Landmark Education and the Landmark Forum

March 27, 2009

Without Integrity Nothing Works

Filed under: inspiration — Tags: , , , — landmarkeducationinaustralia @ 5:14 pm

I found a recent blog post that reads like it was written by someone who’s taken Landmark Education classes, though I have no proof of this. It’s on the subject of integrity, and includes the phrase “without integrity nothing works”, which you will hear if you take Landmark courses.

I think it’s worth taking a moment to note that many people seem to misunderstand what is meant by integrity when it is mentioned in a Landmark programme. It’s no talking about the definition of integrity that’s about being a good person or being moral. Instead it focuses on the definition of integrity that is like having the strucutral integrity of a building-If it’s not build with a proper foundation it won’t “work”; the building will eventually fall down. Similarly, if two people agree to meet somewhere at a given time; if one person doesn’t show up, it’s not about the morality of it, it’s about that what was to be accomplished in that meeting won’t be accomplished – it will lead to unworkability. I’ll give some of this blog post from the Integrity Dividend blog that says it better than I can.

Without Integrity Nothing Works – Tony Simon

Webster’s defines integrity as 1: incorruptibility 2 : an unimpaired condition : soundness 3 : the quality or state of being complete or undivided : completeness.

Webster’s defines work as: 1: activity in which one exerts strength or faculties to do or perform something: a sustained physical or mental effort to overcome obstacles and achieve an objective.

For me, having integrity is doing something as it is designed to be done and as it is expected by others to be done.  Let’s say you are going to do something and you are going to do it the way you want but not the way it is expected to be done.  For it to have integrity, you would simply let others know how you are doing it.  It may have consequences and an impact, but for me, it would have integrity.

The concept of “working” points to whether or not something is functioning as it is supposed to. Working means that whatever you are referring to is able to fulfill its mission. There is a neutral aspect in this.  We are not necessarily talking about high performance or the optimal solutions.  However, if something does not work you surely will not get to high performance.

I am not a financial expert; however, as a business consultant with a MBA, I am also not a complete dunderhead in this area.  Regarding the mortgage crisis and the subsequent financial products that were constructed from them, there appears to be a lack of integrity with mortgages being sold to and taken by people who could not pay them back.  In that, where is the integrity? In addition, the financial products that were subsequently constructed were not fully understood or known, yet they were counted on like they were known and understood.  Again, in this where is the integrity?  One could say our current economic status is due to a lack of integrity.

It is important to distinguish integrity from morality.  We are not talking about good vs. bad or right vs. wrong.  Rather, we are asking about whether something is whole and complete and can stand up independently.  Does the thing hold together?  In reality is what you see, is what you really have.

So as business owners, what can we do and where can we stand as we confront these challenging business times?  Personally, my integrity and the integrity of my business gives me a context to live by.  I honor my word and do not allow circumstances to get in the way of “how” I do business.    Instead, my values and my integrity guide my actions.

It’s really worth reading the whole post – I recommend it highly.

March 25, 2009

Landmark Forum on Canadian TV

Filed under: Breakthrough Results, inspiration — Tags: , , — landmarkeducationinaustralia @ 6:31 pm

A contact on Linked In tipped me off to this – Apparently a Canadian television show called Positive Living has a feature on the Landmark Forum/Landmark Education on Sunday night, the 29th. Looking at the Positive Living website, I found that the feature is already available on their website. Go to the Positive Living episode index and click on the ‘Landmark Forum’ episode on the right:

March 23, 2009

Being free from the decisions of the past

Filed under: Breakthrough Results, inspiration — Tags: , , — landmarkeducationinaustralia @ 4:46 pm

If there’s any one idea that encapsulates Landmark Education, and for that matter, all of personal development, it’s the idea that life doesn’t have to be limited by what has happened in the past – or, as the famous Gandhi quotations says, “To believe what has not occurred in history will not occur at all, is to argue disbelief in the dignity of man.”

At the personal level, the way it seems to me that life can become limited is by decisions we’ve made about past events that color our entire view of the future and what we and others are capable of. I was reading a clear articulation of this idea on Sunday, as a woman shared how she noticed this kind of limitation in her life during a Landmark Education communication programme. I’ve included a piece of her blog here because it so powerfully elucidates this idea.

