"Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves without any insistence that they satisfy you." -- Wayne dyer
Wayne Walter Dyer (born May 10, 1940) is an American self-help advocate, author, lecturer, and heretic. His 1976 book Your Erroneous Zones, is said to have "brought humanist ideas to the masses".
"A mind at peace, a mind centered and not focused on harming others, is stronger than any physical force in the universe.""Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into.""Anything you really want, you can attain, if you really go after it.""Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it's always your choice.""Begin to see yourself as a soul with a body rather than a body with a soul.""Conflict cannot survive without your participation.""Deficiency motivation doesn't work. It will lead to a life-long pursuit of try to fix me. Learn to appreciate what you have and where and who you are.""Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life.""Everything in the universe has a purpose. Indeed, the invisible intelligence that flows through everything in a purposeful fashion is also flowing through you.""Everything is perfect in the universe - even your desire to improve it.""Everything you are against weakens you. Everything you are for empowers you.""Freedom means you are unobstructed in living your life as you choose. Anything less is a form of slavery.""Go for it now. The future is promised to no one.""How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.""I cannot always control what goes on outside. But I can always control what goes on inside.""I think and that is all that I am.""If you are living out of a sense of obligation you are slave.""If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.""It is impossible for you to be angry and laugh at the same time. Anger and laughter are mutually exclusive and you have the power to choose either.""It makes no sense to worry about things you have no control over because there's nothing you can do about them, and why worry about things you do control? The activity of worrying keeps you immobilized.""It's never crowded along the extra mile.""Judgements prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances.""Live one day at a time emphasizing ethics rather than rules.""Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world.""Maxim for life: You get treated in life the way you teach people to treat you.""Miracles come in moments. Be ready and willing.""Only the insecure strive for security.""Our intention creates our reality.""Our lives are a sum total of the choices we have made.""People who want the most approval get the least and people who need approval the least get the most.""Real magic in relationships means an absence of judgment of others.""Relationships based on obligation lack dignity.""Self-worth comes from one thing - thinking that you are worthy.""Simply put, you believer that things or people make you unhappy, but this is not accurate. You make yourself unhappy.""Stop acting as if life is a rehearsal. Live this day as if it were your last. The past is over and gone. The future is not guaranteed.""Successful people make money. It's not that people who make money become successful, but that successful people attract money. They bring success to what they do.""The components of anxiety, stress, fear, and anger do not exist independently of you in the world. They simply do not exist in the physical world, even though we talk about them as if they do.""The fact that you are willing to say, "I do not understand, and it is fine," is the greatest understanding you could exhibit.""The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don't know anything about.""The last suit that you wear, you don't need any pockets.""There is no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love; there's only scarcity of resolve to make it happen.""There is no way to prosperity, prosperity is the way.""There's nothing wrong with anger provided you use it constructively.""Transformation literally means going beyond your form.""We are Divine enough to ask and we are important enough to receive.""What comes out of you when you are squeezed is what is inside of you.""What we think determines what happens to us, so if we want to change our lives, we need to stretch our minds.""When I chased after money, I never had enough. When I got my life on purpose and focused on giving of myself and everything that arrived into my life, then I was prosperous.""When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It's to enjoy each step along the way.""When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself.""When you squeeze an orange, orange juice comes out - because that's what's inside. When you are squeezed, what comes out is what is inside.""You are doomed to make choices. This is life's greatest paradox.""You are important enough to ask and you are blessed enough to receive back.""You can never get enough of what you don't want.""You can't choose up sides on a round world.""You cannot always control what goes on outside. But you can always control what goes on inside.""You cannot be lonely if you like the person you're alone with.""You leave old habits behind by starting out with the thought, 'I release the need for this in my life'.""You'll see it when you believe it.""Your children will see what you're all about by what you live rather than what you say."
