هنا are many who would not be guided by your words but you might find the light you possess to be irresistible In other words sometimes guidance or error are not related to rational processes كما ذكرته الامر is a light that Allah cast into the heart of the believer و this was after a lifetime spent rationalizing and trying to understand at an intellectual level various proofs for God, various arguments for this or that aspect associated with the divine ولكن سنكمل عالم يكون فقط لدينا أردن وصدقائي. ليست محبوى على أحد الفهم. أصدقائي أمير أكثر. أصدقائي أمير أكثر. نحن قد قررنا الحصول لأكسفان. بأن 62 أشخاص يقومون بعمل أكثر موضوعاً than half of humanity. بأن أكثر 62 أشخاص يقومون بعمل أكثر موضوعاً than the bottom half of humanity. ماذا أسلام يقول ذلك؟ أسلام يقول كثيراً عن ذلك. حما think as Muslims were too weak or too poor to distribute enough wealth amongst people to even that divide. Now it's not about how much wealth we have, brothers and sisters, it's about how much light we have. It's about how much life we mentioned recently in another venue. و الله سبحانه وتعالى و القرآن ، يقول ، الله نور السماوات والأرض ، الله is the light of the heavens and the earth. و قد جاءته من الله ، نور و كتابه مبين ، there is come to you from Allah a light referring to the messengers ، و كتابه مبين ، يعني ، بالنور محمد ، الذي انار الله به الحق ، he means by the light Muhammad by which Allah illuminated the truth and he describes the Qur'an. و الله يتكلمه as light and of course that is an incomparable light and he describes his prophet as light ، صلى الله عليه وسلم ، and he describes his scripture as light. فالذين ازهوه ، فالذين آلنوا به و ازهوه و نصهوه ، و تابعوا النور الذي منزل أمعه ، أولاكهم المفلهون. these are the lives of the Prophet. صلى الله عليه وسلم is not love as he loved. The best defense is the share of the mercy that he showed, صلى الله عليه وسلم. The best defense is to approach children, the way he approached children. The way he approached that Hassan was that Hussein و أمانة and the other children from the Sahabah. ومع the best defense that had the patience he had and the forbearance he had to strive to have who never attained it but to strive to have the strength of connection with Allah SWT that he has and that's the best defense of the Prophet عليه الصلاة و تعالى because if we do those things as a community and there are millions of us in this country and over a billion worldwide there will be a qualitative change in the nature of this world you are an employer, treat your employees the way he treated his servants the equivalent of his employees that's the best defense أع illustrated of his memory becoming dim and he wrote a accomplishments He complained to my kids teaching me memory getting a little dim فأخبارني بأن الإلما نور. He instructed me that knowledge is a light. نور الله لا يهدى للأسي. The light of Allah that He doesn't give to a sinner. Knowledge is light. Though Quran is light. The Prophet is light. And brothers and sisters, all of us are meant to be lights. We are the ones Who illuminate the darkness. We are the ones Through following those lights Provide lights for humanity. We are the ones And so we should be praying that Allah makes us light As the Prophet ﷺ taught us When he made a prayer It's a prayer he's making for himself But he's also making it to instruct his ummah. So he prayed في قلبي نوران Put a light in my heart And we should all pray for that وفي بصر نوران And in my vision Put light in my vision وفي سمعي نوران And put light in my hearing وعلى ليسالي نوران And put light on my tongue وعن يميني نوران Light to my right وعن يسالي نوران And light to my left وعن يدي نوران And light before me ومن خلفي نوران And light behind me ومن فاقي نوران And light above me ومن تاهتي نوران And light beneath me اللهم اجعني نوران اللهم make me a light So we should be praying that Allah makes us a light And makes light in our heart And our hearing And our seeing And our speech To our right and our left Before us behind us Above us beneath us So then we can be guides brothers and sisters So as I said It's not about how much wealth we possess In terms of making a contribution To address these gross inequalities of wealth It's about how much light we possess So we can direct people To start thinking in different ways This situation is a direct result Of people thinking in certain ways about wealth It's a direct result It's a direct result Of people being distanced From the teachings of the prophets Be that at the time of Christ Who the Christians refer back to Being distanced from the teachings of Christ Who forbade usury The Catholic workers movement Started by Dorothy Day The whole movement was built on Taking seriously the prohibition of usury Because this mid 20th century movement In the United States Saw that most of the economic problems In this society were rooted in usury Religious teachings forbade that Religious teachings encouraged charity And you say What is billionaire as a charitable Bill Gates gives him a $2 billion a year Okay if we accept That the reports that he has $60 billion That is invested in these hedge funds And say he's getting a 10% return That's $6 billion And he gave away $2 billion He's still profiting $4 billion Where's the charity in that? Where's the charity in that? It's a direct result of people Being distanced from the teaching of God So we have to instruct people Not Give your wealth away That might address the problem for a day or two But we want a long term Resolution Don't look at the wealth as your wealth So what does Allah tell us? Allah tells us We're at who of whom In man into the attack Give them from the wealth of the law That he's given you This is God's wealth It's not your wealth You didn't bring it into the world with you And you're not going to take it out Out of the world with you And you know that So it was a result Of people Being ormanted And moved By Allah سبحانه وتعالى To put that wealth in your hand as a trust It's Allah's wealth It is not your wealth You're a trustee You're a trustee of the wealth And being a trustee You have to honor the rights and responsibilities That come with the trustee-ship And amongst the greatest of those rights Those who have less wealth Than those 62 individuals Those almost 4 billion people وفي أمواليه وفي أمواليكم حقم معلوم لسائلي والمحروم وفي أمواليهم حقم معلوم لسائلي والمحروم And their wealth That they're custodians of Because Allah they say Render unto Caesar That which is Caesar In the Bible right And we'll render unto God That which is God Islam says Caesar And what Caesar possesses Beyond to God And so at the end of the day It's all service to God That's all from Caesar And from those under the authority of Caesar And for Caesar's wealth And the modern day equivalence حقم معلوم There's a well-defined right لسائلي والمحروم Those who ask in those Who ask in those whose circumstances Prevent them from even asking They shouldn't have to ask In other words Because the right they have Is recognized That's what we offer The world brothers and sisters That's what we offer The world a different way of seeing reality But it starts with us seeing reality Different it starts with us Even recognizing The nature of reality And that there is no reality Without a loss of Hanawata There is no reality without God That's the first Most fundamental Concept idea Associated with Understanding reality It's توهيم لَا إِنَهَا إِلُّا الله لَا إِنَهِلُّا الله And when we acknowledge that When we recognize that We understand that The wealth in reality Is Allah's wealth The rights that the poor people Have were rights established By Almighty God The responsibilities that the wealthy have Are rights established By Almighty God Looking at things differently And what Shaytan is trying to do Is to remove Allah To highlight it from the equation And when we remove Allah From the equation They were left with base Human behavioral patterns Evil is not a function Of a political system We have to understand that Economic justice is not A function of a political system Where the capitalist As the emerging Buswazi came to power What did they say? We're going to create An equal distribution of wealth That the kings And the monarchs Have not created They hoard their wealth And then they pass it down And they claim that the power The authority, the wealth they had Is a God-given right The divine right of kings We're going to change that And the suffering that results We're going to change it Yeah, we have capitalism And there's 62 individuals Having more wealth Than the bottom half of humanity Is a direct result Of capitalism And so the communists came And they said We're going to be just We're going to end the capitalist state And the associated exploitation And what happened? They were just as corrupt Their inequalities were just as great As under the capitalist Look at the old Soviet Union The communist party Or look at communist