Tag Archives: metaphor

Mountain Climbing Metaphor

Circles or Straight Lines?

They say you can’t step in the same river twice.

Meaning every second that passes by, the river is changing.

The fish, the rocks and sand on the bottom, the amount of water is always in flux.

So too are us humans.

Once in chemistry class, the professor told us to close our eyes and think of a deceased person we admire.

I thought of my grandfather.

Then he told us to take a slow breath, and then open our eyes.

He told us that we’d just inhaled at least one molecule, (the very same one) that the person we’d just thought of had inhaled in their lives.

Then he explained all about the volume of our atmosphere, how many breaths we take, etc, and why what he’d just told us was statistically likely.

Scientists tell us that every seven years or so, all the atoms and molecules in our body are replaced.

Kind of like on Star Trek, when they beam themselves around, only in slow motion.

All the thoughts in your mind that make up your personality are continuously being updated.

So even who you ARE (when you think of “I”) is always changing.

Life, and every part of it, is a never ending process.

Always changing.

If you could take all those endless changes, and line them up, what would you produce?

Something magnificent.

On the other hand, if you took all those changes, and arranged them in a circle, you might find yourselves in the same place a few years or even a decade from now.

Either way, it’s up to you.

But it takes courage, and dedication.

You have to take small actions on a daily basis that are just a hair outside of your comfort zone.

But if you take your time to plan those actions, you’ll be surprised how quickly things add up.

No matter where you are or who you are or what you have or haven’t accomplished, the best time to start is now.

Learn How:

Stop Self Sabotage

Nothing Is Real Keep Going Forward

The Illusion of Perfection

They say that practice makes perfect.

And like most “truisms” that we all tend to agree are more or less correct, this one, while well intentioned, is not entirely accurate.

As a motivational statement, it does just fine.

In that regard, it IS true. Whatever you want to get better at, the more you practice, the better you’ll get.

And all else equal, practicing something MORE is better than practicing something LESS.

If they had a violin playing competition, for example, whoever practiced the MOST would end up winning.

You’ll find this is true in all people with world class skills.

They are the ones who have practiced the most.

They say you can “master” anything, and be “world class” with 10,000 hours of practice.

At an hour day, that is a little over 27 YEARS.

Which, in a world of instant gratification, seems like an eternity.

But it’s well within a normal life span.

Meaning if you start in your mid twenties, you’ll be WORLD CLASS in your chosen skill by the time you’re fifty or so.

Or, if you don’t want to wait that long, you can be world class in 14 years (two hours of practice a day) or seven years (four hours of practice a day) or three or four years (eight hours of practice a day).

Of course, you’ll NEVER get to a point where you say, “OK, I’m done, now I can rest!”

Because the idea of being “perfect” doesn’t really apply in many areas.

Sure, you can make a “perfect” circle, but how the heck are you supposed to bake a “perfect” cake? Or paint the “perfect” picture?

Paradoxically, “mastering” something is not synonymous with perfecting any skill.

No matter WHAT you are practicing, so long as you are drawing breath, you can get better.

Whether you are the world master, or you’re just starting out.

So, what would YOU like to get better at?

Get Started:

End Self Sabotage

Build Your Own Roadmap

Re-Gain Your Childlike Excitement

Why are little kids so happy?

Well, obviously not all of the time. But when they ARE happy, why do they look MUCH happier than adults? (on those occasions when adults are happy)

Do they know something we don’t?

Or do they know something we’ve forgotten?

One reason might be that they are always discovering things.

Especially right after they learn to walk and run confidently.

Their brains are like sponges, desperate to be filled in.

Now, there are a lot of ideas that we somehow “stop” learning when we get to age seven or so.

But that can’t be true, otherwise the only inventions we would have would come from seven-year-olds.

Since many inventions (especially medical and scientific inventions) come from people WAY older than seven, there’s something else going on.

Why does it SEEM that we stop learning at seven? (or at least for many of us)

Because we fall into the trap of needing to BE TAUGHT by other people.

People that continue to invent things are always thinking, “what if…”

And then trying a bunch of stuff out.

Truth is we ALL have that capacity.

Only in most of us, once “school” is over, we shut our brains off.

But your learning capacity is still there.

Your capacity for discovery is still there.

How do you use it?

Just like a little kid does. Just like a scientist or entrepreneur does.

Ask “What if…” and try something.

And see what happens.

