Influence

Werner Erhard's work and ideas continue to inspire people to this day. This page is a collection of personal, academic and organizational books, websites and blogs by people engaged and enlivened by the work of Werner Erhard.

New York Times Features Werner Erhard: A lengthy feature in The New York Times has profiled the life and contributions of Werner Erhard, as well as noting Landmark’s leadership in the personal and professional training and development industry. In addition to summarizing Erhard’s career, the article discussed Erhard’s current work in the academic world, including a description of him by famous economist and Harvard professor emeritus Michael C. Jensen  as “one of the great intellectuals of the century.”

Erhard Jensen Ontological / Phenomenological Initiative: This charitable organization is designed to support and stimulate critical thinking and academic research into the study and teaching of the ontological / phenomenological laws of human nateru and human behavior, and the impact of these laws on life, living, and self.

Werner Erhard Ideas: A timeline of Werner Erhard's work and Influence: Follow the ideas of Werner Erhard through time in this compilation of his work and ideas.  The timeline illustrates the development of Werner Erhard’s work, for personal, business and academic communities, including notable expressions and acknowledgements, from the inception of Erhard‘s models for transformation made widely available in 1971 through to the present.

Werner Erhard and Martin Heidegger On Being: During these challenging times of uncertainty and disruption, we are spending many hours with our attention on what's no longer available to us and what might happen and might not happen. Perhaps for that reason alone, the new book Speaking Being, has never been more relevant...Through a comparative side-by-side display and analysis of a transcript of Erhard's Forum, with his ideas and methodology, combined with Heidegger's philosophical ideas, the authors make the power of Erhard's ontological rhetoric and Heidegger's often difficult-for-the-layman ideas available to a wide range of audiences. It brings to life complex yet important new ideas for scholars at work within a variety of academic disciplines, and provides an entry to anyone interested in the possibility of and the access to being for human beings.

Creating Leaders: An Ontological / Phenomenological Model: Harvard Business School, Faculty & Research

Werner Erhard: Leadership As Natural Self-Expression

Werner Erhard Foundation Bibliography: For the ideas that underlie the funding of the Werner Erhard Foundation see these works in which Werner Erhard's ideas are profiled, acknowledged or drawn upon.

Werner Erhard Leadership: Werner Erhard is one of humanity's true leaders and great thinkers. Dr. Laura Basha, organizational psychologist, writer, and artist, shares this short video of Werner talking about the leadership work he has been co-developing with his colleagues.

Werner Erhard: Leadership Course Co-Author and Instructor: Werner Erhard passionately articulates what it takes to have your leadership match your natural self-expression in any situation and any circumstances.

Werner Erhard and Leadership: This blog post is from a writer who attended the course Being a Leader and The Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological/Phenomenological Model given by Werner Erhard, ‘one of the most incisive and insightful thinkers of our generation’, Jeri Echeverria, Steve Zaffron, and Michael Jensen.

What’s New? The Last 15 Years of Leadership: Werner Erhard and Harvard Business School professor emeritus Michael C. Jensen began teaching a one-semester course in business schools, medical schools, and military academies with one objective: “Leave students who complete the course actually being leaders and exercising leadership effectively as their natural self-expression.” They put aside what they knew about teaching leadership and used the courses and laboratories in which to experiment, test, and iterate on theories about what it takes to leave people being leaders and exercising leadership effectively as their natural self-expression.

Werner Erhard and Global Leadership: "In January I travelled from San Francisco to Dubai to participate in an eight-day workshop entitled Being a Leader and the Effective Exercise of Leadership. The workshop was led by Werner Erhard, the principal author of this new science, along with his co-authors including Michael Jensen, a world renowned economist and professor emeritus at Harvard Graduate School of Business. Gathered at Zayed University Convention Center, we were 310 people from more than 30 countries — developing countries, developed countries, and everything in between...We left Dubai being leaders who could naturally invent what to do in any situation or circumstance. We left being (rather than knowing) the foundational elements for effective leadership: being someone of integrity, being authentic, being the author of one’s life, and being committed to something greater than one’s self-interest. We left with leadership as a context for living our lives. And, we left unleashed — freed up to make the difference each of us was out to make."

Werner Erhard and The est Training: A collection of writing.

Werner Erhard: Werner Erhard is featured on EVOX, "a lifestyle network that uses neuroscience and psychophysiology to support our community in the desire to improve the quality of life."

This is It: An Interview with Werner Erhard: "The truth is not found in a different set of circumstances. The truth is always and only found in the circumstances you’ve got."

The est Training: "Since fundamentally, est is a context in which to hold one's experience...My intention is to provide a context in which the reader can have something of an experience of est and to create an opportunity for the reader, not simply to have some new concepts but to have an experience of what est is, insofar as that is possible in an essay." Werner Erhard and Victor Gioscia, San Francisco, Calif. From Biosciences Communication 3:104-122, 1977

Werner Erhard Didn't Get The Last Laugh: When I look back from 2011, I recogize some of the principles of EST are still with me and are commonplace in today's social structure.  The concepts about personal responsibility, accountability, truth and honesty are a part of my personal fabric.  Staying in the moment comes easily to me and therefore I believe I experience life more fully.  The realization that I alone have the power to change any given situation, or how I respond to it, is second nature.  These are tools I use each day.

Capitalism and Society: Capitalism & Society is Open Access journal published in close collaboration with SSRN. Unique among economics journals, Capitalism & Society focuses on what makes capitalism dynamic: innovation and entrepreneurship. The May 2017 issue features papers by Edmund Phelps, Pankaj Ghemawat and Werner Erhard and Michael C. Jensen

NBER: Putting integrity Into Finance: A Purely Positive Approach, Werner Erhard and Michael C. Jensen: w19986

Becoming Authentic: Werner Erhard, Martin Heidegger And The Human Transformation Movement: Professor Michael Zimmerman talks about the German Philosopher Martin Heidegger, Werner Erhard and a new perspective on human potential.

The Holiday Project: "Founded in 1972 by Werner Erhard and a group of friends in San Francisco, the Holiday Project began with a simple goal – add joy to people’s lives during the holiday season.  The Project has touched a million people over the past 47 years. The Holiday Project officially came to Colorado in 1980. Our programs use the healing power of music and our presence to improve the quality of life for those sometimes forgotten and often lonely." 

