A website created by Landmark Education Graduates with news about other Landmark Education Graduates and the difference they are making around the world
Landmark Education spokesperson Deborah Beroset was recently interviewed on the Great Day St. Louis television program on the topic of gossip. Beroset discusses the different types of gossip that people engage in, and how one form of gossip can actually be an opportunity to make something happen. Here are pieces of that interview.
Host: Is your gossip meanspirited or is it a form of celebration? Communication expert Deborah Beroset is here to talk us through the good, the bad, the ugly when it comes to all that chatter. Deborah, thank you so much for joining us.
Beroset: Thank you for having me.
Host: Okay. Gossip is a form of celebration?
Beroset: As it turns out it’s really only a small percentage of it is that kind of mean spirited, critical, putting-someone-else-down kind of gossip. A lot of gossip is just girlfriend chit-chat, over happy hour, on the phone, people just talking about other people that they know, what’s going on, who’s doing what, who got a new car, look at those new shoes.
Host: So 67 percent of women’s conversation is gossip; 55 percent for men. Why do women gossip more? I’m even asking the question thinking of it as a negative thing.
Beroset: Well, you know, women are actually much more readily admitting that they’re gossiping.
Host: So you’re saying that men do it too.
Beroset: They don’t like to admit it, but they love talking about what’s going on with other people just like we all do. At Landmark Education, we’ve noticed we’ve had more than a million people do our programs around the world and one thing we’ve noticed is that human beings – male, female this nationality, that nationality – love to talk about each other to other people.
Host: So it is normal the. Gossip is normal.
Beroset: Absolutely normal. Now does it always inspire us? Does it have us be happier? Does it leave me fulfilled? Not necessarily. And there is a kind of gossip, Carol, that is kind of gripey, grousing kind of gossip, that kind of conversation, and that’s the kind of conversation that we can actually use and turn around and cause something great in our lives.
Host: Okay, let’s talk about that kind of gossip that you mentioned comes out of griping. How do we turn that, as we said earlier in the show, how do we turn that into gold?
Beroset: Well first of all, you have to notice that it’s going on. I have to notice that I’m gossiping. So if I pay attention to what’s coming out of my mouth, there’s often a complaint underneath there. If I’m complaining; I’m telling some story where I’m the good guy and somebody else is the bad guy, and there’s a little juice in that for me but nothing really happens. But, if I look and see, you know what I’m really complaining about is that my boss is giving me more than I can handle, okay? So there’s an actual complaint underneath that.
Host: There’s an actual issue there.
Beroset: There’s an issue there, right? And I’m talking about it to someone who can’t do anything about it, right? So the second step in this process, Carol, is that you look to see, all right, what is the complaint, and what’s a request that I could make that would actually address the situation as opposed to just having me continuing to natter on to somebody else.
Host: And the request must be made to the right person.
Beroset: Exactly. That’s the key thing, right, is to take it to the right person. So if I figure out what is my request and I take it to the right person and I’m just straight with them, just make a powerful request, it is amazing, that moves mountains in life. Just powerful, straight communication.
Host: All gossip isn’t bad. That’s the revelation for today. Thank you for joining us on Great Day St. Louis!
Noted director, actor and writer Troy Byer was recently interviewed by Los Angeles Wave about a variety of subjects, including getting away from Hollywood, her new career as a writer, her study of ontology, making a difference with people and how the Landmark Forum helped her establish a powerful relationship with her ex-husband. Landmark Education News has excerpts.
Asked and Answered: Troy Byer
by Leiloni de Gruy
After starring in 28 films (”John Q.” being among the most recent), writing four and directing two others, Troy Byer realized she was not living but just existing. Working in an industry that is the stuff of fantasies for millions, Byer decided to step away from Hollywood six years ago to study ontology, the nature of existence. She then took that knowledge and began coaching women in prisons, shelters and spiritual centers nationwide. Last month, she released the self-published book “Ex Free: 9 Keys to Freedom after Heartbreak,” in an attempt to teach people, particularly women, how to regain their identity in the aftermath of broken relationships. Pulling from her own tumultuous divorce and seeing the devastation her mother dealt with when she and her father divorced, Byer is a living testimony to of how you can survive heartache. But the questions still remain. Why ontology? Would she ever go back to Hollywood? In an exclusive interview, she answers all the questions.
