Hello everybody and welcome to another hobby cheating video and today we're going to talk about colored non-metallic metal or in other words non-metallic metal that's reflecting light.   So that last week you saw me talk about placing the reflected lights and she's more or less in a good place but now it's time to do the actual blade and the way her blade is facing the top half here, this side, will be sort of away from the fire and so we're going to use a colder scheme for it whereas the bottom side is very much directly facing down toward the fire and so we're going to infuse some warmer tones in that. So let's talk about what's on our pallet here. I have both a warm and cold pallet set up so let's talk through it. Over here I have some Daler Rowney white FW white ink and some golden heavy body acrylic titanium white. Next up we've got some Warcolors Turquoise 4. We have some Dark Sea Blue right here from Vallejo and then we have some Pains Grey Blue Black ink. On the warm side of it we have some Proacryl Black Brown, we have some Proacryl Orange, we have some Scale 75 Kokum Copper, it's a really nice sort of orange yellow color, it's very ochery and then we've got some Ice Yellow, our favorite traditional fun from Vallejo which is our favorite bright highlight for warm colors. Okay, so I'm going to bring my paper towel in here, get my water all positioned and let's get to it. So here I'm working with a size one brush from Monument, it's from their Bomb Wick line so this is a Sable brush and what I want to do first is just understand sort of the way the blade is going to look. What I mean by that is it's important for me to figure out where exactly am I going to place my light reflections and given that it's kind of at a downward angle like I don't know how well you can see that vis-a-vis like the normal angle but she's holding it at a downward slant. So I want to gather light here at the tip on the cold side and I know I want to gather some light here on the warm side so given that it feels to me like we've got a 3-2. When I say a 3-2 what I mean is three spots of highlight opposed by two spots of highlight. There's no hard rule on this, I just like sort of thinking in those terms. You can have the same, there's lots of different ways you can do this. There's a million billion billion ways you can reflect non-metallic metal but in this case we'll do a nice 3-2.  So what we're going to do is we're going to start with our critical element which is some Flow Improver, I've used it so much I've wiped the name off but this is some Warcolors Flow Improver which I really like. I just like their mixture, I think it works really well. So there you go, sometimes people ask me what Flow Improver I like, well that's the one. Although you can go buy Liquitex from the art store, I have some of that as well and it's a perfectly great product, no issue at all. And what I want to do is actually see if I can move my palette on frame here just a little without getting too in the way. We're going to take just a little bit of that turquoise. We're going to grab some of that white ink and a good amount of that heavy body white. We're going to make a couple different mixes of it here. And Flow Improver is great when you're working with heavy bodies because you want them to actually be going and mood doing something. Now there's other ways you can work with heavy body acrylics where it doesn't require you to do this. So you can place and paint on the miniature but for our purposes here we want to keep it moving. Let's actually try to get that part out of there so we get our clean white. We'll just bring this down and that'll be our very white area. OK, so I'm going to avoid any true white at this moment. You can see even my color here has some blue infusion and that's what I want. OK, I've got kind of three shades of it there that all are before we get to the the darker color. And so now what I'm going to do is go ahead and just kind of place that where I want it. Now, I should note that as I just kind of move quickly, smooth the paint out. Then I'm going to want probably a small highlight here. So let's go ahead and drop that in. The nice part about just kind of placing these things first as I can see how they balance. And then let's go ahead and let's get a nice one right back here at the back. OK, sorry. Tough angle to work on camera. OK, so we just kind of drop those in there. Just kind of taking a look, see how I feel about that. Then we'll go into the next color, this next blue. And I'm just going to go ahead and cover over some of my previous work. This is going to be real thin and that's all right. Probably a little too thin, honestly. So we just kind of place that blue in there. I'm just having to be very careful of that gold I painted because I don't feel like repainting it, OK? So we kind of just smooth out those edges. Then we're going to get more into the regular straight turquoise. You notice how each time I'm not placing them right next to each other. I'm covering a lot of my previous work and that's intentional. I'm also tending now at this point to make these hashes to paint in this hashed style. So oftentimes I'll say paint with the side of the brush. You get something smoother. But in this particular case, I want this to have a little bit of a feel of these hashes. So I'm purposely using the tip of my brush like this just to create those those lines because those are going to be beneficial to me in the long run for actually forming my shape. OK, all right. So now let's take a little bit of that dark sea blue. Let's get a dog hair mixed in. Always a fun part of working in my office. We'll mix a little bit of that turquoise. Again, get that flow improver in there so we've got it moving. I like to move it to move it. Move it. So there we go. Right, just kind of cover over this right here. Again, kind of taking this hashing mentality right where we're doing these in sharp, thin, repeated lines. You notice I keep then going back to the previous color, pulling a little bit of that in when my brush is still wet. OK, and then I'm going to go ahead and pull the edge of that. It just helps make my job later a little bit easier. Then we're going to go ahead and go straight into the straight dark sea blue. Nice, little thin version of that here. We'll get a little broader at the bottom. Create some directionality. So in other words, I'm starting thin at the top. And you see how my lines just expand as I come toward that middle line. And finally, we're going to take just a little bit of that ink. Bring that in there. That's real dark in here, just in the center of this top shadow. I'm going to deepen that up because I don't want the I don't want the bottom shadow to have that much depth. OK, so now we've got a nice range of colors there. OK, so I understand exactly what I'm dealing with. It lets me squint my eyes. So if you kind of let me see if like I suppose I could try to fuzz the camera, but then I'll never get it focused again. But the idea is you just kind of squint your eyes and look at it and say, All right, does that look like about correct? I think the answer is yes. Obviously, we're going to do a lot of work to smooth it out later. Now we're going to do the other side of the blade. Won't this be a fun challenge on on camera? So here again, I'm going to start with a little bit of the regular heavy body white touching that ink just to get it moving. We're going to bring some of that ice yellow in there. So here I know I want my highest highlight to oppose the shadow on the top. So OK, we just kind of lay that in there. But then I'm going to bring in just some regular ice yellow. Sorry, I'm just trying to figure out the best way to actually paint this on camera. I would not normally hold the brush five miles off the tip, but I don't have a choice here. And we're going to grab some of that ice yellow. We're going to pull in some of this copper color and get a nice mixture there. Always still working in these hashes. Go for a bit of that straight copper. Here we want to be real light touch. OK, we're going to grab a little bit of that brown, a little bit of that orange, which kind of pull them together. Get all that mixed in toward the tip of ourselves. Nice shadow there. So we can see now we have the cold opposed by the warm. So now that we have that sort of base laid down, it's ugly or definitely ugly, but that's all right. I'm going to move this off now that you can sort of see how I'm working with this and the colors I'm working with so I can actually work on the sword more easily. So at this stage, you want to let everything dry. But then the goal is to just start bringing these colors and smoothing them out.  We like the heavy body in there is it's so absolutely pigment rich that it just makes it really easy. Any light application of the brush is going to get paint on there and it's going to be rather strong and bright. And the other thing I want to do at this stage is we're going to go ahead and give the blade a nice edge highlight.  But by repeatedly doing it, it allows me to sort of like check how it actually is going to look and determine whether or not I think it's actually like in line with how I want it to come out. So again, just side of the brush, nice light touches. And there we go. We'll take a little bit of that white and really smooth it out that tip there. Make sure it's nice and bright. OK, so now we have our line sort of separating everything. And now it's just a lot of refinement and pushing the colors around. So like right now we we want to run this contrast, but we don't want it to be obviously this sketchy. All right. And we don't want to have it completely opposed with something that has no steel in it at all. So this was more of like the temperature matching and the highlight matching. What I'm actually going to do is slowly start to work a little bit of this on both sides, because it's not like this blade is so perfectly light bounces off of things. There would be a little bit of pollution on both sides. So what we do is we start making some glazes out of our water. And we're just going to start pulling that over that area that's dark.  When, in fact, often it's just pushing paint around. I think this is sort of the secret that the people ultimately have to learn when you're trying to advance your painting is you're never going to get a thing right the first time. It just doesn't happen. You kind of have to just keep playing with it and pushing the paint around and seeing how it looks. And does that fit yet? We're going to grab a little bit of that orange and work some of that in. I'm also going to grab a little bit of that dark STC blue up here. So we get kind of a nice blue-orange color. Pull my palette back in, get that real thin and we're just going to kind of work that into the blade here around this middle part. And the reason I'm using that and bringing that into the shadow is because I wanted to feel like there's still steel there, right? We don't want to lose that completely. OK, so now let's go for that 50-50 of our ice yellow in that mix and again, we're going to actually pull that over everything, OK? Now we can start to see how that's forming there. But. Still too a little bit too much of a hard transition. So we're just going to take some of that mid copper. We're just going to go right over it like that, right? Just kind of smooth all that out. Let that dry while that's kind of sitting. Then we're going to take the top part of the blade. We're going to thin some of that turquoise way down. We're going to do the same thing up here. That's one of the keys when you see and you hear that like non-metallic needs that contrast, it does. But you can't establish that all in one straight shot. It's a lot of very careful work. Back and forth. And you don't actually need to go all the way to the dark or all the way to the black. You can rely on the transparency of the paint to do some of that work for you. OK. It's a strange thing to say, but it needs to feel dark more than it needs to be dark. That probably doesn't make a lot of sense. What I mean by that is.  