A family member of mine has been convinced by a mentor at work to attend ChoiceCenter in Las Vegas. The co-worker paid for my family member's training/tuition as well as lodging. I have done a lot of research on LGAT's since this family member asked me to go to ChoiceCenter with him, and I am concerned, to say the very least. I am not attending - but he is and he says he has "nothing to lose" by going.

I have found a lot of information on LGATs in general, Lifespring, Landmark, and Impact, but not much specific info on ChoiceCenter.

Are any of you willing so share your experiences, or your families' experiences, with ChoiceCenter with me?

I would like to send specific examples of how the training is conducted and how the students are treated to my family member in hopes that he will change his mind.

Is it extremely similar to Landmark and LifeSpring? Is it more toned down? Is it more intense?

Thank you in advance for your help!

It looks like just another "standard issue" LGAT to me. Their "basic" package is nearly $2500.

[www.choicecenter.com]

According to Wikipedia:


"Lifespring training, once offered under a unified corporate umbrella (from 1974 onwards), now appears in several guises delivered by differently-named companies called "centers." Some of these companies offering the training programs once offered by Lifespring include Millennium 3 Education in Dallas, TX, The Legacy Center in North Carolina, Summit Education in Florida, MITT, Accelerate, and WorldWorks in California, Personal Dynamics and Momentum in New York, Impacto Vital in Central America and the Caribbean, and Choice Center in Las Vegas. Many of these "centers" use the same trainers that originally worked for Lifespring. There are as many as 50 different companies offering these trainings worldwide. It is also known as AsiaWorks in Asia.

Lifespring was founded by John Hanley Sr., after he had worked at an organization called Mind Dynamics, where he worked with Werner Erhard, the founder of est, which may explain some of the similarities in perceptions of the two programs. Lifespring trainings claim to be more based on experiential rather than didactic learning than the est trainings.Werner Erhard prior to founding EST studied Scientology in San Fransisco attaining Class 4 Auditor, a grade in the Church of Scientology. One can observe the similarities in process questions between EST and Scientology"

[en.wikilib.com]



EZ

I have three friends who have gone through Choice Center Las Vegas and I have not so I feel in a good position to make an informed but unbiased assessment.

First, it’s not a cult. My three friends who went through it all came back wanting to better connect with friends and family and be nicer to everyone. As with any self-improvement activity, there will be times people realize they don’t like their situation/person they are dating and work to change it. Choice Center teaches deeper connections with people which is the antithesis of a cult.

They are however a VERY high pressure sales organization. The Leadership course is essentially a class in how to recruit your friends. Participants are encouraged to set a team enrollment target and recruit that many people. They also do a charity project and everyone’s experience is different, but my friends experience was that the charity project was secondary to the recruitment. This doesn’t make Choice Center evil, if they believe they are helping the world then it makes sense to try to get as many people involved as possible, but be prepared for a strong emphasis on recruitment in leadership. If you stop after discovery/breakthrough there is not as much pressure.

During “leadership” one friend was told by her coach that her friends didn’t trust her enough and that’s why they weren’t taking her suggestion to join. When she dropped out, her assigned buddy came under pressure to get her back to the point that she called choice center leadership and asked them to lay off of him. On the other hand, my other two friends also dropped leadership, one before it started, one during and neither experienced heavy pressure to return.

One friend says they benefited tremendously. One says they benefited some. The third says they did not benefit at all. ChoiceCenter’s actual exercises are proprietary and confidential but participants are allowed to share their own experiences. What I’ve been able to gather is that there is a lot of introspection into ones past, both individually and as a group with a coach pushing you, and that leads to various emotional breakthroughs. The “some benefit” friend said he had been stuck in life and the work got him unstuck. The “no benefit” friend (who I think did actually benefit slightly) said he wishes ChoiceCenter had a coherent philosophy that he could keep reminding himself of, rules to follow so to speak. It's too small a sample to draw a conclusion, but it may matter that my friend who benefited the most is very emotionally driven (huge "F" on Myers-Briggs), and my friend who saw zero benefit is very logically driven (huge "T").

I was in LV16X (2017/2018) and i can tell you with out a doubt in my mind

THIS IS A CULT!!!!!!

they are referred to as White Collar Cults; they are after your $2800 and the $2800 of your closest friends!

If for our next vacation your up for:
Brainwarshing
Blackmail
Threats
Abause
then Choice should be your first stop next time in town! If your up to being reverted to acting like a selfish 12 year old, then Choice is the place for you! If you want to lose you free will and chant stupid saying, then Choice is your kind of place. if your up to being told if anyone and i mean anyone gets in your way RUN THEM OVER and TAKE what you want then yup you guessed it Choice is your kind of place. If you enjoy people lying to your face while telling you your shit for breaking your honor then yup Choice is your kind of place.

If none of the above seems like your cup of tea then avoid Choice Center, people that attended Choice and maybe as far as avoid friends of people that went to Choice. these people are BAD NEWS

I read a yelp review about a woman that was physically abused while she was there, sick twisted messed up place!

I just wanted to share some good news!
I received a letter from my credit card company yesterday...

We have concluded our investigation, we have ruled in your favor. I received a FULL REFUND!!!!!

Since choice made us chant over and over F*** that guy all i can say is F*** you Choice! so far Choice 0 - Me 3

Blaidd_164 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I just wanted to share some good news!
> I received a letter from my credit card company
> yesterday...
>
> We have concluded our investigation, we have ruled
> in your favor. I received a FULL REFUND!!!!!
>
> Since choice made us chant over and over F*** that
> guy all i can say is F*** you Choice! so far
> Choice 0 - Me 3


Great news! Congrats, Blaidd_164!

