Happiness Express

by Khurshed Batliwala

  And that’s what a derivative is.

  It’s just a glorified slope.

  The Derivative in English

  You have a curve. You want to find the slope of the curve. This is not possible because the slope of the curve changes at every point. Let’s pick some random point on the curve. You need to find the slope of the curve at that point.

  Well, remember you know how to find the slope of a line. Draw a line from the original point on the curve to another point on the same curve. Can we find the slope of this line? Great.

  Shrink the line. Make it smaller and smaller; the second point has now slid all the way to be almost on top of the first point. It is virtually the first point, but not quite. So we still have two points and that means we still have an infinitesimally small line. Find the slope of that miniscule line and you have figured out the slope of the curve at the original point. All you need to do is pretend that the length of that line is zero—knowing that it is not. It’s our little secret. Don’t tell anyone and we are done.

  The slope of the curve at a point is called the ‘derivative’ of that curve. Derivative is simply slope—glorified!

  Mr Feynman, do you approve?!

  The Feynman Technique (with a few tweaks from me)

  This technique is primarily used to make sure you have understood and can explain a concept you are grappling with. It’s quite important that you use some paper and a pen for this. Preferably avoid using a computer. Go as low-tech as you can with it.

  Study your concept from your source material till you feel you have a good grasp of the subject and are comfortable with it.

  Step 1: Title

  On a blank sheet of paper, at the very top, write the name of the concept you are wanting to learn. I have used a math example; you can use this technique to get around a concept from any field of study.

  Step 2: Initial thoughts

  Write out whatever you have understood about the concept in your own words in plain simple English. Pretend you are teaching someone else with little or no knowledge of the subject. How would you say it to them? Sometimes it may help to think that you are going to be talking about this to a child—how would you explain it all? Write it out.

  Step 3: Fill in the gaps

  Review your notes and compare them to your source material. See if there’s something you didn’t know or understand. Go back to studying those parts and incorporate them in.

  Step 4: Dejargonise

  Once more, go over your notes, tidy up if required, and check if your explanations are really without jargon. If there are parts with too many technical terms in there, challenge yourself to write them out in simpler language. Is there stuff that could be explained in even simpler words? Are you assuming some sort of knowledge that already exists about the subject? Redo those parts till you are satisfied that anybody with little to no knowledge about your subject could read your notes and grasp the concept you are talking about.

  Step 5: Ask impertinent Whys

  My buddy Gowrishankar makes the most amazing videos, but he is desperately math challenged. I asked him one time, ‘Gowri, what is -2 times -3?’. Without missing a beat, he replied -6. I said no, it’s +6. He asked, why? If +2 times +3 is +6, -2 times -3 should be -6. I didn’t have an explanation. Telling him it is a rule didn’t work. He kept asking why again and again. I had to do quite a lot of thinking before I could come up with an answer that could satisfy a supremely math-challenged person. Check the video: www.happinessexpressbook.com/videos/minustimesminus.

  As you go over your notes, think like Gowri and keep asking ‘why?’ to things you may take for granted because of the knowledge base you already have acquired through the study of your subject. For example, you know the Pythagoras Theorem and you know it is universally applicable to all right-angled triangles. Ever wondered how that got verified? How can we be so sure it works for every single right-angled triangle in the universe? See this video to find out: www.happinessexpressbook.com/videos/pythagoras.

  Answer your own ‘whys’ till you are happy that no more remain.

  Step 6: Mind Map

  Once you have got your notes done, it would be a great idea to mind map your material, especially if the material you are studying is mind-map friendly. This step is optional, but it can give even more insights to you about what you are learning.

  We have outlined how to mind map in the next few chapters. We have discussed mind mapping in great detail in our earlier book Ready, Study, Go!

  Step 7: Forage for Fun Facts

  This step is optional too. Check if you can unearth some interesting and little-known facts about what you are studying. Stuff that people can throw at each other during a dinner conversation and sound intelligent.

  Step 8: Go public

  Grab a friend and explain the whole thing to him or her. Show them your mind map from step 6 and definitely weave in a few of those facts from step 7.

  They understood it?—Good.

  They loved the way you explained it?—Fantastic.

  You managed to spark curiosity in them for the subject?—Absolute brilliance!

  This style of learning will constantly challenge and engage you. Taking the time to dig deeper into a subject can be richly rewarding. It will transform the process of studying considered by most to be dull drudgery, and avoided as much as possible, into something that is interesting and fun.

  There is an amazing, incomparable high you get when you have finally cracked a concept that’s been eluding you. Here’s to many of those highs!

  Chapter 8

  MIND MAPPING AND RADIAL THINKING

  We have elaborated on the technique of mind mapping in our earlier book Ready, Study, Go!: Smart Ways to Learn. This chapter is a refresher on the topic before we jump into a specialised way of mind mapping which I call Focused Mind Mapping.

