i've worked as a data analyst for more than six years companies ranging from small startups to
big multinationals like heineken and one of the biggest banks in europe i've probably analyzed
petabytes of data and i've learned so many lessons over the last couple of years but i'm not talking
about work related lessons i'm talking about lessons that have impacted my own life and today's
and today's and in today's video i want to share the three most important life lessons i've learned
working as a data analyst lesson number one take a look at these headlines
inflation hit 8.5 percent in march it's the highest inflation we've seen in the last 40 years
since russia decided to invade ukraine prices of almost everything around us have started rising
incredibly fast one could conclude that russia invading ukraine caused very high inflation 70
of the increase in prices in march came from putin's price hike however when we zoom out
let's take a look at this graph you can see that inflation was already on the rise for the last
couple of years so it's not just the last two months that we've seen high inflation there was
already a trend of inflation rising every month for the last couple of years and although the war
probably does have an impact on inflation and does cause some prices to rise even higher to
me it clearly looks like a continuation of a trend of rising inflation that was already going on war
or no war as a data analyst you have to analyze data to come up with insights and as long as that
data is not manipulated or faulty that data is the hard truth and this is something i loved as a data
analyst you get to work with the hard objective truth with no room for opinions subjectiveness
or human biases is just numbers cold hard data however the interpretation of the data
interpretation by humans that is can be subjective we're humans and humans make mistakes humans can
interpret the data in a wrong way or even worse humans can skew the data in such a way that it
fits their own narrative i've learned that people can and often will use the data just to confirm
their own agenda you can conclude almost anything you want using the same data set as long as you
skew the data in such a way or change the scope of the data set so as a data analyst i learned
to critically and as objectively as possible look at the data and draw my own conclusions
instead of having to rely on some authority's own interpretation of the data with a possible
hidden agenda so the first lesson here is numbers don't lie people do lesson number two you see
every day more and more data is being generated by companies at an ever accelerating pace it's
not just the volume of data that's increasing it's also the different types of data that's increasing
i mean look at how much more data we have now that blockchains and cryptocurrencies are a thing
the point i'm trying to make is the data data analysis field is only growing and expanding at
an accelerating rate meaning to stay relevant in the data analysis field you have to keep
learning you have to keep developing and evolving by the time you've learned one specific tool or
programming language there's already five new ones that are way better but i learned this is not just
true for data analysis this is true for life in general everything around us is evolving at
an accelerating pace technology and innovation is changing the world around us so if you want
to keep making sense of the world you need to evolve you need to adapt to this changing world
otherwise you won't be relevant you will get left behind you will be one of those grandpas saying
back in my day we didn't have television we didn't have a smartphone or social media whatever really
cool but make room for the new generation the new generation is doing things faster on the phone
on social media the new generations are replacing the older generations and that has always been so
and it will always be that way so you can choose to not stay up to date to not upgrade to not
evolve and to not adapt but trust me you won't stay relevant in this ever increasing pace of
technological innovation and it will be harder and harder for you to make sense of this world
let's take bitcoin as an example for a lot of boomers this might sound like some magic internet
money for nerds or even worse it might sound like some scam but if you would have stayed curious
and if you would have taken the time to read upon what it actually is how it actually works and most
importantly what makes it so special you might have decided to invest a little bit of your money
in bitcoin and you would have been reported accordingly since the price of bitcoin has gone
gone up thousands of percentages that i would say you would have earned a decent amount of money
and that's the hard fact about life the ones that are able to go with the flow to adapt to changes
around them will get rewarded accordingly and even charles darwin said it's not the strongest of
species that survives nor the most intelligent it is the one most adaptable to change lesson number
two is evolve or die lesson number three see even if the data and the numbers are 100 the truth and
as objective as they can be without a story they're just numbers and humans are emotional
beings we need to be persuaded with empathy and emotion and you cannot achieve this with
just hard facts and numbers i mean imagine someone talking about inflation data in the following way
3.92 is the average annual inflation since 1971. that means that one dollar in 1971 is
an equivalent of about seven dollars in today's terms of purchasing power inflation doesn't make
much of an impact right even though the numbers and the data are 100 correct it doesn't move me
it doesn't engage me it doesn't convince me of anything and now the exact same data
shared in a more compelling and engaging story in 1971 nixon decided to end the gold standard i have
directed secretary connelly to suspend temporarily the convertibility of the dollar into gold meaning
your dollar was not backed by gold anymore it's now just worthless piece of paper and since 1971
your dollar was losing its value with four percent every year meaning in 50 years it has lost almost
90 percent of its value so for every dollar you've worked for in 1971 you would have 10
cents left today you know what's even worse than that you have to work for 40 hours a week
almost every single week of the year for 50 years of your life to earn your money while central
banks can just with the touch of a button print trillions of dollars whenever they want to and
while doing so while printing more money devalue every single dollar that's already circulating
in the economy meaning you're losing your purchasing power as the central banks are
printing money well you have to work for it and that's four percent inflation per year right there
big difference right exactly the same data again but just told in a different way much more
compelling and engaging and convincing as a data analyst i learned that when you present your data
your numbers your insights conclusions whatever you need to do it in a compelling way so you can
convince someone and again i realized this applies to all aspects in your life not just data analysis
i mean imagine instead of watching a compelling and awesome movie you just read the plot in five
sentences same data you know exactly what's going to happen but where's the story you don't have
the different acts the conflicts the emotions the you need this to be engaged as a person
or imagine watching this video looking like this welcome to today's video where i will
share the three life lessons i've learned as a data that's lesson number one numbers don't
lie people do lesson number two need to keep evolving and lesson number three it's all about
storytelling thank you for watching this video i hope it was valuable
don't forget to smash it would be pretty lame right i mean it's exactly the same lessons i'm
sharing with you in this video but without the story it just doesn't resonate with you as much
you need the story to understand and in a sense feel the lessons i'm sharing with you today and
i truly hope that you feel and understand the three most important life lessons i've learned
as a data analyst that i've shared with you today in this video and i hope to see
you in the next one oh and one more thing don't forget to smash that like button subscribe mother
become equipped with more and more biometric sensors in a couple of months there will be
without the compelling con i've learned working as a data analyst
oh my god