Instagram Inspiration - Episode 14 - DTM Mukesh Kulothia

Brian Tracy said the ability of a leader is to inspire you to up your game. And today I am so thrilled, so excited, and so humbled by a leader who has not only achieved so much in life, who has inspired hundreds and thousands of Toastmasters and other people across the world. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, people. Thank you so much, distinguished Toastmaster, past division, past District 41 Director Mukesh Kolotiya, sir. Thank you so much for joining today. With this Instagram inspiration session.

You're welcome, Haritosh Srivastav. It's my pleasure to be here.

Thank you so much, sir. This is episode 14 of the meeting, and, and this is going to be such an interesting and special episode. So I'll tell you a bit about the format. It's more gonna be a question-answer. I'll be asking a few questions on the way. And I'm pretty sure your answers will enthrall us. So, and in the meanwhile, if audience, they have any questions, they can put it in the chat box. We'll see if we have time, we'll take one or two questions towards the end. So, uh, Mukesh sir, could you tell us about your journey in like next 2, 3, 4 minutes?

Sure, Haritosh Srivastav, I would love to tell you about my journey.

See, I was born and brought up in a village in Rajasthan, and people find it unbelievable, but that's the truth.

I did not know how to speak in Hindi till class 10th. So I used to try, but I couldn't speak well. I started learning A for apple, B for boy, or bat, whatever it is, in class 6th. In government school, uh, so-called Hindi medium, but I didn't know how to speak in Hindi till class 10th. Then when I came in class 11th, I started how to learn. And companies which came for placement, they wanted us to be very fluent in English, which I was not, and I got rejected.

And I felt rejected, and I'm a very emotional person, so if I get, uh, hurt by something, then I try to So I thought that if I ever work in my life, it will be IBM because that's the company which selected me. And I thought of a workaround. I thought into IBM. So preparing for CAT, going to IIM looked like a good way to me, and I followed that exactly, that path. They were not impressed by my communication. Initially, of course, they used to have high expectations that, okay, there would be presentation and people had some expectations. But when I didn't meet those expectations, I felt bad. I thought, now since I've learned Hindi, now it's time to actually learn English. So I tried various online, offline, at home, in coaching, many things, but lot of things, rather most of those things didn't work. So what I did, uh, attended a training on 30th and 31st of January delivered by— there is a trainer, her name is Gopi Subrawal. With her skills, I went to her on the second day evening and I asked her, how can I become like you and be good at communication and leadership? Then these trainings will not help. Strange Toastmasters Club. And you know, I think it's destiny or the law of secret or whatever, law of attraction, whatever you call it.

Next morning when I was in office at around 9:00, 9:30, I was walking to the pantry to get a glass of water and I was passing by a meeting room and I saw a placard in front of the meeting room. It read, Toastmasters meeting in progress, visitors welcome. But then I said, I want to join. They said, you come next week and of course you can join it.

I said, no, I already like, like it, so please allow me to join. I want to join today itself. So I joined on February 1st, and then more than 8 years, I never looked back. I just love my Toastmasters Then 2016-17, when I became district director, that was my, uh, big time. In fact, I gained maximum confidence in my life during that one year. That one year gave me the confidence that yes, I can do anything, whatever I want to do. And with that confidence, I quit my job journey, and I had my ups and downs in those 3 years. But now, especially after the lockdown, because lockdown was of my entire life. In those 2 months, especially the first 2 months, my wife and kids, they were in Jaipur. I was in Gurgaon. Then most of the times I was happy that I'm getting thinking time. Now thinking time is critical time. I think thinking is something which is most important in our life, more important than reading and more important than maybe education, then, you know, going to the work and getting salary and being on— when it comes to thinking. So I thought I got a lot of clarity about my life. And now, uh, from 11th May when we started after lockdown, it seems we are trying to fly at a very, very fast speed. And I'm just loving everything. But the confidence which I get from— got from Toastmasters in that one year, that was like awesome, right? So that's it about my journey so far.

