Are You Successful? Success Secrets For Millennials

Hi, this is Jason Campbell and I'm Vishen Lakhiani. What we're going to talk about today is some of the most unconventional ideas when it comes to success. Now, when we looked on Google and just looked for people that are searching for what is success or what is the secret of success, we're looking at 138 million results. But what we're going to do is talk about it in a way that I don't think I've ever heard before. Now, before we get into the topic, for people who don't know about mindvalley yet, Vishen, tell us more about your book, Code of the Extraordinary Mind, as well as mindvalley as a company.

Okay, so in one minute, I started mindvalley because I was a stressed out engineer in Silicon Valley and I happened to take a class on meditation, which had a transformational impact on me. Within months of taking that class, I got promoted three times in four months. Within a year of taking that class and other related classes, I was able to function at my job doing two roles at the same time and had doubled my salary. And I figured out that there is so much incredible knowledge out there that we can take on as business owners or as employees that can rapidly accelerate the way we get things done and make our job more meaningful and more pleasurable and more fun. But nobody was teaching this to people. So we started mindvalley to get this knowledge out to the world. It's knowledge that our broken rundown education system failed to teach us when we were kids. But it's not too late. And our goal at mindvalley is to get this knowledge, whether it's speed learning or mindfulness or productivity hacks or biohacking, out to the world so all of us can get more meaningful careers and do more in less time and make an impact on the planet.

And what's really interesting is mindvalley actually started off with the fact that most of the stuff we did was personal growth. But the number one request that we constantly get is what can we do to improve ourselves in the workplace, in our careers?

This is insane, right? Because we pull our list. Our list is now about 2 million people. And it started out with personal growth. But one of the biggest things our list you guys were asking us is the biggest question both at our live events and online, is how do I discover and work in something that is part of my mission or purpose?

And what we're going to do is rapid fire into a lot of the content that we want to cover. Respecting your time and we like getting to the juice of it. So my first question, before we even talk about the secret to success, defining success is actually a problem in itself. A lot of people perceive success in different ways. And I know you have an interesting story of how you started off at Microsoft.

So maybe you guys can relate to this, right? I found myself at Microsoft after completing my junior year of college at the University of Michigan, got a computer engineering degree, and I had toiled for five years to get the best grades to get into one of the top five electrical engineering colleges in, in the world. Then toiled again to make it to Microsoft. Because When I was 17 years old, my grandfather told me, you need to work for Bill Gates. He's the richest man in the world and if you work for him, maybe you can learn to be rich too. And so for five years, I worked my butt off. I studied something I had no passion for. I wasn't really into computer engineering. I got a job at Microsoft and worked hard to get that job. But 11 weeks into my job, I remember that exact moment. I was at Bill Gates home, his actual home in Seattle. It was a barbecue for all the new hires. And I realized as wonderful as Bill Gates was, as wonderful as Microsoft was, I was bored. Every day I would get out of bed, dreading going to work. And every day in that office, my own little office with three computers in front of me at Microsoft in beautiful Redmond, Washington. I was watching the clock, waiting for it to hit six, six o' clock so I could go home. And 11 weeks into this dream job that I'd spent five years trying to get into, I decided to quit cold turkey. And that was a defining moment in my life because I realized Hunter Thompson said it best. The famous writer Hunter Thompson said that so many of us try to fit into goals, but the problem is these goals we're trying to fit into are not our goals. It's goals that society says we have to pursue. Be an accountant or a Lawyer, get a 9 to 5 job, save up for retirement, get into law school or engineering school instead. What Hunter Thompson says is that we must identify who we are and make our goals conform to us.

And what's interesting is when we looked at one of the famous blog posts that went viral, talked about the biggest regret for people that are on their dying bed. And the mass majority of people said they wish they had the courage to live life according to their purpose as opposed to living for other people's purpose.

Right? I remember this. This was a famous article in the British Guardian newspaper A nurse who had worked with thousands of people who were dying and she grilled them and asked them questions. And the number one regret people who were dying had is, I wish I had lived life according to my terms rather than based on what society said I had to do to be successful.

Now what you can see is the fact that for Vishen, he can identify right away that education is the one thing that he wants to work on. Now, for a lot of people, they haven't identified what their purpose is. And what's great is at mindvalley, you've actually done an interview with Mira Kelly who talked about finding your life purpose. And what she has is a simple three step formula that you can follow to really identify what is it that resonates with you and how you can apply it into your life. So let's have a look at that.