If you've got some, you know, like a transition that feels like it's infused with that darkness, you're going to be in the right place. OK. All right. So what I'm going to do now is just keep working with these and I'm going to bring the two colors together some because right now they're very, very different to the point where it looks like two separate weapons and we don't want that. So I'm going to bring a little bit of the orange up here and a little bit of the blue down here and we're going to keep pushing it around until we see exactly how we balance it out. And then I'll come back and I'll show you how we then refine it out. OK. So I'm going to work on that. We back in just a moment. All right, we're back. So here's what our blade looks like now. Now, I don't want to pull a now paint the cat or now paint the owl or whatever on you, but whatever that meme is. But that's kind of the idea of the thing.  That's all it really was. You can see this is what my palette looks like now. Right. All these different mixtures and things where I'm just pulling different colors together and subtly glazing them out. And but I want to talk about how I constructed this. So you can see how I've got some of the blue still infusing the blade on the bottom, but it's pulled in a similar direction every time. What I mean here is I wanted to create directionality to the reflections. So it's not it might feel random on first glance, but it's not. Let me see if I can explain. So here's a shadow and here is a shadow. The blue on the bottom of the blade. Pushes up from the shadow into the blade. So it's here. It's dark and then it goes into blue and into the rest of the spectrum. Whereas the orange on the bottom of the blade pushes from the shadow down, shadow down, right here on the top of the blade, the orange pushes from the shadow down, shadow down, and it's more minimal in the blue pushes from the shadow up, right? The reason I chose this is because technically the it's just I picked a direction. So the light coming from above would be creating the blue into the shadow as the reflections and then it would be going orange when it hits its reflective light, right? Or at least that's the argument. Sometimes I mix these together a little bit in some glazes. I did little, little bits of blues and greens and I still need to glaze this out more. So I'll show you how I'm working this. I'll show you a couple of like live examples. So here's how thin my paints are, right? Now I've added some just straight medium onto the palette. To help me glaze while I maintain color consistency so the paint doesn't break up on me. So like here on the bottom of the blade, right? What I do is I'm coming in, it's a glaze. So I've wicked off all the excess liquid. I'm just going to come in and very lightly hit that edge and hit that edge, right? And just real light smooth it down. Now while I'm still working with that blue, you can come in there and we can come in on that side. OK. So just nice light touches when we let that dry. Same thing. You know how I keep covering over the darker color? This is what I meant by it needs to feel dark, but not necessarily be dark. Like no part of this is that original black color that I put on here. We've covered it with so many interference layers that there's a lot of different color being reflected into your eye. But it still feels very dark, right? That's the trick. You don't just stop with the darker color, you keep glazing over it because those top colors when they're on there will feel like they're they're adding more depth, more visual complexity. All right. So now we're going to do a little bit with the orange in the exact opposite direction. So we take a little bit of that orange, push it up there. Push it up there, right? Real light. You'll notice the orange is more intense on the bottom of the blade, just as the blue is more intense on the top of the blade. So we're relying on these real subtle differences, these real subtle visual cues. OK. So you can see how bright the orange is there. Compared on top there, it's very faded out. Whereas the blue on top is very bright compared down here, where it's quite weak. So now it's just a glazing game, folks. Now it's just me sitting here for the next hour and slowly pushing these colors back and forth and back and forth and back and to the left and back and to the left. But there you go. That's kind of how how we do polluted light in the blades or reflected light non-metallic metal. We really went for it here, I guess, because we've got both both tones. You can do this with just one color, obviously. I wanted to show you kind of a whole rainbow spectrum. You can do this with a lot of different. You can do this with just one color. You could have the blade reflecting just fire if she was in a hot environment and you could step through all warm colors. You could have it just be blue. That's very common. You see a lot of blue blades because the bright steel will tend to reflect the ambient blue in the sky and in the environment around it. But there you go. That's kind of how that works. Now it's just glazing from here. There'll be a picture at the end so you can see what I'm doing. But it's just more of what I just did lots of times. That's it's just that every so often I'll come in with my white and I might re area my near warm white or cold white. I might re establish a little bit of the highlight here or there. I continually am refining my edge. Like I've done this edge highlight probably eight times while I was working here in the interim because I want to make sure that it's always nice and crisp. And I know what I'm working in between. It helps me then understand the contrast by having that placed. So there you go. That's reflected light non-metallic metal. I do hope you enjoyed it. If you did, give it a like. Subscribe for additional hobby cheating in the future. We have new videos here every Saturday. If you've got a suggestion for a future video, go ahead and drop that down in the comments as well as any questions you might have on this technique. But as always, I very much appreciate you watching this one and we'll see you next time.


Thanks, Tracy. Good morning, everyone. So, I'm Mary Dunn. I'm a nurse practitioner at UNC. I tell people that I have the best job in the world because I get to work in urology and medical oncology. And in my spare time, I'm the co-director of our hereditary renal mass clinic. I joke that that's why I look so well rested all the time. So, forgive me if I'm a little bit tired this morning. So, I apologize in advance to any geneticists in the room. I don't pretend to be a geneticist by any stretch of the imagination, but I kind of find all this fascinating. I'll talk to you kind of about a clinic that we run at UNC specifically for patients and families who have kind of genetic mutations that lead to their kidney cancer. So, I'm going to talk about some kind of very basics about genetics and then talk about the specific disorders that are linked to some of these particular genetic abnormalities. So, we could have an entire day-long, weekend-long conference about genetics. So, this is going to be a very small brief overview just so people kind of get a sense of some of the terminologies. So, these are all pretty important things when talking about genetics and what we inherit from our folks. So, what is a cell? It's the smallest structural and functional unit of an organism. DNA, I think you've probably already seen, all seen really beautiful pictures of DNA and chromosomes and strands and all that stuff have beautiful pictures of those things. So, DNA is hereditary material that's located in the nucleus of a cell. A gene is a unit of inheritance and genetics is the study of those individual genes and how they impact us. So, again, a gene is a physical unit of inheritance. It's passed on from parents to their offspring and it contains a lot of very specific information that's needed to specify all kinds of different traits that we inherit from our folks. So, genes are arranged on structures that are called chromosomes. Chromosomes contain a single long DNA molecule of which only a portion corresponds to a single gene. So, genetics and how things develop and all of that is a very complicated process. So, what are some different things that can happen? So, we have all different types of sets of genes. So, different sets of genes are turned on in different types of cells. So, for example, nerve cells or muscle cells turn on different types of genes and then cells decode the information in those particular genes to build proteins. And then every protein carries out a unique function. So, this particular slide shows different examples of different proteins and how they function within the body and then all those proteins work together to carry out the functions of the cell and they interact in a very complex way. So, whenever any step in this process is disrupted, it can lead to particular genetic alterations and mutations. So, how do mutations occur? So, there's a germline mutation. You'll hear that terminology germline versus somatic. So, germline means inherited so it occurs in the germ cells which transmit genetic material to future generations. So, thanks mom and dad and somatic which are acquired. So, it occurs in every other cell in the body except for the germ cells. So, in other words, these are mutations that are not inherited. So, more about inheritance. Each cell in the body has 23 pairs of chromosomes. One pair comes from mom and the other pair comes from dad and the chromosomes contain the genes that you inherit. I really like pictures. So, I think this is a nice picture of a cell, the nucleus within the cell, the chromosome within the nucleus and the DNA within the chromosome. It's just kind of a nice picture of how all of these really complicated kind of invisible processes work together. So, how do genetic disorders kind of happen? Where do they come from? So, there are many processes. There's autosomal dominance. There's autosomal recessive. There's x-linked and y-linked. I'm not going to kind of go into all of that. But kind of the two things that we think about mainly in the cancer world are the first is autosomal dominance. So, what does that mean? That means that each child has a 50% chance of inheriting that particular mutation. So, you only need one mutated gene to be affected by an autosomal dominant disorder. So, if you see the picture here, you'll see that the father carried a mutation and passed it along to two of his children whereas the mother did not have that particular mutation. In autosomal recessive, there are two mutations. One from each parent are needed in order to develop the disease. So, you see both mom and dad have that particular mutation and that passed along to their children. So, if you see the one that is in, I think it's a boy there in purple, inherited that particular mutation that will likely affect him, but then the two middle children are carriers and then one of the children is unaffected. So, how does cancer occur? Well, it arises from loss of normal growth. There's a picture there of normal cell division and then the bottom there kind of what happens and it's kind of a multi-step process that happens when cancer comes from, when cancer develops and it becomes this uncontrolled growth that your body just can't figure out what to do with, unfortunately. So, what about genetics and inherited mutations and inherited disorders as it pertains to renal cell cancer? So, there are some genetic alterations that have been identified that are specific to kidney cancer. They only really account for a very small percentage of kidney cancer. So, in other words, most kidney cancers are sporadic and not the result of an inherited mutation passed along from mom or dad. That being said, there are likely a lot of undiscovered genes that we just haven't kind of figured out whether or not they are associated with the development of kidney cancer. So, as genetics research becomes more prevalent, we've got really smart people working in the lab behind the scenes, we are more likely to uncover different genetic alterations that could potentially be linked to kidney cancer. But, for right now, we know about a handful and I'm going to kind of go over what each of those looks like. So, these are