Anurag Agarwal

02:42 Thank you Gaurav, for inviting me. I'm excited to have this conversation. 02:53 Would it be okay if I can call you Anurag or Mr. Agarwal or whatever? 02:56 feel free, Anurag is better. Anurag is much better. And let me just start saying that I'm no longer a CEO. Now I have, we have a CEO now, a mentor and a leader, probably at 40,000 feet high now. 03:14 Thank you. Thank you for mentioning that. Anurag you're the third generation 03:21 in this business. 03:23 And what do you think what traits that you have inherited, from your ancestors, from your father, from your grandfather, that continue to guide you to run this business so effectively today as well? 03:38 So traits is what you're saying? This, this reminds me of a conversation I had with my father. This is almost 40 years back when I was just completed my graduation and came back after completing and I asked you know, I was having a conversation with him and he asked me he says, What do you want to do? So, I said I want to assist you. And he said, I have too many assistants, one more will not help. And okay, then I asked him, What should I do? So he narrated incident to me, which he and his father had long time back. You know, we belong to a small city called Saharanpur. And both my father and my grandfather were traveling in that rickshaw, which is pulled by a human being. And incidentally, they were crossing, you know, the ITC factory in Saharanpur. So, at that moment, my grandfather asked my father, what do you want to do in life? Similar question, a similar question. 05:03 And the history repeated, 05:05 taken aback by the sudden question, he looked around and he said, I want to be an owner of a factory like ITC. So my grandfather instantly asked him Is that the, you know, what do they make? And he says, yes, they make cigarettes. This what cigarette does to the people? Who said, he kept him thinking saying cigarette harms the people? And he said, Would you like to be an owner of an institution which harms the people. And that was a very powerful question, which came from a wise man. And he explained that how the life needs to be lived. 05:55 While the benefit. And from that 06:01 incident, what it told me is that our life should actually ADD VALUE to the lives of the SOCIETY should add value to the LIVES OF OTHER HUMAN BEINGS. It should do everything but not do anything which will harm or which will bring misery to the other fellow people, including animals for that matter. Every other living being should get benefited from our existence is what I could gather from the conversation he had. And that was very, very profound for me. And looking back it, never a second thought came that we should live our life in a different manner than this way. 06:48 And that stayed with you know, it does not appear that anything less than a movie script, because we have only seen that in movies. But when it's happening to you in your in front of your eyes, it definitely leaves an impact, and which is long lasting. So thank you so much, Anurag. And I know the kind of work that your organization is involved into, in fact, Natural Remedies is India's number one herbal veterinary health care company and in fact, also made it foray into the world of human health and the health care products offer a perfect recipe for improving the quality of life to its customers. 07:34 And I'm not surprised by the kind of work that you are involved in, and how grounded the goals of this organization is into real purpose and values. Anurag when one is born with a silver spoon, when one is born in a business family. A lot of things are accessible to him, or her for that matter. The accessibility of money, the accessibility of power, the accessibility of resources, the accessibility of influence. Now, what do you think? How has your relationship with money with power with influence with visibility changed in all these years from when you started your journey to where you are today? So what shifts have you noticed? 08:28 Very interesting. In fact, if I reflect back and see how the life started, so we came from a small town, the business was small, it wasn't easy. I would say that there was no silver spoon. But yes, we had the benefits of all basic necessities. I remember my father used to, you know, drive his cycle, to go to work, where he used to take this Jadibootis, and get them grinded in atta chaki place which we used to hire for a day because we couldn't afford our own, you know, grinding machines or grinding facilities. So those were the days when we started with that activity. So I've seen from the very young age, that life was not easy. Life was difficult, and it was competent. So that's how it appeared to me. But over a period of time, I would say with the grace of the universe, we have been a very blessed, blessed family, you know, the things keep improving day by day, day by day and we are here today where we are, and I would say that we are truly blessed. So what has shifted from then to now is, one, that there is a feeling of tremendous blessings from the universe. And there's never feeling of a shortage it looks like everything is in abundance. And it's the mindset which we all you know, which we bring in, which creates the shift between life is difficult and hard to or probably. I've been blessed I can say that way. So, we can all be, we can all be thriving, and growing. In spite of competition, actually competition is in our brain. And there are so many such thoughts which are going in my head probably the time permits I'll share, shifting from competition to collaboration. 