Vishen Lakhiani presents a critique of conventional four-year college and proposes Mindvalley University, an annual one-month immersive, international, mixed-age learning experience focused on real-world life and leadership skills taught by leading practitioners. He contrasts current higher-education weaknesses (obsolete curricula after long degrees, expensive fixed campuses, age-homogenous peer groups, faculty incentives favoring research over teaching) with a model that moves to a new city each year, lowers cost by removing permanent campuses, invites world-class teachers, and emphasizes emotional intelligence, entrepreneurship, health, mindfulness, and personal growth. The video references the first MindvalleyU in Barcelona (300 attendees) and announces expansion to a 1,000-student program in Tallinn, Estonia.
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I wanted to update you guys on something exciting around this time last year, I released a video about how I wanted to create a new type of university. I wanted to do this because as a father of two, I don't feel modern education is really preparing my kids for the future. So I asked myself the question, what would university look like if we completely disrupted all the rules and created a wholly new model? Within a few months of that announcement, we set up our first university. It happened in Barcelona and 300 people moved to that city for a one month immersion. It went so well that before the month was over, 70% of people who were there immediately bought a ticket for the next year. Except we had no plans for the next year. Ready to announce we were as new to this and experimenting as best as we could. However, now, as we go into year two, things have unfolded in an even bigger way. So I'm happy to announce that more information is going to be coming on mindvalleyu. But for those of you who are new to this project, this is the video I released last year that went viral and allowed us to, in a span of just a few months, create a new type of university. Alan Watts, the great Zen philosopher, once said, no illiterate, inquisitive and imaginative person needs to go to college unless in need of a union card or a degree as a certified physician, lawyer or teacher, or unless he requires access to certain heavy and expensive equipment for scientific research. Yet when Watts wrote that in 1972, he couldn't even have imagined what would be happening in the world today with new technologies, rapid change and shifts in how companies recruit that would all combine to further make college collection kind of useless. But the thing is, college has numerous good points. We grow up, we mature, we make deep, meaningful connections, we meet the friends and find the interests that ultimately define us. So how can we completely re engineer college to keep all of the good and disrupt all of the bad obsolete points? Well, we think we have an idea. A new model that radically rethinks college, that questions all the rules about how we've been conditioned to believe in education, should look like and takes advantage of emerging technologies, new social movements, new types of knowledge accessibility, and new research on what truly creates happy, successful, fulfilled lives. Ready to catch a glimpse? Okay, before I reveal this new model, first you gotta know what makes modern college so absurd in the first place? Let's start with the length of time. So you take a teenager and you plant him in a bubble for four years. Same campus surrounded by other 19 year olds, probably Problem is, in today's world, things are changing at an exponential pace. Peter Diamandis said that between 2016 and 22 there will be as many new changes in the world due to exponential technology growth as between all of 1900 to 2000. Wow. So we have kids coming out of college with knowledge that has become totally obsolete in their four years on campus. So what if we got rid of this four year model? What if instead kids went to college for one month of the year and then spent 11 months in the field, you know, doing real work, like having a job or starting a business. And then they come back for one month every year? What if this did not stop when you're 22? What if it continued? What if this four years was stretched out so you come back one month every year for 48 years? Sounds crazy. Hold on, we're just getting started. Second, what if we got rid of expensive campuses? Think about all of that. Wasted tuition fees. I was stuck on the same campus in Ann Arbor, Michigan for four years. But the world is so much bigger. What if we did away with fixed campuses and instead moved this college to a different city every year? What if we picked international amazing cities like Berlin, Singapore, Barcelona? Places filled with culture. Places you dream of visiting next. What if we could drop the price by tenfold? No campus means huge cost savings. But now let's look at another odd design about college. They say you are the sum of the five people closest to you. But at college you're hanging out with other 19 year olds. What could you learn from the average 19 year old if you're 19? When I went to college, I remember my freshman year, the coolest guys were the ones that could sneak us into frat parties or buy us liquor. Not exactly brilliant. So what if we disrupted this? What if age did not matter? Your friends could be 19 or 30 or 50. We learn from the wisdom of our elders. They learn from you. Age becomes irrelevant. But then there's the curriculum itself. Neil Gaiman, the legendary writer, said of school, I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying? They don't teach you anything worth knowing and you know what I'm talking about. Yes, you get a four year degree, but does it need four years? More and more of the job related aspects of college are free online. Harvard, Berkeley, MIT. Their courses are now online. Just go to edx.org, you can learn anything from app development to physics for free. Study the classes you need for your chosen career. But why do we waste four years on a fixed campus hanging out with 19 year olds trying to get enough credits to fill some arbitrary degree that we might never ever use? The world is changing so fast. Many of the top jobs today were not available as college degrees a mere five years ago. So what do you teach? You teach what Neil Gaiman preached. Real world skills, how to lead. How to create a vision for your life. How to be a better parent, spouse, lover. How to have healthy self esteem and emotional intelligence. Setting, crafting a vision for your life. Entrepreneurship, personal growth. Skills like how to keep fit and healthy. Practice, meditation and mindfulness. These are the skills that truly lead to happy, successful lives. But you do not learn these in college. Which brings us to the Teachers are the best teachers in the world today, in the world's universities? Not always. And here's why. Teachers today have their hands tied more than ever. To survive as a teacher in a classical system, you are often rewarded for the research much, much more than your actual teachings. So as a student, you don't always get the best learning experience. Books offered are quite dry and classes not too engaging, leading you to disconnect and not truly retain the knowledge you've been given. Those who have a true passion for teaching find themselves gravitating out of the traditional system. The very best teachers are the ones writing best selling books, building their businesses, speaking at large seminars, speaking on the TED stage. They have transcended the need to be stuck on a singular campus. Colleges may have great researchers and scientists, but not necessarily the best teachers. So what if you could learn from these people? What if your teacher was someone whose work was so profound he had sold 20 million books? Or broken a Guinness record? Or was the New York Times best selling author the best? India feels so let's recap. No more four years. It's now one month a year. No fixed campus. You move to a different spectacular city every year. No fixed age. Your peers come from all around the world and are of all ages. No outdated curriculums. You learn the skills that actually matter to happiness and success and making an impact on the planet and your teachers are the best in the world. But wait. Despite all of this, college does have some good bits. You meet some of your best friends in the world, you form your character, find your community and create incredible memories. So what if we can retain and amplify these good parts and disrupt and reinvent all the obsolete parts? What would education look like then? We think we have an idea. Welcome to mindvalleyu so you can choose to live an ordinary life, same city, same job, same style of parenting and relationships and daily nine to five as everyone else. Or you can choose to question everything. Welcome to a new style of education and a new style of living. So if you like that video and you want to know what we're up to Next, check out mindvalley.com you we're expanding this project into something significantly bigger, a much bigger space and incredible campus partnerships with the government, world class teachers and we are raising the number of students from 300 to 1,000 people of all ages coming to Tallinn, Estonia this summer. Check it out mindvalley.com you.
