Career Growth Advice from Alysia Silberg, AI Leader | Career Tips for Women in AI

2B Bolder Podcast – Episode 107
Featuring Alysia Silberg, CEO of Unemployable AI

Episode Title: #107 From Vision to Reality: Alysia Silberg's Guide to Thriving in Tech: Career Podcast

Host: Mary Killelea
Guest: Alysia Silberg



Mary Killelea (Host): Hi there. My name is Mary Killelea. Welcome to the To Be Bolder podcast, providing career insights for the next generation of women in business and tech. To Be Bolder was created out of my love for technology and marketing, my desire to bring together like-minded women, and my hope to be a great role model and source of inspiration for my two girls and other young women like you, encouraging you guys to show up and to be bolder and to know that anything you guys dream of, it's totally possible. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy the conversation.

Hi there. Today I am so excited and honored to have with us Alysia Silberg on the show. Elisa is a bestselling author, investor, and founder at Unemployable AI with over 30,000 followers on LinkedIn. Alysia is an industry leader in the AI space. She is a cross between a survivalist and an industrialist, someone who has had to innovate and use whatever resources are available because they had to. Alysia also sees opportunities in the marketplace and capitalizes on those.

She is the founder and CEO of Unemployable AI, specializing in harnessing AI to drive growth, scalability, and profits for companies. She is the founder and general partner of the investment firm Street Global, a leading venture capitalist in Silicon Valley where she mentors tech startups and helps them go public. As an influential thought leader, she is a United Nations woman in power, women global champion, and an international board director. Recently, she's released a multi award winning book, Unemployable, How AI Transformed My Work and Life, detailing her harrowing and inspiring life story as a guide to infinite success and personal development. Alysia's education is truly awe inspiring. She's attended Stanford Law School, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard Law School, University of California, Berkeley, University of Cambridge, University of Toronto, and Dalhousie University. And I'm stumbling over those, so I don't know how you got all those accomplishments. Oh my gosh, it's so great to have you here. Thank you so much for joining us.

Alysia Silberg (Guest): Thank you for having me. I'm extraordinarily excited to be joining you today.

Mary Killelea: Well, I wish everyone could see us and maybe they will if I do the video. We're both beautifully dressed in red, and I love it. So, we're coordinated for the event. Okay, so there's so much to cover. Literally your resume of education is staggering. Let's talk about your love of learning and just give us a little background how you pursued so many degrees.

Alysia Silberg: I have a passion for learning. It started at a very early age, and it drove me relentlessly. So, it's a theme in my book, of course, and I think intellectual exploration is something we all could just love and embrace as a cornerstone of our personal and professional life. And I think my early challenges growing up in South Africa, I had very, very difficult circumstances and I never let limitations define me. And in the book, I tried to showcase these experiences which installed this resilience and this love of learning as a foundation for success. And I think the academics and the, you know, that was a key part of it.

I was very lucky I got a scholarship to go to a private school very early on. And so that just all was foundational in terms of, you know, pursuing my higher education. And I believe that this multidisciplinary approach has founded me in a very successful position in the sense that it's helped me navigate the complexities of technology a lot better, both in business and society. So, I think having all these different angles to be able to leverage in terms of my career has been a critical part. But I think it came down to this curiosity around learning that's been with me since a very early age.

Mary Killelea: I admire that. And I share that love of learning. And let's talk about your career journey and how you founded Unemployable AI.

Alysia Silberg: So, it started with Excel. So, over a decade ago, I founded one of the first AI driven companies. But it was an AI powered tool for sales calls. And it was a career highlight. It's all in the book, and it was a wild journey. But my obsession is empowering people. And I saw very early on how using Excel, we could empower our clients, sales teams, skills, confidence, and ultimately help their companies do better. And I saw how you could use AI. And that was very early. And in order to holistically transform companies and that laid the foundation for the last decade, we went on to found Street Global, which was one of the first venture capital firms investing in AI startups.

And also, this was a theme throughout my life in terms of responsibility when it came to AI and, you know, innovating. And that led me to write the book, which I felt was important to be able to share. And each time it just kept building and then with Unemployable AI, I'd seen building my own AI company working with very talented AI founders, that we didn't want to keep AI only to a select group of people. And I wanted to democratize AI technology. And I felt like that was deeply entwined in my book. And I want to make it accessible, beneficial. And that was the commitment, both personally and professionally, that my personal experiences could help, you know, a broader society in terms of AI and its ability to truly transform companies and people, but at the same time, always with people at the center of it.

