How to keep #thriving | Secrets to #thriving during challenging times

Director and fellow Toastmasters, thank you for providing me this opportunity. This has been a great honor. So a bit, I know Flo already talked about it, but I thought I'll reiterate some of the things. I was the Pathways guy, and as you can see, I was amid the fire multiple times, as in the first flyer, and it was not easy to say, but we went through it, and I hope we all are making great progress. The breakthrough came for me on 22nd June 2019. So few weeks before our current PQD, Scott Bond, reached out to me that, would you like to take a breakout session in our TLI and talk anything except Pathways? And that's when we talked about club culture. The session was amazing. I had one of my friends, Toastmaster Bess, who had an improv session. I was on cloud nine. I did not know how to contain this until two days after I got this email. My visa was undergoing rejection and it was rejected. I had to leave the country within a week. So from cloud nine, I went to cloud minus nine. So my house, it used to have pretty happening parties, actually became a ruckus like this. The sad part was my wife and daughter was not there in the country. My mom was undergoing some heart operation, so I went a lot in that period. And on 3rd July 2019, just before America's Independence Day, I had to leave the country. So I recorded this message on the airport. I hope to share this.

Good morning, leaders of District 11.

Is it audible?

It is July 3rd, 2019, about 10:45 AM EST or 9:45 AM CST. I am at Chicago Airport Terminal 5 waiting for my flight to India at noon. Last 1.5 weeks has been crazy for me, to say the least. Gone through a lot, but I still firmly believe that probably God has a bigger plan for me, and I'm very, very hopeful that I'll be back soon. But before I go, I have one important thing to do, which I'm doing right now, is to express my gratitude towards all the leaders of District 11. I came in 2017 from India and had no idea how Toastmasters works in District 11, but I'm so grateful to all the leaders here who really made me comfortable, made me to what I am. I also wanted to thank some of the individuals, and I'll start with probably Angela Grimm, who gave me the opportunity to be a Pathways Guide. Pathways had been a— Pathways— being a Pathways Guide has been a transforming journey for me. I think I've really gone to the next level once I became the Pathways Guide, started going to different clubs, taking sessions, and then also participating in TLIs, Fall Conferences, Spring Conferences. Also, I've got so many other leaders McClaxton, Lou Bagnell, Nancy Dig, Crystal, Serena, you rock, my fellow Pathways guide.

And all right, I think that's enough for you to understand what emotions, what feelings I was going through. And as I said in the, in the video, I had the dream that I would be back to District 11, and I did not know it's gonna come within a year. So here I am virtually in front of you, and I want to acknowledge that when I came to District 11 in 2017, I came with 4 letters after my name, and that was CCCL. But when I went back to India, I went with 3 letters. Distinguished Toastmaster, and that was all because of the opportunities provided by my clubs, my district, my area, and division. So a heartful thanks and heartful gratitude to all of the leadership, to District 11. Thank you so much. My next journey started. I went back to India. I was part of my original club for a few more months, and then as the destiny said, I had another opportunity And this time I'm now part of District 91. This is my window where I see the mornings and evening, and it's amazing view here. I've been learning a lot over here. This is another progress for me. So this year I was able to reach to, uh, as the first runner-up in the division contest. And this was all before this corona spread happened.

Happen.

Now, a lot of people who are not Toastmasters ask me, why do you join Toastmasters? Why do you renew your Toastmasters membership? You actually pay to go Toastmasters. It doesn't pay you. And that is my answer to these guys. You can buy a lot of things from Toastmasters, but you cannot get these handwritten appreciation. These, uh, the best mentor was made by one of my mentees, Taiba, and I cannot thank her enough from the bottom of my heart, what I felt about that. So this is my reason to be at Toastmasters, and I hope to continue it for many more years. Now I want you all to go to the chat window and type yes if you ever feel challenged when you are in difficult time, when you feel like there is a problem and you are not able to pursue your passion. So please type in, in the chat window. Yes, why?

Thank you.

