I’ve just returned from a Transformational Leadership Council conference in New Orleans.  Although I had a wonderful time and celebrated my birthday surrounded by friends and the Big Easy’s Dixieland music, I have to say that I was shocked by what I saw and read while I was there. 

During our visit, we drove around some of the areas that had been hit by Hurricane Katrina.  Naturally, I was disturbed by the devastation still apparent in some quarters, which the richest country in the world had not rebuilt more than five years after the disaster. Nevertheless, that was not the main source of my alarm. What shocked me most was the nature of my country’s statistics these days.

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The biggest headache for any drug-company executive is the placebo. A placebo, or sugar pill, is used in controlled drug trials precisely to show that the drug in question works.

One of two groups of patients is given the active drug, while the other group is given the placebo, but neither knows who got what.  The assumption is that far more patients will show improvements on the drug than on the placebo.  Upon this assumption is built the entire edifice of modern medicine.

Nevertheless, in practice, so many patients receive the same relief and even the same side effects with a placebo as with the drug itself that a placebo often is not a true control.

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All of us were left traumatized by the rampage shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford last Saturday, which left 13 others in the line of fire injured and six dead, including a 9 year old born on September 11, 2001.

Although President Barack Obama was credited with a moving bi-partisan speech at the Arizona memorial last week, the political repercussions of the event continue, with Democrats blaming Republicans for inflammatory language and Republicans blaming Democrats for exploiting the situation to leverage their own sagging political fortunes. 

Nevertheless, to lay the cause of the tragedy at the door of any single partisan cause — whether Sarah Palin, lax gun laws or too liberal democratic legislation — is entirely to miss the point.

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Russian physicist Dr. Konstantin Korotkov has sent us back results of our December 11 Intention Experiment, which, as always, are very interesting.

For those of you who have just come on board, Korotkov, a professor at St. Petersburg Technical University, invented the Elecrophotonic Imaging (EPI)/Gas Discharge Visualization (GDV) technique, which makes use of state-of-the-art optics, digitized television matrices and a powerful computer. Korotkov’s equipment blends several techniques: photography, measurements of light intensity and computerized pattern recognition.

This equipment aims to measure the subtle light emissions that emanate from all living things. Korotkov’s equipment stirs up individual photons by ‘evoking’, or stimulating them into an excited state so that they shine millions of times more intensely than normal.

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Marie, an employee of a software company, had an epiphany one day at her company’s vending machine.  She decided that every time she came for her afternoon Coke, she’d leave money in the machine for the next person, with a note and a card: Your can of Coke has been paid for.  Take this Smile card and pay it forward.

From the moment Marie began her campaign, frantic emails began circulating around the office in an attempt to pinpoint the identity of the company’s secret Santa. A Neighborhood Watch scheme was set up with two or three employees on constant lookout.  At this point, Marie decided that it was time to escalate operations.  She moved to another floor, where she surreptitiously left a daily supply of donuts. For months everyone was talking about it.  It completely changed the conversation. More important, though, it entirely changed the atmosphere of her office.

“When generosity is the basic social capital, you see things from a broader perspective,” says Nipun Mehta, who runs CharityFocus and distributes Smile cards. “You come from a different place of openness. You’re more likely to see multiple views. It deepens trust. The cup of gratitude overflows, and turns into action in so many ways.”

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