Astha: Welcome to the show Anish. So we’ll start with our first question which is basically telling us about the very beginning. The start. How was your life like your childhood aspirations, your career beginnings and your education so that our podcast listeners will have an idea about who Anish is minus the entrepreneur in him.

Anish: Sure. Astha and thanks for giving me an opportunity to be here and share my life journey with you and your listeners. So I belong to a place called Lucknow and I come from a typical middle class family. My dad was in government service and my mom was a homemaker. So my journey started when I did my graduation from IIT rookie way back in 94 and then did a typical corporate stand for the next almost three decades. So during that I did my MBA, worked in different roles for many years, worked with Fortune Five companies doing project deliveries for a billion dollar conglomerate. A typical corporate journey that you can imagine for an engineer plus MBA background. So nothing specific during those initial years of my journey. Very straightforward. Okay. So that continued for quite some time. So what happened was that when I was on that journey, I always felt Astha that there is something that was really missing from my life. You get up in the morning, go to work all day, you have these emergencies, business pressure, work pressure. The end of the day, what is it that you are doing? And that thought right from the beginning of my when I started my working, that used to be always there troubling me at one end.

That is what is really going on, what life is all about. So I come from a background where there’s a lot of philosophical discussion that used to happen in philosophy. Like I’m an ardent follower of Bhagavita. So I do take Bagita classes, weekly classes for the Masters. And they are also connected with what I was doing versus what the life journey should be. So I could see a mismatch out there. So what really brings a contentment piece to an individual? So that thought was always there in my mind. Okay, so right from the initial years, the seed was planted in terms of looking at myself, introspecting and seeing the meaning of the life journey which then manifested years later into what I’m currently doing.

Astha: Right. That’s really great. And I was coming to the next question itself. You know, when did the big day come to your career, which is like your AHA moment when you decided to be an entrepreneur and start your own business?

Anish: I say in all fairness, there was no AHA movement. Okay, I’ll tell you, a friend of mine is not a hero story or anything. So there’s no one specific AHA movement that the switch suddenly or the bulb suddenly flashed in my mind. I quit my job and started working. Nothing. If I was a graduate as I said, the seed was planted quite early to do something beyond then just a corporate slavery. Unless the corporate work that you’re doing day in, day out. So that germinated that grew up over a period of time. So it was a natural progression to move into an area that really connected with me right now. I started doing the work which I’m into coaching, into career mentoring. Right during my working days in an informal manner, people would come to me, we would discuss, especially from a children’s perspective. So I started doing my working days itself, so a lot of my colleagues would come to me, we would discuss their child’s future. So how do we really go about inculcating values into the children? It’s not about teaching them what or how. It’s a question of why right focusing on that why had already started making. People aware of this had already started a long time back, but then it was a natural progression to make that as a full fledged purpose of my life.

And that’s how the gradual shift happened, right.

Astha: So you were saying that it happened a little back when people started realizing. Do you think that you faced a certain amount of challenge to let people know that you are going across a mundane life and there is a different way to your life? Did you find it difficult to make people realize that?

Anish: No. The reason being what I realize, each one of us, we are an enlightened soul. We know this, right. It’s just the question of accepting and being aware about it. So the struggle was not in making people believe that there is a reason, there is a reason, there is a purpose in everybody’s life, because everybody knows it. It was ensuring that I become an enabler to meet people or let people get aware of itself. It is just being there as a guide, as someone who’s a Navigator. Not more than that. It’s not required. Each one of us, you, me, each one of us, we already are aware of, I would say we are what we are. It’s the lack of awareness and acceptance. That’s really where the challenge comes. So when the awareness happens, the acceptance happens. So make people aware. That’s the first step. It’s spreading awareness, it’s making people aware and letting them figure it out themselves. Don’t need to push them, you just need to lodge them. Go ahead, ask them.

Astha: So tell us about how you came up with the idea of doing something like Krescon and execute the idea?

Anish: Sure. So let me just go back here. Let’s look at this word, Krescon. Okay, so you know the organization that we run is called Krescon Coaches, right. So Krescon is made up of two words, Kresco and consciousness, right. So Kresco is a word that means to grow. So Krescon is to grow with consciousness.

Astha: Oh, that’s beautiful.

