Written by: Hannah Field | News Editor
When prompted with the question “Where did the name Dr. Spice come from?” Nishant Vashisht — the Dr. Spice in question — asked a follow-up: “Do you want the real story or the fake story?”
The fake story: “That’s because I’m the life of the party, man. That’s why they call me Spice. The real story is in eighth grade. Me and my friends, we were a bunch of losers… I was like, we gotta create nicknames for each other… and I remember my mom would take this road all the time for work. Spicer Drive. And I don’t know why, but something clicked in me.”
At the time, Dr. Spice was merely a joke. He put it in his Instagram handle, and eventually, it spread to YouTube and TikTok, where he would amass over one hundred thousand followers.
During junior high, Vashisht regarded that version of Dr. Spice as his outlet or alter ego.
“Dr. Spice was everything that Nishant Vishasht couldn’t be,” said Vashisht. “Dr. Spice started off as being a rapper, making music.”
At the time, the aspiring motivational speaker was being bullied for his low weight by his peers, a devastating hit to his self-esteem.
Now, Vashisht is a full-time content creator, working on building a personal brand and marketing himself. On top of that, he gained weight through proper means to add muscle, now brandishing a satisfactory frame and a toppling amount of confidence.
On a daily basis, Vashisht wakes up at around 5 a.m. before taking a cold shower, working on video editing for a few hours, running to the library to read educational, motivational or self-help books and then visiting the gym, one of his favorite places.
“Anywhere I go to, there’s young guys coming up to me and saying, ‘Hey, Spice, let me tell you about what’s happening.’ And they’re super happy to see me. Sometimes I reflect and it’s like I became a beacon of hope to some of these guys,” said Vashisht.
Vashisht had become a bit of a local celebrity at his alma mater, West Albany High School, where he graduated in 2022. During his senior year, Vashisht organized a motivational club where he would speak to up to fifty students, encouraging them to “aim for Pluto.”
“Aim for Pluto — I was doing a speech and I had maybe ten, fifteen people there, and we were talking about ambition. I just said this. Everybody aims for the moon, but I said f–k that,” said Vashisht. “Why would I limit myself? My vision is to be big. So I’m going to aim for Pluto, because if I fail, I’ll land on a different planet.”
To him, Pluto represents being “the underdog.”
“People always thought of me as stupid, or talentless… if you look at my story, you look at everything I dealt with. It takes brutal determination,” said Vashisht, referring to times when he was treated with blatant disrespect or racism due to his Indian heritage. “My story is for the underdogs. It’s to inspire the weird guys, the lonely guys. (I’m saying) hey, you can be better. You are the master of your fate. I feel like a lot of young guys resonate with me because I went from being like a stereotypical loser to now being the Chad.”
With Vashisht having clarified that he is not a psychologist, he speaks a lot on the human condition, especially from the perspective of a man. “I major in bro science,” said Vashisht, often divulging into male inspiration, strength, confidence and more in his lectures.
His speeches are mostly freestyled, with inspiration drawn from various sources. Vashisht looks to his parents for guidance — his hardworking father who was often away at work during Vashisht’s childhood — and his various teachers and educators who helped encourage and push him.
One event, however, pushed Vashisht further. “I got interviewed for the (high school newspaper) and the (principal) said, ‘Oh, it’s nice that you have your little club going on,’ and she said it like it was a joke. I’m the type of guy where I’m very much motivated by proving people wrong. So I was like screw it, you know what? I’m gonna prove you wrong.”
In his words, it felt like she wasn’t taking him as seriously as he expected. “I deserve that respect,” he said.
After that, he worked even harder to collect a vast audience for his next motivational speech by contacting people he didn’t even know to attend via flyers and online postings. “I ended up getting sixty-eight people, but my highest at the time was forty. I was just like, damn, I did this… that’s one of my proudest moments to this day. I almost got seventy people to listen to me speak for five minutes.”
Vashisht has continued to aim for Pluto. “What aiming for Pluto means in the simplest terms is there is no limit to my ambition.”
Contact the author at howlnews@mail.wou.edu
