Mappineering™: Using Mind Maps To Achieve Success With John Diggs

October 29, 2024 Adiel Gorel

Watch the episode here

Listen to the podcast here

Mappineering™: Using Mind Maps To Achieve Success With John Diggs

Unlock Your Potential By Enhancing Creativity, Memory, And Productivity With The Power Of Mind Mapping

It’s a joy to be back here with you again. This is very exciting. We have a special guest, John Diggs. John is a certified life coach, a certified NLP practitioner, and a mind-mapping mentor. That’s something I would love to learn more about as I’m sure you do too. Not only as a mind mapping mentor, but he helps people become mappineers, which we are going to learn all about. I’m excited about that.

‐‐‐

John, before you give me the background on how you developed all of this and did this, I’m curious about your NFL career. What did you play?

Journey Into Mind Mapping

I was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. I was blessed to earn an athletic scholarship to Washington State University. I played there. From there, I played five years in the NFL and CFL with the Raiders, Houston Oilers, and Edmonton Eskimos up in Canada. In 1995, I had a couple of screws put in that right knee which ended my football career and began my mortgage career. I went on to develop one of the top mortgage brokerages in the Southern California, Los Angeles area.

I lived a millionaire lifestyle. I had a great time all the way up until the mortgage meltdown. In the mortgage meltdown or the Great Recession of 2007 and 2008, I lost everything. I lost the business, houses, homes, wife, and kids. It was a very tough time for me. I was forced to move back to my mother’s house and sleep on the couch I bought her some time ago. This story right here began the TEDx Talk I did in 2023. I did a TEDx Talk on this whole experience.

To give you a brief recap of the TEDx Talk, which led into the mind mapping deal, when I moved back to my mother’s house, I was homeless, jaded, and lost. All I took with me was a tote bag with gym clothes in it, my mountain bike, and a big box. It was a big box that was full of motivational books, CDs, tapes, and stuff I accumulated over the years. I knew that I had to go back into that box to re-learn a lot of that stuff to rebuild my life, if you will.

Inside that box was a book called The Mind Map Book by Tony Buzan. Somebody gave it to me. I never really read it. I maybe thumbed through a couple of pages. For whatever reason, it resonated with me at this particular point. I read the mind mapping book and decided to mind map every book, CD, and cassette tape that I had inside of that big box. It was transformative. It changed my life in so many different ways. It was my first introduction to the power of mind mapping.

When we read books, we normally underline things that may stand out, highlight things, or write in the margins. For people who are unaware of what mind maps are, mind maps are a visual information management tool. That is what I call it. Anything you have swirling in your mind, mind mapping is a way to get it out of your head and put it in a map form on a piece of paper, a napkin, a poster board, or whatever that is, so you can start to see what you’re thinking about.

As I started going through all of these books, cassette tapes, and things of that nature that were in that big box, I started doing what is called active learning. Meaning, I was looking for keywords and phrases from what I was reading to take from the book to put on the map which caused me to understand the information better.

Things were resonating deeper because I wasn’t mindlessly reading and underlining things. I was really hunting for keywords and key phrases of what that paragraph or chapter was talking about to include on my mind map. That caused me to understand it more. After 90 days or so of mind-mapping everything that was in that big box, it transformed my life in so many powerful ways. It was truly transformative in so many ways. Before I go, does that resonate? Does that make sense?

It makes a lot of sense. One thing that hit me in the last few sentences is you can give many people a very big box full of books and motivational materials but it’s going to have very little effect on them. In fact, 95% will never even open the box. Out of the 5%, 90% may not read more than a page or two. In the way you describe it, it’s not only that you had those materials. It’s that you experienced a certain trauma.

You lost a lot. You were in a place that was a down place. That probably, and I’m only speculating here so you can tell me more, made you receptive like a sponge. That was stuff that could fill that void. You were in a unique place in a way that if you love what you do, which somehow I feel that you do, you can look back at all the mishaps, like the recession, the knee, and the family, but it all brought you probably to be able to absorb that. Don’t you think?