Okay, thank you, uh, thank you so much. I want to, uh, in this episode I generally ask people— we all do a lot of boasting of about our successes, what all we have achieved, but what I generally like to go deep and ask people about their 1 to 2 big failures in life and what were their learnings from that. So would you mind sharing a few?

Absolutely, I'd love to share my failures. See, all of us are human beings. If I say that I've been a super successful person and I never failed, and that'll be a big lie. I failed like anything, and that's the reason I succeeded like anything. So I'll tell you, uh, when I was doing engineering at MNIT Jaipur, I wanted to get into IBM, but I could not because of my poor communication skills. I failed miserably. And then I'll tell you, I went to an engineering college in Jaipur. It's called SAIT. Swami Keshavanand Institute of Technology. So I went there and I appeared in the interview and they asked me to teach something to some dummy audience, some mock-up audience kind of people. So I tried to teach something and they rejected me there also. They said, you cannot even speak a sentence in English, how will you teach a class? But then I went to another college and they said, speaking is okay, but you are intelligent, you know this stuff, so you will manage. So they hired me as a lecturer and I did very well there as a lecturer. So these were kind of two failures that IBM rejected me and that engineering college, private engineering college, which was supposed to pay me ₹10,000 a month, that also rejected me. But then now I worked with IBM for 9 years and when I retired from IBM in 2017, I say I retired because I don't, I didn't join any other job and I I didn't switch the company, I retired to my own business. So there I went to my manager and I asked her that, why are you not letting me go? Why are you not accepting my resignation? And she said, Mukesh, it's easy to find people who are good in technologies. Technically strong, you can become very fast. Maybe in 6 months or so you can learn something technically. But if you want to become confident in communication, it takes many years of hard work and efforts. So we have a lot of people who can replace you in terms of knowledge, but very few people, or rarely any, who can replace you in terms of your communication skills, because you are the one who can speak with IT directors, marketing directors, CEOs, CXOs, anybody in English as well as in French as well. And I was only one person out of 100 people in that entire team who knew French. I could speak in French, I could write in French, I could read French that way. So that's one failure which I turned into success, that I was not hired in the company because I was poor in communication skills in English, and then they were not letting me go because I was good in communication skills.

That, that's so amazing. Like, a company who has once rejected you and now they're rejecting your resignation because you are so good in, in that one factor. That's, that's, that's a transformation. And that's probably, I think, what Toastmasters does to all of us. It improves our confidence, communication, and leadership. Thank you so much for sharing.

