one who's here today. I think your dedication to this work really demonstrates your commitment. I know how precious everyone's time is, so the time that you're taking to be here today is deeply needed for us, the Department of Mental Health, and to the work that we're going to embark on here together today. Vermont's important charge when it comes to our Vermont system of care. And one of the things that we all need to remember in our work is that we convey our work and do our work with your partnerships. So that's partnerships through our designated community mental health agencies, our designated hospitals, and other community partners. And I think we'd all look at some of the challenges and opportunities before us as a system of care that no single group or approach is going to solve this, that we really need a collective answer. And I think that we can really focus on building a system that not only meets the needs of today in Vermont, but also thinking about what our families and people are going to need in 2030 and how are we thinking long term about our future Vermont mental health system of care. And I think if we can do that and align around a common vision, then we can really create a system of care that will benefit generations of Vermonters to come. And that is exactly the work that we're here to embark on together today. So before we go too much further, let's take a moment and just introduce ourselves very quickly.  So you want to get started? Sure. Hi everybody, I'm still leading the committee and I work for the Department of Mental Health. I work for the Department of Mental Health. Don, I work for the Department of Mental Health. I'm from HTRS. Carol, I'm from the Department of Mental Health. Deming grade from the Hospital Association. I'm Jim, from the Department of Mental Health. Kathy Detsy, from the Department of Mental Health. I'd like to ask one more question? Sure. I'm from the Department of Mental Health. Great. We got everybody? Wonderful. Well, thank you all for taking a moment to do that. Some of you might be aware that our convening here today really builds off some existing work that the Vermont Department of Mental Health did and that the legislature charged us with, which was our Act 200, Section 9 report, And if you haven't read it yet, now that we have your email address you'll be sure to send it to you. But essentially the Department of Mental Health responded to that legislative charge and really to articulate what is kind of the overarching system structure of our system of care. And there are a lot of ideas and data in that report that I think we can really build on. Data related to quality, access, person-centered care, parity, coercion, and payment reform. It was also the charge of the legislature that this process was inclusive, that broadened the voices of broad stakeholders. That's inclusive of those who identify as psychiatric survivors, consumers, or peers, family members, providers of mental health services, and of course providers of our overall broader healthcare system. And the charge that we are responding to today to kind of build off the great information in that report is to work towards the articulation of a common long-term vision of integration of mental health services within a comprehensive and holistic healthcare system. And that is the work that we're doing today, building out of that report, tapping into the wisdom of communities to ensure that as we move forward with something more detailed and concrete that your voices are heard. In terms of some of the action that we're taking on, we think that now is really the time that we can strategically align around a common 10-year vision for our remontmental health system of care. And we need to articulate what that end state looks like. Because if we don't know our end state, then it's hard to know what our first step should be to get there. And then we might end up inadvertently falling into the trap of implementing band-aids and quick fixes, and those can actually get in the way of achieving some of the long-term solutions that we really hope for in our mental health system of care. So essentially, we know what we should do, but we never really feel like we get there. And I think that if we can come together around that long-term vision, articulate that end state, what are the short-term, mid-term, long-term actions and strategies that it's going to take to get there, then we really can achieve a system for remontors that will really meet their needs and advance our system forward. One of the next steps after our work is done, after we have conducted all of these listening tours, this is number four in a series of five. Again, wanting to ensure that the voice of community members and our partners is really infused in this work. We'll be pulling together a think tank that will have the daunting job of kind of synthesizing all of the data from the report, the themes and ideas that are generated in the listening tour, and then synthesizing that into an actionable blueprint for the future of our mental health system in Vermont. This is just a little bit of a visual timeline of the work that we're embarking on, the community forums that we're conducting right now across the state. The think tank will be convening between September and December, and then we'll be presenting the report and blueprint to the legislature in January of 2020. When we were embarking on this journey at the department, we knew that it would take an innovative framework to really hold this work, particularly as we're thinking about broader systems change. And we found what I think is the perfect framework for this work, which is appreciative inquiry. So forget everything you learned in Change Management 101. People and systems is problems to be solved. That kind of can get us on an exhausting treadmill of deficit based thinking and get in the way of real innovation and opportunity. Appreciative inquiry really focuses on leveraging our core