I’m in Spain this week.
I’m celebrating my birthday with a small group of close friends. And for my birthday experience, I took them to see a flamenco show.
Not the flashy, tourist kind.
The real thing.
Low light. Raw guitar. A small room where you can see every line on the dancers’ faces.
And that’s what struck me first.
Their faces.
They weren’t just performing steps.
They were telling stories—of heartbreak, resilience, pride, longing.
You could see entire lifetimes etched into their expressions.
These were people who had lived.
And something inside me paused.
I caught myself thinking:
Their lives must be fascinating.
What would it be like to live a life like that?
Then a playful thought followed.
If I wanted to understand that life…
Why wouldn’t I just learn flamenco?
Not casually.
Not “once a week after work” learning.
Flamenco in London, squeezed between meetings and emails, would be like learning to surf in a bathtub.
So I asked a different question.
What if I did it properly?
What if I moved to southern Spain for a week?
Took daily flamenco classes.
Immersed myself in the culture.
Late dinners.
Struggled through Spanish.
.
Lived—briefly—a different life.
And that’s when something clicked.
I realized I’ve started thinking about life differently.
Over the last few years, AI and leverage have quietly changed everything for me.
What used to take 50 hours now takes one. Teams of 20 have become teams of two or three.
As a result, I’m building multiple new companies alongside Mindvalley with tiny teams, massive leverage, and far more freedom than I ever imagined possible.
But here’s the unexpected side effect of optimization:
It gave me time.
And time, I’m realizing, isn’t meant to be endlessly reinvested into more work.
It’s meant to be lived.
So I decided to test a radical idea.
I’ve committed to taking one full week off every month to deeply immerse myself in a different life—learning something new in the place where it truly belongs.
Some examples of what’s coming:
I’m considering spending a week living with monks in a Greek Orthodox monastery near Thessaloniki. No phone. No electronics. Waking at 5 a.m.
Working the land. Eating simple meals. Praying. Meditating. Napping in the afternoon. Cooking together. Sleeping as the sun sets.
Silence.
Simplicity.
Presence.
I briefly thought about moving to Paris to learn bartending… and then realized that probably wasn’t the direction my nervous system or my liver wanted to go.
So instead, I’ll spend a week in Paris learning French cooking, the way it was meant to be learned.
Each immersion follows two simple rules:
Rule #1: Meet locals.
Not wealthy. Not influential. Not “network-worthy.” Just locals. The baker. The bartender. The monk. Ordinary people living ordinary lives—because their stories are often the most eye-opening.
Rule #2: Learn the skill where it was born.
Flamenco in Spain. French cuisine in Paris. Orthodoxy in Greece.
No shortcuts. No simulations.
This curiosity isn’t just intellectual; it’s physical too.
As much as I love my current training, I’m now exploring entirely new relationships with my body. Pilates. Yoga. Aikido. Ways of moving I would never have touched before.
My goal is simple and slightly absurd:
I want to be in better shape at 60 than I was at 21, when I was 19 and representing Malaysia in the U.S. Open for Taekwondo.
And then there’s the biggest shift of all, now that I’m turning 50.
I’ve decided to stop chasing money.
If my company reaches a billion-dollar valuation, great.
Nice milestone.
But it’s no longer a requirement.
My goal now is this: Live 100 lives before I die.
I will be a flamenco dancer.
A monk.
A Bedouin.
A French cook.
Maybe even a barista.
Each for a week.
100 weeks.
100 lives.
This is worth more to me than a billion dollars in net worth.
I start today.
I’ve officially signed up for a week-long stand-up comedy immersion in London.
And yes, you’ll be seeing me perform in comedy clubs soon.
I’ll be sharing these experiences as I go, what I learn, what breaks me open, what surprises me.
And I’d love to hear from you too.
If you could live a different life for one week every month…
What would you study?
Where would you go?
Who would you want to live alongside?
Share them in the comments. I read them. They shape what comes next.
Thank you for being part of this journey, and this chapter of my life.
Here’s to living many lives.
