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

Based on the course Creativity and Personal Mastery that Rao teaches at Columbia Business School and Long Island University, this Buddhism-inspired self-help book promises readers the tools to effect fundamental life changes and find inner peace. At its heart, this is a case of Eastern philosophy leading Western MBAs along the path to self-improvement and corporate enlightenment, with a kinder and more productive working world as the ultimate goal. Rao narrates with waves of parables ("When you have one eye so firmly fixed on the goal, you have but one eye left to find the way") and introspection exercises—all designed to help executives find "effervescent joy" and discover their "purpose in life." Rao's techniques require an open mind and a belief in a "benevolent Universe" and in the notion that the negative things that happen to people are more often a matter of errant mindset and misinterpretation than reality. Will any of this actually lead readers to a higher level of self-enlightenment and make them happier at work and in life? As Rao writes, regarding the possibility of a universe that looks out for the well-being of its denizens: "Maybe yes, maybe no. Who knows?" (Jan.)