Episode 162: A Case Study in Evolution with Pioneer & Keynote Speaker Gaby Natale - Part 1
In this episode, Erin is joined by Gaby Natale, 3-time EMMY award winning journalist, bestselling author, motivational speaker, and entrepreneur. Gaby is on a mission to awaken the pioneer spirit in each of us, no matter your gender, race, religion, or upbringing.
Throughout the conversation, Gaby shares about the beginning of her career and its ties to her five-year-old self. She emphasizes how finding moments of clarity throughout her life helped bring her to where she is today.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone lost in a world of accelerated change and looking to find clarity through discomfort.
ICYMI – Your Post-Episode Homework: Think back to your younger self. Is there something in your younger life that pops up as a core memory and brings you joy? For Gabby, it was standing on stage at her kindergarten graduation, really not wanting to leave that stage. That moment for you might be working on a project with your hands. It might be helping in the garden with your grandmother. It might be playing Double Dare as the television host in your living room. Think back to younger you. We'll bring this forward in the next two episodes as we continue with our theme of evolution.
Connect with Gaby Natale:
Gaby’s bestselling book, The Virtuous Circle: Restore Your Confidence, Bounce Back, and Emerge Stronger
Show Links:
Want to book Erin to speak at your organization or large-scale event: Learn more here!
Send us a voice message here!
Did today’s episode resonate with you? Please leave us a review for a chance to win a self-care package from us!
Take the quiz to download your free Wellness Workbook!
Connect with Erin Diehl:
Connect with Erin Diehl:
Email Erin: info@learntoimproveit.com
Erin Diehl is the founder and Chief “Yes, And” officer of improve it! and host of the improve it! Podcast. She’s a performer, facilitator and professional risk-taker who lives by the mantra, “get comfortable with the uncomfortable.” Through a series of unrelated dares, Erin has created improve it!, a unique professional development company that pushes others to laugh, learn and grow. Her work with clients such as United Airlines, PepsiCo, Groupon, Deloitte, Motorola, Walgreens, and The Obama Foundation earned her the 2014 Chicago RedEye Big Idea Award and has nominated her for the 2015-2019 Chicago Innovations Award.
This graduate from Clemson University is a former experiential marketing and recruiting professional as well as a veteran improviser from the top improvisational training programs in Chicago, including The Second City, i.O. Theater, and The Annoyance Theatre.
When she is not playing pretend or facilitating, she enjoys running and beach dates with her husband and son, and their eight-pound toy poodle, BIGG Diehl.
You can follow the failed it! podcast on Instagram @learntoimproveit and facebook, and you can follow Erin personally on Instagram @keepinitrealdiehl here. You can also check out improve it! and how we can help your organization at www.learntoimproveit.com. We can’t wait to connect with you online!
“I love this podcast and I love Erin!!”
If that sounds like you, please consider rating and reviewing this podcast! This helps Erin support more people – just like you – move toward the leader you want to be. Click here, click listen on Apple Podcasts, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with 5 stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then be sure to let Erin know what you loved most about the episode! Also, if you haven’t done so already, subscribe to the podcast. That way you won’t miss any juicy episodes! Thanks in advance, improve it! Peeps :)
Episode 162 Transcription
Erin (00:00):
Welcome to the Improve It Podcast!
Erin (00:10):
Three Emmy Awards, 52 million views on YouTube, top 25 from people magazine's, most powerful Latinas, 250,000 followers on social media. These are just a few of the highlights of today's guest, Gaby Natale. So improve it peeps. Oh my God. This episode, the series of episodes that you are going to absorb, consume, eat with a side of popcorn. Amazing. This was one of the most fascinating conversations. So let me set you up. Start here, episode 1 62. To learn all about Gaby, I'm gonna give you a brief overview of her background. So Gaby is an Emmy winning journalist, as you heard me say, and a bestselling author on a mission to awaken the pioneer spirit in each of us. Gaby is among just a few women in the entertainment industry who not only owns the rights to her media content, but also a television studio. This unique situation has allowed her to combine her passion for media and her entrepreneurial spirit, which continues to help her break barriers.
Erin (01:24):
Now, in 2021, which you're gonna hear us talk about, Gaby became the first Latina author to be published by the Leadership Division of Harper Collins. Her first book, the Virtuous Psych or Circle, became an instant bestseller topping Amazon's new releases charts in three different categories, business inspiration and self-help. What an amazing feat. Now, what has made the book so successful is that it offers readers actionable strategies on how to channel their innate strength and abilities to best work for them. So check this book out. It is fantastic. All right. Gaby's been in Forbes, cnn, buzzfeed, n NBC News, Univision and Latino Leaders Magazine. And like I said, in 2018, people Magazine named her one of the 25 most powerful Latinas, highlighting the inspirational story of how she went from a local TV show that started out of a carpet warehouse, which we get into to becoming the only Latina in US history to win triple back Toback, daytime Mees in the digital world.
