 Birdo, have you ever been to a landmark forum course?  I have mostly.  So what was it like?  Can you give me like a brief thing about landmark?  I want to get more into it later, but can you just give the listeners like a brief synopsis of what you experienced when you went to the landmark forum?

 It was both at the same time extremely boring and very intimidating.

 It's like extremely loud and incredibly close.  Extremely boring and incredibly intimidating.  Um, yeah, I've been to landmark courses too, and that's what I want to talk about today.  A patron asked us to talk about it, so a patron's wish is our command.  This is the Psychology in Seattle podcast.  I'm your host, Dr. Kirk Honda.  I am a professor and a therapist.

 My name is Humberto Casenia.  I design really overly complex board games.

 You remember Lita, right?  I do, of course.  Our first third co-host.  She was one of the founding members of psychology in Seattle and people who go back that far would remember her.  Well, she was huge in the landmark in the 90s.  She was a big landmark person.  And most of my knowledge is actually through her because she would invite me to different activities and courses and would talk a lot about it.  So, I certainly, you know, experience most of my personal knowledge is through here.  Now, disclaimer time.  Before moving forward, I want to warn people about something.  In this episode, we're going to talk about landmark from several angles.  Some positive angles, some negative angles.  So I'm positive that I'm going to get hate mail from people who love landmark.  There are particular topics in the world that seem to trigger hate mail from some people.  And I'm positive that landmark is one of those things.  So if this episode makes you want to write me hate mail, I want you to listen to me very carefully.  It is my position that landmark is generally a good thing.  Many people have benefited from it.  Lita, my good friend, benefited from it.  And research shows that people benefit from it.  But I also have some critiques about it, and other people do as well.  In my world, in the world of academia, in the world of clinical work,  Everything must be critiqued and questioned and looked at.  Otherwise, we are at risk of doing harm to clients and the public.  Whenever we discover a new therapy or a new phenomenon, we always do a ton of research to exactly know what it is that we're looking at.  We can't just go off our own opinion because history shows that can lead to very bad things.  This is the core of the scientific process.  Until you gather the empirical data, until you actually question your beliefs, you don't really know what you're looking at.  So, as I critique landmark and provide positive and negative angles to it, understand that a critique is not a condemnation.  A critique is a critique, and a condemnation is a condemnation.  These are very different things.  Now, black and white thinkers might have some trouble with that distinction, but, you know, try to try to understand that there's a humongous difference between a critique and a condemnation.  I can critique my friend, Umberto, but I'm not going to condemn him for having a couple flaws.  What couple flaws?  What?  So I just want to say there's nothing wrong with loving landmark, but there is something wrong with suppressing the critique of it.  And there is something wrong with attacking people who question something that you love.  There's something wrong with that.  And it's not, you can provide a counter argument or you can provide other data if you want, but if you react emotionally against people who question something you like,  It's possible that your love for that thing is either fragile or insecure or something.  You know, I love the Beatles and I heard just the other day a younger person in their 20s.  We're saying, the Beatles, aren't they just like, don't they just write like kid songs?  And I was like, kid songs?  Like what?

 Yellow submarine, Rocky raccoon, kid songs.

 And I thought, oh, well, I guess if you only heard like a few of the songs and you weren't really aware of it, I could see how you could say that.  And I didn't say anything to the person.  I reacted kind of confusion, and then I was sort of angry, and then I was like, oh, well, probably from their perspective, since they don't have much exposure, that that's what it's like for them.  No big deal.  I'm confident enough in my love for the Beatles that I don't need anyone else to validate that.  And if people want to criticize the Beatles and call the Beatles terrible, I will just say, OK, that's cool, man.  Whatever floats your boat.

 Well, that's a clear diagnosis of some disorder, but fine.

 Right.  I mean, clearly the person is insane.  But beyond that, I'm fine with insanity.

 You know, I can relate to the description of Beatles as kids' music, because when I was a kid, I would go to this daycare in Oakbrook, Tacoma.  And actually, they would play a lot of the Beatles songs, but not all of them.  They would play Octopus's Garden, Yellow Submarine, you know, like the ones that work.

 Oh, that one's a little darker.  But we actually did a skit to Yellow Submarine.  And I think I've talked about this in the pockets before.  I always thought it was, we all live in the yellows of marine.  I thought it's like there was a green and it was all like yellow It's like oh, we live in the yellows of marine Even though we had a cutout a cardboard cutout of a submarine that we were all hiding behind I Like that I didn't connect the dots Well, you might not have known what a submarine was.  I I don't know I was little but yeah, I mean it was when I was 29.  Yeah, I

 For me, I actually dislike those songs.  I don't like Maxwell Silverhammer.  I don't like, I mean, Yellow Submarine is actually of the kids' songs.  I'm okay with it, probably the most.  Octopus's Garden, I can't, I mean, they're fine.  They're fine songs.  They're well-crafted, but, and I used to like them kind of when I was younger, but now I have, they just, you know, they put Beatles on Reddit.  I mean, not Reddit, on Spotify.  And I made a Beatles playlist and all those songs are not included in that playlist.  So I agree.  I agree.  Those songs are pretty silly.  But to those people out there that think that Beatles is just a bunch of children's songs,  They have, I don't know, how many songs do they record?  Like... Everybody's got something too high except for me and my monkey.