system strengths. Our strengths as a community where we've had periods of excellence in the system of care and how do we build on those and create opportunities for innovation. That doesn't mean we can't acknowledge what hasn't worked. Whether you're an individual who has had a very challenging, difficult experience in the system, a family member who has watched your loved one fall through the cracks of the system, an agency leader who has stayed up late at night just trying to make the numbers work, we understand that there are many challenges in the system. The key is to articulate what hasn't worked and then allow us to understand what would have made it different. How can we take that experience from here to here? Because that's the real catalyst for change and that's what we can build on to move our system forward. The other thing to remember is that appreciative inquiry is not a top-down approach. It's a whole system in the room approach. Meaning that we want all stakeholders to be contributing their voices to this work. We know we can't create the future of our mental health system of Vermont in a vacuum, which is essentially why we've convened you all here today. And a little bit just about the appreciative inquiry process. There are five Ds, if you will, or domains of appreciative inquiry. The first one is really defining the topic of inquiry. What does the system want more of? And that was essentially defined by Act 200, Section 9, and the report that we did. And the discovery and dreaming is what we're focused on here today. From a discovery standpoint, it's a way of articulating what works, remembering our community successes, where we've excelled as a system and felt like there were periods of excellence. And then dreaming is imagining how we build on those experiences and strengths and then move them forward into a future system. The design will be the work of the think tank to try, as I said, to synthesize those facts and data and ideas and themes into that actionable blueprint, essentially taking the best of what is, bringing it together with the best of what could be to essentially create the ideal. And then delivery and deployment is really our implementation. So how do we take this blueprint and implement it in our state system and follow through? Now I put this slide up here. It says I'm sure that hole isn't in our end. Because I think at different times we've all felt this way in our system of care, depending on the seat that we sit in. But I think we all recognize that we are truly in the same boat. And sometimes I think we think that our best way to serve our system is to optimize our apartment. And that's important, but we also have to optimize the relationships between the parts to get the outcomes that we're after. And that requires us to work in a spirit of collaboration together, always recognizing that systems change truly moves at the speed of trust. So alternatively, we can think about a statement of common purpose where we're all pulling together as a system of care, playing to each other's strengths, and recognizing that it is truly the diversity of our perspectives that is our greatest strength. And we can't let grappling with these tough questions derail us from moving forward together. But it's going to take time, patience, trust, and iterative change to achieve the very best mental health system and that we're all responsible and accountable for the success of the future of our mental health system in Vermont. Just shifting a little bit to talk about our afternoon agenda, we'll be moving into our first activity, which we call inquiry, which is really getting at that discovery and dreaming and building on our strengths. And again, we also want to hear what are those challenge areas from your perspective and help us understand what would improve that experience to really drive that catalyst for change. We'll be taking a break. Then we'll be moving into the visioning activity and perhaps your groups might be getting into some thinking about implementation and then wrap up in next steps. And now I'm going to turn it over Kathy Hensie, who is our director of healthcare and mental health integration. So welcome, Kathy. Thank you. Yes. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for being here, especially at such a gorgeous day. So as Sarah mentioned, this is the fourth of five of these missed sessions. We started out June 18th in Rutland. Then July 23rd here in St. Johnsbury. Last week we were in Burlington. Today we're here. And next week we go to Brattleboro. At each place we're having an afternoon session and an evening session trying to make sure that people can come in if they can't get here during work in the evening around that. We've had some really, really good turnout. It's really exciting for us to hear the conversation at these gatherings. We're compiling a lot of notes as Sarah mentioned and we'll be going through those. It's been quite an experience. And I'm looking forward to today and next week as well. So this is our current vision. The Department of Mental Health's current vision, that mental health is a cornerstone of health, that Vermonters live in care of communities with compassion for and determination to respond effectively and respectfully to the mental health needs of all citizens. That Vermonters have access to effective prevention, early intervention and mental health treatment and supports as needed to live, work, learn and participate fully in their communities. Now I think unfortunately we can all agree we're not here. We don't have this. It is a vision for the future. And that's what we're really, that's what we want, your help. And the vision may well change. It probably will change as a result of this process, but we're aspects of it anyway. And this is what you're helping us to design. So this is a pretty old question I think. It's the glass half full or half empty. So this is, I wanted to say a little bit more about what Sarah talked about with