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

by Vishen Lakhiani

One of the keys to being extraordinary is knowing what rules to follow and what rules to break.

Outside the rules of physics and the rules of law, all other rules are open to questioning.

Of course, there’s a darker side to culture: when we get so focused on our rules that we turn them into decrees about how life “should” be and label people or processes as good or bad if they don’t follow the rules.

I call this world of relative truth the culturescape.

A fish is the last to discover water because it’s been swimming in it all its life.

The world of absolute truth is fact-based. The world of the culturescape is opinion-based and agreement-based. Yet even though it exists solely in our heads, it is very, very real.

Safety is overrated; taking risks is much less likely to kill us than ever before, and that means that playing it safe is more likely just holding us back from the thrills of a life filled with meaning and discovery.

Law 1: Transcend the culturescape. Extraordinary minds are good at seeing the culturescape and are able to selectively choose the rules and conditions to follow versus those to question or ignore. Therefore, they tend to take the path less traveled and innovate on the idea of what it means to truly live.