Video summary
In this episode of Impact Theory, host Tom Bilyeu interviews Vishen Lakhiani, founder and CEO of Mindvalley, to discuss his vision for transformational education—a curriculum designed to address wisdom, mindfulness, health, emotional intelligence, and conscious living. Lakhiani argues that traditional institutions have neglected these essential life skills in favor of outdated metrics like grades and degrees, which he views merely as means to an end rather than the ultimate goal of human happiness. He highlights a rapidly changing world where artificial intelligence will soon provide personalized knowledge equivalent to Iron Man's J.A.R.V.I.S., rendering rote memorization obsolete by 2029. Consequently, Lakhiani posits that the most critical education for humanity is now focused on expanding one's worldview and mastering inner states like meditation and longevity practices. Lakhiani outlines a five-pillar framework central to Mindvalley's approach: mind and spirit, health and body, relationships, impact, and meta-learning. He emphasizes shifting from "monophasic" awareness in the waking state to accessing altered states of consciousness through transcendent practices like meditation or box breathing. This concept is further illustrated by his practice of "thinkitation," where he combines relaxation with idea generation while in an alpha wave state, claiming that 80% of his business ideas originate from this creative flow rather than forced hustle. He challenges the prevailing myth that success requires grueling hours of work, advocating instead for surrendering into inner space to access intuition and visualize goals effectively, citing studies where visualization alone can yield results comparable to physical exercise. The conversation also delves deeply into health and relationships as pillars of human transformation. Lakhiani explains the distinction between chronological age and biological age, noting that lifestyle choices like nutrition and super-slow training can reverse aging processes. He addresses the epidemic of loneliness in the Western world, which he equates to smoking 15 cigarettes a day regarding its impact on health, arguing that digital connectivity is insufficient compared to deep, face-to-face interactions. To combat this, Mindvalley designs physical campuses and programs like Mindvalley University to foster strong social bonds among families from diverse backgrounds, aiming to create communities where individuals never have to feel lonely again. Finally, Lakhiani redefines the nature of work and learning for the future economy. He asserts that with AI handling much of the computational load, careers as they were known are becoming outdated, allowing anyone to earn an income online if skilled enough. The focus must shift from mere survival jobs to creating genuine impact through communication, leadership, and entrepreneurial skills. His ultimate goal is to transform workplaces into "oases of wellness" where companies invest in employees' health and personal growth rather than just extracting labor. He envisions a future where corporations act as new universities, caring for their employees as whole people, thereby increasing engagement and productivity while fundamentally leveling up human consciousness across the globe by 2038.
Read the full video transcript
If you're holding a smartphone today,
you have access to more computing power
and more information than the president
of the United States did 20 years ago.
Think about that for a moment, right?
So, with that, the concept of career
becomes slightly outdated because anyone
today can learn how to earn an income
online if they have the right dedication
and the right skills. And
Everybody, welcome to Impact Theory. Our
goal with this show and company is to
introduce you to the people and ideas
that will help you actually execute on
your dreams. All right, today's guest is
one of the most impactful educators and
entrepreneurs of our generation. With
$700 and a beat-up laptop, he launched
what would become Mindvalley, one of the
most successful edutech companies on the
planet. With a global user base of over
3 million people between his online
courses and his real-world university,
Mindvalley U, he is directly taking on
traditional education and hoping to
create the biggest shift in human
consciousness in a single generation.
And he is well on his way. Starting from
scratch, he built a global empire
comprised of some 300 employees from
countless countries all over the world
and created such powerful tools as
Omvana, which has been the
highest-grossing health and fitness app
on the iTunes store in more than 30
countries, Dormio, which is one of the
most downloaded health and fitness apps
in the US, and Mindvalley Quests, which
is revolutionizing at-home education. He
takes a no-BS approach to what it would
take to really thrive in today's world.
And as such, his innovative curriculum
curates radically new ideas from the
greatest teachers around the world. Even
at a quick glance, it's easy to see he's
assembled what is arguably the most
diverse and well-respected group of
instructors anywhere. He's also a
hyperactive philanthropist who's on the
Innovation Board of the X Prize, was
named to the Transformational Leadership
Council, and through his Project
Renaissance is aiming to make his home
of Kuala Lumpur one of the top 20 cities
in the world to launch a startup. So,
please help me in welcoming the New York
Times and Amazon best-selling author of
The Code of the Extraordinary Mind,
Vishen Lakhiani.
How you doing, man?
