The Secret of Metaphor

A metaphor is a powerful tool to influence and persuade. Think of the money tree, for example. It works with associations and has an incredible effect on our brain. This is because our subconscious thinks symbolically and makes all kinds of connections with these symbols. So it is not just a story...it goes much further and even science is convinced of its power....

The Secret of Metaphor

What exactly is a metaphor? A metaphor is a form of imagery. It also often does not use a comparison. You can use a metaphor as early as one word or as a complete story like a fairy tale, which is often a wonderful metaphor for an important lesson.

There are many other metaphors in the fairy tale of "Snow White," for example. For example, a forest often represents life in which everyone must find their own way. 7 is a magical number in many cultures and the apple is also used in the Bible where it is the forbidden fruit.

Anyway, those are fairy tales. In our spoken language, however, we also use many metaphors. Often these are words, such as "cucumber time" or "to plum time. But even the phrase "He plows through the meeting" also contains a metaphor, because does he literally plow through the meeting? No, but everyone has an idea what is meant by it.

Use of Metaphors

When you use this effectively then you can accomplish incredible things in people. For example, there was a study where they had two groups of people read an article about the increase in crime in a (made-up) city. One article talked about crime spreading like a virus. The other article talked about crime being like a beast.

Consider this. When you think of crime as a virus you probably have different solutions to that than if you thought of crime as an animal, right? And that's what came out of that study, too.

Completely different solutions came out. The virus article brought more preventive solutions and the beast article more corrective measures.

Even after a long time, when they were asked again to provide solutions and now read the article metaphorlessly, they remained on the same train of thought. So it is a very powerful tool to deeply influence someone for a long time.

You do this yourself, too. Your brain works symbolically and in metaphors. This is why it is also an important component in conversational hypnosis training. When you understand this power, the secrets and the symbolism behind it then you have a tool with which you can accomplish incredible things with others. In my opinion, it is the strongest influence tool there is, because it has been used since there have been humans and is therefore deeply embedded in our brains.

One exercise from that 7-day training I definitely want to share with you because it can have a huge impact and help you go a long way very quickly. This exercise has many more layers underneath but this layer alone often has a super impact.

Exercise

I call it the Forrest Gump Game. Forrest said, "Life is like a box of chocolate ... you never know what you gonna get.

That's what Forrest thought, but what is life to you? Is that also like a box of chocolates? Or is that something else? I'd love to hear from you and you can post that below. Know that your metaphor has a huge impact on how you see life. It can be very enlightening when you find out.

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