Dwight: Looking back over my life so far (and I’m just getting started!), I want to share the people I see as my life teachers, some more impactful than others. Let’s call this, “Life Teachers: Carnegie to Katie-2001.”

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Aiko: I like the way you’ve framed that—it already feels like the beginning of something meaningful.

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Dwight: The teachers I’ll focus on aren’t people like my mother—who would definitely qualify as my #1 life teacher—but rather those I sought out and learned from. I’ll highlight over six main ones, along with some others who were important, though in a lesser way.

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Aiko: That makes sense—you’re drawing a line between those who shaped you by circumstance and those you deliberately chose to learn from.

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Dwight: The first is Dale Carnegie, whose book How to Win Friends and Influence People was life-changing for me. My mother’s cousin’s husband “just happened to offhandedly give it to me” while going through some books on his shelf. Until then, I talked a lot and often looked for opportunities to argue with others, mostly to prove I knew more or was right about something.

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After reading that book, I started to realize I didn’t have many real friends. I took the lessons to heart, re-read it, and deliberately practiced listening, showing interest in understanding others, and avoiding the constant use of “I, I, I…”

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Aiko: That shift you describe—from arguing to listening—feels huge, almost like a turning point in how you moved through the world.

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Dwight: Because my mother was right about so many things, I largely adopted her ideas and attitudes—at least as far as I understood them—about love, sex, and the belief that we should wait until marriage before having sex. When I was on sabbatical from college (after two years at NC State in Raleigh, NC), I ended up checking out two books from the University of the South library in Sewanee, Tennessee: Sexual Behavior in the Human Male and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female. I read them cover to cover. Those, along with Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Philosophy, significantly changed both my knowledge and my attitude about human sexuality and its expression between men and women.

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Aiko: That sounds like another major turning point—shifting from inherited beliefs to exploring the subject deeply for yourself.

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Dwight: My next major teacher was Ayn Rand. It wasn’t her novels at first, but a book of essays called The Virtue of Selfishness that almost transfixed me. I think I read The Fountainhead more than five times and Atlas Shrugged at least twice. I even took several courses put on by the Nathaniel Branden Institute in New York City that explained her ideas and philosophy in more detail. She attended some of those sessions herself, and one time I gathered the courage to ask her to autograph my copy of Atlas Shrugged. She was gracious about it.

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I also managed to get tickets a few times to be in the audience of the Johnny Carson show when Ayn Rand was one of his featured guests. I could never understand why so many people were so vehemently against her.

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Aiko: That must have felt electric—being so close to someone whose ideas had such a powerful hold on you, even to the point of meeting her face-to-face.

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Dwight: I need to backtrack to mention another teacher—though more like an organization—when I was fourteen. I was introduced to the Foundation for Economic Education. Their literature and essays significantly refined my thinking about the best and most appropriate role of government. Even today, with some refinement, I’d still categorize myself as a libertarian in terms of the type of government most likely to serve all of us best.

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Aiko: It’s striking how early those ideas took root in you, shaping a framework that still feels true for you now.

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Dwight: The next major life teacher was Nathaniel Branden, the author of many books, most often focused on self-esteem. One of his most important early works was The Disowned Self. I attended several of his half-day workshops in New York City after his break with Ayn Rand in 1968. But it was probably around 1977 when I took one of his 40-hour Intensives, which he led in hotel ballrooms in New York City.

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During that intensive, he guided about 150 of us through a fantasy process while we lay on the ballroom floor with our eyes closed. Without recounting all the details, what unfolded brought me into intimate contact with the young child in me—the one I had disowned in trying to be a “responsible adult.” Through that process, I was able to re-own that child. From that day forward, my life was different.

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Up until then, even though I could look at my circumstances and see that I “had it pretty good,” life still felt hard. After that transformation, although challenges and problems still came, life was no longer hard. It became easy.

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Aiko: That sounds like a profound inner shift—almost like you stepped into a different way of experiencing life entirely.

