Share with a friend:

Hideo Ogura
(pictured right) Japan

See what other graduates are up to:

Read about Grads' Breakthrough Stories
See profiles of Grads Making a Difference

Featured Grad Site:
Visit a site created by
graduates*:

ILovePossibility.info

*Landmark may link to sites that graduates have and will rotate the sites that we link to from time to time.

Creating "Wa" in my family

Hideo Ogura, Japan

I grew up as the only son in my family. I was a bit selfish and arrogant. I was one of three children in my family growing up and now my wife and I have three children. We have two daughters and one son. My children call me an “instantaneous water heater” – an old man who would instantly get steamed up about trivial things. I didn't notice that that's how I always appeared to people and that that's who I was until my participation in the Landmark program.

What I wanted from participating in the Landmark program was to create stronger family ties in the Ogura family and to have more fun and “Wa” (harmony) in my family. This result did happen, although the road to get there was uncomfortable for me because I had so much invested in “looking good.”

After the course was over, I very much wanted my family to do the course so I started to share with them. My children formed an alliance called "we will never do that course." My wife felt pretty much the same at the time.

One day I realized that it was not the course that was the problem; but that it was who I had been in the past that was the problem. My family members were saying "no" to this because I was the one that was sharing it. On the day that I realized this, I told my family very strongly to do this course. My first daughter spoke up against me for the first time. If she had done that before I had participated, I would have interrupted her and say don't talk in such a way to a father. But now I listened to her complaint for 30 minutes. That was my first time since I had my own family that I was able to listen.

Tears welled up in my eyes and the words I spoke were "I am sorry that I was that kind of father." I cried and apologized in front of my family for the first time. Then my first daughter simply asked, “When is the introduction to the course?” When I let my family see my vulnerability and shared myself with them for the first time, my first daughter participated. My first son and wife also participated.

My second daughter participated as well. So, now everybody in my family has completed the course and we are such a great family. Everybody in my family is expressing themselves always, having power and our unity has become strengthened. I got a true family that I really love – this is the best and the biggest result.