It’s so interesting. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine. It’s unfortunate that most of us have to go through this big, catastrophic crisis and big dramatic event to open up or to finally be like, “I got to open up to learn some new information.” One of my missions is to try to change that so people don’t have to go through such a traumatic experience to finally be open to learning new information, growing, and evolving. Instead of having to do all that, I’m hopeful that my message is strong enough to get people to open up and make a transformation without having to go through so much pain.

For you, it happened at the right time, so you absorbed it. For most of us, you are there and your mission is to make it so that we absorb it regardless of where we are, right?

Yeah. That’s the power of my message. You don’t have to be in a crisis. You can be a very successful person and not know how powerful mind mapping can be. When you’re going through trying to make a decision, trying to solve a problem, trying to goal set, or trying to deal with some stuff in your past, using a visual tool like mind mapping will give you the power to get a greater perspective of what you’re having to consider.

It’s no longer swirling in your head. You can see the key components of all of the things that you’re dealing with. You can make more informed decisions. You can solve problems quicker that way because you can see all of the key components versus keeping them swirling in your head. Most times, when it’s in your head, it causes a lot of stress and a lot of vexation because it’s swirling.

When I work with my clients and my students, I help them like, “Let’s get it out of here. Let’s get it here to see the various components of what you’re dealing with so now you can make a decision or solve a problem from a position of strength and a position of awareness. You know, “This is the best way for me because now, I can see it from all of the different perspectives versus seeing it from my own eyes. Now, I can see it in another way.”

That makes sense. There’s an analogy that jumped into my head. I wonder if it’s relevant. When we watch some of those detective movies on TV, Netflix, or whatever one of those things, normally, we know what happened. This guy is a suspect. That girl is a suspect. They always take a big board and they start putting pictures and arrows. Isn’t that somewhat similar to getting everything visually organized?

It is. You are able to connect the dots. You start to see relationships between certain things that you didn’t think were related or connected. By being able to see it outside of yourself in such a way, it empowers you. You’re like, “Now, I see the total picture of what I’m dealing with versus my perspective or a literal perspective of what I’m dealing with now. I can see the totality of it.”

In my TEDx Talk, I had maybe 50 different poster boards or mind maps all around my mother’s house during that time. She was freaking out. She was like, “What are you doing in my house?” I was like, “Mom, I’m changing my life here. Leave me alone.” By having all these poster boards around that had all of these detailed mind maps on them, I started seeing connections between what each book was talking about. It had what Tony Robbins was saying that was similar to Napoleon Hill. It had what Napoleon Hill was saying that was similar to Brian Tracy. I started connecting all of these different dots to come to realize a couple of very powerful things.

The first thing was that all of them were trying to teach us in their own way that the purpose of life is simply to love the experience of life. They all had their different strategies, experiences, and teachings, but that was the ultimate goal. It was to be happy and to love your experience of life. I walked away with that. Being jaded like I was, I didn’t know which way was up, so that was an a-ha moment. I was like, “I need to love my life.”

The purpose of life is just simply to love the experience of life. Share on X

A second point that I took from that experience was that I can truly control how I love life. I can determine what love and life meant to me. To do that, I had to first get clear on who I am and what love and life meant to me. I started developing what is called the I AM mind map where I put, “I am,” in the center of the poster board. I started mentally thinking about what is most important to me in my life to love life. I spent another 90 days or another 3 months contemplating what are the key components that would help me love my life.

Ultimately, I broke down to health. I got to have good health. I want wealth, I want success, and I want happiness. If you can imagine this poster board, in the middle, it said, “I am,” and it had health, wealth, success, and happiness around it. Once I got clear with that, as what mind mapping does for you, you start to be like, “Let me take it the next step. What does health mean to me? Health is so general. How can I be specific? What are the key areas of health?” After a time of grappling with that, I came to realize spiritual health, physical health, and mental health. I want to have good spiritual health, mental health, and physical health.

I then did wealth. I was like, “That makes sense. What about wealth? What does that mean? Is it just money?” I realized I had money but I wasn’t happy. I had money before. I was like, “Is there anything I wanted abundance of?” because I really started to understand what wealth meant. It wasn’t money. Most people think of wealth and they’re like, “It’s money.”

