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
The knowledge that we are responsible for living the life we have is our most powerful tool.
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.
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.
I wouldn't change my life for anything. I am exactly where I want to be and have no plans to ever retire.
I don't believe that you have a work life and a home life. I believe that you have one life, and either it's working or it isn't working.
Can you actually go through life without labeling what happens to you as good or bad? Sure you can. You have to train yourself to do this. You have been conditioned to think of things as bad or good. You can de-condition yourself. It is neither easy nor fast but it is possible.
I believe that if you don't derive a deep sense of purpose from what you do, if you don't come radiantly alive several times a day, if you don't feel deeply grateful at the tremendous good fortune that has been bestowed on you, then you are wasting your life. And life is too short to waste.
When you say 'I want to be an inspiring leader,' the operative phrase is 'I want.' This is inherently me-centered and self serving whether or not you recognise it. What you are really saying is 'I want to get people to do what I would like them to.' Perhaps they don't want to do that. So you have to somehow get them there.
We, as individuals, must be responsible for our careers with the goal of reaching our highest potential. The job of a manager is to tap into that energy that's already there.
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.
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.