Imagine a world where energy is concentrated into the creation of health rather than in battling illness. It is time to move from a world of duality to a world of unity fusing to its inner beauty. Communing with our inner self opens us to a magnificent world of wisdom. Imagine a health centre reflecting our own inner beauty.

I have a dream that has lived inside me for a long time, I carry it preciously, and as the veil lifts I feel in my very inner self that it draws near to being a concrete reality. I have no longer any doubts. Moved by the vision of creating health, I registered in the Team Management and Leadership Program in February 2007.

My name is Suzanne Raynauld. I have been trained as a nurse in community health. The profound desire to take care of others has always guided my actions. Important health problems with my shoulders brought me to Reiki, a sacred art of transformation, letting life’s energy circulate within us. I became A Reiki Master in 1991. As the Director of the Centre de Santé-Reiki Lanaudière, founded in 1992, I am devoting my life to Reiki in the Japanese tradition. After so many years in nursing spent facing illness day-to-day, and with my desire to leave as a legacy a world of peace and love, I truly got that my mission is the creation of health. But how to realize that dream?

Then a vision came to me—that of creating a model centre for holistic health inspiring a world of health. What a vision! I have been working on this project since 2005 and I have gathered around me a team of 7 persons, a group of natural health practitioners and business people meets on a regular basis. The long term goal—within 5 years—is to implement a pilot project based on the Centre’s operations and to develop an extraordinary environment which will allow each and everyone to take charge of their own being and create their own health. We are currently creating a unique business model which can be franchised and exported. Our product is the creation of health at every level, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.

Our services include Reiki, massage therapy, reflexology, energy harmonization, memory integration, EMF Balancing technique, psychotherapy, life coaching, business coaching, human potential development, Yoga, MLC method, palmistry, herbal therapy, homeopathy, naturopathy; aromatherapy, health bistro, painting and works of art exhibitions, meditative gardens, library, light-therapy, meditation, healthMusic, sauna and others,…

I let myself be inspired by the vision of sacred space where individuals, organizations and the entire collectivity discover the access to their inner power. The moment has come when together we can build, when each of us is the carrier of this New World, when it is time to make this a reality first within us then letting it spread like a contagion of love to those around us and to the whole planet. Learning in each moment to celebrate life within us and around us is the beginning of endless beneficial change.What could be more marvelous!

– Suzanne Raynauld T1Q4 Team Montréal

My game in the world is called “The Gift of Life” and it is a blood drive. This game is a gift that keeps giving. The blood drive has a special meaning for me and my family. From May 16, 2005, through May 27th, 2005, my daughter, Amanda (now 13) received transfusions totaling 21 pints of blood. Community Blood Center was the center in charge for Amanda to receive Directed/Designated donations from family and friends, and it was also the center in charge of providing blood transfusions from strangers. It was reassuring to know that my daughter was able to get her family and friends blood transfused into her and just as reassuring was to know that because of unselfish strangers who gave of themselves through blood donations, my daughter had all the blood she needed. I was there living in the hospital for over four weeks with my daughter, other patients and their family. I witnessed and experience how precious blood is.

I can remember vividly how much Amanda’s little body needed blood to survive surgery. I can remember when Amanda was the first time in intensive care and how much her little body needed blood to sustain and survive. I remember how every that blood that was in a bag hanging next to her was been transfused into her body and giving her body what she needed.

How important it is to have Blood Drives and get the community involved in them! I contacted one of the directors from Community Blood Centers. His name is Luis and I asked him to be on my team. Then we set a date, created our team, and played.

I said I wanted to contribute and assist in a way that I could give back to my community and the world. I wanted to say thank you to God, to life, to the world for all that was provided to Amanda to her friends and family. I wanted to say thank you to all the lives I saw that were saved by a pint of blood.

This pint of blood didn’t stop giving once transfused it kept giving and giving and it still is.
My Amanda is living proof that a blood donation is a “Gift of Life” and it continues to live on.
By unselfishly giving one pint of blood, one person assures another person or even three that they will get through.

So it’s a game that touches, moves, and inspires me and inspires me to play for the world!

– Maria Perez, Team Florico

Becca Carr-Hopkins and Andrea Howe met by chance at a TMLP classroom in London. Andrea was visiting from Washington DC, and thought it would be fun to experience TMLP in a foreign country. Becca, one of 53 London TMLP participants, stood up at one point and shared about her Game in the World. In an instant, a global connection was created: both realized they were using technology to transform difficult step-family dynamics into experiences of relatedness and love. What followed was a blossoming friendship, as well as a shared commitment to make a difference for step-families all over the world.

