[00:00:00 – 00:00:09] Nitin Bajaj

Hey, everyone. Welcome to The Industry Show.

I’m your host, Nitin Bajaj. And joining me today is Ajay Sheth. Ajay, welcome on the show.

[00:00:10 – 00:00:12] Ajay Sheth

Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.

[00:00:13 – 00:00:17] Nitin Bajaj

It’s a pleasure to have you here. Let’s start with the question. Who is Ajay?

[00:00:18 – 00:02:42] Ajay Sheth

It’s a very difficult question because you are talking about Ajay of the past, Ajay of a present or Ajay of the future. Divide my life into two parts, first 52 years and the last 13 years and the journey continues. Born into a very low middle class family. Okay. Obviously the greed was for only money, nothing else. My father was a highly educated gold medalist from Banaras Hindu University, but for some reason, okay.

, he remained at a level where he was. He educated his children. I graduated and post graduated and studied really hard to cope in life. Started my career at the age of 18 with multinational Procter & Gamble, Mumbai.. And worked there for 10 years and then started my own portfolio management company called Quest Investment Advisor, which still exists and continues.

The craze was only money. Okay? And money at any cost for the 1st 52 years. I was very blessed to have guru, Acharya Narendra Mini, at the age of 14, but he could not change me. And with his blessings, I could come up in my life and do wonderfully well. But when he died when I was 52, okay, he introduced me to his Shishya called Maa Swami. Ajay. And she actually changed the complete perception of my life.

She said money is a very important component of a life, but money is not everything. Okay. And that’s where, probably, if you ask somebody who has known me for 1st 52 years, they’ll give you an idea who Ajay is. And there’s somebody like you who has met me now. Okay. He’ll say, oh, Ajay is a different person, and I’m not sure what Ajay will be tomorrow.

So I think we are all evolving, but at least I’m happy that I am evolving for the better.

[00:02:43 – 00:03:02] Nitin Bajaj

That’s amazing. And looking forward to learning more about that. What I’m most curious to know is you’ve obviously had financial success, and we’ve known about that. But what gets you motivated, excited out of bed in the morning now?

[00:03:03 – 00:03:56] Ajay Sheth

And, again, it’s a relative question because if you talk about the 1st 5 to 2 years, the motivation was only money and money. Mhmm. And today, if you really look at it, you know, every day is a new day for my wife. You know? We get up from the bed, and we feel that, oh, we have to repay our debt by way of gratitude to the society. We have to do something great. So I think the goal, reason, mission, motivation, all these are great words.

But I believe that, yes, it’s what is the idea behind it? One day, one day in my life, I could have done anything wrong. Believe my words. Not something that extraordinary, but I could have done anything wrong for earning money. And today, I believe that I will do everything which will give me happiness and peace of mind.

[00:03:57 – 00:04:40] Nitin Bajaj

That’s experience and wisdom. And looking forward to sharing that with our audience, but also learning from that. So I would love to know through your work at Quest, you also have a foundation. So I would love to understand what is the impact you’ve been able to create? You’ve obviously touched a lot of lives. You have a pretty extensive reach when it comes to the good work you have started and have been doing for the last, at least 13 years that I’m aware of. So I’d love to understand how many people in your life have touched and improved over this time.

[00:04:42 – 00:05:08] Ajay Sheth

Anything by I I will I’ll I’ll be very honest with you. But at this stage of my life, I believe, who am I to touch somebody’s life? I when I was growing up Mhmm. There were probably 100 and 100 of people, thousands and thousands of people. Directly or indirectly, they supported me. Education was so cheap. That without any kind of means, my sister became an MD despite the fact that the parents or family had no money. Okay. I qualified. I grew up. We didn’t know.

Most of us don’t realize that we have to repay our debt to society, and I’m not sure in this slide, we’ll be able to actually repay our debt. Okay. At least, my wife and I are trying to repay the interest part, not the not the capital. So I’m not sure that I’m touching somebody’s life. But, yes, I’m trying to repay my interest or a debt.

