Amplifying The Immigrant Experience Through Collaboration and Self-Growth | Ft. Varun Negandhi Ep. 050 [Season Finale] - My Thick Accent

Episode Transcript
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Gurasis Singh (00:00):
Hi, this is Gurasis Singh and you're
listening to MyThick AccentPodcast.
So imagine stepping into aworld where collaboration fuels

(00:20):
success, where the spirit ofunity propels you forward
instead of holding you back.
In countries like India, whereI come from, we often navigate
the competitive landscape solo,striving to carve our own paths
amidst fierce competition.
However, things take a turn aswe step onto the shores of
opportunity in places likeCanada, and I guess today is a

(00:44):
testament to the shift inperspective.
He advocates shedding the crabin the bucket mentality where
success is seen as a limitedresource In this land of
opportunities.
He emphasizes the transformativepower of collaboration.
One person's knowledge, sharedand multiplied, can uplift an
entire community.
It's about working together,supporting one another and

(01:06):
exhilarating each other's growth.
He not only talks aboutbreaking free from limiting
beliefs, but also putting thisphilosophy into action.
He believes in the strength ofimmigrant community, not just in
festivities, but also in theserious realms like job search
and career advancement.
It's time for us tocollectively rise, to contribute
and to create a significantimpact.

(01:27):
Join us as we delve into hisjourney and discover the
potential of unity within theimmigrant experience.
Let's unlock the immensepossibilities that lie within a
cohesive and supportivecommunity.
Please welcome Varun.

Varun Negandhi (01:44):
Oh, thanks.
What an introduction, Gurasis!

Absolutely Very happy to have you on the podcast
, Varun, very excited for thisconversation.

Varun (01:51):
very excited to be here.

GS (01:52):
Okay, so let me start by asking you Tell us about your
favorite inspirational quote orsaying that resonates with you
the most.

The favorite quote that I have, but I have a
hard struggle following it is aquote from Bhagavad Gita which
says the will is the true friendand the will is the true enemy.
I am paraphrasing and obviouslyI'm using a translation of the
Bhagavad Gita, but yeah, that ismy favorite quote and something

(02:24):
I strive to do, because I thinkit all starts from how we
detect our will.

So you said you have like a story behind it.
Tell us, why would you say that?

The struggle that I've always had is we've
been told to kind of balancethings out, and when you're
trying to do somethingproductive, when you're trying
to create something, then youhave to bring it through your
will to bring it out to theworld.

(02:57):
So I think of that as the willbeing my friend, but then at
times when I want to be a slothand just relax, that time I
don't know whether the will is afriend or an enemy.
So it is a constant struggle.
The constant struggle is alsoto know whether there's

(03:21):
something that my will wants todo and so it's a.
I don't think I'll ever have ananswer to this.
I think it's more of a journey,and only recently I've become
more comfortable with thingsbeing more of a journey than a
destination, because I, thedestination is so esoteric and

(03:46):
so it's so far ahead or not inmy grasp, that if I just focus
on that, then things in thepresent start to get suck.
So, focusing on the journey,and only recently I've gotten
more comfortable with knowingthat, okay, I'll have to do this
for good to see where this goes.

I think it definitely.
It seems that it's come fromthe experience and the famous
quote no, it's not thedestination that matters, it's
the journey that you go throughthat actually matters.
So yeah, I think we'd love totalk a little bit more about it
in the later half of the episode, but my next question is tell
us this about this one habitthat you have adopted that has
changed your life.

Investing in myself.
That has been the biggesteye-opener and I'll share a
story with that.
Sure, it was 2014,.
Four years into my US immigrantexperience.
Till then, I've been livingwith roommates.
I'm having a great time.
I was able to learn aninternship pretty soon into my

(04:46):
education, after two semesters,so life had been going great so
far.
I was traveling, had a reallynice, fancy car.
But then I got married and thenI had to move into an apartment
of my own, had a dependent, mywife, who was with me, and for

(05:07):
like a year I had to buy newfurniture.
So there were so many financialexpenses that hit me like a
wave.
Then I was like the Americanexperience or the American life
that I thought I was living,which is have a job, and then
your life is set.
Well, it's not set and you needto figure out how to create a

(05:30):
living worthy of your dreams, oryour partner as well as your
future children, which I nowhave to offer.
And I was confused.
I didn't know where to go.
I knew that getting better atwork was much different than
getting better in school.
In school, you know okay whatyou need to do to get the A
grade and it's all.

(05:50):
It's like a Google Maps,whereas here in your career
you'll be fortunate enough ifsomebody gives you a compass.
Forget the map, forget thewhich direction to go to.
I don't know if you'll ever geta compass, unless you go find
one for yourself.
What happened then was Iluckily fell into a couple
different entrepreneurs that Iwas following online where I was

(06:15):
trying to save money.
So I fell into this book calledI Will Teach you to Be Rich by
Ramit Sethi.
It's a New York Timesbestseller.
Really good book in my opinion$25 that can save us or help us
on hundreds and thousands, andI'm not being hyperbolicistic
about it.
But the whole effort of savingmoney kind of led me to start

(06:42):
investing in myself more,reading books, and then at one
point I started to realize that,say, there's only a limit to
how much you can save.
You need food, you need shelter, you need to be in a good
neighborhood, yeah, you need tohave stuff to wear.
And one of the things thatRamit talked about is that when

(07:04):
you hit that limit of saving,you need to start growing your
income.
And that changed my worldcompletely, because not only did
I invest in a bunch ofentrepreneurship courses after
that, the entrepreneurshipcourses taught me mindsets and
psychology that I needed toimprove and work on myself to
get to where I am.

Well, definitely, I think all that has helped you
start your own entrepreneurjourney, for sure.
But also you talked somethingabout having that compass which
can direct you in the ways, anddon't you think it also starts
from our childhood?
By that I meant, like until the12th grade, we know that, okay,
we have to go.
After 10th grade, we have 11thgrade, we have 9th, 10th grade,

(07:47):
but after 12th you are kind ofjust thrown out right there and
you are like we don't know whatto do, and I think at that time
also, we do need that compassand we try to navigate them.
And then coming to a new worldaltogether, in your case, like
moving to US, definitely likethe whole another battle we must
be fighting, right.

Absolutely.
And if you notice when we gofrom schooling from first grade
to 10th, if you're in the sameschool, if you're in the same
ecosystem, when you go to 11ththings completely change and you
kind of have to create the sameecosystem for yourself.
If you don't create anecosystem, then you're starting
to kind of lose out on gradesand stuff like that Definitely

(08:27):
happened with me, where I wasdoing decently well with my 10th
standard, 11th and 12th.
I think the aura of going to acollege and just having fun and
things kind of changedcompletely for me for a few
years there.
So yes, that every time yourecosystem changes you kind of
have to recalibrate, but still,college provides that roadmap

(08:51):
that, all right, you need to goand hit these grades, and to hit
these grades you need to studyso and so syllabus and you need
to finish your assignments andyou have to show up on time.
So there is still better thanour careers where there is no
exam.
There is no exam, there is aperformance review, but you

(09:11):
hardly ever know what goes intothe performance review and it's
a lot more complicated.

And it's also fascinating how our mind just
adapts to these new ecosystemsalso.
It's like building a muscle.
You get to learn and survive inthat new atmosphere wherever
you're kind of like just throwninto, and that's just
fascinating to me.

Yeah, it's our mind trying to figure out things
how to survive and then we'llthink about how to thrive.
That's what the first year ofcoming to the US or Canada is
that first survive and then,once you survive, then you can
try to thrive.

So, speaking of high school and the growing up
years, let me take you back tothe time you spent in India,
specifically Mumbai.
Tell us a little bit about yourgrowing up years and what were
you doing before you moved.

