Mumbai CEO spent 7 days with no money for food at 18. What he learnt stayed with him

A Mumbai-based startup founder shared a LinkedIn post detailing how, at 18, he survived for seven days on bread and water without money for food. He said the experience changed how he sees risk and failure.

In Short

• Abhishek Agarwal faced extreme poverty at 18
• He distinguishes real broke from minor financial inconveniences
• The experience taught him resilience and the ability to endure hardship

Mumbai-based founder Abhishek Agarwal once hit a point where even food was unaffordable. Seven days of bread and water at 18, he says, gave him something unexpected; the courage to stop fearing rock bottom.

Agarwal, founder of The Deliberate Pause, revisited those days in a post on LinkedIn, calling them one of the most difficult and, in hindsight, most important periods of his life.

“I was broke as f** when I was 18,” he wrote. But he was quick to distinguish his experience from the everyday inconveniences people often associate with being short of money.

“I don’t mean the kind of broke where you can’t afford the vacation you wanted, or you have to wait until next month to buy something. I mean actually broke. Broke for education, broke for food!”

For seven days, food was a struggle. “So I ate bread and drank water. That was pretty much it,” Agarwal recalled.

The hunger has stayed with him, but so has something deeper.

“I remember the hunger, but I think what stays with me more is the helplessness of it,” he wrote.

Yet, looking back, Agarwal believes those seven days gave him something that comfort never could: the knowledge that even at his lowest point, he could make it through.

“I found out what having almost nothing felt like. And I also found out something I couldn’t have known otherwise: I could survive it!!!”

That realisation, he said, has quietly stayed with him through the risks and setbacks that followed, from business failures and financial uncertainty to rejection and plans falling apart.

It is why he believes everyone needs their own “most broke” moment. But Agarwal was careful not to romanticise hardship.

“Not because poverty is noble. It isn’t. Not because suffering automatically makes you stronger. It doesn’t," he said.

For him, the value lies elsewhere: in the courage that comes from discovering your own ability to withstand uncertainty. “There is a certain kind of courage that only comes from hitting rock bottom,” he wrote.

See the post:

A LinkedIn user echoed that thought, writing that the real lesson was not about being broke, but about discovering that circumstances can become worse without leaving you helpless.

For Abhishek Agarwal, those seven days were about more than hunger. They became proof that even when everything feels uncertain, survival itself can become a source of courage.

- Ends