Hello and welcome to a screencast about sketching a derivative graph. The question that we're looking at today is given the graph of a function, how do we sketch the graph of its derivative? Okay, so sketch an approximate graph of the derivative given the following function and the keyword here is approximate. We're not going to mold anything that's going to be exact, but we're going to have a good idea of what's happening. Okay, so as we read this graph from left to right, you can tell that the graph is increasing until we get to about this point up here. And if we were to draw a tangent line in, that would be horizontal. So we know that on the derivative, that's going to then be a zero on our derivative graph. Okay, now our function's going to be decreasing until we get about two, I'd say about that point right there. And again, that's going to represent a zero on the derivative. And then we're increasing until we get to about right here. And again, we'd have another horizontal tangent. So that's going to represent then a zero on this graph. Okay, so let's go back then and look at the pieces in between. So this piece right here to the left of our first zero is, our first horizontal tangent is going to be increasing. So we know that increasing means it's got a positive slope. So that means that our derivative is going to have to be something that's positive. So that means above the axis. Now again, you notice that right in here, the slope is really steep. We're over here, it's not quite so steep. So we know it's going to be something that's then going to have to look something like this. Because here's the derivative's bigger, here the derivative's smaller. Okay, now between these two points, okay? So between these two horizontal tangents, we know that the graph is decreasing. And again, you can kind of go through an eyeball the rates that it's decreasing at. But we know that we're going to have to have something that's negative on our derivative, and we're going to have to connect it up with this point over here. So we could say the graph's going to do something kind of like that. And pretend like this is actually fairly smooth in here. It's got a little bit out of control. There we go, that's better. Okay, then now from this horizontal tangent to this horizontal tangent, we have something that's increasing. And again, if you were to look at the rates of increase, you know that they're going to be changing, they're not going to be constant. So we're going to have to then connect this horizontal tangent to this horizontal tangent. So that's going to have to look something like this. It's a little bit more smooth. And then after this last horizontal tangent, we know the graph is decreasing. So it's going to have to be something that's negative. Okay, now how do we know where these peaks or valleys are? Honestly, at this point, we don't. So until we know more information, this is a good approximate sketch of the derivative. Okay, looking at a graph that's similar, but yet different enough. So again, we want an approximate graph of the derivative. But you notice this graph is not so curvy. This graph is more choppy. So here, we have a graph that is increasing right away until we hit this point up here at the top. But you notice that it's increasing at the exact same slope. Okay, now I don't have any grid lines on here, but we do know that it's going to be flat, it's going to be a constant slope. So we know we're going to have to have a flat or a constant derivative. So I'm going to go ahead and put that, let's just say right in here. So where this is at, like I said, we don't know what the grid lines are, so we don't know exactly what we're doing as far as the scale goes. So as long as you make it flat and consistent, then you know you're correct. And if we eyeball over here to this other part, we know that it's going to have the exact same slope. And again, it's going to be constant. So I'm going to fill that in here. Okay, then I could say that then the pieces on the downward parts of these slants are the same slope, but it's exactly the negative of that slope. Because these are definitely decreasing. So I'm going to skip down here, and then we've got that here, and then we've got that here. Now, what do we do with these endpoints? That's going to be definitely the kicker. So what is happening up here at this peak, this valley, and this peak? Now the endpoints we really can't do anything about, because we don't know what's happening after those. So those we can just kind of leave alone. But at these two peaks in this valley down here, what would you say is happening with the graph? Well, the fact that it's at a sharp corner, you guys have learned or will be learning soon, that that means our function is undefined, our derivative is undefined there. So I'm going to want to put an open circle here, and an open circle here. Open circle here, and an open circle here. Open circle here, and an open circle here. Okay, now if you did not put in those open circles, you would not be indicating that that derivative is undefined. And that's a very important point, because how can the derivative jump from an immediate point where it's positive to negative, without having some sort of a jump in the graph? So that's why you want to make sure that you show those points where the derivative is not defined by putting in those open circles. So again, our derivative is going to be this kind of step piecewise function here drawn in red. Thank you for watching.


Good morning. Thank you for waking up early to come to this workshop. How many of you were in Nathan's workshop before this? Okay, let's just give him a sense of who's in the room.  Like have employees? Okay. Yep. How many of you are freelancers or solo folks? Work on your own? All right. And how many of you have a boss? We all have a boss somewhere or other. Somewhere. All right. Let me think. Why did you choose to come to this workshop? What are you hoping for? Because I have lots of things I can talk about, but let me make sure that I'm talking about what you need to hear. Any special requests or things that you want to make sure we mention? Yes. I'm here for techniques. Techniques. Okay. Techniques I have. Yes. Well, I think they might want to hear what you're saying. Thank you. I'm working on like a project manager, and I want to install some mindfulness techniques into the work process so that I would know how to maybe help relax some of my colleagues when they have tough situations. Okay. Other requests, yes? For me, it's steps to take to get there. Like little, what to do, what to try. Okay. If it works. So lots of tactics, strategies. Could be, yeah. Okay. Thanks. Great. Thank you. Other requests, things that you'd like us to talk about today? Yes, maybe how to incorporate mindfulness effectively, because for example, I have tried meditation, but then I get, I don't find the time or I get tired of it or I just don't do it anymore. Then I try again, I try again and so forth. So how to make this work so I feel better. Okay. I'll come to you in just a second. Yes. I know that you work a bit with entrepreneurs, so I would love to know some techniques that are more adapted to, for this particular situation. Okay. How do you deal with mental health as an entrepreneur? Okay. We can do that. This has helped us a lot to me by the way, so that I can kind of use our time well. So it should be important. I have tried a lot of meditation, but kind of when I'm on a physical pain, I try it, but my mind gets much more focused on the physical pain and it hurts much more. Okay. So we're going to know how to focus now on the pain. Okay. So it sounds like that most folks are here for some tactics and problem solving. Is that what I'm hearing? Like specific strategies for things that you can try to optimize mental health. And then we'll leave some time for conversation to talk about ways that maybe the strategies that you've tried are not working super well right now. And we can problem solve some specific points. Welcome Elena. All right. So I thought I might tell you a little bit about why I'm here and that will give you also a sense of what I might be able to offer to you by way of tactics and strategies. So I am married to a serial entrepreneur who has started and sold several SaaS businesses. His name is Rob Lawing. And so for the last 18 years I've been kind of on the periphery of the technology creative kind of community. And in addition to that though, I'm a clinical psychologist. So I have a PhD and my area of expertise is in anxiety and stress. And so I started my career actually, you're welcome. I started my career actually working with people who had been deployed to combat zones, so military veterans. And then I worked a lot with physicians in the ER, people who had very high intensity jobs. And so through the combination of my professional work and my family work, my being married to my husband, I found to this sort of need or this awareness of folks who are creatives or technologists who are running their own business or who are kind of out there on their own trying to craft their version of a good life. But who are also experiencing fairly high levels of stress and anxiety and pressure that are somewhat unique to people in the technology sphere. So for the last several years my focus of my work has been on how to really help support technologists, if you will, word pressers, in the kind of work that you all want to do but also to support the well-being of your minds.  But really figuring out how to craft a life that works for you. But one of the things that's really core to our conversation about mental health is celebrating what's good, the sort of Instagram version of our lives where it's like, look, here I am in Belgrade having such a great time with all my word press friends. But we also have to tell the truth about what's very hard about this particular version of life that we've chosen. So this isn't an easy path you bear the responsibility for your own livelihood when you're using your brain, your ingenuity, your ability to code, your ability to design, your ability to see the world in a certain way or solve problems in a unique way. And that's the basis of your livelihood. That can be extra tricky, right?  