On this episode of the NTP Podcast, our host Ellen Bennett sits down with Kavita Agarwal, UX Lead at Arq Group. They chat about the projects Kavita has been working on at Arq Group as well as the importance of being curious in tech and asking questions.

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Show Notes

Here you can source all the things we have talked about in the podcast whether that be books, events, meet-up groups and what’s new in the Newcastle tech scene.

• • Kavita’s LinkedIn
  • Arq Group’s LinkedIn
  • Arq Group’s Website

Find all local Newcastle Technology Events

• Event’s Page

00:00:20:12 – 00:00:40:03
Ellen Bennett
Thanks so much for joining us. In the latest episode of Digitally Diverse, a podcast where we do a deep dive into the leaders, the movers and shakers in the design and tech industry. And today we are so happy to say that Kavita Agarwal is joining us. Welcome, Kavita.

00:00:40:06 – 00:00:42:13
Kavita Agarwal
Thank you, Ellen. Pleased to be here.

00:00:42:14 – 00:00:52:00
Ellen Bennett
Kavita, you’re the design and research lead at Arq Group. Can you tell us a little bit about your career today, your journey? Give us a brief overview.

00:00:52:03 – 00:01:12:21
Kavita Agarwal
Yes. Thank you so much. So what I’m doing right now, I am at an interesting phase where I joined the organisation that I work with as the design and research lead last year and of late just been I’m doing a secondment with the sales team, trying to bring in design thinking into the sales aspect of how things work.

00:01:12:23 – 00:01:36:15
Kavita Agarwal
It’s an overwhelming world, but I’m trying to make it a little more designed so it’s friendly. So it involves a lot of advocacy for the thought it was communicating the value of design and designs and how we can benefit out of these design thinking practices early on before the product roadmaps are defined and designed. Your second question How did I get here?

00:01:36:18 – 00:01:58:11
Kavita Agarwal
I’ve had an interesting idea. I’ve been working for about five years now. I started my career as a design researcher Back then. It was not UX or product. It was designed. So that’s how I started my career. I dabbled between design and design toward a couple of years and then found my space in rethought and I just fell in love with it.

00:01:58:11 – 00:02:18:29
Kavita Agarwal
And, you know, when you when you start doing something and you really enjoy it, you start getting better at the things, getting good at it. And book is not seen so much as work. So that’s exactly what happened to me with this organisation that I was working for in India. And after moving from a company, demanded a couple of moves.

00:02:19:01 – 00:02:43:14
Kavita Agarwal
I am of Australia and the Australian industry works a little differently, especially the UX field looks slightly differently. So I’m still trying to assess and sort of trying to there for years, trying to find my space, trying to figure out how things work here. But in the last four years of bonds with organisations like Movember, I blogged about the design of which was a hybrid design.

00:02:43:16 – 00:03:04:09
Kavita Agarwal
After that, I joined. That’s what about the odd I was working with them as a scene designer, but a mix of designer decides again. And then I found this gods of NZ, which saw the value of saw it and they wanted me to set up their research practice and made that practice. So yeah, that’s how in a very brief nutshell, this is how I got to where I agree.

00:03:04:09 – 00:03:23:09
Ellen Bennett
And your I feel like design leads or anyone kind of like in design leadership kind of takes a bit of a winding route to try and figure out where they fit in and what like lights their fire. So yeah, it makes sense that you’ve Yeah, tried out and dabbled in a little in like quite a few different things in your time.

00:03:23:09 – 00:03:34:24
Ellen Bennett
But yeah, tell me a little bit about the, about the projects and the problems that you’re trying to solve in like being placed in that secondment into the sales team at Arq.

00:03:34:26 – 00:04:00:18
Kavita Agarwal
So my leaders are incredibly motivating and encouraging. So that’s been really helpful, but it’s overwhelming. One example when I was leading a accountability ability, I’ve been able to develop order for being able to develop a trust with my team members. But if you assign something, you know, I’ll get done. You trust them enough and you know the capabilities.

00:04:00:25 – 00:04:30:23
Kavita Agarwal
So you know I’ll be done. What’s this vineyard in the sales perspective, you’re managing 10,000 things. Things are moving so fast, it’s just hard to catch up. You have to constantly be choosing people to constantly keep getting things done. And, you know, so many different things. So, say, for example, when I was doing design and we thought I knew everything in that, and I’ve been doing that for years and of course, and it gets to a point where it becomes second nature, it becomes muscle memory, you know, it really was.

00:04:30:26 – 00:04:49:19
Kavita Agarwal
And now I’m in a space, I’m in goals with different developers and cloud architects and solution engineers, and they’re talking hardcore technology. And I did not understand if you were going to keep making notes. I mean, going back and Googling and trying to figure out what they say. That’s what my world has been for the past one month.

