MJ McBride
USA
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Opening Doors in Omaha
Now, you have to understand - unlike New York or Los Angeles or San Francisco - Omaha is a pretty conservative place.
I'd been working for a large insurance company at their headquarters (also pretty conservative), for five years. About 4700 people worked in thousands of cubicles in my office. I came to work every day and kind of judged and evaluated all those people in all those cubicles and felt as though I didn't quite fit in. So I held myself somewhat distant and removed, did my work, and stayed pretty much to myself. Then one day, I traveled to another city, took The Landmark Forum, and my life began to change.
After The Landmark Forum, I began to see my fellow co-workers quite differently. I said to myself, “Wow - I don't listen to people!” And “These are extraordinary human beings!” Each person is unique. Each person has something to contribute. I had been somewhat oblivious to that. One by one, I began to know them and establish relationships. What a difference it made in how it felt to get up and go to work every morning.
I made a commitment to myself that I was going to bring The Landmark Forum to Omaha. My partner Caroline and I shared and shared Landmark with hundreds of people. As a result, they would register and then travel to Minneapolis, or Denver, or Kansas City to do The Landmark Forum because it was not offered in Omaha.
When our friend Troy Davis took The Landmark Forum, our project to have these programs here locally started to take off. We formed a team, started having Introductions (we had never had an official Introduction here - we had always just talked to people). Then, finally, The Landmark Forum happened in Omaha.
It was an extraordinary Landmark Forum. It was produced out of nothing. Two weeks before the program we had a production manual and that was it. No paper clips, no pens, no experience producing Landmark programs - nothing. Having seen Landmark Forums in other cities and seeing how the people that managed the seating and flow and microphones were so well trained, I had a bit of worry that we didn't have anybody like that, but we just kind of made it up as we went along and somehow it worked out beautifully.
Watching my friends, family, and neighbors sit there in the program and have the opportunity to have this experience was one of the most rewarding times of my life. My partner Caroline's mother stood up in front of everyone and said she wanted to acknowledge her three daughters. Well, she has three daughters - so, I thought I knew what she was going to say. But one of her daughters wasn't there, and it turned out that the third daughter she was talking about was me. It moved me and the entire room to tears. I know that parents everywhere struggle with how to respond when their children announce that they are gay, and how difficult that can be for their families. For Caroline's mother to have welcomed me into her family like that - well, it was awesome. For her to have the courage to do it so publicly I think really began to open up a whole new world of possibility for our relationship as well as for people in Omaha.
After The Landmark Forum, I began to see that there really was a common denominator of humanity in people that was quite wonderful. I found a freedom to express myself that I'd always kind of censored before because of the conservative climate here. Labels have kind of melted into the background for me - we're all just people who are enjoying our lives and loving our lives and creating an environment where each of us can find our individual and unique way of expressing ourselves. This new opening for me and my family, friends, and colleagues came directly out of The Landmark Forum.
Read more about Grads' Breakthrough Stories and Grads Making a Difference.