Landmark Forum: some more

It has been awhile since I posted anything. I figured I would give a quick update.
I have found that what was taught does stay with you, but you definitely need to think and remind yourself about it; otherwise you get caught up in the real world. Which it really is. there is the idyllic world that you create for yourself and then there is reality. And when I say reality, I mean a world that makes it hard to remain positive. Because you will find quickly, that the initial 'high' that you get from the forum disappears unless you pony up and go to other classes; where, as always, you are encouraged to bring others to sign up.

Landmark Education (cont):

Been awhile since I posted anything. I have not gone to any more of the seminar, was taking too much of my time, but they keep calling me.
Also, I keep getting emails from them, reminding me to invite people.
Once again, the stuff they talk about is cool, but they need to lay off the marketing.

Ladmark Forum: Seminar The First Day

It has been a bit since I posted anything here so I figured I would go ahead real quick and let you know that I did go to one of the seminar classes.
It seemed to be rehash of what was done in forum except that it centers on one particular aspect of it. Basically, take one piece of the forum and spend 3 hours a week for 10 weeks discussing it. The other seminars may not be like this one, but this one was this way.
I do not have much time since I need to do my real work, but I do want to add that the structure is very similar to the forum, in a room with no windows and microphones and sales pitches. We were even told that part of the seminar was to learn how to speak to people about the forum, that shows us good leadership (according to them), to me it was how to market properly for them.
Ok, sorry for the short post. will give more detail at a latter time.

Landmark Forum: The Tuesday Session

Ok, the long awaited Tuesday session.

Let me start with saying, I went to this as a guest prior to doing the forum and I WOULD NOT recommend it to anyone who has not done the forum. The first half of it is one big sales pitch to get you to sign up for the forum. After you sit in the large room and they go over what the forum is, they then send you to smaller rooms in groups where you get a "taste" of what the forum is.

I left the small group room when we where asked to practice filling out the registration forms...how ridiculous is that?

So let me say again, do not go to the Tuesday night as a visitor, it completely soured me and when I left I said I certainly never would do something like that. It took a number of weeks for me to even entertain the idea of doing the forum again since doing that.

That said, now I can tell you what it was like from the other side.
Being a participant, the first half of the Tuesday night was the same as my previous experience, it was a pitch to get people to sign up for the forum. The second half was broken down into two things: 1) discussing more about what you learned and 2) trying to get you to sign up for the advanced course (actually quite a bit of time was spent on this).

So in conclusion, what did I think about the forum. It was extremely interesting and definitely worth doing. If someone told me they wanted to do it I would support them in doing so, but I would never invite people to any of the nights not would I attempt to pressure them into doing so.
You do leave the forum with kind of a high that does wear off and I believe that they use this to get you to keep coming to other classes. Now is that a bad thing, not really, how is it any different than people going to Church or temple or somewhere else to feel good. The problem I see lies in where you do not make it a part of your life, but you make it your life. I met people there who feel the same way I do, but I also have met people that have done the forum twice in 3 months. I am not saying that their way is wrong, because it is entirely up to them how they chose to live their life; but I do not want to be beholden to Landmark Education to make myself "feel good" or to get through life.

So one more time, in conclusion, it was a great experience and I would recommend it....just be carefull they are a cult you know and they made me write this (OK, just kidding). Seriously, it was a great experience.

Since it has been awhile since I did the forum, it is now time for me to do the 10 week seminar that is included with the price of the forum. I went to the first one of these last week and have the second one tonight. I will keep you informed about them later. let me just say, they told us one of the things that we will learn in the seminar is how to talk to people who have not taken the forum about the forum (somehow that makes us better people, I think that may be one of the sections I choose not to agree with).

Talk to you later :)

http://landmarkforumexperiance.com/

Working on a better version of this here: http://landmarkforumexperiance.com/

Landmark Forum: Third Day

So I was up all night on the second night thinking about the day and speaking to my girlfriend and father on the phone. Basically, your mind is pretty much racing (OH, and a quick aside, I am set to go to the first of the 10 week seminars tonight, not really looking forward to it, expecting more sales pitches, and the weather is to nice out, don't really feel like being motivated to go, but I told my girlfriend I would go with her).

