Nike says everything you need is already inside

Have you seen the Nike video ad about courage?  It is awesome.

It gives me chills of joy and excitement to watch it.

It inspires me.

It also teaches me a little something about effective marketing.  If I can connect emotionally to my potential clients, I don’t have to sell them.

They’re already sold.

Just Do It.

Focusing on leadership on World AIDS Day 2007

"Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno"

"E pluribus unum."
 
Today (with the rest of the world) I solemnly contemplate and put the attention of my heart on the many among us who have died from AIDS and the millions around the world who currently live with either HIV or AIDS.

This year’s theme is leadership, urging all the world’s citizens — including you and me — to put their individual and collective focused, sustained attention on efforts to keep the promise to finally find a cure for the deadly disease.

Leadership is such a positive, energy-filled world.  I really like it.

Any movement that catches on and inspires widespread affirmative action has always been the result of charismatic, compassionate leadership.  Think Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa.

I couldn’t help but notice, however, that some of the language used in the global HIV/AIDS campaign seems to promote just the opposite than what is intended.

The rhetoric to "Stop AIDS" or to come out "Against AIDS" or to ‘fight this global scourge’ sounds a lot like war propaganda.  I’m sure there are many who would agree with this assessment, affirming that we are indeed at war — war against a deadly disease that is steadily claiming lives at alarming rates.

The problem is that there are no winners in war.  Casualties are inevitable.  Sustained, relentless fighting makes soldiers tired and war-weary.

In the case of "the war" against HIV and AIDS, this has shown up as complacency and apathy (especially among young people) in weathly nations, and in poorer nations, as a profound lack of education and acess to health care.

To be sure, education of the realities of HIV/AIDS is essential, as is the need to effectively promote healthy and safe behaviors.

But truly powerful and motivating leadership requires that we plant our focus on what is working and on what we do want, rather than giving the majority of our attention on what we don’t want.

I believe such concentrated, collective ("One for all, and all for one," right?) attention (including our time, effort and money) may be just what we need to move us closer to reducing the rates of HIV infection and to finally finding a cure.

 

Multiple Personality Disorder reveals how powerful we really are

It’s nothing short of amazing what humans are capable of.  I think most of us are walking around oblivious of how powerful we really are.

This was brought home to me the other day when I was listening to Dr. Dõv Baron speak on the mastery of the mind in a preview seminar for his upcoming 5-day intensive “Mind Mastery.”

Dõv was illustrating how all of us can and do powerfully create our own reality.  Take those, for example, who have Multiple Personality Disorder (now more commonly referred to as Dissociative Identity Disorder, or DID).

This is an interesting (and rare) phenomenon where a person — often in response to and as an escape from overwhelmingly severe physical or sexual abuse and/or trauma — experiences a dissociation of their singular ego identity.  Their personality collapses, or breaks apart (DID is commonly mistaken for Schizophrenia, which is instead marked by other psychoses such as hallucinations, delusions, thought disorders, and the like.).

Because the person cannot cope, one or more fully-developed and distinct persons (or, personalities) develop in the same person.

Dõv referenced the controversial movie, Sybil, which was based on a book of the same name, which in turn was based on the life story of Shirley Ardell Mason, who allegedly had up to 16 different, distinct personalities.

OK. That’s interesting. But, what does all this have to do with the amazing power for achievement and personal success that resides in each of us?

Well, Dõv cites studies where, for example, a person with DID has their blood taken to test for diabetes.  They test positive for diabetes.  Later, that same person several minutes later — now a different personality (but the same person) — has a blood sample taken again.  But this time — the same person, mind you — tests negative for diabetes.

In some cases, reports Dõv, even the eye color of the person changes.

Wow.  What an illustration of how thoughts, emotions, and focused belief can be so powerful that they (that is, we) can change matter.

How’s that for a person creating their own reality?