hatched, automatically began to copy the master singer. After a few days he observed that each chick, having started out by purely copying songs, began to develop its own variations on the original Master Song. The breeders waited until the chick musicians had developed their own styles, and then selected from them the next Master Singer, and so the process developed.

‘Astounding!’ thought Suzuki. ‘If a bird’s tiny, tiny brain can learn so perfectly, then surely the human brain, with its vastly superior abilities, should be able to do the same and better!’

This line of reasoning led Suzuki to his next revelation, which, when he announced it, made many of his friends think that he had lost a large number of his own brain cells.

Suzuki, in a delirium of enthusiasm for what he had realized, rushed around telling everyone he knew of his remarkable discovery: that every Japanese child learns to speak Japanese!

His friends and colleagues patted him on the shoulder, informing him rather firmly they were actually already aware of that. ‘But No! No!’ declared Suzuki, ‘they really do, and it’s amazing!’

Suzuki was correct. Like Newton before him, he had discovered something that was so obvious no one could see it – that any baby, born in any country, automatically learns, within two years, the language of that country.

This means that every normal baby’s brain is capable of learning millions of potential languages.

If you, dear reader, had been born in and lived for the first few years of your life in a totally different country from that you are familiar with now, your own baby brain would have absorbed that language as rapidly and fluently as you now speak your own main tongue.

If you, for example, were a Caucasian baby and had been born in Beijing, you would not have looked up with your little baby eyes and thought ‘Oh, Chinese. Far too complex for me! Think I’ll stay silent for the rest of my life!’

Not only would you have learned the language of that country, you would have learned the specific language sounds of the special area of that country in which you had been born – your accent.

What Suzuki had discovered was that the voice/ear/brain system was a virtually perfect copying machine, with an almost infinite capacity to learn the music (words and rhythms) of an infinite number of languages.

What’s more, it didn’t matter whether the language was Chinese, Portuguese, Music-ese, Maths-ese, Art-ese, Burmese, or Japanese. So long as a baby was given the right learning environment and proper encouragement, it could learn anything!

Mimicking

What Suzuki had discovered was the Brain Principle of Mimicking. This principle states that your brain is designed to learn by copying the best of what it sees around it. If it is allowed to do this, it will be capable of ongoing learning at an accelerated rate.

For the bulk of the 20th century we incorrectly thought of mimicking as copying, copying as cheating, and cheating as bad. With this incorrect way of thinking, we created habits of learning that increasingly diminished our abilities to develop our intelligences, especially Verbal Intelligence.

We even came up with ridiculous assumptions to back-up this incorrect thinking, such as that once you are past the age of 10, the development of Verbal Intelligence becomes much more difficult, and that once you are past the age of 25 it becomes virtually impossible.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

By applying the principle of mimicking, as the songbird chicks do, and the additional knowledge you will gain from The Power of Verbal Intelligence, you will be able to increase your rate of vocabulary acquisition and word power at a pace that makes a baby’s seem embarrassingly slow by comparison!

Play

When the baby is ‘at work’ dealing with the massive tasks of survival and learning, its main tool is Play.

Play is the method the universe has designed for allowing the brain to learn most easily. How is this so?

Because play involves activity that is enjoyable, often amusing, and always imaginative. It usually involves physical activity, often vigorous and long, and demands that the brain makes new associations between things.

You will know that all babies love to play, especially with words. They roll them around in their mouths, often purposely mispronounce them to make them more interesting or funny, play with different variations and combinations of words and parts of words, change the pitch, speed, tone and volume of their voices, and are always curious about new words and their meanings and associations.

Unfortunately during the last two centuries learning has been made much more serious, and the element of play removed except in the classrooms of superb teachers. Even at the beginning of the 21st century this is still happening. In America some educators are leading a movement to eliminate play from schools altogether, including playtime. Their argument? That if you eliminate play and playtime, you will save time and get far better results from the young brains because they will be 100 per cent dedicated to ‘serious’ work. Such a policy is like saying that if we remove children’s legs their bodies would be lighter and therefore more mobile!

It is by applying the Brain Principle of Play that babies and children rapidly develop their Verbal Intelligence.

You can begin to see the implications for yourself …

Love of Learning

Another of the baby’s secret weapons in the development of its Verbal Intelligence is its boundless love of learning. This love is both led and fed by an insatiable curiosity.

The instant the baby’s brain asks the next question or wants to know the ‘next step’, all its senses open, and all its energies are immediately directed to the achievement of that answer; that goal.

This openness and focus are exactly what the brain needs to take in, understand and remember new verbal information.

‘The use of increasingly complex and sophisticated language structures, and the units (vocabulary) which make up those structures, is one of the defining characteristics of evolutionary advance and development. The training and nurturing of your skill in this area is your natural right, your own responsibility, and a rare opportunity. If you grasp it, it will provide you with exceptional benefits. Claim it. Accept it. Develop it!’

Tony Buzan

Ironically the baby’s love of learning is accompanied by something that most adults think is not acceptable or permissible, but which forms the foundation-stone in the development of Verbal Intelligence. It is the next ‘Baby Secret’.

Making Mistakes / ‘Failing’

Does the baby make mistakes?

Yes!

More than the average adult learner?

Many more!

How can it be that a super-learner like the baby makes more mistakes than the average adult, who does not learn so fast?

Because the baby knows the secret: making mistakes and experiencing ‘failures’ is one of the fastest ways to accelerate your learning.

If you don’t make mistakes it means that you have not tried. If you do not try you will never learn.

The baby has hit upon the secret that if you combine your love of learning with creativity and taking risks, you will not only make more mistakes than most other people, you will have many more successes.

All research shows that the world’s great geniuses simply carried on using this Baby Success Formula. They wrote millions of words, painted millions of brush strokes, composed millions of notes, and formulated millions of ideas. They then discarded much of it, and kept the best!

‘Language is the dress of thought.’

Samuel Johnson

There is one other secret principle at which the baby is a world champion:

Persistence

Combined with the love of learning and the making of mistakes, the baby realizes that without persistence, no progress is ever made.

Just think of how many times a baby sometimes tries to pronounce a complex word before getting it finally right; it is sometimes hundreds of ‘failures’.

Does the baby go into a sulk and think something like ‘What’s the point?! I’ve tried thousands of times and still can’t get this bloody word! This language-learning lark is too hard; it’s not for me – I give up!’ Of course not.

The baby uses each mistake as a platform for the next attempt. While doing this it makes a game of the whole thing, relishing the process, and always keeping its eye on the inevitable success of the goal.

‘Language is the armoury of the human mind.’

Coleridge

You are now ready to enter the playground!

Verbal Workout

Word Puzzle Number 3

tustea

__ __ __ __ XX

lapcita

__ __ __ __ X __ X

lacyrit

__ __ XX __ __ __

hubog

__ __ __ XX

Clue: Makes you happy and fit __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

Verbal Intelligence Tip

Always answer the easiest questions first, no matter where they are in the list or linear order you have in front of you.

Why?

Because answering the easiest questions first will allow you to ‘get one under your belt’, your para-conscious brain will realize that there is already less to do than when you started, and this will significantly reduce stress, while simultaneously boosting your confidence.

Secondly, answering these questions first will establish a habit in your brain – the habit of success. And success breeds success!

Word Puzzle Number 4

Insert the word that completes the first word and begins the second.

(Clue: finish)

T R (__ __ __) I V E

Mimic the Best

In exactly the same way that a baby copies those people it considers to be the most powerful and successful (its parents!), copy those experts, public figures, actors, sports personalities or people from your own profession whom you consider to be ‘Top of the Pops’ in the imaginative use of words, as well as in range and clarity.

Make a point of observing and studying them, noting especially interesting words that they use, as well as their methods of delivery.

Play with Words

Remember that one of the baby’s most powerful learning tools is ‘play’. Apply this to the development of your own vocabulary. Mix sections of different words to come up with startling new words and meanings, and enjoy the freedom this gives you. Make up doggerel verse, rhymes and palindromes (phrases that read the same both forwards and backwards – ‘Madam, I’m Adam’ for example!).

Shakespeare, one of the highest Verbal Intelligences the planet has ever known, loved to play with words, and as a result added over 200 new words and expressions that are now common to the global language. Try to catch up with him!

It was this freedom of mind and ability to create that gave rise to the study of Holanthropy, the discipline that arose from my own frustration at not being able to find any discipline in which I could study the whole (Greek ‘holos’) human-being (Greek ‘anthropos’).

Another new word you might enjoy comes from a friend of mine and a teacher of Holanthropy, Lex McKee. A lover of words as well as a musician and artist, Lex had been very happy with the word onomatopoeic (a word whose sound imitates that of the noise or action it describes, such as ‘buzz’). However, he suddenly realized that this word applied only to sound, and as he was also an artist, he wanted a word that appealed also to the sense of vision. He simply took ‘onomatopoeic’, and pasted on to it a preliminary ‘v’, thus creating ‘vonomatopoeic’ – a word meaning ‘sounding and looking like the thing described!

Alphabet fridge magnets are the perfect fun way to explore and make up new words and meanings. What’s more, the entire family can join in, creating more and more words on that wonderful public notice and message board that is many people’s fridge door!

Look Out for Unknown Words!

Keep a constant look out for words of which you don’t know the meaning, and also for words that are completely new.

For many adults, facing the fact that they ‘don’t know’ is disturbing. As a result they tend to try to avoid such situations. If you look at this ‘formula for behaviour’ for a moment, you will realize that it is a formula for disaster! If you only stay safely in areas that are completely known to you, and always avoid those that are not, what will you ever learn?

Nothing!

The baby is exactly the opposite. Why? Because a baby loves not knowing! Not knowing opens up the infinite opportunity for learning fresh, new and exciting things. The baby is purely ignorant, and ignorant (which comes from the Latin ‘ignorare’) simply means ‘to not know’. Realize that the more you know you know, the more you will know that there is still more to know! Approach your pursuit of new and fresh knowledge like a baby does – with enthusiasm and gusto!

Give Your Brain a Healthy Diet

Your brain survives on the four foods of Information, Nutrition, Oxygen and Love. One of your brain’s main sources of information is Vocabulary and Language. Therefore feed your brain a healthy diet of words, making sure that you ‘eat’ regularly, that your ‘diet’ is varied, that you constantly supply yourself with ‘fresh food’ and that you never ‘fast’ for too long. Sometimes it’s good to binge!

Learn From Your Mistakes

As with ignorance, many adults also are discomforted by and afraid of making mistakes, especially with words. They, mistakenly, think that this shows them to be slow, unintelligent and somehow not worthy.

Nothing could be further from the truth!

If you want to learn how to speak any vocabulary brilliantly, learn from the greatest language learners there are – babies and children. They seldom hide in the safety of words they know; their preference is to leap for the stars, and to make as many mistakes as are necessary to get there.

That is why they often prefer hard or ‘more difficult’ words: these give them a better game to play in acquiring them, and often lead to mistakes that are much more humorous and which provide many more belly laughs than the ‘correct’ ones!

We now know that mistakes are not an impediment to learning; mistakes are the golden pathway to learning.

Enjoy all of yours from now on …

Become Friends with Words

You bring your feelings and emotions more into play when you increase your Verbal Intelligence. Many people mistakenly think of words as ‘intelligent’, ‘analytical’, ‘hard’ and ‘cold’. And who would really want to have a relationship with anything (or anyone) that only had those qualities?

But words are in fact ‘wondrous’, ‘imaginative’, ‘sensual’, ‘sexy’, ‘warm’, ‘delicious’ and many other things which would make you lust after a relationship with anything or anyone possessing these qualities.

As soon as you start making friends with words, as babies do, they make friends with you, and allow you to meet, learn from and play with them much more rapidly and with thousands of times greater enjoyment and fun than before.

Persist in Your Pursuit of Verbal Power

Remember that one of the prime qualities used to describe the incredible intelligence and accomplishments both of babies and the great geniuses is that single word: persistence.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘persistence’ as meaning: ‘To continue firmly in an opinion or course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition; to continue to persist.’ It comes from the Latin ‘per’ and ‘sistere’ – ‘to stand firm’.

If you steadfastly pursue your goal of Verbal Intelligence, you will become much more Verbally Intelligent, and will approach the incredible skills of the baby and the genius in this area. Persist and you will overcome all obstacles to learning. Persist and your mistakes will turn into successes. Persist and you will acquire thousands of new word-friends. Persist!

The ideas in this chapter are summarized in Plate 9.

Word Power Booster Number 2

In this vocabulary booster section I introduce you to some fascinating adjectives. They will spice up your conversation, adding richness and depth to it. Choose the definition that you think is closest to the correct meaning from the four options given for each.

DIDACTIC (dy-dák-tik)

(a) Teacher-like; instructive

(b) Aggressive

(c) Explosive

(d) Like an extinct bird

SURREPTITIOUS (surep-tísh-us)

(a) Grey in colour

(b) Serrated

(c) Stealthy or secret

(d) Completely silent

HERETICAL (heh-rét-ikal)

(a) Deserving of punishment

(b) At the present time

(c) Greek behaviour

(d) Revolutionary; contrary to the official/established viewpoint

COPIOUS (kópe-eus)

(a) Able

(b) Abundant; plentiful

(c) Religious

(d) Relating to the police

IMPERATIVE (im-pé-rra-tif)

(a) Royal

(b) Relating to the empire

(c) Vital

(d) Strong

INEFFACEABLE (in-e-fáce-abul)

(a) To confront

(b) Incapable of being erased; indelible

(c) Female face

(d) Building

INESTIMABLE (in-ést-im-abul)

(a) Not enough time

(b) Priceless; immeasurable

(c) Unfriendly

(d) Timetable

UNPRECEDENTED (un-préss-e-den-ted)

(a) Never known or done before

(b) Description of dental procedures

(c) Damaged

(d) Before production

UNEQUIVOCAL (un-e-kwívo-cal)

(a) Different voices

(b) Unambiguous; leaving no doubt

(c) Unequal

(d) Discordant choir

CATEGORICAL (kata-górr-ical)

(a) Bluntly and unconditionally expressed

(b) Dividing into categories

(c) About cats

(d) Vaguely defined

2.3

Word Power I – Roots: How to Improve Your Vocabulary, Creativity, Memory and IQ!

‘Words are the instruments that make thought possible.’

Judd

‘Words are the body of thought.’

Carlyle

In this chapter and the next you are going to learn more about the incredible power of words.

I will guide you through recent history, showing you how words developed as a ‘secret power’, and will introduce you to research that show why this was so.

The bulk of this chapter and the next are then devoted to a veritable feast of building blocks of vocabulary and Verbal Intelligence: Roots, Prefixes and Suffixes.

With the mastery of these your Verbal Intelligence will inevitably improve, and your life will change irrevocably!

Words and Power

Since the dawn of civilization, words have had an aura of mystery, magic and power to them. The earliest form of writing (Cuneiform) developed in the Near East, in Mesopotamia, to allow rulers to keep accurate records of what taxes were due and who had paid them, and for other bureaucratic records, such as details of amounts of grain stored and distributed.

In ancient Egypt the priests were the ‘keepers of the word’. They tried to keep the art of writing and reading secret, because doing so gave them tremendous power to manipulate both knowledge and people. For the next four thousand years leaders in all societies kept this special power to themselves, communicating in the secret codes of higher vocabulary and writing, while the ignorant masses around reacted with awe, superstition and fear at the power that words held over them.

‘We rule men with words.’

Napoleon

This power was the power over knowledge; the power of persuasion; the power to inspire; the power to mesmerize; and the power to control and lead. In other words, it was the power to affect the human brain.

Two of our modern words, which you would never have thought would have derived from this history, do – ‘spell’ and ‘glamour’!

As recently as the great European Renaissance, the time of Queen Elizabeth I and the master-works of Shakespeare, still surprisingly few people could read or write. The record books show that most of the young people who had to sign for a marriage licence did so not with their name, but with a cross.

The ability to read and write was looked upon by the ordinary people with awe, and those who were able to do so were often considered to be dabbling in some form of magic. Those who could write could, in general, spell.

So the logic in the ignorant and fearful mind was that those who could spell possessed a magic that could mysteriously and ominously control others. As a word could be considered a ‘spell’ the owner of such esoteric knowledge, by using words, was ‘casting spells’: QED!

The word ‘glamour’ has a similarly interesting etymology, or derivation. In the 17th century the language of the intellectuals was predominantly Latin. In this they used to write, converse and increase their grip on social, economic and political power.

To ‘tie their words together’ they used the mystical concept of ‘grammar’. Grammar became an idea that linked with those who had authority and power. As time passed the first ‘R’ in grammar slowly mutated, as ‘R’s often do over time, to the letter ‘L’. Thus ‘grammar’ eventually became ‘glamour’, a word that is still applied to those who emanate an aura of power, elegance and control.

Words still hold a spell over us, and rightly so. As you continue to improve your Verbal Intelligence, you will increasingly become a Word Magician.

Word Roots

One of the best ways to become an adept verbal magician is to study the Roots of the words we commonly use.

When you study word Roots, not only do you instantly increase the power of your vocabulary and Verbal Intelligence, you come to realize an important fact: words are not cold, abstract, dead things. They are warm, emotional, meaningful and very much alive.

Like all living things words are conceived, born and grow to maturity. Eventually they pass on their meaning and energy to new word forms and languages.

The study of Roots is the study of fascinating stories about the creation and birth of words. You are now involved in this wonderful study, and therefore can be called an ‘etymologist’. The word ‘etymology’, can be traced back to the Greek ‘etymon’ (meaning ‘true or original meaning’) and also to the Greek ‘–logia’, ‘study of’, which, in turn, comes from the Greek ‘logos’, meaning ‘word’!

So you can now truthfully say that you are an etymologist: one who is interested in and studies the science of true or original meanings.

Each Root is like a little being in suspended animation. By studying it you bring it to life, allowing the beautiful imagery, history and poetry that is the word’s essence to live again. For example, if you listen to classical music you will often hear that a piece is entitled ‘Opus 1’ or ‘Opus 104’. People often think that this means something like ‘creative inspiration’ or ‘musical masterpiece’, but what does it actually mean?

If you know your Roots you will know the answer. The Latin meaning of this Root is simply ‘work’. Knowing this you get an instantaneous insight into the true working of the creative mind. All the magnificent music you hear is not the result of ‘airy fairy’ artists. It is the result of years of dedicated and passionate study and work.

Roots, then, are like the centres of mini Mind Maps, which radiate out into all sorts of wonderful branches, associations and ramifications. They are little universes in themselves that illuminate the dark skies of verbal ignorance.

You are about to enter the worlds of the Romans and the Greeks, to explore 25 such universes.

Root Number 1

arch

Meaning: ruler (from the Greek ‘archos’)

‘This root will help you become the architect of your own linguistic future, and will help you to rise in the hierarchy of vocabularians!’

Example words

Matriarch noun. The female head of a family or tribe.

‘She ruled her entire family with a kind heart coupled with an iron will – she was a real matriarch!’

Patriarch noun. The male head of a family.

‘The Oscar-winning film The Godfather was about an ultimate patriarch – the Don of an Italian Mafia family.’

Oligarchy noun. A small group of people who rule or govern a state.

‘The great Greek philosopher Plato thought that an enlightened oligarchy of “Philosopher Kings” was a better form of rule than allowing matters of state to be run by the relatively ignorant populace.’

Root Number 2

claim clam

Meaning: to declare; call; carry out (from the Latin ‘clamare’)

‘With this root you will be able to claim additional verbal territory, and to further increase the probability that your increasing verbal skills and performances will be met with acclaim!’

Example words

Declaim verb. To make a formal speech.

‘I wish to declaim on the subject of Holanthropy.’

Proclaim verb. To make known to the public.

‘Our new knowledge about the brain and its ability to learn is so important that we must all take every opportunity available to us to proclaim it globally.’

Exclaim verb. To cry out suddenly, as in surprise.

‘When she first saw all her friends gathered for her surprise party, it made her exclaim in a manner that brought a smile to everyone’s face.’

Root Number 3

corp corpor

Meaning: body (from the Latin ‘corpus’)

‘The incorporation of this root into your vocabulary will hearten the other roots and will create among them an esprit de corps!’

Example words

Corps noun. A group of people organized into the single body for a common service.

‘Many young people join the Peace Corps in order to help other people around the world, and to widen their knowledge and experience of the planet.’

Incorporate verb. To form into a body of persons by legal enactment.

‘They decided to incorporate themselves into a company, in order to maximize the rewards they could reap from their clever idea.’

Corporeal adjective. Having a material body.

‘It is important to both distinguish and integrate matters corporeal, intellectual and spiritual.’

Root Number 4

dic dict

Meaning: to say or declare (from the Latin ‘dictare’)

‘This root will act as an indicator to where it itself appears!’

Example words

Dictionary noun. A reference book of what words ‘say’.

‘A dictionary is a very useful tool to have when you are developing your Verbal Intelligence.’

Prediction noun. A declaration of what will happen in the future.

‘It is my confident prediction that more and more people will become interested in developing their Multiple Intelligences.’

Diction noun. The correct choice or use of words.

‘He spoke clearly and beautifully – his diction was close to perfect.’

Root Number 5

fac fact

Meaning: to make (from the Latin ‘facere’, ‘factus’, to create or construct)

‘When you have finished this exercise you will have a greater facility with any word containing these two roots, and from it you will derive great satisfaction!’

Example words

Satisfaction noun. The state in which everything is made right.

‘I can’t get no satisfaction!’

Facile adjective. Easily achieved.

‘It was a facile victory, in which he check-mated his opponent with no apparent effort.’

Factotum noun. One who can do many things

‘The irreplaceable employee was a factotum; she did everything.’

Root Number 6

fic fect

Meaning: to make (from the Latin ‘fictus’, to form or fashion)

‘With this root you will be the beneficiary of that which will make you far more proficient with your vocabulary, and will help you on your road to verbal perfection!’

Example words

Magnificent adjective. Made grandly.

‘The Taj Mahal is a magnificent example of architecture at its best.’

Deification noun. Making a god out of something or worshipping something as a god.

‘The deification of the sun and moon were a major part of most cultures’ spiritual development.’

Efficacious adjective. Effective; producing the desired effect.

‘It was a risky experiment, with happily efficacious results.’

Root Number 7

gnosi cognosc

Meaning: to know (from the Latin ‘noscere’ and ‘cognoscere’)

‘This root will help you recognize an entirely new range of words, none of which, to you, will be able to remain completely incognito!’

Example words

Cognisant adjective. Being aware; knowing.

‘When you have finished reading The Power of Verbal Intelligence you will be cognisant of a whole new universe of words and meaning.’

Prognosis noun. A forecast; foretelling the course of events.

‘With its new understanding of its own brain and potential, the prognosis for the future of the human race is looking increasingly bright.’

Cognoscente noun. A connoisseur; a person who is ‘in the know’.

‘The gathering of top chefs represented one of the greatest gatherings of cognoscente the food world had ever known.’

Root Number 8

intellect intellig

Meaning: the power to know and think (from the Latin ‘inter’, between, and ‘legere’, to choose)

‘This clever root will help you increase your intelligibility when communicating, and will have others impressed by your towering intellect!’

Example words

Intellectual noun. One with knowledge who knows how to reason and understand objectively.

‘Because of her vast learning, she was considered one of the university’s top intellectual brains.

Intelligible adjective. Can be easily understood.

‘Despite the complexity of the subject, her clear explanation made it completely intelligible to her audience.’

Intelligencia noun. The intellectual, artistic, musical and thinking class of people in society.

‘Plato thought that it was from the intelligencia that the rulers of the state or nation should be chosen.’

Root Number 9

liber

Meaning: free (from the Latin ‘liber’, ‘libertas’) ‘This root will open many new words to you and will help liberate your mind!’

Example words

Liberalize verb. To make more free.

‘Poets, painters and philosophers have, throughout history, attempted to liberalize minds from ignorance.’

Liberalism noun. The belief that one should be respectful and accepting of behaviour or opinions different from one’s own; open to new ideas.

‘Democracy and liberalism are often seen to go hand-in-hand.’

Libertarianism noun. An extremely laissez faire political philosophy advocating only minimal state intervention in the lives of citizens. ‘Libertarianism is at the other end of the political spectrum from totalitarianism.’

Root Number 10

logo log

Meaning: ‘word’ (from the Greek ‘logos’)

‘This root will certainly help you to become more logical in your thinking, and hopefully will encourage you to become a logodidalist.’

Example words

Logolatary noun. The worship of logic.

‘Her love of the Greek philosophers and their introduction of logic into the thought systems of the world led her increasingly towards logolatary.’

Logogog noun. One who legislates on word meanings’.

‘The publishers of the new dictionary hired the nation’s top logogog to guarantee the quality of their product.’

Logodaedaly noun. Playing cleverly and wittily with words; a verbal juggler.

‘With his newly enriched vocabulary he began to entertain his friends with logodaedaly.’

Root Number 11

magna magni

Meaning: great (from the Latin ‘magnus’)

‘This great root will help you to increase the magnitude of your already large vocabulary, and to realize the power, beauty and magnificence of the language you speak.’

Example words

Magnify verb. To make greater.

‘Both telescopes and microscopes magnify the macro-cosmos and the micro-cosmos, making them more readily comprehendible to our inquisitive minds.’

Magnate noun. Someone of great wealth and power.

‘When the shipping magnate visited the city, he arranged a meeting with those wielding similar power.’

Magnanimous adjective. Great-hearted; generous.

‘He was magnanimous to the point of becoming a saint.’

Root Number 12

mem

Meaning: remember (from the Latin ‘memor’, mindful)

‘This root will quite obviously help improve your memory by enabling you more easily to understand and remember words, which, when you use them, will make you more memorable to others!’

Example words

Memoir noun. A record of things you wish to remember.

‘He thought his life had been so exciting and original that he decided to write a memoir of it in the form of an autobiography.

Memorabilia noun. Things judged worthy of keeping for purposes of memory.

‘Many people’s attics or basements are filled with memorabilia that help them to recall the special people, places and events in their lives.’

Immemorial adjective. Long past; having occurred so long ago that there is no record of it.

‘Human beings have composed poetry and songs from time immemorial.’

Root Number 13

neo

Meaning: new or recent (from the Greek ‘neos’)

‘At this stage in your vocabulary development you will no longer be a neophyte; you will have become a skilled user of words and language, and will have given great pleasure and stimulation to your neocortex!’

Example words

Neophyte noun. A novice, a beginner, a new convert.

‘As he was a neophyte in the spiritual order, he decided to listen first and speak second.’

Neolithic adjective. The ‘new’ era when humans began to grow crops and domesticate animals.

‘The Neolithic era marked one of the great creative leaps in the development of humankind’s thinking.’

Neology noun. The use of new words in a language.

‘Neology has traditionally added to the richness and variety of the spoken and written language.’

Root Number 14

nov

Meaning: new (from the Latin ‘nova’, ‘novus’)

‘This root will help you become more innovative, allowing you to think in novel ways. It might even inspire you to renovate areas of your life and even to write a novel!’

Example words

Novelist noun. One who writes a new literary work.

‘After many years of factual writing, the author decided to use his imagination to write a major new work of fiction; he decided to become a novelist.’

Novice noun. One who is new at any skill or enterprise.

‘Although he was a novice at soccer, his footballing skills were those of a seasoned campaigner.’

Super nova noun. A star which suddenly explodes, taking on a new form. In the process it shines with millions of times its usual brightness.

‘The crab nebula is a giant cloud-like structure which is the gigantic remains of a star that became a supernova many millions of years ago.’

Root Number 15

nunci nounc

Meaning: speak; declare; announce (from the Latin verb ‘nuntiare’)

‘With this root you will be able to announce that your enunciation and ability to pronounce have improved!’

Example words

Pronunciation noun. The sound of the utterance; the articulation of the spoken word.

‘It is interesting that many people incorrectly pronounce “pronunciation” “pronounciation”!’

Enunciate verb. To pronounce carefully and accurately.

‘In order to make himself easily understood, he decided to use simple language and to enunciate clearly.’

Root Number 16

opus oper

Meaning: work (from the Latin ‘opus’)

‘With this root, which has also come to describe a large piece of choral music, you will better understand the nature of co-operation, will derive added appreciation from the “little operas” known as operettas, and hopefully will become an even smarter operator!’

Example words

Operative adjective. Causing to operate; having the power to act.

‘The machine, after months of not working, suddenly and mysteriously became operative.’

Operalogue noun. A declamation on an opera, which presents a summary of the story.

‘Before going to see Madame Butterfly, they were pleased to be able to attend an operalogue given by the conductor.’

Opus noun. A musical work or composition.

‘Baron Philippe Rothschilde and Robert Mondavi, the great French and American winemakers, decided to call the first wine they made together “Opus I”.’

Root Number 17

pan

Meaning: all (from the Greek ‘pan’)

‘This word should be housed in your pantheon of great roots, for it will help you on your road to pansophy or universal wisdom!’

Example words

Pantheism noun. The belief that identifies God with the Universe, or regards the Universe as a manifestation of God.

‘She regarded the forces of nature as divine, she was a pantheist.’

Panacea noun. A cure for all ills.

‘Many people believe that love is the ultimate panacea.’

Pandemic adjective. Something that is widespread.

‘The great flu pandemic spread across all of Europe.’

Root Number 18

pict

Meaning: to paint (from the Latin ‘pictor’, ‘pingere’)

‘Picture yourself as a verbal genius, and you will increase the probability of becoming one!’

Example words

Pictorial adjective. Relating to pictures.

‘She had a very pleasing and pictorial way of communicating ideas.’

Pictography noun. Picture writing.

‘Mind Maps may be considered a form of pictography.’

Picturesque adjective. Visually attractive in a charming manner – ‘just like a picture’.

‘It was one of the most beautiful and picturesque scenes on which they had ever set eyes.’

Root Number 19

put

Meaning: thinking, thought (from the Latin ‘putare’, to think)

‘With this handy little root you will be able to compute your grasp of vocabulary progress, to win any dispute over its verification, and to expand your growing reputation for Verbal Intelligence!’

Example words

Deputy noun. One appointed to think for another; a substitute.

‘Most good leaders choose a deputy to act in case of their absence.’

Computer noun. As you now know, this literally means ‘with thinking’, and describes a machine that thinks.

‘The human bio-computer is significantly more intelligent than the silicone computer.’

Putative adjective. Generally considered, commonly thought, or reputed to be.

‘Because it appeared that she was making a fortune, she was a putative millionaire.’

Root Number 20

soph

Meaning: wisdom (from the Greek ‘sophia’)

‘This root will give you added sophistication in the use of language, and will help you in your pursuit of philosophical ideas.’

Example words

Sophoclean adjective. Relating to the great Greek playwright and poet Sophocles, whose name means what he was called: ‘The Wise One’.

‘His writing was witty and weighty – almost Sophoclean in style.’

Sophiology noun. The science of human ideas.

‘Being interested in what the great minds of the past had thought about things, he decided to study sophiology.’

Sophisticate noun. One who is discerning and aware of complex issues through education or experience.

‘Her knowledge in many areas was superb; most people considered her a sophisticate.’

Root Number 21

tech

Meaning: skill or art (from the Greek ‘technikos’)

‘This root will give you successful techniques for conversing with the technocrats!’

Example words

Pyrotechnics noun. Literally, the fire skill or the fire art, especially fireworks.

‘New Year’s Eve is a display-case for pyrotechnics.’

Technocracy noun. Government by an élite of technical experts.

‘Technocracy is an oligarchy of those with specialized technical skills.’

Root Number 22

ultima

Meaning: last, final (from the Latin ‘ultimas’)

‘You knew it! Ultimately we will have to come to the end of this particular, enjoyable venture. You are well on the way to ultimate success!’

Example words

Ultimo adverb. Last month; the month preceding the present month.

‘This month I started my Verbal Intelligence development; ultimo I had not.’

Penultimate adjective. Next to last.

‘Soon you will reach the penultimate root in this chapter!’

Ultimate adjective. Last; final.

‘Is man’s ultimate destiny to populate the Universe?’

Root Number 23

ven veni vent

Meaning: come (from the Latin ‘venere’)

‘This root will lead you to eventful adventures, helping to intervene between yourself and ignorance, and thus acting as preventive intellectual medicine! When you have mastered this and the other roots you will be able to say, as Julius Caesar did: “Veni. Vidi. Vice.” “I came. I saw. I conquered.”’

Example words

Venture noun. A risky or daring journey, undertaking, or business enterprise.

‘They entered enthusiastically into their new venture together, convinced of their success.’

Venturesome adjective. Willing to take risks; bold; daring.

‘They were a venturesome bunch, and it was this very quality that drew people to them.’

Adventitious adjective. Happening according to chance.

‘The sudden and unexpectedly large inheritance was an adventitious event that changed the family’s fortunes.’

Root Number 24

ver veri

Meaning: true; genuine (from the Latin ‘verus’)

‘When you have absorbed this root, you will be a voracious communicator, and will be very capable of verifying the truth in other people’s statements.’

Example words

Veracity noun. Truth; honesty; accuracy.

‘He was an extremely ethical fellow, and spoke with complete sincerity and veracity.’

Verify verb. To confirm; to prove to be true.

‘Before signing, I wish to verify that the contract is a true reflection of our spoken agreement.’

Veridical adjective. Truthful; veracious.

‘She had committed herself to tell the truth and did - hers was a completely veridical statement.’

Root Number 25

viv vivi vita

Meaning: alive; life (from the Latin ‘vita’)

‘This is a particularly important root that is vital to the development of your vocabulary, and will vitalize your spoken words as well as helping you to survive in any verbal situation!’

Example words

Vitamin noun. One of the constituents of food that are essential for life.

‘Many nutritionists recommend vitamin supplements to a regular diet in order to improve the quality of life.’

