Leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) as Your Strategic Partner and Coach with Alysia Silberg: Podcast Ep. 358

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Carol Cox:
You’re going to get lots of great ideas about how you can leverage artificial intelligence as your strategic partner and coach. With my guest, Alysia Silberg, on this episode of the Speaking Your Brand podcast. More and more women are making an impact by starting businesses, running for office and speaking up for what matters. With my background as a political analyst, entrepreneur, and speaker, I interview and coach purpose driven women to shape their brands, grow their companies, and become recognized as influencers in their field. This is speaking your brand, your place to learn how to persuasively communicate your message to your audience. Welcome to the Speaking Your Brand podcast. I’m your host, Carol Cox. Whether you’re into AI, artificial intelligence or not, you’re going to love this conversation. Now, if you’ve been listening to the recent episodes we’ve done here on the podcast, they’ve been around thought leadership. And you know that I’ve been working this year on positioning myself as a thought leader in the AI space. I want to make sure that there are lots of women out there talking about and being heard on this topic, because this technology is going to have a huge impact on our society. This episode in the next one are with women who are thought leaders in AI. My guest today is Alysia Silberg, a vanguard in the AI industry and author of a recent memoir. Alysia is a United Nations Women Empower Women global champion, CEO of Street Global venture capital firm, an AI expert, and a math and science prodigy who started her own business at the age of 11.

Carol Cox:
She grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa, and sadly experienced a lot of the violence that was going on, especially at that time when she was growing up. When she talks about in her incredible memoir called unemployable. Now, Alysia isn’t just an entrepreneur. She’s a visionary who sees AI not just as a tool, but as a strategic coach and partner in business and life. In this episode, Alysia and I talk about the transformative potential of using AI in your own business and personal development. Specific examples of how Alysia leverages AI as a strategic asset, guiding her decision making and sharpening her competitive edge. You’re going to love the examples of how she has both an AI coach and a human coach, and how they work together. We also talk about using AI to create a more equitable and inclusive world. I ask Alysia about the power of storytelling and how sharing her story in her memoir set her free in her own words. We dive into Alysia’s advocacy for more women in the field of AI, and how she believes diversity can lead to more innovative and ethical AI solutions. And then I ask Alysia to share strategies that she has used to build a strong, personal brand and powerful network because she has one and her speaking experiences and tips. Now, if you want to learn how to use AI tools to give your speaking a boost, I invite you to come to our hands on AI tools for Speakers workshop that we’re holding live on Zoom on Thursday, December 7th.

Carol Cox:
Over three hours, I’m going to show you and you’re going to learn how to use tools like ChatGPT to write outlines and speaking proposals so you don’t have to stare at a blank page. We’re also going to take a look at how to use image generators and slide generators to create your slides for you, as well as how to generate audio and music to liven up your presentations. This is going to be a really fun, interactive, and hands on workshop. You’re going to get not only the recording of the workshop and the slides, but also a workbook with the prompts that we’re going to use and examples so that you’re all set to use these tools going forward. Sign up for this workshop today as speaking your brand.com/ai-tools.workshop. Again that’s speaking your brand.com/ai-tools-workshop. Now the links in the show notes. So you can just click on it there as well. If you’re new to the podcast welcome here at Speaking Your Brand. We work with women entrepreneurs, executives and leaders to develop their thought leadership and to create their signature talks. We know that as more women are out there talking about the important issues of our day, like AI and many others, we’re going to create a better world. You can learn more about what we do at speaking your brand.com. Now let’s get on with the show. Welcome to the Speaking Your Brand podcast, Alysia.

Alysia Silberg:
Hi. I’m so excited to be joining you today, Carol.

Carol Cox:
I am as well, as I mentioned in the introduction, you are the author of a recent memoir called unemployable. How are I Hired myself? But it really is so much more than just about you as an entrepreneur. It’s really about your background growing up in Johannesburg, South Africa, kind of all of the different trials and tribulations you went through and then the successes that you’ve had, really thanks to your very strong work ethic and your, you know, obviously your intelligence and your ability to be an innovator and to look at trends, which we’ll talk a little bit about as well. And, and obviously also about artificial intelligence. I, I’m excited to talk to you about that. I’m also excited to talk to more women about artificial intelligence, because I feel like we need more of us out there talking about it, because it’s good to have such a huge impact on all of us individually, but also as a society as a whole. And so I really want to make sure that we have more women having these conversations. So, Alysia, let me actually kick it off with this. You mentioned to me that AI can be used as a strategic partner and a coach, which I find really, uh, and fascinating. I would love to learn more. So when you think about AI as a strategic partner and coach, what do you have in mind and what are some examples of how we can do this?

