The GIVE Strategy in Action

0:00 The topics and opinions expressed on the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests and not those of W four WN Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsement for radio show programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability, explicit or implied shall be extended to W four WN Radio It's employees or affiliates. Any questions or common should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W four WN Radio. This is Beyond Confidence with your host V park. Do you want to live a more fulfilling life? Do you want to live your legacy and achieve your personal, professional, and financial goals? Well? Coming up on dvparks Beyond Confidence, you will hear real stories of leaders, entrepreneurs, and achievers who have steps into discomfort, shattered their status quo, and are living the life they want.

0:47 You will learn how relationships are the key to achieving your aspirations and financial goals. Moving your career business forward does not have to happen at the expense of your personal or family life or vice versa. Learn more at www dot divpork dot com and you can connect with div at contact Dance divpark dot com. This is beyond confidence and now here's your host, div Park. Good morning listeners. It's great to be here because I get to be with you all, and I hope you're keeping that kind of circle going because kindness matters, and one small kind act can work wonders for somebody else in their busy day or in their hectic life. So just a very quick note, one of our audience did send as a beautiful story and I want to give her a shout out. And her name is Yvette, and what she sard was that she shares a good funny thing or a inspirational with the few of our friends who are down and one of our friends, when they met each other like on a weekend, told her it was just the thing I needed to hear. So you never know how that's going to impact people. And also

2:18 for those of you who have got our books, big thank you, and for those who have not to get some of her books because it's a three we thing. It will help you, It will help us spread the message and part of our profits go to kieva dot org will help an entrepreneur. And today we have a very special treat for you, one of good friends and a very special person. We have a guest of Widdy who believes in giving and you know that kindness is very, very dear and near to my heart. So let's bring in our guest. Welcome David. Thank you so much, Davi are great to see you.

3:01 Great to see you too. And David, I know you had a great role model in your mom, So I just want to kind of bring that out. And share, Like, you know, how did Vitty come into existence? Sure really started in as kind of a result of Criterion research. There was a company that she had started in eighty six and I was more doing sales and retail at the time. She had started working with aerospace companies, Silicon Valley tech companies to really help them improve the way they were connecting with people and other across the US.

3:48 Didn't go too much internationally back then that had specialized core competencies in different areas of technology, and she had asked she had had a big project come up. I helped her out and seemed to really do well in that business. So we were right there kind of you know, prefact machine beginning of you know, just as the PC had come out and just seeing that the grassroots at tech and in eighty nine there was data that came out that talked about women being about fifty percent of the workforce, but still such a small percentage in management and upber management positions. And she felt it really just was mostly was a communication breakdown because we'd been working with so many amazing women and men in areas that we're very open to supporting each other. So that's where when he was born, email was just starting. If you could imagine.

4:51 That, Oh yeah, I remember how it used to go to. You know. Exactly, and she thought that was a great opportunity to start building communities. So that's when Whitty was born. M And how did your mom influence you? I, you know, certainly many ways, but I think one was just jumping in and going with her with her guy in her heart on what was right. And if she could keep as you said, Deviat, the opening kindness and integrity and things would be would go well.

5:32 And as long as you're you know, in the space where you want to solve problems for people and clear things out of their way so that they can get what they want, we'd have a good business. Yeah, yeah, No, definitely, and so she definitely influenced you. And how did you take your work and how have you built witty and tell us a little bit more about it, what it is, and because I know a lot of people get. Benefit for sure. So you know, back then she had the idea for Witty. I had just started working with a client who was a company called Borland. There was a very small company up in the Santa Cruz Mountains and they had and again this is right at the beginning of you know what they called the software wars back then, and the beginning of PC software, and figured out how to support them in their high growth. My mom and Carolyn had Witty and it was started as meetings in our living room or in her living room, and then grew and it was just amazing to see how fast technology was growing back then. Nothing compared to what we see today, but back then it was fast, right, and the web browser came out in I think ninety three, that's we had our first meeting at Sun Microsystems, where you know, we expected maybe thirty forty people. There was like three or four hundred the summit in ninety five. Back then,

7:06 everybody had to mail in their registration if you could imagine, you know, we didn't know a few hundred people sign up and then it was thousands, so. That was good. We're able to kind of you know, fund it the beginning with our other company. And then of course I've worked alongside her as well as my brother who had been up at Berkeley and was the first person at CET when that started, so we kind of all came together to help her, even though it didn't necessarily click in until I think many years later for me anyway, just why it was so important, and just hearing stories and people coming up to me all the time and sharing with me how witties really helped transform their lives.