It was fascinating.
Where we grew up is a lot ofluck, and I consider myself
extremely lucky to be born in acity like Mumbai, because a big
part of my fabric is that city,my confidence, my sense of humor
if I have any- I think you doyeah, it's all part of that

(10:19):
culture.
That culture taught me how totravel on my own.
That culture taught me all thedifferent festivals, because it
is such a cosmopolitanenvironment that you kind of
have celebrate so many festivalsaround you, and that I was
blessed to be born in that cityand childhood was pretty good.

(10:42):
We were middle class, lowermiddle class family, so we did
see struggle with money.
However, the struggle was notlike basic shelter, basic food,
it was like a step above.
So it is a different type ofstruggle, because you are
healthy, you are loved, you arecared for and now you are

(11:03):
wondering okay, how am I, I getahead in this world or how am I
able to improve my standard ofliving and stuff like that.
So my parents work really hardas entrepreneurs, at stationery
shop owners and knew that therewas not the path I wanted to
take because it was so much hardwork for not a whole lot of

(11:26):
money.
So then I knew that I wanted tokind of go into engineering
because my dad was a civilengineer but walked out of
school and there was always thistalk in the house Fascinating
I'm making this discovery formyself right now in this world

(11:48):
so there was always a talk aboutthat in our home that, oh, if
he had finished civilengineering, if he had finished
civil engineering, life wouldhave been different.
And I think that has alwaysmade the connection for me and
drove me towards mechanicalengineering and automotive

(12:08):
engineering.
And then I did that, pursued itand was able to live a really
good life because of it.

But that wasn't like your desired career, I
believe.
If I just defraise it, I wouldsay that what was your dream
career growing up if not that I?

would say that was my dream career really, if
I'm being completely honest,because I really loved physics,
I loved engineering.
Yes, I became wavered in mydrive, in my focus during junior
college, a little bit into myengineering college as well.
But when I was the last twoyears, when I bought everything

(12:49):
back, when I was focused, Ienjoyed solving numerical
problems.
I enjoyed all of that.
It was definitely my dream joband I have worked in that domain
since the last 13 years.
What has shaped my externalpersonality is a lot of being in

(13:11):
classes, like I've done a lotof Tequando.
I have danced with a big troupein India, I have done acting
classes you name it and I'vedone things and that has shaped
my personality.
But all my true not star hadalways been becoming an engineer
and it could very well bebecause of that strong drive to

(13:34):
make an income and hearing thatif my dad had finished
engineering, life would havebeen good.
So I'm sure there is a part ofthat as well.
But I won't say that that was astrong enough part where I
needed to change or curb mydesires, because I was part of a
really loving family.
My parents are very modern.

(13:56):
In fact my friends would jokethat, dude, your parents are
like American graduates.
They gave me complete freedomto follow anything, so it has
still been driven from insidethis whole engineering world.
But just thought I'll give yousome influences around me that
kind of shaped my personality.

I was thinking that how, being in Mumbai, the
dance, music and films did notinfluence you.
So this explains that it did.
It sure did.

Yeah, it did and I wouldn't say it was as
pervasive when we were in school.
Pervasive is I don't say itwith a negative connotation.
There are so many kids inMumbai and there are millions of
kids in Mumbai, and not all Iwould say even 5%-10% might be
influenced by the Bollywood sideof things, because Mumbai has

(14:45):
other characters as well.
There's a lot of finance worldin Mumbai.
There's a lot of manufacturing,there's travel, tourism.
There's a whole lot happeningin that city, which is why it's
called the city of dreams, forus or for India, because you
dream and then you can make ithappen.

And do you still pursue any of those like dance
or acting or anything?
Do you do, have you doneanything?

Come Garba time.
I am definitely in my element.
I have stopped choreographed.
It's been a while since I'vedone any choreographed routines.
But dance is a big part for usfamily.
We put on music sometimes andwe will dance as a family.
It's a big part of me and I'mnot just saying this because I'm

(15:34):
talking to you, but I wouldlove to do Bangra classes
sometimes because I love thatand also that's a form that I
haven't learned yet Garba.
I've learned contemporary jazz,ballroom etc.
But I think I've never beeninto Indian dance forms like

(15:55):
Kathak and stuff like that.
My wife is, I don't know why.
I've never been attracted tothat, but when it comes to an
Indian dance form, bangra issomething that I'm definitely
attracted to.

Sure, next time, if we are together in the same
city, we'll do it for sure.

That will be awesome.
I would love to.

So if I ask you, if you have to go back and
relive a certain age or acertain moment from a childhood
or just growing up years, whichone would it be?

Obviously there are many happier times or my
whole childhood had been reallyhappy so I could go anywhere and
have a really great time.
When it comes to just my growthas a person, I would go back to
7th standard.
I think after 7th standardthings started to become a
little bit difficult catching upin 8th, 9th and 10th because my

(16:48):
focus wasn't there.
So I would lose out on somedays of schoolwork.
And you know, when you lose outon some days of schoolwork,
especially during like 8th, 9thand 10th standard, it kind of
starts to snowball.
And for a period of like 5years my confidence took a hit

(17:09):
because I was a really goodstudent till 7th.
I wasn't focused after that.
So it took a hit till like 2ndyear of engineering, where I
actually failed that year.
And then when I failed the 2ndyear of engineering, I got
relaxed again, not because Ifailed and it was a big deal and

(17:29):
it was like a turning momentfor me.
It wasn't that I was focusedagain because I just had to
clear like 4 exams and thatfocus kind of helped me get back
into the crew of things.
Not having to go to collegegave me the time to kind of set
systems and everything, tuitionclasses.
So I was able to get controlback into my life and since then

(17:53):
I've not let that control goaway.
So I would say 8th standard,the start of 8th standard, is
where I want to go back.
If I could go back with all theinsights that I have gained.
So far or that would be such akickass moment.

I'm sure about that.
Yeah, so you also mentionedthat you know how your parents
were very modern and yourfriends used to joke about that.
How would you describe yourselfas a parent now?
How do you think you are?

Oh, that's a tough one.
I think as a parent I'm alittle hypocritical.
What I mean by that is I kindof force my child to have a
certain screen time, to eat in away that is healthy for her.
I'm a little bit too much to dothings that are more productive,

(18:46):
while not doing many of thesame things that I'm asking.
Some days I'm binging Netflix.
I just watched Beckham'sdocumentary, like Back to Back,
because he was one of myfavorite footballers.
So, yeah, there's a little bitof that.
So that's something that I'mworking on and that I think I'm

(19:07):
following on my parents'footsteps is that you might not
be able to provide everything tothem, but what you can provide
is being there for them, that Iam an anchor or a solid person
that they can come to, and thenthat they are loved.
Love is a big one for ourfamily.
Showing affection, expressingaffection that's something that

(19:32):
we do on a daily basis.
I'll give you the good and bad,okay.

And do you think if your parents would have not
been the way they were, yourlife would have turned out to be
a little different?
Do you think so?

If I look at my friends who had more
conventional parents, I don'tthink life has been different
for them as compared to me.
I think what was different wasbecause I was given the freedom
to make decisions and to makemistakes.
I am now able to start andlearn things very quickly

(20:10):
Because, since I was given thatfreedom this summer, if I wanted
to do tennis classes which Ihave done I would do that Next
summer.
I would go and do footballclasses the other summer.
After that I would do tabletennis.
So what has helped me in thatcase is I don't fear starting

(20:30):
something or being uncomfortablewhen starting something and I
catch up to things prettyquickly.
I am not saying I get great atit, but the initial burst of
getting good.
I am able to do that quickly.
And, yes, the differencebetween good and great is huge.
So I don't mean to say that Iam delving into things that can

(20:54):
be great, but just understandingthese are the 20% that will get
me 80% of the way there.
And then investing in coachingand stuff like that because I've
always had that is somethingthat I do a lot differently than
, I think, some of my peers whohad conventional parents.