Mary Killelea: I think it's amazing that you're investing in AI companies and you're a female investor, which there's not that many female investors. So curious what your take is on being the minority in that realm. But also, what do you look for when you look for companies who you invest in?

Alysia Silberg: So Downing Street Global was a massive significant career milestone, because it was as tough as you probably can imagine. I'm sure many of your listeners have experienced, you know, those kinds of career challenges and required substantial amounts of personal dedication, perseverance, resilience. And yes, as a woman starting a venture capital firm in the heart of Silicon Valley, I experienced a lot of the challenges you can imagine. And I think it was this belief I had in the transformative abilities of AI and the importance of diversifying the landscape that helped me keep on going, that helped me like not give up when it probably would have at times been easier.

I think the idea that they were mentors in my life that played a big role, you know, who were willing to just keep investing in me, and I'm just telling me you got to keep on going no matter how tough this is. And so, I leveraged those relationships, and you know, I wanted to pay it forward. And in terms of investing in AI startups, I think my network and like the experts I surrounded myself with played a massive, massive role because I enabled myself to use my AI knowledge and my connections in order to help these startups scale in a way that significantly impacted their trajectories. Like we lost today, substantial number of founders now we like lost because there was a period in time where no one would give these companies capital and I'd phone investors and they'd be like, this is never going to work, this is going to fail. And you know, you rarely have to stand in your power and be like, you know, I fundamentally believe in this. And so I'm obsessed with promoting diversity, equity and inclusion, I've invested in the last year, six female founded CEO, company CEOs, and each one is absolutely extraordinary.

In terms of what I look for, I can give you some examples, because I think that's the easiest for your listeners. So, if you if you look up a company called Ambience Healthcare, it's the world's leading autonomous scribe. And so, these two founders, exceptional, you know, absolutely exceptional, you know, whiz kids. But at the same time, it being through challenges in their lives. And so, they were deeply committed to solving the healthcare challenge, and understanding the importance of, you know, using AI to solve a problem that globally, you know, there's a shortage of doctors, there's a shortage of time, a shortage of resources and healthcare. And so in that situation, these were founders that had been obsessed with health healthcare their entire lives. And so, by the time they came to run in this company, they had this like, you know, level of understanding and, you know, like, it was just an absolute burning passion. That's something I look for in founders. So, question I have, when I speak to founders is tell me about your childhood, tell me what you were doing in your childhood that connects you to the problem you're solving now. And there's always some type of, you know, love, passion, interest, that's that connection point. So, for me, that's a very important thing.

Also solving, you know, a big burning problem, where society will be fundamentally better for that problem being solved. That's a really important thing for me, too. I want to, I want to play a role in leaving things better than we found them. And I believe startups solve the world's biggest challenges in a way that's very scalable. And, you know, that's that that's my obsession. And so these are some of the things that I look for, you know, we can go much deeper, but just on the surface of it. So, where there's a struggle, where there's a big growing market, where there's a world class team committed to solving this for a decade, two decades, however long it takes to solve the problem. And do they have a product where the where customers will be willing to pay because it's a problem product that needs to exist in the world versus it's a cool idea.

Mary Killelea: I would love to spend the rest of the entire show focused on this because I'm a huge Shark Tank fan. So, you know, the whole idea of pitching you, finding you doing that whole thing. But I will proceed with some of these other questions because I want to bring it back. So you talk about resilience, and you've mentioned it a couple times. What has been the key to you maintaining resilience? Because there's, you know, at points, there's, there's something internally that you have to have to keep you going when you go up against challenges.

Alysia Silberg: Absolutely. And I think I feel very privileged at this point in my life where I went through extreme hardship when I was growing up. And I think people would have defined my life growing up as a dead end life. That was, you know, the environment I grew up in, where I grew up in it. And what kept me going was a belief in something better out there. It happened for me, it happened to be my dreams, where I had this dream, I'm not even sure how it was planted in my head. But I had this dream that I could create and help change the world for lack of a better term. And I needed to get myself to this place called Silicon Valley in order to do that. And it was extraordinarily difficult.