Vivacious adjective. Full of energy, spirit and life.

‘Her sparkling, vivacious personality made her the belle of every ball.’

Viviparous adjective. Bearing live young (not eggs) that have been developed inside the body of the parent.

‘Human beings are viviparous creatures.’

Case Study – Notes for Words

Dr Agnes Chan, and her colleagues of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, have come up with an amazing finding: that children who take music lessons grow up to have a better memory for words. Chan’s team found that women who had at least six years of music lessons before the age of 12, but who were not professional musicians, performed significantly better at standard word recall tests than women who had no musical training. Dr Chan believes that musical training could help everyone, including those with head injuries or learning difficulties, to improve their verbal intelligence.

These findings also confirm our growing knowledge of the fact that each one of our separate intelligences helps, supports and nurtures the others. In this instance Creative Intelligence (making music) is enhancing and improving Verbal Intelligence (word recall).

Case Study – How Do We Judge Intelligence in Strangers?

For many years, psychologists and others have been interested in the answer to this question. Some fascinating new light has been thrown onto the subject by Robert Gifford and D’Arcy Reynolds at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. Their research attempted to discover exactly which cues help us to judge IQ accurately, and which cues are not correlated with IQ.

Gifford and Reynolds videoed high-school students answering thought-provoking questions such as: ‘What do you see as the future of the world’s environment?’ Each of the students was also given standard IQ tests, and their IQs were logged.

The videos were then showed to a group of volunteers who became ‘IQ judges’. These IQ judges were asked to watch the videos and then assess each student’s body type and also to monitor a variety of behavioural cues, especially their verbal fluency; the number of different words they used; and how loudly they spoke. After they had completed this task, the judges were asked to rate the students’ IQs.

The results? Factors that had no relation to IQ included the following: halting speech; using slang; saying ‘um’; being fat; talking loudly. It is interesting to note that this last one was often thought by the judges to be a sign of high intelligence!

The factors the judges rated as showing high intelligence, and which were directly correlated with the videoed students’ IQs, were the following: if a student was easy to understand; used a lot of words; or spoke quickly.

The findings indicated that by training in these three areas, the standard IQ scores could rise.

verbal workout

Word Puzzle Number 5

1. zyglooo

__ X __ X __ __ X

2. chramon

__ __ __ XX __ X

3. phrag

__ __ __ X X

4. cectnon

__ XX __ __ __ X

Clue: Mind your body __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

Verbal Intelligence Tip

When your eyes have ‘absorbed’ the letters of the puzzle, look away!

Why?

Because your brain has an ‘inner screen’ which it projects onto external reality, and onto this big blank screen your brain also projects the answer – much like your own virtual-reality blackboard, on which you can scribble notes that help you solve a problem.

This is why you often see young children, especially when they are asked to spell a word, look away. It is not because they are not paying attention; rather, they are paying attention – to that super-solution screen inside their heads.

Continuing to look at a puzzle, with your normal vision, keeps you ‘small-screen’ focused. Unless you have perceived the answer immediately, it is always best to bring the ‘big screen’ into play.

Word Puzzle Number 6

Ignorance is to not knowing as cognizant is to …?

Surprise Yourself With Your Own Knowledge!

There is a wonderful confidence-building game you can play with your dictionary. Make sure you have a comprehensive dictionary such as the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), or perhaps the more American-slanted Webster’s Dictionary.

Starting at the first word in the dictionary, go through, page by page, checking off the words you already know. Keep a little tally at the bottom of each page, as well as a running total indicating how many words you have identified so far that you know. This exercise can be done on a daily or weekly basis, or, if you feel like it, in large chunks (word bingeing!). You will find that you know many more words than you thought. In addition, you will discover many ‘old friends’ that for some reason have been put in the back of your mind. You can bring these to life once again, immediately adding to your total of current word-friends.

As you leaf through the pages, you will often spy tempting words that will beckon to you as you pass by. Be seduced! Go and visit them, and thus make even more friends.

Make Up New Words to Help You Remember

One new word can be the ‘decoding device’ that will enable your memory to recall, in perfect order, data that needs to be remembered in a given sequence. Perhaps one of the most common examples of this is the created name/character Roy Gbiv. He’s a very colourful fellow: the letters of his name are the first letters for each of the colours of the rainbow, in order: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet.

Get a Thesaurus

As you may well know, it was one of the world’s highest-ever Verbal Intelligences, Dr Samuel Johnson, who in the 18th century had the original idea of writing a book that listed all the main words in the known language, in conjunction with their meanings, parts of speech, most common usage and historical derivations. His brilliant first work, The Dictionary of the English Language, gave birth to all our modern dictionaries.

A few decades later, another man, Roget, had a similarly brilliant idea. He decided to write a book that also contained all of the words in the English language, but this time with a difference. Rather than giving the meanings of all the words, Roget’s book would give all the words that had similar meanings to the given word.

Thus, for example, if you were writing a book, giving a speech or composing a poem, and wanted to have a variation on your theme, his book would give you every known ‘companion word’. He called his book Roget’s Thesaurus.

Nearly every great writer and thinker has since used it, and it is a standard tool for all those who wish to improve their Verbal Intelligence, communication skills and ability.

Let’s just look, for example, at just some of the entries in Roget’s Thesaurus for the word ‘intelligence’:

Intelligence, wisdom: Mental Capacity. NOUNS

intelligence, understanding, Verstand [Ger.], comprehension, apprehension; savvy [slang, US]; sense, wit, mother wit, natural or native wit; intellect; intellectuality, intellectualism; mentality, rationality, intellectual power; capacity, caliber, reach or compass of mind; I.Q., intelligence quotient, mental ratio, mental age; sanity; knowledge.

smartness, braininess [coll.], brightness, brilliance, cleverness, aptness, aptitude, native cleverness; sharpness, keenness, acuteness; quickness, nimbleness.

sagacity, sagaciousness, astuteness, acumen, gumption [coll. & dial.], flair; long head [coll.], longheadedness, hardheadedness

wisdom, wiseness, sageness, sapience, good or sound understanding; erudition

sensibleness, reasonableness, reason, rationality, sanity, saneness, soundness; sense, good ~ common or plain sense

genius, Geist [Ger.], spirit, soul; inspiration, afflatus, divine afflatus; fire of genius, lambent flame of intellect, coal from off the altar; talent; creative thought

Your Thesaurus, like your dictionary, will be your lifelong companion. Use them regularly to boost your Verbal Intelligence.

Use Your Favourite Words to Generate More Favourite Words

Make a list of your Top 10, or Top 100 favourite words. First use your dictionary to check their meanings (and especially derivations). Next go to your Thesaurus and check all those words that have similar meanings to your favourite words. As you explore you will find many new friends, who will become both new favourites and will enhance your growing vocabulary.

Learn Five New Word Roots Each Year

Give yourself the simple task of learning five new word roots each year. You can do this in concentrated chunks, or spread them out over the seasons. It may not sound like much, but after 10 years you will have acquired 150 new roots, which, themselves, will help you generate thousands of new words.

Look For Onomatopoeic Words and Phrases

Onomatopoeia, as you know, is a word or phrase that sounds like the thing it describes. Two well-known examples are ‘the murmuring of innumerable bees’, and ‘the tintinnabulation of tiny bells’. Onomatopoeic words add power, rhythm and beauty to your growing vocabulary and communication skills.

The ideas in this chapter are summarized in Plate 10.

Word Power Booster Number 3

This Word Power Booster is devoted to words that themselves suggest power and strength. When you use them it will similarly add power and strength to your vocabulary and power and strength to your Verbal Intelligence. Chose the definition you think is closest to the actual meaning of each word.

INTREPID (in-tré-pid)

(a) Terrified

(b) In-between

(c) Strong

(d) Fearless

IMPREGNABLE (im-prég-nabul)

(a) Not pregnant

(b) Cannot be taken

(c) Infertile

(d) Of great magnitude

UNALTERABLE (un-órter-abul)

(a) An argument

(b) Incapable of religious conversion

(c) Unable to be changed

(d) Changeable

PARAMOUNT (pá-rra-mount)

(a) A film

(b) To ascend a peak

(c) A small mountain

(d) Of chief importance

RIGOROUS (ríg-or-rus)

(a) Flexible

(b) Exacting

(c) Sickly

(d) Like rope

UNMITIGATED (un-mít-igay-ted)

(a) Unqualified

(b) Unexamined

(c) Unfenced; free

(d) Not met

CLIMACTIC (cly-mák-tic)

(a) Meteorological

(b) To ascend

(c) Reaching the highest point

(d) Equatorial

SACROSANCT (sákro-sankt)

(a) Most sacred; inviolable

(b) Sugar-like

(c) A mortuary

(d) Impossible

UNIMPEACHABLE (un-im-péech-abul)

(a) Not allowed to sell fruit

(b) Not pleasant

(c) Unable to be called into question; irreproachable

(d) Extremely pleasant

CLARION (klár-ion)

(a) A small clarinet

(b) Loud and clear

(c) A household cleaner

(d) A gong

2.4

Word Power II – Prefixes and Suffixes

‘So long as the language lives then the nation lives too.’

Czech proverb

Words are power. Words are wealth. Words are your Intellectual Capital, the currency with which you communicate, relate to those around you, do business, express your full range of feelings from anger to love, create your personal literature, persuade, influence, guide others, and direct your own life.

Case Study – Verbal Intelligence and Academic Success

Dr Wilfred Funk reports on an experiment on vocabulary improvement and academic success, which was carried out in two American school classes. The ages and background of the two groups of students were similar and each contained a similar cross-section of the local community.

One class carried on with its normal studies. The second group of students, the ‘experimental group’, were given extra classes, in which they had special and rigorous training to develop their vocabulary and Verbal Intelligence.

As you might expect, at the end of the study the students who had had Verbal Intelligence training scored higher marks in English tests than did the ‘control group’.

However, far more significant than this was the fact that they scored higher marks in every other subject, including all the sciences and mathematics!

Improving Verbal Intelligence has a dramatic and positive effect on all aspects of academic success.

Case Study – Word Power, Hats and Stockings!

Dr Funk reports two other experiments that demonstrate the power of the word, both involving word power and fashion.

The first experiment involved men and a store’s hat department. Two counters in the department were covered with identical numbers of identical hats, each hat being of the same make, and the styles and colours on each counter being exactly the same.

The only difference between the two counters was that on one there was printed the large word ‘Tyrolean’. The other counter had no sign.

Do you think this single word had any effect on sales and, if so, how much?

The amazing result was that three times as many of the ‘worded’ hats were sold!

The second experiment involved women, fashion and a similar experimental design.

This time, two counters were stocked with identical brands and styles of plain beige stockings.

As with the hat experiment, the two counters were identical, except that on one the stockings were labelled ‘Gala’, and the other had no sign at all. Ten times as many pairs of the Gala stockings were sold!

Store up these experiments in your Verbal Intelligence databanks. Realize how much power your words have to influence others. Realize also how much power words have to influence you!

‘Words are the pegs on which to hang ideas.’

Henry Ward Beecher

A single word or phrase can multiply sales, mend a fractured relationship, inspire a nation, immortalize a name and change history. The otherwise relatively unknown English poet Stevie Smith is known to increasing millions for the brilliant and moving end to one of her poems:

‘I was much too far out all my life

And not waving but drowning.’

John F. Kennedy changed the focus of the American nation, and the perception and direction of the human race, with his immortal statement in 1961 to put an American on the moon within 10 years:

‘I believe that the nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.’

Similarly, the careless use of a phrase can dog an individual for the rest of his life. Many of you reading this book will know who said the phrase: ‘I didn’t inhale.’ This unfortunate choice of words will haunt Bill Clinton for decades.

Word Beginnings and Word Endings

You are now about to embark on another adventure similar to that on which you embarked with Roots. This time you will explore the universe of Prefixes (word beginnings) and Suffixes (word endings) – 12 in all. These are like Roots that exist at the beginning and ends of words. Once again, you will be entertained by the Ancient Romans and Greeks. They will help you on your way to developing a rich and robust vocabulary.

Enjoy the journey!

Case Study – Vocabulary and Standard IQ

The great IQ guru, Professor Lewis M. Turman of Stanford University, posed an interesting question. He wanted to know if vocabulary tests alone would be as accurate an indicator of intelligence as full-blown IQ tests, which would include, in addition, logical and mathematical questions, etc. He found that they did! Turman had discovered that vocabulary alone was an extremely successful indicator of academic and professional success and overall standard intelligence.

Prefix Number 1

con– co–

Meaning: with; together (from the Latin)

‘This prefix will allow you to make good connections when other people who love language congregate.’

Example words

Congress noun. The act of coming together; a meeting.

‘A number of nations call the place where their top politicians come together Congress.’

Co-operation noun. To operate together; a joint effort or labour.

‘Co-operation with nature has been found to be the best means of survival.’

Consanguineous adjective. Denotes people who are ‘together’ in that they are of the same blood/family.

‘The two strangers discovered to their amazement that they were consanguineous.’

Prefix Number 2

dyn–

Meaning: power (from the Greek ‘dunamis’)

‘This prefix will help you become even more dynamic in your use of words, and people will probably start referring to you as “a real dynamo”!’

Example words

Dynasty noun. An especially powerful line of kings or rulers.

‘The Kennedy clan in America is an example of a modern political dynasty.’

Dynamism noun. The quality of power, energy and forcefulness.

‘His deep knowledge and passionate love of the subject enabled him to speak with exceptional dynamism.’

Dynamo noun. A device that produces electrical energy.

‘He was so full of energy – a real dynamo.’

Prefix Number 3

eu–

Meaning: pleasant; well; good (from the Greek ‘eus’)

‘This prefix will hopefully have you in a state of euphoria, exclaiming, as you discover more and more, “Eureka”!’

Example words

Euphemism noun. The use of a mild or more pleasant word in place of one that is more blunt and harsh.

‘Because she didn’t want to insult him, she used “ample” as a euphemism to describe his obese body!’

Eupepsia noun. Good digestion.

‘A healthy diet, good exercise and a happy state of mind should promote eupepsia.’

Euphonious adjective. Full of pleasant and pleasing sound; harmonious.

‘Lying in a meadow on a spring day, the lovers listened to the euphonious music of Nature.’

Prefix Number 4

phil–

Meaning: love (from the Greek ‘philos’, loving)

‘By the time you have finished reading The Power of Verbal Intelligence, you will be a philologist, for you will have become a student, scholar and lover of language.’

Example words

Philosophy noun. The love of wisdom and the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, existence and reality.

‘Everyone has been a student of philosophy, for at some times in our lives we all ask “what’s the point of it all?”!’

Philanthropist noun. A lover of humankind; a generous giver to good causes.

‘One of the greatest philanthropists in history was Andrew Carnegie, who amassed a fortune when young, and spent the rest of his life giving it away to charitable causes.’

Philomath noun. A lover of learning.

‘The philomath adored finding out new and unusual things.’

Prefix Number 5

prim– prime–

Meaning: first (from the Latin ‘primus’)

‘The Power of Verbal Intelligence is a primer designed primarily to introduce you to the wonderful world of words!’

Example words

Primeval adjective. Belonging to the first ages of the earth.

‘The primeval forests still exist today, in the form of either archaeological imprints or coal and oil.’

Primates noun. The first, ‘highest’ order of mammals, consisting of man and the apes.

‘Studies of the other primates show that they are far more intelligent than previously thought.’

Primacy noun. State of being first.

‘The primacy effect states that human beings tend to remember the first things they come across.’

Prefix Number 6

tra– trans–

Meaning: across, through or over (from the Latin)

‘This prefix crops up a lot in the world of travel. Think of some examples, and keep your eye out for more the next time you are in transit!’

Example words

Transcend verb. To cross to a higher level.

‘The music transcended anything she had heard before.’

Traverse verb. Lying across.

‘The new bridge will traverse the river.’

Transaction noun. Putting through a business deal; passing goods ‘across’ from one person to another.

‘After much negotiation, they completed a successful transaction.’

Suffix Number 1

–able –ible

Meaning: able; can do (from the Latin suffix ‘–aiblis’, ‘–ibilis’, meaning suitable for the purpose indicated)

‘With this incredible suffix you will be capable of expanding your vocabulary to the extent that you will be considered most able by everyone who comes in contact with you.’

Example words

Sociable adjective. Possessing Social Intelligence; able to get along with people.

‘He was a sociable person, which made him very popular.’

Edible adjective. Can be eaten.

‘Apples, pears and bananas are all edible fruits.’

Enjoyable adjective. Able to be relished or enjoyed.

‘Things which appeal to our senses tend to be enjoyable.’

Tenable adjective. That which can be defended or maintained, especially an argument (from the French ‘tenir’, to build).

‘Because his arguments were so tenable, the scholarship committee made his appointment tenable for seven years.’

Suffix Number 2

–ic

Meaning: like; nature of (from the Greek ‘ikos’)

‘This suffix often has –ally added to it; a fact which I wish to state emphat-ically!’

Example words

Heroic adjective. Like a hero.

‘It was a feat of heroic proportions.’

Majestic adjective. Like royalty.

‘He strode majestically into the room.’

Endemic adjective. Native to a particular people or area.

‘The panda is endemic to China.’

Suffix Number 3

–ity

Meaning: a state of or quality (from the Latin ‘–itas’)

‘The more you develop your verbal ability, the more you will be able to speak with clarity, dignity and authority. No one will ever accuse you of unnecessary ambiguity or verbal absurdity!’

Example words

Luminosity noun. Brilliance; the state of having a great deal of radiance or light.

‘The spacecraft shone with an eerie luminosity.’

Eternity noun. State of timelessness; time never ending.

‘Infinity is to distance as eternity is to time.’

Celerity noun. The quality of quickness; speed.

‘She spoke with incredible celerity, yet with equal clarity.’

Suffix Number 4

–ize –ise

Meaning: to make or become (from the Latin suffix ‘–izare’)

‘This suffix will familiarize you with and acclimatize you to a whole range of words that will help you to emphasize your point!’

Example words

Memorize verb. To establish strongly and to make firm in the mind.

‘The Mind Map is a thinking tool that will help you to memorize whatever you wish to learn.’

Mesmerize verb. To make someone hypnotized or spell-bound.

(After Anton Mesmer, who was the first to publicize hypnosis.) ‘My gripping tales will mesmerize you!’

Scrutinize verb. To make a close examination.

‘Before signing anything significant, it is always best to scrutinize the small print.’

Suffix Number 5

–ology

Meaning: the subject of study; a science (from the Latin ‘logia’)

‘With this new suffix and with your growing knowledge of other suffixes, you are already well on your way to being a philologist!’

Example words

Ethnology noun. The study of the races of humankind.

‘In recent years ethnology has become a newly popular science, as humankind search for their geographic and racial origins.’

Ethology noun. The study of the behaviour of animals.

‘In the middle of the 20th century researchers began to realize all animals were far more intelligent and individually unique than had been previously thought. They thus started to investigate, and founded the science of ethology.’

Philology noun. The study of words and languages.

‘As you have been reading The Power of Verbal Intelligence, you have been studying philology!’

Suffix Number 6

–ous

Meaning: full of or having (from the Latin ‘–osus’)

‘With your increased Verbal Intelligence it is obvious that your appetite for learning will be voracious and that others will consider your verbal skills wondrous!’

Example words

Luscious adjective. Having a taste and/or smell that is rich, full and delicious.

‘The exquisitely prepared meal was one of the most luscious they had ever experienced.’

Mysterious adjective. Full of obscurity; mystery.

‘Scientists who study the Universe proclaim that, despite our growing knowledge, it still remains mysterious.’

Noxious adjective. Unpleasant; harmful; poisonous.

‘The children mixed up a noxious-smelling brew in their chemistry lesson.’

Verbal Workout

Word Puzzle Number 7

1. pudety

__ XX __ __ __

2. vitacree

__ __ XX __ __ __ X

3. naribs

__ XX __ __ X

4. hekish

XX __ __ X __

Clue: Ultimate wordsmith _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Verbal Intelligence Tip

Close your eyes while contemplating the word puzzle.

Why?

Once again the answer lies in your brain’s remarkable ability to create a virtual screen, this time inside your head. When your eyes are closed, your brain no longer has to deal with the visual data that pours in when your eyes are open. It can therefore concentrate even more fully on the problem at hand, and will project a correct answer more rapidly onto its internal screen. The sudden rest that your eyes get often acts like a sudden release of energy (which it is), which is immediately poured into finding the answer you are seeking.

Word Puzzle Number 8

Hating mankind is to misanthropy as loving mankind is to …?

The ideas in this chapter are summarized in Plate 11.

Word Power Booster Number 4

In this Word Power Booster you will be thinking about thinking! All the words are concerned with the theories about who, what and why we are. Choose the definition that you think is closest to the correct meaning from the four options given.

ATHEIST (áy-thee-ist)

(a) Belief that God is non-existent

(b) Uncertainty about God

(c) Believer in God

(d) One who does not care about God

AGNOSTIC (ag-nóss-tic)

(a) Belief that God is non-existent

(b) Uncertainty about God

(c) Believer in God

(d) One who does not care about God

ALTRUISM (ál-tru-ism)

(a) Belief in a higher power

(b) Mountaineering

(c) Generous and unselfish

(d) Believing in honesty

EGOIST (ée-go-ist)

(a) Belief in a single God

(b) Traveller

(c) Fighter

(d) One interested in selfish advantage

EPICURE (épi-kure)

(a) Treatment for the hands

(b) One who loves good food; a gourmet

(c) Cure for disease

(d) Centre of activity

FATALIST (fáte-a-list)

(a) One who always wins

(b) One who always loses

(c) One who always gives up

(d) One who believes that events are determined by fate

LIBERAL (líb-er-al)

(a) A believer in progress

(b) Poor

(c) Liking books

(d) Military officer

CONSERVATIVE (con-súrv-a-tif)

(a) Similar to Liberal

(b) Environmentalist

(c) A believer in familiar traditions

(d) Agriculturalist

STOIC (stów-ik)

(a) Alien

(b) Able to endure pain and hardship without complaining

(c) One who hoards

(d) Similar to Epicure

CHAUVINIST (shów-vin-ist)

(a) Lover of French

(b) Lover of horses

(c) Extreme lover of one’s country

(d) Singer of French songs

2.5

Brain Word – Using Your Brain Power to Develop Your Word Power

‘Your boss has a bigger vocabulary than you have. That’s one good reason why he’s your boss.’

Dr Wilfred Funk and Dr Norman Lewis

In this chapter I will introduce you to the amazing nature of words and their incredible ability to multiply themselves, your Creativity and your Verbal Intelligence.

Your memory is vitally important in the development of your vocabulary. I will show you how to master your memory functions to help accelerate the growth of your Verbal Intelligence.

Then I will show you how to combine the powers of your left and right brains to increase the power of your vocabulary, and how to combine everything you have learned in The Power of Verbal Intelligence so far to create those thinking tools – Mind Maps.

The Multi-Ordinate Nature of Words

I hope by now you have raced to your dictionary in order to check out the meaning and derivation of the word ‘multi-ordinate’! The derivation of the two-part word is as follows: the prefix ‘multi’ comes from the Latin ‘multus’, meaning ‘much’ or ‘many’. The word ‘ordinate’ comes from the Latin ‘ordo’, meaning ‘order’.

So, the multi-ordinate nature of words refers to the fact that they do not have only one meaning in your brain – they radiate out from their centre with many orders of meaning.

Can we demonstrate this? Yes!

Here, you will find the word ‘Power’ in the centre of a page, with 10 branches radiating from it. As fast as you can, print, clearly, on the lines, the first 10 words that come into your mind when you think of the word ‘Power’. If you have friends or family with you, get them to do the same exercise, but separately from you. You do not want anybody to see what the others have done until everyone has completed the exercise. Do this now, and then read on.

I have completed the same exercise here. Check your own words against mine, seeing how many are identical (i.e., the same meaning, and exactly the same spelling).

If you are doing this exercise with friends, take it in turn to read your words out to the others. As each person reads, the others note down all the words, each person therefore ending up with the entire collection. See how many words are common to all of you, or to any sub-group of you.

In 999 cases out of 1,000, there are very few words in common.

What does this mean? It means that your vocabulary is much more expansive than you previously thought, that your ability to make associations is potentially infinite (you could have added 10 additional associations to every one of your 10 prime ordinals, couldn’t you? And so on!)

It further means that your own associations are unique, and that your ability to grow your vocabulary and enhance your Verbal Intelligence is infinite.

Memory and Verbal Intelligence – Recall During Learning

Research from the time of Hermann Ebbinghaus and William James at the end of the 19th century, to the current work of Professor Guttmann of Vienna University and myself, has confirmed that the patterns of memory are stable, predictable and, most importantly, manageable. Research has confirmed that while you are learning, you will remember more the following things:

The beginning of the learning period (the Primacy Effect)

The end of the learning period (the Recency Effect)

Anything that stands out in your imagination

Anything that you associate with something else

Memory – Recall After Learning

Again, research has consistently confirmed the same findings about what happens to your recall after you have finished learning something (some people call this ‘forgetting’!).

Case Study – Translate and Beware!

The multi-faceted wonder of words can often lead to hilarious mistranslations or misunderstandings. A recent issue of New Scientist magazine reported some wonderful bloopers:

One reader reported that the radio station The Voice of America, used to transmit western news and propaganda to the Soviet Bloc. They would then listen to the various countries’ re-translations of their transmissions. One news item reported the death of a former tennis champion, who died at her home in Tooting, London. Bulgarian radio broadcast the fact that she had: ‘Died at her home in London, playing her trumpet!’

Another reader reported the story of a computer-translated Russian technical article, converted into English. The confused engineers reading it could not make sense of the frequently recurring references to ‘water goats’. After a lot of thinking, the solution dawned: ‘water goats’ were ‘hydraulic rams’!

This last story is reminiscent of one of the oldest translation/re-translation stories, also from Russian to English. ‘Out of sight, out of mind’ was reborn as ‘invisible idiot’!

There is a simple formula to keep your memory sharp rather than letting it drop off calamitously. The first part of the formula is Repetition. You must repeat something at least five times for it to sink into your long-term memory. The second part is the timing or spacing of those five repetitions. Your repetitions, or reviews, should be spaced out roughly according to the following formula:

First repetition – after one hour

Second repetition – after one day

Third repetition – after one week

Fourth repetition – after one month

Fifth repetition – after six months

Following this formula for your Verbal Intelligence studies will make the difference between complete success and absolute failure.

Your Left and Right Brain

Less than 20 years ago, most people had never heard of the left/right brain research. Now, fortunately, it has become part of global knowledge.

To summarize briefly: the left side of your brain deals predominantly with words, logic, numbers, sequence, linearity, analysis and lists. The right side of your brain deals predominantly with rhythm, spatial awareness, dimension, imagination, daydreaming, colour and holistic awareness.

You will see that words are designated to belong on the left side of the brain. This, however, is not the final picture. For people with high Verbal Intelligences, brainwave measurements show that when they are presented with words the whole cortex lights up. In other words, words are everywhere! This is especially true of poets, writers and Grandmasters of Memory.

The reason their entire brains light up is because they realize that words are not simply words. Words are the word itself plus the imaginative, colourful, rhythmical and spatial associations that are part of the full meaning of that word!

Mind Maps

Mind Maps are perfect examples of the above principle.

They are an explosion of the multi-ordinate nature of words exercise you did with ‘Power’. Their key is that any word or image can be placed in the centre of the page, and can radiate out infinitely.

Mind Maps are also an exact reflection of the Recall During Learning principles of Association and Imagination. Indeed you could describe a Mind Map as an associative network of images (imagination) and words.

Further, Mind Maps incorporate all the elements of your left and right brain, giving you the added power of the synergy between the two sides (the 1 + 1 = more than 2 principle).

By using Mind Maps you vastly enhance your Verbal Intelligence. There are colourful examples of Mind Maps in the plate section.

Verbal Workout

Word Puzzle Number 9

1. hacyt

__ X __ __ __

2. volen

X X __ __ __

3. ryemom

__ __ __ XX __

4. ziliode

__ X __ X __ __ X

Clue: Brain of the millennium. __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

Verbal Intelligence Tip

Look at the jumbled letters in ‘soft focus’.

Why?

Because soft focus once again allows your para-conscious brain to work on the problem.

Soft focus is when you ‘let your eyes go’, much as if you are too tired to focus, or as if you are ‘looking beyond’ the letters in front of you. When you do this the letters become a little bit fuzzy (you are literally using ‘fuzzy logic’ here!) and tend to shift or wobble about in your visual field. This gets them out of the rigid order that they are in on the page, and allows your brain to play around with them much more freely. Because this is happening, you are much more likely to have the answer ‘pop up’. This is also because your brain, scanning the way in which the fuzzy images are appearing, can more easily see appropriate patterns of letters as they shift around in front of your eyes.

It is a paradoxical situation, worth giving some thought to, that in this instance clarity keeps you farther away from the correct answer, while fuzziness gives you clarity!

Word Puzzle Number 10

Which is the odd one out?

GORENNIT

MILEHU

GRETI

NEXGYO

Understanding Understanding and Misunderstanding!

Next time you have a disagreement with a friend or colleague, just remember the ‘multi-ordinate’ nature of words. Rather than misunderstanding the disagreement from your set of verbal associations, and therefore getting yourself stressed out, calm yourself down, and set about exploring the universe of their associations.

In more than 90 per cent of the time you will find that not only were the misunderstandings understandable; you both end up agreeing that each of you had a good perspective on the situation at the time. This is much more productive, leads to much greater Creativity, and causes far less pain than sticking to the one-sided (and verbally unintelligent) assumption that you are absolutely right!

One of the best ways to explore your differences is to brainstorm with Mind Maps. First do a Mind Map of one side of the ‘argument’, then a Mind Map of the other. These two Mind Maps allow you to explore your differences objectively and effectively, and to create a third Mind Map, which records your conclusions and your joint excellence!

Such an approach reduces stress levels and keeps you far more cheerful and healthy!

Use the ‘Recall During Learning’ Principles

Apply the ‘Recall During Learning’ Principles to help you continue to improve your Verbal Intelligence:

Study in 20–40-minute time periods to help you maximize your recall, and to give you more Primacy and Recency Effects

Actively look for new associations between words, using Mind Map techniques and brainstorming

Make the new words you learn ‘outstanding’ in your brain, by speaking them loudly, writing them large and highlighting them in any way you can.

Use the ‘Recall After Learning’ Principles

Apply the ‘Recall After Learning’ Principles to help you improve and maintain your Word Power.

Enter into your diary the dates when you will be working specifically on your Verbal Intelligence, as well as those dates when you plan to have special review sessions either with by yourself or with friends. Make sure your study and review dates fit in perfectly with the Recall After Learning Principles explained here. If you do this you will get double the benefit from the same amount of time spent improving your Verbal Intelligence.

Highlight Key Words

Whenever you are studying anything, highlight the important key words as you read. By highlighting words like this, ideally with a highlighter-pen or a computer-screen enhancing device, you will be using the von Restorff Effect to your great benefit, and will be improving both your memory and your ability to ‘swing into action’ with your new words.

The principle of the von Restorff Effect is that anything that is unusual, colourful or humorous is far more easily remembered and recalled by the brain than things which are plain and boring. This is just how Mind Maps work!

Use Your Imagination and Daydream!

Apply the right-brain skills of ‘Imagination’ and ‘Daydreaming’ to the enhancement of your Verbal Intelligence. Occasionally daydream about yourself in situations where your verbal skills are giving full range to your full verbal potential. Imagine yourself writing superb letters, poems, reports and novels; imagine yourself making speeches that are mesmerizing in their power and verbal excellence; imagine yourself on TV, wowing the millions with your wit and eloquence.

When you daydream with intention, you increase the probability that what you daydream will come true. It is also fun!

You can also use your imagination to enhance your understanding and memory of new words. Let’s imagine that you never fully understood the word ‘sumptuous’.

To remember this word, rather than simply committing to memory the dictionary definition, it would be far better to imagine all kinds of glorious situations in which the word ‘sumptuous’ would apply – the richest, most lavish environments you can imagine, like those in the Arabian Nights, or feasts in the castles and palaces of world leaders. And don’t simply daydream – really put yourself in them! Again, much more effective and much more fun!

Constantly bear in mind that words are a combination of the derivation, spelling and dictionary definition of the word, plus the vast storehouse of your imaginative, colourful, rhythmical and other multiple associations.

When you do this, your vocabulary will grow in size, richness and wealth.

Use Colour and Rhythm

Use the right-brain skills of ‘colour’ and ‘rhythm’ to develop your Verbal Intelligence. Imagine colours associated with the meanings of words; imagine words as colour; underline notes in different colours for different purposes (for example: red for action; blue for further thought, etc.), and highlight them in the same manner. These are all right-brain techniques you can use to increase your Word Power.

Similarly, applying rhythm and rhyme to the acquisition and use of words will also help. The reason why young children love nursery rhymes so much is that nursery rhymes give them a double dose of rhythm and rhyme, making the ‘game of learning’ much more easy and fun.

In the same way, great poets add considerable power to the messages they are trying to convey, by using appropriate rhythm and brain-jolting rhyme. A good example of this is from Lord Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, in which he is trying to convey the tremendous power of the ocean in comparison to the boasted but relatively minor power of mankind’s navies:

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean – roll!

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain.

Mind Map Your Progress

Taking one or two main themes from each of the first four chapters, create a Mind Map that summarizes what you have learned so far, and what general and specific progress you have made developing your Verbal Intelligence. You will be impressed with yourself! Your Verbal IQ is on the rise!

The ideas in this chapter are summarized in Plate 12.

Word Power Booster Number 5

We are going to breathe spirit into your vocabulary as well enlarging it. I am going to introduce you to words based on the Latin root ‘anima’, meaning mind, breath, soul or spirit, and the Latin ‘magnus’, which as you know, means large. Once again, choose the definition that you think is closest to the correct meaning from the four options given.