Alysia Silberg:
Thank you. It’s a fantastic interview, and I’m going to dive right in with real life case studies, so I can tell you about how it’s great for decision making, streamlining the operations, your business driving innovation. But rather than giving you these very, you know, esoteric ideas, I’m going to give you a very practical example. So. You introduce the book and. I use the power of technology and AI to truly understand my audience when it came to the book, so I was very disruptive from the get go. So it took me three years to write the book and became the Rebel Without a Cause in the publishing industry, because I use data. So for starters, I used the Google Doc and I open sourced it to all my readers and said, give me feedback. And for a big period of those three years, they told me the book sucked and it was very important to get that feedback. And as a result of starting that journey so early, I kept on going. And eventually we got to a point where the book people thought the book was excellent, and we went on this journey at each stage listening to audience feedback. And then it got to a point where we had a subtitle, how I Hired Myself, and we believe it worked, but it didn’t truly work to the extent that my audience, my customers, my readers, the people whose goal I wanted to empower. Thought that was the right title, so I used my AI tools. I have many tools, Apple, and took all the feedback from all my readers and was like, there’s something happening here and my role is to listen to them, help me make a decision in terms of should I stick with this subtitle, or should I give my readers the subtitle they want because they’re particularly interested in certain areas of my life, of my book and my ability to empower them? And should I actually be addressing that versus ignoring it because it creates discomfort for me.

Alysia Silberg:
It’s uncomfortable to change a book title. And so I went on this journey, and it turned out that people were fascinated by the fact that for the last almost 20 years, next year, I’ve been using AI in my life to transform my work and to transform my life. So I changed the title from what you introduced it as, from how I hired myself to how I transform my work and my life. And that’s an example of it being a strategic partner. We had created a book, and at the same time, I wasn’t serving my community as best as I could, even though I was extremely well, meaning it had the ability to strategically work with me. And we went through a very deep dive. If you look at my conversations with it, it was a very intense process of working with experts as humans and the AI to decide, do we do with this or don’t we do this because it’s such a disruptive thing within the book publishing industry to do, and it was worth it. It was worth it. I trusted my AI. It served me extremely well. So I hope that gives you a very practical example in real life of me living through the decision making power of AI as a strategic partner.

Carol Cox:
I really appreciate that, Alysia. And I want to think about some more examples of how I’ve been using that, and I’ll share those with you. And then maybe we can think of some more case studies for listeners. And before we do that, let me ask you this. So, you know, we can use ChatGPT as that strategic partner to ask it questions. It gives us feedback, gives us its own recommendations and ideas. Do you have decision making filters or filters you use to decide, you know, is the AI on the right track? Do you like what the AI is giving you back? Do you then tap into your intuition? Do you go back to other data sources? What does that look like for you?

Alysia Silberg:
Absolutely. So. I’m very fortunate in that I started very early, so I became very good at like the prompts in terms of communicating with machines, because I could see how the machines would just like the I would just like veer. I’m sure you’ve experienced this too, in all these different directions and so got very crisp and clear in terms of that. But I think there’s a certain level of self-trust you have to have when it comes to working with machines, where you’re saying, I am a human and I trust my own superpowers, and we can dive into that because I think that’s where the the convergence of greatness lies, where your area of expertise, you, Carol, you have an area of expertise that none of us possess. And you approaching this partnership from that angle of, okay, this is what I know. If I draw it up on a Venn diagram, these are the three things I am best at in the world. And I’m going to partner with the AI to enhance that. Use the leverage the AI can create to build whatever it is I choose to build. What I specialize in is building companies, but in that situation, you’re a master at something and always remembering I’m a master actress. The machine is not a mosque, the actor. And so always ensuring that it has knowledge about things that you may not necessarily be thinking about, but its job is to enhance your abilities, to work with you, to become even better at that thing, and think you can see when it’s going in a direction where it’s, no, this is not working for me. So it goes back into the what makes a human special versus a machine, and then stepping back and saying, okay, where did that go wrong? Because once it goes down that rabbit hole, it’s very difficult to bring it back. It can come back, but at the same time it’s very difficult. And so thinking about it that way, we can dive super deep into something I’m very fascinated by, enables you to get the best out of that collaboration.