P.S. If this idea of living many lives resonates with you, you’ll enjoy what’s coming next.
On January 18, we’re bringing together Social Media Summit Highlights:
This is a LIVE curated selection of the top-rated sessions from our recent summit.
You will learn how to build visibility, leverage, and impact in the modern world from Brendan Kane, Prince EA, Marie Forleo, and me.
Now, if you’re curious how ideas turn into movements on social media (and how people design lives with more freedom once they have an authoritative personal brand), I’d love for you to join us there.
407 Responses
It’s really beautiful—living different lives. We often wonder what it would be like to be somewhere or do something, and here you just live it.
This reminds me of my own approach to travel: when I go to a new city or country, I don’t just do the sightseeing. I try to live as the locals do. I go through the streets imagining I already know them, I do daily things as if I were part of this place, as if I might stay forever.
It’s amazing how differently you experience your days when you approach them with the thought, “I already know this place.” Even though of course, you don’t.
Hola Vishen, if you’re getting interested in monk life (even if just for a week) and are currently visiting Spain, I strongly recommend you to seek out Lama Khenpo Rinchen (Gyaltsen) in Alicante.
He’s the spiritual director of a few Buddhist centers in Argentina, Uruguay and the main one, Paramita in Alicante, Spain where he’s located.
I’m pretty sure you’ll get an amazing experience if you can get to meet him somehow, good luck on this one and I really hope this resonates with you, cheers brother!
I love your plan!!! Such Great ideas!!! The Flamenco dancing sounds awesome!!! I would like to suggest WildQuest in Bimini. I go every year. You stay at their retreat center. Every day you go out on the boat and swim with the wild dolphins. They come to you. No chasing, no touching, no feeding. Just absolutely magical life changing experiences. Check them out! It’s one Special Week!!! Namaste
I absolutely love this idea Vishen, it’s so much more original than chasing more and bigger material things. I’ll be turning 50 next January and I decided yesterday that I’d like to be in India for it. But I’ve got a whole year to live before then, so we’ll see what happens. One life I’d like to try is that of a Mindvalley author 😉 Thank you for being such an inspiration!
i would love to hear more! this idea reminds me of barbara sher’s ideas of living multiple lives within one life. barbara sher’s work is for the multi-passionate; she calls these people, ‘scanners.’
also, i would love to be a spider on the wall during this process because it is so intriguing to my neuroatypical nervous system.
keep going in this direction. i want to see what insights, what experiences & what emotions/feelings come up as you work in a way that counter to how we are indoctrinated to live, believe & be.
Pursuit of peak experiences as your life goal? A cautionary tale: Happy At Any Cost: The Revolutionary Vision and Fatal Quest of Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh.
Vishen, that’s such a beautiful idea!!
Happy birthday to you — and to me 😌🥳
I also turned 50 today, and I’m truly proud that we were born on the same day, in the same year, as you, the great Vishen Lakhiani.
You are a true inspiration — thank you for that.
How absolutely beautiful that was to read and to envision. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and ideas, inspiring hope and desire. I hope I too will one day be in a place where I’m able to do something like this, to really live, and not just exist. God bless you and happy birthday!
I love every word that you have expressed. I feel the same way. I’m also turning 50 this year and for some reason that number makes you think, it makes you assess your current life what you want to get out of life what you have learned and what there’s still out there in the world word to learn. I love the 100 lives idea and hey I may even copy you! I look forward to reading about your adventures. I admire everything you do and I’m grateful for the opportunity to learn from the best. Valeria 🙂
Hi Vishen this is inspiring. Not just to live but to be truly alive. Look forward to your 100 lives journey and take a leaf out of it
One of my most memorable weeks was when I spent a week just South of Billings, MT on a ranch. The weather was perfect at 70 with little humidity, the month of May. I spent my days on horseback, riding fences, herding cattle and in the evenings, a little two-stepping(dancing). Hands down! Best week ever.
Very inspiring to me—thank you, Vishen, for sharing.
