Family Archives - Landmark's Team Management & Leadership Program

Seeing Divorced Families in a New Paradigm

May 15, 2014/2 Comments/in 2014 Houston Weekend, Entrepreneurship, Family, Technology /by Newsletter Team

The man with the funny hair has a name, and his name is Rob Pinna. He is the Team 1 Team Lead for the Denver/Salt Lake City based team in Landmark’s Team, Management, and Leadership program. Ask Rob who he is and he will tell you – dad, husband, entrepreneur.

Rob’s journey with Landmark began in 2007 when he completed the Landmark Forum after being introduced to it by Annie. Along with his wife, Katherine, Rob began the Team, Management, and Leadership Program in August 2013. Though Katherine chose to withdraw from the program after completing the first weekend, Rob continued on, both fully supporting each other in their choice.

As dad, Rob has not only brought the new model of communication to his three kids, Renee, Nicole, and Jackson, and step daughter, Peyton, he has also brought his kids to the new model of communication. Both Renee and Nicole completed the Communication: Access to Power and the Advanced Communication Course: The Power to Create during Rob’s first two quarters on Team. Family conversations now show up inside the new model of communication, with authenticity and the ability to be straight with each other with no significance.

With Jackson, Rob has transformed his relationship to saying no, a gift for any parent. In the past, saying no to Jackson would bring up feelings of anger, guilt, and blame, as if to say, “How dare you ask me!?!?” Saying no to his son’s request was like saying, “No, I don’t love you.”

Now, he is able to say no powerfully by realizing he is responding to a request, and saying no does not diminish, alter or devalue his son or his love for his son in any way.

As husband, Rob is making a difference with his wife, Katherine, as well as ex-wives, Betsy and Arlene. Betsy completed the Communication: Access to Power course in Rob’s 2nd quarter.

As entrepreneur, Rob is making a difference for thousands of other families as the founder of Cofamilies – dedicated to helping divorced parents raise great kids. Cofamilies is a coparenting calendar and mobile checkin application that coordinates schedules, finances and joint parenting decisions.

Rob has also made Cofamilies his Game in the World, taking on a different aspect of building the business each quarter. In Q1, the Cofamilies’ iPhone app was created. Q2 saw Cofamilies become investor-ready. Now in Q3, Rob is creating a Cofamilies’ service for divorce coaching. Though Rob is no stranger to entrepreneurship, finding himself back in this particular saddle has been a challenge.

After watching his very successful business go belly up in the early dot.com days, Rob stopped seeing himself as someone who could run a large company or be responsible for other people’s money. He took himself out of the business creation game and became a business consultant, helping others successfully build their businesses. Though very skilled in this role, Rob realizes that without his entrepreneurial spirit, his ability to contribute is diminished. Through his first two quarters in the TMLP, Rob has seen the limits his past business experience imposed on the success of Cofamilies. Instead of being focused on building a successful company, Rob’s focus was on not failing, losing money, or letting anybody down. He was afraid to step up to the plate and swing the bat, all the while comparing his level of success to that of his peers.

For those who attended the February 2014 TMLP weekend, you may remember Rob on stage doing jumping jacks as he attempted to say and be the Denver Team possibility, being free to play. With fear of failure in the background, Rob was anything but.

Now, halfway into the quarter, Rob finds himself getting in communication anytime he is disempowered and using recreation in all his conversations which has him free to make requests and not make the response significant. There is no winning, no losing, no failing, just freedom; the freedom to play big and know, if he swings and misses, there’s another swing coming.

This is also showing up for other team members. The team just completed a home run Communication: Access to Power course in Salt Lake City, where a number of Denver-based team members traveled over the mountains to coach and support the course, some stopping along the way to play on the ski slopes in Utah. This represents a huge victory. A few years ago there were no communication courses or team members in Salt Lake City. Now, Salt Lake City is adding new communication courses to the calendar each year and new team members each quarter. With a near capacity Advanced Communication Course scheduled for June in Denver, the team is poised for growth and, like their Team 1 Team Lead, Rob Pinna, free to play.

