Leo Buscaglia - true inspiration | EFT Tapping

Felice Leonardo Buscaglia was born in Los Angeles, CA on March 31, 1924 into a family of Italian immigrants. He spent his early childhood in Aosta, Italy before going back to the United States for education. After Navy service in World War II he entered the University of Southern California where he earned three degrees before joining the faculty. Upon retirement, Buscaglia was named Professor at Large, one of only two such designations on campus at that time.

While teaching at USC, Buscaglia was moved by a student’s suicide to contemplate human disconnectedness and the meaning of life, and began a non-credit class he called Love 1A.

This became the basis for his first book, titled simply LOVE.

His dynamic speaking style was discovered by the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) and his televised lectures earned great popularity in the 1980s. This national exposure, coupled with the heartfelt storytelling style of his books, helped make all of his titles national Best Sellers; five were once on the New York Times Best Sellers List simultaneously.

He argued that social bonds are essential to transcending the stresses of everyday life and enriching it above the limitations of poverty as well as crossing communication gaps between generations. His public lecture audiences, which numbered in the thousands, nearly always spontaneously formed a line after his talks in order to get books signed, and most importantly, to hug this outgoing speaker.

Buscaglia worked actively to overcome social and mental barriers that inhibited the expression of love between people, from family to acquaintances to people with disabilities, the institutionalized, and elderly, to complete strangers, often making his own forwardness on the subject a topic of self-deprecating humor. The profundity of his subject, however, almost invariably struck a responsive chord for many in an area frequently regarded as deficient in their lives, and by 1998 his books had reached eighteen million copies in print in seventeen languages.

Buscaglia died of a heart attack on June 12, 1998 at his home in Nevada, aged 74.

I first saw a film of him speaking in the early 1990′s; I am eternally grateful to whoever it was who arranged that viewing because this man continues to touch and inspire me to this day.