There is an alternative: CHANGE TO LIVE.
Dr. Dean Ornish, a Professor of Medicine at the University of California in San Francisco and founder of Preventative Medicine Research Institute, has actually figured out a way for heart patients to CHANGE. He says,
We need to bring in the psychological, emotional and
spiritual dimensions that are so often ignored.”
Ornish’s holistic program actually reverses heart disease without surgery or drugs.
*For what it’s worth, I believe STORIES and NARRATIVES are the best ways to make these emotional appeals. FACTS are just FACTS. STORIES change our THINKING and our FRAMEWORK.
A three-year Mutual of Omaha Study found that 77% of Ornish’s patients have stuck with their lifestyle CHANGES and avoided bypass or angioplasties surgery, saving Mutual of Omaha $30,000 per patient (a little over $7M) as well!
Ornish basically re-casts the reasons for CHANGE:
Ornish helps convince people that they can feel better … not just live longer … and enjoy things that make daily life pleasurable.
Stop for a moment and realize how much this applies to everything we do.
It’s about EMOTION, INSPIRATION, VISION.
And, it’s about our ATTITUDE.
Conventional wisdom says that ‘CRISIS’ is a powerful motivator for CHANGE. Obviously, since severe heart disease or health-related matters are the most serious of personal crises, that doesn’t seem to motivate. John Cotter, Harvard Business School Professor, adds this insight:
In highly successfully CHANGE efforts, people find ways to help others see the problems or solutions in a way that influence EMOTIONS, not just thought.”
That is sound advice regardless of the area of ‘CHANGE’