00:04:49:19 – 00:05:12:18
Kavita Agarwal
But it’s also been incredibly humbling to go back to them and ask them questions, going with curiosity and making sure that you open up that avenue, you build those new rapports with these incredibly talented folks to ask them these questions and be comfortable being learning new things at a much faster pace. So it’s been a lot of things.

00:05:12:18 – 00:05:15:24
Kavita Agarwal
It’s been a lot of moving parts, but it’s been an exciting.

00:05:15:27 – 00:05:39:07
Ellen Bennett
I mean, that would have been super, super challenging to kind of be like, you know, the foundations of research and you know, what your job is. But to be then put in a completely new environment and like have to figure it out as you go along. What was what was the reactions to like those developers or like those new those new connections that you were making?

00:05:39:08 – 00:05:46:14
Ellen Bennett
What had it how did they react? Having someone working with them that might not necessarily know all of their lingo and all of the tech.

00:05:46:16 – 00:06:06:23
Kavita Agarwal
Apps, surprisingly exposing them to empathetic people like and not in a way or common or IP too. But hey, this is what we do and we don’t expect you to know everything. But it might help if you knew all these basic high level, if you had this basic kind of line of standing. So they’ve been extremely forthcoming with information.

00:06:06:23 – 00:06:29:09
Kavita Agarwal
They’ve been extremely, incredibly helpful, surprisingly so. Like, I was not expecting this humbleness from them on this, these of being touched. And now I’m not I don’t feel foolish for not knowing those things. I understand and I accept that that’s not of my job. I don’t need to know everything. I cannot It’s humanly impossible for me to know everything.

00:06:29:12 – 00:06:35:11
Kavita Agarwal
So being comfortable with that idea has been a huge learning curve for me.

00:06:35:13 – 00:06:53:26
Ellen Bennett
And it must feel very liberating as well to be like, Oh, I actually don’t have to know at all. Like this is great. I can lean on other people to help me do my job better instead of thinking that I’ve got to figure it all out right now. So. Oh, that’s that’s good to hear. Yeah, it’s it’s super important to be able to lean on like other experts.

00:06:53:26 – 00:06:54:23
Ellen Bennett
That’s great.

00:06:54:26 – 00:07:16:06
Kavita Agarwal
And having the right people on the other side of the fence who are not making you feel incompetent for not having that information, but then translating that confidence and saying, yeah, you don’t know it and you don’t need to noise. Yeah. So I think that’s been the domino to do that. Use liberating. That’s, that’s been Yeah definitely.

00:07:16:09 – 00:07:26:06
Ellen Bennett
So Kavita what kind of higher education did you take part in and would you, would you recommend that route for other people wanting to get into tech.

00:07:26:09 – 00:07:57:01
Kavita Agarwal
I wish I had an interesting answer for this that I was going to guns when I was in the Army, and then I found design law and the desire to improve. So I was introduced to design very early on in my life by my brother. So my older brother, he interviews will do these animal surveys and he told me about these and it was a these that you can go to and study design and very early on I always knew I wanted to do something the the field not something hands on.

00:07:57:03 – 00:08:18:18
Kavita Agarwal
I followed rule of elimination. So I knew I did not want to do animation. I did not want to do anything to do with computers. Back then, I wanted to do something. Hands-On And that’s when I studied design, and I started preparing myself for an education and product design. I prepared for competitive exams and I got through this university.

00:08:18:18 – 00:08:42:18
Kavita Agarwal
I studied fashion, so I studied fashion and lifestyle accessories back then. So I’m a graduate in design. And but throughout the four years of my education in university, it was really interesting the way the entire syllabus was laid out, the way they got a program of this university was laid out like they’d give you a job. There were no books for yours, no books, computer and internet and libidos that used to work.

00:08:42:18 – 00:09:05:11
Kavita Agarwal
It was I was used to be in the lab. And then it’s like working. They’d give you a problem and you go to search on that problem. You identify, you study the program, and then you have to manifest this problem solution in the form of a product. And you have to design the product is to build the product.

00:09:05:11 – 00:09:28:27
Kavita Agarwal
You got your own. Would you do your own medical very your own things? So that’s how the entire course work was laid back. That was really interesting and throughout satellite that I’d spend a ton of my time researching and I’d have very little time designing an app to be prototyping. So I would enjoy the prototyping and I’d enjoy the insights a lot more than anything else.

00:09:29:00 – 00:09:52:02
Kavita Agarwal
So I really enjoyed these thoughts. How can I find a job and do such? So that’s what I did. I started with this one design agency and started working with them as a design researcher. But after that project, then I moved to another organisation, digital design for them. So at that point, products were hardcore, tangible tangibles that that’s not digital explicit.