appreciative inquiry and why we're using this framework. You could just feel like that's just so you don't have to hear about the challenges or problems that we've run into in the system. And that's not the pace. We want to hear those things. There will be many opportunities this afternoon for you to voice concerns and tell us about issues that you've had. We're also very open to after this if you want to send in written comments or how that might work for you. What we will ask you to do though today is when you name, if you name a concern or a problem we will ask you to then, as Sarah mentioned, say, how do you see, how could that be better? What could we do to make that better? And are there existing strengths that you can think of that we could build on that would help us solve that problem? It's really important that we do think about the existing strengths in the system today because that is, again, the science around change tells us that when you build on what's working it both builds energy and inspiration and you can get this working better and then you can still work on those problems to solve them but you get all the momentum here on what's working and on building on that. So the science behind this, creating the frame of mind really goes to a negative versus a positive frame of mind and the research shows that if you, like say you start your day out you either receive bad news or maybe you have a conflict with a partner or a child and you get into a negative frame of mind. The research tells us that it takes eight to nine hours on average to move out of that negative frame of mind. That we're trying, it's all about survival we want to ensure if there's a problem that we get that fixed so that it doesn't harm us. So you can see why we're really trying to get this in a positive frame so that we can move forward as a constructive way to build. So do feel free to tell us some concerns and problems and then if we can all talk about and how could we fix that going forward that will be really helpful. So to do this, what I'd like to do now is to ask you to think about an outstanding experience and maybe I'll just go back on this for a minute. So again, this is very transparently to get us all into a positive frame of mind. I'm going to ask you to think about a neutral non-mental health related experience. I mean if that's what comes to mind an outstanding experience that'd be great but it doesn't have to be just a neutral customer experience customer service experience so we're thinking about something relational. And what I think of whenever I think about an outstanding experience recently for an example is recently I stopped on my way to work at a place I'd never been in before for a cup of coffee so I didn't know anyone in there and I went in, it was self-serve I filled up my travel month with coffee and put half and half in it and I walked up to the counter to pay and I realized I didn't have my wallet. So of course immediately I was completely embarrassed and felt really flustered. The cashier said oh that's fine it's on the house, have a great day and you know I was very surprised but for me I really found that an outstanding experience. One, the cashier gave me the benefit of the doubt she assumed I'd made an honest mistake she could have assumed that I'd done it on purpose but that's not where she went she assumed I'd made an honest mistake she responded with generosity and kindness and then I left there just filled with this feeling of generosity and kindness you know it set up my day that way and I think many of you who work in the mental health field you may recognize those points as those are primary ingredients of a trauma-informed system you give people the benefit of the doubt to assume the best and then you treat them with generosity and kindness so we're going to work with that in a minute but first what I'd like to do is to ask you each to just take like 30 seconds and does an outstanding customer service experience jump to mine and then we'll just take a few minutes we're going to share that at your table so I'm really going to give you like 30 seconds to see if you can think of something your attention here and with an outstanding experience that's fine you can just share as a group if you're comfortable sharing your experience you can talk more about the example that I gave but if you've come up with an outstanding experience think about these questions what made it outstanding what wasn't about the person or persons who served you that made it outstanding what was your role in making it outstanding what was the result that you're having had that experience so we're asking these questions again thinking about we're going to translate this into mental health did it change your morning or your day did it change how you thought of those people in that place so go ahead and share your groups now I'll give you about five minutes to do that now this idea, this concept of an outstanding customer experience excuse me and points that could be brought over to the mental health system of care now I'd really like you to think about this and we're going to be asking you to do this the rest of this afternoon as you're going through these examples and discussing we'd like you to be as specific excuse me I've got a dry spot in my throat excuse me we'd like you to be as specific and some detail as possible so like with these outstanding customer experiences there's a whole realm of work that goes on around mental health everything, prevention, promotion treatment, recovery that you could say well that doesn't have to do customer experience it's what's happening in the office supporting that well that's a really excellent point how do you get excellent customer service how do you get frontline staff service providers anyone out in the field consistently providing outstanding service that doesn't happen by chance there's a whole lot of work that goes on behind in a system that provides outstanding service and it's