I think for me also it would be the fear of
trying a new thing.
It's like having that fear ofjudgment, that what if it
doesn't work?
What if it doesn't turn out tobe wrong?
What if I wasted my money?
So that fear was also within megrowing up.
Because I don't think so.
I have the most modern parentsand I don't blame them.
They are the product of theirown time and they were trying to
pass on what they knew.

(21:36):
But I think one thing which Ithink I've seen myself evolved
in is this only that not havingthat fear of trying the new
thing.
Give it a try if it works out,great doesn't work out.
It was an experience, that'sall.

Yeah, absolutely .
What I also feel is thatthere's a dialogue from this
movie, dil Chhattar, whereAkshay Khanna is sitting on the
beach with a girl who fanciesAamir Khan and he talks about
like sand in your hand, that themore tightly you press it, the

(22:12):
sand starts to kind of flow away.
Yes, where some of the friendsthat I see, because they were
held so tightly, so tightly,they were the first ones to go
away from things and try crazystuff and have a crazy life
because they were escaping fromthat tight grip that they were

(22:34):
in through school, throughcollege.
So it always reminds me of thatsand in your hand.
Analogy from Akshay Khanna'sdialogue is that the more
tightly you hold something, themore easily it kind of escapes
from your hands.

No, I love that great analogy.
I think you explained itperfectly Awesome.
So, Varun, let us pivot towardsyour decision to move to US.
Tell us what influenced thedecision and how was the process
for your life?

So, since Shailura, have been inspired
from people ahead of me.
I don't mind following theirfootsteps, I get inspired by
people who are cool, people Ilike, people I adore.
During my engineering, I saw afriend of mine but mainly my
cousin brother who came overfrom Mumbai to a Northeastern

(23:27):
University, if I remembercorrectly, and he was the one
who led the way for me as tookay, this is possible, this is
a route.
So he, like me, had failed oneyear in the university, had
caught up and I was able to getinto a really good school.
We grew up together because hewould visit his nani, which was

(23:49):
my dadi, and we would spendsummers together.
So we had crazy fights and weare still pretty close.
So he was kind of the personwho modeled this for me.
Where he came to the US to study, I was always influenced by US
culture Listen to rock music,watch TV series so I was already

(24:10):
influenced.
And then I saw my brother going.
He would share his experienceswith me and I was like, okay, I
want to do that.
And I was in my, I think, thirdyear of engineering when I came
my GRE exams and I was.
I scored well, was able to comeinto a university here and get

(24:31):
30% scholarship on intuition.
So everything was lining up tosay, okay, yes, this is the
right move, and that's what Idid in 2010.

And how was the process for you Like?
How long did it take you toprepare the files, visas and
everything?

That was one other advantage of me failing
after my second year.
So in that drop year, the firstsix months I cleared all my
failed subjects.
I was actually able to clearthem well enough where my GPA
was starting to get very healthy.
And then in the in the sixmonths after that, all I did was

(25:08):
prepare for this GRE exam andwatch movies.
So to give you another exampleof the coolness of my parents is
that when I failed for thatyear, they obviously asked me to
get serious, to get more focus.
But my parents had somethingthat I I'm still baffled by,
which they said nobody is goingto give you a vacation year in

(25:33):
your life.
Nobody is giving you one yearof vacation in your life.

Yeah.

Enjoy this, if you can.

Wow.

And it was so surprising to hear because again
it encouraged me to yes, let'sfinish all my subjects in six
months.
Then I have six months to justplay football, play Counter
Strike and watch movies, andthat's what.
That's what I did.
I did all that, just gave myGRE exam in the middle.
So that was the end of the dropyear.

(26:01):
The third and fourth year wentinto applying to universities,
getting recommendation letters,making sure my GPA was healthy
enough where you know collegeswould accept me.
So that was that two year span.
I obviously used a consultantthat was very popular in Mumbai,

(26:23):
had a great time with them andhis, his company and I was.
They helped me immensely totransition here, so they are a
big part of my journey here aswell.

So tell us about your first day, your initial
thoughts and emotions when youlanded in 2010.
What month was that?

I've said this story before.
It was September.
I'll share the story of my visaconsulate appointment.
Okay, you know how you go forlike, the visa appointment and
everybody's nervous around you.
It's a big thing getting a USstudent visa, but I was lucky, I

(27:03):
guess, where the councilloroffice was really chilled.
She asked me about myuniversity.
Everything went very smooth.
When I was leaving she saidmake sure you carry a winter
coat.
It is frigid in Michiganbecause I was coming to Michigan
.
Everybody in Canada will relateto this, I'm sure.

(27:23):
So that was my.
I was taking a bag.
I was like, okay, if she'stelling me and she doesn't need
to tell me.
You know how visa councillorofficers are very torsent, to
the point, absolutely.
I was like if she's telling me,then I mean this must be
serious yeah.

(27:43):
It was cold, but I landed herein September it was a very
pleasant weather.
But it was a big shock for megoing from the buildings, the
crowd, the speed of Mumbai to asuburb in Michigan, because you
think of US as New York, sanFrancisco, chicago, whereas I

(28:07):
would say 5% of US is like that.
A big amount of US is suburbanlife, of course.
And coming and landing intoMichigan, I don't see buildings
around me, there is no publictransport.
Oh really, you have to ask yourseniors.
Very, very bad publictransportation, especially in
2010,.
No Uber, no Lyft and anywhereyou want to go, if you want to

(28:31):
go walking, it's like an hour,like it's ridiculous.
Sometimes things are so faraway.
So you have to get rights fromseniors.
All through the first year.
You're basically depending onyour seniors to kind of take you
to college, bring you back,take you to grocery stores, take
you for a freaking haircut.
I had hair.

(28:51):
I had hair back then.
I promise I believe you.
So it was a big shock in thatsense.
What was pleasant was theuniversity was so nice.
I was having a great timehaving friends from different
parts of India, whereas inMumbai you have friends from

(29:14):
different cultures and differentreligions, but we are all
Mumbai Kurds At heart.
We are Mumbai Kurds, so we arenot very different from each
other, whereas a person fromMumbai much different than a
person from even Pune not muchdifferent.
But there are elements ofdifferences between people from
Pune, nagpur, which is stillMaharashtra.
Now you go to Chennai, now youhave a friend from Delhi and it

(29:37):
all just changes completelyBangalore.
So it was a great time withfriends.
It was a great time at theuniversity.
Michigan is known for itsnature.
It was extremely beautiful togo anywhere.
So I had a good time in thatsense and it was a time of
immense growth.

So, apart from it being all suburb and no
buildings and no transit andeverything, was something else
that completely shocked youabout US, or maybe something
that you were not prepared forand that you faced.

That I think something I was not prepared for
was living with roommates.
I had never lived withroommates before then, so that
was an interesting dynamic thatI had to learn how to navigate.
Where you want to make surethat what you like in a house
it's cleanliness or order orfood or whatever, you have to

(30:38):
navigate that situationdelicately because not everybody
has the same standards forthings, of course, and they are
right in their own way.
I mean, we all come withinternal standards about how
things should be and we had agreat time.
We were six of us in like athree bed.
We enjoyed each other'scompanies.

(30:59):
There are a few niggles hereand there, which were, I would
say, learning experiences.
So that was one thing I wasn'tused to, living with roommates.
Overall, I had come in with avery open eyes.
I had come in with theexperience of my cousin, who had
shared quite a bit with me.
He made my transition muchsmoother.