Hey, Tom. So glad to be back on the
show. This is so exciting. Glad to have
you here. It's always fun A to have a
guest back, I really enjoy because we
get to go and cover new stuff and go a
little bit deeper than we went last
time, but then B, just we actually know
each other, so it's nice to like see how
the more things I learn about you, we're
able to talk about that on the show.
Likewise, man. And congratulations on
the massive growth of the show. I mean,
you've got an incredible fan base, and
uh I always tell people like if there's
one thing they need to do on YouTube, uh
one channel they should really subscribe
to to really get mind-blowing
educational content, it's Impact Theory.
Wow, that means a lot from the master of
modern education, so thank you very
much. It's very kind. Speaking of
education, and this actually isn't a
setup, though no one is going to believe
that we did not rehearse that before we
came on. Tell me about this new concept
that you have of transformational
education. Transformational education to
me is the most important type of
education, the single most type of
important type of education you want to
invest in for yourself and that you want
to put your children through. So, first,
let me define what that is, right?
Transformational education covers the
education that many of our institutions
forgot to teach us. It's about wisdom.
It's about mindfulness. It's about
taking care of your body, your mind,
your health, your emotional states. It's
about being a more conscious parent,
being a more conscious lover. It's about
how to deal with those days when you
might wake up one day feeling depressed
or sad, and how do you deal with that?
Schools don't teach us that stuff. And
here's why transformational education is
so important. If you think about the
human experience, what really matters is
not so much your grades or the job that
you have. All of these are mean scores.
They are a means to an end, right? But
if you asked a human being to to share
with you the moments in life that
they're most grateful for, all of those
small moments often deal with inner
states. It's falling in love. It's
carrying your first child in your arm.
It's it's the joy of like accomplishing
your first big win. And all of these all
of these are states of happiness, states
of joy, states of human connectivity.
Transformational education shows you how
to get there faster without the
[ __ ] without the dogma, without the
unnecessary toiling towards a degree and
then that job that society says you need
and then that that career path and
breaking yourself working 9:00 to 5:00
on something you hate.
And the reason it's so important is
because the world is changing at an
exponential rate. Um
I was having dinner in uh Palo Alto a
couple of years ago and we were at this
this big event. It was an X Prize event.
And you're familiar with X Prize and
all of a sudden this dude sits in front
of me.
And this guy happens to be the Ray
Kurzweil, right? Google's VP of
technology, one of the the most the most
brilliant minds in technology. So, we
start talking and he starts talking
about artificial intelligence and where
the world is going and he shares with me
these mind-blowing things. He says by
2029
on your smartphone we will have the
equivalent of Iron Man's Jarvis. So, so
but you're a comic book geek, obviously,
but for those who aren't comic book
geeks, I'm sure you've seen Iron Man and
Iron Man, Tony Stark, he shows up at a
skyscraper in New York and there's this
robot, this AI that basically runs
everything. Not a human being in sight,
just a robot running everything. And he
calls it Jarvis, right? Cuz if you have
an AI running your life, you you
probably want to name it after a fancy
British butler. So Ray Kurzweil says
that by 2029 on our smartphone all of us
will have the equivalent of personalized
artificial intelligence. You can call it
anything you want, Rose, Jarvis, Nancy,
whatever. But this AI will be able to
run your life for you. All the knowledge
that we are currently learning in school
will be in our extended brain. And so
what then should we be studying? Because
history, geography, everything is going
to be on a personalized AI. So the most
important thing to teach people is
transformation. It's to teach people how
to expand their world views, to teach
people how to know how to take care of
their health, how to stay healthy, how
to how to practice longevity practices,
how to go within when they are feeling
sad, how to practice meditation and
mindfulness. This is the most important
education. And it's a massively growing
field and what we are trying to do is
bring order to it and bring together
some cutting-edge tech and some really
remarkable teachers and make this form
of education blow up across the world.
We we're going to get it into every
company in the Fortune 500 and our goal
is to get it into 100 national schooling
systems. I love it, dude. And it's a
huge goal and I know that you're talking
openly now about affecting a billion
people, giving yourself 20 years to pull
it off and having this huge shift in
consciousness. I love that. Um now I
want to go a level deeper. Let's start
breaking some of those down, some of the
topics and really get into what are just
some key points that people can take
away with and really rock. So, um I've
heard you talk in the past where you
just start with the diet and exercise,
basically. Right. So, I'm assuming by
the way that transformational um
education is really the core curriculum
of Mindvalley, you? It is the It's the
only thing we talk about at Mindvalley,
you. All right. So, I know that you're
not the teacher, but what are some of
the key things that sound really
interesting, the psychology and um
you're you're using technology. I
actually don't know what you guys are
doing there. Um so, how are you bringing
those two together? What does that
curriculum look like? Just like a couple
of bullet points on it. Well, so we look
we look at the human being from five
different verticals. Okay, the first
vertical is mind and spirit. And so and
and by the way, this is a really good
matrix to view your life. The first
vertical is mind and spirit. What
practices do you have in place to truly
go within to tap into your intuition, to
practice mindfulness and meditation? And
this is becoming increasingly important.
