About - Derek Franklin

* If you're looking for licensing info, please visit the licensing page.

What's a LifeMap?

In a nutshell, a LifeMap is a visual guide that explains - or maps out - ideas, strategies, and mindsets that help you achieve more success in life, one step at a time.

I call it a Life - Map because the focus of each guide is to teach you something that helps you reach a destination (or end result) in your life when you follow a series of steps as presented on the page - similar to the functionality of a travel map... hence the name.

The LifeMap Story

LifeMaps - at least the version you see offered on this site - are the result of many years of research and trial and error (and some sweat and tears). When I say many years, I mean like 20 years.

Ever since I was a kid, I've been fascinated by human behavior - not only what makes us tick, but what it takes to get better results in life.

Many years ago I began collecting ideas and strategies from books, tapes, and videos. At first I collected them in handwritten notebooks like most people, but very early on I discovered an amazing concept known as mind mapping.

In case you're not familiar with mind mapping, it's a graphical technique for visually organizing information, ideas, tasks, or other concepts in a radiant, non-linear manner. A good mind map of an idea looks like a tree, with different elements of the idea being represented as branches on the tree.

I HIGHLY recommend mind mapping to everyone who asks about how I manage my ideas - it's insanely powerful, easy to learn/practice, and fun to use.

After some time of collecting tons of ideas, I started experimenting with ways to combine my love of drawing and creating graphics with my desire to distill the ideas I had into the most simple form I could. I wanted to teach and share the ideas I learned with others, but I wanted to do it in a totally new way - something that was both visual and and super-easy to understand. This part of my journey was definitely the longest.

I've spent many years experimenting with different approaches to using drawings and graphics to enhance the explanation of an idea. I've tried many dozens of approaches, and have an idea 'graveyard' that easily contains more than 500 different attempts. This is somewhat embarrassing, as I encourage others to avoid being a perfectionist, and I happened to be one of the worst!

* NOTE: If you've followed me for an length of time, you've likely seen some of these earlier versions of LifeMaps.

In 2023, as I was approaching the year of my 57th birthday, I came to the terrible realization that I had spent many years playing with different ideas that I ultimately intended to share with others, but had essentially shared less than 5% of any of it. I wasn't happy and decided I needed to turn this around... NOW!

In moment of frustration, I went back and looked over some of my many ideas to try and identify the best elements from each of them. Long story short... after this journey of discovery and armed with some basic goals that I wanted each LifeMap to achieve, I went back to the drawing board (literally) and started to create just ONE more variety of something that might work.

To my surprise, what flowed out of my was the BEST version of a LifeMap I had ever created! I tried my newly discovered creation framework on a handful of different ideas, and not only was the end result perfect, but I learned several ways to adjust the framewrork when explaining different concepts.

The end result of this process is what you see today.

Tools I Use

Apple iPad Pro (for drawing graphics): https://amzn.to/45wQf1N
Apple Pencil (need it for drawing): https://amzn.to/45w38JC
Apple Airpods Pro: https://amzn.to/3R2BKP4
Shure MV7 microphone: https://amzn.to/3EkHr3m
Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 Audio Interface: https://amzn.to/45uK66t
Cloudlifter (mic booster): https://amzn.to/47R2R5r
Concepts App (iPad OS drawing app): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/concepts/id560586497
Ferrite Studio (iPad OS audio editing app): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ferrite-recording-studio/id1018780185
Camtasia Studio (Windows/Mac video editing): https://www.techsmith.com/video-editor.html

Highlights of My Life

Here are a few facts about me that will not change your life one bit (at least, I don't think they will):

I'm a former Adobe Press author (I wrote 5 books that sold over 250,000 copies)
I've been online since 1995
The first website I ever created (1997) had a page for my cat, Camille
I'm a fanatical tea drinker (Yorkshire Gold is my favorite).
I play guitar (like a boss!).
I've had all my stuff ripped-off while traveling in the south of France (see map below). I was left with nothing but a towel, my flip-flops, and my swim trunks - which I happen to be wearing at the time.
I don't like cold weather at all!
I've been married since 1993.
The most amazing place I've ever visited was Zermatt, Switzerland to see the Matterhorn.
I haven't had cable/satellite TV in my house in over 10 years (so glad I eliminated it).
I used to paint apartments for a living.
I don't like painting apartments for a living.
It's not the apartments I don't like - it's the painting.
I love what I do now.
I love speaking and teaching.