My take outs from Landmark Forum & my honest review (2018-2019, India)

I recently attended the Landmark Forum Program. It was a 3 & a half days (14+14+14+3 = 45 hours) program with 300+ participants in the auditorium. 

Before joining, what I heard was: It is not a problem-solving workshop, it is a program which will transform your life completely. You will have the power to deal with anything (Relationship, Career, Business, etc.)

Many reviews also say that this program is a brain-wash for weak-minded people.

After attending the complete program sincerely, with open eyes and an analytical mind, I have taken out some important points from it. As usual, there are some associated pros and cons with it. I have seen people who derived benefit from it and are currently very happy in their life. 

On the other hand, some people who are disappointed felt like they wasted a huge sum of Rs. 18,000/- in 3 days. 
[ Note: Any kind of snacks / high-tea / lunch / dinner is not included in it. ]

You are reading this blog means you are also interested to know: 

"Is it worth doing Landmark Forum?" 

NOTE: 

• These are my most honest and real views on the Landmark Forum. 
• I am not doing this to advertise or to defame the organization. 
• To know my take on it, please read the blog completely until the end. Don't try to take out the partial view from it. and if you come across any doubt or something is not clear in my writing, feel free to ask it in comments.

My view is divided as:

         ü     Things I liked about the forum

         x    Things I didn't like at all

         v     The Conclusion

Now I will take you through the points which are really useful and have the potential to make your life happy and in this forum's language: it transforms your life.

Let's start with the points which are really useful...

These points have the potential to make your life happy. ( In Landmark forum's language, It will transform your life. )

1.       Always be honest to yourself (Don't lie to yourself)

2.       Don't lie to your loved ones.

3.       Don't carry weights (Anger / Grudge / Jealousy / Regret) from past incidents. 
Each day, one or other incidents happen with us, which we keep unresolved and avoid responsibility to clear it out. We continue life carrying anger, grudge, jealousy, regret, etc from that incident. This keeps on increasing the dead weight we carry. 

In the forum's language, We carry Rackets all the time (every moment).

Racket = Anything that is unwanted and yet persists.
                 Reaction to a real or imagined threat.

In doing this, we get payoffs like:
      ü  Be Right / Wrong 
      ü  Dominate / Avoid domination   
      ü  Justify yourself / Invalidate others 
      ü  Win / Lose 

We enjoy these payoffs because these payoffs are juicy and make us happy in some ways. But at the same time, we need to pay the cost for it and the cost is Aliveness. 

Aliveness is measured in the following parameters:
      ü  Love / Affinity 
      ü  Vitality / Well-Being
      ü  Self-Expression
      ü  Satisfaction / Fulfillment

▸ If you want to feel aliveness in your life, you have to stop consuming juice of payoffs. You can't get both. You have to make a choice between payoffs or Aliveness in your life. 

4.       Call your family and friends and tell them:

ü  What you were pretending to be / thinking about them / doing to them / showing them...

ü  But what actually you did...

ü  Now, you are sorry for all those things...

ü  And now onward you will be honest and better towards them...
(since now you understand their point of view)

ü  And express how you can see new possibilities for a better life with them...

5.       Accept the people around you as they are.  
Try to connect to their point of view. Doing that will help you understand them & their actions better. This will help you in accepting them as they are. 

6.       Always accept what life throws at you. (Because life doesn't give you choices)
Some people are stuck with some past or current or some inevitable future events (like someone's death in the past, someone's incurable disease which will lead to death, etc) that are going to happen in their life. They feel powerless because they really want to change those events but they just simply can't and stuck with those.
 
It's very clear that we can't change those events but we can change our mindset for sure. and we need to start accepting the what life throws at us. Because we really don't have any choice other than accepting it and move on. 

7.       Life is meaningless: 
Life actually is a meaningless entity itself. It is us who try to put meaning into it based on our perspectives. We decide, if something is achieved then we are successful in life otherwise failure. This becomes the reason for happiness and sadness eventually. 

We need to know the fact that it's us, who has given meaning to our life.

8.       Don't live with preconceived notions, begin each day with new possibilities.
We start our day with our mind full of preconceived notions based on our past. We make ourself believe that if we failed at something in past multiple times then it will again lead to failure in the future and we stop doing/trying that. 

In other words, we let our past control our present and future. This limits the infinite number of possibilities and we lose the power to make our present & future the way we really want.

9.       You are nothing but your word only. Always keep your word.  
As we have always heard from our elders, we should always keep our word. Doing this will strengthen your integrity. Every time you fail doing that it damages your integrity. and you start losing power to control/make your own life

10.   Winning Formulas:
Winning formula is the quality you possess which gives you the result. We all have mainly 3 winning formulas. (Different people can have different winning formulas) 

Some of the Example of Winning Formulas are:

▸Hard Working   ▸Honest   ▸Intelligent   ▸Stubborn   ▸Analytical   ▸Nice Person  ▸Manipulative,   etc... 