 I think they're right, they're kids' songs.

 happiness is a warm gun oh my god okay before moving on i did karaoke like recently and thought i could sing happiness is a warm gun uh-huh i cannot i mean that's not hold you well not only that but it's in a very weird meter it's like four songs crammed the one and i didn't know when the when the come in all right what is landmark for him this is from the website  Bring about positive permanent shifts in the quality of your life.  Again, bring about positive permanent shifts in the quality of your life.  It's a pretty big claim there.  Permanent.  Yeah, permanent.  Create power, freedom, full self-expression, and peace of mind registered trademark for your future.  create power, freedom, full self-expression, and peace of mind with that little R above peace of mind, as if they've registered peace of mind.

 For your future.  I mean, I don't get, how could you register, I mean, that R  You know, like we have psychology in Seattle, because I've registered that trademark.  Like peace of mind.  But you can't register peace of mind.

 Maybe they were the first ones to use that expression.

 Oh boy.  Anyway, paraphrase, this is all paraphrased from their website.  The course is conducted over three days and a one evening session in a seminar setting, usually between 75 and 250 participants.  The classes last from 9 a.m.  to 10 p.m.  or midnight, so they're pretty much from the point you wake up to the point you go to bed.  Nearly all participants report that landmark can prove their relationships, their confidence, their productivity, and their enjoyment of life.  So again, just to repeat that, 94% nearly all participants  participants report that Landmark improved their relationships, improved their confidence, improved their productivity, and improved their enjoyment of life.  And again, they claim permanent shifts in the quality of life.  Landmark claimed it's been growing steadily for years.  I saw a report saying that more than 100,000 people in the world participated in landmark courses over the span of a year.  So each year 100,000 people are participating in it, which isn't huge, but big enough.  Yeah.  Its revenues are around like 50 million a year or something like that, which again isn't huge.  It's not like they're raking in billions of dollars.  It's not like Amway.  Right.  It's not like this podcast.  Right.  So, Birdo, tell us the full story of your experience with Landmark.

 Absolutely.  So first of all, for some reason, yeah, this happened recently.  For some reason, even though I had heard the name  I really had never looked into it or been aware of what it was.

 I don't think that's surprising.  I think you'd have to have someone close to you who was really into it for you to really know about it.

 Because unlike, for example, well, maybe it's true also of Amway, but I feel like by this point, so many people have heard of Amway over the years that maybe because they have been proposed by someone they know or something.  So I feel like Amway is a thing that everyone knows about, but Landmark's not one of those.  No, no.

 Landmark is on a whole smaller, and it's probably largely West Coast.  I mean, it's around the world, apparently.  They have offices all over the world.

 It's it's sort of a new agey right left coast kind of thing so my first encounter with it was that I was sitting at home last year over a year ago but maybe a year ago somewhere like that and It was like 11 p.m.  At night.  Maybe it was 10 p.m.  At night  And out of the blue, I received a phone call from a friend who I've had for many, many years.

 Was this a year ago?  It's about, yeah.  Because I got the same phone call.

 Right.  And I hadn't gotten a call from this person in a long time.  Okay.  And it's not like we were on the outs, but  We hadn't been talking a lot right but the biggest thing is that the call was specifically to sort of make amends and really honestly like talk about how this person had  How they from even from their perspective how they had offended me or affected me or you know negatively impacted my life So I was like what?  It was really and we ended up having like a two-hour conversation and honestly it was it was I thought it was longer than I thought it was like yeah, maybe it was long it was really long and and it was honestly one of the most  if not the most real conversations I had ever had with this individual because it was almost like, you know, all these other years, if I was going to tell them, like, listen, you have an issue with this or this affected me, there was always a veil of like,  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it, but I don't really get it.  This time it was like, no, I think he sort of kind of gets it, this is weird.  Okay, so that was like, but at the time he didn't really, he sort of explained, yeah, I'm doing this thing called landmark, and so this is one of the steps.  And I was like, okay, I didn't look into it any further, but I thought it was interesting.

 Was he at the course that day?  So you're the one of the first people he called?  Yeah.  Or maybe the first person he called?  It could be, yes.  Interesting.  So this was a good friend that you just haven't been hanging out with for a while, but back in the day was a very good friend.

 And who had done some, as you know, because you know who this is, had taken some actions throughout our friendship that were repeatedly abusive towards me.

 And so to hear emotionally, emotionally or verbally, you know, putting you down.  Yeah, yeah.  And attacking me personally and all these things.

