In this live session, Haritosh Srivastav marks Day 11 of his 21‑Day Live Challenge, announcing that his upcoming book Small Town Bigger Dreams is 11 days away from launch and already a top‑5 bestseller in Amazon India's personal time‑management category. He dedicates the talk to Toastmasters International, which celebrates its 97th anniversary, sharing the organization’s history, global reach, and personal impact on his own development—from his first hesitant attendance in India to active participation in two U.S. clubs after moving abroad. Haritosh emphasizes the universal importance of communication and leadership skills for anyone, including scientists and solo entrepreneurs, and urges viewers to explore local clubs via toastmasters.org. He also teases a special guest for the next live session—a coach who helped him unlock his potential—and provides pre‑order links for his book across platforms. The session blends gratitude, promotion, personal storytelling, and a call to action for both the book and Toastmasters participation.
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Hello and welcome to another live session. Today is day 11 of 21 Days Live Challenge. Those who do not know, I've taken a 21 Days Live Challenge where I go live for 21 consecutive days on various social media including Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and occasionally Instagram. So today is day 11 and we've got only 11 days to the launch of Small Town Bigger Dreams. Now before I start off for today's live topic, I just wanted to say once again a massive thank you and it keeps getting better and better and better. So last evening when I checked, Small Town Bigger Dreams, even before the launch of the book, is number 5 bestseller in personal time management category in Amazon India. So thank you all, thank you so much, thank you, thank you everyone. Keep the love, keep the support pouring. I really need, and actually we all need to support each other. So thank you so much, thank you everyone. Now today's topic, if you would have seen the title, is 97 Years Young. Now I'm not gonna talk about a person, I'm not gonna talk about a city or something. I'm going to talk about an organization which is celebrating its 97th anniversary today. And many of you who are my friend, who are my dear one, knows that it is the anniversary of Toastmasters. So Toastmasters is 97 years old today. So in 1924, Mr. or Dr. Ralph C. Smedley founded an organization called Toastmasters which helped people become a better communicator and speaker. And today they are celebrating 97th anniversary, and I thought this is a wonderful topic to talk about today because we all want to become a better speaker, a better leader, and what better than going and joining a Toastmasters organization. Now, some of Some of my friends who have read the book said that 20% of your book is actually about Toastmasters, and I corrected them, it's not 20, it's actually 21%. Now that was a joke, but if I talk about my story of Toastmasters, it started about 5 years back in India when I was a bit reluctant and there were a lot of circumstances which had a negative connotation leading to Toastmasters. So I thought, maybe it's like a training class, you go and attend and go away. But when I went there and when I attended the first meeting, I was kind of shocked because the people were very welcoming, people were very supportive and positive. And I thought maybe they are trying to bluff this time, maybe I should check one or two more times before I really think serious. So I went there for a few more times. And every time I went to a Toastmasters meeting, It was equally supportive, equally positive, equally encouraging. And that made me the decision that I want to join this organization as a member. This nonprofit organization, as we say, as many of you know, has been there for 97 years, helping millions of people across the world. They, if I'm not wrong, they have close to 17,000 clubs across the world and They have active more than 3 lakh people, 3 lakh members across the world. What a beautiful organization. So anytime if you are in any town, you can go to toastmasters.org to search and find the club. Now that was sort of a PR, but I'm not doing a PR for Toastmasters. I'm doing it because I have received so much, not only in terms of learning about public speaking, learning about leadership management skills, but also being connected to so many beautiful people across the world. One of the things that happened when I moved from India to US back in 2017 was I continued my journey as a Toastmaster and actually joined two clubs. And one of the clubs, Pioneer 17, which was the 17th club in the world, actually gave me an opportunity to connect with so many experienced people across variety of background. We had some retired professor, we had some retired business people, we had some housewife, we had some people who were doing graduation in different courses, and that made the perspective widen. We always want to connect to a different variety of people, and that's what Toastmasters provide you. So Go and check it out. In fact, in my chapter, there is a chapter about communication where I stress about why it's so important for you to learn about communication skills. Now, as I say, even if you are a solo team member, even if you are a scientist who are working on research, then also you need to know about communication skills and articulation skills. Because you want to convey what you think, what great idea, million-dollar, billion-dollar idea you have. Unless and until you have that capability, you will not be able to persuade people, you will not be able to influence people in a positive way. So very important for you to learn about communication, and I think Toastmasters is a brilliant, brilliant organization which helps you with that. So Go and check out, and they are having a lot of celebration across the world for their 97 years, 97 years anniversary. So, uh, kudos to them and really, really thankful for all that they do. Uh, so that was today's chapter, 97 years young organization Toastmaster, which is helping hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people across the world every single day. Do check it out on toastmaster.org. Now that's it for today's live. Tomorrow I have something special. I have a guest coming up and I'm not gonna give too much of details. I don't want to take the surprise out, but this person was somebody who helped me realize my potential, who helped me get the message out of my mouth, out of my heart, out of my mind. You should be looking out for that episode. So that's it for today's. The link to pre-order, if you are running, watching on Instagram, it's on my bio. If you are on LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube, I'm gonna put that now in the comment section. So until next time, as I say all the time, keep learning, keep growing, and keep going out of your comfort zone. This is Haritosh Srivastav, and I'll be back tomorrow with another live, and as I said, a special live with one of my coaches. So thank you so much. Take care, stay safe, and stay blessed. Have a good day ahead.