ANIMATE (án-ee-mayte)

(a) Like an animal

(b) Frantic

(c) Dumb

(d) To invest with life

UNANIMOUS (yu-nán-ee-mus)

(a) One animal

(b) Generally agreed

(c) Agreed by all

(d) Not agreed

MAGNANIMOUS (mag-nán-ee-mus)

(a) Generous and forgiving

(b) Big and powerful

(c) Magnetic animal

(d) Extinct animal

EQUANIMITY (ek-wa-ním-i-tee)

(a) Relating to the Equator

(b) Similar breed of animal

(c) Water animal

(d) Calmness; composure

ANIMADVERT (a-ním-ad-vert)

(a) Inadvertent

(b) Animal poster

(c) Turn one’s mind to; consider critically

(d) Invest with spirit

MAGNATE (mág-nayte)

(a) Metal that attracts metal

(b) Important person in industry

(c) Fat person

(d) Big building

MAGNILOQUENT (mag-ní-lokwent)

(a) Using flowery language

(b) Possessing a big mouth

(c) A magnetic liquid

(d) Speaking badly about others

MAGNIFICENCE (mag-níff-isense)

(a) Putting boundaries on magnets

(b) Greatness; grandeur

(c) Aristocratic

(d) Gross

MAGNUM OPUS (mág-num o-pus)

(a) Large bottle of Champagne

(b) Big business man

(c) Gigantic building

(d) Great literary or artistic work

MAGNUM (mág-num)

(a) A boss

(b) A large building

(c) A wine bottle twice the standard size

(d) A king

2.6

Body Talk – Body Language and How To Improve It

Let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action.’

William Shakespeare, Hamlet

‘He who knows that power is unborn … and so perceiving, throws himself unhesitatingly on his thought, instantly rights himself, stands in the erect position, commands his limbs, works miracles.’

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Your body is a major part of your Verbal Intelligence!

This statement might have seemed ridiculous even a few years ago. Now, however, with our knowledge of our multiple intelligences and how they each integrate with each other, we have come to realize that we have disconnected our Verbal Intelligence from our bodies, to our own great disadvantage.

We will now reconnect them!

The major part of your Verbal Intelligence, the part that is spoken, has your body as its main constituent.

When you express your Verbal Intelligence with spoken words, there is not one, but three parts to the expression of this intelligence:

Your words and their content

Your voice and its strength and tone

Your body and its language

The perfect expression of Verbal Intelligence takes place when all three of these elements are working in perfect harmony, and are completely congruent.

When they are not congruent, Verbal Intelligence is literally dis-integrated and weak.

The Sound of Silence

Albert Mehrabian, in his work Silent Messages, revealed a fascinating study on the relationship between the three elements of spoken Verbal Intelligence.

Mehrabian discovered that, especially when there was incongruity in the message, those receiving it gave the following emphasis to each element in terms of their judgement whether the message was true or not:

Words and content

7%

Voice tone and energy

38%

Body and its language

55%

Why was it that Mehrabian achieved this incredible result?

Because people receiving your Verbal Intelligence know that your body will show what your imagination is picturing, and what your true feelings are. In the same way, your tone of voice will also reveal what you are really imagining and feeling.

It is quite possible for you to recite words without meaning them. It is much more difficult to falsify the language with your body and the tone and energy of your voice.

True Verbal Intelligence, in its spoken manifestation, is where the imagination fires the body and voice so that these two magnificent instruments add meaning, weight and body to the skeleton of the isolated words. In this situation it is impossible to divide them into percentages, for they become One whole.

Case Study – I’ve Got to Hand It to You!

Why is it that no matter where you go in the world, and no matter what the nationality, language, sex or age of the speaker, all humans speak with their hands? Jana Iverson, of Indiana University in Bloomington, and Susan Goldin-Meadow at the University of Chicago, decided to find out why it is that we wave our hands about so much when we talk to each other.

One possible explanation is that all our gestures come from mimicking our parents and people around us as we grow up. Iverson and Goldin-Meadow put this to the test with an ingenious experiment. They took 12 young people aged between 8 and 18, half of whom were blind from birth. They were all asked to perform a simple task: to pour water from a tall, slim glass into a short, flat dish. When they had completed the task, they were asked to comment, in detail, on whether or not the amount of water had changed during the pouring procedure. The answers the young people gave were all videoed.

Although everyone agreed that the quantity of water had not changed, something extremely interesting emerged from observing the taped answers. When the sighted pourers put their descriptions and reasoning into words, they all used gestures such as curving their hands into a ‘C’ shape to represent grasping the cup, and varying the distance between their hands in order to describe the shapes of the containers.

Amazingly, and to everyone’s surprise, the blind people used the same gestures just as often, and in precisely the same way!

This suggested that mimicking was not the sole source of hand movements. The hunt was now on for the real reason, and the next possibility was that we use gestures as an audio-visual aid, in order to give our audience more information and to lend emphasis to our spoken words. To check this theory, the two researchers devised another ingenious experiment on the same lines.

They asked four different blind people to perform exactly the same pouring experiment and to answer the same question. However, this time the person posing the question was blind as well, and the blind pourer knew this.

To everybody’s amazement, the videos showed all four blind people continued to gesture in the same way, even though they were fully aware that their gesturing could in no way help convey their messages to their blind listeners.

This suggested a third hypothesis for why we use our hands, which the two researchers set about investigating. This time they asked people to look at a cartoon, and then to describe it while being videoed. One group was asked to describe it with their hands free, the other group while they were sitting on their hands. The results of this experiment showed that when the subjects were later asked to describe the cartoon again, their memories were far clearer if they gesticulated during their original description. What this suggests is that ‘waving our hands about’ when we speak is a method both of communicating to our listeners and of communicating with ourselves!

When you gesture, your body is actually helping your brain to sculpt the words, to clarify the meaning and the message, and to help people think and remember.

Your body is an amazing instrument for expressing your Verbal Intelligence. The eyes, mouth and facial muscles provide infinite combinations of added meanings to your words.

Similarly your torso and its limbs add another gigantic range of additional possibilities for adding bulk to your words.

Finally, your hands, the instruments of genius, allow you to paint infinite pictures and sculpt infinite structures in support of your words.

Case Study – Brain and Body in Sync

Dr Elizabeth Bates, a cognitive scientist from the University of California at San Diego, has found that many imaging studies of the human brain show an overlap between language centres, movement and physical control centres, and other brain regions. She says: ‘It makes sense that we find more and more examples of how [these different brain regions] travel together.’

Your Voice

Your voice emanates from the most amazing and musical instrument ever conceived. A billion-faceted masterpiece which is capable of speaking myriad languages, mimicking any accent, singing wonderful and varied songs, and varying its tone, pitch, energy and projection with incredible finesse.

All of this in support and as part of your Verbal Intelligence!

It is essential, therefore, that you look after this amazing instrument and learn to play it well. Before that, however, here is an amusing and true story to demonstrate the point.

Can I Sell You a Boat?

In Sweden, an unfortunately shy young man had just started his career as a boat salesman, and was having a singular lack of success. I asked him to show me how he used his Verbal Intelligence in a sales situation, which he proceeded to do.

He explained that there were three kinds of boats he was selling: little boats, medium-sized boats and very big boats (well over 100 metres).

His voice was a monotone, jerky, mumbled, lacking in energy and very quiet. More interestingly (and amusingly!) his body’s support of his words was not just absent, it was contradictory!

When he was describing the small boats, the only gesture he used was to hold his two hands up and indicate the size, as you would indicate the size of a fish you had caught. The size he demonstrated was about the width of his body. When he described the medium-sized boats, he jerked his two hands up and down for a moment and moved them slightly closer together!

When he came to describe the enormous boats, he once again jerked his hands up and down, and moved them much closer together! When he had finished describing the big boats, his hands were almost clasped in prayer!

His Verbal Intelligence score was approaching a negative number!

Your Verbal Intelligence rises with the degree of congruence between your body, voice and words. It sinks, as an uncared-for boat will, if it is disintegrated.

The reason for this disintegration often can be found in the words we use to help us think. These words and images have an immediate impact on your body and voice.

Think of feeling happy, successful and positively directed towards a good goal. With such thoughts your body will improve its poise and posture and therefore its overall presence. With melancholic, depressing and negative thoughts, your body will slump and lose both energy and presence.

A fascinating spiral is created.

When you think well with good and positive words, the instruments that carry your spoken Verbal Intelligence become more energized, alert and ready to give body to the words themselves. When this occurs, your Verbal Intelligence immediately rises. Your audience then also become more energized, and gives you more positive feedback. This increases your energy, improves your poise, …

To increase your Verbal Intelligence you must integrate positive thinking, physical health, your body language, your multi-talented voice and your words.

Here is another Verbal Workout to help you create this complete Verbal IQ package!

verbal workout

Word Puzzle Number 11

1. latzw

__ __ __ __ X

2. fyniot

XXX __ __ X

3. madyon

__ __ XX __ __

4. vibsuoo

__ X __ __ __ X __

Clue: Thinks you’re a genius. __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

Verbal Intelligence Tip

Rest/sleep on it

Why?

Because, as you learned in the first of these Verbal Intelligence Tips in Chapter 2.1, your brain, as far as solutions to problems is concerned, is a giant incubator. If ‘immediate’ techniques have not brought the solution to light, allow that giant para-conscious brain of yours to work on it in peace. Don’t harass or worry at it – that will simply make your para-conscious retreat; just let it be, and it will work, like the ultimate genie, in your service.

You will all have noticed this phenomenon – when you have taken exams in school, or been asked a tricky question in a job interview, or simply when you needed a quick retort. It is the kind of situation where you know you know the answer or phrase you want, but it’s not quite in the forefront of your brain – more on the tip of your tongue but not coming off it!

Try as you might to grasp the answer, it is all to no avail. And then, infuriatingly, as you walk out of the examination room or interview, or when the other person is out of earshot, the answer comes flooding back in! Has it happened to you?! If not you are one-in-a-hundred, because for 99 per cent of the population this is a common occurrence. It happened simply because they did not know how to look after their ‘genie’.

You now do!

Word Puzzle Number 12

Circle is to globe as square is to …?

Study Your Voice

Study and observe your own voice in order to improve its range of skills. Remember – your voice is a musical and Verbal Intelligence instrument; you are the one person who can improve all its qualities.

Check, using audiotape recorders, friends’ feedback, your own self-awareness and (where possible) video feedback, the following:

Your general voice energy level

Your variation

Your projection

Your pitch (high to low)

Your tone (soft/warm/hard/cold, etc.)

Your general ‘sound quality’

Rate yourself on a scale of 0–10 on each of these areas, and start the improvement process.

Alternatively, join your local amateur dramatics association – perfect for developing your voice and body-language partnership!

Smile!

Smile at yourself and at others. Research confirms that when you smile at others they will tend to smile back at you. More than this, when you or anyone else smiles, the body releases positive chemicals, and becomes better poised. This leads to a more positive attitude, and therefore a more positive-vocabulary thought process. You can add to this power by ‘smiling to yourself’, giving yourself a radiance within.

Increasingly, businesses are encouraging their staff to answer phone calls with a smile. It relaxes the person answering the phone, and the caller can also ‘hear’ the smile, which helps put them into a more positive and cheerful mood! Perfect for customer-complaints departments!

Smile and the world smiles with you!

Smile and your Verbal Intelligence grows!

Check Your Body Language

Check for congruence/incongruence in your own and others’ body language and spoken words. Remember the Swedish boat-salesman’s story. Remember also that the more fully integrated, healthy, relaxed and honest people are, the more congruent they will be. Their body language will match their verbal language, and their verbal language will match their body language.

Check this in your own conversations and speech. Work towards an increasingly integrated approach in everything you say and do. Similarly, check for integrated body language in new acquaintances and friends, sales people, public figures, teachers, television broadcasters and (especially!) politicians. Your brain is designed to pick up these cues to help you survive, and The Power of Verbal Intelligence will help you to enhance these powers.

One simple way to check your body’s super-logical knowledge when you meet a new acquaintance, is to ask yourself:

(a) ‘Do I immediately like this person?’ and

(b) ‘Would I trust this person with my most treasured friends and belongings?’

If your answer to either of these questions is ‘No’, immediately go into your ‘Sherlock Holmes Verbal/Body Language detective’ mode, and find out the reason why your brain, so rapidly and brilliantly, came to such a conclusion.

As well as providing you with essential information for your continued security, success and happiness, this study will provide you with endless hours of entertainment and amusement!

Mirror Exercises

Stand in front of a full-length mirror and chat to yourself! There is not more to this exercise than ‘meets the eye’. There is exactly as much as meets the eye! For here, while chatting away to yourself, you will be examining every move you make, position your body takes, and expression your eyes and face make, while you speak.

At first you may find doing this a bit embarrassing or intimidating, but it will rapidly become fun and useful – you are, after all, chatting with a friend who has been your companion and supporter throughout your life!

Keep a record of every strength and weakness you observe. Then use the strengths to improve on the weaknesses. That ‘mirror on the wall’ will let you know about your progress in your vocabulary and presentation skills, helping you toward your goal of becoming ‘the fairest of them all’!

Play Vocal Games

Experiment and play games with your voice. This Workout involves both your body and your ability to behave and learn like the ultimate vocabulary acquirer – the child. At least once a day, perhaps in the shower or your car (don’t you often see people singing/chatting to themselves as they drive by you?!), experiment with different vocal sounds, volumes and variations. This is like doing physical stretching exercises for your body – it expands both the width and strength of the instrument. It is also fun to do. Children often play these sorts of games, and if you can join in with them, do!

Sing!

Sing – either privately or publicly! Singing will give you similar benefits to the exercise above, but in a more structurally creative way. When a tune ‘lodges’ in your head, let it free; when you are encouraged to join in at the local karaoke bar, do so; when you are feeling happy or sad, sing songs to yourself; whenever the spirit moves you, allow your musical soul to express itself. As you now know, this release of your musical energy will only benefit and increase the power of your Verbal Intelligence.

Check Your Vocabulary’s Positive/Negative Ratio

Check your private and public vocabularies for their positive/negative ratio. If either or both of them is filled with negatives, remind yourself that this reduces your physical energy, weakens your immune system, pulls down your posture and poise, increases your probability of failure, de-motivates you, and does the same for those around you!

Resolve to fill the new reservoirs of your Verbal Intelligence with more positive, energetic and life-enhancing travelling companions.

The ideas in this chapter are summarized in Plate 13.

Word Power Booster Number 6

In this Word Booster I am going to introduce you to words about words, to further enrich your knowledge of the study in which you are now engaged. Choose the definition that you think is closest to the correct meaning from the four options given for each word.

CLICHÉ (klée-shay)

(a) Private meaning

(b) Secret area

(c) Hackneyed or stereotyped phrase

(d) Witty pun

SIMILE (sím-illee)

(a) Radiant expression

(b) Comparing one thing with another

(c) Long expression

(d) Contradiction

AMBIGUITY (am-big-yú-i-tee)

(a) Quite big

(b) Large meaning

(c) Unclear

(d) Eloquently expressed

EUPHEMISM (yú-fa-mism)

(a) An untruth

(b) A mild word substituted for one that is more direct

(c) A word evoking the sense of smell

(d) A beautiful sounding word

NON SEQUITUR (non sék-wi-ter)

(a) A conclusion that does not follow from the facts

(b) Out of order

(c) A dress without sequins

(d) Not resigning in sequence

REDUNDANCY (re-dún-dan-see)

(a) Stupid

(b) Unnecessary repetition; no longer needed

(c) An over abundance of the colour crimson

(d) Worthless

EPIGRAM (ép-e-gram)

(a) Twice the weight of a gram

(b) Half the weight of a gram

(c) A concise and witty saying

(d) A Latin law of grammar

ONOMATOPOEIA (ono-mátta-peer)

(a) Boring sound

(b) Single sound

(c) A word that sounds like what it describes

(d) A word that does not sound like what it describes

PERSIFLAGE (pérsy-flage)

(a) Light mockery or banter

(b) Flowery speech

(c) Description of flowers

(d) Closed shoot

METAPHOR (mét-a-for)

(a) A greeting

(b) Something implying a resemblance to something else

(c) A gas which causes drowsiness

(d) A type of bacteria

2.7

Present Yourself – How to Become A Successful Speaker

‘A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pitchers of silver.’

Proverbs 25:11

‘Whose words all ears took captive.’

Shakespeare

Making presentations gives you the ultimate opportunity to express yourself and to let your Verbal Intelligence bloom.

Yet, surprisingly, making presentations and speaking in public is the Number 1 fear on the planet!

Why? Because lack of confidence in your Verbal Intelligence, and the high probability that speaking in public will expose your perceived low Verbal IQ, is a very valid reason for feeling afraid.

In this chapter I will introduce you to information and exercises that will help you on your path to becoming an excellent speaker.

You will be able to combine what you have learned from previous chapters with the new information here to help you become a powerful and entertaining speaker.

Case Study – Hold Your Tongue!

It is obviously good to be able to know how and when to speak. It is also good to know when not to!

Cardiologists have known for some time that blood pressure can rise in the doctor’s surgery. But why? Claude Le Pailleur and his colleagues at the Necker Hospital wanted to know more about the factors involved.

They devised an experiment in which they compared blood-pressure readings taken while volunteers were sitting in the doctor’s surgery doing nothing, with those taken from patients who were either talking or reading a book.

The readings reduced slightly for those reading a book compared with those doing nothing. The blood pressure of those who talked rose sharply!

The researchers suggest that if you chat enthusiastically with your doctor during a check-up, you could be prescribed drugs you don’t need.

Use your newly developing speaking skills after your blood pressure has been taken!

The Speaking Situation

When you are faced with giving a presentation at work, or any other situation where you have to give a speech in front of other people, the first thing to do is to think about the situation you are really in. You are a Verbally Intelligent person who has the goal of using that Intelligence to express yourself to other Verbally Intelligent people!

As you express yourself to them, your sub-goals will be:

To entertain them as you speak.

To have them understand clearly what you say.

To have them remember what you convey.

To facilitate their use of what you say.

To captivate them by your words.

To make a good and lasting impression.

‘Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel.’

Ralph Waldo Emerson

You can achieve the same results as he did!

Hooked on Words

One of the most brilliant boxers ever to emerge from the British Isles was Irishman Barry McGuigan. McGuigan rapidly rose up in the boxing ranks and became the World Featherweight Champion in 1985. He was renowned for his exquisite boxing skills, and was described as the perfect practitioner of the ‘sweet science’. In addition, he was renowned for his positive attitude, his ability to take any set-back in his stride and to learn from it, and for his total dedication to his training.

After he had retired McGuigan became one of the top elite boxers elected to the prestigious Boxing Hall of Fame, an honour reserved for the very few who are considered by the sporting community to be among the greatest champions, as well as individuals who are great ambassadors for their sport.

As soon as he retired, McGuigan was eagerly approached by TV companies to become a specialized boxing commentator, which he did.

When he began his new career, McGuigan became very aware that his commentating style was in the order of the following: ‘ and that was a terrific left jab thrown by Jones followed by a terrific right cross … and Smith comes back with a terrific right uppercut and a terrific left jab …’. He decided to improve his Verbal Intelligence!

McGuigan literally ‘went into training’ to improve his Verbal IQ, using all the training techniques he had learned as a world-champion athlete. To aid him he used Mind Maps to help him expand his vocabulary, and his increasing knowledge of the wonder of words.

Within a short time his vocabulary and Verbal Intelligence improved dramatically. Rather than ‘terrific … terrific … terrific …’ McGuigan began to spice up his commentary with ‘lightning-like, stunning, juddering, rapier-fast, jolting, electrifying …’. Having applied the training techniques he had used to become a world-champion physical athlete, he rapidly rose up the ranks of TV sports commentators, and became a champion in the mental sphere!

McGuigan was so impressed with the rapid strides he was able to make in the development of his Verbal Intelligence that he now plays Verbal Intelligence games with his children – using Mind Maps and memory techniques to help them as Mind Maps helped him.

Your Audience

Think carefully about your audience. Their brains and Verbal Intelligences operate identically to yours.

Therefore you know that they operate on the basis of the multi-ordinate nature of words, and that their brains form gigantic networks and maps of associations, before, during and after you speak to them.

You know that they will understand and remember more at the beginnings and ends of your presentation. You know especially that they will understand and remember anything that appeals to their imagination and senses, and anything that helps them make links and associations. You know that one of the best ways to do all this is to tell stories, for stories appeal to all the elements of our memory and creativity.

You also know that you have the knowledge to help them understand and remember, link and associate. You also know that you have an increasingly rich and varied vocabulary, a voice which is unparalleled in its ability to convey information to them, and a body which, when allowed to express itself in congruence with your words, content and voice, adds enormous power to your message.

In addition to all this, your body has its five magical senses to add to the formula, which enhance, on all levels, your ability to present information and your own Verbal Intelligence.

‘How forceful are right words.’

Job 6:25

What the following Workout is focused upon is the idea that in order to be a superb presenter and to manifest your genius of Verbal Intelligence, all you have to do is to Be Yourself!

The Workout will help you on that path …

Verbal Workout

Word Puzzle Number 13

1. venet

__ __ XXX

2. dioua

__ X __ __ X

3. bidlee

__ __ __ __ XX

4. veriuq

X __ __ __ __ __

Clue: After becoming a graduate of The Power of Verbal Intelligence you will be: __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

Verbal Intelligence Tip

Look for Prefixes, Suffixes and Roots.

Why?

You know! Let me expand further: Prefixes, Suffixes and Roots make up a large percentage of the total number of letters found in the total number of words. As a result, if you look for them when you are trying to unscramble a scrambled word, you have a higher probability of being successful in your search than if you just ‘go random’. The new word-friends you have made in Chapters 2.3 and 2.4 will be of great assistance to you here, and will help you to raise your Verbal IQ even more.

Case Study – Speak Up

There is now proof from the neuro-biological laboratories that the volume of confidence with which you speak does affect the brains of those listening. The main body of each neuron (the brain cell’s mini-brain) receives thousands of messages from the junctions (synapses), where the cell’s tentacle-like extensions come in contact with other neurons.

These message signals become progressively weaker the further they travel from brain cell to brain cell. How, then, can impulses that travel great distances possibly compete with ones from nearby?

Geoffrey McGee, at the Louisiana State University Medical Center in New Orleans, decided to investigate. He measured the strength of messages at various points along the branches of neurons. He discovered a truth that seems surprisingly obvious when you know it, and which has very significant implications and applications. The stronger the impulse (i.e. the louder the voice) at source, the stronger the signal is when it starts out, and the stronger it is further on down the line.

This means that if you wish to have what you say register in the mind of your audience, you must speak up, be clear, and trigger good and strong associations in your audience.

If you do not, your messages will be lost among the cacophony of competing and stronger sounds.

Word Puzzle Number 14

The brain and behaviour is to psychology, as mind and body are to …?

Shout It Out!

You obviously need to apply the principles behind Professor McGee’s findings whenever you are giving any sort of speech.

There is, however, a much more subtle and very important application of McGee’s research – to your own learning. When you are reviewing and revising what you have learned, especially in areas such as vocabulary and language learning, make sure you repeat things aloud. In this way you will be reinforcing your own brain with the strength of the signal you are sending to it.

If you are reviewing silently, for example in a library, don’t silently whisper, silently SHOUT! If you imagine the loud sound, the response in your brain will be the same as if you had actually heard it. In any library you can shout as loudly as you like – as long as you do it silently!

Tell Stories

Listen to story-tellers; become a storyteller! When you develop your ability to become a mesmerizing storyteller, you are well over half way on your journey to becoming a superb speaker. From now on, when you are in the presence of good storytellers, use the technique of mimicking that babies use so effectively to help you become as skilled as them.

Study in detail the elements of their own mastery, especially their vocabulary, imagination and body language.

Review your own life for ‘amazing stories’ from your own past. Choose those that are the most exciting, most ridiculous, most informative, most extraordinary, most hair-raising, most absurd and most tantalizing! Practise re-telling them to close friends, and polish them up to the level where they can be presented successfully in any situation.

In the same way, listen out for superb stories from your family and friends, and put them into your own ‘story bag’.

Learn to Project Your Voice

It is not natural for our voices to be kept in a medium range. The only reason they are is social, and can be traced back to our school days, where we were continually told to ‘be quiet’, or to social situations where it was considered impolite to raise your voice. Your voice naturally wants to experiment with its full range of volumes, especially loud! Sensibly, society has arranged certain events and activities in which it is not only permitted to raise your voice; you are actually encouraged to do so.

The growing popularity of karaoke nights provides excellent opportunities to give your voice the workout it so desperately needs! Next time you get the chance, go along to one. If you don’t get the opportunity, make one!

Another type of event where you are positively encouraged to make a noise is in the football ground, or at other sporting venues. There you are expected to chant, sing, cheer and shout. Encourage yourself to go to these as often as you can, and give your voice a real high-powered workout.

Another area where the loud use of your voice is generally accepted is walking the dog. I am convinced that one of the main reasons people enjoy walking their dogs is not only for the fresh air, but for the opportunity to yell their heads off in nature’s wide open spaces! They can shout and bellow commands at their (usually oblivious) dogs to their heart’s content!

Practice Accents and Different Pronunciations

As you must be realizing more and more, your voice is an astonishingly flexible and trainable instrument. If you had been born anywhere in the world where one of the world’s 2,000 languages was spoken rather than your own, you would have learnt it. You still can. Learning different local and international accents gives your voice more range, while adding considerably to your ability to understand and entertain others.

Use Word Pictures

When you use word pictures you are combining the skills of your left and right brain hemispheres: words from the left and images/imagination from the right. By combining them, you create a multiplier effect in the power of your words.

Just think, for example, of simply reciting the sentence ‘I really enjoyed eating that big bowl of fruit.’

Now imagine that it was a hot summer day, you had not eaten for four days, and suddenly the most delicious bowl of fruit you had ever seen was placed in front of you. Every piece of fruit was perfectly ripe, beautifully coloured and giving off the most tempting and delicious aroma. Even more, the bowl contained every one of your own personal favourites. Imagine that you devoured it ravenously, and that it was the most gorgeous and memorable meal that you had ever had.

Now imagine saying that original sentence again, this time with full memory and full passion.

This technique, combining words with powerful, sensual images, is what all the great poets and writers, especially Shakespeare, use with such great success. When you use the technique, it will help to raise your Verbal Intelligence too.

Check Your Own Self-Talk

As well as checking the conversations you have with and the speeches you make to others, check the conversations you have and the speeches you make to yourself. Many people are wonderful conversationalists and public speakers; at the same time they often save all their worst, most depressing, negative and demotivating speeches for themselves! They are constantly telling themselves they can’t do things: that they’re ‘no good’, that they’ll ‘never succeed’. This is the worse kind of speaking/coaching!

If you notice any such tendency in yourself, including torrents of negative word use when you fail or mess things up, analyse why, put that type of demotivating vocabulary back on the shelf where it belongs, give yourself a pat on the back, and start to be a much better conversationalist with yourself!

Energize Your Voice – Improve Your Memory

Your memory works better when things are emphasized, imaginative and outstanding. If you are one of those people who constantly forgets because you have scribbled things you wanted to remember on lost scraps of paper, or repeated such things silently in a monotonous and uninspired voice, use this much better technique: whatever you want to remember, repeat it to yourself with added extra energy.

When you do this, your brain will feel more positive towards whatever it is you repeated, simply because of the extra energy with which you have said it. Additionally, the extra energy will make the statement ‘stand out’ in your mind’s eye, and when things stand out, your brain remembers much more easily.

Establish Your Personal Presentation Goals

Complete a mini Mind Map of the areas in which you specifically want to improve your speaking skills. Areas to consider should include:

One-on-one conversations with family and/or friends and colleagues

Joke-telling

Storytelling

Informal presentations on a particular subject to small groups/teams

Giving instructions/directions

Special-occasion speeches, such as Best Man and After-dinner speeches

Professional presentations to large groups

When you have established these goals, quickly re-read the chapter, and start to apply these Verbal Workout suggestions to help achieve them.

The ideas in this chapter are summarized in Plate 14.

Case Study – Think First!

Think about what you are going to say before you actually say it. If you do you will be at a considerable advantage.

That’s the finding from a study on stuttering by researchers in Finland and Germany. Riitta Salmenlin and her colleagues at the Helsinki University of Technology asked 9 long-term stutterers and 10 fluent speakers to read out individual words from a list. As they read, their brain activity was monitored by devices which identify precisely where and, crucially, when, certain regions of the brain are being activated.

The fluent speakers first activated a part of the brain that decides what to say and then, afterwards, a part that works out exactly how to say it. The stutterers’ brains did exactly the opposite. ‘Stutterers were somehow initiating their mouth muscles before they knew what they were going to say,’ said Salmenlin.

All of us have, in varying degrees, experienced this ‘Stutterers’ Syndrome’ where our mouth gets into gear before our brain and what comes out is jumbled, incorrect or incomprehensible!

Brain research now confirms that a little thought given to preparation (and Mind Maps are particularly useful in this instance) will make your message much clearer, and you more Verbally Intelligent – and intelligible!

Word Power Booster Number 7

Now that you have learnt more about the relationship of Verbal Intelligence to speaking, you will appreciate especially the following 10 words, which will allow you to wax lyrical about speaking with even more erudition!

Each word contains the Root ‘loqui’ or ‘loc’, from the Latin ‘loquor’, ‘locutus’, meaning speech. Choose the definition you think is closest to the correct meaning.

ELOQUENCE (elló-kwence)

(a) Elongated speech

(b) Musical speech

(c) Speech full of power and imagination

(d) Low-level speech

ELOCUTION (ello-cué-shon)

(a) Elongated speech

(b) Strict education

(c) Single ‘cutting’ conversation

(d) Clear and expressive speech

LOQUACIOUS (lo-kwáy-shus)

(a) Speech from a specific area

(b) Talkative; garrulous

(c) Rhythmical speech

(d) Wave-like rhythms in speech

SOLILOQUY (so-líll-o-kwee)

(a) Talking about the sun

(b) Talking about being alone

(c) Speaking thoughts aloud when alone; monologue

(d) Speech given near boats

CIRCUMLOCUTION (sercum-lo-cúe-shun)

(a) Discussion of the geometry of circles

(b) Using many words where one will do

(c) Discussion of circumcision

(d) Medical term for stuttering

INTERLOCUTION (inter-lo-cúe-shun)

(a) Interruption

(b) Illogical interjection

(c) To talk around

(d) Conversation; exchange of speech

LOQUENT (ló-kwent)

(a) Silent; disinclined to speak

(b) Articulate; inclined to speak

(c) Waiting to speak

(d) Unable to speak

INTERLOCUTRESS (inter-lóc-uetress)

(a) A female interlocutor

(b) Discussion about hair

(c) Actress who speaks

(d) Cute female speaker

LOCUTION (lo-cúe-shun)

(a) A lesson in good speech

(b) ‘Beating about the bush’

(c) Shortened version of ‘elocution’

(d) A person’s style of speech

ELOCUTE (éllo-cute)

(a) Witty speech

(d) To pronounce well

(c) To declaim; to speak out in public

(d) To use bad language in a high-sounding manner

2.8

Read On! How to Improve Your Speed, Comprehension and Recall

‘Newspapers, magazines and TV and computer screens are some of your windows on the world and, increasingly, the universe. It is possible, by understanding their nature, and some new approaches to them, to increase your efficiency in this area by a factor of ten.’

Tony Buzan

One of the best ways to improve your Verbal Intelligence is to learn to get rapid control and command of the words that confront you – especially in books, magazines and newspapers – to learn how to absorb them with speed and with understanding, and to be able to recall them when you need to.

This chapter will help you do just that, as well as introducing you to your amazing Cyclopean Magic Eye.

Getting Control of All Those Words

One of the greatest stumbling blocks to the development of Verbal Intelligence is the inability to study academic, professional or ‘hard’ materials properly.

A person with a low Verbal Intelligence will attack these situations head on, attempting to read the book from beginning to end, reading one or two words at a time, reading slowly and carefully for better comprehension, always reading page 5 before page 6, never looking at the end of the book until they have fought their way through to it, and taking written notes as they do.

A person with a powerful Verbal Intelligence does exactly the opposite! A person with a high Verbal IQ knows that the way to master words and information is first to get an overview of the entire work, checking such things as Tables of Contents, indices, chapter headings, sub-headings, illustrations, photographs and graphs, introductions and, especially, summaries.

Why? Because this Verbally smart behaviour roots out all the key words, ideas and images, and gives the reader an immediate and overall picture and grasp of the subject at hand.

What’s more, rather than taking linear and inappropriate written notes, the Verbally Intelligent person will take Mind Map notes that help reflect the network of the information being studied.

Reading Faster

One of the great mistakes made by people whose Verbal Intelligence is still fairly low, is to assume that their brains will operate better, and understand and comprehend more, if they read one word at a time, slowly and carefully.

Once again, although this sounds logical it is exactly the opposite of what is necessary. The eye/brain system does not and cannot operate in this way. To grasp this concept clearly, imagine someone speaking to you slowly, carefully, methodically and monotonously, one word at a time! You would find them incomprehensible, utterly forgettable, and unbelievably boring!

Why allow the pages in front of you to speak to you in the same way?

Think about how your brain understands words best: when they are spoken to you in a comfortably fast, properly phrased and rhythmical manner. So it must be with a book. Allow your eyes to travel faster along the page than they usually do. Take in meaningful phrases rather than words. Maintain a comfortable rhythm.

