All right, so as Armita mentioned, I am the director of Brain Education TV, Brain Education TV as a YouTube channel where I make content for mental health for youth. So it's, that's where I express some things that I wish that I heard when I was in high school. So I'll give you a little background about me. So you know, who is this person? Why is she here? What is she going to talk about today? So first of all, I am also from California. And when I look back on my high school life, my high school life is probably a lot similar to what you guys are going through now. I come from a very strict Asian household and my parents had very or had very, very high expectations of me. My dad's a doctor and they gave me two options of occupations that I can choose from. A wide variety of two options of things I could be when I grew up. Can you guess what it was? Doctor and lawyer. Those are only two options of what I could be when I grow up. So I had a lot of academic pressure. I went through a lot of stress in high school. And because I'm the first child also, my parents placed a lot of expectations on me. So now what I do is I make content for someone like you guys facing academic pressure, social pressure, the ins and outs of high school and especially exacerbated by the pandemic, you guys at home doing at home learning. And I'm sure that adds another dimension of stress.  So if you guys have any questions, please feel free to raise your hand and unmute and talk or chat, whatever is easy for you. I just want to make this. Helpful for you guys. So when Armita invited me, I thought about doing some exercises with you about and giving you stress reduction tips, but you can find that on my YouTube channel. What I think I want to share with you more about today is something that I believe is more important. So something that I really wish someone told me when I was in high school, something that would have changed the course of my life from that point on, had I thought about it earlier. So before I begin, I want to hear just directly from you guys. What's been on your mind lately? What are you guys going through right now? Anything is okay. You can just share freely. You can even say I have so much stress from sitting on the computer for so long, I have stress from my parents who also tell me I could only be a doctor or a lawyer. Homework, lots of homework. Yes. College apps. Yes. Homework. Going back to school in person, math. Brian, I feel you, I was no good at math. Science and I feel you too. I'm not a math or science person. Physics. Oh, yeah, physics. Trump and Biden debate. So funny. Who's Nathan? Who said that? Nathan, where are you, Nathan? Well, how come I can't see Nathan? Well, over here. I don't know if you can see my screen. Oh, there's a second page. That's. Hi, Nathan. History. OK, so many things that cause you stress physically, emotionally and mentally. So then next, I want to ask you guys a question. Yeah, I love all your chats right now. Try to organize yourself before college. Yeah, college is just right on the corner. It's a big deal. So I want to ask you guys this one question. And I want to think I want you to think about it really sincerely, really deeply. If you could put a number on your self worth, how much would you give yourself? One to one hundred.  You can be honest, 20, 23, 23, Michael Jordan, 23. How much your work to yourself? Yes, how you would grade your own value one to one hundred. If you just think about that 40, OK, 79, 90, 77, 30, 50, 18, 99. Wow. 70. 50. OK, good. Sick. Wait, someone said six hundred fifty five. Brandon, six hundred fifty five. Oh, sixty five. All right. So you all have a number that you would grade yourself. Now I want to ask you why? Why did you pick that number? What is your criteria? Can you type in the chat box? Why? Why did you pick that number based on what standard? How much organs are worth? Andrew, wait, what did Andrew? What was your score? How much are your organs worth? Human organs are worth a lot. I picked it because it's the middle and I don't think I'm too good or too bad. OK, Nathan, your birthday. OK, good vibes from that number, but arbitrary. Due to health. What about others? Why did you pick that number? Whether you picked 15 or 99. How did you pick that number? Any brave souls? Justin says I picked that number based off of what my family and peers think about me. OK, Lily, my level of productivity. I feel like the things holding that number down are when I mess up and make mistakes and also feeling like I don't do enough for other standards to be one hundred. Good. I want Ella. I want a little less than half because of health stress. How I contribute to the world, my impact on others and my lack of impact on the world. But I think I'm a good person and important. So in the middle, I'm one of the most important things to me, but I still have room for growth. Great. All right. So everyone has their own standard of why that picked that number.  When I was in high school, if you were to ask me this question, what would I put? What would I give myself for my score of self worth? I would have probably said around 40. And the criteria of why I pick that number is because of how I believed my parents viewed me, how I believed my teachers viewed me, how I believed my friends viewed me, how I believe that society viewed me. So I was a good student. I was in all APs and, you know, the typical story pushed myself so hard to be in all APs. I was in sports. I was on like the robotics team when I didn't even care about robotics. I just wanted to look good for colleges. You know, I did all of these things that a good Asian person would do in my household, but I didn't really love myself at all. And I was just doing these things because this is what I thought society wanted me to do. So my point is that we are taught from a young age to measure ourselves based on the criteria that others have set for us.   And then schools, it might be how teachers evaluate your behavior, your academic performance. And then your friends, they might base your value on how cool you are based on what they think is cool. But no one, at least when I was in high school, and I think even now still no one teaches us or tells us to set our own standard. How do you measure up based on what's important to you? So then now I want to ask you, what's important to you? What's important to you? What are your values? Have you thought about it? What's important in your life? Can you type in the chat box? Grades, yep, very common. Yeah, in high school, grades seem like the most important thing. Empathy, your sister, your family, helping others, family, grades, food, Iris said food. Food is the most important thing to Iris. Family and friends, relationship with friends, be healthy and alive, family, being able to find solutions, helping those in need, happiness and kindness, also food, and I was a big foodie too. Happiness from others and Harry Potter, OK. Grades, family, friends, family, friends, community, grades. Everyone has their own value. So depending on what's important to you, how do you measure up based on your own standard?  Do you have your own criteria? And those of you who want to succeed, want to go to a good school, why? I know someone said grades. Why do you care so much about grades? What does it mean to you? I'm curious. Why do you have the values that you have? Yeah, validation to have a comfortable life. Yes, environment, family, fear of horrible future. Yes. So that I can go somewhere and do something that has a lasting impact. Good. Numbers are easy to fixate on. Keep track, meeting expectations. Feel like I'm productive with good grades. The people around us rely on each other to not feel that what my friends do well in school and I don't. Yes, better school means better job. That's what we're told, right? If you go to a good school, you're guaranteed a good job and a good future. But is that necessarily true? Just because you go to Harvard, you're guaranteed a great future.  Is this true? No, right? So let me give you some examples of successful people who were not good students at all. Did you know that Martin Luther King, Jr., would you say Martin Luther King, Jr. was a great person? Would you say Martin Luther King, Jr. made history was historically significant? Yes, I don't think there's a single person who would say Martin Luther King didn't make history was not a good person like this. He's a very influential figure in American history, right? But did you know that in high school, he was an average student with mostly B's and C's, mostly B's and C's in high school. Steve Jobs, is Steve Jobs a successful person? According to your standards, is he a successful person? Yes. Yes, right? There is no doubt that he was a successful businessman who also impacted society a lot.  He is very influential, very successful. But did you know that in his own words, he admitted that he was a terrible student and he was actually homeless for a few days and he slept on his friends' floors for about a year. And Al Gore, do you guys know who Al Gore is? Al Gore was the vice president for Bill Clinton. You know who Bill Clinton is, right? The former president. So Al Gore is a former vice president. Vice president, would you say, is a very successful job or not? Being vice president. If you became vice president, would you say that you live successfully? Yeah, vice president, based on society's standard, being vice president is a very prestigious job. And I think anyone can say that if you make it to the vice presidency, you have achieved some level of success. But did you know that Al Gore, he graduated college at the bottom of his class with mostly C's and D's? And Steven Spielberg, is he a very famous filmmaker? Would you say he's a successful filmmaker? Yeah, he made very great movies and won a lot of awards and had a lot of recognition in his life. But did you know that he failed out of film school? He got rejected from film school because they said that he sucked. Did you know all these things? Albert Einstein was a high school dropout and Benjamin Franklin only has a second grade education. So my point in saying all this is what does this mean? How does this compare to what you believe success is? When I look at these numbers, when I look at these facts, I make the conclusion that success, fame and the thing that we work so hard for lies somewhere else. So where could that be? So what these people had that other good students, better students than them, didn't have that determined their success is this. It's the way that they talk to themselves. So