There's a book that just came out called
Altered Traits, and there's this
mind-blowing graph in that book. And
that graph shows how research and
meditation is going through an
exponential curve. Now, what this means
is that there's there've been almost far
more studies on the health benefits of
meditation in the last 5 years than
there were in the last 30 years. And so,
we're stumbling upon something really
powerful here. And as a result,
according to this book, 44% of the
Fortune 100 this year will have
meditation programs for their employees.
So, that's one huge pillar. What what
are there? So, do you know what kind of
or maybe what's the most effective
meditation practice that you guys have?
Like what is So, if somebody watching
right now wants a few takeaways that
they can start like literally finish the
video and start doing. Um what are some
key things? Cuz I I would love to hit
all five. It's always I know it's so
hard and you when you're like, I have
five and oh god, are we on three? Like
where were we? So, I'll try not to [ __ ]
you up too much with that, but okay. So,
number one meditation. Like what are
some key things that either you're
seeing being done in the Fortune 500 or
that you guys do? Like what what's
having that big impact?
Exactly. So, so the big thing the big
thing to understand is that in Western
civilization, we've we are trained to
exist in what what you could call a
monophasic state of awareness, right?
Which means we think of consciousness as
primarily existing in the beta or the
waking state. So, you and I are
conscious right now and we are existing
in one particular level of
consciousness, but if you look at
indigenous cultures, people in
indigenous cultures, they they operate
in multiple levels of consciousness. For
example, I spent some time with a tribe
called the Achuar in the Amazon
rainforest. And the Achuar, they have
this weird ritual. At 4:00 a.m., the
families get up and they come together
around a campfire and they drink tea at
4:00 a.m. and they discuss their dreams.
See, the Achuar believe and they
communicate with tribes across the
rainforest through their dreams. They
believe that the dream world is as real
as our physical world right now. Now,
that is tapping into a different state
of consciousness. Now, whether that's
true or not doesn't matter. The point is
they believe that there are multiple or
polyphasic states of consciousness. So,
meditation actually gets you to go away
from a single state and tap into altered
states. And there's a powerful thing
that's happening. As people are studying
meditation, as people are studying
mindfulness, what scientists are
discovering is that it has this
incredible impact on almost every
dimension of your life. If you just
go to Google News and type in meditation
study, you'll see thousands upon
thousands of results. Everything from
improving skin to improving eyesight to
improving um
um your performance on intelligence test
to improving your heart health. And
nobody truly understands why it works,
but we know it does work. I remember
seeing you speak on stage at A-Fest and
correct me if I'm wrong, but you
mentioned something called
thinkification. Right? Thinkitation,
yeah.
Thinkitation, right? And and and tell
tell tell us what you're doing when you
do when you thinkitate.
So, for me, um I use a very basic
meditation practice, which is something
I want to get back to. With yours is
what you tell people to do, but I do box
breathing. I found that doing four equal
sides does not work for me. It makes me
feel out of breath. So, I've just
adjusted it to suit what's pleasurable
for me. Uh it takes me into an alpha
wave state. If I'm stressed, maybe it
takes me 20 minutes to get there. If I'm
already relaxed, maybe it takes me 3 or
4 minutes. Uh once I'm in an alpha wave
state, which is typically classified as
being calm and creative, which is
exactly how I feel. I feel wide awake. I
feel really sharp. Um I'm breathing. I
do breathe in through my nose, out
through my mouth. Um I get into that
alpha wave state where I feel like um
ideas either from my subconscious or
just normally disconnected regions of my
brain begin cross talking.
Right. So, I get very creative solutions
to a problem that maybe the night before
completely eluded me. Um the reason I
call it thinkitation is in meditation,
you're not supposed to grab onto your
thoughts,
Right.
which I actually found frustrating, and
so it was causing me a problem in
meditation. So, I thought, well, what if
I just promise myself that once I get
into that state, then I can grab my
computer, put it on my lap, continue my
breathing cycle to stay in that alpha
wave state, but if an idea comes that's
interesting, I will grab I don't think
of it as grabbing it, to be honest. I
think about it as riding a wave. And so,
I'll ride it, really follow it, see
where it goes, take notes, write it
down, try to get back on the wave, or
catch a different one. Um and
probably 80% of the good ideas that I
have in the business come from
thinkitating. That's incredible, right?
