Today we are joined by Kristina Mand-Lakhiani. Kristina is a serial entrepreneur, international speaker, artist, mom of two, and much much more.

In fact, you've probably heard of the business Kristina and her husband Vishen founded – it's called Mindvalley, and it is pretty much one of the largest education and transformation companies on the web. They run the popular A-Fest Event, MindValley U, and many more different business divisions. Mindvalley is currently a team of approximately 300 people, and they're based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Kristina helps her students to virtually hack happiness by taking them through her unique framework. From a small meditation business, operating out of the couple’s apartment in New York, her company quickly grew into a global educational powerhouse, partnering with some of the top thought leaders on the world.

I have to say Mindvalley is one of the companies that, since I discovered it not too long ago, really is a model and an inspiration for anything we are doing here at SuperHuman Enterprises.

So, it was really cool to connect with Kristina, learn more about her journey, and I think what you'll find is that she's admittedly very different from what you'd expect from the co-founder of a transformational education company. She thinks differently, she talks differently, and it was really cool to get her perspective on various subjects we discussed throughout the episode.

I have to say that this was a really good episode. Admittedly, Kristina told me that I put her in a different area than she's used to talking about, given that her message is more often about how to tap into self-love and discovering/grounding yourself. But it was really fun and we both agreed that it was an amazing conversation, that I think you are going to learn, enjoy, and benefit quite a bit from!

-Jonathan Levi

With our 5 Day Memory Course, you can upgrade your memory in just 20 minutes a day for 5 days. Click here to get our $97-value course for FREE!

This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. Click here to save 15% on their amazing mushrooms coffees today, for all orders placed on their website!

In this episode, we discuss:

• Who is Kristina Mand-Lakhiani, what does she do, and how did she get here? [3:45]
• The difference between optimizers and surfers [5:10]
• The history of Mindvalley [8:00]
• Why we sometimes have to offer people what they need, instead of what they want [10:20]
• An amazing and inspiring story by Kristina Mand-Lakhiani [13:00]
• What is Kristina's next step, after all those realizations? [17:25]
• What does a typical day look like for Kristina now? [20:30]
• A conversation on removing stuff that are not in your zone of genius [22:30] 
• What are some of the things Kristina utilizes/suggests for a better life? [27:20]
• What is Kristina's daily routine for maintaining optimal performance? [30:15]
• What are some books that have changed Kristina's life? [32:40]
• One thing Kristina believes that other people believe is crazy [33:35]
• Where can you learn more about Kristina Mand-Lakhiani? [37:25]
• Kristina Mand-Lakhiani's final takeaway message [39:30]

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Mindvalley
• Our previous episode with Joe Polish
• Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life by Susan David
• Brene Brown's books on Amazon
• Kristina's Instagram

Favorite Quotes from Kristina Mand-Lakhiani:

TRANSCRIPT:

Introduction: Welcome to the Becoming Superhuman Podcast. Where we interview extraordinary people to bring you the skills and strategies to overcome the impossible. And now here's your host, Jonathan Levi.

Jonathan Levi: Before we get started, I want to ask you, what would it mean for you to be able to double or even triple your memory and ability to learn? So many people tell us that this skill would be absolutely life-changing for them, but they just don't have the time. They just don't have the time. So that's why we have developed my team and I a 5 Day Memory Mastery crash course. Where we go into all the fundamental neuroscience and the actual techniques that are used by the world's best memory athletes and world record holders. It's a course that we value at $97, but here's the thing we are actually giving this course away completely for free. All you have to do to enroll in the course is visit jle.vi/5, that's jle.vi/5.

Greetings SuperFriends and welcome, welcome. I'm so glad you're here at this week's episode. Today we are joined by Kristina Mand-Lakhiani. She's a serial entrepreneur international speaker artist, mom of two, and much, much more. You probably have heard of the business that Kristina and her husband Vishen founded it's called MindValley and it is pretty much one of the largest education and transformation companies on the web. They run the popular A-Fest event, MindValley U, and many, many, many other different business divisions. There are about 300 people and they're based in Kuala Lumpur, Kristina helps her students to virtually hack happiness by taking them through her unique framework. From a small meditation business, operating out of the couple's apartment in New York, they have grown it into a global education powerhouse partnering with some of the top thought leaders in the world. I have to say MindValley is one of the companies since I discovered it not too long ago, that really is a model and an inspiration for everything we are doing at SuperHuman Academy.

So it was really, really cool to connect with Kristina, learn more about her story, her journey and I think what you'll find is she is very different admittedly, from what you would expect a co-founder of a transformational education company is like. She thinks differently, she talks differently, and it was really cool to get this perspective and get maybe a little bit of a yin and yang between her and her co-founder and husband.

