Thought Leadership Studio Podcast Episodes:
The Mapmaker’s Adventure in Thought Leadership
Episode 91 - A Masterclass on Mental Models for Strategic Thought Leadership - Charting New Territories: How Thought Leaders Reshape Mental Models, Create Influence, and Redefine Success
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Or Click here to listen or subscribe on appWhat this episode will do for you
:- Reimagine Thought Leadership as Charting New Territories: Discover how great thought leaders are like master mapmakers, creating conceptual frameworks that empower others to explore new possibilities.
- Break Free from Conventional Thinking: Learn why simply repackaging old ideas isn’t enough and how true thought leadership requires pushing beyond the known into uncharted intellectual territory.
- Shift Mental Models for Greater Influence: Understand how shifting your audience’s mental maps changes their perception of success, positioning you as the most trusted guide in your field.
- Transform Expertise into Systemic Influence: Move beyond sharing knowledge to shaping the way your audience thinks and makes decisions, creating lasting impact in your industry.
- Learn from Market Leaders Who Redefined Their Categories: Explore how companies like Amazon, Tesla, and Apple didn’t just compete—they changed the rules by shifting how people thought about their industries.
- Create a Larger System of Influence: Discover why great thought leaders focus not just on content, but on how their ideas evolve in the minds of their audience over time, driving real transformation.
Mapmaking and Strategic Thought Leadership.
In this workshop style episode, I'm excited to talk about mental models and thought leadership.
I’m Chris McNeil, Strategic Thought Leadership Coach and Consultant, creator of the THAUT Process of Strategic Thought Leadership, and your guide on this journey of intellectual exploration.
Mental models, often referred to as belief systems or paradigms, are frameworks through which we interpret and interact with the world. They influence our perceptions, decisions, and actions. Understanding and refining these models is crucial for effective Strategic Thought Leadership.
In today’s episode, we embark on a metaphorical voyage into the art and science of thought leadership - where ideas evolve beyond "filler content", to become strategically designed maps that shape the way people navigate their world.
Traditional thought leadership often focuses on demonstrating expertise, but true influence comes from shifting mental models - redefining the landscape of choice for your audience. Just as master mapmakers once charted new territories for explorers, strategic thought leaders create conceptual frameworks that empower people to think differently, make better decisions, and discover new opportunities.
Join me as we set sail beyond the edges of conventional thinking and explore how you can become the mapmaker of your industry, guiding your audience to new horizons of success.
Some helpful coordinates:
The Mapmaker's Adventure
The following partial transcript is lightly edited for clarity - the full interview is on audio. Click here to listen.
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." - R. Buckminster Fuller
Rewriting the Maps: Why Innovation Requires Exploration
Imagine an olde worlde seafaring town, where the salt air spiced the hum of bustling markets under the warm golden glow of oil lamps in the early evening Here, the ocean was more than a mere route of travel or source of sustenance—it was a symbol of boundless freedom and possibility. Young sailors, their hearts restless with longing, dreamed of venturing into uncharted waters, their imaginations fueled by tales of adventure, untold riches, and new horizons yet to be claimed.
And at the heart of this maritime world was an essential trade: mapmaking.
The town was renowned for its master craftsmen, skilled artisans who had, for generations, turned the chaos of the unknown into orderly charts, adorned with inked coastlines, intricate compass roses, and warnings of unseen perils. These maps were the lifeblood of exploration, guiding merchants, adventurers, and explorers across treacherous seas.
Yet, as the years passed, the mapmaking trade had begun to stagnate.
The Problem With Old Maps
The issue wasn’t a lack of skill—these were some of the finest cartographers in the known world. Nor was it a failure of artistry—their maps were beautiful, decorated with intricate embellishments and enclosed in ornate packaging fit for royalty.
But therein lay the problem.
Most maps weren’t entirely new—they were adaptations of older ones. Each generation of mapmakers copied the last, adding flourishes but rarely questioning whether the underlying information still reflected reality. The inked coastlines stopped where their predecessors had stopped, and beyond those edges lay only speculation, myth, or blank parchment labeled "Here Be Dragons."
Sailors, however, ventured beyond these limits at great risk, braving the shifting currents, hidden reefs, and uncharted islands that no map could guide them through.