Obviously, you want to try something that will get you going in a direction you’d like to go.

Like making more money, or having better relationships, or getting healthier or smarter.

The tendency for many is to wait around and BE TOLD what to do.

But that isn’t any fun!

It’s more fun to discover on your own. To continuously INVENT your life, one small step at a time.

To RE-DISCOVER that thrill of having curiosity and excitement about your future.

Because it’s out there, waiting for you.

Make It:

End Self Sabotage

My Hero!

Show Them Their Hidden Hero

Lately (last ten years or so) they’ve been a LOT of superhero movies and TV shows.

Word on the street is that ten or twenty years ago, studio execs were a little iffy on superhero Hollywood movies.

Dudes dressed in tights running around didn’t seem like such a good idea.

Great for comic books, but not up on the big screen.

But then they stared making them, and the movies started making money.

Now there’s ALL KINDS of superhero’s on TV and in the movies.

Why do we love these clearly fictional superheroes so much?

The answer to that could fill a doctoral dissertation in philosophy, psychology or even evolutionary biology.

Maybe it’s because we would all love to be “saved” by the superhero.

Or maybe we all secretly wish we could BE the superhero.

Maybe that’s why a lot of them are anonymous.

“Regular people” by day, but when they put on their costumes, (so nobody knows their identity) they run around saving people and beating up bad guys.

Maybe it’s a useful fantasy. Maybe we all really DO have some kind of “super powers” but we’re afraid to show it.

So the “anonymous superhero” is compelling to us.

But there is a tricky way you can “be” a superhero in real life.

You won’t get to beat up bad guys, but you’ll be able to move people emotionally to wonderful places they can’t otherwise get to on their own.

All while remaining anonymous.

How’s that?

First, you understand the superhero structure. The deep structure that is in nearly all stories.

Then wrap your “suggestions” for them in a superhero story.

Then “hide in” in a few other stories, carefully nested in the center.

That way, it’s not really “you” telling the story.

It’s some character within the story that is telling the story to another character.

One is YOUR alter ego, the other is THEIR alter ego.

But because you’ve hidden both identities, nobody will know what’s going on but you.

And you will have hidden your superhero powers in the best possible place.

In plain sight.

Learn More:

Hypnotic Storytelling

Metaphors Are Cool

Middle Mind Bombs

Metaphors are pretty cool.

They are amazing devices that writers, poets, and other literary geniuses use.

For example, there’s that poem, “The Road Not Taken.”

Is it about an actual road? Is it about our life’s path? Something even deeper?

That’s the cool thing about metaphorical descriptions. You can take a relatively simple one and it will flip people’s minds around for a long time.

If you are a genius, (Like Robert Frost, the author of the aforementioned poem), you can come up with a very simple set of words, and they’ll be discussed for generations.

“The Road Not Taken” is four verses, maybe elementary school level vocabulary, but about as deep as anything we’ll ever read.

Do you need to be a literary genius to tell mind bending stories?

Not in the least.

In fact, it may actually be a hindrance.

Why?

It all depends on the outcome you want.

Sure, if you want people to think of you as an esoteric poet who is always describing deep truths of human nature, that’s one thing.

But if you have a specific outcome in mind, like getting people to feel more outgoing, to increase their buying desire, or even to get them to fall in love, you might want to leave the deep metaphors at home.

Because if you HAVE a specific outcome in mind, what you DON’T want is for people to be standing around thinking, “Wow, that was cool, I wonder what it really means?”

In fact, you want to have the OPPOSITE effect.

The whole idea of telling hypnotic stories is to get their attention OFF the actual stories, and on their own emotions.

How do you do that?

But telling super simple stories, split up in a way so they’ll be burning nearly all of their brain power just to pay attention.

Then in the middle, when they are most transfixed (and wondering what the heck is going on) that’s when you deliver the power.

You don’t need clever metaphors, you don’t need ultra colorful language.

Because in the those middle stories, you can look directly at them, and say EXACTLY what you’d like them to do or feel.

Just have those words coming from ONE of your characters to ANOTHER character.

Once you deliver the “goods” then you can go back and finish all the loops.

They won’t really remember much of what you said, but they WILL feel like doing what you described.

And THAT will make all the difference.

Learn How:

Hypnotic Storytelling

Love Advice

Maximize Collective Genius

A famous quote that’s been attributed to many different guru-types, and even a few politicians is a variation of this:

“It’s amazing what humans can do together when nobody cares who gets credit.”