I'll tell you another. You asked for two, so I'll tell you another, and I'm sure you will be able to relate more with that. See, in Toastmasters, I never became a leader by choice. I was a leader because of love from people, push from people, pull from people. And I give 100% credit of my success in whatever area, be it education, be it job, be it entrepreneurship, Full 100%. See, a pen cannot write in itself. If the pen is writing good, it's the, you know, the beauty of the writer. His handwriting or her handwriting is good. So I feel that I am like a pen. So I cannot do anything without people. So in Toastmasters also, I was pushed by people. I became an Area Director, and then I had no intentions to continue as Division Director. I told my senior people that I'm really sorry, I won't be continuing. But they wanted me to continue, so they pulled me, pushed me, cajoled me. They did whatever they could. And they made sure that I apply for Division Director, and then I got elected. And once Division Director's role was done, I was done with Toastmasters leadership, and I said enough is enough, now nothing more. But then somebody came to me and they convinced me again and again. They called me and convinced me, and finally I applied for Program Quality Director. But I was very new in Toastmasters, just 2.5-3 years, and then applying for PQD, and I had very, very big weight people in front of me who had also applied. So people who were in Toastmasters for 15 years, 20 years, and senior people, and they knew a lot about Toastmasters, they were DTMs already, they had been district officers already and had good network and are actually good people, one of, you know, my inspirations as well. But they also applied, and I also applied, and my, my, uh, in, candidature was rejected in interviews. And I'm a person who cannot really tolerate the failures. So I was not selected as PQD, and hence I thought, I thought now it's time that I must choose the role of PQD. So far I was being pushed and pulled, but now I need to make a choice. So then I went ahead for PQD and I campaigned for the election, and I was— I got elected. I got 62 votes out of 95, and 2 votes got disqualified, and my opponent got 31 votes. It's like 31 is to 62, that was my victory. And then I never looked back, I became district director. And as a district director, I'll tell you, we shattered all the performance world records. It's like not small thing, 96 years, 146 countries, it's a big, big thing. And I do not boast about my success, it's my team's work and team success. But then that comes to my name because I was the leader that year. But, you know, building that amazing team and getting those things done, especially in that tough year— people today feel that this is the toughest year. It's not true. We have seen tough years before as well. In 2016, when I became DD, at that time Toastmasters fee got increased by 25%, and people said that India will be hit worst and North India will be hit the worst because people in North India are very price conscious, very sensitive to price, and we made sure that we were not affected adversely with that because we showed the value of the Toastmasters program to people, which is immense. And hence our growth in terms of membership payments was, I think, approximately 60%, 6-0, and our club growth was also almost 60% if I include inorganic growth as well. But if I include only organic, then also it was 46-47%, which is like amazing because the world grew at 1% or 2% and then you are growing at, you know, 40s or 50s or 60s. It's like huge. And in terms of distinguished clubs, the entire world saw that almost 50% clubs become distinguished, whereas in my case, 126% clubs became distinguished. So from not being elected as a PQD, people thought that I'm not competent to lead the district, to being the most competent leader in the entire world, that's again turning a failure into a success. And again, I do not want to take the credit. My career, my life has been shaped by people. I was blessed with amazing mentors, always in Toastmasters and outside Toastmasters also. So these were two failures where I learned the most, and I gained confidence by overcoming those failures.

Yeah, thank, thank you so much for sharing this. I mean, I, I joined Toastmasters in 2016, the year that you were the District Director. I was part of TCS Noida 6. And I heard you a couple of times, but I do remember one time, I think it was Resonance 2016, and when you boldly went on to the stage and you announced that, no, even if I had my marriage on the same day with the resident, I would have cancelled the marriage and went ahead with the Resonance. That's, that's what the importance of you gave to Resonance. And, and I, and I was so amazed. And, and with like so many other those masterclass, I got inspired so much. So thank you for sharing this journey with us.

Thank you.

So, uh, we talked about your journey a bit and failure, but I want to touch a little bit about your entrepreneurship journey. So how has your journey of Muskeradu been and what are your future plans and things like those?

Sure, sure. I think the interview is happening at the most appropriate and right time because now I am in the best situation to answer the second part of your question, the future plans, the vision, and all those things.

It's tough to get the clarity. A lot of people go with enthusiasm because of guts and passion, they come in entrepreneurship, but then they fail because of no vision.

And there is a saying that people perish without vision. Vision is must. So I'll tell you, I have got immense clarity on my vision during this lockdown by thinking, thinking, thinking, and thinking.

And I have been executing that. Now I'm getting a lot of results already. I see that law of attraction is working because I know what do I want, and hence the universe is giving me what do I want.

So I started my entrepreneurship journey almost 3 years ago.

It started on 3rd of July 2017 after retiring from Toastmasters as a district director. And in first 2 years, I made a lot of mistakes, my own share of mistakes. I'm done with that.

And see, I first of all invested a lot of money in machinery, and people came to me and gave me— yeah, look at Uber, have even a single car. You look at Oyo Rooms, they have a single room. A single car. Again, you look at Airbnb, you look at Amazon, look at Amazon, they do not even have one single piece of inventory. So they are very light asset models. So why did you invest so much of money in the machinery? Why did you come in the factory? You would have started selling stuff and all those things. So initially, at times, I used to get distracted, but then I'll tell you, there is a beauty in getting the machinery and all those things.

See, Businesses, there is not a single person, even if you do not know about them, they also claim about it that they have—

you choose what asset you want to build. For example, Amazon built technology as their asset. They invest billions and billions and billions in technology. Oyo, right, chose to invest money in technology as well as branding. Similarly, uh Ola and Uber, they invested money in the app.

