* You can affect 'automatic' bodily processes like your temperature and heart beat, physical health and athletic performance solely through the power of your thoughts. In 1970, an Indian yogi, Swami Rama, caused two areas a couple of inches apart on his right hand to change temperature, in opposite directions. The rate of the temperature change was about 2°C (4°F) per minute, and he was able to maintain the change until there was a temperature difference of 5°C (10°F)

* The tennis player Billie Jean King was considered by her opponents to be almost unbeatable once she had mentally 'programmed' her body to win, despite the fact that there was no particular physical area in which she was superior to everybody else.

In this book I will acquaint you with the awesome power and potential of your body and mind.

When I was a young boy at school, I found myself perplexed and confused by many questions to which I found I had no answer, and demotivated by comments from my teachers that seemed to confirm my lack of intelligence, concentration and energy.

My unanswered questions included the following:

* Why were things like geography, history, English and science considered more important than sports, art and music?

* Why was it that some boys (whom we all considered brilliant) were thought by our teachers to be disruptive and stupid, while some boys whom we thought to have no common sense at all, were considered bright by our teachers?

* Why would I sometimes get a lower mark in a test in which I knew I knew more than other students who, for some inexplicable reason got higher marks than me?

* Conversely, why would I sometimes get a higher mark in a test an someone whom I knew knew more than me?

My teachers' comments about my general academic career included:

* 'Lazy'

* 'Tends to day-dream too much'.

* 'Poor power of concentration'.

* 'This young boy is obviously not talented in art'.

* 'Can be a disruptive influence in the classroom'.

* 'Failed to live up to expectations-a disappointing performance'.

* 'Shows no aptitude for PE [Physical Education]'.

* 'Performance in history appalling-shows little interest or talent in the subject'.

* 'Non-university material!'

* 'Could do better'.

Sound familiar?

My unresolved questions gradually clarified themselves over time into three far more focused and incisive points:

1. Who says who is intelligent?

2. Who is the authority that defines what intelligence is?

3. Can IQ be changed for the better?

My attempts to answer these questions became my life's work, and led me to spend the next 30 years exploring the brain and the processes of intelligence, and inventing the concept of the Mind Map to improve our intelligences.

This book is really written as a rescue operation for all those brains on Planet earth who have raised the same questions and/or received similar comments on their school reports!

Enjoy the rediscovery of your natural intelligences!