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You're listening to the MentalNotes Podcast. In this episode, MentalNotes founder Scott Dow explains how to use mental models.

You don't think about a situation, you see the situation in your mind's eye. You bring to mind a mental picture of all the things you know and how they relate to one another. This is how you process large amounts of information quickly. Your mental picture is based on good information. If you have a good, clear picture of the situation, you're going to perform better.

I'm going to explain how you use mental pictures in your self-coaching practice. And I want to start with an experiment. I'm going to share some words. I'm going to bet it brings to mind a mental picture. So here we go. Travel, parade, turkey, football, family, pilgrim, shopping, pumpkin.

Now, I bet you I have you thinking about Thanksgiving. Let's take two of the words from that string and use them again. Parade, family, hot dogs, holiday fireworks, baseball, barbecue, flag. Now I bet you're thinking about the 4 July.

So here's how this works. We remember what words mean, but words have different meaning when they're grouped with other words. Football and pilgrim have their own meaning. They're distinct ideas or concepts, but when combined with turkey and pumpkin, they describe a situation that has much more complex meaning.

Here's your takeaway the human mind groups distinct concepts like turkey and pumpkin into models or pictures. Then we follow them away for future use. That's how we process large amounts of information quickly. A good mental picture serves for specific purposes. It allows us to plan, prepare, and predict for what's going to happen in the future.

When I travel for Thanksgiving, I plan to get to the airport early because I know it's going to be crowded. I prepare by wearing loose fitting jeans because I know I'm going to overeat, and I can predict how discussions about politics are going to go, so I avoid them. Mental pictures also help you solve problems.

Now, here's an example. I've turned political conversations into shopping discussions. It's my rule of thumb. It's a good way to keep the peace. Now you're a leader and you want to be able to handle different leadership situations. And to do that, you have to create the right mental models, the right mental pictures of those situations.

So how do you practice this? Well, we've talked about informal learning, learning by listening, watching, and asking questions, learning through trial and error. So you're going to be collecting different bits of information concepts with different meaning. It's not going to be turkey, football and parade. It might be listen, empathize, and clarify.

First thing you do is this, you create mental pictures around very specific leadership challenges. That's the point. Things like the new employee, the anxious employee, or the disgruntled team. You take these concepts, you learn, and you group them together in a useful way.

Second thing you do is this, you have to constantly update your mental images with new information. My new mental image of Thanksgiving includes a mess because I can't get on a plane without one. Third thing you do is this, create little rules of thumb. They're a key part of your mental image. Here's an example, like politics, I'm not going to bring up vaccine mandate. I'm going to bring up, I'm talking about Black Friday sales. That's my rule of thumb.

And the final thing you do is this, create mental images of what works. If I ask you to count to five and you count 1, 2, 4, 5, I immediately know what's missing. I can fix it quickly. Remember, a good mental image allows you to plan, prepare, and predict. And rules of thumb are going to help you solve problems quickly.

The whole purpose of continuous lifetime learning is to create refine and quickly recall mental models for success. We want you to learn with a purpose, and that purpose is to have a clear picture, a clear mental image of what works and what doesn't.

So a final thought. Sully Sullenberger landed a big passenger plane on the Hudson River. And all he had to work from was a mental image of the situation. Sure, he might have practiced in a flight simulator, but he had never actually done it before. He took everything he had learned conceptually about landing a huge plain in open water, and he quickly put it to use.

It was only three and a half minutes from the time he sent his Mayday call to the time he touched down in the river. With all the chaos and stress going on around him and within him, he was able to recall and act upon all he had ever learned about that situation. And he did it with a mental picture. The mental image of success is what he acted upon, and you can. Too.