Q: Why did you step away from Hollywood to study ontology?
A: I just got so burnt out with show business. I wanted something different and I knew that I loved being around people. I love human beings, I just think they are so interesting as a species and I wanted to learn as much as I could about us. I’ve always been intrigued by the way the thought process goes on in the mind and how something goes from short-term to long-term memory, then I started getting into past life progression and I thought I want to learn about human beings and that’s ontology–it’s the study of being human. It’s not the study of the human mind, it’s not the study of the human spirit, it’s actually the study of the design of being human.
Q: How are you using this knowledge?
A: I’m using the design of being human to actually support people in understanding why they make choices they make and why, in this particular case, when you’re in a relationship, you can’t let go. It’s actually part of the human design and so one of the things that is common knowledge is that you can’t let go if you don’t know you’re holding on.
Q: Tell me about your book “Ex Free: 9 Keys to Freedom after Heartbreak.”
A: In ‘Ex Free,” I’m actually showing them what their holding on to and why and how what their holding on to has really nothing to do with the guy that they were dating or the women they were dating, it’s just a part of the design. They click with the keys and each key opens another door that gets them closer to freedom. Some people get freedom at key two, which is, you’re not your circumstances. They collapse themselves with their circumstances, they think that if they’re feeling heartbreak then they are heartbreak, but I get them to see that they are no more their heartbreak than they are their headache. A headache is a circumstance, right? If you have a headache, you don’t manage yourself like a headache, you say ‘I have a headache, I have to deal with the headache,’ but that doesn’t stop you from being who you are and that’s what we’re working with in key two of the book.
Q: So, why do people hold on after relationships are over?
A: When we meet people there is usually something about them that we really like, there is something about them that we either want more of or we don’t have any of and so the admiration factor sets in and we are attracted to things we admire, so we see something about that person that we absolutely love. I call it the treasure–you want that treasure in your chest. In life, it’s like related ships. Relationships are ships that are related. So, we sail out to sea and we see someone like ‘Ooh that pirate has some fancy treasures,’ and so we reach for them and we take the treasure and put it in our chest and then when they leave we think that they take that treasure that we hunted so hard to find. Well, we’re still holding onto that, we think that they’re going to take that too, so if we let go of him then we let go of that treasure, but it’s not even about them, it’s about just having that treasure. What you learn in the book is that you don’t need them to have that treasure, you can actually have that treasure all on your own because you can’t miss what you never had. The only reason why you see it and you want it is because somewhere you had it but somewhere as a child you lost it, you let go of it or you threw it overboard because you got upset.
Q: What are some of the keys?
A: The first key is make pain your new best friend. We know that pain is excruciating and the first thing we want to do is stop it, we want it to go away but if it goes away how will you ever know where you are in the healing process? If you think about it, it’s what is called growing pains, it’s an opportunity for growth. Another one is your crutch. You have to know that your crutch is just your crutch. We all have crutches that we reach for when we become emotional amputees. Just like when you can’t walk, you reach for a crutch. In this case, it’s an emotional crutch. For some people it’s cigarettes, some people it’s wine, some people it’s music, some people it’s television, some people it’s eating. Whatever your crutch is, you have to know what it is and you have to own your crutch so that your not owned by your crutch.
Q: You were in an unhappy marriage with producer Mark Burg. What issues did you face?
