Ep706: Sampark Sachdeva – Don’t Be Afraid to Take the Plunge

Andrew Stotz 0:02
Hello fellow risk takers and welcome to my worst investment ever stories of loss to keep you winning. In our community. We know that to win in investing, you must take risk. But to win big, you got to reduce it. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm on a mission to help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives to reduce reduce risk in your life, go to my worst investment ever.com today and take that risk reduction assessment I created from the lessons I've learned from more than 500 guests, fellow risk takers, this is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz, from a Stotz Academy, and I'm here with featured guests, Sampark Sachdeva. Sampark, are you ready to join the mission?

Sampark Sachdeva 0:46
On set? Thank you for?

Andrew Stotz 0:49
Yes, well, I'm happy to have you with us. And let me introduce you to the audience and tell you a little bit about tell them a little bit about what you do. I'm going to call you Sam, how about that?

Sampark Sachdeva 1:03
Absolutely works for me. I know my name is a little difficult to pronounce. Yeah.

Andrew Stotz 1:09
So and by the way, you were just telling me what does tell us what your name means in would it be Sanskrit Hindi? How would you say that?

Sampark Sachdeva 1:17
So in Hindi, somebody means communication. So it is talking about communicating with people. So yes, that's that's what

Andrew Stotz 1:26
you were saying? How did that relate to the name of your business?

Sampark Sachdeva 1:29
So my grandchildren, I was caught somewhere support, which means communicate with communication. So that's the play of words. That's there. And a lot of people do come out and say that it is very creative. Leap put in a lot of people come and ask me, was this game since birth? Or have you done it after he got into marketing? So yes,

Andrew Stotz 1:51
interesting. So let me introduce you to the audience a little bit. Sam's got 12 years of corporate experience across Asian paints, and other businesses. He's also been awarded best digital coach of 2021 at India coaching awards. He's been a TEDx speaker in 2020. He has been in the LinkedIn spotlight in 2019. And he was recognized as one of India's top content creators. That's not an easy feat. There's a lot of competition there. He's also known as top marketing and sales professionals in 2019, which was something that was awarded by Paul Ryder and Oracle. He's trained over listen to this, ladies and gentlemen, he's trained over 20,000 people across 125 sessions, across 10 countries. He has over 125,000 followers across social media channels. And my goodness, Sam, why don't you take a minute and tell us about the value that you bring to this world?

Sampark Sachdeva 2:57
Andrew, if you ask me, one particular thing that I truly believe in, and I truly believe in giving out as well is positivity. Because I feel irrespective of what state you are in, irrespective of what hardship obstacle or failure you're going through, I think it is positivity that can take you places, it is that positivity, which will pull you out of that hole that you've got yourself into. So yes, that is one thing that I absolutely truly believe in. And I think that is one thing which has kept me going with all the failures and all the hardships that I've got the stories that we will be talking in the podcast ahead as well.

Andrew Stotz 3:41
It's interesting, because I mean, I totally believe in positivity. But there are some people out there just over optimistic and just try to be positive and think everything, you know, rose colored glasses and just think everything's great. But there's so much more about the concept of positivity, what does it mean to you so that the audience can really understand how they can implement positivity in their life.

Sampark Sachdeva 4:08
See, this is something that I have imbibed from my mom. And that's something that she always keeps saying that irrespective of what happens, it's his grace, that is there. And if you look at the Hindi concept, there is a concept of Karma as well on good deeds. So if you are doing what you're supposed to you can doing what is right, sooner or later, you will get the result. It may not be monetary terms, it may not be just from the money perspective, but if you keep giving good to the world, good does come back to you in whichever form and I think that's where when you are in that whole mode of being pulled down by your circumstances, you need to keep doing what is right you need to keep focusing towards what's what's the right thing there. And that's where you build up positivity that okay, Wait time, this will come back with time, this too shall pass. So that positivity keeps you confident, that also keeps you humble. And that's what keeps you going.

Andrew Stotz 5:10
And you know, positivity is really a, it's a fun topic when things are going well. But when you're kind of feeling like I'm stuck in a hole, or I'm not getting the results that I want, I'm constantly pivoting and trying different things. And it's not working. You know, it's a brutal environment with COVID, and all of that stuff. It's a hard thing, but I believe it's a valuable thing. So for the listeners out there who are struggling right now, and know that they want to have more positivity in their life, but they are kind of down and life is hard right now, what would be kind of your number one tip of how to bring more positivity into their life.

