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Inspire Someone Today
Inspire Someone Today
E176 | What We're Really Investing In | Portfolio Life Series - Anu Seth
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Money can be the one topic we avoid the most, even while it shapes nearly every choice we make. We wanted to change that, so we invited Anu Seth, financial coach and co-founder of Paid Forward, for an honest conversation on financial confidence, leadership, and the portfolio life many of us are already living.
Anu shares how she became an “accidental investor” after starting out in technology, and why earning well is not the same as understanding money. We dig into compounding, investing basics, and the difference between being money-conscious and money-confident. Then we go deeper into the real obstacle most people face: the emotions around money. Scarcity mindset, shame around debt, fear of being cheated, and social comparison can quietly drive spending, saving, and even career decisions.
We also talk about women and financial agency, and why confidence grows only through participation and ownership. Anu brings the idea behind Pay It Forward to life: simplify personal finance, remove jargon, and make money a dinner table conversation. Along the way, she shares stories of setting boundaries, choosing long-term security over short-term pressure, and why “Middle India” needs financial education far more than another fancy product pitch.
The episode closes with practical steps you can try immediately: pause, write down what’s bothering you, list what you’re doing financially, and run a simple 90-day experiment by tracking every spend. If you want a calmer relationship with money and a clearer path through career transitions, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the conversation.
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Quiet Opening And Big Theme
SPEAKER_01I've had multiple career breaks, and in each of these breaks, uh Srikant, what happened was that it was my curiosity and learning mindset that would come in. A big shift was moving from short-term thinking on what's going to happen to my career to a long-term thinking that yes, I will make it. So, whatever no matter what comes my way, whether it's going to be straight or a curvy path, but I knew that I will make it. I have a bag full of stories. Um, but let me take on two. So, the first one is of a young girl. Uh, she was in her late 20s and the first time owner from her village. I think a career is not just about money, it's about the experiences that you've gathered through your life.
SPEAKER_00Not everything that matters needs to be loud. Some conversations help you pause, some help you see differently, and some stay with you long after they end. Welcome to Inspire Someone Today, my dear listeners. A space for honest conversations about life, work, and the choices that shape who we become. No quick fixes, no borrowed certainty, just real stories, thoughtful reflection, and the quiet courage to live with intention. This is Inspire Someone Today, where conversations are human, reflective, and meant to stay with you. Welcome back for yet another episode of this wonderful series that we've been running, the Portfolio Series. In this episode, we move into something even more personal. The connection between money, confidence, career choices, and the life we quietly build over time. It's an absolute joy to have Anu Seth, financial coach, co-founder of Pay It Forward, the chairwoman of CII, Indian Women Network Karnataka, for a deeply honest conversation on financial agency, leadership, life transitions, and what it really means to build confidence, just not wealth. It's an absolute joy, Anu, to have you Grace this episode of Inspire Someone Today.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much, Srikant, and it's indeed an honor to be on Inspire Someone Today. Uh, it's really the space to look out for, I think. Inspiration and role modeling is very close to my heart. So thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_00So we'll kick right in the portfolio series uh segment.
Becoming An Accidental Investor
SPEAKER_00And uh, I was intrigued with this thought that I read about you where it said that you are an accidental investor. We'll start from there. Why do you call yourself an accidental investor and what actually happened there?
SPEAKER_02It's very interesting that you picked that as the first question. Thank you so much. So interestingly, finance was never part of my career plan when I started.
SPEAKER_01I was completely uh enamored by technology. And I began my career uh with software and some leading technology firms. Investing entered my life quite accidentally, more through my own curiosity, confusion, and honestly the realization that even educated professionals like me often don't fully understand money. And somewhere along the way, you know, I realized that if so many capable people like me feel intimidated by money, maybe the problem was in people. Maybe the conversation around finance itself was unnecessarily, you know, complicated. So uh without this grand roadmap, I wasn't someone who grew up with uh reading market reports or planning a career in investing. I was simply trying to understand my own financial decisions better. And uh that's the realization that eventually led to my organization paid forward, and I called myself an accidental investor.
SPEAKER_00When did you actually kind of realize that earning money and understanding about money are two different set of things?
