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A Collection of Quotes from “Insights in Space”

28th Jun 2017 by Marian Way in Clean Space

“You can’t tell a book by its cover,” the old saying goes. And while we’ve done our best to make sure the cover of our new book, Insights in Space: How to use Clean Space to solve problems, generate ideas and spark creativity, is illustrative of David Grove’s Clean Space process, we also know that newcomers to the work will need to delve inside its covers – and indeed inside themselves – to gain a true appreciation of this creative, transformative process.

And that will be possible in just a few weeks’ time, when the book is published. In the meantime, I wondered how to give you a bit more of an idea of what’s inside, and I know a lot of people appreciate quotes, so I’ve collected together all the quotes we’ve used in the book. You’ll see that we touch on a lot of topics from clean, space and creativity (as you’d expect) to trust, chance, patterns, systems and emergence. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as we enjoyed sourcing them as we were writing.

1. At the edge between the known and the unknown there is a fertile place, full of possibility. Playing at the edge can lead us to experience fresh new learning, creativity, joy and wonder.
~ STEVEN D’SOUZA AND DIANA RENNER

2. Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.
~ BENJAMIN SPOCK

3. We are looking to language the minimal that excites the curious.
~ DAVID GROVE

4. In the end, creativity isn’t just the things we choose to put in, it’s the things we choose to leave out.
~ AUSTIN KLEON

5. Creativity is just connecting things.
~ STEVE JOBS

6. All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.
~ FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

7. The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self.
~ IGOR STRAVINSKY

8. Clean Language is deeply agreeable to the client’s heart and soul.
~ DAVID GROVE

9. Space is what stops everything from happening in the same place.
~ ARTHUR C. CLARKE

10. We create an environment in which the client can discover where it is that he needs to go…information evolves internally out of the client’s experience. It is not introduced into the client’s experience by the therapist.
~ DAVID GROVE & BASIL PANZER

11. Space plays a role in all our behaviour. We live in it, move through it, explore it, defend it.
~ JOHN O’KEEFE

12. Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end, because once you get there, you can move mountains.
~ STEVE JOBS

13. Have no expectations, but great expectancy – and give up the need to know why things happen as they do.
~ CAROLINE MYSS

14. The patterns are simple, but followed together, they make for a whole that is wiser than the sum of its parts.
~ STEVEN JOHNSON

15. There is vastly more to the behaviour of a system than one can ever foresee just by looking at its underlying rules.
~ STEPHEN WOLFRAM

16. Meaning is not in things but in between. It’s not in events, nor in objects, nor even in proven discoveries that ultimate truth lies, but in the process of seeking, searching, experimenting, and discovering. Behind the external activities is an internal process which manifests itself in unpredictable moments of surprise, humour, jest and storytelling.
~ NORMAN O. BROWN

17. Chance favours the connected mind.
~ STEVEN JOHNSON

18. Cause and effect act in webs, not chains.
~ STEVE GRAND

19. Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.
~ LAO TZU

20. Real empowerment comes from having both the principles and the practices understood and applied at all levels ... Practices are the what to do’s, specific applications that fit specific circumstances. Principles are the why to do’s, the elements upon which applications or practices are built.
~ STEVEN COVEY

21. Creativity requires asking genuine questions, those to which an answer is not already known. Questions function as open-handed invitations to creativity, calling forth that which doesn’t yet exist.
~ MARILEE GOLDBERG

22. Clean Language is simple because people are complex enough.
~ DAVID GROVE

23. This is a somatic, not cognitive, knowing … It is as if the space choses the client rather than the other way round.
~ PHILIP HARLAND

24. Just as the mind emerges from the actions of individual neurons and their cooperation, the success of an organisation emerges not only from its individual participants, but also from the interplay between them.
~ JUSTIN ROSENSTEIN

25. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we’re curious… and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.
~ WALT DISNEY COMPANY

26. We shall not cease from exploration And at the end of all our exploring .Will be to arrive where we started . And know the place for the first time.
~T.S. ELLIOT

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About Marian Way

A highly skilled facilitator and trainer, Marian, who founded Clean Learning in 2001, has developed and delivered training across the world. She is the author of Clean Approaches for Coaches, co-author, with James Lawley, of Insights in Space and co-author, with Caitlin Walker, of So you want to be… #DramaFree.

Marian is an expert Clean facilitator, an adept modeller, a programme writer and an inspirational trainer. She has a natural ability to model existing structures, find the connections between them and design new ways for people to learn. Marian was a leading innovator within the Weight Watchers organisation, which included developing the “points” strategy, a local idea that went on to become a global innovation. She is a director of both Clean Learning and Training Attention CIC, world leaders in clean applications for corporate, educational and community development. She designs our programmes and workbooks, leads workshops and teaches on all our courses. She’s trained people in Great Britain, Russia, Sweden, Germany, Australia, Japan and the USA. Marian is also a recognised Clean Assessor.