Career Advice May 7, 2010, 1:14PM EST

Q&A with Srikumar S. Rao

How can you enjoy life when you're wearing a sweater in 90-degree weather? The author of Happiness at Work explains it all

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Srikumar S. Rao, PhD, author of Are You Ready to Succeed? and the just published Happiness at Work has some unusual ideas about how people can experience more fulfilling lives—both personally and professionally—that he has been teaching in his MBA-level class, Creativity and Personal Mastery. Among his beliefs: There is no separation between our professional and personal selves/lives, and we can radically change the way we experience life by using various techniques that he teaches, such as doing exercises in alternate reality and reevaluating the notion of what is a good thing vs. a bad thing.

He recently spoke with Businessweek.com Management Editor Patricia O'Connell about this new book and his work. (O'Connell is an alumna of Creativity and Personal Mastery, which has been taught at various institutions including Columbia Business School, London Business School, the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley, and Long Island University). Edited excerpts of their conversation follow.

There is no arguing that a lot of people are unhappy and dissatisfied at work and disengaged. What is the connection between the level of disengagement people have at work and the disengagement and unhappiness they have with their lives overall?

I don't believe that you have a work life and a home life. I believe that you have one life, and either it's working or it isn't working.

I have had the benefit of taking your class and reading both of your books, which many of our readers won't have had. If you could sum up the important takeaway, especially in Happiness at Work, what would that be?

We have the ability to craft a life where we are completely fulfilled. We think it is dependent on outsiders and to some extent it is, but it is much more dependent on the attitude we bring to life.

One of the things you focus on is that you want people to stop labeling things as bad. I have a hard time characterizing the death of a loved one as not a bad thing. I have a hard time not characterizing losing my job and being worried about paying my mortgage as a bad thing. How do you respond to sentiments like that?

If something comes that it is so extreme that you have difficulty thinking of it as a good thing, don't think of it as a good thing and kid yourself. To the extent that you can, don't label it a bad thing. Refusing to label something a bad thing opens you up to possibilities you would not have even considered otherwise.

Can you give me a concrete example?

Someone losing their job is a perfect example. Of course there are practical considerations about needing money, etc. But if you think about losing your job not as a bad thing but an opportunity to do something that brings you great joy and fulfillment, you are already better off. People look for evidence to support their beliefs, whatever those beliefs are.

You go into corporations and work with people who probably are making distinctions between their work selves and their personal selves, What do people in corporations tend to have the most trouble grasping in terms of what you are teaching?

Many of them are so used to having compartmentalized lives it's hard for them to give that up and realize that they have to be authentic—live their whole life one way. They tell me that when they have made this effort, they feel much more at peace.

Do you find that there is one specific aspect of your teaching that is easiest for them to embrace?

Alternate reality is something that is extremely powerful, and I would say that when I teach a program, somewhere between half and two-thirds of the people have their big breakthrough doing that exercise.