And with that comes some unique stressors. So some of the things that can make whether you're an entrepreneur or whether you work for someone else, many of us, actually let me ask you, how many of you work in a remote location, either from home or co-working space or okay, I'll have to do it. And how many of you go to an office with other people who have the same job-ish? So we're about half and half. So that can bring with it a lot of isolation, anxiety, burnout, we'll talk a little bit about. The weight of keeping up with, I don't know, new roll-outs in the latest iteration or version of WordPress can cause a lot of stress, failed relationships, lots and lots of people are having difficulty sleeping, certainly especially in the technology sector. Some of these are just life problems, some of them I think are exacerbated by the kind of work that you all are doing that can make it more difficult to sleep, feel more isolated, feel more anxious about becoming obsolete or being behind or not being able to keep up with the latest trends or the latest technology, the latest roll-outs, the latest apps, the latest everything. So there's a lot of instability in our work in technology. So lots of challenges that can, when taken together, really contribute to this underlying constant anxiety that really can eat away at our mental health. And I think increasingly we're seeing this conversation come to the forefront of the technology space and certainly because of the very talented entrepreneurs that we've recently lost. I think we have to be honest about the fact that we have to have these kinds of conversations about mental health, about what it is that brings us meaning in our lives, what it is that helps us to stay around when we feel lost or lonely or desperate and really may have moments of feeling like we'd rather not be here anymore. None of this is simple, right? We don't lose beautiful, talented people simply because of depression. It's more complicated than that. And some of the things that now drive depression, anxiety are things that live in our cultural water. They live in our shared consciousness, our cultural consciousness. It's not just an individual problem. It's not just one broken mind, which is why it's amazing to have this conversation in the community because the way that you interact with others, the way that you build your community, whether it's WordPress or your local community, has significant implications for what mental health looks like for members of that community, right? So we're not talking just about an individual problem, we're talking about a collective problem. So just to give you a little bit of data, the first light is U.S. Stats, and I have some EU Stats for you too. So at least within the U.S., one in five adults experience mental illness in a given year. And mental illness is a huge category of things that includes the most common ones, depression, anxiety, and substance abuse. So those are the three big ones. ADHD is also very common, as you probably know. And this affects a tremendous number of people. And only about 40% of folks receive mental health care. Mental health reasons, at least in the U.S., is the number one driver of disability. So the number one reason why people are no longer able to work or to contribute to the economy, to their communities, at least in the United States, is depression. So it's extremely costly, almost $200 billion lost in earnings per year. And it's, again, these are very complicated kind of issues and so we see that folks who struggle with serious mental illness, long-term mental illness, die on average 25 years earlier than their sort of age-balanced cohort. So this is serious not only because people are sad, but because it ends people's lives. Not even just by suicide, but by over time the lost level of health, the lost level of ability to contribute or ability to care for oneself.  In the EU, the stats are somewhat similar. It's about a quarter of the population, 27% of the population that experiences a mental disorder within a given year. And it's the third leading cause of disability in Europe. Six European countries fall within the top 20 countries with the highest estimated suicide rates globally.  As you all know, I'm just, I'm sure why you're here. I'm telling you about a problem that you already know about, so I'm aware of that. I'm just making the case for why we have to take this super seriously. So we're losing some of our best and our brightest in their ability to contribute work-wise in their ability to stick around and be part of, part of us, to be part of our communities but also to contribute meaningfully to the world. And I think that's, you know, that's the heart of my mission, is to have this conversation in ways that we can help prevent bad things from happening. So I'd like to talk not only about depression and anxiety, but some of the things that are super common in our workplaces, in our lives, like burnout. How many of you have heard the term burnout? It was big. Sorry? Mine was huge. You had a huge burnout. So many, many people have huge burnout. About 30% of the adult workforce, both in the US and the UK, where they've done fairly large-scale studies, report significant experiences of burnout. So what are we talking about when we talk about burnout? What does that word mean to you? Exhaustion, yes. You're having completely unable to function at work, and they are used for social relationships. Yes. So she said completely unable to function at work and in social relationships. What else comes to mind when you think about burnout? Yes. Overwhelm, complete overwhelm. Other experiences are things that come to mind when you think about burnout. Yes, sir. Lack of ideas and interests. Lack of ideas and feeling interested in your work anymore. You can get worse. Sorry to drop in, but I don't know what it's like in other countries, but here in Serbia, if you go to a mental health professional in the burnout, they're very, very quick to diagnose you with something far worse or far serious. You don't care. That's what happens to me, so I spent 18 months of grit. So she's identifying the fact that sometimes it's hard if you go to a mental health professional for them to correctly assess burnout as opposed to depression because they look very similar, but they are different. They have different causes and different treatments. So in many countries, the US included, you have to be, unfortunately, you have to be pretty well informed and able to advocate for yourself and say, no, no, no, I think this is a burnout situation and here's what burnout is. So you guys are right on in terms of the kinds of things that we look for when we see burnout. So burnout has historically not been a formal diagnosis, but recently, the World Health Organization did add it to the ICD-10 which is sort of the international list of all of the problems that you could have. So when now it has a code, which means you can go to your doctor and say, no, I think I have burnout. It's a real thing. It has a code. It's a real thing. So burnout involves exhaustion, physical and emotional exhaustion. You wake up tired, even if you're sleeping well. You don't feel like you have any energy. There's this sense of like kind of numbness or flatness or boredom, like numb, not awake, no passion, no spark, no great ideas. Fatigued, tired. And there's a sense of cynicism and detachment. So this mostly shows up in interpersonal relationships. So when you used to get super excited about a new customer or a new client, now you have really sarcastic snarky things to say about that customer or that client or you're dismissive of your coworkers. You find that you just don't care and you don't care to be kind. You don't care to be patient. You feel like your work is sort of meaningless anyway. What's it all for? You're kind of just not engaged. Like your heart's not in any form. And then finally, you have a sense of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment. And this is regardless of any external data that might say that actually you're doing quite well. You're doing great work. You're getting new clients. It is irrational. It is detached from any data points that say you're doing a good job.  It's a very effortful. And you don't feel the satisfaction of like, done and done. You did a good job. You never get that sense of accomplishment. So this is a very serious problem. Christina Maslach at UC Berkeley is the one who conceptualized burnout and has been researching it for the last 30 years. And we now have incredibly compelling data that burnout is extremely bad for our, of course, work productivity in our relationships, but also really bad for our brains. So burnout, this sense of detachment, exhaustion has the power to change both the chemical structure, the chemistry and the structure of our brain. So brains of people who are in burnout look very different than brains of people who are not in burnout. And one of the primary differences, I'm kind of science nerd, I promise, I won't forget about the tactics, I promise. But one of the primary differences that we see, you might not be able to do that well from the back, but in burnout are amygdala, which is this almond shaped part of our brain that lives in the center part of our brain. This is a part of our brain that's responsible for negative emotion, especially stress and anxiety. So in burnout, the amygdala is overactive. It actually gets bigger, and it's like pumping more stress, sort of hormones through our body. So we have an overactive amygdala, which is that subjective feeling of stress. But then, because the amygdala is overactive, in burnout we see the connections between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is a part of the brain that helps us talk ourselves down when we feel stressed. And it also helps us plan. It's kind of the rational, most human philosophical parts of our brain. The connections between those parts of the brain begin to fray. Literally the myelin around the neuron starts to die. So we have an overactive anxiety response and an impaired ability to calm ourselves down. And this is happening at the cellular level. You can totally just think yourself out of it. And this cycle grows, because of course the more active the amygdala, the more damage we have in the connections between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. Just one second, I'll get to you. So when brains are in burnout for too long, the cells begin to die. We see changes in the way that the brain looks and then the brain functions.  