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How To Realize
Your Dreams and Improve Your Life
WB spoke to
John Hanley from his office in Northern California and asked
him to tell us more about the Lifespring training seminars
and the book these seminars have spawned.
WB: How
did you come to start Lifespring in 1974?
John Hanley: I'd been
out of college for about 3 years after graduating with a Bachelor's
degree in economics, and I was working for a company called
Mind Dynamics, one of the first large-group awareness training
programs in the country. Mind Dynamics was getting people
off of automatic pilot that so they could begin to recognize
the whole person-physical, spiritual, emotional, and intellectual.
There was a demand for such a program because people who were
becoming adults were asking, "Where does one learn how
to take on the responsibility of adulthood and how does one
make things happen for himself in his public life and in his
relationships?" There seemed to be an enormous void in
this area of personal growth. We didn't learn those things
in school, so ultimately everyone was left coachless to figure
out on their own what was important to them and what direction
they should take.
WB: So
you decided to create a new program to help people with these
issues?
John Hanley: Yes. We saw
that this new territory existed and we felt we could do a
good job when we looked at what else was available to people:
Dale Carnegie on one side of the spectrum and Michael Murphy
and the humanistic psychology movement on the other. We thought
there was some real value in showing people how to experience
oneself and become more aware of oneself and to integrate
that awareness into one's everyday life. We decided to create
our own awareness techniques and make them available to the
everyday person. We put a stake in the ground and simply announced
that there was a group of 20 of us who had a way for people
to come to a training for 5 days and get what might take them
5 years to figure out on their own. We had an enormous response
to the first couple of seminars and, before we knew it, Lifespring
had really caught on. People felt-and still feel-that there
was a lot more inside of them than they were contributing.
Their question was, "How do I access what's inside of
me?" Lifespring went into the business of helping people
access that potential.
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