everything from consistent and excellent training to a whole culture that is set by leadership that cashier who waited on me she knew that she could easily say take a cup of coffee on the house and there wasn't going to be any problem for her and her reaction was immediate she didn't have to think about that she really had support to treat customers really well so it goes way beyond that initial surface thing that you see and I'd really like you to think about that as we start to work in the small groups and your facilitators have worksheets we've got questions it's to guide it shouldn't limit you at all if that's not where you want to go with it and you've got other ideas that will be welcomed but as we dig into this if you can really just keep asking questions try to go deeper, try to go deeper this was this great experience well how, how does that happen what is behind that, how do you get to that and yes at some point you're going to come down to oh funding there's got to be you've got to have enough staff to have staff not be completely stressed out and getting angry with people they need to feel that they've got time to do their job and do it well well how do you get enough staff you have to have funds to support that staff so please as you talk about this really think about it in those terms to go further so what questions do you have as I say your facilitators can work with you if you think about that outstanding experience the points that you named how could that translate how does it translate into the mental health system of care and then your facilitators will help draw you along from there so we've got just about an hour that we're going to spend on this so really dive in and be specific please and please be thinking about current strengths in the system that we can build on thank you


Today, we're going to be playing a game with dominoes, and so the girls are going to show you how to compare numbers on a domino. Each girl will take a domino. They'll count the dots on the domino. This game continues.  This game continues until all the dominoes are out of here. And the end they will count in their piles. Usually it is not this one-sided, but they continue to play and they give nice compliments to each other in different strategies, putting a big number in your head becomes easier for them to write classrooms today.


ThinkTechAway, civil engagement lives here. Welcome to Out of the Comfort Zone. I'm your host, Arby Kelly, and you are watching ThinkTech on Spectromosi 16. Now today we're going to start off with a body language tip. I don't know about you, but I sometimes get nervous on camera or when I'm talking to a big crowd, and those nerves can just totally derail your entire experience. So one thing you can do to actually make yourself calm down is to rub what's called your vagus nerve, and that is actually right here at the base of your throat.  And you'll see this happening, not always just the rub, but men will sometimes adjust their collar or adjust their tie. Women will sometimes kind of toy with their jewelry or play with their jewelry here. And those three things are nervous gestures that if you see someone else doing them, it's a good cue. They're nervous, but if you're nervous, you can try that to calm yourself down. Now today we've got a really cool guest that I'm very excited to have on the show, and I've actually never met this guest before. This guest was actually introduced to me by Pam Chambers, who met her and said, she's fabulous. You've got to have her on the show. You've got to make it happen. So here today for the first time, and meeting me for the first time, is Rose Wong. Hi, Rose. Hi, thank you. Can you shake? Yeah, nice to meet you. Of course. So can you help me understand exactly what do you do? So first off, I'm a student. I'm a sophomore student at the Shedler College of Business. I'll be triple measuring in marketing, entrepreneurship, and finance. Wow, that is a big deal. And then I own two jewelry businesses. So the first one is called Kaloha Ocean Gems. It's a local jewelry business. I started when I was 16 years old. It's around four years ago. And then the second jewelry business is called Rose Gold Gems, which I just launched two weeks ago actually. And so that one focuses on affordable, fine luxury jewelry. And I just got an office for the two businesses, and I'm thinking of opening up a marketing firm within the office too. I'm also the president of Hawaii Student Entrepreneurs, which is a Shedler Club at UH Manoa dedicated, helping students successfully start and run their own businesses. I think you ran out of fingers there. I know. That is so cool. I just shortened it too. That is so cool. So you're triple majoring. Triple major. And a sophomore. Sophomore. And running two businesses, and thinking of opening a third business there. And you're also the president of the Entrepreneurship Club. And it's easy to see why you're the president when you take into account everything before that. Can you help me understand how this all started for you? So my jewelry business started because I was working at Magnolia in Kahala, and I saw the jewelry pieces there, and I just wanted to make it. So I started making it. I started selling it immediately. And so I got my first part-time job when I was 14 years old. Since 14 and 16, I had around eight jobs, because I was never satisfied. Back then, minimum wage was about $7, I think it was. And I didn't understand why I was getting so paid so little, but I was working a lot. I didn't like the long hours. And so I wanted to do something on my own, so I began making jewelry. I remember going to Ben Franklin and first, putting in the first $50. And I thought that was so much to me. But I didn't know that it would later turn into a huge business that would later pay for my rent, my tuition, everything else, my own house, my offices. So since then, I started selling in the store at Magnolia, and that's where I first began. And then I