[00:05:47 – 00:05:51] Nitin Bajaj

That’s extremely, extremely humble and kind of you.

[00:05:51 – 00:08:31] Ajay Sheth

No. What my Mahaswami taught me, okay, is this, that what is the end result of all religions, whether it’s Jainism or Hinduism or Christianity or any other religion. The ultimate thing is nothing but love and compassion. Mhmm. Okay. And that’s what will make you extremely happy, extremely peaceful. So what we have been doing for the last 12, 13, 15 years, we decided that we will give away all our income and even a part of the capital to Quest Foundation.

That’s our foundation. And through that foundation, we will try, as I Ajay, to to repay our debt. Now whether you call it fortunately or unfortunately, I’m not sure. But COVID gave us one of the greatest opportunities to serve humanity. And believe my words, but during the COVID time, we personally went out to all the hospitals. We did everything, whatever we could have done.

Probably, I’m not sure, but we spend our own 10,000,000 US dollars. And that was a large amount for us. Okay. But more than the money, we, I I I went out personally to the hospital, supporting the patient, supporting the people. And the surprising part, Nitin Bai, was that my wife or I never got a COVID.

Can you believe that? Most of the people told us that you are over 60 Mhmm. And there is every possibility that you’ll have a COVID and you’ll die of COVID. But neither of us ever had a COVID. So I think just to answer your question, we believe that at a certain age yes. Money is a very important component of our life, as I say, but at a certain age, We need to give back to society. Yes. We see a lot of disparity of income and wealth all around us, not only in India, but also in the USA. Yes. And, ultimately, we are all travelers.

Whether you like it or not, we are all travelers here on this planet, in this universe for 60 years, 80 years, whatever it is. You as in Gujarati, we say that you came empty handed and you are going to go empty handed. So I think we are trying to do our little bit, and that’s what I will be very honest with you. But thanks to my guru, Maswami, Sheth just changed the perception of my life.

[00:08:32 – 00:09:10] Nitin Bajaj

Thank you for everything you do. And thank you for being so humble, so grounded, so down to earth.

Really appreciate it. And, you know, it’s, you’re obviously blessed and you come from a clean heart, and that’s why you are protected from any such things that would get through to you. So, again, really thank you for everything you do. I’m curious to get your perspective on doing all the work that you’re doing today and having seen life from many different aspects. What is the one big challenge that you’re facing?

[00:09:13 – 00:11:01] Ajay Sheth

It’s all the time that my wife, Bina, and I are facing. Okay. All the time. There are 2 words, and that’s only telling nothing else. Okay. But before that, let me tell you the principle of what has been taught to me by my guru. Mhmm. How to decide what is right and what is wrong. Okay. And she told me, you do anything.

Like, today, in Jainism, if you tell any youngster that they don’t drink alcohol, and he will say, is it right or wrong? Now, obviously, there are two opinions. So what is right and what is wrong? And my guru taught me anything that you do, at the end, if it gives you peace of mind, that’s the right thing. Ajay. And this is where the biggest challenge of our life comes into it. 3 or 4 years back, we were not even recognized by society.

It was honestly easy going for us. Today, with so much of the recognition coming all around, both in the domestic market and international market, I think, two words which are becoming the biggest challenge for us is ego and arrogance. I think that we are very cautious about that. Otherwise, I don’t think that we have a challenge.

We are playful. My wife is playful. We enjoy our life. We do everything. But we are worried that even if a subtle evil goes into us, it can really destroy our happiness, peacefulness, and probably destroy our life also. So I think that the biggest challenge as I see today is how to not allow the ego to enter our life.

[00:11:02 – 00:11:06] Nitin Bajaj

And having known you, I can attest to that that you’ve done an extremely good job with that.