Speaking Being: Werner Erhard, Martin Heidegger, and a New Possibility of Being Human: An unprecedented study of the ideas and methods developed by the thinker Werner Erhard. In this book, those ideas and methods are revealed by presenting in full an innovative program he developed in the 1980s called The Forum...Central to this study is a comparative analysis of Erhard’s rhetorical project, The Forum, and the philosophical project of Martin Heidegger. Through this comparative analysis, the authors demonstrate how each thinker’s work sometimes parallels and often illuminates the other.

Werner Erhard and Martin Heidegger: Martin Heidegger is widely considered to be one of the most original and influential figures of 20th century philosophy. His thoughts on the question of Being continue to elicit contemporary investigation. Through Werner Erhard’s discussions, this insightful text seeks to reveal what it means to speak the unsayable and evoke Being.

Clemson University hosts ‘Being a Leader’ course June 12-18, 2016: “This course is unlike any leadership training I’ve experienced,” said George J. Petersen, dean of Clemson’s Eugene T. Moore School of Education. “The course examines leadership through a different lens. It requires a close examination of yourself and how you interact with others.” Clemson is the location the “Being a Leader and The Effective Exercise of Leadership” course being offered in North America in 2016. It is led by Michael C. Jensen, professor emeritus of business administration at Harvard Business School; Werner Erhard, a creator of innovative ideas of organizational and social transformation in the business, educational, medical and governmental sectors; Steve Zaffron, CEO of Vanto Group, a consulting firm specializing in elevating organizational performance; and Jeri Echeverria, who served as chief academic officer for the California State University System until retiring in 2010.

Creating Course Leaders Workshop: Harvard Business School Working Paper Series: The workshop is for scholars who are graduates of our course, "Being A Leader and the Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological Model," who are now interested in teaching the course at their respective institutions. Workshop objectives: 1. Provide participants access to the principles underlying the Ontological Leadership Course. 2. Empower and enable participants to expand their capacity to effectively deliver the Ontological Leadership Course. 3. Provide participants the opportunity to ongoingly collaborate in their delivery of the Ontological Leadership Course. 4. Provide participants an opportunity to create a community of scholars, educators, and practitioners to advance the Ontological Leadership Project. 5. Inquire into the next research frontier for the science of leadership. The workshop aims to equip and engage scholars and educators to deliver a high-impact transformative leadership course creating leaders ready to meet the global demands of the 21st century.

The Erhard Jensen Ontological / Phenomenological Initiative: “The ground we are breaking has enormous implications for the state of the world and for humanity; this innovation needs to be opened up to scholarly efforts, research efforts, and teaching efforts worldwide.” – Michael C. Jensen M.B.A, Ph.D, Jesse Isidor Straus Professor Emeritus, Harvard Business School

Being A Leader and The Effective Exercise of Leadership: Course for Academics at Luskin Conference Center University of California, Los Angeles, Ca. July 2019

Michael Zimmerman on Werner Erhard: Michael Zimmerman is a professor of philosophy and an expert on Heidegger’s philosophy. He worked closely with Werner Erhard sharing Heidegger’s ideas. In this dialog explores the cascade of ideas that flowed into the EST Training as it developed. You will also get a glimpse into how ideas and luminaries influence each other over time to transform the future. You will also learn how to become authentically yourself.

Werner Erhard on ‘Mastery in Life’: Prashanth Udupa writes about Werner Erhard's presentation on Mastery in India in 2010, "When Werner came on to the stage, the audience gave him a standing ovation – for about 90 seconds. The sound from the applause was almost deafening. Werner graciously took in all the applause and set out to create for us the topic of his talk – Mastery in life. In the rest of this blog post I am going to give a summary of what he talked about in first person – its just easier that way Note: what I have written may or may-not accurately reflect what Werner said in the talk. But it accurately reflects what I got out of it."

A Way To Transformation: The subject of this article is transformation – a deep, profound and committed choice about the way we live our lives.  Transformation is the possibility for a breakthrough in our living, a clearing for aliveness to show up in our everyday activities, self-expression and commitments.Talking about transformation is no more than a representation, an image of the real thing.  It’s like eating the menu instead of the steak – neither nurturing nor profound.  It is in being transformed – in being authentically true to oneself – that one lives passionately free, unencumbered, fearless, committed.  It is in living life in a transformed way that the steak and its sizzle show up. We invite you to be here for the actual benefits of transformation, for the meal – not the menu. Read more… From The Heart of the Matter, by Werner Erhard, 1984

Living with Mastery: What It Takes: This talk and paper by Werner Erhard , Michael C. Jensen and Joe DiMaggio in 2013 presents a way of accessing life, living, and who one is for oneself, based on studying masters (e.g., master athletes, master physicists, master physicians, and master educators).Like masters of any specialized area, while masters of living are innately ordinary people, they do perceive and comprehend life (experience life) – the world, others, and themselves – differently than most of us do. As a result, they interact with the world, others, and themselves differently than most of us do. And, it is the way in which they interact with life and with themselves that makes them extraordinarily effective in dealing with life while enjoying an exceptionally high quality of life. This paper spells out the way masters of living access life, living, and themselves, and does so in words that make mastery in living accessible to the rest of us ordinary people.

A World That Works: “A World That Works” is a design for a conversation about shifting the paradigm for human culture on the planet. It brings together our knowledge of human transformation with our urgent necessity for ecological reintegration. It could lead to a video, a book or monograph, a theatrical presentation, and/or a series of educational opportunities and programs. The goal of the initial project is to explore these possibilities and opportunities with a selected group of innovators, educators, thought leaders, and scholars from around the world, through a web site or series of sites that represent points of convergence for thinking about the paradigm shift. 

Werner Shows Us The Way: Werner Erhard "is an academic and intellectual whose current teaching at universities has made it clear that the EST Training that he put together in the 1970s was a rigorous intellectual exercise that produced real transformation in people’s lives and has had an enormous impact on our culture."

The Landmark Forum: Information about the Landmark Forum around the world

The Landmark Forum: An Introduction video to the Landmark Forum, designed to bring about a fundamental shift or transformation in what is possible in people’s lives. These shifts are the direct cause for a new and unique kind of freedom and power—the freedom to be absolutely at ease and the power to be effective.

