The youngest Indian to have addressed the United Nations assembly in Vienna, Raj Shamani, inspired a packed forum last night at the Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF) 2019, and told the gathering of fans and students that it’s OK to make mistakes.

Speaking at his session titled simply, “Hi, I’m Raj Shamani” the young man rated among the top five Indian influencers said, “The most important thing is to allow yourself to make mistakes. The number one reason people don’t try new things is because they are worried about making a mistake and embarrassing themselves because they care what other people think. I don’t care about other people in that way. I only care what my family and close friends think and I allow myself to try new things and experiment. People who care about you will be proud of the effort you make whether you succeed or fail. Forgive yourself, and rise again.”

Thunderous applause greeted this statement and an attendee quoted Albert Einstein who once said, “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”

At  only age 22, Raj was the youngest Indian to speak at the united nations assembly in Vienna, he has given three TEDx talks and over 100 keynotes in 23 countries. He calls himself a useless and not so bright kid, who survived a difficult childhood. But, he said, it took a lot of time to build up his courage to speak in front of people and since then he has made it his mission to inspire anyone he could with his words.

“The reason why this became my mission is because at one point my father was really ill and I thought we were going to lose him. When it turned out he was OK I wanted to do something to make my dad proud of me and to become a success. So, I googled ‘how to be successful’. Google told me people who read a lot are successful, so I googled, ‘best books to read to be successful’. Then read everything that was suggested. Now, from humble beginnings, me and my family now have the freedom to do anything.”

Having said that Raj also pointed out that intention was very important. “If you genuinely want to help people, that is all that matters, not the number of followers you have. If you want to offer advice, inspiration or support to other people and not waste their time or take their money, this is what matters the most,” he said.