Becca hatched the idea for Step by Step at her second TMLP weekend in November 2007. Her relationship with her soon-to-be step-daughters — Olivia, 13 and India, 9 — had taken a nose dive and Becca saw that weekend just how numb she was; in fact, she realized she’d given up on things being any different. The girls had decided they wouldn’t be coming to the wedding (Becca’s to their dad), and they were increasingly reluctant to come and visit on the weekends.

Standing in the possibility of Love and Communication, Step by Step was born. Becca and her partner each have two children from previous relationships. Becca’s ex-husband had already remarried, so her biological children had a step mum, step grandparents, and step aunts and uncles. In a conversation with her ex’s new wife, Becca saw a common ‘what’s so’ with being a step mum that just doesn’t get talked about. “Lecia had felt rejected by my kids, just like I had felt rejected by my partner’s kids,” Becca recalled.

Furthermore, Becca discovered that the children were facing common challenges. “It turns out that my kids had had the same stuff going on as my partner’s kids, my sister’s kids and my friend’s kids,” added
Becca.

With the childrens’ encouragement, Becca created Step by Step: an Internet-based resource for step-family members to share their experiences. “The kids decided they wanted to build a website so that other kids around the world could find out what being in a step family was like and be reassured if they were worried.”

The website www.stepbystepguide.co.uk was built by a family friend and went live on 15.2.08, and now needs to be developed further. It features stories and poems written by 15 kids and adults, all part of or connected to Becca’s family in some way. The site also includes a family tree that depicts the connectedness between all family members.

Becca says, “The best part of all of this was the extraordinary conversations we all had in our families about being in a step family. The things that were said were not always easy to hear, but all of the conversations took our relatedness to a whole new level and were absolutely magical to be part of. I was left feeling very proud of our kids, and present to how great they are and what an extraordinary family we have created.”

The kids have also gotten a huge amount from being part of the project and seeing their work live on the internet and could be heard exclaiming, “Yeah we did it”, when they looked the site up.

What’s possible in the world as a result of Step by Step? “Aside from Olivia and India choosing to come to our wedding – a miracle in itself — our kids got to experience themselves as young people that can and do make a difference, now.” says Becca.

And what could you build with that?! A new Team Game of course…

– Becca Carr-Hopkins, Team London

To read about what Andrea Howe created around step-families out of her partnership with Becca, check out this previous Team Leadership story.

Andrea Howe and Becca Carr-Hopkins met by chance at a TMLP classroom in London. Andrea was visiting from Washington DC, and thought it would be fun to experience doing the program in a foreign country. Becca, one of 53 London TMLP participants, stood up at one point and shared about her Game in the World. In an instant, a global connection was created: both realized they were using technology to transform difficult step-family dynamics into experiences of relatedness and love. What followed was a blossoming friendship, as well as a shared commitment to make a difference for step-families all over the world. This is the story of Andrea’s project–To read about Becca’s project, check out this story on Step by Step.

Andrea’s inspiration for Families in Step came while she was Team One incoming at the TMLP weekend in Orlando, Florida, USA. For the first time in her life, she was seriously dating a man who came to the relationship with a divorce, two children, and a contentious relationship with his ex-wife. Searching for a focus for her Game In the World, she decided to create something to benefit step-families.

“While I had no experience whatsoever with these kinds of complex family dynamics as a ‘girlfriend,’ I am a step-daughter and I understand first-hand how challenging expanded family life can be,” says Andrea.

So, in September of 2007, Andrea created an amazing team that included a therapist, a divorced couple with children, and a married couple with children and step-children. Inside the possibility of generous listening and loving partnership, they rallied around one simple goal: to help members of step-families transform their communication such that family is no longer an experience of frustration, stress, and conflict, but instead an experience of love.

Andrea learned about the work of Dr. Jeff Schlichter, a Forensic and Licensed Clinical Psychologist, Family Mediator, and Collaborative Divorce Coach, and through a series of phone conversations, enrolled him in leading the project.

“We view step-families as expanded families, not broken families. And these expanded families have remarkable opportunities to help their children become exceptional adults,” says Dr. Schlichter.

By January 2008 the Families in Step web site went live (www.familiesinstep.com) and beginning April 2008, the first Step Talk call series will be piloted. Over the course of six weeks, step-family members from anywhere in the world will spend an hour a week on the phone with each other to learn valuable tips and tools from their facilitators, and also share common concerns, difficulties, solutions, and victories by communicating with members of other step-families.

