Empowering Success Through Mind Mapping with John Diggs

Today , we're going to be talking about personal development , as I am joined by the creator of the I Am Mind Mapping System , john Diggs , and John has created this I Am Mind mapping system to help people become better and , you know , basically transform their lives .

So we're going to be talking to him about this system and what it's all about and how it's helping people . So , john , thank you so much for joining me today .

Go Cougs Got a chance to play several years of professional football before getting two screws put in my right knee , which ended that career , which was a little tough transition into the mortgage industry .

Into the mortgage industry became the owner of one of the largest mortgage brokerages in all of Southern California , living the dream , actually making more money as a businessman than I did as a professional football player in the early 2000s , had all of the luxury lifestyle , if you will , the houses and cars and things of that nature , and life was great all the

way up until the mortgage meltdown of 2007 and a great recession of 2008 . Really was a body blow for me . It literally took everything from me . The recession , very hard times 2008 , 2009, . Lost houses , cars , even lost my family in the process .

I was basically forced to move in with my mom to rebuild myself and try to rebuild my life , and when I did that , I took with me to my mom's gym bag , a mountain bike and a big box that was full of motivational tapes and CDs and things that I've accumulated over the years .

And did that because I knew I had to go back into that box to try to reset and rebuild my life . And there was a book in that box called the Mind Map Book by Tony Buzan , and don't remember buying it .

But for whatever reason it resonated with me and I decided to mind map all of the contents that was in that box bro , rich , unlimited power , the power of now seven habits of highly effective people , pretty much all of the most known self-help books I had in that box and I spent three , four months , uh , mapping that out just to try to get some understanding .

And that was my first introduction to mind mapping , the power of mind mapping , because that enabled me to really active learn , meaning that I was going through instead of just reading the books this time like I did the first time , and underlining , you know , things that may have stood out or highlighting certain things you know .

With mind mapping it's it's a for those who aren't familiar with mind mapping .

It's pretty , it's a for those who aren't familiar with mind mapping , it's pretty much just a visual information management tool , meaning that it will take everything that anything and everything that you're thinking about , and allow you to put it out in a map form on a paper or on a software , and doing this provides so much more clarity as far as what people

are actually thinking , cause now you can actually see your thoughts , if you will , in a map form , and how things connect . And that's what I started doing . You know , I started seeing connections between what all of these authors and thought leaders were talking about and I took away two main principles from that process , curtis .

The first was that you know from Tony Robbins that Wayne Dyer and Stephen Covey and Les Brown and all of those books that I was mind mapping I realized that they were basically just trying to get us to love , live our best life . Meaning that essentially , is the purpose of life is just to love it .

You know , love every experience of life that you have , love every second you have of life , and they all had their strategies and perspectives and systems and philosophies on how to do it . But mind mapping , let me see that that was their overall connection that they had was trying to get people to love and live their best lives .

Second thing I took from that is that in order for us to truly love and live our best life , we have to get very clear on who we are . You know , what's the most important to us in life ? To love it .

So , after I spent three , four months of mind mapping all those books , I started developing what is known as an I Am Mind Map today , because I started mind mapping who I am and what's most important to me on a deep level , on a surface level , not just my title of dad or my job a football player and things of that nature .

It was like really what's most important to me as it relates to health , wealth , success and happiness . And that process transformed my life quickly , so much so that I , you know , I got so clear on who I am and what I wanted with my life that I went from being broke at my mom's house to making a good six-figure income in less than eight months .

And it's all really due to how mind mapping allowed me to get clear on who I am and what I wanted with my life . And since 2010 , 2009 , when this was about , I've been living , you know , my best life in all intents and purposes . You know , I travel the world , I social dance with my kids .

I pretty much do anything and everything that I want to do , and it's because of what mind got called and inspired to just start sharing the power of mind mapping with others in the world . Since then , I've written 10 books . I've become an international bestselling author .

I actually did a TEDx talk , a TEDx that really kind of digs deeper into my story about this thing that I just highlighted , about how mind mapping came in and transformed my life . I have an online community .