Transformation: The Life and Legacy of Werner Erhard: “You can see the technology in action. You can watch how Werner separates a participant from their story, an identity that had been holding them prisoner. This video teaches you how to use your mind for a change that will give you completion of your past so that you are present and responsible for yourself in a new way.” - from viewer, Daniel P

Quotes from Werner Erhard

Werner Erhard: Werner Erhard und Professor Michael C. Jensen erläutern ihr positives Model von Integrität, welches einen Bogen schlägt zwischen Integrität und persönlicher sowie unternehmerischer Leistungsfähigkeit. Die Herleitung dieses Modells deckt eine kausale Verbindung zwischen Integrität und steigernder Leistungsfähigkeit auf. Durch die Arbeit, dies zu klären und zu definieren, was Integrität und deren kausale Verbindung zu Leistung ist, stellt dieses Modell einen Zugang zu steigernder Leistungsfähigkeit bei Privatpersonen, Führungskräften, Ökonomen, Philosophen, Entscheidungsträgern, Leitern, Regierungs-und Justizbehörden her.

Werner Erhard - Still Making A Difference: "While it is understandable that any book about the 1970s would include a reference to Werner Erhard and the est Training, what was not mentioned was that, far from simply being an iconic figure of that era, Mr. Erhard’s ideas and work continue to make an enormous difference, and his seminars spawned an entire self-development and coaching industry. Today, Mr. Erhard consults and lectures at top universities and institutions around the world."

Werner Erhard Audio: Audios from talks given by Werner Erhard in the 1970s into 1990.

The Werner Erhard Foundation: In the nearly 20 years of its operation, the Werner Erhard Foundation granted approximately $4 million for research, scholarly endeavors, and voluntary action. It was the foundation's privilege to support more than 300 outstanding individuals and organizations from a variety of disciplines. Working in many diverse fields and surroundings, these recipients made a profound contribution to human thinking, growth, and achievement.

Global Leadership Is Desperately Missing. It’s Costing Us Our Future. Can we transform our crisis of leadership?: "In January I travelled from San Francisco to Dubai to participate in an eight-day workshop entitled Being a Leader and the Effective Exercise of Leadership. The workshop was led by Werner Erhard, the principal author of this new science, along with his co-authors including Michael Jensen, a world renowned economist and professor emeritus at Harvard Graduate School of Business.

Gathered at Zayed University Convention Center, we were 310 people from more than 30 countries — developing countries, developed countries, and everything in between — from every continent in the world except Antarctica. We represented every major language of the world (Mandarin, Spanish, English, Arabic, Hindi), every major religion of the world (Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism), every major political system (democracy, monarchy, communism) and many more in addition to the major ones. We represented every imaginable profession - from business, science, and education to religion, government, and politics — and came from a wide range of social, educational, and economic backgrounds. We were young and old, men and women. We were a microcosm of our world, together for eight days."

Harvey Korman: After spending $50,000 for a psychiatrist and therapy, Harvey Korman wrote a check for $250 and started cleaning up his life. Harvey is an est graduate who credits the training as a turning point for hi.  As some of you know, est is the Erhard Seminars Training which is offered in most metropolitan cities at a cost of $250.
"It's the biggest revolution in psychology, I think, since Freud," said Korman.  "You really can change your life.  Before est I had a lot of analysis and a lot of therapy and got nowhere." Though some discredit est as just another of the self-help fads currently flooding the country, Korman offers his experience of what can happen during the est training.

"All through the years that you say I was a success I looked at myself as a victim.  I wasn't getting enough of anything.  'They' had it.  Whoever 'they' are!  One of the liberating things about est for me is that I realized I was doing precisely what I wanted to do.  I wasn't a victime.  I chose my career, created it, and wanted it.
"It's very liberating to take responsibility for what you're doing and what you've done."... (more about his career)...
In the meantime Harvey will return with Burnett and Company in the fall. "There's no variety show that can touch us.  Even when we are bad, we're good in comparison.  Carol said she wanted 10 years and she got it.  I don't know what she'll do after that." Harvey Korman knows what he'll be doing though.  Thanks to est he'll continue to experience life.

Dr. Bernard Roth: “In the 1970s I participated in a two-weekend workshop knows as Erhard Seminar Training (usually abbreviated in lowercase as est).  On the second day the group was led through an exercise called the Truth Process.  I found, to my surprise, that the exercise completely eliminated an annoying habit of speech that I had picked up years earlier.  I was naturally impressed, and I incorporated the exercise into my teaching.  The results have been very favorable.  It is a good tool for getting rid of aspects of your self-image that stand in the way of developing your achievement habit.” 

Compassion - Our Unspoken Love: "Werner Erhard’s mission in life is to end human suffering. I’m with him, too. In all likelihood, there won’t be one uniquely encompassing solution. Yet, looking at what it is for another human being to suffer alters our humanity. At least seeing it fosters human compassion. Like Werner, I see that ending suffering begins in our compassion, our tears for others. Compassion may begin with getting another human being. Authentically, getting someone is more than understanding. Getting someone is like the experience of balance when you ride a bike. You don’t really understand balance. You get balance. Balance is present."

Choice in a Man’s Life: Probability or Possibility: Werner Erhard said he looks at things to get them, to be with, not to understand. What does it mean to be present to what’s possible? Werner looks at the new definition of what it is to be a human being.

Right or Wrong: Meaninglessness is a Lesson on the Journey of Life: "Werner Erhard contends that we really can’t locate the “I” we use in language. So what does it mean to say, “I’m wrong?” Life is the game we play. Werner offers: What if “I” is a token in the game of life, your personal placeholder like the Scottie Dog in Monopoly."

Werner Erhard on Making A Difference

Clemson University: Clemson University Hosted Being A Leader and The Effective Exercise of Leadership on June 12, 2016. Participants of this seven-day leadership course offered by Clemson University’s new school of business walked away as leaders capable of exercising leadership effectively.

The Americans: Over 40 years later est continues to have an impact.  “The Americans,” a critically acclaimed TV show, prominently features the est Training in a truthful depiction of the fictional lead character and Russian spy attending est programs which allowed him to examine his past and question his purpose.

Heat & Light: After 40 years est continues to have an enduring impact. Celebrated author, Jennifer Haigh in her novel “Heat & Light” captured the transformation of one person's experince with est in only a couple of pages that are both playful and profound. The passage in the book sums it up by saying “There is nothing else to call it— he realizes this later— but love. Werner Erhard has already changed his life."

