VISHEN LAKHIANI (CEO of Mindvalley): 3 Ways to Shatter Your Limiting Beliefs

Well, it was so content rich. And really what's so fantastic is that you're sharing from your experience. And that's what I love. I love when people are sharing from their experience what you're actually doing. You're walking the talk. It's not something that you're just teaching. You've seen this and you've done it and lived it. So I mean, from starting out with $700 to what you've created now is so much about the vision that's carried you forward. And you know, what I know is that for very successful entrepreneurs, what I find is that they have such a big mission and they're so connected to that. But I feel that entrepreneurs oftentimes think way too small. And so this is kind of a two part question. What do you feel is the best way for someone to break through that small thinking and think big, much bigger and understanding that they have the capacity to change the world?

Well, I think it's three things. The first is to remember this simple hack when it comes to goal setting, right? And I think it was Bill Gates who said it, but it's been attributed to different people over the years. And one is that we always overestimate what we can do in one year, but we underestimate what we can do in three years. And so you always want to think three years ahead. So all our business planning, all my personal goal setting is always three years ahead. It's never one year. And know that you're naturally going to underestimate. So when I write down my goals for three years, I then think, well, what happens if I could double this? And then I double that? So that's one. Now the second thing is do the three most important questions exercise. Because when you do the three most important questions exercise, you make sure those goals are goals that really speak to your heart. The worst thing you can do is set a goal that's taking you actually in the complete wrong direction. And I've done that. While I was running Mindvalley, I once set a goal to start a small startup and take it ipo. And that happened. And it was the worst job of my life. And I quit after six months. Cause it just didn't make me happy. And so if I had done the three most important questions exercise and I hadn't created it back then, I would have known why I wanted that, that ipo. And it had nothing to do with what truly made me happy. So you want to make sure you do the three most important questions exercise. Now the third thing is you want to make sure that you have a strong sense of your personal mission. What is that pain that you experienced in the past that you do not want other human beings to experience now? If you can take that mission and tie it to your goal, you will always want to go big, because that pain will drive you forward. I'm so glad I got on that damn watch list because unity is such a big goal of mine. I want to unite a billion people and change the way the world works and get rid of racism and ethnocentrism in global politics. And that goal is so massive, it seems near insurmountable, especially with current world events like Brexit, that it pushes me forward. I cannot help but want to dream big to make sure that my pain, other people don't experience it. Those three things would be my advice to help you think beyond anything you've thought of before.

So a couple things that I gleaned from that one is I can feel your passion there. You know what I mean? Like, you can tell that comes from a deep core inside, and so it's tapping into that. And then the other thing too is you took something that was a painful experience and you turned it into something really positive. You know, it's interesting how life works that way. So you. And with the work you do with mindvalley and your other projects, you're so innovative. You're always on the cusp of innovation. What are some practices that you do or with your teams for brainstorming for new ideas to move your company forward?

Well, I don't know if we have any practices that we do with the team for new ideas, but what I found is that meditation is an incredible source for generating ideas. See, a lot of people think that inspiration just, boom, hits you at random. It isn't. And intuition also doesn't just hit you at random. Often they are spurred by having a goal. So if you have a goal, and especially if I believe if that goal is a goal that serves great, greater humanity and not just yourself, I believe the universe or nature or whatever you want to call it, will guide you with inspiration. And then you got to be a good receiver. That's where meditation or relaxation techniques come in. So you need two things. You need a goal that's serving the world, and second, you need a practice that makes you a good receiver, which would be mindfulness meditation, or even just soaking in the shower and being in a really relaxed state. I find that. Sorry, soaking in the bathroom. I find that those relaxed states are when the best ideas Come to me, right?

Because your mind is open, right? Not when you're just kind of working away. And so, you know, with thinking big and when you really put yourself out there, you expose yourself to criticism, right? And people that have different points of view. And I do think that a lot of times, just in human nature, when people are afraid of being criticized, that is something that keeps them small. And we know from social media there's all the haters out there and things like that. So how do you personally deal with that?

So in my book, chapter nine is called be unfuckwithable. And I love that word. I love that word. I even have a T shirt that says unfuckwithable. And unfuck with the world basically means that, right? It means that you have enough self love and belief in yourself that you are immune to other people's praise and other people's criticism. And of course, criticism is the obvious one, right? But why should you be immune to praise? Well, the thing is, if you're not immune to praise, you start doing things for praise. So if someone says, hey, you're awesome, you could go, thank you. I really appreciate you saying that. But deep inside you're going to. I know. Because that way you don't do things for praise, you do things for yourself. You do things because they matter to you. Now, there is a path to becoming unfuckwithable. Unfortunately, it's not an easy path. In my book, I advocate a number of different practices, right? From establishing high degrees of self love to doing certain forms of therapy to help you get rid of inner guilt, to self forgiveness rituals so you can forgive yourself for mistakes in the past. But when you can put these together, the forgiveness, getting rid of guilt and loving yourself better, you start developing that unfuckwithable core within you. And that changes everything. So be unfuckwithable.

Okay?

Put on your T shirt.

I love it.

Right, sorry. And I know, and I know it may be bad nanas to walk around with unfuckwithable. I mean, there are kids with eyes walking around.

Yeah, I think that's the best advice you got all day long, isn't it?

Put it on your panties, on your underwear. But know that you're wearing your unfuck withable panties and that you're going to be immune.

That's.

In fact, I should start selling those.

That would be ideal here. See, you get this idea, guys, right from here. We will all buy them. So you probably just answered this question through meditation. But how do you use visualization to create Your desired reality. You've talked about that before. But is there a process you go through or do you just see it in your mind?

