Having written the previous blog, I was asked what I actually talked about in the Lancaster speech so thought I’d share a quick summary. (these are the last blog posts about Nike and then I promise to shut up about it…).

So here they are, my 3 biggest gifts from Nike (and there were many….)

#1 The Guts to Lead from the Front - Nike’s first sponsored athlete, Steve Prefontaine, had a race plan that meant leading from the start line. It was a confident, some might say cocky, strategy that pretty well always paid off for Pre.

Nike always takes this approach. Whether in product innovation or brand marketing or pretty much everything they do, they just refuse to follow the lead of others, to worry what other people might think or what the competition might do. For sure they passionately care about what their consumers care about but for everyone else, they pretty much block them out.

In my coaching, I’m constantly staggered about how much people worry about what other people think, the constant pull to follow the herd. Yet when people don’t follow, when they forge their own path and refuse to listen to the naysayers, that’s when the magic happens. That’s when people feel liberated, when they grow and feel mighty. That’s when people take stop blaming and complaining, take control and see extraordinary things happen in their lives.

Pre died tragically very young but his legacy lives on in Nike and certainly continues to be a great lesson for the rest of us.