So people can invest money in branding, they can build a brand, they can invest money on the platform in terms of technology, they can invest money in marketing. Somewhere they need to invest money and energy both. So I chose that machinery should be mine so that I can actually be fast to the client, to the customer. I do not ask for minimum order quantity, and also at the same time I can maintain the quality. And I did not regret that decision. I invested all my money. In fact, I had 40 lakhs almost in my hand. I invested all that, and on top of that, I went for a loan of around similar amount, 40 lakhs more.

So it's like 80 lakhs invested, but then it's paying off.

See, Gurgaon, right, has been a centuries-old city, and there are so many people in the, in the industry of awards, but I can claim that my setup is the best in entire Gurgaon. Nobody has a setup like this. I have machinery which no Nobody has. So in terms of mistakes, I'll tell you another mistake I made was in terms of cautious and careful in my compliance. See, in job we do not really understand what compliance is. We just go to work, do some projects, come back, get salary, that's it. But in business, compliance is a big thing, and I was badly hit by not filing some reports. The actual fees of those reports is ₹50, 5-0. But I ended up paying a penalty of ₹7 lakhs, ₹6.5 lakhs rupees. So that was a big blow. It was like a big setback, big setback.

So it took me around 3 months to settle those cases and everything, and it was my peak time, Diwali time.

But then I chose to clarify, clear everything, and I paid that late fees of ₹6.5 lakhs rupees.

And after that then we started again.

So that way, initially there were a lot of mistakes, but now, uh, but though we were surviving, we were breaking even. In around 1 year's time, we started breaking even. We had the motivational gifts earlier, then we had awards, we had marketing merchandise, we had personalized gifting and all. But now I'll tell you, number 1, we have stopped doing personalized gifting because, you see, personalized gifting, 1 piece, 2 pieces,. And having huge setup, a factory, so many people for doing 1, 2, 3 pieces is not feasible. I understood that, so I stopped that. Then I went ahead for a minimum order quantity. Earlier we used to go for even ₹1 worth thing, we'll do it. But then we set a minimum order quantity of ₹2,000, and then now we are setting it up for ₹5,000, and we are focusing only on corporate. So I got clarity on my client now. Who is my client? Corporate is my client. I got clarity on my products that what are going to be my products, not gifts. My products are two, one is rewards and recognition because that's my passion because I personally believe that people love being appreciated, people love getting recognition, people love getting rewards. If you appreciate their performance in terms of trophies, in terms of other recognition and rewards, they can do anything and everything for themselves as well as the companies. So appreciation and recognition is something which can impact the top line and bottom line of any company in a big, big way. So all the good companies, be it, let's say, TCS or IBM or Infosys, or if you talk about global leaders like LinkedIn and all, maybe Google, maybe Facebook, they all utilize the power of rewards and recognition. And in the year 2016-17, when I became world's number one district director I did not pay even single rupee to anybody to work for me or the district. I just implemented rewards and recognition in the best possible manner. We didn't have any lag. We quickly gave rewards and recognition. We appreciated people. So rewards and recognition has a lot of power, and hence I want to focus on this. So in terms of future, I'll tell you, number one, I want to be India's number one expert in rewards and recognition by December 2025. That's my vision for myself and my company. So if any company in India thinks about rewards and recognition, they must think about Muskurado. They cannot afford ignoring Muskurado. Muskurado is going to be the leader in terms of value addition, in terms of innovation, in terms of, you know, being world-class in service, and in terms of claiming that nobody can compete with us. We are the leaders. So that's my vision now, and we're working on that, and we are getting good orders, and a lot of companies are getting attracted to us. A lot of HR heads are connecting with me. And we are not only giving them products, we are also helping them shape a strategy as per the vision, as per the strategy of the company, as per the goals of the company. That what will work best for you. At times, maybe it's not the trophy which the people need, they just need a pat on the back. So I help them in terms of building that culture in the company so that people start giving that pat on the back. They do not buy a trophy from me, but then this transforms the culture of the company. Yeah, so that's my vision for future. 2025, I want to be number one expert in the country, in India, in India, so that, you know, all companies think about Muskur and Mukesh when they think about rewards and recognition strategy or the products.