I coach and lead workshops and keynotes all over the world trying to show people how to use this , what I call the most powerful thinking tool in the universe , to love and live their best lives .

This was my last team in 95 when , back in those days when Canadian football was expanding teams down here to the United States .

Ok , well , talk about how mind mapping enhances whole brain thinking . It does , because it is known that you know most of us have . You know we have left brain and right brain . You have the logical left side , which is the logical , structured side of it .

Then you have a right side of our brain that's more creative and intuitive and , just like our right and left hands , most of us prefer to use either one side or the other . It's where you find more people that are more creative and more people that are more kind of analytical .

Those are left brain , right brain kind of distinctions , and mind mapping actually stimulates both sides of your brain in that when you go to mind map you use your left side to analyze what keywords and phrases you want to add to your mind map in that structure .

Then you use your right side of your brain to to determine what kind of color images , symbols that you may want to put on your mind map to have that topic stand out and be featured so you can remember and recall later that topic stand out and be featured so you can remember and recall later .

So that's where mind mapping is known to really stimulate what is called whole brain learning . I mean whole brain thinking , because you're stimulating both sides of your brain .

Then , when it comes to meaningful learning , mind mapping is powerful in that because of its connectivity , like I said , when I was mind mapping the contents of that box , I was able to see connections between things that I didn't see before . I saw connections between Tony Robbins and Wayne Dyer and things of that nature .

And what mind mapping allows you to do is take new information that you're learning and connect it to stuff you already know . Which is the definition of meaningful learning is when you associate the new knowledge to your previous knowledge to make you really understand it . And mind mapping does an amazing job at doing that .

Because , as you're mapping out certain things , you inevitably will ask yourself questions like how does it relate to my life and how can I implement this , how can I install this ? So what does this really mean to me ? And you go through you know your past experiences to associate that new knowledge with what you already learned , which is meaningful learning .

And I like to say this you know traditional learning is like collecting dots . You know we're taught to memorize things . You know when we're students . you know we're really studying to try to memorize data , to actually pass an exam , if you will . They're collecting dots , is what I like to say , but mind mapping helps you connect dots .

So not only are you learning and memorizing certain things , but you're seeing how it actually relates in a tangible form to make best use out of that new knowledge . That makes sense .

In corporations pretty much all Fortune 500 companies are using mind mapping for brainstorming .

Pretty much most of your Ivy League schools now are teaching their students how to notate using mind mapping because they're finding that students are their tests , their test scores are improving because it's easier for them to close their eyes and see where that information is on a mind map they created , versus a bullet point list that they may have done .

And project management . What I found is that I'm the only one in the world right now that's promoting and teaching mind mapping as a personal development tool that can be used on a daily basis .

As a personal development tool that can be used on a daily basis , and that's why I term my style of mind mapping mapineering , mapineering , engineering , beautiful mind maps to love life more essentially . And one of the big tools that I teach in mapineering is called a 5Ws and H mind map that people use on a daily and pretty much what that is .

You know five W's and H's is great for problem solving , decision making , goal setting , visualization practices .

And essentially what that looks like is , if you're dealing with a problem , you put the title of your problem in the center of a piece of paper whatever that you want to title that problem is and around that problem you want to put who , what , when , where , why and how , and each one of those are connected to the main topic , the main title of your problem .

And now you just spend some time brainstorming and asking yourself thought-provoking questions about you know who's involved with this problem , who should be involved with this problem , who can help me with this problem ?

Then , after you spend time there brainstorming that , then you move to what you know what is actually this problem , what is occurring , what should be occurring ? Then you move down to when . You know when is this problem happening , when should it be happening ? When should I resolve this problem ? Do you do the same thing for where ? Do the same thing for why .

You know why is this problem happening . You do the same thing for how ?

Just brainstorming , really asking yourself some serious , thought-provoking questions about who , what , where , when and why about a problem and and once you finish this exercise , you can now step back and look at your mind map that you created and you will see so many different perspectives of that problem that you didn't see before .

