Rewire Your Brain and Create the Life You Want With These Tools | Vishen Lakhiani

Score the perfect gift at Dick's Sporting Goods. Start your wish list with top picks from Nike, Jordan, FP Movement and more. Shop trending shoes, golf gear, water bottles and more of this year's hottest gifts. Need it fast? Stop by your local store or use the Dick's app for quick pickup or delivery. Visit dicksportinggoods.com to shop this year's best holiday gifts at Dick's.

The first Volvo car arrived in the US in 1955. Ever since, we've helped lead the way in safety innovations, making summer memories safer for generations. Celebrate 70 years with us. Visit your local Volvo retailer for the summer Safely bonus event.

Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in to this episode which is sponsored by our friends at Skillshare. Enjoy.

If you're holding a smartphone today, you have access to more computing power and more information than the President of the United States did 20 years ago. Think about that for a moment. Right? So with that, the concept of career becomes slightly outdated because anyone today can learn how to earn an income online if they have the right dedication and the right skill set.

Everybody, welcome to Impact Theory. Our goal with this show and company is to introduce you to the people and ideas that will help you actually execute on your dreams. Alright, Today's guest is one of the most impactful educators and entrepreneurs of our generation. With $700 and a beat up laptop, he launched what would become mindvalley, one of the most successful edutech companies on the planet with a global user base of over 3 million people. Between his online courses and his real world university, mindvalley U, he is directly taking on traditional education and hoping to create the biggest shift in human consciousness in a single generation. And and he is well on his way. Starting from scratch, he built a global empire comprised of some 300 employees from countless countries all over the world and created such powerful tools as Omvana, which has been the highest grossing health and fitness app on the itunes store in more than 30 countries Dormio, which is one of the most downloaded health and fitness apps in the US and Mindvalley Quest, which is revolutionizing at home education. And he takes a no BS approach to what it would take to really thrive in today's world. And as such, his innovative curriculum curates radically new ideas from the greatest teachers around the world. Even at a quick glance, it's easy to see he's assembled what is arguably the most diverse and well respected group of instructors anywhere. He's also a hyperactive philanthropist who's on the innovation board of the X Prize, was named to The Transformational Leadership Council. And through his Project Renaissance is aiming to make his home of Kuala Lumpur one of the top 20 cities in the world to launch a startup. So please help me in welcoming the New York Times and Amazon best selling author of the Code of the Extraordinary Mind, Vishen Lakhiani. How you doing, Ron?

Hey, Tom.

So glad to be back on the show. This is so exciting.

Glad to have you here. It's always fun A to have a.

Guest back I really enjoy because we get to go and cover new stuff and go a little bit deeper than we went last time, but then B, just we actually know each other. So it's nice to like see how the more things I learned about you, we're able to talk about that on the show.

Likewise, man. And congratulations on the massive growth of the show. I mean, you've got an incredible fan base and I always tell people like if there's one thing they need to do on YouTube, one channel they should really subscribe to to really get mind blowing educational content, it's impact theory.

Wow, that means a lot from the master of modern education. So thank you very much, that's very kind.

Speaking of education and this actually isn't.

A setup though no one is going to believe that we did not rehearse that before we came on. Tell me about this new concept that you have of transformational education.

