Conversations For Transformation: Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

Conversations For Transformation

Essays By Laurence Platt

Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

And More




Werner's Work Is Back In Hawai'i

Cowboy Cottage, East Napa, California, USA

November 29, 2015



"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." ... Margaret Mead

This essay, Werner's Work Is Back In Hawai'i, is the eighth in an open group on Werner's Work:
  1. The Heart Of Werner's Work
  2. Zen And Werner's Work
  3. Werner's Work Is Coming Back To Hawai'i
  4. Werner's Work Is Coming Back To Hawai'i Again
  5. Werner's Work Is Coming To Fiji
  6. Werner's Work Is Coming To The Dominican Republic
  7. Much More Than A Compendium: Reflecting On The Source Of Werner's Work
  8. Werner's Work Is Back In Hawai'i
  9. Werner's Work In Academia
  10. Werner's Work: Data, Processes, Sharing
in that order.

It is also the ninth in an open group World Transformed:
  1. The Friends Of The Landmark Forum In South Africa
  2. The Transformation Of The World
  3. Werner's Work Is Coming Back To Hawai'i
  4. Werner Erhard Slide Experience
  5. Werner's Work Is Coming Back To Hawai'i Again
  6. Werner's Work Is Coming To Fiji
  7. Werner's Work Is Coming To The Dominican Republic
  8. The Breakthrough That Unlocks Futures
  9. Werner's Work Is Back In Hawai'i
  10. Werner Is Coming To Stanford!
  11. We're Not Republican, We're Not Democratic, We're American
  12. Out With The Old, In With The New
in that order.

I am indebted to Walter Peters and to Richard Collins and to Joel Bongco and to Geoff Heise and to Alice Talbott and Team Hawai'i and to the graduates of Werner's work in Hawai'i who inspired this conversation, and to Richard Collins and to Lois Yoon and Grant La Mora who contributed material.




The almost infinite range of human endeavors which are deemed by most of us to be inspiring, run a nearly never-ending gamut: bringing forth the end of apartheid  as a living reality, climbing Mount Everest, developing an app  which brings convenience, ease, and utility to peoples' lives, inventing a system of micro-loans  geared specifically to the most impoverished among us so they can improve their situation, surfing a one hundred foot wave ... and I'm only getting started. Now go back just a few short months before  any of the above happened, and look forward from that vantage point: at that time, all of them would have been deemed impossible.

For me there are few human activities which are as inspiring as making something impossible happen ie as making something happen which couldn't ever have happened by itself anyway, simply by having a conversation about it.

Now the truth of the matter is we have conversations about things all the time. We make things happen which couldn't ever have happened by themselves anyway, simply by having conversations about them. But in all likelihood in those cases, our eyes are on the results, and not on the magic nor on the power of conversation itself to produce such results. We take the magic and the power of conversation for granted, so much so that conversation melts into the morass of ordinariness and is seldom seen to be the source it is of the power to transform the impossible. Even though we produce results from conversations we have from within the morass of ordinariness, we're still left undervaluing the power of conversation ie we're still left concluding talk is cheap. Listen: talk isn't cheap. It's we  who cheapen talk.



Margaret Mead Is Telling The Truth



The final est  Training was delivered in Hawai'i over three decades ago in November 1984. The first Forum (ie the Werner Erhard and Associates  Forum, not the Landmark  Forum), was delivered in Hawai'i in February 1985, and the final Werner Erhard and Associates Forum was delivered in Hawai'i in November 1990. Ever since then, a small, thoughtful, committed group of us have wanted to have Werner's work back in Hawai'i. We got that it wasn't coming back - yet we wanted it to come back anyway.

What I want to be clear about with you, is we wanted it to come back in the face of the overwhelming certainty that it wasn't going to come back  ie that it wasn't going to come back anyway  ie that it wasn't going to come back by itself. So we started talking about it coming back - which is to say we started a conversation for possibility  for it coming back. More than simply keeping on saying it would happen (which alone is merely wishful thinking), we took action  consistent with it happening.

Now I don't intend to recount all the component details here of what happened as a result of this conversation for possibility. But if you've been following the essays written so far in the open group of Conversations For Transformation essays titled World Transformed, you'll at least have a bit of background for some of what's already transpired which shifted the possibility of Werner's work in Hawai'i from "No it's not coming back!" to "It's back! Invite all your family members and all your friends to register!".

It was impossible. It wasn't going to happen. We said it would happen. Now it's happening.

That  to me is magic. That to me is the power of conversation. That's not ordinary: it's extra-ordinary. To me that's inspiring.



The Invitation



On Sunday November 29, 2015 I made the following worldwide announcement to around one thousand five hundred people by e-mail letting them now about the opportunity to register to participate in the current iteration of Werner's work in Hawai'i, the Landmark Forum.