 Yeah.  And so to hear this kind of conversation from him and have this kind of conversation actually was really healing for me.  It was really good.  OK, so that happened.  A long time afterwards, same person, he invited me out for some drinks after work and he was talking a little bit more about this thing that he had been doing and then he did tell me it was landmark and blah blah.  I thought it was interesting, but I personally was not interested in it.  I just I thought it was interesting.  He was doing it and I could tell he was sort of Softly trying to sell me on it.  Yeah, but to his credit Which is actually against what they tell you to do.  He was not pushing it.  He was just sort of telling me his story and It would say things like oh, you might actually maybe find it interesting, you know So I actually I respected him for that and I didn't take offense or anything  Then in the fall, like I think September, maybe it was August, somewhere around there, he told me, hey, I want to invite you to a graduation that I'm having because I'm graduating from one of these courses.  And so I was like, oh, okay, that sounds great.  So me and some of his other friends showed up.  to this graduation.

 Now the thing that... I think I might have been invited to that but I was busy or something.

 Incidentally, just to throw in here, he called me as well, and although I'm not as close with him, he had a very similar sort of tact with me, making amends and just having a real conversation, friend to friend, honest conversation about  insecurities and sadness and difficulty and regret.  And so, yeah.  And then I think he invited me to that graduation thing and I didn't go.

 So he had kind of given us a heads up that they were going to try to invite us to join.

 However, which is, I just have to say, again, negative critique here.  with the caveat that this is very useful for a lot of people.  Calling it a graduation is a little sleazy.  Yes, yes, it is.  Because if someone asks you to come to their graduation, you're a dick if you don't go, but if someone invited you to come to a sales pitch seminar,  then you're gonna be like, no, I don't wanna go to some sales pitch seminar.  And I have to say that in my experience with Landmark through Lita in the 90s, that's totally what would happen.  She would invite me to things that were couched in a way that did not reveal at least one of its functions, if not its primary function, which is to recruit new members.  Which feels very, it feels betraying in a way, you know what I mean?  Yeah, I don't mind someone saying look can you come to this graduation thing?  It's also a sales pitch thing, you know, but yeah, so if you don't want to come it's cool But it kind of would mean a lot to me if you came because I'm gonna do this thing But just be ready to be sold a couple things, you know what I mean and don't and don't think like you have to do it blah blah blah  So, so my friend and that would be fine.

 That would be fine.  Yeah, I think that would be because you could say no, you could make your own decision.  Right.  My friend in this case sort of broke their rules because I am convinced that he was only supposed to say graduation to my graduation.  Right.  He sort of, I wouldn't call it warned me, but he gave me a heads up that they would try to ask me to join.  Now, I didn't care because I've been through the worst of the worst of timeshare pitches and I've survived and I've been through Amway pitches and all these things.

 But you also have kind of a spending problem.  No, I used to.  But I think you still have a thread of that still.  I mean, you haven't acted it out.

 I don't know if I told you my Vegas timeshare story.  If I could survive that one, which I'll be happy to share, I can survive anything.  So at this point, I really consider myself immune to what I used to do, which was the impulse buy.  The impulse buy.  I'm not saying that I will not... I still sometimes buy things that I later regret.  That's true.  But I used to buy everything on impulse.

 I'm just saying on the scale of compulsive spending, you're much better now, but you're not like... There are certain people that I would guarantee you would never give into anything like that.  Do you know what I mean?  And I'm not saying that's a bad thing about you.  I'm just saying, because I'm kind of that way too.

 Like, I like to... But the reason I'm actually pushing back a little bit is because this plays into it.  This is actually part of the theme that came up.  So what happens is, so I get there.

 Well, actually, I have to take a break and there's a lot more of the story, but let's take a break.  What do you say?  Okay, we're back.  If you haven't become a patron of the podcast, please do so by going to patreon.com.  When you go to patreon.com and become a patron of the podcast, you get access to all of our premium episodes, of which there's, I don't know, maybe a hundred of them or something.  And you don't have to listen to advertisements, and you get all these special things, and we respond to your emails more readily and all that kind of stuff.  Okay, Unberto, continue with your story, please.

 Okay, so I arrive at this quote unquote graduation and immediately I realize that it is 0.01% graduation and 102% sales pitch.  Oh no.

 Now a few interesting things start happening.  When I get there, you're supposed to fill out name tags and put your name tag on, which is not unusual.  I grabbed my name tag and they had misspelled.  Oh, you don't fill out.  They had printed your names.  That's what else.  They had misspelled my name.  So if I see an example, instead of Umberto, it might have said Umberto or something like this.  One of the many common spelling that happens.  Uh, no big deal, but I decided to flip the card around and write my name myself.  So I wrote it, but I wrote it upside down and I put it because you know me, I do weird things.  So I put my name tag on my thing and it's just that it was upside down.  Um, inevitably, uh, not inevitably.  Well, almost everyone pointed out that it was upside down.  All the staff.  Yeah, so I would meet them and they're like, do you know that you're, and I'm like, oh yes, yes I do.  And I thought it was fine until at some point, one of the staff members, kind of one of the coordinators is like, oh yeah, you really need to turn it around.  Did we mess up your thing?  It's like, oh yeah, but it's no big deal.  Okay, but you really, like we'll print on a new one for you.  It's like, no, no, it's fine.  No, no, we do need to.  And I was like, okay.  So they gave me a new one and I put it in and I flipped it upside down anyways.  And they're like, you really need to have that right side up.  And I was like, okay, but it's just, it's like, yeah, you really need to.  So I finally was like, okay, I gave up.  I just put it right side up.  What do you think about that?  Well, that was one of several trends that I started noticing of this authoritarian kind of approach to it.  Like, you don't get to make the rules.  You're there.  You follow these very, very specific rules.  There's no argument.

