Synergising a ‘sporty’ mind for work-life
Honing any passion in life needs the right triggers and childhood influences can lead to a wonderful journey. And this has been spot-on for Harsh Agarwal, Co-founder, RAIN Technologies, whose passion for sports found its influences at home and so did his professional acumen into the financial markets. Harsh featured in the inaugural edition of the Forbes India - 30 under 30 listing of entrepreneurs and hails from an industrialist family of competitive motorsports enthusiasts and golfers. It was but natural for him to take on these interests. He is an amateur golfer with a handicap of 16, an avid tennis player and a squash enthusiast. He has also experienced the highs of his childhood passion for competitive motorsports. A winner of numerous national Go-Karting championships, he keenly follows Formula-1 racing. An intense yoga practitioner, he shared his mileages into fitness and well-being
“When you take up a sport at an early age, it is less about inspiration and more about influence,” said Harsh Agarwal, Co-founder, RAIN Technologies, an AI-driven solution for a fully automated trading service. The company’s autonomous trading technologies powers operations across domains of institutional investors, proprietary trading firms and retail consumers.
He has seen prominence in his earlier stint with Deutsche Bank as one of the youngest to have assisted in managing assets of over $75 million while advising global PE funds on their India investments. He along with his brother Kanishk, started a hedge fund AGacquisitions in 2013. As one of the youngest panellists at the Wharton India Economic Forum, he has been associated as Vice Curator of the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers Community.
Life imitates sports
Harsh attributes his early introduction to sports and involvement in sports-based activities, in sharpening his discipline and focus as a professional too. His belief in holistic development and philosophy was ingrained into him by his elder brother Kanishk was also instrumental in setting up India’s first offshore hedge fund.
“Sports definitely plays an important and holistic role in life. I was a sportsperson and into competitive motorsports and won many accolades. However, in my current phase in life, I am more of a sports enthusiast,” he said. An understatement perhaps, given his confession that a weekend game of tennis with his family is a stress buster that enables him to gear up for the week ahead.
He finds a similarity between life and the game of golf. “On many occasions, I have encountered that my experiences in difficult situations on the golf course has helped me relate better to situations in my professional dealings,” he said. “In fact, playing golf from a noticeably young age has given me a perspective to life that is very real,” he added.
He also played a good amount of squash in his younger days before he switched over to tennis. Harsh’s tryst with yoga began in 2015 and he has been a regular practitioner till date. “My yoga sessions are intense and helps me keep my mind and body agile. It has also helped to calm my mind and keep it sharp,” he said.
"On many occasions, I have encountered that my experiences in difficult situations on the golf course has helped me relate better to situations that sprung up during my professional dealings"
- Harsh Agarwal
A ‘yogic’ state to fitness
Like most sports enthusiasts, Harsh too understands the difference between playing a sport and is actively pursuing a fitness goal. While he was always drawn to active sports and constantly engaged with it, he never thought about it as a means of being fit.
He credits all his sporting encounters to his family, and to his brother Kanishk, in particular. He has imbibed his brother’s belief that “Sports defines the character of a person and is an important aspect of one’s personal development.”
For Harsh, sports is an enjoyable state while competitive sports helps to build and showcase skills.
“It was only when I started practising yoga that I got a glimpse of fitness from a well-rounded perspective. I have observed noticeably clear changes, especially mental gains when one practises yoga,” he said. With the daily practice of yoga, he observed that, “It (yoga) gradually permeates into your daily routine and before you know, becomes an active part of your personality,” said Harsh.
“In fact, yoga helps my golf game as well as by enabling my flexibility and weight training has helped build the required strength,” said Harsh. On a regular day, his dose of fitness comprises an hour-long yoga around 6:30 pm, tennis on Sundays and golf usually in early mornings or on a Saturday. He practices strength training late at night.
Harsh manages to practice yoga 3-4 times weekly, while golf is played a few times a month and his Sunday tennis schedule with family reins in an overall sense of satisfaction.
Fitness philosophy
Change is inevitable in all the spheres and steering change in one’s workout regime has its own perks. “It is only more enjoyable when you try different things and experience new ways to train and work on your body,” said Harsh.
However, when he had to make certain changes to his diet, he had to tune into his fitness needs that demanded weight training. When he switched over to a strictly vegetarian diet, he observed a severe impact on his physiology. “I had lost weight that I could not afford to, and it had required me to change my focus to weight training during the lockdown,” he said.
For the better part of his life, Harsh’s focus has been on building a sustainable attitude towards fitness. “The feel-good factor and the competitive nature of the sports I have been involved with really gives me a high.”
In evaluating his mental and physical frame when engaged in fitness in comparison to when he sometimes does not feel upbeat. “The positive of fitness outweigh the negatives and that itself is a great motivator. I am strong-minded, so I really don’t need much self-motivation,” he said.
Corporate fitness
Harsh encourages his team members to enrol tennis lessons or any sports of their desire and is upbeat on the general degree of sports and fitness participation amongst his peers and colleagues. He believes in sports as an enabler in bringing people to find common grounds and forge bonds, which also stands true in his work-life experiences.
Highpoints in encouraging sports in the workspace led to: Team participation in golfing tournaments have added success and memories to share. A trader who learnt tennis gained personally and professionally in his life.
“It is quite easy for us to focus on the stereotype of the overworked, middle-aged corporate personnel and their lack of fitness. But when I look around, I see people biking, hiking, running and that is encouraging. I do not know if this is an urban phenomenon. More people than we imagine are actively engaged in sports today than in the recent past,” said Harsh.
Beating the pandemic
Despite the lockdown that restricted much of Harsh’s outdoor sports, it was not difficult for him to indulge in some of them. Most of them were sports that are governed by strict guidelines and impacted positively to his fitness gains.
Yoga at home via Zoom app and strength training has been his consistent regime throughout the pandemic with golf and tennis added as weekend indulges. “I am managing as facilities are opening up slowly again. Also, with the facilities that were open, I limited myself to weekend activities during the better part of the outbreak,” he said.
He credits yoga for his overall mental well-being during the pandemic and acknowledges that fitness benefits cannot be attained as overnight health fixes.
The pandemic has also been a constant reminder that practising yoga alone, cannot build the mental fortitude to overcome challenging times. “The fact that you were mentally and physically in a good shape before the challenging times began, definitely gives you the capacity to ride through them,” he said.
“Challenging times affect everybody, the fit person and the not-so-fit individual, but what changes is the capacity to deal with adversity,” said Harsh.