Really cool episode, admittedly, Kristina told me that I put her in a different area than she's used to talking about because her message is more often about how to tap into self-love. And discover and ground yourself, but it was really fun and we both agreed that it was, uh, an amazing conversation that I think you are going to learn and enjoy and benefit quite a bit from.

So without any further ado, Kristina Mand-Lakhiani.

Kristina, welcome to the show. How are you?

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: I'm good thank you and thank you for having me.

Jonathan Levi: Oh it's my pleasure. It's my pleasure. I know we have a lot of different mutual friends and different mutual connections. I'm glad we're finally getting a chance to meet.

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: Yes. Thanks.

Jonathan Levi: So Kristina, tell us a little bit about yourself, what you do and how you got to where you are.

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: Yeah, it's interesting because, um, what I do is that I'm co-founder of MindValley. A slightly lesser-known co-founder of MindValley. I have been from the start from the very beginning and how I got to where I am is actually more of a chance because I think I've, um, I've always had universe having my back or something like that because I've never really consciously been moving it through my life.

I was just more listening to how I feel, what do I feel like doing and my whole path to business to personal growth to transformation was in a way by chance. So MindValley is, um, is, is basically one of the biggest education companies in the field of personal growth and transformation. And it's not like I, you know, studied or knew that's what I will do.

And to just give you a little bit of background, I was born in Soviet Union and grew up in Soviet Union. So in the environment where a business was illegal, it was a criminal activity. Personal growth was not a thing at all. We were very science-based. So the fact that I ended up here is a little bit of a miracle because when we started business vision, for me, it was like a parallel universe, something which was just not in my picture of reality for a long time of my life. So yeah, chance took me everywhere, but maybe that's why I'm, I'm a floater. I'm a person who likes to go with the flow, but yeah, I think I'm in the right way, please.

Jonathan Levi: I love that and you told me before the podcast interview got started, that you like to talk about the difference between optimizers and surfers and you think there's a little bit of a difference and that we have to balance. Tell me a bit about that because I know MindValley is all about optimization.

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: Well, there are different levels of optimization there's optimization, which has to do, let's say with biohacking where you optimize your body and you know, and how you function and then there's this optimization in work and what you do in your career and literally every area can be optimized. So what I talk about is that in our current day, we have a little of a fascination with the whole idea of hustling and I'm using the word hustle the way, you know, Gary Vaynerchuk uses it. So it's like constantly doing something and I think it's a beautiful thing and we've all done that like when I studied in university, I know what's hustling about because when you are when you have your paper due on a certain day, you usually work the last night because that's kind of feels the best. So, but the thing that's hustling is that usually what happens is that, uh, when you hustle, you feel that you're worth a result only if you've put 110%.

So you actually glorify resistance in a way, because resistance makes you put more work and it makes it feel better. It's like when you go to a gym and you put the weight on your machine and your muscles hurt, then you know that you've done good work. Good workout. So that's a little bit of a problem of hustling because while it is a necessary regime for us to be in it, it also, because it gives you satisfaction from resistance.

You subconsciously create more resistance because if you don't resist, if you don't feel that you have to struggle, you have to go through hurdles through challenges that you are not putting enough. So I believe that there was another regime, which has maybe a little bit more for the people like me, the floaters it's I call it the surfing.

And if you think about classical surface on the sea, how it works is that a surfer these tiny dots somewhere very far in the ocean, and then it doesn't move anywhere and then the wave comes and the surfer jumps on the board and with a very like high speed and a lot of fun, the surfer is being brought to the beach.

So that's how I feel. I'm much more by default a surfer. I like to sloat and wait for that wave and then ride the wave. Although I actually would like to people to not think in terms of either or it's not like you have to be one or the other, you actually have to be able to, to choose which regime is necessary at which time in life, because we need both.

We can't be just one or the other, but the balance of the contradictions. That's what makes it beautiful. So I would say if you constantly hustle, very likely you are not seeing the bigger picture. If you constantly serve, you might actually miss some opportunities because you haven't put the work when it was necessary.

Jonathan Levi: I think that's really, really interesting and I mean, how does this play out at MindValley? And I'm so curious to hear more about the history of MindValley. I didn't realize until recently that you guys have been around since 2003. So there's been a whole evolution from a meditation business to now a huge business. Tell me more about that.

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: Well, the evolution was because, well, MindValley started because, uh, a vision was at that time giving classes, uh, well in meditation and we needed to show the classes. So we understood the model of having a website and attracting people and gathering the names and then advertising to them our classes.

