Who is Vishen Lakhiani?
Vishen Lakhani is a Malaysian Entrepreneur, Influencer, Motivational Speaker, Author.
He is the founder of several online education platforms such as Mindvalley, Blinklist, A-Fest. His major contributions also include 2 books written by him i.e, The Code Of The Extraordinary Mind and The Buddha and the Badass.
HIS EARLY STRUGGLES
Vishen was born in 1976 in a Hindu family and went to a Malaysian government school. From the beginning only, he found several flaws in the education system. Later he went to the United States and in 1999, got his bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan. After quitting several jobs, he realized that the regular path wasn’t for him.
And eventually being broke and depressed, he came across meditation to cope up with the depression. He found meditation extremely fascinating and decided to go deeper into it. He realized that personal growth and inner peace were the things that were needed in this world which education systems were neglecting. In 2004 he registered a website that doesn’t need an introduction today i.e. Mindvalley.
He started several other ventures but most of them failed. He also started an event named A-FEST, in which some investors didn’t show interest. Mindvalley also didn’t receive immediate success. But with the determination by his side, he never dropped his aim.
In some of his early days, he had to live on a couch and drove a faulty car. In 2011, his partner started to kick him out of the business. By 2013 they reached an agreement that they will merge A-Fest with Mindvalley and the partner will receive all the profits for the next three years and the company will be taken over by Vishen. So then also he suffered for the next three years as no profit was being realized by Vishen.
HOW VISHEN IS AN INSPIRATION TO PEOPLE
After getting his company back, his bad luck started to wear off. His hard work, determination, knowledge, optimism, all started to pay him back. His book, “The Code Of The Extraordinary Mind”, was published in 2016 which had reached the Top 10 Bestseller List, in the New York Times. Vishen Lakhiani was named ‘ Most Strategic Entrepreneur’ in the SME and Entrepreneurship Business Award, Malaysia, in 2017.
In the following years, his online platforms grew on a very large scale. They were approaching 200,000 students in 2018, enrolled in their online courses, and became one of the greatest people to provide Spiritual and Life Lessons on this big level.
He is one of the living examples that a person can do anything if he is dedicated to his/her goal. He was also invited to motivate people at TEDx, Ajmer. His 6 phase meditation book which can turn a beginner to an advanced meditator is free on Mindvalley.
Blinklist is another website founded by Vishen. It is a blog platform dedicated to tech, startups, and other life and personal development. Although, initially Blinklist was a social bookmarking service where users can check about trending, popular bookmarks. Back then, a rating system for bookmarks was also available on their site.
He Made Us Aware About Reality
A-Fest, his other startup is also an event for personal transformation. He believes that hard work is not the key to success, instead, it is just a factor for getting success. There are lots of similar factors out there which have greater importance for being successful which we will discuss below. He believes that hard work plays a very very small role in becoming successful. He also believes that we shouldn’t be forcing our mind and body to work blindly as you will end up harming your own body after a time.
He says that there are 4 levels of consciousness. If someone is at the first level then they do need hard work to move to the second level but past that hard work will not remain hard work as by that stage, for you the work which seemed very hard to you will become an easy work or a regular work. You will not feel like you are doing a lot of work past that stage.
He is one of the extremely knowledgeable influencers we are seeing today. He has several videos on his Youtube channel named ‘ Mindvalley’. There he always posts something new and informative about the mind and life. He motivates viewers to be productive. He also has given several tips and hacks to make yourself efficient and work to the fullest of your potential. He makes videos on a productive morning schedule. Not only Vishen, there are several other speakers, motivators who also post videos on ‘Mindvalley’ to help the people out there.
He motivated people that they need not sacrifice stuff to be successful, instead, they can have it all. They just need a clear mind, determination, and motivation towards their goal.
The education system made us believe in the myth that we need a sacrifice to get to something great. Vishen made us aware that the education system is itself flawed, Personal Development is missing in the current education system and that is why most of the schools, colleges, and other educational institutions guide students to opt a traditional and safe path which is to obtain a degree in some of the limited fields and find a 9-5 work, based on your education. Now this way is not suitable for everyone nowadays as the world is developing and students want to explore everything.
He aims to bring Humanity together. And thus, he opted for this way of challenging the wrong beliefs, rules, and regulations in the public sphere. He wants to change the global education system and turn even childhood learning to lifelong learning. He is constantly finding new ways to improve and make learning engaging and fun.
So this was the journey of Vishen Lakhiani, you can treat this as a case study There are lots of cases like this in the world who became something from nothing. We need to learn from Vishen Lakhiani that if we have an Idea and we are passionate about it, we should implement it and should carry utter Determination and Focus regarding it.
Vishen also faced several struggles in his life. It was part of his success. And Meditation,i.e, inner peace, mental peace. On top of that, it plays a very big factor in getting determination and focus as it provides you with a clear mind to see things from different perspectives. You should not stop and not let things vague your objective, you should Believe in yourself.
You can also read- What is Mindvalley University?