As I say, if you looked around me, everyone around me was basically saying, you can't do this for a series of self-imposed reasons, and I think it was looking back, it wasn't even towards me, it was towards their own fears, their own doubts, their own need to keep things safe, versus change the status quo. And I had to dig extremely deep. And I had to do a ton of personal work in terms of meditation. And I read at 1.5 thousand books over five years. And people like, why did you do that? And I did it because I needed to, I needed to get past those self-doubts. And, you know, the imposter syndrome and all those things inside my head that I felt was stopping me from reaching my full potential on this journey. And it was tough.

For anyone listening. It was extraordinarily difficult. And there were many times where I was like, I just I can't keep going like this. And then I'd sit down and like, if I'm being vulnerable, I'd sit in the corner and I'd be like, sit there for maybe five, 10 minutes and be like, Okay, well, if this is my reality, it sucks. So what? And I just keep going. And I just like, get up, dust myself off. And I just kept on going, knowing that as long as I didn't give up, and as long as I created something in the world of value, where other people could benefit from it, I could succeed in a massive way by helping other people succeed on their journeys. And I think it was an easy formula, but it worked extremely well.

Mary Killelea: Well, I hope you know how inspiring you are. Truly. Those words are very meaningful. And the journey that you've been on is extraordinary. Let's talk about your book, Unemployable, How AI Transform Might Work and Life. Take us kind of through the process of wanting to get that out, and onto paper and kind of what you hope the reader takes away.

Alysia Silberg: It was extremely tough. If you have any listeners who ever want to write a book, feel free to message me on LinkedIn or email me and I will do my best to support you. Because it was one of the most challenging things I think I've ever done in my life. I think for me, the idea that I wanted it to be a memoir and a manifesto was unusual in the publishing industry. But for me, it was incredibly important to create a relationship of trust with the reader, where I'm saying, I want to support you on your journey in order to fulfill, you know, your true potential. But in order to do that, I need you to first trust me and know who I am. And then the manifesto part for me, the idea that, you know, technology is not just a tool that we use, but that it unlocks human potential. And it can drive societal progress. That was a very important part for me, because I personally have, my entire life has been defined by my partnership with technology where I had these massive dreams that I wanted to fulfill.

I needed a partner along the way in order to do that. And even if it was, you know, the early internet and all these things that were available to me in order to get where I wanted to go. And I think, like, entrepreneurship and the importance of having goals and the importance of like lifelong learning, I know we've touched on it earlier. But for me, I felt, even though many of the themes in the book are things we all think about, my goal was that if a person could read the book and take one line out of it, like so many of the most powerful books I've read, like I think about men's search for meaning and the hard thing about hard things. And if a person could read and say, I've got this one line, and that will enable me now to take action and fulfill my true potential, then as the author, my goal was fulfilled where I feel so grateful for the fact that there were so many people that wrote books before me. And I leveraged I stood on the shoulders of giants, and I leveraged their knowledge and insights, which, you know, took lifetimes to create. And I wanted to ensure that using the power of data.

So, for me, I'd studied the market, as you know, I found the word, and I could see that there was this missing piece in the market, where there were things that needed to be addressed. And that's the manifesto part of the book that even though something as simple as compound interest is something we all know about the idea that we think about it, in terms of our own careers, our own journeys, as a foundational element, you know, just being consistent throughout our journeys in terms of showing up not giving up even when times get tough. These were things that were incredibly important for me. And I felt like if I could share it with the readers, and it would be it would be something incredibly important as part of my own personal legacy.

Mary Killelea: You mentioned thinking of technology as a partner. Tell me more about that.

Alysia Silberg: So I'll take you back. So, it's maybe easier to tell you as a story. So, I'm sitting in South Africa, and I don't want to spoil the book for many of your readers, but my father died, my brother and I have basically a dying family business. And we don't have money, like it's a pretty bad situation. And we both very entrepreneurial. And it's not like the US that it's a very difficult system in South Africa, where there's no access to capital. It's just very harsh. And we're thinking to ourselves, what can we do? So, we came up with all these different business ventures. And one of the ventures we came up with was we wrote through embassies around the world. And we said, Can you send we want to work with companies in your country, and we need stock and samples of these products and these things. Now, please understand, we had no money to buy any of the stock, we could only afford, you know, like the mail for the samples. And so, we went, and we basically got all these samples, we sold these samples, and we basically reinvented this business, but we couldn't have done it if it wasn't for the internet.

