Known for his motivational speeches and uplifting spirit, senior Nishant Vashisht is graduating, and for remembrance, he held one last speech. This one was about the importance of mental health and how no one should ever be ashamed, and how we as a community should come together to embrace that.

     “Everybody in here has potential,” Vashisht said, “don’t let your depression be the excuse, because here’s the thing, you can let your depression be the motivation, you can turn that into a strategy, because sometimes you need to take a short term loss for a long term win” 

     For Vashisht mental health is important and he believes it should be normalized to want help and not feel bad because you’re too scared to ask for help in fear of embarrassment.

     “They’re going to face humiliation from their peers,” Nishant said, “this is where we come in as a community, we can build each other up, if you’re struggling, come talk to me, because I won’t judge you,”

     Whirlwind: “How do you feel about it being your last speech here at West”?

    Vashisht: “It was kind of weird because it’s like, I felt like it’s not the end of my motivational career at all. At West, I have kinda made a promise to myself that I’m gonna leave this hometown. It was probably 60 people and Risinger, he told me, was the best speech I ever did. And he’s seen my speeches from October through September, he’s seen almost every speech of mine, it feels good. I feel like I’m ready for the next chapter”.

    Whirlwind: “What mentally, do you want to take away from your years here and all the speeches you’ve given?”

    Vashisht: “It was all this practice you know, I don’t think people realize I was hustling 24/7. I mean I was giving off flyers, I was texting people, I was making content everyday. There’s so many people who told me, dude you’re not doing anything, you’re not going anywhere. People don’t want to admit this, but let’s be honest about it, we don’t support each other. And that’s why a lot of kids don’t follow their dreams. I don’t care what people tell me, I don’t care what’s going to happen, I am going to make it and so people are drawn into that energy. I started this school year with 19K on Tik Tok, and I’ve grown so much. I’m trying to get to 100 and I know I’m going to get there. I’ve definitely made an impact with my followers, because I’m a nerd. I like nerdy stuff. I’m into Marvel, DC, comics, anime, and video games, I just have that authentic look and people are drawn into that because I’m myself you know? And I’ve finally matured and got into the leadership role because it’s like dude whatever, because you have to make a change. And to make that change you have to break the rules, something I broke was I never listened, I had some issues with admin trying to take down my posters and I never let it happen, I’ve always just keep pushing and doing it, I found loopholes and found different ways, so I took my posters I put it on my chest and other people started doing it too, nothing’s gonna stop me, I’m making an impact.”

     Whirlwind: “How does it feel to know that over a short period of time, you’ve gone from only a couple people to a whole bunch of people that love and support who you are and your speeches?”

    Vashisht: “I expected it because I believed in myself. I’m really confident in my ability, I knew one day I would be at 60, I was amazed. I told myself like, wow we really did this. I mean it just went as expected, I just knew that because from freshman year, I was super skinny, super ugly. Like I was just not good and I was a very shy person, and when I tell people I’m a shy person they don’t believe me. Yeah so if you see me freshman year throughout my senior year, there’s a huge change in my appearance and my mental state. This year, I actually feel like a man, I feel like an adult, and a hustler. I’ve just been hustling just to get a dream come true to become reality”.

  Whirlwind: “I’m sure everyone wants to know, what are you going to be doing with your motivational career after you graduate? Are you going to keep going and become something even bigger or let it rest?

    Vashisht: “It would be a shame to let it rest. So I know that okay, I’m 17, and I have a high possibility to be the number one motivational speaker by 20, most motivational speakers are in their 40’s or 60’s, im 17. Yeah and so I’m young, I’m going to Western University to study marketing and minor in psychology. I’m going to dominate the social media space because I know that I set big goals for myself and I’m like the biggest critic of myself, I’m very hard on myself. If I don’t like something I’ll change it, and when people tell me it was a good speech I say its bad, like because I can work on it, I like to be perfect, I like to be number one, because my dad, he gave me so much wisdom, he’s been my mentor and he’s always been there for me, and so I just know I can take all that to the next level.  He never picked me up when I failed, he let me figure it out on my own and through that I built a lot of resilience, a lot of discipline. I’m aiming for Pluto, and I tell people that, because my goal is to become a billionaire, and I’m going to be number one no matter what anyone thinks, I’m making it out of here and I don’t think I am, I know I am going to become something.”

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