Yet in the town, few questioned the maps themselves. When ships went missing, the fault was placed on the captains, not on the possibility that the maps they followed were incomplete or misleading. The maps had been passed down for generations, and questioning them felt like questioning the very foundation of the town’s trade and expertise.
In the dank confines of a bustling tavern, a heated debate often flared among the locals: who was the better mapmaker, Jonathan or Luke? The two rivals had spent years competing—not by venturing beyond the known world but by making the same old maps look more appealing. They embossed them with gold leaf, added lavish borders, and branded themselves as the premier navigational experts.
And for a time, it worked—merchants were drawn to the illusion of sophistication, mistaking elegance for accuracy.
But the sailors who used these maps grew angry.
When yet another ship was lost at sea, the weary captain tossed a ruined parchment onto the tavern table and muttered, "What’s the use of maps if they don’t lead us anywhere new?"
A New Way of Navigating
One fateful evening, Luke’s shop door creaked open, and an old man hobbled in, leaning heavily on a cane. His face bore the wear of decades spent at sea, etched with the lines of storms weathered and dangers survived. He unfurled a tattered map onto the counter and let out a long sigh.
"Forget your gilded frames and your fancy designs," he said, his voice gravelly with salt and wisdom. "These maps are useless if they can’t guide us to the new lands. You want to make maps that matter? Then stop tracing the old ones and start discovering what’s really out there - and help us get there."
Luke scoffed. "You think I can just leave my shop and sail into uncharted waters? I’m a mapmaker, not an adventurer."
The old sailor leaned in, his eyes burning with something Luke couldn’t quite name. "You’re not just a mapmaker—you’re a guide. And if you’re afraid to leave the safety of your workshop, you’ll never create maps that grant true power—the power to explore, to discover, to push beyond what anyone believes is possible."
Luke dismissed the man at first, but then grief struck in an unexpected way. He lost 2 of his uncles in a short time.
The first, his uncle Sam, a sailor who had relied on his maps, was lost at sea. Luke was still shaken by this loss, when a knock came at the door. A grim-faced policeman stood on the steps
"We are sorry, but your uncle Fred died today at the Guinness brewery where he worked."
Luke buried his head in his hands and asked between sobs, "Did he go quickly?"
The policeman hesitated. "No sir, he got out to pee three times."
Luke sat there, torn between sorrow and disbelief, feeling the weight of loss pressing down on him. Two uncles, gone in the same week. One to the ocean, one to a slow farewell.
As the shock faded, the old sailor’s words echoed in his mind.
What if the maps were wrong?
What if the problem wasn’t careless sailors or unpredictable waters, but the fact that the maps themselves had been copied and recopied so many times that they no longer reflected the best path to a given destination?
Determined, Luke made a decision no mapmaker in the town had dared before: he would set sail himself.
The night before his journey, Luke sat at his cluttered workbench, the soft glow of a lantern casting shadows over quills, parchment, and half-drawn coastlines. He traced his fingers over the smooth brass of his well-worn compass, its needle quivering, always seeking true north.
"I need to stop copying old maps," he whispered to himself. "If I want to chart something meaningful, I need to walk—or sail—the path myself."
Luke’s voyage was fraught with challenges. He faced storms that tore at the sails, currents that dragged the ship off course, and dangers that no chart had ever recorded. But as he ventured further, he saw what the old mapmakers never had.
The world did not stay still.
Islands were not exactly where the old maps had placed them. Tides and trade winds shifted, carving new paths across the ocean’s surface. And while the edges of inked coastlines remained static on parchment, the reality of the sea was ever-changing - and there were yet other lands - as yet uncharted and undiscovered.
One night, as he stood at the helm beneath a vast sky littered with stars, a revelation struck him. The old maps relied too much on copying past observations, but the stars were different—they were a living navigational system, a way to move forward that transcended the limits of aging maps.
What if mapmaking wasn’t just about preserving what had already been charted, but about creating systems that helped sailors navigate in real-time—adapting, recalibrating, and discovering new routes as they went?
Returning With A New Map
When Luke returned to the town, he wasn’t just a mapmaker anymore—he was a navigator, an explorer, a thought leader in his field.