China today That's still their name Look how much money The heads of the party have And the business people Who are loyal to them Look at how much money they have And look at what the average Chinese factory worker has And it's communist China Just as corrupt Just as great inequalities As the capitalist And the same is true In the old Soviet Union Brothers and sisters It's not about the system So we're having an Islamic state We have the Islamic Republic of Iran Look at somebody like Who won't say any names A schoolteacher Who became the prime minister And enriched himself In his whole family Iranians here know Who I'm talking about Just as much corruption Look at the Islamic state We get a political oppression In the so-called Islamic state People being killed In discriminant need People's wealth being usurped The fruits of lifetimes Of labor being burned And smashed Where's the justice in that It's not about the system It's about the human being himself Or herself And change doesn't come Until we change ourselves In the Allah You change maybe You change maybe And the meaning of that Is from good to bad But it works the other way also We have to change And we change And we see ourselves As just a compilation Of blood and flesh When we see ourselves As light When we see ourselves In non-material terms And by moving ourselves Away from the material We can see ourselves In spiritual terms And in seeing ourselves In spiritual terms We can envision The connection we have With our Lord At a spiritual level As a reflection Of that light This is what we call The light of Allah Symbolized by the sun Which is the source Of all light To be clear Was reflected in his Most perfect human form By the Prophet Just as the full moon The batter Is the most perfect reflection Of the light of the sun The stars are guides The stars are lesser lights They're guides When do they provide their guidance They provide their guidance When the batter is gone Because when the batter is there The light of the full moon is so bright The light of the stars is drawn out So when the Prophet Was here some Allah And said to him He was a guide To everyone who chose to be guided There's no choice But when he's gone Now the stars are visible Now the stars are visible But if the stars are extinguished Post there to guide So brothers and sisters Don't see yourself as Some A homo-economicist I don't know if that's a Latin word Just as this economic actor Don't see yourself as Homo-sapien Just as this thinking Being See yourself As light See yourself at a spiritual level And that's what you have to offer The world light That's what you have to offer The world And that has nothing to do With your political status Political power On lack thereof Has nothing to do With your economic status Economic power Or lack thereof It has nothing to do With other people Love you I hate you It has to do With the state of your heart And that's something We have The ability To control قد أفلح من زكاها و قد خاب من دساها أقل قول لها دستغفرا لي ولا تن لسير المؤمنية و قد استغفر الله الحمد لله رب العالمين و الصلاة والسلام على سيد المرسلين إن الله و منائي كتاه يصالون على النبي يا هائي يهلدين أاملوا صبوا عليه وسنبوا تسليه هيماء أخي أخي أردنا و نرى نفسنا و نرى نحن نحن لدينا نحن لدينا نحن لدينا نحن لدينا نحن لدينا نحن لدينا نحن لدينا مسابقud يا ليسا أن نبي لستنك أحد من المساء Our wives of the prophet, you're not like other women If they're bickering about having this or that from the dunya or not having this or that That's not your concern And we're not like other people We shouldn't see ourselves like other people We are the ones who are the followers of the last prophet Sit to humanity for the guidance of humanity That being the case, we can't be concerned About this petty dunya affairs People are concerned with Do I have the latest car or not Do I have the latest bit of wardrobe That's fashionable All my clothes are too baggy I thought Muslim clothes are supposed to be baggy I know it but the dunya says it has to be skinny now Are my skinny jeans skinny enough They go on too easy Something must be wrong They have new ones You can spray paint on Oh, I'm getting those That's the status of the people who are sent to follow the last And to take up the mission of the last messenger sent to humanity Brothers and sisters, you're better than that We don't have time for petty concerns Especially when people are trying to wipe religion Not just this not only religion From the face of the earth So there's no source of hope There's no source of guidance There's no source of looking at reality From a non-materialistic viewpoint We have work to do brothers and sisters And as we said It starts with simple things Within our various realms and capacities But it starts with us seeing ourselves As something other than What the world is trying to make us see ourselves as أظر مغفير المسلمين والمسلمان والمؤمنين والمؤمنات الحياء منهم ولمات ربنا لا تزكلوا بنا بعد ذهبتنا وهبلانا باللدونك رحمة إنك أنت الوحاب ربنا افرق علينا الصبر والثبت أقدامنا وانصرنا على القول الكافرين ربنا أفرق أفرق علينا الصبر والثبت قدامنا وتوثنا مسلمين وعافوا عننا وفرنا ورحمنا أنت مولانا فانصرنا على القول الكافرين اللهم إنا نعود بك من النهم والحزن ونعود بك من العجز والكسن ونعود بك من الجبني والبخل ونعود بك من غلب تبدين وكهر الرجال اللهم اقسمنا من خشاتك ما تأهل به بيننا وبين بعصيك ومن تعطيك ما تبلغنا بها جنتك وامن سيقين مال هون علينا ما صعب الدنيا وماتعنا بأسمائنا وابصارنا وكوتنا مع حييتنا وجعله tiverثا مننا وجعل ثقر على جوظة مننا وانصرنا على عدانا ولا تجعل مص trabalhoاتنا في ديننا ولا تجعل الدنيا أكبر يا امنا ولا مبلغ علمنا ولا تجعل الدنيا أكبر يا امنا ولا مبلغ علمنا أرجع للدنيا أكبر رحمنا ولا مبلغ علمنا ولا تصدت علينا بذنوبنا من لا يخافك ولا يرحمنا يا أرحم الراحمين وعافوا عننا وفعلنا ورحمنا أنتم أولانا فانصر على القوم الكافري وصل الله على سيدنا محمد وعاله وصحمه وسلم يا أيها الذين من التقلوا يكونوا ما الصادقين إن الله يعمر بالعقل والأهسان وإيطائي للكوربة وينه على فحشي والموقري والبعي يا إذكم لعلكم تذكرون أكل الصلاة يا رحم لي وحمكم الله


Hi everyone. Thanks for having us. I am Paul Murphy. I'm a partner at Lightspeed, also a former founder of a game studio called Dots, which we sold recently to take two. And I'm here with Michael. We'll talk more about that in a second. But for those that don't know, I want to give you a little overview of Lightspeed. Our presence in Europe is a little bit more recent. Lightspeed is actually a really incredible platform. It's a global team. We have ten offices around the world. We've deployed ten billion dollars of capital into great startups and really have had the privilege of working with some of the most iconic companies that have emerged from that. In Europe, we've actually been investing for a while, 14 years in 20 companies like Personio who's here, Matillion, Vinted, Triple Dot, Grafana, Blockchain, many others. And we've deployed about half a billion dollars into Europe. We're extremely excited about all of you and what you're building in Europe in general. My personal view is that the European startup community will be as big, if not bigger than the US, just a matter of time. And so we want to play a role in helping make that happen. I'm here with Michael, who's co-founder and co-CEO of COM. And it's a really amazing story. My partner Nicole, who would have liked to have been here but couldn't make it, had the privilege of starting to work with you in, I think it was 2019, investing in your Series B. And then later, Lightspeed and Nicole led the Series C investment into COM at just over a $2 billion valuation. And I think as the host had mentioned, really watched you build one of the leading mental wellness brands in the world. So let's start there, Michael. Maybe tell us a little bit about some of the experiences that led you to create the business that you have today. Yeah, so great to be here. And Lightspeed are fantastic investors, by the way, if anyone's looking. We've been huge, huge champions of calm over many years. So I love startups. I love business. Isn't it amazing being here and feeling the energy and the ideas and the creativity? There's nothing quite like it. And I've been building businesses for decades. My previous one was called Moschy Monsters. I don't know if anyone remembers or has kids, but it was a few hands going up. It was the weird and wonderful world of pet monsters. You adopted them online and it grew very rapidly. We got to about 80 million users around the world, books and movies and toys. And we thought we were unstoppable. And then it all kind of imploded. And it was a very, very difficult time, very stressful. I wasn't sleeping well. I wasn't eating well.  