In every moment, do what excites you. The second step, to the best of your abilities and the third step, without any expectations. Because when you start doing what moves you, what really speaks to you, you really want to do it to the best of your abilities, not hold back. And you want to do it without any expectations of where that is going to take you, right? Because it's so easy for the mind to say, wait, I, I'm stuck in this job and I'm so miserable and I'm so unhappy and I want to be doing this other kind of business, right? I want to be working for myself. I want to be bringing light and inspiration to the world. But how is that going to pay the bills, right? How am I going to jump from A to Z? I don't see the path in between. And I'm here to tell you that you don't need to see B, C and D. What you need is to take it a step at a time. Because truthfully, your path unfolds a step at a time. And the mind is very tricky, right? The mind wants to create plans, the mind wants to see the big picture, the mind wants predictability and certainty. And so naturally the mind will try to create projects and plans and not that there is anything wrong with those. I'm not saying that. I'm not trying to say throw out your conscious ability to use your mind and just simply go with the flow. I'm not saying that, but I'm saying to you, the way to really living fully your purpose is to combine the inspiration that comes from your higher self with your ability to execute.

All right, so as we just saw, do what excites you to the best of Your abilities and with no expectations. So when I look at that and you think about excitement, it actually makes me think of the top pyramid of Maslow. The self actualization to find what is your purpose is actually finding yourself at that top of the pyramid. And I want to present a different edge case, which is the fact that some people actually might be motivated through challenges. They might have had challenges in their life. Could that also be a source of motivation for purpose?

So I loved what Mira Kelly said. I want to present to you another framework that you can use to help you identify your purpose. And you can use this alongside the framework you just learned. This framework comes from a mutual friend, Amir Ahmad Nasser. And this is what Amer told me. He said, you see, you want to be an original at work, you want to be an original as an entrepreneur. Tap into your pain. He says, as we go through life, what happens is you will go through some hard ass crap that will put you through a lot of pain. But there's a reason for that. That pain that you go through helps shine a light on why you're here and what you're meant to fix in the world. So in my case, when I was a kid from the age of 6 to 12, my parents didn't have much money. And so the only school I could go to was a public school school, a government school. And it was a horrible, horrible, horrible school. From the time of 6 to 12, I had very few pleasant childhood memories. I was a victim of racism, abusive teachers in school. I was told I was taught the most absurd things, including not to trust people of a different race. I remember one of my teachers being arrested in school for abusing kids in the locker room. It was a nightmare. And so growing up in that, I just hated school. I loved learning, but I hated school. And that helped shine a light on what my purpose is. To do something about education so that my kids don't have to go through that crap. So let's say your pain was school, or maybe your pain was health. You were sickly as a kid and you found a new way to heal yourself that maybe other people didn't know about. This helped shine a light on that purpose. You could join a company in the health space, join a company in the education space, or you could start a company in this space. But remember, your pain is what gives you your origin story. Your pain is what fuels your superpower. And you see, here's the mistake people make, right? They borrow a purpose. They're like, Elon Musk wants to work in alternative Energy. Hey, that sounds cool. Maybe I should start a company in alternative energy. But the problem there is you become an imitator. You see, what you want to do is tap into your pain, tap into the shit you went through as a kid, because that is your origin story, and that is what will get you excited. Getting out of bed every morning, working for a company, or founding a company to solve that pain. No one can copy that.

So that's really interesting. And it goes way beyond the typical notions that just say, follow your passion. And the duality we always see is one says, follow. Follow your passion, which sounds similar to excitement. But others say, no, you shouldn't follow your passions at all. Yet in the system that you present, it's actually quite irrelevant.

It's completely irrelevant. There is a myth out there, especially with millennials, that if I am in a particular job or a company and too many days go by and I'm bored and I'm not excited or it's too hard, it means it's not my purpose and I should quit and find something else. That's BS because, honestly, that's not the real world. You see, when you're following your purpose, what happens is sometimes it is going to get hard. But because that purpose is coming from something within, something that you're determined to shake up and change about the world, you go through those hard parts. There have been months when I was bored working on my plan to shift education. There have been times, multiple times, when I almost ran out of money on my plan to switch to change education, but I pushed through anyway. I didn't quit because there was something deep inside me that made me want to push through, because I don't want other kids to go through the shit I went through. This is why someone like Elon Musk, who's working on his dream company, you know, building rockets, is trying to colonize Mars, moving humanity to alternative fuels. Yet Elon Musk, in one of his most famous quotes about entrepreneurship, said this. He said, sometimes entrepreneurship is like crawling into a dark corner and. And chewing on broken glass. And you might experience that. But you know what? Musk crawls into that dark space and chews on glass because he has a greater purpose for the human species, a purpose that he's willing to go through extreme lengths and pain to fulfill.