That always , mr Jackson yes , always the solution to the problem reveals itself , because now you can see it from so many different perspectives in this 5Ws plus 1H mind map that you could not see when that problem was stuck in your mind and swirling in your mind and you're not seeing all of the key components , probably causing a bunch of stress and dis-ease .

And that's one of the benefits of these five W's in each mind map templates , especially with problems , is when you go through this process , all of that negative energy that was surrounding the problem disappears , because now the problem is on that piece of paper and now it's not stuck inside of your mind just swirling around causing you a bunch of overwhelm and

stress . Now you can kind of see all of the key components of the problem and again it reveals what your next best step should be to resolve that problem . That's just one tool of many that people can use on a daily basis , like mind maps that essentially can help people love and live their best life . You know versus you know .

I see so many of us that are faced with challenging decisions challenging decisions , you know , and so many different

things and they don't really have a tangible tool that's flexible enough that can help them really come to conclusions or make informed decisions with confidence .

My mission for the last five or six years is intensely to share this tool with others , with hopes that they , with hopes that it will help people love and live their best life well , talk about the , the four anchors of of this system , that that you , you know that you discuss in your bio .

You know I was asking my question , my self-serious questions , like what truly is most important to me ? You know what truly is most important to me ? You know what is really most important to me . You know and I grappled with that for hours and days and weeks and I landed on that what's most important to me is my health , my health .

There's nothing more important to me than my health . So that became the first anchor of my I Am Mind Map . Then I asked myself what is the next ? You know what else is important to me ? And I realized wealth came to my mind . You know I definitely want wealth . But then I started thinking about wealth . What does wealth mean ? Is it just money ?

I said no , because I had money before and that didn't really help me much , you know . It made life easier , but it didn't ultimately mean happiness . So I realized that wealth was about abundance . That's what wealth means is an abundance of something . So I said , well , what would I want or need a lot of to love and live my best life ?

And I landed on I wanted positive emotions . I want a wealth of positive emotions . That's what I want of love , of enthusiasm , of optimism , of joy . That's what I want . That will definitely help me love my life . Knowledge you know , I've got that from thinking grow rich . As far as the importance of having skills , I want to have a bunch of skills .

I feel that if I'm healthy and I'm feeling good , with positive emotions , and I have a bunch of great skills at something or I'm a subject matter expert of some topic , I will make a lot of money . That's just money's going to come . So once I went there then I started realizing , okay , that's what I want , a wealth of .

And I said , well , what else would I want or need to have in my life to truly love my life ? And I landed on success . I want to have some success , but success is so broad .

And that's the one thing about mind mapping that helps you is that you can start broad and general like that , but by way of a mind map it will help you really drill down in the specifics of what that means . So when I looked at success , I was like , well , what does that mean ? What do I want success in ?

And ultimately , again , after hours and days and weeks , I landed on I wanted to have successful relationships , wanted to have successful rewards and I wanted to have successful results . Good , I get that . So I said anything else ? I said I've got to have happiness . I don't want all of that stuff without happiness .

So happiness became my fourth anchor on my I Am my Map . Then I asked myself that same question you know , what does happiness mean to me ? Really ? You know what needs to happen for me to be happy . And as I , you know , again , just really gave it some serious thought and very profound question I was asking myself .

I came to understand that for me to be happy , I have to be blessed for my past , the goods and the bad things that happened in my past , and when I think about them I need to feel blessed for them . And I need to feel grateful for my future , the goods and the bads that's going to come to me in my future .

And I need to have both of those feelings in the present moment now , meaning that if I think about my past and I feel blessed , think about my future and I feel grateful , and I do that in the present moment , right now . Yeah , I would be happy .