And it was a real watershed moment for me because my co-founder in calm was a good buddy of mine, Alex Chu. And he was encouraging me to try this thing called meditation. And I was like, that sounds really weird and woo-woo. I didn't fully understand what it was. But I was so stressed and so challenged that I went away and I started to read about it. And I looked at the research papers and the science coming out. And I realized that meditation, this ancient practice was, it was neuroscience. It was a way of rewiring the human brain. And if we could build a brand, if we could make it accessible and relatable and simple, this could be one of the most exciting businesses in the world and help millions and millions of people. So that was kind of the early stages. Scratching my own itch. I needed it. And it's been developing my meditation practice has been one of the most valuable skills I've learned in life. It's amazing. Actually, I mean, I think for this audience as well, I think founder mental health is not spoken of. Yeah. And it's I struggled with it. My, you know, and it's weird because even the most successful founders actually struggle with this as well. It's not just the ones that have a hard time. It's so, so true. You know, mental health has been stigmatized for so long. We didn't really talk about it. And with the pandemic and the world we're in now, it's changing. It's really exciting to see it step out of the shadows and into the light. And particularly amongst founders, we work so hard. We optimize our business. We look at every single metric. But what is the most important piece of the puzzle? It's ourselves and it's our own minds. And if we're not in a mentally strong place, how do we expect our teams to be? How can we kind of show up as great leaders? So I think it's a really, a really valuable, important shift that's happening in society. Cool. Well, let's talk a little bit about the growth of your of your companies. So we all know startups don't, you know, it's not linear growth. Yeah, there's a few ups and downs. We'll talk about the downs in a second. But you know, there's there's always like inflection points in a successful company, things that, you know, lead you to grow faster than you expected. Maybe we can talk a little bit about some of those now and then we'll touch on the down parts in a minute. Yes. So we started as a meditation app many, many years ago. And we were charging $10 a year to unlock all our meditation content. And we were getting a few subscribers. It was growing steadily. But we needed to do something dramatic to kind of up our income, our revenue, because we were struggling to raise financing. And we thought, what if we just increase the price?  And we didn't see any drop off in subscribers. It was amazing. And I think that was a valuable lesson. I think Andreessen talk about this. Raise your prices. If you're building something great, don't be afraid to charge for it. And it makes such a massive difference in those early days. So that was an important point. The next one was when we worked with Tamara Levitt, our brilliant meditation teacher to create the daily calm.  And Tamara created a 10 minute session every day that was unique, a new lesson, a new quote, a new motivation. And that helps people build a habit and come back every day. And that was a crucial turning point. And then the third major inflection point was sleep stories. And that was a huge, huge turning point for the business. Okay, let's talk, let's talk more about first off, I have to comment because the when you said you raise your prices, my own experience, we had a free game. Yeah, it was free. And then we gave something for people to buy. And we had a revolt. So a revolt. Yeah. So obviously, we didn't have successful product that you had at least time. But let's talk about sleep stories. I think it's really interesting. It's a, you know, it's a move into content, which is, you know, a little bit different to building, you know, a meditation app, which maybe is more reusable. The process to kind of get there, you talked a little bit out tomorrow's sort of voice. But what led you to that? Was it data driven? Was it instinct? Yeah, how'd you get there? Yeah, it was a little bit of both a bit of data driven bit of bit of instinct. I think those are usually where the best ideas come from. And we thought we were growing steadily with our meditation content. But we thought there could be something around sleep. You know, could we create ways to help people sleep? And anecdotally, we heard there was just a lot of insomnia amongst our friends. It was something that we thought we could develop a product for. And the data piece came from looking at when people were meditating in the app. So we saw this massive spike every evening about 11 o'clock all around the world.  And we realized people were using Tamara's meditations to help them fall asleep. Her voice was so soothing and calming. And we were like, that's not how you meditate. That's all wrong. But then we stepped back and thought, well, hang on, what if we created stories that were mindful, that mixed music and sound effects with soothing voices? And instead of it being like a story arc that gets more and more interesting, it would be a story slope. It starts interesting, engages your mind, and then gradually gets more soporific until you fall asleep and you don't hear the ending. And it was a bit of an experiment. We launched it in the app and it was a massive hit. People loved it. Hundreds of millions have been listened to. We've worked with everyone from Harry Styles to LeBron James to Matthew McConaughey. It's been a, yeah, it's been a really important point. And the lesson, one of the lessons there is go after big markets. You know, meditation is great and a very important part of calm, but every single human being on earth goes to sleep every single night. 7.8 billion people. So that's, that's a big market to play in. A big 10, as we say. Hard to go beyond that unless we go to Mars or elsewhere. The celebrity piece is interesting to me because I don't know, my instinct would be that if there was a celebrity speaking, maybe I would be more engaged, I'd be more sort of excited to hear the story as opposed to sort of doze off. Did you have that, did you AB test that? What led you to that decision? Yeah, it's a good point that the main thing the celebrities have done is, is attract awareness. And you know, we get incredible PR when we work with celebrities. In the early days of working with Nicole, we told her about our ICE framework, which when we work with a celebrity, the I stands for investment. We want them to have skin in the game and to have a steak and calm. The C is content. We want them to create something unique that can only be got at calm. And the E is engagement. We want them to actually be a user of the product and an ambassador and advocate. So that has helped drive a huge amount of PR when we bring them in. And it's also helped normalize the conversation around mental health.  So to your point, the stories are quite interesting. And that's the idea at the start. But then we encourage the talent to slow down their voice, to soften it, and it gets gradually more sleep inducing. Oh, cool. I'm going slightly off piece here for a second, so bear with me. Okay. I'm just because I had my own experiences working with celebrities and it can be amazing and it can be challenging. Yeah. I mean, how when you're trying to engage the principle, the celebrity to be a part of your company, did you find that difficult having to work through their people and navigate because I think some of the founders here may find themselves in that situation. Yeah. Yeah. So any founders here, if you're trying to connect with a celebrity, it is if you can get the right celebrity that feels authentic for whatever you're building, it can be a huge accelerant for the growth of the company. But it's not easy. You know, we took years banging on doors in Hollywood trying to take trying to get people to take us seriously. And it's hard because they have so many endorsement opportunities and they're so busy and you have to kind of get a bit creative and figure out instead of going in the front door through, you know, talent agency, how can you connect with them another way? So our breakthrough moment was one of our investors at sound was Ashton Kutcher. And he knew Matthew McConaughey and we'd heard that Matthew used calm in one of his children's charities. And so he was a big fan of calm and when he was approached, he was like, great, let's do this. So once we got him on board, then the dominoes fell. All the celebrities were knocking on our door and it made it much easier. So you have to get creative and find an unusual way in. Yeah, that's great. I mean, also authentic engagement. I think that's a really, it's a great takeaway. Okay, so you mentioned kids. Let's talk about kids because you launched Calm for Kids. Yes. I have a six year old daughter. She's used it, loves it. We all used Calm, by the way, during the pandemic. So we're big family fans. Yeah, can you tell us a little bit