Anish: Okay, so that’s how Genesis, the creation of this word happened. Krescon. Okay, so the purpose, the first thing is, what is the why of Krescon, right? What is our reason? We define our purpose as creating Legends. Then the next question comes in. Ask, who is a legend? How do you define a legend? So we believe that any person who leaves a meaningful legacy behind is a legend. So look at any legend around you, any living legend around you. They would have created a legacy. The focus would not be on the work, on the business, on the task, on what they are doing. The focus would be on creating a legacy. The moment you leave a meaningful legacy behind, you become a legend. That legacy, Asta is your identity.

Astha: Yeah. The legacy you leave behind.

Anish: Correct. But there are certain prerequisites to even go on to this legacy. The first prerequisite or the most important is to have the attributes thought process of a leader. Of a true leader. What we call the connection of leadership. Which is the servant leadership to have that thought. So we started with Krescon grooming. The leaders in there need to become a legend. And that’s the process at response coaches. So that’s what our purpose is. That’s what we have defined. The reason for our existence is our legacy that we are leaving behind.

Astha: Right. Anish, I want you to tell us about how you help your clients basically uncover what they have not discovered yet on the basis of objectives.

Anish: Sure. Astha, let me ask you here and I’m going to ask you. You’ve come across this word called VIP, right. What does VIP stand for?

Astha: Very important person.

Anish: How do you define a very important person? A person. Very important person. How do you define that? So what we believe in, ask her what VIP stands for. What makes a person VIP is who’s clear about his value system, number one. Number two, he or she knows the identity that he wants to create for himself or herself which defines the purpose for existence. So if your values, identity and purpose are clear, you become a VIP, right. It’s not the power, position, money, it’s the value, identity and purpose that defines who a VIP is so expressed upon us how we start with helping people become aware about their value systems. Value systems are the fundamentals, the foundation. You got a tripod stand on which you put a camera. These are the legs of that tripod stand. These are the values on which everything is based upon.Systems are weak, the foundation is weak. The superstructure cannot stand for long. So step number one, identify the values. Get onto the identity creation. What is my identity? How do I discover what that identity is which is linked to my legacy? Okay. And number three, the purpose.

Astha: The why that you were referring to.

Anish: Why? Correct. Once you have these three defined, you become a VIP. But that’s not the end of the story. There is still one element missing us.

Astha: Okay. I’m curious to know what that is?

Anish: So who is a VVIP? You’ve come across a VVIP, right?

Astha: Right. So it becomes a very, very important person.

Anish: Correct. And can you take a guess here what that we stand for in our terminology of values, identity, purpose, what the next week is all about? Take a guess. Now your vision gets aligned to your values, identity and purpose. That’s what makes a person a complete leader. And once you have reached that stage where your vision, values, identity and purpose are all aligned, you are ready to embark on the legacy creation process.

Astha: Right. So these are the steps, basically. Like, I’ll not call steps, but realisation is probably correct.

Anish: And this is where the awareness comes in. So Krescon is all about growing with consciousness. Like I said earlier, be aware, making people aware about the importance of values, importance of the identity, the purpose, the big why. We keep on hearing about the big why from Simon Sinek. But that’s the core. And even if you look at our Astro philosophy or bid on it everywhere, they talk about why. And it’s transformative, it connects, it’s fundamental. That’s the basic fabric of our existence.

Astha: Right? Yeah. So Anish, I’ll come to the next question, which is basically knowing about what is your specialized series that you run which helps the youth leaders and might as well help our entrepreneurs. So will you be able to help us explore your set of series that you’re offering? 

Anish: Sure. So let’s go back. So this is the basis of existence, as I explained to you, the vision, values, identity and purpose. The first thing we do is for the leaders of what I call about grooming, the leaders, which is a program we run called the Pinnacle Program. Okay. So this program, unlike any other leadership development program that you would see all around, is a six month program. It’s not a short program. But we realized that you go and attend a workshop for two days or three days. The hangover remains for a short time, but then it’s all back to square one, right. Okay. The effectiveness decreases over a period of time, and then you go and attend another workshop, another, let’s say one of the off sites or whatever that the organization or individual goes for. But there needs to be a far more deeper awareness to be created because anything that you learn should be put into practice. For it to be internalized, you cannot have any concept internalized till the time you practice it over a certain period of time for it to really be there with you. Okay. Your competencies need to develop at a level where you absolutely happen, like in an auto mode for you. And that requires regular tracking, regular practice. So what we’ve did, what we have done is we have created this program called a Pinnacle Program, which is spread over a longer period of time of six months, where we take the concepts of leadership development one step at a time and we put those into action and we track it, being accountable to the change, being observed to the challenges one is facing when we are putting these concepts into the action, what type of roadblocks, obstacles, resistance that they are facing, resolving them one to one so that they are deeply entrenched into our day to day working into our behavior. That’s where a behavioral change happens. That’s where a transformation happens. So the other thing I would like to mention is this program is actually a unique program because what we are doing, we are combining the wisdoms from Vedanta from our bug initiates primarily based on Bhagavad Gita with the Western thinking.

