In this 2020 YouTube keynote, Haritosh Srivastav shares six actionable strategies for pursuing one’s passion, drawing from his personal experience during the COVID‑19 lockdown. He begins by reflecting on his own journey—traveling to the UK, facing lockdown, and deciding to use the forced downtime to explore neglected interests. He then presents six tips: (1) Mentoring – both seeking mentors and becoming a mentor; (2) Connecting with “non‑human” friends – books, podcasts, and audiobooks as sources of inspiration; (3) Trying new things – experimenting with YouTube, Instagram, and various cultural activities; (4) Morning rituals – waking up early (5 AM Club style), reading, journaling, and a practical alarm‑placement hack; (5) Scheduling your calendar – using a calendar to allocate time for work, meetings, and personal passion projects; (6) Mind mapping – visual brainstorming tools (e.g., XMind) to structure creative work. Throughout, he engages the audience with interactive word‑cloud polls and a Q&A session, addressing questions about maintaining consistency in rituals, finding mentors in professional settings, and coping with disappointment when creative outputs don’t receive the expected audience. The talk blends personal anecdotes, practical tips, and audience interaction to illustrate how disciplined habits and supportive networks can turn passion into sustainable action.
Questions this video answers
Haritosh advises that consistency comes from personal experimentation and flexibility. He suggests trying a structured 1‑hour routine split into three 20‑minute blocks (physical activity, meditation/soul work, journaling/reading) as per the 5 AM Club, but emphasizes adapting it to what works for you and evolving the ritual over time.
Haritosh recommends first checking any informal HR mentorship options, then having candid conversations with your direct manager about your need for guidance or referrals. He also suggests reaching out to senior colleagues with 5‑10 years of experience, asking them to suggest someone, and being open to informal mentorship relationships.
Haritosh says focus on individual feedback—one meaningful comment or a single reader can be enough motivation. Keep the purpose of your passion in mind, celebrate small wins, and understand that impact may be incremental rather than mass‑scale. He acknowledges that marketing is a separate skill set and encourages staying true to the core purpose.
Chapters
What can actually I talk about? 6 things that I'm gonna talk about today that can really help you pursue your passion. When you are passionate about something, you can always find out for your time of waking up regularly can actually give you a lot of time to follow your passion. If you are having a passion, should never feel like work. Attended the Readers Are Leaders book meeting about 2 months back, and I was thinking, what if I'm invited as a keynote? What can I talk about? I have not written a book. I am not a speech contest champion. What can I really do? And yeah, as they say, what you wish for actually happens. So 2 weeks after that, Apu sent me a text that Would you like to be a keynote speaker? That's a golden opportunity. How could I miss that? So I said, yes, I'll figure it out. I thought about it, and I thought, what can actually I talk about? And I thought about what have I done this year that could be of real interest to all the people joining today and also watching on YouTube. So I thought about my journey in this earlier this year. In year 2020, as you know, has been, yeah, let's say that amazing. So at the start of the year 2020, I was supposed to travel to UK, and I did travel. My club members gave me a pretty good farewell. That cake was yummy. And I came in on February 23rd, 2020, in UK. And many of you know, one week after that, there was a complete lockdown because of all this virus. And as with most of us, I also felt bad. What can I actually do? I can't go outside, I can't do anything, that too in a new country. So I thought, let's— if we can't go outside, let's try to pursue some passion, some of the things which I have not been able to do in a long time. Because, you know, we all are busy, we don't have time, we have so many things to do. Now we didn't have that excuse, so I thought of pursuing those passions. And during those, I discovered a few key things that I think if you apply would also help you. Now I am not a believer of having too many PPT slides, so I thought let's have some activity for all of you. So let's go to menti.com. I'm also putting in the code in the chat box and put this code and we'll have some fun. Once you join, you will see a question. What is that one word which comes when we talk about passion? What do you think is that one word which will define your passion? Please type in that and let's see. Should probably bring a word cloud. I hope people are able to enter. Okay, it's coming up. Love, enjoyment.
Wow.
Effortless, discipline, self-motivation, content, YouTube, creativity. Amazing, amazing. Interest, I saw Geeta, I'm putting in a chat. Enthusiasm, dedication. Wow, this is getting bigger and better. So what you see is here love, motivation, or self-motivation. I mean, I feel if you are having a passion, should never feel like work. Sometimes for people, the work is their passion, and that we can't define it as work. But at times you have other hobbies, other pursuits that becomes your passion. And thank you so much for putting in all. Now we have one more question, and I promise that's going to be the last one. Have you ever faced challenge pursuing your passion?