[00:11:07 – 00:12:13] Ajay Sheth

It’s a you may say so, but it’s but this subtle ego is such a thing that you start liking something and slowly, steadily, you start and this is where I think that we all opted 2 principles. We are trying to put up the barriers around us. One of the principles we said is that we will not become, we’ll not take any position of a trustee seat or a committee seat of any organizer whatsoever for the rest of our life. Second thing we have done is that we will not accept any kind of honor or, I don’t know.

You understand that? Yes. We will not accept any kind of honor from anybody. Mhmm. But still, do I genuinely believe that we have conquered the ego? My answer is no. My answer is honestly no. There is some kind of a subtle ego which is, wanting to get a recognition, some kind of a recognition.

Now that’s fine. We are all human beings. I understand it. But at the end of the day, if you are not cautious about it, it can grow a big monster.

[00:12:14 – 00:12:18] Nitin Bajaj

True. I agree. And I think awareness is the first step in that direction.

[00:12:19 – 00:12:19] Ajay Sheth

Yes. Absolutely.

[00:12:20 – 00:12:30] Nitin Bajaj

Now on the flip side of challenges come opportunities. What is one opportunity that you are most excited about?

[00:12:30 – 00:14:25] Ajay Sheth

I think I’m feeling, in all honesty, my company is doing wonderfully well on the commercial side. Okay. We have got the best of the partners I could not have dreamt of. So it’s doing wonderfully well, and it’s giving me a lot of money to do good work. So that’s one part. On the other hand, I I believe today at this stage that, you know, I have to just continue to do the work which I’ve been doing. Meeting the people, guiding the people, supporting the people to do the good work.

And that’s the opportunity I’m looking at. Because if you look at it, most of the people, in the society, either in the name of religion or something else. Ajay. Even that was my case. I never understood what the religion is and that’s when I said you forget about it. I don’t want to go into religion. And today, the big opportunity is I I believe that if I can go around all over the world when my health is good and spread this message of happiness, peacefulness.

The people that yes. Money is an important component of our life, but what after money? And this is where if I can become a sort of a person who says that, look. I don’t want your money. I’m not coming to your money because we, honestly, at Quest Foundation, don’t accept anybody’s, grand or, charity. We do all the work with our own money. So I’m uniquely positioning myself, saying that when I come to you, I don’t come to you asking for any favor.

But I would like to just spread a message of how to become a good human being, how to make this world a really beautiful place to live.

[00:14:26 – 00:14:30] Nitin Bajaj

I love that. You are the messenger for happiness. Yes. Amazing.

[00:14:30 – 00:14:32] Ajay Sheth

Would like to. Would like to.

[00:14:33 – 00:14:54] Nitin Bajaj

Now I would love to reflect on your past a little bit and ask you to share 2 moments. 1, where things didn’t work out as you had expected. There were maybe failure lessons. And another instance where things exceeded your own expectations and became a success beyond your imagination.

[00:14:56 – 00:17:48] Ajay Sheth

There are a lot of failures. And in fact, I will say that I committed a lot of blunders during my early days in every aspect in my grade to grow faster, I think that I lost a lot of relevancy, including the family relevancy. So there are a lot of failures. If I talk about failure, it will probably take, complete book to write about it. In fact, on the investment front, when I started some 35 years back, we committed so many blunders and mistakes. But because the market was growing, we were not affected. And you don’t realize when you are not affected.

Similarly, because of the blessings of my group, I kept on committing mistakes and blunders on the social side, on the financial side, on every side, But I was not affected. So you don’t realize that these are the mistakes and blunder you. You feel that this is the way of life. Mhmm. But it truly is not. Failures were, and a number of things. I can keep on talking for hours and hours. I’ll tell you, probably, how do you measure success?

And for the 1st 22 years of my life, I was measuring success only, from money or wealth creation. Today, I believe that I never expected. Honestly, I never expected that I can become such a beautiful human being.

I’m not exaggerating. I’m so happy. I’m so peaceful. And I’m getting so much of the love and respect from everybody, including you. You are meeting me for the first time and inviting me on this show. So I think this was beyond my expectation that I can be loved by so many people, society at large. And that’s where sometimes when friends like you say that we are giving or doing something for society, I don’t know whether we are giving or we are getting.