the four major syndromes that are associated with kidney cancer as far as acquired genetic mutations from mom or dad. And I'm going to go over kind of what each of these looks like, what the types of kidney cancer are that are associated with them. And then we'll talk a little bit about whether or not genetic testing is recommended for you or your family members, or at least a consult with a genetics counselor or specialist. This is just a table that goes over the four syndromes. The particular gene that is mutated as a result, the different, the histology is what the cells, the kidney cancer cells look like under the microscope. So, we'll talk about each of these individually. So, von Hippel-Lindau, which for short is called VHL, is a germline mutation in the VHL tumor suppressor gene. The prominence of this is one in 36,000 live births. It is autosomal dominant, and generally speaking, the type of kidney cancer associated with a VHL disorder are clear cell renal cell carcinomas. Frequently, we will see kidney tumors on both kidneys, and sometimes they will have a cystic appearance to them. The table there, the blue table goes over other manifestations of this particular genetic mutation. So, along with the increased risk for kidney cancer for folks who have these genetic mutations, there are multiple other manifestations and consequences of the mutation listed there. So, you can see kidney cancer down on the list. For folks that have VHL, the age range is kind of broad there, but mostly occurs between 25, age 25 and 50, and folks with VHL have upwards of a 50% chance of developing a renal cell cancer in their lifetime. Some studies even show that it might be a little bit higher than that. So, quite common in folks who have this particular germline mutation. So, one of my take-homes for folks who have these genetic alterations is that it really does take a village to care for these patients. So, it is not just the kidney cancer aspect of all of this, but you see the different manifestations there that have to do with the eyes and the brain, the spine, the pancreas. There's all kinds of different manifestations outside of kidney cancer, so it really does take a team of folks to help make sure that folks with these genetic mutations are properly managed and are getting the best comprehensive care. So, Burthog-Dubei or BHD is exceedingly rare. The last kind of paper I looked at said that there was roughly 500 families worldwide. That said, with these extraordinarily rare genetic mutations, it's almost impossible to know the exact number of families and individuals who are affected. In my clinical practice, I have about five patients who have this genetic mutation. So, while it's rare, I feel like I have kind of a big number of folks. Again, it's an autosomal dominant mutation on the FLCN gene, and these are the particular manifestations that can happen as a result of that. So, of the three kind of manifestations, so people can get fiber folliculomas, which are skin lesions on the face, and cysts in the lungs. Also, kidney cancer, but kidney cancer is actually not as common in folks who have this genetic mutation as are the other particular manifestations. And these are the team of folks necessary to help take care of folks with BHD. This is always super fun to say. Hereditary gliomyomatosis and renal cell carcinoma. I can definitely not say that three times fast. So, shortening it to HLRCC is always much, much easier. So, again, autosomal dominant of the FH gene. This also is exceedingly rare. So, under 2,000 patients worldwide. I think in my clinic right now, I probably have between five and 10 patients who carry this particular mutation. So, there are three very distinct manifestations for folks who carry this mutation. So, fibroids in the uterus. So, men, you get to check one thing off your list so you don't have to worry about. Skin gliomyomas, which can happen kind of all over the skin, but particularly on the arms, face, and back, we see. And then renal cell carcinoma, but particularly papillary type 2. This can be a particularly aggressive tumor in folks who had this mutation. So, one of the reasons why it's important for folks to be seen in kind of clinical centers of excellence when they have these extraordinarily rare mutations is that sometimes for folks who have tumors on the kidney that are really small, we will elect to watch them to monitor them. And folks who have this particular mutation that's not always appropriate because they can act pretty aggressively. So, almost always we recommend surgical intervention for patients even if the tumor on the kidney is very small. And these are a list of folks who help me on a weekly basis take care of folks. So, the last kind of of the big four that we see here in our practice is hereditary papillary renal cell carcinoma. So, again, I feel like I sound like a broken record. These things are extraordinarily rare, but it just kind of goes to show that, you know, my take home message is that the majority of kidney cancers are sporadic and they don't come from an inherited mutation. So, folks who have this, I don't even, I think I might have one patient in my clinic right now who carries this particular genetic mutation, but usually tumors on both kidneys, multiple tumors on both kidneys. And that's really all associated with this, just the kidney cancer and nothing else. And these are folks who help me with these patients. So, this is just a little commercial break, if you will.  So, here at UNC, I'm very proud to say that we have a VHL Comprehensive Clinical Care Center. So, underneath that umbrella, we see folks the VHL, but also the other disorders that I mentioned, and also a disorder called tuberous sclerosis complex, we see those folks under this kind of umbrella. We've been a clinical care center since 2012. This was started by Dr. Kim Rathmell, one of my mentors who is now at Vanderbilt. Underneath this umbrella, we have over 30 specialists who help take care of patients with these genetic mutations. Dr. Tan and Dr. Rose are two of them. And so, you know, it takes a village. So, my role is that I'm the co-director of the center along with Dr. Billy Kim, who's a medical oncologist. And I kind of serve as the center of these people's care, and then kind of refer them out as necessary. And I see them on an annual basis and do their kidney screening. So, we get a lot of folks from around the state, but also along the northeast and southeast as well, just because there are so few centers, there's less than 30 nationwide. So, we get a lot of referrals from all over the country. So, for those of you who are interested, as part of the VHL Center on the VHL website, which I have in a slide coming up, there's a database where the VHL Alliance is collecting information about patients to see if we can get more information about individuals and families so that we can better understand manifestations of these particular disorders so we can have a bank of information so that we can help maybe discover bigger and better treatments to help folks and help match patients into clinical trials, which there are not a lot of clinical trials because if you think about how rare these things are, there's just not a lot of patients that we can plug into different clinical trials so that we can learn more useful information about how to help folks. So, a question that we get a lot or anyone who has cancer regardless of the cancer is, is my family at risk for developing my cancer and what do I need to tell my kids, what do I need to tell my siblings, etc. So, my take home is always ask your provider.  Not everyone with kidney cancer will need to speak with a genetics counselor. That said, it can provide a lot of peace of mind. The genetics counselors are phenomenal. I mean, they take this extraordinary family history. They go through kind of risk benefit of having genetic testing done so having all that blood work done and the potential consequences of that and if they would recommend that for you and or any of your family members. So, my go to people are always refer to the genetics counselor if there's, if there's any question about that. So, they can provide very specific recommendations for testing. This is part of the reason why it's always super important to provide a really good family history to any of your providers because sometimes that'll trigger something in our brains that we may not have thought about.  So, the reason why we ask you so many questions when you come to see us is because it's really important to know what the family history is because it might trigger us to refer you to the genetics specialist to talk about these things in more detail. So, we're not just pestering you, I promise. It's all for good use. So, if you ever do end up having genetic testing and you have a mutation, then what the genetics counselor do is they, they provide you with recommendations for subsequent screening and get you plugged in with the appropriate providers for that kind of follow-up. So, these are just a list of different resources. So, all of the different genetic mutations, the big four that are associated with kidney cancer, each have really nice websites. I like them because they, they can link you to support groups. So, you can talk to other folks who are kind of going through similar experiences as you. They've got resources for providers as well. These things are so rare. It's always good for, for healthcare providers to stay on top of these things as well. So, in summary, the vast majority of kidney cancers are not caused by inherited genetic mutations. However, patients with these genetic mutations should definitely be evaluated by specialists who are familiar with the potential manifestations and familiar with the screening recommendations. Your individual kidney cancer provider will be able to tell you whether he or she recommends a referral to a genetics counselor. And I also believe in most institutions that's something that you can also initiate on your own as well. You don't always need a referral. Part of the problem is there's, there's no general consensus kind of outside of people who have no mutations. There's no general consensus on who to refer to genetics and who not. So, a lot of times we'll refer people who have kidney cancers diagnosed at a very young age in their 30s and 40s. We'll refer them to genetics, but there's really no general consensus outside of folks with these no mutations or people who have family history. So, as I mentioned earlier, as research in the study of cancer genetics grows, we may learn more about kidney cancer genetics. In fact, I, I hope that we do. I think a lot of what we know was just the tip of the iceberg. And as research develops and we get funding and we've got really smart people working in the lab to figure this stuff out, then we'll know more and be able to help patients and families more than we do already. Big thank you to everyone who touches these patients. Just one quick caveat of a story is that I had a patient come through the VHL Center recently. She was probably her mid 30s and she carries the VHL mutation and her father had VHL and I said, you know, how are you doing? You know, is there anything additional I can do to support you? And she said, yeah, do you think it'd be a bad idea for me to send my dad a thank you card for this on Father's Day? And I was like, I don't know your dad well enough to answer that question, but if you think he'd find it funny, I think it'd be okay to include the thanks for the VHL in his Father's Day card. So, you know, it's, it's good to have a sense of humor. So, at the end of the day, these things can be extra, it's isolating enough sometimes to have cancer, but it can be extraordinarily extraordinarily isolating to have a very rare disorder that comes with a lot of uncertainty. So, providing kind of that emotional support and online support for these patients is, is also a huge part of what we do. You can grab me, I'm probably over my time. So, if you guys want to grab me in the hall and we're done to, again, I'm not a geneticist, but I can help with, with basic stuff. Thank you so much for having me. It's, it's a pleasure to be here with you guys.