When you look at the word wealth in a dictionary, it’s an abundance of something. I started thinking, “What do I want a lot of to help me love my life?” I realized and landed that I wanted a wealth of positive emotions. I wanted a wealth of skills. I realized that if I had positive emotions and skills, I’m going to get money. Those will give me money.

I broke that down, and then I looked at the success component. I said, “What do I want to be successful in?” I then said, “Relationships, results, and rewards.” When I looked at happiness, I was like, “What does happiness mean? Everybody says they want to be happy. What does it truly mean to be happy?” I landed on for me to be happy, I have to feel blessed for my past. When I think about my past, I have to feel blessed for those experiences, the good and the bad.

In those bad experiences, I’ve learned, I’ve grown, and I’ve survived, so I don’t need to look at that in a negative way. I need to be blessed that I’ve grown. I also, at the same time, need to feel grateful for all of the things that are coming in the future. If I can feel blessed for my past and grateful for my future in the present moment, I’ll be happy. That process was really powerful.

Personal Constitution

One of the enemies, and there are many, to create that fulfillment that you described, would be what I would call perfectionism. Mike Tyson said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” Let’s take one of the first ones that you mentioned, which is physical health. Somebody has a mind map. They broke it down in a beautiful way. They’re going about their business. Let’s make up a person. They are 45 years old. They are in good health. Everything is fine. All of a sudden, they get punched in the mouth.

They go to the doctor and the doctor says, “You have X,” whatever X might be. They leave the doctor’s office, and maybe they get a second opinion. If they’re a perfectionist, there’ll be a little voice inside saying, “It’s all for naught. Everything is worth zero because now, you’re not healthy. You have this flaw. Learn to love your body and love your health with the flaw.”

That’s what I would recommend, and I’ve seen people do this in my practice. I have some clients that have been developing their mind maps for 4, 5, and 6 years. It’s always evolving. As they evolve, they go to it and evolve it themselves because of life experiences. Mine has evolved for the last couple of years. From the time that I was telling you when I first started it to now, it completely looks different because I’ve changed. My I AM mind map changed.

What I would suggest is that when you go to that component of your mind map of, “I am physical health,” if you have one of those challenges, you can brainstorm what that truly means. What is that challenge? In that brainstorming process, you can start to determine what your best solutions are. What are your next best steps? Who do you need to contact for support? What should you do, unfortunately, if it’s terminal? What are the steps that you can take to deal with your health to the best of your ability for the length of time you may have on the earth? It’s always a grounding.

In my TEDx Talk, I talk about how I use my I AM mind map like my personal constitution or my personal GPS. It always steers me. I use like my ten commandments. I have challenges. Every time when life throws me a curve ball, I always go back to my I AM mind map to help center myself, help repurpose myself, and help me remember who I intend to be internally despite the external stuff that may be going on.

It’s not that I don’t deal with issues or have my ups and downs, but this I AM mind map helps me refocus a lot faster or get over things a lot quicker than if I didn’t have it. I have something I can go to to help me get back on track faster versus being, “What do I do now? My wife left me,” or, “Somebody died,” or, “Something happened.” I’m scrambling because I don’t have a home base, if you will, a home, headquarters, or a constitution to help me realize what’s the true intent of my life or what I intend to do. Does that make sense?

Not only does it make sense, but the way you were describing the mind map, you were hitting on the old philosophies of the evolution of consciousness. All the sages say the cliche. They say, “The past is history. The future is a mystery. All we have is now.” Everybody talks about, “Be here now.” There are books written. Eckhart Tolle talks about being here now, and you were alluding to it. You said, “I look at all the past experiences. Good and bad are necessary to make me evolve and come to this stage.” That’s the past. For the future, you said, “I have a map so I don’t randomly charge into the future. I have a certain structure. That helps me move forward.” You are talking about being here now and being thankful. What’s the name of your TEDx Talk?

If anybody YouTubes and puts John Diggs, my name, and TEDx, it will come up. I can’t remember what the TEDx people named it.