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: So that's how it started. It was a very humble beginning, but then, because we were good at marketing, we started helping others also. So we became, eventually we became a publisher of personal growth authors and, uh, eventually we started working with the best people in the world. And of course, there were other things on the side, which were popping up and then maybe didn't quite stick.

So it was, it was not so linear and so simple, but, but at some point, we realized that publishing is also not exactly the thing because people come to MindValley when they need to. So solve a particular problem in their life. But the thing is that you see, uh, we might want to solve certain problems in our lives, but for a proper transformation for proper change in your life, you sometimes don't even understand what you need to change.

So nobody teaches us how to be happy, how to live fulfilled, extraordinary, colorful, meaningful life. We learned a lot of academics in school, which are necessary, but how do you live that art of living? That's not being taught anywhere. So at some point, we realized that considering our resources and our opportunities, we can not just solve people's problems.

Like I know that I have stressed that I have to solve this problem, or I know I have to solve an abundance problem or something like that. We have to actually give people the thing that they might not be aware that they need and that thing is how do you live fulfilled extraordinary, colorful, meaningful life.

So at that point, when we started understanding that that was a few years ago, we realized that we're not really a publisher so much as an education institution which creates a curriculum. So when people come with problems he has to solve the problem, but later they understand that this is more about your life as a whole and your lifestyle and you know yourself as a whole universe and that's when the actual fun starts.

Jonathan Levi: I think that's really interesting because we're also experiencing, I mean, we're about 10 years behind you in terms of when we were founded, but we're also realizing that and it, oftentimes I tell my staff, and this is something I learned really from Joe Polish, you sell people what they want, but you give them what they really need.

And to someone who's not a business person in the transformation industry that can sound like really two-faced, like, no, you sell what you give, give them what you sell, be honest, be upfront. And it's like, well, no, you give them what they want. But then the bulk of what you give them is what they actually need and that's, you know, the way we see that as we teach our memory accelerated learning speed reading courses, and so many people throughout the years have come and say, I want to read a thousand words permitted. I want to improve my reading speed, what they really need, you know, that's what they want. What they really need is the confidence to be able to learn more effectively. And that means improving their memory. It means improving the way that they treat their brain and, and take care of their health and so it is, we give them the speed reading training, but the bulk of what they're getting is confidence in learning.

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: You know, I think it's interesting what you said because people have a little bit troubled relationship with honesty and I think there is a difference between being honest or dishonest and this whole concept of you talking to the person who is like capable of hearing you. So yeah, we can come out and upfront, say like, guys, you are actually not aware of a lot of things are going on in your life, but that's not about honesty. You have to really, the message has to land and if the listener is not ready to hear the message, then it's useless. So I believe that you're not being dishonest if you're coming slowly and we all have that situation in our lives when it takes time to explain certain things that happen to you. Let's say to your loved ones.

So I think it's a little bit interesting thing that people feel uncomfortable that you first talk about someone's problems and then you show them the bigger picture of what's possible because that's exactly the natural and logical way of you know, communicating it.

Jonathan Levi: Yeah and you know, when I say people feel uncomfortable, it's, we're starting to develop the materials for a certified coaching program, and for the first time I'm having to actually articulate, not just to my staff, but to potential coaches and say, look. You need to understand that what's actually happening behind the magic behind the scenes is work to selling people. One thing we're giving them so much more than they bargained for and I think it's also interesting what you said about, you know, this element of dishonesty because, uh, one of the quotes I'm using in my new book, Is the quote by Jodie Pico that I really love.

It goes, you can fool yourself, you know, you'd think it'd be impossible, but it turns out it's the easiest thing of all.

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: Oh yeah.

Jonathan Levi: I think a lot of people are fooling themselves about what they, both, what they want and what they need.

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: Yeah. Can I share a little story?

Jonathan Levi: Please, please do.

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: So basically that's exactly what I was talking about.

When I said that transformation is something much deeper and often when we look at our lives, we assess it in a way superficially from the surface, we look at it. Let's even if we do their chart or the life, you know, this wheel of life, we see where do we have the lowest marks? You know, this is where I have to work.