Thank you so much, and this is so inspiring. Some of the things which I noted is, uh, you, whenever you start a new journey, chances are you will be hit sometimes by small, something like roadblocks, but the, the key is to keep going. And yeah, finding your niche, you don't have to do 20 or 100 different things. Find your niche and then yeah, have some bold dreams. Uh, thank you so much for sharing this. I do have one small question. I mean, the name Muskurado is so intriguing. So how did the idea of having that Muskurado came to you?

Well, I'll tell you, I thought about, I think, thousands of names. When I was in IBM, I had a long time dream that I want to be an entrepreneur. So I went to a couple of countries in Africa, and there I used to have a lot of free time. So in that time, I used to think about it. I made a list of 40 names. I booked a couple of domains. But then when I came back to IBM, one day I was sitting in a tea shop It's in the mall called Star Mall near IBM's office. I was sitting there and all of a sudden I thought about Muskan and then Muskan was not available and there was NGO and all. So I thought it's whatever I do in life, it should be aimed at bringing smiles to the faces of the people and hence I want to tell people that smile please, smile please. So I was looking at smileplease.com, pleasemile.com and then I thought let's give it a twist and muskuraye please, and then muskurado please, something like that. So, uh, I was surprised that muskurado.com was available. So immediately I booked it then and there from that room, and people loved it. People loved it, and we getting good response. I tell you, very funny things happen. One of my purchase manager called one of my vendors, and my personal manager wanted to book 500 t-shirts from the vendor, and we want these 500 t-shirts, these are the colors, and these are the sizes.

And the lady at the vendor's office, she noted down everything, and then she asked her, which firm are you from? And my purchase manager said, Muscurado.

And she started smiling, smiling, said, okay, that's fine, but which company are you from? She said, Muscurado. She started laughing, said, I'm laughing for Muscurado and for asking me to Muscurado, but 'Can you please tell me the name of your company?' He said, 'Ma'am, Muskurado.' She couldn't stop talking for many, many minutes.

So now even when I meet people and they ask, 'Oh, Muskurado is there, let's smile.' So that's how it came. A lot of thinking behind it.

That's what we can all guess, Muskurado. Okay. Yeah, another aspect of you is that you are one of the best-selling authors of a book. We all know Move Mountain One Story at a Time. What I want to ask is the background of the book, but most importantly, what is your one favorite story out? I know all of the story would be like it to you, all of them would be there, but what would be the one story that you want to tell your audience?

Here. Absolutely. So I'll tell this story first because I love stories, and I'll tell you, this is a true story between me and my daughter. Though it is the 6th story in the book, it's number 8, and it's about attitude of— and when I came home, my wife glass of water. I started— I, I'm a sofa and started sipping water. And when the glass was half done, I was also browsing through my phone at the same time. My daughter was around, I think, 3 to 4 years at that time, and she was going to nursery class in a place, and she sat on my lap. And I don't know what came to my mind, but I asked a question. And her name is Navya, but we call her Nabu at home. So I asked Nabu, what do you see in the glass? Is it half full of water, half empty of water? And then she said— she didn't speak anything. She in fact jumped out of my lap, went to the bedroom.