All right, so today I'm gonna share some of my learnings since I've gone through a lot lately, and I thought I've tried to find my things that works for me. And if I share some of the things, you might be explore on your own, some of the things would help you. So I'm gonna share some of my findings, some of my learnings, and hopefully you be able to apply when you are trying to pursue your passion and you are amid difficult times. Number 1: Mentoring. Now when I say mentoring, it's actually two parts of it, and the first part is get mentor. I have had the opportunity and privilege to get so many mentors across the world, and these are only the mentors with whom I could get exclusive photos But there are so many mentors and I owe a lot of my success to my mentors. I would say I have not done more than 2 to 3% and 90 to 97% of my success lies because of the mentoring they have done, because of the guidance they have provided. And that is where the second part becomes very effective. When you get mentored, it's your way. I say it, people say payback, I say pay forward. To be mentor of someone else. You have got all the knowledge, all the direction. Now it is time for me to pass on. So these are my— these were my 3 mentees when I was back in TCS Matri Club. Coincidentally, last week my mentee Taiba, she actually won the area contest and she has been doing a lot of progress. I'm glad to have Gursamar joining us from India. So First thing is to get a mentor, get the learning, but then also don't keep it with you, pass it on and be a mentor. Now, second learning that I had is connecting with friends. Now when I put this slide, you might be thinking that I'm gonna ask, do the cliché thing. This is what everybody talks about in Facebook, connect with people, connect, do WhatsApp call, do Facebook call. But I'm gonna make it more interesting. Connect with non-human friends. I hope this would make you interesting. So I've got some new non-human friends and some reconnected with old non-human friends. And the first one is getting back to the old friends. I love to read books, and during this difficult times, I've got a lot of opportunity to actually go back to books. These are the books actually I finished in last couple of months, and now I'm actually repeating the third book, Mindset, which you see by Dr. Carol Dweck, and it's an amazing book. So I actually have finished about, you can see, one-third again. I don't know whether it's visible on virtual background, but this is the time to actually go back to basic, go back to books. I've ordered a couple more books and I'm loving it. So it is time for you if you have ample opportunity to go back. Now when you have old friends, there is also an opportunity to get new friends. My new friends is podcast. Now many of you would know what podcast is, I'm not going to explain that, but it's more of an audio format of a YouTube where you actually can listen to. So my couple of my favorite podcasts, one is Unforgettable Presentation by Darren Lacroix and Mark Brown. Past world champion of public speakers. And the other one is the Tony Robbins podcast. So I do not miss any episode of them. But there are so many more, and I love listening about the Dave Ramsey, Financial Peace, the Brendon Burchard, the High Performance. And these could be something for you to explore, and that really gives you energy and inspiration to pursue your passion. Now, if you notice in the slide, I put B1 because there is another new friend which is the audiobooks. My favorite audiobook is Audible, and I've got— I finished about a dozen of audiobooks in last year or so. Two of them, The 5 Second Rule by Mel Robbins and The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, I finished 3 times. And I'm actually trying to repeat The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. This is the time to go back and get those, and I get so much of energy I thought it would be a good opportunity for you also to explore these new friends. Trying out new things. We all have those times that when we feel like, no, we are not doing right. And actually that is the right time to do new things. These are the 3 things that I've done in last month or so. So first, as you see, is I'm doing an Instagram Live session with my friends every week. As a matter of fact, I'm doing one with DTM Geeta Nain. She's now part of District 11 tomorrow, where I bring the guests, I talk to them about their journey, their learnings, their failures, and how are they coping up, and try to spread some positivity in the world. And in this process, I learn a lot. The second was a combined meeting. So since I was a member of multiple clubs, one day I had a dream that how beautiful it would be to have the special combined meeting with all the 3 clubs from 3 geographies. And, and I reached out to people and people were so considerate and helpful. We had a special successful meeting. In fact, before start of the session, I passed on the link. DTM Megh Preston, past district governor, actually joined that and she gave a wonderful session about how to attend table topics, how to attempt table topics, and, and All the people, all the international audience loved that. The third thing that I've tried is to work on my YouTube channel. I've been working on to get more subscribers, and let me tell you, it is very difficult. Nobody wants to subscribe to your YouTube channel, but nevertheless, I've been trying to upload more videos, get more people to watch them, and these are the new things which gives me energy to pursue my passion of getting more communication skills, getting more leadership skills. Number 4, journaling.