(31:19):
And then I was coming in withan understanding a little bit of
an understanding of theAmerican culture.
I haven't seen the movies,music and everything.
So when I went to universityclubs that were predominantly
non-Indian, I didn't feel out ofplace because I was able to
bring in pop culture references,like my PlayStation video games

(31:43):
or the TV series I was watchingor the songs I was listening to
.
Frankly, metallica was a greaticebreaker in many of the
conversations, so overall, I hada great and smooth time.

And did you used to cook?
Wasn't that a shock for you?

There wasn't.
I had to learn from scratch.
My mom taught me how to makedal and rice because they were
cooker stuff.
So I made it in a cooker kind ofa thing.
There were Indian stores so wewould get frozen rotis, frozen
parathas Eggs was popular duringthat time and you would get

(32:22):
Maggie and everything.
So it wasn't difficult becauseMichigan does have some Indian
population.
So getting all this stuffwasn't difficult and cooking was
fun.
It's been a fun journey becausenow I love baking pizzas from
scratch.
So that's one thing I'll say isthat if I was in India I would

(32:43):
not have learned these things,because you get everything
handed to you, not from yourparents, but you might.
At this point everybody hassome kind of help at home, so
you are getting everythinghanded, where you don't need to
kind of learn these things.
You go, you walk five minutesand you have 10 restaurants to
cook.

(33:04):
It's insane that way.
So I'm actually blessed to comehere and experience my joy of
cooking something, and it feelsso good making something from
scratch.
Not only you, you are feelingyour friends, you are feeling
your family, you are feelingyour kids such a really great
feeling.
So, yeah, I enjoyed that.

So let's talk a little bit about your experience
of studying in the Universityof Michigan, and I asked this
because when I moved here, manyof my friends, or even my
teachers I was in connectionwith then they used to ask me
that how's the experience for,was for you like and how is the
work culture there, or how iseven like how the teachers come
and teach you and everything.
All that was asked me.

(33:48):
I want to ask you the samequestion, and one of the biggest
differences was obviouslycalling our teachers by their
name and not saying sir or ma'am, but tell us about your
experience.

It was.
It was fun.
We used to call our teacherslike professor, so and so, okay,
so that wasn't different.
What I loved was that howrelaxed the atmosphere was.
I was in a school which boughtin a lot of professionals to the
master schools because it wasso close to like Ford company

(34:22):
and GM and stuff like that thatpeople from those companies
after their work would come andstudy with us.
So these guys were tired manand they would come and they
would have to eat something inin class and they would be.
They would be eating somethingwhile the professor is teaching
and they understood it as well.
So that was very uniqueexperience, like it was very

(34:45):
relaxed.
There were no desks and stufflike that.
There were just rows of chairsand and and benches.
Yeah, that's that was different.
That was fun.
And then the focus on creativityin your assignments.
I think that was an interestingone where you didn't get a very

(35:07):
strict prompt or you didn't getall of the data that you need
to solve numericals.
You were told to use yourcreativity, assume things,
assume situations, assumescenarios and do those
assignments.
So that was a lot of fun.

So another thing that you have mentioned earlier
also, that during your mastersyou got your internship, and you
always say that it was anamalgamation of many different
factors and one of them was luck.
Tell us about the other factorsand along with that, you know
something that you have done.
The one that you were tellingme is attending those culture
fairs.
You know which internationalstudents might hesitate to go to

(35:45):
.

Yeah, I got an internship after two semesters,
which is when you are eligibleto get an internship in the US.
I got one right away and thethree big factors were one was
luck.
I was extremely lucky.
Nawal Ravikanth talks aboutthis.
He is not the originator ofthis concept, but there are four
types of luck there is blindluck.

(36:07):
There is luck from motion.
There is luck from awareness andthere is luck which is unique
to you.
The surface area of luckincreases with each.
So I was extremely lucky first.
So there was some blind luckinvolved, but then I also tried

(36:27):
to increase the surface area ofluck by motion more than
anything else, and I can lookback now and tell you in those
ways.
I was obviously not able toarticulate that during that time
, but, looking back, luck was abig one.
But the two ways that Iincreased the surface area of
luck was one I used whateverresources that I had available

(36:52):
to me.
So going to career fairs, usingcareer services in the
university, like if they wouldhave a resume seminar, I would
go there.
If they had a networkingseminar, I would go there.
Then there were mock interviewsthat they held.
Even if you were a mechanicalengineer and they were only
bringing people from IT, theywould still encourage you to

(37:14):
attend mock interviews, becausethat one mock interview taught
me so much about how I amanswering things, the tonality
that I am using, the confidencethat I am coming in with.
So that was one thing, usingall the available resources that
I could have.
I would add one more thing inthat is that I was part of the
Formula SAE team, which is aracing team in the university.

(37:36):
So many university clubs thatyou can go to.
You can find a club for yourinterest and just go in and
start work.
So that's number two.
And number three was walkingthat extra mile.
So this was April 2011 and itwas still cold in Michigan.

(37:57):
So you don't want to go out ofthe house if you don't need to.
And my roommate said oh, thereis a career fair, like 40
minutes away from us at the SAEWorld Congress, which was this
big event in the auto industry.
And you know, you are lazy,it's exam week and none of your

(38:19):
roommates show any interestwhatsoever, so the drive to do
that is extremely low.
But he kept on saying that itwill be fun to go or it will be
good for us to go.
And there was an added elementthat we would have to convince a
senior to take us.
Again, no transportation, soyou had to convince somebody to

(38:40):
take you 40 minutes, stay withyou there throughout the day and
come back.
So we were able to get a lot ofhelp from this senior.
He took us.
We did that career fair and oneconversation struck and for a
job, that's all you need right,you need one job.
So one conversation can changeyour entire trajectory.
So I went there, had oneconversation with this Fortune

(39:03):
500 company, which I didn't knowabout but was a big company in
the auto industry, and theycalled me in for an interview.
I was given the internship andthat defined the first year of
my work experience in the US.
That internship, and it boughtme so much.
It bought me financialstability, it gave me instantly

(39:25):
mentors in the industry and itgave me so much confidence that
I was able to achieve this formyself, knowing full well that a
big part of that was luckhaving roommates, having a
senior, being in the right placeat the right time all that
combination led to thatinternship.

Well, I'm not sure about luck, but I think it
was definitely your will againto do that, the will to really
making that effort to try to goto that career fair.
And look at that today.
You know I inside it benefitedyou.
You actually got the internshipand that was, I would say, the
base of your, the job that youdid eventually, right.

Absolutely.
The internship that I did iswhat I did for the next 12 years
, because that was my dream job.
I mean, yeah, a lot of thingschange, a lot of the domains
change because a car is a bigthing and there are so much
technology in it.
So I changed technologies tokeep fresh.

(40:28):
But, yes, the advancedengineering part of it was what
I've faced in my life.

Yeah, I mean definitely.
I think if listeners whenyou're national students are
listening, they know this islike a great example.
I think you're definitely likea testament to all those people
that, hey, you really have towalk that extra mile and make
that effort and instill thatwill in you to do the things,
and it will happen as long asyou make the best use of the
resources as well.
In your case, like you did,that you have, and I think we

(40:56):
are.
When you move to a new countryespecially, we are so fixated in
, you know, getting the programdone, making sure that we get
the right work permit and makesure we get like some job that
help us with the PR, yes, it'snecessary, it's very important,
but I would say for the, if yousee the bigger picture, it all
starts from the very first stepthat you take and you really
have to put everything, giveyour all in, just try, just ask

(41:19):
for even that help.
I think, sometimes evenhesitant to ask for that help,
that okay, I don't know if theperson would help me or not.
We have that hesitation, Ithink.
But now this is the time thatthe worst someone can say is no,
as long as you don't ask it.
The answer is always no, so goahead and try your luck.

