Srikumar Rao — Purpose, Desire & Unconditional Happiness

Who is Srikumar Rao

The teacher of unconditional happiness

Srikumar Rao is an author, TED speaker and business-school professor whose course "Creativity and Personal Mastery" became one of the most celebrated electives at Columbia, London Business School and beyond — the rare business class that asks students what they actually want from a life.

He resists the title of teacher. "I'm not really teaching anybody anything," he told us. "I'm just sharing my life story and some of the lessons that I learned."

His central insight is disarmingly simple. Ask a room of entrepreneurs who wants to run a billion-dollar company and every hand goes up — but what they want isn't the company. It's the feeling they imagine they'll have when they run it. And the feeling they're really after is to be happy, unconditionally, in a way that lasts.

Which is why he says you can't simply renounce wanting: "You cannot give up desire. Desire has to give you up." The work is to notice the stories we tell ourselves, and to stop searching for fulfilment where the light happens to be shining.

Creativity & Personal Mastery Columbia · London Business School Author & TED speaker The Rao Institute · New York

New York

Where we met

An afternoon in New York

We sat down with Srikumar near New York for one of the most quietly disarming conversations of the whole quest — not about biology at all, but about the machinery of wanting: why we chase things we don't really want, and what it takes to be happy without conditions attached.

New York

His home

A slow, generous conversation on mindset, desire and meaning.

The billion-dollar question

What we actually want

Not the company — the feeling we imagine it will give us.

Under the streetlamp

Where we search

We look for what we've lost where the light is, not where we dropped it.

"You cannot give up desire. Desire has to give you up."

— Srikumar Rao, in New York

In his words

The feeling you're really after

"You don't want the billion-dollar company. You want the feeling you think you'll have when you're running it."

Srikumar Rao · New York

You cannot give up desire. Desire has to give you up.

Srikumar Rao

What you really want is to be happy — unconditionally, and for that happiness to last.

Srikumar Rao

We have a sense of lack, of neediness — and we try to fill that gap by achieving.

Srikumar Rao

I'm not really teaching anybody anything. I'm just sharing my life story and the lessons I learned.

Srikumar Rao

In his own words

Straight from the interview

From our conversation with Srikumar in New York — how desire really works, where we go looking for happiness, and what to do instead.

His view: desire, understood

You can't white-knuckle your way out of wanting — suppression just leaves the craving intact. What changes things is seeing clearly what you're actually chasing, until the grip loosens on its own.

"You cannot give up desire. Desire has to give you up."

New York · from the interview

Where we search

He tells of a man hunting for his keys under a streetlamp — not because he dropped them there, but because that's where the light is. It's a joke, he says, and it's also exactly what we do with happiness.

"It's dark over there and it's light here, so I thought I'd search here."

New York · from the interview

His practice: unconditional

Beneath the striving is a sense of lack we try to fill by achieving. Notice the stories you're telling yourself, he says, and happiness stops being something you earn later — it becomes available now.

"What you really want is to be happy — unconditionally, and for it to last."

New York · from the interview

Connect & follow

Explore Srikumar's work

Creativity and Personal Mastery

From the conversation

Srikumar Rao, in his words

Video interview

The video interview is coming. Recorded interviews go live after the launch of the film & series Live Beyond.

Selected passages from our conversation with Srikumar Rao — in New York. Lightly edited for readability.

On not being a teacher

Srikumar Rao"Marek, I'd like to think of it as — I'm not really teaching anybody anything. I'm just sharing my life story and some of the lessons that I learned."

On desire

Srikumar Rao"You cannot give up the desire for smoking. If somebody else lights up in your presence, there's an instant flash — 'yeah, I'd like a cigarette too.' So what I tell everyone who comes to my programs is: you cannot give up desire. Desire has to give you up. And that's a very powerful and profound statement — when people sit with it, they say, yes, that's true."

On the billion-dollar company

Srikumar Rao"I lecture to entrepreneurs and ask: how many would like to run a ten-million-dollar company? Hands go up. A hundred million? Hands go up. A billion? Every hand goes up. Then I invite them to think. You don't want the billion-dollar company. You don't even want the feeling you'll have when you run it — you want the feeling you think you'll have, and the only route you can see to that feeling is to actually run it. So you get up and strive and go through all the pain of it."

On the man under the streetlamp

Srikumar Rao"There was a man in faultless evening clothes searching under a street lamp. A jogger stopped: 'What happened?' 'I dropped my car keys.' They searched a while and found nothing. 'Where did you drop them?' 'Over there.' 'Then why are you searching here?' And the man said: 'It's dark over there and it's light here, so I thought I'd search here.'"

On the sense of lack

Srikumar Rao"You understand that's supposed to be a joke — but it's really what we're doing in our lives. We have a sense of lack, a sense of neediness; we don't feel full and complete. And we try to fill that gap by doing things, by achieving. I want more money, I want to be famous, I want people to know me, I want to rise up the hierarchy."

More passages from the full interview will be published here.

Continue the quest

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Srikumar sits at Longevity Basics on the Longevity Map — mindset, purpose and meaning. Here are others on the quest, and the full cast of 100+.

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SrikumarRao

The teacher of unconditional happiness

An afternoon in New York

The feeling you're really after

Straight from the interview

His view: desire, understood

Where we search

His practice: unconditional

Explore Srikumar's work

Srikumar Rao, in his words

On not being a teacher

On desire

On the billion-dollar company

On the man under the streetlamp

On the sense of lack

More minds on the quest

Srikumar
Rao