[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Today let's look at some examples of applying the active view of models to models you may know or from life. That is, the following examples show how someone created a model specifically not what most people see when they look at the object of the modeling. Jack…

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Actively choosing and managing your models -- what I call the active view of models -- changes how you experience your world. Since you only know your world through your beliefs and models, changing your models effectively changes your world. You need to know about models -- the…

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Do you think you have some great models and beliefs that no one can prove wrong? Let's look at some examples of experts declaring things most people at the time probably agreed with. I think you'll find many funny today. Imagine trying to argue with the authority who…

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] If I stress one thing about models and beliefs, I stress that they all have flaws. None are internally consistent. All contradict something in the world. To recognize that you can't prove most of the basic ideas you hold as truths can be mind blowing. I'm not trying…

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Today I'll review the main points arising from simply knowing about that we create models that mediate our interactions with our worlds -- what I call the passive view. Merely knowing about models passively, not what to do with them but just the following points, will help you…

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Leadership depends on understanding that other people have different models. A leader who doesn't recognize people can have different models will create discord and confusion, as today's example will illustrate. I draw this example from my life. After business school a friend told me her consulting job was…

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] I tend to believe that everybody does their best according to their abilities and perception of their environment. Sure, I know counterexamples, but in general I believe that at every moment, everyone observes their surroundings and, based on their perception and abilities (more precisely, their beliefs about their…

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] For the next three or four posts, let's look at examples of how we use models in more depth. After each example I'll describe the lessons it teaches. We'll start with an example we're all familiar with: someone told you they'd call Monday. By Friday, no call. It's…