Because we are changing what our brains look like. And there's possibility for the brain to repair to some extent. But if we let this go on too long, then we've lost some of our cellular health. Yes, question. I was wondering, because some research has proved that for example, people with BPD have a different amygdala that's overworking, would we again be more prone to stress than the other people? The most susceptible to burnout. I would be more likely to get a burnout with BPD. But border disorder or borderline personality disorder? Borderline, borderline. I think any brain that's under stress, whether that's depression or borderline or too much caffeine, any brain that's under stress, any brain that's under stress is more fragile. So if we're not taking care of our stress, then we are at increased neurological risk for the kinds of consequences of burnout that I'm talking about. Borderline personality disorder has been stigmatized by many media, but basically we are people who cannot regulate our emotions the way everybody else does. Dr. Marsha Linnaton, with the world's leading researcher on borderline personality disorder, she said that we are basically a mental equivalent of third degree burns. We have no emotional speed and everything hurts us and we heal more than everybody else and we can get easily overwhelmed. But unfortunately the stereotypes about us are mostly based on characters like Alice. Well, thank you. Thank you, attraction. It's not what we are like. She's a psychopath, actually. So one, a range of ways that the brain can be broken. So it shows up as one of the diagnoses in the catalog of codes. Thanks, Kate. Very nice. I think the point here is that the most talented, smartest, capable among us, we are all vulnerable to being broken, to being hurt, to being stressed, to getting burnt out, to experiencing depression and anxiety. We see this over and over again that this isn't a problem of someone else. This is a problem of us, or if not us, then certainly someone who's right next to us, right alongside us. So it's not something that we can ignore or minimize. So what do we do about it? What happens... Actually let me go back here for a second. What happens in your body when you begin to experience stress? What do you notice happening in the moment when you're beginning to get stressed? Muscular tension. Muscular tension? Headache, heartbeat. What happens to your heartbeat? Accelerated heartbeat, rapid heartbeat, yes? I have had kind of two times. One was like a numbness under my forehead. And I was trying to meditate, for example, and I was not able to focus on the numbness. Okay. And I kind of... I do have something in that part of my body near my heart, like it's just a triangle. I don't know. A sense of tension, tightness. I spent a lot of money going to cardioes and they said your heart is like perfect. Your heart is great, but it doesn't feel great subjectively. Muscle tension in your chest is very common. Especially when people have a panic attack. That's why sometimes people feel like they're having a heart attack because they're constricting in their heart muscle. And extremely, under several days of stress, for example, migraine? Yes. Migraine headaches or... Shortness of breath. Shortness of breath, yeah. Other things in your chest? Itching? Itching. Yeah? Skin irritation. Skin irritation? You break out? Skin picking. You know, being able to concentrate like your brain is not a good setting. Yeah? So you can... Sometimes people have... They chew their nails. They pick their skin. You have probably your own version of the repetitive thing that you do when you're feeling stressed out. I just wanted to say that I have more of this. We all do. We all do. I mean maybe, you know, slightly different things from the menu. But we all do. Our bodies are super hardwired for this response. And it's a great response, actually. This stress response is super important. It protects us. It can save our lives. Think about what happened when you were under threat. Your body has this amazing system where it diverts all of your blood flow to your arms and your legs. It goes away from your chest. It goes away from your digestion.  And your body is super efficient at this. Your heart goes faster. Your blood comes harder. That's why your heart is going faster because it's moving blood in a more rapid rate. Your respiration increases and it goes into your chest. So you're getting the most air that you can between sort of the quickest intake right into your lungs. And this is so powerful, but, as you all well know, when it is not an acute or an urgent situation, when it lingers too long, then we move from acute stress to chronic stress. And that same stress response that's designed to save our lives becomes something that's actually very dangerous and toxic to us. Because our bodies are designed to do that quickly and for a short period of time and then resolve and go into relaxation mode. But most of us live with chronic stress. We live with things coming at us all the time. And so we live in an elevated level of stress, which, over time, breaks down our bodies causing heart disease, muscular problems, some kinds of cancer. I mean, all kinds of chronic health problems are linked back to this stress response but on a ride. So one of the most imperative things that we can do to manage our mental health is to help our body go into a relaxation response and move out of the stress response. Are you with me so far? Yes. Okay. So one way to do this. Well, one thing that we're, like, learning a lot about right now and this is kind of newer science is the vagus nerve. Who's heard of the vagus nerve? All right. You guys are advanced stress response students. So the vagus nerve is a nerve that kind of is centered in the brainstem and goes all throughout your spinal cord and has contact points with all of your major organs. So it is the part of our bodies that's responsible for the calm down response for shutting off the stress response. And one of the fastest ways to communicate to the vagus nerve is through deep, slow breaths. So if there's a way to kind of hack the system to make our bodies move into a relaxation response and out of an anxiety response, out of a stress response, it's the most efficient, fastest acting way is through low, slow, deep breath. Because think about it. Like, you can't be in an anxiety response where your body is attuned to breathing fast and having this sort of dramatic reaction. You can't do that and breathe in a really slow, calm way. How do you do this, you might ask? I know many of you have practice meditation or yoga or things like that, so this might feel a little elementary, but let's start with the baby steps and we can add more complexity or specialization as we go. So I know it's a little warm in here, but we are going to practice breathing if you fall asleep, it's okay. A little undersand. We have to move out of that tight, fast, rapid breath and move lower in the body. So I'm going to walk you through how to do this from a couple frameworks and we'll give it a try. So to start, so I'm going to make recommendations. I'm going to tell, I'm going to just sort of teach it to you. You can do or not do what feels right to you. So we have an invitation to close your eyes if you wish. If that doesn't feel comfortable to you, don't do it, it's fine. Another invitation is to put your feet flat on the ground and really lean back into your chair. So kind of resettle yourself, move things around, close your eyes if you wish. Just take a moment to notice the chair underneath you, notice how the chair is supporting your body, notice how the floor is supporting your feet, notice that you can release your body into the chair.  Place one hand over your belly button. See if, as you inhale, take air into your body, see if you can get your belly button to move, to expand. You can even imagine that there's a balloon in your belly and as you inhale, the balloon expands and as you exhale, your belly button pulls toward your spine and the balloon deflates. So just play with moving your breath down to your belly and use your hand as a guide. You can even look down at your hand and see if it's moving as you breathe.   Breathing in for four counts, breathing out for four counts. You can try it with me if you wish. So inhale, two, three, four. Exhale, two, three, four. Inhale, two, three, four. Exhale, two, three, four. If you find that your mind is wondering a little bit, give it something to do. Perhaps imagine the path where your breath travels.   So give your brain something to do as you think about your breath. Count your breath. Imagine your breath. It's okay for your breath to make a little bit of sound. Take a couple more in your own timing. Release your hand from your belly when you're ready. And come in, open your eyes when you're ready.  Alright, how are you feeling after a couple of deep breaths? Anybody ready for a nap? Yeah. What worked well about that exercise for you? And I'll ask you also what didn't work. So first let's start with what worked well. What helped? Or didn't work? Yes. So when I'm like completely focused on the breath, it feels pretty good. Like you are, I don't know, and your mind is out of the body. So the body is completely relaxed and not having any, no any kind of pain or or tensions or anything like that. What it doesn't work is always when I say, I'm trying with some hats, like tall and things like that. And what it doesn't work is that when I'm having any physical pain or any stress-related physical response like numbness, when I can't completely focus, my mind goes and focuses on the numbness, for example, which comes and to be more, more like, more, I feel it more and it doesn't let me in many days. So I think a lot of people can probably relate. Like this works well when you take a couple breaths, but it's also very easy to get distracted. How many of you feel sometimes distracted by either something in your body or something in your mind? Yeah, everybody gets a little distracted about it. I'm like, oh, shiny, leech, leech, leech. That's okay. So this kind of, let me organize my thoughts. This kind of practice is not the only way to calm down and it's not ideal for everyone. There are those of us among us, myself included to some extent, who calm down best in motion. So stillness is not optimal for everyone. You can breathe well while you're walking. You can breathe well while you're moving. You can breathe well while you're dancing.  That's not the only strategy. However, sometimes, if you're like me before a meeting or a conference presentation or something, you just need like a quick reset and you don't have time to go for a walk and you don't have time to do your yoga moves. So you need something quick and that's where this kind of practice is helpful. So four breaths in, four seconds in, four seconds out can be enough to, in the moment, just sort of reset you real quick. But for things that are more complicated and all of our lives are more complicated, so this is again kind of the entry point. You've noticed that stress response beginning and you want a quick tactic to counteract it. Four breaths, four seconds in, four seconds out. That's sort of one of our best scientifically proven strategies to, in the moment, do a quick turnaround, a quick calm down, I should say. But of course, it's going to break down. So if this isn't something that works for you regularly, if this isn't your optimal regular calm down strategy, then we have to get more creative. We have to think of moving exercises or other things that help you circulate oxygen extensively throughout your body. The work, yes. Don't try to set your expectation too high. I mean, I start for, I think it just goes in my eyes for five minutes. It will already help me out. Yes. To relax a little bit. So when I realize that I don't need to do everything like perfectly and that I don't manage to, you know, follow all the things and to feel all the stuff which is completely relaxed. I'm doing something wrong. I have to start from a very, very low point that only if I, you know, like, I close my eyes for five minutes, it will, you know, like, help me out. And this is enough. I don't have higher expectation than this and this is already helpful. So this is what helped me to actually, because initially I tried to really follow all the stuff, you know, like four seconds, that image is not right, no, it will be properly, then try to focus on these things I appreciate that. I don't know if you could hear him in the back, but he was reflecting on the importance of not having high expectations. And I think a lot of people will say to me, I could never meditate. Like, I can't sit still that long or who has a half an hour to sort of, you know, sit and have deeper consciousness. But four breaths, five minutes, these little tiny interventions can make a big difference. So invitation, let's stand up if you don't want to, that's fine. But the invitation is to stand up and let's try a little bit of a moving breath. Also, I don't, you know, I think we're getting tired and hot. So let's just play a little bit with breath in motion. So we're going to pair an inhale and an exhale with a specific movement. So let's start first with an inhale where we bring our arms up to the ceiling, reach up high, and exhale, flap down. And if you accidentally hit your friend, that's okay. That's how you make friends. Inhale, reach up high. You can even look up and exhale. And down. Let's do that one more time. Big breath in, big breath out. Roll our wrists and give out your breath and let that go. Inhale, your shoulders up to your ears and exhale, shoulders back and down. This is to counteract. Inhale, shoulders up and exhale, shoulders back and down. Close your eyes if you wish. Inhale up, down. Inhale, give yourself a hug. Pull your shoulder blades slightly forward. And exhale, arms open to the world. Inhale, give yourself a hug. Pull those shoulder blades apart. Open the back. And exhale, open up. One more time. Do a little ballet. Inhale, arms and toes up. Exhale, if you have room, you can fold forward or just make a ball with yourself, your choice. So inhale, up tall, reach up. And exhale. Make a little ball. Put your eyes here. You might hit someone, it's okay. Try not to fall over. I don't know if we have insurance for that. Listen for your own breath.  