Owen The Salmon of Knowledge

Stories for Work, Life, the Dark Shadow, and OneSelf
1. Auflage 2009
ISBN: 978-1-84590-364-0
Verlag: Crown House Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 256 Seiten

A collection of stories, analogies and metaphors that invite us to pause and consider what is really important in our lives, our work, and ourselves. Challenging us to re-connect different parts of our lives and recognise how easy it is to get distracted by contemporary culture and the pace of modern life.

What are we called to do in our lives and how can we discover and express our personal and professional genius and purpose? Not easy questions but Nick has been struggling with and exploring them for himself and with others through his writing, editing, and storytelling, as well as in workshops, seminars and coaching sessions with individuals, educational institutions, professional bodies, organisations, and the arts for the last several decades. These days his primary professional passions catalyse around two areas. Firstly, the development of shared narratives that explore how schools, NGOs, and large organisations would do well to be more fully human, more self-organising and self-managing and less stuck in the old paradigms of autocracy, hierarchy, ego, power and control. Secondly, how can people entering the Third Act of their lives see their future less as a surrender into retirement and more as an opportunity to transition into a generative and creative period of contribution and personal exploration of their life's true purpose? In a whole variety of exciting ways, these two areas are both evolutionary and deeply interconnected.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Owen, Nick

Leseproben

Praise for The Salmon of Knowledge

This book elegantly typifies a theme in Nick Owen’s work of not attempting to enforce change on others. Instead it mainly teaches through metaphor and story so that each reader can find deep meaning and significance for themselves. The use of metaphor enables people to access those hard-to-describe aspects of all human experience such as paradox, multiple perspectives and polarities, and to recognise how these influence decisions, choices, fears and desires. This kind of ‘inside’ knowing can create the conditions for our next developmental step and is self-learning at its finest. We heartily recommend this book.

Penny Tompkins and James Lawley, authors of Metaphors in Mind:  Transformation through Symbolic Modelling

This is a superb book from Nick Owen; it’s like no other book I have ever read. If the reader is ready, the stories and the insights from Nick will take them on a journey that holds a mirror to the genius, naivety and potential of the human spirit. For the mind that is open a gift of true knowledge and learning awaits within these pages.

Alex Maw, Assistant Director of Public Health, North East Lincolnshire Care Trust Plus

Nick Owen, in his wonderful book The Salmon of Knowledge, uses the power of ‘story’ to share the wisdom of ages in a language that has meaning and relevance in today’s reality. It is full of rich metaphors that allow the reader to challenge deeply held assumptions, and learn how to live more comfortably in a world of polarity and paradox. Nick provides us with recipes of simplicity for dealing with ever increasing levels of complexity!

Sabina Spencer PhD, author of The Heart of Leadership: Unlock your Inner Wisdom and Inspire Others

Another tour de force by life explorer Nick Owen, one of the most wide ranging and eclectic of cutting edge theorists and a man with a real eye for brilliant stories of more than one dimension.

Robert Twigger, British explorer, and award-winning author of Angry White Pyjamas and Real Men Eat Puffer Fish

A bubbling stream of stories to refresh any traveller on a personal development journey.

Nick Owen cleverly combines the variety of diverse spiritual and storytelling traditions—ancient and modern—with universal human themes such as stuckness, fear, life direction, relationships and self-knowledge. A book to dip into, again and again.

Judy Rees, co-author of Clean Language: Revealing Metaphors and Opening Minds

The Salmon of Knowledge is the perfect book for these uncertain times. Whether you need a practical guide, creative inspiration or a philosophical companion, it’s all here. We’re going to have to define a new map of the world of business and Nick’s stories give clues and inspiration of how we might find our way. Are you sitting comfortably? Then begin the journey of The Salmon of Knowledge.