Author and Interviewer: Brian Weinberg

Brian is an alumni of Landmark’s Team, Management, and Leadership Program and currently lives in Boulder, CO where he works as an electrical engineer in the aerospace field. When he’s not sitting at his desk, he is usually sitting on a meditation cushion or bicycle seat, or writing poems and children’s books on the backs of napkins and receipts. Brian is passionate about organic food, real nutrition, and music, and is currently developing his skills as a songwriter and musician.

Climb Any Mountain

November 16, 2013/0 Comments/in Charity, Community, Family /by TMLP Newsletter

Kim Crossman, Team London – T2Q2

Interviewed by Jennifer Douglass (Team PNW – T2Q1) on October 14th, 2013

What is the name of your game?

Climb Any Mountain

Tell me more about Climb Any Mountain.

We are transforming what is available for people with learning disabilities and mental illness in South Africa using global practices.

Possibility: The possibility of being loving, generous and fun!

What gave you initiative to start this game?

My younger sister, Cara, needed to move out 2 years ago. All that was available in South Africa was residential care that is essentially institutional. The choice and voice that Cara had always had over her life was no longer possible. It was heartbreaking to stand by and watch. I saw that the only way to ensure for certain that Cara, and others like her, get to live lives they choose in the absence of family being available, is to transform the conversation and services across the country.

When did you start this project?

I established the not-for-profit company, Climb Any Mountain, in August 2011 (since achieving charitable status in August 2012). Initially I raised funds to prop up existing service offerings in South Africa – looking to provide work opportunities or creative opportunities for engagement of people with learning disability and mental illness, who were living within already established services.

It was at the end of my year on Team (One) that I got to see that this was insufficient; and I saw clearly what really needed to be done. It both terrified and excited me. But by then (a year on Team) I had gotten to know myself as someone who could transform a country. The moment I declared this, things really started to happen.

Tell me more about the game and what your intentions are for the future.

Climb Any Mountain has established a partner (The Pietermaritzburg Mental Health Society) who has provided land for us to build the first of its kind supported living facility for people with learning disability and mental illness in South Africa. We’re calling this the Transitional Living Centre (TLC) and this will be a stepping stone for individuals to move out of institutional care into independent living space (1-bed, 2-bed or 4-bed apartments) where they get to master life skills through supported programmes.

Our next step is to roll out this blueprint across South Africa, with a target of 10 TLCs within the next 3 – 5 years. We have met with the South Africa Federation for Mental Health and are in the process of securing partners within each of the 9 provinces across the country. Key in this phase is extending our conversations with local and national government. We want to ensure that disability grants and subsidies extend to these services so that they continue to be accessible for all.

And step 3 is developing supported housing programmes out in the community so that people can progress to living a life in and amongst the family and friends that matter to them, with the appropriate level of social services and personal support.

How do you keep things going in regards to funding?

Climb Any Mountain is run by a group of extraordinarily committed volunteers, so our overheads are low.

Some of our funds have come from individuals and small teams who have taken on climbing their own metaphorical mountain, whether it’s taking on a triathlon or marathon for the first time, walking across the UK or trekking through jungles. This never fails to move and inspire me.

Because we need to raise a substantial amount (£1million) for the first TLC we’ve had to look beyond this for this type of funding and it has been serendipitous the people we have met along the way. To date we have £600k pledged.

In addition, we are holding our inaugural annual Gala Dinner and Auction fundraiser on the 25^th October this year, aligned with World Mental Health Day which was on the 10^th October.

We’re at an exciting growth point where we need to start to look now at structuring our organisation and our funding for the longer term. This will involve more engagement with companies for Corporate Social Responsibility, and with Foundation Trusts and Philanthropists.

How did you use what you learned in the Team, Management and Leadership Program to contribute to your life?

Before the Team Management and Leadership Program I used to work 14 – 16 hours days and almost every weekend. I travelled constantly – flying from one end of the earth to the other for work assignments. I wasn’t in a relationship, even though I really wanted to be. I had so much I wanted to do outside of just working, but my conversation was that I didn’t have the time to do it all.

Since doing the Team Management and Leadership Programme, I have been promoted 3 times in my workplace and doing a much bigger job that spans our global operations. The difference is that I now work 9 to 5 and never work on weekends. I have taken part in two triathlons and have vitality again. I am engaged to be married to my dream man (yes, he does exist!). And I have created a thriving charity that is transforming a country.