Families in Step has already had an “others to others” kind of impact. “Here’s the irony of all this,” says Andrea. “Not long after the project was created, Dennis and I decided to end our romantic relationship. He never officially participated in the Families in Step project, and I haven’t yet met his children. But he and his ex-wife have completely transformed their relationship, and their children are thriving.”

Now that’s loving partnership in action, and an experience of love worth celebrating.
– Andrea Howe, Team Washington DC

The very first Fun House experience got underway in Brent with children and adults alike having a fabulous home from home day out.

The fun house aims to create an environment for families to share happiness, positive energy, and achieve a place where families unite and engage in true values. Here family bonding is paramount - all members will be encouraged to participate in various activities with a view to develop greater relationships with each other.

The house was the brainchild of Tamy Finkelstein and Mark Roblett. They both saw the need to put the fun element back into family life in the face of a challenging society and set about gathering a group of volunteers to make fun happen for families. The Brent council offered the use of a venue for the day.

Tamy and mark and their team moved to furnish it fit for family fun.

The fun day included most of the activities the fun house team would like to see in all fun houses – the plan is for a fun house to be available to families in every borough and a special resort built by the coast by 2012. during the fun-day, visiting families have the chance of a family photo session and the timetable continued with drumming, shake and bake fun in the kitchen, storytelling, face painting and even well organized graffiti. Tamy said “Fun houses will be spaces where families can get related and get to know each other for the great people we are. Children will be able to express themselves and parents will be able to re-live their childhood moments.”

– Tamy de Pelayo Team 1, Quarter 4, Team London

What would my game in the world be? I knew quickly it would be a singing or musical event among senior citizens and residents from nursing homes and skilled facilities. Their children and grandchildren will be watching their loved ones perform in a “recital”, a great term my committed colleague, Sean Peterson, offered.

Creating milestones was the hardest thing to do, especially starting from the end. I learned that “just doing it” in the face of not knowing whether it made sense, caused several possibilities - unimagined – to come true (miracles, in short). Standing in the possibility of the game of being alive, inspired, whole and complete made sharing the vision easy and clear. Conversation with Grace Lengkeek, Activity Director of Artesia Christian Home, went natural and free flowing. She expressed that she had been thinking of the same game for her residents. When she took it on and owned the game, I was elated. Seeing her fulfilled, fulfilled me! It’s like watching a little girl run off with my toy that I shared, she kept it, and I didn’t cry. This game showed a true leader, obliviously loving, caring, generous, her participants would ask her “what were they singing again?” and she’d whisper…then they sang and sang…who says they have dementia? Some played the piano, accompanied another to sing, a legally blind woman showed her knit work and ceramic pottery.

I had a hunch that singing causes relaxation, who disagrees? But my bigger hunch was it relaxes the mind of the elderly to a degree that they start sharing their life stories. During the enrollment stage of this game, I shared this vision with Salermo. He left the room quickly when I asked if he sang. He came back with a dusty guitar and started serenading me, then told of courtship days with beautiful Nellie. In the week prior to the event, Salermo was admitted to an emergency room (he was a frequent visitor). On his first day back at home, coming from nothing, I invited him again…he said he would take the bus if he had to. I proposed that his children give him a ride (Unity among family was my underlying commitment).

That didn’t happen (I meant the ride), but, I know opportunity had opened for this family. I, Carmelita, learned generosity quickly and provided the ride. Salermo was an astounding entertainer. He sang three serenade songs in his own language and entertained us with his life stories. Stories we would not hear of if he did not participate.

At the break, I have witnessed what Power to Create did. I was clueless, but, I declared that this Game will show the three generations honoring and celebrating each other, there’s magic in singing, the family experience of love, contribution, fun, relatedness, generosity. They were singing — Row, Row, Row Your Boat, or whatever. This one mom was singing an unfamiliar song with her operatic voice, and her son was lip syncing, enjoying her.

I hid when confronted by something “gigantic” which was not so big after all. I was about to quit when the other home could not deliver one day before the event, and Meg, my coach, supported me to be with what is so…no matter how small the crowd could be, it still made a big difference to the lives of who were there last night, and those who were there spiritually. Thank you for your stand. My report came in late, I chose to sit, watch an old favorite movie, instead of sharing my experience and excitement with you - and that’s what I give up, being stingy in sharing my wins!

I have not experienced so much love and generosity. It’s like a miracle for me! Giving up being right created the miracle of partnership – people took care of themselves and came up with other ideas. (Arlin, the back-up lady, will give this idea to a lot of homes to have more people invited.)

