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Landmark Forum 001

First, I want to thank Bob for making this experience possible. I am about to go into
an intense three-day boot camp but have already gotten my first insight from a
meeting last night.
"Accept responsibility for how you are heard, not for what you say."
Duh. Not so obvious to me. I have gone my whole life assuming that I should put
what I think on the table and rely on others to triage, ingest, etc. So this is my first
big insight, the undertone is that your body language is part of how you are heard
and obvious impatience, which I have already been trying to curb, is a downer.
I will not return as Miss Congeniality, but I am certainly going to return vastly more
sensitive to effect rather than intent.
Landmark Forum 002
This is exhausting. It is also very worthwhile, and the course does NOT impose any
restrictions on going to the bathroom or taking an urgent phone call, nor does the
course force everyone to expose their innermost concerns. In a class of about 120,
there are ample volunteers for the training points to be made. At no time did I feel,
observe, or hear anyone else observe, that the course was over-bearing.
Day One focused on three big things:
01) Listening. All the obstacles to actually hearing what the other person is saying,
and especially the context in which they are saying it.
02) Rackets. All the mental and emotional baggage that is used to create stories
(excuses) for avoiding responsibility.
03) Change. Change is not transformation. Change is trying to do old stuff better
or different. Transformation is breaking free of old patterns and truly opening up, to
including clear respectful communications at all levels among all stakeholders.
The BIG surprise for me is that while this is benefiting me as Bob intended in terms
of being more effective as a team player at work, it has exposed the reality that my
entire marriage, 24 years, has been a study is avoidance of both responsibility and
communication.
Off to class. Learning to love double and triple espressos.
Landmark Forum 003
Day 2 continued to surprise, and also had two disappointments. Those first.
Disappointment #1: Viral marketing is interwoven into the course in a troubling
way. While the course managers have backed off on telephone calls and emails to
participants post graduation, and the forms allow for "no call" and "no email"
designations (I blocked calls and accepted email), the clear financial intent of the
course managers is to bring your children, your parents, and your co-workers into
the course, as paying participants in the future. The viral marketing also includes
frequent--too frequent--references to the Landmark Forum as the "starting point,"
and a constant "up sell" message to how you must take the rest of the series to be

Robert Steele robert.david.steele.vivas@gmail.com

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"complete." This is probably part of why this company has been banned from doing
business in France, Germany, and Sweden.
Disappointment #2: Over an hour was spent on the twin themes first of getting in
touch with your fear of everything, including fear of people, and then ending with
the "cosmic joke" that if you were afraid of everyone else, and they were afraid of
everyone else, then everyone else is afraid of you. This is scripted course and this
clearly works for them with perhaps 60-70% of the participants, but I was not the
only one shaking their heads during this portion of the event. Perhaps half the
people in the room were crying, some to the point of primal screamsthis may not
have been intended, but for me personally it was seriously at odds with the
preceding day and half that had increased my appreciation for strangers and how
interesting people could be if you opened up to them. This script can be improved,
in my view, a less primal endeavor, simply make the teaching points, have a twoway discussion, and move on. For me this was the low-point of the course, and also
totally unnecessary.
Now for the good stuff.
01 What really comes across is that "being right" blocks dialog, forgiveness,
apologies from others, and human progress. Combined with the pre-course insight,
easily a priceless re-orienting view for me.
02 Most "communications" are either resisted or accepted submissively, the
predominant feeling been one of dominating or being dominated. The course tries
to show a third path, one of hearing, interaction, negotiated dialog and win-win
outcome. This is what Danes are taught from birth.
03 Authenticity, accepting 100% responsibility for how your dialog with others go
(not allowed to blame others for being ignorant, slow, out of focus, etc), and focus
on "opening possibilities" rather than blocking undesired impositions or outcomes,
are the core value of the course and very applicable to me.
04 Getting right with your parents is "root" in this course, along with identifying
three events in your life that define what does work for you--a childhood,
adolescent, and adult event, where you experienced great emotional pain (e.g.
being left at boarding school, parents divorcing, losing first love) and then creating
"solutions" that could include shutting down, being super obsessive about your
process, etc.
05 For me, apart from the surprising focus on how important being right with your
family is to being right with your co-workers, the greatest value of the course has
been the constructive safe "space" within which to interact with complete strangers
in a way that leads very firmly to a wonder at the fascinating diversity and
complexity of the human species, with each and every person, however "other" at
first appearance, ultimately being "one" within a community of human to human
contact.
They say that today (Sunday) is 60% of the value of the course. More on Sunday
tomorrow.
Landmark Forum 004

