Ep704: Harjeet Khanduja – Work Smarter Not Harder

Andrew Stotz 00:02
Hello fellow risk takers and welcome to my worst investment ever stories of loss to keep you winning. In our community. We know that to win in investing, you must take risk but to win big, you've got to reduce it. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm on a mission to help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives to reduce risk in your life. Go to my worst investment ever.com today and take the risk reduction assessment I created from the lessons I've learned from more than 500 guests. Fellow risk takers, this is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz, from a Stotz Academy, and I'm here with featured guests Harjeet Singh, Khan, deja Harjeet. Are you ready to join the mission?

Harjeet Khanduja 00:45
Yep. All set.

Andrew Stotz 00:48
I am ready to have you too. There's so many interesting things about you, as I mentioned before, and we just ended our little chat Off mic where we were talking about our personalities and our styles and maybe we'll share a little bit about that. But Harjeet is an international speaker, author, poet, poet, wow visionary, inventor, influencer and an HR leader. He is an alumnus of IIT, Roorkee and INSEAD. He is currently working with Reliance Geo, he is a sap HCM consultant, Six Sigma Green Belt and assessor for predictive index. He has three published patents and his book, nothing about business has been a best seller on Amazon, my goodness, Harjeet. Take a minute and tell us about the value you bring to this beautiful world.

Harjeet Khanduja 01:46
Thank you, Andy, for having me here on your show. The value I bring to the table as I simplify things, that is what I do for a living also. And I simplify things so that people can be happy. And businesses can be happy, or wholesaler right? Touch that person can be happy. So my life is all about simplifying things.

Andrew Stotz 02:16
Why is it that simplification can lead to happiness?

Harjeet Khanduja 02:23
If things are simple, you don't have to strain yourself, then you can enjoy things. Okay, if you enjoy. Like right now, if I take a stress off, what is Andrew going to do with me in the worst podcast ever? them then I will deal with stress. Right now I'm enjoying because you're a very structured guy. And as I said, I'm not I live life as it comes. So

Andrew Stotz 02:57
it's interesting, because you know, in this world, it's like, we need both types. If everybody was super structured like me, we would structure ourselves into destruction. And we need that creativity. And I'm just curious, you know, maybe you could just tell us a little bit about because there's one word in your bio that kind of throws me in that is your poet, what does that mean? Tell me about it.

Harjeet Khanduja 03:26
So, poetry is also about observation and passing on a message which describes you. So this is like, you can say what is my thing? Our simplification of it is a different perspective, which you're sharing with the world. And that is what I have been doing. I will tell you, and this has the base for this entire podcast. I was born in a small town called Borelli and my father was a scholar. He was double Ma, and he was teaching and really college. So like when I used to go with him, people used to go and touch his feet. That was the aura of my father at that point in time. And I was very carefree. Like, I remember writing exam and the bill bell rang instead of completing the question at that point in time. I said okay, let me go and enjoy. Lie did not complete the question. And you know, what happened? I failed. I was in class two, very, very young. I did not understand what that meant. Especially for my father, who is a scholar, and his son failed in class to me At that time, I saw my father running from pillar to post to get me admitted in another good school. And that was a realization, which I had that what failure does to you, I had more pain for my father, I was still here. And when my father was seeing me carefree, he started believing that this kid is weak. And I realized that when he shifted me from Endymion from English medium school to a Hindi medium school, in plus eight, and it was a shocker for me, like, whatever I studied, the language of that study changed. And I was not able to understand the language itself. In the first midterm. Again, I failed. But somehow, I was able to pass with Grace marks, you can say that. And then I worked hard. And I got 60% marks, because he wanted me to be a professor for being a professor, his criteria was that you have to get 60% marks, some high, somehow I got 60% marks in class eight. And that time, I learned one thing that I have to work hard, I have to work extra hard. And when I gave my 10th class examination, I was thinking I will get 60%. But I got 80% marks, getting 80% marks in up board examination. It is supposed to be one of the toughest boards was like miraculous. And that day, I saw in my father's eyes, that this kid can do something in his life. And he had he literally had that I will have to again, think about your future. Because I was under estimating you, I did not think that you can do it. So that extra hard, became a formula for my life. And this is the baseline of my life, or this is the baseline of the podcast, the worst investment ever. Not extra hard is the formula for success.

Andrew Stotz 07:29
Wow. And is this your story of your worst investment ever?

Harjeet Khanduja 07:36
I don't know.