00:09:52:05 – 00:10:17:02
Kavita Agarwal
So I design jewellery for them. So the way I function in my career, I’ve always had the next career progression in mind, and I always look at what the roles and responsibilities see by example. If I was working as a designer, I would start with the roles and responsibilities of the senior designer in mind. I’d I’d go through the roles and responsibilities for what’s required for the next role and then start functioning.

00:10:17:06 – 00:10:49:00
Kavita Agarwal
So that’s how I usually function. But I’ll always have a vision of the future roadmap of what things could look like, what things would progress. And I always work backwards towards that. That’s how I have kind of structured my entire body image and I wanted to do that. I knew what I wanted to do next. And during this, during the I figured that very quickly that the hardcore tangible product design opportunities would end starting point if I wanted to move beyond, I would need to do more.

00:10:49:00 – 00:11:25:10
Kavita Agarwal
I would need to add more elements into my to be. At that point, the transformation was happening. Even if you’re designing products, you need an interface to sell those products. So at one point I was working for the startup that we were trying to build an e-commerce website to sell these products and beautifully brilliant products, and we won many awards for those designs, but not selling for some reason, we were not reaching these customers because the only interface between the design and the product was this website, which for some reason was not working.

00:11:25:13 – 00:11:49:07
Kavita Agarwal
And at that point I started doing a lot of usability bars and trying to identify, okay, what’s wrong? How can we bring this closer to the users mental model? And that’s when I figured out that I was really enjoying it. So I moved to another design agency from there. And I think that we thought within and I picked up an organisation which had really good relationships with the larger tech companies like Facebook, Amazon, Google.

00:11:49:09 – 00:12:17:06
Kavita Agarwal
I got to work on all of these companies, so I saw them at one point handling the guys on site, Facebook, forming projects for Amazon, Big incredible work with them. And that’s was my that’s how I entered the tech world. And since then in terms of how we have progressed has been mostly around just switching companies and trying to identify, okay, do I want to go next?

00:12:17:08 – 00:12:42:18
Kavita Agarwal
And within design it says, When I say design, I don’t just mean design. I’m talking about research. I’m talking about service design. I’m talking, What are you talking about? Content. So it’s a mix of all of that and have taken up rules, which has allowed me to explore all of these different things with them just as well. I think thousand tools that you could use with so many tools that I’ve used once in my life and I haven’t had the time to deal with it again.

00:12:42:20 – 00:13:26:03
Kavita Agarwal
So it’s just that I’ve tried to explore as much as I can, sort of like social media for Facebook, chatting for you, mental health for Movember, which is completely different though the images like this was absolutely different. Banking with NAB and now working with everyone in financial services involved with the transport companies, the government organisations within Victoria. So it’s just been an entire culmination of every different domain within design that I could explore just learning from people who are in the industry and who are doing the best of what they can do, and just keeping an open mindset and being curious about life.

00:13:26:07 – 00:13:29:09
Kavita Agarwal
That’s basically how it has been for me.

00:13:29:12 – 00:13:51:09
Ellen Bennett
With that be like trying lots of different things and always having a goal for your next step. Would that be like perhaps some advice that you would give to younger people wanting to start out in tech and in research, or would there be any advice that you’d give to people to not do what you did? Like, is there anything jump out for you there?

00:13:51:11 – 00:14:15:21
Kavita Agarwal
I think for me, what has really had for me was when I was starting out in my career, identifying what my learning style was, has worked beautifully. So say, for example, I’m a hands on boss and I never did my post-graduation, but I’ve done a couple of certifications along the way to pick up skills that would justify the skills that I have, because there are companies who would look at these certificates I do have.

00:14:15:21 – 00:14:40:17
Kavita Agarwal
We would need that tag associated. Even if you have those skills, especially that companies need those tags. But identifying that I learned better with hands on and that’s how my university innovation was made. I think that’s where I learned that throughout. I was never a building student. There was never a word. I was always an avid student in school because I was learning out of books.

00:14:40:19 – 00:15:07:13
Kavita Agarwal
I climbed in college, I climbed in university. I was doing so well because it was a practical learning. So that’s what I have done and this is something that I encourage everybody to do. Internships learn as much as you can through internships, if that’s your style. But if your style is going into a classroom, embedding and immersing yourself into a one on one class or, you know, being in webinars, but how we build whatever works for you but constantly keep learning.