To add to your speed, use a guide pointer, such as a thin pen or pencil or a chopstick. Move this pace-fully along, much as you do when you use a finger or pencil to glide down margins of a dictionary or telephone directory when you are looking for a word or a number. This gives focus, relaxes the eyes, improves concentration and accelerates the speed.

Cyclopean Perception – Your Magic Eye

In the middle of the 20th century, a pioneering visual researcher by the name of Bella Julesz made an astonishing discovery: that we have a ‘Third Eye’. Julesz designed pictures that looked like normal colourful squiggly patterns. When looked at with normal vision they stayed the same. When looked at with the left eye only, they stayed the same. When looked at with the right eye only, they stayed the same.

When looked at out of focus, and with both eyes, an amazing thing happened. The brain took the two separate images from the left and right eyes, and placed them over each other. As they ‘clicked into place’ a third, three-dimensional holographic image suddenly leapt from the page.

Julesz called it ‘Cyclopean Perception’, after the mythical giant Cyclops, who had only one eye. The fact that the eye/brain system can do this magical perception feat shows that the brain is taking in ‘the whole picture’ no matter what it is looking at. The Verbally Intelligent person, being aware of this, keeps a more wide-open eye and a bigger perception when reading, not only words, but the entire environment.

There are other ways to improve the background forces that support your reading, and these are explored in the Verbal Workout later.

Remembering What You Have Read

You are already using the technique! Once again the Mind Map comes to your rescue. The Verbally Intelligent person, rather than taking standard, forgettable linear notes, will Mind Map the material as he or she speeds along, building up an associative map of words and images that reflect the content of the material read, and the reader’s growing understanding of it.

Thanks to its pictorial, verbal and associative nature, the Mind Map acts as a perfect memory tool.

Verbal Workout

Word Puzzle Number 15

1. nunyf

__ X __ __ X

2. yagvoe

X __ __ X __ __

3. lobime

__ XX __ X __

4. catryof

__ XX __ __ X __

Clue: Phenomenal brain tool. __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

Verbal Intelligence Tip

Look for standard patterns of ‘letter and word behaviour’.

Why?

Your brain is a pattern-seeking machine, and the more opportunities you can give it to find those patterns, the better. Here are some hints:

You know from Chapters 2.3 and 2.4 that there are common Prefixes, Suffixes and Roots. Look for these in your scrambled words, and you will find you are often left with only a few remaining letters to fit into the jig-saw, making the whole process much easier.

Common endings to look for include: ‘ed’, ‘er’, ‘ise/ize’ and ‘y’. If ‘y’ is amongst your scrambled letters, there is a 90 per cent chance that it will fit at the end of the word.

‘q’ and ‘u’. If these appear in your scrambled letters, there is virtually a 100 per cent certainty that the ‘u’ will follow immediately after the ‘q’, so already the pattern of your missing word will be becoming clear.

‘o’ and ‘u’. If these two letters appear in your scrambled word, there is a very strong chance that they will appear together in the form ‘ou’.

Groupings. By the sheer nature of chance, very often the scrambled word will have been either simply reversed, or its syllables maintained and simply put in a different order. Look for these first, because if this has occurred you can get the answer immediately.

Word Puzzle Number 16

Insert the word that means the same as the two words outside the brackets.

CARD GAME (__ __ __ __ __) ROD

Become a Word Hunter

Now that you have so much more knowledge about the power of words and your own Verbal Intelligence, refine your detective skills, and be on the active lookout for new words that can add power and vivacity to your growing vocabulary.

Wherever possible when you come across new words, highlight, underline, box and star them, to make them stand out in your mind’s eye. The simple act of deciding you are going to ‘up the ante’ will guarantee that you will track down more words, and will capture them better once you have them more powerfully focused in your sights.

Create a ‘New Words’ Diary

Now that you have progressed so far, it is time to gather up and organize the bounty of treasure you have been collecting. Create a special ‘New Words’ Diary designed for your maximum benefit. You may wish to keep your new words in the chronological order in which you discovered them; you may wish to keep them in classifications such as nouns, verbs, adjectives etc.; you may wish to keep them in the context of where they were found (long novels, poems, texts, etc.).

Whatever particular method you select, make sure that you ‘get your words in order’!

Build a Verbal Intelligence Knowledge File

This Knowledge File is where you collect your ‘word treasures’. It will act as your personal Verbal IQ Library, containing all the best word knowledge you have come in contact with in your life.

Sections of your Knowledge File can include:

Summaries of the best novels you have read

Favourite poems

Favourite quotations

Part or all of your ‘New Words’ Diary

Some of the Mind Maps you have made, which best demonstrate your Verbal Intelligence

Jokes which play on the meanings of words and which you think are especially funny

Use the Index

Whenever you are reading a book that contains an Index, make sure that one of the first things you do is to scan through it. This is a habit common to all people with high Verbal Intelligence.

Why? Because the Index can be a superb keyword summary of all the main concepts and ideas within the book. It acts like a magic key that unlocks the secret of the contents.

All the words from the Index, once registered in your brain, will act like hundreds of special hooks that will latch on to all the information within the book as you read it. They will make your reading easier, more meaningful, more memorable and faster.

Make Your Reading Environment a Playground For Words

Many people make their study look and feel much like a prison cell! They have a bare table, stark chair, blank, single-tone walls, no music, no art and often inadequate lighting and little fresh air. Why do they do this? Because in their minds the idea of ‘study’ has come to mean drudgery, boredom, examinations, stress, forgetting, detentions, punishment, failure, slavery and prison!

It need not, indeed it should not, be this way! Your study should be a playground for words. It should be somewhere your brain loves, and cannot wait to be in. As you already know, music and song stimulate Verbal Intelligence, so have music and song in your verbal playground. Your verbal playground should be inviting, comfortable, colourful, stimulating, brightly lit (ideally with daylight) and with freshly circulating air – and filled with dictionaries, Thesauruses, encyclopaedias, your special favourite and treasured books, and whatever electronic media you think will inspire you in the exploration and growth of your Verbal Intelligence.

Reward yourself. Entice yourself. Treat your Verbal Intelligence to all the things which inspire it and which it loves. Give that eternal verbal child in you the playground for which it has always longed.

Commit Yourself to Your Verbal Intelligence

Commit to lifelong learning and the development of your Verbal Intelligence. Every year commit to learn at least one new Root, one new Prefix and one new Suffix. Then commit to learn at least 10 words that contain these. This will give you at least 30 new words per year, and more: it will give you new ‘energy centres’, each one of which will itself be self-perpetuating, making more associations, connecting with your rapidly growing vocabulary, and helping you, naturally and easily, to latch on to even more new words and concepts.

This simple and easy programme will allow you, over your lifetime, to more than quadruple your vocabulary.

Play With Your ‘Magic Eye’

At least once a month, play with your Cyclopean perception. Invest in a book of Magic Eye images, and have fun going in and out of focus with the images. This will keep your ‘big vision’ well exercised, and will automatically enable you to see more in your normal reading, and so maintain your higher reading speeds and better comprehension.

The ideas in this chapter are summarized in Plate 15.

Word Power Booster Number 8

In this Word Booster we are going ‘back to your Roots’. Bring all your Verbal Intelligence detective skills to the fore – each of the words you are about to encounter you can dissect, analyse and put back together, confident that you have discovered its meaning. Again, choose the definition you think is closest to the correct meaning from the options given.

PHILANTHROPY (fill-án-thropee)

(a) Love of mankind

(b) Hatred of mankind

(c) Fear of mankind

(d) Wasting energy

MONOTHEISM (mono-thée-isum)

(a) Belief that religion is boring

(b) Belief in a specific religion

(c) Belief in a single supreme deity

(d) Meditation on the nature of God

MISANTHROPY (mis-ánth-ropee)

(a) Love of mankind

(b) Hatred of mankind

(c) Study of the female human

(d) Confusion about mankind

PHILOLOGY (fill-ól-ogee)

(a) The study of philosophy

(b) The love of philosophy

(c) The love of words and the study of language

(d) Aversion to knowledge

HOLANTHROPY (holl-án-thropee)

(a) The study of the whole human being

(b) Gaps in knowledge about mankind

(c) Studying the overview of human history

(d) Synonym for misanthropy

MONOGAMY (monóg-amee)

(a) Monotonous speech

(b) Practice of being married to one person at a time

(c) Neat handwriting; fine script

(d) Depression about relationships

BICUSPID (bí-cuspid)

(a) An animal descended from two evolutionary branches

(b) An animal with two large-pronged teeth

(c) A tooth with two prongs

(d) A form of bicycle

ANTHROPOLOGY (anthro-pól-ogee)

(a) The study of coals

(b) The study of human history and development

(c) Apologist for mankind

(d) Disdain for mankind

PHILLUMENIST (fill-lú-menist)

(a) A pyromaniac

(b) A lover of light

(c) A collector of matchboxes

(d) A lover of knowledge

POLYGLOT (pólli-glot)

(a) One stuffs himself with food

(b) A chatterbox

(c) Lover of languages

(d) One who speaks many languages

2.9

Communication Power – Using Your Verbal Intelligence to Gain Control of Your Life

‘Words are the dress of thoughts.’

Chesterfield

‘Words are the most powerful drug used by mankind.’

Kipling

The bulk of this chapter will be given over to an extensive Verbal Workout, in which I will show you ways of making communication more memorable, and using all the knowledge you have gained so far to enhance your Verbal Intelligence in all forms of communication.

First, though, a story, and a few main topics for you to consider, including the multi-ordinate nature of words, once again, the giving of directions and the secrets behind animal communications.

The Multi-Ordinate Nature of Words Revisited

This story indicates just how important it is, in all forms of communication, to realize the internal Mind Maps that exist in the minds of those who receive your communications.

In a classroom for 5-year olds, the teacher asked the children to draw a picture from the Lord’s Prayer.

Most children drew pictures of heaven, clouds, angels, a loaf of bread, a king’s crown, etc.

One little girl, however, drew something quite different and, at first glance, indecipherable. She drew a big circle with two little protrusions at the bottom, and next to is a much, much smaller circle, similarly with two protrusions at the bottom.

After the teacher had marked the assignment, she came back to the classroom and distributed the pictures, generally with high praise for the artists. When she came to the two circles, however, she turned to the child and said: ‘I asked you to draw a picture from the Lord’s Prayer – this is not what I asked you for.’

Eventually, to the teacher’s mortified embarrassment, the little girl’s explanation of what she had drawn indicated that it certainly was a picture from the Lord’s Prayer.

It was a picture of God leading a snot into temptation!

The task facing the Verbally Intelligent with the multi-ordinate nature of words is neatly summed up in this witty statement: ‘I know that you believe that you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant!’

This is particularly true in the giving of directions.

Directions

Most people who give directions give them only with consideration to the pictures and structures they have in their own minds. Most people who receive such instructions get lost.

Directions often take the form of the following:

‘To get where you want to go, go down this road a little while, turn left at the pub, go along for a little way further, turn right by the petrol station – now let me see, was it BP, Esso, Shell … I can’t quite remember, sorry, anyway, when you turn, carry on down the road until you see a field with horses in it. After that turn left and the place you want is just down the road.’

No wonder people get lost! The reason for this vagueness is that the person has not yet developed his or her Verbal IQ; he or she has a very clear picture of the appropriate route, but is not yet Verbally Intelligent enough to convey it to another.

The things that are missing are the very things that are essential to a Verbally Intelligent transaction:

Distance. Distance is essential for the brain, it allows the right brain-spatial skills to ‘click in’ and help solve the problem.

Clear, imaginative descriptions of the major landmark images (buildings etc.) on the route. These need to be visually outstanding and different from the rest of the environment.

Time to be taken. Giving the time gives the receiving brain a cross-check on distance.

A Verbally Intelligent version of the directions given above might go something like this:

‘Go down this road for about a mile, and you’ll come to an old black-and-white beamed pub on the corner. Turn left there and go along that road for another half-mile or so, and you will see a whopping great petrol station. Take the right turn immediately after the petrol station, and go past some low white buildings, which look a bit like a long row of matchboxes. Keep on that road for a couple of miles and then you will see a gently rising field with stockade fencing and some horses. Take the next left turn after that field, and the place you want is about 100 yards down the road. It shouldn’t take you longer than 10–15 minutes to drive.’

This far clearer set of directions, accurate as it may well be, will always be checked by the Verbally Intelligent. Why? Because the Verbally Intelligent know that the receiver’s brain may well ‘create’ false data on the basis of what has been said. Giving clear, concise, visual, descriptive and accurate directions is an infallible sign of a person with a high Verbal Intelligence. If they are capable of accomplishing such a feat, this individual will inevitably be successful in all other forms of communication.

It is interesting to note that giving good directions involves using imagination and association, as well as accurate location. This is exactly what a Mind Map does, as a tool for giving clear and accurate directions to you as you travel the highways and byways of your growing knowledge.

Animal Communication

As little as 50 years ago it was thought that animals were fundamentally dumb, and that everything they did was an automatic stimulus-response and not real communication at all.

We now know this to be completely untrue. Dolphins, whales, the apes, all mammals and birds have incredibly sophisticated and complex communication systems. Interestingly, much of this is done with voice and their ‘words’. The rest of their communication is done through their senses and through their body language.

We now know that the sum form of animal-social interaction is almost unbelievably advanced. We now know also that their social structures are highly complex and exceptionally successful.

Animal hunting packs, for example, are often more streamlined than a military unit. Pods of whales have an intricate social structure, and can communicate with those from their pods speaking the same language over distances of hundreds of miles.

What is the relevance of all this to the development of your own Verbal Intelligence?

Simply that by studying the Verbal, Sensual, Vocal and Body Language Intelligence of animals, we can discover many ideas and actions that will enhance our own Verbally Intelligent communications.

Knowing that people rate your intelligence more accurately when they only hear you raises an interesting point. If, for example, you wish to impress someone with your Verbal Intelligence, especially in situations such as job interviews, you might try to ensure that your first contact is by telephone.

You will now be able to apply your knowledge of Verbal Intelligence and Communication in your next Verbal Workout.

Case Study – IQ Speak

Dr Robert Gifford and Dr D’Arcy Reynolds, whose experiment on judging intelligence was covered in Chapter 2.3, report additional findings that are particularly relevant to understanding listening.

It was found that people formed a more accurate and precise opinion of others’ intelligence levels by ignoring visual cues. The judges who watched video-tapes of the subjects’ talking were relatively unsuccessful in guessing the subjects’ true IQ level. However, the judges who listened only to the interviews, without having any sight of the subject on video, had a notably higher success rate.

Verbal Workout

Word Puzzle Number 17

miper

XXX __ X

arope

X __ __ XX

robew

X __ X __ __

thingk

__ X __ __ __ __

Clue: As you are reading The Power of Verbal Intelligence you are developing your: __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

Verbal Intelligence Tip

Rearrange the letters in a circular pattern

Rearrange the letters into a circle, with vowels generally near the centre and letters that will probably end up near to each other arranged so that their pattern is clearly visible.

For example if we take the word ‘catryof’ from Word Puzzle Number 15, and lay it out:

The possibility of making connections between the letters is much greater than if we leave them in a line. This allows the phenomenal associative power of your brain to find the possible good connections much more rapidly. If your first rearrangement isn’t successful (and it usually is!), quickly rearrange them again – the second time is nearly always successful. This is an amazingly useful technique for solving crossword anagrams!

Word Puzzle Number 18

Insert the word that completes the first word and begins the second.

INDIVI (__ __ __ __) ISM

Use Your Memory to Communicate

Remember to apply your knowledge of memory to the art of communication! Among the main principles you have learnt about your memory are that it remembers more of the beginnings; more of the ends; things which are associated; things which are imaginative/outstanding; finally, it remembers much better if review is practised, especially when that review is properly spaced.

When you are communicating, what is your prime goal? To have people understand and remember what it is you have said. To enable them to do this, you simply have to apply what you know:

Make sure that your communications start off with a bang – give them the key elements of what you are going to say, because they will remember these more easily.

End with a bang! Leave them on a ‘high’, because the Verbally Intelligent person – you – knows that they will remember the ends best.

Make sure you link your words and concepts both to each other, and to the people with whom you are communicating. This will enable them to remember the material better, and to make the most important memory link of all: the connection of what you have said to their own personal and professional lives.

Expand your own communication skills by using your giant imagination to give your words even more meaning. This will make them more memorable in the minds of the audience (and you more memorable as well!) and once again will enable them to remember what you said (and you!) much more easily.

If you are communicating in a situation which spans days, weeks, months or years, make sure you review for your audience as close to the one hour/one day/one week/one month/six months/long-term memory ideal pacing as you can. This will involve you in far less work, for you will not continuingly be having to drag back forgotten material from the Great Forgettary! And neither will they.

Use the Multi-ordinate Nature of Words

Use the multi-ordinate nature of words as a beacon in all your communication. Knowing that every word has unique and special meanings for each and every one of us, make sure you word all your important communications carefully, doing everything in your power to make the meaning clear.

Use Mind Maps

Once again, use Mind Maps to help prepare your successful verbal communications. When you have an important letter to write or telephone call to make, do a basic Mind Map of what you want to say first. This will help you get a clear picture of your goals for the letter or call. It will also allow you to keep track of where you are, to record additional thoughts that may leap into your mind while talking or writing, to be clearer in your message, and, therefore, to feel far more confident in the communication.

In addition to being a tremendous aid in the communication itself, keep the Mind Maps as a record of the communication. In this way they become a marvellous additional aid to your memory.

Observe Animals Communicating

As you now know, all animals are masterful communicators. Watch animals communicating with humans, with animals of their own kind, and with different animals. Observe the techniques they use for ‘checking out others’, for making new friends, for ‘defending their space’ and for getting what they want.

Whenever you see them being successful, check the techniques they used, and wherever you can and wherever appropriate, apply them, to increase your own communication skills as well as your Verbal Intelligence.

Expand Your Professional Vocabulary

One of the most important areas for you to be a communication expert is in your own job. Make a point, every week, of adding new words to your professional vocabulary. This will allow you to communicate more clearly and precisely, and will add significantly to the power your vocabulary gives you in the market place. Remember, the larger your vocabulary the higher your Verbal IQ; the higher your Verbal IQ the more successful you will be; the more successful you are, the more wealthy, in all senses of the word, you become!

Become a Direction Giver

Whenever there is an opportunity for you to help someone by giving directions, leap at it! By incorporating the principles of time, distance, important visual objects and direction, you will help others while, at the same time, developing the precision of your own imagination, the clarity and focus of your words, and your ability to convey any message to anybody. You will guide, in the best sense, other people and your own brain towards their desired goals.

Audit Yourself

On a regular basis, perhaps once every three or four weeks, spend a few minutes checking your own progress. Review and order your Verbal Intelligence Knowledge File, checking the number of new words you have acquired. Similarly, check how you are progressing towards your Verbal Intelligence goals; order and, perhaps, adjust your study area, making sure that it is even more inviting to you; and establish your next set of short, medium and long-term goals.

Doing this audit will take very little time. It will keep you constantly aware of the ‘Big Picture’ IQ development, will reinforce everything you have learnt, will inspire you with confidence, and will motivate and focus you for the continuing work, play and success ahead.

The ideas in this chapter are summarized in Plate 14.

Word Power Booster Number 9

This Word Booster section contains words describing specialists who assist in the maintenance of Physical and Mental Health.

OPTICIAN (op-tí-shun)

(a) A technician who grinds lenses

(b) Eye specialist who fits and prescribes spectacles

(c) Eye doctor/eye surgeon

(d) Bone doctor

OPTOMETRIST (op-tóm-etrist)

(a) A technician who grinds lenses

(b) Eye specialist who fits and prescribes spectacles

(c) Eye doctor/eye surgeon

(d) Bone doctor

OPHTHALMOLOGIST (op-thal-mól-ogist)

(a) A technician who grinds lenses

(b) Eye specialist who fits and prescribes spectacles

(c) Eye doctor/eye surgeon

(d) Bone doctor

DERMATOLOGIST (derma-tól-ogist)

(a) Joint doctor

(b) Bone doctor

(c) Skin doctor

(d) Foot doctor

PSYCHIATRIST (si-kía-trist)

(a) Doctor who studies general human sickness

(b) Medical specialist in mental ailments/emotional problems

(c) One who studies the human mind, its functions and behaviours

(d) Hypnotist

PSYCHOLOGIST (sy-kólo-gist)

(a) Doctor who studies general human sickness

(b) Medical specialist in mental ailments/emotional problems

(c) One who studies the human mind, its functions and behaviours

(d) Hypnotist

OSTEOPATH (ostéo-path)

(a) Bone doctor

(b) Witch doctor

(c) Ear, eye, nose and throat specialist

(d) Specialist in ageing

PODIATRIST (pód-ia-trist)

(a) Doctor who provides care for pregnant women

(b) Doctor who specializes in the treatment of very young children

(c) Doctor who treats minor ailments of the foot

(d) Nutritional advisor

PAEDIATRICIAN (pee-dia-trí-shun)

(a) Doctor who provides care for pregnant women

(b) Doctor who specializes in the treatment of very young children

(c) Doctor who treats minor ailments of the foot

(d) Nutritional advisor

OBSTETRICIAN (obste-trí-shun)

(a) Doctor who provides care for pregnant women

(b) Doctor who specializes in the treatment of very young children

(c) Doctor who treats minor ailments of the foot

(d) Nutritional advisor

2.10

Using Your Verbal Intelligence to Increase Your Other Multiple Intelligences

‘Knowledge is power only if it is well organized.’

Tony Buzan

Back in Chapter 2.1 we learned how our Multiple Intelligences all interact together in synergy. In this chapter we will look briefly at how your massive, and growing Verbal IQ (which is probably now the strongest and most powerful it has ever been in your life) can interweave with just five of these Multiple Intelligences, to the mutual benefit of each!

Verbal IQ and Creative Intelligence

Your Creative Intelligence involves your ability to use your imagination, to make multi-sensory pictures in your mind, to make new and original associations, and to do all this at speed.

Given what you have just learned in The Power of Verbal Intelligence, the links between the two are obvious, and by strengthening your Verbal Intelligence you automatically strengthen your imagination, your ability to make new and original associations, and to make multi-sensory pictures in your mind!

And vice versa! Therefore use your imagination! When in conversation, when writing, or when making any form of presentation, think about what you are going to say and, very specifically, focus on imagining what you are going to say.

For example, if you are describing a meal, infuse it with your imagination. Imagine every molecule of taste and smell; wrap your senses of taste and touch around the texture and delectable flavours of what you are describing; immerse yourself in the wonderful aromas …

When you do this, you will fire your body with more energy, naturally giving your voice more power, variation, intensity and meaning, and your words an added lustre, beauty and power. Humour is also a big part of creativity – comedians the world over have proven that the blend of imagination, new and witty associations and words, captivates everyone.

Next time you listen to any comedians, analyse their Verbal Intelligence – you will find it is extremely high: their Creative Intelligence will be too!

Mimic them! As you develop your ability to imagine and make witty new associations, you will be expanding the parameters and power of your Verbal IQ. You will also be enjoying yourself a lot more and gathering many new friends.

Verbal IQ and Numerical Intelligence

Case Study – Word Power = Number Power

What is the relationship between learning mathematics and language skills? A significant one, according to the research of Dr Elizabeth Spelke and Sanna Tsibkin, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston.

They studied eight adults who spoke Russian as their native language and who were also fluent in English. To mimic the learning processes of children as they learn mathematics, the researchers taught the subjects both detailed and complex arithmetic, and unfamiliar approximations. To check the relationship between language skills and maths learning, some exercises were taught only in English, the others only in Russian. To make the experiment experiment even more language based, the teachers wrote all numbers out as words rather than standard numbers.

The researchers then tested the students by giving them mathematical problems to solve in both languages. They were asked two kinds of questions: first to make exact calculations (does 75 + 89 = 163 or 164?) and second, to make approximations (is 151 + 95 closer to 240 or 280?)

The result? In the detailed calculation questions, the students took about a second longer to come up with the answer if the questions were not asked in the language in which they had been taught. This showed a direct relationship between language and ability to learn mathematics.

Interestingly, there was no language-dependent time lag when they were asked to make approximations.

As part of the same study Stanislas Deheene, at the French Medical Research Organization Inserm, watched brain scans of people while they were doing mathematical calculations.

Confirming Spelke and Tsibkin’s study, Deheene found that exact calculations increased the activity of speech-related areas of the brain’s left-frontal lobe, while estimates increased activity in both the left-and right-parietal lobes. These regions help control hand and finger movements, and perhaps are involved when we learn to count on our fingers.

Your Numerical Intelligence is your ability to juggle successfully in the playground of numbers. It is often mistakenly thought to be not only opposite but counter to Verbal Intelligence. How often do you hear the statement: ‘I’m good at maths but hopeless at languages’, or ‘I love English but hate maths’? The truth of the matter is that both are closely related and each supports the other:

Both contain basic small alphabets (letters/numbers)

Both combine the elements of their alphabets to form meaningful sub-groups and larger groups (words/sentences; clusters/equations)

Each is a prime constituent of standard IQ tests

Both challenge and stimulate the brain to make associations between their elements

Both inspire your brain to be creative

Both have rules and guidelines for their structures; numerical and syntactical ‘grammars’

Both are natural languages

Both help your brain to refine its processes and to see and think more clearly

Each is strongly associated with success in academic and business life

The findings of the case studies above contradict the oft-heard assumptions that if you are good in languages you’ll be poor in mathematics and vice versa. If you have a well-developed Verbal Intelligence, it demonstrably helps you improve your Numerical Intelligence.

You can use your Numerical Intelligence to boost your Verbal IQ in the following two ways:

Play games and do puzzles that involve exact calculations. These fun and stimulating games increase the activity of the speech-related areas of your brain. As you entertain yourself in this way you will constantly be exercising the physical areas of your brain that deal with and improve your Verbal Intelligence.

Play at describing numerical distances and sizes with words. Try to describe, in words, the following distances (as you describe them, make sure that they are clearly different from each other, and are imaginative in the extreme!):

a millimetre

a centimetre

a metre

a kilometre

100 kilometres

1000 kilometres

a million kilometres

the number 6,000,000,000

the number 1,000,000,000,000

infinity

Verbal IQ and Spatial Intelligence

Spatial Intelligence reflects your brain’s ability to know and perceive accurately distances and relationships in three-dimensional space.

You have already been introduced to ways your Spatial Intelligence interacts with your Verbal Intelligence – Mind Mapping and giving people directions!

Use Spatial Intelligence to enhance your Mind Maps: use spacing on the page to indicate close or distant relationships between your words; use word size to indicate relative importance; use dimension to give emphasis; use arrows across the space of the page to show connections; and use perspective to show relationships in space.

Use your Spatial Intelligence to help boost your Verbally Intelligent direction-giving skills. Imagine maps or routes around places with which you are familiar, and practise playing through, in your mind’s eye, directing someone, in detail, how to get from A to B perfectly. Then put this into practice in real life!

Verbal IQ and Social Intelligence

Social Intelligence refers to your ability to make positive associations on all levels with other human beings. The connections between Social and Verbal Intelligence are plain for all to see.

It is interesting to note that the person with the greatest-ever English vocabulary, Shakespeare (with a massive 25,000 words!) is also considered to be the greatest portrayer of the heights (and depths!) of Social Intelligence.

If you are especially interested in this synergetic bond, and its application to your own development, start studying (with simple introductory texts, to guide you) the ultimate master of these two intelligences. You will be well rewarded.

Verbal IQ and Physical Intelligence

Physical Intelligence involves your knowledge and use of your body, the relationship of each part with every other part, and especially its fitness – its poise and posture, aerobic fitness, flexibility, strength, diet and rest. It is intimately associated with your Verbal Intelligence.

When your body is upright and well poised, your entire vocal system (the system that carries and delivers the messages of your Verbal Intelligence) is physically more capable of delivering. The message of your words will also be received far more readily if you are upright and physically congruent, than if you are slouched and off-balance. An excellent postural presence immediately boosts your Verbal Intelligence.

Everyone knows how hard it is to be enthusiastic and sound positive when feeling ill or stressed. Not only that: the quieter and more subdued your speech, the more subdued and ‘down’ you become!

Get or stay healthy, especially aerobically and flexibly. As with poise/posture, aerobic and flexible fitness have an instantaneous impact on your Verbal Intelligence. The fitter you are, the more energy you will have, and with more energy your words are more affective and memorable.

Verbal Workout

Word Puzzle Number 19

ginnee

XX __ __ X X

ligboyo

__ X __ X __ X __

litva

__ __ __ __ X

creptiu

__ XX X __ __ X

Clue: Verbal, Creative, Spiritual, Social: __ __ _ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

Verbal Intelligence Tip

Try unscrambling scrambled words in your head.

Why?

Because unscrambling them in your head is more difficult than jotting them down on paper. By practising this you thus give your verbal muscles an extra strong and good workout. When you are visualizing internally, use all the techniques you have learnt from the previous nine chapters and apply them to your internal visual screen. By doing this you will also be improving your general brain power, as well as specifically exercising your visualization and Creative Intelligence skills.

Word Puzzle Number 20

Which word completes the phrase?

‘A cloud is to rain as lightening is to …

sky

black

thunder

flash

wind

sun

The ideas in this chapter are summarized in Plate 16.

Word Power Booster Number 10

Your Verbal Intelligence can help you develop insights into others, thus expanding your knowledge of psychology. Your 10 booster words in this section are about the different types of human personality.

EFFERVESCENT (effer-véss-ent)

(a) Depressed

(b) Bubbling over with energy and enthusiasm

(c) Talkative

(d) Introverted

EGOCENTRIC (égo-sentrik)

(a) Philanthropic

(b) Inhibited

(c) Self-centred

(d) Solid

EGOTIST (ego-tíst)

(a) Cheerful person

(b) Shy, reticent, retiring person

(c) Angry person

(d) A conceited, boastful person

EXTROVERT (éxtro-vert)

(a) Outgoing person

(b) Shy, reticent, retiring person

(c) Angry person

(d) Cheerful person

AMBIVERT (ambí-vert)

(a) Synonym for extrovert

(b) Shy, reticent, retiring person

(c) Angry person

(d) Combination of extrovert and introvert

GREGARIOUS (greg-ár-ius)

(a) Introvert

(b) Angry person

(c) One who loves the company of others

(d) Talkative person

QUIXOTIC (kwíks-otic)

(a) Knightly

(b) Unreliable

(c) Idealistic but impractical

(d) Lunatic

PESSIMIST (péss-i-missed)

(a) One who always looks on the dark side of things

(b) One who always looks on the bright side of things

(c) Sarcastic person

(d) Boring person

ENTHUSIAST (enthús-eeast)

(a) Idealistic but impractical

(b) Saturnine

(c) Egocentric

(d) Person who derives great enjoyment from things

OPTIMIST (optí-missed)

(a) One who always looks on the dark side of things

(b) One who always looks on the bright side of things

(c) Sarcastic person

(d) Boring person

3

The Power of Creative Intelligence

3.1

Introduction: Beginning Your Creativity Journey

Do You/Did You/Are You/Would You?!

How creative do you think you are? To get some (probably surprising) idea of your own creativity, consider the following questions, and ask yourself:

Do you daydream? YES/NO

Do you plan menus and cook meals for yourself, your family or friends? YES/NO

Do you mix and match colours, fabrics and accessories when buying clothes to create your own unique style? YES/NO

Do you like many different kinds of music? YES/NO

Do you remember with pleasure, highlights of your life, including special times spent with friends, great sporting moments, outstanding holidays, any significant ‘disasters’ or triumphs in your life? YES/NO

Did you ask lots of questions when you were a child? YES/NO

Do you still ask lots of questions? YES/NO

Do you sometimes wonder at the complexity or beauty of things, and wish you could figure out how it works/was made/came about/came into your life? YES/NO

Do you have sexual fantasies? YES/NO

Do you have newspapers, magazines or books in your home that you have promised yourself you would read, but for which you have not yet managed to find the time? YES/NO

Are there other things in your life you have promised yourself you would do or accomplish, to which you have not yet got around? YES/NO

Are you moved or excited by superlative performances in the fields of music, sports, acting or the arts? YES/NO

Would you say ‘yes’, if I could wave a magic wand and suddenly:

make you a fit, flexible and superb dancer, able to ‘wow ’em’ at any dance function? YES/NO

gave you a voice equal to your favourite singer, able to sing virtually any song to your own satisfaction and to the pleasure and amazement of others? YES/NO

make you a competent artist, able to rattle off cartoons and sketches, landscapes and portraits, and able to sculpt so well that Michelangelo himself might consider you a worthy student? YES/NO

make you a great story and joke-teller, able to mesmerize and enchant people with your tales, and able to reduce them all to helpless laughter with your brilliant jokes? YES/NO

14. Are you alive?!! YES/NO

If you answered ‘YES’ to more than half these questions, then you are, by definition, Creative. Just how creative will be revealed as you continue your journey through the Power of Creative Intelligence. But to give you some indication, let’s look at a couple of the questions that may have seemed a bit strange:

Do you have newspapers, magazines or books in your home that you have promised yourself you would read, but for which you have not yet managed to find the time?

Over 95 per cent of people answer ‘YES’ to this question, thinking that it means that they are merely very good at procrastinating! They are – but they are also very creative! Think about it. Every day, for weeks, months or years, their brains have been creating the most fantastic excuses for not getting down to reading. It is irrelevant that their creativity is directed towards not doing something – it is still exceptional creativity, and is such a limitless power-source that it can sometimes go on for a lifetime! Which brings us to the question:

Are you alive?

This may seem somewhat obvious, but the question conceals a deep and meaningful truth. Every day of your life, if you are to survive that day, your amazing brain has to create tens of thousands of thoughts, actions and solutions to problems that, if it did not, would end your time on this earth. The mere fact that you are alive proves that you are abundantly creative.