Dyer was born in Detroit, Michigan to Melvin Lyle (deceased) and Hazel Irene Dyer, and spent much of his adolescence in an orphanage on the east side of Detroit. Dr. Wayne Dyer is a 1958 graduate of Denby High School; he received his D.Ed. degree in counseling from Wayne State University. Dyer was a guidance counselor in Detroit at the high school level and a professor of counselor education at St. John's University in New York. He served in the United States Navy from 1958-1962.
He first pursued an academic career, publishing in journals and running a successful private therapy practice, but his lectures at St. John's, which focused on positive thinking and motivational speaking techniques, attracted students beyond those enrolled. A literary agent persuaded Dyer to package his ideas in book form, resulting in Your Erroneous Zones; although initial sales were thin, Dyer quit his teaching job and began a publicity tour of the United States of America, doggedly pursuing bookstore appearances and media interviews ("out of the back of his station wagon", according to Michael Korda, making the best-seller lists "before book publishers even noticed what was happening"), which eventually led to national television talk shows including Merv Griffin, The Tonight Show, and Phil Donahue.
Dyer proceeded to build on his success with lecture tours, a series of audiotapes, and regular publication of new books. Dyer's audience was not limited to business as with Dale Carnegie or Stephen Covey, and so his message resonated with many in the New Thought Movement and beyond. He often recounted anecdotes from his family life, and repeatedly used his own life experience as an example. His self-made man success story was a part of his appeal. Dyer told readers to pursue self actualization, calling reliance on the self as a guide to "religious" experience, and suggested that readers emulate Jesus Christ, whom he termed both an example of a self-actualized person, and a "preacher of self-reliance". Dyer criticized societal focus on guilt, which he saw as an unhealthy immobilization in the present due to actions taken in the past. He advocated readers to see how parents, institutions, and even they, themselves, have imposed guilt trips upon themselves.
Although Dyer resisted the spiritual tag, by the 1990s he was altering his message to include more components of spirituality, in Real Magic, and higher consciousness, in Your Sacred Self. Currently, his focus is on interpretations of Tao Te Ching and he has many U.S. speaking engagements.
Dyer lives in Maui, Hawaii. He has been married three times, having seven of his eight children by his third wife, Marcelene. Wayne and Marcelene Dyer's children are Shane, Stephanie, Skye, Sommer, Serena, Sands and Saje. His oldest daughter, from his first marriage to a woman name Judy, is named Tracy. All of his children live in Florida.
In 2009 Dyer announced that he has chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
"My belief is that the truth is a truth until you organize it, and then becomes a lie. I don't think that Jesus was teaching Christianity, Jesus was teaching kindness, love, concern, and peace. What I tell people is don't be Christian, be Christ-like. Don't be Buddhist, be Buddha-like."
"Religion is orthodoxy, rules and historical scriptures maintained by people over long periods of time. Generally people are raised to obey the customs and practices of that religion without question. These are customs and expectations from outside the person and do not fit my definition of spiritual."
Since 2000, he has appeared many times on PBS during their pledge drives. Although PBS' local station managers believe that he is a popular speaker and successful in helping their stations raise money, some PBS viewers found the appearances disturbing in the sense "that PBS might be seen as lending its prestige to Dyer's spiritual views and aligning itself with his teachings". Other criticisms included skepticism of his status as a "spiritual mentor" and characterizing his teachings as consisting of superficial platitudes. Viewers also expressed displeasure at the idea that Dyer himself must be profiting financially from this exposure of teachings they considered non-rigorous and lacking practical or intellectual value.
On May 24, 2010, author Stephen Mitchell sued Dyer for plagiarism, accusing him of taking 200 lines of his interpretation of the Tao Te Ching for Dyer's books Living the Wisdom of the Tao and Change Your Thoughts -- Change Your Life.