SPEAKER_01Honestly,
Saving Versus Understanding Compounding
SPEAKER_01I come from a very humble background, and I actually grew up being very money conscious. You know, budgeting, saving, being careful with what you're going to spend, and couple that with the convent education of always giving and uh being like, you know, uh sharing whatever you have. These were some habits which were deeply ingrained. So I would call myself financially responsible. It's only, you know, later on I realized there's a big difference between being money conscious and actually understanding, you know, how money grows or having money confidence. So I genuinely believed that, you know, hard work would get me there, getting a good salary or being in a good job would actually uh make wealth for me. Uh, I would save diligently, I would take care of safety and put some money away in uh fixed deposits and wanted to be financially secure. It's only when compounding really hit me. You know, it's something that we study in school in grade seven or eight, but both emotionally and um let's say even practically, compounding was really a black box. And it was uh in my late 20s that it really hit me that, you know, uh one needs to actually think about uh money growth as well. So I actually got into that much later.
Career Breaks As Learning Seasons
SPEAKER_00A very interesting um segue in the to make personally for you from Jabalpur to Bangalore, from being a techie, a software engineer to now what you are doing. How did those transitions play out?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so it was very interesting. You know, I've had multiple career breaks, and in each of these breaks, uh, Srikant, what happened was that it was my curiosity and learning mindset that would come in. And I would go around picking whatever came my way, whether it was doing a new thing, take up a challenge and apply whatever skills I had. There were times when uh, like, you know, we were at once we were posted in Bihar, and um I had moved from Bangalore to Bihar, and uh that environment did not have computers at all. I took up the challenge and I started coaching the ladies around me and other neighborhood children on how to use basic computers. This is the internet had just come in and you know, people were I was very surprised that there could be a space where they're not thinking about uh this as a future. So whether it was teaching, whether it was learning, in whichever way I would just pick up uh projects and uh go along. And only in hindsight I realized that, you know, somewhere that led to a lot of um growth in uh uh for me more as a personal growth and a personal development there. A big shift was moving from short-term thinking on what's going to happen to my career to a long-term thinking that yes, I will make it. So whatever no matter what comes my way, whether it's going to be straight or a curvy path, but I knew that I will make it.
SPEAKER_00And that was fueled by my own ambition.
SPEAKER_01You know, when you come from a small town, you you have this drive in you, or um as I reflect back, see, I'm both my mother and mother-in-law were working. There were very few women who were working there. So I had brilliant role models and um a very supportive spouse who insisted that I do something. And uh coupled that with my own drive of being very independent and wanting to be financially independent. I constantly took up work which was uh different, whether it aligned in a software career or not. I just kept trying different things and learning. So I used every gap as a learning opportunity. And uh when you put it all together, there was a lot of curiosity and learning that that fell in place.
Building Curiosity Through Life Patterns
SPEAKER_00I I noticed, and even during our conversations three, you mentioned a lot about learning and curiosity. The emphasis on learning, the emphasis on staying curious. How did you kind of develop this habit of staying curious? And what are some of the things that you do to remain curious even to this day?
SPEAKER_01I think um it's probably something which got trained early in life. We did not grow up with catchets, we really grew up amidst plants and animals and an open place, and we traveled multiple places. Traveling and um changing homes does this to you. So I've moved home some 16 times, and um we've uh traveled within India and across right from as a childhood. So just um I just had this observation skill and I uh uh reflect back on one anecdote. When we would be in a train going from Jabalpur to Delhi to my grandparents' place, my mother would give us this little challenge, perhaps just to keep us busy, on uh, like, you know, can you look up all the stations? Or do you know the names of all the rivers that are coming on your way? So uh just doing that repeatedly opened up the curiosity and the learning mindset. And we just tuck by it through our uh career and other journey. In any case, being a software professional, learning has to be a second nature because technology is changing so fast, you're constantly learning, doing deep dives into things, doing reverse engineering. So a lot of that just gets built up over the years.
SPEAKER_00It's amazing to kind of see how small little things as you practice comes a long way, and when you kind of look back at it, you kind of attribute these are all small little things.
SPEAKER_02Yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Observing skills, learning skills. It's not saying that you do all of those things, you get something, but you do for the fun of doing it.
