Werner Erhard's Impact

Werner Erhard's work and ideas inspire and influence people's actions throughtout the world. Here are personal, academic and organizational posts by some of the people who have been engaged and enlivened by the work of Werner Erhard.

The Source of Executive Coaching: Tony Mayo writes, "Werner Erhard founded est in 1971 and “The Training” became a major cultural phenomenon of the 1970s, with hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic graduates around the world, including leading academics, for example Harvard Business School’s Michael Jensen and MIT’s Warren Bennis, and many celebrities such as John Denver, Valerie Harper, Ted Dansen, and Raul Julia.

Werner Erhard: Already acknowledged by dozens of academics for its power, brilliance, and unique contribution, the book includes a transcript of an actual Forum led by Erhard in San Francisco in 1989. The book Speaking Being: Werner Erhard, Martin Heidegger, and a New Possibility of Being Human uses this text to create a comparative analysis that demonstrates how Erhard’s work and the philosophical ideas of Martin Heidegger–considered one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th Century–each illuminate the other.

Serving Others Blog: "There is a wonderful quote by Werner Erhard: “There is something I do not know, the knowing of which could change everything.” I love this quote because it completely shifts my self-imposed parameters and clears the way for something much bigger."

Belief Net - Have A Vision: As Werner Erhard said “you can live your life out of your circumstances or you can live your life out of vision”

Speaking Being: Werner Erhard, Martin Heidegger, and a New Possibility of Being Human: This acclaimed new book provides an unprecedented study of the ideas and methodology developed by Werner Erhard. Already acknowledged by dozens of academics for its power, brilliance, and unique contribution, the book includes a transcript of an actual Forum led by Erhard in San Francisco in 1989. The book uses this text to create a comparative analysis that demonstrates how Erhard’s work and the philosophical ideas of Martin Heidegger–considered one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th Century–each illuminate the other.

Making A Difference For Others: One of the epiphanies of thought leader Werner Erhard’s work was getting that whatever he knew was an “in order to”. He got, “Nothing was inherently significant.” Thus, he got that he was free to be, and free to act.Werner got that we choose who we are going to be in any given moment. We can “live a life of our own making”. We can either give life ‘useful’ meaning or not so ‘useful’ meaning. Life inherently has no meaning, by design, other than the meaning we bestow it.

Werner Erhard: Werner Hans Erhard is a critical thinker and author of transformational models and applications for individuals, groups, and organizations. He has written about integrity, performance, leadership and transformation. Erhard has lectured at (among other institutions) Harvard University, Stanford University, Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine, University of California, Berkeley, University of Chicago, University of Southern California, University of Rochester, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Yale University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Oxford Union at Oxford University, UNESCO, and the US Air Force Academy.Since 2002 Erhard has devoted his time to academia.

Werner Erhard en Español: Werner Erhard es el creador de modelos transformacionales y aplicaciones para la transformación individual, social y de la organización. Sus innovadoras ideas han estimulado conversaciones académicas en muchas universidades, más recientemente en las áreas de integridad, liderazgo y desempeño. Werner Erhard ha disertado en Harvard University, Yale University, Escuela de Negocios Simon de la Universidad de Rochester y Erasmus University. Leer más...

Werner Erhard: After more than 40 years many of Werner Erhard’s ideas, as well as the many people who have built something from Werner Erhard’s notion of transformation, have become a part of society’s thinking and culture across the globe.  Explore the evolution of Werner Erhard's ideas and the development of his body of work.

Werner Erhard Quotes

Joanne Woodward: "It's been a year in which, as my children put it, 'Mom's finally got her act together.”  Her close friend, Cloris Leachman — persuaded her to take part in est self-awareness training. Since that experience, "I've been looking squarely at myself — and dealing with attitudes I used to keep buried." I thought everyone had life's answers but me. I used to transform myself into 16 different characters in order to cope with various situations. And I never really saw people — except through my muddled preconceptions — until these past months when I finally took the top off my head and forced myself to see things clearly for the first time." From “Now Joanne Woodward Looks At Life Squarely” in The Salt Lake Tribune, August 15, 1976

