Galya Westler | How To Become An International Speaker

The publishing for profit podcast is brought to you by ghostwriters in C0. Earn more money by publishing better content and learn how to increase your thought leadership so you can build your brand head over to ghostwritersandco.com for more information. That’s ghostwritersandco.com and now your host, Joel Mark Harris.

Joel : Good morning. Galya and welcome to the show. How are you today,

Galya: So nice to see you in. So nice to be on your show.

Joel : Yeah, it’s so nice to reconnect. So Gallia joins us from Berlin, who, and she stuck there in quarantine.

Galya: no problem.

Joel : You just, okay. So this stuck at we work then.

Galya: Yes.

Joel : so I want to talk to you about, so you’re a TEDx speaker.

that was four years ago. I can’t believe it’s been that long, but you talked about social media and how it makes you feel isolated and how it makes you feel lonely. Do you feel that still the case four years

Galya: later? You know, it’s been exactly four years ago. We did the last rehearsal on the 29th we got on the stage.

We had an opportunity to meet there. I think that the research that I’ve done, you know, to deliver my talk and the talk that I gave from a technological perspective, maybe talks about the problem, about loneliness that people feel, but if you think about what is happening today. Today. Social media is all we have because people are in isolation.

So the research that I talked about in my TEDx talked about the fact that people are overusing. Social media to really glorify their lives, which are not that great. They ended up comparing themselves with other people, which scientifically there is proof to show that they’re feeling more lonely and loneliness is as dangerous as smoking with 40% mortality rate, which means that social media, according to the researchers is not very good for you.

And my topic was about how to use technology and social media. To actually win the game of this loneliness. Because if you join certain groups of interest using social media, you can actually feed the loneliness and feel more connected with people. But I think today, the group of interests that I was talking about is unfortunately the global pandemic that is happening.

So the theory still holds true. Where is you have some sort of a common interest that people share, which today is the pandemic. Today is the fact that they’re aware stuck at home in a lockdown, and how are you able to regain personal connections? How are you able to do your job? What do you do when you lose your job?

What do you do when you lose your business? So, so much of that commonality, it’s now, it’s now very apparent to all of us, which is why social media is one of the best ways. And technology in general is one of the best ways to connect them. And we’re using zoom right now. Not to get to the city too soon because they don’t deserve it.

But I mean, we’re using it. We could have used WhatsApp, we could have used telegram, whatever, to be able to have this video conferencing.

Joel : When people, now that social media pretty much is the only way to connect with a lot of people because they’re self isolating or they’re in quarantine or you know, they just can’t meet up with their friends and family. What tactics do you think that people can use so that they don’t feel that isolation and they, they don’t have that depression that often comes with short social media?

Galya: I think that it’s, outside of social media, you need to have your circles of friends and family. And then, you can use social media in order to connect with these circles of friends and family. And if you are working on a greater cause, on a greater challenge in your life, and you could use larger groups using social media.

I think that people are, they need to be able because they’re in isolation to get out there a little bit more by trying to reach out to people because it’s really dangerous, especially if you’re in isolation to be emotionally isolated. I mean, we are physically isolated. Some of us are alone, some of us have a family, but a lot of us are separated from our parents or our grandparents from, you know, the parents are separated from if they’re elderly couples separated from their kids.

it’s really important to wake up in the morning and reach out to people, and, and still keep that close touch with the community in order to really not lose your mind. The second thing is people need to have some sort of a routine. So you wake up in the morning, you have your coffee, maybe you do some exercise, maybe you get riding to work.

Even though you work remotely, you should still dress up. I should still try and look good regardless of the fact. If you’re using video conferencing, and I know this, and you know this because we’ve been working remotely for many, many years and true advocates of working remotely, you have to have,

Joel : yeah,

Galya: you have to have a routine and you need to have clothes on.

Those are important.

Joel : I think those are really great tips. Thank you. So can you, for listeners or viewers who want to, have a TEDx talk to, wants to be on stage, can you describe your experience and a little bit about the process leading up to your speech?

