Vishen Lakhiani argues personal growth comes first, everything else is secondary. His mentor Sri Kumar Rao taught him that being a CEO or doctor matters less than who you become in the process. He points to Dwayne Johnson, Bob Iger, and Richard Branson as examples of high performers who prioritize their own growth through daily practices like exercise and meditation.
Chapters
Hi everyone. I'm answering questions in the mindvalley community. A really beautiful question that I recently received is this. How do we manage self care versus actually being out there doing our job, serving humanity and all the busyness of the world. So I'd like to address that because I learned a lesson recently from one of my mentors, Sri Kumar Rao, that's really profound. And what Srikumar Rao says is this. He says the biggest gap that America's business schools are not teaching its graduates is this. Even if you become the CEO of a billion dollar company and you have shareholders you have to report to and you have thousands of staff, know that the idea of you being a CEO, the idea of you working for a billion dollar company is an illusion. That's secondary to what your main thing in life should be. And your main thing in life, the number one thing needs to be the evolution of yourself. It needs to be your growth. Growth should be the main thing. Everything else is secondary. If your business fails, not a problem. Did you grow? If your business succeeds, no big deal. Did you grow? The question is, how are you growing? Sri Kumar Rao, to quote him, says, your business is nothing more than a vehicle for your personal growth. Now if you look at some of the greatest business men and women in history, they understood this principle. They were dedicated to their personal growth. Recently I saw Dwayne Johnson the Rock, one of the most loved actors in Hollywood, share an Instagram post. And he was sitting there with Bob Eager, the remarkable CEO of Disney, Marvel, Star Wars. Bob Yeager is an amazing visionary. And Dwayne the Rock was talking about how Bob yeager gets up 15 minutes earlier than Dwayne. So even though Dwayne wakes up and he is dedicated to his gym routine, dedicated to self study, dedicated to growth, Bob Eager, who's running this billion dollar empire, is waking up 15 minutes earlier. I've noticed periodically that the greatest men and women I meet in the world take that idea seriously. Arianna Huffington, she had a massive wake up call that she wrote about in her book Thrive. And that wake up call was spend more time on your wellness. She wrote an entire book about it. I met Richard Branson and one of the things I noticed most amazing about his life is that he mentioned to me how he starts his day with an hour of exercise. He said that fuels him to be able to give his best to the world. Now I start my day with one to two hours of personal growth. I might go to the gym, I juice in the morning, I meditate for 15 minutes to an hour I listen to podcasts and Mindvalley Quest app on the way to work. I do this all because to me I no matter what I do in life the number one thing has to be my growth. Everything else is secondary. And as Sri Kumar Rao says, when you're growing yourself, everything else is growing with you and you find that the typical problems that people have happen because they lose themselves. They forget who they really are. They forget why their souls chose to be here and they get lost in what Rao calls the matrix. He says the matrix though is an illusion. You are not the doctor. You are not the CEO. You are not the healer. You are sold here to grow and when you remember that and make that number one, all the other obstacles move out of the way. So I hope that answer resonates with you. I'd love to know your thoughts. Feel free to comment below and share this video.