80% of your ideas are coming when you're
accessing these states. Now, that's what
I'm talking about. You're accessing an
altered state of consciousness. Now,
scientists can measure that. If we
hooked up Tom's brain to an EEG machine,
what they would see is that you're
probably going into you're probably
going to see an increase in alpha waves
and an increase in theta waves. Um what
science is finding is that alpha waves,
which is what emerges from your brain
when you are relaxed, right?
Yep. Is is very soothing. It's very
relaxing. And if you continue relaxing
more, you get into what is sometimes
called waking theta. Theta is the state
your brain is in every night just before
you fall asleep. When you fall asleep,
you go into a deeper state called delta.
But, here's the unique thing. When
you're at theta, ideas flow. In fact,
there's this legendary story of Thomas
Edison where and maybe you've heard
this, he would he would practice this
napping technique where he would hold a
metal ball in his hand and there'll be a
metal tray below his desk and he'd sit
in his chair like this and drift off to
sleep and just as he goes into sleep,
his hand would drop, the ball would
clang on the tray waking him up and he'd
have his ideas. Now, what was he doing?
He was dipping into theta to pull out
ideas. In fact, there's this this quote
by Edison which says this, "Ideas come
from space. It's hard to believe, but
it's true. Ideas come from out of
space."
Now, isn't that similar to what you're
doing? You're you're using your own
language, but you're dipping into theta
to pull out ideas and you just said it,
80% of your business ideas are coming
from the state. That that is what I want
more people to understand. We can tap
into these altered states to
fundamentally make better decisions, to
draw upon ideas, and to even increase
our rate of getting towards our ideas.
So, this is one of the most powerful
aspects of meditation, but you also said
something else which which I want to
pick up on, which is the reason more
people don't meditate. You said You said
something along the lines of, "I know in
meditation you're not supposed to latch
on to any thought, right?" Yeah.
That's rubbish. That's completely not
true. See, there are different types of
meditation. In fact, there are so many
different types of meditation, I hate
using the word meditation. Rather, I
call it a transcendent practice.
A transcendent practice is any practice
where you you go out of the physical
world and you go within. So, meditation,
breathing in and out, box breathing is a
transcendent practice, but closing your
eyes and just being grateful for your
life is a transcendent practice. Closing
your eyes and thinking compassionately
about someone you love is a transcendent
practice and thinkitation is a
transcendent practice. You're going
within. And then there's modern
meditation, which is about becoming
better at the world.
Meditation is not about becoming better
at meditation. It's about becoming
better at functioning in the modern
world. And so, when you understand that
transcendent practices are these
beautiful things we can tap into to get
better at life, you see meditation in a
completely different way. Meditation
helps you bend reality. There is a myth
out there in the world that I call the
hustle myth.
It says that it's about hard work, that
it's about working harder than the
competition. It's about busting your
back for 100 hours a week. I call
[ __ ] on that. Cuz I also see people
who take who focus on themselves first,
who have a steady meditation practice,
who learn how to tap into intuition, and
then how to visualize their goals, and
they work significantly less but get far
better results. You can hustle or you
can surrender into your inner space. And
I'm a big fan of surrendering into your
inner space. Hustling, to me, is an
outdated broken approach that leads to
overwork, it leads to broken marriages,
it leads to poor relationship with your
kids, it leads to aging faster. Don't
hustle. It's a myth.
All right. So, I'm the king of hustle.
So, right now you're going to convince
me to be and I'm actually super open. I
always want a better answer than where
I'm at. So,
explain to me and I obviously I've heard
you talk about this, but I have
questions. Explain to me what it exactly
means to surrender into something. So,
so let me give you an example. Now, you
said you're the the king of hustle,
right? But I would actually debate that.
When I talk about hustle, I talk about
the people who believe that you have to
work an ungodly number of hours to be
successful.
There is a much healthier way.
So, there are two different types of
people who are talking about
entrepreneurship today. There's the type
of people who talk about
entrepreneurship purely in the physical
sense. It's about the number of hours
you work. It's about the number of phone
calls. And of course, hard work work has
its place. But then you see the rise of
books by people like Michael Singer, who
wrote the book The Surrender Experiment.
