#1 - Isolate 1 small Idea or Issue within a topic, and build your metaphor from there.

#2 - Be Vivid. Create a stronger image in your mind to help describe your metaphor. What sounds better, "Showing belief in your product is important" or "Showing belief in your product is the ultimate fulcrum to massive and explosive success!" When creating your metaphors, visual impact is more important than perfect accuracy.

#3 - Quantity over Quality. Having 3-4 metaphors to describe a topic puts you in a far better position than one really good metaphor. Metaphors are vivid picture like definitions, your images in your head may not look like the images of other people, so do your best to come up with more than one metaphor for important points you are making.

#4 - The Child Rule. The best subject to try your metaphor out on is a child, if a young teenager can get your metaphor, you are good to go. Your goal with metaphors is to transform a complex idea, and re-frame it into an easy to understand idea. Boring, complex or difficult to understand metaphors can turn an imaginative journey into a lifeless plot. A child will not understand this, and neither will a great deal of your audience. Their mind does not want to work hard to figure out your metaphor. Your metaphor is supposed to help their mind, not confuse it.

Without metaphors, ideas, speeches, and trainings are simply dry and flow through people's ears without a second thought.

So, how do you get really good at using Metaphors?

Practice, practice, practice...

Start creating metaphors today. Pick up a book or magazine, and start creating metaphors. Pick and chose the topic you would like to create a metaphor about, and take 5 minutes to think about how you could make a metaphor for it. If it does not happen quickly, find a new piece to create a metaphor about then write that topic down. Then take 5 minutes to figure out a metaphor for that new topic. If it does, or does not happen, find a new piece to create a metaphor about. Write the topic down, then take 5 minutes to figure out a metaphor for that topic.

Let me explain what happens in your mind while in this process by first using a metaphor. Have you ever forgotten a movie name? Possibly even more common, have you ever forgotten a person's name? Then while in the conversation with them, or even the next day, their name just pops into your head? Susan!! That is her name!

That is your subconscious mind at work. Since your initial thought, "What is her name?" your subconscious mind has been working on it without you even knowing.

In the exercise I described above to develop your metaphor skills, the goal is not necessarily to come up with the metaphor during the 5 minute processes.

The goal is to re-program your brain and your subconscious mind to think in metaphor language. It takes time, it takes repeated energy, and it works. If you do the exercise recommended above, throughout the day, or the next day, don't be surprised if a metaphor or several metaphors regarding those topics you chose come up for you. It's a lot of fun!

If you come up with great metaphors for network marketing share them with others, share them with us at our forum, we would love to hear them.