Est: The Steersman Handbook - Erhard Seminars Training

Erhard Seminars Training

Secondary sources have stated that the title of this work inspired Werner Erhard to name his company Erhard Seminars Training, or est for short, and to refer to it as such in lower-case. Occhiogrosso writes in The Joy of Sects that Erhard borrowed the initials, "lowercase and all", from the book. In his book Larson's Book of World Religions and Alternative Spirituality, Bob Larson refers to Erhard's friend Bill Thaw in citing the same information. Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman's book Snapping wrote that Erhard's "catalytic experience" driving in his Mustang occurred shortly after he had picked the title "est" from the book. Navarro and Navarro wrote in Self Realization that Erhard was "very familiar" with the book. According to Steven Pressman's book, Outrageous Betrayal, Werner Erhard made other staff members on his Mind Dynamics sales team read the book. R. Buckminster Fuller, mentioned in the book, later helped Werner Erhard found The Hunger Project.