SPEAKER_01You do for the fun. Yes. The way Indian society is and the way we do parenting, which is very, very hands-on. So you just uh in this whole effort of teaching your children, you learn one more time. So I think I know more of history and more of geography, not when I was a student, but when I was teaching my children. And um, so uh that's where my curiosity actually got enhanced even further. And um the learning also got enhanced even further. Along the way, you know, financially, if you see, I have made all kinds of financial mistakes. And each mistake kind of taught me and made me mu more curious to understand what I was doing better and read the fine print, figure out. And I've always been the bold type, never been the one who who's shy of asking questions. So that kind of fueled the curiosity mindset, right?
SPEAKER_00That's fantastic. So we kind of traversed two paths here. One, we started off with your financial acumen, your interest in the financial uh sector, and second is a technocrat that you are, and how it has shaped your your own journey, your own learning.
Why Paid Forward Exists
SPEAKER_00I'll flick back to the financial element of it, and we'll start off with what you're doing currently, which is paid forward. Tell me and my listeners a bit about paid forward and has a few queries around that particular piece, but I would want to get you to kind of articulate what paid forward is all about. What was the genesis of this? How did it come into existence?
SPEAKER_01Uh so paid forward has its own very interesting journey. I actually got full-fledged into investing around 2009. That's when I actually said that, you know, I'm going to take this up as my full-time and perhaps not get back to a technical role. And around that time, one of my dear friends and now my partner Preeta, we were doing a program here in Bangalore where uh, you know, we were using the economic times as our textbooks, and uh it was led by a chapter called Millennium Mams, uh, which is a Calcutta-based organization, which kind of works on economic empowerment for women. So uh that's where I got more and more involved into the technical conversations around money and understanding those things. So I also found that a lot of women around me were like uh were not into the subject. Even if they came with money, they did not really comprehend the subject. So that was quite a leveler, and I felt that I'm not alone. So paid forward was really a series of lot of honest conversations between um us and between women trying to understand the subject better. So with my partner Preeta, we had a similar journey. We were both curious about investing, and we were trying to simplify money for ourselves before simplifying it for others. And my third partner, Vinita, who is a CACFP, she actually worked as a great guide in kind of coming in and helping us understand that without any judgment. So um paid forward really started through these conversations. It's only when we realize this big gap around us. And um, this was also around the time when my daughter was a teenager, and um I was uh riddled with these fears on how she is going to navigate because I was a late learner of finance particularly. So I wanted to transfer this knowledge to her. And um, we realized that not just her, but uh there are so many people around us who were not thinking about uh managing their money. They did not know where to start. So before Paid Forward became uh organization, as I said, you know, it was the curiosity and the honest conversations that made us go together and build what is called Paid Forward. As it stands at Paid Forward, um, we aim to make uh finance and a dining table conversation. We want to simplify, de-jargonize, and help people understand the basic of personal finance and how they can navigate their lives. Because that's an essential tool right now for any of us to survive in this rapidly changing world around us.
Money Emotions And Scarcity Mindsets
SPEAKER_01More so for women, but we are addressing women, youth, periretirees, and nearly everybody, all segments of individuals.
SPEAKER_00That's a great idea. And uh in my experience, I'm sure you can relate to this. Do you think people struggle more with money or with the emotions around money?
SPEAKER_01It's a little bit of both, but it's more to do with the emotions. So for example, I would like to take this uh across life stages. So, for example, for a young person, an early job, they are constantly being uh uh there's a there's a huge wave of consumerism around us. And um, they live in the world of instant gratification. So for them, you know, the lack of money is a thing, and they're constantly rolling credit and trying to be equal amongst their peers, and they there is this whole peer pressure that they are going through. Although we see this as a behavior, there is obviously there is a lot of emotional baggage that we are carrying. I mean, it's worth exploring why we want to be an equal, why do we want to fit in, and what are the boundaries that we can draw for ourselves and around us. So the comparison generation, the generation of social media, they're constantly riddled with wanting to spend, and the industry kind of feeds on them giving credit easily, making it easier for them and giving them lucrative offers all around. So that also is happening. But for many of us, on the other side, we see that there is an emotional baggage. For example, I also do financial planning. So there was a client who was not able to like, you know, take on a holiday because she constantly felt she doesn't have enough or she's got to continuously keep saving. It's only somewhere when we sat down and did the financial plan she realized that, you know, she did have enough. So she was coming from an emotional space where you're not able to figure out where you start from a scarcity mindset and you are not able to overcome or reset your mindsets there.