Journaling—

if you read about any high-performance leader, you'll find out that the one thing that they tell you is to journal your thoughts. We all go through different emotions at different point of time, and journaling actually helps you get it out of your mind and helps you bring the high performance mindset into. I've been journaling now for a couple of months. And at times I had some personal challenges and I wrote it on the journal and I felt relieved. So I feel if we can apply this journaling, this would really be helpful. I was listening to some podcasts and it has been scientifically proven that when you time out something on the journal, it helps you relieve the stress. And that way, you can actually analyze your thoughts and see into if you are getting towards depression or any other thing that you don't want to. And if you require, you can seek professional help. This is my new ritual. So my new ritual is I am trying to wake up at 5 AM. Let me be first be honest, today I did not follow this ritual because I slept at around 2 o'clock in the night and I wake up pretty late. But on most of the days, about 5 days a week, I'm trying to follow this morning rituals. Waking up 5 AM, having a black coffee and book, finishing up 30 to 45 minutes of that, writing the journal, summarizing what happened a day before and how was I feeling, are there any learnings, listening to these podcasts. And I've also undertook learning French. I wanted to attend the international convention this year, which I think is going to be next year. So I think I've got some more time to learn French, but I am trying to invest some 10 minutes every day. Now, by the time this all happens before about 7:00, 7:30, so by the time most of the people wake up, it gives me a sense of accomplishment. It gives me a lot of positivity that I am ahead of the game and I can do much more. So the point that I'm trying to put here is this is my morning ritual. It may or may not work for you, but it is time for you to experiment with your morning ritual. Find out what works for you, what does not work for you. I've also learned that there is something called evening ritual or winding up ritual that people follow before going to bed. I have practically not done that, but if that works for you, please do that. I've also learned a quick tip which I want to give is we all have this amazing invention, I hope. Yeah, now you can see this phone. And if we reduce the screen time, especially in the morning, by an hour— so once you wake up in the morning, if you do not watch all the notification, all the cat and dog videos and everything, It helps you psychologically. A lot of people, including me, had some issues in waking up. So one quick tip again I have is put your alarm clock or your phone about 6 to 8 feet away so that when the alarm rings, you actually have to wake up, put— go on your feet, and then snooze or dismiss the alarm. And once you do that, your mind actually understands that you have— this is time to wake up. And in most of the times you will be able to wake up. This has really helped for me. And in Mel Robbins' 5 Second Rule, say that you put it in the bathroom. I'm not gonna go to that level to put my phone in the bathroom, but at least putting it 6 to 8 feet away gives me enough energy to wake up and then follow my morning ritual. So schedule your calendar. What you see is my office cum personal calendar. It's a very funny story. When I joined my first company, a lot of people used to mock that there are people who actually schedule their pet walking, grocery shopping, or even talking to their in-laws in their calendar. And we used to make a lot of fun. I admit I have done that. I've done that mocking. But over the time, I realized that when I talk to leaders, whether it's office leaders, whether it's Toastmasters leaders, and across, anytime I said that, can we have the meeting, they will say, let me check my calendar. And then I did some more research and found out that if you put something on your calendar, it helps you get the burden out of your mind. So if, for example, if I have a meeting today at 3 PM UK time, I don't have to remember that over and over if I put it in my calendar, I can always go back and look at my calendar that what things are coming up. With the virtual meetings, I make sure that I put the Zoom ID and the link in the calendar itself so that I don't have to go back to my email and find that out. This thing has helped me tremendously to be more productive, more effective, and I'm pretty sure that if you apply, this would be helpful for you as well. Now the last thing that I want to talk about, and this is not for everyday, uh, passion, this is about if you have got some project. So remember the TLI session I was talking about when Scott told me that you need to talk something about culture and I had no clue? I got a big card, big, uh, board, and wrote club culture. And then I tried applying mind mapping. What exactly would club culture consists of. So these are all the different things I could think about and put it on different colors, different fonts, and then I try to make sure that it becomes a coherent message and it, it synchronizes. So it's a— I got to know it's a very psychological technique, a scientific technique. The second is my favorite, which is the Post-it notes. In fact, now I'm carrying about 3 to 4 different notes with the virtual background. It doesn't look crazy, but yeah. So the second picture that you see is, uh, I'm trying to work on a book of my own journey, uh, trying to put something on my wall that, you know, I can help organize my thoughts and, and get into a book writing mode. So I think putting it something on different Post-it notes and putting it on a wall, on a, on a board, something helps me organize. So if you undergo any project, anything which is of high caliber, these are some of the things that can help you. There, I know there are some software, I think MindMeister is one of them, which helps you do it virtually or through softwares. I have not done it personally, but if it works for you, please go for it. So in summary, if I say, these are the 7 tricks if you want to pursue your passion. Find and be a mentor. Connect with non-human friends along with your human friends, which is books, podcasts, audiobooks. Always keep trying out new things. Have some journals, write some journals. Find out your morning rituals, what works for you, and/or your evening ritual or winding up ritual. Schedule things on your calendar to make your mind easy. And last is apply mind mapping techniques. Now I am now open to any question before we get on to the last, second last slides, and I thought it would be a good opportunity. So if you have any question, please put in the comment section.