Meaning if you combine enough people together, with a diverse enough background, and set them to a common task, their collective problem solving ability is enormous.

Much more so than any one guy or gal.

(Or even a supercomputer for that matter.)

This has been proven time and time again in all kinds of studies.

One thing that will kill this genius problem solving ability is if ONE GUY is in charge and needs to be recognized as the “idea man.”

We all have experiences with people like that.

You’re in a group, trying to figure out something, and on one level, people are trying to come up with an actual solution.

But on another level, it’s like people are having an “idea contest.” Once they spit out their idea, they defend it no matter what.

They’ve even done studies on jury deliberations that show this.

When everybody says out loud, “guilty” or “not guilty” those trials take twice as long as those when they always keep it secret.

Meaning when they write “G” or “NG” on a slip of paper and then count the votes anonymously, those trials are over a lot quicker.

People are more focused on finding the truth rather than defending their version of it.

Something about saying “your idea” out loud makes it VERY HARD to change later on.

Social scientists are always trying to figure out ways to tap the collective problem solving ability of groups, without getting killing it with the “my idea is best” syndrome.

This is one of the reasons why giving advice rarely works.

It’s a subtle way of saying, “My idea is better than you’re idea.”

And since you’re giving them advice, they sort of presupposes that they’ve ALREADY stated their idea.

But here’s the funny thing.

If you tell a story, and wrap your “advice” in the story, they’ll look at it, and see your idea, but think it was their idea.

Especially if you take a bunch of similar stories, all on the same theme, and tell them one after another.

They’ll think you’re just talking random gibberish when this sudden spark of inspiration hits them.

They’ll actually look at you as if the idea just “came to them.”

Any idea will work, so long as you can wrap it in a few simple stories.

And the more people you tell the stories to, the better ideas they’ll come up with.

The only thing you need to do is turn off your own, “my idea is best” switch in your brain.

And you can get them to do anything.

Learn How:

Hypnotic Storytelling

Social Authority

How To Engineer Social Authority

Next time you’re at a party or social gather, do a little experiment.

Any time people are sitting around talking about whatever.

When one person is talking, watch the other people.

Try and decide when they’ve stop listening, and have starting thinking what to say when it’s “their turn.”

Also notice the times people that are speaking get “interrupted.”

Every once in a while you’ll get a group where one person is the clear “leader” and does most of the talking.

But most of the time there are at least two people who are vying for the social conversation “leadership” role.

This is human nature.

Humans always self organize into hierarchies.

And within those hierarchies there is also a lot of shuffling going on.

Nobody thinks this way consciously. This “social hierarchy” instinct is like hunger.

But much more subtle.

One way people notice who’s “in charge” is by the cues given by the other people.

Unless you’re in a high stakes poker game or a prison gang, the person “in charge,” especially during social situations, is usually the one doing the most talking, or getting the most attention.

For most people, this is natural and automatic. Both the talking part and the paying attention part.

But it’s VERY EASY to engineer this.

There are all kinds of very powerful language techniques to build MASSIVE interest in whatever you are saying.

And because these happen at the structure level, and not the content level, people will think it’s got something to do with YOU.

From a content standpoint, if somebody is talking about something EXTRAORDINARY, then people will KNOW that it’s the content.

But when you use regular content (normal everyday stories) but use them in a specific structure, people will be mesmerized but they won’t know why.

Some of these structure techniques are easy to learn, and can use them right away.

Some of them take a bit more practice, but are INSANELY powerful.

When you are doing your “conversation experiments,” see if you can find somebody that talks for more than a couple of minutes, while EVERYBODY else can’t take their eyes of him or her.

THAT could be YOU.

Learn How:
Hypnotic Storytelling

Wrap Their Minds In Mystery

The Wall St. Journal Pattern

One of the longest running sales pages was for the Wall Street Journal.

The same ad ran for nearly twenty years.

Why was it so successful?

It told a simple story.

Once upon a time there were two guys.

Both had the same degree. They both lived in the same sized town.

But one guy was ultra successful, while the other guy was average successful.

Why?

One had access to information the other guy didn’t.

Which meant one was able to see things, predict changes, take advantage of situations and opportunities, while the other guy didn’t.

The information, of course, was the one guy’s subscription to the Wall St. Journal.

