Jeanette Dorner is a Landmark Forum graduate and a participant in the Team Management Leadership Program. She is also the Salmon Recovery Program Manager with the Nisqually Tribe in Washington State. The program she has created, “Joyful Tribe,” has led to $3.5 million in donations for resoration projects in the Nisqually watershed that help revive salmon populations. The projects have included the contruction of logjams that raise the water level to the nearby floodplain, and the return of dead salmon to the waters to provide nutrients for younger salmon and nearby vegetation.

Part of the project has involved a huge tree planting project near the watershed, since salmon thrive in shady conditions. This year, over 19,000 trees have been planted in the Nisqually estuary as part of the project. 

Dorner has used her team building skills in the program to coordinate a powerful team of people to manage all the programs and volunteer activity, increasing her staff from five to seven this year.

To read more about the salmon resoration efforts in the Nisqually watershed, visit the Eatonville News web site. 

CAST is an organization created by graduates of the Landmark Forum in Oklahoma through taking the Team Management Leadership program. The organization supports a variety of programs that support peace in different communities. First CAST supported Pinwheels for Peace, where thousands of students across Oklahoman made pinwheels to celebrate peace and cause peace within themselves. Another project undertaken by CAST was to raise awareness and money for Invisible Children, an organization that has been helping refugees and bringing peace to Uganda, where the war between the Lord’s Resistance Army and the Ugandan Army has displaced an estimated 1.4 million people. The money raised has gone directly to a school in Northern Uganda. Later CAST took on the World Neighbors Hunger Banquet. World Neighbors is an organization working to end hunger, disease and poverty in developing countries. The group has also supported a multi-cultural fair and April’s earth day recyclathon.

Landmark Education graduates Kathleen Gibbs and Kay Farjadi have used their participation in the Team Management Leadership Program to Create Joy to the World, a non-profit organization that provides microcredit loans for women in Ghana, West Africa. Already close to 100 women have benefited from the program. Their goal is to raise $1 million to ensure hundreds of new microloans as well the economic success of the whole area they are working in. Joy2theWorld is also working to develop other programs that might benefit local communities and local environmental conditions. For more information, go to the Joy to the World web site.

C.K. Lin, a participant in Landmark Education’s Team Management Leadership Program and Associate Director of International Research Advancement at University of California, Santa Barbara, has assembled a team of visionary leaders, researchers and educators who are committed to building high-impact enterprises on the cutting edge of Technology and Education.

This team came together earlier this year in Taiwan, thanks to the sponsorship of six universities there, to have the first international Convergence of Global innovators conference–A series of lectures for 300 Taiwanese innovators addressing everything from nanocomposites for photovoltaic devices to synthetic materials for in-vivo diagnosis and treatment of diseases. These subjects may seem esoteric, but they have impacted a variety of key scientific endeavors, including the next generation of computers being made by IBM.

The conference series which began in Taiwan is designed to bring innovators together across oceans, borders and disciplines to discuss the challenges facing the world today. The Convergence of Global Innovators is dedicated to this mission because they believe that researchers can accomplish more by working together and that change happens when ideas are matched with means. Meetings have happened so far in Taiwan, British Columbia and Singapore and a meeting in China is being planned for later this summer. Here are some of the specific objectives of the Convergence of Global Innovators:

• Transforming international collaboration into a competitive edge
• Inspiring the next generation of research
• Fostering the global mindset of higher education
• Obtaining a deeper understanding of tomorrow’s technology

For more information on these technologies, go to http://globalsolutions2008.com/blog, or join the global innovators at http://www.ucsb-cogi.com.

It started with surfing and a guy named Trevor.

He had no legs below his knees and asked me to carry his surfboard at the beach one day. I walked across the sand carrying our boards to the water. He crawled beside me on all fours. We had a great conversation.

As we talked, I was moved by the normality of it all. So often, those with disabilities are held up as “inspirational” and “special.” What Trevor’s listening gave me was a profound feeling of normalcy; we were just two guys going surfing. We talked about the waves, the water, his job, mine. By the time we got to the surf I felt comfortable enough to ask him about his legs. “I was born without a tibia or fibula,” he said, referring to the bones in the leg. And with that, we hit the waves. That was the only time I met him, but our conversation made a lasting impression.

