Kriya Gangiah
“You actually caught me on a day where my hope is pretty low. At the moment, my fire’s burning out a little. But, it’s a point of you need to always keep it going and you need to feel it no matter what. You do have the power to make changes. You do have the power to do things better. You just need to believe in yourself in order to get that way. That little fire that you have inside burns no matter what. Hi, I’m Kriya Gangiah and I Share Hope.” –Kriya Gangiah
Kriya Gangiah is the ultimate mix of beauty, intelligence and enthusiasm. This stylish twenty-something DJ, MC, businesswoman, actress and model attracts a lot of media attention and is currently a presenter on Jacaranda FM’s show The Lounge. Kriya hosts this show every weeknight between 7 and 10 pm alongside co-host Cassy Clarke.
Kriya has an insatiable hunger for knowledge, as is proven by her impressive academic record. Her passion for business is also evident as she is currently a Senior Consultant at Deloitte & Touche in Vulnerability Management, having made the move from her former position as an IT Auditor at one of South Africa’s leading firms. Kriya has also lent her promotional skills to various brands over the years in the role as Brand Ambassador for brands like Zoya, Lipsy, MINI and S.W.E.A.T. 1000. Her enthusiasm and gratitude about her career are infectious, as she remains grateful to get paid to talk.
A well-balanced individual with a social conscience, Kriya manages to strike the balance between having fun whilst remaining driven when it comes to her career.
49 Kriya Gangiah – Modeling intelligent #hope – #isharehope
“You actually caught me on a day where my hope is pretty low. At the moment, my fire’s burning out a little. But, it’s a point of you need to always keep it going and you need to feel it no matter what. You do have the power to make changes. You do have the power to do things better. You just need to believe in yourself in order to get that way. That little fire that you have inside burns no matter what. Hi, I’m Kriya Gangiah and I Share Hope.” –Kriya Gangiah
Intro:
Welcome to I Share Hope! The podcast where world leaders share their real stories of hope and how you can use actionable hope to start changing your life today and now here’s your host, Chris Williams.
Chris Williams:
Well, Kriya Gangiah thank you for joining us. This is really interesting because you’ve got a really, really diverse background. I’m reading part of your bio here and you’re a radio host, a DJ, a model, an athlete, a musician, you live in South Africa, you’ve been awarded Colours of the National Women’s Water Polo Team. If you Google this girl’s name, you’re going to find a crazy amount of really diverse stuff. So Kriya thanks for joining us. Tell us a little about what you do and are you in South Africa today? Before we get in our questions, what’s going on in your world?
Kriya Gangiah:
Yes actually, I’m in South Africa at the moment. I’m at my day job, so pretending to be corporate friendly pretty much at the moment. Pretending is the key word in that sentence. It’s winter as of the moment, so it’s freezing in South Africa which is not the freezing that you’re used to, but it’s freezing for us pretty much.
Chris Williams:
What does freezing mean? How cold are you getting there?
Kriya Gangiah:
Probably about 16-17 degrees.
Chris Williams:
That’s not too bad.
Kriya Gangiah:
That’s like your summer, right?
Chris Williams:
Yes exactly. That’s cool. Have you ever been to the US? Have you ever been to travel this far out?
Kriya Gangiah:
I haven’t yet, but it is on my plan for this year. We’re either going to do New York or Mexico, so it is a work in progress. We’re getting there.
Chris Williams:
Exciting. We’ve got friends around both areas that you’re talking about and so seriously shoot me a message if you come this way and I’ll see if we can find you somebody over there that would be a great tour guide. We’ve got people all over the place. That’s awesome.
Kriya Gangiah:
It’s really nice. I’ve got a very cool group of friends who pretty much we work to travel, so all our savings and stuff like that goes to our interview travels and so far we’ve done some great countries. We’ve done quite a bit of Europe, Mauritius, Zanzibar, Greece and now we’re thinking of going to the US.
Chris Williams:
Oh I’m jealous that sounds great.
Kriya Gangiah:
When you work to travel, you need to work really hard because travelling from South Africa is not the cheapest thing in the world either. Rand is not very strong against a lot of the foreign currencies, so for us it’s super expensive to travel.