Astha: It’s amalgamation of that.

Anish: It’s an amalgamation of that. Okay. Taking those key concepts from all the 18 chapters of Bhagavad Gita there are some amazing concepts. Okay. So, Bhagavada, if you refer to it as one of the I would say a phenomenal compilation on psychology, if somebody needs steady psychology, human psychology, the behavior, it’s an awesome reference to that, right. Okay. And Krishna, I always consider as the first true coach and Arjuna one of the best coaches you can ever get. So referring to that conversation is a coaching conversation that happened between Krishna and urging, using that as a base the concept that came out for supreme excellence or discovering our true self. The play has to be made on our strengths. Yes, everybody has weaknesses. All of us have weaknesses. The point is we should be aware of our weaknesses.

Ok. But we should make a play on our strength. Okay. And ensure that weaknesses, we work on the weaknesses to the extent where they don’t hamper our strengths. But that’s all I keep on giving the example. It’s like Saintanurkar. So he’s a great batsman. Why is he a great batsman? Because that’s his strength. And in a day, if he’s practicing for 18 hours or 15 hours, whatever number of hours, most of the time he’d be practicing, strengthening his strength.

He would not be doing wicket keeping or any other things which are not his strengths. He’s aware of those he could practice, make his play on his strengths. But then he should be aware of his strengths.

Same way here. So what we do is through this profiling, we help an individual to identify their strengths, also about their weaknesses, which is from an awareness perspective, but then make the place based on the strength and which is not dependent on one data point. This is multiple data points. So it’s not a single point of failure. But you know what I’ve collected from one set of data? Maybe I’ve just used a psychometric tool. Maybe the tool that I’ve used shows that the result I am getting is the best. So what it allows us when collecting data from the different data sources is that we eliminate the chances of errors which may come in from a single point of data.

So the probability of the result being accurate increases. Yeah. With the three sets of data points. And the important part being outside is so important because all your play, your career direction, your strategy, everything is based on this data that you have. Because what you’re doing is you’re making a play or you always make your play on the strength. So you need to be absolutely sure that on what you are basing your premise on, that premise itself is correct. Otherwise everything falls flat. So that’s why we use multiple data points. And the 360 Astro profiling is what is our starting point.

So whether it’s for transition coaching, succession coaching, or it is for leadership, grooming, legacy creation, everything has to start first by discovering about ourselves. Know your strengths, know your uniqueness. So even with the career mentoring that we do, that’s the next service offering, the last one, it’s the career mentoring. We do it for the children who are, let’s say, restarting from the child who’s moving from grade nine to grade ten. And we do it right up to the career coaching people who are looking for the second earnings after their retirement.

Okay. All this is based on this profiling as you collect, correct? Now think about it, Arthur. How does a child today, if you look at the way a child moves in the career progression of a child when he moves from grade ten to onwards So what happens is when he or she moves from grade ten to grade eleven you’re supposed to choose your stream right? Correct science, commerce, arts, humanities whatever it is, how do you choose today? So what happens is the parents and the child they’re also together maybe there’s a counselor from the school I can’t do math massive stuff so let’s take math out I’m not interested in humanities so let me take these subjects out I don’t like history I don’t like geography or whatever so whatever the left courses are what is the best combination I can make out of it right? And then I figure out after twelve what I would do yeah so twelve happens twelve comes in now the calculation starts because you are supposed to go to a College So let me do one thing let me just get the admission into the best College possible and figure out what I want to do in my life later so you enter into a College three years, four years whatever it is so during the last year again the anxiety starts coming in what next?