Alex McKie, The Next Step

Nick Owen is a master of storytelling and metaphor. He inspires us to reflection and fresh discovery, particularly about ourselves. He invites us to wrestle with paradox—or transcend it. For example, in an opening story about a man digging a well to find water, the lessons he offers includes a series of do’s and don’ts, including, ‘Advice is cheap and often unreliable.’ I have to believe he also appreciates such irony. By drawing on the many rich wisdom traditions in the world, he even subtly offers a path to the discovery of our connections with each other—and with our often separated and disjointed ways of knowing and meaning making. Through his narratives he joins science and spirit, the individual with her community, the perspectives of self and society. He links us to our enduring cultures and the brevity of our own existence. And he challenges us to use his work to help us reshape our perspectives to engage the many aspects of life revealed to us. This is a book to which I can return again and again for both solace in the face of life’s challenges and stimulus to embrace the richness of life and living.

Russ Volckmann, PhD; publisher and editor, Integral Leadership Review

Are we much more than the stories we tell of ourselves? And do not the stories we hear make, shape, or break us? In which case we should choose our stories well. Nick Owen’s subtle and subversive retellings open a world of possibility for personal change and adventurous exploration.

Steve Carter, psychologist, consultant and author of The Road To Audacity

It took quite a while to read The Salmon of Knowledge: each story begged to be reflected on and learnt from—and there are a lot of stories!

This book of bite-sized stories, anecdotes and metaphors provides a wealth of material for self-reflection, leading to deep insights. You are sure to know yourself better long before you finish the book. The stories explore such universals as the shadow side, letting go, presence, mastery, and leadership, and entice you to step back from day-to-day life, take stock and return with more clarity about who you are, what is important and how to proceed.

Wendy Sullivan, co-author of Clean Language: Revealing Metaphors and  Opening Minds

This little book is full of treasure; the kind of treasure that the folds of the earth and the folds of man’s mind have protected and yet searched for, for countless centuries. This book seeks to unpick the lock of fable, story and folklore. It saviours the beauty, magic, and depth of the human discourse with itself, through the happening of life. It is a remarkable book that whispers of infinity and eternal life. Take for example, the few simple words on separate self and extended self. Nick manages to treat the most esoteric and mystical aspects of human life with a wonderful depth and reality; he helps us name ‘it’, name that which eludes us. He makes the coin of man with its persistent two-sidedness finally stop hankering with the pursuit of what is not obtainable and settle, finally knowing itself as rare, rare metal. I loved this book, it is full of wisdom. It brought me joy, and quiet illumination; may it lighten your way.

Adrian Machon, Director, Executive and Leadership Development,
Corporate Leadership and Organisation Development, GSK Pharmaceutical Company

From my point of view, being a professional storyteller for almost thirty years, I thought that I had seen it all, read it all, and heard it all. But with great happiness I found that Nick’s stories and examples could both move and surprise me. And in his bouquet of flowers there are samples that I will ask if I may ‘gently steal’. Both for my personal purpose and eventually to share with a future audience. May I Nick?

Anders Granström, actor and storyteller, member of the Swedish Actors
Association

This is a book full of wonderful stories and deep insights which can be used by anyone who wants to inspire themselves and others. It gently, yet profoundly, challenges us to explore more deeply our relationship with ourselves and with the world: enabling us to become more insightful, resourceful, and creative. It is easy and compelling to read. I read it from cover to cover in a few hours. At the same time you can dip in and out of it to find what you are looking for since it is clearly and simply set out. The stories in themselves are wonderful and would be powerful enough on their own. The way Nick has grouped them and framed them with personal and honest commentaries deepens and enriches them enormously. This is a wonderful and generous book that, like the many stories it contains, is powerful and engaging.

Honest, generous and thought-provoking.

Barbara Houseman, voice, acting, and communication coach

Nick Owen has done us a favour. This generous book is essential for anyone who wonders why great stories survive, why we tell them, and how we can use them to create greater understanding of the world we live in.

Cilian Fennell, media consultant and TV producer

In this information-overloaded, mass mediated world, we resonate not with data but stories.

A collector of the world’s stories in the Joseph Campbell tradition, Nick Owen has assembled a treasury of the world’s great wisdom tales that delight, inspire, provoke, and awaken the reader.

Retold without a trace of folksiness, these tales engage us directly across the centuries, illuminating the dilemmas and paradoxes we often feel are new and unique to us; they leave us feeling ‘how did the storyteller know this about me or my...