Chris Williams:
Yes it makes sense. It is a tough spot to convert from and you’re not really drive-able to anywhere. I mean you got to get on an airplane.
Kriya Gangiah:
No, not even a little. Our flight to Mexico is something like 17 hours – from South Africa to Cancun.
Chris Williams:
You know, I came to South Africa years ago for a couple of weeks and it was, I mean obviously from America, it was a super long flight. It just was crazy long, but beautiful. Once you fly in, you see the coast and those rocks, just the cliffs coming in to South Africa, it’s just awesome. Love it.
Kriya Gangiah:
Yes that’s true.
Chris Williams:
All right. Well, let me ask you these questions. So for anybody who’s new listening, here’s how this works. We’re asking 1000 people around the globe five questions about hope. How they’re using hope, what they believe about it and how we can start changing our lives to live in a more hopeful way or bring hope to somebody else who may need a little more encouragement. So let me ask you these questions Kriya. These are really, really simple. This is about you, not me.
Question 1: What is your definition of hope or your favorite quote about hope?
Kriya Gangiah:
I think my definition about hope has got to be in…I wouldn’t say quote, I would definitely rather go for definition because hope is different to a lot of people. For me I think hope is that little fire that you have inside that kind of burns no matter what and if it goes out it’s a really sad thing and you need to keep it going, but it’s that little fire that’s inside that keeps you motivated, keeps you wanting to do more. You actually caught me on a day where my hope is pretty low. At the moment, my fire is burning out a little but it’s a point of you need to always keep it going and you need to fuel it no matter what even on days like today when it’s not at its strongest. You need to make sure that you can actually have the ability to motivate yourself to make sure that you can get it to its strongest again. It’s always never an easy process and it’s always easier to say than to actually execute. It’s just believing, believing that things can get better, that you can get better and believing in yourself and you as an individual person, you do have the power to make changes and you do have the power to do things better. You just need to believe in yourself in order to get that way. I’d definitely say that that would be hope for me.
Chris Williams:
That’s a great, great way to put it. It’s that little fire, keeping that little spark going. I appreciate you saying that there’s days that are lower days than some. That’s life and so many times we talk to somebody here and it sounds like wow, you’re doing amazing, you’ve never had a bad day. But it really is, it comes and goes and every day is different. You wake up and you roll into it. With that definition, question two.
Question 2: Who has shared the most hope with you? Who has given you that hope in the past that’s really influenced you moving forward?
Kriya Gangiah:
To be dead honest, it’s every single person that you come in contact with. Some will give you more hope than others, but for me particular people that – it doesn’t matter who you are, if you’re a person that’s in radio, if you’re a person that’s in business, if you’re a person that’s helping other people. The one group of people that I believe that will always raise your hope is mentors. If you have a very good mentor and someone that’s always there, it doesn’t have to be a business mentor or someone who is in the same field as you. It could be an emotional mentor or a person who’s always there just to kind to prop you up. No one is super heroes, no one is invincible. Everybody, like you said, has their good days and bad days.
You need a very good support structure. That for me is one person or definitely one group of people that you definitely need to inspire hope in you because it also gives you a vision to look for what you want to do. If it’s a business mentor for example, they’ve gone through it, they’ve lived their paces, they know what you’re going through now and they can always help you get further.
If it’s an emotional mentor, it’s someone that’s there to say “Listen, I agree with you – I don’t agree with you” which is fine if they don’t agree with you. That can also help you see new things. I agree with you, I don’t agree with you, but I’m here to back you up. For example, I’m going to go see my sister-in-law later, she’s my emotional mentor. Just to help you get your hope to its strongest point again.
Chris Williams:
That’s good stuff. Just a practical note on mentors. If you don’t have mentors and you’re listening and thinking, what in the world does that mean? It’s really, really simple. For me and I’m sure for many others listening and Kriya, you too, mentors can come in lots of areas in your life like you just said emotional or in your business or career life. I kind of think of my life and I break it down to sections, so I get this emotional side of me, spiritual side, being a dad or a husband or in business. Whatever I’m trying to do, I get an area – the person doesn’t have to be a super person in all those areas. I just want to know, hey there’s somebody who is a couple years ahead of me in this area of my career or I’ve got five kids, the oldest is 14, I want to hang out with a dad who’s got college age kids. Just a little farther down the road.