A: It just was not a healthy relationship in any way. I wasn’t ready to be married because I was still incomplete with so many things from my past, and he wasn’t ready to be married. Then there was a lot of infidelity in the relationship, for him it was physical infidelity and for me it was emotional. I was withholding myself from him emotionally and then that sent him to start doing what he started doing and there was just a lot of cheating. I wasn’t happy; I was very sad and I was afraid. I had just had a little baby, I didn’t know where I was going to go; we were broke at the time. He had not had his success and I had a little bit of success, but I had lots of bills to pay so I moved into a crack house, basically. It was the crack house that Rick James used to live in when he got busted with that girl, that’s the house I ended up moving in with my son until I got it together and just got back up on my feet. It just wasn’t a healthy relationship, I cried all the time.
Q: It’s a bit ironic because with most people they believe that the marriage was wonderful and that the divorce was the most miserable part–but for you, you say that the divorce was the best part. Explain that.
A: I look at it as miserably married, happily divorced. Well, after we got divorced I started studying ontology right away, I did something called a Landmark Forum, it’s a three day seminar and it’s designed to put people who are just broke and stuck, and when I say broke I mean broken, I was so blown away by the technology and then I thought I can choose right now to have a happy divorce or a miserable divorce. I called my ex-husband up and I said ‘I am willing to forgive you for everything, if you’re willing to forgive me for everything so that we can be great parents for our child or we can just keep acting like a fool and keep going on this way. So, we forgave each other. We knew we sucked as husband and wife so we concentrated on being great parents. Our divorce was based on the foundation of parenting together for the sake of our son. He said sorry I’m cheated on you and I said I’m sorry I gave you a reason to cheat on me. Men don’t just cheat, women don’t just cheat, there’s always some sort of inspiration.
Q: What inspired you to take on this mission of helping others?
A: People have always been so great with me. I have been so lucky. If I were to live status quo, I should at least be a heroin addict or a prostitute or something. I grew up in the streets, my mother was on welfare, I have three brothers that are in jail. It wasn’t suppose to go like this but I had people at every step of the way that were just so amazing and just reached out and picked me up along the way. My social worker, when I was in foster care, was so great. I thought I want to be like him. Then when I was with my mom and we lived in the battered women shelter, there was a woman there who helped and she would come in and talk to us, and I wanted to be like her too. I think helping the women in prisons is because of my brothers. If I could talk to the men as well I would but that’s a bit challenging. I know what incarceration is like, with my brothers. I’ve seen it. You make a bad choice and there’s a big price to pay, so I like to create something different for them.
Q: Will you ever return to acting?
A: No, I don’t think so. If you see me acting, that’s because my books didn’t sell.
Hearts of Fire, the project Bob Ballard created in Landmark Education's Power and Contribution course as a way of connecting homeless people to art and music, is flourishing. In July, the group received 5013C nonprofit status from the IRS. This summe, Hearts Afire has toured Southern California, visiting homeless shelters and putting on art and music workshops. August has seen Hearts of Fire tour Los Angeles County, and September will see the organization visit shelters in and around San Diego.
A premier video from last year's Hearts of Fire pilot tour has been released: Finally, the Ventura County Star recently wrote a story about the project:
Project Stirs Artistic Side of Homelessness
by Cynthia Overweg
With an elegant swirl of her paintbrush and a dollop of yellow to represent a blazing sun at the center of an impressionistic-style artwork, Andrea Houchin and her 11-month-old son, Luis, put the finishing touches on a watercolor painting they had just created together.Houchin's playful infant immersed his hands into a gob of color on a palette made from a plastic plate. The boy then "signed" their original artwork by pressing his tiny, paint-covered hands on the canvas."Luis is the reason I keep going. When I look at him, I know what love is," said Houchin, 27, who lives with her child at the Lighthouse Women & Children's Mission in Oxnard. She said she was evicted from her apartment about two weeks ago because she couldn't pay the rent."I had nowhere else to go. We're lucky we're not on the street," Houchin said. "Creating art with Luis makes my day a lot brighter."
Houchin and her son, along with more than 100 homeless men, women and children, were part of an art workshop presented Saturday at the Ventura County Rescue Mission in Oxnard by the Hearts of Fire Project.