Andrew Stotz 07:38
Exactly. That's a good one. But I'm gonna still ask you that question. But before we do, I'm wanting to just talk about your book, nothing about business because I didn't have time to read it. But I was reading the reviews and I wrote down, I wrote down some thoughts. I wrote down business stories, short, lessons learn, powerful, simple, and to the point, simplicity, management concepts, basics. That's what I thought, from what I picked up from what people got from your book, but maybe you can tell the listeners what they would gain from reading your book.

Harjeet Khanduja 08:30
So I sent the book for several reviews. And one of the reviewers what he wrote was, and I particularly liked that, so I pick up this book. And every day I read one story. And I learned something. So these are simple stories from the life. You can call them micro stories. So more stories more than one page long. Few words might bring a smile on your face, you might relate to it. And you might I draw parallels lot of parallels between life and business. So when you start imagining, okay, this is how it will translate into business. This story turns out to be much more powerful because you are imagined you are using your imagination to fit it in your business context. And that's how we're that's why people liked the book. In fact, I sent it to a professor in us. I thought we will not read it. He said send me the whole book. And then he disappeared for 15 days. And I thought okay, it's fine. He will not read it. But after 15 days, he came back he said yesterday I got time. I sat for three hours and I read the entire book, this book, anyone can read who is a child, to a person who is. So from 80 years to 80 years old, everyone can read it, everyone can learn from it. So it is that kind of a book.

Andrew Stotz 10:16
Fantastic. You know, I was going back to you, you talking also about that getting the score of 80. And delivering that to your father and the pride that I'm sure he felt. I went back to do my PhD when I was 47. I was working and doing my PhD, you know, so it was a very busy time. But in 2016, I flew home to America and see my mom and dad. And I was able to bring my dissertation and my graduation documents to my father who had a PhD in organic chemistry and, and share it with him. And he was 82 at the time. And shortly after that he passed away. And I felt like I felt like as a son. I made my father proud. And I'm sure that you did the same, you know, and what more can we ask for in life than to make our parents proud. And I know that there's many things that we do all of us in our, in our youth. And in our life, where we make mistakes are we don't even know what we're doing. And we hurt our parents or people around us. But it's such a great thing when we turn it around. And I really want to challenge to the listeners, you know, even though you may have made big mistakes, and you may have had difficulties in your life, you can always turn that around. And so I really, you know, relate with the story that you told and it touches me so I appreciate it. Thank you. Well, now it's time to share your worst investment ever. And since no one goes into their worst investment thinking will be telling us a bit about the circumstances leading up to it and then tell us your story.

Harjeet Khanduja 12:13
So Andrew, I don't know about my worst investment. But I was thinking this is your worst investment to call me on my show. I don't know why you chose me. And I know like we have been interacting for more than six weeks. And these six weeks I was thinking like what is my worst investment. And it took me a long time to think of a worst investment. And finally, I found that what was my worst investment. It was the PPF account, which my father asked me to open. And year on year I kept investing in that account. Without knowing why I'm investing I had never owned it up. But apart from that, while doing that deliberation I realized it is not that I have not made mistakes I realized I have made many mistakes, but I never saw them as mistakes. And I will give that credit to you because otherwise I would have never thought about it in my entire life it is a saying Mr. House that if a mill gets a spoil, we don't cry over the spoiled milk. We make cheese out of it. So, that is how what my attitude has been like my father wanted me to be a doctor. And I decided to be an engineer because all my friends were going for in general. So, was there a thought behind it it was just instinct. That is what I want was that a mistake? Might be like when I had to choose for between engineering colleges. So one college I was getting computer science and another college, IIT Roorkee I was getting metallurgy. I took metallurgy means I don't know what bit me but I liked the college. I said yeah, this is the college I want to be with. Or this is the college I like and I went for it. After that I realized that I need to change my branch so I changed my branch. I had to work hard for it. That extra hard thing. So I work extra hard to get my branch Some changed afterwards. At the time of placements, everyone was joining it because I think was the craze at that point in time, but you are going to make your it is going to be the future, I joined an automobile company. And back to as an industrial engineer. Now, right now I've got three patents in it or technology. So my heart also was in it. And in my first job, also, I did it on the butt in an automobile company. So in 2008, when the entire market was bad, everything was going down, I was working with a stable company, big grand, good position, reputation, everything said. And I joined a startup 2008, who joined a startup. And I never realized that I was making these mistakes, because I was taking those risks, because I found, yeah, this is an exciting thing to do. And I did those things. And I never felt bad like that PPF investment, because these were my choices. And I made these choices work for me. By working extra hard. This is what my habit is. So I made engineering work, I made that automobile company that I understand the domain, much better than the other IT guys because I have lived in that domain. I joined a startup in 2008 worked extra hard to make that a startup work and did accusations and made sure that I'm not getting fired from that startup. And really made that big. So I never wanted to fail again. You know, when I went for one of my interviews with a big organization it was say 2004. And I went for an interview was at 1am in the morning. interview happened at 1am in the morning, and the guy looked at the resume and said Are you sure whatever you have written in your resume, uh, you have done that. I said, If you don't believe it, then I will go. There isn't gonna sit, you know, we are kind of a, we are a big company. But we work like a startup. So you will have to work 16 hours a day. And I said that is easy, because right now I'm working 18 hours a day. So I never wanted to fail again. So I work extra hard. And then in 2012 What happened I joined INSEAD. And when I joined INSEAD I realized that the time and money, not time, money, the time and effort, which I have invested in my work. I completely ignored my family. And the investment which I made there, I realized that investment was not balanced. And NCR actually taught me that if you balance things, then you can be more productive. It is not that you're working 16 hours or 18 hours a day, then only you can be productive. That means you're insecure. And I got this realisation when I was thinking when you pushed me to think about it. And why I'm saying you pushed me to think about it because you did not give up. You sent me a message week after week impact once in between I tried to book a slot and then I said no, I don't have talking points. So when I was sure yeah, this is the mistake which I have made. This extra heart is the worst investment I have made. I would have worked smarter rather than working harder, and 2012 actually changed my life. Then I started looking at life holistically rather than a unit dimensional thing, which you are working on. My life is better. My wife is better