If anybody has a question that they would like to have verbally, we can have you unmute your microphone to ask.

Haritosh Srivastav, it's Scott.

Hi, Scott.

Yeah, really good stuff. I have a question for you about mind mapping. How do you personally find transitioning what you've mind mapped into actionable plans? How do you do that personally?

Great question. So I think the best example was about the TLI session. The mind mapping technique says that our mind does not work in the sequential or parallel manner. For example, you have PowerPoint in slides and things like that. So what I do personally is put everything on that, and that is the reason you can see— if I go back to the previous slide, uh, it is a messed up slide to say, but then you have to deduct information that what will be valuable for my audience, what would be that will serve them. So if I remember the session, I thought that it would be very interesting to have some audience engagement, and that's when I brought Bess to do some improv session and we had few scenarios. I also thought about if I am visiting a club, what would something that would help me align to the club culture. So these were different thoughts, and then it got converted into different slides, and then I had to put it in logical sequence and get that probably reviewed by someone, and that helped me. Does that answer your question? Thank you.

Good stuff. Thanks, Haritosh Srivastav.

Haritosh Srivastav, I've got a question for you.

Sure.

You mentioned the mentors and being a mentee. What is one of the things from a Toastmasters-specific standpoint that a mentor has taught you that you make sure to pass along or pay forward to any mentee that you have?

Sure. I think there are so many things that I've learned from my mentors, but if I have to take one thing, I would say that letting go of entitlement. So one of the, one of the mentors that I had in back in India, his name is Tarun Bhargava. He achieved so many things in life. He is about to become a Distinguished Toastmaster. He was a Division Director. He is a certified coach. He has 20+ years of management experience. But when you talk to that person, you will feel like he's like me, and he is not talking about any entitlement. We have another person, Warren, in Pioneer 17. He has been Toastmaster for 50+ years. Can you imagine? 50+ years in Toastmasters. His age is 90+. And when you talk to that person, you will feel like he's something like me, and I can always learn. So the getting away from the sense of entitlement is one of the main important thing that I've learned, and I've tried to pass it on. So one of the things that I do is generally not tell to any of the club members that I am a DTM unless specifically asked, because when you put this 3 letters word after you, people think that, no, you are entitled, you need to be given additional focus. I do not like that. So the sense of entitlement is something which I'm trying to avoid and that I've learned from my mentors and pass it on to my mentees.

Thank you, Haritosh Srivastav, great answer. We have Jennifer has her hand raised. Would you like to unmute yourself and ask a question?

Thank you. Thank you so much. This is a lot of information, and I know I've used some of these techniques in the past. I kind of was— I've had a recent conversation with a friend regarding lists. I was wondering if you have opinions on lists, if they're hindering or encouraging.

Thanks, Jennifer. Can you elaborate what exactly the list you're talking about?

When I look forward to working towards a goal, I often develop lists for myself, and Sometimes I get the feeling that they can be a little hindering and other times motivating. Do you think that's more of a personal thing? I just wondered your opinion on using lists as far as trying to incorporate that in your day and getting things done.

Thank you, Jennifer. Thank you for explaining. And let me give my take on that. I think I would say it depends on project to project, assignment to assignment. If I am about to give a session like this or something like that, if I put a list, probably it may not be so helpful because I need to go back to the— from the audience perspective. But since I am a portfolio manager, I get a lot of tasks that need to be done. And if I sort it down and break down into smaller chunks, or for— in this case, I had the combined meeting, so I had to put that project management hat and put— sort it out into different tasks. And list, that helps. So I think the answer would be that depends on case to case. If it is something which is more creative in nature, I would probably not typecast that to put it within a timeframe, within a list frame. But if it is something which is more structured and we know what is supposed to happen, what is the output, I would definitely put some list and task assigned to that so that I am able to better track and lead it to closer.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Other questions? Monitor our chat window. Haritosh Srivastav, I have another question for you, and with regard to this pandemic and this time that we're in, and eventually we hope that that things will pass and there will be a rainbow at the end of the storm, or there will be a silver lining out of all of this. What do you think that for us as Toastmasters that we'll have as a result of this that maybe we will take forward even after all of this is over?

