Communicating about The Landmark Forum
Communicating about The Landmark Forum
An opportunity unlike any other
Sharing the Benefits of The Landmark Forum
The people who take The Landmark Forum
What is The Landmark Forum like
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Landmark Education
It is likely that you chose to be in The Landmark Forum because a colleague, friend, or family member shared with you the difference it made in his or her life. In fact, 90% of the people who have participated in The Landmark Forum have done so at the invitation of their family and friends.
Whether you completed The Landmark Forum recently or some time ago, you have probably found yourself on occasion wondering about the best way to effectively share your experience with others.
You may have found yourself struggling to find the right words or wishing you could talk about The Landmark Forum from various angles or dimensions. Or, perhaps, you've been looking for a way to speak about the program effectively, a way that captures the possibilities you see for others.
This information is designed to support you in your sharing of The Landmark Forum by presenting a range of ideas, language, and tips for answering key questions people considering The Landmark Forum most frequently ask.
Because the fundamental principles upon which The Landmark Forum is based are relevant to so many different areas of life, people who first hear about The Landmark Forum tend to understand it within familiar or existing categories, such as anthropology, psychology, or sociology.
People primarily understand something new in terms of what they already know. When you begin your conversation about The Landmark Forum, you may want to keep that fact in mind.
For example, while Landmark is an educational organization, the programs it offers are distinct from most educational programs in two ways:
• The Landmark Forum poses questions and issues that, for the most part, are not
addressed in traditional education. They are the kinds of questions that we all
have, questions like: how to be effective in our relationships; how to operate
at our peak performance; how to communicate so that we elicit the best in others;
what is behind our beliefs, our choices, and our actions; and, perhaps most
important, who and what we are. These are fundamental questions that are key
to shaping the power and the fulfillment of our lives.
• The Landmark Forum differs in its approach to education in that it is nonlinear.
Traditional education is typically linear, or additive, in that you study and learn,
always building upon your prior knowledge. The Landmark Forum is a systematic
approach to nonlinear learning. An analogy might be the way some scientists work.
They dwell in a problem, an issue, or an area in which they want to have a
breakthrough. They've already done all the preparation work, obtained key
information, and are now bumping up against solutions, answers, and new questions.
Then there's an “all-of-a-sudden” phenomenon that happens. When this happens, a
new level of clarity occurs. Real ground is taken and something is made possible that
was not possible before.
The technology of The Landmark Forum brings about, in a systematic way, extraordinary breakthroughs, without an investment of two or five or 10 years. It allows people, in a short time period, to build this capacity for themselves and to expand it over time.
Given that individuals have unique interests and commitments, people will listen to what you have to say with their own lives in mind - from what's important to them. Our guests find it useful to be introduced to the range of benefits offered by The Landmark Forum:
• Dramatic increases in ability and overall effectiveness that leads to the
accomplishment of extraordinary results.
• Deeper understanding of, and an enhanced ability in, communicating and relating in
both personal and professional life.
• Greater sense of confidence and self-esteem as well as an ability to meet and take
on challenges for which there are no easy answers or solutions.
• Greater freedom to live life to the fullest, to risk what we already know or have for
what is possible, to step outside of habitual ways of acting and thinking, and to
appreciate the richness and diversity of life.
• New power and commitment to make a difference in the quality of life and to
contribute to others, to our communities, and to our society at large.
Daniel Yankelovich, chairman of DYG, Inc. as well as a noted social scientist and public opinion analyst, as well as a leading researcher of values and future trends, said in his analysis of a study of Landmark Forum participants:
“More than seven out of 10 people have found The Landmark Forum to be one of their lives' most rewarding experiences. To me, this suggests that The Landmark Forum addresses many of people's most profound concerns - how to improve their personal and professional relationships, how to be a more effective person, how to think productively about their life and goals.”
We have found, in our research, that numerous kinds of people participate in The Landmark Forum, including:
• People who are not satisfied with reaching a particular plateau. They see life as a
continuing challenge, an ongoing process of learning, whether it be in their ability to
communicate and relate more effectively or go beyond their current levels of
performance.
• People who are curious. They like what they see in and hear from their friends, and
they want to find out about it for themselves.
• People who have a high interest in shaping the course of their lives.
• People who are interested in giving themselves a certain advantage or edge in dealing
effectively with, and even embracing, change.
