Beyond Vocabulary: The Enigmatic Power of Metaphors Revealed"

[00:00:00] Destroy the block, Break down the wall, Let off the rope, Dance your way to success.

[00:00:04] How is that for some motivation? I have been obsessed with a saying of Joe Zortega.

[00:00:09] It goes by metaphors is perhaps one of man's most fruitful potentialities. If efficacy verges

[00:00:16] on magic and it seems a tool for creation which God forgot inside one of his creatures

[00:00:22] when he made him. Remember, on this very podcast, I spoke about vocabulary and transformational

[00:00:27] vocabulary. We talked about the power of it and how shapes are lives and direct our destinies.

[00:00:32] Now let's look at certain words that carry more meaning and emotional intensity. Metaphors

[00:00:39] Hi, I am Rabjot Singh, an automobile engineer by profession and owner of Singautomot

[00:00:44] and I am on a mission to help people live a life of emotional and financial freedom.

[00:00:49] And this podcast is one of my ways to do it. And this is episode 12 of 75 episodes

[00:00:55] challenge where I am building a community of 1000 emotional and financial free individuals

[00:01:00] who are daily working on themselves consistently by hearing to this podcast.

[00:01:05] What is metaphor? Whenever we explain or communicate a concept by likening it to something

[00:01:10] else, we are using a metaphor. Now to a person not from a technical background,

[00:01:15] how would I explain him about electricity? Now I can't just go on with amperes,

[00:01:20] ohms, watts and resistors and capacitors. Instead what I will do is I use the analogy of pipe and

[00:01:26] water system where I can just say that tab acts as a resistor. This makes him understand the

[00:01:31] concept easily. That is a metaphor. Metaphors are symbols and as such they can create

[00:01:37] emotional intensity even more quickly and completely than that of the traditional

[00:01:42] words we use. Metaphors can transform us instantly. As human beings, we consistently

[00:01:47] think and speak in metaphors. Often people think of being caught between a rock and a hard place.

[00:01:53] They feel like they are in the dark or they are just struggling to keep their head above water.

[00:01:58] Do you think you might be a little more stressed if you thought about

[00:02:01] dealing with your challenges in terms of struggling to keep your head above

[00:02:05] rather than climbing the ladder of success? Would you feel differently about taking a test

[00:02:09] if you talked about sailing through it rather than flailing it? Would your perception and

[00:02:14] experience of time change if you talked about time crawling rather than flying?

[00:02:20] You might have noticed that when you were in school and the time passes very slowly when it's a boring

[00:02:25] subject but when it's a physical game spirit, time passes very fast. That is when we use metaphor

[00:02:31] we use time crawling in terms of a max period or a science period but the time is flying when

[00:02:37] it is a game spirit. Now I think you'll understand what I'm trying to say. I will

[00:02:42] take this moment to share with you an experience I had. I have a roommate James. We were talking late

[00:02:47] night and it was 3 am in the morning. He said to me, I need to do something in life. I need to

[00:02:53] fight my demons. I knew he used a metaphor here and I was like what demons are you talking about?

[00:02:59] Are you having a split personality? He said, I'm talking about my ill habits. I didn't pay

[00:03:04] attention at it then but when I was trying to sleep it got in my mind that if I were at his

[00:03:10] place why would I want to fight with my demons? I mean I'm not killing the demons right? Like unless

[00:03:17] I'm a demon hunter. I would probably want to exercise my demons right rather than fighting them. You

[00:03:22] understand what I'm trying to say. One of the primary ways we learn is through metaphors.

[00:03:28] Learning is a process of making new associations in our mind. Creating new

[00:03:33] meanings and metaphors are ideally suited for this. When we don't understand something a

[00:03:38] metaphor provides a way of seeing how what we don't understand is like something we do understand.