That is so true. The name of mine is one sentence long. I don’t remember it. I say, “Look up my name.” That’s all. We will look up your name. We will watch your TEDx Talk. How many minutes is it?

The max is eighteen. I did mine for sixteen minutes. It has 20,000 views. I’m pretty happy about that. That was pretty cool.

That’s fantastic.

To finish my story a little bit, once I got clear on my I AM mind map, I started resonating and vibrating in a different way. Despite still having nothing, despite having no income, and despite being homeless, I felt empowered. A colleague of mine went to this company. They knew I had some experience with software design and development. I went into this company and landed a $180,000-a-year gig within 8 months. I really went from homeless to successful. It was rags to riches, if you will, in less than eight months.

I know and I am positively sure that it was because of what mind mapping did to help me get clear and sort out all of that crap that was going on because of the drama in my life. It helped me get clear on who I was. I went into that interview and went into that opportunity very clear about who I am, what I deserve, and what I expected in my life, which caused me to get the job. My life has been different ever since.

Since 2010, I’ve developed one of the largest mortgage software companies in the country. I designed computer infrastructure for mortgage banks. When COVID hit and we were quarantined and forced to stay home, and everything went to a crashing halt is when I finally decided, “It’s time for me to start sharing this power of mind mapping with the world.”

Big Play Power

I have written nine books since then, all on various aspects of mind mapping and how people can use them and apply them. I’m an international best-selling author. I have various mind maps to help people out in various ways. I’m really excited about my latest book. It’s called Big Play Power. It’s designed to show young student-athletes who are football players how to use mind maps to make big plays on and off the field.

I have a book, a four-week course, workshops, and all of that stuff that shows these young football players how to mind map the biggest play they can make in the game. I don’t care what position you play, but what is the biggest play you can make playing the game of football? It’s very eye-opening to a lot of these young players because they’ve never been asked this before. A lot of us play the game but never thought about, “What is the greatest play I can make?”

After I walk them through that, I walk them through what is the best game they can have. We mind map that whole situation out, the best season they can play and the best academic year. Ultimately, in the last week of my course, I walk through some of the key components of what they need to be to be the best human they can be.

There are eighteen videos and workshops in the course. It’s all designed for them. What science is showing is that it’s easier for them to do what I call an intentional dream instead of falling asleep. With the map that you made about that big play, that big game, or that big season, dream about that so you’re intentionally dreaming and you’re dreaming about the live experience. It is like what Michael Jordan used to say. I talk about this in one of my courses. Michael Jordan hit a game-winning shot. An interviewer asked him, “What was it like making that shot?” He was like, “It was nothing for me because I did it over and over again in my mind 1,000 times. I knew it was going in. I was making that shot over and over in my mind.”

Relationships

I’m very excited about helping these young athletes to sort out and make conscious decisions on what they want from the game and start to visualize themselves playing at a high level so they not only can attract it but experience it and get everything they want out of that experience of playing the game. That’s my biggest one. It’s called Big Play Power. I’m excited about it. I’m working with student-athletes and they’re jazzing on it. It’s pretty cool.

People use it in all sports. Randomly, I’m choosing skiing. You see them waiting for their turn and you can see them visualizing the course and what they’re going to do. I want to hit on something. One of the components that you described in your I Am map was success. A component of success is success in a relationship. You alluded to when things were very dire for you, you lost. I’m sure it’s not lost, but you separated from your family. How do relationships and romantic love in families figure into this?

It’s great you asked that. I appreciate that question because I had a conversation like that with my sister. I have a 37-year-old sister. We were having a conversation and I had to pause her. She’s dating, but I noticed a lot of her conversations around what she didn’t want in a relationship. She was like, “I don’t want a man that does this. I don’t want this kind of man.” When I asked her, “What kind of man do you want?” She was like, “Uh.” She was more clear on what she didn’t want versus what she did in a relationship.

