TV Hosting and Selling Everything to Travel the World

Media Monday with Evi Siskos

Evi Siskos is a multilingual TV host and world traveler that has been an on-camera personality before the words “content creator” became a mainstream term.

With a reach of almost 3 million followers across her social media, Evi has shared with her audience her experience as a TV host and actress in both English and Spanish for years.

Now she is sharing how her family sold everything to travel the world while still being an active content creator.

EVI’S BEGINNINGS

Evi was born and raised in New York and studied International Business at Montclair University. She also studied Mandarin at Shanghai Normal University in China, but when finishing up school she started auditioning because she still wanted to make it on TV.

She is half Greek and Dominican and grew up speaking both Greek and Spanish fluently along with many other languages. Naturally, her first opportunity was for a Spanish commercial where she made a connection with someone who worked at Telemundo.

“You never know where something is going to lead you and no gig or work is ever too small,” Evi said during our interview together.

This one small opportunity led her to become a NY Emmy Nominated TV host for her work on Telemundo in 2016, and other acting roles on TV shows like Zoe in Don’t Know Jack, a basketball player’s wife on Law & Order: Special Victims Units, and many other national commercials in both English and Spanish.

THE AMERICAN DREAM

Being a first-generation American, Evi really wanted to be an actress in English-speaking media. She was still able to do some amazing projects in English, but a lot of her work is in Spanish.

She realized that she had a much bigger reach being multilingual and was able to do so much work in voiceover, commercials, television hosting, and much more.

However, an issue that she brought up that I still see as a problem in the media industry is that most English-speaking gigs pay more than the Spanish-speaking ones. I know far too well because about 70% of the voiceover work I do is in Spanish.

You would think because Evi was a professional TV Host that creating content for social media was easy, right? Nope.

She said that she really had a hard time being more authentic on social media because she was still playing this “TV persona” online.

There’s so much power in social media because of how far it reaches. When Evi was doing TV commercials they were usually limited to a certain region, but now content online can be found from all over the world.

Most auditions are now online because of this, which she mentioned is another sweet part of digital.

THE DARK SIDE OF MEDIA

In our live interview, someone asked, “How do you get over the feeling of being judged,” when it comes to putting yourself on camera.

Evi credits her theater days growing up to probably helping her feel more comfortable in front of the camera than most people. However, she still mentioned that you have to get over this feeling quickly because there have been so many times that she didn’t get the job after auditioning.

Making mistakes on-camera was also a part of the job because she was doing live hosting in Spanish while thinking in English (something I do all the time). But she got plenty of practice and is now amazing on-camera in both languages.

As her success grew in the TV world, she noticed that she was walking the fine line of doing what she loved in the industry and doing it to be famous. So she took some time off from TV in 2016.

“Even micro-fame can get to you,” Evi mentioned, and many have had issues putting all of their value in their social media or on-camera success.

FINDING HER WHY

“Not everyone is going to like you at the end of the day, it’s what you feel about yourself,” Evi said.

During her time off from working in TV, she focused on meditation, finding stillness, finding herself, and figuring out ways not to be too much in her head.

She mentioned to truly figure out why you are doing what you are doing because if it’s for fame it’s not going to be fun.

I talk about this in many of my branding workshops where I often recommend to people who are starting new brands to read the book by Simon Sinek called Start with Why. If you know your “why” from the beginning it will always guide you.

SELLING EVERYTHING TO TRAVEL THE WORLD

Not only is Evi traveling the world, but it is now a family affair with her husband and young son. You can find her on social media sharing her travels with her family while being an on-air travel host.

Feel free to watch the video at the beginning of the article to learn why she and her family decided to do this.