Increasing and releasing the gigantic Creative Intelligence you possess is simply a matter of understanding how it works and how to develop it.

What is Creative Intelligence?

Your Creative Intelligence is your ability to come up with new ideas, to solve problems in original ways, and to stand head and shoulders above the crowd in terms of your imagination, your behaviour, and in your productivity.

Your Creative Intelligence includes a number of factors, all of which can be taught and developed so that you can increase your creativity. The Power of Creative Intelligence will introduce you to each one of these factors in turn, and will show you how to develop and enhance them. These factors include:

The Left/Right Brain. The ability to use, in conjunction with each other, the different skills of the left and right sides of your brain.

Note-making/Mind Mapping. The ability to ‘make your thoughts visible’ by getting them out of your head and on to paper, so that you can explore them more fully.

Fluency. The speed with which you can rattle off new ideas. Fluency is the measure of your creative productivity.

Flexibility. Your ability to produce different kinds of ideas, and to shift from one approach to another using a rich variety of strategies, constitutes your creative flexibility. Flexibility includes your ability to see things from different angles, to consider things from other points of view, to take old concepts and rearrange them in new ways, and to reverse pre-existing ideas. It also includes your ability to use all your senses when creating new ideas.

Originality. Originality is one of the essences of Creative Intelligence and creative thinking. It represents your ability to produce ideas that are yours alone – that are unusual, unique and ‘eccentric’ (i.e., ‘away from the centre’).

Expanding on Ideas. The good creative thinker takes a central idea and builds on it in all directions, developing, expanding, embroidering and generally elaborating the original thought.

Association. The creative thinker makes use of the fact that the human brain is a giant ‘Association Machine’. Having some intuitive knowledge of how this Association Machine works (and you will have some very explicit knowledge, having read this book!), creative thinkers are able to tap into this infinite resource to improve all aspects of their Creativity.

An Overview of the Power of Creative Intelligence

The Power of Creative Intelligence is designed to take you on a Grand Tour of Creativity, showing you how you can expand and increase the power of your Creative Thinking at each stage of your journey. The following chapters contain potted case histories and stories of individuals who have exemplified the qualities being discussed. There is also a Creativity Workout in each chapter, where you can try your hand at specific exercises designed to make you smarter. Each exercise, while developing the specific Creative Intelligence skill area for which it is designed, will (thanks to the way the brain is an infinitely expanding and inter-connecting association machine!) simultaneously develop the mental muscles of your other Creative Intelligence skill areas.

The chapters also explain how you can use Mind Maps to develop your Creative Intelligence, and give examples of those ultimate creativity-enhancing thinking tools, which I have spent my life developing. There are also many other diagrams and illustrations that use the principles of Creativity to help you improve yours. Throughout, you will have another special guide: Leonardo da Vinci – voted the greatest Creative Genius of the last millennium!

3.2

Using Your Magical Left and Right Brains

In this Chapter you will be given state-of-the-art information about your left and right brains, and how you can combine the two sides to multiply, phenomenally, your Creative Power.

We are going to go on a supersonic flight over the past 50 years of research on the brain. The journey starts in the laboratory of Professor Roger Sperry in California, and describes the research that won him a Nobel Prize in 1981, and which will make you delightfully aware of hidden creative capacities waiting to be unleashed by you.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Professor Sperry was investigating brainwave function. To explore different thinking activities and their effect on the brainwaves, Sperry and his colleagues asked the volunteers to perform different mental tasks, ranging from adding and subtracting numbers in their heads, through to reading poetry, reciting memorized lines, doodling, looking at different colours, drawing cubes, analysing logical problems and daydreaming.

Sperry had predicted that the brainwaves would be somewhat different for different activities, and he was correct. What he had not predicted – and this finding changed forever the way we think about the potential of the human brain and its ability to think creatively – was the following startling revelation: on average, the brain divided its activities very distinctly into ‘left brain’ (left cortex) activities and ‘right brain’ (right cortex) activities. This is the research that has become popularly known as the ‘left/right brain’ research. The dominant division of labour was as follows:

Left brain

Right brain

Words

Rhythm

Logic

Spatial Awareness

Numbers

Dimension

Sequence

Imagination

Linearity

Daydreaming

Analysis

Colour

Lists

Holistic Awareness

Sperry also discovered that when the right cortex was active, the left tended to go into a relatively restful or meditative state. Similarly when the left cortex was active, the right became more relaxed and calm.

Furthermore, and this came as a real surprise (as well as a beacon of hope), every brain involved in this brainwave experiment was shown to have all the cortical skills in fine working order. In other words, at the basic physical, physiological and potential level, everybody had a massive range of intellectual, thinking and creative skills that they were obviously using only in part.

By the 1970s, these results had led to an explosin of further researches, studies and surveys around the nature of this untapped potential.

One obvious line of investigation (with which I was personally involved) was to survey people on what they thought about their own abilities, and then to check these perceived abilities/disabilities with their real brainwave-measured capacities.

Here is one survey for you to try yourself.

Left/Right Brain Self-check

Would you find it virtually impossible (almost genetically impossible) to calculate quickly and accurately, the proportion of interest to capital still owing on your mortgage, for example, or the area of your garden as a proportion of the total area of your house and garden? YES/NO

Would you find it virtually impossible to draw portraits that looked like the person being drawn, to paint landscapes, master dimension and perspective, understand the history of art and make realistic and abstract sculptures? YES/NO

Would you find it virtually impossible to compose music and songs, identify different classical composers by just a few notes from their works, dance to music in time, and sing songs where every note you sang was the note as it should have been sung? YES/NO

You will probably be relieved to know that over 90 per cent of people surveyed were confident that they were genetically incapable of accomplishments in these three vital areas of numerical, artistic and musical skills.

You will hopefully be pleased and encouraged to know that they were all wrong!

Subsequent research discovered that when people were trained – by good teachers – in those areas of skill that they had assumed to be weak, they suddenly became much stronger in those areas. It was very much like identifying a weak muscle group that was weak not because the muscles themselves were fundamentally incapable, but simply because they had not been used for a long time.

This was not all: in addition to everyone being able to develop areas that they had previously considered weak, another amazing finding soon began to emerge. With the new ‘mental muscle’ now in place, the other ‘mental muscles’ all began to improve their performance.

Thus, for example, if people who had been weak in imagery and art, were trained to be competent in that field, they suddenly became more skilled with words, more able to manipulate numbers and, generally, more creative. Similarly, if people who had been weak in numerical ability were trained to strengthen this area, their imagination and musical abilities also improved.

What appeared to be happening was that the left and right sides of the brain were having ‘conversations’ with each other. The left brain would receive information and send it over to the right brain, which would process the information in its own way, and then send it back to the left side, and so on. By this process the brain was synergetically building up information, and adding to its own intellectual and creative power by combining the different elements. By the early 1980s, the left/right brain paradigm was becoming known around the globe, and books were beginning to be written about this extraordinary discovery.

Then came the difficulties.

Problem Number 1

You may have heard that the left-brain activities were generally labelled as ‘intellectual’, ‘academic’, or ‘business’ activities, and that the right-brain activities were correspondingly labelled the ‘artistic’, ‘creative’, and ‘emotional’ activities.

However, if all this research is true, and if by using both sides of our brains our overall intelligence and creativity rises, then by definition the great creative geniuses must have been using the same mental process – and their whole brains. But if the above labelling of the right and left activities of the brain is correct, then academics and intellectuals such as Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein would have been ‘left brained’, and musicians and artists such as Beethoven and Michelangelo would have been ‘right brained’ – in other words, they would not have been using all of their brains at all!

More research was obviously required to shed light on this growing controversy. I and a number of other passionately curious individuals began to gather data on the great creative geniuses, and to relate it to the left/right brain model.

What do you think we found? We discovered this about ‘left-brained’ Einstein:

Case History – Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was nominated as the greatest creative genius of the 20th century. However, he was a poor student, preferring day-dreaming to studying, and was eventually expelled from school for being a ‘disruptive influence’.

As a teenager he became inspired by the imaginative side of mathematics and physics, and was equally interested by the work of Michelangelo, whom he studied in depth. These mutual interests encouraged him to play even further with his imagination, and he developed his now-famous ‘Creative Mind Games’ in which he posed himself an intriguing question, and then allowed his imagination to run riot.

In one of his most famous Creative Mind Games, Einstein imagined that he was on the surface of the sun, grabbing a sunbeam, and travelling directly away from the sun at the speed of light, to the very ends of the universe.

When he came to the ‘end’ of his journey, he noticed to his astonishment that he was roughly back where he had started. This was logically impossible: you don’t go in a straight line forever and end up where you started!

Einstein therefore took another imaginary sunbeam ride from another part of the sun’s surface, and again went on a straight-line journey to the end of the universe. Once again he ended up relatively near where he had started.

Slowly the truth dawned on him: his imagination had told him more truths than his logic. If you travel in straight lines ‘forever’ and continually return to the vicinity of where you started, then ‘forever’ must be at least two things: curved in some way, and possessing a boundary.

This was how Einstein came to one of his most profound insights: our universe is a curved and finite universe. He did not come to this giant creative realization by left-brain thinking alone, but by combining his knowledge of number, word, order, logic and analysis with his massive imagination, spatial awareness and ability to see the whole picture.

His insight was a perfect blending and conversation between both sides of his brain. It was a perfect ‘whole-brained’ creative realization.

The same turned out to be true, in reverse, for the ‘right-brained’ creative geniuses. Let us take, for example, the ‘ultimate’ right-brainer, Ludwig van Beethoven.

My research into the great creative geniuses confirmed that they all used the ‘whole brain’ – the full range of their cortical skills, where each skill supplemented and supported the others.

These findings shed light on the second big problem with the research and its assumptions.

Problem Number 2

The second problem was a major one. The left brain ‘intellectual’ activities tended to be labelled ‘male’ activities, and right brain ‘creative’, and ‘emotional’ activities came to be seen as ‘female’ activities. This was comprehensively and dangerously wrong!

These labels simply extended and ‘confirmed’ the centuries-old beliefs that:

academics, education and intellectuality involved only words, number and logic and not imagination, colour and rhythm

business was a place for strict order only

men were logical, rational individuals with no emotion, imagination or ‘colour’

Case History – Ludwig van Beethoven

Beethoven is known for his turbulent, questioning and passionate spirit, for his desire for freedom from tyranny and censorship and for his ongoing fight for freedom of artistic expression. He is generally accepted as the ‘perfect’ example of the wild and untamed model of genius.

All of this is true, and fits in with the traditional interpretation of the right-brained creative genius. However, what has escaped most people’s attention is that Beethoven, like all other musicians, was also incredibly left-brained!

Consider the nature of music: it is written on lines, in sequence; it follows its own logic; and it is based on numbers. Music has often been described as the most pure form of mathematics there is (and it is interesting to note that many of the great mathematicians had music as their main hobby, and vice-versa).

As well as being passionately imaginative and rhythmical, Beethoven was also passionately meticulous. It was Beethoven who pioneered the use of the musical metronome, stating that it was a Godsend to him because it would now mean that every musician and conductor in the future would be able to play his music at precisely the right rhythm, with precisely the right emphasis, and at exactly the right mathematical tempo!

As with Einstein, Beethoven was neither right-brained or left-brained. He was completely and creatively whole-brained.

women were irrational daydreamers

emotion was not based on associative logic

creativity and art were not ‘proper’ pursuits, and had no rationality or science behind them.

The tragedy of these misconceptions, which sadly are still common today and which the Power of Creative Intelligence will help to dispel, is that they blind the mind to the truth, and therefore diminish pleasure, experience and existence.

Unfortunately these misconceptions are especially prevalent in the arena of education. Because we assume that education has to be ‘left-brained’, we label those children who are energetic, imaginative, colourful, curious or given to excessive bouts of daydreaming as naughty, disruptive, hyperactive, slow or backward. We should instead be labelling them as potential creative geniuses just beginning to explore the range of their abilities!

Similarly many businesses have become stuck in the ‘left-brained’ rut, and as a result are destroying not only the synergy that comes from combining left-brain business practices with imagination and flair, but also their reputations and their bottom lines.

Consider also, in the context of this book, the global image of the artist. Surveys have shown that most people consider artists to be messy, untidy, dishevelled, weak in logic and memory, and lacking in structural and organizational skills. Sadly, millions of art students around the world try to live ‘up’ (it’s actually down!) to this ‘ideal’ vision of the artist. As a result they reject words, number, logic, order and structure, and create only passing images in their minds.

Left/Right Brain Thinking in the 21st Century

As the Century of the Brain begins, we now realize that the creative brain is the whole brain. Furthermore, we realize that our earlier acknowledgement of our labelling mistakes has led us to an awareness that our creative potential is even greater than we had thought.

A simple question and comparison will make this clear.

If we have been using only half of the skills of the brain, at what percentage efficiency have we been operating?

The immediate answer would appear to be 50 per cent. This indicates that we have been making ourselves into half-wits! However, even this is an overestimation, as a simple example makes clear.

If I said to you that I wanted to measure your efficiency at running, and in Trial 1 I allowed you to use 100 per cent of your body, including arms and legs. Imagine how you would do if I videoed your running style and then examined it for mechanical efficiency. Most of us would score pretty highly.

Imagine now that in Trial 2 I allowed you only 50 per cent of your operating potential, and tied your right hand and foot together, behind your back. How would you do? You’d be flat on your face within a couple of seconds! Efficiency? Less than zero.

Why? Because the parts of your body are made to work together, and in so doing each part multiplies a thousand-fold the efficiency of the other.

It is the same with your brain. When you use only one side of your cortical skills, your creativity is nothing in comparison to what it can be. When you use both sides, your creative potential becomes infinite.

In the Creativity Workout that follows, and in the remaining chapters, I will explore methods of unleashing that infinite creative potential.

Creativity Workout

1. Use the Whole-brain Skills Set to Examine your Life

Check how many of your left-brain skills you normally use and nurture. Next do the same with your right-brain skills. Pay attention to any of those right or left-brain areas that you are neglecting and begin to exercise and strengthen them right away.

2. Education

If you have children, apply whole-brain thinking to their entire education, including school, social and home-life education. Try to help your children achieve a balanced education, in order that they may lead far more creative and fulfilled lives.

Not only that – apply the same principles to your own ongoing, life-long learning, so that you may lead a more creative and fulfilled life too.

3. Take Breaks

Surprisingly, whole-brain thinking demands that if you are going to be fully and truly creative, you must take regular breaks.

Think about it: where are you when you come up with those bursts of imagination, those solutions to problems, those great fantasies and daydreams? Most people’s answers include some or all of the following:

in the bath

in the shower

walking in the country

before going to sleep

while asleep

upon waking up

while listening to music

on a long-distance drive

while out running

while swimming

lying on the beach

when ‘idly’ doodling

In what state are your body and mind at such times? Relaxed, and often alone.

It is in these rest-periods that the two sides of your brain are able to converse and communicate with each other, and when the vast well-spring of your creativity is allowed to express itself.

If you don’t decide consciously to take these breaks, your brain will decide for you. Many ‘hard working’ (but not ‘smart working’) people report that, as the years go on, they become more stressed and their concentration begins to wander. This is actually a good thing, for it is their right brains insisting that a little bit of imagination and fantasy should be allowed in to balance an unbalanced state.

If you are in this situation and you continue to persist in pushing your left-brain-dominant lifestyle, your brain will make you take other kinds of breaks, ranging from losses of concentration, to mini-breakdowns in which you become unreasonably irascible, to full blown blow-outs where the only cure is … rest and relaxation!

Do it consciously. Give your brain and yourself a break. Your Creative Intelligence will love you for it.

4. Go for Long Walks or Rambles

The Romans had a special phrase, solvitas perambulum, which can be roughly translated as ‘solve it while you walk’. What they had realized, although obviously not in left/right-brain terms, was that if you take your brain for a walk, especially outside in the country, the steady rhythm of your limbs’ movement, the regular rhythm of your heart pumping more strongly, doses of oxygen-filled blood flowing into your brain, and the feast that your eyes, ears and other senses have while you walk, all contribute to creative thinking and problem solving.

If you have a creative task or problem upon which you are working, ‘Walk it Out’ and you’ll ‘Work it Out’!

5. Be Creative in your Everyday Life

On the following page, list those areas in your everyday life that you think are creative, and those that you think are not creative. When you have finished, read on.

Creative

Not Creative

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The ideal answer to the above exercise is that all aspects of your daily life are intrinsically creative, and that all of them can be enhanced by applying more of the full range of your left and right-brain skills. Consider the following everyday activities; they are all dependent upon Creativity:

cooking

gardening

carpentry

letter and message writing

looking after and training pets

planning holidays and special events

D.I.Y. and home improvements

playing football, or any other sport

budgeting for special events/expenses

decorating

route finding and map reading

flower arranging

gift wrapping

setting a table

arranging house plants

planning meetings

photography

relationships

Each one of these activities can be made more interesting and creative by adding the ‘spices’ of the left and right-brain skills. In this creative arena, little things can mean a lot. Gathering shells and driftwood from a beach and displaying them in your home, or using it for wood-turning; making patchwork quilts from a multitude of scraps of otherwise useless material; decorating your dinner table by putting a flower on each person’s plate and using shells from the beach from which to serve your salt and pepper; or finding new and different routes to get to work each week, are all things that take little effort, and which add immeasurably to the creative feel of your life.

Holiday times and seasonal celebrations especially, are wonderful opportunities for displaying your Creative Intelligence. Make it a Creative Feast with decorations, visual beauty and visual humour. Create your own cards and gifts to give to people, or plan a dinner party for your friends – the possibilities are endless!

6. Your Mastermind Group

All the great creative geniuses had heroes or heroines to whom they looked for inspiration. Alexander the Great had his tutor Aristotle; Julius Caesar had Alexander the Great; all the great geniuses of the Italian Renaissance had the examples of Classical antiquity; the Russian Empress Catherine the Great looked to Peter the Great for inspiration; Mohammed Ali had Sugar Ray Robinson; Isaac Newton had Socrates; Stephen Hawking had Isaac Newton, and so on, throughout the pantheon of genius.

The technique the creative greats used was to hold imaginary conversations with their heroes, asking them for ‘thoughts’ and inspiration. This Creative Thinking technique can be used for pursuing mighty scientific and cultural goals, and it can also be used by everyone in their normal daily lives.

I have personally found this technique exceptionally valuable in my life, and have used it successfully for over 20 years. It has allowed me to be especially creative whenever I have encountered any major opportunity or problem. The way I use this technique is as follows: when confronted with a situation which requires help from my Mastermind Group of heroes and heroines, I select the ones who are most appropriate for the given situation and I then imagine what advice each would give me in order to take greatest advantage of the situation. I select my heroes and heroines for their unique creative approaches, for their energy and for their astonishing success, knowing that all of this will ‘feed in’ to me and my own Creative Thinking processes.

Members of my Mastermind Group on whom I regularly call for help are:

Our Creativity guide Leonardo da Vinci, for his boundless Creativity and inventiveness.

Queen Elizabeth I, for her ability to overcome astonishing odds, to be very flexible while at the same time being steadfast, and to learn with incredible rapidity.

Buddha, for his deep exploration of the self, and for his ability to withstand the utmost suffering and deprivation.

Mohammed Ali, for his astonishing originality and creativity, combined with his representation and defence of a minority group.

Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of the Japanese martial art of Aikido. In this art, the Aikido student is taught to turn any violence into tranquillity, while simultaneously remaining steadfast.

The dedicatees of the Power of Creative Intelligence, who are my living Mastermind Group!

As you read through the Power of Creative Intelligence section, select four or five of the historical greats for your own personal ‘Mastermind Group’. Supplement this group with members of your family and friends whose powers of thinking, analysis and creativity you especially admire and respect. Whenever you have a situation or problem facing you, hold imaginary conversations with each of your internal geniuses, and imagine what answers and advice they would give you in this situation. You will be surprised (and sometimes stunned!) by the excellence of the results.

7. Play Einstein’s Creative Imagination Games

On a daily or weekly basis, play an Einstein Creative Imagination Game. We have seen how Einstein would pose himself an interesting question such as, ‘What would it be like to go for a ride on a sunbeam to the end of the universe?’ Or, ‘If I travelled at the speed of light away from somebody, would I be invisible?’ Or, ‘Does light bend, and if so, how do I know where the thing is that I am seeing?’ He then let his imagination run riot with all the possible solutions, no matter how bizarre or crazy they might seem to be. Try it with one of your own areas of interest, and see what creative answers you generate.

8. The RIGHT Emphasis

As our schools, work and culture tend to emphasize the left cortical skills, particularly look at how you can integrate the right-brain skills. Think of three ways to add each right-brain skill into your everyday work and life – your life will become more enjoyable, as well as more efficient.

9. Use Both Sides of your Body

By using both sides of your body, you will use both sides of your brain. Learn to juggle, or use your non-dominant hand in your daily activities, such as combing your hair, brushing your teeth, dialling the phone, stirring a pan on the stove, writing, etc. You could also try eating using the cutlery the ‘wrong way round’!

10 Make Colourful ‘Brain-speak’ Mind Map Notes

Notes are your brain’s special way of communicating with itself. It is much easier for your brain to work on its creative thoughts, problems and memories by putting notes down externally than it is to keep them all ‘up in the air’ inside itself – just try calculating long division in your head without the aid of pen and paper!

When you are taking notes, use your right as well as your left brain, adding interesting focus to your notes by using colour, images, spatial planning and visual rhythm. This note-taking technique is called a Mind Map, and this whole theme will be developed comprehensively in the next chapter.

The ideas in this chapter are summarized in Plate 17.

3.3

Infinite Creativity – Mapping Your Mind with Mind Maps

Releasing your Mind from its ‘Non-Creativity’ Prison

You may not have known it, but you stand over a 99 per cent chance that your brain has been in a ‘non-Creativity’ prison from the time you started school to the time you are now reading these words.

How can this be true?

Check and see. Simply ask yourself in what kind of way does your brain make its thoughts visible – in other words, what kind of notes do you make?

Are they like these traditional note-taking styles?

If you belong to that 99 per cent-plus of the world’s population I mentioned earlier, then this is the way you will take notes: you will use words that are usually in sentences or phrases; you will list things; you may, in ‘advanced’ forms of note-taking, use numbers and letters to organize your thoughts; you will take notes in the linear order that the information is presented from either the book or the speaker; you will write on straight lines; and you will use a blue, black or grey pen or pencil with which to make those notes.

Could the way we have been taking notes for the last few centuries be the very reason why so many of us feel we are not as creative as we somehow know we truly are? And could this also be the reason why the world at large generally misunderstands the nature of Creativity, while complaining about the lack of it?

Let’s investigate this further. First let’s look again at the blue, black and grey colours with which we usually make our notes. The reason why we do this is because we have been taught to do so (in my school we were taught not only to use one colour – blue/black – but also only to use one particular make of ink as well! Any child caught wandering from this strict order was likely to be given 25 lines of extra homework!)

How does your brain feel about all this?

To your brain, a blue, black or grey is a single (mono) colour (chroma). This means that the lightwaves that bombard your eye from that colour are all identical. To your brain, therefore, a single blue, black or grey colour is a mono (single) tone of information.

As discussed earlier, the word we get when we combine the concept of ‘mono’ and ‘tone’ is monotone. And if something is a monotone, we describe it as … monotonous! And what word do we commonly use to describe something that is monotonous? BORING!

What does your brain do when it is bored? Most people come up with one of the following answers:

tunes out

turns off

switches off

goes dead

daydreams

drifts

goes to sleep

Thus the current method developed for unleashing the productive power of the planet is actually boring creative minds to distraction and sending them to sleep!

Not only that: it doesn’t matter what nationality you are or what language you speak. If you use English, Italian, German, Spanish, or Russian, your boring lines go left to right. If you use Hebrew or Arabic, your boring lines simply go from right to left! If you use Mandarin Chinese, your boring lines go up and down! Your brain doesn’t mind in which 90 degree angle it goes to sleep – it can go to sleep in all of them!

Why does this happen? Think about the tools your brain normally uses for its note-taking: words; lists; lines; numbers; order; sequence; letters – the mental skills of the ‘left brain’. So far so good.

In the space below, note what skills from the ‘right brain’ are used.

You guessed it – the reason why we have left no space for your answer is that the answer is ‘none’! No images, no codes, no colours, no dimension, no ‘whole picture’, no visual rhythm and no spatial awareness.

In other words, our traditional note-taking methods only do half the job! It is time that we completed the task. Once again, it is clear that by using only half of our skills we have, like the one-legged and one-armed runner, been operating with a fantastic lack of efficiency.

The lines on which we have been writing are the prison bars behind which we have trapped our fantastically creative brains. Let’s explore what happens when we allow our brains to make their thoughts visible in a way that is compatible with the way our brains actually think – and by now you know it’s not in straight lines!

Radiant Thinking and Proof of Your Infinite Creative Potential

Your brain does not, like the computer, think linearly and sequentially: it thinks radiantly and explosively, as is shown in the following diagram:

To show how radiant thinking works, try the following Radiant and Creative Thinking Game, which will change the way you think about the way you think for ever!

Below you will find the word ‘FUN’ nestled in the centre of a face. Five branches radiate away from the face, and off each of those branches radiate, much like a tree or a river delta, five more branches.

The game is as follows: on the five central branches, print the first five words that come into your head, one on each branch, whatever they are, when you think of the concept ‘FUN’. When you have done this, go out to the next level of branches, and quickly print on each of the five lines, the five words that first come into your mind when you think of the key word on the main branch (again, one word on each branch. When you have filled in the first five key words and all the radiating branches, read on.

Were you able to do this exercise? Of course you were!

Was it simple? Of course it was!

Is it more significant than it might at first seem? You bet it is!

Think about it. What your brain has just done is something quite profound. You took a single concept, ‘FUN’, and radiated from it five key ideas. Thus you multiplied your first creative output by five – that’s a 500 per cent increase in creative output.

Next you took your five new, freshly created ideas, and from each of them you created five more new ideas. Another five-fold or 500 per cent increase! In no time at all you started from one idea, and created 30 new ones.

Now ask yourself: ‘Could I create another five words/ideas from each of the 25 words that radiate from the original key five?’ Of course you could! That’s another 125 ideas created!

Could you add another five from each of those? Again, of course you could – another 625 ideas! That’s 6,250 per cent more ideas than when you started!

Could you keep going to the next level? And the next? And the next and the next? Of course you could!

And for how long? Forever!

Generating how many ideas? An infinite number!

Congratulations! You have just demonstrated, using a basic Mind Map technique, that your creative potential is infinite.

The news gets even better!

In the Radiant and Creative Thinking Game you have just played, you were still using, predominantly, your left brain. Suppose that the magical qualities of the right brain were added to your already proven infinite Creative Thinking capacity. Suppose that you added to the basic Mind Map form, using colours, more visual rhythm, images, pictures, codes, dimension and clever spatial arrangement? If you did you would be like the whole-bodied runner again, multiplying your abilities synergetically. You would be adding extra power, colour and dimension to what we already know is an infinite creative capacity.

Creative Mind Maps

You have already done a basic Mind Map in the ‘FUN’ game. To create a fully-fledged Creative Mind Map is simple, easy and enjoyable:

Start in the CENTRE of a blank page turned sideways. Why? To give your brain the radiant creative freedom to branch out in all directions.

Use an image for your central idea. Why? Because an image is worth a thousand words for your creative power, and will both please your eyes and keep your attention focused.

Use colours throughout. Why? Because colour stimulates Creative Thinking, helps you distinguish areas of your creative thought, stimulates the visual centres of your brain and captures your eyes’ attention and interest.

Connect your main branches to the central image and connect your second and third-level branches to the first and second levels, etc. Why? Because your brain works by association (see Chapter 3.8) and if the branches are connected on the page the ideas will connect in your head and spark off more creative thoughts. It also creates and sustains the basic structure, in the same way that your skeleton, muscles and connective tissue hold your body together.

Make the branches curved rather than straight-lined. Why? Because a Creativity Mind Map with straight lines is boring to your eyes! Your brain is far more attracted to the curved lines that you find in nature.

Use one word per line. Why? Because, as you now know from the ‘FUN’ exercise, each single word or image generates its own vast array of creative thoughts. When you use single words, each one is better able to spark new thoughts. Phrases or sentences tend to dampen this triggering effect. (Have a look at the Mind Maps in the plate section.)

Use images throughout. Why? Because images and symbols are easy to remember, and stimulate new, creative associations.

You now have the knowledge to use the most powerful Creative Thinking tool known to humankind – the Mind Map.

Michael Michalko, in his best-selling book Cracking Creativity, describes Mind Maps as the ‘whole-brain alternative to linear thinking’. He notes many advantages of using Mind Maps, including:

‘Activates your whole brain.’

‘A Mind Map clears your mind of mental clutter.’

‘Focuses on the subject.’

‘Allows you to develop detailed organisation of your subject.’

‘Demonstrates connections between isolated pieces of infor-mation.’

‘Gives you a clear picture of both the details and the big picture.’

‘Gives you a graphic representation of what you know about your subject, allowing you easily to identify gaps in your information.’

‘Allows you to group and regroup concepts, encouraging comparisons.’

‘Keeps your thinking active and gets you closer and closer to the ultimate answer in problem solving.’

‘Requires you to concentrate on your subject, which helps get information about it transferred from short-term to long-term memory.’

‘Reaches out in all directions and catches thoughts from any angle.’

The Great Geniuses and Note-Making

When you start Mind Mapping, you will be joining the pantheon of great geniuses who all used the major elements of the Mind Map guidelines to make their thoughts visible, and thus to help them and others make the great creative leaps forward in their disciplines. These geniuses include Leonardo da Vinci, voted ‘The Brain of the Last Millennium’; Michelangelo, the great sculptor and artist; Charles Darwin, the great biologist; Sir Isaac Newton, discoverer of the laws of gravity; Albert Einstein, who discovered the laws of relativity; Sir Winston Churchill, the renowned political leader and author; Pablo Picasso, who changed the face of 20th century art; William Blake, the English visionary, artist and poet; Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light-bulb; Galileo, who turned the universe inside-out with his astronomical observations; Thomas Jefferson, the polymath and architect of the American Constitution; Richard Feynman, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist; Marie Curie, the double Nobel Prize-winning chemist and radiologist; Martha Graham, the great dancer and choreographer; and Ted Hughes, the late English Poet Laureate, regularly praised as the greatest poet of the 20th century.

You are in good company! Indeed it is thought by many that the entire Italian Renaissance was generated for the most part by great creative geniuses who escaped from their linear-thinking prisons. They made their thoughts and ideas visible, not only through lines and words, but also with the equally and often more powerful language of images, drawings, diagrams, codes, symbols, graphs, etc.

Case History – Leonardo da Vinci

For a perfect example of a great creative genius using the language of vision to generate thousands of brilliant ground-breaking ideas, you just have to take a look at the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo used images, diagrams, symbols and illustrations as the purest way to capture, on paper, the thoughts that were teeming in his brain.

The heart of Leonardo’s notebooks, which, because of the manifestations of the sheer creative genius that they contain, are among the most valuable books in the world, is his drawings. These drawings helped Leonardo to explore his thinking in fields as far-ranging as art, physiology, engineering, aquanautics and biology. For Leonardo the language of words took second place to the language of images, and was used to label, indicate or describe his creative thoughts and discoveries – the prime tool for his Creative Thinking was the language of images.

Case History – Galileo Galilei

Galileo was another of the world’s great creative-thinking geniuses, who, in the late 16th and early 17th centuries helped to revolutionize science by using his own note-taking techniques. While his contemporaries were using traditional verbal and mathematical approaches to the analysis of scientific problems, Galileo made his thoughts visible, like Leonardo, with illustrations and diagrams.

Interestingly, Galileo was, like Leonardo, a great daydreamer. According to the now famous ‘Legend of the Lamp’, Galileo was idly watching the gentle swaying, to-and-fro, of the lamps hanging in Pisa Cathedral, when he had a ‘Eureka’ experience. Galileo realized that no matter what the range of a lamp’s swing was, it always required the same time to complete an oscillation. Galileo developed this observation of ‘isochronism’ into his Law of the Pendulum, applying it to time-keeping and the development of the pendulum clock.

Case History – Richard Feynman

Richard Feynman, the Nobel prize-winning physicist, realized as a young man that imagination and visualization were the most vital part of the Creative Thinking process. As such he played imagination games, and taught himself to draw. Like Galileo, Feynman broke away from his more traditional note-taking contemporaries and decided to put the entire theory of quantum electrodynamics into freshly visual and diagramatic form. This led to his developing the now famous Feynman diagrams – pictorial representation of particle interaction, which are now used by students throughout the world to help them understand, remember and create ideas in the realms of physics and general science.

Feynman was so proud of his diagrams that he painted them on his car!

Case History – Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein, the Brain of the 20th century, also rejected the traditional standard linear, numerical and verbal forms of Creative Thinking. Like Leonardo and Galileo before him, Einstein believed that these tools were useful but not necessary, and that imagination was far more important. Indeed, it was Einstein who stated that: ‘Imagination is more important than knowledge, for imagination is limitless.’ Indeed, in a letter to his friend Maurice Solovine, he explained his difficulty in using words to express his philosophy of science, because he did not think in such ways; he thought more diagrammatically and schematically.

Case History – Charles Darwin

Darwin was a Mind Mapper! In developing his Theory of Evolution, Charles Darwin had a vast task in front of him: he had to explore as much of the natural world as possible; to classify each of the species and their relationships to each other; to explain the regularities and ‘irregularities’ in nature; to demonstrate the explosive and multiplicative nature of growth and diversity. How did he do this? With basic Mind Maps!