In the bed, on the bed, she had the little water bottle which she carried to the school, to the play school, completely full. And that was a big, big, big eye-opener for me. See, in management trainings, I've been listening to so many kinds of— we— I've been quoting and referring to this question to so many people. But then we always get stuck at attitude, having positive attitude. But that story that day taught me that having positive attitude is not enough. Intentions are not enough. We must actually act. Because when we act, then only we build the momentum, then only we get the progress, and progress is the ultimate motivator. So whatever we do in life, I think you must believe in action. I have always been a believer in action, and this story actually motivated me. So by telling this story, I further motivated so many clubs. And I'll tell you how I used to give it a twist in clubs and areas and divisions. I used to go to, let's say, division meets, and I used to tell people, friends, I know your clubs have— your clubs have 15 members and you just need 20. So don't say that you have 15 or you need 5 more. Add 5 more and then say we have full 20. Or at times, let's say, friends, you are already at 6 goals out of 10. So do not say that you are done with 6, or do not say that you need 4 more. Just do 4 more in a month's time. And then say, "We are all 10 on 10." So that's how I used to give it a twist for people, and people responded so well to this story, very, very well to this story. And that's how me and Deepak Sharma, both of us, many stories from internet, from many books, we heard those stories, we gave our own perspective to those stories, we added the context, how can we apply those stories in our life, how can we, what can we learn today from that story, and how can we get motivated, get charged to do whatever we want to do today. So that's how we experimented with the power of stories. In fact, that gave me learnings. Number one, the power of stories is underrated. Stories are immensely powerful. And second is power of rewards and recognition is again underrated.

Rewards and recognition is very, very powerful tool. Very, very powerful tool.

So what, you know, you cannot even achieve results by spending millions of dollars in trainings and millions of dollars in outings of teams and parties and changing office and giving everybody a phone or giving everybody a car. And you, you cannot achieve results which you can achieve by storytelling and rewards and recognition. So both of these things were powerful. Immediately when I retired, I started the company in the field of rewards and recognition, but then I had to do something with the stories as well. So I combined all those stories which me and Deepak told together to people, and we Inspired People to Greatness and we broke all the world records in terms of performance and we came up with this book and I gave the title. In fact, I was working on the book for 2 years, 2017-2018 but in 2017 by end, we were just around 30 stories and it was not moving. So 2018 beginning on 4th January or so, I got Deepak on board. I said let's do it as a joint project together, let's push each other. So he spent a year with me and I spent 2 years on it. So that book was really, uh, and my, my publisher is very, very proud of this book. He says that this is the book which has sold maximum in all his books.

In fact, he's there for 20 years, he's doing a great job, and this is one of his most favorite books because it sells and people love it and people give great feedback. So earlier I used to be a fan of originality Now I do not watching that.

I believe in changing lives of people. I believe in transforming, helping people.

So even if I borrow a word from Abraham Lincoln or maybe Kalam or any, then there is no shame in borrowing that word and telling the story which Abdul Kalam has lived or will be told hundreds of times. So I want to actually transform people, help them being positive, help them being motivated, help them being achievers.

And for that Of course we can use the content. And that's how the book originated and being loved by people. It has 50 ratings on Amazon and most of those ratings, in fact, average rating is 5-star rating. It became bestseller very, very soon. And I'll tell you another success story. CEO of a company read this book and he said, I want to order 1,000 copies. And I said, what? Are you sure? He said, yes. But then twist is he said, I want 1,000 copies in Hindi. So for him, for him, I got it translated. So we sold 1,000 copies to him, and in 2019 we sold 500 more copies. Total, both the books, we sold around 10,000 copies— 8,500 of English and 1,500 of Hindi. But 10,000 is a big number. In fact, many authors do not achieve it. And my expenses were zero in marketing, zero expenses in marketing, nothing. We didn't spend any money. So that's how the book is helping. I get so many messages, people from people. People say that my dad loved the book. They say that my daughter, 6 years old, she loves the book. Somebody said that his daughter is 4 years, but she doesn't sleep without listening one story from Moo Mountains. She brings the copy to dad and says, Dad, read me a story, please. So that way it's changing lives and making people happy, and that's something which makes me also happy. That's how the book has been.