The Indescribable Experience, Eleanor Links Hoover, HUMAN BEHAVIOR, October 1978, Vol. 7, No.1: "Sorry. I just can’t join the cynical press bandwagon. est is – and remains – one of the most fascinating movements, events, phenomena (take your pick, it still defies analysis) I have ever observed and reported on. The fact that it isn’t what it seems to be (what is?) and that it is as elusive as quicksilver to describe only enhances the fascination as far as I’m concerned. For me, it is, among other things, an excursion into High Philosophy – a miniseries of sorts into issues raised by Plato, Sartre, Wittgenstein. Bill Bartley, philosophy professor at California State University at Hayward once told me, "What est is doing is making available for the first time on a wide, popular basis, the key ideas and problems of philosophy." It does lots more, of course. In trying to pin down est, part of the trouble is that it really isn’t like anything else... I guess what tickles me most is seeing that est not only has survived a devastating media attack but shows signs of becoming a permanent part of our cultural fabric. Also, it now is the subject of a steady stream of scholarly studies and articles in professional journals."

Having Your Relationships Work: Jim Tsutsui writes, "In honor of Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d write a post about what I know for having relationships work. I am writing from being married for 33 years. A lot of my success I owe to a gentleman named Werner Erhard. He led a day-long event in 1978 entitled “Celebrating Your Relationships.” It formed the basis with which I transformed all of my relationships. Attending seminars by Werner Erhard, and est in the 70’s (no longer exists), and Werner Erhard & Associates in the 80’s (it no longer exists), and in the 90’s and 2000’s Landmark Education (a current and international entity) has helped me create relationships that work."

What's So Is Always Just What's So: "What’s so is always just what’s so. What’s so doesn’t care what you think, feel, intend or wish; it will not bend. You can be freaked out or driven over what’s so, and it won’t change what’s so. If you’re late for an appointment, getting freaked out about it won’t have you arrive any earlier. If you’re having a bad day, being freaked out won’t change what’s so. That which you seek will not bring you satisfaction – aligning with what’s so will. When you’re upset, you’re never upset over what’s so. What’s so is just what’s so, and you’re upset." ~ Werner Erhard

Werner Erhard on Life, Living and Winning The Game: "Living is really pretty simple. Living happens right now; it doesn’t happen back then, and it doesn’t happen out there. Living is not the story of your life. Living is the process of experiencing right now.

Thinking about right now, figuring it out, perceiving it, arguing, reading about or believing anything about right now – none of these produce any certainty about living.

When you get beyond the symbols and beliefs about now, beyond thinking about it, beyond efforting or working at it, when you get even beyond merely feeling it, when you get all the way up to observing it, being with it, and finally up to totally experiencing it, the uncertainty about living goes away, because you know the truth in the only way in which a being ever knows the truth – by direct experience.

Actually, it is possible to open up the space for people to transcend life, to transcend these things that get in the way of being here now, so that they can experience being here now for themselves. Read More

The Language of Choice: Vanilla or Chocolate: "In the est Training there was an exercise in which a participant was asked to choose between two imaginary ice creams, one vanilla the other chocolate. Once they chose they were asked why and immediately started furnishing reasons to justify and explain their choice. As each reason was dismissed they desperately sought the right answer. Ultimately they chose whichever because that was what they chose."

Werner Erhard Still Making A Difference: Millions of people have participated in Werner Erhard's programs and the impact he has had on leadership theory and management continue to this day.

Werner Erhard Speaks at CCARE at Stanford University:At the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE), its founder Dr. James Doty interviewed Werner Erhard in a fireside chat-style gathering

CREATING LEADERS WORKSHOP: Mastering the Principles and Effective Delivery of 'The Ontological Leadership Course': This workshop was designed to support participants in gaining mastery in the delivery of our new course: "Being A Leader and the Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological Model." The Workshop was delivered at the United States Air Force Academy (July 13 - 16, 2010), and was sponsored by the Kauffman Foundation, the Gruter Foundation, the United States Air Force Academy, and the Instructors.

A Timeline of Werner Erhard's work and Ideas: Beautiful website illustrating the development of Werner Erhard's Ideas from 1971 to the present.