Hey you know what? Let me do one thing, let me forget the first job I can, then I’ll figure out what I want to do in my life right? Or you know what? I’m still not sure. Let me do one thing. Let me continue my studies and do my post graduation and then I’ll figure out what I want to do later. Yeah, I think the majority of youth function this way correctly? Yeah so you either take up a job or you do a post right? Right, okay what you’re doing? You are delaying I’ll figure out I’ll figure out or maybe someday like you asked me earlier AHA moment happens you know what? This is what I would like to write love to do yeah okay all you are governed by the environment, by the peer growth There are lot of startups happening Startups are the way let me start a startup right? Okay is that how a career should be planned? Definitely not Think about it yeah I think people waste a lot of years in dealing that and figuring out what exactly they want My question is I’m frankly not worried about the wasted years because frankly that’s not the check I’m more worried about the frustration, the anxieties it causes a person I have come across so many cases and I tried kids mid 20s almost in tears because of the stress they are not sure what they want to do in life It’s great to be in fluid state that’s absolutely fine but then have some clarity and how do you get that clarity?

You get that clarity when you do introspections instead of delaying everything, start introspecting and start understanding about yourself okay? That is what is required, that is what the profiling helps in, it’s not that it makes you rigid this way or no, this way. It’s a question to make you aware.

It’s increasing awareness so that once you’re aware, your decision making is far better. Yeah. You explore, the more you explore, the more expansion happens. Exploration is equal to expansion. Great. But your energy or should not get dissipated so much that it leads to fatigue, it leads to stresses, it leads to depression, it leads to people taking students, taking extreme steps out of frustration.

And that’s the pain point. So what happens is through this profiling, through this increasing awareness, then at least there is a thought process, a far more mature thinking process in terms of figuring out what should my life journey be? Yeah. It should be fun, it should be interesting, it should be a mystery. Agreed. But then at least it should have some direction to start with. And direction that is not based on elimination, based on selection, on a choice. And choices being made based on certain maturity, certain data points, not a finger in the ear. You know what? Ask the choice ahead of the month or the flavor of the time or flavor of the environment. So today the flavor is entrepreneur. Let me become an entrepreneur Bitcoin today, crypto is the way to go. So let me become a trip to us. But no, that’s not how it needs to play out, right.

Astha: Talking about figuring out the right direction to start with something substantial, I want you to answer basically the last question of the segment, which is your leadership mantra that you followed. And basically, what do you want to convey to our listeners who are potential entrepreneurs or who are still figuring out how to start their journey?

Anish: Know, how do they start their journey after the messages? Is there only one common universal message that I would like for your potential cast? I would like to share, communicate, or make people aware. Each one of us, we have the potential to become a legend. So if you are playing the game of life, play the game of life in such a way that when your end time comes, life stands up and tells you, well played, right?

Astha: Amazing.

Anish: Don’t consider life as a boss. It’s a game. So what happens in a game? Master. So today you go out and play a game. So either you’re going to lose or you’re going to win. So if the light beats you today, say to life, well played, I’ll come back tomorrow, right? Be, rest assured that if you beat the line, life is going to tell you that, hey, you’ve beaten me today. Well, great. I’m going to look back at it. But consider it as a game, not as a war. So the end of the game.

What happens is both the teams together, they celebrate. So celebrate with life. Whether you are defeated, whether you win. Because if you are defeated tomorrow, the light may defeat you. And if you get defeated tomorrow, you may defeat life. It doesn’t matter who’s defeating whom. What matters is tomorrow. You’re going to come back tomorrow into the game.

And that’s what playing the game of life is. And that’s what would make life salute you when your time ends. And that is what would make you into a legend. And that’s my leadership mantra.

Astha: Right. I’m glad that this podcast happened. Our entrepreneurs, finally I will say that listening to your legendary words have definitely enlightened us. And I hope our listeners find their internal stability and also rediscover how as a human being, they want to continue living their life. So thank you so much Anish, for this amazing podcast session, for giving us your precious time and finding it important to convey your messages to us and our listeners. So thanks once again for giving your time to us from KredX and from me personally.

Anish: My gratitude to you for inviting me here to be in broadcast and giving me this opportunity to share our thoughts, our purpose of what Krescon is all about. Thank you, Astha

Astha: Thank you. Thank you so much. It was a pleasure!