Immersiversity.com with Clay Cotton

You are flat out brilliant whether you know it or not, and you can call on this inner brilliance for answers, solutions and inspirations anytime you want. This happens all the time somewhere outside your conscious awareness, and if you want to improve those creative skills, here are some proven techniques from some renowned, smokin' thinkers to help you harness the power of your creative mind and better manage your future. Read 'em, practice 'em and assimilate 'em (more…)

"I have a very simple philosophy on life. You shouldn't steal from yourself. If you're going to commit your life to an enterprise, to wealth creation, to the security and the financial well-being of your family… and if other people on your staff, your team, your employees, your vendors - are going to commit their lives to you, then you owe it to yourself and to everyone else to get the highest and best results… You should never accept a fraction of the yield when with the same effort or less, the same people or fewer, the same time or less, the same capital or less, the same opportunity cost or less, can deliver so much more to you currently, and perpetually." - Jay L. Abraham

This Fall, when you see geese heading south for the winter flying along in "V" formation, you might consider what science has discovered as to why they fly this way. But there's a  LOT more to learn from this.  Read on… (more…)

Great stuff from Harvard Business Online:

Discovering Your Authentic Leadership
"The ongoing problems in business leadership over the past five years have underscored the need for a new kind of leader in the 21st century: the authentic leader. Author Bill George, a Harvard Business School professor and the former chairman and CEO of Medtronic, and his colleagues, conducted the largest leadership development study ever undertaken. They interviewed 125 business leaders from different racial, religious, national, and socioeconomic backgrounds to understand how leaders become, and remain, authentic. Their interviews showed that you do not have to be born with any particular characteristics or traits to lead. You also do not have to be at the top of your organization.

Anyone can learn to be an authentic leader. The journey begins with leaders understanding their life stories. Authentic leaders frame their stories in ways that allow them to see themselves not as passive observers but as individuals who learn from their experiences. (more…)

There's growing discussion today about The Secret and the "Law" of Attraction on Brother Blair Warren's blog at http://blairwarren.com/blog/item/calling_john_stossel/

And here's my take:

“Successful marketers allow people to tell themselves a story they want to hear…” - Seth Godin (more…)

In a sea of trickery, we crave islands of authenticity, and authenticity is the very soul of legendeering(TM). Americans are swimming in a sea of messages. Each year, legions of ad people, copywriters, market researchers, pollsters, consultants, and even linguists—most of whom work for one of six giant companies—spend billions of dollars and millions of man-hours trying to determine how to persuade consumers what to buy, whom to trust, and what to think. Increasingly, these techniques are migrating to the high-stakes arena of politics, shaping policy and influencing how Americans choose their leaders. The need has never been greater for us to message from a place of genuine, heartfelt core-essence. (more…)

Saying "I love you…"
…to your customer is appropriate 365 days a year.

In marketing, every day is Valentine's Day. The ongoing romance of your customer is a never ending process. Our customers are constantly being courted by our competitors. Our job is to flirt, to woo and to seduce.

“Advertising is a seduction, not a debate.”
–David Ogilvy (more…)

When brands say "I love you"

"In Kevin Roberts' Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands(PowerHouse Books; 2005). Roberts explains the loyalty created by finding a brand's love story and transforming the logo into a Lovemark. Brilliant. (more…)

When you consider your competitors, just how are you feeling? Scared? Jealous? Angry? Frustrated? Intimidated? Hey - How about Excited? Friendly? Admiring? Generous? Even grateful?

Well, hey… It may be time for you to reframe and to say nice things about your competitors! (more…)

The Digital Revolution gets all the headlines these days. But turning slowly beneath the fast-forward turbulence, steadily driving the gyrating cycles of cool technogadgets and gotta-haves, is a much more profound revolution - the Network Economy. This emerging new economy represents a tectonic upheaval in our commonwealth, a social shift that reorders our lives more than mere hardware or software ever can. It has its own distinct opportunities and its own new rules. Those who play by the new rules will prosper; those who ignore them will not. (more…)