Book review: THE MAGIC OF METAPHOR
77 Stories for Teachers, Trainers & Thinkers
Genres:
- Storytelling
- Philosophy
- Psychology Psychoterapy
Review posted on:
22.04.2016
The number of pages:
320 pages
Book rating:
4/5
Year the book was published:
First edition published 2001
Who should read this book:
- Start-up founders, Entrepreneurs, Investors, Coaches, Teachers, Sales people.
Why did I pick up this book and what did I expect to get out of it:
One of the reasons why I have picked up The Magic of Metaphors by Nick Owen is that I have been in sales long enough to see how some people can better connect, persuade, and even close deals by telling the right stories at the right time. If nothing else they – the salespeople became more memorable to their potential clients even if the sale was not done. Can you imagine that 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. But there is a problem in telling stories, and that is if you aren’t interesting enough, if the story doesn’t grab your listeners’ attention you lose all the persuasive power that stories provide.
Based on the title, subtitle, table of contents, and what is written on the covers I expect to get useful and on-hand advice and tips on how to better tell stories, what a story has to include to get people’s attention, and how to end so that you stay in the heads of your listeners. Also, the bonus is the 77 stories that I expect are there as “case studies” to help you better understand each element of the story and why it is important.
My thoughts about the book:
The Magic of Metaphor 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 informative, 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 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 pick up the book you will be reading it with different “eyes and mind”, you will search for different teachings than me and you will most probably find them. If you are looking for stories and how to use them to teach, persuade, or influence others then The Magic of Metaphor by Nick Owen is a good choice. The book had most of what I was looking for in a storytelling book. I especially found useful advice on why and how to make skeletons for stories. An example of a skeleton of a story – A story of two monks is: Two monks -> Women: no talk -> Rainy season -> Flooded river -> Woman -> Older monk carries her -> Younger feels betrayed -> One hour non-stop -> Finally -> I… you…
If you picked up this book please let me know what you think about it in the comment section.
My notes from the book:
- Stories serve to promote and facilitate problem-solving, help us manage transition, and formulate dreams. They can also be used to affirm, change, or challenge people’s ideas, attitudes, beliefs, visions, behaviors, skills, and sense of purpose.
- 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.
- 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 behaviors, 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 behaviors.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Everything has a structure. Every behavior, 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 an 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 realize just how skillful and brilliantly organized our mind-body system can be, but 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 skillful today than I was yesterday? How can I ensure I am more skillful tomorrow than I am today?” You are your best and most reliable measurement. Attitude is the responsibility of each individual!