I literally start the relationship with hey, I want you to be a mentor. Can I take you to lunch or buy you coffee once a month. It works because then I’m not just hanging out at a ball game. I’m actually going, we’re intentional, we sit down and I say here’s what’s going on the past month, what would you do if you were in my shoes? You know, it works.
Kriya Gangiah:
I think a point that has to be said is it doesn’t always have to be somebody that’s older than you. It’s just someone that you can connect with on that level.
Chris Williams:
Yes. That’s really true. Age doesn’t really make the difference. It’s somebody you trust and somebody who you think can point you in the right direction. Good stuff. Love it. Question three is more about you and your background, your personal story.
Question 3: Take us to a place, paint that picture on the story of when was a time in your life when hope was really harder to hang on to. When did you really need hope? What happened back there?
Kriya Gangiah:
I come for a, like you said earlier, a very diverse background. I started in let’s say my media career when I was about 17 years old. I’ve always had mom and dad support me. I could never drive to the radio station myself because I wasn’t old enough to have a license to drive yet. Mom and dad used to drop and pick me up for shows at 3:00 in the morning and take me back to campus at 7:00 the next morning. I needed my mom and my dad at that stage and my brothers who helped quite a bit. When I was 17, I moved from radio station to TV and then from TV back into radio, back into TV. It was kind of a cycle and now I’m lucky enough to be doing both. In between, with my degree, my dad was like “listen, you need to get a little bit of experience under your belt corporate-wise just in case come a couple of years down the line you decide that you don’t want to do media anymore” which happens. It happens to a lot of people. You decide to change your career path. Just to have a little bit of experience on something to fall back on which I think if you’re thinking of going into the media career, it’s always a good thing to have. I’m not saying don’t go in with 110% of your heart, I’m just saying always have a safety net because you never know in this industry what can happen.
In terms of where I needed hope the most, I think the first time I left TV or the first time I actually left radio, let’s start there, I didn’t have another media career to go to. My TV career was coming to an end because I was getting a little bit older for a youth program. Because I was so involved in TV, my radio show started taking a bit of a knock as well, so that was a bit of a concern and it just came to a point where I didn’t have a corporate job, my media jobs were coming to an end and I really didn’t know what was going on. It was that push to say listen, this is what I want to do. I’m not going anywhere, I’m not changing anything, I’m not…I need to do something with my life. I need to go out there and get it. It took a while. It took a couple of months and eventually, I got lucky and I got a new TV job, I got a new radio job and I got into corporate at the same time.
It was just that extra push that you needed to kind of go out and get it. Even like I said, today is not the highest moment in hope time for me either because we’re looking at changing radio shows and I don’t know what’s going to happen to the radio show, what’s going to happen to me and what’s going to happen for my future career. When you’re in this industry, I’ve been in this industry, this is my 9th year and it doesn’t get any easier. It doesn’t get any easier when people are saying “listen we’re moving scheduling around and we don’t know what we’re going to do with you”. It’s not a fact of being bad at your job, being not good for the radio station. It’s just the show is not a fit and we need to find a way going forward where everything can work out smoothly for everyone.
It’s moments like this when you have to put your head down and just keep motoring through it. It’s like Dory says in Finding Nemo, “Just keep swimming”. If you don’t just keep swimming, you curl into a little ball and you eat ice cream on your couch and you grow your beard if you’re a guy and you don’t shave your legs if you’re a girl and nothing beneficial comes from that. You need to just keep going.
Chris Williams:
That’s a good point. By the way, I like eating ice cream sitting on my couch, so I’m going to have to argue on that. That’s a really good description of a time when you’re losing hope. You’re not just saying it’s hard on my career or hard on the decisions I have to make. There’s a lot of personal stuff in there that makes you feel like – Is it me? Am I doing something right or wrong? Do people like me? Particularly in media. Its popularity driven ain’t it?
