Parents Magazine Cultural Institute From the early mid-1950s until 1960, Rosenberg worked in various automobile dealerships, with a stint managing a medium-duty industrial equipment firm. In the summer of 1962, he became territorial manager for California, Nevada, and Arizona, and moved to San Francisco, and in the spring of 1963 moved to Los Angeles. He did not have much formal education and was
self-educated. He became interested in physics in high school and later developed friendships with Nobel Laureates
Richard Feynman and
Murray Gell-Mann, from whom he gained knowledge of theoretical physics. Erhard also credits being tutored by philosophers
Michel Foucault,
Humberto Maturana,
Karl Popper, and
Hilary Putnam. During his time in St. Louis in the 1960s, Erhard read two books that had a marked effect on him:
Napoleon Hill's
Think and Grow Rich (1937) and
Maxwell Maltz's
Psycho-Cybernetics (1960). In Bartley's biography,
Werner Erhard: The Transformation of a Man, the Founding of est (1978), Bartley quotes Erhard as acknowledging
Zen as an essential contribution that "created the space for" est. In 1970, Erhard became involved in
Mind Dynamics and began teaching his own version of Mind Dynamics classes in San Francisco and Los Angeles. In the early 1980s, shortly before the est training was phased out, Erhard was introduced to the work of philosopher
Martin Heidegger. He consulted with the Heideggerian scholars
Hubert Dreyfus and Michael E. Zimmerman, who noted commonalities between est training and elements of Heidegger's thought.
est (1971–1984) Starting in 1971, est, short for Erhard Seminars Training and Latin for "it is", offered in-depth personal and professional development workshops, the initial program of which was called "The est Training". The est Training's purpose was to transform the way one sees and makes sense of life so that the situations one had been trying to change or tolerating clear up in the process of living itself. The est Training was experiential and transformational in nature. The workshops were offered until 1984, when the est training was replaced by the Forum. As of 1984, 700,000 people had completed the est training. and a form of "Socratic interrogation". Erhard challenged participants to be themselves and live in the present instead of playing a role imposed on them By the mid-1970s Erhard had trained 10 others to lead est courses. with the aim of "providing financial and organizational support to individuals and groups engaged in charitable and educational pursuits—research, communication, education, and scholarly endeavors in the fields of individual and social transformation and human well-being." The Foundation supported projects launched by people committed to altering what is possible for humanity, such as The Hunger Project, The Mastery Foundation, The Holiday Project, and the Youth at Risk Program, programs that continue to be active. It also organized presentations by scholars and humanitarians such as the Dalai Lama and
Buckminster Fuller The annual conference was designed to give physicists an opportunity to work with their colleagues on what they were developing before they published, and was attended by such physicists as
Richard Feynman,
Stephen Hawking,
The Hunger Project In 1977, with the support of John Denver, Dana Meadows, and former
Oberlin College president Robert W. Fuller, among others, Erhard founded
The Hunger Project, a nonprofit NGO that holds consultative status with UNESCO. The project's origin can be seen in Erhard’s 1977 source document
The End of Starvation: Creating an Idea Whose Time Has Come. The Hunger Project was established as an international charitable organization with the aim of generating worldwide commitment to end hunger and starvation within 20 years. It emphasized the power of individuals to generate broad social change. Some critics described it as largely symbolic or as promoting Erhard's ideas rather than providing direct relief. By 1979, about 750,000 people in dozens of countries had pledged their personal commitment to help end world hunger. By 1984, estimates placed participation at around 2.8 million people, and in 1985
The New York Times reported that the four-millionth person had signed the pledge declaring that the end of hunger "is an idea whose time has come".
Werner Erhard and Associates (1981–1991) and "The Forum" In the 1980s, Erhard created a new program called the
Forum, which began in January 1985. Also during that period he developed and presented a series of seminars, broadcast via satellite, that included interviews with contemporary thinkers in science, economics, sports, and the arts on topics such as creativity, performance, and money. In October 1987, Erhard hosted a televised broadcast with sports coaches
John Wooden,
Red Auerbach,
Tim Gallwey and
George Allen to discuss principles of coaching across all disciplines. They sought to identify distinctions found in coaching regardless of the subject being coached.
Jim Selman moderated the discussion and, in 1989, documented the outcome in the article "Coaching and the Art of Management."
Subsequent work During the 1990s, Erhard lectured and led programs in various locations, including Russia, Japan, and Ireland. He had a three-year contract to give courses to Soviet managers that would allow Soviet officials to study his teaching methods. He consulted for both businesses and government agencies in Russia. In the early 1990s he conducted seminars in Japan for professionals coping with their financial crisis. In 1999, Erhard and Peter Block worked with a nonprofit organization for clergy and grassroots leaders to come up with new ways to deal with the peace process in Ireland. Erhard and Michael C. Jensen, Professor of Business Administration emeritus, led seminars and training sessions at Harvard. They also explored the relationship between integrity and performance in a paper published at Harvard Business School. Erhard and Jensen developed and led a course on leadership that took an experience-based, rather than knowledge-based, approach to leadership. Students were asked to master integrity and authenticity, among other principles, so that they could leave the class as leaders rather than merely learning about leadership. The course has been taught at several universities worldwide as well as at the
United States Air Force Academy. about Landmark Education and its historical connection to Erhard. The article stated: "In 1991, before he left the U.S., Erhard sold the 'technology' behind his seminars to his employees, who formed a new company called the Landmark Education Corp., with Erhard's brother Harry Rosenberg at the helm." According to Landmark Education, its programs have as their basis ideas originally developed by Erhard, but Erhard has no financial interest, ownership, or management role in Landmark Education. In
Stephanie Ney v. Landmark Education Corporation (1994), a court ruled that Landmark Education Corporation did not have successor-liability to Werner Erhard & Associates, the corporation whose assets it purchased. In 2001,
New York Magazine reported that Landmark Education CEO Harry Rosenberg said that the company had bought Erhard's license outright and his rights to the business in Japan and Mexico. From time to time, Erhard acts as a consultant to Landmark Education. == Critics and disputes ==