And that's the regular general approach to how you improve everything in your life. That's what most people do. But I had a very interesting story, which brought me to understanding that this is a one-sided approach. There's another opportunity. So basically I, as I said, I was born in Soviet Union and I was a very good girl. So I studied super well. I was in straight A's students. So I had this, you know, hair money kind of approach to life. So perfectionist. So I studied Superbowl. I graduated from school, like with top, top marks. I was the best student of my school. I got a medal from the president of Estonia. I got to a really good university and got a good degree. I got a good job. I made my career by the age of 25. I had, I had made a career, which, you know, my European colleagues would have done by 40. So I lived this perfect life by the book. And I, of course, got married. I had business with children, everything was perfect. So last year I was 40 and I started thinking, you know, my life is so perfect. Like by the books, I'm such an example for so many people, at least that's what they say, your inspiration, your example. But once in a while, I would start feeling or thinking things which kind of felt odd and wrong. Like I would spend a lot of time working and not call my children and not feel guilty and then I would think to myself, I'm a bad mom. I should feel guilty. Why don't I put more effort into doing this or we'd go somewhere. Vishen's ambition is obviously a public figure and I would be introduced as, Hey, this is Vishen's wife. And I would feel like oh, my God, you are showing such a sliver of me. This I'm so much more than just that. And then I would think to myself, Oh my God, I'm a bad wife because obviously, I should feel proud.

So when I started feeling like that, the cognitive dissonance of my thoughts of my emotions, I started digging deeper and thinking, what does it mean? And where do these feelings come from? So that's very my path to finding who I'm truly started. It started from those little discomforts, you know, like. Why am I feeling what I'm not supposed to feel?

And it was a Rocky path, but what I'm driving to is that like an onion. I was peeling off those layers and eventually after like months of going up and down through this process, I started seeing myself what I am, including the sides, which may I didn't accept because they didn't fit the picture of a perfectionist, you know, the perfect person with a perfect life, but there are things about me which are different and that perfect life is not about me.

It's about someone else's for the book. It's not for me. So when this transformation from within started happening, when I saw myself clearly what I am with all the things we maybe previously did not accept about myself. Then things about my perfect life stopped sticking to me because we all have this tendency to live by someone else's scenario.

You know, somebody told us that this means success and we started doing that without asking, is this about me or is it about someone else? So my journey last year made me understand the transformation can be from outside where you fix the things which you think don't work or a much more powerful transformation happens if you start from within when you start seeing yourself clearly, like, you know, like you remove the layer of dust from the mirror and you see yourself clearly, but on top of that, you accept yourself for what you are. You come to peace with what you are, even if that's not what you fought, you would like to be.

And the moment when you come to peace with that, then everything starts changing because your life has to be in accordance with what you are and what your values are, and only from there, the true transformation starts because only when you know what you are, you are capable of moving to what you want to become.

So that was my journey last year and scare really the result of that journey. It was that my perfect life actually started falling into pieces like Lego bricks, and I have the pieces. I have the pieces. I'll piece some back together, but what I'll get might be not the Disney castle, but something else. I do not know what it will be. But that's the transformation from within where you from the outside, you don't even see how your life might not be about you at all.

Jonathan Levi: Wow.

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: I'm done.

Jonathan Levi: So. Where are you going from there? I mean, what's your next step?

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: My next step is to build the new, the new thing, not be the Disney castle. I have no idea yet what it is, but what happened? One simple example is I've been in my business for 15 years. I had my space there, my spot, my genius zone. I was doing marketing. I like marketing. I do like business operations and things, but sometime last year, I just closed the door panels that time I realized that, okay, I'm done. I'm tired, you know, 15 years or the same thing, no matter how good I am, it's not quite that thing and I just took a sabbatical and I rediscovered myself.

And the interesting thing is that it doesn't take as much effort. I think in our society, we have these weird concepts that we can only claim success. If we've put a lot of work, sweat, and effort into things and it starts from school when, you know, when we go to school and we are told, okay, you're good at literature and language. That's nice, but your mathematics is a little bit weak. Why don't you put more effort into that? So we learned from very early age to put effort into something that doesn't work, but where we are geniuses and when something comes to us, super easy and natural, we feel that this, we can't be achieving success there because there's no resistance, there's no effort. There's no challenge. So for me, the journey to rediscover myself ended up in me giving up the areas of work, where I was good, but, and I enjoyed it quite well for something which is so much better, something which I enjoy so much more, something comes with so much less effort. And the funny thing is that I believe that I'm much better on that than at what I was doing for 15 years.

Jonathan Levi: Wow.

All right. At this point, I want to pause and take a moment to thank our sponsor Four Sigmatic who is making it easy for everyday people to unlock the incredible health benefits of mushrooms. I originally learned about Four Sigmatic when I met their founder at a conference in 2015, and I have been pretty much obsessed with their products ever since. Personally, I use their reishi mushroom tea. Most nights for an all-natural sleep aid. I carry their Chaga immunity blend anytime I travel. And I've also pretty much switched out my usual coffee or your Bramante for their unbelievably awesome mushroom coffee, either in-ground or an instant form. Now, what I love about mushroom coffee is that it combines Chaga for immune support with lion's mane for intense focus. And because of that, I actually find it to be more effective than most nootropics or stimulants, including Ritalin, despite having only 40 milligrams of caffeine. It's honestly insane. If you haven't tried out their products, I strongly, strongly recommend you do so and to encourage you to give them a try.