7:54 Right, And so in that journey, you know, you have grown your shelf quite a bit. So tell us, like, you know, how that AI, like you know, AI is here to revolutionize. You're talking about like you know, PCs And I remember like having this gigantic monitor that I couldn't even kind of lift, you know, and it was so heavy. And then you see the intersection of the workforce and AI. For sure, I think AI makes us superhumans, right, And I think, you know, as we saw just a really is things as things started happening very fast, kind of right before chatch EPT was released by open AI, which is the first, as you know, the first large language model and generative AI kind of user side technology. We had recently updated the Federal Glass Ceiling Report to take a look at the numbers and it was sent we had worked on twenty five years earlier with Renee Redwood and her team at the Federal Glass Ceiling Commission and really just looking at, you know, where the numbers were and the small change that had been made. Right after that, we merged our companies together, so WITTY that previously had

9:25 stood for Women in Technology International, we changed what the acronym meant to workforce, Innovation, trust and influence. And really the month after chat GPT came out, we just started having what we call our AI think tanks because we just felt it was so important to make sure all of our community's up skilled and could learn about these tools and contribute to others. Right. I love it witty because we'll have people that are keynoting at other companies, but just or at other conferences and things just coming in and sharing so we can help elevate the community. So you and I have had many discussions about AI and just all the phenomenal tools you know, and the tools that come out every day every week.

10:11 So it's good. I think it's good just to stay current and use what we have, and it's such a great opportunity to connect. Absolutely, So can you share with past and our audience the three step framework that you usually use. For sure? Excuse me, so a few things with AI, I'll say, so as far as the if you're talking about give is that right? Yeah? Okay? Good. So something that Davy and I have had many conversations about and I really engage with our community is as you're connecting with people, right and just building and nurturing your network, things that are just so important because I think many people don't realize just how small of an industry it is. And people you may have worked with ten years ago that reported to you, you may report to later, so you know, it's all kind of the same thing.

11:17 And I think. The more we can reach out to people to give value, it's just important connecting with people. We have tools. LinkedIn is a tool I use quite a bit. There's many different ways to use LinkedIn just to stay connected, and much different than you know the pre web you know, fax machine days I used to call them. So anyway, right, connect with people, share, When you come up with a new AI tool, give it to people that could could really use that, And that's time, right. I think the more we can schedule in and just be intentional about what we're doing and get things on our calendar, I think in this this this uh Ai world, it's there's just a lot going on and it's easy to get lost.

12:16 And I don't know about you, Divya, but it's like when I, you know, maybe I receive a reach out to somebody or an email, you know, it's like, how is that framed? Is this person like doing their homework on me and saying, hey, let me you're doing this? You might like that or done their homework or is it more of a sales email? Could it even be just AI generated? I don't know, but I think it's I think that's blocking people with good intentions and something we need to just kind of stay on top of. And then validate publicly. Right, There's so many things that people can do to really help push their expertise, and I speak to more and more like CISOs, which are chief information security officers.