Werner Erhard - Contributing Transformation: "Decide on a project for which you are willing to take complete responsibility. Complete the project successfully. Relate this achievement to others as an inspiration for them. Your willingness to express yourself may be just the trigger needed by someone else to do something for themselves. From now on, don’t wait for something to happen to you. Actually take responsibility for making something happen. Keep at it until you make it a successful experience for everyone. You can make the difference."

Werner Erhard - Quotes and Images

Werner Erhard and The Est Training: Werner Erhard and the est Training brought to the forefront the ideas of transformation, personal responsibility, accountability, and possibility – and over the next decade, over a million people “Got it”. The est Training was as much a sign of the times as bell bottoms, peace rallies and space travel.

Peter Gabriel speaks about Werner Erhard and the est Training: "It taught me all sorts of things, of which one was to be responsible for your life and who you are---don't blame others, don't be a victim....The other thing is to be authentic about who you are, how you feel, and what's going on...It's about being real. We spend so much of our lives not actually being who we are but who we imagine we ought to be."

The Financial Times, April 28, 2012: "Erhard’s influence extends far beyond the couple of million people who have done his courses: there is hardly a self-help book or a management training programme that does not borrow some of his principles."

Werner Erhard's Ideas: Where did Werner Erhard’s ideas about transformation come from?

Werner Erhard: Being A Leader and The Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological / Phenomenological Model

Werner Erhard at Stanford University: "Werner Erhard is an original thinker whose ideas have transformed the effectiveness and quality of life for millions of people and thousands of organizations around the world. For nearly 50 years he has been the creator of innovative ideas and models of individual, organizational, and social transformation."

Werner Erhard: An Extraordinary Leader: “Werner Erhard is an extraordinary leader, who empowered people to take responsibility for their lives and the world around them. It was long past due for his story to be told and this documentary is a great representation of the history of the times and legacy of one of the true icons of our times.” ~ Phillys M

Zen meets New Thought: The Erhard Seminars Training and Changing Ideas About Zen

Michael Zimmerman:: Becoming Authentic – Werner Erhard, Martin Heidegger and the Human Transformation Movement

Actor Barry Williams: The actor who played Greg Brady on The Brady Bunch credits Werner Erhard's est training with helping him become "grounded" after ending his role as Greg Brady of the Brady Bunch at age 19.

I got It! Did You?: Blogger Kaybeth Jensen writes: "'I Got It' in 1980, in a Hilton ballroom in Houston, Texas, where I took the Erhard Seminars Training, or as some of you may know it, EST – Latin for 'it is.' ... The purpose of the est training was to 'transform your ability to experience living so that the problems or situations in life that you are trying to solve or are putting up with clear up just in the process of life itself.' What shifted was how I experienced things, not the things themselves. The est training presented the possibility that it is possible to experience life by engaging with it exactly as it is, unfiltered by our likes and dislikes, our preferences and aversions, our strongly held beliefs and opinions about how life should be."

Life By Design: “History will likely remember Werner Erhard as an important 20th century self realization artisan who’s work shifted the paradigm for personal and global transformation.”

The Law of Integrity: The Law of Integrity was first articulated by Werner Erhard, Professor Michael Jensen, and Steve Zaffron, who developed a model of integrity that links integrity with heightened corporate and personal performance.

Erhard, Jensen, and Zaffron addressed integrity in a developing academic paper, whose primary purpose was to present a positive model of integrity that provided powerful access to increased performance for individuals, groups, and organizations. They defined integrity within a particular context, the context of science, in which integrity does not mean something good, moral, ethical, or desirable.

Their findings, backed by many years of direct experience with businesses and organizations, revealed a fundamental and causal link between integrity and increased performance.

The DEO (Dentist Entrepreneur Organization) is a staunch advocate of the Law of Integrity. We firmly believe in its efficacy, worth, and value. Our programs educate, train, and develop clients in corporate leadership, executive management, shared ownership and partnership, cultural development, and vendor and adviser relationships. When our clients fully comply with the Law of Integrity in each of these domains, they produce outstanding results.

Gonneke Spits: Early est staff member Gonneke Spits discusses the early days of the est Training.

The Book of Enlightened Masters: This book tells of the lives and teachings of nearly 200 influential Masters, including Werner Erhard.

