During my recent review of ‘The ultimate book of Mind Maps’ by Tony Buzan and while going through the chapter called ‘The Ultimate Success Formula’, I once more realised that success is more scientific than most people realise.

“How can success be scientific?” you may ask. If it was, so many people will be more successful.

To answer this, I’ll start with a few quotes.

• If you want to succeed, double your failure rate – Thomas Watson
• The person who never made a mistake, never tried anything new – Albert Einstein
• A man’s errors are his portals of discovery – James Joyce
• Genius is one percent inspiration; ninety nine percent perspiration – Thomas Edison

Get the point?

Thomas Edison, for example, is reported to have had 10 000 failures while trying to invent the incandescent light bulb.

What should be the outcome of every trial?

Tony Buzan poses the question, ‘What should be the outcome of every trial?” when learning or doing something new; whether it be learning a new sport, starting a new project, or even learning for that mathematics exam.

What drives market leaders like Microsoft, Levis, Gucci and Coca-Cola? They are on the top of their game, why try something new and risk failure?

When asked, “What should be the outcome of every trial?” the answer is basically unanimous:

• “To get better with every trial”

According to Tony Buzan, this is the biggest reason for failure!

We are setting ourselves up for failure by using this mind set and it often results in the following:

• “I quit”
• “I give up”
• “I can’t”
• “I won’t”
• “I don’t care”
• “I should never have tried this”
• “I have no talent for this”
• “I will never succeed”
• Etc, etc.

If you continually try to improve by doing the same thing over and over again. You will eventually fail. You could try putting a ball into a hole from 10 metres. You could get it right 10, 20, 30 or even a 100 times, but what happens when you fail on attempt number 101?

Introducing the scientific method

Most people don’t understand what ’scientific’ really means. They see a scientist as some genius, or nerd, wearing a white coat in a laboratory.

They don’t see the marketing department of a successful retail store as being scientists. Yet these cool marketing people apply scientific methods to all their marketing campaigns.

Tony Buzan has put the scientific method of success into an acronym, which should come as no surprise to those that are familiar with his works.

TEFCAS – The Ultimate Success Formula

This acronym sums up the scientific method of success.

• TRIAL
• EVENT
• FEEDBACK
• CHECK
• ADJUST
• SUCCEED

I will now illustrate how this applies to the scientific method using examples that most people should be able to follow quite easily.

T – Trial

Once you have made up your mind to do something, you have to try at some point. You have to physically go out there and do it. To learn to ride a bicycle, you actually have to try and ride it.

In the scientific world, this is called an experiment. You have formulated your hypothesis, but now you have to test it.

In the marketing world, you have worked out a new campaign, but now you have to test it.

You’ve explored how to improve your golf swing, but now you have to go onto the golf course or the driving range.

You’ve gone through that tough mathematics section, but now you have to test yourself, or write that test tomorrow.

Can you see how similar the principles are across a diverse set of disciplines?

E – Event

In trying any of the above, something would have happened, which may or may not have been what you expected.

• Did the experiment succeed, or blow up in your face?
• Did your marketing campaign get an overwhelming response?
• How was that new golf swing?
• How did it go with the mathematics test?

F – Feedback

The result of the trial and event, supplies you with feedback. It is in this feedback that the seed of success lies.

The feedback comes from your own sensory experiences of the situation, but the feedback could also come from your teacher, your trainer, your coach or your customer.

In the scientist’s case, it could come by literally blowing up in your face!

By being aware of this feedback you will do the following:

C – Check

You will examine the results.

• What was the colour of the smoke? Did it blow up after I did X, or before I did Y?
• Which customers gave positive feedback? What age group gave negative feedback?
• Did I slice the ball, or hook it? Was there any wind?
• Did I get that A that I was expecting?

A – Adjust

This is where you compare your performance to you your goal.

• What were you trying to achieve?
• Did you get what you expected?
• Are your results way better than you expected?
• Did you fail that exam?

Based on your checking of the feedback, you can adjust your strategy and try again.

The goal is to reach the point where you can say ‘Hmm… How interesting’ instead of ‘!@*# I’m quitting!’

S – Success

By continually applying the above principles, you will eventually have success. Success will probably come easier if you apply these principles regularly until it becomes intuitive.

More importantly, these principles should take the fear of failure away. You will now see failure as the stepping stone to success and therefore be willing to try new things.

The fear of failure is one of the biggest obstacles to trying something new.

Me as a case study

I’ll end off by using me as an example once more. Every week I write at least one article for my online subscriber base. I also write one or more articles on my website, www.mindmaptutor.com

As a result of this event, I get some feedback:

• New subscribers sign up for my ‘WeeklyTutor‘ articles.
• Readers unsubscribe from my list
• I get more or less hits on my website
• I get comments posted on my articles
• I get email comments

Based on checking the feedback I get, I make some changes to my next article, to my key words, to the structure of my website, etc, etc.

Hopefully this will help me achieve my goal to promote Lifelong Learning using Mind Maps to as many people as possible.

TEFCAS will implicitly be included in many of the articles I write and the use of Mind Maps in the TEFCAS process will also be explored. Keep a look out for those!