This YouTube excerpt (published July 17, 2020) features Vishen Lakhiani summarizing chapter three of his book The Buddha and the Badass, titled "Spark Deep Connections." Lakhiani argues that deep relationships and collaboration — not rugged individualism — are essential for achieving large aims, happiness, and health. He recounts being lonely during Mindvalley’s early years and explains he redesigned his life and company to cultivate networks. He cites longevity/community research (Sardinia, Okinawa) and a Harvard study by Ed Diener (the "Very Happy People" study) which found a ~0.7 correlation between strength of social relationships and happiness. The clip promises practical guidance on structuring, maintaining, and activating relationship networks and points viewers to mindvalley.com/BuddhaBadass for the book.
Questions this video answers
Chapter three (titled "Spark Deep Connections").
Approximately 0.7 (strength of social relationships correlated 0.7 with happiness).
mindvalley.com/BuddhaBadass
Chapters
You know what I no longer believe in? I no longer believe in this idea of the glorious lone individual, that American myth of rugged individuality. I believe that the world today is so much more complex than it was 150 years ago, that if you want to do anything truly great in the world, you need to do it with other people. You need collaboration. You need relationships. You need a network. In chapter three of the Buddha and the Badass, I call that chapter Spark Deep Connections. And it's all about how to bring to you the right people and how to collaborate with them in such a way that whatever dreams you have in your heart are inevitably going to come true. Because you have your allies. You have your group of avengers. You have your Justice League. Now I want to show you a couple of really interesting things. This is my wal of relationships. This is one of my favorite walls in all of Mindvalley. When I think of my relationships, I think of the people I work with. I think of the authors that we work with. So you'll see lots of authors here. You will see my team members here. You'll also see mindvalley customers. And so I maintain intricate ties to all of these people and the way I do business with everyone from my employees to my authors, different, it's based on the idea of perpetual win win relationships. Now, what I'm going to teach you in chapter three of the Buddha and the Badass is how to spark such deep connections. I became obsessed with this because I was once really, really lonely. For the first two years running mindvalley, I was operating from a Starbucks or a Coffee Bean, working on my laptop. Miserable. I loved what I did, but I was miserable because I had no one to talk to. I was just lonely. And that loneliness was with me for almost two years. And so I became driven to figure out, how can I build a company where not only can I get great things done, but where I'll never feel lonely again. And I decided to design my life and my company so that these vast networks of relationships are elevating me. And I can serve my relationships in the same way. So in this chapter, you're going to learn a couple of really cool things. How to structure your network of relationships. How to meet and stay connected with different people. How to align people around a shared mission and vision. How insane. I go into maintaining relationships. What you're seeing over here is actually my dad desktop computer. I run software that looks at my entire string of relationships and ensures that I'm actually serving my friends whenever I travel with the click of a button, I can organize an event and bring all my friends together. When my friends need support, I know that if they're a small business owner and they want a little bit of support for their product, I might give them free spot on my podcast. So why do I care this much about relationships? Why do I have a relationship wall? Why do I invest so much? Well, the first thing is I want to build a company that's going to change the world. And you can't do that kind of things alone. But the second thing is this. We forget that in all the markers of personal growth, human connection is the biggest thing that's going to elevate your score in the blue zone. Studies where the authors of the famous book studied parts of the world where people were living the longest, you know, what was the number one thing that they noticed? It was community. In places like Sardinia and Okinawa, the people there came together in community. There was a study that showed that drinking wine helps you live longer. Bullshit. Turns out I actually emailed the scientist behind that study. Turns out it's not really the wine. It's the fact that often when you're drinking wine, you're doing it with other people around you, openly sharing stories. So we know that relationships contribute to health. Now, there's another study by Ed Diener at Harvard that showed that relationships are the only thing that contribute to happiness. They called it the Very Happy People Study. And they tried to figure out why. What makes people happy? It wasn't good clothing. It wasn't warm weather. It wasn't objects and more stuff. It was one thing only. And it had a 0.7 correlation with happiness. And it was the strength of your social relationships. And third, if you want to go anywhere in personal growth, there are several things you need to succeed and grow. And one of those things is collaboration. It's allies. It's study buddies. It's people you can share your reflections with or who can keep you accountable. In almost every dimension of human transformation, relationships matter. And now in this world, when we are stuck at home or in quarantine, we have to pursue relationships in a different way. And that's what I share with you in chapter three of the Buddha and the Badass. So check it out. You can get the book from mindvalley.com Buddha Badass.
