In our free market society, people are jumping at the opportunity to put their thoughts into actions. Varun Agarwal is no exception as he shatters the status quo in India. Despite the pressures at home, Agarwal refused to pursue a meaningless career and searched for a path he was passionate about. As a first-generation Indian, Agarwal was pushed to become a doctor or engineer, but his passion was film. His mother and Anu Aunty were adamant that he should think about how making meaningless videos would risk everything. With fear of shaming his mother and failing in the film industry, Agarwal decided to pursue engineering. Unfortunately, he failed in this industry because the material left him uninterested and wanting more. After graduating with an engineering degree, Agarwal decided to take a different approach, not thinking instead of thinking, because he already failed. As a result, he co-founded a company that sells school and college merchandise in India at the age of twenty-two with his friend Rohn Malhotra. Alma Mater began at zero, but grew to be an impressive million dollar company working with over 400 schools and colleges across India. The idea began when they had a desire to donate to their high school. Charitable donations quickly developed into selling merchandise as a way for schools to receive more funding.

Not only has Agarwal created his own company, but he continues to dabble with film, writing, and public speaking. His parents started to get on board with the less traditional route when YouTube agreed to partner with Agarwal and when his company took off. Anu Aunty, however, was still critical about Agarwal’s career choice.

In response to her negative commentary, Agarwal wrote a book that shows how he navigated through the challenges and pressures he faced during his early twenties called How I Braved Anu Aunty and Co-Founded a Million Dollar Company. Publishing the novel brought Anu Aunty fame, and she finally dropped her critiques.

When Agarwal speaks, he encourages his audience to think less about failing and the future and act more spur of the moment. We should not be held back by our fear of failure, it is something we should embrace because everyone will fail at some point in their lives. Following your dreams and passion is how you will be successful. What impressed me about Agarwal’s mentality, was that he did not measure success by salary, but rather by the joy he and others got out of his products. Having this mentality encouraged him to try the impossible and risk it all. For Agarwal, he believes his greatest failure was thinking too much, so now he takes the approach of thinking less, and he seems to be doing alright.