Erin (02:29):
She has a thriving fan base with over 52 million views on YouTube and 250 K thousand followers on social media. She's also an entrepreneur and is the founder of Anar Media and marketing company with a focus on Hispanic audiences that serves Fortune 500 companies such as Hilton, sprint, eBay, Amazon. She has a bachelor's in international relations and a master's in journalism from the University of San Andres and Columbia University. And prior to starting in television, she taught communication and journalism courses at the University of Texas. This three part series, improve It People is going to Blow Your Mind. The theme of the podcast this month is Evolution, and we are going to hear the full story of how Gaby came to be her past, how she has helped hundreds of thousands of others pioneer their own path, her present, and what she is looking forward to in her future. So let's get to it. Let's improve it with Gaby Natale.
Erin (03:41):
Gaby. Okay. I'm so excited to chat with you. We just, it's always funny because we always talk before we hit record and now we're recording and nothing's really changed, but I'm, I'm truly, I woke up today so excited for this conversation. And we met through our, our mutual coach, Jane Atkinson, who's been a guest on this show before, and we had these monthly coaching calls and I met you through that. But I will be honest with you, and I told you this before, I didn't follow you. I didn't know anything about the work that you did. And then after I started tuning in and watching you pioneer, I am shook Gaby. Okay. <Laugh>. So I wanna ask you, I wanna start this, the podcast off with this. What's one word or an intention that you wanna get out of the show or even give to the show today?
Gaby (04:43):
I think it would be good if we had to say it in one word for people who are listening to us. If we could bring them some mo some more clarity. Yeah. Because clarity is hard to find sometimes, and you need to have a moment for yourself to have it, you know, or maybe something that stuck you in the hair and like, okay, I don't wanna do this anymore. I'm not coming back to this relationship or do this job, or, I don't wanna do this in this way. So clarity is precious. So if we could give people just a little bit of clarity in whatever they are going through today, that's a gift, you know?
Erin (05:23):
Oh my God, yes. And you know, we say no mistakes, only gifts. And I will say the gift of clarity is something I searched for probably for 39 years of my life. And I kind of feel like I've scratched the surface of it now. But I think if somebody listening here today is wondering, how in the world do I see clearer? How do I see the person that I wanna become? I, I just have this gut feeling, Gaby, that you're gonna help us, us get there. And I love that intention for the show because this month is all about evolution. It's all about evolving and growth and becoming the person that we are here to be, or remembering the person that we're here to be. So I've already given a background of your, of your bio to our audience. We call them the Improve it peeps. I wanna start off with just you as young Gaby. So what were you like, and, and did you know <laugh> that you were gonna work in entertainment? Was this something you just knew?
Gaby (06:34):
It's funny because just yesterday I was talking to my father and I was telling him about you know a leadership development program that I did in New York for a state loder. And, and many of the things I'm doing in speaking, and he told me like, do you remember when you graduated from kindergarten <laugh> that they gave you this little diploma and you had to go on stage and they started clapping and you did not leave the stage and you started going like, know, like the artist. And everybody started laughing. And then the director from that school in kindergarten, I think we have an actress here. I, not an actress, but you know, you said like, you, we are remembering when we, when you you said clarity, you said like, we are discovering, realizing or maybe remembering. And when my father brought that up, you know, I said like, how come when we are in such a pure state in childhood, we have these impulses, these qualities that are so strong enough in us that even at age 45, you know, with all the social conditioning we go through, I find myself like going back to an episode that started when I was maybe five years old.
Erin (07:52):
Yeah. Ah, <laugh>, keep going, keep going. I'm still here for this.
Gaby (07:58):
I guess, I guess consciously if you said like you were, were you thinking about this or that when you were a little child, maybe not so much. Yes, I was always like thrilled and delighted and in awe of seeing like the showgirls with like in Argentina, the world, the, all these shows where they put glitter and they were dancing. But I was never really a dancer, but I was just fascinated by this world. I guess I was fascinated by the world of performance by the world of television, the world of media, the world of color design, all of that was like a very basic instinct in me of, you know, staring at all that, at all those people and that world. But then what happened also was that I was good at school. And so in our minds, for some reason, you are either athletic or you're either creative or you're either the nerdy type and intellectual.