Galya: Yeah. So first of all, we have been part of the amazing community of Toastmasters, which is an international club where you can join many, many clubs in different parts of the world.

I now join center of Berlin Toastmaster here in, in Germany. Yeah. They’ve worked with me with, with, with open arms. And I actually targeted them because that was my, that was like my plan to get familiarized with the city and really bright people to be my friend. Toastmaster has been my path in order to be introduced to Jews because Julius was working with Roger on the TEDx.

She was a volunteer. She said to Roger, which we all know Roger, he actually founded our club that he’s the one who would be FedEx Stanley park. And back four years ago, he got the license from Ted to actually hold one of the biggest TEDx has in Vancouver, or you know, thousands of people at queen Elizabeth.

And I was very fortunate to be, interviewed. I was in front of a committee. I presented the topic of social media and loneliness from a technology perspective. And then I’ve been assigned to be with a mentor, and then it’s about eight, nine months. Of really, hardworking process where you present script.

Joe, you also helped me with my script and they shed it. They like tear it apart, smash it, and, and then you have to make another one and another one and another one. And about after the hundred and 50 version of my script, well, lots of amazing people have helped me. They’ve approved it. And then every month or so towards the, towards the leading, time to the event every, every week, or it was in a separate, every month we had to present.

I talk. So as a public speaker, you learn how to be a public speaker, a Toastmaster, but to be a Ted, Ted speaker and to be a TEDx speaker is completely different level because you have to be in a level where you’re on a global stage and you’re not saying things like, good evening, fellow Toastmasters and most welcome guests.

No, you need to start with an amazing, imagine the world where everybody’s lonely and we can all be connected. You need to really be like an amazing, amazing influencer. Capture an audience from all around the world. That’s a very hard challenge. And if it wasn’t for the mentorship, and if it wasn’t for all the people that have helped me write my script, if it wasn’t for me, practicing in front of a live audience says any thought of my friends that have helped me as well, but I have to give credit to my dear friend Marsha from Philadelphia.

She worked with the actual Ted. Like, we’ve got TEDx, which is locally run, and we have the actual Ted where you kind of need to be sort of like a Steve jobs to be there. So she worked with the actual Ted people, and I showed her my last, last version of my script and she said, it’s horrible. And so I think I was 10 days before the event, and I was like, what do you mean it’s horrible?

So we changed it again a little bit. I introduced them. It’s a very interesting technique, and then I just change it actually, without getting the approval. What I did is I came to the general rehearsal. General rehearsal happens about a week before the event. You put on your nice clothes, you do your hair and makeup, and I went into this stage and I was like, and I mean, I think there were in some sort of a shock because they were just like crying.

And then I ended up, I ended up performing that version of my script. Nice.

Joel : Have you always been interested in technology?

Galya: Yes. in high school I was not, I was interested in, then I studied French and I wanted to be a psychologist, so I studied sociology, psychology, and I was also a dancer and I also, I went to Columbia university to study law.

Which I failed miserably. but my, my passion in law is because I used to watch LA law and I thought, and also my passion is fashion, and I thought, Oh, I want to look like them. That was my first time. But quickly after the Israeli military in Israel, you have to go. When I was 18 I was drafted. When I was 20 I was released.

I mean, I had to choose what I wanted to study, and I didn’t want to study psychology or sociology, not in languages, you know, even though I couldn’t be like a professional dancer or anything. So how to choose a profession, and my dad gave me the best tip of my life, which is, he said, if you study software engineering, many doors will open for you.

My reaction is software engineering. I barely like finished math in, in high school. I mean, I finished high school with, with a good remark, but I was not a person who excelled in math and physics and I never studied computers, you know? And he said, and, you realize I’m your daughter, this is, maybe you think you’re talking to someone else.

He said, no, you can do it. And I did it. Within the four years I studied software engineering, which opened many doors for me. And that’s when. The love and appreciation and the curiosity about technology really started in me until today.

