Vishen Lakhiani argues that our primary life aim should be personal growth rather than chasing success or fearing failure. He presents a central quote—"Your soul isn't here to achieve. Your soul is here to grow"—and recounts a conversation with Professor Srikumar Rao criticizing business schools for teaching ethics rather than consciousness. Lakhiani frames careers, relationships, and business as vehicles for growth and directs listeners to Chapter 5 of his book The Buddha and the Badass for a fuller exposition.
Chapters
I recently saw the coolest quote on Instagram. It said something like this grow so fast that your friends who haven't seen you in a month have to get to know you all over again. I love that. And let me tell you why. In the Buddha and the badass in chapter five, I share a quote and I want you to pay close attention to this quote. Because this quote challenges everything that our education system tells us about how to set goals and how to live our life. This is what I wrote. Your soul isn't here to achieve. Your soul is here to grow. Most people get this wrong. They become seduced by success and broken by failure. They add great meaning to what is essentially meaningless. The true reality is that success and failure are illusions. The only thing that matters is how fast you're evolving. The journey is therefore about removing all the barriers that hold you back from self actualization. Now what this quote means is that the number one goal that everyone should have should be goals related to growth. Professor Sri Kumar Rao, who's one of the many spiritual teachers in this book, shared this with me. He told me once vision. American business schools have it all wrong. And I said, what do you mean, Srikumar? And he said, look, I teach in some of the best MBA programs in the world. London Business School, Columbia, Kellogg. And what I find is that MBA programs are not teaching the right thing. And I go, but Sri Kumar, these are some of the best schools in the world. Of course they're teaching the right thing. And he goes, no, they have to teach consciousness. And I go, but they are. And he goes, no, Vishen, you're confusing ethics and consciousness. Since the Enron scandal, all these schools have been teaching ethics, ethics, ethics. But that is different from consciousness. So I said, do explain. And Raoul then dropped a bombshell. Our education teaches that our career and our business are the number one thing in our lives. That's not true. Your career and business is not the number one thing. But neither is your family, neither is your relationship, neither are your children. None of those are the number one thing. You know what the number one thing is? The number one thing is your personal growth. Your business is nothing more than one of the biggest vehicles for your personal growth. If your business hits a billion dollars, doesn't matter. The question is, did you grow? If your business fails, it doesn't matter. The question is, did you grow? If your business hits a billion dollars, it doesn't matter. The question is, did you grow? Likewise, your. Your relationships are there for you to grow. Your children are there for you to grow. Everything is there for you to grow. When you make growth the number one thing, when you are obsessed with fine tuning yourself and becoming the best person you can be, mind, body, soul, spirit, empathy, intellect, what happens is everything else grows with you and beyond that you become immune to failure and you become less addicted to success. If you like these ideas, I encourage you to check out the book the Buddha and the Badass. That conversation with Professor Srikumarao changed my life, changed my entire approach and I know it's going to do the same for you. I outlined this entire philosophy in chapter five and I can't wait for you to get your hands on this. Sa.