Gaby (08:54):
And I have many things that didn't really quite fit in just one category. But at some point I convinced myself like, Hey, you're intelligent to school, things are going fine, why not? You know, you know, focus more on that. And I remember when I was about to graduate from high school, my first choice was to do fashion design. Cause I love colors. I, you know, you cannot, you know, you cannot tell today because I'm dressed only black. But you know, I love colors, I love design. I love this world of creativity. But at that time, I'm originally from Argentina. So at that time in Argentina, it was not a career that you could do in college. It was more like courses, something more informal. I come from a family, both my parents are lawyers, so they're very structured. So there were like either five careers that you could do in my home.
Gaby (09:47):
You could be a doctor, you could be an architect, you could be, you know, an economist and two more things. And that's it. That was the whole catalog. Yeah. So I te I did this test where you find out like, you know with, with a, with with somebody who has a background in in psychology, like which are the good matches for you in terms of careers. And I, the, the ranking I ranked higher in careers that were called persuasion careers. And mm, persuasion careers were journalism, public relations, international relations, also law. And I knew law, I didn't want it because I had enough lawyers in my family. So I love journalism, but it was kind of, can I make a living as a journalist? How is my life going to look like? And I was 17, I was insecure. And so I said, I love traveling, so why not international relations? And that's what I studied. And I graduated on international relations. My bachelor's, my master's is journalism. My bachelor's is international relations. But here's my mindset. When I was 17, I wanna travel around the world, but you can travel as a cocktail maker, you can travel as a dj, you can travel as so many things around the world. So I really think we make these big decisions early in life, and then maybe we are sometimes, and doing them to reconnect with the ones we were when we were five years old, you know? Mm
Erin (11:19):
Mm So it was almost like you felt like you had to do the, these other things versus going on that stage as five-year-old Gaby not wanting to get off while getting her little kindergarten diploma and take it, you know, which I have the same sort of feeling. Do you feel, and let me ask you this now, just, you know, sticking with this theme of the past when you were on stage at five years old and you loved it, is that similar to the feeling that you get when you're able to connect and reach an audience now? Do you still feel that same feeling?
Gaby (11:58):
I think it's more joyful when you're younger and you do it for fun, because this was an unexpected thing. When I do it as a job, usually I enjoy it more after the fact than during it, because during it, I am like very focused on being present and then making sure you know that, you know, I'm, I'm connected, that I, you know, I'm not forgetting because of the emotion, the next thing that I have to say. Yeah. That, you know what, we have a monitor in front of us that tells us how much time we have. So there's a part of me that is saying, okay, are you going too fast? Are you going too slow? How are you going on the time? So the I'm present, but I'm also checking on multiple things. So when things go go right, and I enjoy it a lot, many times is I enjoy it a lot, but in retrospect, in the moment, I am very I am, my attention is in a lot of things. So it's not as relaxed as after the fact.
Erin (13:07):
That makes so much sense. Okay. So you get this degree in international relations, right? And so you're now going out and doing this work. This was one of my favorite pieces of research that I found of you, which is not hard to find, it's on your website, but it just made me so happy to hear this. So you started working. So, okay, tell me how this went from this international relations degree to then you worked at a local TV show that started in a carpet warehouse. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, how did, what was that jump? And then tell me about that job because that just, that to me is just exactly how I picture all of this, that just paint such a picture of how it all started. But then the evolution is just beautiful. So how, how did that happen?
Gaby (13:58):
So I studied international relations and one year before graduated I did an exchange experience and I went to London to study in London. And what I realized is that London is really expensive <laugh> that kept me by surprise. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. And so I started working as a waitress at the same time, you know, as a cocktail maker at the same time. And worst cocktail maker ever. Cause I almost don't drink alcohol. I have no idea what I was doing. But clients were drunk, they couldn't care less. So, so I, I, you know, I have very little disposable income. And I realized this was the pre YouTube world. I realized the, the little disposable income that I had, I was spending it in buying tickets for the London film festivals to see documentaries. I was not buying clothes, I was not buying shoes, lipstick, anything from the typical things I would buy to indulge myself.
Gaby (14:59):
And so I said, I have a, this moment of clarity, talking about clarity, this moment of clarity when I realized this means something. And I realized this means I, I have a passion and this passion is so strong, I'm giving up whatever little indulgence I can afford right now just to be there to see this documentary. So I came back, I started a ma, I graduated and I started my master's degree. And I graduated at a time. You know how when you graduate, you wanna take over the world, you wanna eat the world. But the world had a very different plan for me because at the time in Argentina it was, it one of its biggest crisis with 20% unemployment riots in the streets. And we had five presidents in 10 days. Imagine that. Wow. Really crazy. So I spent two years unemployed. And I'm gonna make a long story short. One day a friend calls me, she needs help. I think it's help as a journalist. And she tells me, no, I am working for a public relations firm that is putting together an international conference and I need help. But the help that I need is help moving chairs and handing out flyers, waving at people when they arrive. And I'm calling you because you are my friend and we don't have a budget. So come work for free <laugh>. Yes.