Joel : And is that how plazas came about?  I was here. Your company. Can you explain a little bit about what that is and yeah.

What do you guys

Galya: do. So Plaza started after I incorporated to galvanize, which is another company. I arrived to Canada about 13 years ago, and I worked in a, in the, in my career as a product manager. So being a software engineer. And having a lot of technical knowledge allowed me to manage projects and then to be the product manager, which is the person that takes the idea from the stakeholders head and translates that into a technical document and works with a team in order to make it a reality.

So any idea for an app or website, you come to someone like myself and then we make it happen and we also happen to manage the projects at that time. I’ve reached a point where I, I, I always say I hit the glass ceiling because being a product manager is a very creative role. And I started to not get along, especially with my bosses, and I would either get kicked out of the company in a Canadian polite way.

I’m being asked to leave because you know, it just did not work. It wasn’t a good match. Or I left. And actually a lot of the time the, I did a lot of turnaround time in startups and startups are like, I mean, I have a startup. They’re the worst because they end up with very high budget. They give you this astronomical salary.

Then they realize they can’t afford you. Then problems start to emerge. Being a very honest and upfront person. It never, never drives very well. So I found myself outside, either I or I T I’ve taken myself outside of that game and I really had no choice but to go back to my consulting business, which I actually started before starting my career and really focusing on providing product management services as a contractor so that I have the control who I want to work with.

And then I started getting more and more bigger projects in software development, particularly in apps. That was like the specialty. And then, I met my former boss, but it didn’t work out with his company. And he said, I remember you being a very brilliant person. I would like to invest. So he invested.

Along with his partner. And then we added more investors. We got into the blockchain space because we really believed in creating, self-serve systems for businesses. So the focus was about creating B2B solutions, and the focus was how do you create a solution for a business where you can empower them to create their own website, their own app?

Their own backend system without being dependent on developers. So this concept of self service systems really resonated with investors, which is how we started to build a Plaza, which started as an app builder. You could create your own social network on our platform and just like, like split up and an app within seconds.

And then we decided that it really fits with the blockchain philosophy. Which is how do you empower people to own and control and, and, and to be able to monetize on their data? How are you able to empower users? And really the empowerment of the users that we’ve done were business users. So we start again getting into the blockchain space, we raised a little bit more money and we develop our own communication protocol again, in lines of creating private social networks.

Because I talked about the social media aspect and how people should really join groups of interests. We created a tool for people to create their groups and for them to be able to own what the data that is being talked about on the group. So it was basically an idea of creating like a Facebook group.

That is, is a, is, is using blockchain technology to be able to have people, eh, take the brand of the group and marketed to their friends. So they would get incentivization every time they would promote, for example, the Nike brand or some other influencer brand. That was the idea. And as soon as we got into the blockchain space and we started to raise money, the market crashed.

But luckily for me, I’ve always been on stage giving different keynotes about the technology and clients have started hearing about what we’re doing and they were curious of how blockchain can be interesting for them. And that’s where we got into the space of developing blockchain solutions for businesses.

And today there’s more development where we’re getting into health and blockchain actually with regards to covet. After participating in very, very important hackathons with regards to the carpet crisis and how can technology help, with the existing pandemic and also prevent the next pandemic. So, really, really interesting path.

And, and if it wasn’t for my amazing team, and you know, a lot of perseverance. And a lot of innovative ways of making the company work. I mean, we just talked about difficulties that are happening to a lot of businesses and a lot of individuals during pandemic times. And, and, and you know, as an entrepreneur, you have to, you have to be able to persevere and you have to be able to reinvent yourself, not just entrepreneur.

I mean, lots of people now working for companies losing their jobs, they have to come up with ways of reinventing themselves.

Joel : Yeah. That’s, that’s like, that’s a very interesting path for sure. And I think we were talking, before about kind of the applications that, you can use with Kobe and with self-testing.

Can you talk a little bit about that or is that still under wraps?