Darwin devised a basic Mind Map form of note, which was very much like a branching tree, and was almost identical to the ‘FUN’ exercise you did here. Darwin used these basic Mind Map forms as the only effective way to help him collect masses of data, to organize it, to see the relationships between the various items, and to create new awarenesses from it. It is reported that within 15 months of drawing his first tree ‘Mind Map’ diagram, Darwin had worked out all the major components of the Theory of Evolution.

Darwin’s note-taking method

Armed with all your new Mind Map Creative Thinking knowledge, you are now ready for a Creativity Workout.

Creativity Workout

1. Use Colour in your Notes

Always use colour in your notes. Start off with a four-colour ballpoint pen, and move on to other colours as you progress. Colour makes your notes more interesting; it will stimulate your Creative Thinking processes, and will, literally, add colour to your life!

2. Daydream and Nightdream!

Both daydreaming and nightdreaming give your visual Creative Muscles added strength. Note, preferably in Mind Map form, any ideas or images from your best dreams. This will encourage you to be more visual and colourful in your Mind Mapping notes.

3. Think Radiantly

Once a week, take any word or concept that interests you, and do a ‘FUN’ game Radiant Thinking basic Mind Map burst. This will keep your Mind Mapping skills in shape.

4. Mind Map

Draw a Mind Map whenever you have a creative problem you wish to explore. Do it in the following stages:

Do a quick Mind Map brainstorm, in just the same way in which you did the ‘FUN’ game brainstorm – adding colour, images and as much information as your brain wishes (see here). This exercise should be done at high speed.

Let your brain ‘think on it’ for a while, giving yourself at least an hour’s break.

Return to the Mind Map and add any new thoughts you have had.

Look at your Mind Map closely again, finding any new connections you can between any of the elements on any of the branches.

Connect these elements by codes, colours or arrows.

Identify the main new connections.

Take another break to allow your brain to think on it again.

Look at your Mind Map once more, and identify and mark any new connections you can now see.

Return to the Mind Map and decide on your solution!

5. Keep Mind Map Notebooks

Another great creative genius who made visual Mind Map-type notes was Thomas Edison, and he did so because Leonardo da Vinci had!

Edison, who filed patent after patent after patent with the US authorities, was driven by a burning creative desire, and decided that the best way to fuel his own creative genius would be to follow in the footsteps of his hero Leonardo.

Following Leonardo’s example, Edison studiously and passionately recorded, with visual illustrations, every step of his Creative Thinking processes, and eventually amassed 3,500 notebooks.

6. Use Mind Maps as a Creative Communication Tool

If you have to make a speech or talk of any sort, use a Creative Mind Map to help guarantee a successful presentation of your ideas.

Regardless of whether your speech is a short thank-you speech after a dinner or celebration, or a full-blown formal business presentation, a Creative Mind Map has a number of advantages over the standard and normal linear, boring, monotonous, pre-prepared, often humourless presentations that make many people afraid to speak in public, and audiences to dread such events too!

By using a Mind Map you can free your mind (and yourself) to organize your thoughts quickly, put them in an appropriate order, and include all the key ideas and images that will spark your imagination when you get up to speak. This will help you to relax and talk naturally and spontaneously – to the relief and enjoyment of everyone concerned!

7. Mind Map and Create Your Future

For this exercise, place an image or symbol of yourself in the centre of your Mind Map and have as your main branches such topics as Skills; Education; Travel; Family; Job; Wealth; Health; Friends; Goals; Hobbies, etc. On this Mind Map create your ideal future – Mind Mapping the rest of your life as you would design it if a genie from the magic lamp had granted your every wish. When you have created this ideal future Mind Map, set about making it come true, with the help of your Mastermind Group (see here). Many people have tried this ‘create your own life’ Mind Map approach and have found it to be extraordinarily successful. Within a few years of creating their Mind Maps they have found that as much as 80 per cent of their plans have been accomplished!

8. Make an Image-only Mind Map

Make a Mind Map using only images – no words at all! Your brain will make different connections and associations when it is dealing only with images. You may be quite surprised at the new creative links and connections you make when you explore a topic in this way. (Try this exercise especially after you have read through Chapter 3.4, and have released the creative artist in you!)

9. Colour-code Your Mind Maps

Find four ways to use colour as a code in your Mind Maps. Build up ways that you can use colour and/or texture to show connections, layers of time or thought, people, actions, urgency, etc.

10. Explore How Using Mind Maps Can Help You in Your Life

Mind Map all the ways Mind Maps can assist you – at home, at work, in all areas of your life. Keep building and extending this Mind Map. Add others’ ideas on to yours as well!

The ideas in this chapter are summarized in Plate 19.

3.4

You The Creative Artist

Everyone (and that means everyone) is an artist by natural birthright.

Why is it, then, that over 95 per cent of people around the world believe that they are not truly creative or artistic, and that artists possess some special magical gift bestowed upon only a chosen few?

I have done surveys on this phenomenon across the world, with some surprising results. First, regardless of the nationality, race, age or sex of those people surveyed, the results were the same. Secondly, the answers given to the most important questions were always logical, and always wrong!

The most revealing question to ask those 95 per cent-plus who feel that they are not blessed with the gift of being able to draw and paint, is ‘How do you know that you don’t have this special ability?’

The usual answer, as you might suspect, is that they have tried, failed, and therefore proved to themselves that this ability was not part of their set of mental skills.

What they had in fact ‘proved’ was that their first attempt at art had not produced the desired results, and not only that they needed to try again, but that they needed to be taught how to make that second attempt.

What happened in nearly every case was almost identical. No doubt you can put yourself into the story, as follows:

Try to remember back to when you were four years old in your first school.

It is a lovely autumn day, and your teacher comes into the classroom and announces enthusiastically that today you are going to do your first lesson in art.

You are very excited, because your mind is full of wonderful images, and you can’t wait to express them on paper, which you have in abundance, as well as lots of wonderful rainbow-coloured pencils and crayons with which to create your first masterpiece!

The teacher says, again enthusiastically: ‘All right children, are we all ready? I want you to draw an aeroplane.’

In your mind’s eye you can see the aeroplane clearly, but the technique for getting it out of your brain and onto the paper proves to be a little more difficult. So at this stage, what do you, as a four-year-old, surrounded by your four-year-old friends each with their paper and coloured pencils, naturally do? You will, of course, look around to see what the other children are doing.

What will your teacher say to you when he or she observes you looking around?

‘Stop looking at other children’s work! That’s cheating!’

The Death of the Artist

In my and my colleagues’ surveys, virtually everyone had a similar experience.

Now think for a moment about what actually happened to you at that stage. It was the same as if your parents had waited for you to finally get it all together to say your first word: ‘MAMA’, and had responded by saying: ‘We always knew you were going to be a cheat! Don’t use our language, make up your own!’

Of course no parent would ever be so foolish as to say this. Why? Because we all deeply and intuitively know that our brains learn first by copying. Copying is the first essential tool in any learning. It is the way our brains acquire the basic building blocks of knowledge from which we can then add our own unique creativity.

It is as true for art as it is for language.

Let’s return to your first art class, where you have just had your prime learning technique taken away from you. From that point on the wonderful and natural creative artist you are will increasingly go into hiding, never again wanting to have such a beautiful dream crushed.

The artist in you may be in hiding, but the dream is still alive, and it can take flight again now, just as it could have done then!

Frustrated, you struggle vainly and disconsolately on, until the time is up. When you have ‘finished’ your work, you are then allowed to look around. And what do you see?

Better aeroplanes!

In fact, ironically, most children see better aeroplanes because they look at the worst part of their own drawings, and the best part of the others’ drawings.

At this stage your classmates might come around and help you in your realization that yours is not the masterpiece of which you had dreamed, and your Least Best Friend may say something like: ‘That’s not very good! It hasn’t got any wings!’ The pain and humiliation begin to gather momentum, and the budding shoot of your creativity already starts to wither.

Next comes more pain. For on the wall of your classroom, for the next two weeks, either is not your little aeroplane, and you are condemned by its absence, or (even more horrifying) is your little aeroplane, and you have to look at the blasted thing for two weeks. Its very presence reminds you every day of your incompetence, failure and the non-realization of your fantastic dream.

Sometime afterwards, your teacher comes into your class and announces: ‘Children, we are going to do art again today!’

And what does your brain say?

‘Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhh WAY!’

Your brain will decide to flick pieces of paper or paperclips at the children who did good drawings, to pass messages to your friends, or to watch the wonderful artistic and creative world outside the window, and daydream. Your brain will not want to do art. Why? Because it has already proved to itself that it cannot.

The Rebirth of the Artist

All that was necessary when you were four years old was for someone to say something like: ‘That’s an interesting little aeroplane! Would you like the next one to have wings on it?’ And you would have said: ‘YES’.

The ideal teacher would have then said something like: ‘Well, all you have to do is do two little lines here, and two little lines there, and you have wings. And if you want to draw even better and more beautiful aeroplanes, go over there to little Charley, who has taught herself to draw wonderful aeroplanes, and ask her to show you how she draws them.’

If this approach had been taken, and had been continued, you would have learnt what is actually a very simple alphabet for learning how to draw, and would today be a competent creative artist.

The rest of this chapter will allow you to rekindle the dream, and to perform tasks that will amaze you, your family and your friends.

Creative Art Game Number 1 (Accomplishing the Impossible)

In this creative exercise I am going to take you back once again to when you were four, and am going to re-start your career as an artist! To make sure that this is a fair, fresh start, you are going to use the hand with which you do not normally write or draw!

Why? Because having never drawn with this hand before you will, literally, be starting completely anew.

The exercise is as follows. Here, you will see a number of squares, each labelled with a letter and a number, and each filled with lines of different lengths and angles, each square of the grid containing a very small number of these lines.

Here is a grid lettered from A–G and numbered from 1–7. Your task is, using the hand you do not normally use, to copy, very carefully the lines in each square onto the correct grid square. When you have finished, quickly check each square to make sure that you have it as near perfect as possible. Then, and only then, turn the book upside down and see what you have created! Afterwards, record your reactions.

Aren’t You A Creative Genius?!!

With your untrained, unused, ‘weak’ hand, you have drawn a reasonable likeness of the greatest creative genius of the last thousand years, Leonardo da Vinci!

How were you were able to do this? Because, quite simply, your brain was using a method that you had never known before, and that is natural to all artists (like yourself) and all creative thinkers (again, like yourself!) This method is simply to allow the combination of your eye and brain to measure things, just as they are designed to do. When your brain is allowed to do this objectively, without any interference from thoughts such as: ‘I’ll never be able to do this’; ‘I’m no good at art’; ‘Art is only emotion’; ‘I’m useless at drawing’, etc., it sees purely, measures purely, copies purely, and therefore draws naturally in the way everybody can.

Think about it – the drawing you have just completed is the first drawing you have ever done with that hand. Just imagine what levels your art can rise to when you have had days, weeks, months and years to develop a skill which leaps out of the starting blocks at a first class level!

The Artistic Secret of the Greats

Now for the next surprise … the amazing artistic secret of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci!

They did exactly the same thing as you have just done! They drew by first observing, and then by numbering and measuring. Look at the illustrations on these two pages. The first is Michelangelo’s beautiful drawing of an athlete. If you look carefully, you will see that down the right side and to the lower left are a series of lines, markings and numbers. This was Michelangelo observing the human form like a scientist, measuring the proportions of the body, giving himself the line and number guideline, and then ‘filling in’ the blanks.

The second is a sketch by Leonardo, in which his method for arriving at the final form of a horse is made even more clear. Leonardo segmented the legs into their constituent parts and, like you have now learned to do, divided the body into the basic art building-blocks – later on filling in the final, defining lines. Like Michelangelo, Leonardo was observing nature as a scientist does, using his eyes’ natural talent for observation to produce work we now call masterpieces.

Both Michelangelo and Leonardo actively developed their powers of observation, and then ‘drew by numbers’!

All the great artists did not suddenly and spontaneously draw. First of all they observed very closely what it was they wanted to draw, then they analysed and measured it, and then they ‘copied’ it from their mind’s eye onto the paper. Indeed, Leonardo far preferred people to consider him a copier of nature than an ethereal, ‘airy-fairy’ ‘artist’.

In your next Creativity Workout you will have the opportunity to develop your new-found skills, but first there is another amazing discovery for you: You are such an amazing artist, you cannot NOT draw!

Creative Art Game Number 2

In this Creativity Game you will be given a number of building blocks for drawing, much like a child’s wooden bricks.

These building blocks are the simple forms of ovals, triangles, squares, rectangles, etc. The game is for you to start with any given shape of nature. These appear in the top diagram here, and include circles, straight lines and curved lines, and to add any of the other shapes in any way you want, until your brain ‘sees’ a form of some sort emerging.

Using your basic artistic building blocks, complete the form in the way your brain desires. When you are doing this exercise, you are allowing your brain to use that amazing capacity it has when it looks at clouds, snow-covered landscapes, or patterns in wood and rocks and flickering flames, and ‘sees’ all sorts of forms that become animals, monsters, faces, or landscapes.

Basic artistic building blocks

Basic blocks with additions

In the second diagram (see here) you will find examples of six basic shapes, of which four already have a little bit of additional doodling added to them.

If you wish you can add to any of them, or see here for how these particular doodles were continued by the artist. Sometimes the ‘form’ becomes obvious by moving the page around where the different angle and different perspective suddenly make the final picture ‘click’ into place.

You are now equipped with the knowledge that you are Creative, that you are naturally artistic, that you can even draw with the hand you have never used before, with the formulas of the greatest artistic creators of all time, and with the basic tool-kit for expanding your own vast artistic creative powers. It is now time for a Creativity Workout.

Creativity Workout

1. Doodle

On a clean sheet of paper, and using the basic building blocks described here, doodle with the basic shapes until each forms a recognizable image.

2. Learn the Creative Artist’s Measuring Trick

Have you ever noticed when watching real artists at work, or when seeing films of the greats such as van Gogh and Michelangelo, that they are regularly doing something which seems very eccentric: holding pencils or paintbrushes up in the air with a straight arm, while flailing that arm about? You are about to discover how what they were doing helped to make them great, and how it can help you in your own creative development.

When you are with a group of people, or can see people at varying distances, take a pencil or pen, hold it at arm’s length, and measure the ‘size’ of the various heads. Before you start measuring, estimate how much of the length of your pen or pencil that head will take up.

Here’s how you measure: place the top of the pencil at the level of the top of the person’s head. Then slide your thumb down the pencil from the top to the point where your thumb is level with the person’s chin. As I mentioned, make sure you try this with people both near and far away.

The results of this exercise will have introduced you to a scientific/artistic/creative seeing tool that was unknown to all the geniuses of Asia, India, the Middle East and Greece, being discovered only by those phenomenal flowering creative geniuses of the Italian Renaissance just 600 years ago.

3. Can you Cartoon? Of Course you Can!

Here you will see a number of cartoon figures that help to illustrate facial expressions. Simply copy them, measuring and comparing carefully as you go. If any of them are not as perfect as you would like, don’t rub them out – keep them to compare later efforts with and, using your increasing knowledge, try doing them again after a few weeks.

4. Practise!

Practise drawing with your ‘other’ hand. Using both hands (ambidexterity) is a very good method of generally increasing your creative abilities. Use your artistic building-block kit to practise too. Once a week, doodle for 5–10 minutes with your basic artistic building blocks, thus keeping your Creative Artistic Muscle in good shape.

5. Join an Art Class!

Now that your artistic career has been restarted, browse through introductory books on how to draw, and consider joining drawing or painting classes, or take a painting holiday – they are both relaxing and inspiring.

6. Visit Galleries

Armed with your new knowledge of the ‘Science of Art’ visit art galleries and museums, and look with fresh eyes at the work of human beings who, just like you, had the ability to draw and paint, but who had the opportunity of having teachers who showed them the techniques you have just learned. They copied their teachers and the great masters before them. You copy them!

7. Learn How to See

Whenever Michelangelo or Leonardo went for walks, they would especially look out for interesting or beautiful faces, striking objects in nature, old buildings, etc. When they found something striking, they would observe it, close their eyes and try to ‘picture it’, and then observe it again. On the second observation, they would match their memory of what they had seen with the reality. They would repeat this exercise until the memory was virtually the same as what they were looking at, and they could almost not tell whether their eyes were open or closed. Having thus seen (memorized) the object of their attention, they would go back to their studios and draw (record) it.

Try this incredibly interesting game yourself. You will find that as you repeat it, your ability to draw will improve, and so – equally importantly – will your ability to see and remember.

8. Go into an Art Shop and EXPLORE!

Find out where you might be able to take local art classes, browse through any interesting books or magazines and, most importantly of all, buy yourself a little sketchpad or notebook in which you can begin to jot down your creative ideas, especially in as many image forms as you can. In this way you will be following exactly in the footsteps of Edison and Leonardo!

9. Look!

If you have any doubt that you are a naturally Creative Genius, consider the following: run through the memories of every beautiful, magnificent, complex and extraordinary thing you have ever seen. If you are in a situation that is in any way interesting as you read this book now, look up and look around.

Because we use our eyes to see, and because reality is ‘out there’, when we look at things we tend to assume that it is simply out there and we are simply looking at it.

But if it were only ‘out there’, how would it ever get into our heads?

What actually happens is that your amazing eyes, with their 260 million light receivers, receive billions and billions of photons of light per second, all carrying images to you. Your eye then transmits these images down your optic nerve to the back of your brain, which then re-creates the entire external world inside your head.

In other words, for nearly every second of your waking life, the Master Artist in your Creative Brain has been painting perfect pictures of reality for you to admire. Every beautiful face, every snow-capped mountain range, every sunset and moonrise, every flower, every animal, every bird you have ever seen, you have perfectly re-created in your own brain.

You have already created and painted, my genius friend, billions of Masterpieces! Your hands simply want to join in the fun and create some more for you! Why don’t you let them?

Completed doodles

3.5

You The Creative Musician

Welcome to a chapter in which you will discover the reasons why the vast majority of the world’s population believe that they are not creatively musical, and cannot sing. You will learn lessons from those master musicians, the birds, and will discover that you have been playing at least two very complex musical instruments for most of your life, and that you have ‘created’ thousands of musical compositions! Not only that, but in your Creativity Workout, you will learn how to build on the amazing capabilities you have.

Why is it that, as with the concept of Creative Art, 95 per cent of people surveyed around the world stated that they ‘knew’ they were not truly musical, and that musicians, like artists, possess some magical gift given only to the rare few?

As with art, people had tried to create music, and felt that they had failed. But had they in actual fact failed? Or did they simply not know the secret of naturally creating music?

To get a better perspective on this, let’s look at how the birds do it!

How Birds Make Music

Let’s look again at how, at the beginning of the last century, an extraordinary young Japanese musician by the name of Suzuki became intrigued with the problem of how birds actually learnt to sing.

In Japan, millions of people had beautiful songbirds in their homes, and as such there was a great demand for them. Suzuki decided that one of the best places to study the development of bird song would be to visit one of the bird breeding houses where tens of thousands of songbird eggs were hatched into little chicks.

Suzuki found to his surprise that the little chicks did not ‘naturally’ sing. They listened to a ‘Master Singer’ songbird that had been specially placed in the breeding house by the breeders; after many hundreds of trials the chicks eventually learned to sing just like the Master Singer.

In other words, as with art and the artist, the little songbirds had learnt to sing not by some magical happenstance, but by copying the best, and practising for many thousands of times before they themselves achieved mastery.

Suzuki had discovered a truth that applies to all bird brains, all animal brains and all human brains: singing and creative music-making are learned skills that are achieved by copying and constant working towards perfection.

Armed with this new knowledge, let’s take a look back at the typical events that may have occurred when you (that Creative Musical Genius-in-the-making) were just starting out on your journey of creative musical development.

The Death of the Musician

Once again, imagine a time when you were a toddler.

It is a glorious spring day, and you are playing with your friends in a blossom-filled park dotted with sandpits, swings, climbing-frames and the like, and with people out walking their dogs, meeting friends and basking in the beauty of Spring.

The sheer beauty and exhilaration of the environment fills you with joy, and you and your friends rush about, experimenting with that fantastic musical instrument you are just beginning to discover: your voice. Each of you hits notes higher than any opera singer, finding how many ways you can produce each note, how long you can hold it, how loud you can make it and how much you can vary it.

In the middle of this super-operatic symphony of sound, in which the dogs have enthusiastically joined, your mum and dad, and your friends’ mums and dads, descend upon you and tell you not to shout, not to yell, not to scream and not to disturb other people. You learn that experimenting with your voice and exploring its extremes is bad and anti-social.

A little while later you are in your class and are so involved in your work that you spontaneously begin to hum and sing. You are immediately told to stop it, and to be silent while you work. You realize that music is to be disconnected from art, learning and productivity.

A few years later, with a growing fear about using your voice other than in the most controlled manner, you are tested in your music class. Standing in front of your class, you are subjected to a public examination. With your neck and throat muscles tensed, and your mouth dry from fear, you are asked to repeat a note played on the piano. You rasp an approximation. It is ‘noted’ that your pitch is not good, and that your voice is not up to the standard of a member of the school choir. As a result, whenever an important person visits the school, and the entire assembly has to sing the welcoming songs or hymns, you are told not to make a sound, but just to mouth the words!

Having had your musicality further restricted and crushed, you one day find yourself in the sanctuary of the bathroom, and while taking a shower you let loose with your favourite tune or song. From downstairs comes the ‘unkindest cut’ of all: the yell: ‘Will you please stop making that horrible noise!’ You learn that even those you love are offended by your music.

All these ‘objective proofs’ will by now have convinced you that you are not musical, cannot sing and should not pursue such activities further. You have become a creative leper – ‘unmusical’.

But is this really true? Are the proofs really proofs? Or is there overwhelming evidence to the contrary; evidence which already proves that you are a wonderfully creative and natural musician?

The Rebirth of the Musician

Despite all of the ‘proofs’ against your ability, in fact, musically you are a creative genius. What’s more, there is plenty of evidence for this!

Proof Number 1: the Master Singing Birds

Let’s return to Suzuki. Not only did he discover that songbirds learned from the Master Singers they copied; he found that every bird brain was able to copy the Master Singer. In other words, as long as the chicks had been allowed to copy and try repeatedly, mastery was not only easily accomplishable, it was simply the second, natural stage of learning. After the chicks had all reached this elementary stage (it is nice to think that mastery is elementary, isn’t it?), each chick developed its own variations on the theme.

A bird’s brain, in comparison to yours, is incredibly simple. If its brain can do it, so can yours. As long as your brain is allowed to copy a Master and to practise continually, it too can achieve a high standard.

Every Child can Play the Violin

Suzuki decided to put his theory into practice by teaching very young children to play the violin. He didn’t give them books of musical notation, but simply allowed them to copy basic movements that he made on the instrument. He taught other teachers to do the same. It worked.

Today, at the beginning of the 21st century, hundreds of thousands of children world-wide have learned to play the violin and other musical instruments, including their voices, using Suzuki’s methods. Not a single child has been found who cannot play well. The same technique has been applied to adults, with similar results.

The probability that you are the only person who could not so learn, is infinitesimal! You are a natural Creative Musician!

Proof Number 2: You Speak – Therefore You Sing!

Do you speak? Of course you do!

How did you learn? By copying others.

What did you copy? Sound, rhythm, beat, accent, cadence, words, volume, notes, movement, pitch, emphasis and pulse.

What do all these things constitute? Music!

If you listen to a crowd of people speaking a foreign language of which you know nothing, you will realize that they are all singing. The reason why so many of us think we can’t sing is that, although we have been singing all the time, it was called something else: speaking.

Proof Number 3: You Already Play One Musical Instrument

Throughout your life you have been using a musical instrument – your voice! Your voice is a musical instrument of astounding complexity. It is comprised of your lips, mouth, tongue, larynx, throat, lungs, diaphragm, teeth, bones and all the cavities in your skull.

It is comprised of billions of working parts, and it makes the most sophisticated violin, guitar, piano, organ, synthesizer, or any other musical instrument pale into insignificance! And you have been playing and creating with it since the day you were born. You are a natural Creative Musician!

Proof Number 4: Your Second Musical Instrument

Not only have you used your vocal musical instrument for all of your life, you have used a second one too – your ear. Your ear is another astounding instrument of far greater complexity and sophistication than anything made by humankind. It comprises thousands of working parts, and is similar to your eyes in its creative capacity.

Every tune you have ever hummed, every song or aria you have ever heard, every pop or rock anthem or natural music to which you have danced or dreamed, every concerto or symphonic work that has held you enthralled, has been played and re–created by you.

In the same way that your eyes have helped you create your millions of artistic masterpieces, so your ears have been the instruments with which you recreated and re-re-created (remembered) every note of every song and piece of music that you have ever heard ‘out there’ and which your brain decided to re-create for its own vast musical library.

The Great Creative Musicians: ‘Nature’ or ‘Nurture’?

Popular mythology holds that the great creative musicians were ‘born’ musical; that they virtually came out of the womb composing! Nothing could be further from the truth!

Case History – Ludwig van Beethoven

In 1770 Beethoven was born not a musician, but into a world of music.

Most of his relations were singers, pianists or instrumentalists, and his father was intent on providing him with the best musical education possible. As a result Beethoven studied under some of the greatest musicians of the age, including Haydn; ‘the best help create the best’.

In the town where Beethoven lived, music was a constant presence, manifesting itself in the form of street musicians, festivals, musical evenings at concerts or in homes, and regular singing and playing in the local church.

Just in the same way that you learnt to speak the language of words, Beethoven, at the same pace as you and with the same dedication, learnt the language of notes. Just think how many hours your baby and child brain spent learning and practising language, and how many hours you spend each year using language – that is how hard Beethoven worked!

Case History – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Like Beethoven, Mozart did not come into the world composing symphonies. He was the youngest son of Leopold Mozart, who was a professional musician – the Musical Director of the Archbishop of Salzburg, and an accomplished teacher.

Young Mozart learnt the language of music, day in and day out, from one of the best private tutors possible. Also like Beethoven, Mozart worked prodigiously hard at his chosen area of creative expression. It is reported that he would often work as many as 18 hours a day.

Case History – Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach, who like Beethoven and Mozart was a prodigious and prolific composer, is also often considered to have been a ‘natural’. He was only a ‘natural’ if ‘natural’ equals ‘worker’!

Bach was born in 1685 into a family that, again like Beethoven’s and Mozart’s, was comprised mainly of musicians. They all taught the young Johann, especially his elder brother Johann Christoph, the organist at Ohrdruf, who taught his young brother to play both the organ and the clavier, and whose style Johann Sebastian copied.

The Bach family had a tradition of exchanging knowledge, and by the 1840s each had been teaching the other to the extent that the family numbered 70 musicians! This was not a ‘genetic triumph’. It was a triumph of family tradition and mutual education, culminating in the young Johann Sebastian.

Bach used to give himself Creative Productivity goals – one of them was to write a cantata (a medium-length piece of music with solo voice and, normally, choral and orchestra parts) once a week, even when he was sick or exhausted. He is modestly reported to have said to his pupils: ‘Anyone who works as hard as I did will do as well.’ ‘As hard as I did’ meant between 10 and 18 hours of work a day for nearly 60 years – 328,500 hours in total!

We now have undeniable proof that you are naturally musically creative. It is time to go take part in the Creativity Workout for a thoroughly enjoyable musical session!

Creativity Workout

1. Sing!

Go back (or continue with even more gusto!) to singing in the bath and the shower! If anyone complains, ask them to help you improve!

2. Dance!

Dance is a natural expression of your natural sense of rhythm and incredible creative musicality. Try all forms from disco to aerobic (good for your brain and heart as well), jazz and ballroom.

Whenever you dance (and the more often the better) unleash more of your Creativity by experimenting with and learning new moves, rhythms and forms.

3. Get Yourself Another Instrument

Go into a music shop and browse. Consider buying yourself a simple musical instrument such as a tin whistle or a set of bongo drums. Didgeridoos are very popular. So too are guitars and keyboards.

Consider also expanding your own mental library of tunes, while at the same time increasing the sophistication of your musical-instrument-ear, by listening to music from different countries. You will soon realize how incredibly musically creative the whole world is. This will reinforce your awareness that everyone is musical, and that the forms of creative musical expression are infinite.

At the beginning of the year, Professor Zander welcomes his musical students, to their study course and announces, with appropriate musical rhythm and emphasis, that he already knows the marks they are going to receive at the end of the year.

As the students all listen intently, he announces joyfully: ‘You are all going to get an “A!”’ Professor Zander then adds: ‘I guarantee that you are going to get an “A”. Part of you getting that “A” will be that in the next two weeks you write me a comprehensive letter. You will imagine yourself having just graduated with a first-class degree in Creative Musicianship, and you will write in that letter why it was you were given an “A”; how many hours practice you put in; what your goals were and how you achieved them; what mistakes you made and how you corrected them; what advice you took and how you applied it; what major lessons-for-life you learnt along the way; and how you are further going to advance your studies and career now that you have your first-class degree.’

Every student does as asked. Every student, having committed to the plan of action, follows it through, and every student achieves, and deserves, an ‘A’.

4. Expand Your Boundaries

You should realize that what you think creates your reality and your boundaries. If you think that you can’t sing or play a musical instrument, you will not be able to. Your boundaries will be absolute. However, if you think that you can sing and that you have the potential to play something, you will be able to. Your boundaries will become infinite.

This principle is demonstrated most emphatically by the brilliant founder and conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, Professor Benjamin Zander. Professor Zander has a unique and profoundly effective approach to the teaching of Creative Musicianship to advanced musical students.

Write yourself a similar note on how you are going to develop your Creative Musicianship!

5. Remind Yourself that you are a Creative Musician

Constantly remind yourself that you are a Creative Musician. Whenever you hear birds sing, remember that they learnt by copying and persistence. Whenever you walk or run similarly remember that you are playing ‘Body Music’. Whenever you fidget or tap your fingers impatiently, realize that you are a percussionist! Every time you speak or have a conversation with a friend, remember that you are singing, often in duets and quartets.

When you get really mad over something, and start pounding the table, stamping your feet in time to the words that you are yelling (in a rising crescendo and with the rhythm punctuating perfectly your body movements), remember that every word was precisely as you wanted it; enunciated in exactly the way you wished; spoken at the precise volume you intended to maximum effect; pounded out at the precise beat and rhythm you desired; and controlled precisely in terms of pitch, content, syncopation and volume!

In other words, you were singing! And if Beethoven had been working with you, creating an entire crescendoing orchestra of brass, woodwind and strings, you would have been singing, perfectly, an original operatic aria! (Perhaps entitled I Genitore Furioso or The Irate Parent!)

6. Create Musical Opportunities

Now that you know you are a Creative Musician, take every opportunity to express your Creativity. Go to sporting events where you can sing the club songs, or national anthems. Go to Karaoke bars, and don’t just sit and listen – get up and sing! No matter how bad you may think your first attempts are, persist and they will get better.

In clubs or at parties, sing along with the music being played. When you are at home sing along (or play along) with the radio, or your CDs, or join in with TV theme tunes.

If you have young children, have a musical ‘jamming’ session with them, with anything that can make musical sounds (keys, saucepans, wooden spoons, etc). The children will love it, and you will too.

7. Consider Taking Music Lessons

The simple rule for finding a teacher in this instance is to find one who:

is qualified and practises well whatever instrument you are going to learn

believes absolutely that you can learn whatever form of music you wish to learn, and will approach the task with energy, enthusiasm and a positive attitude.

Alternatively, try joining a local, friendly music group or bunch of singers. You will find the experience rewarding, uplifting and life-changing.

8. Pass on the Good News!

Now that you know the truth about the natural creative musicality of everyone, spread the good news!

If any of your friends or colleagues comes up with the old arguments about how they are not being musically creative, use the information you have learnt here to help them out of their lonely, monotonous and songless prisons. As you do, you will be surrounded increasingly by more and more singing, dancing and playing musicians. This will in turn make the whole of your life more of a symphony!

The ideas in this chapter are summarized in Plate 20.

3.6

Creativity Productivity – The Power of Volume and Speed

Fluency in Creative Thinking refers to the number of ideas that you can create, and the speed at which you create them. Fluency is one of the main goals of all Creative Thinkers and of all the great geniuses.

This goal can itself create a problem – that of quality. What happens to the quality of your creative ideas if you start to speed up your thinking and generate greater numbers of ideas? Does the quality go down, stay the same, or go up?

The answer, surprisingly (and mercifully!) is that as the quantity and speed of the ideas goes up, the overall quality of ideas goes up too.

In other words, in Creative Thinking, you can have your cake and eat it too!

Let’s take a look at the great Creative Thinkers, and see how this process worked for them. The sheer volume and productivity of some of these great thinkers is astounding:

Marie Curie – this great scientist was not just awarded one Nobel Prize, but two – and in two different subjects as well, physics and chemistry. Her work ranged over the fields of magnetism, radioactivity and the development of the medical uses of x-rays, and she isolated the chemical elements radium and polonium

Leonardo da Vinci – created so many ideas in so many different fields, that no one has yet counted them all!

Charles Darwin – the creator of the Theory of Evolution not only wrote his 1,000+ page book on this subject; he wrote 119 other scientific papers, books and booklets

Thomas Edison – registered 1,093 original patents, which is still the world record for the greatest number of patents registered by one person. He also completed 350 notebooks of work and ideas

Albert Einstein – in addition to his masterful treatise on Relativity, Einstein published over 240 other scientific papers

Sigmund Freud – wrote and published over 330 papers on psychology

Goethe – the great German polymath and genius wrote so prolifically that he used, in all his writings, 50,000 different words

Garry Kasparov – the greatest chess player in history, played through, analysed, memorized and creatively commented on many thousands of the world’s great chess games

Mozart – in his brief lifetime this great creative musical genius wrote more than 600 pieces of music, including 40 complete symphonies

Pablo Picasso – this creative giant of the 20th century produced more than 20,000 artistic works

Rembrandt – involved in many activities including business, completed in addition to these activities more than 650 paintings and 2,000 drawings

William Shakespeare – the creative genius generally considered to be the greatest English writer of all time wrote, in a period of less than 20 years, 154 sonnets and 37 masterpiece plays

The above list blows out of the water the common misconception that geniuses produce only a few precious ideas and then run out of (creative) steam. The opposite is obviously true: they generate vast numbers of ideas, and accelerate their productivity as their lives progress and their creative energy gathers more and more power from all that they have done before.