I had her map out a mind map of all of the key components of what she wanted in a relationship and how she wanted a man to show up in her life and support her as a partner. Once we got clear with that, then I asked her a very important question that was like an a-ha moment for her. I said, “Now that you’re clear on the man that you want, what kind of woman do you think a man like that would want?” She was like, “Ugh.”

When it comes to relationships, mind mapping is very powerful. This is something that I do teach young students. Another project that I’m working on is for college students who don’t play football. It’s called Mappineer Your College Years. That’s another book. I get them clear not just on who they are, but when they get clear on who they are, they develop strong boundaries on what kind of relationships they’ll allow to enter their personal space. They’re like, “I’m clear on who I am now, so I’m seeing who you are. You’re not on my map. Your behavior is not conducive to my map and to who I’m intending to be.”

When you get clear on who you are, you develop strong boundaries. Share on X

When it comes to relationships, not just with dating but even with family members, if you have some family members that are violating you in some kind of way or betraying you in some kind of way, I’m finding that when people get clear on their I Am process, they’re stronger in taking a stand for themselves. They’re like, “Despite you being my mom, dad, brother, sister, son, daughter, or whatever, I’m not tolerating this. I can do it from a place of not being angry. I can do it from a place of not being resentful. I can do it from a place of not being a jerk about it. I’m doing it from a place of clarity on who I am and who I intend to be. If you can’t align your behaviors to that, God bless you. Go live your life.”

You described two groups of people. One is family. The family is there no matter what. One of them could be a jerk, but normally, you will not run out of their life. You will still stay in their life, especially if they’re a close family. Let’s go back to your sister and romantic love. Let’s say she does her mind map. She has a very clear idea of what man she wants and what kind of woman that man is likely to want. She can see if that’s her.

She meets the man and he seems to meet all of those points generally, so they start to date. After a little time, she discovers that he is X. You name X. He’s selfish. He’s self-centered. He’s this. He’s that. He’s offensive. The question is, does she say, “Bye,” because he’s not going to change, or if she cares about him enough, will she say, “Do you want to work on this?” Will she give him, or him her, the opportunity to grow and change?

Yeah. That is naturally in a case-by-case scenario. What I’m finding is that when people are more clear on who they are and what they want, they won’t overlook those red flags when they’re small red flags before it becomes a big issue. They’ll see, “He said he was going to be here at a certain time and he’s not here. This is a potential integrity thing. This is an intentional thing. He didn’t clean it up. He didn’t apologize. Let me not keep continuing with the relationship because I know this is a possible warning sign that it can get worse and eventually evolve. I’m very clear on who I am now that this is not going to be cool with me. I’m going to adjust my emotions and my behavior sooner rather than later because I’m more clear on who I am.”

When people are more clear on who they are and what they want, they won't overlook the red flags. Share on X

To back up a little bit, I’ve been doing a little dating lately. It seems like a lot of people want not only to take from the relationships, but they’re in the relationship because they believe that relationship will help them be more fulfilled. That is a warning flag for me when my dating is like, “You’re not clear on who you are. You’re not loving yourself and at peace with yourself and you’re looking for me to come help you be happy. That’s not going to work because I’m clear now that you’re in this to take, not necessarily to give or contribute.”

When people get clear in the relationship like, “This is who I am and this is what I’m looking for,” or, “This is what I know will work for me inside of a relationship,” certain things become illuminated quicker. They can make their adjustments before 3 or 10 years with kids, marriage, and a house before they’d be like, “I saw this when we were dating and I didn’t make any adjustments with it.”

They’re like, “She was so cute.”

They’re like, “She had nice boobs so I overlooked it,” and all of that kind of stuff. You find yourself in this quagmire or in this unfortunate situation when you should have noticed it earlier enough. The big reason probably why you didn’t notice that is because you weren’t clear on who you were. That’s the way it works in dating relationships from what I’ve been experiencing personally and what I’ve been helping others, like my sister, get clear with.

John’s Books

Knowing who we are and developing that I Am map leads to healthy boundaries. Most of us run around with boundaries that are not very healthy. That goes back to how we value ourselves. Maybe we are not sure we deserve that kind of behavior. We’re like, “They did a bad thing to me, but maybe that’s okay.” I see the great value in what you are describing and knowing who we are. Let’s go back to your nine books. For the person who is reading this, which of the books would be a good start to look at?