Andrew Stotz 20:03
So how would you describe the lessons that you've learned? I mean, it sounds like you've really gone through a thought process or journey in your own mind of the things that you've been through and your, the way you handled them the way you reacted to them. How would you summarize the lessons,

Harjeet Khanduja 20:22
they will tell you two short stories, which will summarize, which will summarize the lessons. So I was on a call with my office colleagues, and we were solving a problem, we were solving a problem. So they were pulling various pieces of data and working on it, and I was advising them, this is how you should do it. This is what you should look at. And they were trying to figure out, and after an hour, they solved the problem. And then I realized this whole time I was speaking on mute. And I realized, was they can solve the problem on their own. So should you be setting and running with them? Or should you be helping them where they need help rather than spending time like this? That is the first lesson that second is, I was traveling with a driver. I was traveling in a cab, and I asked the driver, which is the most profitable day, please said the SIR most profitable days Monday, but I don't work on Mondays. I said, Why you don't work on Mondays? He said, because my wife has off on Monday. So I also take off on Monday, otherwise, what will I do with the money I make. And that was such a hardest thing is realisation. A simple way to say the same thing which I learned in 2012 that you have to take care of family, you have to take care of your inner selves, so that you can be more productive. It is when you harness everyone's energy, then you can work in a broader environment, you can grow up. And you can do much more things in life not only for your business. So my business is better. My capability for business is better, my delivery is better. After working less number of hours. And then I'm author, I'm a poet, I'm inventor, influencer. And I'm trying to become a painter, and a photographer. So I have a lot of things which I am exploring within myself, because I have created that extra bandwidth for myself. Because when I am happy, then only I can spread happiness.

Andrew Stotz 23:15
So many things that go into my head when I'm listening to you talk but I was just imagining you as a young man, kind of a young kid bouncing around and just kind of I was thinking about how would I describe it, I would describe it like happy go lucky. Try this do that it was you didn't feel the pressure that society maybe puts on you, you got to do the right thing. And you did the wrong thing in some cases, and then you had to, you know, come back from it. And it was hard. So on the one hand, it feels like you had happiness and kind of you pursued what you wanted. And another hand, you suffered some of the consequences of that, too. But it just it sounds that's kind of my first thing. I'm just imagining you going through life and coming to those decision points. I also want to highlight something I wrote down, which is, you know, balance and I a talk, I was just giving a seminar for business owners, and I was talking about finance. And I was explaining that there's two factors in finance. One is profitability. What's the net profit margin of the company or that type of thing? And the other one is growth. What's the EPS growth of a company? What I explained is that these are opposing forces. I can increase the profit margin of a company very quickly by cutting the sales staff by cutting marketing, but that's going to impact future growth. And I can increase the growth of the company very easily by reducing prices. But that's going to reduce profitability. And so they are opposing forces. And when I think about the word that you wrote that you said, I wrote down balance. And I think that life is a balance of opposing forces I'm reminded of in that discussion that I had, I introduced students to a really great mind, a guy named Thomas Sol in America. And he says, there's no solutions, only trade offs. And I just thought, that's so brilliant, you know that. Life is about opposing forces. And we're constantly making trade offs. So you really got me thinking about that? Is there anything that you would add to what I've just shared?