So I want to actually lead this up with a clip from Marisa Pearce, who talked about what is the biggest problem. It actually comes from our education system and the way that parents actually raise children today, which explains why you see so many People quit within their 20s and it's a victim for the millennials particular. So let's have a look at that.

Why do you think that people today have this false view of what it takes to be successful?

Well, because we give them silly things like, if it doesn't feel good, don't do it. You know, if it feels good, do it. If it doesn't feel good, don't do it. And we've started to reward effort instead of achievement, which is actually a really bad thing. There's nothing wrong with saying to your kids, oh, you tried really hard, but now we get rewarded just for participating. And I think we're raising a generation that don't understand grit and don't understand tenacity and don't understand bouncing back. And I think you do people a great disservice when you say, you know, follow your bliss. You know, it's like I went to one of my clients homes and they had a plaque on the wall and it said, life should be like beautiful. Walk through a meadow where the sun is always shining. And the buttercups, they're like, well, if you believe that, no wonder you're depressed, because that isn't life at all. Life isn't a walk through a meadow. Especially if you live in England, it's freezing cold half the year. And, you know, people put up these little plaques and posters and they really believe them and it's, no, you know, life isn't like that. I mean, life is wonderful and beautiful, but there's always the other side of it. Sometimes it's hard work, sometimes you get disappointed. But then, of course, as you look back, you will always realize that often rejection is the best thing. If Virgin hadn't rejected my book, I'd have lost 140,000 sterling. A lot of times when I've been rejected, I've gone back and thought, wow, that was. Thank God that happened, because something better comes along. But we do see that even at school sports day now, where they don't want to reward the winner, that every child gets a medal for joining in the race. And it's not really life. You know, in life we do reward winners and we've stopped teaching our children to be winners. And we just want them all to be competitors. And they understand that life isn't fair. They do understand that some. Sometimes you have to work harder. And I think we've gone too far the other way of saying, if you don't love it, it doesn't feel right. Don't do it. And I think that's a great shame.

Thank you.

Alright, so as you see, you're seeing these participation prizes and people aren't putting the hard work that's necessary. And when you actually have a destination that's very exciting that you need to get to, you might be veering plans, you might be doing a lot of shifts, you might find yourself in those jobs that are hard work. But it's fine because if you're motivated by that end goal, you're good to go. Now let's get to the point of our whole talk. Which is the secret to success, which we call the not so secret to success. What was interesting is you actually had an interview with Ivan Meissner, who's the founder of bni, which is a networking company.

It's the world's largest networking group on the planet.

And what he said is he had a chance to interview the most successful people in the world. Then he had a chance to speak with average business people. And then he spoke with high school students. And the question that he asked them all is what is the secret to success? And this is going to give us a hint as to what that truly is. You'll be surprised at the difference in the answers. Let's have a look.

So I did a book called Masters of Success a number of years ago and I really found out something very interesting. When I started to do the book. I first went to really successful business professionals, really well known people, people like Aaron Brockovich, Buzz Aldrin, the astronaut, very successful business people. And I asked them, what's the secret to success? And they generally told me things like passion, goals, vision, creating systems, people skills, social capital, kinds of skills. Those were the kinds of things they answered and all made sense to me. And these were really successful people. So then I went to the average business person, people that were in B and I and people like that, and I asked them, what's it take to be successful? What's the secret to success? And they said, passion, goals, goals, vision system, social capital. It's the same list. I thought, wow, that's really interesting. Here's the average business person, really successful, big names, same list. Well, at the time I was teaching at University, State University in California. And so I started asking these college kids, what's the secret to success? And you know what they told me? Passion, goals, vision system. They gave me the exact same list with one exception. They did have one exception. They said luck. So the college kids thought luck had something to do with success. I believe the harder you work, the luckier you get. And so that was the only thing. Other than that the really successful people, the average business person, and even the college kids gave me the exact same list. And that's where I came up with this concept, and it's in the book that success is the uncommon application of common knowledge. Success is the uncommon application of common knowledge. That most of the things that it takes to be successful are pretty much understood. In general, you understand that the secret to success without hard work is still a secret. You know, it takes hard work to become successful. I think most people know that. They just don't know how to apply that.