Yeah, and tell me, let me tell you my personal story. I bought it from Amazon, and I thought Since I had a busy schedule, I'll probably read one story at a time. That would still give me about 2 months to finish it. But the story was so intriguing, I could end up finishing the book in probably 7 to 10 days. And thank you for sharing these amazing stories. Very short, 2-3 pages, but I mean, that's what you want. You want takeaway and action. So thank you. Thank you for—

and that's another compliment. In fact, a lot of people, they do not read in life. They are not readers. So they say that we are not readers, still we can read this book. In fact, people told me that this is the first book of their life after graduation. First book. Like amazing thing. We have Ram here, Ram Krishnanegi. Now Ram has been a great follower. He has been reading that book again and again and again, and he has been posting the stories and, you know, photos of the book all over social media. So he also loves the book. So that way I'm happy that the book is helping people be positive.

That's it.

Truly, truly. And I, before I was leaving for UK, I gave the book to my mentee and she loved it. So thank you for this. And I actually had the privilege of having Deepak also a few episodes back, and that was again an amazing, uh, talking to him as well. So I'm just so, I'll say, privileged to have so many great leaders coming to my show. So, um, Mukesh, I'm coming towards the end of the show. So what could be the 2 to 3 tips that you want to give to any professional, especially to the younger professional who gonna start their professional career, or maybe they are still in their schools and that they want to accomplish more in life? So what would be 2-3 tips that you want to give to them?

Okay, sure, sure. See, uh To the young professionals who are starting their career, maybe as a professional in a company or maybe as an entrepreneur, so whatever way you want to start, a couple of tips. Number 1, no matter how good you are in communication skills, start learning from today. The dynamics of communication keeps on changing. The rules of communication have significantly changed in last 3 months, 4 months. Because of Corona, everything has now become virtual, everything has now become on internet. So maybe communicating to a thousand audience in an auditorium is different versus communicating to people on Instagram or Zoom or these platforms is different. I've seen people become nervous on these virtual platforms though they have addressed 3,000 people in an auditorium and they were comfortable there. So start working on your communication skills, even if you're good. You think you are not good, then of course there is no other way out. We need to work. And when it comes to improvement in terms of communication, I personally feel that I have not seen any platform in the entire world which is better than Toastmasters Clubs. And Harry, you know that Toastmasters does not give even us a, you know, even a penny to promote it. We do not get any money from it, but it's a genuine suggestion to people because we have been benefited by this organization., and hence we want to show the right way to people. Do not waste money in terms of getting online or offline coaching and getting trained and communication classes and all those things. They may not work that well, may work for some people, but Toastmasters definitely works for everybody if you hold on for 6 months, which is not a long time, just once in a week. So that's one suggestion, that please start working on your communication, because if your communication are good, then your chances of success will be multifold, manifold. You think about any good leader in business or maybe in political arena or anywhere, they have been good communicators. You talk about Steve Jobs or Bill Gates or anybody in business, you talk about Azim Premji or Narayan Murthy in India, any good business leader, they have been amazing communicators. And even in politics, be it Barack Obama or be it Modi or anybody, they have been good communicators. So that's one advice. And second advice is, though YouTube claims a lot of shortcuts, you know, get 1,000 subscribers in a day and, you know, get 4,000 watching hours in 3 days, those shortcuts actually all— I'm not saying most, I'm saying all— are false. All are white lie. They actually are fooling us to gain their watch time and their, you know, subscribers and all. They're fooling us. There is no shortcut to success. Though you can kind of, you know, smoothen the curve, learning curve, but then you need to work hard. And if you want to smoothen the learning curve, do not find quick fix, find a mentor. Your learning curve will be short. You do not need to spend 10,000 hours, maybe you need to spend 4,000 hours, but still it's 4,000. It cannot be 10,000 hours to 10 hours, right? And 4,000, when you actually work intelligently, smartly with the help of some good mentors. Mentors are the amazing, amazing blessing on this earth. So if some people can realize the power of mentors, then anything is possible. So my second advice is start working really hard and stop believing in the, you know, quick fixes, overnight success and all. I remember Narayan Murthy once said that my overnight success took me 30 years of hard work, 3-0, 30 years of hard work, and which is true for anything. To anybody. We need to build a base, and that's how we need to progress. People come to me and say, Mukesh, how are you doing one video a day? I work hard. I'll tell you, initially, first video, my first edited video, it took me 16 hours. 1-6.