So, the thing that saved this business was the fact that two stores down on from our family business was an internet cafe. And we had the ability to go sit at that internet cafe and use our own superpowers. So, we both are very good researchers. And so we had an idea. But if we never had the internet, we would not have saved that business. And so it sparked something in my mind where I was like, this thing can do so much. How do I keep using it? And throughout my career, if I think about my where I'm at right now, when it comes to let's take, for example, Street Gobal Investing firm, I've been using AI to invest for probably seven, seven, eight years. And it wasn't because I was such a visionary. I was a woman in technology who wanted to succeed who had big dreams. And I knew the limitations of my own capabilities.

I struggled to find, you know, investing partners with, you know, that were willing to give me the chance, let's be honest, I had to, I had to use AI in order to give myself the greatest probability of success. And that is why for me, like Unemployable AI is so important, because I see technology, not as something AI not as something that replaces us. It's been my own personal experience that it's like, it's my friend, it's my companion, it's my partner, it's my coach, it's my mentor, it's there to help me achieve my fullest potential. And I've got a body of evidence throughout my life that I can see, it would not have been possible to have the kind of extraordinary life I now love, if it wasn't for the existence of these tools.

Mary Killelea: That is, I hope everyone who is scared of AI hears you and hears you clearly that you know, it's such a positive thing. But what are your concerns for responsible AI?

Alysia Silberg: Of course, you know, ethics, the social impact. I think there's so much fear around like AI and human interaction, the economic influence, you know, the cultural, societal factors, the long term developments. I can go deeper in terms of job displacement. And you know, like the opportunities around that, for me, I'm very passionate about that. And the idea that the AI market currently is very market driven. And you know, like, will it support human intelligence will already has been going to that. And like, the trajectory, like, is it predetermined? Is it uncontrollable? I think there's a lot of stuff that has to be discussed there.

I have this, you know, I'm very passionate about women's empowerment. And I have this young woman that joined my team, a year ago, she goes to the top university in Korea, and you know, diversity of thought. And she gets up at three o'clock in the morning to help with my AI newsletter. And she started as an intern. And she eventually became so strong because she's partnering with the AI, that she's taken a leadership role when it comes to ethics, and AI, because you know, someone at 20 years old is seeing the world through such a different lens. And I, as someone who's very passionate about AI ethics, and those things, I realized that this is an area we have to go deeply into, like in terms of what we personally build, so unemployable they are, as like, you know what, let me put together a team of these young people, these young woman who are saying, at least they're like, I don't agree with you about that, like, I see the world through a very different lens. These are the things that concern me in terms of ethics, and like the social impact.

And you say that we're going to live in the greatest time of abundance in history, that we've never experienced this kind of abundance before, like, explain to me about job displacement, explain to me what that's going to look like in reality, and how opportunities being created for the next generations to grow up in a world of opportunity versus machines doing everything. So, from my perspective, as I say, I'm surrounded by people who are very concerned, but I think it's a matter of holding ourselves accountable, of course, this is incredibly important, you know, open source LLMs, and these things, these are all very important things to be being built in the world.

But again, I come back to the fact that I see it, I see a young person, a 20 years old, coming into the job market and saying, well, I want to be a lawyer, or I want to be in one of these organizations, and having a conversation saying, well, the world is changing at such a rapid rate, you can affect so much more change using your AI skills, where you can impact law in amazing ways, doing the very job you're doing. Because you're engaging with thought leaders on my team, I feel like I couldn't be more excited. I literally I couldn't be more excited because I'm seeing people's careers, where this young woman I'm giving you as an example, it would have taken her five to 10 years to get to a point of such leadership, where you have executives on my team listening to when it comes to AI ethics, that happened in a period of a year, because she was working with the AI tools. And she just like ramped up her intellectual knowledge, and she was curious, and she wants to learn, she kept asking for feedback in terms of how she was actually doing. And I think that was incredibly important, because she's got a level of mastery that I think blows her mind. And I'm just seeing it across the board.