Taking A Stand vs Taking A Position: In this Interview Lynne Twist says, "I became captivated by Buckminster Fuller... and at the I also took something called the EST Training, founded by Werner Erhard in 1971. It was my portal to the world of consciousness. It just really woke me up. It had a really dramatic impact in my life and has for millions of people."

Being Zen at Work: Peter J. Thomson write, "I did the Landmark Forum in late 2010. The weekend course prompted me to take action on a range of things that I’d been putting off including photography, the move to London and even my relationship with my family...Landmark was grounded in the EST Seminars, created by Werner Erhard...the est Training and the Landmark Forum are the most powerful ways that I’ve discovered to get an intense dose of Zen for the modern mind."

Leading an Enterprise - Transformation: In this blg post Shideh Sedgh Bina writes, "A real transformation is successful when you are committed to continually expanding your range of leadership. In a post written by by Michael C. Jensen and Werner Erhard, when someone acts in parallel with “The Ways of Being” — being authentic, being the cause in the matter of everything in their life, being committed to something bigger than oneself, and being a person of integrity — this denotes a transformation."

Integral Options Cafe: Creating Leaders, An Ontological Model: "The sole objective of our ontological approach to creating leaders is to leave students actually being leaders and exercising leadership effectively as their natural self-expression. By “natural self-expression” we mean a way of being and acting in any leadership situation that is a spontaneous and intuitive effective response to what one is dealing with. - from abstract of paper by Werner Erhard, Michael C. Jensen and Kari Granger"

Mark Jacobson, Artist, credits est Training’s influence: A significant influence on Jacobson was Werner Erhard and his EST training in the 1970’s, of which Jacobson said, “His model of how the mind works hit me like a baseball bat and I experienced Zen.  Thirty years later I get it and lose it, over and over.” 

Werner Erhard - Coaching: Janet Harvey, president of the International Coach Federation, was quoted in a New York Times article about the growing practice of Life Coaching, in which she traces the development of coaching to the early 1970s Human Potential Movement and credited the teachings of Werner Erhard’s “est Training,” the popular self-motivation workshops he designed and led in the ’70s and early ’80s.

A Quote from Werner Erhard on Being OK: "If you could really accept that you weren’t ok, you could stop proving you were ok. If you could stop proving that you were ok you could get that it was ok not to be ok. If you could get that it was ok not to be ok you could get that you were ok the way you are. You’re ok, get it?" - Werner Erhard

Werner Erhard - As quoted in the blog juntamng: “One of the things I am really sure about is nothing will make you happy. Very few things I am really sure about.  That is one of things I am really sure about. Nothing will make you happy.  It may give you give you a jolt. It may make you gleeful but it isn’t going to make you happy.  What does that mean nothing will make you happy.....You have to bring happiness to life.  You don’t get happiness out of life.  What is there to be happy about? Nothing. When you can be happy about nothing. Just be happy. You know “I am happy” – those words are sacred. It’s like a declaration, it’s like a place from which I come, it’s like a stand I take upon myslf.  Its not I am pretending to be happy, it’s not I am acting happy.  No. I am happy!” – Werner Erhard

Lightening Up and Letting Go - The est Training: "People who didn’t do the training talked long oppressive hours and about participants not being allowed to pee. People who did the training talked about huge, positive transitions in their lives.While the training was amazing the best part of EST was yet to come. People got hyped up and experienced presence in the training but the real revelation of EST was revealed in continuing education courses after the training...The EST Training made a bunch of us fearless and unstoppable.  At one point Xerox commissioned a study to find out how EST got more and better work out of volunteers than they could get out of they employees no matter how much they paid them." Jerry Stocking

E-Club of The West: Integrity: Without It Nothing Works: "There is some confusion between the terms integrity, morality, and ethics. How do you differentiate them? - These three phenomena are widely understood to provide standards of 'correct' behavior, but people generally get them mixed up. The primary differentiation I make between them is to distinguish integrity from morality and ethics..."