00:15:07:15 – 00:15:24:20
Kavita Agarwal
Nobody knows what you want to be in your hands. I don’t know. Whatever. I still don’t know what I’m doing, what I want to do with eight years hence. But big the next step. Don’t sit there, just dig the next step and don’t be scared. And this is something that I keep telling myself even now to not be scared, to not be scared.

00:15:24:20 – 00:15:28:09
Kavita Agarwal
And I’m constantly doing everything scared, but I still do it.

00:15:28:11 – 00:15:49:01
Ellen Bennett
So it’s one of those things right where I like it sounds so cliche when you get out of uni, it’s like, Oh, the second you stop learning is the time that you should retire because, you know, you should always be wanting to like learn a little bit more. But when you’re young, you think like there’s so much that you don’t know and you know that.

00:15:49:01 – 00:16:16:04
Ellen Bennett
And now, now they’re all for me anyway. I’ve been out of uni now for ten years and I’m like, I, I now realise that not knowing all the things is a huge strength because that connects people and it brings people together like me asking questions and sharing my knowledge, like brings people like to me and vice versa. So yeah, I think that’s, that’s so true.

00:16:16:04 – 00:16:43:18
Ellen Bennett
Like the minute that you realise that you, you do need to rely on other people and their skills for you to get ahead. And yeah, I think you’ve got to really rely on like your design community and the learning style point that you brought out too is super interesting because I’ve never really thought about that before. I think there is there like a quiz or something that you do or do you just kind of like self-assess what your, what you’re like Yeah.

00:16:43:23 – 00:17:06:09
Kavita Agarwal
Oh, interesting that he asked me that. I actually I did not know about this myself. I did not know that this because I met, I met this person on on a hike once and that’s when they mention that Oh yeah. I don’t like podcasts, but why? Because I like what that is. And they were like, No, I just cannot concentrate.

00:17:06:09 – 00:17:28:20
Kavita Agarwal
I just cannot. I just cannot focus on them. And by the time I focus, the podcast has ended. So but they like audiobooks and I can’t listen to audiobooks. I just do not listen to audiobooks. I like the feel of a book in my hand and I like a cup of coffee in my hand. I like. It’s an experience for me.

00:17:28:23 – 00:17:47:10
Kavita Agarwal
And that’s how we started communicating about. And that’s that’s when we figured out that, yes, there are these different dining stories and different things will motivate people. It’s exactly like how I’ve when I was a kid, my mum would like you listen to a song and you remember the entire song in like two days. But if I want you to learn a lesson, you’ve got to learn that.

00:17:47:12 – 00:18:07:01
Kavita Agarwal
But but because it was much more engaging, it wasn’t sing songs meant it wasn’t written in a book, and I did not have that look. So it’s just that’s how I go to the other and answer the question about is that escape. And I did have that link where you could go in and you would assess there are a couple of questions that you have to answer.

00:18:07:02 – 00:18:09:15
Kavita Agarwal
Then assess what your learning styles that is.

00:18:09:15 – 00:18:23:22
Ellen Bennett
And I’m sure that there’s something on BuzzFeed. They’ve got a quiz for everything else, so I’m sure they’ve got something. If you can do a quiz about what type of onion you are, then you can probably do a quiz about what learning style.

00:18:23:24 – 00:18:25:12
Kavita Agarwal
The nine, go to BuzzFeed.

00:18:25:17 – 00:18:41:16
Ellen Bennett
You know, I guess that kind of with with that I’d say what kind of likes you up and like motivates you to to do what you do and to like keep on stretching your comfort zone.

00:18:41:19 – 00:19:06:27
Kavita Agarwal
Very good question. And I’ve not been able to identify the answer to this question, but I think I just keep going. I just know that if I, I do not want to be stagnant. I do not want to stay where I am, not for a very long time. I’m not talking in terms of jobs, in terms of relationships and dorms, of people, but in terms of I think that there’s so much to learn, so much to do.

00:19:06:27 – 00:19:27:01
Kavita Agarwal
And I want to do everything. I’m I’m one of those people who cannot let go. How social media wants you to believe that everybody has ADHD because you want 10,000 things. I do not have it, but I still want to do the important things and I feel that I’m missing out. I’m missing out on so many different things if I don’t do it right now.

00:19:27:03 – 00:19:48:21
Kavita Agarwal
So what inspires me to work is just that this is another chance to bring in design. Thinking is beautiful, being empathy, being empathetic towards your users and the businesses that you work with, with clients, ideas of. It’s not hard, it’s actually funny. And then you it’s like I genuinely am one of those boring people when enjoy what she does.

00:19:48:24 – 00:20:11:14
Kavita Agarwal
So it’s it’s not really a challenge to figure it out what like what inspires me the most but I just keeping going and if I’m bored, I just try and do these different kind of stories and try and implement these different thinking in my working style to keep myself engaged and motivated. So I think I don’t have a clear answer to what keeps me motivated.

