But that’s where the “mental model” model becomes fascinating. It helps us see the way we think. It also helps loosen up the places of rigidity in our thinking. A model, afterall, is not a reality. It’s much easier to see how we create our perception when we can see the ways we create our thinking.

When we are working to create a behavioral change or work beyond a fear, it’s a particularly helpful concept.

But the “mental model” phrase is used more often in the technology field. And there’s a lot we can learn from the way they use it.

I came across this article recently. In it, Susan Weinschenk talks about the ways designers apply mental model thinking to software development.

Basically, we have mental models about everything around us. We have a mental model around how computers should work, how telephones work, how the iPad works, etc. When designers are creating new software or technology, it’s important for them to understand what the past mental models of consumers have been.

If a design is too far from a current mental model, the product is more likely to fail. And if it is friendly to a consumer’s mental model, well, it’s likely to be more successful.

Weinschenk’s explanation is great:

“Imagine that you’ve never seen an iPad, but I’ve just handed one to you and told you that you can read books on it. Before you turn on the iPad, before you use it, you have a model in your head of what reading a book on the iPad will be like. You have assumptions about what the book will look like on the screen, what things you will be able to do, and how you will do them—things like turning a page, or using a bookmark. You have a “mental model” of reading a book on the iPad, even if you’ve never done it before.”

I love this. It emphasizes just how arbitrary our experience really is. Because of past experience, we create a model of how things are.

But these models aren’t fixed! They’re just familiar. So, while our mental model of a book might be helpful, a mental model around fear may not.

Just seeing how arbitrary our experience of the world really is can provide a huge freedom to try new things. It’s a very powerful place to come from, and it’s a very important realization to have when developing skills. Particularly public speaking and leadership skills.

When we are aware of our mental models, we can be free from them. In turn, our ability to create and engage skyrockets.

Depending on your perspective, this could be the beginning of a great night or of a panic attack. For a shy person, the prospect of breaking into the flow of chatter bouncing around a room can be totally, completely, utterly overwhelming. Or, at the very least, an enormous challenge.

Unfortunately, most well-intentioned advice for the socially nervous usually comes in some variety of the phrase, "you should just get over it." Put yourself out there and it'll be fine.

The truth is, that's exactly the sort of advice that is perpetuating the source of social anxiety.

"Shyness" is a pattern of habitual thoughts and physical responses that occur in the same ways over and over and over again. Walk into a room of strangers, the chest tightens, throat contracts, whatever. Somewhere in there are the thoughts -- something like, "I don't know what to say," or "I'm out of here."

While frustrating and occasionally debilitating, these thoughts and physical responses are protective. They came about to protect us from some sort of perceived danger. Somehow, the mental model that it's unsafe to approach strangers gets built into our operating system, and it loops over and over again.

Advice to "get over it" or "push through it," while it means well, can often create the opposite effect. If shyness is designed to protect us from some perceived threat, it's only going to fight harder when challenged. In the shy mental model, it makes no sense to push through it. That would put us at risk. So those throat tightening, chest convulsions just get bigger and badder.

Of course, there's almost never a real threat to our survival when talking with strangers. It's just a misperception. But our body has been physiologically programmed to respond as if the misperception is accurate.

Great. So it's inaccurate. But tell that to a person in the middle of a room spinning fight or flight response. Doesn't do much good, does it?

The key to moving beyond this habitual pattern is really about shifting the relationship to the situation.

First, it's necessary to acknowledge that our experience of reality is entirely internal. We project what other people are thinking, but really have no idea. How we are perceived is something out of the scope of our internal reference. So ANY assumption about what people are thinking is false.

That's a big one. There's no room for, "he's too busy," or "she won't like me," or "they won't be interested in what I have to say." Those are all fabricated projections. Really. Call it fiction.

Recognizing that we're doing this all the time is step one.

Without those projections, what's left? A deep sense of not knowing. And this itself can be a little frightening. But so much more fruitful.

In the space of not knowing what someone is thinking, we are more available to find out.

But what about the chest contractions? The throat closing? The spinning room?

This is why a deep practice of body awareness is so crucial. As we familiarize ourselves with the subtleties of physical sensation, we can hang out in the body rather than escaping into those worried mental chatters. Body habits shift much more quickly when we pay attention to them without fighting or thinking about them. Chest contractions are just warm energy sensations in the center of the torso. It's not fear until we identify it that way.

It's also particularly important to have a sense of softness as you are working through shyness. It's very easy to be self-scolding or disappointed after a tough night out or a bad office party. But, really, it's a lot more common than you might realize, and it's a very normal part of the human experience.