See, giving money is a very easy thing today. You have a good amount of wealth. You give 5%, 10% of that. It’s a very easy thing. But getting such an abundance of a low, affection, respect, I don’t think that it can be measured by any standard.

And that’s honestly beyond our imagination. Sometimes I go to sleep, and I thank my stars so much. That’s what a lovely life I have. And that is also the last phase of my life. You understand? That’s the last phase of life. What we don’t debit today.

We have a good family. We have good friends, a good amount of money, a good house, good partners, good bigness, and love and affection from all around. What else do you need?

[00:17:48 – 00:18:00] Nitin Bajaj

That is very well said. I’d love for you to share a book or a podcast that you either listen to or are a fan of.

[00:18:01 – 00:20:05] Ajay Sheth

I’ll tell you genuinely, the one human being has touched my life apart from my Maswami. I know that he’s a very controversial person, but I always loved listening to Rajnish. He has been very controversial and everybody has some good points, some bad points. But I think he is honest if you listen to his videos and audios and, if you read his books, I think he is truly reflected on life. And unlike most of the religions, including Jainism or Hinduism, I don’t mind going on a record by saying that Rajnish ji has really reflected. And that also so many decades back. Okay. So that’s the one person who has really touched me.

The one, Shastra, which has really touched me is a yoga sutra of Patanjali. Astana yoga. You know, in 8 words, starting from yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharna, dhyana, and samadhi. No religion, No rituals. Take care of your body, mind, and soul. And absolutely easy language. Absolutely easy way of explaining it.

No complicated words like most religions. Nothing much rituals to do except that you do asana for the betterment of your physical health, for the stability of your body. So that’s wonderful, Shastra. And I believe that every but today, unfortunately, yoga means asana, which is not the Patanjali Yoga Sutra is. Patanjali Yoga Sutra is to start with the yama and niyama to jump to pratyahara, that means withdrawal of the senses.

And then to go to Adi. So that’s one, subject which has really touched my heart.

[00:20:05 – 00:20:19] Nitin Bajaj

Thank you for sharing both these resources. Really appreciate it. Now on to my favorite part of the show, we call this the one line life lessons. I’d love to ask you and share your one line life lessons with us.

[00:20:21 – 00:20:47] Ajay Sheth

1, at this stage, we have realized that we would like to live the rest of our life like a toddler, playful, innocent, with a lot of curiosity to look around. 2nd, I believe that we should use money as an object, any object, but should not get attached to that money or object. Use it. The 3rd most important part of what I’ve learned is, there was lump, love, and compassion for all living beings. The ahinsa part of Jainism will teach you. But, actually, you have to have love and compassion for all living beings. You know? One more fourth one if I say I think that I’ll say acceptance of the situation. Acceptance of the situation with equanimity. Okay. And last one.

Honestly, I don’t know whether people will like it or not. But if I take my journey I was born as a human being. I was not a human being, but I would like to die as a human being.

[00:21:37 – 00:21:38] Nitin Bajaj

Very deep.

[00:21:39 – 00:22:04] Ajay Sheth

Yeah. I was born as a human being for and leave aside my young childhood days of 5 years, 6 years, 7 years. From then till the age of 52, 53, I was not a human being. Okay. And then I started taking the journey to again becoming a human being and probably I wish that I die as a human being.

[00:22:05 – 00:22:45] Nitin Bajaj

It takes a lot of courage and it takes a lot of grounding and humility to say that. And to be able to say something, you should believe it first. And, believing something as deep as that tells me how clean and pure you are. So thank you again for being you and for doing all of the service you’re doing for the community. Really appreciate you making the time to share your journey and story with us. And I am looking forward to you continuing on that journey and touching many more lives. Thank you.

[00:22:45 – 00:22:49] Ajay Sheth

Thank you very much, Nitin bhai for bringing me here. Thank you so much.