A few days later I was watching the news and saw a report about Iraq War vets coming home with disabilities. After war and injury and now with civilian life, it struck me that these men and women must be feeling anything but “normal.” From that, Operation Amped was born.

Now in its second year, Operation Amped kicked off with a three day event (August 10-12) in Southern California where surfers share their love of the ocean with Iraq War vets who are now missing limbs as a result of their service. Twenty soldiers, sailors and Marines will be coming from Palo Alto, Texas and San Diego for a weekend-long surf camp sponsored by Billabong, Universal Pictures and Chipotle.
The possibilities of the event are freedom, transformation and fun. In Iraq, these vets were told they were fighting for our freedom.

As surfers, we can’t think of any greater expression of what they fought for than the freedom of surfing itself. If they are feeling somehow constrained by public opinion, their circumstances or the challenges of life, this event will give amputees the opportunity to enter a totally alien environment and see that anything is possible.

This year, Operation Amped is going national… and international.

But a few weeks ago, our milestones weren’t being met and we were struggling to find funding, food and leaders. I was distraught and worried. Then I got some advice from my coach, Gail. She told me my game didn’t have to look a certain way. What I got was I was trying to do it “right,” the “normal” way. Once I gave that up, things started to happen.

One of our leaders, Dave, announced that Operation Wounded Warrior, a co-sponsor, is looking at our project as a trial run. If it goes well, OWW will take Amped to other cities. It’s also looking at taking vets to Costa Rica to surf!

On other fronts, my foodie friend Michael decided to round up the chefs he knows to donate meals. And my friend, David (you know, the one who has declined ALL my Landmark invitations), has raised $6000 to help us meet our goals.

Now Operation Amped is right on track, already providing freedom, transformation and fun even before the first vet rides the first wave. And no one has benefited more than me.
By sharing freedom, I got freedom myself.
– Tom Tapp, Team Los Angeles

My name is Lucy Heavens and I am 36 years old.
I have a company called Juicy Lucy Designs, and I design and
manufacture greetings cards, stationery and gift products which are
sold in the U.K and in other countries around the world.

I did the Landmark Forum in April 96, and have participated in
numerous Landmark programmes since then.
When I did the Landmark Forum I was an unfulfilled,
frustrated primary school teacher. My dream was to set up an Alternative
School, as I was disillusioned with State Education.
I just didn’t believe it was possible to do this as ‘who would take me
seriously? I’d probably have to be over 40, or have done a Ph.d …or
be a MAN!!!’…..When I did the Forum I realised that anything was possible….
and within 18 months of completing it I had set up The Lighthouse Learning Centre
in Brighton. It was the first learning centre of its kind in the U.K.

Also when I did the L.Forum I was in a rather shaky new relationship, the way it was
going, we would have almost definitely split up. After doing the course our relationship
was transformed. We have been together for 11 years, married for 7 and have a 2 and
a half year old son.

I also transformed my fear of flying; before the L.Forum I swore that I wouldn’t
fly again. In the course I got present to all that I was missing out on!!!
Before the course I didn’t mind as ‘I wasn’t an adventurous person…I’ll just be happy
taking the Eurostar to Paris’….After completing the Forum I thought…’I COULD be an
adventurous person!’…For our honeymoon we went around the world for a year long trip,
visited over 20 countries including Central and South America…and took 13 flights.
It was a completely magical year,and it was all made possible out of this work.

I have loads of other miracles I could share with you….

At the moment my Team Game in the World is ‘Fulfilling my childhood dream’.
When I was 6, my dream was to be an authoress and live on a farm.
In January I moved to Wales (a miracle created from the Causing the Miraculous Seminar!)
to a house called ‘The Old Farm’. It seemed fitting to take on fufilling this dream….( I have been
procrastinating for over 30 years and doing so in earnest for 7 years.) Out of this course
I have done something with my writing which I never normally do when I am writing….which is
ASK for HELP and allow myself to be contributed to!
I am just completing my first book and intend to have it printed in time for Christmas.
It really feels like a dream come true….I can’t explain the relief of finally doing something
that I have planned to do for all that time, but have been resisting!!!!
The hardest bit of it all was giving up the resistence…after that it was easy!!!!
I created the possibility of being ‘completely free to play’… pretty useful when you are writing
a fairy story!!!!

Sweet Waters is a South African community dying of AIDS. Currently 196 homes housing in excess of 500 children are parentless and without adult supervision. These orphaned children live in a culture being shredded by AIDS.