So I love how it's put elegantly. The uncommon application of common activities. Now, everyone knows what these common activities are. Now, I would ask you, what do you think is the biggest thing that people could do to really push themselves and their success in their professional career?

So the biggest two things really. Number one, try to get into a job or career that aligns with what fuels you. Now, whether you use the word purpose or mission, remember, you don't have to go and start your own company, right? But you want to identify what is that area that fuels you. For me, it's education. For someone else, it might be producing art in the world, it might be working in healthcare. It might be teaching kids. But find something that aligns with your motivation, right? Or remember this, you must have goals that align with your soul. Now, the second thing, though, is as you're pursuing these goals, you must remember that one of the surest ways to get to anywhere to grow your business, to make that dent in the universe that you dream of, is education, is continuously growing yourself and evolving as a human being. Our horrible education system doesn't give us the tools we need to truly be successful. It gives you the tools to be safe, to have that safe 9 to 5 job so that you know you don't starve. But if you're watching this, you're way beyond that. So the most important piece of advice is to make sure that in your career, in your job, in your business, you're growing. And you're not just growing by working on your business. You're growing by studying, by reading books, by taking online courses, by making sure that you are unleashing your superpowers. And these superpowers could be speed learning, leadership, memorization, brainstorming skills, creative visualization, goal setting. There are countless skills that we never learned as kids. I had to teach myself these skills, but these skills were the biggest thing that helped my business grow. So this is why Warren Buffett said The greatest investment you can make is investment in yourself. Because when you grow everything you touch, especially your business and your contribution to that purpose or cause, it starts expanding and growing too. So the mistake most people make is when they're running a business or working in a business, they're obsessed in the day to day task. That's a BS slow path to success. The fast part is to continue doing the work you're doing, but find as much time as possible to invest in growth. Here in Mindvalley, we try to ensure that all our employees can spend at least five to ten hours a month reading or taking a course or investing in their own growth. Because this is how you get better at your job and thus better at life and thus better at fixing that thing in the world that you want to fix.

So what's interesting is we find ourselves in Mindvalley and we're quite lucky here because we're so much focused on education and we've seen how people investing in themselves have been growing. And you know, you've had a lot of ex employees actually now entrepreneurs and you have some key employees that are actually growing very rapidly and changing themselves as they come through that progression. Now a lot of you I understand, might not necessarily be in the type of business environment that brings that kind of knowledge to be actually celebrated and encouraged by. And when we surveyed a lot of people, we realized that all the skills that you're mentioning is the ones that they feel they lack the most. And what I want to push back to everyone that's listening is if you know that and these answers you've already mentioned, leadership training, productivity hacks, time management, all these things that you know, you wish you had more of as you're going through your job, to be more efficient at your job, to have more freedom at what you do, and you already have that purpose identified and you're going for it. These are the skills that you should definitely be picking up and you should be motivated to learn because you know it's going to serve you and into becoming the person you need to become to reach the goals that are very dear to you. So with that I actually want to bring into a segment with the fact that we are actually putting together a program which is called impact. And we're super excited because mindvalley has never went and put so much effort into bringing a platform that will allow people that want to grow, that want to be part of a mastermind, to continuously push themselves and to grow when it comes to self learning. Now the concept of mastermind itself is actually something that's spoken within the books. If you, if any of you are fans of Napoleon Hill, think and grow rich. The Mastermind concept finds the fact that if you're surrounded with the kind of people that are continuously growing, that believe in growth, you'll find yourself growing just as fast. What we really want to create here is a community of people that believe in the growth, that want to self educate and arming them with the teachings that everyone has been wanting to have with regards to their professional growth and being more successful in what they do. So we're super excited to be presenting that to you. And if you're watching this video now, you will see a countdown is happening for the fact that Impact will be launching in a few days. So with that, I do want to wrap this up. Thank you Vishen for jumping on the call and addressing some of our concerns when it comes to success. Anything else to add before closing?

Remember, you are far more amazing and powerful than they made you believe and you need to learn to unlock many of these hidden skills and abilities because this is how your career starts shooting up.

And remember, in anything you do, do with purpose and be unstoppable. Thank.