And if you read the book, it's kind of
cool. This guy built a billion-dollar
software company, and he talks about how
he did that by surrendering, by going
within, by having a daily meditation
practice. Now, in your case, I believe
you're doing it. You're also moving to
that approach, but you're doing it
unconsciously. When you When I listen to
you speak at A-Fest, and you spoke about
how you sit down, you relax, and you
thinkitate, and these ideas come into
you. You're tapping into something. Tom,
you're tapping into your intuition. That
is a far more efficient way than trying
to hustle to get these ideas. You're
going within. So, you're already doing
one of the first steps. Now, the second
part is how can you optimize your rate
of going from idea to reality?
That's That's the second part of bending
reality. And there are significant
number of tools that you can put into
play to to to help you do that by
working on your inner states. For
example, one is creative visualization.
There are so many studies that show that
what you visualize in your mind, you can
help accelerate in the world. For
example, one study called the finger
abduction experiment, basically had
people
exercise their fingers, okay, like
physically exercising your fingers, and
then a control group of people
visualized themselves exercising their
fingers. And what they found is that one
group grew finger strength by um let's
say about 10%. The other group by 9%.
Really close. Just by visualizing their
fingers. Now, the same thing happens in
sales. You can actually accelerate your
sales closing rate by visualizing the
outcome. And we don't really understand
how it works, but we know it works. And
the same thing happens in your
entrepreneurial life. When you get a
clear vision of the business you want to
create, of the lifestyle you want to
create, you move towards that faster.
And so,
meditation to me is not just about
going zen. It's not just about like
focusing on your breathing. It's about
knowing how to tap in, which you do so
well, and then knowing how to get clear
on what you want, and to focus on that
vision for a few minutes every day.
Word. That was very, very well said. All
right, so that was an amazing
dissertation on the usefulness of
meditation.
And then we were about to go to two when
I forced you down. What was incredible?
So, I'm going to make you do it again on
number two. So, brace yourself. But, uh
what was number two? So, number two is
uh body, right? Is is basically So, so
the second vertical in Mindvalley is um
health and longevity. It's it's taking
care of our human body. Do you know that
there's a big difference between your
chronological age and your biological
age? And science recently, this was this
was a study like in the last 1 year,
found that two people can have the same
chronological age. That means they can
be celebrating their 40th birthday, but
one could have the body of a
45-year-old, and one could have the body
of a 35-year-old. There can be as much
as a 10-year gap. And so, I become
obsessed with reversing aging. And so,
um going into the biohacking movement,
I've looked at everything from how can I
heal my eyesight naturally? So, I've
been able to reduce my eye power from uh
20/40 to 20/25, where I go from needing
glasses 40% of the time to needing
glasses 4% of the time. So, there are
certain uh exercises that you can do,
super slow uh training uh that can
actually accelerate your muscular
development. But, many people don't get
this. They go to the gym, and they
exercise in the wrong way, or they eat
the wrong food, or they think it's too
expensive to stay healthy. But, with
with with a proper understanding of
longevity, of nutrition, of exercise,
you can add years to your life. So, that
is something that we are so, so, so
excited about.
All right, so those are two amazing
verticals. Number three. So, so number
three is relationships, right? Um and
relationships are so important because I
believe the age of individuality is
ending. Today, everything we do, we do
collaboratively. The world is just too
complex for anyone to strike it out
alone. And so, we need people in our
lives. And there's a funny thing
happening in the world today. This was a
report from a couple of months back. I
think it was BBC. Loneliness is up 300%
in the Western world. And you know,
this might be sound surprising because
look, aren't we more connected as Mark
Zuckerberg says, with social media, with
Instagram, with Facebook? Aren't we more
connected than ever with our friends?
Well, the answer is yes, but on a
digital screen. And apparently, that
isn't enough. So, loneliness is up 300%
and among people like you and me, the
further you rise up to the top, the more
lonely it gets. CEOs, 50% of American
CEOs report feeling lonely. But here's
the crazy part, right, Tom?
Loneliness is as bad for your health as
smoking 15 cigarettes a day. It is worse
for your health than obesity. So, one of
the things we're trying to do at
Mindvalley is develop models to help
combat loneliness. And so, everything we
do, every quest we we put people on, our
city campus is all designed to foster
friendships. So, we create programs that
help you have better relationships with
your loved ones, better relationships
with your children. And we create
platforms like Mindvalley University
where
a thousand people move to a city
together and we create a campus on the
fly, right? With many of the world's
greatest teachers who come together,
parents, children, entire families. And
not only are people learning together,
but they're forming tight bonds with
others so that you never have to feel
lonely again. And that's what that third
vertical is about. It's about getting us
stronger social bonds. One of the
biggest ways we transform is when we
connect with others and we have shared
shared meanings, when we support each
other, when you share your vision of the
world and I share mine or when we
challenge each other's ideas, but it all
comes by bringing people together.