I would suggest this book that I wrote as a compliment supplement to my TEDx Talk. As I mentioned in my TEDx Talk, I talked about that experience at my mom’s. When you see my TEDx Talk, I have my natural slide deck, a board, and an easel, but I also took on stage with me this big box to show people that whole illustration of what I went through going through that box. As a spinoff to that TEDx Talk, I wrote this book called What’s In Your Big-Ass Box?.

The whole point of that book is realizing that people may not have had a literal big box like I had, but they do have a big brain that’s very similar and can use the same kind of sorting that I did. Inside that book, it helps people be open to the possibility that it’s not just important to think outside of the box, but mind mapping will help you start to live outside of a big box.

All of us have boxes and some framework belief systems. The walls of a box are your beliefs. When people are telling you to think outside of the box, they’re telling you to think outside of your belief systems. They’re telling you to think about stuff that’s possible that you have outside of what you put in this compartment. When you develop a mind mapping practice or a mappineering practice, you start to realize, “There are no limits.” If I put my limits on a mind map, mind maps, by nature of how it’s structured, will get me to start thinking outside of what I thought was possible because of the nature of mappineering.”

People would look at that book at first glance.

It’s on Amazon.

Do you have a website?

Yes.

Where should we go?

JohnDiggs.com. It has all of my stuff on there, like my TEDx Talk. It has the I Am system. I have a book for that. I have a mini course for that. I have a four-week long course that walks people through every one of those components and asks them very thought-provoking questions to get them clear as far as, “What do successful relationships mean to you? What needs to happen to experience a successful relationship? Let’s put that on your map.” The whole idea is once you get this I AM mind map done, you start to visualize it like these student-athletes. You start to visualize who you want to be, the things you want to do, and the things you want to have.

A very important distinction that is probably good for me to share with you guys is that for those people who have ever heard of mind mapping or know of mind mapping, it’s pretty much used as a brainstorming project management or a note-taking tool. The creator of this term, mind mapping, Mr. Tony Buzan, back in the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s was an English educator. He was trying to figure out a way to help his students learn more, so he started studying the notes of Edison and Einstein.

He realized that they didn’t have linear notes like most of us do. They had a bunch of notes that had symbols, keywords, drawings, and phrases. It wasn’t all of that stuff. That’s where he developed this mind-mapping term from. Those people who know mind mapping pretty much use it for note-taking, brainstorming, project management, and things of that nature.

From what I’ve been learning over the last few years of doing this global understanding of mind mapping, I’m the only one who’s really promoting it and using mind mapping as a personal development tool to help people. I promote the I AM mind mapping as a personal tool that people can use on a personal level.

I wanted to coin a phrase to give people a distinction. What I’m teaching is not necessarily what my mapping is. That’s where mappineering came from. I call it mappineering because you are using your imagination to engineer beautiful mind maps to love your life more. That is the tagline for it. That’s where mappineering comes from. When you and your audience hear mappineering, know it’s more for using mind maps for personal development, peak performance, and optimal living.

It doesn’t really contradict because when you talk about it being used originally for project management, our life is a project.

It’s a project that needs to be managed.

MappineerVille.com

I believe you said you are building a community. Can you tell us about that? You even have a name for it. Was it Mappineerville?

It is MappineerVille.com or The Ville for short. Let’s call it The Ville. It’s been growing. I am so excited about it. I’m getting people from all over the world who are joining the community. Inside the community, I have dozens of mind mapping templates, spaces, exercises, and tutorials to show people how to use mind maps for daily successes and teamwork projects.

We have spaces and activities there. Instead of people talking about a powerful quote or something, they can share a mind map around that quote. Who was involved in the quote? What was the intention of the quote? What was the impact of it? It’s a lot of exercises around how to use mind maps on a daily personal level to love and live your best life.