Counseling Techniques That Work published June 1, 1975 by American Counseling Association ISBN 0-911547-26-6
Your Erroneous Zones published August 1, 1976 by HarperCollins ISBN 0-06-109148-0
Pulling Your Own Strings published April 1, 1978 by Hay House ISBN 0-308-10336-X
Group Counseling for Personal Mastery (1980)
The Sky's the Limit published September 1, 1980 by Simon & Schuster ISBN 0-671-24989-4
Gifts from Eykis : A Story of Self-Discovery published February 1, 1983 by Simon & Schuster ISBN 0-671-46066-8
What Do You Really Want for Your Children published September 1, 1985 by William Morrow & Company ISBN 0-688-04527-8
The Awakened Life - 6 tape/CD audio book
Happy Holidays! (1986)
You'll See It When You Believe It: The Way to Your Personal Transformation first published in paperback and hardcover (1989)
Real Magic: Creating Miracles in Everyday Life published August 1, 1992 by Harpercollins ISBN 0-06-016678-9
Everyday Wisdom published October 1, 1993 by Hay House Inc ISBN 1-56170-076-2
How to Be a No-Limit Person published November 1994 by Simon & Schuster Audioworks ISBN 0743561635
You'll See It When You Believe It: The Way to Your Personal Transformation published April 1, 1995 by Harpercollins ISBN 0-06-093733-5
Your Sacred Self: Making the Decision to Be Free published April 1, 1995 by Harpercollins ISBN 0-06-017786-1
A Promise Is a Promise: An Almost Unbelievable Story of a Mother's Unconditional Love and What It Can Teach Us published August 1, 1996 by Hay House Inc ISBN 1-56170-348-6
Manifest Your Destiny: The Nine Spiritual Principles for Getting Everything You Want published April 1, 1997 by Harpercollins ISBN 0-06-017528-1
Wisdom of the Ages published November 1, 1998 by HarperCollins ISBN 0-06-019231-3
There's a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem published September 1, 2001 by Harpercollins ISBN 0-06-019230-5
10 Secrets For Success And Inner Peace published May 1, 2002 by Hay House Inc ISBN 1-56170-875-5
It's Never Crowded Along the Extra Mile published September 1, 2002 by Hay House Inc ISBN 1401901727
Getting in the Gap: Making Conscious Contact With God Through Meditation published December 1, 2002 by Hay House Inc ISBN 1-4019-0131-X
The Caroline Myss & Wayne Dyer Seminar published May 1, 2003 by Hay House Inc ISBN 1401902618
The Power of Intention: Learning to Co-Create Your World Your Way published February 1, 2004 by Hay House Inc ISBN 1-4019-0215-4
Staying on the Path published September 30, 2004 by Hay House Inc ISBN 1-4019-0349-5
Incredible You! published November 15, 2005 by Hay House Inc ISBN 1-4019-0782-2
Inspiration: Your Ultimate Calling published February 1, 2006 by Hay House Inc ISBN 1-4019-0721-0
Being in Balance: 9 Principles for Creating habits to Match Your Desires February 2006 by Hay House Inc ISBN 1-4019-1038-6
Everyday Wisdom for Success published April 15, 2006 by Hay House Inc ISBN 1-4019-0552-8
Making Your Thoughts Work for You published February 15, 2007 by Hay House Inc ISBN 1401911897
Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao published July 31, 2007 by Hay House Inc ISBN 978-1-4019-1184-3
Living The Wisdom Of The Tao: The Complete Tao Te Ching and Affirmations published March 1, 2008 by Hay House Inc ISBN 978-1-4019-2149-1
Excuses Begone (May 2009) ISBN 978-1-4019-2173-6
The Shift; Taking Your Life from Ambition to Meaning (February 2010) ISBN 978-1-4019-2709-7
Ambition to Meaning [January 2009], rereleased as The Shift [April 2009] by Hay House
Day & Night (2010), an animated short film created by Pixar and which was shown along with Toy Story 3 during the movie's opening in the U.S., featured an excerpt from one of Dyer's speeches