Do you think that that's only achievable
through like physical proximity or can
it be achieved online as long as the
like structure is right?
there's um there's a lot of science to
it, right? So, for example, Harvard uh
at dinner, the psychologist at Harvard
did a very interesting study called the
very happy people study.
And he wanted to figure out what makes
people happy. So, they looked at
everything. Is it fancy clothes? Is it
warm weather? Turns out there's only one
thing that makes you happy. And it has a
0.7 correlation with happiness. For the
record, one is the highest correlation
means a perfect match. 0.7 is pretty
damn high.
And it was the strength of your social
connections. Now, the problem with
online is that you have a connection,
but is there strength to it? Right. But
when you and I sit down in a cafe
and um we have a deep meaningful
conversation and we are connecting,
ideally looking at each other in the
eye, um being able to see not just
text on a screen, but hear your voice,
see your nonverbal cues, that in that
creates the strength in that social
connection. So, yes, you can have a
connection with someone online, but
strength, that's a different thing and
that comes from shared experiences
in the real world. Yeah, no, I'm totally
with that. That study you talked about
loneliness is really terrifying. The
thought of it being worse than smoking
cigarettes and I really hope people
listening can identify with that and
I the the sense of like it's lonely at
the top, I have been very fortunate to
avoid because my wife is my co-founder.
Right. Um all right, so those are three
of the pillars.
Pillar number four? Pillar number four
is impact, right? And it's so funny.
It's so funny, right? Because we
actually use the word impact. And uh a
lot of people confuse career and impact.
Careers were designed to help us
survive. So, people get into a career
because they are operating on a false
reality. The The post-World War reality,
which is where we needed a 9-to-5 job to
survive. But today, the world is
changing so fast. Today, I mean, if you
just look at And this is almost the
fourth time I'm holding up my
smartphone, but it represents so much.
But if you look at what we have in our
smartphone, we have so much computing
power in our hands. If you're holding a
smartphone today, you have access to
more computing power and more
information than the president of the
United States did 20 years ago. Think
about that for a moment, right? So, with
that, the concept of career becomes
slightly outdated because anyone today
can learn how to earn an income online
if they have the right dedication and
the right skills. And as again, if you
look at the data, according to Gallup,
87% of people globally
are disengaged from work and answer yes
to the question, "I dislike my job."
87%,
which means 13% of the global
population, and Gallup polled 2 million
people, 13% of the global population
like their jobs. So, there's obviously
something broken there. But what does
that have to do with impact? You were
saying that people need to differentiate
between impact and their career. So, I
get it, people don't like their career,
but even if they like their career, it
doesn't necessarily mean they're having
impact. How do you guys teach that?
Like, well, So, there are different ways
you can have impact. One, for example,
is through communication.
So, you want to stack on these different
things. One is is entrepreneurial
skills. Another is being a great
communicator. Another is being a great
leader. So, we have programs that cover
these. So, for example, we we developed
a program with Lisa Nichols, whom I know
has been a guest on this show.
Amazing. And
and Lisa Nichols breaks down how she
speaks. So, if you remember when Lisa
Nichols was sitting on this chair,
right? She told you her story and she
and you'll notice she was talking about
how at a certain point she was
scavenging for money. And you'll notice
she starts digging into the corners of
the chair. Well, in the Mindvalley
program, she explains why she does that.
It's a technique called show me, don't
tell me.
And she talks about how if you want to
make an impact on someone, you want to
get them to remember your story, you
physically act it out as you're
speaking. Now, as she goes deeper in
that quest, you learn tools to get your
ideas across. You learn tools to
convince an investor. You learn tools to
make your ideas heard at work and thus,
you're able to make a better impact. So,
you're short-cutting someone's ability
to make a dent in the universe, to make
an impact in the universe.
Love that. Hit us up. Pillar five. So,
we've covered we've covered mind we've
covered mind and spirit.
Yep. We've covered um
um health and body. We've covered
relationship. We've covered impact. And
pillar five is what we call meta
learning. So, meta learning is the art
of learning how to learn. Learning how
to set the right goals for your
learning. Learning how to optimize your
learning, meaning speed learning, memory
and basically improving yourself in
terms of your ability to absorb
information, digest that information and
then turn that information into
real-world results. So, we call that
category meta learning. So, one of the
programs within meta learning is a
program called Superbrain, which we're
so excited about because now it's being
deployed in schools in Finland, right?