I have seen three generations singing to each other, honoring each other through music. One guest couple said, “This is a great idea!” when I declared this is going to be statewide. I am waiting to have an appointment with a congresswoman, Linda Sanchez. I say it will be a contest in different categories, one resident said “That’s silly!’ and her children said “Nope!”

I think the win is: the message was delivered - HOLDING THE SPACE FOR LOVE IN THE WORLD, LOVE COME HOME!

– Carmelita Tiongson-Manzanares, Team 1, Quarter 2, Team Los Angeles

Sweetwaters 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 and infected with AIDS and reaches out into the Sweetwaters community taking measures to care for these children.

Presently these children are being raped and robbed, living in homes ill equipped to meet their needs and struggling to survive. 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.

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 which is a decent wage (for 1 year initially).

Other immediate projects that Love Is All We Need is taking on for this community include a campaign to have 500 children in school 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 the foundations of hope, love and security in a devastated community.

– Jo Lawrence, Team London

Georgetta Duncan continues her exploration of immigration in this third part of her film series that she created in the Landmark Education Team Management Leadership Program. The first film looked at Louisville’s World Fest annual celebration, while the second film began an exploration of Bulgarian culture and history. Bulgarian born, Duncan continues to explore Bulgarian culture and Bulgarians who came to America, including Bulgaria’s large number of opera stars.

This video is the second part of Georgetta Duncan’s film series on immigrants and immigration. The first part, Our America, showcased Louisville’s World Fest, an annual festival and parade celebrating immigrants worldwide. This second film focuses on the history and culture Duncan’s birth nation of Bulgaria, which is at a crossroads between east and west. The film features footage from Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital. The film series was Duncan’s Team Game in the World that she created in Landmark’s Team Management Leadership Program.

They follow in the footsteps of all Americans who’ve come to this land over millennia to weave a wonderful tapestry of culture and history.

This is the chronicle of our journeys, our struggles, our stories:

Our America!

TELEVISION FOR AMERICA
AND THE WORLD

Georgetta Duncan, known as Juja created an unusual and compelling project for her team game in the world in Landmark’s Team Management Leadership Program: She created “Our America,” her own television program that covered Louisville’s Worldfest, a leading, annual American multicultural festival that celebrates immigrants and the diverse cultures that comprise the United States.

Every year, 1.4 million immigrants come to the United States seeking a better life. Duncan, herself an immigrant from Bulgaria, interviews various festival attendees about the uniqueness of their culture and quotes Louisville officials about the importance of immigrants to the American work force and the American dream.

On Friday evening November 30th, the Peace Illuminations Light Project was launched. Tens of thousands of Los Angelenos were given the gift of a lighting art installation on a building on La Brea Boulevard. The installation was a stunning and dramatic piece on the concept of Peace – the word. Peace was presented in multiple languages including: English, Spanish, Korean, Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, Farsi (Persian), Chinese, French, German, etc.

The building was lit for a total of 11 nights, broadcasting a message of peace to the cities of West Hollywood and Los Angeles. A billboard donated by ClearChannel was placed on the corner of Santa Monica and Crescent Heights Boulevards letting drivers and passersby know of the lighting project and of the website (www.peaceilluminations.org).

The project launch included a community kickoff event hosted at the West Hollywood Gateway shopping center. With community choirs singing to dancing from little Russian girls dressed in country-western garb to the West Hollywood Master Chorale performing, it was a festive event!

The project stimulates a conversation on the nature of peace in our large and diverse city, Los Angeles, drawing together and causing teams from various walks of life. The Mayor of West Hollywood and the City Manager attended the launch, as did many members of the community. Corporate and private monies and in-kind donations were contributed to sponsor this event including funds from Target, Combined Biz, Clear Channel Outdoors, West Hollywood Gateway and a variety of generous individuals.

Leaders and teams came together to take control of various aspects of this project, such that there is almost no “doing” on my part – I simply had enrollment and registration conversations, then ongoingly maintained enrollment in the various groups involved.

They have been the ones causing the project and miracles to occur. They experience themselves as contributing enthusiastically to making a difference in the community.

What exists in the world is excitement, enthusiasm, and commitment among many individuals.

People are proposing enlarging the scale of this project from lighting one building to lighting multiple buildings to lighting buildings in multiple cities worldwide. We are looking to see how to enroll others in agreeing to take on the project and raise funds for it.
This project can grow larger and brighter each year.
I am building opportunities for communication on the nature of peace through the media of language and art and doing so in a way which is generous and non-threatening to any and all human beings. The intention is to cause a shift in the way human beings interact with one another on a large-scale level. It’s an opportunity for groups of people to come together in a positive way creating a new realm of communication through a magnificent display of art and light.
– Natalie Bergman, Team Los Angeles

www.youtube.com/tmlptimesÂ

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.