Stand up as tall as you can.  So you're trying to be as tall as you can be. Roll your shoulders back. Maybe face your palms toward me. Close your eyes for a second. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Open your eyes. Shake it out a little bit. Do a little dance. All right, have a seat. Does anyone feel a little more awake? Yeah. A little sweaty? A little more relaxed? Yeah. Make a video or something. So what we did was really quite simple. Okay, when you think about what happens in your body when you're working on a computer all the time, most of us are a little hunched over, right? So most of us have pain here. And so just think about movements that counteract that. In the time you're kind of opening your chest and putting your shoulders back, a lot of us also have a lot of tension here in our forearms from this action. So thinking about how things are with your wrists, pushing your hands together, inverting that. I'm going to put in a little plug here. So a lot of this movement stuff comes from me from my psychological training, but also from yoga practice. And yoga is one of the tools that has been sort of clinically proven to help reduce the effects of anxiety and depression. And is especially for those of us who have a fairly sedentary lifestyle, who sit a lot, is an incredibly helpful way to deal with both the mental health and physical health challenges of many of our talks. So that's a lot of what we did. This movement just standing like this, this is called Mountain Pose. This is a yoga pose.  So even taking moments in your day to practice that kind of expansion and feeling solid in your body can be really helpful. Bye. Okay. So the body is one part of this. We talked about breath. We talked a little bit about the importance of integrating your body into your well-being. Would anybody like to experience better memory, better concentration, less motivation to eat a lot, have a better mood, have a stronger immune system, make fewer mistakes? I have an Amazon store set up for... Just kidding. This is free. What is this? Only one or two of these problems remain. For example, I only have the first two in the second column. No, well, these are not only problems. These are the benefits of sleep. I'm going to talk about that. So if you have some challenge with memory and concentration... Basically everything is all shiny. Yes. So many shiny things in the world. Any and everything. Yes. One of the ways to enhance the functioning of your brain, enhance your mental health is to really make sure that you're taking care of your body by sleeping well. I know you may not have come all the way to Belgrade for me to tell you, you need to get some sleep. But it might be the most important thing here. Many of us do not sleep enough. And when we talk about things that make it easy to feel stressed, anxious, depressed, burned out, irritable, unhappy with our lives, one of those risk factors is having a compromised brain, a brain that's not functioning well. And there is no way for our brain to function well if we don't sleep well. Our brain is incredibly active during sleep. It's when we integrate memory. It's when we process the work over the day. And if we don't sleep enough, all kinds of bad things happen. So if you're serious about mental health and you're like, wow, why do I feel so miserable all the time? And you're not sleeping well, this is probably the first area of intervention. So when people come into my office and they're like, well, Dr. Walling, I'm not feeling well. I'm struggling. I'm having a hard time. I ask this question immediately. How are you sleeping? Because it's one of the most powerful indicators that we're doing well or not doing well is how well we're sleeping. Yes. You have a requested episode. You can't really sleep too much. So we want to do about that. Yes. So when we talk about dysregulation or feeling off, feeling depressed, it's either hypersomnia or insomnia, so sleeping too much or sleeping too little. Sleep is one of the first things to get disrupted when we're having a depressive episode or a season of anxiety or when we're in burnout. So to some extent, if you feel like you're sleeping too much or, I mean, some people really, they're in a depressive episode, will be in bed 20 hours a day. So it can be quite debilitating. That's a place where it makes a very hard function normally when you are sleeping that much. And I think there are a couple things I would think about. If you feel like you're sleeping too much, it's actually rarely a problem among technology folks.  On the other hand, sometimes it's okay for a couple days to just call it in and stay in bed. It depends on the situation. It depends on who you are and what's good for you. It depends on what you need to maintain your particular level of well-being. So I don't want to sort of stand up here and say, if you're sleeping more than 10 hours, then you've really got to get up and exercise because that's not the answer for everyone. The answer for everyone is knowing your own self and your own body and knowing what you need when you start to move into depression or when you start to move into anxiety is figuring out what's for you and having a plan for that for yourself. So there's a non-answer to your question. Yes? More than sleeping? I don't have any problems with morning sleep because I get up very tired. But during the night, I wake up seven times than I wanted to do and so you identify you have slept seven and a half hours or so. Yeah. You're not well rested. I go into the entire day. I can't be rested anymore. For example, my girlfriend, she wakes up seven times but for her, it's normal that she doesn't do itself this up and up and up like this at once and I'm already numb the whole day. Yes. So sleep is nuanced. So if you're waking up in the middle of the night, if you wake up and your mind is prevented from entering a REM cycle of sleep, that's our deepest sleep cycle when our brain is most active. If your brain isn't entering REM sleep in a certain cyclical pattern, then it will be very difficult for you to feel rested. So waking up at the wrong time can absolutely disrupt your sleep for a long time. So if you find that you're having sleep in difficulties, either difficulty falling asleep or difficulty with waking up in the middle of the night, what are some strategies that have worked for people? I have a list, and it helps you sleep well. Do exercises? Yes, be very active but not two hours before you go to bed. So earlier in the day. Yes. We really helped to have a nighttime routine. So an hour before I go to sleep, I typically would work until the last minute and then try to go to sleep in my wake. So an hour before I would go to sleep, and I do my things and I read a bit and just have to do whatever and that really helps like that coach is working to move to sleep. Absolutely. So having a really set nighttime routine where you're winding down and an important piece of that is turning your screens off, not looking at screens like the hour before you go to sleep. Yes. So we're planning to have this program when it's 12 am and I think maybe I might not have enough sleep so I'm starting to worry about who I am. Yes. This is like the most exciting thing that I have to do. It doesn't matter maybe I can get some sleep that I have tomorrow I can sleep whatever I want I don't get away if I fall asleep I sleep okay I don't mind. I feel something to read and don't worry about this. I feel helpful to try to accept that depending on the type of work that you do maybe you are not like other people like 7 hours might not be okay for you you might need 9 hours and this is okay or 10 hours. So don't try to think that maybe you should guess 8 hours or 7 hours and then wake up even if you don't feel after some day you realize that it's not good enough for you but it was hard for me to accept that in some periods of time when I was very stressed it's okay to sleep like 9 hours or 10 hours to make sure that I'm well rested. Yes. So I think you said two really important things and just for those of you who maybe didn't hear in the back the first thing that he mentioned was the importance of not stressing out about sleep so if you're finding that you're awake after you want to be just get in a little pattern in our minds where we're like I really gotta go to sleep I really gotta go to sleep which of course makes it really difficult to sleep when you're stressed out so to just say alright well I'm having a night where I'm not sleeping a lot I might need to make some adjustments in my day and that's what it will be and then the second thing that you mentioned is that everyone has their own sleep needs so you might be last of all hours might be 7 might be 8 but some people need 10 or 11 hours of sleep and that's the way that your body is working and there's not much to be done about that. For example if you have PCOC PCOS story maybe say what the acronyms are because the polycystic ovary syndrome and you get insulin resistance and you often get high effects such as PMPD, Remastered Historic Disorder they just simply have spells of sleep that can last like up to 14 hours and there is not much to think about that because you feel like the truck has run you over Yes, our need for sleep can go up and down There's this difference between the ovulation and the cycle a couple of times and I'm trying not to consider myself breathing because of that I think when your body needs sleep the most compassionate thing you can do is just let your body sleep like isn't that something to fight? Other sleep