Top 80 Vishen Lakhiani Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Dream big and your problems become small.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

2. “Epic things start with small humble steps. Pay respect to your beginnings. And if you’re just starting out, know that it’s OK to be sucky. To be small. To be messy and chaotic. Just make sure to never ever stop dreaming.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

3. “It’s about using the right tools, with the right triggers, within a proper marketing framework.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

4. “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. IT.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

5. “We don’t have to choose between Buddha or badass. The idea is to be both. Indeed, sometimes the only way to be effective at one is to master the other.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

6. “When I run after what I think I want, my days are a furnace of distress and anxiety; If I sit in my own place of patience, what I need flows to me, and without any pain. From this I understand that what I want also wants me, is looking for me and attracting me. There is a great secret in this for anyone who can grasp it.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

7. “When you’re bending reality, your vision is continuously pulling you forward – but it doesn’t feel like work. It feels like a game, a game you love to play. But at the same time, your happiness does not seem to be tied to that future vision. You’re feeling elated and happy right now, in this moment. You’re happy as you pursue your vision, not only when you attain it. You’re thus grounded in the present.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

8. “Entrepreneurism is a means goal, not an end goal. The end goal is usually living a life of purpose, combined with the experiences that freedom and money can bring.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

10. “There’s nothing more captivating than a person vibrant with life and passion and pursuing their calling.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

11. “If you can’t win, change the rules. If you can’t change the rules, ignore them. I.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

12. “Sometimes, you have to destroy a part of your life that is merely good, to allow what is truly great to enter.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

13. “Your soul isn’t here to achieve. Your soul is here to grow. Most people get this wrong. They become seduced by success and broken by failure. They add great meaning to what is essentially meaningless. The true reality is that success and failure are illusions. The only thing that matters is how fast you’re evolving. Your journey is about removing all the barriers that hold you back from self-actualization.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

14. “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.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

15. “If you’re chasing the forward gap, the chase will never end. No matter how good life gets, you’ll always be chasing the next idea on the horizon. And just like the actual horizon, you can’t catch it. It will always remain ahead of you. 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.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

16. “What positive mark do you want to leave on the world in your lifetime?”

— Vishen Lakhiani

17. “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.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

18. “Replacing fear with courage is one of the key components of being unfuckwithable.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

19. “Alan Watts famously said: 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.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

20. “Lawrence Pearsall Jacks wrote: A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

21. “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.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

22. “Law 6: Bend reality. Extraordinary minds are able to bend reality. They have bold and exciting visions for the future, yet their happiness is not tied to these visions. They are happy in the now. This balance allows them to move toward their visions at a much faster rate while having a ton of fun along the way. To outsiders, they seem “lucky.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

23. “When a person experiences a transformation, they can’t go back to being the same as they were before. It’s a perspective shift that’s irreversible. In short, a person whose mind is expanded and stretched by transformation cannot revert back to their old beliefs.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

24. “Even in tough times, you can look back and see how far you’ve come, how much you’ve learned, and the support you’ve received along the way. Paying attention to the “reverse gap” is a perfect exercise in gratitude and is far more likely to give you a boost of happiness than striving for happiness in the future.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

25. “Stop postponing your happiness. Be happy now. Your thoughts and beliefs do create your reality, but only when your present state is joyful.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

26. “Now, here is the big secret: The bigger your vision is, 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.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

27. “Law 3: Practice consciousness engineering. Extraordinary minds understand that their growth depends on two things: their models of reality and their systems for living. They carefully curate the most empowering models and systems and frequently update themselves.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

28. “Every crappy experience I’ve had – from having my heart broken, to almost having to leave my own company due to a conflict with a business partner, to depression and staring down gaping dark holes of the mind – led to some small-but-significant insight or awakening that boosted the quality of my life and made me stronger.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

29. “Good leaders have vision and inspire others to help them turn vision into reality. Great leaders create more leaders, not followers. Great leaders have vision, share vision, and inspire others to create their own. – Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

30. “The culturescape is so strong, so self-reinforcing that it convinces us that life must unfold in a particular way. This is fine if you’d like to live a regular, safe life. There’s nothing wrong with that. The problem happens when “safety” gives rise to boredom and eventually stagnation.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

31. “Law 10: Embrace your quest. Extraordinary minds are motivated by a quest or calling – a drive to create some positive change in the world. This drive propels them forward in life and helps them to gain meaning and make a meaningful contribution.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

32. “Failure is often nothing more than good luck in disguise: the destruction of an old way of life so you can create the next grand vision of yourself.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

33. “Let’s celebrate our extraordinary ability to evolve emotionally, mentally, spiritually throughout life, taking on new ideas, thoughts, philosophies, and ways of being and living.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

34. “Keep the big goals – just don’t tie your happiness to your goals. Be happy now.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

35. “When an old belief no longer serves you, you have every right to swap it out.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

36. “A calm and humble life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

37. “My friend Peter Diamandis, founder and chairman of the X Prize Foundation, famously said: If you can’t win, change the rules. If you can’t change the rules, ignore them.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

38. “Have big goals – but don’t tie your happiness to your goals. You must be happy before you attain them.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

39. “Greatness is best achieved with others. The world is too complex to strike it alone. People are drawn to you not because of your business plan. Humans are moved by emotion more than logic. The greatest gift you can give someone is to invite them to share in a dream.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

40. “Lack of vision for your life will have you taking unintentional actions that don’t align with what you want.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

41. “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.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

42. “Your beliefs can influence both you and the people around you. What you expect, you get.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

43. “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.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

44. “Know that whatever your culture trained you to believe, the vast majority of human beings probably do not believe. And you can choose to disbelieve, too.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

45. “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.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

46. “The people making you feel guilty for going your own way and choosing your own life are simply saying, ‘Look at me. I’m better than you because my chains are bigger.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

47. “Law 2: Question the Brules. Extraordinary minds question the Brules when they feel those Brules are out of alignment with their dreams and desires. They recognize that much of the way the world works is due to people blindly following Brules that have long passed their expiration date.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

48. “Sometimes we follow beliefs that don’t serve our happiness, but that feel as if they reflect an accepted and inescapable way of life.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

49. “2: Gratitude Science shows that gratitude increases energy, reduces anxiety, improves sleep, and creates feelings of social connection – that’s why several exercises in this book focus on it. In this phase, just think about three things you’re grateful for in your personal life, three things you’re grateful for in your career, and three things you’re grateful for about yourself. This last one is important. Often we look for love from others but fail to truly love ourselves.”

— Vishen Lakhiani

50. “Live life as though everything is rigged in your favor.”

— Vishen Lakhiani