Robert Steele robert.david.steele.vivas@gmail.com

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Sunday has been packed, with half the time of little interest, the other half of high
interest.
The morning was spent listening to individuals who had issues with their parents or
former wives who had followed the very compelling urging of the coach, to call and
make up. Tears often involved. The evening was a rah rah marketing session that
was a bit off the wall (limitless possibilities shouted out by individuals called on,
almost scripted, but over all too weird for a business conference) -- this ended up
being a personal issues conference. I left with the strong feeling that the evening
session (prior graduates invited) was a warm-up for the Tuesday night session that I
am not attending, where "the system" strives to extend "invitations" to all those
brought to the Tuesday night "graduation," i.e. enrolling family, friends, and coworkers in the Landmark Forum and ultimate the full series.
The good stuff on Sunday boiled down to this:
1) In addition to "rackets" that have been scripted over time to reject personal
responsibility, each individual also has strong suits that carried to excess can
interfere with group dynamics. Strong suits develop in relation to three specific
occasions, one in early childhood, one in adolescence, and one in young adulthood,
in which one is confronted with being all alone or somehow wanting, and invests on
the spot in trying to never have that happen again. Where rackets are focused on
avoiding responsibility, strong suits are focused on self-protection in an unsafe
world.
2) Integrity defined as clarity of one's word and honoring one's word to others.
Excellent emphasis, certainly pertinent to me, on the importance of honoring one's
word across ALL domains (family, social, business, academic), not something that
can be honored selectively.
3) Useful reiteration on key points from yesterday, that all people, virtually without
exception, are likable if one is open to the possibility; and that excuses are just that,
excuses, clarity in dialog should focus on facts and reality, not rackets and excuses.
4) Lose the anger. Past occurrences are just that--past occurrences. They have
nothing to do with one's possibilities or circumstances today, UNLESS one is saddled
with this anger or baggage from the past. Cannot run fast in the present if weighed
down by baggage from the past. There is an unstated cross-over of anger from
parents to bosses, from siblings to co-workers.
5) Lose being tired. Tired is an excuse. It is not authentic. Each person is
responsible for themselves, for creating possibilities that inspire them to the point of
being energized.
6) Are you happy in life? If not, why not? YOU are responsible for doing something
about any source of unhappiness, NOT repeat NOT the source themselves. Later on
the point was made that in any relationship lacking love (or in the office, respect),
YOU must take responsibility and invent the possibility, not expect the Other to do
so.
7) How are you treating others? What is preventing you from being patient,
gracious, from opening possibilities with others rather than closing them down or
shutting them out or making excuses?

