Have you heard about the Landmark Forum?
Landmark Education courses are NLP kinds of experiences that make you feel that you are powerful! And guess what… it works for many people and is criticized by a few to be a cult.
Landmark Forum provided me with a different perspective, and I must say that I learned a few concepts from them that are helping me become a better version of myself.
Landmark courses make you aware of distinguishing the distinctions of life. Well, everything has a flip side, too, and Landmark courses are not an exception; not all the “Landmarkers” are extraordinary as they claim… but If you have an open mind and learning attitude, you can learn a thing or two from them.
Landmark Education offers various courses which Course Leaders lead, and it is usually organized on weekends or non-office hours.
The basic one is the Landmark Forum. The course is led by a Forum Leader who shakes off your existing beliefs about life … for me, it was a unique experience and offered me the awareness that I did not have before.
They say that the Landmark forum is the second most adventurous experience in the world (according to them, the first is ‘Walking on the moon’). Ok, this may be a cheesy line to market their services, but for me, it was certainly adventurous! Landmark Forum brings transformation at the level of self.
In summary, it offers a good perspective to revisit what matters to you in your life and has the potential to transform 95% of your life for a simple reason. Everything you believe to be right is challenged, and when you beat the challenge, you become better!
Then comes the Landmark Advanced Course, which completes the remaining 5% of experiences you did not get while doing the Landmark Forum. Integrity – wholeness – is their central theme for transforming people at the level of the group. Landmark Advanced Course takes about 3.5 days (usually on weekends), and you feel really good about yourself when you complete the course.
There were certain group-level experiences that offered some distinct insights to me:
- Wax on Wax off exercise, for example, taught me to give my 100% commitment to my coach without any questions in my very early stage of learning.
- “All Mcdonald’s” song was impressive. When a lady was sharing how she was victimized and assaulted at her workplace, a funny All McDonalds song was being played in the background – it offered a perspective that you create your world, and everyone’s world is different!
- Sell Your Stuff – was a welcome exercise in the endeavor of being shameless to sell your stuff – initially, it felt awkward. Soon it offered a level of confidence that probably a seasoned head of sales would carry.
I’d say that if one wants to learn from any such experiences, s/he sure would by focusing on what they are good at and deliberately ignoring their marketing stuff.
Landmark Advanced Course offered how a group can be transformed to achieve a greater goal.
Then comes SELP (Self Expression and Leadership Program) – which brings transformation at the community level. I enrolled for this course but dropped out. Not because the course was not good but because I “got” the pattern based on which they created the courses.
I was invited to attend a Seminar called “The Happiness Seminar” – for a good fee. I paid. I attended the seminar, but before going there, I did an experiment: I wrote down a rough outline of how they will lead the seminar based on my experience attending Landmark Forum and Landmark Advanced Course. I also said that if they follow the same pattern, I’ll drop out of SELP!
And it happened – they designed and concluded the seminar in a way where everyone felt that they “created” their happiness and they were not victimized.
So that was the end of formal learning for me with Landmark, and I’m grateful to them for the experiences I got while attending their courses. If you want to know more about them, follow this link: https://www.landmarkworldwide.com/.