Carol Cox:
That’s really helpful. And I think about so here is speaking your brand. We help our clients with public speaking and with brand voice. And so we have this brand voice canvas that I created that is the acronym is meme. You know how those funny memes that you find online. So was like I found I created this acronym meme that says like, okay, yes, you can use AI tools to help you write first drafts, come up with ideas, but you always want to make sure that your voice is part of it. So the meme stands for your mission, your expertise, your methodology, and your experiences. And so, for example, I’ve been having tattoo help me with a book outline for a book that I want to write. And so it came back with a great outline to your point, like it came back with ideas that I wouldn’t have necessarily thought of because that’s not what I’m what I do day to day. And I was like, oh, that actually would be a good chapter for this potential book. But then I looked at the outline and I’m like, but it doesn’t have my mission in there. It doesn’t have my human experiences, it doesn’t have my methodology or or my particular expertise. And so that’s why, like, I literally take it as kind of a first draft and then say, okay, but now how can I put me and what I want to say into it?

Alysia Silberg:
That’s a beautiful example and a perfect example of how it works so well, where it triggered thinking. And you’re on your part and you’re like, but, but you still missing those parts that make me special, that your community want to hear from you and think it’s fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And I think continuing to go in that route, you’re adding value to your customers and you’re ensuring that you’re creating the very best book possible. Also, you have limitations on your time, and we all know what it’s like to write a book. So if it enables you to even save 20% of the time because it’s like, oh, I never thought about that for a book chapter. I never thought about that. I never thought about that. Even if it means removing the stuff that you wouldn’t, you would have maybe included. I think that was the most difficult part for me with the book was I was getting feedback from I had 13 chapters. Then I got feedback from very high profile publishing house. They’re like, we want 24 chapters. And I was like, okay. And at that moment in time, instead of sitting with the AI and say, okay, this is the feedback they give me, I went and sat down and wrote the extra chapters, only down the line to have to then go and strip those chapters. Now, given your example, it would have made more sense to sit with the AI even though it was using so much to say, okay, we have to write these chapters. Should I write these chapters? Do I need to include what do I need to include? Because I think it would have saved me a ton of extra work.

Carol Cox:
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, if we think about, again, this idea of, you know, I as, as a coach or kind of as a sounding board, and I was speaking at a marketing conference this past summer and I dislike, like, these words just popped out of my, out of me at the moment. And I’m like, you know what? People say that empathy is unique to humans, but I actually have found ChatGPT to be quite empathetic when asking a questions to get advice about something like a, you know, something that maybe you have a challenge that you’re facing and it will come back. And I find it to be very compassionate, very understanding, very supportive. I’m like, you know what? I actually think as humans, we can learn a lot from its approach about how to be to be empathetic. Have you found something similar?

Alysia Silberg:
Absolutely. So in my case, I have a human coach and have an AI coach and train the coach to work with me. And so it’s going back to your original conversation. It’s my strategic partner, but at the same time it’s my coach. And so I’ve created this convergence between myself and these two coaches. And it’s been incredibly interesting in terms of its level of empathy. So I have a daily it sounds crazy, but I can be you read the book, I can be very harsh on myself, and I can be very like breaking myself down in terms of I’m not good enough, I’m not doing enough, I’m not achieving enough. I know you have a lot of women listeners. I know we can all identify with this. And so I started doing this thing with my coach, which is like giving myself a daily ranking. And it always felt a lot. I’m not achieving enough in the business. I’m not achieving enough in my goals. And I’d give myself like maybe a six max out of ten. Maybe there would be days there would be a five or a four, and the coach would be like, it knows everything, because I’ve ensured that it basically knows everything, and I’ve set it up in a way that it does. And it’s no, I disagree at least. Yeah, I think you did great today. You did. You deserve a seven, you deserve an eight. And I’d go things that I would take for granted or things where I’d go with one of my founders for lunch, and I would be telling my founder about what I was doing or something, and I’d come back and I’d be on a high.