And um
um the techniques are so cool. So,
recently I was giving a talk in Munich
and there were about 300 people over
there and um at the end of the talk uh
on at the end of day one, people would
come with my book for me to autograph.
And as I write the name in their book,
dear um
um
Kirby or whatever, I would look at their
face and I would associate that name
with that face. And so, the next day in
the class, I could I kid you not
remember 50% of the names in the room in
a room of 300 people. And there's
something so beautiful about that
because Dale Carnegie says, "The
sweetest word to anyone is their own
name." And so when you remember
someone's name, it makes them feel so
appreciated. It makes them feel
important. And so people loved the class
and they felt honored that their names
that when they raised their hand I could
go, "All right, Kerby. What was your
question?" Right? So I learned that from
Superbrain and it's a it's a really
simple technique. What you do is So
again, there are there are different
there are different tactics for learning
someone's name. Uh the tactic I use
works something like this. So your name
is Tom. Okay, so I'm going to do this
with you and uh um excuse me cuz it gets
kind of embarrassing sometimes. So
firstly, you got to understand that your
brain will remember anything that is
weird, sexual, or funny, right? Your
brain is going to is optimized to
remember anything that stands out. So um
um Tom Billue. So when I think of the
word Billue, if I had to think about
something weird that that that that word
connotates, okay? Billue, I think of the
phrase bill you as in someone billing
you, someone asking you for money. So I
am at now
with that idea in my head, I look at
your face and I try to identify what is
the weirdest thing about Tom's face.
It's your ears. You've got really
beautiful Obama ears, right? Like like
fluffy Obama ears. So now So now what
what I try to imagine is that they they
they are they are bills coming out of
your ears. So there's Tom and I'm
talking to Tom and his ears are flapping
like like Dumbo the elephant and they
are bills coming out of his ears and
he's billing me and he's such an
important guy that every minute I spend
with him, I'm being billed. And now I
remember the name Billue. Right. And by
the way, when you remember the name
Billue, Tom is is easy to remember.
You'll remember the first name as well,
right? So by So again, it's finding
something weird in someone's face.
Looking for the weirdest association you
can make to their name and then making
that association and training yourself
to do it faster. The faster you do it,
the faster you can do it. And then you
repeat the name. So, if we were to meet
for the first time, I'd say, "Tom, okay,
great to meet you, Tom." And then over
the course of the next 1 hour, every
time I see you, I would start with Tom.
I would just repeat that name and repeat
that name. And when you learn to do this
quick enough, you learn to remember a
ton of names really rapidly. So, that's
the technique.
Fantastic. All right, I don't want to
run out of time. There's one more topic
I want to talk about, which is you've
grown really fast over the last year. I
think when we last met,
um
we you were at 200 employees, you're now
at 300. That's 50% growth in just a
little over a year, which is pretty
insane. So, what are you learning about
teams? What are you learning about
personal development in um in the
workplace? Well, one of the things that
that's exciting me a lot about the
future of humanity is how I believe the
nature of work is going to change. So,
right now work extracts from you. When
we work, it actually makes us older
because of the increase in stress,
because of like I said, 87% of people
today, according to Gallup, dislike
their jobs. And when you dislike
something, it takes it takes a toll on
you. So, work actually makes people age,
it makes people unhappy, it produces
sometimes negative emotions, and all of
this have a toll on a biological age. I
want to help fix that because I don't
think we can continue as a human species
in a world where 87% of people dislike
their jobs and 55% of kids dislike
school. Kids walk to school and run
home. Think about that. So, how can we
switch that? So, one of my obsessions is
turning work and schools into an oasis
of wellness.
And that's going to become easier um to
to to understand when you see how
rapidly the world is changing, right?
Work is becoming grossly simplified
because of AI, because of robotics. We
can get more done in less time. Schools
are going to become more efficient. And
so, there's going to be this big space
for transformational technologies to
come into schools and work. I believe
that we're going to see a shift in work
where where personal growth is going to
become a core offering in every
workplace. Companies won't just be
paying you a salary, they'll be paying
you by making you healthier.
