???? How analogies help me get my work done

Every weekday, I head downstairs, anticipating the mental assault of my 14 year old's shrill, grating, incessantly looping social feed. I chirp at him to turn off his volume. He does, begrudgingly, and laments the profound, daily injustice.

Oddly, this little routine of ours has become a welcome start to my day. My small yet inevitable victory over the noxious ear worm that is someone else's TikTok FYP gives me confidence that I'll be able to handle the inevitable onslaught of disruptive forces that will bombard me the rest of the day.

Still, when it comes to being able to do work—and especially creative work— being able to silence external distractions is just the first of a two step process. The second part is being able to quiet the internal noise, too.

And for that, I often use analogies.

Analogies and creative flow

There are a zillion ways to get into a creative flow. Over the years, I’ve found the most efficient way for me to get into flow is by playing with words and language. (Note: I'm a word guy, so if you're not, this practice may not be for you.)

And efficiency is key; I can't take time for granted when I'm under constant bombardment from dings, beeps, calls, neighbors, espresso machines, cars, TVs, people taking calls on speakerphone in public places, airport announcements, or, of course, audio from someone else's social media scroll.

How I "use" analogies to get into flow

My “how” is pretty simple: I think of a situation I’m dealing with and challenge myself to come up with 3-4 analogies to describe it.

Often, when I start, I'll purposefully multitask on something mindless, like a puzzle game or with music, as it me a chance to me titrate down the mental distractions. Instead of trying to force myself to jump from “very noisy” to “very focused,” that small multitask gives me an interim stop at “white noise noisy,” where I still have a distraction but it's bounded. That makes the transition into flow a little easier for me.

Once I have my analogies, I’ll maybe go deep on one of them, or come up with another 2-3, or repeat the process with a different situation, until I’m sufficiently in flow to shift my attention to the actual work I need to do. It usually takes about 10-20 minutes.

And that’s it.

Why I favor analogies for creative thinking

The “why” behind my use of analogies is also pretty straightforward: I find them playful, clarifying, and enlightening. And while each of these factors provides a jumpstart into creative thinking, together, they really turbocharge things:

Playful. Stress is like rust on the gears of the mind, making everything harder and slower and more painful. Getting into a playful mindset not only helps me think more creatively, it also helps me think faster and more fluidly, which in turn creates some resiliency that helps me stay in flow longer.

Clarifying. The right analogy can make complicated scenarios easier to understand... but surprisingly, so can the wrong analogy! The contrast provided by an analogy that doesn't quite fit can be remarkably revealing. Which means that my process is successful even when my analogy doesn't work. There are no false starts in my world of analogies.

Enlightening. Good analogies often reveal hidden solutions. Like mental bridges, analogies enable ideas I've already applied in one area to travel to another. It’s actually amazing how many times analogies have helped me solve thorny problems simply by allowing me to "borrow" solutions from other area of my life. (If you watch my videos, that's probably not a newsflash.)

A quick, real-life, recent example.

As a member of the growth team at Cielo, I've been looking for new ways to engage my community, because—as Bret Starr has demonstrated —we’ve run our current sales & marketing playbooks into the ground. It was this in mind that I recently discovered that Nick Uranga , a Talent Acquisition (TA) leader, spends his weekends officiating professional soccer games. (How cool is that?!)

When I heard that, I heard more than "This is Nick's hobby." My mind went straight to, "How many ways is soccer like talent acquisition?"

Immediately, I imagined recruiters and candidates on the field as the two teams—there's one analogy. But what about others? Maybe something less obvious? I thought, "Nick is a ref, maybe there's an analogy in which recruiters are the referees?"

I shared the idea with asked Nick if he’d learned anything officiating on the pitch that has helped his work in Talent Acquisition. Turns out, he has... lots of things. His answer was so amazing that I asked him to share it on a LInkedIn Live event with me on 11/14, which he thankfully agreed to do. PSA: if you’re in TA & sometimes struggle with hiring manager relationships—or even if you’re not in TA but you sometimes have to work with people where you’re the expert but they hold the power—I hope you join us!

And that’s all I’ve got today. Love you, see you next week!