Werner Erhard is a deep thinker and a man of action. In 1971 he founded Erhard Seminars Training (est) which offered an intense two-weekend experience meant to “transform one’s ability to experience living so that the situations one had been trying to change or had been putting up with clear up just in the process of life itself.”

He talked about “distinctions”. How is one thing different from another? For example, what really is integrity? If we understand what it is, then we can tell it apart from what it is not. We can “get clear” about integrity. And then we can act accordingly.

Werner:

We define integrity as: a state or condition of being whole, complete, unbroken, unimpaired, sound, in perfect condition.

In a relationship, nothing held back, nothing distorted. So … the truth.

Here are two more distinctions that Erhard had me examine – action and access:

It is important that you get clear for yourself that your only access to impacting life is action. The world does not care what you intend, how committed you are, how you feel or what you think, and certainly it has no interest in what you want and don’t want. Take a look at life as it is lived and see for yourself that the world only moves for you when you act.

How powerful to consider how we can access what we want to bring forth in the world.

And then there’s responsibility:

Every human being’s deepest, most natural expression is the desire to make a difference in life, of wanting to matter. We can choose to make the success of all humanity our personal business. We can choose to be audacious enough to take responsibility for the entire human family, to make our love for each other and for the world what our lives are really about.

I remember Werner saying that in a relationship each person is 100% responsible for its success … not 50.

***

I don’t often think of Werner Erhard

Today I do

And what actions will follow?