started selling with Aloha Pearls. I started selling online at Crafters around the island, Crafters on the other Hawaiian islands. And then from there, I started Rolls Gold Jewelry, because, so Kalauya Ocean Jump's just a 40-carat gold fill and sterling silver, so it's more on the affordable side. But I wanted to scale up and do more with the luxury jewelry. So that's why I started Rolls Gold Jewelry. Now, I've heard the statistic that most businesses fail within three years. And so here you are, super young, super capable, evidently, and you've already got two and you're working on a third business. Can you tell me what you think the difference has been for you to help you keep moving forward? The difference has been, honestly, a lot of networking. There's a lot of jewelry artists in Hawaii, such a big popular market. And so it is hard to compete. But I think because I kept striving to meet people, kept striving to make these connections, that's something that allowed me to succeed in such an overpopulated market. I think another thing is that I just kept going. So I mean, a lot of people have told me, oh, it's just jewelry. And I actually doubted myself a few times, too. And when I was, so for example, I went on a national program, the Woman's Business Enterprise National Council, the Student Entrepreneur Program in Vegas. And we were doing a pitch competition. And instead of pitching my jewelry business, I was doing a new tech idea, because I didn't think jewelry was big enough. But the same time that was going on, there was a big national business conference fair and where senior executives from the Fortune 500 business attended. And I had a jewelry booth there, and I ended up selling out in one day. And then the next day I went on and I pitched this tech app when I should have been pitching my jewelry business, because it's a fully operational and fully scalable business. And I didn't realize that until then. So I think not doubting my small business helped a lot, and then it helps to go into this bigger thing, which is rose gold. Yeah. That's incredible. And I know, I'm a business owner myself, and I know all of our viewers are all either, maybe they've got a small hobby business, maybe they're putting in hours at work, but all of us, we feel that doubt that what we're doing, is it really worth it? Is it worth putting out there? Yeah. So was there anything you had to do to help get over that doubt, to start believing in yourself? I guess it was that event in Vegas where I truly realized the potential of my business, and I realized that it was a product that people wanted. And there wasn't really anything that I specifically did, but I just kept going. And I just didn't stop. Yeah. And that's powerful. So often we think, oh, this is too hard. I'm going to stop, and we've left money on the table, we've left potential on the table. Definitely. So I'm curious, are you still the only person making your jewelry? I have a little factory sometimes at home. I have come from a family of 12. So sometimes I have my sisters and my brothers helping me in reform, like a full factory line, so in polishing, someone hammering. Right now, I am the only one making it, but I'm working to hire employees, hire interns. And since I just got a new office space, then that'll be much easier than just doing it all my own. That is impressive. Yeah. So we're going to switch gears a little bit. I'm curious, can you tell me more about why you decided on this triple major, and how do you see that impacting your future business? I decided to do triple major, so I'm not in the Shedler College of Business yet, since I'm only a sophomore. I'll be going into junior year. But I decided to triple major because those are the three parts of business that I'm super interested in. I was originally going to do just marketing and then entrepreneurship, where my businesses came in. So when I first got into college, I didn't think that I was going to continue on with my business. I didn't know what I was going to do. I was originally a psychology major. And then my business started to blow up, so I decided that I might as well do something with that, so marketing. And then I added on entrepreneurship and then finance. I feel like it's just a really good topic to know about, especially for a business.  I'm good at selling, but I'm not good at making all the formulas and the Excel sheets, but I want to learn. And I think that it's all tied in together, and it'll all help me improve my business. And it's a good, how do I say it? It's something good to have in my pocket just in case I don't pursue my businesses, but the three majors. That makes sense. And already, we've got another tip for you viewers. One, don't give up. But two, just like you're doing with finance, how you don't feel like it's a strength of yours, but you're going to figure it out anyway. I think that's great business advice. If you see something where you have a weakness in your company or in your potential, go out and try and fix it. Find out what resources you have that you can use to actually make this work. Exactly. And college is a great resource. I'm also curious about how you see your business changing in the future. So you started with one jewelry company. You've added a luxury jewelry company on top of that. You're opening up a marketing company. Where else do you see your businesses going in the future? Well, Kalohe right now is mostly local. I do have a few clients internationally. I have some clients in Australia, New Zealand, France. But Kalohe, I didn't think Kalohe would be able to scale because it's such a popular thing in Hawaii right now. And so I started Rosego because Rosego is easier to scale since it's affordable luxury jewelry. And it's fine, solid 14-carat gold diamonds and gemstones. And so that one I want to expand. And whenever people ask me after college if I wanted to continue on with Kalohe, it was never really an option because I didn't think that I could scale