The Code of the Extraordinary Mind: 10 Unconventional Laws to Redefine Your Life and Succeed On Your Own Terms

by Vishen Lakhiani

The most extraordinary people in the world do not have careers. What they have is a calling.

How do we define a calling? It’s pretty simple: A calling is your contribution to the human race. It’s something that helps us leave the planet better for our children. It doesn’t have to be a massive new business or a game-changing piece of technology. It can be a book you’re working on. It could be dedicating your life to raising remarkable children. It could be working for a company with a mission to change the world in a way that resonates with you.

Amy Wrzesniewski, associate professor of organizational behavior at Yale University, has been studying a classification system that can help you recognize your orientation toward your work and attain greater job satisfaction. She defines work in three ways: 1. A JOB is a way to pay the bills. It’s a means to an end, and you have little attachment to it. 2. A CAREER is a path toward growth and achievement. Careers have clear ladders for upward mobility. 3. A CALLING is work that is an important part of your life and provides meaning. People with a calling are generally more satisfied with the work they do.

I believe luck is under our control. When you pursue the right end goals while making sure you’re happy in the now, happiness unlocks the door for luck to come calling.

Sometimes you have to destroy a part of your life to let the next big thing enter.

I once asked Arianna Huffington the same questions I asked Elon Musk: “What makes you Arianna? If we could distill you and try to extract your essence, what is it that makes you you?” Arianna replied: I would say trust. I have an incredible trust in life. One of my favorite quotes is a little misquote: “Live life as though everything is rigged in your favor.” I really profoundly believe that whatever has happened in my life, including the biggest heartbreaks, the biggest disappointments, was exactly what was needed to help me get to the next stage of my own personal evolution and growth. I always had a sense of that, but now I believe that so profoundly.

Kensho is a gradual process that often happens through the tribulations of life. A relationship breaks up, but you learn from it and your heart becomes more resilient. You lose a business, but you use the hard-earned wisdom to start your next one. You lose your job, but you learn who you are beyond your career. You suffer a health problem, but you discover personal reserves you didn’t know you had. Kensho is the universe giving you tough love.

In contrast, Dr. Beckwith defines satori moments as big insights that happen suddenly and change you forever. They can happen anytime, anywhere—while you’re out in nature, listening to music or seeing inspiring art, holding hands with a loved one, quietly contemplating, or being in a personal growth situation, such as with a therapist, teacher, or healer. Once you’ve had a satori moment, the stuff that used to scare you or hold you back is left in the dust. You’ve leveled up and can operate on a whole new plane. If you were to plot your growth as quality of life over time, satori moments would look like sudden bursts upward, while kensho moments would start with a dip and then shoot upward as you recover and then assimilate your new learnings.

Dr. Beckwith once shared with me this little wisdom-bomb during an interview: Behind every problem, there’s a question trying to ask itself. Behind every question, there’s an answer trying to reveal itself. Behind every answer, there’s an action trying to take place. And behind every action, there’s a way of life trying to be born.

Emily is saying that when a mission needs to manifest, the universe (or, as she calls it, nature) may knock on your door and bless you with that intuition. But it’s up to you to jump on it. If you don’t, the universe will move on to the next person. The universe doesn’t care who’s going to change the world. It just wants someone who’ll seize the idea and run with it. In the book Big Magic: Creative Living beyond Fear, Elizabeth Gilbert talks about a similar phenomenon. Gilbert talks about how she would come up with a very specific book idea, and then something would happen in her life to distract her from working on the book. She’d later find the exact same book emerging from another writer’s mind—a writer who chose to act on it. Gilbert writes, “I believe inspiration will always try its best to work with you—but if you’re not ready or available, it may indeed choose to leave you and to search for a different human collaborator.”

I was once invited to be a guest on Tom Bilyeu’s famous YouTube show “Impact Theory.” Tom was more than an interviewer, he was also the founder of the billion-dollar company Quest Nutrition. As we spoke on meditation and intuition, I turned the question to Tom. Where do your ideas come from? Tom explained that he meditates every day and after his usual meditation he stays seated and goes into a process he calls “thinkitation.” While “thinkitating,” he ponders his business and life and looks for new ideas. Tom also said that 80 percent of his ideas come from this process. I explained to Tom that what he was doing was accessing intuition. When we meditate, our brain frequencies slow down to what is known as the alpha level. This is the brain wave state associated with intuition. Tom is still in that state after doing his regular meditation and thus is accessing intuitive ideas to help him grow his business and life.

Perhaps like me, you grew up in a world where children were asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” That’s a sure setup for a Brule-based life. I believe that in the future we’ll instead be asking children, “What positive mark do you want to leave on the world in your lifetime?”

Your true greatness comes when you focus not on building a career but on finding your quest.