Vishen Lakhiani shares how a 2009 speaking slot in Calgary and Richard Branson's encouragement on his island in 2012 led him to write The Code of the Extraordinary Mind. He won an audience vote that gave him confidence, then shaped the book through conversations with Peter Diamandis, Elon Musk, and Arianna Huffington.
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So what happened was I was somehow put on stage at an event in Calgary in 2009 as a backup speaker. So there was this big event. Branson was flying down to Calgary, the Dalai Lama was coming to Calgary, and the organizer of the event decided to put on this huge thing to bring the Dalai Lama, Richard Branson, and a whole bunch of other extraordinary speakers together. Tony Se was there, Stephen Covey, FWD clerk, the Nobel Prize winner, all of them on stage. And then right at the. And little old me, right? So I got on stage and I shared an idea. And it was an idea for a model of living that I call bending reality. It was a framework for living where you can live life as if the universe has your back and have bold visions, yet be happy where you are. So as I shared it at the end of that event, I had no idea what to expect. It was my biggest ever audience I'd spoken to. I wasn't even a professional speaker. I'd never even been paid to give a speech. I. But at the end of the event, I won the audience vote. Well, I tied with Tony Se, but we won best speaker. And I was like, damn, I actually beat Branson and the Dalai Lama. And this was like a big deal for me. They probably don't care. That's why his title is His Holiness and my title is just mister. But that gave me confidence. And people said, you should put this into a book. And I thought, who am I to write a book? So that was 2009. Now, three years later, it was 2012, and I actually found myself on Branson's island as part of a mastermind with entrepreneurs. My career had grown substantially since then, and we had just finished this crazy pirate themed party where we were all dressed in pirate outfits. A lot of people were like, just lying down in the sand, semi drunk. Branson was completely lucid because he doesn't drink. And I happened to sit down next to him with my wife and we were talking about all sorts of things. And I started sharing with him some of my ideas on what made him successful, ideas on what made people extraordinary. And he turned to me and he said, you know, you should write a book. And I don't think he realized how significant those words were because in my life, my favorite book of all time was Screw it, let's do it by Richard Branson. It was an incredible book, but again, I thought, who am I to write a book like that? I don't sail around the world in hot air balloons, start billion dollar companies. But when Br Branson said, you should write a book that made me remember what happened when I was on stage with the Dalai Lama that, you know, people actually like these ideas. These ideas are profound, and if Branson saw something in it, who am I to say no to his order? So I started putting together a book. It still took me three years till I actually got the idea solid enough that I would find a publisher. And that's where we are today. And that's how the code of the Extraordinary Mind unfolded. And I can tell you this is genuinely a book I'm crazy excited about. It's no longer just that wisdom I shared with Branson and that wisdom I shared on stage with the Dalai Lama. It's expanded into so much more wisdom I've received from conversations with friends like Peter Diamandis, legends like Elon Musk and Arianna Huffington, plus a whole lot of other ideas and stories that I've strung together to help people understand how no matter where you are in life, there's an empirical thought process that you can take on to help you get to extraordinary and can't wait for you to read it.