13:07 People just coming into AI. I think the important value that they add is is there, you know, their expertise in whatever area they have an expertise in. Right, then if you add that to cybersecurity, if you add that to AI, that's where I think a lot of people underestimate the skills and they have because it's you know, it's just a regular thing to them, right, and then engage with empathy. You know, last week I had this amazing dinner with some of the leaders at w g U, which is Western Governor's University, and we had a great talk with doctor Camille Valentine who has her PhD and imposter syndrome them right, So we just we had a real wide range of people. Everybody was from executives you know, CEOs, to people just graduating. I think we had a couple of students, mid level career people and it was just great because I think when everybody really shared how they were feeling, one of the top people there talked about their imposter syndrome in a lot of cases. So I think there is just a humanity that is part of all of this that as we now get more intense and to our AI world, let's use let's you know,

14:38 let's certainly use the tools that will help us accomplish our goals and automate our lives so we could be more effective and have more time to spend with our families, but let's also make sure we're bringing our humanity into it and leveraging our creativity and things to help drive the future. Absolutely, you know you're definitely it's spot on, David. And I want to go back to what you said, is that when you're approaching someone, and this is again the pre machine days, is that you would find out about them, who they are, and then new intentional in connecting with them.

15:22 So just a few days back, probably I think so one of the gentlemen, we have known each other for quite some time, and I was getting like at least like a six part email. I know there are automation campaigns, they have their own places, but the key is that being intentional about it. So we've known and I get like a sixth part and I just archived the conversation. I wasn't going to respond to it because I knew that it was automated versus and this another gentleman, like you know, our paths cross probably in three or four years back and then he reached out and said that, you know, I'm just connecting saying hello and checking in, so like, you know, I must have posted something, so he must have gone, you know, spend that time extra and said that, oh, you know, I really enjoyed this part of your post and looks like you are working in AI right now, so what's new? And that definitely caught my attention. So you're absolutely right about being intentional.

16:28 So in today's day and age, how can people be intentional to build those relationships? Many ways? And I think that first of all, I would just say jump in and learn AI because there's so many phenomenal things coming out every day. And I do a lot of coaching for people that are, you know, at different points of their career and want to get to the next level. Maybe they maybe they got laid off and are looking for the next opportunity. So my so one of my tips is let's show them the AI. Let's grab the AI tool that we just learned about that just came out a few days ago, and use that with your lead in to the person you may want to connect with. Show it, say hey, I just learned about this tool. It can add incredible value after we've researched them. Read, you know, take take a few minutes to read what the person is writing about, what their interests are. How can you support them. I think it's so important now, especially as you know. What I'll say is, you know, maybe one of the more negative sides of AI is just what a uh, the information overload that comes to many areas, right, such as if a company posts a job and all of a sudden there's you know, hundreds of applicants and some people can just auto apply, some are just bots going in, some

17:59 are faith candidates. So I think it gets very depressing for people looking where there just feel like I've you know, I had one guy the other day say he had he had applied for nine hundred and ninety seven jobs against few interviews, right, and now he's assuming, you know, say this, you know, maybe seven hundred companies within that that just don't like him and don't want him. And I said, Steve, right, And I said, Steve, the person that actually needs you probably had no clue you sent in something, right, So I think I said, Steve, you know what you can do, you know what problems you can solve.

18:44 Let's figure out a way to. Connect with who that person is that would that you, that would hire you in a meaningful way, not oh I'm looking for a job, can you help me? Or I saw a job, can you help connect me? Because now we're we're giving them assignments, but let's first go in and give. And I think we've had a lot of success now with that, and I'm happy one of our people just where it was. It was taking months, but she ended up just getting a great job at Apple is being relocated from Massachusetts to California. So fantastic compection.

19:24 That was one more recent ones. I was really excited for her and I knew she was amazing. But you know, but it's it's tough, right, People get beaten down, lose confidence, and it's yeah. It's it's really really tough. And as you mentioned that, you know, don't assign people because so many times what happens is that people treat their connections like, oh, yeah, you know what, here, do this for me. It doesn't work that way. Just like you're busy, other people are busy, so giving. And one of the key things that I've found, like you know, is of course my people and my clients, and that the key is like staying in touch with your connections throughout the year, and it doesn't have to be one hundred messages. It can just be as simple for birthdays, holidays. So that way, when you're connecting with them for something, it doesn't seem very cold. You're looking you are as you mentioned right that you may have found a tool to share it with them. So currently an example, like you know what you are sharing just a few days back, I'm not sure I was reading political or what. There are actually candidates from North Korea who are putting in like real LinkedIn profiles and they are finding jobs and taking our data and moving it back there. So then I decided like, okay, this is the case. You know what can I do to help.

