Many of you know my book, “The Tall Lady with the Iceberg,” which specifically shows sales and business people how to use metaphors to sell, persuade, & explain anything to anyone. For the true “Metaphorians” out there, I have two summer book recommendations for you that complement my how-to book. One can be used as a reference to find an apt metaphor for a given situation and the other is an absolutely fascinating deep dive into why metaphors work and their (often unconscious) impact on us, complete with research studies and many examples from different fields.
i never metaphor i didn’t like by Dr. Mardy Grothe
Grothe’s book is a compilation of some 2000 metaphors, analogies, and similes from history organized by category: wit, love, stage and 
screen, insults, politics, sex, sports, and more, from authors as diverse as Maya Angelou, George Washington, and Oprah. Some are just fun to read. Others can be used as is or adapted to situations to frame an argument or set up a selling point. Some examples …
Marriage, Home & Family LIfe “Raising children is like baking bread: it has to be a slow process or you end up with an overdone crust and an underdone interior” (writer, Marcelene Cox). [Anne] Substitute “Raising children” for a new program implementation and you can help a client more readily accept why a project is not moving along as quickly as they might want.
Politics “We don’t just have egg on our face. We have omelette all over our suits” (newscaster Tom Brokaw.) [Anne] No one likes to fail big time with a client, but when you do, you can begin an acceptance of responsibility with this humbling quote.
Sports “Running is the greatest metaphor in life, because you get out of it what you put into it.” (Oprah Winfrey) [Anne] Every sales manager needs to encourage his team to be continuous learners and do their best. Quote Oprah to jumpstart an in-house training meeting and add, “The same is true with selling; it’s the greatest career you can have, because you get out of it what you put into it.”
Wit & Humor “If you haven’t struck oil in the first three minutes, stop boring!” (after dinner speaker, George Jessel). [Anne] Use this quote as an attention grabbing opener to a new business idea presentation: “In the mid-1900s, famous after dinner speaker George Jessel said, “If…boring!” Today I hope to strike oil with you when you see the new … plan we have prepared for you.”
Life “Life is like a play: it’s not the length but the excellence of the acting that matters” (Seneca). [Anne] Coaching a long-winded sales rep? Play on Seneca’s words and say, “A presentation is like a play: it’s not the length but the excellence of your content and delivery that matter” and then work with him/her to improve both.
Grothe’s book is best read in small doses, either kept on a nightstand for casual browsing or reviewed quickly and used as a reference for a specific need.
“I Is an Other” by James Geary
Subtitled “The Secret Lif of Metaphor and How It Shapes the Way We See the World,” Geary’s book is a broad demonstration of how metaphors are all around us. Did you realize that we utter about one metaphor for every ten to twenty-five words, or about six metaphors per minute?
He quickly begins with “… one of our great philosophers, the reigning king of the metaphorians, a man whose contributions to the field are so great that he himself became a metaphor. I am, of course, referring to none other than … Elvis Presley:
She touched my hand, what a chill I got.
Her lips are like a volcano that’s hot.
I’m proud to say that she’s my buttercup.
I’m in love; I’m all shook up.
This unexpected opening and the breakdown of Presley’s song, image by image, is followed by equally engaging chapters exploring research on metaphors and examples of their use in the realms of Thought, Advertising, Politics [particularly timely], Money, the Brain, Innovation, and several more.
Definitely not light beach reading, but really illuminating in demonstrating how metaphors color our thinking, our perceptions, and ultimately our actions. It will definitely cause you to rethink the importance of using metaphors in your world.
Happy reading and enjoy the summer!
Anne Miller
Make What You Say Pay! – with Metaphors
Photo by Dan Dumitriu on Unsplash
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The Tall Lady With the Iceberg: the power of metaphors to sell, persuade, & explain anything to anyone.
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