{"id":12245,"date":"2026-01-14T20:40:04","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T00:40:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/im-turning-50-so-i-decided-to-live-100-lives\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T20:40:04","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T00:40:04","slug":"im-turning-50-so-i-decided-to-live-100-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/im-turning-50-so-i-decided-to-live-100-lives\/","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019m Turning 50. So I Decided to Live 100 Lives."},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/hop.clickbank.net\/?affiliate=infohatch&amp;vendor=J1R2C\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10614 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png\" alt=\"Profit Gen\" width=\"400\" height=\"217\" srcset=\"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png 400w, https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px-300x163.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>I\u2019m in Spain this week.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m celebrating my birthday with a small group of close friends. And for my birthday experience, I took them to see a flamenco show.<\/p>\n<p>Not the flashy, tourist kind.<\/p>\n<p>The real thing.<\/p>\n<p>Low light. Raw guitar. A small room where you can see every line on the dancers\u2019 faces.<\/p>\n<p>And that\u2019s what struck me first.<\/p>\n<p>Their faces.<\/p>\n<p>They weren\u2019t just performing steps.<br \/>They were telling stories\u2014of heartbreak, resilience, pride, longing.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" alt=\"A flamenco dancer on stage\" class=\"wp-image-78878\" srcset=\"https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/mv-prod-blog-en-assets\/2026\/01\/a7dfa4e0-turning-50-vishen.webp 2000w, https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/mv-prod-blog-en-assets\/2026\/01\/a7dfa4e0-turning-50-vishen-768x512.webp 768w, https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/mv-prod-blog-en-assets\/2026\/01\/a7dfa4e0-turning-50-vishen-1536x1025.webp 1536w\" data-lazy-sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" src=\"https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/mv-prod-blog-en-assets\/2026\/01\/a7dfa4e0-turning-50-vishen.webp\"\/><noscript><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" src=\"https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/mv-prod-blog-en-assets\/2026\/01\/a7dfa4e0-turning-50-vishen.webp\" alt=\"A flamenco dancer on stage\" class=\"wp-image-78878\" srcset=\"https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/mv-prod-blog-en-assets\/2026\/01\/a7dfa4e0-turning-50-vishen.webp 2000w, https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/mv-prod-blog-en-assets\/2026\/01\/a7dfa4e0-turning-50-vishen-768x512.webp 768w, https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/mv-prod-blog-en-assets\/2026\/01\/a7dfa4e0-turning-50-vishen-1536x1025.webp 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\"\/><\/noscript><\/figure>\n<p>You could see entire lifetimes etched into their expressions.<\/p>\n<p>These were people who had <em>lived<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>And something inside me paused.<\/p>\n<p>I caught myself thinking:<\/p>\n<p><em>Their lives must be fascinating.<br \/>What would it be like to live a life like that?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Then a playful thought followed.<\/p>\n<p><em>If I wanted to understand that life\u2026<\/em><br \/><em>Why wouldn\u2019t I just learn flamenco?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Not casually.<br \/>Not \u201conce a week after work\u201d learning.<\/p>\n<p>Flamenco in London, squeezed between meetings and emails, would be like learning to surf in a bathtub.<\/p>\n<p>So I asked a different question.<\/p>\n<p><em>What if I did it properly?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>What if I moved to southern Spain for a week?<br \/>Took daily flamenco classes.<br \/>Immersed myself in the culture.<br \/>Late dinners.<br \/>Struggled through Spanish.<br \/>.<br \/>Lived\u2014briefly\u2014a different life.<\/p>\n<p>And that\u2019s when something clicked.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I realized I\u2019ve started thinking about life differently.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Over the last few years, AI and leverage have quietly changed everything for me.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>What used to take 50 hours now takes one. Teams of 20 have become teams of two or three.<\/p>\n<p>As a result, I\u2019m building multiple new companies alongside Mindvalley with tiny teams, massive leverage, and far more freedom than I ever imagined possible.<\/p>\n<p>But here\u2019s the unexpected side effect of optimization:\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It gave me time.<\/p>\n<p>And time, I\u2019m realizing, isn\u2019t meant to be endlessly reinvested into more work.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s meant to be <em>lived<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>So I decided to test a radical idea.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve committed to taking <strong>one full week off every month<\/strong> to deeply immerse myself in a different life\u2014learning something new in the place where it truly belongs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Some examples of what\u2019s coming:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m considering spending a week living with monks in a Greek Orthodox monastery near Thessaloniki. No phone. No electronics. Waking at 5 a.m.