Be Unreasonable

As I went through myLandmark Forum, I hit a point where I had such a wonderful breakthrough that I wanted to share it with all the people in my life. Our coach had told us that as we start to share our breakthroughs with the people in our lives, they are going to be very interested – and if we think they are interested, then we should ask them to come to our Tuesday night session, even if it would be unreasonable. Our coach said that people love to be unreasonable, because it shows that you believe in them, and that you think they can do something above and beyond the normal call of life.

I headed outside to make my phone calls and thought “I guess I will ask them to come on Tuesday, if they are interested…” but I knew that a lot of the people I was going to talk to live in other states, so it’s not as if they could skip over on Tuesday and then head back home. Sure I could ask them to be unreasonable, but wouldn’t they just feel burdened by my request to travel to Chicago in the middle of the week?

The first person I called was my mother. I told her about the breakthrough I had, and she was really impressed. I told her that I had forgiven my father, and that I suddenly felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. She said “I need to learn how to do that…” – My mother lives 300 miles away, but I figured I would make the offer and I told her about our Tuesday night session. I was totally shocked when she said “I will see if I can work it out.”

The next person I called was a friend who lives in Florida (1,100 miles away). I told her about my breakthrough, and she couldn’t believe that I had such a great experience. We were having a great conversation, so I told her about the Tuesday night session. She instantly said “I will look at plane tickets.” – I couldn’t believe it.

In the end, neither of them were able to work out the situation, but they both thanked me for asking them to attend. I challenged them to be unreasonable, and even though they weren’t able to work the situation, I didn’t simply make the decision for them. Too often, we give up before the game has even started. We give people the easy way out, rather than challenging them to be great. If you give someone a chance to be unreasonable, they just might surprise you.

The Landmark Forum is a program offered by Landmark Education.