How Mind-Mapping Saved Us From a Crisis and the System We Still Use Today

Apr 17
10 min read

When everything feels tangled and you don't know where to start — the answer is almost never to think harder. It's to think differently.

There is a tool we have been using for over four decades.

We first encountered it in the 1980s — long before it was mainstream, long before apps were built around it, long before anyone had put it on a PowerPoint slide or featured it in a productivity blog. I learned it from Robert Kiyosaki, in a workshop I attended in Anchorage, Alaska, that I couldn't really afford.

I was desperate. And I was about to have my world rearranged by a single insight.

That tool is the Mind Map. And this week, I want to tell you exactly what it is, how it saved me, and why I still use it every single time I feel overwhelmed, stuck, or unclear about where to begin.

Have you ever stared at a problem — or a project, or a business you're trying to build — and felt like you couldn't see the whole thing clearly? Like the pieces were all there but you couldn't get them to make sense together?

That feeling has a cure. It doesn't require more information, more time, or a better strategy.

It requires a blank page and a circle in the middle.

Part 1: The Crisis and the Question I Was Asking Wrong

Let me take you back to the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey, before Hawaiian Vacations, before any of it had worked out the way we hoped.

I was running a small marketing consulting firm in Anchorage, Alaska. Solopreneur turned small team. Working hard — genuinely, exhaustingly hard. And yet the bills kept mounting, the income felt impossible to stabilize, and the fear was the kind that follows you to bed and greets you in the morning.

The nightmares were vivid. Sitting in the middle of the street on a pile of cardboard boxes containing everything we owned. Impending poverty. The business is teetering on the edge of collapse.

Out of that desperation, I attended a workshop I couldn't afford, led by Robert Kiyosaki — years before Rich Dad Poor Dad made him a household name. The workshop was called 'Money and You.' Through it, I connected with a mentor named Lee Berglund, and I sat with her one cold winter afternoon beside a crackling fire in her mountain home outside Anchorage.

I asked her the question I'd been carrying for months:

"How do I make more money?"

Lee looked at my business financials. Then she said:

"It's clear you know how to make money — just look at your gross revenues. Your problem is not making money. It is making a profit."

I had been staring at the wrong number. Obsessing over revenue, the top line, while the bottom line was bleeding. I thought the problem was 'not enough money.' The real problem was 'not enough profit.' Two completely different diagnoses. Only one with a real solution.

If you are not crystal clear about what you REALLY want, you will not reach your true goal.

That moment crystallized everything Robert Kiyosaki had taught in that first workshop — that clarity leads to power. You have to see the situation accurately before you can navigate it correctly.

And the tool that helped us achieve that clarity, over and over again, for the next four decades?

The Mind Map.

Part 2: What a Mind Map Actually Is

If you've never used one, the concept is beautifully simple. And if you have used one, what we're about to share may change how you think about applying it.

A Mind Map starts with a single shape — a circle, a square, whatever feels right — in the center of a blank page. Inside that shape goes your primary topic, issue, question, or project. Then you draw branches outward from the center, like spokes on a wheel or branches on a tree. Each spoke represents a major category or dimension of that central topic. Off each spoke, you draw sub-branches — more specific tasks, ideas, responsibilities, or questions.

You can go as many levels deep as the complexity requires. You can use colors, symbols, and images. There is no right or wrong way to do it. The only rule is that it starts in the middle and grows outward.

What this does — and why it works — is that it externalizes the tangle. When everything lives inside your head, it loops. The same worries, the same unresolved questions, the same sense that there's too much and no clear place to start. The moment you put it on paper in a radial structure, something shifts. You can see the whole picture. You can spot what's missing. You can understand how the pieces relate to each other. The overwhelm doesn't disappear — but it becomes workable.

A Mind Map doesn't solve the problem. It lets you finally see it clearly enough to solve it yourself.

What is the one area of your business right now that feels too tangled to approach? What would happen if you just started drawing it out — center circle, spokes, branches — without trying to solve anything yet?

Part 3: How We've Used It — Real Examples from Our Businesses

We don't teach tools we haven't actually used. So let us show you exactly where Mind Maps have shown up in our businesses across four decades.

Building This Course

When I set out to develop my course — Overcome Overwhelm: Create a Smooth Running Business with Less Stress — the very first thing I did was create a Mind Map.

I put the central question in the middle: what are the major elements of business that made the difference in our success over forty-plus years? Then I drew spokes. Each spoke became a candidate for a module. Then off each spoke, I drew sub-branches for the key concepts within that module. Then I did a second round of Mind Maps — one for each module — to make sure every important idea was accounted for before a single script was written.

The course you're reading about right now was organized, structured, and refined through Mind Maps before it was ever turned into lessons.

If you want a step-by-step framework for building a business that runs smoothly without constant overwhelm, start with our free training: 6 Principles for Long-Term Business Success

Managing Properties Across Alaska

When we were managing income properties spread across Alaska, I created a Mind Map for property management. Each spoke represented a major category of responsibility — maintenance, tenant relations, finances, compliance, and logistics. Off each spoke came the specific tasks that fell under it.

That Mind Map became the foundation for the property manager's job description and training manual. It made visible — at a glance — every responsibility the role carried, how those responsibilities connected to each other, and what a complete picture of the job actually looked like.

No important task was left off the list, because we could see the whole thing at once.

Defining the Office Manager Role

I also used a Mind Map to define the role of an Office Manager and Personal Assistant — one of the most complex positions we ever hired for. This person needed to track details across multiple real estate properties from Alaska to Hawaii, a motel, two homes, non-profit activities, and personal tasks.

