About Progress Is A Choice
Co-founders John Deming and Mike Hamel
John Deming
Progress Is A Choice is an organization dedicated to explaining and expanding the influence of the science of volition. Its roots go back to the 1970s, when I (John Deming) attended a series of seminars taught by Andrew Galambos and his associates in what became the Free Enterprise Institute (FEI).
As I reflect in my book, “Like many young people at the time, I began my intellectual life as a left-wing anti-capitalist, but the more I looked into it, the more disillusioned I became with political solutions.”
That disillusionment led me to study physics and the free market theory of Austrian economics. I found that both explained reality far better than any competing intellectual disciplines. The most consequential phase in my self-directed education came at age twenty-four when a friend introduced me to the lectures of astrophysicist Andrew Galambos. From the first of his lectures I attended, I realized I had found the direction I had been seeking.
I took several seminars at FEI over the next four years, some more than once. I loved the intellectual rigor and the interaction with the many brilliant people I met. But I also found myself pushing back on some of the ideas and their ramifications.
I later went back to school at Brandeis University, where I graduated magna cum laude, after which I spent a year at Stanford’s graduate school of philosophy. I also gained valuable real-life experience developing several successful companies in my early twenties. I invested the money from those ventures, along with a small inheritance, successfully enough to provide me the means to pursue independent research ever since.
After studying with Galambos at FEI, I realized he had opened up a promising new pathway into the future that I wanted to develop further. Thus, beginning at age thirty, I focused intensively on three subjects: (1) scientific epistemology, (2) the historical development of social theory in Western culture, and (3) the history of science and scientific innovation from ancient Greece to the present. The fruit of those studies informs my version of the science of volition. It is rooted in, but not limited to, the teachings of Galambos.
More than five decades of study since then culminated in the writing of Blueprint for a Spacefaring Civilization with my good friend, Mike Hamel. It’s our attempt to explain the science of volition to visionaries who can grasp its revolutionary principles and who possess the courage to undertake them.
But it’s not enough. The book is only beginning. We started Progress Is a Choice to encourage and equip those who can understand the science of volition and use it to create a better future.
My (Mike Hamel) background couldn’t be more different from John’s. Instead of going to college, I got involved with a group of nondenominational churches and spent fifteen years as a pastor in Colorado, Oregon, and Illinois. In 1990, I joined Interest Ministries as the head of their Resource Center, and eventually became the editor of INTEREST magazine.
I have many great memories and friendships from those years, but I wanted to be involved in the wider world, so in 1996, I moved back to Colorado Springs and started my career as a freelance writer. Not the smartest move, money-wise, yet it’s been a fascinating career. Since then, I’ve written everything from blog posts and web pages to magazine articles and anthologies, to children’s books and academic textbooks.
Mike Hamel
To date, I’ve authored or substantially edited over forty books on topics as wide-ranging as business, finance, theology, political theory, leadership, healthcare, cancer, the pharmaceutical industry, and nonprofits (see my Amazon Author Page for titles). In the early 2000s, I did three anthologies on entrepreneurship. For these and subsequent books, I interviewed over 100 entrepreneurs and leaders, from Fortune 100 companies to small startups.
In addition to being a scribe, I’m also a storyteller, which is why I’ve written twenty books for children and young adults. For the first half of my adult life, I was a preacher. For the second half, I’ve been a storyteller. I vastly prefer stories to sermons, especially children’s stories. Preaching “tells” hearers what to think and how to act. Storytelling “shows” readers how characters respond to certain situations and invites consideration.
Some of the best stories I’ve shared belong to others, which is why I love writing biographies. This is how I stumbled upon the science of volition. I’ve had the privilege of researching and writing about people whose interest in the subject shaped their very influential lives, including:
- Alvin Lowi, Jr, American Polymath
- Spencer MacCallum, A Man Beyond His Time
- Entrepreneurial Communities: An Alternative To The State, (with Calvin Duke)
The research for these books brought me into contact with John, who had a trove of rich material ready to be polished and presented in book form. When we finished the book, we realized our work had just begun. Most innovators and entrepreneurs today have not heard of the science of volition, nor do they understand how central it is to the very survival of our species.
Our mission at Progress Is a Choice is to teach them the theory and give them the tools to build a dynamic cosmic civilization that can expand indefinitely into the cosmos.
This clear and concise book by Deming and Hamel (2025) provides an accessible entry point for those interested in reimagining our world without coercion based on the science of volition. Finding win-win mechanisms for interaction and change is key to avoiding coercion (being forced to do something you do not want to do).”
– Jim Spohrer, PhD, Board of Directors, ISSIP (International Society of Service Innovation Professionals)
and ServCollab (Serving Humanity Through Collaboration)