I liked the way Cyan Ta'eed puts it: everyone is as shy as you are. Some people just don't listen to their fears and doubts quite as much.

Any other suggestions for overcoming shyness?

As I've written before, I don't think it needs to be such a mystery. What if I told you there was a key to unlocking the secret garden gates of presence? What if that key were so easy to use, we might forget to use it all together? I think, even for the most shy of us, the key to effective stage presence is readily available. Want to know what it is?

Your body.

Unlike thoughts, which are constantly projecting forward into the future or back into the past (notice this in yourself right now), body sensations are neutral. They are felt in the current moment.

While an anxious thought - the kind that keeps us from a full engagement with presence - might spin out of control, there is a felt sensation in the body that correlates with this thought. Maybe it's a tightening of the chest. We are conditioned to experience this tightening of the chest as a sign of danger, which fuels our anxious thoughts telling us to get away.

Here's an example. "Oh no, I'm going to forget what to say." That's a future oriented thought. It's about something that might or might not happen. Now the chest tightens. We identify this as a fear response, and the thoughts try harder to keep us from forgetting. This intensifies the experience of fear that it will happen. It hasn't happened yet, but the possibility that it will tells our body to respond as if it IS happening.

An alternative to this response is to go straight to the sensation in the chest. When our awareness goes directly to the sensation, noticing the feeling, it disengages with the thinking mind. Now we can simply notice the sensation of tightening in the chest. Is it warm? Does it vibrate? Does it move?

The physical energy expended in the chest doesn't have a story. It's just physical energy. By putting attention on this during times of anxiety, we can actually use our natural body energy to facilitate presence. With awareness focused on places of physical body tension, the thoughts cannot reinforce the patterns.

Soon, the energy of contraction will move elsewhere in the body. With practice, it actually will relax and open outward. The intensity of contracted energy will shift into intense expanded energy.

People feel this expansion in us -- consciously or not. It's this expanded, relaxed energy that is associated with the term "stage presence." As we cultivate body awareness, we cultivate presence.

Thoughts? Agreements? Disagreements? Your comments are welcome.

What she says about performance just about sums it all up:

That's freedom. That's why I'm writing this blog, and why I'm doing the work I do. I'm committed to bringing that freedom into the world for my self and for others.

It's no fear. NO fear.

I believe what's left is joy. And endless possibility.

I posted recently about mental models, and subsequently, a video about how mental models affect our happiness. Days like yesterday remind me of how easily our mental models get taken for granted.

Every day we are alive, we have a lot more than we often consider. In fact, we have our entire life.

This article came across my email recently. In it, Sonia Simone shares the secret to wealth and success: realize you already have it. Just having clean, disease-free running water is a great case-in-point. It separates all of us from a huge population of the world.

I thought the article was a great example of mental models getting flipped upside down. A sense of lack permeates our psyche when we choose to compare ourselves with whatever expectation we define as acceptable.

It's very easy to see what we don't have -- and to define our lives from that point of view.

When we see the wealth that we already do have, the world can look different. It can be a place filled with gratitude and curiosity. In this space, our mode of operating is filled with possibility rather than scarcity.

Yes, sometimes it's easier said than done, but our perspective is much easier changed than the actions of the six billion people around us. It might be the only thing in our control.

This isn't magical thinking, or a superstitious belief in optimism. The choices we make are affected by the mental models that inform our thinking. When we operate from mental models of gratitude, our performance in a situation will be very different from performance rising from mental models of fear or lack.

This leads to different expectations, different actions, and, of course, different results. And maybe there's a little magic in there, too. But you can believe what you want.

The point is -- you are literally choosing how you experience your world with all of its broken parts. I know it's a tough one. But take a look at it for yourself.

I am grateful to be able to write, and I am grateful for your readership.

Thoughts?

It's not necessarily being flashy. I've been to enough open mics to know that the guy jumping around on the stage the most doesn't necessarily exude the most presence. (Sometime he exudes the opposite). While a high energy performer can have a great stage presence, a subdued folk singer can command a crowd just as well. Sometimes with an equal or even greater magnitude. So what is this elusive quality?

The term itself gives a clue: presence. Great performers are fully engaged with the moment. Each movement, each sentence carries a sense of fullness. They are not thinking about what to say or what to do or how they are doing it. They are just doing. And that commands a lot of attention.