SPEAKER_00You did make an emphasis on you're helping a lot of uh women manage their financials.
Women And Financial Agency
SPEAKER_00Right? And one why this particular segment of people that you're focusing on. But more importantly, when you had these kind of coaching, mentoring sessions with women, what changes in a woman emotionally once she becomes financially aware? What have you seen in close quarters?
SPEAKER_01I'll come to that. I also want to add one thing. So, apart from the stereotypes that are there, whenever we think about money, we think about, you know, there's a lot of fear because, you know, we're not a trusting society, we don't know how things are going to happen. There's a lot of fear of not having enough, of getting cheated. There's a lot of shame. Let's say you have a credit, I mean, you look at the industry around us. If you have a credit card or if you uh are in debt, it's kind of a social shame that I'm carrying a debt, right? That's how our environment is. So, uh, and comparison that leads to a lot of anxiety. Now, for women specifically, I think there is a significant stereotype that we deal with. I'd like to go back a little bit before I answer this question for you, Srikant. If you see how our kings and queens go back to the uh era of royals where we did not have digital currency, we were trading in gold or green. And both those assets lay with the woman. With the woman, gold in terms of the jewelry, of course, there you there was treasury, but the household asset was generally the jewelry and the grain. For both of them, the custodian was the woman. And they were very, very empowered people. Women were a very empowered class, even though they were not front-facing, but within the family unit, they were very empowered. It's only during the invasions that we saw, uh, if you study history, we saw this change where um the woman becomes more vulnerable, and the assets also move away from being only in uh land and gold and um grains to becoming currency. And this is where the woman has really lost out. And we also added a layer of stereotypes, saying that, you know, it's the man's role to look after the money, the woman's role to look after the kids and the kitchen. And so, whenever we see a woman trying to come out of those shackles, it's a lot of social conditioning. You know, it's not easy for her either to do it because she uh she's also coming out of the same social conditioning, and so is the man. So we find that that's something that they struggle with quite a lot before coming out to participate. And the confidence or financial confidence or any kind of confidence actually comes only from participation. So when we have these conversations coming to your question on how it kind of like, you know, changes once the woman becomes financially aware, we see this big shift from feeling dependent to participating to feeling independent. If you look around us, even now, we we are definitely bridging the pay gap and uh the percentage of women who are working. But even amongst them, how many of them are really managing their money? We want to become an equal, but we need to take ownership of what we are earning as well. So we are becoming equal in terms of earning, but not equal in terms of uh ownership. And therefore, you know, we're seeing a lot of women don't have the financial confidence to take charge of what they want to do. For example, I know of cases where women have stayed on in those roles way beyond they have enjoyed or felt peaceful or felt recognized. They stay on in jobs that have outgrown their competency. They accept lower pay. And, you know, they are they have this fear about the future constantly. The conversations on women and financial confidence, I've seen a lot of transition happen in these areas.
SPEAKER_00And this is also more of a human psyche as well. As much as it's true for women, it is also true for the male community. And you made a very pertinent point. It is A to be seen as equal, B to take ownership as the confidence, and then finally that confidence results in you kind of making those decisions, right? Yeah. So having worked with a whole lot of people, what anecdotes, what stories can you kind of share about women folks having that confidence, changing the trajectory either of their own careers or of their Families.