Think about your favorite commercials on TV.

Very few of them are of some goof standing there saying, “I’m an expert and I recommend you try brand X!”

They’re usually a short story of some type.

Or if not a story, a short scene within a story.

The most famous commercials are serialized stories, with each commercial an unfolding of the tale.

Why do we love stories so much?

Think back to before we humans invented society.

They’d go out hunting, and then come home for the night.

Sit around the camp fire and talk.

What would they talk about?

Who knows, but judging by the plethora of mythology around the world, they probably told each other stories.

About heroes and monsters and angels and devils.

Humans are hard wired to not only enjoy stories, but to tell them, and resonate with them.

Which means no matter what idea or message you’d like to convey to somebody else, if you can wrap it in a story, it will be much more effective.

Learn How:

Hypnotic Storytelling

Angry Bear

Word Juggling Tricks

One curious thing about how our brains work is the order in which things are processed.

They’ve done a few experiments that suggest our conscious minds are more of a follower than a leader.

There’s the common conception that our conscious minds are the captains, and our subconscious is the ship.

But that may be backwards.

At least sometimes.

For example, they do certain tests, and while they do the tests, they look at where our brains are “lighting up.”

They do something that will cause a “stimulus-response” effect.

But many times we respond BEFORE the conscious part of our brain lights up.

Some even believe that our conscious minds are “devices” that exist to make up logical sounding reasons about our behavior.

On the other hand, we do things like play chess and set and achieve goals.

These require a lot of conscious forethought.

Maybe we can only plan to plan.

Meaning we have to “get ready” to think consciously.

Like if somebody walked up to you on the street with a game of checkers halfway through, and asked you to move, you might wonder if you stepped into the Twilight Zone.

But when your friend surprises you with the statement, “Hey, how about a game of checkers?”

You switch in to “pre-thinking” mode and start playing.

But the funny thing is you can use words like camouflage.

Like some insects have figured out how to look like tree bark so they don’t get eaten.

You can use words that “sound like” they are sending your listener into “pre-thinking” mode.

But they really send them into “dude, what?” mode.

They hear the beginnings of what “sounds” like a request for a conscious thought.

But then end on something differently.

You can do this for laughs, or you can grab hold of their brains and slip in any idea they want.

And then get them to forget they just talked to you.

The thing about language is most people don’t EVER think about HOW they use it.

But it’s pretty simple.

And pretty fun.

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Brain Bombs Blasting Beautifully

Embrace The Rabbit Hole

The idea of a rabbit hole comes from Alice in Wonderland.

She went down, following an actual rabbit, and had a pretty messed up adventure.

So when somebody describes something as a “rabbit hole” or “going down the rabbit hole” they mean getting involved with something that keeps getting more and more confusing.

It’s generally associated with conspiracy theories, or some kind of “hidden truth” that is continually revealed.

Recently, (last decade or so) the “Red Pill” has been used to describe understanding the “complexity” of this “Rabbit Hole.”

(Interesting that both metaphors originated from the same source)

But the thing about “rabbit holes” and “red pills” is that don’t HAVE to be associated with any kind of “evil conspiracy.”

It certainly FEELS GOOD to think you “understand” the way things really are.

But consider this.

Reality itself is something we can NEVER understand.

Not even partially.

The more PURE science you study, the more you’ll realize that we humans don’t know much.

The limit of human understand has been described as the shoreline of an island.

The bigger our understanding gets, the more we realize that there is a MASSIVE ocean out there MUCH BIGGER than our “shoreline” can EVER get.

Which makes the idea of a “red pill” rather silly.

Since it’s IMPOSSIBLE to understand the way things REALLY are.

Ever.

The truth is that NOBODY understands the way things really are.

If we did, we’d never have to GUESS whether or not to carry an umbrella with us when we lave.

If we did, investing would be SIMPLE.

And sports would be BORING since we could predict the outcome.

In fact, sports wouldn’t even EXIST.

What would be the point?

Luckily, there will ALWAYS be a degree of uncertainty.

And luckily, the RABBIT HOLE will ALWAYS be there for us.

No matter how far we are willing to go, the rabbit hole will accommodate us.

It’s up to YOU which direction you want YOUR rabbit hole to go.

Down into confusion, goofy mirrors and red queens running on treadmills?

Or up into continued exploration and understanding, where your knowledge, skills and appreciation of LIFE can continue to EXPAND?

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