We've actually teamed up with Four Sigmatic to bring you an incredible 15% discount to take advantage of that. Just visit foursigmatic.com/superhuman today. All right. Back to the show.

So what is it typically they look like for Kristina at this point, as you reassemble the Lego pieces? I mean, how do you feel your time? I guess it's because the entrepreneur in me goes, Oh my God, I can't imagine what my life would look like. If I left my business.

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: Well, that's a slightly longer journey because I learned it also over years. First of all, as an entrepreneur, because I'm still an entrepreneur, I'm very much a shock when it comes to business. But I also believe that entrepreneurship is a creative activity and the problem that a lot of us have of us entrepreneurs and I've done that too, because I've been running businesses for 15 years, is that we, we get ourselves busy with work. And if we're not busy, we feel bad about that. We feel bad when we take time off, but we are creatives and business is a creation and entrepreneurship is a creation. It's a work of art. So that means that we need to give ourselves space to create something and not to be busy and not to do the business as usual. So when I took the courage to just leave business as usual to people who might not be, might be not a hundred percent as good as I am, but they're good and the business runs, right? So this moment, when you, when you realize that you can let someone else do the work that you are good at, but they're also good at that because your time and your freedom and the space in your life are so much more valuable than you doing that work. And I truly believe that every entrepreneur needs to have at least 20% of their time free for them to just float.

Jonathan Levi: Yes.

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: To just create, because this is where the genius happens. When we're busy, busy, we are in the hustle mode and hustling doesn't allow you to create, to be inspired because you just don't have time for that. You just do what needs to be done. So that's the problem that a lot of us entrepreneurs did. We don't give ourselves space. Space to just be space and permission, not just time, but permission not feel guilty about that. Enjoy that, embrace that. Love it. So that's what I did to myself, but I've worked to that because I have to go back a little bit in history to explain I was running a separate unit of MindValley for nine years.

It was doing the same thing as MindValley bought in Russian market. And four years ago, Russia and Ukraine, our two biggest markets went to war with each other. So the economic crisis happened and everything. And at that time I had a business partner. So four years ago, one part of our business was near bankruptcy. It was a separate unit. So it's like I had the full weight of responsibility and dread and stress about the situation. And, uh, around that time, when the crisis happened, when we almost went into bankruptcy, when I had to own the day fire, half of my staff, I also realized that I'm in a bad relationship that I have to break up with my business partner.

So I broke up with my business partner and it was four years ago and of course the journey back to. Believing in myself as a business person, as a person who's capable of running business of not killing it took me years and it was a long process, needed a lot of faith along to for assistance, you know, reminding myself, you know, that's not the end and I shouldn't judge myself based on what is going on, but at some point. I suddenly thought maybe I shouldn't be running my business. Maybe this is not my genius zone. I know how to do that, but maybe that's not what I should do. And I found it a girl who made mistakes initially, but we learned to work together and I have full trust in her. So about a year ago? Yes, I got the courage.

Actually, two years ago, I got the courage to just give everything to her. And that was in that, that particular chunk of my business. And just say, you know, you run, it I'll stay the face of the business. I'll stay the use of the business. You know, the inspiration, the strategic leader, the business, sharp, whatever you like. But I don't like to do the running of the business. Managing is just not my thing. I'm not organized. I'm literally, so I did that two years ago and it was a rocky path, but the funny thing is that she actually did better job than I did. And our business actually started being voiced stronger with her in the lead than me.

I didn't step out of the business, but I allowed her to do what I don't enjoy too much. I do it well, but I don't like it too much. And I gave myself the space. So because I have that experience in this other chapter of the business, it was much easier to do the same in MindValley.

Jonathan Levi: Incredible and I so agree with everything you said.

I recently joined strategic coach with Dan Sullivan, and it's all about freeing up your time, which sounds, you know, if on the outside and if you try to put your employee hat on, it's like, well, why do I get free time and no one else does? But it's exactly that it's, you need to be able to create. And if you don't have that 20, actually for them, it's a third, third of your time free.

