Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome back to the channel. It's been a while since I posted a video. I'm going to do another video about Unreal Engine in the city sample here. I've been messing with it a little bit. I haven't had a lot of time lately to play around with Unreal Engine, lots of other things going on. But I wanted to make this video to answer some of the questions that people have had about the sequencer and the city sample. And I'm also running Unreal Engine 5.3.1, trying to see if I can still run this version with my RTX 2070 Super, or whatever my old video card at this point is. You know, it's a little bit slow.  It actually the load up time of the application itself seems to be much quicker now. It does take some time to load the city sample in, but it's very large. I found that it's pretty responsive with this video card with the 2070, when I'm just kind of doing a basic from the template or whatever for Unreal Engine. It's fine for that. But when I get into something larger with a lot more ray tracing and things like that, that it needs to do, it really kicks the fans up. But at least I haven't had a crash yet. I haven't actually had a crash on 5.3 yet at all. So it's pretty good. So maybe they're optimizing it in some ways to work with older video cards, which is good because I'm not really into upgrading my video card at this point, you know, just for this hobby. So, but anyway, we're going to jump into this. And I'm going to kind of go through some of the sequencer things for the city sample. If you haven't already checked out my other video about the city sample, is it just worth it in general with the size? It's, you know, 100 gigabytes. It's pretty large unless you just have tons and tons of hard disk space, which some people do obviously, but I don't. I had to delete quite a few things off my main system to be able to download and to run a couple of different copies of this. But it's pretty nice for what you get.  And it all looks, you know, great like Unreal Engine stuff does. So anyway, we're going to talk about some of the sequencer stuff. I've had a couple of questions on the comments from the other video. And I guess while I'm speaking of that, you know, if you have any questions about any of this, leave a comment. If you have any suggestions about how I could make this run better or some other just tips in general, be sure to leave them in the comments. I appreciate all of that. I do try to read and respond to lots of comments. So, but anyway, let's get into this. All right. So first off, we want to use a smaller map. And so that's what I've got loaded up here. If you go to the maps folder here, I'm using the small city level. This is the one that tends to work better for this video card. It has a much smaller world. And so I just kind of grabbed all of this right here, loaded this basic region in. And so now I've got everything. So while it gives you quite a bit of city to play around with, it doesn't obviously give you the full big city or even the open world. Those just really take a lot of GPU power for me that I just, I really don't have. And it makes it too slow for it for me to be able to get around.  And that's kind of what I'm playing around with here. So the trick to this is from choosing the map here, you want to go into the cinematics and the test sequences. Now, like one of these sequences will actually work with the small city. And let's see, I think that it was this one. Let's see, whichever one I have loaded up here. Let's see. What is this one called? Skyline to street camera. Yeah. So yeah, this one right here, skyline to street is the one that I'm using with the small city. And so when I have that open, here's what we get in the sequencer. We get this kind of zoom in on underneath this, this on ramp here.  You could do something simple with this. So let's see. One of the questions that I had in the previous video was how to do these long camera sweeps like this. And so this is a good example of how to do this. So if you go to the camera component here, you can go down to the transform and the location and the location rotation are really kind of what you're going to want to mess with here.  And I'll typically go from there and, you know, start to go along to where I think it's going to want to change. And like this one, for example, starts to kind of change the position right here. And then it rotates around to like it's to the end point. But as you can see, it's really just a series of key frames. And really for camera movements, I've found the fewer key frames you have, the better off it looks a little more natural it looks. If you tend to have a lot of key frames and a lot of movement, it tends to look a little jumpy. And so, you know, unless that's kind of what you're going for, I wouldn't really recommend that very much. I'd recommend, you know, keeping as few key frames as possible in the camera movement. So anyway, as you can see, this is how this is done. It's pretty simple.  You set some key frames. And you, you know, you can either adjust these, or you can actually go into it and move the camera around and set a key frame from there. I tend to just set a key frame, select the key frame, and then I adjust these values a little bit until I can get it, you know, to where I want it to be like this. So I can move it side to side. As you can see, I'm just changing this right here. So let's see, I'll just undo that. Great. So let's make this scene look a little bit more interesting. And we can do that here by going into the environment lighting. And one thing I like to do here is let's just add some fog here. So you can see the fog density is pretty low. So let's see, let's experiment. Let's just kick it up way high and see, see how this looks. All right. So this is, this is pretty, pretty dense fog. So this is like, you know, if you were doing a, you know, more of a dark, gritty scene, maybe you want something like this. And obviously you can color correct this a little bit as you, after you export the clips and kind of darken it up, do a day for night thing or whatever you want to do here. You know, you want to make sure you have plenty of light in the original clip so that you can have more power to do that type of thing later. But let's see, let's, let's adjust this back a little bit. Let's see, 3.3. Oh, too much. Let's do this. Yeah, that looks better. Yeah, that's not bad. So let's see, you can imagine if we're zooming in here, we've got some nice music playing, some suspenseful stuff are coming in to here, it gets to the end. And then maybe we have somebody begin to get out of a car or something like that. Anyway, this is just, you know, to answer a couple of questions there about how to, to change the environment settings, you know, add some fog or whatever to these scenes. Also answers the question of, you know, how to change the location and the rotation of your camera and a scene like this for like a long shot like this, a long zooming shot. And also, you know, kind of shows how, how well this works on, you know, the latest version of this. I honestly probably am not going to be making a lot of Unreal Engine videos in the future. My system can barely handle these things anymore. And I've really kind of become busy with so many other things that I don't really have much time to create films or games or anything else. I'm still very interested in it. I may from time to time, you know, create a cinematic or something. But I probably will lay off of some of the Unreal Engine videos, obviously everything that's still on the channel will stay on the channel. And most of the things that I've created so far still work on, you know, 5.3 and the newer versions. If there's a lot of comments about a certain thing, maybe I'll pop on a video, kind of like I wanted to do a follow-up with this one just for the people that have been interested. And I appreciate everybody, you know, from the Unreal Engine community watching the videos. It's just kind of become a thing that, unless I want to spend a bunch of money on a better system, I'm not really going to be able to keep up with the things that I want to do, nor do I really have a lot of time to be creating short films, sadly, at this point. I do hope to get back to it in the future. I appreciate everybody for subscribing and watching. And, you know, if you want to unsubscribe because I'm not making Unreal Engine videos anymore, you know, or Blender videos or any of that, that's, I appreciate the time that you spend on the channel. I'm probably going to make more music videos, so if anyone is interested in guitar stuff, how to learn how to play guitar, that type of thing, probably make a few videos for that. I had some people ask me about that. But, otherwise, thanks for watching.