Mary Killelea: You know, what you're sharing with me, I have to be vulnerable and say, I don't think I've looked at AI in this way before, I have looked at it more as a I don't want to say black and white, but more of a displacement versus, you know, I understand the ability to enhancement, but the way you are describing it and how this young woman took it to advance her career. So, it really is the combination of the tools are there for us to embrace, but it's on us each to look at how we can enhance the current positions. What about what about the women out there thinking about building a career strategy, and struggling because, one, lack of clarity, but two, not sharing how roles will be. I guess the org structures that exist today might not exist in the future. What advice do you have? Because it's ambiguous, and that makes a lot of people uncomfortable.

Alysia Silberg: Fantastic question. Thank you for your vulnerability. What I'd suggest is, think of it like, if you think of your health, think of yourself now in the age of AI as the CEO of your own health. I'd say exactly the same thing when it comes to your career, whether you're in a big company, whatever the case may be. Your goal is to add as much value as possible to that company. So if you think of like earnings reports and all those things, your role is to impact change and to basically ensure that you are contributing, adding value, of course, thriving as an individual. But no one would ever want to lose someone that's adding tremendous value to their organization.

What I say to people is, think of what you do best. I know people say, but that's a challenging question, but each of us knows. If I had a chat to you, and we both figure out pretty quickly in terms of what we're both best at, that thing that you are best at, think about that thing and say, okay, let me go on the internet. And what I suggest to people is build yourself an Excel spreadsheet. Keep it simple, like very simple, and say, I'm going to find the top three tools that could support me in my role in AI. And just go on Google. And I have an AI newsletter. I work extremely hard at putting this together. You can use that as a resource. And you find those three tools.

So, let's take, for example, sales. You're a young person in sales coming up the career ladder. So instead of thinking about, wow, this AI is going to replace me, think about it as what unique value do I add to my organization? Okay. Now what three AI tools can I start playing with that basically will enhance my value even more so to this organization? And it's easy. Put it on a spreadsheet. Then say to yourself, you know what, I'm going to start getting other people I know involved. So, people who are interested in the same stuff, sales, add them to that spreadsheet. Say, can you share your tools with me? Let's compare notes in terms of those tools. So, if you picture yourself wearing a backpack, like you're all in tech, you've got your backpack, you've got your laptop. Inside there is your AI toolkit. And you just keep on building that toolkit. So, you basically are just building your career in AI by doing the very thing you're doing. And each time you encounter a problem in your work and you're like, that's frustrating. That's annoying me. Or you hear someone on your team. It's frustrating them. It's annoying them. Be the person that says, you know what, I'm going to go on Google. I'm going to ask GPT. I'm going to ask Bing, whatever the case may be, go and find that AI tool.

I think for many people, there's this initial intimidation factor where you like, you end up on that website and you're like, what do I do now? First step is book a demo. If there's a video, go and get a video. Often it stops on YouTube. Just go watch it. And even if it's 30 seconds long, the idea that you've planted that seed is the first step. Because the more you can do this, the more you empower yourself, the more when you're meeting with your boss, whoever your manager, you're like, hey, I saw this AI tool. I like it. Maybe my, maybe our team should try it. When you are meeting it, you are not falling behind and you'll gain more and more momentum because what you'll notice is it's not scary. It's not intimidating. It's very empowering when you see yourself become more efficient or you can close a deal that you couldn't close before because in the sales context, you've got something that's really brilliant that could really help your company and help your team. And it's just like helping you just do so much better. There's no feeling greater than feeling that sense of like, wow, I'm doing so brilliantly with this thing that scared me previously. And so, as I say, it's, it's baby steps. It's literally like, if we use the analogy, a bicycle, you're learning to ride that bicycle, and you just keep growing stronger and stronger than that bicycle. So, you can cruise up and down those hills and you can go into the tour to France, if you so please. But the most important thing is getting going and say, I'm curious enough that even if I'm nervous, I'm going to override it. And if you say commit, commit like 20 minutes a week, 30 minutes a week, just to get over that initial reticence before, you know, it, you'll be on your way and you'll be, you'll, you'll get promoted. It'll happen so rapidly. I see it across the board where I'm like, wow, like this person's incredible. And I've seen it with my own team where I'm saying to the person who's close-minded, this is not going to work. Like this can't work versus the person that's like, I'm going to dive in here and I don't necessarily know this, but I'm going to figure this out. Who would you rather have on your team over the next decade?