 Right.  So another.  How do you feel about that?

 I felt a little like I'm someone who values a creative environment.  And I felt like, wow, that's the end.  Like it's not a friendly, welcoming, creative environment.  It's a, we don't get your joke.  We don't want to get your joke.  You need to flip the name tag.

 Yeah.  I mean, it's kind of bizarre when you think about it because for people out there, if you've ever been to an event that has a name tag of which, you know, there are occasionally  Think about a time when someone, like there was the name tag police going around making sure that you did it in a very particular way.  Especially since you're a guest.  You're not a member.  You're a guest.  And someone is barking commands at you.  That would really rub me wrong.  I mean, yeah, I would be like, fuck off, pal, move away.  In fact, here's the name tag, take it back.  I'm here for this so-called graduation.  I'm not here to please you.  Who the fuck are you is what I'd fucking say.  You know what I mean?

 So I sit down and they start the thing.  and at first they do the okay well graduation happy everyone's congratulations and they have a few people come up and give their their story of what they've been up to and all these things and that's fine then then they start doing these things where they have a share with the person next to us  And so I was like, oh, okay, so this is where it starts.  So they sit you with, they specifically sit you not next to your friends, but next to like these coordinate, these moderators.  And you have to- Sales people.  Basically, and so you have to share something, and I forget exactly what it was, but you know, I have to say like- How many people are in the audience?  Well, each person was supposed to bring like three people.  So- Hundreds?  No, no, no, this is maybe like 80 people.  Okay.  This is not a huge room yet, because this isn't- And so they coordinate

 basically volunteers.  Yeah.  To sit next to every single.  Yes.  Uh, yes.  Rube.  Yeah.

 Okay.  And so then we start telling these like stories, like they're, you know, so tell me something that's going on in your life or something like that.  And then the other person does too.  And then you start sort of like giving each other ideas and feedback and stuff like that.  So far, so good.  Everything fine.  Um, then this happens.  I'm talking to this gal and we're having a good conversation.  She flips into  you know how when you maybe when you were first thinking that you wanted to be a therapist maybe you might have thought that you knew what a therapist was about maybe you would have tried to pretend like you were a therapist and you well imagine someone that's not so good at the at this thing right and so she immediately starts trying to counsel me right but she's jumping way to conclusions and like making too many assumptions but i'm just sort of like going along with it because i'm just here for my friend anyways  But as I start saying things like, yeah, that could be, although there is this, I start feeling this pressure of like, no, maybe you haven't thought about it enough.  Like, she's really questioning right off the bat my own conclusions about the things I've talked about.  And I'm thinking to myself, you know, I see what they're trying to do.  They're trying to show me how insightful they immediately could be that maybe I could learn something from this, but they're messing up because maybe she's not good enough or something, but they're immediately making it too trivial.  Like my life's not that trivial.  The thing you're proposing, trust me, I've thought about it, tried it, it doesn't work or whatever.  And either way, you're trivializing the problem down to nothing.  And so I'm like, but I, you know, I'm just like going along with it.  Okay.

 Now, towards the end of the- So, side note, when I was just a side-jack, I think it's relevant.  I was at a Wenshills in Factoria.  Remember the Wenshills in Factoria?  Yeah.  Across the street from the cinema.  And I'm sure I was just hanging out there because I never had money.  Or no, I was 17, 18.  And I filled out this card, which is sitting with this salt and pepper, you know?  There's this little card, and it said, like, Personality Survey.  I think I've been talking about this before.  and send this, felt this form, send it in, it will send you a personality assessment.  So I fill it out, you know, and I mail it in, and soon I get this report in the mail.  And it has my, it has like some personality metric, you know, like,  You're high in this and you're low in this and you're high and you know you you're credit score.  Yeah.  And I think it had 10 different domains and I remember two being like really low bad.  And then you get an appointment with a professional sometime on the phone.  No, no, no, no, it was in person.  So it was in Bellevue and I went to Bellevue.  And I sit down with this woman and so I'm like, I must have been really bored or something in like this is senior year in high school and just like nothing to do, you know, I just remember just because I'd already got into you dub ever see Washington and I was like.  Trying to get D's because I was like I'm not gonna work any harder than I need to and I football was over and I just remember just being like Aimless, you know, I just couldn't wait for the next chapter in my life So I went to this but anyway, she did the exact same thing with me.  She starts She's I mean she was older.  She seemed old to me, but she's probably like 22 and She's grilling me about she's like, okay, this looks pretty good.  This looks pretty good.  And I'm like, yeah, okay, but she's like but look at this one  And it was like it was like the third item out of ten that we were gonna talk We were gonna talk about all ten, but we spent the next hour and a half talking about that third item And she was really trying to get me to admit that I had a flaw and that I was That I had all these problems that sort of like blossomed out of there and she's making all these Assumptions, you know the exact same way that you're in Scientology.  Yes.  Oh, it was yes.  Oh my god.  Yes  So I didn't know.  I had no idea what Scientology was.  I remember seeing TV ads for Elron Hubbard's Dianetics on TV.  It was this animated volcano.  I watched that too on TV.  Yeah.  And I remember just being like, what the hell is that?