Kriya Gangiah:
It is. It’s the worst thing. It’s like being in high school all over again. This is my life. Will the cool kids like me or not? It’s one of those things. I’m going to go through this for the rest of my life and that’s just the industry that I’ve picked. It does make you stronger over time. When I say time, nine years and I’m still not strong about it, but you know, it will come right eventually. It’s a personal thing and we actually said to the guys in the meeting today, I’m like, you’re putting through everyone in this room that’s having this discussion with you – you’re putting us through four days of the worst time of our lives plus you want us to be happy, go-lucky on air, in public and still go along with life as usual but at the back end, it’s a lot of emotions. It’s the first time I’ve ever cried in a meeting also. It’s one of those things – it just happens.
Chris Williams:
Yes, that’s good. You’re right, it does, it just happens and there’s nothing you can do about it and it is hard to flip the switch and go back out there and put a smile in your face. Then, how are you doing in sharing hope with other people? What do you do every day? I mean in the board room, you have this hard conversation then you got to get back online, you got to go back in the street and people recognize you.
Question 4: How do you share hope with people even if you’re not having the best day?
Kriya Gangiah:
One of my mentors actually told me this and it’s very pertinent to our industry, but I think it can be pulled across to everybody’s lives. Specifically when I started in radio he said, when you walk through the door of the radio station, if you’re having the worst day in the entire world and if something’s gone wrong, your dog died or you scratched or car, whatever the case is, use that to your advantage. On radio we can always turn it into a story and if it doesn’t work that way, you leave your baggage at the door because nobody else cares. Everybody is so involved in their own lives that nobody else cares. When I say that, it’s like its two ways. You can either decide to not do anything about it and go along living your life like normal and happiness and entertain people and put smile on their faces which is, in a way, spreading that hope and spreading that joy or you can decide to turn it into something positive or into a story.
Take what’s happening in your life and share it and develop it and explain maybe not the actual details of it, but the situation which even, for example, I’m doing it right now with you. Explain the situation and other people can relate to that and from there you can be like, ok cool, but I’m doing this to develop myself. I’m doing this to change and that’s another way of doing it. It just depends on how you pick and choose to live your life and to live your stories. You can either use it in a positive way to help people listen, this is how I’m doing it, I know you’re going through similar things but here we can do it together or its okay, we’re still happy, we’re still going, we’re still getting there, I’ll still put a smile in your face. It just depends on you.
Chris Williams:
That’s a great skill. It really is. So, you’re saying at times when things are hard, I’m going to try to use the dog dying because that’s a really sad one. You could come in and mope around and just bring everybody else down on air or if it’s just your smaller work crew that you’re with every day in the office, but you can be all down and sad and depressed and bring everybody with you or you can be – oh man, the dog died, but I got to go to the shelter yesterday and love on some more animals and I think I’m going to pick one out and I got to walk when the little lady next door walked her dog and it’s such a great dog. You can kind of look forward and move. Move, move, move.
Kriya Gangiah:
Yes. That’s exactly what I mean. You don’t want to make other people be…You don’t want to transfer your negative vibes, your negative emotions. You want to create that happy, entertaining type thing – yes that’s exactly what I’m trying to say.
Chris Williams:
Yes, right. So for me, that would be my dog died and I was sitting on the couch, depressed, eating ice cream, but this new flavor of rocky road, it’s amazing. You got to try this ice cream.
Kriya Gangiah:
Exactly. There’s always a rainbow at the end of everything. There’s always a silver lining on every cloud.
Chris Williams:
You’re right and for me it involves ice cream.
Kriya Gangiah:
As long as you shave Chris, as long as you shave.
Chris Williams:
I’m clean-shaven with double ice cream. There you go.
Kriya Gangiah:
Then you’re fine.
Chris Williams:
Ok good.
Question 5: Give me some simple steps as a person who’s growing in hope and learning how to share hope with people, how do I do that? How do I start growing in hope personally or giving hope to somebody else? Simple ways.
