Landmark Education, BWW, Quixtar, Indians, MLL, Nigerians, Pyramid Schemes. Why Me?
I was going to write a post about this quite awhile ago but never got around to it.
Landmark Education
Back in March a girl I had gone on a date with about 3 years ago (who’s kept in touch here and there) texts me out of the blue to tell me that she thinks im very professional, smart and charismatic.
Because I agreed with her I said “hey thanks _____, you too”. I always compliment people back when they compliment me, sort of a bad habit. Also, she is pretty smart actually for a hot chick.
She says, can I call you right now?
Keep in mind this chick is hot. Not model hot but definitely exotic car show model hot. Ok ok, here’s some actual pictures of this person. It will make this post better:
FTW, her boobs are real.
More fun after the jump.
So, of course I said “yeah sure”.
So she starts off catching up with me, and then tells me what she’s been up to, complimenting me the entire time. I start making fun of her and of compliments in general, like “now do I have to say something nice about you?”
So I’m starting to notice this weird trend and then she starts talking about these workshops she’s been going to that just make her so much more positive, ambitious, etc. My first response is to joke that it’s a cult when really it was just her enthusiasm at this point that seemed cult-like. As the conversation went on it was pretty clear that she was trying to recruit me to some cult called Landmark Education.
She said these seminars were intense but they have helped her so much. She had bought a new car and moved to a new apartment.
When people are crazy like this but otherwise normal you sort of don’t want to call them on it because you know they’ll freak out, so I didn’t. I said i’d get back to her.
I called my boss to ask him what he thought (he’s a smart guy, been around) and he said that it might be fun to go as a learning experience but “don’t give them any money”.
So I was going to go as a goof and share it on this blog. My job got busy, I imagined three hours with some former red faced jock with a business degree and a 35k salary screaming in my face, and I flaked out on her. After it was clear I didn’t want to attend the seminars she stopped contacting me. So much for being charismatic.
Quixtar, BWW
About 3 months ago i’m trying to sublet my apartment in Koreatown and an indian guy comes to take a look. His friend is moving to town soon from the east coast. and he’s scoping some places out for him. He’s devastatingly nice. He chats me up for awhile and i’m sort of uncomfortable thinking he’s gay or something. He says he’ll take the apartment. After talking to me about his business I ask for the URL (i’m endlessly interested in people’s online businesses) and I take a look, it looks fishy and not great but not a scam either (I glanced over it).
He writes me a check for $100 as a deposit. Later I decide not to sublet the apartment and call him to say that my apartment manager found out and prohibited me from subleasing it to him (this was a total lie).
Very politely he said “ok, no problem. By the way you said you work in the internet, right?”
“Yes, I do” I said.
“Would you be interested in meeting up and talking about a business opportunity?” He asked.
“I’m very busy, I don’t have much time for other businesses” I said.
He persisted and kept trying to set up times to meet. Also he had done the whole compliment thing quite a bit. I’m really busy and don’t have much time with my day job and side projects, but a lot of interesting and sucessful people have listened to my dumb business ideas so I thought I owed this guy one, besides, thats what business guys do right? Meet and talk about business.
So I meet him at a coffee shop near my work. I’m a half hour late. I sit down and the pitch begins. I can’t believe this is happening.
Suddenly his friend arrives. The guy who he was renting the apartment for. He knows my name. WTF? A friend calls (I had dinner plans), I say that i’ll be there in a few minutes. I hang up. They keep talking, I can hardly understand them as they’re scrawling notes and bubbles and crap on a yellow notebook. 50k in the first 2 years, six figures after 5 years (they repeat this several times). It’s called Quixtar but you should also take these courses through BWW. People in the coffeeshop are looking at me. I must look like some idiot without a job falling for this crap. ENOUGH.
I say “Look”.
“I’m busy, if I was going to start a website that sold stuff i’d just do that— I can build websites, I have the capital to invest in inventory, I can market it– I wouldn’t share my profits with you guys or anyone else. Did it occur to you that this pitch probably wouldn’t work on someone who works on THE INTERNET? Why would you waste my time and not tell me what this was about. You two are both programmers—engineers– I thought you had a real business venture…”
“But Andy”, he says, “You need to be open minded in order to make 50k annually in passive income”
I walked out.