comments, yes That's a pretty basic thing but for me it's best to sleep in complete darkness Yes, so in a very dark room that the other recommendation is a cold room a room that's sort of failed and then you have like a fozy blanket some people like a weighted blanket with a little bit of pressure from their bed clothes and that can help you to feel sort of calm there's a calming response there Yes, go ahead Sorry, no I guess you could write things down before you go to sleep Yes There's a lot of times we have a lot of things going on and usually if I don't write things down and it's something important that I'm thinking about by the time morning comes I forget about it, it's crazy it was really important and interesting and in the morning I wake up totally, it's gone So keep a little notebook by your bed It's sort of a journal Yes, especially the things that you want to do tomorrow so that you're not like I have to remember this, I have to remember this Yes I don't have my troubles sleeping I sleep well I have trouble going but I found a three useful techniques one of them listening with headphones, some stories whatever it is like on someone talking even in strange language the second technique was reading a book before reading something or while you're on bed and the third one when I want to put my daughter to sleep I fall and sleep before her Have your daughter put you to sleep I wanted to say that having your kids really helps you appreciate sleeping Thank you children Thank you I think one of the tendencies that some of us have is to pull our laptops into bed with us or either start the day with our laptop in bed just, oh I've seen you do one more thing before bed and that's a big no no so if you want to optimize sleep your bed is for sleep, maybe a little reading and for sex that's what happens there no email, no twitter no Slack none of that should be in your bed let your bed be the sleep intimacy zone not any kind of reading so having a TV in your room really not doing anything in your bed except for those kinds of things can be a helpful contextual cue that tells your brain we do these activities in this space and these activities in this space which can prime your brain to do those activities in the right time and place one of the things I have on my playlist is to improve my bedroom uh-huh not your phone yeah I am a big fan of no screens in the bedroom, at all no phones okay, I'm going to skip some of this let's just, we talked a little bit about body that's another tech related problem that is pretty significant is if you are sitting most of your day and not taking time to move around you put yourself at risk for all kinds of physical and health problems and the minimum viable effort to counteract that is 30 minutes of movement three times a week you don't have to run marathons you don't have to do cross but you don't have to be just one second you don't have to be fancy in the way that you go about this you just need an elevated heart rate some little gentle beads of sweat and you're moving your body three times 30 minutes at minimum that's kind of the research based minimum standard to counteract all of the bad things that happen when you have an overly sedentary existence is 100 kilometers on a bike per week too much is 100 kilometers on a bike per week like three times 30 something too much am I overdoing it you have to check with your doctor but everybody has a different body in the sense of like what restless and need to let it out and if you sort of experiment with what works best for you in terms of noticing how you feel when you are exercising a certain level and you make adjustments so I think we can all use a little bit of scientific method with our own mental health so you do an experiment what does it feel like if I run at this time of day for five miles or five kilometers how does that feel in my body and then I make an adjustment and then I try something else it's an it's an evolving highly individualized process so you know when you see online like this is the this is the magic bullet this is the morning strategy that will optimize your productivity some of that is really not helpful because your body works in a different way than every other body so your responsibility as someone who is committed to optimizing both your mental health and your ability to contribute in a meaningful way to the work that you find important is your job to figure out to be the expert about yourself about how your body works how your mind works so it's amazing to utilize resources listen to people like me to you know read things online who is responsible for doing what you can to sort of prevent problems from happening by optimizing how you take care of your body in the way that your body needs it's highly individualized alright and of course this is necessary because when we work against ourselves we always lose it's a journey it's your personal journey if you have to find a way alright so one other sort of set I wanted to talk about a little bit is to think about not so we talked about mental health broadly we talked about the relationship between mental health and the body where we think about breath where we think about sleep where we think about nutrition let's talk a little bit about the content of our minds or let me give you a choice no so we can talk about kind of thought process and ways to challenge how we're thinking the content that happens in our minds or we can do some more movement or breathing do you have opinions who would like me to talk to you more who would like to move around or breathe alright captivated if you want to move around or breathe just go in the corner and move around that will be fine okay so let me just be honest we're all a little bit crazy can we just agree on that in the most loving and professional way possible yes you're a little bit crazy we all feel like imposter syndrome we all have self-doubt we all have nutty ideas sometimes we all get anxious we're all irrational or sometimes too rational in a way that crosses over into being irrational we all can be a little bit anal retentive we all get kind of broken in our minds and I think one of the best strategies that we can use when we're talking about the conversation in here is to really accept that there's a certain level of craziness that's just part of how we're made it's cool but also think about how to have a good relationship with the cast of characters that lives in our minds so you know this one? I love this girl able to jump to the worst conclusion in a single bound oh good grief these tights are too tight I think I'm gonna die when we are able to take a little bit of a step back and think about how we're thinking metacognition think about our own thinking we have a little bit more power over the kind of story that we're telling ourselves in our mind so I when we're doing cool stuff in the world there's high highs and low lows like we can be all over the place right so I had this experience a couple of months ago I finished a book which I was super excited about and I emailed Seth Godin and said would you write an endorsement for my book and I was like there's no way he's going like Seth Godin and he wrote back in like three minutes he was like absolutely sent this to me I was like really so I was writing high I was super excited I finished a book that's so cool Seth Godin was gonna he wrote a little thing it's on the back of the book it's so cool and then we came to book launch day and so my husband and I emailed our email list and between the two of us mostly him not me but we sent out an email to 20,000 people all about our book and we're like this is amazing and in the email the link to the book was broken and in like two seconds I was like I am terrible at this I'm never writing another book I'm never doing anything in public no one's gonna read this book from someone who can't write an email I'm clearly incompetent and I should just quit it all it sounds like my mom has that happened to you guys so we all have a little crazy right and we can be super excited one moment and the next moment we're like questioning our contribution to humanity and whether you know like whether we should just like go in the back somewhere and hide that is really normal I think I hope maybe um but how do we do that well like how do we have a good relationship with like the ups and downs and then the self-criticism and the excitement and all of the swirl of all of it and I will tell you one of the most powerful ways to do that is to keep a journal to have a mechanism by which you are getting some of this material out in front of you in a way where you're separating the material the content the voices in your head from where you can look at it objectively you can take it out of your mind so for people who really have a lot of swirling voices a lot of swirling anxiety a lot of thoughts that go round and around and go really fast we um you know often have them keep a journal sometimes you even name the voices like a lot of us have a really critical voice the criticizer the one who's like oh that design is crap you I can't believe you're going to show that to your client or I can't believe that you think your ideas are valid or interesting does anybody have a voice like that just yeah okay so you can name it your mother if that's where it came from or you can just name it like critical jerk or give it a name because that gives it less power gives it an avatar what does your critical voice look like is it like green with a pointy nose and crazy hair and bad teeth or is it like big and blobby and purple and kind of slimy I'm being playful but I'm also that serious 7th when 7th is beautiful very nice red hair so do a witch sort of a witch yeah some of us have a witch that lives in our head the mean kind not the nice kind so you might also think about the voice in your head that is your encourager voice so you have probably a critical voice you might have an encourager voice a voice that's like I think it's going to be okay you can do it just keep trying you can learn this and maybe that's your mom or your dad or somebody else you're a net for that no I don't think an app for that thank you for the idea if you want to make a voices in your head avatar app that would be amazing and I will send you lots of clients but it's on video we all agree on this today but when our voices are loud and when that critical voice is the only voice that you're listening to it's too powerful and when we give it a silly face when we give it a name when we also acknowledge that there are multiple voices in our mind and we don't have to just listen to one sometimes we can actively choose like okay that's enough criticism for a while where's my encourager is it in there somewhere I need to find my encourager voice or my comforting voice or the voice of the people that love me I need to listen for something else we do have some power to kind of change the channel on our thoughts but only when we've done the work to notice how our thoughts are functioning to notice the voices of our thoughts so get out a piece of paper you don't have to use now but this can be a homework assignment get out a piece of paper and give names