00:20:11:16 – 00:20:14:17
Kavita Agarwal
Long winded, so I don’t know the answer.

00:20:14:23 – 00:20:34:22
Ellen Bennett
To me, the takeaway that I got from that would be that what motivates you is like FOMO, but with knowledge like you’ve got, you just want to like absorb all the things. And as a researcher, that’s a pretty good that’s a pretty good motivation to have.

00:20:34:24 – 00:20:58:02
Kavita Agarwal
Thank you for making this sound intelligent. With that, I’m beautifully articulating it. I remember when I was growing up, my mom used to always sit on my stop loss. So many questions. Why? And then now I’m like, okay, fine. Now I make a living out of plastic glass. So this is exactly what I was thinking of. I think I’ve always been a curious was.

00:20:58:04 – 00:21:01:05
Ellen Bennett
The perfect job for you.

00:21:01:07 – 00:21:03:14
Kavita Agarwal
So I hope so.

00:21:03:17 – 00:21:19:13
Ellen Bennett
So is there anything that you do like regularly to kind of motivate you other than of course, like try and spice things up a little bit? Like, do you do any like self-care or just what what do you do to keep yourself in like mental tip top shape?

00:21:19:15 – 00:21:42:00
Kavita Agarwal
I am one of those lucky people who had the chance to work with a mental health organisation for two years. So I spent two years with Movember and learning all about self good and learning all about how important it is to see, to take care of yourself, to be able to deliver the best at your work. So it’s a two way street, right?

00:21:42:07 – 00:22:11:17
Kavita Agarwal
So how I see it is my 9 to 5 is my job. Any time outside of that on my weekends is my job for my lover that everything that I do is self-care. So be it. Trying new things, experiencing new experiences is taking care of my emotional has, recognizing, identifying if I need extra support. So for example, if I’m feeling bogged down, what if I’m not feeling all right about something and I can’t do a thing that I did?

00:22:11:17 – 00:22:34:10
Kavita Agarwal
And that has to be happens. And the reason could be anything. And I know I recognize that feeling early on, and I jump on a call with the counselor or I jump on my journals to write and figured out what’s what’s wrong, what’s bothering me, and unless and until I figured out what’s bothering me, I would never be able to do problem solving.

00:22:34:13 – 00:23:07:00
Kavita Agarwal
And problem solving is what I do for a living. So if I, if if I can’t for my own life, then there’s something intrinsically wrong there. So everything that I do in terms of sleep all night begins. I don’t I try my best not to touch my laptop unless and until there’s something that’s really pressing. And I have not been able to manage my time in a way to address that feeling like my work is so if I have to do something like the last one, there was so many different things that I wanted to learn.

00:23:07:00 – 00:23:28:15
Kavita Agarwal
I needed to learn. I see some of the work that fellow Americans have learned the hard way that if I do not speak for myself and do things, that makes me happy. Also recognizing what makes me happy. That was joy me. I did not know what my happiness. I did not even know what my favorite food was. But I’ve had to do it now over the last 3 hours and figuring out what makes me happy.

00:23:28:23 – 00:23:51:08
Kavita Agarwal
And I keep doing that. So But it feels like I spend on the first hike and I loved it. And I slowly started doing more of that simple, right? You figure out what you want to do and you keep doing more of that. That’s it. That’s that’s my self-care ideology and now I spend all my games out in the mountains hiking.

00:23:51:10 – 00:24:14:28
Kavita Agarwal
And I recently just picked up three climbing and that’s no biking. And that’s scary, but it’s never anything and it’s fun. It’s making me really happy. So yeah, just identifying things that makes me happy and doing more of it. And also friends, I think the kind of I have a very closed, so I have a very close group of friends and I mix like any meaningful relationships.

00:24:15:00 – 00:24:44:19
Kavita Agarwal
I have a track record of making, say, one friendly voice, but these are meaningful. I can have conversations with them even if I’m not meeting them for months. This dude, my friends. So I think just making sure that everything outside of work is if it’s enriching my emotion being or my physical being is summed and consciously doing that is something that keeps me in check with my mental health.

00:24:44:20 – 00:25:03:23
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, that’s fantastic. And when you when you say it like that, it’s so simple. Like find what you like and and do it. That’s it. Really at the end of the day and yeah, I think having, having a really supportive circle around you so so important I love making a new friend a year like.

00:25:03:23 – 00:25:04:26
Kavita Agarwal
Especially.

