1 Year Anniversary of Small Town Bigger Dreams

A warm good evening everyone. I cordially welcome you all to the first anniversary celebration of the best-selling book Small Town Bigger Dreams. Before we proceed, let's get started with a video. That was an amazing, amazing video. And let's, let's get started with another teaser video. Let's, let's see this video and come back. That was an amazing teaser. That was an amazing teaser. And now it's time to call the person who has put a lot of effort, lot of hard work in coming out with this wonderful book, Small Town Bigger Dreams. And he's given us such wonderful 21 principles, 21 lessons, and each of them has some or the other value attached with this. And let's hear it from the author himself. And I'm handing over the stage to the author of Small Town Bigger Dreams, Haritosh Srivastav.

Let's welcome him with a big Hello everyone, thank you so much for joining us live on Facebook or YouTube or LinkedIn for the anniversary celebration of Small Town Bigger Dreams. If 2 years back somebody would have said that, no, you're gonna be an author, an amazing bestseller author, I would have actually brushed it off like, what are you talking about? Me, an author? I'm an engineer and project manager. How can I be an author? But this is the power of dreams. This is the power of regardless of from where you belong, regardless of what you do, regardless of where you want to reach. If you believe in your dreams, if you believe and do some action, you're going to get there. So thank you once again for joining. Thank you again, Devi, for pretty much at the last minute. If you guys don't know, Devi is an amazing coach and speaker, and I talked to her probably around an hour back that would you like to be the host, and she gladly accepted. That is the power of a leader. So thank you so much, Devi. I do have a few things that I wanted to share because this is such an amazing feeling as an author. And before I talk about anything else, I wanted to share one thing which is— which has made impact, and for all of us that makes impact, is this book. My book, Small Town Bigger Dreams, is dedicated to my mother We lost her on March 30th, 2020, and my book is dedicated to her and to my family, my father, my wife, my sister, everyone out there. And more importantly, this book is also dedicated to any dreamers from any part of the world who has the audacity to dream big, who has the courage to do major things. This book is all about you. If you are joining us online, please mention in the chat from where you're joining. We'd love to have you. Somebody asked me that why, what is the purpose behind this writing this book, why did I actually wrote this book. And to me it was very clear, I had only one and one objective and that was If my book can impact 1% of one person, the book has done its job. Anything above that is a bonus addition and extra. And I've been so blessed by so many people who have got the book, who have got the Kindle version, who also got the paper book, got the soft copy of the book. I'm really, really thankful to all of them. And it's because of all the support that you guys have provided, the book actually became a bestseller. I had this picture which I created out of the number of people who shared with me the holding book. It was such a powerful image to me. I mean, this is not about me. As I said, this is about all the people who have given me courage, who are giving me support. And today I want to take you, uh, I did not plan, to be honest. 2 days back, if you had asked me that, are you gonna celebrate your anniversary of the book, probably I had no idea what I'm gonna do. But I've done something, so I'm gonna gladly share whatever I have to offer today. And I hope by the end of it, you're gonna Enjoy that. I also, if you want to stay, if you stay till the end, we are going to have some great announcement as well. So I want you to take some, yeah, some announcement. I'm not gonna reveal all of that. So why did I write this book? As I said earlier, my whole objective was I'm coming from, I have a background of coming from a small town. Jaipur, near Varanasi. And it— and 25 years back, when I was in class 5, I used to see all the planes flying down. Uh, we have Varanasi Airport nearby, and there are a lot, lot of planes used to fly, and they will leave the white markings behind. And I— one day I remember, we were on the rooftop, and I said to my sister, you know what, you see those white markings? These are when— these are the smoke which comes out of the aeroplane. And one day I will be flying in those aeroplanes. And 2 years in 2020, I have completed around 50,000-60,000 kilometers of international travel. I've been fortunate to be able to go to multiple international assignment, and this actually became true. And when I reflected on, I thought, when in 2020, when people said, yeah, the world is going down, there's a lot of negativity, what is it? What if I'm not able to survive another year of my life? What is it that I, I want to pass on to the world as something that can be remembered, cherished? And that's where I said, maybe I want to write down my journey. Maybe I want to share all the lessons that I've learned over the years. I'm still a learner. I'm still learning every day, a new thing, a new challenge, a new achievement, a new failure, a new setback. But what if I can compile some of the lesson I can and then put it as a form of a book? So this is how it all started, and this is why I wrote the book. So how it all started, and, and, you know, one part which is very important in any one's journey, whether it's an author, whether you are an author, whether you are an achiever or anything, is to acknowledge the people who have supported you throughout. There are so many people, if I take the name, I won't be able to complete that by end of the hour. But there are two girls that I really want to take because had they not been there, I would have never wrote this book. And the name of those girls are Priyanka Saxena and Taiba Mahmood. Priyanka and Taiba, if you're watching this, thank you so much. Even if you're watching a recording, because it's because of the belief by both of you that yes, I have a message. Yes, I have a unique journey. Yes, I can do something different. You know, when I started with this idea came to my mind, I was like any other newborn author. I was under the same impression that I'm not an author, I'm not supposed to write, I'm an engineer. How can I do that? So I started with an experiment that I'm going to write one chapter and whatever you see as the introduction chapter, pretty much the same chapter, and I'm gonna send it to a couple of my friends to see the feedback. Had it not been Priyanka, had it not been Taiba, who gave me such an amazing feedback, I would have not written Small Town Bigger Dreams. I would have not become an author. I would have not been able to share whatever message, whatever little bit I know. So I want to take A heartful thank you to both of you. You both are amazing. Thank you so much once again for showing me the faith and showing me that yes, a guy from a small town can become an author, an amazing bestseller author. Moving forward, when I had got my confirmation that yes, I can know I can write the— I can write the book, I have something. I believe it's very important to know how to write, and that's the reason in next couple of slides you're gonna know a little