Werner Erhard Quotes: "Most of our notions about the world come from a set of assumptions which we take for granted, and which, for the most part, we don't examine or question. We bring these assumptions to the table with us as a given. They are so much a part of who we are that it is difficult for us to separate ourselves from them enough to be able to talk about them. We do not think these assumptions, we think from them."

Werner Erhard Interviews Robert Rauschenberg: "I believe that art is communication .. One to one if you know anybody, I don't care who they are, there is something about them that is wonderful and I want my work to function like that. It has a job to do. Werner replies, "A man for whom I have a lot of respect (Heidegger) says "Art is the truth putting itself to work."

The Americans and the est Training: "Among the many reasons to praise The Americans’ third-season premiere, there’s this: It shows that Elizabeth and Philip Jennings aren’t invincible...As spouses, as parents, as covert KGB operatives are embedded in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. That’s part of what makes them so fascinating to watch: Even in the tasks they’ve trained for for their entire adult lives, they’re still learning." As part of this learning one character attends an est training. "As Sandra reminds her husband, one of the founding principles of EST is a radical honesty; as a guy involved in an industry of lies and disguises, that’s not going to work for Stan."

The Choice is Yours - Being Responsible for Your Own Life: Carolyn Stern writes, "Critical thinker Werner Erhard’s pioneering ideas are stimulating academic conversations in leadership and integrity.  Erhard believes, that everyone has to be given the opportunity to be responsible for your own circumstances. Being responsible is not about blaming others or feeling guilty. But rather, taking personal responsibility is about taking a stand that you are equal to your condition in life.  If you are equal to the condition, if you can be responsible for your own life, you can do something about it.  If you are the victim of your life, you really can’t do anything about it.  Therefore, by taking responsibility, you are taking a stand that you have the power to bring about the life you want."

Who's Who In Coaching: Who Shaped It, Who's Shaping It: In a presentation at the 2006 International Coaching Federation Research Symposium, Vikki Brock discussed her dissertation research, in which she surveyed 10,000 coaches to determine key influences on the field of coaching. Her finding indicated that the individuals who most influenced the field of coaching were Thomas Leonard, often referred to as the father of life coaching and Werner Erhard. She also noted that Thomas Leonard was at one time an employee of Werner Erhard.

Self-Realization: The est and Forum Phenomena in American Society: In their book, Espy M. Navarro and Robert Navarro write, “What is a fact is that the collective experiences of over 1,400,000 human beings who have gone through either the est training or the Forum series, and each of their particular contributions that have resulted from these experiences have certainly had an impact on America and the world...the est training provided one of the best and quickest opportunities available to radically alter one’s life.”

Werner Erhard, University of Pennsylvania Bioethics Film Festival, 2016: "Werner Erhard is the creator of est (Erhard Seminars Training) and models of individual, organizational and social transformation. His innovative ideas have stimulated academic conversations at many Universities. He writes scholarly papers in the areas of integrity, leadership, performance and transformation. Werner Erhard has lectured at Harvard University, Yale University, University of Rochester Simon School of Business, and Erasmus University."

Integrity and Learning: Enhancing Workability and Student Performance Outcomes: In the abstract for a paper available at SSRN, authors Steven C. Isberg, Tomas Thundiyil, and Robert H. Owen write, "This paper uses a positive model of integrity to assess the impact of the practice of integrity on student learning outcomes. The model posits integrity as honoring one's word, and provides a very clear and specific definition of what constitutes one's word. The model is then implemented in a classroom setting, where the degree to which students honor their word is measured. Subsequent statistical tests demonstrate that higher levels of integrity are associated with superior classroom performance, even after controlling for factors such as incoming grade point average and personality traits."

Zen meets New Thought: The Erhard Seminars Training and Changing Ideas About Zen: Author Joseph Laycock writes, "Erhard combined New Thought with Zen ideas about satori and sesshin. This adaptation intensified a movement, already begun by thinkers such as D. T. Suzuki and Yasutani Hakuun, that presented Zen as a ‘technology’ for achieving a particular experience of reality. Est was then successfully exported back to Japan. Examination of the historical relationship of est and Zen explains many of the most controversial aspects of est. It also reveals an important channel through which ‘Zen’ ideas were disseminated into American culture."

Zen Humanism: "Humanity is the Measure of all things.A Daybook for Deists, Theists, Atheists and Buddhists, oh my! Welcome to the religious, irreligious and free thinkers of every variety." - The Heart of The Matter, Werner Erhard.

Thank You, And A Small Gift For You This Christmas: Maz Iqbal posts a gift for the readers of his blog in the form of a video of Werner Erhard's conversation with Buckminster Fuller, saying, "It occurs to me that it is worth listening – really listening to it – and then acting on it.  It occurs to me that acting on that which Werner is speaking, would be a great way to celebrate Christmas and being the New Year."

New Paradigm for Performance: "The current model of performance, while having produced many improvements in performance during its 100 year reign, has been essentially exhausted leaving in its wake little more than a labyrinth of explanations for performance. Given that models are constrained and shaped by the paradigm from within which they are generated, a truly new model of performance would require a new paradigm of performance.

Our new model of performance (a part of our new paradigm of performance), rather than adding more explanations for why people do what they do and why they don’t do what they don’t do, provides actionable access to the source of performance. This actionable access to the source of performance opens up a new realm of opportunity for study and research, and for new and more effective interventions, applications, and practices for improving individual, group, and organizational performance." - Abstract of A New Paradigm of Individual, Group, and Organizational Performance, by Werner Erhard, Professor Michael C. Jensen and the Barbados Group

Werner Erhard  - World-Renowned Industry Leader: Werner Erhard’s legacy lives on in the contribution his work has made to millions of people, both directly and indirectly. He continues to refine his original ideas while inventing new cutting-edge ideas.

Bioethics Film Festival: This three-day festival included screenings of Experimenter (2015), Dying to Know (2014), The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015) and Transformation (2006). The film series spotlighted ethical questions about psychological research and human experimentation. Panel discussions led by Penn faculty and special guests followed each presentation.

Werner Erhard Video: Gonneke Spits, a founding staff member of the original est Training provides unique perspective of Werner Erhard’s est training at the Werner Erhard Video Website.

What is Werner Erhard Doing now?: The Journal: Capitalism and Society published Werner Erhard and Michael C. Jensen’s work on Integrity. From the Abstract: "Integrity as we define it (or the lack thereof) on the part of individuals or organizations has enormous economic implications for value, productivity, and quality of life. Indeed, integrity is a factor of production as important as labor, capital, and technology. Without a clear, concise, and most importantly, an actionable definition of integrity, economics, finance and management are far less powerful than they can be."  