to some of the different tracks that play in your head and give them avatars or give them an appearance and one of your mindfulness practices I think we have time so first of all who is with me who thinks I'm a kooky lady talking about those voices in a weird monsters thing or are you following me to understand what I mean okay thank you let's all fly our flags together I don't know how to identify what are the names of the voices so for example yes we have sight, voice or being seen in a voice whatever but there are definitely set of voices the truce bro there are certainly common voices so yes and no so most of us have a critical voice that's basically like whatever you're doing is dumb most of us have an imposter voice which is like the you don't belong here voice most of us hopefully if we've been loved reasonably well have an encourager voice a voice that says like get out there kid try again what other voices do you notice maybe a nagging voice maybe an intellectual voice I have an intellectual voice a voice that's like let's just think our way through this problem you might have a a very feeling voice a skeptical voice I think I don't know that science isn't a lot of work on this but I think that many of us construct these versions of our own mind is constructed through both our biology and the set of experiences that we've had so if we had a kind of childhood or early life experience where there was a lot of criticism we might have a very strong critical voice if we were someone who was loved well we might have a stronger encouraged voice so you have to kind of think about what voices literal voices you heard while you were developing while you were becoming who you are what sounds what messages did you hear over and over what shaped you and that's a good place to start yes you mentioned the journal before what is the best way to keep it using the classical way with a pencil and a notebook or oh no the best way to keep it is the way that works for you the way that you will do so there is some research that shows that the relationship between handwriting is more emotionally nuanced largely because most of us write more slowly than we type so that I would say that the gold standard would be a hand written journal with a sort of you know special bound journal but if that's not going to work for you then use an app on your phone by all means use what works it is thinking a voice I think so intellectualising might be a voice yeah okay you in the red you had your hand up I just wanted to add another voice like a little scared kid yes an amateur voice and a media wise voice so when you I see you I'll come back to you in just a second okay I know you have so many great things to say let me finish this thought and then we'll come back so just to kind of close out the conversation about voices it's one mechanism for which we can have some objectivity between what happens in our mind make it a little less powerful a little more playful a little less controllable so naming your cast of characters that lives inside of your head if this idea is really interesting to you I'm pulling a little bit from something called internal family systems so I can give you that link or you can google it internal family the psychological framework that talks about the voices in our head the practice of journaling is a way of noticing your highs and lows noticing your feelings you don't need to journal like Dear Diary today I had eggs for breakfast followed by a good cup of coffee what you're going for when you're keeping a journal is keeping a record of where you came alive where you felt like this is the moment that I want to live in and also where you felt like I never want to have this experience again so highs and lows it can be a two sentence journal today my high was today my low was that's one of the kind of most powerful data points that you can track over time so I've been doing that journaling practice for like five years and I have a friend and we talk on the phone every Sunday night and I say what was your high for the weekend what was your low for the weekend and we are tracking together the highs and lows of our life so that when we come to a decision point do we have another child do I change jobs do I go on this trip you have all of this record that you can look back on and look and see actually over the course of the last few years some of my most significant highs happened when I was traveling and I was doing this so when I come to a decision point I'm going to look at my own data based on my own life because I'm listening to what I am experiencing in my life and letting that shape me so a journal is a powerful thing because it can get your thoughts away from you but also be a data record and by thoughts away I mean thoughts objective not so powerful and loud and strong in our own minds okay so we have just 5 minutes left and I'm going to hang out in that little sort of public for your area after the workshop if you have more questions for a couple minutes I can chat I'm also I have a podcast where I talk about a lot of these issues called Zen Founder it's free every week and I co-host it with my husband so we really try to talk about the combination of psychology and technology and how those two interface we also talk quite a bit about family and wellness and life so we try to put that out as a resource there's an organization called Open Sourcing Mental Illness that's committed to having conversations about mental health and technology and then as another resource not because I'm trying to promote my stuff but because it's the only resource that I know that's attempting to be a mental health guide for people in technology the book that I wrote with my husband is called The Entrepreneurs Guide to Giving Your Shit Together How to Run Your Business Without Letting It Run You and we talk about a lot of this material that we talked about today so there are resources that are available and I think the fact that you're here the fact that this year at WordCamp EU there are three or four topics or talks that are talking about mental or physical health that we're in the right place having the right conversation about how to really preserve our well-being so that we can do the work that we want to do in WordPress the last thing that I want to end on is that in my work in trauma and stress the thing that consistently research shows to be the most important protective factor so when you are under stress when you're vulnerable in some way there are things that increase your risk for problems and there are things that decrease your risk the things that decrease your risk for mental health problems are called protective factors they protect you the most important protective factor for stress and anxiety and burnout actually is strong relationships having you don't have to have lots of friends you don't have to be a social butterfly but you have to have three or four people who love you and who you love and who will show up for you who will listen to you when you're upset who will encourage you when you're sad you sort out that cast of characters in your own mind so the fact that you're here in a community with other people who care about and are interested in some of the same things that you are is already a great beginning point and I love coming to word camps and WordPress events because of that deep value of we do this together and the same is true about changing the conversation about mental health supporting each other as we have to do this together so if nothing else that you take from this whole word camp experience I hope that you will take the importance of having a couple relationships maybe you make some new relationships while you're here of sleeping well and I'm just making sure that you're taking very good care of yourself in whatever that looks like for you so thanks for your attention I think we might have are we done? 2-3 minutes so we have time for a couple quick questions and then I'll be hanging out and I can chat throughout the day our scope is enough again you have your own body but I will say that I talked to many folks who are like wow doctor I'm really feeling a lot of anxiety I'm feeling really tense there's not any big stressor in my life I don't know why I feel so much anxiety and I'm like how much coffee do you drink? I'm great not you but like if you're drinking 6 or 7 cups of coffee I think that's probably especially if you're drinking like American size cups of coffee where it's like the big gold that's probably too much so I don't know that there's a gold standard but probably like 2 or 3 is 2 or 3 is 7-8 per day I think you're really going to have a lot of anxiety feelings since you're drinking that much coffee also I recommend like after for example 4pm no really? how do you do that? I'm kidding I just started trying to do that yes so anytime that you are using caffeine marijuana alcohol whatever to regulate your body's systems I would say that's probably not the best so using those things recreational or whatever but when it's like I need this to function especially high levels of caffeine your body is going to feel anxious because that's what caffeine does it's a stimulant so all the problems in sugar these things you can get used to get a lot and need them but you can't get this to reduce it and get rid of it all about taking good care of what you have your most important asset is you so take care of those minds take care of those bodies and go have a great work camp thanks you guys


All right, Bolo Buddies, let's talk about my Bread and Butter Bolo's items that I picked up cheap and sold for $35 or less on eBay. Hey, Bolo Buddies, thanks for watching. All right, in this video, we're going to talk about my Bread and Butter Bolo's items I sold on eBay. I'm going to tell you where I got it, what I paid for it, and what I sold it for. And you're going to see that I source cheap. And I'm going to show you how I sold these items. So let's get started here. The first item I picked all of these up, the Goodwill Benz, and the Benz you pay by the pound. If you want to see some of my Goodwill Benz videos, oh my goodness, they're super fun. You actually get to see me dig. I dig to the bottom of the Benz for toys just like this. So this one is a bundle. I picked up this set, this one, and this one. And they all came from the Goodwill Benz. I did do three separate listings and somebody bundled all three of them. They got them for $24.18. I do have combined shipping on bundles for my first class, which is now ground advantage of $5. So they paid $5 shipping for all of them. So I probably took a little bit of a loss on shipment because it was probably more than $5 to ship because there were four vehicles. All right. So those are the VTech GoGo smart wheels. And this is the Minnie Mouse. And this one is also Minnie Mouse. But these are just the helicopter and the green SUV. The next item is this Kinex Black Motor power, battery powered forward reverse replacement part. I find these all the time at the Benz. They get left behind. They come in sets. People leave the sets behind. They're all over the place. These Kinex parts. And people don't even think to grab this item. And