The Buddha and the Badass: Find Bliss and Conquer the World with a New Way of Work

by Vishen Lakhiani

Annual Rituals

This is because social bonds are the most important factor for individual happiness (a

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. —Ralph Waldo Emerson

And this taught me something curious about dreams. So often what we think we want isn’t what we really want.

Maslow’s theory suggests that when a person’s Physical Safety and Love/Belonging needs are met, being appreciated and respected predominantly motivates behavior.

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.

if your goal is to bring as much energy, love, and enthusiasm as you can to the lives of the people around you, you are unfuckwithable.

So there are two key components that go into being unfuckwithable: Feeling You’re Enough Creating Your Life as a Unique Masterpiece

Tell yourself I love you. It

Practice self-gratitude. Every

there is another technique that I want to introduce you to.

When you appreciate someone for being creative, it’s because you have that spark of creativity within you too.

Anyone can introduce these types

of simple daily rituals. Create your own practice to let the people in your life know that they matter, or replicate the Two-Minute Appreciation Technique in your own team or business. The results you create when you focus on making other people feel special might shock you.

If the first part of becoming unfuckwithable is...

RULE #2: CREATE YOUR LIFE AS A UNIQUE MASTERPIECE

This is one reason why most people design lives that don’t fulfill them. They are not leading their own lives but imitating what teachers, preachers, fathers, mothers, and mass media have drilled into them.

“Toltec means ‘artist.’ It means having the wisdom to be the artist of your own life.”

End goals are the beautiful, exciting rewards of being human on planet Earth. End goals are about experiencing love, traveling around the world being

truly happy, contributing to the planet because doing so gives you meaning, and learning a new skill for the pure joy of it. 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. Nor are end goals undertaken for the purpose of pay or for material reward. They are the experiences that create the best memories in our lives.

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, including: Graduating from high school with a good GPA. ...

three different buckets.

The first is experiences.

The second is growth.

Growth deepens our wisdom and awareness.

The third is contribution.

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?

Community has a miraculous compounding effect.

Dreams are different. They are personal passion-driven requests that come out of the realm of the seemingly impossible. Here

Start Something That Matters by Blake Mycoskie.

Tell yourself “I love you” Practice gratitude Practice the Two-Minute Appreciation or bring

Step 1: Make an agreement with your team that they will start every day with the appreciation exercise. Make a commitment to do this for twenty-one days and see results.

Step 2: Before anyone opens their email for the first time in the morning, they have to set a timer on their phone for two minutes counting down. And in those two minutes write a simple, short email of appreciation to another member of the team or company as a whole. If you use tools like WhatsApp or Slack to communicate, this works too. Audio notes can be just as precious.

Step 3: Hold each other accountable. A good way might be to ensure that everyone is connected in a Slack or WhatsApp group and reports in when their appreciation is sent. The idea is to make this a habit. Step 4: Run this for twenty-one days. Notice the difference in moral and emotional states of your team and the company as a whole. Most likely you will see immense bene...

Important note before doing this exercise: Take no more than ninety seconds to answer each of these questions.

This is about discovering what makes your soul shine and makes your life a wonderful experience. Dare to dream big.

Think about what experiences you’d like to have with your friends and family. What would you like your social life to look like?

What type of car would you want to drive? What type of home would you want to live in? Are there any other things you dream of having in your life? And what places do you want to travel to? What type of activities, hobbies, or sports would you love to explore?

Think about your intellectual life, for instance. What skills would you like to obtain? What languages would you want to master?

But also: What character traits do you admire in others and which would you like to master? For instance: How do you want to deal with stressful events in your life?

What are your health and fitness goals? How long would you like to live? How would you like to feel and what would you like to be able to do in your old age? Is there a particular aspect of you...

The most important thing that our business schools need to teach us is that your work is not about your work. Rather, your work is nothing more than the ultimate vehicle for your personal growth. If your business fails, it doesn’t matter. The question is, how did you GROW? If your business becomes a billion dollars, it doesn’t matter. The question is, how did you GROW?

Rao formula to reclaim your happiness is simply…Growth.

As long as you are growing (by your own measure) you’ll be fulfilled.

the fulfillment of one’s talents and potential, especially considered as a drive or need present in everyone. Bottom

But true growth comes from something else. Something much more powerful than learning. It’s called TRANSFORMATION. When

“Transformation involves experiencing a deep, structural shift in the basic premises of thought, feelings, and actions. It is a shift in consciousness that dramatically and irreversibly alters our way of being in the world.“

But until you physically get on the bike and achieve balance, you haven’t gone through the transformation required to go from nonrider to rider. Then, miraculously, as soon as you find your balance, you’re transformed. You can’t go back to having no balance. It’s not possible. That’s a transformational experience.

happens in life in two specific ways:

Cause #1: The Disorienting Dilemma.