Werner Erhard: Being A Leader and The Effective Exercise of Leadership Co-Author / Instructor

Werner Erhard - Mastery: "...While masters of life are innately ordinary people, they see (experience) life – the world, others, and themselves – differently than most of us do. As a consequence, they comprehend and interact with the world, others, and themselves differently than most of us do. And, it is the way they interact with life and with themselves that makes them extraordinarily effective in dealing with life while enjoying an exceptionally high quality of life. This presentation spells out the way in which masters access life and themselves, and does so in words that make mastery available to the rest of us ordinary people."

Insigniam Quarterly: Insigniam defines a breakthrough as a specific, measurable result, outcome or performance that is unprecedented or unlikely given an organization’s history, resources and the environment in which it is operating. In this article they present the pioneering work of Werner Erhard and Michael C. Jensen, "The Four Ways of Being that Create the Foundation for Great Leadership, a Great Organization, & a Great Personal Life."

Without Integrity, Nothing Works?: Tony Smith writes in the Huffington Post, "What if we could train people to re-discover /re-claim their relationship to integrity.... from the pretense of always having to “look good” regarding some “nice-to-have” virtue.... to an operative, living, breathing, core practice in everyday life? In organizations where we’ve re-introduced integrity as a critical factor of performance (what is it, really? how does it work?), performance has always gone up, 100% of the time."

The Promise of Philosophy and the Landmark Forum: Steven R. McCarl, University of Denver - Political Science; Steve Zaffron, Landmark Worldwide LLC; Vanto Group; Joyce McCarl Nielsen, University of Colorado at Boulder - Department of Sociology; Sally Lewis Kennedy, Graland Country Day School - Contemporary Philosophy, Vol. XXIII, No. 1 & 2, Jan/Feb & Mar/Apr 2001 - "Philosophy promises more than contents of thought. It can cultivate openness to continuously arising new contents of thought. Unconsciously identifying with the contents of thought displaces this openness; the remedy for such unnoticed closed mindedness is self-knowledge. In the Socratic tradition the Landmark Forum - a forty-hour course sponsored by the employee owned Landmark Educational Corporation - provides a model of philosophy as the practical art of uncovering and expanding self-knowledge and thereby generating unforeseen ways of being in everyday life."

Global Leadership Is Desperately Missing. It's Costing Us Our Future. Can we transform our crisis of leadership?: Gordon Starr writes in the Huffington Post, "In January I travelled from San Francisco to Dubai to participate in an eight-day workshop entitled Being a Leader and the Effective Exercise of Leadership. The workshop was led by Werner Erhard, the principal author of this new science, along with his co-authors including Michael Jensen, a world renowned economist and professor emeritus at Harvard Graduate School of Business.

Gathered at Zayed University Convention Center, we were 310 people from more than 30 countries -- developing countries, developed countries, and everything in between -- from every continent in the world except Antarctica. We represented every major language of the world (Mandarin, Spanish, English, Arabic, Hindi), every major religion of the world (Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism), every major political system (democracy, monarchy, communism) and many more in addition to the major ones. We represented every imaginable profession - from business, science, and education to religion, government, and politics -- and came from a wide range of social, educational, and economic backgrounds. We were young and old, men and women. We were a microcosm of our world, together for eight days.

We left Dubai being leaders who could naturally invent what to do in any situation or circumstance. We left being (rather than knowing) the foundational elements for effective leadership: being someone of integrity, being authentic, being the author of one's life, and being committed to something greater than one's self-interest. We left with leadership as a context or living our lives. And, we left unleashed -- freed up to make the difference each of us was out to make.

I left Dubai knowing that with this new paradigm for leadership anything is possible for our planet and that we had at our fingertips the solution to our crisis in global leadership.

Leadership: Werner Erhard, co-author of the course, Being A Leader and The Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological / Phenomenological Model

Werner Erhard and Est: Facebook page on the history of the est Training. est was a 60-hour educational experience that created opportunities for people to transform the quality of their lives.

Werner Erhard Leadership Course Author and Instructor

Werner Erhard: 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 40 years he has been the creator of innovative ideas and models of individual, organizational, and social transformation.  His work has been the source of new perspectives for thinkers and practitioners in fields as diverse as business, education, philosophy, medicine, psychotherapy, developing countries, conflict resolution, and community building.  

Werner Erhard: The Wall Street Journal: While it is understandable that any book about the 1970s would include a reference to Werner Erhard and the est Training, what was not mentioned was that, far from simply being an iconic figure of that era, Mr. Erhard’s ideas and work continue to make an enormous difference, and his seminars spawned an entire self-development and coaching industry. Today, Mr. Erhard consults and lectures at top universities and institutions around the world.

Werner Erhard: The Leadership course at Nanyang Technological University, July 2014

Werner Erhard on Authenticity: "Personal development goes all the way back to the beginning when Plato said, 'an unexamined life is not worth living.' And its a matter of having questions the consideration of which allow you to get an authentic look at yourself...." Watch Werner on Youtube.

Werner Erhard Youtube Channel:The Werner Erhard youtube channel has over 1,800 subscribers and 341,000 views. "More than forty years ago Werner Erhard introduced the breakthrough notion of "transformation" and the est Training to the American public. This notion of transformation created a clear distinction between change within an existing world view or frame of reference, and creating an entirely new world view and subsequently came to be seen as a powerful, practical, and relevant resource in contemporary society. The ideas he developed have now found their way into organizations and societies all over the world."

The Business of Training a Llife Coach - The Financial Review: "Coaching’s other tenets came from Werner Erhard, who, in 1971, established Erhard Seminars Training, a four-day ­self-improvement boot camp that taught participants the “ability to experience living, so that the situations one is trying to change or is putting up with clear up just in the ­process of life itself". A few years later, the nationally ranked tennis player Timothy Gallwey published The Inner Game of Tennis, which argued that an athlete’s biggest opponent is not across the net but within the mind. Erhard hired Gallwey as his tennis coach and helped spread the Inner Game philosophy.

