Formerimpactgrad,

>>Is there any evidence that they do any good?<<

Great question.

Here's what the Great Life Foundation (and Boonetahoe and all their other employees, trainers, and volunteers) promise prospective participants in the way of the "good things" they will experience there (from www.greatlifefoundation.con -- oh, I mean .com website).


THEY PROMISE if you do the GLF training you will have,"Fulfillment in any area of your life..."



Really. That's right there on the website. That's what your friends and family who are in this training will tell you when they want you to sign up. "Fulfillment in any area of your life..."

What that really means -- "Pay over $2,000.00 and give us over 3 months of your life (nearly full time as a volunteer enrolling (selling) others for the last 2 months of that) or we cannot guarantee any results in any area of your life."

Do level one but choose out of level two -- you will lose your results. Do level two but choose out of level 3 -- you will lose your results. Drop out of level three -- you will lose your results. After 3 months and $2,000.00 if you don't have results you can talk about to enroll others, then there is something wrong with YOU -- NOT US. Or maybe you just really need to do our fourth level, another $1,000.00 and 2+ months of time and money from you to us, and then you will really "get it good." We promise!

Really, "Fulfillment in ANY area of MY life?" How dare they promise any such a thing. How dishonest!



THEY PROMISE: "Our training seminars provide practical, specific skills that enable you to make the changes that you desire in yourself. You learn what you truly want in love relationships, family relationships, health and most of all, what you want in life."

Oh, wait a minute! I see now. You did not just promise "fulfillment" after all, did you?

You're really just promising that:

"I will know what I want in life."

Thanks. But WHY DO I HAVE TO PAY YOU $2,000.00 and give you three months of my time for THAT?!?!



THEY PROMISE: "Greater Success and Satisfaction in your Career..."

Cool. I'll need that to pay your outrageous tuition! But how much "Greater?" 50 percent greater? 1 percent greater?

At .0000000000000000000001 percent greater you will keep your promise to me. Thanks. It just doesn't seem worth it to me.



THEY PROMISE: "You learn how to effectively communicate with everyone in your business place. Learn to cultivate and use your power of discernment in making any business decision. Learn about accountability and a higher form of integrity in the work place. Get results you have always wanted in your career."

Always wanted? Waitaminute.

I thought I won't know what I want in life until AFTER I pay you (See item 1 above!). You mean you get that I have "always" known what I wanted?!?!

Funny, Boone, has claimed to be a graduate and frequent participant in all this but I'm not getting very effective communication from him here, in this place. And already the communication on the website is confusing me. Maybe I'm just dense.

So tell me, how exactly will I:

"Learn to cultivate and use your power of discernment in making any business decision."

Can you tell us which process will give me that?!?! Which 3-rd level weekend? Or is this something I get from Lifeboat? Voting YOU DON'T GO, because I don't have enough sticks and that works in business decisions and my work place . . . how?

How exactly will I learn to "effectively communicate with EVERYONE in my business place?" EVERYONE? EVERY employee? EVERY customer? EVERY vendor?? What if I do business with Hans and Sally, will I be able to "effectively communicate" with them?



THEY PROMISE: "You learn the skill to actually heal relationships instead of pointing the finger at each other."

OK. What is THAT skill?!?! When do I get that?!?! Can you share when that occurs, or the name of that process. Anything about how I will get this?



THEY PROMISE: "You heal yourself, allowing you to then heal outside relationships."

Really? What "outside relationships" have you healed? If you've not healed ALL your outside relationships, does that mean you have not healed inside yet? (Hey, JJ, How is that working for you with Hans, and Sally, and Heidi?!?!?!? Everything healed up there??? Hey, Brett, how many outside ones are you working on now?? Wanna get HONEST here?!?!)


THEY PROMISE: "You learn specific communication and listening skills that will assist you in creating miracles in family and Love relationships."

WOW. MIRACLES?!?!?! Really? You PROMISE me "MIRACLES."

(But, "The Great Life Foundation is in no way a religion or religious in nature." We just give you miracles.)


THEY PROMISE: "You experience talking to your family members without judgment and blame and with create clarity and love."

I don't know about that teaching effective communication thing. They can't even put up a typo-free website with correct English.



THEY PROMISE: "Facing a career change, birth of a child, divorce, the death of a spouse, death of a child, graduation from college, mid life transitions, retirement or if your are searching for more peace of mind, you gain an entirely new perspective on life in this training."

BUT, "The Great Life Foundation is NOT THERAPY!!!

NOPE.

But hey, if you have the "DEATH OF A SPOUSE, DEATH OF A CHILD," do our training and WE PROMISE "you will gain an ENTIRELY NEW PERSPECTIVE."