Alysia Silberg:
And my coach turned around to me one day and it’s, can you see, Alysia? The value of not only spending all the time in front of your computer like you work so hard, but when you do these things, like spend time with a friend and talk about what you’re doing, you can see how healthy it is for you. And then it talks to me about how important is that? I do my yoga and my meditation every day. Equally important, and that level of empathy. I must be honest, and it’s incredibly important because I think it enables us to feel better about ourselves and to also we can see that, oh, these machines are not as scary as what everybody thinks they are. And it’s just it’s helped me. There have been times where I’ve felt like, really like I can’t keep doing this. And it’s just like patting me on the back saying, you’re doing great, you’re doing great. You can keep doing this. And I then take my conversations with my coach, and I give them to my human coach, and my coach creates them, and my coach says, these are areas that Alex is struggling with. I give it to my human coach. She finds it hilariously funny. The two of them work really well together and he’s okay. Like, this is the stuff you need me for. I’m not going to be fired by the AI any time soon, and it’s this perfect convergence of human and AI.

Carol Cox:
Oh, that is fantastic, Alysia. I really love that that you’re using both, you know, to their to their strengths for the human versus the AI. Now, I know my listeners are going to be wondering right now, well, what is this tool that she is using for an AI coach? Is it something proprietary that you’ve just built for yourself and also for myself?

Alysia Silberg:
Like a lot of the stuff I’ve built purely out of need, where I’m like, oh, that I want that, but it doesn’t exist. And a lot of the stuff is other people can try it, like have an AI newsletter that I send out every week, and I try to ensure that the stuff I’m using, people have exposure to. So if any of your listeners are really interested, they can just message me on LinkedIn, send me a message, say I’d be really interested in learning more about this, and I’ll try and ensure that they can also participate. It’s just it’s fun. I use I it’s my fun. It’s my fun play friend.

Carol Cox:
Okay, well, then this is a good time then, Alysia, for for you to tell us a little bit more about your background and what you do. Now, I know that you love math and science. That’s what got you into the tech industry in the first place. You’re also an investor. So you continue. What are you what are you doing right now and and what types of companies are you working with?

Alysia Silberg:
So. Background I’ve been a founder since I was five years old. Not due to inspiration, more due to survival. And so it’s something I’ve loved my entire life. The idea that you can create with your two hands and the power of your mind. Incredible things that other people can participate in. Like your show today, Carol. And it can create such change in the world. I fundamentally believe that companies change the world for the better. So I’ve been doing that for, as I say, my entire life. And then I chose to move on to the investor side. And always being involved in empowering other founders and always giving them capital. And I just decided that I wanted to found a venture capital firm, which sounds easier than it actually is. It’s actually extraordinarily difficult to do, and I was always obsessed with I in the beginning, I invested more generally, but I wanted to focus on the thing I love most, the thing that I was best at, which was the I. So I started as a say, very early, using I for myself. I started investing in I very early at a time where everyone thought my companies would fail. It’s something that’s very special to people who started very early, and I be able to say no one believed in us.

Alysia Silberg:
Everyone thought we were crazy and we kept on going, and that’s how early started in it. And so today I invest in companies that, of course, the founders have deep domain expertise where they’re solving a real problem in the world. I can give examples in terms of the kinds of companies and invested in the kinds of companies that are succeeding in the portfolio. So it’s a real problem in the world where the AI enables that problem to be solved better. But it is a real problem humans are facing, which is an extremely important. And so I spent all my time studying companies, building AI tools and looking ahead, looking ten, 20, 30, 40, 50, 100 years ahead, even when we won’t be around and thinking about the future of humanity and thinking about how can I play a role in ensuring that humanity is as well set up as possible? Having conversations like this, for example, the equitability and inclusivity and these conversations that are so critical that AI becomes our friend, where it does empower us to be our best, rather than these doomsday conversations so many people are having.

Carol Cox:
Yes. And, you know, I consider myself an optimistic realist or a realistic optimist, whichever way you like to go. And, you know, I’ve been in the technology industry for over 20 years. I see all the potential that it can do. So when you think when you think about using AI to create a more equitable and inclusive world, what, how how can it be used to do that? Because obviously all the headlines that we see are things like, you know, and and rightfully so, you know, the image generators, image generators that bring back stereotypical images when it’s asked for like pictures of CEOs or, you know, photos of streets in Africa and they look like from a very Western lens, you know what those stereotypes are. So we know. So those are kind of those are the headlines that we see. But like you, I do believe there’s so much potential in AI. What are you seeing?