[00:03:44] Metaphor helps us to link up a relationship. If x is like y and we understand x then suddenly

[00:03:51] we'll be able to understand y. That is simple logic. Metaphors can empower us by expanding

[00:03:57] and enriching our experience of life. Unfortunately though if you're not careful when we adopt

[00:04:02] a metaphor we instantly and easily also adopt many limiting beliefs that come with it. When people

[00:04:08] are experiencing difficulties they frequently say things like I feel the weight of the world is on

[00:04:14] my back and there is a wall in front of me that I can't just break through but disempowering

[00:04:19] metaphors can be changed as quickly as they were created. You choose to represent the

[00:04:24] metaphor as being real you can change the metaphor as quickly so now if I ask myself

[00:04:30] that I feel like the weight of the world is on my back so I would just say to me that put the world

[00:04:35] down and move on. It is as funny as it sounds but it acts like a pattern interrupt for my current

[00:04:42] emotional pattern or if someone tells me that they just can't make any progress they keep

[00:04:47] hitting the wall then I'll just tell them to stop hitting the wall make a hole in it make a

[00:04:53] door climb the wall get through it the hitting of wall means you need to change the way of

[00:04:58] working they're hitting the wall means they're having a perception that they are trying the same

[00:05:03] thing again and again and again that's why they're hitting the wall let me tell you one more instance

[00:05:08] I was sitting with my maternal grandmother and we were talking about life and I remember she

[00:05:13] used a metaphor in Hindi but I'll translate it for you she said she's beginning to start

[00:05:19] down the slope of old age so what a horrible and disempowering way to represent your expanding

[00:05:24] wisdom right if you're like in the dark then just turn on the lights if you are like feeling

[00:05:29] drowning in the confusion then walk on the beach of understanding it is that simple I know this

[00:05:35] sounds juvenile but what's truly juvenile is allowing ourselves unconsciously select metaphors

[00:05:41] that disempower us on a consistent basis in previous episode I asked all of you to

[00:05:46] take charge on your vocabulary in this one I'm asking you to take charge on your metaphors

[00:05:52] remember anytime you use I feel like or this is like the words after that is often a trigger for

[00:05:58] the use of metaphor so ask yourself a good question ask what would be a better metaphor for this situation

[00:06:05] for example if I have to know someone's mentality I will ask them a simple question what is life

[00:06:11] most say life is like a constant battle or war so if you were to adopt this metaphor

[00:06:16] you would start to begin to adopt a series of beliefs that come with it you would begin

[00:06:20] to conduct your behavior based on the set of unconscious beliefs that are carried within this

[00:06:26] metaphor now what do you think when you first hear about war loss and death right now if I were to

[00:06:32] tell you that life is a test then test can be tough sometimes you can flunk or cheat in that

[00:06:39] then what is life to you if you say life is a competition then there are 1.6 billion people

[00:06:45] maybe more than that and someone is always ahead of you and this is not a good feeling

[00:06:50] let me tell you with each metaphor you adopt in your life they have their own merits as well as

[00:06:56] their own challenges it all depends on what believes you attach to the metaphor again you

[00:07:01] have a set of filters that is going to affect the way you think and the way you feel there is

[00:07:06] a fine-looking girl on whom I used to have a crush on I really like this girl and we were just

[00:07:12] talking about almost one and a half years later and she was in a tight spot in her life

[00:07:16] and I asked her what's going on then she described herself with a metaphor that I feel like I am a

[00:07:23] people pleaser or I have a people pleasing personality so for a moment I thought that is good

[00:07:29] like who wouldn't want to be a people pleaser and get their work done and like who would not

[00:07:34] want other people to get comfortable around them then I let her continue she was not happy with

[00:07:39] it it was just because according to her people pleasing is manipulating others and as long as

[00:07:45] she kept this metaphor to herself she was acting like a manipulator this is the impact of metaphors

[00:07:52] in anyone's life now as I have become more sensitized to metaphors what I have begun to

[00:07:57] believe is that having only one metaphor is a great way to limit your life there would be

[00:08:02] nothing wrong in calling life as a competition or game unless that is all in your arsenal so if

