Mind maps are amazing, but don’t overthink your mind map!
I had more than £23,000 to pay off. I was led to a room and told you have 15 minutes to prepare your presentation and deliver it. Here is the topic. I had been given absolutely no warning of what the topic would be. Now I had to put it all together in 15 minutes, produce PowerPoint slides and deliver it to the chairman and his colleagues.
And what was all this for? For a brand new role that would also lead to a massive increase in my salary.
I needed to get this job because I had a massive debt to pay off which had been sprung on me by my friendly neighbourhood tax man.
A friend had stepped in and supported me, but that had been a bitter pill to swallow and I wanted to pay her back as soon as possible and reclaim my sense of responsibility.
But in my current role it would’ve taken ages to pay back the loan so I needed to get this job.
So here I was in a small room trying to think of how to structure my talk to the chairman to win this role. And then it came to me to write a mind map.
I remembered when I used to do youth work and public speaking and trying to write down every point in a clear point by point fashion like a list. When I would look down at it, especially in my early days and I was standing in front of a crowd instead of relieving me it would just add more tension. And as a result the words coming out of my mouth were not well fashioned or congruent. And I could feel that the crowd was becoming dis-interested which is a horrible feeling to have when you’re standing there alone by yourself on a stage.
Then I came across mind maps and they changed my public speaking completely. I could walk into a room with a blank piece of paper and jot down a few words in the centre of the page and then a few words branching off from it in different directions and I would have a 20 minute talk if not more. And the audience would be spellbound and I wouldn’t be staring sheepishly at my long list, but glancing briefly at one branch and then elaborating upon it as I spoke to the crowd. The only thing to be wary of when doing this was not to make the mind map too complex and not to have too many words in each branch. The mind map was much better when it only consisted of very few words or key concepts. That was when the mind map became a formidable tool.
So here I was back in the room,. Clock ticking. I turned the piece of paper with the instructions on it face down and started writing on the blank side and making a mind map. It was a a simple humble mind map and that’s all it needed to be. Once I had it in front of me I quickly typed out the slides which were only four with a few bullet points on each and hit print so that my handouts were ready.
I walked in, gave the presentation and as I was driving home the chairman and his team were so excited they called me before I reached home and offered me the job at my asking price.