Challenge yourself to paint pictures with your words
Metaphors make your words sizzle and sing. They give instant clarity as brains are more wired to images than just words. They’re the quickest route to the brain. They’re visual, they get attention, they’re memorable, evocative and achieve instant understanding.
It’s a way of communicating. A shortcut to instant understanding, used for persuasion, something is compared to something else, usually comparing the unknown with something known.
You can have great ideas, but without a metaphor or an analogy, it’s like driving a beautiful Porsche without petrol, you won’t get very far.
If you need to explain the relevance of what the statistics actually mean, use metaphors. “300,000 people die every year from smoking. That’s the equivalent of 2 jumbo jets crashing every single day.”
Using simple, bland words and phrases to describe an intriguing event is like mixing water with wine. It leaves you feeling underwhelmed.
So for your next presentation, try using one or two metaphors to make your message more memorable.
Once you get the hang of using metaphors it will have a ripple effect that will naturally flow through all your presentations.
Go on. Give it a go. I challenge you.
__________________________________________________________________
[This blog was originally written for Rostrum Public Speaking Clubs of Western Australia, then posted on David Julian Price’s website — Speaking and Pitching Coach]