When we drew it out as a Mind Map, something important became visible: not just the many and varied tasks, but how they were interrelated. Which responsibilities are connected to which? Where the same information flowed across multiple branches. That visual map became a critical training tool — and it made the complexity manageable for both the person we hired and for us.

Is there a role in your business — or a responsibility you personally carry — that has never been fully mapped out? What would it look like to draw every branch of it on a single page?

Part 4: The Mind Map as a Living Business Tool

Here's what separates a Mind Map from a to-do list or a project plan: it doesn't just capture what exists. It reveals what's missing.

When you draw a Mind Map of your business and look at it honestly, you start to see the gaps. The spokes that are thin because no one has really built that area out. The branches that trail off because the responsibility isn't clearly assigned. The places where tasks are being done by muscle memory rather than by design.

This is exactly why, in Module 1 of our course, we recommend using a Mind Map specifically to help you visualize your business and all the functions in it. Use a mind map to draw out a process — any process — and it becomes immediately visible where the steps are too many, where the handoffs are unclear, where confusion is likely to occur, and where a clearly defined system would relieve both time and stress.

Drawing it out lets you see where tasks could be grouped for greater efficiency. Where a standard operating procedure would ease the flow of work. Where training would improve quality and relieve you of time spent guiding the same process over and over again.

A Mind Map of your business is not a snapshot. It's a diagnostic. Use it every time something feels stuck or unclear.

We still use Mind Maps today — for new projects, for planning, for any moment when complexity threatens to become overwhelm. The tool hasn't changed since we first learned it in the 1980s. The applications keep expanding.

Part 5: How to Build Your First Business Mind Map

Here is exactly how to do it — not as a theory, but as a working session you can start today.

Step 1: Start with the center

Write 'My Business' — or whatever specific project or challenge you're working through — in a circle in the middle of a blank page. Blank paper works perfectly. So does a whiteboard, a tablet, or a Mind Map app. We've used SimpleMind and Miro — both are excellent. Canva has mind maps, too. The tool matters less than the thinking.

Step 2: Draw the primary spokes

These are the major categories or departments of your business. For most businesses, the spokes include some version of: Marketing, Finance, Operations, Human Resources, Legal, and Executive. Your business may have different ones — adjust freely. The goal is to capture every major dimension of how the business functions.

Step 3: Build the sub-branches

Off each primary spoke, draw the specific functions, tasks, or responsibilities within that area. Marketing might branch into Sales, Advertising, Social Media, Customer Service, and Public Relations. Finance might branch into Banking, Cash Flow, Payroll, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, and Monthly Financials. Go as specific as your situation requires.

Step 4: Add names or roles

Once the branches are built, label each one with who is currently responsible for it — a name, a title, or 'me' if it currently falls to you. This step alone is often revelatory. It shows exactly where one person is carrying too many branches, where ownership is unclear, and where no one is currently accountable for something important.

Step 5: Look for what's missing

Now step back and look at the whole picture. Are all the branches covered? Are there areas with no sub-branches — meaning they exist in name only, with no real structure behind them? Are there tasks that don't belong to any branch — orphaned responsibilities that fall through the cracks because they don't have a home?

Those gaps are your next priorities. Not because the Mind Map told you what to do — but because it showed you what you couldn't see before you drew it.

Use color if you can — one color per major branch. The more visual the map, the more your brain will engage with it. Have fun with it. This is not a formal document. It is a thinking tool.

When was the last time you had a complete picture of your entire business on one page? What would it reveal if you drew it today?

This Week's Exercise: Draw Your Business Mind Map

Set aside one hour this week. Clear the table, grab a blank page — or open SimpleMind or Miro — and build a Mind Map of your business as it currently exists.

Don't idealize it. Don't draw the business you're planning to build. Draw the one you actually have right now. The spokes that exist. The branches that are real. The names that are actually doing the work.

Then ask yourself three questions:

• Where are the gaps — the branches with no real structure behind them?

• Where is one person (probably you) carrying too many spokes?

• Where does something important have no clear owner?

Those three answers will give you more clarity about your next priorities than any strategy session ever could.

And if you get stuck or the picture feels too complex to capture, start smaller. Pick one department, one role, one process. Draw just that. The clarity will come.

Clarity is not a feeling. It is something you build — one branch at a time.

Podcast Spotlight

Powerful On Purpose Podcast with Leslie Capps

I recently had the opportunity to join Leslie Capps on the Powerful On Purpose Podcast, and we had an honest conversation about what really happens behind the scenes of growing a business.

I shared my journey—from running a business where even family dinners happened at the office…

To stepping out of the day-to-day, scaling successfully, and ultimately selling the company to Alaska Airlines.

Listen here: Burnout to Lifestyle Freedom: Lessons from a 45-Year Serial Entrepreneur

Final Thoughts

The Mind Map didn't save us because it was a sophisticated tool.

It saved us because it forced us to look at the whole picture — honestly, completely, without hiding any of the parts we didn't want to deal with. And when you can see the whole picture, you can finally stop reacting to whichever piece is loudest and start making intentional decisions about what actually needs your attention.

I learned it in a workshop I couldn't afford, from a man who went on to change the way the world thinks about money. We've been using it ever since — for courses, for job descriptions, for property management, for strategic planning, for any moment when clarity felt just out of reach.

It works because it matches the way the brain actually thinks — in patterns, in connections, in radiating relationships rather than straight lines. And it costs nothing but a blank page and the willingness to draw.

Start today. Put the circle in the middle. Write in the thing that feels too big or too tangled to approach.

Then start drawing the branches.

You'll be surprised how quickly the picture becomes clear.

With love and clarity,

Ral West

Livin' the Dream