In this Business Blast podcast episode, host Tyler Wagner interviews Xavier Prabhu, a TEDx speaker and founder of PR Hub, one of India's leading public relations firms. Xavier shares a formative early‑career story about being forced to retype a press release on a manual typewriter until it was error‑free, which instilled a lifelong obsession with precision in writing and documentation. He then outlines the core skill for modern PR professionals: understanding the public’s mood, dissecting underlying drivers, and tailoring messages to distinct audience segments. Xavier offers personal advice to his younger self—have more fun and clearly distinguish self‑obsession from confidence. He defines happiness as groundedness, authenticity, having soul‑mates, and surrounding oneself with genuine people. He cites three influential books—The History of Art (Terence Armstrong), Sapiens (Yuval Harari), and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There (Marshall Goldsmith)—and explains how they broaden perspective and promote balance. His favorite quote is John Lennon’s lyric, “life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans,” which reminds him to live in the moment. The episode concludes with Xavier’s LinkedIn profile as the primary contact point.
Chapters
Welcome to the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. This episode is brought to you by Authors Unite. Authors Unite provides you with all the resources you need to become a successful author. You can learn more about Authors Unite and join the free community at authorsunite.com. Now let's jump into the episode.
Welcome to the Business Blast podcast, everybody. This next episode, we have Xavier Prabhu with us. He is a leading voice in the global PR communication space, having spoken in 12 countries across the world. He's a TEDx speaker, and he does speaking engagements every few weeks on topics ranging from PR, communication, branding, personal branding, all the way to entrepreneurship. He owns and runs PR Hub, one of India's leading PR firms. So welcome to the show.
Thank you, Tyler. It's a great pleasure being here.
Of course. Grateful to have you here. We'll jump right into the first one, Xavier. The first question I have for you is, what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
It actually happened to me in the first year that I was working for one of the largest PR firms in the world, their Indian office in Bangalore. My super boss, that's 3 levels above me, had asked me to write a press release for one of the clients. I actually had it written, but it had tons of errors in it. I don't know what she thought in her head. She told me that instead of typing it at the computer, why don't you go to the manual typewriter in the office and type this press release there. I actually sort of didn't get it. So I was, you know, sort of casual about it. I still typed it in the manual typewriter. It had a lot of errors in it. I went and showed it back to her. She said, you know, these are the mistakes. Can you again type it? But again in the manual typewriter. I sort of didn't get it again. I was sort of casual again and kept doing this 3 or 4 times. And the 4th time she just called me and said, see, let me tell you one thing, till you get it right, you're going to keep typing in that manual typewriter. Actually, it sort of hit me, and then I went back and typed it flawlessly the 7th time in the manual typewriter. And till then, I was not so finicky about my documentation writing and all of that, but that sort of triggered something in me. After that, I just became very, very finicky about what I do in writing and documentation, and it has stayed with me throughout my life till now.
Thank you for sharing that with us. The next one I have for you is, what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
The best thing that I think is needed for anyone in the PR communication space today is to know the mood of the public and what lies underneath, and then being able to slice it, you know, in terms of what drives different sections within that broader public, and then being able to, you know, tune the information and the messaging aligned to that. That is going to be the most critical skill for anyone in our industry today.
And if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
Yes, Tyler Wagner Wagner.
If you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
Oh, it would be actually to, you know, have more fun than I had in my younger days and probably stretch it a little longer, you know what I mean? And the second one would be to probably get the line between self-obsession and self-confidence a lot more clearer. I think I spent a little too much time in my early entrepreneur days self-obsessed. So these are the two things that I would want to go back and correct.
And in your opinion, what is the key to happiness?
Tyler, I didn't get it.
I'm sorry, in your opinion, what is the key to happiness?
Happiness comes from four or five things for me right now, which is what I think I've learned over the last 47 years that I've lived on the planet. The first is I think you've got to be grounded. I think you've got to be true to yourself. Ensure you have a couple of soulmates. And the last one is to, you know, have real people in your personal life. At least in the core, you've got to have real people.
Absolutely. And in your opinion, what is the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?
Actually, there's no one book, but I think quickly I can tell you the 3 books that I think has been most influential on me. One is The History of Art by Terence Armstrong. The next is, uh, you know, Sapiens: The History of Humanity, uh, by Harari. And the third one is What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith. They sort of align to what I was just saying before. It gives you a perspective on life which is much broader. It allows you to be grounded and quite balanced in your outlook towards life. So they've been pretty influential.
And what is your favorite quote and why?
John Lennon's lyrics, life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans, is something that has stayed with me all through because I think it teaches you to take life one moment at a time, which is actually extremely important for you to enjoy it.
Yes, I love it, man. Thank you so much for coming on. The last question I have for you before we let you go is where is the best place for people to find and connect with you online?
What is the?
Where's the best place for people to find and connect with you online?
It is LinkedIn, LinkedIn.com/XavierPrabhu.
Perfect, man. Thanks again for hopping on.
Thanks, Tyler. You're doing a great job. I look forward to hearing that podcast.
The podcast you just heard was published with Anchor. Got something you want to say to the creator of this show? Send them a voice message using the Anchor app, free for iOS and Android.