This episode was prerecorded as part of a live continuing education webinar. On-demand CEUs are still available for this presentation through all CEUs. Register at allceus.com slash counselor toolbox. Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone. I'd like to welcome you to today's presentation on relationship skills. This is going to be a more in-depth presentation of one that we did, I think it's been about two weeks now that I had kind of condensed stuff. But when I did that presentation, I really realized that there was a lot more that could have been said that could have been gone over. And I felt like we really didn't go into enough depth on some things. So we're doing this again, and hopefully we will be able to cover some more ground. What we're going to cover today is building empathy. One of the things that a lot of our clients have difficulty with understanding the difference between sympathy and empathy, and also just developing empathy. We are so concerned about responding to what other people say about defending against what other people say. A lot of times we don't take time to kind of get into their space, not physically of course, but try to get into their headspace and understand where they're coming from and why they may be reacting a certain way. We'll talk about some of the tips for overcoming the most common communication barriers. This is something that I go over a lot. It doesn't matter whether it's couples counseling or whether it's parent child or whether it's just a single person that's in there talking to me and saying they're having difficulty getting along with people or people don't understand them. So we'll talk about some of the common communication barriers. We'll talk about tips for fair fighting or discussing, as I like to say. Hopefully it doesn't get to the point where it's that heated. And then we'll go on to sweetening relationships, developing closer relationships, how to help people learn how to compromise. It's something we don't do a lot and you know, y'all know I'm fond of DBT. So we're talking about enhancing interpersonal effectiveness on compromise. We'll talk about getting your own needs met, giving emotional support and being more thoughtful. One of the most glaring issues that I find when I'm working with people is that they assume that everybody else reacts the way they react and everybody else wants feedback the way they want it or everybody else experiences empathy and emotional support the same way they do. And it's not really the case. We are very different individuals and leading into the next I think of six episodes in the series, we want to focus on or help people learn about individual differences, including temperament. One of the things that people get hung up on a lot is the fact that, you know, my partner does it this way and I want to do it this way. And instead of fighting about trying to pull and see who wins, finding that compromise in the middle or understanding that you both have complementary skills and traits. Extroverts tend to be, they like to be around more people. They draw energy from people. Being around people is exciting. And they also tend to not mind interruptions and they talk their problems out, you know, they may talk their problems out with themselves, but they talk problems out and they figure things out while they're talking. Introverts, on the other hand, tend to feel drained when they're around other people. They're very in tune with what's going on inside them, but not as much about what's going on around them. So if you have an extrovert who's more in tune with what's going on around them, they're very sensitive to what's going on. And the introvert not so much. So you can imagine how these two people in a relationship might have some problems because the introvert knows what's going on with him or her, but may not be as in tune to his or her partner. And the partner takes that as meaning being uncaring. Introverts also tend to like to think and have some quiet time to consolidate their thoughts, solve problems and then talk about it. Um, you know, I'm very much an extrovert. My husband's very much an introvert. So when we first got together, you know, I would feel, um, disappointed and, you know, hurt when he would have a bad day or something and then just go out and sit on the porch for a little while instead of talking it out with me. Then I came to realize that talking it out is my process. His process is sitting down, consolidating it, figuring out what's going on and then coming to share. I mean, he eventually would share, but I learned that he needed his space in order to kind of get regrounded again. Um, so helping people understand that, you know, just because somebody acts a little bit differently when they're stressed, let's look at how that's their process instead of necessarily assuming that they're being rejecting a view. Sensing versus intuitive, and I'm really not sure where they came up with these labels, but we're going to stick with them. They're Myers-Briggs, Kiersey, temperament, sorter terms. Um, and it's easy to find a lot of information on these. So we'll stick with them. Sensing versus intuitive really talks about how people view the world and sensing people tend to focus more on details. Intuitive people are more big picture, broad strokes, big dreamer type of person. Um, I love writing grants. I love doing, you know, creating programs. And I even actually kind of like writing manuals. Um, actually, I really love writing manuals, but that's beside the point. Manuals, even when you look at standard operating procedures, those are general rules. They need to be applied to day-to-day things. But the day-to-day stuff, I tend to miss little things. When I write grants, I can do the overarching research. I can create the concept. But then having somebody proofread it and go back and go, okay, we need to have this detail here or this detail here is really important to me. And I know that's not my strength. So it was really good where I used to work when we would work on grants. I would write the brunt of the grant. I would pass it off to my co-writer who would look for the details because she was very detail oriented, but she would see the grant and her eyes would kind of cross going, I don't know how to spend $250,000. I'm like, oh, I do. Let me have it. The same thing is true in relationships. The intuitive person sees the big picture. When we go on vacation, I want to do these things and have a lot of fun. The detailed person is trying to make the schedule and figure out how to make it happen and look at, you know, all the possibilities. Well, if it rains, then we need to have a backup plan. So it's important that they understand how to appreciate each other's strengths, or if you want to call them idiosyncrasies, but they're temperament. That's just who they are. Understanding that, you know, the detailed person is probably going to be the one that's better and enjoys balancing the budget and doing the bill paying and all that stuff, whereas the big picture person will probably have other roles that they play in keeping a household up and running. Thinking versus feeling. 60%. And so, you know, two thirds, it's not a huge majority, but it is a majority. 60% of men tend to be thinkers. They view things as a true through a true false lens. Is it true or is it false? They think of terms like justice or, um, or, um, and, and they want to fix things. Think about when relationships you've been in with a thinker, whether it's been a male or a female, and this person, when a problem comes up, when you're having a problem, they want to fix it. Feeling people, we tend to react a lot more emotionally, and, you know, you might find a correlation, I don't know that any studies have been done between people with a propensity for more emotional reactivity and feeling people. We don't feel things any less, but the thinking people kind of, they feel it differently. It makes them more driven to solve the problem. When I get upset, I'm a feeler. You know, I'll, I'll admit it. When I get upset, I want somebody just to acknowledge that I'm upset. I can fix it on my own very well. Thank you very much. This is another area where we see a lot of couples having problems because you may have a thinker and a feeler, and the feeler feels like they are being disempowered when the thinker just steps in and tries to fix it. And the feeler is going, I just wanted you to acknowledge that I was angry or I was upset about this. I can still fix it. I just needed that emotional connection. The thinker is more practical. The feeler looks at things in terms of good and bad and what's going to make people happy. This is sort of ethics versus law, if you want to think of it in terms of our professional approaches. And, you know, there's a combination of both in everybody, but there are also a lot of people, thinkers who aren't just comfortable with feeling words, you know, but they will use verb phrases like it felt like I was kicked in the gut. It was exhausting. And that's kind of an emotional word. When I work with law enforcement, a lot of people in law enforcement, men and women, tend to be more on the thinking side and tend to think, talk in terms of a situation and their reactions. One of the things I usually joke about when I do a seminar with emergency responders is the one thing we won't do in the seminar is say the F word. And they all kind of look at me quizzically and I'm like, feelings, y'all feelings.  I don't make really good jokes. I can't usually even remember jokes from beginning to end. So that is as good as I'm going to do. But it breaks the ice because, you know, I go in there being a mental health professional and they expect just assuming that we're going to start talking about feelings and what makes them stressed. And, you know, yeah, we're going to talk about it, but we're not going to divulge a bunch of that stuff if it makes them feel uncomfortable. So encouraging people to talk about the way they react to things and mimic each other's verbiage will help people communicate a lot better on this left on this dimension, which is really kind of your empathy dimension. You know, when my husband has a problem, instead of saying spending a lot of time on empathy with his feelings and going, that's really got to be very distressing to you. I say, OK, you know, I hear that this is really prominent for you right now. What is it that we need to do to fix it? And again, he's very capable of fixing it himself, but we're brainstorming. And this is how he deals with issues. This is how he deals with turmoil in the beginning of his process. Judging structure versus spontaneity. I am the epitome, well, I've loosened up a lot, but I used to be the epitome of structure. I like to plan things out every morning. I am at the gym at 10 after seven like clockwork. And if my schedule gets off, it kind of throws me a little wonky. Since I had kids, I've gotten a lot more flexible and, you know, things happen when you have children. But I still really like to have structure. I like to know what I'm doing from moment to moment, from day to day. Chuck, on the other hand, is much more perceiving, much more spontaneous. He'll get up in the morning and he'll go, you know what, I'd like to go fly this evening. And I'm like, but you hadn't scheduled that in. How can you do that? But it doesn't, that's how he operates. He doesn't need to have every minute planned out. Nothing's wrong with either one. So how do you make the two live in harmony? Well, we've kind of worked it out for ourselves. And this is going to be different for everybody. He knows I need structure. I know he needs a little bit of wiggle room. So we'll set aside certain days that are just family activity days, where I know the whole day is going to be, you know, kind of up in the air and loosey-goosey. But I can plan for that. I can plan for the loosey-goosey, which makes me happy. So asking people, how much structure do you need? And asking this person who needs spontaneity, how much wiggle room do you need? This goes with getting chores and things done, too. When you're working with parents who have small children at home or, you know, even couples, there are things that need to be done. So is it something that you want to do on a day-to-day basis? These are the six things that have to be done today. Or do you want to make sort of a weekly