Erin (16:32):
Yeah. Okay, keep going. This is fascinating.
Gaby (16:36):
So, because she was my friend, I said yes. And I remember I told my mom, this is the proof that I am a total failure. I have a master's in journalism, I'm going there to work for free, not even as a journalist, but just to move chairs and handle flyers. And my mother gave me a wonderful advice. She said, tomorrow you're gonna go there and you're gonna put your red lipstick, red lipstick, best attitude and pretend they're paying you a million dollars even if you're working for free. Because let me tell you what, Gabriella, you never know when opportunity will knock on your door. Ah, and my mother, I don't know, she's kind of a psychic maybe. Cause the following day I went there, did my best job, best attitude. And by noon I see my friend, she's coming in panic because the translator canceled.
Gaby (17:28):
And she had a whole delegation of professors coming from George Washington University, nobody to translate. I was bilingual. So I dropped the chairs, I dropped the flyers, I started translating for them. To make a long story short, that contact that I did that day when I almost didn't show up because I was too embarrassed, and somehow the big, big shot master's journalism with a master's degree, you know, would not maybe do that job that day was the day that changed my life because that day I connected with this delegation, and then I started doing what we now call telework. We didn't have even a word for that right now, right? At the time. And one year later when they landed a big account and they needed somebody who was, who was in a junior position that was bilingual, guess who was first in line, top of mind, Gavin nata.
Gaby (18:26):
So they made me an offer. I come to the United States and I'm trying to get to the carpet warehouse, but so many things happen in my life, <laugh>, I'm barely getting there. So I started working in Washington, DC for this public relations firm. They have clients from Ola in America and the United States with a campaign for governor. Our candidate wins. I moved to Mexico. I spent one year there. I start covering the issues, immigration issues between Mexico and the United States. Univision, since my work, they hire me. I come to the United States. And then once finally, finally, finally my green card gets approved. I say, finally, right now I can start my own company. And that was another moment of clarity when I realized that I really wanted to call the shots creatively on my work. So I quit this job that everybody told me I'm crazy, everybody's killing took work on camera for Univision.
Gaby (19:28):
And I created my own company. And I started pitching this idea of creating my own company and a show that will portray women with the dignity and respect that I think we deserve. Not in an, in a stereotypical way. And when I pitch it locally in this in this west Texas city that was a very small city, everybody turned me down except one TV station who was based in a, a strip mall. And they said, our studio is being used and busy all the time. We can do business with you, but the only way for us to have you in our channel is for you to record your show out of a carpet warehouse we have in the back, not from the TV studio. Would you consider, would you consider doing a show out of a carpet warehouse? And my husband and I, we said yes. Because even at that time we knew Aaron, that doing a TV show out of a carpet warehouse was infinitely better superior than doing nothing at all. And that's why we said yes. And the rest was evolution.
Erin (20:41):
Oh my God, oh my God, I'm so see. Again, you never know when you ask questions what you could learn. And I'm so glad that we learned this about you, Gaby, like first and foremost, this story blows my mind. And it's just the power. First of all, you let go of control to gain your own control. We talked about letting go of control before we hit record on this show, which is awesome. You took a risk. You took a, you leaped before you even knew what was gonna happen, which is so awesome. And then it got you to this really cool space where you can be creative, where you have the control to cont to show women as you want, and portray women as you want on camera, which I think is so fascinating. Gaby, this story blows my mind.
Erin (21:43):
Okay? And improve it! Peeps, Gaby is the real deal. Thank you for checking out this episode. Make sure you tune in for episodes 1 63 and 1 64. So many lessons that we can take away from early Gaby. What I want you to think about is your younger self. Is there something in your younger life that when you think back to pops up as a core memory that brings you joy? For Gaby, it was standing on stage at her kindergarten graduation, really not wanting to leave that stage and that moment for you, it might be working with a project with your hands. It might be helping in the garden with your grandmother. It might be playing Double Dare as the television host in your living room. Just talking for a friend here. Think back to younger you. And then we're gonna bring this forward in the next two episodes as we continue with our theme of evolution and part two and three with Gaby Natale. Hey friend, did you enjoy today's show? If so, head on over to iTunes to rate and subscribe. So you never miss an episode. Now, did I mention that when you leave a five star review of the Improve It podcast, an actual team of humans does a happy dance? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. That's right. So leave a review for us on iTunes, screenshot it, and send me an email at info learn to improve it.com. I'll send you a personalized video back as a thank you. Thanks so much for listening. Improve It Peeps. I'll see you next Wednesday.