Sampark Sachdeva 5:52
I push myself to his two picks one, if I look back, when when you were in school, and those times were bad, and he was stressed because of exams, you came through it, then when you went to college, there was something else in terms of your placements in jobs, etc, you fell down, but you went through it. When you had your first breakup, you felt the world had ended. But he just you went through it. So your experience yourself teaches you that irrespective of at every stage, when you felt that you are down and out, you've come across it. So that's rule number one that I follow in terms of how do you keep yourself positive? Second is I asked myself the question, What is the worst that will happen? So if I know if that answer to that question is not life threatening, it's something that I can look at what is the worst that will happen, you might take a little more time, you might need a little more effort, you might need to put in a little bit of hard work. But if it is not something which is going to kill you, it will surely make you stronger. So that's one question that I asked myself at almost every stage of my life.

Andrew Stotz 7:02
Fantastic. That's great thoughts, and also great advice. I've just been taking some notes on that. And I'm going to come back and follow up on some of that. But before we waste any more time, it's time to share your worst investment ever. And since no one goes into their worst investment, thinking it will be tell us a bit about the circumstances leading up to and then tell us your story.

Sampark Sachdeva 7:33
So and this, I go back, and I will not call it My worst because that again, goes into that whole negative connotation there. But it's one of my biggest learnings that I go through. So you mentioned a lot of things that I did, and et cetera, et cetera. So this I go back into, I had a very wonderful corporate career. I was with Asian paints, which is India's largest paints company for over five years 2015 I moved into the startup, the with Ola, which is the Indian Uber, I was there for a period of three years. Then I moved into Podio, which is the largest hospitality brand in the country for another two years. In this journey, 2019. I want the top 100 marketing and sales professionals in the country. So yes, everything was going good on the corporate side. On my passion side, I have been writing on LinkedIn for close to six years. I've done over 2000 posts 2019, I won the LinkedIn Spotlight Award. So that is an award by LinkedIn recognizing the top content creators. So top 100 marketing professionals top content creator, everything seemed to be all rosy all well and I felt okay, this is the time where it will take off. And then 2020 came in, I moved into a new role in the same organization. But that's when COVID struck. So one I was in the hospitality industry. Second, I was leading corporate events, so all your conferences, all your seminar, etc. And I just been in that role for a couple of months when the lockdown came in. And in one day, everything stopped. And with the way businesses were going, there was a lot of uncertainty. People didn't know where it was going. I could sense that. Okay, maybe this might not go the way I planned to. So maybe 10 days before something happened. I realized okay, I don't think because a lot of businesses were talking about letting people go people were talking about selling people and furloughs etc. And the inevitable that happened when I got that call that okay, we are putting a lot of our employees on unpaid lease for four months. At the end of four months. We will take a call on how can we proceed with that etc. Now for somebody to say that okay, my It goes to 01 Fine day. That's something that you don't originally planned. But that's where you are sitting on the crossroads of thinking, what next? And since I'm so active on LinkedIn, you go back there, there are people talking about, okay, I lost my job, and this has happened and over a phone call over a zoom call, etc. At that point of time, you could offend, okay. Why me? Why did it happen to me, it did not happen to that colleague of mine, or it did not happen to that person. But I think it was at that moment. And when you speak about the values of so called of positivity, sat down, sat down with family, put it on, how much liquid funds do we have? How long can we experiment with them, and I felt, okay, it's a good comfortable time, we can survive for a couple of years, with whatever is in place. And then I went back to a plan of mine, which was on the back burner. So since I had got the content creator, award, etc. And I had loved trainings, a bit like that, but Right, consulted my mentors, etc. And all of them had said, Okay, you started thinking about it, make a plan, work on the plan for the next three to four years. And then we can look at this long term. But when this happened, One fine day, that three four year plan came to that very evening. So I became an accidental entrepreneur. I said, What is again, I go back to that question that I asked myself, What is the worst that will happen? I said, Okay, let myself, let me give myself those four months. Let me give it a shot, at least at the end of four months. I know if it works or does not. And if it does not, I don't have built enough credibility back in my corporate journey, that I will get something to go back. So I said, Okay, let's give myself four months. Let's give this a shot. At the end of four months, I sat back did a review. I said, Okay, this is going better than I expected. I said, give myself another four months. That took me to the end of 2020. It was still going good. I gave myself another four months. And here I APR credit when you do. I completed two years of what I'm doing. And now there are old bosses and old managers of mine who called back and said, Okay, I want to rehire you in this organization. Why don't you come back? We need people like you. And I said, No, I'm happy where I am. I have found my journey there. And as you mentioned, over 120 530 sessions, trained close to 70 80,000 people, working with a lot of colleges working with a lot of aid techs, working with a lot of corporates, done sessions with brands like Boston Consulting Group Capgemini. Yes, bank, even data session for my ex employer, as a trainer again. And this has been the part of the journey. So now, as a part of this venture, I'm doing a lot of trainings, I do a lot of consulting, and doing a lot of one on one coaching. And since I also was very good at LinkedIn, and I was teaching LinkedIn as well, a lot of senior leaders now come back and say, Okay, can you handhold us on running LinkedIn for them as well. So for a lot of senior leaders, I now have a team which helps them run the show on in terms of their personal branding and their personal growth as well. So yes, that's that's, that's been a journey that,

