Conversations For Transformation: Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

Conversations For Transformation

Essays By Laurence Platt

Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

And More

Further Down The Road

Napa Valley, California, USA

August 3, 2019

"Transformation is getting to see as a possibility who you might be really."


...		speaking with Laurence Platt in Conversations With A Friend IX (What Did You Do To Me?)

This essay, Further Down The Road, is the sequel to From Leadership To Mastery: Introducing The Mastery Course.

It is also, with Gratitude III , the prequel to the trilogy The Mastery Course:

in that order.

Today I registered in the Mastery Course: Being a Master of Life: What It Takes with Werner and Dr Joseph DiMaggio in London in November 2019. I've reserved my round-trip flights on Virgin, and my room at the Hilton at Canary Wharf.

This isn't the first time I've experienced registration (since 1979 there've been a plethora of such occasions). I've registered in a vast collection of Werner's programs (trainings, seminars, courses, symposia etc), so vast that I can't remember all their names or the exact total number in which I've participated. I've participated in many (that's for sure), and the truth is my many is still a long, long way from his all.

There is one thing however I do remember and have gotten very clear about each and every single time (so I'm not just "a guy in a diner" about this): it's that each program (training / seminar / course / symposium etc) began at the exact moment I registered in it, long before I first set foot in the classroom much later at the start of session #1, long before the first official word in its particular conversation was ever uttered in the room. How is it possible? More to the point, how does he do it?

If you give this phenomenon even a most cursory examination, you'll notice it isn't something Werner does directly (if he's not yet even located in the room with you, how could he?). Rather, it's a characteristic of transformation itself which he distinguishes and leverages (and demonstrates) and which sets the process in motion for people who register. What's even more pertinent is that he sets up the process so that it's set in motion by the people who register, for themselves. Let me explain.

The process of registration is essentially an act of declaration. It's declaring "I register: I'm in the program.". When I declare something, whatever I declare comes with the possibility of becoming real - in this case, it's the possibility of being a master of life. If being a master of life is anything at all, it's first and foremost a linguistic act, a speech act, a stand brought forth by the spoken word. "I register" (or a form of it) is the first utterance / spoken word at the start of any transforming process.

My declaration is what begins the process. No, it's more than that actually: it's my declaration is required if the process is to be authentic at all - in other words, the process is powerfully begun and I'm in it, once (and because) I say I'm in it. And once I'm in the process because I've said so for myself, another powerful possibility for further down the road (even for right here) may be declaring "I register: I'm in Life itself.". That's an awesome possibility (or commonplace being around Werner).

I asked Werner if the Mastery Course is the (quote unquote) next iteration of the work after (ie is the sequel to) the Leadership Course. He replied

<quote>

NO. YOU COULD DESCRIBE THE UPCOMING "THE MASTERY COURSE" AS "THE NEWEST PIECE OF WORK".

<unquote>

Here's what I've noticed since I registered in the newest piece of work:

•	my Mastery Course has tangibly begun (I'm in the program because I've said so);
•	I'm inventing ongoingly "I don't know what it's about" (usually I am that I know what everything's about - I'm a "Mr Know-It-All");
•	unexpected funds showed up (I've experienced this synchronous phenomenon before);
•	the inquiry "What is a master of life? What does it take to be one?" has begun (I have some ideas but no pat answers);
•	Werner's work isn't about Werner (if it's about Werner and not about getting to see as a possibility who I might be really, its light is dimmed, its worth diminished);
•	a portal to a new future to live from, has opened (not the right future, not a better future, just a newly invented future, a future giving who I be in the present);
... and more.

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