bit about the journey that I went through, a little bit about the process I followed, because if you follow the process, anyone can become an author. I am not special. I don't claim to be special. I don't say that, okay, I am unique and special. Anybody, anyone who has a message, anybody who has a desire, anybody wants to become an author can become an author, especially in today's world. Thank you everyone who is posting comments on Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Now I started by learning through the process where I attended 2 days book writing workshop with these amazing people. These are part of Stage Time University. You might be recognizing some, some of them. If you're not, let me tell you, the lady on the left is Maureen Zapala. She's an ex-NASA scientist. She's also world champion, uh, finalist in world champion multiple times. And also a book author and book authoring coach. Cheryl Greene. Cheryl is an amazing person, and Cheryl was also part of SageTime University's book writing workshop. And what can I talk about Darren Lacroix, the 2001 World Champion of Public Speaking? Had it not been these 3 people and those 2 days of intensive workshop— and when I say intensive, I really mean it— I have a full-time job, so I will start my work around 8:00, 8:30 AM. I will work till 4:00, 4:30 PM, and this workshop will start at 4:30 PM. I am in UK, this was based on the Pacific US time, and this will go on till around midnight, 12:00, 12:30 in the night. And the same process repeated again one more day, but those two days If they didn't give me anything, it gave me the belief that yes, I can be an author. I can write my book. I know the process. I know the different steps involved and required to become an author. But as you say, when you have only 2 days workshop, you get some lot of encouragement, but slowly the motivation dies. So I remember I had written around 60% or something of the manuscript, and over— and then I said, yeah, I will, I will write it to it again probably next day. The days became weeks, and the weeks became months. And for the next few months, I was kind of making very little progress. And that's where I realized I need to do something about it. Otherwise, this dream of me becoming an author would remain a dream. And this is when I met, by chance, by my fortune, whatever I want to call, I met this amazing, amazing coach. His name is Akash Garg. Akash changed my life. I've been working with Akash for last couple of years now, but we first time met in around November of 2020 when I was kind of struggling with my book writing. I had 60% book, I had fair idea of what I want to write, but I was lacking commitment, I was lacking accountability. And this is where I believe the next major lesson is if you want to achieve anything in life, if you want to do great in your life, you need to have an accountability partner, a coach, a mentor who can really drive you. I know how many times I've been called out by Akash Srivastav. Thank you, Sandosh Srivastav. Where are you, Haritosh Srivastav? You said you have big plans, you want to launch your book. Where is your book? What is the progress? Had it not been that constant reminder that, yeah, you have a message, that yes, you need to complete that. It's very important to start something, right? First of all, let me start off that 98% people who feel that they want to write a book never go on to even start. And out of those 2%, even a greater percentage of people start the book but never take it to the closer. And if I have to share some lessons on my journey, the most important lesson is to have a coach, a guide, a mentor, accountability partner, or someone who keeps you on your toes, who keeps you accountable. That no, you said you're gonna launch the book in next month, what is the progress? Have you done the editing? Have you done the manuscript? Have you done the marketing? Have you done the design? Have you put it to the publisher? You need that if you want to complete that, right? So this is where Akash really, really came as a savior to me. I've learned so much from him and I'm still learning with him and, and really, really so grateful to him. And once the book was about to be launched, uh, was planning to launch it originally somewhere around March of 2021, but something happened. My mother passed away. Again, another roadblock. I had to bring myself back. I had to have the courage And so it again stalled the work for another 1 to 2 months, I would say. And then finally, last year on 15th of June, I launched the book on the Kindle. Point to note, it was only launched on Kindle. I had some more lessons probably I'm gonna say that I did not know that Kindle does not provide paperback in India and lot of information. And probably we'll keep some of it for our next event which will happen in sometime on— not sometime, it will happen on 2nd November 2022, which will be the anniversary celebration of the paperback edition. But I had a lot of learning even after that. I am still learning a lot of things. So the book was finally launched on Amazon Kindle on 15th June, which is also my official birthday. You know, a lot of people have two kinds of birthday in India. Yeah, sorry, my international friends, it's something very, yeah, intriguing about Indians that, yeah, a few years back we used to have two birthdays. One is the official birthday and another is the actual birthday. So today is my official birthday, the documented birthday. My actual birthday, many of you know, falls on December. So I want to share a few fun facts and the facts and fun facts about the book. Number 1, the book has got 21 chapters, and those chapters have something which I've tried to keep it very, very simple and to the point. All chapters you'll find is around 3 to 5 pages maximum. Because I wanted to make it with the purpose that anytime you have half an hour, anytime you have 15 minutes, you can still go ahead and read the book and get some action item that you can apply in your life. So you'll find that in every chapter I have a main concept that I talk about, then I put forth my stories because all the chapters are taken from my own personal story. At times I've changed the name of the character, at times I've hidden the identity, but all of the stories that I mentioned, almost all of them are real story which happened with me. And then I've categorized in terms of putting theories, stories, and lessons, and then the action item. I think the core of my book, if I have to say, is the action item because I've got so many feedback from so many people who say, I love your action item. It's very, you know, amazing because you are having 2 to 3 action items at the end of every chapter, which I can really take and apply. So I've been really grateful for all of that. The book, as I mentioned a little bit earlier, the Kindle version was launched on June 15th last year. And the paperback edition was launched on 2nd of November. Now next, I want to show some of the feedback videos that I've received. A lot of them are my friends and families, and— but I'm pretty sure if you're becoming an author, you need a lot of support, you need a lot of feedback, you need a lot of encouragement. So I have no shame in saying that some of these are actually my friends, my families who have given privately and publicly some great feedback. So I'm going to share back to back a few videos and I hope you will like those videos.