Robert Steele robert.david.steele.vivas@gmail.com

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8) If you create for yourself a clean slate -- nothing from the past or even nothing
from the present created or imposed by others matters -- then you are free to define
your own possibilities, create your own reality, and your word -- your commitment to
actualize your word.
General Observations
The instructor, Kathy Bosco, is gifted, and during this third day delivered two
"performances" that summed up the typical life as going back and forth between
rackets and posturing, leaving very little room for actual productivity, each of which
has over 120 people roaring with laughter. She was very effective at delivering the
scripted instruction.
The combination of the script, the personal elicitation by a gifted moderator, and
the two-person exercises (great care was taken to ensure every row had an even
number of seats) interspersed throughout, was completely effective at achieving its
intended purpose.
There were three anomalies that I noticed, I describe them without judgement:
1) There was intense observation of the class by multiple and often changing staff,
and many notes were exchanged in what appeared to be a very structured preordained manner. I have no idea what was done with these notes, but a back office
for the class did exist.
2) There is a very good chance that the course was leavened with at least ten if not
twenty "ringers" disguised at students but actually past graduates and now
volunteers whose assignments were two-fold: to fill in at the microphone if there
was a lack of volunteers willing to be skewered by the coach; and to sit next to and
elicit information from individuals that were "in the stands" and not committing to
the Landmark program including implicitly buying into the need to take follow-on
courses.
3) I have never in my lifetime seen a course where everyone changed seats after
every break. It was almost as if half the class was being told to sit is a specific
place, or to link up with specific people and follow them into the room. In
retrospect, the series of people that sat next to me remind me of a CIA elicitation
exercise where each of ten people is tasked with getting one insight, they are all put
together to form a mosaic of vulnerability and need.
We had substantive useful homework both nights (Friday night and Saturday night).
There is no question but that the course is helpful to personal introspection and to
acquiring better habits in dealing with others, in seeing how important it is to take
responsibility for how others "hear" you, not just for throwing out one's raw
thoughts and actions. I took the homework very seriously, and ultimately texted my
three boys, with the two older ones sending very nice texts back. Not at all sure
how to address the marriage, but for the first time I both recognize the depth and
breadth of my irresponsibility, and the possibility that there may be mutuallyrewarding pathways for discussion with the wife I have neglected.
As annoying as the constant marketing was, including a hard push to insist that
each participant sign up for a "free" series of ten sessions in their home area
(almost certainly intended to bridge them into the follow on "Advanced Course,") I
do credit the Landmark system with backing off on EST neo-Nazi restrictions on

Robert Steele robert.david.steele.vivas@gmail.com

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leaving the room, keeping cell phones, etcetera. At no time did I feel unduly
pressured. In my view, there are no legitimate complaints to be made about this
course. Below are a number of useful links selected to show the course as it is
serious, with its own aura and culture.
I do NOT recommend the course as a business solution. Although many businesses
have bought into the Landmark Forum, and pay for many of their employees to
attend, my own experience suggests that for business purposes the good stuff could
be gotten down to a one day course, homework, and then a half morning roundtable. This course is marketed as a business solution (and also as a personal
solution, I estimate a third of the participants were on their own time, two thirds
funded by their employer), it ends up being about personal relations with ones
loved ones rather than about business productivity. Although there were a couple of
references to work situations, the overwhelming nature of all conversations, the
scripted lectures, and the over-all tone, were about personal relations with family
and spouses. It is all relevant to what one brings to the workplace, but not focused
on the workplace.
I am certain that Landmark Education could provide a one and a half day solution if
commissioned, and if there were a need in the future that might be the way to go.
Personally I am grateful for the chance to attend this course, and particularly to
attend it in Seattle. I will do what I can to bring the fruits of this experience into the
office. In my specific case, this was assuredly worth the cost to the company.
Online Information About the Landmark Forum
2012 Landmark Education Home Page
2012 Landmark Forum Benefits Page
2010 Landmark Forum at Business Week 2010 Landmark Forum at New York
Times
2008 Landmark Forum at Huffington Post 2003 Landmark Forum at The Guardian
Course Leader Comments
The above was provided to the course leader (Kathy Bosco) via email with fulsome
praise for her delivery and what I got out of the course. I have clarified two areas
where she has pointed out misrepresentation, to wit, no one paid to be a
participant, no intention to cause people to cry. I did not intend to imply the first,
and mistakenly suggested intent rather than outcome on the second.

Robert Steele robert.david.steele.vivas@gmail.com