While the environment has become an issue that is front and center for most of us, for the indigenous peoples around the world, it has always been an issue of primary importance. Landmark Education Graduates Mary Velarde and Veronica Tiller created a the Global Green Indigenous Film Festival in association with its 15th annual environmental conference next spring, the National Tribal Environmental Council (NTEC), a non-profit based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, will launch its new own Global Green Indigenous Film Festival from April 18-20, 2008.

The National Tribal Environmental Council is an organization that has been working to “enhance each tribe’s ability to protect, preserve and promote the wise management of air, land and water for the benefit of current and future generations (from website),” and currently has a membership of 184 tribes.

“For nearly 20 years, NTEC has been working with and assisting tribes throughout the country to protect, regulate and manage their environmental resources,” said Jerry Pardilla, NTEC’s executive director. “An international film festival of this caliber adds a new dimension that will bring innovative ideas together as a means for protecting the environment that the global community can benefit from.”

The festival will be held at El Museo Cultural in Santa Fe, in partnership with the New Mexico Tourism Department.

Landmark Forum Graduate Ginny Dixon is a participant in the Team Management and Leadership Program and her Team Game in the world for this last quarter is called Raw Beauty. Dixon has been travelling the world and making a living through her photography for over 20 years, winning two Pulitzer prizes for her work with the Los Angeles Times. During that time, she has participated in a variety of powerful projects that make a difference, including a photographic tribute to breast cancer survivors. In this game, she uses her skills to set up photo shoots for women with disabilities to give the experience of being a fashion model.

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

The Wave for Peace enters the Super Bowl Feb. 3rd, 2008

Who I am is the possibility of peace, love and inspiration.
Hi, my name is Linda Gancitano. I am on Team Florico and this is my Game.

1 year ago:
Who would have thought 3 months after the Landmark Forum that I would be committed to world peace in this lifetime? This possibility arrived in the mountains of Colorado. I was watching the Free Hugs Campaign on YouTube. The inspiration came from that experience and caused me to envision a world of peace. And what that looked like for me was that for one moment in time the entire world be present to peace.
I knew I had only 3 months for my Self Expression and Leadership Program project to get this idea into action. The vision came and I saw the event - The Wave for Peace enters the Super Bowl on Feb. 4th 2007 in Miami, Florida.
In every sporting event, the spectators perform the wave. Well, this particular WAVE would have a purpose and intention. This wave would be the Wave for Peace. Billions of people across the world would be watching this event. What better way to get the message across to the world?
The Wave for Peace didn’t happen last year at the Super Bowl.

We all know that life doesn’t always turn out the way we would like it to but what came from that intention was that three schools in Broward County had a Week of Peace. The Week of Peace brought awareness to our environment, our homes and communities. We had an incredible TEAM of teachers and students that created this event at each of the school. Over 2500 students on Jan. 31,2007 went out to their football fields and participated in the Wave. The Wave for Peace was seen from the air by a helicopter. Other media sources covered the event such as NBC, Telemundo TV, and the Miami Herald.

There was a peace rally 3 months later where one city had people at a stadium standing for peace. We may never know the impact of what that event caused for those students but what we do know is that the fights and suspensions were down for the week at our school The most important question we asked the students daily was “How can each one of us make a difference in our own lives to bring peace?”

Present day: Team Management and Leadership Program Weekend, Denver, CO, November 2007
One year ago this vision for world peace lingers. I joined TMLP in Denver, Co. where over 600 Landmark
Graduates were attending this event. I was informed that I have a Game in the World to put into action. I also was informed that I would create a TEAM of people to play this game. Our TEAM is looking for other people that are up to world peace.
What I hadn’t anticipated was that we are all being confronted with our own greatness, integrity and power. Communication is an access to power in creating the world we want to live. What I am getting from this experience is that peace is a way of being and we get to choose in every moment of our lives. Who are we going to be in the present moment and next moment no matter what? The GAME is still expanding and my request of TEAM Landmark is who can further this game so that on Super Bowl Sunday on Feb. 3rd, 2008 in Arizona every person in the world is present to world peace as a possibility now!

Future: Global Weekend Los Angeles, CA, February 2008
1.Video of the Wave for Peace is captured during the Super Bowl Feb. 3, 2008, and shown to all TMLP participants at the Global Weekend.
2. People from all over the world were contacting the NFL, TV network and Landmark to say how incredible the event was for them and how it transformed their lives
3.World Transformation is realized. Every country is supporting each other in creating the possibility of peace, health and happiness!!

