Salmon of Knowledge : Stories for Work, Life and Oneself

A great source of metaphors for many opportunities

Most people love a good story and this book has a lot of good stories contained within a story.

This book joins his other 2 books in offering the reader a large number of short stories that align with various states of mind in 4 main areas of our lives – Work, Life, the Dark Shadow (the hidden side of our personality that we find hard to come to terms with) and the OneSelf (recognising the harmony that exists between our conscious and unconscious selves).

I loved the book as it offered a number of choices in the way that it can be read. Within each chapter, he appeals to both types of readers. There is the overview and guidance notes for those who like a little guidance into what the story may be saying and yet these are separated from the stories themselves so that the more intuitive can leap straight in to the stories and draw their own conclusions.

In addition, he has grouped each story under a chapter (Chautauqua) dedicated to a particular theme (such as “Difficult Conversations (Mastery, Honesty, Leadership and Personal Responsibility)” and “Beyond the Surface of Things (Appearance and Illusion)”).

This gives the reader so many ways in which to use the book and its overall composition makes it easy to dip in and out of its contents without necessarily reading it straight through. As the stories were short and easy to read (the longest being 3 pages whilst the shortest being 10 lines long), they could be used as part of self-development, tapping into some uncomfortable truths about ourselves in an easy-to-digest manner, whilst they could also be part of the “material” used by coaches and trainers.

I really enjoyed exploring this book so thank you Nick.