this is an item that you want to grab every time because they sell. This is a great replacement part that people are always looking for. I took a best offer of $9 and the buyer paid shipping. This guy right here, I think he came out of a Goodwill toy lot. I can't remember. I didn't mark it down. But I sold this for a best offer of $8. The buyer was all in for $16.97 with tax and shipping. It's a 2008 LFL Hasbro Star Wars Galactic Heroes do back with Sado. Sado. Sado. All right. Counted cross stitch. Any cross stitch kits, I pretty much pick them up. They range from bread and butter to big money. I do have a video on cross stitch kits that sell for big money. This one was a bread and butter. I got it at an estate sale with a whole bunch of crafters items. So probably less than a dollar in this. I sold it for $15.50 and the buyer paid shipping. And it was new old stock. NOS stands for new old stock. This Halloween horse head. I had this forever. It's just a weird item. I got it out of a thrift store mystery box. And you know, it just takes the right buyer. And I'm laughing for a reason. The next item I sold, they also bought this item. It is a vintage gift code 1984 scroll calendar reversible hanging calendar. And it's from 1984. And it's two sided, which is pretty cool. And this one came from a garage sale for 75 cents. And the person that bought these two items is Mac pack. Join the pack. This is her eBay store. She also bought some clothing items from me. I don't usually show you guys my clothing items. So I left those out. But thank you so much. Mac pack. Join the pack for your purchase. She is also starting a YouTube channel. I believe it's Mac pack reselling. I don't think she changed the name. So she and she may be on what not in the future also. So if you guys are not on what not, you can use my link down below to join. You can get $15 to shop. Everybody is going over to whatnot, either as a buyer or a seller. I've got both links down there. You guys got to come and join in on the fun. Even if you don't buy anything, just come hang out. It's super fun. I'm doing lots of live shows. So join below and come bookmark Bolo buddies. All right, here are just some of the items in her store. And she is she works full time. So eBay is her side hustle. So check her out and follow her store by clicking on the safe seller. She's also a Bolo buddies member. So I am going to link her down in the description of the video. So altogether she paid $27.89 for the two items plus shipping. The next item are these vintage ET stickers. Do you remember when I went to the Ben's and I got all of those scratch and sniff? I also got another envelope of miscellaneous stickers. This is a part of that batch. This sold for $15 and 50 cents plus shipping. If you guys want to see that video, I'm trying to think of what it's called. It's just type in Bolo buddies, Goodwill Ben's and filter by popular. It's one of my most popular Goodwill Ben's videos. I think it says I will make thousands, which I will. These scratch and sniff stickers that I found at the Ben's just unbelievable what they sell for. And in that video, I show you some of the items that I already sold. This is a Neopets. This is a McDonald's promo. Anything Neopets I pick up, even if it's McDonald's, they do pretty good. This got this got I got this from a garage sale for 25 cents. And I sold it for $11 and 16 cents plus shipping. This is a Lego set. I got this at a thrift store for $2. I could not even believe it. And I sold this for $34 and 10 cents plus shipping. It is a Minecraft mini figures Lego set from 2016. And it is retired. This Walt Disney World took forever to sell forever. I thought it was going to be a home run. It holds pictures. It's so cute. But no, it took took a long time. You just never know. I don't even remember where I got it. I think I got it at a garage sale. I think it was probably like a buck or two. And it was just long tail sold it for a best offer of 15 plus shipping. And I was glad to see it go these roller blades. This was just something that I wanted to try out. The reason I grabbed them is because I think they're vintage and they're Barbie. And I just figured that they were going to appeal to someone. The thing that concerned me about these was the weight because they were heavy. But hey, they ended up selling. I bought them for five, sold them for $15 and 50 cents plus shipping connects parts and pieces. Talked about this earlier. The motor sells much quicker. These took forever to sell. I parted out a roller coaster set. And you guys, I did that video a long time ago. Let's see. Listed in 2021. Long tail. Some of them sell quick. Some of them take a long time to sell. It just depends what people are looking for. You do have to price them competitively. But if you get something and it's incomplete, this is a great way to make a lot of money over a long period of time. So sold these for $6 and 20 cents plus shipping. The next item is this Pendleton hat. I got this at an estate sale. And I probably had about a buck in it. And I sold this for a best offer of $30 plus shipping. This is a vintage Ken Toys 1998 River Caravan camping travel trailer. This came out of a thrift store mystery box. And I had no idea what it was. I just looked it up. And it sold for a best offer of $10 plus shipping. This is a scent of buns rolled candle, loomy light, hearth and home shaped cinnamon roll. It's a cinnamon roll candle.  Look how good it looks. I bet it smells good too. Got this at a garage sale for $1 sold it for $15 and 50 cents plus shipping. If you guys have not seen my candles that sell for big money. Oh my goodness. You got to go check it out. I will try to remember to link it in the description of the video. Wow. This is a vintage Mattel Loving Family Dollhouse doll. She's the cowgirl from 2001. I got her at a garage sale for 25 cents sold her for $15 and 50 cents plus shipping. Pac-Man. Here are Pac-Man stickers. These also came from that Goodwill Benz envelope. Oh my goodness. What a haul that was. Sold these for $24 and 80 cents plus shipping. This is a vintage Halloween mask from 1998. This one was very long tail also. You can see right here. It does have the information on it. And that's how I knew the date. I sold this for $14 plus shipping and it came out of a thrift store mystery box. This one right here. I got out of a mystery box and it's Sesame Street figure Snufflepigus Green Cart Terra. And it's yellow. Never seen this before. Thought I, you know, did Google Lens, looked it up, figured it out, sold it for a best offer of $12 plus shipping. Small toys do sell. People look for these. Some of them are long tail. Some of them sell quick. Neopets. I told you I pick up Neopets. This is a blue figure from Thinkway Toys. It's I also put cake topper in the title. This sold for $12 and 40 cents plus shipping. A lot of times people will look for these as cake toppers. I actually had somebody reach out to me on McCurry and they actually made cakes and they wanted me to express ship something to them that they had ordered from Amazon or something like that. And it was delayed. And I never ended up hearing back from them, but I was like, it's going to cost you a ton of money to express ship these toys to you. And I, I don't know. McCurry messaging, that's one thing that I really think needs worked on. I think you need like a bing bong or something like that. Some sort of notification other than just you go in and you see you have a message. I wish there was some sort of alert. And if there is that I don't know about, let me know in the comments because I would love to know when I have a message on McCurry because I get them and I don't see them for hours because I'm not always checking, you know, my app. Like on eBay, it pops up on my screen. It's really easy and functional, functional, functional. Anyway, you know what I'm saying. Anyway, this sold for $12.40 plus shipping. I got it at the Goodwill Benz. These I always pick up. They're the peekaboo blocks. It's just one of those things that I like to pick up. I don't know. I'm a sucker for these. I find them everywhere. These happen to come from a thrift store. I paid 50 cents for them. I sold them for a best offer of $12 plus shipping. Am I getting rich off these? No, but they're making somebody very happy and I can usually source them very cheap. This hat came from the Goodwill Benz. This was in one of my Goodwill Benz challenges. It may have been the Benz bingo, hashtag Benz bingo. And it's a vintage Capelli straw world black straw hat, Derby hat, flowers. Sold this for $31 plus shipping. Got it at the Goodwill Benz. So it was probably like a buck. This here. All right. So Franklin meant I did a whole video on my sourcing with Bola Buddy's YouTube channel. If you guys are not subscribed to that, definitely check it out. I do have it linked down below. That is my other channel. Not putting a lot of content on there, but people had requested that I did some of the Goodwill Benz videos uncut where it's just the sound of the Benz, no education, just me digging. So I have put a few of those over there recently so you can check those out. And I have past videos, you know, lots and lots of video content over there. I just need to do better about posting, but a video a day over here and then trying to do the other two channels, it's just a lot. So I'm putting stuff over there when I can. I would love for you guys to follow, but I do have a video about these salt and pepper shakers and how I parted them out to make more money. I picked this up at the Goodwill. I bought them all for one price. I thought that the sets were complete, but the other frog was damaged if I remember correctly. So I sold this one individually. And what's he doing with his finger? He's like holding his finger. Do frogs have fingers? Not really. But anyway, these are Franklin Mint. This is what it looks like on the bottom. 1987 FM Franklin Mint made, crafted in Taiwan. I ended up taking a best offer for this guy for $9 plus shipping and not a big money bolo, but hey, it sold. I'm happy. There was a whole set of the Noah's Ark animals. And I want to say I've sold a few of them, but I have others listed. So if you're looking for them, definitely check out my eBay store. Somebody asked me the other day for my eBay store link and it is always linked in the description of all my videos. And if you use code Bolo buddies, when you check out, if you happen to buy something from me, you will get a discount. I want to say it's 20% off, but I can't remember. I made it a while ago. It should tell you down in the description if you use best offer, that will not apply. So that only applies to full purchase, full purchases, like if you add it to your cart. So thank you guys so much for being here. Thank you for watching. Come follow me on what not, $15 to join with the link down below. There's other links down there. If you want to join like Mercari and Poshmark, you guys will get money to shop and all my referrals are down there. You don't have to use my referrals, but most of them you get something if you use them. And it helps me and I appreciate you like, comment, subscribe and share. And thanks for watching.