Then you simply cannot do your job, which is to create, hold vision, innovate, and all those kinds of things. So it's all about working towards freeing up more and more of your time. And actually, immediately after this call, I'm going to be talking to my team about how we can do that, not just for me, but for everyone in the company, who's in a creative role, which is so important,

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: You know, it's interesting because I had this issue as well about deep feeling guilty. But the interesting thing is that who judges, who's the first one to judge it's usually when you think about that, I'm going to talk to my team and tell them that I need the free space, because that's how I function. The first thought that comes to us. Oh my God. How are they going to take it? Is all a thought. It's our projection of our insecurity onto the team. So we learned in my team, we have this concept of open dialogue and it took me time and practice, but I'm absolutely okay to tell people because that's another aspect of being honest with yourself. So I tell my team I'm disorganized. This is what I am.

If you want me to function, you need to remind me, you need me to prepare, and then when I'm on stage, when I'm in front of the camera, I'll do a great job. And everybody tells me I do a great job there, but that's because that's where I function well, but I don't function well with calendars. So it took me a long time to learn to just openly express how I feel and just to not feel guilt about that.

And just to say, this is what I am, and I could try to change, but it will not work. So let's better figure out how to work with my peculiarities. How do we function so that it actually works out for everyone and surprisingly, my team takes it way better than if I either try to be something what I am not.

And then I, you know, then they always get frustrated because I don't do the things that they expect me to do or if I'm trying to do it in any other sneaky way, honesty in that sense or being open about how you are, is the best strategy.

Jonathan Levi: Absolutely. I completely agree with you and we have the same policy and it is so important because otherwise people just battle.

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: Yeah.

Jonathan Levi: Kristina I want to transition a little bit and talk about health optimizations and life optimizations. Obviously, you are one of the people at the forefront of helping people create transformation. So what are some of the things that stand out to you in your life or in the transformations you create for your over 4 million users to help us lead better lives?

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: Well, when it comes to body and health, then vision is a little bit better person to talk because he's the Guinea pig in the company. She's the one who tests everything on himself. I have a completely opposite approach maybe because I'm a woman and my journey was interesting because when I got pregnant with the first child and it went through the transformations of the body through pregnancy delivery and breastfeeding, and then getting back to what you were before. And it is literally, you know if you take it in an abstract way and you see what's happening, it's like a movie it's like a, it's some kind of, so mysteriously weird. So when I went through this journey, what I learned is that our bodies are miracles. Our minds are incredibly powerful and often we deprive our bodies of their full potential because we don't trust the process. We don't trust our bodies and what I'm seeing is that the opposite of a lot of things right now are happening in, especially biohacking and everything is because I believe. That we have everything that we need within us, but we are so insecure with that.

We are so used to one, two, three exact scenarios, exact recipes that unless we get a ritual, we don't believe that anything is happening. So I got my faith because I went through these two pregnancies deliveries, all-natural, actually don't feel pain while I'll deliver. Believe it or not. Because it never expected it should be part of the journey.

But I had a lot of interesting experiences in my life, which proved to me that we are beyond, beyond everything super powerful. I believe that we don't have to age that we are accessing the era of agelessness, where people from 20 to maybe 60, you almost don't even understand who is what age, because we live different kinds of lives. We look different, we have different levels of energy. So I believe that so many things are happening to the humanity and some people are trying to cope with that, with, finding you, you know, you may reach your goals, new ways, new means new, new ways of, of living in those bodies. But I think that we have to do much more work with our minds in that area.

Like, I believe that our minds and we know all the answers, if we just learn to listen to our bodies and to trust them and I know that so many people disagree with me. That's why I'm a little bit controversial in that area.

Jonathan Levi: No, I, I completely agree with you and, um, and I wish more people did. So what's your daily routine look like for maintaining optimal performance?

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: I love to sleep. I think you have to get your full time asleep. I love to wake up without an alarm clock. I hate rushing because it stresses me, but generally I'm, I'm more of an owl. So I would work in the evening. My days are very in the floor right now. I love the days when I have a lot of, uh, a lot of speaking gigs, you know, going in front of the camera on stage or doing interviews.

I love those kinds of days because then I function a hundred percent in that short period of time. And then I feel absolutely fulfilled, but that's, that's the interesting thing about PM completely. I love my life. I love what I do. I love myself and I have no feelings of, you know, that I have to do certain things, just go with the flow.

If I feel, if I feel like doing something, I do that. So in the middle of the day, I might feel like going back home and playing my hub and then I'll do that. But generally, um, um, like I love to work with people because that makes me, makes me actually put more effort into what I'm doing. So, yeah, it maybe sounds bad.