 I always thought it was the coolest thing.  I didn't know what it was.  Dianetics I just remember thinking oh it's like a self-help book or something like it's a advice book I that's all I thought it was but it's actually about like Xenu I didn't even know that I thought it was a science thing like Dianetics was an actual science oh and I'm like I can't wait till I study Dianetics

 Well, anyway, so eventually she starts to kind of cry because because it's been it's been an hour.  I think we ended up talking literally for an hour and 15 minutes and we never got to the, you know, six other seven other items and the whole time she's trying to convince me and I'm not attacking her.  All I am doing is just like  Because I'm like you.  I've been thoughtful since I was like 13.  Sure.  And philosophical.  And I don't know, at the time I was probably stupid.  But I had answers for things.  And I had already thought about everything she was throwing out at me.  And I felt the same way.  You don't even know me.  And you're making all these assumptions and let me tell you how what you're saying is wrong because what's the chance that a random person could just look at a psychometric and just spout about your life.  It's hard.  That's a skill and even the good people are pretty bad at it when it comes to actual individuals.  You have to actually interview a person.

 And then there's this trick too, which is that if what she said resonates with you, it's too trivial.  Because especially at your age, if what she says kind of attacks you in some way or feels like it challenges you, then the right way to approach that isn't this confrontational way.  Anyways, because that's not going to resonate with you.  That's why with a therapist, they don't come out and tell you, this is all the stuff that's wrong with you.

 But it's motivated interviewing and these two women were trying to get us to think that there was something wrong with us so that they could provide an answer, which is their product.  And I just have to say, I didn't know about this whole step that you went through.  I knew you went to the course, but you didn't describe this step to me.  This is before the course.  Which I have to say is super fucking sleazy.  If you were not as strong as you are in terms of your personality, in terms of your self-confidence, I would find it extremely hard to fight back.  Right.  Against that.

 Well, and so this is how I ended up connecting several dots.  So what happened?

 Again, caveat.  Many people who go, love it.  It actually does help them.  The advice that landmark eventually gives, which we'll get into in a second, is not bad advice.  They don't tell you to kill anyone.  And the classes aren't actually even that expensive when you compare to other kinds of trainings.  So I just want to say that but this step I just have to say is super cheesy.  I mean I'll tell another story another day about a time when I went to the almost exact same thing that you're going through but they were trying to sell me to be a knife salesman Okay, they said it was a job and they said you know and I answered to add and I went in and the exact same thing they had they had Rube Salesperson Rube salesperson and the salesperson were acting like rubes and anyway and

 So this is something I want to touch on because you brought up that in my past, I have been an easy mark for a lot of things that cost money.  Now, what's interesting is usually where I spent the money was related to some sort of merchandise, something that I already wanted, actually.  Like, for example, one time I wanted a magazine subscription because I kind of wanted.  But around the same time, I got one of those calls that were like the time life subscriptions or whatever.  And I was like, oh, that sounds like a great deal.  I get like 10 magazine subscriptions, blah, blah, blah.  And I just did it, even though it cost me.  And then I eventually had struggled for years to get out of that stupid thing, right?  Same thing, you know, we talked about like me buying tons of clothes or me buying tons of music equipment or things like that.  But one thing that sort of happened to me very young was I bought a timeshare when I was 23.  And going through that process and then seeing that even to this day, I still have that time share and I've never been able to get rid of it.  That actually sort of left a really bad taste in my mouth for those categories of things.  The other thing that happened is also when I was quite young, I think 24, maybe 25, a friend of mine had gone into Amway and as a favor to him, I went to one of those presentations.  But they rub me so wrong because the whole theme was work is stupid.  You're an idiot if you work.  Look at my Rolex.  Look at my yacht.  That was the whole theme.  And so, and then, and then I actually was like, I mean, they sort of have a product they could sell to me in a different way, but I'm obviously not their target customer because this sounds like gross.  And then even years later, Amway morphed into something called Quickstar.  They had this little side thing called Quickstar.  They approached me saying, hey, I'm a headhunter for a tech company called Quickstar.  And I was like, oh, okay.  And at the time, I was working at another tech company.  So I met this person at a Starbucks.  That should have been a sign.  And then they explained all these things.  And halfway through, I'm like, is this Amway?  And he's like, no, this is not Amway, which was a flat lie, like flat out lie.  Because later that evening, after I had driven behind him to this other place, they explained like, yeah, this is the evolution of Amway, right?  And I actually asked the guys, I'm like, hey, listen,  Could I buy your product and then sell it on my own terms?  I don't want to wear a suit.  I don't want to attend these conferences.  I don't want to do these things.  But I'll buy some of the product and I'll sell it on my own terms because I think I could probably move some of this product.  They're like, no, that's not how it works.  You have to be in this.