Yeah, absolutely true, and get, and sometimes
you need a buddy.
To be really honest, you need awhen two people are asking a
senior if you will take me 40minutes away for a career fair
it's different than you know mesingularly asking, I will have a
lot more friction.
If I need to do that, you willsee.
Share me about your experiencewalking that extra mile, or if

(42:02):
you have a story about that, Iwould love to know more about it
.

I would say it was mostly during my job search,
like I would have just appliedto tons of jobs online or maybe,
you know, fill those onlineresumes and everything.
But the funny thing is Iactually didn't know how to get
into pharma advertising, which Iam in right now, whereas I was

(42:30):
just trying to get intoadvertising maybe the FMCG,
maybe those big brands and allthose commercial advertising,
and I didn't know about PAB,which is the pharmaceutical
advertising and everything thehealth authority that we have to
go through.
I had no idea about it.
I got to know about PAB onlybecause I walked that extra mile
of reaching out to people onLinkedIn asking them like what

(42:53):
is their day to day look like,and I stumbled upon this one
person from McCann McCann,canada.
Mccann is one of the ad agencies.
I stumbled this one person hewas, I believe, the account
executive or coordinated thesimilar role which I want to get
into and he told me that youhave to know about PAB and I was
like PAB, I don't know anythingabout that health authority.

(43:14):
So that's how I got to knowabout it.
And look at me now like aftertwo years now I work in pharma
advertising, the only if I wouldhave stopped myself from
reaching out to that person.
I would have never be able toknow about pharma advertising.
So yeah, that's how I think Iwould answer that.

It's very cool is that, I think when you walk
more destiny, your destinyhappens to you.
It's like you need motion fordestiny to walk in, which is
interesting because I guess itcomes back to the start of our
conversation and you bought towill again, which is so

(43:52):
interesting.
Is that it all boils down tothat.

Yeah, absolutely hey.
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(44:17):
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(44:39):
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Now let's get back to theepisode.

(45:00):
So then, you decided to moveto Canada, but before that, tell
me, you spent nine years in theUS before you decided to move
in 2019 to Canada.
Can you tell us something thatyou might have discovered about
yourself in those nine years?

Those nine years , the biggest discovery was that
I wanted to be an entrepreneur.

Okay.

Now, being a Gujarati and having
entrepreneurial parents, youmight be surprised as to why
that was a discovery, but seeingmy parents work so hard, I had
kind of pushed me away fromentrepreneurship because I
thought it was so insanely hardto make a living that I was

(45:48):
working nine to six, relaxed, inan AC, a conditioned
environment, clicking things,using my brain, and I was making
a decent living.
So why do that route?
Why go that route?
But I think what pulled metowards entrepreneurship is
learning from mentors.

(46:09):
So, like I said a few whileback, I really I follow my
heroes.
I have learned from them, I getinspired by them, and my cousin
was one who came here.
But through that 2014 financialstruggle, through going from
saving to earning, the mentorsthat taught me all of the things

(46:34):
that I rely on nowadays areentrepreneurs.
They had their own companies.
They were teaching people,creating transformations in
people's life, either by theircoaching or by products.
And here I was in my engineeringwork doing something that may

(46:54):
or may not see the light of theday five years from now, because
it was an advanced engineeringproject.
You were trying to create newtechnologies.
It's very fulfilling.
I still love that work.
It just does not have theelement of me seeing the impact
of my work on a end user.

(47:16):
The process is just too far off.
So that, in combination toseeing and getting inspired by
my mentors thought, oh, I wouldlove to be an entrepreneur.
Then, from 2016-ish, I wouldsay to 2019, when I moved here

(47:36):
that three years were discoveryinto what kind of entrepreneur I
wanted to be, because you canstart a SaaS company, you can
have a high growth startup, youcan be a consultant, you can be
a freelancer, you can be a coach.
There are so many ways to dothis.
I'm sure you know all aboutthat.

(47:58):
Where I needed those threeyears to discover, okay, what
exactly I needed to do.
And then that's where thegenesis of BeyondGrad came into
being.

Since you mentioned BeyondGrad, let's just
talk about that.
You started that in 2018.
But before that, I believe youdid do a lot of self-development
courses and some workshops Ibelieve workshops at Alma
Matters.
I heard you talking about that.
Tell us about all that, theprep that went behind starting
BeyondGrad.

Yeah.
So since becoming anentrepreneur and wanting to be
an entrepreneur was so new, Ihad systems and frameworks that
I learned from my mentors, andone of them was to do a
discovery, was to ask peopleokay, what are my strengths,
what are my weaknesses?
If you had to come to me tosolve a problem, what would that
be?
And I would get confidence alot.

(48:55):
I would get inspiration a lot.
I would also get mentorship alot.
So I was like, okay, if thoseare my strengths, I know that
I've gone through this wholeprocess of being a top performer
at work or going from aninternational student to being

(49:16):
where I was in my career.
Till that point I was like,okay, how can I translate that?
So my friend and I again havinga buddy helped so much.
My friend and I did an AMA AskMe Anything.
At our university, universityof Michigan, new York and we
wrote funny emails and I had funwith it and we got people

(49:39):
together in this room and thesewere all international students
going for their master's degreeand this just started asking us
questions.
So we had these buckets wherewe started with personal finance
, we did getting a job, we didthriving in a job, and then we

(50:00):
did travel and fun topics.
So we did a bunch of that inour first AMA and it was such a
fun time.
I had memes in my slide.
My buddy is a fun guy too so wewere having a great time while
giving actionable insights toeverybody in the room on all

(50:21):
these different topics.
So I got high from that.
The reviews were great.
I did post workshop surveys.
Those were very encouraging.
So then I was like, all right,let's do this again.
So we did one 2016 December.
Again, that went well.
So I was like okay, I know thisworks with students.

(50:43):
Now let me try and bring mypeers in.
So what I did was I hosted aworkshop for negotiating a race,
which is different thannegotiating the job offer.
Negotiating a race because Iwanted to catch people who were
already in their jobs, and I wasso encouraged that not only did

(51:04):
some of my peers show up whichI thought was insane, because
generally you want to learn fromsomebody who's ahead of you or
you feel is ahead of you but mypeers showed up extremely
encouraging.
My seniors showed up Some of myseniors who thought that, okay,
varun knows this.
Maybe he's one step ahead inthis domain.

(51:27):
Sure, I have more experience,but they showed up ready to
learn and that was, I think, theI would say, an inflection
point where I was like, wow, ifpeople I know and my age or even
senior to me are willing to putin their time, come to a

(51:48):
different location and learnwhat I, was the one thing that I
could help them with.
Then that changed the game and Iknew that, okay, I need to
start beyond grad, focus oncareers, and I didn't focus on
an immigration immigrantstudents.
That was one mistake.
I should have been niche fromthe very beginning because I

(52:09):
could bring a lot of myimmigrant personality to it.
But you make so many mistakesbuilding stuff, building
businesses and I'm okay withthat.
So that's the genesis of beyondgrad.
I did many more workshops andthat gave me material to create
my website and write blog postarticles.
Things kind of were okay in thesense I wasn't putting as much

(52:33):
time because I still had my dayjob, became a father in 2017 for
the first time.
2019, we moved to Canada.
2020, everybody knows whathappened.
So PESU had been okay so far,but this year this year, I think
I went all in on LinkedIn,started to share a lot more of

(52:54):
what I was trying to teachimmigrant students and immigrant
professionals and have beenshocked by the results that I've
gotten in terms of the peoplefollowing me, which I would not
have guessed that 35, 36,000people would follow what I'm

(53:16):
writing from the start of thisyear.

