MINDVALLEY LIVE DUBAI 2023 LIVE STREAM

But in growth, mindset. Right. In personal development, in doing what you can do to become the best version of yourself that you could possibly be. And that is why we're so excited to be here. It's so inspiring to be here. And I want to say on behalf of the entire Mindvalley team and say we are so excited to be doing this with you. Thank you guys so much for being here. Now, for those of you who don't know who I am, show of hands, if nobody knows I am here, if you don't know who I am, just show your hands. Awesome. Luckily, Marissa Pierre is going to be here. We're going to work through all my enoughness, so we're going to be okay. But for those of you who don't know me, my name is Jason Goldberg. You can call me jg. Go ahead and say hi, jg. Love this. You guys are amazing. I am a mental performance coach. I'm also a keynote speaker on creativity and innovation. I'm also the author of a book called and My Mic Keeps Cutting Out. I don't know if you guys are hearing that back there. You guys checking that out? Yep.

Good.

And I'm also a Mindvalley author. And you can see here if we can get the slide, please. Whenever you guys can get this. There we go. So I have to circle myself and put an arrow because I'm so sick of being mistaken for Jay Shetty when I walk down the street. It's really, truly, truly annoying. But the thing I'm most proud of is that it has been said that I am the Jimmy Fallon of personal growth. That's kind of cool, right? It was my mom who said it. She's really trustworthy. You can trust her. Guys, how are we doing on mic stuff? Do I need to get a handheld instead? Maybe? Can I get a handheld? Let's do that. So enough about me. Let's make it about you for a second. So first of all, show of hands, if this is your very first Mindvalley event ever, make some noise for our first timers. Yes. You guys have no idea what you got yourself into. It's going to be great. And show of hands, if you've been here before and you're back for more magic. Show of hands. Yes. Give it up for our OGs. Now, listen, guys, whether it is your first Mindvalley event or your 20th Valley event, you're in store for a very, very transformational weekend. We have some of the most amazing speakers and teachers who are going to be here to teach you the mental and spiritual practices you need to build the life of your dreams and to help you to accelerate bringing that dream to fruition. So it's gonna be absolutely amazing. But it's not all about you, the individual, you narcissist. It's also about this community. Right. It's about this tribe. It's about this soul fan. You are gonna meet people in this room that will become your best friends for life. And this is not. And has that happened? Make some noise. If you're a mindvalley person, you've made friends for life. Yeah. My guy right here has made 17 best friends. It even better. So what I want to do here is since we're all soul fam here, can we do something kind of fun just to get a little more acquainted? Make some noise if you're down for a little fun.

Okay.

Awesome. All right, so first of all, everybody on your feet. I know you just got comfy. You just got that perfect spot where your left butt cheek was just in the right position with your right butt cheek. You'll find it again, I promise. Okay, so here's what I want everybody to do. First of all, I want you to take your left hand and. And I want you to put it out like this. I'm not going to make you sing. I'm a little teapot, I promise. Unless you really want to. Now, I want you to take the index finger on your right hand, and I want you to put it into the palm of the person next to you. I know this. Not your own palm. Yeah. If you're at the end of a row, you may have to do something kind of creative. It's always fun to see how people make this happen. Right? Fantastic. You guys are doing great. Okay, so now here's what we're going to do. On the three. On the count of three, you are going to do two things simultaneously. Number one, you are going to try to grab the finger that is currently in your palm while simultaneously trying to remove your finger from the palm that you're in. Is that I sit on the count of three overachievers. Okay. All right, so everybody get set. You got it? Left hand out. Right pointer finger in the hand. Got it? Okay. One, two, three. Okay, that's pretty good, sir. You can let go. That's how restraining orders happen. Okay? All right, so we're gonna do it one more time. Okay. You have one more opportunity to get this right. So left hand, right pointer finger into the hand of the person next to you. Everybody set? And on three, we're gonna try again. You ready? One, two.

Cheese.

Guys, I said cheese. All right, you guys did good enough to earn your seats. Go ahead and sit back down again. Sit down. Give yourselves a round of applause. Okay, so why did I do that game with you guys? Well, first of all, from up here, you guys look hilarious. So I did it primarily for my own satisfaction and to establish some dominance on stage. But more than that, it's because so often we are so busy trying to catch the proverbial finger in life, right? Doing all the things that steal our attention, our family, our friends, our work, all the obligations we have. Slow down. We don't slow down long enough to really to the messages that are being to us, right? We don't. We don't slow down enough to listen. And it's not that you shouldn't listen care of your commitment obligations. You should be doing that. Guys, can I get a handheld? Because this is, this is not, this is not good for my ego when, when I can't even hear myself. How, how can I do it? So we'll, we'll work on that. Okay, so. So yeah, you want to take care of all your obligations out there in the world. But problem becomes, when we focus so much on the goal line, the achievement related stuff, it's so much harder for us to access our inner wisdom and our truth and our inner guidance system. So we need to not work just on the goal line, but we need to also work on the soul line. One of my dear friends, Steven Kotler, who many of you probably know. Thank you, sir. Testing, testing, testing. I don't know which mic I'm speaking into. This is some inception crap right here. Okay, Steven Kotler, dear friend of mine, fellow mind author, he once said to me, if you are a spiritual person and you're stuck, you may need a high performance solution. And if you're a high performer and you're stuck, you may need a spiritual solution. And lucky for all of you, we're going to do all of that this weekend. So you're good to go. Make some noise for that. Okay? Now before we dive into the really fun parts of the day, I have to do a little bit of housekeeping. And every time I hear that word now, I think of Marisa Pier. Any Marissa Pier fans in the house? Make some noise. Yeah, Marissa. So she told me this quote once from Zsa Zsa Gabor, and I could never get it out of my head. And I wish I could do her posh English accent. I'm going to try my best but the quote from Zsa Zsa Gabor is, I'm a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man, I always keep the house. Marissa Pier for the win. Okay, but on some real. Some real housekeeping stuff. So quick question. Gonna sound like a dumb question. Show of hands if you've ever been to a restaurant. Not a trick question, folks.

