Latest / Daily Influence / 604. Cyber Clarity: Turning Fear into Empowerment with D. Anne Gunia

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604. Cyber Clarity: Turning Fear into Empowerment with D. Anne Gunia · Daily Influence

• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the daily influence where our mission is to deliver a daily dose of positive influence that can uplift you personally or be shared within your sphere of influence.
• 0:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: While not every episode may directly apply to your unique circumstances, we strive to provide insights and inspiration relevant to most people's daily, weekly, and monthly lives.
• 0:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whether you are tuning in during the morning, noon or night, the daily influence is here for you.
• 0:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Listen, share, and embrace the power of influence in your life.
• 0:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Daily Influence, I'm Greg Plino.
• 0:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Today's guest is someone who's turning the often intimidating world of technology into an empowering space, especially for women.
• 0:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Dian Gunya is a founder of Cyber Vendor.
• 0:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: A cyber security expert, author the book, cyber clarity, and creator of a free online course that helps people recover their social media accounts if they're hacked.
• 1:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Her mission is to replace fear with knowledge, giving individuals and business owners the tools and confidence they need to make informed IT decisions.
• 1:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Through our work, she's challenging the fear-based approach so common in cybersecurity and showing us the technology can be a tool for growth, connection, and empowerment.
• 1:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: DM, welcome to daily influence.
• 1:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much for having me, Greg.
• 1:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Could you share a bit about your background in what led you to where you are today, helping others feel confident in empowered in the world of technology?
• 1:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sure, my background is in business marketing and business administration and I originally started working with data analytics.
• 1:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I was very familiar with technology because we had to use computers to analyze all the data, all the different market share, all the different products.
• 1:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I was really, really ingrained in the technology part.
• 2:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: which then led me to run a technology company managed service provider for small businesses.
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I managed that for a few years.
• 2:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then after that, my background was in marketing, my degree is in marketing.
• 2:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I decided, you know what?
• 2:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to try going back into marketing and see what that's like because an opportunity actually came up.
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I was in a marketing department at a manufacturer for the electrical industry.
• 2:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: And when I was tasked to taking these devices and trying to market them to electricians, I was mostly looking at the technology side of things and I always kept asking,
• 2:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: And this was back when cybersecurity really wasn't a big thing.
• 2:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was just kind of like, oh, no, no, it's fine.
• 2:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I just keep going, no, it's not fine.
• 2:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's not secure.
• 2:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: So after a while, I kind of realized, you know what, marketing is not my thing.
• 2:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: I want people to be honest and transparent.
• 3:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: And if I know this device isn't cybersecurity, I can't market it.
• 3:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: So after that, I just decided to know what I'm going to start my own IT consulting company and I'm going to focus on the client.
• 3:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to focus on educating them and empowering them with education.
• 3:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so that's kind of currently where I'm at with cyber venture.
• 3:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's a great story.
• 3:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for sharing it.
• 3:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: What inspired you to write cyber clarity and create your free social media recovery course and how do these resources align with your goal of replacing fear with empowerment.
• 3:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, cybersecurity came about because we receive a lot of potential customers coming to us.
• 3:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: And their confused about technology, they're not exactly sure what it is they even have in their company, let alone what kind of questions do they ask a potential managed service provider or any kind of other IT provider?
• 3:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so when they came to me and they just kept going, you know, I don't know exactly what to ask you,
• 3:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: I kind of figured that you know what, these decision makers, they really need to have some sort of a manual, some kind of a guidebook that will actually help them do their job better, whether it was done fallen, as a fallen told position, because lots of times it happens in industries, or whether it's something that they just want to get into.
• 4:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so that's how cyber clarity came about was,
• 4:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's basically a guidebook and a manual to help people understand what it is you need to know about your IT systems.
• 4:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And what kind of questions to ask when you are actually interviewing IT personnel?
• 4:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: And my social media course for hacking, that also came about because we get a lot of phone calls from people.
