In this year‑in‑review vlog, Haritosh Srivastav, an IT project manager at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), reflects on his personal and professional milestones in 2021 and outlines his goals for 2022. He highlights his achievement of becoming a TCS Silver Certified Mentor and a Contextual Mentor, and details his continued training efforts. He reports growth of his YouTube channel (from ~220 to 384 subscribers, 25,000 total views, 150 videos) and breaks down content categories (inspirational interviews, blogs, book reviews). He discusses his podcast "Small Town Bigger Dreams," which released 27 episodes and amassed 350+ plays. Haritosh shares a reading list of 14 books he completed in 2021, ranging from "The Big Magic" to "Start With Why," and provides brief impressions of each. He describes his deep involvement in Toastmasters—member of three clubs, president of Basingstoke Speaker, treasurer of Global Online Advanced Toastmasters, member of Unique Hindi Toastmasters Club of Delhi, and Area Director for District 91 UK. He celebrates the success of his own book, "Small Town, Bigger Dreams," which became a top‑5 bestseller in personal time‑management on Amazon India, sold over 300 copies, and funded more than 240 meals through the Change with One Meal Foundation. He mourns the loss of his mother in March 2021. Looking ahead, Haritosh plans to focus on growth in 2022 by expanding his public‑speaking coaching (masterclasses, Telegram community), translating his book into Hindi, distributing it on additional platforms, and reducing the frequency of YouTube and podcast content to concentrate on speaking coaching. He ends with an optimistic New Year message.
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Did you review how your year went by? Well, I certainly have. Hi everyone, my name is Haritosh Srivastav. I'm an IT project manager, bestseller author, certified mentor, and a public speaking coach. And in this video, I'm going to talk about the things I've done in 2021 and also a few things that I missed. I hope you will like it. Let's start on the work front. I work as a project manager in TCS, and apart from doing the regular deliveries to the project, I did achieve a few things. Number 1, I became a Silver Certified Mentor, a TCS Silver Certified Mentor, which is a huge, huge achievement for me. I also became a Contextual Mentor, or also I did a number of trainings to keep myself abreast with the technology process and domain thing. So that was number 1. Number 2, let's talk about this YouTube channel. When we started the year 2021, we had somewhere around 200 subscribers, 220, and now we are 384 subscribers. So it's a gain of around 163. Our total views have gone close to 25,000, which is up by 13,000. And our total video count is gonna be, including this video, is gonna be 150 videos, which is double of last year. Now to give a little bit more about the videos, we have close to 40 inspirational interviews, 12 blogs, and 10+ book reviews. So I hope you Go through the channel and see the kind of content that have been put in there for a couple of years. And if you like that, feel free to subscribe, like, comment, share. Number 3, podcast. Many of you know I started a new podcast on the 1st January of 2021 called Small Town Bigger Dreams Podcast. Now that has since published 27 episodes so far in this year. I had promised I'm gonna publish about roughly an episode every 2 weeks. So sort of met the goal. And we have 350+ plays, that the number of times people have listened to the podcast. So roughly about 1 person have listened to the podcast every day. So, so, so grateful for that. Thank you. One of my favorite things as part of my morning ritual is go through various books, and I love reading books. And I'm so happy to share this year I completed 14 books. Now for a few years I was not reading at all, and I'm so happy that I've restarted my book reading. So now I'm gonna show you all the 14 books that I've read in 2021, and you'll probably get to know. So let me start. The first book is The Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. It's an amazing book about creative thinking and creative minds, and I loved every bit of it. Book number 2, which I finished last week itself, it's called 12 and a Half by Gary Vee. Gary talks about 12 skills that are really, really essential for leadership, for you to grow as a leader, including tenacity, including humility, including courage, and, and a lot more things. And he's been really, really candid It's an interesting book, so I like that. Number 3, The Story of Toastmasters by Ralph C. Smedley. This was again, uh, present, uh, gifted to me by one of the district Toastmasters district leader. I love this book by Ralph C. Smedley, which talks about how it all— the, the revolution of Toastmasters started around '95, '90, uh, '95 to '97 years back. And in fact, 10 more years back. So a great book if you want to know more about Toastmasters. And my next book is also actually related to Toastmasters, which is A Handbook for Building and Sustaining Vibrant Toastmasters Program Incorporation by Past Toastmaster President Pat Johnson DTM. So love this book. A lot of it is about how do you build a club in a corporate environment? How do you sustain that? How do you help it thrive? So great book. Now we are moving towards very, very interesting book. The next one, which was actually recommended by my dear friend Abhishek Deyraj, is called Making Breakthrough Revolutions Happen— making, sorry, Making Breakthrough Innovation Happen by Poros Muncy. Now this is an amazing, amazing read for not only for Indians but for people across the world that how you can take a situation which is so, so daunting, so, so difficult, and you take it forward to different level. Whether it's, it's the public administration, whether it's the eye surgery, whether it's you take one small product and do it, whether you are part of a— whether you are a part of an international MNC but you still grow your local brand out of it. So amazing, amazing read. The next one is, yes, the probably the blockbuster, blockbuster book of the year, The High Five Habit by Mel Robbins. I got this as a pre-order and loved every bit, bit of it. I'm, I'm thinking maybe I should go through that in 2022 once again. Amazing, amazing book. If you have not checked it out, do go and check it out. Mel Robbins also completed 1 million subscribers on YouTube. So congratulations to Mel on that. I'm pretty sure all of your viewers really learn a lot as, as I learn a lot from you. Next book, again, recommended by a district Toastmaster district leader, is called What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith. Again, amazing book if you want to take it to the next level. Loved a bit. The next