His new maps weren’t just more detailed versions of old ones. They included adjustable reference points, using celestial markers and dynamic coastal observations that made them far more useful than any static chart.
Sailors who used these maps reached destinations that had once seemed impossible. They no longer sailed blindly past the edges of outdated coastlines—they read the stars, adjusted course, and discovered riches beyond imagination.
Luke, no longer focused on mere packaging, became a trusted guide, celebrated for his willingness to push beyond the comfort zone and explore the unknown.
Because maps are not just drawings of the past—they are tools for the future.
And the best maps don’t just show what’s already known—they light the way to what’s yet to be discovered.
And we are all mapmakers.
"The map is not the territory, and the name is not the thing named." - Alfred Korzybski
We Navigate Through Maps, Not Directly Through Reality
The mapmaker’s factory had become a symbol of stagnation in this story but maps themselves aren't "bad". We are all mapmakers in a sense.
One one level of metaphor, the industry had lost its way—not because its artisans lacked skill, but because they were trapped in a cycle of repackaging old maps instead of charting new territory.
But on another level of metaphor, mapmaking points the way to how to better influence markets and drive positive change and success.
Thought leadership isn’t about regurgitating maps in better packaging, it’s about better mapping in general. And to create better maps, we first have to recognize that we are all already navigating through them, whether we realize it or not.
We Don’t Experience Reality. We Experience Our Maps of Reality
We like to think that we respond directly to the world—that what we see, hear, and act upon is reality itself. But that’s an illusion.
In truth, we don’t react to the world as it is. We react to the world as we have mapped it.
Consensual reality is a map shared by the majority of humans.
Every decision we make is shaped by mental models—the internal maps of assumptions, beliefs, and shortcuts we use to interpret complexity. These models define:
- What we perceive
- How we interpret information
- What we believe is possible
These maps are not reality itself. They are our representations of reality, and they shape everything from how we do business to how we navigate personal decisions.
A sailor doesn’t rely solely on instinct; they navigate with charts, compasses, and star maps—tools that translate the ocean into something actionable.
A business leader doesn’t react to the raw chaos of the market; they use financial models, forecasts, and strategic frameworks to make sense of trends.
A customer doesn’t evaluate every purchase decision from scratch; they rely on brand perceptions, peer recommendations, and ingrained biases—all of which are mental models shaping their choices.
The question isn’t whether or not we’re using a map. We all are.
The question is: Are we following an old, inherited map that limits our possibilities, or are we actively shaping a better map—one that empowers our audience to extract more value from our category, make smarter purchasing decisions, or elevate the use of a product or service to fulfill a new and higher purpose?
"We see the world not as it is, but as a model of the world. And we tend to mistake the model for reality." - Donella Meadows
Rewriting the Rules: Thought Leadership as Mental Model Mastery
If the map is not the territory, then mastering mental models is about shaping the maps people use to navigate their world. Thought leadership isn’t about simply sharing expertise—it’s about providing better maps, empowering people to make more effective decisions, and redefining what success looks like in a category.
At its core, working with mental models expands your freedom—and the freedom of your audience. Because when you shape how people think, you open new possibilities, reveal new paths, and redefine what’s achievable.
And there’s an undeniable connection, and one that led me to develop the Thaut Process of Strategic Thought Leadership: it's the leaders who shape thinking in a market segment who become the leaders in market share.
The way we see the world—our mental maps—determines what we think is possible. The moment we revise those maps, new opportunities emerge that were invisible before.
With Strategic Thought Leadership, you’re not just competing for attention - you’re creating new paths where none existed before. This is true influence. When you shift mental models, you’re not just persuading - you’re restructuring the very landscape of choice.
Strategic Thought Leadership isn't about showing off your expertise and hoping for engagement. It's about shifting mental models, creating new ways of thinking, and redefining the category for the benefit of your audience.
Market Leadership: Shifting Thought to Own the Space.
Every dominant company didn’t just build a great product—they redefined how people thought about their category.
- Amazon didn’t just sell books—they made shopping a digital-first experience.
- Tesla didn’t just make electric cars—they made combustion engines look outdated.