So those basically shaped out to be the foundational anchors of what is now known as an I am mind map , and this is what I pretty much teach and train and coach people to walk through this process , to show them you know what you know , or at least get them to create their own I am mind map , to see , yeah , what does health mean to you , you know , what

does wealth mean to you , what does success mean to you , what does happiness mean to you ? And once we actually articulate that on their mind map , then we go to the next level of prioritizing things they put on their mind map and start to figure out ways to take action on a daily to actually experience those things on their mind map .

Then , you know , we go as far as even recording themselves speaking their I am mind map that they can listen to in their visualization and meditation and imagination practices . And , yeah , it's been going amazing . You know I wrote a book on this . I have some online courses that walk people through it .

I do keynote talks and workshops and even doing a lot more one-on-one coaching where people are just like , look , I need help now with creating this , because I see the power of getting clear on who I am .

You know many of us , you know , we think we know who we are , but many of us never really just consciously sat down and decided you know , this is who I am , this is who I intend to be , this is who I need to be , to do and have all I want to do to love . My experience of life and that's what I Am . My Map comes in is helps people .

I mean I've worked with , you know , young students in high school and I work with CEOs and of big corporations and they , all the same , just appreciate the fact of being able to see . You know their core values , their beliefs and everything that's most important to them . You know one snapshot , you know one piece of paper .

They see all of the key components of their life and it empowers them to see areas that they may have been neglecting , powers them to see areas that they may have been neglecting . Powers them young students .

It gives young people the personal power to withstand peer pressure or to make better decisions that are more in alignment with who they intend to be versus .

You know most of us as young , you know we just do a whole bunch of knucklehead stuff , you know , know , because we're not really clear who we are , what we're trying to do and be in our lives , and these I , this I am , my map process is really causing a lot of great positive change in in people's lives , which you know I'm truly blessed and grateful for

that . You know , this is my divine mission and passion to share this with everyone and with that man . Thank you so much for having me on your show and I'm hopeful that my message will add value and be useful for for you and your audience .

It's essentially where I'm showing student athletes primarily at this point football playing student athletes how to use mind maps to get real clear on the biggest play they can make playing the game of football , the best game they can have the best season they can have and I also share with them , you know , in that big play power system on how they can be the

best student and the best human they can be .

And at the end of that course or session , you know , my students are coming out with like 18 different mind maps that are covering anything from pre-game function to get their mind right before the game function , to get their mind right before the game , to post-game activities on how to properly use a mind map to debrief your game that you just played , learn

from things that you just played , you know , on the game you just played . So Big Play Power is very exciting .

You know I'm speaking to local high schools here in Phoenix , where I'm at now , and starting to speak to student athletes at Arizona State University , washington State University , teaming up with some former NFL players to speak to at their camps , to not just introduce mind mapping and mapping to these players but hopefully give them a tool that they can use to

really maximize their opportunities as football players , but also a tool that they can use for the rest of their lives to , you know , maximize all of the opportunities that's going to come to them as young men and adults to help them love and live their best life . Big play power .

For any one of your listeners that are really excited and really want to get going with things , you can always email me directly at John at JohnDiggscom , j-o-h-n . At J-O-H-Ncom , at JohnDiggscom . And yeah , I'm here to . This is is my calling , this is my divine purpose .

This is , this is I'm dedicating the rest of my life to sharing this message with the world because I truly believe it can . It can have a positive impact . Thank you so much , man . This was super cool .

The final thought I would say is is is please just take a moment to build your own I am my map , because it will affect every area of your life , now and in the future . That would be the one thing I would say If you could take one thing away from any of my share today .

That would be it is do what you need to do to at least just get that I am mind map done , because it will empower you in ways that you can't imagine right now to really help you do some extraordinary things and things that you probably don't think you could do .

And I Am Mind Map will give you the clarity and the system and the steps and the strategy and the roadmap to actually start achieving a lot of your goals and realizing your dreams .

Check out the show , share it , follow us , leave us a review . If you have any guests or suggestion topics , curtis jackson 1978 at attnet is the place to send them . Thank you for listening and supporting the show and , john , thank you for all that you do and thank you for joining me . Thank you for joining me . Thank you for having me sir .