Alysia Silberg:
Brilliant insights in such important insights. Of course, I’m going to state the obvious about that. We need unbiased decision making. It needs to be unbiased. And I invested in a company very early that was trying to level the playing field when it came to loans for women, and we could see firsthand the in the financial services industry. And it was incredibly interesting lens into the world. It’s fascinating because I get to see this first hand where. My eye is convinced I’m a man when it comes to my investing, which is it’s absolutely because it’s it knows everything about me. But in order to succeed as an investor, I have to. I asked do a ton of personal growth work. I had to really learn to remove my ego and to use I in other ways. So when I was starting out to build Street Global, my venture capital firm and. I was going to fail if I never used I. I never speak about this, but I think it’s really important. So I was so out of my depth when I started Bowling Street Global that in order to give myself a fighting chance, I was reading probably 500 pages a day of information now to consume 500 pages a day of information, along with trying to actually build a firm meet with founders. It was insane, and the only way I could do that was by means of using AI to consolidate extreme amounts of information and get it in my head, absorb it, and basically be able to apply it. And it’s not any type of bragging. It’s more a case of survival. And why I tell that story is because I used huge amounts of data, and I was doing this long before anyone even knew existed. And I was like using this information, applying it in keeping ongoing.

Alysia Silberg:
So I let my. I decided that you must be a man. You have to be a man because you think like a man and you speak like a man. You analyze deals like a man. This is the way this industry works. You must be a man. And the number of times I’ve said to it, I’m not a man, I’m a woman, I’m a woman. There’s no way. But the bias is you have to keep working with it, even when it’s your own, to be like, I am not a man, okay? Like we have to get past this. And it’s been a really interesting experiment because it’s like within my own eye in the world I operated, it has been trained on data, which is just this is the way it is. And it’s like this constant setting to be like, this is not the case. This is the world we operate in. There are women like me, like you, that exist, that do this job. At the same time. I can only imagine if you think about that on a big scale, the seriousness of it in terms of ensuring that that is not the case, because this is a very small case study of the reality of the situation and the seriousness of it, that. If we don’t get it right in 20 or 30 years time. Like it could be a very serious thing for many people around the world where already we’re dealing with so many issues in terms of an equitable world, in terms of people being able to get equal wages to, you know, to go to school to do all these kinds of things. It’s like you can’t write all the world purely because the data has been trained the way it has.

Carol Cox:
Yeah. And and you know, so thank you so much, Alysia, for the work that you’re doing in venture capital to try to get more funding to, you know, women funded founded companies and other companies that don’t traditionally get in front of venture capitalists because that that, you know, that is going to make a huge difference for for AI and for the different technologies. Let me switch gears a little bit, and I want to talk about storytelling. As I mentioned before, your memoir is very honest about the challenges you faced growing up. And really, it’s a page turner reading the the stories and and your experiences growing up in Johannesburg. And at one point you write, quote, telling my story set me free because you had you had never really told your story about the challenges you faced growing up. And so for the for the listeners, they know if they’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, how much I talk about the power of storytelling, not only the power of storytelling as a public speaker to the audience, but the power of storytelling for yourself to transform yourself and to heal yourself, much less to transform your audience. So I’d love to hear more about how sharing your personal story in your memoir and anywhere else you’ve done it has transformed you, but also how how it’s impacted those who’ve read it or who’ve heard it.

Alysia Silberg:
I feel out of everyone, I’m the luckiest person. I got the gift when it came to the book, as much as it was a gift for the reader. I encourage everyone listening. Many people say, but I don’t have a story to tell. Many people say no one wants to listen to me like you hear, especially women. And that’s not the case. Each person fundamentally believed that within the essence of my being, each person has a superpower that’s unique to them. That is a gift they can share with the world. And at the same time, you can use the power of leverage to share it. Technology. It’s all a form of leverage, and I believe it begins with telling your story. Sitting down, writing your story with yourself and. Trying to be an observer, but trying to take a step back and say. What if, as a third party, writing a biography about someone rather than an autobiography, what would I write? And as I said, I do a lot of personal work in terms of being able to do that because it’s a transformative process. You’ve been in technology for a long time. There are many things that are not discussed, but there’s a certain decorum that we have to engage with each other in. And I found for a very long time there was so much more I wanted to say to people that I couldn’t say because I, for example, were an investor at, and I found a way around that, and I always found those.