"When she dropped out, her assigned buddy came under pressure to get her back to the point that she called choice center leadership and asked them to lay off of him. On the other hand, my other two friends also dropped leadership, one before it started, one during and neither experienced heavy pressure to return."

I agree with you. It DOES sound like a cult, or any other typical LGAT.

Yes, I see that some people are pressured to return, others are not. I was pressured to return to Landmark. In my case, they called me after I had left. I had told them that I was leaving on the advice of my therapist.

They STILL called me repeatedly. They actually called me and told me that "my" course was starting the following week, and that it had already been paid for. I had NOT signed up for the course in question, and had specifically told them that I did NOT wish to take that course.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/28/2018 03:21AM by kdag.

From the ChoiceCenter website:

Since 1998, ChoiceCenter has offered adult and teen personal development and leadership courses using experiential learning to elevate Emotional Intelligence (EQ) – the single biggest factor in determining success in life.

Ask yourself, if you could have the relationships, career, family, body, and lifestyle of your dreams, what would that experience look and feel like? What is stopping you from creating it?

At ChoiceCenter, your goals and vision for success are at the heart of our curriculum. Our leadership classes are tailored to achieve your goals. You’ll learn how to make those dreams a reality by working with a personal coach for 100 days in Leadership Legacy.

According to the Harvard Business Review, “Studies have shown that a high emotional quotient (or EQ) boosts career success, entrepreneurial potential, leadership talent, health, relationship satisfaction, humor, and happiness. It is also the best antidote to work stress and it matters in every job — because all jobs involve dealing with people, and people with higher EQ are more rewarding to deal with.”

At ChoiceCenter we are unique as we combine experiential learning to boost your EQ with leadership and professional development skills. This combination creates inspirational results among our alumni.

Nearly 3,000 scientific articles have been published on EQ and a Harvard analysis of those reports found that a good coaching program can increase your EQ up to 50 percent. They also found that you can only improve if you get accurate feedback. This is one of the reasons why our leadership programs are 75 percent experiential.

You’ll be engaged in a variety of activities and exercises that create a direct experience, followed by reflection and feedback, which increases knowledge, develops your skills and clarifies values. Similar to how you learned to ride a bike or swim, experiential learning lasts a lifetime. Very few of us have the ability to memorize a barrage of facts and retain it for a lifetime, but we remember our experiences. That’s because experiential learning allows you to make discoveries and experiment with knowledge yourself instead of hearing or reading about the experiences of others. The outcome is the development of new skills, attitudes, behaviors, creative thinking, and ways of being that you adapt quickly and retain longer.

Many people don’t realize change can happen in an instant, but it can. We just need the awareness, the tools, the coaching, and the commitment to choose it. ChoiceCenter graduates have such extraordinary results so quickly because our curriculum is a highly developed and proven technology.

The journey starts with our Discovery and Breakthrough course, where you will boost you EQ and discover endless possibility. In Leadership you’ll author your own Personal Strategic Plan of goals you want to achieve in the next 100 days. You’ll be assigned a personal coach who will support you and hold you accountable to achieve your vision. Your relationship with your coach and team of coaches is invaluable. In Leadership, your life is the classroom. In our signature classes you’ll master your skills, create abundance, strengthen relationships and super charge your business. [link to each class description].

ChoiceCenter is committed to giving back and supporting our alumni, community, and planet. This is why each year we raise funds for charities that range from Home Stead, who supports homeless veterans, to St. Jude who cures kids with cancer, to Habitat for Humanity, and many more. When we all give back everyone wins. Each class raises over $100,000 for charities.

ChoiceCenter courses are designed to take you to your next level of performance in the fastest time possible. If you’re ready to experience your life super-charged, then enroll today. Make your career, your relationships, your family, your health, the best they can be – in this moment.

///

Again we see the Harvard brand being used to give 'credibility' to an LGAT.

They seem to have picked up on the EQ trend, and have built this buzz concept into their pitch. In my world there has been considerable doubt as to the validity of EQ research and the concept itself. Yes, numerous studies have followed Goleman's original research, but it is thought my many that, that research model was flawed.

In any case, we have the other hallmarks of the LGAT approach.


The appeal to success and the achievement of personal goals.
Representations that personal changes can be instantaneous; the "pop".
Representations that this organization is working for the greater good of its alumni, the community, the PLANET.
High pressure sales tactics.

This seems to be a tried and true formulae at this point.

bakkagirl

It's a cookie cutter White Collar Cult. up until a few years ago we had another one of these cuts in Las Vegas called Synergy. I meet someone that went to Synergy, we meet a few months before i went to Choice. After i was done he told me about his experience because of course he didn't want to ruin it for me...

I was so beyond disturbed by his break down. it was EXACTLY what we did at Choice even down to the day of the event and the time of day. Even years later the brainwashing is still there....

I heard that there are on average about 5,000 of these type of cults operating in the US at any given time...

Its hard to give the full breakdown of how this type of LGAT is so dangerous. the brainwashing is so subtle its hard to even see, and they are giving people what they really want, well.... People want to think they are powerful, that they are special, that they are loved, that if they really try they can do anything. Choice fills this hole if your willing to follow their rules and do as they say. Never found so many "leaders" taking orders every time they turn around...

Blaidd_164 wrote:

"I was so beyond disturbed by his break down. it was EXACTLY what we did at Choice even down to the day of the event and the time of day..."

Yes. They pretty much follow a script.