So on the third day what do we do? We do an exercise that allows us to think about our fear. I guess people got different things out of this exercise, basically you relax and close your eyes and you are told to think of the thing you fear to death. I think this was supposed to be some form of hypnosis or something, you closed your eyes, the guy counted backwards, etc, etc. It really did not for me other than give me some quiet time to think about what we were being asked to focus on, however, other people where crying uncontrollably and really just going on and on. I almost felt like I was doing something wrong, but when it was over I spoke with others and they pretty much had the same experience that I did. But what did I learn from it (and this is just what I took from it, everyone else may have gotten something else), but I got out of it, that unless it truly can kill me, nothing needs to be scary because you can always get through it. The other thing that you got (I guess after the tell you) is that everyone else is just as scared as you are in life.

After we did this exercise we learned the meaning to life, or so to speak, it is 4...no just kidding, it is that there is no real meaning other than what you put to it. So stop going around trying to find the meaning to life and just enjoy the ride (that is my take).

After we did all of that, we had a really big sales pitch to sign up for the advanced course and to invite people to Tuesday. We must have spent an hour talking about signing up for the advanced course (I hope these seminars are not that way). And then we basically spoke about how to apply what we learned.

Ok, that was kind of quick, but gives you the gist of what we did. Next time I will cover what we did on the Tuesday and why you should never invite anyone to do it; yet if someone said they wanted to go to the forum I would say good for you and encourage them, but they would have to be the one to make the suggestion that they wanted to participate.

Landmark Forum: More of the Second Day

Wow, I never thought that this would be this difficult. I thought I knew exactly what I was going to write, the format it would be, etc, etc. But, as time goes by and I get further and further from doing the Forum, it becomes more of a blur. That does not mean that the tools I learned are forgotten, but I cannot remember exactly what order things took place any more and things like that. But let me say, I do know it was on Saturday night that I got it (not got some you dirty birds, but got it).

In doing the homework from Saturday I spoke to my father on the phone for about an hour and a half in a way that I have never before and then spoke with my girlfriend on the phone till about 3:30 AM or so (see, they do use sleep deprivation to brainwash you :) ). After speaking on the phone with my girlfriend I realized the following:

1. I could transform my life at any given moment in time. I could do it once a year and set new goals, or 20 times a day if I do not like what is going on in my life.
2. What the forum leader was saying did not really matter, meaning I did not agree with everything that he said (in particular that I need to invite people to come on Tuesday in order to guarantee that I have a break through....what a bunch of BS). But rather than sit there and get upset or mentally have an argument with him in my head that distracted me from everything else, I just said to myself "I do not agree with him, and what does it really matter what he has to say any way, I am not here to gain his praise" (OK maybe those where not the words I used, but you get the gist of it). Believe it or not, at one point he asked someone at the microphone if they wanted to have a breakthrough with him (meaning the leader), and I thought to myself, why do you need to have a breakthrough with the leader? What does he really mean in your life, why put so much importance on what he says, remember he just wants your money (ok, maybe not, but it keeps people interested if I say that). So in essence, if I do not put any meaning to what he says, I will not get upset when he says you need to bring people or sign up for another class, why?, because it does not matter what he says.

This is becoming a big run on bullet point, but I wanted to add that at one point on Sunday someone was going on at the microphone about something and the leader was pressing them to invite people on Tuesday, so I just watched the interaction and it actually started to take on the feeling of watching TV. I distanced myself from the conversation and watched just like watching a sitcom, I had no negative emotion, it was just pure entertainment.

3) I also learned at this point that I only live once and need to do what makes me happy now, because I only have the one life to live, that does not mean be selfish, but pursue things that make me happy and enroll others to help me get there (it is always more fun taking a journey with someone else).

4) I also learned that there really is nothing to be worried about with anything, why, because unless it kills you, you can always bounce back.

Ok, enough for now...gotta run. I will continue later...thanks for your patience.