Transformation never ends

One lady shared something and what she said hit me like a hammer blow and I thought that’s it that’s my point of view. It’s not ‘I’m not loved, I’m alone, it’s I’m not included, I’m alone’. As this hit me I had a picture of when I was very young and I saw how close my brothers were and I said ‘I’m not included, I’m alone’ and this has been my experience in every area of my life. Not feeling included. Although at 4 years of age I probably wouldn’t have said ‘I’m not included’. What I more than likely said to myself was ‘I’m not a part, I’m alone’. The power of that decision gave me a life where no matter what I tried to do I always felt that I wasn’t a part.

What I see now with perfect clarity is that my point of view has created it to be like that. I’m living with a family and I had it that I’m not included, even though they have made so many efforts to include me. I have it at college that I am not included, but this is the experience my point of view is giving to me. It has to in order to survive, it is not the way it really is. This is just such a huge insight for me and will transform the entire way I am with people and in groups. When this ran me even though I would try to include myself what was running in the background and will always run until it is distinguished is that I was trying to include myself inside a context of ‘I’m not included, I’m alone’ no wonder all of my efforts were doomed to failure and never brought the result I hoped for, leaving me feeing small separate and alone when surrounded by people.

When I think of the guy from the gym and how my way of being with him is that I’m excluded from his life even though the constant text messages and calls gave me all the evidence that it wasn’t this way – I just couldn’t see it until today. I’ve treated everyone and everything like I’m being excluded and it’s been horrible for them and for me. Viewing everything that happens through the filter of being excluded and alone has made for a lonely life. But I am so grateful that I have seen it now. I am so lucky in being given the opportunity to give it up and create something new and wonderful, a possibility for me of being connected and included. That point of view is always going to be there, it is like a trap that we create when we are young that becomes who we think we are and it acts like a trap in that we are caught within it and even when it is identified it doesn’t go away, the difference is that once it is identified it loses some of its power.

I assert that whatever self- development programme one does, whether it is with Landmark Education or whoever that this is the ultimate aim. Uncovering the game between the non-self and the self, or between identity and possibility. I also believe this to be the aim of all spiritual development.

I came into the house and shared this with the lady here and she gave me a huge hug and said how much they wanted to include me and for the first time I really heard it and knew that it was genuine and now I am upstairs writing this blog.

March 7, 2009

Coaching: the Courage to Find Freedom

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , — landmarkeducationinaustralia @ 12:55 am

All right, I recently ran a frivilous post about personal coaching, so I might as well put up a serious one. I recently was reading an interview with David Wood, who’s apparently a big deal in the field of personal coaching, having personally mentored 200 coaches. I noticed in the interview that it was seeing the enormous results people got out of Landmark Education’s programs that inspired him to become a coach in the first place. Here’s a bit of the interview (the whole thing is here).

Finding the courage to Find Your Freedom

He’s coached on national TV and radio. He’s been certified as a personal certified coach by the International Coach Federation in Washington, DC. He’s served as chairman of the International Coach Federation Publicity Committee in the US and founded a global coach training school called the International Coach Academy. On top of that, he’s presented at major corporations like Xerox, Ford and General Motors.

CHRIS ATTWOOD: David, thank you so much for joining us tonight. It’s really a pleasure and an honor to have you with us.

DAVID WOOD: Thanks, Chris. It’s good to talk to you. It’s good to catch up with you.

CHRIS ATTWOOD: For me, perhaps David’s most impressive credential is that he recently spent a month with Byron Katie at her Turnaround House diving deeply into the process Katie calls “The Work.” Some of you know my partner, Janet. Janet and I feel The Work is the most powerful process for undoing the beliefs that keep each of us from living a life of passion.

This series is focused around passion so, David, as we begin, would you share with us how your passions, the things that you care most about, led you to what it is you do today?

DAVID WOOD: Yes. I went and did a course at Landmark Education called The Forum, and I was pretty cynical. I was an actuary consultant, and I just thought self-help was a bunch of mumbo-jumbo. I looked around and saw these self-help junkies and said, “I’m never going to become one of them.”

CHRIS ATTWOOD: Famous last words, right?

DAVID WOOD: I know! What I found was that people were having incredible breakthroughs in just three days. Their lives were changing, and they were doing things that were completely unpredictable, like getting in touch with a father they hadn’t spoken with for 10 years, and like that. I thought, “Wow! This is great, but I’m still not going to do any more of these courses.”

