Mindvalley Review

Detailed Reviews

Have you ever encountered days when you didn’t feel like getting out of your bed in the morning? Those moments when you felt that everything about life and living is useless and holds no value whatsoever? Almost every individual encounters such downtrodden incidents, but it’s crucial to remember that a dreadful day does not translate to a miserable existence.

We face situations that are out of our control, and we end up feeling powerless and vulnerable. As such times, we need to reflect on our lives and make the necessary changes and adjustments to improve ourselves. We can follow personal development programs, which allow us to enhance the quality of our life. Mindvalley offers online courses, programs, software, and services that enable individuals to invest in their personal growth.

Pros

• Mindvalley is in a class by itself. It provides teachings of personal growth, addressing body, mind, and spirit.
• What’s even better, they offer several free courses which are open to one and all.
• The teachers are commendable; most of them are experts, professional speakers, and celebrities too.
• The quality of video sessions of the quests or masterclasses is impressive.
• They host various events so that cohorts can come together, socialize, and thrive as a community.
• To enhance the spirit of belonging, Mindvalley allows the creation of Tribes, which are groups of people undergoing similar programs.

Cons

• The spirituality courses target more towards the Eastern belief system and lack content from a Biblical viewpoint.
• Other platforms such as Udemy, offer similar courses but is not limited to personal growth only. They have a wide range of topics.

Introduction

The millennial and post-millennial generations face massive changes in every stage of their lives. They think, learn, and view the world differently due to early and extensive exposure to technology.

Unluckily, a lot is expected from these cohorts, making them prone to mental stress and anxiety. The reason may be due to work, personal, or social life.

A study conducted by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) under CDC reveals that a range of 29-40% of Americans is “extremely stressed at work.”

We are always under pressure as we face work deadlines, debts, heartbreaks, family problems, rejections, betrayal, loss, failures, and whatnot!

To maintain a successful career and personal life, we must possess skills that go beyond academics. The majority of e-learning platforms offer courses that enable one to gain professional proficiencies.

But what about our personal development? Mindvalley allows us to get insight into other aspects of life, such as mindfulness, diet, fitness, relationships, and spirituality.

They host online programs, conduct events, create channels, applications, and eBooks, which teaches individuals to become the most excellent versions of themselves.

The existing education system makes us career-ready only. Rarely a school will teach its students on topics such as mind, thoughts, awareness, meditation, relationships, or spiritualism.

Mindvalley, on the other hand, targets people to become life ready and seeks to develop a conscious world for the human race.

The founder, Vishen Lakhiani, is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, and activist. He initiated Mindvalley in New York, 2003.

It has headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, with a team consisting of over 300 employees from 54 countries. More than 10 million students have witnessed Mindvalley’s learning experience.

Let us get exploring this distinct platform by looking at its features; we first see what the homepage has to offer.

Getting started

Mindvalley incorporated a distinctive learning approach to transforming peoples’ lives, which the typical education system prefers to overlook.

Mindvalley claims to be a school for humanity as they seek to transform the world and the human species by providing education and wisdom that promotes personal growth.

Before accessing the homepage, the system provides a feedback survey that enables them to make suggestions for the new user. The first question seeks to identify 2 areas of personal growth that catches the interest of the student.

We can see they offer 5 categories that address the concept of personal development. It includes career & influence, lifestyle & productivity, mind & spirit, health & fitness and love & relationships.

The next segment asks one to select 3 topics of interest that fall within the area opted previously.

Based on the selection, the system generates free mini-training that fits the users, and they can begin to explore the content. Well, this is one way to kick start one’s transformational journey.

However, we can always sign into our account and access the learning content via the homepage. Let us not fail to mention that Mindvalley rolled out a new UI for their platform.

Change, as we may be aware of, is inevitable, and Mindvalley has made the shift providing an enhanced learning experience for their users.

The interface is minimalistic and provides ease of use even to a novice. The homepage appears to have the title of today. Apart from that, there are other tabs of channels, programs, events, and communities.

The page allows the user to resume the course they had attended previously. Apart from that, there are posts of recommendations of featured talks, podcasts, and free masterclass.

All the recommended courses may sound alien unless we figure out the concept of personal growth upon which Mindvalley creates content.

The categories of personal growth

The platform is relatively different from the other online learning websites that we have reviewed so far. It is because it focuses on providing knowledge related to personal growth and development.

The other e-learning sites offer academic or vocational training, whereas this one teaches life skills.

So, what is personal growth? It is a process through which individuals strive to improve themselves, emotionally, physically, mentally, or spiritually to achieve one’s fullest human potential.

The goal is to become a better person, with a positive mindset who can be an asset to the human race and the world at large.

It is about investing in yourself so that you become capable of identifying your true self. Self-awareness enables one to establish values, beliefs, and dreams.

Therefore, the knowledge empowers one to take the correct course of action as they will be having a sense of direction in life.

It makes you wholesome, resilience, happy, motivated, and vibrant. Thus, one can nurture beneficial relationships in both social and professional life.

Mindvalley teaches the personal development process by classifying it into 5 categories, as seen in the image below.

We can access each of the categorizations differently to look at the kind of programs included within them. They provide quests under the segment of best-selling and upcoming.

The career & influence consists of quests that improve habits, techniques, communication, and skills that enable one to become a high performer.

Lifestyle & productivity has courses with topics such as goals, consciousness, brain re-wiring, improving memory, etc.

The mind & spirit sections deal with the subject of meditation, spirituality, and self-awakening. We have health & fitness, which addresses diet, food, exercise, and yoga.

Love & relationships group deals with the concepts of parenting and issues regarding relations. Apart from the quest courses, each category also provides Mindvalley Mentoring.

The speakers who deliver the courses are prominent speakers like Marisa Peer, Lisa Nichols, Jeffrey Allen, Sri Kumar Rao, Eric Edmeades, Jim Kwik, Vishen Lakhiani, Robin Sharma and others.

Mindvalley offers multiple types of programs and services; we can start exploring them now. Well, it is not possible to access their paid content due to that we will browse through their open resources.

Free Mindvalley programs

The free courses are designed for beginners and are usually small in size. They are introductory sessions, which can then be backed by paid programs to gain competency in the subject.

We can include Mindvalley’s quests and masterclasses in the free offerings.

Mindvalley Quests

The quests are a new model of learning which enables people to transform their life. The features include the small size of lessons.

The bit-size course is efficient to achieve micro-learning (e.g.10- 20 minutes a day over the number of quest days). It gets complemented by the presence of the best teachers who deliver the courses efficiently.

They also allow the participants to create a community where they can interact and exchange thoughts, ideas, and experiences.

All these results in achieving the set goals, as the quest's completion rates are better than the industry average by almost 333%.

Transformation is only possible when the participants adopt behavioral change methodology. Through it, the person can stick to the life changes that they learned via the program.

The system provides access to the free quests after asking for the user’s name and an email address. Once the confirmation is given, it leads one to their homepage.

The subscribed program appears under my quests on the website. The get started button takes us to the course.

The front page of the course has the tab for begin quest, and below it are lessons, divided into weeks. The first one is usually a warm-up session, which acts as an introduction to the topic.

After that, we see the rest of the content divided in weeks. In the beginning, the material in the week's section remains locked.

It is because one needs to complete the first step of the course before proceeding forward. 

We can jump into the warmup lesson to see the course delivery. The top panel has tabs for going back to the intro, or the option to go to the community (if it exists.)

The session has a high-quality video introduction and then a text article. All the content attempts to build up familiarity.

The videos may have interviews or interaction between 2 speakers. These are the pre-recorded coaching sessions.

Or else it may be descriptive, which explains the content through visual simulations. It also some control buttons such as navigation bar, sound, play/pause, and even speed.

The course may have extra resources such as podcasts, or documents that can be downloaded by the user.

Along with it, the teacher can also attach tasks to prepare the student for the upcoming lessons. After going through all the material, the user can click the mark as complete to proceed to the next chapter.

All the weekly lessons have videos, podcasts, documents, and text to enlighten the student. The student performs the tasks, goes through the resources, and moves up in the quest.

The quest can also have an active community that consists of all the students. These community groups are also known as Tribes in Mindvalley.

The community is a page on Facebook, a closed group which accessible after inputting the passphrase for the first-time users.

Some of the quests are available, while others have a starting date. All the users who start together on the same day also complete it collectively.

The Mindvalley has a dedicated blog and a YouTube channel that holds informative content that can be used by the learners.

The learner who completes the quest successfully undergoes a test, and if they can score 80% and above, then they can earn certification.

The certificate acknowledges the student’s participation in the course. We had mentioned it is not like the typical online learning platforms, and we can witness that.

Masterclasses

These courses are different from the quests. It is because the participant receives a link to access the webinar and its workbook.

Details such as name, email, date, and time are required to prepare the masterclass for the user.

We can figure out that the link gets delivered to the student via email. It also comes with the information related to the course, e.g., time and date.

The classes are longer than the quests, usually 1-1.5 hours. We mentioned earlier that it is a webinar in the form of a video with a play/pause function only.

The user can enter the full screen, but it lacks other control such as the navigation bar. There are options to watch later or to share the webinar video.

We see we have the link to download the workbook. So, what is it? It is a guidebook that helps the student to prepare for their masterclass.

All the masterclasses have scheduled time and date. In case the student signed up for one class and failed to attend the webinar, then the team can provide its replay.

Apart from the online courses, Mindvalley also has programs based on subscriptions. We venture into that section now.

Mindvalley Subscriptions

The quests and the masterclasses have a dedicated period of hours and days within which the student can complete.

But what about new content and updates? There is so much to discuss in the personal growth field; hence, a subscription can fulfill the continuous improvement of the learner.

We have Mindvalley Mentoring, Quest All Access Pass, and Global Campus as subscription-based modules.

Mindvalley Mentoring

What do we mean by a mentor? It refers to the individual who plays the role of a trusted advisor or trainer.

Meaning such individuals provide guidance and support in some respective field, be it in career or other scenarios.