Giving Thanks With Berkeley’s Café Gratitude: The work that came out of Werner Erhard's work "helped me focus on abundance, rather than dwell on resentments or negative things in my life. I’ve been able to repair my relationship with my mother and have better communication with my family in general. It’s been nothing but a positive experience for me, all my relationships, and my attitude towards life. I see things differently now, in a forgiving and more giving way."

Werner Erhard Is: A site inspired by Werner Erhard's Ideas and Applications - The Werner Erhard.is website is an educational project with a commitment to providing access to transformational learning. It is a site inspired by his ideas and applications in the domain of phenomenological ontology.

Werner Erhard, Sands Leadership Lecture at University of Rochester: The intent of the Sands Leadership Lecture Series is to advance the science and teaching of leadership, including teaching people how to think about real-world problems in creative, penetrating, and impactful ways. In this video collection Professor Michael Jensen and Werner Erhard engage in a conversation that explores groundbreaking access to being a leader and to the effective exercise of leadership as one’s natural self-expression.

Werner Erhard - Business, Management, and Humanitarian Leader: "Werner Erhard's work has been the source of new perspectives for thinkers and practitioners in fields as diverse as business, education, philosophy, medicine, psychotherapy, developing and emerging countries, conflict resolution, and community building. Erhard has created new ways of seeing things in areas where progress has stalled or where breakthroughs would make a significant difference." - Insigniam Quarterly

Zen meets New Thought: The Erhard Seminars Training and Changing Ideas About Zen, Contemporary Buddhism: An Interdisciplinary Journal Volume 15, Issue 2, 2014

Contributing Transformation To The World: “In manifesting your aliveness, you will want to follow a principle which was beautifully stated by Albert Schweitzer when he said, ‘I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: The only ones among you who will be truly happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.’  Notice that Dr. Schweitzer says ‘sought and found how to serve.’ He did not say ‘try to serve,’ or ‘try something and drop it,’ or ‘do the best you can.’ Happiness comes from having served successfully. Werner Erhard Quotes

Werner Erhard Foundation: The Werner Erhard Foundation was established in a time of transformation and transition. Old values, ideals, and beliefs were being challenged; new ideas and insights, new ways of seeing old problems, and new solutions were coming into view. Historians will likely view this period as an era of profound change, a time when human beings discarded old limits, explored new visions, and embraced new realities.  We are witnessing the emergence of a new and unexpected paradigm, a new model for humanity, characterized by a demand from individuals and communities for effective action, for translating the new insights into concrete results.  For all of us there is the opportunity to redefine what it means to be a human being."

Visionary leaders continue to shape local education:
Quoting Werner Erhard to “Create your future from your future, not your past," Milaca High School Principal Damian Patnode honors members of the community and writes, "Students today need to read, write and think critically.  They need to problem solve the impossible, and then invent and re-invent over and over and over.  They need to be able to deal with conflict appropriately and build relationships with people.  These are all things that cannot be accomplished inside of a school building alone.  This will take the home, school, community, and a commitment from everyone to create, shape, and achieve the vision. Students, parents, staff members, alumni, and community members all play a role in the success of this vision.  How can you help?  ...Give of your time, talent and resources by investing in something bigger, and support the community through your words, actions and attendance at events."

Happiness: " Happiness is almost not worth talking about because the instant you turn happiness into a goal it isn’t attainable any more. In other words, happiness isn’t something you can work towards. It isn’t something you can put someplace and overcome barriers to get to and so it makes a kind of difficult subject to talk about." Werner Erhard quoted in a blog by Ritu Raj

Who Moved My Cheese? Michael Lott "Do you wonder why people continue to do the same things over and over, every day, every month, every year, and wonder why they get the same results? I love this quote from from “The Book of EST” by Luke Rhinehart. The wording is, of course attributable to Werner Erhard..."

Who Moved My Cheese? (Book) "In the 1970s Werner Erhard strove to point out how pwerfully conditioning affects our ability to understand and successfully manage change. In his presentations, Erhard developed a signature story about mice and cheese that perfectly illustrated this difference. Years later, Dr. Spencer Johnson wrote the bestselling book Who Moved My Cheese? based on Erhard's story." From the book Turning Change Into A Payday: Re-inventing Yourself Through the Eight Stages of Change by Ralph Bruksos.

Washington Post: Far from simply being an iconic figure of the 1070s, Werner Erhard’s work and his ideas continue to make an enormous difference, while his seminars spawned an entire self-development and coaching industry. Currently, Mr. Erhard consults and lectures at top universities and institutions around the world.

Winning Leadership: Quoting Werner Erhard, "Our lives work to the extent we take responsibility for our circumstances."

Leadership Boulevard - Awaken The Leader Within: Werner Erhard listed in Renowned Leaders of the World (click on the arrow to advance slide)

Werner Erhard Documentary: "Werner is an extraordinary leader who started a revolution empowering 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 time and legacy of one of the true icons of our times."

How Can I Use My Context: "The “Being a Leader” course went on to show that a critical part of our effectiveness in leadership and life arises from our ability to replace the default context by a created context for the same situation. This created context, unencumbered by anything from the past, allows us to see possibilities which were not being allowed so long by our past."

Werner Erhard Quotes: "We can discover another possibility: living in a way, now, moment to moment, that makes a difference to life. We discover that as human beings we can live in a possibility instead of in what we have inherited, that instead of just being a human being because we were born that way, we can declare the possibility of being for human beings. This is the work of transformation: bringing forth a breakthrough in the possibility of being human."

Werner Erhard Video: Ideas In Conversation - Opening and Inquiry That Elicits Creative Thinking

Werner Erhard Foundation: In the nearly 20 years of its operation, the Werner Erhard Foundation granted approximately $4 million for research, scholarly endeavors, and voluntary action. It was the foundation's privilege to support more than 300 outstanding individuals and organizations from a variety of disciplines. Working in many diverse fields and surroundings, these recipients made a profound contribution to human thinking, growth, and achievement.

The Real Werner Erhard: The New York Times - "I participated in Erhard’s programs and served on the staffs of several of his enterprises... He was intelligent, thoughtful, compassionate and a real humanitarian. His work was never part of the human potential movement; it was and is a distinct discipline. Rather than preach about one’s potential, his programs offered participants the possibility of discovering that they were already there, that there was no more work to do to reach their “potential.” It’s a powerful difference.