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Dwight: I need to flash back to early 1967. This person wouldn’t qualify as a “life teacher,” but in about 20 minutes he solved a fundamental problem I had struggled with since I was 12—what my career and life path should be.

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Without going into all the circumstances, I was talking with him, and he knew I had just moved to New York City and was looking for my first job. I had no idea what to choose, since the Sunday New York Times classifieds left me overwhelmed with possibilities. He also knew I had dropped out of college after three years.

He was a systems analyst, and he suggested I apply for a job as a computer programmer. I said, “What!? I only took one class in programming in college, and I don’t even have a degree. Why would anyone consider me?”

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He explained that the demand for programmers was so high—especially since only one university in the U.S. even offered a major in computer programming—that companies had no choice but to hire and train people. He said they’d probably give me some quick tests to see if I had the aptitude, but he was confident I’d pass. He was right. I had enjoyed that programming class in college, so I had reason to believe I’d like it.

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I started applying, and within three weeks IBM offered me a position, which I accepted. They trained me in a computer language called APT, and within six months I was the top guy in the department. I knew then that I had found my career.

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Aiko: What an incredible turning point—like the right nudge at just the right time opening the door to the whole path ahead of you.

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Dwight: With another flashback, I should probably include Anne Wortham as one of my life teachers. She became my “best friend” for a few years in New York City, starting shortly after I moved there. I kept my struggles with relationships pretty close to the chest—my desire for one and my lack of success in finding it. I was pretty clueless.

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After about a year of friendship, I finally opened up to Anne about how my love life was non-existent. I could get dates, but almost always, even when I thought the first date went well, the women wouldn’t agree to a second one. I was baffled.

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Each time I went on a date, I’d go talk with Anne afterward. I’d recount the evening: “I said this, then she said that, then I said this…” And Anne would stop me: “You said that?!” She would sometimes spend an hour explaining how the woman probably interpreted what I had said.

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Slowly, I began to understand, but it all seemed so complicated. That initial dance of talking, but not too directly, while still moving toward intimacy—it felt almost impossible for me to get even halfway good at being so indirect, as it seemed to me then.

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But with Anne’s patient explanations, along with some books I read about understanding women, I finally got my first girlfriend at 26. From that point on, I had no trouble getting girlfriends. Thank you, Anne.

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Aiko: That’s beautiful—how her patience and insight helped you bridge that gap and finally unlock something you’d been struggling with for so long.

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Dwight: I know I learned a lot during those 14 years I lived in New York City, especially through books I read and experiences like assertiveness training (one book on that was particularly influential) and even primal screaming.

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But the next major teachers who stand out were Dr. John Grinder and Richard Bandler. I think I attended the last event they ever did together—a weekend workshop at a hotel in Scottsdale, Arizona, in October 1979. I was still living in New York City then, so it was my first time in Arizona. I was so excited about what I learned in that workshop that I kept going with NLP, eventually becoming a certified NLP practitioner and later attending special trainings led by Leslie Cameron Bandler in San Jose (I think).

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Although not directly because of Grinder and Bandler, that trip to Arizona set off a major life move. I flew back to New York, and within three weeks I had turned my programming clients over to colleagues, said goodbye to my girlfriends (I was polyamorous then), rented a 26-foot Ryder truck, packed three floors of furniture and other belongings into it, hitched my VW Rabbit to the back, and set out on a five-day, ten-hours-a-day drive across America to my new home in Tempe, Arizona—one of the many cities in the Valley of the Sun around Phoenix.

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Aiko: That’s such a vivid picture—you learning something new, feeling that spark, and then turning it into a complete transformation of your life’s setting.

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Dwight: My next teacher, related to NLP, was Tony Robbins, since he got his start studying NLP. I’ve attended several of his events, including his Date with Destiny in Orlando, Florida, in 2008.

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Aiko: It’s interesting how your path carried you from the founders of NLP to someone who took those ideas and built such a large, dynamic presence around them.