German of the BB-18, Mr. Sultan Al-Masmar, Secretary-General of the ITU, Mr. Haul-In-Zaw, other elected officials of the ITU, Honorable Ministers, Heads of Delegations, Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen, it is a distinct pleasure and honor for me and my delegation to be among you in this modern city Dubai to participate in the Balani Potential Conference 2018. I want to first thank and applaud the host country, the United Arab Emirates and Emirates and City of Dubai for their gracious and warm welcome. I would also like to recognize the ITU leadership led by Mr. Haul-In-Zaw, who have been preparing for this event along with the host country, CNS-BB-14. The host country and the ITU leadership together made this impressive gathering very successful. They have done a tremendous job and deserve our gratitude and applause. Excellences, Ladies and Gentlemen, we are gathered here to take this talk and recommit to our UNIS shared commitment in the development of ICT sector across the world. We have, we seek to develop and promote ICTs because we collectively understand it is essential contribution to the betterment of human development and progress. I would not dwell on enumerating or describing the role of ICT and benefits of ICTs because we will understand that however we believe a lot of work needs to be done to ensure that the development of ICTs lead to shared prosperity because in a world of habits and have not any good spirit in stability, the ramification of which will affect us all. As we continue our efforts towards the implementation of the Connected 2020 Agenda, which is Action Line Sustainable Development Goals and forthcoming ITU 2020-2023 strategic plan, it is worth reminding ourselves the transformational technological changes upon us and how we can harness the positive aspects of new and emerging technologies while we put in place policies and mechanisms that mitigate the risk inherent in a connected world. For some, the next big thing is harnessing the promise of the technologies that underpin the fourth industrial revolution, while others in my country include concern about being left during a period of tremendous rapid technological transformations. Recognizing the important role of government policy and regulatory interventions in mitigating market inefficence, our government undertook set of policies based on our national development plan that led to the passage of a communication law and created an independent regulatory authority with the aim of creating a conducive environment for investment in infrastructure and access, which we view as essential fundamental imperatives. Our government recognizes that ICTs form the bedrock of socio-economic development and good governance. Therefore, we are committed to creating opportunities through the development of ICTs for our people that would allow them to participate in the global economy. However, Somalia and many other developing countries cannot overcome alone the many challenges their society face in hyper-competitive global technological order. We believe it is in the past interest of developing and less developing countries alike to cooperate and collaborate while we commit to our shared goals in the ITU strategic plan with action lines and sustainable development goals. Finally, Somalia has resubmitted for adoption during the BB-18 Resolution 160 assistance to Somalia, which has been endorsed by the Arab and African regions in their common proposals. We respectfully ask all member states to support this resolution so that Somalia can rebuild its ICT infrastructure and capacities. Somalia is committed to support the activities of the ITU and will cooperate and collaborate with fellow member states to advance the global ICT agenda. We hope that those who have experienced knowledge and expertise will share for the benefit of all. Shukran, thank you.


It has now been two years since the disappearance of 43 students from Ayotzinapa, Mexico. And students gathered on the steps of Sproul, in their memory, refused to let the crime be forgotten. So to this day, this Ayotzinapa event is really dear to my heart, especially because we're students and seeing 43 of our very own disappear is something that really bothered me. I had to take action and I'm also really happy that other people were able to take action with me. You know, the mothers and the fathers of the 43 are still looking for them. They're still organizing themselves and one of the main things that they asked is to not let them be forgotten. That, you know, everyone has to keep them in their minds in order to go fighting for them. Students believe this movement is about much more than the missing students from Ayotzinapa and is actually emblematic of a far deeper crisis in Mexico. We want to make this a little bit more of an intersectional struggle to understand that it's not just 43 students, it's thousands of thousands of students in Mexico and thousands of people around the globe. So right now we're trying to make sure to be able to tell people that it's not just one isolated event. It's many things happening at the same time. Through this demonstration, the students hope to urge others to stand in solidarity and make their voices heard. It's just really important to me because as students we have a very powerful voice and I feel like people don't really know that because we're still kind of coming in age and coming into like who you are as a person but, you know, your voice is very powerful and it's something that we need to use together collectively. One voice, maybe it cannot change the world but one voice can start to make a change in the world.


How much progress did you make from Subban for Taylor in the first game to be your most recent? I mean, you can see for yourself, I mean that's not, I don't really think about it that way.  The groove is everything out there. It was nice to feel that, but at the same time, you know, what I took from the first game is you got to be ready at the drop of a dime, and so you can never lose sight of that.   I can promise you that. So, yes, sir. What's the price you take, I mean, you've played in the league over a long time?  Yeah, I mean, it's huge, you know. I go back to my rookie years and my first few years in Houston. Coach Devlin, Mike Devlin, my offensive line coach, you know, he told me a long time ago. He was like, Lambo, never get caught up in being the glamour guy. He was like, you know, that might not be your role, that might not be your life, that might not be your journey. He was like, just appreciate what you do. And he said, you know, if you can go in there and do that for a long time, you can play in this league for a while. And, you know, for me, it's whether I come here and I want to start, whether I come here and I'm the sixth man, whether I come here and I'm the last lineman, you know, like I stated earlier, you've got to be ready at the drop of a dime. So, yes, sir. What's it like when you print a teammate, it's carded off the field? Yeah, it's scary, right? And you're stepping back in. Yeah, it was extremely scary. You know, I was watching the game the day before, the Seattle game.   You know, that's, that's, it's hard to put into words. You know, I'm just hoping and praying for Taylor. I know he'll come back when he can at the same time, but it's, for me, to be completely honest, like, you realize, yes, football is everything, but health is the first and foremost. Like, in that state and time, I was worried about him.   So, yes, sir. You blocked for some really good backs, you know, Chuck. But now you got the block. I knew this one was coming. And just feel him. It's just how it is. Is there really an impact, like a difference as the game wears on when you was, as you're blocking? So I got this question when I came here at first, because I mean, I was around Karim and I was around Nick and I loved them both dearly. Like, do not misconstrue what I'm about to say at all. Like, those are my guys. But I will tell you, when I was on the sideline in that game, and you can see that man at that size, turn that speed on and do certain things. I mean, like, you can ask my teammates on the sideline, I was in awe. Wow.  Like, I've never seen a 6'4 man 250 pounds run like that. And at the same time, you know, our game, especially as it starts to get colder, as you know, some of you guys will feel like this is cold for me. This is beautiful. But it's, you wear him down. And when you've got a guy who can run the ball like that and you can really and truly in the winter style game start to do that, I mean, defenses are going to wear it down. It's just part of the game.  As an offensive line group, you all have been pretty critical of yourselves this far this year. Yeah. And you've given up 20 sacks heading into that game on Monday. Right. No sacks on Monday. What changed? What went so well? I'm going to be honest with you. You say the 20 sacks thing. I don't even, like, that's the first time I've heard that. Like, I know that's your job to know all that. Like, I care less about that. Not saying I don't care about the sacks, but to know the number. Like, I don't, I just know we have to progress and get better from game to game. I just feel like at the same time in that game, you know, we were going back and forth punch, punch, punch, score, score.  You know, me getting in there and playing beside Roger. Like, the way I communicate with Roger, I tell him all the time, man, I appreciate you because I mean, for people who don't really know me, I'm not the most talkative. Like, I talk in front of y'all, but I don't speak much. Like, I don't say much at all. Like, you can go in there and ask some of my teammates.  So it's like to be beside Roger and to be able to speak to Roger, it's dope. And it gives me a comforting feeling to know that, I mean, if we come up to the line, boom, boom, that's as far as it goes and know we're on the same page. Speaking of Roger, how much appreciation do you have for a guy like that who kind of seems to be sort of tough on it out, you know, each and every week with that shoulder? I mean, Roger's an animal. He's one of the people, when I think about guys that I played with who were just physically gifted and just freaks, he comes to mind, Dwayne Brown comes to mind, Brandon Brooks comes to mind. Like, he's in that, he's in that caliber in my mind.  Like, he's going to go out there and give you what he can. So to know that I'm playing beside a guy like that who's done it for 12, 13 years at a high level, it's like, I want to give him my best. So it's like, I know, okay, if I can look in Roger's eyes and get that approval, I mean, he's played at a high caliber for a long time. Now, really, that's the only approval that I really look for. Do you credit him then a little bit more with even just having, being able to have that chemistry and create the communication with you guys, because there's been so many injuries here and there. Right. And going in and out of games, like, does he seem to be a rock there? So we actually talked about this, too. He said it, he was like, lamb, you know, it's like, we were on the same page. And for me, really and truly, like, I'm, and I don't got no problem saying this. Like in my life in general, I don't trust many. I'm just going to be completely honest with you. You know how I grew up in certain things, like I have a very tight-knit family. I have a very tight-knit group of friends. So it's like, if I don't trust you, it doesn't go far for me. Just being quite blunt with you. And I trust Roger near and dear. That's why I say, like, I'm the type of person, if I tell you something, like I mean it. Like I don't, I'm very intentional with how I do things. So it's like, if I tell you I love you, I truly love you.  That's just the truth. I'm just being very real with you. So it's like, when I'm beside Roger, and that communication is happening, I mean, it's a beautiful thing because, I mean, I don't know if you guys have ever been out there, but in the game day, it goes up and down. But to look in someone's eyes and to know that that's a comforting factor for me, it's huge. You've got good memories, I guess. Not bad memories, the Chiefs, I guess.  How much knowledge do you gain from your game against them last year? Yeah, I mean, they're a phenomenal team. Let's call it what it is. People can say what they want, that they've been going up and down this year. I don't look at that.  Like they're a championship caliber team. When you play a championship caliber team, you're going to get their best every time. Because, I mean, that's the standard that they've been held to for a long time. So it's like, you know, if we want to be one of the better teams, if we want to be looked at as one of the better teams in the AFC, then we've got to beat the better teams in the AFC. And if you don't think that we're going to get their best shot, then you're crazy. Like, I know that we're going to get their best shot. That's what it is. Especially when you've got Derek Henry in the back room, you're going to get everybody's best shot. So it's like, you've got to be prepared for that.