11:00 Yeah, you know, what I'm also listening is at one point in time and you mentioned that there was a sense of competition there was a sense of that we may not have enough to where you are today when you're saying that life is a blessing I'm also listening that how at the mindset has shifted from one which is very restricted mindset to a mindset of abundance from life is competition. And run reminds me of 3 Idiots movie that Run Run Run, or somebody is going to trip your somebody's going to push you right to where you are today. And you think that we can always collaborate you know, recently one of the one of those photographs, which is buzzing on internet is Roger Federer's photograph when he is when he just played his last match and how, right it's not competition, competition is not that we are rivals competition could be you know, we could be best friends and yet compete with each other, 11:55 you know, Anurag 11:59 Coming back to the power that I was talking about, it's very easy to get smitten by the lust, and the comfort of power and luxury respectively. So on one hand, 12:12 as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, 12:17 you get a lot of power, and you get a lot of comfort as well, that could bring in and you get a lot of luxury How do you ensure that you stay grounded, and yet mobile, because I've always seen you making sincere efforts involved making sure that we provide the best to the organization and to your team. So how do you ensure to stay grounded and mobile without getting stuck with the light and the glittering charm of this lust? 13:02 So honestly, actually, I had a benefit of recognizing that we have, as a human being, we are actually in a chakravyuh. When I'm saying in a chakravyuh, what I mean is a space where you are surrounded by challenges. And how I see our lives is that it goes through happy and unhappy moments, within a day, throughout the day, and keeps happening again and again. And when I pondered a word as to what is happening, and what gives us happiness, and what makes us feel unhappy, I could realize that if externally things which I perceive as good happens, I’m happy, you know, I'm related. And if externally things which to my perception are not good. Or if something which I don't want happens, I am unhappy, irrespective of who you are, whether you are rich, whether you're entrepreneur, you're whether you are office boy, whether you're a prime minister of a country, whoever you are, you are in that chakra view, chakra view of feeling unhappy, happy, feeling unhappy, happy. So what I've realized is that actually it is not in our control. Today, we are living a life within a chakravyuh because whatever is happening outside is influencing my internal environment is to how am I feeling inside and till the time that that breaks out. TILL THE TIME YOU CAN DISASSOCIATE YOURSELF AS TO WHATEVER HAPPENS, GOOD OR BAD OUTSIDE. MY INTERNAL WELL BEING OR MY FEELING GOOD IS IN MY CONTROL, I THINK WE ARE SLAVES. Now I sincerely felt that. So actually the power and all that money or all that luxury I could afford today never excited me because I gain that realization that look. Even if you have luxury, it is outside, and it will make you feel if you spend that money, isn't it? So what is inside me, inside me is dependent upon what is outside. So with that realization, actually, it never really fascinated me. Yeah. Yeah, I therefore feel really blessed that I don't have to be worried about my basic necessities, my children's my family's basic necessity, not that they are dependent on me, they are on their own very accomplished people. But now I sit back and see, what is the purpose of my life? How can I make a difference in the lives of people? Yeah. 16:19 You know, it reminds me that how money and power could be. I mean, chasing money and power could be like, getting into a bottomless pit. There is no end to that, you know, reminds me of what Jim Carrey said that I think, “Everyone should get rich and famous, and do everything that they ever dreamed of. So they can see that it's not the answer.” And what I'm listening is how it's a vicious circle, that THE MORE YOU CHASE, THE MORE YOU REALIZE THAT LESS YOU HAVE. And the more more you realize that the less you have. The Chase continues. Right. And it's a vicious circle, it's a as you use the word, happiness and sorrow is dependent on something else. So it's a you know, affinity and aversion, you get into that space. You know, and very interestingly, every time when I meet people, be it somebody who's sitting at a C suite level, somebody who's young, in an organization, or somebody who's the chairman or founder of an organization, I've realized that we all have some or the other pattern, what I call it, the hook that we get stuck with. And it becomes extremely