So tell us, our listeners, briefly, very quickly
, about like why in Canada youcame up and starting this and
did not continue in the US.

That is a big pain point of immigrants in the
US is that there is no easy wayto start a business.
There's just no easy way to doit.
If you are an H1B employeewhich I was having an income on
the side is confusing legally,so you don't want to take that

(53:52):
risk.
You can apply for an H1Bthrough your company, through
create a new company, then youneed somebody in a decision
making power that can hire andfire you and then apply an H1B
through that company.
But a big caveat there is thatyour business has to be in the
same domain as your study.

(54:12):
Beyond that it wasn't in thesame domain as automotive
engineering.
So again this theme offollowing people.
Before you, I saw a couple ofmy friends come to Canada
because they were just fed up ofthe US immigration process and
I was like, oh wow, that'sinteresting, they are in Canada.

(54:35):
Being in Canada, you can doeverything on a PR.
You have so much moreflexibility.
I was in a border city.
So again, destiny Kismuth.
Whatever luck, whatever youcall it.
I was able to keep my job move30 minutes away from where I
used to live and now I have allthe freedom to do whatever I

(54:56):
want to do.
It's insane how that works.
It's just, I'm just 30 minutesaway.
I'm closer to some of myfriends now from living in
Canada, closer to some of myfriends in the US than I used to
live in the US.
So that's the biggest reason tobuild something and not be

(55:18):
restricted by my visa for it.
I'm still working with my UScompany, still going through the
whole green card process, whichis I'll be a grand, I'll have
grandchildren before I'll havemy green card.
That's what I call it GC beforeGC.
So it's insane how that line isand I'm still in it, but I am

(55:38):
loving my time in Canada since2019.

I love the GC before the actual GC.
I love that.
That's funny.
You know, this one thing, whichI have heard people saying a
lot, especially after pandemic,is believing in people who have
actually walked the talk.
And I believe, like I believe,that you are doing this beyond
grad because you have actuallywalked the talk and you have

(56:04):
done the three main things thatyou focus on, and I'll quote it.
Those are like the othercourses that help people find
jobs.
Second is getting promoted atyour work and then starting a
side hustle, and you weretelling me earlier that you have
done all that and you have gonethrough all those experiences.
Tell us, if somebody who isjoining beyond grad, who is

(56:24):
taking up your courses andstarted working with you, what
can they expect from the program?

So one thing I'll caveat I'll say is that
I've only started to productizerecently.
So, yes, if you want to getpromoted, I have a product for
you.
If you want to find jobs, I'mactually launching my first job
search cohort for students inOctober and for professionals in
November.
So first I needed to buildthese systems to for somebody to

(56:53):
come and learn from it.
Freelancing I still have to.
Or earning a side income Istill have to create a course
for it.
So I wanted to kind of lay theexpectation before answering
that question.
What I would say is myintention is to help you boost
your income with intention.

(57:15):
I was able to boost my income inthese three ways Find or create
.
Find and create my dream job.
Getting promoted at work whereI had a partnership stay I had a
lot more flexibility that Ilove.
And then earning on the side.
I have earned $30,000 fromfreelancing in a completely

(57:37):
different field, in marketingand copywriting, ever since I
came to Canada and I was able todo it essentially use my
entrepreneurship courses andhelp other companies implement
those systems.
So I have, like you said, walkthese three parts.
So I'm going to share myexperience walking those three

(57:58):
parts Plus.
I've been in this so long thatI have other examples to share
as well of other people who havewalked one of these three parts
.
So I am a lot about communitylearning, like you have said in
this episode, of all theentrepreneurship courses I've
bought, the mentors I've had.

(58:20):
So I bring all of that in,along with my experience, into
these three parts.
What I would say is invest inyourself, know which of these
three parts you want to pursue,because each of them are so
difficult that you can onlyfocus on one, I think, and then
ask me if I want to do X, whatshould I do?

(58:43):
And I will have a bunch of freestuff to kind of help you, to
see if you want to do that or tokind of get your feet wet.
And then I have courses thatyou can pay for where we go in
depth into the job search, thepromotion and, hopefully pretty

(59:04):
soon, on everything related toside hustles as well.

Well, sounds incredible.
I'm sure it's going to benefita lot and I'm also kind of
tempted to join it now.
Why not?
Awesome, yeah absolutelyEspecially.

I don't know if you are looking for a job or not
, but in terms of promotion, onething I'll share that a lot of
us immigrants don't value is thesoft skills, what I call that.
The analogy I use is of poker.
I love playing poker, but thetechnical skills that we bring

(59:40):
are like table stakes for thetable.
The game you are trying is yourbig bet and the small bet.
You need your technical skillsto have a seat at the table, but
to win you need to use yoursoft skills to play the game.

Absolutely.

And the second analogy I use in that, once you
have kind of put yourself in themindset that I'm at the table
because of my technical skillsbut it is my other skills that
will help me thrive at the table, I use a concept called
cardinal points of promotion.
So cardinal points of directionare North, South, East and West

(01:00:20):
.
Same way, there are cardinalpoints of promotion.
You need to walk and developpeople skills, communication
skills, mindset skills andentrepreneurial skills to become
a top performer at your workand that is what will help you
get promoted or create yourdream job, and that's what I

(01:00:45):
teach in my courses cardinalpoints for promotion.

Gurasis Singh (01:00:47):
Yeah, I love that and I also.
The thing that is said aboutsoft skills, I think, is the
technical skills that get youthe job is the soft skills that
keep you at the job.
So tell us where people canconnect with you.
Two places.

Varun Negandhi (01:00:59):
I would say on LinkedIn First of all, if you
want to follow my posts daily, Iwrite actionable posts.
I was joking with somebody, whywould somebody want to follow
somebody daily?
But the confidence that I gotfrom other person is that, dude,
you write actionable posts andI love reading them.
So I'm taking confidence fromhim to say, if you want to

(01:01:23):
follow my posts daily, linkedinis the best place to find me.
Varun Nikanti.
I am probably one of three hitshaving a unique surname, so you
will find me easily and you canfollow me there.
If you want to ask me questions, subscribe to my newsletter and

(01:01:43):
just reply to one of myintroductory emails.
I am much more active via emailthan via LinkedIn because I am
flooded sometimes from LinkedInmessages.
And then you can obviously goto beyond gradcom and see the
promotion course that I have onoffer, and if you are part of

(01:02:04):
the newsletter, you'll know thejob search cohorts that I'm
going to start soon.

Okay, so for my listeners, all the links to
contact Varun can be found atthe show notes.
So, varun, since speaking ofLinkedIn posts the ones that I
read so far I think I love howyou bring some amazing analogies
and you do bring that humor aswell, which is just amazing.

(01:02:29):
It keeps you hooked on theposts.
And I want to talk about like afew of them, and starting with
the first one where how Istumbled upon your profile.
So one of my, I think,listeners was kind of engaging
with your posts and I'mconnected with them on LinkedIn
as well and that post wasregarding, you know, the

(01:02:49):
question behind the question,decoding the question behind the
question, where you said thatmeme of and as up now I know
it's a while, though it's awhile and everything, so that
that's the few humor part tokind of bring in.
And I want to tell us about thatpost a little bit.
And one of the examples yousaid, which I'll read it from
here, is you said that why doyou want the job?

(01:03:10):
The question is this but behindthat, what they're asking is do
you really care about the jobor you just applied here to get
any job?
This was like one of theexamples you give.
Tell us more about that.