Transformational education to me is the most important type of education, the single most type of important type of education you want to invest in for yourself and that you want to put your children through. So first let me define what that is. Right. Transformational education covers the education that many of our institutions forgot to teach us. It's about wisdom. It's about mindfulness. It's about taking care of your body, your mind, your health, your emotional states. It's about being a more conscious parent, being a more conscious lover. It's about how to deal with those days when you might wake up one day feeling depressed or sad. And how do you deal with that? Schools don't teach us that stuff. And here's why transformational education is so important. If you think about the human experience, what really matters is not so much your grades or the job that you have. All of these are means, goals. They are a means to an end, right? But if you asked a human being to share with you the moments in life that they're most grateful for, all of those moments often deal with inner states. It's falling in love. It's carrying your first child in your arm. It's the joy of accomplishing your first big win. And all of these, all of these are states of happiness, states of joy, states of human connectivity. Transformational education shows you how to get there faster without the bullshit, without the dogma, without the unnecessary toiling towards a degree. And then that job that society says you need, and then that career path, then breaking yourself working 9 to 5 on something you hate. And the reason it's so important is because the world is changing at an exponential rate. I was having dinner in Palo Alto a couple of years ago and we were at this big event, it was an XPRIZE event. And you're familiar with xprize. And all of a sudden this dude sits in front of me. And this guy happens to be D. Ray Kurzweil, right? Google's VP of technology, one of the most brilliant minds in technology. So we start talking and he starts talking about artificial intelligence and where the world is going. He, and he shares with me these mind blowing things. He says by 2029 on your smartphone, we will have the equivalent of Iron Man's. Jarvis. So you're a comic book geek, obviously, but for those who aren't comic book geeks, I'm sure you've seen Iron man and Iron Man. Tony Starkey shows up at a skyscraper in New York and there's this robot, this AI, that basically runs everything. Not a human being in sight, just a robot running everything. And he calls it Jarvis, right? Because if you have an AI running your life, you probably want to name it after a fancy British butler. So Ray Kurzweil says that by 2029 on our smartphone, all of us will have the equivalent of personalized artificial intelligence. You can call it anything you want, Rose, Jarvis, Nancy, whatever. But this AI will be able to run your life for you. All the knowledge that we are currently learning in school will be in our extended brain. And so what then should we be studying? Because history, geography, everything is going to be on our personalized AI. So the most important thing to teach people is transformation. It's to teach people how to expand their worldviews, to teach people how to know, how to take care of their health, how to stay healthy, how to practice longevity practices, how to go within when they are feeling sad, how to practice meditation and mindfulness. This is the most important education, and it's a massively growing field. And what we are trying to do is bring order to it and bring together something, some cutting edge tech and some really remarkable teachers and make this form of education blow up across the world. We're gonna get it into every company in the Fortune 500. And our goal is to get it into 100 national schooling systems.

I love it, dude.

And it's a huge goal. And I know that you're talking openly now about affecting a billion people. Giving yourself 20 years to pull it off, 20, 30, having this huge shift in consciousness. I love that. Now I want to go a level deeper. Let's start breaking some of those down, some of the topics and really get into what are just some key points that people can take away with and really rock. So I've heard you talk in the past where you just start with the diet and exercise basically. So I'm assuming, by the way, that transformational education is really the core curriculum of MindValleyU.

It is the only thing we talk about at MindValleyU.

Alright, so I know that you're not the teacher, but what are some of the key things that sound really interesting? The psychology and you're using technology. I actually don't know what you guys are doing there. So how are you bringing those two together? What does that curriculum look like? Just like a couple bullet points on it.

Well, so we look at the human being from five different verticals. Okay. The first vertical is mind and spirit. And so and by the way, this is a really good matrix to view your life. The first vertical is mind and spirit. What practices do you have in place to truly go within, to tap into your intuition, to practice mindfulness and meditation? And this is becoming increasingly important. There's a book that just came out called Altered Traits. And there's this mind blowing graph in that book. And that graph shows how research and meditation is going through an exponential curve. Now what this means is that there have been almost far more studies on the health benefits of meditation in the last five years than there were in the last 30 years. And so we're stumbling upon something really powerful here. And as a result, according to this book, 44% of the Fortune 100 this year will have meditation programs for their employees. So that's one huge pillar while we're there.

So do you know what kind of, or maybe what's the most effective meditation practice that you guys have? Like what is. So if somebody watching right now wants a few takeaways that they can start and like literally finish the video and start doing.

Right.

What are some key things? Because I would love to hit all five. It's always, I know it's so hard in you when you're like, I have.

Five and oh God, are we on three? So I'LL try not to fuck you.

Up too much with that, but okay, so number one, meditation. Like, what are some key things that either you're seeing being done in the Fortune 500 or that you guys do? Like, what's having that big impact. Exactly.

So the big thing, the big thing to understand is that in Western civilization, we are trained to exist in what you could call a monophasic state of awareness. Right? Which means we think of consciousness as primarily existing in the beta or the waking state. So you and I are conscious right now and we are existing in one particular level of consciousness. But if you look at indigenous cultures, people in indigenous cultures, they operate in multiple levels of consciousness. For example, I spent some time with a tribe called the Achua in, in the Amazon rainforest. In the Achuar, they have this weird ritual. At 4am the families get up and they come together around a campfire and they drink tea at 4am and they discuss their dreams. See, the Achua believe, and they communicate with tribes across the rainforest through their dreams. They believe that the dream world is as real as our physical world right now. Now, that is tapping into a different state of consciousness. Now, whether that's true or not doesn't matter. The point is they believe that there are multiple or polyphasic states of consciousness. So meditation actually gets you to go away from a single state and tap into altered states. And there's a powerful thing that's happening as people are studying meditation, as people are studying mindfulness. What scientists are discovering is that it has this incredible impact on almost every dimension of your life. If you just go to Google News and type in meditation study, you'll see thousands upon thousands of results. Everything from improving skin to improving eyesight, to improving your performance on intelligence test to improving your heart health. And nobody truly understands why it works, but we know it does work. I remember seeing you speak on stage at a fest and correct me if I'm wrong, but you mentioned something called thinkification, right?

