About John-Henry Richards
Hello and welcome to Self-Dynamics!
My name is John-Henry Richards and I’m the founder and director of the Self-Dynamics Institute in Santa Barbara, California. My wife Lyudmyla and I live in the Santa Barbara foothills behind the plane.
I was born on Oahu, Hawaii – my father was a naval officer and my family relocated seven times before I was 12. The continual moving to new places during my youth had a major impact on my early development – giving me what some call a “survival” personality or what Mike Jay refers to as a “Hearty” personality.
From Reader’s Digest to Serial Entrepreneur
My first job out of college was as a field representative for The Reader’s Digest. I spent six years with the Digest, ending up at the RD headquarters in New York in the position of Manager of Special Products. I left the Digest to come back to Southern California, working for Capital Records in Hollywood as the Manager of Special Record Products for the Capital Record Club.
During my career I’ve had over thirty years of upper level management experience and over twenty-five years providing management/executive coaching and organizational consulting and trainings.
Before moving into business consulting and coaching I founded six different businesses organizations, was president and CEO of seven companies and held executive management positions with six additional companies including The Reader’s Digest; Capitol Records; The Benson, Stagg & Associates subsidiary of Republic Corporation; Ogilvy & Mather Advertising; and The John-David Learning Institute.
Research and Developmentalism
I have a very high level of curiosity and my most favorite form of mental relaxation is surfing my favorite categories in Amazon non-fiction books. I purchase over 100 books a year and I read, review or skim an average of 5-10 books a week – both in business as well as more than a dozen other categories.
I am especially interested in qualified authors writing on the latest developments in neuro-research, personal development and productivity, coaching and consulting. In addition to reading and research, my other interests include growing orchids and cooking.
Some Business Background
As mentioned, I have founded more than a half dozen companies, including:
The Richards Marketing Group – specializing in Direct Response advertising & consulting;
Richards, Petkoff & Finch Advertising – A full service advertising agency in Los Angeles;
North American Advertising – a special purpose advertising agency with six multi-state branches. NAA was purchased by Ogilvy & Mather International as a wholly owned subsidiary.
AdCom Computer Systems – providing networked computer systems to advertising agencies.
Horizon Business Systems – providing consulting and coaching to business clients;
Musicom Communications – providing employee audio-communications programs to multi-thousand employee corporations;
The Self Dynamics Institute in Santa Barbara, California
In the mid-1980’s I founded Horizon Business Systems for the business consulting work that I was doing at that time. By the late 1980’s my business consulting work had evolved into my focusing totally on providing personal coaching to business owners and company executives.
In addition to the Self-Dynamics live events I present in Santa Barbara, I have developed courses on business coaching, NLP meta-programs, and using the Enneagram personality system in coaching which I have presented both in Santa Barbara and Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.
Publishing, Trainings and Certifications
My publishing & training development background includes:
Author of the “The Illustrated Enneagram” which sold over 20,000 copies;
Author of “The Nine Keys Personality Identifier Instrument which has been translated into French and German and sold over 10,000 copies internationally.
Co-Author, along with Tom Flautt, of the famous 1996 Enneagram-MBTI correlation research study with several thousand participants;
Co-author with Mike Jay and Mari Smith of the 2008 Amazon best seller “Upping the Downside: 64 Strategies for Creating Professional Resilience by Design.”
Creator of the Horizon Nine Keys IMPACT course, the Developing Self Mastery course and the Self-Dynamics live presentations in Santa Barbara.
Author of many articles on personality and Personal Productivity which have been published in a number of national publications.
I have BA in Business as well as more than 20 additional trainings and certifications:
The est and several advanced trainings with Werner Eerhard & Steve Zafron;
The Actualizations trining with Stewart Emery
A 3 month series of Hermenet courses with Fernando Flores;
NLP Practitioner training & certification with John Grindler & Judith Delozier
NLP Master Practitioner certification with Wyatt Woodsmall
NLP Trainer training with Richard Bandler, Wyatt Woodsmall & Tad James
Several Neuro-Associative trainings & fire walkings with Anthony Robbins
Hypno-Therapy training and certification with Tad James
Creativity, Personality & NLP workshops with Tom Condon
The DMA Creating Process & Structural Consulting with Robert Fritz
An 18 month MythoSelf training with Joseph Riggio
Several trainings and Advanced certification with Dr. John-David of The John-David Learning Institute while I was consulting and temporary COO of JDLI;
More than a dozen different trainings on the Enneagram Typology system with Helen Palmer & David Daniels, Don Riso & Russell Hudson, Michael Goldberg and others.
Several workshops with Stephen Wolinsky; with Brough Joy; and with Richard Moss
Monthly trinings over six months on the Voice Dialogue process with Hal & Sidra Stone
The Landmark Forum ass well as several advanced trainings with Bryon Regnor
A one year course on Psychosynthesis with Alva Delano
The 16 week SACP training program with Stewart Litchman
Both level One & level Two Spiral Dynamics trainings and certification with Don Beck;
A half dozen courses and trainings with Mike Jay on Spiral Dynamics and various assessment models.
Several trainings on the Myers-Briggs MBTI and on the DISC personality systems.