I don’t know about  you, but I have pretty low regard for the motivational “industry” and all the “self help” gurus that purport to help you with maximizing and optimizing your self actualization. It’s mostly just a bunch of B.S. to me.

The likes of Tony Robbins and the best seller “The Secret” do not engender even an ounce of inspiration in me. Call me cynical, call me a realist, or worse, I just don’t give much credence to the motivational movement.

So it was against that non-believing backdrop that I entered a ballroom in Texas this week with a thousand sales people to get inspired and fired up by a motivational speaker hired by my client for their annual sales event. Needless to say, my expectations were low. In fact, I was actually dreading the speech but felt I had to be there to experience the full effect of the week-long sales conference. In short, I was showing the flag.

Wow, was I surprised. The speaker, Dr. Jerry M. Linenger, a former NASA Astronaut (who spent five months on the Russian space station Mir), Navy flight surgeon and Naval Academy graduate, gave one of the most inspirational talks I have ever seen. With his flat upper Midwest accent and self effacing All American style, Dr. Linenger recounted a riveting tale of near death experiences, unbelievable courage and daily challenges that had 1,000 sales guys and gals literally riveted to their seats (me included). Dr. Linenger’s story of the massive fire inside the space station was literally breathtaking. It was truly a profile in courage…and it was real, not the figment of a screen writer’s or fiction author’s imagination.

But what was equally impressive and inspiring was what Dr. Linenger did with this memorable personal story to give all of us something to mull over and discuss with colleagues, friends and family. He wove his ordeal on the broken down Mir space station into a personal but also universal tale of rebirth and redemption. He talked beautifully about the “three phases” of his life: The first phase was his life before Mir, attending the Naval Academy, flying off of aircraft carriers and then attaining his life-long dream to become a Shuttle astronaut. His second phase was the harrowing five months on Mir with two Russian astronauts.

The third phase is what he is doing with his life today, and how he is living and thinking very differently post Mir. That was the really inspirational part. Having endured the near death experiences and other-worldly challenges of life on a space station, Dr. Linenger made it very clear that in his third phase of life, he is focusing on things that really matter to him – family, friends, giving something back to his community and the planet. When he was closest to death as the fire was raging inside Mir, Dr. Linenger recalled that the one thing that most disappointed him was that he had left nothing behind for his young son. Nothing to tell him that he loved him, what he stood for, what he had accomplished. He vowed to make sure to start writing to his kids and his wife in the future, which he began to do once the fire was extinguished.

He also talks a lot about how he learned during the five months of struggling to survive on a Russian space station that was way past its operational usefulness, that human beings have remarkable capabilities to adapt to almost anything. And, that we only use a small portion of the intelligence we actually possess. I particularly liked how he talked about the importance of being accountable to yourself and especially your team. “Come prepared to do your job to the best of your ability,” Dr. Linenger advised us. “Anything less is unacceptable.”

After having been suitably inspired and motivated by Dr. Linenger’s true life hero’s story and his very inspiring recommendations on how to get the most out of life and work, I wondered why marketers don’t do a better job of tapping into these kinds of real profiles in courage.

I would say that now, more than ever, we need heros in our society and our world. Here is a great definition of a hero from my good friend Christine: ”A hero is an individual who, through words or actions, inspires others to help one another.  A hero can be dead or alive, fictional or real.”

In our celebrity obsessed culture (including sports celebrities who have long had major roles as brand endorsers), being famous for being famous or exceeding at a professional sport has become the gold standard for marketers. But, when you spend an hour with a real hero, one who is truly inspiring for having done real, courageous things, you wonder what all the fuss is about the Brad Pitt’s or Tiger Wood’s of the world. No disrespect to film and sports stars, but they just don’t measure up to someone like Dr. Jerry Linenger. Or, for that matter, to our service people fighting and dying everyday in Iraq and Afghanistan, or a teacher working in the inner city or a struggling rural school, or a Peace Corps volunteer giving back in Africa or Haiti.

Those are the “real” heros who, if supported, empowered and endorsed by progressive brand marketers, would inspire people to do the right thing in life, thus benefitting us all.

Dr. Linenger’s book is called “Off The Planet.” I have not read it yet, but after hearing him speak, I am looking forward to it. Here is a link to the book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Off-Planet-Surviving-Perilous-Station/dp/007137230X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211060364&sr=8-1

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