Kriya Gangiah:
I think it depends on the person. For me for example, I enjoy trying to give back as much as possible. For my birthday, for example, every single years I do a fundraiser and this year we managed to raise quite a lot of money for an animal shelter and subsequently since then I’ve got offers from corporate companies that want to get involved with it and charities that even though they may not be supported by this specific event, they want to partake in it, they want to be present. I think that is something that is very special. I know a lot of people may not be able to actually go out and do a massive, for example, we did a food and music festival, but it took me a good four years to develop this and it started at my brother’s restaurant. Everyone, instead of bringing gifts, could bring a can of dog food or a non-perishable can of food, whatever the case may be into an actual food festival.
Its little developments. I got very lucky to be able to do all of these. I mean we raised the equivalent of about $2000 which in South African terms is just over 20,000 Rand which is literally cleared bait ball for the charity that we were working with. Things like that and going from a little birthday party with 40 people to being able to do that is very special. I think other ways, if you’re not able to do something like that, is just a positive energy. I was chatting to one of my managers in Corporate the other day and he said our team has really, really had a rough time with clients and work at the moment, but having a positive energy in the room…For example, when someone’s moaning and complaining about a client and at the end of it try to make a joke out of it and everybody laughs, everyone feels a little bit better and we go on with our day. I think that’s a very important thing to do. So, what that’s two steps?
Chris Williams:
It is.
Kriya Gangiah:
You can help no matter what and try and create a positive vibe. You want five, am I correct?
Chris Williams:
No, you don’t have to give five, you want to go for five though I’m in. Keep it coming if you got them written down?
Kriya Gangiah:
Okay let’s go. Maybe we can go for one more. Positive vibe and then I think in any way that you can help someone develop themselves and make them feel better. If you have a mentor and you’re going in that way, being the emotional one like we spoke earlier or the business corporate one career-wise, try, as you further yourself, to do that with somebody else. Have somebody that you can mentor, that can look up to you and you can help get to the point in their lives that maybe you want to still get to. But at the same time, you’re growing yourself looking from where you came, how you developed to where you are, how you can develop going forward and how to help that other person come up to where they want to be. I think that’s also very important.
Chris Williams:
Boy those are good. So, you got the one that is just using an opportunity like your birthday or something else where you can give back and create something special for another group and then you’ve got just really encouraging, being part of that funny office prank or great good morning comment or something around you just bringing a smile to somebody’s face and your own every day and paying it forward. The last one, paying it forward not just soaking up from a mentor, but being a mentor for somebody else. Love it. Great
Kriya Gangiah:
There’s a quote, I think it’s from Gandhi. “Be the change you want to see in the world.” I think that’s very important to remember.
Chris Williams:
That is really important to remember. Wow. Well Kriya, how can we be in touch with you? So you’ve got social media, websites, all these things going on out there, where do we follow and find out more of what you’re doing?
Kriya Gangiah:
Cool, so I’m on Facebook, its KriyaG. That’s on Twitter, that’s on Instagram. It’s Kriya Gangiah on Facebook and my website is KriyaGangiah.co.za and I’m always open to questions, chats, to have a conversation if you’re in the immediate industry or you want to get into the media industry. I know I may not be able to help in a different country, but the principles are still the same, so I can totally help out with that.
Chris Williams:
Yes they are. Great. That is paying it forward right there. Can’t thank you enough, you’ve been so fun to talk to.
Kriya Gangiah:
Thanks so much. It’s a pleasure. I’m glad that I could help you share hope.
Chris Williams:
You really have. It’s really fun and you’ve given some really good tips and good points particularly for the three young girls running around in my house. I’d love to let them hear this whole thing because you’d be a great example for them. A mentor for 30 minutes they can listen to. What a great thing. Thank you.
Kriya Gangiah:
Thank you very much Chris.
Chris Williams:
Okay. Bye.
Kriya Gangiah:
Cool. Bye.
You’ve just listened to I Share Hope. If you’re ready to make a change, head to our website at isharehope.com and claim your free copy of the Top Ten Actions of Hope from World Leaders to use hope in your own life. Thanks for listening and we’ll talk to you next time.