to-do list? You know, at some point this week, we need to pay the bills and go grocery shopping and do these other things. How is it going to work for those people? So encouraging people to understand what their own needs are in terms of social interaction, quiet time, details versus, you know, creativity, flexibility, emotional kind of support and empathy versus problem-solving support and empathy and how much structure do they need? So there's a ton of stuff that can be addressed. And there's also a ton of stuff that can cause problems in relationships when you have people who are different. Oh, my gosh, different. The wonderful thing is that people can learn to balance their own unique tendencies and use someone else's strengths and versus whatever. So this is one thing we're going to talk about, like I said, in coming weeks. But understanding temperament, you can go to Kiersey.com read more about the different temperaments. There's also a book. It's called Effective Teaching, Effective Learning. And it's written by two sisters and I can't remember their names right now, but it's a really old book. I've used it for many, many years in teaching some of my different classes. You can get it for like two bucks off Amazon. If you believe in temperament and that there are things that are different between people with different temperaments, the effective teaching, effective learning is really an awesome tool as clinicians because it helps us hone in on how can we communicate this information more effectively to our clients in a way that's meaningful to them because their temperament is different. How can we structure our groups? And likewise, how can we help people communicate better with one another? The other issue we'll talk about is the expression of love or the expression of feelings for one another. There are, according to Gary Chapman, five love languages. And, you know, we'll stay with that because it seems to fit pretty well. Really good book. Receiving gifts is one. So asking people or even paying attention to what is it that makes their eyes light up? In what way? Can you effectively communicate to them? How you feel about them? Because a lot of people have different love languages. So if acts of service is your love language. So if somebody does something like clean the house for you or whatever and it means a lot to you and you do that for them, but that's not their love language. They're not going to receive it in the same way because that's not their love language. They'll be appreciative, hopefully, but it's not as meaningful. So you want to find out what is it that is this person's love language? And what is mine? Because it's important to communicate what your love languages are instead of trying to make somebody guess or read your mind. So receiving gifts and it doesn't have to be, you know, huge gifts. It can be little notes. It can be handpicked flowers. It doesn't have to be something really expensive. But sometimes the thank you for that link for the fairhurst book. Sometimes people just need gifts and my daughter will. And I guess it kind of goes under words of affirmation. We'll get to that in a minute. Quality time. Now, the first caveat here is to define what quality time means to that person. You know, does that mean sitting on the couch and going on a Netflix binge? Or does that mean going on vacation together or candlelight dinner? What does quality time look like and what makes it quality as opposed to just time? Words of affirmation, saying nice things, giving people compliments and giving people encouragement. I remember when I was studying for my N.C.M.H.C.E. and getting ready to go take that. My daughter, who at the time was seven, would put little notes on my pillow and on my study materials. You got this, mom. It was just it was so adorable because, well, I'm not that way. I am not one who tends to without actually making a concerted effort to put a lot of notes around and, you know, kudos and stuff. But I learned from her that day and that during that period that that does mean a lot to her. So I've tried to start doing that for her. A lot of times we can learn about people's love languages by the way they try to express their feelings to you. Acts of service and devotion. So what do people do to try to be kind to you, to try to help you out? And physical touch. It can be a hug. It can be, you know, sitting on the couch together, snuggling. It can be a whole different range of things. But sometimes physical touch is one of the love languages. Back massages, those are good. So common communication barriers. You've gotten to the point where you've helped people start understanding that they may be kind of different in terms of their temperament and they may have different love languages. So how do we effectively communicate our feelings for one another in in actions, not just words? Gotten there, but then we still have communication barriers. One of them is over-explaining. If somebody asks a question or asks you to do something and you explain it ad nauseam, it can get to the point where it feels condescending. So make sure you're not over-explaining stuff. I have to be careful with my kids sometimes when when I'm letting them cook dinner or when I'm letting them do something, not to be over-controlling and over-explain exactly what they need to do. You know, let them try it out. Let them, you know, ask me if they have questions. But I do want to empower them to take take on responsibility themselves. Being vague. Now, this is true for parent, child, adults, friends, romantic relationships. If you say, I'll pick you up this afternoon.  I'm like, OK, does that mean two? Does that mean two fifteen? Does that mean five o'clock? What does this afternoon mean? And if the response is, well, I'll call you and give you an idea about when I'll be there, you know, around lunchtime. I'm like, oh, so what time's lunch? Being more specific, so there's no misunderstandings. If I tell my kids, you need to be ready to go somewhere this afternoon to my son, that may mean four o'clock to my daughter. That means noon being specific. If you tell somebody something critical, you know, obviously, because it's probably going to create more misunderstandings if it's critical, like, you're so insensitive. Well, I can't do anything with that because I don't know exactly what am I doing that makes you feel that I'm being insensitive?  You know, there are all kinds of derogatory general terms that don't help people. So when that's brought into counseling, I say, all right, tell me exactly what is it that you see that leads you to this to this description or what is it that you want to see change because you're a slob, you need to not be a slob.  Think if you've got teenagers or even small children at home, what they may think is a clean room. Probably really different than what you think is a clean room. So being very specific about observable behaviors because I can address observable behaviors and choose to change them or not. However, I can't address something that's vague that I don't know exactly what it is that you're pointing out. Another common misunderstanding is quality time. And I already talked about this a little bit. What does quality time mean to you? What does quality time mean to the other person? And then what's the happy medium that we can find? Mind reading and assuming you always want. You always want me to do this. So I did it. And the other person going, when in the world did I ever want that? You've always assumed that that's what I wanted. So being clear about what you want. And being clear and owning your perceptions of what's going on is really important. Distractions. If people are trying to have a discussion, even if it's not quote quality time and you're constantly checking your phone, trying to see what's going on, TVs on and you periodically look up to make sure you're keeping up with the show. That's a communication barrier because you're not hearing everything that's being said and you're also not seeing all the nonverbals. You driven language is another barrier. You make me do this. You did this when you do this. Instead of saying, I feel. So starting out with I driven language, I feel. Da, da, da, when you do this, it owns what's going on instead of putting the other person on the defensive.  OK, that's not going to put them on the offensive.  You did this. So encourage people to start with I feel blank when or it seems to me owning whatever it is before they go into any sort of observations that could be construed as critical. It takes practice. It really does take practice. But the good news is people generally get the hang of it. And it does help ease tensions quite a bit. Universal statements, you always, and there's that you again, always, never. So we want to look for exceptions and we want to avoid always, never, yada, yada, because we're human. Very few things does anyone do always, never, every time. So sticking with the I feel frustrated.  That's, you know, less attacking than you always leave your underwear on the floor and it's just so frustrating. Very different, partly because it takes a lot more words and you can say it more diplomatically, I think. Blaming, yeah, this is, it goes back to this you driven language, you did this. When we blame people for everything that happened or even something that happened without owning our part in it. It's your fault that we're losing the house. It's your fault that we fight all the time. It's your fault or you make me. Pointing out some cognitive issues with, can anybody make you do anything? No, is one. But also identifying that it takes two to tango. So what was your part in this? When I worked in residential, the first couple of years as a supervisor, you know, if you've worked in a facility, you know they have grievance procedures. And occasionally I would do things that would upset clients for whatever reason. And they would send a grievance to my boss and you know, or it was my staff, but either way. And I would get called into his office and you know, I find out what was going on. And instead of asking me what's going on with the clients that your staff needed to do this or you know, whatever, his first statement always, and pretty much always at least, was what did your staff do to bring this on? And the first few times he said that, I got kind of defensive and I said, excuse me? And he would point out, you know, it takes two to tango. So clearly there was something going on and that could have been handled differently in order to avoid this, even if we needed the same outcome. So I'll ask again, what did your staff do to cause this grievance? So looking at responsibility, looking at each person's parts and it may have been a non-verbal, it may have been something they said or it may have been something they didn't say. But let's figure out what's going on. Followed by only noting the negative. In some relationships, the only time somebody says something is if there's something wrong.  You know, if you get called to their office, you know there's a problem. Making sure, especially in personal relationships that yes, there is time and places for constructive feedback, but it's also important to identify the good stuff and not just the, wow, oh my gosh, good stuff, but the occasional, you know, thanks for doing the dishes today, good stuff. Or I appreciate the fact that you swiffered this afternoon. So trying to be at least as frequent with the positive comments as the negative, preferably twice as frequent with positive than negative. In effective communication and fair fighting, if you will, one person talks and the other person listens and only listens. This is not listening and trying to formulate a response and or listening and having this conversation in the back of your head is actually listening, which takes a lot of practice in itself. Generally, stay seated. If it's an important adult conversation, a lot of times you're seated. So try to stay seated because as soon as one person stands up, the other person is gonna stand up and then it often escalates, especially if it's standing up and facing each other. The only exception to this is if you say, you know what, we need to have a talk, let's go on a walk.  