- Apple didn’t just make computers—they made technology an extension of creative self-expression.
These companies didn’t just compete—they changed the criteria for success, shifting mental models so that their way of thinking became the standard.
If you only demonstrate your expertise, you might look smart, but your audience won’t care. Working from a structured model that shifts audience thinking creates impact you can’t miss. Taking in the larger system of your audience’s needs and challenges, it becomes clear that thought leadership is about helping them unlock value they couldn’t see before, not just impressing them with expertise. It’s not about showcasing how much you know - it’s about transforming how your audience thinks and acts, which comes from aligning your message with a strategic framework based on moving mental models from where they currently are - what I call the "Audience Baseline Position" to a new, more helpful place - what I call a "Thought Leadership Position".
So working with mental models is a strategic imperative, not just an intellectual exercise.
What does this mean in practical terms?
It means not just responding to market trends—but shaping them. Peter Drucker said it - the best way to predict the future is to create it. Let's create it.
The best way to sell a product in today's attention economy isn't to sell it directly, but to sell a new and helpful way of thinking that makes your product the obvious choice. This new way of thinking is based on empowering your audience to extract more of what's important to them in your category, which makes it naturally magnetic.
So they keep returning to your content. And they become your audience of prospects.
How to Work with Mental Models for Market Leadership and Influence
If the map is not the territory, then the key to being strategic with thought leadership is creating better maps - maps you share with your audience to expand their world view about your category for their benefit.
A successful thought leadership model doesn’t just inform—it reshapes the way people see the world, aligning their mental models to help them extract value ... in their terms.
But how do you systematically surface, challenge, and replace mental models to create this transformation and build an engaged audience around your model?
Here’s a few ways I have found to have high impact.
Step 1: Inventory the Key Assumptions in Your Field
Every industry and profession operates within an invisible framework of assumptions—beliefs that govern people's choices and expectations.
The first step in shifting market thinking is to expose and articulate these hidden assumptions.
Ask: "What has to be true for (X) to work?" You might discover outdated assumptions like these that are worth challenging:
- In fitness: "If you use extreme dieting, you will lose weight"(Some challenges: But what kind of weight? Muscle weighs more than fat and it burns calories while fat is just stored energy. And water weight loss through low carbohydrate dieting will be temporary)
- In marketing: "If you use expensive paid ads, you will generate leads."(Some challenges: but at what cost? And what conversion ratio? Will we waste resources trying to convert cold leads when contrasted to warmer leads that come organically through great thought leadership content?)
- In education: "If you have a traditional degree, you'll have professional success."(Challenges: Does that apply in fields like software development where traditional education has a hard time keeping up with the pace of innovation? Did it stop Steve Jobs or Bill Gates from succeeding?)
As you might notice, once you surface these assumptions and get them in the right structure, challenging them becomes easier.
Speaking of the right structure ...
Step 2: Translate These Beliefs into If-Then and Complex Equivalence Statements
Mental models often take the form of cause-and-effect beliefs (If-Then) or assumed meanings (Complex Equivalence).
Once you’ve identified an assumption, put it into these syntaxes to see its underlying logic and limitations.
If-Then Statements (Cause-and-Effect Thinking)
- Old Model: "If I post daily on social media, I’ll be seen as a thought leader."
- New Model: "If I create a structured thought leadership model, I’ll shift market thinking and naturally attract attention."
Complex Equivalence Statements (What X Means)
- Old Model: "Being a thought leader means having a large social media following."
- New Model: "Being a thought leader means leading the thinking in a category—market share follows when you define success differently."
By restructuring beliefs in this way, you create leverage points for transformation. Having a belief system or mental model in the right syntax is what allows applying multiple language patterns from neuro-linguistics that undermine the old mental model - the Audience Baseline Position - and support the new mental model - the Thought Leadership Position.
Here's a few examples of these language patterns applied to create a Thought Leadership Path (TLP) that propels an audience away from the limiting model and towards your more empowering model. These are applied to the Thought Leadership Path:
Audience Baseline Position "If you demonstrate expertise in content you are doing thought leadership"
Thought Leadership Position "That is incomplete: working from a deeper structure of thought leadership is necessary to do it well."