difficult to break that mindset. Now, the difficult part is unless you break that mindset we will never be able to experience growth in true sense. And when I'm saying growth in true sense, I'm talking about again, fulfillment, commitment, and gratitude in our lives, we'll never be able to experience that. What was that mindset for you that continued to drive your behavior? And how did you overcome that? 18:03 Okay, so, you know, reflecting back, not that I'm out of it, still, but I still probably have a better awareness of what is happening to me. And there is a bit of a sense of reflecting and checking what is happening inside me with whatever is happening outside me. 18:25 It's like you have learned how to tame that beast. Yeah. 18:31 So with the life started, and I joined the business, and as in all businesses, there are objectives taken for a year, and you start chasing goals, you start chasing targets. And I felt that it's a pressure cooker life, it is a never ending pressure of targets, achievements, fear of failures, and you go through those ups and downs, when it is achieved, you're on top of everything. When it is not achieved, you're down and out. And you see that happening to every other person around you. So you felt that that's how the life is that you will feel happy when you get what you want. And you will feel unhappy when something what you don't want happens. So that's how the life was for me almost for 30 years of mine, or maybe 28 years of my life. So it's that slowly. You know, I realized that probably, I WAS PROTECTING MY IMAGE or something like that. I know that I'm competent, I'm capable of doing something which was there, which was to be lost. You know, there was always a fear of losing something, which then you're chasing constantly and then you are fearful actually I realized that there are those butterflies in your stomach when you know that something can go wrong. AND I REALIZED THAT SOMETHING CAN GO WRONG AT ANY POINT OF TIME AT EVERY POINT OF TIME. SO THEN LIVE YOUR LIFE WITH THAT FEAR FOR ALWAYS BECAUSE SOMETHING CAN GO WRONG. IF YOU JUST DON'T FOCUS ON IT, YOU FEEL IT, IT HAS GONE. BUT IF YOU ACTUALLY LOOK AT IT, SOMETHING CAN GO WRONG. EVEN NOW, THIS MOMENT, WHEN I'M SITTING IN MY HOTEL, WHAT CAN GO 20:30 WRONG? NO IDEA. 20:34 SO REALIZING THAT, THAT PROTECTING MY IMAGE, LIVING WITH FEAR, LIVING WITH PRESSURE WASN'T A JOYFUL EXPERIENCE IT, IT WAS NOT FULFILLING, IT IS NOT JOYFUL, WHATEVER YOU ACHIEVE IN LIFE, BUT YOU'RE STILL IN THAT CHAPTER. 20:53 And cannot be a fulfilling experience. Because when I'm listening is the moment I'm trying to protect an image for myself, it's like I've already boxed myself. And living in a box. It's absolutely counterintuitive to freedom that we talk about. And freedom is possible only when I'm able to tap into my self expression. And when I'm trying to protect an image, what is getting compromised is self expression. Right? When I'm trying to protect myself, protect an image that I've created for myself and never be able to connect with people that I feel like connecting because that does not come in the algorithm of this image. Of course, that connection is getting compromised. And then of course, contribution is getting compromised. And anytime, when one of these three things are getting compromised, you feel suffocated. You know, so this is the hook that we spoke about. Now, let's take one step forward, as I as I often share, that unless you are living your life, from your values and your purpose, you will never experience that fulfillment and happiness. And interestingly, in all our conversations, you have spoken about Gaurav and how it's so important for you, for me to be useful to others, to your team members. And I've seen you investing so much time and energy on your team members. So many times you've spoken about how happiness is really important to you. Now, have you experienced a moment in your life, that you were going through ups and downs, where life appealed difficult to you, and you chose to live your life from your values of being useful, being of some service and spreading happiness for self and others? 22:37 So this reminds me of an incident and we got a mail from our partner business partner from Taiwan. And he narrated kind of trouble he is in because he recommended a product to a customer. And he had incidentally shared that he wants to basically try out our product in in, you know, the colors in Taiwan. And this product was meant for poultry. So we told him that look, we have no experience of using this product. Now, logically, if it is good for poultry, it should be good for camel. But since we don't have any experience, we would not recommend you to basically use till we have experienced it, give us some time we'll probably see what we can do and try it out in our own environment. Nevertheless, he chose he chose to try that product and offer that product to the customer and he sold that product to the customer. And three months later, the customer came back with saying that his milk became bitter. And after a lot of exercise, they realized that this is one substance they have added in their in their animal feed which is made the product bitter. So