A first-person talk by Vishen Lakhiani recounting his transition from a Silicon Valley engineer and sales rep to meditation instructor and founder of Mindvalley. He describes starting small (seminars in Times Square above a former massage parlor), an influential meeting with mentor Bob Proctor that challenged him to expand his vision, and the evolution from intimate seminars to larger events (A-Fest, Mindvalley University). The core message: set goals worthy of your potential and envision a dramatically bigger future.
Chapters
I want to introduce you to the idea of envisioning why this concept, this word, means so much to me. Many of you might know my story. I was working in Silicon Valley. I had a computer engineering degree. The dot com bubble had burst, and the only job I could get was in sales. And I went into meditation so I could simply pull myself out of that misery right at that horrible sales job I was at. But what I didn't realize is that meditation would cause me to just accelerate in my career. And soon I became VP in the company. I was only 26 years old, and they moved me to New York and asked me to run their division in New York. And I got stuck in that. I got stuck in the corporate world for about 18 months. And then as I continued meditating, as I continued going deep within, I realized that this was not me, that something was off. I was crushing it at my job. But my life felt like there was so much more I needed to do than just pick up the phone and be selling technology to lawyers in the U.S. and so I quit my job and I became a meditation instructor. And that's where I certainly had to rebuild everything. When I first started out, I was so embarrassed at what I was going through that I didn't tell my friends that I was teaching meditation. Remember, this was like 2003 in New York. Meditation wasn't hip and core as it is right now, where you have superstars and celebrities talking about. Back then, it was like, woo, woo, right? It was this thing that weird people did. So that's where mindvalley actually started. Mindvalley started in that particular window above this restaurant called the Playwrights Tavern in New York City. And the funny thing about that window is before I moved in there, before I moved into that apartment in Times Square, it was a Thai massage parlor, right? This was Times Square in 2003, before Disney took over and put up Aladdin and the Little Mermaid and the Lion King. This was not like Disney Times Square. This was like crack and hookers Times Square. So it's a sobering thought that mindvalley really started in a former whorehouse. But we all have to start somewhere, right? And this was the first official mindvalley seminar. That is the actual seminar room where it took place. Right? It was just me. There was no team. There was hardly any budget. The budget was maybe like 600 bucks. It was 19 people. And that's what I did for about five years of my life. That little seminar room. This was at the Hilton on 59th street in New York it was nothing compared to where we are right now. This was my office in 2003. That's the beat up Toshiba laptop. The table I'm working on. This is really interesting, right? In New York, me and Christina, we were so broke we couldn't afford proper furniture. So we would just go out to the streets and salvage what our neighbors tossed out. Every year, IKEA would release their new catalog. All the old IKEA would go to the street. And then in New York, you just pick up what you need. And it's funny because that table I'm working on, on the IKEA catalog is actually called the Lack of, and it's 799. This is brilliant. IKEA named a table. This is the cheapest table in the world. IKEA named a table Lack. I guess to signify the lack of abundance and vision you need to want to work in a table like that, right? It's brilliant marketing. So anyway, the funny thing is I was pleased with what was going on. I like my job. I continued doing this for five years. Five years. And from year one to year two, I'd grown the business by maybe 50%. I'd gone from maybe 20 students to an average of 40 students per class once a month. I was making very meager income, right? But I was satisfied. See, what was going on is I didn't have the vision in my head. I didn't have the vision for this. I didn't know how small I was playing. I was deluding myself. Now, what happened during that time was I got a job because I was a computer engineer. I was the geeky guy in the personal growth industry. I got a job building a website for this incredible dude by the name of Bob Proctor. The movie the Secret had come out. People like Bob Proctor, Lisa Nichols, now I get to call them friends. But back then they were like heroes to me. They were like on the single most watched DVD in the world. So Bob Proctor, I was the guy who built one of his early websites and he mentored me a bit. Now one day I was flying to London to do my tiny little meditation seminar. There were like maybe 30 people in that room. And Bob Proctor at the same time was in London speaking to thousands of people at a nearby hotel. So he said, hey, Vishnu, I have a break for lunch. Come, come hang out, join me for lunch. So I show up for lunch with Bob Proctor and remember, that's Bob Proctor, right? Like I'm in a T shirt and jeans. Bob is in his, like, his crisp suit, his tie, his Expensive glasses and his Rolex. And he's like, so what brings you to London? Bob's got this really, really, really deep voice, right? And I'm like, bob, you're going to be so proud of me. I'm teaching meditation now. I don't just build websites. I have 30 people in this room attending the seminar. And Bob goes, wait, wait, wait, 30 people? And I go, yes, 30 people. I'm so excited. And he goes, how much are they paying? And I go, it's like 200 bucks. That's it. And Bob goes, hang on, you flew, you flew from Malaysia to London, what's that, like 22 hours? I go, yeah. He goes, you left your wife behind, you have a one year old son, right? I go, yeah. He goes, you left your son behind to come to London to teach 30 people meditation? I hope you're flying business at least. Then he looks at me, you are flying coach, aren't you? And I go, yeah. And I could feel that pain welling up. And he goes, vision, vision, vision. And he closes his eyes. So I know something deep is coming, right? I would not be doing what you're doing. You're wasting your time. And I go, no, but Bob, I really enjoy this. Like this isn't work for me. I really enjoy this. I love teaching. Like I'm adding value to these students lives. I'm trying to justify and justify and justify. And then Bob touches his face and he takes this deep breath and he makes like this sniffling sound. And I know again something deep is coming. And he goes, vishen, you're so much bigger than this. You're playing way too small. And inside me now I'm fucking angry. I'm like, I'm a personal growth teacher. I'm actually teaching people goal setting. And in my mind this conversation is happening. Like, fuck you, Mr. Bob Proctor with your fancy suit and your tie and your fantastic cologne smell. I don't need you to tell me what to do. And so that lunch ended very abruptly and I went and I taught this seminar. And on Monday I woke up and I decided, fuck it, he's right. And I quit. And I quit my job teaching that seminar, which I was doing for five years, because I realized as painful as it was to hear, I was lying to myself and I was lying to my students. I was telling them to write down their goals. I was telling them to meditate, to dream big. I wasn't playing big. I was fucking teaching 30 people flying 22 hours coach because I couldn't afford business class, leaving my wife and kid for like five days at a time to influence 30 lives. And so I quit after five years. I stopped teaching that seminar and. And I went to Facebook and I added Facebook as a little thing on Facebook where you can add a quote. And I added this quote. It's a quote from Bob Proctor. It's now been 10 years. So this was 2008. It's now been 10 years. I have the same quote. And the quote is this. The question is not, are you worthy to reach your goals? The question is, are your goals worthy enough of you? And so I went from this, this room, and two years later, the vision of a fest emerged. For two years, I was in a space where I was trying to figure out the next big thing, but I went from that room to a fest. And then seven years after a fest, after that, first a fest, we evolved to the next level where it went from that room to Mindvalley University, which in a 15 minute clip looks like this. And I have to show it as a video because if I just show images, it wouldn't do it justice. But again, it went from that tiny little room to that. And that is what envisioning is about. Are you guys ready to play at that level? So at this a fest, I'm gonna play Bob Proctor to you. I'm gonna spray on some fancy cologne. I won't wear the jacket. It's too hot in Bali. But our job is to disrupt you to the point where you feel uncomfortable. Because remember, transformation comes from a distressing dilemma. It comes when our worldview is shaken up. And part of that shake up has to be to help you see that. Could it be that you are living a tiny slice of your potential? It.