Thinkitation.

Yeah, thinkitation. Right. And tell us what you're doing when you think a tape.

Let's talk about getting the most out of your health data. Your Apple Watch collects an incredible amount of useful data, then does absolutely nothing with it. Bevel turns that data into intelligence. This is what your Apple Watch should have been doing from day one. Bevel consolidates everything into one platform. Sleep tracking, nutrition logging, fitness monitoring, recovery scores, habit tracking, stress levels, all in one place instead of scattered across five different apps. Bevel's AI is proactive. It doesn't wait for you to ask questions. It analyzes your metrics in real time and tells you what you need to know. It holds you accountable to your goals. It remembers your lifestyle and tailors every suggestion specifically to you. And your data stays private, stored in your device, not on servers. Over 1 million people have downloaded Bevel and it has a 4.8 star rating. Head to Bevel Health Impact and use Code Impact to get your first month free. That's B E V E L Health Impact and be sure to use Code Impact.

This episode is brought to you by Diet Coke. You know that moment when you just need to hit pause and refresh. An ice cold Diet Coke isn't just a break. It's your chance to catch your breath and savor a moment that's all about you. Always refreshing, still the same great taste. Diet Coke make time for you time.

So for me, I use a very basic meditation practice, which is something I want to get back to with yours, is what you tell people to do. But I do box breathing. I found that doing four equal sides does not work for me. It makes me feel out of breath. So I've just adjusted it to suit what's pleasurable for me. It takes me into an alpha wave state. If I'm stressed, maybe it takes me 20 minutes to get there. If I'm already relaxed, maybe it takes me three or four minutes. Once I'm in an alpha wave state, which is typically classified as being calm and creative, which is exactly how I feel. I feel wide awake, feel really sharp, I'm breathing. I do breathe in through my nose, out through my mouth. I get into that alpha wave state where I feel like ideas, either from my subconscious or just normally disconnected regions of my brain, begin cross talking. So I get very creative solutions to a problem that maybe the night before completely eluded me.

The reason I call it thinkitation is.

In meditation, you're not supposed to grab onto your thoughts, which I actually found frustrating. And so it was causing me a problem in meditation. So I thought, well, what if I just promise myself that once I get into that state, then I can grab my computer, put it on my lap, continue my breathing cycle to stay in that alpha wave state. But if an idea comes, it's interesting, I will grab. I don't think of it as grabbing it, to be honest. I think about it as riding a wave.

And so I'll write it, really follow.

It, see where it goes, take notes, write it down, try to get back on the wave or catch a different one. And probably 80% of the good ideas That I have in the business come from thinkitating.