Any behavioral question that you get in an
interview.
There's a question behind thatquestion.
So, like you said, tell meabout yourself, for example.
That's the.
That's the first question.
But the question behind thequestion is are you able to
articulate your passions?
So, simply, are you, do youknow anything about my company

(01:03:45):
and are you able to align yourskills with my company?
Do you like this role that Ihave on offer?
There are these questionsbehind the questions and the
meme about and does up.
Now it comes back to like mytime in Mumbai, where Mumbai is
very cutthroat in the sense thatyour friends will rib you to no

(01:04:08):
end, they will pull your legtill your leg becomes sore and
you do the same.
You do the same as well, soit's not.
it's not bullying or it'sco-opted bullying by everybody.
Where we are, we are allbullying each other and that's
our way to show that we careabout the person.
We are close with that person.
You don't pull somebody's legif you're not close to that

(01:04:30):
person.
So I always bring my friends tomind and in when I'm writing
these posts.
I can't do this every time, butI'll be like, okay, if my
friend read this, he'll be likeI don't know what to cook or why
are you boring me?
So to keep myself entertainedand to keep my reader
entertained, I kind of bringelements that at some fun.

(01:04:53):
Yes, it's a serious topic, it'san important topic, but I don't
want to read it and get boredmyself, or I don't want to write
it and get bored myself.
So it's an element of meentertaining myself and the
audience while sharing somethingthat is extremely actionable
and important for me, which wasthere's a question behind the

(01:05:13):
question.
Answer the question behind thequestion, because that's what
will get you the job.

So this is a fascinating day, something
perspective you bring in, I seein your post that people might
not see again, like sometimesit's the same thing which
everybody says, but it's justthe way sometimes you frame your
post is something that keepspeople hooked and it stays with
you and I think we all havelearned from stories, speaking
of our histories, fromMahabharata, ramiya and
everything we kind of like grownup in their stories and all

(01:05:41):
that thing stays with us.
Those lessons stay with us.
So that's the amazing partabout your posts.

And it's part of us right.
The story of Ram and Sugrivathat's what I use to share how
that is.
You need leverage in anynegotiation.
Without leverage, you havenothing.
Ram wanted Sugriva's help to goto Lanka and fight with Ram.
He wanted Ram, lord Ram's helpto help his elder brother to

(01:06:14):
defeat his elder brother Vami.
Forget that, not top of mind,but yeah, to defeat his elder
brother.
Both were bringing in somethingand both needed something from
the other person.
And when you have that leverageis only when a negotiation is a
win-win.
If one party has more leveragethan the other, they'll have a

(01:06:36):
bigger win than you Like.
Companies have more leveragethan job seekers.
If you don't know how to play,leverage then the companies will
dictate terms.
But if you are confident, ifyou're a top performer, if you
have sexy indifference issomething that these smartless

(01:06:57):
podcast guys talk about thatsexy indifference, if you have
all those leverages, then youcan bring in data and that
leverage to kind of work withyour company to get to a point
where it's a win-win point.
So another example of how I amweaving my childhood, the
stories that we've learned toshare, concepts that I had to

(01:07:21):
learn for myself, and I'm justtrying to pay it forward.

And then the another post was regarding the
Ganesh Chaturthi that you saidno, we celebrate the festival
Ganesh Chaturthi and it is whenwe celebrate the birth of one of
our Hindu gods, and how youwere supposed to make that idol,
that murti and that's.
You brought that example andyou said that how we stop
ourselves from those variousconstraints and really have to

(01:07:48):
look past that.
So talk a little bit about thatas well.

I am creative in my ideation and I'm creative
when on my computer, creatingslides and stuff like that.
But tell me to draw somethingand you will be reminded of that
horse meme.
You know where the tail and theback legs start really good.
But by that time you reach tothe face it's like a freaking

(01:08:14):
line drawing.
You don't even understand.
I am that person, the linedrawing that.
You might not even understandwhat's happening.
So I was not creativelyinclined at all.
But Ganesh festival is a bigpart of our family and ever
since I moved to the US I wasn'tbeing able to celebrate it with

(01:08:36):
the same gusto that I was usedto back home.
But Shraddali, my wife, cameinto my life.
She is very creative, she'sreally good at this.
So she saw one of my friendsmaking a murti from clay and she
started to make a murti fromclay.
So it was great.
I got that feeling back wherewe had the murti.

(01:08:56):
We would celebrate for the 10days.
It was a blast.
But then our first child wasborn and the child needs somehow
needs the mother a lot morethan the father.
So she couldn't put in thattime to create the murti and we
were sitting on the dining tablejust discussing what should we

(01:09:17):
do this year?
Should we skip?
Should we just put our Mandir'smurti and pray to that?
She was like, why don't youmake it?
And I kid you not, I thought itwas a joke.
I thought she was pulling myleg so I started laughing.
I was like what do you mean?

(01:09:37):
I make the murti.
But she looked at me and shewas serious.
She was like why don't you makeit?
And I was flooded with all myemotions about not being like a
good art, a good drawer, a goodsculptor.
I have never sculpted anythingin my life.
So I was like there's no way I'mgoing to do this.
But there was a constraint.

(01:09:59):
We wanted to celebrate my wifecouldn't create the murti.
I could have either stoppedmyself from that constraint or I
could have tried to createconstraint, use constraint as
creativity is what I call it,and we decided that I would
create something.
If it was not good, we wouldnot show anybody, just keep it

(01:10:22):
on the side and just but thatwhole experience of sculpting
something.
And it was my first very basiceffort where I took a bunch of
balls.
One ball was the stomach, oneball was the face, one ball I
flattened out and made the handsand it was very basic, but the
joy that I got from creating itand the pleasure that even

(01:10:47):
Shirali saw me having I've beenthe one creating the murti since
then, so my first time to whatI think was this one, this time
was my fourth time.
I am surprising myself.
I'm not saying I'm great, butI'm surprising myself because
that constraint has helped mycreativity go from these bunch

(01:11:10):
of spheres put together, kind ofputting in a lot more
complexity and having four handswhich again I was I was
surprising myself.
I was like what's happening.
So, yes, constraints hold usback, or constraint can be used
for creativity.

I love this example and I encourage our
listeners to definitely followVarun.
You will not regret followinghis pose.
You definitely learn a lot fromit and I'm 100% sure those will
stay with you.
So before we get into the finalsegment, I just want to talk
very quickly about this onething we discussed in our
earlier conversation, which wasabout, you know, losing that

(01:11:51):
crab in the bucket mentality.
We in India have, like acertain way of working.
We are all driving solo and wedon't have the culture which is
a little bit in Canada right now.
Which I stumbled upon waspeople are willing to lend that
helping hand and if, especiallywe immigrants, if we come
together as a community, thatcan actually act as a catalyst

(01:12:12):
for each of our success.
And I want to talk a little bitmore about that and share your
perspective on it.

So I don't know what your experience was, coming
up where you, where you werebrought up in that's.
I don't know how yourexperience was in school and
stuff like that.
Mumbai was extremelycompetitive.
To get into the first team insports even was so competitive.

(01:12:37):
You are competing at everythingsports classes, awards in
classes, the best grades, topranks.
You're competing in everything.
We have such a competitionmindset, right from schooling to
college, that when we come herewe bring that with us.

(01:12:57):
Where we don't, we use secrecy,we don't share things that we
think and give us a leg up.
Now we will share everythingthat is status related.
We will share the new car thatwe bought.
We will share the price of thenew house that we bought, but

(01:13:19):
sharing the price, sharing thesalary that we have or sharing
the systems that we use to kindof maybe grow at work or find
the job we hold it, we are verysecretive because we don't want
to give somebody an advantage.
But I think life is different inthe US and Canada, first of all

(01:13:40):
, and life is different inschooling versus in life.
Schooling is kind of like a zerosum game sometimes, because you
are fighting for one position,whereas life is a positive sum
game like Gurasis can be a CEOand so can I.
We might have to have differentcompanies and everything, but

(01:14:03):
everybody can achieve success inour professional career.
So that's the mentality that Ithink we need to stop where we
are.
It's like a crab in the bucketanalogy, where none of the crabs
can go out of the bucketbecause we ourselves are pulling
each other down.