Two Stories Of Saying No
SPEAKER_01Oh, I have I have a bag full of stories. Um, but let me take on two. So the first one is of a young girl. Uh, she was in her late 20s and the first time owner from her village. So, you know, uh the first time worker, she had moved to Bangalore and she started earning, and um, she was constantly sending her money back home, and there was a big demand on her to raise a loan. She was feeling uncertain about herself, and when she spoke to me, she wanted to, you know, raise a loan for um buying a bike for her brother, who was still in grade 10, and uh had a fancy for a bike. So we had a deeper conversation on whether uh she should be responsible for that loan and whether the bike was really required. And um, along the way, she realized that it was not a necessity for the family, and she mustered the courage to step up and refuse taking that loan. The two good things that happened is her awareness towards where her money is being spent. The second was uh a conversation on what she is going to do with that money. So she had a lot of aspirations on how she wants to use the money, upskill herself, do um take her parents out on a pilgrimage, buy a fridge for their home, which were all very, very human aspirations to be. And uh at the same time, she wanted to feel safe and secure. So that was a big transformational story. And surprisingly, um, Middle India who really needs financial education more than anyone else is the one who gets left out. Because if you see the uh the financial industry who's selling us all the products, they have their tough targets and they're all constantly most of it is chasing HIs and the ultra-rich. And similarly, the products are also designed for that. I'm so glad we have a good regulator who's taking charge of these things. But we need more and more education at the Middle India and Lower India segments there. So I I'll have a lot of stories along the way.
Making Money A Dinner Topic
SPEAKER_00And to round up the conversation around pay forward, what's the big vision of paid forward?
SPEAKER_01So, um, our vision is to make um personal finance have every home at least one person equipped with uh knowledge on what is personal finance, look at personal finance as a 360-degree conversation, and make conversations about money, mainstay and everyday dining table conversations. Uh we've seen a wave uh in the last decade. We've seen health as a big wave, and it's not surprising to find people discussing health openly or talking about what is the right food to eat, what's the right exercise to do. I would love to see those conversations about money on what is the right investment behavior, how should I plan budgeting, and what would be the next lead to do. We are really in a good space with India growing and with the economy growing. The large population of India has a potential to grow rich, and I'd love to be part of that journey.
SPEAKER_00Wonderful. Make money conversations, dinner conversations. That's the message out there.
SPEAKER_01Yes, absolutely. And specifically for women, since you asked, equal rights, equal responsibilities. If we want men in our kitchens, we should be willing to go and check out what mutual fund to buy or go to the
Messy Careers And Portfolio Thinking
SPEAKER_01bank.
SPEAKER_00How did all of this journey and poll at any point of time did you feel that this is messy?
SPEAKER_01Of course. The career makes much more sense in high hindsight than when I was living it. Or rather, while I'm living it. I'm sure there will be many decisions to come that I'm not too sure how it will be. But for sure it was messy. There were moments of um confusion, there were moments of uncertainty, moments of um, like, you know, not feeling confident of on myself. So I deeply value where I am today, learning alongside everyone. What happened uh if I reflect back and you know try and create a flow chart was that uh technology kind of gave me a systems thinking and an analytical approach. I used the pauses to either give back or rescale. So some of my give backs have been like teaching children on how to use computers. So I've I'm a teacher's daughter, so I've always been a teacher. So I've been teaching uh you give me a subject to teach, and I will uh it's like I love the idea of sharing knowledge. Then when I got into investing, it demanded a lot of patience because it was a new subject, and investing in itself is uh there's so much of ups and downs. So the patience that came in, the resilience that grew, entrepreneurship actually made me far more resilient, far more vocal about what I want. My ability to say no and take no for an answer, both importantly. And uh, along the way, um, I think the tools that really worked for me were empathy. Clarity is something that comes only later. But yeah, this is how uh I kind of feel that it was really uh yes, it was very messy. Sometimes it gets lonely. Uh, sometimes you just uh wish you could pull your hair out and restart.
SPEAKER_00I love what you said. Clarity will only happen later. And in the times that we are in, we were so obsessed saying that you need to have a roadmap, you need to have a goal, and then you need to work towards it. Now, here comes a technology that's turning everything upside down. And for somebody who has kind of lived that life without being dictated by the world of not having that roadmap, not getting fixated with what is happening, but go with the flow.
AI Age Skills Relational Intelligence
SPEAKER_00What's your take on what's happening in the world today? What would be your uh two cents of advice for all the listeners?
SPEAKER_01Uh, portfolio life is going to be the reality for many modern careers. We are often, uh, you know, we are expecting life to move in a very neat linear direction, but real growth does not happen there. Real growth actually happens through transition, uncertainty, and reinventing your own self. I mean, we are seeing the wave of AI, and I'm sure you're referring to that, but uh we call it the VUKA world, um, and now the new term bani, because we've got to constantly look at things that are around us. And um, there are two tools, I think, which will help anyone who wants to navigate this. One is having relational intelligence. So when you enter a room, what is happening in the room, who are the right people to talk to, and just having a sense of what are the dynamics that are playing out. And two is our agility in learning and reinventing. So change is going to be a constant. True value or true growth will happen only when we embrace change and embrace learnability. And those have been my tools right along, all along.