One Event, One TEAM, One Message for One Moment

The Wave for Peace enters the Super Bowl Feb.3rd, 2008

The Vision
In every sporting event for years, people have been participating in the Wave which usually goes in the clockwise direction. The vision is to have the Wave go in a new direction. This new direction will represent Peace. The Wave for Peace would be the symbol of “What If?” What if we do something different and choose to live in a world of Peace? A wave for change is the wave for peace

How can you further the game?

Sitting in a room with almost 600 people in Orlando, my first Team Management and Leadership Weekend was pretty intimidating yet transformational.  The leaders were incredible!  They knew just what to say.  I remember thinking, “Everybody is sharing and inspiring, everything has a meaning, but, what will my contribution be?”  I was blank.

It was not too long ago that I was living in Prince George in Northern British Columbia.  My kids and I would spend the entire day in the park playing “hide and seek”, roasting hot dogs on an open fire.  The game, “Forest for the World” was played in a real forest with a huge lagoon in the middle.  Some days we met black bears and moose - it was a pretty wild place. One day, another family joined us spontaneously to play.  Wow!  That created memories that I will never forget!

When I cam back from Orlando all pumped up, I started enrolling a team for my Game in the World: creating Fun Raisers, a project where kids and their families would discover the fun in simply playing games outside together. My vision was that Fun Raisers would inspire other communities to follow in creating more Fun Raisers all over the world. 

My team includes my son Klaus, 17, who came up with the name Fun Raisers. (What a huge contribution to this game!) Another team member is Jennifer, a real estate colleague. There is my friend, Michael, from whom I often seek wisdom and guidance and, my good friend, Raman, with whom we spend great times playing with our kids. 

My game quickly picked up momentum as the team created newsletters and invitations and delivered them to thousands of people all over the world. Thanks to the internet, our message was received throughout the United States and Canada, as well as Mexico, South America, South Africa, and Japan.

To my surprise, at our first event, that first weekend of Fun Raisers, only four people showed up: Jennifer, her kids, Samuel and Olivia, and me. I thought, what is this?  My friends Michael and Raman aren’t here? I thought I’d been being an “enrollment machine”! With coaching from my team, I realized that I had not been being enrolling at all. I had been doing what I do best: telling people what to do. That was my ‘team concept’. Clearly, it didn’t work!

I looked at where I’d been being inauthentic, the impact on me and on my team, and created the possibility of being vulnerable and open. I can’t believe the difference that made!  Now, the project is moving forward.  I can’t imagine where I’m going to be at the end of my first year on Team.  I wake up every day excited about what it is that I - and my team - will discover.

Fun Raisers inspires me everyday. It is bringing people together around the world.  We are making a difference!

– Eduardo Fritis, Team Vancouver

I’ll be brutally honest. The way I’ve lived most of my life is according the point of view “I’m not important, I’m insignificant”. But lately, it’s getting harder and harder to believe that!

My team and I are creating an influential conference about “Green” business for Southern California. This month’s latest tour de force has been securing a major celebrity as our conference keynote (we would love to say who that is, but we’re committed to not gossiping). Not only that, but we are continually receiving acknowledgment from our community partners, sponsors and attendees, who are appreciative of our commitment to create community around sustainable business in Los Angeles. And the list goes on and on.

What shifted was that I got the power of sharing who I am as a possibility every day.  That I am not my “identity”, but rather, who I am is a world leader causing sustainable and profitable business globally.

As a result of this breakthrough, we have been fulfilling on the outcome of our game that everyone experiences the difference they make in nurturing our planet and our lives.

Some key distinctions of what HAS NOT WORKED: making my business partner wrong, being snappy, judgmental and (if you hurt me) vengeful. That last one really does not work!

What HAS WORKED? Sharing from nothing. We shared with hundreds of people about our conference, even before we had a location, a date for the event, before we had a single speaker, before we had a team, or anything else for that matter. Why? Because we had a possibility! That possibility, which wasn’t even fully distinguished, was nurturing sustainable leadership. From there, the rest emerged.

Another thing that worked has been putting together a line-up of world-class speakers. How did we enroll and register them? We created a TEAM that ACKNOWLEDGED them for who they are for the world in sustainability, and SHARED our possibility. They got it.

Oh, and most importantly, INTEGRITY works for us. We have honored our word to make this a world-class event, and we continue to work very hard to ensure that.