let me explain. So each one of these people were told that they amount to nothing, that they were failures, weirdos, rejects, losers, and they were all bullied at some point in their lives. So this means that they weren't popular. Their teachers didn't particularly care about them. Their parents weren't particularly proud of them. And society didn't welcome them with open arms. They did not have status. And yet, despite this, what they did have was an unwavering determination and a voice inside of them that believed in themselves. A voice that believed in what they were doing, a voice that believed in their self-worth, of what they could be, of what they contribute to the world. Does that make sense? So they didn't compare themselves to others. They didn't compare themselves to the standard that society placed on them. Instead, they created their own standard and moved from there with a clear knowing of what they want. So I want to ask you, my next question is, what is it that you want in life? What is it that you really, really want? What place do you want to have in society? How do you want the world to remember you? Can you guys share in the chat? What is it that you really want? Think about it. Maybe your automatic response might be, I want money or I want success, but do you want that more than happiness? So, you know, things like this. So really think about what is it that I really want to live comfortable and happy? Someone said enough sleep. I want my children to look up to me, yes, to make my parents proud of me, loving family, positive impact, leave a positive impact on the world, no matter how successful or poor I am. Positive impact on others. Positive impact, yes, stability, happy, family, comfortable, achieve my goal, spread kindness and good vibes with a Z to everyone. I want to be happy to be remembered as a good person who lived a good life and good people. Remembered as a good person, happy, comfortable. I want to be able to provide everything my family could want. Great. These are all great answers. Most people, I would say, in some way or form, whatever this means to you, I would say most people, when I ask this question, what do you really want? When they look inside, they really want happiness. That happiness has different meanings for everybody, but everyone at the root, they really want happiness. Yes. And is happiness achieved outside or achieved inside? Inside. Good. So, I believe that true education, the thing that they really should teach in school and the thing that real leaders, such as you guys, really have to understand is that true education lies in teaching our youth how to talk to themselves. So, how to talk to themselves with kindness, understanding, compassion, encouragement and confidence. When a leader like you guys knows how to do this, then they know how to talk to everyone with those kinds of energies. When we have more and more people who can communicate from this place of kindness and understanding, don't you think, if you can imagine, don't you think that the world has no other choice but to become a brighter place with a more hopeful future? What do you guys think? Yes. Yes. Yes. Hey, but guess what? You are the hope. You are the future. You are our leaders. So, you need to start from here. You need to learn how to talk to yourself with kindness, understanding, compassion and encouragement. When I look back on my time in high school and I'm really honest with myself, then I can say that I was not nice to myself in high school. I pushed myself so hard. I wasn't satisfied with anything that I did. I always thought I was lacking. I wasn't good enough. Why? Because there was always someone smarter than me. There was always someone with better grades than me. There was always someone who was prettier than me. There was always someone who was better at sports than me. So when I compare myself to other people, I always felt like I wasn't good enough. So that voice inside my head, everyone has that voice inside of their head that criticizes them all the time. Do you guys have that voice too? The voice that tells you you're not smart enough. The voice that tells you you're not pretty enough or handsome enough or nobody will like you. That voice inside of your head, what does that voice primarily say to you? Is that voice nice to you or is that voice primarily mean to you? Can you type in the chat box? Most of the time. Of course there's good days and bad days, but most of the time is that voice really nice to you or is that voice saying, hey, you suck. You should do better. You need to get good grades. You need to go to better school. You need to do this, this, this, this. Everyone said mean. I see doubtful, a mix. Of course there's good days and bad days. I'm not saying everyone always has mean thoughts to themselves, but for the most part, especially in high school, when you're trying to figure yourself out, when you're trying to find a place in society, when you're trying to live up to so many people's expectations, yourself included, that voice inside of your head is not the nicest person. So what sets good students and great people who impact society and influence society, as you guys shared, a lot of you guys want to make an impact on the world. A lot of you in your own way want to achieve your greatest potential on this earth in this lifetime. The difference between just a normal person and a great person is that a great person has a very good relationship with themselves. That no matter if the world tells them they're a failure, they're a reject, they have an unwavering mind of this is what I want and I will not listen to any other standard besides what I create for my own. So in other words, that inner voice inside of you make that voice your best friend. Does that sound easy or difficult? Hard, difficult. Yeah, it's very hard because that voice is always judging you. Always criticizing. But let's think of it from a different perspective. So trying to change my inner voice is very difficult. But let's say that this inner voice popped out of your head and now is a person. So let's say that there's a person that you want to make them your best friend. You think they're so cool and you want to be best friends with this person.   All these negative things. How would you try to get this person to like you? Any ideas? Them food. Jessica said give them food. Okay, yes. Give them food. Be nice. So what does giving them food, giving them brownies mean? There's something behind that action that touches that person, not the food itself, right? But the intention behind giving them the food. What is that intention? Be nice to them. Pizookies. Become a source of happiness, being kind. Yes. If someone only sees the bad things in you, the way to change their mind is you have to show them your good side. Does that make sense?  That's why you give them pizookies. You give them brownies. You give them food because you want to say, I'm not as awful as you think. I'm actually a pretty good person. If you get to know me, I'm actually a pretty good person. Does that make sense to you? So you have to show them a different side of you than what they believe. So just like this, you have to show a different side of yourself than what you believe. If you believe that you have all these negative things about you, you have to show yourself all the positive things about you that quiet that negative voice.  Yeah, so I'm going to just read some more of your chat comments. So helping them, putting yourself out there first, yes. Imagine that the way you talk to yourself is the way someone else is talking to you, talking to your friend and getting mad. Okay. So take out this piece of paper and what you're going to do now is do you have a desire to change the voice inside of your head that's mean to you? Or do you want to stay saying mean things to yourself? If you guys want to change that mean voice into a kind, compassionate, loving voice, would you type yes in the chat room? Yes. Yeah, everyone wants to feel good, feel happy and be nice to themselves, right? So let's practice that. So on this piece of paper, I want you to write 10 genuine compliments that you have for yourself when you see yourself objectively. So for example, please say it like this. I am blank.  For example, I am compassionate. I am empathetic. It could be anything that applies to you, but coming from a genuine place, a sincere compliment, not something sarcastic like, I am nice, I guess, sometimes. Not like this. Something very genuine that you can say to yourself from your heart. So 10 things. And please write it, I am blank. I am blank. I am blank. For some people, this will be very easy. For some people, this can be the hardest thing you've ever done. Whether this is easy or hard, that also gives you some insight and clue as to how well you can compliment yourself and how not well you compliment yourself. Me in high school, I could not compliment myself at all. Because all I heard from my parents was, not good enough, A minus, why didn't you get an A plus? Minus one, why didn't you get minus zero? These kinds of voices became my own voices. So this compliment exercise was very difficult for me. So please watch that in yourself too. Is it easy for me to write 10 good things about myself or is it difficult for me to find 10 good things about myself? Do you guys need more time? Okay, and while we wait, for those of you who are done, just read over, just look over what you wrote, and if you can think of more, please write more. By no means, you don't have to limit yourself to just 10. If the compliments just pour out, then please write as much as you can. But at least 10. And it doesn't have to be all school related either. It doesn't have to be like, I am good at math. You know, not like this. Like as a human being, I am link. Can I see a raise of hands of who's done? So about, I think half. Okay, so we'll just give you one more minute. Do your best for one more minute. And write as many as you can. If you can't get 10, that's okay. Just write as many as you can in this last one minute. Okay, now hold up this piece of paper. And I want you to read each one out loud to yourself. Your mics are all muted. So you can scream it at the top of your lungs if you want to. But say it out loud to yourself with confidence from your heart's voice. So what I mean by that is, is don't be like, I am nice. I am a good listener. So not like this. That's not how you compliment somebody.  