book that I read is very famous book. It's called Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy. Brian Tracy, it's a collection of short, uh, lessons that you can take in your life to actually achieve what you want to do. So Eat That Frog. Next one is again a recommendation from my YouTube subscriber. She wanted me to do a review. I could not do a review but I've gone through the book. It's called Ignited Mind by late Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam. Very, very amazing book. It's a collection of all his speeches and talks and incidents that happened to him for 10-20 years before he was gone. And it's an amazing read. You must check it out. Next one is recommended by a dear friend, Gaurav Gandhi. It's called Designing Your Life. Build the Perfect Career Step by Step. I found that book interesting. Yeah, I'll keep it to there. The next 3 books are again very, very famous books, and I loved every bit of it. Number 1 of it is— yes, how can I forget? Atomic Habits, the global phenomenon by James Clear, which not only tells but actually shows you the way How do you build habits in your daily life? Going on and on and on. The next one, and my second last book of the year if I may say, is The Everyday Hero Manifesto by Robin Sharma. I've done a review of the book in my channel and I'll, I'm gonna put the link over here, but it's amazing book. It's not a typical Robin Sharma book, but it's a sort of a memoir. Memoir and biography and collection of stories. So if you are one of those readers, do check it out, and you can check the reviews wherever it comes. All right, the last book of the year, which was again a gift by a dear friend and Toastmaster leader, Antonio, Antonia, is called Start With Why with Simon Sinek. Why is it that, uh, when, when Harley-Davidson launches a new bike, people go crazy? When Apple launches a new phone, they there are queues which go on for kilometers. So this book talks about why is it so important to start with your why versus what or how. Amazing book by Simon Sinek. Do check it out. I loved every bit of it. So that were the 14 books that I've read in this year. High Five Habit, Atomic Habits, Big Magic, Everyday Hero Manifesto, Making Breakthrough Innovation Happen, Start With Why, Designing Your Life, What Got You Here Won't Get You There. There's another one, Man's Search for Meaning, which I don't have physical copy now, uh, by Viktor Frankl. Amazing book again. Ignited Minds by Dr. Kalam. A Handbook for Building and Sustaining Vibrant Toastmasters Program Incorporation by Pat Johnson. Story of Toastmasters by Ralph Smedley. Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy. And last but not the least, 12 and a Half by Gary Vee. Let's move on to another aspect which I really treasure and enjoy, is being part of the Toastmasters community. At this moment, I'm actually member of 3 clubs. I'm the president of Basingstoke Speaker. I'm the treasurer for Global Online Advanced Toastmasters, an online-only club. And I'm also a member of the Unique Hindi Toastmasters Club of Delhi. So, so proud to be connected with all the all the 3 clubs. And also I embarked on a journey to be an Area Director in Toastmasters, uh, since July. So I am an Area Director in Toastmasters District 91 UK. So that's about my Toastmasters journey as well. Now, now time for me to give the highlight of the year for me personally. Now I'm gonna say I never thought I'm gonna be an author, uh, I never ever dreamed about that, dreamed about that. But the reality is my book, Small Town, Bigger Dreams, came earlier this year in Kindle and also paperback came out in November. It became one of the bestsellers. In fact, it went on to become top 5 in the personal time management in Amazon India. And so far, to give you more statistics, statistics, We have sold over 300 copies, both in Kindle as well as in paperback version. If you recall, some time back I announced that we are gonna sponsor 2 meals for people through the book sale. So the book has actually helped more than 240 people get a meal through Change with One Meal Foundation run by Mr. Kiran Varma. So I'm so, so grateful for all of you who have got the book, who have helped me in this journey of helping Kiran Varma, who's on a, on a journey, on a road on his own. So thank you so much for that. This review will be incomplete if I don't talk about my loss. The biggest loss this year was when I lost my mother on 30th March 2021. My mother took her last breath. It was not expected. She was not in that zone to go away so soon, but reality is she's gone and we deeply, deeply miss her. And I feel so proud to be his son, and I've learned so much over the years. And I think I'm gonna live my life by going through all the memories, uh, of her and, and lessons that she taught us. So I miss you, Mama. So what's the plan for 2022? I'm gonna say that 2020 was for exploration, 2021 was for creativity, and 2022 is going to be for growth. After a lot of thinking, a lot of soul searching, I've decided to pursue the journey of being a public speaking coach to help empower individuals become a better version of themselves. I've started doing the public speaking masterclass. If you or anyone you know would be interested in that, I'm going to put the link in the show notes, in the notes, or as well as in the comment section. Feel free to check it out. Also, you can join our vibrant Telegram community for public speaking enthusiasts where people learn, share, and care for other public speakers, and we all come together and help each other. So do check it out as well. Also, based on the feedback of many people earlier this year, I recognize that lot of people want Small Town Bigger Dreams to be available on different platforms. So we are gonna work towards making Small Town Bigger Dreams available on other platform, for example Barnes Noble, etc. We're gonna also work on creating the translated version of Small Town Bigger Dreams, starting with the Hindi copy. So I'm so excited for that. We're gonna have the Hindi copy come out later in 2022. And, uh, yeah, a bit of strategy thing. I love doing YouTube, I love doing podcasts, but I think with all the things going on, I'm gonna be less frequent on these. So I'm gonna still post videos and post podcast interviews, but it's gonna be way less than what I did in 2020 and 2021. I'm gonna focus more on public speaking because this is where I think My true, my true calling is calling me. So I hope you will support me, you'll understand me, and do let me know what else I can do to better. And I wish you all a very happy New Year 2022. Let us make this year the best year of our life. I am so excited for myself, I am so excited for you. Let's make it the best one. Once again, thank you, take care, and see you in 2022.