This conference will impact the city of Los Angeles and beyond, by uniting business leaders who want to run their companies in such a way that they BENEFIT the environment and the people in our society.

Ultimately, we are building a world that is sustainable! One that is fun, exciting, wise, and prosperous.

– Mike Flynn, completed Team 2 Aug 07, 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.

When I took on my project, my intent was to enhance the life of a community outside of San Pedro Sula, Honduras, by putting in a bridge. My project transformed this quarter, to a partnership with the government which is committed to changing a country with extreme poverty to a country of prosperity – RIGHT NOW!

At the end of June, I went to Honduras for my game and what I saw was a beautiful country that is on the edge of going under. It is a country of 7 million people - 70% are under the age of 14 and 60% live in extreme poverty - and they are demanding a change. The key government people I met with on my trip are looking for a different way of doing things because what has been done in the past hasn’t worked. The money has gone where the votes are and not where it’s needed. They asked me to partner with them in turning around poverty in their country.

My original team was Rafael, a pastor in Honduras, Pastor Don Miller who is head of our international missions here and the University of Wisconsin, Madison chapter of Engineers Without Boarders. I am now in the process of forming 45 teams that will address specific issues such as health, sanitation, disease control, infrastructure, clean water education and many more. I created the possibility and outcome and I have an idea of what I want to accomplish and it is from this, that I get calls and emails from people who I don’t know me but they have the expertise to do what’s needed are want to help. People are contacting me daily. My teams now consist of some of the following groups: Volvo Construction, Rotary International, the Minnesota National Guard, the South African Embassy, a local structural engineering firm, Doctors and Dentists Without Boarders, Dole Fruit, Cargill, Sea Foam and many more. A strong team player that has shown up unexpectedly is the government of South Africa. We have started conversations about what is possible through an alliance between the two governments.

I have watched the growth of Rafael. In just the past month alone, Rafael has been given a new office in the municipality building including admin support, he has been added to the city board, he is working daily with the mayor on the community, weekly meetings with top government officials and today, August 3rd, he met with the President and the First Lady to review our ideas and vision for the country. It’s not what you would expect to see for a pastor in a poverty community. This is only the beginning for him.

Ingiero Cesar Salgado is head of the Fund for Social Inversion in Honduras (FHIS) and second-in-command in Honduras. He knows the information on the extreme poverty in Honduras inside and out. I got to see his heart for the people of his country. Ingiero Salgado is not a bureaucrat, but someone who wants to make a difference in this country before it is too late.
In Honduras I experienced communication at whole new level. It wasn’t the words that were spoken but the love I saw these leaders have for the people of their country. It radiated from their souls. It was the unspoken communication of the children who lived in extreme poverty but their spirits had not been broken. It was in all of the single mothers who despite everything they face, love their children more than I can express in words.

I envision a country that will not be the same in three years. They are demanding it and there is a sense of urgency. It will not be because of what is specifically done but it will be a change in thinking that will push this country to its tipping point that will send a ripple affect across Honduras and through Central America in what’s possible.

Who I am is leadership, love and generosity.
– Kathy Powell-Larson, Team Minneapolis

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!

Here are summaries of some of the accounts of people’s
experiences in the Team Management and Leadership Program.

Just follow the link to see the whole article.

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!!!
read more…

“As an adopted child, I always wanted to meet my birth-mother, but
the trail was cold when I found out that the person named on my birth
certificate did not even exist! Through this program, I managed not only
to find her, but also to meet my birth-father…”
read more…

“…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…”
read more…

“I made a commitment 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…”
read more…

“The first thing I did was to resign from my job, where I was working
7 days a week, 12 hours a day, …” read more…

“Before I joined the Program in December 2002, I was working as
a Make-up artist in films and television, and would say work was the only
important thing in my life: having a family myself was not possible because
the world is a scary place and …” read more

“I have been running my own business, developing software and designing
computer systems for over twenty years. I would have claimed to be entirely
content with my life - . But the reality was that most of the projects
I was spending my time on did not really satisfy me…
read more

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, …”
read more…

“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.
….” read more…

“Believing that there is hope for the world that we live in. Believing
that my life can make a difference …” read
more…

“So some people may think that the magic of the Program finishes
when you leave the course. Wrong! …” read
more..

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.

Truckin for Katrina: Michigan Families Adopting Gulf Coast Families Affected by Hurricane Katrina

Not long after Hurricane Katrina hit, Sherrill Sundberg learned that one of her neighbors had 4 separate family members who each lost their homes. She was participating in the Landmark Team Management and Leadership Program. Utilizing the concepts learned from her Self Expression and Leadership Program Project she immediately knew what she was going to do for her next project which included enrolling and inspiring a team to fulfill on the “Rebirth of New Orleans” Project she created.

