Ep362: Yaswanth Sai Palaghat – Follow Your Passion on Top Of Getting an Education

Andrew Stotz 00:02
Hello fellow risk takers and welcome to my worst investment ever stories of laws to keep you winning. In our community, we know that the winning investing, you must take risk, but to win big, you've got to reduce it. And I bet you're exposed to investment risks right now. To reduce it, go to my worst investment ever.com and download the risk reduction checklist I've made specifically for you. My podcast listeners based on the lessons I've learned from all of my guests, fellow risk takers, this is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz, from a Stotz Academy, and I'm here with featured guests. s Wang, cy, polygon s one. Are you ready to rock?

Yaswanth Sai Palaghat 00:44
Yes, Andrew.

Andrew Stotz 00:46
So, I want to introduce you to the audience. And you are one of those high flying YouTube, guys, and I'm interested to learn more about your background. So let's go into it. Ash one sigh polygon is a YouTuber who focuses on tech and career development, as well as in many other areas. And he also interviews, leaders and influences. And even though he's only 23 years old, he has the big goal of creating the largest digital tech community in the world. As one take a minute affiliate for the tidbits about your life.

Yaswanth Sai Palaghat 01:30
Yeah. Thanks, Andrew, for the wonderful intro. I really loved it. So you almost covered majority of the things, man apart from that. So as you said, like I mentioned, I stay in Hyderabad, India. So I consider myself as a multitasker where I rolled my hands in almost everything. Like, as you mentioned, I'm a YouTuber, and apart from that, like I'm a software engineer, content creator, digital marketer, instructor, freelancer, blah, blah, blah, and also a podcast host like you. And I'm an individual who don't like being static all the time. So I like to be dynamic in nature. So that's

Andrew Stotz 02:07
the show always moving? Yeah. So let me ask you a question. Think about a young person who's listening in, they think, how can you do all this different stuff that you're doing? I mean, when I went through your bio, on the first we just we cut it down, because you know, we keep it short here. But the fact is, there's a lot of stuff that you're involved in, there's a lot of stuff that you're doing to make a successful YouTube channel and to get your message out, and all of that, how do you manage your time,

Yaswanth Sai Palaghat 02:35
it's all about priorities. So if you're clear about like, what you want to be in the future, or what you want to be in the next day, then ultimately it becomes so much easier for you to manage multiple things. So whatever the things might be, so I work as a full time role. So I will quit a full time job. So apart from that, I do all this stuff like YouTube, and like I literally upload a video every single day. So it's all about the passion. And if you do things consistently, then ultimately things become very easy for you. So you won't feel stressful, or you won't feel that much complexity in managing multiple things that will become a part of your life, and you feel it as just as an hobby. So it's what I feel. And it's what made me successful in managing my time.

Andrew Stotz 03:19
And one other question, when I was your age, I would say that I was successful, because I just worked longer than anybody else. You know, like, I just, you know, I worked all day. And then I went home and I did all this other stuff, you know, other people made other choices right? Now, as I look at my productivity, well, I still work pretty hard. But nowadays, I can delegate more, and I can outsource more. And I can focus in on kind of what's my highest value? And I'm just curious about, you know, how hard Are you working? How smart Are you working? You know, how has that changed over the last couple of years?

Yaswanth Sai Palaghat 03:57
It's because we have the opportunities, I think, I mean, when you are 23, you don't have these much opportunities, you don't have this kind of proper internet, proper digital gadgets and all those things, but we have is I think on utilizing in the proper way. That's it, I think, whether we don't right, if you have these kinds of facilities in your age, you might be a similar person. So yeah, it's all about using the opportunities and utilizing in a better way. So that is what I feel.

Andrew Stotz 04:24
So that's interesting. I like that, you know, and you're, you're you're showing and you're telling Look, I have these opportunities, we have these opportunities as young people these days. And I guess the part of the message to young people listening is you have no excuse. Yes, you know, if you want to be a radio man, if you want to be a YouTuber, if you want to be an Instagram that whatever, whatever it is that you want to do out there. You can find your voice and there was just no way that you could do that when I was growing up that you know, the idea of being on the radio or having You know, even, you know, and sometimes it can be depressing when people start off doing YouTube, doing podcasts trying to be an influencer. And that, and then you only get, you know, a couple of 100 people and maybe 1000 people watch, and it's just so it can be very frustrating. But sometimes I say to people, you know what, wait a minute, wait a min. Okay, so you're telling me, you have, let's say, 300 people watch a video in a day, you know, try to get 300 people in a room. It's impossible. Yeah, it was very, very hard. You don't focus so much on your volume and your number that will come on time. But focus on the quality that you deliver and appreciate the fact that you got 300 people in a room and not saying, I wish I had those other 1000? Well, no, you got to take care of those 300 that you got in the room. So any thoughts about that?

