Ted bio:

Srikumar Rao was an executive at Warner Communications and McGraw-Hill before he created his celebrated MBA course, “Creativity and Personal Mastery.” The course — the only business school course that has its own alumni association — shows students how to discover their unique purpose, creativity and happiness, through group work and a philosophical perspective. Its popularity has led to write-ups in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Business Week.

Rao is also an adviser to senior business executives, whom he helps find deeper meaning and engagement in their work. He’s the author of Are You Ready to Succeed: Unconventional Strategies for Achieving Personal Mastery in Business and Life, and has been a contributing editor for Forbes. His latest book is titled Happiness at Work: Be Resilient, Motivated, and Successful – No Matter What. 

About the talk:

Srikumar Rao says we spend most of our lives learning to be unhappy, even as we strive for happiness. At Arbejdsglaede Live! 2009, he teaches us how to break free of the “I’d be happy if …” mental model, and embrace our hard-wired happiness.

The Talk:

Part1:

Part2:

Please then remember to:

Invest in the journey/Process, not the outcome

This principle is strongly related to ancient Stoic principles of “The Dichotomy of Control”

EPICTETUS’S HANDBOOK OPENS, somewhat famously, with the following assertion: “Some things are up to us and some are not up to us.”

My view:

rating: 5/6

• 4/6 on delivery
• 6/6 on content