Got it.

Everybody's like, I don't trust this guy. There's something. He's gonna make me stick my finger somewhere. No. Sorry. Okay, great. You've all been direct. So when you think back to your fondest memories, your most joyful memories of being in restaurants, did it come from you reading the menu or eating the food? Just shout it out. Eating the food. Almost almost unanimously eating the food. Why do I say that? Because I skipped breakfast, and I'm just really, really hungry right now. I say that because we have a lot of amazing authors and speakers that are here. And they're not just here to come up here and do their talks and leave with you. They want to meet you. They want to get to know you. Oh, hi. This is Mimi. Everybody say hi to Mimi. No. Come on, Give her some love. Hi, Mimi. So we have all these authors and speakers. They want to get to know you. They want to connect. And I know it can be so tempting when you see your favorite speaker or author to run up and try to grab a selfie with them. And what I want to invite you to consider is that taking a photo with one of the authors is kind of like reading the menu. It's something you can take away with you, but it's not an experience that's really going to stay with you. So instead, let's focus on being present with the authors. Let's connect human to human. That's where the real juice comes in. Okay, So I want you to remember this. Taking photos is like reading the menu, but really being present with the authors is like eating the food, and that's where the real memories come from. You guys cool with that? Awesome. Now, one other thing. I'm a big hugger, and I'm like one of those spidey monkey huggers. So I, like, wrap my legs around you. It's really awkward, especially, like family outings with friends who don't know me so well. So it can also be really overwhelming for 2,000 people to want to come up and give you a big. I've never had that experience myself, but I'm sure it's very overwhelming for 2,000 people to want to run up and give you a Hug. So just to, you know, honor the energy of our speakers and our authors, the rule we want to go by here is, unless they're choking and, you know, the Heimlich maneuver, let's refrain from hugging the authors. Is that cool with everybody, too? Awesome. You do whatever you want with each other to the point. I mean, consent, all that stuff. And then the last thing is, we have. In the few days we've been here, we've noticed just how generous and thoughtful so many of you are. We've seen so much generosity. You brought gifts, and you've brought books for the authors, and it's such a sweet gesture. And what we've noticed is that logistically, it becomes kind of tough because when the authors get these thoughtful gifts from you, then they kind of have to carry them all around, and it's tougher to move around freely and actually connect with people. So instead of the physical gifts, again, I want to remind you, the gift of your presence is enough. Okay. You guys cool with that? Let me get a. Sounds good. JGR3. One, two, three. Close enough. Okay, cool. All right, so now a couple of other housekeeping things we want to look here. I love you all dancing. Look at y' all dancing on the screen. Get it in. Okay, go back to the slides for a second here. Slides. There we go. Okay. Oh, sorry. All right, so this is the agenda for day one and day two. We purposely made it three point font so you can test your. Your eyesight here. Oh, can we get it up on the big screen? Because I can see it, but unless you can see it in the reflection of my glasses, it's not really very useful. Get these up on the screen. Oh, cool. Well, as long as you guys can see them, that's all that matters. Now, what you'll notice is that there's not a lot of specific break times. They're listed there. So if at any time you need to take a break, if you. If you need whatever break you need, that the prayer rooms are over here as well, whatever kinds of breaks you need, please feel free to take those breaks as you need to, because it's going to be a pretty packed schedule here. And if you want to see the detailed agenda not in three point font, make sure you download app. If you don't have it already, please download that. It has all the information, all the live notifications in the entire schedule. So you want to make sure you do that as well. And as you are posting on any social channel that you're posting on, make sure you use the Hashtag mindvalleylivedubai and of course tag mindvalley as well. And fantastic. Okay, great. So now, before we welcome our first, I want to do just one quick little exercise with you. So if everybody could please just close their eyes for a moment. Put your feet both on the floor so you feel nice and grounded. Now I want you to bring to mind with your eyes closed, what's the vision that you have for your life? The biggest dream you can dream for your life. Capture that image in your head for just a moment. Now, what I want you to do is I want you to release that image and instead I want you to replace it with kind of a strange image of you laying face down on a sidewalk, your nose touching the concrete. Now, if I asked you from that position, what do you see? You would probably say cement or maybe a couple of little bugs crawling around, but not much else. And what I want you to think about here for a minute is that your big vision, your big dream actually may be coming from that place that no matter how open you think your mind is or clear you think your vision is, you actually may be looking through a very narrow aperture lens on life. One that's based on only what you know and what you can see. Let go of that image for a moment and I want you to have another image in your head. Imagine I put you into a hot air balloon and you were floating over this gorgeous city. And I asked you, now what do you see? You would have so many different answers. You would see all the sights, all the landscapes, all the landmarks, all the buildings, all the lights, all the people. When you are at that heightened level, you see possibilities that you never knew existed before. And that's the goal from this weekend, is to take you from the sidewalk to the sky. You all can open your eyes. Thank you so much for doing that. All right, make some noise. I'm excited for you guys. This is going to be an amazing weekend. And now I am super excited to invite our first speaker to the stage. Somebody who, without whom none of us would be here. I don't mean on earth. I mean, I don't think he's my dad, but. We'll have to do some testing later, but we definitely wouldn't be in this room without him. He is one of the top thought leaders in self improvement, a two time New York Times bestselling author and somebody who's constantly pushing the envelope on human consciousness. And the way that we learn, he's a man that has so much wisdom and is such an innovator and pioneer in his space that I sometimes Wonder if my ChatGPT inquiries are going direct to his WhatsApp. So please give a huge welcome for my friend and the founder of Mindvalley, Michelatiani.

Hi everyone and and welcome to to Mindvalley Dubai. Firstly, I have never seen spoken to an audience this big at Mindvalley. My, my team told me that they wanted to do a 2000 person event.

And this is actually a big leap for us. Mindvalley is primarily online and digital but.

We know that so many of you guys who are going through the transformative effects of our programs online want to come together with other people who are going through such a high rate of change.

And here we are, 2,000 people in a room.

So a lot of people ask me where did this idea come from to.

Bring Mindvalley to Dubai? Why Dubai?