21:00 People? So what I did was I created a whole AI workflows that helps their resume shine and like, you know, what it does is like it will tailor their resume to the job description. So that's one of the things that I've found is that like just don't keep on sending like automating the resumes. Quality does matter. Your thoughts on that, David, I agree with that. I also think yes, so that's that's great. Looking at the companies rather than you know, you know, I always tell my people, let's have a top ten companies. We know they hire people like you, you know, you can contribute with it to them. They align with your your core values and your purpose. They're right down the street, right those you saw a job description that fits. But sometimes just going in that front door is more like a lottery ticket because there's just so many people to choose from. Poor recruiters on the inside can possibly manage all this information. So I think now LinkedIn's a big gift.

22:10 You know. I used to back, you know, back in the early days, you know, I'd have to use like these encyclopedia type books called the corp Tech Directories to then find companies and call people up or go to conferences where their speakers or they're talking about the topic. Now I can go to any company and look at most of the employees and see who to see who graduated from the school I graduated with, to who you know used to be work at IBM like I did. Who used to do this, who used to do that? So then it's really a tactical plan. And if you can narrow it down, you know, to five or ten companies that you know you're going to add value and help the stock go up or just increase value. It's up to you to get to that person. I always tell people in my class, you know, the person who needs you. They're missing their kids softball game right now because you haven't figured out a way to get to them.

23:08 The whole team is under is on overload, right, And some people well I don't know, you know, and I get it right, some people are shy. They don't want to feel like they're imposing on people or something. Right. We all play our head games, did you right? You know, we have the voice, but. If I could just connect in a meaningful way, and that's really you know why Witty started to begin with. You know, now we didn't have all these tools. We just had email then. But it's like, if you have a whole community that's got your back, and you know that no matter where you are in the world, there's a Witty member out there to support you, I.

23:50 Think it just takes off. Yeah, just a lot of the pressure, the guilty maybe not get right, or just just the the self reflection and negative way we have to support everybody to get what they want. And now all these tools usually effectively s good, absolutely. And so much more power to it. Right, Like here you are doing things on your on your own and you don't have anybody during that time, versus you're part of this community, and as you said, there could be members in different parts of the world and you could just even kind of sit down and communicate you know people, as you said, like you know, you might have a CISO in your community, or you may have somebody who's in a job and like how did they find a job?

24:37 They have the connections, So it just gives so much more leverage. And it's not just for job application. It can be during career transitions because so many times I have heard that people leave their jobs and communities because of toxic bosses. So having that coming into you to stand behind you is a huge. Thing, right right. And then just while you have your job, right, you have to continue to build and nurture your network or something might happen. You're the greatest you know, employees to slice bread that company gets sold. There's double people, right, so who knows. So I think just you know, figuring out a way to it's just important. And that's you know again with witty, and that just creating these opportunities we have. I suggest to the people in my class, look, let's let's figure out work with them on companies they're working on. Let's connect with people, let's bring them on as a speaker. And maybe that's the way to approach somebody.

25:50 So you could you could have, you know, build more of that solid relationship. And if right, if everybody's getting a similar message, you know, a lot of times it's me, me, me, I I I right. Still yeah, somebody's like, oh, Diva, you know I just saw you speak about this. Hey, I found this tool. You may really like it. I think it might solve the problem. It's like, wow, that person takes some time to check out what I'm doing, right, Yeah. Yeah, And people, and that's how you build the connections. So whether it's your neighbor. So let's say, if you have a new neighbor. Oh, I live in a neighborhood that's pretty old and I still remember doing this day, Like you know, so many of my neighbors had somebody had brought in a cookie, somebody brought in a like a pie, and then immediately it broke the barriers and of course, like you cannot send pies electronic, but as you mentioned that if somebody has spoken or has done something, you can even like, you know, share a resource. It can just be an article that hey this is this might be up your alley and I saw what you wrote and this may help your audience or something like that.