The Ojai-based nonprofit organization, founded three years ago, wants to change public perceptions of the homeless.
In a donated recreational vehicle, the Hearts of Fire Project has toured homeless shelters throughout the United States for almost two years, bringing art and music into the lives of the homeless. "Our mission is to elevate the conversation about who homeless people are — they're part of the human family with an important contribution to make," said Bob Ballard, 55, Hearts of Fire executive director. "We want to give homeless people the opportunity to be seen and heard through the expression of art and music — to connect their humanity with our own."
Rescue Mission director Carol Roberg credited Ballard with filling a need that resonates throughout the homeless population.
"It's a very lonely lifestyle. It's almost as if their feelings are locked in prison," Roberg said. "What Bob and his organization are doing helps homeless people get in touch with themselves and others."
After sinking into a deep depression following a divorce, Euvaldo Garcia Jr., 38, a participant in Saturday's workshop, said his life spiraled downward and he ended up living in his car.
"I couldn't shake the depression and tried to commit suicide, but the gun didn't fire. Then I got into trouble with drugs," Garcia said. He said he voluntarily went to the Rescue Mission five months ago because he knew he needed help.
He painted a representation of the hand of God reaching down to pick up a fallen leaf on the ground.
"I'm that leaf," Garcia said. "The painting brings out what I've been feeling. It felt good to watch it happen."
Funded by private donations and his own funds, Ballard brings art supplies and music recording equipment to every shelter the group visits. He said he came up with the idea of a mobile arts program when he was living in Boston and regularly encountering homeless people on the street.
"I used to try to avoid homeless people when I saw them. Sometimes I'd give them money, but I didn't want to make a real connection," said Ballard, a songwriter and musician. Ballard said he challenged himself to think and act differently about the homeless.
Because of his love for music, he made a music video two years ago with homeless people as a way of getting to know them and their world.
"I saw a spirit in them to cope with things that most of us would have a hard time facing. I was inspired by their courage," said Ballard. "It was like seeing a burning flame within them — maybe that's what happens when all the material things are taken away."
Ballard said that after completing the video, he and his wife, Gayle, the group's secretary and treasurer, visited some relatives in Ojai and decided to relocate to Ventura County. "We fell in love with Ojai and brought Hearts of Fire with us," Ballard said.
Hearts of Fire kicked off its 2008 shelter tour on June 7 at the Transition House in Santa Barbara. On June 11, the workshop traveled to the Turning Point Foundation in Ventura, where about 50 homeless men and women participated in an outdoor art and music workshop at Plaza Park, said David Deutsch, program manager.
"The workshop gave them a chance to feel encouraged and optimistic about what's possible," said Deutsch. "Homeless people are stigmatized in our society, and while it's true that some have serious problems and need a range of services, it's also true that homelessness can happen to anyone who has a streak of bad luck."
Marika Zoll, a clinical psychologist who specializes in art therapy for the homeless and other at-risk populations, said creating art can help raise self-esteem and encourages positive interaction with others. She helps Ballard facilitate the shelter workshops.
"So many of the homeless are fleeing the horrible feeling of You're not good enough.' The process of art-making has a positive effect on the brain — when you express yourself creatively, it's therapeutic," said Zoll, of Ojai.
Susan Justice, Hearts of Fire director of development, said the program is designed to give the homeless a sense of empowerment. "Many of them take on an identity of being homeless, as if that's all they are, when there is so much more to them than that," Justice said.
She said that the biggest challenge for the organization is funding and that the nonprofit organization is now in the process of applying for state and federal grants.
"We have an all-volunteer staff and in order to get paid, we need some angels," Justice said. "The work we're doing is making a difference in the lives of people who need our help."
To find out more information, go to the Hearts of Fire website:
Out of her project that she created in Landmark's Self-Expression and Leadership Program, Lopa Mehrotra embarked on an innovative quest to allow young people to collaborate and experiment together in science. The idea is TestToob, a website that gives young people the tools to post videos and view and rate videos of other young people. More social networking tools are being added to the site. The project has gained attention from the media in her area, including Louisville, Kentucky's Courier-Journal. Parts of the story appear below.