What made you think about this city? And I tell them this has nothing to do with me.

Bringing Mindvalley to Dubai or the Middle.

East was not even my vision. It actually was the vision of a wonderful woman on my team, Ola Abbas, who was born in Saudi Arabia. Now, Ola is. Could I get my slides on please?

Ola is someone I want to acknowledge.

Because I did not come up with this. This woman who started out in Mindvalley doing customer support would come and bug me every few months and say, hey.

How can I help bring this idea.

To my part of the world? Ola is born in Saudi Arabia, Arabic speaking and she also incidentally happens to be the wife of Ronan Diego, who's one of our speakers. Ronan is one of the most. Ronan is standing right over there. Ronan, wave your hand, stand up please, Ronan.

Ronan is the health and fitness expert on Mindvalley. And so what I'd like to do.

Guys, is invite Ola Abbas to come on stage because I want you to see the person who helped create this vision. Ola.

Check. Yes. Thank you, Vishen. In May of 2012, I stepped into the Mindvalley office in Kuala Lumpur for the very first time time not knowing that my life was completely going to change. I will never forget my first day in the office. I was taken on a tour and the first thing that greeted me was a human statue of Wonder Woman. But as I walked in, I was struck by the sheer amount of diverse human beings that came from Tajikistan to Nicaragua and every in between. As I continued walking through the office, I saw people starting a meeting with a dance or a gratitude practice. I passed by the kitchen and people were blending green smoothies and talking about optimizing their health. And my tour ended at a place called the hall of Awesomeness, where the company celebrations take place. Now imagine a young girl fresh out of Saudi Arabia, stepping into that world for the very first time. I had just left home. I knew nothing about anything that my invalid did. I had zero experience of any of the departments that they had. I learned English from Backstreet Boy songs when I was in high school. And the only time I read about personal growth was when I Google searched what it meant right before my interview with mindvalley. But everyone in the office was so smart. They expressed themselves so elegantly, and they were, like, on top of their game. So for months, I was so intimidated and overwhelmed. But I wanted to be as smart as they are, and I wanted to learn everything. So I dived head first. I took every course that Mindvadi had at that time, from silver to meditation to unlimited abundance. I took every project that I was capable of taking at that time. And as time passed, things got a little bit better. And I tried to understand more of the terminologies. And then I just continued at that same pace. I was getting more projects, more opportunities. I was traveling the world and getting immersed with a lot of incredible mentors and teachers. And as years passed, I just kept on the same pace. I was, like, on the run, traveling the world, learning from the best and just loving it. So I immersed even more and more until one day, my dad called me with his cheerful tone, and he was like, hola, Happy Eid kulusanamiti taiba. And I remember pausing for what seemed to be like five minutes because I was shocked that I did not remember one of the biggest celebrations that I celebrated with my family all my life. And at that moment, I realized that I dived so deep into a word, this new word, that I was beginning to forget about another. I was chasing after becoming this thing that I was beginning to forget parts of who I am. And I created this separation between the word that I was brought into my culture and my upbringing from this word that was, like, now new and just unfolding in front of my eyes. And that's when I realized that I needed to merge the two. I wanted to bring everything that Mayan Valley has given me through all of these years to the place that. That made me the woman who I am today. So the idea of bringing mindvalley to the Middle east was born. And by then, I was part of organizing events in over 10 countries. And for years, I just thought and dreamt of what if we don't just do a mindvalley event, but we do the biggest mindvalley event in the Middle east. And here we are today.

Woo.