00:25:04:28 – 00:25:21:19
Ellen Bennett
After you are out of school. Like making friends is really hard as an adult. Like it’s, it’s really difficult. So the fact that you’re, you know, picking up new hobbies and always wanting to challenge yourself, you’re inevitably going to meet people doing that as well. So yeah, that’s fantastic.

00:25:21:21 – 00:25:44:27
Kavita Agarwal
It is hard and it’s so true what you said, that it’s all about making friends and I’m more of your business would be there was I knew no one the day I landed. I had a massive golf ball in my life which sent me to the darkest point I have not like. That was the darkest phase of my life because of this situation and I had no friends.

00:25:44:27 – 00:26:15:27
Kavita Agarwal
I my family had no clue what was going on and I had no money. Everything was pushed, got violent, and coming out of that in identifying some of these people and allowing them to be a part of your life and bringing them in, being vulnerable, it was scary, but it’s liberating when you find them. It’s so hard, but you gotta do what you gotta do as what somebody once told me.

00:26:15:27 – 00:26:20:13
Kavita Agarwal
So this is what I keep telling myself you gotta do. What you gotta do is you can do it anyway.

00:26:20:13 – 00:26:27:18
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, I think that’s Yeah. Spot on. And I guess when you. How long have you been in Australia?

00:26:27:18 – 00:26:31:26
Kavita Agarwal
For now I’ve been in Australia a little less than four years.

00:26:31:26 – 00:26:56:07
Ellen Bennett
So yeah, I mean, well the last couple of years has been super hard for, for everyone obviously, but coming to like a brand new country and not knowing anyone must have been like, yeah, that, that would have been a really scary moment. Does does that, has that kind of like impacted your, your career and your outlook on to how you look at things?

00:26:56:10 – 00:27:24:27
Kavita Agarwal
Absolutely. So what actually happened in my life during this time is what took precedence because that was so much more harder, that warming when you can react to the benefit of me moving to a place where nobody knew me actually benefited me. So when I arrived here, my life was going to be something completely different. And then things changed.

00:27:24:29 – 00:27:45:20
Kavita Agarwal
But thankfully, what worked for me was having a job with Movember. I came in with a job so all that organization and my manager at the time, they literally pulled me out of the door because nobody knew what was going on. Nobody. I had not opened up to anyone about what was going on in my life and nobody could see the impact.

00:27:45:22 – 00:28:09:27
Kavita Agarwal
So he’d interviewed me right when I was in India interviewing a different person and ended up joining the organization. Was this shy and confident who did not know what to say, when to say because she was constantly I’d be as deep and I was constantly my brain was fogged with what was going on at home. It was just so hard for me to concentrate and work.

00:28:09:27 – 00:28:32:16
Kavita Agarwal
It was just so hard for me to function at work. But I was also hanging on to the job because that was the only point of anger I had. So from a very confident, independent person to the side, the maid under confident, bossing, who started working, it had a massive impact on my job because my job was all about people.

00:28:32:16 – 00:29:02:15
Kavita Agarwal
My job requires me to present my findings to senior management. My job requires me to convince people that what I’m saying is right. But if I’m not confident about it, I would never be able to translate that analogy. And that is exactly what was happening. But identifying that that was happening and making sure that I’m speaking the right steps to not sit in the problem, but figuring out how to solve this problem because people become like life and go on and problems will come to all of us.

00:29:02:15 – 00:29:20:21
Kavita Agarwal
I wish there was a way. I wish I could just say, stand it and stay stuck. You don’t come to me or stop, don’t talk to me for that’s that’s not going to happen. These things can continue to happen. But what I what I learned from Movember was I need to work on my decisions. I need to control what I can control.

00:29:20:21 – 00:29:45:21
Kavita Agarwal
And what I can control is my resilience. And nobody knows that. I do not even know what this means as a knowledge of events and in government and as the dabbled in and landlord and deep into it figured out that okay because of the situation I’ve now previously how do I do that and I did this job and and my manager the times are more supportive most incredibly most talented person that I was with.

00:29:45:23 – 00:30:02:25
Kavita Agarwal
You know, when you have those performance check ins and then you have queries for the next couple of months, my kids for the next couple of months was exercising, making sure I’m talking to a counselor, making sure that I’m looking after myself and making sure I’m using like these will make. And that’s what he did for.

00:30:03:00 – 00:30:06:03
Ellen Bennett
Good Leader, isn’t it?

00:30:06:05 – 00:30:38:22
Kavita Agarwal
Me is the best I’m used. And he’s not just a grind for us. He is incredibly talented and intelligent. Like I owe so much to him. He’s he’s. He is. Because I didn’t add a metal meal and he beat us. So that’s what he did for me. And that’s when I realized that, you know what? He’s right. If I don’t take care of myself, I lose everything in my life because everything is connected with me and I’m connected with my emotional state of being just prioritizing that and identifying what works for me.