Galya: Yeah, I can talk a little bit about it. we’ve done global hackathon, which consists of 40,000 people. We also did hack the crisis Netherlands. I mean, now being in Europe, actually the majority of the team is in Europe. Our clients are in Europe, which is why I came here.

And then. Got stuck here. And so we did the hackathon about two months ago and we got a lot of attention with a simple idea, which is how to use blockchain is self sovereign identity. Self sovereign identity means that I have my ID, I have my passport, or this is my rework. passports and simply by tapping, they know that it’s me.

So self sovereign identity means that you are scanning your government ID and the app only receives the credentials that would be verified. For example, the app doesn’t need to know my full passport number or my date of birth. It only needs to know that maybe I’m galley and these are my last four last digits and I am an authorized Canadian and maybe I have some sort of a health insurance.

Only these credentials are stolen on the app. And then we came up with the idea of the user being able to go through a test PCR, because we work with San Quin. San Quin is the Dutch blood bank, and they run PCR tests, which is a test that alarms allowing you to know within hours if you’re shedding the virus.

And so, the use case with them was they’re sending the test kits to per person’s home. They take some sort of a swab. There’s another type of test called antibody tests, which we can go there, puncture that finger, whichever the case is. They take the specimen and they put it inside a special package, and in the mail system, there’s a way for you to send it in some sort of a, conditions where it doesn’t get too warm or too cold.

They sent a sample to the lab and the lab. I can push the result directly to the person’s phone. So everything that’s happening from a technological perspective, nothing is stored on the cloud, and only parts of information is stored on the person’s phone and encrypted on their phone, and the user has to push.

To the lab, the authorization for them to give him his test results. And then once the test result is received on the person’s phone, they can then share this with your authority. So if you think about a use case of going to an airport, and it’s happening right now with the Vienna airport, they make people go through PCR testing a lab there, or you can go to quarantine, so you can choose what you want to do.

But basically. I mean the governments, they have to know the status of the people, right? But this really gives validation to the idea that what if there could be an app that a person can validate themselves in an anonymous manner, yet verified, go through test, received the test results to their phone, and then once they log into the airlines website and they, they print their boarding pass their status of being, for example, COBIT tree.

It can be associated without QR code. And then they go to the Gates and the app opens, opens the gate for them because they’re not shedding the virus. So because they have some sort of levels of antibody, and that’s basically the idea. And it went to a few permutations, but the essential user flow has been validated again and again and again and again with different partners.

And now we’re working with who. On how to make this a good use case for even for post-market civilians, which is how, how do these manufacturers of these tests get to improve these, these, these test kits, this, for example, cover test kits or HIV test kits or any other disease that a person would like to test for.

And also how can you use the data in an anonymous manner. To provide research. So if you think about vaccine and like seeing that’s going to come out, it’s really important for the drug companies to know this anonymous data, even how the vaccine is working in correlation with other drugs, that the person who’s taking, and if you think about the essence of this, this activity is the connection between the patients and the authorities, such as the pharma company or the manufacturer.

Or the or the blood bank or the government, they have to have a connect communication with the patient that will, but that will gladly give some of his data if they knew it was anonymous and if they knew that he can really help with the research to try and find a solution for this one DEMEC but also prevent the next one.

Because if you think about, the problem right now in the world is, is the information is, it’s not accurate. And even if it’s accurate, you don’t know. I mean, you might do a PCR test, you go outside and then you get infected again.

Joel : Yeah. I think that this is definitely the wave of the future because people are going to be more aware of, you know, of, health and, you know, potential outbreaks and, we’re definitely not going to be going back to the way things were.

So I think people will be more vigilant that these things are definitely necessary for sure. So I want to, I want to switch gears a little bit. So you are international speaker. You speak all over the world about social media, blockchain, probably other things. how can one Become an international speaker because it, it really does seem like a, an amazing lifestyle to be able to travel all across the world.

