The Obligation of the Cured

Last night I returned from the annual Sapphire Now and ASUG (America's SAP User Group) conference in Orlando.  The conference was fun, educational, and impressive, as usual, but I'll be glad not to hear anyone mention HANA or the cloud for a few days.  I read a statistic that the average ASUG attendee walks approximately 72 miles over the course of the 4 days.  It's no wonder I'm so tired and my legs are shot.  

I typically skip the keynote speaker, but this year, it was Lance Armstrong.  What does Lance have to do with SAP?  Nothing.  But, the whole opening session was about service.  I guess ASUG is technically a service organization to IT dorks that play with SAP.  However, it is quite a stretch to put ASUG's service anywhere in the same league as raising funds for cancer or building a house for a low-income family.  I think they were just looking for a big name to speak so people would actually attend the keynote.

Anyway, I am not a Lance junkie.  I think he has amazing talent, but I definitely do not "follow" him so to speak.  However, thanks to my relationship with Team In Training and LLS, I really appreciated his message.

What I took away from the keynote is what he called the "obligation of the cured."  He said that when he was released from the hospital after having had testicular surgery and brain surgery, plus chemotherapy to attack 10 tumors on his lungs, the doctor told him he could go out the private door where nobody would know he was ever there, or the public door, to share his story.  We all know which door he chose.

He talked about starting LiveStrong Foundation and how Nike approached him with the idea to make 5 million "ballers" in yellow and to sell them for $1.  He thought they were kidding about the name.  He assumed he could sell about 200K and then would have to throw away the rest.  But with the help of Nike putting a bracelet on every Olympian in Athens, those first 5M bracelets have now turned into 85M bracelets!

Lance talked about how the bracelet crossed cultures and religion while we were in a very unsupported war in the Middle East.  Hicham el Geurrojj winning his 2nd gold medal.

He also talked about how when someone asks him how LiveStrong is doing and he says, "It's great" that he feels like he is lying.  Because he doesn't want to keep raising money to help patients.  He wants to be out of a job.  He wants LiveStrong to not exist anymore.  Because he wants cancer to disappear.  And, I've heard the same about TNT and LLS. It's amazing how much money continues to be raised by the participants.  It's just a shame that it has to be done.  Perhaps one day LiveStrong and LLS will no longer exist.  Simply because they don't need to anymore.