7. Yes, yes.
All right, not sure. I would like to meet that person after this meeting, but jokes apart. And I, I would definitely like to meet that person who never faced any challenge because that would be somebody I would look up to. When you think about pursuing your passion, most of the time there is some or other challenges come up. And if that was not the case, I would really love to listen and know about that. Now let me come back to PPT. I am an IT professional, I'm supposed to have PPTs, that is our dharma. So when I think about passion, there are 6 things that I'm going to talk about today that can really help you pursue your passion. And some of them may have a couple of things within that, so feel free to take what you like, and for rest of the things you can blame me. The very first thing I think about is mentoring. If you are passionate about reading or writing or cricket or speeches, you need to do mentoring. And mentoring comes in two parts. The first one is getting mentors. In my Toastmaster career and otherwise, I had the opportunity to have different mentors from across the geographies. And I feel that whatever I do or whatever I've done, it's all possible because I was having a mentor or a number of mentors with me who guided me at every step of time. But having a mentor and after a certain point of time is not enough because you need— and we are in a community— you need to give it back. So you also need to be someone's mentor. These are 3 people who I mentored when I joined back in thesis on IDA-6, and there have been a few more in different clubs. So mentoring, I think, is one of the very important things. And when you are facing challenges while trying to pursue your passion, the mentor could be the one person that could really help you drive and find out what exactly is the challenge and how you can pursue it better. Now, the second thing that can help you is connecting with friends. Now when I say connecting with friends, you— some of you might feel like this is cliché. Friends, we all know we need to connect with friends. So I thought let me spice it up and I'll say connect with non-human friends. And let me clarify, I'm not a pet person. I'm not going to talk about cats or dogs. I don't adore them, but I don't hate them either. I'm going to talk about connecting with some old friends. For me, my old friends were connecting with the books. These are the books that I have read in 2020. Some of them are in process and about to finish. But to me, 2020 was about getting and reconnecting to old friends and at the same time making friends with some new friends, and which are number one, podcast. I discovered this earlier this year, the podcasting. I I did not know much about that, but since I discovered it, I've got obsessed with it. I mean, I spend at least 20, 30, 40 minutes every day going through different types of podcasts, uh, learning from different leaders and, and different motivators. It could be related to finances, related to motivation, related to presentation skills, uh, but it's, it's absolutely phenomenal. And the third, which is it should be common for a lot of readers, leaders or readers club, is the audiobooks, the digital version or audio version of the books. I have read, I mean, if I talk about my favorite book, I have The Secret that I've heard at least 3 times, The 5 Second Rule by Mel Robbins, that's an amazing book. I've read at least, I heard at least 2 times so far. And another piece, if you want to know more about financial Freedom, that's book called Financial Peace by Dave Ramsey, uh, amazing person back in US. So a lot of new friends have made, non-human new friends to say. So that is the second thing that can help you pursue your passion. Now what could be the next thing that can help you pursuing your passion? And that is trying out new things. Now during this corona or this lockdown We were not supposed to go out, but that did not stop us to try new things. As you can see, we had special combined meetings where Toastmasters from across the world joined, from US, UK, India joined. We also— I started pursuing the YouTube, and then I got into Instagram and then started some live Instagram. So this whole 8 to 10 months has been an experimental mode, and I think That has really helped me to grow to what I am, and that is what the message I want to give it to you. Uh, try, keep trying new things. If you are passionate about something, you can always find out. So if you are passionate about dancing, you can try out Garba, then you can also try about Bhangra, you can also try Kathakali to find out what exactly you are more passionate about, or is there something that you really want to try more and learn more about. So that's the third message that I have for you if you want to pursue your passion. Now, what could be the fourth thing? Now, this— any 5 AM Club members here? I know many of you know about Robin Sharma's 5 AM Club, and I'm also part of— I try to wake up at least on 5 days out of 7 days to about 4:30 to 5, and that has been an absolute game changer for me. For last 1 year or so. My morning ritual, and it's my morning ritual, you don't have to follow that, is that waking up, reading about 30 minutes, listening to some podcasts, doing some sort of journaling. And then I'm trying to learn French. My plan was to go to Paris to attend Toastmasters conference, which got cancelled, and I still didn't learn French, but I'm trying. The point here is that when you wake up an hour early, you don't have to really wake up at 5 AM, and one hour early before