So as we go into this experience together, some of you might be stepping into a new world and you might feel that you want to learn everything and see everyone and talk to everybody and see all the teachers. But I would love to humbly advise you that, to trust that you are in the right place and that things will come to you as they should. But most importantly, I want you to remember that this space, this stage, the speakers and the tools that you're going to be learning this weekend is not about us trying to change, fix, or for you to become something, but is really to emphasize and amplify the incredible qualities that you already have. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Ola. Thank you. Hola, Abbas. So what we're going to talk about in our opening presentation is an idea from one of my first books, the Code of the Extraordinary Mind. It's an idea called the Four stages of Consciousness. I want to give you a map on how to understand how you're operating in terms of your awareness of how you show up in the world and how you interact with the world. Now, by the way, I'm not wearing these glasses to try to be Bollywood or anything. I developed astigmatism a few months ago, and I actually need this to see you guys. Okay? So if anybody raises their hand for a question and you see me, put up the glasses, it's not to shield myself. It's to see your face, to see if you're a man or a woman, to kind of even be able to point at you. Marisa Pierre, by the way, who's the next speaker is helping me heal my eyesight naturally, but it'll take a couple of months. So what are we going to talk about is. Could we get my slides on the screen, please? Are they on the side? Okay, got it. We're going to talk about this concept called the four levels of consciousness. Now, it's from the opening chapter of my book. When I created that book, I did not understand how big that book was going to go, and so I tried to draw the diagram myself. So excuse how childlike that diagram is. I was trying. I could have literally just spent five bucks on fiverr and had someone do this professionally. What we're going to talk about is how as we go through life, the way we observe ourselves and our relationship to the world goes through various levels of change. At each level, you react to the world and shape the world in a different way. Now let's break this down, okay? Level one is where the vast majority of people in the world operate. Level one is often called victim consciousness. You are living in what is called the culturescape, which is that tangled web of beliefs, ideas, rituals that are all around us. The ideas of life that you learn from your parents, from your culture, from your religion, rituals, beliefs, everything from corporate culture to traditional culture all fall in level one. But in level one, it almost feels as if the world is happening to you. The world is something completely separate from you, and ups and downs are random acts. But at a certain point, you go through an awakening. This is typically the point where you start discovering personal growth. Remember Ola's story as she walked through the office of mindvalley, she saw people making conscious decisions on their health. She dived into personal growth programs. And at that point, you go to level two. Level two is where you understand that you can manipulate the world. You can shift the reality of the world. Most people do this in a very simple way, but a good way. Intentions, goals, setting a vision for how you want your life to evolve. Lifebook, for example, the MindValley program is about getting people to level two in a holistic way. But there's a level beyond that, and that's level three. Level three is where you start understanding, understand that the world is not just outside you, the world is also inside you. And there's this vast universe of consciousness within you that you can learn to master. This is the domain of meditation, of intuition. And once you start tapping into that, you start operating in a different way. But there's a level even higher than that, and that is level four. The world you can change. We'll come to that one in a moment. So why is this important? Well, maps of consciousness are really useful because they show you how you're operating and where you can ascend to. They also let you know on a day to day basis if you're forgetting what level you should be playing at and maybe sinking to a lower level. By having this map of consciousness, you can navigate life in a better way. So let's talk about level one. Level one is the culturescape. The culturescape is made up of architecture, cultural beliefs, our cultural traditions, whether they come from our culture, our country, our region, or even corporate culture. Corporate culture is filled with models, rules, systems that guide people to operate at level one. But there's a problem with level one, and that is you become a victim of the world around you. Think, how often do you feel like stuff is just happening to you. The COVID pandemic, the economy, bad luck in love or business. At level one, the world is happening to you. You become a victim of the circumstances of the world. Every time you complain about something, it's level one consciousness. But the funny thing about level one is, and this is what I want to stress to you guys, the world doesn't actually exist. It is a made up construct of our reality. Alan Watts has this essay called There is no such thing as a thing. Everything that we give a noun to, office life, nine to five, love, God, compassion, doesn't really exist. It is a construct in the human mind. It is not physical reality, but it is the construction that we have come to believe based on how we were raised. Listen to Alan Watts explain it. And so what I would call a kind of a basic problem we've got to go through first is to understand that there are no such things as things, that is to say, separate things or separate events. That that is only a way of talking. And if you can understand this, you don't have no further problems. I once asked a group of high school children, what do you mean by a thing? And first of all, they gave me all sorts of synonyms. They said, it's an object, which is simply another word for a thing. It doesn't tell you anything about what you mean by a thing. Finally, a very smart girl from Italy who was in the group said, a thing is a noun. And she was quite right. A noun isn't a part of nature, it's part of speech. There are no nouns in the physical world. There are no separate things in the physical world either. See, the physical world is wiggly. The clouds, mountains, trees, people. And only when human beings get working at things, they build buildings in straight lines and try and make out that the world isn't really wiggly. But here we sitting in this room, all built on straight lines, but each one of us is as wiggly as all get out. What Alan is saying is that the physical world as we see it, is a construct of the human mind. Now let me give you an example of this, right? This is a painting that represents Tahitian culture. Anyone here been to Tahiti? Tahiti. Okay, now check this out. In Tahitian culture, there is no such word for sadness as we acknowledge it in the English language. Instead, the closest translation to the word sadness in Tahitian culture is a kind of fatigue you feel when you have the flu. Sadness is a construct that you learn from your parents. Now let Me? Go further. Are your emotions a thing? It turns out every emotion that you give a label to is actually made up. You decided to give or you learned this label from culture, from tradition. We have ears that listen to the world outside us. But imagine for a moment that you can listen to what's going on inside your body. Okay, if you could listen to what's going on inside your body, you'd hear your blood