How dare you. How dishonest of you. Shame on you.



THEY PROMISE: "Experience passion, gratitude and love for life."

BUT THEY ARE ****NOT PRACTICING THERAPY*****


THEY PROMISE: "You discover your purpose here and learn to live your own personal vision."

BUT THEY ARE *****NOT A RELIGION or RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE******


THEY PROMISE: ". . . integrating the skills you learned in Parts I and II into your life. This creates life-long success and joy."

Really?!?!?! "LIFE-LONG SUCCESS and JOY?!??!"

You promise me that?!?! WOW. Life-long . . .

How dare you. How dishonest of you.



THEY PROMISE: "You will receive in-house training on weekends and support during the week from a "life coach".


WANNA tell us all more about the qualifications of that "seven to eight" WEEKS of coaching (not therapy) I'll be getting from my "life coach?" What kind of supervision he or she will have? What kind of training to deal with the death of my child, or spouse, or divorce, or issues with employeer, or my confused sexuality, or relationship with parents?!???

How is that "life coach" of yours trained?


Do you really NOT get it, reading what's on your own website, how a rational, thinking, grounded, centered, okay-with-who-I-am, human being could conclude that:

THE GREAT LIFE FOUNDATION ---- LIES.

Lies. A bunch of lies.

That's what's on this page of the GLF website.

They have NO RIGHT to promise ANY such things.

None.

They lie.

Period.


--------Ed



Edited 8 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/2007 03:09PM by Impacted.

Angry?...call me unreasonable but yep, you could say it makes me a bit angry when unsupecting/trusting/vulnerable people are taken advantage of by unscrupulous scum suckers just to make a buck...everything is about the money, eh?...this has gone way beyond my personal experience, there have been hundreds of thousands of victims...a sucker is born everyday?...from a man who made money exploiting people and calling them freaks....btw, Millinneum 3 is a Lifespring off- spring..new name same same mind fuck

Well said Impacted!...and isn't it almost amusing to think they would sell a 'promise' that 'one size fits all?... a hundred people in a room, with a hundred different needs/problems...but one miracle cure that will 'fix' all of them...gee, can't wait until we can find that one single pill we can take that will eradicte cancer/heart disease/diabetes/aids/etc...now that would be a pill that would be a bit hard to swallow don't you think?

Ed,

As I've read your post I looked back on the hundreds of friends, family, business associates that have attended various LGAT trainings. I want to see where you're coming from on this as some pervasive, dishonest issue that you talk about. Obviously, you've been deeply and personally offended by people in this and other trainings. With regard to the poeple I'm discussing, some of them have attended trainings that I have personally experienced and some of them other LGATs that are also discussed on this forum. While I've heard stories of people who have had mental or psycological break-downs as a result of such trainings, I've never experienced that first hand despite much exposure to this and other types of training. I believe the moderator and posters who describe some of these events. Of all the people I personally know or meet that have attended this or similar trainings, I would say most fall into 1 of 4 camps. I'm not attempting to support or contridict ed's posting, but I thought I would share my own experience of training graduates since it is substantial.

One of the groups compromises less than 5% of the people that I know and they treat the training almost like their religion, they become "Groupies". Most of these people use the training to give there life some sense of purpose and meaning, and it fills a void in their life. Where I don't personally agree with having some training being the center of their life's activity, I see those who do that with their work, their religion, their clubs, their hobbies, and any other number of things that people obsess about. I suppose that it is part of human nature, and although I don't necessarily agree with using a training like that, I suppose to some it temporarily provides a place to focus and builds some life foundation. Knowing where many of them are at in life prior to attending the training, for most it is a step up to living with purpose or even just living. Most of that group would rate their LGAT experience as Fantastic, Life Changing, Exceptional. I'm sure that many who are in relationship with that group would consider them to be "brainwashed", "wasting their life" and so on as I've read posted on this forum by those who have family members, boyfriends, girlfriends, friends who fall into that camp. I see why they would be concerned, sometimes rightfully so, with someone who is obsessed with this or other trainings. Likewise, someone should be concerned about friends who fall into that obsession in any area of life unless of course it's an obsession you share. It seems for example that some (not all) of the posters are obsessed with destroying all LGAT type of trainings and I suppose that is what this board is about. I can't help but wonder if their obsession doesn't negatively impact their relationships.

The second group of training attendees are the group that attend all or part of the core training and don't want to have anything to do with it after they are done. From my personal experience that group is larger than the first group, and yet still relatively small. If I put a number on it I would say something less than 10% of the people that I know. Those people would generally characterize their experience as good, but... Much of the time they take the experience and apply it to some level in their life, but wouldn't consider it to be a major turning point for them. For them it would fall into the catagory of a good seminar they went to once. Those people will occasionally tell a story or find some use for a training principle but live life relatively the same as they did prior to the training.

