How magic happens when you set the right goals | Vishen Lakhiani

This is a story of magic. I can't explain it any other way. It's a story of how magic happens when you set the right goals. And I'm sharing this to inspire any of you out there who have been thinking about beautiful, incredible goals that you want for yourself, but you just don't know how to get to these goals. So this is what happened to me. To this day, I can't explain it, but it all started in 2010. It was April or May 2010 when I first took a seminar called Lifebook. It is a really detailed goal setting seminar, for lack of a better word. And you emerge out of Lifebook with a hundred page or so leather bound binder of your entire life in 12 different categories. You go deep into creating visions for your life in every realm imaginable, from your love life, to your health, to your emotional life, to adventures and travels and the things you want to experience in the world. You can see how worn out my Lifebook is because this is one of my most precious possessions. And in it is a blueprint for my entire life. Now, on one of the pages in this Lifebook, I wrote something kind of crazy. When I wrote it, I had no idea how I was going to accomplish it. I was living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I had a small little company called mindvalley. It was 2010. I wasn't the Vishen Lakhiani that people know today. And this is what I wrote down. And all of these were goals that I had absolutely no freaking idea if I would ever achieve them or if they were even attainable. But this is where magic happens, when we give our minds a clear target. So Lifebook is the creation of John and Missy Butcher. They're one of the most unique couples in the world. As entrepreneurs, they run some seven businesses and are remarkably successful. But a lot of people can be rich and successful. What's unique about John and Missy is how every element of their life lines up perfectly. They are in the most extraordinary health and do not seem to age as grandparents. They have three grandkids and they look years younger. They live in one of the most beautiful homes in America and every aspect of their life seems to be blessed by magic. Now, when John's friends and family would ask him, how do you do this? He would share his secret. John, at a very early age, decided to be deliberate about the type of life he wanted to lead. He and Missy came up with beautifully detailed visions, beliefs, strategies for their entire life. They called it their Lifebook. It was over a hundred pages long and it became a remarkable way to organize their vision for their life and look at life in a fully well rounded fashion. There are a lot of billionaires out there, a lot of remarkably rich people, but often they succeed in one area of life that fail at another. They might have incredible wealth, but they might have a broken relationship or poor health. They. They might run a billion dollar company, but they might be overstressed and busy. John and Missy, on the other hand, had a life that was beautifully well rounded. They took the Lifebook process and opened it up to the world. So other entrepreneurs and people who wanted to apply deliberate intent to create magical lives could follow this blueprint. You see, there are many successful people out there, but many of them are unconsciously competent. They are successful, but they can't retrace their steps. John and Missy are unique. They are consciously competent. They know exactly how they created their life. And this is how I found myself attending a Lifebook seminar in the spring of 2010. When I first attended the seminar, I thought it was just about goal setting. I didn't know it was about crafting magic. This is what happened to me. I want to show you just one of the many pages in my lifebook. This is just one particular page out of a hundred in just one category of lifebook. When I wrote this down, I had no idea how any of this would happen. I wrote about how I wanted to go on amazing trips with brilliant people, live in luxury, have amazing travel adventures, even toss parties in the Mediterranean, the Caribbean and more. I wrote about how I wanted to win an Emmy, a Grammy and an Academy Award win for one of my works and to be an online star in personal growth with a following of 1 million fans. All pretty big dreams for a guy living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2010, running a tiny little company called Mindvalley that built websites for personal growth authors. Now, something funny happened. When I wrote this down, I had no idea how all of these goals would connect. And here's the first lesson. When it comes to thinking about your future vision, focus on the what and the why. Do not worry about the how. So many of us play small because we set visions for ourselves based on how we think we are likely to get there. But what if the how didn't matter? What if it was just about the vision? And the what and the how will emerge through intuition, true guidance through synchronicities, coincidences lining up to get you through your vision. So when I wrote this down, I had no idea what was going to happen. But magic came into play within A few months, I developed the idea of launching a festival. A festival called a fest. Today a fest is a global event that thousands know about. But back then it was a crazy dream. I was a computer engineer. Who was I to start a festival? I had no idea how to do it yet. The first A fest emerged in Costa Rica and it sold out. It went on to become a phenomenon with over 15 a fest happening since then. And these crazy ideas I wrote down started magically lining up. A fest took me to travel to countries across the world. I suddenly became an international speaker because I was sharing the stage with influential and prominent personalities who would fly down to attend afes. My network expanded and I got to work and play at five star resorts and offices by the beach. All of the items on the list started lining up like magic. But it got stranger. Look at this. For example, I wrote down partying in the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, and more. One of the unique things about a fest is its legendary closing parties. And all of a sudden I'm hosting parties in castles in the Mediterranean, renting private islands in the Caribbean for the various guests and entrepreneurs who attended a fest. Weirder still, I wrote down I wanted to win an Emmy, Grammy or Academy Award. Last week I just received my fourth Emmy for a documentary that emerged out of a fest. And finally, I wrote down I wanted to be an online star in personal growth with 1 million fans. That happened last month. I don't know how all of these things lined up. I don't know where the idea emerged to start a festival. But what if our minds are so much more powerful than we think? What if when we give our minds clear direction, even if we don't know the how, ideas, inspiration and guidance flow through us and tell us how to move, what to perceive, and then it is up to us to act with that deliberate intent towards these ideas. That's at least the best way I can explain it. By being clear about the various pieces I wanted to bring into my life. I allowed my brain or my soul or my mind or whatever you want to call it, to pull into being an idea. A fest that connected and lined up all of those dots perfectly, all the way down to an Emmy Award. And like I said, I can't explain how this works to this day, I simply call it magic. But I wanted to share this with you. Because if you've been hesitating at dreaming big, if you've been holding yourself back from truly expanding the goals you want for yourself because you're caught in this bullshit trap that your goals must be realistic or attainable or have a time frame. Maybe you need to think differently about your goals. And maybe you need to understand that all of us have these abilities within us. I am connected to the same source that you are. If one person can pull this off, all of us can. Because at a deeper level, our consciousness is shared. So I want to encourage you to expand your vision for your life, to go beyond realistic goals, and to start getting clarity and deliberate intent over the life you want to lead. You see, what I learned from Lightbook and John Butcher is that it is up to all of us to create our life like a beautiful painting, a masterpiece. Most of us never bother to do that. We live lives of boring mediocrity by following the rules, by pretending and forgetting that we are more than just matter. But what if you had these abilities within you? What if you knew you could tap into and change channel ideas to get you to the life you want? Start crafting that painting. Be bold, be outrageous, and believe in yourself. The lesson I want you to understand is that it may not come immediately. You have to have patience. It may unfold for you over a year or five or 10, but you got to have patience. You got to have clarity of what you want. And you got to keep taking deliberate intention and action while believing in yourself. So why does this work? To be honest, we don't know. But I want to read you a quote called this is How Magic is Done by the great philosopher Terence McKenna. McKenna wrote, Nature loves courage. You make a commitment, and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under. It will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all the teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical goal, this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it's a feather bed. If you'd like to explore this topic deeper with me, attend my upcoming masterclass with John and Missy Butcher of Lifebook.