Yaswanth Sai Palaghat 05:50
200. Like, you've just nailed that. So the viewers call, I mean, if you're consistent on our things, and if you're clear on what we are doing, I think focusing on volumes will come automatically. So it doesn't matter how many people are watching our content. So if at least one or two will benefit out of it, then ultimately it will pass on to the large volumes. So I think focusing on content and focusing on what we deliver is important than focusing on volumes.

Andrew Stotz 06:16
Yeah, it's interesting, because I know I've had my ups and downs in the podcast space that sometimes I felt like, Ah, this is a lot of work. And other times I was like, I'm tired. And I don't feel like I'm getting the credit I want and all that. But what I just do is I just keep doing the next right thing. And, and it starts to build, and it's just a little bit like, you know, in the world of investment, we talk about compound interest. And now, you know, Warren Buffett's sitting on a huge amount of money because he left his money in the market to compound over 60 years, right? Yes, the impact the compound effect, great book, by way by Darren Hardy, the compound effect doesn't actually happen until the later periods. The impact is yes, if you know, you may go from two viewers to four, to eight to 16. It seems very small in the beginning, but then when it starts to compound, so I think the lesson that I take away from you is just stay at it. Yeah, do the best you can with the audience you have and what you've got. And it will come over time. All right, well, it's great to get to know you. And now it's time to share your worst investment ever. And since no one ever goes into their worst investment, thinking it will be. Tell us a bit about the circumstances leading up to it. And then tell us your story.

Yaswanth Sai Palaghat 07:34
Sure, well, my worst investment will be little bit surprising. So it's not completely about money here. And as I said, like I'm from India, it's a second largest in population of China, and then coming to the population of engineers. So India tops the list. majority of the people who choose engineering in India or other career options are not just because it is their passion, it is their only option. So for many, and it is a reason why many of the engineers here are jobless. So not only here, I think, all over the world you can consider like most of the people, I'm the area in which in which there are more number of unemployment people exist is engineering. So similar, like I chose engineering in computer science stream, like how majority of Indian shows and I didn't find anything relevant to the current industry needs in my curriculum. So everything, everything seems outdated. And I felt there is no point in spending four years just to obtain your degree, which we can't even show with pride no more. So people are still searching for a way to find the passion on many will just record with the education barrier. So it is what I feel my worst investment ever of time. And but a good thing is I realized that this very, very quickly. And that is what helped me. So yeah, what I felt my worst investment was spending my time in engineering. So and yeah, can I

Andrew Stotz 08:59
ask you about? Like, when did you start? I mean, obviously, when you go into university as an example, it's all exciting, it's fresh, it's new, you think that you're going to learn all these amazing things. And then there came a time now was that time that you came to this realization? Was it during the school time, or it's like when you went out to get a job? And you think, Oh, my God, I don't really have the skills?

Yaswanth Sai Palaghat 09:20
Oh, no, like, I realized it very quickly. So, dude, I mean, during my four years, of course, so I mean, after one year itself, like I realized very quickly, because the beginning of my journey in engineering University, so like, I felt like Oh, so I'm going to learn various things. And I'm going to rock. So once after I'm having the degree but like, I realized that what are the things that I'm learning, so I'm just learning scrap here. So they're not learning that things that really useful to survive in the industry or to get into enterpreneurship or to get a meaningful job. These are not useful. These are just static things and the syllabus that I'm learning here is complete. The outdated like even a school kid, using internet can learn all this stuff, then what is the main thing? mean? What is the main mode of going to college for four years spending time for exams? spending your time reading all this stuff? So what is the use of it instead? Like if we can learn it online at this moment, everyone can get the job in the first year of course itself. So that is what I realized, immediately after one year. And then after, like, I prepared my own strategies to come out of it.