00:30:38:22 – 00:31:16:25
Kavita Agarwal
Because through through, through my journey in mental has I learned that there are 10,000 tools, that 10,000 methodologies, but not everything would work for me. Exactly like how we were walking, talking about going upstairs. Right? There are different ways of learning, but not necessarily Everything would work for me. So identifying what works for me in terms of this gift of tools, this toolkit, identifying which one works for me, and making sure that I practice that more and more to build my resilience and having the same problem solving hard to deal with in my personal life is what helped me, is what pulled me out of bed, what I was.

00:31:16:27 – 00:31:37:09
Kavita Agarwal
And now I see myself getting back to the person I’m sitting on 100% that I’m still not what I was. I’m still healing and still recovering. But I see that I’m so much more closer to what I was in arms of my confidence in terms of how I conducted myself at work now than I was at the time then.

00:31:37:12 – 00:31:41:01
Kavita Agarwal
Trust me, I would be in a meeting and you wouldn’t even know it was that You.

00:31:41:01 – 00:32:05:01
Ellen Bennett
Wouldn’t you wouldn’t have thought that after after how eloquently you’re speaking today. So, yeah, that’s incredible. That and you’re right. Like, you really do have to prioritize yourself sometimes, and it’s like you as a person, you are the foundation and what you do, who you are with your friends and your family and your work. That’s all an extension of that.

00:32:05:01 – 00:32:28:21
Ellen Bennett
So if you’re not taking care of yourself and you realize that there’s problems that need to be solved, then the second that you can realize that and recognize that and work on it, the better life for every other aspect of your life. So kudos to you for recognizing it and kudos to your Movember manager for also being a really powerful leader in that moment.

00:32:28:21 – 00:32:38:29
Ellen Bennett
Because I feel like this. Yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s a good leader, right? They can see that, you know, if the foundation isn’t there, you’ve got to work on that first.

00:32:39:01 – 00:33:01:23
Kavita Agarwal
100%, right. Like I was in a six month contract for them, they it was very easy for them to like for him to just decide that, you know what, It’s not working out. Your contract is coming to an end and we’re not. It. But you took a chance and he did. Yeah. That’s that’s a leader that’s. I don’t have a domino ology for him, but he’s incredible.

00:33:01:25 – 00:33:04:10
Kavita Agarwal
That’s, that’s a person who walks the dog.

00:33:04:13 – 00:33:29:11
Ellen Bennett
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Love that. Thanks for sharing. I really appreciate you sharing that with us. So, Kavita, we’ve kind of touched on, you know, your your journey so far and how that’s been impacted with like you moving and like some really incredible leaders. So if you could give yourself a bit of your younger self, some career advice, what what would that be like?

00:33:29:13 – 00:33:49:05
Kavita Agarwal
What would that be? That I think if I been on side now in terms of the headspace that I’m in right now, I’d just say, don’t be scared. I wish I knew and I learned how to not be scared early on in life. That’s something that I’d say, but everything would work out if it has to work at all.

00:33:49:07 – 00:34:02:18
Kavita Agarwal
It’s never too late. And like any yes, career is important. Find what you really enjoy doing. But it’s also gave you don’t just don’t be scared. I think that’s that’s why I wish I knew that.

00:34:02:23 – 00:34:27:18
Ellen Bennett
Yeah I yeah I think that’s so true. Like you go into you go into work and career and all of a sudden you’re like thrust into this world that you don’t know anything about. And it’s, it’s super scary like it is. It’s brand new. You’re learning how like a workplace functions and it’s super daunting. But knowing that, you know, you do get used to it, you do get the hang of it.

00:34:27:18 – 00:34:34:18
Ellen Bennett
And there’s always going to be people who are around to to help if you ask for it. Yeah, I definitely agree with that.

00:34:34:24 – 00:34:54:24
Kavita Agarwal
Yeah. And they’re going to be all kinds of people. You choose what you want to be and just that I know I’ve had situations that I’ve tried to fit in and have tried to blend in, but you can’t blend in. If you can’t blend. And it’s like a guy just holding on to who you are doesn’t mean big.

00:34:54:24 – 00:35:02:19
Kavita Agarwal
And then just constantly on and make sure you’re not holding people and you’re not doing anything. You lose people.

00:35:02:19 – 00:35:23:29
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, yeah. Make sure it does follow. You got huge, huge part of. Yeah. Figuring out what what direction take and is there any like any media or any podcasts or books or anything that you like to read that that kind of keeps you motivated and keeps you like in tune with your craft.