  Our brain has a big, wonderful, enchanting, chaotic mess of neurons in it. Definitely not a neat, orderly list! Sequential or linear thinking is one of the biggest impediments to learning and recall.

  Making lists.

  Then ticking them one at a time, until we are through.

  Making more lists.

  Rinse and repeat.

  It’s borrrrrrringggg!

  Linear thinking makes learning drudgery and recall wishful thinking. These patterns (of linear thinking) are a bad habit society and families forced upon us.

  Linear thinking doesn’t allow us to use our brain the way it was supposed to be.

  Enter Mind Mapping. A British psychology author Tony Buzan has laid claim to having originated mind maps, though people have been making such drawings for years.

  Mind mapping is just a few circles and lines really. But beneath its simplicity, there is power. It’s a profoundly easy way to use the brain how it’s meant to be used.

  This is not a ‘read’ chapter. It’s a ‘do’ chapter. Remember that actually drawing the mind maps are going to grow the ‘drawing’ mind map dendrites in your brain. Merely reading the text and glancing at the pictures will not bring you the proficiency you require to use this technique.

  Before moving on with this chapter, make sure you have the following things at hand.

  A few pencils and pens in an array of colours: red, blue, black and green pens and a box of Crayola are enough.

  An eraser.

  Plenty of A4 blank sheets of paper, preferably unruled.

  If you are feeling artistic, get more colours, felt pens, etc.

  Now, you will have an exercise to do. It will take you less than 20 minutes to complete it. Please don’t skip ahead and ensure you follow the order it is presented in. By the end of this exercise, you would have learnt the basics and purpose of mind mapping.

  The Vacation

  A good friend of yours inherited a beautiful cottage in the woods. He has invited you along with a few others to go with him for a few days and check out the property. Though the place is comfortable, he has warned that it is rustic. You will be spending
five days there over a long weekend.

  Make a list of the stuff you would pack for this trip. Don’t write it out on an electronic device; use pen and paper. Think of all the things you would require and jot them down. Bear in mind that you will have to make do with only these during your five-day trip. Nothing else.

  Don’t read ahead please until your list is ready.

  Here is the list I made for my vacation.

  As I thought more about the trip, I got a few other ideas. I penned these into the original list. For example, I had totally forgotten about taking along a personal identification card and swimming trunks.

  You, too, should give yourself some time to list things you may have missed. You could get ideas from either of my lists or google vacation packing. Add everything you think you may want to take along. Feel free to delete any item—just scratch those out. Don’t worry about being neat. Focus on getting everything onto that piece of paper.

  Here is my revised list.

  The second list is quite messy, isn’t it? If you followed this exercise, I bet your list is equally messy!

  Did you notice how tough it was to add new ideas to your first draft?

  Here is a mind map of my vacation packing (see p. 218).

  Compare it with both my lists.

  Look at this artist’s impression of the wonderful mess of neurons and neural pathways in your brain (see p. 219).

  What resembles the way your brain is wired?

  What is easier to look at?

  Do you see how simple it would be to add an idea to this mind map?

  A line and a circle, and voila! We are done.

  It gives a bird’s eye view and a worm’s eye view at the same time. I can see the whole as well as get into the details if I wish to, at any node.

  I don’t have to ‘finish’ the food node before moving onto the electronics node and so on. As I get ideas, I can capture them as I jump from node to node, simply penning them down.

  The structure of our brain and the way the neurons are organised make ideas pop randomly, not neatly and sequentially. The ability to jump from one node to another as ideas come makes the process of recording thoughts far more organic and natural than any list would allow.

  Welcome to the world of Radial Thinking!

  When you think radially, ideas flow naturally and the process of learning and recall is enhanced. Using the brain is so much easier.

  The 1-2-3 (and 4) of Mind Mapping

  Start with a central idea for your mind map. You may want to take some time thinking about what it should be. For example, if you had to mind map Romeo and Juliet, what would your central idea be? ‘Tragedy’ or ‘Love Story’ or something else? As you can imagine, the resulting mind maps for the two words would be quite different. The central idea gives a perspective to your mind mapping project.

  Draw 4-5 lines (branches) radiating out from the central idea. Jot down whatever ideas come to you that are related to the central idea. Don’t worry about how important or relevant these ideas are.

  As you get more ideas for the various nodes you created, add them in, creating more nodes and branches as required. Keep doing step 3 until you are satisfied that you have got whatever ideas you have in your head about that project onto the paper.

  If an unrelated but brilliant idea comes, don’t discard it; just start another mind map and put it down. Then come back to what you were working on.

  The 6 Cs of Mind Mapping

  C1: Central idea: This will be pivotal to the perspective your mind map will take. It can be decided in advance; or it may be resolved in retrospect, if you are unclear about what the topic is going to be. For example, when you are using a mind map to take notes.

  C2: Conciseness: Write briefly on the nodes and branches—use just enough words to capture the essence of the ideas.

  C3: Craziness: Our brain loves new and crazy. Make things as funny as you possibly can. You will remember it better.