about the process to kind of introduce that? Because obviously you have your experience working with children's apps in the past. Yes, yes. So I learned a lot about the kids space with Moshi Monsters. A lot of, it's an incredible space to work, but also very, very challenging for a lot of different reasons. And, you know, our mission at Calm is bold and big. We want to make the world happier and healthier by solving the global mental health crisis. And one of the best ways to do that over the next decades and centuries is starting with the youngest generation. If you want to change the world, start with the kids. And what if we can help this next generation grow up with more empathy, with more resilience, with more gratitude, with better ways to manage stress. So we have created a schools program to put Calm into schools and teachers around the world, which has been hugely successful. And then we thought, what if we could create content just for kids? And so we're starting with sleep, taking characters that kids know and love, everything from Peppa Pig to the Minions. And then we're creating our own characters as well, developing our own IP. So similar to how Netflix started, you know, licensing external IP and then creating their own. And then we're going to go from sleep stories to kids, to meditations, to helping them with all sorts of other ways of managing their emotions. So, yeah, big, very important part of the business. Cool. Well, that's I mean, for those, for parents in the room, you know, when you're trying to get that afternoon nap in with your kid, this is a great way to do it. Encourage them to lay down and rest. So we can sort of say that from personal experience. So all right, so that's very helpful. Let's talk about some of the down moment. Some of those challenging times that you faced, any that you're willing to share at least, that we'll learn from. Yeah, there's been there's been many. I think it's never plain sailing, building a big business. One of the most frustrating things for many, many years was we just couldn't raise money. You know, we raised a little bit of seed money, about one and a half million dollars at the start. And then for years until our series A in 2018, no one would chat to us. I think meditation and mindfulness was seen as a little bit niche. You know, would people really pay for this? Would it be big enough? You could get this content free elsewhere. And we passionately felt that mental health was going to be one of the most important issues of our time. The penny just hadn't dropped yet. And I think this is such an important lesson for any entrepreneurs in the room. If you have that strong conviction, if you have that strong foundation in what you're doing, you can cope with all manner of short-term blips and obstacles and issues. You just charge through those walls. And the analogy we often talk about is a bit like surfing. You know, you're out there waiting for the wave. You can't be too late because everyone's, the wave is gone. And you don't want to be way, way too early because then you'll just be freezing to death on your board. You've just got to be a little bit early. And I think we were with Carmen eventually, sort of around 2017 when we won app of the year with Apple. That was when the lightbulb went on and people recognised there was something huge here. And it's just been a rocket ship ever since. That's great. And then, I mean, do you think that there is a role that the pandemic has played at all in either positively or negatively? I'm sure initially it was scary for you, like it was for all of us. Yeah, the pandemic has been such a challenging, difficult time for the whole world. And one of the, if I can say it, one of the positive things that's done is it has shown the importance of our mental health and, you know, looking after our minds as well as our bodies. And what we saw in the early days of the pandemic was a huge influx of companies coming to us, asking if we could provide calm to their workforces. All their teams were at home stressed and anxious. No one really knew what was going on and calm was a valuable way to provide a little bit of support. And for, yeah, for remote workers everywhere. So I think, and I think this has just accelerated in the last year or two, the B2B side of mental health has grown very, very rapidly in the last 18 months. That's great.  Yeah, I think going back to raising money where the cash in our bank was dwindling and the hosts mentioned we were down to less than $10,000 and we literally could not raise money for love or anything. And we had to get creative and we both maxed out our personal savings and I was giving a talk at an event, a little bit like this, and there was a publisher in the audience who emailed us afterwards saying, could we do a book on calm? And we were like, whoa, well this isn't really part of our strategy, but what would the advance be? Can you give us some money? Yeah. And we were able to get a quite a significant advance for this book, which kept the lights on and that was a way of making sure the business could keep going and what we did from that was just make sure we were profitable, that we kept our costs incredibly tight and low and that DNA is still very much part of calm to this day. That's great. I mean I think you mentioned timing and I do feel like for the founders in the room, it is very difficult to get timing perfect. It's almost impossible. So I think when you've got something that clearly you believe in, you know is working, the data tells you it. Yeah, trying to find ways to kind of, you know, hang out there, keep building, stay scrappy and then in your moment it does eventually come and I think having been in the business for a little while now, you can really... there's so many stories I can think of, companies that we were like, they were just about to kind of go under and now they're, you know, they're up here being interviewed by people. It's amazing how fast it can flip as well, isn't it? So yeah, don't lose hope. If you believe in what you're doing, you just have to keep hustling and finding a way and that shift will hopefully happen. Cool. Okay, so let's then talk a little bit about the future. So you've built this highly successful company, it's, you know, $2 billion valuation, you know, we're incredibly excited to be part of it. Where do you take calm from here? Where does it go? Yeah, it still feels like we're at the early days, you know, day one as Jeff over at Amazon used to say. We have about 120 million downloads of the app, about four million subscribers, but that's a tiny proportion of the world and we believe that anyone with a mind could gain value from what we're creating at calm. So there's lots of different directions we can go in. There's the expansion of the brand, so, you know, big fan of Richard Branson and what he did with Virgin. Could we take calm into other areas that are traditionally stressful? You know, could we have a hospitality arm? Could there be retail products? Could there be a magazine? So I think there's a lot of interesting things there in the future. A more short-term, bigger opportunity is around B2B. How can we go and work with companies for them to support their workforces with mental health? And again, a few years ago this was seen as a bit weird and left-field and I think it's one of the most exciting areas of SaaS at the moment. There are some really major players out there. I think there's going to be a hundred billion dollar business built in this space and we hope it will become. Yeah, no, we obviously fully agree on that opportunity.   It's challenging. It's like, yeah, riding two horses into battle and as a consumer entrepreneur, it's been a very steep learning curve, you know, for Alex and I and the rest of the team to figure out B2B. There's very different metrics, there's very different things to focus on, different sales cycles, but we hired some fantastic people with a lot of experience and we listened to them and we worked closely with them and now we built a really, really strong B2B team within the company, it's the fastest growing part of calm. So we talk about the two fly wheels of calm, the D2C consumer side and the B2B side and the faster each of them spin, the faster the other one spins, they kind of support each other and I think that metaphor, that kind of dual engine powering our rocket ship, kind of is working really well. That's amazing.  Oh yes. You've got a great person leading your B2B efforts and it's working and so that's very exciting. Well, excellent. Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us. Thank you. And share your lessons with the team here. Thank you for investing and believing in us. So yeah, hope to get to meet lots of the brilliant entrepreneurs flash today and tonight as well. Very good, cool. Thanks, Michael. Thanks, everybody. Thanks.