Andrew Stotz 13:30
yeah, and how would you say now, looking back on that whole experience? What are the lessons that you learned? I

Sampark Sachdeva 13:39
think one very important lesson that I would have learned here is that when you are a corporate professional, you are a lot of times under that whole thing of that stability, and that check that you get at the month end. And a lot of people say someday I will do something of my own and but you never have the guts to take that lunch. And you always keep procrastinating thinking someday that will happen. And I've seen a lot of success stories come out of something like this, where the plunge was never voluntary, but the pledge was accidental or a push pledge. And once you're on the other side, it broke a lot of myths for me now, but once I'm on this side, I realized that in a corporate journey, you are restricted by your own thoughts. You feel you might be doing well because you see the people one level above you, you see people one level below you, and that's your world. But when you go out on your own, you realize that it's a very big world out there. You don't know a lot of things you don't know a lot of people and that's been the greatest learning for me of the last two years. That's one second it is hustle. I don't say when I say that, okay, everybody should take up lunch. Does not mean it is easy on the other side. It requires a lot of hustle because suddenly when I moved out of my life As tokenization, I had a 200 member team. Now I was doing everything on my own. So everything from building your brand, marketing your brand, generating those leads, closing those leads, and then giving your service as well, everything comes up to you. So, that's something that is another learning that I got. But when I also look back, I feel that when something like this happens when something goes wrong, that's when you are actually tested. Because, again, being active on LinkedIn, a lot of people went there and said, Oh, why did this happen? To me, I'm in deep trouble and stuff like that, you cannot play a victim card. No matter how bad your situation might be. A victim card can be played once, but you can't keep playing the card again and again. And even for an employer or even for somebody who wants to hire you, they want to see what did you do when you were down the hole there. So I always knew that irrespective even if I failed doing what it is, I could at least go back and talk about this in my next interview or in my next corporate job that okay, I was in trouble. It was something that I had not planned for. But I did not sit down cry over it victimize over it, but I fought it. Okay, I might have been successful, not successful, but it is the attitude which matters. So that was what I went back with. And I always give that okay, I can go back. Now, a lot of I will say influences say that you should always have your plan A, you should never have your plan B because Plan B gives you a chance of escaping. But I begged to think otherwise I say okay, your planning may fail, even if you are not at fault. And that is where you need that plan B COVID was not planned. Nobody had predicted COVID Everything was going well. I was winning award after award, I was doing well at my corporate job. But then something came in which was not in your control. And that time, because I had been building my plan B which was creating that network on a platform like LinkedIn. When I switched, I was able to fall back on that network. So that brings me to another learning that it is very important to network for youngsters who are there. You do not realize this till you're 567 years into the industry, that majority of jobs are through reference. It's not through job portals. So how's your relationship with your ex boss? How's your relationship with your peers? Whom do you know who knows you and networking becomes a very, very important part of the journey. unconsciously. I've been doing it for six years. So when that situation came in, I was able to fall back up that,