flowing, you'd hear your lungs, you would hear the biochemistry of your brain. All of this would create so much noise. But you actually do listen inside your body. Except it's not sound. It's a concept called interoception. It's listening within. And what does it feel like or sound like when you listen to what's going on inside your body? It's emotions. Your emotions are the sound of what's going on in your body. And it turns out there are only four major emotions. Arousal, pleasant, calm, or unpleasant. Okay, so Arousal, pleasant, calm, or unpleasant. According to this particular book. The book is called the Theory of Learned Emotion. Emotions are something that you've learned. So, for example, if you are feeling jealous, all that's going on in your body is that you are being aroused by something someone else has and you're feeling unpleasant, that you do not have that. It is a biochemical reaction in your body based on how your brain has been trained to perceive the world. And you learn the word jealous from your parents. If you are on a date, something else happens. You might be highly aroused, you might be highly pleasant, you might feel unpleasant because you're nervous about something. And you may not feel so calm because you're kind of jittery. Everything that we go through in life, we give a word to anger, sadness. But this word doesn't really exist. As Alan Watts said, it's all words, wiggly lines. And what's going on is that we are adding a name to it. Okay, so nothing is actually real. Now, as we go through this presentation, I want to introduce you to a series of philosophers who are going to give you a new way of looking at the world. This is the first philosopher. Listen to what this man says about reality and the world that we have come to exist. When you grow up, you tend to to get told that the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world, try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money. That's a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover One simple fact, and that is everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it. You can influence it. You can. You can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again. That philosopher, that Zen philosopher was Steve Jobs. And what Jobs is actually saying is that the world is pokeable. You can choose to poke the world. You can choose to change your definition of different aspects of. Of the world. You can choose to create your own rules. When you do this, you end up in level two. Now, level two is called the awakening, because you suddenly awaken to the idea that the world is under your control. You can set goals, you can set intentions. You can create a lifebook. You can do the three most important questions from Mind Valley. You can create how you want the world to unfold. But at level two, you start to understand that the world as we see it is an artifact of a previously held point of view. Your eyes are always looking at the past. Everything about the world today is an artifact of past generations. Like Steve Jobs. You start to understand that you can create new things. You can invent new things. Steve Jobs was called a magician genius by his biographer because he could see what was not yet in the world and then bring that into reality. Likewise, you can see new visions for your life and decide that you want to bring that into the. Into reality. At level two, you start questioning the rules of the culturescape, maybe even the rules of your culture or your tradition that you feel might be holding you back. Level two is where you start understanding that life can happen to you or life can happen from you. This new vision of the world can come directly from you. Level two is the era of where we start talking about thoughts, creating reality, about the law of attraction. But level two also has a problem. Now, most of you in this audience are mostly at level two. Unless you were dragged here against your own will by a pushy friend or relative who told you to come to this mindvalley event. Don't ask questions and just sit down and experience it. You are probably at level two. Who here was dragged by a pushy friend or relative? Awesome. And thank you for admitting it, sir. Okay, people who take their own action for personal growth typically are operating at level two. And kudos to you. This is great. It means that you're beginning to realize that there's so much that you can expand into, and you're not willing to expect the status quo of how the world works. But here's the problem with level two. And this is from a mindvalley team. The second philosopher we discussed today, Sri Kumar Rao. Anyone here studied Sri Kumar Rao on mindvalley? Phenomenal. His program on mindvalley, the quest for personal mastery, is brilliant. So Srikumar Rao is one of the foremost MBA teachers in the world, but he brings in wisdom of the east into the American MBA program. Now I was interviewing Rao three weeks ago and he explained this concept to me. He said, vishen, the problem with the Western world is this. When you set goals, you are falling for essentially a double illusion. So I said, what do you mean by this double illusion? He says, let me explain it this way. You set a goal to start a business, but it's not the business you want. That's the illusion. It is the feeling from the business. You want freedom, or maybe you want to feel significant, or maybe you want to feel crazy creative. That's what you want. It is not starting a business, but the feeling is also an illusion. The second illusion, because you don't know if that business is going to give you freedom. You don't know if that business is going to give you significance. You don't know if that business is going to make you creative. In fact, most people who start a business go through incredible amounts of stress. The feeling that you think you're going to get is also an illusion. And so I asked him, rao, you just really made me sad and miserable. What then? How do I set goals? What do I tell people? He said, the point is this. Every time you set a goal, know that you're playing a game with yourself. It's not the goal, it's the feeling. And that feeling is also a game because there's no guarantee of the feeling. But the important thing is this. Set goals anyway. Be big. Be bold in the goals you want to set, but don't worry about attaining them. Seek to embrace the feelings that you want. Now, if you're starting a business, seek to feel significant. Seek to create freedom. Now, you will get better success at getting to that business. But by seeking the feeling now and not hoping for a thing that gives you a feeling that is an assumption of how you might feel. Feel. You don't fall into a trap that so many people fall into. Stagnating lives, disappointment, starting a business and then finding out that you're more shackled and have less freedom than you ever once expected. We chase constructs, not made up reality. So many of the goals that you're chasing are not actually goals that might lead you to the feelings that you want. So how do we overcome this? And this is when we start stepping into level three. Level three is recoding the inner world. You see. At level two, you start to understand that the world is pokeable. But the problem is you are trying to create things that your society, your culture, your traditions, your lineage are telling you you need. At level three, you stop listening to the noise of the outside world and you find that the source of truth is directly in inside you. Level 3 is the domain of meditation. It is the domain of listening to your intuition. And one of the key things that you awaken to in level three is this concept, also by Michael Beckwith, called Kensho versus Satori. So let me explain because this is such a beautiful idea. Now, Kensho moments are growth through pain.