I believe this is a powerful way to live a life truly worth living. Time also feels richer and longer when we fill it with diverse experiences and adventures. One of my similar goals is to learn how to surf on a Brazilian beach and to learn salsa in Cuba.
AI has definitely arrived to enable humans to do what we are meant to do: live meaningful human experiences.
This is a very amazing venture that I’m sure everyone would love to feel and explore,
BUT not everyone has your millions to even attempt this! Unfortunately we can only imagine what this would feel like.
Best Wishes on your new adventure S.
I feel like I lived many of those lives already, but obviously there’s so much more to experience out there! I think it’s a wonderful idea Vishen. I was a Bollywood dancer in India, a singer in Egypt and Turkey, I immersed myself in the paintings of Mont Matre in Paris, lived like a true Berliner, etc..
I’ve been living in London for 12 years, where I live off my passions and I love it. But if today I could choose where to go and what to learn.. I’d probably say.. look after the turtles on the beaches of Australia, or live with the indigenous people for a while (even though I don’t think that’s doable!). Study tarots with some amazing tarot reader somewhere in the world. Learn about music in Nashville, or LA. Live as a New Yorker for a week. Learn about african cultures in a tribe. And I could go on for days, because the truth is, life amazes me and there so much I wish to experience and learn. Thank you for sharing this, Vishen.
Happy birthday and all the best for your next adventure!
You and mindvalley keep inspiring me since years. But this blog article went deeper. After having been diagnosed with cancer with a life exptectancy of a few months in 2024 – my tumors are now gone despite of all medical opinions. I asked myself so many times how I envision my earth life to be if I will survive. As a formerly very performance-driven woman and entrepeneur it has been hard for me to realize that I seemed to have lost all my passion for my company, my industry (entertainment & fashion) and nearly everything connected to it. I am thankful for my wonderful family and friends and that I have achieved and experienced so much in my life so far, but it troubled me that I haven’t been able to develop a real vision for my future. That’s why your article touched me so deeply with your wonderful inspiration. Again. I almost never comment anything (hello visibility wound;) but after having read your new goal setting, I was so moved, that it just felt so right to thank you this time for all the wonderful and so much needed inspiration you give to world – and me. THANK YOU, VISHEN ❤️
Volunteer and work as a Park Ranger in a Nationai Park, or in animal refugees.
Ballroom dancing
Vishen, I think your decision is truly amazing. I’m excited for you. Just reading about it made me smile inside and out. I’m a bit adventurous, so if I could live a different life for one week every month I don’t think I could list everything here that I would do. One of the things I would do is go to Eritrea (my father’s home country) and stay in the village where some of our family members live where there’s no electricity or running water and immerse myself in day to day life. I look forward to reading about your experiences. Happy belated birthday! And thank you for all that you share.
Hello Vishen, this really speaks to me. My version of realising this kind of live to go “all-in” is a bit different though.
I lived for a year as a high school student in the US and later during studies 3 month in Mexico City. Being from East-Germany it was a must to go abroad. Now I don’t travel that much for several reasons, but also because I always have that inner feeling that I want to connect with the place I am visiting. So when I do, specially with my kids, I try to make it more about being than seeing. With this spirit we did the greenway from Prague to Vienna by bike. This was inspired by people who do month-long bike travels. We couldn’t take that time off, but we could do something which fits in our vacation time. And also I went twice to the UK with each of my children for them to go to school there for a couple of weeks to immerse in the language and the culture. We live in France and it’s difficult to take of a whole year from school, so I thought, ok than let’s do a few weeks, that’s better than never.
Then for my work, I choose to work part-time. This was a conscious choice to be able to renovate an old French stone house. I still have a bit on that one, but new things are on my list already.
I. LOVE. THIS! 100 WEEKS – 100 LIVES
I’D LEARN AUTHENTIC ITALIAN COOKING IN SOUTHERN ITALY — ITALIAN CUISINE WORLD’S FIRST TO BE AWARDED UNESCO STATUS IN 2025! SEE https://edition.cnn.com/2025/12/10/travel/italian-cuisine-unesco-status
LOOKING FORWARD TO READING ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCES!