Srikumar Rao
Srikumar Rao
Srikumar S. Raois a speaker, author, former business school professor and creator of Creativity and Personal Mastery, a course designed to effect personal transformation. He is a TED speaker, and has authored Are You Ready to Succeed: Unconventional Strategies for Achieving Personal Mastery in Business and Life, which is an international best seller, and Happiness at Work: Be Resilient, Motivated and Successful – No Matter What, a best seller on Inc.'s “The Business Book Bestseller List.” He is also the...
NationalityIndian
ProfessionEducator
Date of Birth11 April 1951
CountryIndia
Observe yourself as you go through a typical day. Stuff happens to you. As it does, you immediately judge it and label it. Dozens of times. Hundreds of times. So often that you no longer recognize that you're doing it. It is a deep-seated habit.
When something happens to you, suffering doesn't begin. Suffering begins at the instant you label a bad thing - as something that is wrong.
The knowledge that we are responsible for living the life we have is our most powerful tool.
I'm challenging the assumption that you need to be a dog-eat-dog person to survive in a corporate environment.
I don't believe that being an inspiring leader is a goal that you can aspire to. It is a by-product.
Unending joy is actually closer to us than our own skin, and there is nothing we have to do or get or be to experience it. All we have to do is stop driving it away.
Life is a university, and you never graduate. Accept that whatever happens to you, no matter how terrible, is there to teach you. Your job is to learn and do what you have to.
No matter what happens to us in life, we tend to think of it as 'good' or 'bad.' And most of us tend to use the 'bad' label three to 10 times as often as the 'good' label. And when we say something is bad, the odds grow overwhelming that we will experience it as such.
My methods produce lasting behavioral change without unpleasant consequences, because the change does not come from an effort of will. It comes from examining your deep-rooted beliefs of who you are and how the world functions. As you examine these beliefs and make changes in them, you literally become a different person.
Most of us function under the model we have to get something in order to do something, in order to be something. If this happens, then I will be happy. And I'm suggesting to you that we live our entire lives based on that model, and that model is fundamentally flawed.
It is indeed possible to change your view of the universe from indifferent to friendly. I have helped thousands of persons make this transition in my workshops.
If you want to experience joy in your life, you have to be able to step outside yourself and become part of a cause that is much larger than you; one that brings a greater good to a greater community.
If something comes that it is so extreme that you have difficulty thinking of it as a good thing, don't think of it as a good thing and kid yourself. To the extent that you can, don't label it a bad thing. Refusing to label something a bad thing opens you up to possibilities you would not have even considered otherwise.
I have exercises that lead participants to discover for themselves that their deepest fulfillment comes when what they're doing is of benefit to larger society in some way. This really knocks some for a loop - especially those schooled in the 'take no prisoners' approach.