After 15 years of running businesses, multiple businesses. But what I do throughout the day to be efficient is just maintain my, my well-being. You know, that I feel well, that I'm well-rested, that I'm clear in my mind, you know, that I feel physically well. And that allows me to create, to perform when I need to perform, and to contribute to, to the, you know, co-creation with my team.

So I do not have a routine. I travel a lot, even in Malaysia. I don't have a routine when I'm in my regular. I have only a routine, you know, taking kids to school and going to the gym at certain times because I exercise with a trainer. These are my only routines. And if we have meetings, I'll go for meetings, but I might, I may work at home.

If I feel like that I might go to the office. If I feel like that, I love my office. So I usually go to the office. I'm a social being, but I do not have any routine. So what I do to just feel well is I sleep well. I meditate when I need to meditate and I work on my emotions. I don't let my emotions, you know, bottle up or I'm very conscious of that. So I love to read, I love to watch Ted videos. It's my favorite pastime. I love to play my heart. I love to be with my children. I love to be present every single moment, but what I do depends on how I feel. And my calendar does that sometimes put, put limitations yes.

Jonathan Levi: Of course. What are some of the books that are most transformed your life?

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: Well, you know, another thing where I'm different from most of the people in my company, in my environment, I love reading novels, classical novels. I know Jane Austin by heart. My favorite authors are Jane Austin does, they are scanned, uh, use Carol. So this is what I love to read. But if you ask about something useful for the people, then the last book, which really impressed me was Susan David's, um, Emotional Agility, something which people should do, learn in school. So Susan David, Emotional Agility, I'm reading right now, Brunette Brown, Who I Love as well. So the emotions is my area. So most of the stuff I would be suggesting would be in that area. So these two books, well, Brunette Brown has a whole row of books, but these authors are probably the ones which, which my favorite reads right now.

Jonathan Levi: I love that and we will list those out for folks in the blog post in case they didn't catch the titles. And now I do want to ask.

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: Yes.

Jonathan Levi: Because you driving home this point about how your, you managed to be very different than the people in your environment and different than people would think. What is one thing that you believe that other people think is absolutely crazy?

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: I actually don't know, I actually don't care what to think, but, but I think, I don't believe in scenarios in life. I think every single human, every single case is unique. So when it comes to work to your passion, to how you live to your relationships, to your parenting, everything is unique. So especially in relationships, we have just one scenario, for example, right? Boy meets girl. They get married and live happily ever after. Does that work for everyone? No. In work, we used to have one scenario nine to five. You know, businessman has to work to death. Does that work for everyone? No, the girl who I said, I gave my business over, came to me in September and said, Kristina, I don't think that this life is for me. I want to be an omen. I want to sell off everything and live a minimalist life, wherever I like. And in the beginning, I was scared, but then I saw it, you know, who am I to stop her? Because that's what I do to my life. I live how I like, so I just said, okay, I value you so much that we have to figure out how to work with that.

So I believe that we all have to figure out what works for us. And stop relying on the scenarios that we get from outside, stop living someone else's life. And for that, we have to understand what is important for us. Again, Susan David and her book talk about Emotional Agility, but essentially, she teaches the same thing to understand what you are about and to understand what makes you happy, what is important for you, what your values are because you oftentimes, Citi is based in your values. You are only authentic. If you understand what's important for you and you actually can stay true to that. And when you start seeing that, you will see that a lot of the stuff we get from outside, a lot of the scenarios are such bullshit.

And so not about you about someone else like I have a friend she's 37, she's a girl. She doesn't want to get married and have children, but that's what makes her happy by all standards. She's wrong. Right? She's unsuccessful. She's a failure, but that's what makes her happy. That's what makes her a create. That's what makes her, you know, buzz her life colorful and that's different. So that's what I believe is important. That's that's maybe what people think crazy. Like why do you not like we understand what success is? You have the one, two, three, just follow the one, two, three, no, don't follow the one, two, three. Follow your heart.

Jonathan Levi: I love that. I preached the same message, right? I once heard Jason Raz say, have a blessed and blissful life, whatever beautiful mess you decide to make of it. And so today, right? Like a life, you know, no matting around with no kids, like living out of a backpack is a mess. But if that's the beautiful mess that you want to make, like fricking do it, man.

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: Yes. I agree.

Jonathan Levi: I love it. I often like to say the analogy that I use is many people treat life like it's prefixed, like a menu that you go in and it's like, first, you're going to have this then you're going to have this and I liked treat life like it's LA cart, right? Like order dessert first, if you want, you know, to where we okay. So now the answer to this might actually be the same as the answer to the last one. But I want to ask you this question, 'cause it's a tough one. I think for you because you're a surfer and your attitude is like, you're, you're fine the way you are, but I want to push you on this, which is if you could complete the sentence for me, most people would be much better off if they just?