27:02 And finding ways that brings warmth and personal connection. For sure, and just you know, being able to train our own ais now to really you know, to understand more about us and what our goals are and how we write and where our values are. That really helps me, you know, think about structures. When I want to write an article or a comment or an email, am I pressing a button and having it sent for me? Absolutely? Not right. The human always has to be involved. But that's you know, I think just a way we can, just like the workflows you talk about, create things that are just very proactive and aligned with our goals.

27:53 Absolutely, And you're right. The way I believe is that human has to be an intersection. Because just recently I put something I was working with a client and we put in some data and that data had not been cleaned out because the team figured, oh yeah, I can do it, and what came out was inaccurate data because what was put in, I mean there are mistakes. So AI is only as good as what you feed in. And the key is, like you know, as you were talking about the workflow, so like even creating workflows or tools in such this in a way that the human beings are checking because you never know what it is learning and actually some of the models are coming on that where it is self learning. So as you're doing there and as you're interacting with it, you are making sure that AI is on track, and that would be the future the way I see it and I think.

28:55 So this year you have co founded Stone AI, right, tell us a little bit about that. Sure, Stone AI is a company. Our first industry is the entertainment industry. My partner, Evan B. Stone is just such a genius filmmaker, cinematographer. He's been doing that for thirty plus years. He's somebody that jumped into AI very quick, you know, very early when it came out because he saw the industry changing. You know. He does things like he's you know, directs things like Shark Week and Expedition Unknown. So it's it's exciting been a getting to know him and working with him and what we do is really helping the entertainment industry take the next step into AI to amplify the vision of the directors and producers of shows. We have something we're able to kind of build on top of the IP that that's owned by the studio and really just expand their vision, give them camera angles they may never have thought of, create other scenes that's pulling from their content, and we do this all in a secure, auditable way where we could show full chain of custody from what they shot and own to things we produce. And Evan

30:26 with his with the cinematographer background is just it's UnrealEd some of the things that he creates. I don't think there's any projects now I can talk about because a lot of this just just happened. But very exciting and you'll see something soon and I'll certainly send you personally some links to have you as soon as we have a few things we can show publicly. So that's very very exciting And what made you kind of step into it. Just well, Evan I got to know very well through both community of Witty. He's been part of Witty, he's been part of Metal, which is the men's community. How I met Aaron and then so, yeah, just really became friends and he's been to many of my AI think tanks we have every week. And then one day he's like, hey, I got to show you what I created. It's getting out of control. He's very more on the creative side.

31:27 I need a partner that just understands the business side. I can work with companies. And then so and then it happened I had this security solution for us as well. One of our members, you know that's been a Witty member for over twenty years at just released. So it's almost just like the stars all aligned and we pulled things together. Yeah, and then he's like, do you want to jump into this? He's like, I want to, let's start a company. I said, all right, let's do it. I still run Witty and you know, still will be there, grow the community. And I'm excited about Stone AI because I know that the people in entertainment are hurting. There's a lot of fear. Yeah, just like and just like them and every other industry. We just have to help upscale everybody with AI and then their natural human creativity plus AI will turn into the new jobs or whatever it is.

32:24 Absolutely, so here's the thing like, you know, a lot of people keep on thinking about that, I want to start my own company while I'm working. What advice would you give them? Like, you know, what are some of the things that they need to think about before starting a company, both from the mindset as well as strategy and technical perspective. Have a plan, figure out, you know, what they want and if they could really look out a year or two or three, that's always helpful. And just making sure you're solving a real problem, not creating a technical looking for a problem, which a lot of the very creative tech people have done for many decades. Right, And sometimes there's a problem that's solved, right, or you know, somebody likes Steve Jobs who you know envision things like the iPod and other things.