Satori moments are growth through insight. I want you to reflect as I give you these examples. It turns out that all of us go through growth, but most people go through growth really slowly. And that growth happens because of a dilemma or a crisis or something that just comes and kicks you. You might end up in hospital, but you come out and you decide that there's a better way for you to embrace your health. You might have a business failure. I failed three businesses before mindvalley. But each time I learned how to be a better entrepreneur. You may lose someone that you love, but you decide and you grow in terms of how to be better at love. This is kensho. Satori is growth through insight. Insight comes when you take the time to come to an event like this and listen to wisdom. Insight comes when you're sitting, sitting still and meditating. Insight comes when you're journaling. If we were to map this in your life, this is what it would look like. Observe the dips. Those dips in life are kensho moments. But notice after a dip, there's always a spurt of growth. Satori moments are more gradual elevations of growth. You want to live a life that is kensho and satori. Now, it turns out that moments, this painful stuff that we go through, that we hate and try to avoid, is actually good for us. Google did a study. So this is an excerpt from a book called Exponential Organizations by Salim Ismail.

Check this out.

Google did a study and they found that their best employees were not Ivy League graduates. Rather, they were young people who had gone through a big loss in their life and had been able to transform that experience. Experience into growth. According to Google, deep personal loss resulted in employees who are humble and more open to listening and learning. Kensho Moments can be a gift. Now, when you go through your journey of personal growth, there's going to be a lot of kensho moments you go through. And I want to share with you one of mine. So it happened in London. And it happened because back then, and I was teaching a small meditation class in London, and I want to show you what that looked like. So this is. Look at the room over here. There are 2,000 people in the room, but this is how I got started. That is a room at the Danubias Hotel in London where I used to teach a small little class for 20 to 30 people on the Silver Method. So I was living in Malaysia and I would fly to London to teach this class because I could earn more in pounds than I could in Ringgit in Malaysia. And each class would mean I'm traveling 20 hours on a flight, teaching the class, flying back and maybe making three or $4,000, which in Malaysia was decent. It was a month's salary. This was me in 2008. Now, back then, Mindvalley, as you know, it didn't exist. We basically built websites for authors. And one of the authors we built a website for was this man, Bob Proctor. Anybody know Bob? Bob passed away a few years ago, but he was a major influence on so many of our lives. I was interviewing DJ Bliss, who's one of the most most famous artists here in Dubai, and he told me how for 100 days he would listen to the same Bob Proctor meditation on mind value. You guys can check it out. It's called the Abundance Meditation. It's on your mindvalley app. Bob Proctor was a major influence on the lives of DJ Bliss on my life. But on that particular day in London, what happened was I was going to teach my small little class and Bob was there teaching a room of a thousand people. And he asked me to stop by and have lunch with him because I, in a way, worked with him. There's something really powerful when you have a good mentor. I sit down for lunch with Bob Proctor and I don't know it, that this man is about to completely disrupt my life. So he asked me, vishen, what brings you to London? And I say, well, Bob, I'm teaching this class. I'm so excited about it. It's called the Silver Method. I teach people how to meditate, access altered states, manifest their goals, heal with their mind all of this good stuff. And he goes, great, how many people.

Are in your class?