The Breakthrough Foundation: "Every year since 1991, Youth At Risk has acknowledged an individual who has made a difference to the organization, the young people, and the community. Since Werner Erhard was the source of the organization in the early 1980s, we thought it was time he be acknowledged. Claudette C'Faison proposed this to the Youth At Risk board of directors, and they determined that this year, Werner would be invited to be the recipient of The Youth At Risk Humanitarian Of The Year Award. "

Werner Erhard – Popularized Transformation and Personal Growth: Werner Erhard introduced the idea of transformation in the early 1970s through the est training.

Werner Erhard - Simon School of Business: 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.

Insigniam Quarterly, Winter 2015:  "Michael C. Jensen is the Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus at Harvard Business School. He has played an important role in the academic discussion of the capital asset pricing model, stock options policy, and corporate governance. Werner H. Erhard is recognized worldwide as a business, management, and humanitarian leader. He has consulted for numerous corporations and charitable and governmental agencies. In this paper they argue that the four ways of being we identify as constituting the foundation for being a leader and the effective exercise of leadership are also the the foundation for an extraordinary organization and the foundation of an extraordinary personal life."

Peter Block on Werner Erhard: "Werner understands the primal creative nature of language. Many of us have focused for years on improving conversations. We have known that dialogue and communication are important tools for improvement. Werner takes it to a whole new realm by asserting that all transformation is linguistic. He believes that a shift in speaking and listening is the essence of transformation. If we have any desire to create an alternative future, it is only going to happen through a shift in our language."

Philosopher Michael Zimmerman: On Werner Erhard and Heidegger: "Werner Erhard, like a number of other important thinkers, and I think Werner Erhard is a very powerful thinker, an authentic American genius...He’s a kind of artist, a thinker, an inventor, who has big debts to others, who borrowed from others, but then put the whole thing together in a way no one else had ever done. An in addition to this ability to bring together many different patterns of thinking, and types of activities and learning processes, Werner has a kind of incredible sharp mind, which enables him to discern patterns, and opportunities that are not seen by others. That’s Werner’s ability."

Warren Bennis on Werner Erhard's Work: "I think where the work of Werner really comes in handy is by getting people to understand we are not trapped in our silos. We do not have to conceal and play games we are in because the reason we are together is to achieve a goal. What the transformative essence of Erhard’s work as applied to corporations is to make people more capable of taking risks and dealing with and opening up all those blinkered shutters that make up most of our organizational life. The substrate of all of est’s and Erhard’s work has to do with opening up boundaries within silos, opening up boundaries within oneself, and with other individuals. That’s what its all about. Where Werner’s genius is to me is with the technology that makes the change from abstraction into behavior. Werner has a philosophical mind that I can’t fully comprehend. Werner, while he may not agree with this, has created a technology not uniquely American, but certainly that has its roots here, that has unleashed the possibilities of being human. That’s the legacy.”

Two Examples of Mind Machinery - Landon Carter: "The staff reunion for the 6-Day Course which I created while working for est in the 1970’s was an unexpected joy and validation of the magnificence of who we are as human beings – something Werner Erhard turned me onto when I first took the est training in 1972."

Werner Erhard on Pinterest

Werner Erhard on Facebook: "A hero is an ordinary person given being and action by something bigger than themselves."

The History of The est Training: In June 1971 Werner Erhard had a realization of empty and meaningless…And in October that realization manifested into the est Training. Werner Erhard first led the est Training in San Francisco at the Jack Tar Hotel and the world of possibility was born.

The est Experience

Werner Erhard at the Huffington Post

Michael Zimmerman: Becoming Authentic -Werner Erhard, Martin Heidegger and The Human Transformation Movement

Gaiam - Quotes to Inspire: “The problems we have now in communities and societies are going to be resolved only when we are brought together by a common sense that each of us is a visionary. Each of us must come to the realization that we can function and live at the level of vision rather than following some great leader’s vision. Instead of looking for a great leader, we are in an era where each of us needs to find the great leader in ourselves.” - Werner Erhard

The Last Laugh: "I took the est training in 1978.When I look back from 2011, I recogize some of the principles of EST are still with me and are commonplace in today's social structure.  The concepts about personal responsibility, accountability, truth and honesty are a part of my personal fabric.  Staying in the moment comes easily to me and therefore I believe I experience life more fully.  The realization that I alone have the power to change any given situation, or how I respond to it, is second nature.  These are tools I use each day."

Werner Erhard: 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.

Irish TatlerMan: Is it really possible to positively and permanently impact the quality of your life in just three days? That’s the bold claim of Landmark Worldwide, an international company that runs advanced programs and seminars on relationships, communication, productivity and leadership. Irish Tatler Man sent along two trusty guinea pigs to find out and report back.

Landmark Worldwide defines itself as “an international personal and professional growth, training and development company”. Look it up online, however, and you’ll find it described as everything from “profound” to “lifechanging.”

The company itself describes its programmes as “ontological and phenomenological”, while Deborah Beroset-Miller, the Director of Public Relations at Landmark says: “Our programmes are grounded in a model of transformative learning which, unlike informative learning—which adds to what you know and brings new knowledge to an existing worldview and frame of reference—gives you an awareness of the basic structures in which you know, think and act. Once you gain that awareness, you’re able to think and act beyond existing views and limits.”

Writer-Record Producer James Fragale on the est Training: "Because of est I was able to see myself in a new way and reinvent myself."

Sourcebook of Coaching History: by Vikki G. Brock, PhD: Many coaching professionals credit Erhard with popularizing personal development, and note his indirect influence on the principles of coaching. In the United States, many of the early coaches that did not come from a psychotherapy background either attended or had been involved with est or one of its derivatives... Erhard's lasting contributions to the field of coaching include his emphasis on self- responsibility and his demonstration that transformational ideas can be taught to large groups of people... In 2006 Erhard said: "Great coaching is about leaving people with more power, more freedom, and more peace of mind."

The Four Ways of Being that Create the Foundation for Great Leadership, a Great Organization, & a Great Personal Life:, by Werner Erhard and Michael C. Jensen, condensed for Insigniam Quarterly

Studies on Est (Erhard Seminars Training): Research and studies on est (The est Training) and the programs of Werner Erhard have been documented on twenty-two occasions by independent university-based researchers. The results are all published. This is a summary of the more important studies.

Research and Studies on est (The est Training): In 1972 Behaviordyne, an  independent research firm, conducted psychological studies to determine the psychological impact of the est training and how long it lasted. The researchers summarized their findings as follows:

1) The overriding findings of the study was that measurable changes in personality occur as a result of the est training

2) These changes continue to manifest themselves three months after the training has ended.