Harjeet Khanduja 25:44
No, that was a beautiful story. Which you're talking about two forces. And you explained it in financial terms? I really liked that. Yeah, that's something profitability.

Andrew Stotz 25:56
Yeah, I, like, you know, you talk started the whole podcast off talking about simplifying things. And I think I have a course called finance made ridiculously simple. And I am always kind of sad that I have I used to teach a course in for Masters in marketing. And I went to this class, every time and I asked about 70 students, and I asked them to raise their hand if they hate finance, and they, maybe about 75% of people raise their hand. And I told them, you know, let's make today the last day that you ever say that? Finance is not that complicated. Let's try to make it as simple as possible. And think about how we can use it to our favor. And we can only do that through simplicity. And that, you know, so so your simplicity, comment that you made at the beginning really rings true. So I appreciate that. Now, based upon what you've learned from the stories that you've told, and what you continue to learn, what action would you recommend our listeners take to avoid or maybe reduce suffering some of the same fate?

Harjeet Khanduja 27:09
One thing I would suggest is that learn to delegate and trust. And when you start doing that, it is not easy. Because the kind of work you can do, and the kind of quality you can produce, you will find that others will take time to catch up to that level of quality or delivery standards. But if you don't develop them, then you can never take, then you can never sit back. So delegation and trust, along with reviewing skills, so it is not that you delegated. And you said okay, now I'm free, you can't do that. You have to continuously review, you have to improve your reviewing skills, so that you can positively contribute to the success of people. And I would sum up saying that been a lot of people talk about servant leadership. Servant Leader leadership is not about becoming a servant and doing everything yourself. It is about providing a space. So if you do that, if you provide a space by delegating and trusting people, and continuously reviewing, chances of your success will be much, much higher, and you will be able to do a lot more things in your business itself and handle much more than what you're handling right now.

Andrew Stotz 28:48
Fantastic. And what would be a resource that you'd recommend for our listeners?

Harjeet Khanduja 28:55
Look, if you want to develop yourself in this direction, I can tell you what I did. So how I got this inclination, I read a few of the books. One was goal by Le Goldratt. And that was an amazing book. That was a storytelling and I found that if somebody can tell you a story, and then you can learn nothing better than that. And some of the concepts I got clarified from that book. Then another book, which I read and really enjoyed was a book called well done. This is about SeaWorld. So how they actually, this book is about performance management and how they make Wales perform. So if somebody can do performance management for Wales, then will that be mean is it more difficult for human beings. And another book, which I read was Ricardo Semler. Semco how he built the company from scratch. And there are a couple of movies, if you want to watch one movie is founder. The story of McDonald's, that how McDonald's became so big, there are so many lessons to be learned from. Like, these are the things if you just start seeing, then you start observing a trend. Or you start seeing patterns. And if you are able to see patterns, then you are a much better leader in terms of decision making. So these are the resources, I will suggest, you can change your books or movies. But important is if you start seeing patterns, it will help you win more most of the decisions you make.

Andrew Stotz 31:16
Fantastic. I think we've got some good reading. And I haven't seen that McDonald's movie. So you've kind of reminded me, I definitely want to see it. So beautiful movie. Yeah, I'm excited. Last question, what is your number one goal for the next 12 months?

Harjeet Khanduja 31:37
So what I do is every year I make a plan for myself. So generally, I do it in a calendar year. And this calendar year, I was busy writing a book. So I did not do that. So I have to complete my plan for this year. That what are the things which I want to do in the year, I have seen if I prepare a plan, then I'm able to do 60 to 70% of those things. For myself. In that year. At least I have that goal and vision for myself that this is how I want to be or this is what all I want to achieve. So

Andrew Stotz 32:26
got it. Well, listeners, there you have it another story of loss to keep you winning. If you haven't yet taken the risk reduction assessment, I challenge you to go to my worst investment ever.com Right now, and start building wealth the easy way by reducing risk as we conclude Harjeet I want to thank you again for joining our mission. And on behalf of a Stotz Academy, I hereby award you alumni status for turning your worst investment ever into your best teaching moment. Do you have any parting words for the audience?

Harjeet Khanduja 33:03
Yeah, it is okay to fail. Just believe in yourself. Whatever you have got. Nobody can take that from you. So it's absolutely okay to fail.

Andrew Stotz 33:17
Beautiful message. And that's a wrap on another great story to help us create, grow and protect our well fellow risk takers. This is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz saying thank you for joining our mission. And I'll see you on the upside.