Love Is All We Need is a charity committed to diverting what will be a catastrophic outcome for children, communities, a country.

The Hope Centre is a haven that houses children affected by and infected with AIDS and reaches out into the Sweet Waters community taking measures to care for these children.

Presently children in the community are being raped and robbed, living in homes ill-equipped to meet their needs and struggling to survive against insurmountable odds. They are unable to attend school due to lack of funds for fees and uniforms putting their futures in jeopardy.

At present The Hope Centre has set up a mobile mother scheme where 8 local women between them visit 90 homes a day. They earn a box of food and the equivalent of £10 a month. This is a positive step to making a difference.

Sponsor-a-mother is a project being set up to fund the existing mobile mothers and 12 more in the next 2 months. The aim is for these mothers to be earning the equivalent of £70 a month to honour them with a decent wage.

Other immediate projects that Love Is All We Need is taking on for this community include a campaign to have 500 children to start a new school year in January 2008 and to provide each home with a small, safe cooker.

Ultimately we are in the process of working towards building a village inside the community that we believe is a long term solution for restoring hope, love and security.

This describes one community.

THE VISION:

To utilize resources locally from the community eg. People in the community making bricks and being employed to build.

The project is child-led!! Children here funding the project there are leading it in conjunction with the children in the Sweet Waters community eg. The children decide what shape they want their houses to be.

While the village is being built there are skills around building that are being taught. Mark who will oversee the project is an experienced construction worker and has built in Africa before.

A real sense of community is restored inside of hope and possibility for the future.

The homes are safe dispelling childrens fears of what will come in to them from the night under ill fitting doors and through cracks in the walls.

My name is Catherine Beagley, and when I joined the Team Management and Leadership Program, I was working as a Sales Manager in an real estate agency.

The first thing I did was to resign from my job, where I was working 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, with a phone stuck to my ear often having 6 phone numbers ringing at the same time.

With the same company I created working for 3 days a week for the same money which freed me up to create my own business. Within 6 months of starting I have a team of 5 people working for me for free (for now anyway as they are soooo inspired), and have had agreed in principle funding of 3million pounds.

My life works, there are ups and flats but never downs.

Not bad for 9 months training!

YIPPEE !!! I have won my game, with freedom, ease and barely a drama in sight!!

I got a team of 6 people together to do a parachute jump, raising money for a brighton based homeless charity. The original goal was 20 people jumping to raise £2,000 all together. We ended up raising £3,300!!! between just 6 of us!!! A Game well and truely won.

The money is providing the homeless service users to do activities they have never had the chance to do, and self development workshops and life skill seminars. This game has been sooo much fun, I got to throw myself out of a plane, at 12,000 ft, with my husband and some of my best friends and raise a great sum of money, creating opportunities for others.

What had my game happen with complete freedom and ease was enrollment from the very beginning and then the whole team being accountable and causing eachother. Thankyou to the whole team for who you all are, I acknowledge you all, my life continues to suprise me how amazing it is and you are all a big part of that now and always will..LARA.

My name is Rowan Andrews and when I started the Team Management and Leadership Program, I got to see how the point of view I have of myself, that ‘I’m just a loser and my life will never work out the way I want it to,’ had total control over me. And while it was really upsetting to see, it was at the same time, liberating.

I also saw for myself all the structures I had created in my life, that ensured I fulfilled on being that point of view.

One structure that soon showed up was in my work. I had a business that was not doing very well, and really had no future, wasn’t going anywhere, and had very little income. When I looked at my company’s board I saw how it was a structure to fulfil on my business being a loser – because I was the only person on it!

So after my first weekend on the programme, I created the possibility of being a winner and enrolled a team of winners to join my board. So now I have a group of board members who advise me and help me run my sports marketing business and they are all winners. They include one of the UK’s top marketing experts, a top city lawyer, the chairman of one of the largest privately owned public relations companies, and an Olympic gold medallist! Since I’ve had that team in place we’ve overhauled the brand, our proposition, and the services we provide. We’ve also won several substantial and prestigious pieces of business, and have created a firm financial footing going forward. And I’m now working on the most exciting work of my career and I’m a winner. It’s amazing!