Thus, Mindvalley’s mentoring program is a monthly subscription, and it features recognized teachers and visionaries.

They deliver content in the areas of health, mindfulness, social, career, influence, spirituality, productivity, love, and others.

This program has 2 plans, Mindvalley Mentoring, and Mindvalley Mentoring Plus. The latter one is, of course, pricier as it delivers more features.

It allows students to experience immersive online learning. The classes have videos and audio features and have documents, transcripts, and assignments too.

The student will be in a position to watch how the experts, best-selling authors, visionaries, and speakers view and interact with the world.

The student will be able to learn from the habits and practices of such influential teachers. So, every month, Mindvalley will provide knowledge from the greatest minds through the mentoring sessions.

Mindvalley Quest All Access Pass

It is a yearly subscription module that lets the student access all the quests and programs. The other online learning platforms offer multiple kinds of resources that have courses are their base.

Similarly, the Quest All-Access Pass also has the quests as its backbone, and through it, they will provide training.

There is a list of quests that will be readily available to the users, and in case the student fails to find it impressive, then they offer a 10-day money-back guarantee.

Personal growth takes time as it is a slow-paced process, and with the all-access pass, the student can customize their transformation plan.

As the student will have quests at his/her disposal, all that is needed is to design a personal education plan. He/she decides which courses are appropriate for inclusion.

Mindvalley Global Campus is an application-based annual membership, and it provides the students with additional perks.

It includes access to exclusive tribes and communities. The student can also attend events held globally, such as Mindvalley University, A-Fest, Mindvalley Live, and Local Seminars.

The user has entrance to their flagship or signature events. Furthermore, they also offer unlimited access to Mindvalley’s Quests.

Additional offerings of Mindvalley

We have witnessed quests, master classes, mentorships, all-access pass, and the global campus. But we are not done yet.

They have podcasts, which are audio clips that have famous speakers who deliver purposeful teachings.

It has tabs of mind, health, relationships, performance, impact, and learns more. There is a search bar on the navigation panel and a section that holds “listen later” audios.

The audio is open for downloading so that the student can access it anytime and anywhere. There is an option to embed the podcast on another website.

Again, these podcasts have quite famous personalities such as Jay Shetty, Patrick Grove, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Adam Roa, Jason Silva, Marisa Peer, etc.

The other service is Lifebook, which is a lifestyle design program. The Lifebook founders are Jon and Missy Butcher, who provide support to the learners to create extraordinary lives.

It enables one to discover themselves in 12 critical areas of life, such as health, career, finance, and others. They offer a Lifebook assessment to gauge how one performs in all the 12 aspects of life.

The questions require to be answered by selecting the options of strongly disagree, disagree, somewhat disagree, somewhat agree, agree, and strongly agree.

Once you uncover yourself, the next step is to shape your success in these areas by coming up with action plans and strategies.

Another exciting service of Mindvalley is their Evercoach, which enlightens the student on how to start their coaching business.

The user subscribes to the program, undergoes 21 days quest, and at the end takes an assessment to achieve the certificate of completion.

They also have apps such as Omvana and Soulvana, which offer guided meditation and yoga practices. They provide a unique program called “The WildFit.”

Apart from the software and programs, Mindvalley allows the learners to order Physical Programs, which have courses in CDs or DVDs.

We cannot ignore the fact that they move a step further and provide more than courses and online learning.

Mindvalley Tribes

Online learning limits human interaction, and as such discussion forums, comments sections and communities are formed to fill the gap of personal touch.

We know its tedious to go through lessons and take assignments alone, but with a group, one can increase their engagement level due to the interaction.

A man is a social animal, and therefore we need a community where we get a sense of belonging. The tribe is a communal space made up of various groups.

The most prominent tribe is Mindvalley Open Facebook Group, which is open to all. The others can be members-only, which are accessible by a passphrase.

These may be Facebook groups of Quests or events, where the participants can share ideas and discuss topics. Every tribe has a facilitator who oversees the running of the community.

A synergy forms when people come together to achieve common goals and this spirit of togetherness is a motivation to the students.

Conclusion

The founder of the platform is an author of the New York Times Best-Seller book called “The Code of The Extraordinary Mind.”

He is amongst the most influential personalities in the personal growth industry, and thus, we expect him to create the most innovative learning experience.

Mindvalley is a product of a dynamic curriculum delivered through multiple programs and courses available for learners all over the world.

The other attractive feature of the platform is that they have the best transformational teachers, who are experts in their fields.

The UI is simple to use and has been revamped to provide an exceptional user experience. The other platforms do not offer enough resources to teach an individual how to lead a meaningful life.

Mindvalley explored the niche and addressed almost every critical area of human life to revolutionizing personal growth and development.

It is an ideal solution for people who believe they need to learn more than the skills that earn you bread and butter.

Hence, the online learning platform is for any individual who plans on breaking their adverse thinking or habits to transform their belief system and life in general. The goal of becoming an improved version of yourself is never a terrible idea, and Mindvalley may give you the techniques to achieve that.