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: Most people would be better off if they just started being honest with themselves.

Jonathan Levi: Good one. Really, really good one. There's so many good ways to answer that, but that's one of my favorite, favorites.

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: Thank you.

Jonathan Levi: So Christina, we have come up on time, but I want to ask where can people learn more and get in touch with you? You know, you're in, you're out, you're around MindValley. You're not, you're not at the office. You are at the office. How do people learn more and engage with all the stuff that you're doing? As you rebuild the Legos.

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: So MindValley of course, I'm always in MindValley and MindValley. So I'm generally there because I'm part of MindValley.

Obviously, if you're interested in me as a separate unit, the universe, you know, within this co-founder of MindValley words, then I do have an Instagram account, which is Kristina Mand and my Kristina, my name is written through a K and that's currently is the only face actually where I'm present by myself.

I just started being an also, uh, and speaker as a separate unit. So my site is still working. I did not know, and it comes out sometime in the next few weeks. So I do have my own program. Actually a few programs, but that's, that's all is still being in production. So for now it's Instagram, literally. That's the only place where I share my bizarre things and even Instagram, I'm so different from everyone else. I literally treated this as a blog. I write really long posts and I don't care what people say.

Jonathan Levi: I love that and this episode is probably being recorded three or four months in advance. So if you already know the URL or the website, I'd encourage you to share it.

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: God, I wish I did. I actually don't remember right now because it's still in production.

Jonathan Levi: We can add it to the blog posts.

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: Yeah. Good, good.

Jonathan Levi: Fantastic. Yeah, our URL is going to change between now and then anyway. So go to whatever website is our new website that we talked about and you'll find Kristina's new website on our new website. What do you think the chances are that people are actually going to find either one of those? I'm not sure.

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: I do not know. Well if people find what they need to find. So whenever I go on stage and I'm worried, I just tell myself the most important thing is to say the message that the audience needs to hear and that's literally what is the most important thing right now. If anybody heard anything they needed to share right now, that's the only thing that matters.

Jonathan Levi: I love that. I love that. Now. I want to thank you, Kristina, for coming on the show, but I always have one question that I like to ask everyone before I let them go which is if people take away just one message and they carry it with them for the rest of their lives, what would you hope for that to be.

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: God that's that's a toughie.

Jonathan Levi: Right?

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: Uh, well, no, because there were so many things, right? I want to say without context. It might sound a little bit scary, but the message is there is no such thing as too much love for yourself.

You have to learn to love yourself. Really love and accept yourself. That's literally the only thing that matters, because that allows you to be honest with yourself, that allows you to actually move somewhere because you can not transform unless you accept that, you know, you can not transform into a butterfly unless you accept that you are, you know, a millipede or a cocoon or whatever, you have to accept that transit state.

So for that, you really need to learn to love yourself and in 15 years and transformation. Now I'm giving the context to that one last message in 15 years and transformation. What I've discovered is that people are scared of loving themselves because they think that they will cross over into, you know, into selfishness, into being egocentric.

But the truth is that we are only nasty to the rest of the world. We are only selfish. We are only egocentric when there is a void unfilled void within us and then we start filling this void from outside. That's where selfishness comes from. So there is no such thing as too much love for yourself. You have to really learn to love yourself. That's the beginning of everything. Beautiful in your life.

Jonathan Levi: I love that and I so, so agree. So agree. So Kristina I will say.

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: Thank you.

Jonathan Levi: Which means it was very pleasant chatting with you, and I'm really glad that we finally got to meet and, uh, I hope to see you at an event or at Genius Network or at A-Fest or something like that. It was really fun.

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: Thank you. It was super fun and yes, we'll see somewhere.

Jonathan Levi: I'm sure. Take care.

Kristina Mand-Lakhiani: Thank you.

Jonathan Levi: All right, SuperFriends. That is all we have for you today, but I hope you guys really enjoyed the show and I hope you learned a ton of actionable information tips, advice that will help you go out there and overcome the impossible.

If you've enjoyed the show, please take a moment to leave us a review on iTunes or Stitcher, or drop us a quick little note on the Twitter machine @gosuperhuman. Also, if you have any ideas. For anyone out there who you would love to see on the show. We always love to hear your recommendations. You can submit on our website, or you can just drop us an email and let us know that's all for today, guys, thanks for tuning in.

Closing: Thanks for tuning in to the Becoming Superhuman Podcast for more great skills and strategies, or for links to any of the resources mentioned in this episode, visit www.becomingasuperhuman.com/podcast. We'll see you next time.