PETER SHARES HIS STORY

Peter is right where he belongs these days, based in San Ramon just across the bay from San Francisco and close by the minds that are creating today’s high-tech world. What he does is teach many of the great minds of Silicon Valley how to keep learning, creating and innovating.

It’s a daunting challenge to be sure, but this 80-year-old former engineer-turned-psychologist is up to the task. He is the founder of what he calls a “learning group” out there on the frontiers of innovation where many of the biggest and best-known companies are re-imagining the world, and are his clients.

Peter arrived at this place by following his own mind. He started out on his career path that had begun in his native Massachusetts with an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering that led, naturally enough, to a job at an engineering firm. After about eight years he saw the proverbial fork in the road and he took it. The firm sent him to a management seminar that focused his mind on the importance of understanding how the mind works. After the seminar Peter went home and earned a master’s degree in psychology. That led him to taking a major leap forward, this time out to San Francisco where a lot of minds were clearly creating a new world. He got his doctorate in psychology and hung out his shingle in Silicon Valley. The rest, as another saying goes, is history.

Looking back now in his Eighties on a life and career that led to what is often thought of as the original center of the modern world, Peter points to the importance of trying to live a balanced life. “I’m a picky eater and I include supplements in my diet,” he says. “My daily exercise regimen includes 30 minutes on a stationary bike, lifting some weights and taking walks.”

His advice for living a good life is straight from the mind of a psychology-trained consultant who has made a good living by teaching some pretty brainy people how to think creatively, innovate, lead, and, in his words, “facilitate the evolution of others’ egos from Me-first to We.”

“Get to know yourself,” Peter advises. “Get to know your own mind, your feelings, your physical self,” and then he cuts to the heart of the matter. “Understand others as you search for what’s meaningful in your own life.”

His own search for the ingredients of a healthy life led him to try Prevagen about two years ago. “I was starting to sense some mild issues with my memory,” he says. “So I did my research tried some supplements and then came across Prevagen. I started taking Regular Strength, then I switched to Extra Strength.”

When asked for an anecdote about something he remembers from his long path through life, Peter comes up with a hugely entertaining story about going to Cuba after finishing high school back in the Fifties. After about four weeks he was awakened early one morning and told that Fidel Castro and his troops were on their way into Havana and it was time to go. He left, and that’s another story about how this guy has learned and lived to tell about it.