Mental metaphors

Our mental metaphors describe, define, and control what we do. Metaphors are direct comparisons between two things without using "like" or "as."

If you use "like" or "and" it's a simile, not a metaphor. You may hear someone say about a young girl, "She's such a peach," or about a serial killer, "That guy is a monster." They're using metaphors. If they had said, "Her personality is like a peach," or, "It's almost as if the guy is some kind of monster or something," they would have been using similies. (Someone said a similie is a smile with two eyes in it.) Metaphors are much more powerful.

In both cases, the speakers don't think the girl she's talking about is big delicious fruit. Or that the man looks like Dr. Frankenstein's monster. Rather they're making comparisons to elucidate meaning. These are metaphors that people use to communicate how they feel toward another person's personality.

When we do things, we may not be aware of these metaphors. They don't say, they're going to do "X" because if forms with their mental metaphor. These things are unconscious. We might not even be aware of them, but they're there, and they're powerful, and we can figure them out when we look at the things that we do every day.

Too many people, when they go "networking" are using the wrong mental metaphor, and it guides them down the wrong path. I'll go into it more next time.

I'm trying to improve people's connecting. Is this helpful?

Connecting is the life's blood of all my professional activities. It makes them go. It informs my entrepreneurial strategy. For my ideas on entrepreneurship go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com.

It makes Your Stop for Real Estate , my real estate referral business, go. See www.yourstopforrealestate.blogspot.com.

It powers my approach to writing. See www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com where you can read my mystery for free, download it for free or buy it from Amazon.com more cheaply than you can print it.

It fuels my publishing enterprise, By and for Writersgo. See www.byandforwriters.blogspot.com where you can get a poem or a short story published.For other ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com.