Are You Here To Be An Entrepreneur? 21back story, in a meeting with Michael Murphy, (one of the cofounders of
the Esalen Institute) Michael asked George what they should call this
“happening” and George Leonard suggested that they could call it the
“Human Potential Movement.” The name stuck and the rest, as they say,
is history.
I was, coincidentally at about the same time, leading what they
call “T Groups” in Australia. I had a US-based client who invited me to
the United States to do some work for them in San Francisco Bay Area.
I came in 1971 for a couple of weeks and I’m still here. I kind of collided
with what was happening in this human potential movement and ran
into a brilliant fellow called Werner Erhard. We conducted a T group for
Werner and his staff, which marked the beginning of EST. Many of the
core ideas from the EST Training have become incorporated into a vast
body of ongoing work many of us are engaged in today. These ideas
include the work around belief systems, taking personal responsibility
for the experience of our lives and creating outcomes that matter to us.
I’m a passionately curious man and the whole process of the
emergence of human potential engaged my curiosity and awakened my
passion. In Australia I had started reading from the works of Jiddu
Krishnamurti, especially a little book called Think On These Things. San
Francisco was where it was happening in those days and once I arrived I
became swept away by the work. Today I’m still passionately curious
about all that it means to be a human being. I am deeply moved when in
the presence of human greatness and by our continuing work in support
of human excellence. I think there’s a lot of superficiality around the
edges of “The Movement” these days, which I don’t care for. I believe
one has to go deep and a lot of people don’t go deep, and that’s a pity.
The majority of the wonderful woman and men you will meet in
the pages of Success Built To Last described their lives as a serendipi-
tous journey filled with unexpected wonders and riches beyond their
early dreams. My life has been, and continues to be, like this. I am deeply
grateful.
If you could give advice to those who are still searching for their
purpose in life, what would it be?
I believe this is a very personal question. Purpose is an intensely
personal choice. The flip answer is “it’s whatever you want it to be.” I
am not an advocate of the theory that as part of the Grand Design for the
Universe there’s some unique purpose for each of us. I take the point of