Whatever winning formulas you have, you are stuck with those for your entire life.

Your winning formulas give you results in your life. But at the same time, they become the reason for your sadness as well. You must be thinking, how?

You can't get rid of winning formulas. Even if you want to…

ü  If you are a hard working person,
you can't stop working hard. Even if you are on holidays...

ü  If you are an analytical person, you can't stop being analytical.
If someone asks you to stop being analytical, you will start analyzing why he must have asked you to do it...

ü  If you are a nice person, who always be nice to others,
you can't stop the same and end up killing your own desire/dreams for the same...

These are some examples showing, how your winning formula becomes the reason for your sadness (dissatisfaction / depression / disappointment, etc.)

Now the question is how can we change those?

▸ The answer is "We can't change our winning formulas". The more you try to change it, more you will end up being the same.

▸ The only thing we can do is, Find your winning formula and be aware of the fact that those can't be changed. Similarly, try to figure out the winning formulas of your loved ones and don't expect them to change those... because they simply can't.

11.   You break down in between, Tell yourself it's a break-down.
Ask yourself what you want to achieve, and start again...
In simple words, never give up till you convert a break-down into break-through.

12.   There is no tomorrow.
We always procrastinate things. We always convince ourself, We will do it when the time is right and we end up never doing it. But there is no tomorrow. Whatever you want to do, do it now. Show your commitment to it. Start now. Be Decisive.

▸ All the above-mentioned points are the facts that we have been listening to from our childhood. The problem is that we know them yet we don't follow.

▸ In the span of 3 days, we listen to these things again and again and somehow a very positive environment is created around us which helps us gather the courage to follow these. This ultimately helps us to regain our lost confidence, happiness, peace of mind, etc.

Let's talk about the part which I didn't like at all...

In the Landmark forum, they give us assignments in each break and at the end of each day, we should definitely complete those assignments sincerely. Those are beneficial to us for sure.

▸ But as a part of the assignment, they ask you to call your loved ones (Family, friends, people around you, etc.) and tell them what problems you were facing earlier, how problematic your life was earlier and that now your life has been transformed completely. You have to ask them to enroll for the same.

▸ Convince them (your loved ones) that they also have many problems in their life and they can't see it. You are their well-wisher and you won't stop until they enroll and transform their lives.  It's your duty to take a stand for your people and make them enroll for the course. And when you do that, it means you have got the break-through in life and your life is getting transformed completely. Otherwise, your assignment is not yet completed and you haven't achieved a break-through yet.

▸ Apart from enrolling others for the Landmark forum course, there is one more thing which creates a negative image of the Landmark group, from 2nd day onward, they begin to advertise their next course (Landmark Advanced course). They say that after doing the Landmark Forum, your life would be transformed but it's temporary and as you would go back to your normal life around normal people, you will again feel powerless and lose the transformation which happened here. The only Solution to this is Landmark forum Advanced Course. The course would teach you how to continue that power and keep on transforming your life always...

They insist/force you to enroll for the advanced course on this day 3 itself.

You have only 2 options:

1.       Either enroll for the advanced course then and there itself.

2.       Keep on explaining why you don't want to enroll.

ü  They will make you feel foolish / a person without commitment / the one who procrastinates things / a person who can't take decisions / and what not...

ü  You have to explain / justify same things to multiple people (around 10 at least) again and again...

▸ They will try everything in their power to make you pay and enroll then and there only.

▸ I can say, rather I must say, this is the most commercial thing I have seen till date and believe me, I have seen many things in my life...

▸ The commercial aspect is the only and most negative point of the Landmark Forum. Other than that there are good lessons they provide you with, as these will really help you to re-gain happiness / joy / peace of mind and many more positive things in your life (as per their words, Forum will transform your life!)

CONCLUSION: “Is it worth doing Landmark Forum?”

Now the only question which is important is "Is it worth doing Landmark Forum?":

▸ I have taken above mentioned good lessons from it and implemented most of them in my life...

▸ It added one more good experience in my life and the most important thing is, I don't have any kind of regret doing it.

▸ If you are facing any kind of emotional, mental or any other problems in your life in which you are stuck since long and you are not able to figure out what should be done, then you can go for the landmark forum. This will help you for sure. Provided, you attend the course and gather the courage to do all the assignments sincerely.

▸ But stay safe and away from above mentioned commercial aspects.

▸ It should not happen that, you got free from all your past related problems and now, You are stuck with Landmark Forum after doing it's basic (first) course…

▸ If you want to attend it, keep your mind open, take the maximum out of it and make your life better and at the same time, keep your eyes and ears open so that you save yourself from being someone else's puppet...

Thanks & Regards,

- Akshay P Daga

[ Edited by Shefali Arora ]