Yes, it's interesting you said that. So? So. Remember when I told you about how I was teaching meditation in New York? Well, the style I was teaching was called the Silva Method. Anyone heard of it? It's the Silver Method. Yeah. It's a meditation technique that originated, believe it or not, I kid you not, but in Texas. The founder, Jose Silva, was born in Laredo, Texas, and it grew in San Antonio and Laredo. Now, the thing about the Silva Method is this is the technique they teach. So go into a relaxed state, and then it's called the three scenes technique. And technically, I think I'm not supposed to share it because it's in the book, but the founder died in 1999, so he can't sue me. So right in front of you, you imagine you have a giant television screen, right? And on that television screen, you project the current reality. So let's say your company's at a quarter million and you're losing money, and you need to be at half a million to make money. So you project the current reality. You see it. You feel the pain. You see yourself losing money. You think about what might happen next. You might be losing employees. You feel that pain, but you don't do it for more than two minutes. Now, you take that screen and you move it 15 degrees to the left. You see, in your subconscious mind, 15 degrees and left means future. So you're telling your subconscious mind this is the near future. That's why it's only 15 degrees. And again, your eyes are closed. You're in your meditative state. Now, you project onto the screen something you're doing to change that. It doesn't matter if you don't know the right action. You're going to show yourself maybe making a good hire, maybe reading some books on marketing, maybe changing some strategy, maybe bringing some of my ideas into your office. You see yourself doing something. Now you move the screen again 15 degrees to the left. And now you see the end result. And that end result is, boom, you've made 500,000. You feel the pride. You bring the feelings into yourself. You try to see the champagne bottles popping, you getting unfuck withable panties printed for your entire staff. You see all of that. And then you end the meditation on that happy note. And you don't have to do this every single day. You know that analogy of the car? The child at the back of the car going, are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? You don't want to be that annoying little bitch to the universe. Can I get that now? Can I get that now? You just do it once. You forget about it. You do it at least once a week.

That is so great. Don't be the bitch to the universe.

Sorry, am I going too far?

No, this is. Is just great. I mean, you know, I said it a little bit more eloquently, but you're to the point, and I just think that that's better. So thank you for that.

I meant to say brat, not bitch.

It came out wrong. That's all right. That's all right. All right. So you. I mean, we were talking backstage. You're living in like, three different countries. You've got two beautiful children, young children, and you have a very demanding career that you love. But I always want to know, how is it that you keep the balance so that you have a lot of people counting on you, your family, your employees, and you have this big vision. What do you do to make sure that vision is taken care of and so that you can sustain all this that you want to do?

Well, I wish I could say I was consistent, but I wasn't. And three months ago, I had a horrible breakdown. I was launching Mindvalleys University in Barcelona. We were understaffed. The project took off, and I forgot to keep that balance. And I realized how important it was. In one month, my entire health broke down. I developed sciatica. I could. Could barely walk straight. I developed back problems. My eyesight started going off. I had to wear my glasses again. I developed a headache. All of a sudden I started getting low self esteem. It's like everything was hitting me at once. And I realized how dangerous stress was. So I went to neurofeedback training and they mapped my brain and they found that I was actually showing signs of burnout. And that was a sign that I had to do something about it. So unfortunately, I still had to finish the project. And it was painful. In the midst of it, I developed bronchitis that lasted four weeks. I was admitted to hospital, and I really messed up. And so what happened was one week ago, I decided to just take a week off from work. And I went for five days of meditation. I went for energy healing. I went to a spa in Tucson, and I just got myself back on track. And I feel so, so good after that. And I wish I hadn't let myself go. But, you know, if any of you experience that, know that we do Our best work when we're in a state of flow, when we're happy. And you got to be really conscious of that. I know I'm never letting that happen to me again because the impact on my body was so devastating.

You know, thank you for sharing that and being so honest, because, you know, I've had that happen to me at least a couple of times, and it sneaks up on you. You know, you don't even realize it. You can get so. So into a project that you're doing. We're so passionate about what we're doing. We're so into it that, you know, like I said, I just now started drinking more water, and I've been trying to do that forever, but I. I believe that it is something you have to be conscious of all of the time. So. Yeah. So that you learn the hard way. Right.

And. And, you know, when I was at this meditation practice and this was really just a week ago, it was in Seattle, the trainer asked me to come. They taught us this technique, which I'd love to share, because I think it really helped me. And it was to just create, like, three or four statements to remind you of the state you want to be. See, a lot of us set goals for our life, but we don't set goals for how we want to feel on a consistent basis. So the idea here was to think about what feelings do I want to have on a consistent basis and make that a goal. And so I wrote down, I want to consistently feel blissfully present. I want to consistently ignite joy and love in people. I want to consistently be in flow. I want to consistently feel that I'm uniting humanity by setting those as goals. Those feelings that you want to have become the goals. The mistake, again, we sometimes make is that we say, I want to have a massage. I want to make sure I'm having a massage every week. I want to make sure I'm meditating. But why are you doing that? What's the soul? The so is because you want to have that feeling, so you set a goal for the feeling you want to have. And reminding myself every day to be blissfully present is reminding myself to take mind off work and be present in what I'm doing, whether it's with my kid or it's while I'm taking a walk so I can be in a balanced state again. And I hope that idea works for you guys, too.

Well, I love it, and I think ending on bliss is really an awesome thing. So this was so fabulous. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Thanks for having me, guys. Thank you. And I'll be here for, like, the next. I'll be here for the next 24 hours till lunch tomorrow. So if you see me at the bar or anything tonight, I hope you have bar parties and stuff. You can always come up and say hi. Thanks, guys.

All right. Thank you.