Hi everyone, and hi Haritosh Srivastav. I'm excited to share my copy of Small Town Big Dreams. I have already gone through the soft copy version of this, but this is a different feeling altogether to hold a paperback edition of this. Really excited.

Thank you. Thank you.

Hi Haritosh Srivastav, Chintan this side, and look what I have got. Small Town Bigger Dreams paperback copy. I've just gone through the index and it is really, really amazing. I am sure this would be the book which I'll read and enjoy a lot because it is full of wisdom. I wish you all the very best for your future books and I'm sure this book will be a great blockbuster. I would like to see more works from you, and I would like to read more books from your side. All the very best. Haritosh Srivastav.

Thank you, Chintan. And then next one was from my dear closest friend Rahul Sharma.

Such a good news to share with you tomorrow, 2nd November 2021. The paperback edition of my friends One of my good friends, Haritosh Srivastav, book Small Town Bigger Dream is launching, and I'm totally thrilled. I have read the book on Kindle, and I'm going for this paperback book. I have 3 copies, 3 review copies available. If you are a book reviewer or blogger, please send me your message, your address, and for an honest review, you'll get your copy.

Thank you so much, Rahul bhai. Rahul is an amazing person. So the next one was a sort of surprise for me because I never thought my book will be actually reviewed on YouTube. So I've taken a clip out of the whole video and I hope you will enjoy the review as well.

I want to recommend, which is a beginner-friendly recommendation, and I really, really like this book, is Small Town Bigger Dreams by Haritosh Srivastav. Srivastav. I really hope I'm taking the name right. I'm so sorry if I'm butchering it. Which is 21 lessons to achieving your dreams in the 21st century. The author of this book himself hails from what you would call a small town, which means there were a lot of things in his environment which could make him believe the dream when you should be doing it, everything. The how, what, when, everything is covered for each lesson. So it is very practical also. And I really think that if you just want to get started, like you have no idea where to start from. You have no idea what you should be doing, or your surroundings, your environment, the people around you have made you feel like you cannot have the dream life that you want. Then this is a— like, you, you have to get this, like, absolutely.