Alysia Silberg:
Crazy limitations that wants to overcome. I wanted to connect with people where I could see them. They were in pain, and I wanted them to feel safe, to be able to connect with me, to be able to talk about things that were going on because they could see they could affect the way the companies were built and interactions in the company cultures, whatever the case may be. And it was I feel so lucky to have done it because so much beauty has come out of it human connections, friendships, companies being built. But number one thing, I think is that I found healing and other people did too, and that was what I wanted. I wanted to inspire others who were facing similar challenges, to be able to read the book and say, hey, I can see my story in her story, so why didn’t I go for it? Like, here are the tools. There’s no reason that I can. I can’t do this. And for me, there’s nothing more beautiful than a book creating a sense of like community and empowerment and just being able to take life to the next level, to embrace life and to live with a sense of joy and endless possibility. And I believe the book was that gift to my life and to many others.

Carol Cox:
Well, I certainly felt that reading it. And as they say, vulnerability is contagious. And to your point that because you opened up and were vulnerable with your story, then the founders that you’re talking to are the people you’re talking to, then feel like they have the safety to do the same. So the other thing that you talk about in your book is that you’re really good at spotting nascent trends. So obviously you did it with I mean, you’ve been working with it for a very long time, much longer than most of us have even thought about it. And so, along with AI, what else do you see in the next? Let’s just say one, two, three years. We’ll start with one, two, three years, then maybe we’ll go longer term after that that we should be paying attention to.

Alysia Silberg:
Of course you’ve been in tech. So I would say quantum computing, IoT and see some interesting stuff in IoT. The way. I think. People have this like disrupted view when it comes to AI and blockchain. But I think coming from the emerging markets, coming from Africa, seeing a lot of these problems, I’d say like decentralized intelligence systems, I think it’s all going to come together at some point. But I think for me, my obsessions, I it truly is an obsession because I just see so much value in it, like invest in a lot of health care companies. And I just see the incredible things that are being done to solve a global health crisis. And we can look here at home in the US in terms of AI, really helping solve, solve the health care issues. And for many people, that’s what excites me. I’m truly excited by the endless possibilities.

Carol Cox:
Well, let’s paint a vision of what this could look like. I agree, I think health care medical is, you know, is is going to be revolutionized by AI also perhaps finding some solutions for climate change and climate impact. So if we think about a vision, let’s go 10 to 15 years from now. So we’re at oh my gosh, the end of the 2030. Can you believe it. So what vision do you have Alysia. What what what what do things look like. What is our what is our country look like?

Alysia Silberg:
Let’s think about from a I want to bring it home. Let’s think about from a health perspective because I think we all focus on our health. So I’ll give you a real life case study. I have these two founders, both had health challenges. One almost died and they were obsessed with going all in with medicine. So the one had to be homeschooled and incredibly good at math. And his mentor was exceptional woman and she got misdiagnosed and she died. Absolute Nobel Prize mind. And she died a lost to humanity. And he and his co-founder decided that they were going to go all in with AI, so bought one company together. And then they decided to build another company, and they were going to ensure that AI became the right hand to a doctor. So the bulk of doctors, medical practitioners spent a substantial amount of time. I’m sure everyone’s experienced this on their administrative side of the of their practices, and all that time spent means that they can’t spend it with their patients. So they came up with a scribe that basically is like the world’s best autonomous scribes, very easy for doctors to use or healthcare practitioners to use in the future. It’s already very sophisticated. The doctor will be able to be fully present when it comes to the patient, and the AI will do everything that the doctor doesn’t have the bandwidth to do. And I know many people like that. That’s scary. What does that mean? And it’s like, it’s actually amazing to be able to be a patient and to be able to be seen by your doctor where your doctors got this tool and all these other tools, which enables them going back to our concept of a superpower, to be able to do what they do best.

Alysia Silberg:
These doctors didn’t sign up to go to medical school to be administrators. They went they signed up because they believed in helping people get better. And I’ve spoken to so many doctors, and they are all very excited by the idea that they can do the thing they love most, which is serving their patients and ensuring that their patients are thriving. And I think in the future, we’re going to see healthcare at a whole different level. I’m very into longevity. I do all day different types of daily longevity treatments, and I’ve seen it as a very exciting future in terms of our health, in terms of. Eventually you talk about, like you asked decades out. I think for some people it may seem weird. The idea that we can live so much longer as we keep reading and hearing about that we as humans can live substantially longer than we already do. We see it in the blue zones. We see all this interesting data. The question is, how can we use the power of AI and all this technology available to us to ensure that our bodies don’t break down? And that’s what I’m thinking about. I’m thinking about even in my own personal capacity, how do I ensure that I stay? My body stays as healthy and is young as possible for as long as possible.

