A Compendium of Short Stories that Inspire, Coach, Teach and Motivate Spurring Personal Growth

Metaphorical thinking is fundamental to cognition, communication and our ‘narrative mind’. This makes it a valuable tool for helping friends, family, colleagues and clients gain new perspectives on their lives. Using a metaphor is a helpful way of talking about emotional and relational experience.

The mind has the capacity to understand new ideas by relating them to concepts it is familiar with. Using metaphor has been a tradition in all the major schools of therapy and is a particularly helpful way of talking about emotional and relational experience.

I often rely on stories in coaching, training, workshops and therapy and have found it immensely invaluable. This is due to the fact that the “listener” does not respond to the story as an “opinion” or “advice” from me. Neither does the image he has of me as a person / individual filter the content or create a barrier in the way his mind would digest and assimilate the narrative.

So often, I can feel the energy shift in the room as people take in the impact of what a simple poignant story can express. No amount of lectures, power points or vision and mission statements can so pithily and impressively convey what a story can.

Whether you acknowledge it or not, each little story in this book will leave an imprint on your mind, as it has done on mine. I can honestly and gratefully attribute several learnings in my life span to stories.