SPEAKER_00And Anu, did it ever feel in this journey that you had in your career trajectory that you had, that you had starts, you had pauses, then you started something. And it's very natural to kind of compare yourself to saying that my batch mates, my schoolmates, they had a different trajectory, they are way ahead of. Some might be in a different career stream altogether. That comparison thing that I'm a left behind, am I in the right direction? Did it occur to you
Comparison Traps And Rope Ladders
SPEAKER_00at all?
SPEAKER_01Yes, it did. I'll tell you when. So the initial years, of course, the first two decades, I was pretty disconnected with my batchmates. We were not so much on Facebook or WhatsApp or anything. It's only in around, you know, tw 2011-12 when WhatsApp and Facebook became more popular and we all got connected and re-rebonded and everyone wanted to know what each other was doing. I did go through a big bang of feeling left out. But um I also realized that I was in a very unique place, and my learning and my career was very different. So a career is not just about money, it's about the experiences that you've gathered through your life. And I had the good fortune of moving so many homes, making friends along the way, uh, and uh also gathering experiences and learning. So I speak, I can uh follow four languages, and um uh I cook different kinds of cuisines. So, you know, the adaptability that came in was very different from what I was seeing in some of my other friends who led a linear career. In any case, if you see for a woman, this is something that I experienced, change is a constant, you know. You have three things to take care of. I call it the three M's, marriage. So I had change because of marriage, we had moved, uh, motherhood, so every time there's motherhood, there is a pause, and uh in our case, movement, so we because we relocated places. All these three were really disruptions which I had to deal with. And it was a conscious choice on which ones, which of us is going to do that. And since I was uh I knew that I would be taking a biological break because of motherhood, I was very happy giving this away. One thing I always knew is that, you know, I will get back. I didn't realize that I would get back in the different shape or form, but I always felt that I will get back. And so uh this is something very interesting. Um, Professor Vasanti from IMB brought it out in a beautiful way to me. Careers traditionally have been like a ladder, right? You know, they're evenly paced and uh it's a more linear structure. But for m women and uh people like me who've had portfolio careers, it's more like a dangling rope. So, you know, the ladder is more like a rope, the one that you hang out of an aeroplane to save someone, which is going to be moving all around and it's going to be a curvy road, but ladder it'll still be. It'll be a rope ladder, and we will be climbing and moving and shaking. It may take a little bit longer, but we will all get there, and uh the experiences along the way will make it very different. Uh and that's where it brought me peace that you know where I hold myself and the kind of experiences I may have are very different from the experience from uh some of my peers. And no longer comparing, feeling very, very uh confident about myself and the place where I am, uh, both financially as well as as well as career-wise.
What We Underinvest In Today
SPEAKER_00Yes, so if life is truly a portfolio, what are people underinvesting today?
SPEAKER_01Okay. Um I kind of preempted this question. I've been thinking about it. We are underinvesting in relationships, of course, we are underinvesting in finance. We are underinvesting in knowledge, we are underinvesting in relationships and health. Those are the areas that we as a community, as an individual, need to take charge of. And um we are over-optimizing this uh, you know, the productivity part that you need to be productive every minute of your day. And we are underinvesting in the peace that comes from reflection, that comes from sitting with your thoughts and allowing yourself to process what is happening in life.
SPEAKER_00All then just move, move, move.
Leadership Through Service And Influence
SPEAKER_00And Anu, as you have kind of traversed in your career, you also now taken on a very interesting and a significant uh role, a leadership role, which is with CII, particularly for the Indian Women Network. Tell us how did you land into this role? You had a busy career, we had a busy life, and yet you wanted to do something for the community, you picked up this leadership role. How did you land into this role? And what's this opportunity all about?
