17 Facts About Wayne Dyer

Wayne Walter Dyer was an American self-help author and a motivational speaker.

Wayne Dyer became a popular professor of counselor education at St John's University, where he was approached by a literary agent to put his ideas into book form.

Wayne Dyer was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Melvin Lyle Wayne Dyer and Hazel Irene Vollick.

Wayne Dyer spent much of his first ten years in an orphanage on the east side of Detroit, after his father walked out on the family, leaving his mother to raise three small boys.

Wayne Dyer's dissertation was titled Group Counseling Leadership Training in Counselor Education.

Wayne Dyer pursued an academic career, published in journals, and established a private therapy practice.

Wayne Dyer quit his teaching job and began a publicity tour of the United States, doggedly pursuing bookstore appearances and media interviews.

Wayne Dyer proceeded to build on his success with lecture tours, a series of audiotapes, PBS programs, and regular publication of new books.

Wayne Dyer's message resonated with many in the New Thought Movement and beyond.

Wayne Dyer often recounted anecdotes from his family life and repeatedly used his own life experience as an example.

Wayne Dyer's self-made man success story was a part of his appeal.

Wayne Dyer told readers to pursue self actualization, calling reliance on the self 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".

Wayne Dyer criticized societal focus on guilt, which he saw as an unhealthy immobilization in the present due to actions taken in the past.

Wayne Dyer encouraged readers to see how parents, institutions, and even they, themselves, had imposed guilt trips upon themselves.

Wayne Dyer was influenced by Abraham Maslow's concept of self-actualization and by the teachings of Swami Muktananda, whom he considered to be his Master.

Wayne Dyer was critical of the "hurry up" Western world.

Wayne Dyer died from a heart attack, according to his publicist Lindsay McGinty, in Maui, Hawaii, on August 30,2015, at age 75.