• 4:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're scared.
• 4:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're terrified because their social media account gets hacked.
• 4:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And once your account gets hacked, that's it.
• 4:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: And they think that since we're a cyber security company, we can just go in, press a few buttons and get their account back.
• 4:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Unfortunately, all these social media channels are unthird party platforms.
• 5:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: So they're on like metas, social servers and they're on like LinkedIn servers.
• 5:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: These are places we have no access to at all.
• 5:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And unfortunately it's one of those things where if your account gets hacked, you have to talk directly to meta or to LinkedIn or to whoever runs TikTok.
• 5:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's just one of those things and people just don't understand and they're terrified because that's a times the social media accounts are where they sell as like a side hustle.
• 5:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I came across with this this course because I really wanted people to, okay, understand what is the step by step process on getting your account back and unfortunately it's not very simple, but I wanted people to be educated and to know how to do it.
• 5:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's great.
• 5:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure there's so many people out there that need that course.
• 5:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: We'll make sure we went to it and to show notes.
• 5:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Can you share a moment or experience where you felt you made a positive impact on someone's life?
• 5:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Either personally or professionally through your work and technology.
• 5:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sure, one great example is right now, AI is a huge hype.
• 6:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Everybody's talking about AI.
• 6:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I've had a couple of individuals who are older, but they're still in the workforce.
• 6:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: And they hear all the negatives about AI, but they're very fearful that they're gonna lose their job.
• 6:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I've had one person actually come up to me and just kind of ask, well, you know what?
• 6:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've heard about AI.
• 6:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: But how do I get started?
• 6:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: What is it?
• 6:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: How do I figure stuff out?
• 6:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I basically gave them a step-by-step process.
• 6:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: I told me, first of all, you know, calm down, you're on the right path because you want to change.
• 6:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: You want to learn this technology, okay?
• 6:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: You are one step ahead of all the other people in your company.
• 6:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I just basically gave them a very simple step-by-step process on how to learn AI, how to learn what it is,
• 6:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: what it can do, how it can help them, what it can help with, you know, their industry.
• 6:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so this person was just really, really grateful because I didn't laugh at them.
• 7:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't demean them.
• 7:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was just very open and transparent about how to use it.
• 7:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I told them, I said, you know, if you have any questions, come back to me.
• 7:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm more than happy to help you because I understand that fear.
• 7:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I don't want you to be afraid.
• 7:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: I want you to feel empowered and be able to tell your boss.
• 7:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
• 7:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: I do know how to use AI.
• 7:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm, you know, not going to stay in the closet on my little typewriter.
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: I am moving forward with the company and with the future.
• 7:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's great.
• 7:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm so glad you were there for that person.
• 7:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yes.
• 7:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that I in team series, we talk a lot about responsible influence.
• 7:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: In an industry where fear is often used to sell products and services, how do you approach influencing others
• 7:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love to provide education to others.
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: In my industry, yes, fear is used to sell a lot of products.
• 7:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: But what I do is I try and educate people as to why they would need certain products or services.
• 8:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because lots of times, they go to an IT provider and then the IT providers, I have package A, B, and C, you're gonna need C
• 8:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: whatever and they use a bunch of acronyms and they confuse people.
• 8:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you know, I don't want to use that.
• 8:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to instill fear and people people right now are so stressed out.
• 8:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're so full of fear.
• 8:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to contribute to that.
• 8:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: I want people to basically feel confident in coming to me and asking me questions.
• 8:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so when I try and help a company, I basically tell them, look.
• 8:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: This software we're recommending because this potentially could happen or this happens and I use a lot of general analogies so that people will understand how the technology works.
• 8:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't want people to ever feel confused or just fearful about what it is that we're offering them and so that's how basically I help people by just by educating that's my my sole purpose.
• 9:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: A big part of your mission is helping women feel more confident asking IT questions.