I mean, you’re in Berlin. I know you, you, speak in Israel and obviously North America. So what are some tips you can give, to so people can, start this

Galya: path? Yeah. So, you know, the world of public speaking right now is been very much, difficult because I mean, you can’t travel really right now.

Even for me to go back to Canada, I’m struggling. I don’t know actually how to do it because I can’t just be encountered. I need to be able to go back here. There’s activities in Europe for me personally. I mean, I was counting on the back and forth. And I’m, I’m, I’m stuck like many other people in the world.

So if you’re a public speaker and you want to go and perform in other places, first of all, travel is not really possible. Secondly, there are no conferences. Certainly, even if there are conferences, they’re going to be small. They’re going to be some limitations unless, unless they take on the approach of testing, which I talked about.

and to be able to identify who is safe, who is not safe, it still keeps social distancing or be, maybe that’s the plan for me, the way it worked thus far, and I still do conferences online. I took the advice of Bosco. Bosco fell a friend of ours, and he’s much, much more,

Joel : On that podcast, by the way,

Galya: amazing.

Bosco is an amazing guest for you to have because he really knows the art of being a public speaker and charging for it. And when he told me, he said, you have to build your portfolio. Kind of like any other job, right? I mean, I, I don’t look at it as a job. Personally. I don’t, for me, my job is my company, but I look at it as a way to deliver messages, to get sales lead to be a thought leader.

I mean, if you are a professional person and you really focused on your job and your purpose in life while you’re doing this job, because you need to absolutely love what you’re doing. And if you love what you do, end up. Actually, be able to provide for yourself with this job. You could be a thought leader that can deliver really important messages.

And so for me, the way I did it is the TEDx has opened many, many doors for me. I don’t like to bring this topic, but being a woman, I just, I had this, I hate this topic. Because for me it doesn’t matter. You can be they, it could be a, she can be, he can be whatever you want, doesn’t matter your gender.

Nevertheless, a women in technology in blockchain are rare specie. So as the air specie, I get invited to talk about technology, blockchain being a woman, and which can be very interesting for some people, but I just happened to find my niche. And, I did the TEDx. That really helped. I did a lot of keynotes.

You need to do a lot of keynotes and presentations for free. You need to have some sort of a framework like Toastmasters to be able to practice again and again and again. I always stand on the postmaster stage and they’re like, what are you doing here? And he’s such an amazing speaker. I don’t think I’m an amazing speaker because I sat you down like an athlete.

I know this is hard to believe that this is an athlete, but.

Joel : Yeah,

Galya: I’m an athlete in public speaking because every week I get to practice. Every week I get to be challenged. Every week I do table topics, and so I want, I can do speeches and it’s all about the practice. So my point is that you need to be, have some sort of a niche.

You need to be very good at it. If you’re not good at public speaking, you shouldn’t do it. You should still practice kind of like an athlete. And then you need to have the opportunity to start small and present in public, occasions. Maybe now it’s online. And then you, you can, present in front of larger audiences and very important always get feedback because you don’t know how you’re perceived and you want to be able against, depending on the audience, to be able to give value.

Because actually when you’re on stage, it’s not for yourself. You’re onstage because you are some sort of a vehicle to deliver a message. And so you’re onstage for the audience. And if you need to cater for the audience and need to understand what are their needs. And then based on that, have your performance.

Joel : That’s awesome. That’s some really great advice. It’s, is there somebody who that sticks up in, sticks out in your mind, has really influenced, I guess your, either your speaking or your career or just who you are as a person.

Galya: I have to say it’s my mom and dad. I usually say it’s my dad, but if my mom is missing, it’s not yet.

Obviously it’s my mom. My parents are amazing. My parents are just, I miss them so much. I can’t go to visit them right now. they’re amazing. They’re really amazing together, which is, you know, on a personal note, if you ever wondered why I love it, that is loud. And I wish that for every person on this planet to have such love and also the love that they give to their children and the wisdom.