There’s a community of people who are like-minded and who really support each other in this effort to use mind maps to live the best life that we can. It’s so exciting because you’re getting so many great people from around the world that are joining with this thrill and excitement of like, “Let me get in here and start figuring out how I can start to visualize not just my I AM but every other component of my life. I know that I can now have this visual tool that can help me, but I also have a community of supporters that can help support whatever I’m trying to do as well.” It’s called The Ville. Go to Mappineerville.com. It’s very exciting.

My joy is to be in the community and see people collaborating. When I first started mind mapping, it was a poster board. Now, I’m partnered with a company called MindMeister out of Vienna, Austria. With it being online, we can get 30, 40, 50, or 100 people collaborating on the same mind map together. It’s amazing. You’re getting people that are going on trips that instead of posting a picture that they went to Puerto Rico, which is what I saw, they’re putting a mind map of Puerto Rico and have all of the different components of secret hikes, secret waterfalls and all of these kinds of stuff. They’re like, “If you ever go here, contact this person.” We’re building this community of support for every possible thing people can experience. It’s exciting.

Some people, especially in the Silicon Valley area, are so busy. They say, “I need to be more flexible. Let me get a personal stretching coach, yoga coach, or Pilates coach.” Is there a way to work with you one-on-one?

Absolutely. I went through that experience where some high-level wealthy individuals were like, “I need some one-on-one. I got some stuff that’s going on.” One of my CEOs was in Pleasanton, which is up there close to Silicon Valley, California.

It’s not far. It’s across the bridge. Not the Golden Gate Bridge, but the Dumbarton Bridge.

You know where Pleasanton is.

In fact, I’ve been there not long ago.

He’s right in Pleasanton. He asked me that same question. He was like, “I need to work with you.” His wife decided to move on with her life in another direction. Despite him being a seven-figure-a-year guy, he was lost. He was like, “My identity is now different. I was a married man for 25 years. Now, I’m moving into a life that I never thought I was going to be living at this stage in my life.” He’s in his early 60s. He was like, “I’m shook. What should I do?”

I was like, “Let’s get into your I AM mind map. Let’s recreate your identity or repurpose your identity in this phase.” I naturally referred him to my mini-course and course. He was like, “How much to get you?” I was like, “How much do you have?” We’ve been working together on a personal level. It’s a little tough at times because I’m a busy dude, but I’m open to those people who need that one-on-one attention.

To be honest with you, my message is more important to me than the money. Fortunately, I’ve made some good money with my software development business. This is not a money thing for me anymore. Naturally, I have to make money. I’m realizing that I need to charge because if I gave it for free, people wouldn’t respect it, value it, or come ready with the attention needed to cause change. I have to price it to a certain level. I’m so passionate about causing and creating change in people’s lives. That’s more important to me than the dollar, per se.

I’m open to one-on-one coaching. I have some one-on-one coaching with some student-athletes. There is a high school student that I’m dealing with that’s here in my neighborhood. He is a great kid, but he has to sort out what he really wants from the game of football. He’s a high school player. He has some good talent but is mixed up on what he wants from the game and what he wants in his life.

I gave a presentation to the school and offered them to go to my Big Play Power courses. Their parents came to me and were like, “Our kids need some special attention.” I’m working with kids. I love what I do. It is really fun to help people change and transform. To positively impact lives is a warm, fuzzy feeling in my heart that’s priceless.

Hopefully, even for the successful kids who get to the NFL, maybe it will help them cope with being a very young person all of a sudden swimming in money and everybody is like a shark circling them. Hopefully, that can help as well.

That is truly the goal. I was one of those kids who was raised in extreme poverty. The next thing you know, I signed a contract and got all this money. My identity shifted and I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t have an I AM mind map. I squandered a lot of money. I squandered a lot of opportunities. I bought things I didn’t need to impress people I didn’t like.

That is a story that I tell to a lot of young student-athletes as far as, “Even though you’re in high school now, let’s start mapping out what that experience will be when you get there. This is not just to start attracting that experience to you, but when it happens, you’re more prepared mentally to deal with that experience because you rehearsed it in your mind. You were like, “Once I make it to the NFL, I’ve already determined how my identity is going to be. I already determined what’s most important to me and how I’m going to live so I don’t make decisions that I end up regretting later.” You’re spot on with that.