Andrew Stotz 10:28
And did you did you learn that like, over time, or was there like a day or night where you just realize, Oh, my God,

Yaswanth Sai Palaghat 10:36
it took time. So it after a series of incidents or series of events, like, I mean, with the first thing is syllabus, that is what I mean, pulled me out of that school out of idea of going to engineering and studying and spending hours. So the syllabus is one thing. And the exposure is one of the things like just just because you are an engineer, you will not be exposed. So you need multiple things to expose. And those were networking, public speaking, self learning ability, and a time management, these are all the things that you need in order to get exposed, but not your engineering degree. So yeah, gradually, I learned all these things. Yeah.

Andrew Stotz 11:14
So let me ask you, sure, if you could list out what it is that you learn from this experience. Yeah,

Yaswanth Sai Palaghat 11:21
sure. So the first thing I can say is passion. So if you have a passion, just don't ignore that just whatever the complexity is, whatever the struggles that you get in the journey, don't leave that passion of this. So even though you're structuring something look, so like, if you're stuck in a college, if you're stuck in engineering, which is no nowhere relevant to your passion, make some time. So, if that is your priority, like you will get some time and work on that, that is one thing I have learned. So the second thing is, start whatever you want to so during my engineering course, like I started with three different startup ideas. So but all those were failed in my engineering, but yeah, the good thing is like I have learned various things from that fail experiences. And the other thing is networking. So in this digital old, we are completely reliant on internet. So without internet, there is nothing nowadays. So even for a kid, or to your kid to 80 year old man, internet is emotional that is, so if you are not using internet properly, then ultimately you will be out of the competition. And in order to stay relevant, you need networking skill. So you need to talk with multiple people, you need to interact with multiple people. And you need to make some good connections out there not just talking with people, you need to make some good connections. And networking is one lesson that I have learned. So I make a good friends out there, I make good internet friends, I made good some connections and good relationships out there. And that is what people need. And the other lesson that I can probably say is self learning. So nowadays, everyone can learn freely in the internet. But that thing, I mean, that guts of taking risk is what the need of the generation. So you need to learn by yourself. If you know the path of like where you want to be after two to three years, then ultimately you need to work on that no one will guide you, because everyone is busy in building up their own life. So no one will show much interest on you to teach you something to guide you something. If yes, if we get some guides, then it is a blessing. But we are not supposed to depend on them. So we need to learn by ourselves. And guess what it makes sense. And, and the last thing that I can say is public speaking. So public speaking is something maybe there are some introverts who don't like speaking in front of public, but ultimately they will also be successful. But if you are a good public speaker, then you will gain some confidence and and especially like if you want to build your own enterprise, or if you want to become an entertainer, public speaking is a must. And yeah, these are all the lessons that are learned from the experience,

Andrew Stotz 13:57
great lessons, great lessons, and maybe I'll share some of the things that I just wrote down because I was listening to you. The first thing is I said, I was thinking about something that we say, when I was young. It was my mom or my dad said it to me or someone said to me, which was if at first you don't succeed, try try again. And I think that's that's a great reminder, you know what you said and the fact is many things. In fact, we'll probably have to get more used to failure than success because we'll probably have failure more often than will have sucks. And the next thing I haven't been in a university lecture all my life basically, which I do in my free time and do you know pretty consistently for 30 years. I often tell students University is the worst place to go to learn. And then I was thinking about my I've over the last over the COVID period I about a year. Go, I thought to myself, well, I'm not going to be hiring anybody right now. I've got to watch my budgets and all of that. And I know a lot of young people won't be getting jobs right now. And therefore, maybe we could do a barter, I could get some young interns to work with me. And then I teach them everything I can and help them. And they helped me. And so in the last 12 months, I've had probably more than 100 interns work with me. Literally, personally, at my office, they asked if we could do it by zoom, but I said, No, it's got to be either live or not. And the result of that is that I'm, you know, made a lot of great relationships and friendships with them. And you know, we've shared and they've helped me a lot, and I've tried to help them too. But the first question, I always ask them, when they come and I say, what skill Do you have, that you can bring to me? You know, it could be writing, could be speaking, it could be Excel, it could be financial modeling, it could be social media, or Facebook ads, or whatever it could be. And, unfortunately, at least 90%, say, none, I don't have any skill. And they literally don't have a skill that they come out of university with. So it's a rare person that comes out of university with a very specific skill. And instead, what they have is a general education. Now, General Education isn't bad. But I would also argue that, I would say that the quality of education compared to you know, years ago is probably going down where it's just that it just, you're not learning that. Now, it's just I'm not that impressed with the ability to think and analyze and stuff, like, I see what's going on in the universities, and I'm just not that knocked out. So my number one thing that I always tell them, and you've, you've demonstrated it through, what you've talked about is, you have got to create some skill that separates you or differentiates you, relative to your peers, but also is the thing that you're going to go out and work on, you know, like to improve. And so that's the other thing that I take away anything you would add to that.