So, you know, try to keep it at a unthreatening level. The talker during this owns their feelings, desires and opinions starting with those eye statements. I feel it seems to me, they use objective observable terms instead of saying it seems to me that you've just turned into a lazy slob lately. That's not helpful. I can't do anything about that because I don't know what behaviors. So using objective observable terms and sticking to one thing at a time. This is not the time to just like vomit a litany of done me wrongs. You can have the litany, but we need to stay one thing at a time. Ideally, you deal with things as they come up, which hopefully people start to learn in counseling that it's not healthy to stuff a bunch of stuff down because eventually it comes back up and it's important to handle things as they happen so you don't have this whole litany of done me wrongs. Okay, so that's what the talker's doing. The listener, when the talker is finished, paraphrases what they heard. So what I'm hearing you say is blah, blah, blah. And when people are first starting to learn this technique, I actually encourage them to use that phrase, even if it feels a little stilted. What I'm hearing you say is the talker either says, that's exactly what I said, or if you're still not hearing me and if the talker still hasn't been understood, then he or she explains a little bit more and they keep going back and forth until the listener understands fully what the talker was saying and then he or she can respond with whatever they need to respond and then the roles reverse. So it's important to again handle one thing at a time, be objective and verify accuracy because a lot of times even if you're having a discussion, the listener may have their own opinions, may have their own biases that are coloring how they're hearing it or affecting how they're hearing it. So the first couple of times they hear it, it may not be 100% on point. So we need to make sure they're communicating effectively. All right, so now we've handled all the hiccups and bumps in the road. Let's talk about the good stuff. If you have clients that are hiccuping, yes, they need to deal with that, but at the same time, let's add some positive stuff. We want to eliminate the negative, but we need to add some more positive. We need to make them remember why it's worth the effort. Love is a combination of emotions and actions, including talking, compassion and trust. So some things that are suggested, rewriting your vows or promises, having a recommitment ceremony or imagining what it would be like if your partner were gone. And this last one is more effective if you do it when your partner's on a road trip or you're on a road trip and you're actually separated and then not having contact with that person for 24 or 48 hours, make sure they know what you're doing before you do this. But it gives you an idea about how intertwined the two of you are. And generally by the end of that period of time, you'll have some insights as to all the good stuff that you miss when you're not communicating. Communicate to your partner in his or her love language in order to help that person feel more valued. Make an effort. Write down a list of things your partner could do that would make you feel loved or happy and exchange them. Don't rely on mind reading. Don't even rely on, well, he knows my love language is gift, so what's happening? Well, what gifts? Exactly what is it that you're looking for? Or my love language is acts of devotion, so I'm sitting here and nobody's doing any devoting. Be specific. Again, those are pretty general terms. So make a list. We do this throughout the year. We keep running lists of things that each other and our kids say, oh, I would love to have that. So when it comes to birthdays and holidays, I don't have to guess and go, oh, I wonder what he'd like. I have a list. And I keep a list of things that I want and they all keep lists of things they want so we can exchange them. Takes out the mind reading and then we can choose from there and maybe expand upon it. Remember or get Google or Siri or somebody to remind you of birthdays, anniversaries or even just happy occasions so you can celebrate. And a happy occasion could be, it was a sunny day today. You know, sometimes it's worth the effort to say, you know what, we haven't gone out in a while and it was a good day today, let's go out. So you're sharing and really kind of riding that wave of happiness. If you have a disagreement, take a step back and try to see it from your partner's point of view. And this kind of goes into that whole empathy thing. What is it that they're seeing? Even if you think it's wrong, try to get into their head so you can understand where they're coming from because you'll be able to undo or explain any misunderstandings, clarify any misunderstandings. If you can kind of get in their head and figure out, oh, okay, the reason you're doing this is because you thought it's what I wanted. So going back and going, yeah, no, not really. Don't let fear of being vulnerable or abandonment undermine you. A lot of times people keep those walls up because they're afraid that the relationship's gonna end or they're afraid that they're gonna be vulnerable and they'll be ridiculed. You know, there's a whole lot of reasons that they may fear being vulnerable. But in an intimate relationship, whether it's intimate, significant others or best friends, we need to be able to share hopes and dreams and fears and feel comfortable that the other person is going to be respectful of us. If becoming vulnerable makes you also become critical and defensive, that's on you. You need to identify and work through the reasons you become defensive. And if you've worked with clients who've become vulnerable and it's almost like they're like, oh, I didn't mean to say that. And then all of a sudden they become very defensive about anything you say. You know, we wanna work through why is it that being vulnerable makes you so scared and you're trying to push me away now. Think back to hopes and dreams you shared when you were dating and make it happen. Maybe you thought about hiking the Appalachian Trail together or going on a cruise around the world or it may not be something you can make happen tomorrow but actually make a plan so you can start saving for it or whatever you need to do and make it happen. Regularly, I should have put that word in here, regularly remind your partner of the qualities you love about them. And you don't have to do it all mushy. The qualities I love about you are but you can do it in a complimentary way by saying something like, you are wicked awesome when it comes to home improvement projects or whatever it is. Think about if somebody said that to you, you'd be like, thanks, it would make your day. So sweeten the relationship, means making it a relationship where you have more of those moments where you get this spontaneous smile and you're just like, cool. Build empathy. Empathy versus sympathy. Put yourself in their shoes with their experiences as best as you can. If you're in an intimate relationship with someone, you have a good idea about kind of where they're coming from, experience-wise, which may be very different from where you come from. So try to put yourself in their shoes and go, okay, if I came from this background, how would I view this situation? Identify three alternate reasons your partner may be feeling or acting the way he or she is. So if they seem to be being hostile and aggressive or they're sitting in the chair and they seem to be just being grumpy and irritable and cantankerous, well, maybe they are, but if you're assuming it's because of something you did, you may not be right. So let's think about three alternate reasons they may be feeling that way because theoretically you've got a kind of an idea about what's going on with him or her. And then you can open a discussion in a less defensive way instead of opening it with, what did I do wrong now? You can open it with something like, you seem like you're really stressed out or you're really frustrated right now. I'm wondering if you wanna talk about it. A lot of times if people feel like their partner is upset because of something they did, they don't wanna open that door and say, do you wanna talk about it? Cause they don't wanna hear. So thinking about alternate reasons cause a lot of times it probably doesn't have to do with you. Think when you're trying to develop empathy, if your child was going through this situation, how would you feel? So try to put yourself in a situation if your child was being grumpy and cantankerous, would you be defensive and grumpy and aggressive right back and go, you are always in a bad mood. What did I do this time?  Hopefully it's the second. Remember that what you would want in need is not necessarily what your partner wants and needs. Going back to that temperament, not everybody needs somebody to help them brainstorm solutions. Sometimes they just need somebody to go, that day really sucked, didn't it? And you're like, oh my gosh, you have no idea. And then you can move on because people in general are very adept at solving their own problems. But empathy means letting your partner know that you get it. And how you let them know you get it depends on their temperament and your communication. Allow yourself to listen as if your only job is to understand. This is more than when you're just fighting or disagreeing or whatever you wanna call it. You wanna do it without preconceptions, knowing that you know nothing. Just kind of step out and go, I am just a random person. I don't know anything about what's gone into this because that takes all those preconceived notions out and I just wanna hear, I'm a blank slate. Try to be free from trying to create consistency between your feelings and perceptions and your partner's feelings and perceptions.  You're probably gonna hear things that support your theory. So encouraging people to try to listen with the only intent being to understand. An exercise that you can do is to try to help you develop empathy is first to develop empathy for yourself. Kind of mindfulness, kind of self-awareness. Think of a difficult time that you experienced and answer all of these questions. What was your perception of what happened? What's troubling about what happened? What were the emotions that you felt at the time of the occurrence? What are the emotions that you're expressing right now? What are you feeling right now? And what do you need right now? And what do you need from yourself? Cause you're doing this activity by yourself and you'll get a better idea of what you need in certain situations in order to really understand empathy, you need to be able to be in touch with yourself and be able to be self-empathetic, if you will. Then you wanna move over and say, when your partner is relaying a difficult experience, listen and be able to understand. Ask these same questions. What was his or her perception of the occurrence? Whatever happened at work today or what was troubling to them about this occurrence? What were the emotions or reactions that he or she had at the time of the occurrence? So you're kind of getting an idea. You're trying to put yourself in that scenario. What emotions or reactions are being expressed in this moment? So looking at your partner, reading the nonverbals, listening to the words that are being said, are they distressed? Are they just venting? What's going on? And what does this person need from you right now? And often it's just to be empathetic. And like I said earlier, people who tend to be more problem solvers, more thinkers, empathy may mean kind of helping them consolidate their process and think about how to fix the situation or what the right thing to do is in this situation. If you're more on the feeling side, it may be identifying what you're feeling at this point and just helping the person kind of talk through their emotions and feel validated. These things can also be practiced in group or at home using media clips of people arguing. It's kind of easy to find, unfortunately. If you go to soap operas, if you go to, we used to use like Jerry Springer and some of those talk shows when I would teach at the university because those were readily available. But pay attention when you watch different TV shows or when you watch different movies for segments you might be able to pull out to help teach empathy, to help teach reading nonverbals and interpreting what's going on. Tips for a closer relationship. Use relationships to teach you how to be whole and