that business. So I started Rosego Gems. And this one I think I could scale. So right now we just launched a waiver website up. We're working with influencers. And we're doing a super strong focus on being a digitally native brand. I'm not sure if you've heard of the brand movement watches. No, I haven't. So we're employing the same kind of digitally native focus that they are. So they are affordable luxury watches. And by year three, they were able to hit $60 million because of their strong Instagram campaign. Wow. And Instagram has proven to be a super big driver in business. For Kalohe, four rolls gold. And for any business, especially today in such a technology driven generation. And that makes sense because your product is so visual. People see it. They see models wearing it. They think, oh, I love that. Oh, I would love to wear that. So now I'm curious, are you wearing your jewelry today? I am. I can't wear anything besides my pieces. I bet not.  So do you want to tell me about any of your pieces? Sure. So this one. So everything is made of 14 karat solid gold fill. And then this is a pistachio pearl. And then what am I wearing? Which earrings? And then so all of my pieces, they're just designed in my studio right now. My sisters help out a lot with the designs. So everything is from Kalohe. There are a few rings that are from Rolls Gold. So these are the solid 14 karat pieces with diamonds over there. And then I work a lot with natural stones too. So this one is ruby. This is citron. And these are part of my new collection that I'm actually have a pop up with Lululemon Waikiki on Wednesday. So this is all part of the new collection that nobody's seen before. Oh, exciting. Yeah, so that'll be on sale on Wednesday at Lululemon. That is awesome.  Definitely, that's why I joined. I think the best thing that someone could do is surround them with the right people. And within the club, I joined because I was going to all these networking events and I was being inspired and motivated by these speakers. There's a lot of other small business owners also that are also students. And so we kind of work together and help each other out. We motivate each other, inspire each other. We help each other find ways to sell pop ups, events. And I think it's really great when different artists can come together with their different passions and they're given the opportunity to do something about what they love to do and just create a big project together. So do you create a lot of projects with these other entrepreneurs? Yeah, definitely. So I started a new program called Third Thursday, where every third Thursday of the month we sell on campus, right in the middle of campus. I usually rally about five different student run businesses and it's our kind of way of fundraising too because all the other clubs, they do like car washes or food fundraisers, but we're the entrepreneurs' clubs. So I figured it's a good way for us to be entrepreneurial and still fundraise money for our club. That is fascinating. So is this open for anyone to join? What are some of the particulars for people wanting to get involved? You have to be a student to be in the club, but we do a lot of networking events. We bring in a lot of speakers, so we're actually bringing in Pam for one of our events next semester. We do a lot of workshops. We just did a workshop on how to sell on Amazon. We do different company tours. So we did a company tour of the ABC Store headquarters to figure out how to actually get your product into the ABC Store. So those are the basics, the workshops, company tours, and speaking events. Awesome. So everyone can get involved. Everyone can get involved. That is really cool. Now viewers, we are going to take a very short break. It's gonna be just a commercial break, but when you come back, you'll be watching Out of the Comfort Zone on Think Tech on Spectrum LC 16 with Arby Kelly and Rose Wong. See you in a minute. Hello, everyone. I'm DeSoto Brown, the co-host of Human Humane Architecture, which is seen on Think Tech, Hawaii every other Tuesday at 4 p.m. And with the show's host, Martin Desbang, we discuss architecture here in the Hawaiian Islands and how it not only affects the way we live, but other aspects of our life, not only here in Hawaii, but internationally as well. So join us for Human Humane Architecture every other Tuesday at 4 p.m. on Think Tech, Hawaii. Hi, my name is Bill Sharpe, host of Asian Review, coming to you from Honolulu, Hawaii, right here in the center of the Pacific Ocean. Asian Review is the oldest of the 35 or so shows broadcast by Think Tech, Hawaii. We've been in production since 2009. Our goal is to provide you, the viewer, with information, breaking information about events in Asia, Asia being anything from Hawaii west to Pakistan, from the Russian Far East south to Australia and New Zealand. We hope to see you every Monday afternoon at 5 p.m. Welcome back to Out of the Comfort Zone on Think Tech on Spectrum LC 16. I'm your host, Arby Kelly, and I'm here with fabulous entrepreneur and student, Rose Wong. Thank you, Rose.  