• People who are interested in living life fully; in making the right choices and pursuing
what is important to them.
Profile of Participants in The Landmark Forum
The Landmark Forum is done in a group setting. One of the benefits of being in a group is you see yourself in others. The group dynamic also accelerates the process dramatically, and it shortens what might normally be a much longer inquiry.
Most of us are accustomed to looking at our lives as a continuum. From year to year we improve, we are better people, we get better at communicating, we expect to be a little bit more productive next year than we were this year. We look at life as if there were a predictable trend upward. The Landmark Forum provides an opportunity for a breakthrough. By a breakthrough we mean a nonlinear, unpredictable result - a future that wasn't going to happen.
The Landmark Forum is conducted as an “inquiry,” a focused dialogue between the instructor and the participants into what is possible in our lives, in being human.
The men and women who lead The Landmark Forum are highly committed and extensively trained. The training program that qualifies them to lead this course includes 3-7 years of full-time, rigorous, and specialized study.
The Landmark Forum takes place over three consecutive days and an evening session (generally Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Tuesday evening). Each full day begins at 9:00 a.m. and usually ends between 10:00 p.m. and midnight. Breaks are approximately every 2-3 hours, with a 90-minute dinner break. The evening session generally runs from 7:00 p.m. to 10:15 p.m. (in certain locations, from 7:30 p.m. to 10:45 p.m.).
View a video Introduction.
You can make a substantial contribution to your guests by understanding and appreciating their points of view, and by listening to their questions, interests, and concerns:
• Use your own experience to both share what it is and to clear up any misconceptions
they may have.
• Let them know that because of the way The Landmark Forum is designed, people
are able to apply it to whatever they are working on or interests them. The magic of
The Landmark Forum is that people bring it to who they are and leave with results
tailored to their own unique commitments and interests.
• Ask your guests to look for areas in their lives where they'd like to have a
breakthrough - something beyond just an incremental change or an upward
trend. You may want to share your own examples.
• Let them know the basic facts about Landmark and The Landmark Forum. Let them
know The Landmark Forum room is most often set up in a classroom-type format
The programs are most often held in conference centers, university auditoriums, or
in-house facilities. Please familiarize your guests with the tuition. You may also want
to familiarize yourself with how often The Landmark Forum is offered in the city you
are in, and you may want to let them know the dates of the next available Landmark
Forum if they are interested.
Your center has brochures and other materials about The Landmark Forum as well as regularly scheduled introductory sessions to which you can invite and bring your friends.
Headquartered in San Francisco and owned by its employees, Landmark Education offers programs through its worldwide offices that are innovative, effective, and immediately relevant. These programs challenge conventional perspectives and decision-making patterns and provide new tools - even new use of language - for effecting significant change and shifting the very nature of what is possible. As a result, participants can see new possibilities for effective action in everyday matters. People are able to achieve higher standards of excellence, and to think and act beyond existing limits or paradigms.
The ideas, insights, and distinctions on which Landmark Education's technology is based, and the results it has produced, make Landmark a leader and innovator in the field of training and development. The work of Landmark Education is the product of extensive research and development in individual and organizational effectiveness and communication. The benefits of this research and development are embodied in the programs of Landmark, and offered in both the public and private sectors through a unique, fully tested method of learning.
A fundamental principle of all the work of Landmark Education is that people and the communities, organizations, and institutions with which they are engaged have the possibility not only of success, but also of fulfillment and greatness. It is to this possibility that Landmark and its work are committed.
The Landmark Forum is the foundation of all the programs offered by Landmark Education. The Landmark Forum is designed to bring about a fundamental shift or transformation in what is possible in people's lives. This transformation is not a one-time event, but an ongoing access to a previously untapped dimension of creativity and effectiveness. The Landmark Forum provides a technology that enables participants to think and act outside existing views and limits - both in their personal lives and relationships, and in the wider communities and areas of concern in which they are engaged.
In many cases, people who have participated in The Landmark Forum have also gone on to participate in the three subsequent programs in Landmark's Curriculum for Living to further train, develop, and enable themselves to be in action in the world as their vision, and effective in making their vision real.
Landmark's Curriculum for Living is offered in more than 100 cities around the world. Landmark also offers many other programs, workshops, and seminars designed to address areas of specific interest, such as family and communication. The number of people who participate in these programs annually makes Landmark one of the largest, most relevant and diverse “campuses” in the world.