first time author launches his book virtually | Virtual Launch of 'Small Town Bigger Dreams'

Hello everyone, this is Haritosh Srivastav, and if you are watching it on YouTube or Facebook, on LinkedIn, please type in the chat where are you joining this for. Thank you all, um, as many of you have been posting about my birthday wishes. Yeah, this is my official birthday, as I mentioned to a few people, the documented one. So thank you so much. It's always great to hear from you all. And why I'm here, why I'm doing this live session, uh, we're gonna cover a little bit about that. So this is the, I'll say, my solo virtual launch of my book Small Town Bigger Dreams. It is now live on Amazon Kindle. I hope you have had a look of it. If not, please go and do. I'll also post the link in the comment section. So I'm gonna talk a little bit about why this book, uh, what has been the journey, uh, if possible, probably the introduction chapter a little bit, uh, and what's my plan in terms of the future. And there are going to be couple of announcements. So that's all this live is going to be. I have not planned how long this is going to be, so, but let's see. So why this book? Small town, bigger dreams. Now, year 2020 was in a way different for all of us. A lot of us went through a lot of challenges, a lot of personal and professional losses. But I also believe that this was also a time a lot of us got back to the era of creativity, going back to what we love and what we are passionate about, because we had some more time to explore. And that's what exactly happened with me as well. So in 2020, if you have been following me on any of the social media, you know that I've been doing a lot of YouTube or podcast also. I started being a Toastmaster and that whole Haritosh Srivastav expanded. But there was one item in the bucket list that was remaining. And that has been the dream of writing a book. So this book is exactly about that. The Small Town Bigger Dreams is a book of compilation of 21 different principles that I've discovered, I've learned, I've tried, I failed, but then succeeded. It is a compilation of all those, uh, 21 principles, and I personally believe that it is useful, applicable for anyone. So this is all the book all about. Why this book? Why now? As I already mentioned that, no, I thought this is the best time. This is my official birthday. I was supposed to launch this book on May 1st, but you know, life happens. I went— underwent a grief. My mother unfortunately passed away. I had to extend the date, but this is also sort of tribute to her from my side. She did a lot, like all the mothers do, but I've learned a lot many things from her. And this book, Small Town Bigger Dreams, is more than my dream. It's her dream to make me successful To Make a Small Town Boy Successful. What's the journey about? So in this book you'll see about how I was born and brought up in a city called Jaipur, uh, in Uttar Pradesh, and from there I've been to 3 different countries, uh, shifting 10 different times, things like that. But there, as they say, there is also a journey about writing a book. When this idea came into my mind early in 2020, when the pandemic had hit, we didn't have— we had a lot of time, but we didn't know much to do. Instead of surfing unnecessarily on internet, I thought this is the time for me to pass on the message to the world. So I went through— I, as you know, I am an engineer, and engineers are not really known for writing books. So I went through multiple courses. The very first, I'd say, life-changing experience for me was the Stage Time University, done by world champion speaker— university by world champion speaker Darren Lacroix. And they had a book writing course of 2 days, 2 full days, I would say. So doing a book writing course, which provided me all the experience, all the exposure, all the understanding. We had great faculties, uh, Cheryl, uh, Maureen Zapala. I learned a lot from them, uh, went through a recording so many times. So that's where this whole idea about this book came, uh, and then, uh, yes, exactly, that's how there was a big pause for a few months. I started with the bang, but there was a pause for a few months.. And I knew I need some commitment, I need some more motivation, some more action to take. So that's when my next coach came into action, Mr. Akash Garg, who's known for his book Massive Action Taker. I enrolled in his book writing course as well. It was a 6 to 8 weeks program, and we had a few more people join us. We had specifically 4 persons who were there with our own books. So we used to have a lot of learnings with each other. Then we used to have weekly connects with each other. Our— my other friends who were working on the book were Taiba. Taiba has already published her book. And then we also had Abu. Abu is about to publish his book in next week or couple of weeks. So, and then we also have Deepak who's also working on his book. Uh, all of, all four of us in the guidance of Akash Garg learned few more intricacies of book writing process and what is the message that we want to convey, how we can make it better. Uh, so that's how towards the end of year 2020, we all had a kind of rough draft, to say, first draft of the book. And Then there was further weekly commitment calls, a lot of discussions happening among each other. We also got a few people to review that. So that's how it took a lot of time and little longer than I thought about. But yes, the book is here. And if you have not seen the book cover, let me share here the book. I have been getting— and I must thank my designer, uh, Kausif, who has done a brilliant job. And so happy. This is exactly, uh, so the story behind this book cover is that, uh, this was one of the photo taken in my one of the conference. But when I moved to Basingstoke in February of 2020, uh, there was a very good, uh, there was a window and I could see a lot of buildings around that. And I took a picture on that day. I didn't know what— how I'm