• 9:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: What strategies or mindsets do you believe make the biggest difference in empowering women in this space?
• 9:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: The biggest mindset, and I've heard this from like a lot of ladies, is I'm afraid of technology, I'm not tech savvy, don't put a computer in front of me, don't give me this off, and I told don't be afraid of technology, okay, as long as you have a backup of your system, there's really nothing you can do to make it explode.
• 9:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I always tell them you do not be afraid of technology.
• 9:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: you know, don't use that fear is an excuse not to learn something new, like, especially now with the age of AI.
• 9:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, don't say, I'm afraid, just go in and say, okay, how can I learn?
• 9:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: What can I learn about this?
• 9:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I mean, there's people that are all these screaming now that, you know, AI is going to take away their jobs and they come to me and they say that when I talk about AI and I turn those people on, I say,
• 10:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: AI is not going to take away your job.
• 10:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: The people who know how to use AI are going to take away your job.
• 10:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, stop being afraid, go in, find the knowledge.
• 10:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have, like nowadays, there's YouTube tutorials, or even just go into an AI.
• 10:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: and ask them questions.
• 10:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: And obviously, when you ask AI questions and I always tell this to people, double check the responses, check the sources, ask it to tell you what its sources are and then verify those sources.
• 10:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's great advice.
• 10:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: How are you using AI in your work?
• 10:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm using AI mostly for social media and marketing because as a small business, I can't afford to basically hire a whole entire marketing team.
• 10:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I have to try and do everything by myself.
• 10:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I use AI a lot with social media posts, different content or even just research.
• 11:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: But as I've mentioned before, if I ask it to do research, I tell it to store,
• 11:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: basically cite the sources, so I can go and verify that what it's giving me is actually correct.
• 11:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: And by doing this, by using AI, that's how I'm able to offer a lot more educational courses for the public so that they can understand technology better and not have that fear.
• 11:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: The end.
• 11:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: What message are words of encouragement?
• 11:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Would you like to share with our listeners who aspire to make a positive difference to the world, whether in technology or anywhere else?
• 11:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: I always say, keep learning and then share that knowledge with others because knowledge is power as we've heard that phrase so so many times and I absolutely completely believe in it.
• 11:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I'm in this position because I love to learn.
• 11:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: I will
• 12:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: read so many different self-help books.
• 12:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: I will watch documentaries.
• 12:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just absolutely love learning.
• 12:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's because of that, I'm in the position I'm in.
• 12:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And if I don't know something, I go and I figure out how I can learn either that task or that piece of, or find that piece of knowledge.
• 12:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: And because of that now, I'm able to help others.
• 12:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's just such a great feeling to be able to help someone
• 12:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: and that fear that just goes away after you've taught them something that they've never really known before.
• 12:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: That is so true.
• 12:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for showing us that technology doesn't have to be intimidating or fear driven.
• 12:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: It can be a pathway to empowerment, connection and confidence.
• 12:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: And Dan, your work is such a great reminder that responsible influence starts with helping others feel capable and informed.
• 12:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: If our listeners want to get in touch with you, what's the best way to do so?
• 12:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: They can find me on LinkedIn under D. Goonia or go to our cyber venture LinkedIn page.
• 13:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: We'll put the access to the LinkedIn or information in the show notes.
• 13:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Dan, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your stories in your advice.
• 13:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm so grateful for you.
• 13:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much, Greg.
• 13:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's been really wonderful.
• 13:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: For our listeners, thank you for tuning in to Daily Influence.
• 13:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: I hope today's conversation brought you inside an inspiration.
• 13:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: If it's spoke to you, share it with someone who could use a little positivity today.
• 13:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Remember, education is one of the most powerful tools you can use to remove fear and open new opportunities.
• 13:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Go out there and ask questions, seek the answers, and be the influence you wish to see in your community.
• 13:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Until next time, stay inspired and keep having a positive, responsible influence.
• 13:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Bye-bye.