Would you feel that compliment? Hey, Ryan, I think you're cool. Does that seem genuine to you? Not really, right? So when you compliment yourself, when you compliment yourself, have confidence and speak from your voice. So you would say, I am a great listener. I am nice. I am funny like this. Loudly to yourself.  So you are in a safe place. Please go down your list and read each one confidently out loud to yourself and feel it in your heart. Okay, start. Iris, are you reading? Lydia, Misha. It's interesting to see too. If I have a hard time reading this out loud, then that's another interesting thing to watch. Oh, I guess I don't really know how to compliment myself. Okay, sorry, Misha. Sorry, Lydia. I didn't realize you finished. Okay, great. So can you share in the chat box, how did it feel to say these compliments about yourself out loud? Please be honest. Can you type how it felt? Scary, yes, weird, optimistic, pretty awkward and forced. I totally understand. Felt like I was hyping myself up, kind of cool, awkward and different. It was very hard to do, but very scary, weird, okay, felt nice, awkward, a little weird because I'm used to thinking only about the negative things. I totally understand. Awkward, odd, weird. My entire being felt relieved and kind of scared at the same time. Yeah. It felt very nice to say because the compliments float into each other as short phrases. Yeah, so this is where we are. This is where society has put us. Nobody tells you how to compliment yourself.  It's an environment of competition. You have to survive. The only way to make it is to trample over other people and I have to be number one and I have to be number two. That kind of environment doesn't foster a great leader. So great leaders like you have to know a different way to evaluate and value yourself. So now I want to ask you guys, do you guys want to help each other have a more positive inner voice? Can you say yes or no? If you want to help each other, say yes. Right now, do you want to help each other right now establish and develop a stronger positive voice? Yes. Good. Then do you guys want to create a space right now where we can share and grow that positive voice without judging each other? With no judgment, nothing, do you want to purely from a sincere place help each other right now grow a positive voice? If you do, could you say yes? Nathan, C. Yes. Yes, and Espanol. Okay, yes. Okay, so you guys promise that we're going to create a judgment-free safe environment for us to practice this? Alright, everyone hold their pinky up. We're going to promise, okay? Promise, judgment-free zone. We're going to help each other. Alright, great. So now that we all promised each other, can I have a few volunteers to read their list? We all promise we won't judge each other. You're in a safe place. People who volunteer, you will really, really break out of your box and really break that negative voice you have inside. This is a safe place, a great opportunity if you want to break out and you're really determined to become more positive and more healthy. This is your chance, volunteers. Brandon, you. Okay, so there's a way we're going to do this, okay? So Brandon is going to read each one of his compliments. And after each one, we are all going to if you can all unmute yourselves, we're going to all unmute, thumbs up and say, yes, you are. So for example, if Brandon says I am smart, then we're all going to say support him and say yes, you are. Does that make sense? Yeah. So please say it in a very encouraging voice if you say yes, you are. Is Brandon going to really feel it? Is that going to help him? No, right? So we all promise to help and support each other. So please say, yes, you are. After every sentence he says. Okay. All right, Brandon, your brave soul. I commend you for being the first one to volunteer. So please unmute your mic and say one at a time what you wrote. All right. I'm willing to put myself out there and be outgoing. Yes, you are. I am low key a beast at soccer. Yes, you are. Okay, so Brandon, say it with more confidence. You're still saying, I'm kind of low key good at soccer. Okay. I am a hard worker. Yes, you are. I am appreciative of the world that I live in. Yes, you are. I am willing to make mistakes and learn from them to be better in the future. Yes, you are. I'm outspoken about my opinions. Yes, you are. Adventurous person. Yes, you are. We're on my campus and in my community. Yes, you are. And then I am a down to earth kind of guy. Yes. Can you turn on your mic and share how that felt? It's pretty good being able to just yell it out loud and then you're really coarse. And it boosts your self-confidence, right? For sure. Makes you feel good about yourself. Yeah. You heard it from Brandon himself. Next, volunteer. Anyone? If no one volunteers, I'm going to randomly call somebody. That's even more scary, huh? Brave soul who wants to break out of their box and grow this positive voice. No judgment. Jessica said in the chat that she's done. Oh, I see. Sorry, I was too focused on the screen watching everyone avoid my eye contact. Okay, Jessica, turn on your mic and everybody, please unmute yourselves after she speaks and says Yes, you are. Can you hear me? Yes, Jessica, with confidence. Okay. I'm hardworking. Yes, you are. Passionate. Yes, you are. Self-control. Yes, you are. Be long lashes. Yes, you are. I am smart. Yes, you are. Yes, you are. I am accountable. Yes, you are. Yes, you are. Yes, you are. Yes, you are. I have a very adaptable college. Yes, you do. Yes, you do. And I am responsible. Yes, you are. Jessica, can you share how that feels to my face? What did you say? Sorry, you broke up a little bit. I have a big smile on my face now. Yeah. Yeah, see, it really changes you when you learn how to compliment yourself and find the good qualities and then declare it out to the world. No matter what anybody says, what you believe about yourself is the most important. Even if society says you're so smart, you're a good student. If I feel like a bad student, if I don't feel good enough, then am I going to really believe what other people tell me? It's all what you believe about yourself. So Jessica, did that feel good or no? That felt great. Yeah. And you have a big smile on your face now. Great. One more hand for Jessica. All right. No volunteer. One more volunteer. If you need encouragement, yes, you can do this. Brandon and Jessica now have a big smile. Who wants to have a big smile on their face? No volunteers. What if I make Jessica pick somebody? Anyone? Anyone? Okay, then. Jessica, do you want to pick somebody or do you want me to pick somebody? Name and mind. What? Name and mind. Jessica's going to pick somebody. She's going to pick somebody. Okay, who is it, Jessica? Claire Chen. Claire. You're getting me upset. You know the drill. One sentence and we're going to all say yes, you are really loudly to support Claire. Okay. All right, Claire, take it away. Okay, I am a kind person. Yes, you are. All right. Okay, I am self-improving and I don't let failure hold me back for too long. Yes, you do. Sorry. I am a good writer. Yes, you are. All right. I am smart and I learn fast. Yes, you are. And now I'm good at cooking and baking. Yes, you are. Yes, you are. I am well-rounded. Yes, you are. I'm generous and I always try to help people. Yes, you are. I am self-aware and I try not to be a mean person. Yes, you are. Passion and everything that I do. Yes, you are. Yeah, I think that was it. Can you share how that felt? I feel good. I was a little nervous, but I think it was worth it. Yeah, it feels great and you're smiling. Smiling is the best stress medicine. I can sit here and teach you all these techniques and how the brain works and all that, but at the end of the day if you don't smile it's going to give you stress. What do you think? Brandon, Jessica and Claire, did just smiling blow away all the stress from the day? Yeah, it really changed your energy, right? Yes. So I want to say this. Did you know that the sun that gives life to everything on earth and in our solar system even the sun has black spots? Did you know this? Even the sun that gives life to everything on our earth has black spots. What does that mean? Even something that does such good work like the sun giving life to everything has dark areas. That means just like the sun we all have good points and bad points. But it's my choice do I choose to focus more on the good side of me or do I choose to focus more on the bad side of me? And that choice determines what my inner voice says to me and what that inner voice says to you will determine the quality of your life and will determine the happiness that you all said that you wanted or the sadness and stress that maybe some of you guys are feeling now. So one last thing I want to leave you guys with is you can only do your best at any given moment. So always do your best but your best and someone else's best are not the same. A tiger doing its best is different from a bird doing its best. So if I were to ask you what's a better animal tiger or bird? What would you say? They're both equally important. Yes, who said that? Bird, someone says bird. Who said they're both equally important?  Okay. Sorry, I didn't mean that. I didn't know I was supposed to type in chat, sorry. Oh, I see. No, it's okay. So some might say bird, some might say tiger but can you really say a bird is less any less than a tiger? A bird has its own ability too. A tiger is very strong and majestic on the earth but a bird can fly. A tiger can't fly but a bird can fly. So like this, different animals have different purpose. So like that, every single person they're all equally valuable.  There's many many different types of animals, many many different types of people but there is absolutely nothing that says a tiger is any better than a bird. So in this way, everybody is valuable in their own way. So always do your best based on your own standard. Your own value.  And you guys already know this in your head but I hope that you can all find it in your heart too. Yes. You all know this in your head but I hope you can find it in your heart too. And it starts with learning how to see the positive good sides of myself and changing your inner dialogue negative to complement yourself every single day. Find five things to complement yourself every single day.  I am blah. I am blah. Yes.  This was what I wish someone told me and maybe if I had heard about this concept earlier of finding my own standard and changing my inner dialogue I think my high school years could have been much smoother much gentler and even my college years too much smoother, much more happy much more kind to myself. That is all. Thank you all so much.