My name is Paul, and I am an Inspector in the Metropolitan Police Service. In July 2003 I was selected for the National Hostage and Crisis Negotiator’s Course - a result that would have been inconceivable prior to my participation in the Team Management and Leadership Programme. My interest in becoming a Hostage Negotiator was fostered through my participation in the Landmark Communication Programme and in particular in my training in listening what another person is saying, to get behind the words, to hear their concerns and to be in their world. I formed a team with other MPS Negotiators to support and coach me through the application process. I successfully completed the National Course in November.

Since then I have been called in to negotiate on two occasions: one where a young man had climbed onto the roof of a three-storey building and was threatening to throw himself to the ground, and the other where a woman had barricaded herself into a house with three children and was on the point of setting it on fire. Both incidents were resolved without bloodshed.

This is just one of many examples of the way that bringing my experience of participating in this Programme into the workplace continues to have a profound and positive effect. In another project the outcome has been a measurable, sustained reduction in serious assaults on the streets of my district of South-East London, and improved public reassurance.

My name is Konnie Daniel. I was working as a Make-up artist in films and television before I started the Team Management and Leadership Program in December 2002.

Work was the only important thing in my life. I had hardly any contact with my family back in Germany. Having a family myself was not possible because the world is a scary place and you have to be independent and self contained so you can’t be hurt.

In the Program I came to see it is a very limited life I had allowed for myself. I created that, over the course of the year I could give up my internal story that ‘this is the only way to live my life’ and let other people in and allow them to contribute. Now I have got my family in Germany back and I see them on a regular basis. I have a Partner I love and we are having a baby in October.

I am still working as Make-up Artist, but now I have love and contribution from other people in my life.All this was not possible for me before the course.

My name is Ian Sykes and I am a 39-year old software engineer. Although I have played electric guitar since the age of 15, before I participated in any Landmark courses I had not played in a rock band. Indeed I used to tell people that I didn’t want to play in a band, professing that I was not talented enough to do so and that “I did not want the hassles that accompany fame”. What was actually the case was that it had been my dream for years to play in a band but I’d been too confronted by a fear of being in the limelight.

By the time I started the Team Management & Leadership Programme (TMLP), I had gained experience of playing in a rock band, formed as my project from Landmark’s “Communication: Performance & Power” (CPP) course. That band, a trio comprised of myself and two other musicians I’d met on the CPP course, had come to an end when the bass player (who was also one of the lead vocalists) had returned from the UK to his native Northern Ireland. But not until after we’d played a gig at London’s Imperial College.

During TMLP I set out to either join or create a new rock band playing Britpop and indie music, rehearsing within 30 minutes drive of where I lived. I was convinced that forming this band would be far more difficult than it had been to form the first one because I knew that, this time, other Landmark graduates were not eligible to be band members; I would have to pitch myself on the “open market”. Nonetheless, within about three months the band, comprised of myself and four other musicians, was complete. We were rehearsing variously at three venues, each of which was within 30 minutes of where I lived, most of the music we were playing was indie or Britpop and the sound that we made collectively was inspirational. From this I saw that I can ongoingly be fulfilled throughout the rest of my life by creating whatever I set my mind to.

My name is Virginia McLean, I am 34, a writer, historian, public relations consultant and Adjunct Professor at a University in London. I am also adopted, and this is my story.

When I did the Landmark Forum in November 2001 I decided to look for my birth mother, something I had denied that I wanted or needed to do. My birth father had died before I was born so finding him was not an option. I took the painful step of telling my mother and we ended up going to find my adoption files together. It looked liked it would be easy to find her, we had so much information now - names, dates, addresses, their University.

I gave the job of tracing her to a researcher. Over one and a half years later and we hadn’t found her. The facts my birth mother had given to the adoption agency were not adding up. She had lied, most probably about their names. I decided it was impossible, that I would never find her, that there must be some deep dark secret that had had her lie.

It was whilst on the Team Management and Leadership programme, coaching on the Communication: Performance and Power course that the course leader Naomi invited us to take on “derailing” our lives. I told her that I wanted to find my birth mother but didn’t even have her name. She invited me to take it on, standing in anything’s possible. So in my fourth quarter of TMLP I took on finding my birth mother and being in communication with her within 3 months as a team game in the world, using the distinctions around team, enrollment and structures for existence that you learn in Communication: Performance and Power.