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Working the land. Eating simple meals. Praying. <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.mindvalley.com\/meditation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Meditating<\/a>. Napping in the afternoon. Cooking together. Sleeping as the sun sets.<\/p>\n<p>Silence.<br \/>Simplicity.<br \/>Presence.<\/p>\n<p>I briefly thought about moving to Paris to learn bartending\u2026 and then realized that probably wasn\u2019t the direction my nervous system or my liver wanted to go.<\/p>\n<p>So instead, I\u2019ll spend a week in Paris learning <strong>French cooking<\/strong>, the way it was meant to be learned.<\/p>\n<p>Each immersion follows two simple rules:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rule #1: Meet locals.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Not wealthy. Not influential. Not \u201cnetwork-worthy.\u201d Just locals. The baker. The bartender. The monk. Ordinary people living ordinary lives\u2014because their stories are often the most eye-opening.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rule #2: Learn the skill where it was born.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Flamenco in Spain. French cuisine in Paris. Orthodoxy in Greece.<br \/>No shortcuts. No simulations.<\/p>\n<p>This curiosity isn\u2019t just intellectual; it\u2019s physical too.<\/p>\n<p>As much as I love my current training, I\u2019m now exploring entirely new relationships with my body. Pilates. <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.mindvalley.com\/15-faqs-for-yoga-beginners\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Yoga<\/a>. Aikido. Ways of moving I would never have touched before.<\/p>\n<p>My goal is simple and slightly absurd:<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>And then there\u2019s the biggest shift of all, now that I\u2019m turning 50.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve decided to stop chasing money.<\/p>\n<p>If my company reaches a billion-dollar valuation, great.<br \/>Nice milestone.<\/p>\n<p>But it\u2019s no longer a requirement.<\/p>\n<p>My goal now is this: <strong>Live 100 lives before I die.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I will be a flamenco dancer.<br \/>A monk.<br \/>A Bedouin.<br \/>A French cook.<br \/>Maybe even a barista.<\/p>\n<p>Each for a week.<\/p>\n<p>100 weeks.<br \/>100 lives.<\/p>\n<p>This is worth more to me than a billion dollars in net worth.<\/p>\n<p>I start today.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve officially signed up for a week-long stand-up comedy immersion in London.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>And yes, you\u2019ll be seeing me perform in comedy clubs soon.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll be sharing these <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.mindvalley.com\/experiences-make-us-happier\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">experiences<\/a> as I go, what I learn, what breaks me open, what surprises me.<\/p>\n<p>And I\u2019d love to hear from you too.<\/p>\n<p>If you could live a different life for one week every month\u2026<\/p>\n<p><em>What would you study?<\/em><em><br \/><\/em><em>Where would you go?<\/em><em><br \/><\/em><em>Who would you want to live alongside?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Share them in the comments.<\/strong> I read them. They shape what comes next.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you for being part of this journey, and this chapter of my life.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s to living many lives.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"200\" alt=\"Vishen Lakhiani signature\" class=\"wp-image-76162\" style=\"width:280px;height:auto\" src=\"https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/mv-prod-blog-en-assets\/2024\/12\/99dc1d9d-vishen_signature.webp\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/mv-prod-blog-en-assets\/2024\/12\/99dc1d9d-vishen_signature.webp\" alt=\"Vishen Lakhiani signature\" class=\"wp-image-76162\" style=\"width:280px;height:auto\"\/><\/noscript><\/figure>\n<p><strong>P.S.<\/strong> If this idea of living many lives resonates with you, you\u2019ll enjoy what\u2019s coming next.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>On January 18, we\u2019re bringing together Social Media Summit Highlights:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This is a LIVE curated selection of the <strong>top-rated sessions<\/strong> from our recent summit.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>You will learn how to build visibility, leverage, and impact in the modern world from Brendan Kane, Prince EA, Marie Forleo, and me.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Now, if you\u2019re 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\u2019d love for you to join us there.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mindvalley.com\/summit\/socialmedia\/highlights?utm_source=blog_jan14_vlnl&amp;utm_campaign=launch_SMS_jan_2025&amp;utm_content=content_offer&amp;utm_medium=sp&amp;otag=blog_jan14_vlnl&amp;otag=launch_SMS_jan_2025\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Get your free spot here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/hop.clickbank.net\/?affiliate=infohatch&amp;vendor=J1R2C\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10614 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png\" alt=\"Profit Gen\" width=\"400\" height=\"217\" srcset=\"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png 400w, https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px-300x163.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m in Spain this week. I\u2019m celebrating my birthday with a small group of close friends. And for my birthday experience, I took them to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-happiness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}