Item No. SCP-2016 Object Class Safe Special Containment Procedures SCP-2016-1 is to be kept in a standard containment locker at Site-20. Testing with SCP-2016-1 must be approved by at least one Level-2 researcher. SCP-2016-1 must be inspected monthly for repairs. Description SCP-2016-1 is a knitted doll resembling a human male with a long white beard and dark green roads measuring approximately 32 cm in height. When humans enter REM sleep within 3 meters of SCP-2016-1, they will experience vivid dreams. In addition to this, subjects will also usually encounter SCP-2016-2. SCP-2016-2 appears as an elderly human male with the same appearance as SCP-2016-1. It is always capable of understanding the language spoken by the dreamer, though it is not capable of verbal communication.  If a subject attempts to draw the shape indicated in the dream on the surface of a wall within 7 days of having the dream, the drawing will transform into a door with a round handle. When the subject opens the door, it leads to an open meadow with a stone tower located a varying distance away. There will be a paper attached to the tower's door saying, to my new apprentice, in the subject's native language. Said tower floors contain several libraries and laboratories. All subjects who have used these facilities have died in their sleep within 5 years. Cause of death is unknown, but all subjects have been reported to release a gaseous mass from their mouths which disappears seconds later. Video surveillance shows an elderly translucent human male similar to SCP-2016-1 and SCP-2016-2 approaching the sleeping subjects and absorbing the gaseous mass into his hand. Authorized personnel may refer to Exploration Log 2016 for further details about the tower. Level 2 access is required to view the unabridged log. Exploration Log 2016 Day 1 – Findings First exploration of the tower, agents are sent to map the structure. Five floors in total are counted, each with an area of approximately 360 square meters. The tower is made of stone blocks and contains minimal furnishings. Most of the interior space is occupied by the libraries and laboratories. Several potted plants are found throughout the floors. Samples of the plants, air and water are taken. This shows no differences between samples and real-world equivalents. Day 2 – Findings Further analysis of the libraries is made. Over 3,400 books are counted. Most of them contain information about the anatomical workings of several animal species including humans. Another frequent subject is to list the physical principles of electricity and how it functions in the nervous system. Most books display illustrations which can be found in several medieval textbooks, although books from the 17th to 20th century were also found. A smaller portion of the books contain text about the nature of the soul in the afterlife. Day 3 – Findings Analysis of the laboratories is made. Most equipments resemble chemistry apparatus from the 19th century, while others have yet to be identified. Several flasks containing amino acids and organ tissues from humans are scattered throughout the laboratories. Most equipments have no obvious function, while others seem to be replicating the middle of your re-experiment. Day 4 – Findings A hidden passage in the four floors is discovered. The passage leads to a living quarters with minimal furnishing and multiple family paintings and ash urns. In several of the paintings a figure similar to SCP-2016-1 and SCP-2016-2 can be seen. Day 5 – Findings Another secret passage is found. This time in the first floor. The passage leads to a type of basement. Several coffins containing corpses in various states of decomposition are found. Each coffin is marked with a name, date, and information about the corpse's health before death. None of the corpses show signs of violent death. Day 6 – Findings Another secret passage is found. This time inside the tower's basement. The passage leads to a round, brightly lit, underground chamber containing several surgical tables. Each table has a preserved corpse in it, with several machines of unknown purpose attached via cables to the corpses. Several journals detailing experiments with the corpses are found. The machines and corpses are brought to a foundation facility to be studied. Day 10 – Findings The purpose of the machines is discovered. After days of analysis, a corpse was reanimated by using one of the machines. The reanimated subject remembered all of his memories from when he was alive. The subject was kept under Foundation custody for further study. Day 12 – Findings A journal was found in the tower's basement. Inside the journal were also found small paintings of an adult human female, a young girl, and a figure resembling SCP-2016-1 and SCP-2016-2. Said paintings had the phrase, I'll bring you back, I promise, written into them with black ink. Below are two notable excerpts from the journal. Addendum 2016-Beta Elizabeth died yesterday of a heart attack. Susan and I are the only ones left. I don't know what to do anymore. She is crying and afraid, and nothing I say comforts her. I can't blame her. She is only a child, going through all this. I've already buried Elizabeth in the basement. Susan keeps asking me why this is happening, why God is letting it happen. I don't know what to say, but to keep telling her everything would be alright, even if I know this isn't true. I have to be strong for the both of us. She goes to sleep sobbing every night, and I try to tell her some of her favorite stories, but she doesn't want to listen to any of them. She just keeps saying she wants mommy and the rest of her family back. I've had an idea. It's crazy and inhumane, but I have to try it. It's the only option that remains. I've used Elizabeth's knitting tools and what's left of our dream reagents to make some dolls. I can't leave the tower physically, so I will send them away to whoever is willing to use them. I hope none of the hunters find them. I'll bring anyone who uses the dolls here and teach them what I know. I need to buy some time for my research. Thank God forgive me for what I'm about to do.


Therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists and other mental health practitioners are very reluctant to stigmatize and label their patients and clients. They don't want to tell someone you have narcissistic personality disorder, stage 4 cancer of the soul that can never ever be cured or healed or reversed. No one wants to be the bearer of these kinds of news. Messengers are sometimes killed, at least metaphorically, when they deliver bad messages. So therapists and other mental health practitioners, they pussyfoot around. They never tell you you have borderline personality disorder or narcissistic personality disorder or, you know, they try to focus on the issues, on the problems and to tackle them with a variety of treatment modalities and techniques, and there's nothing wrong with that. I'm very much against labelling as the first line of defense in treatment. But still, at some point, the narcissist has to adopt and accept his diagnosis. In the absence of a full embrace of one's problems and shortcomings and frailties and flaws, there's no growth, there's no development, there's no healing, and there's no behavior modification, there's nothing. A narcissist who goes through therapy because he has to. It's been a condition of espouse or that it's court, it's imposed by the court or I don't know what. A narcissist who goes through therapy refusing to admit that he's a narcissist or there's anything wrong with him. He's a narcissist who is going to come out of therapy unchanged, not transformed in the list. So accepting the diagnosis is critical. This video is dedicated to the repentant narcissist and to the therapist who is struggling with a fear of labelling and stigmatizing his or her patients for life. I repeat in this video a call that I've made 23 years ago to establish an international network, international chapters all over the world of narcissists anonymous with 12 steps that I will enumerate in this video. I want to thank my wife and publisher Lydia Vangelovska for the idea for this video. My name is Sam Vaknin. I'm the author, malignant self-love, narcissism, revisited, twice diagnosed, narcissistic personality disorder and I'm a former visiting professor of psychology. I've dedicated my life at least the last three decades to the study of narcissistic personality disorder and I'm currently on the faculty of CIAPS, Commonwealth for International Advanced Professional Studies. The therapist is reluctant to label, loathe to diagnose and stigmatize. The narcissist rejects his diagnosis or any possibility of diagnosis and so this is left hanging in the air. Who are you, Mr. Narcissist or Mrs. Narcissist? Who are you? Narcissism is not just a label. Yes, it carries a price, social stigma, ostracism, shunning, but it's critical.  As the diagnostic and statistical manual says, narcissism is all pervasive. It affects every nook and cranny and dimension of the personality, of the capacity to have intimacy, of interpersonal relationships in every field of functioning in life. To deny the narcissist is diagnosis. Diagnosis is to deny the narcissist the potential, the possibility for some progress, however minimal. Narcissists debunk a few online myths and other forms of nonsense propagated by self-styled experts who have no idea what they're talking about. Narcissists are self-aware, period. All of them are self-aware. They are not self-aware of their fantasies and confabulations. They believe in their own fantasies and confabulations. They mistake reality for fantasy. That much is true. But they are aware of their behaviors and the impacts that their behaviors are having on other people. They are, and they can tell right from wrong, and they can modify their behavior. For example, when they are put in prison or in the army or in a hospital, the narcissism vanishes. So it's nonsense. Narcissists know exactly what they are, exactly what they're doing, and exactly, exactly how others are paying the price for the narcissist's choices, decisions, and behaviors. Myth number two, the narcissist is not conscious and doesn't soul search and doesn't introspect and doesn't worry about being the bad guy or the bad girl. Again, nonsense. These of conscious and soul searching are not signs of mental health or of empathy. For example, neurotics, they have auto-plastic defenses. They tend to blame themselves for everything that's happening. They hold themselves responsible and guilty for every mishap and defeat and failure and pain theirs and others. And yet these overwrote conscience, these supernova conscience that neurotics have, their ability to introspect and soul search every minute of every hour of every day, that doesn't render them mentally healthy. So soul searching, conscience and active conscience, the constant question, have I acted wrong am I the bad guy here, am I the bad girl here, that has nothing to do with being mentally healthy or with not being a narcissist? This is, on the very contrary, this is the manifestation of the bad object. No one has a bad object like the narcissist. The narcissist's bad object is the worst ever.  