A few things:
I went to college. I earn over 100k a year. I’m smart. I can emote that i’m not an idiot pretty well. I’ve never told anyone “I’d really like to earn some passive income, I wish I knew of an OPPORTUNITY”
WHY THE HELL ARE THESE PEOPLE BOTHERING ME?
Is there a lot of this going on right now?
WTF?!
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You sure get solicited a lot. I am interested in psychology so I SEEK self growth workshops. I know a sale when I see one though.
I went to LE in my early twenties and I literally fell asleep. I had a good long nap for three days. I was dumb for going back hoping it would be better the next day. The weekend was all about them lecturing to people who totally buy their crap. Some people (some with psych disorders)called long lost friends and family memebers after like 20 years of not speaking to them and stuff and “forgave” them or planned to reunite. I didn’t buy it, I still think they were confederates.
LE explained that you have “rackets,” beliefs that inhibit you from doing what you want to do in life. They make a big deal out of it, make you look like a horrible person that needs a lot of help and then on the last day, they tell you “forget it all, nothing matters.” Everyone cheers, dances and then signs up for their other courses (which I was smart enough not to take).I LOATHE Landmark.
A guy from Landmark Education learned a bunch of buzz words he used to take advantage of my mom and steal money from her. His name is MITCHEL YORK, a gay hairdresser in San Diego who works at Salon Devine. He is apparently like a leader or something in Landmark. Can you write a blog about him?
I have taken other valuable seminars and I don’t push anyone to go. If someone approaches me, I make recommendations. I do have one specific friend who is a pusher and she gets on my nerves about going to the last seminar of a series of seminars that I have already attended. I think she has to learn “don’t sell what’s already been sold.” She also gets angry at people who don’t want to go. It’s just her lame side.
Thanks for writing this about LE. I still think you should go so you can make an educated slam on it.
I look forward to the comments and blog posts to come.
is your annoying friend the one you tried to hook me up with who I called a “cult member”?
At the end when they say “nothing matters” what do they mean? Like do they mean that everything they just said was crap, or…
I don’t get that. I wonder if that chick who I posted pics of is still nutty about it. I should contact her and see. I wonder if there’s a way I can see if shes still involved in it but not make her feel bad if shes become un-brainwashed.
Any suggestions?
Can I come to one of those meetings with you sometime? Srsly. It’d make great fodder.
Yeah, it’s her.
I think they mean: let it go. When I heard that, I had the facial expression that Spencer’s sister (from the Hills) got after she said “…it was a hamster that became a guinea pig.” I was like “what the fuck? that was all the hype? I should’ve never come.” (I went for free and still thought that).
Unfortunately, you have to pay for the seminars so if you don’t wanna pay, you can’t go. They do have brief lame presentations that don’t really represent what the seminar is about. I don’t know about Landmark, you can probably find one of those somewhere.
If you need more material you can hang out with my “cult member” friend again. You’ll have a lot to work with after a few hours, maybe minutes.
Why don’t you contact your friend and ask her if there is a free Landmark presentation you can go to?
Hilarious! So this is the chick that was calling you, huh? Did you ever see her pic, or were these the pics she sent? They were probably pulled from Myspace.
Christen- read carefully. I had gone out on a date with her; I met her at the arsenal in west la. Yeah these are taken from her Myspace.
i went on LE but didnt sign up for their other courses – it felt was too sinister but i couldnt put my finger on what it was…it would be great if you could objectify/demystify their teachings
couple of things on what was said above:
1. ‘rackets’ arent about limiting beliefs – they are about the stories we tell ourselves to justify our own actions eg al capone thought he was a kind hearted generous individual instead of a thief who stole from honest hardworking citizens
2. what they said at the end was “we are ‘meaning-making machines’ but the problem is nothing makes sense and its not supposed to – this is it!”. this is a cool philosophy but its also what made jean-paul satre kill himself (they add a caveat to this saying that ‘its meaningless that its all meaningless’, but that too is ultimately meaningless!)
Quixtar, I knew I had heared that name somewhere, It’s the new “FACE” of Amway.. no one will buy in to Amway anymore so they had to change the name to something no one ever heard of.