 These people are fucking immoral.  I mean, this happened to me too.  I met a guy in a Starbucks and to this day, it's a little foggy.  It was like the early 90s.  I forget what he was trying to sell me on.  But if your product is good enough, it will sell with truth.  Because this all relates to therapy, by the way.  I have a therapy business.  I've had a therapy business for almost 20 years.  I'm trying to get clients to come to me, right?  Now I don't need that.  There's a strange upsurge of clients calling me.  I'm turning away clients almost every day and I feel terrible about it because it hasn't always been this way for me.  But I've been, there were times like right after the housing crisis in 08 that my practice was down to like one or two clients a week.  And I was, that was my whole job.  I wasn't working at Antioch at the time, but in the podcast, I was about to lose my house.  I was about to be on the streets.  I was, I was gonna, I was like, I guess I'll move back in with my parents at the age of 37.  And I was desperate for clients, but I never would have tricked someone into having a conversation with me.  I'm going to always just say, please, and then when they came to me, I always say at the end of the first session, I say, I want you to think about whether or not you want to work with me, go home, think it over, and then email.  I never, I rarely, unless people are like, no, no, I really want to make an appointment for next week.  I'll be like, okay, but I always start with go home, think about it, don't,  make a decision about whether or not I'm your therapist while you're sitting in my office because it's hard to think straight.  I'm gonna go home and really think about it.  And so why do I do, I don't have to do that.  I could be more pressuring to people.  I could, there are so many ways you can manipulate someone in a first session to make them feel as though therapy is like super awesome.  Like there are ways of making people cry  You can sort of break them down, particularly like people who are susceptible to this sort of thing.  And it would, I don't know, but it would probably raise the possibility that they'll stick with me or stick with me for a long time.  And that is like, that's immoral.  Like, not only is it unethical and, you know, just sort of poor behavior, but it's immoral to trick people and to try to coerce them into something that they don't come to naturally.  Now, what people at Landmark will probably say or Amway will say is like, you need to get people over the hump because it's so great over here.  But like I said, if something is so great, it will attract people naturally.  Like therapists in general don't have to do these tricky tactics because therapy is worth something.  It's a good thing, not for everyone.  And for the people that's not good for it, they shouldn't go to therapy.  But for the percentage of people that come to therapy and spend money and time on it, it actually helps them.  And it's worth their time and energy.  And I've never advertised myself.  I've never had it's just like let the product speak for itself let word of mouth speak for itself so Yeah, well, so that's that's that's where it started coming to a head for me in that in that pitch sale pitch At the end of that what they do is they bring in the heavy hitter We have to take a break and then I want to hear about the heavy hitter  All right, we're back.  Brito, tell me about the heavy hitter.  Is this like... The heavy hitter.  Again, I just want to say that landmark is a wonderful thing for a lot of people.  Leta, whom I love, one of my best friends.  If she were sitting here, she'd be like, Kirk, you don't understand.  Landmark I was and she was involved with it for at least a few years heavily like there were times when I would hang out I remember one time we went to like this sailing boat and we're hanging out with her and her landmark friends and they were like super cool philosophical open super like communicative and and artistic people they were like really rad people I really liked them and  And they loved landmark so it's not it's not they're not sleazy people that it's what I have a problem with with landmark are that it's the system then that that they follow Rigidly and Because honestly if you just made the  the classes known to people, it would probably sell itself.  You wouldn't have to resort to these sleazy tactics, you know?  And of course, they would say it's not sleazy, we're trying to like introduce people to the thing.  But when you call it a graduation and you proceed to spend the entire time and you sit, rube, you know, volunteer, rube, volunteer, it's, I mean, come on.

 And then this was, you'll even go ballistic on this one.  So she's telling me, you know, I'm explaining to her what I'm into, what I like.  And one of the things I say is like, well, I love music, right?  And she's like, no, you don't.  No, actually, it's the opposite.  She tried to latch onto that.  Again, this is like that kind of the amateur technique.  She goes, after I said, like, you know, I don't do music, but you know, I have all these other things that I do now and stuff like that.  She said, you know, I sense in you that you're really strong musically.  And I think you should pursue that.

 This is like just like four or five months ago or something.  Yeah.

 Yeah.  And after meeting me for, you know, like 10 minutes or so, she, she goes, I sense in you.

 And so she's saying, I really think you need to go after this.  right?  Oh, thanks.  Thank you.  It's been okay.  But so then, you know, I'm humoring.  I'm like, Oh, well, thank you.  That's really nice.  Okay.