As time went on I saw that the people who did the second course were even happier. They were bouncing off the walls with enthusiasm; they had lots of energy. I thought, “I want some of that,” so I did the second one. I found that I was accidentally coaching people. I didn’t really mean to, but I found people would get blocked and they’d be stuck.

They’d say, “I’m not sure what my goal should be,” or “I’m not sure how to do this,” or “I’m just too embarrassed to call this person.” I would just naturally be sharing what I could see. People were having transformations and really moving forward. I found it so fulfilling to help people, in particular to help them dig down and find their courage and face anything that they were scared of.

I really loved that, and I’m actually doing that. When I got a chance to train up as a coach specifically and take on a few clients with Landmark, I jumped at it. I said, “All right, train me up!” That’s one thing I’m passionate about: really finding the courage to face anything that you’re afraid of.

March 3, 2009

Employer Mellows after Landmark Forum

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , — landmarkeducationinaustralia @ 5:49 pm

Today’s review comes from a woman who blogged about her employer doing the Landmark Forum and the impact that it had on her and the other employees. It seems like this fellow mellowed out quite a bit:

I’m proud to tell you that I saw an immediate transformation in my boss. His way of speaking and thinking changed. Prior to Landmark Education, I’d say that he was a very brilliant but closed minded individual as it relates to him interacting with his employees. Along with the company that I work at, my boss is a partner in a few other ventures, which he had no time to fully participate in. Under the rule of one man, I’ve seen six employees either leave or get fired within a one and a half year period, and there has never been more than seven employees working at one time, including my boss and his wife, so you can imagine the stress of having to go through that ordeal. To date, the person with the most senority at the company has five years and I have two years. The other three employees have less than seven months, with the latest hiree having two months. The high turnover rate was a result of my boss operating under the, ‘it’s my way or the highway’ principle, believing that his way was the only right way.

My boss was in the office every day, which brought stress and tension with him. He wasn’t necessarily doing anything important that he couldn’t do from his home, but he wanted to watch us to make sure that we were doing our work, which created unnecessary stress for everyone. Not only that, but we had to have a list of the assignments completed from the prior week ready to present to him at our weekly team meetings. After his Landmark Education experience, my boss is no longer in the office everyday and he’s open to hear ideas from others. If we ask him a question now, we’ll hear the words, ‘do what you think is best.’ We’re now also able to have team meetings without him being in attendance, which is great. He has opened his heart to trust us to do our jobs without having to have the reigns pulled tight, which leads to a much less stressed environment. We still get stressed, but now it’s due to the nature of the business.

The irony of this story is that, one of the last two individuals to leave the company, which was the COO, suggested to my boss that he look into the Landmark Education. And because my boss made the investment in himself, a win/win situation has been created. The employees are free to operate in a pleasant environment where creatively can be released, and my boss has enough time now to devote evenly to his other ventures and spend more time with his family.

The woman also relates her own experience of the Landmark Forum and other Landmark Education courses at her Home based business blog.

February 12, 2009

co-creating the future

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , — landmarkeducationinaustralia @ 7:17 pm

This next post comes from what looks to be a cutting edge business consultant, a far cry from the usual personal accounts that I like to put up on this blog. But I think the author made some interesting points about personal growth and development that are worth repeating. Here are a few highlights of ideas the author saw from the Landmark Forum and Landmark Education that have influenced the author’s business methods.

  • These sessions overturned the idea that powerful, intimate, personal speaking could only occur in small private environments.
  • Magnified resistance is created by working for very long sessions and there is a corresponding relief as resistance was revealed as the false friend it so often is and people broke through it and their ideas bloomed.
  • There is flexibility for processes and styles of work offered by a very large group working for an extended period.
  • I witnessed the vitality of both the formal and informal cultures that sprung up and the aliveness of both to innovation and different ways of thinking.
  • If the task was inspiring enough there was sheer pleasure in taking time for yourself and doing your best in a challenging environment.
  • An inspiring invitation to a task well worth tackling that most people have some doubts they could accomplish at the outset.
  • The utilization of an extended period of time (two full days)
  • The working through resistance and using it as a source of breakthroughs/new thinking.
  • The encouragement of formal and informal cultures within the work group.