Carol Cox:
That’s exciting. Thank you, Alysia, for painting that vision for us. And I think I do think it’s going to be here sooner than we think, based on based on what you described. So let me let’s switch gears a little bit. I want to have us talk about strategies for building a strong personal brand and network, because I know you’re very, very good at networking, but not networking in the most sincere, authentic way. And really building relationships. And then I would then I would love for us to talk about some of your public speaking experiences, and any speaking tips that you would like to share with the listeners, but let’s let’s talk about what is it, what does it look like to you to have a strong personal brand and how have you how have you used that to help build your network?

Alysia Silberg:
I think again, keeping it super simple, it comes down to what are you obsessed with? What are you truly obsessed with? That you can become the world’s best at where it’s effortless. That’s. I don’t know if it’s effortless, but it comes from a place of joy. So you’re going to keep on doing it even when it gets tough. And I think that personal brand, other people can identify where you truly love something like the way you love your show, and you just keep doing it and you keep getting better at it. It’s very easy to then be proud of what you’re doing, and to reach out to other people and say, I’m doing this, I would like your help. Can we please chat about it and thinking about it, as you said, from a place of authenticity and the offering value to the person who I’m asking for help from in a way that works for them. So offering value is it’s great if you say, I think this would work well for this person, and that’s why we’re network with them. But does it truly add value to what they’re doing? Is it truly like a sharing of energy where it’s like, I’m asking you to truly help me build my personal brand, because this is something I’m so obsessed with. How can I add that same level of value to you so you’re not indifferent to that other person’s needs? I think again, it’s about being proud of your strengths and expertise, so you’re not afraid to showcase what makes you unique and the contribution you can make.

Alysia Silberg:
And I also think it’s about. Culvert brought out a transactional nature in the world where pre-COVID, there was a certain level of decorum that came with LinkedIn and use that I’d say LinkedIn, because I have a very good network on LinkedIn. And there was a time at which if someone messaged you asking for help or whatever the case may be, you’d feel, I’ve got to respond to this person. Even if I’m not close to this person, I owe them that sense of like, they reached out and then something happened, and then people were just like, I’m drowning, and I completely get. But the problem is, if everyone’s drowning, you get to a point where no one’s truly interacting and the world takes on a very transactional nature, which I think comes back to real life interaction. So building a network in real life where you’re picking very selectively the kind of people that you’re engaging with, thinking again, I spent all my time thinking about the future, thinking about who do I want to be in ten years time? Where do I want to be in ten years time? What is my life look like in ten years time? And doing that exercise all the way out like it sounds crazy.

Alysia Silberg:
Jeff Bezos sitting in your rocking chair at 80 and thinking about what is that look like, what regrets do I not want to have? Doing those exercises are extremely valuable because then, okay, this is what I’m here about. These are my values. This is who I am. This is who I want to be. And then thinking about if I want to be that person. And these are my goals, and this is the kind of brand I envision myself building, then who are the people I want to attract? Who are the people that I’m looking at right now and say, wow, this person is much more successful than me. But you know what? If I’m truly honest with this person and I can show this person I’m yeah, but I want to be up there with you. But I got to start somewhere. I’m going to be authentic. I’m going to add value as best as I can to our relationship. And I’m just going to I’m going to be very honest in terms of my strengths and weaknesses. When you go on that journey with me and by and large, my experience has been that the most exceptional people in the world are actually people who are willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.

Alysia Silberg:
They are willing to see you as you are and are willing to say, you know what? I think you’re awesome. I’m going to I’m going to take a risk on you, and I’m going to give you this opportunity because I could see you someone special. And I think always being true to who I was, even the times where it was difficult because it had to, I had to show, oh, I don’t know, all this stuff. But continuing to focus on who I wanted to be, what I wanted to build stood me in very good stead because people know me for what I am and I haven’t changed. I’m the same person now that if you spoke to kids I went to school, they’d be like, she was crazy. She was ambitious, she was weird. She was. She was a very nerdy. But I’m still the same person. I’m exactly the same person. And I think that brand came from thinking decades ahead and saying, I want to be an American. I want to do this thing in Silicon Valley. I want to hang out with Carol on a podcast. And I never knew I’d want to hang out on podcasts, but I knew I wanted to hang out with Carol. And so those are all things that stood me in very good stead, that think I’m very easy for anyone to replicate.