33:19 When we would have thought. What the record of the tape we listened to? So yeah, so that I would say, build and have your community, right is another reason you need your community to tap into. You need some advice on raising money or technology or help you know a market, a go to market plan. All of this is here for you, right, But it's really like you said, checking in, connecting, giving, being there to support the community. It all comes back. It all comes back to relationships. And as you mentioned that, you know that whether you're looking for the capital, so seeking to connect with the investors or venture capitalists or whatever it is, or just looking for a year to have somebody as a sounding board, or having that minimum viable product like you know, just kind of running that pallet program.

34:23 And all that. And maybe sometimes if you have a community, you can just rely on people and say that hey, listen, like you know, before I bring into the market, here's something that I've brought into existence, can you be matphost beta users? So there is so much strength, like you know, whereas you're doing the same for somebody else, building that community and growing those relationships. So David, what's next for VIDDI? Next for realty, as we continue to evolve, you'll see a lot more programs AI well being and you know, and then in cybersecurity we see so much growth, So really creating more programs to support our members, being able to get expertise in those areas, bringing the experts from the industry together so that we can help with relationships for those and the well being. As I mentioned, right, it's you want to take time to breathe meditate, clear your heads and thoughts. Even though you know now, as telling somebody the other day, you know, I take if I take fifteen minutes off, now that's like I took an hour off because I can get done in fifteen minutes or used to take an hour, right, But so I schedule in, you know, my breathing meditation, even if

35:54 it's for ten or fifteen minutes, right, just I think clearing your mind. We have some great sessions around yoga, needer meditation and and all sorts of things, and and then just new AI tools. I do two AI shows on YouTube. We have three at least three live events every week on Zoom, and then we have get together as you know, in person different parts of the world. And over the summer, I'll be speaking at this AI four conference. Is that on your radar, Diva, you're coming to that. It's in Vegas August eleven through the thirteenth.

36:37 They just confirmed fafe A Lee, who I'm so excited about. Oh yeah, no, definitely No, I have already some other plans. So well, you don't want to go to Vegas in mid August, Vega, it is. Going to be hot. But the things we do to you know, continue to to build relationship and helped connect people. Right, It's so important that with AI, the AI four people do an amazing job. It's kind of a new company. They came out from other industries. I think they had been more real estate. But they had eight thousand people at last year's conference and this will be the second ones. I'm excited, very cool.

37:20 Well, I'm sure that will be amazing. And as we kind of wrap up the show, any advice for our listeners. For sure, you know give and I credit you did yet because you helped you helped me with this and came up with a great acronym. Right. So I think if we're always thinking in terms of giving value, investing time, validate publicly, build yourself up as a as an experted areas and acknowledge the people in your community. Support and just engage with empathy. Right, if there's nothing else we learned during the pan as we went into people's lives, everybody has something going on, right, So if you're just listening through love.

38:09 And that that person is there to support. You, right, sometimes oh, what's that person trying to get over on me this or that? Open up and just listen. For the gold then I think we make life a lot easier for ourselves as humans. You know, absolutely so no fantastic, So thank you for joining us, David and sounds like you are completely a role model for the give and giving and helping others out, So thank you for joining us. And listeners, you know you are the part of our show and you are the solo for show, so reach out to us, let us know how can we help you live the life you deserve and help you achieve your goals and anything we can do to support you. And thank you on for making the show technically possible and be well and take care. See y'all next time.

39:12 Thanks too. Thank you for being part of Beyond Confidence with your host Dvpark, we hope you have learned more about how to start living the life you want. Each week on Beyond Confidence, you hear stories of real people who've experienced growth by overcoming their fears and building meaningful relationships. During Beyond Confidence, Divapark shares what happened to her when she stepped out of her comfort zone to work directly with people across the globe. She not only coaches people how to form hard connections, but also transform relationships to mutually beneficial partnerships as they strive to live the life they want. If you are ready to live the life you want and leverage your strengths, learn more at www dot dvpark dot com and you can connect with vat contact at dvpark dot com. We look forward to you joining us next week.