In this live session, Haritosh Srivastav, the author of the upcoming book Small Town Bigger Dreams, leads Day 2 of a 21‑day challenge aimed at promoting the book and encouraging personal growth. He explains why everyone—students, early‑career professionals, mid‑level managers, and even senior leaders—should see themselves as potential mentors. Drawing on a memorable lesson from his first corporate boss, Jinto, he illustrates how a mentor can prevent repeated mistakes and accelerate learning. Haritosh outlines various mentoring models (reverse, peer, and traditional senior‑to‑junior), highlights core mentor qualities such as active listening and networking, and offers practical steps for reaching out to prospective mentors, including how to phrase requests and what to do if the first person declines. He shares a personal success story about his mentee Taiba, emphasizes the reciprocal fulfillment mentors experience, and ties the discussion back to the broader theme of his book: that people from any small‑town background can achieve big dreams. The session ends with a call to preorder the book, a reminder to stay out of comfort zones, and a brief Q&A where he answers a viewer’s question on how to approach a potential mentor.
Questions this video answers
Approach them directly with a clear intent, explain what you hope to learn, and if they decline, politely ask if they can refer you to someone else. In a corporate setting, you can also ask your manager to connect you with a suitable mentor.
Chapters
Hello and welcome everyone. This is day 2 of 21-day live challenge, and hello to everyone who's joining from Instagram or LinkedIn or Facebook or YouTube. Thank you so much for your love, support, and and, and the encouragement that you have been providing throughout. So thank you so much. So what exactly is this? As I said yesterday itself, it's a 21-day live challenge where is— wherein I'm gonna come live on various social media, and today I'm also live on Instagram to basically talk about something about my book, uh, because it's getting launched on 2nd of November. And I thought it's a great opportunity for me to come and interact with you. So first of all, happy Janmashtami to anyone who's celebrating. We all need the blessings of, uh, Maa Durga. So thank you and wishing you all a great happy Janmashtami. Now today's topic, today's topic for me to talk about is Be a mentor. Now do let me know from where you are joining and, and what do you think about this when I talk about this. So what do you mean by being a mentor and why is it so important? It's one of the chapters also in my book. Now you would have heard the phrase, give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you have fed him for the life. So today I'm gonna talk about why it's so important to be a mentor. I remember when I started my corporate job, my boss Jinto was there, and I used to make a lot of mistake. Now let me be honest. And one day I remember he was sitting on the desk and he again found I have done some, some mistake, and he said, Haritosh Srivastav, I'm fine with you doing a new mistake every time, but I'm not fine with you doing the same mistake twice. Now that line since then has been in my mind, in my heart throughout, and I try to do— I still make a lot of mistake, but I try to still imbibe those learning. And that's what a mentor can do for you. And we all would have learned a lot about why it's so important to have a mentor, why you should reach out to mentor. But today's topic is more about why it's so important to be a mentor. Like I said, at every stage of your life, you can be a mentor to someone who aspire to be like you or even better. Many of the times we get into, especially when we are a student, we are early in our career, like, I'm not supposed to be a mentor, I'm supposed to be a mentee. No, no, tell me. I am telling you, you can always be a mentor to someone else. There's lot of concept of now reverse mentoring where you are actually mentoring somebody senior because you are good at newer technologies, new things, or also a peer mentoring. So you can always be a mentor. If you are a student of, say, final year, you can always be a mentor to a student of first year. If you are a student of a first year engineering, you can always be a mentor to somebody who's aspiring to be engineering student. If you are, if you are a senior or mid-level manager, you can always be a mentor to your team or other colleagues. So it's very, very important that you be a mentor because Tell— I— let me tell you by my own experience, it has been such a rewarding experience. And if I could share, and it might feel like bragging, one of my mentees, Taiba, she created this flyer for me last year. So, worst best mentor? I don't think I'm the worst best mentor, but that feeling, that gratitude, the satisfaction that you get when you become a mentor and you are able to help someone in their journey, that is something which you— which cannot be, cannot be taken over by anything else. So I want you to think about who has been your mentor, and more importantly, who you can be mentor to, right? Think about who you can be mentor to. All the organization nowadays— I'm part of TCS, and we are having lot of mentoring certification and all. But think about and what are some of the qualities of being a good mentor. Now, one of the things that we really know is that you need to be a good listener. You don't want to be— you don't want to go to teachers, mentor, and I know many of us have had that, that no, that person keeps on going and going and going. And you want to discuss your problem, you want to discuss the challenges and obstacles. But, but that person is not ready to listen. So if you are aspiring to be a mentor, you should be actively listening. When I say actively listening, you should be able to not only listen to what he's saying, but also to understand the body language of that person, understand the intent of the person, also sometimes questioning him back. And that's one of the qualities of how you become a mentor. Should also have things like networking skills because you cannot be a mentor to everyone. You cannot know everything of the world, but you can always know some other people who can help your mentees. So network with them, guide your mentees. And, and this is what I wanted to talk about— to be a mentor. Uh, it might feel like, no, am I really supposed to be a mentor? But Based on my own experience, it has been such a rewarding experience. So think about that. Think about who has been a great mentor to you and who you want to be mentor to. Now, this was one of the topic, and this is the day 2 of 21-day, uh, challenge. And thank you so much everyone for providing the support, love, care. I'm, I'm really, really feel honored, blessed, and It's not only about me. The Small Town Bigger Dreams is not about me. It's about anyone, regardless of where they live. It's all about dreams. So if I can, born and brought up in a small town, Jaipur, can be here and do a few things, you all can be. And if you need, I give you permission to do that. So thank you so much. I will put the link to preorder the book if you want to check it out. Please go ahead. Until next time, as I say every time, keep learning, keep growing, and keep going out of your comfort zone. This is Haritosh Srivastav, and I'll be back tomorrow as day 3 of 21-day challenge. Now before I go, I saw one comment, and this is the power of Instagram. I can see some of the comments. So Deepak asks how to reach out to someone to ask them to be a mentor. So that's a great question, Deepak. Sometimes, yeah, you have to reach out directly. Many other times it's all the mental things where we think like, what will the other person think and what will they feel about if I ask them? But I've personally experienced that most of the people, I can say almost all of the people, are really, really helpful. And if you go with the right intent and reach out, that's when they will most likely help you. And if not, you can always ask them that, if not you, who else can help me? Can you guide me to someone? If you're working in a company, you can reach out to manager that I'm looking for mentoring on so-and-so technology or process or domain or something. They can always, uh, liaison you with something else. So that could be two ways. I also mentioned, I think, couple of ways in my book as well, which you can check out. But Great question, Deepak. Hi, Taiba. Hi, Adab. Thank you for joining the live. So thank you so much. I'll see you tomorrow at day 3 of 21. And do let me know in the comments. I'll try to check it out later today. Thank you so much. Until next time, keep learning, keep growing, and keep going out of your comfort zone. This is Haritosh Srivastav, and I'll be back tomorrow. With day 3. Take care, stay safe, and stay blessed.