- "If you only demonstrate your expertise in content, you risk being seen as just another voice in the crowd - maybe impressive, but easily ignored and you risk being seen as egotistical. However, if you work from a deeper structure of thought leadership, you can guide your audience to new, transformative insights, building meaningful influence that inspires action." (A-B Outcome Pattern)
- "Isn’t it a sign of true leadership to elevate the conversation to values and mental models, rather than simply showcasing expertise in content?" (Higher Values Pattern)
- "Thought leadership is like steering a ship toward uncharted waters. Just demonstrating expertise is like adjusting the sails without a map—you’ll look skilled, but you won’t guide your audience to a meaningful destination" (Metaphors Pattern)
- "It’s not about how knowledgeable you appear to your audience—it’s about how much clarity and transformation you inspire, and that requires a deeper structure to your thought leadership" (Shift the Outcome Pattern)
Those are just a few examples .... if you'd like a workshop style podcast that goes deeper into these language patterns of influence we use in the Thaut Process, drop me a line or reach out to me on X or LinkedIn.
"If you control the definition of success in your field, you become the most trusted authority within it."
Step 3: Use Double-Loop Learning to Question the System Itself
Most people engage in single-loop learning—trying to optimize results within an existing system rather than questioning if the system itself is flawed. Double-loop learning (from Systems Thinking) goes deeper - it challenges whether the entire approach needs rethinking.
Instead of asking:
"How do I get more engagement on Facebook?"
A thought leader asks:
"What are the assumptions behind using Facebook as a primary channel? What different ways of thinking about online engagement are there?
What is the purpose behind wanting engagement and what another ways are there to think about achieving that?
Instead of asking:
"How do I improve my SEO ranking?"
A thought leader asks:
"What do I assume SEO will do for me? What other ways can I achieve that? (Like 'Should I create a category-defining concept that makes my brand the source of new industry language?')"
Working within an old model limits you to incremental improvements—questioning the model itself leads to breakthroughs.
Step 4: Be Strategic About Challenging Sacred Cows
Some beliefs are so ingrained that challenging them directly will trigger emotional resistance instead of curiosity.
Take the example of sports fans—if you tell a lifelong fan their team is terrible, they won’t engage with your reasoning. They’ll defend their identity.
Industries work the same way. If you attack an assumption too aggressively, people don’t evaluate your argument—they defend their worldview.
Instead of attacking sacred cows head-on, find high leverage opportunities for thought leadership where the friction is lower and the payoff perhaps even higher. More on picking your battles in thought leadership in another episode.
- Instead of saying, "Traditional leadership training is outdated,"
say, "A new leadership model focuses on adaptability and strategic influence rather than rigid management techniques." - Instead of saying, "SEO is dead,"
say, "Search engines now reward thought leadership content over keyword stuffing—here’s how to align with this shift."
You don’t break old beliefs by attacking them. You introduce a belief that better satisfies core values, and respectfully lead people to embrace it for their own best interests.
Step 5: Introduce a Superior Mental Model and Make It Actionable
A great thought leadership model isn’t just an idea—it’s a better way of thinking that leads to better results.
Your new model should:
- Help your audience make better decisions.
- Help them extract more value from your category.
- Better fulfill higher values of your audience.
Once introduced, reinforce it consistently through:
- Stories and metaphors (like the mapmaker’s adventure).
- Practical applications that prove the new model’s effectiveness.
- A structured campaign that makes the new model feel inevitable.
A thought leadership position isn’t an argument—it’s a new lens through which people start to see their world.
Final Thought: Thought Leaders Are Mapmakers
We don’t navigate reality directly—we navigate through mental models, and these models can be revised, upgraded, and rewritten.
The question is: who is writing them?
Are outdated beliefs shaping your industry? Are competitors defining the landscape for you? Or are you stepping into the role of the mapmaker, creating new models that empower your audience and reshape your market?
"The real power of thought leadership isn’t in knowledge—it’s in shaping the way people think, making old assumptions obsolete, and leading them to a better way."
Are you ready to start shaping the way your market thinks?
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The transcript is lightly edited for clarity and is a partial transcript- the full interview is on audio. Click here to listen.
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