So did the great creative geniuses simply pour out perfect idea after perfect idea? Absolutely not! What they did do was to pour out ideas. Many of these were not particularly brilliant, but it was the ‘not brilliant’ that allowed the brilliant to emerge.

By constantly pouring out ideas, regardless of quality, the great creative geniuses were actually guaranteeing that they did produce more quality. They were allowing and facilitating the communication between their left brains and their right brains to produce a synergetic, ‘multiplying’ thought process that is typical of all those who know how to ‘use their heads’!

Our guide to genius, Leonardo, was a perfect example of this. In his notebooks he would literally ‘doodle away’ with any random thoughts that came to mind, and out of those would leap the ‘genius’ ideas.

Thomas Edison, Leonardo’s great disciple, was identical in his approach. Edison considered creativity to be simply good, honest and delightful hard work/play.

He described Creative Genius as ‘1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration’. He practised what he preached too! Edison went through 9,000 experiments to perfect the light bulb, and over 50,000 to invent the storage-cell battery.

A further example of Edison’s total commitment to generating ideas, no matter what, can be found in the museum of his New Jersey laboratory. As you wander around, you see an astonishing array of hundreds of different phonograph horns of almost every imaginable material, shape, construction and dimension. They look like a collection of strange alien beings, with shapes ranging from round to square to multi-angular, to fat, to short, to tall, to thin, to straight, to curved and, in terms of aesthetics, from ugly to beautiful.

Most of these models Edison rejected: they stand as a eulogy to his commitment to experiment, to risk and to try and try again until he had found the ideal solution he was after.

His attitude towards ‘failure’ (one we should all copy) was ideal. For example, when he was asked by one of his assistants why he persisted in trying to discover a filament that would last longer in his light-bulb, even though he had failed thousands of times, Edison gently pointed out that he hadn’t failed once! What he had done was to have discovered thousands of things that didn’t work, on his way to finding, inevitably, the one thing that did.

Gold Mining

The creative idea generating process is very much like panning for gold. Gold flecks are just a few of many thousands of stones or grains of sand that lie in riverbeds. In the river of the mind it is exactly the same.

The stones or grains of sand represent all the ideas that are available. To mine for the gold (the great creative idea or new creative solution) you have to sift through all the grains (ideas) on the riverbed of your mind to find the real nuggets of value.

The great creative geniuses knew this, and therefore generated hundreds of ideas, sifting out from them the real nuggets. Dean Keith Simonton conducted a study of 2,036 creative scientists throughout history, and found what was then surprising – but which to you will now be understandable: the most respected scientists produced not only more great works, but also more bad ones than the other scientists. In other words, the greats simply produced more and then selected, from everything, the best.

So now you know the secret of Creative Productivity: generate more ideas at higher speed, and you will enhance both the quantity and the power of your Creative Thinking.

It’s time to practice this in a Creativity Workout.

Creativity Workout

1. Develop your Speed of Thinking

Most people think at a ‘normal’ rate, which is actually at the lower end of their range of possibility. Just by knowing this, and by gently focusing on your thinking speed, you will find that your creative speed naturally begins to increase.

2. Remember – Your Ability to Generate Ideas is Infinite

Remember the ‘FUN’ exercise? Similarly, do you recall the infinite capacity you had for creating excuses for not getting down to those magazines or books you had been meaning to, or indeed any other task that you have been going to get around to but which similarly remains uncompleted?!

Look back on your life, and ‘check off’ all those things you have done that were, by definition, Creative. The more deeply you realize your infinite creative powers, the more your brain will naturally open up its own creative floodgates.

3. See Relationships Between Things More Quickly

Here are a number of key words dotted around the pages. The Fluency Game here is to pick at random any one of the words, and make associations between it and any one of the others.

For each pair, try to think of at least five similarities between them – the wilder the better! If you can find 10 similarities between any two, you are doing exceptionally well; 15, you are in the world’s top 1 per cent; and if you find over 20, you are already demonstrating Creative Genius in this area!

(There is more on your brain and its capacity for making associations in Chapter 3.8.)

4. Improve your Vocabulary

Increasing your vocabulary by only one word per day will give you over 360 new words each year! This will mean that you will have in your mind over 360 new centres for association to lie in wait for any floating possibilities of ideas, and to grab out and catch (associate with) them.

This will increase both the volume of ideas and the speed.

5. Art Building-block Speed Exercise

Refer back to the Creativity Workout in Chapter 3.4, and try doing the art building-block exercise here again, this time adding the urgency of speed. Time yourself as you do this exercise, and once a week or once a month try a similar exercise again, making sure that with each successive exercise the time it takes you to get to a ‘form’ is less and less. This exercise is extremely useful for getting your Creative Mental Muscles in tip-top shape.

6. Individual Brainstorming

When you are brainstorming anything, just let the ideas flow. Generate as many as you can, as quickly as you can, holding back any judgement on whether they are good or bad, practical or impractical until you have finished.

Constantly ‘editing’ and self-criticizing as you generate ideas is a very common habit, and is a perfect way to crush your creativity!

7. Group Brainstorming

The procedure here is identical to the Individual Brainstorming above, except that you need to make very sure that everybody else is comfortable enough to be prepared to voice any ideas that come to them, no matter how ‘off the wall’.

If anybody in the group starts to criticize any ideas, you can immediately become a creative leader by saying: ‘Yes that’s a great criticism, but let’s hold that off to the next stage. Let’s keep generating!’

8. Slow Down to Speed Up!

Think again about where you are when you have those bursts of creative ideas, those sudden cascades of wonderful memories, and those sudden revelations of solutions to problems.

Relaxed and, often, alone.

To increase your Creative Fluency, make sure that you give yourself regular opportunities to get yourself into these ‘slow’ situations, in which as your body rests, your brain speeds up and does all the work for you!

9. Keep Blank-page Mind Map Notebooks

Keep these notebooks in places where you are likely to have bursts of ideas, such as by your bedside, on your desk, in the car, etc. Or make sure you carry a notebook around with you at all times. Whenever you have your ‘Creative Bursts’ quickly jot them down in Mind Map form (see Chapter 3.3). You will find that simply having the pads available will encourage your brain to generate more creative thoughts, much as having snacks available encourages you to nibble!

10 Give Yourself Goals

In traditional brainstorming sessions, the average individual thinks of 7–10 creative ideas; over two days the average group thinks of 120 ideas.

If you give yourself as an individual the goal of 20–40 ideas, and yourselves as a group 200–400 ideas, you will force your brain to come up with more ideas than it normally would. The more ideas you generate, the more probable (as you now know), that you will find the gold!

The ideas in this chapter are summarized in Plate 21.

3.7

Creative Flexibility and Originality

So far you have learnt that your brain is a super-synergetic instrument designed to be Creative, and that by combining its two sides you multiply your Creative Power immensely, especially in the area of making your thoughts visible through Mind Maps.

To add to this you now know that you are naturally both artistically and musically creative, and that your potential for Creative Productivity is absolute and infinite.

In this chapter you will learn to get out of the ‘one-track’ rut in which most people find themselves stuck. I will show you techniques for viewing things from many different perspectives. In addition you will learn how to take the incredible uniqueness that you already possess and make yourself even more unique – more original.

You will learn, in summary, the unique Creative Principles of Flexibility and Originality.

Rxpanding your Flexibility and Originality

Flexibility in Creative Thinking is much like physical flexibility. It means that your brain is able to move fluidly and effortlessly in all directions and at all angles.

Creative originality is how different, how special, how unique, how unusual and how far from the normal your thinking really is.

When you consider ‘originality’, it is worth thinking about the word ‘eccentric’. What does ‘eccentric’ actually mean? ‘Ec’, away from, ‘centric’, the centre. So an eccentric is simply a person who is ‘far from the centre’, i.e., not normal. In Creative Thinking, being ‘not normal’ is the whole idea!

How do you achieve this? There are three main ways.

1. Seeing Things From Different Viewpoints

A normal person sees things often from only one viewpoint – usually his or her own. The Creative Genius can see things from an infinite number of perspectives, angles and viewpoints. This ability to see things from different points of view is a necessary quality of genius in areas as vastly and widely different as poetry, acting, education and leadership. Some wonderful examples will illustrate the point:

Case History – Ted Hughes

The English Poet Laureate was one of the great Poets of Nature. Rather than writing his poetry about nature, animals and all living things from his own point of view, Hughes would write it from their point of view. In his poems he entered the minds of foxes, bulls, jaguars, and myriad birds and fish.

This is how Hughes got into the mind of a salmon at the peak of its strength and vitality:

On the surge-ride of energy, weightless,

Body simply the armature of energy

In that earliest sea-freedom, the savage amazement of life,

The salt mouthful of actual existence

With strength like light.

Case History – Jodie Foster

Jodie Foster has been an actress all her life – a profession in which putting yourself in the shoes of other people is the first and most important requirement. She starred in her first TV commercial when she was just three years old, and was nominated for her first Oscar for her role in Taxi Driver at the age of 14. Over the last 30 years she has acted in nearly 50 roles, most memorably as the victim in The Accused and as Special Agent Starling in The Silence of the Lambs.

Foster can not only think herself into myriad different characters. In the 1990s she changed her point of view by going behind the movie camera to both direct and produce her own films, to great critical acclaim. She also looks at life from the perspectives of a Yale graduate, a mother, and an astute business person.

Case History – Maria Montessori

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, an amazing young woman in Italy, Maria Montessori, had a unique revelation. Maria had already distinguished herself by becoming the first ever woman in Italy to receive a degree in medicine, which she was awarded just over 100 years ago.

Maria was particularly interested in children, and it was while visiting kindergarten and primary schools that she realized something that subsequently, because of her, changed the way the world thinks about the education of the very young.

Her realization was that everything in schools was built and taught from the point of view of adults: the chairs and desks were far too large, rough and heavy; the order of things was rigid – the rules of behaviour were based on the army! Colour was either absent or blandly ‘official’; nature was absent; silence was the rule; asking questions was forbidden; reading, writing and arithmetic were the only subjects taught; and Creativity was totally absent!

Maria put herself into the mind of the four or five-year-old child, and created a new universe for them.

In Montessori schools, the chairs, desks and tables are designed for little bodies; classrooms are filled with colours, beautiful things to look at, different textures and varying fragrances; nature becomes a part of the classroom in the form of plants, aquariums and pets; movement is encouraged; questions rewarded; and every opportunity given for the questing young creative mind to explore, express and develop itself.

By one person looking at things from a different point of view, the world’s education systems began to be transformed.

Case History – Martin Luther King

The great Black Civil Rights leader in the 1950s and 1960s campaigned tirelessly for social justice and the end of racial discrimination and segregation between blacks and whites in America. His charismatic leadership and rousing speeches inspired tens of thousands of people, both in America and elsewhere across the world, to participate in non-violent direct actions to stir the consciences of those in government.

King was adept at seeing things from the other person’s point of view: from that of poor jobless blacks trying to seek work on the same terms as their white neighbours; from that of poor white labourers worried about supporting their families; and from that of Presidents and politicians trying to please different sections of the voters. It was because he could see others’ views and problems that he was able to achieve so much.

Case History – Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great, whose never-ending Creativity in military invention and battle strategy earned him the title of the greatest military commander and leader of all time, was brilliant at seeing things from other points of view – and not just from that of other people, but animals too.

Alexander was introduced to the giant horse Bucephalus. No one had ever been able to mount and ride the animal before, and everyone was wondering whether the great Alexander might finally have met his match.

He hadn’t!

Unlike the others who simply tried to use brute force against this giant stallion, Alexander tried to get into its mind. He realized that Bucephalus was afraid of one thing – his own shadow. Alexander therefore held the horse and turned him to face to the sun. Once his shadow had vanished and Bucephalus became calmer, Alexander could mount the horse and tame it.

2. Making Creative Combinations

In addition to being able to see things from different viewpoints, the great creators were able to link things in ways that no one had ever thought of before. Again, a few examples will make this clear:

Case History – Isaac Newton

Everyone knows that Isaac Newton was inspired to create his Laws of Universal Gravitation when an apple dropped on his head. This common myth is nearly accurate, but not quite. The real story is actually far more interesting.

As Newton himself reported, he conceived his theory when he saw an apple falling (not onto his head!) at the same time as he saw the moon hanging in the sky.

The simple, childlike questions that arose in his head were: ‘Why did the apple fall?’ and, more importantly, ‘Why doesn’t the moon fall?’ ‘Does the same law that makes the apple fall, apply to the moon?’

It was investigating the combination of the fates of these very different ‘balls’ that sparked Newton’s Creative Thinking processes, and led to his development of the theory that is still the core of most modern engineering and science.

Case History – Gregor Mendel

The 19th-century Austrian botanist and monk, Gregor Mendel, spent many hours in his monastery’s garden daydreaming and looking at the beautiful and different colours of the sweet-pea flowers, when an extraordinary connection became apparent to him: he noticed that the appearance of the different colours appeared to be linked and related to simple mathematical progression.

From this simple, brilliant and connecting observation, Mendel was able to work out the Laws of Inherited Characteristics (why and with what probability you have blue or brown eyes, etc.) and which eventually gave rise to the multibillion-dollar industry that is now genetic engineering.

Case History – Leonardo da Vinci

As always, our creative guide Leonardo da Vinci is here! Finding novel combinations was one of Leonardo’s great creative strengths. One particularly interesting one was his noticing that as leaves fell to the ground in the autumn they formed banded layers, the older, more rotted leaves forming darker layers; the fresher, more recently fallen ones lighter layers.

Leonardo connected this observation with the layers of different colours in cliffs and bare mountainsides. A basic concept behind the science of geology was recognized!

3. Reversing Things

Another interesting way of finding novel combinations is the creative art of reversal. In reversal, you simply take whatever exists, and consider the opposite. You will often find that this produces extraordinarily useful and unique results.

Case History – Mohammed Ali

Mohammed Ali is considered by many to be the greatest sportsman of the past 100 years. Ali used the Creative Thinking technique of reversal to his advantage.

Everybody said that heavy men could not dance – he danced!

Everybody said you should always hold your hands up when you box – Ali held them down!

Everybody said that big men could not be fast – Ali made himself the fastest boxer ever!

It was Ali’s ability to reverse traditional thinking that enabled him to take his sport to totally new creative levels.

Another famous athlete did something similar.

Case History – Dick Fosbury

In the 1960s, a young American high-jumper, Dick Fosbury, had been trained, like everybody else, to ‘dive’ over the bar face and chest down. Fosbury asked himself the reverse question: ‘What would happen if I went over backwards?’

The answer was that he could jump higher! By a simple act of reverse thinking, Fosbury had not only discovered an entirely new jumping technique; he had transformed his sport forever, and was immortalized by the name of his revolutionary new technique: the ‘Fosbury Flop’.

Case History – Michelangelo

Michelangelo, probably the greatest sculptor ever, was also a practitioner of Reverse Thinking. While most sculptors and teachers of sculpting thought (and often still think) that the purpose of the sculptor was to impose a shape on a formless lump of marble, Michelangelo felt the opposite. He considered that the perfect form was already in the stone. His task was to chip away the unnecessary marble and to let that already-existing shape free from its stony prison!

By thinking in this way, Michelangelo made his task conceptually much easier: instead of having to impose his own will on the recalcitrant stone, he was simply the image’s servant, chipping away to reveal the beauty that lay beneath the surface.

As you now will be increasingly aware, by learning how to see things from different viewpoints, by making new connections, as well as by reversing concepts, you can create astonishing new ideas.

By doing this it is obvious that you as a person become more different, more unusual, more far from normal, more original and unique. You become a person to whom others will refer as special, creative and, even, a genius!

Creativity Workout

1. Listen!

When people are explaining things to you, or trying to present their side of an argument or interpretation of a problem, not only listen to what they say, but listen to ‘who they are’. Try to see totally from their point of view what it is that they are trying to explain.

When you achieve this, you will increasingly become known as a ‘good listener’, an interested and interesting person yourself, a trustworthy friend, and someone who makes others comfortable. At the same time, you will be improving both your memory of what is said, and your creative power to see things from multiple perspectives.

2. Put Yourself in the Other Person’s Shoes

This doesn’t just mean empathizing with other people’s views – try and see things from other creatures’ points of view too. Whenever you see an animal, do as Ted Hughes did, and try to see the world (and yourself!) from its point of view. Use your imagination to think yourself into the place of things – for example, what is the point of view of the spoon with which you eat your cereal? What is the point of view of the ball you are about to throw? What is the point of view of the hat you are putting on? What is the point of view of the car you are driving? What is the point of view of the insect you are observing? What is the point of view of the star you are seeing?

3. Reverse your Life!

Look at your life and all its aspects and activities, and consider, one by one, reversing everything! This exercise will give you a fresh look at who you are and what you do, and will allow you to make changes where appropriate, and to leave things as they are when you realize they are satisfying and rewarding to you. Consider your clothes, friends, foods, locations, cultural activities and athletic pursuits. If you go to the gym in the evening, try going before breakfast. Swap rooms around, so that you sleep in your living room and live in your bedroom.

You’ll probably decide to leave much as it is; similarly you’ll probably decide that a number of things, when reversed, could make your life much more happy, creative and rich.

4. Try New Combinations of Things

Rearrange things in your home and daily life. Try out new types of food; consider decorating a room in colours and fabrics you would not normally think of using; rearrange the furniture; take up a new hobby and expand your social circle.

5. Learn to Tell Witty Jokes

If you think about it, some of the best jokes are where two unconnected things are linked together in a new and hilarious way, or where the standard concepts are reversed in a manner that has you rolling on the floor. Humour is an extremely creative activity, so the more you can be with people who are regularly joking and laughing, the better it will be for your own Creative Thinking Power.

6. Practice Making Connections

In your daily life, randomly pick two very different objects and try to make a witty or humorous connection between them.

How, for example, would you link the concepts of boxing and insects? Mohammed Ali managed it, with the phrase ‘Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee!’

7. Link the Different Activities in your Life

Thomas Edison is a marvellous example of this. Edison’s scientific and experimental laboratory was a giant barn-like building with many different tables and benches, each one containing a different project on which he was working.

Edison designed his workshop in this way to allow each one of his ongoing projects to connect, in his mind, with all the others. He considered that anything he did in one experiment might have some unexpected connection with the others. He found that this was tremendously useful in helping him create new ideas.

Using this approach will help you realize that your life is much more integrated than you may have thought, and it will also give you the opportunity to make new creative additions to it.

8. Play Novel Combination Games

At parties, or on festive occasions, try asking all the participants to find the most unusual connections between any given objects in a situation.

9. Use the Techniques Learnt Here to Create Some More Original Ideas!

Skim through the Power of Creative Intelligence and make new associations between each and every chapter. Then try reversing your thoughts!

The ideas in this chapter are summarized in Plate 22.

3.8

Your Brain: The Ultimate ‘Association Machine’ – Expansive and Radiant Thinking

In this chapter you are going to learn the fundamental secret of all Creative Thinking, and are going to play Creative Thinking Games that will give you extraordinary insights into the workings of your Creative Brain, and of its potential and power.

By now you have probably realized that there is one key to all the ideas that have been discussed in the previous chapters – ASSOCIATION.

Fluency, Flexibility, Originality and Reversal Techniques are all based on this magical word. It is the secret that all great Creative Geniuses used to accomplish their feats.

Association holds the secret of the way your brain fundamentally thinks. It is the secret that, once you know it and know how to use it, will reveal limitless creative treasure-troves for you to explore for the rest of your life.

This chapter is therefore devoted to an expanded Creativity Workout, with exercises that will entertain, challenge, inform and amaze you.

Creativity Workout

1. Exercise your Creative Power of Fluency

Speed-read through each of the Creativity Workouts in the previous seven chapters and put a little star by any exercise you can identify which contains Association as its main element.

2. Association – Self-exploration

In this Association game, imagine that you are a super-computer. You will be asked to access a piece of information, and to examine a number of things about it and yourself. When you have looked at the ‘data’ and ‘accessed’ it, let it drift around in your head for a little while, exploring the Associations that creatively spring to mind.

When you have been given the piece of data (it is a name), you need to ask yourself the following questions:

Was I able to recognize the owner of the name (i.e. to access the data) successfully?

How long did it take me to ‘get’ the information?

Was the piece of data I retrieved represented in my brain by words or an image?

Where was the image I accessed?

Was there any colour in it?

If there was colour, where did it come from?

With what did I see it?

What were the Associations that radiated from it?

When you are ready, click here and you’ll find a name in big bold letters. As soon as you have registered it, close the book, and let the Association drift. Then answer the questions you have just read.

Most people answer ‘Yes’ to the first question. To the second question, they often snap their fingers, meaning instantaneously.

Just think for a minute about what this finger-snap really means. They are saying that from a trillion-bit database (their phenomenal memories of their life to date) they have randomly accessed an entire database ‘just like that’! If you can explain how the human brain does this amazingly complex process of re-creating images, you’ll get a Nobel Prize ‘just like that’!

If you can explain where the person named had been hiding all the time until you decided to hook (link) him or her out, you’ll get another Nobel Prize! Moreover, if you can explain where the person actually is in your head, where the associated colour comes from, how you can see the person’s image, and with what (it is obviously not your eyes), you’ll get another and another and another Nobel Prize!

When you are chatting over tea or coffee, or with friends in the pub, your and your friends’ brains are doing a series of associative tasks at such lightning speed and with such incredible efficiency and smoothness, you don’t even realize that what you are doing is something that no super-computer can even begin to do, and which none of the world’s greatest scientists can yet explain.

Your brain is an associative miracle! As you will recognize, the exercise you have just done is similar to the ‘FUN’ exercise you did in Chapter 3.3, and is another example of how your brain creates vast internal Mind Maps that are infinite in their potential to expand.

3. Mind Map

From now on, Mind Map whenever you have a thinking task. From the previous exercise you will realize that linear note-taking is not only a prison, it is a bit like a series of Samurai sword-cuts that keep slicing your thoughts off at the knees. Mind Maps allow you to explore the infinite associative universes that your brain can create. Use them!

4. The Connection Principle

One of the most important cornerstones in Leonardo da Vinci’s formula for developing a great creative mind was his Principle of Connection. This basically stated that ‘everything connects to everything else’. As Leonardo put it: ‘Everything comes from everything, and everything is made out of everything, and everything returns into everything.’

Do you agree?

If you are one of the very small minority who do not, all you have to do to disprove Leonardo is to find any two things which in some way do not connect.

Leonardo used his Principle of Connection to come up with extraordinary insights into the nature of the world around us. These insights became the foundations for much of modern science.

Here are a couple of Leonardo’s Connections.

First:

‘Observe how the movements of the surface of the water resemble that of hair, which has two movements: one of which stems from the weight of the hair; the other from the waves and the curls. In the same way the water has its turbulent curls, a part of which follows the force of the main current, and another obeys the movement of the incidents of reflection.’

And:

‘The stone where it strikes the surface of the water, causes circles around it which spread out until they are lost; in the same manner the air, struck by a voice or a noise, also has a circular motion.’

Follow Leonardo’s example. Try to find connections between anything and anything.

5. The Non-uses for a Paperclip Game

Give yourself five minutes for this next Creativity Game.

For five minutes, writing as fast as you can, brainstorm all those things for which a paperclip, cannot, in any way, be used. As you do this exercise, I want you to utilize every possible tool you have learnt in the Power of Creative Intelligence. Make sure that you bring everything from your mighty brain to the task, especially what you have learnt about your infinite capacity, and the information on Fluency, Flexibility, Originality and Association.

Whenever you are ready, begin the exercise. When you have completed it, tot up the number of ideas you have had. Circle those ideas which you think are your most creative and then read on.

In traditional Creative Thinking games any number of ideas generated over 10 is considered good. Over 20 is regarded as superb.

In the game you have just completed, however, there is a strange outcome: both a high score and a lower score can be considered excellent!

To generate a lot of ideas is obviously excellent, in that it proves that your Fluency, Flexibility, Originality and Associative brain skills are working well.

However some people find that these very skills cause them an internal debate which actually slows down their productivity. For example, once when I tried this game out, one person thought that a paperclip could not, in any way, be used for drinking liquids. She then argued with herself that you could dip the paperclip into a thick soup, and although the method would be slow, you could still drink using a paperclip.

Now return to your ideas for the non-use of your paperclip, especially the best ones, and start the debate with yourself by again asking the question: ‘Could I, in some way, use a paperclip in this instance?’ Try out your best ideas on your friends.

6. Cause and Effect

Cause and effect, the foundation of modern science, once again depend upon the brain’s astounding capacity to make Associations.

A cause is one thing that connects logically to another thing. You can exercise the power of your Creative Intelligence by creating imaginary and multiple ‘causes’ for ‘effects’. For example, if you see a person who is angry, think, for that particular person in that particular Association, of at least 10 causes why he or she might be angry.

Similarly if you see a flock of birds suddenly sweeping off at a sharp angle in the sky, think of at least five reasons why they might have done so. And so on!

Such an Imagination Game will fill your life with wonderful Creative moments, and will add to your power of imagination, creative writing and creative storytelling. Indeed, some of the best crime and detective writers begin with the premise that if so-and-so occurred, what would happen if it caused such-and-such?

7. Play Association Games

In this particular Association Game, note down a profession and a major item associated with that profession. For example: golf – golf club; writer – pen; fisherman – net; dustman – dustbin; computer programmer – computer; footballer – football; policeman or woman – police car; television presenter – television; butcher – butcher’s knife; etc.

Next scramble the occupations and the objects associated with them, and make imaginative scenarios that creatively expand on these new associations.

This is a marvellous game to play with friends. You will get some surprisingly witty results, and lots of laughs! You can make up an infinite number of games based on the same principle.

8. Use Associations to Improve your Memory

What are the two main cornerstones of your memory? Association and imagination. I have recently been working in this area of the brain and intelligence, and have discovered that Creativity and Memory are not, as is often assumed, opposites. They are identical. In Creativity you make Associations for the purpose of creating new ideas. In Memory you make Associations for the purpose of re-creating ideas!

So from now on, use everything you have learnt in the Power of Creative Intelligence to increase the power of your re-creative Memory! For example, when you park your car, associate it with something in the environment (not the car next to it! The thing you associate it with has to be permanent!) Similarly, when you put down your keys, wallet, passport, briefcase, coat or umbrella, do the same thing: Associate that important object in your life with its environment, and you will remember (re-create) the environment in which you placed it, and where it is in that environment.

People who effortlessly remember names of strangers at parties often use this technique – associating the person and the name with something that they can remember/re-create later.

9. Experiment with Associations in your Daily Life

As you did in the previous chapter’s Creativity Workout, experiment with new combinations in your diet, in your clothing, with your friends, and on your holidays, etc. This time, be especially aware that as you do so you are experimenting with and increasing the power of that marvellous and infinitely capable Association Machine – your Brain.

10. ‘The Universe and Me’ Game

In this exercise you have to put yourself ‘at the centre of the Associative universe’. Each day, pick one random concept or idea, and generate five or more ways/ideas in which this random concept relates to you. Some good ones to get you started include:

Chemistry and me

The sun and me

The moon and me

A video-camera and me

A bird and me

A spaceship and me

Love and me

A paperclip and me!

Planet earth and me

Colour and me

11. You and Animals

Another fascinating Association Game is to compare yourself with as many different species as you can from the following classifications: mammals; birds; fish; reptiles; insects. Note the similarities and differences in each case. Decide which animals most resemble you or your ideals.

This is a great game to play with friends and colleagues. It is also a wonderful way of ‘breaking the ice’ when meeting new people.

BILL CLINTON

The ideas in this chapter are summarized in Plate 23.

3.9

You and Shakespeare – Poets Both!

This chapter shows you how you can use everything you have learnt in the Power of Creative Intelligence to release the tremendous power of Poetic Creativity that is within you. You will discover that as well as being a natural-born Artist and Musician, you are also a natural-born Poet.

You will learn a technique developed by myself and the late Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes, for generating as many poems as you wish!

First, let me explain how I became convinced of the creative power of poetry. (It will help you to know that at this time my main interest was nature and the outdoors.)

When I was a young teenager, my friends and I despised poetry, considering it wimpish, weak and for the feeble-minded – nothing to do with life, excellence, strength or power.

This was made worse by our English teacher at that particular time – a pale, often ill, small, untidy spinster who used to call us ‘children’ (us? children?! – we were 15 and we knew everything!) She would read poetry in a very dull and boring monotone, telling us that we were all Heathens, insensitive, unappreciative and boorish. English classes were a disruptive disaster, and we learnt less than nothing.

One day she came into the classroom clutching a poetry book. To general groans of boredom and despair, she announced that she was going to read her favourite poem.

She announced: ‘I’m going to read you a poem about a bird.’

We all cringed and groaned even more loudly than after her first announcement.

‘It’s a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson.’ (More groans!)

Then she began, and in the next minute my life was transformed. The poem she read contradicted everything me and my friends had thought about poetry, and brilliantly used every Creative technique that you have learned. The poem was about that paragon of birds, the eagle.

The Eagle

He clasped the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,

Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

He watches from his mountain walls,

And like a thunderbolt he falls.

I sat stunned. In that one minute I had been transformed from a poetry-hater to someone who wanted to be able to convey, with such power and magnificence, the images, thoughts and emotions that were in my own head and fighting to get out.

Not even consciously knowing at that age that copying was a necessary part of Creativity, I decided to write my first poem in the style of my new hero, Tennyson.

An opportunity presented itself to me a few days later, when I was walking along a pier dotted with fishermen. As I walked by one of the anglers, he reeled in a beautiful gleaming silver-and-rainbow-coloured fish, which he immediately grabbed, held down on the grated iron floor of the pier, and proceeded to pound on the head with the fishing line lead weight until its frantic strugglings were nearly stilled.

As I was standing so close, and looking so intently at this life and death scene, it seemed as if the fish was looking me straight in the eye as it died. I felt guilty for not having tried to save it, and the seeds of my first poem were sown.

I went home, a doubly-changed teenager, and wrote my first ever poem, The Catch, which launched me on my Creative Writing career.

The Catch

It stares through me with glazing eyes;

The blood, congealing on them, dries;

As gasping one last breath, it dies.

The fish that once looked so divine

Lies smashed and dead, with broken spine.

I leave. The angler sorts his line.

Creativity and Poetry

As will be coming clear, poetry simply involves applying the principles of Fluency, Flexibility, Originality and Association to your relationships with words. The technique was used, in conjunction with Mind Maps, by Ted Hughes.

Hughes developed a wonderful method for developing creative and metaphorical thinking in which he used memory systems and Mind Maps. First he would teach his students simple memory systems to prove to them that by using the power of Association and Imagination, their memories could develop to a level of perfect performance. Hughes used to emphasize that the more bizarre (removed from the norm!) their images were, the better his students’ memories would be.

Having broken the traditional log-jam in their imaginations, and encouraged those imaginations to run wild, he took them through an exercise very similar to that which you have done, linking unconnected words to each other (see here).

He would give his students a pair of apparently completely disconnected objects (such as ‘mother’ and ‘stone’), and would ask them to do a Mind Map exercise, identical to the ‘FUN’ game you did in Chapter 3.3.

When the students had thought of 10 words around each object, Hughes would then instruct them to take one word from one concept and find associations between that and the ten words from the other one. They then moved to the second word from the first concept and found associations with the ten words from the other, and so on until they had associated all ten with all ten. To everyone’s amazement many of the associations were extremely unusual, highly imaginative, very provocative and often quite moving.

The students’ next task was to select the best ideas from all their thoughts, and from them to construct a creative and original statement, and ideally a poem.

The ‘mother-stone’ was one of his favourites, and I give as an example my own two Mind Maps (see here) and resulting mini poem from this exercise.

Thank You

Gems embrace her throat.

She the Jewel.

In Her Crown,

the Diamond of my Mind.

Another one of Ted’s favourites was to juxtapose ‘one’ a person, and ‘one’, an animal. The exercise was the same: radiate 10 thoughts on the first word, 10 thoughts on the second and then find the most enticing associations.

For your own amusement, randomly pick pairs of ‘opposites’ from a dictionary, and find at least two associations between each as you go along – or do the poetry writing Mind Map exercise on each, and write your own creative pieces.

With the techniques of the great creative geniuses on your side, with the technique of Mind Mapping to help you explore your poetic thought, and Ted Hughes’ method as a guide, you are now ready to start your penultimate Creativity Workout.

Creativity Workout

1. Play the Poetry Association Game

Take the poetry generation ideas on the previous page, select a couple of your favourites, and write a little poem, much as I did using the Hughes technique here.

2. Poetry and Creative Thinking Techniques

Go back to Tennyson’s poem The Eagle here, and examine closely what Creative Thinking techniques are used throughout the poem. Find anything that appeals to you in the poem, and use that approach in your own poetry writing.

3. Look for Poetic Moments in your Life

Be on the look out for autumn leaves blowing across the grass; fleeting expressions passing across peoples’ faces; shapes or landscapes in clouds; sunbeams passing through those clouds; and animals in their varying activities. Spend a little more time looking at and musing upon these events, and consider writing poetic descriptions of them.