Chris Williams:
How in the world do you go from playing all these sports, even a chess club? I mean you’re really crazy diverse. So there’s all these sports, chess club, music and then you go into modeling as well. I mean I don’t picture some of these sports like cricket being where the average model comes from just because of the – I don’t know, I’m not knocking cricket players or models, I’m just thinking they don’t seem to be on the same line. How do you put all that together and actually make it work?
Kriya Gangiah:
I was very lucky that my parents were very supportive in all my ideas. If I wanted to play water polo, my dad was like, “Yes, go play water polo, we’ll be at every game”. I want to try out radio. “Yes, I’ll be there.” My mom was actually a deportment coach when I was younger which helped out a lot with the modeling and I have great genes. My mom and my dad are beautiful people and it just happened so that I got great genes as well.
Chris Williams:
Your mom is a deportment coach? What is a deportment coach?
Kriya Gangiah:
She’s actually quite a few things at the moment, but deportment coach was she trained models and how do they do it in the US? A debs ball? So someone who would train you for your debs ball? That would be my mom.
Chris Williams:
I see. That makes sense, so the thing you’re going to wear and how you’re going to walk and all the…
Kriya Gangiah:
Yes.
Chris Williams:
Okay. Deportment, I was leaving the country getting deported.
Kriya Gangiah:
Which fork to use.
Chris Williams:
Got you. The manners. I’m with you. Now, talk modeling for a second because there are a lot of younger females who listen to this show and three young girls myself, just getting into their teens and the way you look is so important in their minds and I know it is important. We don’t need to sit on the couch and not shave. I get it, but what do you tell younger girls who are just getting started? And you are young yourself, but that early teenage stage to be able to build their own self-worth and something besides the label and the way their hair looks when they walk into middle school or junior high?
Kriya Gangiah:
I think what’s very important is when I was younger, I had braces, my dresses were longer than most dresses of the girls at school, my blazer was too big for me, I had curly hair and had no idea to tame my curly bush of a hair. Those are all the things that I think I embraced after a while. It doesn’t matter if you’re the skinniest girl in the world because I’m not… I don’t have a six-pack, I don’t have perfectly toned arms. I’m super tiny –I’m only 1.59 meters tall, so I’m very short. All of those things are not model requirements, but what comes across on camera is you’re very confident. I think that’s the most important thing. You need to say cool – embrace what you have.
I do, for example, a lot of hair commercials because now I absolutely love my hair and I embrace my hair for being different and I’ve learned how to manage it. I still have skewed teeth, so I don’t smile on a lot of photos, but its things like that. You need to find your differences and trust me when you’re younger it is not easy. When you’re in high school, when you’re going through the stages where girls are not the kindest people in the world either, I went to an all-girl high school, they’re not kind and it’s hard to say this…I mean it’s easy to say this, but harder to execute. You need to just be who you are and be confident and happy with who you are and trust me, it settles down when you get older. Don’t worry if your dress is a little too long in comparison to the other girls, if you don’t fit into your jacket. If you’re confident enough, don’t worry people are going to start making jackets for you.
Chris Williams:
I love it. That’s good advice. Last question for you. Favorite artist, favorite song. If you got to put something in your headphones and just lift your spirits and get back rock and rolling, what are you going to listen to?
Kriya Gangiah:
Anything I can sing along to. My music taste is so diverse from hip hop to R&B to house music to – I love a little Sam Smith and John Legend. Michael Buble for me is amazing. It’s anything that just gets you going. I’ll put on a Me and Mrs. Jones from Michael Buble and then change it up with the brand new Sam Smith song called Restart. As long as you can say – What’s that’s the song that they sing in White Chicks? Vanessa Carlton, A Thousand Miles. That song’s always a goodie.
Chris Williams:
Awesome. Great suggestions. I’ll put those on the show notes page. So, everything that we’re hearing, we’ll find at isharehope.com. There’s links to so much of the info we’re talking about today and Kriya’s information, her social media links, her website and obviously some favorite songs there too.