My dad has been in high tech for many, many years. He was president of different companies in Israel. He’s traveled all over the world. He’s very much into MEP guys almost. A B, and he looks amazing. And my mom as well, but my dad is interest technology. I mean, he knows a lot about blockchain. I mean, he buys like the latest Android in the Google phones and he sends me,

and then we have discussions about blockchain. I mean, no, what? People don’t know blockchain, right? But my dad knows watching because he has a researcher mind. Then my mom brings the whole emotional balanced piece where. You know, sometimes I can be a little bit robotic with work, but there has to come some emotions and emotional intelligence, which my mom excels at.

So I think it’s a good balance of these two mentors that are in my life and I wish for them to be safe.

Joel : Nice. And they’re on Vancouver Island right now, is that correct? So how did you come to Canada like, and why settle in Vancouver? Okay.

Galya: I was born in Montreal. My dad did his PhD there. So he got a citizenship.

My dad is Romanian and my mom is adoption. They met in Israel shortly after they moved to Canada. myself and my older brother may he rest in peace for born. We were born in Canada. We went back to Israel. So we basically grew up in Israel. Then my little brother was born there as well, so call me back here was very easy.

You just. Claim your social insurance number and Canada welcomes you back. The reason why Vancouver is because I was in a relationship once upon a time and the guy wanted to move to Canada and I said, Canada, Oh my God, I’ve never been, I’ve only was only born there. Yeah, it’s cold there because he brings back the spreadsheets that shows me the amount of water that Canada receives and the amount of snow.

And he said West coast is where he want to be. And he showed me the research and he said, it’s amazing there. It’s warmer that he kind of forgot to tell me. It’s really raining there. And I mean, he did tell me, but I didn’t realize that, you know, coming from Israel, I just expected, he said warm. I just expected sun.

So the first time that I landed in Vancouver, it was raining and I had no umbrella. I was terrified. I was like made out of sugar. You can’t walk in the rain. Even until today. I don’t understand this. 13 years in Canada, in Britain, Berlin, Berlin is very similar weather. There’s rain and I don’t have umbrella and I’m completely, I mean, you would think I would understand by now to have an umbrella in my, in my bag.

Joel : Yeah. I just bought a, a umbrella for the first time. just, yeah, well, first time in probably, I dunno, 2020 years, just the other day. So

Galya: I was thinking, you know, Gary, Gary from the club. Jeremy is amazing. Garrett, you should definitely interview Gary and Gary interview for this podcast. Yeah, I mean, he’s like an Amazon seller.

Reseller. magician. He used to sell these umbrellas and remember, it’s like these, it’s like really huge umbrellas that he ends up drying.

Joel : Yeah.

Galya: He would sell this and he said, Gallia, do you want one? I’m like, no, it’s my height. I’m going to forget it in places so I didn’t end up buying it.

Joel : So galley, where can people find you?

Galya: I would say LinkedIn is the best place. Just typing Galio West. Clara and I will gladly accept your and your friend request as long as you don’t spam me with. And nonsense. Yeah. And, and you know, ever since the TEDx people have reached out to me via LinkedIn, also, my email is galya@plazas.com and they’ve been sending me emails and telling me how it made them feel.

And also just if I can inspire people, if I can inspire women to get into technology, if I can inspire people to get into entrepreneurship. I can inspire people to even if times are difficult right now, to find ways to reinvent yourself.

Joel : And you still get messages about your TEDx talk.

Galya: I do get a lot of comments that are not always saying, but it doesn’t belong to me.

It belongs to, it belongs to Ted, so I have no control, but people do comment. That’s awesome.

Joel : That’s amazing. Thank you so much. I know you’re super busy. so it’s great to reconnect with you. hopefully. the flight restrictions though lifted. You can, you know, fly freely and come back and we can have a coffee and you can visit your parents.

so yeah, thank you so much.

Galya: And for everybody to stay safe and keep social distancing. We don’t know still where the pandemic is at. We need to be socially responsible and we have to keep our loved ones safe.

Joel : Alright