In addition to the importance of a powerful group dynamic, I am especially taken with the idea that people’s resistance to change is something that can be examined in the light of day, without drama, as an access to a powerful new way of thinking. To view the whole post, visit the co-creation website.

February 6, 2009

The Conversation is Growing

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , — landmarkeducationinaustralia @ 8:54 pm

I came across an interesting blog today that truly captured a man’s personal journey over time, including the role Landmark Education played in it, as the man created an entirely new life. Here’s a piece of this blog – There’s a lot more there, both before and after this excerpt, so check out The Conversation is Growing blog to read the entire thing.

Colette dumped me. I was heartbroken and this heartbreak even more intensified my questions about life. Sometime during 1994, a friend of mine, Mark Meritt, recommended that I take something called The Landmark Forum. The Forum is a weekend course put on by Landmark Education. It’s designed to impact the quality of life. Mark thought it might offer me some insight into what I was dealing with in my life, so at the beginning of my last year of law school, on Mark’s advice, I took the Forum and my education finally began. To be honest, I wasn’t instantly taken with the Forum. In fact, I didn’t get much out of that first weekend course. It was in other course – the Advanced Course – that I really began to see the possibility of transformation. Here’s the thing about Landmark (LEC), if you search the Internet, you’ll find a lot of information on LEC – both good and bad. In my experience, it didn’t answer all my questions and at times, I found participating with LEC to be extremely frustrating, but the education itself is extraordinary. I loved that it focused on real life and how to live. The “distinctions” of the Forum were designed to give you access to living, not understanding how to live. It wasn’t just the content, but it was the way in which it was delivered that captured me. It connected theory to real life in a way that no other education had ever done for me. In fact, the measure of the work was not how well it made you understand, but how well it had you living your life. It also got people talking about the real stuff of life authentically without a need for experts or textbooks. You could put your life at stake in a course and have it be transformed. So here was my predicament: four years of college at Cornell, one year to go of law school and there it was in front of me – what I wanted to do with my life (if you listen really closely you can still hear my father, “What? Are you kidding me? This would have been useful information about … say … SEVEN YEARS AGO”). I had certainly been exposed to self-help, but nothing ever like this, delivered in this way, with this impact. It had me firing on all cylinders. It focused on the questions I was most interested in, and it was all about making a difference in the quality of life. I’m not suggesting that other fields of study like psychology don’t have that same end in mind. Of course they do, but the field of transformation, in my experience, makes a difference like no other.

January 26, 2009

Being Right

Filed under: inspiration — Tags: , , — landmarkeducationinaustralia @ 4:50 pm

To me, one of the key ideas of the Landmark Forum is that much of what drives our behavior as human beings is the desire to be right – about everything. The following blog post discusses this theme, along with with the unfortunate fact that insisting on being right is a barrier to happiness. The legendary life blog has the whole thing.

As I travel this path I am creating in life, I have so much to be grateful for.

I live in the beautiful community of Healdsburg, California.  I have yet to have an experience with a single person here that was less than positive, and mostly, just incredibly wonderful and kind.  People smile, compliment each other…it seems that everyone truly wants everyone else to win!  Shiloh and I run around town in our Cowgirl hats and boots, and gets smiles, laughter, and support…it is amazing!

In the midst of all that I have to be grateful for…and that I am TRULY GRATEFUL for…I continue to have the need to “be right.”  In Landmark Education they talk about “being right” as the reason why we do so many things.  It is the innate need to be right that will have one, literally, be unhappy…one will kill their joy to be right!  You can see this in the context of the attraction movement.  If I’m “attracting” negative things, then negative things will come my way.  But this is just another way of saying that if my internal context is that “nothing works,” or things are “going wrong,” than that is what will happen…and, on one level, we will be glad of that!!!  Because we get to be right! And we will continue to attract those negative things, because it provides agreement with our world view.

The major problem with being right is that it usually requires someone else to be wrong…and in that space, we hurt those we care about and love.  I do this all the time.  In the midst of an argument or even simple disagreement, my need to be right outweighs my thought for the person I love.  Thankfully, the people in my life give me a break…give me time to step away…and I can usually come back seeing that I was just stuck in things being my way, that I was only seeing things from my perspective.  And I apologize…a lot.  And, I’m publicly thanking my loved ones for accepting my many apologizes!