The next session, which is going to talk about the three T's, talent, training and technology. Now these three T's, what does it mean for the PR and COPCOM community? This is going to be taken over by Dr. Sameer Kapoor, director at Factors PR, who's here with us. A very warm welcome to you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. And my apologies for joining in a minute late. I was busy with a link issue, but not to be here. We're happy that you're here and looking forward to your session. I leave the screen over to you. Right. Thank you so much and greetings to everyone. It's really exciting to be here and talk, especially when the world of public relation is at the cusp of a huge transformation specific to the perspective of what is changing this entire thing is digital. And engaging young talent, the current ones, the ones that are going to be the future leader for the industry, of course, rewarding their work and the recognition is absolutely something which is very, very great. And I would like to congratulate Exchange for Media for successfully doing this. This is of course the second session, which they're doing really well. And I believe that companies and brands, they need to talk about things that people definitely care about. So brands with purpose are therefore emerging as a new frontier of this transformation. Now, currently what is happening is we are catering to evolve set of audience, evolve set of customers, evolve set of stakeholders who are not willing to digest something that was given during the last past, you know, past decade or past couple of decades away, the PR has evolved. They don't want to have the fluff, they want to just listen to the stories that hold values and something that matters to them. So the question that millennials and Gen Z's have started off with something called what's in it for me. And therefore the brands need to figure out what's in it for them rather than just talk about about their own message. So the focus will definitely be on sending the right message to the right people. And of course at the right time and right place. So medium becomes important. You want to engage the new generation which is Generation Alpha. You have to have a gaming as a solution in your overall campaign. Otherwise, you know, that Generation Alpha is not even speaking to you. I'm talking about the next generation after Gen Z that is going to enter into the into the marketplace. So there has been a mind shift in the consumers. The companies really have realized many of them have definitely done that. And they are actively engaging with us as agencies, as peer partners to connect with their stakeholders, with their audience in a genuine transparent and more likely in a human manner. You are seeing that human humane part of this entire thing coming up with various CXOs not only outside India, but in India as well now trying to humanize this entire thing in their own connect with their customers, their audiences. They're following what is called the D2C right from the biggest chair in the country's office to the Indian captain. Everyone is now using their own platform to talk about it. And that is where PR has a very, very important and key role to play. Now this current edition is of course dedicated to talent, which is primarily about the future leaders of public relations. And I believe to lay a strong foundation of a promising future. There has to be a concrete step that needs to be put in in the current form. So you have to see that right now so that these leaders, of course, emerges someone who's ready to take on or people who are ready to take on this, this great profession of ours to the next level. And ever since this entire element of pandemic that has hit every aspect of business and every aspect of communication is under question, is getting disrupted. The entire element of work-life balance to the fact from working from home, which was more about survival. Now the entire aspect of thriving, the new format coming in, PR agencies experimenting with metaverse. And all this is now leading the young workforce to question whether it is only about financial security. Is it more about the purpose for what they are doing? So young minds today are of course seized with the idea. Now what is it that they want to do? And they want to add to their, to their lives. Now I think the PR people, PR team and of course the winners of 30 under 30 who are going to be the leaders for tomorrow. They are already leaders in their own rights. They need to bridge this gap by encouraging amongst the new guys who are coming in, the talent that is coming in by encouraging a sense of belonging in them, right? And also the fact, again, I'm thankful to exchange for media because they are celebrating the success of public relations and the hard work that people, you know, many of our resources put in, they are being rewarded by the awards that they do by this kind of celebration that they have, you know, initiated every year. And my kudos to the entire exchange for media group for managing this really well. Similarly, the entire aspect that you see, I was traveling, I was out of country recently and I saw this entire bright month that has been celebrated in the country I was. And that made me realize that not only that country, which is of course, we think in our mind perceptual wise is ahead of us. The entire thing is celebrated in India as well. The fact that we have one community that should not feel excluded and this entire month about celebration that has gone there is also a fact that the diversity that we are now bringing to the table. And it's not only something that it's a good thing to have, it's a must have for all the organizations. And companies will have to be aware and more respectful to the young minds as to what is it that they acknowledge as their social and the cultural backgrounds. Now, what can we do as agencies as a cop com fraternity is provide a safe and open environment to spark conversation and discuss the topics that are important. And hence flexibility because of this work life hybrid model work from home is becoming a guiding norm around the future of the workplace. And of course, the future is going to depend on how this is important. We've also seen purely from a talent perspective as well as that talent not only from the metros and tier one cities, but tier two and other non-central location are also now becoming part of the mainstream because of this entire aspect of digitization that has happened. So the culture of openness where ideas are appreciated, implemented, not challenged, not being thrown about is something which is important. The first T that we mentioned about is the talent part, which is talent retention, talent depreciation. And again, I want to congratulate exchange for media for initiating a dialogue on making sure that talent appreciation is being discussed in a big way. The second T that Cathy mentioned was about training and more and more people need to be trained and understand as to how this profession works. I'm very fortunate that at AdFactors, we have a huge amount of learning and development expenses that we have put across every year to make sure that all our employees are trained in the future courses so that the new age or the new digital channels that are emerging, which will showcase endless possibility, something which was restricted as far as when we are focused was only to the print media has now opened up because of this digital space, whether it is online space or social media space, there are multiple things that can be done. And the new age PR professional needs to be trained in all of that, they need to understand how data works. You don't need to be a data scientist, but definitely you need to understand how data works and how you can tell a story or craft a story around it so that you can get more and more mileage for your client on these platforms. Now finally coming to the fact that the brand and agency relations are something where companies need to understand the importance of public relation. The era of paid format or the advertising format of course is kind of undergoing a lot of changes because media is also getting fragmented, but one common thread which combines all of them is the content where public relation agencies have an advantage. They understand what will make a good story. They understand the nuance of storytelling better than advertisers. And therefore I think that's one of the reason why the talent is also looking at public relation as their natural choice. Now India of course is leading a global startup of ecosystem and media and even consumers are more interested in knowing how these businesses are faring and how much money they are making or whether it is sustainable to scale them up or not. So PR I believe has played a key role in the gap that currently exists in bridging the gap actually and in case there is any other gap between consumers, between investors, between policy makers and other stakeholders, public relation is best suited to make sure that we answer or understand these gaps and give our answers through a creative story. Now before wrapping up I would like to highlight challenges that leader of tomorrow are facing from a PR perspective because as I mentioned, pandemic has totally transformed the Indian media landscape and the ecosystem also is now changing. So earlier which was only hardcore media relationship is undergoing a lot of change and stakeholder relationship is taking place. Influencers, the entire creator's economy, influencer relationship, influencer management is becoming a core form of various PR agencies that they are using as a first mode of storytelling model. So we need to find a way to back up, to put back the trust and the warmth which are back in the relationship because no longer digital platforms that have their own limitations can work. So you have to find a hybrid model here as well and my request to the future leaders and the new talent is to look at both of this in their own right. Now figuring out which is the right medium, figuring out what works best is something that you need to get a sense in and of course make sure that how do you find that right balance becomes a very important aspect. Now as I said, we are catering to an audience which is always on, which is always engaged. They are more responsive. They want a conversation rather than a monologue or a sermonizing anything. So how do you make sure that the audience does not feel ignored? The audience feel that their thing is being talked about and therefore this two way, the new web that has emerged where it is not about just giving one monologue but having a dialogue, the best in all form of communication and having a good dialogue is public relation because you are able to adapt and change your strategy. It gives you that flexibility versus an advertisement where once you've thought of a message and then of course it can't be changed. So responding to the messages, responding to comments, responding to feedbacks, criticism both from a macro side as well as micro influencers is something that the brands are evolving with, understanding with and peer professionals have to overcome this inhibition that we are only doing this part and that's not in our KRA. That is something that is all the future talent needs to figure it out. So it's exciting time to be in peer. The fact that we are all present here discussing the emerging leaders of tomorrow is a reflection of the relevance and importance and I would like to conclude my opening interest by thanking Exchange for Media for making me a part of this and my best wishes to all the winners and hope they will definitely take industry to greater heights. Thank you. Over to you, Cathy. Thank you. Thank you so much Dr. Kapoor for sharing those insights keeping it crisp and yet impactful. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Thank you.


Back in 2008, Steve Nash told me that teams in the NBA shoot a remarkably higher field goal percentage on possessions when the ball touches the paint. As a point guard, Nash knew his number one goal was to get his team the highest percentage shot possible. Thus, his primary objective was to get the ball in the lane every offensive possession, but not only that, once the ball did touch the paint, he wanted to have as many options as possible for his team to score. So he worked relentlessly to develop great court vision so he could see his four teammates at all times. He studied film to learn each of his teammates' strengths and weaknesses from every spot on the court, and he put in countless hours mastering his ball handling, passing, and ability to score with either hand. Elite leaders know that their performance is dictated by the work they put in during the unseen hours and how well they execute their strategy.