And I say, 20. And he goes, 20. And then he does this ball proctor thing where he ruffles up his face. And when he does that, I know that something painful is going to come out of his mouth. And he goes, Only 20? And I go, yeah. And he goes, what do you make from that class? And I said, well, this particular class I'm going to make like 3000 USD profit. He goes, that's it. And again he makes that ruffle face. Then he pauses and he doesn't say anything for 60 seconds. And I'm waiting, what's going to come next? What's going to come next? And then he turns to me and he goes, I hope you flew business class. And I said, no, I can't afford business class. If I flew business class, I would basically make no money from teaching this class. And Bob tells me, how long was the flight?

20 hours.

He says, how long you going to be in London? Five days. He says, don't you have a one year old son, Hayden? So you're leaving your son for five days? And I say, bob, I get it, but I really love what I do. I'm making good money, I love what I do. This is amazing for me. I feel I'm changing people's lives. And Bob interrupts me, he says, vision, vision, vision. Stop it. You are playing so small. You deserve better. I would not be doing what you were doing if I were you. And I get pissed off. I'm thinking, Bob Proctor, you with your slick hair and your fancy suits and your sweet smelling cologne. How dare you tell me what to do. But all of that dialogue was in my head because I knew he was right. So that was the last day I thought that little class. It was Saturday, Sunday. And on Monday I quit. I literally quit being a Silver Method instructor. I went back to Malaysia. I never taught that class again. I decided to look at this little website building business I had and ask myself, how can I play at a bigger level? Bob Proctor told me something and if you go to my Facebook page you will see that his quote has been the number one quote on my Facebook page. I haven't taken it down since 2008. And the quote is this. I want you to remember this. It is not. It is not. I wish I could remember it. The quote is. It is not. Are you worthy of your goals? The question is, are your goals worthy of you? That's it. I've had that quote on my Facebook page for the last since 2008. Ask not, are you worthy of your goals? Ask, are your goals worthy of you? Now this is what happened. For two years I tried to figure it out. And one day, an insight came to me. It was a satori moment. You see, at level three, inspiration guides your intention. Inspiration guides your intention. It isn't coming from the outside world. It's coming from something inside you. What happened that day is I suddenly had an idea to create a festival. And I don't know where this came from. It was outside my domain of expertise. It was outside anything I did. But I ended up creating a festival called a fest. And I had no idea how to even get there. But sometimes when inspiration comes from inside, you gotta listen. Have you guys seen that movie Babe? That incredible movie about the talking animals on a farm? There's a scene from Babe where Farmer Brown says, little ideas that talk, tickle and burn and never seem to go away should never be ignored, for in them lie the seeds of destiny. Remember that. I had that idea to start a festival. Now I had no idea how to do it. But when you listen to those ideas at level three, I believe that you're listening to something that's not coming from the outside world. It's coming from within. It's coming from a part of your soul that is plugged into. Into something deeper. And that deeper thing is there to support you. So in my case, that support came because I happened to get a chance to get on stage at a big event where the main VIP speaker was Lisa Nichols. And you guys know Lisa. She's going to be here speaking. But here's the story between me and Lisa. I somehow went up to Lisa because I was a junior speaker. I was a space filler. Basically, the organizer of the event gave me a spot because someone else cancelled. I didn't get paid. I had to cover all my own expenses. But that got me in the speaker room. So way back in the speaker room, I went to Lisa and I asked her to have lunch with me. And so Lisa and I had lunch. And then at lunch, I told Lisa about this festival I'm doing. And I said, lisa, I love you so much. You're so amazing on stage. Can you be the main speaker? Because if I get you, I know this entire thing can become a reality. And Lisa said, vishen, I'm so honored. So on it. But, you know, I am speaking every single weekend this year. I only have one weekend free. And I said, well, what. What weekend is that? And she said, December 11th. And I go, well, wow, Lisa, what a coincidence. That's the weekend we were thinking about doing the festival. And so at that point, Lisa knew I was making it up. But Lisa was amused by my determination. And she said yes. Lisa became the first speaker at an event called A Fest. And a Fest transformed everything. So A Fest went on to become a massive festival. Three years after that first a fest. In 2010, I bought that little web development company for authors called mindvalley. I bought out my business partner because him and I were not seeing other eye to eye. I bought him out. I paid a lot of money for that. I got control of the company and I decided we want to do something different. And so we launched what became mindvalley, the learning platform. Mindvalley, the learning platform became mindvalley membership, which so many of you are part of today. We took online courses that used to cost $2,000 and made 100 of the best programs in the world, all owned and produced by us, available for people for as low as 199 in countries like India a year or 399 in the USA. Mindvalley completely changed the entire mind, body, spirit industry. And then we went further. With my business partner, my new business partner, Ajit Nawalka. We ended up starting Mindvalley certifications and Mindvalley coaching. And we ended up truly training 7,000 coaches. But think about it. All of this happened because a mentor, a teacher, made me uncomfortable and gave me a disorienting dilemma. A Kensho moment made me quit my job. And I can tell you, I was pissed off at Bob Proctor for at least a month. Today I want to thank and acknowledge Bob. He is somewhere in heaven. Because if it isn't for Bob, look around you. These 2,000 people wouldn't be here from Mindvalley. We started Mindvalley certifications with Ajit. You'll see Ajit. He's gonna be speaking on stage as well. We certified 7,000 coaches. Now, my question to you is, are you settling? Is that room representative of something in your life right now that you're actually proud of? But you're playing too small. Look at that room. And now look at the room over here. Look at the difference. 20 people, 2,000 people. And by the way, these 2,000 people in this event is only 1% of Mindvalley revenue. Mindvalley is 100 times bigger than this. So look at this room and think about the vast empire in the course of these next two days. My job is to make you uncomfortable. My job is to poke you in a way where. But that sounds bad. My job is to disrupt your way of thinking in a way where you feel unsettled. Because I want to do to you what Bob Proctor did to me. I want you to feel a little unsettled at what's going on in your life because they could be something so much bigger that you're meant to give the world. Now that's what happens at level three. Michael Beckwith says, at level three, inspiration is leading your intention that there is a problem at level three. So now let's go on to another philosopher. So at level three, you become a master of manifesting because you're manifesting what is coming from your soul. And this is plugged on to a greater reality. And this greater reality will create synchronicities, coincidences, things to move you ahead. You don't always have to know the answer, but you start moving ahead, you feel lucky. But there is a problem with level three. A lot of people think that once you get to that phase, you are spiritual, you are conscious. Turned out that's not true. So Ken Wilber is another teacher on mindvalley. Anyone here done his program on Integral theory? Okay, this is a. This is one of the most advanced programs on mindvalley. Let me give you an idea. That's an actual map that we talk about in the program. It's a map of human consciousness. Now, you don't have to understand the map, but I'm going to show you what this map is saying. What this map is essentially saying is that as you increase in your states of consciousness, so as you learn to navigate altered states, you learn to go from waking state to dream state to non dual state, to samadhi, or the feeling that mystics feel when they are connected to God. You are actually moving through different experiences of consciousness. But this is not enough. There are also stages of consciousness. And stages of consciousness determine how you feel connected with other human beings around you. So there are multiple human development theorists who map stages of consciousness. This is one model from Integral theory. But we're going to simplify it and we're going to simplify it to look like that. Egocentric ethnocentric world, centric and cosmocentric. Let me explain. 1% of the world are at the cosmo centric stage of consciousness. So again, here, this is where we are talking about how you connect and how you feel about other people. Egocentric means it's all about you. You would stab another person to guarantee your survival. Egocentric is what you find in prisons, in jails. You find it in gangs, you find it in countries that are going through war and turmoil. But it's a tiny fraction of the human population. The next is ethnocentric ethnocentric is 70% of the world. This is where you are kind, you are gentle, you are wonderful to people who look like you, who pray to the same God, who speak the same language. Outsiders are not welcome. You vote for politicians who build walls. You vote for right wing politicians who make you fear the other. Ethnocentric is 70% of the world, and it is not complete. There's nothing wrong with it, because ethnocentric consciousness also gives us our culture, it gives us our tradition. If we were not a little bit ethnocentric, our cultures and our traditions would fizzle out. So there is some utility in it, but there's a level you can ascend to which is world centric. At world centric, you see yourself connected to all life. Now, the funny thing is, our world is becoming more and more and more world centric. For example, in 1991, a survey of Americans found that the majority of Americans, 54% of Americans, thought it was wrong, absolutely wrong, for two people of different races to marry. This was 1991. By 2011, this number had fallen to 4%. Americans became more world centric, and we are becoming more world centric. As a specific, in 1963, Sammy Davis Jr. Was denied a performance at the White House because he was a black man married to a white woman. It was considered so morally wrong in 1963. A mere 50 years later, in 2013, the President of the United States is the product. Barack Obama was the product of a white woman and a black man. But someone in 1963 could never have predicted that. So we underestimate how rapidly the next generation is moving towards world centrism and even the level above that, cosmocentrism. Now, what is cosmocentrism? Cosmocentrism is where you feel connected not just to all human beings, but all life, all plants, all animals, even life, that is from generations that are about to be born. At the cosmocentric level, you cannot help but care about the environment. It's just part of life. Now, why is this important? So let's look at the map again. Okay? You got to grow in terms of your spiritual abilities, in terms of entering altered states of consciousness, manifesting intuition. But you also got to grow in terms of your compassion into wider and wider circles embracing life. If you don't do that, you fall into a stage where you could become the A hole guru. Let me explain what this means. Have you noticed that there are so many spiritual teachers who suddenly get brought down by Scandal. There was that famous yoga teacher in the US who created this thing called Bikram yoga. And then he was brought down when it found out that it was a cesspool of sexual harassment. And we see these so often with spiritual teachers. Why is it that people who seem to have these spirits, spiritual powers are suddenly found out to be dangerous. They are growing in terms of the ability to navigate states of consciousness that they are not growing from ethnocentric to world centric and cosmo centric. As you go from world centric to cosmo centric, you cannot be misogynistic, you cannot be racist, you cannot cheat, because your level of compassion has expanded to larger and larger groups of people. So Ken Wilber explains it this way. Around five or six years ago in Hawaii, there was a man who suddenly was meditating and he suddenly found that he was connected to God. And it was the most beautiful, sublime experience. But he was operating at an egocentric, ethnocentric level. So he assumed, I'm special, God chose me. This man in Hawaii changed his name to Jesus because it rhymes with Jesus. And he started a cult proclaiming, proclaiming himself the reincarnation of Jesus.