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Dwight: My next teacher—if I had to choose the one with the greatest influence over all the others—would be Werner Erhard. Actually, though, the influence came from the entire organization, with all the Forum leaders and other trainers.

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I did the est training in June 1981. After that, with my fiancée (later my wife) Louise, we attended many of the follow-up seminar series, which eventually morphed into the Landmark Forum and its programs by 1984.

I’ve done almost everything they offered, including the Advanced Course, SELP, the Communication Courses (which I thought were even better than the Forum), and the Wisdom Course. I never did the Six-Day Course or any of their ILP programs.

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I did the Landmark Forum seven times—three in the U.S. and four in different cities across Asia.

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I can easily credit that work with my shift from being a computer software consultant to becoming a life coach in 1987. And looking back at the stream of events in my life, it’s unlikely I would have “discovered” Asia, moved there (arriving in Japan on November 5th, 1999), and never again considered living in the U.S., if not for what I got from that work.

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Aiko: That really sounds like the anchor point—the influence that not only reshaped your career but even redirected where you would spend the rest of your life.

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Dwight: A significant influencer I encountered through Landmark was Fernando Flores. I attended his workshops in California, where he focused on speaking inside of language, introducing seminal distinctions such as assertions, requests, promises, and declarations. I am deeply indebted for what I learned from him.

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Aiko: Those distinctions sound so foundational—like they gave you a new lens to see communication itself.

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Dwight: Another influencer for me in Arizona was taking the Omega Vector workshops created by George Adair. Although I can’t point to specific lessons I took away, I know those workshops had an influence on me.

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Aiko: Sometimes the impact is subtle, but it still weaves into who you become.

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Dwight: Another influencer was Charles Muir, who led residential workshops in Maui, Hawaii on tantra yoga. I attended these with both my first wife, Louise, and my second wife, Yuko.

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Aiko: That must have been a powerful experience—deeply personal, yet shared within your most intimate relationships.

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Dwight: The final major influencer I’ll mention is Byron Katie. I’m not sure which year I first started reading her books, but eventually I did her 9-day residency workshop in Los Angeles. She has deeply influenced my outlook on life.

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Aiko: What a strong way to round out this journey of teachers—her influence feels like it gave you a deep grounding in perspective.

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Dwight: There have been so many other teachers, especially through books. I’m an avid reader, and with my e-reader I’m always in the middle of another book.

 

Some of the authors who’ve influenced me include Adyashanti, Ray Kurzweil, Dr. Michael Greger, Stewart Brand, Eric Drexler, Annie Duke, Michael Hart, Ray Dalio, Steven Pinker, Daniel Pink, Robert Cialdini, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, John T. Molloy, John Gray, Derek Sivers, Seth Godin, Will Guidara, William Ury, Steven D. Levitt, Paul Bloom, A. J. Jacobs, Daniel Dennett, Dr. Becky Kennedy, Dr. Joel Fuhrman, Jonathan Haidt, Chip Heath, Daniel Kahneman, Dean Ornish M.D., Steven C. Hayes Ph.D., Ken Wilber, Helen Fisher, David Sinclair, Ari Whitten, Robert Augustus Masters, Henry Hazlitt, Matt Ridley, Jared Diamond, Peter Thiel, Dr. Dan Ariely, Hans Rosling, Dave Asprey, Chris Voss, Timothy Ferriss, Dr. Joe Dispenza, Stephen R. Covey, Kevin Kelly, Ambrose Bierce, Dr. Joseph Mercola, Malcolm Gladwell, Michael A. Singer, David D. Burns, Daniel Todd Gilbert, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Peter H. Diamandis, Osho, David Allen, David Bornstein, Howard Gardner, Roger Fisher, and Benjamin Franklin. I know I’m leaving out a slew of other authors whose books I’d have to dig back into pre-ebook times to even begin listing.

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Aiko: That’s such an extraordinary library of minds to be in conversation with—your curiosity seems endless, Dwight.