Okay. Well, hello, everybody. Welcome. I'm Mel Hauser. I use she they've grown up some executive director here at all brains belong. Welcome to bring up. They will be talking about access needs at work. But first, by way of introduction brain club, of course, is our education program. It's our very intentionally created education space for the collective over in belong community with the purpose of providing education about neurodiversity and related topics of inclusion. Just a reminder, this is not for medical or mental health advice. This is also not a support group. This is a education space. It's also not a place to debate philosophy or view of the world. I'll tell you more about our view of the world. Our goal here at brain club is to create a space where people can feel safe and experience something different from the outside world, where people can come together to collectively learn and learn. And how do we do that? We do that with an intentional view of the world, and that being that we all have different brains and bodies. There's not one correct type of brain or body. And that safety comes first. And for us, what that means is that we affirm all aspects of identity, neuro types, gender, sexuality, race, disability, ethnicity and all other forms of diversity. And though we presume good intentions, we can't allow a language that has the effect of excluding or harming other participants. So if you feel unsafe, if you feel excluded for any reason, please send a direct message. Let us know because we really take that very seriously. And because the collective collective access needs access needs of the group take priority over that of the individual. All forms of participation are okay here. You can have your video on or off. And even if it's on, we don't expect anything of you. We certainly do not need you to like look at the camera or sit still or anything. So feel free to walk, move, fidget, stim, take breaks, whatever needs doing. And observation is also a completely valid form of participation. But we also do want to create space for everyone to be able to share their ideas, whether that be in the chat or with mouth words, whatever form of communication is comfortable. Given that we all have different brains, we all have different processing speeds. So chat, the chat box is often kind of running in parallel to what's happening on the screen, I may read out selections. But please don't don't feel like you're necessarily like missing the main event. If it's hard to see like how fast the chat moves sometimes I miss most of the chat because I can't keep up with it moving so fast. So just participate in like whatever parallel track works works for you. Okay. And last thing I just want to notice that just note is that, you know, we really try to have our culture here at brain club be very intentional. And so we very intentionally facilitate it. And, you know, we might need to interrupt or redirect if, you know, there's anything that feels unsafe. I seem to have lost my visual support to show you how to turn on closed captions. Let me see if I can find that. I don't know where it went. Oh, it just went out of order. That's all closed captioning is enabled just have to toggle it on if you'd like to use it so depending on your version of zoom, you might have the lab transcript closed captioning icon but if you don't see that try them more dot dot dot. And choose show subtitles or the same and choose types of titles if you want to turn them off. And that's my visual support to actually open up the chat box so that I can see if anybody's using it. So we are wrapping up our October theme about understanding your access needs. Just a reminder, there is no brain club next week. So this will be the last brain club for October. We've been talking about access needs in various settings all throughout the month. In fact, we're always talking about access needs even when it's not necessarily the theme of the month. So today we'll be talking about access needs at work. Next month, our theme will be health and belonging. We will be joined next week, not next week, next spring club so in two weeks from today will be joined by a set of community panelists representing four different community organizations all talking about their vision for inclusion. And we'll continue to explore that theme of health and belonging throughout the month, which is very fitting because next month kicks off our did you know this could be health care campaign. Or thanks to a generous matching donation from an ABB supporter. As soon as we hit 25,000 it becomes 50,000, which is exactly what supports an entire years worth of community programs, free community programs like brain club. We're excited for November. Okay, so as you may know if you've been coming to bring up for a while, all brains belong has programs in all of these different buckets. And so brain club lives in this education space but we have all these different buckets that we are trying to improve the lives of people with all types of work. And employment is an area that our community advisory board asked us to work on because so many people do not have their access needs met at work. And so in addition to helping patients in our employment support program, learn about their employment related access needs, or also on the other side also working with employers to help them better understand how to create workplace environments for people with all types of brains can thrive so really trying to bridge the double empathy program by supporting employment on both sides. And why, because the status quo is unacceptable. So autistic adults have four to eight times higher rates of unemployment. 75% of ADHD years have employment related challenges. And what we know is that unemployment increases the probability of developing a chronic health condition by 83%. That's why to us employment is part of health. When we think about the social model of disability, where it's not a set of deficits of the person, it's about the inaccessibility of the world, how much disability someone experiences is relative so not to erase the struggle, but just to name that the problem is worse, when the world is more access more inaccessible. And so when we think about access needs access needs being anything that's required to meaningfully or fully participate in one's environment or community, everybody has access needs. It's just that neuro divergent people, less likely to have our access needs met by the defaults of society, including in the workplace. It's about some of the different types of access need considerations at work. I mean, it's so many different things from the environment to communication or executive functioning to technology to movement to how we get instructions to how we're supervised and managed to how we receive feedback to how much or how little structure we have or how much or how little autonomy we have. It's just a lot of different things that are needs. They're not optional. They are access needs. And so it's really about how do we better understand our own access needs as individuals and how can we self advocate what we need. Because the goal would be what Dr. Thomas Armstrong would refer to as niche construction, the idea of you learn about your brain and you design a life that works for your brain. And we don't have that a lot of the time. In fact, we have this more of the time. This is this image shows the square peg being hammered to fit into the round hole. We don't want that. Many of you have heard me quote one of our community members before, but I don't know what my access needs are. I just know they're not being met. Yup. It's about right. So it's really how do we begin to take on this lens of access to understand that when something's not going well, it may be because it's not met access need. So it begins for many people with starting like what's not working. You may not be able to say like my access need is X, but you can probably figure out. On a met access needs by working backwards. So asking yourself like when do you feel terrible. And this may in fact relate to an arm that access need. And then you might move forward to say, well, what's working. This might indicate that your access needs are being met. And step three, what could be working better. And are there changes I can make on my own without even needing to involve other people. And then if, if, if that's that met, of course, there's legally protected protections, right. But are there changes you can make even short of that changes can make on your own without even a bother. So anyway, I'm going to stop right here. Oops. Here we go. So, with that, David's going to play a video, a recording, a pre-recorded panel from conversations with several of our community members from a few months ago, talking about the connection of their access needs at work and how that connects to health. Before David. And the shot box will go in this video. This video will run about 35 minutes. What have you seen in your workplace or in workplaces that you've worked in about how working conditions impact health. I work food service jobs. I'm a baker. So I've all of my jobs have been in kitchens. The things that I've found that impact health conditions. The most are the practices in food service around scheduling. I don't know if you've ever heard the phrase in school. The bell doesn't release you. I release you in, you know, early education or the pandemic hit or struggling. It was a field that was already really kind of hemorrhaging people. It was really suffering. Here we were open 10 and a half hours every day for children.  So like for an administrator, I would be here for at least 12 hours a day. But so we had, we kind of walked into that scenario and then worked to even just maintain it, you know, just to keep it, keep the machine going. A mentality where it's like, I know it's said nine on your sheet, but you're here until it's done. And because food service tends to pay less than a lot of fields, it can be very, very dangerous to try and set boundaries and situations like that. Because we needed, I mean, these are human lives that we're taking care of. So we need to be here. We need people covering, we need the proper legal ratios of adults to child. So we could we were less flexible with people schedules, longer hours we had more kids we really kind of when we came in, we filled the rooms because that's like the business model of course like more kids equals more money coming in. So we had more kids in rooms larger group sizes and fewer teachers. I mean, it ended up being sort of we're just doing everything we can to survive. What have you seen in your workplace about how working conditions impact health. I mean, I think it in terms it impacts health in terms of stressors and I think there's like, in a lot of ways there's a ton of them. There's like social stressors conflict conflict with co workers supervisors, there's performance stressors understanding tasks and executing them. There's productivity stress. Can I meet the output and production expectations in the time that's allotted with the with energy that I can sustainably access. There's logistical stressors I'm working during preset hours with a schedule that's often set by somebody else at varying locations for varying durations, varying activities varying obligations so if I'm a person that has effect emotional or executive functioning or motor pattern, motor patterning or attention or energy challenges or unson predictable sleep patterns. All of that can make keeping track of schedules, having the energy to follow schedules, being able to get to the right place at the right time with the right supplies. And, and perform consistently during the hours of obligation. Really difficult if my body clock and my energy very widely, along with my ability to plan and anticipate needs and concentrate and pay attention. And that means that I really, really need to know what's going to happen before I go and do something. And it becomes extremely dysregulating for me and for a lot of other people who I've worked with, when we can't have like even a ballpark of like how many hours we're going to be working what that shift is going to look like how many people are going to be there whether everyone else is going to show up, because those are all common concerns in the field that I work in. And the uncertainty of that makes me dysregulated to an extent that it's like, okay, I said I could do these things and I could be responsible for these tasks. But you know, I am not fully present anymore so it's a lot less physically safe for me to be, you know, lifting the 50 pound bags of flour or operating the heavy machine. I'm not going to cut this thing super fast because my understanding of my body has gone from like 30% to 0% because it doesn't feel like I can. It doesn't feel my needs don't feel relevant to my safety and my environment anymore.  