Vishen Lakhiani explains how one-hour reciprocal calls with experts can compress the value of a book. He records these exchanges to build skills, create products like Mindvalley masterclasses, and grow his business, sharing three rules: mutual exchange, record the call, and follow up.
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So one of the big questions people ask me is vishen, how do I learn more in less time? How do I speed up my learning? So of course there's the obvious things, there's seminars, online courses, books. But what I want to share with you today is an element, an idea that I've been playing with that has really helped me speed up my learning. And relative to time, it's the fastest, most efficient way to learn a ton in the shortest amount of time. I call these brain exchanges. So how it started was I used to attend seminars and masterminds so I could meet interesting people and connect and learn skills that I could apply to life and work. And then what I found is that at these seminars you'd exchange business cards and then what would happen? Mostly nothing. So what I would do is this. Rather than just aim for a business card, I would aim to connect with just a handful of people who have a skill or an idea or a bit of knowledge that I know might be able to help me. But I look at people who I know I could help because I have a particular skill or a bit of knowledge. Maybe it's company culture, maybe it's writing a book, maybe it's a personal growth methodology, maybe it's a business methodology where I could help them. Now, I would then arrange to do a Skype brain exchange with this individual. So here's how, what happens next when we get back, I would schedule two meetings with them. One would be an hour long session where I would get to tap their brain on whatever it is that they are good at, maybe YouTube marketing, that was a recent one I did. And then I would find out how I could help them. And we'd schedule a second brain exchange where I would now help them with something that they needed help with. Maybe, for example, hiring and building a team. So through these brain exchanges, I've been able to grow my life in so many different aspects. And what I found is this. A one hour brain exchange, a genuine conversation with someone, an expert in something on the phone to me was equivalent to reading an entire book. But reading a book takes seven hours. But here I was getting a compressed version of that person's best ideas in one straight hour. Now, these brain exchanges have led to so many new practices that I've applied in my personal life and my business. Take for example, Mindvalley and its masterclasses. So odds are you've attended a Mindvalley masterclass. Over 100,000 people attend our masterclasses every single month. But the idea of the masterclass was sparked from a brain exchange I did many years ago with a guy who was a webinar expert. So these brain exchanges have also not just helped me expand my life, but added millions to my business. Because, because of the knowledge and the new ideas. I'd strongly recommend that when you go forth to networking groups or seminars or masterminds, you aim to connect with people and you figure out a way where you can give and receive in terms of brain exchanges. So, three quick rules to remember to get the most out of your brain exchanges. Number one, make sure it's an exchange. It's an equal exchange. You're helping someone, they are helping you. This creates better trust, creates better friendship, and it makes sure that both of you on your brain exchanges are giving your best. Number two, record those brain exchanges. I keep a folder on my computer and I use Skype Call Recorder. It's a widget you can download for Skype that lets you record these brain exchanges. Of course, you ask for permission upfront and you save this as your library of incredible ideas. And third, following the brain exchange, set a time to do a quick follow up. You know, make it an intention to go back to this person 30 days later or so with a quick email to just show how you implemented their ideas. They feel better knowing that and you are putting it on yourself to actually take action. So these three steps with your brain exchanges help you get the most out of it. As I started doing these brain exchanges, I started doing it so that mindvalley customers and students could listen in as well. And if you're familiar with mindvalley's consciousness engineering program, that's the evolution of my brain exchange, I would take these calls, I would put them on our mindvalley Academy library and students would be able to log in and actually listen to these brain exchanges in all different dimensions of life from many of these remarkable people that I got to connect with, from legends like Peter Diamandis to doctors like Mark Hyman, to biohackers like Dave Asprey, all of them there for our customers. And if you're interested, you can try it out for like a dollar and get access to like 50 something hours of brain exchanges just so you can see if this is something that you enjoy. So if you are at a level in your life where you have access to these remarkable people who can help you remember brain exchanges, if you want to rise to that level and you don't yet have the connections that you can bring in for a brain exchange, you, you might want to look at our brain exchange solution, which is consciousness engineering on mindvalley. And as I said below, you can try it out for just a buck. So thank you and I hope this was useful.