4. Form Poetic Rituals

Many of the great creative writers (including Ted Hughes) used to have a candle alight beside them whenever they were writing. The candle flame is a wonderful ‘creative meditation’ device, which encourages your brain to look at a beautiful, ever changing object and to daydream. From your daydreams will come many wonderful poetry insights.

5. Take Part in Poetry Activities

Go into book shops and libraries, and browse through books of poetry, selecting those that especially appeal to your own Creative Imagination. Join poetry reading and poetry appreciation clubs, or form one yourself! Check the world-wide web – poetry is proliferating there and you can both learn and contribute. Make poetry and poetic imaginative thinking part of your life!

6. Keep a Poetic Notebook

Buy a beautiful, visually appealing notebook and jot down your Poetic and Creative ideas in it. Its very presence will encourage you to dip into those giant poetic wells of Creative Imagination that have been just waiting for you to draw from them.

7. Create Short Poems

To get you started, try writing short poems, such as Japanese Haiku. A Haiku is always three lines long, and traditionally consists of 17 syllables. The idea of a Haiku is to take any normal object, concept or emotion, and to look at it simply and deeply from a new perspective.

For example, taking the theme of ‘summer’:

Summer: Mercury: sun-hot

Summer: Mars: dry ice

Summer: Earth: paradise

Pick your own favourite subjects or themes, and play with this wonderful poetic form. Have fun and be social with your poetry. It is important to realize that poetry is not always ‘serious’. It can be filled with fun and laughter and love and playfulness.

Take the opportunity, when family members or friends have birthdays, anniversaries or celebrations, to write them little poetic messages or rhymes, much as you find in the cards in card shops. For stimulation, browse through some of the standard ones, and try to improve on them!

8. Develop the Use of your Senses

Once again, our wonderful guide Leonardo, who was also a writer of beautiful poetry and poetic prose, comes to our aid. In addition to his Connection principle, he had another one – that of Sensation. Leonardo suggested that when you are thinking creatively or writing creatively you should have developed your senses so that you can use all of them in your creative expression.

Many budding poets and writers fall into the trap of using only one sense – such as ‘sight’. When you write your creative masterpieces involve all your senses.

Remember – You are a Natural-born Poet

As with art and music, continually reinforce to yourself the fact that you are a natural-born poet. Your brain has been writing and thinking poetry and poetic and beautiful thoughts for your entire life.

Now is the chance to let it be free.

Allow it to write POETRY!

3.10

Only Kidding

This final chapter will look at that greatest of creative individuals – the child!

You should come to realize that as you mature, you should be getting more youthful; that the older you get the younger you should become! Here you will be introduced to why it is so important for you to re-create the child you were; we will explore a dynamically new approach to Creative Thinking, and will take part in your final Creativity Workout, which, in this chapter, will be a Playground!

The Child

Einstein, as we have seen, was like a grown-up child. He was always filled with wonder at the universe he was exploring, and was always asking simple, obvious and profound questions about the nature of space, time, the universe and God.

Isaac Newton, another of the great giants in the history of science, was considered by others to be the epitome of the serious, awe-inspiringly logical and rational, forbidding scientist.

He considered himself in a very different light. He said that he thought of himself simply as a little boy wandering along a beach. Occasionally and delightfully he would find a beautiful new shell or spot a gleaming multi-coloured stone that enraptured him. The beach was washed by a giant ocean, by the side of which this little boy played.

To Newton, his profound theories and insights were simply those beautiful shells and shining gems; the giant ocean was the Ocean of Truth, which he had hardly begun to explore.

Away From The Child

A disturbing experiment, recently carried out in Utah, America, investigated the amount of Creative potential used by people at different ages. To research the ‘Development’ of Creativity throughout life, kindergarten children, junior school children, high school and university students, and adults were surveyed to determine the amount of Creative potential used in tests. The results were traumatic!

age group

percentage of creativity used

Kindergarten children

95–98%

Junior school children

50–70%

High school/university students

30–50%

Mature adults

less than20%

As a near-graduate of the Power of Creative Intelligence you will know the reason why: as the children’s lives had progressed, all the things that we have spoken about in this book were gradually ‘edited out’ of their lives, leaving only the husks and discarded shells of Creativity remaining.

In The Box; Out of the Box; Back in the Box!

The way in which we have trained ourselves has, in the modern expression, kept all of our thinking ‘in the box’.

Much of modern education and business training is now increasingly being devoted to getting us ‘out of the box’. On one level that is what the Power of Creative Intelligence has been helping you to do.

But let’s use one of our own Creative Thinking tools, and look at this (as we know we must do!) from another perspective.

At festive seasons and anniversary times, there is a common complaint made by parents about the reaction of their very young children to the fabulous toys they have been given. The complaint goes something like this:

‘We spent over £100 on this fantastic toy, with all kinds of new-fangled gizmos and gadgets, and our little boy and little girl spent 15 minutes playing with it and then discarded it. And now they are playing with the box in which the present came!’

Why is this so often the case? Think about it. The children’s amazingly creative brains have worked out their new toy in virtually no time at all, realized that it does a few basic, generally repetitive things, enjoyed it, and moved on. To what? To something far more interesting – the box.

Just Think What That Box Can Be to A Child. It Can Be:

a time-travelling machine that will take them back to the times of the dinosaurs

a spaceship that will take them to the end of the universe

a cave

a home

a car

a boat

a secret hideaway

And you yourselves will be able to supply, using your own childlike and creative imagination, at least another 20 imaginative uses that a child might have for a box. Try jotting some down now.

So we will now reverse the modern trend, and instead of getting ‘out of the box’ we are all now going back ‘into the box’, where the playground for our Creative Imagination is infinite – as long as we, like children, know how to use it.

In traditional Creative Thinking circles ‘in the box’ is bad, and ‘out of the box’ is good. From the child’s point of view, when you are ‘in the box’, as long as you have your imagination with you, you are already out of it. So in the new perspective of the Power of Creative Intelligence, you can see that whether you are in or out of the box, you win!

From now on, therefore, you will be able to follow two guides through your life to help you nurture, grow and develop the power of your Creative Intelligence: Leonardo da Vinci and the child. As promised, this Workout is child’s play!

Creativity Playground

1. Stare at Things

Like a child, stare at things. When children stare, their eyes are absorbing every detail, which they store up for later use in their fertile and creative imaginations.

2. Listen to Stories

Like a child, search out stories and storytellers, and listen to them with rapt attention. As you listen with eyes and mind open like a child, your own fantasy world is being filled with riches for its further use.

3. Make up Stories

By giving your Creative Imagination totally free reign, you’ll be able to make up incredible fairy stories and fantasies, just as a child does.

4. Play with your Food

We are constantly telling children not to play with their food. Why do they play with it? Because it’s such fantastic multi-sensory fun! When we say: ‘Don’t play with it’ we are really saying ‘Don’t enjoy it! Don’t become a chef!’

Cooking is becoming one of the world’s most popular and fastest growing hobbies. Happily more children are following in the children’s foot and hand-steps. Follow them!

5. Play with Children

Rather than giving children adult games that they can play with you, when you next play with children (and it should be soon and often!) let them be the total leaders of the game. You will find your Creative Intelligence infinitely stretched, as well as your body!

6. Learn to Do New Things

The child’s life is creatively filled with constant, second-by-second and day-by-day learning and experimentation. Re-create this attitude in yourself, and explore and learn more. As you redevelop this habit throughout your life, every aspect of it will become more creative and more fulfilled.

7. Allow Yourself Simple Treats

One of the greatest enjoyments for children is special small treats, like an ice-cream cone with their three favourite flavours on it, or an especially warm, crusty and fresh-from-the-oven loaf of bread. When you have been a ‘good kid’, reward yourself in these little and incredibly pleasurable and pleasuring ways.

8. Use the ‘Kids’ Kit’

The ‘kit’ that children use to climb up the giant mountains of knowledge is based on the grappling hooks of ‘What?’ questions! Children are always asking ‘why?’ ‘who?’ ‘where?’ ‘what?’ ‘when?’ The answers, their growing little brains intuitively know, provide the links and associations that build up the huge maps of knowledge that they need as they go through life. Ask as many questions (and with as much persistence!) as children.

9. Ask ‘Why?’ or ‘How?’ Five Times at Least!

As a creative mind-expanding exercise, get into the habit of asking ‘why?’ and ‘how?’ five times. After the first question there will be an answer. Ask the question again, with reference to that answer. This will force your imagination and knowledge banks to expand and delve deeper. Repeat this process five times, and you will usually find that you have reached the boundaries of current knowledge and are progressing into the realms of required imagination and Creative Thinking and Problem Solving.

10. You are a Child at Heart!

Realize that no matter what people have said (or even what you may have thought), you are a child at heart, and always have been:

Who are the best learners on the planet? Children!

Who are the best question-askers on the planet? Children!

Who are the most persistent humans on the planet? Children!

Who are interested in everything? Children!

Who are the most active? Children!

Who are the most sensual? Children!

Who get the most pleasure out of the most simple things? Children!

Who see things in the most novel ways? Children!

Who make the most astonishing and original associations? Children!

Who use both sides of their brains? Children!

WHO ARE THE MOST CREATIVE PEOPLE ON THE PLANET? CHILDREN!

You are now one of them, again!

The ideas in this chapter are summarized in Plate 24.

Congratulations!

You are now one of a growing number of world-wide Mind Map graduates.

When I invented Mind Maps, my original dream was to create a Master Thinking Tool that could be used easily by anybody, that could be applied to thousands of different situations and that would help people in all aspects of their lives; in other words, a tool that applied to life itself. This tool also had to enable the individual to express her- or himself uniquely – and very importantly, it had to be fun!

That tool turned out to be one that reflects the natural radiance and magnificence of your human brain. That tool was the Mind Map!

Mind Maps can help you in all daily activities, from the practical day-to-day level to the generation of important new ideas. Mind Maps are spreading around the world, and more and more people are adopting this profoundly useful thinking tool. I’m thrilled that you are now a member of this growing global community of Mind Mappers! I wish you continuing good fortune in the use of your amazing brain and its incredible thinking and Mind Mapping powers.

Think of the incredibly powerful position you are now in:

your Verbal IQ’s history and development

all the ‘secret’ techniques of that vocabularian genius, the baby

a fantastic ‘Verbal Architect’s Kit’ of roots, prefixes and suffixes for building infinite improvements in your vocabulary

an understanding of your brain and its operation, and how to use brain power to increase word power

a knowledge of your amazing body’s amazing body language and how you can improve it

an awareness and skill in that most important of human arts: becoming a successful and convincing conversationalist and speaker

an ability to absorb at speed everything from words to entire books

a new ability to communicate on multi-levels

an awareness of how to use your other incredibly powerful intelligences to maintain and accelerate the growth of your Verbal IQ

you are now in full control of the knowledge of your magical left and right brains, and have already begun to accelerate the development of their synergetic capabilities

you have understood and mastered the principles of the world’s ultimate ‘Swiss army knife of the brain’ – the Mind Map, and are able to use it in all Creative Thinking and Problem-solving situations

you have accomplished amazing feats artistically, and are unleashing that artistic power to improve your life in every possible way you can imagine

you have redefined yourself as a musician and have a vast new ‘language’ at your fingertips (and brain cell tips!)

you are aware that you can accelerate your Creativity and Thinking speed and power, and realize that you have an infinite capacity in this area

through realizing the nature of Creative Flexibility, you have also realized that you are more precious and unique than you ever thought, and are on the road to becoming even more original and ‘one of a kind’

you have begun to release your poetic soul while looking at the Universe with the eyes of that ultimate Creative Genius, the child

You have accomplished all this while realizing increasingly, as you read through Mind Map Handbook, that you possess between your ears the Universe’s ultimate association machine: your astounding, amazing, and infinitely Creative, Human Brain!

On the road forward into your future you will be accompanied by the great Creative Geniuses of history, as well as your own blossoming energy and Verbal and Creative Intelligence.

Enjoy the journey!

Floreant Dendritae (May your brain cells flourish!)

Tony Buzan

Plates

Plate 1: Fruit

Plate 2: Mind Mapping Your Way Through a Problem

Plate 3: Planning a Presentation

Plate 4: Family Events

Plate 5: Planning a Romantic Weekend

Plate 6: Starting a New Venture

Plate 7: Shopping for Gifts

Plate 8: Your Ideal Future

Plate 9: Learning a Language

Plate 10: Word Power

Plate 11: Writing an Essay

Plate 12: Improving Your Vocabulary

Plate 13: Body Language

Plate 14: Preparing for a Job Interview

Plate 15: Reading

Plate 16: Verbal Intelligence

Plate 17: Creative Intelligence

Plate 18: Using Left and Right Brains

Plate 19: Visible Thoughts

Plate 20: You the Creative Musician

Plate 21: Creative Productivity

Plate 22: Your Creative Flexibility and Originality

Plate 23: Expansive and Radiant Thinking Workout

Plate 24: Creativity Playground

Answers

Word Puzzle Answers

Word Puzzle Number 1

logic

magnify

joint

eulogy

Answer: Juggling

Word Puzzle Number 2

ass

lass

mass

pass

glass

grass

brass

bass

Word Puzzle Number 3

statue

capital

clarity

bough

Answer: Laughter

Word Puzzle Number 4

end

tr(end)ive = trend and endive

Word Puzzle Number 5

zoology

monarch

graph

connect

Answer: Holanthropy

Word Puzzle Number 6

Knowing

Word Puzzle Number 7

deputy

creative

brains

sheikh

Answer: Shakespeare

Word Puzzle Number 8

Philanthropy

Word Puzzle Number 9

yacht

novel

memory

idolize

Answer: Leonardo

Word Puzzle Number 10

Gorennit/Nitrogen

Mileuh/Helium

Greti/Tiger

Nexgyo/Oxygen

Greti/Tiger is the odd one out, as all the rest are gases

Word Puzzle Number 11

waltz

notify

dynamo

obvious

Answer: Tony Buzan

Word Puzzle Number 12

Cube. A globe is a three-dimensional circle; a cube is a three-dimensional square.

Word Puzzle Number 13

event

audio

edible

quiver

Answer: Eloquent

Word Puzzle Number 14

Holanthropy

Word Puzzle Number 15

funny

voyage

mobile

factory

Answer: Vocabulary

Word Puzzle Number 16

Poker

Word Puzzle Number 17

prime

opera

bower

knight

Answer: Brain Power

Word Puzzle Number 18

Dual

Word Puzzle Number 19

engine

biology

vital

picture

Answer: Intelligence

Word Puzzle Number 20

Thunder – clouds produce rain; lightning produces thunder

Word Power Booster Answers

Word Power Booster Number 1

(c) To bring in or present

‘I would like to introduce you to my new friend, as I am sure both of you have much in common.’

(b) To bend inward

‘We need to introflex the material in order to provide greater stability.’

(a) Capable of receiving into itself

‘We need an introceptive object in order to contain this material.’

(a) The act of going in; entering

‘In biology, introgression has acquired the specific meaning of transferring genetic information from one species into another.’

(d) To throw into

‘I would like to introject some new ideas into this important creative discussion.’

(c) To allow to enter; insert (from the Latin ‘mittere’, ‘to send’)

‘We intromit our hands into gloves.’

(a) To look within (from the Latin ‘specere’, ‘to look at’)

‘When I examine my own thoughts and feelings I introspect.’

(b) To insert (from the zoological term ‘intromittent’, meaning adapted for insertion)

‘Intromission is necessary if conception is to be achieved.’

(a) One who turns inward (from the Latin ‘vertere’, ‘to turn’)

‘He was an introvert, keeping himself to himself, shunning company, and constantly contemplating the meaning of life.’

(b) Pressure within (from the Latin ‘pressura’, ‘a pressing’)

‘His constant worrying resulted in increasing intropression.’

Word Power Booster Number 2

(a) Teacher-like; instructive (from the Greek ‘didaskein’, ‘to teach’)

‘When explaining things, she had a didactic manner.’

(c) Stealthy or secret (from the Latin ‘surripere’, ‘to steal’)

‘The surreptitious behaviour going on around him eventually made him feel uneasy.’

(d) Revolutionary; contrary to the official/established viewpoint (from the Greek ‘hairesis’, ‘choice’

‘Their heretical beliefs led them into direct conflict with the government, schools and church.’

(b) Abundant; plentiful (from the Latin ‘copia’, ‘plenty’)

‘After the perfect summer and autumn, with ideal conditions for plants, the abundant harvest yielded a copious supply of fruit, corn and vegetables.’

(c) Vital (from the Latin ‘imperare’, ‘to command’)

‘It is imperative to upgrade the education system if the nation wishes to be culturally and economically successful.’

(b) Incapable of being erased; indelible (from the French ‘effacer’, ‘to obliterate’)

‘The memories of their time together were so vivid, so wonderful that they could never be destroyed. They were ineffaceable.’

(b) Priceless; immeasurable (from the Latin ‘aestimare’, ‘to determine, appraise’)

‘Despite the attempts of people to price the drawings and paintings of Leonardo, they are of inestimable value.’

(a) Never known or done before (from the Latin ‘prae’, ‘before’ and ‘cedere’, ‘to go’)

‘The success of the Beatles was an unprecedented musical phenomenon.’

(b) Unambiguous; leaving no doubt (from the Latin ‘equi’, ‘equally’ and ‘vocare’, ‘to call’)

‘Her statement was so clear; so plain that it was impossible to misunderstand her – it was an unequivocal statement.’

(a) Bluntly and unconditionally expressed (from the Greek ‘kategorein’, ‘to state, assert’)

‘Her statement was categorical; there were no ifs, ands or buts about it – it was absolute.’

Word Power Booster Number 3

(d) Fearless (from the Latin ‘in’, ‘not’ and ‘trepidus’, ‘fearful, timid’)

‘The intrepid explorers faced every obstacle and challenge with not a trace of fear. They were undaunted.’

(b) Cannot be taken (from the old French ‘prendre’, ‘to seize or take’)

‘The fortress was built to resist any attack; it was built to be impregnable.’

(c) Unable to be changed (from the Latin ‘in’, ‘not’ and ‘alter’, ‘other’)

‘His views on the environment were so much a part of the fabric of his soul that they were unalterable.’

(d) Of chief importance (from the old French ‘par’, ‘by’ and ‘amont’, ‘above’)

‘She said that her family were her main reason for living; they were of paramount importance to her.’

(b) Exacting (from the Latin ‘rigor’, ‘stiffness’)

‘In order to win five consecutive Olympic Gold Medals, Sir Steve Redgrave participated in one of the most rigorous training programmes imaginable.’

(a) Unqualified (from the Latin ‘in’, ‘not’ and ‘mitigare’, ‘to soften, alleviate’)

‘Because of their rigorous preparation, their cultural tour was an unmitigated success.’

(c) Reaching the highest point (from the Greek ‘klimax’, ‘ladder’)

‘The climax of her career was receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.’

(a) Most sacred; inviolable (from the Latin ‘sacer’, ‘sacred’ and ‘sanctus’ / ‘sancire’, ‘to hallow’)

‘His studio was like a temple; no one but himself was allowed in – he considered it sacrosanct.’

(c) Unable to be called into question; irreproachable

‘Although Bill Clinton was not impeached, his character is certainly not unimpeachable!’

(b) Loud and clear (from the Latin ‘clarus’, ‘clear’)

‘The call to arms was a clarion call for immediate action and mobilization.’

Word Power Booster Number 4

(a) Belief that God is non-existent (from the Greek ‘a’, ‘not’ and ‘theos’ ‘God’)

‘By definition no atheist believes in the existence of God!’

(b) Uncertainty about God (from the Greek ‘a’, ‘not’ and ‘gnostos’, ‘known’)

‘Agnostics admit that they don’t have enough knowledge to decide on whether or not God exists, and consider Atheists too dogmatic.’

(c) Generous and unselfish (from the Latin ‘alter’, ‘other’)

‘Being an altruist she gave generously to charitable causes.’

(d) One interested in selfish advantage (from the Latin ‘ego’, ‘I’)

‘Do egoists normally get along with altruists? Usually no; they are opposites.’

(b) One who loves good food; a gourmet (from the Greek philosopher Epicurus, known for his love of the good things in life)

‘The Epicure prepared a dinner that was the most fine, aromatic and delicious they had ever had.’

(d) One who believes that events are determined by fate (from the Latin ‘fatum’, ‘prediction’)

‘Because he could not bear the pain of the unfortunate events that had happened to him, he became a fatalist, believing that the Universe had predetermined the events of his life.’

(a) A believer in progress (from the Latin ‘liber’, ‘free’)

‘I am a Liberal. I demand independence in thought and action, and change and experimentation in politics.’

(c) A believer in familiar traditions (from the Latin ‘conservare’, ‘to preserve’)

‘The Conservative wishes to maintain the status quo, and as such is the opposite of the Liberal.’

(b) Able to endure pain and hardship without complaining (from the Greek ‘stoikos’, ‘porch’; the Greek philosopher Zeno, the founder of Stoic philosophy, taught at the Stoa Poikile or ‘painted porch’ in Athens)

‘The stoic suffered “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” without flinching.’

(c) Extreme lover of one’s country (from the French aristocrat Nicolas Chauvin of Rochefort, who was over-devoted to Napoleon and France and was ridiculed on the French stage)

‘His constant proclamations that his was the only country worthy of any praise on any level identified him as a Chauvinist.’

Word Power Booster Number 5

(d) To invest with life

‘Our team is looking listless and dull – we need to animate them.’

(c) Agreed by all

‘The boxer was so superior in his victory the judges gave him a unanimous decision.’

(a) Generous and forgiving

‘The victor showed great generosity – he was magnanimous in his support and praise of those he had vanquished.’

(d) Calmness; composure (from the Latin ‘aequus’, ‘even’ and ‘anima’)

‘Despite the frenetic activity going on all around him, he had an aura of complete equanimity.’

(c) Turn one’s mind to; consider critically (from the Latin ‘animus’ and ‘advertere’, ‘to turn’)

‘I animadvert that which I wish to focus.’

(b) Important person in industry

‘The magnates, all CEOs of their companies, gathered to celebrate and to discuss creative ideas in business.’

(a) Using flowery language

‘He was a magniloquent speaker, embroidering his speech liberally with similes and metaphors.’

(b) Greatness; grandeur

‘The magnificence of the new palace dazzled their senses.’

(d) Great literary or artistic work

‘Verdi’s Requiem is considered by many to be his Magnum Opus.’

(c) A wine bottle twice the standard size

‘To celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary, they bought themselves a magnum of Champagne.’

Word Power Booster Number 6

(c) Hackneyed or stereotyped phrase (from the French ‘clicher’, ‘to stereotype’)

‘His speech was riddled with phrases and sayings that everyone had heard many times before; it was full of clichés.’

(b) Comparing one thing with another (from the Latin ‘similis’, ‘like’)

‘When he said that the raging ocean was like a lion, he was using a simile.’

(c) Unclear (from the Latin ‘ambi’, ‘both, around’ and ‘agere’ ‘to lead’)

‘His speech was utterly ambiguous, and left everybody completely confused.’

(b) A mild word substituted for one that is more direct (from the Greek ‘euphemizein’, ‘to use auspicious words’; derived from ‘eu’, ‘good’ and ‘pheme’, ‘speech’)

‘Rather than call him “fat”, she resorted to euphemism and labelled him “slightly plump”.’

(a) A conclusion that does not follow from the facts (from the Latin phrase meaning ‘it does not follow’)

‘He kept on praising her good qualities, and similarly persisted in undermining her thereafter. His conversation was filled with non sequiturs.’

(b) Unnecessary repetition; no longer needed (from the Latin ‘redundans’, ‘overflowing’)

‘To describe something as “the littlest, smallest, weeniest, tiniest, microscopic and minimal” is the perfect example of redundancy, and would appear far more appropriately in Roget’s Thesaurus!’

(c) A concise and witty saying (from the Greek ‘epigraphein’, ‘to write upon’)

‘Her speech was dotted with clever, pithy sayings; epigram followed epigram followed epigram.’

(c) A word that sounds like what it describes (from the Greek ‘onoma’, ‘name’ and ‘poiein’, ‘to make’)

‘“Buzz”; “sizzle”; and “bong” are all good examples of onomatopoeia.’

(a) Light mockery or banter (from the French ‘persifler’, ‘to tease’)

‘The gentleman courteously engaged the young ladies in persiflage.’

(b) Something implying a resemblance to something else (from the Greek ‘meta’, ‘between’ and ‘pherein’, ‘to carry’)

‘He felt that “a rabbit caught in the headlights” was a apt metaphor for the hapless goalkeeper.’

Word Power Booster Number 7

(c) Speech full of power and imagination

‘Soaring flights of imagination and superb diction – his speech was eloquence personified.’

(d) Clear and expressive speech

‘Professor Higgins’ elocution lessons for Eliza Doolittle were, so successful that everyone thought that she was an aristocrat.

(b) Talkative; garrulous

‘She was loquacious, prattling on virtually non-stop, and far more interested in herself than in what others had to say.’

(c) Speaking thoughts aloud when alone; monologue (from the Latin ‘solus’, ‘alone’ and ‘loqui’)

‘The soliloquy is one of the main devices by which Shakespeare allows his main characters to reveal their thoughts to the audience.’

(b) Using many words when one will do (from the Latin ‘circa’, ‘around’ and ‘loqui’)

‘His circumlocution amused those who had been pre-warned that he took an eternity to get to his point.’

(d) Conversation; exchange of speech (from the Latin ‘inter’, ‘between’ and ‘loqui’)

‘They had an intense and fiery interlocution.’

(b) Articulate; inclined to speak

‘People had thought she was shy and disinclined to speak; on the contrary, she was definitely loquent.’

(a) A female interlocutor

‘Of the many intelligent women in the group, she was the main interlocutress.’

(d) A person’s style of speech

‘His locution was characterized by a gentle wit and a large vocabulary.’

(c) To declaim; to speak out in public

‘She felt compelled to elocute on the topic of animal welfare.’

Word Power Booster Number 8

(a) Love of mankind (from the Greek ‘philein’, ‘to love’ and ‘anthropos’, ‘human being’)

‘He found human beings so fascinating, he decided to take advanced courses in philanthropy!’

(c) Belief in a single supreme deity (from the Greek ‘monos’, ‘one’ and ‘theos’, ‘God’)

‘Christianity is an example of a religion in which believers practise monotheism.’

(b) Hatred of mankind (from the Greek ‘misein’, ‘to hate’ and ‘anthropos’, ‘human being’)

‘In his very occasional dark moods the philanthropist occasionally sank into brief bouts of misanthropy.’

(c) The love of words and the study of language (from the Greek ‘philos’, ‘love of’ and ‘logos’ ‘word, knowledge’)

‘In reading The Power of Verbal Intelligence you are engaging in the study of Philology.’

(a) The study of the whole human being (from the Greek ‘holos’, ‘whole’ and ‘anthropos’, ‘human being’)

‘Rather than studying the human being bit by isolated bit, she decided to study Holanthropy.’

(b) Practice of being married to one person at a time (from the Greek ‘monos’, ‘one’ and ‘gamos’, ‘marriage’)

‘In most modern societies monogamy is the most common system for marriage.’

(c) A tooth with two prongs (from the Latin ‘bi’, ‘twice’ and ‘cuspis’, ‘point’)

‘The bicuspid teeth are used more for gripping than chewing.’

(b) The study of human history and development

‘With our increasing knowledge of the many different tribes and races that inhabit planet Earth, the study of anthropology has grown in fascination and stature.’

(c) A collector of matchboxes (from the Greek ‘philos’, ‘love of’ and the Latin ‘lumen’, ‘light’)

‘When he travelled he kept matchboxes as mementos of some of the places he had visited – in the process he became a phillumenist.’

(d) One who speaks many languages (from the Greek ‘polus’, ‘many’ and ‘glotta’, ‘tongue’)

‘The combination of his constant travels and fascination with different languages rapidly evolved him into a polyglot.’

Word Power Booster Number 9

(a) A technician who grinds lenses (from the Greek ‘optos’, ‘seen’)

‘In addition to grinding lenses, the optician decided also to sell binoculars, telescopes and other optical devices.’

(b) Eye specialist who fits and prescribes spectacles

‘The optician became increasingly fascinated with the human eye, and decided to increase his knowledge in order to qualify as an optometrist.’

(c) Eye doctor/eye surgeon (from the Greek ‘opthalmos’, ‘eye’)

‘The optician who had become an optometrist became even more fascinated and decided to become a fully-fledged ophthalmologist.’

(c) Skin doctor (from the Greek ‘derma’, ‘skin’)

‘The dermatologist is a specialist in the largest human organ.’

(b) Medical specialist in mental ailments/emotional problems (from the Greek ‘psukhikos’, ‘breath, life, soul’)

‘She was under incredible mental stress, which gave rise to a plethora of emotional problems. She felt it advisable to seek the advice of a psychiatrist in order to help her through this difficult stage of her life.’

(c) One who studies the human mind, its functions and behaviours

‘At an early age she became fascinated by her own and others’ behaviours and mental aptitudes; she decided to become a psychologist.’

(a) Bone doctor (from the Greek ‘osteon’, ‘bone’)

‘Having done his physical workout in a bad mood and while off balance, he ended up with his spine slightly out of alignment. As a result he found himself in the capable hands of an osteopath.’

(c) Doctor who treats minor ailments of the foot (from the Greek ‘pous’, ‘foot’)

‘He had a pain in his big toe, so decided to go to his podiatrist.’

(b) Doctor who specializes in the treatment of very young children (from the Greek ‘pais’, ‘child/boy’)

‘Confusing the podiatrist with the paediatrician, the mother mistakenly took her sick infant to the foot doctor!’

(a) Doctor who provides care for pregnant women (from the Latin ‘obstare’, ‘to be present’)

‘Immediately after she became pregnant, she decided to seek out the best obstetrician available.’

Word Power Booster Number 10

(b) Bubbling over with energy and enthusiasm (from the Latin ‘effervescere’, ‘to boil up’)

‘Her effervescent personality made her, always, the life and soul of the party.’

2. (c) Self-centred (from the Latin ‘ego’, ‘I’)

‘He saw everything from his own point of view; he was insufferably egocentric.’

(d) A conceited, boastful person (from the Latin ‘ego’, ‘I’)

‘He was such an egotist, always boasting about what he had done.’

(a) Outgoing person (from the Latin ‘extra’, ‘outside’ and ‘vertere’, ‘to turn’)

‘He made friends incredibly easy, having many interests that were “outside himself”– he was a typical extrovert.’

(d) Combination of extrovert and introvert (from the Latin ‘ambi’, ‘both’)

‘He was neither an introvert nor an extrovert; he was a perfectly balanced ambivert.’

(c) One who loves the company of others (from the Latin ‘grex’, ‘a flock’)

‘She was particularly gregarious, always seeking out the company of others.’

(c) Idealistic but impractical (from the hero of Cervantes’ novel, Don Quixote)

‘He was a quixotic person, constantly chasing unattainable goals.’

(a) One who always looks on the dark side of things (from the Latin ‘pessimus’, ‘the worst’)

‘No matter how bright the prospects, the pessimist always saw the dark cloud in the silver lining!’

(d) Person who derives great enjoyment from things (from the Greek ‘entheos’, ‘inspired’)

‘It was wonderful to have her at social events – she was such an enthusiast.’

(b) One who always looks on the bright side of things (from the Latin ‘optimus’, ‘best’)

‘The optimist has a particularly positive outlook on the future, always seeing the silver lining in every cloud.’

Contact

If you want to learn more about Mind Maps, and to take part in games, quizzes, and discussions around all of the subjects covered here, why don’t you visit

www.thinkbuzan.com

or contact Tony at the Buzan Centre:

Buzan Centres Ltd

54 Parkstone Road

Poole, Dorset BH15 2PG

Tel: +44 (0) 1202 674676

Fax: +44 (0) 1202 674776

Buzan Centers Inc. (Americas)

PO Box 4

Palm Beach

FL 33480

USA

Tel: +1 866 896 1024 (Free Toll in USA) or +1 734 207 5287

Or email: Buzan@BuzanCentres.com

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following people in particular who have been especially significant in the development of Mind Maps and in their growing global acceptance: my dear friend Sean Adam who in 1986 predicted that within 20 years Mind Maps would be the Global Thinking Tool and who encouraged me to make sure that it was!; my Personal Assistant Lesley Bias without whose ‘burning fingers’ you would not be reading this book!; Alan Burton our Mind Map artist who so brilliantly brings the ideas to life; my Buzan Licensed Instructors (BLIs) and Master Trainers who have been spreading the ‘Mind Map News’ throughout the five continents and to all corners of the globe; my brother Professor Barry Buzan whose constant support and encouragement have increased the speed at which Mind Maps have spread around the world; my Mum Jean Buzan for helping me to develop my own thinking abilities and for her excellent editing of my books; Michael J. Gelb, Mind Map supporter and colleague; the artist Lorraine Gill who proved to me that I and everybody in the world could both draw and was a natural artist; HSH Prince Philipp of Liechtenstein, the first Company Chairman both to realize the importance of Mind Maps and to commit to giving everybody in his company, the Liechtenstein Global Trust, the opportunity to benefit from them; Vanda North the founder of The Buzan Centres whose dedication to making Mind Maps known and available throughout the world has been astonishing and astonishingly successful; Caroline Shott my Literary Manager whose brilliant idea this book was and who inspired the stunning new portfolio of Thorsons books of which this book is a part.

Copyright

Thorsons

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www.harpercollins.co.uk

Thorsons is trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Limited

First published by Thorsons as How to Mind Map (2002), The Power of Verbal Intelligence (2002) and The Power of Creative Intelligence (2001)

© Tony Buzan 2005

Tony Buzan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Mind Maps® is a registered trademark of the Buzan Organization

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Plate and text illustrations by Alan and Emily Burton

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Content

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