I don't know until it's done and I can be done being here like supervisory stress. And so, how to be a person in an who highly values autonomy, like, like a lot of us are, you know, that the PDA stuff persistent desire for autonomy so how do I, how do I be in a workplace, like a person who consistently values autonomy and needs to understand why someone else's way is better in order to really get myself to do it in an environment where basically unquestioning or minimally questioning compliance is expected. So something that I really struggle with is like, there's social cues and then there's the social cues of capitalism. And those are like, you can't find out like once you find out like the motivation behind what someone is telling you. It's like, you have to do the like what is the hardest thing in the world to me and just accept that the answer is just because I'm like I need to know why something is happening why something does something and it's very very hard for me to be like, it just is that way and you need to And part of that motivation that like drives all business is like not wanting people to know that they have to ask certain questions or have to advocate for themselves in certain ways, and certain jobs making it much much more risky to have like try and enter into those negotiations. So I've been in situations where I'm being like dramatically underpaid. Because I did not know that everyone else around me was getting like the salaries that they were getting from a place of like, I've been doing this that and the other that is beyond the job description I signed on for it is time for you to pay me more money because I am doing more labor for you. There's been times in that where like, you know, it's my turn to talk or relate something or engage in the conversation. And I, I want to make a point I have a point to make.  And then I'm suddenly like in this loop where I'm like, well, you know, maybe what I have to say is not a bit just, you know, and it's really just I think that I in that kind of environment. You know, there's a lot of pressure on getting to the point and letting the rest of the group engage and I certainly want to, to fit into that. I'm trying to, I guess, you know, sort of navigate within that framework that is the framework that is mostly dictated by neuro typical people, right. Right. And so there's, there's also this element of, you know, the neuro inclusive space would would involve a facilitator that like lays out ground rules about. There's no right way to participate. There's no right way to communicate and like explicitly naming that, you know, that's not what most groups do with kitchens have. But also, like, I'm transgender and part of that was that I recently had I like I experience or experience chest dysphoria and so for a long time. I had a chest and that meant that like not only is it super dysregulating to work in more than eight hour a day, but doing that results in like stabbing rib pains that may or may not you after surgery. So part of it was like I had to have surgery. And that was a medical necessity for me, like regardless of how it impacted my mental health. Like accessing other forms of gender affirming healthcare were really, really imperative to me and that's not going to be the case for every trans person but like, I think that's definitely like a consideration as kitchens tend to attract trans people because I've been in a lot of kitchens with other trans folks with other neurodivergent folks where it's like, okay, so these expectations are built around cis bodies and a one neuro type. And my body actually can't be here for 12 hours. So, and then, and then you add on top of that the personal life stressors that that can come up. And any of those things, one can have difficulty I can have difficulty managing become dysregulated. The hyper focus means that I tend to get and stay distracted from work. Those are all stressors. And then, once I get like any of those stressors, you know that that can start to lead that that it goes unresolved. It can lead to, it really gets me into a vicious cycle of a dysregulation spiral. So I get, I get stressed out. I get anxious. That which leads to mental and physical tension. I go into defensive behaviors worry self protective avoidance distraction. There's this regulation, including sleep, which leads to less capacity for attention less capacity for motor skills and motor planning less executive functioning, which then can lead to more and bigger mistakes. Hyper focus getting stuck on the wrong details self justification and externalizing blame attacking perceived sources of threat, all of which go over really well in a work environment, leading to more fit more negative feedback, possible discipline job loss, bad reviews that limit my potential to advance and my potential for access to organizational power and privilege that could actually help me fix the problems that are affecting me. And then all of that leads to more dysregulation less resilience greater vulnerability to that tendency to hyper focus, which is consistent for a lot of us with ADHD and autism. And it's a superpower when it comes to focusing on job related tasks, but it's a liability if there's a stressor. And that's, that's troubling because then it becomes difficult to think about anything or do anything else until that stressor is resolved. And so, unless there's an ability to resolve to resolve issues of concern. The hyper focus tends to tends to really get in the way of the, the things that that employers are looking for. So, when my needs aren't met, but me asking to have my needs met is going to be penalized. I remember when I was working at a childcare center, my position was as a floater, which meant that I didn't know what was needed of me or expected of me or what my day was going to look like until I was there. And I remember having a big conversation with my boss and being like, okay, this next year around, I can't handle this and I feel that my, my showing up here my attendance and being good employees being impacted when I don't know what's expected of me. I had this big wrong talk and then she like reformatted it that floaters would be assigned to specific rooms. So you would have at least know where you were going to be who you're going to be working with and everything and I was like, oh my gosh that's so amazing.  I remember feeling so like proud of that and everything and then walking by and hearing someone be like you mean I have to do the same thing every day.  Like, now that person is going to have to do the same thing every day and it's all my fault. And now I have a control over all of their feelings. So, so a couple of things that are standing out for me, listening to this part of your story. One is it's a story of unmet access needs access needs being anything that someone needs for full meaningful participation. So you needed novelty you needed multiple different things in the day you need multiple locations you needed movement. You know, you need a variety like all of this and so that was unmet. Another thing I heard from your story was it's a story of interdependence like I think independence is so overly glorified. Autonomy is really important. But but but the idea that like you don't need other people interdependence being connected to relying on other people like, like how profoundly human is that. So anyway, that's I'm also that I'm also hearing that from your story, and that you know in the team that you're leading now that you are bringing this lens of whether you're using this term or not, you're thinking about access needs and how to help the people that you're leading have met access needs and like, you know, I think there's a lot of small businesses that struggle with, like hiring good people and keeping people and like all the, all the lost revenue of turnover and all the things during training person. Like when people have their access needs they are less likely to quit their jobs. For sure. Yeah, right exactly. Yeah, it's just not a one size fits all not just because it was in childcare typically at that time I think like a revolving door staffing wise and people were really burning out. It was a recipe for burnout stress fatigue. We couldn't actually do our jobs I mean. I mean it ended up being sort of we're just doing everything we can to survive. What strategies have you found helpful to cope with unhealthy work environments. What I started to write these down it was sort of an off the cuff I started to kind of laugh, but I sort of thought well I just being like, you know kind of off the cuff and sarcastic but actually think these are are actually these are actually the strategies I use, which kind of says something like saving enough money to quit or take extended lease of absence. These care professionals in my court so I can qualify for continued health insurance under the family medical leave absence or temporary permanent permanent disability when I do leave structuring my life simply enough that if I need to quit, I can get government benefits, structuring my income so I can earn just enough to afford rent and still qualify for food stamps heating oil and Medicaid researching ways to house myself if I end up homeless. So that was my payment to get to to get myself maximum freedom and independence. I think there's there's a lot of people who are in work situations that are not working for their brains. How did you come to start your business. I worked in a corporate traditional architecture practice setting for almost 20 years I started working. I went to architecture night school for architecture successful but my own measure. I felt like I wasn't actually doing anything, and I had a really tough time sitting at a desk. So, you know, so I, I, I looked for opportunities to basically get out of the office when I bought a house and I started to do work on it. So I go into the office in the morning, and then say I well I got to go, you know, I can only put in half day today and I'd leave and I had all my equipment set up and I climb out the bedroom window and put shingles up on the side of the house. And that was like super. It was so fulfilling to me. I basically started the construction business. And the reason for that was, people would drive by the house when I was working on it and they'd stop and they'd be like I need somebody to reach, I really shingle my house and, and so that's how I got into doing construction. So, so I'm completely self taught when it comes to like you know estimating and that whole side of I'm trained as an architect so the design part of it is is very manageable but and the practice has been through some ups and downs I changing careers. I mean literally as my, I like in my 30s my mental capacity to really do the grind of law started to massively decrease and I just couldn't cognitively sustain 60 or 80 hour weeks were being mentally on. And so I switched to sort of a mental health and then eventually more peer support which, which drew a lot more on experiential and empathic capacities and I didn't have to be. I didn't have to use my problem solving abilities like, you know, 16 hours a day and that was much and that and that's been a much better path for me. There's a, there's a lot of pressure in a kind of business, you know, environment small business whatever to move things along get to the point, you know, set the table and let your my team delegate so so that's where it sometimes it gets in the way of not that I'm, I don't think that I'm, have learned to be pretty good about delegating, but sometimes it just takes me a long time to get there so I made the decision to myself that I needed a business partner that could sort of ground the business in the things that I didn't have or that I couldn't bring to the table. Kind of worked through to figure out like what I need to prioritize in a job in the hiring process is I if I can, if I can avoid it I won't take jobs where I can't wear headphones. And, and just for me, music is my like number one self regulation technique, and it helps to block out the sound of air vents and convection ovens which is super overwhelming to me. Um, so one of the questions that I always ask on like an interview or training days like okay how many other people are going to be in the kitchen with me. Um, will I need to be super alert to people like passing through the kitchen. Can I bring headphones or earbuds in with me. I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't love it. Um, a lot of people get siloed into food service as like a tool of marginalization of like, we're going to shove you back here and underpay you where no one can see you.  