The funny thing is, though, we are all living in this moment. We're here now -- how could we not be in the moment? But it's not the case that everyone has great presence. In that way, "living in the moment" isn't even that accurate to what it means to be present. It's more about being fully engaged with the moment.

It's important to realize what prevents that engagement: thoughts. Thoughts about the future, thoughts about the past, thoughts about how we are being perceived all take us away from complete engagement with the moment at hand.

Try this: think of a memory. Any memory. Make it a positive memory. Where do your thoughts go? How do you feel when you think this thought? Now, make it a negative memory. Where do your thoughts go? How do you feel when your thoughts go there?

The body responds to the mind's activity as if it's actually happening. We often project our thoughts onto the world, and the body responds to them as if that's what's going on. Now, presence requires a very, very easy, but very, very elusive shift: the body itself informs the thoughts.

Cueing in to physical sensation in the moment can reveal more about how to act and what to say than the thoughts we have. It's a more engaged, responsive way of being. We can be more sensitive to the energy of our audiences. We can be more sensitive to our own expression rather than getting caught in worry about how it's being perceived.

And the body is always present -- even when our thoughts are not. By tuning in to physical sensations, we can immediately bring our engagement into the here and now. When this happens, it can almost seem like a magic shift that an audience cannot necessarily see, but they respond to it.

And this is stage presence. I'll write more next time about how to use the body to cultivate presence. For now, leave a comment -- do you relate to this?

I love this talk because it dives right into challenging fundamental assumptions. That's where the real work of creating possibility begins. It's in the space where our perceived limitations get questioned and new actions can emerge. And, even more importantly, it's in the moment-to-moment process where the "magic" really occurs.

Next time, I will talk about the importance of moment-to-moment process in performance. It's what we call, "presence."

Do you agree with Srikumar Rao? Is happiness inherent?

How we relate to public speaking, just like we relate to people, depends on our unique mental framework. We aren't viewing the world as it absolutely is -- we see it through the filter of our thoughts and perceptions. These thoughts and perceptions are influenced by past experiences that make us think the way we perceive something is the way it is.

I don't want to get to abstract with this. Here's a more concrete example. When he was five years old, John was in kindergarten. He loved recess and playing with clay. He hated arithmetic. It stressed his mind. He's not getting it, the teacher's getting frustrated, and he's picking up the belief that addition is hard. This gets imprinted in there: math is hard. That's his new mental model that could potentially inform his experience with mathematics for the rest of his life. What happens? His relationship with mathematics is skewed to support his belief.

Okay, this is a rudimentary example. Of course there are other variables at stake. But our belief systems seem pretty concrete, right? Well, they're not. And when we believe our beliefs are true, they affect our expectations of outcomes. And that affects the way we act. And how we act affects our results, and what happens to those original belief systems? They get reinforced and the same thing happens all over again.

This is a mental model.

It works like this:

Belief ----> Expectation -----> Action taken based on that expectation -----> result that reinforces belief

The thing is, we're operating under mental models all the time. This is just fine. We do well when we believe we'll succeed. It's just that, often, we relate to performance with certain mental models that prevent stellar performance.

The first step to creating new mental models is an awareness of the old ones - and the realization that they're just not absolutely true. There's always a different way to relate to any situation.

What are the mental models that inform your relationship to performing?

Confidence. What is it? What do we mean when we say we are confident?

To me, true confidence can only show up inside a certain frame of reference. It’s about how we relate to the events in our lives.

Most (not all) performance anxiety comes up due to an external frame of reference – a mental projection. We are often conditioned to seek validation from other people to assure us that we are doing well. When the possibility exists that a group of people will judge us badly, we retreat.

The potential exist here to shift from an external frame of reference to an internal one. The validation comes from a sense of curiosity – “how did I do? How can I improve? I was really pleased with this part of my performance, how can I do that again?” It doesn’t mess with, “what did they think?”

Dating is a good example of this form of confidence. Oddly, both women and men approach each other giving power to the other: “I hope he/she likes me.” Confidence asks, “do I like this person?” See the difference?

When the frame of reference shifts from external to internal, our experience of the world changes. It becomes an opportunity to experience, and an opportunity to connect. Fear doesn’t dominate in curiosity.

The shift from external to internal is a key to experiencing performance of any kind from a space of freedom.

Have you experienced this? Let me know!

I love it because in only 3 minutes, he describes how to make things happen in a giant way. It's a guide for those of us doing big things -- and it's an excellent piece of public speaking. He tells us a story while inspiring us to take action. His energy is contagious throughout, and he uses his visual in a masterful way. It's exciting to see a great talk like this.

What do you think of it?