That's incredible, right? 80% of your ideas are coming when you're accessing these states. Now, that's what I'm talking about. You're accessing an altered state of consciousness. Now, scientists can measure that. If we hooked up Tom's brain to an EEG machine, what they would see is, is that you're probably going into. You're probably going to see an increase in alpha waves and an increase in theta waves. What science is finding is that alpha waves, which is what emerges from your brain when you are relaxed, right, is very soothing. It's very relaxing. And if you continue relaxing more, you get into what is sometimes called waking theta. Theta is the state your brain is in every night just before you fall asleep. When you fall asleep, you go into a deeper state called delta. But here's the unique thing. When you're at theta, ideas flow. In fact, there's this legendary story of Thomas Edison where, and maybe you've heard this, he would practice this napping technique where he would hold a metal ball in his hand, and there'll be a metal tray below his desk, and he'd sit in his chair like this and drift off to sleep. And just as he goes into sleep, his hand would drop, the ball would clang on the tray, waking him up, and he'd have his ideas. Now, what was he doing? He was dipping into theta to pull out ideas. In fact, there's this quote by Edison which says this. Ideas come from space. It's hard to believe, but it's true. Ideas come from out of space. Now, isn't that similar to what you're doing? You're using your own language, but you're dipping into theta to pull out ideas. And you just said it. 80% of your business ideas are coming from this state. That is what I want more people to understand. We can tap into these altered states to fundamentally make better decisions, to draw upon ideas, and to even increase our rate of getting towards our ideas. So this is one of the most powerful aspects of meditation. But you also said something else which I want to pick up on, which is the reason more people don't meditate. You said you said something along the lines of, I know in meditation, you're not supposed to latch on to any thought, right? Yeah, that's rubbish. That's completely not true. See, there are different types of meditation. In fact, there are so many different types of meditation. I hate using the word meditation. Rather, I call it a transcendent practice. A transcendent practice is any practice where you go out of the physical world and you go within. So meditation, breathing in and out, box breathing is a transcendent practice. But closing your eyes and just being grateful for your life is a transcendent practice. Closing your eyes and thinking compassionately about someone you love is a transcendent practice. And thinkitation is a transcendent practice. You're going within. And then there's modern meditation, which is about becoming better at the world. Meditation is not about becoming better at meditation. It's about becoming better at functioning in the modern world. And so when you understand that transcendent practices are these beautiful things we can tap into to get better at life, you see meditation in a completely different way. Meditation helps you bend reality. There is a myth out there in the world that I call the hustle myth. It says that it's about hard work, that it's about working harder than the competition. It's about busting your back for 100 hours a week. I call bullshit on that because I also see people who take. Who focus on themselves first, who have a steady meditation practice, who learn how to tap into intuition and then how to visualize their goals, and they work significantly less, but get far better results. You can hustle or you can surrender into your inner space. And I'm a big fan of surrendering into your inner space. Hustling, to me, is an outdated, broken approach that leads to overwork, it leads to broken marriages, it leads to poor relationship with your kids. It leads to aging faster. Don't hustle. It's a myth.

All right, so I'm the king of hustle. So right now you're going to convince me to be. And I'm actually super open. I always want a better answer than where I'm at. So explain to me. And obviously, I've heard you talk about this, but I have questions. Explain to me what it exactly means to surrender into something.

So let me give you an example. Now, you said you're the king of hustle, right? But I would actually debate that when I talk about hustle. I talk about the people who believe that you have to work an ungodly number of hours to be successful. There is a much healthier way. So there are two different types of people who are talking about entrepreneurship today. There's the type of people who talk about entrepreneurship purely in the physical sense. It's about the number of hours you work. It's about the number of phone calls. And of course, hard work has its place. But then you see the rise of books by people like Michael Singer, who wrote the book the surrender experiment. And if you read the book, it's kind of cool. This guy built a billion dollar software company, and he talks about how he did that by surrendering, by going within, by having a daily meditation practice. Now, in your case, I believe you're doing it. You're also moving to that approach, but you're doing it unconsciously. When I listen to you speak at a fest, and you spoke about how you sit down, you relax, and you think itate, and these ideas come into you, you're tapping into something, Tommy. You're tapping into your intuition. That is a far more efficient way than trying to hustle to get these ideas. You're going within. So you're already doing one of the first steps. Now the second part is how can you optimize your rate of going from idea to reality? That's the second part of bending reality. And there are significant number of tools that you can put into play to help you do that by working on your inner states. For example, one is creative visualization. There are so many studies that show that what you visualize in your mind, you can help accelerate in the world. For example, one study called the finger abduction experiment basically had people exercise their fingers. Okay, like physically exercising your fingers. And then a control group of people visualized themselves exercising their fingers. And what they found is that one group grew finger strength by, let's say, about 10%, the other group by 9%, really close just by visualizing their fingers. Now, the same thing happens in sales. You can actually accelerate your sales closing rate by visualizing the outcome. And we don't really understand how it works, but we know it works. And the same thing happens in your entrepreneurial life. When you get a clear vision of the business you want to create, of the lifestyle you want to create, you move towards that faster. And so meditation to me is not just about going zen. It's not just about, like focusing on your breathing. It's about knowing how to tap in, which you do so well, and then knowing how to get clear on what you want and to focus on that vision for a few minutes every day.

Word. That was very, very well said. All right, so that was an amazing dissertation on the usefulness of meditation. And then we were about to go to two when I forced you down, what was incredible? So I'm gonna make you do it again on number two.