 So then she says dumbass, like she says, I mean, if you were 19, like maybe, but you know, you're when it's based on nothing, it's not like she actually analyzed the whole lay of the land.  But even if but  The fact that she's just making this assumption like you've never actually pursued your music, of which you have fucking pursued, since you first started singing, do you know what I mean?

 And it's a very kind of trivial statement to make, plus something that probably actually works maybe 60% of the time to tell someone you should follow your passion, right?

 So then she says, so listen, I think you would really benefit from the Landmark Forum.  And I say, you know what, Ashley, I might, it sounds like a three-day focused time I might have.  I will think about it.  And she's like, oh, what is there to think about?  It's like, well, I mean, I gotta do research.  I gotta actually think about it.  And she says, what's stopping you?  I say, nothing's stopping me.  I'm not going to make a decision tonight.  Because this is classic sales pitch.

 Of course.  Yeah.  And so then that's when the heavy hitter.  For those that don't know, when you're selling someone on something,  if you want them to get to a point where they say that.  Because the idea is that the percentage of people that walk out of the room saying, I'll think about it, is pretty low response that they'll actually fuck.  Because a lot of people will say that because they're either actually on the fence and then once they get out of that emotional landscape, they return to their senses and say no.  or they're actually not on the fence and they're just saying that to appease you, but it's a way that you can, as a salesperson, kind of get in because it's like, oh, they're not saying no, so I can use that against them, essentially.  It's just like they're saying that they're on the fence, so I can... That's right.  So now I've got to ask them,  Well, what's stopping you?  Because there's really no viable answer to that question.

 Right.  And I didn't bite because normally what would happen, especially what I used to do when I was younger and I would absolutely give in to all the sales tactics would be, so what's stopping you?  And I might say something like, well, you know, money's tight or, well, you know, next month is going to be busy.

 They have an answer.  So when she said, so what's stopping you?  I said, nothing.  I'm just not going to make a decision tonight.  Right?  Now at this point, she calls or the heavy hitter joins it.  He's the guy who did the main presentation.  He's this very slick guy.  He's been around the block a billion times.  No nonsense.  He knows what's up.  He sits down and says, how are you doing?  And I say, I say,  Oh, I'm doing great.  Actually, I think I'm going to take three boxes of the soap and two of the shampoos.  He stares at me without a reaction.  And I go, like, I'm just kidding.  You know, I have to let him off the hook.  And then he's just like, oh, OK, that was a joke.  And he's like very serious.  And I was like, okay.  So then I switched gears because I'm like, all right.  I don't know what he's doing, but I'm like, I'm like, um, yeah.  So I'm like, so, so I'm like, listen, I was just explaining to her that actually the, the forum sounds interesting because it's like three days.

 It's so funny because you did not go into this setting out to screw with them.  No, you were, you went because you wanted to support your friend on his quote unquote graduation.  Yes.  But just your natural way with people is so, like, screwy with people.

 Well, especially because at this point, you know, one of my techniques is humor, right?  So, like, at this point, it's such a cliche.  Like, I'm sitting there with a salesperson and the hard seller comes in.  Yeah.  It's such a cliche.  I had to make a joke.

 I know.  Like, to me, like,  I don't know if I've just sort of passively learned, because I've never been a salesperson in my life.  I worked at Foot Locker for a month for four exact weeks.  And then at the end of the day on the fourth week, I just quit.  I can't, because the boss was a super asshole.  And the entire job was based on commission.  So when I worked out per hour, I was only getting like $3 per hour.  I didn't have a base seller.  The point is is that over the years, I've just sort of passively via culture or friends or something, picked up on all the classic sales techniques.  And I can't believe that one, people still fall for this shit.  It works.  That's why they're classics.  And two, that people still use it because everyone or at least a lot of people know the technique.

 But this is the thing with telemarketing and all those things, the spam emails, they don't have to get you.  They just have to get like the .02% of people.  Right.  Okay, so at this point, I explained to both of them, I say,

 And that's why it's immoral because anyone who thinks about it for half a second realizes like the people who are vulnerable to this sort of technique are actually probably traumatized or neglected or lonely or suffering in some way.

 There is a bit of predation that happens.  Totally.  So at this point I explained to both of them I say, okay, so here's the deal.  I actually am intrigued by the three-day forum thing because it's a focus time and there is one specific thing that I'm trying to solve mentally for myself.  I've been trying to pick, as you know, I have many different ideas of things that I would like to do and I've been trying to like select one to really focus on and so I thought, yeah, maybe I could use like some focus time and I don't know what they're gonna talk about but maybe I could use this myself for, so I told them that but I said, but here's the deal.  I'm definitely not signing up tonight, and part of the reason, and one of the main reasons, is because I no longer do things on impulse.  If I had been here 10 years ago, I might actually sign up on the spot, and that would be the problem.  So I'm specifically not doing that.  And, of course, this didn't work.  Like, I was... There was part of me that was hoping that they would get it.  Like, oh, I see.  He is two steps ahead of this technique, so maybe we need to let... No, no.