So, my challenge to myself, and you, in living a Legendary Life, is to see those moments when being right is killing off your joy and your love.  And, for me, I’m committed to shortening the length of time it takes me to see that I’m stuck in my point of view.  My goal is to some day see it in the midst of the discussion, and thereby eliminate the need for so many apologies!!

January 14, 2009

Pretending We Don’t Need Anyone

Filed under: Breakthrough Results, inspiration — Tags: , — landmarkeducationinaustralia @ 5:36 pm

I think it’s a cliche, though a true one, that we go through life pretending that we don’t need other people, discovering occasionally that we are both happier and more effective when we ask for help and let us others contribute to us on a regular basis. I think the Landmark Forum has people suffer less by having them be more aware of this than usual! Here’s one woman’s experience:

Love is Free

I have this act of pretending like I don’t need anyone and I don’t need anyone’s help to get where I want to go in life. This is absolutely not true, I need everyone’s help to get where I want to go as well as to sustain myself where I am at. The course I am taking through Landmark helped me to distinguish this act.

I have been taking a Landmark course for the past two months. I have not been focusing on the assignments and have not been getting as much out of the course as I could be. I had a bit of an awakening to how powerful the Landmark Education is last night when someone from the course got up to speak in front of the class about what he is seeing in his life. This man talked about how he is in love and united with everyone. About how when we view ourselves as separate from others we cut ourselves off from the love that is available to us. Then he pointed at me and said, “I am the same as Patty.” It was terrifying and amazing and and something just clicked for me when he said that. (I was wearing a name tag and sitting front and center thanks). I realized he is right. When I cut myself off from other’s love, shield myself from being hurt, try to control situations, I am myself off from the love that is cascading out everywhere.

Today I gave myself a spiritual practice. Everyday, for the next seven days, I am going to ask someone for help in a place I need it as well as clean up where my act has possibly damaged our relationship. I am then going to email five people who are also in the course I’m taking, and are a part of my smaller group at the course, and share with them what I have cleaned up.

Aron helped me come up with this spiritual practice. He was the first person I cleaned up with, our relationship has been mostly nonexistent for the past few months. I apologized for pulling away from and shutting down on him. He accepted graciously and also apologized for some of his behaviors. Then I asked him for help with one of my projects, that project being creating a web page for the house we live in. It was a very happy making event.

And bonus. He let me pluck his eyebrows a little bit.

January 8, 2009

Day Three of the Landmark Forum

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , — landmarkeducationinaustralia @ 9:52 pm

Day three did not disappoint. I anticipated an exciting emotionally charged day and that’s exactly what The Forum delivered. While The Forum stays out of spirituality, it can not help but go there with the material discussed on day three. I got it — nothingness.

Sorry, if you haven’t done the Forum that’s cryptic I know… just ask your friends who’ve done the Forum… or better yet sign up and attend the seminar yourself. — Or you can always work with a coach… but chances are they’ll refer you to the seminar anyways. I found this to be a worthwhile experience at a reasonable price.

To read the whole ting, visit Paula Kirsch’s experience of the third day of the Landmark Forum.

Editor’s Note: Since I started putting this up, Kirsch has added a ‘last day’ post that includes her final reflections about the Landmark Forum – Here’s an excerpt – visit the link to read the whole thing.

There is much that can be said about the Landmark Forum. In my online research over the past couple of days, I’ve found that much has been said! This is my attempt to sum up the experience. It is only an attempt because from this point on every word I write, speak or think will be influenced by The Forum. I have not done my regular Standing Meditation since Saturday night… I will tonight yet before retiring to bed… and I half expect to find my Kundalini awakened by this experience.

I found the experience of The Forum to be transforming. You know “the voice” in your head… the one that never shuts up? Well mine shut up Sunday night and it’s been fairly quiet since then. Earlier today I was trying to analyze what caused it to “shut up.” (That got it going again for a little bit, by the way, until I realized what I was doing and stopped!) But I came to realize that it doesn’t matter how it works or why it works… the point is The Forum works! What matters is that there is nothing in the future… it doesn’t exist. What happens in the future doesn’t have anything to do with past performance… mine or anyone else’s. It is a blank slate, waiting for me to create whatever I want.

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