Please notice this announcement (unlike the others which preceded it) doesn't speak in terms of the possibility  of Werner's work coming back  to Hawai'i. Rather it speaks simply in terms of participating in Werner's work in Hawai'i.

Furthermore, each of the earlier announcements of Werner's work coming back to to Hawai'i preceding this one, was expressed as a work in progress. This one then, marks the fruition of that erstwhile work in progress. This one is the real deal, the real McCoy, the genuine article. It's the real thing.




Conversations For Transformation

Essays By Laurence Platt

Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

And More




Werner's Work Is Back In Hawai'i

Cowboy Cottage, East Napa, California, USA

November 29, 2015


In the past seven years, we've generated an inexorable groundswell of support bringing Werner's work back to Hawai'i. We've delivered the Landmark Forum for Reviewers, the ten session graduate workshop Being Extraordinary: The Art and Practice of Living from Possibility, and the communication course: Access to Power.

The final est  Training was delivered in Hawai'i over three decades ago in November 1984. The first Forum (ie the Werner Erhard and Associates  Forum, not the Landmark  Forum), was delivered in Hawai'i in February 1985. Now, for the first time since the final Werner Erhard and Associates Forum was delivered in Hawai'i in November 1990, the flagship signature  work Werner Erhard started is coming back to Hawai'i as the Landmark Forum after a hiatus of two and a half decades. This will be the full, open for everyone Landmark Forum, and is not a review for graduates only.

The Landmark Forum in Honolulu, O'ahu, Hawai'i is now open for registration for the weekend of March 11, 12, and 13, 2016; the evening session is on Tuesday 15.

Tuition is US$620.00. To register and for detailed information, please go to the Landmark Hawai'i website at

http://www.landmarkhawaii.com

where you can also learn about introductions to this Landmark Forum in Hawai'i, or go to the Landmark Worldwide website at

http://www.landmarkworldwide.com/contact-local-office

or contact the staff of the Landmark Worldwide center in Orange County, California who are accountable for the Landmark Forum in Hawai'i, at

USA (949) 476-6200

or contact the Landmark Worldwide center nearest you.

Thank You for Your Listening.

Thank You for Your Relationship with Werner.

With my Love and Aloha,


Communication Promise E-Mail | Home

© Laurence Platt - 2015 through 2023 Permission
Whatever follows this, the first Landmark Forum in Hawai'i, is anyone's guess. That's not a trivial statement to make. Allow me to clarify what I mean by it:

To be sure, after any  event anywhere, what follows will be whatever follows  ie what comes next after an event will be whatever the next thing will be - that much is obvious (and perhaps trivial too). Like that, whatever follows this, the first Landmark Forum in Hawai'i, will similarly be whatever the next thing will be.

How-ever  ... Werner's work and the Landmark Forum aren't just ordinary, everyday events. So whatever follows will be neither ordinary nor everyday - nor obvious nor trivial either.

You could say what makes Werner's work and the Landmark Forum extraordinary is that whatever follows, in almost all cases wasn't going to happen  before the event occurred ie you could say whatever follows, in almost all cases was deemed to be impossible  ie it was said it was "never gonna happen"  before the event occurred.

The ramifications of this in people's lives have never ceased to move me profoundly in the nearly four decades I've been around Werner. This just keeps on. It doesn't tire. It doesn't flag. It never gets old. It doesn't get stale or passé. No one ever gets used to it. It's always fresh and new. That, by the way, while it does say a lot, actually says less about Werner's work and about the Landmark Forum itself than it says about the very nature of we human beings and about what it is to be human.



What Becomes Possible Living Our Same Lives Newly In A Transformed Context?



If you live in Hawai'i and you're not yet a graduate of Werner's work, here's my suggestion:

Register in this Landmark Forum in Hawai'i (or in any city in which the Landmark Forum is delivered). Then, don't walk to your seat: run.

We all want a reason, a certain justification  ie we want to be convinced  before we embark on any new unfamiliar undertaking. For this particular undertaking, I invite you to boldy climb those steps up to the diving board, then jump right in. Be like Nike: just do it. Like going to the great new movie everyone's talking about, you may have heard something about it in advance, or you may have heard nothing about it in advance. It's OK. Just go. I promise you'll love it (you can thank me later).

And by the way, you'll lose nothing you hold dear in the Landmark Forum. You'll still have it all afterwards. The Landmark Forum isn't about changing anything about you, and neither is it about taking anything away from you which you already have (I for one, happen to think you're already perfect just the way you are). No, what the Landmark Forum is about is transforming the context  in which we live our lives, and about what becomes possible living life newly in this transformed context.

It's the only game in town. And now it's back in beautiful Hawai'i. It's a perfect homecoming.



Communication Promise E-Mail | Home

© Laurence Platt - 2015 through 2020 Permission