LCP Revisited

Dumagete, Philippines-. I was curious to find out how much of the Landmark Forum my friends at Little Children of the Philippines remember and use after 5 years.

“Hello dong!” was the familiar greeting I received entering the administrative office of Little Children of the Philippines. The head administrator, Carmenia Benosa, welcomed me into the air-conditioned office. We talked and caught-up and she rounded up most of the 8 Landmark Forum graduates that I had sponsored to fly to Manila, stay in a hotel, and take the Landmark Forum in May and September 2002.

After our group photos, I expressed my interest in checking on their use of their Landmark Education. Some agreed to meet with me for dinner. Thus began a series of mealtime lectures and informal seminars that I lead over the course of the next couple weeks with them on the island of Negros in central Philippines.

In my 1st dinner meeting it seemed they remembered the nice hotel room, the meals and discussions together. So I arranged a 2nd meeting to review the Landmark Forum syllabus with them. Only a few came to this review.

I quickly came to two conclusions. One, that it does not work to 100% sponsor people to attend the Landmark Forum; they have nothing at stake for their lives and so do not listen deeply enough to apply the Landmark Forum to their lives. Two, that without a follow-up 10 session seminar series structure, people will not expand the distinctions of the Landmark Forum in their lives, and that their past will simply come back and displace their Landmark Education.

I also began my awareness of the gross lack of Integrity inherent everywhere with everyone here in the Philippines.

Ultimately I came to see where I failed to be Responsible for causing their Landmark Education to persist for them. I gave-up on them, rather than persisting to find a way to represence them to what they had learned during their Landmark Forum.

So I arranged another meeting. I offered to take them on a weekend vacation where we would have serious discussions and inquiries. We went on a series of long bus rides, and short stays and finally I arrived at the realization that they were tolerating me so they could have a nice vacation. They had no real interest in Landmark Education, and were not enrolled in me as a Leader of Landmark Education. Enrollment was missing.

We meet at a shopping mall food court where I took responsibility and put in Enrollment. I apologized for leaving them without a 10 Session follow-up seminar and abandoning them after the Landmark Forum. They were touched and finally listening. I continued with a couple shares of breakthroughs I have gotten using my Landmark Education. I asked them what would they like to revisit or what aspect of their life they wanted to discuss. Carmenia was interested in Integrity as a way to improve communication and results in their organization and in dealing with low Integrity families. I gave a short direct discussion of distinction Integrity using bicycle wheel example. They were really interested. We discussed real examples in their inter-staff communications. They saw the value in usefulness of this distinction. We agreed to meet again.

In our last Seminar dinner meeting we met at Food-Net a favorite restaurant and found a nice table outside. I began with the Not Listening exercise from the Advanced Course and the Communication Assess to Power course. They were so astonished and excited. I then gave my personal focused practical basic seminar so I would leave them with some tangible useful distinctions. 1st I briefly revisited Integrity as a foundation for workability. Then I gave them my killer communication distinction I got from GK a Seminar Leader in Malaysia, that it is Communication that Causes Workability. Finally I gave them the ordinary reasonableness thinking vs. unreasonableness. Ordinary thinking is:
Good Reason + No Result = The Result. Versus being extraordinary requires Being Unreasonable as access to producing breakthrough results.

So I left that final meeting Empowered that I had been a Contribution. They were empowered with new distinctions. And we all had fun inquiring into the Being part of being human.