Yaswanth Sai Palaghat 17:19
I think you've got you covered their bases covered. Yeah.

Andrew Stotz 17:22
But you know, I haven't won one of my newest interns just started a couple of days ago. And I said, I want to learn data science, and marketing. And I said, Oh, that's good. Well, then why don't we just become an expert on Facebook ads, and Google ads, and another program we use, which is kartra. And then how do we bring all that together and take the data we get from that and use it in marketing to make sure that we're bringing the right products to the right people? And so he's digging deep into that. And I told him, No, you were with me for two months. I've already got I bought him some courses that he's taking, he's far through them. And then basically, I said, in two months, you have a skill, you can walk in any place and say, I can do Facebook ads, Google AdWords kartra. And then I can bring it all together and generate revenue for your company. Okay, boom, you're hired? Yes. So it's really about skills. So that's the thing. Alright, so based upon what you learn from this story, and what you continue to learn, what one action would you recommend our listeners take to avoid suffering the same fate?

Yaswanth Sai Palaghat 18:24
Sure. So I believe there are three kinds of people in general. I mean, I told this statement multiple times during my YouTube videos, too. The first one is someone who waits for opportunities. And the second one is someone who searches for opportunities. And the third one is someone who creates opportunities be the third one. So I always advise people to be the third one, because you will not get opportunities because no one will search for you in this first place, what you need to create your own opportunities in order to get three out of the risk zone that you are in. So it's okay. So if you're stuck somewhere, due to whatever might be the reason it might be the financial issue, like it is stopping you from going on with your design course. Or it is somewhat like you're following just you're falling in the head just because of that you're doing you're doing. So it's okay. You realize it later, once you realized, just try to create an opportunities. So whatever it is, if you are clear about what is your passion is try to create an opportunity if you're not finding any job, create some jobs for other people, by building your own enterprise. Because there are various ways and you can find guides and mentors all over the internet. So there is no scarcity for them. The only thing that you need is clear. I mean the clarity on what your passion is. And if you have a clarity, you can create your own opportunities. There are multiple ways in this fast paced digital world. It is one thing that I can say. So clarity is really the starting point. Yes. And you know at the beginning, you also talked before about passion, so bringing clarity together with passion that would create the opportunity Beautiful, beautiful All right,

Andrew Stotz 20:00
so last question, what's your number one goal for the next 12 months,

Yaswanth Sai Palaghat 20:05
we have. So I'm in the process of building largest tech community. So and that should not only focus on just gathering people gathering similar minds of people, but also to create some awareness to all over the people on setting up their goals, choosing the right carrier. So it is what I meant to be. And it is what I'm doing in my youtube since four years. And I continue doing that. And I will, I want to reach to more audience out there to give you some clarity on their thought process and to give some clarity on their career. So it is my number one goal for the next 12 months.

Andrew Stotz 20:38
Exciting. All right, listeners, there you have it another story of loss to keep you winning. My number one goal for the next 12 months is to help you my listener to reduce risk in your life. So go to my worst investment ever.com right now and download the risk reduction checklist and see how you measure up. As we conclude this one, I want to thank you again, for coming on the show. And on behalf of a stance Academy. I hereby award you alumni status for turning your worst investment ever into your best teaching moment. Do you have any parting words for the audience? Yes, sure.

Yaswanth Sai Palaghat 21:14
So I told you multiple times in this podcast, so just follow your passion with clarity. And like if you want to know some great stuff on career development, you can get into my YouTube channel. Watch those stuff.

21:27
so fantastic.

Yaswanth Sai Palaghat 21:28
I wish you all the best for everyone watching this.

Andrew Stotz 21:30
Fantastic and we'll have the links in the show notes. So just click on those links and you go straight to his YouTube channel. Well, that's a wrap on another great story that was create, grow and protect our wealth, fellow risk takers. This is your worst podcast hosts Andrew Stotz saying I'll see you on the outside.