Wayne Walter Dyer was a popular American self-help advocate, author and lecturer. His 1976 book Your Erroneous Zones has sold over 30 million copies and is one of the best-selling books of all time. It is said to have "[brought] humanistic ideas to the masses". He received his D.Ed. degree in counseling from Wayne State University. He 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 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, 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"