your natural, before your time of waking up regularly can actually give you a lot of time to follow your passion. Your passion is reading, if your passion is writing, if your passion is doing some more learning new skills, that one hour or that 45 minutes could could be enough for you to go and do your whole day and then come back next day and do that. So now here I have a quick tip for people who find that waking up early is little difficult. This is one thing I've tried and hope, hope you may, might also try. Whenever you're putting an alarm in the phone, don't put your phone next to you. Put it at least 8 to 10 feet away from your bedside. So if it is— and put the most shrilling or, or whatever you feel that this is really irritating sound, you have to put that. And when you put it about 8 to 10 feet away, you actually have to walk 6, 7, 8 feet to reach there. And once you do that, it becomes really easy for you to actually wake up and difficult for you to actually go back and, and sleep again. When it is at arm's reach, it's very easy to snooze or cancel. And sometimes you feel like, I'll wake up an hour early, and then you wake up 2 hours late. So that's my quick tip. It's taken by Mel Robbins. She says that put your phone in bathroom. I'm not going to recommend that, but at least keep it 8 to 10 feet away. That would help you. Now, another thing that has helped me in pursuing my passion is scheduling your calendar. Now, I, I know I'm guilty. When I was a kid or when I was studying, we, we friends used to make fun of a lot of Westerners that they schedule their time for pet walking, grocery shopping, and others. But what I've discovered over time is when you put things in your calendar, it actually works because then it is out of your mind and you can anytime go and check. And especially for people who are working and having these Zoom meetings and other things, If you put something in your calendar, it really helps you schedule and plan your day. That, that has been my key. As many of you know, I'm attending so many Zoom meetings, and I also have a full-time job and also need to talk to my family. So I try to put as much things in my calendar as possible so that one, I don't have to find the Zoom link when Leaders Are Leaders meeting is starting. And number two is that it's easy for me to find out which are the slots I can really use for myself. And which are the slots which has to be dedicated for office works. So that's my tip number 5. And coming to last tip, which is tip number 6, is mind mapping. Now this is more for when you are trying some creative pursuits. For example, you are giving a keynote or you are trying to draw something, you are trying to write a book. Having a mind map actually enables you to think in various directions. While having the base idea. So if you see, this was one keynote I gave about 2 years back in District 11, 1.5 years back, and the point was that how do you increase the— I mean, how do you improve the club culture? And I got one big chart paper and pasted in my wall and then wrote everything I could think about club culture, including how do you greet your guests, how do you make sure that people are motivated, to how do you make sure that people are recognized and everything. And then eventually it turned into a presentation, taking up the idea and different things. So there are different softwares also available that you can use. XMind is one of them. But use those mind mapping techniques when you are in a creative pursuit. That would really help you drive your passion. So before I shut my mouth, these are the 6 tips that I have if you want to pursue your passion. Get a mentor and be a mentor to someone, connect with non-human friends in terms of books, podcasts, and audiobooks, follow morning rituals. And if you are, if you are one of those who want to have an evening ritual, you are most welcome. Schedule your calendar, try out new things, and use mind mapping techniques for your creative pursuits. So now at this point of time, I'll probably Shut my mouth and let you ask any question if you have.
Haritosh, can I come with my question?
Yeah, sure.
Yeah, Haritosh, uh, like this morning ritual, like you told 6 steps, so I want to know, like, setting up these steps and, uh, like following few days may be easy, but be consistent with this step, what you suggest for that? How we can be consistent with this step for a long, long time?
Good question, Amit. Thank you for asking this. First of all, two things here. One is that it is my own morning rituals, and how I find out this is my own ritual is I tried experimenting with different things. Do I like to write first? Do I like to read first? And it keeps evolving. So I might not be reading every day. Or I might not be. So whatever works for you. I think nobody can tell you that Amit, this is your morning ritual. Amit has to find out what works for Amit. And I mean, to be honest, some people actually have evening rituals where we actually— they wind down, and once they are done, they put their phone away and then read a book and then sleep. So whatever suits you, and that depends on how you want to experiment with yourself. There are a few things, like if you talk about Robin Sharma's 5 AM Club, he says that you have 1 hour dedicated and divide that into 3 parts: 20 minutes for physical workout, 20 minutes for your, uh, soul, or basically meditation, and 20 minutes for journaling or reading books. So you might want to experiment, start with that experiment, and go on to see what works for you and what doesn't.