not require another person to complete you. My analogy that I always use is sugar cookies and chocolate chips. Sugar cookies by themselves, amazing. Chocolate chips by themselves, amazing. You can eat either one by themselves. They are complete desserts. You put them together, you get something that is amazing, but different. And that's what we really want in relationships. We don't want people to be flour and eggs. They have to have each other in order to exist and make a cookie. We want people to be whole in and of themselves. See and accept your partner for who he or she really is. We all have faults and foibles and bad days and stuff, but we all have good things too. Sometimes it's helpful to make a list of all the good things that your partner brings to the table. And also, be aware of the fact that that person's not perfect. Be willing to learn from each other and compromise. Get comfortable being alone to address abandonment issues. So even if you think you are the perfect sugar cookie, but whenever your partner leaves, you start feeling like you're gonna crumble to pieces. You wanna look and go, what's going on? Why am I uncomfortable being alone? Why am I uncomfortable being with myself? Develop awareness of why you fight. Your stuff, his stuff or y'all's stuff. I'm from the South, so I can say y'all. But sometimes you fight, sometimes couples fight because one person feels insecure and defensive a lot more than the other one does. Sometimes you fight because of other reasons. And it could be one partner is less secure in the relationship or less effective at communication. Or it could be that the two of you are different and having difficulty communicating as a couple. You both get along really well with other people, but the two of you together, at least right now, are like oil and water. And generally that happens over a period of time of disagreements and kind of separating intellectually from each other and emotionally from each other, which makes y'all's stuff. It's stuff that you've created as a couple that needs to be handled. Own who you are. The first six months of a relationship, people tend to put on that best scenario. And then reality starts coming out. But own who you are. Whether you do that first six months or not, eventually you're going to have to accept each other as you are. And think of yourself first thing in the morning, if you've got curlers in your hair and cold cream on your face, and your partner's gonna see that eventually. But own it and just be like, well, I do all this so then I can look like this later or whatever the case may be. But we're not gonna look like Christie Brinkley 24-7. We are not going to act like Mother Teresa 24-7. Just own it because it's better to be good with who you are than try to be somebody different all the time. Embrace ordinariness. Be happy and celebrate the fact that it's just a day. We spent probably 20 minutes today watching the birds at the bird feeder. It's been cold so they're coming to the bird feeder more often. And I love watching the little black cap chickadees come in because they kind of do this undulating flight. Yeah, it's ordinary, but it amused me for like almost half an hour or so. Embrace the ordinary things in life. It doesn't have to be extraordinary every day or it wouldn't be extraordinary. Let go of expectations and embrace what is and talk. Too often people forget to talk, whether it's as a family or as a couple. Make conversation starters, be reading the news and say, hey, what do you think about? Or have a conversation starter for dinner. We do that a lot at our table in order to encourage all of us to talk and share. But it brings a relationship closer. Compromising, create a win-win, whenever you can create a win-win so you both get something out of it. Compromise based on priorities and needs. Sometimes I want something over here, but it's not a big priority. And my partner wants something over here that's a bigger priority for him. So I said, okay, that's fine, no problem. You can have this one. And it's an ebb and flow, balance, yin and yang, whatever you wanna call. But you wanna look at what is the most important priority here and whose needs need to be met most. Compromise, and when we talk about priorities and needs before I go on, a lot of this, a lot of times around the holidays, this becomes a big issue. Whose house do we go to for Christmas? Whose house do we go to for Thanksgiving? What are the priorities, what are the needs, not only of the couple, but of the family, because now we're taking into account 20 or 30 other people. And maybe you haven't been to see one set of relatives in two or three years. So it's probably more of a priority to get over there to see them as opposed to your family that lives six blocks down the street. And that's something you need to, or they need to decide as a couple. Compromise between extroverts and introverts. We do this when we have celebrations. He's an introvert, I'm an extrovert, I'd love to have 30 people. He likes dinner between two couples. And so we usually compromise and I keep it under 10. And that's not overwhelming. Compromise between detail oriented and big picture. We kinda talked about that. You wanna compromise between rationally focused and emotionally focused. We do this when it comes to animal rescue. My heart breaks for every little critter out there and it doesn't just have to be dogs or cats. We would have a house full of possums and raccoons too if it was legal. But I want the poor little helpless animals to be okay, to feel happy. I always stress about the donkeys and the other animals being in the barn when it's cold outside, because they're cold. So we need to bring them inside. I know we can't bring them inside, but my heart wants to bring them inside. And Chuck is much more rational and he's like, no. We have, when we're talking about animals, we have enough animals right now. And we've worked out a system where we have slots and we only have a certain number of slots for animals in our house. And if we fill them with permanent animals, then we can't foster anymore, because that just overwhelms our energy and our space and everything else. So that was the compromise and he kind of rains me in. Otherwise I'd be the crazy cat lady that had 30 cats and 15 dogs and whatever and a possum to boot. And then compromise between structured and spontaneous. If one person really likes structure and the other person just feels very hemmed in by it, figure out how you can make it work where both partners get their needs met. Know what you need and define it in observable terms. If you say, I wanna be helpful or I wanna be happy, that's not helpful. That's not helpful for a therapist and it's not helpful for a spouse. What does that mean? What does being happy look like to you? Because people can't reach your mind. So teaching clients how to assertively state and own their feelings, wants and needs. I want this, or I feel this way about this. Ideally communicate to the partner in their preferred learning style, visual, auditory or kinesthetic. Obviously if you're talking about disagreements, it's gonna be visual or auditory. But if you're communicating to someone who's a visual learner, sometimes they're able to take in the information better if you write them a letter. And I don't mean write it and then send it to them so they get it at work. Write it, hand it to them at the dinner table and the two of you can sit there and after the person finishes reading then you can talk about it. Remember it's all about balance. You're not gonna get all your needs met and neither are they. So there's a compromise in there. And sometimes you just have to meet your own needs. Sometimes maybe your partner is just not a vacation person and you are. So you may have to agree that, okay, that person goes out once a year for a vacation with their friends and you're good with that. So it's important to understand what you need, what your partner needs and how you can make it happen in a way that's workable for both of you. Since not everyone's comfortable with feeling words, reflect their vocabulary. And we tend to do this when we've been around somebody for a while, we tend to use their words when we're talking to them more than we use our own. So it's good, but it's good practice to encourage people to pay more attention to how does your partner describe when they've had a bad day? Think about the last time they just had a really rough day. Tell me as much as you can exactly what they said when they came home and that'll give you an idea about what their feeling or empathy vocabulary looks like. Don't assume you know why a person feels a certain way. It could be something that happened an hour ago or it could be a combination of 17 things that have happened over the past week. Ask, amazing, ask. Emotional words can be shown through actions or emotional support can be shown through actions, not just words. If you know your partner's had a really rough week, maybe the action is to run them a bath or give them a back rub or take them out to dinner. Help them eliminate vulnerabilities. If they've had a rough time, if they're depressed, if they're anxious, think about vulnerabilities, make sure they're eating well, try to make sure they're able to get enough sleep just like you would do for yourself. And then in order to figure out what their process is, ask. And there was one scenario on Brooklyn 99 which is kind of a comedy show that I watch. Terry, who's this big burly guy, was trying to comfort Rosa who is kind of a hardcore woman.  And she's like, throwing stuff off building sounds pretty good. So it kind of demonstrates that instead of assuming that he knew what would make her feel better, he asked and he gave her a pretty wide range. Be thoughtful by paying attention to what he or she likes and dislikes. Do things you don't wanna do. Maybe you don't wanna go to your in-laws but you do it anyway cause it's the thoughtful thing to do. Keep a running list of gift ideas, write sweet notes, text messages, or just thank yous, you know, embrace the ordinary. Remember those important dates, truly listen. Be there during tough times, even if you're busy. You know, you may be busy but you may have to just set that aside because it's a priority to focus on your significant other at that point. And start some personal rituals just for the two of you, daily, weekly, or annual. Maybe each night you spend 30 minutes with no television or anything, just talking. It sounds ordinary, but it goes a long way to improving communication and making people feel more connected. Relationships are complicated. Basic areas to help people focus on include providing compassion and effective emotional support to one another. Providing thoughtful things, putting forth the effort to be thoughtful to your significant other, compromising when necessary, and embracing what's good instead of always focusing on what's wrong. These two books, Emotional Fitness for Empathy and Emotional Fitness for Couples are really good. If you work with a lot of couples it might be something to consider checking out. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I am here. If you don't have any questions, you can take your quiz if you haven't already finished that. Otherwise, I will see you all tomorrow and we will be talking about, I believe, middle schoolers. Thank you everybody for coming today. If you enjoy this podcast, please like and subscribe either in your podcast player or on YouTube. If you wanna attend and participate in our live webinars with Dr. Snipes, you can subscribe at hgtbs.com slash slash allceus.com slash counselor toolbox. This episode has been brought to you in part by allceus.com providing 24-7 multimedia continuing education and pre-certification training to counselors, therapists and nurses since 2006. You can use coupon code, Counselor Toolbox, to get 20% off of your current order. If you're a podcast listener, especially on an Apple device, it would be extremely helpful if you would review Counselor Toolbox. To do this on your Apple device, go to the podcast app, search for Counselor Toolbox, select the icon for the podcast, tap the reviews tab in the middle. You should then see an option to click write a review. We love to see five-star reviews. So if there's anything we can do to make this podcast even better for you, please email us at support at allceus.com.


