Select your global metaphors

As I developed " antennae" to sensitize myself to people's global metaphors, I read an interview with anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson in which she said, " Few things are more debilitating than a toxic metaphor." * That's quite an insight, and one with which I was soon to gain

firsthand experience.

At one of my Date With Destiny seminars, most everybody was complaining about a certain woman even before the program had begun. She had created a commotion at the registration area, and when she got into the room she started complaining about everything imaginable: first the room was too hot, then too cold; she was upset with the person in front of her because he was too tall; and so on. By the time I got up to speak I couldn't go for more than five minutes without her interrupting and trying to find how what I said really didn't work, or wasn't really true, or for which there was some kind of exception.

I kept trying to break her pattern, but I was focusing on the effect rather than the cause. Suddenly I realized that she must have some global belief or global metaphor about life that made her such a fanatic for detail and almost spiteful in her approach. I asked her, " What are you trying to gain by doing this? I know you must have a positive intent. What is your belief about life, or about details, or about whether things are right or wrong? " She said, " J guess I just believe that small leaks sink the ship." If you thought you were going to drown, wouldn't you be a little fanatical about finding any possibility of a leak? That's how this woman viewed life!

Where did this metaphor come from? It turned out that this woman had experienced several situations in her life where little things cost her a lot. She attributed her divorce to some small problems that didn't get handled—problems she wasn't even aware of. Similarly, she felt that her financial woes were the result of equally small causes. She adopted this metaphor to keep her from re-experiencing pain like this in the future.

Obviously, she wasn't very excited about changing metaphors without my providing a little leverage. Once I got her to feel the pain that this metaphor was constantly creating in her life, and the immediate pleasure she could have by changing it, I was able to assist her in breaking her pattern and changing her metaphor by creating a series of new ways of looking at herself and life.

She combined a variety of global metaphors—life as a game, life as a dance—and you should have seen the transformation, not just in the way she treated other people, but also in the way she treated herself, because she had always been finding small leaks in herself as well. This one change affected the way she approached everything and is a great example of how changing one global metaphor can transform every area of your life, from your self-esteem to your relationships to the way you deal

with the world at large.

With all the power that metaphors wield over our lives, the scary part is that most of us have never consciously selected the metaphors with which we represent things to ourselves. Where did you get your metaphors? You probably picked them up from people around you, from your parents, teachers, co-workers, and friends. I'll bet you didn't think about their impact, or maybe you didn't even think about them at all, and then they just became a habit.

" All perception of truth is the detection of an analogy."

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

For years, people asked me what it was I did exactly. At various times I tried different metaphors—" I'm a teacher, " " I'm a student, " " I'm a hunter of human excellence, " " I'm a speaker, " " I'm a national best-selling author, " " I'm a peak performance consultant, " " I'm a therapist, " " I'm a counselor" —but none of them conveyed the right feeling. People gave me plenty of metaphors. I was known by many in the media as a " guru." This is a metaphor I avoided because I felt that the presupposition that went with it was that people were dependent upon me to create their change—which would never empower them. Since I believe that we all must be responsible for our own change, I avoided this metaphor.

One day, though, I finally got it. " I'm a coach, " I thought. What is a coach? To me, a coach is a person who is your friend, someone who really cares about you. A coach is committed to helping you be the best that you can be. A coach will challenge you, not let you off the hook.

Coaches have knowledge and experience because they've been there before. They aren't any better than the people they are coaching (this took away my need to have to be perfect for the people I was " teaching").

In fact, the people they coach may have natural abilities superior to their own. But because coaches have concentrated their power in a particular area for years, they can teach you one or two distinctions that can immediately transform your performance in a matter of moments.

Sometimes coaches can teach you new information, new strategies and skills; they show you how to get measurable results. Sometimes a coach doesn't even teach you something new, but they remind you of what you need to do at just the right moment, and they push you to do it. I thought, " What I truly am is a success coach. I help to coach people on how to achieve what they really want more quickly and more easily."

And everyone needs a coach, whether it's a top-level executive, a graduate student, a homemaker, a homeless person, or the president of the United States! As soon as I started using this metaphor, it immediately changed the way I felt about myself. I felt less stressed, more relaxed; I felt closer to people. I didn't have to be " perfect" or " better." I began to have more fun, and my impact on people multiplied manyfold.