Out of the Lab and onto the Web
by Bill Wolfe
TestToob, an online community where young people can collaborate on science, was "born in the backyard and incubated on the kitchen table," its founder says. Now the promising Louisville startup is leaving the nursery. The www.testtoob.com website is open for business, though still in its beta phase. And the company has been attracting attention.
TestToob received a $25,000 ICC Concept Pool Fund Award of the state-funded Kentucky Enterprise Fund this year. On September 25, its founder and chief executive, Lopa Mehrotra, will speak at the IdeaFestival in Louisville on "Changing the world: One backyard experiment at a time."
To understand TestToob, think of YouTube for science fans. Geared for middle school and high school students, the TestToob site lets members post videos of their science experiments, view science videos posted by other students and rate them. In coming months, it will add more features of social-networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, with avenues for sharing personal information, posting photos and participating in forums.
The idea for the business came last year, said Mehrotra, who was raised in Boston and lived in several cities before moving to Louisville five years ago. The mother of two said she was looking for a way to integrate technology and education, and for measures that could make science education more appealing.
First she considered a television show on "kids in Kentucky doing science in their own backyard," said Mehrotra, 37. The problem was, "TV is so expensive, and I don't even know if anybody watches TV anymore."
Mehrotra decided on another approach one day in August of last year, when she saw her daughter Ariana, then 6, in their backyard playing with a couple of rocks.
"She said, It's amazing, Mom." Mehrotra recalled. "If I scratch these gray rocks, they turn white. It's like magic."
"Aren't you a little scientist?" Mehrotra said, and her daughter answered: "Yeah. And this is my experiment."
Mehrotra ran for a video camera and recorded Ariana describing her observations. "She had this whole vision about it and was so excited to tell me," Mehrotra said. "I thought immediately about all the social networking applications, such as YouTube and Facebook."
Ariana's sister, Ayala, then 4, said: "That looks easy. I want to do it," Mehrotra said. "So then we did a video for her."
Mehrotra, who has a background in political management and fundraising, tested the concept on other children and found them equally enthusiastic. Despite its high-tech wrappings, the concept appeals to basic human nature, she said.
"We often think that these social networking technologies are forcing behaviors that are weird or technology-driven. But it turns out it's just how human beings interact. We create. We want to share it. And when we see what somebody else has done, we want to imitate it."
TestToob was incorporated in October, and its founder "just started preaching it to anybody who would listen. And people would get excited," Mehrotra said. She soon found financial backing from an investor and began developing the business plan and the software the operation would need.
She tapped her husband, Rishab Mehrotra, to serve as president of the new company. He is also president of Louisville-based SHPS, an independent provider of health-management and benefits-administration services.
In one of its first real-life tests, TestToob took part in the Junior Achievement of Kentuckiana summer Bizcamp. Each day, camp students conducted and recorded a science experiment and posted the videos to TestToob's Web site.
"The kids were just fascinated by it," said Debra Hoffer, president of Junior Achievement of Kentuckiana."I think the more that we can put kids directly in touch with scientific experimentation, the more we're going to pique their interest in science as a career."
TestToob was also in use recently at Assumption High School, where chemistry and physics teacher Dan Dykstra's students recorded an assortment of short chemistry demonstrations.
"A great way to engage them in doing science is to take advantage of technologies that they're already using," Dykstra said. The videos from the site will also be handy for reviews when students miss class, he said.
"I was excited," senior Megan Fleming, 17, said after the videos were recorded. "It was something really different."
Vik Chadra, director of the Louisville Innovation and Commercialization Center, said he likes the business potential for TestToob and appreciates its mission.
"Learning should be fun," Chadra said, recalling when he and friends got together as boys to work with microscopes and other scientific tools. "We had a blast," he said. "We just loved doing this kind of thing. To us, this was play."