So brace yourself.

But what was number two?

So number two is body, right? Is basically so the second vertical in mindvalley is Health and longevity. It's taking care of our human body. Do you know that there's a big difference between your chronological age and your biological age? And science recently, this was a study like in the last one year, found that two people can have the same chronological age. That means they can be celebrating their 40th birthday. But one could have the body of a 45 year old and one could have the body of a 35 year old. There can be as much as a 10 year gap. And so I've become obsessed with reversing aging. And so going into the biohacking movement, I've looked at everything from how can I heal my eyesight naturally? So I've been able to reduce my eye power from 2040 to 2025, where I go from kneading glasses 40% of the time to kneading glasses 4% of the time. So there are certain exercises that you can do, super slow training that can actually accelerate your muscular development. But many people don't get this. They go to the gym and they exercise in the wrong way, or they eat the wrong food, or they think it's too expensive to stay healthy. But with a proper understanding of longevity, of nutrition, of exercise, you can add years to your life. So that is something that we are so, so, so excited about.

All right, so those are two amazing verticals, number three.

So number three is relationships, right? And relationships are so important because I believe the age of individuality is ending today. Everything we do, we do collaboratively. The world is just too complex for anyone to strike it out alone. And so we need to people in our lives. And there's a funny thing happening in the world today. This was a report from a couple of months back, I think it was BBC. Loneliness is up 300% in the Western world. And you know, this may sound surprising because look, aren't we more connected, as Mark Zuckerberg says, with social media, with Instagram, with Facebook? Aren't we more connected than ever with our friends? Well, the answer is yes, but on a digital screen. And apparently that isn't enough. So. So loneliness is up 300%. And among people like you and me, the further you rise up to the top, the more lonely it gets. CEOs. 50% of American CEOs report feeling lonely. But here's the crazy part, right, Tom. Loneliness is as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. It is worse for your health than obesity. So one of the things we're trying to do at Mindvalley is develop models to help combat loneliness. And. And so everything we do, every quest, we put people on our city campus, is all designed to foster friendships. So we create programs that help you have better relationships with your loved ones, better relationships with your children. And we create platforms like mindvalley University, where 1,000 people move to a city together. And we create a campus on the fly, right, with many of the world's greatest teachers who come together to parents, children, entire families. And not only are people learning together, but they are forming tight bonds with others so that you never have to feel lonely again. And that's what that third vertical is about. It's about giving us stronger social bonds. One of the biggest ways we transform is when we connect with others and we have shared meanings, when we support each other, when you share your vision of the world and I share mine, or when we challenge each other's ideas. But it all comes by bringing people together.

Do you think that that's only achievable through, like, physical proximity, or can it be achieved online? As long as the structure is right.

Well, there's a lot of science to it, Right? So, for example, Harvard, Ed Diener, the psychologist at Harvard, did a very interesting study called the Very Happy People Study. And he wanted to figure out what makes people happy. So they looked at everything. Is it fancy clothes? Is it warm weather? Turns out there's only one thing that makes you happy, and it has a 0.7 correlation with happiness. For the record, 1 is the highest correlation, means a perfect match. 0.7 is pretty damn high. And it was the strength of your social connections. Now, the problem with online is that you have a connection, but is there strength to it? But when you and I sit down in a cafe and we have a deep, meaningful conversation and we are connecting, ideally, looking at each other in the eye, being able to see not just text on a screen, but hear your voice, see your nonverbal cues, that creates the strength in that social connection. So, yes, you can have a connection with someone online, but strength, that's a different thing, and that comes from shared experiences in the real world.

Yeah, no, I'm totally with that. That study you talked about with loneliness is really terrifying. The thought of it being worse than smoking cigarettes. And I really hope people listening can identify with that. And the sense of, like, it's lonely at the top, I have been very fortunate to avoid because my wife's my co founder.

Right.

All right, so those are three of.

The pillars, pillar number four.

Pillar number four is impact. Right. And it's so funny.

Hello.

It's so Funny, right? Because we actually use the word impact and a lot of people confuse career and impact.

This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast. Smart move. Being financially savvy. Smart move. Another smart move. Having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling. Just another way to save with a personal price plan like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.

Hello, friends. Guess who? That's right, it is I, the replacer. Once again, I've been called on so you can play the new Call of Duty Black Ops 7 with three expansive modes, 18 multiplayer maps, and the tastiest zombie gameplay you play. Ever freaking seen. Call of Duty Black Ops 7 available now.