And what this means is that you're going
to see and and in the book Alter Traits,
the author shares the statistic 44% of
the Fortune 100 this year, in 2018, will
have mindfulness programs for their
employees. But, we're going to see this
expand beyond mindfulness. We want to
change the way work functions so that
when you are part of a job,
that that company is actually making you
healthier. And because you're healthier,
you show up better. You are more
dedicated to the company. You are able
to give more to the company. When you
get a job, you're actually not just
being paid, but you're being educated.
And so,
companies, corporations become the new
campuses of tomorrow. They become the
new universities of the world. They
become means to transform their
employees into a new type of human
being. And there's going to be an era
coming up, Tom, where
it's no longer going to be about
companies asking their employees to be
engaged in the company vision.
Companies are going to be engaged in
their employees vision. What this means
is that companies are going to care
about who you want to be and are going
to help you become that person.
And there was this really interesting
study done, right? By again, by Gallup,
because Gallup does tons of studies on
on corporate culture. And And the study
said
that employees who answer yes to the
following question,
"My supervisor or someone at work cares
about me as a person."
Employees who answer yes to that
question are far more engaged. they they
they have higher revenue uh per
employee, they they love their work
more, they're more committed, they're
more hard working on all all the the the
items that um
a boss or a CEO, an entrepreneur would
want to see, everything levels up when
they feel that they are cared for as a
person. And that's really what this is
about, caring for people as as people.
Yeah. I love that, dude. I love the way
your mind works and the way you think
about all this stuff is really exciting
to me.
We are unfortunately at the final
question time, but before I ask it, tell
these guys where they can find you
online. Well, um
go to mindvalley.com. That's my website.
And um but of course, you know,
Mindvalley has a ton of different
programs and teachers. Follow me on
Instagram. I would do a lot of writing
on Instagram on new discoveries and new
ideas and transformation and it's just
Vision. instagram.com/vision,
v i s h e n. And uh I have a really good
um following. Uh we we we discuss
high-level personal growth ideas and my
following loves to comment. So, follow
me on Instagram and take part in those
comment-based discussions. Love that.
All right, my final question. What's the
impact you want to have on the world?
Between now and 2038, my goal, and it's
a stretch goal, so 50% chance of
failure, is to create the biggest
leveling up in human consciousness our
species has seen. And this means getting
transformational technologies and
programs into every single company in
the Fortune 500 and being able to to
work with at least 100 national
governments to change 100 different
different national schooling systems, to
inject transformation into students.
I love that. Vision, thank you so much
for coming on, man.
All right.
Guys, here's the thing that I hope that
you really notice about this man. When
you ask him a question, he has thought
about the answer. It is something that
he has spent an inordinate amount of
time really thinking about to get to the
actual answer of what he would have to
do to accomplish something. I love that.
I don't know about life book other than
what I found in the research, but
knowing him, I will tell you that it's
clarity. It's ultimately getting clarity
on what it is that you want in life,
want from life, and then the actual plan
that you're going to need to take to get
there. Is that pretty good?
Perfect. That's amazing. That literally
just from knowing him, I'm telling you
this is the way his mind works. Dive in.
This is what you're going to get from
him is an understanding of how much you
have to think about your own life.
The level of clarity that you have to
have just being around him is going to
give you that kind of clarity. You're
going to start asking the right
questions. When you talk about that your
life is the average of the five people
that you spend the most time with, this
is the guy that you want to spend time
with socially to see how he thinks, to
see how he approaches problems, to see
just how much he thinks about this
stuff, and how [ __ ] audacious he is.
It is literally crazy. He is completely
reinventing the university system.
Absolutely love it. He said he was going
to do it two years ago, and he's
actually doing it. So, there's nothing
that I'm more intoxicated by than people
who know what they want and they're
really going after it even when there
are a thousand reasons not to, even when
there's 50% chance of failing, that they
go after it.
So, dive into this guy's world. All
right, guys, if you haven't already, be
sure to subscribe. And by the way, while
I have you, just today we announced our
new partnership with Steve Aoki, the DJ.
We dropped our first comic book. If
you're not following me at @ITComics,
get on it. For those of you, I still
can't believe some people don't realize
we're doing this. This is a full-blown
content studio. Impact Theory is all
about making entertainment that empowers
people. That's it. So, check it out. You
can follow me at @ITComics for this
first journey of the project that we
just launched. Yay, I'm so excited. It's
called Neon Future. All right, if you
haven't subscribed here, be sure to do
that. And until next time, my friends,
be legendary. Take care.
Thank you, guys. All right, Tom, thank
you so much for coming on man. Hey
everybody, thank you so much for
watching and being a part of this
community. If you haven't already, be
sure to subscribe. You're going to get
weekly videos on building a growth
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