 Well, it didn't work.  Or... Oh, he just revealed that he used to have a problem.  Or even dive into that.  Because you basically admitted that.  He used to have a problem with compulsive spending.  So I'm not going to be his heroine to this... Instead... I'm going to let this person have his healthy boundary.  If I'm truly interested in helping someone, then...  I would absolutely give someone.  I mean, I wouldn't sell people on something anyway.  I would just present and say, do you want it?  And if you don't, then great.

 So, so no, they, they, they went right through it.  So, but I told them, I'm like, I'm not making a decision to it.  So it ended there.

 Right, so I suspect and we don't know and maybe you know, I don't think you do in terms of what the compensation is for these two individuals if you do sign up.  Do you know what I mean?  Yeah, you're right.  There could be a bonus.  Is there a bonus or is it just social like accolades?  Yeah, that's a good question.  That's a good question.  You couldn't just get my guess.  You couldn't just get people to do this without some kind of major incentive.

 Well, they are trying to climb.  There is a ladder system of the like associates and then like the trainers and things like that.  So maybe that helps them climb.  I don't know.  But I walked out of there without buying anything.  I told him, like, look, I'm gonna think about this.  What did they say?  They were, they stopped talking to me.  Like, she was nice, but he basically moved away and stopped talking to me.  Like, in a nice way.  I was a lost cause, not really.  He was already rude to me because I had made a joke.  And so he really was like, if I could put words in his mouth, he's like, this motherfucker, you know?  And so he moved away.  I was lost cause, done.  But he didn't realize that of all the people at night that didn't buy on the spot I was the more likely to actually reconsider and think about it because I did mean what I said I wasn't BSing him.  Yeah, but he didn't catch on to so I left and I proceeded to For the next few weeks.  I think about what's funny.

 Just chiming in here is that  You have a rebellious streak or just a, you have a contrarian streak.  That's probably a better word for it.  You like to... No, I don't.  Kind of mess with people.  And so you were already ready to like establish control.  But at the same time, when he decided, okay, I'm done, you have a contrarian to that of like, I'll show you, I'll sign up for it.

 But I really, in this case, that's true.  In this case, I actually, before they even did the heart cell, I was already like... No, this isn't lying.

 I mean, you go to therapy, you like to go to workshops, you like to self-improve.

 I was basically believing that I could cut through the BS parts of it and maybe get some usefulness out of it.  That's what I thought.  So you decided to sign up?  So I ended up deciding to sign up.  Now I found out... How much was it?  I think for the three days it was like 600 bucks.

 So it was which, like I said, on the scale of trainings is actually not that bad.

 That was the reason I also was like, OK, I've done stupid, stupid decisions in my life that were way more expensive than this.  So if I'm going to actually focus for three days and be away from other stuff, OK, 600 bucks is not too bad.  Unfortunately, it didn't work.  What do you mean?  Well, I mean, I bought the thing and I went with the best intentions.  9 a.m.

 Friday or Friday?  Friday, yes.  It was a Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

 And immediately, the name tag thing, again, the name tag Nazis, but then it goes worse.

 No, I was trying to adjust.  Let's play by the book, let's see what's up.  But dude, first of all, you sit down and then I read online about this, this isn't an accident.  they have these chairs that are extremely uncomfortable like really like you know you know like this chair i'm sitting on yeah this is kind of an uncomfortable chair no no no like times 10 uncomfortable and and you're going to be sitting on that for like 10 hours right yeah  Okay, so that's the first thing.

 More than ten hours, I mean, nine, or ten hours.

 But right off the bat, it was not like an hour in.  No, it's like you sit and you're like, God, this is uncomfortable.  You're back, everything.

 Number two.  They don't let you get up either.

 They have this weird breaks thing.  So I look at the schedule and there isn't even a lunch.

 There's no lunch break.  Right.  There's a dinner break.  Yeah, dinner time.

 And I'm like, well, that's weird.  Bathroom breaks are really weird.  They have these very short bathroom breaks.  And you think like, well, you could probably just get up at any time.  It's like socially not acceptable for you to get up and go to the bathroom.  Another weird thing, I was so tired with the chair that I stood up and went to the back to stand up, to stretch my legs, right?

 Totally, totally.  My back, my lower back as a therapist and as a professor sitting all the time, and I'm a shifty person in my seat anyway, fidgety person, that there is no way I could sit in a same, particularly if it was uncomfortable, for longer than an hour.  Right.

 So I went to the back and this gal, the coordinator, the same kind, not the same person, but the same kind that told me about nametags the other time.  She comes up and she's like, um, are you done stretching?  And I was like, well, uh, sort of why?  I really need you to sit down.  My God.  And I was like, Oh, well, the chairs are really uncomfortable.  Yeah.  And she's like, Oh, I'm sorry to hear that, but I really need you to sit down.  Oh my god.  Uh, so I was like, okay, so I like sat down and then, um, so this is happening now.