SPEAKER_01Uh so yeah, it was pretty much a segue from paid forward. I actually joined India Women Network thinking that I this would be a business network which will give me business and I would be able to make more business connections. So that's how I landed there. But along the way, I realized that leadership emerges more organically. And I found myself really aligned in this network with uh women's growth and inclusion agenda that they have. So we run a lot of programs on uh for professional women and individuals and entrepreneurs to uh bring them up to speed. There's a lot of collaboration and contribution through participation that's happening at uh India Women Network. Um, there are three aspects where there is work along policy and gender parity, there is work along um uplifting each other, but most importantly, it's a community where you can see growth happening. Usually, when you join a network or you think about a network, there are people pulling each other down. But here, this is a network where I'm finding that everyone's finding something positive about the other person. So it's a very, very uh energizing space and very, very growth-oriented. Now, on the leadership part, I didn't really pitch for this position in any which way. It was just about it's just in my nature to uh meet people and uh remember what they do, just creating opportunities for each other and building a space more as leadership as a service, not just not as a status. I just want to leave an impact in enabling anyone, even if it's one person, if I can enable their journey and make it better for them, whether through conversations or through helping them skill better, it would be very fulfilling.
SPEAKER_00And what has leadership taught to you beyond personal success?
SPEAKER_01So, what is leadership? Isn't it about enabling others and making more leaders? I mean, if a person, if you can create a process or a system which can run without you, that's the best a leader can do.
SPEAKER_00Leader creates more leaders.
SPEAKER_01Yes. A leader creating more leaders. Just um pulling each other along and ensuring that uh it's collective growth. Leadership cannot be an individual growth, it's more about a collective growth to me.
SPEAKER_00Very well said. And it's a Ubuntu leadership that the African leadership follows is I am because we are.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00And leadership is all about that.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Ubuntu. Ubuntu.
SPEAKER_00Anu, you you have had your career where you have worked in different organizations in uh some great brands. Um, World Bank, ISO, the Proto Talk of a few. If you were to do a compare-contrast of what leadership means to you now versus what it was then at that time of your career, w what comes out clearly at this point of time saying that okay, this is what it is, this is what my learning was.
Empathy As Modern Leadership
SPEAKER_01So I've been somebody who was really star-struck with uh, you know, businesses and understanding businesses and all these leaders. I thought in my early career, and which is the era that you're referring to when I was in these software firms uh building systems, I think uh leadership was more about performance and expertise. So um, I recollect someone I was I used to look up to. She was an expert on uh time management, an expert on delegation, an expert on, you know, um she knew the subject so well, and that's what I would look up to from her. But subtly, and I think this matters to me now much more than it did then, was her ability to to empathize with us, to include us in her conversations, and not judge if we didn't know the answer. Uh, those are the three things that are hitting out to me. And for me now, it is more about building others than proving myself. I'm who I am. If I can help build others, that's where uh that's what leadership means for me, to create space for others.
SPEAKER_00Beautifully put. I think in the industry terms, we call it as hard skills and soft skills. If you see the transition that has happened, the transition has happened more to the softer skills, while that is the harder skills to kind of have. Empathy. We call it as soft skills, but that's the hardest to develop.
SPEAKER_01It's the hardest to develop, absolutely. And uh, you know, when earlier we used to go to leaders for answers. Now we go to Chat GPT for answers. We go to leaders for understanding and their ability to help us navigate through the upheavals and the balance that needs to come. The challenges of the intra-personal scale that comes in is what uh we need to balance out. So it's it's a very interesting space because you know, at India Women Network, nearly everyone uh comes with uh credible experience. We are all volunteers, not tied together by par or hierarchy of belonging to an organization. You know, when when you belong to an organization, there's always uh an unsaid line of a peer, subordinate, or superior. And that kind of enables you to work together. Now, when you in a volunteer network like this, we are all leading through our influence. Every decision that you do, or every I can't just tell anyone to do anything. Even if I tell, they're not bound to do it. It's only through influence that you can make things work. So that's a different kind of uh leadership trait that I'm right now working on and uh trying to develop on how to lead through influence and how to build this community further.
SPEAKER_00Oh nice, leading by influence. So if the folks at CIA are listening to this conversation, Anu, what is that one thing that they don't know about Anu? Or what is that one thing that the world doesn't know about Anu, Anu that Anu knows?
SPEAKER_01Uh there would be many. I'm pretty much an open book, so people know me well. Uh, but yeah, I'm somebody who loves to contribute before titles. And um I love to cook. I love to cook, I love to embroider, and still very um very in touch with Earth on many things.