they actually blamed him and us for you know, creating this difficulty for him and his customer. And they put him a demand of $100,000 saying you know this is the least I can do for you because you're ruining my reputation you're doing this you have ruined my name and all that and I have lost so much of milk and I have now I have to return this money to my customers so you please give me this money. And we would have sold some to $2-3,000 worth of material in my distributor would have sold probably our business partner would have sold. So you know we as a team was very confident saying we have already told you not to try. Right, and you have chosen to try. But then I reflected on I said, now our partner is in difficulty. Now we can very well wash off our hands from this episode because you did that We didn't tell you to do it. But then I realized that this is that testing moment where we call ourselves as partner. You know, I'm choosing the word partner, because I don't want to use the word distributor. But if you truly believe that you are a partner, then we’ll when they are in difficulty, you need to stand by them. Yeah, you carry the load together, all said and done, he used your product. Yeah, he is not using some other product. So probably it would be more appropriate if he was in difficulty. And I want didn't want to support him if it was something else. But this is using our product. As a as an organization, we said, okay, 26:04 let's share this burden. And 26:09 when our when I shared this to my team. First of all, they were shocked, actually, they were feeling that, you know, why are you doing it? It's not needed? Because we are not responsible for what has happened. Yeah, so I said, it's not who's responsible. It's about giving the feeling that we are together, or he's alone, and he is vulnerable on his own. Beautiful. So we reimburse that 50%. And we share that burden, not that we took the burden. That left him so much in awe of the company saying wow, this is an organization, which truly believes in partnership. And after that, there's no looking back, there's no negotiation for 27:04 price ever. Because he believes that 27:07 we will give him what is due to Him, and we will never do anything, which is unreasonable to him. So he doesn't need to be negotiating with us. We just need to collaborate with us so much of trust. Now with that one incident that his trust is to me, are greater than $50,000, or whatever it was. 27:27 Yeah. So the question that we need to ask is, What am I chasing? am I chasing the money and the profits and the revenue? And there's nothing wrong in chasing that as well. But what am I chasing? Is credibility, delivering value excellence, I think that's extremely important, because in our business as well, when people ask me, how do you ensure that you deliver value? And how do you show that you're not charging more than what people are charging, I tell them, You know what I charge more than what most of the coaches charge in the country today. But when when people don't see value, I don't charge them even a single penny for all the investment of the time and energy that we are bringing. And in fact, there have been instances in the past 10-12 years back when we could not deliver value, and we did not charge our client. And above that, we ended up investing two more days for the same client. I think, every time these small gestures when you bring that it only strengthens your credibility with your partners as you use the word. So thank you. And Anurag it's not that you have been like this with your external stakeholders or with your business partners. I have seen you walking on the same path, similar paths with your team members as well. Be it investing on your team members, be it investing on your C suite executive team beat investing on your middle management, I've seen you investing time, money energy on them. What's your motivation behind that? Because most of the companies, they invest on skill enhancement, very rare I've come across people who are genuinely invested in their teams. 29:13 Okay. 29:15 So, you know, I'm reminded of an incident which took place, one of our 29:24 senior guy 29:27 he was in hospital actually. And he got some disease which could take away his life. And he shared from Hyderabad he said, Sir, this is what has happened. This is what is diagnosed. And I'm shit scared. I may lose my life. And I don't know what will happen to my wife and my children. And I could feel the DEEP INSECURITY WHICH HE WAS EXPERIENCING AT THAT MOMENT INSIDE HIM. And it automatically came out and I didn't even think about it. And I just said that to him, he says, 30:15 Reddy, YOUR CHILDREN 30:19 WILL BE TAKEN CARE BY ME, AS MY OWN CHILDREN. YOUR FAMILY WILL BE MY FAMILY, IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO 30:29 YOU. So please, now it's time for you to relax. 30:40 And forget this worry which you're carrying. I'm here for you and your family. And let's wish that nothing goes wrong with you. And you'll get over this crisis. And Gaurav, I felt amazing inside me with that conversation with him. And he sent a text to me. 31:11 How relieved and 31:15 what difference that conversation made to him at that moment. 