Micro-Metaphoring

What is micro-metaphoring? It’s “picture-words” on steroids. Actually, that’s an example of one. Imagine you’re a movie producer going in front of studio executives and you have 15 seconds to get to the point. Are you going to go into an in depth reiteration of the script? The word on the street is that they are more likely to say something like, “It’s like Days of Thunder meets Dumb and Dumber. What movie is this? If you said, “Talladega Nights?” You’re right. Much more effective, isn’t it.

Here’s a visual example:

PART ‘WHAT THE HECK IS THAT?’ PART ‘LEMME SEE THAT.’
Another example is a technique called reforming cliché. Often when I introduce myself, the person will say, “Jack Handey?” Very funny. I like to pace and lead in this situation with, ‘Actually, that’s Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey, I’m shallow thoughts by Jade Handy!” Ba Da Bum Ching! Hard to forget that one. It always gets a laugh and a look of, “you’re pretty clever.”

Any time you can sum up what you’re saying in as few of words as possible, you’re going to be better off. Ever sum up something your friend has just told you with witty saying, like say, “it’s like the kettle calling the pot black.” They say, “yeah!” That’s micro-metaphoring helping you understand something by thinking of something similar.

How does this apply to persuasion? Notice how often top persuaders around you are speaking with micro-metaphors. How will you spot them? Simple, the literal translation is an exaggeration of what’s possible or relevant to what they are saying. For example, “What I hear you saying is you want to kick around this idea some more before committing.” “Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.” “Let’s brainstorm.” “This is like photocopier meets printing press.” “You can go down with the ship, or you can jump on our life raft.”

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God is a combination of Stalin and Castro. -Professor Beildelman