[00:08:09] you want to expand our lives we should expand the metaphors we use to describe what our relationships

[00:08:16] are or even who we are as human beings the power of metaphors is in their simplicity please remember

[00:08:23] that so far I have only asked you how to lower our negative emotional intensity through the use

[00:08:30] of transformational vocabulary and metaphors however it's useful and important to get ourselves

[00:08:36] to feel negative emotions with strong intensity to allow us to take action it's simple logic when

[00:08:42] using the metaphor accordingly to feel pain and hurt you will yourself develop the emotional

[00:08:48] intensity to overcome the obstacle with all the power that metaphors wield over our life

[00:08:54] the scary part is that most of us have never consciously selected the metaphor with

[00:09:00] which we represent things to ourselves where did you get your metaphors in life we have

[00:09:04] heard it from somewhere else you have heard it in some movie and from there you have picked

[00:09:09] it up that's how you got your metaphors but I want you to consciously choose your metaphors right now

[00:09:15] being aware of the vast power contained in metaphors includes knowing how to use them

[00:09:22] in an appropriate context the challenge is that a lot of people have metaphors that help them

[00:09:28] in their profession but create challenges at home suppose someone is a dedicated police officer

[00:09:35] if they can't let go of their work when they get home do you think they might always be on a lookout

[00:09:40] for other people violating their standards be careful not to carry the metaphors that are

[00:09:46] appropriate in one context like the environment in which you work into an incompatible context

[00:09:53] like how you relate with your family and friends okay let's do a fun exercise because without an

[00:09:59] exercise and teaching you how it can work for you all of my last eight minutes of work is just theory

[00:10:05] I wouldn't be a good coach and I just hate theory anyways I'm more of a practical guy so let's get

[00:10:10] into it step one what is life write down the metaphors you have already chosen life is like

[00:10:17] what brainstorm everything you think of because you probably have more than one metaphor for your life

[00:10:25] when you are in not a good state you can call it as a war or a street fight when you are so

[00:10:30] soon you may call it a game a game or a mystery then review this list and ask yourself if life

[00:10:37] is such and such then what does it mean step two make a list of all metaphors that you

[00:10:42] link to your marriage or relationships are they empowering or the opposite remember

[00:10:47] conscious awareness alone can transform your metaphor the beauty of this metaphors lies in

[00:10:53] their simplicity as I said third step is pick another area of your life that impacts you the

[00:10:59] most that can be career health and business whatever you like and discover your metaphors

[00:11:04] for this area write them down in notepad or something and review their impact write down

[00:11:09] learning is like playing for studying if you feel like it's visiting a dentist then imagine how much

[00:11:15] resentment you will be having for studies step four is create new and more empowering metaphors

[00:11:21] the essence of life is in creating new things that empower you to take steps life is not a war

[00:11:29] life is not a test definitely life is a game life is a picnic life is a gift whatever creates

[00:11:35] the most positive impact and emotional intensity for you choose it keep it with you and choose more

[00:11:40] than one so that you don't want to limit your life to one metaphor step five and the final step is

[00:11:46] decide that you are going to live with these metaphors for the next 30 days take control

[00:11:51] of your metaphors and create a new world for yourself a world of possibility of richness

[00:11:57] of wonder and of joy once you have mastered the creative art of creating metaphors

[00:12:03] transforming vocabulary and asking empowering questions you are ready to harness the emotions of

[00:12:10] power which is our next episode follow this podcast and keep learning and practicing

[00:12:15] I guarantee if you follow all these steps and work on yourself consistent people grow and thrive

[00:12:20] and myself is not jack of all but i'm getting there and I want you all to come with me we need

[00:12:26] more and more emotionally intelligent people in these times that's it for today I hope you

[00:12:32] enjoyed the episode give me an eye-opening moment of yours in the review section of this episode

[00:12:37] and don't forget to do that follow this podcast this is Rabjyot Singh your host take care and keep

[00:12:43] being awesome