Like, just, I want to know how I can keep myself motivated to stick with this all thing for long run.
So that's a good question, and I think, I believe the best motivation is the self-motivation, as you said earlier, and you have to really find out what works for you. Having a coffee and a book is something for me, but that may not work for you. So you have to actually go into experimentation mode. When I started with morning ritual, I did not have the journaling thing. And now I— it's like I— my first or second thing is having that journaling for 5 minutes, and I do not follow informants. So you have to keep evolving and see what works and what doesn't work. The key message is be flexible and, and see what works for you. That, that probably is the key message.
Thank you.
I would request everyone to come up and ask questions and give their names.
Yeah, yeah, I have one. Yeah, one thing is my question. See, finding mentor in a Toastmaster is okay because it is a similar platform. Here we train that we get easily mentored, but when it coming to professional life or in other field How we can find a mentor? Because I tried, uh, in my profession to tell that help me in this situation, but it is very difficult to find mentor in professional life. So can you give input on this area?
Okay, uh, uh, Chandak, which profession you're part of? Sorry, I did not get that.
So I'm into marketing.
Marketing, okay. Yeah, I think, uh, that's a very valid question. How do you find your mentor? Many of the organizations have some of their own mentorship programs. One of the things would be that you reach out to your HR organization. Sometimes they do have a formal process.
Otherwise, sorry to interrupt you, uh, see, I am not working in a corporate culture. I work in a mediocre company, so I just want you to tell me in that way only.
So I understand that, I understand that. So yeah, even for— I mean, uh, I believe you might have something related to human resources or something. And if not, I think one of the— my first mentor was my first boss, right? And sometimes if you are open to your boss and have a candid conversation with them that, no, see, I am struggling with this, and do you think you can help? Or more importantly, can you suggest somebody which whom I can approach. So always reach out to probably your boss in candid conversation. It could also be somebody who's been there for some years, somebody who's like 5 years, 10 years. He may not be directly your boss, but you know he has been there for some, some time in that industry. That could also be a good place for you to start with. Keep it open that no, you don't have to make somebody mentor. You can just ask them that do they know. And if they are somebody who know, they would say, I would be more than happy to help, or they can actually redirect you to the right person.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
Hello?
Yes, Kanika.
Hi, this is Kanika. So my question is that, like you said, um, you are into, um, you know, you ventured into creative field in this, um, lockdown period, right?
Yeah, yeah.
So, you know, um, like if I talk about myself, so I am an upcoming writer. I just published my solo book and then I, I've— I'm a co-author in several anthologies. So, uh, and when, when I relate to your experience, like, you know, you said you've been a YouTube creator and you've been a pod— I don't think so, you're podcasting right now, but I think you listen to podcasts.
Yeah, I'm a podcast consumer.
Yeah, so, but you've been a YouTube creator and so have been I. But how do you deal with disappointment, you know, when your efforts do not reach, you know, do not reap that fruits that you expect? For example, my book, uh, it's, um, you know, I've, I've, I've, uh, uh, you know, considered the reviews of some professional critics and they found it really good. But then I'm being a self-published author her, I'm not able to market it that well, or the results among the masses is not that well, you know. So similarly, if you— have you ever faced this kind of thing that you've created a YouTube content which is very good but it is not reaching the audience that you expected? So how do you deal with the disappointment? You know, then you don't feel like working on this anymore.
Yeah, thank you, Kanika. That is really a wonderful question. As I understand, the question is that at times we want to— we have done a lot of hard work and we do not get the desired results, and how do we deal with it? And, and to be honest, I am still dealing with it. I, whenever I make a video which I think is going to be super hit, it doesn't get enough views, and I, I do feel motivated, but At that time, I think when you talk, when you get one comment on your video, for example, that is more than enough for me to drive that. You have to find that. You don't have to reach out to masses. If I talk about a book, if you can find one person who says that your book is amazing, I learned something out of it, or if you do not have that person, imagine that who is this gonna help, uh, who is this gonna find it useful, and who's gonna get his or her life changed because of that book. That I think can give you the drive. And then yeah, marketing a book, yeah, there are different mechanisms and I'm not an expert to that, so I'm not going to venture into that. But if you know your purpose behind your passion, uh, sometimes keeping that in mind really helps me. For me, yeah, if I get one or two comments on my video, I think that keeps me really informed, keep me, keep me really up to next video.