  C4: Curves: Use curves instead of straight lines. Our brain loves curves. Curves make things far more visually attractive. This makes things more interesting and the relevant dendrites required for learning grow faster.

  C5: Colours: This one is a no brainer. Colours appeal to us. Unless you are a professional photographer. In which case, you use a $5000 camera to take out-of-focus, black and white photos and call them art. Use some colour in your mind maps. Vary text sizes and alignments. You could use particular colours for coding stuff: red could be used for important and urgent, orange may denote work in progress, green for things that are already done, and so on.

  C6: Cartoons: Draw a few doodles here and there to symbolise information on your mind map. Instead of writing first aid, for example, drawing a small red cross would be enough to convey the idea. Pictures and cartoons trigger emotion and that strengthens memory.

  ‘I can’t draw’ is a myth. Everyone can draw. Maybe they draw badly to begin with, but that’s all right. Start somewhere. Keep at it and the correct dendrites will grow over time and you will learn to draw.

  Typically, you will not be able to create the final version of any mind map in the first draft. Start with a rough version. Get all the nodes and the branches with some details radiating off those nodes onto the paper. For the next draft, draw it again, ensuring everything is more or less in place. You may want to shift a main node under some other node, or create a new main node, etc. Finally, use colours and cartoons to make your mind map as neat and pretty as possible. When you have done this work, it’s highly improbable that you will ever forget what you have mind mapped. Even if you do, you only have to look at your mind map and you will remember everything in a few minutes!

  Of course, you need not do all this for every mind map you make. For example, when it’s a mind map about what you are going to do today, a simple rough one would suffice. Otherwise you may end up only drawing mind maps and never getting to the actual work.

  Pros and Cons

  There is a very interesting side effect of using mind maps extensively. Mind maps bring obvious clarity and help you organise yourself. They create reliable road maps for the way ahead. Over time, as you gain the ability to think radially and logically, your ideation skills will grow exponentially. This clarity is contagious. In a little while of using mind maps, as your dendrites start growing and forge all the right connections, you will suddenly, almost magically, find answers to other things that you have not mind mapped at all. Problems that you may have relegated to the back burner for a long time may abruptly get resolved.

  The biggest disadvantage of mind maps is that they can only show you the way. They bring clarity to your plans and create actionable items for you to execute. They lack the ability to make the actual ‘doing’ happen. A beautifully created mind map about weight loss will only tell you how to shed those kilos, it will not make you actually lose weight. A mind map shows the way, the action is up to you.

  Mind maps and their use are limited only by your imagination. Unfortunately, they are also limited by the amount you practice and use them as well. You will need to diligently mind map for a few months to start seeing real results. Fortunately, mind maps are such fun to create and work with that these months just zip by.

  Take five minutes each morning and mind map your day. You will be amazed at how much you get done. Check in with the map at night, so you get an idea about what you need to do the next day.

  You need to prepare for an interview or a speech? Mind map it. You will find yourself being able to create fantastic presentations in a fraction of the time you would normally have spent.

  Are you stuck for ideas on how to handle that new project? Mind maps will help conjure up ideas out of the blue for you.

  You and your team are going to brainstorm on something? Use mind maps to effortlessly take notes. After the meeting, create a final version and send it off to everyone in the team. Recap the next meeting will be quick, and each person will be crystal clear about what they are required to do.

/>   Mind mapping makes you so efficient that you will finally have the time to do all those things you have always wanted to do: being with friends and family, going on that vacation, learning to play the piano. . .

  Have fun with mind maps!

  Chapter 9

  FOCUSED MIND MAPPING

  This technique is an extension of regular mind mapping and tweaking the way mind maps are created. It will require a bit of expertise with the fundamentals of mind mapping. If you are new to mind mapping, please read the previous chapter and draw a few mind maps before proceeding with this one.

  You need to study something? Jumping right in then, these are the steps to create a focused mind map.

  Phase I: The Foundation Mind Map

  First, we decide how much of a particular subject we wish to study to meet our competency goals. Typically, this phase should not take more than a few hours to complete. You could plan to do this phase over two or three days if the subject matter is vast, new or complex.

  The time you spend on phase I and creating your foundation mind map will increase your focus and efficiency when you get to the second phase of more detailed studying.

  1. Scope

  Decide how much you want to learn about a particular subject. Are you appearing for an exam? Interviewing for a job? Or, do you just want to sound intelligent during an after-dinner conversation? The scope of how much you intend to study will depend largely on this.

  Heard about the 80-20 rule?

  Vifredo Pareto was a famous Italian philosopher and economist. He grew green peas. He saw that 80% of the peas that he got from his garden came from only 20% of the peapods. He called these the vital few. He then went on to show that 80% of the land in Italy belonged to 20% of the population. If you check out world incomes, 82.7% of the global wealth belongs to 20% of the population. This 80-20 rule applies to various areas.