Product Description

This work is a collection of stories designed to engage, inspire and transform the listener and the reader. Some of the stories motivate, some are spiritual, and some provide strategies for excellence. All set out to promote positive feelings, encouraging confidence, direction and vision. The stories contained in "The Magic of Metaphor" focus on values, responsibility, and leadership in all its forms. They have been specially selected to promote change in people's ideas, attitudes, beliefs, visions and behaviours. These stories act as reframes, challenging and disturbing our existing frames of reference, recharting our accustomed maps of the world, and shifting us away from our limited thinking towards new learning and discovery through the use of effective metaphor. As a result, we are encouraged to understand our world from a new perspective, and are provided with powerful ways to generate greater choice in our lives. Containing 16 suggestions (or tips) for effective storytelling, advice on organization, style and storytelling skills, and a selection of stories that can be adapted and developed, this work is a sourcebook for counsellors, health workers, psychologists, professional speakers, managers, leaders and NLP practitioners, as well as for teachers, trainers, therapists.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6238 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
"The Magic of Metaphor is one of the most richly rewarding books I have read in a very long time - every page you turn brings a new revelation, a new insight, a new understanding, in a simple and beautiful way. Images come tumbling out, and with them truths about ourselves: who we are, what we are, and most importantly, how the tools we need for life are to be found within each and every one of us." --Richard Reed - Better Business

Patrick Hare, Kaizen Training
...suitable for both public and private sector audiences, counsellors to CEO’s.

Synopsis
This work is a collection of stories designed to engage, inspire and transform the listener and the reader. Some of the stories motivate, some are spiritual, and some provide strategies for excellence. All set out to promote positive feelings, encouraging confidence, direction and vision. The stories contained in "The Magic of Metaphor" focus on values, responsibility, and leadership in all its forms. They have been specially selected to promote change in people's ideas, attitudes, beliefs, visions and behaviours. These stories act as reframes, challenging and disturbing our existing frames of reference, recharting our accustomed maps of the world, and shifting us away from our limited thinking towards new learning and discovery through the use of effective metaphor. As a result, we are encouraged to understand our world from a new perspective, and are provided with powerful ways to generate greater choice in our lives.

Containing 16 suggestions (or tips) for effective storytelling, advice on organization, style and storytelling skills, and a selection of stories that can be adapted and developed, this work is a sourcebook for counsellors, health workers, psychologists, professional speakers, managers, leaders and NLP practitioners, as well as for teachers, trainers, therapists.

Customer Reviews

77 Stories for all .
Why should Teachers, Trainers and Thinkers have all the fun?
I purchased this book having attended and been stimulated by one of the author's "Communicating with Influence" courses.
The course very quickly swept away my preconceptions and the book did likewise. Instead of studiously wiling away the daily commute for a couple of days I actually found myself spending a significant majority of the time reflecting on the stories, their meanings for me and their subsequent uses.
Those lucky enough to have experienced (a carefully chosen word) Nick's storytelling first hand will find the collection particularly evocative whilst for new readers a rich multisensory experience awaits.

The Magic of Metaphor : 77 Stories for Teachers, Trainers
This book had a lovely twist in that it is a story in itself, and that the metaphorical stories are woven into the story. All of us seek a teacher who will inspire us and encourage us to fulfil our potential, so using the teacher/pupil to do the speaking throughout the book and leading into the metaphorical stories is very clever.

I found the stories very easy to follow, and some exceptionally humorous, which immediately raised my own spirits. I have already begun to share some of the stories found within this book on my seminars and seen others ‘get the insight’ or have their spirits raised too.

One of the strengths of this book is that it contains short anecdotal stories as well as the more long winded versions. Thereby catering for different lengths of presentations. The sub-sections are useful in that cover different aspects of leadership which is paramount to the world of self-actualisation.

Again, my personal recommendation would be that this is a book sold in audio format alongside the book, so that the reader is listening to the audio and reading at the same time. This would make a big impact in the learning of the principles that is integral to each story.

The author has also done well to recommend different ways of using the stories within different situations, which enables trainers, teachers and therapists to understand how they can adapt the stories to suit their clients needs. I also like the fact that the author understands that importance of acknowledging sources where possible. Very often people forget to acknowledge their sources and as a result many people believe that the information being shared has only just been discovered, where in fact it has existed for millennia, and the magic is when each of us is able to bring that higher truth interpretation to the ears and hearts of others that inspires, touches and motivates them to take up a call to action.

a great book for teachers and thinkers
I am an English teacher in Vienna and this book is one of the best I've ever read because all those stories are great fun to read and also perfect for teaching students in English (older ones of course!) - they really like these stories and start thinking without being told to do so - which is quite amazing and certainly one of the aims of the author. Highly recommendable!