All right, I just want to know if you are— you guys are able to hear me. Uh, please write yes if you are able to hear me. All right, thank you so much. I got some feedback that, okay, I was not audible. All right, so, uh, next one I wanted to share that what is the current status of, uh, book in terms of the reviews and feedback. Uh, this one screenshot is taken, uh, I can say about an hour back. Uh, so pretty recent. The book has got around 38 global ratings, and almost 85% of them, or 86% of them, has been 4-star and above.

I'm—

I, I can only say that I'm, I'm blessed to have such a positive feedback, and I'm really, really thankful to all the people who took time out and gave such amazing, amazing reviews. But Haritosh Srivastav, had it been all good? Do you think everything was that smooth and it was just like a cake, piece of the cake? Let me tell you, some of the things have not been great. Apart from my procrastination at times and not able to make progress that I wanted to, there have been at times, and specifically one feedback that actually really tarnished my confidence for, I can say, couple of hours, and which was this one. Yeah, this one needed better proofing. There was some, yeah, some feedback Just to tell you, I have worked on this feedback. Some of these issues that was mentioned have already been sorted out. But you know what, in life we'll get a lot of feedback. Not all of them would be as positive as we want, but it's also our perspective. So you know what I did after that? You might feel that it was crazy. Why did you do that? But Like, okay, I did that. And this gave me a little bit of permission to be vulnerable is I went ahead and saw the reviews of some of the greatest authors that I admire— Robin Sharma, Mel Robbins, and so on, so forth. And they had some really nasty reviews. And that made me believe that if they can have Even if they are so great and they write some amazing— even when they can have some negative feedback, negative reviews, I think, I think I should actually feel proud that I got at least one negative feedback. At least somebody took up the time to post such a feedback because that has helped me to better my work. So thank you. I don't want to reveal the identity, but thank you to that person who actually took the time out and write such a detailed review. I hope you read this book, you read or watch this video and find out that how grateful I am to you. Next, actually, I want to do is I want to do a chapter reading because I, I understand not everybody had the chance to go through the book, and it would be great if you can also give me some like feedback. So if you like, if you like this chapter, I would love for you to mention what did you like about that. I— this chapter is chapter 6 of the book, which is called Careful of Giving or Receiving Advice. And I'm gonna read a bit and portion of that, not the whole book. So it says To meet compliant with unrequested counsel earns for the advisor a fortune of hidden contempt. It's a Greek proverb. Before I start on this, let me lay down a disclaimer that I'm not asking you to— I'm not asking you to not help people. You should help people as much as you can, but at the same time, be careful in advising anyone. It would be best to evaluate whether the person is willing to work on your advice or maybe blame you later for giving the advice. There are many reasons behind why I think you should be careful of giving any advice. Number 1, when you give unsolicited advice, it may lead to criticism or a strained relationship. Number 2, most of the times people pay attention when they pay for the advice, and if you are offering it for free, it can damage your reputation. You may get into legal problems if you are not careful, especially when advising on business decisions. It's not good for you as we advise you to boost your ego not being the expert in that particular field. So do not advise if you're not the expert of that field. I used to advise everyone who asked for it and never used to think twice. Most of the time it was with pure intention to help someone, but then I had a life incident with my two friends which changed my perspective. It was the year 2002. I had completed my intermediate exam and planned to move to Varanasi to prepare for the engineering entrance exams. I had two excellent friends who still are good friends. Let's call them V and Sa to keep their identities safe. Both approached me for career advice. They were neither interested nor able to afford engineering or similar studies. They wanted a quick course that can help them start earning in a year or so. I genuinely wanted to help them. So I started looking in newspapers and career magazines for the same. I found a course that was related to airline ticketing from IATA, International Air Transport Association. It was a 6-month course after which you can get certification, start job interviews. I showed it to both of them. Both of them acted on it. And joined the practice in Meerut. About after 9 months or so, Sa came back and started whining. Once I visited his house, his father accused me that I gave the wrong advice and that he would have earned double by continuing to sit in his shop only. On the other hand, why continued his journey. He never complained about anything, always gave me credit for giving him the right advice. 18 years down the line, he has played many roles in the corporate world. He was Assistant Vice President in his previous organization, and last year he opened his venture. We're still in touch and have great conversation often about this. The story's essence is not to project that Sai is bad, V is good, or I am great. The point is you do need to be careful of who you advise. Only the worthy will understand your intent and others will pass the blame. So be cautious of giving advice. Then the chapter goes on to talk about who you should advise. I'm not gonna complete the whole chapter. I'm gonna straight away go to the action item of the chapter, which is: if someone seeks advice from you, go through the section Who to Advise before giving advice. Also, you might want to play the role of active listener and inquirer to let them discover the answer or advice themselves. You don't always need to give them advice. Sometimes people need a somebody who can actively listen, somebody who can explore with them, and that really helps them self-discover. Moving on, I also wanted to share something which I never ever imagined, but this was more of a bigger dreams which I never thought I would be But in November of 2021, the book became an amazing bestseller.