00:35:24:01 – 00:35:52:01
Kavita Agarwal
And learning to be controversial? Do what? I do not listen to any designed podcast. I do not do design books, I do not read, but I like. I do that for them. Like I keep going back to a lot of recordings from charter schools, but in dorms I do that for when I’m at work and if I need information and that if I’m looking for inspiration or if I’m trying to assess how have different people in the industry solve these problems, then yes.

00:35:52:04 – 00:36:11:14
Kavita Agarwal
But outside of work, I feel like I was telling you all the other day that there’s so much that I feel that I’m missing out on. I’m spending a big chunk of my time in my up and spending a lot of my time doing what I do when learning. While I’m doing that every line that ends up being right now is your problem.

00:36:11:14 – 00:36:35:22
Kavita Agarwal
Every person that I’m talking to is a new stakeholder that I’m speaking with. So if you constantly adjust and shift my methods of communication, my methods of delivery to adjust to how they receive information. So outside of work, I try and bake in as much as I can from different parts of the world or different parts of different domains, and I got to be the guy that makes it.

00:36:35:24 – 00:37:01:03
Kavita Agarwal
I think yesterday I was listening to a podcast Scans not for work. I’m not doing anything related to banking at the moment or security at the moment, but just learning how scanners work and how the brain functions and how how do they approach to be creative and be creative and also their approaches to not learning horror discount, but just learning how do they function all the functions.

00:37:01:06 – 00:37:31:15
Kavita Agarwal
I was listening to this broadcast when this guy was talking about selling drugs in the gray market. Oh my God. The amount of vigilance, he said, the amount of the process orientation brain, that brain that he had that was interesting to learn from that. And just figuring out that, yes, there are everybody what we are all doing is trying to address trying to do a task from me to be right.

00:37:31:17 – 00:37:49:10
Kavita Agarwal
That’s what everybody is doing regardless of you trying to build an army or trying to build an application or trying to build a bridge. But that’s what we all try madly trying to do. So just learning from or just being open to ideas from all these different domains and learning to learning from them is something that I do.

00:37:49:11 – 00:38:12:09
Kavita Agarwal
I have recently been listening a lot to Jay-Z on Opus and I’ve just been enjoying all the different kinds of people who come in and all the different stories that they speak about and just trying to pick one lesson from them, which resonates with me and trying to imbibe that in my life with the other one, trying to practice and figure out how I feel about it.

00:38:12:11 – 00:38:33:29
Kavita Agarwal
So that’s usually how I go about listening to things. And I don’t listen to a lot of what does or do not work for me, but I, I go to the gym and that’s when I have an art of having something instead of listening to music. If I don’t feel like it, that’s when I’m listening to these things.

00:38:34:01 – 00:39:11:25
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, yeah, that’s great. I totally agree. I, I love listening to really general podcasts too. Like, you know something design specific here and there, but I like kind of similar to what you’re saying as well. I kind of want to separate my 9 to 5 to the media that I’m consuming outside of work. And if I can like one or if we can like learn things from like those Jay Shetty podcasts and, you know, true crime podcasts and all that, all that fun stuff, then you know, you can apply those learnings into your everyday life as well.

00:39:11:25 – 00:39:17:23
Ellen Bennett
So there’s definitely a time and a place for, for some of those Guilty Pleasure podcast for sure.

00:39:17:25 – 00:39:38:29
Kavita Agarwal
It is right and the amount and that’s such a good medium to learn is well outside of work. So say for example I have been trying to understand the property market well, I don’t know many people. I don’t have family here. How do I learn about me? These are such great mediums to just constantly keep hearing about it.

00:39:39:01 – 00:39:59:21
Kavita Agarwal
I know it’s really hard for you to fake everything that is being said in an hour long interview. It would be minute interview or podcast, but something would resonate that if even if I can get one single takeaway from a 30 minute podcast that is actionable for me. Yeah, that’s it. I’ve learned something new.

00:39:59:25 – 00:40:25:06
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, really great way to look at it. I love that. Well, thank you. Thank you so much for joining us, Kavita. I have learned so much from our chat. Thank you for your transparency and hopefully, hopefully we’ve all learned something from this podcast. I’d love to hear anyone’s one takeaway. So thank you again. And is there any is there anything that you’d like to add to the end of the episode?

00:40:25:10 – 00:40:36:11
Kavita Agarwal
Thank you. I really enjoyed this. Honestly, this felt like a conversation with a friend than you leading the charge or anything like that. So thank you for making it beautiful and inviting.

00:40:36:13 – 00:40:39:07
Ellen Bennett
Thanks, Kavita. All right.

00:40:39:07 – 00:40:40:21
Kavita Agarwal
Thank you. Bye.