4 Tips to Improve Memory and Studying Habits As students get closer to final season, it becomes important that all the information learned in hours spent doing homework and 8.30 a.m. lectures is retrievable on exam day. But the problem is, most of us have difficulty storing and retrieving the information from our long-term memory. So how do you solve this problem? How can you improve your studying habits? Well, here are some tips to strengthen your memory and improve your studying habits. 1. After reading a paragraph, summarize the information you received from it and ask a question. Reading about a topic you may know nothing about is difficult. So in order to retain the information, after reading a paragraph, repeat it out loud or write a summary of the information you received. This will let you know if what you read was processed in your head. To take it a step further, a useful tip would be to ask a question about the paragraph. Asking a question will help you really dig into the topic and become interested in what you're learning. If you enjoy what you are learning, it will become easier to remember it. 2. Make associations with new information and with what you already know. The more connections you make with information, the better you will remember it. So while studying, try making mental connections. Also, Pneumonix has been proven to help you store and retrieve information. 3. Chunk and organize the information. The reason why we are able to remember phone numbers is because it's divided into three digits by dashes. If you look at the information you're studying the same way, you'll be able to remember it too. Take your readings and notes and divide them into chunks or small amounts of information and memorize it. Organization goes along with chunking information. Our minds like organize information. That's why outlines are typically recommended for writing and studying. Organize the information into groups or subtopics. Your mind will most likely remember the information if it's placed in an organized pattern. And lastly, but definitely not least, seriously, this is the most important one. 4. Don't study last minute. To cram studying the night before the test is not the best idea. I offer this advice from personal experience. You need to spend some time with the material and test yourself on the knowledge. You cannot expect to remember heaps of information the night before the exam. This goes along with chunking in regards that information is better retained in smaller groups. So you should spend a few days before the exam studying the groups of information. Bottom line, you should follow the above steps a few days before your exam. How do you study for an exam? Let us know in the comments below. If you liked this video, check out our other social media for more content. And don't forget to subscribe. Thanks for watching and good luck with exams.


Thank you. Thanks so much for that introduction. My name's Katie and this is my business partner, Victoria Cole. Hi guys. Awesome. So we are coming here today from North Carolina. A little bit of background. He just introduced our professional background, but in addition to graphic design, I'm also an interactive theater for social change actor.  So what that means is you guys are getting a warm up this morning. I bet you were expecting that. So everybody stand up and if you're not standing next to each other, just move forward for this first bit. It'll take like two minutes. I know everyone's so excited. It's 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning. So we're playing a game called Gotcha. What you're going to do is you're going to take your right hand and make a thumb and put your thumb upside down and scoot next to a person if you're not by a partner and neighbor. You make a palm with your left hand and you're going to stick your thumb into your neighbor's palm. So this game is called Gotcha. I'm going to count to three and on three you are going to try to grab your partner's thumb and make sure your thumb doesn't get got. All right. One, two. I didn't even follow my own rules there. Sorry. I'm killing it this round. We're going to switch it up. Make your left thumb a thumb and flip it upside down and make your right hand a palm and we're going to go the other way. This time I'm going to be a little bit of a sporadic counter. So just get on your toes. One, two, two. Oh no. I know. Everyone else is feeling that right now. Okay, three. Warm up the brains this morning. Warm up the brains, right? Again, getting moving, getting a little bit more engaged. It is 9am. So sorry to put you through that. So as our introducer was talking about, Carbureaucreative's mission is to empower women and minority on businesses to succeed with impactful design. Carbureaucreative grew out of Victorianized frustration with our options in the traditional workforce. And we're two of many women who have left their traditional workforce in previous years. So since 1997, women-owned businesses have grown by 114%. Well, that number is even larger for women of color who own businesses. Businesses owned by women of color have grown by 467%. And this is compared to the national growth rate of 44%. On the surface, that seems incredible. More and more women are starting their own businesses. But when you dig a little bit deeper, you find that a lot of these women are necessity entrepreneurs.  So they're either unemployed or underemployed or face certain challenges in their workplace that make working a typical job impossible. So as women, I'm sure we've all faced our challenges in the workplace. And there's some that are pretty well known and we'll kind of dive deep into a lot of them. So why are women leaving the traditional workforce? There's higher unemployment among women. There's family responsibilities that make working a traditional nine to five really challenging, especially when PTO is limited. There's the lack of flexibility when you have a family, when you need those extra hours, or if you have health concerns or other mitigating circumstances that make it really challenging. And then when you do find a job, women make 76% of their male counterparts. So it's incredibly frustrating knowing that the work you're doing isn't being valued as those around you. There's the Boys Club. Most industries are still typically dominated by men. And when you have men dominated industries and there's one or two female on a team or even a department, that can breed in culture of sexual harassment and discrimination. And that's why I left the workforce myself. Being in two previous jobs with sexual harassment, I grew incredibly frustrated and started looking for other options. There's a lack of visibility among female leadership and female bosses, female managers. So it's hard to envision yourself growing within a company or seeing your growth potential where you don't have an example to look up to. So we'll dive a little bit into that. It's what I call the leadership conundrum. On average, women are 18% less likely than men to be promoted into manager positions. And this is from entry-level positions. So starting from the ground up, you don't have the same possibilities and growth potential as your male counterpart. And it gets worse as you continue growing within a company. Only one in five C-level executives are women. But like, I think the population is half women, right? Right. So that seems like a really skewed statistic. It is. So when you're in a job and when you're seeing these in your leadership position, when your bosses are men and not women, you can grow discourage. And so a lot of this comes down to the idea of a personality bias where women who are assertive and decisive are seen as aggressive and bossy. And women who don't assert themselves are seen as weak or lacking leadership skills. So it's kind of a lose-lose situation. We're talking a lot about a negative stuff. I promise we'll get to more positive stuff right now. But we want to just kind of discuss the foundation of why women are leaving. And women who are in roles aren't applying for promotions or aren't applying for jobs that they don't feel qualified for. Women don't apply for a job unless they feel they meet 100% of the requirements. Men apply when they meet 60%. But I thought when you apply for a job, you have to have all of the requirements. Right. So did I. Yeah. So for all of my jobs, I've only applied when I met 100% of the requirements. And I've only applied for promotions when I felt I met 100% of the requirements. And women who even go so far as to apply for a promotion or raise are 30% more likely to be seen as intimidating, aggressive and bossy as compared to men. And I can speak to that. Right. I can speak to that personally. In my first job as an office manager, I was working for a startup that was developing a product that helped women, which sounded really, really cool. Going into an industry, going into a job where I felt like I was doing something. But I quickly learned that they weren't insulated from the same problems we're talking about. Within the first few months, I started working directly under the VP of product development, working with design and ideation and starting to really build and brand this product. So when she had to leave abruptly, I took over all of her responsibilities and projects. So for a few months, I was doing both of my jobs simultaneously. I was doing all of my office management jobs and I was doing all of her projects as a product of the VP of product development. And I finally decided to ask for a raise. I sat down with our CEO and I wasn't asking to be paid as much as the VP of product development. I wasn't asking to be making twice as much as I'm making. But since I was an office manager and I was doing payroll, I did know I was making less than anybody else in the company. So I didn't think I was going out of left field to ask to be paid appropriately. So I sat down with them. I laid out what value I brought to the company, the responsibility, the jobs I was doing and his response. Well, we didn't hire you for that position. We wouldn't have hired you for that position. You didn't have the requirements. Why should we pay you for something that we would not have hired you for? But you were already doing the job, right? Yes, for months. I had been doing the job for months. So I had that reaction too. I was in that meeting and I didn't say anything. I was like, all right. So I left that meeting feeling undervalued and really questioning my role in the company and whether or not I would continue to grow in that company. If I was doing a job and I wasn't being recognized, how else was I going to be promoted within the company? So I sent an email pretty much clarifying everything we talked in that conversation and I did get a raise that next week. But it shouldn't have to take me essentially threatening to quit the job for our bosses to recognize our worth. So another factor in women-owned businesses or a lot of women leaving to start their own businesses has to do with family. Women with a partner in children are 5.5 times more likely to do all of the housework than their male counterparts, which is an issue in itself. However, women tend to take on more family responsibilities. And this can make a traditional workday a little bit more incompatible, which is incompatible and there becomes a need for flexibility. I am one of the women who left a job because of the inflexibility of a traditional workday. After having my son, I realized that it was really difficult, especially because I found out my son has special needs, finding adequate childcare, finding affordable childcare in order to provide flexibility so that I could keep working day to day. And at the same time, I did leave my full-time job after I returned from maternity leave. But at least you got from maternity leave, right?   