Andrew Stotz 17:55
Wow, so many things. I got a list of stuff I've been writing down here as you've been speaking. First, I just want to kind of summarize some of the stuff that you've said, you know, I wrote down, it's a big world out there. There's a lot of opportunity. And sometimes we're kind of blinded by the situation we're in. But open your eyes. There's a huge world out there. Number two, hustle, nothing comes easy. You know, nothing good comes easy. Some bad things can come with easy behavior. But nothing good comes easy. The other thing is adversity tests us, you know, us as you said, you get maybe you get to play the victim card once. But basically, the idea is look at adversity as something that tests us. The next thing I wrote down is have your plan B. And then the other one was the network. And I'd like to just mention two things that I take away. The first one is when I was just out of high school, I had no money. My parents kicked me out of the house. And I didn't have a job and I really wasn't sure what to do. I had one thing and that was I had sobriety. I had been clean and sober for a period of time. And I had enjoyed that. And so my father talked to his friend and his friend talked to his friend and they said, Well, why don't you go down to this warehouse and get a job there and you meet Miss meet this guy. I think his name was Ed couta. Now that I think about just comes out in my head. And I went there and he says are your Dave Stotz his kid? And I said, Yeah. And he says, Well, alright, I'll give you a chance. You got three months to go out and work in the warehouse. So I went out and worked in the warehouse. It was my first job, really, and I was pretty excited about it. And I did my best, you know, running around and keeping track of the orders. Wasn't like Amazon in those days. So we were running around. And then after three months, I went to see him. He said, Come to my office and I went into his office said You're fired. You said you're not cut out for this. And I was like, oh, okay, and I left and I was really sad. And I went to my best friend Dave at the time. And I told him about And he's like, how do you know this is bad news, you have no idea what's around the corner. And so I challenge everybody you know, when I listen to your story, it makes me think we do not know that the news that we've just received is bad news, we're going to assume it is in many cases, but take control of your mind. And imagine that it may not be bad news. In fact, it was the thing that got me realizing I needed to study at university. And that took me on a path. So you never know what's around that corner. And so that's the first story I want to tell. The second story I want to tell is, you know, I didn't, I grew up without really any death in my family, until 1998, when my sister died. And it was a real tragedy. And she had three daughters. And, you know, we lost her at a pretty young age. And it was tough and go into the funeral being there with my mom and dad and our family and her three daughters and my other sisters, two daughters. It was brutal. And I went into kind of a depression. And, but what I learned from that is, when somebody when your friend of yours has someone near them that dies. Reach out. And don't be afraid to reach out because most people are afraid to reach out. They're scared or intimidated. They don't know what to say, feels awkward, also go to their go to the funeral go to see them go to be with them. And the reason why I'm talking about this story is because it's a little bit like what you said about networking, you don't realize how valuable networking is until you have to rely on it. And, you know, for the listeners out there, this is time to learn from what Sam's telling us and reinforce your network. You don't have to, you know, have to rely on your network, to believe in that network and build that network. You can learn from this podcast. So I think those are sometimes some things that I thought of, and I just wrote down, one of the things is the role of luck in life, you know, sometimes the world accelerates your plans. And sometimes the world kicks you in the ass. And that's the things that I wrote down. So anything you would add to that?

Sampark Sachdeva 22:27
No, absolutely agree to the two stories that you mentioned. Because as you said, a lot of times we assume it is bad news. But that bad news that you assume might be the best decision or best things that you might have caught? Because if you ask me, and as I said, a lot of corporate professionals never have that courage to take that plunge. Now, just because I took the plunge, I tried this out and I said, Okay, I'm loving this. And this is what I need to do. So that news, in a way is actually good news. So that's why when you mentioned the worst story, I said, Okay, I don't think it's worse. But at that moment, it did seem like but two years in hindsight, maybe not. So that's, that's one day. And when you say reach out, when you say network, I tell this in a lot of my training sessions as well, that networking is not about transactional relationships. It's not about having a conversation of, okay, what is in it for me, it's about giving, it's about genuinely investing in that relationship professionally. And it also applies in your personal relationships as well that genuinely invest in those relationships. Yes, tomorrow, he needs help go and give it if tomorrow you need help, the person will be there for you. And it's a game of being chairman. That's the word that is there.

Andrew Stotz 23:47
That's fantastic advice about networking. Being genuine and giving a new to be amazed with comes back. So based upon what you learned from this story, and what you continue to learn, I want you to think about you know, successful people that are in corporate jobs and you know, everything's going okay. But you know, what one action would you recommend that those listeners take to avoid suffering the same fate or to prepare themselves for that?

Sampark Sachdeva 24:18
See the two things one, that you should always have confidence in yourself. When I took that plunge, I knew that okay, I am good enough. I have built it long enough. I have worked long enough that if I do not it does not work out here. I can always go back. See, I always had that confidence in yourself. Second, you have to be positive. You have to look at that kind of thing. Third, always be okay. Going out of your comfort zone. When you say that you are generally blinded. Yes. Because if you work in one organization for too long, you work with the same set of people. You go into that comfort zone and that's where it becomes difficult, but you need to keep going reinventing yourself, you need to keep learning you need to keep upskilling. And that is where that comfort zone thing comes in. If I give you an example, I come from a marketing and sales background. Now 1213 years ago, when I passed out, digital marketing did not exist. Now, now the world runs around digital marketing. So in these years, if I had not really skilled myself on digital marketing, suddenly you would be out there without knowing what to do, because that's the skill that is required. Also, again, I take a part out of that whole networking event is build your personal brand. Because a lot of times you are known by the brand that you work for. So if you ask somebody, who are you, he said, I'm not the head of sales at here. But I'm the Head of Marketing at here. COVID has proven that job security is a myth. Jobs might come and go organizations might come and go. But the only brand, which you take with you to your grave is your name. And if you build that brand around that name, that's where the known networking thing comes in. Do people recognize you? What's the niche that you've created for yourself? So tomorrow, irrespective of that, any big Bing behind you or not, you can survive on your