The possibility I invented was of being vulnerable, generous and courageous and I really had to be that. I enrolled professors, students, journalists and even the registrar at Cornell Law School to help me. Using the address where we knew the courts had written to my birth mother I persuaded Cornell Law School to trace all the people who had lived there in the late 1960’s. One of them was my birth father. My birth mother had used his Christian name as her surname and his mother’s maiden name as his last name. Once we knew this, all the pieces fell into place and I was able to find him, still alive and living in New York. Then through him I found her. It took just under 3 months.

I met my birth parents six weeks later in December last year and we now see each other regularly and are creating an extended family in which I have 4 parents. My birth mother and brother have met my parents, and they are welcoming my new family as theirs.

I am clear this would not have been possible without the distinctions of the communication programme and the rigour of the TMLP. I am now doing Team 2 and using this course to fulfil on my dream of becoming a successful author, film maker and mother. I am also creating a network for adopted people and all of their parents to share stories and provide mutual support called ‘In the Same Boat’. This is a course that makes you face your fears to enable you to live your dreams.

My name is Derek Dearden and I have been running my own business, developing software and designing computer systems for over twenty five years.

I would have claimed to be entirely content with my life - after all, I could generate a comfortable income doing work that I enjoyed and arranging the structure of my day to suit myself. But the reality was that most of the projects I was spending my time on did not really satisfy me.

When I was listening to a friend of my son playing a piece of music that he had composed, I suddenly thought “This is much better than a lot of the music you hear on the radio or can buy in the shops, but what chance does he have of breaking into that world? And how poor a deal would he get if he did?” I realised that with today’s technology, it would be possible for people like him to put their music in front of a Global audience. I created the idea of a website where musicians could just put up their music and it would be available to all the world. I saw that it would be possible to offer this without creating an artificial scarcity for the sake of the publishers’ inflated profits, and that there could be a simple and fair scheme for channeling the income back to the musicians. What would have been predictable before I joined this Program was that this would have remained merely a nice idea that I was sure I would do “someday”. With the training, the coaching and the support that it provides, I got my website - beatbiz.net - up and running within three months of joining and I’ve now got about a hundred musicians from all over the world contributing to it and hundreds of visitors every day; and this is only the beginning!

My name is Tom Barwood and I am an educational presenter.  So some people may think that the magic of the Team Management and LeadershipProgram finishes when you leave the course. Wrong! Once you have the technology you can use it to create amazing things.

A year after I had finished the course I was asked by a school in Tonbridge, Kent if I would be prepared to do a presentation to all of the Year 11 students in three of the High schools in the town. This was a total of five hundred and eighty sixteen year olds, from three of the least academic schools in the town.

Initially I simply wanted to say No but instead I chose to say Yes.

Using team management and leadership I managed to create a day in which we educated, informed, entertained and fed all of those students - and all within budget.

I got an airline pilot and an Everest mountaineer involved. Also the mayor and various other people - but the most important thing was that the clients were delighted, my team really enjoyed it, I felt like a true leader - and it didn’t feel like particularly hard work. The kids themselves were superb and there was not one incident despite it being one boys school, a girls and one mixed - all of whom apparently don’t like each other.

The experience lifted my company and my view of myself as a presenter to an entirely different level.

My name is Per Hoglund from Sweden. After joining the Team Management and Leadership Program I found that
bit by bit I things were moving on in my life at a pace that was not there before. In my second quarter I transferred to the Team in New York City since I created a job there teaching yoga.

I made a committment to start an ongoing yoga project in a prison in New York. I did not know anyone there but as I started to communicate my vision to people they got enrolled and supported me. 5 weeks later I had made my first appointment at Riker’s Island - the City Prison of New York located on an island north of Queens. I started to teach there once a week to young people between 16 and 20 and the response was very, very positive both from the inmates and the staff. These young people were very sweet, innocent and full of hope in their hearts even if their behavoiur and language said the opposite. I went there on the same day for about three months and soon enough the guards reqognized me and referred to me as the “yoga-man”. I am now in touch with one of the inmates once a week to support her and her mother in her going to college. I also enrolled one of my friends, another yoga teacher to continue the project as my visa expired and I left USA.

What amazes me when I look back and realize what an impact this had is that it wasn’t very hard or difficult. I was only being in communication about a thing that inspired me and doing the things I said I’d do and what came out of that will always be with me in my heart.

This is the home of the TMLP Times, a quarterly publication created by participants in the Landmark Education Team Management and Leadership Program.

November 2007 Issue