I know there is a group of people that have a horrible experience during the training and leave with bad feelings about their experience although as I'm reflecting I don't know any of those personally. Most of the time, those people didn't complete some level of the training, and only had a partial training experience. I'm fully on board that a partial training experience could be painful and in cases even damaging. I'm a big supporter of doing a better job of qualifying and educating attendees. I agree with the moderators point about not having adequate prequalification processes and questioning. I know GLF has impemented tighter prequalification processes as a result of comments on this board. That being said I agree there needs to be more in place. Many of these types of trainings lose up to 10% of the training during the course of the training especially on the first level. I know that GLF has reduced those numbers considerably and regularly has trainings where all who started the training complete it. Trainings like this are definitely not for everyone, and I say that as a supporter of LGAT style of trainings. Trainings, GLF and others, should definitely put the interest of the attendees above that of making money on the training. From my experience, this group would constitute less than 2 percent of those who attend the training.

The third group is the one I probably see most often. They attend the training, finish the different levels, and then go back to their life. If asked, they would characterize the training as a great experience even many years later. This group doesn't participate, enroll or really have anything to do with the training with which they were involved other than very few occasions where they might attend a friends graduation or something like that. On a purely subjective basis, most of these people would say their life is better because they attended the training. If they read the website that ed referred to they would probable not find anything misleading or contraversial about the claims or marketing information named in the site. They would agree with most of those statements. I would say that a solid 50% of training graduates fall into this group. For these people, those around them might notice moderate improvement in their life, relationships, work performance, etc. although there would be little to raise eyebrows at. They aren't fanatics although if asked would give high marks and reccomendations to the training they attended. Again from my experience, the level that at which this group experiences financial disaster, divorce, estrangement from relationships would be no more and probably be less than a similar group who didn't have a training experience, but it would certainly still be present.

The final group that I've experience would constitute about 35% of those that attend. This group continues to live their life and adds the training to their life as one of the important groups that they are involved with. They decide to "play" at their preferred training organization in the form of staffing, enrolling, and generally contributing their time and focus. Most of this group keeps it within healthy levels of participation or they would begin falling into the first group I mentioned. I suppose healthy levels of participation is entirely subjective, and someone who doesn't like the training would argue that any level of participation would be "too much". For this post, I'm using the measurement I would use for a healthy hobby. I can get fanatical about skiing, where it's impacting my work and relationships, or I can keep it at a healthy level where I ski because I enjoy it, but it doesn't consume me. I'm still figuring that one out by the way. This group probably creates the most contraversy because their involvement is apparent to all those around them. Those that are "pro" training think this group is fantastic, those that are "anti" training this this group is "brainwashed". This doesn't just apply to just the training. Those who focus on their religions like this, or their work will often draw the same respect and/or criticism from those who feel/don't feel the same. In this case, this group would certainly agree with claims made on the GLF website. Following your strict guidelines on marketing ed, 99% of all marketing materials would be deceptive and grossly misleading and that might be true, beer certainly doesn't make you more attractive. However, large majorities of grads would agree with those statement after their training experience, just like most Campbels soup customers wouldn't oppose their mmmm mmm good commercials even if they didn't like a particular type of their soup and might consider the mmmm mmmm good to be false advertising as it applies to them.

Obviosly for those who have been hurt or offended or divorced or decieved or (you name the bad outcome) from someone who attended an LGAT training, it's pretty convenient to point fingers at the training. Human nature I suppose. I see people who do the same thing with different religions, clubs or even friendships. I'm not aware of a single situation where divorce or estrangement occured post training where there wasn't significant issues pre training. It is quite possible that there are occasions where someone gets a divorce or ends a relationship, quits a religion, quits their job, etc. solely because of a training. If that occurs it is rare, I'm not aware of that happening in my circles. It would actually be an interesting study, wish I had money to fund it rather than just using my limited, subjective experience. I don't know that anyone denies the vast number of people who have great experiences in LGAT's and go on to live regular, or great lives post training whether as a result of the training or not. That applies to the vast majority of training graduates. Many trainings have dramatically shifted their come from to better accomodate the concerns posted in on this board. I know it's not the outcome desired by most of the "anti" posters who would like all trainings obliterated and trainers and volunteers hung in the public square. However, given that is an unlikely outcome, please note that your comments are looked at and changes are made to adapt in some of these trainings.