It—

and here is a small video. Thanks to my friend Rahul, who advised me to record my screen when this happened. So I just wanted to play this for you. So the, so the book, the book became number 5 in Amazon bestseller list and also was number 1 in hot new releases for quite a few days. Now, what has really motivated me since, and I didn't plan it, is getting some recognition. And that could be some perks, uh, people really look forward to have been recognized in some of the literary awards. Uh, I'm an engineer and project manager. I never thought I'll get an award on literature. Uh, but here is what it is. I, I got couple of awards and I'm really, really amazed and astonished as well as grateful for all of this. Now my message to— before we move on to some of the announcement, I wanted to give you a message to anyone who is watching this live. I was gonna watch it later, that if a guy from a small town, if a guy who studied from Hindi medium, for a guy who was not confident when speaking in public or on stage, if I can go on and do these things, what is stopping you? If you have a message inside you, you must Take it out. It doesn't matter the medium. It could be book, it could be public speaking, it could be social media, whatever it is. But if you think you can impact 1% of one person, it's well worth the trouble, it's well worth the effort. Thank you, thank you everyone, everyone who has been there, who has been in this journey. I hope I will keep making you more proud as we progress. I have some amazing announcement coming up, but thank you so much, really, really. I mean, this has truly changed my life tragically. This has truly, uh, showed me what I am capable of, what I can do. And what I can dream bigger and better. Now let's move on to a few announcements that I have, and I hope you're gonna like some of the announcements. Number 1, I'm going to make Small Town Bigger Dreams available on Kindle for free. Yes, on this coming Friday, June 17th to Monday, June 20th, the book is gonna be free for you to download in Amazon Kindle. This is just a very small token of gratitude from my side. So please, if you have not had a chance to get the Kindle copy of, of the book, please go ahead and mark your calendar, do anything to remind yourself that you can still get the copy of the book from June 17th, Friday, until June 20th without paying a single rupee. And the purpose is One is, yeah, I'm grateful. But also, once you get the book, please share it with someone who needs it. We all need to share the good things in life, the great things that we go through. And if you can share it with someone, nothing beats that. So please share this book with anyone. Please make them aware this is available for free so they can have the book for free as well. Announcement number 2, this is probably big. And as I say every time, when you are making a public announcement, you are making a lot of accountability, accountability partners. So I want you guys to keep me accountable, keep posting where, what is the progress, because Yep. I'm so happy to announce that I am going to start writing my second book very soon. You know, as they say, once you write once, chances are you might write twice or more, and I want to explore how much I can go on this journey. So I am going to start writing my second book very soon, and I aim to finish the book by end of year 2022. This book is going to be about public speaking and my experiences, my failures, my success, my journey. And I hope to share some of the lessons that I've learned. So I will be posting more updates as we go ahead. But yeah, let's see how it goes. It is scary again. No, even if you become an author once, it still gets scary when you talk about how can you write the second book, but I'm going on this path. And this is where it becomes interesting. The third announcement that I want to talk about, which is— are you guys excited? Thank you everyone who's posting on social media. I'm actually starting a book writing masterclass. If you are someone who feel that there is a book inside you, if you're somebody who think that your story needs to come out If you are somebody who thinks that no book is going to be your ticket to success, then please go ahead and fill up this interest form. I'm gonna have a book writing masterclass in coming weeks, and we're gonna explore how you can take the book which is inside you and make it physical. Just like I am able to do that now. So that was 3 announcement. Again, don't forget, Kindle version will be available from Friday till Monday Pacific time for free. I'm writing my second book, and more importantly If you are somebody who's looking to write your own book, author, become an author, then please go ahead and fill this. I'll put the links, etc., also later on. But yeah, thank you everyone for being part of this journey. I can't— I know I probably have said 100 times thank you, but even if I say thousands times thank you, Thank you, thank you. It won't be enough. Thank you everyone, and I hope you have a great rest of the week and rest of the day. As I say every time, keep learning, keep growing, and keep going out of your comfort zone. This is Haritosh Srivastav. I hope to see you soon somewhere on the online or in-person world pretty soon. Until then, take care, take Take care of yourself, take care of your family, stay safe, stay connected.