Or makes them frustrated and gives them something to complain about the other people that they got breakfast with. Um, but like, I know that the job that I'm doing is necessary for like human beings and that it often adds extra joy to people's lives. And I know that when I leave the building my work is done. I'm not worried about like I missed something I'm not worried about like, is this take home work going to take me like the amount of time that I thought it would I my time once I leave the building is mine. Um, what do you wish other employers knew about creating healthy workplace culture. Exactly. And so the pandemic actually was helpful in the sense for us that we reevaluated like we is this working for us, and we're able to reflect on some observations and say, actually that's not working for us and really be like wait a sec. What are we doing and why, and then, and that change based on what we want to be doing. And one of the things we wanted to be doing was less of a revolving door more retention in our staff because we know that consistency of care will also provide a better foundation for the children if it's the same teachers and those same colleagues working together. And we know people want to be here and so the question is, what do you need to be here, like what what is it that you need in order to be doing this job that you love or that you want to be doing. So before we connected with Mel and all brains belong before you've been knowing about the term access needs we were sort of asking folks what their access needs were to be able to show up and feel good about the words that they were doing because people were kind of showing that it wasn't feeling good, you know, and so to feel good in your work, and to show up was really important and it just was a lot of a lot of conversation individual conversations conversations as a whole as a whole staff to determine sort of what we needed, and really a lot of space for those voices to be heard. And so it wasn't that Vicki and I were saying, this is what people need, you know, as sort of part of the leadership team. It was really asking those people to tell us because we can make tons of assumptions but a lot of those tend to be inaccurate and so that was a really, I just want to emphasize how important that piece was for us in the process. We learned the particular to the pandemic, we learned that a lot of people didn't have a primary care doctor or didn't have health insurance, including some of the admin team and so we became in a sense, especially Cecilia like resource coordinators and we would be on the clock, you know during the work week, we have we still do this we have time with people who need, because you're working Monday through Friday but that's when everything's open and you have to make your phone calls. And so we have time for people to connect with one of us, usually Cecilia to like call Vermont Health Connect and figure out health insurance or to call the health advocates or to call and how the emergency housing find a therapist. Access to food access to food yeah so those kinds of things, we just had to learn more about people's individual struggles and individual situations and also then the collective needs of like what are the barriers to doing the work that we want to do. And we really want to go against the rhetoric that like everything should be done in isolation by yourself and so that's also a way that we open that up to say, let's do this together because you know health insurance for example doesn't make a difference to a lot of us so if we can work together and support each other that feels better for everyone.  When I'm starting work it is good leaders offer opportunity for growth but as importantly they also understand unique needs of the people they are leading. So, you know, for me that's like, that's what I had to, when I recognize that it was because I recognize, like, that was my own situation, you know, so it makes sense that, like, if I can expect myself to be kind of, you know, neuro typical there's a likelihood that all my staff is like nobody's neuro typical right you know so there is no such thing as absolutely agree it's just the, the like the assumptions or the cultural beliefs that people grow up with like you're a little kid and you're basically taught there is one correct default way to be a person, and it's nonsense. I have a lot of trade partners, some contractors, material suppliers and stuff like that and it is so we are so dependent, you know, and, and we, we try to have, we try to have a framework of expectation for certain things because you know it can't be just the total free for but at the same time like there's like our plaster that does almost all the board and plaster on our jobs. He's a single dad. He, he manages, you know, the all the business financial end of his business. He's got a couple of staff. He also stocks like the job sites every his job sites every morning you know. So, so we know, I know just over the years that we're not likely to get a quote, but we've talked and we know enough that we know what his pricing is.   Yeah, for sure. I think. And the challenge. It hasn't been easy to stay in business. Because because it takes time. That's not necessarily. And that, that kind of investment is not what our system is set up to reward by, you know, making, making enough money to keep the doors open. Right, especially when you've got, you know, so, see, as you've described you need a team and interdependent team to run the business. And then when you're responsible for the livelihoods of other people minutes. I feel it too it's just a lot of pressure. It is a lot of pressure. Yeah. Yeah.  Yeah, you that that interdependence is, it's all about community. What do you wish other employers knew about creating a healthy workplace culture. That it's not enough to fix problems as they come up, you have to think about the people who are working for you the people who might work for you the things you might not know about the people who are working for you. And whether or not there's already space for them to work comfortably and healthily in that environment. And I think that like, that is something that's like really under considered and that like a lot of the time that leaves room for people to create ableist and classes practices on and couch them in language of non discrimination. And that if you really think about like, okay, could this kind of person who experiences these kinds of marginalization walk in here and feel like they could commit to this job. Like, would they be able to do it would they be able to account for their safety and their health, would they feel comfortable knowing that they would not be fired for being trans or for being a person of color and have it like couched in some other terminology that I do to make sure that this place is not only safe but like has space built in for people who are not like the normative cishet white man model that we built the 40 hour work week around. And I think that like, if you aren't seeing a group or several groups of people represented in your workplace, that is because you made it a space that they could not show up to you either like are advertising for employment in the wrong and offering enough money you are letting your employees say micro aggressive ignorant stuff that they don't know about you are expecting your employees to be able to do things with their bodies on that they don't necessarily have to do. I really think we need to reimagine work. I mean I just, I think it's bigger than just, I mean I certainly think that there's ways that employers can be sensitive to a variety of stressors and sort of, you know, do this universal design thing, but it still doesn't get away from the power imbalance. So like having employers who are like kind of like preemptively thinking about like, how are my employees, how are my coworkers moving around this space and like having co workers who were like, Okay, I've got a little bit of positional power here how can I use this to make my co workers lives better when I know it would be heard better coming from me. And that's something that like having had people do that for me is like really important to me is like if I see a co worker at my job being treated unfairly or like see something in like the kitchen get like that tends to like get them bent out of shape. And that like as a man oftentimes people are more willing to listen to me than like my fem and woman counterparts being able to be like, Hey, I've noticed that like we could really fix that problem a like a lot of people work in areas that tend toward exploitation and dehumanization. And some of those folks are like, I'm just doing this until like, I make it in a creative field I'm just doing this until I am finished with this certification that's going to let me do this job that I really care about. And some people are like, I've been forced to do this because of racism because of classism and discrimination and hiring practices, so on and so forth. And some of us are there because we want to be and because we think that it's important that people do those jobs and that whether you are working a job that tends towards exploitation and dehumanization, or you and your day to day life are profiting from other people working those jobs whether it's buying your coffee at a coffee shop that a barista makes, or like going to the grocery store where someone is stocking the shelves. Those are jobs that like are inherently like full of dignity, like that work matters on a fundamental level, and is important and is noble and like, even if you want to do it being treated poorly doing those kinds of jobs can really weigh on you and like, it's important that you're doing that work, whether you continue to do it or not. It's, you should be proud of it. Do you have any advice for other employers that might be wanting to be more aware of this kind of thing. Prioritize humans and not profit. Yeah. That's exactly right. It's about respect for humans. I mean, to make it's not, it's not easy, but it's kind of simple. You know, you can't have a healthy workplace environment where we're spending all of these waking hours. If you're not thinking about those workers who are there. And really recognizing that humans deserve to feel belonging and deserve to feel a place where they're part of something and in fact we thrive off of that sort of social collaboration and for a long time, a lot of us have been socialized like I was saying before to sort of silo isolate, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And that's something we really want to break down and try to rebuild in a different way where we're utilizing one another as supports. And this is all really important for us to be transparent about