Werner Erhard Quotes: "It's often been noted how futile it is to hunt butterflies. Once you've captured them, they've lost the very quality they had which made you want to own them in the first place: their freedom. So it is with Werner Erhard's quotes. By writing them down they are taken out of the domain of transformation ... it's only an approximation to his up close and personal, face to face transformation he constitutes in them when he speaks them.... Theses quotes need no setup nor introduction. Transformation is each and every one of them." Laurence Platt

What does it take to be a leader and for leadership to show up?: "Leadership matters. Whilst there are many ways of grappling with leadership, I value the ontological lens and in particular the ontological model of leadership that has been developed and is being taught by Werner Erhard et al. ...Today, I wish to grapple with authenticity. To grapple with and get authenticity one needs to grapple with human existence (being and doing).  And in particular one needs to suspend one’s existing listening (how one thinks of, relates to) of authenticity.  Furthermore, it takes courage as the conversation of authenticity/inauthenticity unconceals that which we are committed to keeping hidden.  If you are not up for this today then I suggest that you go and do something else.  If you are up for the conversation then let’s begin..." by Maz Iqbal

Toward a World That Works for Everyone: "If we were looking for a phrase that would describe the world we’re headed for, for me, it would be Werner Erhard’s memorable phrase: “a world that works for everyone." I now see that Werner was looking through eyes that knew the world that we’re aiming at. The rest of us blinked when he spoke about “context” and “coming from the whole.” ...He was describing a world he could see and feel, a world that he lived from in which he did what worked and what he did worked. It was a world in which he felt love and compassion for all without condition or distinction, the same universal love that we are being encouraged to live from today." by Steve Beckow

Most inspiring teacher: Question -Who is the most inspiring teacher you ever had and why? How often do you think about what they taught you? How has it changed your life? Answer - While he never taught me personally, I was in The Forum, in 1989. It was the revised version of Werner Erhard's 1970s est. This was about a month prior to the discovery of a brain tumor and I have always credited the insights I gained from The Forum, with equipping me with resources I needed, to "dance" with that situation - then and since. A huge change from the experience of being in The Forum had to do with learning the vital role that "acceptance" has, in the process of "change".

Bringing on the Bliss: "I remembered a technology I’d learned that may now be becoming relevant again...This technology really does provide us with tools to uncover, tap into or amplify the bliss. It derives in the main from what I learned from Werner Erhard." - Steve Beckow

The Culture of est: This blog's author Jocylyn says this aobut her experience of assisting with est - "What was behind it was a powerful concept for empowering people to go out into the world and make a difference...In order to be effective, we had to be present. I’ve engaged in all kinds of mindfulness exercises and practices, but I have never been more consistently present than when I was doing trainer support...Assisting enlivened me. It empowered me...if you could put aside your considerations... what else might you be able to do in your own life that seems impossible?"

Werner Erhard Video: A Conversation to Provoke Thinking on the Nature of Creativity Through the Art of Dialogue - "We think, most of us in this culture, of time as a kind of story, which unfolds one event after the other. I’m asking us to speculate, to stretch our minds a bit, maybe even to boggle our minds a bit with grappling with the idea of something working on itself so that in the act of speaking in a dialogue the speaking is altered because the context for what’s being said is altered as you’re saying it... When I look at you when I speak to you my speaking is shaped by what you’re saying to me with your face and what you’re saying to me with the way you sit and even if I can’t see you directly you’re there."

Having Your Relationships Work: Blog post by Jim Tsutsui - "In honor of Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d write a post about what I know for having relationships work. I am writing from being married for 33 years. A lot of my success I owe to a gentleman named Werner Erhard. He led a day-long event in 1978 entitled “Celebrating Your Relationships.” It formed the basis with which I transformed all of my relationships."

Peeling the Onion: A blogger that was given the est Training for her 18th birthday present writes, "I was 18 years old, and in a room full of strangers.  We listened to the people- the brave ones who stood and shared their stories...Each story brought old memories to the surface of my mind.  Old wounds became painful again.  Old memories came back, bittersweet.  Through it all, every time someone stood to share, they spoke for me. I recognized the stories as if I’d lived them.  Who doesn’t know the pain of betrayal and loss?  We left each weekend feeling connected; like blood brothers to these other 249 people.  My soul knew theirs. At the end of the training I walked out the doors lighter.  I left behind most of the unresolved issues, hurts and angers.  I felt shiny clean with a new start..."