For me, my life is now living proof of the promise that at the end of team you will naturally go to cause teams and teamwork in everything that you do, and that you will do this with freedom and ease and having love and affinity present.

Is there anything else you’d like to share about the Team, Management, and Leadership Program or Landmark?

I am so grateful for having being introduced to Landmark. My life was not going to turn out the way it has, not that there was anything wrong, but I just wasn’t present to that it is possible to create your life the way you want. Life as a result has been so much more fun, and there has been so much less suffering!

The Team Management and Leadership Program is the most rigorous, on-the-court training I have ever had. I spent a lot of money and time on an MBA degree several years ago. While it was a fabulous degree to do and certainly leveraged my career and knowledge base, it does not compare in terms of what the Team, Management and Leadership Programme has given me regarding the practical capability to manage, lead and cause teams to deliver results effectively.

Family Matters

November 16, 2013/0 Comments/in Family /by TMLP Newsletter

Jaime Ramirez
Team Pacific Northwest
Team 2, Quarter 3

Possibility: Being Unstoppable and Unconditional Love.

Outcome: People have the effectiveness, aliveness and accomplishment that lasts a lifetime.

At the San Francisco Weekend, the Global Leaders were talking about the importance of family. It was then that Jaime first realized how important it was share his experience of Team with his family. He believes in making dreams come true and having his family win at their own games was important to him. Here are four games around family.

His first game is to cause an Introduction Leader for Portland’s Family Division. Team, through Jaime’s coaching, is causing a participant in the Introduction Leadership Program to be candidated as an Introduction Leader so she can fulfill her dream of leading Introductions for Teens and young people. The game is to have her leading the Power to Create Evening Session on October 29^th. She will then be qualified to lead Introductions for Family Division.

For his second game he is putting together a movie about his work with Persons with Disabilities. He has a friend, Russ who has shared with him the possibility to display a movie trailer, online. Together, Jaime and his friend are putting together a 3 minute preview of his movie. This is being done to show others and have them enrolled in the possibility of this film. The due date for filming and submitting this trailer is October 31^st. We are now in process.

Third game is really the most important game. Jaime’s mother, Maria has a dream of creating a beautiful home. Jaime has really got how important this is to her. He has created the possibility, with her of the whole family working on as a team to fulfill her dream of a beautiful home. Together they will reorganize and recreate a family home that reflects her, newly found Joy and happiness. She says that she wants to do this because she wants to create something special to leave for his brothers to live in. Her goal is to have the family home look like it did when she and Jaime’s dad first purchased it.

They have started restoring one of the bathrooms, repairing a hole in the floor and the broken toilet. There is a light fixture that has been dangling from the ceiling and junk that has been surrounding the house. The light fixture has been repaired and the junk taken away. As well, the part of the house that was once damaged by a fire is now cleaned up and restored.

Now it is time for working with her to create what she really wants the house to look like and to focus in on one task that she can create team with my family to fulfill. Jaime’s mother is well on her way to fulfilling her dream of a beautiful home.

Jaime’s fourth game is with his sister, Melisa. She wants to earn an income to help her husband to provide a pretty home and life style that would make them happy. She also dreams of making little girls feel like Princess’s with dresses she has sewn. With Jaime’s coaching and support she has established a business out of her home The business is known as Boutique de Treaux and she is presently the sole seamstress. She can sew a little girl’s dress in thirty minutes. She sells them from her home through outside orders and online at Ebay.

She and a friend, also a seamstress, attend Fairs and Markets and set up booths for the display and sale of their clothing. Thanks to Jaime being a stand for his family fulfilling their dreams and bringing team to it.

To Jaime, the greatest advantage of having team leaders playing their games, and him, having caused their effective leadership in creating teams and team work is that they will really accelerate the rate at which their dreams come true. Everyone’s games are unfolding at different rates and regardless, having taken what he’s getting from team 2 and contributing that to each of them, gives them to extra boost they need to fulfill their dreams come true.

Jaime concludes to the following to his life. “I now know myself as someone who, around him, their dreams come true.”

These are Jaime’s words about how Landmark has influenced his life. “Through the Team Management and Leadership Program I now realize that I can have Team moving, rather than doing it all myself. I have a greater capacity to make others dreams come true, as well. I now know myself as someone who, around him, people’s dreams come true.”

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