Rated M for mature.

The family that vacations together stays together. At least that was the plan. Except now the dastardly desk clerk is saying he can't confirm your connecting rooms.

Wait, what?

That's right, ma'. Am. You have rooms 201 and 709.

No, we cannot be five floors away from our kids.

Eh, the doors have double locks.

They'll be fine. When you want connecting rooms confirmed before you arrive, it matters where you stay.

Welcome to Hilton.

I see your connecting rooms are already confirmed. Hilton for this day.

Careers were designed to help us survive. So people get into a career because they are operating on a false reality. The post World War II reality, which is where we needed a 9 to 5 job to survive. But today, the world is changing so fast today. I mean, if you just look at. And this is almost the fourth time I'm holding up my smartphone, but it represents so much. But if you look at what we have in our smartphone, we have so much computing power in our hands. If you're holding a smartphone today, you have access to more computing power and more information than the President of the United States did 20 years ago. Think about that for a moment. Right, so with that, the concept of career becomes slightly outdated because anyone today can learn how to earn an income online if they have the right dedication and the right skills. And again, if you look at the data, According to Gallup, 87% of people globally are disengaged from work. And answer yes to the question. I dislike my job. 87%, which means 13% of the global population. And Gallup, Paul, 2 million people, 13% of the global population like their jobs. So there's obviously something broken. There's.

But what does that have to do with impact? You were saying that people need to differentiate between impact and their career. So I get it. People don't like their career. But even if they like their career, doesn't necessarily mean they're having impact. How do you guys teach that?

Like, well, so there are different ways you can have impact. One, for example, is true communication. So you want to stack on these different things. One is entrepreneurial skills. Another is being a great communicator. Another is being a great leader. So we have programs that cover these. So for example, we developed a program with Lisa Nichols, whom I know has been a guest on this show.

Amazing.

And Lisa Nichols breaks down how she speaks. So if you remember when Lisa Nichols was sitting on this chair, right. She told you her story. And you'll notice she was talking about how at a certain point she was scavenging for money. And you'll notice she starts digging into the corners of the chair. Well, in the mindvalley program, she explains why she does that. It's a technique called show me, don't tell me. And she talks about how if you want to make an impact on someone, you want to get them to remember your story, you physically act it out as you're speaking. Now, as she goes deeper in that quest, you learn tools to get your ideas across. You learn tools to convince an investor. You learn tools to make your ideas heard at work. And thus you're able to make a better impact. So you're shortcutting someone's ability to make a dent in the universe. To make an impact in the universe.

Love that. Hit us up Pillar five.

So we've covered mind and spirit, we've covered health and body, we've covered relationship, we've covered impact. And pillar five is what we call meta learning. So meta learning is the art of learning how to learn, learning how to set the right goals for your learning, learning how to optimize your learning, meaning speed, learning, memory, and basically improving yourself in terms of your ability to absorb information, digest that information, and then turn that information into real world results. So we call that category meta learning. One of the programs within Meta learning is a program called Superbrain, which we're so excited about because now it's being deployed in schools in Finland. Right. And the techniques are so cool. So recently I was giving a talk in Munich and there were about 300 people over there. And at the end of the talk, at the end of day one, people would come with my book for me to autograph. And as I write the name in their Book dear Kirby or whatever, I would look at their face and I would associate that name with that face. And so the next day in the class I could, I kid you not, remember 50% of the names in the room, in a room of 300 people. And there's something so beautiful about that because Dale Carnegie says the sweetest word to anyone is their own name. And so when you remember someone's name it makes them feel so appreciated, it makes them feel important. And so people love the class and they felt honored that their names that when they raised their hand I could go, alright Kirby, what was your question? Right, so I learned that from Superbrain and it's a really simple technique. What you do is. So again there are different tactics for learning someone's name. The tactic I use works something like this. So your name is Tom. Okay, so I'm going to do this with you and excuse me, because it gets kind of embarrassing sometimes. So firstly you got to understand that your brain will remember anything that is weird, sexual or funny. Right? Your brain is optimized to remember anything that stands out. So Tom Bilyeu. So when I think of the word bilu, if I had to think about something weird, that word connotates. Okay, Bill you. I think of the phrase bill you as in someone billing you, someone asking you for money. So I am at now with that idea in my head. I look at your face and I try to identify what is the weirdest thing about Tom's face. It's your ears. You've got really beautiful Obama ears, right? Like fluffy Obama years. So now, so now what I try to imagine is that they are bills coming out of your ears. So there's Tom. And I'm talking to Tom and his ears are flapping like, like Dumbo the elephant. And there are bills coming out of his ears and he's billing me and he's such an important guy that every minute I spend with him I'm being billed. And now I remember the name Bill you.