31:22 I can relate to that. And that gave me a feeling. 31:27 That skill is important for people to perform. But if you you know, it gives me Let me take an analogy of a tree. See, skill is like you're doing something over the ground of a tree. Whatever you do, you make them trim you, you apply something, you do something, it's all about, above the ground. What people are looking at today is support below the ground, you need to nurture their roots. You need to give them that sense that there is somebody who deeply cares for them. And they are here not alone in life. And we are there together in this journey. Yes. Today he's, he's there in trouble tomorrow I can be in trouble. No, my family can be in trouble. Will he stand by me? After this incident? Probably. Yeah. Yeah, probably yes. That he would care for my family as he would care for his family. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So that's the connect human needs to create with each other. And not just, you know, when you say we care for people, and we give them skill development, it's all above, you know, it's good. Nice. But it doesn't connect with the heart. Actually, it is what it is. It is very, I give you this what you give me back, you know, I give you this, you give me growth. 33:11 Yeah, yeah. so what a beautiful analogy, 33:13 reality what a transitional reality. 33:16 It's a beautiful analogy that you have used Are you investing on the fruits? Or are you investing on the roots? And that's a question that I'm asking myself? Do I connect with my team members at the human level? Or at the skill level? Absolutely. am I providing them or whatever is being provided to them through me, because of what they contribute to the organization. And I'm no way saying that's not important. That's equally important, because at the end of the day, revenue profits, that's the that's the blood in the organization, and without that the business might not be able to survive. But the question is, are we keeping the basic values or commitment or team members alive in our journey with them, you know, just shifting the gears and rock? On one hand, it's your responsibility to take care of the profits. It's your responsibility to take care of the revenue as well. But as your organizational as your organization stands for, how do you ensure that you continue to walk on that tightrope of delivering values to your stakeholders? 34:39 and paying your dues 34:40 to Mother Earth? Because people are talking about environment people are talking about sustainability, people are talking about governance. So business has certain responsibilities and duties towards ESG. How are you balancing that? How are you walking on that tightrope? 35:05 So, very, very important question. But let me tell you, I'm very fortunate. So the ownership of the company is with the family. And therefore I don't have, I would say, zero pressure, what we have already created itself is so, so powerful that the family members don't expect anything more as a shareholders from us. No, they're saying, can they can we all put together live a life which is beyond self. So I can share with you some of the things which we do, like we have bought a piece of land, which was completely barren, some time back, it was in 2005, or six, or somewhere around that . And then when we took that place, it was complete, barren land. And what we did after taking, we planted, I don't remember exactly, but we just filled that hole eighty six acres of place with trees. And now if you come it’s such a beautiful green area, where, you know, you can see the butterflies flying, you could see so many kinds of life, which are thriving in that space. And when I go there, I feel a sense that I was also part of making this a great for so many lives to thrive and survive in that space. And it gives me tremendous satisfaction when I visit the premises every, every now and then, and gives me a lot of fulfillment. Apart from that, I also recollect when once we were, we introduced a product into the market. And we told our team, we said, Look, 37:09 you know, 37:12 Can we do one thing that can we every bottle we sell of this product, Can we provide a glass of milk to our underprivileged child? Then I was told that over a period of next three months, some 40,000 glasses of milk was provided, wow,to the children in in the underprivileged places, tradition, we used an NGO to basically and we clicked the photographs, and we showed it with people because they were the ones who created that 40,000 glasses. It's not the organization which created it's the people who are working on the field, when they generated every sale of every bottle. Did they actually provided a glass of milk to the underprivileged child? 