This is the animation minute as always it's our jobs. D-Neg is looking for animators Poliark is hiring in lots of positions gameplay animator is one of them Netflix animation is looking for a bunch of really cool positions Lindsay is telling us that in subnet games is hiring as well Here's a tweet where they're looking for a full-time combat animator Switching over to announcements Pixar has released their turning red teaser trailer the animator survival kit Which is a fantastic book that has released a new version called the survival kit minis all presentations from the animation exchange 2021 are officially uploaded to YouTube and part of that is the animation of spider-man. That's really cool Go watch it. Then we have a really cool thread about drawing limbs, especially horse limbs So if you look at this a lot of really really good tips, then we have a really cool personal animation piece here Void speed outlaw has a new teaser trailer as well. I love this anything. That's like F-Zero calm It's portfolio day. So check out that Vimeo real. It's really neat another the personal clip this time It's rendered I posted this before but this is its final glory. It looks fantastic Speak of fantastic calm all these are so cute subject in which a picture so good Speaking of so good. This is absolutely amazing. It's along a piece. It's almost a minute But cool. Check out the full thing the weight the way the way it's displayed just the way it shifts the body mechanics Such a cool piece. Make sure to check it out. Here's a cool metroid red Reimagining pixel art very very neat. So long a piece check out the full thing This is not really animation related, but I have to put that in there This is the full Roland SC 55 mini soundtrack of tie fighter But this is from this project the tie fighter total conversion check out all of this if you are just an ever So slide Star Wars fan. I highly recommend to check this out. This is neat to a ledge grab studies across different games It's cool to see these here side-by-side for an easier comparison And you know, I gotta put in more Star Trek if I can't here is a customized Blue bricks set. It's officially licensed with smaller versions and bigger versions including shuttles calm on Here's an alien shark gang boss. I thought this was really really cool Speaking of cool fan art and official art the both fantastic last one at least I'll leave you this here as it says the 90s Or at least in the translation the 90s movie version animation style CG It's just really cool because it looks like the old VHS type of 2d animation But it's all done with some really neat CG tricks So check this out full piece of course is in the streets and that's it for dimension minute You will find it every Monday at 10 a.m. All my channel


Restraint was the key yesterday for the BSU men's hockey team. Can't fill up on too much turkey with a big test today against third ranked Minnesota State. Beavers looking for their first win in five contests against the Mavericks.  Point shot blocked, but Josh French takes the loose puck and fires a top shelf, two to nothing. Four minutes later, Beavers looking to get on the board. Ethan Samosa fires the quick shot, gets past the goalie on the post side. We head to the third, a one goal game. Five minutes in, Beavers killing a power play, gets worked up to Brad Johnson, steps into a slap shot. Goalie gets a piece, not all of it, and we're tied up at two. Four minutes away from overtime, Mavericks again on the power play. The point shot is blocked, but the rebound right out to Mark McHales. The backhand shot hits Hank Johnson and floats in for the goal. And that's where this one ends as the Beavers fall three to two. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.


so tiny little things um i think you're pretty much done there's just some you know like last polishing touches on lip sync and just little things on fingers and other than that i think it's pretty much done i love everything she does here at the beginning i think the eyebrows the blinks work a lot better let me turn down the volume so you don't hear anything so looking at that i body functions are good the only thing on him no i think it's good i was just looking at his shoulders for some reason this time i read it as very fast breathing but no it's great his look is good it's not spliny anymore there yeah it's great i think this shot is the lip sync okay so the picky the only picky thing is when she says i don't understand i don't understand you know this will be around here i wish quick down could scrub so if that's her understand pose right i don't understand it's something where i think the the amount that it's open is good but you could technically push how far out it goes it might feel too exaggerated but i'm looking at all the shapes throughout this i don't understand no and they all have the same you know the same distance of the corner away from this this line here and the amount of jaw movement and i think you can just have one of them a lot bigger and i think i would do i don't understand the stand even though it's not exactly the loudest but it feels like the stands will be the stand out no pun intended shape where you could tell that that's a totally different shape in the bigger shape than all the other ones just so there's contrast but to me it feels like it's actually the i don't is the biggest and then stan is a bit smaller i don't understand yeah i just say something only because of her the context of it i don't understand i don't see nothing the stand is the is the it is to me at the point of the shot she doesn't understand it and that could also have a subtle bigger moves it's just ununderstand i would try just to have you know goopy that corner goopy back here you could really push that corner open if he gets too big you can dial it down a tiny bit but that's the only thing for this guy i don't understand yeah it's all really really cool i'm gonna cut this guy this is tiny thing and bring this guy down down there you go and cut and cut one more frame no not undo redo and cut there you go all right so for this guy friends are supposed to make you feel good that's the point of having them okay a couple things um minor to be bigger but nothing huge it's just tightening up the mechanics friends are supposed to make and so start first with i'm going to do the sound off to the body first and then get to the face so if i'm looking just at the body i think this is really cool what you do with the thumb here like it's a slow raise it kind of dissipates that whole move my only thing is that for some reason it feels like the thumb is tied to her elbow you know where you got the elbow going screen right in the thumb going up and it's all kind of the same time i wonder if there's any way to actually reduce the elbow movement and just keep it in the thumb but it's cool all the polish you got the other fingers here that's all really neat same with the other one you could argue that during this move here i'm looking at this shoulder here by this elbow as it goes down it could have a bit more movement in here and it takes the wrist a bit more let's just a tad i k especially here right the screen right uh show elbow hi and the elbow comes down and there's really nothing going on and this this would be a good moment to rotate this guy like tilt over translate a bit and rotate back this way and then have the fingers stuck to the surface just a bit more this feels just a tad i cage at this point and then as you go forward watch your shoulders right there it feels like her her left goes down her right goes up it all it's all kind of the same time and even if this was completely intentional as like one piece here pivoting off here where this goes up and this goes down uh nothing gets affected in the chest so if i'm looking at that moment see how there's nothing going on the stomach you can look at the lines here and there's no rotation to me it feels like you want to it feels like this is too much of a drop she's she's holding this pose and then gets onto this and doesn't quietly lean on it until maybe towards the end here so i can get that move up here but that whole move down feels too much i can buy it more here because she is lifting her arm but even then it's not that much so you can reduce the whole thing you know like both of them at least by 60% and then by this guy probably 80% like it's really minimal stuff that i would do and then the other part is that once she puts her fingers here see how long that pinky is i feel like this pinky is are you folding it at this point onto the wrist this is just kind of higher this is lower here i'm sure the fingers are doing there but there's something about these guys where if she hits the the palm here i see the thumb moving down and a tiny bit of rotation here but the rest is not really reacting too much and reacting in terms of folding these guys in like this pose for this hand feels like you're deliberately straightening that thumb really aligning it to this line versus a more comfortable natural pose where the thumb is out like that that makes no sense that line here but you know more out this way then straight down like that and i feel like you could then curl these guys in more you know not that it has to go into a fist but it would be it would be a bigger change of posing it just feels like they're either asleep or she had a stroke or something and she can move the fingers it just feels kind of weird and also in real time that thumb really snaps down there right there so that's that and then lip sync wise i would do a bigger head accent at the beginning friends are supposed to make on friends if i move through this here this is all she's doing here is the lips friends so friends with friends you could have a slight rotation in why maybe to her right i'm just you know do whatever i'm just saying i would try out for instance uh screen right why rotation with a slight sideways dip to her left you're like friends it's kind of a half nod to the side friends are supposed to make you feel good because then you could use that down to go back up into that once you go down this way so she can come back this way but i'm feeling more natural to get an arc like that then it's just something you need to have a little accent there friends are supposed to make you feel good friends are supposed to make you feel good that's the point of having them and then of having them it's interesting like you do have a bigger it seems like you're potentially favoring this side but i think you can go a lot bigger friends are supposed to make you feel good that's friends are supposed to make you feel good that's the point of having them and then point i will go smaller good that's the point point like really get those corners in like the overall impression that i have for this now well as we're finishing this up is that you could have