Mary Killelea: Absolutely. This is such a great discussion. I feel energized. I really do. And I hope everyone listening does too. You're such a well-respected influencer in the space of AI. What is your main focus or takeaway you want people to learn from our conversation today?

Alysia Silberg: Have courage. Mindset is going to be, I think, the most important thing in terms of future. Be adaptable. Drive the change. Be the person that actually drives the change. Know your principles, you know, like hold onto those principles as times change. Take, I'd say really take bold action. So where there's an opportunity in the organization to be the person, the champions AI, be that person.

As far as personal goals, I would say have a commitment to live and lead with courage and purpose. And I think motivate others to embrace change. Things are getting very exciting, but be that person. Be that leader that inside of you is just like screaming. Be that person. Go for it.

Mary Killelea: I'd love to talk on this podcast about personal brand and how we kind of have the ability to write our own narrative and hopefully do it before other people do it. So how have you intentionally designed or worked on your personal brand and what advice do you have for women when they try to think about putting themselves out there?

Alysia Silberg: I think knowing your own unique value, I really had to learn to own it in terms of what set me apart from everyone else, you know, being willing to take that risk in terms of who I am and not being afraid to have rejection in that or to have people not liking me or like polarizing people. So, I think that's number one. I think staying true to your vision is incredibly important too, because the more you want to be a leader and you go to, your brand has to reflect your true self and your core mission. I think that's incredibly important to be clear in terms of your core mission. Crafting a compelling narrative. It's taken me a very long time to do, but I think all of this comes down to like you valuing yourself in terms of your self-worth. I think that's really important. A consistent communication in terms of everything you do and everyone you do it with. So, like having that knowledge and skills to basically have the right team, have the right people in place. Investing learning I think is incredibly important.

So, I think I've spent a ton of money, but it was like, I felt like for me building my brand was always being surrounded by the best in the world and saying that there's no great investment you can make than spending that money because I get to hang out with people like you. I think strategic relationships as well. So, I think something that I became very good at, but it took a lot of courage was learning from people that were much smarter than me and willing to give me what was constructive feedback, but at times could have felt very painful. But I knew that it was coming from a place of care and saying, okay, this person is here to support me. And especially when it came to building my own brand, I received a lot of feedback going back to my book and I had to sit with it and I had to say, well, these people care and I trust their judgment and they understand the brand in a very objective way. I'm going to listen to them because I fundamentally believe that they are right.

I think, again, you were so kind with being open and vulnerable, sharing your successes, sharing your failures in order for the right community of people to follow you, to participate in their brand. Like I always say to people, you don't need a million customers. If you've got a business, you're starting out. If you have a hundred customers, you can have a very, very nice business. And like the idea that they are, you've got the power of the internet, they're over 3 billion people online and you have the power of AI because they keep telling you, you've got to use AI. Your brand can explode. But I think those core things are critically important in terms of creating a brand that's defined by excellence and success.

Mary Killelea: What would you tell your 20 year old self?

Alysia Silberg: Wow. So much. To be kinder, like embrace my uniqueness. Like I was told when I was growing up, like my brain never worked the way everyone else's did. And it made me very insecure. And I think that was always why I was so grateful to the AI because it enabled me to look perceptively more normal to other people because it was, you know, the more normal one of the two of us. And I think now I look back and I'm like, be as weird as you want to be, be weirder than you want to be. I think heading myself to even more resilient, more adaptable, take more risks, I think is a bigger one. Like I think there were opportunities where I could have even taken much bigger risks, but I didn't. And it was I was afraid to affect, to impact the people around me at times where I was, you know, concerned that I was getting too big and it was making them uncomfortable.

Now I know that I surround myself with people that are like you, they're passionate about, we equally on each other's journeys, we pushing each other forward. We want to see each other succeed. You are not going to sit there saying be small. I think again, my, I would tell my 20 year old self to even go deeper in terms of learning. So, for example, I told myself at that time, my late father spoke seven languages fluently. And I told myself at the time, I never had time to learn more languages. And I was like, I'll put that off until later in my life. Now I think I would have found the time, even if it was an hour or a week or something, but I think that was something. And I think recognizing my inherent worth, I think being my own best friend, it took me, you know, like a very long time to get to that point. But I think I wish I'd known that earlier on.