Yeah, except for it's never paid. Really? I mean, a lot of women do work for corporations or companies that provide paid time off, which is fantastic. However, a large majority of the United States does not have paid time off for maternity leave, which makes it very difficult in order to return to the job because you're not paid for several months. And with my experience, and depending on the state laws where you live, there are different requirements for companies to provide. But when I returned from my job, or from my maternity leave, I found that when I got back, I had actually been demoted. Wait, so you were demoted? Why? Because my boss said that I probably needed a lesser responsibility from all the things that I had going on. Wait, great. Wait, so because you had a baby, you couldn't do the job that you had been doing before? Right. Yeah, that's what it seems like. What was his reasoning?  Apparently, that's what he thought, but I think it's still in there. Yeah, so just to clarify too, North Carolina is a right to work state. So we don't have a lot of the same workers' regulations as some of the other states, maybe like California. Yeah, so in North Carolina it is illegal in, but only in very specific ways. So with Victoria, she was put in a lesser position and not immediately, her pay wasn't immediately lowered, but a month after she was in this lesser position, they came to her and said, well, you know, corporate doesn't think this position is worth that amount of money anymore. So there are definitely ways that, you know, companies may skirt these laws in order to cause these issues to happen. I was working in the automotive industry, which is an incredibly male-dominated field. I think there were two women in my entire department of probably 60 people.  And we want to clarify, we recognize that not all women who are starting their businesses are doing it out of necessity. There are so many awesome creative entrepreneurs and innovators and fantastic women who have an idea and are rolling with it. We're just speaking from our experience and a lot of the women that we're working with, they're experiences that they have shared with us. So not all women are starting businesses because they have to, but that's a lot of what we're touching on today. So how we empower women with design. When we did design to start our own businesses, we laid that in the foundation of who we were. It's in our mission to empower women-owned businesses. We thought as designers, it was our responsibility to do something with design that we felt passionate about and that we felt would help other women in positions similar to our outs. So the first way we do that is we work with women-owned businesses. And this seemed like a no-brainer. Women-owned businesses are growing twice as fast as any other business. The market is there. The need is there, and advertisers, designers, and other marketing professionals aren't listening to that need. You know, 91% of women don't feel like advertisers understand them at all. And 7 out of 10 will go so far as to say as they feel completely alienated by marketing design. We are letting these women down. We are letting down the consumers who are purchasing items or visiting websites, or letting down the women business owners who are buying the websites and buying the websites to speak to their target audiences. So one of the things we hear time and time again from our clients who have tried to go to designers in the past, have tried to have had websites designed, is that they weren't even given the time of day. They've gone to agencies where the minimum budget was $25,000. As a small business, that's impossible. Or they did find a designer and they didn't listen to their needs. They didn't feel heard. The designers were pushing their own agendas and telling clients what they needed for their business without even understanding what their business was. Or they found a designer and didn't feel like they could trust them. They didn't feel like the designer knew enough about web design, marketing, or any of the skills to really help grow their business in a way that was impactful. So one of the things that we do to empower women's design is that we build effective websites with women in mind. We choose to provide designs that will elevate and promote women-owned businesses, women's issues, and products that are designed for women. We believe it's our responsibility to invest our time into these projects. Effective web design captures the mission, the brand, and the values of the company.   I can't tell you how many times, and I'm sure everyone else has been in the position where you don't go to a business because their website frankly sucked, that you went to the website and you're like, how can I trust a business in my experience with that business if I don't like my experience with their website? Things were clunky. You didn't even have any idea what they were selling, where they were located, where they were. Their brand was non-existent. If they had a brand, it wasn't consistent across all of the pages. There are so many problems. And a lot of those problems come from people like the people we work with who are either building their websites themselves because they couldn't find a designer that they could trust to work with. They're going to sites like Wix and Swear Space that have templates that are incredibly generic, and if they're not a designer, they can't even work within those templates effectively. So we're having a lot of these issues come up, or with designers who aren't listening to them and capturing their brand. One of the biggest things that we do to really empower women is to, we actually listen to them. We reflect what they want and they need in their design. And we take active listening skills in order to really capture what the client is desiring in what they want to promote from themselves. It feels like a no-brainer, like sitting down with a client and hearing them, asking the right questions, being authentic. And I think that's a huge part of it. And we'll go through a couple of ways that we try to do this. But just being there, being present is so important, especially in the beginning process and throughout the entire process, having clear communication and listening to the needs of your clients. So there's a couple of things that we do in order to achieve this. We send design questionnaires before we have a meeting. We try to get our clients to really focus in on what they actually want, what they really want to display to the world. It also helps nail down what their style and design choices and, you know... Having their needs on paper as well before your first meeting. And it helps so when you're first meeting, when you're actually sitting down with your clients, it's more focused on deepening and clarifying instead of defining. So it saves you a ton of time. Also, logistically and contractually, having something in writing for back to you as your scope of services helps throughout the process as well for having that clarity and transparency, which is exceptionally necessary for having a good relationship with your client. Next thing we do is we take copious notes. I always have an iPad or a computer and type furiously throughout. Katie always has a piece of paper and a pencil. Multimedium. Multimedium because you never know when the iPad decides to die. Katie takes a million notes. We also organize those notes in a way that we can refer back to them afterwards. We like to be able to refer back so we don't have to keep asking the women the same questions over and over and over again. Nothing screams we're not listening. We're asking the same question five times. And also after the meetings, by organizing the notes, I know it sounds super annoying, and at first I was super hesitant about doing it because you already wrote the notes. Why should you go back and rewrite them and clarify them? But it saves you time in the long run when you're able to quickly refer back to what you've talked about and pull from that for your design. And when you're taking notes and when you're asking those questions, ask the right questions. Ask questions that are thoughtful and detailed and ask questions that reflect what your client has already told you in their design questionnaire or when you're actively listening. And asking the right questions takes time to figure out what those questions are. What we like to do is when we're done working with a client, really reflect on our experiences and think of those moments where halfway through the design we're like, oh shit, I wish I would have asked that question. Now I have to go back and redo something because I made an assumption and I didn't have all the information. Another part is that you really want to hone in on what your client really wants. By doing this, we use visual representations of styles, designs, concepts, font choices, things like that in order to really nail down what they actually want visually. What we've found is that people have different versions of what words mean. So what something means to me may mean the same thing to you. Take feminine, for example. To some people, feminine is pink flowers and cursive writing. To others, it's obviously something completely different. So we really want to make sure that we're not making assumptions, which is a big part. So don't make assumptions just because we don't really want to put women in the box. We don't want to put any client in a box. We don't want to assume based on gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, or industry even that they have anything. We don't want to make any sort of assumptions. So what we do is we follow what we're doing right now. We're asking the right questions, we're honing in. And we face this with clients in the same industry is where we've really found this to be important. So a lot of clients in one industry will find a designer that specializes in that industry. For example, accountants. So we're currently working with an accountant. And before meeting with us, she said she went to another designer who showed her a few different templates and a few different websites that essentially all look the same and didn't actually capture who that accountant was or what their brand was. It was just accountant was the brand, which is not a brand. That is not saying who you are. You don't know what you're getting other than, okay, they know how to do things with numbers. But that doesn't say anything about your relationship or the experience you'll have with that business. Right. One of our big two clients we did two yoga organizations site builds at the same time. They're both yoga organizations. They're both owned by women. And what the final product ended up being a two completely different things because the mission of the companies were completely different. The target audience was completely different. The style and the preference of the owners of those companies were completely different. So making assumptions creates issues that we don't want to happen. If a client comes to you and wants a feminine website and pink flowery or with Curse of Writing or something like that is what they want, just make sure that you actually get to that conclusion together and that it's not an assumption made without deciding together. And briefly touched on don't make assumptions about what people mean when they say things like modern or