Metaphors and stories… With stories and metaphors you can solve conflicts, you can in an indirect way tell the rules, acceptable behavior, consequences of breaking the rules, subconsciously plant an idea, trigger a value or a need, and explain something when there is a misunderstanding. Simply by telling a story or using a metaphor, you can influence people without them knowing it. And that is magic! Many times when you want to influence someone by directly telling them what you want them to do or not to do, they could resist you or worse, they could get offended and out of rebellion do exactly what you told them not to. You can also use stories to motivate yourself not just others. Each and everyone of us could probably tell at least a handful of stories from our lives with lessons learned (sometimes the hard way) and by doing so help others avoid the mistakes, the pain, and the fear of going through what we went. I bet that most of us have already told some of our stories to our loved ones or people in need (of our stories), and we didn’t even realise that by doing so we changed their “world”. That is a powerful tool and in my opinion worth learning more about. So I would like to invite you to join me in discovering the world of storytelling and metaphors. Our journey starts now…
Storytelling – seopressor.com (22.4.2016)
My notes from the book:
- Stories serve to promote and facilitate problem solving, help us manage transition, and formulate dreams.
- Stories can be used to affirm, change, or challenge people’s ideas, attitudes, beliefs, visions, behaviours, skills, and sense of purpose.
- Resonant stories are essentially reframe – like putting on different pairs of glasses, stories allow us to look at life and experience in ways that can shift our perspective, range and focus. Different lenses in the frames allow different views on a certain subject. At their most magical, stories can challenge and disturb our existing frames of reference, our accustomed map of the world, and shift us away from our limited thinking towards new learning and discovery.
- Without a frame information has no meaning. You always need a frame that gives a story its power and meaning.
- The best stories are multilayered and capable of rich interpretation. Some stories can contain within them apparently contradictory meanings.
- Metaphors are powerful devices for shaping perception and experience.
- At a deeper level, stories are archetypes. Stories, metaphors, and myths carry the history, the culture, the values, and the customs of the people. They are a form of social glue that serves to entertain, instruct, and challenge the listener or reader. And because they strike deep chords in shared communal experience, they operate at both conscious and unconscious levels, conveying messages directly or indirectly. It is the connection with the unconscious that challenges and disturbs our comfortable sense of self and identity, our programmed behaviours, or alternatively confirms them.
- Stories connect the past with the present, and they project both past and present into the future.
- Brains are meaning making organizations and they search for completion so that any opened loop can be closed. Examples of this are soap operas – every episode ends at an unresolved moment of crisis (thus opening a loop in the viewer’s brain). The viewer reviews all the information offered in the present and preceding episodes in order to work out possible future outcomes.
- Watch and listen to storytellers that you admire. Ask yourself what is it that they are doing that makes such a strong impression on you? Once you begin to discover what it is that they do, you can begin to model their behaviours.
- An excellent way to make a story your own is to create a skeleton of the original story and use it as the basis of your own interpretation -> example posted below
- The time you offer your listeners, through silence, pause, and pace allows them to think back over what has been said and connect it with their own past experience.
- When storytelling you should be willing to withhold your own interpretation so that others can freely supply theirs.
- Effective leaders understand that if they want others to follow them in a common or shared purpose, they must first build a respectful and trusting relationship to establish channels of communication through which information can flow.
- Feedback is the breakfast of champions.
- Our values are the things that give us direction in our lives. We tend to move towards what we value and away from what we don’t.
- Our values are filters.
- Concern yourself only with what is useful.
- It takes a special kind of wisdom to appreciate that each present moment is precious, full of experience, and will never come again.
- Everything has a structure. Every behaviour, every skill, every belief you have or hold has a structure, a pattern that supports it and holds it in place. The more you are aware of this structure, and how effective or ineffective the pattern is, the more control you will have over your life. You will be able to improve and effective pattern if you wish, or entirely change an ineffective one.
- When we begin to understand  the patterns that lie below our conscious awareness of things we not only begin to realise just how skillful and brilliantly organized our mind-body system can be, we can also begin to teach our skills to other people.