Why?

Because when you're at egocentric, you assume that only you are special. At ethnocentric, you assume that your people are special, but not other people. At world centric, you assume that all people are great. You assume you are open to mixed marriages, you are open to cross pollination of religions. At cosmocentric, it extends beyond the human population to all life. You need to be able to navigate these aspects of consciousness. You need to be masterful at manifesting, yes, at intuition, but these are states of consciousness. You also need to grow in terms of your stages. And you want to step up to embrace cosmocentrism. Now what Ken Wilber says is this. It is easier to navigate states than it is to navigate stages. Stages typically happen when you grow over decades. But once you get to a stage of consciousness, you never go back down. Once you become all embracing, you can never go back down to being an a hole. That's the beauty of it. But the beauty about our world today is that our children leaps ahead of us in terms of moving towards world centric and cosmo centric. Nelson Mandela said, no child is born to hate. Hate is something that we teach people to do. That if we can teach people to hate, we can teach people to love. For love comes more easily to the human heart than its counterpart. That was Mandela. And, and what we are seeing with the world today is that children are becoming more and more and more cosmo centric. And I love this about our world. So remember, at level three, you can manifest, but are you manifesting what is good for a wider population? Are you creating products that are hurting the planet or products which are improving the planet? Are you creating a company where you are. You are taking care of your employees or a company where you are manipulating your employees? Are you creating a power within yourself where you can oppress or a power where you can uplift? Our stage of development determines how we perceive the world. Your job is not just to navigate human consciousness. It is to grow towards world centrism. So Ken Wilber calls it waking up versus growing up. Waking up is being able to navigate meditation states and manifesting. Growing up is being able to expand your heart. We need to do both. A few years ago, we did a big event in Barcelona, and there we invited this philosopher that I want to introduce you to. His name is Neil Donald Walsh. Anyone studied Awaken the Species on mindvalley? This is one of the toughest programs on mindvalley because it's on the philosophy of elevating consciousness. So at this event, Neil. This was Mindvalley University in Barcelona, 2017. And Neil was talking about our relationship to God and how we are souls having a human body. And one lady stands up and goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get all of that. But what do I do on those mornings when I wake up and I'm feeling worried or sad or anxious or just lousy? And Neil says, stop making your life about you. And everyone gasped because it seemed so insensitive. But Neil continued. He said, remember this. Your life is not about you. Rather, your life is about the lives of everyone you touch. Let me repeat that. Your life is not about you. Rather, your life is about the lives of everyone you touch. Now, this is an interesting message. This is the difference that takes you from level three to level four. Level three, you're manifesting for yourself and maybe your family. Level four, you are manifesting for everyone. Your life is not about you. Your life is about the lives of everyone you touch. In his writings, Neil goes on to say that he calls this the unity principle, the first guiding principle of advanced civilizations. He says the only solution is the ultimate truth. Nothing exists in the universe that is separate from anything else. Everything is intrinsically connected, irrevocably interdependent, interactive interval and into the fabric of all life, Unity. This is that value that you need to embrace to go from three to four and this brings us to level four becoming extraordinary. This was the subject of my first book. At level four, you understand that you don't. Sometimes things are going to suck, but you can change it. You understand that you're going to set goals, but these goals are not coming from outside influence. They're coming from this still inner voice within. But at level four, you also understand that the goals you're going to pursue are goals which are ultimately good for the larger collective species. Neil explains it this way. Listen to how he explains, explains how connected we all are. And feel this in your heart as you listen to his words. Feel. It's also okay to close your eyes as you listen to this.

It's very powerful for us to embrace the notion of no separation, the notion of unity, because suddenly we begin to live and to experience life in a dramatically different way. We see everyone else as part of us and everything else as part of us as well. And that includes that essence of life that some people call God. And so we begin to see things differently, to act differently, to react differently, and to experience ourselves in a brand new way, a way that can change your life forever. It would take me far too long to describe the best benefits of that, but I'll give you an idea. Try it. Just try it for 24 hours. Imagine that everyone else who crosses your path is an extension of you, is one of the wonderful fingers on the hand that you are. And imagine that everything that you think and say and do with regard to that person, you're thinking and saying and doing with regard to, to yourself. And as you begin to change the way you interact with other people, you will discover the powerful, powerful benefits of the notion of unity. This is the single idea that could change the world virtually overnight and make everything better than we ever imagined it could possibly be. It could effect produce heaven on earth. So if you'd like to have one single tool that could advance your spiritual evolution overnight, this is the tool Unity. The oneness of all things. Thanks for listening and enjoy your experience of oneness.

At level four, you are part of a wider whole. Now at level four, a beautiful situation emerges. I once asked Professor Sri Kumar Rao, you know, of all the mental models that you teach these MBA students, what is the most important mental model that completely changes one's life? Of all the beliefs we could take on, and he said, it is the idea of the benevolent universe. The most important belief you can have is in your life, according to Professor Rao, is the idea that you are part of the universe. And the universe like A loving father or mother loves you back. And everything that is happening to you is by design. Every good thing is happening for you. Every bad thing is a kensho moment designed to help you grow or step into a greater understanding of yourself. You live in a benevolent universe and you accept it. Everything. Rao says this single belief will change every aspect of your life. When you get to this state, level four, it almost feels like your life is limitless. Remember that movie Limitless? Your life starts feeling like that. Everything starts to happen where it feels blessed by luck and it kind of feels like this. The first thing is you feel deeply connected to all life, right? You feel connected about the environment, you care about other cultures. You. You are widely open that whatever you know about the world is not necessarily true. But there's this wider world of religion, spiritual ideas, cultures that you can explore with an open mind. It's that sense of connectedness and caring. This in turn causes you to be tapped into intuition. So because you feel connected, your intuition is on superpower. Because what is intuition? It is basically our ability to tap into our connectedness. This intuition guides your intention. So your goals, your visions for the world are not coming from random things that you see on the media or television or cultural programming. Your vision is coming from what inspiration guides you to do. And when you do this, luck is on your side because the universe has your back. Connectedness leads to intuition, which leads to inspired action, which leads to this feeling of being lucky. I hope you can live every day of your life at that. Now, keep in mind, no one is perfect. As we go through life, things will happen. You might get into a fight with a loved one. You might have a horrible day at work. You might not get enough sleep and you will bounce. You want to operate at love level four, but maybe you fall to level one and you start complaining and feeling like a victim. That's okay. You're human. But if you remember this map, you instantly know that you can up level to level two. Maybe you're at level two and you're like in my situation, teaching that class of 20 people feeling dissatisfied. Great. You understand that you can uplevel to level three and start really searching your soul for what you're meant to do. And it may not come overnight. With me, it took two years, but it will come. Maybe you decide that you want to operate at level four every single day. And Neil gave you the clue. Remember that your life is not about you. Rather, your life is about the lives of everyone you touch. By understanding this map of consciousness, we simply become better humans. And that is our wish for you at mindvalley. So thank you. And as you go through these next two days, I hope this map lets you understand your development. Thank you, guys. Yeah.

How you guys feeling? Are you for real? How are you guys feeling? There we go. Some of y' all need more caffeine. Some of y' all just need to start the caffeine. A few of you need to stop the caffeine, but that's a different story altogether. So I am really, really excited to bring our next speaker to the stage. But before we do, I have to just check in with all of you. Raise your hand if you came here to play kind of half out. Huh? Interesting. Yeah. Raise your hand if you came to play full out. Okay. We got some people who play full out. So this is going to require you this next talk. This is not going to be a passive sit back and take notes kind of talk. This is going to be a lean in and get really fricking uncomfortable talk. Are you guys down for that? Okay, so the next person we're bringing up to the stage is a world renowned therapist.

She.