vintage or any other design jargon because modern to me can be completely different than modern to my client. So having even within the website questionnaire, we like to have images of this is what a modern website looks like. This is what a vintage website looks like. This is what a tech website looks like. Having examples so they can say I like that. I don't like that. It makes it so much easier for all of us in the long run. We use sliding scale billing. We take slides for payment. Yeah, we take slides for payment. Water slides, guitar slides, home slides, office slides, pretty much any slides that you can think of. Oh, that's awesome. I would love a slide for the office. We don't yet, but if anybody manufactures slides, please let us know because we're totally interested. But we do charge clients larger or smaller amounts based on the size of their company and based on the budgets that they have. We found that when working with our larger clients, we're able to charge a higher hourly fee or our package fee. So then we can work with smaller clients and take lower fees. And it makes sense to work like that. We don't think that design should just be accessible to people with money, especially women who are starting their own businesses that might not have the resources that might be a necessity entrepreneur where this is their only option. I don't want to box them out of having the potential to grow because they can't afford us at that moment. With a lot of these clients, we found when we charge them a lower rate at first and it helps get their website out there and it helps their website grow and their business grows, they have more design needs and they end up coming back to us and hiring us. And as their business grows, our business grows. So we're able to go back and renegotiate our fees and talk about that and be completely transparent with our clients when we start out so they know how our charging works and how our pricing works. And these are the same clients that are more likely to refer you to other people. So we like to think of working with people as building a relationship and not just a one-off design. We're not just building this website and not talking to you again. We want to be there to support you. We want to be there when you need business cards. We want to be there when you need website tweets or website updates. We want to be there with you through your entire journey as a business and it becomes more fun for us too. It's more fun to work with people that you have a relationship with and it's way less stressful because it creates constant streams of income and you're not constantly trying to find new businesses to work with. So one of the things that we do to do that is we try to build a network within our community. So we're from North Carolina and our area is small but big. So one of the things that we do is we try to make a community every day. We become patrons at women-owned businesses. We use their services. We eat their restaurants. We talk to the owners, the workers. You get to know people in your community just by talking to people every day.   So I try to get creative with what I consider networking, which might be different for California. For me it's going to the same yoga class every week and talking to the people next to me and telling people what I do and being proud of what you do, which can be really hard sometimes. You don't want to feel like you're selling or pushing people in a direction but just being excited about your work and even if that doesn't necessarily lead to work in that instance, it can lead to something months down the line. I remember the first time someone, I was out with a few friends and one of the people there were like, oh, Carburetor Creative, we've heard of you. And this was early on in our business so I think my reaction was probably like, really, really? You sure? Like, Carburetor Creative? You're the one that does the women-owned business stuff. We're like, oh, yeah, that's cool. She's like, yeah, you know, I was talking with a friend of a friend who had used your services and was super excited about it and the things that you were doing. So just having conversations with people in your community and keeping up those conversations can lead to a lot of work. And asking for referrals with your clients that you already have. If a client loves your work, don't feel weird about asking them to tell people. Ask them to introduce people to... Ask them to introduce you to others in their communities. Ask them to share reviews on your website. And I can share on your website, on your Facebook, on Google. Utilize the resources you have. Utilize social media. This isn't anything new, but it's something that can be really hard to do, especially when you're the one running a business or you're the one freelancing. So I forgot to ask at the beginning, but how many people here are designers? Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, awesome. So yeah, how many people own a design company? Nice. And how many people are freelancers? Okay, awesome. And how many people work within an organization in their design team? Okay, cool. So we have a little bit of everything, which is super fun. So we try to sprinkle things that can be true across the board. So even if you're working in a company right now and considering design or considering freelance design in the future, considering starting your own business, start laying the foundation, start talking to your community, talking about wanting to do freelance. That's something that I did when I was still working in a full-time job. We've mentioned yoga companies. I'm also a yoga teacher and I've done yoga teacher training. So I have a large yoga community. When I was working in my full-time job, I started talking about doing freelance and started picking up small freelance jobs on the side. So when we started our business, we had two websites that we were hired for within our first month. So really start being proactive. If you're at that point in your career or thinking about that, being proactive and setting the foundation for when that time comes, you can have things lined up. We use design as a tool for social change. So this is my favorite part of our job and this is a huge part of the reason why I've taken the jobs that I've taken in the past is using my skills as a tool for social change. So in addition to working with women-owned businesses, we work with nonprofits and organizations that promote, elevate, and empower women. One of the clients that we're working with right now is Duke University's Duke Women's Center. Has anybody here heard about Duke University? Probably heard about some problems on Duke University's campus as well. Right. So we met the director of Duke University Women's Center through one of our clients. So that was one of the networking that she had talked to their center about us and they called us in and they sat us down and they were like, we want to do a campaign to prevent sexual assault and we need your help. Whoa, yeah. That is a heavy, that's a heavy project and that has so many high needs that go beyond just making a website. That was a perfect situation where listening and working with our client has led to more impactful content and more diving deep. So Duke University Women's Center works to elevate and promote the voices of women on campus and also end patriarchal oppression. They have counseling services that work with survivors of sexual assault and outreach in their community to work on these issues. So the point of this campaign would be a series of posters that brought light to some of the situations that students put themselves in, some of these very targeted specific areas where sexual assault is more prevalent than other areas. And they basically sat us down and were like, we need to call out these places without getting fired. So that's the type of climate that we're in. It's how can we be creative and how can we use our skills to help get their message out there in a respectful way, in a way that actually works. So being able to be part of a project like that is also super empowering for us because it feels like we're a part of this larger conversation and this larger mission that we wouldn't have been able to do by just taking other projects that were outside of this realm and really positioning ourselves in a way where they were seeking out our services for these specific projects. Another great organization that we work with is a United Church of Chapel Hill in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. And it is a church that has been for 25 years dedicated to gender equality, social justice, and the support of LGBTQ plus communities. It's the church that if I had gone to this church as a kid, I probably would have kept going to it. Their foundation is all about lifting up voices of underrepresented, confronting white supremacy, using their resources, using their community to bring light to issues within North Carolina and within the United States. And so they are so... They're great people to work with and what they're doing is great. So being able to work with them, we started on a very small project where the budget for that particular project was an incredibly large. But we had known them as the cool church of Chapel Hill. If there's such a thing as a cool church and it was just like a fun project that we wanted to take on. And since we took that on, we have done multiple campaigns, a full rebranding, social justice work with them and continue to work with them in a large capacity because we are able to be flexible at the beginning. Right. And so we realized that supporting and empowering women is completely multifaceted and it's a huge complex problem. But we just attempted to create our business so that we can actually at least cause a little bit of positive change. And one of the added bonuses, I forgot to say this earlier, when you're working with organizations that are doing powerful things and when you're working with companies that are doing awesome things, you end up getting to work with awesome people. So I don't know if anybody else has had this experience, but part of working in a toxic work environment is you don't get to choose who you get to work with. You don't get to choose who your clients are. If you're working in your own design businesses, you can really be specific with the type of people you work with. And a part of a way to do that is choosing the projects you work on and then you end up meeting awesome people doing awesome things and it doesn't feel like work. It becomes more of like a passion project, which is such a cliche to say. It doesn't feel like work.  Great. Well, so I guess we're going to open up the floor if you guys have any questions, comments, experiences that you'd like to share. We're happy to answer anything. We can also sit here for the next 15 minutes, too. So somebody said that they own their own design agency. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? Sure. Yeah. I started this as part of the graphic artist. In 2009, I come from I.T. and programming development. Oh, thanks. High tech. Society of the industry. It was male nominated. Oh, yeah. Always. Oh, yeah. But I tried to... I have an information of the same kind of thing in the last few months there for a little while. Very cool. I came back down to California. Found a graphic artist. I was like, you guys, part of business. So we did. And it's come to us. This amazing kind of company called Hybrid Creative. Awesome. That's great. It was purchased by a vendor or company. Congratulations. That's amazing. Yeah. The strange thing is I'm no longer a business owner. I don't have a business anymore. But I've sold it to a larger kind of company. Nice. That is ridiculously amazing. We felt the team to... We're 19. And how we started with this being a business partner. It doesn't line for anything else. We've got the thousands. And then we're a team. We're going to probably expand to 30 or so in 2019. That's amazing. Great. Inspiration. Right. And it's hearing stories like this, too. That also just feed us. Yeah. It gets us going. It gets us excited. And I think it's important to share those stories. So that's kind of why we're asking, too. If you're thinking about starting a business, there's people in this room who haven't done it. Connect with those people. It is, as you know, it's pretty hard at the end of the fall. And, you know, it's sort of jumping into the unknown. I'm sorry. Yeah. But, you know... Terrifying, but exhilarating. It is. And perseverance is so important sticking with it. You know, standing up to yourself is hard. Yeah. Yes. It is. And it's hard when you're owning a business as well. You're still having to be in those rooms sometimes. You're still having to ask for the price that you want. Or for ask for the package and not get taken advantage of. And that's something that we don't really speak a lot on. But, you know, when we're working with sliding scale businesses, it's not that we're charging people less because they won't pay us less. Because they're trying to, like, manipulate us. I think we've gotten pretty good at navigating that and recognizing that and having flexibility in that. But that's still a huge learning curve. You know, it's still knowing when someone is not charging you not because they can't afford it, but because they just don't feel like it. It is. Yes. And as like, now I'm, I mean, I mean, I wasn't exactly at the company before but I was the owner and president. But now I'm the exact and actually executive of this new company. Yay. It's people. Wow. And it's national. And I want to, I'm like the only executive. You know what I'm saying. Wow. Exactly. It's a voice club. Yup. And I have to assert myself constantly. You know, they were going to put, like, business partners, what portrait and buyer and I was like, nobody, like, why didn't I get asked to take a portrait? Wow. Wow. Oh. Right. Right. You own it too. Yeah. Right. Right. I have to watch for those things. And I have to, this is part of my food. But you've got to have my back. It's, you have to be, yeah, you have to be supportive men, men that are in this presentation. Right. So I'm like, I obviously, I started myself with art. And I'm like, I was, I honestly didn't think about it for a while. Right. I wanted to write this email. Yes. Right. I know how to boss, how to boss, I didn't think about it at all. So I was like, hi. But I did it. You know. The power of a well-crafted email. Oh yeah. That's super important.  Yes. I'm, I'm a, I'll do this constantly. It's kind of take this my fault. I downplay it. And I'm working myself and my other colleagues all the time. Take it. Right. Right. Stick out for yourself. There's a way of doing it without and then bitching in a bossy. Right. Even though you're still going to be called bitchy and bossy. Yeah. It's a bad thing. Yeah. And having women around you to support you in that is so vital. So going to meetups, going to networking events with women, which I hate networking events, but some of them are really fun, especially if wine's involved. That's interesting. You can find one. We don't mind the ones with wine. Right. It does make it so much better. So if you're throwing a networking event, have wine. Little things like that. So I'm pushing my own agenda here now. But yeah. And then there's, there's moments like that too when you're in the workplace, at least in my experience where I question like, well, is it a big deal that my picture's not up there? Or should I even ask for that? Or am I being needy? Or is that, no, maybe I'm just being overdramatic or maybe I'm just, it's my fault. It's my fault. It's my fault. But then you think about, you know, the men who are on the website or the men who have those things already that have never had to think about should I ask for this? It just, it's theirs. It's an assumption. And that kind of goes back to this when I was discussing how women don't apply to jobs that they don't feel 100% requirement for. Also all the stats that I have, I have research that I can, if you want to give me your email, I can send that to you. I didn't just make up those numbers. I just, I use the same stat. Yeah. I'm like, women, yeah. They don't apply for a job if they get 100%. 100%. And they're hired on proof versus potential. And that is the key. Right. Yeah. I honestly, as a woman, I feel like, you know, I had no idea. I didn't know that you could apply if you didn't meet everything.   And then the boss is like, okay. And I'm like, that's insane. I don't even know how you would do that. And I think it's, it goes back to the, you know, it's just a, it's a cultural shift that we really need to work on, like breeding and raising strong women who know how to ask for what they want. And men who support that. And men who support that. And we're on the same team. Like this is about women and empowering women. But it's not just up to women to do that. It's up to men for, to be in the conversation as well. And for men to stand up when their partner's picture isn't on the website or they see that they're getting more than their counterpart. And in something that I found so funny going back to that 100% thing. When I applied to that promotion at that job, which was building a product for women and their mission was to empower women, which blows my mind that I had these problems there. The CEO who told me that I didn't have the requirements for the job. So I didn't deserve to get paid for the job even though I had been doing the job. His only experience before becoming a CEO was coming up with the idea. And he was 25 years old. So he was, he felt entitled to it. He didn't see, and he didn't see that contradiction in that. He didn't have any experience. He didn't have the requirements for the job he was in. But he felt entitled to that. But when somebody else asked for that he couldn't fathom it. And I wasn't the only female in that company to have that problem with that person. And I found that in multiple industries that men just assume that they're entitled to things.  And obviously if you're in this room I'm sure you are also one of them because I don't think somebody who didn't care about these issues would be sitting in on this presentation. And I don't want to alienate men and be like, y'all just, but I want this to be a conversation and I want everyone to feel inclusive. And that's what's really going to make these changes. Yeah. That's what's the most important to us.  It's really not that hard. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Absolutely. Right. So we're very person centered with who we're working with. And so we kind of approach it in multiple ways by sitting down and listening with the client and really trying to pull out from them what they mean when they're saying things and how they want to experience their website. And also recognizing that this isn't their field, too. So it's this fun balance of like we want to get all their input and really listen to what they're trying to say while also like nudging them in the right direction without being pushy. But like an empathetic approach. So when we work on these websites, we look at the research for user design. We work with a user experience. One of our contractors specializes that. But then we also just try to be like rational about it. What makes the most sense to us? And if we were on the other end of that, if we were that person who is using these services, what would I want to experience? And we also do branding. So another big part of our company is branding. So a lot of the websites that we're building are part of a full like rebranding design package. So we have the unique position where we're able to craft the brands and the website at the same time, which makes it so much easier because you start learning, as you're building the website, you're learning more about the brand and you're learning more about what it says as a company and it kind of helps come together in this really cool, evolved way. But we're also in that unique position where we also do branding. So I think when it comes down to design and when it comes down to user experience, listen to your client, do the research, research the industry and be logical about it. Which I know isn't everybody's field. It's not their specialty. It's not your specialty. Find someone whose specialty it is. And we didn't talk about that enough, but one of the things that we found to be so helpful in starting our own business is hiring other professionals, hiring professional women, realizing that accounting is not our strong suit so we don't want to spend our time accounting. Hire people who know what they're doing for the things that you don't know how to do and recognize that there are things that you don't know how to do. Really like facing the fact. I don't know anything about this.  And then when you're starting... That sounds bad. Learning accounting. I don't want to spend my time learning accounting when I can be learning more design stuff. And I briefly touched about sliding scale but another way that we work with that and especially when you're a small business that is just starting up, consider bartering. Consider trading your services for their services. That's how we got our first accountant who has been a fantastic referral service and has constantly been sending us clients. And also it's tax free that way when you're trading services. It just makes sense. And then it feels more of a relationship building as well and a funnel for more clients. Take on more clients. Absolutely. And that's of course something that we're kind of addressing right now because we actually are starting to hire more people.  And then you have to really focus on the structure of the organization and stuff. So when we started it was just me and Katie and we have all of the relationships with all the clients personally. But what happens is probably one of the next things we're going to start doing is adding account managers and new designers and so then you have to create somehow the communication between all those parties so that empathy and that relationship is still there and hiring people you trust. Hiring people you trust. I mean hiring awesome women who also have the same values. I mean it's just like finding people who have the same values so that you can trust what they do and you know that they're going to treat the client the same way that you would. And that goes when you're working on your business brand and your own business mission and vision having that as your foundation as well. So then when you are building out the processes and the structures for taking on a new client and how you relate with the client you have it systematized so one person can do it the same way with their spin on it than another person. But yeah no it's definitely hard especially because we want to that's the fun part of the job too is having those relationships and being able to let go like we are just now letting go and being like you can start this one. Since it's all you. It's like sending your kids to school I don't have kids but I assume that's what it feels like. Like you got this. So. Yeah. Any other questions or anything? Well thank you so much for coming and we really appreciate it. Thanks.