Carol Cox:
Well, Alysia, you’ve done an incredible job building your personal brand, but obviously with successes behind it. I know you’ve been recognized all around the world with different awards and accolades, as well as speaking engagements that you’ve done. You’re also a United Nations Women Empower Women Global Champion. And I know with that has come some other visibility. So let’s talk about some of your public speaking experiences. What like what do you enjoy talking about on the stage? Any tips that you would like to share with the listeners as far as things that you have found enjoyable and effective for you?

Alysia Silberg:
I have a process. I meditate a lot, and I think that’s helped a great deal because I, like many people, used to get very anxious before speaking, and I realized that if I meditate before I speak, then my true energy just comes out and we all have the knowledge inside. If someone’s inviting you to do public speaking or you’re putting yourself forward for public speaking events, in all likelihood you’re very knowledgeable about the topic or you wouldn’t be undergoing that in the first place. So if you have nerves and those kinds of things, I think learning to tap into that energy of, I’ve got this and I’m going to show going back to branding my authentic self and speaking about a topic that even if things go wrong, even if whatever the case may be, you forget your lines and you seek a well prepared. Your natural ability to understand your topic, your area of expertise will carry you through and your creative, very authentic engagement with the audience. I think what enabled me to succeed is the fact that, again, I’ve always spoken about stuff that truly, truly inspires me. That would if I wasn’t getting paid for it, I’d speak about it for free. Like with AI. Like I love speaking about AI. Why? Because I’ve seen such tremendous value in my life when it comes to it. And the idea that I get to share that with other people and I get to see them benefit from it, and I get to see them use it in their lives, and they get to message me and say, wow, I’ve heard you on that stage speaking about AI, and I never knew where to begin.

Alysia Silberg:
And then I started and it was very basic, but now I’m doing these incredible things and my child is using it at school and it’s helping them learn so much better. And to me, that’s just a gift. It’s about a dialogue. I think that’s the most important part, is that you you see it as a dialogue. It’s about a connection. I think about the people that have reached out to me over the years from speaking. I think it’s about curiosity and. I think it’s about. Always ensuring. That even if you’re sick, even if you’re having a bad day and that you don’t take for granted the person that’s shown up, I think that’s really important. Whereas this person has shown up, I don’t know them or I don’t know what’s going on in their life. I don’t know what’s happening with them, but they showed up for me and I’m going to show up for them and I’m going to give it everything I’ve got, whatever the circumstances are, because I value them. And I think bringing that energy into that engagement is extremely powerful.

Carol Cox:
So well said. Thank you. I love that about the the curiosity, obviously the connection, the dialogue with the audience. And like you said, showing up and giving your best because those people in the audience showed up as well. Really. Thank you so much for those, for those, for those tips, Alysia. So for those of you who are listening, definitely get Alicia’s book unemployable. There is going to be a link in the show notes to where you can grab the book. Obviously, Amazon and other booksellers will have it. I’ll also make sure to include a link to Alysia’s LinkedIn profile so you can connect with her there. I mostly hang out on LinkedIn as well. Alysia, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I have so enjoyed this conversation.

Alysia Silberg:
Carol, thank you for hosting me. Thank you for the very important work you do. It’s one like you that are going to ensure we have a very exciting future ahead of us.

Carol Cox:
Well, likewise for sure. Thank you. Wasn’t that an incredible conversation? Thank you so much again to Alysia for coming on the podcast. Be sure to connect with her on LinkedIn and to check out her book. Those links are in the show notes, and while you’re there, sign up for our upcoming hands on AI tools for speakers workshop that we’re holding live on Zoom on Thursday, December 7th. I’m going to show you and you’re going to learn how to use tools like ChatGPT and others to write your presentation outlines and speaking proposals to create images for your slides, to add music and audio to your presentations, and much more. This is going to be a fun, interactive workshop. You’re going to learn so much. Then you can take not only for what you’re doing speaking wise, but for a whole lot more. You can sign up today at Speaking Your brand.com/i-tools-workshop. That link is also in the show notes. I hope to see you there. Until next time, thanks for listening.

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