bigger contrast in the in the corners how to get close together and spread out so the corners in out what i will call them um skips feels almost too always within you know this type of region and there's no big changes it's very kind of softish like you hit the accents fine but i think just visually you can get bigger and smaller just a bit more contrast friends are supposed to make you feel good that's the point of having them and that's good there i would already already help with that head accent just you know the whole beginning leads it leads into the soft lip sync because there's an accent on this on the shoulders and i will probably take a frame out of that last dart if something feels softish it's a couple too many frames that was super picky but it just was kind of a soft dart given that she is leading forward being kind of an you know interrogating look i would make that just a bit bit harsher and even in that pose like you know for this yeah you bring in these fingers and curl them up almost into a face it just feels like she is not trying to touch anything she made to cheat her nails so it's this kind of non-committal soft pose that contrasts too much with this where she's very tense so there's some tense feeling missing here if that makes sense but that's about it though like the biggest thing would be the shoulder the whole shoulder chest stuff from the mechanics and the first head accent and then for this guy same thing with the lip sync some of the eyes so listen to this here even if this so that you can go in bigger here like closer together with the corners so now when he's resting you actually you have that spread but spread them out a bit will be spreading out more because you went in closer and then same thing here where these people said these people could be bigger you say these people are my friends and friends could be a slightly closer together and then do i have something with you i have i have one of the corners could be favored and be a bit bigger what friends do i have what i have and then what friends do i have and i think you can at that point do a bigger head nod a bigger head accent which is overall fairly soft but you can just have that one thing friends and what friends do i have and just the time i'm not talking about like a crazy not just just a tiny bit bigger if you if you say these people are my friends and what friends do i have and i think into this into this last pose um just not that he has to do like you know the as they always say online in a mean way the stream works phase was but going towards that just a tiny bit again it's a it's a tiny thing and if you're favoring one and i would favor this one well i'm gonna be picky okay i'm with this way bring this guy because we see less of the brow so it's less visible but this guy a bit higher right just a tad because you're already having it feels like the lids are a bit bigger here but just make sure that this is a bit close more close than this guy and that way gives you this triangle because he is looking out this way gives you kind of a subtle visual cue but just a bit offset because i'm looking at this and he feels you can see the corner down here what he feels almost too neutral it's a bit asymmetrical and pose that really tells us about his feelings too like the eyes are okay but then this gets a bit too neutral if you if you say these people are my friends if you if you say these people you say this is you if you if you say these i think you got the nice head accent but i think on you you can bring down the jaw of it it's a bigger you it's a bigger move if you say these you say and then maybe that the chin out a bit like a forward jaw and up it's a tiny bit if you say these people are my friends and i like your forward move here but you can make it just a tad bigger to each is all very very very very subtle you say these people are my friends and and i can see it because i've been watching this for a couple times now but you know you want to you want to just push those moments just a tiny bit more like same idea just push it a tiny bit more listen what friends do i have you know and if you want to go crazy what friends do i have what friends do i have it could almost be um you know it could almost imagine that if that's his line like that that he would be a bit more tilted over what friends do i have like an inquisitive type look which might be chilling the nose but if you keep it subtle enough then also what you want to do is you want to want to scrub through and see well what are the major changes and he's always kind of within the same range especially towards the end and i'm just thinking about if this is you know usually you want to try when you stop at any frame what is it telling you about the person again on any frame the posing and everything should tell you what he's feeling and one if that as an end pose we could push even though i like and i love all the subtleties you have um i just wonder if you can push this a bit more so that we really end on the strong note where we can tell what he's feeling again this might be too cliche but imagine the head would be a bit tilted with a bit of a stronger uh eyebrow shape that we could tell inquisitive you know and slightly concerned worried and sad and all that stuff in there was the rest in his arms i think that's fine i think it's all in the head if you if you say these people are my friends and what friends do i have yeah yeah that's about it so you're super super close tiny little notes and then you're done a great clip all right cool thanks all right there's an email you can sign up you can start whenever you want you can submit whatever you want you get 16 submissions either way a like and subscribe would be awesome all right thank you


Hello everyone and welcome. This is Melissa Arma with the Stock Swoosh and I'm going over the Gap Options newsletter Advanced Trader Results for the week expiring June 17th. So this was last week the Friday Explorations always do the Friday Explorations. Every trade worked. Win ratio was 100 percent. Advanced Trader Profits 165,510. This is an average risk per trade of $8,000. We will go over all the trades in this video. Average Return and Investment 210%, which is fabulous. And again, every trade worked. I am going to do a video for beginners too. I'm not going to go over that in this lecture. If you have questions, you can email me at Melissa at thestockswoosh.com. You can always call me at 9 to 9, 3,200 Gap. Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or Skype. So 2022 has been a great year to trade. I mean, one of the reasons that all these trades worked is I have a very high win ratio system. I use my golden gap rating system in order to rate the gaps to determine what's going to work and in what direction. However, this year has been a phenomenal year simply because of the fact that we've had a lot of big moves this year, a lot of momentum, a lot of volatility. You're even seeing that this week. So volatility momentum actually helps you make a lot of money as a trader if you play the direction right. But you got to get the direction right no matter what. I mean, you always, every trade that you take, you have to get the direction right. So we're getting into the summer months again. This was a week in June. It wasn't even earnings week. It wasn't even earnings week, and it was a phenomenal week. So earnings is a busy time. We get a lot of trades during earnings season. That begins in July, but because we've had so many different moves in the market this year, we've actually had a lot of nice market trades that have nothing to do with earnings. So again, there were 10 winners, 10 trades, zero break-even, zero losers, 100%-one ratio, every trade worked. Advanced trader average risk per trade is 8,000. Again, I'm going to go over from here. Profits for the total of the 10 trades, 165,510, an average return on investment 210%. So again, this is the week expiring June 17th. So I called the Walmart 120 puts that expired in the 17th and I sent this out. If you sign in for the Gap Options newsletter, most of the trades are sent in the pre-market in the morning. So this was June 9th, 9.12 in the morning before the open. Really cheap. This was super cheap. Costs was 75 cents for one contract. Again, you can take less, but 100 contracts risk of 7,500 sold at 250 was a profit of 17,500, which was 233% return on investment. So let's look at the chart of Walmart. This has been such a nice chart, to be honest with you. I'm just in love with this chart. I called this here. We did this gap here. This was the earnings gap, by the way. And again, everything that I do, every pick that I make is based on the gap. We do bullish gaps and we do bearish gaps. In this case here, this was a bearish gap. So the stock close to your gap down fell, boom. And that was the drop. Again, I called the 120 puts above the strike and it dropped into it and fell through it. And this may not even look like some Gimungus move like this one was over here. And actually we did this move too. But the fact is just getting that timing right, getting the direction right, perfect.  And it was very low cost. You could have piled up if you put on a lot of risk or taken smaller size. Then that same day, a little bit after the open, June 9th, I called this 5409 puts, expired the 17th. And again, nice move. 575 per one. 15 contracts is a risk of 86.25. Shoulded 36, profit $45,375. And it was a 526% return investment at this exit. This was not the higher the options chain. You could have held it longer. You could have made more. I'm going to show you because again, it was the 409s that I called on the 9th. Okay, here it fell. Boom, boom, boom. If you stayed into the very last day, which I don't necessarily recommend people doing in this case, but there was no way this was going to flip around. It almost came all the way down to 360. You know, it was it was really just completely thought the planet, but it was a really good exit. You know, even to get it out earlier in the week, it's sometimes these things just keep going. But it was such a huge return on investment before the last day that I don't think it makes sense holding the last day, but it was even bigger if you held it the last day. This is how these things go. I say, roll with it, take your trades, chunk it out, make money. You can hold some of the position if you want to. You can, if we're doing two trades, like a cue and a spy, get out of one, hold another. It's not a good idea to hold everything all the time full positions. So you have to choose and pick what you want to do. The idea of trading is to make money and chunking it out. You don't want to let this type of profit go back against you. And again, even though this kept going, my goal is always to get the perfect entry as best that I can, get the perfect gap and get the direction right, get a highly rated gap.  