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

by Vishen Lakhiani

Tying happiness to the attainment of some future goal is like trying to catch up to the horizon. It’s always going to be one step beyond your reach. Instead, Dan suggests we look backward—to the past—and appreciate how far we’ve come. Dan calls this the reverse gap:

FOCUS ON THE FEELINGS. A lot of people turn this into a mechanical list-making exercise or list things they “should” feel grateful for (usually a sign that a Brule is running the show). To avoid these pitfalls, focus on your feelings: happy, optimistic, comforted, confident, tender, proud, sexy, filled with laughter, filled with love. For each item, spend five to ten seconds letting the feelings well up.

This is what is meant by the phrase, “Forgive into love.”

What did I learn from this? How did this situation make my life better?

UNFUCKWITHABLE: When you’re truly at peace and in touch with yourself. Nothing anyone says or does bothers you and no negativity can touch you.

“But who can you help if you’re unhappy?”

Law 7: Live in Blissipline. Extraordinary minds understand that happiness comes from within. They begin with happiness in the now and use it as a fuel to drive all their other visions and intentions for themselves and the world.

Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.

Forget the money, because if you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you will spend your life completely wasting your time. You’ll be doing things you don’t like doing in order to go on living—that is, to go on doing things you don’t like doing. Which is stupid. Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way.

End goals speak to your soul.

“A good goal should scare you a little and excite you a lot.”

was never a goal in itself. Rather, it emerged as an evolution of all the items on my bucket list coalescing, merging, dancing with each other, and pointing me toward the creation of a model of reality that was completely new in the world.

MEANS GOALS USUALLY HAVE A “SO” IN THEM. Means goals don’t stand alone but are stepping-stones to something else. They’re part of a sequence. For example: Get a good GPA so you can get into a good college.

END GOALS ARE OFTEN FEELINGS. To be happy, to be in love, to consistently feel loving, to consistently feel joyous are all very good end goals.

End goals have happiness baked into the pursuit.

THE THREE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTIONS 1.What experiences do you want to have in this lifetime? 2.How do you want to grow? 3.How do you want to contribute?

Question 1: What Experiences Do You Want to Have? In this section, you are asking yourself this question: If time and money were no object and I did not have to seek anyone’s permission, what kinds of experiences would my soul crave?

YOUR LOVE RELATIONSHIP. What does your ideal love relationship look like? Imagine it in all its facets: how you communicate, what you have in common, the activities you do together, what a day in your life together looks like, what holidays are like, what moral and ethical beliefs you share, what type of wild passionate sex you are having.

YOUR FRIENDSHIPS. What experiences would you like to share with friends? Who are the friends you’d share these experiences with? What are your ideal friends like? Picture your social life in a perfect world—the people, the places, the conversation, the activities. What does the perfect weekend with your friends look like?

YOUR ADVENTURES. Spend a few minutes thinking about people who’ve had what you consider to be amazing adventures. What did they do? Where did they go? How do you define adventure? What places have you always wanted to see? What adventurous things have you always wanted to do? What kinds of adventures would make your soul sing?

YOUR ENVIRONMENT. In this amazing life of yours, what would your home look like? What would it feel like to come back to this place? Describe your favorite room—what would be in this wonderful space? What would be the most heavenly bed you can imagine sleeping in? What kind of car would you drive if you could have any car you wanted? Now imagine the perfect workspace: Describe where you could do your best work. When you go out, what kinds of restaurants and hotels would you love to visit?

Question 2: How Do You Want to Grow? When you watch how young children soak up information, you realize how deeply wired we are to learn and grow. Personal growth can and should happen throughout life, not just when we’re children. In this section, you’re essentially asking yourself: In order to have the experiences above, how do I have to grow? What sort of man or woman do I need to evolve into?

YOUR HEALTH AND FITNESS. Describe how you want to feel and look every day. What about five, ten, or twenty years from now? What eating and fitness systems would you like to have? What health or fitness systems would you like to explore, not because you think you ought to but because you’re curious and want to? Are there fitness goals you’d like to achieve purely for the thrill of knowing you accomplished them (whether it’s hiking a mountain, learning to tap dance, or getting in a routine of going to the gym)?

YOUR INTELLECTUAL LIFE. What do you need to learn in order to have the experiences you listed above? What would you love to learn? What books and movies would stretch your mind and tastes? What kinds of art, music, or theater would you like to know more about? Are there languages you want to master? Remember to focus on end goals—choosing learning opportunities where the joy is in the learning itself, and the learning is not merely a means to an end, such as a diploma.

YOUR SKILLS. What skills would help you thrive at your job and would you enjoy mastering? If you’d love to switch gears professionally, what skills would it take to do that? What are some skills you want to learn just for fun? What would make you happy and proud to know how to do? If you could go back to school to learn anything you wanted just for the joy of it, what would that be?

YOUR SPIRITUAL LIFE. Where are you now spiritually, and where would you like to be? Would you like to move deeper into the spiritual practice you already have or try out others? What is your highest aspiration for your spiritual practice? Would you like to learn things like lucid dreaming, deep states of meditation, or ways to overcome fear, worry, or stress?