SPEAKER_00I don't know. As we get closer to wrap up, there are a few things that warrant some reflection given the rich uh life and career journey that you
Rich Life Defined By Freedom
SPEAKER_00have had. And if I were to ask you, what has compounded the most in your life, financially or otherwise?
SPEAKER_01I think relationship and friends. That's compounded the most and um hopefully trust.
SPEAKER_00What does a rich life mean to you now?
SPEAKER_01The liberty. So a rich life would be uh there are many ways of defining this. For me, it is the freedom to uh do what I want to do and uh find it find purposeful to do, which means that I should be healthy, which means I should have a control on my time, which means I should have financial resources to do it, and uh, which also means me knowing myself better. So doing my own KYC and finding what my value system is and aligning my work to that. Uh that's what would make it a very rich life, you know, if I could get to bed and sleep and say, uh, okay, I did it was a good day and I did something good for someone.
SPEAKER_00Leave a reason it's those small little things is what matters, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01It's always the small little things. Like, you know, if you walk on a street and uh uh so uh there's a lake where I stay, and uh uh there is one old lady, every time I step out, she gives me a hug. And I don't know her at all. Except that she's the auntie, I don't even know her name. And I think it brings a smile and warm joy to me that you know she's uh I get her blessings every day. Uh and that makes my life so much more richer.
SPEAKER_00So true. Oh no, if someone is listening, someone listening feels stuck around career, money, or life decisions, what is the first honest step that they should take?
Pause First Then Take Action
SPEAKER_01First thing is to pause. Pause, take a day off, sit with yourself, write down what is bothering you and be aware of what those issues are. If it is something to do with the career, you need To examine what I mean, is it a person? Is it the kind of work? What is it? And start making changes in small steps. Financially, it's very simple. Most of us do not know what we are doing financially. I think if we were to just list down what we are doing financially, you will be surprised at the rich information you will get back, and you will automatically know what you need to do. It's the small consistent actions that matter, and confidence will come only after that action. They say nah, fake it till you make it. So you just need to do those small changes and stay anchored in that discipline for a while.
SPEAKER_00Stay anchored in that discipline. And if somebody were to kind of pick up a micro experiment to do, say over the next 90 days, if all the listeners were to kind of pick a task, pick an activity and start working on that, what would that one micro experiment that you'd recommend people to
The 90 Day Spending Experiment
SPEAKER_00do?
SPEAKER_01Okay, since I come from the financial field and I do this, I do suggest this. Is that every day, if you can just write down where you are spending or make a note of where you are spending what you are spending just for 90 days, you will be surprised how you will be your changed person.
SPEAKER_00That's a wonderful recommendation. In building your portfolio life, having a healthy financial life is equally important than just career health or other elements, other dimensions of portfolio life. So here you go, my dear business. And wonderful experiment to capture your daily spends for the next 90 days for each one of you to know how your financial life, financial trajectory is heading.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. A healthy portfolio or a healthy portfolio life begins with having financial confidence and knowing what you're doing, why you're doing, and um finding the right purpose which is aligned to you.
SPEAKER_00That's a full circle moment, Anu, isn't it? We started off with that and we are kind of wrapping up our conversation with
Participation Over Perfection Closing
SPEAKER_00that. And this show is all about creating ripples of inspiration. Before you and I sign off, what's your inspire someone today's message to all the listeners?
SPEAKER_01Your goal isn't perfection, your goal is participation. So participate, enjoy your journey, enjoy changes that life is throwing at you, and just navigate it one step at a time.
SPEAKER_00Goal is not perfection but participation. On that note, Anu, thank you so much for taking time and sharing your portfolio life with all of us out here. Really appreciate uh your wonderful journey and your words of wisdom to all of us. Thank you for spending this time with us. Conversations like these remind us that good doesn't always come from answers, it often comes from better questions. Not to grand gestures, but to everyday choices. That belief still holds now with a little more depth and a lot more listing. If something from today's episode stayed with you, carry it forward, share it, sit with it, or explore it further through the ISTEC ability or the book inspire someone today. Until we meet again, stay curious, keep inspiring, and inspire someone today.