Right?

And by the way, when you remember the name Bill you, Tom is easy to remember. You'll remember the first name as well. Right? So by. So again it's finding something weird in someone's face, looking for the weirdest association you can make to their name and then making that association and training yourself to do it fast. And the faster you do it, the faster you can do it. And then you repeat the name. So if we were to meet for the first time, I'd say Tom. Okay, great to meet you Tom. And then over the Course of the next one hour, every time I see you, I would start with Tom. I would just repeat that name and repeat that name. And when you learn to do this quick enough, you learn to remember a ton of names really rapidly. So that's the technique.

That's fantastic. All right. I don't want to run out of time. There's one more topic I want to talk about, which is you've grown really fast over the last year. I think when we last met, you were at 200 employees. You're now at 300. That's 50% growth in just a little over a year, which is pretty insane. So what are you learning about teams? What are you learning about personal development in the workplace?

Well, one of the things that's exciting me a lot about the future of humanity is how I believe the nature of work is going to change. So right now, work extracts from you. When we work, it actually makes us older because of the increase in stress because of, like I said, 87% of people today, according to Gallup, dislike their jobs. When you dislike something, it takes a toll on you. So work actually makes people age, it makes people unhappy. It produces sometimes negative emotions, and all of this have a toll on our biological age. I want to help fix that, because I don't think we can continue as a human species in a world where 87% of people dislike their jobs and 55% of kids dislike school. Kids walk to school and run home. Think about that. So how can we switch that? So one of my obsessions is turning work in schools into an oasis of wellness. And that's going to become easier to understand when you see how rapidly the world is changing. Right? Work is becoming grossly simplified because of AI, because of robotics. We can get more done in less time. Schools are going to become more efficient, and so there's going to be this big space for transformational technologies to come into schools and work. I believe that we're going to see a shift in work where personal growth is going to become a core offering in every workplace. Companies won't just be paying you a salary. They'll be paying you by making you healthier. And what this means is that you're going to see. And in the book Altered Traits, the author shares this statistic. 44% of the Fortune 100 this year, in 2018, will have mindfulness programs for their employees. But we're going to see this expand beyond mindfulness. We want to change the way work functions so that when you are part of a job, that company is Actually making you healthier. And because you're healthier, you show up better. You are more dedicated to the company. You are able to give more to the company. When you get a job, you're actually not just being paid, but you're being educated. And so companies, corporations become the new campuses of tomorrow. They become the new universities of the world. They become means to transform their employees into a new type of human being. And there's going to be an era coming up, Tom, where it's no longer going to be about companies asking their employees to be engaged in the company vision. Companies are going to be engaged in their employees vision. What this means is that companies are going to care about who you want to be and are going to help you become that person. And there was this really interesting study done right again by Gallup because Gallup does tons of studies on corporate culture. And the study said that employees who answer yes to the following question, My supervisor or someone at work cares about me as a person. Employees who answer yes to that question are far more engaged. They have higher revenue per employee, they love their work more, they're more committed, they're more hard working on all the items that a boss or a CEO, an entrepreneur would want to see. Everything levels up when they feel that they are cared for as a person. And that's really what this is about, caring for people as people.

Yeah, I love that, dude. I love the way your mind works and the way you think about all this stuff. It's really exciting to me. We are unfortunately at the final question time, but before I ask it, tell these guys where they can find you online.

Well, go to mindvalley.com that's my website. But of course you know, mindvalley has a ton of different programs and teachers. Follow me on Instagram. I do a lot of writing on Instagram on new discoveries and new ideas and transformation and it's just vision. Instagram.com vishen V I S H E N and I have a really good following. We discuss high level personal growth ideas and my following loves to comment. So follow me on Instagram and take part in those comment based discussions.

Love that. All right, my final question. What's the impact that you want to.