(01:14:24):
That's what's something that Ithink we need to switch, where
more of us immigrants need toshare the uncomfortable truths
behind things, absolutely needto share a lot more of our path
so that not only can the cominggeneration learn from it, but
our peers are encouraged to openup a bit more.

(01:14:47):
You won't imagine the number ofpeople that have come and
talked to me about things myfriends, my peers, about job
search, about promotion, aboutsalary that they would have
never shared with a soul.

So I think a lot of us need to kind of have more
abundance mentality and shareyeah, another thing which you
mentioned was around the sameconcept was that not only
limiting our sharing to thefestivities, the celebrations,
but going beyond that as well.
And the one that you weresaying was regarding the job
search.
Tell us, how did you get thejob, how did you grow in the job

(01:15:20):
, how did you even get this job?
Or help us, even given areferral, if possible.

Absolutely.
Even when you meet in a socialsetting we are talking about,
like in the US especially.
You're talking about green cardpriority dates.
You're talking about whichstock to buy and which stock to
sell.
You're talking about travel,but very seldom you're talking
about okay, this is a strugglethat I'm having at work and this

(01:15:49):
is how I solved it.
So if you have a struggle atwork, this is something that you
can try.
Or sometimes you can take astep back and just say, hey,
this is what I'm struggling withat work.
Yeah, can anybody help?
We don't do that.
We hold our vulnerabilities toourselves because we don't want
to give somebody else a leg up.

(01:16:10):
Whereas it's not competition,it's community.
So we need each other.
And what sucks is that all ofus are learning the same thing
by our own, exactly.
Everybody's getting promotedlike a decade into their career
If they want to be a peoplemanager.
Everybody's becoming a peoplemanager a decade into their

(01:16:32):
career, whereas and we're alllearning by our own.
But if you could kind of shareall that insights, we might get
there in six years, we might getthere in five.
Some people might look at thatand say I don't want to be that,
I'll just be a tech specialist.
Somebody who's a techspecialist will say oh yeah,
this sounds interesting, I mightgo into, look into becoming a

(01:16:54):
people manager.
So it sucks that we are doingthe same learning on our own,
whereas we could kind of cometogether and reduce the time it
takes to get there, and that'sthe mission of Beyond Pride.

Absolutely and, like I said in my intro, if one
person's knowledge, if sharedand multiplied, can uplift an
entire community, and I thinkit's about time that we all work
together, support one anotherand accelerate each other's
growth and I'm seeing that.

I'm seeing that movement where I see a lot of
brown people, immigrants, talkabout immigrant life and raise
the collective volume on all ofthese things and I think this is
just a stop, absolutely.
It's going to be even moreamazing down the line.

So now let's just get into the final segment of
the podcast.
I call it Beneath the Accentbecause we are knowing each
other beneath the accent.
I'm going to ask a couple ofquestions.
You can answer them in one wordor a sentence, or however you
feel like.
The idea is just to know moreabout Varun.
So ready, yeah.
So first is the classicquestion what advice would you
give to Varun, who is in theinitial months of landing in the

(01:18:06):
US?

Investing yourself by money or by time
with mentors.

If you had to describe yourself as any
creature, what would it be andwhy?

Oh, this one.
I've thought about this oneElephant.
Okay, why is that?
First of all, ganpati.
So I have some affinity towardselephants being a big fan of
the Ganesh festival and I thinkI like that they are.
They have memory.
I don't know if I have memorywould be a strong point, but I

(01:18:36):
don't know, I think affinitytowards that animal and I like
that they are part of the jungle.
You know, you say thatelephants kind of yes, lions are
the king of the jungle, butelephants kind of maintain
balance in the jungle, somethinglike that, and that's what I
love about it.

Name three things on your bucket list.

Three things on my bucket list.
One is to sponsor my parents'Europe trip.
That would be.
They've been thinking andtalking about Europe for a
really long time, so that wouldbe one.
The other would be to take mykids on a safari.

(01:19:20):
That would be awesome.
The bucket list is always goingto be travel, I don't know why.
Sure, and I would say.
The third item would be goingon a photography tour just by
myself, solo photography.
Okay, that would be a bigbucket list item.

Love that.
So who's your go-to person whenyou feel stuck?
My wife, okay.
What's the most unusual orunique food you have ever tried,
and did you like it?

I tried sushi once vegetarian sushi, okay, and
I'm a vegetarian.
I liked it, but I don't thinkI'm.
I've not gone back since to eatit, so I guess that gives you
the answer.

If you could swap lives with somebody for a day,
who would it be?

Sachin Dandukar.
I would love to see how itfeels to be Sachin Dandukar.
I mean, the only thing I knowabout him is to interviews and
books.
It would be cool to to see lifefrom his vantage point.

If you could write a book for your life story
so far, what would you call it?

Surface area of luck.

Very interesting.
Okay, do you think of writing abook though?

No, not yet I, but you brought up that question
and and I was also impressed bythe answer, so maybe I need to
look into that.
Yeah, because luck has been abig part, from blind luck to the
different types of luck thatI've shared.

Okay, If you could be a contestant on a
reality TV show, which one wouldit be?

So you think you can dance or dance India,
something like that.
That would be very cool.
So all those dance realityshows, oh yeah, it would be
awesome.
I wouldn't go far.
I wouldn't go far because thedancers are insane man, but it
would be cool to be aparticipant.

If you could create any law that everybody
has to follow, what would it be?

Everybody has to invest.
Everybody has to invest 2% oftheir income on personal
development.

So, lastly, describe Canada in one word or a
sentence.

Home in diversity.

Okay, and the same question for the US.
How would you describe US?

Self growth.

Okay, if you could leave me with one piece of
advice, what would it be?

Do more of what you are doing with more
intensity.

Okay, how would you describe your experience of
being on the podcast?

Amazing, enlightening is what I'll say
and I'll share.
Why We've decided on a one hourconversation but have gone in a
long conversation and I sharedthis during like a big video is
that I have talked about topicsthat I have not articulated in
either past podcast episodes orwith my friends or with my

(01:22:14):
family.
So it has been enlightening toeven learn more about myself
through your questioning.
So really, thank you for that.
Grateful for that.
Questions about my family,questions about you know what
kind of book I would write, oryou know from there to here.
I think it's been anenlightening conversation for

(01:22:37):
myself.
Sometimes you need to saythings out loud to kind of
internalize things.

Okay, I love that .
Thank you.
Thank you for being on thepodcast and thank you for being
so open and sharing everythingabout your life.
So thank you, and thank you foradding value to my listeners.
Thank you, Varun.

Appreciate that.
I hope they love it and if theyhave any other question, feel
free to reach out.
Thank you, Gurasis, appreciateit.

Hey listener, thank you for making it to the
end.
I highly, highly appreciate youlistening to the podcast.
Subscribe to the podcast if youhaven't as yet, and please
share with your friends oranybody you think would like it.
And, like I always say, weencourage you to follow your
heart, but also ask.
On Instagram, the handle@MyThickAccent.

(01:23:24):
You can also leave us a reviewor write to us at
Hello@mythickaccent.
com.
So stay tuned and let'scontinue knowing each other
beneath the accent.

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Amplifying The Immigrant Experience Through Collaboration and Self-Growth | Ft. Varun Negandhi Ep. 050 [Season Finale]

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Amplifying The Immigrant Experience Through Collaboration and Self-Growth | Ft. Varun Negandhi Ep. 050 [Season Finale]