Start mapping out what the experience will be when you get there not just to start attracting that experience to you but also when it happens, you're more prepared to deal with it. Share on X

Where are you based geographically?

I’m in Phoenix, Arizona.

That’s not far from us.

Where are you at?

The San Francisco Bay area.

I love San Francisco.

Where in Phoenix?

On the east side in a community called Val Vista Lakes. It’s in Gilbert on the east side of Phoenix.

I love Gilbert.

You know where I’m at. I’m right on the baseline in Val Vista Lakes. There’s a community right there that I’m in.

It’s beautiful.

I love it. My kids love it. I’m only here to get my youngest who’s a freshman in high school. Once she’s off to college, my vision is to move to Oahu. I’m a Hawaii guy. That’s my happy place. I’m excited. I’m not counting the days to get there, but there are a few hundred days left.

It’s Oahu because it’s a combination of you still get the weather, the ocean, and all of that, and yet you still get a city-type place where you can work as opposed to maybe Kauai or Maui.

I was born and raised in LA. I’m a city guy. I love Kauai. I love the big island. I love Maui. I love Kona. I’ve been to all of them. I have to still be able to hear a horn every now and then and some traffic. Some of those places are too rural for me. I would go crazy.

How many kids do you have?

I have three girls.

How old are they?

26, 18, and 15.

Let me ask you this. The late Robin Williams, for many people, including myself, was one of the funniest people. I like him. I like Eddie Murphy. I’m old-school.

They are very talented.

Robin Williams’ kids thought he was extremely unfunny. I ask you this about your girls. I know that once you have your system all honed and you work with young people, you are dying to get them to engage, but sometimes, it backfires. Did they engage or did they not?

They do, but not without some incentives. I’ll put it that way. My fifteen-year-old, I pay her $25 per mind map for book reviews. I’m starting inside of Mappineerville or The Ville book reviews. In the center of the mind map is the title of the book. Around the subtitles are all the chapters of the book. It’s so beautiful to hear my little fifteen-year-old saying, “This is Sasha Diggs. I’m doing a book review mind map,” on whatever the book is. They have been doing it. My middle daughter has been great. For all of my kids, I had to incentivize them first, as a total transparency, but they see it. Honest to God, my fifteen-year-old said, “Dad, I had a good time making that one mind map. It was a lot of fun.” They’ve been using it for school and note-taking.

This is what I’ve been finding in my research. Ivy League schools have been really promoting mind mapping to their students and are finding an increase in their test scores. They’re realizing that when students notate and do their projects and stuff using mind maps, it’s easier for them to close their eyes and visualize the answer on the map versus that linear bullet point that they were doing before. That’s what my kids are experiencing. When they do it in mind maps and they get a question on a test, they can close their eyes and be like, “That was in the lower left-hand corner. I know that answer. I put it there. There’s the answer.” That’s another powerful way that mind maps are used for students too.

It sounds like you did a great job with your kids. There is MappineerVille.com. That’s the online community. There is JohnDiggs.com. The book you recommend to start with has the words Big-Ass Box in the name.

They can put John Diggs Big-Ass Box on Amazon and it comes right up.

For Your TEDx Talk, it is John Diggs if they’re looking for the talk. Thank you for taking the time to be here. It was fascinating to learn.

Thank you for having me.

I look at what you did as facilitation of getting in all the information from all the corners of the self-development and improvement methods and funneling it in an accessible way to us who are all super busy. That’s unbelievably useful. I’m very thankful for that.

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. You are amazing. Know that if there is anything you need from me, reach out to me. I’m always here for you. If you have questions or you need some mind-mapping questions, email me. I promise to be there for you on a personal level as a way of saying thank you for having me and helping me share my message. I appreciate you. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thanks for being here. It was a real pleasure.

Thank you.

Important Links

About John Diggs

After being forced to give up a successful career as a pro football player due to reconstructive knee surgery, he went on to become a successful businessman.