Definitely. Well, I realized after I said that, how silly that sounded. I drove her away. She left the studio. But anyway, I was wondering if your jewelry, is it just for women, or do you also have something for men? I do carry a line for men's jewelry. I was actually working with Henry Capone and together we created this piece. So I used his guitar strings and then I put pearls on the end of it. And so it's kind of a unisex piece. So his fans can word, his girl fans, his guy fans. I also do a lot of the stretchy bracelets with the natural stones, lava beads, wood beads for men. I do some necklaces for men. So we include everyone. Include everyone. And how do you come up with the inspiration for your jewelry? So my jewelry in creating and editing is the only way I am creative. That's why I'm going into marketing. A lot of it comes from taking ideas from things that I like in life, like beaches or surfing, and then kind of putting that into jewelry. A lot of it is just when I sit and just come up with ideas. And a lot of it is from my friends too. And they're like, oh, they draw out a design and they ask me to make it. A lot of it is from my sisters coming up with specific unique designs. So a lot of it does actually come from other people. I'm very motivated and inspired by those around me. Do you take requests? I do take personal requests, yes. I can do customs. Awesome. Definitely. And how can people find more about you? Do you have websites? How do people find you? So I'm online. I have two websites, Kolohe Ocean Gems and Rose Gold Gems. The Kolohe website, I have to update it because it was back when I made it when I was 16 years old. And so there's a lot of change that needs to happen, yeah. And then the Rose Gold Gems, you can definitely see the change. It looks a lot better than the Kolohe Gems. I'm also on Instagram, Kolohe Ocean Gems. I do pop-ups at Salt Cacaco every third Saturday. And so my Instagram, website, and Facebook is where you can find me. And if someone in our audience is watching and wondering if they would be a good fit for you and your business, what exactly are you looking for as you're looking for employees in your business? Well, right now with the office space that we got, it's one of the artist's lofts. And so what I want to essentially do is make it into a creative working space. So I have my office and I have my manufacturing factory in the back and then the open room will be open for pop-up events, first Friday events, photo studio, showcase, retail space, whatever we want to create it. So right now I'm looking for marketing interns. I'm looking for two people to teach how to actually make the jewelry and so they can come into my office and create the jewelry there. And so what I would look for in an individual is creativity, definitely. Ability to be open to learning and to creating pieces. You can't be scared of using a torch. I get burned a lot. Yeah. Just someone that's creative and open to learning. New things, yeah. If you had the choice between, say there's two different people. One of them is very open and very creative, but maybe not as consistent. And the other person is very open, not so creative, but very consistent. Which of the two would be a better fit for you? That's a good question. I would say the creative, but not consistent, yeah. Yeah, cause you can teach consistency. You can't really teach creativity, yeah. All right, so viewers, if you're watching and you have always been super creative, but you've been struggling with it and maybe you're looking for something where you can build your creativity, create a business and learn how to have a successful business, go check out Will's. She gave you her website. Will you give those again? Just so we can hear it again. Yeah, so it's www.KaloheOceanJumps. I know it's hard to remember and it's really long, so that I came up with the name when I was 16 years old. I wasn't thinking about the three-syllable business rule. And no one's gonna remember Kalohe, especially people from the mainland. And half the people don't even know what it means. It means a little rascal, by the way, yeah. Oh, good, thank you for telling me, I was wondering. But it seems like you've been successful in spite of any of the rules you've broken along the way. I would say I've done a pretty good job, yeah. I would say too.  This is very, very impressive. Thank you. Where do you see yourself, not just your business, but yourself going in five years? Oh, that's a tough question. I didn't think that I would be a business major just a year ago. I thought I was gonna be a psychology major. I definitely still wanna be running my businesses, so my original major was gonna be psychology and then my original major was gonna be marketing. And so I'm either gonna still be running my jewelry businesses or doing a marketing job because with marketing, I still get that creativity of creating things digitally instead of jewelry pieces. And I really like having that creative mind. I'm good at it, I'm good at Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and I could spend hours on my laptop editing a logo for someone. So it seems like that's, you're always gonna have that creative outbent and it's always gonna be profitable. Just the shape it takes might change in the future. Yeah, definitely. And I think that's typical. Even people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, a lot of us, we don't know where we'll be five years from now, 10 years from now, sometimes even a week from now. So I think you're definitely on the right track here. However things change as they move forward. Can I ask how old you are? So I just turned 20, March 20th. That is so exciting, happy birthday. Thank you. All right, I've got, this has suddenly brought a lot home to me. I'm turning 24 this year. And I'm like, okay, okay. Maybe that I could do a little bit more in my business. Maybe I could do a little bit more to educate myself. Yeah. And I think we do, we have all the time in our life. So can I ask what really made you decide to make your business successful? I mean, all of us have thought about starting businesses. And I remember when I was 14, I started selling, I had my own chickens and I had this little free range farm. But when it didn't go well, I shut it down and I turned to something else. What were some of the early challenges you faced as you created your business, such as 16? Early challenges, I would say I'm a pretty optimistic person and I never really see my challenges as challenges or as failures. But I guess the biggest obstacle was doing it all my own, maybe. Yeah, I always, whenever I enter business pitch competitions, everyone always asks me, what was your biggest challenge? Oh, so you hear this all the time. Yeah, and I always have a hard time answering because I've been so blessed and so lucky that I haven't had any big challenges or