Over 100,000 people literally lost everything they had in Katrina and now nearly two years later, the scope of the need has barely diminished. Like most people Sherrill wanted to do whatever she could to contribute to the relief effort. Her initial goal in her community project was to get donations for the households for the 4 relatives of her neighbor.

While attending her next Landmark Education weekend of the Team Management and Leadership Program she initially created “Christmas in New Orleans”. This was to invite 4 leaders to provide Christmas for the 4 original families by determining: 3 gifts each person wanted, what they would like to wear and what they would like to have for a Christmas dinner. She was challanged by another participant to expand the scope of her project. She accepted and soon the project exploded such that 25 families received “ Christmas in New Orleans”. In total, 25 leaders and 250 families had the experience of generous sharing by sending the desired Christmas gifts by December 16, 2005 to 25 families devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

As it turned out, this was just the beginning of an odyssey of contribution for Sherrill. After that first Christmas, Sherrill knew that the project had to continue in some way, as they had not even scratched the surface of what was needed.

As an active member of her local Methodist Congregation she naturally had invited other church members to participate in the project. Sherrill met a lady who so inspired by the purpose of the project, cashed in the equity of a life insurance policy in order pay for trucks that would transport donations from Michigan to the Gulf with the condition that the trucking companied would give a significant discount off of their normal fees. Sherill managed to enroll a local private trucker who has taken on the project while charging less than half his normal fees. “Truckin for Katrina” was born.

As the word spread about “Truckin for Katrina” Sherrill soon began to work with the First United Methodist church in the Pascagoula, Mississippi. Many homes there were flooded or totally removed by the tidal wave as it entered that community. Many families requested to participate in the project. A network quickly developed that today is allowing Gulf Coast families in need to be able to request specific durable goods. Sherrill’s community share items that are in good condition and often purchase new items to send to the families. Sherrill calls the donated goods, “Early Marriage and Pre-attic Furniture like we all had when we first got married”. It is allowing families to move out of their FEMA trailer and into a furnished home. Eventually they will be able to purchase their own style of furnishings. This project has allowed families to attain some sense of normalcy. As of August 2007 four semi trailers have delivered durable goods to 32 families

It has not all been smooth sailing. Sherrill has had to overcome huge challenges, from trying to get donations to fulfill the unique requests of families to dealing with tons of donations and a few that were unusable and nothing more than junk, to a truckload of carefully collected goods being left on a curbside with imminent rain without notifying the families beforehand of the delivery date and time to come and pick them up.

Now nearly 2 years later, the scope of the need has barely diminished.

Since this whole project began, Sherrill has heard stories that she could not have ever imagined. She tells the story of one lady named Debra who lives in Pascagoula, Mississippi. When Katrina hit, Deborah was one of many people who did not leave her home. At the height of the storm surge, Deborah swam out the front window of her rented house after breaking a window to prevent drowning. She was carried over 2 miles inland before she was finally able to grab hold of a pillar in the front of a church and be rescued. After her ordeal during the storm, Debra lived in a tent for 3 months. Finally she resided in a FEMA trailer. Her former employer offered the opportunity for her to rebuild a house with the promise that she could live there at a reduced rent. After months of work to re-built the house, which was then furnished by Sherrill’s project, Deborah has discovered that she is being evicted because the landlord is able to get much higher rent or sell the newly rebuilt house at a great profit.
Deborah’s story is not unique and is only one of thousands that are similar. Sherrill remains not only undaunted but is more inspired than ever. Her project is connecting people and families and waking people up to the difference they are able to make.

Sherrill says, “Having identified a need in the world I have discovered with a team you can do anything. Through Landmark Education I have had world class training in communication such that I am able to touch, move and inspire people to participate in what ever I am up to. This project has taken on a life of its own because it gives people an opportunity to express their unique desire to make a difference. You get back far more than you give.”

Suzanne Perrin and Denise Inskip-Seale created a project to beautify a ‘Habitat for Humanity’ home. They used exclusively donated material, labor and furnishings. Their concept was simple: many of the families that work with Habitat for Humanity in building a home, do not have the resources to furnish them after they move in.

Suzanne and Denise involved as many people from the local community as possible to donate their time talent and resources to fully furnish the new Habitat home.

The project, developed while they were both on the Landmark Education program was a big success. This video chronicles the development of the project. It also features moving coverage of the day the family who helped build the house got to see it finished for the first time.

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