Andrew Stotz 26:19
great advice. And it's a such thing you don't think about when you're in the corporate world and everything's going well, you're just doing your job. Absolutely man, like a lot of people look at LinkedIn is just a place to look for a job. And I just was looking at, I was about to have a meeting with someone in the corporate world, and I looked at their LinkedIn profile. And I just could realize like, Okay, this is a person that they're just they're married to their company. And that's, you know, where they're at. And that comes across very clearly in their LinkedIn.

Sampark Sachdeva 26:49
See, because you might be married to the organization, it might not be the vice versa. I think I think that's a lot of people who learn it the hard way. And as you rightly said, you don't realize this when everything is going well. And it's not something that you can blame an organization is where they are running a business. They are paying you for your service, they are buying your service tomorrow, if it is not required. It's absolutely okay. But a lot of people get agitated saying why they will be can't do this. That's that's not that's not right, etc, the end of the day, you are working on a contract paper. So you're selling your service, they paying you for it. And I say this in the positive light. That Okay, that's, that's okay. Because a lot of people they say, Oh, that means doing the job is bad, do? Absolutely not. I have loved every bit of my job. Tenure, I've loved every experience across organizations, and I'm loving what I do. Yes, every relationship has those tough times. And that's how you move ahead. They're

Andrew Stotz 27:54
fantastic. So maybe you can share a resource with the audience, I know you've got some online courses and other stuff. So maybe you can share a little bit so they get an idea of how they can get more of your knowledge.

Sampark Sachdeva 28:09
So while I do a lot of my one on one sessions, that my coaching etc, I do have a couple of courses on my website as well to some parts is on par.com. There is one post on being a champion of LinkedIn, so teaches you how to use LinkedIn to build your personal brand. How do you build a network there? And I have another post there, which is how to be a rockstar at work. So how can you upscale your carrier there? How can you fast track your profile email in a job kind of a scenario as well? So those are two courses there. Besides that, yes, I have a lot of live sessions that have a lot of one on one sessions. I do a lot of sessions for corporates, going back and how to be a good manager, how do you improve productivity, etc, etc.

Andrew Stotz 28:58
Fantastic. So I'll have links to that in the show notes. Ladies and gentlemen, go to his website, check out these two courses. But also, you know, Sam, one of the things that comes across with you is your positive energy, I feel it. And so, you know, for the listeners out there, tap into it, also go to his LinkedIn because that's where he's got a lot of contributions. All right. Last question, what is your number one goal for the next 12 months.

Sampark Sachdeva 29:24
So over the last two years, I've been able to structure what I want to do. I have tried a lot of things here and there etc. And now I know that I have been now doing corporate trainings for a lot of organizations. Now this is something that I would want to expand extensively over the next I have now have a team and I'm hiring etc. So it's about going full throttle into those trainings across our three verticals one is the whole personal branding and LinkedIn big one is the sales marketing but and one is the whole deploying capability building betas. So those are the three verticals that I am working on. And I think that's where I'm now working with a lot of organizations to upskill that the members as well,

Andrew Stotz 30:12
exciting. Well, listeners, there you have it another story of loss to keep you winning. If you haven't yet taken the risk reduction assessment, I challenge you to go to my worst investment ever.com Right now, and start building wealth the easy way by reducing risk. As we conclude, Sam, I want to thank you again, for joining our mission. And on behalf of a Stotz 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?

Sampark Sachdeva 30:45
I would just like to summarize whatever I said, I said, Be positive. Be confident. Keep building on your brand. And keep working on yourself. Keep upskilling keep working on your foundation. And trust me sooner or later you will reach when you have to might be a little later due to whatever obstacles that come by but you will reach where you deserve to get

Andrew Stotz 31:06
a man and that's a wrap on another great story to help us create, grow and protect our wealth fellow risk takers. This is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz saying thank you for joining our mission and I'll see you on the upside.