outfalls within my business. A lot of it has been successes. Were there any people who helped teach you along the way or helped guide you? Definitely, so my first manager at Magnolia, she helped me get it. Obviously I didn't know what licensing I needed to get, so she helped me do the GE license, the LLC license. I later partnered with Aloha Pearls, which is one of the biggest pro distributors in Hawaii. And he taught me about where to get my wholesale material. He taught me about different clients, different outlets. I got to participate in the Made in Hawaii show because of his company. So I definitely had mentors that have helped the process of my successes and have helped minimize the outfall, the downfalls, yeah. Those mentors make all the difference. Definitely. Can I ask, where will people see you in the next few months? What events do you have coming up? Yeah, so like I said, we have the one at Lululemon on tomorrow actually, five to nine in Waikiki. And then we also have an event at UH on campus Thursday, which is 10 to two. And then we're also sponsoring Miss Kakaako. And she's holding a spring fest fundraiser on Saturday at South Kakaako. And that one is three to nine. So there's a lot of performances. All the proceeds are going to a local charity of her choosing. So it's gonna be a super fun event. So we have three coming up this week. So you guys can't miss those. Oh, good. Good. Well, I know there are a lot of older people watching this, but we also have a lot of teenagers and kids who are watching this as it goes live or maybe they're watching the replay. But for them, they face a lot of discouragement when they're creating their businesses. They're afraid of bias. They're afraid of failure. They're afraid of bankruptcy. What advice would you give them to help them as they begin creating their businesses? I would say that the first step is just showing up. And once you begin manifesting something inside of your head and thinking of that success and having that motivation, then it becomes coming real.  And I find that a way to help with that is to consistently surround myself with people who are challenging myself, who motivate me and inspire me. And another good way to do that is I love lists and I constantly make lists for my daily lists. I have my weekly list, my monthly list. And I think by creating this list of small things that I have to accomplish during my day, during my week, once you can cultivate, the cultivation of small wins will lead to bigger successes. So start yourself off small. Start yourself off just getting the licensing for it. And that's still on the road to success. That's something small that you can start with. And take advantage of your resources. Being in school, there's a lot of resources. And if I hadn't joined the Entrepreneurs Club at UH, I wouldn't have gone to go to these national programs. I wouldn't have got to met all the people that I met. I wouldn't have met Pam. I wouldn't be here right now. I wouldn't have participated in one business plan competitions. And I would say just take advantage of your resources. They're there. There's people that want to help you. And I think a lot of it, especially in Hawaii, is it's not what you know. It's really about who you know. And having a good network and a good connection will definitely help your business succeed.  But were there any times you had to cut people off or get rid of people or get them out of your life? Yes, definitely. So my first time I tried to hire someone, I had a big jewelry order for one of my bigger jewelry clients. And I hired her and her two friends for, paid them $15 an hour, which I thought was pretty generous. And then at the end of the order, I offered her a position with my company because she was good at it. And so I gave her two options. I said, you can either get paid $15 an hour consistently, but it's not as much as you can be making. Or you can get paid how I get paid for whatever piece you sell. It's less consistent, but it's a lot more money. And so of course she chose that because it's more money. And then after about a month, after about a month, something happened and she demanded to repartner and rebrand an equal ownership. And she demanded 50% of my company and she wanted to be an equal partner and she wanted to change my name and everything. And I was like, I've been working on this for four years. You've been here for a month. And no. Yeah. Basically. That must have been tough. Do you find yourself often having to have those difficult conversations or make those choices? I think some of it was my fault too for not, I guess, setting a contract before. I had to learn that to your backs. Yeah. So I learned the hard way, but it's good that I learned. And so when I'm hiring these employees now, I'm definitely gonna have a contract written up. That's a good lesson. That's one I had to learn too.  But once you know it, it's so valuable. Yeah. It helps a lot. Definitely. But one minute left, is there anything else you would like to say to our viewers? I guess if there was one thing that you should take away is to constantly motivate yourself, constantly inspire yourself. It sounds really cliche, but it's helped my business. And write those goals down. Because once you start to write them down, they begin to manifest into something that's real. And a lot of what limits people is our environment. Especially people in Hawaii, we live in paradise. We begin to become content with our lives. But I think one should always be challenging themselves and looking for the next thing to overcome and to achieve. And if there's one thing that you should remember from this episode is just keep motivating yourself. Thank you, Rose. That's very powerful. And you being here today has actually helped motivate me. So thank you. Awesome. Thank you for having me. My pleasure. Thank you, viewers. And we will see you next Tuesday at 1 PM to watch Out of the Comfort Zone on Thig Tech on Spectrum OSI 16. See you then.