going to use that, but there was an intuition that this is going to be useful something. And then when I was thinking about the COVID page, I thought this is exactly what Pottery is, that, you know, a small town guy who used to live in a sea town city, and now he's there in, in developed country, uh, working for one of the prestigious organizations in a, in a very good role. Why not put that, that person who's dreaming, who's dreaming big and dreaming for the North Star? So that's how this cover came into picture. The name has its own journey here. So when I started writing the book, the name, we went through multiple iterations to say I had a name from Sea Town to, uh, multi— Sea Town to International City. Then somebody one day said, I think it was Abu, who said, uh, you should write Small Town Young Haritosh Srivastav. So for a few weeks I thought, okay, that, that makes sense, Small Town Young Haritosh Srivastav. But I'm no longer young as such, but then suddenly that changed to Small Town Bigger Dreams. Like got that idea. You know, great ideas happen when you are taking rest or you're just thinking about that. So that's how it happened, and the name came, Small Town Bigger Dreams. Talking a little bit about the introduction chapters, so basically this book, as I said, starts with a scene in my childhood, and I vividly remember it was back in '94-'95. Me and my sister, we were on the rooftop, and, uh, there is an airport about 30 kilometers from our place, and anytime there used to be a flight, you used to see that those white markings that are there, and you can see the smoke coming, white smoke, and it was intriguing. And one day she asked me, you know, what exactly is that? And I being the The elder brother said, yeah, you know what, this is the smoke that comes out of the airplane. And then I added, I'm kind of boasted at that time, that no, you know what, one day I will also be traveling in all those, all those airplanes across the world. And, and we had a good laugh. It— I know I was boasting, but that's where the idea of this bigger dreams of small town boy came into picture. So that's how it starts. I've got 21 chapters, and I say I have TSL to say. So I've got theories, stories, and then some logical steps that you take. That you take, uh, all the 21 chapters have some little, little bit of research about why, why they are important and what is the benefit. Uh, then there are some personal stories. Uh, in most of the chapter you'll find my story, in some other pieces Many of the chapters have more than one story of mine. And then you have some steps, action steps that you can take, uh, that will help you grow and learn. Uh, for this particular book launch, let me go through the very first, uh, chapter, which is called, uh, The Power of Association. Now we are— you might have heard the term from Jim Rohn that you are the average of top 5 people in your, uh, You are the average of top 5 people you spend the most time with. What if those top 5 people are not elevating you? And this is exactly what happened after my plus 2. When we go— you used to go for engineering college, I stayed with a guy who was not at all interested in studies. He was not bad or something, but his priorities were something else. And this actually made me go down in terms of my potential. Not that I was bad or something, but I, to this date, I still feel that I could have done better if I had a great association that year. You know, uh, what might have happened, what else I could have done, what new things I would have achieved. So, and then it changes to, uh, where I, I became very conscious about the people I associate with and spend most time whether it's the college time, whether it's the corporates that I've worked with, I make sure that I spend most time with the people who are positive, who are encouraging, and more than anything, who are challenging you to do bigger things in life. So that's Chapter 1, and there are similarly 20 more chapters out of it. Now, as I said in the starting of this live, there are going to be a couple of announcements. So let me start off with that. But before that, if you have not had a look, please go to Amazon Kindle and look for Small Town Bigger Dreams. It's already there, published, and a number of people have got it. I've been getting some really good reviews, so please go there. Uh, two announcements. Uh, number one, I want, uh, this book not only, uh, for me getting some money and all. More than that, I wanted to be associated with a big cause. And I've been in talks with a few people, a few NGO owners. So, uh, very soon you'll hear about, uh, the association and proceeding of the book. Will— I'm keeping the details for now, but you'll hear what will happen with the proceedings of the book. A portion of the proceeding will go to, uh, one NGO, and, and you'll love the cause of them. The second announcement, which is for all my beautiful audience who is watching me live now or maybe later, uh, I'm going to have the free giveaways or free book days, uh, during the weekend. So if you are interested, yeah, please be ready between Friday night till Saturday night Friday midnight PDT to Saturday midnight PDT, this book will be available on Kindle for free and you will be able to download. So if you are ready, if you're looking for a free version of this, please check out your calendar. You'll be able to download it, and once you download, please go through it, rate, review, and provide your feedback. I'm going to be really, really looking forward to it. I know I could have done a lot more in terms of the launch, but what I personally believe is done is better than perfect. Even though this launch may not have been perfect, but I think I've done something which I'm proud of. And, and I'm so, so grateful to all of you for being the support, for being the help, for being the feedback I have been receiving. Thank you so much. If a small town guy like me can have bigger dreams, so can you. Thank you so much.