3) More changes were noted for the female participant, than for the males in the study.

4) The psychological picture that emerges is that of a happier and psychologically sounder person.

Est Outcome Study: An exhaustive survey “A Self-Report Survey: Preliminary study of Participants in Erhard Seminars Training” by R. Ornstein, C. Swencionis, A. Deikman, and R. Morris was completed by 10.5% of the est graduate population. The survey asked graduates to report their experience of health and well-being after the est training and their experience of health and well-being the year before the training.... Respondents reported strong positive health and well-being changes since taking the est Standard Training, especially in the areas of psychological health and well-being.

Manhood is a Hero’s First Triumph: In his blog post Andrew Hymers writes, "By 'Hero' I use the term interchangeably with the word 'leader' as defined by Werner Erhard in his Being a Leader and the Effective Exercise of Leadership course. Likewise for 'Heroism' and 'leadership.' Different words, same meanings.. From Werner Erhard, “being a leader” is defined [as being] 'committed to realizing a future that wasn’t going to happen that fulfills the concerns of the relevant parties, and with the availability of an unlimited opportunity set for being and action, being the kind of clearing for leader and leadership that shapes the way the circumstances you are dealing with occur for you such that your naturally correlated way of being and acting is one of being a leader and exercising leadership effectively.'"

Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman: by James Gleik: Richard Feynman attended the quantum field theory conference sponsored by the est Foundation, "Novel Configurations in Quantum Field Theory"

Werner Erhard's 1990 Trip to Moscow: By 1990 Werner Erhard & Associates and The Werner Erhard Foundation had been participating in an exchange of ideas with organizations in the USSR for ten years. On their 1990 visit they found a USSR that was at an historical crossroads. With the changes that were occurring at that time they saw a window of opportunity to create new possibilities for the future.

Werner Erhard’s Work in Northern Ireland: Peace and Reconciliation in Northern Ireland and Israel: Werner Erhard developed the Ireland Initiative for the Mastery Foundation in 1999 in collaboration with Peter Block as a three-day conference to bring together a broad base of community leaders already working on peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland.

Richard Feynman, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist: “One of my claims to fame is that for five or six years I had the great privilege of being in conversation maybe two to four times a year with Richard Feynman, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist. We did not speak much about physics, because I am whatever is below amateur as a physicist. We spoke more about ideas. I took notes over the five or six years in which we had these conversations – a lot of notes. He took only one note, but my claim to fame is that when he died, that one note was still on his blackboard. I am going to tell you what that one note was. 'What I cannot create I do not understand.' Another way to say that is there are certain things you can only know by creating them for yourself.” 

Warren Bennis comments on Lunch with the FT: Werner Erhard:"...I've known Werner for almost 4 decades and with a variety of lenses and different angles. He is an enormously gifted person, singular at that, and sensitive as I like to think I am, it took me awhile and a leap into the unknown to get the fullness of him. I'm not talking about my admiration for the lives he's illuminated the paths for and the concrete steps his educational programs have achieved to serve as guides for the thousands... It took me about 6 months...until I understood him. At that moment, coterminous with understanding him, I understood myself... It was Werner who was instrumental in my coming to the understanding of what I mean by authenticity."

Werner Erhard: A Conversation: "You Don't Alter What Your Know, You Alter The Way You Know It" - A discussion in 1981 with Werner Erhard at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California.

Werner Erhard - The Possibility of Relationships: Part 1 of 6 segments on youtube from Werner Erhard's presetation, "ThePossibility of Relationship"

Werner Erhard - The Heart of The Matter: Part 1 of 20 segments on youtube from Werner Erhard's presentation "The Heart of The Matter" in Washington DC.

Werner Erhardt: "'Transformation' was one of the biggest sleeper hits at the 30th Annual Atlanta Film Festival. Audiences were completely enthusiastic about the film and it engaged throughout." Jake Jacobson Festival Director Atlanta Film Festival

The Path of Awareness: "Werner Erhard pointed to two states of mind in which life was lived. One he called “unconscious awareness” and the other “conscious awareness.” The aim of the est Training was to assist an individual to move from the one to the other. He would draw the two sets of words on the black board, the first below the second, and then draw a line between the two. He would then talk about the differences between life lived below the line and life lived above it. Below the line was unconscious awareness and unexperienced experience, and above the line was conscious awareness and experienced experience." -posted by Steve Beckow

Thirty Years of est (Part Two): "This seems the ideal moment to talk about Integrity, one of the most important  lessons I learned from the est training. The simplest definition of integrity is, “say what you are going to do and do it”. I have said I would post my blog every day of 2013. I have all sorts of really good reasons for not writing today, but as est taught me, you can either have results or reasons....Werner Erhard says that, “what you resist, persists” this is usually applied to the things in life we don’t want to do, but I hadn’t realised that it includes integrity...Resisting being in integrity is tiring, it requires considerable psychological effort to construct the web of excuses and reasons you need to avoid doing what you said. Resisting being in integrity is so much harder than just doing what you said in the first place and so I wrote my blog, it was easier than not."

Facet-Award.org: Lynne Twist on her experience of the est training (Erhard Seminars Training)

We Can Change The World: iMindShift with Steve Chandler

ワーナー・エアハード: Werner Erhard website in Japanese

The Coach Connection: Brief History of Personal Coaching

Werner and Me: A Memoir and Current Journal

About Werner Erhard: Jane Self

Good Idea vs. Compelling Vision: Thoughts on Vision and Leadership

Wins and Losses: Library Buzz

Jane Self: Jane Self's background as a journalist led her to write a book in 1992 about Werner Erhard and 60 Minutes Her investigative work required extensive traveling both nationally and internationally to research court documents and interview family members, former and current employees and participants.

Being Judgmental Costs You MoreThan You Know: "I consider myself a very lucky person as I was privileged to participate in what was then known as the quintessential inquiry into to the nature of what it meant to be a human being. This was a 60 hour intensive look into the nature of who I was and at my relationship to others. In 1975 I was inspired to do this work and was fortunate to spend a good deal of time contributing back my services. I did the 'est' Training, as it was called then, a world class work of art created by Werner Erhard. It is my view that Werner Erhard opened the doors for millions to seek greater discovery."

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.”

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."

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.