- Everything we do affects ourselves and others. Everything others do affects themselves and us. We must expect that things will not always work out perfectly, and when situations occur that are not the way we would like, it is simply useful to take responsibility ourselves for how we deal with it. Because it is we who will have to live with the consequences, and only we can deal with it in a way that gets the results we specifically want.
- Without a frame, stories can mean whatever the reader or listener decides they mean. So the listener or reader is allowed to the meaning that best relates and resonates with him or her.
- Always learn from an expert, but never compare yourself with an expert.
- To motivate yourself ask yourself “How can I be more skilful today than I was yesterday? How can I ensure I am moe skilful tomorrow than I am today?” You are your best and most reliable measurement.
- Attitude is the responsibility of each individual!
What makes stories so powerful – khoslaventures.com (22.4.2016)
Skeleton of the original story -> example: The story of the two monks
Two monks were on a pilgrimage. They had already walked many miles avoiding where they could run into people for they were from a particular order of monks that were forbidden to speak to or touch women. They had no wish to offend anyone so they kept to the by-way and lived off the land.
It was the rainy season and as they walked across a broad plain they were hoping that the river they had to cross would not be impassable. From afar they could see that the river had burst its banks. Nevertheless they were hopeful that the ferryman would be able to take them across in his boat. But as they neared the crossing point they could see no sign of the boatman, the boat, it appeared, had been swept away in the current and the ferryman had stayed at home.
There was, however, a woman. She was dressed in fine clothes and carried an umbrella. She implored the monks to help her cross, for her mission was urgent and the river, thought wide and fast, was not deep.
The younger monk ignored her and looked away. The elder, however, said nothing but swept her up onto his shoulder and carried her across, putting her down, completely dry, on the other bank. For the whole of the following hour as they journeyed on through thick and tangled woods, the younger monk berated the elder, heaping scorn upon his actions, accusing him of betraying the order and his vows. How dare he? How could he? What was he thinking of? What gave him the right to?
Eventually, the monks entered a clearing, and the elder monk stopped and looked square into the eyes of the younger. There was a long moment of silence. Finally in a soft tone, his eyes bright and gentle with compassion, the older monk simply said: »My brother, I put that woman down an hour ago. It is you that are still carrying her.«
The skeleton for this story would be something like this: Two monks -> Women: no talk -> Rainy season -> Flooded river -> Woman -> Older monk carries her -> Younger feels betrayed -> One hour non-stop -> Finally -> I… you…
Now practice making skeletons for your stories or stories from your childhood (post them in the comments – I dare you).
The book is written as a teaching process between a magician and his apprentice. And every time before the mentor tells the stories to the apprentice he gives him a lesson or two about the meaning and where he can use these stories. At the end they have a “conversation” where they summarize what the young apprentice has learned. So you also do a recap of the key points. I found this way of storytelling very pleasant, and quite tricky in a way. The whole time I was reading the book I put myself in the shoes of the young apprentice who listened to the stories and the teachings the master told, and thus it was easier and more fluent for me to follow the stories in the book. It was sequential like a soap opera, so that when I stopped reading for the day and I still wasn’t finished with the book, I could not wait to get back to reading it the next day. The stories you will find contain lessons for various aspects of life experiences and thus making this book a “hidden treasure”. Based on my experiences I found a lot of stories useful, of course not all. But on the other hand when you will pick up the book you will be reading it with different “eyes and mind”, you will search for different teachings then me and you will most probably find them. That is why I found this book so good. And that is what I am looking for when I am reading a book, that little bit of information, that could make a difference dealing with what life has or will throw at me or at the people closest to me. If you decide to read this book, let me know if you found anything like that for yourself. And one more advice, start collecting stories that you find interesting or with a lesson to be shared. You never know when you will need it and if you would remember it. But having it written down somewhere you will always be able to share the story.
Feel free to comment about the book. I would also appreciate your input about the post and the blog. If you have any suggestions what you found good, what you would like to see different, or simply any advice on what would you like to read as a review of a book let me know.
Thank you for your time. I hope you have found this post helpful. Talk to you in the comment section.