And I think what else? Staying true to my values. I think like the times where we have to question our values and that, and you know, you have to make decisions that are tough to make. And it takes often decades. You know, I think of, I listened to Steve Jobs's speech at Stanford at least once a month and, you know, talk about connecting the dots, looking back versus going forward. And I think if you have a vision for your life, like no matter how grandiose may seem to other people, no matter how, as I say, most people growing up thought I was insane. You know, they were just like, where do you come from? Have you arrived from another planet? But the idea that just stay true to your values, like it's going to work out, just trust, let go of the anxiety, let go of the fear, let go of the self doubt. It is going to work because you're doing all the right stuff. So just surrender to the process, knowing that you'll have the wisdom in a few decades time. But right now, you just need to trust that you are like you building, you creating, and you creating this beautiful life.

And I think for me, something that I am passionate about now is that I look back on my day and I say to myself, was I in awe of today? Am I delighted by my day? And if the question, if the answer is no, I step back and I said, what do I need to change? Because I want to live a life now. If I've taken anything out of COVID and what we all went through is that our time is precious. And the idea that at 20, I wish I'd known about this way, we have the right to create a life where we're in orbit every single day. We don't have to wait till we 80 years old, looking back on our life to say like, wow, way by my life, you have that right to do it at 20 years old.

Mary Killelea: That is so beautiful. And again, I could ask you so many more questions, but I'm going to end with what does to be bolder mean to you?

Alysia Silberg: You define to be bolder to me. Like I think, like you do, like you've got this incredible energy, you've got incredible values. You challenge, you challenge the norm. You just like, you show up, you're doing incredible work, you're impacting us all in a massive, massive way. And I think at times leaders like you don't get that pat on the back. You know, there's this expectation that, Hey, you got it all covered. You know, like you, you know, you're doing a great job. You don't need me to tell you, but I think it's nice to sometimes say, and you were so, you were so open and vulnerable. It's nice to say, thank you for showing up. Thank you for being you. Thank you for creating what you've created. So a woman like me can participate in it because it is a lonely journey. It is a very tough journey.

I think we all as women, especially doing what we do, we carry a lot inside of us and you don't have the room to share it. And often you got it. You know, you just keeping on going, pretending that you're brave and strong and you've got it together when you feel like there's a part of you dying inside and you with your beautiful smile and your amazing energy. And you just, you define it for me. And I just feel such a sense of gratitude for being able to participate in this and to support you in some small way.

Mary Killelea: Wow. You really don't know what that means. So I appreciate you saying that. That really is truly a gift. How can someone get in touch with you? How can they grab your book? How can they sign up for your newsletter? Cause I want to do it all.

Alysia Silberg: Thank you. Thank you so much. That means a great deal. Get in touch with me. You can follow me on LinkedIn. And if you've got a specific question there, drop me a message in terms of what you want to talk to me about, cause I'll then make sure to do my best to follow up with you. You can email me. So, I've created a very simple email address. I'm just trying to make sure that I get it right. It's as at unemployable dot AI. And so I know I've got a very weird accent, but it's a S at unemployable.ai, email me. I'd love to hear from you in terms of the book. I feel such a sense of gratitude. I just found out that it's an international bestseller in many countries around the world. So I'm incredibly appreciative. So, you can find it on Amazon. I'd love for you to buy it. I'd love for you to read it. I'd love to be on that journey with you, to hear from you, for you to share your story with me. And then if you, if you follow me on LinkedIn, you can get my newsletter there and give me your feedback on it. Tell me what you want to hear, what you're missing out on there and the newsletter so that we can keep that conversation going. For me, it's about a community and I love hearing from you, and I love supporting you in your journeys because it's individuals like Mary who made it possible for me and I want to pay it forward and I want to see the next generation thrive in what I perceive as the greatest time to be alive.

Mary Killelea: Thank you so much.

Alysia Silberg: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

Mary Killelea: Thanks for listening to the episode today. It was really fun chatting with my guest. If you liked our show, please like it and share it with your friends. If you want to learn what we're up to, please go check out our website at 2bbolder.com. That's the number two, little b, bolder.com.