So in 2017, my book hit number #1 on Amazon for a very strange reason.
This is a story about the Dalai Lama and vodka shots, and how those two ideas came together to push my book to number #1 on Amazon.
And I don’t mean number #1 in a category, like personal growth for men over forty who own Labradors. I mean number one in every category, across all of Amazon, which briefly made me the number #2 author in the world, ahead of Tolkien and his combined works, and J.K. Rowling and her combined works (yes, every Harry Potter book, together). Here are the screenshots to prove it.
The book hit #1 on Amazon Sep 16, 2017
The book stayed as a top book on Amazon for the next 3 months (screenshot taken on Nov 11, 2027) , periodically bouncing back to the #1 spot across all books on Amazon.
Briefly making me the #2 Author in the world (ahead of even JK Rowling and Tolkien for a few brief days)
Now let me tell you how it happened, and why I’m sharing this with you, especially today.
So the book opens in a hotel bar in Calgary, 2009. In a few hours, I’m going on stage right after the Dalai Lama, in the slot they keep for the speaker nobody came to see, and I’m so nervous that a shot of vodka from the lobby bar feels like a professional decision.
Now think about that for a second. A holy man and a shot glass. Those two things do not belong in the same sentence, and the moment they are, your brain needs to know how it ends. Do I embarrass myself? Do I get banned from Tibet? Does His Holiness join me for one? You turn the page.
And by the time you’ve found out, I’ve started something else you need to finish.
That’s called an idea collision.
Idea collision: two ideas that don’t belong together, forced into one story.
And here’s the thing. It wasn’t the only one. When I went back through the first eleven pages of that book (The Code of the Extraordinary Mind), I found a whole system in there that I’d built without knowing I was building it.
There’s a move I call the unsell, where I tell you on page one that you might hate this book, and the reader who was about to drift has just been dared to stay. There’s the thing you can’t unsee, a promise that the book will change you, not inform you.
There are open loops, every one with an address, a chapter number where it closes. There’s phraseology, the new words, more than twenty of them, so you have a handle to carry each idea out of the room by. And there’s the slippery slope, short sentences where each one makes the next unavoidable.
Now, why eleven? Because every so often Amazon gives a book away free to thousands of its premium members, and most of those books get skimmed and shelved, so Amazon only counts a book as read once you get past page eleven. Amazon didn’t read my book. It counted. And almost everyone who opened it got past page eleven, because that’s where the system lives. The ranking had to move. It moved all the way to the top.
Let that sink in for a second.
The ideas got the book written. The system got it read.
And I believe this is the thing nobody teaches experts.
You spent years getting good at your idea. Nobody spent one afternoon showing you how to make a person turn the page. It’s not luck, and it’s not talent. There’s a structure. And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
So here’s why I’m telling you this today.
At the Expert to Authority Summit, starting this Friday (Sep 18), I break the whole thing down. Not just how to write a book that’s sticky. How to build courses, content, and books that people finish, that turn readers into fans.
This is how Mindvalley has accumulated 26,000 case studies from students who willingly share their stories of transformation.
Here’s what happens in the room.
Friday: Sep 18
I open with why most experts stay invisible. Marisa Peer on the moment she stopped being a practitioner and became an authority. Then you draft your own signature method, live, name and all. It will be rough. That’s the point.
Saturday: Sep 19
One idea turned into thirty days of content, built live with AI. The email machine. The product step ladder. Ajit Nawalkha takes four to six people through their positioning and their method name, on stage, in front of everyone.
Sunday: Sep 20
Daniel Priestley on the weekly cadence that builds an audience whether you feel like it or not. The funnel that runs without you on the call. Regan Hillyer, fireside. Then I take real expert funnels apart, live.
The full curriculum, all twenty sessions, is here so you know exactly what we’re covering:
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Now, who is this for? Four people.
The founder with a hot product who understands they have to be the face of it.
The expert who’s hit a ceiling: you have the audience, you have the book, and you’re coasting, and you can’t work out how to go bigger.
The expert who is brilliant and has no audience at all.
And, the person who already has an audience and has no idea how to turn it into a living.
If you’re one of those four, this is where you learn to build the funnels, the courses, and the training systems your audience will want to pay you to learn.
48 hours left: Claim your free spot
Friday 18 to Sunday 20 September, live on Zoom, free, no replay.
Starts: 8am Los Angeles / 11am New York/ 4pm London /7pm Dubai /8:30pm Delhi /11pm Singapore.
I hope to see you there.
PS: If an idea in this article resonated with you, tell me what you’re excited to learn this weekend at the Expert to Authority Summit by leaving a comment. I read every single comment.
6 Responses
What I’m most excited about is something you mentioned with Regan recently about your own fears with growth: how to scale with freedom.
I’ve been a Mindvalley member for 15+ years, and if I’m truthful, I think this question has paralysed me at some level throughout my 23 years in business. I know what I’m here to do. What I haven’t yet mastered is how to take that work to a much bigger audience without creating a business that consumes the freedom it was meant to create.
My life’s work and Master’s major (leadership and organisational change) is helping people understand and navigate change, and developing the capability to lead themselves through it. I also work with organisations because I believe change should never be driven through at the expense of the people expected to live with it. How organisations lead change affects not only their people, but ultimately their culture, trust and reputation.
That work has evolved into Elevana, my capability development methodology for life, leadership and change.
One principle underpins everything I do: If I have not studied it, worked with it, or lived it, I do not speak to it, coach it, or provide it.
That principle has become particularly meaningful after undergoing a double knee replacement 4.5 weeks ago and living, very personally, everything I teach about preparing for and navigating significant change. I’ve shared that journey openly on social media and have been amazed by how much it has helped others facing the same experience.
As a 5/1, investigating deeply, making sense of complexity and then communicating it so others can use it feels very much like what I was put here to do.
So what I’m most excited to learn this weekend is how to take 30+ years of knowledge, experience and lived wisdom, scale its impact without diluting its authenticity, and finally take the work I know I’m here to do to a world stage, with freedom rather than at the expense of it. Perhaps it’s time. 😊
How exiting, and promising 🤗 And what a shame that this event happens in the exact hours I’m working all weekend…!
So the exit comment,- “no replay” is a real bummer 🥴 So is there any chance you might re-think that? 💫 🥰
Dear Vishen,
I am often very interested in the live events you offer, however, I wonder if you realise how many people you exclude by not allowing access to a recording. I live in Australia and I simply cannot function effectively at 1am. I know because I have tried before. My mind and my body just want no part in it, despite how amazing the content offered sounds.
I hope you will take this feedback into consideration.
Kind regards,
Thais xx
I’m excited to learn about the first 11, for my new book that I’m about to channel from Louise Hay about becoming the best version of yourself!
A Mindvalley event in 2019 marked the beginning of my spiritual journey\. It led me to become a Jay Shetty–certified life coach, bring Dr\. Shefali to my city, and help women reconnect with who they truly are\.
Now, at 64, I have completed the manuscript for my first book, *The Magic Within*\. Written for women who are ready to reconnect with themselves and begin a new chapter, it weaves together honest stories, hard\-won lessons, and practical tools to make personal growth feel approachable and real\. Its message is simple: you can reclaim your voice, trust your inner wisdom, and create a life that feels authentically yours—at any age\.
Vishen, your work has profoundly influenced my life\. I am excited to learn how to bring this deeply personal book into the world, reach the women who need it, and transform its message into meaningful change.
Vishen!! I am going to be on planes almost all weekend – I hope to catch the tail end of this but please make some sort of summary available for us who can’t make it. <3 thank you for sharing your wisdom in an accessible way with the world!!