Have on the world between now and 2038? My goal, and it's a stretch goal, so 50% chance of failure, is to create the biggest leveling up in human consciousness our species has seen. And this means getting transformational technologies and programs into every single company in the Fortune 500 and being able to work with at least 100 national governments to change a hundred different national schooling systems to inject transformation into students.

I love that. Vishen, thank you so much for coming on, man.

All right guys, here's the thing that.

I hope that you really notice about this man.

When you ask him a question, he.

Has thought about the answer. It is something that he has spent an inordinate amount of time really thinking.

About to get to the actual answer of what he would have to do to accomplish something. I love that. I don't know about lifebook other than.

What I found in the research.

But knowing him, I will tell you that it's clarity. It's ultimately getting clarity on what it is that you want on life, want from life. And then the action plan that you're going to need to take to get there. Is that pretty good?

Perfect. That's amazing.

Literally just from knowing him, I'm telling you, this is the way his mind works.

Dive in.

This is what you're going to get.

From him is an understanding of how much you have to think about your own life.

The level of clarity that you have to have. Just being around him is going to give you that kind of clarity. You're going to start asking the right questions. When you talk about that your life is the average of the five people that you spend the most time with. This is the guy that you want to spend time with socially, to see how he thinks, to see how he approaches problems, to see just how much he thinks about this stuff and how fucking audacious he is. It is literally crazy. He is completely reinventing the university system. I absolutely love it. He said he was gonna do it two years ago and he's actually doing it. So there's nothing that I'm more intoxicated by than people who know what they.

Want and they're really going after it.

Even when there are a thousand reasons not to, even when there's 50% chance of failing, that they go after it.

So dive into this guy's world.

Alright guys, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And by the way, while I have you, just today we announced our new partnership with Steve Aoki, the dj. We dropped our first comic book. If you're not following me at Itcomics, get on it. For those of you I still can't believe some people don't realize we're doing this. This is a full blown content studio. Impact Theory is all about making entertainment that empowers people. That's it. So check it out. You can follow me at ITComics for.

This first journey of the project that we just launched.

Yay.

I'm so excited. It's called Neon Future. All right, if you haven't subscribed here.

Be sure to do that.

And until next time, my friends, be legendary.

Take care. Thank you guys.

Thank you so much for coming on, man. Hey, Impactivist, let's talk about skill acquisition. My mission in life is to acquire as many skills that have utility as humanly possible and put that utility to the test in service of something greater than myself. Relentlessly acquiring those skills is not always straightforward, however, but our friends at skillshare will help you with that with two free months in the description below. Skillshare, if you don't already know, is an online learning community with over 20,000 classes featuring the best teachers in film production, writing, Google Analytics, marketing leadership, and a whole lot more. At Impact Theory, we've used skillshare to grow in a number of areas like like marketing analytics, project management with Trello for our comic book, and a whole lot more. Today, I want to challenge you guys to do the same with our special offer below. For the first 500 people who sign up, using the link below in the description, you're going to get two months of skillshare completely free. Having skills equals having value. So I want you guys to envision how much value you'll be able to bring to yourself and others with a full circle. 60 days of free access to all of Skillshare's thousands of courses. And after you get started, by the way, shoot me a DM on Instagram with the skill that you picked. I want to know how you guys are progressing. Alright? Use the link in the description below and be legendary. Hey everybody. Thank you so much for watching and being a part of this community. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. You're going to get weekly videos on building a growth mindset, cultivating grit, and unlocking your full potential.

There are two types of people in this world. Those who wait for the perfect time to start, and those who start now and figure it out along the way. If you are ready to stop waiting and start taking control of your nutrition, I want you to listen. Most people know they should be getting proper nutrition every day. The challenge is not the knowledge, its consistency. That's where AG1 comes in. It's a foundational nutritional supplement that turns good intentions into daily action. One scoop, one drink, that's it. No more complicated routines, no more putting it off until tomorrow. Just mix it with water and you're supporting your immune health for the day. AG1 isn't about quick fixes or temporary solutions. It's a nutritional supplement designed to become part of your daily ritual. Because real transformation happens through the small decisions you make every single day, it's never too late to create a new, healthy habit for 2025. So try AG1 for yourself today, and AG1 is offering new subscribers a free $76 gift. When you sign up, you'll get a welcome kit, a bottle of D3K2, and five free travel packs in your first box. So make sure to check out drink and ag1.com impact to get this offer again. That's drinkag1.com impact to start your new year on a healthier note.