38:06 What a contribution! What a contribution! And we it's not only 38:11 Yeah, sorry, we also today, you know, contribute to some of the NGOs, there is one Diyaghar, which takes care of underprivileged children. So we sponsor some education for the children. And there is one very interesting, you know, NGO, or one of the largest I have come across in the in the country. And that is ‘Ekal’ foundation. If you go and go on to the website, you will see that and, you know, they have, they're contributing to more than 100,000 schools across the rural India. Wow. And they are now going through in terms of now class, if they saying we have reached the numbers now, can we look at the quality of it. So they have now r rated their 60,000 schools to be, you know, to the satisfaction level of what they have. So we contribute 200 schools, you know, every year, and we wish to increase that contribution more, because we recognize that it is not for you, when you live, you are happy. It's when you live beyond self, which gives you tremendous happiness and fulfillment, because then you truly believe that I'm the one who's privileged. So, since I'm privileged, Why has God given me the opportunity to be privileged? It means that he expects that we who are privileged, will behave in the manner where we can fulfill his wishes to be contributing in some manner to the people who are not so privileged. 40:02 I think that's your essence of life. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. 40:10 Anurag, thank you so much for sharing what it means for you to tap into your life. 40:14 Just a last question here. And as I was 40:21 just listening to you, it's not only you are contributing, you're making sure that the entire team come together to contribute. And you know, as they often share, that the team is a reflection of who you are as a leader, you also mentioned that you've already handed over the baton of the CEO to another person. And what's the next phase of Anurag look like? 40:44 Okay, so I think I want to be the conscious keeper of the institution. And I'm repeatedly sharing with the team saying, Why do we exist? So useful is the mother value of the organization we exist. And if you look around what has been valued by people, whoever is useful, is valuable. So if you look at in the nature, sun is valuable, because sun is useful. So if you want to become valuable in life, then become useful, a very simple fundamental. So that's how I'm helping people to get to this essence of life saying that you need to live beyond self and till the time you are living for yourself, you are actually a part of that chakravyuh, which I am talking about. Constantly keep going up and down. It's, do you want to come out of it than you need to live beyond it. 41:50 Yeah, yeah. This is so beautiful. I read it somewhere. And as I'm just listening to you, it reminds me of that book. It says the tongue has never tasted itself. eyes have never seen 42:03 themselves. Nose cannot smell herself. And it's of no relevance. If you're only consuming yourself. The question is, 42:12 how could you be of service to others? Thank you so much Anurag for your time. 42:17 Just one more point. If it is not too late, I think we are already late. 42:22 Please go ahead. No, we have a couple of questions as well for you. By the way. Yeah. 42:25 So what really happened is that, you know, while I was going through this transition and transformation, myself, of reflecting and understanding, while all was given to us from the ancestors as to why but you need to discover within you Why should you do it? If they have done it doesn't mean that you should also do it. You need to discover it within you as to how is it important to you? It may be important to them, but how why is it important to you? So what I realized is that it's important to share these thoughts with people, it's important to help people experience the joy of these values. So what we did created transformation groups in the company and I actually personally leading that whole initiative and the organization's already 70 years old. And then some of the people share their stories as to how those vision and values and competencies are transforming them personally. You know, you can feel the goosebumps in your own body when I'm narrating it, I can feel the goosebumps today, I'm 43:40 sure I can see that on your on your face. And it gives you a deeper level of deeper level of fulfillment and happiness that you cannot buy. You cannot get it in the fruits. Yeah.And I always keep reminding, everyone saying failure, teaches equally as a success teaches us. Failure teaches us more, So by no means, feel failures is bad for life. Failures, in a way, is equally empowering experience as a success. So when we don't look at failures as something bad, it doesn't give us discomfort. It doesn't bring unhappiness to us, actually, it tells us that there is something to learn and pick up from there. And we'll try again, then you are no longer in that, you know, in that pain of failing and succeeding, failing and succeeding, you are living your life. Failure is an experience. Success an experience. And we are here to experience life and grow in life. Anurag, thank you so much for sharing those deep insights, your wisdom, your experiences with all of us, I think it's an absolute pleasure and an honor to be here with you. 47:21 Gaurav I thoroughly enjoyed this 45-50 minutes with you, and I hope that how I'm feeling inside all the time, you know, it's just a blessing to be living your life in this position. And I thank the universe to be so blissful to us. 47:41 Shukran! thank you so much, sir.