This is the bad object. Narcissists have the largest, most explosive and implausive and overwhelming bad object ever. So of course, narcissists, of course, narcissists keep asking themselves, have I done something wrong? Am I a bad guy, am I a bad girl? They soul search, they introspect, they revise, they analyze, they even make lists. So in this sense, narcissists are a bit neurotic actually. The difference between narcissists and healthy people, the difference between narcissists and normal typical people, neurotypicals and others, the difference is that the outcomes of this soul searching, the results of the introspection, self-examination, the reverberations and echoes of the conscience are different, whereas other people, healthy people, normal people, they would self-inspect, self-deliberate, self-examine, self-analyze and they may come up with a conclusion that they have misbehaved, acted wrongly, hurt other people and feel bad about it. The narcissists would go through exactly the same process, but his conclusion having experienced this agonizing soul searching and self-deliberation, self-examination and self-flagellation, the narcissist's conclusion is always, it's not my fault, I did nothing wrong, I am not to blame, I am not responsible, I have been a victim, I have been abused and of course a narcissist would tell himself, if I am asking myself whether I am a narcissist, it means that I am not a narcissist, if I am asking myself am I the bad guy or the bad girl, it means I am not a narcissist, only a narcissist would say that, only a narcissist, a rank extreme narcissist would say that, these are known as alloplastic defenses, so yes, narcissists go through all these processes, exactly like you, they don't sleep at night, they agonize, they have excruciating pangs of conscience, they worry about what they have done to others and to themselves, they introspect, they self-examine and so on, but at the very end they exonerate themselves, they absolve themselves, in the trial, the Kafkaesque trial that goes on in their minds, the tribunal always renders a not guilty verdict, they are always acquitted in the court of their own minds, this is not the case with healthy and normal people, healthy and normal people are capable of feeling guilty, blameworthy, assuming responsibility and apologizing, narcissists would never do that, narcissists would twist and turn and contort to prove that he is an eternal victim, has never done anything wrong and all other people have wronged him and therefore he is not a bad guy, he is not a bad girl, he has not contributed anything to what has happened and yet this is a narcissistic defense of course and that's narcissists, so the narcissists places an emphasis on being right all the time, on being a victim of it, on being morally upright all the time, on attaining the high moral ground, on being a healer and a savior and a fixer and a moral crusader in a morality play, the narcissist absolves himself, he says it's enough that I'm even considering the possibility that I'm a bad guy, that proves that I'm not a bad guy, you can see the twisted logic of such a person, so there's an emphasis on self-efficacy, there's a fear of just punishment that always it's on its way and there's a terror of being caught red-handed at having done something that constitutes very often a crime and there's no empathy, the emphasis in the process of soul searching, self-examination, self-analysis, the emphasis in the case of the narcissist is on himself or herself, not, they're never on others, it's not an exercise at empathy, it's an exercise at self-calibration, self-correction, a restoration of functioning and of self-efficacy, so here's what I suggest, the narcissist must abide by 12 rules, these are the 12 steps of narcissists anonymous, I have rewritten them to reflect reality, to reflect the latest in what we know about narcissism, the latest clinical findings, pay close attention if you're a narcissist, number one we admitted that we were powerless over narcissism, that our lives had become unmanageable, this is the most by far crucial step, step, the humility giving in to narcissism, realizing that narcissism is in control, not you, your disease is you and it's also your overlord, your master, you're a slave to your narcissism, this is a process of disempowerment, admitting that you are the mercy of an internal enemy, a bad object that drives you to compensatory behaviors that are detrimental to your well-being, your freedom, your health, your life, step number one, I admit that I was powerless over my narcissism, that my life had become unmanageable, step number two, I came to believe that no power greater than myself could restore me to sanity, owing to the fact that I'm grandiose and have a false self, you have to accept this as a narcissist, there's nothing you can do to help yourself and there is nothing another person can do to help you, no matter how educated and qualified and so on and so forth, narcissism is with you forever, it's here to stay, it's a lifelong affliction, it's greater than you, it's stronger than you, it's fiercer than you, it's more cruel and sadistic than you, you are the true victim of narcissism and no external power and no internal power can overcome your narcissism, period, your false self, the false self is a deity, an Old Testament divinity, cruel, uncompromising, relentless, callous, hateful and above all omnipotent, all powerful, number three, step number three, I have made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of my narcissism and false self, there's no point fighting, there's no point in creating internal dissonance that then drives you to lose it and act out and hurt and harm other people, this war must end, you must declare a truce and a ceasefire with who you are, with your essence, you must resolve to never again be ego-dystonic, this is the core dynamic that drives narcissists to hurt other people, to try to co-opt them into a shared fantasy, to abuse them, to sadistically humiliate them, degrade and defile them in a variety of ways, narcissists do all this because they deny, they deny the fact that they are helpless, powerless in the face of an internal enemy that is intransigent and implacable, the minute the narcissist makes peace with his or her narcissism, anxiety is abated, it's an anxiolytic step, it reduces, mitigates anxiety and then there's no decompensation and no acting out and no psychopathic defiance and no recklessness and the number of people hurt is reduced dramatically, step number four, I have made a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself, it's a challenge to the narcissist's grandiosity, are you capable, are you courageous enough, are you brave enough, are you resilient enough, are you a man, even if you're a woman, are you a man, do you have the balls to do this, to look yourself in the mirror, to look yourself in the mirror, not flinch, not look aside, not superimpose some image on your true face, can you look yourself in the face, can you list who you truly are, all, all the inventory of yourself, no item accepted, nothing evaded, nothing shunned, nothing faked or refrained, can you do this, are you strong enough, as you claim to be, are you truly omnipotent, because if you are, you would be able to do this and it is then that you can admit to yourself, step five, admit to yourself and to others the exact nature of your wrongs, misdeeds, misconduct, misbehavior and it is only then when you have constructed this inventory, when you have looked yourself in the Lacanian mirror, so to speak, only then can you proceed through the rest of the twelve steps, step number six is I am entirely ready to overcome these defects of characters and behaviors, no success is guaranteed, you are actually unlikely to succeed but are you willing to try, are you willing to fight it out, this is, this is the key, this is morality, courage is not the opposite of fear, courage is overcoming fear, morality is not the opposite of evil, it's the ability to suppress evil, to overcome it, to ignore it, to relegate it to the corner, to repress it, this is morality, are you willing to try to be a moral person, have you admitted your wrongs, are you willing to modify your behaviors and somehow reign in, control your character defects, are you willing, step seven, to challenge your grandiosity, to remove your shortcomings, are you willing, step eight, to make a list of all persons that you have harmed, and are you then willing to make amends to all of them, step eight, step nine, are you willing to make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others, making amends involves admission, self-awareness, self-acceptance, humility, and the ability to see other people as separate to you and as worthy of the same consideration and entitlement that you demand for yourself, this is self-love, are you willing to love yourself for a change, only when you love yourself can you then reconcile with others, you've hurt people, you've harmed people, you've affected people's lives irretrievably, irreversibly, you've caused a lot of pain and agony, so are you willing to take responsibility for this, and if you are, are you willing to confront these people, eye to eye, these are the tests, these are the challenges to your grandiosity and to your false self, because avoiding these steps, declining to do so, it's a sign of imperfection, of cowardice, it's a craven avoidance, it's low, it's cheap, it's unbecoming of your false self, it undermines your grandiosity, it's a form of self-inflicted modification, the 12 steps for narcissistic anonymous, they make use of your grandiosity, they don't deny it, they don't try to abolish it, hopelessly, they don't do any of this nonsense, they use it, they leverage it, and they leverage it for good, they leverage it for good, for doing good, rather than wallowing in evil. Step number 10, I continue to take personal inventory, and when I was wrong, I promptly admit to it, I admit it to myself and to others, self-awareness is not an event, it's a process, you need to ask yourself, you need to talk to yourself, you need to dialogue with yourself, you need to examine yourself, all the time, all the time, you need to carry a permanent metaphorical mirror and look at it every minute of every day, you need to continue to take this personal inventory, and when you do wrong and you will do wrong, everyone does wrong, these steps apply to healthy people and to normal people, not only to narcissists, if you're