The Buddha and the Badass – Vishen Lakhiani
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete
Notable Quotes by the Author
- The Soul’s Experience on Earth Is Not Meant for Hard Work and Toil. It’s Meant for Freedom, Ease, and Expansion.
- Suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.
- Little ideas that tickled, and nagged, and refused to go away should never be ignored, for in them lie the seeds of destiny
Massive Transformational Purpose
Step 1: Reflect on these questions below:
- What missions in the world already inspire you?
- What causes can you be an activist for?
- What types of groups do you want to make a difference for?
- What brands can you support?
Step 2: Take action. What actions can you take to align yourself with or create positive missions that forward initiatives in the areas that matter to you? Write them down. Then get in action.
The Origin Story Exercise
Step 1: Reconnect to peak moments in the past.
Step 2: Write out the story in detail.
Step 3: Repeat the process for ages five to twenty-five
Step 4: Write the values that emerged from those moments.
Step 5: Define your values.
The Three Most Important Questions
- What experiences do I want to have in this lifetime?
- To be the person who lives life with these amazing experiences, how do I need to grow?
- If I had a life with these amazing experiences and had grown to this level, how do I now give back to the world that has rewarded me so much?
The Manifesto
Create a manifesto that summarises what you’re seeking to bring to the world, your beliefs and values, and how you operate.
Craft a Vivid Vision and make it public. Speak three years into the future. Don’t worry if you’re currently small or operating from a warehouse. Talk about the future as if it’s happening now.
Companies should not just ask people to be engaged in the company’s vision. Companies should be engaged in an employee’s vision for their own life.
The bigger your vision, the easier it gets. When you live this way, you may find that the vision is not coming from you. Instead, the Universe is choosing to go through you to realize what the world needs.
Positive optimism is not the rejection of sadness, but the thought, even during sadness, that the future will be okay.
Means Goals Versus End Goals
- End goals are the beautiful, exciting rewards of being human on planet Earth. End goals speak to your soul. They bring you joy in and of themselves, not because they confer any outward label, standard, or value attached by society.
- Means goals are the things that society tells us we need to have in place to get to happiness. Almost everything I wrote down as a goal was actually a means to an end, not an end in itself.