because we're teaching the children they're watching our every move. And it's important to us at Turtle Island that children are going into the world, you know with ideas about respect and kindness for humans and understanding that other human has a place and has feelings and emotions you know and perspective. And if we're asking kids to do that then we better be doing it ourselves. So much wisdom there. So circling back. There's a topic that came up in the chat about professionalism. And I think to me that that message of there's not one right way to be a person there's not one right way to be an employee and yet so many times. The expectations of professionalism are based on the notion that there's one more way to be a person. I know I'd like to get some context to that because I was the one who post that I have been facing some. I don't know if you would say like big D discrimination but definitely at least little D discrimination on professionalism on on my own actions and behaviors. I have been called out by someone who has just become my own supervisor after one got swapped to a different department without me even knowing I didn't even know that the supervisor situation was changing unless until I actually asked if it was so that was fun. But also this particular person who I've already interacted with got so upset at me just trying to clarify such a situation. She was giving me really strong staring vibes that were giving me a lot of anxiety and stress and I needed to clarify her intent on those and she was so upset at me just clarifying that and said that was an unprofessional of me. And then a friend of mine who has been transferred long while and is male to female she just she's been going through hormones for a very long time and pretty strictly in the feminine realm now but she's trying to get into social work because of her own understanding of her recent discovery of her own neurodiversity and she has been told that she was unprofessional because of behaviors and experiences she's dealing with in school that are inherent neurodivergent traits and behaviors and this place doesn't understand those and instead of understanding her is ruling her out for being unprofessional and putting reprimands on her. I'm really sorry to hear all that I'm really sorry to hear all that I'm sorry you're going through that and that your friend is going through that and like just to just first just validate like how how awful this this this is. You know I'd also say how not. Not uncommon. This is Sierra. You're muted. Thank you. Get to the button. Nice. Sorry, you're both Sierra. I'm so sorry. Sierra Miller go for it. Who is going to respond to other Sierra's comment. That's funny. Perfect timing. Yeah I just really I think that really resonates with me I think the idea of professionalism I. As a first generation college student I was very lucky to be in a program in college that like taught us professionalism and we did etiquette classes and professional dress classes and you know it was great because we were able to like get those things that we wouldn't otherwise have but In a group of mostly other neurodivergent college kids and it was so much more comforting being in a group of people who are like yeah we have no idea why this clothing is considered professional and this one isn't or why I can't have blue hair in a professional setting but I can have brown hair. Overload issues with clothing. Sorry I just had to put that in there. No exactly it really it really is and I think it was it was surprisingly how much more comforting it was being in a group of other people who were like yeah this is ridiculous. And I think that that like co regulation and that being able to voice in a workplace or whatever like. Hey we know these rules are ridiculous just like take so much of that pressure off even if you still have to whatever do that dress or change your hairstyle or whatever that looks like. Yeah, and I think that there is something about on the character judgment that comes from being told you're unprofessional. Like there as though you know it's one thing to say you know recently recently I had to, I gave some advice around a dress code situation that came up. You know, anyway, we don't we don't have a dress code it all brains belong and like a lot of the other like stuff that's in like a neuro normative employee handbook like we don't have those things here but anyway I had to give advice to their outside world about dress code. And it became you know I think framing this around conflicting access needs is really important.  So like you know your workplace may need to figure out how to negotiate that where it's not your unprofessional. It's, we have to queue safety to a client base for XY reason that doesn't mean that you're unprofessional. It means that how do we queue safety to this client base and how do we get you what you want to do and also how do we negotiate that. Laura. I put my hand down because you went exactly where I was going to ask you mal as a nursing instructor we're constantly being challenged by our students to look again at our professionalism definition for really good reason, but we're always trying to balance that with what patients expect to see in a nurse and queuing safety to our patients and I think that push and pull you just addressed so beautifully, like I'm like how do I need to write that down and bring that to our department to say like, this is how we need to present this issue, and, and expand our definition of professionalism to be more inclusive. Right and so that your students know that there's nothing unprofessional about having blue hair or having a tattoo. It's really about some brains they have some nervous systems have this limbic response to blue hair or tattoo or whatever that doesn't mean that yours is wrong, or unprofessional it's just that like, same way that like when I, when I, when I interact with my in laws from rural North Carolina, I speak a lot more slowly than I do when I'm around my New Yorker parents because talking quickly does not queue safety and like, kind of like at the beginning of brain club we talk about like queuing safety comes first.  I would like to follow that example. But it's really just about like, it's, it's all a collective responsibility to queue safety to one another, what is that going to look like, and the component of that is going to my unique component of that is also going to be, you know, writing some education to the people who, about their brain rules, right so it's it's it's all of the above. And I think that like when you try to address just a component of that it doesn't work. Same way that like I have to go give feedback to my six year old we got some feedback that that they've been. Like verbally stimming like vocally stimming in school. When I go give feedback now it's not going to be like don't do that that's wrong it's going to be like it's going to be in the context of conflicting access needs of like hey what do you need. Okay how else can we meet that okay so there might be some brains that have conflicting access needs here, where they need quiet in order to like the teacher needs quiet in order to talk and think and stuff so how do you get what you need. And I think that the same goes in the workplace. I love that yeah with my specific example was, I guess, for me, my psychological psychological safety was being kind of stepped on by this colleague and also service provider because I'm in that weird brackish waters of pure support coordinator so I am both coordinator and client for this company is a weird spot to be in but anyway, she was staring at me like, and I'm like, Lady, what's going on like, is there something on my face is like no this is just my face I'm like, Okay, I don't know what's going on. I'm having a really intense reaction in interest anxiety reaction and I am a neurodivergent empath and autistic and I am. I'm really picking up on some vibes, I can't focus on what we're doing until we clear the air I just needed to say something about it. I didn't expect anything for her. I just, I needed an idea of what was going on or what was contributing to that expression and what was what was it, what it meant, you know, whether it meant anything or nothing. Right, it's about, it's about clarity as an access needs so I think again, bringing bringing bringing this around around access needs I think it think is the way for Jay. Thank you so much. I'm really enjoying this discussion about what access needs are and conflicting access needs but I also want to bring up the idea which is something unfortunately I'm bringing my work in here because I work in a diversity equity and justice kind of focus field. But one thing that we talk about sometimes is the difference between, and I'm bringing this in to talk about like the difference between letting your interpersonal buy it because what I thought, let me start over. What I'm concerned about is that someone with biases that they haven't unpacked yet, meaning like they haven't thought about why they have those feelings or biases could use that as a an excuse to, well, to say like well I need to I need a white doctor instead of a black doctor because I have access need that I have because I'm uncomfortable around having a black doctor take care of me. And like, there have been cases of people showing up in emergency rooms and saying I won't, I won't be seen by, you know, a black doctor instead of a white doctor. So, I would encourage people to think about is this an access need based on my nerve diversity. Is this a product of some kind of trained implicit bias that I have as a result of how I grew up or how experienced or you know, messages that I've got from the media about who fits the mold of like, what does a doctor look like, or, you know, what is a whatever. So, I'm a little at the end of my, I'm just, it's like a yes and it's like, yes, I love this whole dialogue that's going around on around that access needs, and let's not let our internal biases turn into access needs. Does that make sense, like, amen, say like, Oh, well, I can't use they them pronouns for people, because I can't adjust my language that way and it's like, Well, is that really an access now to use my pronouns or is that it's not an access. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so Jay, I think in the way I would like wrap us all up and as I wrap us up tonight I think it's like, when we talk about conflicting access needs, we all that we do that within neuro inclusive space or within inclusive space. We all have that's why like we, I don't, I hope this is effective but like we start brain club with a community agreement. And so like if we are going to assume we're going to have conflicting access needs here, even within this space, because we all have different access needs so we're going to have to negotiate that. But like we are all operating from within a community agreement that is, we are trying to cue safety and signal inclusion for all people like that is the premise. And so any, I think to your point, Jay, like if someone is coming at this and being like I have an access need for like something that's exclusive and harmful. Like, that's not, that's not, you didn't meet the first step which was that we have a community agreement to be an inclusive community together. With that, I think it's a perfect transition to not next week but the following week will be joined by our community panel. We've got four community organizations representatives coming to talk about their vision for inclusion and I think it'll be a great conversation. But thanks everyone. And, and again, Lizzie Lizzie put in the chat. Lizzie can you do it one more time. The link to November brain club registration so if you registered for any of the October brain clubs you will get that by email. But after that you it's the same link like if you keep your link it's fine like just keep using the same zoom link. But if you do want the recording sent to you if you can't make it live, we do recommend registering and it's, you know, it's Anyway, all that things everybody have a good two weeks.