Are You Ready to Succeed? Unconventional Strategies to Achieving Personal Mastery in Business and Life

Author - Srikumar S. Rao ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Hardcover Book item from Hyperion was reviewed on 15-Oct-2008.

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1) Hardcover Book Are You Ready to Succeed? Unconventional Strategies to Achieving Personal Mastery in Business and Life by Hyperion. "Life is short. And uncertain. It is like a drop of water skittering around on a lotus leaf. You never know when it will drop off and disappear. So each day is too precious to waste. And each day that you are not radiantly alive and brimming with cheer is a day wasted"

Who wouldn´t be interested in what this man has to say, right? You´d have to lack a pulse not to want - better, profoundly yearn for - the life affirming perspective and deep joy in being alive he describes.

But have you or I got the vision, guts and discipline to commit to what it´s going to take? That´s the central question this book poses on every glorious and uplifting page.

Like Stephen Covey´s "Seven Habits", Rao proposes that meaningful change happens from the inside out: You´ll recall Covey´s first 3 habits are about "Personal Victory".

This book is more powerful because it doesn´t deal with practices - "habits" - for cognitive behavioural change, like Covey. No, Rao challenges the fundamental fabric of our life experience: our very consciousness.

In one sound bite, the rallying cry of this book is: "live a conscious life".

I´m excited by this. As someone who has lived in a coma - mindlessly propelled by the "conveyor belt of life" - and has jumped off, this resonates very deeply with me.

But this isn´t a quick fix. Rao invites you on a very tough spiritual journey that will last a life time.

Brutally simplified, he invites you to become conscious of your self-limiting, self-defeating models of the world, your judgmental critical dialogue, and to develop insight to shift these, partly using the meditative practice of mindfulness.

The outcome: "Gradually, you get to the point where you can control what you are consciously comfortable with letting into your mind. And that is how you start straightening out of your life"

But that´s not the tough part. What comes next is far more challenging. What if you believed the Universe wasn´t "a dumb, insentient mass" but "a conscious entity that is intimately intertwined with you and not separate from you. It wants to give you what you desire and you can influence it"

Wow! If that was your operating principle, just imagine how different would life be? How much more time and energy would you spend focusing on and manifesting what you want in life instead of worrying and complaining about what you don´t want?

Most of the rest of book is dedicated to building the "Benevolent Universe" model. Rao coaches us on how to let go of guilt, blame, destructive habits and anxiety about what we can´t control. This all uses up valuable energy and makes us feel powerless: far better to channel energy into constructive and resourceful practices that serve us.

Specifically he shows us how to use the "Law of Increase", the reality that "Whatever you are truly grateful for and appreciate will increase in your life" and how to manifest our deepest desires simply by being resolutely and single-mindedly focused on them with a deep conviction that they are already ours.

Freedom and happiness? We already have them: they´re inside, not outside us.

Thinking we have to "acquire" something to be free or happy is misguided, according to Rao: "The talons of our addiction shred our minds and wreck repose... There is nothing you have to get in order to be happy"

Why go on this journey at all?

Because fundamental to our purpose is contribution: the unique gifts we´re on the road to discovering and manifesting in the world will contribute to the greater good: literally make the world a better place.

"When you stop explicitly focusing on yourself, on what you want and don´t have, and start focusing on how you can be of service to a larger community, then you set loose some very powerful forces"

The reward of accepting the challenge in this book is enlightenment: a deep understanding of your purpose in life and the insight to manifest it.

It will make a leader of you, if you let it.
¤

2) Hardcover Book Are You Ready to Succeed? Unconventional Strategies to Achieving Personal Mastery in Business and Life by Hyperion. As someone who has been a writer and teacher in the personal development and spirituality realm for many years, I love this book. It is so direct and straightforward, and quite profound in its simplicity. Srikumar Rao offers a step-by-step exploration into who you are, what you believe, and how what you believe is impacting your success. He offers this deep personal work in a language that is accessible to anyone. And his writing style gives the reader complete confidence that they can do the work! Thank you, Srikumar, for this accessible and powerful book!¤

3) Hardcover Book Are You Ready to Succeed? Unconventional Strategies to Achieving Personal Mastery in Business and Life by Hyperion. Excellent exercises to re-think one´s current life and work situation. Carried through, these lessons can have a profound impact on those struggling with serenity and purpose.¤

4) Hardcover Book Are You Ready to Succeed? Unconventional Strategies to Achieving Personal Mastery in Business and Life by Hyperion. Before enlightenment, chop wood carry water.
After enlightenment, chop wood carry water.*

I read the book´s title as meaning "You´re successful, are you ready for that?" rather than "Do you want to succeed?" emphasizing the word "ready". And just as reaching enlightenment does not obviate the need to perform the more mundane chores of life, being ready to succeed does not obviate earning a living or making friends. You can do both but if you´re not ready to see your success, you won´t realize that you are successful and you won´t be as happy as you could be.

Rao only indirectly writes about increasing the material and social markers of success, i.e. how wealthy you are or how many friends you have. He stresses that we need to give less importance to these markers and to appreciate what we already have. (And when adversity strikes, we should appreciate that it wasn´t worse.) Success breeds success but only if you nurture it properly and that´s what he writes about.

Rao´s techniques are simple and effective. He first gives examples of what he calls mental models, or predetermined thinking patterns. For example when you are preparing for meetings you always assume that people will argue with you, this predetermined pattern in which you think is a negative mental model. Rao wants us to become conscious of our mental models, especially the negative ones. Next he wants us to detach ourselves from them. He has us create an imaginary friend, who´s actually not a friend but an unbiased observer. We´re to imagine this friend to describe what we´re saying or thinking.

Rao offers many more exercises, with the later exercises building on the earlier ones. The best thing about "Are you Ready to Succeed?" is that the exercises are practical and not too New Age-ish.

Vincent Poirier, Dublin
*Thanks to Eric for the "Buddhist saying". VP¤

5) Hardcover Book Are You Ready to Succeed? Unconventional Strategies to Achieving Personal Mastery in Business and Life by Hyperion. For all of those people who bought Eat Pray and Love with the notion that it would change their lives, buy this book! Srikumar Rao´s gentle introductions and guided exercises allow you to contemplate what you want to change in your life and actually work at doing it. I was amazed at the changes I noticed in my thinking and my life in the space of a few months. Do not rush through this book. Let it guide you to finding the real you.¤

6) Hardcover Book Are You Ready to Succeed? Unconventional Strategies to Achieving Personal Mastery in Business and Life by Hyperion. The premise is simple: A person´s ideal life, especially their career, can be carefully conceived and crafted. Based on Dr. Rao´s popular course "Creativity and Personal Mastery" at Columbia University´s Graduate School of Business, this book offers a series of readings, exercises, and lessons drawn from both spiritual and commercial situations that enable you to reconstruct and improve your professional world. This transformation will turn your life around and help you become exponentially more effective in your chosen career and thereby flourish in all aspects of your life. Whether you are questioning the value of money or the core values of your life, this book is a powerful tool that will help you to "discover the purpose that can suffuse your life and bring stars to your eyes."¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 12-Nov-2008, 14013019329781401301934, 040-330-041-321-851-221-8

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