alive you ended up hurting people, you ended up misbehaving, you ended up doing wrong, sometimes evil, if you're alive, even if you're healthy, even if you're normal, even if you're empathic, even if you're kind and compassionate and nice, you have hurt people, you have damaged people, you have broken people, this is life, it's inevitable, it's a friction of being a social creature, so all these steps apply to healthy and normal people, but doubly so to narcissists, healthy normal people should also make amends, should also admit wrongdoing, should also take personal inventory day in and day out, should also promptly admit to wrongdoing, to themselves and to others, it applies to everyone, but healthy normal people usually do this without any prompting, the narcissist needs to be challenged to do this, he needs to be convinced that if he fails to do this, he is not God or God-like, he is not grandiose enough, he is a nobody, he is a failure, he is a coward. Step number 11, I seek to improve my conscious contact with my narcissism, with my false self, becoming more aware of the false self, adopting a position of an observer, an observer stance, regarding the false self from the outside, thereby acquiring the critical faculty, the ability to critically analyze and critically think about the false self, see the flaws, the shortcomings and imperfections of the false self, and I hope only for knowledge of the will of the false self, for me and thereby develop the power to oppose it, it's a very critical step, it's step 11, it's a very critical step and very complex, the narcissist identifies with the false self, he interjects himself into the false self, he projects himself into the false self, he becomes the false self, step 11 demands from the narcissist to take a step back, just to withdraw for a minute, stand aside and observe the false self, so that this distance, this partial detachment would allow the narcissist to realize that the false self is not perfect, is not omnipotent, is not omniscient, is not godlike, and this newly acquired knowledge will empower the narcissist, allow him to resist the false self, when the false self demands of him to contradict the previous 10 steps, and this leads to step 12, having had a spiritual awakening or whatever you want to call it, a process of healing, as a result of these steps, I will try to carry this message to other narcissists and to practice these principles in all my affairs, the narcissist must make peace with who he is, and only then will he be able to transcend who he is, to overcome some aspects of who he is, and to definitely terminate behaviors that are painful and hurtful and damaging to other people, this is the narcissist problem, we all live with inner demons, healthy people, unhealthy people, mentally ill, mentally well, we all have to struggle daily with voices, introjects, processes which challenge our sanity, that's nothing new, it's not special or specific to the narcissist, but the narcissist needs to impose on this inner turmoil a structure, an order, because there's nothing there, there's an emptiness, there's an abyss inside the narcissist, so the only way for him is external regulation, the 12 steps are a form of external regulation which allows the narcissist to reconcile with who he is, and then to take it from there, it's a small step, this would not lead to healing, the narcissist would be a narcissist forever, but it would allow the narcissist to limit any damage and any pain to himself, to stop the proliferation of his grief and excruciating agony throughout his social milieu to other people, this would allow the narcissist to stop sharing his internal chaos and demonology with others, it is the 12 steps are a major of containment, not recovery, not healing which are impossible with narcissism, don't listen to online nonsense, even by so-called mental health professionals, this is self-interested, they make money, they sell you therapy and they make money, period, it's a lie, narcissism cannot be tackled, healed, reverse or recovered, end of story, but it can be contained and it's done already, there are various treatment modalities which do succeed in modifying narcissistic behaviors, 12 steps is a form of intervention of this kind, I hope the idea catches on and I hope to see many, many narcissists channeling this energy of narcissism because it's a huge, it's a nuclear energy, challenging this energy in socially acceptable and beneficial ways, sublimating it, thank you for listening, especially if you are a narcissist and therapist, help the narcissist accept who he is, stop fighting it, collaborate and collude even with the narcissist's grandiosity and false self to induce change in the narcissist by challenging his view of himself as capable of anything, make him act in a way that would allow him to reintegrate in decent society, now every narcissist is an outcast internally, if not externally.


So what do you do when you have multiple classes a day? How in the world you actually study for it? So if you're looking at your schedule and you're open one, the first step is essentially putting all the lectures for week by week so you can see where your busy days are going to be and then ask yourself how am I going to smooth this out throughout the week? Which lectures am I going to move where? Particularly if you have access to digital and audio recordings. Also remember that each lecture has two parts. The process of going to lecture, the process of actually reviewing that lecture. They don't have to happen at the same day. You can move them throughout the week and also you don't have to review all of your lectures together. So if you're somebody who has a focus of two hours, it may be best to do two hours of lecture followed by the reviews of those two lectures and then move on to the next thing. This way if you do procrastinate or if you do fall behind, two lectures have been now watched and actually reviewed compared to the alternative. I watched four lectures but now I have to review those four lectures and tomorrow I also have to go through the next day's material. Making that mindset personally in medical school, I was able to see things much more fluid. My schedule was much more manageable and things were also able to easily be adjusted and my schedule still never felt behind. I just felt like I needed to move a few pieces around.


So, yes, I'm going to talk a little bit about what we learned in terms of inclusion. So, I'm presenting this together with Immaculate, Esther, Farah, Julie. They've all been leading part of the work and contributing the findings here. Unfortunately, none of them could make it today. So, first of all, let me see if I can go to the next slide. Yes. Just a reminder for ourselves. So, what was the idea here? So, the idea that the goal, really, was to have an inclusive and sustainable development of the small hold, the dairy value chain, benefiting all value chain actors. And that's been said that we try to do that particularly by supporting women and young agripreneurs because of the cultural barriers that really hinder their participation and their ability to benefit from their development. So, our overall research question was, under what conditions can women and youth let businesses thrive? So, okay, I'll just, you know, organize all the achievements and the rest of the presentations based on four building blocks. So, first of all, the development of gender responsive business models, I think was one key component of the work that we did. So, it was about delivering products that respond to the needs of women and men. And I'll talk more about that in the next slide. Also, developing of tools to measure women's empowerment, the development and implementation of the women's empowerment elastic business index. And then component three, exploring gender norms around agripreneurship. So, really understanding the formal and informal barriers that can hinder or in some cases support the involvement of women and youth in the dairy value chain. And also the fourth component, the implementation of gender responsive business incubation. So, the idea of again supporting, you know, putting women and young agripreneurs through a business incubation process that also looks at structural barriers to participation. So, what did we learn about the first step? You know, this process to create gender responsive business models. And this is somehow the bigger, you know, the comprehensive component that also includes the other components that I've just introduced. So, what does it mean to create a gender responsive business model? It means that we need to identify appropriate innovation packages. And innovation packages means both technologies, but also, you know, the more institutional, you know, the human behavior component of things. So, in terms of technologies, we really try to develop product bundles that were, you know, really reflecting the needs of the women and the young farmers. For example, women at some point said that they preferred digital information because they, you know, this could help them with their restrictions on mobility. Or in some cases, there were some, you know, the bundle of some products that were more easily sold by women and young agripreneurs. And in terms of the more institutional changes, you know, looking very much at what are the constraints and the enablers in the environment where these agripreneurs are performing, which agripreneurs are doing their work, you know. So, what are the constraining, the constraints or the enablers that they can perform well? In terms, again, of what do we need to have a gender responsive business model, we also need to strengthen the gender youth responsiveness through capacity building. So, capacity buildings of agripreneurs through gender responsive business incubation and of partners, all partners involved to implement gender responsive interventions and also the capacity of policymakers to ensure that they can have a more inclusive policy environment. And we realize that, you know, having employment and social equity as entry points seem to be quite effective. And finally, the third component that we think is quite important is really assess changes in empowerment. So, I'll talk about this now more, assessing changes in empowerment is what I said before, is the well-being. And then the part on, you know, appropriate innovation packages will dive more into the norms component. And finally, strengthen gender and youth responsive capacities about the incubation process. So, let's start with the well-being. So, what have we learned about the women's empowerment in livestock business indexed the well-being? As you know, the well-being is a tool that we developed at Ilri under the leadership of Immaculate Amondi. And this is a tool that measures changes in the empowerment of women in livestock business. So, we have initial data from 78 observation, 39 women, 39 men, from both the dairy and, so, Mazi Wazaidi, the dairy and chicken, the women in business project. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to disaggregate the data yet. Anyway, it's interesting to see the mean well-being scores where 0.74 women and 0.72 for men. So, in a way, quite similar and pretty high. And what I think is most interesting is that the main contributors to empowerment were for all of them, self-efficacy, input in productive decisions and control over use of income. Well, the main contributors to this empowerment were the same for women in terms of work balance and visiting important locations, while women also were disempowered because of respect among household members and attitudes towards domestic violence. So, what did we learn on the norms study, you know, understanding what are the norms that, you know, create the conducive or non conducive environment for women and young agripreneurs to perform well, to succeed. So, it was quite interesting to realize that, generally, the perception seems to be that women, the men have the precedence over women in agripreneurship. I'm sorry, I forgot to say this work was led mostly by Esther Achandi. And so, what does it mean that men have precedence over women in agripreneurship? It means that generally, it is quite considered in, it's considered normally in a way that men or important that men succeed in agripreneurship, not so much for women. And that means that men to succeed in agripreneurship can even, you know, do that to the detriment of women, according to our interviews. It's interesting to see that in the same line, women are supposed to prioritize family rather than business. So, they still have to take care of household responsibilities before business and give free labor for their related production. And it's also quite important, according to the interviews, that women give control of their business to their husband in case that makes the husband look successful in the community. It's generally considered important that women keep financial issues confidential, even in cases when they feel that, you know, the decision making over the income or, you know, about the business is actually not fair. And finally, it was also interesting to realize that while men in business or young men in business can break the gender norms somehow, in the sense that, for example, while traditionally in some communities, men are not supposed to milk their cows, it is okay if they need to do that for their business. While for women, the norms don't seem to relax as much when they are in business, in the sense that a woman agripreneur is still not supposed to ride a motorbike or provide AI services. And finally, the last part is about the gender responsive business incubation. The process was mostly led by Kit, Julie Newton, our colleague. So, the approach to a gender responsive business incubation was through transformative action learning. And the key components that we identified together was aligning of all the project partners on core gender concepts, embedding these within the theory of change of the project, and then really very much working on unpacking the gender assumptions. So, what does it mean really to operationalize the gender concepts, you know, in practice and in the project? And finally, exploring gender integration entry points within the lean business canvas. So, as we said, they were involved with all the partners in the consortium and also with the incubation service providers. And they mixed a series of core foundation sessions and also more working sessions, more focused working sessions. So, what are the implications of everything I've said? So, again, the gender responsive and youth responsive packages need to have these key components. They need to include innovations that focus on both technologies and institutions that respond to gender and youth needs. They need to engage with gender norms. They need to engage policymakers and also develop the capacity of all the actors involved. It's important to measure empowerment of women and the well-behaved does identify which are the main domains where women are, you know, where women's disempowerment is actually mostly situated. And this is important because we can then work on those domains and strengthen them in the next phase of our work. Norms, you know, it is so interesting to realize about these formal and informal norms. For example, we need to understand the better how can family be a shared priority and not just be the priority for women. So, how can we develop accommodative and transformative approaches that engage with some of these norms? And we are doing more and more work in that direction. And finally, business incubation. It is not just about training women and youth. We don't just need to fix them. We also need to fix the system that disadvantaged them so that everybody can participate and benefit. That was it. Thank you so much.


The study compares alternative powertrains and liquid fuels based on renewable electricity for light-duty vehicles, LDVs, to achieve necessary CO2 emission reductions in the transport sector while considering system-wide implications along other sustainability dimensions. Results indicate that greenhouse gas emissions drop significantly in all mitigation scenarios, but impacts increase in several non-climate change impact categories. Changes in mobility lifestyles and industrial processes are crucial to reduce environmental impacts from a climate-friendly LDV fleet across all categories. This article was authored by Allies Denetna, Mariana Rotterley, Roman Sakai, and others.


So I wanted to make this video to talk about my experience with bipolar disorder and you know kind of some of the things I've went through in my 22 years old life Just some highlights I've traveled around Europe making quite a lot of money from coaching people I've been to really expensive seminars.  I would think about Approaching girls and that would Make me like really crazy and stuff. So what I did was I moved to a major city in Israel, which is sort of the New York equivalent of Israel and all I did was Approach women like I would work at a cafe that was to me walk for me and All I wanted to do was just approach women all the time I just made you know the minimum amount of money just to kind of afford to live there because it was a pretty expensive place, but It was where the parties were at so At first it was really cool, you know approaching a lot of women and you know the attention I got and Things I learned but eventually it led to a really really horrible down spiral of self-hatred and I Would really go to dark places like I would literally bash my head against the wall Hearing weird screams in my head It was pretty bad But what happened was they started to take lithium and then it really improved While at the same time also learned more about meditation Proper sleep schedule a good diet things like that that weren't even on my mind when I began So As of the last few years Bipolar disorder sort of made me go Do some pretty crazy shit I I found a guy that was really successful in online marketing and I paid the guy like $5,000 almost and For him to teach me and I moved to live in a in a hotel that cost about four hundred five hundred dollars a night on a loan I Took a $20,000 loan and just moved there because I was like Okay, you're either you know gonna make a lot of money or you're gonna drown You know and I took many many crazy decisions I actually wrote a book about it, but it's in Hebrew I've actually translating it right now to English and I'd love to share with you It basically contains all the stories of crazy shit. I went through and what I learned from it Both in business being very successful one point another point losing a lot of money And in general just in life so You know, it's it's kind of really hard to talk about it. It's it's a very confusing Disorder But I Really love to you know, if you guys have any questions or anything I'd love to talk more about it Especially if somebody has bipolar disorder, I'd love to do the best I can to help So yeah, just if you have any questions about Some of the you know stories I might have went through Feel free to give me a direction. I'd love to make a video about it and talk a bit more in depth For now, this is just like a quick intro for that I definitely expand on the subject more as As the channel progresses because this is something that I'm dealing with every day So again, thanks for watching and you know, I'd love you to comment and feel free to subscribe for much more really good content not just story stuff, but if you look at the channel you'll see a lot of Really really helpful business and personal things. So thanks for watching and I'll see you soon


Clayton Castle has the story. It's dark, weird, and not kid-friendly. Those are all phrases used to describe the upcoming Brainerd Community Theater production, Mr. Burns, opposed to electric play. It's set at a point in the near future when, for reasons unexplained, the electrical grid has failed. So there is no more electricity and no way to have any more electricity. The show starts around a campfire, and the characters begin telling stories, including recreating an episode of a famous animated television show. And of course, one of the stories they come up with is trying to recreate an episode from The Simpsons cartoon show. The show then involves the characters performing the episode as a sort of currency, receiving essential survival goods in exchange. Spradlin says he picked the show because it's a challenging show to produce. And the actors say that one of the most challenging things in Mr. Burns, opposed to electric play, is the quick gear shifting. We have to go from acts one and two where I'm the same character to act three where I'm a completely different character, and now having to portray him in a different manner in a different way of doing things and showing how, you know, what's happened, showing what's going on. Many of the cast were already huge fans of The Simpsons growing up, seen as an advantage in their performances. I've always really been, and my mom will confirm this, kind of a huge fan of Bart Simpson, so getting to kind of play like a post-apocalyptic Bart Simpson is definitely very fun. Then there are some actors who were not familiar with the show. Not necessarily, I was aware of it, like growing up, but my family never really watched it. I am now, I enjoy it. I haven't seen a ton of it, but from what I've seen, I really enjoy it. Mr. Burns, opposed to electric play, opens on Thursday night at the Schalberg Theater at Central Lakes College, reporting in Brainer Clayton Castle, Lakeland News. The show runs for the next two weekends at CLC. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.