Dr. Ritter waited patiently and quiet, thinly veiled disgust, as his imperial majesty, Emperor Maximilian the Great, greedily shoveled his meal down his cavernous gullet. Dr. Ritter had secretly harbored the hope that the reckless speed of which King Max, as the staff had taken to calling him eight, and the rarity with which he bothered to use his enormous supernumerary teeth would eventually result in him choking the death, but so far there had been no such luck. Dr. Ritter supposed that if the creature's horrid table manners hadn't gotten him killed yet, then his anatomy was probably sufficiently non-human to render choking a mute concern. Despite his scientific training and years of experience with the Foundation, Dr. Ritter was unable to view his assigned subject objectively. When he sat across from the bloated form of King Max, he saw only a monster from a fairytale. Not a modern Disney-fied fairytale eater, but an old European fairytale where children were eaten alive and not all villains got what they deserved. At roughly thirty-six hundred pounds, Max was over two and a half times the weight of the heaviest human on record, coming closer to the size of an adult male hippopotamus. It took fifty-four thousand calories a day to maintain that size, and the Foundation was more than willing to oblige him. It was considered likely that he knew the locations of other SCP-3288 hives, which the Foundation desperately needed to prevent his kin from eventually overrunning the planet. Torture had proven ineffective, as it often did, so they decided it would be best to try a more hospitable approach, providing a royal guest with any and all reasonable requests. They addressed him, more for the comfort of the staff than its own dignity, in a modified comparison that had originally been meant for a horse. They had let him keep his crown since the carbuncular outgrows of flesh holding it in place meant that it could not be safely removed without surgery. They even gave him a throne of sorts, having placed his mobile body over a hole on the floor that led straight to his personal septic tank. This too was more a necessity than courtesy, as both the volume and vehement of the King's imperial stool was beyond the kin of ordinary plumbing. Food, however, was always King Max's most pertinent demand. In spite of his pretensions and nobility, he proved not to be a very picky eater. The bulk of his diet now consisted of rice, oats, and pasta supplemented by cafeteria leftovers that had passed their used-by date. With a robust immune system and stomach acid as strong as a crocodile's, there was very little the corporate king could not stomach. And stomach it he did, seventy pounds of it a day, enough to feed some people for a month. Though most of his fare was either cheap or rotten, his majesty did have one particular addiction for which no substitutions could be made, and the foundation was forced to cater to it if they wanted his cooperation. Each and every day, King Max reminded the foundation why they had dubbed his species Homo Anthropophagus. A literal pound of flesh, often from D-class who had died in a line of duty, and whose corpses the foundation had no better use for, was presented to the king as his reward for good behavior. It's sick in Dr. Ritter, all of it. He tried to push those thoughts to the back of his mind, console himself with how many lives it could save if they could finally get this monster to disclose the location of the other hives, but it didn't work. This abomination had been gorging itself to superhuman obesity on innocent children for over half a century before they had found it. And now that it was in containment, they were still giving it human flesh? Weren't those D-class more human than this thing was? Didn't they deserve better?  Dr. Ritter showed little sign of his inner turmoil, merely pushing up his glasses and clearing his throat before he began the interrogation. Does his Imperial Majesty find himself in the mood for some after-dinner conversation? I'd very much like to hear more about the Empress of the Black Forest. Ah, the Empress. Magnificent creature. Most noble of us all. Much mused as he wiped his face with his now-filthy comparison. I had the privilege of seeing her before I swallowed my eyes, you know. More than ten feet tall she was, yet slender as a sapling. One eye pale blue, the other moonlit silver. Vanity's her greatest vice, as a vast collection of wigs made from the scalps of her prey. Not that she'd ever let her femininity keep her from carnality. She'd delight in the violation of others, men and women, nobles and peasants. It's all the same to her. I made the mistake of scoffing when she said she could rape a man, and my poor aides hasn't been the same since. King Max tossed his head back and ranker his laughter. If I hadn't been both impeded and impotent from my girth, I'd have paid her back in kind. Rest assured. That's... Dr. Ritter stopped to swallow the lump in his throat. That's most fascinating, Your Majesty. I'd very much like to meet her for myself someday. I assume her manner is in the Black Forest Mountains. Do you happen to know where exactly? Max chuckled deeply at the question. The ruling class does need to keep in touch with one another, of course. But I'm afraid my living arrangements, decent enough though they are, are not yet quite decadent enough for me to betray my fellow royals. Dr. Ritter sighed, a feeling of dread welling up inside him. What more do you want? Like meat, of course. Right now, I'm lucky it was even fresh. I want something to play with, something that puts up a bit more of a fight. A child of four or five years wants a fortnight? That will empty your orphanages, surely. I'll settle for cripples, practically doing you a favor. I'll... Dr. Ritter began. I'll see what I can do. That's what he was supposed to say to the king's demands, no matter how obscene. He was to report all the bridge requests to his superiors, and they would decide, with their coldly utilitarian rationality, whether or not feeding this thing live children would be worth it. And what if they said yes? I'll... I'll see you in the ground before I feed you children, you monster, he shouted, slamming his fist on the button to activate the UV flood lamps that have been placed to subdue the king, should he ever become hostile. Max howled in agony and terror, as the light instantly burned his unpigmented skin. Dr. Ritter grabbed the comparison and yanked it off of him, maximizing the king's exposure to the abhorred light.  As with all previous attempts at torture, the king just screamed and pleaded for mercy. Dr. Ritter, you are not authorized to use enhanced interrogation on the subject, a voice chastised him over the intercom. He hissed immediately, or you will be removed by force and subjected to disciplinary measures. It was nicer than to give him a warning, not smart though.  Now I'm finally going to see you choke. He picked up the sheet the creature had been wearing and rapidly tied it into a crude noose. Then he placed it around King Max's neck and pulled, bracing his feet against the nearest picture for leverage. He strangled a monster with all his might. Max gargled as his airway was force closed. He clawed at the noose with his stubby fingers, but couldn't get a grip. Security was banging at the door from the outside, trying to force their way in. It would only take them seconds, and Dr. Ritter needed minutes. Nonetheless, he would not stop pulling on the noose. When the door slammed open and the guards tackled into the ground, he knew it hadn't been long enough for Max to suffocate. He just spared for a moment, fearing he had thrown his career away for nothing, until he heard the guard inspecting Max's curse and frustration.  What do you mean it's dead? Its heart gave out. Too much stress for it, I guess. A wave of relief washed over Dr. Ritter, even as he was dragged from the cell in handcuffs, a victorious grin spread across his face. Dr. Ritter, you have been brought before Dispinary Committee, or the unauthorized termination of SCP-3288-Alpha. The Committee headsets sternly, looking and sounding like the headmistress of a boarding school. Due to SCP-3288-Alpha's authority and status among SCP-3288, it's likely your actions have caused the Foundation a rare and possibly unique source of strategic intelligence regarding a potential SK-level threat to human society. Do you understand these charges? I know exactly what I've done, Dr. Ritter said, standing proud and without a hint of remorse in its voice. Whatever their practical reasons for indulging the creature had been, the moral absolutism in Dr. Ritter's own conscience had finally won out. When before his conscience had hardly let him sleep, it now told him that the countless people killed to feed King Max were avenged, that no more innocent lives would be sacrificed to the horrid people-eater, that Max had been a monstrous and evil fairytale villain, and that made him the hero. I slayed the Goblin King.


Yes, I would like to ask a question related to what you just said before. What happens to me is every time I'm in the presence of someone loving, I cry, or almost every time. And I was often wondering why that is. And now you just said again, you know, it's all in my mind. I do not cry because of you, but because of something in my mind. And I would like to know if this is my, if I cling on to the ego by crying and not wanting to join the love, or if the Holy Spirit, the love, is pulling up my sadness, my dirt, to clear it out. So my question is, am I clinging to the ego by crying, or is this a clearing process? Yes, it is most definitely a clearing. And I know for myself, you know, when I think back to my adolescent years and my university years, that there was a lot of crying. It just felt like there was almost like a glacier of love and light that was pushing up all the darkness. You know, like when a glacier moves over a land mass, it takes trees that seem so solid. And that's like the little toothpicks. Flick, flick, flick. These are like big trees. If there's a bigger pop, it's a bigger tree. But the land mass is just, it's so massive. It's like trees are like nothing, trees, rocks, anything. It's just going to move. And that's the way it is with the light in our mind. When we call on this love, it just pushes up anything unlike itself into awareness, which is good because it keeps pushing up, up, up until finally it comes up fully into awareness. And we get to experience it in its full glory. But the process is very much bringing the darkness to the light. And that's just the way that it works. So, yeah, in the parable of David, I cried and cried.  That was the way the process went. I would go down, I would let all the emotions up, let all the tears up. I didn't know what I was crying about often. It was just intense and it was just a lot of tears. And then this pink, big, pink tongue was slurping on both cheeks. And I didn't have to fill the water bowl very much. Very salty liquid, you know, just slurp, slurp, slurp. And this went on for a number of years. Then it went on into the university years as well. So I see tears coming out as just an expression of the willingness to let go and the willingness to emote and to be in touch with those emotions as they move through, like the dark clouds are coming through. And then, I mean, I had to reflect it. I used to listen to a lot of music. It was one of those Crystal Gale songs. The title of it was, I Cried the Blue. Right out of my eyes. Yep, that's the way it's going. It feels like there's any blue left after all these tears, you know, we'll see. So that's so different from thinking like this is egoic. And they've done research on tears, actually, that they can chemically look at the tears and see the difference between sad tears and happy tears. They have different chemical compositions, just like we know in our consciousness that the love and joy feel a lot different than sadness and pain and hurt. Chemically, even there's a difference in the tears. So eventually, when you start getting in touch with all that love and light and that's pushing everything up, you get in touch with that directly, it comes into full awareness, you'd be ready for those kind of tears where you can just have tears of gratitude, like overwhelming gratitude where the tears just start rolling out. And it's again involuntary, but it's again expressive. They're just kind of, they're flowy, they're moving, and they're just expressive of a movement, of an emotion in terms of a physical manifestation. So yeah, you're doing the right thing, and it's a good thing. It's not a bad thing at all. Thank you, Marley.


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