It's up to you. And many people actually that have small accounts tend to get out early because they want to be able to take the next trade. Because if you have money invested in a trade plus when you're up until you exit it, you can't get the money back to take the next trade, you know. But this was a nice mover and it got a beautiful drop. Again, a put is a short. If you do not know what an option is, then you're not going to be able to trade them. This is a newsletter. Okay. This is what gets sent to you. The newsletter itself, again, in lifetime, they're emailed to you. You have to be able to place the trades yourself. But we're trading momentum up and down, up and down. So again, that's how you make the money in options. You got to get the momentum. People are always so worried about time. Listen, I've had things that I've taken that I, you know, that I've been up to the last day. This was not one of them. But where I've been in it and it's been down and it flips the whole last day it goes and I make money in it. Why? Because the momentum then the last day happens to be in my favor, huge. So in reference to trading, you know, this is one of these things where direction counts, momentum counts, all of these things count for you to be profitable. In accuracy, really, which is in the rating system. I call this in the afternoon to 18, the targets, the 155s again expired June 17. This was, these were pretty cheap. Two dollars and 60 cents for one 30 contracts was a risk of 7800 shoulder 13 profit 31,200 and a return in investment of 400%. Nice move, big move, really, really nice. Again, another putt. Okay. And let's take a look at target. So I called this one on the knife as well. Got the drop. Boom. And again, this one kept going. I called the 155s. This was a 138. I mean, it just kept going and going and going. You just got to make sure that you get out and book the profits. Really nice move. Not a nice move. Another nice call. Then I called on the Friday, June 10th at 8.50 in the morning again in the pre market, the 295 QQQs expired in the 17th. Again, this is a putt cost was $7, 10 contracts risk of 7,000, sold at $20 profit $13,000 returning investment 186%. So again, this is really one of these ones where if you capture it at the right time in the right placement, boom, right before the move comes in, you can grab all the profits. And one of the advantageous things about trading options, specifically the way that I call them because I'm so good at reading direction, is that we get in a trade and then it goes overnight in our direction. That's how you can make a lot of money in options. You're in a putt and it gaps down overnight or we're in a call and it gaps up overnight. Capturing those overnight moves is so amazing. We did that with some of the ones we did from here to here. And then this one was the 10th and then we got it from here to here. This was Monday. I mean, this was Friday. This was Monday. Look at that. So that was really nice too. Again, the 295s, here was June 10th, the day that I called it. Then we called the Diamond 320s expired and again in the morning on Friday, expired the 17th, cost was 620, 12 contracts, risk was 7440, sold at 16 profit $11,716, returned an investment 115%. Nice trade in and out and again, another nice move. We don't always trade the diamonds. I do like the Qs. I do like the spies. Sometimes we'll do the diamonds. Anyways, this had the fall gap down. Boom. Here was the 10th, again called the 320s. It was actually past that, which was why that was a little bit pricy there. Then got the gap down and the drop. Again, really nice move. Followed through the deepest point even the very last day. Didn't quite come down to 295, but tried. I mean, these are just John Mungus moves. Again, it's because of the follow-through overnight. Netflix 180s expired June 17th, called this in the pre-market in the morning on Friday, although you wait until the open to do the trade. You cannot do options in the morning at 8.30 in the morning. Cost was 520, 15 contracts, risk was 7800, sold at 1575, profit 15,825, returned an investment 203%. Just another nice mover. This chart though has been choppy. I will say that the last week. This was the 10th. Here was the drop. It's been wiggling and jiggling a lot in the last week. Trying to move higher, trying to move lower. We'll see where this goes in the next couple of weeks. Netflix is one of the first things to report at the beginning of earnings season in July. I have to look up the date. That's definitely going to be on my watch list. Now Amazon, which is much more reasonable to trade than it was before the stock split. I called the 109 puts, expired June 17th, again, 1111. I called this later in the morning on the Friday. Still a nice call, really worked good, followed through. 270, 30 contracts, risk was 8100, sold at 750, profit 14,400, 178% returning investment, and what another really nice trade. Again, June 10th was here. This is the Amazon called the 109s, close to your gap down fell. And again, like I was saying, you know, when somebody has a small account to be able to capture a big move, 100%, 200%, 500%, I mean, it really can make a difference when you have a small account. But I mean, to have massive profits, $30, $40,000, even with an $8,000 risk, which is a lot of money, but to be able to grow it like that in one trade in one move is because of the gap rating that I'm reading, I teach the gap rating in the Golden Gap course. The newsletter, these newsletters, this is not what you're gonna, you're not gonna learn the class by signing up for the newsletter. You're gonna get these trades, okay? And then you can do them if you want to, but if you wanna learn the method, how I'm picking these trades, that's where you would sign up for the overall class. But I mean, the way that I'm getting the overnight is really because of the rating. I'm seeing that the rating of the gap is really, really good. Then on Monday at 8.46, the 13th, I called the 380 Spies, expired June 17th. This was the puts, cost was $7.75, 10 contracts, risk was $77.50, sold at $17 profit, $92.50, return and investment, 119%. And again, this was then on Monday. On Monday, this was the 13th. So now I called a lower strike, 380s. In fact, this was up, then it was down, until it went boom. And again, this was up even more at the very last day, not that anybody should have held that. So really interesting moves here in this market. And I've been very focused on everything we're doing. Then I called on Monday also at 9.03 in the pre-market, the queues. 280 strike expired 6.17, it was puts, cost was $6, number of contracts was 12, risk was $7.200, sold at 10, profit 4,867%. That's a good trade. Again, to hold something the last day, not necessarily going to take a chance on doing that one a month. I think 50% is good. Tried to get it to 100. We did this one here. Again, it was the 280s. I think if this had fallen more before this lift, it would have been a bigger trade. But anyways, it still was a positive trade. And there it goes. And there it was and fell through the number. Then we did the test. So it's just moved, but not crazy. I don't know why. Call this on the Monday, 9.42. And again, $22, this is sort of pricing. Four contracts, $8,800, risk sold at 28. It was 27%. Again, you take the profit. You get out before it expires. Why this didn't fall off the cliff? I don't know. But it still did work. It's still to go through the strike. It still was profitable. And again, called it here, lifted, was up, was down. Then was up again. Boom. You get to drop it out. My expectation was that that would go to 600. It didn't. It didn't. And now it's lifted this week. So I'm going to be watching that to see where that goes. All in all, a very good week. Every trade worked. You've got a risk almost the same as close as you can on every trade because it is about calculated risk. You want to put your money to the best highest trades. What do I mean by highest, highest rating? Okay. So if I'm calling something, I'm looking at the rating myself in the morning in the pre-market or in the afternoon when I'm sending trades. It's rare I'll send a trade after the open. But sometimes as you see, I do. Most of them are set in the pre-market so you can get organized to see what we're doing in the morning before we do them. Some days we're on any trades. Some days there's nothing to do. You saw that. I might call trades every single day last week. I have to have a good gap. We have to see the gap. And I have to rate it to determine if it's good. I might call several trades on one day. You saw that here too. So for me, it's about taking calculated risk where I want to do the good ones. I don't want to do crappy trades. And I think a lot of people now are so desperate this year to make money because we're halfway through the year and people have lost money this year. And I know this because people are emailing me, finding out about my class, finding out about signing up for the newsletter. They're desperate for trade ideas. You should not be going into free chat rooms and free webinars and just taking blind trade ideas from people. You're basically trading blind. You don't know what they're doing. You don't know their process. Wow, you may not know my process unless you take the golden gap course. You need to trust in the process that I know what I'm doing as far as the gap rating to make the calls. And then you take it.  Get out of 50% until you get a feel for it. Or watch it. I have targets in the letter too. This is about making money though. This is really what trading is supposed to be. And people will just trade blind and take blind ideas from people and it's a disaster. You really should know what to do when you trade and if you don't, then you need to follow someone that you have a high level of confidence in and a high level of conviction in. And I would think that would be me because I really do know what I'm doing. One of the reasons I've read the market so well this year is because I know how to read gaps bullish gaps and bearish gaps in the market and I'm reading professional money in the market institutional money in the market and that's how I'm making the determination whether we're going up or whether we're going. So I offer two subscription services the 12 month which is $69.99 and the 6 month which is $49.99. No trials, no prerequisites for this though and no monthly subscription. So you only have two options to sign up for 12 months and 6 months. Email me and Melissa at thestockswish.com if you want to sign up. You can sign up today and get the next trade. It's one of these things where you can start immediately. It's been a good period to trade. I'm going to continue to show the trades and results on here and we'll see where we go. If you have any questions, email me and Melissa at thestockswish.com. Good luck everyone.