Episode Details

Our guest for this week is Dr. Srikumar Rao, a keynote speaker, author, executive coach and the creator of the renowned ‘Creativity and Personal Mastery’, a course designed to effect personal transformation. 

About Dr. Rao

Dr. Rao has obtained his Ph.D. in the field of Marketing from the Columbia Business School. Prior to that, he was an executive at Warner Communications and the head of the Marketing Research Department at Data Resources.

Later, he went over to academia and in 1994 he created his famous course called ‘Creativity and Personal Mastery’ (CPM). Since, he has taught CPM at some of the world’s leading business schools such as Columbia, Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, London Business School, and Haas School of Management at the University of California at Berkeley. The course was created with a goal of empowering students to discover their unique purpose, creativity, and happiness, through teamwork and considerations of the philosophical perspective. 

In 2013, he founded The Rao Institute. Dr. Rao has coached thousands of executives on how to be better leaders by helping them discover a deeper meaning to their career and life. He has helped them achieve “quantum leaps in effectiveness”.

He is also an author of several books on the subjects of personal mastery, purpose, and success. In 2010, he released a book titled “Happiness at Work: Be Resilient, Motivated, and Successful - No Matter What”. In it, Dr. Rao aims to teach you the vital wisdom essential for achieving a joyful life, successful per your own standards, by helping you become more resilient and develop a stronger inner core.

Connect with Dr. Rao:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/srikumarsrao/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/srikumarsrao
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theraoinstitute
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheRaoInstitute
• Website: https://theraoinstitute.com/

Dr. Rao’s Story of Inspired Evolution

During his student days, Dr. Rao was on the path of becoming a successful physicist. Yet, the twist occurred some years later when he decided to visit America and acquire a doctoral scholarship. In 1980, he got his Ph.D. from the Columbia Business School in the field of Marketing.

But he was already very successful in the field since Dr. Rao had worked as an executive at Warner Communications several years prior. His big break came when he worked on an advertising strategy for a blockbuster movie which is to this day on the list of top 50 grossing movies of all time. The movie in question was the world-wide phenomenon, ‘The Exorcist’ released in 1973.

His career was skyrocketing but he felt restrained and put down by corporate politics. He decided to shift towards academia and teaching. But some time after joining the University of New York, Dr. Rao started questioning his decision.

“Basically, I stagnated. And there was a time when I woke up feeling very sorry for myself and I had this great corporate career and I threw it away.” - Dr. Srikumar Rao

Dr. Rao relied heavily on reading about spiritual subjects in order to find his inspiration but he was always confused by the fact that these teac