Here's my question, and it is something I truly struggle with. Is there a number that is acceptable in unhappy customers? If one out of 1000 people made really bad decisions in life as a result of how they "got" the training does it mean that the training should no longer exist? It might. What about 1 out of 100,000 or 1 out of 10? Is there a line and where is it? Lawsuits don't necessarily mean that much, churches are sued constantly, McDonalds is sued over making it's coffee to hot. Everyone from Tony Robbins to Dr. Phil is accused of brainwashing, even though the vast majority of their attendees have had positive and for some life changing experiences. That doesn't mean they should be wiped out. I know this LGAT game is a different animal. I believe the moderator when he says that 100's of people have complained. Many of those haven't even attended an LGAT training, but don't like decisions a grad has made after the training. How does someone weed out ligitimate complaints and issues vs. someone who just wants to blame. I don't know the answer to this one.

In his explaination of cults, the moderator addresses how some groups have managed to move out of generally percieved cult status. He sites the Mormon faith as an example. We'll see if that's true as these elections unfold. Knowing that there will always be detractors, and assuming that LGAT's will continue to thrive, die, resurrect, split and all the things that LGATs do, what could change in an LGAT format that would moderate or limit these feelings of animosity? Is it even possible? Would the list that the moderator posted be a starting point to addressing concerns and changing formats or is this debate a foregone conclusion?

Quote

Well said Impacted!...and isn't it almost amusing to think they would sell a 'promise' that 'one size fits all?... a hundred people in a room, with a hundred different needs/problems...but one miracle cure that will 'fix' all of them...gee, can't wait until we can find that one single pill we can take that will eradicte cancer/heart disease/diabetes/aids/etc...now that would be a pill that would be a bit hard to swallow don't you think?

Let's not get too excited about that. "Promise" was entirely Impacted's word (not the website's wording.)

skibum:

The lists of liabilities and danger signs previously posted on this thread are a "starting point to addressing concerns" about LGATs.

However, it seems doubtful that most LGATs care about such concerns. They are typically for-profit privately owned companies.

Perhaps is there was some accountability to a state licensing board for LGATs things might improve somewhat.

As it is LGATs remain an unregulated industry, without any meaningful accountability.

Many people have been hurt by LGATs and this will probably continue for the foreseeable future.

The best that can be done is to share information about LGATs and their inherent problems and the damage they do with the general public, so that those approached about taking courses can be more informed and subsequently make more informed decisions regarding participation in such programs.

As stated before on other threads there are much safer alternatives and more reliable means for self-improvement such as counseling provided by licensed professionals, support groups through churches, community centers and social services, continuing education through local colleges and universities etc.

Quote
boonetahoe

Quote

Well said Impacted!...and isn't it almost amusing to think they would sell a 'promise' that 'one size fits all?... a hundred people in a room, with a hundred different needs/problems...but one miracle cure that will 'fix' all of them...gee, can't wait until we can find that one single pill we can take that will eradicte cancer/heart disease/diabetes/aids/etc...now that would be a pill that would be a bit hard to swallow don't you think?

Let's not get too excited about that. "Promise" was entirely Impacted's word (not the website's wording.)

So, are you telling me that you would want me to invest hundreds of dollars into a training that claims certain attributes, but doesn't "promise" anything? Well, you COULD experience this, or you COULD make that happen. Well, I COULD do all of those things in my life WITHOUT paying hundreds of dollars to a company that says things on their website, but doesn't consider them promises.

Besides, if you truly believe that your words are binding then ANYTHING you say is a promise, INCLUDING the claims on the website.

Spiritual?

>>So, are you telling me that you would want me to invest hundreds of dollars into a training that claims certain attributes, but doesn't "promise" anything?<<

Great question and no wonder Boonetahoe (aka Jayson Orvis, aka on the board of directors of Great Life, aka Impact grad from around 1997 or so) has not answered your question.

How outrageous of him to claim that what is posted on his website, or said by his trainers, by him personally, or printed in his literature are NOT promises!!!

A couple of friends I shared this with earlier today think it's really funny. But I'm not laughing. It's disgusting.

How long would THAT kind of equivocation last on the first day of Quest?!?!

TRAINEE: "Well, that IS what I SAID, but I didn't MEAN it. I just said, you will get this, or you will get that if you pay me. But it WASN'T LIKE A PROMISE or anything."

TRAINER: "What's it like to look in a mirror and see a LIAR looking back at you?"

Give me a break!


-------Ed

(Finally some "free time" to be here after all the family we had back home for the holidays . . .)

Apparently these guys are still working on their version of The Secret video:

See:

[www.youtube.com]


If this guy isn't Justin's (Impact's Quest Trainer, except when Hans wants to prove he can do it better)
younger brother, he must be a direct clone . . .


--Ed