The TestToob approach, Chadra said, "could essentially change the way people learn, make it much more fun and engaging."
In today’s challenging and uncertain times, financial knowledge and literacy is a key skill for most adults. Peter Johnson took Landmark’s Self-Expression and Leadership Program in San Jose this summer, and out of it created the Financial Literacy Project, which is designed to bring financial professionals and consumers together in community bookstores. Consumers will have the opportunity to get one-on-one coaching and attend presentations in local bookstores, and interact with experienced professionals who enjoy making a difference in people’s lives.
A strong step forward came in August, when the Garrett Planning Network (financial planning network) reached an agreement to work with the Financial Literacy Project in bookstores, libraries and other community centers throughout the United States.
“The Garrett Planning Network is the ideal partner for this effort, because their goal has always been to counsel and educate the mainstream consumer, without the potential conflicts of interest that can arise with transaction-based compensation,” said Johnson. “Our goal is to educate and inspire, and we couldn’t have found a better group to work with.”
The current plan is to start a pilot program in the bay area this month, to be followed by a national rollout in October.
In January of next year, a leading independent bookstore, Kepler’s Books and Magazines, of Menlo Park, CA, will also partner with the project. This program will feature an ongoing series of seminars, private consultations with personal financial planners, and a special bookshelf featuring recommended books on the subject.
“Kepler’s is thrilled to be able to offer face-to-face financial education in our community at this critical time in our country’s economic history. Bookstores have always been places of serendipitous discovery and learning, and we see the opportunity to make learning and literacy a personalized experience by partnering with The Financial Literacy Project,” said Clark Kepler, President, CEO and Chairman of Kepler’s.
The original idea for the project came to Johnson through his partnership with Pilgrim’s Way, a small, independent bookstore in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. The owners of the bookstore, Paul Fridlund and Cynthia Fernandes, have long offered the services of consultants to their store visitors. As a financial planner, Johnson was one of those consultants and he got to see firsthand how everyone wins through such an arrangement.
The bookstore earns extra revenue through increased foot traffic, fees for consultations and additional books sales; the public gains access to high-quality financial expertise and information, and financial planners get valuable community exposure.
New Jersey businessman Jack Licata has an invention that he’s been thinking about for 20 years: ‘Bag Ups’, a unique system by which one biodegradable garbage bag attaches to another, meaning that as soon as one bag is removed from a trash can, the next one pops instantly in to place. Now his invention has debuted on television.
“I had been thinking about this ever since I had been a captain in the air force twenty years ago,” said Licata. “It was through taking seminars with Landmark Education that I finally stopped procrastinating and did something about it.” Licata managed to get the product on the QVC television station and its ‘Easy Solutions’ segment. Bag Ups appeared on a seven-minute spot on September 16 where they were promoted and sold.
Bag Ups are 100% biodegradable and assembled completely by disabled New Jersey residents. For more information, visit the QVC website.
When Leila Salmons of Houston created the "Supplies for Star Students" project in her Landmark Self-Expression and Leadership Program, her intention wasn't to collect school supplies for students with good grades. Rather, she and a team of professionals are making sure that personal living supplies – items such as socks and underpants as well as school supplies – go to the Houston-based Star of Hope emergency shelter.
This team of people is holding a supply dropoff event on October 1. They are asking individuals and businesses to donate backpacks full of supplies for young people in preschool through fifth grade either at the event of by October 3.
Star of Hope spokesperson Selina Stanford talked about the event on the Great Day Houston television program, noting that with Hurricane Ike having hit the region recently, lots of supplies were lost, creating an immediate need. Stanford goes on to mention that in addition to the personal supplies, the "Supplies for Star Students" project had committed to also donate $10,000 to Star of Hope, $5,000 of which had already been raised.
To get involved or donate supplies, contact Salmons at salmons@therapyconnectionsspc.com. Also visit the Star of Hope website.