Wow.

To make that, to edit that, to upload that. Now the time has reduced to 2 and a half hours. And I'm saying 16, even if it took me 5 minutes to prepare the content. That was almost zero. But recording and editing and then uploading and learning so many things, it took me 16 hours. And then slowly, slowly, slowly, gradually it reduced. Now I take 2.5 hours in recording, editing, uploading, everything. And I want to make it to 2 hours by end of this 100-day challenge. So I've taken a break of 4-5 days when I was down with viral fever, and another break of yesterday and today. Now this is intentional break. Break. I was learning so many things. I was— I wanted to change some strategies that what is working, what is not working, uh, you know, how the thumbnails can impact. So I spent almost in last yesterday and today, I spent almost 6 hours in terms of learning the YouTube things. But those are not again quick fixes, those are real things I'm learning, the meta tags and all those things. So number one advice, uh, become good in communication skills. Even if you're good, start working still more. Number 2 is start working really hard. If you're working already, it's very good, it's a blessing. Working hard is, is an amazing, amazing quality which will never fail you. It will always help you succeed. That's second thing. And third thing is, which I already said in second thing, third is you need to find a mentor. Whatever you want to do, find a mentor. Your success will be much, much faster. I'm not saying that you cannot succeed alone. You You can, because a willing heart and head can do anything and everything. You can definitely succeed. I'm not challenging your EQ or IQ or capability. I'm just telling you that with the help of mentor, you will succeed like anything and much faster and much better. In Toastmasters, I could break records, all the records, because of my mentors. I had two main chief mentors, Neeraj Gupta DTM, and then Nagaraj Rao, DTM from Bangalore. Nagaraj Rao was earlier Interim Director and Neeraj Gupta was my District Director when I was PQD and my PQD when I was Division Director. So I have learned so many things from them and then I applied those things with my team and the success happened. And similarly in business also, I'm learning many things from many people and whenever I want to do my own stuff, then I fail. So you can do your own stuff also but then guidance is is something which makes a difference. So I want to tell people that you need to get mentors, everybody, all of us. I have a mentor for YouTube also.

Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for spending time with me and sharing your nuggets of wisdom with all of us. Thank you so much, and I can't be thankful enough for that.

Thank you so much, Haritosh Srivastav. You are doing an amazing, amazing job. In fact, I'm grateful that you are getting so many speakers and so many people here. They're sharing from their own life and learning from thousands of books and hundreds of trainings. And that means it's like crux of everything. So I learned a couple of things in Africa, in the US, in Europe, in India, during my MBA time, like now maybe during my entrepreneurship. And then, you know, I'm sharing best of the best here in this video of 30 minutes or 45 minutes or 1 hour. So it's like treat to everybody. To all the people who are going to listen it.

And folks, I want learning time, so, and that's, that's my personal selfish motive to do this.

That's a good, good motive. In fact, it's a selfless motive, I'll tell you. So folks, if you want to learn more about, uh, you know, what Harry does, you can subscribe to his channel, YouTube channel. He has a good YouTube channel, uh, which is growing very fast, and he he gets a lot of good speakers from across the world very often. As he said, that today was his 14th episode. And in case you want to check out my YouTube channel also, then that's with my name. It's called Mukesh space Kulothia, K-U-L-O-T-H-I-A. So there I have almost 70 videos in last 75 days, and in next 30-35 days will be like 100 videos. And then of course After that also I'll continue. So a lot of value in fact there in those videos.

I will be putting the link of your YouTube channel, uh, wherever I'll share this video. So I've learned so much and great, awesome.

Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you.

So I'm gonna end this episode like I do every time. Let's all help each other, and when we say— when I say help, it's not always about money. It's also about talking to someone for 5 minutes. It's also about feeding a pet. So let's keep learning, keep growing, and most importantly, keep going out of our comfort zone. This is Haritosh Srivastav, and this was episode 14 with distinguished Toastmaster Mukesh Kolotia. I'll be back next week with another special guest. Thank you so much. God bless you all.