Spellbinding Storytelling & Transformational Metaphor

For the last twenty years, metaphor and story have been at the heart of the impact I have with my clients.

For the last ten years, I've been experimenting with using stories and metaphors to help my clients have insights into the principles behind clarity, and wake up to who they really are. 

To be clear, I’ve been using story and metaphor to do that (as I’m sure you’ve noticed) but I haven’t been teaching *how* to use story and metaphor to do that. 

But I decided to do an experiment. In December 2019, for the first time ever, I worked with a small group of people to develop their ability to:

• recognise the metaphors that are dictating your clients’ experiences, and 
• create and weave your own stories and metaphors to have a spellbinding and transformational impact (whether you're working one-on-one, or with groups)

Just as water is invisible to fish, the stories and metaphors that shape our experience are so 'close' that we're often oblivious to them. The goal is that, by the end of this two-day programme, you’ll be able to see and hear the metaphors that are shaping your listener’s experience, and create your own stories and metaphors to help them have the insights they need and make big shifts. (One of my favourite things about this is that something that's been there all along is suddenly going to become obvious and visible to you - it's like getting new eyes and ears for something incredibly valuable.)

Whether you're already comfortable using stories and metaphors in your work, or if you don't even think of yourself as a storyteller, by the end of this programme you’ll have everything you need to craft impactful metaphors and (if you want to) make progress on your journey to becoming a master of story and transformational metaphor.

Here are some of the things you’re going to be discovering on this programme:

• Using stories to put people at their ease and get into a feeling of connection, quickly 
• Captivating people’s attention and fascination as you take them on a journey of discovery
• Using metaphors to make your points clearly and bring your ideas to life (you can think of metaphors as ‘the ultimate communication skill’)
• How (and when) to use stories to help people ‘take off their armour’ and become more receptive to what you’re saying
• Recognising other people’s metaphors and utilising them e.g. to counter objections, handle concerns and dissolve 'resistance' easily. (In fact, you're going to discover why the whole idea of resistance is just a metaphor; a kind of 'phantom' that starts disappearing once you see it's just an illusion.)
• In fact, you may have heard me describe my job as ‘helping make it easy for people to have the insights and realisations that are going to make a difference to them’. Stories and metaphors can make this so much easier for you.
• You’ll be looking at how you can use metaphor to set a direction for learning at the start of a talk, training course or coaching session.
• You’ll also be playing with some of the ways you can have a ton of fun with stories, including ‘saying the unsayable’ and delivering outrageous messages to people.
• You’re going to learn how to generate incredibly powerful metaphors on the fly.
• I’ll also show you how to generate ‘business-friendly’ metaphors that you can use in situations where it would be inappropriate to say, “let me tell you a story”.
• Over the years, I’ve used stories and metaphors in all kinds of situations, ranging from getting my boss to cut me some slack while I fixed a business problem, to getting a bouncer to let my friends into a nightclub, to negotiating a 50% pay increase! 

So while we’re going to be focusing on using story and metaphor to help create the conditions for your clients to have insights and realisations, you’re going to be getting access to a skillset that you can use in every aspect of your life.

If you want to become a spellbinding storyteller and a master of metaphor, this programme is going to give you everything you need.

Who is this for?
The programme will suit people who are focused on actively working with others in a specific context, and who already have an understanding of the principles behind clarity, for instance:

• Coaches, mentors or therapists doing 1:1 work with clients.
• Consultants working with people in business and other organisations.
• Business leaders & managers who want to integrate this into their business / work.
• People in client-facing professional roles who want to more effectively support their client-community.