If a concept is highly technical or complicated, analogies are also a good way to simplify them. Analogies are the foundation of learning from experience, and they work because they make use of your brain's natural inclination to match patterns.

Analogies influence what you perceive and remember, and help you process information more easily because you associate it with things you already know. These mental shortcuts are useful methods of processing new and unfamiliar information, and help people understand, organize, and comprehend incoming information.

One example of an analogy created by Feynman encapsulates the power of his technique. He was able to take a question regarding human existence and simplify it into a simple sentence that even a middle-schooler could understand. Feynman said:

"All things are made of atoms-little particles t...