Sure, very good question. I think like I was telling you before the session, The world is gonna be a different world post this pandemic, which means there would be some changes in the way we operate in Toastmasters. As I love, and most of us love, we would continue to have those physical meetings, but I think there will be a lot of emphasis on online meeting, and I feel that is on the right direction. Because if I— you see industries across different domain, they all are now choosing to go virtual. If I talk about my own company, they have a very broad vision of having only 25% people in office, and that too only for 25% of time by 2025. So I would assume that Toastmasters will also align to those vision, allow more online meetings, give more opportunities like this, so that, no, it is not completely like the physical meeting, but but you still get something out of it. And to me, that is a value addition. So I think there would be some changes, more focus on online, but yeah, the core of the Toastmasters, which is to empower people to develop their communication and leadership skills, would still be the same.

All right, any other questions? I did not see any from our chat session. Another question that I had for you, Haritosh Srivastav, is that what do you think is going to be the biggest challenge going forward for Toastmaster members, you know, for yourself as a Toastmaster, that perhaps you had not anticipated?

That's a good question, and I think When we say the word challenge, it has a lot of negative connotation, and I would love to change it to a lot of opportunities would be there. I would probably see that there would be some more hesitation for members to know, for retaining the members, because we have to accept that not everybody likes joining this virtual meeting and Zoom meetings, and that's gonna be some challenge. I know one of my clubs in UK is struggling to retain the 20 members. So that's going to be challenge for the short term, but for the long term, the challenge is not going to be with the Toastmasters. And as I— as Dr. Carol Dweck says in the Mindset book, the challenge is going to be whether you want to adapt to fixed mindset or you want to adapt to growth mindset. And for people who are gonna change to the growth mindset, there would be enormous opportunities and to be a truly international Toastmaster.

Thank you, Haritosh Srivastav. Do we have other questions from the group? That's a good question on the growth mindset. That was one of our goals for this year, was "Here We Grow Again" was our, our district motto or tagline for this year. And, you know, certainly we look forward to using this as an opportunity to do that, and we certainly hope that all of our Toastmasters members within the district are able to grow as a result of this opportunity that we have been presented with.

Sure.

So if they're— yeah, Scott, go ahead.

Yes, Clark.

Haritosh, we have a pretty good idea of what DTMs mean to us here within certain parts of the region, within certain parts of the country. What kind of weight does the DTM carry when you travel internationally, when you move internationally? So does it open opportunities for you when you went to India, as you moved to the UK? Is it something that's universally recognized or is it something that's more regional?

I think DTM is universally recognized, but the level of recognition varies from geographies to geographies. As per my experience, and I'm gonna be a little bit controversial now, if it is okay, okay with everyone. When I went back to India and, and I saw the attitude of people changing once they find out that, no, I am a DTM. As I said earlier, I am— I don't try to put that DTM with my name everywhere that I go, but no, there is certainly a greater level of respect, but also a sense of entitlement for people who recently become DTM. So that is there prevalent in India. In UK, if I, if I say that it's been too short for me to judge, but I know people who have been Toastmasters for so many years and achieved so many recognition like DTMs or Toastmaster of the Year, etc. And they are pretty human to say, and I did not found out that they were DTM after I did a bit of research. So I think that is still not there in UK, to say, but I think we all are learning. And it could be my personal experience and may not be the generic experience, but the one thing that I said that I'm trying to get away from the sense of entitlement and getting towards more sense of service, providing service to whichever club, whichever area, division, district, or international I'm part of. Thank you. Any other questions?

I think that may be it.

Okay, good. So if it is, then no more question. I wanted to share one very important slide, and that truly defines the service in Toastmasters. Last week, Lakh Dorki, you know, past International President, attended the virtual first ever virtual district conference, and she there informed that she's gonna be the sergeant-at-arms of her club. And like so many people, I was mesmerized. Here is one who reached to the pinnacle of this, of the Toastmasters International official, and she's gonna be the sergeant-at-arms. So we need to remember that, no, why we are in Toastmasters. We are here to provide We are here to gain, to learn leadership and communication, but after a certain point, it is more important to serve the community, serve the organization. And remember this: I love the fact I'm Toastmaster because I'm learning continuously and learning continuously about communication and leadership. Remember, the purpose helps you pursue your passion.