Question 3: How Do You Want to Contribute? In keeping with His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s message, as I mentioned earlier, if you want to be happy, make other people happy. This question explores how all of your unique experiences and growth can help you contribute to the world. It doesn’t have to be a big dramatic gesture—perhaps it’s inviting the new neighbors over for a cookout or taking the new hire out for lunch, playing the piano at a nursing home, helping rescued animals get adopted, or spearheading a clothing drive at work. In this section, you’re essentially asking yourself: If I have the experiences above and have grown in these remarkable ways, then how can I give back to the world?

YOUR CAREER. What are your visions for your career? What level of competence do you want to achieve and why? How would you like to improve your workplace or company? What contribution to your field would you like to make? If your career does not currently seem to contribute anything meaningful to the world, take a closer look—is that because the work is truly meaningless or does it just not have meaning to you? What career would you like to get into?

YOUR CREATIVE LIFE. What creative activities do you love to do or what would you like to learn? It could be anything from cooking to singing to photography (my own passion) to painting to writing poetry to developing software. What are some ways you can share your creative self with the world?

YOUR FAMILY LIFE. Picture yourself being with your family not as you think you “should” be but in ways that fill you with happiness. What are you doing and saying? What wonderful experiences are you having together? What values do you want to embody and pass along? What can you contribute to your family that is unique to you? Keep in mind that your family doesn’t have to be a traditional family—ideas along those lines are often Brules. “Family” may be cohabiting partners, a same-sex partner, a marriage where you decided not to have children, or a single life where you consider a few close friends as family. Don’t fall into society’s definition of family. Instead, create a new model of reality and think of family as those whom you truly love and want to spend time with.

YOUR COMMUNITY LIFE. This could be your friends, your neighborhood, your city, state, nation, religious community, or the world community. How would you like to contribute to your community? Looking at all of your abilities, all of your ideas, all of the unique experiences you’ve had that make you the person you are, what is the mark you want to leave on the world that excites and deeply satisfies you? For me, it’s reforming global education for our children. What is it for you?

Law 8: Create a vision for your future. Extraordinary minds create a vision for their future that is decidedly their own and free from expectations of the culturescape. Their vision is focused on end goals that strike a direct chord with their happiness.

Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.

Unfuckwithable: A Definition When you’re truly at peace and in touch with yourself. Nothing anyone says or does bothers you and no negativity can touch you.

Law 9: Be unfuckwithable. Extraordinary minds do not need to seek validation from outside opinion or through the attainment of goals. Instead, they are truly at peace with themselves and the world around them. They live fearlessly—immune to criticism or praise and fueled by their own inner happiness and self-love.

“To be consistently surrounded by love.” This goal freed me from having to depend on others for love or to require it from them. I love my kids and my wife, but I cannot demand that they love me back, and setting goals for myself that are largely dependent on someone else leaves me powerless.

“I will always have the most amazing and beautiful human experiences.”

Can you see what they all have in common? 1.I will always be surrounded by love. 2.I will always have the most amazing and beautiful human experiences. 3.I will always be learning and growing.

When you identify self-fueled end goals that put them within your power—you will have nothing to lose. Not love. Not learning. Not beautiful human experiences. You will be free to live life on your own terms and to explore opportunities that might once have seemed out of reach or inconceivable. Too many people stay stunted in their growth because of fear of loss—but when you go deep enough with this exercise, you realize that there is no loss. Happiness is completely within your control, and when you have nothing to lose, you’re free to think and dream boldly.

You may come home from work and expect to be greeted or treated in a certain way by your spouse. If this does not happen, you feel out of sorts or rejected.

You may expect to be praised, noticed, or have your ideas heard by your boss or a superior at work. If that doesn’t happen, you decide you are not appreciated, not respected, or that your boss is an asshole.

Or maybe your son or daughter doesn’t call you enough, or a brother or sister doesn’t remember your birthday in the way you expe...

You know you have a hole to plug when you find yourself feeling hurt or creating meaning around someone else’s action or words. You can’t control someone else’s behavior toward you, but you can control your own reaction and how your meaning-making machine construes that behavior. The key is to override our inner desire to prove ourselves or our tendency to feel as if we’re not enough without the love or validation of others.

Therefore, accept praise and criticism as nothing more than someone else’s expressions of their models of reality. They have nothing to do with who you really are.

If you sit on the couch all day and do nothing, it is precisely because you don’t think you’re enough. You’re afraid. You’re afraid of failure. You’re afraid of rejection. You’re afraid that those things will be proof positive that you indeed are not enough. So you do nothing.

But if you believe that you’re enough, that’s when you take action. That’s when you go out and try something new. That’s when you apply for that job you really want. That’s when you ask for that raise. Because you’re enough. And even if you fail, you won’t take rejection personally because it’s not you—you ARE enough—so it must be your methods or your approach or skill or whatever—and because you know you’re enough, you know you can then improve those methods and skills and your approaches and then try again.

The problem with most people is that their problems aren’t big enough.